Roger Zelazny - If at Faust You Don't Succeed

Just then the great bronze doors of the Khan's Banquet Hall opened again. Marguerite entered. She was wearing a new Chinese dress of watered silk with high collar and form-fitting lines. She had also been freshly made up, washed, perfumed, had her hair set and her nails done. They knew how to make language lessons interesting in Kublai's court.

"Hi," she said. "I'm just back from class. Listen to this, everybody." And in crude but understandable Mongol she said, "The swain from Spain is standing in the rain." She smiled and waited for words of approval.

"Shall we execute her?" Marco asked Kublai, getting out from under the table and dusting himself off.

"Might as well," Kublai said, the thought of cruelty helping him regain his dignity. "It's better than nothing."

Marco called out, "Guards! Executioner!"

Once again the grim charade proceeded. Marguerite was seized. The executioner, resolutely, despite the fact that his legs were shaking, approached. And then Mephistopheles appeared again.

"Sorry, I forgot all about you," he said. He gestured. Marguerite disappeared. Then Mephistopheles disappeared. The Khan and his guests stared in stunned silence at the places where they had been. And then the waiters came in with the main course.

Well, Faust, we are sending you on your way again for the next contest. In this one, you are going to the city of Florence, in the year 1497. How I envy you, my dear fellow! You will see at firsthand the city that can claim to be the artistic inventor of the new world. Many scholars argue that the Renaissance began in Florence. How does that sound?"

Mack and Mephistopheles were in a little office perched in Limbo. Limbo was wide and expansive in that part, and the office was the only thing in sight. It was the sort of place Mephistopheles often used for late-night paperwork. Quite simple; a wooden frame structure about ten feet to a side (you can build as large as you'd like in Limbo, at no extra cost, but Mephistopheles had wanted to keep a homey look). A

few oil paintings of pastoral subjects on the walls. A small sofa covered in green satin on which he sat, and a straight-backed wooden chair on the edge of which Mack perched. Mephistopheles had given Mack a glass of barley wine to buck him up after his close call. But he had been anxious to get on with the contest. "All right, then," Mephistopheles said at last. And so, with barely a chance to catch his breath, Mack knew he was to be off again. To a place with an odd name.

"What's a Renaissance?" Mack asked.

"I forgot," Mephistopheles chuckled, "the term 'Renaissance' didn't enter usage until long after the Renaissance was over. It refers to a period in history, my dear Faust."

"What am I supposed to do about this Renaissance?" Mack asked.

"Why, nothing, directly. The Renaissance isn't anything you can do anything about. No, I was merely making conversation, pointing out to you how important this time is in history, and how your choices here could make a big difference." "What am I supposed to do? Are there choices?"

"Yes, of course there are choices," Mephistopheles said. "We're going to put you into Florence at the time of the Bonfire of Vanities." "What was that?"

"A great burning of objects of vanity, such as looking glasses, amusing pictures, light novels, precious manuscripts, comfits, and the like. All these and many other things were heaped into a pile in the great courtyard of the Piazza della Signoria, and put to fire."

"Sounds a little extreme," Mack said. "You want me to stop this bonfire?"

"No, not at all," Mephistopheles said.

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"A deed," Mephistopheles said. "That is why we put our Faust into these contests. So that he may perform a deed that will redound either to Good or to Bad, and so be judged by Ananke."

"Who?"

"Ananke is the Greek name for the ancient primordial force of Necessity, that which must be. All things must finally be judged by Ananke."

"Where is this Ananke?"

"She is ever-present," Mephistopheles said. "But immaterial and elusive, since Necessity is that final force that binds things together, but has no substance itself. When the time comes, however, Ananke will take on bodily form and tell us her judgment." It was getting a little deep for Mack. "What, specifically, am I to do?"

"That I cannot tell you," Mephistopheles said. "This particular episode has been structured differently from the others. In this one, it's up to you to find something to do." "But how am I to judge what's to be done?"

Mephistopheles shrugged. "There are many ways. You might see a person in peril, and choose to save his life. Then the judgment would depend on whose life you saved, and what he did with his life in the years left him."

"You just have to take your best guess," Mephistopheles said. "Niccolo Machiavelli is in Florence at this time. You might advise him not to write his masterpiece, The Prince, that caused such a stir in celestial circles." Mephistopheles hesitated and examined his fingernails, then said, "Or you might look around for a Botticelli for me, if you can't think of anything else to do."

"That would be good?"

Mephistopheles hesitated. There'd be hell to pay if anyone found out about it. But he knew just the spot on the west hall wall of his palace in Hell where he'd hang the painting. The other archdemons would be sick with envy when they saw it.

"Oh yes," he said, "getting a Botticelli wouldn't be bad at all."

"The trouble is," Mack said, "I wouldn't know a Botticelli from a Durer. Painting is all Greek to me. In fact, I know more Greek than painting."

"Well, that's not right," Mephistopheles said. "I'm sure no one would object if I improve your knowledge of art. It might be necessary in order for you to carry out your assignment."

He made a gesture. And Mack's knees buckled for a moment as his memory was suddenly burdened with the knowledge of comparative art values from the Hellenic period to some centuries after his own time.

"Get you a painting by Botticelli? Is that what you want me to do?"

"It is not for me to tell you," Mephistopheles said. "I merely give some background so you'll have some feeling for conditions." He hesitated, then added, "Of course, if, during your time in this construct, you should happen to come across a Botticelli, I'd be happy to buy it from you at a very good price."

"If I don't come across the painting," Mack said, "what else ought I to do?"

"I can't tell you. My dear Faust, there are no simple choices in this game. It is not a matter of just finding out which is the 'best' move in terms of some preestablished criterion. There's no morality involved in this.

This is pure nuts and bolts. It gives you, a mere man, a chance to make the sort of decision usually reserved to spiritual beings. We are going to see how well a human being does at this sort of thing."

"All right," Mack said dubiously. "But I'm still not sure that I get it."

"My dear fellow, it is exactly like a quiz show."

"Beg pardon?"

"I forgot, those haven't been invented yet. Think of it as a man standing before an audience and answering questions for money, and being paid for each one he gets right. Now, for ten thousand louis d'or… You are at the Bonfire of Vanities in Florence in 1492. In front of you is a huge bonfire. Being thrown on it are all sorts of vanities. Among them is a priceless Botticelli. It is in your power to rescue it.

What do you do?"

"I get the idea," Mack said. "And if you like the answer, I get the money?"

"That's the general idea," Mephistopheles said. "To go on. Next we say to you, all right, same situation.

Now you are at the palace of Lorenzo de' Medici. He is a great and terrible tyrant, but also a great and inspired patron of the arts. He is dying. Here. Take this." He handed Mack a small glass vial filled with a green liquid. "You now have in your hand a medicine that will give him another ten years of life. Do you give it to him or not?"