Haggopian and Other Stories

“Your memory serves you well,” said Gifford. “He’d found a way to call The Black, all right—and he’d used it. I saw Symonds die that way, and I knew there had been others before him. People who’d crossed Gedney; and of course The Black was a perfect murder weapon.”

Arnold nodded in the moonlight. “Yes, it was…” And to himself: …And will be again!

“Do you recall the actual machinery of the thing?” Gifford asked.

Careful—something warned Arnold—careful! He shrugged. “Something of it. Not much.”

“Oh, come now!” Gifford chided. “Eight years as leader of your coven, and far more powerful now than Gedney ever was, and you’d tell me you never bothered to look into the thing? Hah!” And to himself: Ah, no, friend Arnold. You’ll have to do better than that. Squirm, my treacherous little worm, squirm!

“Something of it!” Arnold snapped. “It involves a card, inscribed with Ptetholite runes. That was the lure, the scent by which The Black would track its victim, Gedney’s sacrifice. The card was passed to the victim, and then…then…”

“Then Gedney would say the words of the invocation,” Gifford finished it for him. “And The Black would come, appearing out of nowhere, black snowflakes settling on the sacrifice, smothering, drowning, sucking out life and soul!”

Arnold nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes…”

They had come to the end of the path, a bank that descended to a broad, moonlit expanse of water rippled by the light wind. “Hah!” Gifford grunted. “A lake! Well, we’ll just have to retrace our steps, that’s all. A waste of time—but still, it allowed us a little privacy and gave us the chance to talk. A lot has happened, after all, since I went off to America to start a coven there, and you stayed here to carry on.”

They turned back. “A lot, yes,” Arnold agreed. “And as you say, I am far more powerful now than ever Gedney was. But what of you? I’ve heard that you, too, have had your successes.”

“Oh, you know well enough that I’ve prospered,” Gifford answered. “My coven is strong—stronger, I suspect, than yours. But then again, I am its leader.” He quickly held up a hand to ward off protests. “That was not said to slight you, Arnold. But facts speak for themselves. It wasn’t idle chance that took me abroad. I went because of what I knew I’d find there. Oh, we divided Gedney’s knowledge, you and I—his books—but I knew of others. And more than mere books. There are survivals even now in old New England, Arnold, if a man knows where to seek them out. Cults and covens beyond even my belief when I first went there. And all of them integrated now—under me! Loosely as yet, it’s true, but time will change all that.”

“And you’d integrate us, too, eh?” the smaller man half-snarled, rounding on his companion. “And you even had the nerve to come here and tell me it to my face! Well, your American influence can’t help you here in England, Gifford. You were a fool to come alone!”

“Alone?” the other’s voice was dangerously low. “I am never alone. And you are the fool, my friend, not I.”

In their arguing the two had strayed from the path. They stumbled on a while in rough, damp turf and through glossy-leaved shrubbery—until once more the stack of an old chimney loomed naked against the moon. And now that they had their bearings once more, both men reached a simultaneous decision—that it must end here and now.

“Here,” said Arnold, “right here is where Gedney died. He gave Crow one of his cards, called The Black, and loosed it upon the man.”

“Oh, Crow had set up certain protections about his house,” Gifford continued the tale, “but they were useless against this. In the end he had to resort to a little devilishness of his own.”

“Aye, a clever man, Crow,” said Arnold. “He knew what was writ on Geph’s broken columns. The Ptetholites had known and used Yibb-Tstll’s black blood, and they’d furnished the clue, too.”

“Indeed,” Gifford mocked, “and now it appears you know far more than you pretended, eh?” And in a low tone he chanted:

“Let him who calls The Black

Be aware of the danger—

His victim may be protected

By the spell of running water,

And turn the called-up darkness

Against the very caller…”

Arnold listened, smiled grimly and nodded. “I looked into it later,” he informed. “Crow kept records of all of his cases, you know? An amazing man. When he found himself under attack he heeded a certain passage from the Necronomicon. This passage:

“‘…from the space which is not space, into any time when the Words are spoken, can the holder of the Knowledge summon The Black, blood of Yibb-Tstll, that which liveth apart from him and eateth souls, that which smothers and is called Drowner. Only in water can one escape the drowning; that which is in water drowneth not…”