II: The Thing In The Mist
There was a path between the tortuous arches, though it was not well defined. Before long the oppressive atmosphere of the tunnel, distorted through the walls of mist, combined with the unfamiliar sounds which occasionally filtered into the ringing silence to produce a disturbing feeling of awed expectancy. What I expected, I could not have said; but my mind was full of hints of some impending occurrence of terrible significance. My eyes were strained by my efforts to pierce the drab wall before me.
It was not long before this persistent conviction became unbearable, and I told myself this was the time to return to the inn with my prepared excuse — before darkness. The path had had no others meeting it, so that I could easily retrace my journey, even through the mist. That was when I turned to go back down the path, and stopped in indecision.
I had almost collided, I thought, with a metallically grey tree. Small in comparison with the average in the forest, this tree was about sixteen feet high with very thick cylindrical branches. Then I noticed that the trunk divided into two cylinders near the ground, and the lower ends of these cylinders further divided into six flat circular extensions. This might merely have been a natural distortion, and such an explanation might also have accounted for the strange arrangement of the branches in a regular circle at the apex of the trunk; but I could not reach for a natural explanation when those branches nearest me suddenly extended clutchingly in my direction, and from the top of what I had taken for a trunk rose a featureless oval, leaning towards me to show an orifice gaping at the top.
The mist eddied around me as I ran blindly down the path, which slid from under my feet and twisted away at unpredictable places. I visualised that giant being clumping in pursuit through the forest, its tentacles waving in anticipation, the mouth in the top of that featureless head opening hungrily. The silence of the forest unnerved me; perhaps the monstrosity was not pursuing me, in which case there must be some yet worse fate ahead. How many of the things might inhabit the forest? Whatever they were, surely they could be no acknowledged species. How could I see if they were waiting in silent ambush? The mist would effectively camouflage them, for a pillarlike blur might merely be another tree.
Despair followed upon my terrified imaginings, and finally I fell against a grey oak and awaited whatever terror might come for me. The exhaustion resulting from my frenzied flight dulled the edge of fear, and quite soon I ceased to glare in horror at every sound among the trees. My muscles ached from that mad chase, and muscular weariness soon combined with the tiredness I suddenly felt to produce a troubled sleep. I was soon awakened by a dream that a forest such as that surrounding me had changed to an army of oval-skulled titans; but the sleep had lasted long enough to refresh me.
I did not feel thankful for the rest, however. The mist had almost lifted; and because of this I could see that the sun was near to setting. I had to leave the forest quickly; sleep had not erased the memory of what I had recently seen, and my mind might not take the strain of being alone at night near such prowling lunacies. But I quickly realised that I no longer knew the way out of this maze of terror, even though the surroundings were easily visible. If I went in the wrong direction, I would not know this until dark, when all the lurking haunters of the forest might close in on me.
However, it was even more obvious that, since no amount of concentration would show me the route, I must waste no more time in futile debate, but go in one direction, praying that it would lead me out of the nightmare into which I had plunged. A vague intuition suggested that the path to the left was my original route, and I hastily began to walk down it, attempting to silence faint premonitions. There was no recognizable landmark anywhere near the route, although once or twice I thought a distorted oak was familiarly shaped; but, considering that the inward journey had been merely a terrified flight, it was not surprising that I remembered nothing. Occasionally despair overtook me, and I was sure that the faceless colossi of the wood never would let me escape; but I shunned such ideas where possible.
Soon my hopes began to rise. Surely the trees were beginning to thin out, and vegetation to become less abundant; as though I were approaching the edge of the forest? It would not be any too soon, either — for, from the position of the sun, night could not be more than a quarter of an hour away. And was that not my car that I saw in the distance among the trees? Certainly something gleamed with a flash of dull metal just where the path seemed to end, though as yet I could not make out any details. I hurried towards the furtive gleam on the road — and reached the clearing I had taken for a road.
The thirty-foot-high metal cone which towered in the clearing reflected the light only because it was covered with moisture, for it was constructed of a dull mineral, pitted and scarred from unimaginable stresses. As yet I could not see the carven side of the cone, and that facing me was bare except for a circular protrusion, surely the trapdoor of the legend. But though those unholy carvings were not then visible, what I could see in the shunned clearing was disturbing enough. There was a roughly rectangular stone at the opposite side, the top surface of which was hollowed out and darkly stained — and the stains appeared fresher than could be healthily explained, although I did not approach to verify the dreadful idea which occurred to me. No marks of feet, nor of anything else, appeared in the muddy earth; what manner of unnatural prints I had expected I do not know, but their absence did not reassure me. I knew that some species of being lurked here in the haunted clearing — and what being made no mark in passing?
Though my fear had been great when I came upon the hidden place in the forest, my curiosity combined with a certain fatalism to impel me to examine the cone. After all, it would soon be night, long before I found my way to the edge of the wood — it was useless to flee the beings of the forest when they would be awaiting my attempted escape. In the few minutes which remained to me, I determined to see what was carved on the opposite side of the cone; and so I circled the object, noting a faint dry rustling sound which came from somewhere in the clearing.
Immediately I saw the images on the pitted grey expanse, I regretted my wish to view them. I can describe them, and the actions they were shown performing — from which I drew conclusions which were verified dreadfully soon after. But none of these descriptions can convey the sheer abnormality and alienness of those depictions, for the human mind cannot imagine the cosmically unnatural until concrete evidence has been shown undeniably to it.
There were five distinct races of entities pictured in the reliefs. A species of insect appeared most often — an insect with certain alien characteristics marking it as not of this planet. Often these beings would be manipulating peculiar cylindrical appliances, which seemed to project a thin ray disintegrating whatever lay in its path. Another instrument, a box-shaped crystal emitting a scintillating petal-shaped field, was used to subdue the counterparts of that oval-headed faceless being, which apparently were a race of enslaved workers used to perform tasks requiring strength for the relatively weak insect species.
Those were not the only creatures depicted on the surface of the cone — but what use is it to describe them at this point? It was very soon after that I saw such beings in their natural surroundings, and such an experience was infinitely worse than seeing a mere representation of nightmare. It is sufficient to say that the sculptures were so crude as to cloak the more hideous details of the subjects, for more details had been used in the reproduction of the surroundings. The two suns that ceaselessly orbited above the scenes were startlingly realistic, although for sheer alienness even this could not equal the actual scene. The sky-clawing pylons and disturbingly shapen domes of the cities frequently looming in the distance were not shown from the inside; nor was the utter horror of the interior of the cone ever portrayed.
About then I realised that it was becoming increasingly difficult to see the figures on the cone, and I started in terror as I realised the sun had set upon my engrossed contemplation. The glade had become
dreadfully quiet, stressing the sound of rustling which still emanated from somewhere nearby. That dry sound seemed to come from above, and abruptly it came to me that it was the noise of something coming down inside the cone.
Abruptly it ceased, and I tensed, waiting for the thing which would appear around the curved metal at any minute. That it was something which figured in the scenes engraved on that metal I did not doubt; probably one of the omnipotent semi-insect race. But what details of it might blast my mind before the thing fell on me?
And it was at that moment that I heard a clanging sound on the opposite side — the sound of the opening of the circular trapdoor.
III: The Insects From The Cone
That dull noise of the pitted trapdoor beyond my line of vision echoed for a long time, yet when it ceased nothing had appeared around the curve of the cone. All that could be heard was the rustling of the unseen dweller, now mixed with a scrabbling which steadily approached.
At last a shape appeared, flapping above the ground on leathery wings. The thing which flew whirring towards me was followed by a train of others, wings slapping the air at incredible speed. Even though they flew so fast, I could, with the augmented perception of terror, make out many more details than I wished. Those huge lidless eyes which stared in hate at me, the jointed tendrils which seemed to twist from the head in cosmic rhythms, the ten legs, covered with black shining tentacles and folded into the pallid underbody, and the semi-circular ridged wings covered with triangular scales — all this cannot convey the soul-ripping horror of the shape which darted at me. I saw the three mouths of the thing move moistly, and then it was upon me.
I thought it had somehow managed to fly over me, even though the horribly flat face had a moment before been pressed into mine; for I had felt no impact. But when I turned to look behind me, there was no sign of the insect-creature, and the landscape was empty. The others from the cone did not attempt to attack me, but flapped away over the trees. My mind a chaos of speculation, I watched them in their flight, attempting to decide where their companion had gone.
The next moment the whole landscape seemed to ripple and melt, as if the lenses of my eyes had twisted in agonising distortion. Then I felt it — the thing which was distorting my impulses to such an extent — the thing which, in some hideous way, had become a parasite — the thing which, at the moment when it flew in my face, had entered my body and was crawling around in my brain.
Now, as I look back upon my first sensation of something worming through the corridors of my brain, with a slightly higher degree of objectivity, I can only surmise that the being cannot have been strictly material — constructed of some alien matter which allowed its atoms to exist conterminously with those of my body. But then I could think of nothing but the frightful parasite which crawled where my clawing fingers could not reach.
I can only try to speak of the other occurrences of that night with some degree of coherency, for my impressions after that became somewhat confused. It must have been that my mind was growing accustomed to the unholy object in my skull — for, unbelievable as it seems, within a short time I thought of this state as perfectly normal. The being was affecting my very thought-processes — and even as I stood before the cone, the insect-creature was pouring its memories into me. For as the landscape melted about me, I began to experience visions. I seemed to float above scenes like those of a hashish dream — in a body such as that of the horror from the cone. The worlds swam out of darkness for what seemed an eternity; I saw things of indescribable hideousness, and could not flee from the sight of them. And as the thing gained a hold over me, I began to see actual scenes from the life of the being which occupied me.
There was a place of green mists through which I flapped, over a boundless surface of pitching water. At one point the mists began to roll back, and I rose through them, the green, attenuated film billowing round me. In the distance a long, vague cylinder poked towards the invisible sky, and as I drew closer I saw that it was a stone pillar, protruding from the swaying water, grown with hard shell-like plants and with curiously shaped projections on each side at regular intervals. There seemed to be no reason for the terror which boiled up in me at the sight of that pillar, but I purposely flew around the object at a distance. As the mists began to conceal it again, I saw a huge leathery hand, with long boneless fingers, reach out of the water, followed by a many-jointed arm. I saw that arm's muscles tense, as if whatever owned the arm were preparing to pull itself out of the sea. I turned away and flew into the mist — for I did not want to see what would appear above the surface.
The scene melted into another. I crawled down a path which snaked between translucent, diamond-like rocks. The path entered a valley, at the bottom of which lay a strange black building, inexplicably luminous under the purple night sky of that far planet. The building was of no recognizable architecture, with its deliriously sloping roof and many-sided towers, and I did not know why I was approaching it so purposefully. My claws clattered over the rock-strewn surface which became a black-tiled pavement before the gaping entrance to the ebon building, and I entered. Many passages twisted before I reached that which I sought — that which was spoken of on Shaggai as so powerful — and I did not like what hung from the ceilings in shadowy corners; but at last I came upon the windowless chamber in a high black tower. I took the strangely shaped piece of metal from where it lay on a central slab and turned to leave the chamber. Then a door in the opposite wall crashed open, and I remembered the whispered legend of the guardian of this weapon of a lost race. But I knew how to use the weapon's fullest power, and through it I focused mental waves to blast apart the many-legged furry thing which scuttled from the opened door, its abominably shrunken heads waving on hairy, scrawny necks. Then I flapped from the haunted lightless tower in terror, clutching the metal weapon — for as I looked back I saw the many-headed thing, all the legs on one side of its body burned away, still dragging itself sideways after me.
Again the vision rippled and changed. I stood on a high slab of some beautifully polished plastic, surrounded by lines of the most nauseous beings imaginable. They were oval, two-legged, dwarved things, scarcely two feet high, without arms or head, but with a gaping moist grey mouth at the centre of their bodies, which were of a spongy white pulp. They were all prostrate in an attitude of worship before me on the fungus which appeared to compose the ground in a solid gelatinous sheet on their side of the slab. My side of that slab was bare rock, covered with huge squat dark-emerald buildings of the same material as the slab. These, I knew, had been constructed by a race other than the pulpy white things, and probably antedating them; the beings that worshipped my hardness could not work such material or even touch it, but lived in repulsively moist burrows in the fungus. Indeed, even as I watched, one of them moved too near to the dais upon which I stood, and in so doing ripped away a sponge-wet portion of itself, which speedily putrefied where it lay.
Yet another scene flashed before me. I skimmed over a plain covered with colossi depicting naked humanoid figures in various bestial attitudes, each statue at least a hundred feet tall; and about them all was some hideous detail which I could not quite place. I disliked the vast footprints which led between the leering figures, and still more disliked the disturbingly gnawed bones of huge animals which were strewn across the plain, for I felt that I knew the cause of these horrors, and knew the abnormality of the colossi, if only I could place it. Then came those clumping footsteps behind me, startlingly close; and as I turned and saw what came striding across that field of unholy carvings, I knew the answer to both questions. It was humanoid — almost — as it pounded through the maze of statues; but it towered above the hundred-foot figures. And the atrocious thing which I glimpsed as I fled from that shrine to cosmic accidents was the eyelessness of the living colossus and the way the hair of the scalp grew in the sockets where the eyes should have been.
As the visions began to overtake me in greater quantity, they acquired more definite
connection, and it was not long before I realised what was now being put into my brain was a sort of history of the insect-race. Perhaps the most horrible part of the affair was the way I regarded the events and scenes now presented to me, not with the horror and disgust of a sane human being, but with the exact same impersonal observation of the insect-parasite. As the chronicles of the race were passed through my mind, I was, to all purposes, the insect which had become part of me. I write this now with more emotion than when I experienced the memories of the being — and that thought fills me with more terror than did the memories themselves.
So it was that I learned the history of the insect-race, and so it is that I write now what I learned. And horror can still be provoked in me by thoughts of what the insects from Shaggai may yet do on this earth.
IV: The Exodus From The Gulf
The beings had, I learned, originally come from Shaggai, a globe far beyond the reach of any earthly telescope, which orbited a double sun at the edge of the universe. Upon this planet they built their cities, full of globular domes for their habitations and pylons of that grey metal which composed the cone. The main buildings were almost all globular, entered by a doorless orifice at the top of each, through which the insects could fly — but there was one important building which was not globular, but pyramidical: the temple at the centre of each city. And the thoughts of the being grew oddly reticent on the subject of this temple, whence all the inhabitants would go to worship at ritual times; for never could I tap a memory of what was worshipped inside that grey metal pyramid. The only fact which became apparent was that, incredible as it sounds, the tenant of the temple was one living being, but was somehow the same being in each temple.
The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants Page 7