Tales of the Wold Newton Universe (23 page)

The officer stood up, though not in a coordinated manner. “Okay. I’ll see you get your issue. It’s only fair to warn you, though, that these fuck-ups play some mighty strange tricks. You should see what they blow out of their cannons.”

Fifteen minutes later, Desmond left, a pile of uniforms and manuals under one arm. Since he didn’t want to return home with them, he checked them in at the university book store. The girl put them on a shelf alongside other belongings, some of them unidentifiable to the noncognoscenti. One of them was a small cage covered with a black cloth.

Desmond walked to Fraternity Row. All of the houses had Arabic names, except the House of Hastur. These were afflicted with the same general decrepitude and lack of care as the university structures. Desmond turned in at a cement walk, from the cracks of which spread dying dandelions and other weeds. On his left leaned a massive wooden pole fifteen feet high. The heads and symbols carved into it had caused the townspeople to refer to it as the totem pole. It wasn’t, of course, since the tribe to which it had belonged were not Northwest Coast or Alaskan Indians. It and a fellow in the university museum were the last survivors of hundreds which had once stood in this area.

Desmond, passing it, put the end of his left thumb under his nose and the tip of his index finger in the center of his forehead, and he muttered the ancient phrase of obeisance,
“Shesh-cotoaahd-ting-ononwa-senk.”
According to various texts he’d read, this was required of every Tamsiqueg who walked by it during this phase of the moon. The phrase was unintelligible even to them, since it came from another tribe or perhaps from an antique stage of the language. But it indicated respect, and lack of its observance was likely to result in misfortune.

He felt a little silly doing it, but it couldn’t hurt.

The unpainted wooden steps creaked as he stepped upon them. The porch was huge; the wires of the screen were rusty and useless in keeping insects out because of the many holes. The front door was open; from it came a blast of rock music, the loud chatter of many people, and the acrid odor of pot.

Desmond almost turned back. He suffered when he was in a crowd, and his consciousness of his age made him feel embarrassingly conspicuous. But the huge figure of Wendell Trepan was in the doorway, and he was seized by an enormous hand.

“Come on in!” Trepan bellowed. “I’ll introduce you to the brothers!”

Desmond was pulled into a large room jammed with youths of both sexes. Trepan bulled through, halting now and then to slap somebody on the back and shout a greeting, and once to pat a well-built young woman on the fanny. Then they were in a corner where Professor Layamon sat surrounded by people who looked older than most of the attendees. Desmond supposed that they were graduate students. He shook the fat swollen hand and said, “Pleased to meet you again,” but he doubted that his words were heard.

Layamon pulled him down so he could be heard, and he said, “Have you made up your mind yet?”

The old man’s breath was not unpleasant, but he had certainly been drinking something which Desmond had never smelled before. The red eyes seemed to hold a light, almost as if tiny candles were burning inside the eyeballs. “About what?” Desmond shouted back. The old man smiled and said, “You know.” He released his grip. Desmond straightened up. Suddenly, though the room was hot enough to make him sweat, he felt chilly. What was Layamon hinting at? It couldn’t be that he really knew. Or could it be?

Trepan introduced him to the men and women around the chair and then took him into the crowd. Other introductions followed, most of those he met seeming to be members of Lam Kha Alif or of the sorority across the street. The only one he could identify for sure as a candidate for pledging was a black, a Gabonese. After they left him, Trepan said, “Bukawai comes from a long line of witch doctors. He’s going to be a real treasure if he accepts our invitation, though the House of Hastur and Kaf Dhal Waw are hot to get him. The department is a little weak on Central African science. It used to have a great teacher, Janice Momaya, but she disappeared ten years ago while on a sabbatical in Sierra Leone. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bukawai was offered an assistant professorship even if he is nominally a freshman. Man, the other night, he taught me part of a ritual you wouldn’t believe. I... well, I won’t go into it now. Some other time. Anyway, he has the greatest respect for Layamon, and since the old fart is head of the department, Bukawai is almost a cinch to join us.”

Suddenly, his lips pulled back, his teeth clenched, his skin paled beneath the dirt, and he bent over and grabbed his huge paunch. Desmond said, “What’s the matter?”

Trepan shook his head, gave a deep sigh, and straightened up.

“Man, that hurt!”

“What?” Desmond said.

“I shouldn’t have called him an old fart. I didn’t think he could hear me, but he isn’t using sound to receive. Hell, there’s nobody in the world has more respect for him than me. But sometimes my mouth runs off... well, never again.”

“You mean?” Desmond said.

“Yeah. Who’d you think? Never mind. Come with me where we can hear ourselves think.”

He pulled Desmond through a smaller room, one with many shelves of books, novels, school texts, and here and there some old leather-bound volumes.

“We got a hell of a good library here, the best any house can boast of. It’s one of our stellar attractions. But it’s the open one.”

They entered a narrow door, passed into a short hall, and stopped while Trepan took a key from his pocket and unlocked another door. Beyond it was a narrow corkscrew staircase, the steps of which were dusty. A window high above gave a weak light through dirty panes. Trepan turned on a wall light, and they went up the stairs. Trepan unlocked another door with a different key. They stepped into a small room whose walls were covered by bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Trepan turned on a light. In a corner was a small table and a folding chair. The table had a lamp and a stone bust of the Marquis de Dembron on it.

Trepan, breathing heavily after the climb, said, “Usually, only seniors and graduates are allowed here. But I’m making an exception in your case. I just wanted to show you one of the advantages of belonging to Lam Kha Alif. None of the other houses have a library like this.”

Trepan was looking narrow-eyed at him. “Eyeball the books. But don’t touch them. They, uh, absorb, if you know what I mean.”

Desmond moved around, looking at the titles. When he was finished, he said, “I’m impressed. I thought some of these were to be found only in the university library. In locked rooms.”

“That’s what the public thinks. Listen, if you pledge us, you’ll have access to these books. Only don’t tell the other undergrads. They’d get jealous.”

Trepan, still narrow-eyed, as if he were considering something that perhaps he shouldn’t, said, “Would you mind turning your back and sticking your fingers in your ears?”

Desmond said, “What?”

Trepan smiled. “Oh, if you sign up with us, you’ll be given the little recipe necessary to work in here. But until then I’d just as soon you don’t see it.”

Desmond, smiling with embarrassment, the cause of which he couldn’t account for, and also feeling excited, turned his back, facing away from Trepan, and jammed his fingertips into his ears. While he stood there in the very quiet room—was it soundproofed with insulation or with something perhaps not material?—he counted the seconds. One thousand and one, one thousand and two...

A little more than a minute had passed when he felt Trepan’s hand on his shoulder. He turned and removed his fingers. The fat youth was holding out to him a tall but very slim volume bound in a skin with many small dark protuberances. Desmond was surprised, since he was sure he had not seen it on the shelves.

“I deactivated this,” Trepan said. “Here. Take it.” He looked at his wristwatch. “It’ll be okay for ten minutes.”

There was no title or byline on the cover. And, now that he looked at it closely and felt it, he did not think the skin was from an animal.

Trepan said, “It’s the hide of old Atechironnon himself.”

Desmond said, “Ah!” and he trembled. But he rallied. “He must have been covered with warts.”

“Yeah. Go ahead. Look at it. It’s a shame you can’t read it, though.”

The first page was slightly yellowed, which wasn’t surprising for paper four hundred years old. There was no printing but large handwritten letters.

“Ye lesser Rituall of Ye Tahmmsiquegg Warlock Atechironunn,”
Desmond read.
“Reprodust from ye Picture-riting on ye Skin lefft unbirnt by ye Godly.

“By his own Hand, Simon Conant. 1641.

“Let him who speaks these Words of Pictures, first lissen.”

Trepan chuckled and said, “Spelling wasn’t his forte, was it?”

“Simon, the half-brother of Roger Conant,” Desmond said. “He was the first white man to visit the Tamsiqueg and not leave with his severed thumb stuck up his ass. He was also with the settlers who raided the Tamsiqueg, but they didn’t know who his sympathies were with. He fled with the badly wounded Atechironnon into the wilderness. Twenty years later, he appeared in Virginia with this book.”

He slowly turned the five pages, fixing each pictograph in his photographic memory. There was one figure he didn’t like to look at.

“Layamon’s the only one who can read it,” Trepan said.

Desmond did not tell him that he was conversant with the grammar and small dictionary of the Tamsiqueg language, written by William Cor Dunnes in 1624 and published in 1654. It contained an appendix translating the pictographs. It had cost him twenty years of searching and a thousand dollars just for a xerox copy. His mother had raised hell about the expenditure, but for once he had stood up to her. Not even the university had a copy.

Trepan looked at his watch. “One minute to go. Hey!”

He grabbed the book from Desmond’s hands and said, harshly, “Turn your back and plug your ears!”

Trepan looked as if he were in a panic. He turned, and a minute later Trepan pulled one of Desmond’s fingers away.

“Sorry to be so sudden, but the hold was beginning to break down. I can’t figure it out. It’s always been good for at least ten minutes.”

Desmond had not felt anything, but that might be because Trepan, having been exposed to the influence, was more sensitive to it.

Trepan, obviously nervous, said, “Let’s get out of here. It’s got to cool off.”

On the way down, he said, “You sure you can’t read it?”

“Where would I have learned how?” Desmond said.

They plunged into a sea of noise and odors in the big room. They did not stay long, since Trepan wanted to show him the rest of the house, except the basement.

“You can see it sometime this week. Just now it’s not advisable to go down there.”

Desmond didn’t ask why.

When they entered a very small room on the second floor, Trepan said, “Ordinarily we don’t let freshmen have a room to themselves. But for you... well, it’s yours if you want it.”

That pleased Desmond. He wouldn’t have to put up with someone whose habits would irk him and whose chatter would anger him.

They descended to the first floor. The big room was not so crowded now. Old Layamon, just getting up from the chair, beckoned to him. Desmond approached him slowly. For some reason, he knew he was not going to like what Layamon would say to him. Or perhaps he wasn’t sure whether he would like it or not.

“Trepan showed you the frat’s more precious books,” the chairman said. It wasn’t a question but a statement. “Especially Conant’s book.”

Trepan said, “How did you...?” He grinned. “You felt it.”

“Of course,” the rusty voice said. “Well, Desmond, don’t you think it’s time to answer that phone?”

Trepan looked puzzled. Desmond felt sick and cold. Layamon was now almost nose to nose with Desmond. The many wrinkles of the doughy skin looked like hieroglyphs.

“You’ve made up your mind, but you aren’t letting yourself know it,” he said. “Listen. That was Conant’s advice, wasn’t it? Listen. From the moment you got onto the plane to Boston, you were committed. You could have backed out in the airport, but you didn’t, even though, I imagine, your mother made a scene there. But you didn’t. So there’s no use putting it off.” He chuckled. “That I am bothering to give you advice is a token of my esteem for you. I think you’ll go far and fast. If you are able to eliminate certain defects of character. It takes strength and intelligence and great self-discipline and a vast dedication to get even a B.A. here, Desmond.

“There are too many who enroll here because they think they’ll be taking snap courses. Getting great power, hobnobbing with things that are really not socially minded, to say the least, seems to them to be as easy as rolling off a log. But they soon find out that the department’s standards are higher than, say, those of MIT in engineering. And a hell of a lot more dangerous.

“And then there’s the moral issue. That’s declared just by enrolling here. But how many have the will to push on? How many decide that they are on the wrong side? They quit, not knowing that it’s too late for any but a tiny fraction of them to return to the other side. They’ve declared themselves, have stood up and been counted forever, as it were.”

He paused to light up a brown panatela. The smoke curled around Desmond, who did not smell what he expected. The odor was not quite like that of a dead bat he had once used in an experiment.

“Every man or woman determines his or her own destiny. But I would make my decision swiftly, if I were you. I’ve got my eye on you, and your advancement here does depend upon my estimate of your character and potentiality.

“Good day, Desmond.”

The old man walked out. Trepan said, “What was that all about?”

Desmond did not answer. He stood for a minute or so while Trepan fidgeted. Then he said goodbye to the fat man and walked out slowly. Instead of going home, he wandered around the campus. Attracted by flashing red lights, he went over to see what was going on. A car with the markings of the campus police and an ambulance from the university hospital were in front of a two-story building. Its lower floor had once been a grocery store according to the letters on the dirty plate-glass window. The paint inside and out was peeling, and plaster had fallen off the walls inside, revealing the laths beneath. On the bare wooden floor were three bodies. One was the youth who had stood just in front of him in the line in the gymnasium. He lay on his back, his mouth open below the scraggly mustache.