A Knight Awakened, and a Prophecy Fulfilled

"What was what?" said the Black Prince, seeming completely puzzled.

"You seemed to blink briefly..."

"It was simply a trick of the light, I'm sure. Now what do you say to my offer?"

Frederigo looked down at the cigarette and pondered. If he accepted, he would be making a deal with a demon, but... He was dead now. It seemed impossible, now that he thought about it, but it was true. He had died before he had gotten a chance to face the Dragon in battle. And he might well go straight to Hell, even though he wasn't a bad person, just because he made a few foolish mistakes... If he accepted, he wouldn't really be selling his soul to the Devil, would he? He was sure that God would protect him from falling completely under the Black Prince's power. He opened his mouth to accept the Black Prince's deal, but still felt gripped by hesitation. "What's the matter?" said the Black Prince. "If you're not interested in immortality, I have other things I could sell you. For instance, I could make you irresistable to women, or a woman of your choice. How do you know that Astra feels about you the way you do about her?"

"No," said Fred, refusing to listen further to either the Devil or his own doubts. "I accept."

"Excellent," said the Black Prince. "I knew you were a sensible man." He turned on the lighter, and it sputtered to life. He held the cigar to the flame until it caught fire. Smoke started to waft from the end. Fred took it in his trembling hands and put it to its lips, breathing in deeply. It was noxious, yet strangely refreshing. He felt his mind trembling on the edge of some new awareness, as if he were in the process of waking up.

"Are you going to offer me any information on how to find Astra?" said Fred. "Or am I on my own?"

"I have no idea where she is," the Black Prince lied. "I have other things that might be of worth to you..."

"I'm not interested," said Fred, now contemptuous.

"Very well then. But I'd be delighted if you came back. You're welcome here anytime." Fred brusquely turned his back on the Black Prince and stormed out of Satan's Butt. The Black Prince allowed himself a twisted smile.

Outside of Satan's Butt, Purgatory was an unthinkably vast city, full of buildings of almost any type imaginable. Fred could see some buildings that looked vaguely normal sandwiched between buildings that were almost incomprehensibly strange. When he had entered, the buildings around him had seemed flat and bland. Now, the city was full of towering Arabian spires, although there were flashes of other kinds of architecture here and there. When Fred concentrated more fully on the buildings, he realized that they were moving around. A huge, vibrant crowd of people thronged the streets, yet Fred had the sense that there was a pattern to their movement that even they didn't understand. Through these crowds walked ghostlike men and women in white robes wearing large white hoods. They labored under huge burdens strapped to their backs. These were the Poor Souls in Purgatory, struggling under the weight of their sins, yet moving onward hopefully. But what were all these other people doing here? Why was Purgatory full of hawkers and tourists? Did it have something to do with the fact that Hell had invaded?

For that matter, he found himself wondering much to his surprise, how exactly did he die? He vividly remembered being crushed by a boulder in a cave after passing out [40]. He also vividly remembered being fried to a crisp by the Dragon [17763], throwing himself into machinery in despair [22], being killed by an exploding treasure chest [147], falling into quicksand after a malfunction in the very nature in reality [4063], being killed by a wallhugger [10584], being killed by a pokeman [4361], dying in the desert with Astra while trying to reach an oasis [235], being killed by Astra for no real reason [55] dying from eating strong cheese [24768] and being killed by Astra after she got angry at him for worshipping a chicken and shoved a dagger up his anus [33294]. Each one of them felt real, and he remembered the shock, pain, and disappointment at each of these deaths. The one where he'd been with Astra and the desert must have been real, because he vividly remembered having known Astra. But as he tried to think of the events that had led him there, he realized that he had been sent there by the Dragon's master after he'd killed the Dragon. [232] Fred was almost certain that he hadn't actually succeeded in killing the Dragon.

He focused his mind on Astra. Of all the memories that buzzed through his head, the memory of his love for Astra was the one that seemed the most trustworthy somehow. He had told the demon that he had never met her yet he knew that she was the woman he loved. [19972] How could this be? He tried to concentrate on the moment that he knew he first loved her.

The memory came bright and clear, with no contradiction or vagueness. They had been fighting together for a very long time, and had just survived the most terrible battle of their lives. In his hand, Fred held the Crystallic, his soul blazing with its power. He looked into Astra's eyes. As he did so, it seemed that her very soul lay open to him, and he knew that she could see his soul as well. Momentary fear turned quickly to exhiliration. He saw fully all her doubts and fears, all her triumphs and struggles, all her nobility and compassion. He saw her, fully, as a person, and she knew that she saw him the same way. He drew in to kiss her lips as the Crystallic's power faded within him...

And then there was nothing. The memory had just abruptly stopped. Why had this one memory stuck so strongly with him? His entire life as a mortal seemed vague and confused. The Crystallic had to have something to do with it. He racked his brain for memories of the Crystallic, but all that he could remember was a strong sense that it was vitally important. He had to find the Crystallic. But first, he had to aid Astra in her struggle, and find some way to rescue her from damnation. The Astra whose soul he had known so fully was not an evil woman. Surely there had been some mistake, and once Fred brought it to the Lord's attention, she would be taken into Heaven?

But what if the Lord had damned Astra to Hell? Would Fred oppose Him? And what if in the time since he had known her Astra had become evil? He remembered the glee on Astra's face in one set of memories as she plunged her sword into his chest...

No. That memory had to be a lie implanted by the Devil, so that he would be more reluctant to aid his enemy Astra. As for the others, he would not worry about such things before it was necessary. First he would find Astra. He still felt a connection to her soul, he realized. He could feel her sorrow and pain. She was not far from him. Not letting himself be distracted by the throng around him, the multitude of shifting stores, or the groans of the penitents, he set off after her.

As Fred walked through the streets of Purgatory, the Black Prince watched his every move reflected in the lid of the crystal cigar case. The plan was going perfectly. Using some knowledge he had stolen from Flagg, he had toyed with Fred's memories and his very biodata, giving him the memories of a thousand Freds throughout the multiverse. He knew that out of all the memories placed in him, Fred, ever a wishful thinker and a hopeless romantic, would attach himself to the one where he fell truly in love with Astra. He had made sure that he had no firm foundation save for the love of an Astra who he would think was his and the desire to seek the Crystallic. His lack of certainty would lead him to question himself and his values. And the Astra who he would seek had the knowledge that was necessary to travel on the path the Black Prince had planned for him. He smiled as he thought of her smugness and pride once she had stolen the full knowledge of the Slipgates from him, little realizing that this was precisely what he had meant to happen. The Prince could have simply given D'Honaire the knowledge once he had found a way to suitably draw out the darkness within him, but it was far better to place him in a situation where he would have a passionate desire to find it himself. He remembered the old Terran proverb: "Give a man a fish and he'll have food for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll have food for a lifetime." By making him fall in love with a woman who had been rightly damned to imprisonment within the Office of Evil's Hell, he had also set him against the Celestials who served the Office of Good. Once he discovered this Astra's true motivations, he would be set against the office of Evil as well. Then he would be forced into a battle against Astra, where he would have to use his knowledge. Assuredly, at some point, his fire would go out and he would belong to the Black Prince--but he would be useless unless he had complete free will up until the very moment he set foot on the path that the Black Prince had carefully constructed for him--the path of the Brazen Man. Luckily, using the powers that were in his cigar case, whose true nature even the Prince's allies did not begin to suspect, he could prolong the flame for as long as he wanted, and snuff it whenever he liked. In most cases, he preferred to let chance and destiny rule these matters, but this case was special. Additionally, the flame would increase Fred's awareness as he became more attuned to the Crystallic--because the cigar case was a Crystallic itself. Once he fully became the Brazen Man, the bargain that he had struck would not be enough to fully control him, but the Black Prince would certainly have power over him.

This plan would be far more effective than Flagg's had been. [7608, 7644, 7645]. Flagg had taken a random dead version of Fred and tortured him until he would do anything he asked, then set him to betray his friends. He had also brought out the evil within this Fred and made him think that he had always been that way. The two things that Flagg were good at were torture and the twisting of biodata--even the Celestials themselves had been fooled. Once he was exposed to the Crystallic and the Celestials had slaughtered him, as Flagg had predicted, he arose into awareness and, following suggestions Flagg had planted in him, became the Brazen Man. But he and Flagg had fallen almost instantly before the Celestials. All had been for naught.

The flaws were obvious. The plan had relied too much on forcing and overt outside influence. Far better to subtly draw him onward so that he wants what you want him to want. The Brazen Man who Flagg had made would have been too unstable to really fulfill his role. Flagg had been lucky that he had not survived to see what his creation would wreak.

Was Flagg seeing these events in whatever Hell he was rotting in? Did he see the irony of this? All his power, all his mindless violence and torture, had come to nothing. And a man who had once been one of his playthings had gone on to surpass him in every way. The Black Prince remembered when Flagg had taken him, all those centuries of his life ago. He had thought that he was simply another would-be hero to play with and would be an easy victim, for Flagg had had a very twisted sense of humor and millennia of experience with torture. He had not known the nature of the mind he was up against. At first, his body and mind twisted beyond recognition, the he had been crushed under Flagg's torture, just as any lesser being would. But gradually, he learned to draw on the only weapon a less powerful being has against a more powerful one--subtlety and strategy. He sought to understand the way Flagg's mind worked. He found subtle ways to make Flagg's life miserable. He answered torture with torture. He gained the support of several others of Flagg's minions, most of them twisted "playthings" like himself, many of which served him to this day. He even gained a measure of control over Crystallic, although since he lacked Flagg's madness it was not as great as that of Flagg himself, let alone that the Brazen Man would have. Flagg, frustrated and enraged that a mere mortal resisted him, put his "plaything" in the vilest depths of his hell--but he would not be broken. In the end, he discovered the prophecy of the Brazen Man and Flagg's dream of fulfilling it, and he found a way to lay a subtle trail that would set the Celestials of the other Offices on him, without incriminating himself. They slew Flagg and the Brazen Man, and then discovered that Flagg had much support in the Office of Evil and punished all his supporters. The "plaything" had found a way to punish Flagg and all his cronies in one fell swoop.

He was free now. Since he had slain his abuser, he could resume the path of the hero and join the Office of Good, who would no doubt welcome him with open arms. It was tempting for a moment--he could return to all the things that Flagg had deprived him of, such as love, compassion, and family. But after what he had suffered at the hands of Flagg, these seemed false to him now. He had seen the depths of Evil and its true power. Even those who had aided him among Flagg's minions had only done so because it was to their advantage. They doubtless now hated him as much as they hated Flagg--except Helen, perhaps, but he had no doubt that she would betray him if it were to her advantage, just as he would her. There was no way that any Good could be as powerful as the Evil he had suffered. He would rather be the one wielding power than the one whom it is wielded on.

So after the huge upheaval that ensued once Flagg was taken down, he set himself up as a merchant in the vast multiversal city that surrounded the nexus of the Offices in Purgatory, with an eye towards developing contacts within the Office of Evil and filling one of the doubtless many positions that were left vacant. It was here that he built up his power and gained the name and form that he preferred to use. In the end, he had been hired, and rose through the ranks at an amazing rate, with many who had formerly been Flagg's allies rallying around him as a natural leader. The Office of Evil was at a seemingly precarious state at the time. After the defeat of Flagg and the revalation that he was working with important figures in the Office of Evil who had also arranged the Alliance-Enemy war, many restrictions had been placed on them. Additionally, since Flagg had done so much damage on the way to his catastrophic failure, the other Offices had authorized the creation of Eternal Champions who supported them against the Office of Evil. The Office of Evil's attempts to regain the kind of power it had once had had so far only ended in disaster. But this did not daunt the Black Prince. A true leader is able to find strength in positions of apparent weakness. These many failures and the many advantages that the other offices now possessed would make them bloated and overconfident and therefore all the more vulnerable to a catastrophic strike. The Office of Evil was winning many small, subtle victories throughout the Multiverse that would doubtless prove decisive. Once his plans came to fruition, he would overthrow the idiots who currently ran the Office and set his allies up in power. He would not seek it for himself, of course. He did not seek overt power, which would only serve to limit him and make him an easy target. Rather, he sought the secret springs of true power. And the most powerul and mysterious of them all were the Slipgates. Soon he would carry out the mad dream which Flagg himself had only half understood and gain access to their full power.

He looked out onto the streets of Purgatory. Beyond the crowds of traders and politicians and tourists from throughout the Core Worlds, beyond the vast array of buildings of every imaginable type, lay a deep chasm from which towered a huge mountain that stretched from deep under the earth and into the vastness of the sky. No mortal could see its top or its bottom. This was Mount Dante, which the souls in whom the Celestials had a stake who had chosen Good but still had too much Evil in them to serve the normal penance in the City, let alone directly ascend to the Halo, had to climb to purify themselves. Near the center of the mountain was a vast golden tower, shining with the reflected light of the sunrise. The tower lay within a circle that was intersected by two helices, one of which stretched downward to the depths and upward to the heights, the other of which intersected it perpendicularly. These were the Horizontal Axis, the Axis of This World, which led to the Offices of Order and Chaos, and the Vertical Axis, the Axis of Ultimate Reality, which led to the Offices of Good and Evil. All the dimensions converged in this place, and thus a City sprang up in Purgatory which put to shame the famous nexus worlds such as Terra Prime and Nantucket Earth, the other Core Worlds, and even Midworld in the age before it had passed on. Here beings from all across the multiverse came to understand, befriend, enlighten, lie to, steal from, cheat, and murder each other. This City held greater good and more terrible evil than any other place outside of the Spirit Realms. It was a place locked in constant change and conflict. Although Hell had not yet taken it over as the Black Prince's minion had told Frederigo in order to set him on the path here, it and especially the Black Prince himself held most of the power here, more than the Office of Good or even most in the Office of Evil realized. Then again, perhaps the Office of Good also held more power than his enemies knew. It was very difficult to tell--there was so much to keep track of in this City that even the Black Prince himself never completely understood it. It was perhaps his favorite place in all the multiverse. But he would have to leave it soon, for he had an errand to attend to.

1. He shifted his awareness to the caves of an analog of Minestus the Dragon, where an important project was being engineered...

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