The Black Flame

by Stanley G. Weinbaum

  He understood.

  "Oh! I'muhThomas Connor, of course."

  "F'm 'ere?"

  "From St. Louis."

  "Selui? 'S far off."

  Far off? Then where was he? Suddenly a fragment of memory returned. The trialRuththat catastrophic episode of the grim chair. Ruth! The yellowhaired girl he had once adored, who was to have been his wifethe girl who had coldly sworn his life away because he had killed the man she loved.

  Dimly memory came back of how he had found her in that other man's arms on the very eve of their wedding; of his bitter realization that the man he had called friend had stolen Ruth from him. His outraged passions had flamed, the fire had blinded him, and when the ensuing battle had ended, the man had been crumpled on the green sward of the terrace, with a broken neck.

  He had been electrocuted for that. He had been strapped in that chair!

  Thenthen the niche on the hill. But howhow? Had he by some miracle survived the burning current? He must haveand he still had the penalty to pay!

  He tried desperately to rise.

  "Must leave here!" he muttered. "Get awaymust get away." A new thought. "No! I'm legally dead.

  They can't touch me now; no double jeopardy in this country. I'm safe!"

  Voices sounded in the next room, discussing him.

  "F'm Selui, he say," said a man's voice. "Longo, too."

  "Eah," said another. " 'S lucky to livelucky! 'L be rich."

  That meant nothing to him. He raised his hand with a great effort; it glistened in the light with an oil of some sort. It was no longer cracked, and the ghost of a layer of tissue softened the bones. His flesh was growing back.

  His throat felt dry. He drew a breath that ended in a tickling cough.

  "Could I have some water?" he asked the girl.

  "Nnn!" She shook her head. "N' water. S'm licket?"

  "Licket?" Must be liquid, he reflected. He nodded, and drank the mug of thick fluid she held to his lips.

  He grinned his thanks, and she sat beside him. He wondered what sort of colony was this into which he had fallenwith their exotic dress and queer, clipped English.

  His eyes wandered appreciatively over his companion; even if she were some sort of foreigner, she was gloriously beautiful, with her bronze hair gleaming above the emerald costume.

  "C'n talk," she said finally as if in permission.

  He accepted. "What's your name?"

  " 'M Evanie Sair. Evanie the Sorc'ess."

  "Evanie the Sorceress!" he echoed. "Pretty nameEvanie. Why the Sorceress, though? Do you tell fortunes?"

  The question puzzled her.

  "N'onstan," she murmured.

  "I meanwhat do you do?"

  "Sorc'y." At his mystified look, she amplified it. "To give strengthto make well." She touched his fleshless arm.

  "But that's medicinea science. Not sorcery."

  "Eah. Sciencesorc'y. 'S all one. My father, Evan Sair the Wizard, taught me." Her face shadowed.

  " 'S dead now." Then abruptly: "Whe's your money?" she asked.

  He stared. "Whyin St. Louis. In a bank."

  "Oh!" she exlaimed. "Nnn! Selui! N'safe!"

  "Why not?" He started. "Has there been another flood of bankhustings?"

  The girl looked puzzled.

  "N'safe," she reiterated. "Urbs is better. For very long, Urbs is better." She paused. "When'd you sleep?"

  "Why, last night."

  "Nnn. The long sleep."

  The long sleep! It struck him with stunning force that his last memories before that terrible awakening had been of a September worldand this was midsummer! A horror gripped him. How longhow longhad he lain in hisgrave? Weeks? Nomonths, at least.

  He shuddered as the girl repeated gently, "When?"

  "In September," he muttered.

  "What year?"

  Surprise strengthened him. "Year? Nineteen thirtyeight, of course!"

  She rose suddenly. " 'S no Nineteen thirtyeight. 'S only Eight fortysix now!"

  Then she was gone, nor on her return would she permit him to talk. The day vanished; he slept, and another day dawned and passed. Still Evanie Sair refused to allow him to talk again, and the succeeding days found him fuming and puzzled. Little by little, however, her strange clipped English became familiar.

  So he lay thinking of his situation, his remarkable escape, the miracle that had somehow softened the discharge of Missouri's generators. And he strengthened. A day came when Evanie again permitted speech, while he watched her preparing his food.

  "Y'onger, Tom?" she asked gently. " 'L bea soon." He understood; she was saying, "Are you hungry, Tom? I'll be there soon."

  He answered with her own affirmative "Eah," and watched her place the meal in a miraculous cook stove that could be trusted to prepare it without burning.

  "Evanie," he began, "how long have I been here?"

  "Three months," said Evanie. "You were very sick."

  "But how long was I asleep?"

  "You ought to know," retorted Evanie. "I told you this was Eight fortysix."

  He frowned.

  "The year Eight fortysix of what?"

  "Just Eight fortysix," Evanie said matter of factly. "Of the Enlightenment, of course. What year did you sleep?"

  "I told youNineteen thirtyeight," insisted Connor, perplexed. "Nineteen thirtyeight, A.D."

  "Oh," said Evanie, as if humoring a child.

  Then, "A.D.?" she repeated. "Anno Domini, that means. Year of the Master. But the Master is nowhere near nineteen hundred years old."

  Connor was nonplussed. He and Evanie seemed to be talking at crosspurposes. He calmly started again.

  "Listen to me," he said grimly. "Suppose you tell me exactly what you think I amall about it, just as if I were aoh, a Martian. In simple words."

  "I know what you are," said Evanie. "You're a Sleeper. Often they wake with muddled minds."

  "And what," he pursued doggedly, "is a Sleeper?"

  Surprisingly Evanie answered that, in a clear, understandablebut most astonishingway. Almost as astonished herself that Connor should not know the answer to his question.

  "A Sleeper," she said simply, and Connor was now able to understand her peculiar clipped speechthe speech of all these peoplewith comparative ease, "is one of those who undertake electrolepsis. That is, have themselves put to sleep for a long term of years to make money."

  "How? By exhibiting themselves?"

  "No," she said. "I mean that those who want wealth badly enough, but won't spend years working for it, undertake the Sleep. You must remember thatif you have forgotten so much else. They put their money in the banks organized for the Sleepers. You will remember. They guarantee six percent. You see, don't you? At that rate a Sleeper's money increases three hundred times a centurythree hundred units for each one deposited. Six percent doubles their money every twelve years. A thousand becomes a fortune of three hundred thousand, if the Sleeper outlasts a centuryand if he lives."

  "Fairy tales!" Connor said contemptuously, but now he understood her question about the whereabouts of his money, when he had first awakened. "What institution can guarantee six percent with safety? What could they invest in?"

  "They invest in one percent Urban bonds."

  "And run at a loss, I suppose!"

  "No. Their profits are enormousfrom the funds of the nine out of every ten Sleepers who fail to waken!"

  "So I'm a Sleeper!" Connor said sharply. "Now tell me the truth."

  Evanie gazed anxiously down at him.

  "Electrolepsis often muddles one."

  "I'm not muddled!" he yelled. "I want truth, that's all. I want to know the date."

  "It's the middle of July, Eight hundred and fortysix," Evanie said patiently.

  "The devil it is! Perhaps I slept backward then! I want to know what happened to me."

  "Then suppose you tell," Evanie said gently.

  "I will!" he cried frantically. "I'm the Thomas Marshall Connor of the newspapersor don't you read 'em? I'
m the man who was tried for murder, and electrocuted. Tom Connor of St. LouisSt.

  Louis! Understand?"

  Evanie's gentle features went suddenly pale.

  "St. Louis!" she whispered. "St. Louisthe ancient name of Selui! Before the Dark Centuriesimpossible!"

  "Not impossibletrue," Connor said grimly. "Too painfully true."

  "Electrocution!" Evanie whispered awedly. "The Ancients' punishment!" She stared as if fascinated, then cried excitedly: "Could electrolepsis happen by accident? Could it? But no! A milliampere too much and the brain's destroyed; a millivolt too little and asepsis fails. Either way's deathbut it has happened if what you are telling is the truth, Tom Connor! You must have experienced the impossible!"

  "And what is electrolepsis?" Connor asked, desperately calm.

  "Itit's the Sleep!" whispered the tense girl. "Electrical paralysis of the part of the brain before Rolando's Fissure. It's what the Sleepers use, but only for a century, or a very little more. Thisthis is fantastic! You have slept since before the Dark Centuries! Not less than a thousand years!"

  CHAPTER THREE

  FOREST MEETING

  A WEEKthe third since Connor's awakening to sane thought, had passed. He sat on a carved stone bench before Evanie's cottage and reveled in the burning canopy of stars and copper moon. He was living, if what he had been told was trueand he was forced to believe it nowafter untold billions had passed into eternity.

  Evanie must have been right. He was convinced by her gentle insistence, by the queer English on every tongue, by a subtle difference in the very world about him. It wasn't the same worldquite.

  He sighed contentedly, breathing the cool night air. He had learned much of the new age from Evanie, though much was still mysteriously veiled. Evanie had spoken of the city of Urbs and the Master, but only vaguely. One day he asked her why.

  "Because"she hesitated"well, because it's best for you to form your own judgments. Wethe people around hereare not fond of Urbs and the Immortals, and I would not like to influence you, Tom, for in all truth it's the partisans of the Master who have the best of it, not his enemies. Urbs is in power; it will probably remain in power long after our lifetimes, since it has ruled for seven centuries."

  Abruptly she withdrew something from her pocket and passed it to him. He bent over ita golden disc, a coin. He made out the lettering "10 Units," and the figure of a snake circling a globe, its tail in its mouth.

  "The Midgard Serpent," said Evanie. "I don't know why, but that's what it's called."

  Connor reversed the coin. There was revealed the embossed portrait of a man's head, whose features, even in miniature, looked cold, austere, powerful. Connor read:

  "Orbis Terrarum Imperator Dominusque Urbis."

  "Emperor of the World and Master of the City," he translated.

  "Yes. That is the Master." Evanie's voice was serious as she took the coin. "This is the money of Urbs. To understand Urbs and the Master you must of course know something of history since yoursleep."

  "History?" he repeated.

  She nodded. "Since the Dark Centuries. Some day one of our patriarchs will tell you more than I know. For I know little of your mighty ancient world. It seems to us an incredible age, with its vast cities, its fierce nations, its inconceivable teeming populations, its terrific energies and its flaming genius. Great wars, great industries, great artand then great wars again."

  "But you can tell me" Connor began, a little impatiently. Evanie shook her head.

  "Not now," she said quickly. "For now I must hasten to friends who will discuss with me a matter of great moment. Perhpas some day you may learn of that, too."

  And she was gone before Tom Connor could say a word to detain her. He was left alone with his thoughtsclashing, devastating thoughts sometimes, for there was so much to be learned in this strange world into which he had been plunged.

  In so many ways it was a strange, new world, Connor thought, as he watched the girl disappear down the road that slanted from her hilltop home to the village. From where he sat on that bench of hewn stone he could glimpse the village at the foot of the hilla group of buildings, low, of some white stone.

  All of the structures were classical, with pure Doric columns. Ormon was the name of the village, Evanie had said.

  All strange to him. Not only were the people so vastly at variance with those he had known, but the physical world was bewilderingly different.

  Gazing beyond the village, and bringing his attention back to the hills and the forests about him, Tom Connor wondered if they, too, would be different.

  He had to know.

  The springtime landscape beckoned. Connor's strength had returned to such an extent that he arose from his bench in the sun and headed toward the green of the forest stretching away behind Evanie's home. It was an enchanting prospect he viewed. The trees had the glistening new green of young foliage, and emerald green grass waved in the fields that stretched away down the hillsides and carpeted the plains.

  Birds were twittering in the trees as he entered the forestbirds of all varieties, in profusion, with gailycolored plumage. Their numbers and fearlessness would have surprised Connor had he not remembered something Evanie had told him. Urbs, she had said, had wiped out objectionable stinging insects, flies, cornworms and the like, centuries ago, and the birds had helped. As had certain parasites that had been bred for the purpose.

  "They only had to let the birds increase," Evanie had said, "by destroying their chief enemythe Egyptian cat; the housecat. It was acclimatized here and running wild in the woods, so they bred a parasitethe Feliphage which destroyed it. Since then there have been many birds, and fewer insects."

  It was pleasant to stroll through that green forest, to that bird orchestral accompaniment. The spring breeze touched Tom Connor's face lightly, and for the first time in his life he knew what it was to stroll in freedom, untouched by the pestiferous annoyance of mosquitoes, swarming gnats and midges, or other stinging insects that once had made the greenwood sometimes akin to purgatory.

  What a boon to humanity! Honey bees buzzed in the dandelions in the carpeting grass, and drank the sweetness from spring flowers, but no mites or flies buzzed about Connor's uncovered, upflung head as he swung along briskly.

  Connor did not know how far he had penetrated into the depths of the newly green woods when he found himself following the course of a small stream. Its silvery waters sparkled in the sunlight filtering through the trees as it moved along, lazily somnolent.

  Now and then he passed mossy and viny heaps of stones, interesting to him, since he knew, from what he had been told, that they were the sole reminders of ancient structures erected before the Dark Centuries. Those heaps of stones had once formed buildings in another, and longgone agehis own age.

  Idly following the little stream, he came at last to a wide bend where the stream came down from higher ground to spill in a little splashing falls.

  He had just rounded the bend, his gaze on a clear, still pool beyond, when he stopped stockstill, his eyes widening incredulously.

  It was as if he were seeing spread before him a picture, well known in his memory, and now brought to animate life. Connor had thought himself alone in that wood, but he was not. Sharing it with him, there within short yards of where he stood, was the most beautiful creature on whom he had ever looked.

  It was hard to believe she was a living, breathing being and not a figment of his imagination. No sound had warned her of his approach and, sublimely unaware that she was not alone, she held the pose in which Connor had first seen her, like some lovely wood sprite which she might be, in this increasingly astonishing new world.

  She was on her knees beside the darkly mirrored pool, supported by the slender arms and hands that looked alabaster white against the mossy bank on which she pressed. She was smiling down at her own reflection in the waterthe famous Psyche painting which Connor so well remembered, come to life!

  He was afraid to breathe, much less to speak
, for fear of startling her. But when she turned her head and saw him, she showed no signs of being startled. Slowly she smiled and got gracefully to her feet, the clinging white Grecian draperies that swathed her, gently swaying in the breeze to outline a figure too perfect to be flesh and blood. It was accentuated by the silver cord that crossed beneath her breasts, as sparkling as her inkblack hair.

  But as she smiled at Connor, instantly in the depths of her seagreen eyes he saw no fear of him; but mockery.

  "I did not know," she said, in a voice that held the resonance of a silvery bell, "that any Weeds ever cared enough about the beauties of Nature to penetrate so far into the forest."

  "I am not a Weed," Connor promptly disclaimed, as unconsciously he moved a step or two nearer her. He hoped that she would not vanish at the sound of his voice, or at his approach. "I am"

  She stared at him a moment, then laughed. And the laughter, too, was mocking.

  "No need to tell me," she said airily. "I know. You are the Sleeper who was recently revivedwith the great tale of having slept a thousand years. As if you were an Immortal!"

  In her laughter, her voice, was the lofty intimation that she, at least, believed nothing of the sort.

  Connor made no attempt to convince hernot then. He was too enthralled, merely gazing at her.

  "Are you one of the Immortals?" he asked, his own voice awed. "I have heard much of them."

  "There are many things more immortal," she said, half cryptically, half mockingly, "than the human to whom has been given immortality. Such Immortals know nothing of all that was known, or guessed, by the Greeks of long, long ages past."

  Again Connor stared at her. She spoke so confidently. And she looked. . . Could it be possible that the gods and goddesses, the sprites, of that longdead Greek age were not legends, after all, but living entities? Could it be possible that he was gazing at one nowand that she might vanish at a touch, at a word?

  She seemed real enough, though, and there was a certain imperiousness in her manner that was not his idea of what should be the reaction of any lovely sprite straight out of the pages of mythology. None of it seemed realexcept her extravagant, pulsewarming beauty.