Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

posting notices in the first three rings of Hell!”

“Oh,” said Satan, passingly interested while he thought through the soul situation, “and what did they say?”

“They…” For the first time, Ratuth Slabuth seemed to falter. Indeed, he seemed embarrassed. “They’re personal.”

Satan looked at Betty, who shot off into the air. Brief moments later, she returned with a small poster. Satan took it and read,

“BE IT KNOWN IN THESE PRECINCTS OF HELL THAT THE ARCH-DEMON RATUTH SLABUTH, GENERAL

OF THE INFERNAL HORDES, WOULD HENCEFORTH LIKE TO BE KNOWN BY HIS PREVIOUSLY PREFERRED

NOMENCLATURE, TO WIT RAGTAG SLYBOOTS, DESPOILER OF MILK AND TANGLER OF SHOELACES, INTERFERER OF LIGHT MUSICAL PROGRAMMES UPON THE WIRELESS, AND PROPAGATOR OF UNSOLICITED POST.”

Satan frowned. “I was listening to a performance of Paganini — one of my favourites, as it happens — the other day on the Light Programme and there was this dreadful hissing and popping all the way through it. That was your doing, was it?”

“No!” said Slabuth, mortified. “It’s a lie! That poster has nothing to do with me! This mortal” — he pointed at Cabal, who tutted infuriatingly at such manners — “made it all up!”

“But you were called Ragtag Slyboots, I’m sure?”

“Well, yes, that bit’s true, but I left that behind ages ago. Radio hadn’t even been invented then! It’s all lies!”

“Oh,” said Satan, “that’s a bit embarrassing. I’m supposed to be the father of lies. Fancy not spotting my own kids. Tch.”

Slabuth/Slyboots turned on Cabal. “I’m really glad you lost the wager, mortal, because that means I get to kill you. Prepare to die!” If he was expecting Cabal to cringe in piteous fear, he was to be disappointed. In fact, if he’d been expecting Cabal to do anything other than shake an admonishing finger and point at Satan, he’d have been disappointed, for that was what Cabal was doing.

“Actually,” said Satan in a calm voice that boded bad things, “I think you’ll find that the wager was with me, Corporal Slyboots. If anybody has the right to kill him, that right is mine. As it happens, Mr. Cabal and I are renegotiating the terms of that wager. Therefore, I would thank you to return to the barracks and stay out of matters that don’t concern you.”

“Don’t concern me? DON’T CONCERN ME? I’ll have you know … Hold on. Wait a minute. What was that?” His voice dropped to a disbelieving whisper. “Corporal Slyboots?”

“You heard perfectly well, Corporal. I haven’t been happy with your performance for some time. In line for gingering up.”

“Corporal,” echoed Ragtag Slyboots in a ghastly voice.

“I wouldn’t look upon this as a demotion if I were you. Although clearly that’s what it is. Try to think of it as a challenge. You swept up the ranks in a blink first time around.”

“Twelve hundred years,” said Slyboots, enunciating each syllable. He slowly took off his helmet, looked at it longingly, placed it at Satan’s feet, and slinked slowly away. Satan started laughing long before he was out of sight or earshot.

“You can be terribly small-minded,” said Cabal.

Satan wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “You were the one who put up the notices.”

“I don’t have pretensions towards deification.”

Satan gave him a wry look. “Do tell. Anyway, to business. You have a commodity that I’d rather like. I’m sure I have a little something that you covet. Shall we deal?”

“There’s nothing to bargain about. Will you give me my soul in return for this box? Yes or no?”

“Oh dear,” said Satan, “you’ll have to do better than that. You forget that, amongst my other creations, I spawned the lawyers. I’m not interested in the box. I want the contents.” Satan was delighted to see Cabal’s eyes narrow behind his spectacles (looking through smoked glass is a natural ability when one lives in caverns of stinking sulphur fumes). He really had been trying to pull a confidence trick on Satan himself. The past year had obviously changed him. “I’m not one of your rubes, Cabal: don’t forget that.”

Cabal debated inwardly for a long moment. Satan wondered if he might actually sacrifice himself to save the signatories. Surely he hadn’t changed that much? “Very well,” Cabal said finally, “you get the contents as well. I’ll throw in the box for free.”

“Deal,” Satan said, and laughed thunderously. “Deal!”

Rocks began to fall from the walls. Cabal looked around in sudden fear for his life. Surely Satan couldn’t go back on a deal, especially one that he’d made that very minute? Tiers started to thrust out of the walls. Flying things in swarms settled upon them, imps bundled out of small tunnels that opened like geological sphincters in the walls. Several immediately fell in the lava, but that’s imps for you.

Satan rose to his feet and stood, massive and malevolent, his head almost lost in the reeking clouds. Behind him, the floor shivered and shattered as his generals, princes, and barons rose behind him: Balberith, Beelzebub, and Carreau; Melmoroth, Shakarl, and Mr. Runcible; Olivier, Leviathan, and Yog-Sothoth, who just happened to be there because he couldn’t help it. “Forgive me, Johannes Cabal. Pride drives me, and I want an audience when I really rub your nose in it.” He addressed the gathered hordes. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Other things of less certain description. Before us we have a man who attempted to beat me, who attempted to cheat me.” Everything booed, hissed, and jeered, stamped hooves, trumpeted. Satan raised his hand for silence, which he got on the moment. “This is a man who was willing to send a hundred of his fellow mortals to never-ending torment” — there were a few ragged cheers — “for the sake of his own immortal soul, for a whiff of spirit that he never valued while he had it but was prepared to whore himself for when it was gone, for this …” And, like a cheap children’s-party conjuror, he produced Cabal’s soul.

From the tip of Satan’s outstretched index finger, depending from the very tip of his exquisitely manicured fingernails, dangled a sad, dirty white thing, like a bed sheet from a flophouse. It writhed miserably, devoid of intelligence but aware that its true owner was nearby. Cabal had a faintly pleasant feeling, as if he was going home for the first time in years and it would be just like it had always been. He dropped the box onto the floor and stepped back from it. “Very well,” he said, “they’re yours. Fulfil your part of this.” He spoke quietly beneath the renewed shouting and roaring from the deliriously aggressive audience.

But Satan heard him. “Fulfil my part? Let me tell you a joke, Johannes Cabal. I was going to give you your soul back anyway. Kill you? You’re far more use to me on Earth than down here.”

“I won’t work for you. Not anymore,” said Cabal evenly, but he coloured slightly all the same.

“You don’t have to. Your pathetic schemes do as much damage as a convent-full of possessed nuns. You need your soul to spread chaos in the world of mortals? Fine! Have it!” Satan bared his teeth. “I wouldn’t have anything that tawdry in the house.” So saying, he flung the soul at Cabal.

Cabal never felt it hit him physically, but he suddenly felt he was home, and as he closed his eyes and the derisive screams and jeers grew fainter and fainter, he thought that was where he should really be.

Fortuitously, so did Satan.

* * *

We could smell grass and trees, hear birdsong and a nearby river, feel a fresh breeze upon his face that ruffled his hair and took the scent of brimstone from where it lay hidden in his clothes and blew it away and away. He took a long, very deep breath, held it for a long moment, and released it. He opened his eyes. He was on the path in the valley, a stand of trees on the hillside above him, the river running fewer than a hundred paces away to his right. He knew exactly where he was: two miles behind him was the village, a mile ahead was home. He started walking.

It was late afternoon now, and he took the time to enjoy the walk, feeling every stone beneath his shoes, pausing to look up at the clouds, the birds that flew high overhead. He smiled a smile that betokened only a simple pleasure and continued on his way.