Read The Taint and Other Novellas for Free Online Page B

“Did you hear it?”
    “I heard some shouting, yes. What was it all about?” Spellman was not really interested; his book was coming well and he wanted to get on with it.
    “Eh?” Moody cocked his good ear in his friend’s direction. “Shouting, did you say? Chanting, more like it—all of ’em together, at the top of their voices, so loud as to almost deafen me completely. Not words, mind you, Martin—at least not recognizable words—but gibberish! Utter gibberish!”
    “Gibberish?” Spellman got up immediately, crossing his small room to be closer to the shaken Moody. “What sort of—gibberish?”
    “Well, I really don’t know. I mean—”
    “Was it like this—” Spellman cut him off, taking out the Cthaat Aquadingen from his bedside locker and flipping its pages until he found the one he wanted.
     
“Ghe ‘phnglui, mglw’ngh ghee’yh, Yibb-Tstll,
Fbtagn mglw y’tlette ngh’wgah, Yibb-Tstll,
Ghe’phnglui….”
     
    He stopped abruptly, realizing that he did not need to read the thing from the book, that of a sudden it was imprinted indelibly on his mind! “Did it—did what they were chanting go like—like that?”
    “Eh? No, no it was different from that—harsher syllables—not so guttural. And that Larner chap—my God, he’s a real case, that one! Kept ranting on about ‘not knowing the ending’!”
    Moody got up to go. “Anyhow, it’s all over now—”
    As Moody reached the door Spellman’s alarm clock began to clamor. The young nurse had set the mechanism to go off at midnight, simply so that he would know when to welcome in the New Year. Now he remembered and said “Happy New Year, Harold!” Then, as his friend answered in kind and closed the door behind him, he again took up the Cthaat Aquadingen.
    New Year’s Eve—the night before the First Day of the year! So, Spellman silently mused, Larner had attempted to build the “Barrier of Naach-Tith”—but of course, he had not known all of the words. Spellman pondered, too, the odd fact that he was able to remember, without any effort worth mentioning, the Sixth Sathlatta; and that the weird consonants of those diseased lines seemed somehow clearer in his mind and on his tongue.
    Well, all right—given that he had allowed himself a folly or two with Larner, that was over now—it was time the madman’s weird experiment came to an end. But for his foolish pandering to the lunatic’s crazed fancies the disturbance in the ward known as Hell would not have happened. And what of tomorrow night? In another twenty-four hours, would the inmates of Hell use the thrice-repeated Sixth Sathlatta in an attempt to call forth the dread Yibb-Tstll? Spellman thought so, and (damn the cunning of the lunatic mind), Larner had attempted to draw him into the—coven?
    Not that Spellman believed for a single moment that any sort of harm, supernatural or other, could come from the concerted mouthings of madmen; but a repeat performance of this night’s disturbance might well alert the sanatorium’s hierarchy to his decidedly illegal dealings with Larner. He would then certainly find himself in some sort of trouble, if not actual hot water, and he did not want to damage the atmosphere between himself, Dr. Welford, and one or two others of his superiors. He was on duty in the upper wards in the morning, finishing at 4:00 P.M., but before he finished he would find a way to get down to see Larner. Perhaps a gentle word with the lunatic would do the trick.
    In his bed before sleeping, Spellman thought again on his puzzling ability to recall in detail the chaotic Sixth Sathlatta, and no sooner had he pictured the thing in his mind than it was on his lips. Amazed at his unsuspected fluency he whispered the words through in the darkness of his room, and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep.
    —He was back in the alien forest beneath dark green, weirdly populated skies. Again, far stronger than before, his dream-spirit felt the pull of The Thing