The Last Revelation Of Gla'aki by Ramsey Campbell Page B

and it stared at him across the inverted volume in its hands. He glimpsed it ducking its head to read "The beliefs to which the mass of men cling are the foes of revelation" and imagined it reading not just the words but all the letters in reverse. "The prating of the prophets chatters down the centuries without beginning to encompass the truths which shape the world. Still less can the gewgaws of religion challenge forces older than the universe we know. In his enfeebled Christian travesty of Al-Hazred, John Dee speaks of a glowing cross which appeared above the sabbats to confound the summoned powers. Say rather that the sabbats were no more than puerile parodies of ancient rituals, so mired in the tradition of the celebrated Jew that the biblical bauble could be misapprehended as a talisman..."
    Fairman took a few moments to consider the Dee allusion. It referred to the alchemist's unpublished English paraphrase of the Necronomicon, which survived only in the form of fragments held by the British Museum, together with a fifteenth-century Latin translation, and Fairman couldn't have said why it left him feeling oddly vulnerable. His reflection gave him a conspiratorial nod as he bent his head once more to the book.
    "And what shall be said of the star-signs which some claim as protection against entities no less immemorial than creation? How blurred the ancient truths become in the minds of the uninitiated What are these signs but imperfect renderings of a stage in the formation of the universe? None but the ignorant seek to invest them with power, and only the most imbecilic of the old survivals may mistake them for a hostile charm, to be cowed by them for a short while. Let the star-signs never be confused with the secret gesture of the Children of the Moon, whose true nature is disguised in many a fairy-tale. Whereas to the rudimentary minds of lesser entities the star-sign may appear to threaten a return to primal chaos, and on occasion may temporarily interfere with the ethereal sendings of the dormant masters of our world, the gesture of the Children recalls that paradisiacal state of fluidity which the Bible bids to deny with its fabricated tales about the father of the Jew. Even these betray their imperfectly veiled secrets to the initiate, for the serpent in the garden is but a symbol of fluidity, an occult promise that the upstart race and its beliefs cannot wholly trammel the potential of the world..."
    Was the image on the cover meant to illustrate the gesture? Fairman had the irrational thought that it was just a human approximation; perhaps that was the kind of thing the book was meant to put into your mind. He held up his left hand and could only laugh at his pathetic attempt to describe the sign. His reflection did no better, but at least its fingers didn't twinge. It watched him until they bowed their heads over the book.
    The more he read, the less he seemed to grasp, and yet he felt close to understanding, as if the incantatory prose were leading him in that direction. Of course this wasn't the original text, it was whatever Percy Smallbeam had made of it. How much did that matter? Why should it matter to Fairman at all? He could almost have imagined that he was dreaming the material, letting it take shape in his head. He had no sense of how long it took him to read to the end, where he found he was eager to continue, in case the next volume helped him understand. He shut the book and saw that darkness had gathered behind him.
    Night was at the window. It had fallen more than an hour ago, according to his watch. He couldn't recall switching on the standard lamp beside him, though why should a librarian feel troubled by having been engrossed in a book? He should at least eat, and he returned the books to the safe without boxing them up. Once he'd pressed his hands against the metal door to reassure himself that it was locked, he let himself out of the room.
    Janine Berry was waiting at the counter by the