'I rather fancy your dismissal of Plato and Borellus as a bit too perfunctory Mr Davies! I can only suspect that your appraisal of their works, to say nothing of the work of Lollius Urbicus, is undertaken with the same attitude of mind with which the Inquisition viewed the work of Galileo Galilei; and, of course, if Sayce hadn't unearthed their remains all over Asia Minor and Northern Syria you'd probably still be denying that the Hittites ever existed!' I- smiled.
'Touche!' he said But now you're talking, Mr Crow! Remains, you said Now, that's it exactly! After all, remains are proof! But tell me please — what remains are there to show that that abominable invention of Urbicus' ever existed?'
'You think he created Yegg-ha himself then?' I asked. 'You believe that the featureless, ten-foot-tall monstrosity he mentioned in his notes was purely a figment of his own imagination?'
'Oh, no.- I wouldn't be so presumptuous. Urbicus probably got the idea from local legends or fairy tales. Later, rather than write off the ignominious loss of a half centuria of soldiers to a barbarian attack, he attributed their annihilation to this giant, faceless God . .
'Hmmm — clever, I answered, 'but how about the communal grave recently unearthed at Briddock Fort — with forty-eight fantastically mutilated Roman skeletons haphazardly piled, one upon the other, some still encased in their armour, as if buried in great haste?'
That shook him a bit. 'I'd forgotten that,' he admitted.
'But for God's sake, man — there must have been thousands of small skirmishes which never got chronicled! You see, that's the whole point, Mr Crow; you talk about these things in exactly the same way in which you wrote about them in that damned story of yours — as though you believe in them conclusively! As though you actually believe that a great, murderous, lunatic thing was called up from hell by the barbarians to do battle with the Romans! As though you have definite proof — which you haven't. No, you shouldn't have done your story as an historical document at all. God only knows how many poor, deluded little lore-swallowers you'll have galloping all over Briddock and Housesteads, awesomely trembling at the thought that they're perhaps treading the same ground upon which the, Romans did fearsome battle with the hideous Yegg-ha!'
While he sat there fuming I poured more brandy into his glass and grinned at him. 'Well, I've obviously made a literary enemy! I'm sorry about that because it was my intention to ask you to illustrate my next book. But anyway, tell me — have you ever seen that horrible, ten-foot chunk of granite statuary in the Roman Antiquities section of the British Museum?'
'Yes, I have; from Limestone Bank, I believe. A stubby-winged thing much similar to the God in your story, with defaced features and . . .' He checked himself. 'Just what are you getting at?'
'Try to think, Mr Davies — didn't you find it funny that the features of that statue were so cleverly, so smoothly, er, defaced? Why! If one looks at it at all closely it almost appears as though it wasn't intended to have any features . .
He choked over his brandy. I reached for his glass and
filled it again as he sputtered and coughed, dabbing at his lips with a handkerchief, getting himself under control.
'There you go again! Of all the prepos--'
'I've been unfair, Mr Davies.' I shut him off. 'I've kept you in suspense too long and you're losing your patience. Drink your brandy . .
'I beg your pardon?'
'Drink your brandy, I repeated_ 'You'll need it.' I opened my writing cabinet and took out an object cowled unconventionally in a tea-cosy. I balanced it upon the table. Then I pointed to the book in front of my bewildered visitor and said 'Page thirty-four, second paragraph . . : As Mr Davies fumblingly, suspiciously found the page and paragraph I stroked my item of supporting evidence beneath its tea-cosy cover.
Eventually he looked up from the book It relates to a walk Urbicus took over the countryside shortly after his men allegedly disposed of your monster. Six of his best men went with him. So what?'
He was looking for a place to bury something, and needed those men to carry it,' I explained. 'He wanted it hidden so that the barbarians wouldn't be able to use whatever powers of, er - what was that word you used? - revivication they might have possessed upon it.'
Mr Davies opened his mouth to stutter a denial but I cut him off. 'You see, I've examined the whole length of. Hadrian's Wall in that area, between Housesteads and Briddock, and eventually I found the right spot. I'm quite a little archaeologist, you know, but even if I hadn't been, Urbicus' description,' - I nodded at the book which he had put down, - 'as with his description of the temple at. Barrburgh, fitted the spot exactly. Surprisingly enough, the countryside hasn't changed all that much in eighteen
centuries; all I had to do was look for the, place where I would have put the body if I'd been Urbicus. It took me five weeks but I did eventually find it.'
'What on Earth are you talking—'
I lifted the tea-cosy and passed the football-sized item it concealed over the table for Mr Davies' incredulous inspection.
I made him promise to keep it to himself; I cannot say I fancy the idea of crowds of boffins disturbing my privacy and I certainly would never part with that item of supporting evidence. Not only that but he promised to illustrate my next book.
There are many outré items in Blowne House; a weird, four-handed clock which ticks all out of rhyme, the Cthaat Aquadingen with its nameless binding, a crystal-ball which is so disturbing to look upon that I have to keep it locked away – and many others equally as strange as these. But I am particularly proud of my paperweight –though I will admit it does seem peculiar to put such an odd item to such a use. You see, it's a rather large, socketless skull...
With wire hooks screwed into them the wings make excellent coat-hangers.
BILLY'S OAK
THIS IS ANOTHER tale of an unconventional ghost. More I can't say . . .
Having enjoyed a surprising measure of success with my latest book, Here Be Witches!; and, in the process of researching for that 'documentary' volume, having stumbled across various mentions of a certain 'black' book — the Cthaat Aquadingen, an almost legendary collection of spells and incantations purported to relate, among other things, to the raising of certain water-elementals — I was considerably put out to discover that the British Museum did not have a copy; or, if there was a copy at the museum, then for some reason the controllers of that vast establishment were reluctant to permit its perusal! Yet I especially desired to see a copy, in connection with a companion volume to Here Be Witches!, to be entitled Forbidden Books!, which my publisher was pressing me to start work upon.
It was this reluctance on the part of the Curator of the Rare Books Department to answer my inquiries with anything other than the most perfunctory replies which prompted me to get in touch with. Titus Crow; a London-dwelling collector of obscure and eldritch volumes who, 1 had heard it rumoured, held a copy of the very book I wished to consult in his private library.
In prompt reply to a hastily scribbled letter Mr Crow invited me round to Blowne House — his residence onthe outskirts of the city — assuring me that he did indeed own a copy of the Cthaat Aquadingen and that with one provision and on one condition I might be allowed to check through its contents. The provision was that any projected visit to Blowne House would have to be paid during the later hours of the evening; for, as he was currently engaged upon some studying himself, and because he was better able to concentrate at night, he was retiring very late and was rarely out of bed before noon. This, plus the fact that his afternoons were taken up by more mundane but nevertheless essential labours, left him only the evenings in which to work or entertain visitors. Not, as he was quick to explain, that he was given to entertaining visitors very often. In fact, had he not already acquainted himself with my earlier work he would have been obliged to pointblank refuse my proposal. Too many 'cranks' had already attempted the penetration of his retreat.