The Fallable Fiend Read Online Free PDF Page A

a fate.
    ###
    Maldivius returned next morning with another man. Mounted on a fine piebald horse, the other man was clad in dashing, gaudy-style compared with the somber, patched, and threadbare garments of my master. He was a man of early middle age, thin in the legs but massive in arms and body. He shaved his face but seemed to be fighting a losing battle against a thick, heavy, blue-black beard. Golden hoops dangled from his ears.
    “This,” said Maldivius, “is your new master, Bagardo the Great. Master Bagardo, meet Demon Zdim.”
    Bagardo stared me up and down. “He does look sound of wind and limb, albeit ‘’is hard to judge an unfamiliar species. Well, Doctor, if you’ll show me the paper, I will sign.” And that is how I became an indentured servant of Bagardo the Great, proprietor of a traveling carnival.

III
    BAGARDO THE GREAT
    “Come with me,” said Bagardo. As I followed him, he went on: “Let me get your name right. Zadim, is that it?”
    “Nay, Zdim,” I said. “One syllable. Zdim son of Akh, if you would be formal.”
    Bagardo practiced the name. I asked: “What will be my duties, sir?”
    “Mainly, to scare the marks.”
    “Sir? I understand not.”
    “Marks, rubes, shills are what we circus folk call the customers who come to gawp.” (Bagardo always called his establishment a “circus,” although others alluded to it as a “carnival.” The difference, I learnt, was that a true circus needs must have at least one elephant, whereas Bagardo had none.) “You will be put in a traveling cage and introduced as the terrible man-eating demon from the Twelfth Plane. And that’s no lie, from what Maldivius tells me.”
    “Sir, I did but carry out my orders—”
    “Never mind. I’ll try to give more exact commands.”
    We came to where the track from the temple joined the road from Chemnis to Ir. Here stood a large, iron-barred cage on wheels, like a wagon. Hitched to the wagon, grazing, were a pair of animals like Maldivius’ mule, save that they were covered with gaudy black-and-white stripes. On the driver’s seat lolled a squat, low-browed, chinless creature, naked but for his thick, hairy pelt, like a man and yet not like a man.
    “Is all well?” said Bagardo.
    “All’s well, boss,” said the thing in a deep, croaking voice. “Who this?”
    “A new member of our troupe, hight Zdim the Demon,” quoth Bagardo. “Zdim, meet Ungah of Komilakh. He’s what we call an apeman.”
    “Shake, fellow slave,” said Ungah, putting out a hairy paw.
    “Shake?” said I, looking a question at Bagardo. “Like this, does he mean?” I twitched my hips back and forth.
    Bagardo said: “Clasp his right hand in yours and squeeze gently whilst moving the hands up and down. Don’t claw him.”
    I did so, saying: “I am gratified to make your acquaintance, Master Ungah. I am not a slave, but an indentured servant.”
    “Lucky losel! I must swink for Master Bagardo till death us part.”
    “You’re better fed than you ever would be in the jungles of Komilakh, you know,” said Bagardo.
    “Aye, master; but food is not all.”
    “What, then? But we can’t argue all day.”
    Bagardo threw open the door of the cage. “Get in,” he said.
    The door closed with a clang. I sat down on a large wooden chest at one end of the cage. Bagardo swung up on the driver’s seat behind Ungah, who clucked and shook the reins. The wagon lurched off to westward.
    The road zigzagged down a long slope into the valley of the Kyamos River, which runs from Metouro across Ir to the sea. Another hour brought us in sight of Chemnis at the rivermouth. This is a small town by Prime Plane standards, but a busy one, for it is the main port of Ir. Over the roofs I saw the masts and yards of ships.
    On the outskirts, a cluster of tents, gay with pennons, marked Bagardo’s carnival. As the wagon turned into the field, I saw a score of men laboring to strike these tents and pack them into wagons. Others hitched horses to