Last time, he had used one of the souls he carried to guide him. He tried it again, appreciating the coincidence that had caused a soul to accompany him this time.

The soul oriented and stretched out. Parry followed its direction, holding on as he had before. It was working!

Soon they cleared chaos and approached-Heaven.

Now, in retrospect, he realized that this soul, being marginally good, naturally levitated toward Heaven, not h.e.l.l. The soul's private desire had nothing to do with it; it was the balance of good and evil on it. If he wanted a guide toward h.e.l.l, he would have to find a suitably d.a.m.ned soul.

In Heaven? Well, there could have been similar errors in cla.s.sification that resulted in marginally d.a.m.ned souls being sent to Heaven. Perhaps he could find one of those. But would it want to go to h.e.l.l?

Parry sighed. It really would be better to find his own way. He would just have to keep trying.

He bundled up the soul again and put it in the pouch. Then he closed his eyes and plunged as fast as he could.

And got lost again. Chaos took no note of direction or velocity; such concepts were valid only in a somewhat organized framework.

Maybe his own d.a.m.ned soul could do it! He tried to let himself go, to sink toward his natural realm as if he were a newly released soul.

After a timeless time-time was another invalid concept here-he realized that this wasn't working either. No matter what he did, or didn't do, he was stuck in the Void. Unless he gave up and used the captive soul to guide him back to Heaven. That he did not want to do!

He tried one more thing, foolish as he deemed it: he called for help. "Traveler lost!" he thought as loudly as he could, though neither loudness nor thought had validity here. Anyway, who was here to listen or respond?

"Here, lost one!"

Parry stopped still, though that too could not be literal. There He did not, at this stage, care whom it might be. He oriented on it and went.

It turned out to be a rather old patriarchal-appearing man, white-bearded and garbed in a vaguely clerical robe. He nodded sagely as Parry approached. "You ventured into forbidden territory, traveler." His language was not Parry's, but here, as in h.e.l.l, all languages seemed one.

"So it turned out," Parry agreed wryly. "I thank you for rescuing me."

"It is my business to rescue lost souls, when they wish it. But it has been some time since one like you appeared." He gestured, and a room appeared around them. "Make yourself comfortable, and perhaps we shall converse."

"You are able to direct me from this region?" Parry asked, taking a seat in a staid but serviceable chair.

"Direct you? I am not sure. But fear not; I gladly will guide you. I use an aspect of the Llano, which is about the only force that can penetrate chaos."

There was the Llano again! "That I sincerely appreciate! But please, may I know your ident.i.ty? I-" Then Parry realized that the other might not be pleased to learn whom he has rescued.

"I am JHVH." He did not actually p.r.o.nounce the name; it was only a concept.

There was no help for it; Parry was not going to deceive the one who had helped him. "I am Satan, the Incarnation of Evil."

"Ah, the Christian variant!" JHVH said, extending his hand. "I am glad to meet You at last."

Parry hesitated. "Are you sure you want to-" Then the ident.i.ty of the other finally registered. "But you are-"

"The Hebrew Deity. Come, Satan, surely You are not shy of Me?"

Parry finally took the hand. "I just thought-do you know, uh, do You know, I came to confront the Christian G.o.d. I never expected-of course I should have recognized-"

"Quite all right, Satan. I do not have the following that either of You do, or, indeed, that Allah does, or any of the great Oriental Presences. I am in fact a minor Deity, and My believers suffer much from persecution."

"But you-you are older than any of-"

"My Office is, perhaps. I myself date only from the last three thousand years or so. I was a Mountain Deity, adopted by a wandering tribe, in compet.i.tion with many others. When I started, it seemed impossible to prevail against Baal, My chief rival in that region. He kept stealing My people, and-well, it is a long story, hardly of interest to You."

"But you-You are ancient! Both Christianity and the Saracens derive from-"

JHVH waved a hand in negation. "That is an exaggeration. The Prophet Jesus was Mine, certainly, but then his followers were diverted and a new Office was formed. I admit I did not take it seriously at first; none of us did. Splinter G.o.ds occur constantly, and few survive more than a few decades. But this faction got in with the Romans, and then it prospered, and the Office with it."

Parry was amazed. "You are saying that there are many Offices? That the old G.o.ds still exist?"

JHVH smiled. "Any Deity or Devil that any mortal believes in exists, and that ent.i.ty is strengthened by the number and intensity of His believers. Thus Your Office is very strong, because great numbers of mortals believe in You, though they try to deny it."

"I-I never realized! I thought-"

"That the Christian version of Good and Evil were all that exist?" JHVH asked with a smile.

"Something like that," Parry admitted, somewhat sheepishly. "Or that our mutual framework accounted for everything. You mentioned Baal; I believe he became Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies, in My h.e.l.l."

"Yes, the Deities of one generation become the Devils of the next; the Christians adopted him for a time."

Parry remained out of sorts. "How is it that You, knowing this, have extended aid to one like Me? Surely you wish to abolish all that I represent!"

"We may be rivals, but We are not enemies," JHVH said. "We are all trying to bring order from chaos, as you know."

Parry smiled ruefully. "I have just had a reminder how awkward chaos can be! But You are correct; I had concluded that it was pointless to continually fight G.o.d, when actually We should be cooperating toward the common objective."

"So You went to see Him, on that mission of amity," JHVH said. "And got nowhere."

"And got nowhere," Parry agreed. "He is locked in a narcissistic contemplation of Himself. Apparently He is not paying any attention to the routine matter of the mortal realm, or indeed of Heaven."

JHVH nodded. "I fear I was no better in my heyday. I demanded above all else the adulation of Me. The first commandment of my people was 'Thou shall have no other G.o.ds before Me.' When My people worshipped a golden calf, My rage was not because they were slipping back into idolatry and its uncivilized imperatives, but because it was a slight against Me. I retaliated by visiting on them all manner of mischief. But I concluded after some centuries of chronic relapsing on their part that rage and punishment was not the best way to hold a clientele. It is only the most primitive of mortals who are swayed by that sort of thing. So I ameliorated My stance, and I think have been a better Deity for it, though it is true that I do not attract the same proportion of mortals that I once did. Unfortunately the young Christian Deity took Me as a role model and emulated some of the worst faults of My heyday, especially that of pride. His enormous success has given Him the freedom to indulge those propensities beyond all reason. Humiliation can indeed make better Deities of Us, because We are reminded that We do not control the universe. Pride unchecked..."

Parry had to smile. For the first time he saw some slight benefit in the humiliation he had suffered at the hands of the other Incarnations! His pride had never gotten out of bounds.

"I wonder if You, in Your contemplations, have come across the answer to the riddle I have wrestled with," he said. "I have been unable to decide whether, in the framework of the a.s.signments of Good and Evil as Incarnations, it is my purpose to locate evil or to generate it. The task of sorting good from evil suggests that it is the former, but the practice seems to have been the latter. Now, in the face of G.o.d's dereliction-" He shrugged.

"Surely it is to locate evil," JHVH said. "Or perhaps to evoke it. We know that evil is omnipresent; every mortal thread represents an admixture of good and evil so intricate as to be virtually inseparable. The question thus becomes not whether evil is present, as obviously it is, but to what extent it dominates the individual. You thus must do Your utmost to evoke that quality of evil that makes an individual eligible for h.e.l.l, so that no errors of cla.s.sification are made."

"To evoke it!" Parry repeated, wonderingly. "Yes, of course!"

"That is what Your predecessors were doing, from the time of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil on. They were tempting mortals into sin, knowing that temptation is the surest method to evoke hidden evil. Mortals of course condemn such efforts, but consider the alternative: hidden evil would have remained in the Garden of Eden, unresolved. The Deity of that time, the ancestor to G.o.d's current office and Mine, finally recognized this, and allowed mortal man to proceed to the challenging outer world. The result has been history."

"It has indeed!" Parry agreed warmly. "Your perspective enlightens Me!"

"It is a pleasure to review basic principles," JHVH said. "So few are interested."

"But now, with G.o.d tuned out, the separation of good from evil is becoming sloppy," Parry said. "Heaven hardly differs from h.e.l.l in certain respects; aimlessness seems to dominate. I have a soul here"-he patted his pouch-"who asked to return to h.e.l.l from Heaven. Consider what that suggests for incentive! If mortals lose both their desire for Heaven and their fear of h.e.l.l, how will a proper separation of good from evil be accomplished?"

"The Buddhists seem to manage it by arranging for the extinction of all personal desires and pa.s.sions, leaving the spirit perfect."

"But it loses its ident.i.ty in the whole!" Parry protested. "Christians would never go for that! They insist on retaining their ident.i.ties for eternity, good and evil and all."

"That does seem to be their problem," JHVH agreed.

"Which means that we can't simply extract the good and evil, we have to deal with the whole soul. That's much more difficult. That's the problem I want to address. But G.o.d-"

"Perhaps new guidance is called for. In the old days, if one Deity faltered, others were quick to take away His worshippers. The lack of such a situation may be the contemporary problem."

Parry stared at him. "You are not suggesting that-that I try to-to-"

"I am merely posing a notion," JHVH said. "Perhaps it is an unworthy one. But it may be best to consider it carefully, so as to expose its unsuitability."

"To take over the leadership of the Christian realm from G.o.d, so as to be able to establish an improved mechanism for processing souls," Parry finished.

"As I understand Your framework, all that is required is the ama.s.sing of a greater number of souls than is controlled by Your opposite. G.o.d has dominated because most mortals prefer to go to Heaven when they die."

"They wouldn't, if they knew how dull it was!"

"Then perhaps you may want to spread the word."

Parry was uncertain. "If my objective is to find a more efficient way to separate the threads, to evoke the evil ones instead of letting the matter drag on interminably, what would be gained by bringing an increased number of marginal souls to h.e.l.l?"

"Only power, the power brought by the number of souls in Your domain," JHVH said. "Would it corrupt you, also?"

"It might. I have never had complete power, and am not sure I trust myself with it."

"A sensible caution," JHVH agreed.

"Yet I am unwilling to let this folly continue," Parry said. "I wish I could simply settle it with G.o.d and be done with it."

"In h.e.l.l, are You the sole administrator?"

"Hardly! I have a hierarchy of d.a.m.ned souls to handle-" Parry broke off, catching on. "It must be the same in Heaven! If I talked to the chief administrator-"

"That was My thought."

"Which I think would be the Angel Gabriel. He is the one who is to blow the horn on Judgment Day."

"Gabriel is in My service too," JHVH remarked. "He has been My chief messenger, and the Prince of Thunder and Fire, not to mention Death. He also revealed the sacred laws to Mohammed."

"I am amazed at the manner he gets around!"

"Evidently G.o.d offered him a superior position, just as Your predecessor offered one to Baal. Good administrators are hard to come by."

"All too true," Parry agreed. "I thank You for Your advice. I shall go to see Gabriel."

"Call when You wish to pa.s.s through the void again, and I will come and guide You, Satan," JHVH said.

"I shall. But I don't know how I can repay you."

"I have, I trust, pa.s.sed beyond the need for repayment."

Perhaps He had; but Parry intended to repay the debt if he ever had opportunity. He also intended to learn more of the Llano, that persuasive and powerful song, so that perhaps he could travel safely through chaos himself.

Returning to Heaven was no problem; the captive soul guided him. When they arrived, the soul reformed into the man. "But this is Heaven!" he exclaimed. "My Lord, I thought You were going to take me back!"

"I am," Parry replied. "But I am going to make another attempt to negotiate here. You may remain in My pouch if you wish, and I will release you when we return to h.e.l.l."

"Thank you," the soul said, and thinned to evanescence. Parry rolled it up again and returned it to his pouch.

Now he needed to locate the Angel Gabriel. From his days as a friar he remembered that there were three broad cla.s.ses of angels, with Gabriel in the top rank. That was probably in the Ninth Heaven.

He was about to set off when he saw the guardian angels approaching again. They evidently recognized him, for they looked angry. Well, perhaps they could be of some use to him this time.

"Take me to your leader," he said to the first.

"Just who do you think you are?" the angel demanded.

"The Incarnation of Evil," Parry replied evenly.

The angel did a double take. "You-how can you be here? This is Heaven!"

"Heaven is not as well run as it once was," Parry replied. "Now, are you going to guide me to the Angel Gabriel, or shall I find him myself?"

"I will have to consult with my superior," the angel said, disgruntled.

"Do that," Parry said. It was always better to go through channels, if that was feasible.

The angel's superior was a Dominion, a member of the intermediate cla.s.s of angels. "The Incarnation of Evil? Here? Impossible!"

"Then who the h.e.l.l do you suppose I am?" Parry inquired with a sardonic smile.

In a moment he was before the Dominion's superior, who was a Seraphim, an angel in the First Circle of the heavenly hierarchy. He had six wings, which were independently flexible. He also had experience and a realistic approach. "How quickly can we cause You to depart these demesnes, Incarnation?"

"As quickly as you can get me an interview with Gabriel."

The Angel Gabriel was there, drawing a cloak of privacy about the two of them. "Yes?"

"I want to facilitate the processing of good and evil, so that needless suffering of souls may be abated," Parry said. "I attempted to talk with G.o.d directly, but he did not respond."

"G.o.d is temporarily distracted," Gabriel said.

"I am relatively new to My office. Only a century or so. I am not yet inured to needless suffering. I am ready to punish truly evil souls, but not to torment those whose only guilt is the coincidence of being wrought from the mixed thread of chaos. There has to be a better way."

"That would be for G.o.d to say."

"If," Parry continued evenly, "G.o.d does not say, then I shall be forced to take action on my own initiative."