Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 05

by The Voice of the Mountain (v1. 1)

  “It’s like being in jail here,” said Tarrah at my side. “Like being held prisoner. Sometimes 1 feel so cramped inside these walls. Ruel Harpe doesn't care—he goes where he pleases, anywhere in the world—but he never lets us go. Perhaps he's afraid that we'd run away from him."

  “Scylla sort of hinted something like that," I recollected.

  “It can get tiresome," Tarrah sort of muttered.

  “Yes," I agreed her, and headed back to those caves where we lived. She came along behind me, and inside, and into the big main room with its table and chairs, with the window to see away from Cry Mountain, the braided rope in the comer, the curtains over the doors to the passages. Alka sat where we’d left her, a-gazing at that clouded window glass across the room.

  “I've been trying something," she said as we came to the table. “I tried to make a picture come from the outside, the way Ruel can. But nothing happens for me."

  “When he does that, he holds onto that amulet he wears," said Tarrah. “That must help to make his window work."

  “To make all his enterprises work," Alka added on. “Now he's going to make more tremendous things—unthinkable things—work with that book by Judas he’s translating."

  “How right you are, Alka," said Harpe cheerfully as he came in. “But you don't seem completely happy to say it. Aren't you happy, Alka? Aren't you, Tarrah?”

  “No, I'm unhappy," Tarrah dared to say to him. “Scylla's death bothers me."

  “How about you, John?" asked Harpe, a-tuming his eyes on me. “You needn't bother to answer that, I know you're not happy."

  “Can you give me air good reason why I should be?" I said back to him.

  “You feel lonesome here," he said, a-spreading out that grin of his. “That isn't complimentary, you know. Here you have me to learn from, you have Alka to question, and you have

  Tarrah.” He beamed toward her. “And Tarrah truly likes you. She’s such a pretty girl, 1 think. Isn’t she pretty enough for your discriminating taste?”

  Tarrah turned her face away, a-blushing. Nobody could expect her to relish that teasy sneering.

  “That’s because you have another girl on your mind,” Harpe went ahead. “Here, suppose I show you.”

  His hand went to the T-thing on the chain. He muttered the words I’d learned, the words Alka had tried to use for the window:

  “Fetegan . . . Gaghagan . . . Beigan . . . Deigan . . . Usagan ...”

  And the pane in the window lighted up and the foggy darkness cleared away from it. We saw Mr. Larrowby’s store, with customers in the place, and behind the counter pretty Myrrh Larrowby, a-making change for somebody.

  “So lovely, isn’t she?” said Harpe. “I think I see your eyes light up, John. Isn’t she just the sort of companion you need in this lonesomeness of yours?”

  He made quick steps across the floor, and tugged at the rope in the comer.

  I heard a sort of little shriek.

  And there in the comer with Harpe stood Myrrh Larrowby.

  13

  Myrrh Larrowby just stood and stared. Her blue eyes looked as big as Easter eggs. Her yellow hair fluffed air whichaway. She wore a white cotton dress with red and blue flowers on it, and on her feet blue-and-white tennis shoes. She drew herself up. She had a fine-shaped body. And she stared.

  “Here's my present to you, John," said Harpe, a-smiling and a-smiling.

  “Present?" I repeated him. “What you a-talking about?"

  Myrrh found her voice. “What you a-talking about?" she said after me, she said high and shaky with fear. “What is this place? How did I get here—what am I doing here?"

  “I daresay you'll find much to do here, my dear child," Harpe smiled to her. “I brought you here in an interesting way -—call it magical teleportation. 1 brought you because John wants you."

  “John!" she cried to me. She didn't understand, and how could she?

  “Let me tell you quick, Myrrh, I hadn’t air thing to do with it," I said.

  Her eyes bugged at me. Her shoulders and knees trembled and shook. Her red mouth sort of chittered. She was bad scared, gentlemen, and that was a natural fact. Her scare sort of filled the room.

  “Please let me explain, my dear young lady," Harpe was a-purring to her. “I brought you here because John so admires you, and certainly you must admire him. I’d judge that any normal woman would find him admirable.”

  “YVhat is this place?” she stammered out again.

  “This place?” Harpe said after her. “Why, it’s the top of Cry Mountain.”

  “I won’t stay here!”

  With that, she fairly flew across the floor to where the tunnel was. She ran into that. I saw her blue-and-white shoes twinkle as she ran.

  “You’d better follow her, John,” said Harpe, calm as calm. “Follow her and explain things.”

  I headed after her, and out into the open.

  There she was, amongst the trees, a-running here and yonder. She must have made out where the gate was, she headed thataway. She ran fast, but I ran faster and caught her up just as she started to fumble at the catch. I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back away.

  She looked at me, still bug-eyed. She panted for breath. “Let me go,” she managed to say. “I want to get out of here, I want to go home—”

  “You can’t go out that gate,” I warned her. “Look out there.”

  For outside the stockade, things had gathered. In amongst the trees loomed up something tall and sooty-dark and shagged with hair, it had to be the Bigfoot. The Flat squirmed along betwixt tree roots. Overhead flew the Toller, a-saying its gong- gong. And the bees swarmed there, a whole fluttering nation of them, a-buzzing and big and deadly.

  “One step outside that gate,” I said, “and you’d be a goner.”

  She stood and looked. “I’d rather be dead than shut up here.”

  “You don’t know the kind of death you’d have, Miss Myrrh. Come on, get back away from the gate, and let me tell you things.”

  She came along with me, quiet but not yet a-trusting me. I took her to where we could stand out of sight of all the things had come to the gate, and I narrated what I'd been through.

  I told of how I'd somehow got myself set on a-finding Cry Mountain and a-going up it. She’d heard some talk about that, for the preacher-man and the doctor had mentioned it. And I said how Ruel Harpe had let me in at his gate, and had shut the gate on what waited outside it, and how he could do all sorts and kinds of magic, and how he figured on a-doing things that would pure down change this world. I named Alka and Tarrah to her, how they were Harpe’s helpers, and told her about Scylla a-poisoning herself. How Harpe and the others got whatair they wished for just by a-tugging on a rope, and how Harpe had tugged that rope to fetch Myrrh to us.

  “He didn’t bring you with the rope?” she asked.

  “No,” 1 said. “He somehow knew I was a-making the climb and let me do it. He let Zeb Plattenburg come part way.”

  “Part way?”

  “Then he had him killed. If you’d looked up above the gate, you’d have seen Zeb Plattenburg’s skull.”

  She shivered. I went ahead about Harpe’s window that showed far places of far lands, and about how Harpe had learned from magic books how to travel to what land he wished. He was a master of magic. She harked at me all through.

  “Zeb Plattenburg,” she said then. “I knew him, back when I was a little girl.” She said it like as if somehow that would fetch Zeb back to life.

  “He’s gone now,” I said.

  “But I want to get out of here, John.”

  “So do I,” I said. “I'm a-studying on how to manage that. It'll take a right considerable of study."

  She stared off at the stockade. “That man—Harpe, you name him. He thinks that you and I are to love one another." Her voice sort of choked. “But—do you know who it is I love?"

  “I can make a guess," I said, a-trying to help her get calm. “I’d say, Tombs McDonald."

  Her ch
eeks that had been pale, they reddened in a blush. I waited a second. Then: “I do know for sure that Tombs loves you."

  “Tombs? But he's nair said a word of such a thing, not one word."

  “He said it right plain and honest to me," I said. “Said it out loud, said it strong. Maybe he's scared to speak up to you, but he's not scared to know he loves you and tell it to somebody he counts on to be his friend."

  “Tombs!" she cried out again. “I wish I was with him right now."

  “You’ll be with him later," I promised. “I'll swear to that, my kiss-the-Bible oath. Look, Myrrh, whatair place you get into, you can some way get out again. We’ll do it. But right now, let's go back to where the others are."

  She didn't like those others, nair a one of them, said she didn't trust them. But she did come along back with me, and through the tunnel and into that main room.

  They all of them sat there, Harpe and Alka and Tarrah. Myrrh stopped in the middle of the floor to look at them. Tarrah got up from her chair and came to us.

  “Your name's Myrrh," said Tarrah, a-taking her by the hand. “That's such a pretty name, I think. If you're going to be with us—"

  “I won't," Myrrh said at that.

  “If you're going to be with us," said Tarrah again, “start counting on me as your friend. We’ll have some good times together.”

  “Count me a friend, too,” said Alka from where she sat, and Harpe grinned all across his face.

  “Come sit down, Myrrh,” he invited, and she came to the table and so did I, and we both took seats. “John, I hope that you were able to convince her of the sensible viewpoint.”

  “I won’t stay here,” said Myrrh again.

  “My dear Myrrh, I venture to assure you of the contrary,” said Harpe in his silkiest way. “You are going to stay here, and, what’s more, you are going to like it here. John will help you to like it. You see that he’s a tall, fine man, not bad-looking, and he can play the guitar and sing fit for royalty to hear. And he loves you—”

  “Just hold on there a damned second,” I cut in. “I nair said I loved Myrrh.”

  She looked on me like as if she thanked me for that. And Harpe, for once, had a puzzled face on him.

  “Why,” he crooned, like as if he was disappointed in me, “you said, and said again, that Myrrh was a beauty to delight the world.”

  “I said it, that she was beautiful,” I came back at him, “and I’ll keep a-saying it. But Myrrh is in love with another. He’s a choice friend of mine, he more or less saved my life a few days back. Even if I thought 1 wanted Myrrh, I’d nair get betwixt her and the man she loves and wants with all her heart.”

  Again she gave me a grateful look for my words, she even smiled just a least trifle. “Harpe,” I said, “you made a mistake.”

  He hiked up his brows and muttered a laugh.

  “I’m not a man who makes mistakes,” he said.

  “You’ve made one this time,” I said.

  “That’s what you say now, John, but love will come to you,” he promised me, and he talked like as if things always came when he said they would. “Myrrh—yes, what a beautiful name, as beautiful as the girl who bears it. John will come to realize that he prefers Myrrh to either gold or frankincense. As for you, Myrrh, you'll find that a change of mind is almost always a change for the better."

  A-hearing that, I wondered myself if he'd air changed his mind about aught. He got up from his chair, and smoothed his white bush jacket.

  “This has been a most entertaining discussion," he said, “but I'm driven back to my work. It may be the most important work of my whole career. All of you will come to share in what I do—profit by it. Now, please excuse me."

  He was off to the red curtain, past it and behind it. We watched him go, then we looked back on one another.

  “What important work did he mean?" inquired Myrrh.

  “He’s translating the Gospel According to Judas," said Alka.

  “Judas?" Myrrh repeated her. “Did Judas write a book?"

  It was my turn to talk. I told Myrrh about what Judas was thought to think he could do for power all over this earth, and how he’d written it down before he went out and hung himself. I told her how Harpe had tricked me into a-helping thieve the book from poor old trustful Yakouba far off away in the African desert. And how Harpe reckoned that the Judas book, along with other writings he already had, would turn the world round into something he figured he wanted and could command.

  “Terrible," said Myrrh. “Terrible. Can’t somebody stop him?"

  “Nobody that I know of," said Tarrah. “But let's change the subject. We want to be your friends, Myrrh."

  “You’re not my friends," Myrrh said.

  “But we want to be," Tarrah near about begged her. “Talk to us, at least. Tell us what you do."

  That softened Myrrh down a tad. At least she did tell about herself, about how she lived in Larrowby, how she helped her daddy in his store there. Alka listened and asked some questions. Tarrah seemed like she pure down loved to hear about Larrowby and the store.

  “You make it sound nice, Myrrh,” she said. “Your job sounds like a good one—interesting. You have people to talk to all day long in that store. I’ll bet that nice men come around to shop with you, don’t they?”

  “Well, yes,” Myrrh replied her. “And the nicest is Tombs McDonald.” It was a friendly thing for her to name him to Tarrah.

  I joined in and told them the tale of Tombs’s life, how he’d been found on top of a tombstone and got his name from that. I told how he’d gladly helped me and tended me when I was bad off and needed help the worst way, and how in the days we’d been together we’d come to count on one another as friends.

  “That’s good to hear,” said Alka when I’d done. “Count on us as your friends, Myrrh.”

  “What kind of friends could you be?” Myrrh inquired her, but not so fierce about it now.

  They told her their own life stories as I’ve already told you all, Alka first and Tarrah second. They went on to talk about Ruel Harpe and what he could do air time he wanted, and pointed out his window that could show you what he might choose to show you. Myrrh looked toward that window, and it was clouded and gloomy as a stormy day.

  “I don’t see aught in it,” she said.

  “I tried to see in it a while ago,” said Alka. “But I don’t really know the right words.”

  “I know the right words,” I said. “I’ve heard Harpe say them time after time, and I’ve got them in my mind.”

  Alka looked on me, with hope in her eyes behind her glasses. “Could you do that, John? Show us something?”

  “Show us the store Myrrh works in,” said Tarrah.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I agreed them. “Myrrh, keep that store in your mind while 1 try.”

  They all turned their heads to look on the window. I said what Td learnt from Harpe:

  “Fetegan . . . Gaghagan . . . Beigan . . . Deigan . . . Usagan ...”

  We kept a-looking, all of us, but naught happened. There was just a gloomy foggy window in the wall yonder.

  “I didn't make it work,” I said, though I didn't need to say that.

  “He uses that amulet of his,” said Alka. “He always holds it when he brings a scene into that window for us.”

  “He uses his amulet for everything,” Tarrah added on. “Uses it in all he does.”

  “Amulet?” said Myrrh.

  “That thing he wears on a chain around his neck,” said Alka. “It looks like a T.”

  “Is it magic?” Myrrh asked. “Where did it come from?”

  “Yes,” said Alka, “it’s magic—strong magic. Where it first came from he never told me, but once it belonged to Ruel Harpe's ancestor, Micajah—Big Harpe, the outlaw. He had a woman who kept the thing when Big Harpe died, and passed it on to their son, and it came down to present times as an heirloom.” A-thinking about that, she bit her lip. “A black arts heirloom.”

  “Whatair that thi
ng may be,” said Myrrh, “he won’t be able to use it to make me love where he wants me to love.” She looked at me, blue-eyed. “John,” she said, “heaps of women could love you. You’re such a good man.”

  “Yes,” Tarrah said, not a-speaking to us, maybe just only to herself.

  “You know my feelings about Tombs,” Myrrh went on. “You tell me that's the way he feels about me.”

  “I’ve sworn to you that you and Tombs will meet again,” I reminded her.

  “And if you swear it, I feel purely certain that it will happen,” she said.

  Just then, in came Harpe to sit down at the table with us. He beamed all round, he looked to be in a good humor.

  “I’ve puzzled out a highly troublesome passage in Judas, but it proves to be invaluable in the structure of his plan for the world,” he said. “Even though the world Judas knew was only the world of the Roman Empire, plainly he deduced—he comprehended—other lands and other cultures. Well, it was a tiring task. I felt like having a breather.” He turned his smile on Myrrh. “You seem to have made friends with Alka and Tarrah, somewhat.”

  “We think she’s lovely,” said Alka.

  “Wonderful,” said Tarrah. “So good to talk to.”

  “I see,” Harpe nodded. “And how about you, John? Is Myrrh lovely? Wonderful?”