would never be destroyed. I would bind them well, into a book that would be imperishable all through the ages, and upon that book They would cast a curse to await any who dared to peruse it. And as a stimulant to this gigantic scheme of the Outer Ones, conceived by Them for Their own amusement, I must preface the Book with a warning to all mankinds. Then let him disregard the warning who dared. Reading on, there could be no turning back; he would be compelled to read on to the end, and upon him would devolve the curse. Only when such a one had dared, would I be free.
As to the curse [the thing continued] and my immediate fate, he was undetermined. Perhaps he would take me out There. Such things as aspiration and emotion and mind in connection with the tiny motes They had newly discovered on the spheres, had aroused a transient interest, and experiments would be entertaining.
Such diabolism only those Entities could conceive. The thing has gone now, as I, Tlaviir, conclude this preface of warning; but I feel that I have written these words under a pervading surveillance. From infinitely far away, now, I seem to hear unleashed shouts of glee… or is that only my imagination? But no: very close to my ear now, as I write these final words, comes that penetrant and portentous chuckle which I know is not imagination, to remind me that this which I write, everything, all, is but a part of Their preconceived plan.
The book lay there, opened wide, flat on the table before me. Thus had the Preface ended, on the left-hand page; the page opposite it was blank — and there were many pages following.
For a long time I sat there in the absolute stillness of the room, pondering, full of amazement at what I had just read, wondering what evil secrets might be revealed in those following pages. Even the things hinted at in the Preface were suggestive enough. I recalled with a start how anxious that tiny slate-colored man had been for me to read the Book — and I wondered if, indeed, the curse would be transferred to me if I dared to turn the page and read on.
Abruptly I came to my senses, with a little laugh. “Nonsense!” I said aloud to the room; “what am I thinking of? Such things as that can’t be!”
My hand reached out to turn the page….
The log in the fireplace snapped sharply. I arose to replenish the fire, noticing as I did so that the clock on the mantel said twenty minutes until midnight. For the first time I was aware of the chill that had crept into the room.
As I turned from my task I saw that tiny man of the bookstore standing very quietly there beside the table.
Now by all rules of propriety I should have been shocked or astonished or scared — later I wondered why I hadn’t been; but right then I wasn’t any of those things. I should at least have done him the courtesy of inquiring how he had learned my address, or how he had managed to enter my room, the very solid door of which I had most decidedly locked!.. but right then as I turned and faced him I only seemed to think how very appropriate this all was… that he should be there, so very opportunely… there were several of the most deucedly puzzling points about the Book that I should like to clear up. Oh, I knew of course that all this was nothing but a dream, knew that that was why it was so illogical!
The little man spoke first, in answer, as it were, to the very first question I had been about to propound.
“No, I am not that Tlaviir whose warning you have just read,” he said with a monotony that suggested an infinite weariness of repetition. “The fact is, we may never know how many eons ago this diabolic thing began; that very part of the cosmos where the Book had its origin may long since have passed into oblivion. But, for all of that, neither am I of your world. It was ages ago on my own planet, the very location of which I have long forgotten, that the Book came to me in much the same way it has come to you — brought to me by a queer person not of my own planet, who had traversed the ages and the outer spaces with the Book. I was an avid student of the vaguely hinted-at, premundane creatures supposed to have inhabited my world before it swam into light out of the darkness. Just as you have read, so did I read — eagerly. And just as you now doubt — appalled at the thought of the immensity that might be — so did I doubt. As you now hesitate before the Book — so did I hesitate. But in the end ”
I gestured impatiently at the thought he was trying to suggest to me. Whatever kind of hoax this was, it was silly. True, I had always been an imaginative person, my library consisting of the weirdest literature ever written, but always deep in my mind was the safe and comfortable knowledge that it was literature and nothing more. But now — to ask me to believe that upon this Book had been placed a
curse, to be transferred to him who read… that it had come here through space and through the ages from some alien planet… brought here by this man who claimed he was not of this world — that was too much. It was much too much. That is the stuff of which fiction is made.
So thinking, I once more reached out toward the Book. But — thank God! — my hand recoiled in horror as those queer, writhing symbols upon the open page met my eye with a significance that jerked my mind back to a semblance of reason: for I saw that those symbols were not, could not be, of this Earth!
I felt myself suddenly trembling as all my assurance vanished in an instant — trembling as my taut mind suddenly sensed things lurking, out of sight and sound, but very near….
The tiny man had watched my movements with an intense expectancy and eagerness, and as my hand recoiled his whole being bespoke disappointment and temporary defeat. But this was only for an instant, and then he, too, seemed to sense some invisible presence close at hand — stood poised, very still, head erect as if listening to something that I could not hear, something I was not meant to hear. For just a moment he stood thus before he spoke again; and now his voice, as he went on, was weary once more and sad:
“Yes, you had persisted in believing that all of this was some kind of hoax — but now, even as all the others, you know differently. You delight in delving into the weird and terrible, and I had hoped that you would be the one…. But it has always been thus.
“On the outermost planet of your system, that which you call Pluto, I encountered a denizen who, like yourself, was intensely interested in the ancient and dreadful superstitions of his planet. He also read the Preface that you have just read; he, too, wavered with that dread uncertainty, but his courage failed him and he fled from me and the Book as he would have fled from a plague, and so I knew that once again I had failed in this grotesquerie, that not yet was I to be free from the curse. But it has been so long, and nowhere can I escape those tortures of mind and soul which They inflict upon me at their will! For it is from Them that I derive the immunity to the terrors
of outer space, and that hitherto unsuspected Power of darkness which transcends by far the power of light, by which I am enabled to traverse the space between planets and between galaxies. But no single moment, no single thought of my own!
“You cannot know the horror of that! Sometimes in the middle of night They project a blasphemous Shape upon me, whose toothless mouth opens and closes in an obscene, soundless sound, who sits on my chest to perform a grotesque rite during which my very identity is lost in the churning of chaotic confusion and my mind reels out amidst the booming monody of the stars, on out into that boundless abyss beyond the outermost curved rim of cosmic space, where They dwell in contemplation of a monstrous catastrophe to the cosmos; nay, it is more than a contemplation, the thing has begun, is being done now, and out There I have assisted in this thing, the very immensity of which would drive one mad who knew. I would welcome madness, but They will not even let me go mad!”
His voice, ordinarily thin and shrill, had reached a penetrating shriek.
“But,” I said at last in a sort of triumph, “if you are so anxious for me to read this Book, these very things you tell me defeat your purpose — if this whole crazy thing is not a dream, which I believe it is!”
He almost reeled as he put his hand to his head. “That is because you do not know the malign cunning of Them who conceived this plot. My very thoughts, the words I speak, come from Them! I am Theirs!”
An almost imperceptible pause during which he again seemed to listen to that which I could not hear, and he continued:
…but consider well… the Book reveals secrets which can be yours… knowledge of which you have scarcely dared to dream… why, you have not even thought to connect that ‘Kathulhn’ mentioned in the Preface with that tentacled and ever-damned Kthulhu reputed to have come to Earth eons ago by way of the planet Saturn to which it had previously fled from depths beyond your solar system… you can know whence obscure and loathsome Tsathoqquah came, and why… and other obscenities of subhuman legend hinted at in your Necronomicon and other forbidden books: N’hyarlothatep, and Hastur, and the abominable Mi-Go; frightful and omniscient Yok-Zothoth,
