"You the Bête Joyeux?" asked Almarish.
"See here," said the monster, snorting a bit and dribbling lava from a corner of its mouth. "See here—I've been called many things, some unprintable, but that's a new one. What's it mean?"
"Happy animal, I think," said Almarish.
"Then I probably am," said the monster. It chuckled. "Now what do you want?"
"See this vial? It has to be filled with your tears."
"So what?" asked the monster, scratching itself.
"Will you weep for me?"
"Out of sheer perversity, no. Shall we fight now?"
"I suppose so," said Almarish, heavyhearted. "There's only one other way to get your tears that I can think of. Put up your dukes, chum."
The monster squared off slowly. It didn't move like a fighter; it seemed to rely on static fire power, like a battle-tank. It reached out a tentacle whose end opened slowly into a steaming nozzle. Almarish snapped away as a squirt of sulfurous matter gushed from the tip.
With a lively blow the sorcerer slashed off the tentacle, which scuttled for shelter. The monster proper let out a yell of pain. One of its lionlike paws slapped down and sidewise at Almarish; he stood his ground and let the thing run into the dirk its full length, then jumped inside the thing's guard and scaled its shoulder.
"No fair!" squalled the monster.
He replied with a slash that took off an ear. The creature scratched frantically for him, but he easily eluded the clumsy nails that raked past its hide. As he danced over the skin, stabbing and slashing more like a plowman than a warrior, the nails did fully as much damage as he did.
Suddenly, treacherously, the monster rolled over. Almarish birled it like a log in a pond, harrowing up its exposed belly as it lay on its back.
Back on its feet again, the thing was suddenly still. The sorcerer, catching his breath, began to worry. The squawking pants that had been its inhalations and exhalations had stopped. But it wasn't dead, he knew. The thing was holding its breath. But why was it doing that?
The temperature of the skin began to rise, sharply. So, thought Almarish, it was trying to smoke him off by containing all its heat! He scrambled down over its forehead. The nostril flaps were tight shut.
Seemingly, it breathed only by its middle head, the one he was exploring.
His heels were smoking, and the air was growing superheated.
Something had to be done, but good and quick. With a muttered prayer, Almarish balanced the dirk in his hand and flung it with every ounce of his amazing brawn. Then, not waiting to see the results, he jumped down and ran frantically to the nearest rock. He dodged behind it and watched.
The dirk had struck home. The nostril flaps of the monster had been pinned shut. He chuckled richly to himself as the thing pawed at its nose. The metallic skin way. beginning to glow red-hot, then white.
He ducked behind the rock, huddled close to it as he saw the first faint hairline of weakness on the creature's glowing hide.
Crash! It exploded like a thunderclap. Parts whizzed past the rock like bullets, bounced and skidded along the ground, fusing rocks as they momentarily touched.
Almarish looked up at last. La Bete Joyeux was scattered over most of the plateau.
Almarish found the head at last. It had cooled down considerably; he fervently hoped that it had not dried out. With the handle of his dirk he pried up the eyelid and began a delicate operation.
Finally the dead-white sac was in his hands. Unstoppering the vial, he carefully milked the tear gland into it. "Moira," he said gently, shaking her.
"You ox!"
She was awake in a moment, ill-tempered as ever. "What is it now?"
"Your vial," he said, placing it on his palm beside her.
"Well, set it down on the ground. Me, too." He watched as she tugged off the stopper and plunged her face into the crystal-clear liquid.
Then, abruptly, he gasped. "Here," he said, averting his eyes. "Take my cloak."
"Thanks," said the tall young lady with a smile. "I didn't think, for the moment, that my clothes wouldn't grow when I did."
"Now—would you care to begin at the beginning?"
"Certainly. Moira O'Donnel's my name. Born in Dublin.' Located in Antrim at the age of twenty-five, when I had the ill luck to antagonize a warlock named McGinty. He shrank me and gave me a beastly temper.
Then, because I kept plaguing him, he banished me to these unreal parts.
"He was hipped on the Irish literary renaissance—Yeats, AE, Joyce, Shaw and the rest. So he put a tag on the curse that he found in one of Lord Dunsany's stories, about the tears of la Bete Joyeux. In the story it was 'the gladsome beast,' and Mac's French was always weak.
"What magic I know I picked up by eavesdropping. You can't help learning things knocking around the planes, I guess. There were lots of bits that I filed away because I couldn't use them until I achieved full stature again. And now, Almarish, they're all yours. I'm very grateful to you."
He stared into her level green eyes. "Think you could get us back to Ellil?"
"Like that!" She snapped her fingers.
"Good. Those rats—Pike and the rest—caught me unawares, but I can raise an army anywhere on a week's notice and take over again."
"I knew you could do it. I'm with you, Almarish, Packer, or whatever your name is."
Diffidently he said, "Moira, you grew very dear to me as you used to snore away in my pocket."
"I don't snore!" she declared.
"Anyway—you can pick whichever name you like. It's yours if you'll have it."
After a little while she said, smiling into his eyes: "My size. Only a little taller, of course."
With These Hands
Halvorsen waited in the Chancery office while Monsignor Reedy disposed of three persons who had preceded him. He was a little dizzy with hunger and noticed only vaguely that the prelate's secre-tary was beckoning to him. He started to his feet when the secretary pointedly opened the door to Monsignor Reedy's inner office and stood waiting beside it.
The artist crossed the floor, forgetting that he had leaned his port-folio against his chair, remembered at the door and went back for it, flushing. The secretary looked patient.
"Thanks," Halvorsen murmured to him as the door closed.
There was something wrong with the prelate's manner.
"I've brought the designs for the Stations, Padre," he said, opening the portfolio on the desk.
"Bad news, Roald," said the monsignor. "I know how you've been looking forward to the commission—"
"Somebody else get it?" asked the artist faintly, leaning against the desk. "I thought his eminence definitely decided I had the—"
"It's not that," said the monsignor. "But the Sacred Congregation of Rites this week made a pronouncement on images of devotion.
Stereopantograph is to be licit within a diocese at the discretion of the bishop. And his eminence—"
"S.P.G.—slimy imitations," protested Halvorsen. "Real as a plastic eye.
No texture. No guts. You know that, Padre!" he said accusingly.
"I'm sorry, Roald," said the monsignor. "Your work is better than we'll get from a Stereopantograph—to my eyes, at least. But there are other considerations."
"Money!" spat the artist.
"Yes, money," the prelate admitted. "His eminence wants to see the St.
Xavier U. building program through before he dies. Is that wrong, Roald? And there are our schools, our charities, our Venus mission.
S.P.G. will mean a considerable saving on procurement and maintenance of devotional images. Even if I could, I would not disagree with his eminence on adopting it as a matter of diocesan policy."
The prelate's eyes fell on the detailed drawings of the Stations of the Cross and lingered.
"Your St. Veronica," he said abstractedly. "Very fine. It suggests one of Caravaggio's careworn saints to me. I would have liked to see her in the bronze."