A Mythos Grimmly

by Morgan Griffith

  “Free from the city that sleeps where that which is dead can never die. It grows in our dreams and then wakes in your world. There isn’t time. Take this.”

  The twins gave her a silver key. “The Canterella makes it almost impossible for us to reach you. Only the magic of creation allowed us to break through the Wall of Sleep. Dream of us and we can help you before Father finds you.”

  “Wait! How can I take the silver key to the real world?”

  “All worlds are real.”

  ___

  She awoke to tears streaming down her face. Aisling blinked twice trying to remember what the twins had warned her about. She coughed, choking on the snot and bile caught in her throat. Aisling opened her hand, hidden under the pillow to discover a silver key. Had she been dreaming? That was supposed to be impossible!

  Aisling turned her head to the side to catch her breath. Her belly lay flat upon the pillows and her ass was positioned upwards towards the ceiling. Her body ached everywhere and there was little doubt what nocturnal activities the Charming elected to explore. She wiped away her matted, wet hair from her eyes and sighed thankful for the free intrauterine device that the House provided to all of their Beauties.

  She started to stir when the House Mother entered with the usual tray of tea. There was an unfamiliar uncertainly in the Dragon Lady’s usual graceful steps. “I trust that you slept well, Beauty.”

  Aisling noticed the lines of bruising on her arms as though she had been held down by something strong and vicious. Her hands were shaking. “Yes, House Mother. I slept so deeply that I remember nothing,” she replied weakly

  “Good.” The House Mother set the tray upon the nightstand and poured two cups of tea. Aisling took her bitter cup and quickly drank it without waiting as custom for the House Mother. “Thank you for your service to the House. I have an offering for you. Tribute for your services.”

  Aisling practically snatched the envelope out of her hand, but quickly caught her composure and nodded politely at the House Mother. “Thank you for the kind tribute.”

  “Please take as long as you need. Enjoy the benefits of the House of Beauties and let us know when you are ready to work.”

  Aisling waited until the Dragon Lady left and then ran to the bathroom. The 360 degree mirror revealed a number of bruises and cuts along her legs and thighs. There was a jagged bite mark squarely on the curve of her ass that already turned a dark purple. Her inner thighs felt raw and beaten. Some of the customers wanted sex; few of them were this brutal. She had the option of using the House Doctors, but really all she wanted to do was run home and soak in the tub.

  She slipped on her sweats, grabbed her bag, made certain that the key was safe her pocket and ran home.

  ___

  The bruises healed very slowly, but her body never felt the same again. She realized something was wrong when her next period was a trickle of black blood. Aisling had gained a few pounds over the month, but had explained it away as stress from quitting her job and dealing with her new found fortune.

  She took her last final and then changed her plans. There were eyes constantly watching her and she needed time to think and to plan for the future. Aisling called her father and begged for a favor. The family had long ago lived out near the coast in Providence near a small village named Innsmouth and still owned a cabin. It was little more than a shack, but it was comfortable, with a wonderful stone fireplace to keep her warm, and a view over the chilling Atlantic waters.

  Aisling waited until the last day of winter break to buy a pregnancy test. It shouldn’t have been possible, but she knew the truth in her bones. Somehow the twins were the dream of her unborn children.

  She slept each night with the silver key under her pillow and the twins took her to new and wondrous places. They ventured to the frozen fields of the north and danced with the satyrs known as the Men of Leng. In the town of Ulthar, they watched as the mysterious cats wearing black boots brewed sensual spirits and told stories of the moon and far away worlds. They explored the grey stones with unusual glyphs and signs in the devastated ruins of Sarnath on the shores of a black lake. The twins refused to answer any questions about their father.

  When her belly was full and round, the dreams started to fade. It became more difficult to dream of them or the other world. She paced the cabin late into the night in a listless attempt to tire herself just enough to sleep, even a little, until there was a knock at the door. Aisling sniffed the air and somehow knew that it was the Charming that had fathered her children.

  She opened the door to greet a hauntingly familiar, handsome face with large bright eyes and a dimple in his chin. Somehow she knew instinctually that this appearance was somehow a mask to hide his real face. “Do you know who I am, Sleeping Beauty?”

  “Charming. The one that got me pregnant.”

  “We lost track of you when you left Ithaca, but I smelled your pheromones upon the scent of the sea.” Charming smiled as though he fully expected her to fall into his arms. Her stomach turned as she realized she wanted to. “Instincts brought you here to the waters of my home.”

  “What’s happening? How did I get pregnant? Who are you?”

  “A Prince of a city that sleeps beneath the waves born of a line blood from the very stars.” Charming pointed through the large bay windows to the distant, cold stars. “Our ancestors wait for us in the land of dreams to bring them across. We bred with the humans to allow our blood to thin enough to access their dreamlands. First, we conquered their dreams and then later their world. Our daughters will be Queens of the New World that is coming when R’lyeh rises from the dark waters of the world. Thanks to our children’s siren call, the star-spawn stirs once more, ready to come home.”

  “Don’t I have a choice in all of this?” Aisling horrified.

  “We needed you. Your blood is that what remains of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra and the cult of Innsmouth. The humans thought they wiped all of you from the world, but you survived.” Charming smiled and Aisling felt her resistance fade. “I would make you my wife and unite the royal linages. I am not a gentle man, but I love well, especially one that will bear the children of tomorrow that shall rule on the land and under the sea.”

  “What will happen to the people of the world?”

  “Some will be allowed to live as slaves,” Charming answered magnanimously. “Certainly, any human you wish to be spared, shall be. The rest shall be cleansed in a spectacular decimation as the Old Ones rise from the water and take their rightful place on this world.”

  She looked at the window that overlooked the sea and the rocks below. Prince Charming followed her to the balcony without asking. Aisling knew that at this moment she could use her favorite word in action and this strange man that had violated her would die on the rocks below.

  Charming seemed to be kind man in his own way and children needed a father as well as a mother. “I’m cold. I have a cloak in the bedroom. Will you fetch it for me?”

  “For Sleeping Beauty? Anything!”

  A very long time ago, before the rise of the kings of Aon and the empire of Yorn, a traveler from a distant land came to the country of Edunia. Amongst the broken stone and rotting timbers of that once great kingdom, he stumbled upon a hermit who lived in a hovel of thatch and oak.

  “Come,” the hermit said to the stranger. “Sit by the fire and warm thyself, for the night is long and it is not often that I receive visitors.”

  The traveler did as he was bade. The old man brought food and water, and round the fire they sat as the sun sank and the moon rose and a shadow covered the countryside.

  “I was lucky to come upon you,” said the traveler, “for yours is the only dwelling I have seen for some while, since I entered the vale. There was a village a ways back, a town in the old time. The homes and farms had rotted away, and all that remained of the town-proper were heaps of shattered rock and an ancient church on an overgrown town square.”

  In the dancing firelight, the old m
an’s eyes shone.

  “That would be old Bethlehem,” he said. “The people of that town were devout, and the village prosperous. Before he came.”

  “He?”

  The hermit rose and walked to a cupboard, removed two tankards, and filled them from a cask on the table.

  “All storytelling is a thirsty business,” he said as he handed one to the stranger. “But some telling is more thirsty than others. Come,” he said, “sit by the fire. And let us talk of things about which no man should speak…”

  ___

  These lands are steeped in time and in mystery. It hangs over them like a heavy shroud, like a fog that never lifts. The domed hills and shadowed vales feel older than they should.

  Life flees from here, and most men avoid it. It is not a mindful decision they make, no cold calculus is involved. It is much deeper than that. It comes from something forgotten. From somewhere forgotten.

  But whatever the cause, they avoid old Bethlehem. The travelers and merchants do not know why they no longer turn down the road through the glen. Why instead they take the long way round through Fingoyle. They do not choose. They simply do, and their memories escape them. That you would dare to do what they cannot is an enigma unto itself, and what it says of you, only you may know.

  But it was not always so.

  There was a time when the valley was prosperous, when the game was good and plentiful, the sun shone bright and the crops came up tall and straight. The goods flowed freely down the Brachen Road. The merchants travelled from far kingdoms and all prospered.

  It was Bethlam that prospered most. It had many names you see. Beth’lem. Little Bethlehem. New Bethlehem. Lil’ham. But whatever it was called, its future—straddling the trade road through the vale—seemed assured. So when the plague came, it struck like a judgment from a vengeful God.

  It started with the Goodspeed child, a family that lived just beyond the borders of the town. She returned from the forest one night with a cough. Nothing all that unusual for the young. But by the next morning her face had become pallid, and her limbs shook from the cold even as her body burned from fever.

  But it was what she saw in her pain-racked nights and febrile waking dreams that sent a chill of fear through the families of the village and drove her poor father mad. She spoke of mountains that walked, of darkness that crawled, and creatures that surround us all, floating unseen and sleeping just beyond the vision of man.

  But it was when she spoke of him that they feared the most.

  “He is coming,” she said, that last night before mercy extinguished her flame. The poor child’s body went rigid, her eyes focused on some world far beyond our ken. “The watcher at the threshold, the rider on the plain. The sword and the flame. The pestilence and the plague. None will be spared, not from the yellow man.” Her eyes fell on her father. “And you, daddy. You will go first. You will prepare the way.”

  I cannot say what it was that the accursed father Goodspeed saw in the languid gaze of his only child, but it is said that as he stared into the depths of her soul, his body began to quake, and in one moment of sanity-breaking fear, he leapt to his feet with a shriek and ran from the room. They found his body hanged from a tree by the brook, dead by his own hand, horror still etched upon his face.

  That is how it began, with the death of the father, the daughter close on his heels. It did not end there.

  Kate Bridges was next, and then Patrick Longlin, and then Stuart Mars. Each one lived just a little closer to Beth’lem than the one before. The pestilence was on the march, and like the great plague that consumed Egypt of old, it cared not for the grown and the aged. The children were its victims, though it made no accounting for first-born, and no blood of the lamb could stave off its fury. When it reached the town-proper, it spread like a field set to the flame.

  When the first town child fell ill, the people prayed. By the time they all had—every son or daughter of Beth’lem below the age of 14—the people cried out for anyone, be he god or devil, to save them.

  And something heard them, be he god or devil.

  He came from the east, the yellow man. Whether because of the robe he wore or his sallow skin, that’s what they called him. He was tall of stature, four and a half cubits if he was a span.

  He arrived by the Brachen Road. No beast bore him, and had any of the townspeople noticed the flocks of birds winging south at mid-summer, they might have wondered what drove them to take flight.

  No watchman met him at the town gate, and he entered without question or hassle. He walked through empty, silent streets, heavy with the stench of pestilence, and a rare smile curved the edges of the stranger’s lips. He followed the High Street to the town square and the church that even now holds sway over it. It was there that the townspeople had gathered, beseeching their god to save them from the plague that threatened to take their children.

  It was not god that answered them.

  Father Johansen was in the middle of prayer—one of many that had gone up that day, buoyed by fear and desperation—when it happened, when the stranger arrived.

  “Please sir,” said Father Johansen, always a nervous man but in that moment particularly undone, “this is a house of God.”

  “God? Does your God answer you now? How long have you prayed?” asked the stranger. “And still your children suffer.”

  At these words, a murmur swept through the assembly. Who was this man? How could he know that? Might he have the answer to save them?

  “That is blasphemy, sir,” said the preacher, but there was no conviction in his voice, and by inches he had moved away from the podium.

  “I think not. Blasphemy is to speak lies. I speak the truth.” The stranger took a step down the aisle, and then another. The feeling in the congregation was as that of a man, standing on a hillside before a storm, the electricity pulsating around him. “I have come from far away, beyond the lake of Hali and the jeweled cities of Carcosa. I have come here, to you, in your time of need.” He raised his arm and extended one finger of a boney, blackened hand that stretched forth beyond the sleeve of his cloak. “You worship a broken god, a god that failed. He does not hear your cries. He does not answer them.”

  There were those in the church that day who, in brasher moments past, filled with drink and with vigor, would have sworn that no man would so curse our Lord without soon meeting Him. And yet even they sat in silence as the stranger spoke, their fear overawing their religious devotion.

  “You cower here. You cry out for salvation. Salvation has arrived. You pray for a deliverer. He stands before you. You ask for a sign. He who has eyes, let him see.”

  The stranger raised his hand. A shadow fell upon the tabernacle of the Lord. Day became night, and the stream of light from the great stained glass windows ceased. The air grew cold and dense, and tendrils of mist wrapped around the legs of the assembled villagers like cats’ tails, and every man and woman it touched felt a little bit of life fade away. There was a deep groan, like the shrieking of wood on a ship in the midst of a storm. Then the shadow lifted as quickly as it had fallen, and the light returned.

  “This and much more I will show you, if you so choose.”

  “Can you save our children?” came a cry from the front. “Can you save my baby?”

  “Perhaps. If you are willing to pay.”

  “So it’s money you want,” cried another, one who still doubted.

  For the first time in their midst, the stranger smiled.

  “Oh no, not gold. Not silver. Not jewels or trinkets. Something much more precious. But sacrifice? Yes, sacrifice will be required. A price must be paid. The price of power. And the power you seek is great indeed. So too is the cost.”

  The stranger sighed, deep and long.

  “Now I tire of this place.” He turned and almost staggered to the entrance, and it seemed to those who still could bear to look upon him—for many could not, nor could they say why not—that the figure no longer seemed so large, so stately. In f
act, he seemed to diminish.

  He cast one last glance back at them and said, “Choose, but choose now. I will await your answer at sundown beneath the dead oak that keeps watch over the river bend. Send three men. No more, no less. Sundown.”

  The doors to the church swung open at his touch, and slammed shut behind him as if carried by a strong wind. The people of the town were left to shiver in the pews, astonished at what they had seen and fearful at what would surely come after.

  ___

  As the sun descended, three men were chosen. The Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, and one man who bore no title but was trusted by all, a woodsman who lived in the forests beyond the town proper. All of them had children. All of them had something to lose.

  They found the stranger at the bend of the river, on the spot where he had said he would meet them, beneath the branches of the ancient oak. Whatever stature he had lost upon departing the church had returned to him now, and in the growing shadows of a waning day, he was even more fearsome than they remembered.

  “And so you came. Are you prepared to pay?”

  “Whatever the price,” said the Lord Mayor. “For while we are by no means rich, we have enough. And what we have is yours.”

  “Ah, you listen, but you do not hear. A price must be paid, but it cannot be paid in gold and silver.”

  The sheriff stepped forward. “Then what then? My Jeannie is dying and we have not the time for trifles or false hopes.”

  The stranger grinned, though it felt more like a sneer. “Then to the point, shall we? All for one. The many for the few. All life, for one life.”

  The Lord Mayor looked to the Sheriff and saw only confusion. It was only the man of the forest who understood.

  “Oh my God,” the woodsman murmured. “He means to have a sacrifice.”

  The Sheriff drew his sword. “You are as filled with lies as you are evil.”

  “Put down your weapon,” the stranger said, and as he did he waved his hand before him. To the sheriff, the weight of the sword became as if he were holding a cart-full of stone. It dropped from his hand, the point driving deep into the ground.