Masques

by J N Williamson

  Yes; you guessed they were all one person. And the novels cited were Golden Dream: A Fuzzy Odyssey and Soul-Singer of Tyrnos.

  But now you have a better idea of how supremely talented Ardath May ha r is.

  Whether it’s because Texan Ardath (born February 20, 1930) belongs to both MENS A and Small Press Writers & Artists Organization, mother of two and stepmother of another pair, or because those who can’t look dubiously at those writers who produce prodigiously, her light has been hiding under a bushel on her Chireno farm far too long.

  Cases in point: the critically-acclaimed Khi to Freedom and her newest novel, The Saga of Grittel Sundotha. More immediately: the eerie, accepting horror of “Samhain: Full Moon”—Mayhar: “So last night I sat down after supper . . . and it’s what got pulled out of the somewhere into the here”—and “I Have Made My Bones Secure.” In common, extraordinary beauty and a spellbinding, human realism which suggest, far better than I can, the distinct likelihood that Ardath Mayhar is one of the major writing talents of our time.

  She sat, hands busy with a homely task,

  and watched a cold white moon trail wisps of cloud

  across the east. The last light died away,

  leaving the meadows shadowed, ghostly trees

  lurking about her house, and crawling mist

  in chilly layers between hill and hill.

  She shuddered—it’s not good to be alone

  by night at any time, but at Samhain—

  oh, infinitely worse!

  A rasping breeze

  rattled its fingers in the frost-killed vines.

  She put away her sewing, took a plate

  of bread, a cup of milk, and set them out

  upon the doorstone, keeping her eyes turned

  up to the stone-crowned hilltop.

  “Let them stay!”

  she whispered. “Let them keep their place tonight,

  but if they come, let me not be aware!”

  She barred the door, but still the mocking moon

  peered through a crevice with its frozen eye,

  reminding her of gravestones slipped aside,

  of tattered flesh, stark bone, and flapping rags

  that might come down the hill, scratch at her door,

  plead for a place beside her tiny fire.

  A year ago her man had barred the door,

  made up the fire, poured spirits in the tea,

  and they had huddled, warm and comforted

  against the pleas and mewlings in the night:

  but now he lay above—up there with them—

  and all the children made their lives afar.

  She pulled her shawl about her scrawny arms,

  drawn to the window, staring up the hill

  at all those stones, stark black against the moon . . .

  they moved in eery dance!

  A strangled cry

  squeezed from her throat; her hands clenched at her breast

  until the ancient fabric of her gown

  was crushed by frantic fingers, and it tore.

  Dark shapes moved there, above, to turn their steps

  down to the foot-worn path; she moved away,

  knelt by her bed, pulled pillows to her ears,

  and waited, pulses hammering with fear.

  Cloud crossed the moon; a sleepy raven croaked

  a protest as the shuffling footsteps passed

  its roosting-place. A file of misty shapes

  drifted across the path, borne on the wind,

  but not one face was turned to watch them go,

  not one looked up to see the flying cloud,

  or bat-shapes wheeling over mouldy skulls.

  They stalked, the ancient dead, the newly-dead,

  to find a warmth that, dimly, they recalled

  one time a year to send them striding down

  to find a hearthfire and the smell of food,

  a homely comfort, lost among the stones:

  just once a year some power called them home.

  They crossed the frosted garden. Nora’s cat

  hissed curses and retreated up a tree,

  sat staring, moon-eyed, after that strange band

  upon the brittle grass.

  They saw the milk,

  the bread beside the door; the bone-white heads

  bent, grinning, over plate and cup, inhaled

  the scents of life into their rotten lungs,

  but didn’t linger long. One claw-nailed hand

  reached out to touch the door; the fingers moved

  mouse-quiet, but the scritching filled the night,

  sent Nora trembling on her aching knees.

  She would not rise, unbar that door, admit

  the grisly crew, all family perhaps,

  but terrifying, changed.

  And one her man!

  That was the hardest fact: the face she knew

  would be a fleshless blur, the well-loved hands

  reduced to bone.

  Her tears came freely now:

  both loss and pain were standing at her door,

  returned tonight to something like a life;

  how could she leave him there amid the chill,

  locked from his home, rejected by his spouse,

  to plead the night away?

  There was his voice, hoarser, perhaps, but welcome to her ear:

  “Nora! Oh, let us in, for Pity’s sake,

  to warm our bones once more before your hearth,

  remembering we once were living men!”

  She rose and dried her eyes, took down the bar,

  and opened wide the door; her chamber filled

  with scents of earth, decay, and harsher things,

  but Kevin came the last. She stared at him

  and saw, through shrunken skin, the face she knew.

  Reaching to take his bony hand, she led

  him over to the fire, to join the rest

  and sit in his old chair.

  It was a night

  of strangeness; dryest whispers passed among

  that group, but there was little they could tell

  save tales of cold and darkness, damp and stone

  that chilled her spirit, set a seal of fear

  upon her heart.

  And yet she knew one thing,

  incredible and perverse. When dawn drew near

  she straightened up the room and quenched the fire,

  looked once about her long-familiar home,

  then followed as her guests moved up the hill.

  The gravestones shifted, and they all were gone

  to rest again, and yet they left no track

  on path or turf.

  One set of footprints marked

  the earth—a woman’s, leading to a stone

  unweathered, new . . . and ending at its base.

  All-Hallows dawned, and darkness drew away.

  The rocks rolled under my moccasins

  and my knees trembled with climbing, but I am here,

  and none save my father the wind

  and my mother the sun

  knows where my bones will lie.

  The stone of the mountain holds my back,

  man-bone to mountain-bone;

  I sit proudly, as of old, looking across the dry places

  toward the White One.

  Long has he stood in the sun

  with the cold upon his head,

  and long will he stand

  when none sits here save the stone.

  It is fitting that he share my vigil

  as he has shared all the seasons of my life.

  I will go away into the Other Place

  with his shape in my eyes.

  With the coming of spring

  I knew this time was near.

  The face of the sun brought no warmth,

  and night brought shadows my eyes could not pierce.

  I looked at my woman, and she was bent,

  brittle as a winter
weed.

  I looked at my sons and they were warriors,

  at my daughters, and they were mothers.

  I looked at my tribe

  and found the people strong and fat,

  and the deer were many, the streams full.

  So I called to the warriors and the women

  and told them to find another to lead them.

  They chose one of my sons, and we were glad together,

  then I bade them goodbye.

  Many days, many weeks I walked toward the White One,

  stopping when I wearied or hungered.

  When I held my bow in my hands

  and brought down the antelope

  I rejoiced that all my skills

  were not lost to me.

  But when I looked to my bow

  it was pale as mist, and the arrows

  were as shadows on the sand.

  Then I knew that I moved

  in the ways of the spirits,

  and I laid out the heart of the antelope

  that they might be joyful.

  My fire sent pungent smoke, though it was small,

  yet I had no fear,

  for one who goes a spirit-journey

  fears no man.

  And the flesh of the beast was sweet, and my sleep was dreamless.

  So I came, across dry lands and wooded lands,

  stone and sand and ash,

  to the beginning of the mountains

  where I was born.

  I felt the White One, though I could not see him,

  rising cold behind the ridges.

  My limbs seemed young and full of strength,

  and I went up into the forest upon the slopes,

  coming home after many years.

  As a spirit I moved: the beasts did not hear me,

  the birds did not fly from my presence,

  and I knew that I walked upon the edge

  of the Other Place;

  my spirit grew greater, as the flesh shrank,

  and strength did not leave me.

  The face of my father greeted me from the mists,

  and the voices of my brothers

  shouted among the rocks and in the wind.

  I put my hands to my face,

  feeling the tracks of years,

  and wondered that they knew me still.

  The air grew thin, the trees thin;

  I walked above and watched my old self

  struggle among the stones, gasping and trembling.

  I laughed with a great HO! HO!

  and my father the wind bore the echoes away among the mountains

  and brought them back as many echoes.

  So the old man that I was and the young man I am becoming

  made their way up the slopes,

  panting in the shadows of rocks,

  but moving up, up, and I who was above wondered

  that I who was below did not thirst or weary.

  Flesh was becoming light . . .

  no need came near it.

  Now we are settled against the stone,

  warmed by my mother the sun.

  The White One shines on the edge of the sky,

  and my father the wind is gentle.

  The chants are done, and the prayers.

  The spirits are very near . . .

  I hear their whispers about me.

  My legs are crossed in the old way:

  I have made my bones secure against the rock.

  When my spirit goes, they will not fall.

  I am waiting.

  Third Wind

  Richard Christian Matheson

  To set the record straight: Richard Christian Matheson isn’t a teenager; he was born October 14, 1953. He isn’t a carbon copy of his father nor is he trying to be. His appreciation for the author of I Am Legend is profound—even while, in the fairest of possible ways, he asserts merit as an individual.

  And why not? Richard’s record includes work as an ad account exec and copywriter, as ghostchaser for the UCLA Parapsychology Department, gigs as a drummer. He sold a TV pilot to Lorimar Productions at age 20, eventually wrote for more than a dozen programs including The Phoenix, Battlestar Galactica, and Quincy.

  We can’t inherit the talent to use arising opportunity fully. Made story-editor of The A-Team, he will, by point of syndication, have written upwards of 50 episodes on a seven-days-a-week schedule. It’s “akin to trying to eat a picnic on the end of a runway,” R. C. remarks—yet he’s also writing a horror novel with a show biz setting in his nonexistent spare time!

  “Third Wind,” one of his “all-time favorite writing efforts,” is a shocking jewel of a yarn which, in its perceptive handling of a man who finds his hardest competitor is himself, gives evidence of another ambition dear to young Matheson’s heart: completing his education and earning a doctorate in psychology. If he winds up like Michael in this splendid tale, we’ll recognize Richard’s scream: “It’ll be the fatigued one just west of Hollywood and Vine . . . Business as usual in lotusland.”

  Michael chugged up the incline, sweatsuit shadowed with perspiration. His Nikes compressed on the asphalt and the sound of his inhalation was the only noise on the country road.

  He glanced at his waist-clipped odometer: Twenty-five, point seven. Not bad. But he could do better.

  Had to.

  He’d worked hard doing his twenty miles a day for the last two years and knew he was ready to break fifty. His body was up to it, the muscles taut and strong. They’d be going through a lot of changes over the next twenty-five miles. His breathing was loose; comfortable. Just the way he liked it.

  Easy. But the strength was there.

  There was something quietly spiritual about all this, he told himself. Maybe it was the sublime monotony of stretching every muscle and feeling it constrict. Or it could be feeling his legs telescope out and draw his body forward. Perhaps even the humid expansion of his chest as his lungs bloated with air.

  But none of that was really the answer.

  It was the competing against himself.

  Beating his own distance, his own limits. Running was the time he felt most alive. He knew that as surely as he’d ever known anything.

  He loved the ache that shrouded his torso and he even waited for the moment, a few minutes into the run, when a dull voltage would climb his body to his brain like a vine, reviving him. It transported him, taking his mind to another place, very deep within. Like prayer.

  He was almost to the crest of the hill.

  So far, everything was feeling good. He shagged off some tightness in his shoulders, clenching his fists and punching at the air. The October chill turned to pink steam in his chest, making his body tingle as if a microscopic cloud of needles were passing through, from front to back, leaving pin-prick holes.

  He shivered. The crest of the hill was just ahead. And on the down side was a new part of his personal route: a dirt road, carpeted with leaves, which wound through a silent forest at the peak of these mountains.

  As he broke the crest, he picked up speed, angling downhill toward the dirt road. His Nikes flexed against the gravel, slipping a little.

  It had taken much time to prepare for this. Months of meticulous care of his body. Vitamins. Dieting. The endless training and clocking. Commitment to the body machine. It was as critical as the commitment to the goal itself.

  Fifty miles.

  As he picked up momentum, jogging easily downhill, the mathematical breakdown of that figure filled his head with tumbling digits. Zeroes unglued from his thought tissues and linked with cardinal numbers to form combinations which added to fifty. It was suddenly all he could think about. Twenty-five plus twenty-five. Five times ten. Forty-nine plus one. Shit. It was driving him crazy. One hundred minus—

  The dirt road.

  He noticed the air cooling. The big trees that shaded the forest road were lowering the temperature. Night was close. Another hour. Thirty minutes plus thirty minutes. This math thing was getting
irritating. Michael tried to remember some of his favorite Beatle songs as he gently padded through the dense forest.

  Eight Days A Week. Great song. Weird damn title but who cared? If John and Paul said a week had eight days, everybody else just added a day and said . . . yeah, cool. Actually, maybe it wasn’t their fault to begin with. Maybe George was supposed to bring a calendar to the recording session and forgot. He was always the spacey one. Should’ve had Ringo do it, thought Michael, Ringo you could count on. Guys with gonzo noses always compensated by being dependable.

  Michael continued to run at a comfortable pace over the powdery dirt. Every few steps he could hear a leaf or small branch break under his shoes. What was that old thing? Something like, don’t ever move even a small rock when you’re at the beach or in the mountains. It upsets the critical balances. Nature can’t ever be right again if you do. The repercussions can start wars if you extrapolate it out far enough.

  Didn’t ever really make much sense to Michael. His brother

  Eric had always told him these things and he should have known better than to listen. Eric was a self-appointed fount of advice on how to keep the cosmos in alignment. But he always got “D’s” on his cards in high school unlike Michael’s “A’s” and maybe he didn’t really know all that much after all.

  Michael’s foot suddenly caught on a rock and he fell forward. On the ground, the dirt coated his face and lips and a spoonful got into his mouth. He also scraped his knee; a little blood. It was one of those lousy scrapes that claws a layer off and stings like it’s a lot worse.

  He was up again in a second and heading down the road, slightly disgusted with himself. He knew better than to lose his footing. He was too good an athlete for that.

  His mouth was getting dry and he worked up some saliva by rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Strange how he never got hungry on these marathons of his. The body just seemed to live off itself for the period of time it took. Next day he usually put away a supermarket but in running, all appetite faded. The body fed itself. It was weird.

  The other funny thing was the way he couldn’t imagine himself ever walking again. It became automatic to run. Everything went by so much faster. When he did stop, to walk, it was like being a snail. Everything just . . . took . . . so . . . damn . . . looooonnnngggg.