Lord Tyger by Philip José Farmer

and waited for the scolding that always came because he had grieved her by staying away so long.
    Yusufu, who was perhaps an inch taller than his wife, whose head-hair was all white and whose long beard was gray with black threads, waddled on stubby, curved legs to Ras and said, "Bend down, you taller-than-an-ostrich, that you may kiss me as a respectful son does his father."
    Ras did so, and the old man kissed him on the lips in return.
    Ras waited until they had entered the house, where a fire burned in a mortared-stone fireplace in the middle of the room. The room had many odors: monkeys, monkey excrement not yet removed, birds and bird excrement, a sweat-soaked shirt of Yusufu's overdue for washing, and, most powerful, the odor of smoke. The chimney of the fireplace was faulty, and any adversebreeze was likely to blow down the chimney and spread smoke around the room. One of Ras's earliest memories was of Mariyam nagging at Yusufu to repair the chimney and Yusufu replying that he would certainly do so when the weather permitted. When Ras was older, he had offered many times to repair or completely rebuild the fireplace and chimney. Yusufu had resented the implication that he would never do the job. No, by Allah, he would get the work done at the first chance. But he never did.
    Ras coughed and then said, "Look!" and pulled the letter from the antelope-hide bag. Mariyam and Yusufu grayed under their dark skins, but their faces expressed only puzzlement. Mariyam said that she could not read the writing. Yusufu took a long time going over the letter and then said that most of the words were unknown to him.
    Ras felt that Yusufu was acting. His comments and his facial expressions had something controlled about them. And Mariyam's reactions had also been more restrained than they should have been. Both were too silent.
    Ras became angry and said that they knew much more than they were telling him. They became indignant and began to shout abuse. They were overacting. But nothing he could say could get them to admit anything. Mariyam said that she was of the opinion that the paper was a letter from Igziyabher, that is, a message, to the Virgin of the Moon, or perhaps Igziyabher was writing the story of the history of the world from creation to the present.
    "Why don't you ask me where I got the letter?" Ras shouted. "Isn't it strange that that was not the first thing you asked me about it?"
    Neither of the two would admit that this was strange. Nordid they then ask him where it came from. Nevertheless, Ras told them about the stiff-winged bird, its fiery encounter with the Bird of God, the yellow-haired creature, and the dead brown man.
    Mariyam cried, "Of course, the yellow-haired thing was a demon! She was flying in a demonic bird, one of Satan's, and so attacked the Bird of God! The dead man must be one of her fellow demons, struck down by Igziyabher!"
    "You have said many times that Igziyabher is all-powerful," Ras said. "How, then, could the bird of Satan take the Bird of God along with it in its fall? And why did not Igziyabher kill the yellow-haired demon, too, if He killed the brown one?"
    "Who knows why Igziyabher does this or does that?" Mariyam said. "His ways are many and devious and ones that we, his creatures, cannot understand. But truly I am happy that you did not come across the yellow-haired demon, because she would have destroyed you or, worse, taken you back to hell with her!"
    "How do you know that the demon is a she?" Ras said.
    Mariyam stuttered for a minute and then said, "Because it is likely that Satan would have sent a female demon to entice you the more easily to hell."
    Ras had always been more curious than frightened by her stories of devils and Satan and hell in the cave at the river's end. Besides, he now had heard the stories of the evil spirits of the Wantso and of the Sharrikt, and no one of the three versions agreed with any other, yet the Wantso and Gilluk, the Sharrikt king, had been as