Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 06 (1942-07).djvu/23

image or portrait pierced with needles, the hair or nail-clipping burnt—yes, and the discarded garment beaten. I was seeing such a thing done.

"Abiam, dabiam, fabiam," babbled the monster over his stick. It was a conjuration of some sort, I guessed; indeed, Jaeger told me later that a similar spell is included in Albertus Magnus. "True you speak," he continued. "But you are bad servants." I saw his long green eyes glitter. "Perhaps I should discard you and get others. You who summoned me among you, step forward."

A fragile, oldish man came away from the others. His mask had been torn, probably in the fight, and his skin showed corpse-pale through the rent.

"I did according to the law and the books," he quavered. "If we have served you badly, it was because we did not know how to serve. Teach us."

The Flying Horned One put his arm-like upper limbs, that bore the wings, akimbo. The membranes drooped around him like an ugly living shawl. "You never asked if I wished to leave my own world," he charged fiercely. "You did not wait to think if I was happy there or not. You haled me in among strange things and thoughts. You talk about serving me, but you meant that I should serve you. Huh? Deny it if you will!"

They did not deny it. I gathered that he referred to some ceremony which had brought him into existence among them. Of such things, too, I had heard.

Again he addressed the thin oldster. "Do as you did when you summoned me."

There was a moment of scared silence. Then, "You mean the circle, master? And the pentacle?"

"You will be sorry if I command you twice," said the Flying Horned One.

The magic-maker hopped and fluttered like a frightened rabbit to obey. Stooping, with his dagger in hand, he traced on the ground a figure like a shallow-pointed star, about three yards across. As he did so he mumbled words, apparently one for each point. "Gaba," he said loud enough for me to hear, and again "Tetragrammaton." The other words I did not catch. Having finished the star, he traced a circle outside it. His comrades all moved back, but the winged monster hovered near, in some eagerness.

"Shall I say the rest?" quavered the circle-tracer.

"Not unless you wish to bring me a brother among you," replied the Flying Horned One, and it was plain that his hearers had no such wish. "Say only the first part."

There came forth a flood of gibberish, spoken by the old man with both forefingers uplifted. The others joined in briefly at the end, chanting as if at prayer. I saw the lines that the knife had marked suddenly grow more plain and hot-looking—the star was outlined as in rosy brightness, like a figure of heated wire; and the circle gleamed blue-green, like a tracing of phosphorus.

"Look!" commanded the winged master, in a voice that made my flesh change position on my bones. "Is it—"

"The door!" hoarsely finished the magician. "It is ready to be opened unto us."

"Yes," agreed the Flying Horned One. "Opened unto you. Speak on."

The magician fronted his glowing diagram. His words became spaced and cadenced, like verse from some ponderous tragedy:

"Fear is stronger than love!

"Serve those above with joy! Serve those below with terror!

"For those above, a sacrifice of one white sheep! For those below, a sacrifice of two black sheep!

"For those above, a sacrifice of one white slave! For those below, a sacrifice of two black slaves!"