Twice in Time Read online

  Astley nodded. He preferred the French Gothic period, because of the swords and the ballads, but he understood my enthusiasm for Renaissance Italy—to me, the age and home of the greatest painters, poets, philosophers of all times.

  "Then what?" he encouraged me, gaining interest.

  "I'll paint a picture—a good one, I hope. A picture that will properly grace a chapel or church or gallery, a picture that will be kept for four centuries or more. Preferably it will be a mural, that cannot be plundered or destroyed without tearing down a whole important building. When it's finished, I'll come back to this time, to this hour almost. Of course, I'll have to build myself a new time-reflector where I am, because it will be impossible to take this one with me.

  "And we'll go together to the chapel or church or gallery, and look at your work of art?" asked Astley. He lighted his pipe. "It will be your footprint in the sands of another time. Isn't that what you mean?"

  "Exactly. Evidence that I've been twice in time." I

  sighed, with a feeling of rapture, because for a moment I fancied the adventure already accomplished. "If I'm not able to do a picture," I told him, "I'll make my mark—initials or a cross. Cut it in the plinth of a statue, scratch it on the boards at the back of the Mona Lisa or other paintings that I know will survive. It will be almost as good a proof." I smiled. "However, I daresay they'll let me paint. I have a gift that way."

  "Perhaps because you're left-handed," Astley smiled at me through the blue smoke. "But one thing—in Renaissance Italy, won't your height and buttery hair be out of place?"

  "Not among Fifteenth-Century Tuscans," I said confidently. "There were many with yellow hair and blue eyes. Look at the old Florentine portraits in any art gallery. Look at the streets of Florence today. Not all of those big tawny people are foreigners."

  As I talked, I was reassembling my machinery that we had brought with great care from my native America to this spot that I had long since chosen as the obvious place for my experiment. The apparatus took shape under my hands. The open framework, six feet high, as many feet long, and a yard wide, was of metal rods painstakingly milled to micrometric proportion in Germany.

  At one end, on a succession of racks, were arranged my ray-generator, with its light bulbs, specially made with vanadium filaments in America. My cameralike device which concentrated the time-reflection power had been assembled from parts made by English, German, and Swiss experts. And then there was the lens of alum with its housing, as big and heavy as a piece of water-main, which I now lifted carefully and clamped into place at the front of the camera.

  Astley stared, and drew on his pipe. It was plain enough that he looked tolerantly on all my labor as well as my talk, and that he believed the whole experiment was something of which I would quickly tire. Though he had been complaisant enough about coming with me and lending what aid he could to my secret experiment.

  "That business you're setting up there looks like the kind of thing science fictionists write about, " he said.

  "It's exactly the kind of thing they write about," I assured him. "As a matter of fact, science fiction has given me plenty of inspiration, and more than a little information, while I've been making it. But this is practical and material, Astley, not imaginary."

  He had not long to wait to witness the truth of that, though his phlegmatic nature could never have understood the tenseness that was making my nerves taut as a spring trap. I knew, however, that nerve strain was to be expected, for I was nearing the actuality of the experiment to which I had long given my heart and soul. I said nothing more, because now, within the tick of seconds I would know whether my dream could be a reality or if, in fact, that was all I had toiled and anguished for—a dream!

  I am not sure—how could I be certain?—whether my hands were steady when the great moment came. I know vaguely that my hands did reach out—

  I pressed a switch. At the other end of the framework there sprang into view a paper-thin sheet of misty vapor, like a piece of fabric stretched between the rectangle of rods.

  I could be excused for the theatricality of my gesture.

  "Behold the curtain!" I said. "When I concentrate my rays upon it, all is ready. I need only walk through." I stepped back. "Five minutes for it to warm up, and I'm off into the past."

  I began to take off my clothes, folding them carefully; the tweed suit, the necktie of wine-colored silk.

  "I can be reflected through time," I said with a touch of whimsicality, "but my new clothes must stay here." And more seriously: "I can't count on molecules to approximate them at the other end of the

  business."

  "You can't count on molecules to approximate your body, either," challenged Astley.

  I knew that he was not as stolid as he was trying to appear, for his pipe had gone out, and he was filling it, and I could see that his hands shook a trifle. He was beginning to wonder whether to take me seriously or not. Unimaginative Astley!

  "All my diggings into old records at the Biblioteca Nazionale, yonder in town, have been to find those needed molecules," I told him. "Look at those notes on the table beside you."

  He turned in his big arm-chair—it was none too big for him, at that—and picked up the jumble of papers that lay there. "You've written a date at the top of this one," he said as he shuffled them. " 'April Thirtieth, Fourteen-seventy.' And below it you've jotted down something I don't follow: 'Mithraic ceremony—rain prayer—ox on altar.' "

  "Which sums up everything," I said, pulling off my shoes. "Right here—right at this inn, which I hunted up for the purpose of my experiment—a group of cultists gathered on April Thirtieth, Fourteen-seventy. Just four hundred and sixty-eight years ago today." I leaned over to look at the time-gauge on my camera. "I'm set for that, exactly."

  "Cultists?" repeated Astley, whom I knew from of old is apt to clamp mentally upon a single word that interests him. "What sort of cultists?"

  "Contemporaries called them sorcerers and Satanists," I told him. "But probably they had some sort of hand-me-down paganism from old Roman days. Some thing like the worship of Mithras.[*1] At any rate, they were sacrificing an ox on that day, trying to bring rain down on their vineyards. I have figured it out like this—if they needed rain, then that particular April thirtieth must have been bright and sunny, ideal for my reflection apparatus. They had an ox on the altar, and from its substance I can reassemble my own tissues to house my personality again. The original molecules, have, of course, dissipated somewhere along the route of the process in time. Is that all clear?"

  Astley nodded slowly, and I stood up without a stitch of clothing. A pier-glass gave me back a tall pink image, lank but well muscled, crowned with ruffled hair of tawny gold.

  "Well, old man," I said, with what nonchalance I could, though every nerve in me was tingling, "the machinery's humming. Here I step into the past."

  My companion clamped his pipe between his teeth, but did not light it again. I could still see the disbelief in his eyes.

  "I hope you know what you're about, and won't do yourself much damage with that thing," he grumbled. "Putting yourself into such a position isn't like experimenting with rats or guinea pigs, you know."

  "I haven't experimented with rats or guinea pigs," I informed him, and stepped into the open framework.

  I turned on another switch, and through the lens of alum flowed an icy-blue light, full of tiny flakes that did not warm my naked skin.

  "As a matter of fact," I said in what I was sure was a parting message, "I've never experimented with anything. Astley, old boy, you are about to see the first operation of my time reflector upon any living organism."

  Astley leaned forward, concern at last springing out all over his face.

  "If anything happens," he protested quickly, "your family—"

  "I have no family. All dead." With a lifted hand I forestalled what else he was going to say. "Goodbye, Astley. Tomorrow, at this time, have a fresh veal carcass, or a fat pig, brought here. That's for
me to materialize myself back."

  And I stepped two paces forward, into and through the misty veil.

  At once I felt a helpless lightness, as though whisked off my feet by a great wave of the ocean. Glancing quickly behind me, momentarily I saw the room and all in it, but somehow vague and transparent—the fading image of the walls, the windows, my openwork reflector-apparatus, Astley starting to his feet from the armchair. Then all vanished into white light.

  That white light beat upon me with an intensity that sickened. I tasted pungency, my fibres vibrated to a humming, bruising rhythm. There was a moment of hot pain, deafening noise, and a glare of blinding radiance.

  Then peace, lassitude. Something seemed to materialize as a support under my feet. Again I saw the transparent ghost of a scene, this time full of human figures. That, too, thickened, and I heard many voices, chattering excitedly. Then all was color, life, reality.

  One voice dominated the others, speaking in resonant Italian: "The miracle has come!"

  Notes:

  *1 - Charles Godfrey Leland, in his important work, "Aradia; or the Gospel of the Witches of Italy," traces connections between witchcraft and the elder pagan faiths of Rome.

  CHAPTER II

  The First Half Hour

  At those words, all fell silent and gazed at me in awe. It seemed unbelievable, but all this was happening to me in the back yard of—yes, of Tomasulo's tavern. It was a changed back yard, though, dominated by a simpler, newer building.

  I seemed to have trouble with my memory. It lagged, as though I had been stunned. And the differences helped to confuse me. Here were no flagstones, no clutter of innkeeper's jetsam—only a level stretch of turf, hedged around with some tall, close bushes of greenery. And my audience was grouped below rather than before me. I seemed to be standing high on a platform or pedestal of cut and mortared stone.

  The altar of the ox-sacrificing cult! I had made the journey back through time, from the Twentieth Century that just now hung dim and veiled in my mind, like something I had known in childhood instead of brief seconds ago.

  "Kneel," intoned the same voice that had hailed me as a miracle.

  At once the group before me dropped humbly down. There were a dozen or so, of both sexes, and most of them shabbily dressed. The men wore drab or faded blouses and smocks, with patched hose on their legs, and the women were untidily tricked out in full skirts, bodices, and coifs or caps. Men and women alike wore long hair, and several were as blond as myself.

  I was quite evidently taken for some strange manifestation of the god or spirit they worshipped. Realizing this, I felt that I had an advantage. I sprang lightly down from the altar.

  "Do not be afraid," I told them, in my best Italian. "Rise up. Which is the chief among you?"

  They came to their feet, in a shy group around me, and the tallest of them moved forward.

  "I am master of this coven," he murmured, respectfully, but fixing me with shrewd, calculating eyes. "What is your will?"

  "First, lend me that red cloak of yours."

  He quickly unclasped it from about his throat. I draped it over my nakedness, and felt more assured before this mixed audience.

  "Now," I continued, "hark you all! Did you worship here because you sought a miraculous gift from heaven?"

  "Not from heaven, exactly," said the man who had given me his cloak.

  He was the best clad of the entire group, wearing plum-colored hose and a black velvet surcoat that fell to his knees. His narrow waist—he was an inch taller than I, and as gaunt as a rake—was clasped by a leather belt with a round silver buckle. His sharp face was decorated by a pointed beard of foxy red, and above this jutted a fine-cut long nose. His eyes, so intent upon me, were large and deep, the wisest eyes I had ever seen, and his broad brow, from which the hair receded as though beginning to wear away, was high and domed.

  There was something about him to suggest Shakespeare—Shakespeare's face, that is, much more alert and enigmatic than generally pictured, and set upon the body of Ichabod Crane. I described him thus carefully because of the impression he made upon me then, and because of the importance he has since had in my life and career.

  "Not from heaven," he said again. "Rather from our Father in the Lowest." He gestured downward, with a big but graceful hand. "Why do you ask? Have you not been sent by him?"

  This was a definite challenge, and I made haste to simulate a grasp of the situation. With an effort I remembered the study I had made of this very incident, the prayer of a sorcerers' cult for rain, on April 30, 1470.

  "I am sent as your friend," I announced. "This ox, which you have offered—"

  I gestured behind me toward the altar, then turned to look. The stones were bare, save for a slight, dark moisture. I paused, thought quickly, and went on:

  "This ox which you have offered has been transmuted into me, so that I may be your friend and guest."

  There was more truth in that than my interrogator in the velvet surcoat thought, I told myself triumphantly. But I did not know him yet. I also congratulated myself that there had been an entire ox, for my time reflector seemed to have left little of it after the process of reassembling.

  "As to the rain," I finished, "that will come, doubt it not." For I had seen, on the horizon beyond the lowest stretch of hedge, a lifting bank of cloud.

  "Thank you, O messengerl" breathed an elderly cultist at my side, and "Thank you, thank you!" came prayerfully from the others.

  The lean spokesman bowed a little, but I could discern the hint of a growing mockery in those deep, brilliant eyes.

  "Your visit is far more than we poor worshipers had the presumption to hope for," he said silkily, "Will you suffer these servants of the true belief to depart? And will you come with me to my poor dwelling yonder?"

  I nodded permission, and he spoke briefly in dismissal of the others. They retired through a gap in the hedge, respectfully, but without the awe a miracle might be thought to call forth. I was surprised, even a little piqued. Then the rationalization came to me. This was the Fifteenth Century, and the people were more naive, more credulous. They had come to this strange ceremony in expectation of a wonder. And when it came—even when there was more than they hoped for, as my volunteer host had suggested—it did not prostrate them with emotional amazement. I was strange, but I was understandable.

  When the last had departed, I faced the gaunt man. I have compared his body to that of Ichabod Crane, but he was surer of his long limbs than the schoolmaster of Sleepy Hollow. Indeed, he seemed almost elegant, with his feet planted wide apart and one big hand bracketed upon his bony hip.

  "How are you called?" I asked him.

  "My name is Guaracco," he said readily. "The master, I say, of the coven which has just done worship here. But, if you are truly a messenger from him we delight to serve, why do you not know these things without my telling?"

  A sneer was in his voice, and I felt that I had best establish my defenses.

  "Ser Guaracco," I addressed him bleakly, "you will do well to show courtesy to me. I did not come here to be doubted."

  "Assuredly you did not," he agreed, with a sort of triumphant good humor that yet made me uneasy. "And now, once more, will you come with me into my home?"

  He made another of his graceful gestures, this time toward the back door of the stone house that I knew for Tomasulo's inn—at least for what would one day be Tomasulo's inn. I nodded agreement, and we walked together across the turf to the door.

  That thought of mine—for what would one day be Tomasulo's inn. ... It behooved me to learn a new procession of thought, one that came two ways to the present. I must remember, not only from the past, but from that future, four centuries off.

  I clarified that puzzle by calling to mind a fragment of conversation in "through the Looking-Glass." It read like this, I remembered: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards." The White Queen had said that and, later: "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things
before breakfast." I had never before realized the deep scientific philosophy of that delightful story. Meanwhile, it might help clear the fog that hung so persistently to some chambers of my mind.

  My new acquaintance tapped softly on the door, which opened at once. Upon the threshhold stood a tiny male creature in a dark gownlike garment. He was no larger than a child of nine, and the bright face upturned to us might have seemed sweet if it had not reminded me of Guaracco's.

  "Is this your son?" I asked my host.

  He laughed quietly.

  "Yes, Ambassador of the Powers Below. In some degree this is my son."

  The little figure stood courteously aside, and let us step into a dark, narrow corridor. Guaracco's hand touched my arm through the folds of the borrowed cloak, and I allowed myself to by guided down the passageway and into a room beyond.

  Here were dark, decent hangings, a thick carpet, chairs, a settee, and a table on which lay some bulky and ancient-looking books. A single fat candle in a bronze scone illuminated the room, for there was no window; only a barred air-hole at the top. Guaracco invited me to sit down, with a sweep of his hand toward the settee.

  "I will offer you refreshment," he announced, and clapped his hands.

  From behind the hangings, evidently from a shadowed compartment beyond, darted a figure as small as the one that had admitted us to the house. But this one was hunched and misshapen, with a pinched, aged-looking face set in the loose, high collar of its gown. In its long, knob-knuckled hands was held a tray, with a silver flagon and two goblets of blue glass. This tray was set upon the table, then this small figure made a quick exit without looking back. I had been unable to judge sex or age in the brief moment of the small one's presence.