The Metrognome and Other Stories

by Alan Dean Foster

  "Are you certain of this trail, Omo?"

  The Indian replied in broken Spanish. "Yes, lord. This is the right way. This is the only way. Soon we be there, at the greatest place in all the Four Corners of the World. It is small because it is secret, and more important even than Cuzco."

  "And this is where the gold is?"

  "Yes, lord. The temple atop the mountain city is consecrated to the memory of Viracocha, the first Inca, the Creator. The walls of the temple are plated with the sweat of the sun, its roof and floor with the tears of the moon. It is here that Huanya Capac, the last great emperor, brought much treasure for safekeeping. It was here that Viracocha first touched the earth amidst fire and thunder and sent down his children to be Incas and lords over the world."

  "You're afraid of this place, aren't you, Omo?"

  "Yes, lord."

  "Then why do you go onward? Why not return to your home in the far north?"

  "Because my lord would have me killed." The Indian's gaze did not meet Borregos's. Which was as it should be, the Capitan thought.

  "That's right, Omo. Until we've finished our business here. Then you can go home, with all the llamas you and your men can drive." Borregos could be generous. He had little use for llamas. It was gold he was after. Sweat of the sun, the Incas called it. His eyes gleamed.

  "Come on, men!" he shouted at the struggling. troop. "For good King Charles and for glory!" Drawing his sword, he brandished it at the cliffs overhead.

  "He can keep his glory," muttered one of the bearded, dirty soldiers m the column as he urged his horse upward, "so long as there's plenty of gold."

  "Don't forget the Chosen Women," grinned his companion. "This is a big temple place. There ought to be plenty of them, too, and no priests to trouble our pleasure."

  "Aye, I'd forgotten them," the other soldier confessed. He shoved at his mount with renewed strength. "This will be a memorable day."

  The farmer warriors fought bravely, and the Priests prayed hard, but sling stones and cotton armor were no match for bullets and Toledo steel. The Spaniards' closeorder fire eventually drove the defenders back from the trailhead. Once the invaders crested the first wall and achieved relatively level ground where they could use their horses, the end seemed near.

  The teacher retreated with his surviving fighters to the great temple of the sun that rose from the far end of the city. There the Spaniards paused, impressed but not awed by the massive stone structures. Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco had been larger and better defended, but it too had fallen.

  For now the invaders contented themselves with looting and burning the thatched buildings of the city and enjoying a late afternoon meal. On three sides of the temple the cliffs fell away to sheer precipices thousands of feet high. Their prey had nowhere to go. Though the men were anxious to press in to the real treasure, Capitan Borregos counseled them to rest and regain their strength.

  There was gold aplenty even in the common houses, and while the unchosen women were not as comely as those who served the temple, the conquistadores were momentarily sated. Within the barricaded temple the teacher and his warriors listened to the screams and shouts and bit their gums until they bled.

  "What are we to do now?" asked one badly lacerated warrior.

  "We should not stay here. We must go out and meet them and die like men," said the teacher.

  "Perhaps we can bargain with them?" suggested another hopefully. "They do not kill everyone."

  "They do when the mood strikes them," the teacher snapped. "Nor are these men of nobility, such as the few who led the army which took the capital. These do not even bring a Priest with them to remind them of their god. We can die in here, or outside, in the sun."

  "Not even that," said another fighter mournfully. "The rain covers the sky."

  "What is that infernal noise?" The teacher whirled, stared toward the back rooms of the temple, from which odd, piping music could be heard.

  "Have you forgotten Crazy Yahuar?" said a warrior apologetically. "He sits by the hitching post of the sun and plays his pipes."

  "Go and get him," ordered the frustrated teacher. "At least he can die like a man."

  Two of the warriors hurried back through the passageways until they reached the little plaza open to the sky where the stone and metal obelisk of the Inti Huatana stood probing the storm. It was very dark there from the clouds. A strange rumbling was coming from the mountain beneath them, and the crown of the Inti Huatana was glowing like the sun as Crazy Yahuar played to it. The two warriors drew back from the holy place, for it seemed to them that as Crazy Yahuar played, the hitching post of the sun answered him.

  "Better get the horses to shelter," one of Borregos's lieutenants suggested. "We can wait out this damn storm."

  "I suppose that's best." Borregos was unhappy. He'd told his men to wait. Now they faced the prospect of spending a wet night waiting in the native enclosures or making an attack m the rain. "Curse the luck. Though our gold will wait for a pleasant morning, I suppose."

  "Capitan!" Horregos whirled to stare at the soldier standing guard on the nearby rampart.

  Something was rising toward the citadel from the gorge below, soaring into the clouds. Faces gathered at the windows of the temple of the sun. Even the priests were drawn from their final devotions. Above the rising wind and the deep throated thrumming that rose from inside the mountain was the erratic whisper of Crazy Yahuar's pipes.

  The sled was bright silver and gold, and it floated through the air like the condor. Riding the sled and clad all in tears of the moon was the form of a woman. Her silvery hair was long and stiff and formed a glowing halo about her. Of her face, some thought it beautiful and others the face of a coated skull. Her eyes glittered with inhuman fire.

  She held in one hand the staff of the sun, a rod filled with sunlight too bright to look at. When it snapped downward, it sent a thunderbolt flying toward the mountaintop city.

  It touched first Capitan Borregos, then his lieutenant, then the men next to them, turning them to ash and memory. Subsequent bolts sent stones as well as men flying from their positions. A few of the soldiers forgot their fear long enough to fire at the apparition, but bullets were as useless as lances against it.

  And when the last invader had been cut down and destroyed, Mother Thunder whirled once over the citadel and touched downward with her staff before vanishing into the fading storm.

  Trembling and fearful but alive, the survivors followed Yahuar out onto the steps of the temple and gazed at their city.

  "Behold the work of Tllapa Mama, daughter of Viracocha!" No one thought the words of the pipe player mad now.

  Where the crackling staff had last pointed, a hole had appeared in the roof of the mountain. A series of steps led downward, down out of sight, down into the unknown.

  "Here is the way to the place of return," announced Yahuar. "Take down the sacred objects, the remnants of the Tahuantinsuyu."

  The people hurried to obey, stripping the temple and its adjacent buildings of the tears of the moon and sweat of the sun and the sacred relics. Then they gathered food for the coming journey, a journey all knew would take a long time.

  "The works of Viracocha came to naught because his people forgot his teachings. They fell to pleasuring themselves and did not work to maintain his memory, and busied themselves instead with petty squabbles and arguments," Yahuar explained. Among those nodding agreement was the now silent, solemn teacher.

  "But Viracocha was wise. One wise man of each generation was taught the special song, the song of remembrance, to be played only in dire need. The song that would bring forth Illapa Mama to rescue his children and show them the way to return to learning and peace.

  "We must go back now to the home of Viracocha until it is time again for his descendants to return and extend their rule over this land. Know that I am the wise man, the song player, of this generation, great grandson of the first song player, who was taught by Viracocha himself. Follow my song now." He put the p
anpipes to his lips and began to play.

  Humming wordlessly to the familiar tune, the people of the city followed Yahuar down into the gut of the mountain, and they did not even tremble when it closed up behind them.

  A great thunderclap was heard even in Cuzco. Some thought they saw a pillar of fire and a mountain ascending heavenward. Others said it was only a cloud lit by lightning. Still others heard and saw nothing and decried the words of those who did. Later travelers wondered what became of the people of the sacred city of Machu Picchu, even as they wondered at the western side of the great mountain that seemed to have split off and vanished.

  Most of the city remains. So does the Ind Huatana, the hitching post of the sun, though no metal crowns it anymore. There are nights when the panpipes of a somnolent shepherd strike an odd resonance in the ancient pillar. No one thinks it remarkable, for many earthquakes plague the land once conquered by Viracocha, just as no one thinks to dig to see what may lie inside the great, mountain . . .

  THE CHAIR

  [with Jane Cozart]

  Story ideas come from everywhere. Even objects.

  In west Texas dwells a remarkable lady. Jane Cozart was born into a theatrical family. Her father, for those older readers, was none other than Smilin' Ed McConnell of radio and TV fame. Some might remember his rubbery sidekick, Froggy. Jane elected to forgo a possible career in films when she broke her leg prior to the filming of a minor epic in which she'd been cast. The film was National Velvet, and Jane's part eventually went to another teenage actress, name of Taylor.

  Jane married and settled in west Texas to raise a few kids, a lot of animals, and a little hell. Any mail that arrives in that region addressed simply to the Wicked Witch of the West goes directly to her. I was immediately impressed the first time I met her because her personal library was larger than that of the local school.

  My wife JoAnn had scrimped and saved to buy me a fascinating carved chair prior to our marriage. When I described it to Jane one time, she allowed as how it might form the basis for an interesting story. I was less sure but told her that if she wrote it, 1'd collaborate with her on it. The chair itself still sits in my study, the face in its back glaring at me even as I write this, its actual origin still lost in the mists of time.

  And if June Foray, she of the many cartoon voices, happens to read this, Jane McConnell says hello.

  "Not another antique store."

  Dylan McCarey Grouchoed his eyes and did his best to look as exasperated as he was tired. The Ford sedan idled nervously around him, anxious to please.

  Across the front seat of the gold gas guzzler currently road dusted to a limp bronze his wife folded her arms, pursed her lips, and threw herself into a first class pout. It was a well practiced posture, one that gave her the look of a martyred spaniel. The resemblance was compounded by her moss green eyes and the black hair that fell straight behind her to tangle in the belt of her skirt.

  Dylan had been the recipient of that pout numerous times in their frenetic, brief marriage. That didn't do anything to stiffen his resistance to it. Goering, he reflected, had known when the RAF and American bombers were coming across the Channel. That foreknowledge hadn't given him the power to stop their raids any more than Dylan's was able to prevent him from melting under Marjorie's pitiful little girl expressions.

  "All right, all right. But it better not be too far." He checked his watch. "I'd like to get home before midnight."

  "Thanks, honey." The pout vanished faster than a starving hummingbird. "We're not far." She studied a slip of paper thick with hieroglyphics. "It's just south of Colorado, near Lake."

  "Pasadena." They were already passing Covina off ramps, he noticed. They were close, and it was on the way out of LA. Time for him to take credit for sane involuntary magnanimity. "Sure, sugar. No reason we can't stop and look for a few minutes."

  But it took him longer to locate the store than he'd thought. The car made several passes in front of the right street numbers before Marjorie spotted the little sign set in among the brickwork, an identifying afterthought.

  They parked nearby. Impatient to be on its way, the car grumbled when he turned it off. They didn't have far to walk. A Goodwill store, one dealing liquor, another pornographic books and magazines and FILMS, CHANGED EACH WEEK, ZSC.

  A dim stairway to the right of the sign led up into the building, a narrow throat lined with flaking plaster. "Either it's a very old, exclusive store or else another secondhand store masquerading as an antique shop." He studied the stairwell warily.

  "Why do you say that?"

  He started up the stairs. "He's on a second floor walkup in a run down neighborhood. They have an old line, class clientele that knows the location or else he's upstairs because he can't afford a street level location."

  "Think you're pretty smart, don't you?" She squeezed his arm affectionately, and he grinned back at her.

  The door was the first one they saw at the top of the stairs. To the right and left, dark hallways ran off into silent oblivion. They could have run into other doors, other shops, or into the fourth dimension for all Dylan could see:

  A name on the door: Harry Saltzmann. There was no bell. Several knocks produced no response.

  "Nobody home." He hoped his relief didn't show. Three days of traipsing around the megalopolis had tired him out, and he didn't share Marjorie's fanatic fondness for antiques. He was disgusted with breathing the effluvia of industrial civilization. It was time to go home.

  "It's Tuesday. How can they be closed on Tuesday?" Marjorie sounded puzzled. "There're no posted hours, though. Damn."

  "You'll find another antique store someday, Marj," he assured her. "You can smell 'em."

  The door clicked, moved inward slightly. Eyes peered out and up at them. They were green as a young kitten's, the youngest feature of an old face. They formed an informal boundary between the narrow, tower face and jaw and the bulging oversized skull. The latter was fringed with white hair, the whole fleshy basilica seemingly too large' to balance on the sunken cheekbones and thin jaw below.

  "Oh, you're open."

  The man's voice was reassuringly firm, the accent southern: somewhere between Dallas and Nibelheim. "Mebbe, young lady. Who're you?"

  "I'm Marjorie," she replied with her usual charming directness. "This is my husband, Dylan. He's a writer. Are you Mr. Saltzmann, the owner?"

  "Not much use denyin' it," he mumbled. He looked resigned. "You want to look around? I haven't got much time."

  "Not if you're closed. We don't want to cause you any trouble." Marjorie never wanted to make trouble, Dylan reflected wryly. She was the type to apologize to the tax collector for not being able to give the government more money.

  "No, no trouble." The top heavy face seemed to soften slightly. "You folks from out of town?"

  "Yes. How can you tell?"

  "You look happy. Whereabouts?"

  Dylan was growing annoyed at the inquisition, but Marjorie threw him a sharp look, and he hung on to his retreating sense of courtesy. "Up the coast. Little town called Cambric. It's near San Simeon. You know, where the Hearst castle is?"

  "Sure I know. They got a few nice pieces."

  A few nice . . . either the old man was putting them on, or else the first of Dylan's suppositions was correct and the inventory within would not be cheap.

  The door rode back on its hinges. "Come on in, then."

  The shop was as organized as a Pacific tide pool. Furniture, clothing, and brie a brae were scattered about the high ceilinged old room with an awkward yet eye-pleasing efficiency. One had the impression that whenever anew assortment was added to the melange it would spread itself like a wave across the existing stock, disturbing nothing, adding another layer of ancient creativity to the store's sedimentary deposits.

  Light came in off the street through an old, high window. In the darker recesses of the nowhere-bright chamber, isolated small bulbs shone with feeble fluorescence, like fat fireflies in an Ohio forest.


  Masterworks and gutterworks crowded together, competing for scant display space. An old city garbage can held dresses that must have been over a hundred years old. In a scratched glass case junk jewelry lay heaped in piles of gleaming paste. There was also an old style tiara sparkling with suspiciously genuine looking emeralds and diamonds. One faceted green pool was as big as Dylan's watch face.

  Curious, he called the proprietor over. Saltzmann peered down over his belly to where Dylan's finger was pointing.

  "The necklace? That's seven dollars."

  "No, no. The tiara, next to it."

  "Oh, that one. That's three hundred thousand."

  Dylan missed a breath, stared at the slim, delicate filigree of gold and gems. "You're kidding, of course."

  "Too much? Oh, well, if you really want it, I suppose I can let it go for two hundred and fifty. Belonged to Josephine . . . Bonaparte's gal."

  Dylan tried not to smirk. "We'll keep it in mind."

  There was a call for help from the far side of the shop. Marjorie was buried back among the old clothes there, running centuries through her fingers, trying on one era after another. Saltzmann waddled over to assist.

  That left a bored Dylan to wend his own way deeper into the depths of the store. The long room seemed to run clear through the building. A ship's figurehead smiled down at him, and he admired it, tried to imagine it breasting the waves of the seven seas. He passed barrels stinking of long drunk whiskey, kegs of railroad spikes, old cast iron toys. There were baked and cracked horse collars and rusty farm tools dangling overhead that whispered of droughts and bad crops.

  A corner led him to a back room, slightly better lit than the main store. Several pieces of furniture lay taken apart on floor and benches. He was just realizing that he'd stumbled onto the old man's workshop when he saw the chair.