The Taint and Other Novellas Read Online Free PDF

pronounciation of that weird jumble of letters entitled the Sixth Sathlatta, fancying that his low utterances this time sounded more nearly like they should. But before reaching the end of the second line, when he felt a strange dread welling up inside him, he paused. An involuntary shudder ran the length of his spine.
    What was it he had read of this so-called “invocation”? Yes, there it was, just as he had copied it down: “…& the Sixth Sathlatta may be used…that one night scry in Dreams the Form of The Drowner, Yibb-Tstll, who walks in all Times & Spaces.”
    An odd dizziness seemed to come over him and he shook his head to clear it; but though this steadied him somewhat, nonetheless he put away his papers and settled himself down in bed. Something was wrong with his nerves, that was plain. It must be this place and its inmates. He would have to get himself down into Oakdeene village more often with Harold Moody.
    Again Spellman dropped quickly off to sleep, and once more his dreams were of a nightmarish nature….
    There were weird scenes of alien herbage and evil-looking monochrome flowers. Jungles of darkly exotic ferns stretched writhing fronds toward starless, dark green skies through which fantastic birds slid on veined and pulsating wings. There was a clearing close by in the hellish tangle of unknown growths, towards which Spellman’s subconscious spirit seemed drawn in some inexplicable fashion. Fungoid shrubs drew back from him as he moved toward the clearing, and huge insects buzzed evilly as they burst from the bells of poisonous-looking blooms at his approach. He realized that he was the alien in this monstrous dimension of dream, and that the reluctance of its denizens was such as his own might be were the roles reversed.
    Soon he reached the clearing, a great scabrous area of bleached and sterile earth stretching for at least a mile before the jungle took up again on the other side. In the center of this hideous expanse The Thing stood, and at that distance Spellman judged It to be at least three times as tall as a man. As he drew closer across the crumbling and scabby ground he saw that The Thing was turning, slowly turning about on feet hidden from his view by a great green cloak, a cloak that bulged and jerked and writhed as it fell from just beneath the—head?—to the corroded and powdery surface on which it stood. Drawing still closer, the dream-Spellman felt a scream welling in his throat as the great figure turned towards him and he saw the face clearly for the first time. Had the terrible shape not gone on turning—had those eyes noticed him for a single moment—Martin Spellman knew he must shriek out loud, but no, The Thing in Green continued Its apparently aimless turning, and Its voluminous cloak was alive with uncanny motion….
    When Spellman was very close to the giant, no more than a score of paces away, his movement towards It ceased. The Thing had still been turning away from him, but, as he came to a halt, Its motion also faltered.
    Then The Thing stopped turning altogether!
    For a moment the scene seemed frozen, the only movement being the fantastic billowing of the green cloak, then, slowly but inexorably, the monstrous form began to turn back towards the paralyzed dreamer.
    Soon the great figure halted again, facing squarely in Spellman’s direction, and he screamed voicelessly as the blasphemous cloak billowed out more violently than ever, parting to permit the dreamer one mad glimpse beneath its green folds. There, about the pulsating black body of the Ancient One, hugely winged reptilian creatures without faces cluttered and clutched at a multitude of blackly writhing, pendulous breasts!
    This much Martin Spellman saw—
    —And the next thing he knew was that he was being roughly shaken and slapped awake!
    Harold Moody, pleasantly drunk, having just returned on foot from Oakdeene village, had “dropped in” to see if Martin fancied a brew of coffee; he knew that