Solomon's Stone

Chapter XII.

Nash walked slowly up the path. His fifth step brought him to the last flagstone. The lawn also ended at this point, and the waste of hard-packed brown earth and green weeds that comprised the rest of the lot was sharp in the bright, cool sun. A small breeze stirred Nash's cloak and drove a couple of dead leaves tumbling across his vision.

"Come on! Up the steps with you!"

Nash frowned. Merlin Stark must be having fun with him. Well, two could play. Nash drew his sword and used it like a blind man's cane. He located two steps leading up from the end of the path; the scrape made by the point sounded like stone or concrete. As he ascended he discovered a door, invisible like the steps, and began poking it.

"Hey! Stop scratching my door up!"

"Well, fix your doorbell so I can see it!" retorted Nash.

"Oh, come on in and stop fooling around." A large dark rectangle the size of a door opened in the empty space in front of Nash, who found himself looking down a hall with an old-fashioned hall tree in the foreground.

"In here, M. de Nêche!" The voice was now obviously much like that of Monty Stark. Nash hung his cloak and plumed hat on one of the antlers of the hall tree, took a look at himself in the mirror, and entered.

Nash expected to see an improved version of Montague Allen Stark. But what he saw was more arresting: apparently Monty Stark himself with a long white false beard attached to his chin.

"Mont... uh, hello, Mr. Stark!" Nash covered his confusion with a formal Seventeenth-Century bow. He advanced to shake the hand that the astral Stark, half rising, extended across his desk.

Now that Nash had a closer look, he was fairly sure that the beard was real. The only trouble was that it did not go with the crisp brown hair, partly covered by a skullcap, and the plump young face. It was just like Monty, in imagining himself a magician, simply to slap a snowy beard on his face without bothering to alter. the rest of his physique to match.

The astral Stark wore a dark-blue judicial robe embroidered with astronomical symbols. On Nash's left was a lower desk bearing a typewriter. Behind the desk sat a young woman in an exceedingly gauzy dress. The girl was small and slim, with fair skin, enormous blue eyes, and a fragile, unearthly beauty. Another navy-blue robe lay across her lap, and on this she was embroidering an additional symbol: a thing combining the upper half of P with the lower half of L.

"Pluto," explained Stark."She thinks I ought to bring my paraphernalia up to date. I hope they don't discover any more planets for a while. You know, M. de Nêche, I had a feeling somebody like you was looking for me."

Of course, thought Nash, a genuine magician would know his client's name without being told. He said: "Quite a trick, making your house invisible."

Stark handed Nash a cigar and lit one himself."I thought those dead leaves were pretty cute. You have to time their apparent motion so it coincides with a puff of real wind."

"What's the big idea? To keep away hoi polloi?"

The wizard chuckled. With the cigar sticking up out of one corner of his grin, he was, except for the phony-looking bush, the same cocky Montague that Nash had known in his own plane."Why do lawyers use Latin? If a professional man doesn't mix a little hokum with his art, he doesn't get any clients. Now, what can I do for you?"

Nash said carefully: "I want to borrow the Shamir from Tukiphat."

Stark's eyebrows shot up."Why, in Thoth's name? Haven't enough folks come to grief trying to snatch the damned hunk of glass?"

"I need it in my business."

"Come on, come on! No secrets from your magus!"

Nash hesitated."Do you know about the mundane plane?"

"Uh... yes and no. Hm-m-m. There's something about you—wait, don't tell me—you don't quite fit—"

Stark took a deep drag, then let the smoke drift up out of his open mouth so that it almost veiled his face.

Nash leaned back in his swivel chair and looked about the room. It reminded him of the office of a country lawyer, except that the corners were cluttered with brass tripods and lamps, wands, and swords. Everything else was filing cabinets and bookcases, from the top of which two human skulls and one stuffed rooster looked down.

"Got it!" cried Stark."You're a mundane soul in an astral body! Right?"

"Right."

"By the Great Tetragrammaton, this is going to be interesting! I don't suppose you'd care to let me take your soul out for examination?"

"No, sir! I want to get back to my own plane."

"Oh, what's the hurry? You obviously created an adventurous type for yourself. Haven't you had adventure?"

"Sure," said Nash."I've killed three guys. Where I come from one homicide per lifetime is considered plenty. I want to get back before I kill any more."

"Hm-m-m. I could fix you up with a ring that would make it unnecessary to kill anybody, except perhaps Aryans. You can give me a lot of valuable information about your plane; the magi and philosophers in this one have the damnedest lot of contradictory theories about it."

"Sorry, but I've got to return before Bechard does something drastic with my mundane body. He gave me ten days."

"Bechard? Who's that?"

Nash told him about the demon.

"Hm-m-m," said Stark."I see your point. An astral body whose mundane congener has abandoned it or died is more liable to dissolution than one that is constantly maintained by its creator's. imagination."

"Well," said Nash, "can you fix me up, and if so what would the charge be?"

"Don't know; I'd have to think. Paraldine, would you get the volumes of Duban Farsi's Encyclopedia with the articles on 'Shamir' and 'Tukiphat'?"

The girl put down her sewing and left the room, followed by Nash's appreciative glance.

"Not looking for a secretary, are you?" asked Stark.

"Nope. Gosh, are you trying to get rid of her?"

"Um-m-m—yes and no. She's a good worker, but you know how sylphs are. Paraldine keeps pestering me... say, de Nêche, do you know I have a peculiar feeling—as if I'd known you somewhere?"

Nash grinned."In a way you have." And he told him about Montague Allen Stark.

"By Adonai Elohim, no wonder you came to me!" cried Stark."This is... ah, thank you, my dear," he said as the sylph dumped two huge volumes on his desk."Now let's see. Shaddai— Shamgar—Shamir. Hm-m-m." The magus read silently and puffed."'Lahu man ham ala al Shamir, al sama' wa jahannam horn ghuraf ji seraiah wahed. ' Literally, To him who holds the Shamir, Heaven and Hell are but rooms in the same building. ' What he means is that with this glorified rock you can translate both body and soul from one plane to another. Gives the method of using it too. You insufflate it three times—"

"You what?"

"Blow on it, to you. Then you describe the right pentagram if you're going to a higher plane; the left if to a lower; you'd use the left. Meanwhile you say: 'By the great Adonai, Elohim, Ariel, and Jehovam, conjuro, petrus veritatis, te cito mihi obedire; I conjure thee to obey me forthwith—' If the stone doesn't begin to coruscate at this point, that means it's pretending it doesn't understand English and Latin, so you have to repeat in Hebrew or Arabic. I hope you don't because to pronounce Arabic properly you need an oversized glottis and a case of asthma. 'By the holy names Albrot, On, Shaddai—' I'll have Paraldine type it out for you on virgin typewriter paper. Now let's see about Tuky."

Merlin Apollonius Stark opened the other volume and frowned over it for a long time. He murmured: "Don't know— These geniuses are tough customers, Tukiphat particularly. I wouldn't tangle with him myself for a bushel of azoth. But that's your funeral—"

He read on somberly, the slope of his shoulders indicating dim prospects. Then he began to perk up."Hey! De Nêche! I think I've got a method of getting through the refractory zone!"

The wizard jumped up and began to pace, nervously pulling his beard, cracking his knuckle joints, and hitting his palm with his fist."It's a natural! Paraldine, take a letter to Arnold Nathan."

The girl put down her sewing and took up her shorthand pad. Stark said: "On self-immolating paper, in a red-bordered envelope. Don't want to burn old Nathan's fingers.

Dear Mr. Nathan:

Could you do a little rush job for one of my clients? Take a watch with a sweep-second hand and a stop button. Transpose the hour hand and the second hand, so that the former hour hand will be controllable by the stud, and when activated will make one complete revolution per minute. The favor of Jod He Vau He be with you if you can do the job in twenty-four hours.

Very sincerely yours,

"All right, de Nêche, you come around day after tomorrow, early. I'll have a spell for binding Tukiphat and getting through his sphere worked out. I warn you that the first may require a triad."

"A whattad?"

"Three people to work it. So you'd better start thinking of whom you want to take along."

"Umm," said Nash."I suppose I could use a couple of Arslan's slaves—"

"Soulless ones? Too stupid."

"That was my impression. Say, you know I tried to give them their freedom this morning, and they wouldn't take it! Damnedest thing I ever saw."

"Not at all," said Stark."They were created as slaves, so they can't imagine any other existence."

"On my plane we consider slavery an abomination," said Nash."And we don't believe in natural-born slaves any more."

"Yes, but this isn't your plane, fellow!"

"Well, what are those 'soulless ones, ' then?"

"Oh. When one of you mundane souls creates an astral person, he sometimes throws in a flock of servants to do the dirty work for his hero. These auxiliary astral bodies, as it were, are what we call soulless ones, because they have very little personality of their own. They're useful, though; most of the unskilled labor on our plane is done by them, because there are so few first-grade astralites who will go in for it." He smiled wryly."Most unjust, according to your lights. The only way I can see to fix it is to persuade you mundane folks to create more honest toilers and fewer leaders and geniuses. If you find us kind of backward compared to you, that's what's wrong; everybody wants to be boss."

"O. K.," said Nash."But what'll I do with these guys? They give me the creeps."

Stark shrugged."Give 'em to the members of the harem. By the way, when you come around Saturday, you'd better bring some money with you."

"How much?"

Stark exchanged a knowing glance with the sylph, put his fingertips together, and rolled his eyes piously upward."Ahem—I don't like to fix a fee so far in advance—you never know what complications you're going to run into—but shall we say ten thousand dollars, including the watch and all the other props?"

"Owl" yelped Nash."Who do you think I am, a guy named Morgan Vanderbilt Rockefeller?"

Stark looked surprised and a bit hurt."After all, this astral money won't be any good on the mundane plane, even if you take it along!"

"It's the principle of the thing. You wouldn't soak your mundane body's best friend, would you?"

Stark sighed."Oh, all right, suppose we make it five thousand?"

Nash screwed his face into a knot at the thought of handing over five thousand dollars.

"Look, de Nêche," said Stark, "you come in early tomorrow morning prepared to spend the whole day answering questions about the mundane plane, and I'll give you your spells and props and all for twenty-five hundred. At that the Guild would probably kick me out if they heard."

It still hurt, but Nash did not feel he could ask for much more of a reduction.

Back at the castle, Nash found that a large fraction of the harem had already left. Their places had been taken by numbers of husbands and friends who had come to fetch them, but who planned to spend that night at the castle.

"It looks as if all of them would be out of here by tomorrow night," Alicia told him."Five of them are going to marry natives."

"Say, that's fast work," said Nash."When have any of them had a chance to get that intimate with the local boys?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"What are you going to do?"

She puffed at her corncob."Don't know that, either. What are your plans, Prosper?"

"Let's walk over toward the monastery," he said. When they were out of earshot of the castle, with a cold wind whipping their cloaks, he told her: "I'm going to... uh... borrow the Shamir from Tukiphat."

"Borrow? Does Tuky know about it?"

"No, ma'am, and I don't want him to, either. So don't spread it, please—"

She burst out laughing."So you're the man who was so persnickety about stealing Arslan's loot!"

"This is different."

"Oh, yeah? That's what they all say. How different?"

"It's a matter of saving my—"

"Yes, yes, go on!"

"It's a long story, and you may not believe it."

She blew smoke in his face."You poor dope, of course I believe you! Tell Alicia."

He told her about his usurped mundane body.

"I see," she said in a more serious tone than usual."I thought you'd changed from the chevalier I knew. For one thing, he never knew nor cared where his next dollar was coming from."

"Uh-huh. I'm sorry to steal your gallant friend and give you a glorified bookkeeper in his place—" She shot out a hand and tweaked his aristocratic beak."Not a bit of it! I like you better this way. You're kind and foresighted and conscientious—"

"Oh, sure, I've got all the dull virtues."

"But that's not so, Prosper! They may be dull on your plane, but here they're something extraordinary! We have all the arrogant, rapacious gallants we need. Of course," she added sardonically, "you are planning a robbery; it's stealing and you know it—"

"Well," he said uncomfortably, "I don't like it, but Bechard has me by the short hair—"

"Don't be silly! Of course you'll go through with it. As far as I know the gem hasn't been put to practical use since King Solomon dressed the stones of his temple by touching them with it. Just how are you going to work it?"

"I've got to find a couple of assistants—"

"Oh, wonderful! I'll be one of them—"

"What? But you're a woman—"

"You bet I am; so what? Don't you think I could help—"

"Sure, but this is likely to be dangerous—"

"What of it? Of course I'm going along! No use trying to go back to my old job while the Aryans—"

"But I can't expose you—"

"Stuff and nonsense! You'll take me, or I'll do some exposing!"

"You probably would, at that."

"Thought that would hold you." She glided close and smiled maliciously up at him from her small inferiority of stature.

"Some day," said Nash darkly, "you're going to waggle that perfect torso in my direction once too often, and then... OUCH!"

"Heh, heh, heh, think you could catch me if I didn't want you too?" She danced just out of his reach."Come on, let's see you try!"

Prosper tried; he flopped, clanked, and fluttered heavily after her back to the castle door. She gained easily and slipped inside the door. As Nash panted in after her, she grabbed him and fastened her rich lips on his—

When the skyrockets in Nash's head stopped exploding, he heard a roar of laughter from the company assembled for the first call to dinner. Nash reeled, crossed his eyes, pushed his hat back, and sat down on the floor."Where am I?" he cooed.

The company applauded the act. A couple of stalwarts, one in trapper's fringed buckskin and the other in Wall Street's spats and carnation, hauled him- up. Somebody pressed a snort of brandy on him, and the dinner got off to a rare convivial start. An astonishing lot of liquor had arrived with the girls' protectors. As Nash responded to toast after toast from these, he was forced to admit that he was grateful for at least one of his astral body's characteristics. Jean-Prospère de Nêche, it transpired, had a really phenomenal liver for liquor.