The Golem's Eye

Hyrnek is you. Correct? Right. So far so good. Now, I know nothing about any green monkey—and let me tell you, incidentally, that looks aren't everything. I may not seem much at present, but I'm a good deal more vicious than I appear."
    The boy nodded sadly. "I thought you might be."
    "Too right, buster. I'm nastier than any monkey you're likely to come across, that's for sure. Now, where was I? I've lost my thread... Oh, yes—I know nothing about the monkey and I certainly haven't been summoned by Tallow. Which would be impossible in any case."
    "Why?"
    "Because he was swallowed by an afrit last night. But that's by the by—"
    Not to the boy, it wasn't. At this news, his face lit up: his eyes widened, his mouth curved up and outward in a long, slow smile. His whole body, which had been slumped over his stool like a sack of cement, suddenly began to straighten and gain new life. His fingers gripped the edge of the desk so hard the knuckles cracked.
    "He's dead? You're sure?"
    "Saw it with these eyes. Well—not these ones, exactly. I was a serpent at the time."
    "How did it happen?" He seemed uncommonly interested.
    "A summoning went wrong. The fool misread the words, or something."
    Hyrnek's grin broadened. "He was reading from a book?"
    "A book, yes—that's generally where incantations are to be found. Now, can we please get back to the business at hand? I haven't got all day."
    "All right, but I'm very grateful to you for the information." The boy did his best to compose himself, but kept grinning inanely and breaking into little chuckles. It really put me off my stride.
    "Look, I'm trying to be serious here. I warn you to take heed—oh hell!" The crow had taken a menacing step forward and stuck its foot into a glue pot. After a couple of tries, I managed to shake it off across the room, and began to scrape my toes clean against the corner of a wooden tray. "Now, listen," I snarled as I scraped, "I've come here—not to kill you, as you surmised—but to take you away, and I advise you not to resist."
    That knocked some sense into him. "Take me away? Where?"
    "You'll see. Do you want to get dressed? I can spare you a little time."
    "No. No, I can't!" All of a sudden he was upset, rubbing at his face and scratching at his hands.
    I tried to be reassuring. "I won't try to harm you—"
    "But I never go out. Never!"
    "You have no choice, sonny. Now, how about a pair of trousers? Those pajama bottoms look loose, and I fly at speed."
    "Please." He was desperate, pleading. "I never go out. I haven't done so for three years. Look at me. Look at me. See?"
    I looked at him blankly. "What? So you're a bit podgy. There's worse than you out there walking the streets, and you'd solve the problem fast enough if you did some exercise instead of sitting on your backside here. Embossing spell books in your bedroom is no life for a growing boy. It'll play hell with your eyesight, too."
    "No—my skin! And my hands! Look at them! I'm hideous!" He was yelling now, thrusting his hands toward my beak, and flicking his hair back from his face.
    "I'm sorry, I don't—"
    "The coloring, of course! Look at it! All over me." And sure enough, now that he came to mention it, I did see a series of vertical gray-black bands running up and down his face and across the backs of his hands.
    "Oh that" I said. "What of it? I thought you'd done that intentionally."
    Hyrnek gave a sort of silly, sobbing laugh at this, the kind that implies far too much time spent maundering in solitude. I didn't allow him time to speak. "That's a Black Tumbler, isn't it?" I went on. "Well, the Banja people of Great Zimbabwe used to use that—among other spells—to make themselves look more attractive. It was considered very becoming for a young bridegroom to have a full body-coat of stripes before the wedding, and the women went in for it, too, on a more localized basis. Only the wealthy could afford it, of course, as the sorcerers charged the earth. Anyway, from their point of view you look extremely eligible." I paused. "Except for your hair, which is pretty bad. But so's my master's, and it doesn't stop him from flouncing about in broad daylight. Now, then"—amid all of that, I thought I'd heard a door slam somewhere in the house—"it's time to go. No time for trousers, I fear; you'll have to chance your luck with the updrafts."
    I gave a hop along the desk. The boy slipped off his seat in sudden panic and began to back away. "No! Leave me alone!"
    "Sorry,