The Last Revelation Of Gla'aki by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online

is."
    "We mustn't deny it, Leonard."
    Fairman was uneasily aware of being in the presence of some kind of believer. It hardly seemed possible for the eyes behind the lenses to have opened further, but he had the unpleasant fancy that they weren't far from touching the glass. "Have you read yours?" he felt compelled to ask.
    "How couldn't I? It changes everything."
    Fairman was loath to enquire into this. "Could I have it, then?"
    "It's yours," the bookseller said and made for the back of the shop.
    His office was between the shelves of second-hand books. Most of these were jacketless, a state Fairman used to describe as in their shirtsleeves until Sandra made her unamusement plain. The office was unlit, but he was able to distinguish a large heavy desk surrounded by piles of books. Without switching on the light Rothermere retrieved a volume from the desk. "Yours," he said again.
    Fairman stayed in an aisle of shelves to bring the man out of the gloom. With the book held in both hands Rothermere looked rather too much like the celebrant of a ritual. As he came forward Fairman could easily have imagined that some of the darkness had clung to the book. The colophon represented a hand that bore a lantern from which black rays were streaming. "Which one is this?" Fairman said.
    "On the Purposes of Night" Rothermere said with reverence.
    Fairman had asked so as not to linger over examining the book, but he couldn't help adding "Did you never want to find out what you could get for it?"
    "I got everything it needs, Leonard."
    "I meant," Fairman said more sharply, "had you no interest in discovering what it could fetch?"
    "We did." Before Fairman could think of any answer he might risk, the bookseller said "If you're asking whether I'd have sold it to the highest bidder, that wouldn't have entered my mind."
    "Would you care to say why?"
    "The book says it for us."
    When Rothermere stretched out his hands as though yearning to reclaim the book, Fairman said "Never mind, I'll look into it later."
    "I can tell you what it says." The bookseller's gaze seemed to turn inwards if not somewhere else entirely. "Let none read who will not understand," he said like a priest intoning a sermon. "Let the great secrets be kept close lest they grow blurred by the unshaped minds of the uninitiated."
    "That's what Percy Smallbeam said, do you think?"
    "One solitary mind speaks through the book." It wasn't clear if the bookseller was still quoting, nor when he said "The world will know the book once it has done its work."
    "What work would that be?" Fairman demanded.
    "You'll come to know it, Leonard. Will you promise one thing?"
    "That will have to depend."
    "Never put any of it online, will you? You heard what it said."
    "I've no intention of scanning it," Fairman told him and was so anxious to be gone that he almost forgot to ask "Can you tell me whom I need to see next?"
    "Heidi Dunscombe. She represents our town."
    "Represents in what way?"
    "I thought you'd know more about us by now. She's our tourist officer."
    "And where can I find her? No, don't tell me." Fairman saw Rothermere take this for an admission of knowledge, and felt bound to add "I have to get back."
    Rothermere's earnestness seemed to befog his glasses. "You aren't leaving us, Leonard."
    "Back to the hotel. They can direct me. Thank you for keeping this safe." Having reached the door, Fairman couldn't resist adding "You haven't told me there's so much more to see."
    "There's no need." The lenses looked not merely blurred now but smeared. "You're beginning to," the bookseller said.
    Fairman let that go. As he stepped out of the bookshop, triggering the bell again, he glanced back. The bookseller had withdrawn into his office and was fitting the spectacles to his face, no doubt having wiped the lenses. Fairman barely glimpsed the naked eyes, but they appeared to glimmer at him out of too much of the face, so that he could have imagined that the lenses were plain glass. He had an