Many Dimensions (eBook)

Charles Williams (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
359 Seiten
Charles River Editors (Verlag)
978-1-5183-7976-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Charles Williams was a popular British writer and theologian.  T.S. Eliot once described Williams' novels as supernatural thrillers.  This edition of Many Dimensions includes a table of contents.

Textauszug

I. — THE STONE

..................

“Do you mean,” Sir Giles said, “that the thing never gets smaller?”

“Never,” the Prince answered. “So much of its virtue has entered into its outward form that whatever may happen to it there is no change. From the beginning it was as it is now.”

“Then by God, sir,” Reginald Montague exclaimed, “you’ve got the transport of the world in your hands.”

Neither of the two men made any answer. The Persian, sitting back in his chair, and Sir Giles, sitting forward on the edge of his, were both gazing at the thing which lay on the table. It was a circlet of old, tarnished, and twisted gold, in the centre of which was set a cubical stone measuring about half an inch every way, and having apparently engraved on it certain Hebrew letters. Sir Giles picked it up, rather cautiously, and concentrated his gaze on them. The motion awoke a doubt in Montague’s mind.

“But supposing you chipped one of the letters off?” he asked. “Aren’t they awfully important? Wouldn’t that destroy the—the effect?”

“They are the letters of the Tetragrammaton,” the Persian said drily, “if you call that important. But they are not engraved on the Stone; they are in the centre—they are, in fact, the Stone.”

“O!” Mr. Montague said vaguely, and looked at his uncle Sir Giles, who said nothing at all. This, after a few minutes, seemed to compel Montague to a fresh attempt.

“You see, sir?” he said, leaning forward almost excitedly. “If what the Prince says is true, and we’ve proved that it is, a child could use it.”

“You are not, I suppose,” the Persian asked, “proposing to limit it to children? A child could use it, but in adult hands it may be more dangerous.”

“Dangerous be damned,” Montague said more excitedly than before, “It’s a marvellous chance—it’s... it’s a miracle. The thing’s as simple as pie. Circlets like this with the smallest fraction of the Stone in each. We could ask what we liked for them—thousands of pounds each, if we like. No trains, no tubes, no aeroplanes. Just the thing on your forehead, a minute’s concentration, and whoosh! “

The Prince made a sudden violent movement, and then again a silence fell.

It was late at night. The three were sitting in Sir Giles Tumulty’s house at Ealing—Sir Giles himself, the traveller and archaeologist; Reginald Montague, his nephew and a stockbroker; and the Prince Ali Mirza Khan, First Secretary to the Persian Ambassador at the court of St. James. At the gate of the house stood the Prince’s car; Montague was playing with a fountain-pen; all the useful tricks of modern civilization were at hand. And on the table, as Sir Giles put it slowly down, lay all that was left of the Crown of Suleiman ben Daood, King in Jerusalem,

Sir Giles looked across at the Prince. “Can you move other people with it, or is it like season-tickets?”

“I do not know,” the Persian said gravely. “Since the time of Suleiman (may the Peace be upon him!) no one has sought to make profit from it.”

“Ha!” said Mr. Montague, surprised. “O come now, Prince! “

“Or if they have,” the Prince went on, “they and their names and all that they did have utterly perished from the earth.”

“Ha!” said Mr. Montague again, a little blankly. “O well, we can see. But you take my advice and get out of Rails. Look here, uncle, we want to keep this thing quiet.”

“Eh?” Sir Giles said. “Quiet? No, I don’t particularly want to keep it quiet. I want to talk to Palliser about it—after me he knows more about these things than anyone. And I want to see Van Eilendorf—and perhaps Cobham, though his nonsense about the double pillars at Baghdad was the kind of tripe that nobody but a broken-down Houndsditch sewer-rat would talk.”

The Prince stood up. “I have shown you and told you these things,” he said, “because you knew too much already, and that you may see how very precious is the Holy Thing which you have there. I ask you again to restore it to the guardians from whom you stole it. I warn you that if you do not—”

“I didn’t steal it,” Sir Giles broke in. “I bought it. Go and ask the fellow who sold it to me.”

“Whether you stole by bribery or by force is no matter,” the Prince went on. “You very well know that he who betrayed it to you broke the trust of generations. I do not know what pleasure you find in it or for what you mean to use it, unless indeed you will make it a talisman for travel. But however that may be, I warn you that it is dangerous to all men and especially dangerous to such unbelievers as you. There are dangers within the Stone, and other dangers from those who were sworn to guard the Stone. I offer you again as much money as you can desire if you will return it.”

“O well, as to money,” Reginald Montague said, “of course my uncle will have a royalty—a considerable royalty—on all sales and that’ll be a nice little bit in a few months. Yours isn’t a rich Government anyhow, is it? How many millions do you owe us?”

The Prince took no notice. He was staring fiercely and eagerly at Sir Giles, who put out his hand again and picked up the circlet.

“No,” he said, “no, I shan’t part with it. I want to experiment a bit. The bastard asylum attendant who sold it to me—”

The Prince interrupted in a shaking voice. “Take care of your words,” he said. “Outcast and accursed as that man now is, he comes of a great and royal family. He shall writhe in hell for ever, but even there you shall not be worthy to see his torment.”

“—said there was hardly anything it wouldn’t do,” Sir Giles finished. “No, I shan’t ask Cobham. Palliser and I will try it first. It was all perfectly legal, Prince, and all the Governments in the world can’t make it anything else.”

“I do not think Governments will recover it,” the Prince said. “But death is not a monopoly of Governments. If I had not sworn to my uncle—”

“O it was your uncle, was it?” Sir Giles asked. “I wondered what it was that made you coo so gently. I rather expected you to be more active about it to-night.”

“You try me very hard,” the Prince uttered. “But I know the Stone will destroy you at last.”

“Quite, quite,” Sir Giles said, standing up. “Well, thank you for coming. If I could have pleased you, of course... But I want to know all about it first.”

The Prince looked at the letters in the Stone. “I think you will know a great deal then,” he said, salaamed deeply to it, and without bowing to the men turned and left the house.

Sir Giles went after him to the front door, though they exchanged no more words, and, having watched him drive away returned to find his nephew making hasty notes.

“I don’t see why we need a company,” he said. “Just you and I, eh?”

“Why you?” Sir Giles asked. “What makes you think you’re going to have anything to do with it?”

“Why, you told me,” Montague exclaimed. “You offered me a hand in the game if I’d be about to-night when the Prince came in case he turned nasty.”

“So I did,” his uncle answered. “Yes—well, on conditions. If there is any money in it, I shall want some of it. Not as much as you do, but some. It’s always useful, and I had to pay pretty high to get the Stone. And I don’t want a fuss made about it—not yet.”

“That’s all right,” Montague said. “I was thinking it might be just as well to have Uncle Christopher in with us.”

“Whatever for?” Sir Giles asked.

“Well... if there’s any legal trouble, you know,” Montague said vaguely. “I mean—if it came to the Courts we might be glad—of course, I don’t know if they could—but anyhow he’d probably notice it if I began to live on a million—and some of these swine will do anything if their pockets are touched—all sorts of tricks they have—but a Chief Justice is a Chief Justice—that is, if you didn’t mind—”

“I don’t mind,” Sir Giles said. “Arglay’s got a flat-footed kind of intellect; that’s why he’s Chief Justice, I expect. But for what it’s worth, and if they did try any international law business. But they can’t; there was nothing to prevent that fellow selling it to me if he chose, nor me buying. I’ll get Palliser here as soon as I...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: British • christian fantasy • Classic • Contemporary • C.S. Lewis • EPIC • Good vs. Evil • Heaven • Religious
• ISBN-10: 1-5183-7976-1 / 1518379761
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5183-7976-5 / 9781518379765