The Last Revelation Of Gla'aki

by Ramsey Campbell

  Fairman could only assume the receptionist thought it was cheaper to phone the zoo than call him on his mobile. "Thank you," he said as the man's upper body shrank with a sinuous motion into the booth. "I'm afraid I didn't see very much."

  "They're shy, some of them. You mightn't want to be seen in that kind of a shape." When Fairman frowned at this the man said "They're getting on or they're not well."

  Fairman hadn't time to question this. He hurried past the dormant houses and let himself into the doctor's. When he thanked the receptionist for the call her expression didn't change, and he could have thought it was hiding bemusement if not convicting him of sarcasm, though he didn't see why it should do either. She bent her dwarfed head towards the intercom. "Doctor—"

  "That's all right, Doris. Send in our visitor."

  The moistness of the brass doorknob reminded Fairman of the atmosphere at the zoo. Beyond the door, chairs and a sketchy bed with a screen beside it faced a desk across a large white room. The man behind the desk rose from gazing at a computer monitor to extend a hand to Fairman. His bald head was rendered more egg-like by jowls, and his shoulders were so broad that Fairman had a grotesque sense that they'd slumped outwards. Presumably he'd acquired his tan abroad or in a studio. "Glad to meet you in the flesh, Leonard," he said. "What did you make of our zoo?"

  His handshake was resolutely firm but clammier than Fairman cared for. "I couldn't see much," Fairman said and at once felt unreasonable; the doctor had nothing to do with the menagerie, after all. "Don't tell me," he said, "there's so much more to see."

  The doctor raised his almost hairless brows, and his heavy eyelids crept back from his pale protruding eyes. "So much more than sea."

  "I know that's how it's meant to go."

  "We'll let it lie for now." Dr Stoddart wrinkled his wide nose, an action that twitched his thick lips. "What would you like me to prescribe?"

  No doubt this was a sort of joke. "Just the books," Fairman said. "They're why I'm here."

  "Nobody's forgetting that, Leonard. You don't know how much you're appreciated."

  Embarrassment made Fairman change the subject. "Can you tell me anything about them?"

  "They've been waiting for someone just like you."

  Fairman had meant where the books had come from, but it needn't matter. "May I take possession, then?"

  "All yours," the doctor said, reaching for the left-hand drawer. The desk quivered as the drawer emerged with a prolonged cavernous creak, and he lifted out a book that was the twin of the one Fairman had. The black cover was embossed with the image of a hand contorted in an occult gesture, the second and fourth fingers curving inwards while the others arched bonelessly backwards and the thumb jutted up from the palm. Fairman opened the book to find it was the first volume, On Conjuration. "The tongues of men reduce the world to words..." He shut the book before he could be tempted to linger over reading and looked up at the doctor, who was resting his hand on the open drawer. "Forgive my haste," Fairman said, "but may I trouble you for the others?"

  The doctor shut the drawer and gave him an oddly distant look. "That's my contribution, Leonard."

  Fairman tried not to feel let down; he had two considerable rarities for the archive, after all. "You mean there are just the two volumes."

  "Just that one. That's all I ever had."

  Fairman didn't bother to clear up the misunderstanding. He held the book in both hands as he rose to his feet. "Was it in your family?"

  As Dr Stoddart made to open the door he said "Father gave it me."

  He had his back to Fairman, who could almost have imagined that the doctor had borrowed someone else's words. Perhaps they betrayed how local he was, much as Fairman's accent seemed to place him. "Do you know your way around our town yet?" Dr Stoddart said.

  "I don't mean to be rude, but why should I need to do that?"

  "Because now you'll want to see Don Rothermere."

  Fairman waited until the doctor turned to face him, having opened the door. "To what end?"

  "For the same reason you've seen me."

  "Another volume of the book?" Less enthusiastically and with some unease Fairman said "Just one?"

  "That's how it's going to be, Leonard."

  "But why has it to be? Why do I need to go through all this?"

  His outburst was unprofessional, and he regretted it as Dr Stoddart and the receptionist gazed distantly at him. "It isn't for you, Leonard," the receptionist said.

  Fairman might have expected her to be rebuked for being too familiar. He supposed she must think she was defending her employer. "So who's this Mr Rothermere?" he said. "Where shall I find him?"

  "It's Suit Your Book on Station Road," the doctor said. "If you ask anyone—"

  "I've got a map. I assume he's a bookseller."

  "Our only one," Dr Stoddart said, and the receptionist added "Your kind of person, Leonard."

  Fairman hoped so. Most booksellers would surely have completed the set of books by now and sold it for a considerable profit. Once the first volume was safely boxed in the car boot he consulted the map and drove uphill. Below the menagerie he turned right along Tree View, a name that made him feel as if he were following some kind of diagram. Beyond a sloping junction the twin terraces of small houses, which looked as if they'd been squeezed fat and grey, met Station Road. Cast-iron awnings set with coloured glass overhung the shops, and halfway along the road a railway station was composed of the omnipresent stone. Families were dragging luggage across the forecourt with a ponderous thunder of wheels while they did their best to hasten for a train. Suit Your Book was almost opposite the station, next to a doorway bristling with nets on canes and hung with plastic buckets. Fairman parked in a side street, where Vacancy signs dwindled downhill to the hazy promenade, and tramped up to the bookshop.

  The window display wasn't encouraging. All the books— hardcovers of various sizes and a scattering of paperbacks—had plainly spent years in the sun, leaving them almost as pale as the haze above the sea. As Fairman stepped into the shop a bell sprang its clapper above his head, and a man hastened over to him. "Leonard Fairman?" he said, if it was even a question. "Don Rothermere. Kindred spirits, eh?"

  Presumably the doctor had phoned ahead. The bookseller was a lanky man who moved as loosely as his grey suit hung on him. His face looked as if the dewlaps at his throat had drawn it narrower, and it was topped by an outburst of hair that might almost have leached colour from his skin so as to stay reddish. Prodigious glasses magnified his blinking eyes, and his pale lips kept twitching at a smile. "I'd hope we are," Fairman said.

  Rothermere thrust out a long hand to hold Fairman's in a clammy grasp while he jerked his head to indicate the contents of the shelves—new or at least unread volumes along the side walls and in the middle of the floor, secondhand books at the back. "We don't read many books in Gulshaw," he said.

  "Not the best place for you, then."

  "I've got all I want to read." Apparently grasping that Fairman hadn't meant this, the bookseller said "And it isn't much of a trot to the post office."

  Fairman wondered how much postal business Rothermere could do, given the state of his stock. "Have you been reading much here?" the bookseller said.

  "Just the new acquisition."

  "Of course." Rothermere's eyes widened, filling the lenses. "How's it affecting you?" he said.

  "I wouldn't say it is."

  "We mustn't deny it, Leonard."

  Fairman was uneasily aware of being in the presence of some kind of believer. It hardly seemed possible for the eyes behind the lenses to have opened further, but he had the unpleasant fancy that they weren't far from touching the glass. "Have you read yours?" he felt compelled to ask.

  "How couldn't I? It changes everything."

  Fairman was loath to enquire into this. "Could I have it, then?"

  "It's yours," the bookseller said and made for the back of the shop.

  His office was between the shelves of secon
d-hand books. Most of these were jacketless, a state Fairman used to describe as in their shirtsleeves until Sandra made her unamusement plain. The office was unlit, but he was able to distinguish a large heavy desk surrounded by piles of books. Without switching on the light Rothermere retrieved a volume from the desk. "Yours," he said again.

  Fairman stayed in an aisle of shelves to bring the man out of the gloom. With the book held in both hands Rothermere looked rather too much like the celebrant of a ritual. As he came forward Fairman could easily have imagined that some of the darkness had clung to the book. The colophon represented a hand that bore a lantern from which black rays were streaming. "Which one is this?" Fairman said.

  "On the Purposes of Night" Rothermere said with reverence.

  Fairman had asked so as not to linger over examining the book, but he couldn't help adding "Did you never want to find out what you could get for it?"

  "I got everything it needs, Leonard."

  "I meant," Fairman said more sharply, "had you no interest in discovering what it could fetch?"

  "We did." Before Fairman could think of any answer he might risk, the bookseller said "If you're asking whether I'd have sold it to the highest bidder, that wouldn't have entered my mind."

  "Would you care to say why?"

  "The book says it for us."

  When Rothermere stretched out his hands as though yearning to reclaim the book, Fairman said "Never mind, I'll look into it later."

  "I can tell you what it says." The bookseller's gaze seemed to turn inwards if not somewhere else entirely. "Let none read who will not understand," he said like a priest intoning a sermon. "Let the great secrets be kept close lest they grow blurred by the unshaped minds of the uninitiated."

  "That's what Percy Smallbeam said, do you think?"

  "One solitary mind speaks through the book." It wasn't clear if the bookseller was still quoting, nor when he said "The world will know the book once it has done its work."

  "What work would that be?" Fairman demanded.

  "You'll come to know it, Leonard. Will you promise one thing?"

  "That will have to depend."

  "Never put any of it online, will you? You heard what it said."

  "I've no intention of scanning it," Fairman told him and was so anxious to be gone that he almost forgot to ask "Can you tell me whom I need to see next?"

  "Heidi Dunscombe. She represents our town."

  "Represents in what way?"

  "I thought you'd know more about us by now. She's our tourist officer."

  "And where can I find her? No, don't tell me." Fairman saw Rothermere take this for an admission of knowledge, and felt bound to add "I have to get back."

  Rothermere's earnestness seemed to befog his glasses. "You aren't leaving us, Leonard."

  "Back to the hotel. They can direct me. Thank you for keeping this safe." Having reached the door, Fairman couldn't resist adding "You haven't told me there's so much more to see."

  "There's no need." The lenses looked not merely blurred now but smeared. "You're beginning to," the bookseller said.

  Fairman let that go. As he stepped out of the bookshop, triggering the bell again, he glanced back. The bookseller had withdrawn into his office and was fitting the spectacles to his face, no doubt having wiped the lenses. Fairman barely glimpsed the naked eyes, but they appeared to glimmer at him out of too much of the face, so that he could have imagined that the lenses were plain glass. He had an unwelcome impression of a creature watching him from the depths of its lair. Then Rothermere emerged from the gloom, blinking through his glasses at the light, and Fairman reassured himself that the illusion had been brought on by too little sleep. It wasn't why he hastened to his car.

  He was tramping up the passage to the lobby of the Wyleave when Mrs Berry called "Don't put yourself out, Mr Fairman. No rush at all."

  She was waiting at the counter. "We've given you another day," she said. "We knew you couldn't leave us so soon."

  "I don't mean to be any longer than that."

  "We'll have to see, won't we?" Mrs Berry said and gave the cartons he was cradling a slow nod. "More for our collection?"

  This was a different kind of familiarity, one that he found patronising too, but he only said "Can you tell me where to find your tourist office?"

  "Up in the square," Mrs Berry said and spread out a map on the counter. He supposed she had recently painted her nails, since the one she was using to point glistened like the surface of a lake. "Heidi will see to you," she said. "She'll give you what you need."

  Fairman wished that were the case rather than just a single book. He hurried upstairs in time to see a chambermaid leaving his room. She wheeled a trolley next door as he let himself into the room, to find she'd been so eager to finish her work that she'd left the wardrobe open an inch— the wardrobe that contained the safe. The sight made him feel worse than careless, unworthy of the trust that had been placed in him, however irrational his reaction was. He planted the cartons on the bed and threw the wardrobe door wide.

  The safe was locked, but as he typed the combination he saw marks on the black metal beside the keypad—the prints of a pair of moist hands. He could only think the chambermaid had left them, although they were larger than he'd seen her hands to be, as if they'd been pressed so fervently against the door that they'd spread to nearly twice their size. Presumably their clamminess had magnified the prints, which faded and vanished as he peered at them. He thought of confronting the girl or informing Mrs Berry, but what could he possibly say? Surely all that mattered was for the book to be there in the safe.

  It was, and he unpacked it to make sure. The three cartons darkened the inside of the safe so much that he could almost have imagined there was space for nine of them. He wouldn't need it—he would be going home tomorrow. When he shut the safe he thought he heard a stealthy movement, as if the books were settling into their nests. He typed the code and was on his way out of the room until he remembered there was a call he ought to make. However important his search was, he shouldn't let it occupy quite so much of his mind.

  The distant phone took some time to respond, which was how the head librarian treated any question. "Nathan Brighouse," he said at last.

  "Nathan, it's Leonard Fairman. I thought I should report in.

  "So glad you have, Leonard. All secured?"

  "Up to a point, certainly."

  "That'll be a negative, will it? Where's the hindrance?"

  "I've acquired several volumes but the set has turned out to be somewhat scattered."

  "Yes, Sandra Byers was telling me as much. Odd business, I must say. You haven't made the opportunity to assemble the set, then."

  "I'm sure I will have by tomorrow."

  "I'd be glad if that were the case. I'm sure the archives can survive without you for another day, but much longer and it may have to be put down as annual leave. You know how strict I'm forced to be in these straitened times."

  "I assure you I'm doing all I can," Fairman told him, by no means as resentfully as he felt entitled to, and hurried downstairs to leave the key at Reception, where Mrs Berry was waiting. "Keep up the good work," she called after him.

  As he drove onto the promenade Fairman saw that the haze had receded across the sea, giving the impression that the horizon had been drawn closer to the town. Before he came abreast of the theatre he turned uphill to the town hall, a massive grey edifice as plump as the statues of dignitaries that stood guard on either side. Perhaps the town didn't have much of a budget for the upkeep of monuments, since the stone faces were fattened by masks of lichen. He parked on the forecourt in front of an annexe, where the automatic doors of the tourist office deferred to him with a faint glassy squeal.

  The walls were decorated with vintage posters, all of which showed the seafront very much as it still was. IMMERSE YOURSELF IN GULSHAW and BREATHE IN GULSHAW were two of the slogans that caught Fairman's eye, but the one that provoked a wry laugh said SO MUCH MORE TO SEE. So the
townsfolk hadn't been mistaken after all, and perhaps he should take more notice of them. He was making for the counter at the far side of the room when a woman called "With you right now, Mr Fairman."

  She was beyond a door at the end of the counter, applying makeup or retouching it so vigorously that she might have been trying to squeeze her cheeks smaller. They looked as carelessly expansive as the rest of her, most of which was contained by a loose blouse and a capacious overall. Unruly auburn curls framed nearly all of her round face, which stayed sleepily jovial as she waddled to the counter, sticking out a hand. "Heidi Dunscombe," she said, "as if you didn't know."

  Her grasp felt slippery, no doubt with makeup. "What have you made of our town so far, Leonard?" she said.

  "I should think that's your job."

  It had taken her so little time to turn familiar that his reply was sharper than he liked, but she only said "What's that?"

  "Making the most of your town."

  "We'd love to have your thoughts."

  Did she think he was being too unfriendly? Though her face stayed so genial that she might almost have been lost in a dream, Fairman said "Forgive me. I've been having rather an odd day."

  "There's the night to come as well."

  He might have expected such a comment from the bookseller, not from her. "May I have the book you're holding for me?" Of course.

  Fairman thought for a moment that she was repeating herself, except that someone else he'd met had used the phrase. She waddled to a wall safe behind a desk in the office and then swung around languidly to ask "What do you think was odd?"

  For a disconcerting moment Fairman had a sense of being watched from an unexpected distance, not just across her room. "Someone I met," he said.

  "You'll get used to us, Leonard," Heidi Dunscombe said and turned ponderously away to spin the wheel on the safe. "What was odd about him?"

  "He seemed to believe in the book he had. I don't imagine you do."

  The safe lumbered open, gaping with darkness, a lump of which Heidi Dunscombe brought forth. She hugged it to her breast while she shut the metal door and twirled the wheel. As she advanced to the counter she said "It's belief that makes us what we are, Leonard."