Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  THE PREFACE APPENDED BY “X” TO HIS DREAM

  This to be Love, that your spirit to live in a natural holiness with the Beloved, and your bodies to be a sweet and natural delight that shall be never lost of a lovely mystery.... And shame to be unborn, and all things to go wholesome and proper, out of an utter greatness of understanding; and the Man to be an Hero and a Child before the Woman; and the Woman to be an Holy Light of the Spirit and an Utter Companion and in the same time a glad Possession unto the Man.... And this doth be Human Love....”

  “... for this to be the especial glory of Love, that it doth make unto all Sweetness and Greatness, and doth be a fire burning all littleness; so that did all to have met The Beloved, then did Wantonness be dead, and there to grow Gladness and Charity, dancing in the years.”

  (“And I cannot touch her face

  And I cannot touch her hair

  And I kneel to empty shadows

  Just memories of her grace;

  And her voice sings in the winds

  And in the sobs of Dawn

  And among the flowers at night

  And from the brooks at sunrise

  And from the sea at sunset....

  ..........”)

  THE RESCUED FRAGMENTS OF “THE DREAM OF X”

  Since the time when Mirdath, my Beautiful One, died and left me lonely in this world, I have visited in my dreams those places where in the womb of the Future she and I shall come together, and part, and again come together — breaking asunder most drearly in pain, and again re-uniting after strange ages, in solemn wonder.

  And some shall read and say that this was not, and some shall dispute with them; but to them all I say naught, save “Read!” And having read that which I set down, then shall one and all have looked towards Eternity with me — aye, unto its very portals. And so to my telling: —

  To me, in this last time of my visions, it was not as if I dreamed; but, as it were, that I waked there into the dark, in the future of this world. And the sun had died; and for me thus newly waked into that Future, to look back upon this our Present Age, was to look back into dreams that my soul knew to be of reality; but which to those newly-seeing eyes of mine, appeared but as a far vision, strangely hallowed with peacefulness and light.

  Always, it seemed to me when I awaked into the Future, into the Everlasting Night that lapped this world, that I saw near to me and girding me all about a blurred greyness. And presently this, the greyness, would clear and fade from about me, even as a dusky cloud, and I would look out upon a world of darkness, lit here and there with strange sights. And with my waking, I waked not to ignorance; but to a full knowledge of those things which lit the Night Land; even as a man wakes from sleep each morning, and knows immediately he wakes, the names and knowledge of the Time which has bred him, and in which he lives. And the same while a knowledge I had, as it were sub-conscious, of this Present — this early life, which now I live so utterly alone.

  In my earliest knowledge of that place, I was a youth, and my memory tells me that when first I waked, or came, as it might be said, to myself, I stood in one of the embrasures of the Last Redoubt — that great Pyramid of grey metal which held the last millions of this world from the Powers of the Slayers. And so full am I of the knowledge of that Place, that scarce can I believe that none here know; and because I have such difficulty, it may be that I speak over familiarly of those things of which I know; and heed not to explain much that it is needful that I should explain to those who must read here in this our present day. For there, as I stood and looked out, I was less the man of years of this age, than the youth of that, with the natural knowledge of that life which I had gathered by living all my seventeen years of life there; though, until that my first vision, I knew not of that other and Future existence; yet woke to it so naturally as may a man wake here in his bed to the shining of the morning sun, and know it by name, and the meaning of aught else. And yet, as I stood there in the vast embrasure, I had also knowledge of memory, of this present life of ours, deep down within me; but touched with a halo of dreams; and yet with a conscious longing for One, known even there in a half Memory as Mirdath.

  As I have said, in my earliest memory, I mind that I stood in an embrasure, high up in the side of the Pyramid, and looked outwards through a queer spyglass to the North-West. Aye, full of youth and with an adventurous and yet half-fearful heart. And in my brain was, as I have told, the knowledge that had come to me in all the years of my life in the Redoubt; and yet until that moment, this Man of this Present Time, had no knowledge of that future existence; and now I stood and had suddenly the knowledge of a life already spent in that strange land, and deeper within me the misty knowings of this our present Age, and, maybe, also, of some others.

  To the North-West I looked through the queer spy-glass and saw a landscape that I had looked upon and pored upon through all the years of that life, so that I knew how to name this thing and that thing, and give the very distances of each and everyone from the “Centre-Point” of the Pyramid, which was that which had neither length nor breadth, and was made of polished metal in the Room of Mathematics, where I went daily to my studies.

  To the North-West I looked, and in the wide field of my glass, saw plain the bright glare of the fire from the Red Pit shine upwards against the underside of the vast chin of the North-West Watcher — The Watching Thing of the North-West ... “That which hath Watched from the Beginning, and until the opening of the Gateway of Eternity” came into my thoughts, as I looked through the glass ... the words of Aesworpth, the Ancient Poet (though incredibly future to this our time). And suddenly they seemed at fault; for I looked deep down into my being, and saw, as dreams are seen, the sunlight and splendour of this, our present Age. And I was amazed. And here I must make it clear to all that, even as I waked from this age, suddenly into that life, so must I — that youth there in the embrasure — have awakened then to the knowledge of this far-back life of ours ... seeming to him a vision of the very beginnings of eternity in the dawn of the world. Oh! I do but dread I make it not sufficient clear that I and he were both I ... the same soul. He of that far date seeing vaguely the life that was (that I do now live in this present age); and I of this time beholding the life that I yet shall live. How utterly strange! And yet, I do not know that I speak holy truth to say that I, in that future time, had no knowledge of this life and Age, before that awakening; for I woke to find that I was one who stood apart from the other youths, in that I had a dim knowledge — visionary, as it were, of the past, which confounded, whilst yet it angered, those who were the men of learning of that age. But this I do know, that from that time, onwards, my knowledge and assuredness of the Past was tenfold; for this my memory of that life told me. And so to further my telling. Yet before I pass onwards, one other thing is there of which I shall speak.... In the moment in which I waked out of that youthfulness into the assured awaredness of this life, in that moment the hunger of this my love flew to me across the ages; so that what had been but a memory-dream, grew to the pain of reality, and I knew suddenly that I lacked; and from that time onwards, I went, listening, as even now my life is spent. And so it was that I, (fresh-born in that future time), hungered, strangely for my Beautiful One; with all the strength of that new life, knowing that she had been mine, and might live again, even as I. And so, as I have said, I hungered, and found that I listened.

  And now, to go back from my digression, it was as I have said, I had amazement at perceiving in memory the unknowable sunshine and splendour of this age breaking so clear through my hitherto most vague and hazy visions; so that the ignorance of Aesworpth was shouted to me by the things which now I knew. And from that time onward, for a little space, I was stunned with all that I knew and guessed and felt; and all of a long while the hunger grew for that one I had lost in the early days — she who had sung to me in those faery days of light, that had been in verity. And the especial thoughts of that age looked back with a keen regretful wonder into the gulf of f
orgetfulness.

  But, presently, I turned from the haze and pain of my dream-memories once more to the inconceivable mystery of the Night Land, which I viewed through the great embrasure. For on none did it ever come with weariness to look out upon all the hideous mysteries; so that old and young watched from early years to death the black monstrosity of the Night Land, which this our last refuge of humanity held at bay.

  To the right of the Red Pit there lay a long, sinuous glare, which I knew as the Vale of Red Fire, and beyond that for many dreary miles the blackness of the Night Land; across which came the coldness of the light from the Plain of Blue Fire. And then, on the very borders of the Unknown Lands, there lay a range of low volcanoes, which lit up, far away in the outer darkness, the Black Hills, where shone the Seven Lights, which neither twinkled nor moved nor faltered through eternity; and of which even the great Spy Glass could make no understanding; nor had any adventurer from the Pyramid ever come back to tell us aught of them. And here let me say, that down in the Great Library of the Redoubt were the histories of all those, with their discoveries, who had ventured out into the monstrousness of the Night Land, risking not the life only, but the spirit of life.

  And surely it is all so strange and wonderful to set out, that I could almost despair with the contemplation of that which I must achieve; for there is so much to tell, and so few words given to man by which he may indicate that which lies beyond his sight and the present and general knowings of Peoples.

  How shall you ever know, as I know in verity, of the greatness and reality and terror of the thing that I would make clear to all; for we, with our puny span of recorded life must have great histories to tell, but the few bare details we know concerning years that are but a few thousands in all; and I must set out to you in the short pages of this my life there, a sufficiency of the life that had been, and the life that was, both within and without that mighty Pyramid, to make clear to those who may read, the truth of that which I would tell; and the histories of that great Redoubt dealt not with odd thousands of years; but with very millions; aye, away back into what they of that Age conceived to be the early days of the earth, when the sun maybe still gloomed dully in the night sky of the world. But of all that went before, nothing, save as myths, and matters to be taken most cautiously, and believed not by men of sanity and proved wisdom. And I, ... how shall I make all this clear to they who may read? The thing cannot be; and yet I must tell my history; for to be silent before so much wonder would be to suffer of too full a heart; and I must even ease my spirit by this my struggle to tell to all how it was with me, and how it will be. Aye, even to the memories which were the possession of that far future youth, who was indeed I, of his childhood’s days, when his nurse of that Age swung him and crooned impossible lullabies of this mythical sun which, according to those future fairytales, had once passed across the blackness that now lay above the Pyramid.

  Such is the monstrous futureness of this which I have seen through the body of my far-off youth.

  And so back to my telling. To my right, which was to the North, there stood, very far away, the House of Silence, there upon a low hill. And in that House were many lights and no sound. And so had it been through an uncountable eternity of years. Always those steady lights, and no whisper or sound — not even such as our distance-microphones could have discovered. And the danger of this House was accounted the greatest danger of all those Lands. And round by the House of Silence, wound The Road Where The Silent Ones Walk. And concerning this Road, which passed out of the Unknown Lands, nigh by the Place of the Ab-humans, where was always the green, luminous mist, nothing was known, save that it was held that, of all the works about the Mighty Pyramid, it was, alone, the one that was bred, long ages past, of healthy human toil and labour. And on this point had a thousand books, and more, been writ; and all contrary, and so to no end, as is ever the way in such matters. And as it was with The Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, so it was with all those other monstrous things.... whole libraries had there been made upon this and upon that; and many a thousand million mouldered into the forgotten dust of the earlier world.

  I mind me now that presently I stepped upon the central travelling roadway which spanned the one thousandth plateau of the Great Redoubt. And this lay six miles and thirty fathoms above the Plain of the Night Land, and was somewhat of a great mile, or more, across. And so, in a few minutes, I was at the South-Eastern wall, and looking out through The Great Embrasure toward the Three Silver Fire Holes, that shone before the Thing that Nods, away down, far in the South-East. Southward of this; but nearer, there rose the vast bulk of the South-East Watcher — the Watching Thing of the South-East. And to the right and to the left of the squat monster burned the Torches; maybe half-a-mile upon each side; yet sufficient light they threw to show the lumbered-forward head of the never-sleeping Brute.

  To the East, as I stood there on the quietness of the Sleeping-Time of the One Thousandth Plateau, I heard a far, dreadful sound, down in the lightless East; and, presently, again, a strange, dreadful laughter, deep as a low thunder among the mountains. And because this sound came odd whiles from the Unknown Lands beyond the Valley Of the Hounds, we had named that far and never-seen Place “The Country Whence Comes The Great Laughter.” And though I had heard the sound, many and oft a time, yet did I never hear it without a most strange thrilling of my heart, and a sense of my littleness, and of the utter terror which had beset the last million of the world. Yet, because I had heard the Laughter oft, I paid not over-long attention to my thoughts upon it; and when, in a little it died away into that Eastern Darkness, I turned my spy-glass upon the Giants’ Pit, which lay to the South of the Giants’ Kilns. And these same Kilns were tended by the giants, and the light of the Kilns was red and fitful, and threw wavering shadows and lights across the mouth of the pit; so that I saw giants crawling up out of the pit; but not proper seen, by reason of the dance of the shadows. And so, because ever there was so much to behold, I looked away, presently, to that which was plainer to be examined.

  To the back of the Giants’ Pit was a great, black Headland that stood vast, between the Valley of the Hounds (where lived the monstrous Night Hounds) and the Giants. And the light of the Kilns struck the brow of this black Headland; so that, constantly, I saw things peer over the edge, coming forward a little into the light of the Kilns, and drawing back swiftly into the shadows. And thus it had been ever, through the uncounted ages; so that the Headland was known as The Headland from which Strange Things Peer; and thus it marked in our maps and charts of that grim world.

  Before me ran The Road Where The Silent Ones Walk; and I searched it, as many a time in my earlier youth had I, with the spy-glass; for my heart was always stirred mightily by the sight of those Silent Ones. And, presently, alone in all the miles of that night-grey road, I saw one in the field of my glass — a quiet, cloaked figure, moving along, shrouded, and looking neither to right nor left. And thus was it with these beings ever. It was told about in the Redoubt that they would harm no human, if but the human did keep a fair distance from them; but that it were wise never to come close upon one. And this I can well believe. And so, searching the road with my gaze, I passed beyond this Silent One, and past the place where the road, sweeping vastly to the South-East, was lit a space, strangely, by the light from the Silver Fire Holes. And thus at last to where it swayed to the South of the Dark Palace, and thence Southward still, until it passed round to the Westward, beyond the mountain bulk of the Watching Thing in the South — the hugest monster in all the visible Night Lands. My spyglass showed it to me with clearness — a living hill of watchfulness, known to us as the Watcher of the South. It brooded there, squat and tremendous, hunched over the pale radiance of the Glowing Dome.

  Much, I know, had been writ concerning this Odd, Vast Watcher; for it had grown out of the blackness of the South Unknown Lands a million years gone; and the steady growing nearness of it had been noted and set out at length by the men they called Monstruwac
ans; so that it was possible to search in our libraries, and learn of the very coming of this Beast in the olden-time. And, while I mind me, there were even then, and always, men named Monstruwacans, whose duty it was to take heed of the great Forces, and to watch the Monsters and the Beasts that beset the great Pyramid, and measure and record, and have so full a knowledge of these same that, did but one but sway an head in the darkness, the same matter was set down with particularness in the Records.

  And so to tell more about the South Watcher. A million years gone, as I have set out, came it out from the blackness of the South, and grew steadily nearer through twenty thousand years; but so slow that in no one year could a man perceive that it had moved. Yet it had movement, and had come thus far upon its road to the Redoubt, when the Glowing Dome rose out of the ground before it — growing slowly. And this had stayed the way of the Monster; so that through an eternity it had looked toward the Pyramid across the pale glare of the Dome, and seeming to have no power to advance nearer. And because of this, much had been writ to prove that there were other forces than evil at work in the Night Land, about the Last Redoubt. And this I have always thought to be wisely said; and, indeed, there to be no doubt to the matter, for there were many things in the time of which I have knowledge, which seemed to make clear that, even as the Forces of Darkness were loose upon the End of Man; so were there other Forces out to do battle with the Terror; though in ways most strange and unthought of by the human soul. And of this I shall have more to tell anon.