Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

Moondrench said, "Is it so important, this matter of human destiny? "

"Not to us, perhaps," Agrippa said. "But to them it means quite a lot."

A Nameless Horror stalked by, reeking of deep reptilian musk. Its companion, a model of the Pickman variety, asked, "Did you hear what happened to Good's entry?"

The Nameless Horror grunted in the negative.

"The whole damned thing fell down! Made a beautiful crash -with those stained-glass windows and all. Too bad about the gargoyles, of course."

"How come?" the Nameless Horror growled.

"Something to do with buttressing and flying-I'm not clear on the mechanics. Guess Good wasn't either. Har! Har!"

"I want some more to drink," Moondrench said. "You promised me I'd have lots of fun."

"Here comes the waiter with the ichor," Agrippa said. "Please don't act silly."

"I shall drink as much as I please," Moondrench said, helping himself to a flagon of ichor. "And I shall probably drink a lot. Drinking to excess is never silly."

There was a disturbance at the rear of the hall. A fox-faced demon had entered and was making his lurching way forward, colliding with waiters, bumping against diners, knock­ing dishes from tables as he passed. Murmurs rose as he went by:

"How rude!"

"Isn't that ...?"

"Is that... ?"

"Looks like Azzie."

"Didn't he have an entry in the contest?"

"Wonder what happened."

"Hey, Azzie! You okay?"

"I heard he screwed up a big one."

"I thought he was still in the Pits."

"Looks soused to the ear tufts."

"Watch it there, fella!"

"What else can you expect from a drunken demon?"

"What'd he want with a glass mountain, anyhow?"

"Give 'em hell, Azzie!"

"Yeah! Hell! Brimstone and all that!"

Moondrench was being difficult. Agrippa no longer con­sidered him as attractive as he had before. And now the banquet was in full swing. More food kept arriving, brought in on silver platters by demons in black tuxedos. There were some unusual dishes. Suckling chimaera, for example. And there were all sorts of dishes with little handwritten signs on them telling the diner what he was getting into. A few of the dishes were even able to enunciate. "Hello," the stewed turnips said, "we're delicious."

The sound of all those beings conversing was begi

On a sort of boardwalk which extended over the dining table, a tableau of great hits of the past was being presented, highlights of the macabre and the virtuous. As new guests ar­rived, each had to have his lineage and accomplishments an­nounced by the white-furred majordomo.

Azzie continued to push his way forward, on the crest of an advancing wave of chaos.

Then Asmodeus got up. He was fat, and his white skin had a greenish cast. His lower lip protruded so far that a saucer could have balanced on it. He wore a bottle-green coat, and when he turned around, his twisted pig's tail was visible.

"Hello, friends," Asmodeus said. "I think we all know why we are here, don't we?"

"To get drunk!" an ugly spirit off to one side said.

"Well, yes, that, of course," Asmodeus said. "But we are getting drunk tonight for a purpose. And that purpose is to celebrate the eve of the Mille

Azzie moved to the front of the hall.

Asmodeus began to call out names, and various spirits got up to take bows. They gri

"Who's that couple over there?" Moondrench asked. "The big blond angel and the dark little witch?"

"The angel is named Babriel," Agrippa told him. "The witch is Ylith - a good friend of Azzie's, one of our more in­teresting and active demons. I believe he just went by."

"I've heard of him," Moondrench said. "He was doing something special for this year's festivities, wasn't he?"

"So it's been said. There he is now, down front. Looks like he got a head start on the rest of us. I wonder what he's up to?"

Azzie climbed onto a table, to the consternation of the diners who surrounded it. He swayed. He breathed smoke and struck sparks as he moved.

He made as if to say something several times but failed. Finally, he plucked a flagon from a diner's talons, raised it, and drained it.

"Fools! Pigs! Bastards!" he roared then. "Ye less-than-sentient things! I address myself particularly to my so-called brothers of Darkness, whose champion I have been, betrayed utterly by your indifference. We could have won it, boys and girls! We had the chance! My conception was glorious, un­precedented, and it could have worked!"

He paused and coughed. Someone passed him another flagon, and he sipped from it. The hall had grown quiet now.

"But did I get any cooperation?" he went on. "Not a bit! The fools in Supply acted as if I were doing this for my own personal aggrandizement, rather than the greater glory of us all. Why, damn it! I got more help from that fool Babriel, the stupid-faced observer from the Powers of Light, than I got from any of you. And you call yourselves evil! You are living proof, all of you, of the banality of bad! And now you sit here and celebrate and await the a

Azzie glared around him. Everyone was silent, waiting for

him to continue. Azzie strode across the table, took another swig, swayed again, regained his balance.

"So I say, the hell with all of you! I am going away now to a private place, to think and to rest. This entire event has been very trying. But I want to tell you all, this isn't the end of me. Not at all. I still have a few tricks, my masters! Wait now and see what I bring next for your amusement!"

Azzie threw out a double travel-spell and disappeared in a clap of thunder. The assembled demons and angels glanced at each other uneasily. "What do you think he meant by that?" several were heard to mutter.

They did not have to wait long to see.

Before they could move, a tornado came sweeping in from outer reality. It roared, ripped, and tore at the banquet hall, and it was accompanied by a rising rush of water. The carefully noted speeches of the elder demons and angels were ripped from their hands and sent flying to the skies. There followed an infestation of frogs, thousands, millions of them, dropping from out the heavens. The walls began to sweat blood, while noxious halations suddenly became the order of the day. And through it all there was a faint demonic laughter-Azzie's laugh­ter- as he sent peril after menace after direness after terror into the banquet hall.

All in all, it proved a most memorable dessert.