Roger Zelazny - If at Faust You Don't Succeed

"So, impostor, we meet again!" Faust cried.

They galloped side by side for a time. Mack was having a lot of trouble just hanging on to his horse, since galloping at top speed through a forest at night with another rider neck and neck and screaming insults was not his usual practice. Nor was it Faust's, presumably. But the magician of Wittenberg was doing fine, riding like a Magyar, as they say, and he was also managing to keep Helen on the back of his horse, too, her scrumptious arms wrapped around his waist. Mack of course was carrying Marguerite, who had been silent so far, entranced by the flickering play of moonlight and shadow. The horsemen were evenly matched as to weight. But Faust had by far the edge in aplomb.

Faust's words were garbled and his imitation of slang of the future was unfortunate, but the intent of his words was clear: Get out of my face, or else.

"I can't go away now!" Mack howled back. "This is my story!"

"Like hell it is. I am the only and the maximum Faust!" Faust cried, and the glow in his lambent werewolf's eyes was disquieting. Edging his horse closer to Mack's, he took from an inner pocket of his waistcoat an object about three feet long and studded with jewels, and with a glow about it that proclaimed it not just a mere scepter, as it might have appeared, but a magical one, stolen, in this case, from Kublai Khan by Mack. But the magical scepter was now in Faust's hands, and those hands knew no mercy. By the way Faust held this scepter, Mack could tell that the magician of Wittenberg had somehow divined its efficacy; viz., that when you pointed at a person and said, "Bang!" that person was annihilated in a manner that anticipated the deathbeams of a later age.

Faced with that much occult firepower, Mack almost gave up hope. Then he saw at hand a desperate expedient for avoiding the power-thrust of the magical scepter. The expedient was looming up in the form of a great oak. Mack timed his move carefully, then swung his horse into Faust's path. Faust checked to the other side, the instinctive move in such a circumstance, and Mack swung to the right, around the tree, while Faust crashed head-on into it with such force that the stars he saw became visible to Mack's eyes for a little while even though they were imaginary. From his rear, Mack heard Marguerite utter a small whimper of sympathy. The doctor crashed to the ground, dazed, while his maddened horse ran off in one direction and Mack galloped off in another, the way that led to Saint-Menehould. Helen, consort of warriors, leaped to the ground before the moment of impact, rolled several times, rose to her feet, and adjusted her coiffure. The launching of one sorcerer or a thousand ships—it was all the same to her. One should be at one's best whatever the occasion.

After galloping alone for a considerable distance, Mack came to a clearing in the forest. Here he saw a country inn with a curl of smoke coming from its chimney. It seemed a good place to take a badly needed break. And so he stopped, helped Marguerite to dismount, tied his horse to a post provided for that purpose, and drew water for him from a nearby hogshead. Then he and Marguerite went inside.

There was the usual tavern keeper polishing brass behind the bar, and at the end of the room there was a fire nicely burning. Another traveler sat near it, face turned away from Mack, warming his hands at the fire. "Good day to you, travelers," the tavern keeper said. "Will you have a cup of brandy to cheer the appetite?" "It's too early for a drink," Mack said. "Just a noggin of fir-knot tea to keep us awake."

"Take a seat at the fire and warm yourselves," the tavern keeper said. "I've got the fir knots mulling nicely and I'll bring mugs of it right over." Mack went over and sat down beside the fire, nod' ding politely to the man who sat there already, wrapped in a long cloak, his face concealed in a hood, with a bow leaning on the wall beside him.

"Good evening," the man said, and threw back his hood. Mack stared. "You know, I think I've seen you somewhere before."

"You might have seen my bust at some museum," the stranger said. "I am Odysseus, and how I got here from my house in the suburbs of Tartaros would make a pretty tale, had we but time. But we don't. You wouldn't happen to be Faust, would your Odysseus spoke in Homeric Greek, with a slight Ithacan accent, which Mack was able to understand since Mephistopheles had never taken away his Language Spell. "Well, yes," Mack said. "That is, I know him after a fashion. That is to say, I have been doing Faust's job for him, but now I am of two minds about the whole proposition." "Are you that Faust who travels with Helen of Troy?" Odysseus enquired.

"No, that's the other one," Mack said. "I travel with Marguerite." He turned to introduce Marguerite to Odysseus but found that the girl had already fallen asleep in a corner of the booth. "But you claim that you are Faust, too?" Odysseus asked. "Right now, I play the part of Faust in this contest between Dark and Light. But the real Faust is trying to force me out."

"And what do you intend to do?" Odysseus asked.

"I'm not at all sure," Mack said. "It's starting to weigh on my conscience, this matter of my taking his part. Maybe I just ought to drop out and leave the Faust role to him." Odysseus said, "You seem to be doing well enough at the job. Why should you give it up? What does Faust have that you do not?"

"Well, this other Faust, you see, is a great magician, so he's got the right to represent mankind…"

"Not a bit of it!" Odysseus hitched his cloak more closely about himself. "Why should mankind be represented by a magician? They're about the same as politicians, only worse. Don't you know the truth yet? Magic always works against mankind."

"I never thought of it that way," Mack confessed.

"Magic is power, and only a few people are good at it. Do you think it's right to have a bunch of magicians leading the people? Would you really want Faust to rule you?"

"I just assumed magicians knew more than ordinary men."

"What they know is not necessarily useful to the rest of us. I've had some experience with magicians. In my time we had Tiresias. He was really preeminent. But do you think we'd let him lead us in politics or war? Never! Our leader, Agamemnon, was flawed in many ways, but he was a man, and he didn't claim any special dispensation from the gods or spirits. Beware of men who claim to speak for the gods!"

"But he's the real Faust!"

"Maybe so. But that doesn't make him the real possessor of the Faustian spirit. That is you, my dear Mack, a man standing up just as he is, without special knowledge or abilities, without magical powers, and nevertheless trying to rule himself."

Mack took heart from these brave words. He finished the tankard of fir-knot tea that the tavern keeper had brought him and stood up, getting the sleepy Marguerite to finish hers and rise with him. "I'd better be getting on."

"And Faust?"

"He follows behind me." "Ah, good," Odysseus said. "Do you hear, Achilles?"

Achilles, who had been slumbering in a dark corner of the booth, gave a start and sat up. "Did you call me, Odysseus?" "Get ready, my friend! Faust comes!"

Odysseus and Achilles! Mack hoped these two would hold up Faust for quite a while.

"Come, Marguerite," he said.

"Coming," she agreed, stifling a yawn.

They left the tavern, remounted, and rode off again in the direction of Saint-Menehould.

Faust arrived at the inn in the forest twenty minutes later. He had a yellowish bruise on his temple from his headlong contact with the oak tree, but other than that seemed perfectly all right. Helen was windblown, but lovelier than ever.

Faust entered the tavern and came face-to-face with Odysseus, who said, "I know who you are. You are named Faust."