The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales

"G'wan," repeated Buckminster. "Sure one of those sailors didn't clip you with a piece of pipe or somepin?"

"Naw," said Grinnig scornfully. "I seen what I seen. And I figure I gotta have the third volume of the course right now, on account of it tells how to get rid of these things."

"You can't," replied the salesman. "The second volume oughta be just about off the press, and the third ain't even printed. Anyway, I think you imagined it. Come down to the corner and I'll buy you a beer and tell you about how to be an aviation mechanic."

"I did not imagine it," persisted Grinnig.

"Okay, then, show me how you did it."

"Okay, wise guy, I'll show you. Gimme the book." Grinnig fished out the stub of a pencil, frowned over the diagrams, and slowly drew a number of complicated lines on the concrete floor of the garage. He took out a candle no longer than his thumb, lit it, and placed it on the floor. Then he mumbled a long series of sounds that sounded to Buckminster like continuous double-talk, pausing now and then to draw imaginary figures in the air with his pencil.

Carl Grinnig ended his spiel and shut the lesson book. "Aw right, Mr. Buckminster, you— Yumping Yudas!"

Over one of the diagrams, about ten feet from the two men, something was swiftly materializing. First came smoke and a smell of sulphur dioxide, then a dull-red glow, which brightened to orange. Then they were confronted by what looked like the nude iron statue of a powerfully built man at incandescent temperatures. The heat from the apparition beat on their faces like the glow from an open furnace door, and they began to sweat.

The fire man surveyed Buckminster and Grinnig. When he spoke, it was in a deep, harsh, strongly accented voice: "Where—is—my—fiddle—creature?"

"I dunno what you're talking about," said Grinnig, his fair skin paler than usual.

"Please, mister, go away," added Buckminster. "It's all a mistake!"

"Ha," rasped the newcomer. "Mistake. Mistake. But few mistakes does your trade allow. Where is my salamander?"

Grinnig swallowed and croaked: "You mean that fire thing? It's in that big house in back of you."

The visitor turned his massive head and whistled piercingly. Almost immediately, a sphere of flickering orange flame the size of a soft baseball arrived with a rush, danced up and down in front of its master, and at length snuggled up under his armpit.

The glowing head raised slightly, and the men felt by the increase of heat rather than saw the glowing eyeballs fasten upon them. "And now," said the fire man, "wherefore have ye broken the Treaty?"

"What treaty?" said Grinnig.

"Ye know not? Ha." The apparition put out a hand to lean against the wooden side of the garage. There was an immediate burst of smoke where the hand touched the wall.

"Hi!" yelped Buckminster. The fire man took his hand away with a slight, grim smile, leaving a charred spot the shape of a hand on the wood.

"What, then, do ye know?" he demanded.

"N-not so much," quavered the massive Grinnig. "I yust got this little book from the Mercury Home Study Institute, and I wanted to try it out. So I did a little spell. Please, buddy, who are you and when are you going to let us out of here? It's damned hot!"

The thing smiled even more broadly. "Ye know not my real name even? Ye cannot control me?"

"I ain't come to that part of the course—"

"Ha! 'Tis rare fortune, indeed, that the Covenant should be breached by a brace of such witless bunglers as ye! This much will I tell you: that I am of the race of the

Saldines, which the meddling Paracelsus ignorantly called Rolamandri; one of the peoples of the fire world, even as my little salamander is one of the beasts of the world. When my pet vanished, I suspected some foul doings in your world and watched for another opening of the door, the same which you forthwith furnished me. Ha! Now truly shall Fire come into its own!"

"Whatcha mean?" piped Buckminster.

"I'll show you what I mean! Give me that book!"

Grinnig extended the lesson booklet, and snatched his hand back as the red-hot arm shot out to seize the volume, which instantly went up in a puff of flame.

"Freeze it!" roared the fire elemental. "I should have bethought me of the perishability of your paper. Where can I obtain another such volume?"

"I dunno," babbled Buckminster, "unless you wanna go clear out to Paterson."

"Where?"

"Paterson, New Jersey, where the home office is. They got the whole course out there."

"Then let us forth. But stay! I cannot move abroad without some garment, lest I attract the attention of the general."

"I'll say you would," murmured Buckminster. "You'd attract the whole army."

"Give me, then, your clothing."

"Hey!" squawked the salesman. "They're too small for you, and anyway they'd burn up if you tried to put 'em on!"

"True," growled the Saldine. "I have it! There exists in your world a substance known before the Treaty as salamander skin, which in sooth is but a fabric woven of the strands of a certain fibrous rock. Fetch me a suit of this forthwith!"

"He means asbestos," explained Grinnig.

"Yeah, but how—"