Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming Part 5

In the evening he decided to take his dinner downstairs with the tradespeople. He had a special table for himself, cur-tained off from the crowd. But he kept a bit of the curtain drawn back so he could watch their antics.

The people ate and drank and caroused, and Azzie won-dered how they could be so light of heart. Did they not know that the Millennium was approaching? Elsewhere in Europe men knew about this, and were taking whatever precautions they could. There were Dances of the Dead being held on blasted heaths, and all manner of signs and portents. Many people were sure the end of the world was coming.

Some turned to prayer. Others, deciding they were doomed, pa.s.sed their time in eating and s.e.xual activity. The Angel of Death had been sighted in a dozen places around Europe, surveying the territory and making a preliminary census of all who would be taken. In churches and cathedrals anathemas were intoned against promiscuity and license. But all this was to little or no avail. People's spirits had been roused and frightened by the approach of the grim year when it was said the dead would rise in the streets, the figure of the Antichrist would be seen in the land, and all things would gather themselves for Apocalypse, the last great battle between the forces of Good and Evil.

Azziehimself had no need for such vulgar superst.i.tions. He knew that mankind's game was a long way from being played out. There would be contests like this for many thou-sands of years into the future, as there had been for thousands of years into the past, though the memory of mankind retained only the most confused memories of this.

At last Azzie grew tired and went up to the bedroom. It still lacked a half hour or so of midnight. Azzie didn't believe either Hye or Agatha would return. They seemed not to be made of stern enough stuff. But he decided to show them the courtesy of staying up for them anyhow.

The minutes dragged by, and a hush fell over the village. This was the time Azzie loved best, the minutes approaching midnight, when the complexion of the world changed, when the dusky sanct.i.ties of evening had been forgotten, and the saving grace of dawn was still far away. It was in these hours, between midnight and dawn, that evil always felt most at peace with itself, most experimental, most in need of strangeness and sin, most in need of producing the ever-pervading perversions which needed constant renewal, and the doing of which was a delight to the evil soul.

Midnight came and pa.s.sed and no one knocked at his door. Azzie was growing bored, and the big four-poster bed with its Huffy eiderdown looked exceedingly comfortable. It was a temptation, and since demons are not supposed to resist temptation, he gave in, got up on the bed, and closed his eyes. He fell into a deep sleep, and in that sleep a dream came to him. In his dream three maidens clad all in white came to him carrying holy articles in their hands. They beckoned to him, saying, "Come, Azzie, join us in our frolic." And Azzie, looking at them, was greatly desirous of joining them, for they smiled and winked at him most enticingly. But there was something about them he didn't like, something which said to his trained eye that they really didn't care for evil, were merely feigning it in order to lure him into their clutches. Nevertheless, he was drawn toward them, almost against his will, even though he repeated to himself lines from the Credo of Evil: that the good is capable of a.s.suming a pleasing form and that a demon must take care not to be seduced by that which only seems evil. The Credo didn't help. They reached out to him. ...

He never learned the outcome because he was awakened by a tapping at the door. He sat up and pulled himself together. How ridiculous it was to be afraid of being tainted by good! It was a standard fear among demons, and it gave him a turn, dreaming of it.

The tap came again.

Azzie checked his appearance in the cracked mirror. He smoothed his eyebrows, brushed back his red hair, and gave an experimental leer. Yes, he was decidedly horrific tonight, ready for any applicant who came through the door.

"Come in," he said.

When the door opened and he beheld his visitor, he was more than a little surprised.

The person who entered was not familiar. He was a very small man with a large hump upon his back. He had on a large black cloak which was wrapped completely around him, its hood raised. His long, bony face was dead white, sepulchral. As he advanced Azzie noticed that he walked with the help of a cane.

"And who," Azzie asked, "are you, to come calling upon me at this hour?"

"I am Frike," the lame hunchback replied. "I have come in answer to your ad. You wanted a servant, it seems, one who would be up for anything. I put myself forth as just such a person."

"You are not afraid to recommend yourself," Azzie said. "But there are two applicants ahead of you. I set them a simple task and now I await their return."

"Ah, yes," Frike said. "I happened to meet them, the poet and the beldame. They were at the gates of the cemetery, trying to get up the courage to do what you required of them."

"They should not have delayed so long," Azzie said. "The time set for their appearance is already past."

"Why, master," Frike said, "they met with certain unfor-tunate accidents. And so I have come in their stead."

"What accidents?" Azzie asked.

"My lord," Frike said, "I brought the items you requested of them."

Frike reached inside his cloak and took out a leather satchel of tanned cowhide. Opening it, he removed two packets wrapped in sackcloth. Opening one, he removed eight fingers and one thumb, neatly severed, perhaps with a razor.

"Behold," Frike said. "The lady's fingers."

"These are somewhat gummy," Azzie said, examining the fingers and nibbling one of them.

"They are the best I could provide on short notice," Frike said.

"And why is there not a full set? A thumb is missing!"

"Your lordship might not have noticed," Frike said, "since to notice such a thing would be beneath your dignity. But I would point out, sire, that Agatha, who aspired to the post of your servant, had a thumb missing. I do not know the story of its loss, and I'm afraid now I can't find it out for you."

"It is of little importance," Azzie said. "But I also asked for a head."

"Ah, yes," Frike said. "The quest you set for the poet. Now you would think, sir, that his would be an easy task, since our local cemetery is full of the sort of specimens you asked for. But he walked around outside the graveyard, then finally went in and put his spade here and then changed his mind and put it there, until at last I got sick of waiting for him to complete the task. So I took the liberty, my lord, of procuring the object and eliminating my opposition in a single stroke."

So saying, he opened the satchel and displayed the head of Hye, the poet.

"Not cleanly severed, I notice," Azzie said, but it was just for form's sake, for he was well pleased with the work of this applicant for the position of his helper.

"I regret there was no time to wait for the perfect stroke," Frike said. "But since he is well known hereabouts as a bad poet, I daresay he's missed many a clean stroke himself."

"Frike, you have done very well. You shall enter my em-ploy at once. I think that you are a paragon among mortals. And since you have done so well at this, I'm sure you will have no problem getting me the things I need, once I have explained them and scouted out the territory."

"I expect to serve you well, master," Frike said.

Azzie went to his chest, opened it, and from a small deer-skin bag, extracted four golden thalers. He gave these to Frike, who louted low in grat.i.tude.

"And now," Azzie said, "we must go to work. Midnight is past; the time of evil is at hand. Are you up for what may come, Frike?"

"Indeed I am."

"And what do you expect as your reward?"

"Only to continue serving you, lord," Frike said, "after death as before."

Thus Azzie knew that Frike knew who, or rather, what he was. He was pleased to find so intelligent a servant. He bade Frike pack the things. They would set to work at once.

Chapter 6.

Before anything else could be done, Azzie needed a place from which to operate. The Inn of the Hanged Man possessed many fine features, but the s.p.a.ce was too limited and the other customers too apt to be curious. And as Azzie and Frike gathered their specimens there was the problem of the smell. Azzie knew several master spells to keep human meat relatively fresh, but not even a magic spell could take away the odor of death and decay that hung over his work. Even hiring men to bring down ice from the Alps was insufficient, for keeping constant relays going would be a monumental enterprise. And the Powers of Darkness had ve-toed his scheme in this regard, saying it didn't warrant the expense, and it would call too much attention to him and his work.

The question, then, was where to locate the home and alchemical laboratory that would be needed. He needed to stay close to the heart of Europe because that was where the action was. He settled finally upon the town of Augsburg, in the Alps near Zurich. It was a fine small city, located on a trade route.

This meant that he could purchase from pa.s.sing vendors the spices and simples he needed for the work.

Augsburg was also good because it was a well-known center for witchcraft. Since everyone there suspected everyone else of sorcery, no undue suspicion was likely to fall upon him.

He met with the burgomeister and arranged the long-term rental of the high-steepled Chateau des Artes on the northern edge of town. This n.o.ble old building, built over the ruins of a Roman villa which had been lived in by a praetor in the old days of the Roman empire, suited him admirably. Since the cellar was extensive there was no problem over where to keep his growing collection of body parts. And finally, he was near enough to Zurich and Basle to ensure a good supply of addi-tional material from the medical schools in those areas.

But it was summer, and even his preserving spells were pushed to their limits. Finally, he had to resort to an additional remedy. It was known of old that when anything organic was put into a vat containing ichor, it kept for a long time. Indeed, ichor was the universal solution, good to drink, capable of miracles when used for other purposes.

Obtaining a sufficient quant.i.ty of ichor proved a problem, however. Supply tried to keep every drop of it for themselves. It was only after asking Hermes Trismegistus to intercede for him that Azzie received a quant.i.ty adequate for his purposes. And even then he had to counsel Frike, on pain of great torture and possible death, not to touch the precious supplies.

The b.r.e.a.s.t.s, haunches, kneecaps, and elbows were easy enough. Ribs and shoulders were in good supply. But Azzie wanted to know the antecedents of every piece of meat he bought, and this knowledge was often beyond the ken of the men he dealt with. Bit by bit, as the warm days wore on with a deepening of greens and the spread of summer flowers, he collected a goodly mess of pieces. But these were the least important parts. The heads, the faces, the hands-these were crucial, and hard to come by.

More days pa.s.sed, summer storms rattled and rolled, and it seemed he was getting no closer to his goal.

He a.s.sembled a sample human which stumbled about gibbering until he put it back in the rendering vat, a poor dottering idiot. The creature's brain had evidently decayed before it could be preserved. Azzie began to wonder whether he hadn't bitten off more than he could chew.

But the bright days of summer made the year's-end dead-line seem an eternity away, and he called in laborers to repair the chateau. He hired husbandmen from nearby villages to put in quick-growing crops.

He found these ch.o.r.es an oddly sat-isfying way of pa.s.sing the time while the head-hunt went on.

The Chateau des Artes was conveniently situated for jour-neys south to Italy, west to France, east toward Bohemia and Hungary. So while he filled his time with householder's tasks, he sent Frike far and wide on a big gray horse, two pack animals trailing behind. While Frike turned up many curious and useful items, it seemed a slack season for heads. Heads . . .

He told the mayor of the town, Estel Castelbracht, that he was engaged in various researches to find cures for the plague, the ague, and the tertian fever, which had been sweep-ing these parts since Roman times. He explained that it was necessary to conduct his researches on human flesh, with meth-ods learned from the great alchemists of the period. The mayor, and then the people, took him at his word, for he seemed a jolly sort, never reluctant to treat local sick, very often with good results.

While doing this, Azzie was also considering the props he would need for his Prince Charming game. He sent to Supply for lists of goods, but their replies were always vague, filled with stipulations such as "if still in stock" or "out of stock, more expected soon." What was especially annoying was their re-sponse to his request for two castles, one for Prince Charming, the other for Princess Scarlet. The powers at Supply, speaking to him through an oracular owl, told him that they were clean out of castles at the moment. Azzie argued with them, explaining that this was a priority job which had the imprimatur of the High Demon Council. "Yes," they said, "they are all priority jobs, and we can only do what we can. ..."

He decided he'd better go to Supply, look over their stores himself, and set aside what he would need when his Prince and Princess were ready to be a.s.sembled. Yes, it was time to go to Limbo, that ill-defined region where are shaped the superna-tural events that push and pull at the mixed destiny of mankind. And keep an eye out for the proper head ...

Chapter 7.

Azzie departed with a feeling of regret. He knew that he should not allow himself to get sentimental over land he would occupy for only a short time, and which he lived on only in order to serve a special purpose. Still, all that work on the mansion and fields . . . He had never put that much of himself into a place before, watching it change in accord with his wishes. It was beginning to feel kind of ... homey.

And the journey to Limbo was not without its dangers. There was always difficulty pa.s.sing from one realm to another. The laws of a realm, like those of Earth itself, are not to be understood completely.

How less completely, then, were under-stood the strange laws which governed the movement between realms.

Luckily, nothing went wrong this time. He made the nec-essary preparations and spoke the Greek words, the Hebrew exclamation. The fire flared and he suddenly occupied a spot on a long plain, bleak black mountains on either side. The sky was white and hot and there were occasional green swirls in it, as of djinns flying fast in formation.

Just to get around in Limbo was a considerable ch.o.r.e, since its extent was limitless. Luckily, some of its more impor-tant places existed reasonably close together and they exerted something of a pull which drew visitors to them. And there was the Roc service, of which Azzie was able to avail himself. The huge birds had been extinct on Earth for a long time, because of difficulties in making a living after the Pleistocene. But with their broad backs, they were admirably suited for taxi service in this place.

Supply looked like a huge series of warehouses set in the middle of the plain. Supply had wanted plenty of room. Here, Supply's s.p.a.ce was sufficient to store all of the living rooms on Earth, with plenty of room left for kitchens and stables. In actual fact, they had never tried to fill all their warehouses. The number of things they would need was limited only by human imagination, which at one time or another sought all things. The number of things that could be of use in the invisible powers' continual attempt either to enlighten or subvert hu-manity was never-ending and called upon everything under the suns. You could never tell when some demon would need a Thracian spear from A.D. 55 or something equally esoteric.

Sup-ply simulated most of what was asked for, and Supply possessed some of the most imaginative scene designers ever known.

Supply was built on a bank of the Styx, that stupendous river that runs through Earth and all the heavens and h.e.l.ls, and upon whose dusky surface the ancient boatman, Cha-ron, plied his way between the centuries and the worlds. The supernatural powers he sometimes served considered Earth the greatest game ever conceived and had no wish to be discon-nected from any aspect of it, no matter how far in the future or the past.

Azzie dismounted from the Roc. He walked rapidly, oc-casionally gliding when walking grew onerous, and made his way down the long streets, both sides of which were flanked with warehouses. All of the warehouses had the sign, UNAU-THORIZED PERSONNEL STAY OUT. Armed Salis, the neutral spir-its of Limbo, stood guard. They were armed with energy dissipators. These weapons, which resembled spears with gun sights and triggers, let forth rays of pattern-disrupting particles (though some said waves) which would disrupt the personality pattern of even the greatest of the demons, "whipping his brains to tapioca" in the phrase popular that year. Azzie gave them a wide berth. Limbo had become a dangerous place of late, and this was due more to the guards than the guarded.

At length he came to a warehouse which had an unguarded door. Over it was the sign, INQUIRIES MAY BE MADE HERE. It was a surprisingly blunt statement for so vague and conceptual a place, but Azzie lost no time going to it.

Inside he found about twenty demons of all sorts and de-grees waiting their turn to lodge complaints with a bored young demon clerk who wore a plaid golfing cap in defiance of tem-poral clothing regulations (demons can go into the past or fu-ture, but they are not supposed to bring back souvenirs).

Azzie flashed his black credit card and pushed his way to the head of the line. "This is top priority," he told the clerk. "I've got full clearance from the High Demon Council."

"Is that a fact?" the young demon asked, unimpressed.

Azzie showed his black credit card.

"Is what he says true?" the clerk asked the card.

"BELIEVE IT!" the card flashed back.

"All right," the demon said. "What can we do for you, Mister Big Shot?"

Azzie resented the young demon's att.i.tude but decided now was not the time to make an issue of it.

"The first thing I need," Azzie said, "is two castles. I know that's a lot to ask, but I really need them."

"Two castles, huh?" The young demon eyed him unsym-pathetically. "I suppose your whole plan will fail if you don't have them."

"That's exactly right."

"Then resign yourself to failure, buddy, because we have only one castle, and even that isn't a proper castle; it's mostly an outline with a real wall and barbicon, but all the rest is mental construct held together by old magic spells."

"That's ridiculous," Azzie said. "I thought Supply had an unlimited number of castles."

"That was true quite some time ago. But recently the prem-ise has been changed. The possibilities have been narrowed. It means a lot more trouble for everyone, but it keeps things inter-esting. That, at least, is the theory of the Supply-side deviltry."

"I never heard of it," Azzie said. "Do you know what you're talking about?"

"If I did," the clerk said, "would I be in this menial job, telling guys like you they can only have one castle?"

"All right," Azzie said, "I'll take the castle you've got."

The clerk scribbled something on a sheet of parchment. "You'll have to take it as is. We haven't got time to patch it up any further."

"What's the matter with it?"

"I told you about the magic spells that hold the place together. There're not enough of them, so parts of the castle disappear every now and then."

"Which parts?" Azzie asked.

"That depends on the weather," the clerk said. "Since the castle is bound together by dry-weather spells, long periods of rain play h.e.l.l with its provisional existence."

"Isn't there a plan of some sort showing which parts vanish when?"

"Of course there's a plan," the clerk said. "But it needs updating. You'd be crazy to trust it."

"I want it anyway," Azzie said. He had a lot of respect for scratchings on parchment.