The Idolaters of Cthulhu
Page 21
“The Nyarlat is hope, the Nyarlat is peace,” they said is unison.
Emily never even turned as the Shoggoths tore into the last few survivors from the farmhouse. It’s not that she didn’t care, it’s just that it didn’t matter. She had her answers now, and they all were truly blessed. Truly divine.
“Don’t worry,” Emily said, peering into that beautiful face as a thin stream of blood ran from her nose. “I’ll make sure everyone knows.”
The Nyarlathotep smiled back at her.
Afterwards
by
Clark Ashton Smith
(1893-1961)
There is a silence in the world
Since we have said farewell;
And beauty with an alien speech
An alien tale would tell.
There is a silence in the world,
Which is not peace nor quiet:
Ever I seek to flee therefrom,
And walk the ways of riot.
But when I hear the music moan
In rooms of thronging laughter,
A tongueless demon drives me forth,
And silence follows after.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Howard Philips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937), known as H. P. Lovecraft, was an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Virtually unknown and only published in pulp magazines before he died in poverty, he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in his genre. (Source: Wikipedia)
DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines in the UK, USA and elsewhere, including Cthulhu Haiku and Other Mythos Madness (Popcorn Press), Sorcery & Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen (Hieroglyphics Press), Tales of the Dark Arts (Hazardous Press), Cosmic Horror (Dark Hall Press), Fossil Lake (Sabledrake Enterprises), and Steampunk Cthulhu (Chaosium), and issues of Surreal Grotesque and Cthulhu, as well as having a Yellow Mythos novella available in paperback and on the Kindle, The Yellow House (Dynatox Ministries). DJ Tyrer's website is at http://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/. The Atlantean Publishing website is at http://atlanteanpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/.
Amanda Hard is a former journalist and magazine editor who received her BFA in creative writing from the University of Evansville. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association and her horror fiction has appeared in (or is forthcoming from) Ruthless Peoples Magazine, 22
More Quick Shivers from the Daily Nightmare, State of Horror: Louisiana, and State of Horror: Tennessee, both from Charon Coin Press. She lives in the cornfields of southern Indiana, where she practices necromancy and knits socks with deliberately placed holes.
Matthew Wilson has had over 150 appearances in such places as Horror Zine, Star*Line, Spellbound, Alban Lake, Apokrupha Press, Space & Time Magazine and many more. He is currently editing his first novel and can be contacted on twitter @matthew94544267.
James Victor is a man who has gone to live in a tropical paradise on the far side of the world. He did this for adventure and romance. He still spends all of his time thinking about aliens and swords and stuff. He recently sold his story, 'Mustard World' to Abyss & Apex Magazine.
Herika R. Raymer grew up consuming books – first by eating them, later by reading them. Her mother taught her the value of focus and hard work while her father encouraged her love literature and art; so she has been writing and doodling off and on for over 30 years. After much encouragement, Mrs. Raymer finally published a few short stories and has developed a taste for it. She continues to send submissions, sometimes with success, and currently has a collection of stories in the works. She was the Assistant Editor for a science fiction magazine and Lead Editor for a horror magazine. A participant of the voluntary writer/artist/musician cooperative known as Imagicopter, Herika R. Raymer is married with two children and a dog in West Tennessee, USA. Her website is at: herikarraymer.webs.com.
Shenoa Carroll-Bradd lives in Southern California and writes whatever catches her fancy, from fantasy to horror and erotica. Keep up with her projects at www.sbcbfiction.net.
Robert J. Krog is an author and editor in Memphis, TN. His day job is supervising lawn care spray techs for a local chemical lawn care company. Nights and weekends he writes if the little whirlwinds, masquerading in his house as children, allow it. He has been an assistant professional arborist, grocery store clerk, legal runner, long term university student, and high school history teacher. After his family and church, he most loves to read and write. As an author he has been published professionally for a number of years and has numerous works of short fiction before the public from various small presses including Sam's Dot/Alban Lake, Ink Monkey, and Kerlak/Dark Oak, two of which have Darrell Awards at Midsouthcon. He is currently a co-editor for Potter's Field Five from Alban Lake. His works in progress include a pair of novellas and a movie script. His website is www.krogfiction.yolasite.com.
E. Dane Anderson grew up in Spokane, Washington. He attended Eastern Washington University and University College London, holding masters degrees in both History and Archaeology. He is currently employed as an archaeologist for an Environmental consulting firm. He is a photographer and musician. He currently lives with a temperamental cat as one might expect. He was recently published in the Ghostwoods Books anthology Cthulhu Lives!
Gregory L. Norris is a full-time professional writer, with work published in a variety of places, mostly in national magazines and fiction anthologies. Recent short story appearances and sales include Anthology Year Three (the companion handbook to Anthocon), Dead Harvest, Sci Phi Journal, Death's Realm, Lovecraft E-Zine, The End Is The Beginning (which includes reprints by THE Mary Shelley, Mr. Hawthorne, and Mr. Poe) and numerous releases by Cleis Press and Bruno Gemuender Verlag in Germany. He worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount's modern classic, Star Trek: Voyager, and penned the screenplay to Brutal Colors (Royal Blue Pictures), his first contracted feature film (the second, The Devil Of Lakeford County, is presently in pre-production). Gregory judged the 2013 Lambda Awards in the SF/Fantasy/Horror category, and will soon see the publication of Tales From The Robot Graveyard, his collection of cyber-centric novellas, with a cover by Eric Chu, concept artist on the new Battlestar Galactica series. He recently semi-finalled in the Roswell Award in Short SF.
Michael Krog was born in Memphis and, after a mispent youth and a stint in the Army, returned home to Memphis, TN. He runs a small business and writes in his spare time. He has previously been published in various anthologies with Pro Se Press and Dark Oak Press. He has work upcoming with both. He still resides in Memphis with his lovely wife, Sia, and three children.
Though born in Saint Johnsbury Vermont, Jonathan Dubey has lived his entire life (so far) in the greater Berlin, NH area. He graduated Berlin High School in 1997 and has spent much of his adult life working in the Emergency Medical field as a Paramedic. Jonathan is very involved with local arts, most specifically community theater. His published credits include a short horror story in the anthology Canopic Jars: Tales of Mummies and Mummification by Great Old Ones Publishing, and a poem in Anthocon Volume 3 by Anthocon.
H. David Blalock has been writing speculative fiction for nearly 40 years. His work has appeared in novels, novellas, stories, articles, reviews, and commentary both in print and online. Since 1996, his fiction has appeared in over two dozen magazines including Pro Se Presents, Aphelion Webzine, Quantum Muse, Shelter of Daylight Magazine, The Harrow, The Three-Lobed Burning Eye, The Martian Wave and many more. His current novel series is the three book Angelkiller Triad from Seventh Star Press. He served as editor for parABnormal Digest from its inception until the end of 2012 and currently serves as an editor at Pro Se Productions and Hermit Studios Press (Denmark). For more information, visit his website at www.thrankeep.com.
Robin Wyatt Dunn writes and teaches in Los Angeles. You can find him online at www.robindunn.com
Ben Stewart an aspiring writer living i
n the grim and desolate wasteland that is Northern England. His short story 'Wireless Sedition' appeared in the anthology All Hail the New Flesh and 'Four Colly Birds' appeared in Twelve Days. Five other short stories to Fox Spirit (www.foxspirit.co.uk) are still waiting on publication.
Tyree Campbell writes primarily science fiction, plus some fantasy and some horror. He is the author of eight novels [including the Nyx series], some 130 short stories, and three dozen poems. He has won SpecFicWorld's Speculative Fiction Contest, Crux Magazine's SF Writing Contest, a third-place Rhysling for poetry, and has been nominated for the James Tiptree Award, a Spectrum Award, and a Lambda Award. Currently he is working on three other novels, including the fourth Nyx novel [Pangaea], plus assorted short stories. In his spare time he is also the managing editor of Alban Lake Publishing.
Harding MacFadden has been published twice on everyday fiction.com, as well as in the forthcoming anthologies Dragon's Hoard, and Challenger Unbound. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and two daughters.
Brian Fatah Steele has been writing various types of Horror for over ten years now. Along with his own books such as Brutal Starlight, In Bleed Country, and Further Than Fate, his work has appeared in such places as 4pocalypse (Dark Red Press), Blood Type (Nightscape Press), and the Bram Stoker Award nominated Dark Visions, Vol.1 (Grey Matter Press). Steele lives in Ohio with a few cats and survives on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. He still hopes to one day become a super-villain.
Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Ambrose Bierce, Joaquin Miller, Sterling, Nora May French, and remembered as "The Last of the Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith was one of "the big three of Weird Tales, along with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft", where some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions. It has been said of him that "nobody since Poe has so loved a well-rotted corpse." He was a member of the Lovecraft circle, and Smith's literary friendship with Lovecraft lasted from 1922 until Lovecraft's death in 1937. His work is marked chiefly by an extraordinarily wide and ornate vocabulary, a cosmic perspective and a vein of sardonic and sometimes ribald humor. (Source: Wikipedia)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric, as well as epic, poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron; Leigh Hunt; Thomas Love Peacock; and his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. (Source: Wikipedia)