by Donald Tyson
Its purpose is to interrupt sleep so many times that the man who is its prey begins to dream while awake, and then it is able to come and go within his mind at will, and take whatever it finds there of value. The common consequence of the nightly visits of this demon is madness and suicide. Only by death can its torments be avoided. He alone is safe who has learned to embrace his fears as a lover, rejoicing in their multiplicity and power. Such a man welcomes the angry demons of the wasteland as his friends, and finds amusement and diversion in their change of masks. Recognizing at last the futility of the attempt, this demon departs in sullen silence, its fury stilled, and the wanderer in the desert sleeps and dreams without molestation.
By the seals of the gods from the stars, these two forms of night demon can be commanded and sent to vex others who travel across the Empty Space, and even those who dwell within distant cities, as a potent form of attack especially suited to the exacting of vengeance. The seductress and mother of monsters is obedient to the authority of the seal of Shub-Niggurath, the prolific goat; the angry demon obeys the seal of great Cthulhu, quick to fury.
Wait for the coming of the demon, as you lie within your dreams alert and aware, and before it commences its work, command its attention with the name and seal of the god under whose wandering star it dwells, whether bright and pitiless Venus or red-eyed Mars. The star of the god must be above the horizon, hence the best time to contract with the demon of lust is shortly before dawn. Compose the seal of the god in your imagination and picture it upon the air before you as you confront the demon, then give the demon instruction concerning the identity of the person it should vex unto death. Your purpose will surely be attained within the cycle of the moon.
aravans crossing Roba el Khaliyeb must bury their dead along the way, for in the heat of the desert a body soon putrefies, and in the span of two days no man could bear to stand near it, and no beast would carry it upon its back. The only exception is made when a person of wealth dies on the journey, for the family of the corpse has the means to cause it to be wrapped in rags saturated with honey, which has the property of inhibiting decay. The honey is used to fill the mouth, nostrils, ears, eye sockets, and other vents of the body, and provided every opening is sealed, the flesh may be preserved as it was in life for several weeks.
A man alone in the wasteland learns to follow the tracks of the camels, and to recognize the graves of those who have died along the way. The carcasses of beasts are of no use for food since these are swiftly picked clean to the bones by the creatures of the desert, but the corpses of men are protected by the earth and stones piled above them. The hungry traveler soon learns to trust his nose to guide him to his repast, and the glowing shade that stands above the place of interment, so clearly visible to the second sight, is a sure sign that his belly will soon be filled. He must be quick if he is to reach a fresh grave before it is found by the eaters of the dead, for they are adept at this hunt and rarely let a body rest in the earth above the passage of a day and night.
These ghouls are seldom seen by our race, and are almost unknown apart from fables that frighten children, but in the deeper reaches of the desert they are not so timid of discovery, particularly when their only observer is a solitary wanderer who has the same purpose as their own. They are small of stature, with slender arms and legs but rounded bodies possessing distended bellies, and their naked skin is black, so that they are almost invisible to the ordinary sight. Standing no taller than the elbow of a man, they appear at first impression to be a band of children, save that they move silently, with their shoulders hunched and their clawed hands brushing the sands, their glittering black eyes alert for danger and their yellow teeth, like those of a dog, exposed between their parted lips, for they snuff the air with both nose and open mouth to catch the scent of death.
A man untroubled by fear may easily defend himself against five or six of these creatures with only a large stone or a thighbone for a weapon, but they are attracted by the sound of conflict and quickly gather in larger numbers so that it becomes prudent to retreat and leave them enjoyment of the prize. Never do they consume the flesh of the living, yet they know how to uncover a corpse and how to bury it, and a man they slay they cover with earth for a day and then return for their feast.
They must contend not only with the desert foxes and other scavengers of the night, but with the chaklah’i who deprive the corpse of its nourishing virtue unless driven away. The chaklah’i and the eaters of the dead are ancient foes well accustomed to dealing with each other, and for the most part they observe the pleasantry of respecting the claim of whichever race first discovers the grave; sometimes the ghouls will leave portions of the corpse for the chaklah’i to feed upon, and they in turn will not draw the virtue from the bones of the dead, but will allow it to remain in the marrow for the gratification of the ghouls.
The ghouls of the desert are smaller of body than those who lurk at the outskirts of cities, near burial places. Lack of food and the harshness of the land stunt their growth and render them wizened of limb yet tenacious of life, enabling them to endure hardships that would kill their brethren who dwell near the places of men. In spite of these differences they are a single race, sharing the same language and even the same folklore.
Those of the desert relate among themselves the tale of Noureddin Hassan, a noble householder of Bussorah, who made a pact with a ghoul of the city named in his own language G’nar’ka, so that in return for allowing his beloved wife to lie in her grave unmolested, the man agreed to murder eight strangers on successive nights and provide the ghoul with their corpses. The murders being discovered after Hassan had killed seven of his fellow citizens, the unfortunate man took his own life and so fulfilled his oath. This tale is not unknown to our own storytellers, but for the eaters of the dead it has a special meaning, since they revere the sanctity of a bargain above all other bonds, and once having agreed to a service they fulfill it without fail.
Another fable they tell of this same city ghoul concerns the stealthful robbery of a sacred tomb beneath a mosque during the fast of Ramadan, and how the gluttony of the ghoul brought him into conflict with the worshippers, but it is too extended to relate here. G’nar’ka is a kind of hero to their race, whose exploits form the subjects for many tales.
The traveler is advised to make peace with the eaters of the dead by offering them the greater part of any corpse unearthed along the caravan roads. This is no keen sacrifice since dead flesh does not remain wholesome long in the desert, and no man regardless of hunger could consume more than a small portion of the corpse before it became too foul to retain in the stomach. In return for this display of grace the creatures will cease their attacks, for they are not warlike by nature and only contend over food, which is ever scarce in the wastes.
They speak in dry whispers in their own language, which is unknown beyond their race, but they have learned enough of our tongue from the conversations at the campfires of the caravans to make their meaning known. Of the old places of the desert their knowledge is complete. For countless generations they have sought their meat across the sands, and unearthed stranger things than the dead from beneath the stones. What the chaklah’i do not know, the ghouls remember, and what cannot be learned by questioning one race will be gained from the other. Neither has any use for hidden tombs or ancient cities or buried gold and silver, but they will trade this knowledge for flesh.
A traveler once purchased from the eaters of the dead the location of the valley of the lost city of Irem of the many pillars, for the extraordinary price of the body of a beautiful maiden of high family that had been wrapped in honey after succumbing to the bite of a serpent. Ghouls fear to approach the campfires of the caravans lest they be slain by the arrows of the guards, but they learned of the death from words overheard spoken by members of the family, and the traveler among them was bold and clever enough to steal into the camp shortly before dawn and carry off the sweetly dripping corpse when the camp still lay asleep, ye
t after those paid to sit up and guard the corpse during the night had retired to their blankets.
The body was not consumed that night, for it was too fresh, having been preserved by the honey, and the hour was late, but the traveler performed the same service as that of the mourners by sitting with the corpse while it rotted in the sun and was visited by beetles and flies, after having carefully unwrapped it and scraped its skin clean of its sticky, golden sweat. The next night it was eaten with pleasure, and the secret of the valley of Irem was revealed.
he tale is told of a city of tall towers and glittering domes in the depths of the Empty Space, far from the roads and dwellings of men. Once it was a great center of humanity, a well-watered garden fed by vast underground cisterns that never dried but were ever replenished by subterranean streams. Irem the city was named, renowned across the world for its beauty and its wickedness. Its wealthy inhabitants, grown rich from the constant caravans that in ancient times passed through its gates on their journeys to far places, indulged their love of sensuality and finery to the utmost. No cloth was too costly for its bejeweled courtesans, no fortified wine too potent for its fat merchants, no drug too poisonous for the jaded delights of its ruler and his courtiers.
Without warning or sign, the city was destroyed in a great cataclysm that cast down its pillars and domes and covered them with sand, killing all the inhabitants. The legend states that it was the judgment of God upon the wickedness of the people, but few men know the real cause of its downfall. The secret is only to be learned by going there and looking, and Irem has been lost to the world for longer than the histories of man can tell. It was one of the places of the earth so long inhabited that those who dwelled there forgot why it had first been founded. Now it is only a scattering of dusty mounds and broken pillars, the mystery of its destruction as deep as the secret of its creation.
The eaters of the dead know the location of Irem, but they will not go there, and only lead the traveler so far as the outer slopes of the hills surrounding the valley that holds its ruins. Even so, it can be found by a man possessing the secret of the white spiders of the radiant fungi. Eat three and wait for nightfall outside the hills of the valley of the city of many towers. In the darkness you will see glowing across the sands an ancient caravan road that cannot be perceived under the sun with normal sight. It enters the valley between two hills. Follow it, and you will hear faintly on the breeze the sounds of stones rolled beneath the hoofs of walking camels and the tinkle of silver and brass from the bridles, the creak of hemp ropes and oiled leather, and perhaps the murmur of voices. All these sounds come from the distant past and must be disregarded, for they are a snare for the imagination of the unwary. Those who heed them too closely drift into a dream and awake walking beside the camels of the caravans, forever lost to their own time.
The silver band of the caravan road leads into the fallen gate of the city, of which there is no sign remaining. Yet beneath the light of the full moon may sometimes be discerned a pale arch of translucent stones, the shade of the gateway that collapsed so many ages ago. Enter the gate. The tops of pillars appear as worn stones, for they project no more than a cubit above the sand, and wind storms have rounded and cut them beyond recognition. Scattered are fragments of pottery and glass, easy to find since they glow under the moon to one who has awakened the second sight.
Continue on past a hill on the left side and you will come upon a shallow but broad hollow, much like a sinkpit in the sand. Descend its slope and stand in the center. Know that you stand in the center of the fallen city, where rose the palace of the king. The shaking of the ground that felled the towers began in this place, and drew the palace under the surface so that no trace of it remains exposed. Yet stand and listen. Hear you the sifting of sand? It is faint, and may easily be mistaken for the sound of a beetle walking across a dune. Seek it out, and there you will find in a deeper hollow that is shadowed from the moon—a small opening resembling the den of an animal.
Now you must determine whether you choose to enter, or to walk from the hollow and leave the ruins of fallen Irem. The way within is perilous, not merely for the flesh but for the reason. It may be that only a man already mad can enter the cisterns below Irem and bear to look upon what dwells in its darkness without seeking death as an escape from the horror. Only he can enter who becomes one with the serpent, extending his arms and writhing with his belly; nor can a fat man enter at all, but only he who has gone long without much food. The channel is like the passageway of birth, and yields with reluctance only after much effort.
After you have won your struggle and fallen within, you will find a cave, the sand-strewn floor of which slopes downward. All is darkness, but the shells of tiny sea creatures embedded in the rocks glow to the second sight and give sufficient illumination to go forward. As the cave descends it widens and broadens. Faint in the distance is the drip of water, and water may be plainly smelled, though no water is to be found. The cave at last opens into a vast space the limits of which cannot be seen, for the glow from the shells in its walls has not the strength to provide sight more than a dozen paces.
Rats dwell there that are of unusual bigness. They may be recognized by the soft rustle of their scabrous, naked tails as they move over one another, and they have no fear of the stranger but eagerly scurry forward to nip at exposed flesh; but they are wise in the ways of the desert, and soon recognize one who is a lover of the Empty Space, and thereafter they keep a courteous distance. Their meat is lean but filling, and good to the taste, and particularly succulent are their eyes.
The traveler soon discovers by pacing the curved wall of the dark cavern that it opens outward at intervals into other similar spaces, which also have their several openings, so that the entire ground beneath Irem is found to be not sand and rock, but voids whose arching roofs are held up by natural rock pillars. It was in truth the collapse of one of these caverns that drew the palace of the king beneath the surface, and the upheaval of the earth that caused that collapse brought about the toppling of the domes and towers of the city. All this may be reasoned out in days of darkness and silence broken only by the rustle of rats and the drip of phantom water that is never to be found. The blood of the rats is sweet, and is sufficient.
n the darkness beneath the earth, time does not pass as it passes under the daily cycle of the sun. The hours lengthen and drag with the weight of years. On occasion when conditions in the heavens conspire at certain charged places in the bowels of this sphere, the progress of time is halted, or so drawn out that it appears to have utterly ceased. A falling droplet of water may be contemplated in its fullness as it hangs suspended in the air as though a polished bead of crystal on a silken thread.
Whether due to this curiosity of time or some other effect, the cause of which is not evident to apprehension, the creatures that dwell within the deepest caverns can live for spans of years that are only associated under the sun with the oldest of trees. They grow wizened in appearance but they do not die. This is only true of larger forms of life, for the smaller things endure no longer than their surface brethren. It may be that the extension of years is a function of reason, for it is true that all the creatures of long life encountered in the caverns possess at least some semblance of intelligence, and many have the power of speech, though the languages they use are those of lost ages and may only with difficulty be understood by a scholar of tongues. The mouths of these things are ill suited to shape the words of human speech, and their ancient minds struggle to conceive our thoughts.
Beneath Irem there dwells a creature that was once human, but is no more of our race. Humanity is not a quality that persists unchanged and unquenched through eternity, but is limited by the circumstances of place and time, and this being of darkness lost all human nature uncounted ages past, before the city of many towers fell to its ruin. She may be called a witch, though this term and gender possess little significance, for she is so changed that no trace of the attributes of a woman remain on her
stunted and deformed body, and her witchcraft is not the art practiced in the habitations of human beings.
The name of the thing is I’thakuah, and she speaks in many ancient tongues, one of which is the primordial source of our own. By comparing the old words with the new, and by signs and gestures, she may be interrogated, for she holds vast storehouses of knowledge that are more precious than any earthly treasures. She has listened to the murmurings and chitterings of the dwellers in the deeper gulfs, and has learned their tongues, and from them stolen secrets. These she does not divulge willingly, but in return for offerings of food and other necessities she will trade her knowledge. She is grown bent with the years and hunting is difficult for her twisted limbs, though when required she can move with startling swiftness, and it is wise to sit three or more paces from her when listening to her tales of elder times.
In return for the fresh carcass of a rat she will answer a single question; therefore, take care to ask wisely. She does not lie, but neither does she offer without prompting her most precious knowledge. In this way she contrives to keep those who are her students with her, that she may continue to have fresh meat and other needed articles such as water and fire, whenever she may wish them. She is jealous of beauty in others, and in sudden fits of madness may seek to slay her benefactors if their faces offend her, for her eyes have grown accustomed to the blackness and she sees as if under the sun; but one who has been disfigured in the face has nothing to fear from her capricious malice, for she finds the lack of a nose and ears amusing. Her laughter is dry, like the squeal of a rusty hinge, and it doubles her stunted body so that her forehead almost touches the ground.
How long I’thakuah has lived in the caverns, she does not remember; neither does the memory remain of whose daughter she was before she retreated from the sun. On all other matters, her mind remains keen. Her eyes glitter, small and black, in the leathery wrinkles of her face, resembling those of insects. Though she has no teeth, her gums have become hardened, allowing her to tear chunks from raw meat and chew them. Her strength is unnatural, and has its greatest concentration in her hands. If by chance she is able to lock her fingers around a man’s throat, no force of prying or blows will loosen them until she has snapped his neck. She goes naked save for a ragged cloak of wool that she hugs close around her hunched shoulders.