Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (23 page)

 
          
He
could hear something.
Something slow and regular, like deep
breathing.
He faced around toward Gonda.

 
          
“I
don't think we'd better lift that upper rock just now," he said. ‘‘Ensley
spoke this much truth. Something's asleep inside."

 
          
“Horrible,"
moaned Gonda.
“Horrible, horrible."

 
          
She
still cowered where she sat. Thunstone made note of other things. Chief among
these, more candles stuck here and there, in cracks or niches of the rock.

 
          
“We’ll
be glad we have these," he said, gathering them up.

 
          
“Once
Ensley brought me almost here," said Gonda. “He wanted to do a sort of
worship by those lights. Four, five, he lighted them. The way he acted
frightened me. 1 ran back upstairs, and later he came up and laughed and said I
didn't understand."

 
          
“I'm
beginning to understand," said Thunstone. “I'm convinced. I wouldn't be if
I hadn't seen back across his ten thousand years."

 
          
He
went again to the barred doorway. Carefully he studied it, in the beam of his
pocket flashlight. It was strongly hinged into the rock, with bolts sunk deeply
into the stone of the wall. The lock, as he had seen, as Ensley had said, was
of iron too sturdy for him to budge. He turned away from the examination of the
door to face Gonda.

 
          
“We’ll
have to see what happens," he said. “May I smoke my pipe?"

 
          
“Please,"
she said. “Please do. I'll have a cigarette; I brought some."

 
          
He
filled the pipe and held the end of the burnt match to the candle flame to
light her cigarette, then the pipe. Her face was a taut, pallid mask in the
glow of the match. She sat down on a fragment of rock close to the wall.
Thunstone leaned near the niche where the boulder and its lid lay. Both of them
smoked in silence. Then:

 
          
“Tell
each other the stories of our lives, he said," remembered Gonda. “I'm not
afraid to tell mine."

 
          
“And
I'm not afraid to listen, and tell mine in turn," said Thunstone.

 
          
“It
always begins, a life story, by telling where the teller was bom, and when. My
birthplace was a small town on the coast of
Norway
, Fredrikshal, but then we moved to
Oslo
, where my mother brought me up to win contests.”

 
          
Her
mother, it seemed, early recognized that Gonda had several talents. Gonda was
given piano lessons, and competed for prizes. Gonda was taught to paint, and
entered her canvases in various exhibitions. And Gonda had power to read the
pasts and futures of visitors and neighbors, and became a spiritistic medium
and earned money at that, money which her mother was glad to appropriate.

 
          
She
did not mention a father, though she must have had one. Thunstone wondered, but
did not ask, if she might be illegitimate. She went on to say that she grew to
womanhood and refused to let her mother keep the money that she, Gonda, earned.
She traveled to
Paris
, to
Vienna
, to exhibit her mediumistic gifts. She
attracted some attention, at theaters and at homes of rich enthusiasts. Men
admired her. She hinted that she had had lovers, though she did not name them,
did not go into detail. At last, a year or so ago, she had met Gram Ensley.

 
          
"And
he was charming,” she said. "You have seen that he can be plausible, persuasive.
He told me of a field of psychical research to study here. He offered me money
to come. No, he never made love to me. But almost at once, he found that I
could see back into the long- ago times. He found that we could go there
together/*

 
          
"Then
you*ve both traveled back ten thousand years.”

 
          
"We
have. I can do it by turning out all lights. If we blew out that candle—it*s
almost out now—“

 
          
Thunstone
went to the candle. It was burned almost to its end; her story had taken more
time than he thought. He rummaged, found another stump and lighted its wick
from the first, and stuck it to the rock. Returning to Gonda, he studied her
pale face, her pale hair. "Tell the rest
,*
* he
urged her.

 
          
"Not
much to tell. He brought me down to look at those paintings you saw. He was
happy when I tried some studies from them. And he has liked my playing on his
piano. He promised to introduce me to someone of great fascination
.*
* Her slant eyes studied him. "Did he mean
you,
did he foresee you would come to Claines?”

 
          
“Or
did he mean Gram, lying there, due to waken?” suggested Thunstone.

 
          
She
shuddered. Even in the dim blur of light, she looked fine- figured in her black
dress. The coal of a fresh cigarette glowed to reflect from her eyes.

 
          
“Your
turn now,” she said.
“Your story.
Turnabout is fair
play.”

 
          
Thunstone
sat down on the rough floor, his back against a rise of the rock. He felt a
chill in the air, as though from some deep chasm somewhere. Might that chasm be
found, might it spell freedom? He looked at Gonda in the flicker of the
candle’s beam, and told what he felt like telling of his life story.

 
          
It
was a story that started in fairly simple terms. His had been a modest country
upbringing, an early growth to size and strength that found him working between
school terms at a lumberyard, a slaughterhouse, a sawmill; a chance to go to
college because his tuition would be paid, his expenses most modestly met, if
he would play football; graduate work after that, then his fortunate meeting
with Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant, their friendship and partnership in strange
activities; his adventures against creatures that called themselves the
Shonokins, that claimed to have owned America before the first Indian comers,
whose claims at times seemed valid, whose efforts took a considerable lot of
defeating. He told Gonda that he liked small comforts in life, good food and
drink, pleasant, sensible talk with pleasant, sensible people, and that he
hoped eventually for peace and quiet.

 
          
As
he finished, the second candle guttered almost into darkness. Quickly Thunstone
searched here and there, found yet another big stump, and lighted it. He looked
at his watch in its radiance.

 
          
“
Seven o’clock
, or nearly,” he said. “Over yonder I see
one more piece of candle. Maybe we’ll have candlelight enough to see until
midnight
.”

 
          
“Why
are there candles here?” asked Gonda.

 
          
“You’ve
answered that. Ensley conducted religious rites, here around this tomb, or
couch, call it what you like.”

 
          
He
went close to the great mass of rock. He leaned his ear against it and heard a
blurred rush of sound, a pause, another rush. It was as though something inside
breathed rhythmically.

 
          
“What
do you hear?” Gonda whispered.

 
          
“Nothing
much,” he lied, coming away from the boulder.

 
          
She
clenched her fists. “Oh,” she said taudy, “I could scream, scream at the top of
my lungs.”

 
          
“I
hope you don’t,” said Thunstone. “You might wake up what- ever’s nesting
yonder, wake it up before
midnight
.”

 
          
She
relaxed a trifle, but only a trifle. She rose to her feet.

 
          
“One
thing I did not hear in your life story,” she said. “Mention of women.”

 
          
“I’ve
known various women,” he told her, “but I didn’t feel like dragging them into
my story.”

 
          
She
looked at him, slant-eyed, pallid-faced. Her mouth was held so tighdy he could
barely see her lips.

 
          
“Did
you hear Gram Ensley when he left us here?” she said. “He spoke of death, he
spoke of love. He himself never made love to me— but I’ve said that, haven’t I?
I wonder, did he mean that you and I should make love?”

 
          
She
came closer at that. She breathed deeply. She fixed her eyes on him.

 
          
“If
he meant that,” said Thunstone, “I’d certainly never make love at Ensley’s
command.”

 
          
“Do
you know what love is?” she half-cried at him. “Have you ever been in love?”

 
          
“I'm
in love at this moment,” said Thunstone. “I’ve gone away from her in
America
because I don’t want to involve her in the
things I do—things like what I’m doing here. If I can be glad of anything here
and now, I’m glad she’s not in this place with us, waiting for whatever will
happen.”

 
          
Gonda
looked out through the bars. “Somebody’s coming,” she said.

 
          
A
light bobbed in the tunnel-like hall of rock. Thunstone moved close to the
bars. A figure came toward him. It was Hob Sayle, with his electric lantern
slung on an elbow. In both hands he bore a heaped tray.

 
          
“Mr.
Ensley told me to fetch you supper,” he said. “I'm coming close, to give things
in, but it’s no use
your
trying to lay hold on me.
Even if I wanted to unlock for you, I haven't the key.”

 
          
He
slid a bottle between the bars to Thunstone. “That's hock,” he said. “I’ve
taken the cork out, so that it can breathe.”

 
          
“Hold
this,” said Thunstone to Gonda, putting the bottle in her hands.

 
          
“And
here, beef sandwiches,” said Sayle, handing in napkin- wrapped rectangles. “Cut
from the joint we had at dinner.”

 
          
“Do
me a favor,” said Thunstone, and passed a sandwich back. “Eat this.”

 
          
Hob
Sayle squinted in the lantern light, and smiled wispily. “Oh, to be sure,” he
said. “I see what you mean—drugs or poison. It will be a pleasure, sir.”

 
          
He
unwrapped
the sandwich and took a big bite.

 
          
“Tell
me,” said Thunstone, “how do you hope to get away with this? Keeping us
prisoner here?”

 
          
“I
do what Mr. Ensley bids me,” said Sayle, eating. “I've done that since I was
just a lad here. I’m a good soldier.”

 
          
“You
believe in him, and in Gram?” asked Thunstone.

 
          
“I
do, sir.”

 
          
He
finished the sandwich.

 
          
“And
now,” said Thunstone, taking the bottle back from Gonda, “drink some of this.”

 
          
“A
pleasure, sir,” said Sayle again. He turned up the bottle and Thunstone heard
it gurgle. “First-rate,” said Sayle, giving the bottle back.

 
          
“Thanks,
and I had to try you,” said Thunstone. “Now we'll eat and drink without
suspicion.”

 
          
“You’ve
five hours to
midnight
, or
nearly.”