The Black Stone by Robert E. Howard Summary

The putative narrator and protagonist reads Nameless Cults by Von Junzt, published in 1839. Von Junzt's work hints that all times and spaces are linked by doors and keys. Von Junzt discusses the Black Stone, an obelisk, as an example of such a key. His curiosity piqued, the protagonist locates the Black Stone adjacent to the village of Stregoicavar, in Hungary. On the way to visit the obelisk, the protagonist learns that during 1526 the Turkish scribe Selim Bahadur had delivered a scroll concerning Stregoicavar to Count Boris Vladinoff; the Count found the scroll's contents displeasing and was shortly thereafter killed and buried under collapsing masonry. Arriving in distant Stregoicavar, the protagonist speaks with the inn-keeper. The distant Black Stone is said to be evil; the original inhabitants of the village were all...