Moondrench was a young spirit who had not had his s.e.xual awakening. Although he was called "he," he was in fact a neutral in matters of s.e.x-uality. Agrippa was an older spirit who had been around for a very long time and was more than a little jaded. He did like fresh young spirits, however, and he may have had something of a sporting nature in mind when he invited Moondrench. He liked the naive responses of young spirits. They gave him some-thing to be superior to.
They arrived at the north entrance to Limbo at the time appointed for the Millennial Awards Dinner.
Together they mounted the cloud-staircases that led to the building where the banquet was to be held.
Clouds are not easy to walk on, even if you are a demon. In no time at all, Moondrench began com-plaining.
"I"m sick of walking," he said. "Let"s fly."
"It"s not allowed," Agrippa said.
"But we always fly! Remember that flying game you taught me?"
"Please, let"s not speak of that here. It is said that we walk today in honor of our victim"s ancestor, Adam."
"Adam, shmadam," Moondrench said. "I just don"t want to get my new outfit sweaty."
"Stop complaining, " Agrippa said.
Ahead lay a great cloud-pasture. It seemed to expand like an unbounded metaphor. It had Corinthian columns which added to its cla.s.sical look.
They walked to the entrance. A demon in a powdered wig and beige silk stockings checked Agrippa"s invitation, holding it up to the light to make sure it had the watermark. The Millennial Awards was such an important event that many spiritual beings tried to lie their way in, or get by with forged credentials.
Luckily for Agrippa, his excellent connections with the High Demon Council, for whom he threw parties and lit-erary soirees, had a.s.sured him and his friend of places at the banquet.
Agrippa, many centuries old, had the leathery skin and deep wrinkles of a rottweiler.
The attendant verified his invitation and let them continue inside.
Within the banqueting hall they came to a table so long that it disappeared from sight at either end.
Luckily, Agrippa and Moondrench"s seats were near the middle. They found little name tags in the form of paper pennants stuck into grapefruits.
Taking their places, they nodded to their neighbors on either side. The speeches from the high table had already begun. Agrippa found himself sitting next to a Nubian angel with an ebony halo. Moondrench looked around, still considerably in awe, and saw food being pa.s.sed.
"Can I eat now?" he asked Agrippa in a loud whisper.
"Yes, but don"t make a pig of yourself."
Moondrench snarled at him and speared a turkeydogleg from a platter as it went by. He followed it up with a gla.s.s of mescal ichor. This had the embryonic dragon at the bottom of the gla.s.s, identifying it as genuine. He munched and looked around. He stared at the tall blond creature with big blue eyes who sat across the table from him. "Hot d.a.m.n," he remarked to Agrippa. "That"s what I call some kind of s.e.xy."
"Forget it," Agrippa said. "That"s an angel and he"s not for the likes of you."
It was a fact that demons were always l.u.s.ting after angels, who, it is said, were flattered by the attention.
This occasion of the Awards Dinner was one of the few times they were able to mingle freely with each other.
Waiters hurried back and forth with trays of food and drink. Many of them wore the ethnic masks which were so popular in celestial circles. Their masks matched the type of food they were serving. Italian angels served tiny pizzas, Viet-namese angels had eggrolls and Pho soup, and Arab spirits bore silver trays with kebabs piled high on them.
The food was good, of course, but Moondrench was more interested in strong drink. "Pa.s.s the ichor,"
he told a tall skinny spirit diagonally across the table from him. Agrippa was getting a good start, too.
Moondrench considered joining a group of devils off by themselves in a corner, where they drank ichor out of each other"s shoes and giggled immoderately. At a dif-ferent part of the table, a fat demon in a clown"s outfit cut into a large pie, releasing four-and-twenty blackbirds, which flut-tered around the heads of the guests.
"Having a good time?" Agrippa asked Moondrench.
"It isn"t bad," Moondrench said. "But who is that over there waving his hands?"
"That"s Asmodeus," Agrippa said. "He"s in charge of this section of the banquet."
"And the dark lady beside him?"
"That is Hecate, Queen of Night. If they look in your direction, just smile and raise your gla.s.s. They are very im-portant."
"You don"t have to tell me how to behave. What is As-modeus doing? He seems to be reading something. But I didn"t know that Lord Demons could read."
"Very funny," Agrippa said. "If he hears you saying things like that, you"ll see how humorous he"ll feel."
Agrippa peered more closely. "He seems to be studying the notes for his speech."
"What speech?" Moondrench asked. "You didn"t say any-thing about the speeches."
"I thought you understood what this is all about."
"Just some sort of big party, isn"t it?"
"Rather more than that," Agrippa said. "This is the oc-casion when they announce the winner of the Millennial contest which determines the quality that will dominate men"s lives for the next thousand years."
Moondrench said, "Is it so important, this matter of human destiny? "
"Not to us, perhaps," Agrippa said. "But to them it means quite a lot."
A Nameless Horror stalked by, reeking of deep reptilian musk. Its companion, a model of the Pickman variety, asked, "Did you hear what happened to Good"s entry?"
The Nameless Horror grunted in the negative.
"The whole d.a.m.ned thing fell down! Made a beautiful crash -with those stained-gla.s.s windows and all.
Too bad about the gargoyles, of course."
"How come?" the Nameless Horror growled.
"Something to do with b.u.t.tressing and flying-I"m not clear on the mechanics. Guess Good wasn"t either.
Har! Har!"
"I want some more to drink," Moondrench said. "You promised me I"d have lots of fun."
"Here comes the waiter with the ichor," Agrippa said. "Please don"t act silly."
"I shall drink as much as I please," Moondrench said, helping himself to a flagon of ichor. "And I shall probably drink a lot. Drinking to excess is never silly."
There was a disturbance at the rear of the hall. A fox-faced demon had entered and was making his lurching way forward, colliding with waiters, b.u.mping against diners, knock-ing dishes from tables as he pa.s.sed. Murmurs rose as he went by: "How rude!"
"Isn"t that ...?"
"Is that . . . ?"
"Looks like Azzie."
"Didn"t he have an entry in the contest?"
"Wonder what happened."
"Hey, Azzie! You okay?"
"I heard he screwed up a big one."
"I thought he was still in the Pits."
"Looks soused to the ear tufts."
"Watch it there, fella!"
"What else can you expect from a drunken demon?"
"What"d he want with a gla.s.s mountain, anyhow?"
"Give "em h.e.l.l, Azzie!"
"Yeah! h.e.l.l! Brimstone and all that!"
Moondrench was being difficult. Agrippa no longer con-sidered him as attractive as he had before. And now the banquet was in full swing. More food kept arriving, brought in on silver platters by demons in black tuxedos. There were some unusual dishes. Suckling chimaera, for example. And there were all sorts of dishes with little handwritten signs on them telling the diner what he was getting into. A few of the dishes were even able to enunciate. "h.e.l.lo," the stewed turnips said, "we"re delicious."
The sound of all those beings conversing was beginning to grow deafening. In order to reach anyone more than two or three seats away, you had to use the seash.e.l.l telephones located beside each setting.
On a sort of boardwalk which extended over the dining table, a tableau of great hits of the past was being presented, highlights of the macabre and the virtuous. As new guests ar-rived, each had to have his lineage and accomplishments an-nounced by the white-furred majordomo.
Azzie continued to push his way forward, on the crest of an advancing wave of chaos.
Then Asmodeus got up. He was fat, and his white skin had a greenish cast. His lower lip protruded so far that a saucer could have balanced on it. He wore a bottle-green coat, and when he turned around, his twisted pig"s tail was visible.
"h.e.l.lo, friends," Asmodeus said. "I think we all know why we are here, don"t we?"
"To get drunk!" an ugly spirit off to one side said.
"Well, yes, that, of course," Asmodeus said. "But we are getting drunk tonight for a purpose. And that purpose is to celebrate the eve of the Millennium, and to announce the winner of the contest. I know you"re impatient to find out who it is, but you"ll just have to wait a little longer. First we are going to have some special appearances."
Azzie moved to the front of the hall.
Asmodeus began to call out names, and various spirits got up to take bows. They grinned and smirked, sc.r.a.ped and bowed to the enthusiastic audience. The Red Death was introduced and stood up. He was tall, and wrapped from head to foot in a bloodred cloak. Over his shoulder he carried a scythe.
"Who"s that couple over there?" Moondrench asked. "The big blond angel and the dark little witch?"
"The angel is named Babriel," Agrippa told him. "The witch is Ylith - a good friend of Azzie"s, one of our more in-teresting and active demons. I believe he just went by."
"I"ve heard of him," Moondrench said. "He was doing something special for this year"s festivities, wasn"t he?"
"So it"s been said. There he is now, down front. Looks like he got a head start on the rest of us. I wonder what he"s up to?"
Azzie climbed onto a table, to the consternation of the diners who surrounded it. He swayed. He breathed smoke and struck sparks as he moved.
He made as if to say something several times but failed. Finally, he plucked a flagon from a diner"s talons, raised it, and drained it.
"Fools! Pigs! b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" he roared then. "Ye less-than-sentient things! I address myself particularly to my so-called brothers of Darkness, whose champion I have been, betrayed utterly by your indifference.
We could have won it, boys and girls! We had the chance! My conception was glorious, un-precedented, and it could have worked!"
He paused and coughed. Someone pa.s.sed him another flagon, and he sipped from it. The hall had grown quiet now.
"But did I get any cooperation?" he went on. "Not a bit! The fools in Supply acted as if I were doing this for my own personal aggrandizement, rather than the greater glory of us all. Why, d.a.m.n it! I got more help from that fool Babriel, the stupid-faced observer from the Powers of Light, than I got from any of you. And you call yourselves evil! You are living proof, all of you, of the ba.n.a.lity of bad! And now you sit here and celebrate and await the announcement. I tell you, friends, Evil has grown boring and stupid in this day and age. We of Dark-ness have lost the ability to steer the destinies of humanity."
Azzie glared around him. Everyone was silent, waiting for him to continue. Azzie strode across the table, took another swig, swayed again, regained his balance.
"So I say, the h.e.l.l with all of you! I am going away now to a private place, to think and to rest. This entire event has been very trying. But I want to tell you all, this isn"t the end of me. Not at all. I still have a few tricks, my masters! Wait now and see what I bring next for your amus.e.m.e.nt!"
Azzie threw out a double travel-spell and disappeared in a clap of thunder. The a.s.sembled demons and angels glanced at each other uneasily. "What do you think he meant by that?" several were heard to mutter.
They did not have to wait long to see.
Before they could move, a tornado came sweeping in from outer reality. It roared, ripped, and tore at the banquet hall, and it was accompanied by a rising rush of water. The carefully noted speeches of the elder demons and angels were ripped from their hands and sent flying to the skies. There followed an infestation of frogs, thousands, millions of them, dropping from out the heavens. The walls began to sweat blood, while noxious halations suddenly became the order of the day. And through it all there was a faint demonic laughter-Azzie"s laugh-ter- as he sent peril after menace after direness after terror into the banquet hall.
All in all, it proved a most memorable dessert.
Chapter 7.