A Mythos Grimmly

by Morgan Griffith

  Except that the house looked quite old and decrepit. It appeared to have stood abandoned for decades, untouched by any hand except the hand of time.

  No one answered their knock. The Little Yellow Bear wiped dirt from a window and peered in. The walls were bare, and dust lay thick as a carpet on the floor. There was nothing to imply that the cottage had ever enjoyed a single occupant.

  The Gentle Pig shivered. “What does it mean?”

  The sun had vanished behind brooding clouds spread thick across a dull gray sky. A heavy fog had crept up on them, hungrily gobbling up the world as it went. Past ten feet away, the cottage would have been nothing more than a pale smudge.

  “I don’t know,” the Little Yellow Bear replied, shaking his head. “Let’s see what’s out back.”

  Rounding the corner, they stopped and stared in silence.

  “How did we miss that?” the Gentle Pig finally asked.

  The cottage sat at the foot of a stony mountain whose peaks were obscured by a thick mist. Carved into the rough face of the mountain was a series of stone steps. Like the mountain peaks, the upper steps vanished in the mist.

  “How many steps do you suppose there are?” the Gentle Pig asked.

  “Seven hundred would be my guess.” The Little Yellow Bear wanted to smile but knew that if he smiled, he might laugh and if he laughed, he might not be able to stop.

  The Gentle Pig eyed the steps apprehensively. “What do we do now?”

  The Little Yellow Bear thought for a moment. “I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve had enough adventuring for a while. I just want to go home.”

  The Gentle Pig released the breath he had been holding. “Agreed.”

  “Should we stay the night here? Perhaps look for a way into the cottage?”

  The Gentle Pig looked at the cottage and shivered. “I’d rather not. I…I don’t like it here. It doesn’t feel real. You know what it feels like? Like we’ve stepped into a painting. It’s a very convincing painting, almost good enough to fool one into believing it’s the real thing, but a painting nonetheless.”

  “Hmm.” The Little Yellow Bear scratched his chin. “For some reason, the word ‘unraveling’ keeps popping into my head. Anyway, I concur. Let’s see how far we can get before sundown.”

  They only talked for a little while before falling into a semi-comfortable silence. Neither was used to so much exertion. However, most of the toll was mental. It wasn’t like the friends hadn’t already seen some amazing sights in their time, or had adventures almost as exciting as those in the storybooks. The Little Yellow Bear knew for a fact that dragons were real, as were brownies and bunyips and boggarts, though he knew them by other names. But nothing could have prepared them for this. It was as if the world they knew was a tapestry, slowly unraveling in preparation to become something new.

  It was hard to tell what sort of progress they were making. The fog at the cottage was following them home, muffling light and sound as it closed in on them. The landscape was soon reduced to a thick gray soup, rendering distance a meaningless concept. There was no longer any real distinction between earth and sky, no distant horizon to demarcate where a given point stopped and another began. They could only judge the sun’s progress and the passing of time by the relative shades of the murkiness that had swallowed the world.

  “Well,” the Little Yellow Bear said, “this is as good a place as any, I suppose. Let’s get a fire going, shall we?”

  The Gentle Pig nodded. “That would be nice.”

  Less than an hour later they were enjoying a warm supper before a roaring fire, both courtesy of food and matches found at the Wise Owl’s place. Neither had spoken in a while. Rather than being uncomfortable, the silence was like a haven from the chaos of the previous days. No matter what the words, speaking would break the spell and invite the chaos back in. The Little Yellow Bear cringed when the Gentle Pig finally spoke.

  “I…I have this feeling. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like a…a sense of…”

  The Little Yellow Bear sighed. “Finality?”

  He considered that for a moment. “Hmm. Maybe that’s what it is, finality. What do you suppose that means?”

  The Little Yellow Bear shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything comes to an end eventually. Maybe…maybe it means whatever has been going on is finally winding down.”

  “Maybe. Good night, Bear.”

  “Good night, Pig.”

  Within minutes, the Gentle Pig was asleep. The Little Yellow Bear soon followed.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  The Little Yellow Bear moaned. “What is it, P-“

  A furry, long-fingered hand clamped over his mouth. His eyes flew open and he found himself face to snout with a saucer-eyed dream-thing, a haunter of nightmares made flesh and blood. The Little Yellow Bear had once seen a dog from a distance and that was what the thing put him in mind of, more or less. The dog he had seen had been four-legged and mundane. Crouching on two legs, this thing had the arms and torso of a man. Smelling of earth and moss, it pressed a thin, hook-clawed finger to its snout. The Little Yellow Bear recognized the gesture and what it implied. Something nasty was nearby.

  The thing pointed to the far side of the fire where the Gentle Pig lay. Something was over there, a large, sinuous shape whose diamond-pattern scales glittered in the moonlight. The smacking and tearing sounds of a predator hungrily feeding could be heard as the shape bit and tore into something just out of view.

  The dog-faced thing removed its hand from the Little Yellow Bear’s mouth and faded back into the darkness. Creeping out of his bedroll, the Little Yellow Bear started to follow before remembering the Gentle Pig. He began crawling toward his makeshift spear instead. Weapon in hand, he slowly circled the fire, giving him a better view of the serpent-thing. Resembling the sort of creature that might be seen on an ancient mariner’s sea-map, it had a sinewy, reptilian body with an earless, bullet-shaped head at the end of a serpentine neck. Folded tight against its body was a pair of membranous, thick-veined wings. Teeth and claws slick with gore, it was too absorbed in its meal to notice the small, quiet form creeping up on it.

  The Little Yellow Bear already had a fair idea of what the serpent-thing was eating, but actually seeing it was another matter. He simply watched for a moment, a casual bystander without any role to play in the scene unfolding a few feet away. The world became hazy and indistinct, a dream version of itself, the blurring of perception just before unconsciousness or sleep.

  Pausing in its ghastly meal, the thing’s head slowly swiveled until it faced the Little Yellow Bear. Its liquid-metal cluster of arachnid orbs locked onto the Little Yellow Bear’s button-eyes.

  The Little Yellow Bear blinked and the world exploded back into focus. The serpent-thing lunged; its long neck snapped whip-like at the Little Yellow Bear who dove aside and came up on one knee, spear at the ready. The thing’s bullet-shaped head swayed back and forth, tracking the Little Yellow Bear as he climbed to his feet. Keeping the point of his spear between them, he began to circle the thing. The Little Yellow Bear had almost made a complete circuit around the creature when it struck again.

  Coming in low, it bit deep into the Little Yellow Bear’s left thigh and latched on. The Little Yellow Bear screamed and stabbed at the thing’s head; strong as chainmail, its thick scales turned the spear point aside. Ignoring the spear, it continued to chomp down; its jaws ground together like a bone-crushing vice.

  Up until that point, the worst pain the Little Yellow Bear had ever experienced was a dozen or so near-simultaneous bee stings during an ill-fated honey gathering expedition. Comparing it to being poked with a thousand red-hot needles, he couldn’t have imagined anything worse.

  This was worse. Wave after wave of pain washed over him, threatening to drown him in a tide of relentless agony. Using the spear as a club, the Little Yellow Bear beat at the thing but might as well have been hitting it with a peacock feather. Head buzzing like a crowded beehive, the world wa
s melting before his eyes. The Little Yellow Bear collapsed, the spear tumbling from his fingers. A moment passed before he realized that the thing had let go.

  The Little Yellow Bear opened his eyes. Through a red haze, he saw the winged serpent rear up, hissing at something across the fire. On the other side crouched the dog-faced thing; it held a good-sized rock in either hand. The man-dog threw one of the rocks, which the serpent-creature easily dodged. While the creature was distracted, the Little Yellow Bear retrieved his spear and jabbed the thing in the rump. The blow did no real damage but diverted the thing’s attention long enough for man-dog to connect with the other rock, striking it on the left side of its head. Enraged, it snapped wildly at the air before returning its attention to the Little Yellow Bear. The thing reared up and the Little Yellow Bear tumbled backwards, raising his spear as the creature struck. Mouth wide and fangs dripping in anticipation, the thing’s head shot forward only to impale itself on the modest spear that had once been a walking stick and a carving knife. The creature’s jaws clamped down, driving the point of the spear through its gullet and out the back of its neck. Jerking backwards as if stung, it shook its head violently and clawed at its snout in a vain attempt to dislodge the spear.

  The nightmare-thing collapsed, twisting and squirming like an immense worm impaled on a fisherman’s hook as it shredded its own snout. Snarling like a real dog, the dog-faced creature charged on all fours, leapt through the air, and landed on the thing’s back. It bit into the serpent-creature’s neck and tried to latch on but the creature dislodged it with a shrug. Tumbling across the ground, the man-dog was back on its feet in an instant. Twice more it charged and twice more was rebuffed.

  Bleeding profusely from mostly self-inflicted wounds, the creature’s thrashing slowly subsided. It finally emitted a hacking, gurgling sound and lay still. Approaching it cautiously, the man-dog held a large rock. The thing seemed to sense the impending danger and began to stir; unable to rise, it lay back down. It didn’t even look up when the dog-faced creature raised the rock high above its head and brought it down with tremendous force, then did so again and again. The thing’s skull burst open after the forth blow, disgorging something that looked like cottage cheese.

  Oblivious to his own wounds, the Little Yellow Bear sat and stared. It wasn’t like before, when he had felt a sense of detachment as he watched the serpent-thing feed on his friend. Now part of the scene, he was simply too numb and exhausted to do anything about it.

  The Gentle Pig moaned.

  No, the Little Yellow Bear thought.

  Nothing could have lived through that. The Gentle Pig was practically in two pieces. Then he moaned again and the Little Yellow Bear was at his side.

  “Please,” the Gentle Pig whispered. “Please.”

  He’s going to ask me to kill him, the Little Yellow Bear thought. Not that. Anything but that.

  “Not here,” he said. “Not here. I want…I want to…go home.”

  The Little Yellow Bear nodded. He understood. “I’d never leave you out here.”

  “I know.” The Gentle Pig took a deep breath. When he exhaled, his throat made a wet, raspy sound. “You…I…”

  “Pig?”

  The Gentle Pig’s eyes drifted to the left, rolled back, and closed. The Little Yellow Bear sat in silence. A few minutes passed before he realized the man-dog was watching him, its furry head cocked to one side. The Little Yellow Bear motioned toward his backpack. The creature fetched the backpack then sat nearby as he washed the wound on his leg with water from the canteen. Afterward, he wrapped the wound with bandages made from strips of cloth shredded from the Gentle Pig’s bedroll.

  One more chore and it would be time to go home. The man-dog circled and sniffed the serpent-thing’s carcass, occasionally pausing to urinate on it while the Little Yellow Bear set about building a crude sled. It took him a few hours to figure out the simplest and most effective way of using the limited materials at hand but, once he was finished, he ended up with something actually quite decent. All that remained was to load the sled which he did as gently as possible. Afterward, he covered the sled’s contents with the Gentle Pig’s blanket.

  The dog-faced creature watched him struggle with the sled for a half-minute before intervening. The Little Yellow Bear wasn’t sure how much it understood, but it certainly seemed to understand what was needed. Leaning on the spear, the Little Yellow Bear set off with the man-dog and the sled close behind. He looked back only once, when they topped a hill which would soon obscure the clearing from sight. He half expected a bittersweet storybook scene with the ghost of his friend standing on the spot where he died, perhaps waving and wearing the hint of a smile on his lips, but only the serpent-thing’s twin rows of alien eyes looked back.

  The journey back was surprisingly uneventful. That night they broke for camp during which they managed to communicate with gestures and images traced in the dirt. The man-dog indicated that the zoogs, the species of glittery-eyed creature the Little Yellow Bear and his friends had encountered earlier, were the mortal enemy of its own kind. After witnessing the thing’s death, the dog-faced creature felt it owed the friends a debt of gratitude. Sadly, the Gentle Pig was already dead by the time it caught up with them.

  They reached the Wise Owl’s house early the next day, where it was obvious something had smashed its way in through the windows. The dog-faced creature shied away from the house so the Little Yellow Bear entered alone. The interior was ransacked. Owl lay on the floor, feathers slightly ruffled but otherwise untouched. A quick check verified that he wasn’t breathing. Of the Melancholy Donkey, there was no sign.

  In a way, the Wise Owl’s death was a blessing. It would have broken his heart to see his beloved library, accumulated slowly and painstakingly over the course of a lifetime, reduced to dog-eared shreds. The sight of the library, a place the Little Yellow Bear had been as fond of as its owner, was the straw that broke the donkey’s back. The tears came in a torrent, but vanished just as quickly. Time waited for no bear, and night was creeping up on them. He would come back later and see to the Wise Owl. For now, it was time to move on.

  The Little Yellow Bear managed to scrounge up a few supplies for the rest of the trip. He thought of spending the night at the Wise Owl’s place, but immediately changed his mind. It wasn’t really Wise Owl’s place anymore. It was just a place. Like his friends and the life he had once known, Wise Owl’s place now existed only in his memories.

  For years, his safe, predictable existence had seemed eternal, as dependable and changeless as the path of the sun and the cycles of the moon. There was something to be said for the conventional, for monotony and routine. For all the claims he had once made at longing for adventure, maybe he had known all along that pretend adventures were preferable to the real thing.

  As the Little Yellow Bear was leaving, he noticed the corner of a book peeking out from under the shredded remains of Owl’s couch. It was the copy of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath that he had started reading after they brought the Wise Owl home. The Little Yellow Bear slipped the book into his backpack, took one last look at the corpse of his former life, and left.

  The dog-faced creature had slipped away. Apparently, whatever obligation had compelled it to partner up with him had been satisfied. The Little Yellow Bear had almost reached a point that was beyond despair, but still had enough energy left for a bit of melancholy. He was used to companionship and didn’t relish the premise of walking home alone, much less the lonely life to come. Sighing, he hoisted the sled-straps and began to walk.

  And now we’re back to where we started, with the Little Yellow Bear camped out at the edge of the Wood, his only companion a small, motionless shape beneath a makeshift shroud. With one eye, he watched for zoogs, with the other he finished reading The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. At one point in the story, the main character encountered something called a shantak, a savage, bird-like creature with the head of a horse. Even though the description didn’t quite m
atch, he suspected he and the man-dog had faced such a creature the night before.

  Hours passed and nothing emerged from the Wood. By the time the Little Yellow Bear fell asleep, the moon was well past its zenith. During the few hours he slept, he had a strange and disturbing dream. The Little Yellow Bear found himself in a narrow high-ceilinged hall, with walls of roughly-chiseled stone. Lacking doors and windows, he intuitively knew it was an abode of ghosts. Torches sitting in sconces evenly spaced throughout the hall provided a feeble light, casting restless shadows. All his friends were there save the Curious Tiger, sitting still as statues at an ancient oak table in the center of the hall. Like the stone walls, the table looked crudely made but timeless and sturdy. The food and drink set before them lay untouched beneath a thick blanket of cobwebs and dust. After an eternity, the Gentle Pig slowly turned and looked at the Little Yellow Bear. His mouth began to open, and the Little Yellow Bear’s ears were filled with a sound as furious and terrible as the howl of a hurricane wind.

  The Little Yellow Bear awoke with a start. After a minute trying to rub the sleep from his eyes, he realized the meadow was obscured by thick fog. Though no wind blew, he suspecting it was the same fog that had swallowed the Fair-Haired Boy’s cottage.

  An odd thought occurred to the Little Yellow Bear. The fog blotted out the world, not by obscuring it, but by eating it. It was a malignant tumor infiltrating the Forest, feasting on the familiar even as it left a strange new reality in its wake. Whatever it was, the ancient and wicked thing that had come with the storm had already claimed the Wood. Soon, nothing would be left of the Little Yellow Bear’s world save for the Little Yellow Bear himself.

  And yet even that wasn’t true. He was no longer the Little Yellow Bear who had helped prepare for the Fair-Haired Boy’s party only days earlier. Like the rest of his world, that other Bear had also been stolen away. There was nothing left of that other world save in his memories, and someday even those would fade.