Solomon's Stone

Chapter XVI.

Tukiphat bent over, extended a bony finger, and drew a circle in the earth. He added an ellipse, a couple of crosses, and a labarum; then sketched a smaller diagram tangent to the first. He did not seem perturbed by the fact that, because Of the weeds, his pentacles lacked something of clarity.

"I conjure thee, Bechard, and constrain thee, in like manner, by the most holy names of God: Eloi, Adonai, Eloi, Agla, Samalbactai; come without delay or evasion! Do thou obey me and fulfill my commands, by the nut and the moon! Come, Bechard!"

And there was the demon in the smaller pentacle, looking smaller than Nash remembered. Bechard was a little flickery around the edges, and there was something very peculiar about his manner.

"Wazzis?" muttered Bechard.

Tukiphat shouted: "Answer my questions truly and in a seemly manner, O Bechard, else I will torment thee with the holy words—"

"Questions? Regret. Got a hangover. Can't answer."

"Tagla in Oarios, Almoazin on Membrot!"

"Ouch!" said Bechard. Then, sulkily: "Don't know anything. Go peddle your papers—"

"Sulphae, Gabots, and Zariatnatmik!"

"Ow! All right, you big bully. Ask away."

"Where is the Shamir?"

"Shush-shamir? Dunno. Told young gentleman to get. Lessee." Bechard moved his head as if peering blearily."That young gentleman! Ho, you, Prasper Nosh, where ish Samir?"

"Be silent!" snapped Tukiphat. Bechard sat down in the center of his pentacle and covered his face with his hands. Tukiphat turned a worried look on Nash."I cannot destroy him and I cannot release him. He will be dangerous unless translated back to the demoniac plane, and that will require a double exorcism. Not even I can be on two planes at once."

Bechard looked up and pointed a wobbly finger at Nash."Young gentleman's maindun... mundane body. Die. In coma. Heh. Good joke on you."

"What?" yelled Nash.

"It is true," said Tukiphat."Your mundane body, having now no tenant, is in coma and will soon die."

Nash began to dance with alarm."Hey, can't you—"

"A matter of no importance, O Nash, compared with this. Interrupt me not; I must cerebrate—"

"Hey!" cried Nash."Isn't your trouble that you've got to have an exorcist ready to catch Bechard when he reaches the mundane plane, and give him the yeo-heave-ho down to the demoniac plane?"

"True, but—"

"Well, what's wrong with me?"

"You! O worm who would be an eagle—"

"I mean it! You exorcise me back into my own body, and then send Bechard—"

"What, a mere— O boy, perhaps I misjudge you. It could be... but you are no exorcist! And, lacking the Shamir, I cannot send any material object with you. You could not remember the details of the spell, without a writing—"

"Sure I could! Remembering details is the one thing I am good at! I carry all my addresses and phone numbers in my head—"

"So be it, then!" Tukiphat rapidly dictated instructions for drawing the pentacles and pronouncing the exorcism that would pitch Bechard back to that dark region from which he had come.

"One more thing," said the genius."As soon as you have disposed of Bechard, seek out your Alicia Woodson and instruct her to return to this plane at once with the Shamir, lest such a catastrophe threaten the harmony of the spheres again!"

"But," protested Nash, "I'm in love with the gal-"

"That, O youth, is your misfortune. It must be, lest worse befall. Change not your mind, for I can conjure your spirit back hither as easily as Bechard's. And now farewell; the grace of Adonai Elohim go with you—"

It seemed to Nash that Tukiphat had hardly begun the exorcism when he felt again that terrible rushing, falling sensation—

He was lying, dressed, on a rumpled bed. His mouth tasted like nothing in heaven or earth or the waters under the earth.

He blinked sticky eyelids, pulled himself up with cricks and twinges, and fumbled for his glasses.

Gosh, Bechard must have taken his body on a rare bender!

There was something he had to do—the exorcism!

He looked around his narrow room. Chalk— none. A pencil? Might; might not. Soap!

He drew the pentacles with a piece of soap and stood in the larger one, waiting.

He waited a long time, or so it seemed until he looked at the clock. It was quarter of ten; he had been waiting ten minutes. No doubt Tukiphat was allowing him plenty of time to get ready. Did he remember the exorcism? Sure!

"Whass the idea? Mundane plane, astral plane, can't let a poor demon rest—"

There the spook was. Nash shouted: "I exorcise thee, Bechard, by the holy names—" He raced through it in half the time it had taken Tukiphat to give it to him—and Bechard went out like a match-flame.

Nash drew a long breath. He felt his unshaven chin, and tried to raise Monty Stark on the telephone.

No answer. Monty would have left for school long before.

Nash looked distastefully at his rumpled suit, then at himself in the mirror. The face was pale and puffy; the eyes bloodshot. But it was at least his own face. He'd almost forgotten what it looked like.

He went downstairs, and sighted Robert S, Lanby at the cashier's window. He said; "Hi, Bob!"

Lanby looked at him, without surprise but still a little oddly, in fact with a suggestion of horror.

Then Nash remembered."It's O. K., Bob. I'm me again. Say, what happened to you?" He had observed that Lanby had a dark stain down the side of his face.

"I... uh... you better ask Monty. All I know is a girl that looked like Alice came in here just after I went on duty. She was wearing some sort of pajamas under her coat, and she was panting as if she'd run a mile, and she asked to see Monty.

Said it was a life-and-death matter. I tried to explain that we don't let girls up to fellows' rooms in a well-regulated Y, and she should telephone. She claimed she didn't know how to use a telephone, and one thing led to another, and pretty soon she bunged the inkwell at me, I had to change all my clothes. But, Prosper, what happened to you? How'd you get back—"

"Tell you all about it later." Nash chuckled."Seen Monty around?"

"Oh, yeah, he came down and went into a session with this girl. Then they went out, and he came back. I think he went down to breakfast a little while ago—"

"This late?"

"Sure, today's Saturday. He doesn't go to work. But listen, how'd you get rid of—"

Nash waved his friend to silence, and started to go. He turned back."How do you feel, Bob?"

"All right. Why?"

"Didn't feel as if somebody'd split your skull with an ax?"

"Well—come to think of it, I did have a little stabbing headache a while ago. What's it all—"

"Just this: instead of being so pure in your conduct, and then imagining yourself a ferocious Turk with a harem, you'd better try to be a little more average in both respects. See you later." Nash left a popeyed Bob Lanby and hurried down to the cafeteria.

Montague Stark's eyes met his over the lip of a coffee cup. Stark put the cup down and looked with the same badly concealed aversion that Lanby had shown, until Nash gave him the same reassurance he had given Bob.

"Did it work?" asked Stark at once.

"What, you mean your astral army? I'll say it worked! It's too bad we can't get rid of our own Aryans that easily. That monster your new astral body rode was a humdinger."

"I thought it was pretty cute. After that your lady friend—some girl, by the way—explained what was what, I left her and went up to my room. I got out the old bottle, and just sat and imagined myself a super-duper hero—"

"Where is she?" demanded Nash.

"I put her up in a room at the Imperator, and told her to wait until—"

"Monty, you wouldn't be interested in going up to the astral plane to live? It's a swell place, full of the damnedest incongruities—"

"Me? No, sir! Not on your life! I'll be satisfied to do things like that in my imagination... hey, where are you going? I've got a million questions to ask—"

Nash was on his way, but as he reached the door to the street he changed his mind. He went upstairs, shaved, took a swim and a sun-lamp treatment, and put on his best suit. Thank God there were no more waxed mustache-spikes to come unraveled!

"Wait a minute," said Alicia."You're... not —Prosper Nash himself?"

"That's me. Sorry if I'm not as impressive as I was up there—"

"Just let me get used to you—"

As he told of his adventures since their parting, she warmed to the familiar voice and turn of phrase. Eventually she cut loose in her own tempestuous fashion: hugged him, kissed him, pushed him into a chair and sat on him, mussed his hair, cried over him, and generally behaved like an uninhibited girl who has just learned that her lover is safe from grievous perils.

"We're not through yet, darling," he told her. He glanced toward Solomon's stone, gleaming softly with all the colors from red to violet from the top of the dresser.

When he explained their predicament, she really did break down. Nash tried to stem the flood, awkwardly but as well as he could.

"C-couldn't we send someone else?" she sobbed.

"Monty won't go, and I wouldn't trust anybody else. Also the thing will only take one of us. But I'll tell you what. I don't suppose Tukiphat would mind a little delay, say about twenty-four hours. And there are lots of things we can do in that time—"

It was Sunday noon when Prosper Nash drifted into Monty Stark's cubicle, to find Stark half buried in a blizzard of Sunday newspaper sections.

" 'Lo, Prosper," said Stark."Where's your Alicia? Gone back?"

"Yep."

"Thought so, from that gone look on your face. Why did she have to?"

Nash explained. Stark commiserated with him, but when he tried to pump Nash for astral information, Prosper yawned: "Later, pal. I'm worn out; going back to bed. It's funny, tco, since it wasn't this body that I raised so much hell with."

"Not funny at all, considering what Bechard did with this body while it was his."

"What did he do?"

Stark rolled his eyes up and whistled.

"So you won't talk, eh? Maybe it's just as well I don't know. Have I still got my job?"

"I think so."

Nash grumbled: "Bechard has all the depravity, and all I get is the reputation and the hangover." Then his eye lighted on the curious sight of a wastebasket stuffed full of books, many of them of such venerable appearance as to make such treatment seem sacrilege.

Nash bent over the basket and fingered the books." 'Arbatel', 'The Heptameron, ' 'The Kabbalah'... say, aren't these your books on magic?"

"Yeah. I'm throwing 'em out. After this I'll stick to amateur archaeology for a hobby."

Nash picked up the wastebasket, books and all, and started for the door."If you don't want 'em, I do. Maybe I'll never see Alicia again, but it won't be for not trying!" As he departed, his back straightened and the spring returned to his stride.