10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

“Here, then, in brief, is the secret Klikitagh has hidden from every- body in the world, himself included.

“His punishment is just. He told me so.”

“It cannot be! No one could deserve that fate!”

“Until today I would have said the same,” Enas Yorl said solemnly, shifting on his chair as though his new form had grown unsuited to it.

“But how can he have told you so?” Jarveena persisted.

“I chose this of all days rather by enlightened guesswork than by proper knowledge. As it happened, I was right. On one day of the year, in the proper circumstances, he is able to remember why he deserves his curse.”

“Tell me! Tell me!” Jarveena pleaded.

“Though you crept to me on hands and knees, bleeding in the extrem- ity of death, begging to be told before your final breath, I would not let description of such foulness pass my lips!”

Not that, strictly speaking, it was lips he now must use to speak with . . .

“Know only this: after committing it, he bethought himself of his crime and repented. Haunted by self-loathing, he became a court to try himself, and passed the only sentence that was fitting. He wanted so to suffer that no person who had heard about his evil deed, and might be tempted to emulate it, would fail to hear as well about its perpetrator’s punishment and change his mind-not considering that the time might come when any such would be long dead and all his victims totally forgotten. Therefore he made the sentence cruel past conceiving-save by one who was evil to the fiber of his nerves.