“By heaven,” I cried, “nothing like this has happened to the blood stream since Harvey discovered the circulation. Charlie, my lad, this is henceforth my tipple!”
Father Svatomir beamed and nodded. “I concur heartily. Tell us, Charles, what is this wondrous brew?”
“Tequila,” said Charlie, and I dropped my glass.
“What is the trouble, my son? You’re pale and trembling.”
“Look, Johnny. I know it’s high-proof stuff, but it hadn’t ought to hit you like that.”
I hardly heard them. All I knew was that the one time-barrier separating me from my murder was now removed. I had come to like tequila. I bent over to pick up the glass, and as I did so I saw a hand reach out from the consulting room. It touched the tequila bottle lightly and withdrew clutching a freshly dematerialized fifth.
Charlie refilled the three glasses, “Another one’ll put you back on your feet, Johnny. It’s swell stuff once you get used to it.”
Father Svatomir was still concerned. “John,” he insisted, “was it the tequila? Or did you… have you sensed what we were speaking of before?”
I gulped the second glass. “I’m all right,” I protested. “A couple more of these and I’ll—Was that a knock?”
Charlie looked around. “Consulting-room door, I think. Shall I go check?”
I slipped quickly between him and the door. “Never mind. I’ll see.”
“Had I better go with you?” the priest suggested. “If it were what I warned you of—”
“It’s O.K. I’ll go.”
My ghost was lolling back in my chair with his feet propped up on the desk. One hand held Fanny Hill and the other the tequila. “I got a good look at the guy that brought this,” he volunteered without looking up. “He’s all right.”
“Fine. Now I have to let in a patient. Could you briefly disappear?”
“Uh-uh. Not till the cock crows.”
“Then please hide. Try that cupboard—I think it’s big enough.”
He started for the cupboard, returned for book and bottle, and went back to shut himself up in comfort. I opened the outer door a very small crack and said, “Who is it?”
“Me, Dr. Adams. Nick Wojcek.”
I opened the door without a tremor. Whatever Father Svatomir might say about the other inhabitants of Cobbsville, I knew I had nothing to fear from the man whose daughter was my most startlingly successful cure to date. I could still see the pitiful animal terror in his eyes when he brought her to me and the pure joy that glistened in them when I told him she was well.
“Come in, Nick. Sit down and be comfortable.”
He obeyed the first half of my injunction, but he fidgeted most uncomfortably. Despite his great height and his grizzled hair, he looked like a painfully uncertain child embarrassed by the presence of strange adults. “My Ljuba,” he faltered. “You got those pictures you tell me about?”
“I saw them today. And it’s good news, Nick. Your Ljuba is all well again. It’s all healed up.”
“She stay that way now?”
“I hope to God. But I can’t promise. So long as you live in this dump and breathe cement dust day in and day out, I can’t guarantee you a thing. But I think she’ll be well now. Let her marry some nice young man who’ll take her away from here into the clean air.”
“No,” he said sullenly.
“But come, Nick,” I said gently. It was pleasant to argue an old man’s foibles for a moment instead of fretting over your approaching murder. “She has to lead her own life.”
“You tell me what do? You go to hell!”
I drew back astounded. There was the sheer venom of hatred in that last phrase. “Nick!” I protested.
He was on his feet now, and in his hand was an ancient but none the less lethal-looking revolver. “You make magic,” he was saying slowly and harshly. “God would let my Ljuba die. You make her live. Black magic. Don’t want daughter from magic.”
“Nick,” I urged as quietly as I could, “don’t be a damned fool. There are people in the next room. Suppose I call for them?”
“I kill you first,” said Nick Wojcek simply.
“But they’ll find you here. You can’t get away. They’ll burn you for this, Nick. Then what’ll become of Ljuba?”
He hesitated, but the muzzle of the revolver never wavered. Now that I was staring my murder right in the nose, I felt amazingly calm. I could see, in a clear and detached way, just how silly it was to try to avert the future by pre-knowledge. I had thought my ghost would warn me; but there he was in the closet, comfortably curled up with a bottle of liquor and a filthy book, and here I was, staring into Nick Wojcek’s revolver. He’d come out afterward of course, my ghost would; he’d get in his haunting and go home. While I… only then I’d be my ghost, wouldn’t I? I’d go home too—wherever that was.
“If they get me,” said Nick at last, “they get me. I get you first.”
His grip tightened on the revolver. And at that moment my tardy ghost reeled out of the closet. He brandished the empty green tequila bottle in one hand, and his face was carefree and roistering.
My grinning ghost pointed the bottle dramatically at Nick Wojcek. “THOU ART THE MAN!” he thundered cheerily.
Nick started, whirled, and fired. For an instant he stood rooted and stared first at the me standing by the desk and then at the me slowly sinking to the floor. Then he flung the revolver away and ran terror-stricken from the room.
I was kneeling at my ghost’s side where he lay groaning on the floor. “But what happened?” I gasped. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” he moaned. “Got a little drunk… started haunting too soon—” My ghost’s form was becoming indistinct.
“But you’re a ghost. That knife went right through you. Nothing can wound you.”
“That’s what I thought. But he did… and here I am—” His voice was trailing away too. “Only one thing… could have—” Then there was silence, and I was staring at nothing but the empty floor, with a little glistening piece of light metal on it.
Father Svatomir and Charlie were in the room now, and the silence was rapidly crammed with questions. I scrambled to my feet and tried to show more assurance than I felt. “You were right. Father. It was Nick Wojcek. Went for me with that revolver. Luckily he missed, got panicky, and ran away.”
“I shall find him,” said Father Svatomir gravely. “I think that after this fright I may be able to talk some sense into him; then perhaps he can help me convince the others.” He paused and looked down at the gleaming metal. “You see, John? I told you they believed you to be a black magician.”
“How so?”
“You notice that? A silver bullet. Ordinary lead cannot harm a magician, but the silver bullet can kill anything. Even a spirit.” And he hastened off after Nick Wojcek.
Wordlessly I took the undematerialized tequila bottle from Charlie and paid some serious attention to it. I began to see now. It made sense. My ghost hadn’t averted my death—that had been an absurd hope—but he had caused his own. All the confusion came from his faulty memory. He was haunting, not mine, but his own murderer. It was my ghost himself who had been killed in this room.
That was all right. That was fine. I was safe from murder now, and must have been all along. But what I wanted to know, what I still want to know, what I have to find out and what no one can ever tell me, is this:
What happens after death to a man whose ghost has been already murdered?
Psychokinesis is the modern word for magic. Dr. Rhine defines it as “the direct action of mind on matter,” and his statistics, hosed on experiments with dice-throwing, attribute this faculty (in small but measurable degree) to all normal people. To date, he has found in his tests no sorcerer—sorry, exceptionally talented PK subjects. If he ever does—
Offhand, it seems to me that a flying carpet, for instance, should be apple pie for anyone who was really good at this stuff. Mr. Cogswell uses broomsticks instead—o
r rather his characters do. He himself, he says, is “the only 21st-century man in the English Department at the University where I teach. But since my colleagues consider Middle Martian to be a less reputable area of study than Middle English, I spend my working hours teaching freshman composition—a subject about which less is actually known, I might add, than psionics…,”
The Wall Around the World by Theodore R. Cogswell
The Wall that went all the way around the world had always been there, so nobody paid much attention to it—except Porgie.
Porgie was going to find out what was on the other side of it—assuming there was another side—or break his neck trying. He was going on fourteen, an age that tends to view the word impossible as a meaningless term invented by adults for their own peculiar purposes. But he recognized that there were certain practical difficulties involved in scaling a glassy-smooth surface that rose over a thousand feet straight up. That’s why he spent a lot of time watching the eagles.
This morning, as usual, he was late for school. He lost time finding a spot for his broomstick in the crowded rack in the school yard, and it was exactly six minutes after the hour as he slipped guiltily into the classroom.
For a moment, he thought he was safe. Old Mr. Wickens had his back to him and was chalking a pentagram on the blackboard.
But just as Porgie started to slide into his seat, the schoolmaster turned and drawled, “I see Mr. Shirey has finally decided to join us.”
The class laughed, and Porgie flushed.
“What’s your excuse this time, Mr. Shirey?”
“I was watching an eagle,” said Porgie lamely.
“How nice for the eagle. And what was he doing that was of such great interest?”
“He was riding up on the wind. His wings weren’t flapping or anything. He was over the box canyon that runs into the East Wall, where the wind hits the Wall and goes up. The eagle just floated in circles, going higher all the time. You know, Mr. Wickens, I’ll bet if you caught a whole bunch of eagles and tied ropes to them, they could lift you right up to the top of the Wall!”
“That,” said Mr. Wickens, “is possible—if you could catch the eagles. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll continue with the lecture. When invoking Elementals of the Fifth Order, care must be taken to…”
Porgie glazed his eyes and began to think up ways and means to catch some eagles.
The next period, Mr. Wickens gave them a problem in practical astrology. Porgie chewed his pencil and tried to work on it, but couldn’t concentrate. Nothing came out right—and when he found he had accidentally transposed a couple of signs of the zodiac at the very beginning, he gave up and began to draw plans for eagle traps. He tried one, decided it wouldn’t work, started another—
“Porgie!”
He jumped. Mr. Wickens, instead of being in front of the class, was standing right beside him. The schoolmaster reached down, picked up the paper Porgie had been drawing on, and looked at it. Then he grabbed Porgie by the arm and jerked him from his seat.
“Go to my study!”
As Porgie went out the door, he heard Mr. Wickens say, “The class is dismissed until I return!”
There was a sudden rush of large, medium and small-sized boys out of the classroom. Down the corridor to the front door they pelted, and out into the bright sunshine. As they ran past Porgie, his cousin Homer skidded to a stop and accidentally on purpose jabbed an elbow into his ribs. Homer, usually called “Bull Pup” by the kids because of his squat build and pugnacious face, was a year older than Porgie and took his seniority seriously.
“Wait’ll I tell Dad about this. You’ll catch it tonight!” He gave Porgie another jab and then ran out into the school yard to take command of a game of Warlock.
Mr. Wickens unlocked the door to his study and motioned Porgie inside. Then he shut and locked it carefully behind him. He sat down in the high-backed chair behind his desk and folded his hands.
Porgie stood silently, hanging his head, filled with that helpless guilty anger that comes from conflict with superior authority.
“What were you doing instead of your lesson?” Mr. Wickens demanded.
Porgie didn’t answer.
Mr. Wickens narrowed his eyes. The large hazel switch that rested on top of the bookcase beside the stuffed owl lifted lightly into the air, drifted across the room, and dropped into his hand.
“Well?” he said, tapping the switch on the desk.
“Eagle traps,” admitted Porgie. “I was drawing eagle traps. I couldn’t help it. The Wall made me do it.”
“Proceed.”
Porgie hesitated for a moment. The switch tapped. Porgie burst out, “I want to see what’s on the other side! There’s no magic that will get me over, so I’ve got to find something else!”
Tap went the switch. “Something else?”
“If a magic way was in the old books, somebody would have found it already!”
Mr. Wickens rose to his feet and stabbed one bony finger accusingly at Porgie. “Doubt is the mother of damnation!”
Porgie dropped his eyes to the floor and wished he was some place else.
“I see doubt in you. Doubt is evil, Porgie, evil! There are ways permitted to men and ways forbidden. You stand on the brink of the fatal choice. Beware that the Black Man does not come for you as he did for your father before you. Now, bend over!”
Porgie bent. He wished he’d worn a heavier pair of pants.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir,” said Porgie sadly.
Mr. Wickens raised the switch over his head. Porgie waited. The switch slammed—but on the desk.
“Straighten up,” Mr. Wickens said wearily. He sat down again. “I’ve tried pounding things into your head and I’ve tried pounding things on your bottom, and one end is as insensitive as the other. Porgie, can’t you understand that you aren’t supposed to try and find out new things? The Books contain everything there is to know. Year by year, what is written in them becomes clearer to us.”
He pointed out the window at the distant towering face of the Wall that went around the world. “Don’t worry about what is on the other side of that! It may be a place of angels or a place of demons—the Books do not tell us. But no man will know until he is ready for that knowledge. Our broomsticks won’t climb that high, our charms aren’t strong enough. We need more skill at magic, more understanding of the strange, unseen forces that surround us. In my grandfather’s time, the best of the broomsticks wouldn’t climb over a hundred feet in the air. But the Adepts in the Great Tower worked and worked until now, when the clouds are low, we can ride right up among them. Someday we will be able to soar all the way to the top of the Wall—”
“Why not now?” Porgie asked stubbornly. “With eagles.”
“Because we’re not ready,” Mr. Wickens snapped. “Look at mind talk. It was only thirty years ago that the proper incantations were worked out, and even now there are only a few who have the skill to talk across the miles by just thinking out their words. Time, Porgie—it’s going to take time. We were placed here to learn the Way, and everything that might divert us from the search is evil. Man can’t walk two roads at once. If he tries, he’ll split himself in half.”
“Maybe so,” said Porgie. “But birds get over the Wall and they don’t know any spells. Look, Mr. Wickens, if everything is magic, how come magic won’t work on everything? Like this, for instance—”
He took a shiny quartz pebble out of his pocket and laid it on the desk.
Nudging it with his finger, he said:
“Stone fly,
Rise on high,
Over cloud
And into sky.”
The stone didn’t move.
“You see, sir? If words work on broomsticks, they should work on stones, too.”
Mr. Wickens stared at the stone. Suddenly it quivered and jumped into the air.
“That’s different,” said Porgie. “You took hold of it with your mind. Anybody can do that with l
ittle things. What I want to know is why the words won’t work by themselves.”
“We just don’t know enough yet,” said Mr. Wickens impatiently. He released the stone and it clicked on the desk top. “Every year we learn a little more. Maybe by your children’s time we’ll find the incantation that will make everything lift.” He sniffed. “What do you want to make stones fly for, anyhow? You get into enough trouble just throwing them.”
Porgie’s brow furrowed. “There’s a difference between making a thing do something, like when I lift it with my hand or mind, and putting a spell on it so it does the work by itself, like a broomstick.”
There was a long silence in the study as each thought his own thoughts.
Finally Mr. Wickens said, “I don’t want to bring up the unpleasant past, Porgie, but it would be well to remember what happened to your father. His doubts came later than yours—for a while he was my most promising student—but they were just as strong.”
He opened a desk drawer, fumbled in it for a moment, and brought out a sheaf of papers yellow with age. “This is the paper that damned him—An Enquiry into Non-Magical Methods of Levitation. He wrote it to qualify for his Junior Adeptship.” He threw the paper down in front of Porgie as if the touch of it defiled his fingers.
Porgie started to pick it up.
Mr. Wickens roared, “Don’t touch it! It contains blasphemy!”
Porgie snatched back his hand. He looked at the top paper and saw a neat sketch of something that looked like a bird—except that it had two sets of wings, one in front and one in back.
Mr. Wickens put the papers back in the desk drawer. His disapproving eyes caught and held Porgie’s as he said, “If you want to go the way of your father, none of us can stop you.” His voice rose sternly. “But there is one who can… Remember the Black Man, Porgie, for his walk is terrible! There are fires in his eyes and no spell may defend you against him. When he came for your father, there was midnight at noon and a high screaming. When the sunlight came back, they were gone—and it is not good to think where.”
Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time Page 28