Under A Velvet Cloak (37 page)

Lilah was outraged. “Parry, I refuse-”

“Refuse what? You’re War’s concubine now. You can hardly object to being second when you yourself are straying.”

“Well, you were going to destroy me for failing to corrupt War.”

“I was angry. But later I remembered how sexy you can be when you try, and forgave you in my fashion.”

“So I discovered subsequently. Many times. Your fashion is certainly virile. But being third is beneath my station, and I don’t belong to you any more.”

“But you do still love me.”

“That’s irrelevant. You never loved me. I was just your sex slave.”

“An excellent one,” he agreed.

“I’m not sorry I got back at you for heartlessly using me.” The demoness evidently enjoyed playing the wronged maiden.

“I am after all the Incarnation of Evil.” He glanced sidelong at her. “You got back at me by not corrupting War?”

“That, too. I also told Thanatos that you had never released a soul from Hell.”

“I released five souls in the fourteenth century.”

“I know. It was a wonderful lie. Thanatos believed it and told Nox, and she put it in the database, thus also the Purgatory Computer, so everyone believed you never released souls.”

“You lied about the Father of Lies!”

“My supreme achievement,” Lilah agreed. “So as I said, I refuse to oblige your selfish carnal passion again. In fact I refuse-”

He caught her and kissed her.

“To wait any longer,” she finished, and the two faded out. The game could play out only so long.

Kermit appeared, from his future science timeline. “Kerena welcomes you,” Jolie said. “But she is busy at the moment. However, Molly is here, in her own form.”

“You’re still such a handsome man,” Molly said, stepping into him. They faded.

Fate appeared, in the Aspect of Lachesis. “Welcome, Niobe!” Jolie said. “Nox is-”

“She was always more physical than I was,” Niobe said. “And more mysterious. I am here for the party.” Soon she was mixing with the guests who remained in the scene.

Gaea appeared. “Welcome, Orb!” Jolie said. “I’m so glad you could join the party. This is Gaw Two grown, and Morgan le Fey, and of course you know your mother Niobe.”

But Orb had something else on her mind at the moment. “Where is Parry?”

The Fey smiled cruelly. “With the erotic demoness, of course, who wasn’t his second choice. They interact marvelously.”

That was the connection Jolie had sought to conceal. Naturally the evil sorceress had clarified it, in a misleading manner.

There was a rumble of not
_very
distant thunder. “Oh?”

Orlene appeared. “Please, Mother, don’t make a scene. You know how tangled our relationships are.”

“Yes, daughter,” Niobe said. “It ill behooves Nature to
go
awry.”

Orb sighed. “It seems Nature must give way to the Incarnations of Good and Fate.” She hugged both. “It is good to see you both, informally.”

Gabriel appeared. “Am I late?”

“Not at all, Angel,” the Fey said. “I’m sure Nox will join you when she finishes with the knight.”

Orlene turned to Gabriel, frowning. “What is your interest in Nox?”

He was taken aback. “Um-”

Then they couldn’t hold it back any longer. They all laughed. Of course all the Incarnations and their associates knew who related to whom in what ways; the mischievous Purgatory Computer was quite current, naturally. Tolerance was endemic.

Gaw Two approached the Fey. “Naturally I have no idea what the humor is, having grown up in the past hour, but I suspect you have interesting explanations. Shall we dance?”

“I shall be happy to enhance your imagination,” the Fey said, stepping rather too closely into his embrace as her gown threatened to fall apart at strategic seams. “Have you encountered dirty dancing yet?”

“The distaff hound!” Gabriel swore. “She will never be admitted to Heaven.”

“Considering that she is on temporary leave from Hell,” Jolie said, “that seems likely.”

“I must say, it’s an interesting dance,” Gabriel said, observing closely.

“I am familiar with it,” Jolie said. “Would you like a demonstration?”

He nodded. “Of course you would be conversant, Bride of Satan. Yes, I would.” He took her hand as they moved onto the dance floor.

“This is the first time I have embraced you in my own likeness,” Jolie said as she moved in close to demonstrate the moves. “Always before I have been with Kerena.”

“You are interesting in your own right. We certainly appreciate what you have done for the second timeline.” He was rapidly catching on to the moves.

Was he suggesting a tryst? He was, as she knew from prior observation, considerably male beneath the extreme caution his position in Heaven required. Jolie was definitely interested. “The dance merely emulates movements better performed without clothing.”

“Why settle for mere emulation?”

Then the other dancing couple faded out. Fate, Nature, and Good stared, aghast.

“Damn,” Jolie murmured, seeing opportunity lost.

“I could not have said it,” Gabriel said. “Thank you.”

“I believe it is time to call the meeting to order,” Orlene said grimly. “Gabriel?”

The naughty side of the dream had definitely been aborted. “Of course,” Gabriel agreed regretfully. He was ever the loyal and efficient right hand of God. He disengaged from Jolie’s torso and clapped his hands.

Suddenly all fifteen at the party were present, seated in the meeting hall that the dance hall had become. Several looked somewhat surprised and disheveled. Gaw Two seemed amazed and the Fey angry; Orlene had evidently acted in time to preserve a bit of her child’s innocence. Parry and Orb now sat blithely together and Lilah was in a waitress’ uniform, serving refreshments. Things had been firmly set in order.

“May I introduce the Incarnation of Night,” Gabriel said smoothly. “Nox, the mistress of this particular dream.”

“Thank you, Angel,” Kerena said. She had evidently had the time she needed to complete her business with Sir Gawain and put herself back in order. Probably she had peeked ahead along the timeline and made sure of it. “We have secured the first and second timelines. It was easy to
do once
Erebus was vanquished.”

“That’s something I don’t understand,” Vanja said. “Timeline Two was doomed, because you saved me instead of aligning it to Timeline One. How did that change?”

“I can answer that,” Morely said. “The default is the original timeline. It is always easier to make it conform than to change it. That is why Jolie was able to keep the lines straight; Erebus could not make his changes hold as long as Nox supported alignment. But once she accepted a deviation, that became the primary course, and she could not subsequently revise it without his acquiescence. Since he was determined to channel it into destruction, only his elimination enabled her to save it. She made the necessary changes, and it is now no longer doomed.”

“But it isn’t identical,” Vanja said. “I died in the original, and lived in the second.”

“There are many routes to salvation,” Niobe said. “The timelines don’t have to be identical any more. Identity was the only way to be sure of saving Timeline Two while Erebus was trying to steer it wrong. Now we have more freedom.”

“But there is still a considerable job to do,” Kerena said. “We have secured two, but there is an infinite number of others that are doomed unless they too are revised to eliminate the deviations Erebus caused. There will have to be a knowledgeable emissary from T2 to attend to T3, and thereafter from T3 to T4 and so on, as we discussed before.”

Jolie had almost forgotten that. “I will do it, of course. Or my T2 self will.”

Orlene nodded approvingly. “We certainly appreciate it. Go with our Blessing.”

It was the time of a great king who ruled from a shining city. In a small village in this kingdom was a family with two daughters. Jolie Two searched for the younger daughter. She had a mission to accomplish.

A great central tree had been trimmed of most of its branches. Now they were reappearing, one by one. In time and space, with diligence and conscience, it would be restored.

The Incarnations of Immortality series started with Death. Not merely the novel; my concern with the subject. I am, by my definition, mildly depressive, and I think about death a lot. So finally I made something of it, and wrote
On a Pale Horse,
a novel featuring Death as the central character. It has a story, of course, but the essence of it was the thoughts along the way, touching on various aspects of death. My breakthrough was in devising death as an office rather than merely a role, so that an ordinary person could step into it. Once I had that concept, I
realized
it was possible to
go
onto other key aspects of existence: Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil, and
Good.

Originally I planned to stop at five novels, because I thought readers would consider it unacceptable to address Satan and
God
fictively. But as reader responses came in, I found no such concern, so I decided to complete the roster. Thus I added two more, and that completed the series, I thought. But readers didn’t want to let it
go.
They urged me to write more, tackling the minor Incarnations, perhaps with a collection of stories, or a novel about Nox, the Incarnation of Night. I demurred, because I felt that after
God
anything else would be anticlimactic. It would require considerable effort to review the complicated novels and get forgotten elements straight, and the effort might not be appreciated anyway. Thus it continued for about 15 years.

Then two things happened. I learned of a chronology a reader, “Phoenix,” had made for the series. He had worked out the dates of events from clues in the novels and put it all together as consistently as was feasible. That timeline is available on the Internet: http://www.spundreams.net/~phoe~ nix/IoIChron.html. This did much of my homework for me; instead of having to
do
copious rereading and note-taking, I could use this as an excellent starting point. The other was a long letter from Stephen Smith, who not only suggested Nox, but had three pages of summary for the novel he proposed,
Under a Velvet Cloak.
I considered that, and concluded that it was feasible: it would indeed make a novel.

So I queried my readers via my bimonthly column at my
http://www.hipiers.com
website. What about it: did they favor or disfavor such a project? The vote was overwhelmingly positive: they favored it. Accordingly

I decided to write the novel, and worry about marketing it later.

One contributing factor was that at this time there was a motion picture option on the first novel in the series, with Disney working on it. A movie would probably increase the market for a new novel, making it more likely that my effort would not be wasted: I would be able to find a publisher. Many readers think that a successful author can sell anything he writes; that’s not the case. The market is highly competitive, and the dubious judgment of editors is notorious. I had a number of unsold novels that I was marketing or self publishing, and they’re not stinkers. I wanted them to be available for reading, one way or another. So this movie option made a difference.

An option doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a movie; it is in essence a reservation placed on the book for a year or more while the option holder explores the prospects: screenplay, financing, location, studio, suitable actors, prospective audience, and related aspects. If everything falls into place, the option is exercised and the movie made. They don’t want to
do
all that work only to discover that in the interim someone else has grabbed it for a movie. The option guarantees that such a thing can’t happen. They pay for the option, and if they don’t make the movie, the author keeps the option money. Options are free cash for writers. Exercised options are barrels of money for the authors. Sure, they may change things all around, perhaps ruining it, but the average writer needs the money. That’s why the standard advice is to take the money and run.

Thus early in 2004 I started writing, following Stephen Smith’s summary. This is the only time I have done this: writing a novel based on a summary by a reader. His thoughts were not always mine, and increasingly as I went I added elements of my own, finally leaving the summary and going entirely on my own. So in general the first part of the novel is as conceived by him, and the last part is mine. But the novel would not have come to be at all without his summary.

Stephen had analyzed the first seven volumes of the series, and used logic, interpolation, extrapolation, intuition, and imagination to fill in the blanks. “I think now is the appropriate time for this story to be revealed,” he said. But a story based on a careful study of a series is necessarily derivative, and despite the claims of critics, that’s not the kind of thing I write. I needed a story that fit the existing parameters but was not merely a restatement of familiar themes. I needed to widen the compass, including novelty and new perspective, without departing too far from the original framework. It is an ongoing judgment call for series writing. So there are aspects that are neither in the summary nor the prior novels, such as the multiple Timelines of the Tree of Life. This is part of the creative process for such a project.

I did spot research to buttress my references, and this got into aspects of the Arthurian legend to get Morgan le Fey and Sir Gawain straight. In the process I realized what a tangled skein those legends are. For example, King Arthur’s wife Guinevere falls in love with his chief knight Sir Lancelot. That forbidden love aspect is found in other knights and in variants of the same ones, depending on who is retelling the tale. In one version, Lancelot is loved by two women, both named Elaine. In another it is Tristan with two Iseults, one the wife of the king he serves. I tried to steer generally clear of the main legend, catching it peripherally, as this novel is about Nox, not Arthur.

Another reader, Tim Bruening, was at this time reading my series and sending me up to three emails a day asking awkward questions. Some were about this series. In
On a Pale Horse,
Chronos mentions Adolf Hitler, but in
For Love of Evil
Chronos eliminates the Nazi Holocaust. “How can he
do
that without eliminating Hitler as leader of the Axis?” I answered that Hitler may have been diverted, so didn’t get around to the Jewish pogrom. He asked how come Luna’s hair ranged from bright chestnut to dull brown in different novels. I answered that Luna’s natural hair was honey blonde; she dyed it to fool Satan, and must have used different dyes at different times that didn’t quite match. In
Bearing an Hourglass,
magic has a range of about one Earth diameter, so how could a magic-powered saucer fly to the moon? I answered that magic, like gravity, surely faded gradually with distance; the original figure would have been an approximation for full-effect magic, not the ultimate limit.