it.
Some sort of herb, I think, although I'm not sure." He wiggled his fingers up and down. The silver tea-ball (if that was what it was) jounced at the bottom of the chain. Something shifted inside, something which made a dusty, slithery sound. Polly found it vaguely unpleasant.
"It's called an azka, or perhaps an azakah," Mr. Gaunt said.
"Either way, it's an amulet which is supposed to ward off pain."
Polly tried a smile. She wanted to be polite, but really. - she had come all the way down here for this? The thing didn't even have any aesthetic value. It was ugly, not to put too fine a point on it.
"I really don't think.
"I don't, either," he said, "but desperate situations often call for desperate measures. I assure you it is quite genuine... at least in the sense that it wasn't made in Taiwan. It is an authentic Egyptian artifact-not quite a relic, but an artifact most certainly-from the period of the Later Decline. It comes with a certificate of provenance which identifies it as a tool of benka-litis, or white magic. I want you to take it and wear it. I suppose it sounds silly. Probably it is. But there are stranger things in heaven and earth than some of us dream Of, even in our wilder moments of philosophy."
"Do you really believe that?" Polly asked.
"Yes. I've seen things in my time that make a healing medallion or amulet look perfectly ordinary." A fugitive gleam flickered momentarily in his hazel eyes. "Many such things. The world's odd corners are filled with fabulous junk, Polly. But never mind that; you are the issue here.
"Even the other day, when I suspect the pain was not nearly as bad as it is right now, I got a good idea of just how unpleasant your situation had become. I thought this little... item... might be worth a try. After all, what have you to lose? Nothing else you've tried has worked, has it?"
"I appreciate the thought, Mr. Gaunt, really I do, but-"
"Leland.
Please."
"Yes, all right. I appreciate the thought, Leland, but I'm afraid I'm not superstitious."
She looked up and saw his bright hazel eyes were fixed upon her.
"It doesn't matter if you are or not, Polly... because this is."
He wiggled his fingers. The azka bobbed gently at the end of its chain.
She opened her mouth again, but this time no words came out.
She found herself remembering a day last spring. Nettle had forgotten her copy of Inside View when she went home. Leafing through it idly, glancing at stories about werewolf babies in Cleveland and a geological formation on the moon that looked like the face of JFK, Polly had come upon an ad for something called The Prayer Dial of the Ancients. It was supposed to cure headaches, stomach aches, and arthritis.
The ad was dominated by a black-and-white drawing. It showed a fellow with a long beard and a wizard's hat (either Nostradamus or Gandalf, Polly assumed) holding something that looked like a child's pinwheel over the body of a man in a wheelchair. The pinwheel gadget was casting a cone of radiance over the invalid, and although the ad did not come right out and say so, the implication seemed to be that the guy would be dancing up a storm at the Copa in a night or two. It was ridiculous, of course, superstitious pap for people whose minds had wavered or perhaps even broken under a steady onslaught of pain and disability, but still...
She had sat looking at that ad for a long time, and, ridiculous as it was, she had almost called the 800 number for phone orders given at the bottom of the page. Because sooner or later"Sooner or later a person in pain should explore even the more questionable paths, if it's possible those paths might lead to relief," Mr. Gaunt said. "Isn't that so?"
"I... I don't."
"Cold therapy... thermal gloves... even the radiation treatments... none of them have worked for you, have they?"
"How do you know about all that?"
"A good tradesman makes it his business to know the needs of his customers," Mr. Gaunt said in his soft, hypnotic voice. He moved toward her, holding the silver chain out in a wide ring with the azka hanging at the bottom. She shrank from the long hands with their leathery nails.
"Fear not, dear lady. I'll not touch the least hair upon your head.
Not if you're calm... and remain quite still..."
And Polly did become calm. She did become still. She