Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (24 page)

 
          
Sayle
plodded away, taking his light with him.

 
          
Thunstone
and Gonda ate their sandwiches and drank from the bottle by turns. They talked.
Gonda spoke of love, Thunstone spoke of escape.

 
          
“If
we're to escape, why don't you find out how?” Gonda prodded him.

 
          
“I’ve
looked at everything.
The fastenings of the gate, the rocks
of the walls.
I’ve looked everywhere but in that hollow rock back in the
niche/'

 
          
He
moved toward it.

 
          
“Don't
open it up," Gonda quavered.

 
          
“No.
It's supposed to open by itself at
midnight
."

 
          
“When
they turn the Dream Rock over," said Gonda tonelessly. “And Gram, the god
Gram, wakens up here."

 
          
They
took turns at the bottle, a sip at a time. When they had finished it, the
burning candle was burned down to a fraction of an inch. Thunstone found the
last stub. He lighted it with one of his matches, and with the same match
kindled a cigarette for Gonda, then his pipe. He did not comment on the old
nervousness attending three lights from a match. He bent to study his watch.

 
          
“It's
just past
nine o'clock
,"
he reported.

 
          
“Which
gives us less than three hours," she scolded. “Why don't you do something?
What are you staring at?"

 
          
“Somebody's
coming," he replied. “Not Hob Sayle this time. At least, it's not his
light."

 
          
The
glow in the corridor slid here and there. “Hello?" called a voice that
Thunstone knew.

 
          
“Constance
Bailey!" he shouted back.

 
          
She
came at a scuttling run, dressed in her rumpled brown, flourishing a huge
electric flashlight the size of a policeman's truncheon.

 
          
Breathlessly,
Constance Bailey threw herself against the heavy grid of bars.

 
          
"I
had to find you,” she gasped out. "Mrs. Fothergill was worried— proper
prone, she was—you hadn’t come to supper, you must be in some kind of trouble.”

 
          
"I
was,” said Thunstone.

 
          
"And
she carried on so, when it got to be nine, I said I'd go look, and I came here.
Nobody at the door, but when I came in that Hob Sayle man came in my way and
said, 'No, you can’t go down there,’ and I just hit him a good hard knock with
this.” She held up the big flashlight. "I’d brought it because the dark
was coming, and—”

           
"You knocked him cold?” put in
Thunstone. "Good girl, brave girl.”

 
          
"We
can’t get out,” Gonda was babbling. "No key—”

           
"
Constance
,” said Thunstone. "I left my walking
cane in the hall upstairs. I leant it against the suit of armor. Go bring it
down. If Hob Sayle is trying to come to, hit him another lick.”

           
She was away on twinkling, racing
feet. Gonda gave a low moan, as though despairing of any help. Thunstone
waited. Back bustled Constance Bailey with the cane. She pushed it between the
bars.

 
          
"Old
Hob hadn’t even stirred in his sleep,” she reported. "Thanks,” said
Thunstone, and drew the blade from the shank. "Hold your light close so
that I can see the lock.”

           
She did so. He inserted the silver
point, quested inside the lock with it. He felt it grate, felt something yield.
The lock
moaned,
something like Gonda. The door swung
open. At once Thunstone pushed it wide.

           
“How did you do that?” Gonda asked
him.

 
          
“This
blade is holy; it’s freed me from danger before,” he said.
“Now,
out with you.
I'll be along in a moment.”

 
          
Gonda’s
black-clad figure slid out of the enclosed cave like a fleeting shadow.
Thunstone, silver blade in hand, walked back to Gram’s tomb like resting place.

 
          
He
pushed at the lid like slab. It was heavy, so heavy that he had to lean his
blade against the rock and lift with all the strength of both hands. The slab
seemed to grate, to complain as though long centuries had made it adhere to its
place. Thunstone exerted all the power of his arms and shoulder muscles, heaved
it up to stand on its side like an open lid to a trunk.

 
          
Darkness inside, like a pool of ink, and a smell like ancient
decay.
He looked in, but could see nothing. From his breast pocket he
took the small flashlight and directed its beam into the space.

 
          
It
seemed nearly full of hair, that space. The hair stirred, stirred again, it was
dark hair, coarse hair. Whatever the ancient hollow contained, it breathed.
Thunstone bent above it, directed his beam here and there. He saw horns. They
were pale, branched horns, the color of old ivory. They quivered, just a
trifle. They showed where some sort of head must be.

 
          
Thunstone
took up his blade again and poised its point above the shaggy mass. He could
only make a sort of guess as to where to drive it. Down he thrust, powerfully.
He felt the point pierce
a softness
. He put his other
palm to the crooked handle and resolutely pushed down, down.

 
          
A
whining sigh rose, as of escaping air. Thunstone almost choked with the odor
that rose around him. He saw the shaggy bulk of the thing fall, collapse, as
though it had been deflated. He cleared his blade—it came away easily—and he
stepped away. Reaching up with his left hand, he caught the edge of the lid
like slab and dragged at it. The thing fell back into place with a loud clap.

 
          
Quickly
he, too, walked out through the open door. He fished out a handkerchief and
wiped his silver blade and dropped the handkerchief. Then he set the blade back
into its sheathing shank. Out in the corridor waited Constance Bailey and
Gonda.
Both of them trembled in the gleam of the flashlight.

 
          
“Wh-what
was that?” stammered Gonda.

 
          
“That
was Gram,” Thunstone said. “I tried to finish him, but I can't be sure. Maybe
the finish must come outside. Show us to the stairs,
Constance
.”

 
          
She
scurried ahead. Gonda seemed unsteady on her feet and Thunstone took her elbow
to help her. She leaned against him.

 
          
“Safe?”
she whispered. “Are we safe now?”

 
          
“I
doubt if anyone's safe as yet. Here, these are the stairs.”

 
          
Up
they went, close behind Constance Bailey. The door was open at the top, and
they found themselves in the hall. Hob Sayle was there, sitting limply in a
corner. He held both hands to his head. Thunstone stopped and leaned above him.

 
          
“How
do you feel?” he asked.

 
          
“Not
good,” mumbled Sayle. “Not good at all. How did you get out, sir? You must go
back there.”

 
          
“Nothing
of the sort,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“You
must,” insisted Sayle, rocking his body as he sat. “I'll be done for if you
don't.”

 
          
“I’ll
be done for if I do,” Thunstone snapped. “Sorry, but I have to think of myself.
Good night, Sayle.”

 
          
He
went to where Gonda and Constance Bailey stood by the suit of armor. He caught
up the heavy mallet that leaned there.

 
          
“This
might come in handy,” he said. “Here,
Constance
,
would you like my cane to carry? You've seen the silver blade in
it,
you've seen it do wonders.”

 
          
“It's
magic,” said Constance Bailey, taking the cane. “Good magic —white magic.”

 
          
“And
now I'll head for the church and the Dream Rock,” said Thunstone. “You ladies
don't need to come if you don't want to.”

 
          
“I'm
coming,” said Constance Bailey.

 
          
“I
wouldn't dare stay by myself,” whimpered Gonda.

 
          
“All right.”

 
          
Thunstone
dragged open the front door. Outside, the air was dusky with twilight. Here and
there a window glowed, streetlights winked. Constance Bailey went out with
Thunstone, her flashlight in hand.

 
          
“That’s
right, keep your beam on,” said Thunstone. "Neither you nor I want to slip
back out of the twentieth century just now.” The three of them crossed the lawn
and then
Trail Street
and turned toward St. Jude’s. They heard a hubbub of voices; they saw a
dark blotch of people close together.

           
Quickening his pace, Thunstone moved
ahead of the two women and toward the
outskirts
of the
weaving, chattering crowd. He estimated as many as ninety people there, a
larger gathering than had gone to church, indeed a considerable part of the
population of Claines. He almost ran into Ensley, who stood a trifle apart from
the main press.

 
          
"Hello,”
said Thunstone, and Ensley turned and stared.

           
"You got out somehow,” he said,
"but you’re too late now. We’ll turn the rock, and Gram will rise and
rule.”

           
"I wonder,” said Thunstone.
"Go back to your caves under your house and see if he will rise.”

           
"He will rise,” promised
Ensley.

           
Thunstone shoved on toward the
center of things, the heavy mallet in his hands. Roughly dressed men crowded
close around the Dream Rock, but Gates stood strongly astride the prone pillar.
His coat was
off,
he was in clerical collar and vest.
He had turned up the sleeves of his white shirt. He was the biggest man of the
assembly, except for Porrask. Porrask towered among companions. In his hand he
carried an ax. The beams of the rising moon touched the ax’s brown rustiness.

 
          
"I
forbid you to touch it,” Gates was fairly thundering. "I’ll keep you from
touching it!”

           
"Ruddy great chance of that, I
don’t think!” Porrask yelled back at him. "It’ll be done, whether you
forbid or not!”

           
Gates swung his head to glare at
Porrask. "You want to try it? I’ll fight you—you tried to fight a couple
of nights ago; you got beaten.” "Not time yet to turn it,” called Ensley
from back in the crowd. "A couple of hours yet till
midnight
. Then—”

           
His voice was drowned in a ragged
chorus of cheers. Thunstone shoved a man out of his way and came to where Gates
stood.

 
          
"I
told you I'd help you," he said to Gates.

 
          
“Thanks,"
said Gates between his teeth. Then, again to Porrask: “Want to fight, do you,
my man? Fighting's something I was good at in my time. Or would you rather try
it on with Thunstone again, and wind up as you did before?"

 
          
“Face
up to him, Al," called someone in the crowd.

 
          
“Time
ain't yet," said Porrask, clutching the ax. “But I say to all witnesses,
if I'm attacked I’ll use that, and it’ll be self-defense, that’s the
word."

 
          
“Exactly,"
said the voice of Ensley. “You’re entitled to defend yourself, Porrask. But
after tonight, you won’t need me to stand with you."

 
          
Gates
and Porrask faced each other balefully. Porrask’s beard bristled; his eyes were
wide and fierce.

 
          
“Put
that thing down," commanded Gates.

 
          
“Make
me," threw back Porrask, and lifted the ax.

 
          
Gates
sprang over the Dream Rock and at Porrask. Both
his own
hands clutched the helve of the ax. Porrask cursed chokingly as the two of them
whirled and strove at each other. They slammed into a man in the crowd, bounced
off. Then Porrask cursed again as Gates sprang clear of him, the ax in his
hands.

 
          
Yells
went up all around. Gates yelled loudly enough to dominate the others.

 
          
“Now!"
he roared. “I’ve taken your ax away, Porrask!"

 
          
“And
you’ll use it on him?" challenged Ensley, coming close among the others.
“Strike him with an ax, and call yourself a man of God!"

 
          
“I
won’t use it on him!"

 
          
Gates
whirled the ax aloft and brought it down on the Dream Rock, with a sound like
splitting wood. The blade drove deeply into a vein of the image, sank almost to
its eye. That had been a powerful blow. Silence all around for a moment, while
Gates dragged on the ax to free it, and could not.

 
          
Again
people talked, jeered, all through the gathering:

 
          
“Ow,
old Dream Rock's got your ruddy ax now!"

 
          
“Can’t
fetch it away, can you?”

 
          
Again
Gates strove to wrench the ax free. It hung in its lodgment as though rooted
there.