With the exception of some of my Tutees, whose admission Bray seemed to have arranged for reasons of his own, the privileged spectators in the stands were people of position and influence, many of whom had sniffed disapprovingly at my aroma when I came near; they made it plain now that Stoker's rowdiness offended them on the sober occasion at hand, and called upon the Chancellor to have us both removed from the Hill. Rexford looked with some concern in our direction; his wife whispered something in his ear that made him frown. He let go her hand and consulted a forelock behind him, who glanced at us and nodded.
"Come on!" Stoker taunted me at the top of his voice. "Do some tricks! Show us you're the real G.T.!"
"Down in front!" someone called. At the same moment drums rolled, and I saw that the sun's lower limb had touched the horizon. A marching-band struck up a grave processional; way was made at the barricades for a vee of three black motorcycles, behind the foremost of which walked Max. Bent under the weight of a block-and-tackle rig, he moved with difficulty, but his face was alight. A gasp came from the stands: not at that pitiful spectacle, but at a sudden apparition at the base of the Shaft. One would have sworn its marble lines had been unbroken except for ominous ropes and pulleys; there were certainly no doors or other apertures in the masonry, or hiding-places on the little ledge around its base, and the whole monument was ringed by a moat or reflecting-pool said to be a meter deep and twelve wide — yet in an instant on that empty ledge stood Harold Bray, black-cloaked, his arms held out to the approaching victim!
"How does he do it, Goat-Boy? Show us the trick!" Stoker's tone was half jeer and half dare, but perhaps there was something else in his eyes. I turned my back on him and the others who now looked to see my reaction; bidding Anastasia to remain where she was with T.'s T.'s T., I made my way around to the opposite viewing-stand. Though not inconspicuously attired and scented, I was able to move without attracting great notice, owing to the crowd's preoccupation. As the guards led Max forth, Bray's cloak changed color with each rich chord the trumpets sounded: black to brown, brown to iridescent green, green to a white so like the Shaft's that the cloak seemed transparent, if not vanished — even the mortar-lines were replicated on it! Next he stepped from the ledge onto the surface of the pool and with a kind of sliding gait, as if the water were frozen, walked across to meet my keeper. The guards, no less amazed than the spectators, dismounted and examined the pool, even poked it with their billies to prove that there was no walkway just under the surface.
"Ja ja!" I heard Dr. Eierkopf cry, and his applause was taken up by the others. Even the Chancellor shook his head, much impressed; the professor-generals behind him elbowed each other excitedly; Telerama-men chattered wide-eyed into their microphones. Max looked about under his burden, perhaps for me, as the guards placed a portable walkway over the moat. Catching his eye or nose, I waved a discreet bye-bye and held up the shophar to reassure him that his last request would be honored. He nodded, but some dismay at Bray's performance still wrinkled his brow. Bray saw me then, if he had not before, and as if to taunt me with his prowess, uttered a sound not unlike choiring brass. The musicians put by their instruments, dumbfounded; everyone murmured astonishment except Anastasia and myself, who exchanged calm glances across the space between us, and Tommy's Tommy's Tom, browsing contentedly among discarded candy wrappers and cola cups.
Max was now strapped by his escorts into a kind of canvas diaper or bosun's-breeches on the ledge, his tackle-ropes rigged to those that ran up the face of the Shaft to its flaming tip. His seat-belt was secured, the gangplank removed; the crowd grew still. Again drums rolled; the Chancellor gave a reluctant signal; and as two of the guards hauled upon the halyards to the stroke-call of the third, Max slowly rose. Even the professor-generals most pleased to see him go, like my grandfather, were hushed by the sight.
Bray then glided, as it seemed, to the central space between the stands, turned to face the Shaft, and raised his arms. Though the light was failing fast (shadow, in fact, went up the column as the sun went down, and determined the rate of Max's ascent), he began another series of metamorphoses more remarkable even than the earlier: not only did the color and apparent cut of his vestments change at each halyard-heave, but his face and form as well. Stroke: he was Max himself! Stroke: pretty Anastasia! Stroke: the late G. Herrold! At every transformation the crowd roared Hurrah (sometimes Olé), the band saluted, and Max went up another measure on the Shaft, blowing kisses and pulling his beard. Now Bray was The Living Sakhyan, now great black Croaker, and then in rhythmic series Maurice Stoker, Kennard Sear, Eblis Eierkopf, Lucius Rexford, the brothers Hector (both at once), hat-faced Classmate X, Leonid Alexandrov, and my passèd lady mother! Last of all he assumed the semblance of myself, complete with stick and shophar — and in this guise, as Max neared the blazing tip, proclaimed: "Dear Founder, pass our classmate Maximilian Spielman, who has finished his course in faith and would rest from his labors." Though no public-address system was in sight, his voice carried as if amplified. "A-plus," he said at the end, resoundingly, and from somewhere Mother's voice gave back the echo: "A-plus!"
The moment was at hand. As Max went waving to the peak I put the buckhorn to my lips and blew with all my strength. Teruah! Teruah! Teruah! My keeper, whose dear wise like this campus will not soon see again, combusted in a glorious flare — by the light whereof I saw Tommy's Tommy's Tom race unleashed toward my semblance. His hand was high; joyously he bleat! Bray buzzed and flapped; literally he shed my guise (stick and horn attached), and holding his nose, flung the limp shed at Triple-T. Underneath he was gleaming black, his face hid under a cowl; seeing it was not I, T.'s T.'s Tom lowered horns and charged. Dreadful the hum, horrid the foetor Bray now gave out! He bounded mewards from Tom's creosoted horns; I drove him back with horn and odor of my own. Thus caught between us, he spread his cloak for half a second; more loud his hum than Stokerish engine! Then from under his tunic-front a thing shot forth, shortswordlike, as Tommy struck. The buck shrieked, fell kicking, lay still. I snatched the black vestment, slick as oilskin; Bray flapped it off, face and all (underneath was a blacker), and fled — nay, vanished — in the crowding dark. A glance told me there was no helping T.'s T.'s T. - his legs stuck out stiff, his eyes were filmed over, his belly swelled. I had at shadow, ground, and moat with my stick, lest Bray be camouflaged against them; waded through the icy pool (at great cost of goat-dip) and attacked the Shaft itself. The crowd had watched, dumbstruck; now as I thwacked the pillar they seemed to wake. A voice very like Peter Greene's cried, "What's that I hear a-flapping and a-flying, Leo?"
"Nothingcy!" a Nikolayan voice replied. "I don't hear!"
"Look once by the Shaft-tip!" squealed Dr. Eierkopf. "Der Grosslehrer ist jetzt ein Fliegender!"
I looked up. In the pall above my flaming keeper something large and obscure appeared to rise, rolling and spreading like the smoke itself. The crowd's dismay turned into panic: people leaped from the stands, swarmed over the barricades in both directions, fell upon their knees and girlfriends, clouted neighbors, clutched loved ones. Bravely the band played New Tammany's anthem until overrun. Guards scrambled into the moat, either to arrest or to protect me; at their head grinned Stoker, cursing as he came. His wife I discerned high up in the bleachers, one hand upon her belly, watching with anxious love above the crowd; Mother knitted placidly beside her. And upon us all, gentle ashes — whose if not my gentler keeper's? — commenced to fall. Another term, surely, they would be mine; not now, for though my youthful work was done, that of my manhood remained to do. What it was I clearly saw, and what it would come to. Nonetheless I smiled, leaned on my stick, and, no troubleder than Mom, gimped in to meet the guards halfway.