warm hair gently. I think I cried. The storm whispered a last protest and died. I sat there with Cassandra until late the next evening, when Dr. Ambler came to call, and found us.
Only another half-hour until dawn. The cell block has been very quiet most of the night. Outside, in the grayish half-light, there is a sound of distant business that seems ghostly coming in through the bars on the cold early morning air. There is a creaking of wood, and then a sudden thud. This is repeated several times. They are testing the spring-trap of my gallows.
They say that prayers help. If you have come this far, if you think you understand the story of Cassandra Heath, you might try it. Make it a very special sort of prayer. Not for Cassandra and me. All our prayers were said a long time since. We are at peace.
This prayer must be for you — for you and all the others who must be left behind, who cannot walk with me, up that final flight of wooden stairs, to peace and escape, who must go on living in the shadow of a monstrous evil of which they are not even aware, and so, can never destroy. You may need those prayers.
Somewhere beyond the edge of the last lone lip of land, beyond the rim of reality, sunken beneath the slime and weed of innumerable centuries, the creatures of the Abyss live on. Zoth Syra still reigns, and the syren songs are still sung. Entombed in their foul, watery empire, they writhe; restless, waiting…. This time they have lost their foothold. This time their link with the world of normalcy has been broken, their contact destroyed. This time they have failed.
But, they will try again… and again….
The Guardian of the Book
HENRY HASSE
I am always keeping an eye open for old secondhand bookstores. And, as my business takes me to all parts of the city, I have not a few times entered such places to spend an odd half-hour foraging among shelves and stacks of musty volumes, often to emerge joyously with some item particular to any one of my several hobbies and interests.
On this particular February evening I was hurrying homeward, and as I crossed a narrow avenue on the outskirts of the wholesale district I stopped with a pleasurable thrill. A short distance from the corner I had espied one of those ancient bookstores, one I was sure I had never visited before — a narrow frame storeroom tucked well back between two brick buildings.
I had no particular plans for the evening; already it was growing dark, it was cold, and there was a brisk flurry of snowflakes. I entered the haven which had come to my attention so opportunely.
The place was dimly lighted, but I could see that I stood amidst a profusion of books that reposed on shelf and floor alike. There was no one in the front part of the store, but from a rear room came a rattle of pans; so I guessed an evening meal was in progress. Quietly I browsed around amidst the topsy-turvy miscellany, and must have become oblivious to time; for very suddenly there came a little shrill voice close to my ear:
“There is perhaps some special book?”
Startled, I spun around.
There beside me and peering up into my face was absolutely the strangest little man I had ever seen. To say that he was tiny would be the literal truth, for he couldn’t have stood a great deal over four feet. His skin was smooth and tight, and of a color that could only be described as slate-gray; furthermore, his absurd dome of a head was entirely bald, there being not even the slightest vestige of an eyebrow! And in all my life I had never seen anything half so black as those eyes that stared up into mine as he asked again: “There is perhaps some special book?”
I laughed uneasily.
“You startled me,” I said. “Why, no, nothing in particular — just looking around. Thought maybe 1 could find something to take home with me this evening.”
He did not speak; he only made a slight bow and motioned me to go ahead. As I moved amidst the melange of books I was aware that the little man’s eyes followed my every move; and though his expression hadn’t changed, I thought he was watching me with something like amusement.
My eyes moved over the titles, missing none, for there are certain books I always look for, however remote my chances of ever finding any of them. But now, as I surveyed the books about me, I saw that there was no order of arrangement at all: fiction, biography, science, history, religion, technical — all were confusedly interspersed.
For perhaps five minutes more I searched, before giving it up as a hopeless task; for I hadn’t too much time to spend there seeking for what I wanted.
The little man hadn’t moved, and now he was smiling, not unfriendlily.
“I am very much afraid, sir, that you will never find what you are looking for.”
I had become somewhat impatient, so I said frankly:
“I agree with you there; I never saw such a mess as this.”
“Oh, I have just moved in here,” he explained, still smiling, “and have not had much time to arrange things in their proper order.”
I had surmised as much. I said 1 would drop in later, and started for the door.
He placed a hand on my arm.
“But wait. You misconstrued my meaning when I said you would never find what you are looking for. I was not referring to the disarrangement of my books.”
I merely raised my eyebrows, and he went on:
“I hope you won’t be too astonished, Doctor Wycherly, when I assure you that I am quite aware that there are certain remote books you would give much to own — or even to read. Are there not? And remote as these books are, remote as your chances are, you do nevertheless entertain a hope that perhaps some day, by some lucky chance, you might come into possession of one of them. Is it not true?”
In my amazement I answered both his questions at once, hardly knowing that I spoke:
“Why — yes; indeed yes.”
His bald head bobbed benignly, and he waved toward the haphazard piles of books around us.
“And these?” he emphasized in that shrill voice. “These? Phfft! they are rubbish, they are nothing! You will not find there what you seek!”
I was astonished at his vehemence. “Probably not,” I murmured vaguely. “But you — just now — you mentioned my name, and I was not aware that you knew me. Would you mind explaining?”
“Ah, yes, you are puzzled, of course. You are wondering how I came to know your name. That, sir, is entirely inconsequential. Even more so do you wonder how I could possibly know of that secret desire of yours, the desire to peruse those so-called ‘forbidden books’ which speak of the unthinkable things of evil — the books which are, now, so inaccessible as to be indeed forbidden. Suffice it to say, for the present, that I cannot help but know of your delvings into subjects of the weird and terrible, because — well, because it is most imperative to me that I should know; therefore, I know. But I think you will agree that your quest for such books is a rather hopeless one! The various versions of Alhazred’s Necronomicon, Flammarion’s Atmosphere, Von Junzt’s Nameless Cults, Kane’s Magic and Black Arts, Eibon’s Book, and the mysterious King in Yellow — which, if it does indeed exist, must transcend them all — none of these will you find lying around in bookstores. Even those few that are known to be in existence are under lock and key. Of course there are other, lesser sources, but even they are not easy to procure. For example, you probably had a difficult time in locating that later edition of the Nameless Cults which you now have in your possession; and criminally expurgated as it is, I imagine you find it very unsatisfactory.” “Yes, I do!” I admitted breathlessly. I was surprised to have come across a person possessed of such evident familiarity with this recherche literature. “The Nameless Cults which I have,” I went on to explain, “is the comparatively recent 1909 edition, and it is puerile in the extreme. I should like very much to get hold of one of the originals; published in Germany, I believe, in the early eighteen-hundreds.”
But he waved that peremptorily aside.
“What of the Necronomicon,” he said, “that most fearsome and most hinted-at of all the forbidden books; you
