Nash said carefully: "I want to borrow the Shamir from Tukiphat."
Stark's eyebrows shot up."Why, in Thoth's name? Haven't enough folks come to grief trying to snatch the damned hunk of glass?"
"I need it in my business."
"Come on, come on! No secrets from your magus!"
Nash hesitated."Do you know about the mundane plane?"
"Uh... yes and no. Hm-m-m. There's something about you—wait, don't tell me—you don't quite fit—"
Stark took a deep drag, then let the smoke drift up out of his open mouth so that it almost veiled his face.
Nash leaned back in his swivel chair and looked about the room. It reminded him of the office of a country lawyer, except that the corners were cluttered with brass tripods and lamps, wands, and swords. Everything else was filing cabinets and bookcases, from the top of which two human skulls and one stuffed rooster looked down.
"Got it!" cried Stark."You're a mundane soul in an astral body! Right?"
"Right."
"By the Great Tetragrammaton, this is going to be interesting! I don't suppose you'd care to let me take your soul out for examination?"
"No, sir! I want to get back to my own plane."
"Oh, what's the hurry? You obviously created an adventurous type for yourself. Haven't you had adventure?"
"Sure," said Nash."I've killed three guys. Where I come from one homicide per lifetime is considered plenty. I want to get back before I kill any more."
"Hm-m-m. I could fix you up with a ring that would make it unnecessary to kill anybody, except perhaps Aryans. You can give me a lot of valuable information about your plane; the magi and philosophers in this one have the damnedest lot of contradictory theories about it."
"Sorry, but I've got to return before Bechard does something drastic with my mundane body. He gave me ten days."
"Bechard? Who's that?"
Nash told him about the demon.
"Hm-m-m," said Stark."I see your point. An astral body whose mundane congener has abandoned it or died is more liable to dissolution than one that is constantly maintained by its creator's. imagination."
"Well," said Nash, "can you fix me up, and if so what would the charge be?"
"Don't know; I'd have to think. Paraldine, would you get the volumes of Duban Farsi's Encyclopedia with the articles on 'Shamir' and 'Tukiphat'?"
The girl put down her sewing and left the room, followed by Nash's appreciative glance.
"Not looking for a secretary, are you?" asked Stark.
"Nope. Gosh, are you trying to get rid of her?"
"Um-m-m—yes and no. She's a good worker, but you know how sylphs are. Paraldine keeps pestering me... say, de Nêche, do you know I have a peculiar feeling—as if I'd known you somewhere?"
Nash grinned."In a way you have." And he told him about Montague Allen Stark.
"By Adonai Elohim, no wonder you came to me!" cried Stark."This is... ah, thank you, my dear," he said as the sylph dumped two huge volumes on his desk."Now let's see. Shaddai— Shamgar—Shamir. Hm-m-m." The magus read silently and puffed."'Lahu man ham ala al Shamir, al sama' wa jahannam horn ghuraf ji seraiah wahed. ' Literally, To him who holds the Shamir, Heaven and Hell are but rooms in the same building. ' What he means is that with this glorified rock you can translate both body and soul from one plane to another. Gives the method of using it too. You insufflate it three times—"
"You what?"
"Blow on it, to you. Then you describe the right pentagram if you're going to a higher plane; the left if to a lower; you'd use the left. Meanwhile you say: 'By the great Adonai, Elohim, Ariel, and Jehovam, conjuro, petrus veritatis, te cito mihi obedire; I conjure thee to obey me forthwith—' If the stone doesn't begin to coruscate at this point, that means it's pretending it doesn't understand English and Latin, so you have to repeat in Hebrew or Arabic. I hope you don't because to pronounce Arabic properly you need an oversized glottis and a case of asthma. 'By the holy names Albrot, On, Shaddai—' I'll have Paraldine type it out for you on virgin typewriter paper. Now let's see about Tuky."
Merlin Apollonius Stark opened the other volume and frowned over it for a long time. He murmured: "Don't know— These geniuses are tough customers, Tukiphat particularly. I wouldn't tangle with him myself for a bushel of azoth. But that's your funeral—"
He read on somberly, the slope of his shoulders indicating dim prospects. Then he began to perk up."Hey! De Nêche! I think I've got a method of getting through the refractory zone!"
The wizard jumped up and began to pace, nervously pulling his beard, cracking his knuckle joints, and hitting his palm with his fist."It's a natural! Paraldine, take a letter to Arnold Nathan."
The girl put down her sewing and took up her shorthand pad. Stark said: "On self-immolating paper, in a red-bordered envelope. Don't want to burn old Nathan's fingers.
Dear Mr. Nathan:
Could you do a little rush job for one of my clients? Take a watch with a sweep-second hand and a stop button. Transpose the hour hand and the second hand, so that the former hour hand will be controllable by the stud, and when activated will make one complete revolution per minute. The favor of Jod He Vau He be with you if you can do the job in twenty-four hours.
Very sincerely yours,
"All right, de Nêche, you come around day after tomorrow, early. I'll have a spell for binding Tukiphat and getting through his sphere worked out. I warn you that the first may require a triad."
"A whattad?"
"Three people to work it. So you'd better start thinking of whom you want to take along."
"Umm," said Nash."I suppose I could use a couple of Arslan's slaves—"
"Soulless ones? Too stupid."
"That was my impression. Say, you know I tried to give them their freedom this morning, and they wouldn't take it! Damnedest thing I ever saw."
"Not at all," said Stark."They were created as slaves, so they can't imagine any other existence."
"On my plane we consider slavery an abomination," said Nash."And we don't believe in natural-born slaves any more."
"Yes, but this isn't your plane, fellow!"
"Well, what are those 'soulless ones, ' then?"
"Oh. When one of you mundane souls creates an astral person, he sometimes throws in a flock of servants to do the dirty work for his hero. These auxiliary astral bodies, as it were, are what we call soulless ones, because they have very little personality of their own. They're useful, though; most of the unskilled labor on our plane is done by them, because there are so few first-grade astralites who will go in for it." He smiled wryly."Most unjust, according to your lights. The only way I can see to fix it is to persuade you mundane folks to create more honest toilers and fewer leaders and geniuses. If you find us kind of backward compared to you, that's what's wrong; everybody wants to be boss."
"O. K.," said Nash."But what'll I do with these guys? They give me the creeps."
Stark shrugged."Give 'em to the members of the harem. By the way, when you come around Saturday, you'd better bring some money with you."
"How much?"
Stark exchanged a knowing glance with the sylph, put his fingertips together, and rolled his eyes piously upward."Ahem—I don't like to fix a fee so far in advance—you never know what complications you're going to run into—but shall we say ten thousand dollars, including the watch and all the other props?"
"Owl" yelped Nash."Who do you think I am, a guy named Morgan Vanderbilt Rockefeller?"
Stark looked surprised and a bit hurt."After all, this astral money won't be any good on the mundane plane, even if you take it along!"
"It's the principle of the thing. You wouldn't soak your mundane body's best friend, would you?"
Stark sighed."Oh, all right, suppose we make it five thousand?"
Nash screwed his face into a knot at the thought of handing over five thousand dollars.