HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror - Weird Tales

The meetings with Peters’ widow had gone better than he
could have hoped for. Another one of the walking sticks he had
coveted was tucked safely inside its case and locked in the boot.
He could feel its presence, like a long lost friend.
Donald recalled the first time he had seen that particular
piece, at a meeting in London many years before. The night was
clear, punctuated by the flicker of gas lamps amidst the greenblack
foliage of Russell Square. The soft clip, clop of the horses’
hooves and their cabs coming and going along Great Russell
Street could be heard through the open windows of the men’s
club across from the British Museum. On occasion, the roar of
one of the new horseless carriages broke the peaceful quietude
of the tree-lined street.
One of the guests was holding forth, punctuating his
words with a walking stick.
“You see, I have held for some time that it is (thump) possible
to command the laws of physics by sheer force of will
(thump)—for those who can master the discipline. And that
(thump) is what our Order of the Golden Dawn’s about,” he
turned to Donald, “and why men like him might wish to join
our ranks.”
Donald waded in, “But in my own studies, I’ve found it
easier to work when a focus is available, even an organized pattern.”
“Oh, you’re quite right about that, Summers,” Mathers
replied. He held out his walking stick towards Donald. Donald
reached for it, but Mathers withdrew it, hastily, much to
Donald’s chagrin.
“Waite and Yeats,” Mathers said and nodded in the direction
of his other companions, “found this for me in a curio
shop a fortnight ago. They say that there’s more to it than
meets the eye.” In a soft voice he added, “Seems the previous
owner swore up and down that it once belonged to a sorcerer.”
Donald’s eyes widened.
A sly grin crossed Mathers’ lips. “This is of interest to you?”
“It might be,” Donald replied, seeming to examine the
contents of his brandy snifter. The light played will-o-the-wisp
games through the faceted crystal, ignited phantoms that swam
through the swirls of amber liquid as Donald balanced the glass
between his palms. He looked up to engage Mathers’ direct
gaze over the crystal rim.
“Good. If you pop ‘round my flat tomorrow, we can talk
about it.” With a smile, Mathers tipped his stick towards
Donald, then spun on his heels and strode from the salon.
The memory of those chats brought a smile to Donald’s
face. His foot grew heavy on the gas pedal. He was eager to
bring his precious cargo home, soon to rest in its proper position
in the pattern.
“WHO’S Arthur Lawson?” Julia asked.
Donald slowly looked up from his endless paperwork. All
seven of the most recently available walking sticks were finally
in his possession. “Arthur Lawson?”
Julia nodded, lips pressed together. She held a massive,
leather-bound tome in her arms.
“I’m sure I’ve mentioned him before. He’s an ancestor of
ours, lived during the eighteenth century—a distant cousin, as
I recall. Why do you ask?” Donald remained casual, but caught
himself toying with the watch in his vest pocket.
“I was working in the vault—way in the back of the climate
controlled section—rearranging some things. I found a
box I’d never seen before and, when I opened it, discovered
this.” Julia hesitated, then continued. “At first, I wasn’t sure
that I’d seen it at all. It was very strange. But then I checked
again and there it was.” She put the book down in front of her
father.
Donald didn’t look at his daughter, preoccupied. He
couldn’t imagine how she’d gotten through the wards and other
protections he’d placed on the piece since the day he’d first
held it as his own. He reached for the book, running a finger
over its cover, then paused and answered. “There have been
others with my name, Julia. Besides, do I look old enough to
have known Cousin Arthur, personally?”
Undeterred, Julia turned the book around and opened to a
marked page. Turning it back to face Donald, she told him,
“Read this. Very weird stuff.”
He looked down and recognized some of his own markings.
It took effort not to look away from the page as he recited,
from memory, the decades-old words etched upon his
mind. “. . . To the North is Uriel, Guardian of the Gate . . .”
Donald pulled back from the incantation and chuckled
softly. “Julia, my dear, I think that Jamison has got you going
with some of his conspiracy theories.”
“Oh, maybe—all that FBI and UFO stuff. But what’s all
this about ‘tapping trees’ on the one page, or that intricate pattern
on another? Gives me the creeps.”
Donald saw an opening and took it. Despite all her education,
natural smarts, and curiosity, he was certain that he could
handle his own flesh and blood, as he had done before with
others, though her questions persisted. “It’s been rather hushed
in the family lore of that era, but Lawson dabbled in a considerable
amount of mumbojumbo that seems to have affected his
mind. He was quite an embarrassment to the London aristocracy
with which he’d once hobnobbed.”
Julia seemed to lay the matter to rest, at least for the
moment, though remained uneasy. His story matched the others
he’d told her of the notoriously private lives led by the
Summers clan. That had to be enough.
“He sounds like somebody whose company I’d’ve enjoyed,
even if I wouldn’t want to work with him,” Julia quipped.
“You’ll have to tell me more, sometime.”
DONALD closed the doors to the ancient wardrobe and settled
into the silence of his sanctuary. He sat in a simple wooden chair,
the book Julia had recently discovered open upon his lap.
He thumbed through the yellowed pages, reading a line
here, a paragraph there. The light of candles burned all around
him, moving, flowing, giving the words on the page an ethereal
quality.
They stood upright against the wall, each in its own specially
crafted stand—nineteen walking sticks of fine-grained
and rare woods, each adorned with some precious bit of metal,
a unique gem. Three other stands gaped, empty.
Donald turned to the back of the tome, looked over the
H .P . L O V E C R A F T ’S M A G A Z IN E O F H O R R O R 7