It was a pleasure for Azzie to be free and able to roam the green earth once again. He had really hated his stay in the Pit, for its simple-minded repetitiousness as much as anything else-you can get very tired of the dreary daily round of roasting sinners. Azzie was an energetic demon, enterprising, forward-looking. He was an agent of evil, and despite a certain air of frivolousness, he took his hellish duties seriously.

After leaving Scrivener's village, the first thing he wanted to do was orient himself. This region was not familiar to him. Azzie had visited Earth last during Imperial Roman times and had even been present at one of Caligula's notable feasts. Now, flying low over the land that had been called Gaul, he was guarded from mishap by his Amulet of Invisibility. The Amulet also conferred a degree of impalpability upon its wearer, which was just as well when he passed through a large flock of trum­peter swans. As he flew Azzie noted the forest stretching out on all sides. The village had been but a patch in that great forest that covered most of Europe and stretched from Scythia to Spain. Azzie found a muddy track running through it and fol­lowed it at an altitude of about five hundred feet. The track stretched on and on, at last opening out into a proper paved Roman road. He accompanied a group of horsemen down the road and into a city of fair size. Later, he learned this was Troyes, a part of the kingdom of the Franks, who were large barbarians with iron swords who had taken over all of Gaul and much more since the decline of Roman power.