And The Devil Will Drag You Under (1979) (20 page)

Nothing happened.

For a moment he was thrown for a loss. Mogart had made the process sound so simple and basic. He thought furiously, trying to see the flaw. He held out his hand again, concentrated all his attention on it, and ordered, "Let there be a large, juicy red McIntosh apple in my hand!"

Still nothing. He began to worry. Maybe Mogart had been wrong, it wouldn't work for himself or anybody but demons. Maybe there was some magic formula or something.

He relaxed, began some deep-breathing exercises, tried to clear his mind of everything. He closed his eyes and tried to think only of a big, juicy red apple, nothing else. An apple. An apple in his hand.

He started to feel some kind of disturbance in the energy flow, touching him, flowing through him and concentrating in his right hand. It trickled down his arm like warm water; the sensation was not un-pleasant, and he did not resist it.

And then he felt something in his hand. He opened his eyes and looked down. He held an apple exactly like the one he'd visualized. Even though he had not only tried for it but hoped for it, he still was amazed. It
felt
like an apple, it
looked
like an apple-and all he'd done was dream it up. He put it to his mouth and bit into it.

Well, if there was one thing for certain, he wouldn't starve in this plane. The trouble, he decided, was con-centration. You had to be able to visualize the thing you wanted, which certainly limited you to your own experiences and sensations-and also took a little time. Under some sort of pressure doing so might not be possible.

This concept explained a lot of so-called "magic" and sorcery through the ages, though.

Anyone could do it if he were attuned to it. All the magical spells and formulae and paraphernalia associated with magic might be thought of as aids to concentration. It would not be easy to reach beyond the artificially set natural laws of a universe to circumvent them. One might even disrupt things enough to call attention to oneself and notify a repairman, so to speak, to stop you.

Such a repairman might well be one of Mogart's own race-a demon. Somehow, he felt, he'd stumbled on the basic explanation for the supernatural in his own world and perhaps many others.

A subconscious at-tunement, for example, might bring about poltergeist phenomena, anything you wanted. It was a fascinating and potentially useful concept.

Here, on the testing ground, where no natural laws were imposed, the way was open.

He spent some time practicing. Getting the knack was neither easy nor automatic. It might become so if he had a lot of time-but, after a while, he got enough of the hang of it to create the things he thought of. Small things, to be sure, but elaborate nonethe-less, in that a fir tree, for example, was something complex, living, and yet there because he willed it. He was not satisfied, but his small successes would have to do. Mogart hadn't indicated the time rate for this place, and he couldn't wait forever in any event. Somewhere in this vast expanse of nothingness was a demon with a jewel he had to have.

He decided to start walking, but stopped short as he scanned the place from horizon to horizon and saw nothing to aim for. Last time Mogart had led him almost to the exact spot. And then he saw it.

It wasn't much, just a dull glow on the horizon to his left. For a moment he wasn't positive that his imagination wasn't playing tricks on him. But he had nothing else to aim at, anyway, so he started walking toward the glow. It took him over an hour to close in on it. But the closer he came, the more certain he was that this had to be the place, and he became wary.

It was a town, that was for sure. It looked a little like something out of an old western movie-a couple or three blocks square with a main street of rutted dirt lined with storefronts and watering troughs and hitching posts. From a large building that had to be the saloon came the sound of a piano and with it the sound of human activity, of people being merry.

He wished now that he had a gun, some sort of protection. No telling who or what was in the town -perhaps a "leftover" of somebody else's practice session, perhaps even Abaddon himself.

He stood still, visualizing a pistol and holster with gunbelt, and felt the energy flow and the proper form take place around his waist. The gun was wrong, though, he decided, too much in the western period suggested by the town. But what kind of pistol did he want? One that was accurate, wouldn't easily run out of ammunition, and would be light and easy to use without kicking like the .45 caliber thing he held. He tried again, retaining the shape if possible but otherwise wishing for the properties of a laser-based pistol he'd seen once in a science-fiction movie. He had no idea if such a thing actually existed, but that made no difference if he could get his idea across.

The pistol changed. Outwardly it still looked like a .45 circa 1880, but its barrel was solidly plugged with a screenlike seal, and inside he could see some sort of rod. It also felt a lot lighter, almost like a plastic toy.

He was still a way from the town. He looked over to his right, materialized a wooden stake, then took aim and fired. There was a whine and a beam of ruby-colored light reached out. He missed the stake but managed to use the beam to bring it quickly to bear. The stake shimmered and vanished.

He released the trigger and looked again at the pistol. Pretty good. He added a small lever on it that allowed him to stun if it were up and disintegrate if it were down, and then holstered the weapon. He was beginning to enjoy this magic stuff. Satisfied, he walked into the town.

There were torchlights and kerosene lanterns all about; the place was pretty well lit up in the perma-nent twilight. It sounded busy, too-the sounds of an active and living town were all around him. And yet there were no people on the street, no animals-al-though he heard the occasional sound of a horse or dog-nothing. Feeling like a character in an old movie, he headed for the brightly lit saloon from which the sounds of laughter and lots of people milling about emanated.

As he approached the swinging double doors, though, he could see nothing but light inside. When he stepped through, all sound stopped, and not because everyone had turned to see a stranger.

There was no one in the hall. No one at all. Card tables had hands dealt and money lay on the tables; cigarettes and cigars smoldered in ashtrays as if put down just a moment before, and half-touched drinks were lining the bar. A roulette wheel was still turning to his left, and he heard it slow and the ball drop into its slot.

Now what the hell?
he thought anxiously, looking around.

He walked around the large room looking for someone, anyone. He walked upstairs and checked the rooms-more still-lit smokes and the appearance that people had been there only moments earlier, but not a living thing to be seen.

He walked back down to the deserted bar, confused. Either a deserted or an active town he could have taken, but one in which there was the semblance of life without the living was unnerving indeed.

He returned to the street, and ten steps from the saloon door he heard the sounds of furious yet normal activity resume there. He was tempted to go back but decided not to.

There was a sign saying CAFE across the street, and he went over to it and opened the door.

Again there were no people. Yet on the counter were mugs of coffee and other beverages that were still hot, and glasses of cooler stuff still felt cold. Two steaks were sizzling on the open-pit grill; they were not burned to a crisp but cooking rather nicely, as if someone had just flipped them over. Blood and juice still oozed from the fork holes.

A sudden whistle startled him. He whirled and drew his gun, but saw that the noise came from a tea-pot that had just reached the boiling point.

Wait a minute,
he told himself nervously.
Just reached the boiling point?

He heard some noise coming from a back room, like water being pumped, and rushed to it. It stopped just as he pushed through the door. There was a well pump there, and it was still dripping with the runoff into a bucket hung on the spout that was now half full. There were no exits from the back room except a small window that obviously hadn't been opened in a long time.

He walked back into the cafe, shaking his head and trying to get a grip on himself when he stopped short.

The steaks were on a plate next to the pit now, still sizzling but done. The water was off the flame and no longer boiling.

Behind him he heard the pump start again.

He walked quickly out into the street once more. He felt more comfortable there, at least-he could see a greater distance on all sides. He didn't have the feeling that anyone was watching him, just a sense of isolation from human contact. It was as if this town lived all around him but not where he was.

He saw a little church at the end of the street, away from the other buildings a bit, and he walked toward it. It sounded as if some sort of service were going on, except that instead of hymns, the sound of the choir reminded him of a Gregorian chant.

Or witchcraft ritual, perhaps?

He reached the church, which, he noticed, had no cross on it. As he expected, when he opened the massive doors there was no chanting, no people inside at all.

He turned, pistol still in hand, and walked around to the side of the building. The service, naturally, started up again and
sounded very, very real, if a bit eerie.

To one side was a small graveyard. He approached it and tried to make out the inscriptions on the crude wooden slabs. Again no sign of crosses or of Stars of David or of any other known religion adorned them.

He cursed under his breath. Naturally the inscrip-tions were in a language he couldn't read, even an alphabet that looked very odd indeed.

He sighed and was about to return to town when he thought he heard movement off to his left, further inside the cemetery. That perked his interest and put him more on guard. For the first time he had the sensation of something living, something physically present, lurking there somewhere between the tombstones, watching him.

He flicked the small lever on his pistol to stun and walked slowly to the side of the cemetery nearest the church, then carefully started moving past rows of wooden tombstones. He could see nothing, but it wasn't well lit here, anyway. Nobody burns lights in a graveyard, and the uniform twilight with its lack of a light source prevented shadows from any natural source. He considered that, reached out his left hand, and materialized a small burning torch. Its light was not the best, but it was an improvement. The flicker-ing flame's shadow-making ability, particularly among the slabs and against the church wall, gave the scene an even more eerie cast.

Suddenly a small, dark figure bolted from behind a slab just as Mac was approaching it.

"Hold it!" Mac shouted and aimed the pistol. The figure did not heed his warning, so he pressed the trigger, using the pencil-thin beam to find its mark. It struck the figure just on the other side of the grave-yard and bathed it in an eerie reddish glow. The stun worked; the figure collapsed in a heap and re-mained still. Mac almost broke a record getting to the figure, then gasped when he reached it and turned it over.

It was a girl. Not a woman-type girl, a small one of perhaps nine or ten, barefoot and dressed in an ob-viously handmade shirt and pants. Her hair was cut short, her complexion was dark, and her features were vaguely Chinese or something similar.

He sat and waited for her to recover, planting the torch in a recess in the ground that he had ordered and holding the pistol lightly. The church service continued. He wondered if they ever stopped chanting.

He'd waited perhaps five minutes when he suddenly cursed himself again. He had no idea how long "stun" worked-he hadn't specified it. On the other hand, she had been knocked down by a weapon of his own will, so that meant she could also be brought around in the same way. He stared at her and his mind ordered her to wake up.

She stirred, groaned, sat up, and shook her head, looking confused. Then, suddenly, she became aware of him and her head turned slowly to look at him for the first time under these conditions. She gasped; her expression showed abject terror.

"Don't be afraid," he soothed, glad to find another living being. "I won't hurt you."

Confusion reigned again on her face, although the look of terror was not at all diminished.
"Bu
kasha liu briesto,"
she rasped through a fear-constricted throat. It seemed to be a plea.

"Oh, boy!" Mac Walters said aloud disgustedly. There had never been any reason to expect that someone here would speak English. He fervently wished he could understand her and she him.

"Bu kasha liu harm,"
she said in that same pleading voice.

Suddenly his head came up.
Harm? Then maybe .. .

"I'm not going to hurt you," he told her again.

She plainly didn't believe him', but at least now she understood him. "Please, master, I did not mean to come to your holy place," she explained desperately. "Duru, my chicken, he got away today and I was just looking for him, just trying to find him, and accidentally came here. This was a forest yesterday, not a town." She started to cry.

Mac realized suddenly that he was able to under-stand her. This was a strange world. He relaxed the pistol a little. "I don't have anything to do with this town," he told her as gently as possible. "I don't know as much about this place as you do. And I'm nobody's master but my own."

Still,
he thought,
if this was a forest yesterday and is a town today, it is somebody's doing.

Abaddon? Almost certainly-but where?

At any rate, she still didn't believe him. She waited to see what he was going to say or do next.

"Where are you from?" he asked her. "I didn't see anything but this town anywhere."

She looked, if anything, even more fearful and certainly hesitant. "I'm from Brobis," she explained, as if that told him anything.