L Warren Douglas Simply Human

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your first bath. Now," he continued with a flourish of his dark, bony hands,
"I don't know that this is necessary or that your difficulties with poots are
anything more than abysmal lack of sensitivity to the feelings of others, but
in case we haven't done enough, I'm going to guarantee you'll find a companion
tonight."
He rummaged in his trunk and produced a glass vial. "Here! Androsterone Five.
Just the thing for a night on the town."
"What is it?"
"A rare and wondrous extract. From the balls and brain of a great boar."
"Yuk!"
"Would a sow think so? Or a poot? Don't deride what you don't understand. Put
a dab of this on a dentist's chair, and not a woman in town would have an
unfilled cavity." He snorted at his obscure joke.
Using the glass dropper attached to the vial's lid, he dabbed Benadek's chest
with odorless fluid.
"What's a dentist?" Benadek dutifully queried.
"Don't ask. In fact, pray heartily you never find out."
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Benadek filed "dentist" in the part of his mind where he kept a list of
Achibol's demons: Cop; Racist;
Politician. And now, Dentist.
Achibol shook out a gaudy shirt and handed it to Benadek. It came to his
knees. Then he proffered two black lumps. "I've only one pair of these
fits-all army-surplus boots left. Treat them carefully." The boots, seemingly
much too small even for Benadek's narrow feet, stretched easily over them.
Once in place they felt neither tight nor uncomfortable, though hard as iron
to the touch.
The final embellishment was a gold-colored link belt that Benadek thought too
light for metal. "An alloy of lithium," Achibol explained. "It's very rare."
Cinched around Benadek's waist, the belt turned the oversized shirt into a
smaller version of Achibol's own sorcerer's robe.
"Now, Master," Benadek said, proudly glancing down at his finery, "I'm going
poot hunting." He strode toward the door, hard-soled boots lending him a
decisive, confident stride.
"Wait! Where will you go?" Achibol demanded. "Will you command the first
female you see into an alley and be done with it? Did I do all this for you to
waste it in a few sordid minutes?"
"What then, Master?" Benadek asked him, truly puzzled. Was there more to be
desired than he'd imagined?
"What of the pretty young girl* you so grievously wronged? The one who can
read? Don't you owe her an apology?"
"How can I find her? There are hundreds of doors on this street."
"Her name is Sylfie. She lives upstairs, at the sign of the Gray Bird, a
featherbed and pillow shop. She's alone and sad, and might welcome your gentle
comfort but compassion, boy! Remember whose apprentice you are. I am Achibol,
who gives delight, laughter, and hope, not a butcher or honch."
"I understand, Master. I'll do as you say." Benadek turned again to the exit,
afraid Achibol might think of more admonitions, and that his imagined pleasure
would become yet more constrained.
When the boy had gone, Achibol shook his head ruefully.
old fool?> his staff demanded.
"The boy is not what he seems," Achibol replied. "If his pheromones are really
different, as I suspect, he'll never find happiness in a poot's bed without
help."
the steaming tub called him.
That, from his
trunk.
"Just wait, all of you!" Achibol muttered. "It will become clear, or it won't.
Just wait and see."
* * *
Benadek had no trouble finding the Gray Bird. The sign was newly painted, an
arm's span across. In an
upper window, a candle flame waxed and waned as someone moved about. He was
not ready to knock on the staircase door. Was he afraid, now that his moment
was purportedly at hand? What was to fear?
That question brought a torrent of answers: Achibol was not above playing
nasty tricks in the name of learning, of course. Or his master's magic might
fail him the old man was not perfect and Benadek might actually be outside the
door of some honch who would beat him. He leaned on a pillar in the shadows
across the street.
But fate intervened. He heard the upstairs sash open. A face, a white-clad
body, leaned out into the moonlight. It was her! Her sand-blond hair gleamed
silver. She looked first one way up the street, then the other. Was she
expecting someone at this time of night?
Benadek tensed to move deeper into shadow or to step forward and announce
himself. The decision which was taken from his hands.
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"You in the shadows! Are you a thief? Come forth or I'll set the bell to
ringing!"
"I'm no thief! I'm Benadek, apprentice to the great sorcerer, Achibol. I'm
here to apologize. I tarried only to collect my thoughts."
"As well you might!" she snapped. "You might apologize as well for skulking
and spying, instead of coming straight to the door."
"Let me in, so we don't wake the neighborhood, and I'll apologize for that
too."
"Why don't I fear you?" she mused. "But very well, I'll be down in a moment."
He heard her light footsteps on the wooden steps, then the rattle of an
ancient lock.
"You're different," she said immediately. "I hardly know you."
"I'm dressed as befits my rank and position," Benadek said glibly, "not in the
anonymous garb I affect for lesser occasions."
"There's more to the difference than clothing," she observed astutely. "But
never mind. Come upstairs."
The ascent was the high point of Benadek's life, or so he believed. His eyes
followed her pert behind from a vantage point only a foot or two away, and he
studied the flash of her slim ankles and delicate feet. He had never seen such
pretty legs, such a firm . . . He almost fell as his foot reached up for a
step that was not there. They had arrived.
The room, lit by a candle on a small wood table, was not what Benadek had
expected. It was lined with shelves, and on the shelves were . . . books.
Leather-clad books and cloth-covered ones, titles in colors that contrasted
with dark leather or yellowed cloth. But his desire to examine them would have
to wait.
"I came to apologize," he said, "and to explain why I acted as I did."
"Explain later," she murmured, moving close.
"I was special before," he insisted. "Reading made me different from the other
urchins. And you I
wasn't special anymore, you see?"
"I'm sorry," she said, unbuttoning him, running her hands over his chest as
his shirt fell open.
"I'm supposed to be sorry, not you! Learning to read is special. I was jealous
and selfish. Forgive me." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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