Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “I love you, Gerald,” was all she would say. “But you don’t love me. I can’t forgive you this. Please go before you make it worse.”

  He flung out of the house, seething with fury, hot and sick with the realization that he had failed to maintain his poise. Phyllis, Phyllis, Phyllis! An imperturbable iceberg. She knew nothing of humanity. Emotions had never existed in her breast unless they were well-schooled, dainty as an antimacassar of lace. A china doll, expecting the rest of the world to be of china. Carnevan stood by his car, shaking with rage, wishing more than anything else on earth to hurt Phyllis as he himself had been hurt.

  Something stirred inside the car. It was Azazel, the cloak shrouding his dark body, the bone-white face expressionless.

  Carnevan flung out an arm behind him, pointing. “The girl!” he said hoarsely. “She . . . she—”

  “You need not speak,” Azazel murmured. “I read your thoughts. I shall—do as you wish.”

  He was gone. Carnevan sprang into the car, inserted the key, savagely started the motor. As the vehicle began to move he heard a thin, knife-edged scream lancing out from the house he had left.

  He stopped the car and raced back, chewing his lip.

  AS the hastily summoned physician said, Phyllis Mardrake had suffered a severe nervous shock. The reason was unknown, but, presumably, it might have been the ordeal of her interview with Carnevan, who said nothing to dispel that illusion. Phyllis simply lay and twitched, her eyes staring glassily. Sometimes her lips formed words. “The cloak—Under the cloak—” And then she would alternately laugh and scream until exhaustion claimed her.

  She would recover, but it would take some time. In, the meanwhile, Phyllis was sent to a private sanitarium, where she fell into hysterics whenever she saw Dr. Joss, who happened to be bald-headed. Her jabbering about cloaks grew less frequent, and occasionally Carnevan was permitted to visit her. For she asked for him. The quarrel had been patched up, and Phyllis almost half admitted that she had been wrong in her stand.

  When she had completely recovered she would marry Carnevan. But there must be no more slips.

  The horror she had seen was buried deep in her mind, emerging only during delirium, and in her frequent nightmares. Carnevan was thankful that she did not remember Azazel. Yet he saw much of the demon these days—for he was fulfilling a malicious, cruel little scheme of his own.

  It had started soon after Phyllis’ breakdown, when Diana kept telephoning him at the office. At first Carnevan spoke shortly to her. Then he realized that she, actually, was responsible for Phyllis’ near-madness.

  It was, of course, right that she should suffer. Not death. Anyone might die.

  Eli Dale, for example, was already fatally ill with spinal meningitis. But a more subtle form of punishment—a torture such as Phyllis had undergone.

  Carnevan’s face wore an expression that was not pleasant to see as he summoned the demon and issued instructions.

  “Slowly, gradually, she will be driven insane,” he said. “She will be given time to realize what is happening. Give her—glimpses, so to speak. A cumulative series of inexplicable happenings. I’ll give you the detailed directions when I work them out. She told me that she isn’t easily frightened,” Carnevan finished, and rose to pour himself a drink. He offered one to the demon, but it was refused.

  Azazel sat motionless in a dark corner of the apartment, occasionally glancing out of the window to where Central Park lay far below.

  Carnevan was struck by a sudden thought. “How do you react to this? Demons are supposed to be evil. Does it give you pleasure to . . . to hurt people?”

  The beautiful skull face was turned toward him. “Do you know what evil is, Carnevan?”

  The man splashed soda into his rye. “I see. A matter of semantics. Of course, it’s an arbitrary term. Humanity has set up its own standards—”

  Azazel’s slanted, opalescent eyes glittered. “That is moral anthropomorphism. And egotism. You haven’t considered environment. The physical properties of this world of yours caused good and evil, as you know it.”

  It was Carnevan’s sixth drink, and he felt argumentative. “That I don’t quite understand. Morality comes from the mind and the emotions.”

  “A RIVER has its source,” Azazel countered. “But there’s a difference between the Mississippi and the Colorado. If human beings had evolved in—well, my world, for example—the whole pattern of good and evil would have been entirely different. Ants have a social structure. But it isn’t like yours. The environment is different.”

  “There’s a difference between insects and men, too.”

  The demon shrugged. “We are not alike. Less alike than you and an ant. For both of you have, basically, two common instincts. Self-preservation and propagation of the species. Demons can’t propagate.”

  “Most authorities agree on that,” Carnevan granted. “Possibly it explains the reason for changelings, too. How is it that there are so many kinds of demons?”

  Azazel questioned him with his eyes. “Oh—you know. Gnomes and kobolds and trolls and jinn and werewolves and vampires and—”

  “There are more kinds of demons than humanity knows,” Azazel explained. “The reason is pretty obvious. Your world tends toward a fixed pattern—a state of stasis. You know what entropy is. The ultimate aim of your universe is a unity, changeless and eternal. Your branches of evolution will finally meet and remain at one fixed type. Such offshoots as the moa and the auk will die out, as dinosaurs and mammoths have died. In the end there will be stasis. My universe tends toward physical anarchy. In the beginning there was only one type. In the end it will be ultimate chaos.”

  “Your universe is like a negative of mine,” Carnevan pondered. “But—wait! You said demons can’t die. And they can’t propagate. How can there be any progress at all?”

  “I said demons can’t commit suicide,” Azazel pointed out. “Death may come to them, but from an outside source. That applies to procreation, too.”

  It was too confused for Carnevan. “You must have emotions. Self-preservation implies fear of death.”

  “Our emotions are not yours. Clinically, I can analyze and understand Phyllis’ reactions. She was reared very rigidly, and subconsciously she has resented that oppression. She never admitted, even to herself, her desire to break free. But you were a symbol to her. Secretly she admired and envied you, because you were a man and, as she thought, able to do whatever you wanted. Love is a false synonym for propagation, as the soul is a wish fulfillment creation growing out of self-preservation. Neither exists. Phyllis’ mind is a maze of inhibitions, fears, and hopes. Puritanism, to her, represents security. That was why she couldn’t forgive you for your affair with Diana. It was an excuse for retreating to the security of her former life pattern.”

  Carnevan listened interestedly. “Go on.”

  “When I appeared to her, the psychic shock was violent. Pier subconscious ruled for a time. That was why she became reconciled to you. She is an escapist; her previous security seemed to have failed, so she fulfills both her escape wish and her desire for protection by agreeing to marry you.”

  CARNEVAN mixed himself another drink. He remembered something.

  “You just said the soul is nonexistent—eh?”

  Azazel’s body stirred under the shrouding cloak. “You misunderstood me.

  “I don’t think so,” Carnevan said, feeling a cold, deadly horror under the warm numbness of liquor. “Our bargain was that you serve me in exchange for my soul. Now you imply that I have no soul. What was your real motive?”

  “You’re trying to frighten yourself,” the demon murmured, his strange eyes alert. “All through history, religion has been founded on the hypothesis that souls exist.”

  “Do they?”

  “Why not?”

  “What is a soul like?” Carnevan asked.

  “You couldn’t imagine,” Azazel said. “There’d be no standard of comparison. By the way, Eli Dale died two minutes a
go. You’re now the senior partner of the firm. May I congratulate you?”

  “Thank you,” Carnevan nodded. “We’ll change the subject, if you like. But I intend to find out the truth sooner or later. If I have no soul, you’re up to something else. However—let’s get back to Diana.”

  “You wish to drive her mad.”

  “I wish you to drive her mad. She is the schizophrenic type—slim and long boned. She has a stupid sort of self-confidence. She has built her life on a foundation of things she knows to be real. Those things must be removed.”

  “Well?”

  “She is afraid of the dark,” Carnevan said, and his smile was quite unpleasant. “Be subtle, Azazel. She will hear voices. She will see people following her. Delusions of persecution. One by one her senses will begin to fail her. Or, rather, deceive her. She’ll smell things no one else does. She’ll hear voices.

  She’ll taste poison in her food. She’ll begin to feel things—unpleasant things. If necessary, she may, at the last—see things.”

  “This is evil, I suppose,” Azazel observed, rising from his chair. “My interest is purely clinical. I can reason that such matters are important to you, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  The telephone rang. Carnevan learned that Eli Dale was dead—spinal meningitis.

  To celebrate the occasion, he poured another drink and toasted Azazel, who had vanished to visit Diana. Carnevan’s thin, hard face was only slightly flushed by the liquor he had consumed. He stood in the center of the apartment and revolved slowly, eying the furnishings, the books, the bric-a-brac. It would be well to find another place—something a bit more swanky. A place suitable for a married couple. He wondered, how long it would be before Phyllis was completely recovered.

  Azazel—Just what was the demon after?—he wondered. Certainly not his soul. What, then?

  ONE NIGHT, two weeks later, he rang the bell of Diana’s apartment. The girl’s voice asked who was there, and she opened the door a slight crack before admitting Carnevan. He was shocked at the change in her.

  There was little tangible alteration. Diana was holding herself under iron control, but her make-up was too heavy. That in itself was revealing. It was a symbol of the mental shield she was trying to erect against the psychical invasion. Carnevan said solicitously, “Good Lord, Diana, what’s wrong? You sounded hysterical over the phone. I told you last night you should see a doctor.”

  She fumbled for a cigarette, which trembled slightly in her hands as Carnevan lit it. “I have. He . . . he wasn’t much help, Jerry. I’m so glad you’re not angry at me any more.”

  “Angry? Here, sit down. That’s it. I’ll mix a drink. No, I got over being angry; we get along together, and Phyllis—well, we couldn’t very well have a ménage a trois. She’s in a sanitarium, you know, and it’ll be a long while before she gets out. Even then she may be a lunatic—” Carnevan sucked in his breath. “Sorry.”

  Diana pushed back her dark hair and turned to face him on the couch. “Jerry, do you think I’m going crazy?”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “I think you need a rest, or a change.”

  She didn’t hear. Her head was tilted to one side, as though she listened to a soundless voice. Glancing up, Carnevan saw Azazel standing across the room invisible to the girl, but apparently not inaudible.

  “Diana!” he said sharply.

  Her lips parted. Her voice was unsteady as she looked at him. “Sorry. You were saying?”

  “What did the doctor tell you?”

  “Nothing much.” She did not wish to follow up the line of discussion. Instead, she took the drink Carnevan had mixed, eyed it, and sipped the highball. Then she put down the glass.

  “Anything wrong?” the man asked. “No. How does it taste to you?”

  “All right.”

  Carnevan wondered just what Diana had tasted in her drink. Bitter almonds, perhaps. Another of Azazel’s deft illusions. He ran his fingers through the girl’s hair, feeling a thrill of power as he did so. A nasty sort of revenge, he thought. Odd that Diana’s distress did not touch him in the slightest degree. Yet he was not basically evil. Carnevan knew. The old, old problem of arbitrary standards—right and wrong.

  Azazel said—and his words were heard by Carnevan alone: “Her control cannot last much longer. I think she’ll break tomorrow. A manic-depressive may commit suicide, so I’ll guard against that. Every dangerous weapon she touches will seem red-hot to her.”

  ABRUPTLY, without warning, the demon vanished. Carnevan grunted and finished his drink. From the corner of his eye he saw something move.

  Slowly he turned his head, but it was gone. What had it been? Like a black shadow. Formless, inchoate. Without reason, Carnevan’s hands were shaking. Utterly amazed, he put down his drink and surveyed the apartment.

  Azazel’s presence had never affected him thus before. It was probably a reaction—no doubt he had been keeping a tight control over his nerves, without noticing it. After all, demons are supernatural.

  From the corner of his eye he again saw the cloudy blackness. This time he did not move as he tried to analyze it. The thing hovered just on the edge of his range of vision. Imperceptibly, his eyes moved slightly, and it was gone.

  A formless black cloud. Formless? No, it was, he thought, spindle-shaped, motionless and upright on its axis. His hands were shaking more than ever.

  Diana was eying him. “What’s the matter, Jerry? Am I making you nervous?”

  “Too much work at the office,” he said. “I’m the new senior partner, you know. I’ll push off now. You’d better see that doctor again tomorrow.”

  She did not reply, only watching him as he let himself out of the apartment. Driving home, Carnevan again caught a brief glimpse of the black, foggy spindle. Not once could he get a clear view of it. It hovered just on the border of his vision. He sensed, though he could not see, certain features cloudily discerned in it. What they were he could not guess. But his hands trembled.

  Coldly, furiously, his intellect fought against the unreasonable terror of his physical structure. He faced the alien. Or—No—he did not face it. It slid away and vanished. Azazel?

  Fie called the demon’s name, but there was no response. Hurtling toward his apartment, Carnevan sucked at his lower lip and thought hard. How—Why—What was so unreasonably, subtly horrifying about this—this apparition?

  He did not know, unless it was, perhaps, that vague hint of features in the blackness which he could never face directly. He sensed that those features were unspeakable, and yet he had a perverse curiosity to behold them directly. Once safe in his apartment, he again glimpsed the black spindle, at the edge of his vision, near the window. He swung swiftly to face it; it vanished. But at that moment a shock of unreasoning horror gripped Carnevan, a deadly, sickening feeling that he might see that against which his whole physical being revolted.

  “Azazel,” he called softly.

  Nothing.

  “Azazel!”

  Carnevan poured a drink, lit a cigarette and found a magazine. He was untroubled until bedtime and during the night, but in the morning, when first he opened his eyes, something black and spindle-shaped skittered away as he looked toward it.

  He telephoned Diana. She seemed much better, she said. Apparently Azazel wasn’t on the job. Unless the black thing teas Azazel. Carnevan hurriedly drove to his office, had black coffee sent up, and then drank milk instead. His nerves needed soothing rather than stimulating.

  TWICE that morning the black spindle appeared in the office. Each time there was that horrifying knowledge that if Carnevan looked at it directly, the features would be clear to him. And in spite of himself, he tried to look. Vainly, of course.

  His work suffered. Presently he knocked off and drove to the sanitarium to see Phyllis. She was much better, and spoke of the forthcoming marriage. Carnevan’s palms were clammy as a black spindle retreated hurriedly across the sunny, pleasant room.

  Worst of all, perhaps, was the realiz
ation that if he did succeed in looking squarely at the phantasm, he would not go mad. But he would want to. That he realized quite well. His instinctive physical reaction told him as much. Nothing belonging to this universe or any remotely kindred one could bring about the empty hollowness within his body, the shocking feeling that his cellular structure was trying to shrink away from the—the spindle.

  He drove back to Manhattan, narrowly avoiding an accident on the George Washington Bridge as he closed his eyes to avoid seeing what wasn’t there when he opened them again. It was past sundown. The jeweled towers of New York rose against a purple sky. Their geometrical neatness looked devoid of warmth, inhospitable and unhelpful. Carnevan stopped at a bar, drank two whiskeys, and left when a black spindle ran across the mirror.

  Back in his apartment, he sat with his head in his hands for perhaps five minutes. When he stood up, his face was hard and vicious. His eyes flickered slightly; then he caught himself.

  “Azazel,” he said—and, more loudly: “Azazel! I am your master! Appear to me!”

  His thought probed out, forceful, hard as iron. Behind it lay unformed terror. Was Azazel the black spindle? Would he appear—completely?

  “Azazel! I am your master! Obey me! I summon you!”

  The demon stood before Carnevan, materializing from empty air. The beautiful face of pale bone was expressionless; the slanted, opalescent, pupilless eyes were impassive. Under the dark cloak, Azazel’s body shivered once and was still.

  With a sigh, Carnevan sank down in his chair. “All right,” he said. “Now what’s up? What’s the idea?”

  Azazel said quietly, “I went back to my own world. I would have remained there had you not summoned me.”

  “What is this—spindle thing?”

  “It is not of your world,” the demon said. “It is not of mine. It pursues me.”