Read Online Mazirian the Magician by Jack Vance - Free Book Online Page B

called the man in the black hood, twisting about.
    â€œI desire the one who has entered. I hunger for her flesh,” said the soft voice of the Deodand.
    The man in the hood spoke sharply.
    â€œGo, before I speak a spell to burn you with fire. Never return!”
    â€œI go,” said the Deodand, for he greatly feared magic, and departed into the night.
    And the man turned and sat staring into the fire.

    T’sais felt warm pungent liquid in her mouth and opened her eyes. Kneeling beside her was a tall man, hooded in black. One arm supported her shoulders and head, another held a silver spoon to her mouth.
    T’sais shrank away. “Quietly,” said the man. “Nothing will harm you.” Slowly, doubtfully, she relaxed and lay still.
    Red sunlight poured in through the windows, and the cottage was warm. It was paneled in golden wood, with a fretwork painted in red and blue and brown circling the ceiling. Now the man brought more broth from the fire, bread from a locker, and placed them before her. After a moment’s hesitation, T’sais ate.
    Recollection suddenly came to her; she shuddered, looked wildly around the room. The man noted her taut face. He stooped and laid a hand on her head. T’sais lay quiet, half in dread.
    â€œYou are safe here,” said the man. “Fear nothing.”
    A vagueness came over T’sais. Her eyes grew heavy. She slept.
    When she woke the cottage was empty, and the maroon sunlight slanted in from an opposite window. She stretched her arms, tucked her hand behind her head, and lay thinking. This man of the black hood, who was he? Was he evil? Everything else of Earth had been past thought. Still, he had done nothing to harm her … She spied her garments upon the floor. She rose from the couch and dressed herself. She went to the door and pushed it open. Before her stretched the moor, fading far off beyond the under-slant of the horizon. To her left jutted a break of rocky crags, black shadow and lurid red stones. To the right extended the black margin of the forest.
    Was this beautiful? T’sais pondered. Her warped brain saw bleakness in the line of the moor, cutting harshness in the crags, and in the forest — terror.
    Was this beauty? At a loss, she twisted her head, squinted. She heard footsteps, jerked about, wide-eyed, expecting anything. It was he of the black hood, and T’sais leaned back against the door-jamb.
    She watched him approach, tall and strong, slow of step. Why did he wear the hood? Was he ashamed of his face? She could understand something of this, for she herself found the human face repellent — an object of watery eye, wet unpleasant apertures, spongy outgrowths.
    He halted before her. “Are you hungry?”
    T’sais considered. “Yes.”
    â€œThen we will eat.”
    He entered the cottage, stirred up the fire, and spitted meat. T’sais stood uncertainly in the background. She had always served herself. She felt an uneasiness: co-operation was an idea she had not yet encountered.
    Presently the man arose, and they sat to eat at his table.
    â€œTell me of yourself,” he said after a few moments. So T’sais, who had never learned to be other than artless, told him her story, thus:
    â€œI am T’sais. I came to Earth from Embelyon, where the wizard Pandelume created me.”
    â€œEmbelyon? Where is Embelyon? And who is Pandelume?”
    â€œWhere is Embelyon?” she repeated in puzzlement. “I don’t know. It is in a place that is not Earth. It is not very large, and lights of many colors come from the sky. Pandelume lives in Embelyon. He is the greatest wizard alive — so he tells me.”
    â€œAh,” the man said. “Perhaps I see …”
    â€œPandelume created me,” continued T’sais, “but there was a flaw in the pattern.” And T’sais stared in to the fire. “I see the world as a dismal place of horror; all