Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  He raised his arms. Doves began to pour from his coat-sleeves. Dozens of them. Hundreds, apparently. Presently the stage was filled with the birds . . .

  Tinney squinted into the wings at Mr. Silver, who nodded reassuringly and snapped his fingers. Instantly a head thrust itself out from Tinney’s bosom. It wasn’t a reassuring sort of head. It was flat, reptilian, and quite horrid. The scales were of a virulent shade of green, and the head, after peering dreamily into Tinney’s eyes for one ghastly moment, swung around and darted its tongue at Luciferno, who could not help quailing.

  The snake commenced to come out of Finney’s shirt. Inch after inch, foot after foot, yard after yard, poured out. The serpent was endless. It was longer than she longest boa. It lapped itself around the horrified Tinney till the man had completely vanished, concealed under a palpitating mound of shining green coils.

  The serpent vanished. There was no trace of Tinney.

  He came scrambling up the runway, however, breathing hard, and faced Luciferno once more. “Now what?” he inquired.

  Luciferno gestured. The porters lugged the metal box to the stage.

  “This!” he cried. “I challenge you to escape from the Enchanted Cabinet. Houdini himself was baffled by it.”

  Tinney gulped. “Me?”

  “Ha!” Luciferno roared. “You dare not try! Then watch!” He swung open the doors of the cabinet, entered, and stood-looking out at the audience. “I call for volunteers to examine this prison. Will someone in the audience please—”

  THERE was no lack of response. Four men and a woman hurried up the runway, scrutinized the box, tapped it, and seemed satisfied.

  “Now lock it,” Luciferno demanded. Good Lord! Did the man intend to incinerate himself, Tinney wondered? He caught the tail end of a significant glance from Luciferno and felt relief. This was the build-up . . .

  The cabinet was closed and locked, and, after a few moments, opened again. Luciferno wasn’t, in it. He came down an aisle, grinning, and leaped lightly onto the stage.

  The audience applauded like mad.

  Luciferno bowed. “Wait,” he said at last. “Let Tinney the Great try and duplicate my feat. Or better yet!” He seemed to expand. “Let him choose some subject to be locked in the Enchanted Cabinet—and magic him out of it!”

  Tinney hesitated, but Luciferno went on swiftly.

  “First let me prove that it can be done—by a great magician. Will someone in the audience volunteer—”

  There were several responses, and Luciferno selected one. Tinney recognized the man. A stooge. At Luciferno’s command, he scrambled into the cabinet.

  The routine was gone through again. And, as before, the subject appeared in the aisle.

  “Do you dare to attempt that?” Luciferno demanded of Tinney.

  “Why—yes. Of course. I—”

  “Then I shall select the subject, so there will be no chance of trickery. I select that man!” Luciferno pointed into the wings, directly at Mr. Silver, who had been lounging against a prop, obviously enjoying himself.

  The god smiled and sauntered out on the stage. He didn’t seem troubled. At Luciferno’s request he entered the cabinet. Only Tinney saw the other magician make a slight adjustment inside the metal box.

  Luciferno slammed the door on the subject. There was silence. The audience waited . . .

  “That did it,” Luciferno whispered softly to Tinney. “I released the mechanism. When I shut the door, Silver went up like a puff of smoke.”

  The audience began to applaud. The two magicians looked over the footlights, and nearly fainted. Sauntering casually up the aisle, beaming happily, was Mr. Silver.

  Luciferno hastily swung open the doors of the cabinet. A slight odor of scorching drifted out. The inner walls were burned, Tinney saw. Then he had no time to make further investigations. Mr. Silver was on the stage.

  “They did it with trapdoors,” said the Brooklynite.

  Silver’s smile was more than a little nasty. He bowed to the audience, turned to the white-faced Luciferno, and said:

  “Tinney the Great’s magic is stronger than locks or bars. Tinney the Great has such tremendous powers that even his assistants are greater sorcerers than all other magicians. With your permission—” He bowed to Tinney, who forced a smile.

  SILVER faced the audience, snapped his fingers, and turned into a marble statue. Then he turned into Gypsy Rose Lee. Then he turned into an eagle. Then—It kept on like that.

  Finally Silver, in his own shape, proposed an experiment. “Let’s have a final contest. Let my master and Luciferno each try to make the other disappear. The one who succeeds is the undoubted master of his art.”

  The audience liked the idea. So Tinney and his opponent faced each other, while Mr. Silver leaned negligently against the back-drop.

  Luciferno began. From somewhere he whipped a sheet and tossed it over Tinney’s head. He chanted a sonorous phrase or two. And removed the sheet.

  Tinney hadn’t vanished.

  “Your turn,” said Luciferno, not very happily.

  Tinney’s hand rose without volition. He felt Silver’s insistent gaze upon him. Without will of his own, Tinney spoke a word in no known tongue. His fingers twitched. Luciferno vanished.

  “Ulp!” Tinney said, and staggered. Silver covered swiftly.

  “This magic is extremely difficult,” he explained to the audience, after the applause had died. “My master is exhausted. And it’s time for the intermission.”

  With a crash of music from the pit the curtain dropped. Silver and Tinney were isolated on the stage.

  “I wish you wouldn’t try tricks like that,” the god remarked. “It doesn’t do any good, you know. Well, I’ll give you another chance. One can’t expect too much of mortals.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Tinney gulped.

  “Perhaps you don’t,” Silver said thoughtfully. “Still . . . it isn’t wise. I’m above personal vengeance, myself. I wouldn’t harm you—it’d be like kicking a kitten for clawing you. But the Fates are tricky old girls, remember. There’s an automatic sort of justice that—well, just keep it in mind.”

  “I—”

  “Forget it. I’ve got to call up some naiads for the next act. See you later.”

  “Wait! Where’s Luciferno?”

  Mr. Silver smiled nastily. “On an island, with an old friend of mine. Ha!” He vanished.

  Tinney pushed past the stage-hands and hurried to his dressing-room, where he drank long and deeply from his bottle. Things were looking bad. Still and all, they might be worse. Silver might have been—unpleasant.

  Above personal vengeance, was he? Well . . . that was a relief, anyhow.

  The thin air swirled before Tinney like a furling curtain and a woman’s angry and melodious voice began, “Listen!” before she had completely materialized out of emptiness. “I don’t like trespassers, do you hear?”

  THE astounded Tinney looked up. She was a particularly luscious creature in a form-fitting garment of thin white linen, and her black eyes, lambent with fury, reminded Tinney vaguely of Theda Bara’s heyday. He blinked at her and took another drink, being by now far beyond astonishment.

  Yet he couldn’t help realizing that this was not merely another of the pretty dryad chorines whom Mr. Silver apparently ordered up by the dozen. She was a definite personality, and a very angry one. Black brows meeting above magnificent black eyes, she went on in a rich voice:

  “I hate trespassers! Somebody’s going to pay for this, and it looks as if you—”

  “I haven’t done anything!” Tinney said hastily. “This is Silver’s show.”

  “Who? Silver? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m talking about that tall, stupid-looking man you teleported to my home. He’s the third this week, and I tell you it’s got to stop. Somebody’s playing jokes, and I won’t stand for it. I like isolation. Peace and quiet. And you have the nerve to magic riff-raff all over my island. I warn you, I won’t have it.�
� Tinney stared at her. Magnificent was the word for her, he thought. Lush magnificence in the rather overpowering fashion of a generation ago, when an angry lady was something to quail before. Dangerous and lovely . . .

  He said, “I didn’t do a thing. It was Silver. He—”

  “Silver? Not Q. Silver?”

  “Uh-huh. Quentin.”

  “Quentin indeed,” said the woman, and hurled the rich black ringlets off her white shoulders in a furious gesture. “Quentin! So he’s back on earth again, is he? I might have known it. This is his idea of a joke. Well, I never liked him and I don’t think it’s funny. He did me a dirty trick once before.”

  The black brows met again and she tapped a sandaled foot.

  “Oh?” A thought began to take form in Tinney’s mind. Perhaps . . .

  “Listen,” he said, “maybe you can help me. I don’t like Silver either. Uh—have a drink.”

  The lady shot him a piercingly suspicious glance. Then the suspicion faded and she permitted herself a slightly mollified smile. “Thanks. Why should I help you?”

  “You said you didn’t like Silver.”

  “I don’t.” She rolled the whiskey around her tongue thoughtfully. “Nice stuff, this. Well, what’s the angle?”

  Tinney quickly recapitulated. The lady, watching him with a burning black gaze, smiled like a tiger when he had finished. He thought again how extremely beautiful she was, and how far he wished he were from her.

  “Why, that’s easy,” she said, holding out her glass. “Give me a little more—thanks. Haven’t you noticed how Silver behaves when it thunders? Frightens him, doesn’t it? He’s probably A.W.O.L.—absent from Olympus without leave. So he hides during storms when Zeus is abroad.”

  “I’m afraid—”

  “Merc—Silver does it every once in a while,” she explained, sipping her drink. “Zeus gets mad as hell till he finds him again. If Zeus knew where your little pal was, he’d snatch him back to Olympus before you could take a deep breath.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s a cinch. Do you remember the spell you used to teleport that man—who?—Luciferno?”

  Tinney shuddered. “I wish I could forget it.”

  “Use it on Silver, fat-head. Just change the first syllable. Make it Olympus-zak’thing instead of Aea-zak’thing. He’d be teleported to Olympus instantly. And once Zeus sees him, Mr. Silver won’t be back to earth in a hurry.” She drained her glass and scowled above it, while her richly red lips curved in no pleasant smile.

  “Interfere with my island, will he?” she muttered, and added cryptically, “Moly, indeed.”

  “Moly?”

  “Oh—nothing. It’s a plant—an herb. Quentin!” She fell silent, brooding . . .

  KINNEY poured her another drink and replenished his own glass. She looked menacing as she stood above him, frowning, and yet singularly exciting too—rather like a typhoon about to strike.

  “Won’t it be dangerous?” he inquired.

  “Oh, no. Silver doesn’t take vengeance on earthlings nowadays. He’s an easygoing god. Anyhow, he has it coming to him. He shouldn’t have meddled with my island, either now or that other time. He deserves punishment and he’s overdue for it. There’s a sort of justice, you know—the Fates see to that.”

  She bent a speculative gaze upon Tinney, who quailed without knowing just why.

  “Justice,” she said again. “They’ve got it working perfectly now, though goodness knows they should, after all this time. But who’d ever have thought that you’d be the means of avenging me on Mer—Silver after all these years! Of course, judging by the story you’ve told me, there’s a little matter of debit against you, too. I wonder—”

  With a swish of suddenly displaced air, Mr. Silver made a neat magical landing between them.

  The woman dashed her emptied glass to fragments on the floor and shot splendid black lightnings at the newcomer under thunderous black brows.

  “Now!” she rolled out the word. “Quick, earthling—the spell!”

  Mr. Silver was momentarily taken by surprise. So was Tinney, but desperation sharpened his mind and quickened his reactions. Almost by instinct his hand was moving in a series of gestures. And he was chanting a polysyllabic word he remembered quite well . . .

  “Olympus-zak’thing—”

  “Wait!” Silver said urgently, beginning to fade. “Tinney! I warn you—”

  Tinney mouthed the last phrase. Mr. Silver vanished.

  There was a clap of thunder from faraway. The woman patted her snake-like curls.

  “That was Zeus. Well, you won’t see Silver any more. It’ll be centuries before Zeus lets him out of sight again. And now—”

  Tinney drained the bottle. His eyes were glistening with triumph. “Here’s to crime!” he proposed.

  “Ah,” said the woman, smiling an alarming smile.

  Tinney was too drunk with exultation and Scotch to see it at the moment. “Here’s to the Fates, too,” he added. “Good old girls—”

  “Shut up,” said the woman ominously. “The Fates just did me a good turn, and I feel I owe them something. A little matter of balancing their books for them, eh, Tinney?”

  He stared at her, a cool premonition stealing over him. “What do you mean?”

  “It couldn’t have been merely accident that I, of all people, got involved in your nasty little schemes . . . I wonder if I’ve lost my old knack,” she mused, paying no attention to Tinney’s questioning face. “Eh?”

  “Thus,” she said. “And thus . . .”

  THE manager, tugging worriedly at his hair, headed for Tinney’s dressing-room. “Good heavens,” he muttered. “Less than a minute to curtain time. Doesn’t the man know enough to answer the call-bell? I wish—”

  His wish died on his lips as he pushed the dressing-room door open a crack. He retreated as it swung wider and a woman emerged—a woman who stood facing him with a smile of extreme satisfaction on her lips. She was exceptionally handsome. But the manager didn’t know her. He blinked.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Meting out justice,” she purred. “And a more appropriate justice I never heard of.”

  “Huh? Who the—who are you?”

  “The name,” she said, “is Circe.”

  The manager stared at her blankly. “Oh. Well.” He raised his voice. “Tinney! Mr. Tinney! It’s curtain time.” No response from beyond the door, which was once more closed. Only a curious hasty clicking . . .

  He’s inside,” said the woman. The manager glanced around, just in time to see the circumambient air engulf her statuesque charms. He scarcely blinked. After what had been going on under this roof tonight, nothing would ever surprise him again.

  “Tinney!” he bawled, thrusting his shoulder against the door, which had apparently stuck. “Curtain time! The orchestra’s vamping! Come out!”

  THE door yielded suddenly, and the manager staggered into the dressing-room, almost losing his balance. For a moment he did not realize that the cubicle’s occupant was obviously not the magician. Automatically he snapped:

  “Curtain going up, Tinney! Didn’t you hear me?”

  This time there was an answer—of sort?

  “Oink!”

  BETTER THAN ONE

  The Last Thing in the World That Bruce Wanted to Be Was a Wrestler—but That Was Before He Got Tangled in His Uncle’s Fourth Dimensional Machine!

  BRUCE TINNEY was smearing marmalade on toast when Uncle Wilbur screamed. It wasn’t an agonized scream. It was, rather, a shout of triumph, a paean of unrestrained delight. There was a faint crackle, and the toaster at Tinney’s elbow ceased to glow red.

  Crockett, the butler, cook, and general handyman, continued to pour coffee, no trace of expression on his large pallid face. Nothing could disturb Crockett, of course. He had worked for Uncle Wilbur much too long for that.

  Bruce Tinney, a well-built young man with a pleasantly ugly face and mild blue eyes, sighed. “He’s done it again,” he
remarked, rather thickly because of the toast-and-marmalade.

  “Sir?”

  “Uncle. You know. What’s he been working on this time?”

  “Mr. Van Dill does not confide in me, sir. I cannot say.”

  Tinney munched toast. “Seems to me he said something about a fourthdimensional gadget. Lord knows! Wonder how long he’ll be gone this time?”

  “I fear I cannot say,” Crockett said frigidly, as the door opened to admit Wilbur Van Dill, a small gnome of a man with a wrinkled brown walnut face and fluffy gray hair.

  Uncle Wilbur was carrying an empty bottle and wore an expression of blind fury.

  “Crockett!” he said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Is this all the brandy there is in the house?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Crockett, and Uncle Wilbur assumed a look of diabolical triumph.

  “Then I shall go out,” he announced. “Bruce, take charge of things while I’m gone. Never thought I’d be finished with that blasted machine. Ha!”

  Tinney swallowed toast and rose hastily. “Uncle Wilbur!” he objected. “At your age——”

  “All the more reason for relaxation,” Van Dill said. “Don’t argue with me, you young pup. If you had a quarter of my brains, you’d have a right to talk. Stands to reason,” he went on in a faint mutter, glaring at the empty bottle. “Great scientist. Use my mind a lot. Concentration. Got to relax. Now shut up and don’t bother me. I’ll be back.”

  “But——” said Tinney.

  “And don’t touch anything in my laboratory!” Van Dill flung back over his shoulder as he departed. “You butter-fingered oaf!”

  He left with a slam, and Tinney choked on his toast, while he brooded on Uncle Wilbur’s idiosyncrasies. True, the man was a great scientist. His filament for electric bulbs was a marvel, and a condenser he had invented brought in a small fortune.

  But Uncle Wilbur was certainly not a model of propriety, and it was to that that Tinney objected. Being a rather mouselike young man himself, it seemed to him shocking that Uncle Wilbur should relax, after every successful experiment, by a round of the local barrooms, drinking vast quantities of alcohol.