I went back to the used book store and broke down and bought the Blish book which makes a reference to Elron. It's by well-known SF author James Blish (_Cities in Flight_ etc.), titled "The Warriors of Day", published 1967 by Lancer books, and has a copyright date of 1951 (another edition listed in on-line library catalogs has a copyright date of 1961; the book doesn't seem to be listed at all on Amazon.com).

The back-cover and pre-title-page blurbs make the book sound like it has an extremely cheesy plot (which was why I didn't buy the book on Saturday), but here are some of the bits about the character Elron, cruel High Priest of the Cult of the Dark Worship of the god Mahrt (described as "Satanistic"

on p. 89), that I was able to find by flipping back and forth a little through the pages:

``Put him in irons'', Elron said stonily.

The red-head's face was suffused, his pupils alarmingly large.

Though he was speaking quite softly, each word was bitten off with so sharp an edge that it rang like iron.

``You are about to witness a ceremony of the Dark Worship'', Elron said. ``Bind him'', Elron said calmly. ``Bind him into the dark niche of the Pillar of Sorrow, manacle his feet and hands. Both of you will stand watch over him during the ceremony. Do not fear to show me a corpse when I return from my offices. Kill him for any reason you see, or no reason at all. I shall be more likely to reward you for a corpse than a live man--'' It seemed very likely that Elron, high priest of the Dark Worship, had hoped to be the Sword of Mahrt. [[i.e. the prophesied messiah]] It was a common-place in all religions that the priesthood regarded itself as the instrument of deity, and where the legend promised the coming of a supreme prophet or saviour, the temptation of the head priest to identify himself with the forthcoming deliverer was invariably stronger than human temptation could resist. When a man has built up an elaborate organization, founded in hope of perpetuating itself forever, the arrival of an event which promises to deprive that organization of meaning within a year or so could hardly be welcome.

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