The man must have thought the Frightener was out of earshot. He rubbed her knobby hand. “We got this far. The bottle was there. The afrit was there. The magic was there. The first spell worked. Look at me, can you see? It worked!”
Her eyes opened. She stirred.
“Don’t mind the wrinkles. I don’t hurt anywhere. Here, feel!” He wrapped the woman’s fingers around his left foot. “The second spell, he did just as we thought. I don’t think we’ll even need—” The man looked up. He raised his voice. “Frightener, this is Mirandee.”
Kreezerast approached. “Your mate?”
“Close enough. My companion. My final wish is that Mirandee be healthy.”
This was too much. “You know we hate boredom. It is discourteous of you to make two wishes that are the same.”
Clubfoot picked up the gold, turned his back and walked away. “I’ll remain as courteous as possible,” he snarled over his shoulder. “I remind you that you carried me facing backward. Was that discourteous, or did you consider it a joke?”
“A joke. Here’s another. Your…companion must be nearly one hundred years old. A healthy woman of that age would be dead.”
“Hah hah. Nobody dead is healthy. I already know that you can fulfill my wish.”
Kreezerast wondered if the man would use the gold to bribe him. That would be amusing. “I point out also that you are not truly my rescuer—”
“Am I not? Haven’t I rescued you from boredom? Aren’t you enjoying the wishing game?” Clubfoot was shouting over his shoulder across a gap of twenty paces. In fact he had walked beyond the region where magic lived, while Kreezerast was still looking for ways to twist his third wish.
That easily, he was beyond Kreezerast’s vengeance. “You have bested me. I admit it, but I can limit your satisfaction. One more word from you and I kill the woman.”
Clubfoot nodded. He spread a robe from the saddlebags against the side of a dune and made himself comfortable on it.
No curses, no pleading, no bribe? Kreezerast said, “Speak your one word.”
“Wait.”
What? “I won’t hurt her. Speak.”
The man’s voice now showed no anger. “Our biggest danger was that we would find you to be stupid.”
“Well?”
“I think we’ve been lucky. A stupid afrit would have been very dangerous.”
The man spoke riddles. Kreezerast turned to black smoke and drifted south, beaten and humiliated.
Once upon a time a man had wished to be taller. Kreezerast had lengthened his bones and left the muscles and tendons alone. Over time he’d healed. A woman had wished for beauty; Kreezerast had given her an afrit’s beauty. Afterward men admired her eerie, abstract loveliness, but never wished her favors—and she was one who had shied from men.
But no man had ever bested him like this!
What did the magician expect? Kreezerast had watched men evolve over the thousands of years. He had watched magicians strip the land of magic, until better species died or changed. He had no reason to love men, nor to keep his promises to a lesser breed.
The bottle beckoned…but Kreezerast rose into the air. High, higher: three miles, ten. Was there any sign of his own kind? None at all. Patches where manna still glowed strong? None. Here and here were encampments, muffled men and women attended by strange misshapen beasts. Men had taken the world.
The world had changed. It would change again. Kreezerast the Frightener would wait in his refuge until something or someone dug him up. A companion would come…and would hear the tale. Afrits didn’t lie to each other.
So be it. At least he need not confess to killing the woman out of mere spite. Let her man watch her die over the next few days. Let him tend her while his water dwindled.
The key to survival was to live only through interesting times.
Here was the bottle. Now, where…
Where was the stopper?
The stopper bore afrit’s magic. Sand could not hide it from him.
Gold would. Wild magic would hide the magic in the stopper. It was a box, a box!
The camp was untouched. The woman had not moved. Her breathing was labored.
Clubfoot lay against the next dune. He had gone for the beasts and the supplies in their saddle bags. He said nothing. The golden cube glowed at his feet.
Kreezerast said, “Very well. You can reach Xyloshan Village and I cannot stop you, if you are willing to abandon the woman. So. You win.”
Clubfoot said, “Why do I want to talk to a liar?”
The answer was obvious enough. “For the woman.”
“And why will you stoop to bargaining with a mere man?”
“For the stopper. But I can make another.”
“Can you? I could never make another Mirandee.” The man sat up. “We feared you would twist the third wish somehow. We never dreamed you’d refuse to grant it at all.”
He would have to remake stopper and bottle, for they were linked. And he could do that, but not here, nor anywhere on this manna-poor desert. Perhaps nowhere.
He said, “Give me the stopper and I will grant your third wish, or any other you care to make.”
“But I don’t trust you.”
“Trust this, then. I can repair this Mirandee’s nerves. In fact…yes.” He looked deep into her body, deep into her fine structure. This one had never been crippled. She’d never borne children either. Odd. It was humankind’s only form of immortality.
He cleared inert goo out of big blood vessels and myriads of tiny ones. He repaired the heart. Now she would not die inconveniently. Nerves had become inert through the body; he fixed that too.
She stirred, flung out an arm. Her breathing was faster now. He sensed increased blood flow to her brain.
Kreezerast called, “So sensation has returned—”
She whispered, “Clubfoot?” She rolled over, and squeaked with pain. She saw the tremendous man-shape above her; studied it without blinking, then rolled to her knees and faced north. “Clubfoot. Stay there,” she croaked. “Well done!” He couldn’t have heard her.
“So her sensation has returned and her mind is active too,” the Frightener called. “Now she can feel and understand pain. I will give her pain. Do you trust my word?”
“Let us see if you trust mine,” the man called. “I will never give the stopper to you. Never. Mirandee must do that for me. You must persuade her to do that.”
Persuade? Torture! Until she begged to do him any service he asked. But then she must go and get the stopper, where magic failed…fool. Fool!
The Frightener shrank until he stood some seven feet tall. He said, “Woman, your paramour has wished you to be healthy. If I make you healthy, will you give me that which he holds in ransom?”
She blinked. “Yes.”
“Will you also keep me company for a day?” Postpone. Delay. Wait. “Tell me stories. The world is not familiar to me anymore.”
Her thoughts were slow…and careful. “I will do that, if you will give me food and water. As for keeping you company—”
“I speak of social intercourse,” he said quickly. To show Clubfoot’s woman that an afrit was a better mate would have been entertaining. If they were lovers. She was far older than he was…but there were spells to keep a woman young. Had been spells. She had been a powerful magician, he saw that. In fact (that unwinking gaze, as if he were being judged by an equal!) this whole plan might have been hers.
He had lost. He was even losing his anger. They had known the danger. What a gamble they had taken! And Kreezerast must even be polite to this woman, and persuade her not to break her promise after she had walked beyond his reach.
He said, “Then tell me how you almost brought the Moon to Earth. But first I will heal you. This will hurt.” He set to work. She screamed a good deal; and so he kept that promise too.
Bones, joints, tendons: he healed them all. Ovaries were shrunken, but not all eggs were gone; they could be brought to life. Glands. Stomach. Gut
. Kreezerast continued until she was a young woman writhing and gasping, new inside and withered outside.
Clubfoot did not run to his lady to help her in her pain.
They might still make a mistake. If nothing else thwarted them, perhaps he had one last joke to play.
She’d feel the wrinkles when she touched her face! But wrinkles do not constitute ill health. But she must give him the stopper. Kreezerast pulled her skin smooth, face and hands and forearms (but not where cloth covers her. Hah! She’ll never notice until it’s too late!) legs, belly, breasts, pectoral muscles too. (She might.)
The sun had gone. He set sand afire for warmth and summoned up a king’s banquet. Clubfoot stayed in his place of safety and chewed dried meat. She didn’t touch the wine. Mirandee and the Frightener ate together, and talked long, while Clubfoot listened at a distance.
He told her of the tinker and his family who had wished for jewels, once upon a time. He’d given them eighty pounds of jewels. They had one horse and a travois. A hundred curious villagers were swarming to where they had seen the looming, smoky form of an afrit.
But the tinker and his wife had thrown handfuls of jewels about the road and into the low bushes, and fled for a day before they stopped to hide what they kept. Forty years later their grandchildren were wealthy merchants.
Mirandee had seen the last god die, and it was a harrowing tale. She spoke of a changed world, where powerless sorcerers were becoming artists and artisans and musicians, where men learned to fish for themselves because the merpeople were gone, where war was fought with bloody blades and no magic at all.
Almost he was tempted to see more of it. But what would he see? If he ventured where the manna was gone, he would go mythical.
Presently he watched her sleep. Boring.
They talked the morning and afternoon away. At evening Mirandee folded the canopy and gathered the blankets and bedding and walked away with it all on her shoulders. She had been strong; she was strong again. She crossed the barrier between magic and no magic. Kreezerast could do nothing. She came back to collect food and wine left over from the banquet, and crossed again.
She and her man set up their camp. Kreezerast heard them talking and laughing. He saw Clubfoot’s hands wander beneath the woman’s robes, and was relieved: he had not fooled himself, at least. What of the stopper?
Neither had mentioned it at all.
He waited. He would not beg.
Mirandee took Clubfoot’s golden cube. She carried it to the margin of magic. Her magical sense was gone; would she cross? No, they’d marked it. She swung the cube by the straps and hurled it several feet.
Kreezerast picked it up. The wild magic hurt his hands. There was no lid. He pulled the soft metal apart and had the stopper.
Time to sleep.
He let himself become smoke, and let the smoke thin. The humans ignored him. Perhaps they thought he had gone away; perhaps they didn’t care. He hovered.
The canopy and the darkness hid their lovemaking, but it couldn’t hide their surging, flashing auras. Magic was being made in that dead region. They were lovers indeed, if they had not been before. And Kreezerast grinned and turned toward his bottle.
In her youth she had chosen not to bear children.
Kreezerast had given them their health in meticulous detail. The ex-sorceress’s natural lust to mate had already set their auras blazing again. She’d have a dozen children before time caught up with her, unless she chose abstinence, and abstinence would be a hardship on her.
Some human cultures considered many children a blessing. Some did not. Certainly their traveling days were over; they’d never get past that little village. And Kreezerast the Frightener crawled into his bottle and pulled the stopper after him.
• • •
• • •
THE LION IN HIS ATTIC
Mon Grenier, “My Attic”, is the Nivens’ favorite restaurant. It’s the Pournelles’ too. I mention that because we gave Mon Grenier a mention in LUCIFER’S HAMMER.
And one day I moved “My Attic” and its proprietor, Andre Lion, 14,000 years into the past, to shortly after the Warlock’s era, when magic was disappearing from the land…
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Before the quake it had been called Castle Minterl, but almost nobody outside Minterl remembered that. Small events drown in large ones. Atlantis itself, an entire continent, had drowned in the tectonic event that sank this small peninsula.
For seventy years the seat of government had been at Beesh, and that place was called Castle Minterl. Outsiders called this drowned place Nihilil’s Castle, for its last lord, if they remembered at all. Three and a fraction stories of what had been the south tower still stood above the waves. They bore a third name now: Lion’s Attic.
The sea was choppy today. Durily squinted against bright sunlight glinting off waves. Nothing of Nihilil’s Castle showed beneath the froth.
The lovely golden-haired woman ceased peering over the side of the boat. She lifted her eyes to watch the south tower come toward them. She murmured into Karskon’s ear, “And that’s all that’s left.”
Thone was out of earshot, busy lowering the sails; but he might glance back. The boy was not likely to have seen a lovelier woman in his life, and as far as Thone was concerned, his passengers were seeing this place for the first time. Karskon turned to look at Durily and was relieved. She looked interested, eager, even charmed.
But she sounded shaken. “It’s all gone! Tapestries and banquet hall and bedrooms and the big ballroom…the gardens…all down there with the fishes, and not even merpeople to enjoy them…that little knob of rock must have been Crown Hill…Oh, Karskon, I wish you could have seen it.” She shuddered, though her face still wore the mask of eager interest. “Maybe the riding-birds survived. Nihilil kept them on the roof.”
“You couldn’t have been more than…ten? How can you remember so much?”
A shrug. “After the Torovan invasion, after we had to get out…Mother talked incessantly about palace life. I think she got lost in the past. I don’t blame her much, considering what the present was like. What she told me and what I saw myself, it’s all a little mixed up after so long. I saw the traveling eye, though.”
“How’d that happen?”
“Mother was there when a messenger passed it to the king. She snatched it out of his hand, playfully, you know, and admired it and showed it to me. Maybe she thought he’d give it to her. He got very angry, and he was trying not to show it, and that was even more frightening. We left the palace the next day. Twelve days before the quake.”
Karskon asked, “What about the other—?” But warning pressure from her hand cut him off.
Thone had finished rolling up the sail. As the boat thumped against the stone wall he sprang upward, onto what had been a balcony, and moored the bowline fast. A girl in her teens came from within the tower to fasten the stern line for him. She was big as Thone was big: not yet fat, but hefty, rounded of feature. Thone’s sister, Karskon thought, a year or two older.
Durily, seeing no easier way out of the boat, reached hands up to them. They heaved as she jumped. Karskon passed their luggage up and joined them, leaving the cargo for others to move.
Thone made introductions. “Sir Karskon, Lady Durily, this is Estrayle, my sister. Estrayle, they’ll be our guests for a month. I’ll have to tell Father. We bring red meat in trade.”
The girl said, “Oh, very good! Father will love that. How was the trip?”
“Well enough. Sometimes the spells for wind just don’t do anything. Then there’s no telling where you wind up.” To Karskon and Durily he said, “We live on this floor. These outside stairs take you right up past us. You’ll be staying on the floor above. The top floor is the restaurant.”
Durily asked, “And the roof?”
“It’s flat. Very convenient. We raise rabbits and poultry there.” Thone didn’t see the look that pa
ssed across Durily’s face. “Shall I show you to your rooms? And then I’ll have to speak to Father.”
Nihilil’s Castle dated from the last days of real magic. The South Tower was a wide cylindrical structure twelve stories tall, with several rooms on each floor. In this age nobody would have tried to build anything so ambitious.
When Lion petitioned for the right to occupy these ruins, he had already done so. Perhaps the idea amused Minterl’s new rulers. A restaurant in Nihilil’s Castle! Reached only by boats! At any rate, nobody else wanted the probably haunted tower.
The restaurant was on the top floor. The floor below would serve as an inn, but as custom decreed that the main meal was served at noon, it was rare for guests to stay over. Lion and his wife and eight children lived on the third floor down.
Though “Lion’s Attic” was gaining some reputation on the mainland, the majority of Lion’s guests were fishermen. They often paid their score in fish or in smuggled wines. So it was that Thone found Lion and Merle hauling in lines through the big kitchen window.
Even Lion looked small next to Merle. Merle was two and a half yards tall, and rounded everywhere, with no corners and no indentations: His chin curved in one graceful sweep down to his wishbone; his torso expanded around him like a tethered balloon. There was just enough solidity, enough muscle in the fat, so that none of it sagged at all.
And that was considerable muscle. The flat-topped fish they were wrestling through the window was as big as a normal man, but Merle and Lion handled it easily. They settled the corpse on its side on the center table, and Merle asked, “Don’t you wish you had an oven that size?”
“I do,” said Lion. “What is it?”
“Dwarf island-fish. See the frilly spines all over the top of the thing? Meant to be trees. Moor at an island, go ashore. When you’re all settled the island dives under you, then snaps the crew up one by one while you’re trying to swim. But they’re magical, these fish, and with the magic dying away—”