Then I strode forward and pushed the large doors open.
Sabrina put her hand on my arm and preceded me into the room. She curtseyed.
"Master, I have brought you Captain von Bek."
I followed immediately behind her, my sword ready, my mind prepared for any challenge, yet my resolve left me immediately.
Seated at the central table and apparently reading a book was the most wonderful being I had ever seen.
I became light-headed. My body refused any commands. I found myself bowing.
He was naked and His skin glowed as if with soft, quivering flames. His curling hair was silver and His eyes were molten copper. His body was huge and perfectly formed, and when His lips smiled upon me I felt that I had never loved before; I loved Him. He bore an aura about His person which I had never associated with the Deviclass="underline" perhaps it was a kind of dignified humility combined with a sense of almost limitless power.
He spoke in a sweet, mature voice, putting down the book.
"Welcome, Captain von Bek. I am Lucifer."
I was speaking. I believed Him at that moment and I said as much.
Lucifer acknowledged this, standing to His full height and going to the shelves, where He replaced the book.
He moved with grace and offered the impression of exquisite sadness in His every gesture. It was possible to see how this being had been God's favourite and that He was surely the Fallen One, destroyed by Pride and now humbled but unable to achieve His place in Heaven.
I believe that I told Him I was at His service. I could not check the words, although I recovered myself sufficiently to deny, mentally, the implications of what I said. I was desperately attempting to secure my reason.
He seemed to know this and was sympathetic. His sympathy, of course, was also disarming and had to be ignored.
He answered my words as if I had offered them voluntarily:
"I wish to strike a bargain with you, Captain von Bek."
Lucifer smiled, as if in self-mockery:
"You are intelligent and brave and do not deny the truth of what you have become."
"The truth…" I began, with some difficulty, "is not…is not…"
He appeared not to hear. "That is why I told my servant Sabrina to bring you to me. I need the help of an adult human being. One without prejudice. One with considerable experience. One who is used to translating thought into determined action. One who is not given to habits of fearfulness and hesitation. Such people are scarce, always, in the world."
Now my tongue was not thickened. I was allowed to speak. I said: "It seems so to me, also, Prince Lucifer. But you do not describe me. I am but a poor specimen of mankind."
"Let us say you are the best available to the likes of me."
A little of my wit returned. "I believe you think you flatter me, Your Majesty."
"Not so. I see virtue everywhere. I see virtue in you, Captain von Bek."
I smiled. "You are supposed to recognise evil and wickedness and appeal to those qualities."
Lucifer shook His head. "That is what humankind detects in me: the desire to find examples for their own base instincts. Many believe that if they discover an example it somehow exonerates them from responsibility. I am invested with many terrible traits, captain. But I, too, possess many virtues. It is the secret of my power and, to a degree, your own. Did you know that?"
"I did not, Your Majesty."
"But you understand me?"
"I believe that I do."
"I am asking you to serve me."
"You must have far more powerful men and women than I at your command."
Lucifer reseated Himself behind the desk. He seemed to give His full attention to every word that I uttered now. And this in itself, of course, was flattering to me.
"Powerful," He replied, "certainly. Many of them. In the way in which power is measured upon the Earth. Most of the Holy Church is mine now; but that's a fact well-known to thinking people. A majority of princes belong to me. Scholars serve me. Poets serve me. The commanders of armies and navies serve me. You would think that I am satisfied, eh? There have rarely been so many in my service. But I have few such as you, von Bek."
"That I cannot believe, Your Majesty. Bloody-handed soldiers abound in these times."
"And always have. But few with your quality. Few who act with the full knowledge of what they are and what they do."
"Is it a virtue to know that you are a butcher, a thief? That you are ruthless and without altruism of any kind?"
"I believe so. But then I am Lucifer." Again the self-mockery.
Sabrina curtseyed again. "My Lord, shall I leave?"
"Aye," said Lucifer. "I think so, my dear. I will return the captain to you in due course, I promise."
The witch withdrew. I wondered if I had been abandoned forever by Sabrina, now that she had served her purpose. I tried to stare back at the creature who called Himself Lucifer, but to look into those melancholy, terrible eyes was too much for me. I directed my attention to the window. Through it I could see the mass of trees that were the great forest. I attempted to focus on this sight, in order to preserve my reason and remember that in all likelihood I had been drugged by the accomplice of a man who was nothing more than a charlatan sorcerer of a very high order.
"Now," said the Prince of Darkness, "will you not accompany me to Hell, captain?"
"What?" said I. "Am I damned already? And dead?"
Lucifer smiled. "I give you my word that I shall bring you back to this room. If you are uninterested in my bargain, I will allow you to leave the castle unharmed, to go about whatever business you choose."
"Then why must I come with you to Hell? I have been taught to believe that Satan's word is in no way to be trusted. That He will use any means to win over an honest soul."
Lucifer laughed. "And perhaps you are right, captain. Is yours an honest soul?"
"It is not a clean one."
"But it is, by and large, honest. Yes?"
"You seem to place value on such honesty."
"Great value, captain. I admit to you freely that I have need of you. You do not prize yourself as highly as I prize you. Perhaps that is also one of your virtues. I am prepared to offer you good terms."
"But you will not tell me your terms."
"Not until you have visited Hell. Will you not satisfy your curiosity? Few are able to sample Hell before their time."
"And the few I have read of, Your Majesty, are usually tricked to return there soon enough."
"I give you my word, as an angel, that I am not about to trick you, Captain von Bek.! will be candid with you: I cannot afford to trick you. If I gained what I need from you by deception, then what I gained would be useless to me."
Lucifer offered me His hand.
"Will you descend, with me, to my domain?"
Still I hesitated, not entirely convinced that this was not a complicated and sophisticated enchantment wholly of human origin.
"Can you not bargain with me here?" I said.
"I could. But when the bargain was struck…if it was struck…and when we had parted, would you remain truly certain that you had negotiated with Lucifer?"
"I suppose that I would not. Even now I think that I could be in some kind of drugged glamour."
"You would not be the first to decide that an encounter with me had been nothing but a dream. As a rule it would be immaterial to me whether you decided you had experienced an illusion or were utterly sure that you had enjoyed a meeting with the Prince of Darkness. But I am anxious to prove myself to you, captain."
"Why should Lucifer care?"
A trembling of old Pride. Almost a glare of anger. Then it was gone. "Be assured, captain," replied Lucifer in deep, urgent tones, "that on this occasion I do care."
"You must be clearer with me, Your Majesty," It was all that I could do to utter even this simple phrase.