The Strange Dark One

by W. H. Pugmire

  “Ah, you two have been gossiping about me. Shame.” I tried to appear unruffled, despite the anger that had seized my brain. I began to sense the influence of this rotten place and its effect on me; for beneath this ground beat a portion of the valley’s diseased heart, that incomprehensible organ that caused an intoxicating madness to seep through the soil and take root within one’s brain. I was not alone, for I saw in Simon’s maddened eyes that he was aching for a fight. Grinning, I rammed my fist into his face. He stood astounded for one moment; then he charged at me, and we fell to the ground tearing at each other, until we rolled out of the graveyard and onto untainted ground. He was on top of me, his mercury eyes blazing with hatred. Noughtia came up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder. His bizarre inhuman mouth curled sardonically as he pushed open my ripped shirt to where the wound newly bled. Tenderly, he smoothed his talons over the torn flesh, and then he moved off me and, linking arms with his pale companion, sauntered away.

  I got up and limped into the woodland with fury pounding my human heart. Seeking vengeance, I followed the path that led to a small cabin, the place that was Simon’s intimate abode. I prepared for an alchemical onslaught as I pushed open the door and entered, but nothing assailed me. I supposed that Simon, in his arrogance, knew that none would dare to violate the sanctity of his home. The smallness of the habitation surprised me, but then I remembered that this was but the place in this dimension that housed his most personal effects. I knew that when he retired he usually escaped into that shadowed realm from which the beasts of Sesqua Valley had their unearthly origin. Carefully, I began my search, rummaging among the items that filled my culprit’s brain with keen excitement. And then I found the wondrous thing, nestled in its box of red sandalwood. With shaking hands I took it out, the triple crown of white gold. I placed it on my dome, but the imagery that swam into my brain was too obscene to take in that accursed place. Returning the box to the place where I had found it, and sighing with criminal longing as I looked once more at the numerous artifacts that littered the magical place, I exited the cabin and made my painful way to the mansion.

  III.

  Thaddaeus was gone, that next morning, to breakfast with an ailing friend; but I was not to feast with Noughtia alone, for as I entered the dining room I found the odious Adam Webster sitting next to her. His silver eyes darkened as I approached the covered dishes that awaited my inspection. Taking a plate, I heaped food onto it, then happily sat next to the young woman, directly across from Adam. His plate was filled with a variety of fruits, nuts and rolls, and beside it was a smaller plate covered with a concoction of hash browns and scrambled eggs. Noughtia’s dish held her usual repast. She was obviously upset by my attendance at the table, and in her pique her manners were less refined than they had previously been. Jabbing at her meat with knife and fork, she tore at it with a fine set of delicate white teeth; and when the streams of ruddy juice dripped from her mouth she caught them with a dexterous tongue. With delicate geniality, I carefully sliced into my eggs Benedict, then sophisticatedly dabbed at the hollandaise sauce that smeared the corner of my mouth.

  Adam’s expression became smug. “I hear you had an encounter with Simon.”

  “A couple, yes. My scar is beginning to heal nicely. I can’t quite place what it is. Seems to be an alternate name for Nyarlathotep. Any clues, old boy?”

  Noughtia snorted. “I thought you were an occult scholar.”

  “Dear me, no. I can’t even be called a student. A mere dabbler, I. And what of you, my mysterious woman?” Playfully, I reached with my fork for a slab of flesh on her plate. Her incredulous eyes went wide with indignation as I popped the bit of death into my mouth and roguishly ran my tongue along my lower lip so as to catch a bit of blood. “I’m just an idiot savant with but one extreme interest. My passion is the Black Man, as he is known among primitive folk. But what of you, darling? Have you your specialty? Or – wondrous thing! – are you the result of some wizard’s art? Did the beast of Sesqua Valley find you in some realm of otherwhere and bring you to this delightfully demented place?”

  Adam stood. “That’s enough.”

  “No, Adam,” she countered, placing a comforting hand over his. “Sit and be still. Why shouldn’t he know exactly what I am?” Piercing me with somber gaze, Noughtia forked a slice of meat and placed it on her extended tongue, then took the thing into her mouth, carefully chewed and silently swallowed. “I am the resurrected dead, brought forth from the mystic formulae of the ascending node, known in Al Azif as the Dragon’s Head.” She stood and took hold of a piece of juicy flesh and squeezed so that its blood spilled onto the white table cloth, drawing with the ruddy liquid a symbol with which I was slightly familiar. “Such a simple glyph, and yet so potent. The fiend who raised me was a diabolic madman not satisfied with anything so simple as mere revivification. He combined my dust with that of some prehistoric reptile of an elder era, and then he evoked the name of the Lurker at the Threshold; and thus the two essential salts combined, raised as one, human and other.” Putting down her fork, she folded her arms and clutched at her pale flesh. I thought that her humped back began to writhe with subtle motion.

  “That’s enough,” Adam told her, but she held to him a silencing hand. And then she began to laugh.

  “How curious, my mixture of memory. I was very young when claimed by death, and the images of that girlhood are so vague. But other memories, of olden epoch, come with clearer perception. Soaring over wilderness of lush nature, gliding through primordial steam. I was a new kind of creature, the first non-insect to have developed wings and flight. And how elating – to spread those wings and soar!” She closed her eyes and began to sway, tilting so far that I knew she would tumble. Leaping to my feet, I caught her; and as I held her I could feel the movement of her mound, the shifting flesh and bone. She looked at me, with such a piteous expression that I immediately released her. Turning from us, she vacated the room. Pretending calm, I returned to my chair and brought a bottle of wine to my lips.

  “It would be best for all if you left the valley, Wilkes. You were foolish to return.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t miss tomorrow’s festival for all the world.”

  His fist pounded the table. “Curse you, you thick idiot! Do you not understand? Of all the world’s outsiders, you are most unwelcome in Sesqua Valley.”

  “Nonsense. Neither you nor Simon have the authority to pronounce such parametric regulations. The valley alone shall rule who can and cannot enter her confines. The mountain calls my name in dreaming, damn you. Those who are unwanted never remember the valley’s existence once they’re outside her boundaries. She has a way of shielding herself from the human world. I know this, for I have brought friends here, as you will recall, and they remember nothing of it afterwards. I remember everything. Sesqua Valley calls my name, and I’m here to partake of whatever fate she has for me.”

  “I see. You’re the chosen one. Quite elected. I’d worry about that if I were you.”

  IV.

  I walked to the old churchyard, hoping to encounter Mr. Chambers and so retrieve my suitcase. As I passed by the old stone church, its age and ambiance charmed me, and so I went to its mammoth doors and entered, stepping into a dark and narrow anteroom. From beyond a pair of copper doors I could hear the sound of chanting. I pushed through the doors and walked into a vaulted nave, at the far end of which three persons stood upon a raised platform. Dante Chambers waved and called my name, and the two young men watched with silver eyes as I approached them.

  “I’ve come for my neglected suitcase. Is it still at your house?”

  “So it is,” Brother Chambers replied, and then he motioned to me as he spoke to the lads. “Cyrus, Nelson, this is Stefan Wilkes, of whom you have been speaking.” He smiled at me. “You’re a bit of a legend here, Stefan. Simon Williams has rarely been so defied as you have flouted him.”

  “May we see the insignia?” asked one of the others. “Simon’s emblem on you
r chest?”

  I climbed the steps and opened my shirt. Their mercury eyes glimmered excitedly.

  “Look here, Cyrus,” said the taller of the two, “not only in reverse but incomplete. Nasty.”

  “Ah, you know its significance. I’ve merely glanced at its mirror image,” I told them.

  “You shouldn’t attend tonight’s rituals if you value your soul. This is what Ibn Shoddathua names the sign of scattering. It’s almost identical to the symbol of Nyarlathotep, except in a few particulars. The Crawling Chaos may at first mistake it as his sign of espousal, but when He realizes its incomplete form your essence will be cast into the void.”

  “Scattered between starlight,” said the other youth. “You seek to be wed with the Black One, right? That’s why you’ve been so foolhardy and obstinate.”

  I shrugged. “I have a hankering to be numbered among the Million Favored Ones, sure. And that’s why I will attend tonight.”

  I watched as Dante went to a tall stand and picked up a deadly-looking ritual dagger. “We would like nothing better than to assist you. Too,” and the old man slyly winked at his companions, “it will be pleasant to thwart the beast who fancies himself the lord supreme of our little vale. To do so, I shall have to complete the sign, which must be formed with the assistance of inhuman blood, sometimes that of a pig or goat. Wolf’s blood is most potent.”

  The taller lad, named Nelson, took the knife from Dante’s hand and sliced its point into an arm. I looked at his bestial face, which showed no sign of discomfort. His dark liquid stained the blade, and he returned the knife to Dante, who watched with me as the boy’s wound began to mist and heal. “That’s better than wolf’s blood,” Nelson said.

  Dante turned to me. “This will not be pleasant, Stefan. But these charming animals will help distract you.” Cyrus licked his mouth and stepped close to me. I could smell the valley on his flesh and in his unruly hair. It was on his tongue as it entered my mouth. I could not shut my eyes, and thus I closely examined his fantastic silver eyes, which were flecked by minute bits of unearthly color. Nelson’s large hands removed my shirt, and his mouth pressed against my belly as his hand massaged my loins. And then two mouths were at my ears, and their whispered chanting utterly astounded me. I could feel, beneath my feet, the magic pulse of Sesqua’s daemon heartbeat, and felt my own pulse slow so as to match it. I barely noticed as the blade first began to work into my flesh, but then the pain sharpened. My muffled screams were a mixture of ecstasy and torment. When the work was done, two bestial mouths kissed the blood from off my chest. Dante produced a length of batiste and wound it around my waist, and then he escorted me to the Bishop’s throne and helped me sit upon its cushion. Nelson brought a chalice to my lips and I drank its liquid. My body burned for one harsh moment, but then I relaxed.

  “You were unusually prepared for this,” I whispered.

  Dante patted my head. “We had a good idea of what was what, and thus we got things ready, just in case you showed up.” I hadn’t noticed that Cyrus had left the room, and saw him re-enter, carrying my suitcase. Something in the liquid that I had consumed must have made me drowsy. I shut my eyes for what I thought was just a few minutes, but when I suddenly awakened I was alone in the vaulted room. Vacating the place, I wandered into town, my mind a haze of sensation. I had one final bit of business to conduct, and thus I slowly stepped along the wooden planks that were the sidewalks of the town center. I entered the curio shop and set my suitcase on the floor. Leonidas silently watched from the stool on which he perched. Walking to a section of wall that wore a variety of masks, I frowned, for none of them would do. I continued to investigate the museum and stumbled into a small alcove in which I found the wondrous thing. Tall, lean, smooth and absolutely black, it stood like some harbinger of destiny. I touched my fingers to its smooth mask, that soft synthesis that mocked a quasi-mortal face. I pulled the mask off the statue’s head, that head that no longer wore a face, and when I pressed its fabric to my nostrils I caught a scent that combined spices from another continent. Folding the mask, I placed it in a pocket, then walked to pick up my suitcase and, winking at the vulture that watched me, vacated his abode and found my way home.

  V.

  I awakened from dreamless slumber to the sound of commotion outside my bedroom window. Despite best efforts to stay awake, exhaustion had assailed me and I had slept soundly. Struggling to my feet I shuffled to the window and looked out at the large property behind the mansion. The place was peopled with masked creatures, and I heard them cheer as a dogcart pulled into the yard, guided by the nude figures of Cyrus and Nelson who had been harnessed by the driver. Leonidas, unmasked and without his customary top hat, cracked a whip into the wind that played with his wild white hair. Leaning against him was the magnificent black statue that I had seen in his museum.

  Swiftly, and cursing my depletion of energy, I tore off my clothing and dressed for the nameless festival. The scarlet robe that Thaddaeus had fashioned was perfection, as were the hand-made ebony sandals. The mask that formed a regal countenance seemed almost to grin as I took it up. My fingers tingled at its weird fabric, the soft soft weft that clung to the texture of my flesh as I pressed it over my face. I could easily see through the webbing of material that covered my eyes. Taking up my triple crown of white gold, I secured it onto my dome, and then I nearly fainted at the sensations that spilled into my brain.

  From outside came the sound of chanting, of pipes played and drums pounded. It was a veneration that summoned. I stepped down the stairs and found my way outside, where an intoxicated Thaddaeus rushed forward, knelt before me and licked my palm. I placed my hand beneath his half-mask and stroked his eye, and then I pulled him to his feet and led him through the crowd to where the statue had been erected on its dais. Before it danced a monstrous and diminutive figure wrapped in seven veils. The grotesque dwarf shimmied to me, clapping stunted hands, while her accompaniment of fellow gnomes sat on the grass, pounding their tom-toms and breathing into their wailing flutes. I saw one tall woman whom I recognized, despite her mask, as a curator from Miskatonic University, and next to her wobbled a small sorcerer that I had once met in Prague. I saw a small Brazilian gypsy dressed in black and red motley, and remembered reading about the controversial Exu figure of the Umbanda religion, a figure linked to Christianity’s Satan. A little distance from me I espied traditional Vodou houngan priests and mambo priestesses who shook to the ritualistic clamor. This exotic danse grew ferocious as heaven turned dark, and I raised my eyes to watch the blackness that oozed to us from the cosmos.

  He stood before us, on the dais next to the mannequin that aped His regal form. Erect, hairless, His scarlet robe moving in evening wind, His beautiful face smiled at me with a visage that shifted and momentarily formed countless semblances. He was not entirely dimensional and the air around Him blurred and bubbled as His moonlit shadow seemed to creep, to crawl, on Sesquan sod. Vombic was beside me, kissing my throat; and then he was torn from me, and Simon sneered before me, violently snatching the triple crown and throwing it to the crowd, where it was caught by Cyrus.

  “Ah? Ah?” he howled. “You dare to violate my home?” He smashed his fist into my face, and I laughed at him. Thaddaeus shrilled and tried to pull him from me, but Simon bashed him with one massive paw, and then his claws tore open my robe and he sneered at the altered symbol on my chest. “Who did this? Who dared?” I saw him in all his inhuman fury, and then I was afraid. I turned my eyes from him and stared at the Black Man as Simon’s talons sank into my chest and ripped my beating heart from me. I did not scream. Rather, I smiled; for by his act of violence he had ruptured the sacred sign of Nyarlathotep that had been etched into my flesh – a sin that suffered no pardon. The dark god approached us and Simon seemed to realize his error: but Simon was not a human beast, and he refused to pay a mortal price for his transgression. Backing away, he made a signal to Nyarlathotep, and then he summoned the shadow of Sesqua Valley. It flowed to him as mauve
mist from out the woodland. It enveloped him. When finally it dissipated, Simon has vanished into the realm from which he had originated. I looked below me, to where my still-throbbing heart lay on the grass. And yet – and yet I felt something beating within my breast, and I realized that I was now an adopted sibling of the dark god. Music sounded, catching my attention. I lifted my eyes.

  And beheld her, the creature who seemed to float toward us, dressed in white, her magnificent wings spreading from where they grew from out her pale flesh. I marveled at her monstrous mask, which absolutely resembled the chiseled countenance of the bronze daemon that haunted the burying ground. She drifted to us and stood to behold our cosmic glory; and then she seemed to curtsey, bending low, and when she rose she held my savaged heart. Ceremoniously, she offered it to Nyarlathotep, and I felt His icy laughter on my mouth as He dropped my useless husk of human flesh. Our black hand waved to heaven, where above us a tempest of stunning electric light paid homage to our supernal madness. Beside me, Noughtia brought my limp wet heart to the mouth-opening of her daemonic mask and shuddered in ecstasy as her tiny teeth tore into its tissue. Then she knelt and offered us the half-eaten organ. We took it from her wet stained hand and hurled it into heaven, where blackness swallowed it. I gazed into the seething sky for some little while, and yet I could not forget the aura of the beast that I had banished from my view, that creature of superb madness and magick. He was near, somewhere within the mauve mist that blanketed the woodland. I could sense his silver eyes upon me. And when at last I stretched my mouth and howled to my vision of the end of mortal time, I could hear, from somewhere in Sesqua Valley’s hidden dreamland, the baying of its monarchal Beast in accompaniment.