The overhead lights came up; the microphone would be working again. Thunstone said into it, “Today we had a cowardly murder on campus. Some of you know the student who died, Exum Layton.”
The whole stage seemed to sway and tremble under Thunstone’s feet. This must be how the bridge of a ship was to a captain in a typhoon, he thought, and the captain might go down with his ship. But this ship would not go down, and he, Thunstone, would not go down either.
“You don’t want to hear me, but you will!” shouted Thunstone at the top of his lungs. “Exum Layton gave up his part in devil worship here, and he died. Coincidence? They’re trying to find out, by conducting an autopsy. But I’ve already found out, and I say to you, it was murder by black magic!”
Thorne had risen in his seat. “You’re through, Thunstone!” he yelled. “You’re through!”
“Yes!” cried others. “Yes!”
Thunstone grinned down at Thome, every tooth bared. “No,” he called back. “I’m not finished, I’ve just begun. And do you want to try it on with me again? Why not come up on stage with me? Do you dare?”
A moment of utter silence except for the storm, while the lights dimmed and grew strong again. The voice of Rowley Thome rose:
“The time is not yet. Go on, talk. It will be your last statement.”
“Did you hear that?” cried Thunstone into the microphone. “Rowley Thome threatens me with death. I subpoena everyone here tonight as witnesses to that.” Again he looked down at Thome. “If you can kill me, and I don’t think you can, you’re guilty of malice aforethought.”
“I didn’t say kill you,” came back Thome. “I’U just exile you into silence.”
A wild yell went up, from many throats. The coals of fire stirred, whirled, in the hands of Thome’s supporters. Others in the audience sat motionless, rapt, stunned.
“You know what I mean,” Thome blared.
“Try it,” said Thunstone.
“Here I come!”
Thome came up out of his seat. Nearby red glimmers showed that he was swathed in a black cape, folded up to his bull throat. He ran to the rail of the orchestra pit and seemed to float to the stage. With him came Grizel Fian in the red dress she liked to wear. How they made that jump puzzled Thunstone. Something must have lifted them, floated them, made them fly.
Thome came to stage center, almost next to where Thunstone stood at the lectern. He raised his arms on high, flinging the black cape from his body. Underneath it he was dressed in a black suit and a black vest which came to his plowshare chin.
“Listen to what is true, what is great!” he bellowed at the audience. “I’m here to tell you and to put this man Thunstone to shame!”
“Hear the truth!” shrilled Grizel Fian. Her eyes stared, her bosom heaved and rolled like billows at sea. “We bring you the truth, hear it while you have the chance!”
The audience sat transfixed. The floor pitched. Overhead, the rain rushed down on the roof.
“You dare face me,” said Thunstone, turning from the lectern toward Thome so close to him. “You’re a slow learner, aren’t you? How many times—”
“The last battle decides the war,” Thome mouthed. His eyes looked bright red, as though full of blood. “I’ve learned what to do, and now I’ll do it.”
The bearers of the red coals had come forward along the aisles, were massed at the rail of the orchestra pit. Others, the people who had only come to hear, weaved where they sat. Several had risen in the aisles, as though to run away.
“You can win only against the helpless,” Thunstone said to Thome and to Grizel Fian. “Helpless victims, like Exum Layton. I’ve come prepared.”
“You have nothing! Nothing!” Grizel Fian spewed at him,
“You’ll depart into nothingness,” crooned Thome, showing his blocky teeth. “I’ll put you there.”
“Do you remember when you tried it before?” Thunstone jibed at him. “Tried it before, and who was it went into nothingness? Try it now.”
“Ooooh!” the fire bearers at the orchestra rail moaned in chorus.
“Now my wish, my prayer will come true!” Rowley Thome shouted. “Hear me, Moloch, Lucifer, Pemoath.”
“Anector, Somiator, sleep ye not,” said Grizel Fian, as though it were an antistrophe.
“Fve heard those names,” said Thunstone, quite calmly. “They don’t frighten me at all. Say some more.”
Again Thome waved his huge hands. “Eko, eko, Azarak!” he bugled. “Eko, eko, Aamalek! Eko, eko, eko, eko!”
“Gibberish,” pronounced Thunstone. But as he spoke, the air thickened and oppressed. It smelled like raw hides.
“Awake, strong Holaha,” Thome was chanting again. “Powerful Eabon, mighty Athe, Sada, Eroyhe—by your names, by names not to be spoken, I deliver this scoffer into your nothingness!”
With that, he hurled himself upon Thunstone.
They grappled. Thome was strong; Thunstone knew that from other encounters. Thome groped for Thunstone’s throat, but Thunstone caught him by his heavy biceps and jammed his thumbs into the insides of the muscles, seeking and finding nerves there. He dug with all his strength. He heard Thome howl with pain. They wrestled each other across the floor.
“No!” roared another voice. “No!”
That was Reuben Manco. He had rushed out upon the stage. So had Father Bundren, holding a crucifix on high. Shimada and Kyoki were there, talking in Japanese, and Sharon, too. Thome tried to hook a foot back of Thunstone’s heel to throw him, but Thunstone stepped clear of the entanglement and, with all his strength, heaved Thome up above his head. Grizel Fian shrieked.
Then a silvery jangle of sound. Sharon was ringing the bell Thunstone had given her, Thunstone threw Thome from him.
That was all. Thome winked out of sight in midair. Grizel Fian had vanished, too. They were gone.
At the same instant, the rain and the wind stopped. There was silence all through the hall. Thunstone saw the bearers of the red lights scrambling off along the aisles, in headlong flight for the open.
He returned to the lectern. He smiled out at those who had stayed. Then he turned to where Sharon stood trembling, the bell still in her hand.
“You did what was needed,” he told her. “They wanted to send me away somewhere—another plane, another dimension. But the spirits they called on went back without me, and took them along instead.”
He spoke into the microphone:
“Ladies and gentlemen, don’t ask me where they went. I don’t know, I have only dark suspicions.”
XVI
Monday noon.
They sat in Thunstone’s room, where they had sat again and again in sober council. The councils were over, at least as they concerned the vanished Rowley Thome and Grizel Fian. But all Sunday and all Monday morning had been busy, with the Buford police and men of the State Bureau of Investigation, and with newspaper interviews. All of them were heartily tired of those.
“At last I’ve had time to hear from the hospital and the autopsy on Exum Layton,” said Thunstone, “They’re calling it a cardiac arrest, but they’re mystified, like everyone else. No real rupture in the region of the heart, just a stablike wound there, as though with a blade. It was something like what they tried against me and couldn’t get done. The body’s been released to the funeral home in town.”
“And the funeral will be in the chapel there, at ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” said Father Bundren. “I hope all of you will attend.”
“If you permit me, I would like to provide a tombstone,” said Shimada. “One such as you see all through the cemetery, and upon it, ‘Exum Layton, Who Came into the Light.’ ”
“How splendid,” said Sharon,
Manco puffed on his elephant pipe. “Those police kept asking questions, and I kept telling the truth, and they kept not believing me,” he said. “They wanted someone to vouch for me, someone other than you people. At the time, probably they wanted to suspect you too, but couldn’t think of any good suspicions.
All I could think of was to call Dr. Clark at the hospital. He vouched for me all the way, got them off my back. But I had to promise him to talk about Cherokee medicine methods to a group of med students and residents. That’s for tomorrow in the afternoon, so I’ll have a full Tuesday before I head home.”
“Sharon and I will spend a few more days here,” said Thunstone. “Rest a trifle and talk to friends we’ve made.”
“Yes,” said Sharon, cradling the silver bell in her hands. “This helped, didn’t it?” she said, and held it out to Thunstone. “Don’t you want it back?”
“It’s a present to you,” he said. “Have you had time to study the words on it? You’ll find the names of Saint Cecilia and Saint Dunstan, for music and silverwork. And a motto in Latin, Est mea terror vox daemonoirunu ”
“My voice is the terror of all demons,” translated Father Bundren. “That’s a powerful talisman, Countess. I’ll say with Thunstone that when you rang it, it had its effect.” “Where did they go?” asked Shimada. “Thome and Grizel Fian—where?”
“They softly and suddenly vanished away, like the man in ‘The Hunting of the Snark.’ ”
“I can’t do anything but theorize,” said Thunstone. “They were trying to send me away—to another plane, another dimension, another existence. Maybe to limbo. Thome went there once before when he tried to send me there and failed. Grizel Fian somehow charmed him back into this world we know. Now she’s gone with him. I don’t know where they are, or how long they’ll stay.”
“Wagh,” said Manco. “Forever, I hope.”
“Amen to that,” said Father Bundren. “Others have left Buford, the police tell me. Students, townspeople, even one faculty member, all in a hurry. I’d suggest that, here in Buford, their room is better than their company.”
Thunstone rose. “Shouldn’t we go and have some lunch?”
They went down to the dining room and found a table. The young waiter who had served them on Saturday night brought menus.
“Mr. Thunstone, I looked for you yesterday,” he said, mildly reproachful. “You promised me your autograph.”
“I was busy all yesterday, didn’t get anything to eat but sandwiches,” said Thunstone.
Manco studied the waiter. “You weren’t one of that crowd that cleared out of here without barely stopping to pack,” he said.
“That crazy devil crowd?” said the waiter. “I never paid them any heed. I don’t believe in their talk.”
“Don’t you?” said Thunstone. “Well, give me some paper and I’ll autograph to you personally. What’s your name, son?”
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