Songs of the Dying Earth

Then, after an hour or two of calm sailing, he would return and enjoy the abstemious lunch of pears, fresh-baked pita, Bernish pasta, and cold gold wine that Bummp had prepared for him.

In the afternoon, Shrue would work in one of his workshops (usually the Green Cabal) for several hours, and then emerge for a late afternoon cordial in the library and to hear KirdriK’s daily patrol report and finally to open his mail.

This day, KirdriK shuffled into the library bowlegged and naked except for an orange breachclout that did nothing to hide either the monster’s gender or his odd build. The smallest the daihak could contract his physical shape still left him almost twice as tall as any average human. With his blue scales, yellow eyes, six fingers, gill slits along neck and abdomen, multiple rows of incisors, and purple feathers flowing down from his chest and erupting along the red crestbones of his skull — not to mention the five-foot long dorsal flanges that vented wide and razor-sharp whenever KirdriK became agitated or simply wanted to impress his foes — Shrue had to dress his servant in the loose, flowing blue robes and veil-mesh of a Firschnian monk whenever he took him out in public.

Today, as mentioned, the daihak wore only the obscene orange breachclout. After he’d shuffled before the diabolist and knuckled his forehead in a parody of a salute — or perhaps just to preen the white feather-floss that grew from his barnacle-sharp brow — KirdriK went through his inevitable rumbling, growling, and spitting sounds before being able to speak. (Shrue had long since spell-banished and pain-conditioned the cursing and roaring out of the daihak — at least in the magician’s presence — but KirdriK still tried.)

“What have you seen today?” asked Shrue.

(rumble, spit) “A grizzpol, a man’s hour’s walk east along the shore,” rumbled KirdriK in tones that approached the subsonic, but which Shrue had modified his ears to pick up.

“Hmmm,” murmured the diabolist. Grizzpols were rare. The huge tan bears, recreated by a polar-dwelling magician named Hrestrk-Grk in the 19^th Aeon, were reported, by legend at least, to have originated from the crossbreeding of fabled white bears that had lived here millions of years earlier when the poles were cold and huge, with vicious brown bears from the steppes further south. “What did you do with the grizzpol?” asked Shrue.

“Ate it for lunch.”

“Anything else?” asked the diabolist.

“I came across five Deodands lurking about five miles into the Final Forest,” rumbled KirdriK.

Shrue’s always-arched eyebrow raised a scintilla higher. Deodands were not native to the polar forests or gorse steppes. “Oh,” he said mildly. “Why do you think they were this far north?”

“Trying to claim the magus-bounty,” growled KirdriK and showed all three or four hundred of his serriated and serrated teeth.

Shrue smiled. “And what did you do with these five, KirdriK?”

Still showing his teeth, the daihak lifted a fist over Shrue’s tea table, opened his hand, and let sixty or so Deodane fangs rattle onto the parqueted wood.

Shrue sighed. “Collect those,” he ordered. “Have Bommp grind them into the usual powder and store them in the usual apothecam jars in the Blue Diadem workshop.”

KirdriK growled and shifted from one huge, taloned foot to the other, his hands twitching and jerking like a strangler’s. Shrue knew that the daihak tested his restraint bonds and spells every hour of every day.

“That’s all,” said the diabolist. “You are dismissed.”

KirdriK departed by the tallest of the five doorways that opened into the library, and Shrue opened the window that looked into his courtyard eyrie and called in the day’s batch of newly arrived sparlings.

There were nine of the small, gray, songless birds this day and they lined up on the arm of Shrue’s chair. As each approached the magus’s hand, Shrue made a pass, opened the bird’s tiny chest, and drew out its second heart, dropping each in turn into an empty teacup with a soft splat. Shrue then conjured a new and preprogrammed blank recording heart for each sparling and set it in place. When he was finished, the nine birds flew out the window, rose out of the courtyard, and went about their business to the south.

Shrue rang for Old Bommp and when the tiny man padded silently into the room, said, “There are only nine today. Please add some green tea to bring the flavor up.” Bommp nodded, unerringly found the teacup that sat in its usual place, and padded away with the same blind but barefoot stealth by which he’d entered. Five minutes later, he was back with Shrue’s steaming tea. When the servant was gone, the diabolist sipped and then closed his eyes to read and see his mail.