Free Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02 by After Dark (v1.1) Page A

of orangey brown. And they stirred and half opened, then half
shut again.
                 On
the ground grew the little blades I'd noticed, but they weren't grass as at
first I'd thought. They looked tight and a lively green.
                 "You
can eat those shoots,” said Altic to me. "When you chew them, it clears
your mind for better thinking. It nourishes your body for whole days of
effort.”
                 He
stooped down and tweaked off a couple and chewed them. I didn't do likewise.
Instead, I looked at the fruity clumps on other plants.
                 "Go ahead, eat some of those,” Altic invited me.
"They’re like wine to the taste. And they can cure sickness, almost any
sickness.”
                 "I
thank you, but I’m not ailing,” I said. I looked at more of the houses, farther
back. "Where’s the rest of your crowd?”
                 "Resting
quietly in their homes, or perhaps busy with certain
affairs. John, I wonder at you. You came almost two miles to get here, but all
of a sudden you’re not curious enough to do any investigating.”
                 "Almost
two miles,” I repeated him, for that had been near about what I’d guessed the
distance to be. "Two miles, dead straight over the face
of the land.”
                 "Naturally,”
he said, a-looking at me through his dark glasses.
                 "No,”
I said. "Not naturally, Mr. Altic. Because a straight
line isn’t natural. And anyway, a track usually turns and bends back and
forth, to follow the best, easiest ground for it to run.”
                 He
smiled his smile. "But straight lines are indeed natural. Think about it.
A beam of light is perfectly straight. The fall of an object, by the law of
gravity, is straight.”
                 I
thought back on the flight of those bees Mr. Ben and I had traced that morning—shoo,
was it just that morning? So much had been a-happening since. There might could be a lot in what Altic said. I turned from him
and headed back for where I’d left the track. He strolled along beside me,
a-swinging his polished black cane.
                 Right
all of a sudden I didn’t want to be round him much, not that I’d truly wanted
to from the start. I reached the track and headed back along it. Right away, the
jangle came back in my blood and nerves. He moved to come alongside me, he
moved right well, like a man in good shape. I sort of wore my way up that steep
rise, and at the top he was with me.
                 "Now,
suppose we pause up here a second/' he said to me . " I
don't think I have to ask you if you experience a certain interesting
sensation."
                 "There’s
a hum or a shake inside," I said. "It was with me all the way
here."
                 "Now
look at this."
                 He
jammed the silver point of his stick down hard. It drove into that packed
ground. He let go of the knob and looked at it, a-smiling. I saw the thing
begin to bob back and forth, slow at first, then faster.
                 At
first I thought he'd sort of sprung it with his hand to make it do that. But
then I made out that it moved of its own self. And it moved strongly. First it
whipped one way, then back the other. Maybe like the
pendulum of a clock. Maybe like something moved by
electricity.
                 "Do
you see the proof of power here?" Altic inquired me.
                 "Whatever
makes it do thataway?"
                 Always
his smile beneath the dark glasses that hid whatever might could be in his
hidden eyes. "I doubt if I have the ability to tell you what, or if you
have the ability to understand if I do tell you."
                 "I've
seen a water witch with his forked stick, and it bobbed like that.
Anyway," I said, "you might could try me on
for understanding you. I'm interested in how you talk,