by J K Ishaya
“At my side, Nyarlathotep chuckled, startling me since I had not noticed he’d come to stand there. ‘Cats are sacred in Ulthar, that town you see. It is an old and silly custom that none shall be killed.’
“’They do not seem to like us much,’ I said but he was already moving around among the crew, issuing some hushed orders, perhaps making sure they kept a distance from me.
“I adore cats,” Howard chimes in almost merrily. “I had a little black cat named Niggerman when I was fourteen. I loved him so very much, but he ran away when my mother and I had to move into this place.” Resentment tinges the word place. The move he speaks of lurches forward in his memory and suddenly his love of cats is diminished and replaced by the missing of his grandfather and that noble estate, just down the street, in which he spent his formative years. “Oh, I apologize,” he says of the interruption. “You said cats.”
“Cats,” I nod and feel my lip nearly curl into a smile. “Cats that no one may ever kill. The docks on which they fed dwindled in the distance along with their disdainful hisses and yowls, and I continued to observe a road that ran along the river bank, and at one point saw a caravan circled around the brilliance of a camp fire while I heard music playing from flutes and drums and a rise of laughter. I sniffed the air and smelled the camp smoke, roasting meat, and beer, and thought of happier times out on the trail patrolling or training with my men.
“Above us, the aurora faded and gave way to a complete and unmarred sky in which I could see the celestial river as Dacians thought of it, in all of its star-dusted glory arcing across the vault of heaven. In the waking world, it was certainly visible, but not as vibrant as this.”
“You mean the Milky Way?” Howard asks, his eyes once more beaming with wonder and thoughts of his beloved astronomy studies floating to the surface.
“Yes, exactly. I was taken, and once more found Nyarlathotep at my side. ‘Can you hear them?’ he asked. I gave him a look and he elaborated. ‘Listen and you can hear them, the billions of them above us, and even some of those beyond the horizon.’ I bent an ear then and listened to the sky as he instructed. At first, I had to weed through the ambient noise of night birds on the river banks, water rippling on the river’s course or splashing against the ship’s hull, and insects buzzing, but then it came, a distant sound of pulsing. I traced this first heavy pulse to a star which I would say is the equivalent of Vega, part of the Summer Triangle. Cool and blue, it thrummed with a heartbeat of its own, and then as I focused I made out other pulses and thrums as other stars joined in. There was no rhythm to it, particularly, and there came with it soft, high-pitched whispers which I surmise now were other cosmic energies weaving around each other. Fascinated, I probed deeper, until my attention was drawn to a part of space where I detected a strange nothingness.
“There the stars dimmed as they moved inward until there were none, the effect no less than a peculiar and distant hole in space. A void. I stared at it, curious as to why, and the more I stared, the more I also listened, homing in, until I swore I heard music. Not a music I could really describe, but it had an audible pattern that stood out over the pulsing and whirring and chaotic hissing noises of the rest of space. I was almost lulled by it, until again I was jarred by Nyarlathotep near me. He didn’t speak this time, but I became aware of him watching me watch the sky, and when I blinked and tore my gaze away, I found him merely smiling as if deeply pleased.
“The voyage continued. The sails, I was amazed to see, could be lowered on hinged mechanisms to allow the passage under bridges and then raised again. We passed other towns, and I watched the sky vault shift, though that orifice in space remained in the same position and I thought I might ask about it, but then I also enjoyed not hearing Nyarlathotep speak, so I kept any more questions to myself and soon the horizon began to lighten with dawn. We would be in Dylath-Leen by the next night fall, Nyarlathotep told me and said to come into his cabin to sleep, for even though this was the land of Dream, my bodily processes were no different than if I were in the waking world. I would need to eat and sleep here just as there. He reminded me that we were out in the open on the deck, and when the sun rose, I would be virtually blinded by so much light. Agreed on that logic, I tucked into his cabin in the aftcastle and there was given a bunk where I laid and, in what should have been pitch black for the lack of candles, I stared at the wood and brass fixtures overhead, while Nyarlathotep proved himself equally as able to see in the dark. He situated himself at an elaborate desk and began to write on a parchment. I heard the quill scratching, but I did not watch him, and after a while I drifted to sleep just as he’d said I would, and I discovered that it is true that you can have dreams within dreams.
“In that sleep, I dreamed of the thing my mind had touched after I first received Malorix’s blood. It appeared as a titanic, ganglion formation, so vast that all I could do was drift around its form as the moon locked into the earth’s gravity, the invisible force pulling me wherever it so inclined. My dream-vision swept across a landscape of entangled, slick ropes of blackness and pustules that glowed with dark light and occasionally lurched as if threatening to burst. From my vantage I startled as the field was consumed by a single giant eye that rolled in its socket as if to focus specifically on me, though I felt like little more than a dust spec. The iris was spoked with tempestuous slashes of umber and violet, more like a nebula surrounding a pulsing horizontal pupil which dilated as I aligned with it and suddenly it pulled me in. I dropped into it rather than landing on or piercing through the flesh of an eyeball. It was not the liquid and retinal cave of any eye but something I would almost attribute to… Hell? No, that isn’t right. The tunnel within spiraled with millions of crawling or even swimming figures separating out then melding back together, only giving me a glimpse of a tail here, a reaching claw there, a dorsal hump rising and submerging, all of it moving and changing at rapid pace. No, not Hell, but definitely some underworld passage. I plunged down the center, attempting at times to angle my vision and take in more only to be swept on until I was virtually flushed out into space.
“I came to a stop gazing upon the cosmos, only this time I felt a part of it as opposed to an earthbound observer. It was a remarkably peaceful, mindless feeling, until my gaze focused not on stars and other celestial bodies, but on shapes moving in and out of view, darting behind masses of dark matter and out again, fanged and feasting on each other, winged and warped. They left traces of glowing violet flame energy that faded as the wake from a ship, and I gaped in stupefied wonder.
“To awake from that was somewhat disorienting. It faded into a sense of rising, and sentience filled my body a cell at a time until I felt the pillows under me. At last fully awake, I sat up in the bunk and found the cabin empty. Nyarlathotep was already on deck giving orders, and the crew’s feet clitter-clattered back and forth across the boards. I stepped out to that now familiar night and a sunset just like the one before, with a new aurora undulating over us. The dream remained with me, and the more I analyzed it, the more terrifying I found it after the fact. The vision of the eye and its inner vortex might have fascinated me, but the lack of control, being buoyed in space and pushed along by the current, feeling nothing. That began to terrify me more than Malorix’s black, winged form launching from the top of the stairs.
“With all of this in mind, I looked up to find Nyarlathotep smiling wickedly at me. He probably haunted my head examining the dream along with me, but I did not want to acknowledge that possibility. Then he gestured to the port side of the boat and announced, ‘Behold, Dylath-Leen.’
“I looked and froze in place to see the city there before me. It towered far higher than any city on earth at that time or to this day. Hexagonal, basalt-like columns reached high. No, they reach even now, for Dylath-Leen is still there unchanged, but this was my first observation, my introduction to such an alien place. The towers were as ascending steps, growing taller as you looked toward the city center, to one great basalt pillar. They surpass
ed in height, and still do, New York’s Flatiron wedge, or the Union Trust building here in Providence, both of which are very young indeed compared to Dylath-Leen’s structures.”
“They sound like the Giant’s Causeway, in Ireland,” Howard muses.
“Very close,” I say, “but far larger. These formations were not inches wide but entire fields wide. They were carved out inside with abodes and businesses dotted with light from arched windows all the way to their tops, the tallest structures connected by bridges. From the east, the last rays of sun hit those upper towers with streaks of gold on ash-black. If I had ever been rendered speechless before, I stood completely dumb now. The sight chipped at my will because it was beyond my comprehension as a Dacian man. It was shocking, humbling. Where the sight of towns like Ulthar and her neighbors had been a gentle introduction, this was a punch in the chest. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, but Dylath-Leen grew larger as the boat approached, until we were drifting into its ports at the river’s mouth which opened upon a southern sea. Other ships dotted the waters at various distances out. Many of them were black galleys, not too different from the Phantasm.
“While I stared, the crew docked the ship and before I knew it, I felt something settle on my shoulders. One of them had draped a coarse robe over me to cover my naked upper body and all of its dirt and blood smears. The gang plank went down and my guide gestured me to come along. We left the crew, but Nyarlathotep had an entourage waiting at the head of the dock. It surprised me to see that a few of them, both men and women, were of the same race as my prison mate in the waking world, and that they resembled both Kvasir and Nyarlathotep’s vessel in tall, slender build, beautiful facial features, and pale hair that glowed under the evening moon. Their clothing was black and exotic to me, but uniform with its double-breasted tunics and buckles, what I would later come to realized marked the dress of one sect of his followers. From there we entered a horse-drawn carriage, not like any simple wagon but sleek and decorative; the black horses at its front were massive, strong beasts in a team of six.
“Ah, but these details are diminished now. I could dwell on them and how they were altering my consciousness little by little, to see that city and its streets. It was both advanced and, in places, primitive; clean here, filthy there, like any city you would see today. I saw similar men to the crew of the Phantasm, all wearing those peculiar turbans as they roamed in and out of businesses, their noisy shoes clacking on cobblestones. The streets were lit by gas lamps and cluttered with merchants hawking wares I had never heard of—pearls from Oriab, artifacts from Khem, silks from Thran. I marveled that I could understand them and Nyarlathotep explained that this was part of the Dreamlands experience, that all human languages passed through a natural filter in the Dreamer’s mind, while there would be some spoken by non-human creatures that I would not understand at all, like the crew on the boat and the slippery rodent-like feasting things I had glimpsed in the woods. He went on explaining other minor things, but at that moment, I was more focused on the city than listening to him.
“When I stuck my head out of the carriage and looked up, I watched the layers of bridges pass over us, and wondered what it must be like to live in one of those upper towers. The deeper into the city we went, the darker the streets, and I felt that had it been daytime, my vision would have still been quite comfortable.
“The carriage ride ended, and I was ushered into the lower floor of a tower, into a great hall of a lobby with vaulted ceilings. This was essentially my first experience with a large-scale hotel, the kind which would not emerge in the waking world for centuries, and from there I also took my first lift ride, powered by counter weights, that had an operator. The Dacians, as well as our Roman enemies, had similar methods for elevating materials for building, but this was specifically for people and far more complex.
“Yes, Howard,” I add to his look of amazement, “an actual lift, created in the world of Dream long before any in this world or before Otis patented his design.
“My host quietly chuckled at me when the compartment moved, and I braced the wall. What a sight I must have been in my dull robe and matted hair, the look on my face hysterical, I am sure. The large box was elegantly crafted of carved wood and iron fastenings. How far up we traveled, I could not say, being enclosed as we were, but when it stopped, we stepped out into a series of private chambers. The entire floor was reserved for Nyarlathotep and any guests he brought here. I had gathered from reactions in the lobby that everyone knew who he was and with the black that washed over his eyes with every blink, there was no mistaking that. The atmosphere of the place had instantly clouded with the pissy reek of fear or the tang of genuine reverence. People bowed, whether they seemed to want to or not, and he had not needed to check in with any innkeeper or clerk. I would begin to notice this over that short stay in Dylath-Leen. Where he entered a crowded room, chaotic scrambling commenced. Someone would fetch him a cup of wine without being told, someone would offer a chair, another to take his cloak and a greater clutch would be busy bowing respectfully to him as if begging for their lives.
“I was left alone for the first few minutes that we came into the big front apartment. He knew without question that I was not going anywhere, that I had no spark of desire to escape, not in that confusing world of wonders. Where would I go? What would I do? I stood at an open, arched window and felt a sea breeze whisper around my face and I marveled at how far up we had come that I had such a view of the lower towers. From here I could see their hexagonal tops, and beyond was the sparkling sea under moonlight and the scattering of black ships.
“That was when I said out loud what I had thought earlier in the Enchanted Wood. It was a hoarse whisper. ‘Malorix, why did you not let me see this?’
“And then Nyarlathotep shattered my reverie, such as it was. ’A bath now, Zyraxes,’ he declared. ‘I generally revel in the smell of destruction and decay, but your reek is starting to offend even me.’
“I turned from the view to see that the individuals from the original entourage had been dismissed completely, and Nyarlathotep was already being attended by several young servant women who, I am certain, were not there when we first arrived. He sipped on a large cup of wine while they stripped his garments. His jerkin was discarded, revealing a lean, pale body, and then his boots and leggings, until he was completely naked, proving free of modesty or care. They began to rub him down with scented oils that cloyed the room and then they toweled it off with utmost care.
“Then I saw how it was that these women had not seemed present when we’d first arrived. Another group of them appeared from out of the shadows. I do not mean as if they had been standing back against the walls and within the darkness, just out of notice. I mean that they manifested. Wisps of black rose up out of the floor with a soft whoosh of air and tangled around each other, coalesced and formed human figures that became solid, took on flesh, hair, faces, hands, every part in great and exquisite detail. Nyarlathotep gestured at them and dismissed me as if none of this was out of the ordinary. ‘Go with them now and do not make an appearance until you are cleaned and dressed.’
“I gaped at them but did as he told me, following the ones assigned to me. They were all attractive, fine-featured and petite, bodies draped in soft, flowing material, reminding me of the household servants who had attended Bendis, but these were not mere servants as I was accustomed. I examined their eyes, which were glazed as glass, the pupils silvery as if they contained mirrors, and instead of red veins mapping the whites, there were black webs.
“There was no soul in those eyes. I knew from how these women had materialized that they could not be human, and I further examined the one working closest to me. I saw that not only were there black veins in her eyes, but there were more on the edges of her temples, on the insides of her arms. Not blue, healthy veins but dark as mine and branched out in contouring patterns around cheek bones or neck and shoulders, exotic and disturbing all in one. In fact, she did not smell of fresh blood but s
omething else that would not have been appetizing at all had I been hungry."
"Were they merely Nyarlathotep's conjurings?" Howard asks.
"More like extended manifestations of the being himself. Or itself, I should say. Time has taught me that Nyarlathotep may choose to take a male identity most of the time, but he is, in the end, neither male nor female, and is a thing incomprehensible with many branches and means to appear as he wishes, especially when in the Dreamlands where his presence may consume an entire environment and is not simply contained within one form. I think, in that tower, he wanted me to himself, that he wanted to keep me under close eye, to coddle me and dull my senses even further. So dazed was I by the entire experience that it could not have been difficult for him.
“I had barely drawn the breath to ask more questions when the young lady attending me slid a finger over my lips and silenced me. She guided me into a chamber where a bathing pool was built into the floor, and beyond it was another arching window where I could continue to look out at the night. Oil lamps burned in wall alcoves and along the window sill, but the light was green and more subtle to my vision. I did my own undressing and then waded into the steaming water and stood there, but then I cringed when I felt the woman join me and begin to sponge off my back. Even if altered from my human body and spell-bound by this whole experience, I was not ready to be near a woman again yet, let alone one of these women.
“My muscles tensed as I turned upon her, snatched the sponge away, and snarled at her. There was hardly any response, not so much as a furrow in her brow. ‘Leave me,’ I demanded. ‘I will bathe myself.’ Only then did she hesitate, and the corner of her mouth turned up in an almost sardonic smile as if suppressing amusement at my temper. It was that look that brought me around to the understanding that she was not an individual but a piece of Nyarlathotep. It was him behind that smile, and she only a sort of projection.