Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  A bent, dark figure shuffled into view. Dagh Ziaret croaked, “You gave him the powder?”

  “In the sherry. Yes.”

  “Good. All is ready.” The Persian gripped Steven’s hand and led. the unresisting youth toward the altar. Gerard followed. He was trembling a little. He took a sharp knife from his pocket and laid it carefully on a brazier.

  STEVEN lay motionless upon the altar.

  The Persian stood above him, taloned hands moving in strange, archaic gestures.

  Gerard said hoarsely, “Be careful! He must not die! There must be no risk of an accusation of murder.”

  Dagh Ziaret’s face did not change; it wore an expression of rapt, almost ecstatic withdrawal. He pointed to the altar.

  Gerard stretched himself at full length upon it.

  From his position he could see the coiling mosaic designs on the low ceiling, flickering and retreating in the unsteady light. The smoke of incense slid up endlessly, endlessly . . .

  Dagh Ziaret bared Gerard’s breast. On the sallow skin a scarlet design was visible, a crescent-shaped brand he had borne since his first visit to Persia, when he had been marked for ever as a servant of Ahriman.

  A knife in Dagh Ziaret’s hand brought a few drops of blood from the crimson sign.

  The Persian reached for a chalice. He lifted it to Gerard’s lips.

  “Drink deep!”

  The liquid was pungent and heady. The fumes mounted into Gerard’s brain. He lay back as the Persian began a thin, high chanting, and stared up at the mosaic on the ceiling.

  The incense thickened. Save for Dagh Ziaret’s voice, it was very still. A strange coldness began to pervade the air.

  The temple seemed darker, now.

  And the mosaics move . . . move . . . swayed and crept in the gloom, taking unearthly shapes before Gerard’s drugged vision. A shadow grew slowly more distinct . . .

  The shadow of a great bird, hovering . . .

  3

  CONSCIOUSNESS came back to Gerard slowly. For a time he lay motionless, desperately trying to fight down a racking sickness that nauseated him. Alternate waves of heat and frigid cold seemed to drive into his brain, in a never-ending monotony of pain. How long he lay thus he did not know; at last a warm, sweetish liquid trickled down his throat, and the agony subsided.

  But it was nearly half an hour before he gathered his strength sufficiently to open his eyes and sit up. The light in the underground temple had faded, he thought, and the tripods of the braziers were shadows in the gloom. There was no sign of Dagh Ziaret.

  Gerard slowly stood up, every muscle and joint aching. As though drawn by a magnet his gaze went to the altar from which he had arisen.

  A man lay there—a withered, shrunken oldster, sunken eyelids closed, his clothing opened to bare a flaming scarlet mark on the sallow chest.

  Simeon Gerard looked upon himself! For a moment the overwhelming magnitude of the thing drained all emotion from him. He stood quite silent, looking down at the shriveled figure on the altar.

  He had won! The Persian’s sorcery had not failed. The mind and soul of Simeon Gerard dwelt now in the strong, youthful body of Steven.

  He had cheated—death!

  Gerard laughed exultantly. He stretched out his muscular arms and examined them;

  he ran shaking fingers across a face from which all the wrinkles had gone. He touched smooth, glossy hair—not tire scanty, brittle crop he had formerly possessed.

  A low laugh sounded. From the shadows came Dagh Ziaret, discolored teeth bared in a grin. The Persian cackled, “It is finished, effendi.”

  Gerard nodded. He had a brief awkwardness in finding his voice, and, when he spoke, the tone was strange to him.

  “It is finished. Selalo. But what of—him?” He indicated the body on the altar.

  “He, too, lives. Do you wish me to——”

  “No,” Gerard said swiftly. “I have made my own arrangements.”

  “Good. Now——” The Persian brought out a vial filled with crystalline white powder. “Take this. Once each six days dissolve a pinch of it in your wine. I shall give you more when this is used.” He came dose, gripping Gerard’s arm and peering up into the man’s eyes. “Do not fail in this! For a year you must use this powder; then you will be safe. But if you stop before the year is up—it will not be well for you, effendi.”

  Gerard placed the vial carefully in his pocket. “Is that all?”

  “Almost. My—my reward?”

  “Your fee was exorbitant.” Gerard hesitated, and then went on swiftly as he noticed the expression that sprang suddenly into the Persian’s eyes. “But I shall pay it gladly. I must convert some securities into cash first, though. In a week——”

  “As you wish,” Dagh Ziaret murmured. “I trust you. You will pay me.” He reached out a skinny hand and meaningly tapped the pocket containing the vial of white powder.

  Gerard said nothing as the other turned and shuffled into the shadows. Presently the dick of a lock told of the Persian’s departure.

  Then Gerard went back to the altar and carefully examined the man who lay upon it. He nodded in satisfaction. The stertorous breathing was becoming stronger.

  One thing remained to do. There was a knife he had brought down here with him . . . here it was, on this brazier. It was razor-sharp. Gerard had chosen the weapon carefully.

  Silently, a black shadow in the dimness, he turned and stalked back to the altar. A random gleam of light flickered on bright steel.

  Dagh Ziaret had said that when Steven awoke his brain would be clouded, warped almost to madness by the shock of the psychic operation. Yet the Persian might be wrong. Steven might waken sane—and might talk.

  Gerard bent low, his fingers tightening on the knife. He fumbled in the gloom, felt leathery skin and the cavity of an open, almost toothless mouth.

  No—Steven must not be allowed to talk. He must never speak again . . .

  4

  SEATED before the great mirror in his bedroom, Simeon Gerard lit a cigarette and watched the image exhale smoke in luxurious puffs. A fine, strong, youthful image. No doubt it had never before smoked such expensive cigarettes, Gerard thought wryly. Indeed, he was doing this young body a great favor—initiating it to the delights of the epicure and the gourmet.

  There was a keen, almost sensuous pleasure in watching the mirrored figure and comparing it, mentally, with the withered, diseased body he had worn before. As for Steven—well, no doubt he was already on the ship that would take him to the Orient, from which he would never return. The man who had taken Steven in charge had said nothing, though he had stared at the bloodstains around the mouth.

  As Dagh Ziaret had said, it was finished. A new life, literally, lay before Simeon Gerard.

  Dagh Ziaret—Gerard smiled a little ironically. The Persian really believed he would receive his fee. Well, that was his mistake. There was no hurry, however. For a few days Gerard planned to seclude himself in his home, getting accustomed to this strange new body.

  He could live again—live, indeed, unhampered by ruined and pain-racked flesh. Once more he could indulge in the strange delights he had learned, often too late to make use of them. He would go back to India, Persia, Egypt—but not yet! First a few years in Paris, Nice, the Riviera, and then to the Orient, with no danger of meeting Steven. Even a few months’ grace would be enough. Steven, in the dying body he had acquired, could not live that long.

  An annunciator rang. Gerard touched a button. The voice of one of his servants said, “Miss Sloane is on the telephone.”

  Miss Sloane? Who?—then Gerard remembered. Steven’s fiancée. This was an unexpected development.

  “I’ll take the call,” he said, and reached for the telephone.

  “Hello?”

  The girl’s voice said, “Oh, is this you, Steve? I was worried when you didn’t call.”

  Gerard frowned. He must play this part perfectly. Luckily, he was an excellent actor.

  “Sorry, Jean,�
� he said. “My uncle packed up and went off last night. Left me in charge of the house. I’d intended to phone you, but I just didn’t get around to it.”

  “He’s gone?” The girl seemed astonished. “That’s strange.”

  “Not really. He explained it all to me—but I’ll tell you all about it tonight. Suppose you meet me”—Gerard thought for a moment, and then named a quiet, good restaurant in the vicinity—“about eight?”

  “Yes . . . all right, Steve. I’ll see you then.”

  Gerard replaced the receiver. His eyebrows quirked up sardonically. This might not be so awkward after all.

  “No doubt Steven has already proposed to her,” he thought. “Well—I shall not back out of the bargain, then.” It would be intriguing to explore the scented labyrinth of evil once more, to marry the girl, take her to Europe and the Orient, and to initiate her into the dark lore . . .

  A WEEK passed. All had gone smoothly. Jean Sloane had suspected nothing; Gerard had played his part well. He had not allowed himself to see the girl often, pleading pressure of work. One unexpected bit of good news had arrived. The ship on which Steven was a passenger had gone down in a storm on the China Sea, and he was not among the survivors, according to newspaper reports. Curiously enough, on the night the boat sank Gerard had had a vague but impressive dream of which, on awakening, he could only recall that it was somehow connected with a turmoil of wind and waves.

  On the sixth day of his new life Gerard dissolved a pinch of the white powder in Amontillado and drank the wine slowly, noticing that the taste and bouquet were improved rather than harmed. He noted, too, that the vial held but little of the powder, and decided to call on Dagh Ziaret.

  The Persian moved with alacrity as he led Gerard to the underground laboratory. He shuffled about hurriedly, lighting the oil lamps, coughing occasionally in the thick air.

  Then he came to stand across the table from Gerard, his swarthy face alight with anticipation.

  “You have the money?”

  “Of course.” Gerard took a bulky envelope from his pocket and held it carelessly as he went on. “I’ve broken the vial you gave me, Dagh Ziaret. The powder’s gone, I’m afraid. You’d better give me some more.”

  The Persian caught his breath. “You took some yesterday? Eh?” Stark fear showed in the man’s eyes.

  “Yes. But in five days—well!” Gerard shrugged.

  Muttering, Dagh Ziaret moved to a shelf and lifted down a large glass jar filled with tire crystalline powder. Gerard’s lips twitched. More than a year’s supply there!

  Carefully the Persian measured a small amount from the jar. Gerard came to stand behind him. His hand was hidden inside his coat.

  Dagh Ziaret started to whirl, as though warned by some strange instinct. But he was too late. Gerard struck.

  The knife entered cleanly between the ribs. There was little blood. The Persian coughed chokingly, tried to speak, and then slid down bonelessly to the floor. Elis nails ripped at the blackened planks.

  Then he lay motionless.

  Gerard, about to recover the knife, paused as a footstep sounded hollowly from above. A customer was in the Persian’s shop. With a little start Gerard remembered that Dagh Ziaret had failed to lock the metal door.

  He glanced down at the Persian, stirred the man’s body with his foot. There was no response. Frowning, Gerard carefully slipped through the door and tiptoed up the narrow stairway till he could command a view of the shop.

  A woman was there, fat and overdressed, holding a vase in her pudgy hands. She looked around impatiently, rapped on a table. Gerard whispered a silent curse. Then he froze as the customer, with an angry shrug, marched heavily toward him.

  Before she had a chance to reach the door Gerard opened it and stepped out. “Can I help you, madame?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you pay attention to your business?” the woman snapped. “I’ve been here for half an hour!”

  Gerard repressed an impulse to call her a liar. He apologized instead. “Do you wish to buy this vase?”

  “How much is it?”

  “Er—ten dollars.” It was worth much more, but Gerard’s only wish was to get rid of the woman. His ruse succeeded, for she fumbled in her purse, found a bill, and thrust it at him, with a card.

  “Send it to this address.”

  Gerard held the vase till the woman’s footsteps died on the pavement outside. Then, dropping it on a table, he whirled and raced down the stairway. The metal door was closed.

  He gave it an impatient push, but it did not yield. Frowning, Gerard tried to move the latch, with no result. He hesitated, struck by a sudden inexplicable fear, listening.

  A faint crackling and roaring came to his ears. Gerard suddenly lunged forward, bracing his shoulder against the door, straining until veins bulged on his forehead.

  Useless! He tried the latch again, rattling it in its socket. And, abruptly, the door moved and swung open under his hand.

  Simultaneously a blast of raving, searing flame poured out through the portal. Gerard leaped back, his eyes distended. Through the doorway he saw that the underground room was ablaze. It was already a furnace, and fire poured out hungrily from the mouths of several great jars that lay overturned on the floor. Beyond the threshold was the body of Dagh Ziaret, his face a cindery, blackened horror, one hand still gripping an overturned and broken lamp.

  To attempt to enter the room would be madness and suicide. Gerard stood quite motionless until the spreading flames drove him back. Then, his lips gray, he ascended the stairs, walked through the shop, and let himself out into the street.

  As he walked homeward he whispered, “I should have made sure he was dead . . . damn him! Damn him!”

  5

  NOW Simeon Gerard entered the last phase of the affair. He had, of course, lied to Dagh Ziaret; the little vial of white powder had not been broken. But it contained a pitiably small amount of the priceless stuff.

  Gerard gave a chemist a niggardly portion to be analyzed. He sent a dozen telegrams to men who might conceivably know what the powder contained. He pored over his immense library and pounced on ever) relevant reference—but there were all too few.

  And, most of all, he wondered. What would happen when the supply of the drug failed?

  He determined to find out. On the twelfth day after the experiment he left the vial unopened in his safe. There were no apparent ill-effects, save for an increasing drowsiness during an evening spent with Jean Sloane. He took her home early and was nearly asleep before the taxicab stopped at his door.

  A short while later, clad in dressing-gown and pajamas, he stood hesitating before the safe. But at last he shrugged and went to his bedroom.

  Almost immediately Gerard was asleep. He had an extraordinary dream, confused and distorted, in which he seemed first to be clinging to an overturned lifeboat, chilled by frigid waves that showered over him; and then he seemed to be in a dory, looking up at several unshaved faces that loomed above him. After that the dream became chaotic. There were visions of a ship—a tanker—on which he was apparently a passenger; there were sunlit far shores that slipped past and were gone; and at last Gerard saw in the distance the buildings of a city he recognized. It was Bushire, on the Persian Gulf.

  No sooner had he realized this than he awoke, shivering and sweating. Moonlight fingered in wanly through the windows. The house was quite silent.

  Gerard was still shuddering uncontrollably as he found his slippers and hurried to the safe. Not until he had swallowed a pinch of the white powder in a glass of wine did he dare to let his thoughts dwell on the dream.

  Superficially there was nothing about the nightmare to terrify him. But all the while Gerard had been conscious of a certain indefinable familiarity—an inward familiarity—which filled him with genuine horror. In his dream, he realized, he had seemed to be back in his former body, ravaged and dying by years of evil. How he knew this he could not have said, but know it he did, unmistakably.

  Sitt
ing by a hurriedly-kindled fire, drawing great mouthfuls of smoke into his lungs, Gerard pondered. What, then, was the effect of the white powder? To prevent him from dreaming such things? Scarcely; there was more to it than that.

  Why had Dagh Ziaret been so insistent that Gerard take the drug regularly for a year? Could it be that invisible psychic bonds were still striving to draw his mind and soul back to his former body?

  Good God—no!

  Gerard rose hastily, tossed his cigarette into the fire, and found a bottle of sleeping-tablets. Whether through the virtue of these or of the white powder, he had no more dreams that night and awoke refreshed and inclined to shrug away his previous fears.

  But doubt still troubled him. He recalled the name of the tanker on which, in his dream, he had been a passenger—the Yasmina. And that morning he sent a cable to Bushire.

  In due time the response came. The Yasmina, an oil tanker, had docked a few days before. In the log was a report that a castaway had been picked up in the China Sea—a half-paralyzed and imbecilic old man who was white-skinned, and whose tongue had been removed. In Bushire the man had wandered ashore and vanished; no trace of him had been found.

  Gerard dared send no more cables. Obviously his former body, with the mind and soul of Steven within it, had survived the shipwreck—had been rescued by the seamen of the Yasmina.

  Greatly worried, Gerard redoubled his effort to discover the nature of the mysterious drug. The chemists could give him no help; there were elements in the powder that defied analysis. Telegrams arrived, and they, too, were valueless. Some of Gerard’s correspondents had heard of the drug, but none could give him the information he needed. Nor could he find any clues in his volumes on goety and in his grimoires.

  Gerard sent more telegrams. Meanwhile he forced himself to live a normal sort of life; he spent considerable time with Jean, and began to frequent the night clubs. This, however, was only a passing phase, and it did not last long.

  Swiftly the powder in the vial dwindled.