And Eternity (45 page)

Orlene looked at the assembled Incarnations. “I could go on, but I think I don’t need to. Satan has made a nomination none of you can oppose, for it is in keeping with the deal Satan made long ago with the Angel Gabriel. This woman, Orlene, is the third generation, the grandchild of Niobe, whom Satan had to corrupt within three generations. Satan could not corrupt her, and indeed I think did not wish to, for she is the daughter of the woman he loves, and his stepdaughter. Satan made a deal with the Incarnation of Night, who agreed to give up Orlene’s baby if Satan could use him to corrupt Orlene. If he failed, Nox would keep the baby, and Satan would nominate her candidate, the one she had been grooming all along for this Office, to be God. Now he has done so, and it is good. She is a bastard, an adulteress, a rapist, and a suicide, surely a creature destined for Hell by current definitions. She is also marvelously competent, compassionate, and good-and the very items she labored so hard to obtain to save her baby can now be used to facilitate her admission as an Incarnation.”

Jolie turned on Thanatos. “Can you veto a ghost, whom you know to be good despite the record on her soul, so closely related to the woman you love? Give her the blank soul you promised, that her slate may be clean.” She turned to Chronos. “Can you veto the woman you loved in life, who died in the pursuit of your baby? Let your grain of sand facilitate her transfer to that clean soul.” And to Fate, in the form of Lachesis: “Your granddaughter? Use your thread to realign her life after death.” To Mars: “Your daughter? Give her your seed!”

The Incarnation of War smiled grimly. “I gave it at her conception.”

“And I gave My curse, when I damned the hypocrites and nominated her,” Satan said.

Then Jolie addressed Gaea, whose body she was using: “And your daughter, whom you could not keep? Give her your tear, to animate her in her new soul!” She discovered that the host was weeping, and not for grief; the tears were streaming down her face.

Jolie turned around, addressing them all. “Satan has nominated the bastard; which among you can deny him his choice?”

None of them spoke. Their astonishment was giving way to understanding, and acceptance. Indeed, they could not deny this one, for either ethical or personal reasons.

Jolie turned again to Orlene. Now, behind her, two glowing figures appeared, one male, one female. The Angel Gabriel and the Incarnation of Night, holding the baby. A glow was playing about Orlene, too, as the gifts of the Incarnations came to her. “And can you decline this most deserved of all nominations, Orlene?” Jolie demanded. “You, most of all, know what is needed in Heaven! You know what has to be done, and you have the training and education and compassion to do it. All that has been wrong in the cosmos, you may now address, with the cooperation of those who cannot deny you. Yea, not even Satan, who loved you from the start, as did I. All of us love you, and you love us, and you cannot deny us or the cosmos. You can do no other than accept. You must be the new Incarnation of Good, for now, and Eternity!”

“And Eternity,” Roque echoed.

Orlene struggled to speak but could not. Tears stood on her face. The glow about her intensified. Now Jolie understood what had happened when Orlene helped the soul in Hell: her glow of suitability had been but the hint of her larger potential. As with the musical magic of Orb, which had become the ability to use the phenomenal power of the Llano and equip her to be the Incarnation of Nature, Orlene’s ability to see the glow had become the ability to use the glow to make things right, and, ultimately, to make the world right, as God. When she had withstood Satan’s Temptation, she had sealed her fate, unknowingly, for that had led directly to this nomination. She had not known, but Satan had known, and perhaps Gabriel, and certainly Nox. Her power had begun to manifest. Now she was assuming the aspect of the Office, becoming immortal.

Orlene bowed Her head, nodding in acquiescence. She had given up Her baby, but now She would be Mother to the cosmos itself. She walked slowly across to Satan, who stood watching Her. “All that you hoped for shall be, for the love of Evil, and for the love of Good, for now, and Eternity,” She said. She put Her arms around him, drew his head down, and kissed him.

Chronos, who had loved Her as a woman, applauded. Then the others joined in, and Jolie too. When God Kisses Satan, and the Incarnations applaud, she remembered. Orlene herself had prompted that answer to the hijackers of the saucer: the Captain’s declaration when he would capitulate. Now it had come to pass! It was indeed the beginning of a new era.

She turned to Jolie. “I think you must help Vita, for I have assumed other duties.”

Go to her, Jolie
, Gaea thought.
You will always be welcome with me, too, but I think you are not yet done with the mortal realm.

Jolie embraced Orlene. She felt the awesome Presence, in that moment of their contact, not distant and aloof as it had been in the Tenth Heaven, but immediate and generous and loving. Then she transferred to the other host, and Orlene rose out of it. Vita would not be left to fend for herself.

Orlene, a ghost again, but imbued by the substance of the Incarnation of Good, turned to the Incarnation of Night. “I give My baby to you, and My blessing. My Office will always be open to you.” Nox nodded, and faded out.

God turned to the Angel Gabriel. “Will you serve and advise the Office, as before?” she asked.

“Always, Lord Goddess.”

“Then guide Me now to Heaven, for there is much to do. I shall depend on your advice.” She took his hand. “I will be seeing all of you again, soon.”

The glow became blinding. Then it was gone, and She with it, and the Angel Gabriel. But Her Presence lingered.

“We have business too,” Gaea said. “Luna, make the announcement: we have chosen God, and She is Ghost and Goddess.”

Luna nodded, and left the room. In just a moment, it seemed, there was a sound from all around: the sound of the mortals of the world, cheering.

The Incarnations linked hands and disappeared. Jolie was left with Roque. “I will remain with Vita as long as she needs me,” she told him. “I hope you can settle for that.”

“I can settle for that,” he said.

“We thought Nox was plotting something sinister, but instead she plotted to save the cosmos. Why do you think she did that?”

“I suspect she feared the game would end if she did not, and she wanted the game to continue. Even Nox must get bored with just dreams. Also, it may be that she really does like the baby, with his ornery malady. She well understands the undisciplined passions of the male. So, in effect, she traded for Gaw-Two, giving good value in return.”

“I suppose so,” Jolie agreed, awed now by the audacity of it. “Certainly she made our lives more interesting.”

Jolie returned the body to Vita. “Orlene’s a Holy Ghost!” the girl said, and giggled. Then she sobered. “Gee, Roque, you gave up being an Incarnation, to be with me!”

“It was selfish of me, I know,” he agreed.

“You are still God to me.”

“You are still a nymphet to me.”

“Yeah? And what are you going to do about it?” But she gave him no time to decide. She leaped into his arms.

Jolie shook her head, in her thoughts. These were interesting times!

During the course of my work on this novel, we moved. Did it affect my writing? Perhaps you can judge by the change in the text at what point the move occurred. I will tell you later in this Note, so you don’t have to write me any letters. Leave the letters to those who are properly outraged by the novel’s theme and conclusion.

This is the final novel of this series; I have no plan to write another. Readers have suggested that I follow up with the Lesser Incarnations, but I am disinclined; after God, all else is anticlimactic. Originally I planned on just five novels, because I thought that readers would not care for the inclusion of Satan and God, but I became satisfied as I read my voluminous fan mail that the readers did indeed want those Incarnations covered. So I extended the series, and thereby hangs a tale.

It happened that at about the point I made the decision to extend the series, I also decided to change publishers. I do not change wives or publishers lightly, but the latter is more likely than the former. I was having serious editorial problems, and felt that the integrity of my work could be guaranteed only by making the change. When push came to shove, that counted more than either money or convenience.

The change of publishers was complicated. Options had to be voided and new understandings worked out. My literary agent—the man who handled my American sales—labored heroically to work things out with the old and new publishers. By the time it was done, some 45 of my novels had been affected to some degree, and more than half a million dollars was allocated. My first 17 fantasy novels remained with Del Rey, while the new Adept trilogy went to Putnam/Ace and the final two novels of the Incarnations series to Morrow/Avon. A new Xanth trilogy also went to Avon. I had resolved, you see, to split my fantasy between publishers, so as not to have too many eggs in one basket.

This was an amicable change, complicated by the shock of the death of Judy-Lynn del Rey. Del Rey was the publisher who put me on the best-seller lists and made me one of the most successful writers of the genre. I did not want to leave, and they did not want me to leave; it was just one of those things. I still receive enormous royalties from my titles with them, and great piles of fan mail, and expect to do new business with them in the future. Certainly we wish each other no evil.

But in the complicated process of transition, there was a minor glitch. Del Rey did not get the word about my two new Incarnations novels, and on the cover of the hardcover edition of
Being a Green Mother,
printed, “A Brilliant Conclusion to an Extraordinary Series.” I notified them of the error when I saw the cover proofs, but it was evidently too late; those words remained.

Several readers wrote in to inquire about that, when the hardcover edition was published, because I had told them that there were more Incarnations coming. I had to explain about the glitch, with some irritation. One reader hit the ceiling. He decided to make a public campaign against the publisher because of the lie. I demurred, explaining that though the matter annoyed me, I could not claim it was malice; it was a foul-up, of the kind that occurs not infrequently in Parnassus. Certainly I would not allow my name to be used in an attack on this publisher, who had treated me very well over the years. I hoped to get it straightened out privately. This reader then attacked
me,
claiming that I had to be lying, and demanding, in abusive language, a clarification of my lie.

Well, now. Few folk have the temerity to address the Ogre in such fashion, and those who do, generally regret it. I have too much mail as it is, and it is enough of a chore to keep up with the positive letters without having to take on such negative missives too. My response to him began: “Listen, Blivet-Brain, I have little patience with fools or knaves.” Thereafter it became less polite. For those who are not up on the vernacular of a prior generation, I should explain that a blivet is a five-pound container with ten pounds of excrement. I understand it is a useful weapon when arguments get ugly.

So now you know why I changed publishers, and some of the consequences thereof. You may consider this an update on my autobiography,
Bio of an Ogre,
which was published in hardcover in Mayhem (naturally!) while I was writing this novel. I admit to running second to Harlan Ellison when it comes to perpetual trouble, but believe me, I am trying to close the gap. An ogre’s reach should exceed his grasp, else what’s Hell for?

But I was trying to tell you about my move. In 1977 we moved to the forest, preferring it to the city. We still prefer it, but three things have changed. First, our financial resources have improved, as my writing income progressed from five figures to six figures, thanks to the support of readers like you. About ten percent of each book of mine you buy comes eventually to me in royalties, and that adds up when sales are good. So we can now afford a six-figure house instead of a five-figure house. Second, our daughters grew up. Penny is now in college, and Cheryl, having made the highest
SAT
score in the history of her school, is about to go to college too. It is an irony that after I struggled to reach a level of income that would enable us to afford college for our daughters, Cheryl is getting Merit Scholarships that make it relatively cheap. My fault, as I should have seen it coming. I married the smartest woman I could catch, because I wanted smart children. I didn’t want my children following my example and taking three years to get out of first grade. But do you know what college kids do? They came back home for surprise visits, with six of their classmates in tow. Three of each sex. They think it is like a convention, where they can pile up eight deep in one room, sharing two and a half sleeping bags and a submarine sandwich. I won’t try to explain why this disturbs parents, who are, of course, hopelessly out of touch with current mores. I’ll just say that we now need more room than we did a decade ago. Third, we were already so crowded that we had to thread mazes to get from one part of a room to another. I am a writer, you know; I have books, and they keep multiplying, and no, I can’t part with a single solitary one without suffering a seizure of one or two valves of the heart. When folk visit, we have to move books out of chairs so they can sit down. Actually, piles of books can make decent temporary chairs, but visitors don’t seem to understand very well about this, particularly when the piles fall over.

So we moved, as I said. It was my wife’s project; she took about six months without much sleep drawing up the house plans, and our friendly neighborhood building contractor, a man named Lou Dolbow, undertook the construction.

According to the contract, the house was to be complete in Jamboree 1988, but I hoped that it would move along well so that we would be able to move before then: say OctOgre. The Ogre hates to travel, but when he does, that’s the month. That would save me from having to saw and haul and split wood for the winter’s heat. I like working with wood, and since we burn only trees that have died and fallen naturally, nothing suffers. It is good exercise, and our wood stove not only heats our house, it heats our water, too, so that our bills are small. I have not counted the hours I spend per winter chopping wood, but I think it would be somewhere over 20. Florida is warm, and our house is insulated, so our needs are relatively small, but still it takes a cord or so. The problem with this is that I now earn much more than it would cost me to pay for an automatic heating system; my time spent on free wood is no bargain. So the prospect of recovering those 20+ hours for my paying work appealed.