"Out with it," Bob said.
"If you must know," the ferra said sullenly, "King Alerian lives in what you would call 2,000 B.C."
"Then how-"
"Oh, just a minute," the young ferra said crossly. "I"ll explain everything." He rubbed his perspiring hands on his sweatshirt.
"As I told you, I got the job of ferra of the King"s Cup. Naturally, I expected the king would ask for jewels or beautiful women, either of which I could have supplied easily. We learn that in first term conjuration. But the king had all the jewels he wanted, and more wives than he knew what to do with. So what does he do but say, "Ferra, my palace is hot in the summer. Do that which will make my palace cool."
"I knew right then I was in over my head. It takes an advanced ferra to handle climate. I guess I spent too much time on the track team. I was stuck.
"I hurried to the Master Encyclopedia and looked up Climate. The spells were just too much for me. And of course, I couldn"t ask for help. That would have been an admission of incompetence. But I read that there was artificial climate control in the Twentieth Century. So I walked here, along the narrow trail to the future, and took one of your air conditioners. When the king wanted me to stop his food from spoiling, I came back for a refrigerator. Then it was-"
"You hooked them all to the generator?" Janice asked, interested in such details.
"Yes. I may not be much with spells, but I"m pretty handy mechanically."
It made sense, Bob thought. After all, who could keep a palace cool in 2,000 B.C.? Not all the money in the world could buy the gust of icy air from an air conditioner, or the food-saving qualities of a refrigerator. But what still bothered Bob was, what kind of demon was he? He didn"t look a.s.syrian. Certainly not Egyptian....
"No, I don"t get it," Janice said. "In the past? You mean time travel?"
"Sure. I majored in time travel," the ferra said, with a proud, boyish grin.
Aztec, perhaps, Bob thought, although that seemed unlikely....
"Well," Janice said, "why don"t you go somewhere else? Why not steal from one of the big department stores?"
"This is the only place the trail to the future leads," the ferra said.
He picked up the fan. "I"m sorry to be doing this, but if I don"t make good here, I"ll never get another appointment. It"ll be limbo for me."
He disappeared.
Half an hour later, Bob and Janice were in a corner booth of an all-night diner, drinking black coffee and talking in low tones.
"I don"t believe a word of it," Janice was saying, all her skepticism back in force. "Demons! Ferras!"
"You have to believe it," Bob said wearily. "You saw it."
"I don"t have to believe everything I see," Janice said staunchly. Then she thought of the missing articles, the vanishing profits and the increasingly distant marriage. "All right," she said. "Oh, honey, what"ll we do?"
"You have to fight magic with magic," Bob said confidently. "He"ll be back tomorrow night. We"ll be ready for him."
"I"m in favor of that," Janice said. "I know where we can borrow a Winchester-"
Bob shook his head. "Bullets will just bounce off him, or pa.s.s through. Good, strong magic, that"s what we need. A dose of his own medicine."
"What kind of magic?" Janice asked.
"To play safe," Bob said, "we"d better use all kinds. I wish I knew where he"s from. To be really effective, magic-"
"You want more coffee?" the counterman said, appearing suddenly in front of them.
Bob looked up guiltily. Janice blushed.
"Let"s go," she said to Bob. "If anyone hears us, we"ll be laughed out of town."
They met at the store that evening. Bob had spent the day at the library, gathering his materials. They consisted of 25 sheets covered on both sides with Bob"s scrawling script.
"I still wish we had that Winchester," Janice said, picking up a tire iron from the hardware section.
At 11:45 the ferra appeared.
"Hi," he said. "Where do you keep your electric heaters? The king wants something for winter. He"s tired of open hearths. Too drafty."
"Begone," Bob said, "in the name of the cross!" He held up a cross.
"Sorry," the ferra said pleasantly. "The ferras aren"t connected with Christianity."
"Begone in the name of Namtar and Idpa!" Bob went on, since Mesopotamia was first on his notes. "In the name of Utuq, dweller of the desert, in the name of Telal and Alal-"
"Oh, here they are," the ferra said. "Why do I get myself into these jams? This is the electric model, isn"t it" Looks a little shoddy."
"I invoke Rata, the boatbuilder," Bob intoned, switching to Polynesia. "And Hina, the tapa maker."
"Shoddy, nothing," Janice said, her business instincts getting the better of her. "That stove is guaranteed for a year. Unconditionally."
"I call on the Heavenly Wolf," Bob went on, moving into China when Polynesia had no effect. "The Wolf who guards the gates of Shang Ti. I invoke the thunder G.o.d, Lei Kung-"
"Let"s see, I have an infrared broiler," the ferra said. "And I need a bathtub. Have you got a bathtub?"
"I call Bael, Buer, Forcas, Marchocias, Astaroth-"
"These are bathtubs, aren"t they?" the ferra asked Janice, who nodded involuntarily. "I think I"ll take the largest. The king is a good- sized man."
"-Behemoth, Theutus, Asmodeus and Incubus!" Bob finished. The ferra looked at him with respect.
Angrily, Bob invoked Ormazd, Persian king of light, and then the Ammonitic Beelphegor, and Dagon of the ancient Philistines.
"That"s all I can carry, I suppose," the ferra said.
Bob invoked Damballa. He called upon the G.o.ds of Arabia. He tried Thessalian magic, and spells from Asia Minor. He nudged Aztec G.o.ds and stirred Mayan spirits. He tried Africa, Madagascar, India, Ireland, Malaya, Scandinavia and j.a.pan.
"That"s impressive," the ferra said, "but it"ll really do no good." He lifted the bathtub, broiler, and heater.
"Why not?" Bob gasped, out of breath.
"You see, ferras are affected only by their own indigenous spells. Just as jinn are responsible only to magic laws of Arabia. Also, you don"t know my true name, and I a.s.sure you, you can"t do much of a job of exorcising anything if you don"t know its true name."
"What country are you from?" Bob asked, wiping perspiration from his forehead.
"Sorry," the ferra said. "But if you knew that, you might find the right spell to use against me. And I"m in enough trouble as it is."
"Now look," Janice said. "If the king is so rich, why can"t he pay?"
"The king never pays for anything he can get free," the ferra said. "That"s why he"s so rich."
Bob and Janice glared at him, their marriage fading off into the future.
"See you tomorrow night," the ferra said.
He waved a friendly hand, and vanished.
"Well now," Janice said, after the ferra had left. "What now? Any more bright ideas?"
"All out of them," Bob said, sitting down heavily on a sofa.
"Any more magic?" Janice asked, with a faint touch of irony.
"That won"t work," Bob said. "I couldn"t find ferra or King Alerian listed in any encyclopedia. He"s probably from some place we"d never hear of. A little native state in India, perhaps."
"Just our luck," Janice said, abandoning irony. "What are we going to do? I suppose he"ll want a vacuum cleaner next, and then a phonograph." She closed her eyes and concentrated.
"He really is trying to make good," Bob said.
"I think I have an idea," Janice said, opening her eyes.
"What"s that?"
"First of all, it"s our business that"s important, and our marriage. Right?"
"Right," Bob said.
"All right. I don"t know much about spells," Janice said, rolling up her sleeves. "But I do know machines. Let"s get to work."
The next night the ferra visited them at a quarter to eleven. He wore the same white sweater, but he had exchanged his buckskins for tan loafers.
"The king is in a special rush for this," he said. "His newest wife has been pestering the life out of him. It seems that her clothes last for only one washing. Her slaves beat them with rocks."
"Sure," Bob said.
"Help yourself," Janice said.
"That"s awfully decent of you," the ferra said gratefully. "I really appreciate it." He picked up a washing machine. "She"s waiting now."
He vanished.
Bob offered Janice a cigarette. They sat down on a couch and waited. In half an hour the ferra appeared again.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"Why, what"s the matter?" Janice asked sweetly.
"The washer! When the queen started it, it threw out a great cloud of evil-smelling smoke. Then it made some strange noises and stopped."
"In our language," Janice said, blowing a smoke ring, "we would say it was gimmicked."
"Rigged. Fixed. Strung. And so"s everything else in this place."
"But you can"t do that!" the ferra said. "It"s not playing the game."
"You"re so smart," Janice said venomously, "go ahead and fix it."
"I was boasting," the ferra said in a small voice. "I was much better at sports."
Janice smiled and yawned.
"Well, gee," the ferra said, his little wings twitching nervously.
"Sorry," Bob said.
"This puts me in an awful spot," the ferra said. "I"ll be demoted. I"ll be thrown out of civil service."
"We can"t let ourselves go bankrupt, can we?" Janice asked.
Bob thought for a moment. "Look," he said. "Why don"t you tell the king you"ve met a strong countermagic? Tell him he has to pay a tariff to the demons of the underworld if he wants his stuff."
"He won"t like it," the ferra said doubtfully.
"Try it anyhow," Bob suggested.
"I"ll try," the ferra said, and vanished.
"How much do you think we can charge?" Janice asked.
"Oh, give him standard rates. After all, we"ve built this store on fair practices. We wouldn"t want to discriminate. I still wish I knew where he was from, though."
"He"s so rich," Janice said dreamily. "It seems a shame not to-"
"Wait a minute!" Bob shouted. "We can"t do it! How can there be refrigerators in 2,000 before Christ? Or air conditioners?"
"What do you mean?"
"It would change the whole course of history!" Bob said. "Some smart guy is going to look at those things and figure out how they work. Then the whole course of history will be changed!"
"So what?" Janice asked practically.
"So what? So research will be carried out along different lines. The present will be changed."