stones, who has not yet had time — or lacks utterly the inclination — to impose his will on the world.”
Manxolio sipped his tea meditatively. “You seem capable of clear deductions, which is at odds with your mental defect. How do you know of such mysteries, as, to pick a merely random example, the exact specifics of the Dark Iron Wand?”
“An afflatus, a ghost, an echo, seems to tremble in my brain. Now it is gone.” A haunted look shivered through the young man’s countenance. “I seem to see the tapestry of knowledge as a vast and varied landscape, picked out with fulvous hues of gold, tawny, or silver-white, emerald and aquamarine, seething with the shapes of man and beast, dates and places, an intricate structure of mathematics, more colossal than a tower. Then the mind-cloud returns, and all is snatched away.”
Manxolio, who knew friends of his own age that suffered from senility or depredations of time, was disquieted. “In any case, there is a second and obvious clue as to your origin. The question arises: how long across the surface of the senile Earth could a man bereft of memory, penniless and weaponless, wander? Your face betrays no signs of long fasting; your flesh is not cracked with thirst, nor do you bear scars such as might be found upon someone who has escaped the alarming claws of forest Deodands, dire-wolves, flesh-eager anthropophages, or one-eyed Arimaspians. You have hardly even a growth of beard. What is your earliest memory?”
“I saw a star. I was standing near a great rock covered with ochre moss, and I wept.”
“From what direction did you approach this city?”
“I am not sure. The stars look wrong to me, as if they are shifted from their accustomed positions.”
“Curious. I can put no meaning to that comment.”
“I remember walking along a dry streambed.”
Manxolio spread his hands, breaking into a smile. “That is the river Scaum, drunk dry by the titan Magnatz, who is rumored to be lumbering through the lands west of here, toppling mountains and trampling towers. If you came afoot, it will be a simple matter, less than an afternoon’s ride, to follow your trail on mounted steeds, perhaps with an ahulph to track the scent, and discover where your essence was lost.”
The young man came to his feet. “Your thought process has struck upon an elegant solution! When can we begin?”
“Ah! I do not wish to trifle with a magician who controls the efficacy of IOUN Stones. Even to have spoken to you involves me in discomforting jeopardy. Who knows what clairvoyance this mage might command? His sandestins could be anywhere. A whorl of mystic excrescence could even now be being parsed from the hide of some chained demon-being, to be flung across intervening miles from some warlock’s laboratory, to shatter the panels of my doors, intrude into the chamber, and reduce me instantly to soot. No! The question of proper remuneration asserts itself.”
And, with a delicate motion, he drew the Implacable Dark Iron Wand from its holster, and laid it in the young stranger’s lap.
Manxolio Quinc said meditatively, “While I might, hypothetically, be delighted to exert my proficiency on your behalf merely for the intellectual pleasure that comes of the exercise of one’s faculties, in practice, the Law of Equipoise must intercede. Savants have studied the cosmos and determined that for each action there must be a corresponding counter-action; for each debt, payment; for each effort, recompense; for each injustice, revenge! When all the balancing forces have countered each other, all stresses released, neutrality will dominate, and the universe sink into peaceful, if exhausted, oblivion.”
“A dismal theory. Suppose it so: then what did those who concocted it receive in return for its invention? If they acted from selfless love of truth, their theory is invalidated.”
Manxolio scowled in confusion. “Tell me, first, can the force ever be restored to this wand?”
The youth gazed at him with narrow eyes. “You could make yourself a power greater than ever was the Grand Motholam. Is that the payment you wish?”
Manxolio shook his head. “My ambitions are far less exquisite. I crave that the Implacable Dark Iron Wand be restored to its legendary magnificence that I might protect myself.”
“From your enemies?”
“Mine are not so fearsome. From
The youth, without a further word, unfolded the wand, touched a section with a quick flick of his fingers. To Manxolio’s astonishment, the outer surface of the Implacable Dark Iron Wand opened with a ringing like the clatter of coins.
The innards thus exposed consisted of a tightly-wound spine of multicolored strands and curving threads of glass and metal and fire, to which were affixed black metallic disks, slivers of pale crystal, hissing orbs of eye- defeating nothingness, and points of light smaller and bluer than the tails of fireflies.
“How did you open it?” asked Manxolio in a strangled voice.
“Manually. The thought-sensitive nodes that would normally render the wand dehiscent upon unspoken command are inoperative. Depressing these two carbuncles works the molecular latch.”
“Those two…How abnormal!” Manxolio found himself leaning foreword. Recovering his dignity, and not wishing to seem at a loss, now he sank back in his chair cushions, saying nonchalantly, “Neither my father nor my grandfather imparted to me that such a latch existed. Obviously, there was no need.”
The young man gave him a penetrating look. “You have owned this instrument for how many years, and you never made a systematic inspection of it?”
Manxolio groped for an answer, but the youth had already returned to his task. “What are you doing now?”
“I am tuning the internal register to my life-patterns, so that I may have the diagnostic index inspired into my conceptual lobe. There is a sufficient residual charge of nervous flux remaining, I hope: otherwise, I will not be able to read the instrument.”
At once, the little blue dots of light shining from the inner works flickered and went dim.
The young man seemed distraught. “A piece of ill luck! Even a partial investment of the thought-energy extender has drained the primary operative!” He closed the hemicylindrical housing, and telescoped the Wand back to a short baton. No whisper came from the black metal
“It is inert! You’ve killed it!” cried Manxolio, leaping to his feet. “I have known that artifact since childhood! You are a murderer!”
“Do not indulge in anthropomorphism. I am still effecting a repair.” The young man rose unhurriedly to his feet, unfolded the wand once again, and tapped the heel sharply against the carpet. To the infinite relief of Manxolio, the familiar low moan, a throb of power, issued softly from the wand.
The youth now performed a strange act. Facing one direction, then another, he moved the wand back and forth in a slow arc. The susurration rose and fell in pitch.
“What do these antics mean?” said Manxolio, his eyes wide.
Again, the youth gave Manxolio an odd look. “You have never noticed that the sound given off by the repair cycle alters in pitch and consistence?”
Manxolio nodded brusquely. “Of a certainty! Am not I the Earth’s last Effectuator, a man of perspicacity, an acute observer of details? I have often waved the wand to make the pitch oscillate. It frightens suspects into odd confessions.”
The young stranger said, “But the cause of the change did not provoke your curiosity? You never mapped the waveforms against a graph? You never followed the variation in sound to its source?”
Manxolio gazed at him blankly. “I assume you mean to make some trenchant point, but, at the moment, your meaning escapes me.”
The youth favored him with an easy smile. “Grasp the Wand lightly. The sound will climb in pitch as we grow closer to the source of the signal, which implies an energy supply. There may be a potentium nearby, at which we can restore the instrument to power.”
