Historical Lovecraft: Tales of Horror Through Time

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  And so, it happened that Aliyat son of Aliyat made Ishbal son of Melichibal priest in his father’s stead and when it came time for the festival of the dying moon, when Aliyat son of Aliyat brought his royal offerings, Ishbal son of Melichibal struck him with the mace of office, so that the blood flowed freely from the head of the King and he died.

  When they saw what Ishbal son of Melichibal had done, some of the mighty men of the King, who were his guard, pierced Ishbal with their swords in the thigh and in the breast, and Ishbal died upon the altar of Dagon. But the hearts of the multitude who were in the temple for the festival were not with the King and they took up burning staves from the fire on the altar of Dagon. They beat the mighty men of the King with them so that they died. Then they went out into the streets of Ashdod.

  Many men had lost their fathers to the temple of the stranger who had been cast out of Judah. Many had lost their sons, or their daughters, and had seen their land given to the stranger, so that they no longer loved the rule of Aliyat son of Aliyat. They went up to his palace and they cast down the stones of it, and they killed all the servants of his body and all the officers of the court. Yanshuf his royal wife and Reuma his concubine, and also the sons of Aliyat they killed, so that the royal line of Calioth was utterly extinguished.

  From the ruins of the palace, the people came to the temple of the stranger, into which he had fled when he heard the news of the death of the King.

  The doors of the temple were of brass, ten cubits in height, and bound up with iron. When the people came upon the gates of this temple, they did not know what to do, for the doors were too strong for them to force open.

  Then Zarikash son of Balnatan, of the mighty men of the King, took up an axe and hewed down a sycamore that had stood in the outer courtyard of the temple. The people made it into a ram to force open the gates of the temple.

  The first time the ram touched the door, a voice was heard from within. “Hear, O people of Ashdod and listen, sons of the Philistines. You have killed a king on this day and spilled the blood of princes. Return to your houses and repent your crimes, lest you assuredly be destroyed.” And on the moment the ram first touched the door, the gold and the silver that the stranger had given turned to slime and decay.

  The second time the ram touched the door, a voice was heard from within. “Hear, O people of Ashdod and listen, sons of the Philistines. Baal will not protect you, and Dagon has turned his face from you. Ashtoreth hides in her weeping and Zevuv has departed from your lands. Return to your houses, lest the last of the gods of this land depart from you.” And on the moment the ram touched the door for the second time, the grain that the stranger had given turned to slime and decay in the storehouses.

  The third time the ram touched the door, a voice from heard from within. “Hear, O people of Ashdod and listen, sons of the Philistines. Judah grows proud in the hills and Edom grows numerous in the desert. In the north, the armies of Assyria grow ever larger and they lay in provisions for the conquest of your land. Only through strength will Ashdod stand and if you strike at me, you will lose a third portion of your strength.” And on the moment the ram touched the door for the third time, the slaves and the female slaves, and the horses and cattle that the stranger had given turned to nameless, shapeless things that rent the flesh of those who owned them.

  The fourth time the ram touched the door, the doors burst open and a spirit of corruption emanated from the temple. Many were struck dead by that spirit of corruption and many others were sickened so that they never recovered. But still, the people pushed forward and would have entered the precincts of the temple, when a thing came forth, the like of which was never seen before and the like of which should never be seen again.

  The hidden god of the temple seemed to some like an octopus of the seas and to others, like a great frog, but all who saw it knew it as an abomination and they fled from it, or covered their faces so that they saw it not. All the men who had battered at the gates of the temple fled from the monster, except Zarikash, son of Balnatan, who took up his sword, and struck at the monster. It availed him not. When his sword struck the monster, his arm was withered and he was struck senseless where he stood.

  The temple of Dagon the monster destroyed, and the temples of the Baalim the abomination laid to waste. The trees of Ashtoreth were uprooted, the statues of the gods were humbled, and their servants were stricken with madness or slain. The gates of Ashdod were like open wounds and the people fled the city like blood.

  Stones cracked where the abomination that came from the temple stood and the water beneath the earth recoiled. Finally, the mouth of the earth open and a chasm opened up which swallowed the monster and the temple, and the stranger who had been cast out from Judah in the hills, and many of the houses and the people of Ashdod.

  Then the earth spoke and it said, “Woe unto me that such a one is taken into my hidden depths.” And there was a great earthquake, even unto Moab and the furthest borders of Egypt. Upon the altar of the stranger, ten thousand died and from the earthquake, ten thousand myriads. And Athishuf son of Menelegar, who had been among the men who carried the ram at the temple gates, sang this song:

  The towers of Ashdod are broken

  The pride of Gaza is reduced.

  The line of Calioth is extinguished

  The crown of the Philistines is lost.

  Woe unto us, the children of Dagon.

  Let us grieve, who followed Calioth from the West.

  Woe unto our sons, who will be sold as slaves.

  Woe unto our daughters, who will be sold as female slaves.

  The towers of Jerusalem are broken.

  The pride of Samaria is reduced.

  Not one stone stands on another in Lachish.

  Gezer is an utter ruin.

  Who shall aid us, when the Assyrian comes?

  Who shall protect us from the sword of the North?

  Aram is conquered and Egypt is a pit of decay

  And all of our strength has been lost.

  When the monster was swallowed up into the earth, some of those who had been struck with diseases were cured and some of those who had been struck senseless were able again to stand. None of those men would ever speak of what they had seen, when they lay in stupor, but they were all seized with great fear when they looked too long upon the waters of the sea, or when they gazed upon the light of the stars.

  Zarikash son of Balnatan ruled in Ashdod after Aliyat son of Aliyat. The right arm of Zarikash was palsied from the time that he struck the monster and he suffered from terrors. It happened in the twentieth year of the reign of Zarikash, during that time of year when the influence of the dog star is strongest, certain strange fish were brought forth from the ocean. When he saw these things, Zarikash threw himself from the highest place of his palace and none could say why.

  Baldad son of Zarikash of the line of Balnatan ruled in Ashdod for seven years. Then he was stricken with a fever of the blood, so that he died, and Athishuf son of Baldad of the line of Balnatan ruled in his place. In the thirty-second year of his reign, Athishuf son of Baldad was taken captive to Assyria and he and all his line died in their exile beyond the Euphrates.

  Alter S. Reiss is a field archaeologist and scientific editor who lives in Jerusalem, Israel, with his wife Naomi and their son Uriel. His stories have appeared in Abyss & Apex, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere.

  The author speaks: I’ve excavated at two important Philistine sites: Ashkelon and Tel es-Safi, which is identified as Gath of the Philistines. “The Chronicle of Aliyat son of Aliyat” is informed by my experiences there and my interest in early texts. I’ve taken some liberties with the history. The earthquake of 760 BCE is generally thought to have happened before the leprosy of Uzziah of Judah, for instance, and is generally considered to have been a matter of geology, rather than theology.

  MIDDLE AGES

  SILENTLY, WITHOUT CEASE

  Daniel Mills

  He opens his eyes, roused by the
twitch of a curtain, the rustle of fabric on the tiled floor. The sound is deafening, magnified by the silence of the chamber. It slashes through the haze of dream and fever, restoring him to the agonies of his failing body. The room is dark. He cannot tell the hour.

  The curtains withdraw from the doorway, admitting a veiled shape, the scents of saffron and jasmine. Theodora. He closes his eyes as the Empress glides across the chamber. Her slippers make no din, her approach discernible only by a faint increase in the strength of her perfume. Her steps carry her to the side of Justinian’s sickbed, where she stands for a time, saying nothing.

  He pretends to sleep. Her shadow covers him like another blanket, darkening the space beneath his eyelids. She has brought no candle and, for this, he is grateful. He cannot bear to be seen. In these last hours, his mind resembles a twilit desert, a night sky lit solely by the shimmering specks of his fading vision. His time is not long. The carbuncle in his groin is the size of a closed fist, its crown beginning to darken with the soft threads of infection.

  She leans in across him. Her veil slides down over his nose and forehead, his blackened lips. Easing his head from the pillow, she cradles it against her breast, holding him close though he has begged her to stay away. The smell of saffron fills his sinuses, erasing the odours of fever and incense, the powders they burn to ward off the miasma. He exhales.

  She will not leave him. He raised her out of the brothel and she has stood beside him through his reign, even when the City itself rose against him. Days of torment, days of fire – rioters besieged the Imperial Palace. He wanted to run, to take to the water and escape the roaring mob, but she would not go with him. She told him she would gladly die there. Her robes, she said, would make a fine burial shroud. What, then, could he do but stand and fight beside her? Tens of thousands had died on his command, slaughtered within the confines of the Hippodrome, but what small sacrifice that had been when Theodora had lived.

  Now she rules the City in his absence, though they will soon be separated, banished to their respective sufferings, the loneliness of the grave. He holds no hope of Heaven. Alone with the night, he has even prayed, entrusting his soul to the hands of the dark, since no god will come near. The Horsemen are abroad, the Last Days upon him, as they are upon his city.

  The plague is now in its second year. It came from the south, from Egypt, appearing in the most distant provinces during the previous spring. From there, it spread from village to village, from city to port city, receding as the cold set in, only to reappear on the fringes of his empire with the warmth of spring. In April, the first cases were reported in the harbour of the City.

  The physicians despair. They have never seen its like. First, chills. The victim takes ill and descends into delirium. A few cough up blood and succumb to a swift end, but the others are not so fortunate. Too weak to rise, they can only wait for the carbuncles to appear: egg-sized, sprouting like mushrooms from the groin and armpits. In time, the buboes blacken and crumble, and the infection seeps into the bloodstream, where it pours like fire through the body’s channels, driving the victim to a screaming death. Many curse God with their final breaths, mouths open and foaming, even as the darkness swirls like oil into their eyes.

  The sickness spares few. Those who survive its ravages are those with lumps that rupture and suppurate, but Justinian doubts their life is worth the price of future suffering. For the survivors are inevitably scarred – cripples with ruined faces and muscles that twitch constantly, so that they sometimes cannot stand.

  Within days of its appearance in Constantinople, the sickness had spread to all quarters and Justinian determined to take action against it. One of his advisors – a man of unusual ideas and temperament, who disdained astrology and the advice of physicians – recommended that the city gates be shut, halting all traffic. Justinian assented. Later, he bid his men collect the bodies of the fallen and bury them outside of the city. When the pits overflowed – and the labourers fell lifeless in the graves they had dug – he ordered the dead to be dissolved.

  A tower was set aside for this purpose. The floors were chopped out with axes and the bodies of the fallen hefted into this makeshift silo from above. Lye was poured down into the hole so that the corpses liquefied and ran together, the resulting stench like the fumes of Hell, a noxious cloud to hang over the city like a pall, a shroud for the empire whose end it presaged.

  Theodora stirs behind him. She murmurs a brief prayer before lowering his head to the pillow. Gently, so gently. His brow burns in the absence of her touch. She steps away – pauses – then turns back to the sickbed. She touches her lips to his forehead.

  He does not open his eyes. He cannot look at her – not even when she unbends herself and retreats toward the curtains, lingering long enough only to wish him farewell.

  “Rest, my love,” she whispers. “Soon, your suffering will be at an end.”

  Then she is gone. Her footsteps withdraw down the corridor, the last hints of her perfume smothered by the odours of incense.

  The room is empty. He is alone.

  Again, the curtains rustle.

  The shadows wink into existence, followed by the inevitable onrush of agony – throbbing buboes, the blinding heat of fever. There is someone in the room.

  His eyes roll to the corners, seeking out the far side of the chamber. He dare not rotate his neck. The carbuncle at his throat has grown so large and inflamed that even the slightest motion can cause him to lose consciousness. A ripple moves through the curtains, stirring them as with a faint breeze, though the air remains stagnant, stifling.

  “Yes?” he croaks, unable to lift his voice above a whisper.

  No response.

  The curtains part slightly, causing the shadows beyond to shift, curling inward, splintering to jagged pieces. A visible darkness leaches into the room, eddying like smoke from the part in the curtains, darker than the deepest shadow. It traverses the chamber, advancing silently, without cease, approaching the bedside with the inexorable slowness of a world-circling ocean, the tides that swallow even the mountains, given time.

  At the foot of the bed, the darkness takes on definite form, coalescing into the outline of a thin figure: hairless, attired in rags, taller than the tallest of warriors. It inclines its head as though in deference. A voice seeps from it, a murmur like the creak of cedars in a storm.

  “Your Majesty,” it says.

  “You have come at last,” Justinian whispers. He is resigned, relieved. For days, he has awaited this final visitor to his sickbed.

  “It is true that I have come,” it says. “And that my visit has been long-delayed. But I fear I am not whom you imagine.”

  “Not ... Death?”

  It shakes its head. “I am but one face of the dark, Your Majesty. The small death that is always with you: the end that you carry, as do all men, like a secret in your body. One that can never be confided or shared – not even with a woman.”

  “Who, then ...?”

  “I am a newcomer to your realm,” it says. “For centuries, I dwelt in Egypt, among the pyramids and shifting sands. Some called me a pharaoh. I was vested with power, resplendent in terror, but my hunger was ... insatiable.

  “Your present agony is considerable. I know this. Nevertheless, you cannot know what it is like to bear a hunger for a thousand years, a yearning that can never be sated. And so, I journeyed north, arriving in your lands last spring.”

  Comprehension dawns. “You are the Fourth Horseman? Pestilence?”

  The darkness shrugs, or seems to. One shoulder detaches itself for a moment, hanging in the air like a wisp of smoke before rejoining its body.

  “It is true that some have called me that. To others, I am simply the Black Man. To you, I must appear a thing of shadow, as death does to all who fear its coming. In truth, I am corporeal by nature – indeed, no different than yourself. While you are made of blood and bone, my body is formed from a million rats, a billion insects – all gathered together in me, con
centrated into a shadow deeper than any shade.

  “This April, I stowed away on a ship bound for your city. When it arrived, I waited for nightfall and then slipped down the galley ropes into the harbour. Since then, my labours have been tireless. But my hunger has not faded and I grow … so ... weary.”

  Here, its voice cracks – a cedar splitting, sheared by a heavy wind.

  Silence falls.

  “I do not understand,” Justinian manages. “If it is my time… then please, take me and be done with it. Prolong my suffering no longer.”

  The darkness sighs. “Again, you misunderstand my purpose in coming here,” it says. “I come to you, not as a king – though some have called me such – but as a supplicant.”

  To Justinian’s surprise, the figure folds in on itself, buckling inward from the legs so that it is suddenly kneeling, its featureless skull rising above the piled blankets. “Your Majesty, I come here to beg – to ask of you a favour and to offer a proposition.”

  Justinian closes his eyes. The room spins, the ceiling descending. He doubts himself, doubts everything. When he opens his eyes, the darkness has not stirred. It kneels before him with head bowed, a subject awaiting his decree.

  “What ... favour ... can I grant you?” Justinian whispers. “You, who have such power over me. Over whom no emperor can rule.”

  ”I am dying,” it says. “You have defeated me – or nearly so. My hunger grows even as my strength fails me. It is true that men die in the streets every day, but you have trapped me here in this city. There are other nations to which I have longed to travel, empires I have read about that I shall never see. I shall die here, Your Majesty – but I will not die alone.”

  ”No,” Justinian agrees. All down his body, the buboes throb – pulsing, poisonous – aching to spread their fire through his blood.

  “Your time is indeed near,” it says. “In a matter of hours, you will cough your last breath and pass beyond the veil to whatever lies beyond. Can you not picture it? You will lie here some time before they find you. Naturally, they will call for the Empress: the wife you have loved so dearly, whom you raised from a harlot to be your equal. And she will mourn you. She will kiss your cooling lips and lie beside you through the night. And this –”