If at Faust You Don't Succeed

by Roger Zelazny

  "Dr. Johann Faust, at your service."

  "No," Mack said, "actually, I'm Johann Faust."

  "Two Fausts bearing contradictory messages," the duc de Choiseul mused. "Well, tell you what. I think you fellows had better stay here with me until we find out what's up. Soldiers!"

  The men seized Faust's horse and his person. The magician struggled in vain against their iron hands.

  Mack, seeing which way matters were going, bolted away before they could grasp him, bounded across the leaf-blown little square, and vaulted onto his own horse. He set spur to flank and galloped off at a good clip, with Faust, seized by the soldiers, shouting curses at him from behind.

  CHAPTER 10

  Emile Drouet, postmaster of Saint-Menehould, sat in his chair in the window of his bedroom, late at night, still awaiting messengers from Paris. The night was cool and quiet, a welcome relief from the exciting day. There had been such news from the Paris Committees! And all day, flights of nobility had passed through the village en route to the frontier! Drouet's thoughts were practical, though. He was wondering how the coming revolution would affect the postal service. He had told his wife earlier in the day, "Governments may come and governments will go, but no matter who runs them, they will need a reliable postal service." But was that true? Drouet and his fellows had worked hard to make it so. They had complicated the existing postal system in many ingenious ways, so that no new staff could understand it. "They'll need us to straighten it out for them." But still he wasn't entirely sure. Revolutions were queer things…

  Citizen Mack, for so it was, swung down from the saddle and set his revolutionary cap firmly on his head. He looked around keenly, expecting to see nothing much but surprised all the same. Behind him another horse came into town, more slowly. Marguerite sat on this one.

  Mack brought the horse to a halt under M. Drouet's window. He said, "M. Drouet, I have something to show you that you may find of interest."

  "And who, sir, are you?" Drouet demanded.

  "I," Mack said, "am a special envoy from the Council in Paris. I need you to come with me at once."

  Drouet slipped on wooden sabots, wrapped himself in a long dark raincoat, and came downstairs.

  "Where are we going?"

  "I'll show you. Marguerite, stay here with the horses."

  Mack led him through the village and out the back side, past the livery stable, the public latrine, and the maypole, coming at last to a little-used road in the woods.

  "What is this?" Drouet asked.

  "This is the back way through Saint-Menehould," Mack told him.

  "But my dear sir, no one comes this way."

  Mack was well aware of that. He also knew that just about now the great yellow coach with the king and queen should be passing through Saint-Menehould by the main road. By taking Drouet to this little-used detour, he expected to forestall any possibility of Drouet's even getting near the king, much less recognizing him.

  "Sir, this is madness," Drouet said. "Nobody comes this way!"

  "Not usually," Mack said. "But soft! Hear you not hoofbeats coming as from a distance and riding hard?"

  Drouet listened, and Mack listened with him. It was odd how the imagination worked. Standing in this quiet place, with no sound but the gentle susurrus of the wind passing overhead through the soft boughs of chestnut and oak, he could swear he was hearing the distant sound of hooves. It was only his imagination, of course.

  "Yes, I hear it," Drouet said excitedly.

  Prematurely, as it turned out, for now the sound became louder, and it was accompanied by a telltale squeak that could only be the springs on the royal carriage protesting as they jounced along the deeply rutted and high-crowned bypass road.

  The little leaves shimmered in indistinct moonlight. Drouet stared, transfixed, as the sounds grew louder.

  And then the coach came rolling up, glimmering faintly in the moonlight. It drew up to them, moving slowly now because of the curvy schematics of the road. Glancing inside as it went by, Drouet gave a violent start of amazement at what he saw.

  "Your Majesty!" he exclaimed.

  "What the hell?" Mack said under his breath.

  And then the coach had gone by.

  "Did you see him?" Drouet asked. "It was King Louis, plain as day. I remember seeing him at the royal levee held for postmasters from all over France last year. And the queen was there, too!"

  "It must have been someone else," Mack said. "There are a lot of people in France today who look like those two."

  "This was them, I tell you!" Drouet cried. "Thanks, citizen, for leading me to this seldom-used byway. I must return to the village and give the alarm!"

  He turned to go. Mack didn't know what had happened, but he knew that this turn of events needed instant action. He had a sandbag in his pocket, something no experienced mugger is ever without. As Drouet turned to go, Mack pulled out the sandbag and swung it, catching Drouet on the back of the skull. Drouet dropped noiselessly onto the mossy forest floor.

  Moments later, a lone horseman came galloping up, his crimson cape billowing behind him. It was Mephistopheles, looking every inch the fiend from Hell on a tall black horse with fiery eyes. "Did you see the royal coach go past?" he cried.

  "I did," Mack said. "What were they doing here?"

  "I rerouted them," Mephistopheles said proudly. "Got them off the main road entirely so they wouldn't be seen by Drouet. I told you I'd help."

  "All you've done is mess everything up," Mack said. "I told you I could handle it myself."

  "I was merely trying to help," Mephistopheles said sulkily, and vanished, horse and all.

  Mack turned to the unconscious Drouet. He looked as if he'd stay unconscious for quite a while. Mack dragged his body into the shrubbery and covered it with ferns. Then he hurried back to Marguerite and the horses. He still had one chance left to save the royal party. The bridge at Varennes! And with Drouet unconscious here in Saint-Menehould, he should be able to keep the bridge open, letting them escape into Belgium!

  CHAPTER 11

  The pale light of false dawn revealed the tall stone houses and narrow lanes of Varennes. Here and there, on street corners, drowsy National Guardsmen leaned on their muskets, keeping guard over the sleeping nation. Then the early morning silence was broken by the hoofbeats of Mack's horse ringing out from the cobblestones and reverberating from the stone-fronted houses.

  Mack rode through town at a smart trot, and came to the bridge over the Aire. It was not a large bridge.

  It had a stone bed and it was buttressed from beneath by timber balks cut in the nearby Ardennes.

  Below it, the Aire river flowed placidly by on its journey to the sea.

  The bridge was crowded, for even at this hour there were a number of carts upon it, filled with produce and driven by snappy-tempered fellows with sharp whips. It was obvious at once that nothing could get through; certainly nothing as big and cumbersome as the king's yellow coach. Drouet or not, the bridge was blocked. Unless… Mack decided to take a high hand.

  "Clear the way!" he cried. "Hot stuff coming through!"

  There was a chorus of protesting cries. Mack assumed the role of traffic policeman, waving this one to go forward and that one to back up, all of the time shouting, "In the name of the Committee on Public Safety." Cursing, hooting, drinking, whistling, but also deeply impressed, the cartmen tried to obey his orders. But as fast as Mack got a cart off, more carts piled onto the bridge. They seemed to be coming from all over, carts of all sizes and shapes, carts filled with manure, apples, corn, wheat, and other products of the ingenious French and their Belgian neighbors. Cursing and sweating, Mack stood in the center of them and tried to direct traffic. But where in hell were all these carts coming from? He kicked up his horse and, with Marguerite following, pressed through the cart traffic jam and crossed the river.

  On the other side, he went around a little bend and came across a tall white-clad figure with an unearthly light glowing around him even
in broad daylight. This figure was directing cart traffic toward the bridge.

  "Who are your Mack demanded. "And what do you think you're doing?"

  "Oops," the white-clad figure said. "You weren't supposed to see me."

  At that moment Mephistopheles materialized, horse and all, beside Mack. He looked at the white-clad figure and exclaimed, "Michael! What are you doing?"

  "I was just sending some carts into Varennes," Michael said, his expression somewhat sulky.

  "And causing a traffic jam," Mephistopheles said, "and thereby impeding our contestant. You are interfering with the contest, Michael, and this is not permitted even of an archangel."

  "Nor is it allowed to a fiend," Michael said. "I'm doing no more than you've done."

  Mephistopheles glared at him. "I think we had better discuss this in private."

  Michael glanced at Mack and pursed his lips. "Yes. There are matters that no human should hear." The two spirits dematerialized.

  CHAPTER 12

  Mack rushed back to the bridge. It was jammed, packed, loaded, overburdened, and suffused throughout its length and width with carts and their attendant horses and drivers. There were carts to the right and carts to the left and low, lean carts between. Mack raged among them, trying to get some order. But more and more carts came piling onto the bridge, drawn there by Michael's promise of early morning price reductions at the big market in Varennes.

  The pilings groaned ominously. Then one last cart piled high with dried herring from the Baltic shouldered itself onto the bridge. There was a creak of tortured timbers, and then the whole thing gave way.

  Mack scrambled off the bridge just in time to save himself a dunking. The bridge collapsed in slow motion, and carts fell dreamily into the limpid waters of the Aire. A many-throated cry of chagrin could be heard, and a great bellowing of oxen. Then there was silence. And then, from the distance, could be heard a jingling sound—the harness of the king's horses as the royal coach came up the road and pulled to a halt before the ruined bridge.

  Losing no time, Mack hurried over to the royal coach. "Your Majesty!" he said. There is still time."

  "What are you talking about?" Marie Antoinette asked. "The bridge is blocked. We are undone."

  "Yet there is still a way," Mack said.

  "What is that, pray tell?"

  "Get out of the coach at once, Your Majesties. We will purchase horses from the yokels about here and ride, back at first toward Paris, that will throw them off the trail, then we will take another branching and get across the frontier to safety. There is still time to effect your escape."

  Louis turned to his wife. "What do you think?"

  "Sounds too risky to me," Marie Antoinette said.

  The king demurred, and Marie didn't think much of the scheme, but finally they agreed. Mack coaxed them out of the coach. They stood in the early morning light looking more than a little stupid, and as if unused to standing on their own feet on the ground. Mack hurried away and hired horses. He had calculated that they could still get out of this. After all, no one knew the king was here. No one except Drouet, and he had left him securely trussed back in Saint-Menehould.

  The king approached the horse Mack had gotten for him, and somewhat hesitantly got up on it. Then Marie Antoinette climbed up on the other horse. At last, all was in readiness.

  But then, just before they could ride off, a cloud of dust appeared down the road and grew larger and separated into separate riders. It was Drouet, and he was at the head of a thousand armed men.

  Spotting the big yellow coach he cried, "The king and queen! Put them under arrest! They must return to Paris immediately!"

  Guardsmen did as he bid. Drouet rode up to Mack.

  "So, we meet again. You did me a poor service back there, citizen. I think I'll do the same for you."

  Gesturing to two guards, he said, "This man is a counterrevolutionary. Seize him!"

  Mack said, "Just tell me one thing. How did you get here so quickly?"

  "Not through your help," Drouet said. "Luckily for me, this gentleman came along and rendered assistance."

  Another rider trotted up and Mack saw that it was Faust.

  "You again!" he breathed.

  Faust smiled smugly. "I got away from the soldiers easily enough, and then I found this fellow and helped him, and so put paid to your scheme."

  Then Mephistopheles appeared. "Let that man go," he said to Drouet.

  Drouet was badly frightened by the demon, but he blustered, "We're holding this man for the tribunal."

  Mephistopheles said, "Sorry. Supernatural matters take precedence. This is the end of the contest."

  He reached out and put his hand on Mack's shoulder. They vanished together. A moment later, Marguerite vanished, too.

  JUDGMENT

  CHAPTER 1

  After Mephistopheles conjured him away from Varennes, there was a break in the continuity of Mack's consciousness. He fell into dreams of a strange sort, but the details swam out of his grasp. Then there was a period of sleep, and finally, Mack awoke.

  He found himself lying on a green couch in a hazy, indistinct sort of place. He tried to make out details, but they fuzzed before his eyes. Still, he knew of only one place that had this sort of green couch. He had to be in Mephistopheles' office in Limbo!

  He got up and looked around. Through a low archway there was another room, and in it was the storage locker with the salvaged Botticelli.

  There was the sound of a door opening and Mack turned, ready for trouble. Ylith came in. She was wearing a beige sheath dress that came down to midcalf on her fine legs. Her long dark hair was worn in a soft upsweep and pinned in place by imitation tortoiseshell combs. Her face was customarily pale, but a quick dab of rouge had put dots of color in her cheeks.

  "It's all over," she said. "That was the last sequence where you needed to make a choice."

  "I thought that's what Mephistopheles said! What happens now?"

  "Now the judging begins. That's where I'm going. I just stopped by to see how you were."

  "That was good of you. I don't suppose I was invited to the judging?"

  "Not that I know of," Ylith said.

  "That's very like them," Mack said with some bitterness. "Mephistopheles was all smiles and attention when there was something he wanted me to do, but now that it's over I don't even get asked to the celebration."

  "Humans are rarely asked to these matters," Ylith said. "But of course I see what you mean." "And when do I get my reward?"

  "I don't know anything about that," Ylith said. "You'll just have to wait. This is Limbo, and in Limbo, people wait." Ylith conjured herself away with an elegant move of her slim hands. Mack paced around for a while, then saw a pile of books on a little table and sat down in a chair beside them. He picked up The Road to Hell and How to Find It, a product of the Satanic Press. He read, "Do you really want to get into Hell?

  Don't be surprised. A lot of people do! You're not alone. Hell is characterized by the importance of the appetites. Unlike the stories told, you can feed these appetites perfectly well in Hell. Trouble is, they never stay fed. But they never did when you were alive, either. Let us consider…"

  Suddenly there was a flash of light and a puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared away Faust was standing there. He was looking good, dressed in a fine scholar's gown with an ermine collar.

  "Hi, there!" Mack said, happy to see a familiar face, even if it was Faust's, and even if it was frowning.

  Faust said, "Look, I'm in a hurry. Did you see a tall, very skinny man with yellowish eyes and long, lank dark hair and a somewhat weird expression go by here?" Mack shook his head. "Nobody's passed this way since I've been here except for a female spirit named Ylith."

  "No, she's not the one I'm looking for. The count of Saint-Germain said he'd meet me here. I hope he's not going to be late." "Who's he?" Faust gave him a superior look. "Only one of the world's greatest magicians, that's who. He came along after your time."

&
nbsp; "But your time is also my time. How do you know about him?"

  "Oh, well," Faust said, "I am a great magician myself, the greatest who ever lived, and it is to be expected that I would know the important men in my line of work past and future. Living or dead, or yet unborn, we magicians stay in touch."

  "Why did you call up this Saint-Germain guy?"

  "I'm afraid it would be premature for me to tell you," Faust said. "Let's just say I have a little surprise in store."

  "The contest is indeed over, though it will be interesting to hear what Ananke will make of your clumsy and uninformed efforts to influence history. But despite this being the end, the last word has not yet been spoken. To put it to you succinctly, my dear Mack, Faust himself has not yet been heard from."

  "Faust? You mean you?"

  "Of course I mean me! I am Faust, am I not?"

  "In a way. But in a way I'm Faust, too."

  Faust looked at Mack long and hard, and then threw back his head and laughed.

  "You, Faust? My dear fellow, you are the very opposite of the Faustian ideal, an abject sort of creature, mean-spirited, docile to your masters, treacherous to your friends, vulgar, uninformed as to history, philosophy, politics, chemistry, optics, alchemy, ethics, and, above all, the master science, magic." Faust smiled cruelly. "Now, Mack, you may have filled Faust's shoes for a time, as a child can step into an adult's boots, and perhaps even take a step or two. But now, thankfully, your clownlike moment on the stage of human history is over. My friend, there is nothing Faustian about you, or, indeed, anything even interesting about you. You are one of the lowest common denominators of humanity, and we don't need you here any longer."

  "Oh, is that so?" Mack said, his mind boiling with incoherent retorts. But he spoke to the empty air because with a single intricate gesture of his left hand, Faust had conjured himself away.