A Farce To Be Reckoned With

by Roger Zelazny

"I want to be known far and wide as a scholar," Sforza said. "I want to be better known than Erasmus, and looked upon as a model of learning."

  "Nothing simpler," Azzie said.

  "I should mention that I can neither read nor write."

  "That need not impede us."

  "You're sure? I thought literacy was a prerequisite for great learning."

  "So it is," Azzie said. "But what we are after here is the reputation, not necessarily the real thing. Listen carefully. You will have to undertake an adventure."

  "Not a dangerous one, I hope."

  "I hope not, either," Azzie said. "But first I have an errand to run. Wait for me here. I'll be back presently."

  Azzie shed his cloak, freed his wings, and leaped into the sky with the sprite along to show the way.

  Azzie found Mother Joanna at the bandits' camp. She and Hugh were seated at the table, going over a map and discussing what sounded like the hijacking of a caravan two days hence. As Azzie reached out to dismember a drunkenly merry man, she stayed his hand. "Hold, Azzie," she said. "These are my men. I am in charge here."

  "What?" Azzie responded.

  "My wish was granted even sooner than I'd anticipated," she stated. "For this I owe you considerable thanks."

  "Think nothing of it," Azzie said. "Just be in Venice for the ceremony."

  "Of course. And I do get to keep my soul?"

  "Certainly. That was a part of the bargain."

  "Good. I'll be there."

  Shaking his head, Azzie sprang into the air and was gone.

  PART NINE

  Chapter 1

  The first hint that the Hellenic gods had broken out of Afterglow en masse came at 013.32, Universal Sidereal Time, when the chief of Demonic Studies at Hell's Brimstonic University noted that one of his subalterns had failed to return from an expedition. The subaltern's assistant reported that a pack of loose deities had seized the researcher while he was poking around old bones at an archaeological dig near Mt.

  Olympus.

  The chief called the Limbo underworld prison to see if anything had happened recently.

  "Hello, who am I talking to?"

  "Cicero, keeper of the Unwanted Deities Sector of the Limbo Life-Forms Penitentiary."

  "I'm inquiring about the old gods of Greece. Zeus and that lot. Are they still safely under lock and key?"

  "I'm sorry to say there's just been a breakout. They're free."

  "When do you expect them to be rounded up?"

  "I'm afraid it's not so easy. These old Greek gods are quite powerful, you know. It's going to take some action on Ananke's part to pen them up again."

  "Thanks. I'll be in touch."

  Chapter 2

  Back in the real cosmos!" Phoebus cried. "I could bend down and kiss the Earth," Hephaestus said.

  The first thing they did was have a celebration, a reunion dinner roasting Zeus. They sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow"; they did comic imitations of his elaborate and portentous style. They sacrificed the usual animals and got the blood all over everything because servants, not the gods themselves, usually did the dirty work of sacrifice; they got drunk and acted in a bawdy fashion.

  Zeus rapped on the table for attention. "I want to thank you all. It was very good of you to put on this celebration for me."

  "Three cheers for Zeus!"

  "Thank you. Thank you. Now then, on to something a bit more serious. I've been looking into what we might do with ourselves, now that we're out of Afterglow. I'm talking about all of us together."

  "Do something together?" said Athena. "But we never do anything together!"

  "We need to this time," Zeus said firmly. "Lack of cohesiveness is what brought on our defeat the last time. We're not going to make that mistake again! We need a project we can all work on, something that will serve our common good. It has come to my attention that the biggest thing going on now out there in the world is a certain play that a young demon of the modern persuasion is trying to mount for the edification of the world. This demon, Azzie Elbub, is planning to award seven players glorious prizes for no reason at all. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"

  Zeus paused for comment. The gods and goddesses made none, but sat on their golden folding chairs and listened attentively.

  Zeus went on. "The first thing we need to do is put a stop to this sort of vague and purposeless moralizing by upstart spiritual powers like the aforementioned demon. Didn't we ancient gods say that Character is Fate? Isn't that as true today as it ever was?"

  "If we take action," Hermes said, "the Powers of Evil aren't going to like us putting the kibosh on their plans."

  "I am indifferent to their feelings," Zeus replied. "If they don't like it, they know what they can do about it."

  "But should we be getting into trouble so quickly?" said Hermes. "Wouldn't it be better to arbitrate? I'm sure we can find something to arbitrate. Meanwhile, perhaps we should lie low, or even hide."

  "That would do no good at all," Zeus said. "The others, the Powers of Light and Dark, will try to put us back on the Limbo reservation. Anyway, where would we go? There's no place in the universe where we can hide. The powers that be are going to come for us sooner or later. Let's have some fun while we may, and strike a blow for our usual way of doing things—godlike trickery!"

  They gazed far out from Olympus and saw Sir Oliver's troop riding through some low hills.

  "What's the story?" Athena asked as she and the others watched the great band of armed riders. Hordes of pilgrims, too, seemed to have joined the host.

  "What happens when they reach Venice?" Hermes asked.

  "Their leader gets what he most desires," Zeus told them. "Maybe, by extension, they do, too."

  "Well, we can't have that happen, can we?" Athena demanded.

  Zeus laughed and summoned the various wind gods, Zephyrus and Boreas among them. They whipped around Europe, Asia Minor, and parts of Asia collecting stray breezes. They stuffed these winds into a large leather bag and presented the bag to Zeus. Zeus loosened the leather thongs that held the mouth of the bag, and a west wind poked her head out and asked, "What's going on? Who goes around capturing wind?"

  "We're Greek gods, and we capture winds when we please," said Zeus.

  "Oh. Sorry I asked. What did you want us to do?"

  "I'd like you to blow up a good storm."

  The west wind looked more cheerful than before. "Oh, a storm! That's different! I thought you wanted one of those mild breezes people are always talking about."

  "We don't care what people want," Zeus said. "We're gods and we want dramatic weather."

  "Where do you want this storm?" the west wind asked, rubbing together her transparent hands.

  "Ares," Zeus said, "why don't you go along with the winds and show them where we want them to blow?

  You could also direct the rain, while you're at it."

  "Delighted," said Ares. "Especially since I consider weather to be war by other means."

  Chapter 3

  It was the worst weather that portion of Europe had seen in God knew how long. Storm clouds rose like swollen purple bladders blown up to monstrous proportions in the sky, and swept in filled with a rain that seemed to possess a living malevolence. The wind blew the lances out of men's hands. When the wind caught a shield from behind, it converted it into a sail, and if the holder of the shield happened to lose his balance it could blow him halfway across the countryside. Rain lashed at everything. Whipped by the wind into ultratiny drops driven with extraordinary force, it managed to penetrate every crack and crevice of armor or clothing.

  Sir Oliver had to scream into his assistant's ear in order to be heard. "We'd better take shelter!"

  "Aye, sir, it seems the only course. But how are we to pass the order? Who will hear us in this racket?"

  "Something is amiss," Oliver said. "We'd better inform Antonio." For thus he still referred to Azzie.

  "You must find him at once!"

  "Yes, sir. But where?" The
two men looked at each other, and then at the wide gray rain-soaked plain upon which they stood.

  Chapter 4

  Zeus wasn't content with simply serving up foul weather. He and all his children began working on separate schemes to let mankind know they were back.

  Zeus left the company of the gods. He wanted to check out the human condition in its current state.

  First he visited Greece. As he had feared, Greek strength of arms had slipped downhill badly since the grand old days of Agamemnon.

  He looked around to see what other armies might be available. The rest of the forces of Western Europe were all engaged in one struggle or another. What he needed was a new force of men. He knew now just where he wanted to send them—barreling right down through the heart of Europe into Italy. He was going to start a new kingdom for himself there. His army would conquer, and they would make sure everyone worshiped him'—or they would make war on those who did not. As their reward, he would deal them out glory and treachery. It was the old way, and the old way was always best, especially when it was bloody.

  But first he had to find a pythoness who could tell him where there was an unoccupied army. A quick consultation of the Prophets' Directory helped him locate the Pythoness of Delphi, currently disguised as a washerwoman in a restaurant in Salonika.

  In Salonika he withdrew the cloud of darkness into a large bladder and corked it so that it would be ready if he wanted to use it again. Then he went to the central agora and inquired for the washerwoman on the Main Baths. A fish merchant pointed the way. Zeus went past the ruined coliseum and the decayed horseracing ground, and there she was — a careworn old lady with her large tortoise shell that washerwomen used for wash buckets.

  The pythoness had to take a disguise and do her prophesying in secret because the Church didn't allow pythonesses to continue in their familiar trade. Even owning a constrictor-type snake was against the law as "tending toward forbidden magical practices in the old outlawed style." But this pythoness still did private readings for friends and certain disaffected aristocrats.

  Zeus went to her well wrapped in a cloak, but she recognized him at once.

  "I need a reading," he told her.

  "Oh, this is the finest day in my life," the pythoness said. "To think that I would ever meet one of the old gods face to face… Oh, just tell me what I can do for you."

  "I want you to go into your trance and find out where I can get an army."

  "Yes, sir. But since your son Phoebus is the god of prophecy, why don't you just ask him yourself?"

  "I don't want to ask Phoebus or anybody like that," Zeus said. "I don't trust them. Surely there are other gods you ask questions of, not just us Olympians? What about that Jewish fellow who was around when I was?"

  "Jehovah has gone through some interesting changes. But he's not available for prophesy. He left strict orders not to be disturbed."

  "There are others, aren't there?"

  "There are, of course, but I don't know if it's a good idea to bother them with questions. They're not like you, Zeus, a god anyone can talk with. They're mean and they're strange."

  "I don't care," Zeus said. "Ask them. If a god can't ask another god for a little advice, I don't know what the universe is coming to."

  The pythoness took Kim to her chamber, lit the sacred laurel leaves, and piled on the sacred hemp. She took a few other sacred things and strewed them about, got her snake out of its wicker basket and wrapped it around her shoulders, and went into her trance.

  Her eyes soon rolled back into her head, and she said, in a voice Zeus could not recognize but which set the hair on the back of his neck to rise, "O Zeus, go check out the Mongol peoples."

  "Is there anything else?" Zeus asked.

  The pythoness said, "End of message." And then she fainted.

  After she had recovered, Zeus asked her, "I thought oracular answers were usually couched in strange and ambiguous terms. This one just came out and said what I was to do in a flat and straightforward manner. Has there been some change in operating procedure?"

  "I believe," the pythoness said, "there's a general dissatisfaction in high circles with ambiguity. It wasn't getting anyone anywhere."

  Zeus left Salonika wrapped again in his cloud of darkness, and turned to the northeast.

  Chapter 5

  Zeus visited the Mongols, who had recently conquered the southern Chinese empire. Viewing themselves as invincible, they were ripe to listen when Zeus came riding in.

  Zeus found the Mongol chief at his headquarters.

  "You and your men have done a fine thing, conquering this vast country, but now you lie around doing nothing. You are a people in search of a purpose, and I am a god in search of a people. What if we put our needs together and come up with something that will be good for us both?"

  "You may be a god," Jagotai said, "but you're not our god. Why should I listen to you?"

  "Because I'm offering to become your god," Zeus said. "I've about had it with the Greeks. An interesting and inventive people, but disappointing to a god who was only trying to bring them good things."

  "What do you offer us?"

  It soon came to pass that Mongol outriders, holding high their yak-tail banners, came riding hard through the Carpathian passes onto the flat plains of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and riding through time into the sixteenth century. Zeus had to use all his powers to pull it off. It would have been easy to time-and-place-transport them directly, but it would have spooked the horses.

  Whole families took themselves to horse, or to donkeys, or to oxcarts. The vast majority put what they could carry on their shoulders and streamed out in search of a place of refuge far from their pursuers, the flat-faced fiends with narrow black mustaches. Some people in their flight went to Milan, some to Ravenna. But for the most part, the refugees made for Venice, a city believed to be secure from invasion behind its marshes and lagoons.

  Chapter 6

  The Mongols were coming, and extraordinary measures were decreed to protect Venice. The Doge called a special session of the Council and laid certain proposals before it. It was agreed that the main bridges into the city proper should be cut; after that, the Venetians would raid the shores that surrounded them, confiscating all boats in the vicinity capable of carrying ten or more soldiers. These boats were to be taken up to the city itself, or sunk if they proved too heavy to carry away.

  The problems of defense were rendered all the more complicated by a serious shortage of provisions.

  Normally, a constant stream of foodstuffs arrived daily on ships sailing from ports all over southeastern Europe and the Near East. But the recent storms had whipped the Mediterranean into a frenzy and put a halt to seaborne commerce. The city was already on short rations, and conditions promised to get worse.

  The Venetians also faced a threat of widespread fires. People were trying to keep dry and warm, and they were often careless while lighting their stoves; the number of destructive fires in the city was greater than anyone had ever known before. Inevitably, there was talk that some had been set purposely, by agents of Venice's enemies; citizens were ordered to keep a close watch on strangers and to suspect the presence of spies in their midst at all times.

  The rain came down in an incessant chatter that was like moist wind gods talking to each other with loose windows for tongues. Droplets dribbled off mantels and cornices and anything else that ended in a point.

  The wind drove the rain and broke big drops into little drops.

  The water level rose steadily throughout Venice. Water overflowed the canals and flooded out into the squares and piazzas. It filled San Marco's Square to a depth of three feet, and it continued to rise. It was not the first time Venice had been bothered by rain and floods, but this was by far the worst anyone had seen.

  Strong winds out of the northeast, laden with Arctic frost, blew steadily for days, and showed no signs of letting up. The republic's chief weather forecaster resigned his well-paid hereditary post, so dist
asteful had his work of predicting disaster become to him. People were praying to saints, devils, effigies, whatever they could think of, hoping to get some relief. Just to make matters worse, plague had been reported in some parts. And there were claims that Mongol outriders had been seen just a day's ride away, and there was no telling how quickly they were advancing.

  The Venetians were exhausted by their constant worries, frightened by the huge forces shaping up outside of the republic, and suspicious even of each other. The usual ceremonies in honor of certain saints had fallen into abeyance. Churches were taken up day and night with prayers for the salvation of the city, and with anathemas delivered against the Mongols. Church bells tolled incessantly. This in turn spurred an air of desperate gaiety.

  It was a brilliant season of parties, masked balls, and fetes. Carnival reigned constantly, and never had Venice shown herself to greater advantage. Despite the storms, candles gleamed brightly in the mansions of the rich, and music could be heard up and down the canals. People hurried through the rainswept streets in cloak and half mask, on their way from one parry to the next. It was as if one last fling was all that remained for the proud old city.

  A strange incident occurred one day. A workman sent out by the city to assess storm damage discovered a hole in one of the dikes near the Arsenal. No water was coming through it, however.

  Through the opening there came a blinding yellow light, and the workman could see something indescribable in silhouette on the other side. It appeared to have two shadows. The man ran away and told others what he had seen.

  A group of scholars came to study the phenomenon. The hole in the dike had grown larger; the brilliant yellow color had faded. Now the hole showed a clear and unearthly blue, even though stormy rain clouds and dun- colored earth should have been visible through it. This hole was like an opening through everything, earth and sky alike.