'My library,' he told them, 'my beautiful books.' With the opening of the door light had flooded the corridor, a beam broad as the opening in which musty motes were caught, drifting, eddying about in the disturbed air. The large room - bare except for a solitary chair, a table, and tier upon tier of volumeweighted shelves arrayed against the walls - had a massive window composed of many tiny panes.
Outside the sun had finally won its battle with the clouds; it shone wanly afar, above the distant mountains, its autumn beam somehow penetrating the layers of grime on the small panes.
'Dust!' cried the ancient. øl~he dust of decades - of decay! I cannot keep it down.' He turned to them.
'But see, you must sign.'
'Sign?' Harry questioned. 'Oh, I see. A visitors' book.' 'Indeed, for how else might I remember those who visit me here? See, look at all the names...'
The old man had taken a leather-bound volume from the table. It was not a thick book, and as M~hrsen turned the parchment leaves they could see that each page bore a number of signatures, each signature being dated. Not one entry was less than ten years old. Harry turned back the pages to the first entry and stared at it. The ink had faded with the centuries so that he could not easily make out the ornately flourished signature. The date, on the other hand, was still quite clear:
'Frfihling, 1611.'
'An old book indeed,' he commented, q~ut recently, it seems, visitors have been scarce...' Though he made no mention of it, frankly he could see little point in his signing such a book.
'Sign nevertheless,' the old man gurgled, almost as if he could read Harry's mind. 'Yes, you must, and the madam too.' Harry reluctantly took out a pen, and M~hrsen watched intently as they scribbled their signatures.
'Ah, good, good!' he chortled, rubbing his hands together. Here we have it - two more visitors, two more names. It makes an old man happy, sometimes, to remember his visitors... And sometimes it makes him sad.'
'Oh?' Julia said, interested despite herself. ~fay sad?'
'Because I know that many of them who visited me here are no more, of course!' He blinked great yellow eyes at them.
'But look, look here,' he continued, pointing a grimy sharp-nailed finger at a signature. ~his one:
"Justin Geoffrey, 12 June, 1926." A young American peet, he was. A man of great promise. Alas, he gazed too long upon the Black Stone!'
The Black Stone?' Harry frowned. 'But-'
'And here, two years earlier: "Charles Dexter Ward" - another American, come to see my books.
And here, an Englishman this time, one of your own countrymen, "John Kingsley Brown."' He let the pages flip through filthy fingers. 'And here another, but much more recently. See: "Hamilton Tharpe, November, 1959." Ah, I remember Mr Tharpe well! We shared many a rare discussion here in this very room. He aspired to the priesthood, but - ' He sighed. 'Yes, seekers after knowledge all, but many of them ill-fated, I fear...'
'You mentioned the Black Stone,' Julia said. 'I wondered - ?'
'Hmm? Oh, nothing. An old legend, nothing more. It is believed to be very bad luck to gaze upon the stone.'
'Yes,' Harry nodded. 'We were told much the same thing in Stregoicavar.'
'Ah!' M~hrsen immediately cried, snapping shut the book of names, causing his visitors to jump. 'So you, too, have seen the Black Stone?' He returned the volume to the table, then regarded them again, nodding curiously. Teeth yellow as his eyes showed as he betrayed a sly, suggestive smile.
'Now see here -' Harry began, irrational alarm and irritation building in him, welling inside.
M~hrsen's attitude, however, changed on the instant. 'A myth, a superstition, a fairy story!' he cried, holding out his hands in the manner of a conjurer
who has nothing up his sleeve. 'After all, what is a stone but a stone?'
'We'll have to be going,' Julia said in a faint voice. Harry noticed how she leaned on him, how her hand trembled as she clutched his arm.
'Yes,' he told their wretched host, 'I'm afraid we really must go.'
'But you have not seen the beautiful books!' M~hrsen protested. 'Look, look -' Down from a shelf he pulled a pair of massive antique tomes and opened them on the table. They were full of incredible, dazzling illuminated texts; and despite themselves, their feelings of strange revulsion, Harry and Julia handled the ancient works and admired their great beauty.
'And this book, and this.' M5hrsen piled literary treasures before them. 'See, are they not beautiful.
And now you are glad you came, yes?'
'Why, yes, I suppese we are,' Harry grudgingly replied.
'Good, good! I will be one moment - some refreshment - please look at the books. Enjoy them...'
And M~hrsen was gone, shuffling quickly out of the door and away into gloom.
These books,' Julia said as soon as they were alone. 'They must be worth a small fortune!'
'And there are thousands of them,' Harry answered, his voice awed and not a little envious. 'But what do you think of the old boy?'
'He - frightens me,' she shuddered. 'And the way he smells!'
'Ssh? he held a finger up to his lips. 'He'll hear you. Where's he gone, anyway?'
'He said something about refreshment. I certainly hope he doesn't think I'll eat anything he's prepared!'
'Look here!' Harry called. He had moved over to a bookshelf near the window and was fingering the spines of a particularly musty-looking row of books. 'Do you know, I believe I recognize some of these titles? My father was always interested in the occult, and I can remember - '
'The occult?' Julia echoed, cutting him off, her voice nervous again. He had not noticed it before, but she was starting to look her age. It always happened when her nerves became frazzled, and then all the makeup in the world could not remove the stress lines.
'The occult, yes,' he replied. 'You know, the "Mystic Arts", the "Supernatural", and what have you.
But what a collection! There are books here in Old German, in Latin, Dutch - and listen to some of the titles:
'De Lapide Philosophico . . . De Vermis Mysteriis . . . Othuum Omnicia ... Liber Ivonis ...
Necronomicon.' He gave a low whistle, then: 'I wonder what the British Museum would offer for this lot?
They must be near priceless!'
'They are priceless!' came a guttural gloating cry from the open door. M~hrsen entered, bearing a tray with a crystal decanter and three large crystal glasses. 'But please, I ask you not to touch them.
They are the pride of my whole library.'
The old man put the tray upon an uncluttered corner of the table, unstoppered the decanter, and poured liberal amounts of wine. Harry came to the table, lifted his glass, and touched it to his lips.
The wine was deep, red, sweet. For a second he frowned, then his eyes opened in genuine appreciation. 'Excellent!' he declared.
'The best,' MShrsen agreed, 'and almost one hundred years old. I have only six more bottles of this vintage. I keep them in the catacombs. When you are ready you shall see the catacombs, if you so desire.
Ah, but there is something down there that you will find most interesting, compared to which my books are dull, uninteresting things.'
'I don't really think that I care to see your - ' Julia began, but MShrsen quickly interrupted.
'A few seconds only,' he pleaded, 'which you will remember for the rest of your lives. Let me fill your glasses.'
The wine had warmed her, calming her treacherous nerves. She could see that Harry, despite his initial reservations, was now eager to accompany M~hrsen to the catacombs.
'We have a little time,' Harry urged. 'Perhaps - ?' 'Of course,' the old man gurgled, 'time is not so short, eh?' He threw back his own drink and noisily smacked his lips, then shepherded his guests out of the room, mumbling as he did so: 'Come, come - this way - only a moment - no more than that.'
And yet again they followed him, this time because there seemed little else to do; deeper into the gloom of the high-ceilinged corridor, to a place where MShrsen took candles from a recess in the wall and lit them; then on down two, three flights of stone steps into a nitrous vault deep beneath the ruins; and from there a dozen or so paces to the subterranean room in which, reclining upon a couch of faded silk cushions, MShrsen's revelation awaited them.