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The Beast of Averoigne by Clark Ashton Smith

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Roby
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« Reply #15 on: October 12, 2009, 02:50:53 am »

One of the men-at-arms was borne to the ground, and I saw above him, in a
floating redness as of ghostly blood, the black and semi-serpentine form of the
Beast. A flat and snakish head, without ears or nose, was tearing at the man's
armor with sharp, serrate teeth, and I heard the teeth clash and grate on the
linked iron. Swiftly I laid the ring of Eibon on a stone I had placed in
readiness, and broke the dark jewel with a blow of the hammer that I carried.

>From the pieces of the lightly shattered gem, the disemprisoned demon rose in
the form of a smoky fire, small as a candle-flame at first, and greatening like
the conflagration of piled fagots. And, hissing softly with the voice of fire,
and brightening to a wrathful, terrible gold, the demon leapt forward to do
battle with the Beast, even as it had promised me, in return for its freedom
after cycles of captivity.
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Roby
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« Reply #16 on: October 12, 2009, 02:51:04 am »

It closed upon the Beast with a vengeful flaring, tall as the flame of an
auto-da-fe, and the Beast relinquished the man-at-arms on the ground beneath it,
and writhed back like a burnt serpent. The body and members of the Beast were
loathfully convulsed, and they seemed to melt in the manner of wax and to change
dimly and horribly beneath the flame, undergoing an incredible metamorphosis.
Moment by moment, like a werewolf that returns from its beasthood, the thing
took on the wavering similitude of man. The unclean blackness flowed and
swirled, assuming the weft of cloth amid its changes, and becoming the folds of
a dark robe and cowl such as are worn by the Benedictines. Then, from the cowl,
a face began to peer, and the face, though shadowy and distorted, was that of
the abbot Theophile.

This prodigy I beheld for an instant; and the men also beheld it. But still the
fire-shaped demon assailed the abhorrently transfigured thing, and the face
melted again into waxy blackness, and a great column of sooty smoke arose,
followed by an odor as of burning flesh commingled with some might foulness. And
out of the volumed smoke, above the hissing of the demon, there came a single
cry in the voice of Theophile. But the smoke thickened, hiding both the
assailant and that which it assailed; and there was no sound, other than the
singing of fed fire.
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Roby
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« Reply #17 on: October 12, 2009, 02:51:22 am »

At last, the sable fumes began to lift, ascending and disappearing amid the
boughs, and a dancing golden light; in the shape of a will-o'-the-wisp, went
soaring over the dark trees toward the stars. And I knew that the demon of the
ring had fulfilled its promise, and had now gone back to those remote and
ultramundane deeps from which the sorcerer Eibon had drawn it down in Hyperborea
to become the captive of the purple gem.

The stench of burning passed from the air, together with the mighty foulness;
and of that which had been the Beast there was no longer any trace. So I knew
that the horror born of the red comet had been driven away by the fiery demon,
The fallen man-at-arms had risen, unharmed beneath his mail, and he and his
fellow stood beside me, saying naught. But I knew that they had seen the changes
of the Beast, and had divined something of the truth. So, while the moon grew
gray with the nearness of dawn, I made them swear an awful oath of secrecy, and
enjoined them to bear witness to the statement I must make before the monks of
Perigon.
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Roby
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« Reply #18 on: October 12, 2009, 02:51:34 am »

Then, having settled this matter, so that the good renown of the holy Theophile
should suffer no calumny, we aroused the porter. We averred that the Beast had
come upon us unaware, and had gained the abbot's cell before we could prevent
it, and had come forth again, carrying Theophile with its snakish members as if
to bear him away to the sunken comet. I had exorcised the unclean devil, which
had vanished in a cloud of sulfurous fire and vapor; and, most unluckily, the
abbot had been consumed by the fire.

His death, I said, was a true martyrdom, and would not be in vain: the Beast
would no longer plague the country or bedevil Perigon, since the exorcism I had
used was infallible.
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Roby
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« Reply #19 on: October 12, 2009, 02:51:50 am »

This tale was accepted without question by the Brothers, who grieved mightily
for their good abbot. Indeed, the tale was true enough, for Theophile had been
innocent, and was wholly ignorant of the foul change that came upon him nightly
in his cell, and the deeds that were done by the Beast through his loathfully
transfigured body. Each night the thing had come down from the passing comet to
assuage its hellish hunger; and being otherwise impalpable and powerless, it had
used the abbot for its energumen, molding his flesh to the image of some obscene
monster from beyond the stars.

It had slain a peasant girl in Ste. Zenobie on that night while we waited behind
the abbey. But thereafter the Beast was seen no more in Averoigne; and its
murderous deeds were not repeated.

In time the comet passed to other heavens, fading slowly; and the black terror
it had wrought became a varying legend, even as all other bygone things. The
abbot Theophile was canonized for his strange martyrdom; and they who read this
record in future ages will believe it not, saying that no demon or malign spirit
could have prevailed thus upon true holiness. Indeed, it were well that none
should believe the story: for thin is the veil betwixt man and the godless deep.
The skies are haunted by that which it were madness to know; and strange
abominations pass evermore between earth and moon and athwart the galaxies.
Unnamable things have come to us in alien horror and will come again. And the
evil of the stars is not as the evil of Earth.

http://www.classichorrorstories.com/texts/beast.txt
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