Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #17 August 2015 | Page 64

a man who should have been dead crawled towards
them, trying to bite them. A man who should have
been dead, a man who was dead?

“I have seen, may Allah protect me, I have seen
such things. Things that cannot be, that should not
be. Things against God’s law. Each time I am too late,
each time he has done his evil and moved on. But this
time God himself guided me. He took a book from
my village, a book so old it comes from before God.
Some call it the Book of Asheb, most call it the Book
of Unread Pages. It is a dark and terrible thing; it holds
power over the dead and the living and over beasts and
men.

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General Summerby broke the silence.
“Gentlemen. It seems that we no longer have
the time for a siege. We must take this nest of rebels
and we must do so today.”

He has sought to unlock the secrets of the
book, only one thing stood between him and its power,
the knowledge of how to open the book itself. That is
why he came here, that is what he sought. If he is not
stopped then he will call the dead to come forth and
serve him. He will claim not just Egypt for his kingdom but the world. He must be stopped, Allah speaks
to me in my dreams, he shows me the power that the
book holds, he shows me the world given over to the
dead.
He has learned how to read the book, now he
has learned to open it. He is learning to use its power.
He will grow stronger as he reads more of the book; his
power will grow as he performs the rituals within. If he
is not stopped he will call armies from the realm of the
dead.
He opened the book and on that day he called
one back from the realm of the dead, now he has called
more. Tomorrow he may call dozens or hundreds. He
is here and we must stop him.”
The officers had sat and listened to what had
been said, Doctor Adler had been filling a small book
with notes. But every face showed the same expression.
Disbelief at a story that should have been utterly ridiculous, magic books, summoning the dead. These were