"Yonder, up the Street of the Clever Flea... Naturally you would not know how the street got its name." As they walked, Lorcas recounted the ribald legend.
Efraim listened with only half an ear. They turned the corner into a street of marginal enterprises: a booth selling fried clams, a gambling arcade, a cabaret decorated with red and green lights, a bordello, a novelty shop, a travel agency, a store which displayed in the show window a stylized Tree of Life, the golden fruit labeled in a flowing unreadable script. Here Lorcas paused. "Let me do the talking, unless Skogel asks you a direct question. He has a queer manner which antagonizes everyone, but which I happen to know is spurious. Or at least I strongly suspect as much. In any event, be surprised at nothing; also, if he quotes a price, agree, no matter what your reservations. Nothing puts him off like haggling. Come along then; let's try our luck." He entered the shop with Efraim following slowly behind.
From the dimness at the back of the shop Skogel appeared: a man of medium stature, thin as a post with long arms and a round waxen face, above which rose spikes of dust-brown hair. "Pleasant modes," said Lorcas. "Have you collected yet from our friend Boodles?"
"Nothing. But I expected nothing and dealt with him accordingly."
"How so?"
"You know his requirements. He received only tincture of cacodyl in water, which may or may not have served his purposes."
"He made no complaints to me, though in truth he has seemed somewhat subdued of late."
"If he chooses, he may come to me for consolation. And who is this gentleman?
Something about him seems Rhune, something else says out-world."
"You are right in both directions. He is a Rhune who has spent an appreciable time on Numenes, and Bruse-Tansel as well. You instantly wonder why. The answer is simple - he has lost his memory. I told him that if anyone could help him it would be you."
"Bah. I don't stock memories in boxes, neatly labeled like so many cathartics.
He'll have to contrive his own memories. Isn't this easy enough?"
Lorcas looked at Efraim with an expression of rueful amusement. "Contrary fellow that he is, he wants his own memories back."
"He won't find them here. Where did he lose them? That's the place to look."
"An enemy stole his memory and put him on a ship to Bruse-Tansel. My friend is anxious to punish this thief, hence his set chin and gleaming eyes."
Skogel, throwing back his head, laughed and slapped the counter. "That's more like it! Too many wrongdoers escape with whole skins and profit! Revenge!
There's the word! I wish you luck! Good modes, sir." And Skogel, turning his back, stalked stiff-legged back into the dimness of his shop. Efraim stared after him in wonder, but Lorcas signaled him to patience. Presently Skogel stalked forward. "And what do you require on this occasion?"
Lorcas said: "Do you recall your remarks of a week ago?"
"In regard to what?"
"Psychomorphosis."
"A large word," grumbled Skogel. "I spoke it at random."
"Would any of this apply to my friend?"
"Certainly. Why not?"
"And the source of this psychomorphosis?"
Skogel put his hands on the counter and leaning forward scrutinized Efraim with owlish intensity. "You are a Rhune?"
"What is your name?"
"I seem to be Efraim, Kaiark of Scharrode."
"Then you must be wealthy."
"I don't know whether I am or not."
"And you want the return of your memory?"
"Naturally."
"You have come to the wrong place. I deal in commodities of other sorts." Skogel slapped the counter and made as if to turn away again.
Lorcas said smoothly: "My friend insists that you at least accept a fee, or honorarium, for your advice."
"Fee? For words? For guesses and hypotheses? Do you take me for a man without shame?"
"Of course not!" declared Lorcas. "He only wants to learn where his memory went."
"Then this is my guess, and he may have it free of cost. He has eaten Fwai-chi shag." Skogel indicated the shelves, cases, and cabinets of his shop, which were stocked with bottles of every size and shape, crystallized. herbs, stoneware jugs, metal oddments, tins, phials, jars, and an unclassifiable miscellaneity of confusing scope. "I will reveal a truth," declared Skogel portentously. "Much of my merchandise, on a functional level, is totally ineffective. Psychically, symbolically, subliminally, the story is different! Each item exerts its own sullen strength, and sometimes I feel myself in the presence of elementals. With an infusion of spider grass, mixed perhaps with pulverized devil's eye, I achieve astounding results. The Benkenists, idiots and witlings as they are, aver that only the credulous are affected; they are wrong! Our organisms swim in a paracosmic fluid, which no one can comprehend; none of our senses find scope or purchase, so to speak. Only by operative procedures, which the Benkenists deride, can we manipulate this ineffable medium; and by so stating, am I therefore a charlatan?" Skogel slapped the counter with split-faced grin of triumph.
With delicate emphasis Lorcas inquired: "And what of the Fwai-chi?"
"Patience!" snapped Skogel. "Allow me my brief moment of vanity. After all, I do not veer too far astray."
"By all means," said Lorcas hastily. "Declaim to your heart's content."
Not altogether mollified, Skogel took up the thread of his remarks. "I have long speculated that the Fwai-chi interact with the paracosmos somewhat more readily than men, although they are a taciturn race and never explain their feats, or perhaps they take their multiplex environment for granted. In any event, they are a most peculiar and versatile race, which the Majar, at least, appreciate. I refer of course to that final. poor fragment of the race who live over the hill." Skogel looked truculently from Lorcas to Efraim, but neither challenged his opinion.
Skogel continued. "A certain shaman of the Majars fancies to consider himself in my debt, and not too long ago he invited me to Atabus to witness an execution.
My friend explained an innovation in Majar justice: the suspect, or the adjudged
- among the Majars the distinction is slight - is dosed with Fwai-chi shag, and his reactions, which range from torpor through hallucination, antics, convulsions, frantic feats of Agility, to instant death, are noted. The Majar are nothing but a pragmatic folk; they take a lively interest in the capabilities of the human organism, and consider themselves great scientists. In my presence they administered a golden-brown gum from dorsal Fwai-chi shags, and the suspect at once fancied himself four different persons who conducted a vivacious conversation among themselves and the onlookers, employing a single tongue and larynx to produce two and sometimes three voices simultaneously. My host described some of the other effects he had witnessed, and mentioned a certain shag whose exudation blotted away human memory. I therefore suggest that your friend has been dosed with Fwai-chi shag." He peered from one to the other, showing a small trembling smile of triumph. "And that, in short, is my opinion."
"All very well," said Lorcas, "but how is my friend to be cured?"
Skogel made a careless gesture. "No cure is known, for the reason that none exists. What is gone, is gone."
Lorcas looked ruefully at Efraim. "So there you have it. Someone dosed you with Fwai-chi shag."
"I wonder who," said Efraim. "I wonder who."
Lorcas turned to speak to Skogel, but the shopkeeper had disappeared into the dim chamber at the rear of his establishment.