Collected Fiction, page 136
“Well, don’t try to understand it, punk, but them chairs in Doc Mayhem’s lab sent us all back in time several hunnert years. See? And I’m the only guy what can get us back safe. Only I got to get out of this dump first. Now look. You can leave the castle any time, can’t, you?”
Moratti nodded vaguely. “I guess so. I’m a steward. They send me to the village once in a while for marketing.”
“And how many marines they got in the castle, huh?”
“Maybe twenty. Most of ’em are away somewheres fighting some other big shot.”
Pete snapped his Angers, thinking quickly and effectively.
“Okay. Now look. You sneak outa here and go to Sherwood Forest and Friar Tuck and—” His voice sank to a confidential murmur, droning on for several minutes. “Think you can do it? If you do, I’ll get you back home again.”
“I’ll try, Manx,” Moratti quavered. “So help me, I’ll try.”
He shuffled away. Pete chuckled triumphantly.
“Science!” he declared snugly. “That’s the stuff. Just like somebody said once, science is golden . . .”
Two days dragged past. On the afternoon of the second day, Pete was haled from his dungeon and dragged by the heels into the castle courtyard. There he saw (1) Sir Guy and a handful of other guys come to see the fun, (2) Robin Hood, and (3) a gibbet and a large cauldron boiling merrily over a crackling Are.
Robin was dirty but unafraid. He winked at Little Peter.
“Looks like you’re getting a dirty deal, comrade. They intend to boil you. When they throw you into the pot, lean over the side and inhale the flames. It’s quicker that way.”
“Oh,” Pete said faintly.
“I get hanged, then we both get drawn and quartered. But that won’t hurt. We shall be dead, of course. Good joke on Sir Guy, eh?”
PETE decided that the British had a funny sense of humor. He glanced at Guy, who was laughing jovially enough. A faint aroma of decayed Ash still exuded from Guy’s rich trappings. Modern plumbing was not among the blessings of the fourteenth century, much too evidently.
Beyond the courtyard wall, not very far distant, he could just see the high hill where Sherwood Forest began. For a moment he thought he discerned figures moving there. But he could not be sure.
Would help arrive in time? Moratti should have put, the plan into execution before this unless something had gone haywire. Soon it would be too late.
“We had best hurry,” Sir Guy said. “I hear that traitor of a sheriff has gone to King John to win a reprieve for these dogs. But he won’t be back for hours, I think. Are you ready?” A black-masked figure nodded. “It is ready, my lord.”
“Good. Wheel the derrick into place.”
A scaffold contrivance was pushed toward the cauldon. Pete stared. Guy caught that horrified look.
“We lower you in gradually,” the lord explained pleasantly. “First the feet, till the boiled flesh strips away from the bones. Then still more, inch by inch, still nothing is left. The resultant soup we feed to the hounds.”
“A fine thing,” Pete moaned. “Mrs. Manx’ little boy ending up at Ken-L-Ration.”
“Hoist him up!” Sir Guy commanded.
Pete was seized. Ropes were brought.
“Farewell, Little Peter,” said Robin Hood. “You were a friend worth knowing.”
“Same to you,” Pete gulped.
A shadow fell on the courtyard. Before the startled soldiers could move, there was a whir and a twang. The executioner who held Pete sprang high, a feather shaft protruding from his throat.
From above came a great cry. “Hola, Robin! Hola, Sherwood!”
“Sathanas!” someone screeched. “Aroint thee, demon!”
“Friar Tuck!” Pete yelped. “Three cheers and a tiger!”
Floating down the winds came an extraordinary contraption. It looked like a bird with rigid wings. Fresh cut, slender wood was its framework. The wings were covered with a conglomeration of vari-colored silks, stolen doubtless from a conglomeration of travelers in Sherwood. From somewhere in the midst of the fantastic construction came the raucous voice of Friar Tuck.
The glider dipped for a landing in the wide courtyard and tilted tipsily. Abruptly, it spilled its pilot onto Sir Guy of Gisbourne, who went down for the count. Soldiers rushed forward with bared blades, only to halt in fright.
“More of them! More of the demons!” they cried.
OVER the battlements they sailed, a dozen or more of crazily constructed but airwotthy gliders, raining down murderous arrows from above. One or two inexpert pilots cracked up against the walls. But the men in Lincoln green continued to catapult bravely from the air, steel swords flashing, yelling their war cry. “Hola, Sherwood! Hola, Robin!” Guy’s soldiers fought, but a quick sortie opened the drawbridge. The rest of the merry men poured in. Ten minutes saw the end of the battle. The outnumbered defenders were dead or captured. Pete and Robin were free. Sir Guy was in the dungeon with ravenous fleas for bedfellows.
Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Pete, and the miserable Moratti retired to the great hall to. toast one another in hearty ale.
“Great magic indeed,” said Robin, gulping mightily. “Men are enabled to fly like birds.”
Moratti’s thin chest swelled. “Shucks. Anybody who’s made model airplanes can make a regular sized glider. Easy to teach outlaws to fly. Used to glide a lot myself over in Joisey. Anyway, the hard-packed road road from Sherwood to the castle made something they call a—uh—thermal. It makes the hot air and the boys just rode the thermal . . . But I’ll kill the guy who says model planes are pantywaist stuff. So help me, I’ll mow ’im down!”
Pete grinned and gently cuffed Moratti halfway across the hall.
“Nuts. Remember, you ain’t back home yet—”
He stopped, feeling a bizarre sense of disorientation, a hollowness in his stomach, a weird shock.
Woosh!
* * *
Pete Manx opened his eyes. He was back in Dr. Mayhem’s laboratory. Guy’s cattle had vanished, along with Robin Hood’s brave band.
He stared around vaguely. Mayhem was pottering about on some apparatus near by. Slung awkwardly over the second electric chair was Moratti, just reviving. Mayhem turned.
“Oh, hello, Pete. I brought Professor Aker back first. He told me all about your adventures. He seemed slightly ashamed of how he’d acted. Begged me to apologize for him.”
“Aw, that’s okay,” Pete chuckled. “We came out all right. Moratti really done, it. Hey, pal?”
The gangster managed to stand up, passing a dazed hand over his brow.
“Yeah,” he said incredulously. “I guess so. We sure showed them monkeys.”
“And I brung you back like I promised, hey pal?” Butter dripped from Pete’s tones.
Memory, came back to Moratti.
“Yeah, you did. But I seem to remember you slugging me just before we left the castle, knocking me clear across the room. How about that, mug?”
Pete laughed falsely. “Just a little fun, pal. No offense. Now wait, Moratti! No sense getting sore. Stay away from me! Ain’t you got no gratitude?”
Pete retreated from his ertswhile pal’s twitching, murderous fingers.
Mayhem had apparently removed the gangster’s gun, but Moratti seemed not to need any weapon.
“This,” he said hoarsely, “will be fun.”
Pete brought up with a jolt, his back against the wall: Suddenly his fumbling hand touched a long pole, used for opening transoms. The touch of the wood struck a familiar chord in Pete’s brain. It was the exact length and weight, of a quarterstaff. He whipped it into position as Moratti lunged.
The unfortunate racketeer was stabbed in the middle with the metal-tipped end of the pole.
“Whoosh!” said Moratti. He doubled up, making horrid noises, striving to get enough air to tell Pete what he intended to do. But Mr. Manx, remembering his successful strategy with Robin Hood, jammed the pole down viciously on Moratti’s corns.
The gangster screamed shrilly. He hopped about, flailing the air.
Pete proceeded to drive his victim out the door. Loud and anguished cries diminished rapidly down the hall.
Pete returned, looking pleased.
“That,” he said, wiping his hands, “is that.”
Mayhem blinked absent-mindedly.
“Eh? Oh, Moratti. Congratulations, Pete. But what’s going to happen to you when Moratti gets a gun and some of his thugs together?”
“Nothing. I won’t be here,” Pete said firmly. “I am taking it on the lam right now. If you can slip me that dough I loaned Aker a few days ago—You still got it, huh?” he asked hopefully.
MAYHEM withdrew a roll of bills from his smock, divided it into two portions, one of which he gave to Pete.
“I took the precaution of rescuing your money from the professor’s coat.”
“Hey!” Pete objected, counting his ill-gotten gains. “One grand? I had three! You’re holding out on me.”
“Two thousand dollars is my fee for sending you back in time,” Mayhem said blandly, patting his pocket. “I need new equipment, and this donation will come in handy. After all, your life is worth at least two thousand dollars, isn’t it?”
Pete’s face fell.
“Yeah,” he said glumly. “I guess so. Well—”
He fumbled in his pocket and brought out two ivory cubes. These he let drop on the lab bench.
“Seven! Okay, Doc, keep the two grand. I still got the bones. And believe you me, I’m a scientist with these babies. ‘Nothing like science’, hey, Doc?”
THE SHINING MAN
Out of Haunted Land he came, a weird shining figure, to strike terror into the hearts of the tribe. Was his mission of the living or the dead?
I FELT the tension in the council cave the moment I entered. Simon the Elder came to me and said, “You must be calm, Jo. Something has happened, but you must hold your temper.”
Quickly my gaze flickered around the huge chamber. More than fifty Merricans were gathered here. Firelight gleamed redly on the weathered, strong faces of my tribesmen, the strong-thewed men who wore wolfskin or deerhide, the roamers of the Pensivaynee hills. The fire caught in the flint knives, or against the few metal blades from the times of the Ancients which were taken from the ruins of Pitsber.
I looked then at the throne—the rock slab where the ruler of the tribe should sit. It was vacant. A spear—the challenge—lay across it. No eye was turned to me, though I sensed the alertness of everyone. The gage of battle had been cast, and I dropped my deer-carcass on the earth. I went to my mother, Veena.
“Why are you not upon the throne?” I asked.
Her gray face did not change. “It has been a year today since your brother Eli decreed that I should rule while he went to the Haunted Land. The year has ended and our tribal laws say that now the challenge is here and a man must rule.”
So it was. A year had gone by since the day Eli had gone to avenge my brother North. Now both had not returned, and the Haunted Land had taken another life from us, the Land which sent its emissaries to kill us quietly at night, to take our women beyond the hills. North had gone to search for his wife, and Eli had gone after him.
“Whose is this spear?” I demanded.
Then a man rose from where he sat, a great redcheeked man, with a tangled black beard that fell down over his hairy chest. Buffalo-mighty was Orgu, with twinkling little eyes and a voice that often bellowed out laughter. But few laughed with Orgu, for only cruelty roused his merriment.
Only my father had been stronger than Orgu, and it was my father who, years ago, had smashed the giant’s nose into a hideous lump of flattened tissue. From then on, Orgu had hardly been a member of the tribe. For months at a time he had stayed away, living by himself. Now Orgu saw his chance for vengeance, I suppose, since by tribal law I was still a child.
A child at twenty! By Lincoln, my father, had bequeathed to me, his youngest, the physique of a titan, and he had left in my blood the capacity of blinding rages which men called the berserker madness. Twenty years ago my father died, treacherously slain by a spear-thrust in the back. My brother North had ruled after him, and then Eli mounted the throne.
In a week I would be twenty-one and rule would be mine by heritage. But Orgu had not waited. The spear on the Throne was a deadly insult, and if a man be slain, or a woman shamed, the nearest of kin must avenge. So I stared at Orgu in the firelight, and cast away the knife at my belt. He did the same.
A voice came out of the shadows. Again Simon the Elder shuffled forward, a bent, gaunt man with parchment skin stretched across his bald skull. Very old was Simon, the last of a cult of magicians whose origin was lost in antiquity. In his little cave he pored over curious objects which he called books, and often Simon told us wondrous tales of the Ancients, who could fly through the skies and chain the thunderbolt. His voice was dry and small.
“It is the Ordeal,” he said. “By our law, you two must fight unarmed, to the death. Yet, Orgu, you would have done well to wait till Eli returned, or till Jo mounted the Throne.”
Orgu’s little eyes dwelt on me. “Eli will not return. Did North come lack from the Haunted Land? And shall a woman or a fool rule over the Merricans?”
MY cheeks flushed at that. I gestured, and the tribe scuttled back into the shadows against the walls. He lumbered forward like a great bear, huge and terrible. His arms were tree-trunks—and they reached for me.
I met Orgu; my right hand clamped on his left wrist; he gripped my wrist with his right hand. We stood there silent. But the muscles rolled and surged under our hides, and our lips peeled back from our teeth as each strove to break the other’s clutch. Flames of agony raced up my arm. I thought it would snap in a moment—but Orgu, too, felt pain!
He let go, and his fist smashed at my throat. I jerked aside in time, but Orgu’s arms closed about my body. Instantly they constricted, in a hold that could easily snap my spine. I flung up my hand, to get the heel of it under Orgu’s bearded chin, but he was too quick. His face buried itself in my shoulder. His teeth tried to find my great artery.
I could have tried to break Orgu’s back also, but instead I hooked my heel behind his foot and lunged forward. The two of us crashed down on the rock floor, Orgu undermost. Though the breath went out of him, he did not loosen his grip. I tried to forget the white-hot bar of fire that seemed to tear at my back. Dimly I could see the face of Simon in the shadows, gaunt and intent, and the worn gray face of Veena. Her hand went out, pointing.
I understood her. I rolled over, carrying Orgu with me. We plunged into the embers of the fire—and Orgu had not expected that! Sparks and coals flew as we sprang apart and leaped away, beating out the flames that were in our hair.
Orgu came in again, grinning. His fist struck me on the breast, and I think he was surprised when I did not give back. Instead, I drove a blow that pulped the giant’s already malformed nose and sent blood spurting on his beard.
Orgu laughed then. His breath choked through sheer murder-lust, and I could hear his yellow fangs grinding together.
“My father gave you the same blow!” I taunted him.
The little eyes narrowed. Orgu’s knee flashed up, and sickening pain raced through me at the foul blow. Before I could recover, the giant was upon me, bearing me down to the floor. His heavy body pressed me down. The iron fingers sank into my throat. Frantically, vainly, I tried to tear them free.
Nothing existed now but the brute face of Orgu, bearded and hideous and blood-smeared. The red drops fell upon my face. I heard Orgu’s triumphant whisper:
“Aye—the same blow! And I shall kill you, as I killed your father, fool!”
As Orgu killed my father—treacherously, by a spear-thrust in the back! By the Sun, Orgu erred in saying that! For it meant his death.
The red drops fell. And they stained the world scarlet. The dark rage that mounted within me made me, briefly, weak and sick.
The weakness passed. In its place came strength-power that poured into my veins and thundered through my mind. I do not quite remember what happened after that . . .
Men say that I opened my mouth and howled like a wolf, my eyes blind and savage as a beast’s. And that my throat hardened and tightened under Orgu’s strangling fingers. Faith of God, when my fists smashed up at the killer’s face they pulped it into bloody ruin. I did not know this. I was mad with the berserker madness, which had once driven me to kill a bear unarmed.
Orgu dared not relax his grip. His throttling hands ground in viciously. But he no longer laughed—no! He shook his head, blinded, trying to dodge my blows, and toward the end he shrieked in stark agony as flesh was ripped from his cheeks and bone splintered . . .
Fear came to him. He let go my throat and sprang up, a hideous, near-faceless figure. I rose, drawing air into my starved lungs—air that tore like cold knives. And I walked forward, my hands reaching for Orgu.
He could not face me. He ran back to the mouth of the cave. He screamed at me, gibbering in a panic of unendurable fear. I was Death, and that Orgu knew well.
A KNIFE lay against the wall. Orgu seized it, though by tribal law the Ordeal must be fought unarmed. Simon shouted, and my mother cried out and ran forward, but I scarcely saw the weapon. I walked on, and I think that I would have killed Orgu even if the knife had pierced my heart.
But, as Orgu poised himself, a hand gripped the haft and tore it from his hand. Behind Orgu, outside the cave, was a stir of swift motion. The killer whirled, snarling—and a scream of abysmal fear ripped from his throat. He fell to his knees.
The ice of terror pierced through the red mist that shrouded my brain. Silhouetted against the cave mouth was a figure. And it was not—earthly!
A man stood there, and his body crawled and gleamed with silvery radiance. He was encased in living light that crept upon his skin, as If he were clothed in white moon-fires.
Behind me, Veena cried, “Eli!”
It was my brother, come back from the Haunted Land.
The Shining Man lifted the long knife and started for Orgu, but the giant had broken the paralysis of terror that gripped him. He flung himself aside, sprang past the menacing figure that towered over him. Outside the cave, Orgu rose and went reeling off into the darkness. His running footsteps died in the distance.
