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

by Pierre V. Comtois

  “Once in every generation,” the shaman declared, “the Son of Yig is given to us for a sign and a seal of the covenant which our people have had with Father Yig from the first days of our race. Always has the Son been chosen from among our own clan. But a new day dawns for the people of Yig, and he chooses a new way. An outsider has become a Son of Yig as a sign to us that the Father’s dominion is soon to include all the outsiders of this land. One thing is yet required: that an emissary prepare his way before him and show the white-eyes of the Dreams and Blessings of Yig. As he has chosen his Son, so also has Yig chosen his emissary.”

  As the words of Tanat-Sha droned on, Rowan found himself becoming less alarmed at what he had seen and heard, and more accepting that these things were as they should be. His fear of the tremendous serpent, the Son of Yig, became vague and unimportant as a dream. The creature’s eyes, once so filled with the threat of unnatural menace, now seemed to hold promise of wonderful knowledge. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Rowan to stare deeply into those golden, unblinking orbs, and he seemed to feel in his own body the gentle swaying to and fro of that sinuous form. As from a great distance, he seemed to hear his name being called by one whom he could not refuse, and he arose from his hiding place and approached the earthen mound on legs which felt as though they were no longer under his own control or direction. The warriors and then the women parted to let him pass, forming an aisle which led to the spot just below the shaman’s position at the front of the mound. He felt himself lifted to the mound’s platform by men and women whose presence he barely noted, and found himself standing between Tanat-Sha and the great serpent. Although he still held the six-gun in his hand, he had no thought of using it. He merely listened, knowing that this was what he was now called upon to do. Again he seemed to be looking upward into the face of the old medicine man, and he gave his full attention to the words that were spoken to him.

  “John Rowan, lawman of the white eyes,” the spirit-talker intoned, “Yig has honored you greatly. You are to be his emissary to your people, to tell them of the Ending of Ages and of the safety to be had in Father Yig. The Father of Serpents grants refuge from the destruction of this world to those who will own him as Master and live in peace with his children. Yig serves They Who Come, and They will not rend the souls of his servants.”

  Rowan, uncomprehending, merely nodded acquiescence. The shaman continued.

  “The stars are the keys to many doors. Behind those doors are They who have waited long for release, and for the devouring of a world. Their freedom is almost at hand, John Rowan. You have seen the face of Yig in that of his Son. Now turn and see the face of One Who Comes.”

  Rowan, obeyed, and his eyes were caught and held by those of the huge serpent. The creature’s eyes seemed to grow, spreading outward into a golden void in which, slowly, another scene resolved itself.

  Rowan stared out over a vast expanse of open ocean that glittered beneath the sun as with millions of floating diamonds. Although there was nothing in view to cause the slightest concern, a familiar sense of unease began to intrude itself into his befuddled mind. Then, the sunlight began to dim somehow, and the flashing diamonds winked out of existence. He sensed tremendous upheavals beneath the darkened waves, and saw titanic bubbles of some black, noxious gas burst upon the surface of the water, creating hundreds of swirling clouds of oily, poisonous effluvium. And then, amid a rumbling which sounded in his ears like the warning growl of an angered planet, he beheld a dark, weed-festooned tower rise up from the roiling waters. His unease now took on the character of a definite growing fear as more and more of that ebon spire appeared above the waves. He tried to move, to run, to make some sound in response to his increasing dread, but found that he could do nothing but watch in petrified revulsion as that repellent monolith was lifted clear of the water, followed by the gay-green masonry of the edifice upon which it stood. Much too large to have been reared by human hands, the structure exuded an all but palpable aura of deliberate, joyful torment to the human body, soul, and spirit. And then, in a searing flash of agonized recognition, Rowan knew why his fear had seemed familiar. This was the same abhorrent undersea city, with its weed-flagged pinnacles and absurd geometries that he had seen while under the influence of the Dreams of Yig. He tried once again to move, to speak, to scream, but could find no sense of even possessing a physical body. It was as though he was merely a sentient presence, with power to do nothing but watch…watch and fear.

  Thousands of gigantic bubbles continued to burst on the ocean’s surface, forming a vast ring of black, obscuring effluvia about the widening base of the still rising mountain. Shadows crept over the unearthly structure where shadows should not have been. Sunlight, which should have been reflected, was swallowed up and absorbed by impossible surfaces that seemed to be concave and convex at the same time. Even though fettered by the will of Yig, Rowan knew that this towering abomination obeyed far different laws of space and matter than those of his own world, for angles ought not to intersect one another in empty space, and cubic shapes should never cast round shadows. As he watched in fearful fascination, he saw strange creatures crawling about the thing, some appearing to be merely balls of whipping tentacles, and others of no shape recognizable to his human brain.

  The rising seemed finally to stop, and a subtle shifting of planes and angles occurred such that Rowan was now able to detect something which appeared to be a set of double doors of staggeringly colossal size. At the sight of those doors, the rapidly growing fear in his mind penetrated slightly the hypnotic fog in which he was suspended. A vague memory of the power of will and self-determination asserted itself, but the memory served only to heighten his sense of utter helplessness. Then he noticed that more of the tentacled and amorphous creatures were appearing from a variety of improbable locations about the dripping pile and moving toward the immense doors as though drawn by some unguessable attraction. More and more of the things emerged, and soon the great doors were ringed, hundreds deep, with a squirming, undulating mass of tens of thousands of them, and he received the distinct impression of a frenzied anticipation on the part of the abhorrent beasts. And then…dear God…those tremendous doors began to open.

  At first, he detected only darkness within, but a darkness which seemed, somehow, to feed upon and extinguish the dull sunlight which might otherwise have illumined at least a portion of the interior of the foul structure. Never a praying man, Rowan now begged the God of his fathers to spare him the sight of whatever it was that lived in so unholy a place but the great portals continued to open…whether outward or inward he could not determine…and a roiling cloud of purulent yellow vapor slid forth from the lightless interior, spilling down over the roofs and towers of the black city thousands of feet below. And then Rowan detected, with some sense beyond sight, the movement of something staggeringly huge within. His already near-panicked state was intensified as he felt an abominable invasion of his mind by another…a soul-rending violation of his deepest sense of self by an intelligence unthinkably vast and unimaginably alien. As his mind writhed under the unbearably vile touch of that joyously malevolent intellect, he saw two points of light flash into existence within the cavern’s deep recesses, red-rimmed and yellow as Hell’s purest sulphur. This…even this inconceivable horror he might have withstood had he not then seen that green, gelatinous tentacle snake forth from the black aperture. It appeared to move slowly, lazily through the intervening space, drifting, seeking, almost reaching him…just a few feet…

  Then, from somewhere deep inside him, his subconscious must have tapped into deep reserves of will power he’d never suspected was there because he suddenly felt his consciousness being pulled back from the brink of ultimate madness. Somewhere in space and time, he thought he heard an agonized scream and knew, despite its strange remoteness, that it was his own. Then, just as that tortured scream trailed off, he heard the sound of an explosion followed quickly by a second. Snapped from his imposed reverie and the
oceanic horror that had nearly robbed him of his sanity, Rowan suddenly found himself back on the tribal ceremonial mound a smoking .45 in his hand. Some reflex, some twitch of the muscles in his arm maybe, must have caused him to squeeze the trigger. Dimly, he remembered the desperate prayer he had offered on the threshold of that yawning pit and had no doubt that it had been answered somehow. Before him, the giant serpent that had once been Johnson Kent but lately transformed into a so-called Son of Yig, was down amongst its worshippers, its torso smeared with blood. A bullet buried deep in its scaly body, it thrashed madly about, its tail and head wreaking crushing destruction on those unable to avoid their random, whipping blows. Adding to the chaos caused by the dying creature was Tanat-Sha as he screeched and gesticulated to the frantic mob, trying to restore order and regain control of events. Still shaken by his experience, Rowan leaped from the mound and dashed toward the Indian village, heedless of the scattering worshippers. With a sigh of relief, he found his horse still-saddled where it had been left by the hut. Grasping the reins, he mounted up and, wheeling about, found the old shaman still atop the mound, wailing at the pale snake thing whose movements had slowed almost to a halt. Taking careful aim, Rowan felt no remorse as he put a bullet in the Indian’s brain. Then, digging his spurs deep into his horse’s flanks, he dashed from the village leaving behind him the pandemonium of reality gone mad and nightmares come to life.

  “The dreams of Yig do not always come to those who seek them, and sometimes come to those who seek them not,” said Tanat-Sha.

  Not until he had left the accursed valley and was well beyond its surrounding hills and mesas did Rowan allow his mount to slow to a walk, and then only because he realized, as reason reasserted itself by degrees, that he’d kill the animal if he didn’t allow it to rest. Even so, he wouldn’t permit himself to stop and make camp until the sun was well up over the horizon and continued to lead the horse at a walk.

  Three days later he’d finally felt enough that he’d placed enough distance between himself and that damned valley to start a fire.

  With time to think about what had happened to him, Rowan had decided that the spirit-talker was to blame. He’d thrown something into the fire in the hut that gave him hallucinations and made him susceptible to suggestion. He’d seen tricks like that done in traveling carnys and sideshows. Under hypnosis, a mesmerist could make you believe anything. Yeah, that was it, he thought…and thought no further because if he did, he’d be forced to remind himself that what he’d seen happen to Johnson Kent could never be explained so easy.

  nt reason?

  Take Care What You Seek

  he money has finally run out. It was the only thought that kept repeating itself in my tired brain. The money has finally run out. Crossing my arms on the bar planks in front of me, I brought my head down on them to rest, knocking over an empty glass as I did so. I heard it roll off as if from a million miles away, almost as far away as the Florida coast where I’d left behind all my dreams. As the harsh sounds of the crowded bar receded around me, my mind went back to those simpler days, days in which it was easier to imagine success as a treasure hunter scouring the Keys than it was to work toward a chemistry degree at MIT. I’d gotten a little money together and when I had the opportunity to buy myself a boat while on spring break in Miami, I took it. I was already a good diver, and with the boat it was easy to abandon myself to the carefree life of a scavenger among the Florida Keys looking for sunken artifacts and treasure from the hundreds of wrecks littering the bottom of those clear waters. But those seas were too crowded with other, larger outfits, and the only treasure I ever found was Carol, who became my unofficial partner and lover.

  I felt a tightness in my loins and thought I heard a groan from my throat as I thought back to our first meeting. I had the boat anchored in shallow water off Bimini in the Ten Thousand Islands and was just getting set to squeeze into my wetsuit when I caught a glimpse of something dark moving through those crystal clear waters. At first I thought it was a shark, so graceful were its movements, but as it moved closer, I realized my mistake. At last, the figure reached the rope ladder that hung over the side of the boat and as the water poured from its visage, I saw just how wrong I’d been. It was a girl, and a mighty fine-looking one at that. Like a fool, instead of helping her up, I shaded my eyes and scanned the horizon reassuring myself that my position was far from any landfall.

  “Permission to come aboard?” The words dragged my attention back to the girl. I must have mumbled permission, because all I could remember afterward was stepping back in surprise as she hauled herself up, saying, “Help me with this, will you?” I grabbed hold of her tanks as she shrugged out of them and continued to marvel as she divested herself of the rest of her rig.

  At last, seeing that she wasn’t going to stop with her flippers, I finally managed to say, “Who are you? How’d you get here?” She smiled and said her name was Carol, that she was from California, but lately she’d been living in St. Pete. She’d spotted my boat from time to time in the last few weeks, noticed I was alone, and figured I might like a junior partner. By the time she’d finished speaking, she’d shed her black wetsuit like a second skin and stood unselfconsciously before me in one of the smallest bathing suits I’d ever seen. The next thing I knew, she had her arms around my neck and her lips were massaging mine. What could I say to an argument like that?

  Like I said, as things turned out, she was the only thing of value I found the whole time we spent in those waters. At last I convinced myself that if we were going to strike it big, we had to move to less frequented waters. I sold the trinkets we’d found and outfitted the boat for a long voyage and, together, Carol and I crossed the Atlantic to the west African shore. It took us three years to dive and trawl our way around the Cape and over to India, following the route of the old Portuguese barges. I’d had the Philippines vaguely in mind as our ultimate destination when I’d first started out, but we had no better luck than we had in the Caribbean and what money we had was running out. At last, we put in at Labuan in Brunei, and couldn’t get out again. With only enough money left to buy a few drinks and some rice balls, and just shy of the Philippines, we were forced to go to ground in what must have been the armpit of the world. Labuan, the capitol of Brunei, was bad enough, but the only place we could afford to flop was the lower waterfront district, a nightmare jumble of shanty bars, buildings made of driftwood and tarpaper, and rotting wharves with a sea mist that never seemed to lift and that draped the whole area in a pall of moist, gray gloom.

  Since then, I’d been supporting myself with a combination of begging and petty theft with my nights spent either in the clink or the gutter. But with Carol gone, I just couldn’t work up the energy to do anything about my condition. Carol! She wasn’t the sort of girl to be stopped by a run of bad luck. I’d also say she wasn’t the type to take things lying down, but that wouldn’t be exactly true. Soon after we arrived in Labuan, I was hauled off to jail by the local constabulary for not paying a harbor tax. I stayed there for two weeks, and when I got out, I found that Carol hadn’t been idle. She’d been shacking up at the boat with a local bruiser the size of a small house and told me in no uncertain terms that if I wanted to stay around, I could have the engine hold. Well, the idea of living in a cramped, dirty, airless, rat-infested hold on my own boat while Carol lay in the arms of any sailor with a wad of money in our cabin two decks over my head was just too much to take. Ever since then, I’d been on the streets living on garbage and straight whiskey, taking a few bucks from Carol now and then when desperation drove me back to the boat. Just then, I wasn’t quite drunk enough to forget my troubles on account of not having enough money to buy the requisite liquor. Maybe that was lucky, because I was able to notice when someone began shaking my shoulder. I looked up and when my eyes focused again, they showed me that Carol was standing over me.