Still Valley At 20,000 Feet - Mike Burns (good ebook reader .TXT) 📗

this flash o’ intuition--if he brung in human body parts, an’ offered THEM, maybe he could get in good with the lama--the head priest in this place. So, after seein’ a woman fall off a cliff and die the next day, he went and sawed off her arm--he’d a killed her hisself, he wrote, but she beat him to it--an’ he came up to the temple gates, with the silk cloth around his neck, holdin’ his offerin’ on high, and got to come in and hear the lama offer this an’ ’bout a hundred other people’s offerin’s up, and give an initiation to all those in the temple into this black god’s worship, an’ how they could offer up requests. Sennacherib managed to steal one of the liturgy texts--he could already speak the language, the Tibetan tongue--an’ he put it all in here, in the book. Didn’t even have to kill nobody, that time.

Silent scenes to depict these actions.

(DISSOLVE TO)

EXTERIOR. ON A WIDE, FLAT EXPANSE OF PRAIRIE LAND IN THE AMERICAN WEST, WITH A LARGE VILLAGE OF TEEPEES IN BACKGROUND. MORNING

Large crowd of Native Americans are gathered around a display, where a man dangles from leather cords tied to the top of a tall pole, attached by hooks or needles thrust through his pectoral muscles. In the foreground, a garishly-garbed medicine man beats a drum, puffs a pipe, turns to the successive four points of the compass, and utters incantations.


OLD MAN TEAGUE
(SIMULTANEOUS VOICE-OVER)
Among the Blackfoot, in the Wyomin’ territory, Sennacherib proved his bravery, endurin’ the beatin’ o’ the gauntlet when he told ‘em he wanted to join ‘em, and proved (CONTINUED)
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his equestrian skill, and hunted buffaloes with ‘em, and finally spun around the pole, doin’ the Sundance with the best of ‘em. He came out of that with a song and a dance routine stuck in his head that he said would give him th’ insight into what others was thinkin’, an’ all he hadda do was hum a few notes and do a few steps o’ the dance, after a few practice runs, and he’d know what they knew. Had to kill the chief to escape, though.


Silent scenes depict these actions.
(DISSOLVE TO)

INTERIOR. A MAJOR LIBRARY IN EUROPE, IN THE OPEN AREA OF GROUND FLOOR WHERE INDIVIDUAL STUDY DESKS, ILLUMINATED BY LANTERNS, ARE AVAILABLE, AND INDIVIDUAL SCHOLARS PORE OVER BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS.


OLD MAN TEAGUE
(SIMULTANEOUS VOICE-OVER)
Back in “civilized” climes, Sennacherib Teague could use his new-found skills o’ mind-readin’ to pick the brains of scholars a-studyin’ the works of Pico della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa, Giordano Bruno, people like that. He didn’t have to read all that-- they did it for him, an’ he just eavedropped on what they were learnin’. He had the book with him, at his own table, hummin’, tappin’ his feet--but not too loud--and writin’ like a writin’ fool in it for days. The spells, the incantations, the curses, the hexes, the talismans, the initiations, the invocations o’ the dark powers--he got it all.

Silent scenes to depict these actions.

(DISSOLVE TO)

BACK TO HOUSE IN LAYSDELL, SITTING ROOM
EARLY EVENING, AS SEEN THROUGH WINDOW

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Sennacherib Teague was a man who travelled the world, by ship, by horseback, on foot. He was at home wherever he was, whether it was with a bandit chief in the Bavarian forests, or a feudal lord in Transylvania, or a Turkish pasha, or a witch-burnin‘ cleric in Salem, or a village wizard down in the Congo or a medicine man among the Plains Indians out west. He was a quick study to learn new languages, too, and to learn the lay of the land in foreign places. Most often, he’d end up killin’ these men he got the magic from. Lotta times, there was people who’d been under the heel of these men of magic, an’ they’d think he did it to free them. THEY thought of him as a hero. ‘Lotta them worshipped the very ground Sennacherib Teague walked on, and thought he was an avenging angel sent by...well, you know what I mean. They thought they knew the man. They thought he was a fighter against oppression, a man tryin’ to forge justice in the world. But he really was after the ones who oppressed with magic, so he could take their spells and their potions and their amulets and their curses away from ‘em--takin’ ’em for his own. He wanted to be the king of all the conjurers. Sounds strange to say that ’bout a man born and raised a Puritan, don’t it? But still, that’s (CONTINUED) //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////what he wanted. That’s what he hunted for---newer and stronger magic, and he wrote it all down in this here book. The title’s in Latin, and it means “Book of All the Magic Arts.” The gilt title inscription and the illustrations on the pages weren’t done by him; he
forced a monk in Italy to do all that for him, and the monk ended up committin’ suicide after he was done. He couldn’t handle that he’d been a part of somethin’ like this here. Anyhow, that’s the story o’ where the book come from. It’s been handed down from seventh son to seventh son till it finally reached me.
I don’t claim to be the warrior or adventurer that Sennacherib Teague was. I don’t have to be. I’m a better conjurer than he ever dreamed o’ bein’, ’cause I’ve had the book to read and conjure from all my life, with all the latent power of a seventh son of a seventh son, seventh in a line of seventh sons of seventh sons. Sennacherib’s descendants, the seventh sons of seventh sons, my ancestors, they mostly were content to use it to settle feuds and vendettas, get petty revenge on people what wronged em, that kinda thing. They was short on imagination. ’Course, they didn’t have no great, earth-shakin’ cause to use the book for, like I got now.

Sergeant Paradine has been thoughtfully handling his glass. He looks up sharply at this last statement, sets down the glass, and rises to his feet, almost guiltily, feeling as if another spell upon him has finally been broken.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Mr. Teague, that cause is one I believe in, too. And I need to do my part in it. I need to get back to my unit, make my report. But listen here, Mr. Teague, what about you? You got all this power in that book. I seen for myself what it can do (gestures vaguely at the window). Why don’t you use it to bring us victory, once and for all? Why not use it to freeze-up every Union soldier everywhere? Bring all those armies to a halt! Why don’t you do it, Mr. Teague?

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Once upon a time, son, I could’ve. What I done to them, I could do to the whole Union army. Freeze ‘em all in their tracks. Once, I coulda opened up a path to Washington, so that Bobby Lee could ride in there with three Confederate troopers, and take over the whole country.

SERGEANT PARADINE
You keep sayin’ you could’ve, old man.