Songs of the Dying Earth by George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois Read Free Book Online

Erzuine Thale, and nothing else. Stand a bit aside, if you will, so that I can open the flask without activating Thampyron’s Charm, for, may I remind you, any hint that I act under duress will destroy its contents. It would be a pity to have preserved this wine for so long a time only to have it become worthless vinegar in the moment of unsealing.”
    “You act now of your own free will,” Unthan Vyorn said. “It was your choice to offer us this wine, nor was it done at our insistence.”
    “This is true,” Puillayne responded. He set out four goblets and, contemplating the flask thoughtfully, spoke the words that would breach its seal.
    “Three goblets will suffice,” said Kesztrel Tsaye.
    “I am not to partake?
    “If you do, it will leave that much less for us.”
    “You are cruel indeed, depriving me even of a fourth share of this wine, which I obtained at such expense and after negotiations so prolonged I can scarcely bear to think of them. But so be it. I will have none. As you pointed out, what does it matter, or anything else, when the hour of everlasting night grows ineluctably near?”
    He put one goblet aside and filled the other three. Malion Gainthrust was the first to seize his, clutching it with berserk intensity and gulping it to its depths in a single crazed ingurgitation. Instantly, his strange chilly eyes grew bright as blazing coals. The other two men drank more judiciously, frowning a bit at the first sip as though they had expected some more immediate ebullition, sipping again, frowning again, now trembling. Puillayne refilled the goblets. “Drink deep,” he abjured them. “How I envy you this ecstasy of ecstasies!”
    Malion Gainthrust now fell to the floor, thrashing about oddly, and, a moment later, Kesztrel Tsaye did the same, toppling like a felled tree and slapping his hands against the tiles as though to indicate some extreme inward spasm. Long-legged Unthan Vyorn, suddenly looking deathly pale, swayed erratically, clutched at his throat, and gasped, “But this is some poison, is it not? By the Thodiarch, you have betrayed us!”
    “Indeed,” said Puillayne blandly, as Unthan Vyorn joined his writhing fellows on the floor. “I have given you not the True Vintage of Erzuine Thale, but the Efficacious Solvent of Gibrak Lahinne. The strictures of honor placed upon me in my capacity as Eighteenth Maghada of Nalanda do not extend to a requirement that I ignore the need for self-defense. Already, I believe, the bony frame of your bodies has begun to dissolve. Your internal organs must also be under attack. You will shortly lose consciousness, I suspect, which will spare you from whatever agonies you may at the moment be experiencing. But do you wonder that I took so harsh a step? You thought I was a helpless idle fool, and quite likely that scornful assessment was correct up until this hour, but by entering my sanctum and attempting to part me from the things I hold precious, you awakened me from my detachment and restored me to the love of life that had long ago fled from me. No longer did the impending doom of the world enfold me in paralysis. Indeed, I chose to take action against your depredations, and so—”
    But he realized that there was no reason for further statements. His visitors had been reduced to puddles of yellow slime, leaving just their caps and boots and other garments, which he would add to his collection of memorabilia. The rest required only the services of his corps of revenants to remove, and then he was able to proceed with a clear mind to the remaining enterprises of a normal afternoon.
    “But will you not now at last permit yourself to enjoy the True Vintage?” Gimbiter Soleptan asked him two nights later, when he and several other of Puillayne’s closest friends had gathered in a tent of sky-blue silk in the garden of the poet’s manse for a celebratory dinner. The intoxicating scent of the calavindra blossoms was in the air, and the pungent odor of