The Magic Talisman

by John Blaine

  Rick had read the Rubaiyat long ago, but remembered only one of the verses, about a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou. “Tell us about the doors, Jan,” he requested.

  “They’re in the first two lines of one of the verses along with the veil I mentioned. It goes, ‘There was a door to which I found no key; There was the veil through which I might not see,’”

  “That’s certainly clear enough,” Dr. Brant observed. “When it comes to metaphysics and speculation about the hereafter, there are many doors without keys and many veils that hide truth. What’s the one about the mural, Jan?”

  “As you can see, the mural is a caravan that begins and ends in darkness, or nothingness, with light only at the well, which represents life or being. It’s just as the verse says:

  ‘A moment’s halt-a momentary taste Of BEING from the well amid the waste- And lo! The Phantom Caravan has reached The Nothing it set out from-Oh, make haste!’” Dr. Miller frowned. “That’s rather negative, isn’t it darling? Do you believe it?

  Jan laughed, “No, dad. I just like the poetry of it.”

  Barby spoke up. “Now that Jan has contributed to our male education project, I want to know what the doors said to you. I’ll start. The one mother and I went through said we were in touch with reality every moment. We may dream a little and be good at many things, but our essence is realism.”

  Rick said softly, “Wow!” Being a realist was about the last thing of which he would have accused Barby.

  Yet, as he thought about it, in all their lives and adventures her contribution usually had been a very practical one. She could be astonishingly matter of fact about things, but on the other hand, she was an incurable romantic. He had to conclude there was nothing incompatible between realism and romanticism. The door had been more perceptive than he, and about his own very special sister, too!

  The scientists had been greeted as seekers after knowledge, but Mrs. Miller had gone through the same door. The Spindrifters knew she was an accomplished artist, and the door had known it, too, because it told her that artists and scientists are seekers with the same goal: to understand and portray the truth about nature and life, one through mathematics and principles, the other through the artist’s hands and eyes.

  “That’s a profound observation,” Hartson Brant commented.“A very useful insight. How about you, Scotty?

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  “I’m geared for action, sir. I dream a little, and search a little, and I’m a realist, but mostly I’m a doer.”

  “That’s very good,” Mrs. Brant said warmly. “And the things you do are important to us.”

  “To all of Spindrift,” Dr. Brant added.“Now you, Jan.”

  “Rick and I are both dreamers,” Jan reported. “We’re a mix of other things like everyone else, but basically we dream and then try to make our dreams come true.”

  Everyone at the table nodded or spoke agreement, another small shock for Rick to realize that his own self-image did not coincide with the way others saw him.

  “It’s pretty remarkable.” Dr. Brant shook his head in admiration. “We’ve seen some great staff work.

  We were greeted by name by different people, our personalities were tagged very well, and the Mongol even had a hamster that matched Barby’s hair. I’m anxious to meet your friends, Scotty. And forgive me if I suspect that, because they are your friends, our treatment is quite special.”

  Scotty smiled. “I doubt that’s an illusion, Dad.”

  “Where did the Mongol have that hamster?” Mrs. Brant asked. “It certainly wasn’t up his sleeve. He had none.”

  “No sleeve,” Scotty agreed. “It was just marvelous manipulation. He had the little critter in his hand all the time, and kept it out of sight until he wanted us to see it.”

  “And then I stole it,” Barby said smugly.

  “He gave it to you,” Scotty corrected with a grin. “Don’t you remember how he held it out? It was an invitation no red-blooded golden girl could resist.”

  Barby’s chin dropped. “I never thought of that. Fast as he was, he could have pulled it away easily.”

  “We’re in the hands of masters of psychology as well as the black arts,” Dr. Miller summed up. “Now let’s see how the culinary arts are. I see a waiter coming. Has anyone taken a look at the menu?”

  Rick opened his and held it up for Jan to see, and felt the strong shudder that ran through her at that moment. He leaned close and asked anxiously, “What is it?”

  Jan’s fingers bit into his arm painfully. She whispered, “The warmth is still there, but just then I felt something else, farther away, but close. Oh, Rick, it was awful...so...so hate-filled, so vicious!”

  CHAPTER IV

  Hour of Magic

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  Dinner was excellent, accompanied by good conversation and the underlying music of an electronic organ in a corner in front of the stage. When coffee came, Rick leaned close to Jan. He could feel that she was still upset by the blast of vicious hatefulness she had felt. The idea that there was something malevolent nearby worried him, but he wanted to take her mind off it if he could.

  “Jan, was the voice in the tunnel male or female? It was hard for me to tell.”

  “I’m sure it was a man, Rick. Why?”

  “I’ve been wondering if it could have been Karen, but I dropped that idea when I realized she’d be much too busy backstage. Anyway, whoever it was knew there were two of us, even though we were supposed to go through only one at a time.”

  Jan agreed. “Yes,and the language was for us, because he said neither of us is content with just dreams.”

  “So, unless you believe in magic, we were being watched by someone who knew enough about us to make those statements.”

  Just then the deep note of the gong sounded.

  “Look to the rear of the room,” Scotty called.

  The group turned, to see that the rear wall had opened. The people who had been in other dining rooms were now seated in rows atop platform-like bleachers, but in chairs with backs. They would have a fine, clear view of the stage.

  As room lights dimmed, people in the Phantom Caravan room turned chairs toward the stage. When the rustle died, the curtains parted, disclosing a large room decorated almost entirely in black except for a few hangings and small red and gold tables.

  A tall, distinguished-looking black man wearing a turban and a white suit walked out on the right side of the stage and was picked up by a spotlight. He bowed to the audience, then spoke in a rich, deep voice.

  “Salaam, guests of this house.I, Hassan of Aleppo, welcome you. You have dined, you are comfortable, you are in the proper mood for illusion, for illusion is the specialty of the house.And the master of the house is-Derek, the Magician!”

  As the guests applauded, Hassan clapped his hands. There was a brilliant flash, a puff of smoke, and Derek stood there, bowing to the audience.

  Barby whispered, “Where on earth did he come from?”

  It was a terrific beginning, and Rick shared Barby’s wonderment. Derek had simply appeared like...like a magician. He was dressed in a black velvet dinner jacket with a white dress shirt and red tie.

  “We live in a world of illusion,” Derek began, as the applause died, “where things are seldom exactly what they seem. Too often, when the illusion fades, the reality is painful. That is not the case within this house, because the illusions we create are to amuse and entertain you. Part of the fun for you will be to pierce our illusions, to discover how they were done. To help, I tell you that we will present three kinds: some are based on scientific principles, some on misdirection which causes the eye to perceive wrongly, and some- perhaps—on magic! Behold...illusion!”

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  The organ struck a weird chord. The lights went out and slowly returned to a very dim level. Mrs. Miller exclaimed, “Look!The wall!”

  The Phantom Caravan was in motion! Rick saw and heard the soft sound of camel pads on sand, the coughing grunts of the beast
s, the thud of horses’ hooves and their neighing. The caravan was a crowded line of animals and people moving toward the well, which glowed incandescent in the desert wastes.

  There was the slap of leather harness, the cries of people and children. The caravan moved past, paused to circle the well, rushed on with a wind that could be felt, and merged with darkness.

  The house lights flashed up full-and the mural was still there, unchanged. For a moment the audience sat still in stunned silence, then burst into thunderous applause, in which the Spindrifters joined with gusto. It was a terrific illusion.

  Hartson Brant murmured, “Absolutely beautiful. The most skillful and imaginative use of black light and paints I’ve ever seen or heard about.”

  “Simply fantastic,” Dr. Miller agreed, and the others echoed the two scientists. The whole audience was murmuring about the illusion.

  “What a fabulous beginning,” Jan breathed.

  “That’s the right word.” Rick knew the illusion had been created with ultraviolet and infrared light of several frequencies, the mural painted with special pigments which reacted to those frequencies as a timing circuit switched the lights off and on in a carefully planned sequence. But even knowing in principle how it was done, he was awed by the imagination and skill it represented. Anyway, he knew now what all the lights were for on that side of the ceiling.

  On stage, Derek acknowledged the applause.

  “I’m sure many of you recognized the name of the Phantom Caravan room from a verse in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” He quoted the lines Jan had told them about earlier, and ended with, “And Lo! The Phantom Caravan has reached the Nothing it set out from. That, my guests, was a scientific illusion. Now let us turn from science to magic, for magic still exists.”

  Hassan of Aleppo came forth and placed a small chest on a lacquered table. The Mongol who had accosted Barby appeared pushing a cabinet about eight feet tall and five feet square. It was mounted on wheels a foot in diameter. A third helper, dressed as a Hindu Swami, pushed a second cabinet from the other wing. The cabinets faced each other 25 feet apart. Hassan returned carrying a large frame, about four feet wide by six feet high. He set it in the center of the stage, so that the audience could see it was covered with what looked like off-white paper.

  “Magic is elaborate,” Derek stated. “It must be done by the rules of the master magicians, or it will not work. This bit of magic is based on another verse from Omar:

  “We are no other than a moving row Of magic shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the sun-illumined lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show’. “Suppose we could block out the illumination of sun or lantern for just a moment,” Derek asked, “wouldn’t we shadow-shapes vanish?

  After all, only light can throw a shadow. Let us see if what I suppose is true.”

  Hassan carried the small chest to him, cover open. Derek reached inside, and drew out-nothing. He held Page 23

  up nothing with thumb and forefingers. There were laughs from the audience.

  “I have here the rarest of fabrics, a veil of invisibility woven by witch doctors in a cavern inAfrica ’s Mountains of the Moon. The medicine men use the webs of the few spiderswho spin invisible silk. Of course, you see nothing. The fabric is not visible.” He waved one hand. “Oops. I dropped one side, Hassan, help me to fold it again.”

  Hassan groped around, then straightened up and the two folded the ‘invisible fabric’ as though folding a blanket. The audience laughed. Derek laughed, too. “There is nothing serious about magic, except to the magician. Let me explain how this works. The fabric has the property of letting h’ght flow around it, as water in a stream flows around a rock. The light rays rejoin after passing the fabric. So the fabric and everything in it is invisible.”

  He held out his hand. “Watch as I put my hand into a fold.” He groped for a moment as though finding the silk, then thrust his hand downward. The hand vanished! The audience gasped. Derek pulled his hand upward and it reappeared. Rick joined in the applause.

  “I call your attention to three objects,” Derek went on.“Two cabinets and a screen.” The Mongol and Hindu opened cabinet doors on all four sides and swung the cabinets around to show they were empty, and that they were lined with red silk. “Note also that we have set the cabinets on high wheels so that you can see under them. We want you to be sure you are not being tricked.” He joined in the laughter.

  “Now the screen.It is simply a frame containing Japanese rice paper, and in a moment two more will be brought out.” The Mongol brought one and placed it before the doorway of the left cabinet. The Hindu brought the third screen and stood waiting.

  “Please think with me,” Derek requested. “If light curves around the veil of invisibility, no light reaches the inside. A person inside the veil is in total darkness. I will wrap myself in the veil and go from cabinet to cabinet, but because I will be blind, I must aim myself like an arrow. So that you may see my passage, I will go through the three rice paper screens. You will see them break open.”

  The magician walked to the cabinet on the right, Hassan following, holding the “invisible veil” by his fingertips. “To help me stay on course,” Derek explained, “we place a sound at the door of the opposite cabinet. We use my travel alarm clock.”

  The Mongol held it up for the audience to see.

  Derek paused in the cabinet doorway. “I almost forgot. The veil does not cut off sound. I’ll say something while I’m crossing so you can keep track of me. What is it magicians are supposed to say?

  Who has a suggestion?”

  Several persons in the audience shouted, “Abracadabra!”

  “Very good,” Derek agreed. “I don’t know what it means, but I’ll say it. Are we ready?”

  “Yes, Master.” Hassan handed him the ‘veil,’ and Derek went into the cabinet. The Mongol turned on the alarm and set the little clock at the foot of the left cabinet. The Hindu put the third screen in front of the cabinet occupied by Derek. The organ struck a sustained chord.

  “Coming out-now!”Derek called.

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  The rice paper screen before the door burst open and Derek’s voice repeated “Abracadabra” to the middle screen, burst through it still repeating the word, and went through the final screen. In a moment he stepped from the cabinet, scooped up the alarm clock and bowed to thunderous applause.

  Rick grinned at his family and friends. A great illusion if you didn’t know Derek was twins.

  Derek-now David-stepped to center stage.“Magic,” he intoned.“The illusion of magic. But what is illusion and what is truth? Sometimes it’s hard to decide. In our religious heritage, as expressed in the words of Omar, man was made from clay by the great potter. Omar asks, ‘Who is the potter, pray, and who is the pot?’ Let us see what can be done witha special clay.”

  The magician clapped his hands and the Hindu emerged from the wings rolling a cart on which the figure of a girl was lying. Karen! Or was it?

  “For this illusion, I need a witness from the audience.” Derek walked to the edge of the stage, looked down into the audience, and then pointed.“You, sir.The gentleman with the deep tan. Will you be our witness?”

  The man stood up and nodded, then went to the stairs at one side of the stage and joined Derek. Scotty exclaimed, “For cat’s sake,look who he picked!”

  They all knew the witness, who, on request from Derek, faced the audience and announced his name.

  “My name is Edward Douglas. I am a captain of State Police, in charge of the Whiteside Barracks.” The audience applauded and laughed, clearly thinking that Derek had picked the worst kind of witness, a too-keen observer.

  “Excellent, Captain.How many in the audience know the captain by sight?” Several hands went up besides those of the Spindrifters. “I congratulate you, my guests. You have a witness who will be your insurance against trickery. Will you examine this clay on the cart, Captain?”

  The officer did so, touching the figure. “It�
��s a dummy, the figure of a girl. It looks very real, but it’s a dummy.”

  “Exactly, sir.However, the material is what magicians call surrogate flesh. It has the appearance of life, and the ability to live, under special circumstances.”

  The captain smiled. “Show me.”

  “As you say, sir.I will show you.” Derek explained that bringing the figure to life sometimes caused unpleasant writhing and muscular contractions, and had the captain help strap the figure down, with padded straps across ankles, thighs, chest, and forehead. Now, the magician said, they needed a symbol, and he knew of none more appropriate than a white dove. He raised his hand and Hassan brought a long handled net, which Derek gave the captain for examination.

  The captain handed the net back.“Just a net.”

  “Yes. Please observe.” Derek ran back and forth across the stage twice, looking upward, then swung the net. There were gasps from the audience. A white dove was struggling in the mesh.

  The magician soothed the bird and returned the net to Hassan. As the officer watched closely, he placed the bird in the upturned hand of the figure. Captain Douglas commented, “I see you placed the dove’s Page 25

  legs between the dummy’s fingers.”

  “You are observant, sir. I did so to prevent the dove from flying up at the wrong moment, simply so that it will not be harmed. Note that the bird has settled down and is content to remain in place.”

  Hassan wheeled in a small cart on which rested an aluminum globe mounted on a cylinder that rose from a square base. An electrical cord trailed behind. Rick exclaimed softly, “Hey! That’s a small Van de Graaff generator.”

  “Exactly right,” Dr. Miller agreed.

  “This device,” Derek explained, “generates very high voltage. When we turn it on, it will fire a bolt of man-made lightening to this antenna.” He raised a tube into position at the head of the cart. “Have you noticed, Captain, that a wide metal strip runs all around the outer edge of the top? It will conduct our bolt of electricity all around the figure. Now, we must step back, you and I. Hassan, start the generator.”