Read The Fallable Fiend for Free Online Page A

clutches. When the marks gathered at the railing, Ungah grimaced, roared and slapped a sheet of iron with a length of chain, making a much more impressive racket than had I.
    ###
    After the performance, Bagardo unchained Ungah and opened my cage. Ungah entered the cage and dug out of the chest a huge, moth-eaten old cloak, a battered hat with a floppy brim, a pair of gap-toed boots, a belt, and a purse. He did on all these things.
    “Wherefore the fine raiment, Master Ungah?” I asked.
    “Boss insists. Go to Evrodium to buy things. When the light fails, villagers take me for roustabout. If they see Ungah the Terrible talking polite, they wouldn’t pay to see me in tent. You want anything?”
    “I know of nought at the moment. But tell me: What do you buy with?”
    “Money. Bagardo gives me allowance.”
    An hour later, Ungah returned with his purchases: some sweetmeats, which he shared with me; a needle, thread, and scissors; and other things. After dinner, Ungah was patching his cloak by lamplight when Siglar, the lion tamer, approached our cage. Siglar, a tall bony man with pale-blue eyes and lank, tow-colored hair, was a barbarian from the steppes of Shven to the north.
    “Master Zdim!” he said. “The boss is fain to see you.”
    I suspected that Bagardo would complain about my lackluster performance. I said to Ungah: “Couldst accompany me, old fellow? I need moral support.”
    Ungah put away his sewing and came. We wended to Bagardo’s small private wagon. Inside, the vehicle was luxuriously fitted up with silken drapes, a thick rug, and a silver-gilt lamp to shine upon this splendor.
    Bagardo was seated at his desk, casting his accounts with a slate and a piece of chalk. “O Zdim!” he said. “In twenty years in this business, never have I seen a worse performance than yours. Briefly, you stink.”
    “I am sorry, master; I endeavor to give satisfaction, but to please everybody were oft impossible. If you paid me an allowance, I might be inspired to a more vital act.”
    “Oho, so that’s it? With the circus teetering on the edge of failure and the entire company’s pay in arrears, you strike me for pay. A murrain on you, demon!” He smote the desk so that his inkwell danced.
    “Very well, sir,” I replied. “I will do my best; but, in my state of destitution, that best may not be very good.”
    “Insolent ouph!” roared Bagardo. “I’ll destitute you!” He came around the desk with the small whip that he cracked as ringmaster. He took a cut at me, and another. Since this was no magical wand, I scarcely felt the blows.
    “Is that the hardest you can hit, sir?” I said.
    He struck me a few more times, then hurled the whip into a corner. “Curse you, are you made of iron?”
    “Not quite, sir. It is true that my tissues are stronger than yours. Now, how about that allowance? As we Twelfth Planners say, every pump needs a little priming betimes.”
    Red-faced, Bagardo glared. Then he laughed. “Oh, all right; you do have me by the balls, you know. How about threepence a day?”
    “That were agreeable, master. Now, could I but have a few days’ advance for pocket money . . .”
    Bagardo brought ninepence out of his strongbox. “That’ll have to do for the next fiftnight. Enough of sordid commercialism; who’s for a game of skillet?”
    “What is that, sir?” I asked.
    “You shall see.” Bagardo set out a small table and four folding chairs. As Siglar, Ungah, and I took our places, Bagardo produced a package of oblongs of stiff paper with designs upon them. Prime Planers play a multitude of games with these “cards,” as they call them.
    The rules of skillet seemed simple. Various combinations of cards outranked others, and the trick was to guess the other players’ hands and wager on one’s ability to outrank them. I had a terrible time in managing the cards with my claws, which are not suited to such slippery objects. I kept dropping the wretched things on the floor.
    Bagardo