took some of the magic off the appearance of the thing. "You mean those passes and words set up some sort of vibrational pattern...."

The hairless fellow snorted again, and began attacking the grapes. "Bunk, Henry! Oh, my name's Alféar, by the way. I mean I was a fool. I should have gone to my psychiatrist and taken the fifty year course, as he advised. But I thought the books were all burned and nobody knew the summons. So here I am, stuck with the habit. Because that's all it is—a conditioned reflex. Pure compulsory behavior. I'm sensitized to receive the summons, and when it comes, I teleport into your plane just the way you pull your hand off a hot stove. You read the whole book, I suppose? Yeah, just my luck. Then you know I'm stuck with any job you give me—practically your slave. I can't even get back without dismissal or finishing your task! That's what comes of saving money by not going to my psychiatrist."

He muttered unhappily, reaching for more grapes, while Henry began to decide nothing was going to happen to him, at least physically. Souls were things he wasn't quite sure of, but he couldn't see how just talking to Alféar could endanger his.

"Still," the creature said thoughtfully, "it could be worse. No pentagram. I never did get mixed up with some of the foul odors and messes some of my friends had to take. And I've developed quite a taste for sugar; tobacco, too." He reached out and plucked a cigarette out of Henry's pack, then a book of matches. He lighted it, inhaled, and rubbed the flame out on his other palm. "Kind of weak tobacco, but not bad. Any more questions while I smoke this? There's no free oxygen where I come from, so I can't smoke there."

"But if you demons answer such—such summons, why don't people know about it now?" Henry asked. "I'd think more and more people would be going in for this sort of thing. If the wizards were right all along...."

"They weren't, and we're not demons. It didn't get started until your Middle Ages. And if it hadn't been for old Apalon...." Alféar lighted another cigarette off the butt, which he proceeded to extinguish on the tip of his sharp tongue. He scratched his head thoughtfully, and then went on.

"Apalon was studying your worship. You see, we've been studying your race the way you study white rats, using lower races to explain our own behavior. Anyhow, he got curious and figured out a way to mentalize himself into your plane. He was sort of a practical joker, you might say. So he picked a time when some half-crazy witch was trying to call up the being 

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