I'm a slow enough reader but when it comes to writing my pace is best described as glacial, so if I'm going to do this at all I'm afraid that composition, as such, will have to go out the window. Sorry.This is a re-read for me. Besides the bare bones of the plot and its resolution the only thing I really remember after 25 years is the Mittelmarch, various supernatural realms scattered across Europe (and, presumably, the world), visible and accessible only to the damned.
Great cover by Rowena Morrill. The combination of angel's wings and devil's horns strikes a suitably ambiguous note. In the book Lucifer is actually without horns, wings or pants. I like how Rowena restricted her color palette, too. My only problem is that, for me, the shadow under Lucifer's nose keeps turning into a little Hitler mustache. Nobody wants that.
A short book that nonetheless takes its own sweet time getting started. The protagonist (hero?) begins his hopeless quest precisely one third of the way through the book. Don't get me wrong, the time is well spent.
This book has something in common with Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away, Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow, and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This brief excerpt foreshadows that connection. Cynical mercenary Ulrich von Bek has fallen in love with the witch Sabrina. For the sake of her soul as well as his own he has accepted the charge of her master, the fallen angel Lucifer, to find the Cure for the World's Pain, sometimes called the Holy Grail. He prepares to depart.
I returned to draw back the curtains and sit on the edge of the bed, looking down on Sabrina's sleeping face. She started suddenly, crying out, reaching her hand to where I had lain. I touched her cheek. "I am here."
She turned and smiled at me. Then her eyes clouded. "You are leaving?"
"I suppose that I must. Soon."
"Yes," she said, "for it is morning." She began to sit up. She sighed. "When I made my bargain with Lucifer I thought that I was resisting circumstance, taking my fate into my own hands. But circumstance continues to affect us. Can it even affect who we are? Is there any proof beyond ourselves that we are unique?"
"We feel ourselves to be unique," I said. "But a cynic sees only familiarity and similarity and would say that we are all pretty much the same."
"Is it because a cynic does not possess the imagination to distinguish those subtle differences in which you and I believe?"
"I am a cynic," I said to her. "A cynic refuses to allow distinctions of motive or of temperament."
"Oh, but you are not!" She came into my arms. "Or you would not be here."
I held her closely. "I am what I have to be at this moment," I said. "For my own sake."
"And for mine," she reminded me.
I felt a terrible sadness well within me. I suppressed it. "And for yours," I agreed.
We kissed. The pain continued to grow. I pulled away from her. I went to the corner of the room and began to wash myself. I noticed that my hands were shaking and that my breathing had become unusually deep. I had a wish, at that moment, to return to Hell, to summon up an army of all those poor damned souls and set them in rebellion against Lucifer, as Lucifer had set Himself against God. I felt that we were in the hands of foolish, insane beings, whose motives were more petty even than Man's. I wanted to be rid of all of them. It was unjust, I thought, that such creatures should have power over us. Even if they had created us, could they not, in turn, be destroyed?
But these ideas were pointless. I had neither the means, the knowledge nor the power to challenge them. I could only accept that my destiny was, in part at least, in their charge. I would have to agree to play out my role on Lucifer's terms, or play no role at all.
That gives you an idea of the tone of the book. If the characters aren't chasing or fighting each other, or witnessing some supernatural manifestation, they're talking about God, Fate, Chance, Will, Faith, Love, War... the Big Stuff.
More tomorrow. Oops, I mean later today.
"I go out bloggin', after midnight, out in the moonlight..."
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