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uncounted shaped megaliths and buried ‘ ‘monks ’ cells ’ ’
throughout this region.
O f further interest, these sites seem to have retained
their mystic aura fo r the early colonials, and numerous
megalithic sites show evidence o f having been used for
sinister purposes by colonial sorcerers and alchemists.
This became particularly true after the witchcraft persecutions drove many practitioners into the western wilderness—explaining why upstate New York and western Mass, have seen the emergence o f so many cultist groups
in later years.
O f particular interest here is Shadrach Ireland’s
“Brethren o f the New Light,” who believed that the
world was soon to be destroyed by sinister "Powers
from Outside” and that they, the elect, would then attain physical immortality. The elect who died beforehand were to have their bodies preserved on tables o f stone until the “Old Ones” came forth to return them
to life. We have definitely linked the megalithic sites at
Shutesbury to later unwholesome practices o f the New
Light cult. They were absorbed in 1781 by Mother Ann
L ee’s Shakers, and Ireland’s putrescent corpse was
hauled from the stone table in his cellar and buried.
Thus I think it probable that your farmhouse may
have figured in similar hidden practices. A t Mystery Hill
a farmhouse was built in 1826 that incorporated one
dolmen in its foundations. The house burned down ca.
1848-55, and there were some unsavory local stories
as to what took place there. My guess is that your farmhouse had been built over or incorporated a similar megalithic site—and that your “sticks” indicate some
unknown cult still survived there. I can recall certain
vague references to lattice devices figuring in secret ceremonies, but can pinpoint nothing definite. Possibly they represent a development o f occult symbols to be used
in certain conjurations, but this is just a guess. I sug-
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gest you consult Waite's Ceremonial Magic or such to
see i f you can recognize similar magical symbols.
Hope this is o f some use to you. Please let me hear
back.
Sincerely, Alexander Stefroi.
There was a postcard enclosed—a photograph of a four-
and-a-half-ton slab, ringed by a deep groove with a spout,
identified as the Sacrificial Table at Mystery Hill. On the back
Stefroi had written:
You must have found something similar to this. They
are not rare—we have one in Pelham removed from a
site now beneath Quabbin Reservoir. They were used
fo r sacrifice—animal and human—and the groove is to
channel blood into a bowl, presumably.
Leverett dropped the card and shuddered. Stefroi’s letter reawakened the old horror, and he wished now he had let the matter lie forgotten in his files. Of course, it couldn’t be
forgotten—even after thirty years.
He wrote Stefroi a careful letter, thanking him for his information and adding a few minor details to his account. This spring, he promised, wondering if he would keep that promise, he would try to relocate the farmhouse on Mann Brook.
5
Spring was late that year, and it was not until early June
that Colin Leverett found time to return to Mann Brook. On
the surface, very little had changed in three decades. The
ancient stone bridge yet stood, nor had the country lane been
paved. Leverett wondered whether anyone had driven past
since his terror-sped flight.
He found the old railroad grade easily as he started down
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331
stream. Thirty years, he told himself—but the chill inside him
only tightened. The going was far more difficult than before.
The day was unbearably hot and humid. Wading through the
rank underbrush raised clouds of black flies that savagely bit
him.
Evidently the stream had seen severe flooding in the past
years, judging from piled logs and debris that blocked his
path. Stretches were scooped out to barren rocks and gravel.
Elsewhere gigantic barriers of uprooted trees and debris
looked like ancient and mouldering fortifications. As he
worked his way down the valley, he realized that his search
would yield nothing. So intense had been the force of the
long-ago flood that even the course of the stream had changed.
Many of the dry-wall culverts no longer spanned the brook,
but sat lost and alone far back from its present banks. Others
had been knocked flat and swept away, or were buried beneath tons of rotting logs.
At one point Leverett found remnants of an apple orchard
groping through weeds and bushes. He thought that the house
must be close by, but here the flooding had been particularly
severe, and evidently even those ponderous stone foundations
had been toppled over and buried beneath debris.
Leverett finally turned back to his car. His step was lighter.
A few weeks later he received a response from Stefroi to
his reported failure:
Forgive my tardy reply to your letter o f 13 June. 1
have recently been pursuing inquiries which may, I
hope, lead to the discovery o f a previously unreported
megalithic site o f major significance. Naturally I am
disappointed that no traces remained o f the Mann Brook
site. While I tried not to get my hopes up, it did seem
likely that the foundations would have survived. In
searching through regional data, I note that there were
particularly severe flashfioods in the Otselic area in July
1942 and again in May 1946. Very probably your old
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farmhouse with its enigmatic devices was utterly destroyed not very long after your discovery o f the site.
This is weird and wild country, and doubtless there is
much we shall never know.
I write this with a profound sense o f personal loss o f
the death two nights ago o f Prescott Brandon. This was
a severe blow to me—as I am sure it way to you and to
all who knew him. I only hope the police will catch the
vicious killers who did this senseless act—evidently
thieves surprised while ransacking his office. Police believe the killers were high on drugs from the mindless brutality o f their crime.
I had just received a copy o f the third Allard volume,
Unhallowed Places. A superbly designed book, and this
tragedy becomes all the more insuperable with the realization that Scotty will give the world no more such treasures. In Sorrow, Alexander Stefroi.
Leverett stared at the letter in shock. He had not received
news of Brandon’s death—had only a few days before opened
a parcel from the publisher containing a first copy of Unhallowed Places. A line in Brandon’s last letter recurred to him—
a line that seemed amusing to him at the time:
Your sticks have bewildered a good many fans, Colin,
and I ’ve worn out a ribbon answering inquiries. One
fellow in particular—a Major George Leonard—has
pressed me fo r details, and I ’m afraid that I told him
too much. He has written several times fo r your address, but know
ing how you value your privacy I told him simply to permit me to forward any correspondence. He wants to see your original sketches, I gather, but these overbearing occult types give me a pain.
Frankly, I wouldn’t care to meet the man myself.
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0
“ Mr. Colin Leverett?”
Leverett studied the tall lean man who stood smiling at the
doorway of his studio. The sports car he had driven up in
was black and looked expensive. The same held for the turtleneck and leather slacks he wore, and the sleek briefcase he carried. The blackness made his thin lace deathly pale.
Leverett guessed his age to be late forty by the thinning of
his hair. Dark glasses hid his eyes, black driving gloves his
hands.
“ Scotty Brandon told me where to find you,” the stranger
said.
“ Scotty?” Leverett’s voice was wary.
“ Yes, we lost a mutual friend, I regret to say. I ’d been
talking with him just before. . . . But I see by your expression that Scotty never had time to write.”
He fumbled awkwardly. “ I ’m Dana Allard.”
“ Allard?”
His visitor seemed embarrassed. “ Yes—H. Kenneth Allard was my uncle.”
“ I hadn’t realized Allard left a family,” mused Leverett,
shaking the extended hand. He had never met the writer personally, but there was a strong resemblance to the few photographs he had seen. And Scotty had been paying royalty checks to an estate of some sort, he recalled.
“ My father was Kent’s half-brother. He later took his father’s name, but there was no marriage, if you follow.”
“ Of course.” Leverett was abashed. “ Please find a place
to sit down. And what brings you here?”
Dana Allard tapped his briefcase. “ Something I ’d been
discussing with Scotty. Just recently I turned up a stack of
my uncle’s unpublished manuscripts.” He unlatched the
briefcase and handed Leverett a sheaf of yellowed paper.
‘‘Father collected Kent’s personal effects from the state hospital as next-of-kin. He never thought much of my uncle, or
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Karl Edward Wagner
his writing. He stuffed this away in our attic and forgot about
it. Scotty was quite excited when I told him of my discov-
___. »»
ery.
Leverett was glancing through the manuscript—page on
page of cramped handwriting, with revisions pieced throughout like an indecipherable puzzle. He had seen photographs of Allard manuscripts. There was no mistaking this.
Or the prose. Leverett read a few passages with rapt absorption. It was authentic—and brilliant.
“ Uncle’s mind seems to have taken an especially morbid
turn as his illness drew on,’’ Dana hazarded. “ I admire his
work very greatly but I find these last few pieces . . . well a
bit too horrible. Especially his translation of his mythical
Book o f Elders.”
It appealed to Leverett perfectly. He barely noticed his
guest as he pored over the brittle pages. Allard was describing a megalithic structure his doomed narrator had encountered in the crypts beneath an ancient churchyard. There were references to “ elder glyphics” that resembled his lattice
devices.
“ Look here,” pointed Dana. “ These incantations he records here from Alorri-Zrokros’s forbidden tome: ‘Yogth-Yugth-Sut-Hyrath-Yogng’—hell, I can’t pronounce them. And
he has pages of them.”
“ This is incredible!” Leverett protested. He tried to mouth
the alien syllables. It could be done. He even detected a
rhythm.
“ Well, I ’m relieved that you approve. I ’d feared these last
few stories and fragments might prove a little too much for
Kent’s fans.”
“ Then you’re going to have them published?”
Dana nodded. “ Scotty was going to. I just hope those
thieves weren’t searching for this—a collector would pay a
fortune. But Scotty said he was going to keep this secret until
he was ready for announcement.” His thin face was sad.
“ So now I ’m going to publish it myself—in a deluxe edition. And I want you to illustrate it.”
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“ I ’d feel honored!” vowed Leverett, unable to believe it.
“ I really liked those drawings you did for the trilogy. I ’d
like to see more like those—as many as you feel like doing.
I mean to spare no expense in publishing this. And those stick
things . . . ”
“ Yes?”
“ Scotty told me the story on those. Fascinating! And you
have a whole notebook of diem? May I see it? ’ ’
Leverett hurriedly dug the notebook from his file, returned
to the manuscript.
Dana paged through the book in awe. “ These things are
totally bizarre—and there are references to such things in the
manuscript, to make it even more fantastic. Can you reproduce them all for the book?”
“ All I can remember,” Leverett assured him. “ And I have
a good memory. But won’t that be overdoing it?”
“ Not at all! They fit into the book. And they’re utterly
unique. No, put everything you’ve got into this book. I ’m
going to entitle it Dwellers in the Earth, after the longest
piece. I ’ve already arranged for its printing, so we begin as
soon as you can have the art ready. And I know you’ll give
it your all.”
7
He was floating in space. Objects drifted past him. Stars,
he first thought. The objects drifted closer.
Sticks. Stick lattices of all configurations. And then he was
drifting among them, and he saw that they were not sticks—
not of wood. The lattice designs were of dead-pale substance,
like streaks of frozen starlight. They reminded him of glyph-
ics of some unearthly alphabet—complex, enigmatic symbols
arranged to s p e ll. . . what? And there was an arrangement—
a three-dimensional pattern. A maze of utterly baffling intricacy . . .
Then somehow he was in a tunnel. A cramped, stone-lined
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Karl Edward Wagner
tunnel through which he must crawl on his belly. The dank,
moss-slimed stones pressed close about his wriggling form,
evoking shrill whispers of claustrophobic dread.
And after an indefinite space of crawling through this and
other stone-lined burrows, and sometimes through passages
whose angles hurt his eyes, he would creep forth into a subterranean chamber. Great slabs of granite a dozen feet across formed the walls and ceiling of this buried chamber, and
between the slabs other burrows pierced the earth. Altarlike,
a gigantic slab of gneiss waited in the center of the chamber.
A spring welled darkly between the stone pillars that supported the table. Its outer edge was encircled by a groove, sickeningly stained by the substance that clotted in the stone
bowl beneath its collecting spout.
Others were emerging from the darkened burrows that
ringed the chamber—slouched figures only dimly glimpsed
and vaguely human. And a figure in a tattered cloak came
toward him from the shadow—stretched out a clawlike hand
to seize his wrist and draw him toward the sacrificial table.
He followed unresistingly, knowing that something was expec
ted of him.
They reached the altar and in the glow from the cuneiform
lattices chiseled into the gneiss slab he could see the guide’s
face. A mouldering corpse-face, the rotten bone of his forehead smashed inward upon the foulness that oozed forth . . .
And Leveret would awaken to the echo of his screams . . .
He’d been working too hard, he told himself, stumbling
about in the darkness, getting dressed because he was too
shaken to return to sleep. The nightmares had been coming
every night. No wonder he was exhausted.
But in his studio his work awaited him. Almost fifty drawings finished now, and he planned another score. No wonder the nightmares.
It was a grueling pace, but Dana Allard was ecstatic with
the work he had done. And Dwellers in the Earth was waiting. Despite problems with typesetting, with getting the special paper Dana wanted—the book only waited on him.
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337
Though his bones ached with fatigue, Leverett determinedly trudged through the graying night. Certain features of the nightmare would be interesting to portray.
8
The last of the drawings had gone off to Dana Allard in
Petersham, and Leverett, fifteen pounds lighter and gut-
weary, converted part of the bonus check into a case of good
whiskey. Dana had the offset presses rolling as soon as the
plates were shot from the drawings. Despite his precise planning, presses had broken down, one printer quit for reasons not stated, there had been a bad accident at the new printer—
seemingly innumerable problems, and Dana had been furious
at each delay. But the production pushed along quickly for
all that. Leverett wrote that the book was cursed, but Dana
responded that a week would see it ready.
Leverett amused himself in his studio constructing stick
lattices and trying to catch up on his sleep. He was expecting
a copy of the book when he received a letter from Stefroi:
Have tried to reach you by phone last few days, but
no answer at your house. I ’m pushed fo r time just now,
so must be brief I have indeed uncovered an unsuspected megalithic site o f enormous importance. I t’s located on the estate o f a long-prominent Mass, family—
and as I cannot receive authorization to visit it, I will
not say where. Have investigated secretly (and quite
The Color of Evil - The Dark Descent V1 (1991) Page 41
