Read Online Black Easter by James Blish - Free Book Online

seeing Jack Ginsberg and Dr Hess in the same vestments. As for Ware, he was either comical or terrible, depending upon what view one took of the proceedings, in his white Levite surcoat with red-silk embroidery on the breast, his white leather shoes lettered in cinnabar, and his paper crown bearing the word EL. He was girdled with a belt about three inches wide, which seemed to have been made from the skin of some hairy, lion-coloured animal. Into the girdle was thrust a red-wrapped, sceptre-like object, which Baines identified tentatively from a prior description of Hess’s as the wand of power.
    ‘And now we must vest ourselves,’ Ware said, almost in a whisper. ‘Dr Baines, on the desk you will find three garments. Take one, and then another, and another. Give two to Dr Hessand Mr Ginsberg. Don the other yourself.’
    Baines picked up the huddle of cloth. It turned out to be an alb.
    ‘Take up your vestments and lift them in your hands above your heads. At the amen, let them fall. Now:
    ‘A NTON , A MATOR , E MITES . T HEODONIEL , P ONCOR , P AGOR . A NITOR ,
by the virtue of these most holy angelic names do I clothe myself, Lord of Lords, in my Vestments of Power, that so I may fulfil, even unto their term, all things which I desire to effect through Thee
, I DEODANIACH , P AMOR . P LAIOR .
Lord of Lords, Whose kingdom and rule endureth forever and ever. Amen.’
    The garments rustled down, and Ware opened the door.
    The room beyond was only vaguely lit with yellow candlelight, and at first bore almost no resemblance to the chamber Dr Hess had described to Baines. As his eyes accommodated, however, Baines was gradually able to see that it was the same room, its margins now indistinct and its furniture slightly differently ordered: only the lectern and the candlesticks – there were now four of them, not two – were moved out from the walls and hence more or less visible.
    But it was still confusing, a welter of flickering shadows and slightly sickening perfume, most unlike the blueprint of the room that Baines had erected in his mind from Hess’s drawing. The thing that dominated the real room itself was also a drawing, not any piece of furniture or detail of architecture: a vast double circle on the floor in what appeared to be whitewash. Between the concentric circles were written innumerable words, or what might have been words, in characters which might have been Hebrew, Greek, Etruscan or even Elvish for all Baines could tell. Some few were in Roman lettering, but they, too, were names he could not recognize; and around the outside of the outer circle were written astrological signs in their zodiacal order, but with Saturn to the north.
    At the very centre of this figure was a ruled square about two feet on a side, from each corner of which proceeded chalked, conventionalized crosses, which did not look in the least Christian. Proceeding from each of these, but not connected tothem, were four six-pointed stars, verging on the innermost circle. The stars at the east, west and south each had a Tau scrawled at their centres; presumably the Saturnmost did too, but if so it could not be seen, for the heart of that emplacement was hidden by what seemed to be a fat puddle of stippled fur.
    Outside the circles, at the other compass points, were drawn four pentagrams, in the chords of which were written T E TRA GRAM MA TON , and at the centres of which stood the candles. Farthest away from all this – about two feet outside the circle and three feet over it to the north – was a circle enclosed by a triangle, also much lettered inside and out; Baines could just see that the characters in the angles of the triangle read NI CH EL .
    ‘Tanists,’ Ware whispered, pointing into the circle, ‘take your places.’
    He went towards the long table Hess had described and vanished in the gloom. As instructed, Baines walked into the circle and stood in the western star; Hess followed, taking the eastern; and Ginsberg, very