A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  Doctor Ludwig stared pityingly at the despondent man before him.

  “My boy,” he said gently, “to what new depths has your depression carried you? Hilard, your condition has built up an imaginary hell for you. There could be nothing more wrong than what you have just said.”

  “How wrong?”

  “You love Rosella, don’t you?”

  “More than life itself! That’s what makes it so tough. And it’s what makes me so sure I’m right. She’s so perfect, so lovely. Everything about her makes me love her more. And using the same standards, it’s inevitable that she cease to love me, if she ever did. What girl would love a mental cripple; that’s what I am—a victim of incurable psychoneurosis. No wonder she shudders with horror at my presence.” He faced the doctor almost wildly. “To her I’ve become something unclean, something terrifying. And yet you say I’m wrong!”

  “Yes,” replied Ludwig calmly. “Both times.”

  “Both?”

  “About her reason for ‘cooling off’ as you call it, and also about the incurableness of your condition. In fact, the last is the real reason for my visit. I’ll tell you of that first.”

  LANTRY returned to his despondent posture, staring straight ahead. “Go on,” he shrugged. “I’ve lost all hope in your concoctions. None of the drugs you’ve given me have changed my condition a bit, except possibly to make it worse in several instances.”

  “This drug is different. It’s a new discovery of mine. It accelerates mental processes—”

  “Never mind the rest,” interposed Lantry with a sudden show of interest. “I’ll take the stuff, if it will do that. If it does—maybe those passages in the book . . .”

  “Which brings me back to our other subject,” interrupted Ludwig hastily. “The reason for Rosella’s apparent coolness. She spoke to me this morning, about you, and your hobby. It’s the demonology that she disapproves.”

  “Demonology?”

  “Yes. She actually fears it, though I tried to talk her out of that silliness. However, she has a lot of the old Anglo-Saxon blood in her, and that race was notoriously superstitious. I think—”

  “Anglo-Saxon!” interrupted Lantry with interest. “The book I’m translating is Druidic!”

  “Druidic?” questioned Ludwig, puzzled. “The Druids left no . . .” He bit his tongue and resumed his former explanation. “I think she believes in it even more than you do, but not with your pedantic interest. Her reaction is a dual fear, of the possibility of the existence of real demons, and the effect of your studies upon your mind.

  “I tried to explain to her that the reason I have not objected to your pursuance of the hobby is because it is natural for people in your condition to turn to the supernatural, the macabre, in keeping with their depressive mood, and also because it is imperative that you have something to interest you, to help you fight the despondency. But now, I’m afraid I’ll have to do something about it. May I see that book you’re talking about?”

  INSIDE the house, Dr. Ludwig repressed an involuntary shudder. The funereal effect of darkly hanging draperies, exotic and weird paintings placed so that what little light there was fell at telling angles on the strangest feature of each, and the presence of odd and horribly caricatured statuary—hawk-headed Osiris, bloated Mammon, many-armed Vishnu, and others familiar to Ludwig—was instantly felt. These things had always filled him with distaste.

  But now as he halted before the tall, ebon-black, hooded effigy, human in form, yet not human, an unnamable surge of utter horror coursed through him. There was something disturbingly ghastly in its featurelessness.

  “This is a new one, isn’t it?” he asked with a shudder he could not control. “Where on earth did you get that awful thing?”

  “It’s Druidic,” said Lantry. “It is connected somehow with the book. I got them both together.”

  “Druidic?” There was a note of doubt in Ludwig’s voice that escaped Lantry. “Druidic?” he repeated. With a shrug he went on, trying to be casual. “Must weigh a ton,” he commented. “Made of black granite, I see?”

  “It isn’t stone,” Lantry corrected. “And it isn’t heavy. It’s made of some smooth-fibered substance—a kind of wood I haven’t been able to identify. It’s very light. You could lift it under one arm.”

  Ludwig inspected it closer, noting its man-like height, its black-robed angularness, its deceptive massiveness.

  “Must be very ancient,” he observed suddenly. “The base of it is crumbling.”

  “Crumbling?” Lantry bent to inspect a ragged portion of the base. A piece seemed broken off, and on the floor was a small quantity of powdered substance. He rose to his feet, weary eyes wide for a startled instant that Dr. Ludwig failed to notice.

  “Here,” he said hastily, indicating the table, “is the book.”

  He pointed to the strange sheaf of dull brown sheets of leathery texture, covered with dark characters, and bound with woven strands of something that was hard and petrified. A low exclamation escaped Ludwig’s lips as he picked it up. The book sheets were wonderfully smooth, soft, and surprisingly cold.

  “Why, this thing is made of—yes—human skin!” he uttered incredulously. “Leather made from human skin, and bound with gut!”

  “Human?” Lantry leaned forward with disbelief, startled to momentary alertness. “Are you sure?”

  Ludwig nodded emphatically. “Positive. And from the texture, I’d venture to say it was a woman’s skin!”

  Lantry shook his head, oddly unwilling to believe. “That doesn’t seem to fit in . . .” he muttered the unfinished sentence more to himself than to Ludwig.

  “Fit in with what?” asked Ludwig sharply.

  Lantry stared at him queerly, then shrugged his shoulders dully, returning to his habitual apathy of demeanor.

  “According to the book,” he explained in tired tones, “there came to the world a strange being who was half man, and half something else . . .”

  “Represented by that statue?” hazarded Ludwig.

  “Yes. The priests took him. They raised him as a sort of demi-god and used him in their rites, at their sacrifices on the ancient altars of Stonehenge.

  “Then, sacrilegiously, he fell in love with a priestess, and she with him. Their love was discovered. The priestess was sacrificed to the Druidic gods . . .”

  “Demons!” corrected Ludwig.

  Lantry went on, oblivious of the remark.

  “Zedri-Nesu (that was his name), stricken to his very soul, sought a way to escape from the world that had now become so obnoxious to him to some unknown, unguessable place, far, yet near. He found the way—and left behind him this statue.

  “However, the human strain in him still binds him in some manner to Earth, to humankind. Thus it is, says the book, that on rare occasions, Zedri-Nesu can be called to the aid of lovers in trouble who summon him with the proper rites and incantations.”

  Lantry ceased his summary and stood thinking moodily.

  WITH quizzical thoughtfulness, the doctor fingered the deathly cold leather pages of the book and shook his head slowly. When he spoke there was decision in his voice.

  “Hilard, this silly belief in the being you call Zedri-Nesu is ridiculous, besides being harmful to your condition. Undoubtedly this book is a hoax, although I’ll admit a grim one. In the first place, the Druids left no books or manuscripts—”

  Lantry stiffened erect, frowning. “This book is different. Zedri-Nesu wasn’t a Druid. He was something extra-human. Doctor Ludwig, you haven’t seen what I have, using these translated incantations. On two separate occasions I’ve achieved definite results—manifestations that can mean only one thing. But something is missing, and if I can translate two symbols whose meaning baffles me, I am convinced something will happen. I won’t give up now.”

  “But you are willing to give Rosella up?” Ludwig put the alternative softly, but with telling force.

  Lantry winced. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about that.
She’s giving me up.”

  “So you are grasping the insane hope that this being, this Zedri-Nesu, will come to your aid?”

  Lantry reached out and took the book from Ludwg’s hands. In his eyes was a momentary determination and resentment.

  “Let’s not discuss the subject further,” he said firmly. “I’m interested now in that new mental stimulating drug you have for me.”

  “Oh, yes.” Ludwig fumbled in his pocket, producing a box of pills. “I had forgotten for the moment. After all, I’m convinced you will not conjure up the being you call Zedri-Nesu. That’s all poppycock. And if these tablets work as I anticipate they will, the need for Zedri-Nesu will be gone, because you will be cured.”

  The doctor placed the box in Lantry’s hand and turned to go.

  “Just follow the directions on the box,” he advised. “One pill a day at eleven in the morning. You can take one now, to start.”

  At the door he turned back once more with an exclamation.

  “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. I’ve taken the liberty to invite Rosella to come here with me tonight, to talk things over. I’m quite sure we can come to an understanding without the help of Zedri-Nesu!”

  He glanced once at the blank-featured statue standing grimly in the gloom, shuddered a bit, and made his way from the house.

  Lantry stared in momentary dismay at his retreating back, then turned wearily to his study. Procuring a glass of water, he took one of the pills from the box and swallowed it. Then he sat down at the study table, the book of Zedri-Nesu open before him. For many moments he stared dully at the strange symbols, trying vainly to decipher one more baffling than the rest. He read them over and over, each time with more intentness. His weariness was vanishing. “These pills are good!” he exclaimed once.

  Suddenly he sat erect, his eyes wide. “I’ve got it!” he shouted aloud. “I’ve got it! That symbol is feminine. No wonder my first attempts didn’t work. That incantation must be spoken by a woman!”

  Swept by a sudden jubilation and a sense of well-being and confidence, he sat with clenched fists and gleaming eyes, his mind racing. Then, with the first grin his lips had borne in months, he produced a sheet of paper and a pen and began writing swiftly in a bold, confident hand a translation of the passage of the book of Zedri-Nesu headed by the character he had just deciphered.

  “Tonight, Doctor Ludwig,” he uttered in a tone of challenge, “we shall find out whether or not this book is a hoax!”

  THE sun sank in a dull blaze of ominous yellow, presaging the approach of a storm. The air felt curiously electrical, heavy with latent lightnings, although as yet there were no clouds on the horizon. The twilight was curiously brief, as though night hastened to erase the last trace of day.

  Lantry watched the sunset from his farmhouse porch, then when it was over, entered the house and retired to the study. With a match he lit a candle, and using it as a taper, went slowly around the room, lighting dozens of other candles mounted in weirdly shaped candelabra.

  One, the largest, holding nine candles grouped in a cabalistic ring, open at one end, stood before the tall, black-cloaked statue of Zedri-Nesu, now occupying a prominent position on the west wall of the room. The open end of the candle ring faced east, and in the center of the circle was a small black stone, in crude imitation of an altar.

  The last candle lit, Lantry regarded the mystic circle with a strange expression on his features. His eyes roved up from the nine flames, whose light played horribly on the effigy of Zedri-Nesu, picking out high spots on its featureless face that seemed to give it the appearance of a malignant travesty on a human skull, greatly enlarged and distorted.

  For an instant he felt a chill pass along his spine, but he dismissed it and turned to the study table. Opening the book of Zedri-Nesu to the page of the incantations, he laid it there in readiness.

  Outside, he heard the rattle of Ludwig’s buggy. Leaping to the door, he flung it wide. The candles flickered in the gusty night wind and his shadow wavered on the ground outside. It fell on the white face of Rosella coming up the walk and momentarily hid the gleam of her blond hair. In her blue eyes there was a doubtful look as she peered up at him hesitantly.

  Summoning a broad grin that he found strangely easy, Lantry leaped down to clasp her in his arms. Planting a resounding kiss on her lips, he laughed with delight at her presence.

  “Oh, Hilard!” she gasped, breathless. “You’ve . . . changed! I’m so glad.”

  He laughed vibrantly, turning to Ludwig who stood behind them approvingly.

  “It’s the doctor’s new medicine,” he explained. “Made me feel like a new man already.”

  “I knew it would,” boomed Ludwig jovially, accompanying them into the house. “But I want to warn you that the battle isn’t won yet. The effects of the drug will last only about eight hours, and the depression immediately thereafter may assume an accentuated effect in reaction. You will sleep at night, which is normal, and gradually the drug will conquer the daytime apathy.”

  Rosella stopped at the entrance of the study and looked around with a slight frown on her delicately chiseled features.

  “Oh, Hilard,” she protested, “why do you make it so weird in here? It makes me shiver.”

  She entered, then stopped once more, a cry escaping her lips at sight of the effigy of Zedri-Nesu.

  “Don’t be afraid of him,” said Lantry hastily. “He’s new around here, but harmless; and really, he’s quite a nice fellow. He has a romantic past, although tragic. I’ll tell you his story a little later.”

  Rosella looked at Lantry, the horror in her eyes still not entirely suppressed.

  “Nice?” she shuddered. “He’s horrible. I’m afraid of him.”

  “Make yourselves at home.” Uncomfortably Lantry indicated easy-chairs. “I’ll go out to the kitchen and get some tea. It’ll help to warm our tongues.”

  When he returned with a steaming pot and a tray of cups, he offered them to her. “If you will?” he queried with a smile. “I just love to see you pour tea. It makes things seem so—homelike and peaceful.”

  WHEN they had finished with the tea, Ludwig relaxed comfortably in his chair.

  “Why not tell us the story of that ugly-looking statue,” he suggested. “Maybe if we get him out of the way, he won’t seem such an unwelcome guest.”

  Lantry glanced at the doctor in surprise, then complied.

  When he had finished, Rosella shuddered.

  “I still think he’s horrible,” she murmured. “I’m so glad he isn’t alive.”

  Lantry and Ludwig fell suddenly silent, staring at each other. Rosella glanced at them curiously.

  Ludwig, his face seeming a trifle whiter in the flickering candlelight, leaned forward a bit.

  “Weren’t you telling me of some sort of rites to restore this Zedri-Nesu to life?” he questioned, eyeing Lantry significantly.

  For a moment Lantry returned the stare silently; then he accepted the challenge. “You’re quite sure it can’t be done, aren’t you?” he said quietly. “Shall we try it?”

  Rosella sprang to her feet. “Oh, no!” she said wildly, “please don’t!”

  Lantry rose also, crossing the room to grip her trembling hands in his. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he spoke earnestly. “You know I wouldn’t do anything that would harm you, or even scare you?”

  “Then don’t do this . . .” she began.

  Ludwig remained seated, but his voice broke in and compelled their attention. “Let’s face the facts,” he said quietly. “This situation must be settled one way or the other, and what better way than to carry it through, and convince ourselves? Personally I’m sure of the outcome, so I’m not afraid. But I suggest this:

  “Hilard, if you are finally convinced tonight that your hobby is just a hobby and nothing else—that believing in any of it is foolish; will you promise me that you will give it up?”

  Lantry stared at him. “If Zedri-Nesu doesn’t appear,” he agreed,
“I will.”

  “Good!” said Ludwig heartily. “Then let’s get on with the show. I for one, will enjoy it immensely. Rosella, don’t shiver so. Isn’t this what we came over to settle?”

  Lantry squeezed Rosella’s hands, leaned down and kissed her lips reassuringly, then moved swiftly. He lit a tiny incense burner, placed it before the tiny altar in the circle of candles. Then he stooped over the little square stone and pricked his finger with a needle. Rosella uttered a muffled cry as he squeezed out several drops of blood. They splashed in startling crimson contrast on the black stone.

  Ludwig maintained an interested silence, but on his brows was a frown.

  His preparations finished, Lantry seated himself at the study table before the book of Zedri-Nesu. He began reading in a calm, unhurried voice the translation of its incantations.

  His voice sounded curiously loud in the small room, and Rosella shrank back in her chair, eyes wide as she stared at the forbidding features of the ebon statue against the opposite wall. Ludwig remained impassive as Lantry read, but he regarded his patient closely as he detected a change in the tones toward the end. Somehow they seemed less confident.

  LANTRY’S voice ceased. He rose to his feet, picked up the paper on which he had written that afternoon, and crossed to Rosella.

  “Read that aloud,” he directed with a slight weariness evident in his tones. “It’s necessary to the rite that this be spoken by a woman.”

  Rosella glanced at him unwillingly, then turned in panic to Ludwig.

  He nodded reassuringly to her. “Go on, child, read it,” he said quietly.

  Trembling, she accepted the paper, and in a voice that threatened to fail her, enunciated the words.

  Lantry stood before her, eyes intent on the statue of Zedri-Nesu, the tones of the incantation sounding curiously muffled in his ears. He stiffened. Were the candles in the room dimming?

  He struggled to pierce the gloom that suddenly filled the room, and succeeded only as a brilliant and soundless flash of lightning glared through the windows. For an instant the voice behind him faltered, then resumed. Lantry felt the darkness growing, and in excitement, clenched his fists at his side.