The Second Wish and Other Exhalations Read online

  “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. Möhrsen 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,” Möhrsen 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 Möhrsen 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 Möhrsen 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 Möhrsen 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, Möhrsen’s revelation awaited them.

  The room itself was dry as dust, but the air passing gently through held the merest promise of moisture, and perhaps this rare combination had helped preserve the object on the couch. There she lay — central in her curtain-veiled cave, behind a circle of worn, vaguely patterned stone tablets, reminiscent of a miniature Stonehenge — a centuried mummy-parchment figure, arms crossed over her abdo­men, remote in repose. And yet somehow … unquiet.

  At her feet lay a leaden casket, a box with a hinged lid, closed, curiously like a small coffin. A design on the lid, obscure in the poor light, seemed to depict some mythic creature, half-toad, half-dog. Short tentacles or feelers fringed the thing’s mouth. Harry traced the dusty raised outline of this chimera with a forefinger.

  “It is said she had a pet — a companion creature — which slept beside her in that casket,” said Möhrsen, again anticipating Harry’s question.

  Curiosity overcame Julia’s natural aversion. “Who is … who was she?”

  “The last true Priestess of the Cult,” Möhrsen answered. “She died over four hundred years ago.”

  “The Turks?” Harry asked.

  “The Turks, yes. But if it had not been them … who can say? The cult always had its opponents.”

  “The cult? Don’t you mean the order?” Harry looked puzzled. “I’ve heard that you’re — ah — a man of God. And if this place was once a church—”

  “A man of God?” Möhrsen laughed low in his throat. “No, not of your God, my friend. And this was not a church but a temple. And not an order, a cult. I am its priest; one of the last, but one day there may be more. It is a cult which can never die.” His voice, quiet now, never­theless echoed like a warning, intensified by the acoustics of the cave.

  “I think,” said Julia, her own voice weak once more, “that we should leave now, Harry.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Möhrsen, “the air down here, it does not agree with you. By all means leave — but first there is the legend.”

  “Legend?” Harry repeated him. “Surely not another legend?”

  “It is said,” Möhrsen quickly continued, “that if one holds her hand and makes a wish …”

  “No!” Julia cried, shrinking away from the mummy. “I couldn’t touch that!”

  “Please, please,” said Möhrsen, holding out his arms to her, “do not be afraid. It is only a myth, nothing more.”

  Julia stumbled away from him into Harry’s arms. He held her for a moment until she had regained control of herself, then turned to the old man. “All right, how do I go about it? Let me hold her hand and make a wish — but then we must be on our way. I mean, you’ve been very hospitable, but—”

  “I understand,” Möhrsen answered. “This is not the place for a gentle, sensitive lady. But did you say that you wished to take the hand of the priestess?”

  “Yes,” Harry answered, thinking to himself: “if that’s the only way to get to hell out of here!”

  Julia stepped uncertainly, shudderingly back against the curtained wall as Harry approached the couch. Möhrsen directed him to kneel; he did so, taking a leathery claw in his hand. The elbow joint of the mummy moved with surprising ease as he lifted the hand from her withered abdomen. It felt not at all dry but quite cool and firm. In his mind’s eye Harry tried to look back through the centuries. He wondered who the girl had really been, what she had been like. “I wish,” he said to himself, “that I could know you as you were …”

  Simultaneous with the unspoken thought, as if engen­dered of it, Julia’s bubbling shriek of terror shattered the silence of the vault, setting Harry’s hair on end and causing him to leap back away from the mummy. Furthermore, it had seemed that at the instant of Julia’s scream, a tingle as of an electrical charge had travelled along his arm into his body.

  Now Harry could see what had happened. As he had taken the mummy’s withered claw in his hand, so Julia had been driven to clutch at the curtains for support. Those curtains had not been properly hung but merely draped over the stone surface of the cave’s walls; Julia had brought them rustling down. Her scream had originated in being suddenly confronted by the hideous bas-reliefs which completely covered the walls, figures and shapes that seemed to leap and cavort in the flickering light of Möhrsen’s candles.

  Now Julia sobbed and threw herself once more into Harry’s arms, clinging to him as he gazed in astonish­ment and revulsion at the monstrous carvings. The central theme of these was an octopodal creature of vast propor­tions — winged, tentacled, and dragonlike, and yet with a vaguely anthropomorphic outline — and around it danced all the demons of hell. Worse than this main horror itself, however, was what its attendant minions were doing to the tiny but undeniably human figures, which also littered the walls. And there, too, as if directing the nightmare activities of a group of these small, horned horrors, was a girl — with a leering dog-toad abortion that cavorted gleefully about her feet!

  Hieronymus Bosch himself could scarcely have conceived such a scene of utterly depraved torture and degradation, and horror finally burst into livid rage in Harry as he turned on the exultant keeper of this nighted crypt. “A temple, you said, you old devil! A temple to what? — to that obscenity?”

  “To Him, yes!” Möhrsen exulted, thrusting his hook­nose closer to the rock-cut carvings and holding up the candles the better to illuminate them. “To Cthulhu of the tentacled face, and to all his lesser brethren.”

  Without another word, more angry than he could ever remember being, Harry reached out and bunched up th
e front of the old man’s coat in his clenched fist. He shook Möhrsen like a bundle of moth-eaten rags, cursing and threatening him in a manner which later he could scarcely recall.

  “God!” he finally shouted. “It’s a damn shame the Turks didn’t raze this whole nest of evil right down to the ground! You … you can lead the way out of here right now, at once, or I swear I’ll break your neck where you stand!”

  “If I drop the candles,” Möhrsen answered, his voice like black gas bubbles breaking the surface of a swamp, “we will be in complete darkness!”

  “No, please!” Julia cried. “Just take us out of here …”

  “If you value your dirty skin,” Harry added, “you’ll keep a good grip on those candles!”

  Möhrsen’s eyes blazed sulphurous yellow in the candle­light and he leered hideously. Harry turned him about, gripped the back of his grimy neck, and thrust him ahead, out of the blasphemous temple. With Julia stumbling in the rear, they made their way to a flight of steps that led up into daylight, emerging some twenty-five yards from the main entrance.

  They came out through tangled cobwebs into low decaying vines and shrubbery that almost hid their exit. Julia gave one long shudder, as if shaking off a nightmare, and then hastened to the car. Not once did she look back.

  Harry released Möhrsen who stood glaring at him, shielding his yellow eyes against the weak light. They confronted each other in this fashion for a few moments, until Harry turned his back on the little man to follow Julia to the car. It was then that Möhrsen whispered:

  “Do not forget: I did not force you to do anything. I did not make you touch anything. You came here of your own free will.”

  When Harry turned to throw a few final harsh words at him, the old man was already disappearing down into the bowels of the ruins.

  In the car as they drove along the track through the sparsely clad trees to the road, Julia was very quiet. At last she said: “That was quite horrible. I didn’t know such people existed.”

  “Nor did I,” Harry answered.

  “I feel filthy,” she continued. “I need a bath. What on earth did that creature want with us?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. I think he must be insane.”

  “Harry, let’s not go straight back to the inn. Just drive around for a while.” She rolled down her window, breath­ing deeply of the fresh air that flooded in before lying back in the seat and closing her eyes. He looked at her, thinking: “God! — but you’re certainly showing your age now, my sweet’ … but he couldn’t really blame her.

  There were two or three tiny villages within a few miles of Szolyhaza, centres of peasant life compared to which Szolyhaza was a veritable capital. These were mainly farm­ing communities, some of which were quite picturesque. Nightfall was still several hours away and the rain had moved on, leaving a freshness in the air and a beautiful warm glow over the hills, so that they felt inclined to park the car by the roadside and enjoy a drink at a tiny Gasthaus.

  Sitting there by a wide window that overlooked the street, while Julia composed herself and recovered from her ordeal, Harry noticed several posters on the wall of the building opposite. He had seen similar posters in Szolyhaza, and his knowledge of the language was just sufficient for him to realize that the event in question — whatever that might be — was taking place tonight. He determined, out of sheer curiosity, to question Herr Debrec about it when they returned to the inn. After all, there could hardly be very much of importance happening in an area so out-of- the-way. It had already been decided that nothing should be said about their visit to the ruins, the exceedingly unpleasant hour spent in the doubtful company of Herr Möhrsen.

  Twilight was settling over the village when they got back. Julia, complaining of a splitting headache, bathed and went straight to her bed. Harry, on the other hand, felt strangely restless, full of physical and mental energy. When Julia asked him to fetch her a glass of water and a sleeping pill, he dissolved two pills, thus ensuring that she would

  remain undisturbed for the night. When she was asleep he tidied himself up and went down to the bar.

  After a few drinks he buttonholed Herr Debrec and questioned him about the posters; what was happening tonight? Debrec told him that this was to be the first of three nights of celebration. It was the local shooting carnival, the equivalent of the German Schützenfest, when prizes would be presented to the district’s best rifle shots.

  There would be sideshows and thrilling rides on ma­chines specially brought in from the cities — members of the various shooting teams would be dressed all in hunter’s green — beer and wine would flow like water and there would be good things to eat — oh, and all the usual trap­pings of a festival. This evening’s main attraction was to be a masked ball, held in a great barn on the outskirts of a neighbouring village. It would be the beginning of many a fine romance. If the Herr wished to attend the festivities, Debrec could give him directions … ?

  Harry declined the offer and ordered another drink. It was odd the effect the brandy was having on him tonight: he was not giddy — it took a fair amount to do that — but there seemed to be a peculiar excitement in him. He felt much the same as when, in the old days, he’d pursued gay young debutantes in the Swiss resorts or on the Riviera.

  Half an hour and two drinks later he checked that Julia was fast asleep, obtained directions to the Schützenfest, told Herr Debrec that his wife was on no account to be disturbed, and drove away from the inn in fairly high spirits. The odds, he knew, were all against him, but it would be good fun and there could be no possible comeback; after all, they were leaving for Budapest in the morning, and what the eye didn’t see, the heart wouldn’t grieve over. He began to wish that his command of the language went a little further than ‘good evening’ and ‘another brandy, please.’ Still, there had been plenty of times in the past when language hadn’t mattered at all, when talking would have been a positive hindrance.

  In no time at all he reached his destination, and at first glance he was disappointed. Set in the fields beside a hamlet, the site of the festivities was noisy and garishly lit, in many ways reminiscent of the country fairgrounds of England. All very well for teenage couples, but rather gauche for a civilized, sophisticated adult. Nevertheless, that peculiar tingling with which Harry’s every fibre seemed imbued had not lessened, seemed indeed heightened by the whirling machines and gaudy,” gypsyish caravans and sideshows; and so he parked the car and threaded his way through the swiftly gathering crowd.

  Hung with bunting and festooned with balloons like giant ethereal multihued grapes, the great barn stood open to the night. Inside, a costumed band tuned up while masked singles and couples in handsome attire gathered, preparing to dance and flirt the night away. Framed for a moment in the huge open door, frozen by the camera of his mind, Harry saw among the crowd the figure of a girl — a figure of truly animal magnetism — dressed almost incongruously in peasant’s costume.

  For a second masked eyes met his own and fixed upon them across a space of only a few yards, and then she was gone. But the angle of her neck as she had looked at him, the dark unblinking eyes behind her mask, the fleeting, knowing smile on her lips before she turned away — all of these things had spoken volumes.

  That weird feeling, the tingling that Harry felt, suddenly suffused his whole being. His head reeled and his mouth went dry; he had consciously to fight the excitement rising from within; following which he headed dizzily for the nearest wine tent, gratefully to slake his thirst. Then, bolstered by the wine, heart beating fractionally faster than usual, he entered the cavernous barn and casually cast about for the girl whose image still adorned his mind’s eye.

  But his assumed air of casual interest quickly dissi­pated as his eyes swept the vast barn without sighting their target, until he was about to step forward and go among the tables in pursuit of his quarry. At that point a hand touched his arm, a heady perfume reached him, and a voice said: “There is an empty table on the bal­cony.
Would you like to sit?”

  Her voice was not at all cultured, but her English was very good; and while certainly there was an element of peasant in her, well, there was much more than that. Deciding to savour her sensuous good looks later when they were seated, he barely glanced at her but took her hand and proceeded across the floor of the barn. They climbed wooden stairs to an open balcony set with tables and cane chairs. On the way he spoke to a waiter and ordered a bottle of wine, a plate of dainties.

  They sat at their tiny table overlooking the dance floor, toying with their glasses and pretending to be interested in completely irrelevant matters. He spoke of London, of skiing in Switzerland, the beach at Cannes. She men­tioned the mountains, the markets of Budapest, the bloody history of the country, particularly of this region. He was offhand about his jet-setting, not becoming ostentatious; she picked her words carefully, rarely erring in pronunci­ation. He took in little of what she said and guessed that she wasn’t hearing him. But their eyes — at first rather fleetingly — soon became locked; their hands seemed to meet almost involuntarily atop the table.

  Beneath the table Harry stretched out a leg towards hers, felt something cold and hairy arching against his calf as might a cat. A cat, yes, it must be one of the local cats, fresh in from mousing in the evening fields. He edged the thing to one side with his foot … but she was already on her feet, smiling, holding out a hand to him.

  They danced, and he discovered gypsy in her, and strange­ness, and magic. She bought him a red mask and positioned it over his face with fingers that were cool and sure. The wine began to go down that much faster …

  It came almost as a surprise to Harry to find himself in the car, in the front passenger seat, with the girl driving beside him. They were just pulling away from the bright lights of the Schützenfest, but he did not remember leaving the great barn. He felt more than a little drunk — with pleasure as much as with wine.