Free To Reign in Hell: A Novel by Steven Brust Page B

those four archangels. You will report to me, later, what Yaweh says. You will do this secretly. Until it is time to do so, you will not know that you are going to. You will remember no part of this conversation. Now go.”
    Gabriel turned without a word and began the long journey back to Yaweh’s Palace. Abdiel tiredly watched his departing back.

FOUR
    Some think they see their own hope to advance
tied to their neighbor’s fall, and thus they long
to see him cast down from his eminence;
     
    Some fear their power, preferment, honor, fame
will suffer by another’s rise, and thus,
irked by his good, desire his ruin and shame.
    —Dante,
Purgatorio,
Canto xvii:115-120
     
    Abdiel got as close to the Southern Hold as he could.
    “This is probably stupid,” he told himself. “There isn’t anything I can learn here, and eventually someone will see me.” He shook his head. “What did I come here for, anyway? I should be on my way home by now.”
    Some feeling, after he’d finished with the page, had told him that he should see the Southern Hold. He could think of no reason for it, but his instincts had been good in the past.
    He had gone slowly, recovering from the exhaustion that he’d felt after his efforts with Gabriel. His strength had returned now. He made note of how long it took, munching blueberries picked from bushes near the side of the road, occasionally wiping purple juice from his lips and beard with a white linen handkerchief.
    He wondered what he was waiting for, and whether he would recognize it if it came, and how long he would wait before giving up and heading back.
    Periodically, there would be travelers to or from the Hold, and hewould strain to make out what they said. It was never anything important, though.
    He sighed, continued his vigil, and ate blueberries.
     
    “I’m not used to not being tired when I head back this way,” remarked a traveler to his companion.
    “I know what you mean,” said the other. “It’s going to be nice to get home with some energy left.”
    The corners of his mouth rose a bit as he said this. The first noticed and grinned.
    “I see. What’s her name?”
    “What’s the difference?”
    He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder about you.”
    The other shrugged.
    “When will he be back?” asked the first.
    “I don’t know. Beelzebub said we shalleth be informedeth. But look: we have enough oil done for fifty days, right? It’s twenty days each way to the center, if you’re not hurrying, so I’d guess he’s visiting Lord Yaweh, and it’ll be at least forty days.”
    “Again? He was there a hundred days ago. . . .”
     
    Abdiel cursed under his breath. Satan, going to the Palace! All that work, wasted. He bit his lips with rage, and mangled a handful of blueberries in his fist without noticing. Was there any way to stop him?
    Abdiel ran through his resources, and decided that there was no way to prevent him from setting off. How about preventing him from arriving? Maybe. But how?
    By getting him to go somewhere else? Where? And again, how?
    He concentrated. Maybe he could do
that . . .
which would mean . . . hmmm. He wondered how fast a dog could run. On the path, or off ? Yes. . . .
    He turned and began running toward the Palace. He was going to need at least a day or two. Probably two.
    The thought of what he was planning made him a bit uncomfortable. But it would be stupid to pull back now, and he wasn’t really going to hurt anyone. Not exactly.
    He pushed himself over the road that would become a path, and then a trail. . . .
    Gabriel entered the Palace and went to see the Lord Yaweh before he had so much as dusted himself off from the trip. Yaweh being alone, Gabriel coughed. Yaweh looked up.
    “You’re back.”
    “Yes, Lord.”
    “Alone?”
    “Y-yes.
    “I see.”
    “He—he said he was busy, Lord. That perhaps in a few days he’d have time—twenty or thirty days, he said.”
    “Twenty or thirty days.”
    “Yes, Lord.”
    “Did you