The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World by Brian Stableford

now. In fact, unless I wake up in the morning thinking this is a dream, I don’t suppose I’ll ever doubt again.”
    “Promises, promises…” muttered the ghost, trying hard to get himself back into focus. Finally, he managed it, and the rounded face reappeared, every hair in the goatee perfectly formed.
    “Have you come to haunt me?” asked Ewan.
    “Why?” asked the spectre. “What have you done?
    Oh, never mind… just a joke. I’m not that kind of ghost. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t use the word ‘ghost’ at all. Personally, I think it’s rather vulgar. I’d rather be thought of as an apparition, or if you really must, as a phantasm. Spelt with a P-H, of course—only the snobs use an F. Anyhow, no terrible moans, no atmospherics, and I promise not to let my watch-chain clank. The voice is hollow, but I can’t help that in my condition. I’ve come to help you, not to haunt you.”
    “Oh,” said Ewan, utterly at a loss for words. The prickling sensation that was running up and down his spine refused to yield to these assurances.
    “My name,” said the apparition, “is Wynkyn. Please don’t bother with the usual jokes, or even the unusual ones. I’ve heard them all before, and I don’t doubt that it’s my fate to go on hearing them through all eternity. Let’s skip them just this once. I’m from the Vaults Beyond.”
    “Beyond where?” asked Ewan, feeling that he ought to say something.
    “Beyond here, of course,” replied Wynkyn. “Where else?”
    Ewan shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He was most uncomfortable.
    “The thing is,” said the apparition, “that you’re entitled to a little help on the second verse. It’s the hard one, you see, where you have to deal with creatures which are… well, not to put too fine a point on it… rather nasty. Inimical, one might say, always assuming that one knew what the word meant. Did I tell you that I was a poet when I was alive? Still am, in a way… Where was I?”
    “Inimical,” said Ewan, obligingly.
    “Oh, yes,” said Wynkyn. “The lamia and the monster.
    Not nice. Kill you as soon as look at you. So you’re entitled to a little protection. Jeahawn put a codicil on
    the will, you see…. It’s not in the short version, but it’s in the original which is on file in the Vaults–-“
    “Hang on,” said Ewan, who felt decidedly weak at the knees. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
    “Not at all,” said the apparition. “I’ll stand, if you don’t mind. Sedentary job, you know. And besides which, it’s easier to stay in focus while in the upright posture-— it says so in the manifestation handbook.”
    Ewan sat down on a convenient heap of out-of-date grimoires, and leaned back on a shelf loaded with alchemical journals. They felt reassuringly solid.
    “I say,” said Wynkyn, holding up his hand. “I’m getting brighter. The last little bits of your doubt must have disappeared. You believe in me now, all right.”
    “Well,” said Ewan, feeling slightly better now, “I’m an open-minded sort of a chap. Always ready to believe the evidence of my eyes.”
    “I wouldn’t go quite that far,” said the apparition. “I’ve seen some things nobody could believe. But no matter. The thing is, do you understand what I’ve told you?”
    “In a word,” said Ewan, “no.”
    The apparition clicked his insubstantial tongue. “Oh, dear,” he said. “All right, let’s start again. Slowly. My name’s Wynkyn. Please don’t bother with the jokes–-“
    “All right,” Ewan intervened. “I got that bit. You’re name’s Wynkyn, it isn’t funny, and you’re a friend of Jeahawn the Judge, right?”
    Wynkyn shuddered slightly, losing his focus momentarily. “No, no, no,” he said. “I’m just a civil servant. I’ve nothing to do with enchanters and that sort of thing. I work in the Vaults Beyond.”
    “What are the Vaults Beyond?” asked Ewan, feeling quite lost.
    “The Vaults Beyond are the offices of