by Mike Ashley
“You know,” one of those seated agreed, “I feel even better!”
“Yeah, we all do!” a third chimed in as the others nodded their heads.
The choir kicked back in as the soothing voice continued:
“All this fine programming, and more! Think about it. You may hope you’ll be coming here. But who can be really sure to get off on the right foot from that mortal coil?”
The choir sang for another moment before the voice added: “Why not help out the worthiest of causes? It’s sure to put in a good word where it counts the most. After all, by helping Heaven, you’re only helping yourself.”
More of the choir. At last the picture had gone back to the sky and clouds. Earl glanced at the remote one more time.
“We won’t stop you from changing that channel,” the soothing voice continued, “but think what might happen if you do. Keep the shine on those pearly gates! Give generously—”
Earl looked over to his wife, then to his son. Both of them nodded.
Earl turned the TV back to Hell.
He wished all the family decisions were this easy.
THE DEVIL TIMES THREE
Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown (1906–1972) was a brilliant writer of science fiction, fantasy and crime fiction. He could write serious stuff – as anyone who has read his horror story “The Geezenstacks” or his science fiction story “Arena” (later adapted as an episode of Star Trek) will know. He could write very tense, hard-edged books, as in his first mystery novel The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947). But if he’s remembered for anything it will be for his clever, sardonic vignettes. At one stage he was known for having written the shortest of all stories, “Knock”, arguably the only story to be ever regularly quoted in full. Here are three examples of his wit.
NASTY
Walter Beauregard had been an accomplished and enthusiastic lecher for almost fifty years. Now, at the age of sixty-five, he was in danger of losing his qualifications for membership in the lechers’ union. In danger of losing? Nay, let us be honest; he had lost. For three years now he had been to doctor after doctor, quack after quack, had tried nostrum after nostrum. All utterly to no avail.
Finally he remembered his books on magic and necromancy. They were books he had enjoyed collecting and reading as part of his extensive library, but he had never taken them seriously. Until now. What did he have to lose?
In a musty, evil-smelling but rare volume he found what he wanted. As it instructed, he drew the pentagram, copied the cabalistic markings, lighted the candles and read aloud the incantation.
There was a flash of light and a puff of smoke. And the demon. I won’t describe the demon except to assure you that you wouldn’t have liked him.
“What is your name?” Beauregard asked. He tried to make his voice steady but it trembled a little.
The demon made a sound somewhere between a shriek and a whistle, with overtones of a bull fiddle being played with a crosscut saw. Then he said, “But you won’t be able to pronounce that. In your dull language it would translate as Nasty. Just call me Nasty. I suppose you want the usual thing.”
“What’s the usual thing?” Beauregard wanted to know.
“A wish, of course. All right, you can have it. But not three wishes; that business about three wishes is sheer superstition. One is all you get. And you won’t like it.”
“One is all I want. And I can’t imagine not liking it.”
“You’ll find out. All right, I know what your wish is. And here is the answer to it.” Nasty reached into thin air and his hand vanished and came back holding a pair of silvery-looking swimming trunks. He held them out to Beauregard. “Wear them in good health,” he said.
“What are they?”
“What do they look like? Swimming trunks. But they’re special. The material is out of the future, a few millennia from now. It’s indestructible; they’ll never wear out or tear or snag. Nice stuff. But the spell on them is a plenty old one. Try them on and find out.”
The demon vanished.
Walter Beauregard quickly stripped and put on the beautiful silvery swimming trunks. Immediately he felt wonderful. Virility coursed through him. He felt as though he were a young man again, just starting his lecherous career.
Quickly he put on a robe and slippers. (Have I mentioned that he was a rich man? And that his home was a penthouse atop the swankiest hotel in Atlantic City? He was, and it was.) He went downstairs in his private elevator and outside to the hotel’s luxurious swimming pool. It was, as usual, surrounded by gorgeous Bikini-clad beauties showing off their wares under the pretence of acquiring suntans, while they waited for propositions from wealthy men like Beauregard.
He took time choosing. But not too much time.
Two hours later, still clad in the wonderful magic trunks, he sat on the edge of his bed and stared at and sighed for the beautiful blonde who lay stretched out on the bed beside him, Bikiniless – and sound asleep.
Nasty had been so right. And so well named. The miraculous trunks, the indestructible, untearable trunks worked perfectly. But if he took them off, or even let them down . . .
ROPE TRICK
Mr and Mrs George Darnell – her first name was Elsie, if that matters – were taking a honeymoon trip around the world. A second honeymoon, starting on the day of their twentieth anniversary. George had been in his thirties and Elsie in her twenties on the occasion of their first honeymoon – which, if you wish to check me on your slide rule, indicates that George was now in his fifties and Elsie in her forties.
Her dangerous forties (this phrase can be applied to a woman as well as to a man) and very, very disappointed with what had been happening – or, more specifically, had not been happening – during the first three weeks of their second honeymoon. To be completely honest, nothing, absolutely nothing had happened.
Until they reached Calcutta.
They checked into a hotel there early one afternoon and after freshening up a bit decided to wander about and see as much of the city as could be seen in the one day and night they planned to spend there.
They came to the bazaar.
And there watched a Hindu fakir performing the Indian rope trick. Not the spectacular and complicated version in which a boy climbs the rope and – well, you know the story of how the full-scale Indian rope trick is performed.
This was a quite simplified version. The fakir, with a short length of rope coiled on the ground in front of him, played over and over a few simple notes on a flageolet – and gradually, as he played, the rope began to rise into the air and stand rigid.
This gave Elsie Darnell a wonderful idea – although she did not mention it to George. She returned with him to their room at the hotel and, after dinner, waited until he went to sleep – as always, at nine o’clock.
Then she quietly left the room and the hotel. She found a taxi driver and an interpreter and, with both of them, went back to the bazaar and found the fakir.
Through the interpreter she managed to buy from the fakir the flageolet which she had heard him play and paid him to teach her to play the few simple repetitious notes which had made the rope rise.
Then she returned to the hotel and to their room. Her husband George was sleeping soundly – as he always did.
Standing beside the bed Elsie very softly began to play the simple tune on the flageolet.
Over and over.
And as she played it – gradually – the sheet began to rise, over her sleeping husband.
When it had risen to a sufficient height she put down the flageolet and, with a joyful cry, threw back the sheet.
And there, standing straight in the air, was the drawstring of his pajamas!
THE RING OF HANS CARVEL
(retold and somewhat modernized from the works of Rabelais)
Once upon a time there lived in France a prosperous but somewhat ageing jeweller named Hans Carvel. Besides being a studious and learned man, he was a likeable man. And a man who liked women and alt
hough he had not lived a celibate life, or missed anything, had happened to remain a bachelor until he was – well, let’s call his age as pushing sixty and not mention from which direction he was pushing it.
At that age he fell in love with a bailiff’s daughter – a young and a beautiful girl, spirited and vivacious, a dish to set before a king.
And married her.
Within a few weeks of the otherwise happy marriage Hans Carvel began to suspect that his young wife, whom he still loved deeply, might be just a little too spirited, a little too vivacious. That which he was able to offer her – aside from money, of which he had a sufficiency – might not be enough to keep her contented. Might not, did I say? Was not.
Not unnaturally he began to suspect, and then to be practically certain, that she was supplementing her love life with several – or possibly even many – other and younger men.
This preyed on his mind. It drove him, in fact, to a state of distraction in which he had bad dreams almost nightly.
In one of these dreams, one night, he found himself talking to the Devil, explaining his dilemma, and offering the traditional price for something, anything, that would assure him of his wife’s faithfulness.
In his dream, the Devil nodded readily and told Hans: “I will give you a magic ring. You will find it when you awaken. As long as you wear this ring it will be utterly and completely impossible for your wife to be unfaithful to you without your knowledge and consent.”
And the Devil vanished and Hans Carvel awakened.
And found that he was indeed wearing a ring, as it were, and that what the Devil had promised him was indeed true.
But his young wife had also awakened and was stirring, and she said to him: “Hans, darling, not your finger. That is not what goes there.”
FAIR-WEATHER FIEND
John Morressy
In the previous volumes I have reprinted two of John Morressy’s stories featuring the wizard Kedrigern and his odd retinue of acquaintances – “Alaska” and “A Hedge Against Alchemy”. Here’s a third. If you want to sample further stories you can check out the five Kedrigern books: A Voice for Princes (1986), The Questing of Kedrigern (1987), Kedrigern in Wanderland (1988), Kedrigern and the Charming Couple (1990) and A Remembrance for Kedrigern (1990).
Midnight had come and passed. Princess had nodded off to sleep over her spelling book. Spot was working at something in the cellar, from which thumps and clinking sounds arose at intervals, interspersed with clatters and clanks. Kedrigern was struggling against weariness as he reached the last pages of a spectacularly gory chronicle. All without the house, and all within – save Spot’s muted industry and Kedrigern’s turned pages and smothered yawns – was silent.
Suddenly, without preamble of any kind, three knocks sounded at the door, and Kedrigern was alert at once. Princess stirred and sighed, but did not wake. The knocking had been no peremptory battering, but a soft, almost surreptitious, series of taps. Kedrigern waited a moment, listening, and it came again, no louder than before, but this time doubled: three quick taps, a pause, and then three more.
Spot’s huge head appeared at knee level in the doorway. “Yah?” it enquired softly.
“Good troll, Spot,” said the wizard, rising. “I’ll get the door. You stay close, just in case.”
“Yah, yah!” the house-troll whispered.
There had been no heavy footsteps or flapping of wings; the caller was most likely an ordinary mortal, then. But neither had there been hoof-beats – and what ordinary mortal would walk up Silent Thunder Mountain in the dead of night? And who, having the courage and determination to find his way to a wizard’s abode, would tap so timidly at the door? A thief or assassin would not knock at all; a lost traveller would pound and shout in mortal terror; a friend would rap with assurance. As he made his silent way from the cosiness of the hearthside, Kedrigern pondered the mystery, but could not puzzle out a solution. The only thing to do was to answer the door and ascertain the visitor’s identity by ocular evidence. He worked a short-term security spell on himself, the cottage, and all within. That, plus Spot’s formidable strength, he deemed sufficient protection.
Directing the house-troll to a handy place of concealment, Kedrigern drew the latch and eased the door open. He saw no one. In his most authoritative voice, he demanded, “Who knocks? Answer, or I close the door!”
“Master Kedrigern?” whispered a voice near at hand.
“I am Kedrigern. Who speaks?”
“A messenger from Tarpash, King of the Valley of Misgivings. I come on a matter of utmost urgency,” said the voice.
“Where are you?” Kedrigern asked. The night was overcast. He could see nothing more than the vague outline of the treetops, dark against a lesser darkness.
“Here,” whispered the messenger.
“Are you invisible?”
“I am veiled, masked, and cloaked. My horse is shod in felt. Mine is a mission of the utmost secrecy as well as the utmost urgency.”
Kedrigern raised his medallion to his eye and peered through the Aperture of True Vision in the direction of the voice. He saw a human form, lithe but sturdy, clad head to foot in black. He breathed a sigh of relief. There was no magic in any of this, nothing out of the ordinary, only typical royal self-importance. That was kings for you: a splinter in the royal thumb, and everyone for leagues around was expected to drop what they were doing and weep over His Majesty’s injured digit. With a gesture, Kedrigern said, “Come inside.”
The figure did not stir. “You really are a wizard, aren’t you? I can deal only with the wizard Kedrigern.”
“I told you who I am. What do you want for proof – shall I turn you into a toad?”
“Oh, no, no! That will not be necessary. I believe you. It’s just that . . . well, you don’t look like a wizard,” said the messenger.
Kedrigern sighed. He heard this from everyone, including Princess, and had grown accustomed to it without growing to like it. He had no long white beard; he dressed in ordinary homespun tunic and breeches and comfortable, well-worn boots, and did not look to be anywhere near his 170th year. He did not look young, except when he laughed; nor did he look old, except when he was deep in memory and a certain look came into his eyes. He looked like a merchant, a scholar, a great man’s steward, perhaps a goldsmith or a carver of delicate designs in ivory. He looked like anything but a wizard, and was content with the situation. It made his life simpler.
“I am Kedrigern the wizard,” he said slowly and distinctly. “Take my word for it, or leave my door.”
“I believe you, Master Kedrigern! Truly, I do!”
With an impatient, grumbling grunt, Kedrigern stepped inside and dismissed Spot with a silent gesture. The troll bounded off to the cellar, to resume its exertions.
“Well, come in,” said the wizard.
Once inside, the messenger doffed his cloak and broad-brimmed hat. He retained the mask that covered his face. A veil depended from the mask, but did not conceal the reddish gold beard of the wearer. He was a tall man, well formed, and he spoke with assurance in a mild, cultured voice.
“I will be brief, Master Kedrigern: the king is sore afflicted. Only a wizard can help him.”
“What is it? A curse? A spell? Did he open something he shouldn’t have opened? Provoke a witch? Insult a fairy?”
“The details are obscure, and even the little I know, I cannot reveal.”
“Then how do you know that King Tarpash needs the services of a wizard and not a physician?” snapped Kedrigern irritably.
“The Royal Physician was summoned immediately. He examined His Majesty and declared that only a wizard or an alchemist could—”
“An alchemist?” Kedrigern cried. “What is he trying to do to the poor man? An alchemist couldn’t help a sick rat!”
“We are desperate, Master Kedrigern.”
“You must be, if you can consider calling in an alchemist. Tarpash always had a good head on his shoulders. He would never have—”
A sob burst from the messenger, silencing Kedrigern. When the man had composed himself, he said in a subdued, but no less urgent, voice, “The king must be helped at once. If he is not, the marriage cannot take place!”
“What marriage? Tarpash is happily married – has been for thirty years.”
“His son’s marriage. Prince Middry is to marry Belserena of the Dappled Dales, the sweetest, loveliest, most adorable woman in all the world. Her hair is spun gold, her eyes twin pools of violet, her lips a rosebud, her form divine. Flowers of indescribable fragrance spring up where her dainty foot caresses the ground – oh, happy ground! – and her very voice perfumes the air,” the messenger rhapsodized. He paused to draw breath so that he might continue his litany of adoration, but Kedrigern raised a hand to silence him.
“It’s all right, Prince Middry. You can take off the mask and tell me the whole story,” he said.
The messenger stood thunderstruck for a moment, then tore away mask and veil to reveal a reasonably handsome, rather pallid face and red-rimmed eyes. “How did you know? My disguise was impenetrable!”
Kedrigern smiled inscrutably. “I am a wizard, my son. I know all sorts of things.”
“Then you must help my father! The wedding is set for nine days hence!”
“Come in by the fire, Prince Middry. Sit down, put your feet up, and tell me everything.”
By this time, Princess had been awakened by the sound of voices. She welcomed the visitor, and listened with profound attention to his account. It was depressingly short. The King of the Valley of Misgivings had lost his wits. No one knew how, or why, or precisely when or where the tragedy had occurred, and no one had the faintest idea of a remedy. The approaching wedding added urgency to the gravity of the situation. It would be socially unacceptable, and politically disastrous, to have the father of the groom insist on a game of pat-a-cake, or pull off his boots and start playing with his toes, in the middle of the ceremony; and yet to postpone the wedding, or call it off entirely, would create a diplomatic crisis, as well as desolate the betrothed couple.
