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

by Pierre V. Comtois

  Winding his way through the empty streets of Arkham, he slowed as he approached the campus of Miskatonic University. There was plenty of parking available at a time well before the first classes were due to begin, so he picked a quiet spot away from the faculty offices. Now, it was only a matter of waiting until Lilly came to work.

  He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, the sun was well risen in the sky and the campus around him was alive with students. Leaving the car, he entered the faculty building, pausing only long enough to consult a directory in the lobby before heading straight up to Lilly’s office in the Archeology Department.

  In Lilly’s anteroom, a young woman intercepted him before he could enter the professor’s office. He told her his name was Eli-a-Pintoch and that he had important business with the professor. Asking him to wait, the girl popped her head into the inner room and he heard her telling Lilly that there was someone who wanted to see him.

  “My name is Eli-a-Pintoch,” he said upon entering the office.

  “Very impressive,” said Lilly. “That means Seeker of Dreams in the Wampanoag language, I believe.”

  “Never mind that, I’m not here to impress you or anyone else,” said Eli-a-Pintoch.

  “Then why bother changing your name from Montrose…Normand Montrose, isn’t it? You were in one of my basic anthropology classes weren’t you?”

  “A few years ago, yes,” admitted Eli-a-Pintoch, nee Montrose. “That was before I became a high priest in the worship of great Nodens.”

  “Is that so? And for what reason am I honored to have the high priest himself pay me a personal visit?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Lilly. I’ve come to demand that you return the warding-stones you took from Ebnezer Fitch’s field.”

  “And what right do you have in making such a demand?”

  “By right of ownership. Those stones have been in the possession of worshipers of Nodens for 142 years…”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Trust me, you don’t want to see the kind of proof I can bring to bear.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that to convince me to just hand over the stones. You say you’re a high priest in the worship of Nodens?”

  “Don’t change the subject, professor. I’m not unaware of your position at the university. You specialize in Amerindian lore and beliefs, so you know full well who Nodens is. He is the Prison Keeper, appointed by the Elder Gods to guard the places where the Old Gods have been imprisoned since before mankind was a group of cells swimming in Earth’s primordial oceans.”

  “And on what basis do you believe that?”

  “On the word of Nodens himself. I’m honored to be the instrument by which he communicates with his followers in this world.”

  “See here, Montrose,” said Lilly, leaning forward on his desk. “How in the world can an ordinary human being such as yourself understand anything of the thoughts and desires of a being like Nodens, if he even exists?” He held up his hand forestalling the high priest’s protest. “But assuming that he does, the literature, including original sources such as the Necronomicon, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, and the Kraulshavn Fragments all indicate that the beings in the Cthulhu Myth Cycle are nothing more than alien creatures from distant planets who have, by one way or another, become trapped on Earth. How can such totally alien creatures, who have evolved in completely different ways than human beings, who have had totally different experiences in galaxies and even dimensions completely strange and inexplicable to us, even have the first basis upon which to establish coherent communication with beings who have nothing in common whatsoever with them? Their thought processes, beliefs, even feelings, if they had any, would be such that human beings such as yourself could never hope to understand them. In fact, there is no direct evidence anywhere in the literature to suggest that the creatures of the Myth Cycle have ever communicated directly with humans. Everything is written second hand…”

  “Enough! You dare mock great Nodens? Don’t you know that he could snuff out your puny life like a candle flame?”

  “If anything happens to me, it will not be due to Nodens but by the hands of humans,” said Lilly, leaning back in his chair. “Now about that proof of ownership I asked you about…”

  “Those stones belong to the followers of Nodens!” insisted Montrose. “They are ours!”

  “You can say that until you’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t comprise proof,” said Lilly. “And the reason you can’t prove ownership is that you haven’t any. On the other hand, need I point out that the stones were found on private property owned by Ebnezer Fitch? They rightfully belong to him, and he has given the university permission to hold them for a time to study. If you trespassed and buried them on his land, you were in violation of the law.”

  “Great Nodens is not bound by any Earthly rules and regulations, least of all the bylaws of Dunwich,” insisted Montrose. “And the stones actually belong to the Great Nodens, Keeper of Prisons and Lord of the Dreamlands. However, his followers are duly appointed custodians of…”

  “So your cult is the legal representative of Nodens, then?”

  “We’re not a cult!” insisted Montrose, his face growing red. “The Elder Gods are real! They rule the known universe. All reality is theirs to command, and they have given unto Nodens a terrible responsibility…”

  “Yes, to make sure the Old Gods, including Cthulhu, remain in their prisons,” completed Lilly.

  “Then I don’t need to tell you about the forces you’re trifling with if you refuse to hand over the stones…”

  “What makes them so important?” interrupted Lilly. “Why are you so anxious for their return?”

  “I don’t have to explain anything to an unbeliever,” said Montrose, “but I will tell you this: they’re needed in order for us to complete the ritual of Selection. When completed, the ritual will open a passage to the Dreamlands allowing those loyal to Nodens to cross over, thus sparing them against the inevitable moment when the Old Gods’ sentence will be completed, and the world once more becomes their domain.”

  “Balderdash!” exclaimed Lilly, finally losing patience with the whole conversation. “Montrose, you are either a fool or a lunatic. One of those people who are unable to cope with modern society, and so must lose themselves in some imagined superstition be it witchcraft, vampirism, or belief in Old Gods. Miss Farnum!”

  “Yes, professor?” said the girl, appearing at the door.

  “Please show Mr. Montrose here to the door,” said Lilly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He’s wasting my time.”

  “Then you refuse to give me the stones?” asked a somewhat incredulous Montrose.

  “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said? Of course I do! Now please leave.”

  “You’ll regret this, Lilly,” said Montrose as the girl plucked at his sleeve by way of urging him out of the office. “Great Nodens will have his way. You’ll see!”

  Part V: Nodens

  “He thought I didn’t notice them there on a table in his office, but I did,” said Montrose to a small group that had assembled in his rooms over the Feed Store. “I purposely overacted, trying to intimidate him but it didn’t work. Now we have to take matters into our own hands.”

  “But what about great Nodens, Normand, can’t the great one help us again the way he did at Fitch’s…”

  “No. Calling the Nightgaunts was a one-time proposition. If we ask Nodens for any more help, he’ll know we failed the first time and don’t have the stones. But if we can get them back ourselves, he need never find out…and don’t call me Normand.”

  Montrose had called the other members of the group together to give them the bad news, and to solicit their help in getting the stones back. He knew as soon as Lilly refused to cooperate that more drastic action would be necessary.

  “We need those stones by Wednesday night, because if the ritual of Selection is not completed then, not only will we lose our chance for pr
otection when the Old Gods wake, but we’ll incur the displeasure of great Nodens as well,” said Montrose. “For that reason, we’ll have to break into Lilly’s office and take them back ourselves.”

  There was some mumbling among the group then, until Montrose signaled for them to quiet down.

  “I know it’s risky, but what other options do we have?” Seeing no objection, he proceeded. “Now here’s my plan. I see no reason for delay, so we conduct the break-in Wednesday after midnight. I think we’ll have a good chance of getting away with it, as I don’t think Lilly will expect us to strike so soon…that, and he just might be stupid enough to think we really believe Nodens himself would take a hand in so minor an adventure. So, I’ll only need a couple of you to come with me, the others will go to the field and prepare it for the ritual so we can start as soon as possible after we get the stones back. I don’t want to take a chance that Lilly or anyone else will guess what we’re up to, and interfere before we’re through. So, Jessica and Kent, you’ll come with me. Farley, you take charge of the field.”

  “Right,” nodded Farley.

  “You’re dismissed.”

  As the others filed out, Montrose motioned for the two remaining to sit down around the little kitchen table.

  “Jessica, we’ll use your car for the job,” opened Montrose. “Mine might be recognized by a guard or something. It won’t matter if anyone sees your car either because after it’s all over, we’ll have long-since crossed over to the Dreamlands. When we get to the university, you’ll wait in the car while Kent and I conduct the actual break-in.”

  Jessica nodded but said nothing.

  “Kent, you and I will go down to the school by bus during the day and hide in the faculty building until after midnight. When everyone’s gone, it ought to be easy to find Lilly’s office and, if it hasn’t been left unlocked, we can get in with the old credit card trick. When I was in his office I checked and made sure the lock on the office door was an old one that has been changed.”

  Kent grinned. “Know where we’re going to hide?”

  “There’s an old furnace in the basement that’s not used any more. All we have to do is remove a service panel and there’s plenty of room inside to hide for a few hours. I did some exploring before I went up to see Lilly.”

  “Sounds like a plan all right.”

  “Where do you want me to wait?” asked Jessica.

  “Out on French Street, just on the other side of the south campus wall. If all goes smoothly, me and Kent should come over that wall about 3:30 a.m. Any questions? Okay. Kent, I’ll meet you at the bus stop on Main Street at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.”

  Things ended up going better than expected, with Montrose and Kent coming over the wall closer to 3 a.m. than 3:30. With them were the stones, which they kept in a heavy mail bag taken from the Dean’s Corners Post Office. Remaining at the wheel, Jessica drove calmly through the darkened streets of Arkham until reaching the highway, where she picked up speed but taking care not to exceed the limit. About an hour later, they were moving along the Aylesbury Pike into Dunwich, where scattered streetlights finally vanished altogether. Avoiding the downtown so as not to attract the attention of the town’s lone patrol car, Jessica followed a circuitous route along the narrow, winding roads that crisscrossed the farming community’s back country. Finally, with lights dimmed, Jessica pulled the car off the road and into a disused turnoff on a reverse slope from the Fitch farm.

  The thick woods around them were pitch dark, lying as they did in the shadow of a hill that rose steeply across the road. Overhead, stars twinkled in a clear sky but there was no moon. Using a small flashlight with a pencil-thin beam, Montrose led the way past a pair of other vehicles parked deeper into the woods, cars left by Farley and the others who had preceded them to the ritual site. A faint trail led past thick, ancient oaks as the ground rose toward the crest of the slope then downward again and over Petawag Brook. At last, after hopping a stone fence, they emerged into the field where the others waited.

  “You got the stones?” said Farley, stepping out from under a patch of birch trees whose boles glowed whitely in the starlight.

  “Yes,” replied Montrose motioning to the mail bag that Kent held over his shoulder. “Is everything ready here?”

  “Absolutely,” confirmed Farley as the others began to emerge from the shadows. “The holes have been prepared to the prescribed depth and the preliminary words of warding have been recited at the proper times.”

  “Good. Let’s bury the stones and get our robes on.”

  The final preparations were completed quickly and the group separated to remove their clothing and slip into their robes; the few women moving off by themselves for the purpose displaying a modesty that would later be discarded, along with the robes, when the time came to make the passage into the Dreamlands. For it was written that Earthly possessions of any kind would be a hindrance to a successful transition into the protective arms of Nodens.

  Their change of clothing completed, the group reassembled in a loose circle outside the five points formed by the warding-stones. Ordering his thoughts, Montrose began reciting words from the ritual of Selection: “Oh, great Nodens! Holder of the Keys, Confidant of the Elder Gods, Wise Protector! Heed the pleas of your faithful servants! For years, we have proffered our faith and loyalty, preserved your name, and performed all that had been instructed of us in those records where you have deigned to express your will. Now, at the expressed time, upon the eve of the Release when the Old Gods are to be released and loosed upon the Earth again to rule as they did in the olden times, we beseech you to grant us the reward that is our due and protect us against the coming storm! Ia Nodens! Sfaug ntruit phingli phan! Sui gilphon chhic nar. Ia Nodens!”

  Quiet descended upon the scene as Montrose ended his imprecation. In the dark woods that bordered the empty field, a soft wind had arisen and, as the trees round about whispered in the night, a strange thing began to happen within the space bounded by the five stones.

  Some among the worshipers gasped, taking involuntary steps backward but not far enough to break the circle. Their surprise perhaps betraying the fact that their faith had not been as complete as it might have appeared. But wonder now held them in thrall, preventing any further retreat as they joined the others in gazing at the thing that was happening within the confines of the five warding-stones.

  There, a vision began to form, a pillar of three dimensional space that stretched from a few inches above the furrowed ground of the field upwards into the sky. Within the pillar there was a sense of movement, although nothing could be seen to stir. Beyond a vague glow on what seemed to be a distant horizon, darkness dominated a blackened landscape that beckoned anyone who dared to look upon it.

  “The Night Land,” murmured Montrose, leaning in. “That future era of the Dreamlands wherein the Old Gods are free and great Nodens presides, his role as gaoler ended forever!” Turning, he faced the others who had gathered together in instinctual security. “We can escape the fate that awaits the rest of mankind! We have followed the dictates of great Nodens to shape the present such that a future timeline could be created that will likely lead to the proper era; the era in which the Old Ones will once again rule the Earth as they did in days of old. We have slain the proper actors, sacrificed from among ourselves, as the ancient writings have indicated. Now, we perform the ritual of Selection and our moment has come! We are the fortunate few! We are the chosen ones! We will dwell in the House of Silence forever! All we need do is to step across this threshold that Nodens has provided.”

  Turning back to the pillar that still stood silently before him, Montrose shed his robe to stand naked before the looming dark. “I am ready, great Nodens! Ready for the reward you have prepared for your faithful servant!”

  With that, Montrose passed from the world into the Night Land beyond, followed quickly by the others as each in turn left the last of their Earthly accoutrements behind.

  The first thing that
Montrose noticed upon arriving on the other side was the familiarity of the landscape around him. Quickly, he realized it was the same as the one in his dreams, dreams he now realized had been visions sent to him by Nodens. But the elation he had felt only moments, or perhaps it was eternities before, quickly dissipated as the malignancy that permeated the atmosphere immediately pressed down upon him like a physical thing. So divorced were his senses from the environment around him that it was only pain inflicted by the stoney ground that told him he had been forced to his knees. The discomfort brought him to his senses somewhat and suddenly, far from delivering a sense of freedom, his nakedness only made him feel vulnerable. Tears lining his cheeks, he struggled to his feet and at last he noticed the others around him. They too were disoriented, unsure on their feet, their white, naked bodies already streaked with dirt and ash.

  In the far distance stood the great pyramid of his dreams, and emanating from it, like waves of mental energy, were the hopes and desires of trapped millions. They seemed to be urging him on, to come to them where they resided in the only remaining safe-haven in Night Land…a hostile environment dominated by enormous things they called Watchers, and other lesser creatures that wandered the devastated landscape in blind search of hapless prey.

  “We have to get to that building over there,” gasped Montrose, using all of his strength to take a single step. “Oh great Nodens! Have your faithful servants been forsaken? Where are your protecting arms?”

  Even as he made his desperate plea, Montrose suspected that there would be no reply, but there was. Somewhere in the darkness around them there was movement, or at least something big was closer to them than it had been before. Suddenly, the sense of its presence was closer than ever; it towered over their heads like a mountain and, like a looming avalanche, they felt its weight pressing upon their tiny, insignificant selves.