Madwand (Illustrated) by Roger Zelazny Read Free Book Online Page A

Still, he reflected after a time, what difference should it make? Like the entire place about them—if it serves its purpose, appearance can be for more important than content.
    “Hardly an original observation,” Mouseglove replied when he voiced it. “And it meant a lot to me every time I lifted a bogus jewel I thought was real.”
    Pol chuckled.
    “Then it served its purpose.”
    Mouseglove laughed.
    “All right. All right. But when death gets involved it is better to know which is the real dagger and which the real hand. After what happened that last night in your library, I would be very careful in a place like this.”
    “By what means that I am not already employing?”
    “Well, that magical shower we passed through earlier,” Mouseglove began. “I just noticed—”
    He was interrupted by the approach of a blond, well-built young man with finely chiseled features and a flashing smile. He was extravagantly dressed and he moved with an extraordinary grace and poise.
    “Madwand! And Mouseglove! Strange meeting you here! Waiter! Another of whatever they’re having for my friends! And a glass of your best for me!”
    He drew up a chair and seated himself at their table.
    “It looks as if they did a better than usual job this year,” he said, gesturing. “How do you like your accommodations?”
    “Uh—fine,” Pol replied as the waiter arrived and produced their drinks.
    The youth gestured and his hand was suddenly filled with coins. They leapt upward from it, arched through the hoop and into the basket with a small pyrotechnic display.
    “Colorful,” Pol said. “Listen, I hate to seem rude since you’re buying, but I can’t seem to recall . . . ”
    The youth laughed, his handsome features creasing with merriment.
    “Of course not, of course not,” he said. “I am Ibal, and you are looking at the finest rejuvenation spell ever wrought.” He brushed a speck of dust from his bright sleeve. “Not to mention a few cosmetic workings,” he added softly.
    “Really!”
    “Amazing!”
    “Yes. I am ready to meet once again with my beloved Vonnie, for two weeks of lovemaking, revelry, good food and drink. It is the only reason I still come to these things.”
    “How—interesting.”
    “Yes. We first met here nearly three hundred years ago, and our feelings have remained undiminished across the centuries.”
    “Impressive,” Pol said. “But do you not see one another in between times?”
    “Gods, no! If we had to live together on a day-to-day basis one of us would doubtless kill the other. Two weeks every four years is just right.” He stared into his drink a moment before raising it to his lips. “Besides,” he added, “we spend a lot of the intervening time recovering.”
    He looked up again.
    “Madwand, what have you done to yourself?”
    “What do you mean?” Pol asked.
    “That white streak in your hair. Why is it there?”
    Pol ran a hand through his still-moist thatch.
    “Little joke,” he said.
    “Not in the best of taste,” said Ibal, shaking his head. “You’ll have people associating you with Det’s Disaster. Ahh!”
    They followed a sudden movement of his gaze out along the street, past a halted fat man and a pair of strollers, to where a woman approached under a swaying blue light. She was of medium height, her hair long and dark and glossy, her form superbly molded beneath a light, clinging costume, her features delicate, lovely, smiling.
    Following his sharp intake of breath, Ibal rose to his feet. Pol and Mouseglove did the same.
    “Gentlemen, this is Vonnie,” he announced as she came up to the table. He embraced her, kept his arm about her. “My dear, you are lovelier than ever. These are my friends, Madwand and Mouseglove. Let us have a drink with them before we go our way.”
    She nodded to them as he brought her a chair.
    “It is good to meet you,” she said. “Have you come very far?” and Pol, captivated by the charm of her voice as well as the