The Golden Age of Weird Fiction Megapack, Volume 5

by David H. Keller

  The Lady Angelica leaned over his shoulder. “And have you made this wine?” she asked.

  “Yes, and now I am working on its opposite, for why place thirty bodies into one unless you know the art of once again separating this one body into the original thirty. But that is hard. For any fool can pour the wine from thirty bottles into a single jar, but who is wise enough to separate them and restore them to their original bottles?”

  “Have you tried this wine of synthetic magic?” asked the OverLord.

  “Partly. I took a crow and a canary-bird and had them drink of it, and now, in yonder wicker cage, a yellow crow sits and nightly fills my cave with song as though it came from the lutes and zitherns of faerie-land.”

  “Now, that is my thought,” cried the Lady Angelica. “We will take the best and bravest fighters of our land, and the sweetest singer of songs, and the best juggler of golden balls, thirty of them, and I, myself, will drink of this wine of synthesis. Thus the thirty will pass into my body, and I will go and visit the Giant. In his hall, I will drink of the other wine, and there will be thirty to fight against the one. They will overcome him and slay him. Then I will drink again of the vital wine, and in my body I will carry the thirty conquerors back to Walling. Once there, I will again drink, and the thirty men will leave my body, being liberated by the wonder-wine. Some may be dead and others wounded, but I will be safe and our enemy killed. Have you enough of it—of both kinds?

  The old man looked puzzled.

  “I have a flagon of the wine of synthesis. Of the other, to change the synthesized back into their original bodies, only enough for one experiment, and mayhap a few drops more.”

  “Try those drops on that yellow bird,” commanded Cecil.

  The old man poured from a bottle of pure gold, graven with a worm that eternally renewed his youth by swallowing his tail, a few drops of a colorless liquid, and offered it to the yellow bird in the wicker cage. This the bird drank greedily, and of a sudden there were two birds, a black crow and a yellow canary, and ere the canary could pipe a song the crow pounced on it and killed it.

  “It works,” croaked the old man. “It works.”

  “Can you make more of the second elixir?” asked Lord Gustro.

  “What I do once I can do twice,” proudly said the ancient.

  “Then start and make more, and while you are doing it, we will take the golden bottle and the flagon and see what can be done to save the simple folk of our dark forests, though this is an adventure that I think little of, for ’tis fraught with danger for a woman I love.” Thus spake the OverLord.

  And with the elixirs in a safe place, they rode away from the cave of the old man. But Lord Gustro took the OverLord aside and said:

  “I ask a favor. Allow me to be one of these thirty men.”

  Cecil shook his head. “No. And once again and forever, NO! In the doing of this, I stand to lose the apple of my eye, and if she comes not back to me, I shall die of grief, and then you, and you alone, will be left to care for my simple folk. If a man has but two arrows and shoots one into the air, then he were wise to keep the other in his quiver against the day of need.”

  The Lady Angelica laughed as she suspected the reason of their whispering.

  “I will come back,” she said laughingly, “for the old man was very wise. Did you not see how the yellow bird divided into two, and the crow killed the canary?”

  But the Homunculus, held in Lord Cecil’s arms, started to cry.

  “What wouldst thou?” asked the kindly Over-Lord.

  “I would be back in my bottle again,” sobbed the little one. And he sobbed till he went to sleep, soothed by the rocking canter of the war horse.

  Two evenings later, a concourse of brave men met in the banquet hall. There were great, silent, men, skilled in the use of mace, byrnies, and baldricks, who could slay with sword, spear, and double-bitted battle-ax. The Juggler was there, and a Singer of Songs, and a Reader of Books, very young but very wise. And a man was there with sparkling eyes who could by his glance put men to death-sleep and waken them with a snap of the thumb and finger. And to these were added the OverLord and Lord Gustro and the trembling Homunculus, and on her throne sat the Lady Angelica, very beautiful and very happy because of the great adventure she had a part to play in. In her hand was a golden goblet, and in the hands of the thirty men, crystal glasses, and the thirty and one drinking vessels were filled with the wine of synthesis, for half of the flagon was poured out. But the flagon, half-filled, and the golden drug viand, the Lady Angelica hid beneath her shimmering robe. Outside, a lady’s horse, decked with diamond-studded harness, neighed uneasy in the moonlight.

  Lord Cecil explained the adventure, and all the thirty men sat very still and solemn, for never had they heard the like before, for they none feared a simple death, but this dissolution was a thing that made even the bravest wonder what the end would be. Yet, when the time came and the command was given, they one and all drained their vessels, and even as the Lady drank her wine, they drank to the last drop.

  Then there was silence broken only by the shrill cry of a hoot owl, complaining to the moon concerning the doings of the night folk in the Dark Forest. The little Homunculus hid his face in the shoulder of the OverLord, but Cecil and Lord Gustro looked straight ahead of them over the banquet table to see what was to be seen.

  The thirty men seemed to shiver and then grow smaller in a mist that covered them, and finally only empty places were left at the banquet table, and empty glasses. Only the two men and the Lady Angelica and the shivering Homunculus were left. The Lady laughed.

  “It worked,” she cried. “I look the same, but I feel different, for in me are the potential bodies of the thirty brave men who will overcome the Giant and bring peace to the land. And now I will give you the kiss of hail and farewell, and will venture forth on my waiting horse.” Kissing her father on the mouth and her lover on the cheek and the little one on the top of his curly-haired head, she ran bravely out of the room. Through the stillness they could hear her horse’s hooves, silver-shod, pounding on the stones of the courtyard.

  “I am afraid,” shivered the little one. “I have all wisdom, but I am afraid as to this adventure and its ending.”

  Lord Cecil comforted him. “You are afraid because you are so very wise. Lord Gustro and I would like to fear, but we are too foolish to do so. Can I do anything to comfort you, little friend of mine?”

  “I wish I were back in my bottle,” sobbed the Homunculus, “but that cannot be because the bottle was broken when I was taken from it, for the mouth of it was very narrow, and a bottle once broken cannot be made whole again.”

  All that night, Lord Cecil rocked him to sleep, singing to him lullabies, while Lord Gustro sat wakeful before the fire biting his fingernails, and wondering what the ending would be.

  Late that night, the Lady Angelica arrived at the gate of the Giant’s Castle, and blew her wreathed horn. The Giant dropped the iron-studded gate, and curiously peered at the lady on the horse.

  “I am the Lady Angelica,” said the Lady, “and I have come to be your bride if only you will give free passage to our caravans so we can commerce with the great world outside. When my father dies, you will be OverLord of Walling, and perchance I will come to love you for you are a fine figure of a man, and I have heard much of you.”

  The Giant towered over the head of her horse. He placed his hand around her waist and plucked her from the horse and carried her to his banquet hall and sat her down at one end of the table. Laughing in a somewhat silly manner, he walked around the room and lit pine torches and tall candles till at last the whole room was lighted. He poured a large glass of wine for the Lady and a much larger glass for himself. He seated himself at the other end of the table, and laughed again as he cried:

  “It all is as I dreamed. But who would have thought that the noble Lord Cecil and the brave Lord Gustro would have been so craven! Let’s drink to our wedding, and then to the bridal chamber.”r />
  And he drank his drink in one swallow. But the Lady Angelica took from under her gown a golden flask and raising it, she cried:

  “I drink to you and your future, whatever it may be.” And she drained the golden flask and sat very still. A mist filled the room and swirled widdershins in thirty pillars around the long oak table. When it cleared, there were thirty men between the Giant and the Lady.

  The Juggler took his golden balls, and the man with the dazzling eyes looked hard on the Giant, and the Student took from his robe a Book and read the wise sayings of dead Gods backwards, while the Singer of Songs plucked his harp strings and sang of the brave deeds of brave men long dead. But the fighting men rushed forward, and on all sides started the battle. The Giant jumped back, picked a mace from the wall, and fought as never man fought before. He had two things in mind: to kill, and to reach the smiling Lady and strangle her with bare hands for the thing she had done to him. But ever between him and the Lady was a wall of men who, with steel and song and dazzling eyes, formed a living wall that could be bent and crushed but never broken.

  For centuries after, in the halls of Walling, the blind singers of songs told of that fight while the simple folk sat silent and listened to the tale. No doubt as the tale passed from one singer, aged, to the next singer, young, it became ornamented and embroidered and fabricated into something somewhat different from what really happened that night. But even the bare truth-telling at first hand, as told in parts, at different times, by the Lady Angelica, was a great enough tale. For men fought and bled and died in that hall. Finally, the Giant, dying, broke through and almost reached the Lady, but then the Song Man tripped him with his harp, and the Wise Man threw his heavy tome in his face, and the Juggler shattered his three golden balls against the Giant’s forehead, and, at the lastward, the glittering eyes of the Sleep-Maker fastened on the dying eyes of the Giant and sent him on his last sleep.

  The Lady Angelica looked around the shattered hall and at the thirty men who had all done their part, and she said softly:

  “These be brave men, and they have done what was necessary for the good of their country and for the honor of our land. I cannot forsake them or leave them hopeless.”

  She took the rest of the wine of synthesis and drank part, and to every man she gave a drink, even the dead men whose mouths she had to gently open to wipe the blood from the gritted teeth, ere she could pour the wine into their breathless mouths. And she went back to her seat, and sitting there, she waited.

  The mist again filled the hall and covered the dead and dying and those who were not hurt badly but panted from the fury of the battle. When the mist cleared, only the Lady Angelica was left there, for all the thirty had returned to her body through the magic of the synthesizing wine.

  And the Lady said to herself:

  “I feel old and in many ways different, and my strength has gone from me. I am glad there is no mirror to show me my whitened hair and bloodless cheeks, for the men who have come back unto me were dead men, and those not dead were badly hurt. I must get back to my horse before I fall into a faint of death.”

  She tried to walk out, but, stumbling, fell. On hands and knees, she crawled to where her horse waited for her. She pulled herself up into the saddle, and with her girdle she tied herself there, and then told the horse to go home. But she lay across the saddle like a dead woman.

  The horse brought her back. Ladies in waiting took her to bed, and washed her withered limbs, and gave her warm drinks, and covered her wasted body with coverlets of lamb’s wool. The wise physicians mixed healing drinks for her, and finally she recovered sufficiently to tell her father and her lover the story of the battle of the thirty against the Giant, how he was dead and the land safe.

  “Now go to the old man and get the other elixir,” she whispered, “and when it works have the dead buried with honor and the wounded gently and wisely cared for. Then we will come to the end of the adventure, and it will be one that the Singers of Songs will tell of for many winter evenings to the simple folk of Walling.”

  “You stay with her, Lord Gustro,” commanded the OverLord, “and I will take the wise Homunculus in my arms and gallop to the cave and secure the elixir. When I return we will have her drink it, and once again she will be whole and young again. Then I will have you two lovers marry, for I am not as young as I was, and I want to live to see the throne secure, and, the Gods willing, grandchildren running around the castle.”

  Lord Gustro sat down by his Lady’s bed, and he took her wasted hand in his warm one. He placed a kiss on her white lips with his red warm ones, and he whispered: “No matter what happens and no matter what the end of the adventure, I will always love you, Heart-of-mine.” And the Lady Angelica smiled on him, and went to sleep.

  Through the Dark Forest galloped Cecil, OverLord of Walling, with the little wise man in his arms. He flung himself off his war horse, and ran quickly into the cave.

  “Have you finished the elixir?” he cried.

  The old man looked up, as though in doubt as to what the question was. He was breathing heavily now, and little drops of sweat rolled down his leathered face.

  “Oh! Yes! I remember now. The elixir that would save the Lady, and take from her the bodies of the men we placed in her by virtue of our synthetic magic. I remember now! I have been working on it. In a few more minutes, it will be finished.”

  And dropping forward on the oak table, he died. In falling, a withered hand struck a golden flask and overturned it on the floor. Liquid amber ran over the dust of ages. A cockroach came and drank of it, and suddenly died.

  “I am afraid,” moaned the little Homunculus. “I wish I were back in my bottle.”

  But Cecil, OverLord of Walling, did not know how to comfort him.

  THE BRIDLE

  Originally published in Weird Tales, Sept. 1942.

  They needed a doctor at Lownsberry Corners.

  As I needed a practice and could ill afford to purchase one I went to Lownsberry Corners, rented a house, bought a horse and a two wheeled cart. Then I hung out my shingle.

  Had I been other than a penurious young man, I would have driven through the Corners from one end to the other and then settled somewhere else. But—I had to live somewhere.

  Surely a year or two in that half detached section of Pennsylvania would at least do me no harm.

  I had a small income which I felt sure would supply any need until practice was established. The nearest fellow practitioner lived ten miles away at Rounsville; therefore I was certain of some medical work, especially in the winter when the roads were deeply drifted.

  Lownsberry Corners was on top of the world. There two roads crossed at right angles, giving an excuse for a store, a church, a doctor and a name for the spot. One road ran along the crest of the mountain ridge; the other slid down to Corydon on one side and slanted to Rounsville on the other. The top of the ridge was naked of timber, but there were farms on either side of the road. Where the mountain dropped to the Conewango and the Allegheny it was heavily wooded. From an airplane the ridge road would have appeared as an ugly scar, yellow and crooked, between two stretches of green forest.

  It was a scar. A hundred years before hardy pioneers had hit the ridge with their axes. They cleared the land of the beautiful white pine that nature had spent centuries in developing; they sent the logs to the sawmill; down even as far as Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The great pine roots were torn up and used for fences on the cleared fields they raised hay, oats and wheat. For decades the land yielded all and received nothing in return. There was no humus left in the soil. The rains of summer, the melting snows of spring, washed everything good out of it and left merely the clay which refused to nurture anything except the goldenrod and the wild asters.

  The lofty barns, once bursting with the yearly harvest, now slowly rotted in decay. The second and third generations were realizing what starvation meant. Those few with courage and initiative abandoned the farms, moving to other localities, but
many families stayed on. Each year crops grew smaller and poorer in quality; the orchards rotted; even the flocks of sheep looked dismal as they cropped the sparse grass.

  “They tell a story about a rabbit,” Will Jordan, the blacksmith, said to me the first day I took my horses in to be shod. “Old Rabbit was a traveling down the road with his pack on his back. He was traveling fast for he was hungry. ‘Where are you going, Rabbit?’ asked the Preacher. ‘It’s this way,’ Old Rabbit replied, ‘my uncle died and left me a hundred acre farm at Lownsberry Corners. I went up there, hunted all over the place for three days and couldn’t find enough to keep me alive, so I’m giving up the farm and going down to Ackley Hollow to work at the saw mill. I can at least make a living’.”

  As I became better acquainted with my neighbors I found that only two families were comfortably situated. The others, including the parson, stayed because there was no way of getting out. They were cold in the winter, hot in summer, and hungry all the time. The storekeeper was king of finance at the Corners. The pastor received four fifths of his meager stipend from the Home Missionary Society of his denomination. The rest of us seldom saw a dollar.

  I did what I could for the sick and ailing for what I could get in payment. Often it was a chicken or oats and hay for the horse. In the fall sometimes there was potatoes and apples or other vegetables and once it was a foxhound pup. My library was large and since I enjoy reading the times passed not too dully. At least my horse and I had three meals a day and a place to sleep.