The scholars studied it with trepidation. Little fragments of earth and sand on the edge of the hole were being pulled into it. As an experiment, they tossed a stray dog into the hole; the dog disappeared as soon as he broke the invisible plane of its surface.
One of the scholars said, "From a scientific point of view, this hole seems to be a rent or tear in the fabric of existence."
Another objected on a quibble. "How could the fabric of existence tear?"
"That we don't know," the first replied. "But we can infer that something tremendous is happening in the Spiritual Realm, something so enormous that it is having its effect on us down here on the physical plane of mundane existence. Not even reality is to be trusted any longer, so strange has life become."
More reports came in of other holes in the fabric of reality. The phenomenon was called the Anti-Imago, and examples of it seemed to be springing up everywhere, even in the interior chapel of San Marco's, where there was a hole almost three feet wide pointing obliquely downward and leading to where nobody could ascertain without taking the oneway trip into it.
A church sexton reported a peculiar occurrence. A stranger had entered the building, and something about him seemed either more or less than human. Perhaps it was his ears, or the strange tilt to his eyes.
This being walked about the church and its immediate area, looking at outbuildings and making notes on a roll of parchment. When the sexton demanded to know what he was doing, the stranger said, "Just taking some measurements, so I can report the situation to the others."
"What others?"
"The others like me."
"But why should you and the others be interested in the state of our buildings?"
"We're provisional life-forms," the stranger said, "me and the others like me, so new we haven't even gotten a name yet. There's a chance we'll get to take over — reality, that is—and in that case we inherit what you leave behind. We thought it would be best to be prepared, so we are doing an inventory."
Chapter 7
The pilgrims huddled in the common room in the inn, taking turns stoking the fire while they awaited their next orders. They should have been triumphant, happy, for they had finished their contest. But the weather trivialized their victories.
They had gone through hardships to get here, and now they were here and things were lousy. It wasn't the way it was meant to be. And none felt this more keenly than Azzie, who was being cheated of his story, though he couldn't figure out how it was happening.
That evening, as Azzie sat near the fire and tried to think what to do next, there was a rap at the inn door.
The landlord called out, "We are full up, please go elsewhere!"
"You have someone within I would talk with," a pleasing female voice called out.
"Ylith!" Azzie called out. "Is that you?" He gestured peremptorily to the landlord, who threw back the door with bad grace. A few bucketsful of rain blew in, and with them came a beautiful black-haired woman whose features were balanced between the angelic and the demonic, making her look very appealing indeed. She wore a simple yellow dress covered with appliqued violets, and over it a sky blue cloak with a silver lining, a saucy red wimple about her head.
"Azzie!" she cried, crossing the room. "Are you all right?"
"Of course," Azzie said. "Your concern touches me.
Have you perhaps changed your mind about a spot of dalliance?"
"Same old Azzie!" Ylith said with a chuckle. "I came here because I believe in fairness in all matters, especially those concerning Good and Bad. I think someone is doing you a disservice." Ylith then told how she had been captured by Hermes Trismegistus, who had given her to a mortal named Westfall. She told how she had been shut up in Pandora's box, and how with Zeus' help she had escaped.
"I know you think of Hermes as a friend," Ylith said, "but it seems he is plotting against you. The rest of the Olympians may be in on it, too."
"There's nothing much they can do from Afterglow," Azzie said.
"But the old gods are no longer in Afterglow. They've escaped! And I'm afraid I'm responsible, albeit unwittingly."
"It could be those guys who are screwing everything up," Azzie said. "I had thought it was all Michael's doing — you know how he opposes even my smallest triumph — but what's going on is beyond him.
Someone has stirred up the Mongols, Ylith!"
"I don't understand why the Olympians are opposing you," Ylith said. "What difference does it make to them if you put on your immorality play?"
"The gods have a vested interest in morality," Azzie said. "But for others, not themselves. This interference of theirs is something else, I think. It wouldn't surprise me if this were the old gods' bid to return to power."
The weather was simply no longer to be tolerated. Azzie roused himself and looked into it. The most cursory inspection showed him that the storms didn't seem to be coming from any single source. They sprang up "in the north," where the weather mostly comes from. But what did that mean, the north? How far north? North of what? And what was there in the north that created the weather? Azzie decided he had better find out, and do something about it if possible.
He explained to Aretino what he was going to do, and then went to the window and opened it. The blustery wind came in with a huff.
"This could be dangerous," Aretino said.
"Probably is," Azzie said, and, spreading his wings, he took to the air.
He left Venice and flew north, in search of the place where the weather came from. He traveled the length of Germany, and saw much bad weather, but it was all blowing in from even farther north. Azzie crossed the North Sea, touched on Sweden and found it was not the storm breeder, but merely a place storms passed over on their way to somewhere else. He veered into the eye of the wind and it took him toward Finland, where the Lapps had a great reputation as weather wizards. Wherever he went in that flat, snowy, pine-clad country, he always discovered that the weather didn't come "from here," it blew in
"from over there," some place farther north.
At last he reached a region at the top of the world where the winds came funneling out at him with a speed and regularity that was impressive. The wind swept across the frozen tundra in a steady unending stream, and so strong was it that it resembled the waves of the sea more than rivers of the air.
Azzie pushed on, still moving to the north, though the whole world seemed to be narrowing and coming to a point here. He came at last to the very northernmost point of north and found a tall, narrow mountain of ice. On the top of that mountain was a tower, so old that it might have been put there before anything else existed and the only place was here.
The tower was topped by a platform, and on it stood a gigantic naked man with tangled hair and an expression most uncanny. He was working a large leather bellows. As he drove it up and down, the wind blew from its mouth. It was the origin of all the wind in the world.
The wind emerged from the bellows in a steady stream, and blew into and through the tubes of a peculiar- looking machine.
A strange creature sat in front of what looked like an organ keyboard, and his hands, with their many flexible fingers that almost appeared to be tentacles, played on the keys and shaped and formed the winds that passed through, them. It was an allegorical machine, such as religions produce when they are trying to explain how things work. It directed the shaped and conditioned winds produced by the bellows pumper to the window, where they began their journey south to all points of the globe, and especially to Venice.
But why Venice? Azzie focused his X-ray vision, which all demons have but few use because it's difficult to work, like trying to do long division in your head. But now that he looked, Azzie could see that Ley lines had been drawn on the land beneath the ice, and these lines guided the winds and augmented their ferocity.
Azzie looked around, but he saw no one but the man working the bellows and the other one, the operator of the wind machine. He said to them both, "My dear sirs, you are s
crewing things up in the portion of Earth where I reside, and I cannot permit it. I intend to do something about it unless you cease and desist upon the instant."
He had spoken up bravely, and he had no idea if he could prevail against these two strange creatures.
But it was in his nature to advance boldly, and his nature did not desert him now.
The two creatures introduced themselves. They were incarnations of the god Baal. The one working the bellows was Baal-Hadad, the other was Baal-Quarnain, Canaanite deities who had been living quietly for some thousands of years, since the last of their worshipers had died. Zeus had enlisted them both into his service, saying there were none better for bringing up the sort of weather he was interested in, once the initial bag of breezes had been exhausted. Zeus himself was a weather god, but he was too busy nowadays for the tedious work of making weather.
The old Canaanite deities, despite their glossy black wavy hair, hooked noses, prominent eyes, and bold features, despite their swarthy skin and huge hands and feet, were timid deities. When Azzie told them he was angry, and ready to call down a lot of trouble on their heads, both were willing to desist.
"We can stop the wind," said Baal-Hadad, "but the rain isn't up to us. We have nothing to do with it. All we send out of here is pure wind."
"Do you know who's sending the rain?" Azzie asked.
They both shrugged.
"Then it'll wait," Azzie said. "I have to get back. It's about time for the ceremony."
Chapter 9
Aretino made sure all was in readiness at the inn. Then he went up to Azzie's room.
Azzie wore a green dressing gown with golden dragons embroidered over it. He was seated at a table and bent over a parchment, a quill pen in his hand. He did not even look up. "Come in," he said.
Aretino entered. "Not dressed yet? My dear lord demon, the ceremony is soon to begin."
"Plenty of time," Azzie said. "I'm a bit winded, and my outfit is all laid out in the other room. Come help me, Aretino. I have to decide who to award prizes to. First, is everyone present?"
"They're all here," Aretino said, and poured himself a glass of wine. He was feeling very good. This play was going to send his already great reputation sky-high. He would be more famous than Dante, better known than Virgil, maybe even surpass Homer. It was the high moment of his life, and he suspected no trouble when there came a knock at the door.
It was an imp messenger from Ananke. "She wants you," the messenger said. "And she's mad."
The Palace of Justice, where Ananke held sway, was a Brobdingnagian place sculpted from blocks of stone larger than entire pyramids on Earth. Despite its size, the Palace was built with classic proportions observed entirely throughout. The columns in front were thicker than a gaggle of elephants. The grounds were beautifully landscaped, too. On the well-trimmed lawn, sitting on a red-checked blanket near a white gazebo, with a tea service spread out around her, was Ananke.
As soon as Azzie was in her presence, Ananke said to him, "Too much with the magic horses already!"
"What do you mean?" Azzie said.
"You were warned, boychick," Ananke said. "Magic is not a panacea for all that ails your ambition. You can't use magic to solve everything. It is against the nature of things to assume that matters can go in any but their customary ways whenever you please to ask them to."
"I've never seen you in a state like this," Azzie said.
"You'd be mad, too, if you saw the entire cosmos threatened."
"But how did that happen?" Azzie asked.
"It was the magic horses," Ananke said. "Magic candlesticks were all right, but when you invoked magic horses, too, you simply stretched the fabric of credulity too far."
"What do you mean, the fabric of credulity?" Azzie asked. "I've never heard you talk like this."
"Tell him, Otto," Ananke said.
Otto, a spirit who for reasons known best to himself wears the disguise of a fat middle-aged German with a heavy white mustache and thick glasses, stepped out from behind a tree.
"Do you think the universe can stand an endless amount of tampering?" he asked. "You've been playing with the meta-machinery, whether you know it or not. You've been throwing a spanner in the works."
"He doesn't seem to understand," Ananke said.
"Is something going wrong?" Azzie asked.
"Jo, something's going wrong with the very nature of things," Otto said.
"The nature of things? Surely it's not as bad as all that?"
"You heard me. The structure of the universe has become deranged, due in no small measure to you and your magic horses. I know what I'm talking about. I've been servicing this universe since time out of mind."
"I never heard of a maintenance man for the universe," Azzie said.
"Stands to reason, don't it? If you're going to have a universe at all, you need someone to take care of it, and that can't be the one who runs it. She has a lot of other stuff to do, and maintenance is a specialty in itself and doesn't need to be connected with anything else. You did bring in those magic horses, didn't you?"
"I suppose I did," Azzie said, "but what of it, what's wrong with magic horses?"
"What does this have to do with reality?" Azzie asked.
"Listen up good now, my fine young demon. Reality is a sphere of solid matter made up of various substances lying in strata. Where one stratum abuts another, there, we can say, is a potential fault line, just as it is in the Earth. Anomalies are the things that explode shock waves along these interfaces. Your illicit use of the magic horses was one such anomaly bomb. But other anomalous things have been happening, too. The fact that the old gods have escaped is an event so impossible that its occurrence has shaken the universe.
"It is poor Venice that is bearing the brunt of this cosmic disaster that you have perpetrated. The city has had the bad luck to be the focus of events, and your work has subjected it to a reality strain. The floods, the Mongol invasion, and the plague soon to follow, are not at all part of the main line of Venetian history.
They weren't really supposed to happen at all. They are side possibilities, with vanishingly small chances of being activated in the normal run of things. But due to you they have been activated, and so all of recorded history from this time forward lies under threat of destruction."
"How can time forward be threatened?" Azzie asked.
"You must think of the future as something that has already happened, and that is threatening to happen again, wiping out all that has gone before. That is what we must avoid at all costs."
"A lot of stuff is going to come down," Ananke said. "But first, you must get these pilgrims of yours back to their homes."
Azzie had to be content with that. But at the back of his mind, there began a small stirring beneath the sea of anxiety. Ananke said he wasn't acting according to reality. But what was reality but the balance, the agreement, between Good and Bad? If he could get Michael to change that agreement, to their mutual benefit… But first he had to look in on his pilgrims.
PART TEN
Chapter 1
When Azzie left the Palace of Justice his tail was between his legs and a suspicious wetness was in the corners of his brown eyes. He was trying to get used to the idea that his play, his great immorality play that was going to astonish the worlds, was never going to happen. The legend, the all-important legend of the golden candlesticks, was not to be allowed to play to its ending. He was under direct and unambiguous orders from Ananke Herself to stop his actors in midscene.
There had to be a way around her order. Moodily he went to a Power Booth outside the Palace of Justice and refilled his travel spell. At a nearby lunch area he found a stall that specialized in quick convenience foods for demons, where he bought a sack of deviled cats' heads in a nice clotted red sauce. It would give him something to snack on on his way back to Earth. Then he activated his spell and found himself hurtling through the transparent veils that spiritual space seems composed of.
Soon h
e was back over Venice, and the sight of the city from the air was a sad one. Rising waters had already engulfed some of the low-lying outer islands. The winds had fallen off, but floodwaters had risen to engulf the San Marco's Square to a depth of ten feet. The older and less secure buildings were already collapsing as the brackish tidal waters washed out the old mortar that held their bricks and stones together.
Azzie came down at Aretino's house and found the poet outside in his shirtsleeves, trying to shore up his house with sandbags. It was a task useless on the face of it, and Aretino put down his tools and sadly followed Azzie indoors.
They found a dry room on the second floor. Wasting no time, Azzie said, "Where are the pilgrims now?"
"They're still at the inn."
Now Azzie had to change the plans, collect all the golden candlesticks, and make sure they got back to Fatus' castle in Limbo. Then he needed to get the pilgrims out of Venice. He saw no reason, however, to tell Aretino all of that just now. He would find out when the others did that the ceremony had been scrubbed.
"We're going to have to get the pilgrims out of Venice," Azzie told Aretino. "Between the Mongols and the floods, this city looks doomed. I have it on good authority that there's going to be a change in the timeline in which this sequence of world history is taking place."
"A change? What do you mean?"
"The world spins a timeline, and from it different events spring forth. The way things are going now, Venice looks as if it will be destroyed. But this result is unacceptable to Ananke, so the Venice timeline will be split just before I started with the golden candlesticks. It will become the new main line. This line, the one we're in now, will be relegated to Limbo."
"And what will that mean?" Aretino asked.
"The Limbo version of Venice will run for no longer than a week, from the time I first asked you to write a play to the time, predicted for midnight tonight, when the Mongols arrive and the floods spill over the walls. It will have but a week of life, in one sense, but that week will replay itself, beginning again as soon as it has reached its end. The inhabitants of the Limbo version of Venice will have an eternity of weeks, each of which will end in doom and destruction."
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