The glowworm moved away, and after a while found a chink in the window frame. He buzzed in just in time to hear Azzie say, "I don't know what you have in mind, Aretino, but we'll try it. And we'll do it now!" And with that there was a flash of light and Azzie and Aretino disappeared.

The glowworm returned and told this to Babriel, who decided he had been messing with complicated matters, because he didn't understand at all what had happened.

Inside the house, just before the glowworm's arrival, Azzie had been saying, "I just dropped by to tell you I've found the candlesticks."

"You have? Where are they?"

"According to Cornelius Agrippa, they're stored in a castle in Limbo. I'll pop over there and make sure they're still available, and then set them up as prizes."

"Prizes?"

"Really, Pietro, get with it. You thought up the candlesticks. Or remembered the story, whichever it was.

There are seven of them, so we will have seven pilgrims. All they have to do is get the candlesticks, and their dearest wishes will come true. How do you like that?"

"And not because you did anything to deserve it, either," Azzie said. "Just because you possessed the magical object. That's how things ought to work. Sometimes that's how they do work. At least, that's what our play is going to say. I'm going to tell my volunteers that all they need to do is find the candlesticks and their problems are over. Basically."

Aretino raised his eyebrows, but nodded and also murmured, "Basically, yes. But how will they get the candlesticks?"

"I'll give the pilgrims each a spell, and the spell will lead them to the candlesticks."

"Sounds all right to me," Aretino said. "So we're going to Limbo. Is it very far?"

"Quite far, by any objective standard," Azzie said. "But the way we do it, it'll take very little time at all. As a playwright you should find this interesting, Pietro. No living man, to my knowledge, has been to Limbo

— except Dante. You're sure you want to make the trip?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Aretino said.

"Then we're off." Azzie made a sign, and the two of them vanished.

Aretino's first view of Limbo was disappointing. The place was all done up in shades of gray. In the foreground were rectangular blocks that might have been trees, on one of which Azzie stood. Or perhaps they stood for trees. It was hard to tell what stood for what in this place.

Behind them, triangular blobs, lighter in color and smaller, seemed to indicate mountains. Between the trees and the mountains were areas of crosshatching that might have been anything at all. There was no stir of wind. What little water there was lay in stagnant pools.

Presently a small dark blob on the horizon attracted Aretino's view. They moved in that direction. Bats squealed around them and little rodents hurried by.

Chapter 7

Above the door of castle Krak Herrenium was a sign that said ABANDON THE FANTASIES OF

REASON, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

Soft music came from within the castle. The tune was lively, yet it had something of a dirge about it.

Aretino wasn't exactly frightened—it is difficult for a poet to be frightened when he's walking with his demon. The demon is more scary than the "world around him.

A man came through a low arched doorway, stooping to fit under. He was a large man, and tall. He wore a billowing cloak over his baldric and jacket; on his feet were peaked boots. He had a bold face with large and expressive eyes. Clean-shaven he was, and there was about his face a look of powerful subtlety.

The man stepped forward and bowed low. "I am Fatus. Who might you be?"

"So this is Fatus' castle," Aretino mused. "How fascinating!"

"I knew you'd like it," Azzie said, "what with your well-known reputation for seeking novelty."

"My taste for novelty extends itself more to people than to things," Aretino said.

Fatus' eyes twinkled as he said, "Good day to you, demon! I see you have brought a friend."

"This is Pietro Aretino," Azzie said. "He is a human."

"Delighted."

"We have come on a quest that I think you can help us with," Azzie said.

Fatus smiled and gestured. A small table and three chairs appeared. There was wine on the table, and a bowl of sweetmeats.

Fatus said, "Perhaps you would care to have a snack with me while we discuss it?"

Azzie nodded and sat down.

They munched and talked, and after a while Fatus made a gesture calling for entertainment. At his signal, a troupe of jugglers came out of a back room. These men were of the breed called legal manipulators, and they threw a circle of torts and reprisals into the air and passed them from hand to hand and up and down and in and out, and Azzie marveled greatly at their dexterity.

At length Fatus smiled and said, "So much for illusion. What may I do for you?"

"I have heard," Azzie said, "that you store many old and curious items here in your castle."

"That I do," Fatus said. "Eventually it all comes to me, and I find room for it, whatever it is. Usually it's dross, but sometimes it's the real thing. Sometimes these treasures are truly prophesied, sometimes the stories are without a shadow of truth to them. I don't care, I make no distinction between real and unreal, realized and unrealized, manifest and hidden. What treasure are you seeking?"

"Seven golden candlesticks," Azzie said, "given by Satan to Father Adam."

"I know the ones you are referring to. I have some pictures of them you could look at."

"I want only the real things," Azzie said.

"And what do you intend to do with these candlesticks once you have them?"

"My dear Fatus, I am beginning a great enterprise, and these candlesticks play a part in it. But perhaps you need them for some purpose of your own."

"Not at all," said Fatus. "I'd be delighted to loan them to you."

"What I had in mind," Azzie said, "is loaning these candlesticks to humans so that they could get their dearest wishes fulfilled."

"What a nice idea," Fatus said. "There really should be more of that in the world. How do you plan to carry this out?"

"With the aid of spells," Azzie said.

"Spells!" Fatus said. "What a good idea! Spells can make just about anything work."

"Yes," Azzie said. "That's the wonderful thing about them. Now, if you'll permit, Aretino and I will just collect those candlesticks and then go back to Earth and get the spells."

Chapter 8

The next part of this, the procuring of the spells, was best done without human participation.

Azzie took off at once, using his season pass on the Secret Routes to Hell to get him a direct line through the firmament to the river Styx. The Secret Route dumped him in Grand Central Clearing Station, where all of Hell's destinations are exhibited on the Devil's own bulletin board, with flashing lights to show trains soon to depart. The long banks of trains, many of them steam driven, stretched as far as the eye could see. Each one had a conductor in front, looking impatiently at his watch while eating from his brown-bag lunch.

"Can I help, sir?"

Azzie had been approached by a professional guide of the sort that hangs around every great terminus.

This fellow, a goblin with a cap pulled down over his forehead, pocketed Azzie's coins and took him to the right train.

Azzie had time to find the club car and have an espresso as the tram pulled out of Hell Station and chuffed direct across the dry Badlands to the river country where Supply was located. In an hour or so they arrived.

There wasn't much to see. Supply was a flat and monotonous little town, with a scattering of honky-tonks and fast-food joints. Just beyond it lay Supply itself, the great complex on the banks of the Styx that provided the inhabitants of Hell with everything they needed to conduct their nefarious tasks.