A Farce To Be Reckoned With Read online

  A Farce To Be Reckoned With

  Roger Zelazny

  Robert Sheckley

  Roger Zelazny Robert Sheckley

  A Farce To Be Reckoned With

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Ylith congratulated herself on her luck. She had chosen a perfect day for her journey from Heaven to the neat little graveyard outside of York, England. It was late May. The sunshine was glorious. Little birds of all sorts cavorted on mossy tree limbs, singing away on the edge of the surround. And the best of it was, the dozen little angels in her charge were being very good, even for angels.

  The youngsters were playing together nicely, and Ylith was just starting to relax when suddenly a cloud of sulfurous yellow smoke puffed into existence not ten feet from her. When the smoke cleared, a short, red-haired fox-faced demon wrapped in a black cloak stood before her.

  "Azzie!" Ylith cried. "What are you doing here?"

  "I thought I'd take a little time off from infernal affairs, check out some shrines," Azzie said.

  "Not thinking of changing your allegiance, are you?" Ylith asked.

  "Not like you," Azzie said, referring to Ylith's former career as a witch. "Nice bunch you've got." He waved at the little angels.

  "They're being terribly good, as you can see," Ylith remarked.

  "It is not news when an angel acts good," Azzie said.

  In fact, the little angels had begun running around the graveyard and quarreling. Their voices rose, high-pitched and sugar sweet:

  "Look what I've found! It's the tomb of St. Athelstan the Mealymouthed!"

  "Oh, yeah? I've found the gravestone of St. Anne the Anxious, and she was much more important!"

  The angels all looked very much alike with their snub features and their uniformly blond, smooth honey-colored hair that curled up beneath in the pageboy bob so fashionable that century. They all had plump wings, still covered with baby feathers and concealed under white and pink traveling cloaks. It was customary for angels visiting Earth to hide their wings.

  Not that anyone would have been surprised to see angels in that year of 1324. It was well known that angels went back and forth between Earth and Heaven on a regular basis then, as did imps and devils and other supernatural creatures who had managed to remain in existence during the change of major deities, along with several anomalous immortal beings that no one had gotten around to identifying. In terms of deities, the Renaissance was an eclectic sort of an age.

  "What are you doing here, Ylith?" Azzie asked.

  The beautiful dark-haired witch explained that she had agreed to take this group of pubescent angels on a tour of Famous Shrines of England as part of their summer term Religious Training course. Ylith, perhaps because of her past history as a witch in the service of Bad — before she changed sides due to her love for a young angel named Babriel—was very much in favor of religious education for the young. They had to know something, so that when people asked questions, Heaven wouldn't be embarrassed by their answers.

  Their starting point, the Martyr's Field in the north of England, had many famous tombs; the little angels were busy discovering who had been planted where.

  "Here's where they buried St. Cecily the Unwary," one of the little angels was saying. "I was talking to Cecily just the other day, in Heaven. She asked me to say a prayer at her grave."

  Azzie said to Ylith, "The children seem to be doing fine. Why don't you come with me and let me give you some lunch?"

  Ylith and Azzie had been an item once, back in the days when they were both Bad Creatures in service to Evil. Ylith still remembered how crazy she had been for the high-stepping, sharp-muzzled young fox demon. That was quite some time ago, of course.

  Now she walked over to where Azzie indicated, near a spreading oak tree, and was more than a little surprised when a light flashed and the scene shifted abruptly. Suddenly she seemed to be standing on the shore of a great sea, with palm trees swaying on the beach and a big fat red sun lying low on the horizon.

  Near the edge of the water was a table laden with good things to eat and drink. And there was a broad bed, too, there on the beach, close to the table and made up with satin sheets and with innumerable cushions of all sizes and shapes and colors. Beside the bed a small chorus of satyrs sang the music of seduction.

  "Just lie down over here," Azzie said, for he had accompanied Ylith into the new construct. "I will ply you with grapes and iced sherbets and we will know such delights as we once enjoyed — entirely too long ago."

  "Hey, take it easy!" Ylith said, evading Azzie's amorous lunge. "You're forgetting I'm still an angel."

  "No, I'm not," Azzie responded. "I just thought you might like to take a break."

  "There are certain rules we must follow."

  "How do they apply to your little fling with Dr. Faust?"

  "That was a mistake," she said, "a case of bad judgment on my part while under emotional stress.

  Anyway, I repented afterwards. I'm okay. Just like before."

  "Except that you and Babriel broke up over it."

  "We still see each other. How did you hear about that, anyway?"

  "The taverns of Limbo are the great exchange posts for Heavenly and Hellish news."

  "I hardly see that my love life rates as particularly important gossip."

  "Hey, you used to be big-time, lady. You used to hang out with me, remember?"

  "Oh, Azzie, you're impossible," she said. "If you want to seduce me, you should be telling me how beautiful and desirable I am, not how important you are."

  "As a matter of fact, you do look terribly good," Azzie said.

  "And you are being terribly clever, as always," she said. She looked around at the seaside. "It is a beautiful illusion you've created here, Azzie. But I really must get back to the children."

  She stepped out of the oceanside illusion, arriving back in the churchyard just in time to prevent Angel Ermita from pulling the ears of Angel Dimitri. Azzie soon appeared beside her, looking not too crestfallen for his recent rejection.

  "Anyhow… I don't think it's me you want so much. What is bothering you, Azzie?" Ylith asked. "What are you doing here, really?"

  "I'm between engagements," Azzie said with a bitter laugh. "I'm out of work. I came here to consider what to do next."

  "Came here? To England?"

  "To the Middle Ages, actually. It's one of my favorite periods of Earth history."

  "How can you be out of work? I should think you'd be well employed by the Powers of Bad, especially after the masterful way you handled things in the recent Faust game."

  "Ah! Don't talk to me about the Faust game!"

  "Whyever not?"

  "The judges of Hell have robbed me of the real honors I should have received after Mephistopheles bungled things so badly. The fools in Hell go on as though their positions are assured for all eternity, little realizing that they stand in imminent danger of going out of fashion and vanishing from men's thoughts forever."

  "The Forces of Bad, on the verge of vanishing? But what would happen to Good?"

  "It would vanish, too."

  "That is quite impossible," Ylith said. "Mankind cannot live without firm opinions on Good and Bad."

  "You think not? They did so once. The Greeks lived without absolutes, and so did the Romans."

  "I'm not so sure of that," Ylith said. "But even if it's true, I can't imagine mankind living in that strident but morally bankrupt pagan way again."

  "Why not?" Azzie asked. "Good and Bad aren't like bread and water. Mankind can get along nicely without them."

  "Is that what you want, Azzie?" Ylith asked. "A world without Good or Bad?"

&n
bsp; "Certainly not! Evil is my true work, Ylith, my vocation. I believe in it. What I want is to come up with something impressive in favor of what they call Bad, something that will motivate mankind, seize its attention, bring it back again to the dear old drama of Good and Bad, gain and loss."

  "Do you think you can do that?" she asked.

  "Of course. I don't want to boast, but I can do anything I set my mind to."

  "At least," Ylith said, "you have no problem with your ego."

  "If only I could get Ananke to see things my way!" Azzie said, referring to the personified spirit of Necessity who ruled gods and men in her inscrutable way. "But the silly old cow persists in her ambiguities."

  "How can you stand being around those brats all the time?" Azzie asked.

  "Getting yourself to like what you ought to like is half the trick of being good."

  "And what is the other half?"

  "Saying no to the blandishments of old boyfriends. Especially demonic ones! Good-bye, Azzie, and good luck."

  Chapter 2

  Disguised as a merchant, Azzie walked into the nearby city of York. Crowds were streaming toward a central point in the city, and he allowed himself to be carried along through the narrow winding streets.

  The people were in a holiday mood, but Azzie didn't know the cause of celebration.

  A play was being enacted on a wooden platform in the middle of the city's central square; Azzie decided to watch. Stage plays for the general public were a fairly recent invention. Suddenly it had become a fad that was sweeping Europe.

  It was all pretty simple and straightforward. Actors came out on a raised platform and pretended to be someone else. If you'd never seen it before it could be quite thrilling. Azzie had seen many plays in his tune—a long tune that stretched all the way back to the primitive goat dances of the ancient Hellenics —

  and he considered himself something of an expert. After all, he had been in the opening nights' audiences for Sophocles' great dramas. But this production in York was something different from goat dances and from Sophocles. This was realistic drama, and these two actors were talking like man and wife.

  "So, Noah, what's new?" said Noah's wife.

  "Woman, I have just had a divine revelation."

  "Call that news?" Mrs. Noah said scornfully. "All you ever do, Noah, is walk out into the desert and have revelations. Isn't that true, children?"

  "Sure is, Mama," said Jepthah.

  "Right on," said Ham.

  "Too true," said Shem.

  "The Lord God has spoken to me," Noah said. "He commands me to take the boat I just built and move everyone aboard, because He is about to send a rain that will drown all things."

  "How do you know this?" Mrs. Noah asked.

  "I heard the voice of God."

  "You and your crazy voices!" said Mrs. Noah. "If you think I'm going to move into that crazy boat with you and the kids just because you've heard a voice, you've got another think coming."

  "I know it'll be a little crowded," Noah said, "especially after we get all the animals aboard. But not to worry. The Lord will provide."

  "Animals?" Mrs. Noah asked. "You didn't say anything about animals."

  "I was just getting to that part. That's what the Lord wants me to do. Save the animals from the Flood He's about to send."

  "What animals are we talking about? Like pets?"

  "God wants us to take more than just pets," Noah said.

  "Like what?"

  "Well, like everything," Noah said.

  "How many of everything?"

  "A pair of each kind of animal."

  "Each kind? All of them?"

  "That's the idea."

  "You mean, like rats?"

  "Yes, two of them."

  "And rhinoceroses?"

  "I admit it'll be a squeeze. But yes, rhinoceroses."

  "And elephants?"

  "We'll get them aboard somehow."

  "And walruses?"

  "Yes, of course, walruses too! God's instructions were very clear! Two of every kind."

  Mrs. Noah gave Noah a look that as good as said, Poor drunken old Noah is having his fantasies again.

  The audience loved it. There were about a hundred of them in the improvised theater, lounging on benches. They howled at Mrs. Noah's lines, stamping their feet to show approval. They were poor townspeople and rustics mostly, this audience that had gathered to watch a soon-to-be-apocryphal miracle play called Noah.

  Azzie sat in one of the box seats that had been set up on a special scaffolding above and to the right of the stage. These seats were for the use of the prosperous citizen. From here he could watch the actors who played Noah's sons' wives changing their costumes. He could lounge at his ease and remain above the unwashed fetor of the masses for whom these plays, with their morally correct attitudes and their simpering points of argument, were intended.

  The play went on. Noah boarded his boat; the rains began. A yokel with a watering can stood on a ladder and simulated the beginning of forty days and forty nights of rain. Azzie remarked to the well-dressed man in the box seat behind him, "Do what God says and everything will come out right for you! What a trivial conclusion, and how untrue to everyday life, where things come out in the oddest fashion with no regard for cause and effect."

  "Well, obviously, sir," Azzie said. "But it is all sheerest propaganda. Don't you ever wish you could see a play with more invention in it, instead of a concoction like this that links homilies together as a butcher links sausages? Wouldn't you like to see a play whose plot was not hitched to the simpering determinism of standard morality?"

  "Such would be refreshing, I suppose," the man said. "But such a philosophically based work is unlikely to come from the clerics who pen this sort of thing. Perhaps you'd care to pursue the point further, sir, after the play, over a tankard of ale?"

  "Delighted," said Azzie. "I am Azzie Elbub, and my profession is gentleman."

  "And I am Peter Westfall," the stranger said. "I am a grain importer, and I have my shop near St.

  Gregory's in the Field. But I see the players are beginning again."

  The play got no better. After it was over, Azzie accompanied Westfall and several of his friends to the Sign of the Pied Cow, in Holbeck Lane near High Street. The landlord brought them flowing tankards, and Azzie ordered mutton and potatoes for all.

  Westfall had received some education in a monastery in Burgundy. He was a large middle-aged man, sanguine of complexion, mostly bald, florid of gesture, and tending toward goutiness. From watching him refuse the meat, Azzie suspected him of vegetarianism, one of the deviant marks by which a Catharist heretic could be detected. It made no difference to Azzie, but he filed the information away for possible use some other time. Meanwhile there was the play to discuss with Westfall and the several other members of his party.

  When Azzie complained about the play's lack of originality, Westfall said, "Indeed, sir, it is not supposed to be original. It is a story that tells a most edifying message."

  "You call that an edifying message?" Azzie demanded. "Be patient and it'll all work out? You know perfectly well that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and that if you don't complain nothing ever changes. In the Noah story, God was a tyrant. He should have been opposed! Who says God is right every time? Is a man to have no judgment of his own? If I were a playwright, I'd come up with something better than that!"

  Westfall thought that Azzie's words were provocative and unorthodox, and it was in his mind to chastise him. But he noticed that there was a strange and commanding presence about the young fellow, and it was well known that members of the Court often disguised themselves as ordinary gentlemen, the better to draw responses from the unwary. So Westfall eased up on his queries, finally pleading the late hour as an excuse to retire.

  After Westfall and the others had departed, Azzie stayed on awhile at the tavern. He wasn't sure what to do next. Azzie considered following Ylith and again trying his seductive wiles, but he realiz
ed it would not be a good move. He decided instead to travel on to the Continent, as he had originally intended. He was thinking of staging a play of his own. A play that would run counter to these morality plays with their insipid messages. An immorality play!

  Chapter 3

  The idea of staging an immorality play had seized and inflamed Azzie's imagination. He wanted to do great things, as he had in the past, first in the matter of Prince Charming and then again in the affair of Johann Faust. Now he wanted to strike again, to amaze the world, both spiritual and material.

  He knew it was no small task; he knew he had some strenuous work ahead of him. But he also knew of the man who could help him create such a play: Pietro Aretino, one day to be eminent among Europe's Renaissance playwrights and poets. If Aretino could be convinced…

  He made up his mind sometime after midnight. Yes, he would do it! Azzie walked through the town of York and out onto the fields. It was a splendid night, with a great spangling of stars shining from their fixed sphere. All good God-fearing folk had gone to bed hours ago. Seeing there was no one about, God-fearing or not, he stripped off his satin coat with the double row of buttons and opened his crimson waistcoat. He was splendidly muscled; supernatural creatures are able, by paying a modest fee, to keep their bodies in shape magically, utilizing the Hellish service that advertises "Sound body, evil mind."

  Stripped, he unfastened the linen binder that pulled his batlike demon's wings flat to his body in order to conceal them during his journeys among mankind. How good it felt to stretch his wings again! He used the linen binder to tie up his clothing to his back, taking care that his change was securely placed. He had lost money this way before through careless stowage. And then, with three running steps, he was aloft.

  He slid forward in time as he went, enjoying its astringent smell. Soon he was over the English Channel, headed in a southeasterly direction. A brisk little following breeze pushed him along to the French coast in record time.