Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05

by The Voice of the Mountain (v1. 1)

  “She’s both those things,” I replied him, “but I tell you again, you’ve gone about this thing all wrong. Myrrh loves another man, with all her heart.”

  “Indeed?” he said. “Who might that be?”

  “Nair you mind who, 1 don’t want you a-messing him up, too.”

  He frowned then, a deep line betwixt his brows. “You don’t seem to realize that what I say goes on Cry Mountain.”

  “You’re dead right about that,” I said. “I sure enough don’t realize that, I don’t realize it a hooter.”

  “You’ll just have to be taken in hand,” he said to me. “You’ll have to be taught things, shown true values. But now,” and he stretched out his thick arms, “time’s gone along until we ought to have some supper. Would you like to choose our supper, Alka?”

  Alka went to the rope and pulled, and brought us back a tray with saucers and spoons on it, and gave them round. “Fruit soup” she called what was in the saucers.

  I tucked into mine, and I relished it. It wasn’t my notion of soup, it was cold and it was made of cherries with the seeds out. I figured there was cinnamon in it, and the juice of lemons.

  “This is delicious,” said Harpe, spoon in hand. “You aren’t eating yours, Myrrh.”

  “I won’t eat aught here,” she half-snapped at him.

  “Then you’re missing a treat,” Harpe said. “Look, John’s eating his. Do you like it, John?”

  “Yes,” I replied him. “I like it a right much.”

  “John’s full of ungrateful, rebellious feelings toward me, but he doesn’t refuse to eat,” said Harpe to Myrrh, who said nair a word back.

  After the fruit soup, Alka went back to the rope and fetched us steaks. They were big steaks, about the size of a shoe sole, but another sight better eating. Mine was how I liked it, steamy brown outside and rare red inside. It was so thick I near about had to stand up to cut it, but it was so tender it next to melted in my mouth. I ate all of mine, and Harpe finished his, and Alka and Tarrah did away with the most part of theirs. We had glasses of red wine, bright as rubies, along with the food. Myrrh just sat and looked at her plate, and didn’t touch it or either the wine.

  Meanwhile, Harpe talked to us. He was a right good talker. He said that he was near about done with writing out the English of that Judas book, and that it showed how to fix this world over into what he thought would be a better world.

  “Myrrh, you and John are going to help make a golden age for us,” he sort of lectured. “People can learn from you the proper values of life, the things they've forgotten that make life good.”

  “Whatair you want, Til not help you do it,” she told him back. She looked round at us as we finished our steaks. “I won't eat this food or drink this wine; but could I ask for a glass of water?”

  Tarrah jumped up, ran off somewhere, and fetched her back what she wanted. The water was in a pretty silver cup. Harpe watched Myrrh as she drank.

  “That's a step in the right direction,” he said when she'd emptied the cup. “Tomorrow, at breakfast time, you may feel more like eating. But right now, back to my work. You may stay here, and I'll bring some entertainment for you.”

  He looked toward the window and grabbed hold of his T-amulet and spoke his string of words. The window cleared, and voices sounded and figures moved in it.

  “I tapped into a theater, with a film you may enjoy,” he said, and went off away to where he was a-working.

  We others sat and watched the show he'd fetched into the window. There were men in bright armor, and horses, and trumpet music a-blowing, and a lady with long black hair and pretty white shoulders that rose bare above her dress. The show was a-telling how one or other of two men in armor would have that lady. We watched, for it had something a-doing all the time. The two men fought with long shiny swords and at last one killed the other, and the bare-shouldered lady came and kissed the winner. I watched it through, and Tarrah watched it through, and Myrrh didn't seem to mind a-watching. Alka sniffed and said it was unconvincing.

  Then in came Harpe again. He said some words that stopped the show in the window. His jug of blockade was on the table, and he poured himself a slug and drank it. He stood over us where we sat there. I thought he looked tired round his eyes.

  “I’m almost done with what has turned out to be a formidable task,” he said. “I may be within short minutes of finishing the translation. Then, everyone everywhere can look for masterpieces of wonder.”

  He fixed his eyes on me, and they burnt like torches of light- wood. “You and I will get up early tomorrow, John. I want to talk to you alone before breakfast. I have a few home truths to say to you. So why don't we all turn in fairly early?”

  It was like a father a-giving orders for his children to go to bed. Nobody replied him so much as a word. I got up and went past the curtain and down the hallway to my room at the end. I washed my face and lay down on the bed without so much as a-taking off boots.

  Truths to tell me, Harpe had said. Home truths—more likely a pack of damned lies, meant to scare me at last, into a-doing whatair he wanted from me. That’s what I might could expect. And it would be time for me to tell him a truth myself, make it plain 1 wasn’t to be ruled by his magic.

  I thought my best of how to get that done, and finally I did come up with an idea of what I could possibly say and do.

  But I’d better have me some rest before morning, and I relaxed my bones all over and finally I made myself go to sleep.

  14

  I waked myself in what must be about the dawn of the day, and got up and headed out along the hallway to the main room.

  Harpe was there at the table, all alone. He wore the hunting shirt with the fringes and beads, the one he'd worn when first we’d met at his gate. He had his blockade jug and his clay cup, and likewise a china coffeepot and two china cups. He looked up and nodded me, but he didn’t smile. He looked all business.

  In front of him on the table, as I came to it, was a stack of written paper pages, and he had him a ballpoint pen in his hand to finish a-writing on one last page. Also spread out there was a bunch of crackly, crumbly strips of what looked like dried-out tanned skin, aged to a brown color. On the skins showed faint letters that I took to be Greek.

  “Have a cup of coffee before we talk, John,” he said, a-pour- ing it out for me. “Will you have a bit of whiskey in it? Whiskey and coffee go good together.”

  “No, I thank you,” I said. “Give me just the naked black coffee.”

  I drank my cupful, and he drank his. The coffee was hot and strong. We finished and Harpe got up.

  “Will you step outside with me, where we can be private?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you a-going to put your writings away first?”

  “No, just leave it here.” He flung his pen down on the papers. “I won’t have to warn our ladies not to touch it. None of them would dare do that. Come on.”

  We went out together. It was airish in the open, a mite chilly, with the sun just come up to the west and a-trickling its rays to us, but fog hung here and yonder amongst the trees, inside the stockade and out. Harpe led me off, toward the gash in Cry Mountain, toward the grave where we’d put Scylla away. He stopped next the grave and wheeled round to face me. His eyes were glittery.

  “I don’t suppose you want to die, John,” he said, a-drawing it out so slow and so cold.

  “Why, no,” I replied, “not particularly. Why? Did you fetch me out here to kill me?”

  “To talk to you,” he said. “To talk sense to you. I’ll start by saying that there are no impossibilities if you know what to do to make them possible. Then the possibilities can become realities.”

  “I don’t know what you’re a-driving at,” I confessed to him.

  “While I waited for you this morning, I finished with my translation of the Judas Gospel,” he said. “It’s an amazing fabric of what to do in the world. It fills in some things only hinted in The Book of Abramelin and other works I’ve studie
d. I propose to put it in operation this very day.”

  A-standing with him, I watched him close as I could, for I didn’t know what he might could start with me. “You talked that notion to me before this,” I said. “You’ve been a-fixing to do something to the whole world. Do away with millions of folks you decide you don’t like. And then be on the top throne of all, with what folks are left a-looking up to you, folks a-doing honor to the name of Ruel Harpe.”

  “Maybe I’ll change my name,” and his voice went sort of dreamy. “Maybe they can call me Pachacuti.”

  “Call you what?”

  “Pachacuti,” he repeated it. “That's the title they gave the Inca Yupanqui, long ago in Peru before the Spaniards came. It means 'he who changes the world.'" Dreamy again. “I’ll change the world.”

  “And where do you fit me in?” I asked him.

  “I'll fit you in just as I've told you. After great hosts of unprofitable people are swept away, those who remain must be taught a new way of life that is really old, forgotten. They'll have to be taught how to build sensible houses, raise their food sensibly, gain a sensible outlook. That's where you come in. You're a natural man, the most natural man I've ever known. And Myrrh is a natural woman, and with her as your helpmeet —oh, you'll take her as a helpmeet—the two of you can teach people, and they can teach others—”

  “Yes, yes,” I broke in on him. “You've talked this to me before. And you think I’ve got to do your bidding. But I don't think air such a thing.” I heard my voice rise. “You can just count me out.”

  He walked close at me, so close I could smell the liquor on his breath. “Listen—” he started to say.

  “You’re smart,” I said, a-cutting him off again. “But no way as smart as you think you are. You misjudged Myrrh Larrowby, look how bad you misjudged her. Just because you tell her to love me isn't enough. You misjudged her.”

  “And I fear I misjudged you, too,” he said, with the icy chill back in his voice. “I took you for a sensible, reasonable man.”

  “Thanks for that compliment,” I said.

  “A sensible, reasonable man,” he repeated himself. “A man who could have big, rich rewards shown to him and who could accept them. This world will change, this whole world. You can go along with it and thrive with it, or you can perish with the perishing.”

  “I already told you, count me out.”

  He shoved his face almost against mine. He scowled so deep, the lines in his face looked to be cut with plowshares. His eyes shone on me like coals of fire. His mustache bristled like a bobcat’s.

  “You’d better do what I tell you if you want to stay alive another minute,” he said, from in betwixt his gritted teeth. “I want your help, but I can do without it if I have to. I could just wish it, and you’d fall dead at my feet.”

  His scowly face was within inches. I saw his amulet a-swing- ing inside his collar. He uses his amulet for airthing, Tarrah had said.

  That’s when I did what I’d figured the night before I’d have to do.

  I shot out my right hand and grabbed the amulet where it showed. With one hard yank I broke its chain, and quick I danced away from him backward, maybe a good half dozen steps clear of him. As I moved, I shoved the thing down deep into the hip pocket of my jeans.

  “Now what?” I inquired him.

  His mad-looking face had gone blank. His eyes flickered back and forth in it.

  “You give me that back,” he snarled, and ran at me, but I dodged to the side, clear of him again. I grinned.

  “I’ll do no such a thing,” I told him. “That’s your power. I’ve seen it be your power. What are you without it?”

  “Give it back,” he said again, and charged. I slipped away from him as before.

  “Now it’s just you and me,” I said, and kept a-grinning him. “Which of us do you reckon is best?”

  He hunched his shoulders up to his ears. It made him look thicker and tougher than he’d looked already.

  “I’m the best,” he said. “Of course.”

  He reached his right hand under the tail of his fringed shirt.

  He brought it out with a big knife. It looked to be more than a foot long, wide across and straight, made of dull-shiny dark steel. I saw that its both edges were whetted sharp.

  “I'm through with you, John,” he growled.

  “Not yet, you're not through with me,” I said, from where I stood away from him. I moved my feet and jiggled my knees, to make sure I was loose and ready for a quick move.

  “Give me back that amulet or I'll kill you,” he mouthed out.

  “Come try it on,” I invited, a-taking big deep breaths.

  He moved in on me, a-walking slow and heavy this time. He held that big, mean-looking knife out at me, a-jiggling its point. Gentlemen, he looked like an advance agent for Judgment Day, with his knife and his face with its crumpled scowl and all his teeth a-shining out. His arms looked thick with muscle, his legs were like chunks of a tree. But he came at me sort of flatfooted, and I saw that his toes pointed out, like a-walking in three directions at once. He was big and strong and murder bent, but I didn't reckon he was in air sort of good shape, not as good as I was at least.

  I quartered right and left so he’d have his troubles if he made another running charge.

  “You haven’t got a chance, John,” he said, and that long steel blade flipped up and down like a pump handle in a windstorm. “Recognize that and say you surrender, and we’ll go back together and have a hearty breakfast.”

  “There’s no such a thing as no chance,” I told him back, “and I do have this.”

  I scooped out my pocket knife and yanked it open with a snap that sounded like a pistol a-being cocked. “You a-going to try some action?” I dared him. “Or will you just stand there and try to talk me to death?”

  He ran dead at me, a-darting out his point as swift as the head of a snake. He ran heavy but he ran fast, his feet a-hitting flat on the ground like a bear up on its hind legs, and he was right on me before I could dodge. I flung up my own knife and beat his blade aside, but his point snagged the back of my hand. We were almost up against one another for a second, and with my free fist, my left, I drove a good belt into his thick belly. I heard him grunt with it, and again we both fell back, half a dozen steps apart from one another again. Harped mustache twitched with his grin.

  “First blood,” he said, happy over it, but a-panting a little to say it.

  I replied him nair a word, and I sidled to his left, away from a straight stab from his big weapon. He closed in again, slower this time, always a-flicking his point up and down, and that tongue of steel looked as sharp as a razor.

  “I’ll cut you open,” he sort of gurgled, but I saved my own breath. He was big, he had muscle on his bones, but he wasn't in the best of shape. He hadn't roamed and climbed and exercised the way I had, and I'd seen how much liquor he drank, day in and day out. He was a-getting winded some.

  But in on me he came again, and I slipped aside and inside from his thrust, and our bodies pure down slammed against one another. I dropped my knife and shot him another in his guts, then two quick half-arm punches to his face, and again down below. He staggered, and he dropped that great big old hog- sticking knife, and as it hit the ground I gave it a kick away from us into some bushes.

  What he called me then I won't repeat in this polite company. He went a-scrambling off after his weapon, but I was right there after him. I came up alongside and landed him a set of knuckles right under his ear. He staggered again, but stayed on his feet. He turned and grabbed for me with both hands.

  If air he should get those two big paws on me, he'd sure enough have him an advantage. I forked my own hands on his both biceps and shoved him hard away from air sort of grapple. Nair fight a man his way, says the wise old advice; if he boxes you, wrestle him—if he wrestles you, box him. So, as I flung him clear, I sent my left into the middle of his red-flushed face, and out of his nose popped blood that was redder still. He
stood a moment and mopped it away with his fringed sleeve. I circled to where I could stand betwixt him and those bushes where I’d kicked his knife.

  He looked on me with eyes strained wide open and full of murder, then he turned and ran a few steps and was down on hands and knees, a-hunting for something. I started toward him, then I stopped. For he was up again, and he had my open pocket knife that I’d dropped to hit him.

  He held it in his hand, point toward me, his forefinger along the back like somebody about to cut him off a slice of meat.

  “Maybe this has some of your power in it,” he said, a-wasting more of his breath to say it. “It makes up any difference between us.”

  “You’ll need another sight of more difference than that,” I wasted some of my own breath. “You didn’t do well so far with the big knife.”

  “Throw me that amulet, and we’ll call it quits.”

  He sounded like somebody a-wanting to stop the fight, but “No,” I said, and nair a word more. I bucked my knees again to keep them loose, and this time it was I who moved in to get close.

  He drew himself up to face me, and made a jab with my knife. I got my left hand on his right wrist—that wrist was as big as a mule’s ankle—and pulled him hard into me, and my right fist went a straightaway smash at his jaw. His head snapped back and he stumbled away, a-pulling his knife hand loose from me. I hit him half a dozen times, quick as I could throw my fists, left, right, head, body, and head again. Down he went like a sack of grain off the tail of a wagon. He hit the ground so hard that I thought all Cry Mountain pitched.

  I slammed my boot hard on his right hand and the knife fell from it and rolled away. I gave that knife a kick, too, into the bushes to find the big one where it had fallen and lost itself. Harpe rolled all the way over to get clear of me and struggled up on his feet again, with dirt and bits of moss all over that beaded hunting shirt. He wagged his head to clear it, and glared on me. He was still full of fight.

  “This means I have the untidy job of killing you with my bare hands,” he gulped.