She did. "Natasha!" she called in desperation.

Parry made his grand entrance, singing. The skeletons paused, hearing. He joined the party, while the skeletons hesitated, afraid of the power of his song. He was rather proud of the manner he had crafted the bones to evince living emotions.

Orb was obviously glad to see him. "Can you stop them?"

"With the Song of Power," he said. "You may know it as the Song of Day." He sang it, and it was another aspect of the Llano, whose sheer power shook the night vision. The melody banished the storm cloud and brought the light of day. The skeletons tried to flee, but the sound caught them and shattered them. The threat had been abated.

Orb flung her arms around him and kissed him. "You rescued me again!" she cried.

"It was my pleasure." It certainly was! But the vision was only half done.

Two figures intercepted Orb the moment she reentered the fish, alone. One was an emulation of Thanatos, and the other of Chronos. They warned her that Natasha could be a demon in disguise, and should be tested. The real Natasha, they explained, was a good man, but if a demon a.s.sumed his form...

Orb, concerned, took their warning at face value. She insisted on testing Natasha for demonic origin. He touched a cross and sang a hymn, proving that he was no demon. Of course the proof was a lie, because this was all a vision in which anything could happen, but Orb did not know that. She was chagrined that she had doubted him.

Natasha walked out in righteous disgust.

The script had been honored perfectly. Now Orb was convinced of Natasha's validity, and on the defensive because of her prior doubt. She was crying when he left her.

He had made another giant step. But he hated himself, too. It had required a heroic effort not to stop, to comfort her, to tell her too much. He wished he could have told her the truth, but that would have ruined everything.

He took her on one more vision trip, an odyssey tour through the tearing pages of alternate realities that concluded at a mockup of the Castle of War, where she encountered animations of her former lover Mym, and of his rescued Princess Ligeia, and of the demoness Lila. Naturally they endorsed Natasha but warned her to beware of Satan's tricks. Then the vision staged another crisis that Natasha came to resolve. Parry, acting firmly on the side of Right, used his song to vanquish those in the Wrong. Then he sang her the Song of Evening, the romantic theme of the Llano, and she was his. He had won her love.

But Orb had not yet a.s.sumed the office of the Incarnation of Nature. He had to wait until that was hers, because it was important that he marry not merely a mortal woman but the Incarnation. That was the liaison that would bring him the power he required to overcome G.o.d.

Then she achieved it, and he asked her to marry him. But he would not let her answer immediately. First he had to tell her the truth. This was where it could all come apart.

"I am the Incarnation of Evil," he said.

Appalled, she stared at him.

He explained it all. Gradually she came to believe it.

"Get away from me," she said dully.

He left her. What would she decide?

The issue was in doubt. Orb was no longer merely a woman, but was Gaea, perhaps the strongest of the Earthly Incarnations. in her rage at his deception she invoked the powers of the Llano, which she had learned with a rapidity and competence he could only envy. Her voice lent it force that he had never been able to evoke himself; that thing was dangerous! Now he truly appreciated how she had come to the office of Nature; she had enormous skill in the required music. But she was still new in office, and playing with a horrendously potent instrument. The mortal realm was rocked by savage affectations of weather-storm, flood, fire, freezing, earthquake-destroying everything. He was afraid she would finally invoke the most devastating aspect of all, and render the cosmos back into complete chaos. It was evident that the love she had developed for Natasha had been banished by her realization of his true nature. Her fury at her betrayal stemmed as much from embarra.s.sment as from the scorning of her love-for he had not scorned it, only deceived it.

He wished he had not. What had he accomplished except the destruction of the mortal realm and the alienation of the one he least desired to? The one who had the likeness of Jolie, and the voice of rapture.

But she stopped just short of that, and repented her rage. She asked Chronos to reverse what she had done. He explained that he would have to have the agreement of all the major Incarnations before he acted so significantly.

All agreed-except Parry. He knew that his victory hinged on this: that Gaea marry him and join her power to his. It was not necessary that she love him, or he her, only that she marry him. Now he had a lever that he would never be able to use again: the fate of the mortal realm hung in the balance. Denied her love, he could still have the victory he had sought. It might be a victory that tasted of ashes, but still could be genuine.

"Will you marry Me?" he asked her again.

Desperately she looked to her mother, Niobe. "What am I to do?"

"You now know Satan for whom and what he is," Niobe replied grimly. "Do you love him?"

Orb struggled with herself, but was helpless. "G.o.d help me," she whispered brokenly, "for I do love Satan."

She what?

Parry had a role to play, and he played it appropriately, gaining the acquiescence of all the Incarnations to the union. The victory was his!

But so was...o...b..s love. It had survived the revelation! That shook him profoundly.

Chronos raised his Hourgla.s.s, its sand turning blue.

Then Parry was back in h.e.l.l, alone. All was undone. But he remembered, as he had when Chronos had changed the holocaust, because he was an Incarnation and a prime mover.

She loved him.

And he loved her. That realization smote him with peculiar force. He had never intended to; his profession of love as Natasha had been part of the construct of the lie. He had thought himself immune to true love, subject only to pa.s.sing fascinations, after the loss of Jolie. He had been mistaken.

It was, he knew, her voice that had done it. He had not antic.i.p.ated anything like it; it reached into the secret essence of him, moving him as his own voice had so often moved others. Had the Angel Gabriel antic.i.p.ated that, too?

He realized that his careful snare for possession of Gaea's power had reversed against him. He had promised Niobe never to harm Orb; now he knew that this had a.s.sumed more than technical force. He had fallen into the trap of loving a good woman-which meant he could no longer represent Evil. For the two were incompatible on any amicable basis. He would have to try to be worthy of Orb's love, as the true Satan could never be.

There was only one way to do that.

He would have to abdicate his Office.

Chapter 16.

TRYST.

Parry scripted the wedding ceremony as carefully as he had the three visions; it was to be a splendid occasion. He set it up in h.e.l.l's most elegant chamber, very like a cathedral. There were arches and stained gla.s.s, and seats for the major Incarnations, all of whom were invited.

Having ascertained that Heaven had improved its operations somewhat in recent centuries, he orchestrated a ma.s.s release of souls: all those who had earned their salvation but had hesitated to depart the mock-Heaven annex. That should please Orb, and he wanted very much to please her. Those souls were organized into a ma.s.sive choir; as they sang, they could come to him and be freed in glows of light.

There was to be an audience, too: all the relatives and friends of the bride, from all her walks of life. These included those who were dead; he had made arrangements with Gabriel for their temporary release from Heaven. The Angel had of course cooperated, knowing what was to occur. The same was true of the other Incarnations, who had caught on. Only Orb herself was innocent, as perhaps was fitting.

The key to the ceremony was to be two songs: Orb's and his own. The songs were to be the final keys to their love for each other. Orb did not realize how literally true that was to be.

She sang the Song of Evening, which was also the Completion of Love. It was perhaps the most evocative rendition of such a melody ever performed by a mortal, for not only was she the finest female singer, enhanced by magic; she was truly in love. The entire a.s.sembly responded to that feeling, and so did he, reveling in the delight of the free recognition of her love for him, and his love for her. All present knew that there was no way that he could match this presentation.

But he could. He was the finest male singer, and he had more than just love to express. He sang the one type of song that was forbidden to him: a hymn to G.o.d. Never mind that G.o.d was not listening, and perhaps was not worthy; the wedding party understood its significance. This was the supreme act of sacrifice: the one way Satan himself could prove himself worthy. As he sang, the choir of und.a.m.ned souls joined him, and flocked to him, enhancing his music, and were released to Heaven.

Orb stared at him, gradually realizing that her belief in his falsity was in error; that he truly did love her. He sang directly to her as he concluded. Now all the souls were gone, and his own body was being destroyed by the power he had invoked. He went out, literally, in flame.

He had sung himself knowingly into his doom. He had given up his existence as an Incarnation, that she might know, at the end, that his love had been true. He would never possess her, and he had lost his challenge to G.o.d, but he had done what he had to do.

He found himself in a kind of Limbo. It was not the outer circle of h.e.l.l, but some special region evidently reserved for fallen Incarnations. There were flames, but he was hardly aware of them, for none carried the intensity of the flame of his lost love.

He was d.a.m.ned, of course; he would never be free of h.e.l.l. He had spent more than seven hundred years as the Incarnation of Evil. He had known at the outset that there would be no reprieve. Another person would a.s.sume the vacated Office, and perhaps in some future century would need a.s.sistance and would bring Parry out to serve. That was all he had to hope for. Yet he did not regret it.

He had loved twice: once in life, and once as an Incarnation. His demise abolished neither of these loves. His second love had not replaced his first; it had merely joined it. His feeling for Jolie now returned as strongly as it had been in life, without conflicting with his feeling for Orb. He hoped that Jolie could be at last released to Heaven, and that Orb would come to accept his necessary desertion of her at the altar. He hoped, too, that somehow the mortal suffering he had sought to abbreviate would be brought to an end despite his defection. He had been the Master of Evil, and by definition what he had done was wrong; but it had also been right, because of G.o.d's dereliction. He felt no shame in being d.a.m.ned for that.

He hovered indefinitely, alone. This was evidently to be the manner of his punishment: to be conscious and isolated, never to know how things progressed in the mortal and immortal realms. It was a terrible onus-but his love sustained him. No punishment could make him regret what he had done.

Then someone came. His nebulous prison a.s.sumed the form of a cell, and he became a man in chains. Some other mind was shaping his situation.

It was...o...b.. She came as the Incarnation of Nature, as Gaea, the Green Mother. Even h.e.l.l could not exclude her, when she chose. She was lovely in the fashion only she could be, and a.s.sured in a manner he had not observed when he courted her. Background melody surrounded her an aspect of the Llano he had not known of before, that evidently opened the way before her wherever she chose to go. She had come into the authority of her office.

He was powerless to move or even to speak. This, too, it seemed, was part of his punishment. All he could do was gaze at her. That was enough.

She approached him and took his hand, wordlessly. Her contact was like tender fire. She lifted his hand and touched the spot of blood on his wrist.

Now he cried in sudden alarm. But he could neither voice it nor resist.

Orb took the drop of blood from him and dropped his hand.

His wrist was bare.

She departed, and his cell dissolved into the formlessness of its natural state. Only one thing had changed: he no longer had Jolie.

Why had Orb done it? She could not have harbored any jealousy toward his first love; Jolie was long dead, and he, too, was dead now. Yet perhaps this, too, was right. Jolie could not reside in h.e.l.l. Perhaps...o...b..had freed her for Heaven.

Abruptly he was in a loud, bright chamber. He did not know how much time had pa.s.sed; part of the h.e.l.l of Limbo was its timelessness. But he recognized this place: it was the main banquet hall, where occasional entertaining was performed. h.e.l.l had very little use for such facilities other than as a mechanism to tempt potential converts: mortals with evil inclinations but as yet insufficient evil actions. A little temptation could go a long way to evoke their latent evil and cause it to manifest in ways that clarified their status promptly. Evil had to be proven in a mortal; it could not simply be a.s.sumed. Parry had developed reasonably sophisticated routines to prove it.

He stood before a fat, middle-aged slob of a man, the refuse of whose repast lay strewn all around. But a subtle kind of grandeur suffused him, too, and Parry recognized it as the stigmatum of immortality. This was the new Incarnation of Evil.

"Say, now, it worked!" the man exclaimed, wiping a smear of gravy from his mouth. "You're the has-been Satan!"

Parry nodded. "I am he."

"Listen, I need to know the spell for controlling demons," the man said.

Parry did not answer.

"Look, schnook, I know you know it! Out with it."

"It is a thing you must discover for yourself," Parry said.

"You had it pretty easy these last three weeks. I can put you in some real fires, really toast your toes, know what I mean? But I'll let you off easy if you tell me that spell."

"No."

"Dammit, that t.u.r.d Ozzy what's-his-name don't pay any attention to what I tell him. What do you want for that spell?"

"It is not for sale," Parry said.

The man gazed appraisingly at him. "Let me 'splain something', mac. When you bugged out, the office fell on the most evil mortal in the world. I got it. I was on death row for the one they caught me on, five-year-old nymphet whose head I had to bash in 'fore she'd be quiet and let me finish, and then she didn't die quite soon enough and she fingered me. My bad luck. But I'm not choosy; I can make a grown man hurt as bad as a child. It's a real thrill in the crotch, makin' some freak scream that way. I've been catching on to the ropes here, makin' the d.a.m.ned souls scream. They hurt as bad as live folk, would you believe, and they can scream a lot longer before p.o.o.pin' out. I really like it here! But your Lucifer won't give me the time of day, and neither will Mephis-what's-his-name, and that creature Nefer-t.i.tties spat in my face. I need that spell! What's your price?"

Parry turned away.

"Then roast, bugbrain!" the man screamed.

Parry was abruptly in the flames. They hurt terribly, but did not actually burn him because he could not be physically damaged here. No one could; pain and humiliation were all that h.e.l.l offered. He bore it; he had no alternative.

Certainly he was not going to give that child-torturing slob the secret! Such a monster might be evil, but he was no good for the running of h.e.l.l. He was evidently spending all his time gorging and torturing, not even trying to organize h.e.l.l or see to any larger purpose.

Yet despite his current agony. Parry had some satisfaction. Ozymandias and Lucifer and Mephistopheles refused to cooperate with the new Incarnation, and Nefert.i.ti had spit in his face! Of course their att.i.tude was routine; every new Incarnation had to earn his place. Still, it had been good to hear.

But still his major strength was in his love. He had given up his office for love of Orb, and he would do it again, though he burn in the flames forever! While his mind was on her, he did not feel the flames. He only hoped that the other Incarnations would be able to prevent his replacement from doing too much harm.

Another figure came. This time the flames did not abate. Parry took this as a signal that this was not an official visit.

It turned out to be a spider, swinging on an invisible thread. The flames did not seem to affect it.

Only one spider could penetrate here: Fate. Parry tried to speak, but could not. Neither could he move. It seemed that only when he was brought out by the current Incarnation of Evil could he talk or act.

The spider formed into Niobe. "Found you at last, son-in-law," she whispered. "He hid you well, but you have friends among the d.a.m.ned souls, and they told me."

What was she doing here? Why should she have searched him out? He could not ask.

"As you may know, your successor is not a nice person," Niobe said. "We have learned something about you. The demoness is one of ours now, and she explained some things, and JHVH volunteered some things, and our recent experience confirmed them."

So he was to be stripped of his remaining secrets, too! Yet Niobe was not the type to gloat. This excursion had to be risky for her. What was her purpose?

"My daughter loves you, and she is your wife," Niobe continued. "So there does seem to be a certain familial obligation. There can never be a true union between the Incarnations of Evil and of Nature, but mere may be another way. The others of us have concluded that we would prefer to deal with the old, familiar Evil, rather than the new and ugly one. Of course none of us would care to state such a thing openly."

What was she saying? Parry hardly dared to believe!

"And I would not care to have this repeated, but there is a question in some of our minds whether the one we serve is, well, paying attention. We have operated on the a.s.sumption that He who is Good remained disengaged because He was honoring the Covenant, while He who is Evil violated the Covenant freely. Therefore we redressed that inequity by siding with the honorable one. But now we are uncertain. There is a certain interpretation that would reverse some implications."

She shrugged. "At any rate, the trial period for your successor is drawing to a close, and he has not found the spell he needs. He is apt to be replaced by another just as bad, unless...

Unless Parry resumed the Office! He alone of the former Incarnations of Evil could do that, because he had not yet yielded his life and become a d.a.m.ned soul.

Niobe left her thought unfinished, knowing that he understood. But she had a qualification. "Yet a person needs to be in an appropriate situation to a.s.sume an office. If he were, for example, lost or mute, he would be unable to step in before the office sought the greatest evil it could find. It seems that the Office of Evil may be either grasped by the one who seeks it or will drift to the most evil. The applicant who is closest to the one who releases the Office has the first chance. Therefore it is important that an aspirant not be incapacitated at the key moment."

She was right. The Office had to be grasped at the moment it became available, or it would be lost. He had Lilah's guidance the first time, so had seized it without quite knowing the significance. He could not do so from the incommunicado confines of this dungeon.

"So I have brought a thread to lead you out," Niobe said after a pause, to let him think it through. She stretched out an invisible line. "Follow it, and-"

"Ha! Caught you, old bag!" the Incarnation cried, appearing between them. "I may be finished, but he'll never profit by it!" He struck at her with a flaming pitchfork.

Niobe became the spider, and the spider vanished. She was an Incarnation, but this was h.e.l.l, and she could not oppose the Incarnation of this domain.