The Philosophical Strangler(138)

“What seems to be the problem?” I asked, dusting myself off casually. “Greyboar asked me to look into it.”

Hrundig shrugged and jabbed a thumb at the Horizon. “Damned thing won’t let Benvenuti through. We just tried again.”

Benny was standing next to him, looking exceedingly disgruntled. His sculpted physique was starting to look much the worse for wear. That might have assuaged my primitive envy, except that his loincloth was looking worse still. Not to put too fine a point on it, he’d have been more modest if he were stark naked.

But the truth is I’d grown pretty fond of the guy, despite his handicaps. And I reassured myself that, first, Gwendolyn was on the other side to keep him preoccupied; and, second, that he really didn’t seem to have much of a poaching inclination; and, finally, that neither Angela nor Jenny had ever been the least impressed by standard notions of male pulchritude. Any kind of male pulchritude, actually. (Except me!)

So I didn’t hesitate more than two seconds before setting the whole matter straight.

“Evil Horizon!” I hollered. “Cut the crap!”

The Evil Horizon might have flickered, maybe. Good enough. I told Benny the way was clear and he leaped into it and came bouncing back and suffered a bit more wear and tear. The loincloth was pretty much nonexistent, now.

“Guess not,” I mused. I scratched my head, not sure what to do.

Then, the Evil Horizon flashed soundless shrieks of lightning and started getting real fuzzy around the edges. A moment later, Zulkeh came stalking through the damn thing. As casually as if he were taking an evening stroll, except for the ferocious scowl on his face and the way he was waving his staff around.

“Impudent metaphysical phenomenon!” he barked. “Bah! Attempt to obfuscate me, will you?” He stopped more or less in the middle of the Evil Horizon—which was more in the way of a rapidly-receding tunnel, now—and began making peculiar gestures with his one hand while fingering various grotesque carvings on the staff with the other.

“The principle is well established!” he proclaimed. “I refer you to Chandrasekhar Sfondrati-Piccolomini’s magisterial pandects, in which the limit of irredeemable moral collapse is set precisely at 1.4 times the mass of preexisting wickedness from which, however—take note, ethereal ignoramus!—must be subtracted the degree of coercion involved in attempting to force said collapse, the which—attend, spectral wretch!—must in turn be calculated—and calculated only—by use of—”

Hrundig and Benny and I raced into the opening at the center of the Evil Horizon, passing Zulkeh in a flash.

“—not forgetting, of course, to factor out all manner of sins which are not germane—”

And emerged back in the outer cavern just in time to see the fallen angel and the fallen saints rise shakily from the state of scholarly stupor in which Zulkeh must have sent them before he started his pedant’s charge into the Horizon.

I almost felt sorry for them. Not quite.

Zulkeh came out himself a moment later. Behind him, what was left of the Evil Horizon seemed to tighten into a ball. Like a whipped cur.

The mage glowered down at the angel and the saints. “Shocking!” he pronounced. “To see such incompetence in official authorities!”

“We were just following the rules,” whined one of the fallen saints. “Decreed by the Old Geister Himself!”

Zulkeh sniffed. “A sad state of affairs, when God Almighty fails to stay abreast of the literature.” Then, sighing: “But—’tis well said. Mathematics is properly the province of the youthful scholar. I fear me the Lord is past His Prime.”

The fallen saints glowered and the fallen angel seemed about to make some kind of protest, but Zulkeh’s glare cowed them into silence.

“Bah!” He turned to the rest of us. “Come, my fellow adventurers—let us be off. For even as I correct divine error, time wanes!”

Zulkeh began striding toward the door leading back into the Infernal Regions. “We may still make good our escape before the equinox of galactic oscillation!”





And—we did.

Just by the skin of our teeth, mind you, and we probably wouldn’t have made it at all if Zulkeh hadn’t decided to gamble with the Osirian Detour. Which was no fun at all, what with having to fend off a giant serpent in pitch darkness riding the most primitive damned boat you ever saw with only a ragpatch doll of a so-called deity to steer the blasted thing. But at least we were able to circumvent all the Joe relics and the Nun and the Beast From Below and the deadly Worm of the Deep—the other Worm of the Deep, the really nasty one; not Apep, who’s just a glorified snake—and the Slathering Sanguine Skulker and the Creeper from the Crevasse and the Undulant Umbellant from Under and the It and the Thing and the Them and the They.