Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 02

THE
SCHOOL
OF
DARKNESS

Manly Wade
Wellman

 
          
John
Thunstone, psychic adventurer, investigator, and unsurpassed scholar on the
powers of darkness, is back in a chilling new tale by award-winning author
Manly Wade Wellman.
The School of
Darkness
hurls Thunstone into a fantastic—and all too direct—confrontation
with the forces of evil and supernatural terror.

 
          
Buford
State
University
has invited Thunstone to sit on the panel
of its distinguished American Folklore Survey Symposium. The impressive roster
of participants also includes a Jesuit versed in the ways of exorcism, a
Cherokee medicine man, and one uninvited (and most unwelcome) guest: the
infamous Rowley Thorne, the world’s foremost practitioner of the black arts and
sworn enemy of John Thunstone.

 
          
Buford
State
itself has a dark and mysterious history,
haunted by a centuries-old pact with the devil.
(
continued
on back flap)

 
 
          
By
Manly Wade Wellman

 
          
THE
VOICE OF THE MOUNTAIN

 
          
WHAT
DREAMS MAY COME

 
          
THE
HANGING STONES

 
          
THE
LOST AND THE LURKING

 
          
AFTER
DARK

 
          
THE
OLD GODS WAKEN

THE
SCHOOL
OF
DARKNESS

MANLY WADE WELLMAN

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.
 
GARDEN CITY,
NEW
YORK

 
          
1985

 
          
All
of the characters in this book
 
are fictitious and any resemblance
 
to actual persons, living or
dead,
 
is purely coincidental.

 
          
Library
of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

 
          
Wellman, Manly Wade, 1905- The school of
darkness.

 
          
I. Title.

 
          
PS3545.E52858S3
1985               
813\54

 
          
ISBN:
0-385-19065-4

 
          
Library
of Congress Catalog Card Number 85-12914

 
          
Copyright
© 1985 by Manly Wade Wellman
 
First Edition
 
All Rights Reserved
 
Printed in the United States of America

In grateful memory of
 
Dorothy Mcllwraith
 
and

Lamont Buchanan,

 
          
who
were there the first time John Thunstone walked in

 
          
And
in the
School
of
Darkness
learn

 
          
What mean

 
          
The things unseen

 
          
—John Banister Tabb

Contents

FOREWORD

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

 
          
Diligent inquiry goes to show that no real
college or university called Buford exists in the
United
States
. The campus and community
here described resemble actual campuses and communities only in a general
fashion. Characters and events are imaginary and are not based on real
characters and events, although I dare hope that they seem real.

 
          
Manly Wade Wellman

 
          
Chapel
Hill
,
North
Carolina
, 1984

 
          
That
authoritative voice from somewhere or everywhere had commanded a fastening of
seat belts, a cessation of smoking. The great plane tilted forward and lost
altitude, tilted forward again so that the earth far below the porthole lost
its maplike pattern, began to become living earth. Little fluffs of mossy green
grew into distant clumps of trees; winking jewels became miniature ponds. There
were slate streaks of highways, wee toys of bams and houses. The voice
proclaimed that they were coming in to
Sidney-Exeter
Airport
, were arriving on time.

 
          
The
throbbing roar of the motors abated. A powerful banking turn, so that the
horizon vanished from view at the porthole, and for moments nothing but sky
showed there, blue as only April’s sky can be, with tags of white cloud like
shredded cotton. The great turn accomplished, downward again and earth rushing
up, swiftly, threateningly, almost like a flood.
And a sense
of hanging helplessness.
The plane was in the hands only of its pilot,
Captain Somebody, wise and skilled, who in his time must have made thousands of
safe, successful landings.

 
          
Then,
close below there, the immense paved outstretch of the runway. And closer, down
almost upon it, with a great fence rushing rearward there to the side. At last,
the reassuring thump of the wheels. The plane skimmed on solidity, slowed
itself, swung in a powerful turn and headed back the way it had come down. It
crept now, toward the gray fronts of assembled buildings, with trucks and human
figures there. '‘Keep your seats until the plane comes to a full halt,”
cautioned the voice.

           
But passengers were unclasping seat
belts, pawing in luggage racks. John Thunstone sat where he was until the plane
stopped and the voice announced as much. Still Thunstone waited until the first
nervous press in the aisle had moved on. Then he rose into a gap among the
debarkers. He towered, wide-shouldered, to take down his flight bag and his
crook-handled, brown-blotched cane, then moved toward the exit. He wore checked
trousers and a dark blue blazer. His face was square, with a trim black
mustache. Black, too, was his carefully combed hair, with threads of silvery
gray. There was a dent in his nose, to show where once it had been broken.

 
          
A
pretty stewardess smiled to say that she hoped he had enjoyed his journey, that
he would fly with that line again, and inevitably, “Have a good day.” Thunstone
followed the others into a sort of tunnel like the inside of a gigantic
accordion. At the far end they came into a spacious chamber, brilliantly
lighted, and out through a gate in a bright rail. More people waited there,
loudly greeting passengers they recognized.

 
          
“Mr.
Thunstone?”

 
          
That
was a man of medium height and healthy-seeming medium build, holding out a
welcoming hand, nowhere near as big as Thunstone’s. Intelligent lines ran
across his brow and down his cheeks. His eyes were three-cornered, like an
athlete’s.

 
          
“My
name’s Lee Pitt, I’m with the Department of English at
Buford
State
,” he introduced himself. “Since I teach a
folklore course, I’m stuck, more or less, with this symposium on folklore and
legend, and I thought I’d come meet you and drive you over.”

 
          
“Thank
you, Professor Pitt,” said Thunstone, shaking hands. “It’s kind of you. As soon
as I pick my luggage up—”

           
“Downstairs,” said Pitt.

 
          
An
escalator took them to the level below. There, a U-shaped conveyor belt crawled
like a mighty worm, bringing suitcases and parcels to view upon it. Men and
women stepped close to pick these off. Thunstone waited until his big blue
suitcase with its brown leather trim trundled into sight. He seized it and
lifted it away as though it weighed nothing, and waited again to spy and claim
its lesser mate. Pitt took the smaller case and led Thunstone out upon a paved
gallery with a roof and supporting posts. Along the edge of
this
moved taxis
, cars and pickup trucks, each stopping as someone heaved
luggage aboard and then got in to roll away.

 
          
“Watch
for a blue Chevy sedan with a dented left fender,” said Pitt. “I won’t be gone
long.”

 
          
He
trotted across the driveway and into a great sea of parked cars. Thunstone
watched his swift, sure movement and decided that Professor Lee Pitt would be
an interesting acquaintance.

 
          
The
blue sedan came and stopped at the curb. Pitt emerged from under the wheel to
unlock the rear trunk, and Thunstone heaved his luggage in, but kept his cane
as he got into the front seat with Pitt. They rolled away out of the airport
and turned left on a paved secondary road.

 
          
“It’s
about twenty miles to Buford,” said Pitt. “We’ll make it by
four o’clock
. What do you want to know about
Buford
State
University
and the meeting?”

 
          
“As
much as you can tell me,” replied Thunstone, his great hands clamped on the
crook of his cane, “I’ve heard of Buford, of course, the town and the school
both, but this is my first visit here.”

 
          
“
Buford
State
University
is about a hundred and fifty years old,”
said Pitt. “It started in an interesting way. Back then, before the Civil War,
this was just a country village. A
New England
business man, Samuel Whitney, came in on some errand and took seriously ill.
The doctor in town couldn’t diagnose or treat his ailment, said he was going to
die. But the people of Buford tried their best for that poor stranger. Some
ladies prayed by his bedside every night. Maybe that was why he
recovered,
Anyway, he was deeply grateful and asked what he
could do for the people who had saved his life. Someone or other—nobody today
is sure who —said that Buford had always wanted a college,”

 
          
“And
Buford got one?” prompted Thunstone.

 
          
“Yes.
It turned out that Samuel Whitney was very rich, very rich indeed. He gave them
money, he paid for building a hall and then another one—those halls are still
where he put them up.
Whitney
College
struggled and survived, Whitney and some
others he interested kept financing it. Well, many years passed. The town of
Buford
grew until it took over
Whitney
College
, back in the 1930s, and named it
Buford
Municipal
University
. After that, it became part of the state’s
Consolidated
University
operation, and today it’s
Buford
State
,”

 
          
Pitt’s
three-cornered eyes cut toward Thunstone as he drove. “Naturally,” he said,
“there’s an old wives’ tale connected with all this, and we don’t lack old
wives,
or young ones either, to keep telling it.”

 
          
“What’s
the tale?” asked Thunstone, immediately interested.

 
          
“They
say that Whitney had been stricken down with some sort of curse,” said Pitt.
“To that they add, that those who prayed around his bed and brought him back to
health weren’t exactly church members—that they harked back to what we
euphemistically call the Old Religion.” “Witchcraft,” said Thunstone at once.
“Diabolism.”

           
“Something of the
sort,
and perhaps a school needs intriguing old legends like
that. Maybe there’s some kernel of fact at the center of the thing.”

           
“And maybe there’s a coven operating
on the grounds today,” Thunstone offered.

 
          
Pitt
shot him a quick glance, and turned the car upon a four-lane highway.

 
          
“Yes,”
he said. “I’ve heard about two covens. My folklore students assure me that they
exist.
One on campus, one off.”

           
“Operating seriously?”

           
“Seriously enough, from what I hear.
Of course, I’ve never been to any of their meetings. Maybe they do follow the
ancient traditions. Or maybe they’ve just read a couple of paperbacks and think
they know what the score is; more or less the way some students read the
Communist Manifesto
and think they’re
Marxist dialecticians.”

 
          
“I’d
like to hear more on the subject,” said Thunstone. “What I do know of
Buford
State
is a reputation for scholarship—the
humanities, the sciences, law, music and so on. And you have a pretty good
football team, too.”

 
          
“We
did all right in football last fall, and the fall before that,” Pitt told him.

 
          
“What
about your students in general?”

 
          
“We
have eight thousand or so, including those in the graduate schools,” said Pitt.
“Quite a few of them as shaggy and untidy and noisy as
small-time rock musicians.
Then some serious,
dedicated ones who want to be ministers or educators or junior business
executives.
And there are foreigners, of course—Germans, Filipinos,
Asiatics and so on.
And the athletic grant-in-aiders playing
football and basketball.
Speaking of which, haven’t you played football
in your time?”

 
          
“When
I was in college, I did.”

 
          
“I
thought
so,
just by the way you walk. You certainly
don’t need that cane you carry.”

 
          
“I
just carry it,” said Thunstone. “It’s a gift from an old friend.”

 
          
“I
was in athletics, too,” said Pitt. “When I was at the
University
of
Missouri
, I wrestled. Now as to our meeting, it’s
attracted attention all through the country. Likewise, it’s attracted some
distinguished folklore authorities, like
yourself
.”

 
          
“And
like Reuben Manco, the Cherokee chief and medicine man,” said Thunstone. “I’ve
met him. He’s highly civilized.”

 
          
“He’ll
be at dinner with you
tonight,
Chancellor Pollock is
entertaining all the star turns. There’ll also be Professor Tashiro Shimada
from
Tokyo
University
, and Father Mark Bundren from
New York
, He’s a scholarly Jesuit, deep in
traditional lore—maybe as erudite as Montague Summers, though nothing like as
credulous. At least, I don’t think so. And, I believe, Grizel Fian of the
Department of Dramatic Arts.”

 
          
They
rolled past filling stations, two motels,
a
restaurant
promising excellent seafood.

 
          
“Grizel
Fian,” Thunstone repeated, “I don’t think I know who she is.”

 
          
“I
doubt if many do know who she is,” said Pitt. “She isn’t officially of the
faculty, not quite. But greatly interested in the D.A. Department, and she’s
written and directed plays there. I think she was once on the stage in
New York
.”

 
          
“I
don’t remember hearing about her there,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“Well,
show business somewhere, anyway. Beyond that, she’s somewhere in her forties,
but a really spectacularly good-looking woman. I can’t tell you if she’s ever
been married or not, but if you write her a letter or mention her in a
newspaper story, it has to be Ms. Fian, and she wants to be called Ms. Fian.”