The first thing I became conscious of was the sudden silence; it fell like a spidery caul over Heath House. I realized dully that, for a moment, Yoth Kala’s song had been stopped.
Beyond the door, there was a vague, liquid rustling, then a tense, waiting noiselessness—as though the Thing were being very still, listening.
And, here, in Cassandra’s room, there was another silence. Before me in the shadows, the pallid oval of Cassandra’s face wavered phantom-like, staring at me; the darkly brilliant eyes were tortured with a surprisingly sane fear. Abruptly, as though the silencing of that blasphemous incantation had momentarily released her to sanity, Cassie was in my arms, crying softly.
“Don’t let him get me, darling! You mustn’t let him get me! Promise you won’t! Please!... I’m all right, now; it’s only when I hear his voice that I can’t refuse him....”
“It’s all right,” I said thickly. “We’ll get out of here somehow.... We’ll go away where he can never touch you....”
“No . . . no, I can’t escape him that way....”
“We can, Cassie! We must....”
“No....Believe me! I know! There’s only one escape....You’ve gottokillme....”
“Cassie!”
“It’s true! It’s the only way out. If you don’t care about me, think about the child . . . my child by him....”
“Stop talking crazy. I tell you we’ll get away....”
“Think of the child,” Cassandra insisted hoarsely. “I am the daughter of Zoth Syra. My father was a human; I was born in the image of that father. But, think of the child I must bear....Suppose . . . suppose he is born in the image of his father . . . of that . . . that Thing out there!”
8
I was no longer seeing that frail, anguished visage, gray as death, with its ghastly, bluish throat-scars; I was no longer aware of the horror that shone through Cassandra’s eyes—the terror of a mind caught in a web from which there was no escape. All I could see was that slavering, heinous monstrosity beyond the chamber door. A child! Its child, born in its own hideous image! It couldn’t be! It must never happen! This lost decadent race of evil encroaching upon the earth, begetting its hellish fruit upon humans—and in the end, overwhelming, conquering, reclaiming, as Lazarus Heath had prophesied!
“Cassandra! O, my bride! Princess of the Abyss, I call. Yoth Kala calls!”
Beneath my hands, I felt Cassandra’s fragile body turn rigid; her flesh suddenly burned against mine. Those dark eyes glazed and protruded horribly, and at her throat, the bluish lines pulsed obscenely, like the gills of a fish, like the nauseous mouth of the Thing in the hall. I tried to hold her, but as the chant of Yoth Kala rose wildly, her clawed hands beat insanely at my face; their nails bit into the flesh. With a species of supernatural strength, Cassandra tore herself loose. She thrust me to one side, and was at the door, tearing frantically at the latch, shrilling a nasal, hypnotic reply to her mate.
Now, staring at the door itself, I saw the massive panels sag and warp, as if from tremendous pressure from without. A fetid black feeler oozed through the crevice at the bottom of the door. It circled, obscenely possessive, about Cassandra’s ankles, evil, caressing. The storm throbbed at the blackened casements. There was no lightning, now; only endless, abysmal blackness and rising through it, all the myriad hateful voices of the Green Abyss, howling in chorus to the incantations of Yoth Kala and his bride.
What I did then was done with the sure, unthinking calm of a man who has reached his final decision. I walked slowly to Cassandra’s side; she was no longer conscious of my existence. She tore so maniacally at the door to freedom that her frail fingers bled. The revolver felt cool in my sweat-soaked grip. I brought the neat, business-like muzzle within a few inches of Cassandra’s temple. I knew, now, that she was right. There was only one escape. I pulled the trigger.
I waited for death.
You must understand that. I fully expected to die. I had no idea of running. I saw Cassandra slump forward against the door. As she slid to the floor, her fingers clutched convulsively at the dark wood; the nails dug four parallel streaks the length of the panels. She lay very still. In that instant, as the crashing echo of the shot withered to silence through the catacombs of Heath House, a great terrified wail soared insanely above the onslaught of the storm; a scream of pain and unanswerable anger. The huge door bent beneath superhuman pressure. Then, slowly, as I waited for loathsome, foul-smelling death in the grip of Yoth Kala, a death I did not intend to fight, the weird chanting from without died away. There was silence. A strange, utterly peaceful silence such as Heath House had not known for countless years. I saw the black, stinking tentacle withdrawn from the room. Outside, in the hallway, a sickly hissing sound echoed mournfully. It moved down the staircase that creaked beneath its retreating weight.
I walked unsteadily to the casement window and gazed out through a strangely abated storm. A sudden, peaceful moon had crept from behind dull clouds. And across the cold moonlit strand, into the cove, once again to be swallowed by the sightless depths of the Green Abyss, slithered the hideous, hell-spawned Thing no other living man has ever seen. Yoth Kala was gone.
I know, now, why it happened that way. I have thought about it a great deal in these last lonely hours, and I believe I have found the answer. I had waited for the vengeance of Yoth Kala; I had expected to die as the destroyer of his bride. But, Yoth Kala could not reach me. As Lazarus Heath had been before her, Cassandra was an instrument. She was the key in the grip of the people of the Abyss, their only contact with this world that had cast them out ages since, the only one through whom they could regain a foothold in that world, on whom they could beget the race that would one day reclaim all that they had lost. When I killed Cassandra, I cut off that contact. Yoth Kala and his hideous breed were once more consigned to the bonded anonymity of the Abyss. This time, at least, the world had escaped their vengeance.
I walked back to where Cassandra lay, calm, and at peace. I sat down beside her, and smoothed her soft, warm hair gently. I think I cried. The storm whispered a last protest and died. I sat there with Cassandra until late the next evening, when Dr. Ambler came to call, and found us.
Only another half-hour until dawn. The cell block has been very quiet most of the night. Outside, in the grayish half-light, there is a sound of distant business that seems ghostly coming in through the bars on the cold early morning air. There is a creaking of wood, and then a sudden thud. This is repeated several times. They are testing the spring-trap of my gallows.
They say that prayers help. If you have come this far, if you think you understand the story of Cassandra Heath, you might try it. Make it a very special sort of prayer. Not for Cassandra and me. All our prayers were said a long time since. We are at peace.
This prayer must be for you—for you and all the others who must be left behind, who cannot walk with me, up that final flight of wooden stairs, to peace and escape, who must go on living in the shadow of a monstrous evil of which they are not even aware, and so, can never destroy. You may need those prayers.
Somewhere beyond the edge of the last lone lip of land, beyond the rim of reality, sunken beneath the slime and weed of innumerable centuries, the creatures of the Abyss live on. Zoth Syra still reigns, and the syren songs are still sung. Entombed in their foul, watery empire, they writhe; restless, waiting.... This time they have lost their foothold. This time their link with the world of normalcy has been broken, their contact destroyed. This time they have failed.
But, they will try again . . . and again....
The Guardian of the Book
Henry Hasse
1
I am always keeping an eye open for old secondhand bookstores. And, as my business takes me to all parts of the city, I have not a few times entered such places to spend an odd half-hour foraging among shelves and stacks of musty volumes, often to emerge joyously with some item particular to any one of my several hobbies and interests.
On this partic
ular February evening I was hurrying homeward, and as I crossed a narrow avenue on the outskirts of the wholesale district I stopped with a pleasurable thrill. A short distance from the corner I had espied one of those ancient bookstores, one I was sure I had never visited before—a narrow frame storeroom tucked well back between two brick buildings.
I had no particular plans for the evening; already it was growing dark, it was cold, and there was a brisk flurry of snowflakes. I entered the haven which had come to my attention so opportunely.
The place was dimly lighted, but I could see that I stood amidst a profusion of books that reposed on shelf and floor alike. There was no one in the front part of the store, but from a rear room came a rattle of pans; so I guessed an evening meal was in progress. Quietly I browsed around amidst the topsy-turvy miscellany, and must have become oblivious to time; for very suddenly there came a little shrill voice close to my ear:
“There is perhaps some special book?”
Startled, I spun around.
There beside me and peering up into my face was absolutely the strangest little man I had ever seen. To say that he was tiny would be the literal truth, for he couldn’t have stood a great deal over four feet. His skin was smooth and tight, and of a color that could only be described as slate-gray; furthermore, his absurd dome of a head was entirely bald, there being not even the slightest vestige of an eyebrow! And in all my life I had never seen anything half so black as those eyes that stared up into mine as he asked again: “There is perhaps some special book?”
I laughed uneasily.
“You startled me,” I said. “Why, no, nothing in particular—just looking around. Thought maybe I could find something to take home with me this evening.”
He did not speak; he only made a slight bow and motioned me to go ahead. As I moved amidst the melange of books I was aware that the little man’s eyes followed my every move; and though his expression hadn’t changed, I thought he was watching me with something like amusement.
My eyes moved over the titles, missing none, for there are certain books I always look for, however remote my chances of ever finding any of them. But now, as I surveyed the books about me, I saw that there was no order of arrangement at all: fiction, biography, science, history, religion, technical—all were confusedly interspersed.
For perhaps five minutes more I searched, before giving it up as a hopeless task; for I hadn’t too much time to spend there seeking for what I wanted.
The little man hadn’t moved, and now he was smiling, not unfriendlily.
“I am very much afraid, sir, that you will never find what you are looking for.”
I had become somewhat impatient, so I said frankly:
“I agree with you there; I never saw such a mess as this.”
“Oh, I have just moved in here,” he explained, still smiling, “and have not had much time to arrange things in their proper order.”
I had surmised as much. I said I would drop in later, and started for the door.
He placed a hand on my arm.
“But wait. You misconstrued my meaning when I said you would never find what you are looking for. I was not referring to the disarrangement of my books.”
I merely raised my eyebrows, and he went on:
“I hope you won’t be too astonished, Doctor Wycherly, when I assure you that I am quite aware that there are certain remote books you would give much to own—or even to read. Are there not? And remote as these books are, remote as your chances are, you do nevertheless entertain a hope that perhaps some day, by some lucky chance, you might come into possession of one of them. Is it not true?”
In my amazement I answered both his questions at once, hardly knowing that I spoke:
“Why—yes; indeed yes.”
His bald head bobbed benignly, and he waved toward the haphazard piles of books around us.
“And these?” he emphasized in that shrill voice. “These? Phfft! they are rubbish, they are nothing! You will not find there what you seek!”
I was astonished at his vehemence. “Probably not,” I murmured vaguely. “But you—just now—you mentioned my name, and I was not aware that you knew me. Would you mind explaining——”
“Ah, yes, you are puzzled, of course. You are wondering how I came to know your name. That, sir, is entirely inconsequential. Even more so do you wonder how I could possibly know of that secret desire of yours, the desire to peruse those so-called ‘forbidden books’ which speak of the unthinkable things of evil—the books which are, now, so inaccessible as to be indeed forbidden. Suffice it to say, for the present, that I cannot help but know of your delvings into subjects of the weird and terrible, because—well, because it is most imperative to me that I should know; therefore, I know. But I think you will agree that your quest for such books is a rather hopeless one! The various versions of Alhazred’s Necronomicon, Flammarion’s Atmosphere, Von Junzt’s Nameless Cults, Kane’s Magic and Black Arts,Eibon’s Book, and the mysterious King in Yellow—which, if it does indeed exist, must transcend them all—none of these will you find lying around in bookstores. Even those few that are known to be in existence are under lock and key. Of course there are other, lesser sources, but even they are not easy to procure. For example, you probably had a difficult time in locating that later edition of the Nameless Cults which you now have in your possession; and criminally expurgated as it is, I imagine you find it very unsatisfactory.”
“Yes, I do!” I admitted breathlessly. I was surprised to have come across a person possessed of such evident familiarity with this recherché literature. “The Nameless Cults which I have,” I went on to explain, “is the comparatively recent 1909 edition, and it is puerile in the extreme. I should like very much to get hold of one of the originals: published in Germany, I believe, in the early eighteen-hundreds.”
But he waved that peremptorily aside.
“What of the Necronomicon,” he said, “that most fearsome and most hinted-at of all the forbidden books; you would give much for a glimpse into that?”
“That,” I smiled, “is even beyond my fondest hope!”
“And if I were to tell you that I have here in this very shop the original Necronomicon?”
I did not bat an eyelash. “You haven’t,” I stated positively.
He looked not at me, but beyond me.
“True, I have not,” he said at last. “I thought you would consider that statement an absurdity.”
He sighed, then went on a bit hurriedly: “And yet I wonder if you can imagine an even greater absurdity—a book even more terrible than the dreaded Necronomicon, a book so ominous in its scope as to make the Necronomicon seem as tame as—as—”
“As a cook-book,” I supplied jocularly, for the tiny man had become almost amusingly solemn and serious now.
“Yes. A book that tells of things the mad Arab never dreamed of in his wildest nightmares; indeed, a book not even of this Earth; a book that goes back to the very beginning and beyond the beginning; that comes from the very minds of the things that caused all things!”
I looked at him with a sudden suspicion, then smiled cynically. “Are you trying to tell me that you do not have the Necronomicon but you do have such a book as you describe?”
His eyes held mine for a moment, and just for that moment there was a gleam in them.
Said he: “Do you dare to let me show you?”
Said I: “Yes, do show me, by all means!”
“Very well. Please wait here a moment.”
I waited, doubtfully enough, and for the first time mused upon the really extraordinary aspect of the thing. I suddenly remembered a story I had read a while back, something about a man who had entered an old bookshop and was plunged into an orbit of strange adventures—something to do with vampires. I was disturbed that this story should leap to my mind at this particular time, but I smiled at the thought of anything untoward happening to me; this little slate-colored man was a quite peculiar person indeed, but he did not conform to
my conception of a vampire.
He returned just then, bearing an immense book nearly half as big as he was.
“You must understand,” he said, “that what I am going to tell you should not be taken with skepticism. It is important that you should know certain things about this book”—he hugged it tightly to him— “that will seem to you incredible. First, you should be informed that it does not belong to me, nor to anyone on this Earth either: that is the first incredible thing you must believe. If I were to tell you truly to whom it belongs, I would have to say—to the cosmos, and to all ages that were, and are, and will yet be. It is the most damnable book in the universe, and but for it, I—but no, I will not tell you that now. I will only say now that I am the guardian of it, the present guardian, and you could never imagine what terrible transits of time and space I have made.”
Can you blame me for edging toward the door? Can you blame me for wanting to get away from there? There had been a growing suspicion in my mind that this man was mad, and now I knew it. But I said, precisely because I didn’t know what else to say:
Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos Page 34
