The Best of Argosy #8 - Minions of the Shadow Read online

  Introduction to the Best of Argosy

  by Robert Weinberg

  Minions of the Shadow — Argosy September 20, 1941 — November 15, 1941

  By William Grey Beyer

  Clean up the town, crusader; but remember that the Big Boss will shoot before he surrenders. Big Chief Omega (the demon shadow) may not be much good at cleaning up politics, but he can certainly make ‘em livelier. Step right in here and see how history is revised while you wait.

  Radio Archives • 2014

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  Copyright © 1941 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed © 1969 and assigned to Argosy Communications, Inc. “Argosy” and its distinctive logo and symbolism and all related elements are trademarks and are the property of Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. © 2014 RadioArchives.com. Reprinted and produced under license from Argosy Communications, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form.

  These pulp stories are a product of their time. The text is reprinted intact, unabridged, and may include ethnic and cultural stereotyping that was typical of the era.

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  Introduction to The Best of Argosy

  By Robert Weinberg

  Perhaps the most profitable decision ever made in American magazine publishing was made by Frank A. Munsey in 1896. Munsey had started a magazine titled The Golden Argosy in 1882, aimed at the boy’s adventure audience. In 1888, he dropped the word Golden as he tried to move to an older audience. In 1894, Munsey began publishing The Argosy as a monthly magazine. Two years later, he made his big decision. Reasoning that his readership bought his magazine for the stories it contained and not the paper the magazine was printed upon, Munsey started publishing The Argosy on much cheaper pulp-wood paper instead of the slick white paper used by nearly all magazines. This bold move enabled him to drop the price of his all-fiction magazine from a quarter to a dime. Munsey’s reasoning proved correct and The Argosy magazine became one of the best selling publications in America.

  The goal of Argosy, (the The being dropped over the years) was to publish the best adventure and action fiction for men and boys. Not that women were neglected as there was plenty of romance mixed in with the danger. But, Argosy remained true to its purpose for well over a thousand issues, printing the top-of-the-line stories by the world’s greatest masters of exciting fiction.

  The purpose of this series, The Best of Argosy, is to make available to modern adventure fans some of the finest stories ever published in the 1920s and 1930s issues of Argosy. This period is considered, by most pulp magazine historians, the magazine’s greatest. While many of the tremendous tales from these eras have been reprinted in book and paperback format, many many others have been forgotten and never before been reprinted. The Best of Argosy will make available incredible stories by such writers as George F. Worts, William Grey Beyer, Arthur Leo Zagat, Ray Cummings, Borden Chase, and dozens of others. Fire up your ray gun, cinch your saddle, put your car into gear – it’s time to revisit the golden age of pulp adventure with The Best of Argosy!

  Robert Weinberg

  Minions of the Shadow

  By William Grey Beyer, author of “Minions of the Moon,” “Minions of Mercury,” etc.

  from the pages of Argosy September 20, 1941 — November 15, 1941

  Clean up the town, crusader; but remember that the Big Boss will shoot before he surrenders. Big Chief Omega (the demon shadow) may not be much good at cleaning up politics, but he can certainly make ’em livelier. Step right in here and see how history is revised while you wait.

  Chapter 1: Run, Creek, Run

  OMEGA glared malevolently. Murder, obviously, was in his eye. The left one, that is; the right one refused to cooperate. It twinkled. But it seemed that the left one was really a true barometer of his intentions, for Mark suddenly noticed that a wicked-looking, curved scimitar had appeared in Omega’s hand.

  Mark watched, placid and unconcerned, as a horny thumb gauged the keenness of the steel edge. Nor did he so much as smile as Omega severed the thumb neatly at the first joint.

  For the interested observer — had there been one — the scene was noteworthy. Omega, aged and wrinkled, and clothed in a flowing Roman toga, beret, and spiked baseball shoes, mirrored a combination of emotions. Indignation had followed Mark’s request, but that had been followed immediately with apparently uncontrollable rage — centered, of course, in the left eye. The right continued to twinkle monotonously.

  Mark faced him without a qualm, his strong face expressing exactly nothing — except perhaps, strength. There was, however, a certain purposefulness about Mark’s very imperturbability. He was obviously waiting for an answer, and refused to be distracted by anything.

  Not even the fact that the stump of the severed thumb immediately sprouted a hollyhock in full bloom, nor the even more startling fact that the disinherited thumb did not fall to the ground but rather soared erratically off in winged flight, affected him in the least.

  It was the last, perhaps, which might have indicated to that interested observer a possibility of error in assuming that Omega’s left eye was the correct one to believe. The twinkle, maybe, was the proper indication of Omega’s state of mind. But almost as soon as this poor, befuddled observer had concluded that such was the case, he would have again revised his opinion. For Omega lashed out abruptly with the scimitar and snicked off the tip of Mark’s nose.

  At this point, perhaps, the interested observer would have gone quietly mad. For the partial proboscis also took wing and immediately engaged the thumb in mortal combat. It was a foolish thing to do, for the thumb was much larger and apparently more ferocious. It had grown a wicked pair of mandibles when nobody was looking. In no time at all it had the nose-end in a death grip, squeezing unrelentingly, in spite of the pitiful nasal whines for mercy which rent the air.

  Yes, the opinion is herewith set forth that the interested observer would have lost his grip on whatever vestige of sanity remained.

  The left eye continued to glare balefully as Omega growled: “I won’t do it!”

  Mark looked cross-eyed down the length of his nose, and was reassured to see that it was whole again. “I only asked a favor,” he pointed out, in a slightly injured tone of voice. “I don’t see why you have to get so upset. If you don’t want to do it, say so. I won’t ask you again.”

  “I did say so,” snorted Omega. “I repeat: I won’t do it!”

  Mark didn’t answer. He gazed sadly at the fallen gladiator which had been the end of his own nose. The thumb was still worrying the corpse, after the manner of a cat with a mouse. Some of the fire went out of Omega’s left eye as he contemplated Mark’s doleful expression. He quickly regained it, however, as Mark glanced up and shook his head sadly, the picture of disappointed disillusionment.

  “Okay,” he said, resignedly. “Forget it.”

  “It wasn’t fair to ask,” said Omega, now on the defensive. “You know the trouble I get in when I travel back in time. A friend wouldn’t make such a request,” he added, pointedly.

  MARK suddenly, snapped out of his dejected attitude. “Now who’s being unfair?” he wanted to know. “I only asked you to go back six thousand years or so. Back before I went
to sleep. That wouldn’t get you in any trouble.

  “You told me you only got in difficulties when you go far enough back to meet yourself when you still lived in your original body. Like the time when you caught yourself merging with yourself and had to live your whole life over again. So you’re just splitting hairs. That was over fifty thousand years ago.”

  “I know, I know,” said Omega, plaintively. “But I was in existence six thousand years ago, even if I didn’t have a body. And I wouldn’t want to have to do it all over again.”

  “Your original form wasn’t in existence then,” Mark argued. “You were nothing but a disembodied intelligence at that time.”

  “Of course. But I was there just the same. How do I know I won’t merge anyhow.” He paused, apparently thinking of a new argument. “And if you remember back, my fine fellow, it was me that wakened you after you got that dose of sleeping potion that was masquerading as an anesthetic. Suppose I should go back, as you request, and suppose I merge with myself as I was then and suppose I get mad and refuse to awaken you again? You know it’s no fun having to live your life over again, and doing everything exactly the same way you did it the first time, just to make history come out right. I’m not so sure I’d do it again. I like fun!”

  Mark was silent for a long minute. The thought was appalling. If Omega should accidentally merge and refuse to awaken him from his long sleep of suspended animation, nothing he had accomplished in the fifteen years since his awakening would exist. It was confusing, in a way.

  He had been awakened, hadn’t he? And he had met Nona and married her and had two kids, hadn’t he? How could all that be undone? He’d almost civilized the modern Vikings, and he’d freed The Land of the Brish, and he’d come back to present benighted America and made a pretty nice place of the modern city of Detroit.

  Could all that be cast into the limbo if Omega decided to live his life in a different manner? It sounded slightly screwy, on the surface. He said as much.

  “Oh it does, does it?” Omega’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Well I’m a screwy guy, brother. Look — I’ll take you back about an hour, and then we’ll see what you say.”

  Mark braced himself, but it was too late. He felt a sudden sinking feeling, a complete absence of light, then a sensation of rapid motion. That stopped after a moment, and abruptly his vision returned. He looked around and discovered he was about a mile from where he’d been a second before. There was a stream beside him, cutting its way through a slight rise in the plain near the city. He looked toward the direction where he knew he had stood one hour before, but found that the rise blocked his view.

  It was at that moment that he discovered he didn’t have a body. Nor a head, either, for that matter. He was now no more than a disembodied intelligence. He could see all right, and he could hear, the rippling of the stream was quite audible. But no body! He also realized that Omega was in a similar state, though that was quite natural for him.

  There was a difference, though. Ordinarily he couldn’t sense the presence of Omega unless that being let it be known he was in the vicinity. But now he could sense him. Omega was right beside him. A certain tension — probably the thought waves which composed him — indicated his presence.

  “How do you like it?” The question was only a thought, but he heard it as a voice.

  “Be handy when it rains,” he thought back. “But what does it prove?”

  “I’ll show you in a minute,” Omega answered. “Right now you and I are a little distance down this stream. That’s why I brought you up here. So we wouldn’t merge with ourselves. And right now that other ‘you’ is making up an alleged mind as to whether to request me to take him back in time to visit some old acquaintances. And I’m making up my mind to refuse. Right?”

  “The first half’s right,” Mark conceded. “Which means that you were reading my mind at the time. Shame on you.”

  “Dull reading,” said Omega, with a mental sniff. “But the point is that one hour from now, our point of departure in time, you and the body I had assumed were standing at a distance of about twenty feet from that stream. Right?”

  Mark didn’t see what was coming, but he answered: “Right.”

  “All right, then. Now I’m going to use some of nature’s abundant power to alter the course of the creek. Watch.”

  Chapter 2: Brace Yourself for the Past

  MARK watched and marveled. He knew that Omega, by mental control, could manipulate the sub-cosmic forces which pervade all space, but he didn’t often get a chance to watch him do it. He saw tons of earth melt away as Omega caused a deep ravine to be cut through the little hill which stood between their present position and the place where they had been.

  He refrained from looking toward that other Mark, afraid his disembodied intelligence would be forced by some unknown law to merge with that other self.

  Instead he watched the ravine extend itself toward the creek. When they met, the inevitable happened. The waters of the stream were given an easier path to follow and they followed it. They flowed through the ravine.

  “Now,” said Omega. “Let’s merge. Head down that ravine, and you’ll find yourself merging, whether you want to or not.”

  Mark discovered that he needed no more than a thought to move his bodiless form. With Omega at his side he sped down the new creek bed, in advance of the water. As they moved, Omega extended the ravine along with them. But Mark didn’t notice. He had sighted his own body, standing in conversation with the aged one in the Roman toga.

  Unaccountably he felt drawn to it, and noticed that his speed had increased, hurtling him toward it. In a space of a few seconds he had reached it, and suddenly found himself looking through its eyes. He found himself stopping in the middle of a sentence he couldn’t remember beginning, and turned to Omega in astonishment.

  Omega grinned. “You could probably remember what you were saying at this moment, if you thought a while. But it doesn’t matter. The point is: Are you going to stay here and get wet?”

  Mark, suddenly alarmed, turned to face the creek. As he guessed, it was dry; or rather, slightly muddy. Glancing quickly back, he saw that the new course of the stream would pass directly over the spot on which he was standing. And furthermore, it would arrive in a matter of seconds. Hastily he moved away to higher ground.

  Not that it would have been dangerous to remain, for there was only a foot or two of water winding its way downward. But he didn’t relish getting his sandals soaked. Omega moved with him, grinning gleefully.

  Mark stopped, safely out of range of the new creek, and faced the aged caricature of a man. “Are you imitating a gargoyle with Cheshire cat tendencies?” he asked. “Or has something gone over my head?”

  “The latter, I assure you,” Omega drawled. “It happens again and again. Perhaps I should remind you that less than a half hour has passed since we went back that hour. Now it should occur to you that already that hunk of protoplasm you inhabit is doing things it didn’t do originally during that hour. And do you intend to be standing in the middle of the creek, getting your tootsies wet, when the hour is up? Or did I change history by changing the course of the stream?”

  Mark scratched his head. It didn’t itch, but it just seemed the thing to do. There was something he should grasp...

  “Ah,” he chortled. “But you took me along with you back in time, and when I merged with myself I made my body do something it hadn’t done originally. Suppose I hadn’t gone with you? Then I would have been at the original place at the end of that hour and —”

  Omega chuckled gleefully. “Sure,” he said derisively. “You’d still be standing over there in the water. You wouldn’t be moving out of the way when it suddenly began to creep up your ankles. You’d stand there, getting wet for the next half hour.”

  MARK frowned. There was no doubt of it. Omega had changed history. Even at this very instant he had been standing in a different place. If Omega hadn’t decided to demonstrate, he would be standing ther
e a half hour from now. He was, in fact...

  It was all very confusing. Suppose Omega hadn’t made that little excursion in time. This creek was pretty well stocked with trout and he often fished at the very place where there now was a shallow furrow of drying creek-bed. A week from now, maybe tomorrow, he would be fishing in it. But Omega had made his excursion, and there wouldn’t be any water in that furrow.

  “Then I’m to infer that all these fifteen years I’ve lived...” He hesitated momentarily, but went on again. “And those two kids of mine — they’d just cease to exist if you went back in time and decided not to awaken me?”

  Omega chuckled again, giving Mark a disquieting feeling that he was talking to omnipotence or something very near it. “Exactly,” Omega said. “You, and all the things you have done would be as if they had never existed. Maybe they don’t exist anyway,” he added reflectively. “Maybe you’re only here because I thought of you. Anyway, I guess you don’t feel like taking a chance on oblivion, just to see a few of your old friends.”

  Mark looked at the new creek, musingly, then suddenly smiled. “I’ll take a chance,” he said. “Take me to my home town, just prior to the time of that operation which ended in my protracted nap. I’ve got a friend there by the name of Harvey Nelson. I’d like to see him.”

  Omega was startled, a thing which seldom happened. He looked at Mark searchingly for a few seconds. Then he smiled.

  “I see,” he said. “You lived in New York, about ninety miles away, at that time. So you figure you won’t meet yourself. And I was watching the results of that operation, just for something to do. I told you that once, didn’t I? But how do you know that I wasn’t in your home town too, somewhere around that time? I get around, you know.”