THE SCHOOL OF DARKNESS
Manly Wade Wellman
John Thunstone, psychic adventurer, investigator, and unsurpassed scholar on the powers of darkness, is back in a chilling new tale by award-winning author Manly Wade Wellman. The School of Darkness hurls Thunstone into a fantastic—and all too direct—confrontation with the forces of evil and supernatural terror.
Buford State University has invited Thunstone to sit on the panel of its distinguished American Folklore Survey Symposium. The impressive roster of participants also includes a Jesuit versed in the ways of exorcism, a Cherokee medicine man, and one uninvited (and most unwelcome) guest: the infamous Rowley Thorne, the world’s foremost practitioner of the black arts and sworn enemy of John Thunstone.
Buford State itself has a dark and mysterious history, haunted by a centuries-old pact with the devil. (continued on back flap)
By Manly Wade Wellman
THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAIN
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
THE HANGING STONES
THE LOST AND THE LURKING
AFTER DARK
THE OLD GODS WAKEN
THE SCHOOL OF DARKNESS
MANLY WADE WELLMAN
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
1985
All of the characters in this book
are fictitious and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Wellman, Manly Wade, 1905- The school of darkness.
I. Title.
PS3545.E52858S3 1985 81354
ISBN: 0-385-19065-4
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 85-12914
Copyright © 1985 by Manly Wade Wellman
First Edition
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
In grateful memory of
Dorothy Mcllwraith
and
Lamont Buchanan,
who were there the first time John Thunstone walked in
And in the School of Darkness learn
What mean
The things unseen
—John Banister Tabb
Contents
FOREWORD
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
FOREWORD
Diligent inquiry goes to show that no real college or university called Buford exists in the United States. The campus and community here described resemble actual campuses and communities only in a general fashion. Characters and events are imaginary and are not based on real characters and events, although I dare hope that they seem real.
Manly Wade Wellman
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1984
I
That authoritative voice from somewhere or everywhere had commanded a fastening of seat belts, a cessation of smoking. The great plane tilted forward and lost altitude, tilted forward again so that the earth far below the porthole lost its maplike pattern, began to become living earth. Little fluffs of mossy green grew into distant clumps of trees; winking jewels became miniature ponds. There were slate streaks of highways, wee toys of bams and houses. The voice proclaimed that they were coming in to Sidney-Exeter Airport, were arriving on time.
The throbbing roar of the motors abated. A powerful banking turn, so that the horizon vanished from view at the porthole, and for moments nothing but sky showed there, blue as only April’s sky can be, with tags of white cloud like shredded cotton. The great turn accomplished, downward again and earth rushing up, swiftly, threateningly, almost like a flood. And a sense of hanging helplessness. The plane was in the hands only of its pilot, Captain Somebody, wise and skilled, who in his time must have made thousands of safe, successful landings.
Then, close below there, the immense paved outstretch of the runway. And closer, down almost upon it, with a great fence rushing rearward there to the side. At last, the reassuring thump of the wheels. The plane skimmed on solidity, slowed itself, swung in a powerful turn and headed back the way it had come down. It crept now, toward the gray fronts of assembled buildings, with trucks and human figures there. '‘Keep your seats until the plane comes to a full halt,” cautioned the voice.
But passengers were unclasping seat belts, pawing in luggage racks. John Thunstone sat where he was until the plane stopped and the voice announced as much. Still Thunstone waited until the first nervous press in the aisle had moved on. Then he rose into a gap among the debarkers. He towered, wide-shouldered, to take down his flight bag and his crook-handled, brown-blotched cane, then moved toward the exit. He wore checked trousers and a dark blue blazer. His face was square, with a trim black mustache. Black, too, was his carefully combed hair, with threads of silvery gray. There was a dent in his nose, to show where once it had been broken.
A pretty stewardess smiled to say that she hoped he had enjoyed his journey, that he would fly with that line again, and inevitably, “Have a good day.” Thunstone followed the others into a sort of tunnel like the inside of a gigantic accordion. At the far end they came into a spacious chamber, brilliantly lighted, and out through a gate in a bright rail. More people waited there, loudly greeting passengers they recognized.
“Mr. Thunstone?”
That was a man of medium height and healthy-seeming medium build, holding out a welcoming hand, nowhere near as big as Thunstone’s. Intelligent lines ran across his brow and down his cheeks. His eyes were three-cornered, like an athlete’s.
“My name’s Lee Pitt, I’m with the Department of English at Buford State,” he introduced himself. “Since I teach a folklore course, I’m stuck, more or less, with this symposium on folklore and legend, and I thought I’d come meet you and drive you over.”
“Thank you, Professor Pitt,” said Thunstone, shaking hands. “It’s kind of you. As soon as I pick my luggage up—”
“Downstairs,” said Pitt.
An escalator took them to the level below. There, a U-shaped conveyor belt crawled like a mighty worm, bringing suitcases and parcels to view upon it. Men and women stepped close to pick these off. Thunstone waited until his big blue suitcase with its brown leather trim trundled into sight. He seized it and lifted it away as though it weighed nothing, and waited again to spy and claim its lesser mate. Pitt took the smaller case and led Thunstone out upon a paved gallery with a roof and supporting posts. Along the edge of this moved taxis, cars and pickup trucks, each stopping as someone heaved luggage aboard and then got in to roll away.
“Watch for a blue Chevy sedan with a dented left fender,” said Pitt. “I won’t be gone long.”
He trotted across the driveway and into a great sea of parked cars. Thunstone watched his swift, sure movement and decided that Professor Lee Pitt would be an interesting acquaintance.
The blue sedan came and stopped at the curb. Pitt emerged from under the wheel to unlock the rear trunk, and Thunstone heaved his luggage in, but kept his cane as he got into the front seat with Pitt. They rolled away out of the airport and turned left on a paved secondary road.
“It’s about twenty miles to Buford,” said Pitt. “We’ll make it by four o’clock. What do you want to know about Buford State University and the meeting?”
“As much as you can tell me,” replied Thunstone, his great hands clamped on the crook of his cane
, “I’ve heard of Buford, of course, the town and the school both, but this is my first visit here.”
“Buford State University is about a hundred and fifty years old,” said Pitt. “It started in an interesting way. Back then, before the Civil War, this was just a country village. A New England business man, Samuel Whitney, came in on some errand and took seriously ill. The doctor in town couldn’t diagnose or treat his ailment, said he was going to die. But the people of Buford tried their best for that poor stranger. Some ladies prayed by his bedside every night. Maybe that was why he recovered, Anyway, he was deeply grateful and asked what he could do for the people who had saved his life. Someone or other—nobody today is sure who —said that Buford had always wanted a college,”
“And Buford got one?” prompted Thunstone.
“Yes. It turned out that Samuel Whitney was very rich, very rich indeed. He gave them money, he paid for building a hall and then another one—those halls are still where he put them up. Whitney College struggled and survived, Whitney and some others he interested kept financing it. Well, many years passed. The town of Buford grew until it took over Whitney College, back in the 1930s, and named it Buford Municipal University. After that, it became part of the state’s Consolidated University operation, and today it’s Buford State,”
Pitt’s three-cornered eyes cut toward Thunstone as he drove. “Naturally,” he said, “there’s an old wives’ tale connected with all this, and we don’t lack old wives, or young ones either, to keep telling it.”
“What’s the tale?” asked Thunstone, immediately interested.
“They say that Whitney had been stricken down with some sort of curse,” said Pitt. “To that they add, that those who prayed around his bed and brought him back to health weren’t exactly church members—that they harked back to what we euphemistically call the Old Religion.” “Witchcraft,” said Thunstone at once. “Diabolism.”
“Something of the sort, and perhaps a school needs intriguing old legends like that. Maybe there’s some kernel of fact at the center of the thing.”
“And maybe there’s a coven operating on the grounds today,” Thunstone offered.
Pitt shot him a quick glance, and turned the car upon a four-lane highway.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard about two covens. My folklore students assure me that they exist. One on campus, one off.”
“Operating seriously?”
“Seriously enough, from what I hear. Of course, I’ve never been to any of their meetings. Maybe they do follow the ancient traditions. Or maybe they’ve just read a couple of paperbacks and think they know what the score is; more or less the way some students read the Communist Manifesto and think they’re Marxist dialecticians.”
“I’d like to hear more on the subject,” said Thunstone. “What I do know of Buford State is a reputation for scholarship—the humanities, the sciences, law, music and so on. And you have a pretty good football team, too.”
“We did all right in football last fall, and the fall before that,” Pitt told him.
“What about your students in general?”
“We have eight thousand or so, including those in the graduate schools,” said Pitt. “Quite a few of them as shaggy and untidy and noisy as small-time rock musicians. Then some serious, dedicated ones who want to be ministers or educators or junior business executives. And there are foreigners, of course—Germans, Filipinos, Asiatics and so on. And the athletic grant-in-aiders playing football and basketball. Speaking of which, haven’t you played football in your time?”
“When I was in college, I did.”
“I thought so, just by the way you walk. You certainly don’t need that cane you carry.”
“I just carry it,” said Thunstone. “It’s a gift from an old friend.”
“I was in athletics, too,” said Pitt. “When I was at the University of Missouri, I wrestled. Now as to our meeting, it’s attracted attention all through the country. Likewise, it’s attracted some distinguished folklore authorities, like yourself.”
“And like Reuben Manco, the Cherokee chief and medicine man,” said Thunstone. “I’ve met him. He’s highly civilized.”
“He’ll be at dinner with you tonight, Chancellor Pollock is entertaining all the star turns. There’ll also be Professor Tashiro Shimada from Tokyo University, and Father Mark Bundren from New York, He’s a scholarly Jesuit, deep in traditional lore—maybe as erudite as Montague Summers, though nothing like as credulous. At least, I don’t think so. And, I believe, Grizel Fian of the Department of Dramatic Arts.”
They rolled past filling stations, two motels, a restaurant promising excellent seafood.
“Grizel Fian,” Thunstone repeated, “I don’t think I know who she is.”
“I doubt if many do know who she is,” said Pitt. “She isn’t officially of the faculty, not quite. But greatly interested in the D.A. Department, and she’s written and directed plays there. I think she was once on the stage in New York.”
“I don’t remember hearing about her there,” said Thunstone.
“Well, show business somewhere, anyway. Beyond that, she’s somewhere in her forties, but a really spectacularly good-looking woman. I can’t tell you if she’s ever been married or not, but if you write her a letter or mention her in a newspaper story, it has to be Ms. Fian, and she wants to be called Ms. Fian.”
“How about the people who’ll attend this meeting?” was Thunstone’s next question.
“I can’t say how many. Hundreds, anyway. Some visiting folklore professors, some scholars who’ll hold seminars. And the students will want to come, and others.”
“And others,” said Thunstone.
They came to a shopping center where a sign said buford city limits. Past that, on either side of Main Street, stood big, impressive houses, lived in for nobody could say how many years. Then shops, then a bank and another bank, people treading the sidewalk. On the far side, a low wall and the green lawns of a campus; gigantic trees, a statue of somebody in some sort of uniform, and farther in, the lifted heads and shoulders of big Georgian brick buildings. Pitt braked to a stop at a crossing of principal streets, waited for the traffic light to change, and turned them to drive left past fraternity houses with big Greek letters on them, and finally into a parking lot behind a three-story sprawl of brick and stone. He nosed them into an empty space and shut off his motor.
“This is the Inn,” he said. “Buford Inn. Let’s go and get you squared off.”
They got out and took Thunstone’s luggage out of the trunk. They walked along a sort of colonnade to glass- fronted doors, then into a wide lobby. Guests sat and talked on sofas and armchairs. Pitt led the way to the desk at one end of the lobby and spoke to a plump, smiling girl.
“This is Mr. John Thunstone, who’ll speak at our symposium,” he said. “A reservation was made for him early in the week.”
“Yes, Professor Pitt, we have the note here,” she said, and struck a bell on the desk. A tall, coffee-brown man in a blue tunic with yellow trim came across the floor and picked up Thunstone’s bags.
“We’re glad to have you here, Mr. Thunstone,” said the girl. “Oh, and you have mail.” She handed him two envelopes. “We hope you’ll be comfortable. If you want anything, call here at the desk.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“And now, I have to get back to work,” Pitt said to Thunstone. “I feel like a prediction—people at this symposium will want to hear what you say more than what anyone else says.”
“Then I’d better try to speak the truth,” said Thunstone, smiling.
“Everybody should try to speak the truth.”
Pitt went swiftly away. Thunstone followed the man with his luggage to an elevator. They rode up two floors and emerged into a red-carpeted corridor. The man put a key into the lock of a door that bore the number and let them in.
It was a room with off-white walls and doors and an off- white ceiling. Next to the window stood a broad bed, covered with
a dark, patterned spread. Thunstone looked into a bathroom with a tub and a shower. The dark man set the larger suitcase on a rack and put the smaller one beside it.
“Will that be all, sir?” he asked.
“Could you find me some ice?”
“Right away, there’s an ice machine down at the end of the hall.”
The man went out. Thunstone took off his blazer and hung it in a closet. He loosened his necktie and opened his suitcase on the rack. The dark man came back in again, with a deep trayful of ice cubes. Thunstone thanked him, gave him a dollar, and shut the door behind him.
He looked at the watch on his wrist. It was a quarter after four.
From his larger suitcase he brought out a squat, square bottle of brandy. Plastic glasses stood on the bureau. He put a cube of ice in one, trickled brandy into it, took a sip. Then he looked at his two letters.
One bore the return address of Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant, and was postmarked at Richmond. He opened it and read:
My dear boy,
Even stricken in years as I am, I wish I could come there and hear what golden text you’ll preach from at your meeting. What will your hearers think? Nobody believes anything these days, and everybody believes in something strange.
But I’m caught up here, trying to write my new book about the influence of supernatural beliefs on American culture. I tell practically everything except for my own life story, w'hich is the sort of story that shouldn’t be told.
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