The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith by Clark Ashton Smith

Author:Clark Ashton Smith [Smith, Clark Ashton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Comics & Graphic Novels, General, Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction; American, Fiction, Short Stories
ISBN: 9781597803632
Google: 7PKhAAAACAAJ
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2007-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

Of course, all this was errant gibberish. Probably it was the strange, unhealthy look of utter absorption with which my employer listened, more than that damnable passage from the Necronomicon, which caused my nervousness and made me start violently when, toward the end of my reading, I heard an indescribable slithering noise in the hall outside. But when I finished the paragraph and looked up at Carnby, I was more than startled by the expression of stark, staring fear which his features had assumed—an expression as of one who is haunted by some hellish phantom. Somehow, I got the feeling that he was listening to that odd noise in the hallway rather than to my translation of Abdul Alhazred.

“The house is full of rats,” he explained, as he caught my inquiring glance. “I have never been able to get rid of them, with all my efforts.”

The noise, which still continued, was that which a rat might make in dragging some object slowly along the floor. It seemed to draw closer, to approach the door of Carnby’s room; and then, after an intermission, it began again and receded. My employer’s agitation was marked— he listened with fearful intentness and seemed to follow the progress of the sound with a terror that mounted as it drew near and decreased a little with its recession.

“I am very nervous,” he said. “I have worked too hard lately, and this is the result. Even a little noise upsets me.”

The sound had now died away somewhere in the house. Carnby appeared to recover himself in a measure.

“Will you please re-read your translation?” he requested. “I want to follow it very carefully, word by word.”

I obeyed. He listened with the same look of unholy absorption as before; and this time we were not interrupted by any noises in the hallway. Carnby’s face grew paler, as if the last remnant of blood had been drained from it, when I read the final sentences; and the fire in his hollow eyes was like phosphorescence in a deep vault.

“That is a most remarkable passage,” he commented. “I was doubtful about its meaning, with my imperfect Arabic; and I have found that the passage is wholly omitted in the Latin of Olaus Wormius. Thank you for your scholarly rendering—you have certainly cleared it up for me.”

His tone was dry and formal, as if he were repressing himself and holding back a world of unsurmisable thoughts and emotions. Somehow I felt that Carnby was more nervous and upset than ever, and also that my rendering from the Necronomicon had in some mysterious manner contributed to his perturbation. He wore a ghastly brooding expression, as if his mind were busy with some unwelcome and forbidden theme.

However, seeming to collect himself, he asked me to translate another passage. This turned out to be a singular incantatory formula for the exorcism of the dead, with a ritual that involved the use of rare Arabian spices and the proper intoning of at least a hundred names of ghouls and demons.

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