Robert Asprin - Aftermath

Guessing at the meaning behind the words, Jarveena bit her lip. Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes, and yet were welcome, for they disguised the ghastly form that Enas Yorl was melting into.

"Here, then, in brief, is the secret Klikitagh has hidden from every- body in the world, himself included.

"His punishment is just. He told me so."

"It cannot be! No one could deserve that fate!"

"Until today I would have said the same," Enas Yorl said solemnly, shifting on his chair as though his new form had grown unsuited to it.

"But how can he have told you so?" Jarveena persisted.

"I chose this of all days rather by enlightened guesswork than by proper knowledge. As it happened, I was right. On one day of the year, in the proper circumstances, he is able to remember why he deserves his curse."

"Tell me! Tell me!" Jarveena pleaded.

"Though you crept to me on hands and knees, bleeding in the extrem- ity of death, begging to be told before your final breath, I would not let description of such foulness pass my lips!"

Not that, strictly speaking, it was lips he now must use to speak with ...

"Know only this: after committing it, he bethought himself of his crime and repented. Haunted by self-loathing, he became a court to try himself, and passed the only sentence that was fitting. He wanted so to suffer that no person who had heard about his evil deed, and might be tempted to emulate it, would fail to hear as well about its perpetrator's punishment and change his mind-not considering that the time might come when any such would be long dead and all his victims totally forgotten. Therefore he made the sentence cruel past conceiving-save by one who was evil to the fiber of his nerves.

"He decreed that for all time he would believe, in total honesty and full conviction, that he'd done not a thing to warrant such a doom- Perhaps this affords some insight into the enormity of his misdeed."

"But what can he have done?" Jarveena shouted.

"You'll never guess. It isn't in your nature to imagine, let alone enact, so foul a crime."

"Has it tainted you?" She leaned forward accusingly, glad that she could only vaguely see the shape he now endured. "Has it deformed your mind as much as your body?" That was cruel, too, in its way, but she uttered the words regardless. "Have you no mercy? Is not a thousand years enough for even the foulest of villains?"

"Oh, yes." Enas Yorl's voice had become like the sough of wind in bare-branched trees. "More than enough, in my view.

"Not in his."

"You-you mean ..." Jarveena's mouth was suddenly dry. "You mean you tried to release him from the curse he wished upon himself?"

"I did."

"And he refused to let you, being a more powerful magician?"

"Not exactly."

She threw her hands in the air. "For pity's sake, Enas Yorl! Whether or not you pitied him, pity me who calls you friend! Never in my life before did I find anyone with better reason to hate the world than had I myself at nine years old! Make plain what you have done and not done!"

"I will try . , ." The voice grew fainter all the time. "But words must strain to compass these events. The spells required are half outside the normal universe ... I did succeed! No other wizard now alive could have accomplished what Enas Yorl achieved today, not even he at Ilsig whom they call most skilled, not he at Ranke who ato-serves the court.

"Jarveena: I gave Klikitagh his freedom."

There was a long stunned silence. When it had become more than she could bear, Jarveena husked, "But you said it would have killed him!"

"Which it did."

"What?"

"I speak in plain words, do I not? Despite the deformation I endure!" The tone was savage now, and sent new shivers down Jarveena's spine. "Well, maybe your nature fights acceptance. Words plainer then than ever must be tried.

"I gave him his release! He died! And even dead,- so dreadful is the power of that spell, he rose again and said-praise all the gods that no one save myself could hear those awful words!-'Dead or not dead, I am condemned to walk the world. I may not eat a second time from the same table, nor may I sleep a second time from the same bed. It is decreed. By me. It shall continue!'"

From his recital of the quoted words rang forth a hint, an echo, of the force that had endowed the curse on Klikitagh with its original power. It was unbearable. Crying aloud, her brain assailed by hideous visions, Jarveena slumped fainting from her chair.

In the light of torches, both her cheeks gleamed wet.

She woke, once more at dawn, and found herself alone at Melilot's, as had often happened to her in the past. Not this time, however, was her frame pervaded by the truly magic skill of Enas Yorl's caresses. Only a dull sense of deprivation filled her mind as she kicked aside the covers and moved to use her chamber pot, then douse herself with the contents of the ewer on the nightstand. Then, unconcerned as ever about naked- ness, she dragged the curtains back and threw the shutters wide to the new day- Cold air combined with cold water to bring her back to full alertness. She reached for her clothes-and checked, catching sight of her reflec- tion in the tall and expensive mirror that hung beside the window.

There was no trace of any scar upon her body. Not the faintest, lace- like, weblike hint beneath the skin could be discerned. She was as perfect as though no wire-lashed whip had ever whistled through the air to break blood from her tender flesh.

Amazed, then astounded, she flicked back her forelock. Surely the cicatrix her forehead bore-?

Gone as well

"But I told him!" she said aloud. "I mean. I told Melilot, and he was listening! I said I wanted to keep that for when it came in useful ..."

The words died away. She let her hands fall to her sides.

"Oh, you're in there, aren't you, Enas Yorl? You've sown a counterpart of yourself inside my brain! It's the same trick that taught me the names of your basilisks! Maybe you have too much on your mind to hear me at the moment, but I'm damned well going to treat your projection the same as I would yourself! Now answer me! Why did you take my forehead scar away before I gave you leave?"

The reply came, not in speech, but in a sense of warm and private intercourse, reaching below the deepest level of her mind. If it resembled anything at all, it might be likened to the impact of hot spiced wine on a cold day.

"Not me," said the mental duplicate of Enas Yorl in words that were not words. "Not by my intention, anyway. Listen, Jarveena, and remem- ber all your life!

"Not to recall what he had done was for Klikitagh a mercy. I state this on the basis of what I have found out. To live with recollection of such horror ... ! You must concede this."

She nodded, participating in this nonexistent dialogue.

"However, it became exacerbation of his punishment. It made his sen- tence unendurable. Indeed it was a mercy worse than none. He knew it, and condemned himself regardless."

Again a nod, tinged this time with terror.

"Yet you took pity on him!"

"Yes, I did!"-defiantly. "And I still feel the same!" "You were the first to do so in a thousand years."

For an instant she stood rigid. Then:

"I can't have been!"

"He told me so when I interrogated him, invoking a power greater than any god's. Not once, till he met you, had anyone felt pity for his plight."

"Then I weep for our sick world!" Jarveena cried-and abruptly it was true. Tears that had so long been unfamiliar to her flowed as freely down her face as they had last night.

"And well you may," the illusory Enas Yorl confirmed.

There was a pause.

"For you have worked a miracle."

"I don't understand." Snuffling, fighting to regain control, Jarveena resumed the donning of her clothes.