For Love of Evil (28 page)

He was naked, bent over, with that crudely exploring hand still violating his body. He looked back-and saw that it was an ape. He had been demeaned by an animal, in full view of the Incarnations. What a joke they had, at his expense!

Still he controlled his rage. Now was not the occasion to make a scene that would only make the joke richer.

He straightened and stepped away from the ape with what dignity he could muster. "Now will you talk to me, Gaea?"

"No," she replied. The light ceased, and he was left as he was.

Lilah came to him. "I was afraid of something like this," she murmured. "All the Incarnations of Evil learned early not to try to cooperate with the others."

"Let's just make our way out of here," he said with surprising calmness. He led the way back through the gruesome tunnel.

The Incarnations had their fun with him, instead of meeting him honorably. This was their day. But they would pay for it. Oh, yes, they would pay!

It was another two days before he went to tackle Chronos. Lilah took him to her nest in the tree, because he wanted nothing to do with Purgatory now. He had come to understand all too well why Lucifer had ignored the Mansion of Evil there. He was better off in Hell, where he belonged.

Except that he had not yet proven his ability to control it. The Incarnations, actually, had not treated him worse than Asmodeus had. They were all against him.

"Except me," Lilah said, divining his thoughts. "I am absolutely loyal to You, my Lord, and will always be, until You cast me off."

"I will never cast you off," he said, embracing her. Demoness she might be, but she seemed better than the mortal Incarnations now.

"Oh, You will, my Lord, eventually. It always happens.

But it can be close while it lasts."

"It will last for centuries!" he said passionately. "It can-if it lasts out the month," she agreed. Sound point. He made love to her, seeking that intimacy no mortal woman could give him anymore, and tried to allay his own doubt about his chances of success.

Chronos' mansion was less pretentious than some, but it had its weird aspect, Lilah warned him. "It goes backwards, as does his life," she explained. "You will emerge from it before you enter it. Never forget that, lest there be paradox."

"Before I enter it? That's impossible!"

"Believe it, my Lord! Make allowance, lest you interfere with yourself."

"Lilah, I know this is not the normal mortal realm. But nothing will make me believe that-"

He broke off, for there, emerging from the door of the mansion, was himself, trailed by a duplicate demoness of stunning proportions.

The other Parry waved, and so did the other Lilah. Stunned,

Parry waved back. Then the other two turned aside, and disappeared down an alternate path.

"As you were saying ..." Lilah said, a trifle smugly.

"Illusion," he decided. But he did not take a step toward the door.

"It is really not complicated," she assured him. "When you share his backward travel, you come out earlier. When he is outside his mansion, he has to reverse himself in order to interact with others. He remembers what is in our future, and has not yet experienced what is in our past. It must be hard for him. On occasion, centuries ago, I-"

"You have been with him, too?" Parry asked, dismayed.

"My Lord, I have been with every man worth being with, and quite a number otherwise. When my masters tired of me, I would stray, for I have needs unlike those of real women. I have never deceived You in this, or in anything. I am Yours now, and for as long as You desire me."

"Sorry, Lilah. My mortal instincts keep getting the better of me. But if you have-with this man-"

"Once with this one, not long ago. He was especially lonely, and it seemed to be important to him, and my Lord Lucifer was having his fling with-well, never mind. Once I came to love you, I have been true to you, my Lord. In the past I have been with a prior officeholder, this one's successor. With several successors, actually. Chronos is a lonely Incarnation; it is almost impossible for him to have a meaningful relationship with a normal woman."

"But if you have always served Evil-"

"Good and Evil are not invariable antagonists. They are merely opposite poles of a spread of states. The one cannot exist without the other. All Incarnations are the enemy of Chaos, Nox's sire, and when cooperation is required to prevent Chaos's return, Incarnations cooperate. It is not to Your interest to quarrel with Chronos; remember, he could change your past life with barely an effort."

"I have not sought to quarrel with any of the Incarnations!" he exclaimed. "But they have quarreled with me! Except for Nox . . . and if she is the daughter of the true enemy, why didn't she do something to me?"

"No one quite understands Nox," she said. "She is her own creature. Perhaps she finds the current panoply more interesting."

Parry squared his shoulders. "We had better get on with it. I hope Chronos helps me."

"He was the only major earthly Incarnation not present at Gaea's outrage," she said. "That could be because he failed to get the news, being on the other side of events, but I prefer to think it is because he respects You."

"He doesn't even know me!"

"You forget, he could have known you for decades hence."

Parry sighed. "I did forget. This may be tricky."

"Nox did say Chronos would help," she reminded him.

Nox. Parry found himself being swept back into his memory of that experience. The stuff of dreams!

Lilah jogged him back to the present. "I know that look on a man's face. Keep her out of Your mind, my Lord, or You are lost before You begin."

Good advice! They went up to the door and knocked.

The Incarnation of Time himself opened it. He was a man of about Parry's age, with portly figure and gray hair. His suit appeared somewhat out of style, but not archaic; Parry realized that it probably would come into style in a later decade. The man lived backward; he had to keep that in mind!

Chronos took his hand. "You told me you would be calling, Satan," he said warmly. "I am sorry only that our acquaintance must end now."

"We-have had a long acquaintance?" Parry asked cautiously, hardly daring to rely on the significance of such a statement.

"Certainly!" Chronos agreed heartily. "You have always been kind to me, Satan, and I am not unmindful of past favors. You told me that you would have something important to ask me at this point, and certainly I shall answer to the best of my ability."

This was almost too easy! Parry hesitated to broach his question, as yet uncertain of the implications. If Chronos had known him long, then he must have survived the trial period and become the regular Incarnation of Evil. Must have maintained the name Satan. Could he trust that?

"And Lilah, you darling creature!" Chronos said, stepping up to embrace her warmly. She, too, seemed uncertain.

"Chronos, remember that this is new to us at the moment," Parry said. "We do not know what kind of relationship we shall be having with you. I should advise you that the other Incarnations-"

"Yes, that is awkward," Chronos said quickly. "I must not say too much, of course. But I can tell you that you and Lilah have always been true friends to me, for the entire thirty years I have held this office, though of course never intimate in the other sense." He glanced again at Lilah. "Not that I could not have wished otherwise, no affront intended."

Lilah smiled. "Perhaps, in three or four years, if you are in need, I will come to you one time." She glanced significantly at Parry, and her prior remarks to him fell into place. She had rewarded Chronos in the past for the favor Chronos was about to do now for Parry. She had not known it at the time, but the retrospective rationale seemed apt. Parry found he could not quite manage to be jealous of it; it was after all a special situation.

Even so, he could not stop himself from wondering which particular time that she had been absent from him she had done it. She had seemed wholly devoted to his corruption; why had she gone visiting with Chronos?

"You will be welcome, Lilah," Chronos said. It was evident that he understood her nature perfectly, and accepted it. "I will let you know, if such need occurs." And there was the answer; Chronos had asked for her, and she, knowing his nature, had elected to cooperate rather than question it. Now Parry was glad she had.

Chronos returned his attention to Parry. "But I would help you regardless, my friend. What is it you require?"

"The secret of the spell to banish demons," Parry said.

Chronos pursed his lips. "That, I regret, I do not know. Neither you nor any other creature has vouchsafed that information to me."

The disappointment was keen. "Nox said you might-" Parry shrugged. "I just assumed you knew."

"Nox." Chronos smiled reminiscently. "Now there is a creature to conjure with, if I may be excused the notion. She thought I knew it?"

"She said to ask you, and that you might help."

"Indeed I would help if I could." Chronos paced the floor. "Almost, I think, once long ago, you made reference-I thought it of no significance-to-to, let me think now. No, it was something I read in a book left by my predecessor. Let me see." He hurried from the room.

"A book from the future?" Parry asked, bemused.

Chronos returned, carrying an ornate volume. "The Collected Edition of the Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley," he announced. "Eighteen-thirty-nine."

"What?" Parry thought he had misheard.

"An English poet, as I understand it. Before my time, of course, and after yours. One of my predecessors may have brought the volume to this house and forgotten it. So it remains, becoming further anachronistic each year. There are some fascinating references I don't pretend to comprehend! But my point is, there is a note in the margin of one of the-ah, here it is! The poem 'Death'-"

"Thanatos?" Parry asked, not liking this. His respect for the Incarnation of Death had been rudely downgraded recently.

"No, I am in error. It is the sonnet 'Ozymandias.' See, here is the note: 'He knows the secret.' I do not know what that can mean, but perhaps it relates." He brought the open book and showed it to Parry.

Parry stared at the page. "The calligraphy!" he exclaimed. "How could the human hand be so precise? Every letter is the same, and tiny!"

"And the pages!" Lilah added, as intrigued. "Tens, hundreds of them, bound together by one side! What scribe managed that?"

Chronos shook his head. "Evidently they had ways, in the , nineteenth century. That is after all six hundred years from here. Their magicians must have rare competence. It never occurred to me to wonder about it, before."

The three of them gazed in wonder at the volume for a moment more. Then Parry read the scrawled note, and the poem to which it attached, piecing out the strange lettering in English, not his best language. " 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: I Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' " He looked up. "But nothing beside remains, it says; only bare sand."

Lilah laughed. "All his works had been forgotten! So much for his arrogance! I remember him, but did not realize that anyone else did."

Both Chronos and Parry looked at her, surprised. "You knew Ozymandias?" Parry asked.

"Of course. He was quite a figure in his heyday! I-I explained about that, my Lord."

She had been with even this long-forgotten historical king! Parry was too amazed to be jealous, this time.

"Do you think he might know the secret you require?" Chronos asked. "Surely there was reason to make that note."

"He just might," Lilah said. "He was no scholar himself, but he had pride. He wanted to have the best in everything, so he had a battery of scholars of every discipline, and the finest sorcerers. If there was an important secret to divine, he had the means to divine it."

"But if he died so long ago that all his works have perished and been forgotten, we can hardly ask him," Parry said.

"Oh, there is no problem about that," she said brightly. "He's in Hell now, of course."

Parry exchanged glances with Chronos. Ozymandias was available!

Suddenly Parry was eager to be on his way. "I thank you, Chronos!" he said. "You may have provided me with what I need!"

"I certainly hope so, old friend." Chronos extended his hand, and Parry took it warmly. He knew he would visit this man again; already he liked the Incarnation of Time. Perhaps the two of them were alike in their isolation, so found camaraderie together while the other Incarnations ignored them.

They stepped outside. There were the prior Parry and Lilah approaching. Parry waved, startling his other self. "He'll figure it out," he said, and turned down an alternate path.

Lilah knew where to look for Ozymandias: in the dread Ninth Circle, reserved for traitors. "He gained his power by murdering his kindred," she said. "He usurped the throne, then went on to betray his benefactors, his friends and finally his country, exploiting all its resources for his own aggrandizement. He was an apt ruler, actually, because of his ruthlessness; his empire was the most powerful of those that have been forgotten. I think he angered Fate by his presumption, so she arranged to have his legacy lost after he died. So now he suffers the humiliation of being a nonentity, in addition to the tortures of Hell. It will be nice to see him again."