Short Fiction · Chapter
XI: Battle and Retreat explained
The narrator, Jake Switz, and Judge Pursuivant are attacked by amorphous, glowing non-shapes that exude terror.
What happens
The narrator, Jake Switz, and Judge Pursuivant are attacked by amorphous, glowing non-shapes that exude terror. Pursuivant wields a silver sword forged by Saint Dunstan to drive them back, and they retreat to safety. Pursuivant theorizes the entities are elementals or poltergeists, part of a great evil, and warns against informing Varduk, whom he suspects of orchestrating the attack.
Themes in this chapter
Supernatural Evil and Occultism
The non-shapes are described as extraterrestrial, supernatural entities serving a vast evil, and are repelled by a saint-forged silver sword.
Science vs. Superstition
Pursuivant discusses poltergeist phenomena as studied by modern psychical researchers, contrasting scientific inquiry with occult explanations.
The Power of Belief and Ritual
The silver sword's efficacy against evil is tied to its saintly origin and the protective power of the inscribed Latin prayer.
Characters to notice
- Jake Switz
Fights alongside the narrator, helps him retreat, and recalls a poltergeist case in Brooklyn.
- Keith Pursuivant
Leads the retreat, wields Saint Dunstan's silver sword, and explains the nature of the non-shapes as elementals or poltergeists.
- Mr. Connatt
The narrator, who uses Pursuivant's sword-cane and coins the term 'non-shapes' for the attacking entities.
- Varduk
Suspected by Pursuivant of knowing about the non-shapes and possibly orchestrating the attack.
Key passages
“I doubt if any writer, however accomplished, has ever done full justice to the emotion of terror. To mention the icy chill at the backbone, the sudden sinewless trembling of the knees, the withering dryness of throat and tongue, is to be commonplace; and terror is not commonplace.”
The narrator reflects that true terror defies adequate description, as its physical symptoms—chills, trembling, dry mouth—are too ordinary to capture its essence.
Opens the chapter with a meditation on the inadequacy of language to convey the experience of terror.
“Something quasi-human must have hung about them, something suggestive of man’s outline and manner, as in a rough image molded by children of snow; but they were not solid like snow. They shifted and swirled, like wreaths of thick mist, without dispersing in air. They gave a dim, rotten light of their own, and they moved absolutely without sound.”
The attacking entities appear vaguely human-shaped but are insubstantial, moving silently like glowing mist that does not dissipate.
Describes the eerie, amorphous nature of the non-shapes.
“It isn’t steel. Look at it, gentlemen—silver.”
Pursuivant reveals that his sword is made of silver, not steel, explaining its power against evil.
Key revelation about the sword's material and its supernatural significance.
“I’ve given the subject plenty of thought ever since you, Connatt, told me the experience of your friend here. There are several accounts and considerations of similar phenomena. Among ancient occultists was talk of elementary spirits—things supernormal and sometimes invisible, of subhuman intelligence and personality and not to be confused with spirits of the dead. A more modern word is ‘elemental,’ used by several cults.”
Pursuivant explains that the non-shapes may be elementals, ancient occult concepts of subhuman supernatural entities distinct from ghosts.
Pursuivant's theory linking the attack to occult traditions of elementals.