"Are you sure we need this combat? Couldn"t you just die and have done with it?"
"Sorry," Azzie muttered.
Chapter 5.
Azzie looked around. The twelve Olympians, led by Zeus, were sitting on marble steps near to Babriel, Michael, and Ylith. There were new people there, too: Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet, Johann Faust and Marguerite. They rose as one and advanced into the arena.
"This isn"t fair!" Nameless said. "You"re not allowed to summon help."
"I didn"t summon them," Azzie said. "They came on their own."
"I haven"t had any time yet to create friends and allies!"
"I know," Ylith said. "You chose to go it alone."
"Too late now," Michael the Archangel said. He stood at the front of the Heavenly hosts. "I think we are all agreed that you, Nameless, are quite unsuited to be Supreme Deity. We"re going to join together now and dispose of you."
Then there was a sound of singing, a single strong male voice leading a rousing melody. It was Aretino, singing a Renaissance version of "Onward Christian Soldiers." The chorus was made up of all the others - Quentin and Puss, Kornglow and Leonore, Sir Oliver and Mother Joanna, Rodrigo and Cressilda. They formed a tight circle around the combatants and urged Azzie on. But how silly it was to urge him, he reflected, for there was nothing he could do. The power of this creature from darkest probability had already proven too much for him.
"You don"t have to die," Ylith was saying to him. "Ananke is defeated only if you are. You"ve had the courage to mount your play. Keep fighting!"
Chapter 6.
All right, a little Greco-Roman wrestling," Nameless said, a.s.suming a vaguely human form. "To the death." He seized Azzie in a powerful grip.
Then Quentin cried, "You can"t kill him!"
"I can"t? Why not?"
"Because he"s my friend."
"Young man, you don"t seem to realize what an exposed position you"re in. I"m the Eater of Souls, my boy. Yours will be like a little maraschino cherry on top of the whipped-cream sundae of this foolish demon here."
"No!" And Quentin smacked Nameless over the head with his open palm. Nameless reared back on his wheels, baring his teeth, and Puss poked the superdeity in the stomach. Nameless collapsed onto the b.l.o.o.d.y sand. Sir Oliver came into the ring tugging a lance, and with Mother Joanna"s help he poked Nameless in the eye.
"Oh, this is too much," Nameless said as the lance pa.s.sed through his head and he died.
Ananke appeared in the heavens above them, her old lady"s face smiling.
"Well done, my children!" she cried. "I knew you could all cooperate, if the cause were dire enough."
"So that"s why you hatched this scheme!" Azzie cried.
"One of many reasons, my pet," Ananke said. "There are always reasons within reasons, and every reason for a reason may itself be scrutinized and its const.i.tuent reasons adduced. Don"t question it, my friend. You are alive, all of you."
And then they all came together into a dance. They held hands, they mounted to the air. Faster and higher they flew, all of them together, all of them there except...
Chapter 7.
Aretino suddenly woke with a snort. He sat up in bed and looked out the window. The sun was shining on Venice. Beside him on the bed was a ma.n.u.script, The Legend of the Golden Candlesticks.
He remembered now that he had dreamed a fantastic dream. That was one explanation.
Another explanation was that Azzie had succeeded in preserving Venice in Limbo.
He looked out the window. People were walking past, Kornglow and Leonore among them.
"What"s happening?" Aretino called out.
Kornglow looked up. "Take care, Aretino! They say the Mongols are coming any moment."
So Venice was doomed? Then Aretino knew that everything was all right. What he needed now was to find a quiet place to sit down and continue work on his play.
Aretino woke up on a splendid morning to realize that during the night he had had an unaccountable dream, in which a demon had come to him and ordered him to write a play. The play was about pilgrims and golden candlesticks, and the result so outraged the powers of the universe that Venice was put to destruction. But then Ananke decided to spare it, so the time track of the city that had continued his actions with the demon was cut away and sent to Limbo. And he had awakened in Venice in the real world.
Aretino got up and looked about. Everything looked as it always had. He wondered what was happening to that other Venice, the one in Limbo.
Chapter 8.
Fatus felt a certain alarm when he was told that a new place had arrived in Limbo. Limbo was a place of many regions that had been and many that never were. The garden of the Hesperides was here, and Arthur"s court of Camelot, and the lost city of Lys.
The new place was Venice, the Venice of Catastrophes, and he went for a walk in this place and marveled at its beauty. The people didn"t know it was all fading out, dying, to be renewed again each day. He walked and walked, through scenes of death and dying, and he felt it all very lively. Each day it would start anew. He wished he could tell people that, that there was no reason ever to fear, because in the morning it would all start again. But the people wouldn"t listen to him and so lived forever in a state of alarm, starting each day afresh.
Fatus came to the lovers, Kornglow and Leonore. It was refreshing to find two for whom life and the love of each other was a continual revelation and a constant delight. Go and teach the others, he told them, but they only laughed at him. It is simple, how to live, they said. Each can do it, there is nothing to teach.
Fatus returned to his castle and mused over his old things and wondered what might happen next.
Chapter 9.
In Venice, the one in Limbo, Kornglow and Leonore talked about Aretino.
"I wonder if he"ll ever write his play."
"Perhaps he will. But not the real one. This one-the one in which we die every night, and are reborn every morning. I hope you"re not afraid of death, my love."
"Perhaps a little. But we"ll be alive again tomorrow, will we not?"
"That is my belief. But death now will feel like death while it is happening."
"Must we die now?"
"All of Venice dies tonight."
There is a clatter of hooves. Hors.e.m.e.n in the city. Mongols!