The Seed of Evil

Who is this lunatic? Madders wondered. It annoyed him to have strangers come up and start talking about the Secret Star, which he had tried hard to keep on the straight and narrow of an esoteric society. Still, it was hard to keep anything secret these days, with so much occult stuff about. Davies must have been blabbing again, he thought.

The initiation word, though. … Where had this guy got that? From the British Museum, probably, just as Madders himself had.

Wizard Wazo spoke more insistently, though still keeping his tone on the level of polite conversation. “I have just returned from my mission to find the end of space. Now I need my words of power, to carry out the many projects that all the time, even while I am speaking to you, are occurring to my intellect.”

Madders looked up from his book. He smiled sarcastically, expelling smoke from the corner of his mouth. “The end of space, yet! Find it all right?”

Wizard Wazo blinked. “Of course I did not find it. Space has no end. Therein lies the meaning of the pilgrimage.”

Madders snorted. Wizard Wazo felt puzzled, even bewildered. A certain amount of fencing between wizards was not uncommon, but this man behaved as though they were of equal rank! As though he himself had been trained by the Galactic Observance!

Even so, Wizard Wazo remained patient. “Come, let us understand one another,” he said jovially. “I do not doubt that you have attained much. It is not to be supposed that your order has been idle for the last five thousand years. And did I not find even then adepts in Egypt, men who understood the use of words? Even lacking your—” he indicated the street outside, searching for a phrase—“your oil-driven machinery, they were able to erect the square-based quintahedra.”

“Quintahedra?”

“Models of planetary existence. Pyramids, you call them. Ah, but they were a splendid sight—faced with white limestone, the upper surfaces sheathed in brilliant gold. At summer solstice they reflected the light of the sun out over the desert—vast four-armed stars, shining on the floor of the desert! Wonderful! It is regrettable that your order has not seen fit to attend to their repair.”

Madders said nothing, and Wizard Wazo grew worried. He cast his mind back to the time when he had unloaded his property onto this man’s ancestors.

Words of power were heavy in the consciousness, even when only lodged in the memory. They could act as impedimenta to that mode of travel known as the immediacy of thought. Therefore Wizard Wazo had been obliged to lighten himself for his heroic pilgrimage to the nonexistent limit of space, to strip down his memory in order to attain the greatest possible thought-velocity. He could on no account divest himself of his standard repertoire, but there were other, specialised words, with ponderous vibrational sequences, that were very weighty. These he had cached with various people, on various planets.

In Egypt he had founded the Order of the Secret Star, entrusting a number of his words to the order for it to guard and preserve—on condition, of course, that no attempt was to be made to activate them (which the order did not have the conscious force to do in any case). As a reward for this service he had taught the order some magical techniques and a few lesser words which could bring practical results. Undoubtedly the Order of the Secret Star was by now one of the groups clandestinely controlling Earth civilisation.

A chilling thought occurred to Wizard Wazo. He had already discovered that this planet abounded in thieves and villains. Could it be that the Order of the Secret Star had decided to renege on its agreement? That it intended to keep the words of power for itself, in the hope of being able to make use of them some day? It was tempting to enter the other’s mind to ascertain the truth of this suspicion … but Wizard Wazo restrained himself from so improper a step. In any case there could be no question of extracting his property by force. Words of power had to be imparted with the consent of both parties, otherwise they lost their efficacy.

He stroked his mustachios. He glowered. “Evidently I must be blunt. Unless you cease to prevaricate and arrange for the early transfer of my property, I shall visit upon you a punishment designed to secure your co-operation.”

Smiling tolerantly, Madders stuffed his paperback in his pocket. The threat mildly amused him, but he was tired of the exchange. He prepared to rise.

As if in close confidence, Wizard Wazo leaned closer, “I shall send Hathor, the goddess of love, to you.”

“Love?” laughed Madders. “Go ahead, mate. We could all use some more of that.”

“Once she was Kesmet, the great lion sent to devour mankind. In her new form she is even more terrible.”

Madders stood up. “If you’d studied magic properly, old chap, you’d know better than to come out with all that chat about ‘words of power’. You’ve been reading the wrong books.”