While Nolon was gazing at one of Rignolo's landscapes, Grissul seemed unable to shake off a preoccupation with the artist himself, though he was obviously making the effort. But the more he tried to turn his attention away from Rignolo, the more easily it was drawn back to the flabby skin, the faded complexion, the undisciplined shocks of hair. Finally, Grissul gave a little nudge to Nolon and began to whisper something. Nolon looked at Grissul in a way that might have said, "Yes, I know, but have some sense of decorum in any case," then resumed his contemplation of Rignolo's excellent landscapes.
They were all very similar to one another. Given such titles as "Glistening Marsh", "The Tract of Three Shadows", and "The Stars, the Hills", they were not intended to resemble as much as suggest the promised scenes. A vague hint of material forms might emerge here and there, some familiar effect of color or outline, but for the most part they could be described as extremely remote in their perspective on tangible reality. Grissul, who was no stranger to some of the locales purportedly depicted in these canvasses, could very well have expressed the objection that these conglomerations of fractured mass, these whirlpools of distorted light, simply did not achieve their purpose, did not in fact deserve connection with the geographical subjects from which they took their titles. Perhaps it was Rignolo's intuition that just such a protest might be forthcoming that inspired—in the rapid, frantic voice of a startled sleeper—the following outburst.
"Think anything you like about these scenes, it's all the same to me. Whisper to each other, my hearing is wonderfully bad. Say that my landscapes do not invite one's eyes to pass into them and wander, let alone linger for the briefest moment. Nevertheless, that is exactly their purpose, and as far as I am concerned they are quite adequate to it, meticulously efficient.
"I have spent extraordinary lengths of time within the borders of each canvass, both as maker and as casual inhabitant, until the borders no longer exist for me and neither does... that other thing. Understand that when I say inhabitant, I do not in any way mean that I take my clumsy feet tromping up and down staircases of color, or that I stand this stunted body of mine upon some lofty ledge where I can play the master of all I see. There are no masters of these scenes and no seers, because bodies and their organs cannot function there—no place for them to go, nothing to survey with ordinary eyes, no thoughts to think for the mighty brain. And my thoroughfares will not take you from the doorstep of one weariness to the backdoor of another, and they cannot crumble, because they are burdened with nothing to convey—their travelers are already there, continuously arriving at infinite sites of the perpetually astonishing. Yet these sites are also a homeland, and nothing there will ever threaten to become strange. What I mean to say is that to inhabit my landscapes one must, in no figurative sense, grow into them. At best they are a paradise for sleepwalkers, but only those sleepwalkers who never rise to their feet, who forget their destination, and who may thus never reach that ultimate darkness beyond dreams, but may loiter in perpetuity in these lands of mine, which neighbor on nothingness and stand next door to endlessness. So you see, my critics, what we have in these little pictures is a living communion with the void, a vital annihilation and a thoroughly decorative eternity of—"
"All the same," Grissul interjected, "it does sound unpleasant."
"You're interfering," Nolon said under his breath.
"The old bag of wind," Grissul said under his.
"And just where do you see the unpleasantness? Where, show me. Nowhere, in my view. One cannot be unpleasant to one's self, one cannot be strange to oneself. I claim that all will be different when one is joined with the landscape. We need not go the way of doom when such a hideaway is so near at hand—a land of escape. For the initiated, each of those little swirls is a cove which one may enter into and become; each line—jagged or merely jittery—is a cartographer's shoreline which may be explored at all points at once; each crinkled wad of radiance is a star basking in its own light, and in yours. This, gentlemen, is a case of making the most of one's talent for pro-jec-tion. There indeed exist actual locales on which my pictures are based, I admit that. But these places keep their distance from the spectator: whereas my new landscapes make you feel at home, those old ones put you off, hold you at arm's length, and in the end throw you right out of the picture. That's the way it is out there—everything looks at you with strange eyes. But you can get around this intolerable situation, jump the fence, so to speak, and trespass into a world where you belong for a change. If my landscapes look unfamiliar to you, it is only because everything looks different from the other side. All this will be understood much more clearly when you have seen my masterwork. Step this way, please."
Nolon and Grissul glanced blankly at each other and then followed the artist up to a narrow door. Opening the door with a tiny key, Rignolo ushered his guests inside. It was a tight squeeze through the doorway.
"Now this place really is a closet," Grissul whispered to Nolon. "I don't think I can turn around."
"Then we'll just have to walk out of here backwards, as if there were something wrong with that."
The door slammed closed and for a moment there was no place on earth darker than that little room.
"Watch the walls," Rignolo called through the door.
"Walls?" someone whispered.
The first images to appear in the darkness were those crinkled wads of radiance Rignolo spoke of, except these were much larger, more numerous, and became more radiant than the others bound within their cramped little canvasses. And they emerged on all sides of the spectator, above and below as well, so that an irresistible conviction was instilled that the tiny gravelike room had expanded into a star-strewn corridor of night, the certainty created that one was suspended in space without practical means of remaining there. Reaching out for the solid walls, crouching on the floor, only brought confusion rather than relief from the sense of impossibility. The irregular daubs of brightness grew into great silver blotches, each of them ragged at its rim and glowing wildly. Then they stopped growing in the blackness, attaining some predesigned composition, and another kind of growing began: thin filaments of bluish light started sprouting in the spaces between those bulbous thistles of brilliance, running everywhere like cracks up and down a wall. And these threadlike, hairlike tendrils eventually spread across the blackness in an erratic fury of propagation, until all was webbed and stringy in the universal landscape. Then the webbing began to fray and grow shaggy, cosmic moss hanging in luminous clumps, beards. But the scene was not muddled, no more so, that is, than the most natural marsh or fen-like field. Finally, enormous stalks shot out of nowhere, quickly crisscrossed to form interesting and well-balanced patterns, and suddenly froze. They were a strange shade of green and wore burry crowns of a pinkish color, like prickly brains.
The scene, it appeared, was now complete. All the actual effects were displayed: actual because the one further effect now being produced was most likely an illusion. For it seemed that deep within the shredded tapestry of webs and hairs and stalks, something else had been woven, something buried beneath the marshy morass but slowly rising to the surface.
"Is that a face?" someone said.
"I can begin to see one too," said the other, "but I don't know if I want to see it. I don't think I can feel where I am now. Let's try not to look at those faces."
A series of cries from within the little room finally induced Rignolo to open the door, which sent Nolon and Grissul tumbling backwards into the artist's studio. They lay among the debris on the floor for some time. Rignolo swiftly secured the door, and then stood absolutely still beside it, his upturned eyes taking no interest in his visitors' predicament. As they regained their feet, a few things were quickly settled in low voices.
"Mr Nolon, I recognized the place that that room is supposed to be."
"I'm sure you did."
"And I'm also sure I know whose face it was that I saw tonight in that field."
"I think we should be going.
"
"What are you saying?" demanded Rignolo.
Nolon gestured toward a large clock high upon the wall and asked if that was the time.
"Always," replied Rignolo, "since I've never yet seen its hands move."
"Well, then, thank you for everything," said Nolon.
"We have to be leaving,' added Grissul.
"Just one moment," Rignolo shouted as they were making their way out. "I know where you're going now. Someone, I won't say who, told me what you found in that field. I've done it, haven't I? You can tell me all about it. No, it's not necessary. I've put myself into the scene at last. The abyss with a decor, the ultimate flight! In short—survival in the very maw of oblivion. Oh, perhaps there's still some work to be done. But I've made a good start, haven't I? I've got my foot in the door, my face looking in the window. Little by little, then... forever. True? No, don't say anything. Show me where it is, I need to go there. I have a right to go."
Having no idea what sort of behavior a refusal might inspire in the maniacal Rignolo, not to mention possible reprisals from unknown parts, Nolon and Grissul respected the artist's request.
* * *
Into a scene which makes no sound, three figures arrive. Their silhouettes move with distinct, cautious steps across an open field, progressing slowly, almost without noticeable motion. Around them, crisscrossing shafts of tall grasses are entirely motionless, their pointed tips sharply outlined in the moonlight. Above them, the moon is round and bright; but its brightness is of a dull sort, like the flat whiteness that appears in the spaces of complex designs embellishing the page of a book.
The three figures, one of which is much shorter than the other two, have stopped and are standing completely still before a particularly dense clump of oddly shaped stalks. Now one of the taller figures has raised his arm and is pointing toward this clump of stalks, while the shorter figure has taken a step in the direction indicated. The two tall figures are standing together as the short one has all but disappeared into the dark, dense overgrowth. Only a single shoe, its toe angled groundward, remains visible. Then nothing at all.
The two remaining figures continue to stand in their places, making no gestures, their hands in the pockets of their long overcoats. They are staring into the blackness where the other one has disappeared. Around them, crisscrossing shafts of tall grasses; above them, the moon is round and bright.
Now the two figures have turned themselves away from the place where the other one disappeared. They are each slightly bent over and are holding their hands over their ears, as though to deafen themselves to something they could not bear. Then, slowly, almost without noticeable motion, they move out of the scene.
The field is empty once again. And now everything awakes with movement and sound.
* * *
After their adventure, Nolon and Grissul returned to the same table in that place they had met earlier that evening. But where they had left a bare table-top behind them, not considering the candleflame within its unshapely green bubble, there were at the moment two shallow glasses set out, along with a tall, if somewhat thin bottle placed between them. They looked at the bottle, the glasses, and each other methodically, as if they did not want to rush into anything.
"Is there still, you know, someone in the window across the street?" Grissul asked.
"Do you think I should look?" Nolon asked back.
Grissul stared at the table, allowing moments to accumulate, then said, "I don't care, Mr Nolon, I have to say that what happened tonight was very unpleasant."
"Something like that would have happened sooner or later," Nolon replied. "He was too much the dreamer, let's be honest. Nothing he said made any sense to speak of, and he was always saying more than he should. Who knows who heard what."
"I've never heard screaming like that."
"It's over," said Nolon quietly.
"But what could have happened to him?" asked Grissul, gripping the shallow glass before him, apparently without awareness of the move.
"Only he could know that for certain," answered Nolon, who mirrored Grissul's move and seemingly with the same absence of conscious intent.
"And why did he scream that way, why did he say it was all a trick, a mockery of his dreams, that 'filthy thing in the earth'? Why did he scream not to be 'buried forever in that strange, horrible mask'?"
"Maybe he became confused," said Nolon. Nervously, he began pouring from the thin bottle into each of their glasses.
"And then he cried out for someone to kill him. But that's not what he wanted at all, just the opposite. He was afraid to you-know-what. So why would he—"
"Do I really have to explain it all, Mr Grissul?"
"I suppose not," Grissul said very softly, looking ashamed. "He was trying to get away, to get away with something."
"That's right," said Nolon just as softly, looking around. "Because he wanted to escape from here without having to you-know-what. How would that look?"
"Set an example."
"Exactly. Now let's just take advantage of the situation and drink our drinks before moving on."
"I'm not sure I want to," said Grissul.
"I'm not sure we have any say in the matter," replied Nolon.
"Yes, but—"
"Shhh. Tonight's our night."
Across the street a shadow fidgeted in the frame of a lighted window. An evening breeze moved through the little park, and the green glow of a candleflame flickered upon two silent faces.
The Voice In The Bones (1989)
First published in Crypt Of Cthulhu #65, 1989
Also published in: Noctuary, The Nightmare Factory.
The blackness above was deep and unbroken. Rising toward it was a tower with a single opening which framed a pale, quivering light. The narrow aperture was fixed high within the darkness and was engulfed by its dense and voiceless unity. Below the tower was a scattering of other structures, while other lights emerged here and there in the lower darkness. One of these was a lamp set into a wall at the border of a fractured street. The lamp spread its glow upon the gray wall and upon two figures who stood motionless before it. No color in their tight, unblemished faces, no sign of breath under the dark covering of their forms: simple beings with long fingers and empty eyes. Yet their gaze was clearly focused on a building across that vacant street, rigidly directed toward a certain window there. Every so often someone would peer out along the very edge of that window, though he never looked for more than a moment before retreating out of sight. And he occupied a room where everything seemed to tremble with shadows.
The shadows moved slowly, obscuring so many of the objects within the room and appearing to change the outlines of the simplest furnishings. The room itself became altered in its dimensions. Over the course of slow transformations it pushed outward into a great abyss and squeezed inward to create a maze of strange black turnings. Every shape was imposing itself on another shape, breeding a chaos of overlapping patterns.
The occupant of the room remained on his guard in these surroundings. Now he saw something hiding inside a shadow moving along the woodwork by the window, using the shadow as a mask. He nudged his foot against the wall, which felt as if it softly gave way to his touch. But there was nothing in the shadow, or nothing any longer. And when he reached out slowly and pulled the dangling cord of a light, it was not illumination that filled the room but a voice.
"Mister Ha-ha!" it shrieked, echoing into many voices around him.
"Ha-ha," repeated a similar voice.
With lethargic caution he slid toward the window and peeked around the casement. He could not imagine that those keen and jagged voices belonged to the two figures across the street. He had never seen them open their mouths when they called out to him with some improvised name. They only stood firm and watchful by the high rough wall. He looked away.
"Mister Tick-tock!"
"Tick-tock, tick-tock."
He took another step, an intensely sluggish effort, and stood centere
d in the window frame. Now they would see him, now they would know. But the ones who had been so patient in their vigil had abandoned the scene. And shadows merged with fading echoes in the room.
Then there were new echoes for him to hear. Yet they did not lack definition or intent, as did so many of the sounds produced by the large building that contained him: a dull drawn-out crash or a brief crackling might come from anywhere without giving up its origin or identity. But these new sounds, these particular echoes, did not seek anonymity. And there was a focus, a center upon which they converged. Footsteps, the creak of a closing window or a slowly opening door, a fumbling among the objects of another room, all these noises spoke a strange language among the surrounding shadows and joined with them in a greater scheme.
He began moving from room to room in a laborious expedition and became a fugitive in a realm of twisted suppositions. A window might allow some glaze of illumination, a glassy luminescence, but he was often confused by certain deviations in the design of these rooms. Forced to turn an unseen corner, he was faced with a small door, and around its edges some thin lines of light alternately appeared and disappeared in the darkness. He opened the door. On the other side was a long low corridor with a row of small lamps that together blinked on and off along either wall. He stood and stared. For it seemed that something came into being during the intervals of darkness in the corridor, a swarm of obscure shapes that were but imperfectly dispersed by the returning light, gnarled specters that somehow belonged to the very walls and reached out with their shapeless limbs. He crouched and then crossed his arms upon his chest, so that his body would not touch anything which need not be touched. When the light next filled the corridor he ran across the floor and felt himself being thrust forward, strangely propelled by a power which was not his own and which he could not control. A railing caught him before he plunged down a stairwell reaching into the blackness below.
The Collected Short Fiction Page 44