The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  Their short sword-epees skirred and rang together. And Emil was failing dismally at showing any superiority at this game now. He was soon beginning to bleed, sullenly and alarmingly. What, had this strong young man Benedict been carrying Emil through all their fencing sessions and making him feel superior for a purpose?

  “You're not bad, Emil,” Benedict said, “but I'm the only one you've ever fenced with at the short epee. Me, I've fenced with half-a-dozen real experts. I believe the short epee will catch on. It's so quick!”

  Emil Fuerst screamed as Benedict gave a point to his remarks with the epee point.

  “You were right to believe in all your electronic guards,” Benedict was laughing. “Of course no one could come in through them, not even myself, not when you had set the stringent alert. But I was already inside, had been inside for two days. Oh, I believe you can figure it all out, Emil, even in the short time you have left.”

  Sh-klaup… sh-klaup… Those footsteps still coming nearer.

  The way Benedict handled that short epee-sword was fearful and amazing.

  “It was mostly Sarpa's idea,” Benedict said as he wounded Emil once more and drove him into an ever narrower corner.

  “Ah Sarpa, snake of my bosom, sweet snake of my bosom!” Emil muttered.

  “She wanted to be certain that she had the best, Emil,” Benedict jibed. “You were the best once, Emil, at some of the games.”

  “So was she,” Emil mumbled, “at some of the games, once.” The strength was slipping away from Emil now, along with his own slippery blood and confidence.

  Sh-klaup… sh-klaup… sh-klaup…

  “What footfalls are those?” Emil asked, as he was scored upon again by an uncommonly bloody penetration. “You have already assumed your own ghost, Benedict. Whose footfalls are those?”

  “Believe me, Emil, they are none of mine, none of my doing. You are fey, man! Haven't you known that about yourself? They are the footsteps of death that worry you so, and you are the only one who can hear them.”

  “You're frightened, Emil,” Sarpa said, and flicked her red tongue out.

  “Yes, now I'm frightened,” Emil whispered, and he looked at his own fountainous blood with great distaste.

  Rainy Day in Halicarnassus

  It is said that the Christ accounts cannot be true because there are earlier versions of similar stories. It is said in particular that the death-of-Christ account cannot be true because there are earlier death-of-the-sage legends. But I believe that the Christ account is the most convincing of all of them. And likely the death-of-Socrates account is the least convincing of such tales.

  Using arguments like those that are used against the Christ account, Socrates could not have died his fabled death because that particular death account was already well worn and centuries old. He could not have died by taking poisonous hemlock because many sages in India did die by taking poisonous hemlock in earlier centuries. The plant known mistakenly as hemlock (koneion) in Greece in the time of Socrates was not poisonous in any form. But the plant known correctly as hemlock in India was poisonous.

  The only account of the hemlock death of Socrates was written by Plato. Plato was almost certainly kidding Socrates (who was present when Plato first read that tour de force to their circle) by comparing him to one of the old deified sages who had died in this traditional death-of-the-sage in old India. The date of this death account or death is always given as 399 BC.

  Xenophon and other biographers of Socrates do not mention any such hemlock death, or any death at all for him. But they do mention Socrates as living in Halicarnassus in Asia Minor at least ten years after this purported death. And Socrates was present, sitting on a sort of dunce's stool that was provided for him, on “opening afternoon” when Aristophanes first satirized him in his comedy The Clouds. There was some banter between the playwright and Socrates the butt of the play. It seems pretty clear that this was Socrates himself and not an actor playing him. This was in 395 BC, four years after the ascribed death of Socrates.

  It may be that the legend of the false or hemlock death of Socrates has persisted because we have no account of his true death. Instead of that we have—more legend.

  More than one hundred years after his false or hemlock death, Socrates is mentioned as being one of a circle of sages in Halicarnassus who had whipped the dying business: but this has the smell of legend again. And Villehardouin records it that Crusaders spoke with Socrates in the year 1191 in Halicarnassus: but this has the smell of deep legend. And three different Englishmen in the nineteenth century mention meeting Socrates in Bodrum (the modern name of Halicarnassus). To me, this does not have the smell of legend. For personal reasons (one of the three Englishmen was my own grandfather), I believe it is true.

  —Arpad Arutinov, The Back Door of History

  Art Slick and Jim Boomer had been heading for the island of Cos when they were driven onto the Turkish mainland by a sudden squall. They put in, an hour before sunrise, at the little harbor of Bodrum, whose ancient name had been Halicarnassus. They had come in the twenty-two-foot motor launch the T-Town Tornado, which was too dumb to know that it shouldn't have come halfway around the world on the open seas. And Art Slick and Jim Boomer were likewise too dumb to know that their craft was too small for such voyaging.

  When they had tied up the little ship, the wind fell by one-half and was not as dangerous as it had been. But the rain came down in torrents and it would not stop that day, and maybe not the next day.

  Remember that girl in Istanbul three days ago, remember how she sang “Rainy Day in Halicarnassus, Gloom, Gloom, Gloom!” And later when she came to the table with Art Slick and Jim Boomer she said, “Do you know that there are three hundred and nineteen different words for ‘gloom’ in Turkish? I like to tell these little informations to gentlemen who come into our place.”

  “I'd sure never learn three hundred and nineteen different Turkish words for ‘gloom’,” Art Slick had said.

  “You would if you ever had to spend a rainy day in Halicarnassus,” the girl told him. “You'd learn them all and you'd use them all. That isn't half enough words for the kind of gloom it is there when it rains.”

  Well, it looked as though they would spend just such a rainy day in that town now. It was torrential, it was blustery, and it was gloomy, except for one stocky Greek man who had an aura of sunshine about him.

  “The Dictionary of Idiosyncrasies gives it that the equivalent of a ‘rainy day in Halicarnassus’ is a ‘Sunday in Philadelphia,’ ” this broken-nosed and grinny Greek seaman said. Well, maybe he was a broken-nosed Greek boxer and not a seaman. “There is a Greek café, a Turkish café, and a Syrian café in this town if you want breakfast. Then there is a Greek cinema, a Turkish cinema, and a Syrian cinema. And then there is a Greek nightclub, a Turkish nightclub, and a Syrian nightclub. These presently open at six in the morning and close at six in the evening because of the curfew which is imposed because of the political turmoil. And then there is the Ancient Museum of Living Effigies that you might want to see. There isn't anything else in town, and the rain isn't going to stop today.”

  “Thanks, Rocky, we may just try them all,” Jim Boomer told old broken-nose.

  “Why do you call him Rocky when his name is Socky?” a lady asked Jim.

  Art and Jim and Rocky-Socky had a breakfast at the Greek café. Then they had one at the Turkish café, and then one at the Syrian. Well, the broken-nosed Greek was a good belly-man, and Art and Jim could stay with anything for at least once around the circuit. And what else is there to do on a rainy day in a place like that?

  “How come you talk such good English, Rocky?” Art Slick asked. “Have you been in the States?” You couldn't even guess how old or how young this Rocky was.

  “Oh, I've been in the area where they are now, but the States hadn't arrived there yet. Back when I was young and wise I'd learn a new language every five years,” said this strong, stocky fellow who was smoking a Greek pipe. “Well, I was
pretty sharp-witted then and I learned things easily. And later I slowed down and learned a new tongue about every twenty years. It took me about that long to learn Old Norse when I spent a couple of saltwater decades with those Viking fellows. And more recently it takes me about fifty years to learn one really well. I've been learning English for just about fifty years now and I'm getting pretty good at it. And now I may spend about fifty years on Indonesian.”

  “Oh, you've been around a long while, then?”

  “Quite a while, yes, but not nearly as long as some.”

  “Going back that far, you're probably a pagan, Rocky,” Jim Boomer said.

  “Nah, I switched a long time ago. Now I usher every Sunday at St. Pete's here in town.”

  It was still raining when they came out of the Syrian café. They went under leaking wooden awnings to the Greek cinema, where they saw an American western, Rustlers of Rim-Rock Canyon.

  “Are you a movie fan, Rocky?” Jim Boomer asked.

  “Yeah, from a way back. I loved them when we had them the first time. A lot of people don't remember that, but there was a first time. We even had westerns that first time around, though they were easterns from my viewpoint, in desert settings, and both the Gobi and the Arabian deserts were east of me. About the only difference between those and the present westerns was the pounding of dromedary hoofs in the old ones and the pounding of horse hoofs in the new ones. And we had SF movies, sort of: fantastic stuff they were. A critic wrote recently that the old Arabian Nights stories sounded like primitive movie scripts. He was guessing, but he was right. They did come from old movie scripts.

  “Ah, we made some good movies at those old studios in Ctesiphon: at the Biograph Studio, at Palmy Days Productions, at the Lion and the Unicorn Associated Artists. But after Baghdad became the big city in the area, most of the studios moved there. Then the decline in moviemaking set in. I don't know why.”

  They went to the Turkish cinema and saw the American western Guns of the Palo Duro. Then they went to the Syrian cinema and saw the American western Robbers' Roost on the Rio Rojo.

  “Well, that about does the town, does it, Rocky?” Art Slick asked when they came out of the Syrian cinema.

  “We can always see them over again. That's what I do on rainy days here, see them over again four or five times.”

  “Why do you call him Rocky when his name is Socky?” a young boy asked Art.

  “You told us about the three nightclubs that are only open in the daytime on account of the curfew,” Jim Boomer said, “and what was the other thing, Rocky?”

  “The Ancient Museum of Living Effigies. I'm really the best one in it, but overall we haven't a very good show. I wouldn't recommend it ordinarily, but on a rainy day here, yeah, guys, it's the last diversion.”

  They went to the Greek nightclub, where there was an American Jewish comedian, an Italian songstress, a black trumpet player, and a troupe of Arabian tumblers.

  “Is this about par for it, Rocky?” Art Slick asked.

  “Yes. All nightclub acts are based on old radio acts. That's why they keep nightclubs so dark that you can't see, to preserve the illusion. When I was a young man in Greece and we had radio for the first time, we had acts just about like this. The Petrides Olive Hour was a good show. So was the Arcadian Honey Hour and the Pappageotes Pottery Hour. The best was the Hippodromion Wine Hour. I used to wrangle passes to go to the studios to see the shows live. Most of the acts were better live. Except for the Arabian tumblers; they were always better on the radio. I guess the radio shows faded away after the Romans came. The Romans thought they were silly, so they dropped out of fashion.”

  “I guess there's nothing new under the sun, huh, Rocky?” Jim Boomer said.

  “Hey, that's new! Let me write that down. ‘Nothing new under the sun.’ That's good. Into the old notebook it goes.”

  “Did you always carry a notebook, Rocky?”

  “Always. It's part of my self-education program. But it was more cumbersome in the old days, carrying those slabs of clay around in your pockets and wetting them whenever you wanted to make a note with your stylus. Who could afford paper or parchment then? Poor scholars like myself couldn't even afford wax to write on.”

  “Is this Whipping Death jag that you fellows are on much of a trick, Rocky? And what is the secret of it?” Jim Boomer asked.

  “Oh, we don't have death whipped, just delayed for a while. And if I told you the secret of it, it wouldn't be a secret any longer.”

  “Whooo! What was that stroke like invisible lightning coming right through the walls?” Art Slick asked. “That was one eerie jolt.”

  “It was just a time-inversion shock wave,” the genial Greek said. “We have them here every ten years or so lately. It means we're going to have visitors.”

  “That sounds like a folk superstition, Rocky,” Art said.

  “Sort of, boys, sort of. When we had time travel the first time, we knew how to muffle the shock waves.” They were drinking martinis.

  “The martini is what saved the olive from extinction,” broken-nosed Rocky said. “A wonderful invention, wonderful.”

  The Italian songstress was singing “Rainy Day in Halicarnassus, Gloom, Gloom, Gloom.” No, that had been in the Turkish nightclub. No, that was in all three of them. Each of them had an Italian songstress singing it.

  “Well, that about does the town, Rocky,” Art Slick said when they came out of the Syrian nightclub. It wasn't noon yet. “So we're down to the Ancient Museum of Living Effigies, of which you're the star. It's that or the movies again.”

  “Let's see the movies again,” genial rocky-face said. It was still raining. They saw the three movies again. They went to the three nightclubs again after that. And it was not yet two o'clock. Time goes slow on rainy days there.

  “When does the show start at the museum, Rocky?”

  “Whenever we have as many as three customers. Come along. There's you two, and maybe there will be another one.”

  In fact there were seven other customers waiting, a local girl and six people from a time-probe.

  “Weren't you time-trippers around here ten years ago? And weren't you around here ten years before that?” rocky-face asked them.

  “Kyrie Socrates, we've spent the whole afternoon just trying to get a serious interview with you, and it costs more than you'd think,” one of the time-trippers complained. “Yes, we've been trying you every ten years here, and it takes us ten minutes to make each location. And we've seen the silly show twelve times. We're about out of patience with you. We're convinced that you are the real Socrates. We can't reach back far enough to catch you in what I might call your credible life; and you drop out of the scene again not many decades after this time, so we have a narrow place to try to catch you. Your rediscovery can well be the historical event of the ages, but you won't let it be. Why won't you give us a real interview, now, today?”

  “Ah, there's so many other things to do that are more fun.”

  “What are they? On a rainy day like this, what are they?”

  “Oh, on a rainy day I guess there really aren't any,” old pudge admitted.

  The local girl there was shining up to Art Slick and Jim Boomer.

  “I know you were trying to get to the island of Cos when you had to put in here to Bodrum,” she said. “I want to go to Cos tonight. My sister who lives there is expecting me to come and help her with the geese. Tomorrow is the first day of Goose Plucking Week, you know. And tonight is Goose-Down-Eve Festival. We really throw a hanger over there on Goose-Down-Eve. We'll take Socky too if he's decent to these visitors for once.”

  The show at the Ancient Museum of Living Effigies wasn't a very good one by ordinary standards, but on a rainy day in Halicarnassus it was at least tolerable. And it did have a good cast: Pythagoras, Pico del la Mirandola, Lama Hama Gama, Avicenna, Prester John, Tycho Brahe, Leibniz. But Socrates was the best of them.

  “I was the youngest member once, but gradually we drop out,”
Socrates said.

  The Living Effigies, the Old Sages, gave little lectures on mathematics and philosophy and history and civic duty. They played ancient and medieval instruments; and Socrates also played several tunes on a modern harmonica. They answered catch questions thrown at them to test whether they really were who they said they were. And all of them seemed to be genuine.

  “We really throw hangers over there on Goose-Down-Eve,” the local girl was telling Art and Jim. “And the wind has swung around now. It's still a gale, but it's a strong gale off the land now and it'll put you into Cos in two hours if that skiff of yours has any kick at all. And the party will be just starting good when we get there. Everybody else would be too chicken to put out in this weather, but I know that you guys aren't chicken.”

  The sages slipped away as they finished their specialties, and one of the last of them, Socrates, was still spieling: “Back when we had aviation the first time, I was barnstorming one autumn in a little tri-winger plane when—”

  “Oh, stop giggling when you tell them, Socky,” the local girl said. “Your stories aren't that funny.”

  “Kyrie Socrates,” one of the time-trippers said. ‘You are telling lies again. You never had aviation the first time, never had it anciently.”

  “Yes we did,” Pythagoras supported Socrates. “Some of his things are lies, but we did have aviation. Alexander used aircraft with strafers. He could really mow them down with those planes. That was the way he scattered those big, bunched-up Asiatic armies. You'd never scatter them with a phalanx. Think about it a minute and you'll see how silly that is.”