Free The High House by James Stoddard Page A

father.”
    “They have many powers, the Society of Anarchists,” Chant said. “In the past we have been protected; they could not come here. But now, though it takes great strength to do so, they have entered the library through your dreams. It shows how vulnerable we have become.”
    “What is it all about?” Carter said. “If I am to help, I must know. What is the High House?”
    “A poem,” Chant said. “A mystery. A Force of Nature. All of these and more. I stretch lame hands of faith and grope, and gather dust and chaff, and call, to what I feel is Lord of all, and faintly trust the larger hope. Do not look so. I am answering as best I can. But Enoch is older. Perhaps he can say it better.”
    The old man sighed and stared into the shadows and the fireplace; the sound of the burning logs mingled with the patter of the rain against the eaves, while the angels in the architecture bent their heads above the men, quite frightening in the darkness, all shadows and staring eyes. Carter cast an anxious glance around the room. As a child he did not recall being bothered by the weight of the gloom.
    “My story is the only one I know,” Enoch said, his swarthy features deepened by the night. “I was born, son of Yarad, six thousand years ago in the country once named Aram. You would call it Syria. As a young man, I used to walk with the Lord God among the fields and forests. Do I deserve that look? Such things were common in the Old Days. And I know what you are thinking: what was He like? Don’t ask. I can only tell you He was beautiful. We would talk. Mostly I listened, which is a good thing to do when you are walking with God. People lived longer then, and one day, when I was three hundred sixty-five years old, we strolled until the evening. The stars came out, the pearls of heaven. I suddenly thought: I am far from home. My feet are sore. I should have thought of this. The Lord looked down at me and said, ‘See, your house is far away, but Mine is near at hand. Come stay at My home awhile and I will give you work to do.’
    “So He brought me here, and showed me how to wind the clocks. Then He went away. And not a word since.” Enoch shrugged. “Maybe He’s too busy. I miss our talks.
    “The house was different back then. The styles changed; the architecture changed. But one thing is the same: it is His mechanism. He uses it to run the universe, and the clocks must be wound and the lamps lit, or it will All run down.”
    “And I thought Chant a poet,” Carter said. “So the Bobby and his brood wish to replace order with anarchy?”
    “Do not be deceived by their name,” Chant said. “The anarchists use order or chaos at need, for the universe requires both and they must remain in balance. The anarchists oppose the idea of the universe. On the surface, they seek power, but they are the Great Destroyers, and our real enemy is Entropy. Sometimes, if I cannot light a certain lamp, or if Enoch cannot reach a clock to rewind it, then suns perish and segments of Creation die. The bed was made, the room was fit, By punctual eve the stars were lit. The anarchists will do anything to master the Balance. What they cannot control, they will destroy.”
    Carter and Hope exchanged skeptical glances. “Here, Mr. Hope, is a behemoth even you may have trouble swallowing.”
    The lawyer smiled. “Yet we have dreamed of faceless men, and death has passed from sleep into the waking world.”
    “But what are we to do?” Carter asked. “Can they attack us anytime we slumber? How will we rest tonight?”
    “I don’t believe they can reach us so easily,” Chant said. “The library is a most unusual place; it is their beachhead. There , they focused their powers, causing both of you to fall asleep so they could enter your dreams. Apparently, Brittle was caught in it, and was probably their true target. But I think we will be safe in our beds this night, so long as we are far from the library.”
    “Why Brittle