boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

514 Anthony Boucher and Miriam Allen deFord
“No,” Zoth went on; “what I mean is closer to the simple akkir plane. These are
lesser beings, but powerful enough. If one of them can be brought into your power,
he can be compelled to grant you five wishes. You have such?”
“Fairies, leprechauns, demons … I see what you mean. But on Earth it is, according
to legend, only three wishes that he grants. “
“You are luckier than we.”
So Zoth’s Standard Galactic, the scout thought with amusement, was not so
altogether perfect as he had assumed—luckier when he meant less lucky. Patrick hid
a smile as Zoth refilled their goblets.
“I shall tell you the whole story. It is the easiest way to make it clear.”
… if not necessarily convincing, Patrick thought. And yet, he asked himself, have
you, my bright Galactic scout, found any normal rational method of accounting for this
deserted planet, this celestial Mary Celeste?
“Fifty years ago I was twenty-three years old. You look surprised. I can age like
other akkir, but I can never be senile.
“I was young. I was poor. I had a mean job I hated. I was lonely, with no close
friends—I, so gregarious a man—and I was madly in love with a girl who would
not even look at me. I was in despair.
“How the grosh was summoned to me and how he came under my power I shall
not tell you. It would be too hard to make it plain, and besides, these are secret things
better not told. But he came, and I did subdue him to my will.”
“The grosh—that’s the demon?”
“You may call him so; he is in any event a being like neither you nor me, nor
any material creature. I may tell you that my own grandfather was a vardun—
a priest in the great temple of the Nameless in this city—and from him, though
I myself was not chosen to be a vardun, I had learned many things in my boyhood.”
He repeated the propitiatory gesture—the arms raised and the thumbs and
forefingers pressed together.
“So there I was, with five wishes at my disposal. Even then—though I never
guessed”—Zoth shuddered—“I thought it wise not to use up all of them at once,
but to keep one at least in reserve. You will see how wise that was—but still not
wise enough.
“What does anyone want? Long life, health, wealth, love, fame perhaps, though
that I did not care about: and if one’s heart is good, one wants also good fortune
for others as well. I was canny; I had speculated long, to get into small compass as
much as possible of the things I craved and had never had.”
“Understandably,” Patrick nodded. “We are of different worlds, Zoth, but of
the same nature.”
“So I wished, first, to live to a hundred years at least, and always in good health
and strength, without injury or illness. ‘Granted,’ said the grosh.
“Then I wished, not for great wealth which may be a burden, but that I should
never lack for any comfort or luxury I might desire. And, since I am one who loves
my fellow-beings, loves company and good talk—I, who for fifty years have spoken
only to that silly creature in there!—I specified that among these comforts and luxuries
must be the ability to converse freely with every person I ever met. You must