If at Faust You Don't Succeed

by Roger Zelazny

  You can decide to change that by getting her to marry someone else."

  "What happened with the one she did marry?" Mack asked. "History doesn't tell us," Mephistopheles replied.

  "All right," Mack said. He saw he wasn't going to get anything much clearer out of this high-flown demon.

  "And what is the third choice?" "Kublai Khan possesses a magic scepter that brings good luck to the Mongol forces, and hence bad luck on his enemies, which include the countries of the West that Kublai opposes. You could steal that scepter."

  "I tried that last time with the magic icon."

  "This time is completely different. Forget about the last time. Now, if you're quite ready, I'll take away the cloak of invisibility and you can begin."

  "Wait a minute!" Mack said. "How do I explain my presence here?"

  Mephistopheles pondered for a moment. "Tell them you're the ambassador from Ophir."

  "And what is Ophir?"

  "Ophir," Mephistopheles said, "is the city mentioned in the Old Testament from which King Solomon got his gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."

  "And where is this Ophir located?"

  "No one knows for sure. Various sites have been mentioned, among them East Africa, the Far East, Abyssinia, and Arabia. We can be sure Marco Polo has not been there, otherwise he would have mentioned it in the long and boastful list of travels he will leave behind. So you can safely claim your ambassadorship since there is no one to refute you."

  "Well, all right," Mack said. "So I'm the Ophirian ambassador. Or is that Ophirese?"

  "As you please," Mephistopheles said, showing signs of impatience. "Now, if you're quite ready?"

  "Wait! One more thing," Mack said. "What about my clothing?"

  "Look at yourself," Mephistopheles said.

  Mack looked. Evidently, when redressing himself and Marguerite, Mephistopheles had found time to give Mack black-and-white tights, a wool-lined jacket, and a little cap with a feather in it. So that part was all right. But Mack felt there was something else, some other problem. Mephistopheles was beginning to make his disappearing gestures. Then Mack had it.

  "What do you mean?" Mephistopheles said.

  "Unless they know German and a little French, I'm going to be stuck."

  "Oh." Mephistopheles frowned. "But, Dr. Faust, you are a renowned scholar and linguist."

  "You know how it is," Mack said. "People exaggerate these things. Anyway, I've been a long time out of languages. They all need brushing up." "Very well," Mephistopheles said. "I'll give you a Language Spell that will enable you to understand everything anybody says. Be careful with it. It's not for general circulation."

  "A magic Language Spell will help," Mack said.

  Mephistopheles gestured. "It is done. You have to give it back when you are through with it."

  "What about me?" Marguerite asked.

  "You're just along as his friend," Mephistopheles said. "The Language Spell doesn't pertain to you. Ready, then?" Mack gulped and nodded. Mephistopheles disappeared, this time without a flash of fire and smoke, just a rather rapid fading out. At the same moment, a short, squat man with a long beard bumped into Mack.

  "Ogrungi," the man said.

  "No, no, it was my fault," Mack said. And then marveled at the fact that he had understood the fellow perfectly. The man moved on and Mack turned to Marguerite. "I wish Mephistopheles hadn't been so peremptory," Mack said. "He really doesn't set these things up very well. Let's see now. What is the first thing I'm supposed to do?"

  At that moment a tall, fierce-looking warrior in fur hat and lacquered armor, with sword and shield and a lance on his back, said, "Hey, you!"

  "This is familiar," Mack murmured to Marguerite. Turning to the warrior, he said, "Yes?"

  "I haven't seen you around before. Who are you?"

  "I," Mack said, "am the ambassador from Ophir. Take me to your khan. And by the way, this is my friend, Marguerite."

  "Follow me," the warrior said.

  Staying a few steps behind the warrior, out of whose way people scurried with much kow-towing, they walked through the teeming marketplace that lay on their way to Kublai's palace. There were smells aplenty here and they were Chinese smells for the most part, not European smells, though there were also curry smells from India, and hibiscus smells from the South Seas. Once they began walking among the stalls, the air became redolent with the odor of five-spice powder and Accent. Blocks of pressed seaweed, which people ate like knockwurst, exuded their characteristic odor both miasmic and iodinic.

  Mack could detect the clean smells of bamboo and sandalwood above the more insistent odors of garlic, charcoal, rice-wine vinegar, and lichee nuts. There were baskets of barbecued pork and platters of General Khu's chicken. Duck Peking style could be seen everywhere, most of it doused in the ubiquitous Peking sauce. People with brownish yellow faces and straight black hair, of all sizes and shapes, gazed at them and passed comments. Because of the Language Spell that Mephistopheles had given him, Mack was able to understand all of the comments.

  "What is it, Ben?"

  "Sure looks like foreigners to me."

  "What a funny skin color!"

  "What ugly eyes!"

  "And the way he's dressed! Nobody wears them velvet jackets around here."

  "And look at her in them high heels! We don't even wear high heels around here, they're so tacky, so you can figure what they're like."

  "Hell no, we don't!"

  Noisy but cheerful, the crowd offered no violence. Mack, Marguerite, and the warrior left the market with its many smells and came to an altogether more neutral region in terms of odoriferousness, a great boulevard beyond which lay a noble palace.

  They crossed the street and entered a long stone courtyard leading to a high gate. The gate was open and a captain of the guard stood before it in lacquered armor with sword and shield, and challenged them.

  "Who goes there?'

  "Anonymous soldier," the Mongol warrior replied, "bringing with him the ambassador from Ophir and his girlfriend to present to the Khan."

  "What good timing!" the guard said. "Kublai Khan and his whole court happen to be assembled now, they've finished talking business and it's not yet time for dinner, and so are hoping for something amusing to come up. Pass, anonymous soldier with honored guests."

  The halls of the Khan's palace were rich beyond description. So none will be attempted. Down the corridors they marched, past scrolls covered with Chinese poetry extolling the virtues of water-watching.

  The final doors before the audience chamber were tall, oval shaped, richly ornamented, and made of bronze. They swung open of their own accord.

  "Who shall I say is calling?" a small, dark man asked.

  "The ambassador from Ophir," Mack said. "And his girlfriend."

  The great audience room was lit by flambeaux, which, being a newly imported French kind of torch, burned with a cold, pitiless intellectual light. By that light Mack saw, ahead of him, on a stage, a group of richly garmented people. In the center, elevated on a small plinth above the others, was a middle-sized, middle aged, middle-tempered sort of a man of medium coloring and average good looks, a small beard, and on his head a turban from whose summit blazed a diamond so great that Mack knew even without a program that this fellow had to be Kublai Khan.

  "So, you're from Ophir?" Kublai Khan said. Remembering what Mephistopheles had told him, Mack noticed that Kublai Khan had a scepter. It didn't look especially magical, but Mephistopheles was presumably correct in his information.

  The Khan said, "You're the first Ophirean we've had visit. Or do you say Ophirese?"

  "Whichever Your Majesty prefers," Mack said.

  "Look, Marco!" Kublai said. "A fellow European!"

  The young man in the hawk-feather cap looked up and scowled. "He's nobody I know. What's your name, fellow, and where do you come from?"

  "I am Dr. Johann Faust," Mack said. "I was born in Wittenberg in Germany, but of late I'm the acting ambassador f
rom Ophir."

  "We have not seen your like in Europe," Marco said.

  "No. We Ophirese are pretty much content to stay home. We're not a great trading nation anymore like your Venice, Marco."

  "Ah. You know me, then?"

  "Certainly. Your fame has spread even as far as Ophir."

  Marco tried to maintain his frown, but he was flattered. Tell me, what are your principal products?" he asked.

  "We export a lot of stuff," Mack said, "but our main products are gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."

  "Apes! That's interesting," Marco said, "The great Khan has been looking for a good source of apes."

  "We've got the best," Mack said. "We've got big apes and link apes, tiny apelets, huge gorillas, orange-furred orangutans, and so on. I guess we can fill about anything you might need in the ape department."

  "Great, I'll get back to you on that," Marco said. "The great Khan might want some peacocks, too, if your prices are competitive."

  Talk to me," Mack said, "I'll make you a price."

  At that moment the court wizard spoke up. "Ophir, eh? The city that is near Sheba?"

  "That's it," Mack said. "You got the right one."

  "I shall check on this further," the wizard said.

  "I'm sure you'll find our city is in order," Mack said. He chuckled, but no one else laughed at his little joke.

  Kublai Khan said, "Welcome to my court, Dr. Faust, ambassador from Ophir. We shall wish to speak to you at some later time, because, let it be known, we love to hear stories of distant lands. Our dear son Marco regales us with many tales. But it is always good to get a new slant on these things."

  "At Your Majesty's service," Mack said, and, noting that Marco's face had changed from a scowl into a rictus of annoyance, decided that he had made no friends here this day.

  "And what of the woman?" Kublai Khan asked.

  Mack hissed at Marguerite, "He's talking to you!"

  "What's he saying?" Marguerite said. "I can't understand a word!"

  "I'll speak for you," Mack said. To Kublai Khan he said, "This is Marguerite, a friend of mine, but she doesn't have a word of Mongol."

  "No word at all? But we would fain hear her story!"

  "I'll just have to translate it for you," Mack said, "which is a shame because she tells it so well herself."

  "That won't be necessary," Kublai said. "Luckily, we have recently instituted a rapid-learning center for subjects and friends who don't understand Mongolian. You speak it perfectly, my dear Faust."

  "Thank you," Mack said, bowing. "I've always had a bit of a knack for languages."

  "But the woman is going to have to learn. Explain to her that she is to go to class now and come out when she can speak to us."

  Mack said to Marguerite, "Look, I'm sorry about this, but they're taking you off to language class."

  "Oh, no," Marguerite said. "Not school again!"

  "Yes. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about it."

  "Darn it!" Marguerite said. "This is no fun at all!" But she let herself be led away by two serving maids.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mack was aware of a strangeness in the outer corridors as he followed Wong, a servant who had been assigned to lead him to his quarters. He noted how Wong's lantern flame would suddenly sway when there was no breeze to stir it. As they moved through the silent hallways and corridors they came to one that was roped off with a crimson cord.

  "That is the spirit wing," Wong said. "It is dedicated to the spirits of dead poets. Entrance to it is forbidden to the living. Only the Khan himself and the servants of the Arts may go through with the sacrifices."

  "What sacrifices?"

  "Brightly colored stones, seashells, moss, and other things that are pleasing to the spirits of dead storytellers."

  Wong told him that there were few monarchs as hospitable as Kublai Khan, and none as desirous of hearing the converse of strangers. Kublai was different from other Mongols in the pleasure he took at travelers' tales. He encouraged people from all over the world to come call on him, tell him where they were from and what the customs were like there. He liked to hear about their families, too, and the more extended, the better. And Kublai had a whole wing of his palace put aside for hospitality to strangers. This wing was arguably the world's first luxury hotel where people were welcome without a reservation and without money. Just a story.

  There were beggars in the Khan's palace as well as ambassadors. But they were not ordinary beggars. In the Khan's estimation, a beggar was one with an insufficiency of stories. All the beggars in the Khan's palace were persons who, for one reason or another, were or could be considered storydead. The Khan supported these unfortunates as a public charity.

  Not only were there luxurious rooms for travelers, there was also the special wing for the wandering spirits of poets and storytellers. For it was the Khan's belief that the spirits of poets live forever, in a special celestial kingdom that had been constructed for them alone by the Powers That Be. And these spirits sometimes went awandering back to the Earth, for poets draw inspiration from revisiting the scenes of their former triumphs and defeats. And in their peregrinations around their old-time countrysides and city streets, sometimes these spirits were susceptible to outside influences. At such times, the Khan believed, a man could perform a certain ritual, lay out certain offerings, and these would attract such spirits, and they would come to the Khan's palace, for they knew they were welcome. Once there, they would find all the things that a spirit might crave: bits of soft fur, shiny shards of mirror, pieces of amber, antique silver coins, curiously colored pebbles. These were some of the things that were said to give pleasure to the spirits of dead poets, and the Khan had collected many of them. These were laid out in the chambers where the spirits were invited to visit. Incense was burned around the clock in these chambers, and candles were kept lit. And sometimes, a spirit would come to such a place, enjoy the feast of memory that had been laid out for him, and, when he left, deposit a dream in the Khan's head as a gift.

  Due to this, the Khan had many remarkable dreams, for he had been visited by spirits telling of savage white whales, of conspiracies in the Roman forum, of great armies moving across a frozen white landscape. He had dreamed of journeying through a dark wood, gone from the path direct. He had dreamed of choosing between a lady and a tiger. Thus the Khan piled up a treasure of stories and dreams by day and by night, until he no longer knew which was which, and he worked on his own secret dream, which was to be an audience for dead poets after he had left this life.

  Mack's apartment was of a luxury rarely encountered in the West. And the Khan had thought up many niceties. The servants who fetched him food and drink and hot water for his bath were trained to act as if he weren't there, so that their gaze would not intrude on his inner solitude. Mack found all this very nice, but he could not enjoy it properly for worrying about getting on with his choices. After all, he wasn't a sightseer. He was there to work.

  And then there was Marco Polo to consider.

  "Tell me," Mack said to Wong, "does Marco Polo live anywhere around here?"

  "He keeps an apartment in this complex," Wong said. "But he also has several fine mansions in the city and numerous farms, pleasure domes, and the like elsewhere."

  "I didn't ask for his real estate holdings," Mack said. "I merely want to know where to find him."

  "Right now he's in the Main Banquet Room, supervising the decorating for a great banquet tonight in the Khan's honor."

  "Be so good as to take me there."

  CHAPTER 3

  The Main Banquet Room was filled with workmen putting up paper streamers, banners, brightly colored tapestries, and other gewgaws of a festive nature. The ceiling was lofty and was held up by eight pillars.

  Each of those pillars rested on a square block that gave some room at its corners for decorations. The main decoration for the festivities was severed human heads. Marco had heads piled on these corner stones, great piles of severed
heads, some of them still bleeding, some rather dried out, some in a state of mummification, others in a state of moldiness, decay, or even putrescence. In the middle of the room was a vat of blood, with two cowled figures stirring it so it wouldn't coagulate. Marco was standing near to it, hands on his hips, supervising the placement of the heads.

  Mack paused a moment to take it in, then walked up to Marco. "Nice-looking arrangement of heads," he commented.

  "Thank you," Marco said. "But they're still not right."

  He shouted to the men on ladders piling the heads, "Tighten up that pyramid! I don't want those heads scattered around. I'm after a concentrated effect. I want them piled high! A pyramid of heads about seven feet high, that's what I'm after on each of the corner stones. I know they won't balance by themselves. You'll have to devise some way to get them to look like they're balancing. Find some bracing material, or use twine or haywire, but make sure it doesn't show. And take those dried-out old heads out of the pile. They look like they've been lying around for decades. This isn't a tribute to the past. We're celebrating the Khan's present and future conquests and all we want here are freshly severed heads, preferably with the blood still dripping. If the blood isn't fresh, add some from the vat." material, or use twine or haywire, but make sure it doesn't show. And take those dried-out old heads out of the pile. They look like they've been lying around for decades. This isn't a tribute to the past. We're celebrating the Khan's present and future conquests and all we want here are freshly severed heads, preferably with the blood still dripping. If the blood isn't fresh, add some from the vat." e display looks much better now."

  "Do you think so?"

  "Oh, yes. You Venetians have an eye for these matters." "Thank you. So you're from Ophir?"

  "Yes," Mack admitted. "But let's not talk about me. I just wanted to tell you how nice it is to meet you. I admire you, Marco. It's an honor to meet the foremost fabulist of your generation, perhaps of any generation." "That's good of you," Marco said. "But you're a fabulist, too, aren't you? I mean, Ophir, what's that if not fabulistic?"