The Book of Joby.

MARK J. FERRARI.

To Josh Morsell, who rekindled my desire to write, Debbie Notkin, who taught me how, and the children of Taubolt, to whom I owe more than I can ever pay.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I've been improbably fortunate in both the number and quality of people who helped make this book a reality. Among the many, many who have helped and encouraged me, I am particularly grateful to: Steve Ettinger and Kyala Shea for wading through very, very early drafts that were not the polished work of genius presented here; Will Stenberg, Kenyon Zimmer, Pam Wilson, Patrick Curl, and other members of the occasional Weekly Writers Group, who suffered through eons of revision because they wouldn't stop providing such valuable feedback; my good friend, Brendan McGuigan, without whom this book would be of far poorer quality if it had ever been finished at all; Bill Jones and Marcia Muggleberg for their invaluable input, encouragement, and beyond-the-call promotional support; Nyssa Baugher, who is the World's BEST listener; Debbie Notkin, whose editorial assistance, professional advice, and tenacious friendship have literally made this book-and no small part of my preceding illustration career-possible; John Dalmas, Dean Wesley Smith, Jane Fancher, Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, and Jon Gustafson (if you're watching up there), who all kept my faith alive with their generous interest and counsel; and Patricia Briggs, who provided not only encouragement and counsel, but steered me toward an agent too!

My particular thanks to Tom Doherty, David Hartwell, Denis Wong, and everyone else at Tor for daring to publish such an-er-unusual first novel, and prodding me to make it even better; and to my agent, Linn Prentis, for her good advice and patient, persistent support through fair weather and foul.

Love and thanks to my parents, Andrew and Jackie, and my brothers, Matt and John, for their faith in my ability to do this crazy thing.

Finally, my lasting gratitude to Jenny Rose Gealey, whose inspiring life and death spurred and informed much of the story I've tried to tell here, and to her wise, warm, and generous family for allowing me to incorporate some of her extraordinary poems into this work.

I can think of no remotely sufficient way to reward these people except to say that I am inexpressibly grateful, and otherwise unable to pay, so don't call us, we'll call you, et cetera, et cetera . . . (mischievous grin, fade to black).

The Book of Joby.

PROLOGUE.

( This Same Stupid Bet ).

When he unlocked the verandah that morning, the young waiter found two men near his own age already sitting at a table there, quietly watching the new sun drift from orange to gold above the sleepy Atlantic harbor beyond. He had no idea how they'd gotten in an hour before the restaurant opened, and headed out to make them leave, but found himself apologizing for the wait instead, and asking if they wanted menus. They already knew what they wanted, so he took their order and went vacantly back inside wondering why his head felt so cotton-stuffed this morning.

"It's magnificent," said the younger patron, gazing at the opalescent sky. His liquid brown eyes and beautiful copper features were framed in curly locks so black one might have looked for stars among them. His feet were bare-a blatant violation of restaurant rules, though the waiter had not seemed to notice-and the soft white T-shirt untucked over his khaki shorts reflected more radiance than the sunrise alone should reasonably have lent it. "I could watch just this one thousands of times," he murmured. "Thank you for bringing me."

"The presence of a friend improves the view, Gabe," replied his host, the smile in his wide gray eyes spilling out across a face both older and younger in some elusive way than his companion's. He wore ragged tennis shoes, weathered blue jeans that precisely matched the changing sky above him, and a short sleeve, gray cotton shirt that seemed to shift between shades of warm shale and cool morning fog.

No sooner had they resumed their silent contemplation of the sunrise than a dignified gentleman appeared, wearing an impeccably tailored suit of charcoal tweed. His pale, handsome features were set in stony determination at odds with the pleasant morning as he tugged natty pant cuffs away from elegant dress shoes, tossed an early paper onto the table, and sat down across from the two younger men, largely eclipsing their view of the bay.

"Lovely view," he offered without looking back to see. "Bit chilly for summer, but nice enough, I suppose. Imagine my excitement when I heard you were in the neighborhood!" he added with overtly false enthusiasm, then gestured at the newspaper lying between them. "Seen the latest on that massacre of villagers in Abudaweh? It seems the international tribunal has found no one to blame at all." He smiled and shrugged. "Perhaps the tricky bastards slew themselves, just to stir up trouble. Can no one be trusted anymore?"

The waiter arrived with two lattes and a plate of pastry, taking the newcomer's unexpected appearance in stride as well. "Shall I bring a menu, Sir?" he asked.

"I'd like everything they have," the gentleman said severely.

"Certainly. Will that be whole, low-fat, or nonfat?"

"What?"

"Your latte, Sir."

The man regarded the waiter sternly, as if deciding what to do to him, then laughed suddenly. "Men of my age can hardly be too vigilant, young man. Better make it nonfat." He sent the waiter away with an ingratiating smile that faded to deadpan contempt as soon as his back was turned. Looking back to his tablemates, the gentleman's icy blue eyes came to rest on the dark-haired youth. "So, what do you think, Gabe? Did the buggers do for themselves, or is the tribunal in bed with Abudaweh's military elite?"

"I'd say you've been as busy as ever, brother," Gabriel replied coldly.

"Let's stick with proper names, shall we?" replied the older man with even greater chilliness.

"Which one?" Gabriel shrugged. "You keep so many."

"Morgan, at the moment. Mister Morgan, to you."

"Boys," their gray-eyed companion interjected mildly, "you know I hate it when you fight like this. It demeans you both, and it's ruining my all too brief vacation."

"Were I allowed to visit you at home, Sir," Morgan protested politely, "I would gladly do so. But, given the circumstances, I have little choice but to intrude upon your . . . 'vacations,' especially when they're held right here in my humble little cell."

"Gabe was just telling me how lovely he finds your cell," mused the gray-eyed man, tearing off a morsel of the pastry none of them had touched, and tossing it to a gull who'd come to perch on the railing behind his adversary. "Said he could have watched that one sunrise a thousand times."

"I haven't my little brother's overweening ambition to be Teacher's pet," Morgan replied, turning to grimace at the bird as it gobbled down the offering. "Such filthy creatures," he complained. "Really, you demean yourself by catering to their mindless, vulgar greed."

"Why have you come to darken such a splendid morning?" the gray-eyed man asked wearily, tossing the gull another scrap. "If I wanted this sort of thing, I'd have gone to work today, Lucifer. You don't mind, do you, if I use that name? On you, Morgan seems so guttural."

Lucifer turned away as if to appreciate the view, and asked, "How long must You disgrace us all by propping up this doomed and depressing enterprise?" When his Lord made no reply, Lucifer's expression soured. "Is it my fault this blighted orchard bears such bitter fruit? I did not invent their deceitful hearts. Yet I am punished for their disobedience. Why? You cannot really believe I ever wished to challenge Your supremacy. Principle has ever been my only motive. I am guilty of nothing but insisting that Your laws be obeyed, that Your perfection be perfectly reflected!" Trembling with the effort of reining in his own consuming frustration, Lucifer whirled back to face his Master, the illusion of his human form dissolving into brilliant auroras of such dazzling beauty that the morning behind him suddenly seemed little more than a dingy rag thrown up against the heavens. "Look at me!" he demanded in a voice that rolled like muted thunder from all directions. "Do I belong here, penned up in this failed experiment with a race of flawed apes who, by their very nature, mock Your majesty?" Gabriel looked away, finding his fallen brother's awesome beauty too painful to endure. "Why do You fear me so?" Lucifer demanded, reluctantly surrendering to human form again. "What ambition do I entertain but to serve a God not degraded at every turn by His own creation? You're the omniscient One! You must know it's true! Why will You never listen to me?" He fixed his Creator with a gaze of fearful defiance and desperate longing for recognition as old and unresolved as their dispute. "Admit it, Sir. This race of churls You indulge is the flop I have always said it would be. By now, the rot in this insufferable contrivance of Yours has gone clear to the core."

The Creator grew very quiet, and his gray eyes closed in concentration. He cocked His head, as if listening for something very small or far away. "No," He insisted quietly. "The core is as sound as ever . . . better, I'd say." He opened his eyes and gazed gravely at Lucifer. "But I do have this awful feeling that I know what's coming next."

"Then, as You doubtless know," Lucifer said with a feral grin devoid of mirth, "my sources are fearful of a monstrous new civil war brewing in the Congo that will make anything they've seen before pale in comparison. . . . I know how You despise all that death and suffering; and this could easily spill across all of Africa before it's done. Then there's all the influence even hotter heads, warheads one might say, are stealthily cultivating in India's parliament these days. After so many delays, the nuclear fruit is nearly ripe, and I have an almost infallible inside tip that by century's end nothing will remain of poor Kashmir but a glowing, glassy crater. It could all get so much messier in such a hurry then. All the global shock, the righteous rage. So many great nations at fault," he said with almost bestial ecstasy. "So much blame to go around. Messy, messy, messy," he lamented, shaking his head in a hideous parody of regret. "I'm not sure even I will be able to restrain such an angry world. The whole thing could just blow up in my-"

"Your point?" the Creator asked with a placidity that immediately reduced the rabid inferno in Lucifer's eyes to mere embers of sullen resentment.

"My point," Lucifer said, with a sudden bland smile, "is that I might be able to pull some strings and slow things down a bit . . . at least, long enough to resolve a small wager, if You-"

"I thought so," the Creator sighed. "This same stupid bet. How many times have we done this, Lucifer? Ten thousand? Twice that, perhaps?" He leaned forward, bringing the full weight of His suddenly devastating gray gaze to bear. "And how many times have you won?"

For a moment there was silence. Then, "Twice," Lucifer breathed, neither looking away nor, to his credit, losing his smile.

The Creator shrugged. "They are allowed to fail."

"Yes, yes," Lucifer sighed, the steam seeming to leave his pipes all at once. "Free will. . . . I heard You the first time. Of all Your reckless gestures, that's the one that really lost You my vote."

"If you had heard Him the first time," Gabriel taunted, "the night sky would be far brighter now, wouldn't it."

"In a more perfect world," Lucifer retorted, rounding acidly on his onetime sibling, "servants would know not to interrupt their betters during adult conversation!"

"I believe your conversation was with me, Lucifer," the Creator reminded him. "And I really don't see why you-"

"I will not be mocked!" Lucifer snapped, forgetting himself entirely. "Certainly not by simpering songbirds like this impudent youngster you insist on-"

"What were you just saying about interrupting one's betters, Lucifer?" the Lord of all creation asked with a level quiet that brought the devil instantly to wise if sullen silence. "As I was saying, I don't see why you keep subjecting yourself to these punishing humiliations. Even your two so-called victories did little but improve things."

"My only mistake with that wide-eyed couple in the garden was aiming too low," Lucifer complained. "As for the second time, I still insist You cheated. Judas failed solidly, and we clearly agreed that if I won, Jesus-"

"We've been through this a million times," the Creator interrupted. "I never suggested that Jesus would stay dead. It's hardly My fault you didn't think to inquire about that ahead of time."

"Well, what was I supposed to think?" Lucifer protested. "You said, dead! And dead is-"

"Evidently not," his Master cut him off again, then smiled and shook His head. "Really, Lucifer, if I'd been you, I'd have quit while I was still just way, way behind."

"Well, You'd best not count on my errors this time," Lucifer insisted, visibly leashing his temper. "I've a delicious feeling that it's finally Your turn to blow it."

"Aren't you gung ho!" the Creator observed. "I don't recall having agreed to any wager yet."

In a moment of atypical unself-consciousness, Lucifer's face scrunched comically around so much constipated ambition.

"What would you want this time, if My candidate failed?" the Creator asked, tossing still more pastry to the flock of gulls that had gathered densely around them.

"Everything," Lucifer said, unable to suppress his eagerness. "This whole declining ball of sepsis You've indulged for so long goes! Its people, these vulgar birds, the whole planet! We start again, and this time You listen to my advice. Oh, You'll still be God, of course. I do know my place, whatever You think. But this time we'll try it without any of that free will. We'll have an orderly universe. A virtuous creation! No debauched little freelancers running about blithely denigrating their Maker and, by inference, the rest of us who must obey Your will. You do not seem to appreciate, My Lord, how deeply wounded I am by Your failure to recognize the value I place on Your dignity! If You had-"

"Stop," the Creator said patiently. "I heard you the first time as well. . . . Let's make sure I understand this. You'll spare a few thousand lives in the Congo, and a few million more from whatever atomic debacle you're arranging after that, if I agree to wipe every last scrap of My creation utterly from existence, should My candidate lose, and start over heeding your instructions. Is that right?"

Lucifer spent a moment scrutinizing the Creator's wording more carefully than he had on certain other occasions, then said, "That seems accurate."

"And if My candidate wins?" the Creator mused.

"Negotiable."

"Beyond that, the usual terms?" the Creator asked.

"Of course," Lucifer answered, his hopes visibly inflamed. "Are You agreeing?"

Gabriel turned to the Creator in clear concern. "My Lord, You're not seriously-"

"What did our distinguished guest say about interrupting?" the Creator interrupted.

"Of course," Gabriel said, glancing nervously away. "I apologize."

Throwing the last of their pastry to the gulls, the Supreme Being turned back to Lucifer. "I'm game. I'll want a little extra time to find a candidate, of course. Such stakes demand a certain attention to detail, and I do have the whole world to sift through. Shall we say . . . tonight sometime? Gabriel will officiate. I'll send him to tell you where and when, so don't make yourself too hard to find."

"Of course not!" Lucifer exclaimed, nearly swallowing his long tongue in euphoric astonishment. "I will be at Your every beck and call, My Lord. . . . At least, for a short while longer."

Lucifer was so excited, he failed to notice that one of the freshly glutted gulls had just defecated on his shoulder, and another on his expensive shoe. In fact, he had so forgotten himself that he carelessly popped from sight right in front of the waiter just arriving with his latte and another plate of pastry. There was only so much even mortal minds could be made to ignore. The Creator sighed and shook His head as the young man hit the pavement in a dead faint, his tray of food falling with him.

"Leave a generous tip," He told Gabriel. "I've got a lot to do before tonight." He turned to go, then stopped to smile mischievously back at His beloved angel. "I'm sorry if I seemed harsh with you a moment ago, My friend; but you nearly blew the whole deal. What if you'd made that ass stop to think things through?" He gave the unconscious waiter another rueful glance. "In fact, see that all his tips today are generous."

Then He was gone, leaving Gabriel to contrive some damage control, and wonder anxiously what on earth his Master knew that he had overlooked. It seemed a terribly reckless bet to him. Did the Creator not care that Gabriel himself was part of the creation to be erased should their human champion fail? Still, doubt was not strong in Gabriel's nature, especially regarding his Lord's judgment, so he just shrugged uncomfortably and bent to care for the fallen waiter.

PART ONE.

Innocence and Guile.

1.

( Only Name the Quest ).

"Run! . . . Run, you scaredy cat! The king will always beat you, Zoltan! And all your dumb ugly creatures too! Ha! Just one of Arthur's knights is better than your whole stupid army! Ha, ha ha haaaa!" Joby laughed in unrestrained exultation, brandishing his wooden sword from the castle walls as the humiliated enemy fled yet another great battle in disarray.

"Joooooby! . . . Joby?"

Joby's shoulders slumped, but he ignored his mother's voice and waved his sword once more at the fleeing horde. "I've got better monsters than you out of my cereal!" he hollered in contempt.

"Joby. I know you can hear me," his mother called, from the side yard this time. "Did you leave all this stuff on the driveway again?"

It was the kind of question Joby had never figured out how, or why, he was supposed to answer.

"I don't think so," he called back lamely, turning reluctantly from the battlefield beyond their backyard fence.

His mother came around the corner of the house carrying a large disk of cardboard in one hand, painted yellow, a red dragon scrawled uncertainly at its center, a banged-up book in the other hand, and a tattered red bedspread draped over her arm.

"It must have been some other knight then," she said with the grim half smile that meant she was annoyed, but not enough to cause him any real trouble.

Joby remembered having left these encumberments behind in the heat of battle, but, like any knight worth his salt, he knew when to keep his own counsel. Did she really think warriors could run around cleaning up in the middle of a battle? Girls could be so pathetic!

His mother set his book, cape, and shield on the lawn in front of him and said, "If you do find the knight who left these there, please point out that your father could have driven right over them when he comes home. Unless that other knight wants tire tracks added to his family crest, he should find someplace better to leave his things." Her grin widened. She seemed very pleased with herself for no reason Joby could see, but since this meant he was in even less trouble than he'd thought, he obliged her by grinning back. "You might also tell him," his mother added, "how tired I get of reminding Arthur's knights not to leave their things where someone will break a leg on them."

Her grin faded as she reached up to tuck a stray lock of mahogany hair behind her ear, and went back to whatever she'd been doing.

"Break a leg on them," Joby scoffed quietly, stooping to pick up his things. She always said that, as if people were out there snapping limbs off on every little thing they passed. His toys, his books, his trading cards, even his underwear? Heaving a long-suffering sigh, he went back to the fence, dragging his cape behind him. God help his mother if she ever got into a real battle. She'd find out in a hurry how much more damage a mace could do than any pair of underpants she'd ever seen.

After looking hopefully out over the battlements again, Joby sadly decided that the enemy had truly given up and gone away. He slumped down against the fence, and wondered what to do, almost glad school was starting again soon. He'd heard terrifying stories about what fifth- and sixth-graders did to fourth-graders at recess-especially during the first few weeks; but he was practically dying to be an "upperclassman" at last. For one thing, he'd finally be allowed to play dodgeball! Sadly, all that was two weeks off yet. Practically forever. At the moment, it seemed practically forever just until lunch.

Almost unconsciously, he opened the book, his most sacred possession; the dog-eared, grime-smeared, finger-smudged, broken-spined, long since loose-leafed tome around which his entire cosmology revolved: A Child's Treasury of Arthurian Tales. It had been a gift from his grampa, entrusted to his parents on the day he was born; and the very map and outline of his boyish soul had formed slowly around its contents. Even after nine years of punishing use, a marvelous smell still wafted from its pages whenever it was opened, like some pungent musty incense rising from within the cathedral of his most secret, joyful dreams.

It had long since ceased to matter what page he opened to. Just lifting the Treasury's battered cover transported Joby instantly to Arthur's vast, shadowed throne room, dappled in misty rays of jeweled illumination streaming from stained-glass windows high above his head. He waited, as always, on one knee before the High King's dais, his eyes cast respectfully toward the black-and-white marble floor tiles at his feet, his heart filled with the kind of urgent devotion that perhaps only a child can countenance-though here he was no child. Sir Joby was a knight; handsome, brave, and loyal, awaiting, as always, some new adventure in service of the glorious Roundtable and its beloved lord.

At Arthur's command, Sir Joby had battled countless tyrants and terrible beasts, withstood searing temptations, and defeated devious wizards, armed with nothing but unyielding faith and courage. In victory, Sir Joby felt his liege lord's approval like a shimmering song through his entire being. And on those rare occasions when the beasts proved too fierce, the wizards too crafty, or the temptations too great, Joby had only to call out for rescue, knowing that Arthur would instantly appear with whatever feats of skill or miraculous power were required to save the day. Joby's heroic liege lord, his finest friend, had never failed him, nor ever would.