Zelazny, Roger - (With Robert Sheckley) Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (v1.0)

by Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming [lit]

  So certain was he that this was the true state of affairs that he wagered recklessly on his bad hand, raising again and again.

  He was given his final cards. He didn't look at them, but continued betting.

  There came the showdown. Spreading his cards, Azzie saw his deuces, and saw that he had picked up another pair of deuces. He was about to declare two pairs, when it dawned on him that he had four of a kind. No one else was even close. The others grumbled and threw in their cards. The pot, biggest of the night, was raked over to Azzie.

  In it, aside from the pile of golden coins and gems and miscellaneous body parts, was the hilt of a sword, its blade broken off, and tied around it, a red silk lady's favor. There was also a pair of human legs, in very good condition, scarcely gnawed at all. And a fair amount of lesser stuff, knucklebones, septums, a set of kneecaps, which he turned in for gold.

  Azzie, being a true demon, would have gone on gambling as long as he had a penny or a body part to his name. But the sun had just peeped cautiously above the eastern horizon and it was time for everyone to leave the graveyard. Azzie stuffed his winnings into a stout canvas bag which he had been carrying around for just such a purpose. The beginnings of an idea were starting to form in his mind. It was still vague, but there was something there.

  Chapter 1

  After leaving the poker game, Azzie flew north. He had decided to look in on the great convention of demons being held at Aachen, Charlemagne's old capital, as part of the opening ceremonies for the Millennial contest. But strong head winds held him up, since being invisible and slightly tenuous does not reduce all air pressure and drag. By evening, he had gotten no farther than Ravenna. He decided to pass up the convention and found a nice graveyard to rest in outside the city walls.

  It was a pleasant place, with plenty of big old trees, oaks and willows, a pretty combination, and, of course, cypress, the stately death tree of the Mediterranean. There were nicely de­caying tombs and mausoleums. In the distance, he could see the sagging graystone outline of the city wall.

  He made himself comfortable near a weathered headstone. What he needed now was a cozy fire. He raided a nearby mausoleum and found several exceedingly dry cadavers. These, together with some dead cats, who had been poisoned by some busybody from the town, fed the flames.

  As night wore on, Azzie found that he was getting hungry. He'd had a fine feed last night at the poker game, and demons can go a long time between meals, but flying into head winds all day had given him an appetite. He emptied his sack to see what provisions he had left.

  Ah, there were a couple of candied jackal's heads he had taken from the party, wrapped in a bit of moldy winding-sheet. They were delicious morsels, but they left him unfilled. He looked to see what else was in the sack and discovered the pair of legs he'd won.

  They looked delicious but he didn't really want to eat them. He remembered some stirring of an idea when he'd first seen them, though now it was forgotten. He was sure there was something he could do with them other than eat them, so he propped them against a tombstone. They brought on an almost irresistible desire to soliloquize. Demons at this time thought nothing of traveling hundreds of miles to find a really good object to soliloquize over. It was an especially pleasant exercise on a desolate Italian upland "with a thrusting wind and the distant bark of jackals.

  "O legs," Azzie said, "I warrant you trooped nicely to your lady's favor, and bowed well, too, since you are a pair of mus­cular and nimble legs, of the sort the ladies look upon with favor. O legs, I imagine you now, widespread in antic mirth, and then coiled tight together in that final paroxysm of love. When you were young, O legs, you climbed many a stately oak, and ran near running streams, and across the green friendly fields of your homeland. I daresay you dove over thicket and hedge as you careened your way. No path was too long for you, and you were never tired."

  "Think you so?" a voice said from above and behind him. Azzie turned and beheld the mournful cloaked figure of Hermes Trismegistus. He was not surprised that the mage had followed him here. Hermes and the other old gods seemed to follow a different destiny from demons or ghosts, a destiny unaffected by questions of good and evil.

  "Good to see you again, Hermes," Azzie said. "I was just philosophizing over this pair of legs."

  "I'm not going to stop you," Hermes said.

  He had been floating in the air about five feet above Azzie's head. Now he drifted gracefully to the ground, bent, and ex­amined the legs.

  "What sort of man do you suppose these belonged to?" Hermes asked.

  Azzie turned and considered the legs. "A merry sort, ob­viously, for look you, they are still wrapped around with gaily colored woolen strips, of the sort that dandies and fellows who think well of themselves affect."

  "A dandy, do you think?"

  "Most certainly, for look how exquisitely the calves are turned. And notice how perfectly formed and finely muscled the thighs are. You might also notice the small foot, with high, aristocratic arch, well-shaped toes, and evenly clipped nails. Nor is there much in the way of callusing on the heel and along the sides. This fellow did not have to do much to get his living, certainly not with his feet! How do you suppose he met his fate?"

  "I know not," Hermes said. "But we can soon find out."

  "Have you some trick?" Azzie asked. "Some feat of con­juration unknown to the common lot of demons?"

  "Not for nothing," Hermes said, "am I the patron saint of the alchemists, who invoke me when they concoct their mix­tures. They seek to turn base metal into gold, but I can turn dead flesh into living memory."

  "That seems a useful trick," Azzie said. "Can you show me?"

  "With pleasure," Hermes said. "Let's see how these legs spent their last day."

  As is customary in conjurations, there was a puff of smoke and a sound as of a brazen gong. As Azzie watched, the smoke parted and he saw . . .

  A young prince marching off in defense of his father's castle. A fair young man he was, and well set up for the warrior trade. He marched at the head of his troop of men, and they were a brave sight, their banners of scarlet and yellow fluttering finely in the summer breeze. Then, ahead, they saw another body of men, and the prince pulled his mount to a halt and called up his seneschal.

  "There they are," the prince said. "We have them fairly now, between a rock and a hard lump of ice, as they say in Lapland."

  This much Azzie saw. And then the vision faded.

  "Can you read what fate befell him?" Azzie asked.

  Hermes sighed, closed his eyes, lifted his head.

  "Ah," he said, "I have tuned in on the battle, and what a fine engagement of armed men it is! See how furiously they come together, and hear the well-tempered swords singing! Yes, they clash, they are all brave, all deft. But what is this . . . One of the men has left the circle. Not even wounded, but giving retreat already! It is the former owner of these legs."

  "Poltroon!" cried Azzie, for it was as though he could see the engagement.

  "Ah, but he gets not off unscathed. A man is following, his eyes red with the blood fury, a huge man, a berserker, one of those whom the Franks have been fighting for hundreds of years, whom they call the madmen from the north!"

  "I don't like the northern demons much, either," Azzie said.

  "The berserker is running down the cowardly prince. His sword flashes - a sidewise blow struck with an uncanny com­bination of skill and fury."

  "Difficult to strike such a blow," Azzie commented.

  "The blow is well struck-the poltroon prince is cloven in twain. His upper half rolls in the dust. But his cowardly legs are still running, they are running now from death. Relieved of the weight of his upper body, they find it easy to run, though it is true they are running out of energy. But how much energy does it take for a pair of legs to drive themselves, when no one else is attached? Demons are pursuing these running legs, be­cause they have already passed the boundaries of the normal, already they run in the limitless land of possi
bilities that is the preternatural. And now, at last, they totter a last few steps, turn, sway, and then crash lifeless to the ground."

  "In short, we have here the legs of a coward," Azzie said.

  "A coward, to be sure. But a sort of divine coward who would run from death even in death, so afraid was he that what had in fact happened would happen."

  Chapter 2

  After Hermes left him to preside over a meeting of maguses in what would someday be Zurich, Azzie sat and brooded. Moodily he poked the legs. They were much too valuable to waste on snacking. That's what Hermes had implied in his usual roundabout fashion.

  What should he do with them? He thought again about the great event, the Millennial contest. What he needed was an idea, a concept. . . . He stared at the legs, rearranged them this way and that. There must be something. . . .

  Suddenly he sat up straight. Yes, the legs! He had it! A wonderful idea, one that was sure to make his name in circles of evil. He had an idea for the contest! It had come in a burst of demoniac inspiration. He must lose no time, must hurry and get it on record, get cooperation from the Evil Powers. What day was this? He calculated swiftly, then moaned. This was the last day in which entries could be made. He must go to the High Demon Council, and quickly.

  Taking a deep breath, he propelled himself away from Earth to the region of Limbo where the high council was meet­ing. It is not generally realized, but demons have as much trouble getting in to see someone in the top level of command as mortals do. If you're not high up in the hierarchy, if you're not related to someone important, if you are not a gifted athlete, then forget anything immediate; you have to go through chan­nels, and that can take time.

  Azzie didn't have time, however. Next morning, the High Committee would pick a winner, and the game would be set.

  "I gotta see the Game Committee," Azzie said to the demon guard at the gate of the Ministry, the great group of buildings, some baroque and ornamental with onion-shaped domes, others severely modern and rectilinear, where the affairs of demons, imps, and other evil supernatural creatures were regulated. Many demons worked here as clerks: a lot of paper was required in the never-ending attempt to codify the behavior of super­natural creatures. The government of Supernatural Creatures of Evil was more extensive than any on Earth and employed most of the demons of Hell in one capacity or another. And this was despite the fact that the governing of demons had never been sanctioned by a higher power. The only recognized power above Good and Evil was the strange and misty thing called Ananke, Necessity. It was not certain whether the chain of command stopped at Ananke or went on to even higher levels. Ananke was as far as demoniac theorists had reached. The theorists had difficulty communicating with Ananke because it was so mysterious, so difficult to pin down, so unbodied, and so uncommunicative that it was impossible to be sure of any­thing about it except that it seemed to exist. Ananke judged the contests between Good and Evil which were held every thousand years. Its decisions were reached mysteriously. An­anke was a law unto itself, but it was a law that showed only glimpses of itself, and never stood still for explication.

  But why should demons have to be ruled? In theory, demons were autonomous creatures who followed their impulses, i.e., to do evil. But there seemed to be a built-in perversity in the makeup of intelligent creatures, whether natural or superna­tural, that made them go against the grain, against what was best for them, against all the things they should believe. Thus the demons needed the first necessity of government, a bureau of Conformity, and this cheered them no end because their top theorists believed that the enforcing of the standards of evil was worse, evilwise, than the doing of evil itself. It was difficult to be sure of this, but it seemed reasonable.

  Azzie was acting in a nonconformist manner as he burst past the guards, who stared at him slack-jawed, taken aback because this was definitely undemonic behavior. Demons are usually toadies to those above them. But they hesitated to chase after and stop him because the fox-headed young demon had seemed more than a little crazed, and if that were so, he might be divinely inspired, that is, inspired by Satan himself, in whose invisible service all of the powers of evil toiled as an act of faith.

  Azzie ran through the corridors of the Ministry, well aware why the guardian demons had not tried to stop him. That was all very well, but he knew he was not inspired, and he also knew that the high council would not be amused by any of this. It occurred to him that he had made a very big mistake, had taken more upon himself than he could deal with. But he thrust that thought from his mind, his determination stiffening. Now that he had begun, he would have to continue.

  He raced up one side of an impressive double stairway, turned to his left, almost overturning an urn filled with freshly picked spring weeds, and continued down the corridor, making left turns whenever the choice presented itself, racing past sub­ordinate demons with their hands full of papers, until he came to a high bronze door. He knew this had to be the place. He pushed open the door and entered.

  When Azzie burst in, the meeting of the Powers of Evil was in full session. It was not a happy meeting. Discontent was man­ifest on the bestial faces of the major demons. Mouths were turned down, eyes red and swollen.

  "What is this?" Belial said, standing up on his goat feet to better peer at Azzie, who was now bowing low.

  Azzie, tongue-tied, could only stammer and stare.

  "It's obvious, isn't it?" Azazel said, hunching his mighty shoulders and ruffling his dark wings. "It's a demon of the common sort who has presumed to break in upon us. I don't know what the young are coming to these days. It wasn't like this in my time. Young demons were respectful then, and de­sirous of pleasing their elders. Now they barge around in gangs, sewer gangs I have heard them called, and they don't care whom they offend with their noisy behavior. Not satisfied with this, they even elect one of their number to break into our inner sanctorum and taunt us."

  Belial, an old rival of Azazel's, pounded with his hoof on the table and said, in mincing words, "The right honorable member is sufficiently talented to expand a single demonic in­trusion into an onslaught by a sewer warfare gang. I see no gang: only a single rather foolish-looking demon. I would also point out that sanctum is more correct than sanctorum in this case, which the honorable member would know if he had ever mastered the dear old mother tongue, Latin."

  Azazel's eyes smoldered, little wisps of blue smoke came out of his snout, corrosive acid dripped from his nose and ate holes in the ironwood table. "I'll not be mocked," he said, "by a jumped-up nature spirit who has been made a demon rather than born one and who, because of his ambiguous ancestry, cannot be relied upon to understand the true nature of evil."

  Other members clamored to be heard, because demons loved to argue about who really understood evil, who was most evil, and by extension, who was insufficiently bad. Azzie, how­ever, had now regained his poise. He realized that the attention of the Lord Demons would soon be turned to him. So he made haste to speak in his own defense.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "I am sorry to be the cause of this dispute. I would not have broken in on you if I had not some­thing urgent to say."

  "Yes," Belial said. "Why have you come? And I notice that you haven't brought any presents, as is customary. What have you to say for yourself?"

  "I come without presents," Azzie said, "that is true. It was my haste, and I beg apology. But I do bear something more important."

  He paused. It was that dramatic demon sense working in him that made him stop at that moment rather than blurt on.

  The Demon Lords also knew a thing or two about drama.

  They stared at him in accusing silence. After what seemed like forever, Belphegor, who was anxious to adjourn this committee and get a little sleep, said, "All right, damn you, what do you bear that is more important than presents?"

  In a low, husky voice, Azzie said, "What I bear, gentlemen, is that most precious of things: an idea."

  Chapter 3

  Azzie's words hit u
pon a common concern among the Lord Demons, namely, their need for an idea for the coming Light versus Dark festivities, a drama that would be their entry into the contest of Good versus Evil, and whose outcome would demonstrate, homiletically, as it were, the superiority of Evil, thus giving them the right to dominate man's destiny for the next thousand years.

  "What is this idea?" Belial asked.

  Azzie bowed low and began to tell them the story of Prince Charming.

  Fairy tales have great weight and resonance for demons as well as for humans. All of the Demon Lords knew the Prince Charming story-of how a youth came forth to save a princess who had been enchanted by a spell and cast into a perpetual sleep. This prince was Prince Charming, who, aided by his pure heart and loyal spirit, fought his way through the various dan­gers that beset the Princess, conquered them all, won through the wall of thorns to her castle, climbed to the top of the moun­tain of glass upon which her palace had been set, and kissed her. Whereupon she awoke, and they married and lived happily ever after.

  Azzie proposed to stage this pretty story, but with char­acters of his own devising.

  "Gentlemen, give me a grant so that I can draw freely upon Supply- and I will create a Prince and a Princess who will act out the Prince Charming-Sleeping Beauty story and turn this insipid tale on its ear. My couple will demonstrate a different ending. Their conclusion to the tale, arrived at by their own free will, with only a minimum of behind-the-scenes tampering on my part, will show conclusively, to the enjoyment of our friends and the confusion of our enemies, that given a free hand, evil must inevitably win in the contests of the human spirit."

  "Not a bad idea," Azazel said. "But what makes you think that your actors, given free will, will act the way you want them to?"

  "That can be ensured," Azzie said, "by careful selection of the body parts, and appropriate education once they are selected and animated into persons."