Old Ugly-Face by Talbot Mundy

Thought took no time; agony no space. Elsa took four steps forward, toward the lamplit door of the magician's dwelling. Andrew's left hand pressed her shoulder blades. His right hand gripped an automatic inside his overcoat. Within the compass of four strides, a whole world changed--a universe! A state of consciousness, in which all universes lived because there is nowhere else for them, became a dismal wilderness. There is no pain like disillusion. Faith had failed. Cut that hysterical stuff! Andrew's hand on her back was meant to reassure! Whom? Of what? There was nothing left.

Four steps forward--toward a lamplit door, over frozen filth, amid the buttery reek of almost invisible Tibetans who crowded the dark alley. There was a sound of frozen leather rubbing against leather, and of rifle swivels, and of hard breathing. There were glimpses of eyes that craved and expected presently to see victims slowly done to death. Those watchers knew their magician--knew what to expect, what to demand of him. Like life itself, he would amuse himself; but he would presently pass judgment and impose death, for his own importance and their pleasure. Then the watchers would feel for a while like their imagined old deathless gods of Tibet, who await the end of the day of Buddha and the coming of the new cruel night of Bon. Cruel gods. Cruelty--the delicious dreadful stuff that flatters slaves and lends authority to tyrants, who are slaves' high priests. Cruelty! The passion distinguishing man from beast--since only man loves, invents, applies, enjoys cruelty. Man, the creator and image of all the gods!