There is a Terror lurks in carven stone: not without reason do the children of the wastes shun horrible and thousand-columned Irem, whereof each pillar bears up an eidolon of Those Who Dwell Afar, and it is not idle superstition that bids the beholder shudder when he looks upon the monstrous and brooding Sphinx, remembering that tenebrous and frightful thing whereof it is but a simulacrum. But more to be shunned and dreaded even than these are those images brought down from Beyond ere the first Men slunk whimpering through the steaming fens of the primal Earth; for those eidola are imbued with a loathsome curse, and betimes they drain the strength of men, or fill their minds with loathsome and seductive dreams; and some whisper that the Outside Ones can be summoned hither through their very images; but I pray this last be but idle legend, for if it be truth, then the World stands in horrendous peril until such star-brought idols be destroyed to the last one.
To this final quotation there was affixed, as a marginal gloss in Professor Copeland’s spidery script, a note which Dr. Blaine had underscored three times: "Cf. NEC. III. xvii."
This, I suddenly realized, was the single item of transcendent import to which poor, deranged Dr. Blaine had pitiably strove to direct my attention. This clue told me exactly where in the pages of that mysterious Necronomicon could be found the ritual or formula whereby the Ponape figurine could safely be destroyed!
So significant did this fact appear that I took out my pocket notebook on the spot and copied down that marginal gloss in full, so that I could not mislay the information.
And, even as I did so, an indescribable feeling of being watched came over me. The skin literally crept at the nape of my neck, and an inexplicable paralysis of overwhelming fear seized me. The pressure of cold, unseen, malignant eyes from somewhere behind me was simply unmistakable.
Someone ... or something ... was watching me, with a chilling, completely evil, calculating glare.
I turned around suddenly, and looked into cold, carved eyes of lifeless stone. It was the jade image of Zoth-Ommog, which I had left on top of the office safe.
I forced a shaky laugh, and tried to shrug off the distinct feeling of uneasiness. But I could have sworn that when I put the image down earlier, it had been facing the other way.
FOR the next week or so I was too deeply immersed in my official duties to return to a further study of the Xothic legend cycle. The directors of the Institute had met in formal session several times during this interval, and the trend of these meetings was singularly disturbing to me.
To put it bluntly, it was in the process of being decided that the display of the Copeland collection should after all include the Ponape figurine! It was the feeling of the directors that public interest in the notorious figurine, whipped up by regrettably sensational newspaper articles, would bring the public to the Institute in droves, curious to see for themselves the mysterious idol whose ancient "curse“ had driven two famous scholars insane.
Although I cannot quite explain why, I must admit I was appalled at this decision and did my best to argue the directors out of it. In this attempt I failed resoundingly, for I could offer no factual evidence as to the unwisdom of this act. What, after all, could I say—that one man, who had died a raving maniac, had scribbled down some notes on an obscure mythology—notes which seemed to suggest that a weird and supernatural danger hovered about the bit of sculpture? Or could I argue that another man, still confined to a sanitarium because of a nervous breakdown, had uttered some vague, hysterical warnings against displaying the statuette? Obviously, I could hardly use these arguments, based on superstition and hysteria, to counter the decision of the directors. In fact, I could find no basis to justify my own feeling of uneasiness at the thought of exposing the figurine before a curious and sensation-hungry public; surely, even I did not accept this occult nonsense to be literally true!
Or—did I?
Despite my own lack of conviction, I argued as eloquently as I could against the decision. I tried to convey the notion that to put the Ponape figurine on public display would be premature—that its authenticity had yet to be fully established—that to display a questionable piece would be mere sensation-mongering, mere headline-hunting. To these arguments, the directors listened courteously, but nothing I could say swayed their opinion in the slightest degree.
In the meantime, I redoubled my efforts to locate a copy of the Necronomicon. I fired off telegrams by the dozen, and the replies that came trickling back were unanimously disappointing. None of the universities in the state seemed to possess a copy of this fabulously rare volume, and none of the great private libraries or collections would admit to owning it, either. My desperation to find the Necronomicon must have seeped through the formal phraseology of my missives, for some of the libraries replied in sympathetic, helpful tones to my queries. Of these, the Huntington was most friendly, advising me to try the British Museum, the Kester Library in Salem, or the Miskatonic library in Arkham. The note from the Huntington helpfully added that they did, at least, have a copy of the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, which reputedly discussed a range of material parallel to much of the substance of the Necronomicon. I was grateful for their helpfulness at the Huntington, but the last thing I needed was the von Junzt; a copy of the 1840 Düsseldorf edition of the Unaussprechlichen Kulten had been found among Professor Copeland’s papers, and was currently in the library of the Institute, although I had not yet had the opportunity to look into it.
The Huntington's suggestion that I try the library of Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, recalled to mind Dr. Blaine’s identical stricture. I sent off a wire to the university library, inquiring if they possessed the Necronomicon, and seeking to arrange an interlibrary loan. A day or two later I received a friendly reply from the librarian at Miskatonic, a Dr. Henry Armitage, which said that their collection did indeed include a copy of the Necronomicon in the Latin version of Olaus Wormius. printed in Spain during the seventeenth Century, but that it was simply too rare anti valuable to be permitted to leave the collection. Dr. Armitage added that Miskatonic possessed the only copy of the complete edition known to exist in America, and that there had been numerous attempts in recent years to purchase it from the library, and even to steal the precious volume. His reply was affable and friendly, adding that if it was at all possible for me to visit Arkham, he would be delighted to permit me to examine the Necronomicon at my leisure.
By this time it had become clear to me that if I was going to study the Necronomicon's recipe for the destruction of the figurine, I was indeed going to have to make the long trip from Santiago to Arkham, Mass. And, in fact, I could see a way to do it. For the Institute still owed me two weeks' vacation, as I had volunteered to give up my vacation and stay on duty the previous year, when Dr. Blaine had suffered his nervous collapse.
Now that my work on organizing and classifying the Copeland bequest was finished, the Institute actually had no pressing need of my services, and could well afford to give me the next two weeks off for a brief vacation from my duties. I wasted no time in making such a request of the directors, and received their favorable reply. I then dispatched a wire to Dr. Armitage, informing him of my trip, and began looking up railroad schedules.