10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

“Not knowingly.”

“Urn. In that case, have you refused treatment to a sorcerer?”

“Not knowingly,” Nadeesh repeated. After a few seconds he added, “But now one is going to murder me.”

“Is murdering you,” Strick said, staring at nothing. “Unless we can do something about it.”

Nadeesh lurch up, gasping with effort. “You think you can?”

“One can always try. In this case, one must.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind. You are too good a man to be murdered this way with- out my trying to stop it.”

A long sigh escaped the pitifully wizened man, and Strick heard the rattle in his scrawny throat.

“Bearing in mind that I am a spellwright, not a physician, let us dis- cuss the bill in advance.”

Nadeesh’s smile was hideous, but genuine. “You certainly have me, sir. Name the price and I shall agree. Understand that if the patient dies, however, he cannot pay.”

Despite the gravity of the complaint of his “patient,” Strick laughed aloud.

They discussed his bill.

Hanse noted more construction/reconstruction on his way to pay a visit to Mignureal’s widowed father. It was not something Hanse wanted to do. He had loved Moonflower, Mignue’s gross diviner of a mother; he was able to admit that to himself, now. Ahdio and a couple of others at Sly’s Place last night had already observed that the dark, youthful man called Shadowspawn was “different.” They were right. Events on the desert and up in Maidenhead Wood had changed him a bit; the Mignureal experience had enforced responsibility and changed him ac- cordingly; the constant dark shadow of sorcery and ghastly events in Firaqa had changed and matured him; and so had more recent experi- ences in Suma.