originally published Weird Tales, Winter, 1973
Zloigm the Necromancer is a serpent-man, living millenia before the rise of humankind. He's also an expert in his profession of collecting sorcerous information from numerous and arcane sources.
His studies direct him to a being called Cryxyxll, an alien life form on another world that takes the form of a sentient mold. Determining that this thing has info he needs, Zloigm pursues various magical means to make contact. Although he does so, the results are disappointing.
Zloigm goes for a walk in his garden, and finds things changed. So, too, his remote tower home has also been transformed. Soon he finds his mind has been transferred into the mold, while the mold-thing's mind now inhabits his own serpentine body. No biggie, he thinks - he'll summon one of his magical servants to right things. Only then he realizes that, as a mold, he has no mouth to speak the necessary magical words...
Had Lin been reading Harlan Ellison?
An amusing little Klarkash-Tonian pastiche.
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