It was the best work environment he could have hoped for, since Lord Azrael assigned his wife to be his tutor. As he heard, this was very much the usual practice – the spouses usually wanted to work together so that they would spend more time with each other, as that was a life priority, and since one was usually more experienced than the other, they would tutor them until they got the hang of it, which was usually very quickly, as everybody on the required level of competence was exceptionally smart. Carol wasn’t sure if that applied to him, but Azrael and Lakshmi told him not to worry.

He wasn’t sure why he kept his Wallachian name. That incarnation was very much an exception in his rather stellar career of an architect, engineer and a scientist. Even his less known incarnations were quite remarkable – his works on astronomy in Egypt and Babylon contributed significantly to the later achievements. As he found out only now, almost all of it was factually wrong, as it assumed that the relative observations from his standpoint on Earth were indicative of the actual reality of things. One more reason not to believe what you see, he reminded himself. What you see is usually the most deceptive part of what you think you know. That’s why I kept that name, instead of Vitruvius, or Nabû-nāṣir, chief architect under Nabû-kudurri-uṣur. It was the most fatal one, where all my flaws came to bear fruit. I kept it as a warning, to never again believe the supposed facts more than I believe the feeling in my heart. Had I listened to my heart, and not the facts and evidence, I wouldn’t have doomed myself and killed the most wonderful woman in the whole world.

To his great fortune, God was much smarter than he himself was stupid, and that really says a lot.

It was an equation with two solutions – when God gave Grace her husband, it could have ended either well or poorly, depending on what he did. If it ended poorly, and God didn’t provide for a solution that would compensate for it, he would literally have been at fault for her death – it would have been a trap akin to those Satan cooks up for his victims, only worse, because this one would be meant for an innocent person who did nothing but put her confidence in God. So, God had a very complex and roundabout way of solving that second wing of the equation in advance. And Grace, who trusted God with her life, is now someone God trusts with his Will, beside being his own Person. And she is his wife.

Father was right, he thought. I really do have more luck than brains.

“Ready?”, his wife whispered. “We have incoming”.

…

“My name is Casimir Liszinski. Where am I and who are you?”, the man wondered.

“My name is Grace, and this is my husband Carol. We are Judges appointed by God to evaluate your life”, she curtsied.

“Is there any place where I would be free from the accursed sheep of God and their judgments? First I am burned on a slow fire by them, and they follow me even in this damn place”, he fumed.

“You seem to be under multiple misapprehensions”, Grace smiled.

“Yes, that’s what they always say. I’m under a misapprehension for believing the Earth is round, that it revolves around the Sun, and that there’s no God. And you’ll teach me otherwise, or if I refuse, you’ll burn me on a stake while piously praying to your fucking bastard of a God that doesn’t even exist, evil morons and whoresons that you all are”.

Grace and Carol looked at each other in shock, and then Carol gave her a mischievous wink. “I think we should exchange our roles. Please, my Lady, stand aside and learn how it’s done”, and pushed her behind him as she giggled.

“So, my dear sir, you seem to be a man of reason, evidence and science, yes?”

“Indeed I am, but what would you know about those? You church rats keep persecuting scientists and science from the very beginnings. And you also subjugate women – just look at you, how you pushed your wife aside. You are all evil and I will resist you with all my power!”, he was working himself to a rage.

“By all means, please tell me more. For instance, how science was suppressed by the Church, and how I’m against it”, Carol said with the most serious face, while Grace worked to suppress her giggles.

“You and your fucking faith. Faith this, faith that. I’ll tell you what I have faith in: I have faith in evidence, measurements and my own mind. Before your faith, just look at what the people used to make. The Pyramids of Egypt, Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis, the aqueducts of Rome. And after you rats and sheep came to power, we had nought but plague and superstition. You invented ways to torture and burn heretics, instead of doing something useful!”

“The Hanging Gardens of Semiramis and the aqueducts of Rome, you say?”, Carol said most seriously, as Grace looked like someone who wished for a pillow she could release her laughter into. “I think I heard something about those”, Carol scratched his head, as if trying to remember.

“If you hadn’t spent all your time memorising your stupid Bible, you might have actually read something of meaning”, the man sneered.

“Do you have any recommendations?”, Carol asked innocently. “Maybe ‘De architectura’ by Vitruvius? Or some other classics that I might be unaware of?”

“You flatter yourself, sheep”, Casimir snorted with contempt. “If you had the ability to understand such works, you wouldn’t be where you are now”.

“And where is that, if I may ask?”, Carol feigned interest.

“Persecuting free thought, science and freedom of religious thought!”, barked the demon, because that was the best description Casimir could think of, for a black and godless astral being of hatred and malice.

“And I’m also repressing my wife, you say?”, Carol smiled.

“One day women will be liberated and emancipated, and then bastards such as yourself better watch out”, Casimir growled. “It’s easy for you now to treat women as inferiors, since they are ignorant and uneducated, but once we teach them to read, write and have power in society, your entire Church will be overthrown, because you exist only in the atmosphere of ignorance and repression!”

“I will now bow out and give word back to my inferior, ignorant and repressed wife, for I think I am done here”, Carol turned to Grace, who managed to assume her formal dignity.

“What would be your judgment?”, she asked.

“Hell for the godless souls”, he shrugged. “I mean, my initial impulse would have been to educate, but this one doesn’t have any desire to learn; he just growls his dogmatic nonsense. He looks as if he had been drinking from that satanic attractor I was used to power, and he is drunk with its madness, and thinks the reality of that world gives him power over God”.

“Yes, everything that is not of your disgusting made up ‘God’ must be satanic, you accursed uneducated sheep”, the man yelled. “Yes, throw me to hell because then you won’t have to face the power of my arguments!”

“No wonder they tore his tongue out down there. This is really unpleasant to listen to”, Carol mused.

“I agree”, she nodded, waved her hand and the man was gone. “Some things are supposed to be repressed and persecuted”.

“Thank you for letting me have my fun with him”, he kissed her hand.

“Are you kidding? I haven’t had so much fun in a while. I was almost tempted to tell him who you are, but it would be pointless”, she laughed freely now.

“He knows everything”, Carol agreed and lifted her up as she squealed in delight. “My poor oppressed and poorly educated wife”.

“How you mistreat me”, she snickered and kissed him.

“Is it wrong of me to think that this was so much fun? He’s obviously a terrible fool of Satan, but isn’t his fate supposed to be sad?”, he mused.

“It is sad when those people roam freely and spread their idiocy around, trying to seduce others away from the truth”, she shrugged. “It’s sad that some souls are actually making a choice to become thus. But it’s not sad that he’s made fun of and disposed of safely. It would be sad if we couldn’t do it”, she smiled again.

“Next?”, he raised an eyebrow.

“Next”, she nodded.