“All right, the rest of you,” screamed Porgie. “Get going or I’ll do the same thing to you!”
They got, arcing away in terrified disorder. Porgie watched as they formed a frightened semicircle around the blubbering Bull Pup. With a sigh of relief, he let go with his mind.
As he left them behind in the night, he turned his head back and yelled weakly, “Nyah, nyah, nyah, you can’t catch me!”
HE was only fifty feet off the ground when he glided into the far end of the box canyon and was suddenly caught by the strong updraft. As he soared in a tight spiral, he slumped down against the arm-rests, his whole body shaking in delayed reaction.
The lashings that held the front wing to the frame were dangerously loose from the manhandling they had received. One more tug and the whole wing might have twisted back, dumping him down on the sharp rocks below. Shudders ran through the Eagle as the supports shook in their loose bonds. He clamped both hands around the place where the rear wing spar crossed the frame and tried to steady it.
He felt his stick’s lifting power give out at three hundred feet. The Eagle felt clumsy and heavy, but the current was still enough to carry him slowly upward. Foot by foot he rose toward the top of the Wall, losing a precious hundred feet once when he spiraled out of the updraft and had to circle to find it. A wisp of cloud curled down from the top of the Wall and he felt a moment of panic as he climbed into it.
Momentarily, there was no left or right or up or down. Only damp whiteness. He had the feeling that the Eagle was falling out of control; but he kept steady, relying on the feel for the air he had gotten during his many practice flights.
The lashings had loosened more. The full strength of his hands wasn’t enough to keep the wing from shuddering and trembling. He struggled resolutely to maintain control of ship and self against the strong temptation to lean forward and throw the Eagle into a shallow dive that would take him back to normalcy and safety.
He was almost at the end of his resolution when with dramatic suddenness he glided out of the cloud into the clear moon-touched night. The up-current under him seemed to have lessened. He banked in a gentle arc, trying to find the center of it again.
As he turned, he became aware of something strange, something different, something almost frightening. For the first time in his life, there was no Wall to block his vision, no vast black line stretching through the night.
He was above it!
There was no time for looking. With a loud ping, one of the lashings parted and the leading edge of the front wing flapped violently. The glider began to pitch and yaw, threatening to nose over into a plummeting dive. He fought for mastery, swinging his legs like desperate pendulums as he tried to correct the erratic side swings that threatened to throw him out of control. As he fought, he headed for the Wall.
If he were to fall, it would be on the other side. At least he would cheat old Mr. Wickens and the Black Man.
NOW he was directly over the Wall. It stretched like a wide road underneath him, its smooth top black and shining in the moonlight. Acting on quick impulse, he threw his body savagely forward and to the right. The ungainly machine dipped abruptly and dove toward the black surface beneath it.
Eighty feet, seventy, sixty, fifty—he had no room to maneuver, there would be no second chance—thirty, twenty—
He threw his weight back, jerking the nose of the Eagle suddenly up. For a precious second the wings held, there was a sharp breaking of his fall; then, with a loud cracking noise, the front wing buckled back in his face. There was a moment of blind whirling fall and a splintering crash that threw him into darkness.
Slowly, groggily, Porgie pulled himself up out of the broken wreckage. The Eagle had made her last flight. She perched precariously, so near the outside edge of the wall that part of her rear wing stretched out over nothingness.
Porgie crawled cautiously across the slippery wet surface of the top of the Wall until he reached the center. There he crouched down to wait for morning. He was exhausted, his body so drained of energy that in spite of himself he kept slipping into an uneasy sleep. Each time he did, he’d struggle back to consciousness trying to escape the nightmare figures that scampered through his brain. He was falling, pursued by wheeling batlike figures with pug faces. He was in a tiny room and the walls were inching in toward him and he could hear the voice of Bull Pup in the distance chanting, “You’re going to get it.” And then the room turned into a long dark corridor and he was running. Mr. Wickens was close behind him and he had long sharp teeth and he kept yelling, “Porgie! Porgie!”
He shuddered back to wakefulness, crawled to the far edge of the Wall and, hanging his head over, tried to look down at the Outside World. The clouds had boiled up and there was nothing underneath him but gray blankness hiding the sheer thousand-foot drop. He crawled back to his old spot and looked toward the east, praying for the first sign of dawn. There was only blackness there.
He started to doze off again and once more he heard the voice; “Porgie! Porgie!”
He opened his eyes and sat up. The voice was still calling, even though he was awake. It seemed to be coming from high up and far away.
It came closer, closer, and suddenly he saw it in the darkness—a black figure wheeling above the Wall like a giant crow. Down it came, nearer and nearer, a man in black with arms outstretched and long fingers hooked like talons!
PORGIE scrambled to his feet and ran, his feet skidding on the slippery surface. He looked back over his shoulder. The black figure was almost on top of him. Porgie dodged desperately and slipped.
He felt himself shoot across the slippery surface toward the edge of the Wall. He clawed, scrabbling for purchase. He couldn’t stop. One moment he felt wet coldness slipping away under him; the next, nothingness as he shot out into the dark and empty air.
He spun slowly as he fell. First the clouds were under him and then they tipped and the star-flecked sky took their places. He felt cradled, suspended in time. There was no terror. There was nothing.
Nothing—until suddenly the sky above him was blotted out by a plummeting black figure that swooped down on him, hawklike and horrible.
Porgie kicked wildly. One foot slammed into something solid and for an instant he was free. Then strong arms circled him from behind and he was jerked out of the nothingness into a world of falling and fear.
There was a sudden strain on his chest and then he felt himself being lifted. He was set down gently on the top of the Wall.
He stood defiant, head erect, and faced the black figure.
“I won’t go back. You can’t make me go back.”
“You don’t have to go back, Porgie.”
He couldn’t see the hooded face, but the voice sounded strangely familiar.
“You’ve earned your right to see what’s on the other side,” it said. Then the figure laughed and threw back the hood that partially covered its face.
In the bright moonlight, Porgie saw Mr. Wickens!
THE schoolmaster nodded cheerfully. “Yes, Porgie, I’m the Black Man. Bit of a shock, isn’t it?”
Porgie sat down suddenly.
“I’m from the Outside,” said Mr. Wickens, seating himself carefully on the slick black surface. “I guess you could call me a sort of observer.”
Porgie’s spinning mind couldn’t catch up with the new ideas that were being thrown at him. “Observer?” he said uncomprehendingly. “Outside?”
“Outside. That’s where you’ll be spending your next few years. I don’t think you’ll find life better there and I don’t think you’ll find it worse. It’ll be different, though, I can guarantee that.” He chuckled. “Do you remember what I said to you in my office that day—that Man can’t follow two paths at once, that Mind and Nature are bound to conflict? That’s true, but it’s also false. You can have both, but it takes two worlds to do it.
“Outside, where you’re going, is the world of the machines. It’s a good world, too. But the men who live there saw a long
time ago that they were paying a price for it; that control over Nature meant that the forces of the Mind were neglected, for the machine is a thing of logic and reason, but miracles aren’t. Not yet. So they built the Wall and they placed people within it and gave them such books and such laws as would insure development of the powers of the Mind. At least they hoped it would work that way—and it did.”
“But—but why the Wall?” asked Porgie.
“Because their guess was right. There is magic.” He pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. “Lift it, Porgie.”
Porgie stared at it until he had the picture in his mind and then let his mind take hold, pulling with invisible hands until the keys hung high in the air. Then he dropped them back into Mr. Wickens’ hand.
“What was that for?”
“Outsiders can’t do that,” said the schoolmaster. “And they can’t do conscious telepathy—what you call mind-talk—either. They can’t because they really don’t believe such things can be done. The people inside the Wall do, for they live in an atmosphere of magic. But once these things are worked out, and become simply a matter of training and method, then the ritual, the mumbo-jumbo, the deeply ingrained belief in the existence of supernatural forces will be no longer necessary.
“These phenomena will be only tools that anybody can be trained to use, and the crutches can be thrown away. Then the Wall will come tumbling down. But until then—” he stopped and frowned in mock severity—“there will always be a Black Man around to see that the people inside don’t split themselves up the middle trying to walk down two roads at once.”
There was a lingering doubt in Porgie’s eyes. “But you flew without a machine.”
THE Black Man opened his cloak and displayed a small gleaming disk that was strapped to his chest. He tapped it. “A machine, Porgie. A machine, just like your glider, only of a different sort and much better. It’s almost as good as levitation. Mind and Nature . . . magic and science . . . they’ll get together eventually.”
He wrapped his cloak about him again. “It’s cold up here. Shall we go? Tomorrow is time enough to find out what is Outside the Wall that goes around the World.”
“Can’t we wait until the clouds lift?” asked Porgie wistfully. “I’d sort of like to see it for the first time from up here.”
“We could,” said Mr. Wickens, “but there is somebody you haven’t seen for a long time waiting for you down there. If we stay up here, he’ll be worried.”
Porgie looked up blankly. “I don’t know anybody Outside. I—” He stopped suddenly. He felt as if he were about to explode. “Not my father!”
“Who else? He came out the easy way. Come, now, let’s go and show him what kind of man his son has grown up to be. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” said Porgie.
“Then help me drag your contraption over to the other side of the Wall so we can drop it Inside. When the folk find the wreckage in the morning, they’ll know what the Black Man does to those who build machines instead of tending to their proper business. It should have a salutary effect on Bull Pup and the others.”
He walked over to the wreckage of the Eagle and began to tug at it.
“Wait,” said Porgie. “Let me.” He stared at the broken glider until his eyes began to burn. Then he gripped and pulled.
Slowly, with an increasing consciousness of mastery, he lifted until the glider floated free and was rocking gently in the slight breeze that rippled across the top of the great Wall. Then, with a sudden shove, he swung it far out over the abyss and released it.
The two stood silently, side by side, watching the Eagle pitch downward on broken wings. When it was lost in the darkness below, Mr. Wickens took Porgie in his strong arms and stepped confidently to the edge of the Wall.
“Wait a second,” said Porgie, remembering a day in the schoolmaster’s study and a switch that had come floating obediently down through the air. “If you’re from Outside, how come you can do lifting?”
Mr. Wickens grinned. “Oh, I was born Inside. I went over the Wall for the first time when I was just a little older than you are now.”
“In a glider?” asked Porgie.
“No,” said the Black Man, his face perfectly sober. “I went out and caught myself a half-dozen eagles.”
1954
WOLFIE
Magic always works . . . even with the wrong ingredients!
PETER Vincent had too much to gain—and too much to lose—to risk committing murder in any of the usual ways. He was an obvious suspect if his cousin Anthony Lan should die violently, and much as he wanted his share of Anthony’s money, he had an intelligent man’s respect for the efficiency of the metropolitan police. That’s why he sought, and after a long search found, Dr. Arsoldi.
Dr. Arsoldi’s antecedents were mysterious and his techniques were unorthodox, but that was to be expected from a practicing warlock. Peter had rather expected a dimly lighted room cluttered with stuffed owls, crystal balls, chalked pentagrams, and the other paraphernalia commonly associated with wizardry. Instead, he found himself in a small and rather dusty office, whose sole decoration was a flyspecked Petty Girl calendar. Dr. Arsoldi himself didn’t correspond to the usual stereotype—he was a broad shouldered and muscular young man with a crew-cut and hornrimmed glasses.
“How did you find me?” he asked as he gestured Peter to a chair. There was a trace of an Iowa nasal twang to his voice.
“The same way the others did,” said Peter. “I kept looking in the right places. When a whole series of things occur in a limited area that can’t be explained in the usual way, it’s not too difficult to fit them together into a pattern that makes sense.”
DR. Arsoldi took a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his tweed jacket, lit one, and inhaled deeply.
“Things such as what?” he asked, letting the smoke trickle lazily from his nostrils.
“The Saunders case for one,” said Peter. “The police are still trying to figure out how an elderly woman could burn to death in a locked room without even scorching the covers on her bed. Salamander, wasn’t it?”
Dr. Arsoldi grinned. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.”
“And that Morgan Bloomfellow who had his head smashed in on the seventh green at the Hunt Hills Golf Course. There were eight witnesses to swear that there was nobody within fifty yards of him at the time. That was a poltergeist, wasn’t it?” Vincent asked.
“Any prosecuting attorney who tried to establish that it was would be hauled away and locked up.”
“Admitted,” said Peter. “That’s why I spent so much time and money tracking you down. I’ve uncovered eighteen cases in the last two years that look like your work, and in each case there was somebody who gained a great deal by the deaths. I came here to make you a business proposition.”
“Sorry,” said Dr. Arsoldi. “I’ve suspended operations. It got too dangerous.”
“That’s absurd,” said Peter. “There isn’t a way in the world the law could touch you.”
“It’s not the law I’m afraid of.” Dr. Arsoldi hesitated. “I have a—I suppose you could call him a colleague. When we first started working together, I had to sign a contract. There’s a clause in it that’s been bothering me lately. Frankly, I’ve got my wind up and I’m getting out before it’s too late.”
“Perhaps I can persuade you to reconsider,” said Peter. He reached in his briefcase and took out a packet of crisp new hundred dollar bills. “There’s three thousand here,” he said as he tossed it on the desk. “It’s all I can lay my hands on now, but if we can come to an agreement, there’ll be lots more.”
Dr. Arsoldi stared at the bills and licked his lips as if they had suddenly become dry.
“How much more?”
“Fifty thousand easy. Maybe sixty. I’ve seen the will.”
Dr. Arsoldi reached out to touch the money and then jerked his hand back as if it was red hot.
“I’d like to,” he said
, “but I’m just plain scared. Last time there was almost a slip-up. I don’t ever want to go through that again. Sorry.” Reluctantly, he pushed the money back across the desk.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” said Peter. “I’ve got a plan that’s foolproof.”
“So was the last one,” said Dr. Arsoldi morosely, “and look what almost happened.”
“What?”
“GARLIC! My colleague and I made it possible for our client to temporarily metamorph into a vampire bat. It looked extremely simple. The finding would be ‘death due to chronic pernicious anemia,’ and she would inherit. And what happened? Her husband had to work late, so on his way home he stopped off at a little Italian restaurant and filled up on spaghetti and garlic bread. She was barely able to go through with it. If she had been a woman of less determination, I wouldn’t be here now.” He gave a little shudder. “As it was, she was laid up for a week afterward. The papers said she was prostrate with grief, but actually she was suffering from severe systemic poisoning. You have no idea what garlic can do to a vampire’s digestive tract.”
Peter looked puzzled. “It would seem to me that once you had supplied the means, your responsibility ended. Suppose she hadn’t gone through with it . . . I don’t see how that would have affected you.”
Dr. Arsoldi coughed nervously. “My colleague would have been upset. You see, my powers have been—well, conditionally delegated to me. He is a non-human being—not a supernatural one, mind you—I’ll admit that I haven’t yet explained to my own satisfaction just where he comes from, but it’s obviously another dimension or a different vibrational level, or something like that. For some obscure reason, he has a special fondness for murderers who aren’t caught, so we have an agreement between us—I provide the potential killers, and he provides the means for them to carry out their desires.”
“I still don’t see what you have to be upset about.”
Collected Fiction Page 17