If at Faust You Don't Succeed

by Roger Zelazny

  Even if you don't like it, at least try to not let down the side."

  Helen considered for a while. Then she said, "Well, Faust, you say well and you talk bluntly. Now let me be equally blunt. Are you up to me? The Helen archetype is known everywhere. But I never heard of the Faust archetype."

  "It came along after your time," Faust said, "but it is no less potent than your own. In the ancient world, men might have wished to be an Odysseus or Achilles. Nowadays, young men aspire to the Faustian ideal."

  "Can you sum up that ideal for me?" Helen asked.

  "It is difficult to capture in words the veritable quality of one's own numinosity. Let's just say that Faust wants more. It's quite a bit more than that, but that gives you an idea."

  "A sort of latter-day Prometheus?" Helen asked.

  "Perhaps so, Helen," Faust said, chuckling. "But with a difference. Prometheus ended up on a rock with a vulture tearing out his liver. Whereas Faust ranges free over space and time. With a little help from his friends, of course. And that's the difference between the old world and the new."

  "I see you can keep up your end of a conversation," Helen said. "If nothing else." She chuckled, and Faust's titillation receptor cells went into a frenzied fibrillation until application of his powerful will caused them to quiet down again.

  "Let us go on, then, Faust," Helen said. "I confess, I'm interested in seeing the contours of this new myth you're creating. Can you give me a hint as to what happens next?"

  "Next we're going to get out of here," Faust said. "Charon! Is the boat ready?"

  "You got that Traveling Spell?" Charon asked.

  "Here it is," Faust said, handing it over. Charon felt along the lapstraked side of the boat and found the Motive Slot. Carefully he inserted the spell. Faust said the words that brought it to life. A spirit stood amidships and cast off the lines as the first ripple of motion rocked the boat. The motion came again.

  There was a great cloud of smoke, green and gray in color, with ochre backlighting and little wispy nebulosities hanging from its extremities. Then the Traveling Spell kicked in. And suddenly, just like that, the boat took off.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mack found himself walking on a road that ran straight between rows of poplars. He topped a little rise and saw, in the near distance, the spires of a noble city. The weather was warm and sunny. There were other people strolling along the road. They wore hose, tunics, soft boots, just like in Cracow, but with an Italian panache. Mack saw that Mephistopheles had dressed him in the same way. He proceeded through the gates into the bustling wonder that was Florence.

  There was a lot of stir and turmoil in the narrow streets. Everybody seemed to be out, most of them in holiday clothing. Florence was in festive mood on this fine spring day. There were multicolored banners snapping in the breeze, flying bravely from many balconies and rooftops. They represented the various communes of the city. Food vendors were out in force, selling the newest taste sensation, tiny Renaissance pizzas. Armed riders in steel helmets coursed through the streets, pushing people out of the way in the manner of policemen of all times and ages. Mack passed close-packed stalk selling cloth, kitchenware, spices, swords, and knives. One stall had large porcelain plates for sale, another watermelon, a third, smelts.

  As interesting as it all was, Mack decided he'd better find a place to stay. First he checked his purse and found that he had plenty of expense money. Mephistopheles had not been stingy in that regard. An inn just up the street appealed to him with its well-painted pastel walls and gold-leaf sign proclaiming it the Paradiso. The owner, a stout, red-faced man with a carbuncle on his nose, was suspicious at first, since Mack hadn't sent a messenger ahead to announce his arrival. But he became all affability when Mack handed him a gold florin.

  "Our best room for you, my dear Dr. Faust! You come at an auspicious time. This is a public holiday, you know, the time when we Florentines burn our vanities."

  "Yes, I know," Mack said. "Will it be held far from here?"

  "Just a couple of streets away in the Piazza Signoria," the innkeeper said. "You'll have a great view of one of the most remarkable phenomena of our time. Savonarola has promised that this year's bonfire will be something truly remarkable."

  "What sort of man is this Savonarola?" Mack asked.

  "What's that?"

  "It's our pact with the French king, which keeps us protected from the Pope's desire to force the Medicis back on us."

  "You don't like these Medicis?" Mack asked.

  "Oh, they do well enough," the landlord said. "Lorenzo is called the Magnificent, for good reason. There has never been a greater patron of the arts. Under his rule, Florence has become the most beautiful city in the world."

  "But you still don't like him?" Mack asked.

  The landlord shrugged. "It's the people who pay for his magnificence. And besides, we don't like any family lording it over us. We Florentines are free people, and we intend to stay that way."

  Mack inspected his room and found it was up to the standard he was rapidly getting used to. Time to find Marguerite. The owner told him that the silk market was held in a small piazza on the Fiesole road. To Mack it looked like an oriental bazaar with its stalls crowded close together, its casual bathroom facilities, and its pig-tailed retinue of observers from Cathay. Here were piled high the watered silks that were de rigueur in Flanders and the Netherlands; the twice-dyed material that was making such a hit that year in Amsterdam, and the raw silk estofados and open-necked sanbenito sport shirts for the Spanish trade. Spotted here and there among the stalls were little espresso bars, and near them were spaghetti houses, already selling the concoction that Marco Polo had brought back from China, where they unaccountably called it noodles. Mack found Marguerite at a progenitor of the boutique system that was to make such a change in the habits of luxury buyers. She was looking at herself in a tall mirror that was tilted this way and that for her by the proprietor, a small man with a harelip but, perhaps in compensation, very good teeth.

  "Ah, signore," he said, "you have come just in time to see your lady in all her glory!"

  Mack smiled indulgently. It was not his money. He could afford to be generous.

  "Go for it, babe," he said huskily.

  "Look," she said, "I've picked out these darling ball gowns. You must look at Signore Enrico's men's store, Johann. He carries the latest in doublets and camicia."

  "Camicia?" said Mack.

  Signore Enrico smiled with extreme twinklings of his warm brown eyes. "It is the latest thing from Hungary," he said. "A casual style. For evening wear we have the most divine tights, which come with a codpiece that whispers masculinity rather than shouting it to the skies."

  "I just love the way he talks," Marguerite said.

  Mack felt more than a little foolish trying to respond to this conversation. But he consoled himself by remembering that buying expensive clothes for a beautiful woman is one of the delights of masculine success. And as soon as Marguerite was finished, he could start looking for some stuff for himself, perhaps asking Mephistopheles for an advance on his reward, if need be. Of course, Mephistopheles hadn't specifically mentioned what his reward would be. Mack knew he should have pinned it down earlier. But as soon as he had a chance, he'd check it out. In the meantime, taking a foretaste of his reward seemed only reasonable, because if he didn't like what he was going to get he was really wasting his time.

  "And what business is that, my love?"

  "I need to find a Botticelli. I can make a very good deal if I find one."

  Enrico said, "A Botticelli? Perhaps I can help. I know all the painters. It would give me great pleasure to offer my assistance, and, of course, my expertise. Not," he added quickly, "that I think it will be needed.

  Because the signore is obviously a connoisseur."

  "Good idea," Mack said. "Let's check it out now."

  He turned to go. Just then a heavyset man in nondescript clothing burst in.

  "I am looking for F
aust! The German doctor! They said at the Paradise that he had come this way!"

  "I am he whom you seek," Mack said. "What seems to be the trouble, my good fellow?"

  "It's my master! He's dying! When he heard there was a new German doctor in town, he sent me out to find him. Oh, sir, if you can cure him, you can name your own reward."

  "I'm a little busy," Mack said, not wishing to put his imaginary healing skills to the test, especially in an excitable place like Florence. "Who did you say your master is?'

  "My master is Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent!"

  "Things seem to be falling into shape rather rapidly," Mack remarked to Marguerite. "Come, my dear, pack up your things and wait for me at the hotel. I have an errand of mercy to run."

  CHAPTER 5

  Mack followed the servant to Medici's palace, which was in a small, exclusive suburb of palaces close by the Arno. It was a fine-looking place, with white marble pillars and a porch in the Attic style. The doors were of varnished mahogany and extensively carved in the manner originated by Damiato the Damned. There were servants at the door, wearing lounge suits and white-on-white shirts in the latest Neapolitan style. They looked askance at Mack, because his clothing here, uptown, as it were, didn't look half as good as it did in the clash of illusions that was the marketplace. But they passed him through in response to the old servant's plea.

  Weeping and wringing his hands, the servant led Mack down quiet corridors with oil paintings on the walls, down to a big rosewood door at the far end. Tapping to make his presence known, the servant pushed open the door and Mack looked in on a room that would not have disgraced a king.

  A large, tall, gorgeously carved, and sumptuously canopied bed dominated the chamber. Tall wax candles had been brought in and put around the bed on more end tables. A fire in the fireplace flickered and glowed red.

  "Who is there?" asked Lorenzo de' Medici.

  Lorenzo, well tucked up in the bed, looked every one of his seventy years, plus a few more. Dropsy had robbed his body of vigor. He peered at Mack from a fat, gray face. It was a countenance in which shrewd little eyes struggled to make a deal with mortality and stay alive a little longer, but with class, of course, since he was Lorenzo de' Medici and class was his middle name. He wore a long white cotton nightgown embroidered with unicorns, and a black cap with bobbin lace was tied under his chin. His face, where it bore any flesh at all that was not puffed out with rottenness, sagged toward the bone clearly visible beneath. His lips, formerly ruddy in the days when a Medici Pope considered announcing the unique existence of a Medici God, were withered, having tasted the bitterness of the world for so many years. An artery in his neck pulsed, as though wondering why it hadn't collapsed like the others.

  The fingers of his left hand, palsy stricken, made little fluttering movements.

  "I'm Dr. Faust," Mack said. "What seems to be the trouble?"

  "I," said Medici, in a voice that, even as a shadow of its former timbre, was enough to excite the dust particles on the top of the chandelier, "am the richest man in the world."

  It was one hell of an opening line, but Mack was not to be thus put down.

  "And I," he said, "am the world's most expensive doctor. How fortuitous that we have met!"

  "How do you propose to heal me?" Medici growled, with such dominance that the very maggots in his flesh stopped their gnawing for a moment out of respect.

  Mack knew that the cure was simple enough. Just take out the vial that Mephistopheles had given him and pour its contents down Medici's throat. But he wasn't going to let Lorenzo know that. Who'd pay a fortune for something as simple as a slug of elixir? No, the contents of the vial might be the final step, but procedure, as Galen and others had pointed out, was the irreducible framework. And the procedure had to be impressive.

  "First we'll need a gold basin," Mack said. "Only twenty-four karat will do."

  It had crossed his mind that a gold basin would be a good thing to have on hand in case anything went wrong. Funny, the things you think about in a crisis.

  "See that it is done," Medici said to the servants.

  The servants scurried around. There was a brief delay while they searched for the key to the bin where the gold pots and pans were kept.

  The servants brought the gold basin, and also the alchemical equipment Mack asked for. That was not difficult to come by, since Lorenzo was a collector of all sorts of things, and he had a whole room full of alchemical equipment of the latest models. His alembic alone, all gleaming glass and polished bronze, was a sight to behold. And his furnace could perform such miracles of calibration that it was a wonder Medici hadn't cured himself with all his fancy junk on the basis of his pillaged knowledge.

  Tall and ghastly pale was this monk who was the talk of all Italy. He fixed his burning eyes on Medici and said, "They said you wanted to see me about something."

  "Yes, Brother," Medici said. "I know we've had some differences, but I think we can both say we stand for a strong Italy, a balanced lire, and no more Church corruption. I'd like to make my confession and receive absolution."

  "Delighted to arrange it," Savonarola said, taking a parchment out of his cloak, "if you will sign over all your goods and monies to a nonprofit organization I have founded, which will see that they are distributed to the poor."

  He slid the parchment beneath Medici's rheumy eyes with an alacrity that belied his slender frame and fever-swept body; for the friar was suffering toothache and so far hadn't been able to pray it away.

  Medici's rheumy old eyes swept the manuscript, then narrowed in suspicion. "You drive a tough bargain, Brother. I'm prepared to make a good bequest to the Church. But I've got relatives who have to be taken care of."

  "God will provide," Savonarola said.

  "No insult intended, but I don't think so," said Medici.

  "I think we're about ready with the medicine," Mack said, seeing that he was losing out to the newcomer.

  "Sign the parchment!" shouted Savonarola. "Confess yourself a sinner!"

  "I'll talk to God in my own heart, Girolamo! But I'll not say it to you!"

  "I am a monk," Savonarola said.

  "You are vain, and proud," Medici said. "To hell with you. Faust! The medicine!"

  Mack hurriedly took out the vial and struggled to uncork it. It had one of those thin little wires wrapped around it that are so hard to cut if you don't have pliers.

  And back then, before even the circle was standardized, hardly anyone had pliers. Medici and Savonarola were screaming at each other. The servants were cowering. Outside, church bells were ringing. Mack finally got the bottle cap off. He turned to Medici.

  The Magnificent had fallen suddenly silent. He lay in bed motionless, jaw agape. Blind eyes, still rheumy, but over which a milky film was beginning to form, stared up at nothing.

  Medici dead? "Don't do this to me," Mack muttered, and forcing the vial into Medici's mouth, poured.

  The liquid came bubbling out of Medici's mouth, untasted. The great man was finally and definitively dead.

  He stood for a moment on the street, wondering if he had forgotten something. Damn it, he had forgotten the gold basin! He turned to go back in. But it was too late now. He was swept up into the crowd and carried along by the laughing, screaming, singing, praying multitude. It was the time of the burning of vanities, and all was madness.

  CHAPTER 6

  People were running, their footsteps echoing on the cobblestones. There was an air of holiday glee.

  Many drunks had gotten an early start and were sleeping it off in doorways. Children were everywhere, darting here and there in an ecstasy of pleasure. The shops were all closed, with boards nailed up over their doorways. A clatter of hooves was heard as mounted lancers rode by, brilliant in uniforms of scarlet and black, and Mack ducked back into a doorway to avoid getting trampled on. As he did so, he ran into a man's solid body. "Watch where you're going!"

  "Sorry!" said Mack. "It was the soldiers."

&
nbsp; "What did soldiers have to do with you stepping on my foot?"

  The man whose foot Mack had stepped on in the doorway was tall and finely shaped, with a head that could have modeled for a Grecian Apollo. He was fashionably dressed in a cloak of dark fur, and from his hat floated an ostrich feather, proof that he either had contacts abroad or knew someone in the Florence Zoo. He peered intently at Mack with large and brilliant eyes.

  "Excuse me, stranger," the man said, "but haven't we met?"

  "I doubt it," Mack said. "I'm not from around here."

  "That's interesting. I'm looking for a man who doesn't come from around here. My name is Pico della Mirandola. Perhaps you've heard of me?"

  Indeed Mack had, from Mephistopheles, as one of the great alchemists of the Renaissance. But Mack, foreseeing trouble, was not going to admit having heard of him.

  "I don't think so," Mack said. "Anyhow, it's just a coincidence us meeting this way. It's very unlikely that I'd be the man you seek."

  "So it might seem in the ordinary course of things," Pico said. "But when you put magic to work, coincidences suddenly become much more probable. I was supposed to meet someone here. Might it not be you?"

  "What is the name of this person you're supposed to meet?"

  "Johann Faust, the great magician from Wittenberg."

  "You're sure you're not Faust?" Pico said.

  "Oh, yes, quite sure. I suppose I know my own name, ha, ha! Excuse me, I must be off, I don't want to miss this Bonfire of Vanities." He hurried off. Pico gazed after him, then began to follow.

  Mack hurried on and saw a great open plaza. In the middle of it, there was a tall pile of wooden furniture, paintings, cosmetics, and ornaments of various sons.

  "What's going on?" Mack asked a man near him in the crowd.

  "Savonarola and his monks are burning the vanities," the man told him.