Oddly enough—” And here the devil sighed. “Oddly enough, those who make bargains with me never do have the capability to use their gifts. I suppose o… - Henry Kuttner

"This is the story of a boy named Pete Coutinho, who had a spell put on him. Some people might have called it a curse. I don't know. It depends on a lot of things, on whether you've got gipsy blood, like old Beatriz Sousa, who learned a lot about magic from the wild gitana tribe in the mountains beyond Lisbon, and whether you're satisfied with a fisherman's life in Cabrillo.

Not that a fisherman's life is a bad one, far from it. By day you go out in the boats that rock smoothly across the blue Gulf waters, and at night you can listen to music and drink wine at the Shore Haven or the Castle or any of the other taverns on Front Street. What more do you want? What more is there?

And what does any sensible man, or any sensible boy, want with that sorcerous sort of glamor that can make everything incredibly bright and shining, deepening colors till they hurt, while wild music swings down from stars that have turned strange and alive? Pete shouldn't have wanted that, I suppose, but he did, and probably that's why there happened to him - what did happen. And the trouble began long before the actual magic started working.

("Before I Wake...")"

The people of Bel Yarnak no longer move light-heartedly about their houses; lifeless images throng the streets and palaces. Immovable and silent sits the Sindara on a tarnished throne; dark and grim looms the city under the hurtling moons. It is Dis; it is the damned city, and sad voices in the silent metropolis mourn for lost glory.

The fire that had come from beyond the stars was harnessed. Tamed — chained — by the flesh to which it had once, long ago, given life....