Solomon's Stone

Chapter V.

Prosper Nash's teeth chattered a little until the exercise warmed him. He took one last look to assure himself that Tukiphat's island was straight ahead, and bent to the oars again. The water gurgled pleasantly as the blades bit through it—pull— reach—pull—reach—a dozen strokes should bring him to the beach. But a dozen strokes did not, nor yet two dozen. Had he rowed right past it in the dark?

Where was the damned thing? And for that matter where was everything? The stars had vanished, and Nash could no longer make out the silhouette of trees against the sky. In fact he could no longer make out anything save the water alongside, darkly reflecting like blued steel. It must have clouded over.

He leaned on his oars again, frowning; a prickly sensation began in the hair follicles of his nape and spread over his scalp. Except for that rippling surface he might as well be rowing through interstellar space. He stuck a finger into the water to see whether it was what it seemed; it was at least wet, and warmer than the chill air. A line from a poem ran through his mind:

The weird ululation of fiends

On the brackish waters of time—

Nash preferred his poetry more concrete and cheerful, but that line seemed appropriate right now. It was no darker than it had been; he just couldn't seem to see anything except two strips of feebly lit water, one stretching away from the bow of the craft and one from the stern. It was somewhat as though he were in his old mundane body without his glasses? Could it be that he was? He felt himself quickly, and was satisfied that he still inhabited the chevalier's big, hawk-nosed, long-haired physique.

But still island, lake, stars, and everything else recognizable had vanished; there was water before and water behind, stretching off to slightly brighter patches on what would be the horizon; everything else was a blur and a dark one at that.

He rowed some more, and quit when it occurred to him that he had no idea whither he was going.

"Hey!"

Silence.

"HEY!"

Still no sound. Gosh!

He rowed with long, hard strokes; the glimmering water slid past. When he stopped and looked around, the boat still floated on a ribbon of water bordered by nothingness and stretching away to infinity on both sides.

Nash headed the boat straight toward the side of this canallike body and rowed some more. He moved; the eddies from his strokes swirled away aft into the dark. But his surroundings failed to change accordingly. It was as though the ribbon of water were being unrolled on one side and rolled up on the other, so that no matter what Nash did he remained in the middle.

When even the chevalier's iron frame began to tire, Nash gave up and rested again. The direct approach that he had used was evidently all wrong. He should have inquired around more. Where had he gotten the idea that he was a sensible fellow smart enough to improvise his way out of trouble? The only comfort was the knowledge that Bechard had been an even bigger fool, to send him off on this adventure so lamentably unprepared—

Well, if it was really all Bechard's fault there was no point in sitting there and reproaching oneself. He was tired and hungry; if he made himself as comfortable as possible until dawn he might be able to grasp his predicament then—if there was going to be a dawn, and if he weren't in some sort of hyperspatial tunnel between the mundane and astral planes. He scooped enough. water out of the lake to fill the gnawing void for a while, lay down in the boat, and put his hat over his face.

He slept badly; every time he dropped off, the cold would bring him to shivering. After what seemed like the hundredth such awakening his itching eyes picked out the spots of lighter gray toward which the watercourse stretched. They seemed definitely brighter, and the canal itself was lightening in response.

The world brightened but became no more intelligible. The canal seemed to run through a glass tunnel of indefinite length, the glass fluted so that nothing in the world outside could be made out. At the sides of the canal the water appeared to merge into the glass, so that the diameter of the tunnel was difficult to estimate. Nash guessed it at thirty to forty feet.

As he stared, a narrow horizontal red line appeared in the wall of the tunnel at eye-level. The minutes passed, and the red line widened to a band with an apparent width of about two degrees, meanwhile brightening to a glowing orange. It got no wider, but rose with gastropodal speed and turned a fierce white.

Sun, thought Nash; the walls of the tunnel must have the optical property of stretching one dimension of the world outside out to infinite length. No wonder nothing was recognizable. He rowed about for a while, toward the walls of the tunnel and along its axis, but with no more results than he had achieved during the night.

Before he resigned himself to eating his floppy boots for breakfast he had better have one more try with lung-power. He yelled, and listened, and yelled again, until his throat was sore. At last a voice answered:

"Ahoy, if it isn't the saucy lubber in the macaroni hat! Belay yourself and return my boat, sir!" The voice was startlingly clear and unmistakably that of Captain Perry Decatur Shapiro.

"Glad to," Nash yelled back, "but how?"

"Row, you fool! Not that way; head toward the outer wall of the sphere!"

"Which way is that?"

"Little more to stabberd; there you are. Now pull, my hearty!"

Nash pulled along the axis of the tube until he puffed."Keep on!" cried the invisible captain. Nash rowed some more and craned his neck to see where he was going. Perhaps fifty yards ahead the water and sun and streaks along the sides of the tunnel almost converged, and around the spot toward which they pointed, objects could be made out; a bit of lake shore with a couple of trees, shrunken down as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope. As the boat moved, the picture grew as pieces of the streaks detached themselves and joined it. It seemed to Nash as though he were looking into a deep parabolic mirror, except that there was no reflection of himself at the focus. Suddenly the walls of the tunnel whisked back, and he was out on the familiar lake; or at least most of him was. When he looked at the stern he saw that the boat ended just beyond his feet, as if it had been crumpled up along its longitudinal axis. Even as he watched, the stern extended itself away from where he sat until the boat reached its normal dimensions. He had just rowed out of the smooth, dull, curved band that lay "on the water like a wide streak of oil encircling the island.

"Hurray!" " 'Rah!" "Vive!" "Bravo!" "Euge!" "Yipee!" "Olé!"

These sounds came from a score of men on the shore of the lake. Among them Nash made out Captain Shapiro's nautical cap. As he rowed toward them he discerned that they were laughing. Half of them were soldiers and the rest the usual motley astral assortment. He handed over the boat to its commander with a self-conscious grin.

"Went to sleep," he explained, "and got lost in the dark—"

Captain Shapiro was examining the boat minutely."It's well for you that it's sound, sir," he said."We don't mind your trying to reach Tukiphat's island, having tried to do so ourselves without success. But if you'd lost or damaged the boat, the lads here would have haled you before the Private."

Nash asked: "Say, what is that thing around the island? What became of that tunnel I got into?"

"Wasn't any tunnel," said one of the soldiers."It's a... what you call it... optical effect. How does it work, General Kenyon?"

Another soldier took up: "You see, Frenchy, when Tukiphat set up his island he didn't want visitors, so he put what he calls a zone of refraction around it. How does it work, colonel? I'm just an ordinary general."

"It's shaped like a hollow ball," explained the colonel, "and it slows down everything moving toward or away from its center, the way glass slows down light, only more so, so that it takes you as long to go a foot in a... uh... radial direction as it would take you to go a mile ordinarily. A man who enters it is flattened out so that from the outside he looks like a cardboard cutout, only to him he looks normal and everything not in the zone is stretched all out of shape." The first general said: "You can fire a bullet at it, and when it hits the zone you can see it hang in the air and then drop straight down plunk into the water. Here, I'll show you—"

The general raised his gun. The colonel barked: "Put that down, you damn fool! Don't you know if you don't hit the zone square on, the bullet'll be refracted back out and maybe hit somebody?"

"Aw, but colonel—"

"Shut up! Who's giving orders here?" The general meekly subsided. The colonel started to say: "All right, Frenchy, try not to get in any more trouble—"

"Jean-Prospère!" cried a man in the crowd who was dressed much like Nash."Ami! Où estois tu caché?" The man threw himself upon Nash with a swirl of cloak, and before Nash could get his guard up he had been seized around the shoulders and kissed on both cheeks. The crowd guffawed.

He looked at his toes, vainly hoping the earth would swallow him, while his new friend poured a stream of Seventeenth-Century French over his embarrassed head, "—beaucoup de peine j'ay cue! J'ay oui dire par des scélérats que peur tu avois. Un cheval tu as! Je croyois que vendue tu l'avois—"

Nash finally worked in: "Had a little lapse of memory. Didn't know where I belonged or anything."

"And now back it all comes? Bon! We go, no?"

Nash mounted without protest and let the other guide him out of the park. He learned how difficult is the task of following a man while riding alongside of him and acting as if one knew where one was going. He rode in silence, gloomy over the night's fiasco and apprehensive lest his fellow-cavalier get suspicious.

But the fellow-cavalier talked enough for two. Nash picked up the facts that his self-appointed pal was the Comte de la Tour d'Ivoire; that both of them were living in a sort of cavaliers' club; that he, de Nêche, had formerly held a job that caused him to travel between New York City and an unspecified kingdom whereof he and the Comte were subjects, but that de Nêche was now unemployed. Moreover he got the impression that there were persons in astral New York who would like nothing better than to carve their initials on his liver.

Behind their backs, a roll of distant gunfire broke out, fading as they trotted south. They rode until Nash guessed that they had reached the Twenties, though the irregular layout of astral New York made Nash's knowledge of its mundane equivalent of very limited use. They halted in front of an elderly brownstone building with big glass doors. A vacuuous-looking fellow took their horses; Nash wondered who would create such a stupid oaf for his astral body. Then he remembered hearing about "soulless ones"; perhaps this was one of them.

"Ah! M'sieur le Chevalier!" cried the doorman, and there was a stampede of long-haired sword-girt persons across the lobby to pump Nash's hands and kiss his cheeks. They all yelled questions at him in French, until de la Tour d'lvoire proved himself a real friend by shouting: "Plus tard, je vous en prie! Les privations horribles il asoutenu!"

Nash located the dining room and made straight for it. After wolfing his way through a huge breakfast he was presented with a check. He was not quite sure what to do about this, but the waiter had a pencil in his hand, and did not seem disturbed when Nash took it away from him and signed de Nêche's name to the check. They'd have a hell of a time proving that it was a forgery.

At the desk they gave him his key and a couple of letters. They also gave him a meaningful cough, and one of them said: "About your bill, m'sieur—"

"Later, please." As he turned away, Nash saw the clerk toss a slight shrug and an uplift of the eyebrow at the other, as if he had heard that sort of thing only too often.

The mirror in his room showed Nash a very seedy-looking chevalier indeed, unshaven and bloodshot. His drink out of the lake the previous night had dissolved all the wax out of the spikes of his mustache, so that they hung down the sides of his mouth like unraveled ends of tarred string.

He hunted up the chevalier's toilet articles, which included a homicidal-looking straight razor, and freshened his appearance. He considered trimming the mustache down to the dimensions to which his mundane self was accustomed, but decided that it would be a dirty trick to take such a liberty with the body of the chevalier in the latter's absence. There was a small jar of pomade for rewaxing the ornament.

Then he went through his possessions. These included a notebook, a carpetbag, spare clothes, a bill of sale for a bay stallion, and a pawn ticket for a watch.

The pile of correspondence on the table consisted mainly of unpaid bills, some accompanied by nasty little notes. When he dutifully entered all his known debts on the sheet of note paper he was using as a ledger, he was horrified to find himself four hundred sixty-nine dollars and nine cents in the hole. Gosh, if he'd known anything like this was going to happen, he would have created an astral body with some sense about financial matters!

On the other hand, if he could only get hold of the damned Shamir, he could leave the prodigal chevalier to his own dubious monetary destiny.

One letter was personal. In French, it read:

Three Rivers,

October 24th.

My dear Jean-Prospère:

Just a word to inform you that since you recently departed with such magnificent élan, the peace of a tomb has prevailed in the kingdom. Me, I wish you would return. But I cannot, I regret, seriously advise such a course, because his majesty has issued orders that should his officers apprehend you attempting such a gaff, they shall hang you at once.

To me such a sad event would give a sorrow of the most formidable. Very well, my old, remain where you are, and try not to make that spot too hot for you also. We know that you never write letters, but we shall think of you, nevertheless.

Marie, Constance, and Helene weep to hot tears for you. Celestin swears that she will cut your heart out should opportunity present itself.

With my most affectionate sentiments,

Raoul.

Wow! thought Nash. There remained the two unopened letters he had gotten from the desk. Both were in English; the first read:

Tamerlane Express Co.,

214 Canal Street, New York City,

October 30th.

M. le Chevalier de Nêche,

Alexandre Dumas Club,

New York City.

Dear Sir:

We regret to inform you that we do not at present have an opening for you in our organization as courier.

However, in view of your admirable qualifications, we shall keep your name on file and shall inform you whenever such a position becomes available.

Very truly yours,

Kit Fargo Simpson, Pres.

The other was more personal:

12 Rutherford Place,

New York City,

October 30th.

Dear Chevalier:

I've just heard that you are staying in New York City again.

I'm giving a small party Saturday night. Remembering how you were the life of my last one, I'd love it if you could manage to drop in this time. Any time after eight. Cordially,

Alicia Dido Woodson.

Nash stared at the signature a long time. That must be the astral body of his reserved friend Alice Woodson! Was there some metaphysical affinity between the astral bodies of people who were friends on the mundane plane, that he should keep bumping into the astral equivalents of his acquaintances? Very likely.

Saturday night. Hm-m-m. That was last night, which Nash had spent frozenly rowing about Tukiphat's sphere of refraction. Probably he had gone out early Saturday and so had not received this letter when it arrived, and had not been home since. The thought of the girl's disappointment brought a slight lump to Nash's throat. The least he could do would be to call at once and explain. Also, he admitted, he was itching with curiosity to see what sort of astral body Alice would have.

Not to mention the possibility that she might know someone who had a job open, or who could give him a line on how to secure the Shamir.

To avoid another refrigeration he put on the cloak he found hanging in the closet. In half an hour he had ridden up to 12 Rutherford Place.

This turned out to be a small walk-up apartment house. A. D. Woodson was announced over the letter box of Apartment 2-C.

No answer to the bell. Maybe this Woodson girl worked for a living, instead of serving as an abused nurse to a cantankerous mother. Apparently people did not have parents on the astral plane; they just flickered into existence when somebody on the mundane plane conceived the idea of them, and then they kept going until an accident took them off.

Or perhaps—not likely, but possible—the bell did not work. Nash did not think much of the standard of technics in this world. Which was only to be expected, if people insisted on conceiving cavaliers and cowboys instead of plumbers, carpenters and electricians. He pushed another bell at random, and when the buzzer sounded opened the front door.

The bell at the door of 2-C was silent; though Nash held his ear close to the paneling as he thumbed the button. Nor could he hear any motion from within.

The door, he noticed at last, was not completely closed. Perhaps he shouldn't push it open and take a look in and holler for Miss Woodson. But after all such conduct was only to be expected of the hell-raising Chevalier de Nêche.

"Alicia! Hein!"

That there was nobody in the apartment, he soon made sure. But somebody had been. Chairs were upset, the bed was pulled apart, and the large mirror over the dresser was broken. The room gave every evidence of having witnessed a battle as well as a robbery and ransacking.