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"How could you overhear me?" Faust said. "I spoke in a whisper."
"Demons always know when someone is talking about them. You're wondering about that parchment? I'll tell you. Mephistopheles has been put in charge of the Mille
"But I am Faust!" Faust cried. "Mephistopheles has gotten .the wrong man!"
Azzie eyed him. His bright fox eyes narrowed, and his ruddy demon's body took on a tension that a skilled observer, had one been present, might have found significant.
"You are the learned doctor?"
"Yes! I am! I am!" Marguerite tugged at his sleeve so insistently that Faust added, "And this is Marguerite, my friend."
Azzie acknowledged her with a nod, then turned to Faust. "This is a very interesting turn of events."
"Not for me," Faust said. "I just want to see justice done. It's me that Mephistopheles wanted in this contest. I want my rightful place! Will you help me?"
Azzie paced up and down the trodden grass of the meadow, thinking. He harnessed his usual impatience, because there were many angles to consider here, and he needed more information before he took any action at all. But unless he missed his guess, this could be a time of opportunity for him.
"I'll get back to you later on that," Azzie said.
"Give me a piece of advice, at least! Tell me where to go next to find them."
"All right," Azzie said. "My advice is that if you intend to pursue Mephistopheles and the impostor, you will need to travel in time, and to do that, you must visit Charon and make arrangements for passage on his boat." Thanks!" Faust cried. And picking up the chestnut-haired girl and invoking the second pan of the spell which he had concocted in the Closed Chamber of the Jagiellonian, Faust vanished into the air.
CHAPTER 12
Azzie watched Faust leave, noting how well the human did his vanishing. It was a crisp and definite disappearance, here one moment, gone the next, no sloppy edges or bleeding colors as less skilled enchanters were wont to leave. The fellow handled magic well for a mortal. Of course, he was Faust, and that made a difference. Even Azzie had heard of Faust.
It was just past midnight. The cleanup crews had finished with the meadow where the Sabbat had taken place. The sanitation team was just sterilizing the places where unclean beasts had burrowed. Spiritual ecologists were repairing the damage done to trees by lightning and hellfire, planting new grass on the trampled sward, and purifying the soil of the baleful elements that had been spilled on it during the night's merriment.
"That's the lot of it," the dwarf foreman, Rognir, said. "More swill than last year."
"Yes, it was pretty good," Azzie said, his eyes indicating distance and absorption.
"Can we go now?" asked Rognir. He was a
"Hello!" Azzie had said. "I know you, don't I?"
"We met once before," Rognir said, recognizing the demon. "You were going to invest my treasure.
Where is my treasure, by the way?"
"Out earning money for you," Azzie said. "Don't worry about it, you've already gotten the profit, remember?" He put an arm around Rognir's shoulder in what passed for a friendly ma
"I've got an appointment," Rognir had said.
"It can wait," Azzie said. "I need you to clean up after this Witches' Sabbat. It won't take you long."
"Why don't you do it yourself?"
"I've been appointed overseer, not laborer," Azzie said. "Come on now, be a good fellow."
Rognir was going to refuse, but it is difficult to refuse a demon in a race-to-race confrontation. Demons are far more fearsome than dwarves, who aren't fearsome at all, though they can scowl terribly.
"What about my pay?" Rognir said.
Azzie said, "Your payment in the usual form of bags of coined silver has been deposited to your account in the Hellgate Savings & Loan."
"But that's way down in Hell!" Rognir said. "We dwarves never go there!"
"You'll have to go there this time, if you want to get paid."
"When we do go there, they give us the runaround and ask for identification. They don't seem to realize that dwarves don't have driving licenses."
"Quit bellyaching," Azzie said in the bullying, threatening tone that was natural for him.
"And nobody gave us wine, or di
"Buy your own! That's what currency is for!"
Rognir scurried away, and, assembling his fellow dwarves, all of whom were complaining to each other about the working conditions and the lack of wine, uncovered the burrow by which they had come to this place. Dwarves always traveled underground, cutting new tu
Yet the fox-faced demon hesitated, still thinking about the two Fausts. What was going on? It seemed that Mephistopheles, on behalf of the Mille
Azzie was in an irritated mood. Although he had a reputation as a good-natured demon, recent events had soured his usually su
What results would this imposture have on the contest? Whose side would benefit from getting the real Faust out of the game? And, most important of all, who was behind all this? For the more Azzie thought about it, the more it seemed certain that someone had to be pla