To Reign in Hell: A Novel

TO
REIGN
IN
HELL

BOOKS BY STEVEN BRUST

To Reign in Hell

Brokedown Palace

The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille

The Gypsy
(with Megan Lindholm)

Agyar

Freedom and Necessity
(with Emma Bull)

THE VLAD TALTOS NOVELS

Jhereg

Yendi

Teckla

Taltos

Phoenix

Athyra

Orca

Dragon

THE KHAAVREN ROMANCES

The Phoenix Guards

Five Hundred Years After

The Viscount of Adrilankha
(forthcoming)

STEVEN BRUST

W
ITH A
F
OREWORD BY
R
OGER
Z
ELAZNY

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

TO REIGN IN HELL

Copyright © 1984 by Steven K. Zoltán Brust

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Lines from the song “November Song” copyright © 1984 by Mark Henley. Used by permission of Mark Henley.

Lines from the song “Friend of the Devil” copyright © 1970 by Ice Nine Publishing Company, Inc. Music by Jerry Garcia and John Dawson; words by Robert Hunter. Used by permission of Ice Nine Publishing Company, Inc.

Design by Lisa Pifher

An Orb Edition

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

ISBN 0-312-87049-3

This book was originally published by SteelDragon Press in 1984.

Printed in the United States of America

0

This book was written for my wife, Reen,
whom I love and cherish.

“Wheresoever she was,
there
was Eden.”
—Mark Twain

My thanks to my first readers and critics, Martin Schafer and John Robey, and to Pat Wrede, Kara Dalkey, Pamela Dean, and the rest of our writers’ group for much helpful criticism. Special thanks to Emma Bull and Will Shetterly for angelic patience and persistence in tweaking the final drafts. Also, thanks to Joel Halpern for technical assistance, to my agent, Valerie Smith, for her encouragement, and to editor Terri Windling and proofreaders Nate Bucklin and Jon Singer for very fine jobs. Last, thanks to Pamela Dean for corrections on the Elizabethan English.

It was almost by accident that I read the MS of Steven Brust’s
To Reign in Hell.
Actually, it was because of a courtesy on the part of the author, the story of which is not terribly material here. But that’s why I said “almost.” I can’t really consider a character trait an accident.

I read the beginning to see what he was doing. I don’t know him personally. I know little about him, save what I can tell from his writing. When I realized where he was going with this story, my first reaction was, “He isn’t going to be able to pull this one off.” Not without getting trite, or cute, or moralistic—or failing into any number of the many pitfalls I foresaw with regard to this material. I was wrong. He not only avoided them all, he told a fantastically engaging story with consummate grace and genuine artistry. I had not seen anything really new done with this subject since Anatole France’s
Revolt of the Angels,
with the possible exception of Taylor Caldwell’s
Dialogues with the Devil.
And frankly, Brust’s book is a more ambitious and successful work than
Dialogues.

My immediate reaction was to provide one of those brief dust jacket comments containing a few loaded adjectives and to hope that this would help call some attention to the book and sell a few extra copies. “A hell of a good book” or “A damned fine story” sprang to mind, because I am what I am—and they’re both true, despite the flippancy. But on reflection I knew that that would not be enough, because I am not always so fortunate as to encounter a writer as good as Steven Brust this early in his career. This is because there is so much science fiction and fantasy being published these days—and some of it very good—that it would be a full-time job just trying to keep up with the best as it appears. I have to be selective in my reading and I miss a lot. But this time I was lucky, and I owe it to this kind of talent to remark upon it when I see it.

(I should add, here, that I have also read his other two books—
Jhereg
and
Yendi
—and that they are a part of the reason I am hitting these typewriter keys.)

A dust jacket blurb only gives an opinion without reasons, and I need a little more room because I feel obliged to tell you why I like Steven Brust’s stones: Most good writers have one or two strong points for which they are known, and upon which they rely to carry a tale to its successful conclusion. Excellent plotting, say, can carry a story even if the writing itself is undistinguished. One can live with this. Good plotting is a virtue. Fine writing is a pleasure. A graceful prose stylist is a treat to read—even if the author is shaky when it comes to plotting or characterization. And then there are the specialists in people, who can entertain and delight with their development of character, their revelations—even if they are not strong plotters or powerful descriptive writers. And there are masters and mistresses of dialogue who can make you feel as if you are witnessing an engaging play, and you can almost forget the setting and the story while trying to anticipate what one of the characters will say next. And so on and so on.

Yes.

Yes, I feel that Steven Brust has this whole catalog of virtues—solid plotting, good prose, insightful characterizations and fine dialogue.

Going further, he has those little tricks of ironic wordplay which appeal.—” ‘Milord,’ called Beelzebub, ‘get thee behind me.’ “ It tickles.

And there is his use of the fabulous. Pure science fiction is, ultimately, cut-and-dried, explaining everything in the end. Pure fantasy generally does not explain enough. A writer who respects the rational yet pays homage to the dark areas where all is not known also has my respect, as herein lies a higher level of verisimilitude, mirroring life, which really is that way. It is that mixture of light and darkness which fascinates me, personally It is a special kind of
mimesis,
cutting across the categories—and here, too, Mr. Brust wields a finely honed blade.

A rare, resourceful writer, who has distinguished himself in my mind this early in his career, Steven Brust: I feel he is worth noting now, for what he will achieve eventually, as well as for what he has already done.

—Roger Zelazny

Angels and mortals

Fight for the right

To have a little pleasure

And enjoy an easy flight.

Angels and mortals

Sometimes get their way. . . .

—M
ARK
H
ENLEY
,

“N
OVEMBER
S
ONG
”

PROLOGUE

I was set up everlasting, from the
beginning, or ever the earth was.

Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills, was I brought forth.

—Proverbs, 8:23-24

Snow, tenderly caught by eddying
breezes, swirled and spun in to and out of bright, lustrous shapes that gleamed against the emerald-blazoned black drape of sky and sparkled there for a moment, hanging, before settling gently to the soft, green-tufted plain with all the sickly sweetness of an over-written sentence.

The Regent of the South looked upon this white-on-black-over-green perfection and he saw that it was revolting. His eyes, a green that was positively startling, narrowed, and his nostrils flared.

The being next to him took the shape of an animal that would someday be called a golden retriever. It shook its head and snorted, since barking was yet a few millennia away.

“My gorge rises to think on’t,” said the dog.

The Regent nodded without speaking.

The other continued, “I mind a time when thou didst delight to see decadence.”

“I mind a time when there were things other than decadence to compare it to.”

“Verily,” the dog admitted. “But think’st thou this can last forever?”

The Regent shrugged. “No, I know it won’t. The Wave is still recent; its effects linger. Soon enough, form will be form again, and jokes like this will be too difficult to be worth the bother. But it sickens me.”

“Whose working is this then, milord?” the dog asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the Regent. “One of our archbrethren, certainly. Maybe it was whoever put Marfiel into a six-day sleep so she missed the harvest. It’s the same stupid sense of humor.”

“Certes thou art aware of that thou hast earned: to relax thy vigilance and enjoy this time, as thy archbrethren do.”

The Regent shook his head. “Perhaps,” he said, “that is my own form of decadence.”

The smaller one laughed and wagged his tail.

It had hard green scales, fiery red eyes, and a long forked tongue, and was several times what would become known as man-high someday. You may as well call it a dragon and have done with it. It was the Regent of the North.

It—he? He, then. He lived far in the north of Heaven, beneath mountains known for vulcanism. He had carved places out of the rock at the heart of the mountain, where he could feel warm and safe.

His former shape had been lost near the end of the Third Wave, and he had taken this one. It was very resistant to the effects of the flux. His breath could break any material down to its basic components, or turn a wave of cacoastrum into living illiaster.

None of the new angels entered the Northern Regency, and no one at all lived there, save the Regent. All feared him, for it was said that he was mad, that he had been wounded deeply, and it was unsafe to be near him.

Alone, unchanging, nursing his rage and his fear, the Regent of the North turned in his sleep. The Third Wave was over now, but when the next came, he would wake.

League upon league upon league of sea rose in temperature by exactly one and a half degrees, and she basked in it. The tip of her tail broke
the water and waved snake-like (had there been snakes) for a bit and then a bit. The water was a blue that an artist would despair of capturing. Above, the air smelled of the sea.

Her
sea! Here she was the master. As the last effects of the raw cacoastrum vanished, she found she could command this water by an effort of will, for it was hers.