No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he had a moment of vertigo. When his head cleared, he found himself standing inside a great amphitheater. Empty seats rose in a circle on all sides of him. Azzie was naked save for a loincloth; apparently the new deity was a bit of a prude. That was worth, remembering.
Checking himself over, he saw that he was holding a shield of rather antique design and carrying a standard Roman short sword.
"That was fast," Azzie said.
"I catch on quick," Nameless said, his voice coming from nowhere in particular.
"What now?" Azzie asked.
"Hand-to-hand combat," Nameless said. "Just you and me. Here I come!"
A door slid open on one side of the amphitheater. There was a noisy snarling sound, and out rolled a large metallic object with tracks. Azzie had seen one of these before, during his visits to the First World War battlefields in France. It was a standard-sized army tank with the usual armor and cannon.
"Are you in that tank?" Azzie asked.
"I am the tank," Nameless said.
"Not quite evenly matched, are we?" Azzie said.
"Don"t be a sore loser," Nameless said.
The tank rumbled forward, its blue exhaust bleating out a chorus of challenge. Tentacles sprouted from its sides, each tentacle terminating in a whirring buzz saw. Azzie retreated until he felt the wall at his back.
"Wait!" he cried. "Where"s the audience?"
"What?" the tank asked, coming to a stop.
"Can"t have a real gladiatorial contest without an audience," Azzie said.
The stadium doors opened, and people started to enter the amphitheater. Azzie knew all of them. First came the Greek G.o.ds in their sculptured white sheets. Then came Ylith, and with her was Babriel. A few steps behind them came Michael.
Nameless looked them over and apparently didn"t like what he saw.
"Just a minute," he said. "A short time-out, okay?"
Azzie found himself in a nineteenth-century sitting room with Nameless.
Chapter 3.
Now, look," Nameless said. "You can see that I"ve got you outcla.s.sed and outmatched. Nothing to be ashamed of. I"m the new paradigm. No one can oppose me. I"m the visible sign of "what is to come."
"So kill me and get it over with," Azzie said.
"No, I have a much better idea. I want to let you live. I want you to join me in the new universe I am going to create."
"What do you need me for?"
"I don"t. Let"s be very clear about that. It"s just that once I"m established I"d like to have someone around to talk to. Someone from the good old days, which are now. Someone I didn"t create. I suspect it gets boring when there"s n.o.body to talk to but emanations of your own being. I imagine that"s why your G.o.d went away-He got tired of having n.o.body to talk to. n.o.body from the old days, I mean. n.o.body who wasn"t Himself in some way or other. I"m not going to make that mistake. You"re another point of view, and I can make use of that, so I"d like you to stay on with me."
Azzie was hesitant. It was a great opportunity, of course. But still...
"What are you delaying for? I can defeat you utterly, and rather easily, but now I"m giving you a chance to come to my side. You and you alone from this universe, Azzie, will live on after the destruction of everything else. We"ll sweep them all away-G.o.ds, devils, humans, nature, fate, chance, the whole works. We"ll start all over with a jollier cast of characters. You can help me plan it out. We can have it any way we want. You"ll be in at the creation of a new universe! You"ll be one of its founding fathers. Can"t say fairer than that, can I?"
"But everybody else..."
"I"m going to kill them all. They all have to go. Don"t try to change my mind."
"There"s a young boy named Quentin..."
"He"ll live in your memory."
"There"s a witch named Ylith..."
"Don"t you have a lock of her hair for a keepsake?"
"Can"t you keep her alive?" Azzie asked. "And the boy, too? Take the rest."
"Of course I can keep her alive. I can do whatever I want. But I"m not going to let her live. Or the kid. Or anyone else. Only you, Azzie. It"s a kind of punishment, you see."
Azzie looked at Nameless. He had the feeling that things weren"t going to be much different under the new cosmic management. But he wasn"t going to be around to see it. It was time to fight, time to die.
"No, thanks," he said.
Chapter 4.
The tank rumbled forward. Now it was a beautiful machine made of an amalgam of anodized aluminum and glowing chrome. White-hot it glowed, and it moved toward Azzie. He dodged out of its way. Due to its melting state, its wheels sagged out of shape and it suddenly had a hard time moving. Nameless hadn"t gotten that bit quite right.
The tank fired its cannon. From the cannon"s maw came a blobby plastic ball that split upon contact with the sand. Out of it came chiggers and baby mice. All together, they began to dig what looked like a barbecue pit. Azzie was careful not to judge: he didn"t know what Nameless had in mind, if anything.
The cannon fired again, but what came out this time was a bunch of notes of the sort musicians write on ruled paper. Azzie could hear Nameless saying, "Cannon, not canon!"
Nameless was having trouble reining in his exuberant imagination. The cannon fired again, and this time it emitted a cascade of multicolored spatter cones, which burbled and gurgled and gave off a noxious fizz.
The tank came into the center of the arena. There was a certain hesitancy about its movements, for it had learned that while Azzie might be negligible as an antagonist, Nameless himself was his own worst enemy. Azzie picked up a stone and prepared to throw it.
And then marching out of Nameless" corner came a host of headless people famous in history: Blackbeard, Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, the Headless Horseman, John the Baptist, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Mary Stuart, Medusa, Sir Thomas More, and Maximilien de Robespierre. They gathered in a phalanx, their heads tucked under their left arms in a military manner, right arms holding long lances with silvery tips. Robespierre led them, and he said afterward it was the hardest thing he"d ever done in his life.
Azzie called up his own people, who came armed with gross weapons, but they soon faded away. One of Nameless" few rules was that Azzie was going to have to do this alone.
Then Nameless opened a mouth of dirt and boulders and, towering above Azzie, proceeded to snap and bite at him.
"You"re crazy!" Azzie cried.
"No," Nameless said. "Why don"t you die?"
"You"re a poor creation," Azzie said.