Roger Zelazny - Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

* * *

Five minutes later Azzie came up to Babriel's room. Azzie looked at it, twice as big as when he'd seen it last, brilliantly illuminated, nicely furnished, clean, fragrant with frankincense and myrrh, and with a small door at one side opened to reveal a fine tiled bathroom Azzie knew damned well hadn't been there before.

There was a standing closet, too, and its door was open, revealing dozens of Babriel's uniforms, of every cut and de­scription, some with medals, and many with exaggerated collars and huge cuffs. Babriel had changed into one such. It was white and silver, and came with a peaked cap. Azziethought he looked so ludicrous as to appear sinister.

"Glad to see you're making yourself to home," Azzie said.

"I took the liberty of fixing the place up a little. I'll gladly restore it to original condition when I leave."

"Don't worry about it," Azzie said. "If I'd known you wanted fancy, you'd have gotten fancy. What's that?"

He pointed to a rectangular blob of nacre and ormolu that swung from Babriel's waist.

"Oh, that's my telephone," Babriel said. "So I can stay in touch with headquarters."

Azzie glared at the handset. "They haven't even issued ours yet!"

"You'll love them when you get them," Babriel said.

It was fine September weather. Azzie became more accus­tomed to having Babriel living in his house. His room continued to expand, and Azzie had to ask the angel to do some shoring up because it was threatening to capsize the house with its weight and top-heavy leverage. And the training of Prince Charming went on. The young man seemed to be gaining confidence. Azzie had been feeding him a variety of herbal extracts, as well as other exotic ingredients such as powdered unicorn horn, dried banshee shit, and distilled corpse sweat. Charming was now able to hold his own against Frike with the wooden swords, even though Frike fenced with his lame left arm to make the contest more equal. There was definite pro­gress, though it was difficult to say when the young Prince would be ready to face a real foe.

These were quiet days and nights. Azzie regretted only that Ylith was not present. It had been necessary to leave her in the enchanted castle to look after Princess Scarlet, whose rebellious ways were still something of a problem.

One evening, as Azzie was sitting in the living room smok­ing his pipe and feasting on a small plate of wolverine hearts with teriyaki sauce, there was a great commotion overhead. Babriel, who was reading one of his interminable books on how to be good, looked up startled as he heard the sound of hooves on the roof. Then there came a scraping sound mixed with swearing. They advanced to the chimney. Azzie could hear a loud grunting and moaning now, and at last something large worked its way down.

It was lucky that, it being a mild September night, no fire was going. Santa Claus emerged, some dark stains on his red suit, tasseled cap askew, a scowling expression on his smudged face.

"Why," Santa Claus demanded, "did you close the flues? It makes it very difficult getting through. And your chimney hasn't been cleaned in ages."

"Sorry, Santa," Azzie said. "I wasn't expecting you this time of year. Not that you come often to us demons, anyhow."

"That's because our charter says we are to bring presents first to humans. And there are more of them every day."

"I quite understand," Azzie responded. "In any event, we demons have our own ways of giving and receiving. But why have you come? If it's a social visit, you could have come in by the front door."

"It's business, not social," Santa Claus said. "I have a rush order here for a young lady witch who gave this as her address. Ylith is her name. Is she around?"

"She's off at my other place," Azzie said. "Can I be of help?"

"You can accept this delivery for her." Santa took a large, gaily wrapped package out of his pack.

"Sure. Glad to."

"You'll make sure she gets it?" Santa said. "It's for a little girl, Brigitte is her name, to whom Ylith promised it."

"I'll see that she gets it."

"Thank you," Santa said. "I mentioned to Ylith how lonely it gets at the North Pole. She said she'd send some witches my way and I'd give them presents and a good time."

"Witches are overrated. You won't like them."

"You think not? Try a steady diet of elves before you knock witches. Well, must be off."

Azzie walked Santa to the front door. He watched as Santa,

moving nimbly for so large a man, scrambled up the trellises to the roof. Soon there was a clatter of hooves and the rest was silence.

Azzie went back inside and opened the package. Within was a miniature mansion and farmyard. It was all nicely detailed with little people dolls, animal dolls. There were tiny windows, mirrors, tables, chairs.

"Could use a little guillotine," he mused aloud. "I had one here someplace. ..."

Over the next few days Charming continued to progress in the art of fencing. But he did well only when every­thing went according to form. Unusual things startled him, interrupting his coordination. And he was very distractible. At every birdcall or slammed door he jerked his head around. Irregularities in the ground upset his balance. Every footstep he took forward had a look of retreat to it. Sudden gusts of wind caused him to close his eyes.

But it was mostly his cowardice that bothered Azzie, who knew it to be the real reason for the other signs of ineptitude.

Babriel watched for a long while without comment, though he winced at the young man's awkwardness and the way he flinched whenever Frike lifted his sword.

"What, exactly, is wrong with him?" Babriel finally asked.

"It's the coward's heart I gave him. Instead of imbuing him with basic prudence, as it's supposed to do, it's filling his entire system with fear."

"But if he's so fearful, how will he go out for his quest?"

"I doubt he'll go at all," Azzie said. "I'm trying to motivate him, but nothing is working. It looks like I'm licked before I even get started."

"Oh, dear," Babriel said.

"Yeah, well, you might say that, and a lot else."

"But your contest-the fairy tale you're planning to pre­sent- "

"Finished, over with, shot down, connsumatus est, and all that."

"It hardly seems fair," Babriel said. "But why throw in the sponge so soon? I mean, heck, hang it all, isn't there some­thing you can do? "

"I need to get some gutsia for him. But my Supply people can't seem to find any."

"Can't they, now? Bunch of slackers, unless I miss my guess. Let's see what my fellows can do."

Azzie stared at him. "You are going to get me gutsia?"

"That is what I propose," Babriel said.

"But that won't do you any good!"

"Let me worry about that," Babriel said. "You've been such a nice host, I feel I owe you something. And anyhow, the show must go on, eh?"

Babriel stood up, ducking his head because it was a low grape arbor in which they stood, and reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a plastic credit card. It was very much like Azzie's, only white instead of jet black. It bore on one side a golden representation of a constellation moving toward the position it would occupy at the Millennium's end. Babriel looked around for a place to insert it, but couldn't find one.

"Let's take a walk," Babriel said. "Maybe there's some­thing out here... . Ah, here's a bay tree, they're always good," He found a slit in the bay's bark and inserted the card.

"What's supposed to happen now?" Azzie asked.

"Give them a moment to respond," Babriel said. "This is an unusual location for a transmission from an angel of Light, you know."

"How's the Gothic cathedral coming?" Azzie asked.