by Robert Bloch
“Now!” The old man’s voice was triumphant. “I have the knife. Stand back.”
With fearful, fascinated eyes, Peter saw his father insert the tip of the knife under the seventh head—that of Anubis. Steel grated on silver; then the latter gave. As the dog-like head slowly turned as though actuated by a hidden pivot, the door swung open with a brazen clangor that echoed and re-echoed through the musty depths beyond.
And must those depths proved to be. A noxious acrid scent burst forth from its long imprisonment, a charnel fetor. It was not the natron or spice-laden miasma common to most tombs; rather it held the concentrated essence of death itself—mildewed bones, putrefied flesh, and crumbled dust.
Once the first strength of the gaseous vapor had abated, Sir Ronald immediately stepped inside. He was followed, though much less quickly, by his son. The thirty-and-three sloping steps along the corridor were traversed, as the manuscript had foretold. Then, lantern in hand, the old man was confronted by the enigmatic eidolon of Anubis.
After that first dismaying scrutiny, during which Peter had uneasily recalled these memories of preceding incidents, Sir Ronald interrupted his son’s reverie and spoke. He whispered there, before the giant statue of the god that seemed to frown down upon the puniness of men with baleful, conscious eyes. Some trick of the lantern-light seemed to change the contours of that stone countenance; its chiseled grin was transformed into a gloating leer of mirthless menace. Yet the grim apprehension this aroused in Peter was soon overpowered by more acute fright when he heard his father’s words.
“Listen, boy. I did not tell you all that the parchment revealed to me that night. You remember, there was a part I read only to myself. Well, I had reasons for not letting you know the rest then; you would not have understood, and probably would have refused to come here with me. I needed you too much to rest that.
“You don’t know what this moment means to me, son, For years I’ve worked and studied in secret over things which others scoff at as superstitious fancies. I believed, however, and I have learned. There are always lurking truths behind every forgotten religion; distorted facts which can be rationalized into new concepts of reality. I’ve been on the trail of something like this for a long time—I knew that if I could discover a tomb like this it must surely contain proofs which would convince the world. There are probably mummies within; the bodies of this cult’s secret leaders. That’s not what I’m after, though. It’s the knowledge that’s buried with them; the papyrus manuscripts that hold forbidden secrets—wisdom the world has never known! Wisdom—and power!”
Sir Ronald’s voice was shrill with unnatural excitement.
“Power! I have read about the inner circles of the Black Temple, and the cult that has ruled by those designated as Masters in this parchment. They were not ordinary priests of magic; they had traffickings with entities from outside human spheres. Their curses were feared, and their wishes respected. Why? Because of what they knew. I tell you, in this tomb we may find secrets that can give us mastery over half the world! Death-rays, and insidious poisons, old books and potent spells whose efficacy may bring a renascence of primal gods again. Think of it! One could control governments, rule kingdoms, destroy enemies with that knowledge! And there will be jewels, wealth and riches undreamt of, the treasure of a thousand thrones!”
He is quite mad, Peter thought. For a moment he entertained a frantic impulse to turn and run back through the corridor; he wanted to see the sanity of a sun overhead, and feel a breath of air on his brow that was not dust-polluted by dead centuries. But the old man grasped him by the shoulders as he mumbled on, and Peter was forced to remain.
“You don’t understand, I see. Perhaps it’s for the best; but no matter, I know what I’m about. You will, too, after I do what is necessary. I must tell you now what the parchment said; that portion of it which I did not read aloud.”
Some inner instinct screamed silent warnings in Peter’s brain. He must get away—he must! But his father’s grip was firm, though his voice trembled.
“The part I refer to is that which tells one how to get past this statue and into the tomb itself. No, nothing can be discovered by looking at the thing; there’s no secret passage behind it; no levers concealed in the body of the god. The Master and his acolytes were cleverer than that. Mechanical means are of no avail—there’s only one way to enter into the tomb beyond, and that is through the body of the god itself!”
Peter gazed again into the mask-like countenance of Anubis. The jackal-face was contorted in cunning comprehension—or was it only a trick of the light? His father hurried on.
“That sounds queer, but it’s the truth. You remember what the parchment said about this statue being the first one—different from the rest? How it emphasized the fact that Anubis is the Opener of the Way, and hinted at its secret soul? Well, the next lines explained that. It seems that the figure can turn upon a pivot and open a space behind it into the tomb, but only when the idol is animated by a human consciousness.”
They were all mad, Peter knew. He, his father, the old priests, and the statue itself; all insane entities in a world of chaos.
“That means only one thing. I must hypnotize myself by gazing at the god; hypnotize myself until my soul enters its body and opens the way beyond.
“It’s not so bizarre a conception at that. The yogis believe that in their trances they incarnate themselves with the god-head; the self-hypnotic state is a religious manifestation among all races. And mesmerism is a scientific truth; a truth known and practiced thousands of years before psychology was postulated as an organized study. These priests evidently knew the principle. So that is what I must do—hypnotize myself so that my soul or consciousness enters the image. Then I shall be able to open the tomb behind.”
“But the curse!” Peter muttered, finding his voice at last. “You know what it says about a curse on unbelievers—something about Lord Anubis being a guardian as well as an Opener of the Way. What about that?”
“Sheer humbug!” Sir Ronald’s tone was fanatically firm. “That was merely inserted to frighten off tomb-looters. At any rate, I must risk it. All you need to do is wait. Once I pass into a trance, the statue will move, and the passage beyond will be disclosed. Enter it, immediately. Then give my body a good shake to break the coma, and I’ll be all right again.”
There was in his father’s words an authority which could not be denied. So Peter held the lantern aloft and allowed its beams to play over the face of Anubis. He stood in silence while his father focused his gaze upon the jackal eyes—those stony, staring eyes that had so disturbed them with hints of a secret life.
It was a terrible tableau; the two men, the twelve-foot god, confronting each other in a black vault beneath the earth.
Sir Ronald’s lips moved in fragments of ancient Egyptian prayers.
His eyes were fixed upon a nimbus of light that had settled about the canine forehead. Gradually his stare became glassy; nictation ceased, and the pupils glowed with a peculiar nyctalopic fire. The man’s body sagged visibly, as if it were being vampirically drained of all life.
Then, to Peter’s horror, a pallor overspread his father’s face, and he sank down silently upon the stone floor. But his eyes never left those of the idol. Peter’s left arm, which held the lantern aloft, was seized with a spasmodic convulsion of utter fright. Minutes sped away in silence. Time has no meaning in a place of death.
Peter could not think. He had seen his father practice self-hypnosis before, with mirrors and lights; he knew it was perfectly harmless in the hands of a skilled adept. But this was different. Could he enter the body of an Egyptian god? And if he did—what of the curse? These two questions reverberated like tiny voices somewhere in his being, but they were engulfed by overpowering fear.
This fear rose to a mad crescendo as Peter saw the change occur. All at once his father’s eyes flickered like dying fires, and consciousness went out. But the eyes of the god—the eyes of Anubis were no longer sto
ne!
The cyclopean statue was alive!
His father had been right. He had done it—hypnotized his consciousness into the body of the idol. Peter gasped, as a sudden thought slithered into his brain. If his father’s theory had been correct so far, then what about the rest? He had said that once inside the figure, his soul would direct it to open the way. But nothing was happening. What was wrong?
In panic, Peter bent down and examined the body of his father. It was limp, old, and lifeless. Sir Ronald was dead!
Unbidden, Peter remembered the parchment’s cryptic warnings:
“Those who do not believe shall die. Pass Lord Anubis though they may, still he shall know and not permit of their return unto the world of men. For the eidolon of Anubis is strange indeed, and holds a secret soul.”
A secret soul! Peter, terror throbbing in his temples, raised the lantern aloft and looked once more into the god’s face. Again he saw that the stony, snarling mask of Anubis held living eyes!
They glittered bestially, knowingly, evilly. And Peter, seeing them, went berserk. He did not—could not—think; all he knew was that his father was dead, and this statue had somehow killed him and come alive.
So Peter Barton suddenly rushed forward, screaming hoarsely, and began to beat upon the stone idol with futile fists. His bleeding, lacerated knuckles clawed at the cold legs, but Anubis did not stir. Yet his eyes still held their awful life.
The man cursed in sheer delirium, babbling in a tortured voice as he started to climb up to that mocking face. He must know what lay behind that gaze, see the thing and destroy its unnatural life. As he climbed, he sobbed his father’s name in agony.
How long it took him to reach the top he never knew; the last minutes were merely a red blur of nightmare frenzy. When he recovered his senses he was clinging precariously to the statue’s neck, his feet braced on the belly of the image. And he was still staring into those dreadful living eyes.
But even as he gazed, the whole face was twisting into a sudden ghastly life; the lips drew back into a cavern of crackling mirth, and the fangs of Anubis were bared in terrible avid lust.
The arms of the god crushed him in a stone embrace; the claw-like fingers tightened about his quivering, constricted throat; the gaping muzzle ravened as stone teeth sank jackal-like into his neck. Thus he met his doom—but it was a welcome doom after that final moment of revelation.
The natives found Peter’s bloodless body lying crushed and crumpled at the idol’s feet; lying before the statue of Anubis like a sacrifice of olden days. His father was beside him, and he too was dead.
They did not linger there in the forbidden, forgotten fastness of that ancient crypt, nor attempt to enter into the tomb behind. Instead, they reclosed the doors and returned home. There they said that the old and young effendi had killed themselves; and that is not surprising. There were really no other indications for them to go by. The statue of Anubis stood once more serene in the shadows; still grimly guarding the secrets once more serene in the shadows; still guarding the secret vaults beyond, and there was no longer any hint of life in its eyes.
And so there is none who knows what Peter Barton knew just before he died; none to know that as Peter went down into death he stared upward and beheld the revelation which made that death a welcome deliverance.
For Peter learned what animated the body of the god; knew what lived within it in a dreadful, distorted way; knew what was being forced to kill him. Because as he died he gazed at last into the living stone face of Anubis—the living stone face that held his father’s tortured eyes.
The Dark Demon
Lovecraft is once again the basis for the main character, even though HPL is mentioned by name as a distinct personage within the story. But we are not fooled. This time the Old Gent takes on the lineaments not of Alhazred, but rather of Henry Akeley, replaced by the effigy of Nyarlathotep from whom he channels revelations.
Again, truth is stranger than fiction; when the story imagines Lovecraft as the earthly mouthpiece for Cosmic Powers it fictionalizes the opinion actually voiced by one of Lovecraft’s correspondents, the eccentric occultist William Lumley (co-author with Lovecraft of “The Diary of Alonzo Typer”. He warned HPL that he (like the other Weird Tales authors) were unwitting vehicles for the revelations of Cthulhu, Azathoth, Crom, and other outer entities.
The Dark Demon
by Robert Bloch
It has never been put on paper before—the true story of Edgar Gordon’s death. As a matter of fact, nobody but myself knows that he is dead; for people have gradually forgotten about the strange dark genius whose eldritch tales were once so popular among fantasy lovers everywhere. Perhaps it was his later work which so alienated the public—the nightmare hints and outlandish fancies of his final books. Many people branded the extravagantly worded tomes as the work of a madman, and even his correspondents refused to comment on some of the unpublished stuff he sent them. Then too, his furtive and eccentric private life was not wholesomely regarded by those who knew him in the days of his early success. Whatever the cause, he and his writings have been doomed to oblivion by a world which always ignores what it cannot quite understand. Now everyone who does remember thinks Gordon has merely disappeared. That is good, in view of the peculiar way in which he died. But I have decided to tell the truth. You see, I knew Gordon very well. I was, truthfully, the last of all his friends, and I was there at the end. I owe him a debt of gratitude for all he has done for me, and how could I more fittingly repay it than to give to the world the true facts concerning his sad mental metamorphosis and tragic death?
If I can hope to clarify these things, and clear Gordon’s name from the unjust stigma of insanity, I feel that I have not lived in vain. Therefore, this statement is indited.
I am quite aware that this story may not be believed. There are certain—shall we say, “sensational aspects”?—which have caused me to debate the step I am taking in laying his case before the public. But I have a debt to repay; a tribute, rather, to the genius that once was Edgar Henquist Gordon. Hence, the tale.
It must have been six years ago that I first met him. I had not even known that we both resided in the same city, until a mutual correspondent inadvertently mentioned the fact in a letter.
I had, of course, heard of him before. Being a hopeful (and at times, hopeless) amateur writer myself, I was enormously influenced and impressed by his work in the various magazines catering to the fantastic literature I loved. At this time he was known in a small way to practically all readers of such journals as an exceptionally erudite writer of horror tales. His style had won him renown in this small field, though even then there were those who professed to scoff at the grotesquery of his themes.
But I ardently admired him. As a result, I invited myself to pay a social call upon Mr. Gordon at his home. We became friends.
Surprisingly enough, this reclusive dreamer seemed to enjoy my company. He lived alone, cultivated no acquaintances, and had no contact with his friends save through correspondence. His mailing-list, however, was voluminous. He exchanged letters with authors and editors all over the country; would-be writers, aspiring journalists, and thinkers and students everywhere. Once his reserve was penetrated, he seemed pleased to have my friendship. Needless to say, I was delighted.
What Edgar Gordon did for me in the next three years can never adequately be told. His able assistance, friendly criticism and kind encouragement finally succeeded in making a writer of sorts out of me, and after that our mutual interest formed an added bond between us.
What he revealed about his own magnificent stories astounded me. Yet I might have suspected something of the sort from the first.
Gordon was a tall, thin, angular man with the pale face and deep-set eyes which bespeak the dreamer. His language was poetic and profound; his personal mannerisms were almost somnambulistic in their weaving slowness, as though the mind which directed his mechanical movements was alien and far away. From these signs, there
fore, I might have guessed his secret. But I did not, and was properly astonished when he first told me.
For Edgar Gordon wrote all of his stories from dreams! The plot, setting, and characters were products of his own colorful dream life—all he need do was transcribe his sleeping fancies on paper.
This was, I later learned, not an entirely unique phenomenon. The late Edward Lucas White claimed to have written several books based entirely on night-fancies. H. R Lovecraft had produced a number of his splendid tales inspired by a similar source. And of course, Coleridge had visioned his Kubla Khan in a dream. Psychology is full of instances attesting to the possibility of nocturnal inspiration.
But what made Gordon’s confession so strange was the queer personal peculiarities attendant upon his own dream stages. He quite seriously claimed that he could close his eyes at any time, allow himself to relax into a somnolent doze, and proceed to dream endlessly. It did not matter whether this was done by day or by night; nor whether he slumbered for fifteen hours or fifteen minutes. He seemed particularly susceptible to subconscious impressions.
My slight researches into psychology led me to believe that this was a form of self-hypnosis, and that his short naps were really a certain stage of mesmeric sleep, in which the subject is open to any suggestion.
Spurred on by my interest, I used to question him closely as to the subject-matter of these dreams. At first he responded readily, once I had told him of my own ideas on the subject. He narrated several of them to me, which I took down in a notebook for future analysis.
Gordon’s fantasies were far from the ordinary Freudian sublimation or repression types. There were no discernible hidden wish-patterns, or symbolic phrases. They were somehow alien. He told me how he had dreamed the story of his famous Gargoyle tale; of the black cities he visited on the fabulous outer rims of space, and the queer denizens that spoke to him from formless thrones that existed beyond all matter. His vivid descriptions of terrifyingly strange geometry and ultra-terrestrial life-forms convinced me that his was no ordinary mind to harbor such eerie and disturbing shadows.