Niles laughed.
“Tomorrow I’ll take the pictures,” he declared. “And then we’ll see just what your Elementals are like. If it makes you nervous, you can stay away.”
“Frankly, I will,” I said.
And I did.
The following afternoon I left the studio in Niles’ hands. He was tremendously excited. He spoke of using new focusing adjustments to extend part of the field; he wondered what speeds to photograph with, what paper to use for printing. He also speculated as to whether or not the creatures he saw would appear on the finished negative, or merely the amazing light-figures. I left, for I felt a growing nervousness and apprehension I did not wish him to see.
I went down to Voorden’s.
The shop was open, but the clerk was not there when I passed through the front of the place, although the bell tinkled its usual warning of a customer’s approach as I entered the door. I walked back through the gloom to the room where Isaac usually spent his time in study.
He was sitting there in the soft haze peculiar to the lightless chamber; his eyes glazed in rapt attention on the open pages of some old book.
“Isaac,” I said. “That jewel has something. Niles and I used it last night, and I think it’s a gateway to something incredible. Those divinators of ancient times were no fools. They knew what they were doing—”
Isaac never moved. Imperturbable, he sat and stared through the quiet dusk. There was a little smile on his sallow face.
“You promised to look up some more of the jewel’s history,” I went on. “Did you find anything? It’s amazing, you now; quite amazing.”
Isaac sat and stared and smiled. I bent forward.
Sitting bolt upright in his chair, hand clutching a pen, Isaac Voorden seemed a modern necromancer.
And like many an ancient necromancer who had overstepped the pale, Isaac Voorden was dead.
Stone-dead.
“Isaac!” I shouted. Funny, isn’t it, how people always shout the name of the departed upon discovery of death? It’s a sort of despairing wail of disbelief at a friend’s passing; an invocation, as though the echo of a human voice can recall the soul of one that has passed beyond. Beyond—to the Astral Plane?
Quickly I bent over the cold body, stared at the crabbed scrawl covering the paper. I read the notes Voorden had been working on when his pale Visitor had arrived.
They blurred through my brain.
“The Star of Sechmet. Ptolemaic. Aug. Lulla, name of Roman who stole it. See note in Veno’s History. Lulla died under curse for removing sacred jewel. Point one.
“Priestess of Diana who wore it in vestal girdle also died. For sacrilege. Again, see Veno. Point two. The pattern grows.
“Gilles De Retz—his fate is known. He misused the jewel. Yes, it’s the inevitable story of violation.
“See Mysteries of the Worm for Prinn’s chapter on divination. Might be reference concerning jewel during its disappearance.
“Again, the Russian. Claims to have stolen jewel from Rasputin, who used it in prophecy. Rasputin dead. The Russian lost his eyes. And unless he lost his reason, his warnings concerning sacred character of jewel are to be respected. Points three, four, and five. Whoever or whatever exists in the world opened up by the jewel is not anxious to have the gateway changed, or misused. Cutting the stone, transplanting it from one setting to another, misusing it—all result in death.
“And—I have done all three. God help this man Niles for what he must endure. They may get at him through the stone.
“God help me. There will be a price I must pay; soon.
“Why didn’t I think before I gave up the jewel? Now I’m—”
That was all he had written. There was no scrawling off of the interrupted pen, no frozen look of horror, no “mounting dread” in the text of the writing. Voorden had written it. One minute he was alive, and the next minute he was dead.
Of course it could have been heart failure, thrombosis, or simply old age. Shock, excitement, anxiety might have brought it on; a stroke may have done it.
But I didn’t fool myself. I knew. I rose and ran from that shop as though fiends dogged my heels. And all the way my legs worked in rhythm to a single phrase racing through my brain. “God help Niles.”
It was dusk when I unlocked the studio door. The studio was empty, the twilight room darkened. Had Niles gone out?
I prayed so. But where would he go? He wouldn’t abandon work. I walked to where the camera loomed: noted the exposure of one film. He must have been called.
I restrained an impulse to peer again through the jewel lens, as I lit the light. No—I did not to wish to see that plain again; see those horrible figures dwelling outside laws of space and time, yet—mocking thoughts!—actually existing here around me, in this very room. Worlds within worlds of horror. Where was Niles?
I couldn’t brood like this. Why not develop the exposed film? Keep busy. I carried the camera into the darkroom. Ten minutes in darkness, then the regular process. I set the fans going as I hung the dark square up to dry.
My mind teemed with excited conjectures. Would we find a blank photograph? Would it show the angled figures of light? Or would—wonderful possibility—the creatures conjured up by our imaginations appear? Would our own brains aid in taking the pictures, as a part of the focal point linked to the camera by the hypnotic jewel? It was a fascinating thought.
The fans hummed as the minutes fled.
But where was Niles? Whatever had caused his hasty departure, surely he would have returned by now. And he had left no note.
The door had been locked from the outside, and I had the only key.
The thought grinned at me through a wave of horror.
There was no way Niles could have left.
Only one way.
I jammed the dried negative into the printer, with a sheet of ordinary paper.
I pressed down, slipped the print into the developer; waited a moment.
I raced out into the light of the other room, held the finished print wet and dripping, to the light.
Then I screamed, and smashed the camera, stamped on the jewel until I could control myself sufficiently to pick it up and hurl it through the open window at the further rooftops. I tore print and negative to shreds. And still I screamed, for I could not and never shall be able to erase the memory of what I had seen in that picture Niles had taken.
He must have clicked it off at a very fast speed. Very fast. And perhaps it was the actual working of the camera which accounted for what had happened. It might have established the focal point instantaneously—established it so that those things—forces, Elementals, call them what you will—could achieve their goal.
I saw the print, it was as Niles guessed it might be; a picture of a black endless plain. Only there were no lights visible, no figures, nothing except black shadows that seemed to blur around a central point. They did not photograph.
But they blurred around a point—a central point. They got through just as the picture must have snapped yet faster than light itself. They got through and drew Niles along the angles as I had feared. Faster than light itself, as I have said. For it had to be faster, else I would not have seen—I would not have seen what I did see on that print. The central point . . .
The central point of that accursed picture; the only visible thing amidst the shadows—was the dead and mangled body of David Niles!
Black Bargain
This story, which appeared in the May 1942 issue of Weird Tales, is a classic Bloch tale in many ways. In fact, perhaps more than any other, “Black Bargain” ties together elements of his work from different periods. Lovecraft’s death was only five years in the past, and while, as Bloch later said, Lovecraft’s passing took all the fun out of the Cthulhu Mythos game, HPL’s fading influence is still visible here, in a story which otherwise manifests the crisp, contemporary style that would mark most of Bloch’s future fiction. The most obvious sign of Lovecraftian influence is the use of Mysteries o
f the Worm, as if for old time’s sake. There is no reference to the Old Ones or even to Ludvig Prinn. The book serves merely as a repository of ancient secrets. Here De Vermis Mysteriis has finished a process of evolution opposite to that of its predecessor the Necronomicon, a Mythos text, and finished simply as one more grimoire. The Lovecraft association was fading, even as the anti-hero in “Black Bargain” does.
Another element reminiscent of Lovecraft is the motif of personality displacement toward the end of the story. We almost have a stray scene from “The Thing on the Doorstep”, with a happier ending. But the same motif is just as reminiscent of Bloch’s own earlier story “The Mannikin”, where a hidden counterpart assumes dominion over a hapless occultist. The treatment is very different in each case, though.
Bloch’s acid skepticism toward Freudian psychoanalysis is pointedly expressed in this story’s exclamation, “To hell with psycho-analysis!” Yet Bloch once admitted that he had no such animus toward Jungian theory (no pun intended!) Indeed, the present tale may be read as a dramatic portrayal of Jung’s theory of the Shadow, the dark side of our unconscious selves. We all strive to attain conformity with the Persona, what Freud would have called the ego-ideal. But the suppressed or repressed dark instincts do not merely vanish. They are forced underground. They become an Antichrist opposed to the Christ-like perfections of the Persona. And if one denies the existence of this doppelgänger, it will play its mischief right under one’s oblivious nose. One begins, like Jimmy Swaggart, to accuse others of one’s own secret sins. And finally the Shadow volcanoes up to the surface in a surprising rampage, leaving one’s co-workers telling reporters in dumbfounded naïveté: “He always seemed such a decent sort, I can’t understand it!” In “Black Bargain” we see the Shadow rapidly taking over its daylight rival unprepared for its incursion.
Black Bargain
by Robert Bloch
It was getting late when I switched off the neon and got busy behind the fountain with my silver polish. The fruit syrup came off easily, but the chocolate stuck and the hot fudge was greasy. I wish to the devil they wouldn’t order hot fudge.
I began to get irritated as I scrubbed away. Five hours on my feet, every night, and what did I have to show for it? Varicose veins, and the memory of a thousand foolish faces. The veins were easier to bear than the memories. They were so depressing, those customers of mine. I knew them all by heart.
In early evening all I got was “cokes”. I could spot the cokes a mile away. Giggling high-school girls, with long shocks of uncombed brown hair, with their shapeless tan “fingertip” coats and the repulsively thick legs bulging over furry red ankle socks. They were all “cokes”. For forty-five minutes they’d monopolize a booth, messing up the tile tabletop with cigarette ashes, crushed napkins daubed in lipstick, and little puddles of spilled water. Whenever a high-school girl came in, I automatically reach for the cola pump.
A little later in the evening I got the “gimme two packs” crowd. Sports-shirts hanging limply over hairy arms meant the popular brands. Blue work-shirts with rolled sleeves disclosing tattooing mean the two-for-a-quarter cigarettes.
Once in a while I got a fat boy. He was always a “cigar”. If he wore glasses he was a ten-center. If not, I merely had to indicate the box on the counter. Five cents straight. Mild Havana—all long filler.
Oh, it was monotonous. The “notions” family, who invariably departed with aspirin, Ex-Lax, candy bars, and a pint of ice cream. The “public library” crowd—tall, skinny youths bending the pages of magazines on the rack and never buying. The “soda-waters” with their trousers wrinkled by the sofa of a one-room apartment, the “hairpins”, always looking furtively toward the baby buggy outside. And around ten, the “pineapple sundaes”—fat women Bingo-players. Followed by the “chocolate sodas” when the show let out. More booth-parties, giggling girls and red-necked young men in sloppy play-suits.
In an out, all day long. The rushing “telephones”, the doddering old “three-cent stamps”, the bachelor “toothpastes” and “razor-blades”.
I could spot them all at a glance. Night after night they dragged up to the counter. I don’t know why they even bothered to tell me what they wanted. One look was all I needed to anticipate their slightest wishes. I could have given them what they needed without their asking.
Or, rather, I suppose I couldn’t. Because what most of them really needed was a good long drink of arsenic, as far as I was concerned.
Arsenic! Good Lord, how long had it been since I’d been called upon to fill out a prescription! None of these stupid idiots wanted drugs from a drugstore. Why had I bothered to study pharmacy? All I really needed was a two-week course in pouring chocolate syrup over melting ice cream, and a month’s study of how to set up cardboard figures in the window so as to emphasize their enormous busts.
Well—
He came in then. I heard the slow footsteps without bothering to look up. For amusement I tried to guess before I glanced. A “gimme two packs”? A “toothpaste”? Well, the hell with him. I was closing up.
The male footsteps had shuffled up to the counter before I raised my head. They halted timidly. I still refused to give any recognition of his presence. Then came a hesitant cough. That did it.
I found myself staring at Caspar Milquetoast, and nearly rags. A middle-aged, thin little fellow with sandy hair and rimless glasses perched on a snub nose. The crease of his froggish mouth underlined the despair of his face.
He wore a frayed $16.50 suit, a wrinkled white shirt, and a string tie—but humility was his real garment. It covered him completely, that aura of hopeless resignation.
To hell with psycho-analysis! I’m not the drug-store Dale Carnegie. What I saw added up to only one thing in my mind. A moocher.
“I beg your pardon, please, but have you any tincture of aconite?”
Well, miracles do happen. I was going to get a chance to sell drugs after all. Or was I? When despair walks in and asks for aconite, it means suicide.
I shrugged. “Aconite?” I echoed. “I don’t know.”
He smiled, a little. Or rather, that crease wrinkled back in a poor imitation of amusement. But on his face a smile had no more mirth in it than the grin you see on a skull.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he mumbled. “But you’re wrong. I’m—I’m a chemist. I’m doing some experiments, and I must have four ounces of aconite at once. And some belladonna. Yes, and—wait a minute.”
Then he dragged the book out of his pocket.
I craned my neck and it was worth it.
The book had rusty metal covers, and was obviously very old. When the thick yellow pages fluttered open under his trembling thumb I saw flecks of dust rise from the binding. The heavy black-lettered type was German, but I couldn’t read anything at that distance.
“Let me see now,” he murmured. “Aconite—belladonna—yes, and I have this—the cat, of course—nightshade—um hum—oh, yes, I’ll need some phosphorus of course—have you any blue chalk?—good—and I guess that’s all.”
I was beginning to catch on. But what the devil did it matter to me? A screwball more or less was nothing new in my life. All I wanted to do was get out of here and soak my feet.
I went back and got the stuff for him, quickly. I peered through the slot above the prescription counter, but he wasn’t doing anything—just paging through that black, iron-bound book and moving his lips.
Wrapping the parcel, I came out. “Anything else, sir?”
“Oh—yes. Could I have about a dozen candles? The large size?
I opened a drawer and scrabbled for them under the dust.
“I’ll have to melt them down and reblend them with the fat,” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was just figuring.”
Sure. That’s the kind of figuring you do best when you’re counting the pads in your cell. But it wasn’t my business, was it?
So I handed over the package, like a fool.
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind. I must ask you to be kinder—to charge this.”
Oh, swell!
“You see I’m temporarily out of funds. But I can assure you, in a very short time, in fact within three days, I shall pay you in full. Yes.”
A very convincing plea. I wouldn’t give him a cup of coffee on it—and that’s what bums usually ask for, instead of aconite and candles. But if his words didn’t move me, his eyes did. They were so lonely behind his spectacles, so pitifully alone, those two little puddles of hope in the desert of despair that was his face.
All right. Let him have his dreams. Let him take his old iron-bound dream book home with him and make him crazy. Let him light his tapers and draw his phosphorescent circle and recite his spells to Little Wahoo the Indian Guide of the Spirit World, or whatever the hell he wanted to do.
No, I wouldn’t give him coffee, but I’d give him a dream.
“That’s okay, buddy,” I said. “We’re all down on our luck some time, I guess.”
That was wrong. I shouldn’t have patronized. He stiffened at once and his mouth curled into a sneer—of superiority, if you please!
“I’m not asking charity,” he said. “You’ll get paid, never fear, my good man. In three days, mark my words. Now good evening. I have work to do.”
Out he marched, leaving “my good man” with his mouth open. Eventually I closed my mouth but I couldn’t clamp a lid on my curiosity.
That night, walking home, I looked down the dark street with new interest. The black houses bulked like a barrier behind which lurked fantastic mysteries. Row upon row, not houses any more, but dark dungeons of dreams. In what house did my stranger hide? In what room was he intoning to what strange gods?