Horror Library, Volume 5

by Boyd E. Harris R. J. Cavender

  “Do you have something you would like to say?” Oliver said. “Some knowledge to impart to us?”

  Again there was a pause, followed with, “There is danger in seeking the knowledge of the dead, young man. Do not ask again.”

  After this pronouncement came Oliver’s recorded thanks to what spirits he assumed he was speaking to. He turned off the machine and finished transcribing his notes in silence. I was flabbergasted by the whole experience, though upon some reflection, I felt there had to be a real-world justification.

  “Well?” Oliver said. “What did you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said.

  “Do you believe in me now?”

  “I would like to, but…there is a possible explanation.”

  Oliver cocked his head at me, still smiling. “Really? Would you care to share your theory?”

  “The cylinders.”

  He narrowed his eyes, prompting me for more.

  “You insisted on preparing them alone,” I explained. “I hate to accuse you of planting the seeds so you may reap the crop later, but it is hard not to think such.”

  “You think I pre-recorded those cylinders?”

  I shrugged. “I would like to believe otherwise…but I’m afraid the proof is–”

  “Proof?” he interjected. “You have no proof. Is my word not enough against your proof?”

  “Oliver, please. As I said, I would love nothing more than for this to be real, but …” I paused, unable to repeat my doubt. It pained me enough to call my best friend so much as a liar.

  Oliver didn’t seem upset by the accusation. Perhaps he saw the wisdom in my words, and rather than argue, decided to submit to them. “Then let us shave this very cylinder and start again. Will that be enough proof for your judicious mind?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps if we can repeat the experiment with a new cylinder? We can purchase one from–”

  Again he spoke over me. “No. That will not do.”

  “And why not?”

  He looked away, proceeding to tap his fountain pen against his tablet in a nervous fashion. “You may have jested when you spoke of the need for special rituals or archaic invocations. But the truth is that yes, I found in my research a need for certain preparations, in regards to the vessels, or the cylinders. Rather than drag you into something I know you wouldn’t approve of, I prepared the cylinders on my own. Unprepared cylinders won’t do. They must be primed for an exchange with the spirits.”

  “I see.”

  Turning his eyes back to me, he pleaded with every ounce of his being. “Believe me when I say I did not pre-record those responses. I would never tamper with data in such a manner.”

  Against my better judgment, I made all manner of assurances that I did believe him, then produced a variety of excuses to escape his attention for a few hours. I needed some time alone to think about what we had done, and what we had made. If there was a chance, even a remote chance that we had just indeed spoken with the dead, then the implications of such a machine were terrible. What right did we have to disturb the departed from their peace? Who were we to trouble the dead?

  I was also in awe of the name revealed to us. Mas’ud Nasir? It had an odd ring to it, not just for its foreign tongue, but for something strange in its very being. I wondered if this Mas’ud Nasir might have been a well-known man in his day. For the answer, I turned to our university’s extensive library.

  Mas’ud Nasir had several entries in the few books on the occult that the university possessed. He claimed to be a master of ancient esoteric practices, from ceremonial magicks to transcendental meditations. The man was famed for this knowledge of the occult, playing spiritual adviser to many a leader of his time. Through his connections in Germany, he acquired the title of Freiherr, gaining his own plot of land and passel of servants, which he commanded with a merciless hand.

  He was known throughout his barony for inhumane cruelties, including the torturing of his enemies in the most foul of ways. (As a favored punishment for a traitorous servant, Nasir would remove various body parts, then feed the parts back to the victim until he died from either loss of blood or choking to death on his own meat.) Nasir’s largest claim to fame, however, was the declaration that he had discovered the secret to transmuting metals to gold, the fabled Philosopher’s Stone. Though precious good it did him, as the texts reported he died at the ripe old age of ninety-four as a pauper.

  I made several notes regarding this information, sure that Oliver would find such records interesting. When I returned to our shared room at the dormitory, I was surprised to find he hadn’t returned. The hour was growing late, and we both had a considerable workload awaiting us at school the next morning. Just as I was leaving to see if he was still at the workshop–he did have an overwhelming tendency to lose track of time–I halted in my steps and eyed his secretary. Oliver didn’t want to tell me everything, but I knew he kept a detailed diary, and I was sure it would contain all I desired to learn.

  But could I rifle through his things like a common thief, seeking the missing pieces Oliver seemed so reluctant to share?

  Now, looking back, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had gone to bed and left him and his journal and that accursed machine alone. But I couldn’t resist, and now I am paying for my indiscretion. I delved into his desk, broke the simple lock on his journal and read ‘til my heart grew sick with fear and disgust.

  The first thing I learned was that my original suspicions were correct. Oliver did want the machine to contact a specific spirit. And that spirit was the very first one with which he spoke. Coincidence? Of course not! The reason he was able to pull that particular spirit through the aether was because he had prepared the machine to speak with him and him alone. How? The secret lay in his special modifications.

  The crystals and drum were made of materials purported to possess certain alchemical and arcane magical properties important for congressing with the dead. The cylinders were made of a much worse substance. Oliver was right not to ask me to prepare them with him, for I not only would have refused, but also shouted my rejection to the rooftops. I learned from his notes that the base was like any other cylinder, but the wax…dear God in heaven! He claimed to have mixed the wax with the dried blood from the corpse of an unbaptized babe!

  Where he got such a terrible substance, I did not know, for he did not log his supplier, only his deeds. Then there was the matter of his “spiritual conduit,” that piece of yellowing material that made up our stylus. I learned that it was a natural substance, true enough, for it was a tooth from the corpse of the very dead man with whom we had spoken.

  It was the sharpened canine of none other than Mas’ud Nasir himself!

  I stormed from the dorm and straight to the workshop. I had never been so angry with another human being in all of my life. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to confront Oliver, make him confess his transgressions to me and destroy that terrible machine. As I approached the workshop, I slowed my advance and collected my senses. It would do no good to go in yelling and screaming. Oliver had to be handled with finesse. I had to act civilized, no matter how angry I was, or he would shut me out.

  As I drew nearer to our inner sanctum, as I calmed my breath and worked out the method by which I would address him, I heard him speaking with someone already. The door was slightly open, so I paused and took a moment to listen in. It wasn’t my intention to eavesdrop, but it didn’t take long for me to realize he was listening to another one of his recordings, and the audio was again disturbing.

  “Is this Mas’ud Nasir?” Oliver said.

  “Yes,” came that awful, hollow hiss.

  “Will you tell me the secret?”

  “No, you are not ready for such knowledge.”

  “I demand that you tell me!” he shouted.

  “You will not make demands on me, peasant. Leave the dead be. There are many dangers in what you seek. You don’t know the trouble you invite.”

  “I
can…I can make you tell me.”

  In response, an eerie chuckle filled the room. There was such power beneath that laughter, an awesome presence that shocked me to the core. I cannot explain it. I knew that the voice on the machine belonged to a man not to be trifled with. If he truly was the same man I had read about, Oliver was not just playing with fire, he was dancing in the burning flames themselves. That was when I began to fear for the life of my friend, as well as my own.

  Oliver, blinded by his obsession, shouted over this laughter, “I will make you tell me! Damn it!”

  It was then I realized Oliver’s voice wasn’t recorded. Impossible, I know, but I swear to its truth! I pushed the door open even more to see that he was speaking to the machine, and the voice of Mas’ud Nasir was coming across the cylinder, answering him as though they were conversing face to face. As if this were not odd enough, there was another strange happening. Oliver’s breath coiled before him, ghostly tendrils that curled away from his lips with each word. Yes it was November, and yes I had walked about the campus shivering in the late fall chill, but this room shouldn’t have been that cold. I could see the lit boilers heating the chamber from my position at the doorway, yet every word he spoke was accompanied by a fogged trail.

  This was too much. I tried to rush in, much like the fool I was, but couldn’t pass the threshold of the room. I pushed, pressed and leaned against some invisible barrier, and to my dismay, it pressed back, weighing against my chest until I struggled for every breath.

  There was little I could do but watch and listen.

  “You will tell me,” Oliver repeated. “I am not some child playing with his father’s razor here. I know the secrets of the ancients, and I am the first to marry them with modern technology. You may have been a master in your time, but you are nothing now. You are dead, and I know the rites and rituals. I know how to make you serve me.”

  “Silence!” Mas’ud Nasir shouted. “Impudent fool! I serve no man. I never have, and I shall not begin now. If you have studied as deeply as you claim, then you should know there are things much worse than death in this world, Oliver. Much worse than pain. Much worse than anything your prosaic mind can conceive of.”

  “Tell me, or I will make you suffer.”

  Mas’ud Nasir laughed again, briefly, then said, “You have been warned for the last time, child. Do not wake me again, or you will pay for it with your very soul.”

  And with that, Mas’ud Nasir was gone. Even I, from my place at the door, could tell his presence had fled the room. The barrier was gone as well, and my breath returned, though I still struggled to catch a full inhalation.

  Oliver was not pleased with this turn of events.

  “Curse you, Nasir!” he shouted at the machine. “I will draw all the demons of hell down upon your wretched soul. You shall never know peace again!”

  Was he mad? Laying out threats against a man such as this? I couldn’t hold back my concern any longer. I threw the door open and burst into the room. “Oliver! Cease this nonsense at once!”

  “You?” Oliver said. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what you are doing here. What is this insanity?”

  “Nothing important.” He behaved as though his actions were of no consequence, as if speaking with this dead spirit were no more than a game. Over his shoulder, he said, casually, “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

  “And I didn’t expect you to lie to me.”

  “Lie? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I pulled his journal free from the confines of my jacket and slammed it on the desk between us. “Then explain your entries. Explain the fiction you have been penning at my expense. Explain why you felt it necessary to make up such extraordinary fabrications!”

  Oliver’s eyes went the size of saucers at the sight of his journal. He stood, tossing his chair back with a loud clatter as he rose. “My journal! You have invaded my private thoughts. How dare you?”

  “You’re concerned with your privacy when you deign to drag the dead from their graves and make threats upon them for their knowledge?”

  At this, Oliver changed attitude, as if with the flip of a switch. He laughed for a moment, then applauded me. He actually clapped at my dismay. “This is a fine turnabout from you. Two weeks ago, you placed no belief in the world of spirits, and now you are their great protector? I have never been so amused.” He laughed again.

  “Oliver, please listen to me. I can’t explain the mysteries of the world, but I can admit I may have been wrong about them. I also can’t explain my apprehension, but I don’t think this is a good idea. It seems…wrong.”

  “Wrong?” He spat the word at me with utter hatred. “Moral imperatives from a man who doesn’t even believe in God?”

  “As I said, I cannot explain the mysteries–”

  “Save your speech. If you don’t appreciate what I am doing, then you are free to leave.”

  “I don’t think you should mess with the likes of this Mas’ud Nasir anymore. He was a dangerous man. And I don’t think death has tempered the blackness in his heart. He is still dangerous, Oliver. I worry he will make good his threats.”

  “The dead are just that: dead. There is nothing he can do.”

  “Could you not feel his presence? Could you not feel him here with us just now?”

  Oliver stared at me in silence for a full minute. After this, he sat and waved me toward the door. “Again, if you don’t wish to participate, then leave. You said you would help me, and you have held up your part of the bargain. I will pay you for your assistance.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I don’t need your money.”

  “Of course you don’t! You were born to opulence, never had to work or scrape or earn anything in your life! But some of us do need, and want, and have to work for it.”

  “Olly, listen to yourself–”

  “Don’t use that name with me!” he shouted as he leapt to his feet again. “I only allow my friends to call me that. You don’t need my money, and you don’t need my friendship either.”

  He returned to his seat, making a special show of turning his back to me, and I knew it was over. I had lost him as a friend. Oliver wouldn’t listen to reason. He would only listen to Mas’ud Nasir.

  I left him there, alone, hunched over his machine, for it truly belonged to him now–and he could have the blasted thing. I tried to return to the dorm, but my anger wouldn’t allow me rest. Neither would my nagging worry. I couldn’t get that man’s voice out of my mind; it haunted me much like a spirit itself. The power in that voice, the power in that man, dead or alive, left me trembling with dread. Pacing the room was no good, so I turned my busy feet to the streets, where I walked for a few hours. Just before sunup, after I calmed a bit, I decided that perhaps one more try would shake Oliver from his strange obsession.

  When I returned to the workshop, I stumbled upon a sight most gruesome–one that will be etched into my memory well beyond my own death.

  Oliver was still there, or at least his body was. He was seated in front of his infernal machine, with his head twisted at an uncomfortable angle to the rest of his body. His mouth was agape, his jaw nearly touching his chest, though the back of his head was almost in contact with his spine. His hands were taut, forming a pair of claws, grasping at the air about his face as if he were trying to pull something away from his throat. His skin was tinted with the bluish green of a several-day-old corpse, yet his death couldn’t have befallen more than a few hours before.

  But the worst of this scene was the look in his eyes. There was an appearance of utter and total fear, as if he had seen the devil himself. And perhaps he had.

  The machine mocked me, teased me, because there lay a full cylinder, recorded and ready. I knew what I would hear if I played it back, and it was the last thing I wanted to listen to on the face of the earth. Yet something moved me. Something possessed me. I was not in control of my own actions as I wound the cra
nk and played the accursed cylinder and listened to the last words of Oliver, my friend.

  “Am I speaking with Mas’ud Nasir?”

  “You know who I am,” came the throaty reply.

  He was speaking directly with the spirit. I still do not understand how, but he was.

  “Will you tell me the components of the Philosopher’s Stone?” Oliver said. “I know you discovered it. You will tell me what I want to know.”

  “I will not share my knowledge with you, peasant,” Mas’ud Nasir said. “You are not ready, and you are most undeserving.”

  “I will know what you know!” Oliver shouted.

  “You have disturbed me for the last time. Now you will pay the price.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I have but to say your name, and an army of the dead will ascend upon you and tear your soul from your very being. They will drag you into an abyss of torment from which you will never return.”

  Oliver laughed, much as he’d laughed at me, then he demanded, “So speak it.”

  Mas’ud Nasir spoke.

  At the sound of the name, I experienced a fear unlike anything I had ever known. A cold nausea swept over me, leaving me weak to the knees and my stomach lurching in its wake. My chest tightened as my breath escaped me. I lifted a trembling hand to my mouth in shock.

  Oliver, however, seemed amused by the pronouncement. “Yes, that is my name and you would do well to respect it, for it will be on the lips of the entire world once I learn your secret, spirit. Now tell me what I wish to know!”

  A low and animalistic growl answered him. There then came a series of surprised shouts from Oliver, followed by a high-pitched scream. This scream thinned to an unending shriek of pain, and I knew I was listening to the murder of my best friend. I was listening to Oliver die at the hands of Mas’ud Nasir and his dead attendants.

  I switched off the machine and ripped the cylinder from the drum, then tossed it into the nearest boiler, stoking the fires to the heat of hell itself. The wax sputtered and sparked, and after a few moments, I decided to follow it with the entire machine. The second the contraption hit the flames, the machine exploded, destroying the boiler and setting the entire workshop aflame. As far as I know, it burned to the ground, taking Oliver’s corpse with it.