“A which?”
“A wimp—a wish-imp. You see, if the universe ran strictly according to coherent laws, it would be unchanging. This would be equally dull for God and for man. So there has to be chance and intervention. For instance, there are miracles. But those are important and don’t happen every day. So there’s the chance element that every man can, quite unconsciously, perform miracles. Haven’t you sometimes had the most unlikely wish work out, contrary to all expectations?”
“Once in a thousand times.”
“That’s about the odds; more would produce chaos. Well, that was because there was a Taurine wimp around. The wimps aren’t many; but they constantly wander about among men. When one of them overhears a wish made by a man under his sign, he grants it.”
“And it works?”
“It works. If I had only run onto a Sagittarian wimp in Darjeeling—”
Gilbert Iles goggled, and took a long swig of buttered rum. “May I,” he said solemnly, “be eternally cursed!”
Ozymandias gasped. “Good heavens! I certainly never expected you to pick a wish like that!”
That slight joggling of the air was the Taurine wimp giggling. It was always delighted by the astonishing involuntary wishes of people. As Puck was forever saying, “What fools these mortals be!” It giggled again and soared away.
Gilbert Iles gulped the rest of his rum. “You mean that . . . that exclamation counted as a wish?”
“It was phrased as one, wasn’t it, colleague? May I be— That’s the way you make wishes.”
“And I am—” Without the buttered rums, the solid legal mind of lies would have hooted at such a notion; but now it seemed to have an ominous plausibility. “Then I am cursed?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But how? Does it mean that when I die I’ll—”
“Oh no. Cursed, not damned. A curse affects you in this life.”
“But how?” lies insisted.
“Should I know? You didn’t specify. The wimp probably turned you over to the nearest demon. There’s no telling what his specialty is.”
“No telling? But you . . . you said you could call spirits from the vasty deep. Can’t you call demons and find out about curses?”
“Hm-m-m.” Ozymandias hesitated. “I could maybe. But if I made the least mistake and got the wrong kind of demon— Or if— It might even be a curse you’d sooner not know about.”
lies shook his head. “I want to know. A smart lawyer can handle anything. I don’t know why curses and demons shouldn’t be included.”
Ozymandias drained his gin and tonic. “On your own head be it,” he said.
Come on.
A mile up the beach you were in a primitive world. There was no light but the moon and no sound but the waves. You were restored to the condition of your first tailless forefather. There was no sign of civilization, only the awesome vastness of nature and its forces. Also you had sand in your shoes and it worried you.
The fringe-bearded little magician had built a pyre of driftwood and sprinkled on it a couple of powders from a case of phials in his pocket. lies struck a match for him, but it snapped in two. Ozymandias said, “Never mind,” and made a pass. The driftwood caught fire and burned with the flame of seven colors. Ozymandias said an incantation—not in the ringing and dramatic tones that lies had expected, but with the casual mutter of any celebrant going through a familiar ritual. The flame leaped high. And the moon went out.
More precisely, they seemed to be cut off from its rays. They were in a globe of darkness at the core of which glowed the suddenly dying fire. And in that glow sat the demon.
He was of no particular height. It may have been the flicker of the dying flames; it may have been some peculiarity of his own. He kept varying from an apparent height of about two feet to around seven or eight. His shape was not too unlike that of a human being, save of course for the silver-scaled tail. His nails had the sheen of a beetle’s carapace. One tusk seemed loose and he had a nervous habit of twanging it. The sound was plaintive.
“Your name?” Ozymandias demanded politely.
“Sriberdegibit.” The voice was of average human pitch, but it had an unending resonance, like a voice bouncing about in a cave.
“You are a curse-demon?”
“Sure.” The demon espied lies with happy recognition. “Hi!” he said.
“Hi!” said Gilbert Iles feebly. He was very sober now; he felt regretfully sure of that. And he was soberly seeing a curse-demon, which meant that he was soberly cursed. And he did not even know what the curse was. “Ask him quick,” he prodded the magician.
“You have put a curse on my friend here?”
“He asked for it, didn’t he?” He looked bored, and twanged his tusk.
“And what is the nature of that curse?”
“He’ll find out.”
“I command you to tell us.”
“Nuts. That’s not in my duties.”
Ozymandias made a pass. “I command you—”
The demon jumped and rubbed his rump. “That’s a fine thing to do!” he said bitterly.
“Want some more?”
“All right. I’ll tell you.” He paused and twanged. “It was just a plain old curse. Just something we’ve had lying around since the Murgatroyd family got rid of it. I just took the first one I came to; he didn’t seem to care.”
“And it was—”
“The curse the witches used to use on their too virtuous puritan persecutors, remember? It’s a nice one. In poetry, too. It goes like this.” He twanged his tusk again to get the proper pitch, and then chanted:
“Commit an evil deed each day thou must
Or let thy body crumble into dust.
“Of course,” he added, “it doesn’t really crumble. That’s for the rhyme.”
“I’ve heard of that curse,” Ozymandias said thoughtfully. “It’s a tricky one in terminology. How have the Upper Courts adjudicated ‘evil deed’?”
“Synonymous with sin,” said Sriberdegibit.
“Hm-m-m. He must commit a sin each day—‘day’ meaning?”
“Twelve-oh-one A.M. till the
