#anitlo

Immediately, his face became the snouted, tusked visage of a boar with a shredded ear. … Graymalk was suddenly striped like a small tiger. … Tekela was starting to look like a vulture. Suddenly, Jill was an ancient hag, bent far forward, hooked nose almost touching her jutting chin, strands of white hair hanging about her face. I glanced at Jack and saw that he suddenly wore the shaggy head of a great brown bear, yellow eyes staring forward, saliva running from the corners of his mouth. Looking downward, I saw that my fur was blood-red and moist; and I felt as if horns jutted from my brow. I had no idea what I might resemble, but Graymalk drew back in alarm. … The Count was suddenly a skeleton wrapped in black. … MacCab became a woman whose painted face began to peel off in long strips. Beside him, Morris was now an ape. … Larry was now a bleeding man sprawled upon the ground. … The moon had gone blood-red and was dripping upon us.

And he proceeded to tell me the story of how a number of the proper people are attracted to the proper place in the proper year on a night in the lonesome October when the moon shines full on Halloween and the way may be opened for the return of the Elder Gods to Earth, and of how some of these people would assist in the opening of the way for them while others would strive to keep the way closed. For ages, the closers have won – often just barely – and there were stories of a shadowy man, half-mad, a killer, a wanderer, and his dog, who always showed up to attempt the closing. Some said that he was Cain himself, doomed to walk the Earth, marked; others said he’d a pact with one of the Elders who secretly wished to thwart the others; none really knew.

"I saw him one night, departing that first crypt. I'd hidden myself on a tree limb, to watch it happen. He seemed to ooze up out of there as if he weren’t really moving any muscles, just flowing, the way Quicklime can do. Then he stood there a moment with his cloak flapping about him in the wind, turning his head, looking at the world as if he owned it and was deciding what part of it would amuse him just then. And then he laughed. I’ll never forget that sound. He just threw his head back and barked – not the way you do, unless you’ve a special way of barking just before you eat something that might not want to be eaten, and this pleases you, adds to the flavor. Then he moved, and it played tricks with my eyes. He was different things, different shapes, flapping cloak all about – even in different places at the same time – and then he was gone, like a piece of the cloak sailing away in the moonlight.”

He led us up an alleyway beside the Palace of Seventy Delights, where fluted dustbins of umber, aquamarine, and russet, their sides inscribed with delicate traceries of black and silver, handles of malachite, jade, porphyry, and chrysoberyl stood, holding forgotten mysteries of the temple. Purple rats fled our approach, and a single lid shivered, emitting a bell-like tone which echoed from the rose-crystal wall.

"Could you check with Quicklime? Tell him what happened, give him our reasoning. Horses are often afraid of snakes. Perhaps he could scare him into running back to town."

“ ‘Creature of the Night,’ “ he said. “ ‘Living Blasphemy.’ You’re safe here. You can even have a peach if you’d like.”

‘We walked again last night, and the master was hunting. He had donned his cloak and said to me, “Snuff, fetch!” And from the way he said it, I knew that it was the blade that he required. I took it to him and we went out.’

It cursed and I departed.