Black Reaper, The by Capes Bernard

Author:Capes, Bernard [Capes, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Short Stories
ISBN: 9781553102083
Publisher: Christopher Roden/Ash-Tree Press
Published: 2012-02-09T22:00:00+00:00

The Apothecary’s Revenge

PROMINENT, under the shadow of the projecting gable, the little gilded bason and lancet above the door reflected back the light from a single dismal lantern, burning a cotton wick, which hung from a bracket over the archway opposite. It was nearing sundown, and the few pedestrians abroad walked hurriedly and stealthily, keeping in the middle of the street as if they feared some lurking ambush. One of these, a tall, muffled figure of a man, with a drawn, agitated countenance, wheeled suddenly, and, pushing without a pause through the unlocked doorway under the gilded sign, mounted the flight of complaining stairs which rose before him in the gloom beyond. Evidently familiar with the place, the visitor, on reaching the landing, knocked fearfully but resolutely on a dark oblong in the obscurity which betokened where a closed door broke the panelled surface of the wall.

A groan or sigh, some sound indefinite but sufficient, responding, he turned the handle, his long fingers clouding it with a clammy moisture, and, edging round the door, closed it softly behind him and stood looking eagerly towards the end of the room. Its sole occupant, the learned Quinones, that miserly apothecary whose wisdom, nevertheless, served him for a perennial harvest, was, he knew well enough, notoriously chary of speech, grudging it to others as though, like the fairy-gifted maiden’s, there were a present of a jewel in every word he let drop. Saturnine, austere, caustic in his few utterances, he was wont to vouchsafe small comment on the catalogues of ills and vapours that were perpetually laid before him; but a phrase with him, so famous was he, took all the force of a prescription. Thus regarded, it was little likely that he would forego the principles of a lifetime for the sake of him who had now broken in upon his solitude.

He was seated at a table in the window opposite the door, his back to the intruder, his left ear turned a little, as if in some listening irascibility over the interruption. The fading alchemy of the sunset, dropping in flakes and dust through the diamond-paned casement, rimmed the hunched silhouette of him with a faint aura, and made an amber mist of the dry thin hair on his scalp, and turned the narrow section of cheek visible from lead to gold. It was to this strangely-crowned and indeterminate shadow that the visitor addressed himself, in hurried, fluttering speech, the true purport of which only gathered form as desperation lent it eloquence:

‘You know me, Quinones—yes, you know me, learned master—as I know you. No need to waste a look on recognition. My voice is stored in your memory, with other debts to be liquidated. You do not forget these things.’

He took an impulsive step forward, and the board creaked and jumped under his foot. It seemed as if the figure in the chair started slightly, and then settled again to its listening. The visitor held out his hands with an imploring gesture.

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