"Me?" Azzie said. "What can I do?"

"You can enter the contest."

Azzie shook his head. "The representative of Evil is chosen at the Grand Council by the High Evil Powers. They always play favorites, giving the making of the contest to one of their friends. I wouldn't stand a chance."

"That is how it was in the old days," Hermes said. "But I've heard that Hell is reforming itself. They are being sorely pressed by the Powers of Light. Nepotism, excellent though it is, is no longer sufficient to carry their point of view. Now, as I understand it, the selecting of the contestant must be awarded on merit.'

"Merit! What a novel concept! But there's still nothing I can do."

"Don't be a defeatist like so many other young demons," Hermes said sternly. "So many of them are lazy, content just to lie around, take drugs, swap tales, and take the easy way through eternity. You are not like that, Azzie. You're clever, and you have principles, initiative. Do something. You may actually have a chance."

"But I don't know what to do," Azzie said. "And even if I did, I have no money to carry it out with."

"You paid the old woman," Hermes pointed out.

"That was fairy gold. It vanishes after a day or two. If I want to make an entry in the contest, it calls for real money."

"I know where some is," Hermes said.

"Where? How many dragons do I have to slay to get it?"

"No dragons at all. You merely have to best the other players in the Founder's Day Poker Game."

"Poker!" Azzie breathed. "My passion! Where's the game?"

"It is taking place three days hence in a graveyard in Rome. But you must play better this time than last, else you'll be returned to the Pit for a few hundred more years.

"In fact," Hermes said, "you need what gamblers of a later day will call an edge."