I write this with a profound sense of personal loss over the death two nights ago of Prescott Brandon. This was a severe blow to me—as I am sure it was to you and to all who knew him. I only hope the police will catch the vicious killers who did this senseless act—evidently thieves surprised while ransacking his office. Police believe the killers were high on drugs from the mindless brutality of their crime.
I had just received a copy of the third Allard volume, Unhallowed Places. A superbly designed book, and this tragedy becomes all the more insuperable with the realization that Scotty will give the world no more such treasures. In Sorrow, Alexander Stefroi”
Leverett stared at the letter in shock. He had not received news of Brandon’s death—had only a few days before opened a parcel from the publisher containing a first copy of Unhallowed Places. A line in Brandon’s last letter recurred to him—a line that seemed amusing to him at the time:
“Your sticks have bewildered a good many fans, Colin, and I’ve worn out a ribbon answering inquiries. One fellow in particular—a Major George Leonard—has pressed me for details, and I’m afraid that I told him too much. He has written several times for your address, but knowing how you value your privacy I told him simply to permit me to forward any correspondence. He wants to see your original sketches, I gather, but these overbearing occult-types give me a pain. Frankly, I wouldn’t care to meet the man myself.”
“Mr. Colin Leverett?”
Leverett studied the tall lean man who stood smiling at the doorway of his studio. The sports car he had driven up in was black and looked expensive. The same held for the turtleneck and leather slacks he wore, and the sleek briefcase he carried. The blackness made his thin face deathly pale. Leverett guessed his age to be late 40 by the thinning of his hair. Dark glasses hid his eyes, black driving gloves his hands.
“Scotty Brandon told me where to find you,” the stranger said.
“Scotty?” Leverett’s voice was wary.
“Yes, we lost a mutual friend, I regret to say. I’d been talking with him just before . . . But I see by your expression that Scotty never had time to write.”
He fumbled awkwardly. “I’m Dana Allard.”
“Allard?”
His visitor seemed embarrassed. “Yes—H. Kenneth Allard was my uncle.”
“I hadn’t realized Allard left a family,” mused Leverett, shaking the extended hand. He had never met the writer personally, but there was a strong resemblance to the few photographs he had seen. And Scotty had been paying royalty checks to an estate of some sort, he recalled.
“My father was Kent’s half-brother. He later took his father’s name, but there was no marriage, if you follow.”
“Of course.” Leverett was abashed. “Please find a place to sit down. And what brings you here?”
Dana Allard tapped his briefcase. “Something I’d been discussing with Scotty. Just recently I turned up a stack of my uncle’s unpublished manuscripts.” He unlatched the briefcase and handed Leverett a sheaf of yellowed paper. “Father collected Kent’s personal effects from the state hospital as next-of-kin. He never thought much of my uncle, or his writing. He stuffed this away in our attic and forgot about it. Scotty was quite excited when I told him of my discovery.”
Leverett was glancing through the manuscript—page on page of cramped handwriting, with revisions pieced throughout like an indecipherable puzzle. He had seen photographs of Allard manuscripts. There was no mistaking this.
Or the prose. Leverett read a few passages with rapt absorption. It was authentic—and brilliant.
“Uncle’s mind seems to have taken an especially morbid turn as his illness drew on,” Dana hazarded. “I admire his work very greatly but I find these last few pieces . . . Well, a bit too horrible. Especially his translation of his mythical Book of Elders.”
It appealed to Leverett perfectly. He barely noticed his guest as he pored over the brittle pages. Allard was describing a megalithic structure his doomed narrator had encountered in the crypts beneath an ancient churchyard. There were references to “elder glyphics” that resembled his lattice devices.
“Look here,” pointed Dana. “These incantations he records here from Alorri-Zrokros’s forbidden tome: ‘Yogth-Yugth-Sut-Hyrath-Yogng’—Hell, I can’t pronounce them. And he has pages of them.”
“This is incredible!” Leverett protested. He tried to mouth the alien syllables. It could be done. He even detected a rhythm.
“Well, I’m relieved that you approve. I’d feared these last few stories and fragments might prove a little too much for Kent’s fans.”
“Then you’re going to have them published?”
Dana nodded. “Scotty was going to. I just hope those thieves weren’t searching for this—a collector would pay a fortune. But Scotty said he was going to keep this secret until he was ready for announcement.” His thin face was sad.
“So now I’m going to publish it myself—in a deluxe edition. And I want you to illustrate it.”
“I’d feel honored!” vowed Leverett, unable to believe it.
“I really liked those drawings you did for the trilogy. I’d like to see more like those—as many as you feel like doing. I mean to spare no expense in publishing this. And those stick things . . .”
“Yes?”
“Scotty told me the story on those. Fascinating! And you have a whole notebook of them? May I see it?”
Leverett hurriedly dug the notebook from his file, returned to the manuscript.
Dana paged through the book in awe. “These things are totally bizarre—and there are references to such things in the manuscript, to make it even more fantastic. Can you reproduce them all for the book?”
“All I can remember,” Leverett assured him. “And I have a good memory. But won’t that be overdoing it?”
“Not at all! They fit into the book. And they’re utterly unique. No, put everything you’ve got into this book. I’m going to entitle it Dwellers in the Earth, after the longest piece. I’ve already arranged for its printing, so we begin as soon as you can have the art ready. And I know you’ll give it your all.”
He was floating in space. Objects drifted past him. Stars, he first thought. The objects drifted closer.
Sticks. Stick lattices of all configurations. And then he was drifting among them, and he saw that they were not sticks—not of wood. The lattice designs were of dead-pale substance, like streaks of frozen starlight. They reminded him of glyphics of some unearthly alphabet—complex, enigmatic symbols arranged to spell . . . what? And there was an arrangement—a three-dimensional pattern. A maze of utterly baffling intricacy . . .
Then somehow he was in a tunnel. A cramped, stone-lined tunnel through which he must crawl on his belly. The dank, moss-slimed stones pressed close about his wriggling form, evoking shrill whispers of claustrophobic dread.