And The Devil Will Drag You Under by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780345323347
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1984-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

2

“Are there really people here, or is this just more of the act?” Mac Walters asked the demon prince Abaddon over steak, baked potato, and coffee in the cafe.

Abaddon smiled. “Well, yes and yes. Yes, there are real people here and yes, it’s all part of the act.” He became serious and commonsensical in tone and expression, as if lecturing a novice or new student. “You see, creating inanimate objects and special effects is easy. Here in the training area anybody can do it, and on the stable planes those of us with amplifiers can do it, although only to a minor degree. To give you an idea as to the power of the jewels, six will certainly deflect a rogue planet and sixty are used to create a stable plane. But living things—that’s a bit different. In the creation process we can, of course, establish the building blocks for the evolution of life by any rules we choose and let it take its course. We can also, with the jewels, affect things which are already alive. There is, however, a binder force, if you will—it’s difficult to put it in layman’s terms—in all living things, and there is an enormous but finite amount of it. It’s this force, stabilized by the persona of Mac Walters, that travels the planes and enters other bodies, not the physical you. Only we Main Liners, who are the only naturally created plane’s inhabitants—at least I think and hope so—can and must travel and take our physical selves along. In most cases this force is dispersed upon death, but not always. If the personality is particularly strong it might survive intact—a ghost, if you will—or partially, as an elemental insane force, a poltergeist or some such phenomenon, at least for a time.”

He paused to polish off the rest of his food and swig some coffee. He looked neither anxious nor worried, which bothered Mac considerably, since he was staking his jewel on the coming contest.

“But here, you see,” the demon continued, “there was no creation as such. Anyone who dies here is stuck here and is usable by the living who enter. Most are sacrifices, people and animals who pledged themselves or were pledged to us in rites, plucked a fraction of a second before true death by one of us and brought here, and in some cases just people picked at random as needed. People disappear all the time in every world—no real problem.”

He pulled two cigars from his coat pocket, offered Mac one—which was declined—then lit his in the interesting manner of having his index finger burst into flame. Mac tried not to be unnerved, and it suddenly occurred to him that the demon might be trying to psych him out.

Abaddon inhaled and blew out a big cloud of purple-gray smoke. “Of course,” he added, “there are some planes where nobody really dies—ones which have reincarnation and the like, and one where the best of the faithful become demigods and get to do their own minicreations.

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