The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  Humphrey nodded. “And how are your enquiries now progressing? Have you reached the point where you can turn even a flake of sullen lead into bright gold? In my experience, such a successful issue could plead more forcefully for you than any appeal to mercy or sweet reason, for gold can swiftly change the minds of princes and princesses. Were I you, Master Schimmelhorn, I would repair directly to this Sarpedon, inform him that you’re on the very verge of the result she wishes, then tell him that you yourself are deeply conscience-stricken, and full of sincere shame for your despicable assault upon her royal person”—he looked up with the tiniest of winks—“and that your whole desire is to most humbly beg her august pardon.”

  “Goot, goot! Herr Humphrey, you are a shmart hum-uncle-us. I try it. Nodt tonight, but tomorrow after vork vhen Herr Zorba goes around making die inspections. Somehow ve make it vork.”

  After that, they conversed for an hour or so. Papa Schimmelhorn learned that, aside from the nutrient fluid in the jar, which needed replacement only once every hundred years, Humphrey required no more than a thimbleful of fine brandy and honey every day, which Papa assured him he would provide as soon as possible. He learned, too, that the homunculus was thoroughly tired of his long existence, and that he yearned to revert once more to his proper state as a free spirit, but that the artificially grown body in which he had been trapped held him fast by means magical—so much so that even if it were to die, he would still remain bound to it until it was utterly destroyed. This had given necromancers and thaumaturgists almost unlimited power over him. Only one other way could he be set free, and that was to escape the pull of Earth and reach deep space, which had been his erstwhile habitat.

  Papa Schimmelhorn listened to him with intense interest, murmuring sympathetically. “Ach,” he muttered, “iss too bad die big vomen from Beetlegoose are nodt around, because they haff shpace ships und vould maybe giff you a free ride. But do nodt vorry. Chust leafe it up to Papa Schimmelhorn. I am shtupid in der IQ, but in der subconscience I am a chenius. Somehow I fix.”

  Then until Humphrey, tiring, had to be lifted back into his jar, he told him stories about how he and Mama and Gustav-Adolf had been kidnapped by huge spacefaring female chauvinists from the ninth planet of a star Mama had christened Beetlegoose. He told of their adventures getting there and back, and described a few of the extraordinary inhabitants of other planetary systems the big women had encountered in their travels. Indulging in no false modesty, he of course related how he himself had saved the Beetlegoosers from being an endangered species.

  And Humphrey, as he said good night, cried out in wonderment, and remarked that surely Master Schimmelhorn’s voyagings had been more remarkable by far than even those of Sir John Mandeville.

  VII.

  Love Story

  All next day, Papa Schimmelhorn labored happily and hopefully in the laboratory, rejoicing in the turn of events and in Meister Gansfleisch’s continued absence. His first order of business—while holding his breath very, very carefully—was to prepare a tiny plastic ampule of the love potion, one that could be snapped instantly and inconspicuously between two fingers when the time came. Then, with renewed enthusiasm, he finished constructing the complex base on which his crystal would be mounted, and began preparing the curious assortment of gadgets he had accumulated. By now he knew exactly where the stuff that Meister Gansfleisch was off purchasing would go, from whence it would draw its power, and—in a vague and general way—how the enormous forces he was going to generate would function.

  He worked almost without pausing, chuckling occasionally to himself when his subconscious showed him mental pictures of the phenomena that would occur and of the alchemist’s reaction to them. “Ho-ho-ho!” he chuckled. “Chust vait till Meister Gassi sees der purple ray und hears der moaning—” He amused himself by providing appropriate sound effects. “Und all die gears shcraping, und in der air die electricities. Maybe he thinks der Defil has come for him because iss no more Tvitchgibbet!”

  He knocked off at mid-afternoon, having done everything that could be done prior to the arrival of his new equipment, and went back to his own quarters. There he found that Niki and Emmy, faithfully, had brought him a small brandy bottle and a jar of honey from the village, and had left them for him, together with two ham-and-cheese sandwiches. So he fetched Humphrey out again, and they enjoyed a light lunch together, conversing pleasantly and optimistically, Humphrey assuring him that never since the eighteenth century, when he had stayed for a few months with the celebrated Count de St. Germain, the inventor of the potion, had he enjoyed such pleasant and learned company.

  “Und now, Herr Humphrey,” Papa Schimmelhorn declared, lifting him carefully back into his jar, “I do vot you haff said, und find Herr Zorba, und tell him how I am sorry I vas such a schwein, and maybe I can kiss der foot of die Prinzessin und make apologies und promise I vill nefer be so bad again.” He exhibited the little ampule. “Und maybe vhen she gets here I also haff der gold I make from lead to show her.”

  “And at that point,” Humphrey chirped, “you will break your little glass under her pretty nose, and—and—Oh, how I do wish I could be there to see it! Aye, forsooth, and to see the look on that vile Gansfleisch’s ugly face when he finds out that she’s in love with you!”

  Papa Schimmelhorn promised to report everything to him promptly and in detail, and wandered off to seek out Mavronides, whom he found superintending gardeners in the castle courtyard.

  Mavronides regarded him sadly and disapprovingly, and at first, when Papa Schimmelhorn asked him in all humility if he could speak with him in private, he made no answer. However, when the request was repeated most politely, he nodded curtly, and gestured to his onetime friend to follow him. Under a shaded portico, he halted. “Herr Schimmelhorn,” he said, “you have been my friend, and to you I still am in debt for saving my dear grandson’s life. But you have offended greatly. Believe me, I would sooner fight the Mino—” He broke off in mid-word. “Never mind. It is enough to say that I would sacrifice my life before I would even contemplate a deed like yours.”

  Papa Schimmelhorn hung his head in shame; he shuffled his feet in what was obviously deep embarrassment; he stated fervently that his conscience had given him no peace, that his tormented nights had been haunted by dark dreams of his unworthiness and of divine punishment. He swore passionately that he realized the depths of his iniquity and that there was no real way to make amends—that even all the gold he now knew he would be able to produce could not atone for the offense he had committed. His sole desire was to see the Princess, bend his knee to her, and make his crude but sincerely heartfelt apology.

  Sarpedon Mavronides frowned. “You are certain now that you can make lead into gold?” he asked.

  Papa Schimmelhorn vowed that it was indeed so, that probably on the morrow he would be able to finish the machine, that after that it would simply be a matter of hours before the first gold was produced.

  For a moment, Mavronides was silent, sunk in thought. Then, “Perhaps that may have some influence,” he said. “I know the Princess never will forgive you, but she is gracious—possibly she will condescend to let you make apology. At any rate, when she returns I shall intercede for you.”

  Saying no more, he turned back to his gardeners, and Papa Schimmelhorn returned to his apartment to tell Humphrey all about it.

  * * * *

  It was nearly midnight a day later when Meister Gansfleisch returned home. Followed by Ismail and another servant carrying Papa Schimmelhorn’s packages and boxes, he went directly to his laboratory, ordered them to put everything down outside the door, and waited until they’d gone before he dragged the stuff inside. He glanced hastily around, observed that Papa Schimmelhorn had indeed been working hard, cackled at the very satisfying thought that this was because he now was incapable of other, less arcane pursuits, then hurried as fast as his legs would carry
him up to his turret.

  He unlocked the door. He entered, turning on the light. Everything seemed in order, yet instantly he sensed that everything was not. Something definitely was missing. He frowned nervously. He looked around again, apprehensively—and suddenly it came to him.

  Twitchgibbet, the ever-present, was nowhere in sight.

  He stamped his foot. “Show thyself, rat-fiend!” he commanded.

  There was no answering squeak, no responsive scurrying. There was only silence.

  “Show thyself!” he cried out shrilly. “Appear! By all the Powers of Darkness”—he named several of the more prestigious ones—“I conjure you! Appear at once!”

  And, in the dead stillness that answered him, he looked around and saw that not only Twitchgibbet had disappeared—so had Humphrey the homunculus. And so had Humphrey’s jar.

  The alchemist was frantic. He scuttled round his rooms, examining each window, every door. Everything was exactly as he’d left it. He searched every nook and cranny, every cabinet and closet. He moved books out of their cases and tore his bed apart. For half an hour, he turned everything upside-down before he realized that nothing had been hidden, nothing disturbed. His treasures were intact: the ancient books, the bronze key to one of the seven forbidden doors to the Labyrinth. His mind tossed him vagrant thoughts, wild speculations: Papa Schimmelhorn and his tomcat had somehow broken in, stolen his familiar and his Humphrey, and evaporated. That notion was too ridiculous even to entertain—Twitchgibbet had made mincemeat out of too many cats. Or perhaps the Princess had ordered their removal to render him less powerful? Or could Twitchgibbet himself have defected to the enemy? No, no—for Twitchgibbet was bound to him by contract.

  Then a new idea hit him right between the eyes, an idea that had already occurred to Papa Schimmelhorn.

  He sat down, remembering how he had defied the Powers from whom he had secured his familiar, how he had announced that any thaumaturge as capable as he could do without their help, how contemptuously he had canceled out the deed of sale he had been about to consummate.

  Obviously, that was it. Twitchgibbet had quite simply been repossessed, and Humphrey had been spirited away with him to punish the man who had dared to flout Hell itself. Come to think of it, there was a distinct scent of sulphur and brimstone in the air. It was a frightening and a curiously satisfying thought. Clearly, it meant that Twitchgibbet’s management did not undervalue Meister Gansfleisch. As for the loss of the homunculus, Humphrey had never been of any great assistance to him, having made it clear that he disapproved of almost all the Gansfleisch projects.

  Still shaken, but with his self-esteem restored, he prepared to go to bed, first carefully drawing several potent diagrams and intoning any number of efficacious protective spells against any of Twitchgibbet’s associates who might just possibly come visiting. He drifted off to sleep, making plans for what steps to take if Papa Schimmelhorn did indeed, against all probability, succeed in the quest he had undertaken—how he might claim credit for it, how he might get his unwelcome colleague out of the way completely. Dreaming, he smiled in his sleep. He was sitting on a toadstool, and a perfectly beautiful fairy godmother touched him with her wand, and instantly he turned into the handsomest of princes. And there was the Fräulein-Princess-Priestess opening her arms to him….

  * * * *

  Papa Schimmelhorn had spent the day largely in luxurious idleness. He had gone once to the laboratory to check on things and make a few last-minute adjustments, he had played hide-and-seek with Gustav-Adolf on the battlements, and after lunch he and Humphrey had had an informative and very pleasant chat during which he had been given a great deal of background material—all distinctly nasty—regarding Meister Gansfleisch. He had promised Humphrey on no account to trust the alchemist, to take suitable precautions against spells and poisons, and to be especially careful after he had administered the potion to the Princess. “For you see, good Master Schimmelhorn,” declared Humphrey, “the foul creature is mad for her himself, and when he learns that she’s in love with you—as, mark my words, she will be!—he’ll stop at nothing to destroy you. Aye, and her too, and the very world itself if need be!”

  The idea of Gaspar Gansfleisch harboring such a passion in his bony bosom seemed supremely ludicrous to Papa Schimmelhorn, and he said so, shaking his head in wonderment. He actually began to feel a little sorry for the alchemist—something Humphrey’s quick eye detected instantly. Then, after being warned solemnly not to give in to so noble a sentiment, he played a game of chess with the homunculus, ending in a friendly stalemate. Finally, after supper, he had gone for a long swim with his pussycats, who were nice enough to say that, even in his present sorry state, they much preferred him to the young men of Little Palaeon. He retired early and slept soundly, waking only occasionally to worry over whether the potion would work or not, whether he’d be able to administer it successfully, and—most important—whether it would affect the Fräulein strongly enough to ensure her administration of the antidote. Then he would wonder whether he had indeed put in enough of the final and critical ingredient, fret about it for a moment, and go to sleep again.

  Had he known that during the evening Sarpedon Mavronides had phoned the Fräulein, reported his alleged pangs of conscience, and announced that the long-sought transmutation was about to be achieved, he would have fretted even more, for she had declared unequivocally that, though she would return to witness the triumphant process and would consent to hear his servile apology, under no circumstances would she pardon his transgression. He’ll have the antidote, she told herself, but not until he’s a long, long way from Little Palaeon, and then—she smiled thinly—I’ll turn it over to that wife of his.

  Knowing nothing of all this, Papa Schimmelhorn hastened down to the laboratory right after breakfast, and found that Meister Gansfleisch, looking much the worse for wear, had preceded him. Ho-ho! Meister Gassi! he thought. So during der night you haff come back und found oudt about Tvitchgibbet und der hum-uncle-us! Und maybe sometime ve find oudt if you think der Defil comes for them. Vell, so long you do nodt blame Gustav-Adolf, iss all right.

  He greeted his colleague boisterously, slapped him on the back, and made coarse jokes about the pretty pussycats in Athens. The alchemist was doing his very best to pretend that nothing had gone wrong. He squeezed out one or two sour smiles, tried to control the nervous twisting of his hands, and insisted on going over the Schimmelhorn shopping list and checking it against his purchases.

  Everything, Papa Schimmelhorn informed him, was in order; and at once he set to work, installing batteries, generators, Tesla coils; starting appalling flows of current into the now-roiling fluids around the crystal; meshing gears which, to the untutored eye, appeared to serve no purpose whatsoever; and rapidly bringing into being a device that looked as though it had been dreamed up by Dali and Picasso in cahoots with Enrico Fermi, Eli Whitney, and Thomas Alva Edison. At two o’clock, he announced that the crystal had matured, and with Meister Gansfleisch’s reluctant help, lifted it from its tank, dried it off, and nestled it into its gears and terminals. It was many-faceted, multi-particulate, and resembled a tesseract with delirium tremens. The fact that it continued to vibrate, moan gently, and give off a pulsating blue light did nothing to soothe the jangled Gansfleisch nerves.

  Papa Schimmelhorn soldered-in the old shoe-shop X-ray machine, made any number of additional connections, some of wire and some of plumbing, and announced that they were all set to go. There was a large dial, calibrated from 0 to 100, and this he carefully set at 12.5. He pushed a dramatically red button. The motors screamed; the gears scraped threateningly; vicious lightnings slashed and thundered over the quivering Tesla coils—and suddenly the blue light from the crystal concentrated itself into a three-inch-square beam, turned darkly purple, and—moaning horrendously—focused on a slightly raised ceramic platform squarely beneath the crystal.

>   “Ach!” shouted Papa Schimmelhorn. “How beaudtiful! Maybe it iss a laser? I vish I undershtood!”

  He pushed another button, and turned it off.

  Filled with fear and excitement, the alchemist was squirming back and forth. “Herr Schimmelhorn! Herr Schimmelhorn!” he screeched! “Is it possible? Will it really work? Will this—this thing really turn lead into gold?”

  “Natürlich,” replied Papa Schimmelhorn. “Meister Gassi, how many times I tell you? I am a chenius.”

  “Well, let’s try it then!” Meister Gansfleisch croaked. “Immediately! At once! We must be sure before we show it to the Princess! Think how disappointed she would be—”

  Under the on-off buttons, there was a keyhole from which a small key protruded. Papa Schimmelhorn turned this and withdrew it. “Ve do nodt need to try,” he said. “Already I haff told you it vill vork.” He filed the key away in a shirt pocket. “Und now I haff turned off der ignition so no vun can shtart und perhaps get hurt. Ve vait until comes back die Prinzessin.”

  The machine’s pyrotechnics died down slowly; its noises dwindled; the solid purple ray dissipated, turning pale blue again. Only the crystal still seemed to be alive.

  Meister Gansfleisch, who had fully intended to sneak back into the laboratory as soon as Papa Schimmelhorn was safely out of it, to try it out himself, felt that his mind had treacherously been read. Silently vowing vengeance, he pretended to restrain himself, letting his hands fight each other behind his back, gnashing his teeth very much as Twitchgibbet had done, and covering it all up with a tortured grin. He even answered Papa Schimmelhorn’s bye-bye, and contented himself with glaring daggers at his broad retreating back. Then he hastened off to give Mavronides a horrifying description of the fiendish device that had been brought into being, stated that in his opinion—though he fervently hoped it would indeed make gold—as much care should be taken with it as with a nuclear power plant, and shivered verbally at the thought that it might endanger the ecology and pollute the pure air of Little Palaeon.