The Worm of the Ages and Other Tails: Six Short Fantasies Read Online Free PDF Page B

not the rubbish they make nowadays for tourists – the old-fashioned kind that you can’t get any longer, which was made with the skill of pure terror, for a man could die in a second if his blade failed him in battle.’
    The M. M. D. slurped at his tea again. ‘Too cold,’ he said. ‘Get the waitress to bring me more hot water, will you? And give me some matches while you’re at it.’
    ‘There’s no smoking,’ I said.
    ‘Not for  that, ’ he said, flapping a flabby hand. ‘For the match-heads. I just like the smell of brimstone.’
    ‘I suppose you would,’ I said glumly, feeling about in my pockets to see if I had got any matches. I hadn’t. Disappointing him was a sour pleasure, and a small one, too, for he seemed to forget all about the matches as he plunged back into his tall tale.
    ‘So there lay Salazar, or the bits of him, all over the street in the dark, and my customer – what was  his  name? – no matter, he doesn’t need it now; would not recognize it if you shouted it in his face. Anyway, he was standing over the body, such as it was, and the other drunks were begging him to run away before someone came to arrest him. They didn’t want any trouble; they most particularly didn’t want to be arrested themselves, and held for four or five years in some Iberian dungeon as material witnesses. But my customer gave them all the back of his hand, and mustered what he thought was his dignity, and said very quietly – I remember it well: the memory was imprinted on his dossier—
    ‘ “My life is nothing to me now, Señores. I have taken my revenge – and – it is not enough. A thousand deaths could not recompense me for the harm that villain has done to me and mine. No, my friends, I go to the gallows with my head held high, because I could do no otherwise.”
    ‘Well, this did nothing to improve  their spirits, I can tell you. They were afraid of being scooped up by the Watch, as I say. But one of them – oh, he was magnificent! He could have been one of us; and maybe one of us put a thought in his brain. He said to my customer, very slowly and solemnly:
    ‘ “Where is it written that you can kill him only once?”
    ‘My man looked at him very strangely, as if he had grown a second head, and it had immediately begun reciting clerihews in Swahili. (This was before they had clerihews, but you get the general idea.) “What was that you said?”
    ‘ “Where is it written, Señor, ” the other man repeated, “that you can kill him only once?”
    ‘ “But he is dead now, and he has gone where I cannot reach him.”
    ‘ “Do you mean that he is in Hell?” the other man scoffed. “Nothing is easier. Have you never learnt your catechism? What does Mother Church tell us of the fate of the suicide?”
    ‘ “Why, all those who destroy themselves are destined for H—”
    ‘A lovely light came into my customer’s eyes – if such a thing as light can ever be said to be lovely. Friend’ – it made my flesh crawl to hear him call me  friend – ‘I could have kissed that fellow full on the lips, if I had been there. I could have forgiven him; I could have borne to see him miss Hell altogether, not that you ever heard me say such a thing, for the sake of the glorious harm he had done. For he had just guaranteed that my customer’s soul would not only be damned, but damned in the most grotesque and amusing possible way. Let me tell you how,’ he said, as if I had some option of  not letting him.
    ‘That fell light came into his eyes, as I said; and it never left them again, not so long as he  had eyes. He reversed his grip on his sword, and put the point against his belly; and he shouted, “Revenge, Salazar! To Hell I pursue thee!” – and it was even more shoddy and theatrical in his bad Castilian, believe me. I cannot do his delivery injustice. Anyway, he drove the blade in up to the hilt, up under his ribs and straight into his heart. And that was the end of him, so far