"I refuse to believe such nonsense," I told her. "I have become grim and absolute, madam, in most of my opinions. We appear to be returning to the realm of speculation. I wish to see a concrete Devil and, if we are in h.e.l.l, concrete proof of that statement."

"You are overeconomical, sir, in the use of your intelligence."

"I think not. I am a soldier, as I've told you more than once. It is a soldier's trait. Simple facts are his trade."

"We have already discussed your reasons for choosing to become a soldier, sir."

I was amused, once more, by the sharpness of her wit.

We were walking down the steps, alternately through sunlight and shadow. The shift of light gave her features a variety of casts, which had become familiar to me.

Such strength of mind or of body was not usually a.s.sociated either with witchcraft or with Satan-worship. In my experience, as Sabrina had already hinted to me, those who sought the aid of demons were wretched, powerless creatures who had given up hope of all salvation, whether it be on Earth or in Heaven.

We were crossing the main floor now, towards the huge doors of the library.

"He is in there," she said.

I stopped, loosening my sword. I sniffed.

"Still no brimstone," I said. "Has He horns, your Master? A long tail? Cloven hooves? Does fire come from His nostrils? Or is His enchantment of a subtler sort?"

"1 would say that it was subtler," she told me softly. She seemed torn between proving herself and wishing to flee with me. Her expression was challenging and yet fearful as she looked up at me. She seemed even more beautiful. 1 touched her hah*, stroking it. I kissed her upon her warm lips.

Then 1 strode forward and pushed the large doors open.

Sabrina put her hand on my arm and preceded me into the room. She curtseyed.

"Master, I have brought you Captain von Bek."

I followed immediately behind her, my sword ready, my mind prepared for any challenge, yet my resolve left me immediately.

Seated at the central table and apparently reading a book was the most wonderful being I had ever seen.

I became light-headed. My body refused any commands. I found myself bowing.

He was naked and His skin glowed as if with soft, quivering flames. His curling hair was silver and His eyes were molten copper. His body was huge and perfectly formed, and when His lips smiled upon me I felt that I had never loved before; I loved Him. He bore an aura about His person which I had never a.s.sociated with the Devil: perhaps it was a kind of dignified humility combined with a sense of almost limitless power.

He spoke in a sweet, mature voice, putting down the book.

"Welcome, Captain von Bek. I am Lucifer."

I was speaking. I believed Him at that moment and I said as much.

Lucifer acknowledged this, standing to His full height and going to the shelves, where He replaced the book.

He moved with grace and offered the impression of exquisite sadness in His every gesture. It was possible to see 47.how this being had been G.o.d's favourite and that He was surely the Fallen One, destroyed by Pride and now humbled but unable to achieve His place in Heaven.

I believe that I told Him I was at His service. I could not check the words, although I recovered myself sufficiently to deny, mentally, the implications of what I said. I was desperately attempting to secure my reason.

He seemed to know this and was sympathetic. His sympathy, of course, was also disarming and had to be ignored.

He answered my words as if I had offered them voluntarily: "I wish to strike a bargain with you, Captain von Bek."

Lucifer smiled, as if in self-mockery: "You are intelligent and brave and do not deny the truth of what you have become."

"The truth" I began, with some difficulty, "is notis not . . ."

He appeared not to hear. "That is why I told my servant Sabrina to bring you to me. I need the help of an adult human being. One without prejudice. One with considerable experience. One who is used to translating thought into determined action. One who is not given to habits of fearfulness and hesitation. Such people are scarce, always, in the world."

Now my tongue was not thickened. I was allowed to speak. I said: "It seems so to me, also, Prince Lucifer. But you do not describe me. I am but a poor specimen of mankind."

"Let us say you are the best available to the likes of me."

A little of my wit returned. "I believe you think you flatter me, Your Majesty."

"Not so. I see virtue everywhere. I see virtue in you, Captain von Bek."

I smiled. "You are supposed to recognise evil and wickedness and appeal to those qualities."

Lucifer shook His head. "That is what humankind detects in me: the desire to find examples for their own base instincts. Many believe that if they discover an example it somehow exonerates them from responsibility. I am invested with many terrible traits, captain. But I, too, possess many virtues. It is the secret of my power and, to a degree, your own. Did you know that?"

"I did not, Your Majesty."

48."But you understand me?"

"I believe that I do."

"I am asking you to serve me."

"You must have far more powerful men and women than I at your command."

Lucifer reseated Himself behind the desk. He seemed to give His full attention to every word that I uttered now. And this in itself, of course, was flattering to me.

"Powerful," He replied, "certainly. Many of them. In the way in which power is measured upon the Earth. Most of the Holy Church is mine now; but that's a fact well-known to thinking people. A majority of princes belong to me. Scholars serve me. Poets serve me. The commanders of armies and navies serve me. You would think that I am satisfied, eh? There have rarely been so many in my service. But I have few such as you, von Bek."

"That I cannot believe, Your Majesty. b.l.o.o.d.y-handed soldiers abound in these times."

"And always have. But few with your quality. Few who act with the full knowledge of what they are and what they do."

"Is it a virtue to know that you are a butcher, a thief? That you are ruthless and without altruism of any kind?"

"I believe so. But then I am Lucifer." Again the self-mockery.

Sabrina curtseyed again. "My Lord, shall I leave?"

"Aye," said Lucifer. "I think so, my dear. I will return the captain to you in due course, I promise."

The witch withdrew. I wondered if I had been abandoned forever by Sabrina, now that she had served her purpose. I tried to stare back at the creature who called Himself Lucifer, but to look into those melancholy, terrible eyes was too much for me. I directed my attention to the window. Through it I could see the ma.s.s of trees that were the great forest. 1 attempted to focus on this sight, in order to preserve my reason and remember that in all likelihood I had been drugged by the accomplice of a man who was nothing more than a charlatan sorcerer of a very high order.

"Now," said the Prince of Darkness, "will you not accompany me to h.e.l.l, captain?"

"What?" said I. "Am I d.a.m.ned already? And dead?"

Lucifer smiled. "I give you my word that I shall bring you back to this room. If you are uninterested in my bargain, I 49.will allow you to leave the castle unharmed, to go about whatever business you choose."

"Then why must I come with you to h.e.l.l? I have been taught to believe that Satan's word is in no way to be trusted. That He will use any means to win over an honest soul."

Lucifer laughed. "And perhaps you are right, captain. Is yours an honest soul?"

"It is not a clean one."

"But it is, by and large, honest. Yes?"

"You seem to place value on such honesty."

"Great value, captain. I admit to you freely that I have need of you. You do not prize yourself as highly as I prize you. Perhaps that is also one of your virtues. I am prepared to offer you good terms."

"But you will not tell me your terms."

"Not until you have visited h.e.l.l. Will you not satisfy your curiosity? Few are able to sample h.e.l.l before their time."

"And the few I have read of, Your Majesty, are usually tricked to return there soon enough."

"I give you my word, as an angel, that I am not about to trick you, Captain von Bek. ! will be candid with you: I cannot afford to trick you. If I gained what I need from you by deception, then what I gained would be useless to me."

Lucifer offered me His hand.

"Will you descend, with me, to my domain?"

Still I hesitated, not entirely convinced that this was not a complicated and sophisticated enchantment wholly of human origin.

"Can you not bargain with me here?" I said.

"I could. But when the bargain was struckif it was struckand when we had parted, would you remain truly certain that you had negotiated with Lucifer?"

"I suppose that I would not. Even now I think that I could be in some kind of drugged glamour."

"You would not be the first to decide that an encounter with me had been nothing but a dream. As a rule it would be immaterial to me whether you decided you had experienced an illusion or were utterly sure that you had enjoyed a meeting with the Prince of Darkness. But I am anxious to prove myself to you, captain."

"Why should Lucifer care?"

A trembling of old Pride. Almost a glare of anger. Then 50.it was gone. "Be a.s.sured, captain," replied Lucifer in deep, urgent tones, "that on this occasion I do care."

"You must be clearer with me, Your Majesty," It was all that I could do to utter even this simple phrase.

He exerted patience. "I cannot prove myself to you here. As you doubtless know, I am largely forced to use humankind for my purposes on Earth, being forbidden direct influence over G.o.d's creations, unless they seek me out. I am anxious to do nothing further in defiance of G.o.d. I yearn for freedom, von Bek." His copper eyes showed a more intense version of the pain I had observed in Sabrina's. "I once thought I could achieve it. And yet I know now that 1 cannot have it. Therefore, I wish to be restored."

"Tb Heaven, Your Majesty?" I was astonished.

"To Heaven, Captain von Bek."

Lucifer applying for a return to Grace! And suggesting that somehow I could be His agent in effecting this! If this were indeed a spell, a trance, it was a most intriguing one.

I was able to say: "Would that not produce the abolition of h.e.l.l, the end of Pain in the world?"

"You have been taught to believe that."

"Is it not true?"

"Who knows, Captain von Bek? I am only Lucifer. I am not G.o.d."

His fingers touched mine.

Unconsciously, I had stretched my hand towards Him.

His voice was a throb of pleading, of persuasion. "Come, I beg thee. Come."

It was as if we swayed together in a dance, like snake and victim.

I shook my head. My mind was too full of conflict. I felt that I was losing both physical and mental balance at once.

He touched my hand again. I gasped.

"Come, von Bek. Come to h.e.l.l."

His flesh was hot but did not b.u.m me. It was sensuous, that touch, though immensely strong.

"Your Majesty ..." I was pleading, in turn.

"Will you not have pity, von Bek? Have pity on the Fallen One. Pity Lucifer."

The urgency, the pain, the need, the desperation, all conspired to win me, but I fought for a few seconds more. "I have no pity," I said. "I have scoured pity from my soul. I have scoured mercy. I feel only for myself!"

51."That is not so, von Bek."

"It is so! It is!"

"A truly merciless creature would not even know what it was. You resist mercy in yourself. You resist pity. You are a victim of your reason. It has replaced your humanity. And that is truly what death is, though you walk and breathe. Help me restore myself to Heaven, and I shall help you to come to life again ..."

"Oh, Your Majesty," said I, "you are as clever as they say you are." For all that I was, at that moment, His, I still attempted to strike some temporary sort of bargain. "I'll come, on the understanding that I shall be back in this room before the hour's over. And that I shall see Sabrina again ..."

"Granted."

The flagstones of the library melted away before us. They turned to mercury and then to blue water. We began to float downwards, as if through a cold sky, towards a distant landscape, wide and white and without horizon.