Beyond the golden stair

by Bok, Hannes, 1914-1964

that if I put that there mask on, he'd get wise to what was cooking. I ain't so punchy Hke Burks thinks. Nobody can call me no jerkl"

  ''You're right about that, Scarlatti!"

  "Yeah? How come you're on my side all of a sudden? Trying to get in the act and get some gravy?'*

  He slumped, supremely comfortable, almost reclining. ''Burks trotting oflF like he done was more than I hoped for. He always muscled the show, but now I get to run it my wayl**

  Then his brows shot up in surprise as his look went past Hibbert to the door. Carlotta had completed her toilette and was lounging against the door-frame awaiting their admiration. All her weight was thrown on one leg; the other sagged as though broken. One hand clutched the woodwork in the vicinity of her bent knee—^the other was flung up far above a head dreamily lolling, her eyes rolling heavenward in what she probably imagined was ethereal hauteur. It was a fragment of her Cleopatra-personaHty asserting itself again.

  The giant slapped his thigh and howled with laughter. Carlotta straightened with a snap. She shouted: "What do you mean making fun, when I dolled myself up all for you!" She whirled suspiciously on Hibbert. "I seen myself in the mirror! I guess I know how I look. Good!"

  "Maybe you seen yourself in the mirror/' Scarlatti chuckled as she bore down irately on him, "but you wasn't standing then Hke you was in the doorway. The look on your puss!" He folded up with merriment.

  She folded her arms and stood with one foot tapping. "I was holding myself just like them fashion models do in the magazines, you dumb jerk! You just ain't got no culture!" She had sprayed herselE hberally

  with samples from the many scent-bottles, and the conflicting aromas had combined to suggest an immense and decaying chrysthanthemum. *'You just don't know class when you see iti"

  There was a faint clang from the outer door. Hib-bert moved to open it, but Scarlatti leaped from the divan and shouldered him aside, either in his capacity as leader or simply to escape Carlotta's attention-His hand on the gun, he pushed the portal ajar, goggled, and threw it wide.

  "WeU, well!" he cooed, taking his hand from the gun. And spitefully to Carlotta: ''So I don't know class when I see it, huh? Well, get a load of this I"

  Bright against the outer blackness, a girl stood waiting. She was not alone, but Hibbert had no eyes just then for her companions. And if in his own world it was not too uncommon for men to fall in love at first sight, here in Khoire he had more than good reason for it.

  For here in Khoire, where the body was only the shadow of the soul, there could be no disillusionment in love. A single glance at this girl told Hibbert more concerning her character than he could have learned from years of acquaintance with any girl of his own sphere. Beside which, she was the girl of his Ufelong dream. Thus quite naturally he fell deeply, irretrievably in love.

  She wasn't especially tall, but she seemed tall because of her exquisite proportions. Her slender, high-breasted body was Uke that slim snow-and-silver birch woman's, whom the Manitou Gluskap set as sentinel over his forest kingdom. She seemed a white-birch dryadi

  Her face was slightly flattened, like the faces of the Chinese, and her shm httle nose, lightly blunted, was

  a rondure to be admired from every angle and kissed for its wonder. Her oblique eyes were like two great emeralds mounted in the black enamel of her long and sweeping lashes. For a mouth, she had the soft, velvety bud of a large crimson flower awaiting the loss at least of the sun. Her hair was morning Hght swept up from her brow in a golden casque hke Athena's helmet, restrained from floating by combs of jade.

  She wore a long and flowing garment of incredibly fine and changeable floss whose subdued colors ran one into another like the hues of the flickering aurora, so fine-textured that it clove to her like wet chiffon, revealing her perfect body as though she stood naked —then at a slight movement, perhaps no more than the soft stirring of her breath, it completely masked her contours in a swirl of irised mist. It was weighted strategically with gems, and settled back as hghtly as the drifting of milkweed down.

  She wore fingerless gloves like the pattens of Victoria's day. Of lustrous brocade, they flared out in wide cuffs which curved like the end-beams of dragon pagodas, and were stiff with jewels. On thumb and forefinger of both hands were golden nail-guards, accentuating that tang of the Oriental which made of her a Manchu shen-kuei princess.

  Her green eyes took in Hibbert's rapt and adoring gaze with no sign of recognition. He knew her from his dream, God yes, but it was clear that she had never dreamed of him in return. That alone was sufficient gulf between them. Add to it the decree that, even ff he could woo and win her, he must imdergo frightful change and then be bundled off back to his own world away from her, and it was maddeningly wide, nearly insurmountable. But the crowning touch

  of all was the way in which she surveyed Scarlatti, her hps sUghtly parted and every line of her straining with eagerness—not only as if she knew but loved himi

  Carlotta cleared her throat wamingly, possessively, but the girl took no heed. Her voice was a warm whisper. "I am Mareth of the Qsin of Khoire. May I enter?^ Scarlatti grinned wolfishly and bowed profoundly with amazing grace. If Hibbert had been shot full of blazing arrows, he couldn't have felt worse.

  Women have their own way of handling things. Carlotta took charge. She swept regally past the giant as he straightened up from his obeisance, firmly planting one brown hand on his chest and thrusting him forcefully out of her way.

  She offered that hand to Mareth, who touched it with fingers like slim and pointed petals. Carlotta announced in a treble trill, which Hibbert took to be her company voice:

  *Tm Carlotta Dunfree, and pleased to meet youl'* She gave the girl a pat which catapulted her into the room in a fiery flutter of draperies, and she jabbed her thumb at Scarlatti. "This is Frank, my fellow. We're getting married any time now." She didn't sound too hopeful on that score, however. She forced Mareth's frankly fascinated stare from the giant by pointing at Hibbert. "This is John Hibbert. Friend of ours we picked up down yonder. We kind of have to look out for him.''

  If she'd seized Mareth and Hibbert and shoved them into an embrace, she couldn't have been more obvious. Despite her motive, for the first time Hibbert felt grateful toward her.

  From the doorway came a ciuiously questioning piping sound. She turned that way and lifted her

  hands in dismay that was both poHtely simulated and unguardedly sincere. Until that moment her eyes, like Hibbert's and the giant's, had been only for the girl. But now on beholding Mareth's companions she gulped and blurted—with a nice recovery, midway, of her social manner—''And—and who're these here de-Hghtf ul people, huh?''

  Mareth smilingly beckoned them in. Hibbert did not turn to scan them—^he was too preoccupied with gathering further details of Mareth to store among his memories. There was a crystal pendant just below the hollow of her throat, a globe an inch iu diameter and ahve with rippHng fires too bright to be mere reflections from her prismatic dress. He saw that her insteps were so patricianly high that she seemed to be wearing French heels—though her footgear, displayed at every gusty lift of her swirling gown, was of such flimsy material, glovehke and divided at the toes, that her feet might have been dipped in hquid silver and the jewels and heels affixed with paste.

  Mareth observed his preoccupation and laughed it lightly off. The sound came in floating fire. Nevertheless, her voice made no flame as she introduced her friends.

  "Here is N'gine—and here, Kikoda—^from the world-imder-men."

  Neither was above the four-foot mark. N'gine was a lushly plump damsel of indefinite age, her skin as translucently green as if she had been carved from nephrite by some merry artisan, and endowed with life—the Galatea of a buffoonish Pygmahon. Her green eyes were not the emerald tint of Mareth's but like that of tropic waters. She wore her moss-green hair in imitation of Mareth. It was sprinkled with drops of dew or diamonds. Her costume consisted of aquatic

  weeds draped, if not becomingly, at least w
ith the intention of modesty.

  Kikoda reminded Hibbert equally of a white cat and a blind newt. He was eyeless, his nose negligible, and his mouth a lipless gash in his bottom-heavy face. Short chalk-white fur covered even his large and pointed ears, and he seemed inordinately proud of it, since at that moment he ceased his fatuous grinning and angled his head to lick one shoulder smooth with a rose-petal tongue. Thickset and teddy bearish, he would have made a child's dehghtful toy.

  And he was, of course, the indeterminate white image which sometimes had accompanied Mareth in Hibbert's dream, the last clinching detail to prove that whatever it had been—preordained premonition, unsuspected second-sight or the attraction of aflBnity— it had been no dream.

  As with Patur and Mareth, he gave no sign of recognition of Hibbert, but then, being blind, why should he?

  ''My," Carlotta enthused uncertainly, ''what—what strange-looking folks! Won't you all just come right in and sit down anywhere?" And hostess to the hilt, with an eye to Scarlatti to mark how he was taking her in this desirable new role: "I'll just go in the kitchen and see if there's something I can't dig up for you"— as nice a Freudian shp as Hibbert had ever heard. She beamed hospitably, waved one hand coyly, and strode from the room.

  Mareth chose a chair and nodded for N'gine to take another. The little green woman left wet footprints on the rug as though she had just emerged from the bath and had been overhasty with the towel. Kikoda, despite his lack of sight, had no diflBculty in selecting a seat. Perhaps, Hibbert thought, he was guided like

  a mole or bat by supersonic hearing. The white pygmy sat with legs dangling, sniflBng perplexedly at the wake of perfume left behind by Carlotta.

  Mareth clasped her hands on her knees and spoke. As with Patur, she barely moved her Hps. It reminded Hibbert disconcertingly of ventriloquism, but probably was the Khoirean courtesy of restraint.

  "I was passing by with N'gine and Kikoda on our way to the gate of their special world. They have been making pilgrimage in Khoire to the Great OnesI'' She touched her fingertips to her forehead in reverent token. 'We paused to pay respect to Patur, and he mentioned your arrival."

  Her gaze was all for Scarlatti—Hibbert might just as well have been on the moon or back on his own earth-plane. What the devil could she see in the giantl And Scarlatti of course loved it—^he stood puflBng up his chest and looking masterfully down his nose in a masculine come-on like the beginning of a dance of pouter pigeons.

  Mareth demurely lowered her eyes from his stare. She said: "I have seen visitors from the world of the Forefathers, but only in the memory-pictures of the Historians, and I was eager to behold you in the flesh. Thus we have come—and if it is rude, I beg your forgiveness!''

  Scarlatti looked as though he was about to reassin-e her, but N'gine checked him by babbling the sound of running water, making lights like rainbow bubbles.

  Mareth interpreted: "N'gine was as eager as I. Though aware of humans in her homeland, which overlaps the boundaries of your own, never has she seen one but only has been conscious of them, even as intuition tells us that in a dark room we may not be alone."

  Now the dwarf murmured a feline purr.

  Mareth added: "Kikoda says the same.**

  She looked up to the looming Scarlatti, who hadn't budged from the spot in which Carlotta had shoved him, and to Hibbert, who unconsciously had been inching toward her.

  "But you stand ill at easel Is it that you fear me?* For all the light on her lips when she laughed, still there was none when she spoke.

  Perhaps the giant elected to stay where he was, rather than be seated, because he knew how impressive his height could be. Hibbert preferred to remain standing because he was closer to the girl than he would have been if he'd taken a chair.

  "So you are men!" she marvelled, scrutinizing them from top to toe. "My cousinsi For were not we of Khoire long ago like you?^

  But Hibbert sensed that she was displeased. She hadn't seemed particularly interested in himself to begin with, and now the eagerness with which she had at first regarded Scarlatti seemed to have dissipated. She had expected something of him which he hadn't provided. The specter of a frown haunted her beautiful brow, even as when some genealogically minded young blueblood, having traced his ancestry back through riches and warrior-kings, discovers a pauper or a thief.

  Hibbert asked, a trifle piqued: "Are we as disappointing as all that?"

  "Oh, but then I am rude indeed! Forgive mel" She laughed sheepishly and arose in a flutter of colors. "I would not offend you! I am not God to judge you or to wish to recreate you in my own image! Rather I will go!"

  Hibbert thrust forth a hand. "No! Please stayl" She hesitated. "You could never oflFend—^mel''

  The emerald eyes lingered on his own for a second and grew dark. "Now you are boldl I scarcely thought it the way of your people—from what I have heard of them—to be so exceedingly forthright!''

  "You guessed my thought just then?'' She nodded. "But if you guessed it, surely you were aware of the respect behind iti Apparently it's I who has offended— not you."

  She agreed, but smilingly. ''And thus have we evened our errors. Perhaps in the futiu*e it were well that we overlook all such differences, for we are foreigners one to the other, and our usages unHke."

  She took the chair again. Hibbert said: 'When I speak, my words can be seen as hght, but none of yours arel Now why is that?"

  "Because," she rephed from lips that, however sweet their curve, remained firmly set, "you of the lower world commimicate by voice, while we of Khoire speak with the mind."

  "You mean telepathy?"

  "Yes. Here in Khoire, where conditions favor all mental processes, we find it connnonplace enough."

  "And can you hear whatever I'm thinking?"

  Scarlatti grunted and stiffened. Hibbert didn't have to be a telepath to know the giant's mind. Scarlatti was wondering if his plans had been known to Patiu: as fast as he had formed theml And did Mareth know them now?

  Her laugh soothed the giant. She said: "A little I can grasp of your thoughts, but they are only piecemeal fragments which cannot be Hnked into a coherent whole. And too, you think in terms of your language, and we do not speak your tongue."

  "But youVe been talking, I mean thinking, in En-glishl"

  "No. I speak in pictures, in remembered sensations, indeed in emotionsi Your mind receives and associates them with your words for them, thereby translating them into—what have you called it? English!"

  "But if you can understand my words in spite of their being in my own language, because of their pictorial and sensory associations, why caimot you understand my thoughts?"

  "I could not receive even your spoken thought, did it not come to me on the medium of the waves of sound and light which are your voice. You have not learned as we have to transmit your thoughts without the use of some vehicle."

  The giant was staring at Mareth with the cupidity of a thief confronted by unguarded jewels. Again Hibbert rankled with jealousy and was conjuring up some venomous word when Carlotta entered vdth a tray of fruit and saved him the trouble. She noticed the giant's expression and was as furious as Hibbert.

  "Hey, Frank, give me a handl" she protested. And to Mareth, "He's just got no manners."

  Scarlatti reluctantly permitted her to shove him down on a sofa. Carlotta thudded beside him, the springs shrieking protest. She held one of his paws firmly in her own.

  Brightly and hopefully, she asked: "You're maybe hitched, or something?"

  Hibbert's heart somersaulted. He had not thought that Mareth could be marriedl But she said demiu-ely: "Oh, nol Love has not yet come to me."

  "Oh, is that so," Carlotta commented with an apprehensive side-glance at the giant. She decided on a

  rapid change of topic. "Your little pal there, the green one. I guess maybe she ain't no mermaid?"

  "Mermaid?" Mareth considered the term. "OhI Why, yes, I believe that she is one, but a true one, rather than the false picture yoiu*
people have created—half-human and haU-fish. She is an undine."

  '^Well, I'm glad she's true," Carlotta commented ambiguously. "And what's a undine?"

  Mareth cogitated—rather prettily, Hibbert thought, having observed the truth in Oscar Wilde's statement that people generally, when thinking, become all eyes or nose or forehead.

  He was still standing. Carlotta took advantage of Mareth's introspection to wave him urgently to a seat. He settled that matter to his hking by simply folding himself at Mareth's feet, resting tailor-fashion with crossed legs.

  N'gine, aware that the conversation concerned herself, self-consciously smoothed her wet green hair, patted the leaves which clothed her, and essayed a dazzling smile which brought algae-green teeth into notice. Scarlatti responded with a startled grunt.

  Mareth said: "But to tell you what an undine is would consume considerable time, and probably weary not only you but these little ones."

  Carlotta pounced on the chance to remove temptation from Scarlatti's ken. 'Teah, I guess we are all kind of tired. We been on the go all day. But maybe you'll come around some other time and tell usi"

  She stood up and briskly oflFered her hand to Mareth, who was a little taken aback, and rose.

  "It's been just peachy, meeting you, Miss"—she gleamed with catty triumph—"I didn't get the name, now did I?"

  "Mareth of the Qsin of Khoire."

  Hibbert jumped up. 'Tersonally, Fm not in the least tired. And Fd very much enjoy hearing what an undine is," although he already knew from his reading. ''Won't you please stay and tell me?"

  She regarded him uncertainly. *'But your comrades— "

  Carlotta pulled violently on Scarlatti. Trank, lover,* she remarked more to speed the parting guest than from concern at the giant's welfare, *'if you don't lie down right away, you're going to get good and sick.**

  *T-.ie down, my—I" He caught himself, frowned a little, then with curious cheerfulness allowed the woman to take charge. 'Well, yeah, I am kind of fagged, all of a sudden."