"Are you quite sure those spells are trustworthy?"

Quentin didn't dignify this with an answer. He had gotten quite accustomed to spells in a short time, and he could hardly wait to tell Puss that traveling by domestic spell was no big deal.

Chapter 11.

Azzie had planned to celebrate when Sir Oliver was finally on his way through the pa.s.sageway, for it meant that his immorality play was well begun. All Aretino had to do was observe Oliver's progress and then record it. But no sooner was the knight launched than it became obvious that he was experiencing difficulties.

Azzie lost no time looking into what had gone wrong. He traced Sir Oliver's journey into the realm of faery, utilizing those telltale signs by means of which Evil is able to follow the progress of Innocence. And so Azzie went to the strange realm in the forest in which the lands of reality and those of faery were commingled.

After a long tramp through the gloomy corridors of the forest, Azzie came to a clearing. At the end of it he saw Sir Oliver, sitting on a log, with an owl perched opposite him. They were playing cards with a small, narrow deck, one just the right size to permit the owl to hold them in his claws.

Azzie didn't know whether to laugh or cry; he had intended Sir Oliver for great deeds. Azzie hurried over, saying, "Hey, Oliver! Stop kidding around and get going!"

But his words weren't heard, and he was unable to get closer than about twenty feet from the pilgrim. Some sort of rubbery invisible wall blocked his path. The wall seemed to be soundproof as well, and perhaps was even able to block or distort vision waves, for Oliver was unable to see him.

Azzie walked around the invisible circle until he came to a point exactly opposite where Sir Oliver's gaze would have to fall if he chanced to look up. Azzie poised himself at that place and waited. After a moment, Oliver's eyes raised, and he seemed to look right through Azzie. He soon returned to his card game.

Azzie knew something uncanny was going on, something beyond the usual tomfoolery of which he was a master. He wondered who had taken a hand here.

His first suspicion was of Babriel, but this seemed to be beyond the angel's mental powers to conceive and execute. Who did that leave? Michael? It somehow didn't have Michael's finely polished touch. It was not Michael's sort of thing -but driven to desperation, Michael might be capable of anything.

That left only Ylith. He wouldn't put it past her! But what, specifically, had she done?

A moment later, she was standing beside him. "Hi, Azzie," she said. "Unless I miss my witch's guess, you were thinking about me." Her smile was simple and beautiful, and it gave away nothing.

"What have you done here?" Azzie asked.

"I thought up a bit of mischief I could do you," Ylith said. "It's standard-gauge invisible fencing."

"Very cute," Azzie said. "Now take it down!"

Ylith walked up to the invisible fence and felt around. "That's odd," she said.

"What's odd?" Azzie asked.

"I can't find the anomaly that powers the fence. It was supposed to be right here."

"This is just too much," Azzie said. "I'm going to Ananke."

Chapter 12.

Ananke had invited her old friends the Three Fates over for tea. Lachesis had baked a cake for the occasion, Clotho had hunted through the souvenir shops of Babylon until she found just the right gift, and Atropos had brought a small book of poems.

Ananke generally didn't let herself appear in human form. "Just call me an old iconoclast," she was fond of saying. "I don't believe that anything really important should be capable of being pictured." But today, just to be social, and because she liked the Three Fates, she had gotten herself up as a rather large middle-aged German woman in a tailored suit and with her hair in a bun.

Ananke and the Fates were having their picnic on the slopes of Mt. Icon. Thyme and rosemary perfumed the air of the upland meadows. The sky was a deep blue, and occasional little clouds gamboled by like albino rats.

Ananke was pouring tea when Lachesis noticed a dot in the sky. It was coming toward them.

"Look!" she cried. "Someone is coming!"

"I left word I was not to be disturbed," Ananke grumbled. Who had dared disobey her? As supreme principle in the world, or at least very close to that, Ananke was accustomed to people cowering at her name. She liked to think of herself as She Who Must Be Obeyed, although that was a little grandiose.

The dot resolved itself into a figure, and the figure, in turn, could soon be seen as a flying demon.

Azzie made a graceful landing close to the picnic area. "Greetings!" he cried, bowing. "Sorry to disturb you. I hope you are all well?"

"Tell me what this is about," Ananke said sternly. "It had better be good."

"That it is," Azzie said. "I have decided to mount a new kind of play in the world, an immorality play, to act as partial counter to the many morality plays which my opponents unleashed upon the world and whose propaganda value is as insensate as it is senseless."

"You've disturbed my picnic to bring me news of your play? I know you of old, you scamp, and I am not interested in your little games. What does this play have to do with me?"

"My opponents are interfering with my production," Azzie said. "And you are preferring their side to mine."

"Well, Good's nice," Ananke said, somewhat defensively.

"Granted. But I am still allowed to oppose it, am I not? And you are here to make sure I can make my point."

"Well, that's all true," Ananke admitted.

"Then you'll stop Michael and his angels from interfering with me?"

"I suppose so. Now leave us to get on with our picnic."

And with that, Azzie had to be content.

PART SEVEN.

Chapter 1.

Michael was in his office, relaxing in Plato's original Ideal Form of an Armchair-the archetype of all armchairs, and by definition the best ever conceived. All he lacked now was a cigar. But smoking was a vice he had given up long ago, so he really didn't lack anything.

Contentment is as hard for an archangel to find as it is for a man, so Michael was by no means taking this moment for granted. He was enjoying it to the fullest even while wondering, somewhere at the back of his mind, how long this bliss would last.

There was a knock at the door.

Michael had a sense that whatever came through was not going to please him. He considered not answering. Or saying, "Go away." But he decided against that. When you're an archangel, the buck stops at your office door.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened and a messenger entered.

The messenger was small, a child with golden curly locks, clad in nightclothes, with a package in one hand and a bunch of spells in the other. It was Quentin, who was getting on with his messenger business with a vengeance.

"Got a package for the Archangel Michael."