Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 1 (1925-07).djvu/96
The
Stranger from Kurdistan
By E. HOFFMANN PRICE
Author of "The Rajah's Gift"
"You claim that demonaltry went out of existence at the end of the Middle Ages, that devil-worship is extinct? . . . No, I do not speak of the Yezidis of Kurdistan, who claim that the Evil One is as worthy of worship as God, since, by virtue of the duality of all things, good could not exist without its antithesis, evil; I speak rather of a devil-worship that exists today, in this twentieth century, in civilized, Christian Europe; secret, hidden, yet nevertheless quite real; a worship based upon a sacrilegious perversion of the ritual of the church. . . How do I know? That is aside from the question; suffice it to say that I know that which I know."
So high was the tower of Semaxii that it seemed to caress the very stars; so deep-seated were its foundations that there was more of its great bulk beneath the ground than there was above. Bathed in moonlight was its crest; swathed in sevenfold veils of darkness was its ponderous base. Old as the pyramids was this great pile of granite which took its name from the ruined city, of equal antiquity, sprawled at its base.
A dark form approached, advancing swiftly through the gloom-drenched ruins, a darkness among the shadows, a phantom that moved with sinister certitude.
Suddenly the shadow halted, and in its immobility became a part of the surrounding darkness. Other and lesser forms passed, slinking silently to the cavernous entrance of Semaxii, there vanishing in its obscure depths. And all were unaware of the form that had regarded them from its vantage point.
A cloud parted. A ray of moonlight fought its way through the Cimmerian shadows, dissolving all save one, the darkest; and this darkest one it revealed as the tall form of a man wrapped in a black cape, and wearing a high silk hat.
Another rift in the clouds; more light, which now disclosed the features as well as the form of the shadowy stranger; haughty features with a nose like the beak of a bird of prey; the cold, pitiless eye of an Aztec idol; thin lips drooping in the shadow of a cynical smile; a man relentless in victory and magnificent in defeat.
"The fools have all assembled to pay tribute to their folly; seventy-seven of them who will tonight adore their lord and master . . . and with what rites? . . . It is long since I have witnessed. . ."
He paused in his reflections to count the strokes of a bell whose sound crept softly across the wastelands.
"Little of my last night remains; however, let me waste it well."
So saying, he gathered his cape about him, and swiftly strode to the entrance of the tower.
"Halt!" snapped a voice from the gateway.
The ray of an electric torch bit the darkness and fell full upon the stranger's face.
"Halt, and give the sign."
""Who am I to give, or you to receive?" answered the stranger, as if intoning an incantation or reciting a fixed formula.