The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  That was when he made the discovery of his power. Bayne walked into the shimmering pattern that was framed by a narrow border. Strangely, his surroundings were three-dimensional, and yet he had the uncanny feeling of still viewing it as a vertical plane. This was too much to reason out, and he did not wish to trouble himself. The coolness and rest were quite unearthly. These he had attained so swiftly that there was no chance for reasoning.

  No garden carpet, not even the one in the Figdor Collection in Vienna, had ever quite appealed to Bayne as had this one which an obscure Armenian had given him. “As a present, Mr. Bayne. After all, I can see that you already love it. You can always earn another twenty thousand dollars. Any good businessman can. Even I could, if times were not so bad.”

  So he bought it. He had to sell some A. T. & T that paid good dividends, but he knew at a glance that he had something in common with the carpet. For once, Bayne really beat an Armenian in a trade. Mahjoubian could have asked twice the price and gotten it. But Mahjoubian had no imagination.

  The edges were overcast with silk, only a few centuries old. This was obviously a restoration. Finally, Bayne realized that what Mahjoubian had “given” him was a fragment of an incredibly ancient and gigantic carpet. In its entirety, it would have needed a palace floor.

  The ground color was a red that very curiously did not give warmth, but inviting coolness, some forgotten trick of blending, cunning use of contrast and harmony. Perhaps it was the fluent poetry of the floral sprays and not the color that made Bayne dreamy and content, and apart from a crazy outer world.

  Then that water: canals, flower-bordered, divided the panels into six smaller fields. Snipe and duck paddled about, as they did in the Kalarama marshes, just outside of Kashgar, far in the heart of High Asia. There were fish swimming in the watercourses: golden, some blue, some greenish, a few ruddy, like those in the enchanted lake. He frowned, groped back to his childhood, and remembered: “Of course! The lake where the Sultan of the Black Isles lived. His sultana had cast a spell on him, and his legs became black stone, and he could not move from his throne. She had a black slave flog him every day, to avenge the slaying of her lover…”

  But not even the memory of this cruel story disturbed Bayne. A man with legs of stone could look into a garden, and be content. A sultana’s malice would be a petty thing.

  There were almond trees and quinces, all in blossom; needle-slim cypress, and graceful planes. Peacocks strutted and cranes posed, and fledglings balanced on twigs. Sometimes, as the sun shifted, the water showed changing ruddy lights. A well-ordered little world, where an artist had ordained red grass and had made it cool. Red was the right color for grass, after all. Bloodstains would not show as on mundane turf… What had happened to the Sultan of the Black Isles… Someone had released him and he had drawn his scimitar… The treacherous sultana could not escape in the…

  And now, incredibly, Bayne was in the garden. He looked back, dazed by a not entirely unexpected event. He knew now that he had always expected this, or he had not accepted Mahjoubian’s “present.” A peacock spread his painted fan. That proved that these were not woven patterns. Looking back, Bayne could scarcely distinguish the room he had left. Nothing was very plain except his slippers.

  He sighed contentedly. “I might have known,” he said aloud, “that I’d have to be barefooted. Holy ground. One always removes one’s shoes.”

  Slowly, sound stirred the garden, and a whispering breeze; a perfumed coolness sent small ripples dappling the canal. The fish languidly swam about, and once in a while, a duck bobbed below the surface. A dove flitted from the almond tree to the peach; pink blossoms showered to the grass. A guinea-hen cried out, raucously.

  Bayne was glad that he had not contemplated a hunting-carpet, where leopards twisted in fierce combat, where horsemen pursued gazelles. He had long had his fill of hunting and strife. This murmuring quietness made him pensive, and he seated himself on the bank of the cross canal.

  He could not see the boundary of the garden. Whether it was walled or whether some quirk of space curvature made it limited and at the same time endless, he did not know. Bit by bit, as wonder released her embrace, he speculated.

  “…It’s a thousand years older than Mahjoubian claimed…it’s a fragment of the carpet the Arabs took when they looted the Sassanid Palace in Ctesiphon…they cut it up, each captain, taking a piece… Khosru’s Spring, they called it…

  It must be wizardry that Khosru’s weavers had made so that on the palace floor, whether in blighting summer or bitter winter, the king had springtime at his command. For more than a dozen dusty centuries, the world had called “Khosru’s Spring” an oriental conceit. But Bayne knew now that poetic fancy was actual truth. In that mysterious web, the weaver had confined all the spring days the world has ever known. They shimmered endlessly.

  Leaving the garden gave Bayne a bit of trouble, that first time. The perspective was distorted, he realized, as soon as he tried to pick a definite direction. Which way was out? From the central pool, where the tamarinds were in full fruit, he could not see the room which housed the garden. Dismay chilled him, but no longer than an instant. “It’s a nice place to stay,” he said. “Only there’d be an upset at the office if I didn’t return.”

  Bayne’s business partners depended on him. He was a floor trader, and his market sense was uncanny. So it was up to him to get out before morning, or the firm of Baxter, Buckner & Bayne would be responsible for a lot of orders not placed to the best advantage.

  The same intuition, directed marketwise, was what must have made him perceive the possibilities of Khosru’s Spring. Likewise, being so much in accord with the enchanted retreat, he presently solved its secret. It was just a matter of affectionate attention for details; that same way of feeling, though otherwise directed, which commended Denny Willard as the only man to service Bayne’s several cars.

  All Bayne had to do was to ignore the positions taken by the posturing cranes and strutting peacocks, and remember the order in which he had noted the trees. He strode confidently toward the weeping willow; then an easy leap across the canal at whose edge the snipe were nesting. As he stood, a hand on the palmettos at either side of him, he could see, dimly as through a misted pane, the room beyond the garden.

  Bayne did not bother with the confusing business of trying to figure whether he had entered by the border, or any one of the six panels. He sensed that the effort would make him giddy; for once he left, a Suspended plane would be behind him; but until he left, he was in a space of at least three dimensions.

  Intuition told him that all this was possible. A fact was more solid than any attempted justification of it. This was tolerance: accepting things as they were. Applying tolerance to Elise was at times a strain, but he now had hopes.

  So, one’s exit was between the two palmettos. There were many of them in the hazy vistas of the garden, but this pair differed from the others. All human faces have noses and mouths, yet no two look alike. He could always pick Elise’s personal car when others, identical in model and color, had been parked on both sides of it. This puzzled her, of course.

  Another pace. The room was but thinly veiled by a shimmering mistiness. Then: A queer shudder rippled through Bayne. Wonder perhaps had kept him from perceiving its inverse counterpart when he entered the garden. He felt cold, incredibly depressed, shaking from apprehension; he was tense as though waiting to dodge a blow from the rear. There was no instant of transition beyond this. Slightly giddy, he was a full pace from the carpet. He whirled, hoping for a look back before the vision of depth had entirely faded, but he failed. It was now two-dimensional again, on the splendid face of it, a collector’s piece, no more, no less.

  Time, he had heard, was a dimension of space, but he had not noted the hour when he entered. He had not thought once of time while he was in the garden.

  He put on his slippers and decided that the best thi
ng to do was to let Elise’s whimsy burn itself out. Civilized and tolerant…he had quite forgotten his fancy about red grass, and the Sultan of the Black Isles. Malice and counter-malice were childish…

  But at last Khosru’s Spring became more than a retreat when the exchange closed, early in the day. Elise was out at the golf links, or so he assumed. Probably, as usual, playing with Hillman Terry. Bayne never suspected the possibilities of the garden as he seated himself to spend a few moments contemplating its two-dimensional face. However, fate, perhaps Khosru’s magic, took a hand.

  A messenger brought a telegram before he walked into the garden. Bayne never liked to have wires phoned in, for facts and figures were so often distorted. It was from Mr. Baxter: “Hurry up, at once. We’ve got a big case on our hands.” A bit of whimsy. Sour-puss Baxter, vacationing at Truckee, wanted him to fly up for the week-end. The case was Scotch, beyond doubt. Bayne chuckled, penciled regrets, and crumpled the telegram.

  Then the phone rang. Denny Willard was on the wire. “Mr. Bayne,” he said, breathlessly. “This is the thirty-first of July.”

  “So it is, Denny, according to my calendar.”

  “I wonder—it’s awfully cheeky, maybe—but we’re trying to make a quota for the end of the fiscal year. Every station in the chain. Those that qualify get time off with pay, extra I mean, not just the regular vacation.”

  “What’s it now? Spark plugs or fan belts?” he jibed good-naturedly.

  “N-n-no.” Denny Willard was worried. “A pair of tires would just make it. Not only that, a pair of Super Speed 8.25 x 16s would make us the ranking station in the division, and there’s a special cash prize. Honest, I’d split with you—”

  Bayne laughed. “Chauffeur’s day off. But if you’ll pick up the bus, the order is all yours!”

  “Gee, Mr. Bayne, that’s swell. I know you don’t really need any new rubber, and I hated to ask you—listen, I’ll polish her myself if you’re not in any hurry—”

  “That’s fine, Denny. Take your time. I had my fill, driving to the office and back today.”

  Twenty minutes later, Denny Willard had the long sedan with the transparent red-enameled hub-caps. His motorcycle pick-up was hitched to the bumper by a towing-bar. He stuttered his thanks until Bayne hurried him on his way. The tires were really in fair shape, but an enterprising chap deserved encouragement. And on his day off, the chauffeur went in for hectic amusements. He’d not feel like doing a polish job in the morning.

  So Bayne closed the door, kicked off his shoes, and stepped into Khosru’s garden. It had become a pleasant routine that never failed to present new facets of charm. His trading intuition seemed sharpened. He and his partners were going places. Bayne had gone far enough, but he liked to see the boys happy with further needless success.

  The poor devils had few hobbies, though Buckner did go out for candid cameras, which seemed to improve his digestion and lower his blood pressure.

  Bayne contentedly eyed the birds in all their familiar positions. Curiously, however they moved during his visit, they always started as patterned by the face of the carpet. He wondered how a candid camera would work in Khosru’s garden. Buckner would go wild, trying to pick filters to handle those fantastic harmonies. Red grass! The ripple of gilded water. But especially, red grass.

  He forgot to look at his watch. He could never remember that one query, “How does time act in this garden? Unless time stood still, how could it always be ‘Khosru’s Spring’?” So he did not know when it was that he finally turned toward the two palmettos.

  Palmettos, he had learned from long scrutiny, were what walled this enclave of enchantment. Entering or leaving, you merely had to pick the proper two. Anyone could do it. Denny Willard, Gil Buckner, Sour-Puss Baxter—he’d of course want to bring along a case of Cutty Sark. At times it seemed selfish, not giving them a chance.

  But he was not sure that it would work. They would think him quite balmy if he explained it, and if then it turned out that they could not enter. Buckner would need a valet to take off his shoes, he had not seen his toes for years. Another handicap. And finally, Bayne found too much comfort in owning a big secret. Elise was becoming very sweet of late. Maybe his newly found refuge made him easier to get along with…

  Slowly, savoring each fragrant tree as he passed it, Bayne approached the two palmettos. Then he halted. This was just when he could begin to distinguish the outline of things in the living-room, and before he could touch the palmetto trunks. His own shoes, carelessly tumbled on the Boukhara carpet. Slanting sunlight made its patches of ivory shimmer against the deep garnet glow. The vestibule door opened, and Elise paused to remove her key.

  Hillman Terry followed her. A handsome chap, about Bayne’s age, but broader in the shoulders, which accentuated his lean hips. A hawk face, a commanding nose, a merry eye that saw everything, and like Elise, Terry wanted everything he saw.

  As he leaned closer, Bayne could see too clearly through the mist veil that separated two worlds. There had never been such a glow in Elise’s blue eyes. A lovely creature, slender as the cypress trees of Khosru’s garden, yet shapely; long, exquisite legs, and small feet that golfing-shoes could not make awkward-seeming.

  However, this was an awkward situation. Bayne was embarrassed. It was plain that they could not look into the garden. No one could until that mystic instant of passing from plane to plane. If he waited, his ultimate return would force him to resort to unconvincing falsehoods, or else tell a truth that would make people shake their heads and suggest sedatives. And to step out of a carpet—he just could not do that! That, now that the test faced him, would be betraying a holy secret.

  Elise noted his shoes. Sound could reach dimly through the veil. Bayne saw her frown, sharply regard Terry, then say, “Good heaven! What’s this world coming to?”

  Terry grinned, stroked her copper-blond hair and kissed her smooth throat. “Shoes, darling. The genius of Montgomery Street’s kicks, one might say.” He threw up his hands in mock horror. “Such disgraceful disorderliness!”

  This made Bayne’s ears redden. Red as the grass of Khosru’s garden. His teeth set a little. Tolerance was hard to maintain. It was not the jibe itself. It was the intimacy of the tone. He, Bayne, was one of the little common jests which lovers exchange between kisses.

  She picked up the telegram. To Elise, it meant just what it said. Sour-Puss Baxter’s whimsies moved on club feet as far as she was concerned. She caught Terry’s arm. “Sugar-Pie!” Her voice was tense. “Something’s happened. The firm is in a corner.”

  “Hull!” Terry read the wire. He looked up, grinning. “Nuh-uh. Just because the dreamer kicks shoes around—say, is he sore about us, do you think?”

  “Don’t be silly! He doesn’t know we’re alive. He’s out of town. The car’s gone. Winslow’s day off, too. He loathes driving, he dreads Winslow’s day off.”

  “Sounds like a holiday to me,” Terry guessed.

  Elise flung her hat into the corner and fluffed up her hair. “Holiday! My stupid darling, he’d never drive that far for fun, he’d call a cab and head for the airport.”

  Terry seated himself. Bayne’s temper rose. The way that fellow’s expression blossomed, face and eye, was mirrored in

  Elise’s features. She slowly swayed toward him, and murmured, dreamily, “Funny how things happen. The servants—every one of the two of them—you know, Amelia and Joseph walked out yesterday. It’s our house, darling—all ours—”

  “Do you mean that?” Terry blinked.

  She looked at him for a moment, and kissed him. That did make him blink. “Listen here, darling,” he said, groping. “After all—”

  “Silly! He just lives here!”

  “We can drive to Del Monte in two hours—”

  “Not even the way you drive,” she said.

  Elise won that bout. “I’ll cut off the phone,” she went o
n, when Terry got into the spirit of his new home. “And doorbells…”

  Dusk had fallen. Her face was a fascinating blur in the last evening glow. “We’ll eat at home,” she murmured. “I’ll cook…well…what would you like, Sugar-Pie?”

  Bayne forgot to be tolerant now, and he had flashing recollections of the Sultan of the Black Isles. He leaned forward between the palmettos, and then he was standing a full pace in front of the wall.

  Elise must have seen it happen, for she looked up, startled, when he emerged. Slowly, she rose. Terry looked foolish. It was not his lack of nerve but the conviction that Bayne had heard everything, and no one likes a blow by blow account of such a planning.

  “The cleverest eavesdropping, my dear,” Elise said to Bayne, icily. “Marvelous.”

  Bayne scarcely knew his own voice when he answered. “Eavesdropping! I couldn’t help it. I was in that rug!” He blurted it out.

  He spoke too plainly, and he could not recall or amend the words. That unstudied taunt had whipped him to his betrayal. He had known, for weeks, and held his peace. Now, being called an eavesdropper! He had not had any time to acquire tolerance of that.

  Terry gulped, edged away from Elise. “It’s a clever trick, old man. Alcove, eh? Slit in the rug. Houdini could march an elephant across the stage and no one noticed it.”

  “The most contemptible thing!” Elise said. She was cool, level-voiced; a high luster and a hard finish, for all her soft-seeming loveliness. “Snooping.”

  “By God!” Bayne raised his voice. “By God, I was in that rug. If you think I’m crazy, I’ll show you.”

  “Oh, of course—of course—oriental gag,” Terry said, trying not to sound uneasy.

  He flashed Elise a biting glance. “If it isn’t a secret—say, you wouldn’t mind doing the trick again, would you?” He was thinking, “Crazy as a coot! He doesn’t mean it’s a trick, he means he can flatten out like a carpet. Lord, Lord, what’ll Baxter and Buckner say if they knew this! Their floor trader that’s got God Almighty’s trick of predicting the next tick of the tape.”