"Glory," said the human. "I don't want any more. I've got enough now. Those rubies you left were plenty."

  I stared—and suddenly remembered the bag of rubies I'd abandoned during my hasty flight from the first interview with the creature. He'd found them then.

  "Thousands," the Man gloated cryptically, waving the bottle. "I'm living in a penthouse now. I'm writing a novel. A good one too—earthy. The old Hemingway touch. Those rubies—well, thanks."

  "You're quite welcome," I said politely. "But you must be able to take off the curse. You put it on me just by saying cold iron would drop out of my mouth."

  He took another drink, considered, and nodded. "It's worth trying. Okay. I take the curse off you."

  "Thank you," I said experimentally, and then stood with my mouth wide open. No cold iron had dropped out of it!

  "It—it worked!" I gasped. "It worked! Thank Loki!"

  Perhaps I was a bit hysterical, but for the moment I really forgot I was talking to a human. It was so wonderful just to be able to speak without iron falling from my lips at every word. I—well, I told the Man everything. And he sat and listened, still drinking out of the bottle. Soon he got out another one and started on that.

  Finally he took the bribe out of my hand and considered it thoughtfully. "You'd better let me have that," he said. "I'll dispose of this thing. Uh—thanks for bringing it. A grenade's an unusual present at least."

  "The thread," I reminded him, holding up the Norn-thread. He didn't touch it. He looked very white.

  "Yes. Just—let it go, will you?"

  I obeyed. The thread snapped out of my hand and vanished. The human drew a deep breath and I saw that his lips were bleeding. "Okay," he said after a second. "I guess I'm safe. What's next on the program?"

  "I'm going back to the Middle Kingdom," I said. "If I can find my way. Could you, maybe, show me the hole I came out of last time?"

  "In Central Park? Sure. But you say King Breggir's mad at you?"

  I shrugged philosophically. "He may forgive me. If not, I'll just have to be a salamander for awhile."

  -

  BUT the human was thinking. "Yeah. Maybe I can give you a bribe to take him. Here ..." He went out, came back with a sack and filled it with bottles that he took out of a small den in the wall. "This is better than warm mud. It may soften the old so-and-so up a bit."

  "I—I can't thank you enough," I said, and my voice trembled with emotion. "Somehow you—you're almost like a gnome to me."

  He shuddered at that, though I can't imagine why, and took my hand. "We'll go down in the service elevator. We're just across the street from the park so—"

  I kept my eyes tightly shut and let the human guide me. It was better, I felt, that I did not see too much of this strange human-world. And at last I stood at the edge of the hole with the sack of bottles over my shoulder.

  The Man squeezed my hand. "Good luck," he said. "I'll never believe this, of course, but it seems quite real to me just now." He eyed the sack. "Can you spare one of those bottles?"

  I gave it to him and he drank a good deal of the liquid in it. After that he fell on his face and didn't move so I crawled down into the hole, dragging the sack after me. And hours later I was in the Middle Kingdom ...

  There isn't much more to tell. I had to talk fast or I'd have been turned into a salamander like winking—but the minute Breggir found I'd brought him a bribe he softened up. He mixed a cocktail of warm mud and human-elixir and grinned so widely the top of his head almost came off.

  He never believed my story, of course. He thought I'd found the bottles where some ancient godling had buried them but he said the stuff was better than nectar. Not that the old gopher had ever tasted nectar in his life but I didn't contradict him.

  Anyway Breggir forgave me and so did my dear Nigsar Doog. We are to be married within the month. It will be a great feast to which all the Middle Kingdom is invited. I have spared no expense and mud will flow as lava.

  What if the gnomes whisper that there's insanity in my family—me, Yiggar Throlg, whose ichor has come down from Yggdrasil and Ymir? I don't mind, really.

  I'm completely happy with Nigsar, and my recent dreadful experiences have almost faded from my mind.

  Well—that isn't exactly true. My dreams have been troubled. I—I dream of—humans!

  The End

  GOLDEN APPLE

  Famous Fantastic Mysteries - Mar 1951

  with Henry Kuttner

  (as by C. H. Liddell.)

  This story was born of a dark night of terror—when escape from this world seemed a priceless thing. Many of us might even want to flee all the way back to the days of the Snake, the eternally young Eve and the—Golden Apple

  -

  "Looks as if there might be a feature article in this," McDaniels said, shoving a folder across the desk at me. "You could play up the timely angle. Precious relic brought over from London—"

  "Nuts," I said. "They're a dime a dozen."

  "Suit yourself." His moon-face turned down again to the flimsies before him.

  "Well—" I reached idly to flip the folder open. Extra cash always comes in handy, and I had nothing to do that night anyway. The blue disk of New York autumn was darkening into windy night outside the Chronicle's windows; no news in particular was coming in on the wires, and I didn't feel much like going home yet. So I glanced through the folder from the morgue.

  It didn't tell me much—mostly museum stuff. It seems that some time in the middle ages an unknown craftsman had made a pomander—a golden ball crusted with semi-precious stones, meant to hold perfumes. It was said to be a masterpiece of its type; the workman must have been very nearly as good as Cellini. The thing was hollow, and there was an ingenious secret spring concealed in the filigree. It had been so well concealed that the trick of opening the ball up was a lost art, apparently, up to 1890 or thereabouts when some museum curator—the fellow who'd written all this dope—borrowed the pomander for exhibition and decided to have a try. It took him weeks, expert as he was. But he found the hidden spring, and he drew a chart to show how it was done. I noticed by a scribble on the folder that we'd bought the curator's article and his chart, but never got around to printing them.

  And there was a good deal of ancient history, how references to the pomander had appeared from time to time in old manuscripts. It was called the Golden Apple—pomander seems to mean apple—and was undoubtedly valuable, as much for its craftsmanship as for the value of its settings. And that was about all.

  "So what?" I asked McDaniels.

  He didn't bother to look up. "Some guy named Argyle got in yesterday on the Clipper. Seems he was bombed in London. Came over to recuperate, and brought the relic with him. Here's the address." A grimy hand pushed a scrap of paper toward me. "Want to see what you can dig up?"

  I said I would, and reached for the telephone. The switchboard girl got Argyle for me, and when I'd told him who I was and what I wanted, he surprised me by suggesting I come on up right then. That was luck. So I stuffed the curator's article in my pocket and started off through the dim-out for Grand Central, with a few sharpened pencils and some old envelopes for taking notes. I didn't expect much.

  I took the Lexington subway uptown. Just as I came up from the 86th Street station the wail of the blue alert sirens began to moan from a long way off. I said, "Oh-oh," and broke into a trot, hoping I'd have time to reach Argyle's place before the signal to get under cover. The howling of the alarm increased in volume as more and more sirens joined the chorus. I just made it. Argyle lived in a big apartment house near the Park, and street lights were blinking off as I rode up in the elevator as the second alarm keened its total blackout warning.

  The corridor on the twelfth floor, where his apartment was, had been darkened too. Through big windows at each end I could see uptown New York changing from spangled cliffs to blind black silhouettes against the sky. And that was about all I could see. I stood there blankly. Then a door opened somewhere and a voice said, "Mr. Russell? The desk phoned you were on your way up. I'm Argyle."

  "Right. How do I find you? I'm blind as a bat—"

  "Straight ahead—there." A firm hand gripped my arm. "Come on in, but feel your way. The place is a mess—I haven't unpacked yet. Can't show a light, either—no blackout curtains here, damn it." I heard him stumble over something. He chuckled. "Look out for that box. Here we are now. There's a chair right behind you. You'll be able to see better in a few minutes, when you get used to the dark. I've got a lamp here, you'll notice."

  -

  I looked, but scarcely saw it at first—one of those tiny blackout lamps that seems only to make black blacker by contrast. In its almost invisible glow I could glimpse only the vague shadows of furniture and the outline of my companion, who seemed to be slightly-built—I couldn't tell any more than that yet.

  I heard him cross the room, his shoes squeaking faintly, and I heard glass clink.

  "Drink? We can manage a straight one even in the dark, I think."

  "Thanks." I accepted the glass he creaked across the room to hand me. "I'm sorry to impose on you, but I guess I'm stuck here until the all clear."

  "Glad for the company. You wanted an interview about the pomander, didn't you? I noticed the customs man seemed interested. I suppose you found out about it from him?"

  I acknowledged that. Argyle chuckled.

  "So it really has a history, eh? I didn't know. I picked it up one day in an antique shop ... Let's trade information. I'm very curious."

  "Fair enough," I said, tasting the brandy. It was good. I paraphrased the stuff in the morgue folder, and Argyle began to rummage in the darkness, his shoes wheezing softly against the carpet. I didn't see him coming toward me, but the noise was enough. His hand fell on my shoulder.

  "Oh, there you are. Reach out. Here's the Golden Apple, but you'll have to admire it by touch only. What was it, now, about a secret spring? Must be very secret. I never noticed."

  "It took an expert to find the trick," I said, turning the globe over in my hand. It was about as large as an orange, and had a rough, fretted surface like metal lace. I could feel the coldness of the gems.

  "The light may help a little," Argyle suggested. I got out of the chair and crouched down by the tiny lamp. Feeble as it was, I could see the flecks of fire glinting from the pomander, and the gold was soft and mellow and intricately worked.

  The thing was archaic—the touch of it had told me that. Maybe I'd never have noticed in the daylight, but here in the dark the senses you have left seem sharper. By the very feel of the pomander I knew that hands long dust—delicate, loving hands—had wrought it into a shape of intricate beauty. The smooth, cold gems—amethyst and moonstone and many I couldn't identify—were arabesques against the fretted gold. I though of sardonyx and chrysoprase, cymophane and jacinth, moon-ruled selenite, and the magic meloceus that is ruled by blood. Jacinth, peridot, bezoar—names submerged in the depths of my memory swam up, bringing with them the curious fragrance of a tapestried and long-forgotten past.

  There was magic in that relic. The breath of ancient life stirred in it as I looked in that dim radiance at the Golden Apple and it winked back at me, many-eyed, cold-eyed, all the loveliness of the past compressed into an orb no larger than my hands could compass. In the darkness it gathered all the faint glow of the blackout lamp and shone like a sun that might rise above magic lands.

  Argyle's voice roused me. "Can you work the spring?"

  I said, after a moment, "I don't know. Maybe. Shall I try?"

  "Please. Nothing in it, I suppose, but—You know, come to think of it, you're not the first man after all who told me about the secret spring. I can't imagine how it slipped my mind until now—" His voice trailed off for a moment. "American, he was, in London. Told me he'd studied the pomander once, years before. I promised to let him see the thing, but the poor old boy was killed before we kept our engagement. It was in nineteen forty, you see."

  I remembered that terrible autumn. "No wonder you forgot," I said. "Plenty must have been happening around then to keep you busy. Was the old man the curator of—" I named the museum.

  "Why, yes. That's right."

  "He studied the pomander 'way back in eighteen ninety," I told him. "I've got his report in my pocket. The trick's simple enough, once you know how. But until then—"

  I knew it, after reading the file, but even so my fingers fumbled and felt clumsy on those exquisitely filigreed surfaces. It took me several minutes to get the trick of it. Then the pomander opened in my hand, falling apart in hinged halves. It was hollow.

  But it was not empty.

  I stared down at the many times folded packet of—papers? They didn't look old. The stuff had the feel of parchment, but it seemed thinner than onion-skin flimsies, and there was writing visible, a word here and there in unmistakable modern English.

  "You're wrong," I told Argyle. "Look at this. You may have a find here."

  The papers crackled as I unfolded them. But Argyle, leaning down above my shoulder, reached out to take them before I could see anything in the tiny blackout glow.

  "Let me," he said, in a curious, strained voice. It was the same intonation he had used when he spoke of forgetting, in the blitzes, about the secret the old curator had told it. Now he took up the light and turned almost jealously away from me, holding the lamp so close to the papers they must nearly have scorched as he strained to read them in that feeble glow.

  I could see the slim silhouette of him against the light for a moment or two. He was quite motionless, only the papers rustling faintly. Then I heard him sigh—a deep, deep, nearly soundless sigh as if all the breath in his lungs had gone out at once.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  He said, very quietly, "Let me finish this, Russell. Let me—oh, it isn't possible! My God, it isn't possible!"

  I felt news instinct quicken in me. "Read it aloud."

  "No ... no. Let me alone!" His voice was suddenly harsh. "You can see it afterward. Let me alone now, for heaven's sake!"

  I didn't say anything. I watched him cross the room—a silhouette against a tiny moving blur of light—and sit down in a far corner, the back of his chair almost hiding him from me. He went on reading, with a tenseness I could feel in the very air. The pages rustled now and then. I sat there in the dark, playing with the pomander and pouring an occasional drink from the decanter, though I had to grope for it blindly each time. I was tremendously keyed up with anticipation, and the wait seemed long.

  The blackout was still in full darkness over New York when I heard the faint noise of Argyle's shoes coming back across the carpet. He put the little lamp down on a table beside me and laid the manuscript in my lap.

  "Let me have the Golden Apple," he said, his voice so strained that I scarcely knew it.

  I stared up at the pale oval blur of his face, the black, formless outlines of him in the darkness.

  "What does it say?" I asked.

  "You ... read it." He took the pomander. "You'll see what—it explains everything. Good-by, Russell. After you've read, you'll understand."

  "Good-by! Wait—Argyle—" I stared at the shadow retreating toward its corner. I heard the sound of his shoes fall silent, and the creak of the chair as he sat down. And then—

  There was a breath of air through the room, as of someone had brushed by in haste. There was no noise to match it, but somehow, quite definitely, I sensed that where there had been two people in this room an instant before, now there was only one.

  "Argyle—" I said.

  No answer. I knew he was not there any longer.

  I took the lamp and with its faint aid went to look at his chair. It was empty. I had not heard it creak when he rose, but it was empty now. I had not heard the soft sound of his shoes and I knew he had not moved across the carpeted floor, but he was not in the room any longer. The realization was not the result of reasoning from these bits of evidence, though I knew I must have heard him, sensed his leaving. No, it was a matter of utter, unarguable conviction with me. Psychic certainty, if you like. He had—winked out, like a candle.

  With the pomander.

  -

  I searched the apartment. I went out into the hall, groping and calling. But I did not find him. When I returned, the manuscript that had been in the Golden Apple lay scattered on the carpet, where I had dropped it as I sprang up.

  I gathered the papers together, my mind still blankly incredulous. The answer to the secret must lie here, I realized, if it lay anywhere at all. I sat down, holding the little lamp close and straining my eyes in the dimness to make out what the pages held.

  And so I read the record upon them that John Argyle himself had written, in the early days of the war, when the first bombs were falling upon London ... when he had stumbled upon the magic of the golden pomander engraved by that unknown artisan whose bones were dust so long since. For my feeling when I first touched the pomander had not been wrong. There was magic in that archaic, lovely thing, a perilous sorcery that opened the gateways of a lost dream ... And as I read, I understood what it was that had happened to John Argyle on a cool autumn night in London, in his apartment near Kensington ...