--- "Where do you go?" Fair asked in wonder and longing. "May I go with you?" The sprite, swirling a drape of bright green dust over its shoulders, shook his head. "You would be less than comfortable." "Other men have explored the worlds of magic!" "True: your uncle Gerald McIntyre, for instance." "My uncle Gerald learned green magic?" "To the limit of his capabilities. He found no pleasure in his learning. You would do well to profit by his experience and modify your ambitions." The sprite turned and walked away. ---- Jaadian assented. "You have not accepted my advice." Fair shrugged. "You asked me to remain ignorant, to accept my stupidity and ineptitude." "And why should you not?" asked Jaadian gently. "You are a primitive in a primitive realm; nevertheless not one man in a thousand can match your achievements." Fair agreed, smiling faintly. "But knowledge creates a craving for further knowledge. Where is the harm in knowledge?" ---- By stages so gradual he never realized them he learned green magic. But the new faculty gave him no pride: between his crude ineptitudes and the poetic elegance of the sprites remained a tremendous gap, and he felt his innate inferiority much more keenly than he ever had in his old state. Worse, his most earnest efforts failed to improve his technique, and sometimes, observing the singing joy of an improvised manifestation by one of the sprites, and contrasting it to his own labored constructions, he felt futility and shame. ---- In one terrible bittersweet spasm, he gave up. He found Jaadian weaving tinkling fragments of various magics into a warp of shining long splines. With grave courtesy, Jaadian gave Fair his attention, and Fair laboriously set forth his meaning. Jaadian returned a message. "I recognize your discomfort, and extend my sympathy. It is best that you now return to your native home." ----- Howard Fair sat in his apartment. His perceptions, augmented and sharpened by his sojourn in the green realm, took note of the surroundings. Only two hours before, by the clocks of Earth, he had found them both restful and stimulating; now they were neither. His books: superstition, spuriousness, earnest nonsense. His private journals and workbooks: a pathetic scrawl of infantilisms. Gravity tugged at his feet, held him rigid. The shoddy construction of the house, which heretofore he never had noticed, oppressed him. Everywhere he looked he saw slipshod disorder, primitive filth. The thought of the food he must now eat revolted him. ---- ... "Sometimes I wish I could abandon all my magic and return to my former innocence." "I have toyed with the idea," McIntyre replied thoughtfully. "In fact I have made all the necessary arrangements. It is really a simple matter." He led Fair to a small room behind the station. Although the door was open, the interior showed a thick darkness. McIntyre, standing well back, surveyed the darkness with a quizzical curl to his lip. "You need only enter. All your magic, all your recollections of the green realm will depart. You will be no wiser than the next man you meet. And with your knowledge will go your boredom, your melancholy, your dissatisfaction." Fair contemplated the dark doorway. A single step would resolve his discomfort. He glanced at McIntyre; the two surveyed each other with sardonic amusement. They returned to the front of the building. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---Received on Fri Oct 26 2007 - 03:30:39 PDT
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