Henry Kuttner - The Book of Iod

“Lord, what a find!” I exulted. “But — surely you don’t think there’s anything—”

“Who said I did?” Todd snapped in a voice that betrayed his nervous tension. “There’s some logical explanation — superstition and auto-suggestion are a bad combination. I—”

“Where’s Sarto?” Denton asked with a note of apprehension in his voice. We were standing at the edge of a little clearing, bare and rocky.

“Sarto?” I asked.

“He has the cabin down the trail,” Todd said. “You must have passed it. I left him here with the bells when José had his seizure.”

“Hadn’t we better get José’s body to town?” I asked.

Todd frowned. “Don’t think me brutal,” he said. “But these bells — I can’t leave them here. The man’s dead. We can’t help him, and it’ll take all three of us to get the bells to town. It’s too bad the poor chap didn’t have Denton’s sense of direction,” he finished with a grim smile. “He wouldn’t have run into the tree then.”

He was right. I believe that Denton could have traversed the entire trail blindfolded after having once ascended it. He had a remarkable memory and sense of direction, like those Indians who could unerringly find their way to their wigwams across hundreds of miles of wilderness. Later this trait of Denton’s was to be of vital importance, but no premonition of this came to us at the time.

We had climbed the rocky mountain slope above the clearing and had come out in a little glade among the pines. Nearby was a gaping hollow in the ground — around it evidence of a recent landslide.

“Where the devil!” Todd said, staring around. “How—”

“He’s gone,” Denton said in amazement. “And the bells with him—”

Then we heard it — a faint, hollow musical note, the sound of a bell hitting wood. It came from above us, and glancing up the slope we saw an odd sight. A man, gaunt, bearded, with a blazing thatch of red hair, was tugging at a rope he had stretched over the branch of a pine. At the other end of the rope—

Slowly they rose, silhouetted against the sky, the lost bells of San Xavier. Gracefully curved, they glowed bronze even beneath their stains and verdigris — and they were silent, for they had no clappers. Once or twice they swung against the trunk of the pine and sent out a hollow, mournful note. How the man could lift that great weight was inexplicable; I could see the muscles cord and knot on his bare arms as he strained. His eyes were bulging, and his teeth clenched in a grinning mouth.

“Sarto!” Denton cried, starting to clamber up the slope. “What are you doing?”

Startled, the man jerked his head around and stared at us. The rope slipped through his fingers, and we saw the bells plunge down. With a frightful effort he clutched the rope and halted their descent momentarily, but the strain threw him off balance. He tottered, overbalanced, and came crashing down the slope — and behind him, overtaking him, rolled and bounded the bells, throbbing and booming as they clashed against rocks.

“God!” I heard Todd whisper. “The mad fool!”

I heard a sickening crunch and saw one of the bells smash down on Sarto

There was a maelstrom of dust and flying shale on the slope above. I heard a sickening crunch and Denton threw himself desperately aside. Through the dust I saw one of the bells smash down on the sliding body of Sarto, and then I was stumbling away, scrubbing furiously at my eyes, blinded by the flying particles of dirt. The rattle and roar subsided slowly as I clung to a tree. I blinked, glanced around.

Almost at my feet was one of the bells. There was a great crimson stain upon it. The body of Sarto was visible, jammed into a bush on the slope above.

And a few feet below it, propped upright against a jagged rock, was Sart’s battered, gory head!

Thus ended the first act of the drama I was to witness.

The bells were to be hung two weeks later. There was some stir in the newspapers, and considerable more among historians. Pilgrimages of various historical societies to San Xavier from all over the world were planned.

In the cold daylight of logic, outside the eerie atmosphere of the Pinos Mountains, the unusual occurrences during the unearthing of the bells were easily explained. A virulent kind of poisoning, perhaps similar to poison oak — or some fungus hidden in the cave with the relics — had been responsible for our optical irritation and the madness of Sarto and the Mexican. Neither Denton, Todd, nor I denied this explanation, but we discussed the matter at length among ourselves.

Denton went so far as to drive down to the Huntington Library to view the forbidden Johann Negus translation of the Book of Iod, that abhorrent and monstrous volume of ancient esoteric formulae about which curious legends still cling. Only a single copy of the original volume, written in the pre-human Ancient Tongue, is said to exist. Certainly few even know of the expurgated Johann Negus translation, but Denton had heard vague rumors about a passage in the book which he declared might be connected with the legends of the San Xavier bells.

When he returned from Los Angeles he brought a sheet of foolscap paper covered with his execrable penmanship. The passage he had copied from the Book of Iod was this:

The Dark Silent One dwelleth deep beneath the earth on the shore of the Western Ocean. Not one of those potent Old Ones from hidden worlds and other stars is He, for in earth’s hidden blackness He hath always dwelt. No name hath He, for He is the ultimate doom and the undying emptiness and silence of Old Night.

When earth is dead and lifeless and the stars pass into blackness, He will rise again and spread His dominion over all. For He hath naught to do with life and sunlight, but loveth the blackness and the eternal silence of the abyss. Yet can He be called to earth’s surface before His time, and the brown ones who dwell on the shore of the Western Ocean have power to do this by ancient spells and certain deep-toned sounds which reach His dwelling-place far below.

But there is great danger in such a summoning, lest He spread death and night before His time. For He bringeth darkness within the day, and blackness within the light; all life, all sound, all movement passeth away at His coming. He cometh sometimes within the eclipse, and although He hath no name, the brown ones know Him as Zushakon.

“There was a deletion at that point,” Denton said, as I glanced up from the excerpt. “The book’s expurgated, you know.”

“It’s very odd,” Todd said, picking up the paper and running his eyes over it. “But of course it’s merely a coincidence. Certainly, since folklore is based on natural phenomena, one can generally find modern parallels. The thunderbolts of Jove and Apollo’s arrows are merely lightning and sunstroke.”

“Never on them does the shining sun look down with his beams,” Denton quoted softly.“ ‘But deadly night is spread abroad over these hapless men.’ Remember Odysseus’ visit to the Land of the Dead?”

Todd’s mouth twisted wryly. “Well, what of it? I don’t expect Pluto to come up from Tartarus when the bells are hung. Do you! This is the twentieth century, such things don’t happen — in fact, never did happen.”

“Are you sure?” Denton asked. “Surely you don’t pretend to believe this cold weather we’re having is normal.”

I glanced up quickly. I had been wondering when someone would mention the abnormal chill in the air.

“It’s been cold before,” Todd said with a sort of desperate assurance. “And overcast, too. Just because we’re having some muggy weather is no reason for you to let your imagination get the upper hand. It’s— good God!”