The Narrow Land

His first steps were routine. He performed two divinations, searched the standard indexes, concordances, handbooks and formularies, evoked a demon whom he had previously found knowledgeable: all without success. He found no direct reference to cycles beyond the purple; the demon refused even to speculate.

Fair was by no means discouraged; if anything, the intensity of his interest increased. He reread the journal, with particular care to the justification for purple magic, reasoning that Mclntyre, groping for a lore beyond the purple, might well have used the methods which had yielded results before. Applying stains and ultraviolet light to the pages, Fair made legible a number of notes Mclntyre had jotted down, then erased.

Fair was immensely stimulated. The notes assured him that he was on the right track, and further indicated a number of blind alleys which Fair profited by avoiding. He applied himself so successfully that before the week was out he had evoked a sprite of the green cycle.

It appeared in the semblance of a man with green glass eyes and a thatch of young eucalyptus leaves in the place of hair. It greeted Fair with cool courtesy, would not seat itself, and ignored Fair's proffer of coffee.

After wandering around the apartment inspecting Fair's books and curios with an air of negligent amusement, it agreed to respond to Fair's questions.

Fair asked permission to use his tape-recorder, which the sprite allowed, and Fair set the apparatus in motion. (When subsequently he replayed the interview, no sound could be heard.)

"What realms of magic lie beyond the green?" asked Fair.

"I can't give you an exact answer," replied the sprite, "because I don't know. There are at least two more, corresponding to the colors we call rawn and pallow, and very likely others."

Fair arranged the microphone where it would directly intercept the voice of the sprite.

"What," he asked, "is the green cycle like? What is physical semblance?"

The sprite paused to consider. Glistening mother-of-pearl films wandered across its face, reflecting the tinge of its' thoughts. "I'm rather severely restricted by your use of word 'physical.' And 'semblance' involves a subjective interpretation, which changes with the rise and fall of the seconds.

"By all means," Fair said hastily, "describe it in your words."

"Well-we have four different regions, two of which floresce from the basic skeleton of the universe, and subsede the others. The first of these is compressed and ishthiated, but is notable for its wide pools of mottle which we sometimes use for deranging stations. We've transplated mosses from Earth's Devonian and a few ice-fires from Perdition. They climb among the rods which we call devil-hair-he went on for several minutes but the meaning almost entirely escaped Fair. And it seemed as if the question by which he had hoped to break the ice might run away with the the entire interview. He introduced another idea.

"Can we freely manipulate the physical extensions Earth?"

The sprite seemed amused. "You refer, so I assume, to the various aspects of space, tune, mass, energy, thought and recollections."

"Exactly."

The sprite -raised its green corn-silk eyebrows. "I might sensibly ask can you break an egg by striking it with a club. The response is on a similar level of seriousness."

Fair had expected a certain amount of condescension and impatience, and was not abashed. "How may I learn that techniques?"

"In the usual ma

The sprite made an easy gesture, and whorls of smoke trailed from his fingers to spin through the air. I could arrange the matter, but since I bear you no particular animosity, I'll do nothing of the sort. And now, I must gone."

"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 Mclntyre, for instance."

"My uncle Gerald learned green magic?"

To the limit of his capabilities. He found no pleasure in learning. You would do well to profit by his experience and modify your ambitions." The sprite turned and walked away.

Fair watched it depart. The sprite receded in space and direction, but never reached the wall of Fair's room. At a distance which might have been fifty yards, the sprite glanced back, as if to make sure that Fair was not following, then 'Stepped off at another angle and disappeared.

Fair's first impulse was to take heed and limit his explorations. He was an adept in white magic, and had mastered the black art - occasionally he evoked a demon to liven a social gathering which otherwise threatened to become dull -but he had by no means illuminated every mystery of purple magic, which is the realm of Incarnate Symbols.

Howard Fair might have turned away from the green cycle except for three factors.

First was his physical appearance. He stood rather under medium height, with a swarthy face, sparse black hair, a gnarled nose, a small heavy mouth. He felt no great sensitivity about his appearance, but realized that it might be improved. In his mind's eye he pictured the personified ideal of himself: he was taller by six inches, his nose thin and keen, his skin cleared of its muddy undertone. A striking figure, but still recognizable as Howard Fair. He wanted the love of women, but he wanted it without the interposition of his craft. Many times he had brought beautiful girls to his bed, lips wet and eyes shining; but purple magic had seduced them rather than Howard Fair, and he took limited satisfaction in such conquests.

Here was the first factor which drew Howard Fan back to the green lore; the second was his yearning for extended, perhaps eternal, life; the third was simple thirst for knowledge.

The fact of Gerald Mclntyre's death, or dissolution, or disappearance-whatever had happened to him-was naturally a matter of concern. If he had won to a goal so precious, why had he died so quickly? Was the "infinite reward" miraculous, so exquisite, that the mind failed under its session? (If such was the case, the reward was hardly a reward.)

Fair could not restrain himself, and by degrees returned to a study of green magic. Rather than again invoke the sprite, whose air of indulgent contempt he had found exasperating he decided to seek knowledge by an indirect method, employing the most advanced concepts of technical and cabalistil science.

He obtained a portable television transmitter which he loaded into his panel truck along with a receiver. On a Monday night in early May he drove to an abandoned graveyard far out in the wooded hills, and, there by the laight of the wandering moon, he buried the television camera in graveyard clay until only the television camera protruded from the soil.

With a sharp alder twig he scratched on the ground a monstrous outline. The television lens served for one eye, a beer bottle pushed neck-first into the soil the other.

During the middle hours, while the moon died behind wisps of pale cloud, he carved a word on the dark forehead then recited the activating incantation.

The ground rumbled and moaned, the golem heaved up to blot out the stars.

The glass eyes stared down at Fair, secure in his pentagon. "Speak!" called out Fair. "Enteresthes, Akmai Adonai! Bidemigir, Elohim, pa rahulli! Enteresthes, HVOI. Speak!"

"Return me to earth, return my clay to the quiet clay from whence you roused me."

"First you must serve."

The golem stumbled forward to crush Fair, but was halted by the pang of protective magic.

"Serve you I will, if serve you I must."

Fair stepped boldly forth from the pentagon, strung forty yards of green ribbon down the road in the" shape of a narrow V. "Go forth into the realm of green magic," he told the monster. "The ribbons reach forty miles, walk to the end, turn about, return, and then fall back, return to the earth from which you rose."