The Feaster From The Stars (Blackwood and Harrington) by Alan K Baker Read Free Book Online Page A

The city can only be reached by the most knowledgeable and pure-hearted of mystical adepts. I know of no outsider who has ever managed to reach it – except for Madame Blavatsky, and I’m not entirely sure I believe her.’
    ‘Quite so: but then, it is only a rumour, and Castaigne has never written or spoken of the matter. What is undeniable is that he returned to Great Britain after ten years away, bringing with him an astonishing depth of knowledge regarding the mystical practices of the Orient, knowledge which he set down in this book, the Fantasmata . It was privately printed and circulated only amongst those groups whom Castaigne considered worthy of receiving it.’
    ‘How did you obtain a copy?’ Sophia asked.
    ‘It was given to me by a friend in my Masonic Lodge a good while ago. I must admit that I gave it only a cursory inspection, for at the time I was engaged upon a particularly complex case which had nothing to do with the occult, and I never went back to it in depth.’
    ‘May I examine it?’
    ‘Of course.’ Blackwood handed the book to Sophia. It was a handsome volume, produced with great finesse and attention to detail. It was bound in Moroccan leather of a deep, rich purple, which was tooled with fantastically intricate intaglios outlined in gold. The paper was of the highest quality: creamy and smooth, and delightful to the touch.
    ‘And what, precisely, is the nature of the knowledge Dr Castaigne set down here?’
    ‘Ah! That is what I have been examining since the early hours of this morning. I was in bed, on the very edge of sleep, when my mind performed that curious trick which minds are wont to do in moments of great relaxation: it revealed itself to have been working on the problem of that half-remembered word without my conscious knowledge, and I suddenly remembered where I had read it.’ He indicated the book.
    At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and Mrs Butters entered carrying a tray with a large silver coffee pot, two cups and saucers, a jug of cream and a bowl of sugar. Before Blackwood could say anything, Sophia smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Butters. Would you please set it down here?’ She indicated the occasional table beside the armchair.
    ‘Of course, your Ladyship,’ the housekeeper replied. She put the tray down, gave her employer a disapproving glance and quickly left, closing the door behind her.
    Sophia poured coffee for them both. ‘You were saying, Thomas…’
    ‘It seems that Castaigne learned a great many things during his lengthy sojourn in the Orient.’
    ‘Such as?’ Sophia handed him a cup, which he accepted with a nod of thanks.
    ‘Such as the means by which the human mind can travel unaided into the depths of the Luminiferous Æther.’
    Sophia gave him a shocked look. ‘Are you serious, Thomas?’
    ‘Quite serious, I assure you.’
    Sophia shook her head. ‘That’s incredible.’
    ‘May I?’ Blackwood took the book from Sophia and opened it to a place he had bookmarked. ‘Listen to this.’ He read aloud.
The Æther – how should we describe it? Word and phrase, thought and experience crumble to useless dust in the face of what lies outside the ordered realms of the times and spaces we know. We look up at the black seas of Space, yearning to depart like hopeful adepts in the wake of some cosmic Poseidon. We are unable to release ourselves from the shackles of our quotidian existence, but were we able to do so, we would be gone in an instant, into the depths of the great night which surrounds us.
    ‘A little florid for my taste,’ Sophia observed.
    Blackwood grinned at her as he turned to the next page. ‘And here.’
Take a handful of sand, the tiny grains glittering and golden. Cast it where you please, like a child at play by an innocent sea; count the grains, hold that vast number in your mind, and know that it is but a fraction of the worlds that exist throughout the Æther. How far may the human mind reach, once freed from