by Campbell, John L; Palumbo, Sergio; Betzer, Albert; Dawson, Zak
Carter, though disappointed by Atal’s discouraging advice and by the meagre help to be found in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, did not wholly despair. First he questioned the old priest about that marvellous sunset city seen from the railed terrace, thinking that perhaps he might find it without the gods’ aid; but Atal could tell him nothing. Probably, Atal said, the place belonged to his especial dream world and not to the general land of vision that many know; and conceivably it might be on another planet. In that case Earth’s gods could not guide him if they would. But this was not likely, since the stopping of the dreams shewed pretty clearly that it was something the Great Ones wished to hide from him.
Then Carter did a wicked thing, offering his guileless host so many draughts of the moon-wine which the Zoogs had given him that the old man became irresponsibly talkative. Robbed of his reserve, poor Atal babbled freely of forbidden things; telling of a great image reported by travellers as carved on the solid rock of the mountain Ngranek, on the isle of Oriab in the Southern Sea, and hinting that it may be a likeness which Earth’s gods once wrought of their own features in the days when they danced by moonlight on that mountain. And he hiccoughed likewise that the features of that image are very strange, so that one might easily recognize them, and that they are sure signs of the authentic race of the gods.
Now the use of all this in finding the gods became at once apparent to Carter. It is known that in disguise the younger among the Great Ones often espouse the daughters of men, so that around the borders of the cold waste wherein stands Kadath the peasants must all bear their blood. This being so, the way to find that waste must be to see the stone face on Ngranek and mark the features; then, having noted them with care, to search for such features among living men. Where they are plainest and thickest, there must the gods dwell nearest; and whatever stony waste lies back of the villages in that place must be that wherein stands Kadath.
Much of the Great Ones might be learnt in such regions, and those with their blood might inherit little memories very useful to a seeker. They might not know their parentage, for the gods so dislike to be known among men that none can be found who has seen their faces wittingly; a thing which Carter realized even as he sought to scale Kadath. But they would have queer lofty thoughts misunderstood by their fellows, and would sing of far places and gardens so unlike any known even in the dreamland that common folk would call them fools; and from all this one could perhaps learn old secrets of Kadath, or gain hints of the marvelous sunset city which the gods held secret. And more, one might in certain cases seize some well-loved child of a god as hostage; or even capture some young god himself, disguised and dwelling amongst men with a comely peasant maiden as his bride.
Atal, however, did not know how to find Ngranek on its isle of Oriab; and recommended that Carter follow the singing Skai under its bridges down to the Southern Sea; where no burgess of Ulthar has ever been, but whence the merchants come in boats or with long caravans of mules and two-wheeled carts. There is a great city there, Dylath-Leen, but in Ulthar its reputation is bad because of the black three-banked galleys that sail to it with rubies from no clearly named shore. The traders that come from those galleys to deal with the jewelers are human, or nearly so, but the rowers are never beheld; and it is not thought wholesome in Ulthar that merchants should trade with black ships from unknown places whose rowers cannot be exhibited.
By the time he had given this information Atal was very drowsy, and Carter laid him gently on a couch of inlaid ebony and gathered his long beard decorously on his chest. As he turned to go, he observed that no suppressed fluttering followed him, and wondered why the Zoogs had become so lax in their curious pursuit. Then he noticed all the sleek complacent cats of Ulthar licking their chops with unusual gusto, and recalled the spitting and caterwauling he had faintly heard, in lower parts of the temple while absorbed in the old priest’s conversation. He recalled, too, the evilly hungry way in which an especially impudent young Zoog had regarded a small black kitten in the cobbled street outside. And because he loved nothing on earth more than small black kittens, he stooped and petted the sleek cats of Ulthar as they licked their chops, and did not mourn because those inquisitive Zoogs would escort him no farther.
It was sunset now, so Carter stopped at an ancient inn on a steep little street overlooking the lower town. And as he went out on the balcony of his room and gazed down at the sea of red tiled roofs and cobbled ways and the pleasant fields beyond, all mellow and magical in the slanted light, he swore that Ulthar would be a very likely place to dwell in always, were not the memory of a greater sunset city ever goading one onward toward unknown perils. Then twilight fell, and the pink walls of the plastered gables turned violet and mystic, and little yellow lights floated up one by one from old lattice windows. And sweet bells pealed in. the temple tower above, and the first star winked softly above the meadows across the Skai. With the night came song, and Carter nodded as the lutanists praised ancient days from beyond the filigreed balconies and tesselated courts of simple Ulthar. And there might have been sweetness even in the voices of Ulthar’s many cats, but that they were mostly heavy and silent from strange feasting. Some of them stole off to those cryptical realms which are known only to cats and which villagers say are on the moon’s dark side, whither the cats leap from tall housetops, but one small black kitten crept upstairs and sprang in Carter’s lap to purr and play, and curled up near his feet when he lay down at last on the little couch whose pillows were stuffed with fragrant, drowsy herbs.
In the morning Carter joined a caravan of merchants bound for Dylath-Leen with the spun wool of Ulthar and the cabbages of Ulthar’s busy farms. And for six days they rode with tinkling bells on the smooth road beside the Skai; stopping some nights at the inns of little quaint fishing towns, and on other nights camping under the stars while snatches of boatmen’s songs came from the placid river. The country was very beautiful, with green hedges and groves and picturesque peaked cottages and octagonal windmills.
On the seventh day a blur of smoke rose on the horizon ahead, and then the tall black towers of Dylath-Leen, which is built mostly of basalt. Dylath-Leen with its thin angular towers looks in the distance like a bit of the Giant’s Causeway, and its streets are dark and uninviting. There are many dismal sea-taverns near the myriad wharves, and all the town is thronged with the strange seamen of every land on earth and of a few which are said to be not on earth. Carter questioned the oddly robed men of that city about the peak of Ngranek on the isle of Oriab, and found that they knew of it well.
Ships came from Baharna on that island, one being due to return thither in only a month, and Ngranek is but two days’ zebra-ride from that port. But few had seen the stone face of the god, because it is on a very difficult side of Ngranek, which overlooks only sheer crags and a valley of sinister lava. Once the gods were angered with men on that side, and spoke of the matter to the Other Gods.
It was hard to get this information from the traders and sailors in Dylath-Leen’s sea taverns, because they mostly preferred to whisper of the black galleys. One of them was due in a week with rubies from its unknown shore, and the townsfolk dreaded to see it dock. The mouths of the men who came from it to trade were too wide, and the way their turbans were humped up in two points above their foreheads was in especially bad taste. And their shoes were the shortest and queerest ever seen in the Six Kingdoms. But worst of all was the matter of the unseen rowers. Those three banks of oars moved too briskly and accurately and vigorously to be comfortable, and it was not right for a ship to stay in port for weeks while the merchants traded, yet to give no glimpse of its crew. It was not fair to the tavern-keepers of Dylath-Leen, or to the grocers and butchers, either; for not a scrap of provisions was ever sent aboard. The merchants took only gold and stout black slaves from Parg across the river. That was all they ever took, those unpleasantly featured merchants and their unseen rowers; never anything from the butchers and grocers, but only
gold and the fat black men of Parg whom they bought by the pound. And the odours from those galleys which the south wind blew in from the wharves are not to be described. Only by constantly smoking strong thagweed could even the hardiest denizen of the old sea-taverns bear them. Dylath-Leen would never have tolerated the black galleys had such rubies been obtainable elsewhere, but no mine in all Earth’s dreamland was known to produce their like.
Of these things Dylath-Leen’s cosmopolitan folk chiefly gossiped whilst Carter waited patiently for the ship from Baharna, which might bear him to the isle whereon carven Ngranek towers lofty and barren. Meanwhile he did not fail to seek through the haunts of far travelers for any tales they might have concerning Kadath in the cold waste or a marvelous city of marble walls and silver fountains seen below terraces in the sunset. Of these things, however, he learned nothing; though he once thought that a certain old slant-eyed merchant looked queerly intelligent when the cold waste was spoken of. This man was reputed to trade with the horrible stone villages on the icy desert plateau of Leng, which no healthy folk visit and whose evil fires are seen at night from afar. He was even rumored to have dealt with that High-Priest Not To Be Described, which wears a yellow silken mask over its face and dwells all alone in a prehistoric stone monastery. That such a person might well have had nibbling traffick with such beings as may conceivably dwell in the cold waste was not to be doubted, but Carter soon found that it was no use questioning him.
Then the black galley slipped into the harbour past the basalt wale and the tall lighthouse, silent and alien, and with a strange stench that the south wind drove into the town. Uneasiness rustled through the taverns along that waterfront, and after a while the dark wide-mouthed merchants with humped turbans and short feet clumped stealthily ashore to seek the bazaars of the jewelers. Carter observed them closely, and disliked them more the longer he looked at them. Then he saw them drive the stout black men of Parg up the gangplank grunting and sweating into that singular galley, and wondered in what lands—or if in any lands at all—those fat pathetic creatures might be destined to serve.
And on the third evening of that galley’s stay one of the uncomfortable merchants spoke to him, smirking sinfully and hinting of what he had heard in the taverns of Carter’s quest. He appeared to have knowledge too secret for public telling; and although the sound of his voice was unbearably hateful, Carter felt that the lore of so far a traveler must not be overlooked. He bade him therefore be his guest in locked chambers above, and drew out the last of the Zoogs’ moon-wine to loosen his tongue. The strange merchant drank heavily, but smirked unchanged by the draught. Then he drew forth a curious bottle with wine of his own, and Carter saw that the bottle was a single hollowed ruby, grotesquely carved in patterns too fabulous to be comprehended. He offered his wine to his host, and though Carter took only the least sip, he felt the dizziness of space and the fever of unimagined jungles. All the while the guest had been smiling more and more broadly, and as Carter slipped into blankness the last thing he saw was that dark odious face convulsed with evil laughter and something quite unspeakable where one of the two frontal puffs of that orange turban had become disarranged with the shakings of that epileptic mirth.
CONTINUES NEXT WEEK
DOMINION by Zak Dawson
Chapter 1.
I woke to the sound of a thud in a distant part of the house. I wasn’t yet sure if it was real or my half-asleep imaginings. Nonetheless, it woke me, and I lay in bed waiting for a new sound to assure it was worth my attention.
A few minutes passed with nothing but silence. I rolled over, placing my arm over my pregnant wife. A smile wrapped across my face as I thought about it. My eyes closed and I went back to sleep.
In a haze of semi-consciousness, I felt something brush against my foot. I rolled over slowly with a yawn as I peered over my shoulder. A pair of eyes illuminated in the darkness shocked me wide-awake. Before I had time to react, the shadow-draped figure struck me hard across the face, sending me and the covers flying across the room. I hit the adjacent wall with enough force to cave in the drywall, causing pictures hung in the opposing hall to fall off the wall and shatter.
My right eye refused to open, and my face throbbed with blood coursing to meet the injury. I collected myself enough to see the intruder leaning over my wife, who struggled to let out a scream, with nothing more than a sharp hiss of air managing to escape her lips. I collected myself enough to find the baseball bat hidden under the bed.
I jumped to my feet and swung hard as I could, hitting him with a clean blow to the temple. The figure rolled over, disappearing into the dead space dividing the wall and bed. Alice hurried behind me, both of us watching the bed’s horizon while we inched toward the door. Despite the symptoms of a developing concussion setting in, I knew how hard I hit him. He had to be dead.
I motioned for my wife to flick the lights, which she did with little hesitance. My eyes remained glued to the dead space, bat still in hand. Alice refused to leave the room, just as intent as I was to ensure the intruder was dead before leaving.
A hand reached up from the corner, lifting the figure into visibility. It was a Hispanic man with a thin face and a black raincoat, looking at me with a jaundiced evil glare. I saw the dent the bat made in the right side of his skull, which shocked me. How the fuck is he not dead? Behind the crater, the brain had to be nothing but a mush. It was clear the bat had done its damage by the way he held himself up, left side drooping and limp. So how the fuck was he not dead?
I stood there motionless as he tried to balance himself. He cocked his head upward in a few jerking motions, swaying a bit as he did. Alice tugged on my arm to go, but I pulled away, dumbfounded by what I was seeing. He shook as if having a seizure and fell into the corner of the headboard. He then lifted himself upright, popping his left wrist around in a short circle.
“What the fuck?” I uttered in complete disbelief.
He waved his hand in the direction of my wife, who staggered uncontrollably into the corner past the door. Her hand rose and began to fondle her breast as the other rubbed her crotch, and she whimpered with a sad and terrified look on her face. I ran toward her, only to stumble awkwardly into the wall, propelled by an unseen force. My arm jerked upward and held the bat in the air, and despite my efforts to control it, the bat came flying down and struck me in the kneecap with a loud crack. I fell hard and screamed in pain as my knee caved inward and I collapsed on the floor. I faced Alice, who sobbed out of control, breast hanging out, and cum dripping from her legs.
The intruder’s foot stepped in front of me and obscured the sight of my wife, and a hand suspended my head from the floor by my hair. He pulled me up to face him, still unable to control my body.
“You really fucked up, homes,” he whispered into my ear. “I’m a bad, bad motherfucker, and I’m gonna do some bad things to you. You hear me?” he said, moving my head to face him. “I’m going to fuck you, right in front of your bitch. Do you understand me?”
Never in my life had I felt that kind of fear. He grabbed my crotch and forced me against the wall, licking my neck with his tongue. I wanted to scream so bad, but could hardly breathe, and instead hissed in a low guttural tone. He then dug his teeth into the side of my neck, which at first stung, but quickly became numb. A vampire? I was at a loss for rational words. I could feel the blood drain from my neck in pulsing gulps, and I became very disoriented. From the corner of my eye, I saw the baseball bat rise over the beast’s shoulders, striking him in the back.
He tore the flesh from my neck as he tried to face his attacker. Alice struck him again, in the head this time. He howled in fury and pain, lashing his arms out in wild swings. The next blow hit hard against his jaw, spewing blood across the room, strewing the black fluid all over my body. He let out an unearthly scream and scuttled on the floor. She struck him a few more times before he jumped onto the bed and dove through and shattered the bedroom window.