A Farce To Be Reckoned With
Page 19
The cannon fired again, but what came out this time was a bunch of notes of the sort musicians write on ruled paper. Azzie could hear Nameless saying, "Cannon, not canon!"
Nameless was having trouble reining in his exuberant imagination. The cannon fired again, and this time it emitted a cascade of multicolored spatter cones, which burbled and gurgled and gave off a noxious fizz.
The tank came into the center of the arena. There was a certain hesitancy about its movements, for it had learned that while Azzie might be negligible as an antagonist, Nameless himself was his own worst enemy. Azzie picked up a stone and prepared to throw it.
And then marching out of Nameless' corner came a host of headless people famous in history: Blackbeard, Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, the Headless Horseman, John the Baptist, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Mary Stuart, Medusa, Sir Thomas More, and Maximilien de Robespierre. They gathered in a phalanx, their heads tucked under their left arms in a military manner, right arms holding long lances with silvery tips. Robespierre led them, and he said afterward it was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life.
Azzie called up his own people, who came armed with gross weapons, but they soon faded away. One of Nameless' few rules was that Azzie was going to have to do this alone.
Then Nameless opened a mouth of dirt and boulders and, towering above Azzie, proceeded to snap and bite at him.
"You're crazy!" Azzie cried.
"No," Nameless said. "Why don't you die?"
"You're a poor creation," Azzie said.
"Are you sure we need this combat? Couldn't you just die and have done with it?"
"Sorry," Azzie muttered.
Chapter 5
Azzie looked around. The twelve Olympians, led by Zeus, were sitting on marble steps near to Babriel, Michael, and Ylith. There were new people there, too: Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet, Johann Faust and Marguerite. They rose as one and advanced into the arena.
"This isn't fair!" Nameless said. "You're not allowed to summon help."
"I didn't summon them," Azzie said. "They came on their own."
"I haven't had any time yet to create friends and allies!"
"I know," Ylith said. "You chose to go it alone."
"Too late now," Michael the Archangel said. He stood at the front of the Heavenly hosts. "I think we are all agreed that you, Nameless, are quite unsuited to be Supreme Deity. We're going to join together now and dispose of you."
Then there was a sound of singing, a single strong male voice leading a rousing melody. It was Aretino, singing a Renaissance version of "Onward Christian Soldiers." The chorus was made up of all the others
— Quentin and Puss, Kornglow and Leonore, Sir Oliver and Mother Joanna, Rodrigo and Cressilda.
They formed a tight circle around the combatants and urged Azzie on. But how silly it was to urge him, he reflected, for there was nothing he could do. The power of this creature from darkest probability had already proven too much for him.
"You don't have to die," Ylith was saying to him. "Ananke is defeated only if you are. You've had the courage to mount your play. Keep fighting!"
Chapter 6
e death." He seized Azzie in a powerful grip.
Then Quentin cried, "You can't kill him!"
"I can't? Why not?"
"Because he's my friend."
"Young man, you don't seem to realize what an exposed position you're in. I'm the Eater of Souls, my boy. Yours will be like a little maraschino cherry on top of the whipped-cream sundae of this foolish demon here."
"No!" And Quentin smacked Nameless over the head with his open palm. Nameless reared back on his wheels, baring his teeth, and Puss poked the superdeity in the stomach. Nameless collapsed onto the bloody sand. Sir Oliver came into the ring tugging a lance, and with Mother Joanna's help he poked Nameless in the eye.
"Oh, this is too much," Nameless said as the lance passed through his head and he died.
Ananke appeared in the heavens above them, her old lady's face smiling.
"Well done, my children!" she cried. "I knew you could all cooperate, if the cause were dire enough."
"So that's why you hatched this scheme!" Azzie cried.
"One of many reasons, my pet," Ananke said. "There are always reasons within reasons, and every reason for a reason may itself be scrutinized and its constituent reasons adduced. Don't question it, my friend. You are alive, all of you."
And then they all came together into a dance. They held hands, they mounted to the air. Faster and higher they flew, all of them together, all of them there except…
Chapter 7
Aretino suddenly woke with a snort. He sat up in bed and looked out the window. The sun was shining on Venice. Beside him on the bed was a manuscript, The Legend of the Golden Candlesticks.
He remembered now that he had dreamed a fantastic dream. That was one explanation.
Another explanation was that Azzie had succeeded in preserving Venice in Limbo.
He looked out the window. People were walking past, Kornglow and Leonore among them.
"What's happening?" Aretino called out.
Kornglow looked up. "Take care, Aretino! They say the Mongols are coming any moment."
So Venice was doomed? Then Aretino knew that everything was all right. What he needed now was to find a quiet place to sit down and continue work on his play.
Aretino woke up on a splendid morning to realize that during the night he had had an unaccountable dream, in which a demon had come to him and ordered him to write a play. The play was about pilgrims and golden candlesticks, and the result so outraged the powers of the universe that Venice was put to destruction. But then Ananke decided to spare it, so the time track of the city that had continued his actions with the demon was cut away and sent to Limbo. And he had awakened in Venice in the real world.
Chapter 8
Fatus felt a certain alarm when he was told that a new place had arrived in Limbo. Limbo was a place of many regions that had been and many that never were. The garden of the Hesperides was here, and Arthur's court of Camelot, and the lost city of Lys.
The new place was Venice, the Venice of Catastrophes, and he went for a walk in this place and marveled at its beauty. The people didn't know it was all fading out, dying, to be renewed again each day. He walked and walked, through scenes of death and dying, and he felt it all very lively. Each day it would start anew. He wished he could tell people that, that there was no reason ever to fear, because in the morning it would all start again. But the people wouldn't listen to him and so lived forever in a state of alarm, starting each day afresh.
Fatus came to the lovers, Kornglow and Leonore. It was refreshing to find two for whom life and the love of each other was a continual revelation and a constant delight. Go and teach the others, he told them, but they only laughed at him. It is simple, how to live, they said. Each can do it, there is nothing to teach.
Fatus returned to his castle and mused over his old things and wondered what might happen next.
Chapter 9
In Venice, the one in Limbo, Kornglow and Leonore talked about Aretino.
"I wonder if he'll ever write his play."
"Perhaps he will. But not the real one. This one—the one in which we die every night, and are reborn every morning. I hope you're not afraid of death, my love."
"Perhaps a little. But we'll be alive again tomorrow, will we not?"
"That is my belief. But death now will feel like death while it is happening."
"Must we die now?"
"All of Venice dies tonight."
There is a clatter of hooves. Horsemen in the city. Mongols!
Kornglow fights valiantly, but he is run through with a lance. The Mongols try to seize Leonore, but she is too quick for them — the Mongol isn't born who can move faster than an elf's daughter. She runs out into the street and plunges into the water, swimming away from the city. The waves are high, walls are falling, and Venice is on fire. She watches for a moment,
but she can stay afloat no longer. This is dying for the first time, and though it is difficult, she knows just how to do it. Her head slides beneath the waves.
Chapter 10
Azzie felt a giant hand tightening over him. Then there was blackness. When he awoke, a cool hand was on his brow. He opened his eyes.
"Ylith! What are you doing here? I didn't know demons and witches had any life after death."
"As it happens, you and I are still alive."
Azzie looked around. He was at the Friendly Inn in Limbo, a place of neutrality for spirits Bad and Good.
"What happened to the universe?"
"Thanks to you, Ananke was able to save it. We should all be grateful to you, though I'm afraid you're going to find a lot of people angry. The Council of Evil is considering issuing you a reprimand for starting the whole thing in the first place. But I still care for you. Always will, I'm afraid."
He took her hand.
"Daughter of Darkness," he said, smiling weakly. "We are of a kind."
Nodding, she smiled and squeezed his hand.
"I know," she said.
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