“I want some more to drink,” Moondrench said. “You promised me I’d have lots of fun.”
“Here comes the waiter with the ichor,” Agrippa said. “Please don’t act silly.”
“I shall drink as much as I please,” Moondrench said, helping himself to a flagon of ichor. “And I shall probably drink a lot. Drinking to excess is never silly.”
There was a disturbance at the rear of the hall. A fox-faced demon had entered and was making his lurching way forward, colliding with waiters, bumping against diners, knocking dishes from tables as he passed. Murmurs rose as he went by:
“How rude!”
“Isn’t that …?”
“Is that . . . ?”
“Looks like Azzie.”
“Didn’t he have an entry in the contest?”
“Wonder what happened.”
“Hey, Azzie! You okay?”
“I heard he screwed up a big one.”
“I thought he was still in the Pits.”
“Looks soused to the ear tufts.”
“Watch it there, fella!”
“What else can you expect from a drunken demon?”
“What’d he want with a glass mountain, anyhow?”
“Give ’em hell, Azzie!”
“Yeah! Hell! Brimstone and all that!”
Moondrench was being difficult. Agrippa no longer considered him as attractive as he had before. And now the banquet was in full swing. More food kept arriving, brought in on silver platters by demons in black tuxedos. There were some unusual dishes. Suckling chimaera, for example. And there were all sorts of dishes with little handwritten signs on them telling the diner what he was getting into. A few of the dishes were even able to enunciate. “Hello,” the stewed turnips said, “we’re delicious.”
The sound of all those beings conversing was beginning to grow deafening. In order to reach anyone more than two or three seats away, you had to use the seashell telephones located beside each setting.
On a sort of boardwalk which extended over the dining table, a tableau of great hits of the past was being presented, highlights of the macabre and the virtuous. As new guests arrived, each had to have his lineage and accomplishments announced by the white-furred majordomo.
Azzie continued to push his way forward, on the crest of an advancing wave of chaos.
Then Asmodeus got up. He was fat, and his white skin had a greenish cast. His lower lip protruded so far that a saucer could have balanced on it. He wore a bottle-green coat, and when he turned around, his twisted pig’s tail was visible.
“Hello, friends,” Asmodeus said. “I think we all know why we are here, don’t we?”
“To get drunk!” an ugly spirit off to one side said.
“Well, yes, that, of course,” Asmodeus said. “But we are getting drunk tonight for a purpose. And that purpose is to celebrate the eve of the Millennium, and to announce the winner of the contest. I know you’re impatient to find out who it is, but you’ll just have to wait a little longer. First we are going to have some special appearances.”
Azzie moved to the front of the hall.
Asmodeus began to call out names, and various spirits got up to take bows. They grinned and smirked, scraped and bowed to the enthusiastic audience. The Red Death was introduced and stood up. He was tall, and wrapped from head to foot in a bloodred cloak. Over his shoulder he carried a scythe.
“Who’s that couple over there?” Moondrench asked. “The big blond angel and the dark little witch?”
“The angel is named Babriel,” Agrippa told him. “The witch is Ylith – a good friend of Azzie’s, one of our more interesting and active demons. I believe he just went by.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Moondrench said. “He was doing something special for this year’s festivities, wasn’t he?”
“So it’s been said. There he is now, down front. Looks like he got a head start on the rest of us. I wonder what he’s up to?”
Azzie climbed onto a table, to the consternation of the diners who surrounded it. He swayed. He breathed smoke and struck sparks as he moved.
He made as if to say something several times but failed. Finally, he plucked a flagon from a diner’s talons, raised it, and drained it.