“Toys—”
“San, san, san. Farlingly oculltar—but the words change. Even for a genius the way is hard. I am not what they said. Ranil-Mens understood. Ranil-Mens is a robot. All our physicians are robots, trained to do their tasks perfectly. But it was hard at first. The treatment—san, san, san, dantro. It took a strong brain to withstand the healing that Ranil-Mens gave me weekly. Even for me, a genius, it was—san, san, san, and they go far into whirling down forever by token—” MacPherson said, “What was it? What was it, damn you?”
“No,” Halison said, crouching suddenly on the carpet and covering his face with his hands. “Fintharingly and no, no—”
MacPherson leaned forward, the glass slipping from his sweating hand. “What—” Halison lifted a blind bright stare. “The shock treatment for insanity,” he said. “The new, the terrible, the long and long and eternal long healing that Ranil-Mens brings me once a week, but I do not mind it now, and I like it, and Ranil-Mens will give it to Gregg instead of to me, san, san, san and whirling—” The pattern had fallen into place. The padded furniture, the lack of doors, the windows that did not open, the toys.
A cell in a madhouse.
To help and heal.
Shock treatment.
Halison got up and went to the open door. “Halison—” he said.
His footsteps died away along the hall. His voice came back gently.
“Halison is in the past. San, san, san, and I must find Halison so Halison will be whole, again, Halison, san, san, san—”
The first rays of Thursday’s sun struck through the windows.
THE END.
UNDER YOUR SPELL
Want to gather yourself a fortune—or shoot a meteor at your landlord? Get to know Mr. Silver, the A.W.O.L. god from Mt. Olympus.
WANTED: Assistant, experienced in magic field, for position in trick and novelty shop. Must be god . . .
“GOD!” said Joseph Tinney explosively. “Good! Not god! Damn all linotypers anyway.”
“Well,” hedged the tall young man who had recently entered the Presto Trick Shop, “all I know is that I saw your ad in the Times, and I want a job.”
Tinney rubbed his lean jaw. “Which is fair enough. I need an assistant, sure. But it isn’t necessary to give me a spiel. Just—”
“You advertised for a god,” the young man said stubbornly. “So you must hire me, not a mortal. Unless another god turns up, which isn’t probable.”
Tinney considered his fingernails. “What’s your name?”
“Silver. Q. Silver.”
“Q?”
“Uh—Quentin,” said Mr. Silver, rather hastily. He was an extremely handsome young man, with curly golden hair, blue eyes, and a smile which, though pleasant, had in it an inexplicable suggestion of nastiness, as though at any moment he might break into a string of blasphemous oaths. He wore well-fitting tweeds, and certainly would appeal to the women customers. Not that there were many of those. Pranksters and magicians are usually men.
“How did you get in the store?” Tinney asked.
“Ah,” Mr. Silver said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I transformed myself into a wisp of fog and blew through the keyhole. Still, that isn’t likely, is it?”
“No,” Tinney said. “Maybe you pulled a Houdini? Let it go at that, anyway. It ocfcurs to me that the Times isn’t on the newsstands yet. How in hell did you run across my ad?”
“I get around,” Mr. Silver remarked. “Now how about that job?”
The proprietor pondered. “Experienced—”
“In magic field. I wondered if you were being figurative. In my time I’ve often visited the Elysian Fields—by the way!” Mr. Silver broke off to say abruptly. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Tinney just looked at him.
There came a rattle at the door. Tinney opened it, to admit a short, plump man with a goatee and waxed mustache. “Professor Zeno!” he exclaimed. “Good morning. How did that bread-knife illusion work out?”
“Ha—satisfactorily,” Professor Zeno grunted, toddling along the aisle and casting sharp glances at the stock. “Not spectacular enough, however. Need something new. Big—you know.”
TINNEY hesitated. He had nothing on hand at the moment, for certain experiments were as yet unfinished. The illusion of the Skeleton Girl . . . no. Zeno wouldn’t be satisfied with an incomplete job.
But before he could speak, Mr. Silver had deftly taken over. “I’m Mr. Tinney’s new assistant, Professor. And we do have something to show you. Quite new in these parts. If you’ll step this way—”
At this moment the door opened again, admitting a large man in a checked suit. He was holding a crumpled edition of the Times in one capable hand.
“Mr. Tinney!” he said, looking around at the three faces turned toward him. “I saw your ad—”
Tinney, about to remonstrate with Silver for butting in, saw a chance to even the score. “You want the job?” he asked. “Okay. You’re hired.”
“Wait,” said Mr. Silver, and walked with singularly menacing lightness to where the large man stood. “Are you,” he inquired, “a god?”
“No,” he added. “I can see you’re not. Tinney!” said Mr. Silver, swinging around to face the proprieter. “Are you going back on your printed word?”
Tinney glowered stubbornly. “I never hired you. Go chase yourself.” He said something about screwballs.
The large man seemed to understand the situation. “Yeah,” he added, glaring at Silver. “Beat it. Or you’ll get thrown out.”
Professor Zeno had been fondling his goalee in a confused fashion. “But I want an illusion!” he said plaintively. “This young man was about to show me—”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Silver smiled. “It’s quite simple. I can demonstrate in a moment. You can build up the patter to suit yourself. The hand motions go like this. Then you say—” His words broke into unintelligible gibberish.
HE FINISHED by pointing at the large man in the checked suit. Instantly a jagged streak of lightning flamed out of nowhere. It went away, taking the large man with it.
On the floor was a fairly large heap of whitish ash.
There was silence.
Professor Zeno said, “No props?”
“Just what I showed you.”
“Ah. Excellent. Luckily; I know Greek, so I can repeat your—ah—incantation. Now bring the man back. A trapdoor?” Mr. Silver smiled dashingly. “Oh, I can’t bring him back. He’s been destroyed.”
It is interesting that Tinney believed him without question.
Professor Zeno, however, did not. He chuckled, played with his goatee, and peered at the ceiling. Nothing. He got down on his hands and knees to scrutinize the floor. Still no results.
Thunder rolled, distantly. Tinney, who had been staring at Mr. Silver, saw the young man’s eyes widen. Silver cast an almost frightened glance toward the door.
Then he vanished.
A large white rabbit appeared near the crouching figure of Professor Zeno. The latter, in his crawling investigations, slowly swiveled around till he was nose to twitching whisker with the rabbit. For a space the two remained there, eyeing each other.
“Part of the trick?” Professor Zeno asked. The sound of thunder had died.
“No,” said the rabbit. “Sometimes I get tired of my own shape, that’s all.”
“May I compliment you on your ventriloquistic abilities?” the Professor inquired.
“You may,” said the rabbit, “if you’re that dumb.”
‘Zeno clambered to his feet. “I want to go over that lightning illusion with you again,” he said. “The back room? Where are you, anyway?”
“Oh, come along,” said the rabbit impatiently, and hopped along the aisle. Professor Zeno followed, casting occasional glances behind the counter.
The pair vanished through black curtains, leaving Joseph Tinney inexplicably worried.
BEFORE he could follow, a small boy entered to purchase a box of itching powder. Tinney
rang up the amount and leaned against the cash register, brooding. Insolence he could not tolerate. His employees—well, after all, they were employees. And this brash young chap was taking altogether too much for granted.
Tinney remembered the lighting bolt, and unaccountably shivered. As a magician of many years’ standing, he should have been able to explain away the illusion. Yet—
He walked to the pile of ash on the floor and stirred it up with his foot. Something gilt and gleaming emerged. A collar button.
Professor Zeno came from the back of the store, looking white and ill. He brushed hastily past Tinney, who said, “Is something wrong? Can I—”
“Your assistant,” Zeno whispered. “I know who he is. Why did you do it, Tinney?”
“Do what?”
“You know,” said the magician accusingly. “How much did he give you for it?”
Tinney took a deep breath. “For what?”
“Your soul,” Zeno said in a hushed voice, and fled as though Mr. Silver pursued him.
The silence was broken only by the occasional growl of motors and the squawk of horns from the street outside. Tinney pursed his lips and squinted at nothing. Odd. Zeno was a pretty hard-headed chap. It’d take a good deal to throw him into a panic . . .
A battle-axe of a woman, carrying a campstool and a portable phonograph, halted in the doorway to stare at Tinney. Automatically he stepped back, but she came no farther.
“Yes, madam?”
“I,” said the battle-axe, “have a message for you.” With incredible deftness she opened the amp-stool, set the phonograph on it, and started a record. Tinney blinked rather dazedly. Words came, rather raspingly, as though the unknown speaker had a cold.
“The end of the world is coming,” said the phonograph. “Sister Seelah brings you warning! Verily I say to you, you are evil—”
Tinney winced. A crowd, he noticed, was gathering. The electrician who had the shop next door slipped to his side.
“She’s been hanging around my place, bothering the customers,” he muttered. “Nuisance! I know her—a crook. She bothers you till you give her five bucks to go away.”
The battle-axe’s eyes were gleaming. She adjusted the volume of the phonograph till it rasped distressingly on Tinney’s eardrums.
“You are evil! Hearken to me—”
“Look,” said Tinney plaintively, “please go away. Here’s a dollar. I’ve got a headache, and that thing’s making it worse.”
“Can you save your soul with a dollar?” the battle-axe inquired.
“I had to give her twenty,” the electrician whispered.
At that precise moment the tone of the phonograph changed. So did the import of the message that was pouring from it.
“Repent,” it said, “and—oh, the hell with it. That reminds me of a limerick. There was a young man from Nantucket—”
It wasn’t a very nice limerick. But the one that came next was definitely unfit for women and children. The battle-axe stood glaring at the machine, frozen with amazement, as it continued in a hoarsely raucous screech:
“Gather ’round, everybody! I come here to offer you a bargain—a tremendous bargain! Get your French postcards here! Three for a dollar!”
It went on . . . getting no better.
THE battle-axe concentrated her fury on Tinney. She moved toward him, fingers curved into talons; but just then a tall figure interposed itself between the woman and her prospective victim. It was Mr. Silver, his pleasant smile now definitely nasty.
“I think I see a policeman,” he remarked. “Yes, I do. Here he comes. You know, madam, it’s really unwise to sell—er—to sell such goods in the street. Our local laws—”
The woman sent one glance toward the oncoming blue-coated figure, and fled, leaving her phonograph behind. Oddly enough, the record instantly resumed its original tenor, dilating upon the evil of the world.
Tinney felt himself drawn back into his store. “So true,” Mr. Silver remarked. “It’s an evil world. But an interesting one. I’ve had remarkable adventures here, in my time. One thing, I never got bored on earth. Whereas an eternity spent running messages for—”
“For?”
“Jove!” Mr. Silver exclaimed, abruptly changing the subject. “I almost forgot. Professor Zeno gave me a check. Five hundred dollars for the illusion.”
“Too cheap,” said Tinney, his trading instinct automatically coming to the fore. “That trick’s worth a couple of grand.”
“Well,” Mr. Silver inquired. “That’s what he paid, isn’t it?”
Tinney, who already had taken the check, glanced at it again. His eyes must be going back on him. It no longer said “Exactly Five Hundred Dollars and No Cents.” Instead, it was made out in the amount of two thousand bucks.
Tinney licked his lips. He looked very closely at Mr. Silver’s face, noting the disarming frankness of the blue eyes and the hidden qualities of that deceptive smile.
“Are you the devil?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Which one?” Mr. Silver inquired. “In any case, no. I’m neither Belphegor nor Satan nor Hel nor Baal nor—well, I told you I was a god, didn’t I? That’s perfectly true. Ymir—I’m no devil!”
Tinney went back of the counter and drank whiskey. He reappeared feeling logical and argumentative. “That rabbit—” he hazarded.
“You know,” Mr. Silver countered cryptically.
“I know—nothing! You’re a clever trickster. So what?”
“Humans were always skeptical. Even Danae, I heard—though not for long. It’s difficult to convince a human. If I appeared to you in my rightful form, you’d die of it. Too drastic—and it wouldn’t fit in with my plans.”
“Your plans?”
Mr. Silver sat on the counter and swung his tweed-sheathed legs. He smiled.
“Well, I’m bored. I’m supposed to be indispensable in Olympus, but that’s not true. It’s been long since I visited your planet. There was always excitement here. And other inducements.” A gleam showed for an instant in Mr. Silver’s candid blue eyes. “Let that pass. I’m incognito here, so it will be best for me to assume a normal place in your world. What better place is there than a magician’s assistant for Mer—for me?”
“No,” Tinney said. “No! It’s too fantastic. Alice in Wonderland stuff. This is New York, not Egypt or Babylon. Gods . . . It’s like that clock coming to life and talking about politics.” He pointed to the Big-old-fashioned timepiece on the wall.
“What,” inquired the clock suddenly, “is more interesting than politics, anyway? It charts the course of the world. If you had as much time on your hands as I have—”
“Hunh!” Tinney cried with inarticulate abruptness. The clock resumed its familiar ticking. Mr. Silver smiled.
Presently Tinney found speech again. “Did it?” he asked.
“It did. Magic is contagious. History proves that. Once a bit of enchantment creeps into the world of yours, it acts as a magnet, so to speak. In Ilium, Chryses started the trouble when he asked Apollo to wreak vengeance on the Greeks. Briseis got help from Jupiter, and of course Juno stuck her nose in. After that all the gods and goddesses were sucked in, with all sorts of minor magics. I’m running on . . . My point is that magic attracts magic. Your trickery is a low-grade form, of course—legerdemain chiefly. But it makes use of the basic principles of magic—bluff, for example. You’re nothing new in the scheme of things; the ancient priest was your prototype. Priests and gods have much in common.”
Tinney shut his eyes. After a while he said, “It’s good patter. But not quite good enough. You’re no god. Are you going to leave quietly, or shall I phone the police?”
Mr. Silver ruffled his golden curls. “Seldom have I met such a skeptic. Oh, well. There are ways of convincing even . . . Get out.”
“Eh?”
“I said get out. Go away. I’ll take care of the store while you’re gone; I’m smart enough for that. When you’re ready to admit that I’m a god, come back
.”
“Listen!” said Tinney—
TO THE threshold of his store entrance.
He was outside. How he had got there, standing on the sidewalk, he had not the slightest idea. But there he was, thinking mad thoughts about hypnotism.
“Magician!” said Mr. Silver bitterly from the interior. “Be one, then—the passive type. And come back when you’re wiser.”
Tinney’s nostrils twitched. He took a step forward, and halted. Some invisible barrier barred his path. He could not reenter his own shop.
Rot! He was imagining things. And yet the glassy wall inexplicably remained. Tinney slid his palms along it. From the rear, it seemed as though the man was making mystic passes in the air.
“Pardon!” a florid, paunchy man said, and pushed past Tinney, who caught the other’s arm. “Eh?”
“You—you can’t go in.”
“Pickets!” said the paunchy man. “Well, you look hungry, Here’s a quarter.” And he walked into the store, leaving Tinney in no very happy frame of mind.
He made another attempt to get past the barrier, but of course failed. Thoughtfully he slid the quarter in his pocket. There were laws . . . Magic, indeed! He hailed a passing bluecoat.
“Morning, Flanagan.”
“Mornin’, Mister Tinney. A nice one, too.”
Good! This was it. Flanagan was big enough to throw Mr. Silver bodily out of the shop. He’d do it, too.
“Wait a bit,” Tinney said. “I need your help.”
“Ah? Sure. What can I do for you?”
“Diddle, diddle dumpling,” Tinney explained—
“Eh?”
“My son John—”
“I don’t get it.”
“Went to bed—”
“Sure,” Flanagan soothed. “Feelin’ good, ain’t, you? Well, no harm in that. Now I must be on my way.”
“With his stockings on!” screamed the harassed Joseph Tinney, and stood staring. What the devil . . . he hadn’t meant to recite that imbecile nursery rhyme. He’d meant to tell Flanagan about Mr. Silver. But somehow the doggerel had popped out of his mouth of its own volition.
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