The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  Having given the eunuch enough money to pay for the radiogram, and having cautioned him against sending it from Little Palaeon, he went his way, an obscure worry nagging at his mind. Why, he wondered, had poor Ismail been so concerned that something might prevent him from getting the catnip? And why, for that matter, had Meister Gansfleisch and Mavronides been so upset just because he had mentioned bulls? And what did his little Philli mean when she spoke of sacrifices? But the worry lasted for moments only, succumbing to the euphoria induced by his enjoyment of his princely privileges.

  So, for the next several days, the Prinz and the Prinzessin made love and gold exuberantly. They paid no attention to Meister Gansfleisch whom, looking even more haggard and hag-ridden than before, they occasionally encountered in the corridors, the Fräulein having given him permission to use the laboratory, under the close supervision of the footmen, in the mornings; and Papa Schimmelhorn, riding high, did his best to allay Humphrey’s growing concern, pacified Gustav-Adolf’s restlessness by sneaking in a pretty little calico Mavronides found for him, and gave little or no thought to what the other actors in the drama might be doing.

  * * * *

  The other actors, as a matter of fact, were doing all sorts of things. The news of the Princess’s liaison had of course spread through the castle in minutes, through Little Palaeon in hours. Meister Gansfleisch, however—and this was a measure of his unpopularity—did not learn about it for two solid days, during which he paced up and down inside his turret, drank too many of his own incredible mixed drinks, gnawed his fingernails to the quick, and wondered what on earth he could have done to turn the Princess against him so completely and so suddenly. Then, early on the third day, on his way downstairs to complain to Mavronides about his breakfast, he had overheard two giggling serving maids discussing, not the liaison itself, but the new Prince’s astounding prowess. He had halted in his tracks, astonishment and rage surging in his thin frame. Heart beating like a triphammer, he had cried out, “Wretched women, do you tell the truth?” in an absolutely awful voice.

  The little serving maids, who swore afterward that he had threatened them not just with curses but with living serpents, nodded mutely, screamed, and fled; and the alchemist, now like one possessed, had almost run to find Mavronides and demand of him also whether it was true.

  Sarpedon Mavronides, gazing at him in cold disgust, told him flatly that it was not his business, and advised him that he would be prudent to stick to his rats and stinks and stenches. “Get back to your moldy turret!” he commanded. “And do not dare to meddle in the affairs of your betters. The Princess is right. Herr Schimmelhorn is a man like those who made Crete’s greatness in the ancient days. Begone!”

  Gaspar Gansfleisch whirled and fled. Once more in his turret, it took him only moments to decide what he must do. He needed allies—and he knew exactly where to find them. Now, he told himself, was the time to consummate the sale he previously had canceled. He sat down at his desk; he made the calculations for an auspicious hour. Then he fetched out all the equipment he had prepared before: the black tapers; the inverted cross; the skulls and other relics from executed criminals, from suicides; the special parts of toads; the drowned cats’ eyes; the vile and septic substances reputed to have so strong an influence in the ceremony he was preparing. He brought out his grimoire, an ancient manuscript so vibrant with its evil that he himself kept it under lock and key at night. He drew his pentacle with special care. Boldly and clearly, he wrote the Words of Power, the dreadful Names that surrounded it. Then, disciplining himself, he sat down to wait. His dinner came. The servant knocked and left it just outside the door. He brought it in, dabbled at it. Night fell. He lit one tall black candle, and by its light sat very carefully rehearsing the procedure he would have to follow. It was almost midnight when he felt that at last all was ready. He lit the tapers. Wild-eyed, fully robed now in vestments bearing the correct signs and symbols, he began invoking the Powers of Darkness, calling Names that should have been unutterable, uttering Words of Power of which even he was frightened. His voice ever more strident, ever more commanding, he strode around the pentacle. He persisted for five minutes, ten, twenty, twenty-five….

  And nothing happened.

  No fiends howled. No damned souls shrieked or whined. No terrible Presence appeared within the pentacle. Not so much as a mephitic whiff of smoke indicated that the Powers he sought to contact were responding. Even the black tapers burned warmly, steadily, instead of guttering as they should have done.

  Getting increasingly frightened, angry, and hysterical, he kept it up for another quarter-hour. The only response—and he wasn’t even sure of that—was an occasional steady, intermittent humming, very much like a telephone’s busy signal.

  Obviously, nobody down below wanted to talk to him.

  For a time, he raved aloud, blaming it all on Twitchgibbet, blaming his own rash hastiness in canceling a half-negotiated contract. Then he took thought of other ways to injure Papa Schimmelhorn and take revenge on the woman who, Princess or no Princess, had dared betray the greatest alchemist in Europe. Magic, he knew, would almost certainly prove futile against Philippa Theophrastra Paleologus Bombast von Hohenheim, considering her heritage, her learning, and her redoubtable intelligence. So would such expedients as poison—even if directed against a personage as inconsiderable as Gustav-Adolf—for her power on Little Palaeon was very real, and without massive assistance he wanted to run afoul neither of it nor of the quaint ancient practices it controlled.

  He wrestled with the question until dawn—and came up with two inspirations. The first was simple. On the pretext of buying necessary supplies for a new and very profitable project—he told himself that he could always think one up if anybody questioned him—he would go over to Crete next day and, from a safe telephone, call Herr Doktor Rumpler and tell him of the Fräulein’s cataclysmic love affair and the imminent danger it posed to the Rumpler Bank’s financial interests. Then he would let nature—Swiss banking nature—take its course.

  The second inspiration involved much more complex and subtle measures. Meister Gansfleisch hugged himself when he thought of it, and almost pranced up and down as he planned it. So Satan didn’t want to buy his soul, or else was playing hard to get? Well, there were other powers to go to who would reward him generously without even exacting the same sort of contract. Meticulously, going back over the associations of a lifetime, he began planning all the other calls he would have to make from Crete.

  * * * *

  Gottfried Rumpler, in the meantime, had been having his own troubles. When the Fräulein, so much to his astonishment, had appealed to him for help in arranging the deactivation of Papa Schimmelhorn, when she herself had placed their association on a first-name, man-to-woman rather than banker-to-banker basis, while he knew that he was not yet in Seventh Heaven, he did feel that he had at least been allowed to peer through its portals. From that time on, until Mavronides had called—Mavronides and not the Fräulein—with the glad tidings that Papa Schimmelhorn had succeeded, and the shocking message that he was not to call her for at least three days, he had given his imagination free rein. At night, when he went to bed, he was unable to keep his mind on his petite amie, for his glands kept reminding him of the Hohenheim eyes, the Hohenheim breasts, and all the other wonders of the Hohenheim anatomy. He would fall asleep only to dream, as he had before, that he was chasing her through endless golden labyrinths—with the difference, now, that he was catching her. It reached a point where his Brigitte, sulking and mortally offended, told him flatly that he should see a psychiatrist. But then Mavronides, with a few cold words, had shattered all his hopes.

  While Meister Gansfleisch was suffering and raging in his turret, still ignorant of what had transpired, Herr Rumpler, equally ignorant, was undergoing torments which, while perhaps less dramatic, were no less painful. Clearly, something was very wrong. He tried to tell
himself that possibly she was simply waiting for the original success to be confirmed, that when it was she herself would phone him as warmly as she had before, and summon him to Little Palaeon so that they could share their joy. But he did not believe it. Thoroughly distraught, he even made an error in a simple business transaction, something he had never done before, and he began to worry that perhaps the Fräulein, now that the goldmaker and his device were in her grasp, was planning somehow to seize everything herself. It was almost more than human flesh could bear.

  Then, on the third day, before he had even had a chance to put in his phone call to Little Palaeon, Gaspar Gansfleisch phoned him.

  Miss Ekstrom, who had been getting more and more worried about her employer’s state of mind, took the call. No, she was not sure the Herr Doktor was available. She would enquire. Who should she say was calling?

  She listened for a moment. “It’s somebody named Gaspar something,” she told Dr. Rumpler. “He sounds really weird, and awfully upset about something. He says he’s calling from some place on Crete.” She grimaced, and looked down at the phone which, smothered by her palm, was still making noises at her. “Do you want me to tell him you’ve gone off to Stockholm or somewhere?”

  “No, no!” the banker cried. “I will take the call. Only give me a moment to—to compose myself!”

  Miss Ekstrom picked up her phone again, interrupted Meister Gansfleisch’s assertions that he was the greatest alchemist in Europe, that he was being cruelly and unjustly misused, and told him firmly that though the Herr Doktor was extremely busy, he would be with him shortly.

  Dr. Rumpler, now convinced that something really dreadful had happened on Little Palaeon, forced himself to sit back in his chair and assume his normal magisterial dignity. He signed to Miss Ekstrom to transfer the call.

  “Yes,” he said, “I am Herr Doktor Rumpler. You wished to speak with me?”

  At his end of the line, Meister Gansfleisch uttered a strange sound, half glad shriek, half strangled sob. “Herr Doktor, Herr Doktor!” he cried out. “You have no idea what has happened. I shall tell you—I, who am the greatest alchemist in Europe, in the world! It is your thrice-accursed creature Schimmelhorn, he who has dared to make gold in ways unorthodox!”

  “But if he has indeed made gold,” interrupted the banker, “does it make any difference—?”

  “Difference?” Gansfleisch screamed. “Does it make any difference? I shall tell you what difference it has already made. He has already seduced our Princess, our Priestess, your associate, Fräulein von Hohenheim, the descendant of the Golden Doctor, Paracelsus. He and she have been wallowing in her bed for three days together. Now she is proclaiming him her Prince, her hero! Suppose he has—probably fraudulently—produced a little gold? What do you think will become of your financial interest in it now, Herr Doktor Banker Rumpler?” He uttered an uncanny cackle. “Where will you be when she enthrones him here on Little Palaeon? When she marries him according to her foul pagan rites?”

  Dr. Rumpler clutched the telephone as though it were about to writhe and strike at him. “No, no!” he croaked. “Marry him? That is impossible! It—it would not be legal! Schimmelhorn is already married! I have met his wife! She never would permit it—never!”

  “Illegal?” Gansfleisch’s uncanny laughter answered him. “And she would not permit it? Herr Doktor, such things mean nothing on Little Palaeon, where our Princess rules as absolutely as any Caesar, as any Czar!”

  “But—but how could he have seduced her? Surely, Meister Gansfleisch, you remember that we have rendered him completely impotent? That you yourself compounded the concoction?”

  “Yes,” replied the alchemist bitterly, “yes, I did indeed—but at her request I also compounded the instant antidote, which she took into her charge. Then—then—” His voice broke. “She has gone mad, Herr Doktor—stark, raving mad! That is the only explanation. It must have happened when she first saw the gold the monster made. She is insane! She thinks him an Olympian, a demigod! Especially since she’s given him the antidote. Even now Mavronides is busy preparing all sorts of ceremonies at which he will be formally introduced to all her subjects! What can you do about it, Herr Doktor? Heh, answer me that!”

  Dr. Rumpler could not answer. He was gasping. His eyes were bulging quite appallingly. His mind was flashing him alternate pictures of Papa Schimmelhorn and his Philippa, joyously practicing all the wrestling holds of love, and of the two of them, having somehow diddled the Rumpler Bank out of its just share, happily cornering the world’s entire gold market. It was a toss-up to which hurt the more.

  “What shall I do?” he roared, leaping to his feet. “I shall tell you, Gansfleisch! I, Gottfried Rumpler, am not just a banker! I am a colonel also in our Swiss Army! It will take me a few days to make my plans—three or four perhaps—then I shall take immediate action. I myself will come to Little Palaeon. I shall bring my aide, Herr Grundtli. I shall also bring the greatest of our Swiss psychiatrists, for—as you say—it is obvious that the Fräulein has lost her mind, that she has contracted some grave mental illness. Never fear, Meister Gansfleisch, everything will be—ah—adjusted. Yes, indeed. You can take my word for it!”

  Meister Gansfleisch laughed a hollow laugh, and hung up without so much as a good-bye, leaving Dr. Rumpler once again shaken and deflated. He began to pace up and down his office. Something told him that Gaspar Gansfleisch, mad as he seemed to be, had told him nothing but the truth—and yet he hesitated to accept it. He asked Miss Ekstrom to bring him a generous glass of cognac, and then to leave the room. He sat down at his desk and telephoned the Fräulein’s private number. Niobe answered it, very coolly. Yes, she would see if the Princess cared to speak with him. He waited. He could hear booming masculine laughter in the background, disturbingly. It was a long wait, and when she finally came to the phone, he found himself perspiring freely.

  “Good afternoon, dear Philippa,” he cooed, as much in the tone of their previous call as possible. “You asked me not to phone you for three days, so I have not done so. By this time, I suppose you have confirmed the validity of Herr Schimmelhorn’s great discovery?”

  “Oh, Herr Doktor!” she replied. “So it’s you. No, we found no need to confirm anything, but we have been enjoying ourselves tremendously. Every day we have been making gold, of which I shall send you a few samples shortly, but also, my good financial friend, ah!—also we have been making love!”

  “Making—er, love?” he gulped, as though unforewamed.

  “Yes, mein Herr, it has been idyllic. Day and night! Never since Homeric times, never since the great days of ancient Crete, has there been such stupendous lovemaking!” Her lovely laughter followed this remark; merry male laughter echoed it.

  “But, my Philippa!” he cried out in anguish.

  “I am not your Philippa,” she answered scornfully. “Our association is purely a commercial one, mein Herr. I am his Philippa, just as he is my Prince, just as he will be my consort as I rule over Little Palaeon, and my co-priest in the sacred ancient rites I have inherited, and which we guard. Stick to your bookkeeping, Herr Rumpler, and do not poke your nose into my private affairs, hear me? There will be plenty of gold to keep you happy, I promise you!”

  “B-b-but you yourself are a Swiss banker!”

  “Yes,” she told him. “Yes, I am. But first I am a woman, then a Princess and a Priestess, as you know. Once I believed the Swiss banker in me to be uppermost, but now”—her laughter trilled, and there was the distinct sound of an exuberant kiss—“no more! I have learned better, my fellow banker!”

  The phone went dead, and for an entire minute Doktor Rumpler stood staring at it as though hypnotized. Then, once again, he began to pace his office. Obviously, the alchemist was right. The Fräulein had indeed lost her mind. Keeping (discreetly) a petite amie, or even playing (even more discreetly) with an occasional pretty puss
ycat—that was one thing. But marriage! Marriage was as sacrosanct—or at least almost as sacrosanct—as a numbered account at the Rumpler Bank. Besides, she had fallen in love, not just with a man of low intelligence (however much of a genius he might be subconsciously), not just with an aged relic (regardless of his alleged vinegar), but with a man who, to any unbiased intellect, was in every way inferior to Gottfried Rumpler. She needed the best psychiatric treatment money could buy. But of course—at that point he paused to call Miss Ekstrom for the brandy bottle—the matter of getting her to hold still for that treatment was something else again. Besides, the fact that there was a genuine and efficient gold-making machine involved made several of the more conventional procedures decidedly inadvisable.

  For two hours. Dr. Rumpler’s mind battled the threats and shadows of the situation, dreamed up one reckless scenario after another only to discard it, considered the persons he might call in or hire as allies, and inevitably came up with only one approach that seemed to offer even the slightest hope of being successful. Finally, as the afternoon drew to a close, he gave up the struggle and phoned Mama Schimmelhorn.

  * * * *

  When her telephone rang, Mama Schimmelhorn was just sitting down to a carefully prepared luncheon of consommé, a light seafood salad, puréed spinach, and game hens stuffed with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, and walnuts. She had just seated her two guests, Mrs. Hundhammer and Mrs. Laubenschneider, and was looking forward to catching up with the local gossip, even though it had seemed a bit watered down since her husband’s departure.

  “Verdammte telephone!” she grumbled. “Alvays vhen you sit down, und no madter vhere! Und probably iss only somevun to sell der vacuum cleaner oder der life insurance—imachine, at my aiche!”

  She reached the instrument and lifted it, determined to give it a piece of her mind.