Chapter 24

Jean nagged me for sex all the way to the bed, but I guess that I won the argument by falling asleep before I finished removing all of my clothes. However, she did not let me escape when I woke up for supper. It was late in the evening by the time we ate, but I could usually get whatever I wanted because I was the current favorite of the Devil, and His was the only opinion that counted in Hell.

Jean was annoyed with me again when I told her that I had to visit Isbardia the next day to discuss the situation with the Supreme Council of the Master Wizards. I had to tell them that the first part of my plan had worked, and He was going to leave Isbardia alone for the next 1,000 years. Some of the Council were not going to believe that, but the proof was in the pudding. We had gained everything that we had wished for as far as Isbardia was concerned if the Devil kept his word, and I was sure that he would do that.

However, if He did not live up to His promise, we were only back to where we had been for the last 128 years or so, and I was prepared to take a more vigorous stance against Him if He did not live up to his promise. Nevertheless, until He proved otherwise, I was ready to live up to the wager. Eventually, we would have to take active military action against Him, but I wanted to put that off until after I had a trained army at my back. I figured that was going to take about 10 years unless our luck took a drastic change one way or the other. Until that happened, I was going to stick to the original plan that the Council had agreed to not long ago.

As far as I was concerned, this meeting was simply to report the change in the status of our conflict, but not to change any of it. Well, I knew that there would be some people who would want to make changes in the plan, but I was going to use pressure from Master Wizard Humbolt to force the Council to stick to its original agreement. I had already checked, and he was with me on that.

Master Wizard Marzil had set up a system whereby I could jump back and forth between Isbardia and Hell all in the same day with only about 1-2 hours of space between the jumps. Anyway, that was how I was able to jump back to Jean and have supper with her before she got agitated again. That alone was worth some effort on my part. I didn’t want to get her really pissed off at me.

The meeting with the Devil that morning was somehow different than had been the previous meetings. It was as if he showed me more respect as we talked. He finally got around to what He was really interested in; namely, the duels. He had come to the conclusion that humans were the best fighters in the galaxy, and it was not really fare to compare other fighters with the humans. Uh-oh, I wasn’t sure I liked the way this conversation was headed.

He finally got around to the ultimate question: What would it take for me to fight every one of the other races in the various galaxies? Oh, my God, what have I gotten myself into? There were something like 14 billion different races that could live under the same conditions that humans could, and every one of them produced some individuals who wound up in one version or another of Hell. I was surprised to learn that the one Devil whom I was getting to know very well was responsible for supervising all of the Hells that were needed to accommodate all of these various races. No wonder the Devil appeared to be harassed at times!

My answer to the main part of the Devil’s question was: Yes, I would be willing to fight a death match with each of these races, but I was going to have to be allowed to set some conditions for some of the fights. Also, I was going to need some R&R time off to allow my mind and body to operate at top efficiency. Actually, of course, I did not expect to fight all 14 billion races in 14 billion duels. Oops, that was exactly what the Devil had in mind! Dammit, 14 billion fights at one per day was going to take 14 billion days, and that came to over 38 million years if the fights were scheduled on consecutive days.

From the look on the Devil’s face when I said that, it was obvious that he had not considered just how protracted such a schedule would be. “Dammit, Jim, I had not considered that when I thought about the fights. I can see why you are hesitant to commit to such a long schedule. I will live forever, so 38 million years is not such a big deal for Me. In fact, I have already lived longer than that. Give Me a moment to think about the possibilities from your point of view...

“Ah, suppose we cut back to only those races that have a similar body type to yours. That reduces the possible number of fights to something like 13 million. Approximately 13 million fights at one per day comes to a little less than 40 thousand years. How does that sound to you?”

“Okay, Sir, you are getting closer to what I could handle mentally and emotionally. I assume that I could handle it physically, barring serious wounds that were not repaired. Hopefully, you would fix such wounds if any ever happened.

“I suggest that we give it a try for one week with a fight every day. That will tell me whether or not I could take a long string of fights. How does that sound to You?”

“Okay, one week of testing is agreeable to me if you really think that would be enough to tell you whether or not you could handle the stress and strain. I’ll have a week of fights set up, starting in five days. By tomorrow afternoon, I will have videos and statistics for each of your first seven opponents so that you will not be caught by surprise when you first meet one of them. We can start the contest with a goat man because you already know quite a lot about fighting them.”

“Very well, Sir, I will be at your disposal for seven days of fighting. I will want to take the eighth day as a holiday from the fights so that I can spend the whole time with Jean. I will need to do that if my relationship with her is to stand the test of what we have planned. I will tell her that You have agreed to keep me from being killed during this first week of fights. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes, I will keep you alive and well during that week. After all, I don’t want Jean upset with Me either.” He laughed at that statement, so I assumed that He would consider that as a promise to me, and I knew how He honored His promises.

Yeah, I fully expected the full scale “hissy fit” that Jean threw when she heard about my arrangement with the Devil. It took hours of repetitive explaining to get her to understand that the Devil would look after me during the fight. After all, if I were seriously injured or killed, He would lose me and would not have me to advise Him, which He said that He highly valued.

The next day, I found installed in my personal computer the seven dossiers that I had been promised. Six of them were male and one was female. All were generally humanoid in appearance, and fit in the same size range that I did. Included in each dossier was a list of possible weapons that my opponent might choose to use, and the selection would not necessarily be made before the day of the duel. Of course, no firearms were allowed so that this would be truly a test of the physical, mental, and emotional prowess of each individual.

The female fighter was to be the third one that I met, and I gave her some special study because I had never killed a humanoid female before now. As I read about her, I was completely relieved of all feelings of restraint because of her gender. She was a contract assassin and acted as if she thoroughly enjoyed her profession. Anyone who appeared to enjoy killing as much as she did went to the top of my hit list, and I was looking forward to roasting her with the electric bolts from my Demon Bane.

The six males were simply opponents that I was going to try to kill before they killed me, and that was what I had faced every one of my days as an Apprentice Hero. None of these opponents were of the least bit of concern for me beyond the kill or be killed consideration. Damned if I was not looking forward to all seven of these fights. Then it dawned on me: What had I become to be looking forward to killing a sentient individual for the amusement of the Devil? At this rate of progress, I was going to need a “shrink” in no time at all!

To my absolute astonishment, my first opponent, the goat man, chose throwing spears as his primary weapon. He showed up wearing a harness on his back with five spears in a kind of quiver and one spear in each of his hands, for a total of seven spears. Of course, he was free to use a throwing spear as a stabbing spear, so he was getting two weapons for the price of one.

He was also free to use a spear a second time, or even more times, if he could pick it up and throw it. His other offensive weapon was a large dagger hanging at his waist. Dammit, I wondered just how good he really was with the throwing spear.

I had my Demon Bane with its lightning charge as my main weapon, but I had the kubaton on the lanyard fastened to my left wrist. I also had a Bowie knife in a sheath at my waist and located along my spine where I could reach it with either hand as necessity might require.

The contest started with the Devil and Jean sitting to one side of the arena protected by the transparent wall, my opponent at one end of the oval arena, and me standing at the other end. I started running toward the goat man as soon as the starting bell sounded. I made a point of running in as much of a random zigzag pattern as I could manage so that I did not give the goat man a fixed target.

As I expected, he launched a spear at me as I made one of my turns in my run toward him. I was sure that he would do that, so I was ready and easily dodged the flying spear. It had been thrown hard enough to penetrate my skin if it had hit me, but the spear just rattled off the wall behind me and fell to the ground. By the way, the arena floor was covered with sand so that I would have plenty of traction as I dodged the thrown spears.

The one disadvantage of the thrown spear was that the spear caster had to be standing still when he threw the spear, and that was probably how I was going to catch him. He had launched the first spear as soon as the starting bell sounded, and it had landed harmlessly behind me as I started running. The second spear cast had been when I made that turn.

The goat man was still standing at his starting point, so I had to run the length of the arena to get to him. However, my zigzag run made me travel about twice or more times the actual length of the arena to get to where he was standing. I think that he was counting on me being out of breath by the time I got to him, but I was in such good physical condition that I had no problem with that.

The goat man was very quick at pulling a spear from the quiver and having it ready to cast. He was also damned accurate with his casts. On most occasions, he missed me only by inches, and that was way too close for comfort. He was going to hit me with a spear eventually if I didn’t hurry and eliminate him.

He had never moved very far from his starting position, and practically all movement was left up to me. Furthermore, he made a point of staying very close to the arena wall while casting a spear. That made it a practical impossibility for me to get behind him, and I was always where he could see me. His eyes were placed in his head such that he had a much wider scale of peripheral vision than I did, and I found that made it easier for him to keep me from slipping up on him. Dammit, this was going to be a tough nut to crack!