Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 02 (15 page)

 
          
There
were forty or so of them, as Thunstone estimated. Most of them were young
women, but here and there stood men. One of these was the giant who had played
Hume in the first scene at the theater that night. He still wore his priest’s
cassock, but his stage makeup had been wiped off.
He bulked
huge there, a full head taller than the girls on either side of him.
The
drum thudded, thudded.

 
          
Other
music joined in, strange wailing music. The man beside the drummer played a
fiddle,
the woman blew on some sort of flute. As these
instruments blended into their harmony, a figure moved out of the shadows
behind the throne and into view. It was a female figure; it was Grizel Fian, in
the low-cut gown of silvery cloth she had worn on the stage. The music fell
silent.

 
          
“Awake,
strong Holaha!” cried Grizel Fian in a voice like a bugle.

           
“Holaha!” repeated the two ranks of
listeners.

 
          
“Powerful
Eabon!” repeated Grizel Fian. “Athe, Stoch, Sada, Erohye!”

 
          
Again
the chorus repeated the names. Those were names that Thunstone knew, names he
had heard invoked by his enemies in the past. The lamps glittered and blinked,
seemed to cast a gory light,
A
sort of dimness, like
gray fog, crept in the great chamber. The air seemed heavy. Thunstone clutched
his sword cane closely, felt a quiver from its handle. The silver blade within
the cane was aware of where it was. It responded. It made itself ready.

 
          
“NOW!”
blared
Grizel Fian at the top of her ringing voice.
“The time is now—the past is gone, it is not! The future has not come, it is
not! NOW, NOW, is our
moment.
”

 
          
“NOW!”
her hearers fairly bellowed in response.

 
          
“Rejoice,
rejoice,” Grizel Fian cried to them. “We seek and worship the one true wisdom,
given us by the great ruler on earth, as he was in heaven!”

 
          
“AMIN!”
chorused the listeners.

 
          
As he was in heaven,
Thunstone repeated
to himself. Lucifer, son of the morning, had ruled in heaven, had been cast
down from heaven. Lucifer was the god these people worshiped.

 
          
Thunstone,
cautiously peering from the folds that hid him, saw those listeners sway and
writhe where they stood. Grizel Fian had caught them up into the wild show she
was giving them. Again her voice, even more loud and commanding:

 
          
“Here,
here, in the dark away from unbelievers, we are shone upon with the light of wisdom!”

 
          
And
light sprang out, greater, more glaring light than the flickering lamps could
give. An impressive trick, if indeed it was a trick, Grizel Fian gestured
widely with both bare arms,

 
          
“Wine now, to pledge one to another, drink!”

 
          
From
somewhere appeared two scurrying girls, their loose dark hair tossing snakily,
their bodies hidden only by little scraps of cloth. Each carried a brown jug in
one hand, a bundle of goblets in the other. Swiftly they passed the goblets
out, swiftly they splashed wine into them, and Grizel Fian’s followers drank
greedily, with wordless cries of relish. Grizel chattered out something, words
that sounded like a burlesque of the communion service. At last:

 
          
“Dance
now!” she commanded them, her arms lifted again. The air was heavy; it seemed
to hold cloudy mist that made the lights of the lamps dance.

 
          
“Dance
now!” she called again, and Thunstone saw the listeners fairly ripping off
their clothes, the robes they wore, the shirts and jeans they wore. Their naked
bodies glistened weirdly. They moved toward the center of the floor and formed
a new arrangement of themselves.
Around the pentacle ranged a
circle of them, two by two.
All the men were in that circle, each with a
girl for a partner. Unkempt hair tossed; bodies quivered.
Around
this circle formed another, a wider one.
The music of drum and flute and
fiddle rose again. Insinuatingly minor. The two circles began to dance.

 
          
“Haa,
haa!” cried a girl.

 
          
“Sabbat,
sabbat!” responded a man’s deep grumble.

 
          
“Dance
here, dance there!” cried Grizel Fian.

 
          
The
paired dancers of the inner circle trod a measure, turning their backs to each
other. The outer dancers paced more slowly, around and around to the
left—counterclockwise, the classic widdershins of dancing witches. The couples
laughed and jabbered incoherently. As they danced, the men fondled the naked
bodies of their partners. Thunstone saw the giant who had played Hume, wearing
only a pair of big, clumsy-looking shoes. His mighty chest and arms were matted
with tangled brown hair. He picked up his girl and almost fluttered her in the
air above him. His muscles flexed and swelled—plainly he spent hours at work
with weights. Effortlessly he tossed the girl high in the air. She shrieked,
from startled terror or crazy joy. His bearded face grinned as he caught her,
put her on her feet again, and danced on with her, not missing a step.

 
          
“Now
he comes among us!” Grizel Fian shouted.
“He, the advocate,
the ambassador of our lord in the lowest!”

 
          
As
she spoke, she caught the top of her silver dress with both hands and dragged
it down below her waist, stepped out of it, and flung it to the floor. She
stood revealed, palely shimmering in the misty light. She wore only what seemed
like the skimpiest of bikini panties, sewn all over with jewels, red and green
and yellow and glittering white. Standing with arms lifted, she flaunted her
full breasts as the giant in the throng flaunted his hairy muscles. Seldom,
Thunstone realized
,
had he seen such a fine figure of
a woman, or one so blatantly, vainly displayed.

 
          
“Are
we all present?” she cried.

 
          
“Not
Thief of Heaven, he hasn’t come,” replied the girl with red hair. “He wasn’t at
the theater, he isn’t here.”

 
          
“His
excuse for absence had better be a good one,” declared Grizel Fian bleakly. “If
he has disobeyed a command, we have no use for disobedience, for any kind of
failure. But nevertheless—”

 
          
A pause.
Thief of Heaven, Thunstone remembered, was Exum
Layton’s coven name. All gazed at Grizel Fian. Well they might—she postured like
a star of a burlesque show.

 
          
“He
comes!” she cried again, and dropped to her knees and bowed toward the throne.
Silence in the misty hall.

 
          
Somebody,
something was descending those shadowed stairs behind. A burly figure emerged
into the clouded light. It wore a purple robe that hung to the floor, and on
its head was set a pair of curved horns, like the shape of a murky crescent
moon. But Thunstone instantly recognized Rowley Thorne,

 
          
“Here,”
rumbled Thome. “Here we deal with our enemy. He mustn’t last out this night.”

 
          
“Amin,”
shouted the big man, and “Amin, amin,” echoed the others. Their voices echoed
in the great chamber. They had gathered in a huddled throng in their nakedness.

 
          
Grizel
Fian had risen to her feet again. She lifted her bare arms. “Hear the
sentence,” her voice rang out. “Hear the manner of execution.”

 
          
“Amin!”

 
          
“Bring
out the image,” Thome was ordering, and Grizel darted out of sight behind the
throne. She was back in a moment. Across her ivory shoulder she seemed to bear
a great, limp body in dark trousers and jacket. This she flung down at Thome’s
feet. It lay face up, a dummy that seemed made of pillows dressed in clothes.
The pallid face bore a painted black mustache, and a tangle of black yam showed
for hair. It sprawled on the floor; it looked limp and helpless there. All the
naked watchers stared. But none of them seemed
so
naked as Grizel Fian. She postured. She knew what she was doing.

 
          
On
sandaled feet Thome paced to the throne and sat down upon it.

 
          
“Our
enemy’s time is come,” he rumbled.

 
          
“Amin,
amin,” agreed the watchers.
Their voices echoed back and
forth from walls and ceiling.

 
          
Grizel
Fian had risen to her feet again. She flung up her arms. “The altar, the
altar,” she chanted. “Set the altar.”

 
          
Half
a dozen of the group dashed away behind the throne and came back with two stout
wooden trestles and a dark rectangle of some sort of stone, the size of a door.
They set the trestles before the throne, clear of the prone dummy, and hoisted
the slab upon it. Thome pointed his finger at Grizel Fian, who came and lay
upon the makeshift altar, face up. Her body glimmered. Thome rose and came forward.
Stooping, he kissed her bare belly,
then
he moved a
foot to trace a cross on the floor.

           
Then this was going to be the mass
of Saint Secaire. Many had wondered who Saint Secaire was. Thunstone had read,
in an obscure notation to a book about diabolism, that some identified him with
Saint Caesarius of Arles, who in the fifth century had been a stem enough enemy
to devil worshipers. At any rate, the mass that bore his name was a singularly
blasphemous one. And here it was to be performed.

 
          
Thome
stood before the altar and the supine body of Grizel Fian and mouthed some sort
of ritual, hard to understand. He waved his hands, and the onlookers began to
recite in unison:

 
          
“Ever
and forever, glory
the and
power and . . .”

 
          
The
Lord’s Prayer, recited backward. As Father Bundren had said, these ceremonies
were mockeries of orthodox masses. At last Thome stepped away from the improvised
altar and motioned to Grizel Fian, who rose quickly and moved to a place beside
the throne.

 
          
“And
now to our enemy,’’ proclaimed Thome.

 
          
Grizel
Fian flung up her arms again. She writhed and quivered.

 
          
“Hear
the sentence,” she chanted. “Hear what his fate will be.”

 
          
“Amin!”
they all responded,

 
          
“The
image to the altar,” commanded Thome, and Grizel stooped, lifted the dummy, and
flung it upon the altar slab where she had lain. It slumped there, face up.

 
          
“The
likeness of our enemy,” growled Thome. “John Thunstone. Deal with him, Grizel,
you have the right, you have the method.”

 
          
“He
will die,” she said. “His allies, that priest-creature, that Indian savage, can
read the message of his finish, will flee in terror. The other one, the
smirking Japanese pedant—he seems to have retreated already, he must have seen
what the future holds here.”

           
That meant Shimada. If she was
right, if Shimada had fled, then Shimada was not on her side. But where had he
gone?

 
          
“Amin!” again.

 
          
“But
Thunstone,” cried Grizel Fian, “he who is so certain of his strength, who rests
tonight in his room yonder, he is doomed.”

 
          
“Amin!”

 
          
The
music began again, drum and violin and flute. Grizel darted back behind the
throne, returned with a spear in each hand. The hafts of the spears were as
shiny black as charcoal. Their heads gleamed redly, like copper. Stooping
beside the altar with the sprawled effigy, she laid one spear on the floor. Its
head pointed past the throne where Thome sat. She stooped lower, as though to sight,
and moved the spear a trifle. Then she straightened again, the other spear in
her right hand.