For Love of Evil (32 page)

Parry made sure that Hell was functioning reasonably, gave Nefertiti a holiday in mock Heaven, and collected five mis-allocated souls. In Hell proper they were just like living folk, but would become ethereally slight beyond. He explained the situation to them: that they were the victims of confusion, and had been held temporarily in Hell pending proper release to Heaven. Now he proposed to release them one at a time, carrying the others with him, so that he could follow them to Heaven for an interview with God.

"I am Satan, the Father of Lies," he concluded. "I can offer you no proof that this is the truth, and you are not required to cooperate. But it is the only way I have to find Heaven, and I hope that you will cooperate in the chance that it is true."

They considered, and decided that if they truly were in Hell now, nothing they could do would free them from it unless they were released by the Lord of Evil. If this was to be such a release, it behooved them to cooperate; if it was merely a deception, they were lost anyway. So they agreed.

He escorted them out. As they emerged from Hell, they thinned into mere webs of themselves, patterns without substance. They had no consciousness; that was feasible only in Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, or when animated on Earth as a ghost. But when brought to an appropriate region, their souls should float. Parry wound them in like gauze and packed them into a bag he carried.

He conjured himself to Earth's surface. Then he brought out one soul and released it. Immediately it set off, attracted to Heaven by the burden of good in its makeup. He followed, using his magic to fly, keeping the pace.

The soul sailed upward, but not exactly vertically. It was not going to the sky, but to Heaven, a different matter. It wavered and swerved in the ethereal currents, its faint color changing, and in a moment he lost it.

Undismayed, he brought out the second and released it. He had not expected to be able to follow one the whole way; if the route to Heaven were straightforward, it would not be such a mystery!

The second soul seemed to hesitate, but this was illusion; without consciousness, it was simply drifting in the pattern of good and evil, perhaps caught in an eddy. In a moment it found the way and moved out.

This one took him into Purgatory. That was perplexing; he was sure that this was a good soul, bound for Heaven. Only those in such balance that no decision was possible remained in Purgatory.

Then he realized that the way to Heaven lay through Purgatory. Even those souls not staying there still had to check through; there was no direct access to Heaven. It seemed obvious in retrospect.

The soul moved into a region of increasing confusion. There were trees, but they were bulbous and oddly colored. There were paths, but they had strange convolutions. There were landscapes, unlike those of any mortal region. It was interesting; he would have to set up a region of Hell with similar configurations.

The soul moved through the middle of it-and was lost. Parry brought out the third one and let it go.

It swam through the confusion, and was similarly lost.

Parry paused. He had not been able to follow the third soul at all; it had disappeared into Limbo too quickly. He only had
 
two remaining, having perhaps underestimated the extent of this challenge.

Limbo? He looked around more carefully. Indeed, this was like that bleak region of Hell. It was simply a field of chaotic images, with no organization.

Chaotic . . .

This was a waste, an aspect of chaos! That part of the universe with original entropy, without form and void. He had heard that Pate spun her threads of life from this substance. Now he was in it-and no wonder he was losing the souls, for there was no order here, nothing to differentiate object from background, life from nonlife. Nothing could be pursued through chaos, t He would have to get beyond it before releasing the next soul. But he paused.

Why should Fate spin her threads of life from this melange? The good was hopelessly confused with the evil. Fate was on the side of good; she would not want this!

Yet evidently she did. And so the lives formed from her threads were almost indecipherable melanges of good and evil, impossible to classify clearly. Thus those lives had to struggle through the horrors of mortality before finally coming to Heaven or to Hell. What a colossal waste!

But he was unsatisfied with that conclusion. Fate was a devious and unpleasant creature of many personalities, but she knew well what she was doing. She would not spin from this stuff if she had any alternative. She-

Then it came to him. Chronos had explained about entropy and chaos; that it seemed to be the duty of the Incarnations to diminish each, to bring order and comprehension to the universe. That could not be done by ignoring chaos. They were deliberately drawing from chaos, fashioning it into lives-so that these could be defined as good or evil!

All that agony of mortality-just to deal with the problem of entropy. To process the stuff of chaos through to Heaven and Hell, properly classified at last. Eventually all of it would be done, and the universe would be in order.

But at what a cost! How many thousands, how many thousands of thousands of lives like Jolie's, had to be twisted and tortured and cut short, just to accomplish this goal? What a vasty cynicism!

Yet it was being done, and under God's auspices. The end justified the means! There was that treacherous doctrine that Lilah had used to corrupt him-and now it was obvious that God subscribed to it, too. The end of creating order justified the means of toil and suffering for innumerable mortal lives. He had used it to corrupt the Inquisition: the end of saving souls justified the means of torture and pillaging of the estates of those accused.

Parry sighed. He was now the Incarnation of Evil. He knew evil when he spied it, even if the other Incarnations did not. It was past time to talk to God and set Him straight on this.

Now he moved on through the confusion, closing his eyes because it would be too easy to get lost here. He knew that the extent of the void was limited; if he proceeded straight, he would in due course get out of it. A mortal might become hopelessly lost, but he was now an immortal.

He opened his eyes, and found that he was still in it. He closed them and moved on again. But when he looked, he remained in chaos.

Had he been too optimistic about his ability to escape it? Evidently it had affected his bearings, and now he was not moving the way he thought he was. What irony, if the Lord of Evil fell prey to chaos!

But there was another way. He brought out the fourth soul, and did not release it. The thing tried to move, and stretched out from his hand, but remained captive.

He moved in the direction it seemed to be trying to go. He tuned out the surrounding chaos and oriented on the soul. Wherever it wanted to go, there he would go, carrying it along.

And, without perceiving exactly when, he emerged from the void. The soul had known its destination, and brought him out.

Now he let it go. It accelerated, as if glad to be free. He followed, coursing on toward Heaven. He kept his attention fixed on it, so that he would not lose it.

Then it slowed, and he realized that they had arrived. The Circles of Heaven were forming around them.

The outermost was a blaze of light a phenomenal brilliance, a ring of fire that resembled the outline of the sun, but became much larger, swelling to encompass the horizon. He thought there might be some challenge as he entered it, but there was not; he simply joined it and was in Heaven.

He stood on the edge of a bright cloud bank. All around stood faintly glowing folk. They did not have wings; they were souls, not angels, just as the souls in Hell lacked the tails of demons. Oddly, they did not look particularly happy; rather they seemed resigned, or even bored.

He brought out the fifth soul and let it go; he had no need for its guidance now. Instead of traveling, it unfolded into its human form: a middle-aged man, dead of the plague but no longer disfigured by it. He gazed around, perplexed. "This is it?" he asked.

"This is it," Parry agreed. "Your eternal home. May you enjoy it."

The man looked uncertain, obviously not willing to express disappointment. He drifted away.

Perhaps this was no more than the outer rim of Heaven, analogous to Limbo in Hell, where those souls drifted that were imperfect, not good enough, literally, to penetrate farther into Heaven. No wonder the soul he had released was disappointed! There really was not much difference between this aspect of Heaven and that aspect of Hell.

But he wasn't here to tour Heaven; he was here to meet God. Where would God be? Surely in the center, the highest reach, just as the Incarnation of Evil's office was in the nethermost reach of Hell.

Parry flew up to the next level. This was not precisely physical motion, but rather a mental effort to enter a deeper circle; it was evident that the standing souls could not do it.

The Second Heaven was starkly different from the First. It was a bleak landscape, bare rock and sand, pocked by craters of every size. It was in fact the face of the Moon. Many spirits stood idle here, too, looking scarcely happier than those below.

He moved on to the Third Heaven, which was an improvement: it was the landscape of Venus, the Planet of Love.

Yet, somehow, it seemed little more illustrious than the Moon. It was supposed to be the joy of the spirits of lovers, but since carnality was forbidden in Heaven, all they could do was stand around and gaze longingly at one another. The appeal of that seemed to pall in the course of eternity.

The Fourth Heaven was the Sphere of the Sun. This was certainly brighter, and the souls were engaged in animated dialogue with each other. These were the theologians and fathers of the Church, and of course they never tired of their exercises in interpretation.

The Fifth Heaven was the Sphere of Mars, with the warrior spirits. But, of course, there was no fighting in Heaven, so they were idle.

The Sixth Heaven was the Sphere of Jupiter, with the spirits of the righteous rulers. This was sparsely settled.

He proceed on past the Seventh Heaven of the Sphere of Saturn, with the spirits of the contemplative, and the Eighth Heaven, consisting of fixed stars. Many of the Saints were here. They lacked the passions of normal folk, so it was not surprising that they were not jubilant.

The Ninth Heaven seemed to be the retreat mostly of angels; the Tenth-

This, he realized, was where God should be. But where was He? Parry gazed about, and saw only an enormous pattern of tight that could be interpreted as-

Then he realized that the light, when correctly viewed, formed the image of an infinitely monstrous human face framed within a triple halo. This, at last, was God.

Parry waved. There was no response. "Haloo!" he called. There was no response.

God simply was not paying attention.

After some time, disgruntled. Parry gave it up. He dropped rapidly down through the layers of Heaven until he reached the outer one. He was about to depart it when there was a cry.

"My Lord Satan!"

There was a stirring among the apathetic souls of this region. From among them came the man he had last released. "My Lord, I beg you, take me back with You!"

Surprised, Parry waited for him. "You don't like Heaven?"

"My Lord, it is just as dull as Hell-and most of my friends are in Hell. I would rather remain there."

"But you don't belong in Hell. The balance of your soul is positive."

"Only marginally, my Lord. I will never get beyond this outer circle. I'd be better off in the mock Heaven annex ofHell, if I get leave to visit there. Please, my Lord, take me back!"

Such a situation had never occurred to Parry. Yet the soul was serious. Was there a precedent for this?

There was another stirring. The other souls shrank away. "The guardian angels!" someone murmured.

Now Parry saw them: bright winged figures in the form of big, bruising men, swiftly approaching.

"Please, my Lord!" the soul repeated.

Perhaps it was the angels that tipped his decision. Panry did not like the look of them. It seemed to him that they could readily serve similar duty in Hell. "Very well," he said. He extended his hand, touching the man.

Immediately the man thinned into a web, the soul discamate. Parry wound this around his hand, compacting it so that it would fit into his pouch. Souls had no mass but did have dimension; it would not do to have it drag out behind him.

The angels arrived. "Let go that soul!" one ordered.

In the past century Parry had grown unaccustomed to that tone of address from either demons or damned souls. He found he liked it no better from an angel. But this was not his realm, so he let it pass. He closed the pouch, confining the soul, and turned away.

"Listen, fringe-spirit," the angel said contemptuously. "If you know what's good for you-"

"Hardly," Parry said, with an ironic smile. He started to sink down through the cloud bank.

The angel reached menacingly for him. "I warned you!" But the grasping hand passed through Parry's substance without effect. Parry dropped on down, and in a moment was out, leaving the astonished and dismayed angel behind. He was not impressed with either Heaven or its guardians. No wonder the soul wanted to leave!