The House of Cthulhu: Tales of the Primal Land Vol. 1

by Lumley, Brian

  But Gyriss had told him the rune’s reversal, and before the spell could take effect Humbuss cried: “Diputs, gnud tae!”—and hacked the chiropteran in twain. Just as Mylakhrion had prescribed.

  And finally, when he came to the drawbridge, Humbuss found the third guard waiting, who offered him the jewels and bade him turn aside. But the Northman merely snatched the jewels from him and scornfully shouldered him out of the way, then ignored him utterly and turned to face the drawbridge. And scattering small handfuls of jewels into the abyss as Gyriss had instructed, he commanded: “Drawbridge, show me where you really are!” And the jewels passed through the illusory drawbridge and into the abyss; but to one side they fell not, and Humbuss stepped out across what seemed thin air, letting jewels drop in front to guide him safely across. And so at last he entered in through the door in the tower’s base.

  Now Gyriss had warned him about the two lower levels, and so Humbuss was wary. But even as he glanced in through the main door of the lower level’s complex, so the jackdaw came fluttering down from above to remind him of the dangers:

  “ ‘Ware, Humbuss! These are not treasures you spy but illusions!”

  Humbuss looked again. The floor of the room behind the open door was tiled with small hexagonal mirrors, so that all in the room seemed duplicated. What he saw, therefore, seemed doubly awesome. For in that room were heaped treasures beyond all human dreams of avarice, where every known gem—and many unknown—spilled from piles upon the mirror floor! And even as he stood there with the juices of greed making his mouth moist, so a mouse scampered across the threshold and ran in amazement, ogling his mouse-reflection, to and fro amidst the glitter and the wealth. But no harm befell the mouse.

  “It is the floor!” cried Gyriss. “The mouse has no weight, but only place the tip of your great sword upon the floor beyond that door—”

  Humbuss did so—and scarce had time to withdraw his blade before the scintillant illusion vanished! And in its place a brilliant flashing of silent, silver blades, a sieve of shimmering motion, a mesh of metallic teeth and shining scalpels. And all so silent! So that in a moment the room breathed out a fine damp mist of mouse-essence and closed its door gently in Humbuss’ face.

  And even Humbuss Ank was a little awed by the room’s deadly efficiency, so that he needed no urging to climb the stone stairs to the next level. Gyriss flapped along behind him, but the bird seemed more anxious now. “ ‘Ware, Humbuss, ‘ware! When I came to kill Mylakhrion, I stepped upon a floor of fine mosaics, all shaped like a flight of jackdaws—and see what became of me!”

  Already the Northman had reached the next level and would not have paused a moment—had not his narrowed eyes glimpsed beyond a second open door such a harem as to send even a eunuch into a frenzy of passion! And no eunuch Humbuss Ank but hot-blooded Northman.

  “Stars!” he gasped. And the ladies where they feasted at a circular table all glanced his way, and smiled, and wriggled, and beckoned him to come in.

  “No!” cried Gyriss. “This, too, is a machine, and that door is a door to another place, not of this world. It is a place Mylakhrion knows. Look again: these are not women but succubi and lamias. And see what they’re eating, Humbuss. Only look at their repast!”

  Humbuss looked. Beneath the circular table, visible now that the mist of lust was off his eyes, the great fat body of a man writhed and twitched where it was bound to the table’s central leg. But his head went up through the table, and was open at the top like an egg—into which the ladies dipped their silver spoons . . .

  Shuddering, even Humbuss Ank, he drew back from the door and climbed again; and up past the third and fourth floors went barbarian and bird together, to the very door of Mylakhrion’s bedchamber—which also stood open.

  Now Gyriss grew excited indeed. “Only once have I been within,” he croaked as quietly as possible, “and so cannot help you here. The chamber seems innocent enough, but from here you’re on your own. I will not watch, for I admit to feeling faint from my own treachery.”

  “What?” hissed Humbuss in amazement. “He’s a foul magician, is he not?”

  “The mightiest,” Gyriss agreed. “But his magicks are more nearly white than black. I will not watch.”

  “Faintheart!” said Humbuss. “He made of you a crippled bird!”

  “Because I came to kill him,” squawked Gyriss, but not loudly. “Since when . . . he has not been unkind to me. You still have time to go back, Humbuss . . .”

  “Bah!” thundered the barbarian. And, “Have done!” And he strode across the mosaic floor to where the wizard’s figure stirred as he came sluggishly awake beneath satin bedclothes. And as if mysteriously guided, Humbuss’ booted feet stepped not once upon a capering marble monkey, but always on the spaces between. Up went his sword as the bedclothes were thrown back, and down in an arc of tarnished, notched steel—

  —To strike in halves a squawking, treacherous jackdaw!

  And from behind, where Gyriss had fluttered at the door, now came a low sad sigh, and a sombrous voice saying: “Welcome, Humbuss Ank, to the house of Mylakhrion!”

  Humbuss whirled, saw the magician materialise there, whose night-black wings grew into a cloak of glowing runes; and gawping his astonishment he stepped forward. Alas, his left foot came down upon a scampering monkey.

  Then, in an instant, the mosaics parted and up from below hissed an hundred silver scythes, striking once and returning below before the mosaics could close again. And all so quick that Humbuss did not see, or even feel, the blade which sheared his trunk-like left leg cleanly above the knee . . .

  IN THE MORNING Mylakhrion buried Gyriss in a tiny grave in his garden behind the tower. And watching from the high balcony of his observatory, a lone chiropteran of stone stared blindly down and prayed only for good weather. And chained to the neck of the stony man-bat a tiny one-legged monkey gibbered and complained bitterly.

  Mylakhrion heard his cries, looked up and smiled. “No, no,” he cried, shaking his head. “There you stay for now, my friend. At least until your temper’s improved. And even then you must be house-trained.

  “Indeed, for the personal habits of Northmen are utterly notorious . . .”

  Cryptically Yours

  The following letters, numbered one to eight, are in the main self-explanatory. They will serve admirably to illustrate some of the many perils facing professional wizards in that bygone Age when the world was very young and magic was not merely a word in books for small children . . .

  I

  Domed Turret of Hreen Castle,

  Eleventh Day of the Season of Mists,

  Hour of the First Fluttering of Bats.

  Esteemed Teh Atht—

  You will doubtless recall that we were apprenticed together (along with Dhor Nen, Tarth Soquallin, Ye-namat and Druth of Thandopolis) under Imhlat the Great; also how we vied, each against the others, in aspiring to greatness in our chosen profession. Though we were mere lads then (how many, many years ago?), still I remember being impressed by your own industry. Aye, even I, Hatr-ad of Thinhla, whose peer is not known east of the Inner isles, was most impressed by the sorcerous industry of Teh Atht. You were a likeable lad—friendly despite the ceaseless competition and bantering and occasional bickering—for which reason I now call upon you, in the name of the comradeship we shared in Imhlat’s tutelage, for assistance in a matter of extreme urgency.

  Mayhap it has come to your attention that of the six apprentices mentioned above only we two and one other, Tarth Soquallin, remain alive? The others are recently fallen foul of ill-omened, indeed evil fates, for all three have met with strange and terrible deaths! Not only Dhor, Ye-namat and Druth, but Imhlat the Teacher, too! Even Imhlat the Great—whose gnarled old hands instructed us in our first passes, weaving weird designs of power in the air—he, too, is gone, wasted away in a grey rot that descended upon him from the moon (they say) and took him all in the space of a single night.

  Now I know not your thoughts in this m
atter, or even if you’ve considered it at all, but it seems to me that certain dark forces roam free and rapacious in Theem’hdra, and that their fell purpose is the destruction of her wizards one by one, thus plunging the entire continent into an age of darkness, when the light of sorcery will be extinguished forever! If I am correct then our lives, too, are in peril . . . for which reason I have set up every possible magickal barrier against these unknown agents of evil. This of course is the reason for my letter: to beg of you a certain rune (which I am given to believe may recently have come down to you from your long dead ancestor, Mylakhrion of Tharamoon?), that I might finalise the security of Hreen Castle.

  I refer specifically to the Ninth Sathlatta, which—or so I am informed—is a protective device efficacious over all other magicks in the whole of Theem’hdra. Were it indeed your good fortune to be in possession of this spell, I would count myself ever in your debt upon safely receiving a copy of the same.

  Take care, Teh Atht, and beware the nameless terror that surely lurks in Theem’hdra’s shadows, threatening us all—

  Yours for the Numberless Rites of Lythatroll—

  Hatr-ad the Adept.

  In addition—

  Perhaps you know the whereabouts of that inveterate wanderer, Tarth Soquallin? If so, be so good as to advise me of the same that I may also warn him of the hovering horror . . .

  Hatr-ad.

  II

  Topmost Tower of Klühn,

  Eighteenth Night,

  Hour of Clouds Wisping across the

  Full Moon . . .

  High-born Hierophant, O Hatr-ad!—

  Honoured was I, Teh Atht, to receive your correspondence, even though it cost me the services of a most faithful retainer—and him his life! As to how this came about: I am myself at a loss to explain it.

  I can only assume that those same dark forces of which your note so eloquently warns entrapped the bat to which you doubtless entrusted the missive, replacing that messenger with the great and winged Gaunt which assaulted my apartments over Klühn in the hour before dawn of the 12th day. Mercifully I myself was not to house, and so the monster took a manservant in my stead, almost obscuring with his blood the words you so carefully inscribed in cypher upon the parchment which I later found clenched in his lifeless fingers.

  Thus it would seem that your warning was indeed most timely, and I thank you for it. As to your request for a copy of the 9th S., please find the same enclosed. Note that, remembering well your penchant for cyphers, I have couched the rune in just such a frame—albeit a simple one—the better to amuse and entertain you, however briefly, during your leisure hours.

  Alas, I have no knowledge of Tarth Soquallin’s whereabouts, but be sure I myself shall now take all precautions to avoid whichever evils befell our former colleagues, and that I remain, in eager anticipation of your next—

  Yours for the Exorcism of Org the Awful,

  Teh Atht of Klühn.

  III

  Hidden Vault beneath Hreen Castle;

  Twenty-first Night;

  Hour of the Tittering Without the Pentagram.

  Brother in Blessed Sorceries, O Teh Atht—

  A thousand thanks for your letter—and for the cypher-inscribed 9th S., which I shall duly translate as soon as I get five minutes to spare—both safely arrived yester-evening in their silver cylinder affixed to the leg of a great eagle. The bird itself, alas, fell prey to an over-zealous archer in my employ, whom I shall punish fittingly. Still and all, it were not entirely the man’s fault, for he had strict instructions with regard to any alien invader of my keep, and was not to know that the bird was but a messenger of your esteemed self.

  It was indeed a mercy, brother, that you were away upon the advent of the Gaunt which killed your retainer, and I shudder in contemplation of what might have taken place had you been present to receive so monstrous a visitor! My condolences at the loss of a faithful servant, and my joy that you yourself were spared so terrible an ordeal. Indeed you were correct in assuming that my messenger was but a bat, and I am filled with rage at the vileness of that agency which could so readily turn dumb, harmless minion into ravenous beast!

  Now to a matter of even darker import: for we two are now the sole survivors of Imhlat’s school for sorcerers, Tarth Soquallin having recently succumbed to the unknown doom! Aye, even Tarth the Hermit, gone forever from the world of men, for I have it on good authority that he is, alas, no more. It would seem that in the midst of magickal meditations he vanished from a cave—a hole in the face of a granite cliff, with no windows and only one stout door—after uttering but a single piercing scream. When finally his disciples broke down the door, they found only his wand and seven rings of gold and silver . . . those things, and a number of tiny golden nuggets which may once have filled certain of his teeth . . .

  Oh, my brother, what is to be done? The very thought of the evils that surround us and the perils which daily press closer fills me with a nameless dread—or would, if I did not know that my old friend, Teh Atht, is at hand to assist me and offer his sound and unimpeachable advice in these darkest hours—

  Yours for the Moaning Menhir,

  Hatr-ad.

  On afterthought—

  Since I really have very little time to waste on riddles—however entertaining they may be—would you be so good as to forward with your next the key to the encyphered 9th S.?

  Gratefully—

  Hatr-ad.

  IV

  Sepulcher of Syphtar VI;

  Thirty-eighth Evening;

  Hour of the Unseen Howler.

  Master of Mysteries, O Hatr-ad—

  Confirmation of Tarth Soquallin’s demise reached me almost simultaneous with your own doom-fraught epistle (I envy you your informants!), and not only his demise but those of several other sorcerers, too, though lesser known and further flung. Ikrish Sarn of Hubriss was one such, and Khrissa’s Lord-High Ice-Priest another. Thus have I come down into the tomb of Syphtar VI to seek out his spirit and inquire of it, but lo—Syphtar answers not my call!

  Indeed strangeness is abroad, Hatr-ad, even great strangeness! It would seem that some dark spell of thaumaturgic impotence is upon me, so that my sorceries are utterly without effect. Can I doubt but that the source of this new infamy is that same secret centre of evil whence ooze the poisonous spells which, one by one, drag down our fellow sorcerers to dreadful doom and death? Nay, I cannot doubt it; it must surely be so.

  But with regard to these measures of yours for the protection of Hreen Castle against whichever evils theaten: I may be able to offer the very ultimate in protections, beside which even the ninth Sathlatta pales to insignificance! You were indeed correct in deducing that my ancestor Mylakhrion bequeathed to me certain of his secrets, and that these have recently come down to me across the centuries. Aye, and one of them is a rune of the greatest power, of which I would freely advise you if only I could be sure that my letter would not be intercepted!

  Obviously a spell of this magnitude must never fall into the wrong hands, for . . .

  My friend—I have it!

  Upon a skin which I shall enclose, please peruse the characters of an unbreakable cypher to which I alone possess the key. When next you write, enclose some proof positive by which I may know that our correspondence is completely confidential and secure, and by return I shall forward the key to the cypher, thus placing the greatest of all protective runes in your hands.

  Rest assured that I have already used the spell in my own defence—indeed, this very morning—wherefore I fear no evil in the length and breadth of Theem’hdra. (It dawns on me that this near-stultification of my other magicks, of which I have already made mention, must be a side-effect of the greater power, whose task is after all to dampen dangerous sorceries! This is a mere inconvenience as compared with my very life’s safety, and doubtless the effect will soon wear off.)

  But a warning: the only man who may break down the wall of this protection is one who understands its co
nstruction; and once this is done even the smallest spell will work against the one thus betrayed. Naturally I fear no such betrayal from my brother Hatr-ad the Illustrious, else I should not offer this information in the first instance. Be certain, too, that I have not studied the rune sufficiently to understand its reversal; and I trust you will likewise refrain from deliberately discovering the means by which the protection may be cancelled?

  In all such matters I have the greatest faith in my brother-sorcerer, Hatr-ad, and thus, in eager anticipation of your next letter, I remain—

  Yours for Enduring Enchantments,

  Teh Atht of Klühn.

  On Afterthought—

  With regard to the encyphered 9th S.: It seems I’ve lost the key! I wrote the thing down on a scrap of parchment which I’ve since mislaid. There are several such cyphers I use but I have neither the time nor the inclination to divulge all of them. However, this should no longer present a problem, since the new rune supercedes and is far more powerful than the 9th S.. In any case, your own devices have been adequately efficacious to date, as witness (happily) your continued existence!

  Sorcerously—

  Teh Atht.

  One other matter—

  My fears over the confidentiality of our correspondence are not unfounded, I assure you, and I warn you to examine such carriers as we use most carefully. The pigeon that brought me your last missive had no sooner delivered up its cylinder than it flew asunder in a thousand searing fragments! I conjecture that it had been fed pellets of some agent, which, reacting with the bird’s inner juices, produced this monstrous effect. Certainly the body fluids of the poor creature were become so mordant that the walls of the tower in which it exploded are now pitted and blackened most severely! Mercifully, I was not harmed, nor any retainer of mine.