The Complete Stories (Page 29)

Prentiss said, "This is a damned insult. Are you telling me I believe in fairies? I’ll have you know I’m a complete rationalist."

"Are you? When I first revealed myself to you, you had a few feeble thoughts about dreams and hallucinations but you talked to me, you accepted me. Your wife would have screamed and gone into hysterics."

Prentiss was silent. He could think of no answer.

"That’s the trouble," said the elf despondently. "Practically all you humans have forgotten about us since we left you. Your minds have closed;

grown useless. To be sure, your larvae believe in your legends about the ‘little folk,’ but their brains are undeveloped and useful only for simple processes. When they mature, they lose belief. Frankly, I don’t know what I would do if it weren’t for you fantasy writers."

"What do you mean we fantasy writers?"

"You are the few remaining adults who believe in the insect folk. You, Prentiss, most of all. You’ve been a fantasy writer for twenty years."

"You’re mad. I don’t believe the things I write."

"You have to. You can’t help it. I mean, while you’re actually writing, you take the subject matter seriously. After a while your mind is just naturally cultivated into usefulness. . . . But why argue. I have used you. You saw the light bulb brighten. So you see you must come with me."

"But I won’t." Prentiss set his limbs stubbornly. "Can you make me against my will?"

"I could, but I might damage you, and I wouldn’t want that. Suppose we say this. If you don’t agree to come, I could focus a current of high-voltage electricity through your wife. It would be a revolting thing to have to do, but I understand your own people execute enemies of the state in that fashion, so that you would probably find the punishment less horrible than I do. I wouldn’t want to seem brutal even to a man-thing."

Prentiss grew conscious of the perspiration matting the short hairs on his temple.

"Wait," he said, "don’t do anything like that. Let’s talk it over."

The elf shot out his filmy wings, fluttered them and returned them to their case. "Talk, talk, talk. It’s tiring. Surely you have milk in the house. You’re not a very thoughtful host or you would have offered me refreshment before this."

Prentiss tried to bury the thought that came to him, to push it as far below the outer skin of his mind as he could. He said casually, "I have something better than milk. Here, I’ll get it for you."

"Stay where you are. Call to your wife. She’ll bring it."

"But I don’t want her to see you. It would frighten her."

The elf said, "You need feel no concern. I’ll handle her so that she won’t be the least disturbed."

Prentiss lifted an arm.

The elf said, "Any attack you make on me will be far slower than the bolt of electricity that will strike your wife."

Prentiss’ arm dropped. He stepped to the door of his study.

"Blanche!" he called down the stairs.

Blanche was just visible in the living room, sitting woodenly in the armchair near the bookcase. She seemed to be asleep, open-eyed.

Prentiss turned to the elf. "Something’s wrong with her."

"She’s just in a state of sedation. She’ll hear you. Tell her what to do."

"Blanche!" he called again. "Bring the container of eggnog and a small glass, will you?"

With no sign of animation other than that of bare movement, Blanche rose and disappeared from view.

"What is eggnog?" asked the elf.

Prentiss attempted enthusiasm. "It is a compound of milk, sugar and eggs beaten to a delightful consistency. Milk alone is poor staff compared to it."

Blanche entered with the eggnog. Her pretty face was expressionless. Her eyes turned toward the elf but lightened with no realization of the significance of the sight.

"Here, Jan," she said, and sat down in the old, leather-covered chair by the window, hands falling loosely to her lap.

Prentiss watched her uneasily for a moment. "Are you going to keep her here?"

"She’ll be easier to control. . . . Well, aren’t you going to offer me the eggnog?"

"Oh, sure. Here!"

He poured the thick white liquid into the cocktail glass. He had prepared five milk bottles of it two nights before for the boys of the New York Fantasy Association and it had been mixed with a lavish hand, since fantasy writers notoriously like it so.

The elf’s antennae trembled violently.

"A heavenly aroma," he muttered.

He wrapped the ends of his thin arms about the stem of the small gkss and lifted it to his mouth. The liquid’s level sank. When half was gone, he put it down and sighed, "Oh, the loss to my people. What a creation! What a thing to exist! Our histories tell us that in ancient days an occasional lucky sprite managed to take the place of a man-larva at birth so that he might draw off the liquid fresh-made. I wonder if even those ever experienced anything like this."

Prentiss said with a touch of professional interest, "That’s the idea behind this business of changelings, is it?"

"Of course. The female man-creature has a great gift. Why not take advantage of it?" The elf turned his eyes upon the rise and fall of Blanche’s bosom and sighed again.

Prentiss said (not too eager, now; don’t give it away), "Go ahead. Drink all you want."

He, too, watched Blanche, waiting for signs of restoring animation, waiting for the beginnings of breakdown in the elf’s control.

The elf said, "When is your larva returning from its place of instruction? I need him."

"Soon, soon," said Prentiss nervously. He looked at his wristwatch. Actually, Jan, Junior, would be back, yelling for a slab of cake and milk, in something like fifteen minutes.