Абрахам Меррит - Creep, Shadow!

I had heard Bill speaking – and was back in the room. The fear was gone. The wrath had remained.

I looked into the face of the Demoiselle Dahut. I thought I read triumph there, and a subtle amusement. I was quite sure of what had happened, and that there was no need of answering her interrupted question – if it had been interrupted. She knew. It was hypnotism of sorts, suggestion raised to the nth degree. I thought that if Bill were right in his suspicions, the Demoiselle Dahut had not been very wise to play a card like this so soon – either that, or damned sure of herself. I closed my mind quickly to that thought.

Bill, Lowell, and de Keradel were talking, Helen listening and watching me out of the corner of her eye. I whispered to the Demoiselle:

"I knew a witch-doctor down in Zululand who could do that same thing, Demoiselle de Keradel. He called the trick 'sending out the soul.' He was not so beautiful as you are; perhaps that is why he had to take so much more time to do it."

I was about to add that she had been as swift as the striking of a deadly snake, but held that back.

She did not trouble to deny. She asked:

"Is that all you think – Alain de Carnac?"

I laughed:

"No, I think that your voice is also of the sea."

And so it was; the softest, sweetest contralto I'd ever heard – low and murmurous and lulling, like the whisper of waves on a long smooth beach.

She said:

"But is that a compliment then? Many times you have compared me to the sea tonight. Is not the sea treacherous?"

"Yes," I said, and let her make what she would of that answer. She did not seem offended.

The dinner went on with talk of this and that. It was a good dinner, and so was the wine. The butler kept my glass filled so faithfully that I wondered whether Bill had given him orders. The Demoiselle was cosmopolitan in her points of view, witty, undeniably charming – to use that much misused word. She had the gift of being able to be what her conversation implied she was. There was nothing exotic, nothing mysterious about her now. She was only a modern, well-informed, cultivated young woman of extraordinary beauty. Helen was delightful. There wasn't a single thing for me to grow unpleasantly argumentative about, nor discourteous, nor insulting. I thought Bill was looking a bit puzzled; disconcerted – like a prophet who has foretold some happening which shows not the slightest sign of materializing. If de Keradel was interested in Dick's death, there was nothing to show it. For some time Lowell and he had been absorbed in low-toned discussion to the exclusion of the rest of us. Suddenly I heard Lowell say:

"But surely you do not believe in the objective reality of such beings?"

The question brought me sharply to attention. I remembered Dick's torn note – he had wanted Bill to consider something as objective instead of subjective; I saw that Bill was listening intently. The Demoiselle's eyes were upon Lowell, faint amusement in them.

De Keradel answered:

"I know they are objective."

Dr. Lowell asked, incredulously:

"You believe that these creatures, these demons – actually existed?"

"And still exist," said de Keradel. "Reproduce the exact conditions under which those who had the ancient wisdom evoked these beings – forces, presences, powers, call them what you will – and the doors shall open and They come through. That Bright One the Egyptians named Isis will stand before us as of old, challenging us to lift Her veil. And that Dark Power stronger than She, whom the Egyptians named Set and Typhon, but who had another name in the shrines of an older and wiser race – It will make Itself manifest. Yes, Dr. Lowell, and still others will come through the opened doors to teach us, to counsel us, to aid and obey us – "

"Or to command us, my father," said the Demoiselle, almost tenderly.

"Or to command us," echoed de Keradel, mechanically; some of the color had drained from his face, and I thought there was fear in the glance he gave his daughter.

I touched Bill's foot with mine, and felt an encouraging pressure. I raised my wine and squinted through it at de Keradel. I said, irritatingly explanatory:

"Dr. de Keradel is a true showman. If one provides the right theater, the right scenery, the right supporting cast, the right music and script and cues – the right demons or whatnot bounce out from the wings as the stars of the show. Well, I have seen some rather creditable illusions produced under such conditions. Real enough to deceive most amateurs – "

De Keradel's eyes dilated; he half rose from his chair; he whispered:

"Amateur! Do you imply that I am an amateur?"

I said, urbanely, still looking at my glass:

"Not at all. I said you were a showman."

He mastered his anger with difficulty; he said to Lowell:

"They are not illusions, Dr. Lowell. There is a pattern, a formula, to be observed. Is there anything more rigid than that formula by which the Catholic Church establishes communion with its God? The chanting, the prayers, the gestures – even the intonation of the prayers – all are fixed. Is not every ritual – Mohammedan, Buddhist, Shintoist, every act of worship throughout the world, in all religions – as rigidly prescribed? The mind of man recognizes that only by exact formula can it touch the minds that are not human. It is memory of an ancient wisdom, Dr. Caranac – but of that no more now. I tell you again that what comes upon my stage is not illusion."

I asked: "How do you know?"

He answered, quietly: "I do know."

Dr. Lowell said, placatingly: "Extremely strange, extremely realistic visions can be induced by combinations of sounds, odors, movements, and colors. There even seem to be combinations which can create in different subjects approximately the same visions – establish similar emotional rhythms. But I have never had evidence that these visions were anything but subjective."

He paused, and I saw his hands clench, the knuckles whiten; he said, slowly:

"Except – once."

De Keradel was watching him, the clenched hands could not have escaped his notice. He asked: "And that once?"

Lowell answered, with a curious harshness: "I have no evidence."

De Keradel went on: "But there is another element in this evocation which is not of the stage – nor of the showman, Dr. Caranac. It is, to use a chemical term, a catalyst. The necessary element to bring about a required result – itself remaining untouched and unchanged. It is a human element – a woman or man or child – who is en rapport with the Being evoked. Of such was the Pythoness at Delphi, who upon her tripod threw herself open to the God and spoke with his voice. Of such were the Priestesses of Isis of the Egyptians, and of Ishtar of the Babylonians – themselves the one and the same. Of such was the Priestess of Hecate, Goddess of Hell, whose secret rites were lost until I rediscovered them. Of such was the warrior-king who was Priest of tentacled Khalk-ru, the Kraken God of the Uighurs, and of such was that strange priest at whose summoning came the Black God of the Scyths, in the form of a monstrous frog – "

Bill broke in:

"But these worships are of the far-distant past. Surely, none has believed in them for many a century. Therefore this peculiar line of priests and priestesses must long ago have died out. How today could one be found?"

I thought the Demoiselle shot de Keradel a warning look, and was about to speak. He ignored her, swept away by this idea that ruled him, forced to expound, to justify, it. He said:

"But you are wrong. They do live. They live in the brains of those who sprang from them. They sleep in the brains of their descendants. They sleep until one comes who knows how to awaken them. And to that awakener – what reward! Not the golden and glittering trash in the tomb of some Tut-ankh-Amen, not the sterile loot of some Genghis Khan, or of Attila… shining pebbles and worthless metal… playthings. But storehouses of memories, hives of knowledge – knowledge that sets its possessor so high above all other men that he is as a god."