Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 1 (1925-07).djvu/99
on it, subjected it to unmentionable indignities, tore it to pieces which he offered to the worshipers of Satan, who crept forward to receive this mockery of a communion.
The first of that mad group of devil-worshipers rose to his knees and was about to receive his portion when there came a startling interruption.
"Fools, cease this mockery!"
It was the stranger's voice, a voice whose arrogant note of command, ringing through that vaulted chapel like the dear, cold peal of destruction, silenced the frenzied devotees, so that not a breath was audible. The acolytes stood transfixed at the altar. The high priest alone retained command of himself; but even he was momentarily abashed, shrinking before the flaming, fierce eye of the stranger.
Yet the priest quickly recovered himself.
"Who are you," he snarled, "to interrupt the sacrifice?"
The seventy-seven, though still speechless, had recovered from the complete paralysis that their faculties had suffered. They saw the stranger confronting the high priest on the altar steps; they heard his voice, in reply, rich, sonorous, majestic:
"You, the high priest of Satan, and ask me who I am? I am Ahriman, whom the Persians feared; I am Malik Taus, the white peacock whom men worship in far-off Kurdistan; I am Lucifer, the morning star; I am that Satan whom you invoked. Behold, I have returned in mortal form to meet and defy my adversary."
He pointed to the crucifix, then continued, "And a worthy adversary he is. Nor think that yonder simulacrum is the Christ I have sworn to overthrow. Fools! Besotted beasts, think you that it is serving me to deride a foe who has held me at bay these countless ages? Think you to serve me by this mummery? This very mass which you have celebrated, though in derision and in defiance of him, acknowledges his divinity; and though in mockery, you have nevertheless accepted him in taking this bread as his body. Is this serving me, your lord and master?"
"Impostor!" shrieked the high priest, his face distorted with rage; "impostor, you claim to be Satan?"
That high-pitched scream stirred the seventy-seven from their inertia, aroused them again to their frenzy. Gibbering and howling, they leapt to their feet and closed in on the stranger.
But at that instant a cloak of elemental fire, the red, blinding flame of a thousand suns, enshrouded Satan's form, and from it rang that same clear, cold voice, "Fools! Madmen! I disown and utterly deny you!"
Once again in the ruins at the foot of the Tower of Semaxii was the dark stranger, Satan as he had revealed himself to his followers. He seemed to be alone, yet he was speaking, as if with someone facing him.
"Nazarene," he said, "on that day wherein I challenged you to meet me with weapons and on ground of your own choosing to do battle for the empery of the world, I was foolish and knew not whereof I spoke."
He paused, lowered his eyes for a moment, as if to rest them from the strain of gazing at an awful and intolerable radiance, then continued: "You they crucified; me they would have torn in pieces, their lord and master; both of us they have denied. I wonder whose folly is the greater, yours in seeking to redeem mankind, or mine in striving to make it my own."
And with these words Satan turned, his haughty head bowed, and turning, disappeared among the ruins.