Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05 (11 page)

 
          
"Except
Scylla, the way I told you."

 
          
"Hasn't
one of you asked to be taken along with him?"

 
          
She
shook her head so that her hair whipped in the air. "None of us would dare
ask him. He never took me, I told you."

 
          
"And
that talk of his about the Judas book," I said. "If he wants it, why
can't he get it? He gets near about air thing he wants."

 
          
"You'll
have to find out from him," she snapped. "All right, I’m going back
to quarters."

 
          
"I'll
walk you there," I offered her.

 
          
She
didn't forbid me, so she and I walked together toward where the mouth of the
cave opened and the way led down.

 
          
"You're
so calm about everything," she half-scolded at me. "I just don't
understand you."

 
          
"Maybe
you don't," I granted her.

 
          
Because I hadn't truly been calm.
Not with as pretty a girl
as Tarrah right out a-flinging herself at me. I had to keep a-telling my mind
that her a-doing that was more or less Harpe's idea. And if I'd done the
natural thing with her, if I'd just only taken her in my arms, I’d be a closer
prisoner on
Cry
Mountain
than with that stockade and all that moved
and waited outside its poles, a-daring me to come out.

           
No, gentlemen, I was in a bad enough
fix the way things were, without a-letting some scheming woman make it worse.

 
 
          
Nair
another word did Tarrah speak to me as we
went
back
under those shadowy branches, nor either did I speak one to her. I couldn't
have thought of a word to say. Right then, she was mad with me. Hell hath no
fury like a woman scorned, that fellow Congreve had spoken the truth. Nor she
didn't bump herself against me, not one time.

 
          
In
that tunnelly passage, our feet slapped on the rock floor, my boots and her
sandals. They fitted themselves into a sort of duet. I wondered myself if I
could make up a song to them.

 
          
When
we got into that big room that was a sort of parlor, Harpe and Scylla were at
the table. Betwixt them was a bowl that looked to be made of silver, and smoke
rose from it in puffs, like as if somebody was a-dragging on a cigar inside.
Scylla flung a handful of something into the bowl, and it blazed up in flame. I
could smell a sharp tang, like what spice I couldn't rightly guess. That smell
sort of sneaked into a man's nose and
tingled
the side
of his head.

 
          
Scylla
craned her wrinkled face round at us, and put on a mean scowl. But Harpe smiled
like a father, one of those fathers who love to make fun of their children.

 
          
“Did
you have a pleasant time out there?" he asked us.

 
          
“We
did some talking," Tarrah answered him, with an air that she wished it had
been more than talking.

 
          
“Good
talking, I dare hope," said Harpe, and turned toward Scylla. “That will be
all for now," he told her. “The fire didn't reveal much, but perhaps the
time wasn’t propitious. We’ll try again, later. You may go now.”

           
Scylla got up from where she sat and
went out past the green curtain.

 
          
“You
too, Tarrah,” Harpe said, and Tarrah went after Scylla, without a word. Harpe
smiled on me. “Sit down here, John. You and I have some talking to do.”

 
          
I
took the chair where Scylla had been. “Whiskey?” he invited me, and reached for
the jug.

 
          
“No,
I thank you. I’ve had me quite a bit already today, and I don’t want to get
drunk.”

 
          
He
poured himself a slug. “Drunk,” he repeated me. “Do you know, John, I’ve never
been drunk in my life. No matter how much I have, it doesn’t take hold of me.
How do you explain that?”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t know how to explain it.”

           
“No more than I can explain why you
couldn’t be more courteous and kindly toward poor young Tarrah, when she
offered herself to you out there.”

 
          
So
he’d sure enough seen and heard all about that, had likely given Tarrah her
orders about it. He waited for me to speak, and I spoke:

 
          
“You
spied on us, and you weren’t jealous about Tarrah, not the least bit.”

 
          
“Not
the least bit,” he repeated the words after me. “I’m not in love with these
useful associates of mine, and I won’t let them be in love with me. If I want
love, and sometimes I do, I go here and there in the world and find it.”

 
          
“So
I’ve heard tell.”

           
“But getting back to Tarrah,” he
said. “Don’t you think she’s attractive?”

 
          
“A right much so.”

 
          
“I
understand you, John. There's another girl on your mind."

 
          
I
just waited for him to go on.

 
          
“We’ll
have to see what can be done about that," he allowed. “You can rely on me
for an inducement to keep you happy here.
Because by now,
you’re convinced that you won’t be leaving the top of
Cry
Mountain
."

 
          
“I
still might
could
do that."

 
          
“Not
if I don’t give you permission. John, you’re a reasonable man. I’ve posted
sentinels all around this stockade. Some you’ve seen, some others you wouldn’t
want to dream of, even. If you got out there among them, you’d last about as
long as a pint of whiskey in a five-handed poker game. When it comes to that,
you wouldn’t last any time inside here if I didn’t want you to. I know twenty
or thirty ways to strike you dead. What do you say to that?"

 
          
“Why,"
I said right back, “I reckon you can kill me but you can’t scare me about it.
Long ago, I more or less got over a-being scared of death. We’ll all die some
time another, no matter what it is kills us."

 
          
He
took another sip of his drink, and with his free hand he tweaked the end of his
beard-spike.

 
          
“Eloquence,"
he said.
“Downright eloquence.
I hear you with the
utmost admiration. John, I’m your friend. You’re going to be my friend.
Also my valued ally."

 
          
“You
mean, in that temple you’re a-fixing to set up here? That needs a lot of
deciding. I don’t decide such things in a hurry."

 
          
“Very
well," he nodded me, like as if he was a-doing me a big favor. “I won’t
hurry you, John. I’ll give you a week, shall we say? According to the Book of
Genesis, a week was time enough to create the world, including Adam and Eve,
with a day at the end for rest."

 
          
“You
sound to me like as if you’ve done some reading in the Bible.”

 
          
He
nodded me again. “I’ve read all sixty-six books of
it,
and the Apocrypha as well. I can quote you long passages.”

 
          
“I
can quote you from the Bible, too,” I said. “But there’s one book that’s not in
there, one you keep a-talking about, that Judas Gospel.”

 
          
He
furrowed up his forehead. “That book, yes. There are only reports of
it, that
help me get closer all the time to where it exists.
Judas, it seems, was a deep thinker about the nature and employment of
miracles. If we had his work—undoubtedly it would be in Greek—it might take us
well beyond even the
Abramelin
. ”

 
          
“And
you can’t get hold of it,” I said.

 
          
“I
could if I knew exactly where it was. Just now, I wonder about a place in
North Africa
, a desert village of sorts, smaller even
than Larrowby. What is it interests you on the table?”

 
          
“Your
silvery bowl,” I said “The fire’s gone out in it. What was it for, if you don’t
mind a-telling me?”

 
          
“Why
should I mind?” he said back, a-smiling again. “Scylla and I work at various
experiments, try to achieve various results. Just now, we tried to see into the
future. As I may have said, that’s always difficult. A sight of future things
is forever cloudy. The only clear way to see into the future is to make things
happen in the future.”

 
          
All
the time he probed at me with his eyes, like as if he tried to read my
thoughts. I’ve had that tried on me in the past, and I’ve learned to think
behind a sort of wall in my mind.

 
          
“Now
then,” I said, “what you say is true, if a man can make the things happen.”

 
          
“Men
can make things happen,” said Harpe. “Roger Bacon comprehended the future, and
invented gunpowder. James Watt comprehended, even when he was only a boy, and
developed the steam engine. Einstein comprehended, spent years comprehending,
and split the atom.”

 
          
“They
were a-thinking ahead” was all I had to say. “Thinking their way into the future,”
he agreed me. “All of us with any sense can do that. You were doing it when you
made up your mind to climb
Cry
Mountain
. And I do it all the time, I think into
what the future will be.”

           
“I reckon you do,” I said. “Like
your temple of magic things up here.”

 
          
He
furrowed his face, and it made him look wise. “That could be only a beginning.
Something on which to build.” “Build what?”

           
“It will take time to explain that,
get you ready for it. But I’ve mentioned a place in the African desert, where
Judas's Gospel might be traced and found. Would you care to see that little
village? Care to see me go there?”

 
          
“That
would be a sight to see,” I said.

           
“Then you shall see it. Look over to
the window.”

           
I looked at the dark oblong of it.
He had his T-shaped amulet in his hand and I heard him as he mumbled,
“Fetegan
. . .
Gaghagan
. . .
Beigan ,
. .
Deigan
. . .
Usagan
...”

 
          
The
window lighted up, foamed like fog, then it cleared. I could see something.

 
          
It
was an outside place, and it was night there, with a fire a-blazing up in the
open, next to a bluff or steep hill full of rocks, with sand in betwixt them.
Up above, dark sky with stars in it. Folks were there, dressed in long gowns of
brown and blue and gray-white, all of them a-wearing cloths slung over their
heads and ears and tied there with a black rope round the temples.

 
          
“How come it to be nighttime?”
I asked.

           
“Because it's about five hours away
to eastward,” said Harpe.

           
“Greenwich
time
,
or thereabouts. I told you it’s in the African desert, the
Sahara
.”

 
          
Those
folks chattered to one another, in some language I didn't know a word of. I
studied things. In the face of that rocky bluff showed dark open places, not
too far different from the tunnel that led into that room where we sat.

 
          
“They're
cave dwellers,” I said.

 
          
“Yes.
We still have cave dwellers in the twentieth century.”

 
          
I
saw a woman a-coming into the picture. She walked straight. Up on her shoulder
she carried a great big jar or pitcher, maybe with water in it from some well
or spring out of our sight. Another woman came along with an armful of sticks.
She put them on the fire, and it blazed brighter.

 
          
“Just
who are those people?” I asked Harpe.

 
          
“Berbers,
they're called.
Moors, Maghrebi.
Of course, the Berber
blood is mixed with Saracen blood, but originally it meant a race that had
lived in
North
Africa
since Stone
Age times. The same, perhaps, as Cro-Magnon man in
Europe
.”

 
          
I
watched another woman fetch more wood to the fire. “Cave dwellers,” I said
again.

 
          
“Living
simply, according to their lights,” said Harpe. “I don’t see any reason to
change that way of life when a certain change comes on the world. They're
industrious, they're kindly,
they're
religious.”

 
          
“What
kind of religion?” I wanted to know.

 
          
“Perhaps
a fuzzy one,” Harpe replied me. “What they do in the way of worship seems to
have something of the Jewish, something of the Mohammedan—maybe even a touch or
two of very archaic Christianity. But they aren't really literate enough to be
orthodox in any of those. Only two or three can read at all well in any holy
book.”