this with the sweet aid of Christ, then we must nevertheless
do it in His name. Hope now is all we have.’
‘In sober truth,’ Father Boucher said quietly, ‘that is not so great a change. I think it is all we ever had.’
Come to Middle Hell
Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase… Prepare thyself to the search.
Job 8:7, 8
6
Left to his own devices and hence, at last, unobserved, Theron Ware thought that it might be well, after all, if he did essay
a small magic. The possible difficulty lay in that all magic without exception depended upon the control of demons, as he
had explained to Baines on his very first visit. But therein lay the attractiveness of the experiment, too, for what he wanted
was information, and a part of that information was whether he still had any such control.
And it would also be interesting, and possible to find out at the same time, to know whether or not there were any demons
left in Hell. If there were it would imply, though it would not guarantee, that only the forty-eight that he had set loose
were now terrorizing the world. This ruled out using the Mirror of Solomon, for the spirit of that mirror was the angel Anael.
Probably he would not answer anyhow, for Ware was not a white magician, and had carefully refrained from calling upon any
angel ever since he had turned to the practice of the black Art; and besides, it would be a considerable nuisance locating
three white pigeons amidst all this devastation.
Who, then? Among the demon princes he had decided not to call up for Baines’s commission were several that he had ruled out
because of their lesser potentialities for destruction, which would stand him in good stead were it to turn out that he hadlost control; even in Hell there were degrees of malevolence, as of punishment. One of these was P HOENIX a poet and teacher with whom Ware had had many dealings in the past, but he probably would not do now; he posed another wildlife
problem – Ware’s familiar Ahktoi had been the demon’s creature, and the cat had of course vanished when the noise had begun,
a disappearance that P HOENIX would take none the less ill for its having been 100 per cent expectable. Though the grimoires occasionally characterize
one or another demon as ‘mild’ or ‘good by nature,’, these terms are strictly relative and have no human meaning; all demons
are permanently enraged by the greatest Matter of all, and it does not pay to annoy them even slightly in small matters.
Also, Ware realized, it would have to be a small magic indeed, for most of his instruments were now buried, and those that
were accessible were all contaminated beyond his power to purify them in any useful period of time. Clearly it was time to
consult the book. He crossed to the lectern upon which it rested, pushed dust and potsherds off it with his sleeve, unlocked
the clasp and began to turn the great stiff pages, not without a qualm. Here, signed with his own blood, was half his life;
the other half was down below, in the mud.
He found the name he needed almost at once: V ASSAGO, a mighty prince, who in his first estate before the rebellion had belonged to the choir of the Virtues. The
Lemegeton
of the Rabbi Solomon said of him, Ware recalled, that he ‘declares things past, present and future, and discovers what has
been lost or hidden’. Precisely to the purpose. Ware remembered too that his was the name most commonly invoked in ceremonial
crystallomancy, which would be perfect in both scope and limitations for what Ware had in mind, involving no lengthy preparations
of the operator, or even any precautionary diagrams, nor any apparatus except a crystal ball; and even for that he might substitute
a pool of exorcised water, fifty litres of which still reposed in a happily unruptured stainless steel tank embedded in the
wall behind Ware’s workbench.
Furthermore, he was the only demon in
do it in His name. Hope now is all we have.’
‘In sober truth,’ Father Boucher said quietly, ‘that is not so great a change. I think it is all we ever had.’
Come to Middle Hell
Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase… Prepare thyself to the search.
Job 8:7, 8
6
Left to his own devices and hence, at last, unobserved, Theron Ware thought that it might be well, after all, if he did essay
a small magic. The possible difficulty lay in that all magic without exception depended upon the control of demons, as he
had explained to Baines on his very first visit. But therein lay the attractiveness of the experiment, too, for what he wanted
was information, and a part of that information was whether he still had any such control.
And it would also be interesting, and possible to find out at the same time, to know whether or not there were any demons
left in Hell. If there were it would imply, though it would not guarantee, that only the forty-eight that he had set loose
were now terrorizing the world. This ruled out using the Mirror of Solomon, for the spirit of that mirror was the angel Anael.
Probably he would not answer anyhow, for Ware was not a white magician, and had carefully refrained from calling upon any
angel ever since he had turned to the practice of the black Art; and besides, it would be a considerable nuisance locating
three white pigeons amidst all this devastation.
Who, then? Among the demon princes he had decided not to call up for Baines’s commission were several that he had ruled out
because of their lesser potentialities for destruction, which would stand him in good stead were it to turn out that he hadlost control; even in Hell there were degrees of malevolence, as of punishment. One of these was P HOENIX a poet and teacher with whom Ware had had many dealings in the past, but he probably would not do now; he posed another wildlife
problem – Ware’s familiar Ahktoi had been the demon’s creature, and the cat had of course vanished when the noise had begun,
a disappearance that P HOENIX would take none the less ill for its having been 100 per cent expectable. Though the grimoires occasionally characterize
one or another demon as ‘mild’ or ‘good by nature,’, these terms are strictly relative and have no human meaning; all demons
are permanently enraged by the greatest Matter of all, and it does not pay to annoy them even slightly in small matters.
Also, Ware realized, it would have to be a small magic indeed, for most of his instruments were now buried, and those that
were accessible were all contaminated beyond his power to purify them in any useful period of time. Clearly it was time to
consult the book. He crossed to the lectern upon which it rested, pushed dust and potsherds off it with his sleeve, unlocked
the clasp and began to turn the great stiff pages, not without a qualm. Here, signed with his own blood, was half his life;
the other half was down below, in the mud.
He found the name he needed almost at once: V ASSAGO, a mighty prince, who in his first estate before the rebellion had belonged to the choir of the Virtues. The
Lemegeton
of the Rabbi Solomon said of him, Ware recalled, that he ‘declares things past, present and future, and discovers what has
been lost or hidden’. Precisely to the purpose. Ware remembered too that his was the name most commonly invoked in ceremonial
crystallomancy, which would be perfect in both scope and limitations for what Ware had in mind, involving no lengthy preparations
of the operator, or even any precautionary diagrams, nor any apparatus except a crystal ball; and even for that he might substitute
a pool of exorcised water, fifty litres of which still reposed in a happily unruptured stainless steel tank embedded in the
wall behind Ware’s workbench.
Furthermore, he was the only demon in
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