The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  “Jesus, I know that much.”

  “Then we have the basis for communication.”

  “Possibly. But don’t be smug. Don’t give me shit about calling for an appointment. If you rub me the wrong way, I will strangle you with your own intestines.”

  “You feel aggressive?”

  “I always feel aggressive. I am aggressive. You called me to come and kill you. The only reason I hesitate is curiosity. And I am in no hurry to return to Hell.”

  “I called you to come and kill me?”

  “You sucked the amulet, wishing for death.”

  “I did not suck the amulet. I did insert it into my mouth in a purely unconscious gesture. But I was not wishing for death.”

  “You certainly were. I don’t know your exact thoughts – something about boredom and challenge – but it added up to a definite death wish.”

  “Yes, I can see how you might have interpreted it that way. I do see that. You come from Hell?”

  “I did. And you want to know what kind of place it is. Terrible. At first I enjoyed it. They had clever tortures, interesting agonies. But after centuries, repetition replaces surprise, and that is the worse torture.”

  “You feel tortured?”

  “I am tortured. By professionals. Corporate professionals. With amoebic imagination. When I am called back by the amulet, I welcome the change. But I can’t stay too long. They sulk. That is beyond endurance. So I will kill you now in the most amusing way possible. Would you like to be skinned alive? Broiled? What? Give me some guidance.”

  “Attila, if I may – and you call me Maxfield; forget the ‘Doctor’ – if I did wish for death in my deepest unconscious, then that was a regressive, immature response to the curious mix of triumph and frustration at turning a patient loose. I do become involved with my patients. I don’t want to die just yet, but thank you for making a prompt house call.”

  “I came for nothing? For nothing?”

  Attila began to wring his hands. Dr Shnibitz saw the neck bulge, the face turn purple.

  “You want to break something?”

  “I think I do. Yes. No. No, I don’t want to break anything. I came to grant your wish, not dismantle your office.”

  “And you handle frustration in a most predictable way. Smash, burn, loot, rape, crow. That’s what you want; admit it.”

  “I admit it. Big news. Patients pay you for such insight?”

  “Snide remarks now. More anger. Perhaps your trip was not a total loss.”

  “I came to kill. Now you tell me you want to live. I came to do you a favor. You spurn my gesture. That’s what I call a total loss. I haven’t heard bones crunch in God knows how long.”

  “God? You said God knows how long.”

  “I know what I said.”

  “Strange coming from Attila the Hun. Talk of God. Tell me, do you think about God very often?”

  “Absolutely not. It was only an expression.”

  “Do you regret renouncing your place in Heaven? I assume there must be a Heaven if you say you live in Hell.”

  “Certainly there is a Heaven. I never thought much about it. My renunciation was made in the equivalent of kindergarten. I chose a lifestyle. That mandated a death-style.”

  “You must question the choice from time to time.”

  “Not really. Sometimes. But negative thinking is a waste of time and energy.”

  “Negative thinking? Don’t you mean positive thinking?”

  “Did I say negative? I meant positive.”

  “You must ask yourself if Heaven is better.”

  “You’ve never seen my rap sheet. In one lifetime I accomplished more than a thousand Mafias, a dozen Hitlers, fifty Vlad Tepises. My own Dobermans were afraid of me. I shed more blood than the American Medical Association. Heaven is a place I will never visit. If I were to come within a million leagues of Heaven, angels would throw up on me. No, Maxfield, I don’t think much about Heaven as a viable alternative. Let me kill you. You go to Heaven. See for yourself. I’ll crush your skull between your own feet. Nice headlines. Prime-time coverage. I’ll rip off your ears.”

  “Just suppose, Attila, that you were to renounce your past life and ask forgiveness.”

  “Some are beyond redemption, as the phrase goes.”

  “Suppose, just suppose, that you could prove that your antisocial behavior was no fault of your own.”

  “That would make some difference. If I were a victim, well, they can appreciate that. It makes them feel guilty, as if they were conspirators, as if they failed. But in my case, a clear choice was made. I loved evil from my first breath. I bit my mother’s nipples just for the Hell of it. No, Maxfield, I couldn’t mount any kind of defense. I could never earn Gray Time.”

  “Gray Time?”

  “The chance to live again. Make up for past indignities. If you can get them to grant an appeal, it is possible to earn a certain period of Gray Time.”

  “Return to life?”

  “Naturally. Do good deeds. Tell ugly women they are beautiful. Cross cripples. Sympathize with the blind. Comfort the losers. Like that. Don’t you watch television? They do that plot to death.”

  “Fascinating. Why not sit down on the couch and tell me about it. Better, lie down. Relax.”

  “I don’t have all night. Suppose I peel back your lips and leave your skull exposed. Or unravel your navel. Or split your buttocks. You could have an interesting and provocative demise. You’d be the first topic of conversation tomorrow morning. They might even remember until evening. What do you say?”

  “We’ll decide about that later. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Attila bellowed a sigh. Dr Shnibitz remembered his own recent sigh. He looked down at the amulet, still damp, draped over his appointment calendar. Talk about a challenge. To tempt the humanity in Attila the Hun. To give Gray Time to the deathmonger maniacs swear by. It would be a feather in any psychoanalyst’s cap. Freud himself would give a testicle for the chance.

  Dr Shnibitz watched his guest test the Naugahyde couch. Attila sat, suddenly reclined. Without thinking, Dr Shnibitz slipped a paper doily under Attila’s enormous head.

  “What for?”

  “Disposable.”

  “Ah.”

  “So you nipped at your mother’s nipple just to see her reaction?”

  “Yes, I did. Nice woman. Deserved better.”

  “And were you punished?”

  “Harsh words, the usual. My father was the enforcer. When they first put me on the pot, he would make me sit for hours.”

  “You had a difficult toilet training?”

  “Not difficult. Firm. Father was a disciplinarian. A nasty old bastard. Drank. Fermented goat’s milk.”

  “And when he got drunk . . . ?”

  “Behaved like a slob.”

  “And you attacked a source of milk . . . your mother’s breasts . . .”

  “Are you suggesting that I was actually attacking my father?”

  “You said that, not I.”

  “Hmmm. Funny about that. When I ordered all nonvirgins in Gaul to be eviscerated on the shortest day of the year, I had a dream about bosoms that looked like fountains. In fact, I ordered fountains that looked like bosoms. For my castle in the mountains. The snowcapped mountains . . .”

  “You ordered nonvirgins eviscerated on the shortest day of the year?”

  “You’re not suggesting that my first act of political violence was rooted in concern about the size of my phallus?”

  “You said it. Rooted. Your words. Fountain bosoms . . . snowcapped mountains . . .”

  “Mom?”

  “Possibly.”

  “But why would I associate my mother with concerns about the length of . . .”

  “Why? Why indeed? It’s just possible that . . .”

  Attila jackknifed, stood, slammed his fist into the wall. Dr Shnibitz had seen all that before.

  “I’ve got to get back. If you want to go on living, fine. That’s your problem,
. But I’m expected for skewering.”

  “Wait just a minute. How can I best put this? Don’t be so hard on yourself. Boys will be boys. Mothers are often the objects of desire, possessiveness. It isn’t uncommon for a male child to feel inferior comparing his penis to his father’s.”

  “Inferior? I never felt inferior. Didn’t I build the tallest obelisk outside Egypt just outside my wading pool?”

  “You built an obelisk outside your wading pool?”

  “Well, yes, I did. To commemorate the sack of Rome. Or was it Constantinople?”

  “An obelisk . . . a wading pool . . .”

  “Now tell me I sacked whatever it was I sacked just for an excuse to build an obelisk to prove I had an impressive organ to a wading pool. Come on, Maxfield.”

  “What were you doing with a wading pool?”

  “I enjoyed wading. It was a nice round pool surrounded by pines.”

  “Wading? Or waiting. A nice round, wet pool surrounded by pines?”

  “Oh, now, cut it out. Not Mom. If I accept all that, you could say every single act of vicious abandon I ever perpetrated was nothing but a charade to conceal a hidden desire to . . .”

  “You said it. I didn’t.”

  “You know how to make a fellow feel cheap.”

  Attila began to cry. He rose from the couch and stared into a mirror on the far wall. That mirror had seen many such broken faces. Dr Shnibitz came and put his arm around the sulking hulk.

  “If you were a victim of an innocent childhood obsession, surely you don’t deserve eternal damnation.”

  “Grounds for an appeal? Me?”

  “Why not?”

  “Maxfield, do you begin to realize what you’ve done for me?”

  “All in a day’s work. Sit and rest. Have yourself a glass of water. There’s plenty in the pitcher on my desk.”

  “I feel wasted. Empty. Naked. Reborn.”

  While Attila sipped ice water, Dr Shnibitz, elated, went to the outer office. He found a key in his pocket and opened a closet marked PRIVATE. The closet had not been opened in years. It had a musty smell. Dr Shnibitz undressed to his underwear. From the closet he took a fur coat that had once belonged to his wife. It was repossessed during a nasty divorce settlement.

  He put on the coat, then a helmet crowned with the antlers of an eight-point buck, the gift of a saved bank president. A pair of sandals replaced his shoes, though he kept on his long socks because of a chill in the air. At the back of the closet, near a set of golf clubs, he found a sword and shield. He had bought them at the auction of an old woman’s estate for no special reason beyond irony. Ready, he came back into his consulting room and stood with his legs wide apart. The sniveling mass on his couch sipped water and moaned while he beat his chest with a limp fist.

  “Stand up and fight,” Dr Shnibitz yelled, waving the sword over his head. Attila looked up at him with watery eyes. The Hun only shrugged.

  “Do battle, barbarian,” said Dr Shnibitz.

  The Hun’s eyes were blank.

  “I demand you defend yourself.”

  Dr Shnibitz leapt across the oriental rug and sank home his sword just under the thick neck. He felt very good, elated, ready to take on a multitude of neurotics. He made a mental note to send his former patient a brief thank-you note.

  ALASKA

  John Morressy

  John Morressy (1930-2006), a former US professor of English, had been writing since 1966, turning to science fiction in 1971, and then to fantasy. He wrote a long series of short stories featuring the wizard Kedrigern and his motley associates. The stories began with “A Hedge Against Alchemy” in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1981, and they now fill five books – A Voice for Princess (1986), The Questing of Kedrigern (1987), Kedrigern in Wanderland (1988), Kedrigern and the Charming Couple (1990) and A Remembrance for Kedrigern (1990). The following is one of the longer stories.

  A light touch on his shoulder woke Kedrigern from a dreamless nap. He opened his eyes and immediately, with a little cry of annoyance, shut them tightly against the glare of the afternoon sun.

  “Yah, yah,” said a subdued voice beside him.

  Shielding his eyes with one hand, he sat up. He could see, over the arm of his chair, the bald, warty head and tiny eyes of his house-troll. Those eyes were now rounded, and the little creature was quivering with excitement.

  “What is it, Spot?” the wizard asked.

  “Yah,” said the house-troll urgently. It extended an oversized hand toward the road and repeated, “Yah.”

  Still shielding his eyes, Kedrigern looked in the direction Spot had indicated. He saw nothing. Knowing that Spot’s eyes, though no bigger than cherry pits, were keen as a hawk’s, he fumbled in his tunic and drew out the silver medallion of his guild. Raising it to his eye, he sighted through the Aperture of True Vision. The cause of Spot’s concern became clear.

  At the foot of the long hill, where the road emerged from the dense wood, were two mounted figures. First came a larger man on a white stallion, and behind him a youth on a pony. Trailing the youth were a well-laden pack mule and a great gray war-horse. It was a knight and his squire and equipage, and the whole train was heading for Kedrigern’s little cottage. He let the medallion fall, rubbed his eye, and groaned in frustration.

  “Is your eye all right?” Princess inquired, fluttering from the house to come down lightly at his side.

  “Yes. Yes, my dear, I’m all right.”

  She looked down on him solicitously. “You rubbed your eye, and you sounded as if you were in pain.”

  “My eye is fine. That’s not why I groaned.”

  “Well, something must be wrong. Spot is all anxious and jumpy, and you sound upset. What’s the matter?”

  “We’re having visitors,” he said with profound loathing.

  “Visitors? Company?!” Princess cried joyously. She rose, with a soft hum of her little wings, clapping her hands and laughing for delight.

  “Yes, visitors. A great unruly mob of drunken brawlers trampling over everything, shouting and swearing and smashing things . . . I’ll probably have to spell the lot of them if we’re to have any peace and quiet. And of course they’ll demand our best food and wine, and stabling for their horses,” said the wizard, climbing to his feet, gesturing wildly, his face reddening. “And I suppose they’ll expect to be entertained, too, and . . . and . . .” He grew inarticulate with outrage.

  “Are you finished?” Princess asked coolly.

  “For the time being.”

  “How many knights are there?”

  Looking away, he muttered, “One. And his squire. And three horses. And a mule.”

  “That really isn’t a mob.”

  “You don’t know knights and squires, my dear.”

  “Of course I know knights and squires! I’m a princess! Didn’t I grow up surrounded by knights and squires?” she retorted.

  “I suppose so. You keep saying you don’t remember.”

  “I may not remember all the details, but I recall the general atmosphere of my father’s court very clearly. It was not riotous, whatever you may have read, or heard. Knights are chivalrous and courteous and brave, and they’re usually charming company. They recite romances and sing ballads, and most of them can play the lute.”

  “Badly,” he muttered sourly.

  Princess gave him a cool glance. “Quite well, actually.”

  “Maybe. But all of them can play the sword, and the mace, and the battle-ax, and the lance, and they do so at every opportunity. Guest or no guest, knight or squire or serf, anyone who starts brandishing weapons in this house will be turned into something nasty forthwith.”

  “No danger of that. Knights know how to behave,” said Princess with utter certainty.

  “Oh, do they? Do they really? Do you mean that Round Table gang? They’re the best of the lot, and just look at them, always squabbling among themselves, brothers fighting brothers, uncles hunting down their nephews, fathers bashing so
ns. And half the time they don’t know which is which, the way they carry on with women – when they’re not carrying them off.”

  “I take it you’re finished now,” Princess said. Her tone suggested that to be finished was the wiser course. Kedrigern nodded, and she went on, “Then you’d better change into something a little more dignified.” Noticing his irate look, she quickly said, “No, no, I mean change your clothing. Put on the dark green tunic. And brush off your boots.”

  “Oh. All right, my dear. Should I do anything else?”

  “Leave everything to Spot. Hurry now, so you’ll be here to greet our guests when they arrive,” said Princess, shooing him inside with urgent gestures.

  Guests indeed, he thought bitterly as he walked into the cool, shaded interior of the cottage. Intruders is the word called for; interlopers is better; invaders is better still. No decency, no consideration, no respect. Hardly better than barbarians, bursting in on a man’s calm and privacy, bringing the noise and squalor of the world with them like a nasty smell that will linger in the house for weeks after they’ve gone.

  Kedrigern disliked the world beyond Silent Thunder Mountain, and most of the things and people in it. He preferred to venture from his cottage only when it was essential for the well-being of an old client or when the reward offered for his services was sufficient to compensate for the inevitable horrors of travel: i.e., exorbitant. His wife, on the other hand, loved to travel, to visit, to entertain and be entertained, to move in company, to see new places and meet new people and, when that was not possible, to revisit old friends and familiar scenes. Conceding the obvious fact that princesses are raised differently from wizards, Kedrigern had learned to compromise. But however much he altered his behavior, his outlook remained unchanged: travel was nothing more than going out of one’s way – literally – to be uncomfortable, and he hated it. He did not much like travelers, either, particularly when their destination was his cottage. They all wanted him to go somewhere he did not wish to be and do something he preferred to avoid.

  This knight, he was certain, would be like all the rest: off on a quest, looking for someone or something to bash, hack, and pummel for the sake of honor and glory or the favor of some fair lady. It’s little they have to do, any of them, Kedrigern thought sourly, or they wouldn’t have time for such foolishness. Why can’t they play chess, or read aloud to one another, or plant gardens? Them and their blasted chivalry. It was all such humbug.