Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 02

by The School of Darkness (v1. 1)

  “Thank you,” said Manco deeply into his own microphone. Looking at him from the side, Thunstone saw the sweep of his curved nose, his square jaw, the brown strength of his face. “Last night,” he said, “Professor Shimada observed that his ancestors were in Japan many thousands of years before mine were in America. I recognize that seniority, but I take leave to remark that my ancient people had a far larger area to explore and live in. And I also take leave to wonder if his Japanese civilization was established earlier than native civilizations in North and South America.” Shimada smiled and made a silent gesture of applause. Manco let his words sink in, then went on:

  “There are old Indian beliefs in dazzling wonders—the Dreadful Rabbit, the menacing little Pukwitchee people, the Thunderbird that will send down rain if you know the right song to sing, the Half Buffalo creature that sounds like the Cretan Minotaur—people smile at these legends. Yet to every utterly strange belief there is, somewhere back at the beginning, a core of plain truth. There have been dragons in America—science calls them dinosaurs—even flying dragons, with wing spreads of fifty feet—their bones have been found in Texas. And sun gods and moon gods and spider fairies and grasshopper imps. Indians who believed in such things built civilizations in Mexico, in Yucatan and Peru.” Manco permitted himself a hard, dry grin. “Who can certainly say, here or elsewhere—if Columbus had waited a few more centuries before he discovered America, what great triumphs of culture might have been realized by the Aztecs and the Mayas and the Peruvian Incas? A good question, don’t you agree, and what might be the answer?” The whole great audience listened raptly. He went on: “I’m a Cherokee, as you’ve heard Professor Pitt say. I belong to one of what they call the Civilized Tribes. When I speak at greater length here, I’ll go into the beliefs of my people, and I’ll try to demonstrate how true some of those beliefs can be.”

  He finished, and lifted a hand, palm out as though in blessing. Pitt returned to his own microphone.

  “And last,” he said, “let me introduce Father Mark Bundren, of New York City. Father Bundren is a classicist of high reputation, he is of the powerful, learned Society of Jesus founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola. He has been a teacher in Catholic colleges and universities, and now he is more widely active as a scholar of the occult. His books and articles on classic demonology are read and respected everywhere. Father Bundren, the floor is yours.”

  Some of the listeners stirred in their seats. Father Bundren smiled and began:

  “Professor Pitt is pleased to say some flattering things. Let me say that I am simply a priest of my church, one of more than fifty thousand Catholic priests in the United States alone. And I venture to hope that, yes, I’m a classicist of sorts. I’ll go along with what Mr. Thunstone has said for himself, I’ve experienced strange things in my life, and I feel obliged to believe in those strange things, to cope with them as I’m able. Diabolism is as ancient as man himself. Perhaps devils were worshiped and feared before gods—perhaps gods are relatively new among us on earth as compared to devils. As far back as the Stone Age, sorcerers flourished; we have their homed portraits in old, old caves. The pagans of Greece and Rome respected and served sorcerers. When Christianity dawned, it had diabolists to meet and defeat. Saint Peter, once named Simon, had a lively struggle with his namesake, Simon Magus. If we credit the writings of certain saints, Simon Magus tried to impress the Emperor Nero by soaring into the air. Saint Peter prayed, and Simon Magus fell crashing to the ground—he was killed, says one account. But his teachings didn’t die with him. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century, there were Simon Magus cults both in America and in France.”

  He was silent for a moment, while all the auditorium was silent. Then he went on:

  “Witchcraft was sternly attacked in the Middle Ages and on into recent times. I gather that thousands of devil worshipers were executed. Maybe innocent people were among them, but there were witch doctors aplenty on the lists. We know about the Salem executions here. Other events of the sort happened elsewhere in our country. Today the law provides that no sincere religious belief can be forbidden or molested, and there are many, many professed witch organizations from coast to coast. I hope to go more deeply into this sort of thing later in our program here.”

  He, too, finished, and Pitt said, “We will now hear any questions anyone cares to ask, and will try to answer them. Hold up your hands. When you’re recognized, state your name and offer your query.”

  Then silence. To Thunstone, it seemed a heavy silence. After a moment, hands went up here and there. Pitt pointed to someone in the center section, and a young man stood up. He had long black hair and a small mustache. To Thunstone, he seemed to have a far-off resemblance to a tallish Edgar Allan Poe.

  “My name’s Exum Layton,” said the man, his voice faint in the auditorium. “I’m a graduate student in English. I want to ask Mr. Thunstone, why do you say you believe in these phenomena?”

  “Seeing is believing,” said Thunstone into his microphone. “When you see something, experience something at first hand, it becomes reality to you and perhaps you can deal with it.”

  “You mentioned the Shonokins,” Exum Layton said. “I’ve heard of them, but I thought they were fiction.”

  “They’re real enough, in their seemingly unreal way,” said Thunstone.

  “I’d like to talk to you about them.”

  “Very well, you may. I’m staying at the Inn, you can telephone me there.”

  Exum Layton sat down. Pitt pointed toward another lifted hand, a slim, white one. Grizel Fian rose from her seat.

  “Yes,” prompted Pitt.

  “Mr. Thunstone,” she said, and her voice was clearer, more resounding, than Layton’s had been. “Last night, you and X spoke of Rowley Thome, Would you like to tell us about him?”

  Behind her sat the big man with the bald head. Thunstone could make out his face, heavy-jowled, hook-nosed.

  “Rowley Thome was, in his time, the world’s principal figure in the cult of Satanism,” said Thunstone at once. “He had various disciples, who gave him money to spend and supported his claims and actions. He didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him. One day, he vanished. I conjecture that he failed at some rather sinister magical effort, and got taken into some other plane of existence, away from the one we know.”

  A murmur rose among the listeners. “Do you believe that such a thing happened?” Grizel Fian half challenged.

  “I saw it happen,” Thunstone replied. “There are reports of such things in the past. I daresay that Father Bundren could give you some instances out of the Bible. I wouldn’t be surprised if Professor Shimada could tell about such disappearances in Asia, or if Chief Manco could speak to them among Indian peoples.”

  “Thank you,” said Grizel Fian, and sat down. The bald head behind her leaned close as though to speak in her ear. Pitt pointed to another in the audience, a middle-aged man this time, who rose and called himself Hollis Buchanan.

  “I’m a member of no church, and I follow no religion,” he said gratingly. “I ask Father Bundren how science can explain the curious things he believes in.”

  “By and large, science doesn’t recognize those things and doesn’t try to explain them,” was Father Bundren’s cheerful answer. “Proof and faith are opposite paths of belief.”

  “Nothing is true without scientific proof,” insisted Hollis Buchanan.

  “Well, from time to time science catches up with things, with bewildering realities.” Father Bundren smiled in a way that made his canny face look chubby. “I have said that I’m a priest, and I’ll add that I’m not unacquainted with scientific theories that have become recognized facts. But, if I’m to do my duty as a priest, I can’t help but believe in miracles and wonders. Those happen to be part of a priest’s business.”

  Hollis Buchanan did not look particularly satisfied, but he sat down. Others raised their hands and asked questions, of Thunstone and all the others, and were answered as simply and clearly
as possible. Most of the questioners wanted to know if members of the panel truly believed in supernormal phenomena, and if so, why. It occurred to Thunstone that he and his fellow panelists had no more than hinted at the matters they would discuss more fully later. At last, at about half past eleven, Pitt declared the session at an end.

  “At one-thirty this afternoon, Chief Manco will be here to tell about the legendry of his great Cherokee nation,” he announced. “Later, at three-thirty, Father Bundren will take up the subject of historical demonology. Thank you all for your attention.”

  He rose, and the members of the panel rose with him. The audience stirred and sought the aisles. Grizel Fian glittered as she moved. Thunstone caught Sharon’s eye, gestured to her, and quickly left the stage and joined her.

  “I’ve seen Rowley Thome,” were the first words she said to him, softly and unsteadily.

  “And so have I, I believe,” he said. “Well, if he’s really

  here, he must be dealt with. I’ll have to decide. Would you like some lunch at the Inn?”

  “Yes. Yes, I would. I feel frightened just now, but I feel hungry, too.”

  They went out to the street comer, waited for a traffic light, and crossed over. Together they sought the dining room and sat down and looked at the menus brought by a waiter. They ordered shrimp salad and black coffee.

  A voice spoke to them. Grizel Fian had come to stand beside their table. Her red silk dress shone.

  “May I sit down with you two?” she asked. “I have something to say that might interest you.”

  IV

  Thunstone was on his feet at once. “Of course,” he said. “Please sit down with us. We’re having lunch, will you have something?”

  “Thank you, but no.” Grizel Fian shook her head vigorously. “I don’t eat lunch, I never do. Well—perhaps a cup of tea?”

  “I’ll get you one,” said Thunstone. He pulled out a chair for her, and she sat down. Then he beckoned to the waiter and he ordered the tea. “Sharon, may I present Ms. Grizel Fian? And this is the Countess Monteseco, Ms. Fian.”

  Sharon nodded and smiled. Grizel Fian looked at her keenly. She almost stared.

  “This is a pleasure,” she said. “I’ve heard of you, Countess. I’ve heard that you were beautiful, and you are.”

  “Thank you,” said Sharon.

  “And I listened to you this morning,” Grizel Fian almost burst out at Thunstone. “You said you’d encountered werewolves and vampires, and that strange race of the Shonokins. You sound as though you’ll accept wonderful truths, believe in things that many people just scoff at. I came here—intruded here, really—to tell you something about the founding of this university.”

  “I’ll be glad to hear about it,” Thunstone assured her.

  The waiter brought their lunch and set a cup and a small teapot before Grizel Fian. She poured her tea. Sharon and Thunstone began to eat.

  “What I have to tell is laughed at sometimes, but the story hangs on here,” said Grizel Fian. “It’s about Samuel Whitney, who founded the school, and how he was taken strangely ill when he got here to Buford.”

  “Professor Pitt mentioned that interesting tale to me,” said Thunstone.

  “A tale, you call it.” She leaned toward him, bright-eyed. “Calling it a tale makes it sound like some sort of a myth, a legend. But there’s evidence—”

  She broke off, and her full lips trembled.

  “What sort of evidence?” prompted Sharon.

  “The town used to say, Samuel Whitney had made certain people up North angry,” said Grizel Fian. “He found himself to be suffering, to be sick, and he came here from wherever he’d been living, to get away from it. But whatever the plague was, it followed him and struck him down, and some kind people of Buford cared for him.”

  “Kind people?” Thunstone repeated after her. “What kind of kind people were they?”

  “They were a group of Buford women who followed the Old Religion,” said Grizel Fian.

  “A coven of witches,” supplied Thunstone, and Sharon’s wide blue eyes grew wider.

  “All right,” nodded Grizel Fian. “A coven, if you want to call it that. You know what a coven is, Mr. Thunstone. There have been covens, like the one at North Berwick in Scotland.”

  “Yes, that famous one at North Berwick,” he said. “By way of coincidence, the chief of that coven was named Fian, the same name as yours.” He looked at her face, paler now than ever. “Could he have been a relative?”

  “Who could know that, after four hundred years?” she said. “But those women here, they were kindly women, wise women. They prayed. They performed rituals. They saved Samuel Whitney’s life. And in gratitude he founded the college here.”

  “Yes,” Sharon half whispered.

  “Tell me, what agreement was made?” Thunstone asked. “They saved Whitney from whatever danger threatened him—did he promise them the college then, or did he found it later, in gratitude?” He smiled, ever so thinly. “In other words, was the college founded in the name of witchcraft?” “Who knows that for certain, either?” asked Grizel Fian in turn. “I’ve told you this story to show that the Old Religion can help. It can heal. It can do good deeds.”

  “I’ve been told that there are at least two active covens here in Buford,” said Thunstone. He chose not to add that Lee Pitt was his informant.

  “Two?” said Grizel Fian after him. “At least two? Did you come here to see that they’d be investigated—prosecuted?”

  “As I understand the interpretation of United States law by high federal and state courts, no coven can be challenged for what it believes,” said Thunstone. “That happens to be guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution— free exercise of religious belief, right along with freedom of speech or of the press, or of peaceable assembly. I’d say that a coven could meet and worship at high noon on the Main Street of Buford or any other town, if it didn’t break any of various other laws, say a law against public nudity.”

  “Yes,” said Grizel Fian, finishing her cup of tea. “Yes, of course. Now, another question. How well did you know Rowley Thome, Mr. Thunstone?”

  “I knew him very well indeed. As I said at the meeting this morning, we didn’t like each other.”

  “Do you know if he’s alive or dead?” Grizel Fian prodded.

  “I’m not sure. As I said, I saw him disappear.”

  “Disappear,” Sharon repeated in what sounded like awe.

  “Before my very eyes,” Thunstone went on. “What happened to him is beyond my comprehension.”

  “So there’s something beyond your comprehension, after all,” said Grizel Fian, and she seemed to mock.

  “There are many things beyond my comprehension,” said Thunstone, smiling.

  Grizel Fian leaned at him. “If you should see him come back to meet you, might you possibly make peace?”

  Again Thunstone smiled. “That would depend on the peace terms,” he replied. “I wouldn’t expect unconditional surrender on either side. Why do you ask that?”

  “You must forgive me for wondering about things,” said Grizel Fian. “I do so much wondering.”

  “You’re with the Department of Dramatic Arts here, aren’t you?” asked Sharon.

  Grizel Fian shook her head. “Not exactly. I’m not a bona fide instructor, I draw no salary, if that’s what you mean. But they let me be actively interested. I direct plays sometimes—once or twice I’ve written plays, and staged them, too.”

  “I hear that you’re actively interested in students, too,” put in Thunstone. “That you let some girls stay in your home, and charge them no rent.”

  Grizel Fian opened her green eyes at him. “Mr. Thunstone, you seem to have asked questions about me.”

  “Let’s say I’ve only listened to what people tell me,” he said, still smiling.

  “Very well,” she said quickly. “I’ve tried to be a friend to girl students who need help here, who deserve it. Isn’t that all right?”
>
  “I haven’t suggested that it wasn’t,” said Thunstone evenly.

  “But now I must go. I have a show to present tonight. I hope you’ll both come.”

  “We’ll be there,” Sharon promised.

  Grizel Fian stood up. She fixed her eyes on Sharon.

  “I wish you could be in a scene tonight,” she said. “You’re so pretty, you’d do so well.”

  “Oh, but I don’t even know the show,” protested Sharon.

  “It’s Shakespeare, three scenes from Shakespeare. I could find you a costume—you wouldn’t have to speak lines—”

  “This is flattering, but I must say no,” said Sharon firmly.

  Thunstone was on his feet, too. “We expect to enjoy the performance.”

  “I hope it will go off well,” said Grizel Fian. “There are some good effects—the sets, the lights, certain dramatic emphases. Well, thank you for talking to me.”

  She winnowed away. Sharon rose from her own chair.

  “Good-looking, isn’t she?”

  “Very,” said Thunstone, “but not as good-looking as you. Let’s go now, hear my friend Reuben Manco.”

  They met Manco in the lobby. Again he wore his beaded hunting shirt, and in his headband he had stuck an eagle feather, which stood erect like an exclamation point. It was tufted with red at the top, and on the white expanse below the dark upper end were strange devices, also in red.

  “You’re looking at a medicine plume,” said Manco. “It was given to me by John Blackfeather, of the Oglalla Sioux. He told me that it was once worn by Red Cloud, the great chief of his tribe, and that it’s a strong charm against evil magic. You two are going to listen to my sermon this morning? Come on, then.”

  The three went out into bright sunlight, crossed the street on to the campus, and approached Whitney Auditorium. People thronged in at the door. Lee Pitt greeted them at the head of an aisle inside.