by Donald Tyson
The wizard lies upon his back within a carven box of cedar wood, which itself is set inside a stone sepulcher. The lids of both containers have been broken by hammers and lie in pieces on the floor of the cavern. Linen wraps his corpse save for his feet and his hands, which cross on his breast and seem to claw the air in their nakedness. Eight fingers are missing. The last taken was the largest finger of the left hand, upon which only the index finger and thumb remain; the right hand has none. So too have all ten toes been removed from his feet. The stumps show the marks of teeth and appear gnawed in the uncertain light of a lamp. Those who came took what they needed, but feared to take too much, for the power of Nectanebus is legendary.
The cavern is dry and lifeless, and was chosen for these qualities, for the wizard was determined that he should arise in the flesh of a man; his dismay can only be imagined when his trusted apprentice, after placing his corpse within the tomb in secret, fled, never to return, fearing the loss of his own mind more than the fury of his master. Whether the will of the wizard proved strong enough to deal death from so deep within the earth cannot be known, but it is certain it did not possess the power to compel the return of the apprentice; and so the potency of the corpse remained undiminished for ages, and the hunger of its spirit unsated. Standing at the side of the sepulcher, the hunger and the rage may still be felt, but a resolute mind skilled in the arts of magical barriers can resist it long enough to acquire a portion of the wisdom and memories of the king.
Upon the groin of the mummy rests a disk of green stone engraved on its face with the Elder Seal. It has not been disturbed, for no visitor to the tomb has been bold enough to turn it, even though the prize it conceals is great. Around the border of the disk are engraved hieroglyphics that may be read by one who is versed in the ancient writing, and their meaning is thus:
The bone and flesh which possess no writing are wretched,
but behold, the writing of Nectanebus is under the Great Seal,
and behold, it is not under the Little Seal.
It is wisest to leave this seal undisturbed should you venture to this place, for there remain yet two fingers, and the nose and ears are intact.
n no other land is the cat treated with greater veneration than in Egypt; for in death it was the custom to have these beasts mummified, and so frequent was this practice that they are to be found throughout the resting places of the dead, while in life they are respected alike by the common people and those of noble rank, so that the wanton killing of a cat is regarded as a kind of murder, and the man who commits the deed is shunned or even stoned to death. Under the rule of the bishops, the Christians sought to end this bestial idolatry, and dead cats are no longer mummified, but the respect which an Egyptian bears toward living animals of this kind remains undiminished. It is even believed that cats have the power to comprehend human speech, though whether the ancient tongue of the land or the language of the Greeks, or both, is never affirmed.
The prohibition against the killing of cats is easy to understand, when it is considered that the region of the Nile near the Delta is the most fertile farming land in all the world, producing prodigious crops of grains that would inevitably be diminished by mice and rats, and these vermin would multiply without restraint, were it not for the innumerable cats that hunt them. They are allowed to enter and leave the houses, shops, and churches without constraint, and should a cat be injured by a wagon or through some other mishap, always someone will take the animal and care for it until it either dies from its hurt or recovers.
Cats have the second sight without any need to consume the white spiders of the desert. When a cat stops and stares intently at a place that seems empty, it is certain that it is looking at a ghost or other shadow creature that passes unperceived by men. Hence wherever a cat is present, no spirit may enter unobserved, and it is for this reason that sorcerers employ cats as watchers against intruders from the other realms. The wraiths of the night resent this attention, and are at enmity with all cats. It is true, also, that cats see through the glamours of magic, so that no wizard is able to mask his identity or pass invisible where a cat watches. Of all beasts the senses of this creature are most subtle. Though the eyes of a cat are not keener than those of a hawk, nor the ears sharper than those of a dog, a cat sees and hears things that lie beyond this material existence that neither hawk can see nor dog can hear.
Another talent possessed by this remarkable beast is the ability to walk into the land of dreams and out again as easily as a man enters or leaves a dwelling. Those lost in dreams are sometimes led back to our world by passing cats, who have a fondness for our race and are ever willing to lend aid when treated with dignity and kindness. The man who sleeps with a cat upon his cot sleeps safely, for he has a constant guide to draw him out of the entangling thickets of his nightmares. It has been written that cats suck the breath from sleeping infants, and in this way deprive them of life, but this is the practice of Shub-Niggurath and her daughters, which cats attempt to drive away from the crib of the child; and in this they sometimes succeed, and nothing is known of the deed, and sometimes they fail and are found upon the body of the child, and are accused of murder by the ignorant mothers.
The goddess of all cats is Bast, who is figured in the form of a cat, or sometimes as a woman with the head of a cat. She is worshipped chiefly at Bubastis in the seventh nome of Lower Egypt, where her cult survives to the present in spite of strenuous efforts by the churches to eradicate it; for though her cult is joyous, the Christian bishops hated it for its pagan taint and ever tried to destroy it. The worshippers of the goddess pass unseen for most of the year, but at the festival of Bast in the spring of the year, they disport and make merry with one another and with the people of the city, singing, sounding musical instruments, and promenading through the streets. What is most appalling to the Christians is the practice of the women, who periodically raise their skirts and reveal their most private parts in wanton display with knees parted. This they do in honor of the goddess of cats, who draws her power from the moon.
The adorers of Bast may be known by subtle signs, for many bear a small scar in the shape of a crescent moon upon some part of their necks, and it is their custom to cut their fingernails to points; this they do subtly so as to attract little notice, but the mark is universally recognized by the common citizens and merchants of the city, who accord the worshippers of Bast great respect and reduce the prices of their wares when they perceive this sign; this has led some to adopt the fashion who have never walked in the festival. When the cut of the nails is very obvious the priests may induce the guardians of the city to apprehend the transgressor and pull out his nails by the roots as punishment for his sin, but the practice continues unabated.
The temple of Bast once stood in the center of the city, and was renowned throughout the world for its purity and perfection; it was long since pulled down, and a church erected on its foundations. This modest church serves two functions. During the day it is the house of God for the Christians, but during the night the adorers of Bast gather in a secret chamber behind the altar, where there is a statue of the goddess in green stone that resembles jade, in posture sitting on her haunches upon a cubic pedestal of black stone. This stature, which was rescued from the destruction of the temple and preserved in secret, is of the height of a living cat and perfect in all its proportions so that it seems to live and even to move in the flickering flames of the oil lamps by which the chamber is illuminated. Its eyes are pale blue jewels set in their centers with pointed ovals of jet, so well contrived by the sculptor that they appear to be capable of sight. Upon its head is a lunar crescent in translucent white stone that is called moonstone, and is the delicate changing color of the interior of seashells.
The worshippers of Bast place offerings of milk and meat at the foot of the pedestal that supports the statue, which are consumed by the living cats that come and go in the chamber through small entrances in the base of the walls. After presenting their offer
ing, they make silent prayers before the goddess upon their hands and knees, then leave with utmost decorum and solemnity, much in contrast to their behavior during the spring festival. It is said by members of the cult that prayers made to the goddess in this manner are never refused.
he journey up the Nile from the Delta region is pleasant and uneventful, unless the small sailing ships used for this purpose by the Egyptians are molested by the crocodile or by a type of great beast known in the sacred books as the behemoth, the jaws of which can cut the body of a man into two parts. It lies in wait beneath the water and watches for boats. If the unwary pilot fails to see the nose of this creature projecting above the surface, and sails too near its resting place, it attacks with sudden ferocity, overturning the craft and killing all who fall into the water, so that the river runs red with their blood. The Egyptians fear it more than the crocodile, and shun its habitations. It eats both plants and the flesh of men, and seldom ventures on land, for it is all belly and moves awkwardly on its thick legs; yet in the water it travels lightly and can traverse great distances in moments when enraged.
The behemoth is descended from the evil things created by the Old Ones, for the Elder Race did not fashion all forms of life that now dwell in this world; most were their creations, along with humankind, but a few were the work of Cthulhu, who in the early times made experiment with many forms in his effort to generate armies of warriors that might aid his battles against the cities of the Elder Race. Hence, all of the creations of Cthulhu are noxious and of evil disposition, and inimical to the creations of the Elder Ones. They appear to have no natural place in our world but rather to have been imposed upon it by a malicious will, to either make their own place by force or to perish away. The sea-dwelling octopus is such an abomination, as is readily apparent, for who has seen this beast, which has no bones but only a soft body that may take on any color or shape, and eight legs that twist and wriggle like worms, and has not sensed in his heart that it is an alien thing unnatural to this world?
On an arid plain called Giza, no great distance from the river, stands the largest idol ever carved from stone, known to the vulgar as the Sphinx, although the true and secret name of this god is Harmakhis. It is somewhat similar to the Sphinx described in the fanciful tales of the Greeks, and there is no doubt that the idol itself was the cause of these fables. In form it is the body of a crouching lion with the head of a man, of noble and imposing aspect. It watches the dawn, as it has watched for ages beyond counting, for its origins are unknown, it is so ancient a monument. The head is in the image of Kephren, a pharaoh of Egypt who caused to be built one of the pyramids that rise on the plain not far from the Sphinx itself.
Kephren found it so weathered with years that its original face could not be recognized, and so caused his craftsmen to put his own image on the head, which for this reason appears unnaturally small for the body. Few know what the original face of the Sphinx resembled, and it is better so, for the knowledge would haunt their dreams and cause them to wake with cries of terror in their throats. It is whispered in dark places by things not wholly human that the great statue once bore the true image of Nyarlathotep, who is commonly supposed to have a thousand masks but no face of his own. By this monument the dark lord of the Old Ones marked a place beneath the earth where power is concentrated.
It is old; far older than the pyramids or the temples, older even than the Nile itself, which flowed by a different course when the Sphinx was shaped by inhuman hands and lush jungle covered the plateau upon which it crouches. There are wise men who have called it the oldest carven image in this world, and this may be true, for it is more ancient than any work of man, and yet older than the works of other races that shared the earth after the changing of the stars rendered our world unfit for the Old Ones. It may be that the monuments of the Elder Race in their great city far to the frozen south were made before Nyarlathotep shaped the Sphinx, but of these nothing is known, for no man has seen them.
The Greeks tell a fable of a creature they call the Sphinx, who has the head and breast of a woman, and who waylays travelers on a lonely mountain road and demands that they give the answer to a riddle she proposes. Those who fail, she devours. All who tried failed, until at last the hero Oedipus gave the correct response, and the Sphinx in vexation and despair hurled herself off the edge of an abyss. The answer to the riddle is well-known, but it is not well understood; it has two meanings, one for children and the other for the wise.
The Sphinx of the Greeks asked the question of travelers: What beast goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? The answer given by Oedipus was man, who in the morning of life crawls on his four limbs, in the noontime of manhood walks on two legs, but in the evening of infirm old age must seek the aid of a stick, and so goes on three legs. The Sphinx, despairing, destroyed herself, misunderstanding the perception of the hero, who guessed the surface of the truth but did not penetrate to its heart.
The race of man was made by the Elder Things in jest to have a foolish creature to mock and to study for their diversion, yet they did not make us as we now appear, but in the beginning our bodies were bestial and hairy, and we progressed across the ground with the aid of our arms, which were longer and more powerful than they are at present. Over time our bodies changed their shape, and became upright and almost hairless. No doubt the Elder Things would have found our present forms less amusing and would have exterminated us, but they were in decline and had been forced to the southern waters of our world, and had no time to play with the form of our race. At some time in the distant future, our shape will be unlike what is seen in this age, and we will go on three legs instead of two. For the riddle of the Sphinx does not concern a single man, but all of mankind.
How childish the tales in the holy books of Adam and Eve in the Garden, where is it written that man is the most beautiful of all creatures, being made in the image of God. Man was made in the image of a crawling, hairy beast for the diversion of overlords not of this world, and our present form is but a passing dream that will give way to some unguessed horror that would frighten women and children, could it be seen, but mercifully it is hidden in the dim mists of future time. Our bodies continue to change because they were made imperfectly, and there can be no stability or rest in imperfection. It is known that the Elder Things themselves go about on three feet that are triangular in shape; but this speculation cannot be pursued in this work, for at its end lies madness.
n the Sphinx there is a doorway that leads to a sloping tunnel extending for three hundred and twenty-six paces beneath the sands of the plateau. The location of this door is hidden both physically by the art of the ancient Egyptian stonemasons, and by spells of misdirection that turn the mind of any common man who happens to stumble on its mechanism, so that he forgets and fails to see what is before his face. Those who know of it, and can resist the clouding of the mind long enough to pass through this portal, are sworn by an oath of most solemn and horrific portent never to reveal its location or the manner by which it is opened. Most scribes, having heard rumors of this door, place it between the paws of the Sphinx, but a hint only may be given in observing that Nyarlathotep was not a god of the rising sun.
At the end of the inclined corridor is a double door of bronze that is sheathed in pounded gold leaf, so that it shines like the sun itself in the light of torches held in the hands of those who approach. The bronze door, like the tunnel before it and the chambers that lie within, are of human workmanship. Whatever older corridors lay beneath the Sphinx before the coming of our race to this world have been obliterated by the reworking of generations of craftsmen over ages of time, for this place has never suffered neglect but has always been the retreat of the worshippers of Nyarlathotep, who study the ways of sorcery and the secrets of death.
Beyond the doors is a long chamber that is perpetually illuminated by oil lamps set in the walls. A row of eleven stone pillars runs down either side of the central walkway so
that there are twenty-two pillars in total supporting the low ceiling, which is painted blue and speckled with numerous golden stars. The pillars are not of the common Egyptian lotus or papyrus designs but are square and black, made from a type of stone not native to the region. Upon each is deeply cut a letter, or rather a number, in the ancient script of the Hebrews, for the Jews use their letters for numbers, having no numbers of their own similar to those we possess.
Above these numbers are golden plates little larger than the flat of the hand, which have been hammered and raised by the goldsmith’s art to present scenes containing fantastic figures in meaningful display, so that each plate conveys a lesson that is composed not of words, but of signs or emblems. These images are unlike any other representations that exist in the world, and are known only to those who have walked the pillared hall, for no hint of their existence has ever been whispered beyond the gate of the Sphinx. Concerning the images upon the plates, it is both unlawful and imprudent to write. Let it only be revealed that some of the figures are human, others older than our race.
At the far end of the chamber of pillars is a small door of cedar wood without adornment. A priest of Nyarlathotep stands vigilant beside it, and will only admit one who can give the sacred sign of that order with his hand. The slightest hesitation or error in presenting the sign results in death, for upon the right index finger of the priest is a small lance dipped in the venom of the black scorpion of the wastes, the merest drop of which in the blood causes putrefaction and death within a span of moments. The scorpion is one of the creations of Nyarlathotep, who placed it upon the world for his pleasure; over the ages its form has divided and changed, and the potency of its venom has diminished, but the black scorpion of the wastes is unchanged from its making by the Chaos That Creeps, and its venom is as it was in the old times.