Roger Zelazny - A Farce To Be Reckoned With

"Not long at all," Oliver said. "Has he shortchanged you?"

"No, no. To the contrary."

"What do you mean?"

"He agreed to pay six centimes for use of the room, and he put the copper coins in my hand. Then he said, 'What the Hell, I might as well be generous." and he pointed his finger at the coins. And the coins changed to silver."

"Silver!" cried Mother Joanna. "Are you sure?"

"Of course! Look for yourself." He held out a silver centime bit. All three of them stared at it as if it were the Devil himself.

Later Oliver and Mother Joanna went looking for Fran9ois, to arrange their morning meal, but they couldn't find him. They finally found a note tacked to the pantry door. "Gentlefolks," it read, "please forgive me, but I remembered an urgent appointment I must keep with the abbot at the St. Bernard House. I pray that God will watch out for your souls."

"How very curious!" Oliver said. "Why, do you sup-o »

pose: Mother Joanna's lips tightened. "The man was frightened out of his wits, that's why he ran away."

"But if he thinks Antonio is a demon, why did he not at least tell us?"

"I think he was afraid to say a word," Mother Joanna said, "since this demon has chosen to travel in our company." She thought for a moment. "We might well be apprehensive, too."

The soldier and the nun sat silently for a long time, staring gloomily into the flames. Sir Oliver poked at the coals, but he didn't like the faces he could see in the flames. Mother Joanna shuddered for no apparent reason, since no breeze had passed her by.

After a while she said, "We can't just let this situation continue."

"No, certainly not," Sir Oliver said.

"If he's a demon, we must take steps to protect ourselves."

"Ah! But how to find out?"

"We'll come right out and ask him," Mother Joanna said.

"Do so. I would be most grateful," said Sir Oliver.

"I mean, I think you should come right out with it. You are a soldier, after all. Address him to his lace!"

"I wouldn't want to insult him," Sir Oliver said, after giving the matter some thought.

"This Antonio is not a human."

"Whatever he is, he might object to our knowing it, though," Sir Oliver said.

"Somebody has to speak to him."

"I suppose so."

"And if you're any sort of man…"

"Oh, I'll speak to him, all right."

"He is definitely a demon," Mother Joanna said firmly. "Those little red lights dancing in his eyes are a dead giveaway. And did you notice his rump? It had more than the suggestion of a tail."

"A demon! Right here among us!" said Sir Oliver. "If that's the way it is, I suppose we should kill him. Or it."

"But could we kill a demon?" asked Mother Joanna. "It's supposed to be very difficult."

"Is it? I have no experience in these matters."

"I have but a little," Mother Joanna said. "It is not the duty of my branch of the Church to be engaged in turning away evil spirits. We usually leave that sort of thing to other orders. But one does hear stories."

"Which tell you…" the knight prompted.

"That killing a demon is apt to be difficult, nay, impossible," Mother Joanna said. "With the added embarrassment that, if you are able to kill it, it probably wasn't a demon at all, but some poor human with the bad luck to have red lights in his eyes."

"It seems to be a damned tricky position," Sir Oliver said. "What shall we do?"

"I suggest we warn the others, and then put together what religious relics we have among us and seek to exorcise the foul spirit."

"I don't suppose he'll like that," the knight said thoughtfully.

"It doesn't matter. It's our duty to try to exorcise demons."

"Yes, of course," said the knight. But he was ill at ease with the idea.

The other members of the party weren't surprised to hear that Mother Joanna suspected a demon was traveling among them. It was the sort of thing one had to suspect in these unsettled times. There were reports of weeping statues, talking clouds, and more. It was well known that there were a Hellish great number of evil spirits, and that most of them spent most of their time on Earth, trying to tempt people. It was a wonder one didn't see demons a lot more often.

They waited, but Azzie still didn't come down from his room on the inn's second floor. At last they voted to send Puss to invite him to come down and talk with them.

Puss knocked at the door of Azzie's room with less than her usual bravado.

Azzie opened the door. He was brilliantly dressed in a new long coat of red velvet with an emerald green waistcoat, and his hair was neatly brushed into a shining orange bush. He looked as if he had been waiting for an invitation.

"They want to talk to you," Puss said, pointing at the common room below.

"Good. I've been waiting for this," Azzie said.

He took a final brush at his hair, adjusted his coat, and came downstairs with Puss. The gentlefolk of the pilgrimage were all in the big taproom. The common sort hadn't been consulted, and were outside in the stables gnawing their crusts of bread and their herring heads.

Sir Oliver stood up, made a low bow, and said, "I hope you'll excuse us, sir, but we've been thinking, and, I should say, worrying. If you'd just reassure us, everything would be fine."

"What is the problem?" Azzie asked.

"Well, sir," Oliver said, "to get straight to it, you aren't by any chance a demon, sir, are you?"

"As a matter of fact," Azzie said, "I am."

A gasp arose from those assembled.

"That," said Oliver, "is not what I wanted to hear. You don't really mean it, do you? Please, just say it isn't so!"

"But it is so," Azzie said. "I showed you proofs earlier, just to get over and done with the tedious part of convincing you. Have I succeeded in doing so?"

"You have indeed, sir!" Oliver said, and Mother Joanna nodded.

"Fine," said Azzie. "Then we know where we stand."

"Thank you, sir. Now would you be so kind as to go away and leave us in peace to continue our holy pilgrimage?"

"Don't be silly," Azzie said. "I've gone to a lot of trouble to get this thing set up. I have an offer to make."

"Oh, my God!" Sir Oliver said. "A deal with the Devil!"

"Stop acting so," Azzie said. "Just hear me out. If you don't like my offer, you needn't take me up on it, and we're quits of each other."

"You really mean that?"

"On my honor as a Prince of Darkness." Azzie wasn't really a Prince of Darkness at all, but it did no harm to exaggerate a trifle among all these highborn gentlemen and ladies.

"I suppose it'll do no harm to hear you out," Sir Oliver said.

Speaking in a loud, ringing voice, Azzie said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I am indeed a demon. But I hope no one will hold this against me. What, after all, is a demon? Merely a name for one who serves one of the two sides whose struggles govern all existence, human and superhuman. I refer, of course, to the principles of Good and Bad, Light and Dark, as they are called. Let me point out first the absolute necessity that there should be two sides to everything, for things are impossibly flat without that. I will point out also that these two sides should be locked in more or less equal struggle. For if only Good existed, as some seem to feel would be desirable, no one could make that moral effort toward self-improvement that is the very essence of human progress. There would be no contrast between things, no way to differentiate the greater from the lesser or the desirable from the reprehensible."

"Having established the propriety of a contest between these two great qualities, it follows that one side cannot win all of the time. Otherwise, our contest is no contest at all. The outcome must remain in doubt, now one side showing the preponderance, now the other, and no final result may be discerned until the whole thing is nearly over. In this we follow a law as old as any, the law of dramaturgy, which gets its best effects from an equalizing of forces. Good is not even supposed to be that much more powerful than Bad, because once the issue is no longer in doubt, the contest is no longer interesting.