The Sorcerer's Jewel

"The Sorcerer's Jewel" is a short story by Robert Bloch that first appeared in the February 1939 issue of Strange Stories. It appeared under the pseudonym Tarleton Fiske, as Bloch had another story appearing under his own name in the same issue, "The Curse of the House". 
The story concerns the photographer David Niles, who is obsessed with the idea that "the modern camera could photograph dream worlds and blend fancy with reality." Himself a rationalist, Niles hires the narrator as a technical adviser because of his interest in mythology and the occult. Niles begins by photographing models made up to look like mythological subjects, then making elaborate papier-mache sets for clay models. Continually dissatisfied with his results, he turns to unusual lenses to get closer to what he calls the Fourth Dimension--and the narrator calls the Astral Plane. Finally the narrator hits on the idea of lithomancy--"divination by the use of jewels"--and goes to the occultist Isaac Voorden, whose antique store on South Kinnikinnic (a street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) specializes in "paraphernalia of wizardry". 
Voorden proposes to sell him the Star of Sechmet. ("Very ancient, but not costly.") Originally set in the crown of a statue of the lioness-headed goddess Sechmet (or Sekhmet),Ancient Egypt Online, "Sekhmet". it was stolen by the Romans and put in the vestal girdle of Rome's high priestess of Diana.Wikipedia, "Temple of Diana (Rome)". Barbarians looted it and cut it into a round stone. Later Axenos the ElderAxenos appears to have been invented by Bloch; the name was used by the early Greeks for both the Achelous River and the Black Sea. See Wikipedia, "Axenos". "bathed it in the red, yellow and blue flames, and sought to employ it as a Philosopher's Stone";British Library, "Secrets of the Philosopher's Stone", by Roger Highfield. he was able to use it to see "beyond the Veil" and command elemental forces. Other possessors included Gilles de Rais (c. 1405-1440)Criminal Minds Wiki, "Gilles de Rais". and the Count St. Germain (1691?-1784?). LiveAbout.com, "Saint-Germain: The Immortal Count", by Stephen Wagner, December 29, 2018.Voorden claims to have "bought it in Amsterdam from a Russian priest whose eyes had been burned out by little gray brother Rasputin."Smithsonian Magazine, "The Murder of Rasputin, 100 Years Later", by Carolyn Harris, December 27, 2016. 
Surprisingly, Voorden agrees to grind this irreplaceable millennia-old antique down to use as a photographic lens, but warns the narrator "to take care in using it. There is danger in invading the realms--" 
Taking the lens back to Niles, the narrator looks through it and sees first geometric shapes, and then "shapeless toadstools with tentacles ending in Cyclopean eyes" and other monstrous figures. Niles sees similar shapes, then "tall, eyeless creatures with heads all hair...and underneath the hair, little wrinkled pink-pulp mouths like the convolution slits of the human brain." And finally--"the Goat with the Hands!" 
Shaken but exhilarated, Niles is sure he's on the right track at last. The narrator warns him, "I wouldn't advise looking too closely into that lens," but Niles insists he'll use it to take photographs with it the next day. 
That day, the narrator goes to see Voorden, and finds him dead. The notes he leaves behind point to a sinister explanation: Through the centuries, everyone who has reset, cut, or misused the stone has died. (The notes Veno's History--an apparently imaginary Roman text--and recommend consulting "Mysteries of the Worm for Prinn's chapter on divination.") 
Rushing back to the studio, the narrator finds that Niles has disappeared, leaving one photograph taken in the camera. When developed, it reveals an image of "the dead and mangled body of David Niles!" 
== Characters ==
David Niles: "[O]ne of the most brilliant personalities in the domain of modern portrait photography", Niles "had done salon work, exhibiting internationally and creating a reputation which brought him a considerable income from private sittings." "[D]issatisfied with commercial work," he "determined to retire for a year or so and devote himself to experiment." "Niles was always tense with energy, high-spirited, volatile.,,a skeptic, a materialist, and above all, a scientist." Physically, he is described as "short, plump, and fair." He apparently lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 
The Narrator: Niles' friend and business associate, he is "naturally lazy, moody, inclined towards introspection." His interests inclined to "metaphysics and a study of occultism." Physically, he is "tall, thin, and dark." 
Isaac Voorden: A Milwaukee shopkeep who "made a profession of his hobby and a hobby of his profession; lived on metaphysics and dabbled in antiques." "[P]ervaded by an aura of mysticism," his antique store on Milwaukee's South Kinnikinnick AvenueUrban Milwaukee, "KK Is Bay View's Main Street", by Carl Baehr, July 14, 2016. "was a little fortress that preserved the past." An older man, he is described as "sallow" and resembles "a modern necromancer". 
== William Mortensen ==
Niles is said to be "a devotee of the William Mortensen school of photography." The narrator explains: "Mortensen, of course, is the leading exponent of fantasy in photography; his studies of monstrosities and grotesques are widely known." In an experimental phase, Niles "reverted to the Mortensen principles and employed distortion-bending and twisting the negative so that prints showed elongated or flattened figures in nightmarish fashion." 
William Mortensen (1897-1965) was a real photographer, born in Park City, Utah, and dying in Laguna Beach, California, who seems to be Bloch's main model for David Niles. Mortensen was "famous for his dark and grotesque photographs," and "wanted to create art, not just to shoot what was in front of him."Widewalls, "William Mortensen", Nikola Milosevic, January 10, 2016. He "shot images of witchcraft, monsters, torture and Satanic rituals, rarely shying away from nudity or blood."Smithsonian Magazine, "The Photographer Who Ansel Adams Called the Anti-Christ", Bess Lovejoy, December 4, 2014. Like Niles, he often used costumes and theatrical makeup and costumes--with Lon Chaney a key influenceThe Guardian, "William Mortensen: Photographic Master at the Monster's Ball", Chis Campion, October 6, 2014.--and also intensely manipulated his negatives: "His pieces have blurry lines and distressed edges, dark shading and burned corners.... He often scratched his negatives, added lines, and drawings, and by doing this he expanded he was creating photographs, not just taking them." 
Niles' relationship with the narrator echoes Mortensen's friendship with Manly P. Hall, a "chiselled Canadian philosopher and mystic living in LA" with a "voluminous library of books about the occult". Under Hall's influence, Mortensen "planned to photograph an encyclopedia of Demons, Witchcraft, and Sorcery practices."50 Watts, "Monsters and Madonnas: Looking at William Mortensen", Cary Loren, January 2009. 
== Publication History ==
After its appearance in Strange Stories, "The Sorcerer's Jewel" was reprinted in From Beyond the Dark Gateway (Silver Scarab Press, 1977), in the Winter 1984 issue of Fantasy Tales and in the collection The Best Horror From Fantasy Tales (Robinson, 1988). It was included in the Chaosium editions of Mysteries of the Worm (1993, 2009).Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: The Sorcerer's Jewel". 
== External Link ==
"The Sorcerer's Jewel" full text at Cthulhu Files 
== References ==
Category:Robert Bloch works
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works