Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940 (2 page)

That white light beat upon me with an intensity that
sickened. I tasted pungency, my fibres vibrated to a humming, bruising rhythm.
There was a moment of hot pain, deafening noise, and a glare of blinding
radiance.

Then peace, lassitude.
Something seemed
to materialize as a support under my feet. Again I saw the transparent ghost of
a scene, this time full of human figures. That, too, thickened, and I heard
many voices, chattering excitedly. Then all was color, life,
reality
.
One voice dominated the others, speaking in resonant Italian: "The miracle
has come!"

The
First Half Hour

AT those words, all fell silent and gazed at me in awe. It
seemed unbelievable, but all this was happening to me in the back yard of—yes,
of Tomasulo's tavern. It was a changed back yard, though, dominated by a simpler,
newer building.

I seemed to have trouble with my memory. It lagged, as
though I had been stunned. And the differences helped to confuse me. Here were
no flagstones, no clutter of innkeeper's

jetsam—
only a level stretch of
turf, hedged around with some tall, close bushes of greenery. And my audience was
grouped below rather than before me. I seemed to be standing high on a platform
or pedestal of cut and mortared stone.

The altar of the ox-sacrificing cult! I had made the
journey back through time, from the Twentieth Century that just now hung dim
and veiled in my mind, like something I had known in childhood instead of brief
seconds ago.

"Kneel," intoned the same voice that had hailed
me as a miracle.

At once the group before me dropped humbly down. There
were a dozen or so, of both sexes, and most of them shabbily dressed. The men
wore drab or faded blouses and smocks, with patched hose on their legs, and the
women were untidily tricked out in full skirts, bodices, and coifs or caps. Men
and women alike wore long hair, and several were as blond as
myself
.

I was quite evidently taken for some strange manifestation
of the god or spirit they worshipped. Realizing this, I felt that I had an
advantage. I sprang lightly down from the altar.

"Do not be afraid," I told them, in my best
Italian. "Rise up. Which is the chief among you?"

They came to their feet, in a shy group around me, and the
tallest of them moved forward.

"I am master of this coven," he murmured, respectfully,
but fixing me with shrewd, calculating eyes. "What is your will?"

"First, lend me that red cloak of yours."

He quickly unclasped it from about his throat. I draped it
over my nakedness, and felt more assured before this mixed audience.

"Now," I continued, "hark you all! Did you
worship here because you sought a miraculous gift from heaven?"

"Not from heaven, exactly," said the man who had
given me his cloak. He was the best clad of the entire group, wearing
plum-colored hose and a black velvet surcoat that fell to his knees. His narrow
waist—he was an inch taller than
I,
and as gaunt as a rake—was
clasped by a leather belt with a round silver buckle. His sharp face was
decorated by a pointed beard of foxy red, and above this jutted a fine-cut long
nose. His eyes, so intent upon me, were large and deep, the wisest eyes I had
ever seen, and his broad brow, from which the hair receded as though beginning
to wear away, was high and domed.

There was something about him to suggest
Shakespeare—Shakespeare's face, that is, much more alert and enigmatic than
generally pictured, and set upon the body of Ichabod Crane.

I describe him thus carefully because of the impression he
made upon me then, and because of the importance he has since had in my life
and career.

"Not from heaven," he said again. "Rather
from our Father in the Lowest."

He gestured downward, with a big but graceful hand.
"Why do you ask? Have you not been sent by him?"

This was a definite challenge, and I made haste to
simulate a grasp of the situation. With an effort I remembered the study I had
made of this very incident, the prayer of a sorcerers' cult for rain, on
April 30, 1470
.

"I am sent as your friend," I announced. "This
ox, which you have offered—" I gestured behind me toward the altar,
then
turned to look. The stones were bare, save for
a slight
, dark moisture. I paused, thought quickly, and went
on:

"This ox which you have offered has been transmuted
into me, so that I may

Guaracco be your friend and guest
.*
*

There was more truth in that than my interrogator in the
velvet surcoat thought, I told myself triumphantly. But I did not know him yet.
I also congratulated myself that there had been an entire ox, for my time
reflector seemed to have left little of it after the process of reassembling.

"As to the rain," I finished, "that will
come, doubt it not."
For I had seen, on the horizon
beyond the lowest stretch of hedge, a lifting bank of cloud.

"Thank you, O
messenger !
"
breathed an elderly cultist at my side, and "Thank you, thank you!"
came prayerfully from the others.

The lean spokesman bowed a little, but I could discern the
hint of a growing mockery in those deep, brilliant eyes.

"Your visit is far more than we poor worshipers had
the presumption to hope for," he said silkily. "Will you suffer these
servants of the true belief to depart? And will you come with me to my poor
dwelling yonder?"

I nodded permission, and he spoke briefly in dismissal of
the others.

They retired through a gap in the hedge, respectfully but
without the awe a miracle might be thought to call forth. I was surprised, even
a little piqued. Then the rationalization came to me. This was the Fifteenth
Century, and the people were more naive, more credulous. They had come to this strange
ceremony in expectation of a wonder. And when it came—even when there was more
than they hoped for, as my volunteer host had suggested—it did not prostrate
them with emotional amazement. I was strange, but I was understandable.

When the last had departed, I faced the gaunt man. I have
compared his body to that of Ichabod Crane, but he was surer of his long limbs
than the schoolmaster of Sleepy Hollow. Indeed, he seemed almost elegant, with his
feet planted wide apart and one big hand bracketed upon his bony hip.

"How are you called?" I asked him.

"My name is Guaracco," he said readily.
"The master, I say, of the coven which has just done worship here. But, if
you are truly a messenger from him we delight to serve, why do you not know
these things without my telling?"

A sneer was in his voice, and I felt that I had best establish
my defenses.

"Ser Guaracco," I addressed him bleakly,
"you will do well to show courtesy to me. I did not come here to be
doubted."

"Assuredly you did not," he agreed, with a sort
of triumphant good humor that yet made me uneasy. "And now, once more,
will you come with me into my home?"

He made another of his graceful
gestures,
this time toward the back door of the stone house that I knew for Tomasulo's
inn—at least for what would one day be Tomasulo's inn. I nodded agreement, and
we walked together across the turf to the door.

That
thought of mine—for what would one day be Tomasulo's inn.

... It behooved me to learn a new procession of thought,
one that came two ways to the present. I must remember, not only from the past,
but from that future, four centuries off. I clarified the puzzle by calling to mind
a fragment of conversation in "Through the Looking-Glass." It read like
this, I remembered: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works
backwards."

The White Queen had said that and, later: "Sometimes
I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." I had
never before realized the deep scientific philosophy of that delightful story.
Meanwhile, it might help clear the fog that hung so persistently to some
chambers of my mind.

My new acquaintance tapped softly on the door, which
opened at once.
Upon the threshhold stood a tiny male creature
in a dark gownlike garment.

He was no larger than a child .of nine, and the bright
face upturned to us might have seemed sweet if it had not reminded me of
Guaracco's.

"Is this your son?" I asked my host.

He laughed quietly.
"Yes,
Ambassador of the Powers Below.
In*some degree this is my son."

The little figure stood courteously aside, and let us
step
into a dark, narrow corridor. Guaracco's hand touched my
arm through the folds of the borrowed cloak, and I allowed myself to be guided
down the passageway and into a room beyond.

Here were dark, decent hangings, a thick carpet, chairs, a
settee, and a table on which lay some bulky and ancient-looking books. A single
fat candle in a bronze sconce illuminated the room, for there was no window; only
a barred air-hole at the top. Guaracco invited me to sit down, with a sweep of
his hand toward the settee.

"I will offer you refreshment," he announced,
and clapped his hands.

From
behind the hangings, evidently from a shadowed compartment beyond, darted a
figure as small as the one that had admitted us to the house.

But this one was hunched and misshapen, with a pinched,
aged-looking face set in the loose, high collar of its gown. In its long,
knob-knuckled hands was held a tray, with a silver flagon and two goblets of
blue glass.

This tray was set upon the table,
then
the small figure made a quick exit without looking back. I had been unable to
judge sex or age in the brief moment of the small one's presence.

GUARACCO carefully poured red wine from the flagon.

"You do not ask," he commented smoothly,
"if that was another of my sons."

I made no comment, for I could think of none. Instead of
growing clear, my memory was becoming more scrambled, and it worried me. There was
also a definite taste of menace in the atmosphere. Guaracco lifted one of the
goblets and held it toward me.

"He was as much my son as the other," he said.
"Take this wine, Ambassador. I daresay you will never drink another
draught like it."

I took the goblet, and he lifted the other.

"I give you a toast," he said, in a voice that
suddenly rang with fierce mockery. "Sir, your immediate transportation to
the floor of hell—the very place from which you lyingly claim to be sent!"

It was too much. I rose quickly, and set down the goblet
on the table. My left hand, with which I am quickest and handiest, doubled into
a fist.

"Ser Guaracco," I said harshly, "I have had
enough of your discourtesy. You doubt my being of another world, even though
you saw me appear from the very substance of the ox upon the altar, so—"

"Enough of that falsehood," he interrupted. Quickly
but delicately he set his goblet down beside mine. Again he struck his palms
together, twice. From the entrance to the passage darted the pretty little
keeper of the doorway. From the opening behind the hangings sprang the withered-looking
bringer of wine. Each held a long, thin blade, curved like a scimitar and
plainly as keen as a razor. They closed quickly in upon me, their eyes glittering
cruelly.

Guaracco laughed calmly, the laugh of one who makes the
final move in a winning game.

"Before my familiars cut you into ounces," he
said, "you had best make confession of your motives."

"Confession?"
I echoed,
amazed.

"Exactly.
Oh, miracles have
happened upon that altar before this—but it was I, Guaracco, who taxed my brain
and my machine-shop to prepare them. But you come without my knowledge or
leave. I do not allow rivals for my power, not even where it concerns those few
foolish witch-worshippers. Out with your story, impostor, and at
once !"

The
Service of Guaracco

I CANNOT but be ashamed of the way I broke down. I might
have faced out the surprise; I might have defied the danger. Together, they overwhelmed
me. Then and there, with Guaracco leering at me through his red beard and the
two dwarfs, who no longer seemed like little children, standing with swords
ready to slash me to death, I told the truth, as briefly and simply as possible.

Guaracco heard me out, interrupting only to ask
questions—most intelligent questions. When I had made an end, he nodded slowly
and sagely.

"I know that you will refuse to believe—" I
started to sum up, but he interrupted.

"But I do believe," he assured me, in a tone
surprisingly gentle. "I believe, lad, and in part I understand. My
understanding will be made perfect as we discuss things more fully."

He snapped his big fingers at the dwarfs. They lowered
their swords, and with a jerk of his head he dismissed them through their
respective doors. Immediately there was less menace in the atmosphere. I felt
relieved, and thirsty. But when I put out my hand for the goblet, Guaracco moved
more quickly than I, and spilled the wine out upon the carpet.

"That draught was poisoned," he informed me.
"I meant to destroy you, as a spy or rival. But fill again, and we shall
drink to our better understanding."

I poured wine, and we touched goblets and drank. His eyes
above the brim were as knowing as Satan's own, and for the first time I was
sure of their color—deep violet-blue, almost as dark as ripe grapes.

"This is better," I said, and smiled, but
Guaracco did not smile back.

"Do not think," he returned, in a level tone of
warning, "that I cannot kill you later, if such a course recommends itself
to me. Those little entitites you saw, frail though they appear, are
half-parcels of fate. They can handle their blades like
bravos,
they can scale the tallest towers or wriggle between the closest bars to deal
death at my will. The skulls of their victims, destroyed in my service, would
pave all the streets of
Florence
, yonder.
Nor"—and his voice grew still colder—"are they my only weapons."

He stepped suddenly close, so that his proud, lean nose
was within an inch of mine.

"In fact, your life could have been taken in two
dozen ways between the yard and here, to say nothing of the poison and the
steel I have seen fit to show you. Sit down, lad, and hear my plans for
you."

I sat down, with an unheroic show of acquiescence. He felt
himself my master, for his teeth flashed in a relishful grin.

"Hark you, I seek power," he told me. "Much
power I have already. I wield it through the coven of deluded witches you have
seen and others like them, through my spies and creatures in the guilds and
companies and councils, and through my influence on many individual persons,
base and noble, here and elsewhere. But I want more power still. One day I
shall not fear"—his narrow chest expanded a bit—"to give my orders to
Lorenzo himself."

"Lorenzo
il
Magnifico—the
Magnificent!" I murmured. "He rules in
Florence
,
of course."

"Yes, he rules, prince in all but the name—for the
nonce. His time, I dare predict, will be short." He strode across the
room, hands behind his velvet back, then turned and stood over me. "
Hark
you, man from the future. Your world, what you tell me
of it, is not so strange nor so great as I would have
expected
;
yet you have many sciences and devices to show me.
Machines,
organization, foreknowledges of myriad kinds.
For them I spare your
life. You will be yet another of the chief agents in my service," HEtold
me that with flat assurance, and I did not have the resolution to question his
decision. All I could manage was something about my surprise that a sorcerer
would be so interested in honest science.

"But sorcerers are scientists," he fairly
snapped. "We offer our learning to the simple, and they gape as at a
miracle of demons. For effect's sake, we mouth spells and flurry gestures, but
the miracle is science, sane and practical. If I am a sorcerer, so was Albertus
Magnus. So was Roger Bacon, the English monk who gave us gunpowder. Well, if I
escape the noose or the stake, I may be as great as they. Greater."

As he spoke, I pondered how history was showing him wise
and truthful. Magic always foreran science. From alchemy's hokus-pokus had
risen
the boons of chemistry, physics, and medicine, and the
quibblings of astrologers had made astronomy a great and exact field of
scientific study. Also, could not psychoanalysts look back to the ancient
Chaldean magicians who interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dreams?

But now I was dealing with things in the future from which
I had stepped, things that had happened in that future. Again I attempted, and almost
achieved, the feat of rationalizing the memory of things to come. If I could do
it, I felt, the clouds would leave my mind.

"This traveling in time that you accomplished, it is
of deep interest to me," Guaracco was continuing, pacing back and forth.
"I feel that we may attempt it again, together. I would dearly love to see
that world of which, you speak, four centuries and more ahead of us. But these
things are not more wonderful than others you mention. Tell me something about
weapons of war."

Slowly, and vaguely, I ventured a description of the
magazine rifle, then of the machine gun. My explanations were faulty and
imperfect, yet he was deeply interested, and brought forth tablets and a
red-leaded pencil with which to make sketches.

He drew crudely, and I took the pencil from him to improve
his representations.

"By Mercurius, the god of thieves, you depict things
well!" he praised me. "Your left hand is surer than my right. Perhaps
you studied the arts? Yes? I thought so." He squinted at me knowingly,
tweaking the point of his foxy beard. "I am inspired concerning you."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Tomorrow we go into the city of
Florence
,"
he decreed. "I shall introduce you there as a kinsman of mine, newly from
the country, who seeks to enroll in the ancient and honorable guild of
Florentine painters. I know a fitting teacher—Audreadel Verrocchio. I shall pay
his fee to enter you in his bottega as a student."

"I am to serve you there?"

"Serve me there, or through there in other places.
Verrocchio is well known and well liked. Lorenzo and the other great nobles
patronize him. I have not yet a proper agent among the arts. You will suit
nicely in that position."

Again I agreed, because there was nothing else to do. He
chuckled in triumph, and actually patted my shoulred, saying that we would get
along famously as adopted cousins. Then he led me to another room, in which
were a bed and a cupboard.

"You will rest here tonight," he informed me.
"Here"—he opened the cupboard—"may be some clothing that will
furnish you. We are of a height, you and I, and not too dissimilar in girth."

DESPITE Guaracco's confidence in this last matter, his
hose stretched drum-tight upon my more muscular legs, and his doublet proved too
narrow in shoulder and hip.

"We shall have that altered," he decided and,
going to the door, raised his voice. "Lisa!"

"My lord?" replied a soft, apprehensive voice
from another room.

"Come here at once, child, and bring your sewing
tackle." He turned back to me. "You shall now see my greatest treasure,
Ser—Leo, I think you called yourself? That is the name of the lion, and it
matches well with that tawny mane of yours."

Into the doorway stepped a girl. In her way, she was
nearly as impressive to me as Guaracco had been. Not tall, of a full but fine
figure and as graceful as a dancer, she paused on the threshhold as though
timid at sight of a stranger. Her face was finely oval, with large, soft eyes
of midnight blue and a shy, close-held little mouth that was so darkly red as
to be purple. These spots of color glowed the more vividly because of the
smooth ivory pallor of her skin.

Her hair was thick and sooty black, combed neatly straight
under a coif as snug as a helmet. She wore a chemise of sober brown with a
black bodice over it, and a black woollen skirt
so
full and long as to hide her feet.

In her thin, steady hands she held a flat iron box, the
sewing kit Guaracco had commanded.

Have I described a beautiful woman?

She was that, and nobly modest as well. And so I call her
impressive.

"Lisa, I present to you Ser Leo, a new servant of my
will," said Guaracco to her. "He is to be of value to me, therefore
be courteous to him. Begin by altering this doublet to his measure. Rip the
seams here and here, and sew them again in a fuller manner."

He turned to address me. "Ser Leo, this girl Lisa is
for you a model of obedience and single-hearted helpfulness." He raked her
with his eyes, not contemptuously, but with a dispassionate pride, as though she
were a fine piece of furniture. "I bought her, my friend, of her beggarly parents,
eighteen years gone. She was no more than six months old. I have been father
and mother and teacher to her. She has known no other lord than
myself
, no other motive than mine."

The girl bowed her head, as if to; hide her confusion at
being thus lectured upon, and busied
herself
with scissors
and needle. I pulled Guaracco's red cloak around my naked shoulders. My
self-appointed master smiled a trifle.

"That flaming mantle becomes you well. Take it as a
present from me. But to return to Lisa—I trust her as I trust few. She and the
two imps you have seen are the closest to me of my unorthodox household. She
cooks for me, sews for me, keeps this house for me. I, in turn, shelter and
instruct her. Some day, if it will profit me greatly, I may let her go to a new
master— some great lord who will thank me for a handsome, submissive present. She
will cherish that great lord, and learn his secrets for me. Is that not so,
Lisa?"

She bowed her head the lower, and the ivory of her cheeks
showed pink, like the sky at the first touch of morning.

I shared her embarrassment, but Guarracco chuckled
quietly, and poured himself a half-goblet of wine. This he drank slowly,
without inviting me to join him.

In a surprisingly short time, Lisa had finished broadening
the doublet for me, and it fitted my torso like wax. Guaracco was moved to
another of his suave compliments on the appearance I made.

AS evening was drawing near, the three of us took a meal.
It was served in the hedged yard where Guaracco's dupes had prayed to infernal powers
for rain.
Whether by prayer or by coincidence, the rain did
arrive not long after we had finished the bread, chicken and salad that Lisa
set before us.
As the first drops fell, we went indoors and took wine
and fresh peaches and honey by way of dessert, in a great front room that was
luxuriously furnished with gilded couches, tables and tapestries.

After the supper, Guaracco conducted me to his workshop, a
great flag-floored cellar. Here was a bench, with lamps, retorts and labeled
flasks for experimentation in chemistry, and in this branch of science I was to
find my host—or captor—amazingly learned.

The greater part of the space, however, was filled with
tools and odds and ends of machinery, both of wood and metal.

At Guaracco's command, I busied myself among these. But my
strange memory-fault — I was beginning to think of it as partial amnesia—came
to muddle me again. I could make only the most slovenly demonstrations, and when
I sought to explain, I found myself failing wretchedly.

"You cannot be blamed for these vaguenesses,"
Guaracco said, almost comfortingly. "A drop backward through time, four
hundred years and more, must of necessity shock one's sensibility. The most delicate
tissues are, naturally, in the brain."

"I hope to recover my faculties later," I
apologized. "Just now, I progress in generalities only."

"Even so, you are better grounded in these things
than any man of this present age," he encouraged me. "Your talk of
that astounding power, electricity, amazes me. Perhaps things can be harnessed
with it. Steam, too. I think I can see in my mind's eye how it can be put to
work, like wind in a sail or water flowing over a mill-wheel." His eyes brightened
suddenly. "Wait, Ser Leo, I have an inspiration."

"Inspiration?"
I echoed.
I watched while he opened a small casket on the bench and fetched out a little
purselike bag of dark velvet. From this he tumbled a great rosy pearl the size
of a hazelnut and glowing as with its own light. Upon his palm he caught it, and
thrust it under my nose.

"
Look !
" he commanded,
and I looked.

To be sure, it must be a valuable jewel, to be as full of
rose-and-silver radiance as a sunset sky. It captivated my soul with the sudden
impact of its beauty.

"Look," repeated Guaracco, and I gazed, as
though my eyes were bound in their focus. The pearl grew bigger, brighter.

"Look," he said, yet again, as from a distance
and, though I suspected at last his motive, I could not take my eyes away.

The light faded, consciousness dropped slackly from me
like a garment. I knew a black silence, as of deep sleep, then a return to
blurred awareness. I shook myself and yawned.

A chuckle sounded near by, and I opened my drowsy eyes to
find Guaracco's foxy face close to mine.

"YOU are awake now?" he asked, with a false
gentleness.

"How long did I sleep?" I asked, but he did not
reply.