Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois

by Pierre V. Comtois

  And now, I reach that portion of my narrative that has since changed the course of my life; that eventually thrust me from the company of my fellow academics and into the world of popular print. I must beg the reader’s indulgence and patience over the next few paragraphs to bear with me and wait until the conclusion to form any permanent judgment on my veracity.

  As I was saying, those strange waters had once again caught my eye and stooping, I scooped a handful of the liquid in my cupped hands and brought it to my nose. I could detect no odor. Tentatively, I touched the tip of my tongue to it. I remembered it tasted of salt before the wave of drowsiness overcame me. I say drowsiness for lack of a better word. As it was, I sought a tree for support and soon slid down to sit beside it. Whether I eventually slept or not, I don’t know, but what followed was more vivid than any dream and I have sworn more than once since that it was real. Sight, scent, touch, all were there. So convinced am I of its veracity, that I have spent the rest of my life dedicated to the exploration of the phenomenon to which it must be a part.

  It had become night, and the sky was filled with stars. I was standing in a clearing among a group of moving figures. The woods about me were black in the moonless dark and before me stood a rude stone temple. A dome supported by eight carven pillars of indefinite design sheltered a circular base made up of a series of concentric steps that led downward below my angle of view. Open to the air, I could see more figures at work there and hear a bellowing, nervous voice calling out orders to them. Unnoticed, I moved among the figures, and I began to take note of their costume. The men nearest me were soldiers clad in the leather and metal armor of Rome, their short swords bare and glinting in the starlight, with some smeared in a dark fluid. Although there were only a dozen or so in sight, I was nevertheless aware that many more were scattered about the area.

  As I drew closer to the men, I could study their faces. Fear lurked there. Their eyes were haunted and their mouths were set grimly with the determination of doing their duty despite their every instinct to run. Some lips trembled on the edge of a scream and some eyes had the darting look of outright fear. The scene became ever more clear to me and I began to see other figures sprawled about the ground. None of them were Roman, but none of them were human either. Naked, the figures seemed more gelid than solid, and with mounting revulsion, I guessed by their tentacular appendages and other, more vague locomotive limbs, that they were eventually to become more solid than they were. Their semi-transparent skin, now quickly clouding in death, revealed unidentifiable organs, whose purposes I could not even hazard a guess. A great gash in the creature’s body exuded a clear, viscous fluid that continued to pump feebly onto the ground, killing the surrounding grass with a disintegrating hiss.

  Sudden movement from the direction of the temple caught my attention as a soldier stabbed downward with his sword at another of the creatures that sprawled at the apron of stone upon which rested the eight pillars. The thing seemed lifeless as its foul, steaming guts bloated outward from some inward pressure of its body, but it did not stop the soldier’s murderous thrusts. Again and again, the man hacked away at the object of his revulsion until what remained of the thing was splashed in oily ribbons upon the ground. The soldier staggered back in exhaustion, the sword loose in his hand, the other rubbing saliva from his mouth. He was breathing heavily as he leaned on a pillar for support, his greaves and leather skirt spattered in rapidly drying viscera. Then another soldier was hacking away at a second creature, and another. Looking back, I saw that the clearing was littered with the carcasses of the monsters. The sounds of the night now began to make themselves apparent to my senses mingled with the more strident noises of men, some cursing, some shouting out in the impatience of fear. Then a formation of newly arrived Legionaries marched passed me and up the stairs leading beneath the temple dome. I decided to follow them.

  Hanging back beneath the pillars as the soldiers continued on, I beheld a scene of furious activity. All around the apron upon which I stood, legionaries held torches aloft, giving off light to others who were busily working at the stones of the pillars and support structure. Scraping at the joints, pulling and tugging, they seemed to be weakening the foundations of the temple. In the flickering light, my gaze followed the great, circular steps as they descended toward a recessed pool of clear, yet strangely viscous water where ten or twelve further soldiers stood knee deep, their swords held at the ready and sometimes thrusting them at something beneath the surface. My attention was soon taken by the commanding figure of a centurion standing near the center of the pool who seemed to be overseeing the weird operation. Shouting at the workers above to increase their efforts and pointing toward the water before him from time to time, apparently directing the action of the two soldiers nearest him as they periodically thrust their blades into the water, he exuded an air of haste and purpose. There was a dull splashing sound as I noticed that the group of soldiers I had followed into the temple reached the edge of the pool, hesitated slightly, then resolutely plunged ahead. They waded out, relieving the others I had been observing, and assumed the same positions of careful watching and waiting. Those replaced, hastened from the pool with obvious relief, wasting no time to vacate the temple area. As the two new men took their places alongside the centurion, the commander pointed quickly and one of them stabbed downward with his blade.

  Now I began to notice that the water’s viscosity was apparently due to scores of corpses, like those I had seen on the ground outside the temple, that floated and bobbed about the pool, their gelid forms disintegrating in the water as they slowly gathered along its outer edges. I came down the steps as fragments of voices emerged from the strange state I found myself in. “…watch out…” “…Jupiter, but they stink…” “They’re not of this world…” “…saw something of them at the temple of Marduk…” “…with Trajan in Mesopotamia…” “…Where the Parthians worshipped strange gods…” “…Marduk, aye, but also the brood of Eihort…” “…the Goat of a Thousand Young…” “…a thousand? More like…” “…back to Gaul after this…” “I can’t get the stuff off! I can’t get the stuff off!” “Get that man out of here…” “…my last duty with the Sixth, thank Mars…”

  There was blurred movement beneath the surface of the pool, and just as I recognized the shape of one of the creatures, one of the men stabbed down, skewering it on his sword. The carcass rolled to the surface as the other soldier nudged it away with his own blade. Somehow, with my gorge rising, I still could not help taking the last step into the water myself. Immediately, I felt the hot water upon my legs, saw the steam rising from its surface into the chill night air. My hand trailed in the water and when I brought it up and rubbed my fingers together, I felt the oily greasiness of it. Globs of gelid tissue floated about me near the edge of the pool and I fought to control a rising panic. I scrambled, clearing the mucous mass and stumbled out into the relatively open water near the center.

  Slowly, trepidatiously, I made my way toward the centurion and his two men who were all still concentrating on some activity at their feet. As I drew closer, I noticed that the surface of the water there was in a constant state of disturbance. Gently, the floor of the pool tilted downward, but not radically, until, drawing abreast of the little group, the water was nearly to my waist. I looked downward, trying to peer beneath the water’s surface, which was roiled momentarily by another sword thrust. Another creature’s body floated to the surface and as one of the soldiers nudged it away, I saw at last what was in the center of the pool.

  The figures seemed more gelid than solid, and with mounting revulsion, I guessed by their tentacular appendages and other, more vague locomotive limbs, that they were eventually to become more solid than they were.

  I think it must have been the utter uncertainty of just what I was gazing upon that ironically, allowed me to continue to look until the final revelation was revealed to me. How else to explain the fact that if I was in my right mind at all, I would have averted my ey
es before seeing too much? As it turned out, I saw a great deal more than I ever wanted to. I was to receive a quick education in the hard realities of existence; that my comfortable notions of the way things appeared to be were all completely and horribly wrong. To this day, I wonder whether what I learned was a blessing or a curse; it would be so easy to have continued to live in ignorant bliss. But alas, my innocence was shattered and everything I have done since, I was compelled to do.

  When the water’s surface had calmed from the soldier’s last thrust, I could see still another of the gelid, tentacular creatures wavering near the bottom of the pool. Suddenly it seemed to grow and I realized that I was only seeing a small part of it, with its hindquarters yet invisible, I actually felt the soldiers along side of me stiffen in anticipation of the next kill. Then there was a sudden pulse in the water and the new creature was free and being killed by the soldiers. When next I was able to see the bottom clearly, I looked past the newly emerging creature, (one seemed to fully enter the pool every few minutes), to its source. Suddenly, my stomach contracted and my throat grew thick as I saw that the creatures were being thrust upward, in a grotesque parody of the birth process, from a pulsing, throbbing object that was in turn, connected to something else, hidden from direct view by a veil of some kind; as if the object giving birth resided in another inaccessible chamber or dimension of time with only its “birth canal” existing in the present of the pool. Hypnotically, I found my gaze being pulled farther and farther down, in a kind of voyeuristic trance, as my eyes sought curiously the full shape of that reproductive organ. I was saved only by the sudden thrust of a sword as one of the soldiers killed another of the pool-spawn as it swam blindly into the amniotic waters of the pool. I staggered back, shaking my head to clear it somehow, knowing full well that I would never forget that monstrous sight.

  The centurion waved his arm and shouted something to his men to exit the temple and, as I was swept along with the hurrying soldiers, I noticed that my surroundings had changed. The night was the same, and the trees and the men, but still something had been altered; my perception of reality had changed. Never again would I be able to observe the world in the naive fashion I did before. The crushing reality of the thing in the pool had put an end to that forever. I watched almost disinterestedly, as a score of soldiers began to pull on a set of ropes fastened to various parts of the temple. Suddenly, a spurt of dust puffed out from the top of one of the pillars and with a loud scrape, it was pulled from its age-long position and hauled down. Then, with its equilibrium shattered, the rest of the building fell in upon itself, creating a heap of shattered masonry that choked off the watery aperture from which that common head had given hellish birth to the many bodies.

  Abruptly, I was “awake” again with the bright afternoon sunlight striking me through the stunted trees. Looking about me, the weathered rubble that I had earlier studied with curiosity, took on a dimension of dread horror and sinister depression. I stood up and began slowly backing away. I turned and ran, but tripped almost immediately at the edge of the hill, falling to my knees in the shallow water surrounding the site. Dazedly, I stood, feeling the warmth of the liquid as it saturated my clothing. Then, a soft gurgling sound attracted my attention. I faced in its direction and spied the slow emergence of water, steaming and still flowing from the fissures at the base of the hill.

  I admit, at the time I must have been psychologically imbalanced. I fled in panic, fear even. Of just what, I am still not quite certain. But no matter how far I ran, I could not outrun the dreams and especially the nightmares. I ran as far as I could, and when I could not run any farther, I turned inward, and ran some more. Those were desperate times for me, until I learned how to cope with my new awareness. The revelation given me had been too sudden, the human brain has not been trained to deal with such enormities. But over time, in the peace of a sanitarium (I am unafraid to admit it), I learned to deal with it by utilizing the outlet of the written word.

  Thus began my second career; with the mission of seeking out the truth wherever it exists. My fingers now fly over a keyboard, my words like swords, thrusting out blindly in the hope of striking home. I wrote that book at last, but Harvard University Press did not publish it. When I returned to the university after my breakdown, I was eager to incorporate what I had learned into my lectures, but I was reprimanded by my superiors for veering into areas that were too speculative. I turned to expressing myself in my papers, but the department head took exception to my insistence on the importance of Shub-Nigurath or Ubbo Sathla or Abhoth, and I was summarily fired. But as it turns out, it was the best thing they could ever have done for me. I found a new publisher, Nighthaunt, and though they are better known for their line of cheap vampire novels, they made my first mass market paperback, Fertility Gods From Inner Space (not my title, incidentally), a best-seller. As all of America now knows, my name became a household word with appearances on the Oprah, Geraldo and Donahue shows. I have become a frequent advisor for such programs as Inside Edition and Unsolved Mysteries. I continue to compose at a fever pitch, filling the New Age shelves with such titles as UFOs in Hollywood, The Paranormal Conquest of Washington, The Lennon Conspiracy, Alpha Waves and the Hidden Anti-Gravity Folk, Saucer Agenda, Ancient Gods in Milwaukee and Was Alhazred From Mars?

  Of course, I was shunned by my peers and denounced as a crank; I admit, the rejection struck me hard. I fell upon evil times, succumbing to drink, etc. I was denounced for trying to disseminate my ideas as a modern snake-oil salesman. But then, I realized, how could they know? What I was saying was so beyond their ken that they could not but react as they did. I have found that I cannot blame them. I am content to point to such giants in the field as Eric Von Danniken and J. Allen Hyneck who have stood by my side. I know now that I was chosen, the scales were cast from my eyes, I have a mission. I must educate the world, slowly, but surely in the new revelation…Oh, I admit also, to some doubts late at night when those awful scenes will once more impress themselves upon my consciousness. It is then the harsh words of my critics questioning my sanity strike closest to home and I wonder: am I mad as they say? The only answer I can come up with is that I do not know. Thus the only criteria I have is what others think. And if that is the final proof of my sanity, then I swear to redouble my efforts to convince the world at large of the truth of my revelation and when they at last believe it too, how then can I be mad?

  ons to it.

  The Dreams of Yig

  t was not quite sunset, but the sun was melting like an orange lozenge against the horizon as a lone rider urged his mount up the steep trail that zig-zagged along the face of the mesa. The man held the reins loosely in his hand, allowing the animal to pick its own way on the unfamiliar path. A half mile below, the pale thread of the trail unwound to the foot of the formation and disappeared amid the dull browns and reds of the valley that stretched into the distance. In that distance, the bed of the valley suddenly tilted upward against steep walls that hemmed it in from every side and denoted the true level of the land in this part of Oklahoma Territory. This valley, with its intermittent formations of flat-topped mesas, was once the location of an antediluvian sea; or so learned men back east said. Marshall John Rowan shrugged his shoulders in an unconscious indication of his attitude toward easterners.

  He did not deny that looking at the valley as a dry sea-bed did make it seem as though there might be something in what they said. And the fact that the recent slide he had passed the other day when negotiating his way into the valley had exposed what the professors called petrified wood bolstered their argument. But that all seemed so strange and phony to him. He was used to driving longhorn on the Chisum, scouting Indian country along the Bighorn, and tracking outlaws across prairies, what mattered was day-to-day survival in a west that was still largely without law and order, not speculating on what might have been millions of years before.

  Rowan sensed more than he felt his horse’s hesitation as it neared the crest of the climb,
and gave it a few encouraging jabs of his heels. It leaped forward to the end of the path leaving Rowan just time enough to take in the eerie sight of a dozen or so of beehive-shaped cones, almost as tall as the mesa he was climbing, spread out over the floor of the valley, their strange shadows creeping slowly over the bottom of the ancient sea. And they were odd; in all his wanderings across the territories, he had never seen natural formations quite like those, even though on the face of it, they were not spectacular or even out of place. Nevertheless, the sight of them in the fading yellow light, affected him strangely.

  He made a leap from his horse that lifted him a good six inches from the saddle as the animal reached the summit and the edge of the Indian village that rested there. Rowan had spotted the guards and lookouts long before but had ridden on unmolested. The farther he had come, the more certain he was that he would be allowed to enter the village. He had been by no means certain of the reception he would have once he reached the valley, as the Indians that inhabited it were generally of unknown character. Even the other tribes in the area: the Pawnee, Wichita, and Caddo, had little contact with them. Something about bad medicine and the valley being off-limits for all tribes. Though he was determined to enter it, Rowan wondered at the power of the medicine commanded by these Indians hidden in this valley which protected them from the usually predatory habits of their fellows. But hadn’t he heard something about these particular Indians being of different stock from those of the American west? Something about their being descendents of even older cultures from farther south in Yucatan or Peru? But there he was, going for that eastern speculation again. He shook his head and forced himself to pay attention to the warrior that was approaching him from the village.