Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (25 page)

 
          
“Now
then,”
blustered
Porrask. “You truly want to try it
with me, just fists?”

 
          
“Gladly,”
said Gates, and let go of the ax helve. He straightened up and fixed his eyes
on Porrask, as though looking for a place to plant a blow.

 
          
Everybody
watched them, everybody but Thunstone. He stepped close to the Dream Rock. He
planted his feet, tightened his hands on the haft of the mallet, whipped it
high above him, and with all his strength he slammed it down on the flat back
of the ax’s head.

 
          
The
sound of the impact crashed out like a great clap of thunder, and something
like a gale of wind hurled Thunstone back from where he stood. He staggered
half a dozen paces, barely keeping his feet. And he was aware of a swift, brief
surge of light, as though fire had sprung up for a moment in the dusk, there
where the Dream Rock was—

 
          
Where the Dream Rock had been.
It had shivered into
fragments.

 
          
That
same instant, a woman’s voice cried out shrilly.

 
          
“Look
at Mr. Ensley! Oh, help!”

 
          
The
crowd stirred. Everyone pulled away from where Ensley had fallen, where he lay
limp and motionless and somehow smaller than he had been a moment ago, in life.

 
          
“He’s
struck dead!” screamed someone. “And up there—look!”

 
          
On
Sweepside, where the gathering gloom should have cloaked Old Thunder, flames
danced upward. Thunstone stared at them. They had blue in their red.
Once he had seen flames like that, where a gas well had caught
fire.
Old Thunder burned, as the Dream Rock had burned just a moment
ago, before the light there had winked out.

 
          
“Judgment of heaven!”
Gates called loudly.
“Judgment of heaven upon false gods!”

 
          
Thunstone
dropped his mallet. He went to where Ensley lay, with all others drawn back
from him. Kneeling, he drew back an eyelid with his thumb.

 
          
“Yes,”
said Thunstone, rising and wiping his thumb on the skirt of his jacket. “He’s
dead.”

 
          
“Dead!”
screamed a woman, staring. It was Mrs. Sayle. She swung close to Thunstone.
“You killed him!”

 
          
“Yes—”
gobbled Porrask, making a move toward Thunstone.

 
          
“Don’t
anybody touch him!” warned Constance Bailey, at Thun- stone’s side. She held
the silver blade from the cane, threatened with its keen point.

 
          
“Now
then, what’s all this?” demanded the authoritative voice of Dymock, as he
strode into the center of things. “Easy does it, Connie. What’s going on here?”

 
          
A
dozen voices clamored, trying to tell him.

 
          
“Mr.
Ensley fell dead,” Thunstone almost shouted to make Dymock hear. “He was up to
something—”

 
          
“Something
uncanny,” chimed in Gates. “When the Dream Rock shattered, why, down he fell.”

 
          
People
quieted again. Dymock stooped above Ensley’s motionless body. His hands quested
expertly. He straightened again.

 
          
“Shattered,”
he reported. “His bones are shattered, all through. Somebody bring something to
cover him. He must lie there until we get help from Gerrinsford.”

 
          
“I’ll
bring a spread from my study,” volunteered Gates.

 
          
“And
will you telephone police headquarters at Gerrinsford?” asked Dymock. “Tell
them to bring along a doctor to make an examination. I must stay here.”

 
          
“I’ll
stay with you,” said Constance Bailey.

 
          
She
held out Thunstone’s cane, the blade sheathed again, and he took it. He saw
Dymock put his arm around Constance Bailey, as though it belonged there.

 
          
“Where
can I go?” Gonda babbled to Thunstone. “Not back to Chimney Pots, never.”

 
          
“We’ll
both wait here for an inspector or somebody from Gerrinsford,” Thunstone said.
“They’ll have questions to ask us. After that, I’d hope that Mrs. Fothergill
can give you a bed tonight.”

 
          
And
it was
noon
on
Monday, bright, English July. Thunstone sat with Spayte and Vickery in the
Moonraven, eating sliced ham and drinking beer. Thunstone’s friends had checked
in at Mrs. Fother-
gill’s
, where Gonda had gone to bed
the night before and had not come out of her room since.

 
          
“Capital
ham, this,” said Spayte. “Thunstone, all you say is good to hear, since you
seem to have escaped from something highly interesting. Now, as you say, the
police are busy at that place called Chimney Pots. Even CID men, is that so?
What have they found in that cave?”

 
          
“In
the place where Gram was supposed to sleep his ten thousand years, they found
ashes,” said Thunstone.
“Ashes and pieces of bone.
The
doctor they brought says the bone isn’t human bone; he can’t say what it is.
They’ve sent for experts to decide.”

 
          
“And
Gram Ensley?” asked Spayte.

 
          
“He’s
just as Constable Dymock described him,” replied Thunstone.
“Seems
to be smashed, as if he’d been hit by a truck.”
“Then that image in the
chalk up on the hillside,” said Vickery. “It’s gone—burnt out—fire, you said.
What’s left to research?” “The scraps and splinters of the Dream Rock,” said
Thunstone. “Gates, the curate at St. Jude’s, has gathered them carefully
together. Maybe they can be fitted back into shape.”

           
“I wonder if they should be,” said
Vickery. “Here, miss, bring me another mug of what this is. Thunstone, when you
broke that rock up, you seem to have headed off whatever might have happened.”
“Whatever might have happened,” Spayte echoed him. “I wonder if we’ll ever
know. What could that Gonda woman tell us?” “We’ll have to wait until she
talks,” said Thunstone. “This morning, she told Constance Bailey she couldn’t
manage to come down to breakfast, but to bring her up two soft-boiled eggs and
some toast and coffee and stewed fruit. I’ve been to her room at Chimney Pots
and brought back two big suitcases of her things and put them in the hall for
her, whenever she can come downstairs.”

 
          
“And
Chimney Pots is full of police,” said Spayte. “Just what are they up to?”

 
          
“Ensley’s
servants, Mr. and Mrs. Sayle, are being questioned,” said

 
          
Thunstone.
"They're completely unstrung, aren't much
help. They only say that they've always obeyed Ensley's orders, that they were
used to doing that without really understanding, and that they were pretty much
afraid of him."

 
          
"Small
blame to them," said Spayte. "Have you finished your lunch? I have,
and I'm eager to go to that house and see those Stone Age murals Thunstone's
been talking about. Why not go?"

 
          
"Why
not?" said Thunstone.

 
          
They all rose and walked out into
Trail Street
.

 
 
          
Manly Wade Wellman
has been writing
award-winning tales of fantasy, horror, and science fiction since 1931. His
many novels include
The Hanging Stones,
The
Lost and the Lurking, After Dark,
and
The Old Gods Waken.
In addition to his
novels featuring adventurer John Thunstone, he is also the author of the highly
acclaimed series of tales, told in the Southern idiom, of the wandering
balladeer Silver John. Wellman has won the Gandalf Award for Lifetime
Achievement from the World Fantasy Convention. He lives in
Chapel Hill
,
North Carolina
.