Charming Prince - A Farce To Be Reckoned With Part 14

"My taste for novelty extends itself more to people than to things," Aretino said.

Fatus' eyes twinkled as he said, "Good day to you, demon! I see you have brought a friend."

"This is Pietro Aretino," Azzie said. "He is a human."

"Delighted."

"We have come on a quest that I think you can help us with," Azzie said.

Fatus smiled and gestured. A small table and three chairs appeared. There was wine on the table, and a bowl of sweetmeats.

Fatus said, "Perhaps you would care to have a snack with me while we discuss it?"

Azzie nodded and sat down.

They munched and talked, and after a while Fatus made a gesture calling for entertainment. At his signal, a troupe of jugglers came out of a back room. These men were of the breed called legal manipulators, and they threw a circle of torts and reprisals into the air and pa.s.sed them from hand to hand and up and down and in and out, and Azzie marveled greatly at their dexterity.

At length Fatus smiled and said, "So much for illusion. What may I do for you?"

"I have heard," Azzie said, "that you store many old and curious items here in your castle."

"That I do," Fatus said. "Eventually it all comes to me, and I find room for it, whatever it is. Usually it's dross, but sometimes it's the real thing. Sometimes these treasures are truly prophesied, sometimes the stories are without a shadow of truth to them. I don't care, I make no distinction between real and unreal, realized and unrealized, manifest and hidden. What treasure are you seeking?"

"Seven golden candlesticks," Azzie said, "given by Satan to Father Adam."

"I know the ones you are referring to. I have some pictures of them you could look at."

"I want only the real things," Azzie said.

"And what do you intend to do with these candlesticks once you have them?"

"My dear Fatus, I am beginning a great enterprise, and these candlesticks play a part in it. But perhaps you need them for some purpose of your own."

"Not at all," said Fatus. "I'd be delighted to loan them to you."

"What I had in mind," Azzie said, "is loaning these candlesticks to humans so that they could get their dearest wishes fulfilled."

"What a nice idea," Fatus said. "There really should be more of that in the world. How do you plan to carry this out?"

"With the aid of spells," Azzie said.

"Spells!" Fatus said. "What a good idea! Spells can make just about anything work."

"Yes," Azzie said. "That's the wonderful thing about them. Now, if you'll permit, Aretino and I will just collect those candlesticks and then go back to Earth and get the spells."

Chapter 8.

Azzie hid the candlesticks in a cave near the Rhine, then continued to Venice where he dropped Aretino off at his home.

The next part of this, the procuring of the spells, was best done without human partic.i.p.ation.

Azzie took off at once, using his season pa.s.s on the Secret Routes to h.e.l.l to get him a direct line through the firmament to the river Styx. The Secret Route dumped him in Grand Central Clearing Station, where all of h.e.l.l's destinations are exhibited on the Devil's own bulletin board, with flas.h.i.+ng lights to show trains soon to depart. The long banks of trains, many of them steam driven, stretched as far as the eye could see. Each one had a conductor in front, looking impatiently at his watch while eating from his brown-bag lunch.

"Can I help, sir?"

Azzie had been approached by a professional guide of the sort that hangs around every great terminus. This fellow, a goblin with a cap pulled down over his forehead, pocketed Azzie's coins and took him to the right train.

Azzie had time to find the club car and have an espresso as the tram pulled out of h.e.l.l Station and chuffed direct across the dry Badlands to the river country where Supply was located. In an hour or so they arrived.

There wasn't much to see. Supply was a flat and monotonous little town, with a scattering of honky-tonks and fast-food joints. Just beyond it lay Supply itself, the great complex on the banks of the Styx that provided the inhabitants of h.e.l.l with everything they needed to conduct their nefarious tasks.

Supply was made up of a series of stupendous warehouses, built on the always-popular super-Quonset model. The ground these warehouses stood upon sloped mars.h.i.+ly down to the low muddy banks of the Styx. Culverts, ditches, and water causeways ran from these buildings down to the river. All of h.e.l.l's refuse poured directly into the Styx, without any treatment at all. This didn't pollute it; the Styx had been at maximum pollution since it was first brought into existence. Refuse and contaminants from other sources had the paradoxical effect of purifying the River of h.e.l.l.

Azzie found the building where spells "were stored and applied directly to the clerk, a long-nosed goblin, who looked up from his comic book. "What kinda spells? What do you want to do with them?"

"I need spells to lead people to seven candlesticks."

"Sounds straightforward enough," said the clerk. "In what way were you planning on having the spells work? The simplest spell merely gives a direction, an address. It'll typically be a sc.r.a.p of parchment or a shard of clay or an old sc.r.a.p of leather on which will be the words, for example, 'Go straight to the crossroads, then turn right and walk until you reach the big owl.' That's a typical instruction from a spell."

Azzie shook his head. "I want the spells to bring my people to the candlesticks, which will be hidden somewhere in the real world."

"The a.s.sumed real world, I think you mean," the clerk said. "Okay, you want a spell that doesn't just tell its recipient where to go, but also supplies the power to take him there."

"That's it," Azzie said.

"How much do your people know about spells?"

"Very little, I should think," Azzie said.

"I was afraid of that. Is the spell supposed to offer its holder any protection on his way to the candlesticks?"

"That would cost more, wouldn't it?"

"Of course."

"Then no, no protection. They've got to take some risk."

"So what we have now is a spell with built-in power that will indicate when the holder is on the right track by clicking or flas.h.i.+ng or singing or something like that, and then I suppose will signal when he has reached the right place, the place where the candlestick is."

"Well, it should do more than signal," Azzie said. "I don't want there to be any doubt about their finding the candlesticks."

"In that case you're better off going with a half-spell operation."

"I don't think I know that one," Azzie said.

"Chaldean. A spell like that comes in two parts. The wizard-that's you - puts half the spell in a place the recipient wants to get to. A place of safety, say. Then let's say the recipient, the holder of the half spell, is in a battle. It grows very dangerous. He turns on the half spell and it spirits him away to where the other half spell is. This is the best way if you want to get someone out of somewhere fast."

"Sounds good to me," Azzie said. "I can put seven half spells near the candlesticks, and give the other half spells to my people, and when they invoke them, that'll get them there."