Haggopian and Other Stories (56 page)

I shrugged off the feeling of dread which immediately sprang up in my innermost self and started to look up the section concerning the mirror. A great clock chimed out the hour of eleven somewhere in the night and distant lightning lit up the sky to the west beyond the windows of my room. One hour to midnight.

Still, my study
is
the most disconcerting place. What with those eldritch books on my shelves, their aged leather and ivory spines dully agleam with the reflection of my study light; and the
thing
I use as a paperweight, which has no parallel in any sane or ordered universe; and now with the mirror and diary, I was rapidly developing an attack of the fidgets unlike any I had ever known before. It was a shock for me to realise that I was just a little uneasy.

I thumbed through Feery’s often fanciful reconstruction of the
Necronomicon
until I found the relevant passage. The odds were that Feery had not altered this section at all, except, perhaps, to somewhat modernise the “mad” Arab’s old-world phraseology. Certainly it read like genuine Alhazred. Yes, there it was. And there, yet again, was that recurring hint of happenings at midnight:

…for while the Surface of the Glass is still—even as the Crystal Pool of Yith-Shesh, even as the Lake of Hali when the Swimmers are not at the Frothing—and while its Gates are locked in all the Hours of Day; yet, at the Witching Hour, One who knows—even One who guesses—may see in it all the Shades and Shapes of Night and the Pit, wearing the Visage of Those who saw before. And though the Glass may lie forgotten for ever its Power may not die, and it should be known:

That is not dead which can for ever lie;

And with strange aeons even death may die…

For many moments I pondered that weird passage and the even weirder couplet which terminated it, and the minutes ticked by in a solemn silence hitherto outside my experience at The Aspens.

It was the distant chime of the half-hour which roused me from my reverie to continue my reading of Brown-Farley’s diary. I purposely put my face away from the mirror and leaned back in my chair, thoughtfully scanning the pages. But there were only one or two pages left to read, and as best I can remember the remainder of that disjointed narrative rambled on in this manner:

10th. The nightmares on the
London
—all the way out from Alexandria to Liverpool—Christ knows I wish I’d flown. Not a single night’s sleep. Appears the so-called “legends” are not so fanciful as they seemed. Either that or my nerves are going! Possibly it’s just the echo of a guilty conscience. If that old fool Abu hadn’t been so damned close-mouthed—if he’d been satisfied with the opium and brandy instead of demanding money—and for what, I ask? There was no need for all that rough stuff. And his poxy waffle about “only wanting to protect me”. Rubbish! The old beggar’d long since cleaned the place out except for the mirror… That damned mirror! Have to get a grip on myself. What state must my nerves be in that I need to cover the thing up at night? Perhaps I’ve read too much from the
Necronomicon
! I wouldn’t be the first fool to fall for that blasted book’s hocus-pocus. Alhazred must have been as mad as Nitocris herself. Yet I suppose it’s possible that it’s all just imagination; there are drugs that can give the same effects, I’m sure. Could it be that the mirror has a hidden mechanism somewhere which releases some toxic powder or other at intervals? But what kind of mechanism would still be working so perfectly after the centuries that glass must have seen? And why always at midnight? Damned funny! And those
dreams
! There is one sure way to settle it, of course. I’ll give it a few more days and if things get no better, well—we’ll have to wait and see.

13th. That’s it, then. Tonight we’ll have it out in the open. I mean, what good’s a bloody psychiatrist who insists I’m perfectly well when I know I’m ill? That mirror’s behind it all! “Face your problems,” the fool said, “and if you do they cease to bother you.” That’s what I’ll do, then, tonight.

13th. Night. There, I’ve sat myself down and it’s eleven already. I’ll wait ’til the stroke of midnight and then I’ll take the cover off the glass and we’ll see what we’ll see. God! That a man like me should twitch like this! Who’d believe that only a few months ago I was steady as a rock? And all for a bloody mirror. I’ll just have a smoke and a glass. That’s better. Twenty minutes to go; good—soon be over now—p’raps tonight I’ll get a bit of sleep for a change! The way the place goes suddenly quiet, as though the whole house were
waiting
for something to happen. I’m damned glad I sent Johnson home. It’d be no good to let him see me looking like this. What a God-awful state to get oneself into! Five minutes to go. I’m tempted to take the cover off the mirror right now! There—midnight! Now we’ll have it!

And that was all there was!

I read it through again, slowly, wondering what there was in it which so alarmed me. And what a coincidence, I thought, reading that last line for the second time; for even as I did so the distant clock, muffled somewhere by the city’s mists, chimed out the hour of twelve.

I thank God, now, that he sent that far-off chime to my ears. I am sure it could only have been an act of Providence which caused me to glance round upon hearing it. For that still glass—that mirror which is quiet as the crystal pool of Yith-Shesh all the hours of day—
was still no longer
!

A
thing
, a bubbling blasphemous shape from lunacy’s most hellish nightmare, was squeezing its flabby pulp out through the frame of the mirror into my room—
and it wore a face where no face ever should have been.

I do not recall moving—opening my desk drawer and snatching out that which lay within—yet it seems I must have done so. I remember only the deafening blasts of sound from the bucking, silver-plated revolver in my clammy hand; and above the rattle of sudden thunder, the whine of flying fragments and the shivering of glass as the hell-forged bronze frame buckled and leapt from the wall.

I remember too, picking up the strangely
twisted
silver bullets from my Boukhara rug. And then I must have fainted.

• • •

The next morning I dropped the shattered fragments of the mirror’s glass overboard from the rail of the Thames Ferry and I melted down the frame to a solid blob and buried it deep in my garden. I burned the diary and scattered its ashes to the wind. Finally, I saw my doctor and had him prescribe a sleeping-draught for me. I knew I was going to need it.

I have said the thing had a face.

Indeed, atop the glistening, bubbling mass of that hell-dweller’s bulk there
was
a face. A composite face of which the two halves did not agree!
For one of them was the immaculately cruel visage of an ancient Queen of Egypt and the other was easily recognisable—from photographs I had seen in the newspapers—as the now anguished and lunatic features of a certain lately vanished explorer!

The Second Wish

I wrote this story in 1976 for Arkham House’s Ramsey Campbell-edited
New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
(1980). Not only a homage to Lovecraft (you will find several allusions to HPL’s stories in this one) but also to Robert E. Howard of Conan fame, “The Second Wish” is a fully fledged Mythos tale with just about every Mythos prop. But it’s also one of my personal favourites. Most recently it was reprinted in my hardcover collection,
Beneath the Moors & Darker Places
, TOR Books, 2002.

The scene was awesomely bleak: mountains gauntly grey and black towered away to the east, forming an uneven backdrop for a valley of hardy grasses, sparse bushes, and leaning trees. In one corner of the valley, beneath foothills, a scattering of shingle-roofed houses, with the very occasional tiled roof showing through, was enclosed and protected in the Old European fashion by a heavy stone wall.

A mile or so from the village—if the huddle of time-worn houses could properly be termed a village—leaning on a low rotting fence that guarded the rutted road from a steep and rocky decline, the tourists gazed at the oppressive bleakness all about and felt oddly uncomfortable inside their heavy coats. Behind them their hired car—a black Russian model as gloomy as the surrounding countryside, exuding all the friendliness of an expectant hearse—stood patiently waiting for them.

He was comparatively young, of medium build, dark-haired, unremarkably good-looking, reasonably intelligent, and decidedly idle. His early adult years had been spent avoiding any sort of real industry, a prospect which a timely and quite substantial inheritance had fortunately made redundant before it could force itself upon him. Even so, a decade of living at a rate far in excess of even his ample inheritance had rapidly reduced him to an almost penniless, unevenly cultured, high-ranking rake. He had never quite lowered himself to the level of a gigolo, however, and his womanizing had been quite deliberate, serving an end other than mere fleshly lust.

They had been ten very good years by his reckoning and not at all wasted, during which his expensive lifestyle had placed him in intimate contact with the cream of society; but while yet surrounded by affluence and glitter he had not been unaware of his own steadily dwindling resources. Thus, towards the end, he had set himself to the task of ensuring that his tenuous standing in society would not suffer with the disappearance of his so carelessly distributed funds; hence his philandering. In this he was not as subtle as he might have been, with the result that the field had narrowed down commensurately with his assets, until at last he had been left with Julia.

She was a widow in her middle forties but still fairly trim, rather prominently featured, too heavily made-up, not a little calculating, and very well-to-do. She did not love her consort—indeed she had never been in love—but he was often amusing and always thoughtful. Possibly his chief interest lay in her money, but that thought did not really bother her. Many of the younger, unattached men she had known had been after her money. At least Harry was not foppish, and she believed that in his way he did truly care for her.

Not once had he given her reason to believe otherwise. She had only twenty good years left and she knew it; money could only buy so much youth…Harry would look after her in her final years and she would turn a blind eye on those little indiscretions which must surely come—provided he did not become too indiscreet. He had asked her to marry him and she would comply as soon as they returned to London. Whatever else he lacked he made up for in bed. He was an extremely virile man and she had rarely been so well satisfied…

Now here they were together, touring Hungary, getting “far away from it all”.

“Well, is this remote enough for you?” he asked, his arm around her waist.

“Umm,” she answered. “Deliciously barren, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s all of that. Peace and quiet for a few days—it was a good idea of yours, Julia, to drive out here. We’ll feel all the more like living it up when we reach Budapest.”

“Are you so eager, then, to get back to the bright lights?” she asked. He detected a measure of peevishness in her voice.

“Not at all, darling. The setting might as well be Siberia for all I’m concerned about locale. As long as we’re together. But a girl of your breeding and style can hardly—”

“Oh, come off it, Harry! You can’t wait to get to Budapest, can you?”

He shrugged, smiled resignedly, thought:
You niggly old bitch!
and said, “You read me like a book, darling—but Budapest is just a wee bit closer to London, and London is that much closer to us getting married, and—”

“But you have me anyway,” she again petulantly cut him off. “What’s so important about being married?”

“It’s your friends, Julia,” he answered with a sigh. “Surely you know that?” He took her arm and steered her towards the car. “They see me as some sort of cuckoo in the nest, kicking them all out of your affections. Yes, and it’s the money, too.”

“The money?” she looked at him sharply as he opened the car door for her. “What money?”

“The money I haven’t got!” He grinned ruefully, relaxing now that he could legitimately speak his mind, if not the truth. “I mean, they’re all certain it’s your money I’m after, as if I was some damned gigolo. It’s hardly flattering to either one of us. And I’d hate to think they might convince you that’s all it is with me. But once we’re married I won’t give a damn what they say or think. They’ll just have to accept me, that’s all.”

Reassured by what she took to be pure naïveté, she smiled at him and pulled up the collar of her coat. Then the smile fell from her face, and though it was not really cold she shuddered violently as he started the engine.

“A chill, darling?” He forced concern into his voice.

“Umm, a bit of one,” she answered, snuggling up to him. “And a headache too. I’ve had it ever since we stopped over at—oh, what’s the name of the place? Where we went up over the scree to look at that strange monolith?”