Chronos frowned. "I will help if I can, my friend. But perhaps you should explain to me in more detail why a personal confrontation is necessary."

Parry summarized the questions that had developed in his mind. "I have been thinking about my purpose as the Incarnation of Evil. Is it to generate evil in the mortal world, or merely to locate existing evil? Am I here to encourage greater evil, or to discourage it by the threat of infernal punishment? Am I supposed to defeat G.o.d and become the major figure of the universe, or to be defeated? There is so much I do not know!"

Chronos nodded. "I have wondered about that on occasion myself, and about my own true mission. It is my job to establish the timing of every event in the mortal realm, and my staff handles most of this; I step in only when the situation is special. But what is the point? Why should events need to be timed at all? I have concluded tentatively that my job is necessary to facilitate the diminution of entropy. Perhaps yours is similar."

"Entropy?" Parry asked blankly.

Chronos smiled. "Sometimes I forget that some of my terms are from your future. The complete concept of entropy, I think, would be too complex to define readily. Let me summarize an aspect of it this way: entropy may be considered as a measure of uncertainty. In the beginning, all was without form and void, what we call chaos. Nothing was known or, perhaps, knowable. We are laboring to bring order and understanding to it, and in so doing we are decreasing entropy. We are fighting the natural current, for the universe, left to itself, would in due course relapse back to its disorganized state, with maximum entropy. Eventually, if we succeed, we will accomplish the maximum organization of the universe, and all will be known. Thus all Incarnations, Good and Evil included, may be working toward a common goal."

Parry nodded. "You have thought about it, Chronos! It never occurred to me that Good and Evil might be on the same side, but perhaps that is so. But why, then, should we oppose each other?"

"I suspect we should not. But perhaps my theorizing is mistaken."

"I doubt it! Maybe it is just that because we have been a.s.signed to different aspects of reality, and have a.s.sumed different ident.i.ties, we believe that we are differing forces. We become compet.i.tive, each trying for a greater share of power. This may be folly!"

"This may be folly," Chronos agreed.

"Here I am, fighting G.o.d for a greater share of mortal souls-and why? What do I want with yet more soiled souls? What does He want with yet more pristine souls? Why should either of us care how many souls the other has? As you say, what is the point?" He found himself carried away by his vehemence, but now the question loomed much larger than before.

"What is the point," Chronos repeated.

"Now, more than ever, it seems proper for me to meet with G.o.d, not in the compet.i.tive sense, but for the sake of understanding. Perhaps we can abolish the confusion that has surrounded our endeavors. Perhaps we can hasten the process of bringing complete order to the world."

"I favor that," Chronos said. "Perhaps if you talked to the other Incarnations-"

"I tried that once, in the time of one of your successors," Parry said ruefully. "They humiliated me. Of all the major Incarnations, only you and Nox have treated me decently, and I am afraid to approach her again."

"Oh, I have not encountered Nox. Is she fearsome?"

"Not in the negative sense. She-but perhaps, for you, she would be all right. If you have need for a female companion who understands-"

"I do," Chronos agreed. "Normal women do not adapt well to my direction of living."

"I shall send Lilah to guide you to her, if you wish. But be warned; Nox is a most seductive creature."

"I thank you, Satan. However, do not send Lilah, for that would occur necessarily in my past. Merely allow me to borrow her without challenge in your own past."

"Of course." Parry, even after all this time, kept getting caught by Chronos' reversal! "She understands, and will cooperate." Had cooperated, he now realized, and had not informed him. That was best, to avoid confusion.

"But now let me see whether I can help you similarly. I do not know the route to G.o.d's domain, but I do know that the good souls find it. Perhaps if you could follow one of them-"

Parry nodded. "I have a number that have been misallocated. I could release them, and see where they go."

"I wish you well, friend." But then Chronos frowned. "However, I must warn you that in my particular time line, there is no change in the rivalry between Incarnations. This does not necessarily indicate that none will occur for you, for my past, like your future, is malleable. But it does suggest that the probability of success in your venture is suspect."

Parry was used to his friend's circ.u.mlocutions. "You mean I may fall on my face."

"That is what I said," Chronos said with a smile.

Chapter 12.

HEAVEN.

Parry made sure that h.e.l.l was functioning reasonably, gave Nefert.i.ti a holiday in mock Heaven, and collected five misallocated souls. In h.e.l.l proper they were just like living folk, but would become ethereally slight beyond. He explained the situation to them: that they were the victims of confusion, and had been held temporarily in h.e.l.l pending proper release to Heaven. Now he proposed to release them one at a time, carrying the others with him, so that he could follow them to Heaven for an interview with G.o.d.

"I am Satan, the Father of Lies," he concluded. "I can offer you no proof that this is the truth, and you are not required to cooperate. But it is the only way I have to find Heaven, and I hope that you will cooperate in the chance that it is true."

They considered, and decided that if they truly were in h.e.l.l now, nothing they could do would free them from it unless they were released by the Lord of Evil. If this was to be such a release, it behooved them to cooperate; if it was merely a deception, they were lost anyway. So they agreed.

He escorted them out. As they emerged from h.e.l.l, they thinned into mere webs of themselves, patterns without substance. They had no consciousness; that was feasible only in h.e.l.l, Purgatory, Heaven, or when animated on Earth as a ghost. But when brought to an appropriate region, their souls should float. Parry wound them in like gauze and packed them into a bag he carried.

He conjured himself to Earth's surface. Then he brought out one soul and released it. Immediately it set off, attracted to Heaven by the burden of good in its makeup. He followed, using his magic to fly, keeping the pace.

The soul sailed upward, but not exactly vertically. It was not going to the sky, but to Heaven, a different matter. It wavered and swerved in the ethereal currents, its faint color changing, and in a moment he lost it.

Undismayed, he brought out the second and released it. He had not expected to be able to follow one the whole way; if the route to Heaven were straightforward, it would not be such a mystery!

The second soul seemed to hesitate, but this was illusion; without consciousness, it was simply drifting in the pattern of good and evil, perhaps caught in an eddy. In a moment it found the way and moved out.

This one took him into Purgatory. That was perplexing; he was sure that this was a good soul, bound for Heaven. Only those in such balance that no decision was possible remained in Purgatory.

Then he realized that the way to Heaven lay through Purgatory. Even those souls not staying there still had to check through; there was no direct access to Heaven. It seemed obvious in retrospect.

The soul moved into a region of increasing confusion. There were trees, but they were bulbous and oddly colored. There were paths, but they had strange convolutions. There were landscapes, unlike those of any mortal region. It was interesting; he would have to set up a region of h.e.l.l with similar configurations.

The soul moved through the middle of it-and was lost. Parry brought out the third one and let it go.

It swam through the confusion, and was similarly lost.

Parry paused. He had not been able to follow the third soul at all; it had disappeared into Limbo too quickly. He only had two remaining, having perhaps underestimated the extent of this challenge.

Limbo? He looked around more carefully. Indeed, this was like that bleak region of h.e.l.l. It was simply a field of chaotic images, with no organization.

Chaotic...

This was a waste, an aspect of chaos! That part of the universe with original entropy, without form and void. He had heard that Fate spun her threads of life from this substance. Now he was in it-and no wonder he was losing the souls, for there was no order here, nothing to differentiate object from background, life from nonlife. Nothing could be pursued through chaos.

He would have to get beyond it before releasing the next soul. But he paused.

Why should Fate spin her threads of life from this melange? The good was hopelessly confused with the evil. Fate was on the side of good; she would not want this!

Yet evidently she did. And so the lives formed from her threads were almost indecipherable melanges of good and evil, impossible to cla.s.sify clearly. Thus those lives had to struggle through the horrors of mortality before finally coming to Heaven or to h.e.l.l. What a colossal waste!

But he was unsatisfied with that conclusion. Fate was a devious and unpleasant creature of many personalities, but she knew well what she was doing. She would not spin from this stuff if she had any alternative. She- Then it came to him. Chronos had explained about entropy and chaos; that it seemed to be the duty of the Incarnations to diminish each, to bring order and comprehension to the universe. That could not be done by ignoring chaos. They were deliberately drawing from chaos, fashioning it into lives-so that these could be defined as good or evil!

All that agony of mortality-just to deal with the problem of entropy. To process the stuff of chaos through to Heaven and h.e.l.l, properly cla.s.sified at last. Eventually all of it would be done, and the universe would be in order.

But at what a cost! How many thousands, how many thousands of thousands of lives like Jolie's, had to be twisted and tortured and cut short, just to accomplish this goal? What a vasty cynicism!

Yet it was being done, and under G.o.d's auspices. The end justified the means! There was that treacherous doctrine that Lilah had used to corrupt him-and now it was obvious that G.o.d subscribed to it, too. The end of creating order justified the means of toil and suffering for innumerable mortal lives. He had used it to corrupt the Inquisition: the end of saving souls justified the means of torture and pillaging of the estates of those accused.

Parry sighed. He was now the Incarnation of Evil. He knew evil when he spied it, even if the other Incarnations did not. It was past time to talk to G.o.d and set Him straight on this.

Now he moved on through the confusion, closing his eyes because it would be too easy to get lost here. He knew that the extent of the void was limited; if he proceeded straight, he would in due course get out of it. A mortal might become hopelessly lost, but he was now an immortal.

He opened his eyes, and found that he was still in it. He closed them and moved on again. But when he looked, he remained in chaos.

Had he been too optimistic about his ability to escape it? Evidently it had affected his bearings, and now he was not moving the way he thought he was. What irony, if the Lord of Evil fell prey to chaos!

But there was another way. He brought out the fourth soul, and did not release it. The thing tried to move, and stretched out from his hand, but remained captive.

He moved in the direction it seemed to be trying to go. He tuned out the surrounding chaos and oriented on the soul. Wherever it wanted to go, there he would go, carrying it along.

And, without perceiving exactly when, he emerged from the void. The soul had known its destination, and brought him out.

Now he let it go. It accelerated, as if glad to be free. He followed, coursing on toward Heaven. He kept his attention fixed on it, so that he would not lose it.

Then it slowed, and he realized that they had arrived. The Circles of Heaven were forming around them.

The outermost was a blaze of light a phenomenal brilliance, a ring of fire that resembled the outline of the sun, but became much larger, swelling to encompa.s.s the horizon. He thought there might be some challenge as he entered it, but there was not; he simply joined it and was in Heaven.

He stood on the edge of a bright cloud bank. All around stood faintly glowing folk. They did not have wings; they were souls, not angels, just as the souls in h.e.l.l lacked the tails of demons. Oddly, they did not look particularly happy; rather they seemed resigned, or even bored.

He brought out the fifth soul and let it go; he had no need for its guidance now. Instead of traveling, it unfolded into its human form: a middle-aged man, dead of the plague but no longer disfigured by it. He gazed around, perplexed. "This is it?" he asked.

"This is it," Parry agreed. "Your eternal home. May you enjoy it."

The man looked uncertain, obviously not willing to express disappointment. He drifted away.

Perhaps this was no more than the outer rim of Heaven, a.n.a.logous to Limbo in h.e.l.l, where those souls drifted that were imperfect, not good enough, literally, to penetrate farther into Heaven. No wonder the soul he had released was disappointed! There really was not much difference between this aspect of Heaven and that aspect of h.e.l.l.

But he wasn't here to tour Heaven; he was here to meet G.o.d. Where would G.o.d be? Surely in the center, the highest reach, just as the Incarnation of Evil's office was in the nethermost reach of h.e.l.l.

Parry flew up to the next level. This was not precisely physical motion, but rather a mental effort to enter a deeper circle; it was evident that the standing souls could not do it.

The Second Heaven was starkly different from the First. It was a bleak landscape, bare rock and sand, pocked by craters of every size. It was in fact the face of the Moon. Many spirits stood idle here, too, looking scarcely happier than those below.

He moved on to the Third Heaven, which was an improvement: it was the landscape of Venus, the Planet of Love.

Yet, somehow, it seemed little more ill.u.s.trious than the Moon. It was supposed to be the joy of the spirits of lovers, but since carnality was forbidden in Heaven, all they could do was stand around and gaze longingly at one another. The appeal of that seemed to pall in the course of eternity.

The Fourth Heaven was the Sphere of the Sun. This was certainly brighter, and the souls were engaged in animated dialogue with each other. These were the theologians and fathers of the Church, and of course they never tired of their exercises in interpretation.

The Fifth Heaven was the Sphere of Mars, with the warrior spirits. But, of course, there was no fighting in Heaven, so they were idle.

The Sixth Heaven was the Sphere of Jupiter, with the spirits of the righteous rulers. This was spa.r.s.ely settled.

He proceed on past the Seventh Heaven of the Sphere of Saturn, with the spirits of the contemplative, and the Eighth Heaven, consisting of fixed stars. Many of the Saints were here. They lacked the pa.s.sions of normal folk, so it was not surprising that they were not jubilant.

The Ninth Heaven seemed to be the retreat mostly of angels; the Tenth- This, he realized, was where G.o.d should be. But where was He? Parry gazed about, and saw only an enormous pattern of light that could be interpreted as- Then he realized that the light, when correctly viewed, formed the image of an infinitely monstrous human face framed within a triple halo. This, at last, was G.o.d.

Parry waved. There was no response. "Haloo!" he called. There was no response.

G.o.d simply was not paying attention.

After some time, disgruntled. Parry gave it up. He dropped rapidly down through the layers of Heaven until he reached the outer one. He was about to depart it when there was a cry.

"My Lord Satan!"

There was a stirring among the apathetic souls of this region. From among them came the man he had last released. "My Lord, I beg you, take me back with You!"

Surprised, Parry waited for him. "You don't like Heaven?"

"My Lord, it is just as dull as h.e.l.l-and most of my friends are in h.e.l.l. I would rather remain there."

"But you don't belong in h.e.l.l. The balance of your soul is positive."

"Only marginally, my Lord. I will never get beyond this outer circle. I'd be better off in the mock Heaven annex of h.e.l.l, if I get leave to visit there. Please, my Lord, take me back!"

Such a situation had never occurred to Parry. Yet the soul was serious. Was there a precedent for this?

There was another stirring. The other souls shrank away. "The guardian angels!" someone murmured.

Now Parry saw them: bright winged figures in the form of big, bruising men, swiftly approaching.

"Please, my Lord!" the soul repeated.

Perhaps it was the angels that tipped his decision. Parry did not like the look of them. It seemed to him that they could readily serve similar duty in h.e.l.l. "Very well," he said. He extended his hand, touching the man.

Immediately the man thinned into a web, the soul discarnate. Parry wound this around his hand, compacting it so that it would fit into his pouch. Souls had no ma.s.s but did have dimension; it would not do to have it drag out behind him.

The angels arrived. "Let go that soul!" one ordered.

In the past century Parry had grown unaccustomed to that tone of address from either demons or d.a.m.ned souls. He found he liked it no better from an angel. But this was not his realm, so he let it pa.s.s. He closed the pouch, confining the soul, and turned away.

"Listen, fringe-spirit," the angel said contemptuously. "If you know what's good for you-"

"Hardly," Parry said, with an ironic smile. He started to sink down through the cloud bank.

The angel reached menacingly for him. "I warned you!" But the grasping hand pa.s.sed through Parry's substance without effect. Parry dropped on down, and in a moment was out, leaving the astonished and dismayed angel behind. He was not impressed with either Heaven or its guardians. No wonder the soul wanted to leave!

He reached the vague region of chaos and plunged straight on through it. And realized too late that there was no direction in chaos. He did not emerge; he was mired in it, again.