The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Panther,” he said, “before we get through with your lessons, you’re likely to get the tar scared out of you, but I think you’ve got backbone.” He reached for a sheet of paper. “This is my new will. You get everything, though your kinfolk’ll swindle you out of it soon enough. Now, tell me more about that girl.”

  He stuffed the will into the old-fashioned roll-top desk. The lamp that reached up out of the mess of papers and books didn’t make enough light for me to see much of what was in the room, but I could feel things looking at me out of the shadows. I began telling him about the funny dress she wore, and the way her hair was fixed in a lot of long, shiny curls that hung down over her shoulders.

  “She wore a crown with a snake on it?” he broke in.

  “That’s right. Except when she was wearing a lion’s head and showing her teeth. It was just like—”

  Then I sat up straight and started staring at something I’d just noticed in the far corner. I pointed. “That’s her, now!”

  Uncle Simon smiled as though I didn’t know the half of it. He said, “That’s just a statue,” and snapped on another light.

  It was a shiny green stone. The woman was bigger than the angel over I-Will-Prevail Carter’s grave, back home; only she was sitting, with her arms close to her sides, and her hands reaching to her knees. She’d been right pretty, except that it just wasn’t natural, a woman having the head of a female lion.

  The eyes looked ’way past me, like she was seeing something that was a million miles away, or a million years past. It made me squirm, but I couldn’t look anywhere else. Finally I said, “Uncle Simon, you been worshipping graven images?”

  He laughed and said, “You go to your room and get at your studies.”

  You can make a fellow look at books, but you can’t make him learn a thing. Not when his mind isn’t on it. And mine wasn’t.

  Even if Dad had stood over me with a harness tug, I’d not learned a line of that Hebrew, though I was getting so I could recite whole pages of it, out loud.

  It’s the funniest language. You speak some of the words from your collar-bone, and after you’ve been at it for an hour, your throat has cramps. But as I said, it’s impressive-sounding, like when the parson pounds the pulpit and says you’re going to hell sure as all get out, and almighty Gawd won’t look at you whilst you’re sizzling.

  No, I didn’t learn a single line that night. I was thinking of that green girl. Not the one that was a graven image, but the real one. I was mad now because the path of coals had been so short. If it’d been longer, I swear I’d walked right up to her. She held her arms out to me, and I don’t think she was mocking me.

  It looked like Uncle Simon was interested, too. For a man his age, that wasn’t quite right. I felt like a fool, the way I blatted it right out, but how was I to know he hadn’t seen her? Now he knew about her, and he was foxy enough to have his way with people. Look at Grandfather, pretty near seventy, and marrying Lily Mae Carter—that’s the postmaster’s daughter—right under the noses of fellows her own age, when she wasn’t a day over sixteen.

  I didn’t know just what, but I was fixing to do something. If Uncle Simon got riled at me, he’d change the will, and no telling what else he’d to me. And on top of it all, Dad and the wagon spoke would get to work on me.

  I began to get scared. You see, I was dead set on seeing that girl again. Ask her to quit pretending she had a face like a female lion, when it was plain as day that she was a woman. With that close-fitting skirt that reached pretty nearly up to her armpits, you couldn’t help noticing how pretty she was, all over.

  There was something funny about it all. I was getting used to magic, but Uncle Simon knew ten times as much as I did. Still and all, he was surprised when I mentioned her. He acted like I’d found something he’d been looking for and not finding. That was hard to believe, but that’s how he acted.

  It finally began to make sense as I sat there. He was just too old for that girl, so she’d been hiding from him. Me, I got a face like a coffin, and Dad says I look like I’m always fixing to fall over my own feet, but women don’t seem to mind that at all, as long as a fellow is young.

  So I planned things out. I’d find that girl and stay long enough to talk to her. Warn her, so Uncle Simon and his magic couldn’t make her mind him. He’d get mad when it failed, but he wouldn’t be able to blame me.

  If I went out and built a fire, Uncle Simon’d notice that, and then where’d I be? But there was another way. I’d learned some powerful spells; only I’d never tried any of them except when he was around to see I didn’t get into trouble. And he wouldn’t let me call up evil spirits. Sometimes they raise sand, and if a fellow even looks like he’s scared, they finish him in a wink. That sort of thing is for master magicians.

  I sneaked out of my room, and went toward the library. It was late, and Uncle Simon was snoring upstairs. I didn’t have to go into the yard to try a window. He’d forgotten to lock the door. When a man gets close to ninety, he’s absent-minded at times.

  There were some books and stuff on his desk that hadn’t been there when I left him. One of them had a snakeskin binding, and the title was on the back cover. The Hebrews started on the last page, instead of the first. The idea is to fool people that are used to ordinary books. They start reading backward and it don’t make sense—not even to a magician.

  I hadn’t gone over more than a half a page when I was so happy I nearly hollered out loud. It was all about the girl from the fire. There were notes in Uncle Simon’s handwriting, and dates, and everything. He’d been trying for years and he hadn’t as much as seen her.

  And while I was in my room, he’d been trying to figure out how I’d met her, when I walked over the coals. I sat down and put my feet on his desk. My heart was going thump-thumpety-thump, like the Odd Fellows Band in Athens. For a second, I was so dizzy I nearly fell out of the swivel chair. That was when I learned who I’d been talking to, and what she was.

  She was a goddess. Her name was Sekhmet, and she wore the face of a female lion to scare ignorant folks. She lived in the Land of Fire, and her disguise mask meant, fire is dangerous—don’t monkey around unless you know how to act.

  Sekhmet was from Egypt, but ever since King Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter, the Hebrews were more or less neighborly with the Egyptians. They quit feuding, and naturally, they wrote things about each other—which I saw when I read a couple more pages.

  There was a chapter in picture writing, like on the base of that green statue of Sekhmet. Of course, I couldn’t make head nor tail of those hieroglyphics, but that didn’t hurt at all. The book was written for Hebrew magicians, and some of them couldn’t read Egyptian either. There was a line of Hebrew to explain exactly how you said each line of picture writing.

  Then I began to get sore!

  Uncle Simon had been mocking me right along—making me chop wood, work in the garden, just like a slave. I was his heir, only he wouldn’t die. Not for hundreds of years, maybe never at all! I read it all. How fire walking, fire breathing, dealing with fire spirits burns the dust-to-dust things out of a man, and what’s left can’t die—providing he doesn’t get killed while he’s practising.

  I began to see whey he was hankering to talk to Sekhmet. That was the last step, the one he hadn’t been able to make, not even with all his studying. Shucks, I’d be an apprentice all my life, and neither me nor any of our kinfolk would get nary a nickel of Uncle Simon’s fortune!

  That made me boiling mad. I got up and began cussing to myself and shaking my fist toward the ceiling, which was shivering a little from the snoring upstairs. It was so loud, I wondered if she could hear me unless I shouted.

  But I went over and faced the graven image. The eyes weren’t like those on General Lee’s statue in the square in Marietta. They seemed to be looking and seeing. I was scared for a minute. My mouth was dry, and I couldn’t pr
onounce the words. A lion is something that makes a man shrivel up inside when he looks at one, even if it’s just carved. It’s a symbol, I guess, not just an animal. But I felt better when I remembered how lovely Sekhmet was when she took off her mask.

  I don’t know exactly why I faced that graven image. It wasn’t necessary, according to the book. The path of fire would open up, no matter where you were.

  So I began to read out loud, and make motions with my hands, like it said to do. Shucks, I can’t say it in English. It can’t be said except in those dead languages. That’s why they’re dead. The people that used to speak them got killed off, practising such things and making mistakes. No wonder I was sweating and shaking when I started.

  Then my voice steadied. The oak ceiling threw the sound back, like I was talking into a well. I didn’t hear Uncle Simon snoring any more. The echoes played tricks with each other, and with my ears. It’s funny how pronouncing some words makes your chest and stomach shake like a busted clock-spring. You feel it all the way to your ankles when you say things exactly right.

  That’s how I knew I was getting the words so she could understand. I wasn’t trembling a bit any more. At times I thought I must have bass drums and pipe organs in my stomach. It was nearly tearing me to pieces, but I was so happy I could have danced up and down.

  Funny little lights cropped up all around the graven image, like the fires you see in swamps and graveyards at night. They seemed to be coming out of the air and crowding around. She wasn’t green any more, and my eyes were getting so sharp I could see that the little bits of smooth stone had spaces betwixt them. They must have been the pieces the teacher called molecules, in the chemistry class, though that never made sense to me until right this minute.

  I didn’t need the book any more. I dropped it and made motions with both hands. I knew exactly what to say, and I wasn’t repeating what I’d read. The first thing I knew, you could throw your hat between those little grains of stone. No, that wasn’t quite it, either. They weren’t that far apart, really, only I could see between them. They hung together loosely, like a thick fog.

  A shining fog it was. Trembling and twisting. It became like fire that kept a shape. Then all the flames and light made an arch, and Sekhmet was sitting there, with a woman’s face, all sweet and smiling.

  The roof must have lifted when I spoke that last line. The sound in my ears was like grass fires, and howling winds and whanging cymbals. She got up from her throne. I never saw such little feet. I could have put both of them in my coat pocket. She must have worn shoes all her life, and never followed a plow or hoed tobacco. Not with those tiny hands.

  And proud, too. Her nose wasn’t exactly bent, but it wasn’t straight. Her nostrils flared like a high-stepping horse’s. She had a chin that was little and a bit pointed. It was her cheek-bones that gave her face that shape.

  I just stood there and looked at her, kind of stupid. Maybe I hadn’t ought to stare that way, but the dress she wore was thinner than a cambric handkerchief. Probably it was all right in private. I liked it a lot, and she saw I did. That made her smile some more.

  When she spoke, it was easy to understand, though it wasn’t English. Or maybe I just read her thoughts and watched her lips. She seemed to know what I was thinking, anyway.

  “Listen, m’am,” I said to her, all shaky and in a hurry. I had to talk quick before I forgot what I wanted to tell her. “My Uncle Simon’s been muttering around about you and he’s a magician and if you don’t look out, the old sculpin’s going to catch you and—”

  I couldn’t think of a polite way to say it, but women sort of understand things, just like children and cats and dogs. She up and kissed me, meaning I didn’t have to tell her any more. She wasn’t a flaming fog now. She was solid, and she smelled like all kinds of flowers and spices and that perfume they sell at the dime store back home.

  “I can’t take you into the Land of Fire,” she told me. “Not tonight. You couldn’t stand it. You’ve got to study some more. But I liked you the minute I saw you walking over the coals out in the yard. You weren’t a bit afraid.”

  I pretty nearly laughed right out. She didn’t know everything, either. I was scared silly, only I was riled at Uncle Simon, mocking me. So I said to Sekhmet, “M’am, he’s stubborn and he’s smart. You’d better hide somewhere till I learn more spells, or he’ll grab you and I’ll get riled. Then we’ll quarrel, and I wouldn’t have a chance with a master magician.”

  “Panther,” she whispered, “don’t worry. Why do you suppose he’s never seen me, with all the studying and practising he’s done? I promise you, I won’t let him into the Land of Fire.”

  “Couldn’t he sneak in?” I was worried about that.

  She sighed, and her eyes were sort of sad. Then she smiled, and this time she showed her teeth, just for a second. I was glad she was looking past me when she did that. Somehow, it was like a cat thinking about something to eat.

  Sekhmet looked back at me, and now she was sweet again. But all of a sudden, there was a gosh-awful crackling and roaring, and fire spinning like a pinwheel. I felt like someone had hit me over the head with a maul, and I thought I was looking right into the sun.

  I tried to grab Sekhmet to go with her, but she wasn’t there. My hands were empty, and I stumbled to the floor. Then I heard Uncle Simon’s voice, and I got up to my knees. But I was so dizzy I grabbed at the green statue. It was all solid again, and awfully hot. Sekhmet was gone.

  “You young fool,” Uncle Simon said, “get on your feet.”

  He had a razor strop and I thought he was going to whale me. His face was pink, but it wasn’t babyish, and his eyes weren’t kind. He was downright sore, and if I hadn’t been one of the family, I know he’d have killed me or tried to. I looked at him, but didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s lucky I came along and stopped that spell. Do you know if you’d read another line, you might have been burned to a cinder and the whole house along with you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What’s more,” he went on, “you got that girl on the brain. I knew you had, so I pretended I was snoring, and I left that book out, on purpose, to see if you’d sneak in to practise.”

  Uncle Simon was smart, and I was a plain fool. He’d been listening to everything. Nothing was a secret now. He hefted the razor strop like he was going to larrup me. Then he smiled, sort of sour, and he said, “I’m not whipping you, though your father would, if he knew you weren’t minding me. But if you don’t do what I say, I’ll just kick you out of the house, and you can go back home and then see what happens.”

  Talking to Sekhmet had done something funny to me. I’d never dared talk back. Not until this minute. Then I shook my fist and took a step forward. “By heck,” I hollered, “you can’t boss me around even if you are my dad’s uncle! Maybe I’m not twenty-one, but I’m grown up and there ain’t anybody going to whale me. I don’t want your damn money. None of us do!”

  He backed away, looked puzzled, and he let the razor strop hang along his leg. I felt kind of ashamed. He was an old man.

  Then Uncle Simon said, “You be a good boy, Panther. You’ve been ambitious and hard-working. You’re not as dumb as you look, and I’ve been thinking of making you my partner.”

  “You mean, I’ll be a master magician, and not an apprentice?”

  You see, I wasn’t as dumb as I looked. After what Sekhmet told me about practising some more, I wasn’t going to lose such a good chance.

  “That’s right, Panther.” He picked up the book I’d dropped and set it on the table. He sort of smiled to himself and nodded. Then he said, “You go to bed now, while I think about this. You’ve got to be initiated before you become a master magician.”

  “You mean, fasting and meditating and all that?”

  He nodded and pointed to the door.

  I went to my room. He was awfully foxy, and I
wasn’t quite sure if I had fooled him. But maybe he didn’t think I knew I was pretty close to being a master magician already. Shucks, you don’t always have to be initiated. Some people can skip a grade. I heard of them doing that at school.

  One thing I was certain of. He didn’t allow for me having read as much as I really had. That was because I hadn’t let on about knowing that if you practise fire-walking and the like, you live for ages and ages and maybe never do die. You see, he’d figure I’d be so set on talking to Sekhmet that I wouldn’t read further than the first couple of pages.

  But it would end up in a fight. I knew that. I felt kind of sorry. He was a nice fellow when he wasn’t unreasonable about Sekhmet. Just like my grandfather, fixing to shoot the young fellows who were playing up to Lilly Mae.

  I studied like all get out. Once in a while, I used to sit there, tired and dizzy, wondering what the folks back home would say if they could see me conjuring. But what’d really open their eyes was where Uncle Simon’s money came from. He just up and made gold bars out of the air, or mud, or something.

  I found that out when some revenue men came in to find out where he got it. He said, “Gentlemen, I’ll show you,” and he did. They came out looking goggle-eyed and muttering.

  One of them said, “But you can’t do this, Mr. Buckner. You’ll wreck the whole Government, flooding the treasury.”

  “No law agin it,” Uncle Simon answered. He winked, and jabbed him in the ribs.

  “Listen, bub. When a man gets to be my age, he has sense enough to know that too much of a good thing is worse than not enough. You suppose I’d make so much gold you could use it for paving, instead of asphalt? You might, but I wouldn’t.”

  “Mr. Buckner,” the other one said foxy-like, “someone’s going to break in here and steal the recipe, and he might get piggish. How about putting the paper in a bank?”

  Uncle Simon laughed right out. “The recipe is not written down. I carry it in my head. And you young fellows better not snitch that bar you seized, or I’ll tell the chief revenue man on you.”