The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1970
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pyramid Books
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales». Краткое содержание книги:
And plunge headlong into the always wild, constantly weird, and frequently whimsical realm of fantasy as invoked by that master magician L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP!
* A social protestor who just happens to be a ghost...
* A mail-order magic business that conjures up a universe of trouble...
* A fledgling wizard who doesn't know the strength of his own power...
And these are only a sprinkling of the outrageous and amazing creatures and things you'll encounter as you whir through a world where everything is probable--
THE RELUCTANT SHAMAN
THE HARDWOOD PILE
NOTHING IN THE RULES
THE GHOST OF MELVIN PYE
THE WISDOM OF THE EAST
MR. ARSON
KA THE APPALLING
"I suppose so. It'd cost you more dough." "I can stand that, I guess."
Kalesky looked up a Swami Mahananda whom he had known in his medium-busting days. The swami was a thin, dark man dressed entirely in black except for his white shirt. He was one of the few practitioners of his profession on whom Kalesky had never been able to get anything. This was why Kalesky turned to him now.
"You say," said Swami Mahananda in his high, accented voice, "that you have two ghosts, both of them claiming to be the ghost of the late Melvin Pye?"
"Uh-huh."
"That is a very peculiar case. I have heard of one other like it—the dvirupa mentioned in the forty-second tantra of Kamakrishna. I will take your case, not so much for the fee—which you understand merely covers the necessary expenses that one incurs in this materialistic land—as for the intellectual interest."
Swami Mahananda showed up at the haunted house with a large, battered suitcase. The first thing he took out of it was an orange robe, which he put on in place of his shabby black coat. He looked more impressive at once. He also unfolded a small, jointed tripod and lighted a piece of incense, which he placed therein.
"I have decided to use the old Babylonian tabalum tatbal," he said. "If it does not work, nothing will, for there is no more powerful exorcism." The swami set up on the mantelpiece a row of candles made in the form of demons. He unstoppered a small bottle and sprinkled water from it on a branch of a tamarisk tree.
"Now," he said, "we're ready!"
At midnight the ghost arrived with a whoop. "Whee! I'm a Bengal tiger with a toothache! I'm bad! Hear me moan? Hear my chains rattle? Nix, I haven't got any chains. Watch me drive out all this rotten landlord's tenants!"
The swami imperturbably struck a match and ignited the seven demon-candles. Then he faced the ghost and cried, waving the branch in intricate patterns:
"Huh?" said the ghost. "Oh, hello, Giuseppe."
"Never mind my name before I was initiated," said the swami.
"Ouch," said the ghost, wavering slightly. "You play too rough." With which the ghost disappeared.
But at the same time he, or his double, reappeared.
"I'm sorry!" bleated the newcomer. "If you'll stop the exorcism a minute I'll explain."
"Well?" said the swami.
"He's been drifting over the distillery again, getting drunk on the smell. Mercy me, what a lot of stuff you have here. It's too bad it won't work on Bogus."
"Oh, yes, it will," said the swami.
"Heh-heh," said Bogus, reappearing. "That's what you think. Ga wan, Phony."
Now he was addressing another ghost. "I don't need your help to settle with this dopey wizard."
Swami Mahananda began another spell. The second ghost, Phony, faded out. Then the first ghost, Bogus, flickered from sight and the other apparition came back into view.
"Stop it, Bogus!" he cried. "You've disgraced us enough for one evening." At this point he went out again and Bogus reappeared. The changes went on for a quarter-hour—first one apparition and then the other being banished.
Finally Swami Mahananda collapsed into a chair with his head in his hands. Bogus, who happened to be visible at that instant, sneered.
"What'd I tell ya?" he gloated. "You can't exorcise the ghost of Melvin Pye. Just wait till tomorrow night; I'll have enough power then really to fix this goddam landlord!"
"Don't listen to him!" cried Phony, reappearing. "Pro. the real ghost of Melvin Pye!" "You are not! I am!" The argument broke out again, and the two ghosts, still disputing, faded away.
"It is no use, gentlemen," groaned the swami. "I can banish any spirit by himself, but the dvirupa is too hard to—how should I say it?—get hold of. When you push one half out, you push the other half in. I go."
The swami took off his orange robe, jammed it into his suitcase, put away his other properties, clapped on his old black hat, and departed.
"Well!" said Conroy. "Now, where does that leave us?"
"Search me," said Kalesky. "I don't think you want me on this job any more."
"Don't desert me, old man!" cried Conroy. "Didn't you hear his threats? He'll scare away all my tenants and ruin me! Please stay on a couple more days! Look into Pye's history again. There ought to be a clue there somewhere."
Kalesky shrugged.
"Okay, if you want it. But I don't promise nothing."
Kalesky began his hunt early the following morning. He found Pye's sister in another suburb, and from her he got more information.
Pye had undergone a strict upbringing and had not been very happy. Twice during his mature life he had suffered complete lapses of memory. The first time, he came to himself to find that he had joined the Marines.
He had served out his enlistment and then gone back to the accounting work he had formerly followed. The second time he had come to himself in jail. As well as he could discover, he had spent the previous year drifting around as an itinerant laborer. He had landed in jail as a result of a weakness for visiting waterfronts and picking fights with sailors.
Pye's sister referred Kalesky to the psychiatrist who had treated Pye after his second break—a Dr. Ekstrom. Kalesky looked Ekstrom up in the telephone directory and went to his office.
Dr. William Ekstrom was a tall, slender man with silvery hair, who looked like an actor playing the part of a distinguished psychiatrist.
"Pye was a case of split personality," he said. "The hedonistic, adventurous aspects of his psyche, so sternly repressed in early life, collected in his subconscious to form a secondary personality. Twice this second idea-complex got the upper hand. It is as though two personalities, P-One and P-Two, were alternating in their control of one body."
"You wouldn't kid me, Doc?" Kalesky asked. "Some people can have two minds in one body?"
"Yes, my dear chap, they can. I might have been able to cure Pye if he hadn't died when he did."
"How do you cure them?"
"You merge the two personalities under hypnosis. But look here; what's all this getting at? The man's dead, you know."
"Well, Doc," said Kalesky uncomfortably, "he is and he isn't. I mean." "Yes?"
Kalesky finally told the story. When he had finished, Ekstrom nodded.
"Fascinating, my dear friend," he said. "Here, will you cross your knees a moment?" When Kalesky did so, Ekstrom smote him below the kneecap with a little rubber hammer. Kalesky's leg flew up.
"You don't have to worry about me being nuts," said Kalesky. "That stuffed shirt Conroy will tell you the same thing. Have you got an engagement this evening?"
"No, but—here, what have you in mind?" said Ekstrom suspiciously.
Kalesky opened his wallet and counted out five tens.
"If you could have merged him while he was alive, you can merge him when he's dead."
"Don't be silly, old man. I'm not a psychic researcher. But—" as Kalesky began to gather up the money "—it might be worth trying at that. You understand that if there's no ghost, I keep the retainer."