by Donald Tyson
It is the nature of this beast that it captures the souls and minds of those it consumes and retains them within itself. Each soul expresses itself by projecting its head, and when that head is formulated, it is capable of responding to any question that may be put to it, for it remembers all its knowledge acquired during life. The strongest souls of those consumed by this creature project their heads most often, but they cannot sustain their projection for any longer than the weakest soul, which is no more than the tenth part of an hour, so that the heads are constantly melting into the scaly flesh of the beast and changing into other heads. The souls speak independent of the beast but cannot act of their own wills.
It is frustrating to seek a complex answer to a question of necromancy from the head of a wizard, only to have it sink away and be replaced by the head of a weeping child. The number of heads within the beast is beyond counting, so great is its age. It cannot prevent the heads from speaking, but it attempts to slay and consume the traveler who questions them. Its weapons are its sharp black talons, longer than the outstretched fingers of a man, and a curved gray beak that is set in the base of the necks below the changing heads. It sees through the eyes of those it has made a part of itself, and hears with their ears, but it eats with its own mouth that is incapable of speech, yet can emit piercing shrieks of rage like those of a hawk, but many times louder. Whether it possesses a mind of its own, wholly independent of the minds of those it has consumed, is not evident from its actions, which are those of an unthinking beast; even so, it is cunning and will wait for the traveler to relax his vigilance, then attempt to strike.
The Elder Seal engraved upon a disk of gold and worn about the neck holds it at bay. It respects the Elder Seal because it is a thing associated with the Old Ones, and though the seal cannot cause it hurt or even restrain it in any material manner, it fears it as the wolf fears the very sight of the campfire, even when it has suffered no burn. The traveler who is not fortunate to possess the talisman of the seal risks dismemberment all the while he remains within the sewers unless he knows the making of the Elder Seal with the hand, for the Elder Seal made with the hand quells the rage of the beast almost as well as the graven mark of the seal.
The true making of the sign is to cross the longest finger of the right hand on top of the third finger, and to touch the tip of the first finger against the tip of the thumb. The conjoined thumb and first finger are projected forward while holding the smallest finger upright and the crossed middle fingers at an intermediate angle. With practice this sign may be formed in an instant whenever the creature exhibits aggression, and held for as long as is required.
The protection offered by the exhibition of the sign is effective even in total darkness; in some way that cannot be fathomed the beast senses its presence when it cannot be seen by the eyes. Perhaps the lines and joinings of the fingers of the sign change the very shape and texture of space itself so that the beast can feel its form, even as do the graven marks of the seal; this is a matter of conjecture, but what is certain is that the sign safeguards the life of one who ventures into the sewers beneath Babylon, and must not be omitted, for to enter these tunnels in ignorance of its making is certain death.
Enter the sewers near the remains of the east gate through the pit that lies between two fallen pillars, one of which has broken into three parts. Make your way westward toward the center of the city, where is situated the dry cistern in which the creature dwells. You will know that you are near when you hear the cries and babbling of its heads, for they never cease to lament their fate, and many of them are mad, and they argue amongst themselves and berate and insult each other as their only recreation. The stench of the thing is strong, and that also will guide you. The rats in the tunnels provide adequate nourishment, but their blood is uncommonly thick and salty, so it is wise to carry skins of water if you intend to stay more than a single night.
The time to question the heads is not long. During the daylight hours the beast sleeps or rests in torpor, and the heads are listless and unresponsive to questions. Perhaps they dream? Who can know, but it is certain that they are of no use in this state for the gathering of knowledge. The beast will stir itself into wakefulness if approached, in order to defend itself, but once it perceives that it faces no threat it will descend back into sleep. Once full dark has fallen, it does not tarry in the tunnels but rushes away and emerges through the pit at the east gate, which is the widest entrance to the sewers, and spreads its wings and flies aloft in search of nourishment. At dawn it returns and immediately sleeps, whether it has fed or not. Only at the hour of dusk is it fully awake and aware, and at this time it may be questioned on any topic, and will provide such answers as the heads that are projected care to give.
The heads cannot be forced to make answer by physical means, since they are indestructible. If struck off to the great rage of the beast, they merely grow anew from its shoulders at some later time. However, it is possible for the wise traveler to use his knowledge to compel the heads to speak in various ways, by playing on the weakness and vanity of the souls they express, or by pitting one head against another. Each of the more potent heads, who emerge from the monster’s flesh most frequently, believes itself to be the wisest, and delights to contradict or correct the answers of the others. In this way knowledge may be gained, if the traveler is patient.
The wisest of the heads is a wizard named Belaka, who long ago dwelt in the mountains of the east. His skull is bald, and the skin of his cheeks and his teeth alike are the yellow of old parchment, but his dark eyes hold keen awareness and glitter with amusement, as though savoring some wry jest. He is the oldest of the heads that remains sane, and the most frequent to emerge from the beast. He readily speaks with those who visit the sewers and will share his arcane arts, but for diversion he sometimes lapses into forgotten tongues to vex his listener. A blazing torch thrust into his face in the left hand, while the Elder Sign is made with the right to hold the beast at bay, will remind him of his place and cause him to return to our common language, which he has learned from the babbling of other heads.
He likes to relate the tale of his death, how one evening while walking on a mountain trail, after making sacrifice of a goat beneath the stars, he was startled by the soft beat of wings. Before he could raise his head, shadows enveloped his body, and the talons of the beast pierced his back between the shoulders and severed his spine, rendering him unable to move his arms or legs. Cursing imprecations at the monster that held him captive, he felt himself swept into the air and carried to a high mountain ledge, where he endured the ignominy of watching his body painlessly torn apart, to the laughter and mockeries of the monster’s seven heads; for having endured this indignity, they take delight to see others suffer through an equal horror.
t the fall of dusk, after the setting of the sun and when the stars begin to appear, the beast emerges from the sewers to hunt. The bold traveler, who follows its progress through the tunnels and exits the pit at its heels, may choose this moment to mount upon its back between its outspread wings, which it fans in the air to strengthen after having held them cramped to its back. A man who wears an engraving of the Elder Seal about his neck as a talisman may dare to do this, for to such a man the beast submits. If he has no talisman around his neck, he must form and hold the Elder Seal all the while he is astride the beast or it will turn and rend him. His weight is as nothing to the creature, who carries him upward above the highest mountains in its quest for food.
It is the habit of the beast to haunt the roads and caravan routes, and to circle the outskirts of villages and cities. At times its ranging flight carries it over the river Euphrates, where even the pilots of cargo boats are not safe from its strike. When it spies its prey it folds its wings and stoops like a hawk. Near to the ground it suddenly spreads its wings and stretches downward its taloned forelegs. The traveler must take great care to hold to its back with tenacity or he will surely be thrown off. The hapless and unwary man below is snatched i
nto the air with the ease by which a mother lifts an infant from its cradle, and before he can cry out the talons of the monster tighten and pierce his breast and slay him.
At once, while the meat is still fresh and dripping with blood, the beast seeks a secure rock flat or dune of sand upon which to feast. Its beak tears the flesh from the corpse in long strips, leaving only naked bones and the skin that covers the hands, feet, and head, as there is not enough meat on these parts of the body to interest it. The skull it cracks with its beak so that it may devour the brain. How the soul of the dead enters the beast is not apparent, but it may be consumed along with the blood, for the blood is the seat of the soul in the body.
After feasting the beast makes a strange pilgrimage of mysterious purpose, for it flies to a lonely mountain in the desert that is flat upon its peak and there alights before a standing stone. The stone is as large as those in the temple of Albion, but black in color rather than blue. From the time it arrives until shortly before the rising of the sun it circles the stone and makes homage before it, crouching its body and bowing down its many heads as though in worship, and the voices of the heads fall silent. No mark is cut upon the stone, and no sign is to be found upon the peak that shows the hand of man. The souls devoured by the beast are ignorant of its nightly purpose, but the wisest of them all, the wizard Balaka, speculates that it is the place of the creature’s making, and that in coming to the mountain it returns to its first home.
The flat land of the mountaintop is barren save for small tufts of browning grasses that grow between the rocks and a kind of plant that Balaka calls u’mal that is to be found nowhere else in the world. The u’mal is tough and dry, and grows close to the rocks amid the grass. It bears a tiny white flower that resembles a star. When pulled from the earth, its thickened root is exposed, and in this root lies its virtue. The dried root, chewed in the mouth together with fresh human blood, heals all diseases, even those that are invariably fatal. The root alone is insufficient, and the blood must be drawn from a living human body other than the man who seeks the remedy, for his own blood will not serve to empower the root. The juice of the root when mingled in the mouth with blood becomes fiery and courses through the limbs, driving the disease before it and expelling it from the body, so that the work of healing is only a matter of a few minutes.
The u’mal could not grow upon the peak without the nightly visits of the beast. In its circumambulations of the standing stone it drops its dung upon the rocks and windblown sand, and makes them fertile for this rare plant. Nor can it be harvested except by a man who rides the beast, for the peak where it grows is unknown, and an inspection of its slopes reveals that they are impossible to climb even were its location to somehow be determined. It may be that the peak lies beyond the boundaries of the earthly sphere, for the air upon the peak has a curious vital quality not to be found elsewhere, and it is known that some of the children of Shub-Niggurath have the power to span the spaces between worlds.
As much of the u’mal root as can be conveniently carried should be gathered while the beast circles the stone in its worship. Even when dried and kept for months or years, it does not lose its virtue. Those who know of it are willing to pay vast sums to possess the merest fragment, and a man who keeps a good supply for his own use is immortal, as the root not only cures any disease of the flesh but counters the effects of old age and renders the body youthful, when it is chewed regularly once every cycle of the moon. The root cannot make an old man look young in the face, or heal disfiguring scars, but it renders him energetic in his limbs so that he can do the work of a young man, and also it makes him youthful in his virile member so that he can performs feats of sensual congress that are only possible in youth, unless by some ill chance he has suffered the indignity of castration.
When the beast ceases to adore the stone, and approaches the edge of the peak to spread wide its wings, it is time to mount once more upon its back, for this is the sign that it prepares for flight. In the pale glow of the sky it flies east, for the horizon is brighter before it than behind, but so early is the hour that nothing can be distinguished in the lands that pass below except the vague shadows of sharp peaks that rise up like the blades of swords and daggers. Hastening at the end of its journey, it crawls into the pit by the east gate of Babylon just as the first ray of the sun is breaking upon the stones of the fallen pillars. Such is the monotonous cycle of its life, though in truth it is no more dull than the lives of many men, who toil from dawn to dusk for their masters and receive scant reward for having given over the fruits of their labor and the precious and irreplaceable strokes of their hearts.
rom the ruins of Babylon the seeker of mysteries will do well to turn his face east across the rocky lands to the river Tigris, where dwell the remnants of the royal caste of the magi. No men greater in wisdom inhabit this world, for they have gathered the secrets of both east and west and combined it in a single teaching. The way is arduous by foot, but less daunting upon one of the camels that may be obtained from the village of Azani south of the ruins.
In the spring of the year at the time of the equinox, sit upon your camel at the east gate of Babylon and fix your eyes upon the rising sun at morning. Ride directly toward the place of its ascent on the horizon until dusk, without stopping to eat or rest until darkness has fallen. Do this each day for three days, and you will come at the sunset of the third day upon the mouth of a narrow pass in a range of rocky hills. It cannot be seen except in the slanting rays of the setting sun, which reveal the shadow of its slit. The heat rising from the rocks makes the air dance, so that the mouth of the pass appears to open and shut, as though speaking.
The finding of the pass is no easy matter, even for one who knows its location. It is guarded by a powerful and ancient glamour that turns the mind away when the gaze falls upon it, so that it is both seen yet remains unseen. Only a man versed in the arts of magic can sense this spell and willfully resist, yet few even among the greater wizards possessing potency in their art are able to overcome its seductive veil, so subtle yet insistent is its ray upon the eyes.
Enter between the rock walls of the pass, which is so narrow that only a single camel can go in at one time, and it will lead into a narrow defile that eventually opens into a broad and pleasant valley of fertile lands. High cliffs rise all around it, making access impossible except from the pass to the west. From a prominence in the western part of the valley bubbles a spring of clear water that divides into four streams flowing in four directions. These water the rich, dark soil before combining at the eastern end of the valley to flow in a single course into a cave, where they vanish beneath the earth; for the floor of the valley is sloped gently down from west to east.
The hidden valley is thick with forest and filled with many strange birds and beasts not to be encountered anywhere else, though none of them are noxious to man. So tame are these creatures, they approach unafraid until they are near enough to grasp in the hands and strangle, offering the traveler a ready supply of fresh meat. In addition, the valley has many fig trees and nut trees, so that food of various kinds is to be had in abundance. The still air is mild, and laden with the scent of spices. Indeed, there is no more pleasant land in the world.
Within the forest dwells a gentle tribe that flees the arrival of travelers and hides among the trees until they have departed. These barbarians are small of stature and dark-skinned from the sun, for it is their custom to go about naked save for a few strings of amber and crystal beads on their necks and arms, and brightly colored flowers braided in their long hair. When questioned by means of signs made with the hands, they declare in their musical language that the valley is their land, which they call Edena. It can only be the Eden described in the Hebrew holy book Bereshit.
They are a primitive race possessing no knowledge of necromancy, and they fear violence, so they may be safely ignored, as it is unlikely they will offer any threat to a visitor from outside their land, particularly if he takes the trouble to demo
nstrate upon the throat of one of their larger young men the use of a knife. In spite of their nakedness, they have a strange grace in their way of walking and an incongruous pride in their own imagined importance that makes them amusing to observe. Their vacated huts contain stores of fruits and nuts, freeing the traveler from the trouble of foraging for food in the forest. Of fire they know nothing, and their tools are of stone. Nor do they possess any form of writing or pictorial expression. At dusk they sing to each other, and it may be that they use these songs to teach their children. Their greatest skill is in the making of baskets, at which they excel to such an extent that the weave of their baskets is like the weave of fine cloth.
Deep within the shelter of the tallest and oldest trees of the forest is a small clearing of bare earth that has at its center a black obelisk of the height of a man, rising from the center of a stone disk that is like a great millstone. The disk is of the common stone of the valley, but the obelisk is alien to that region. Its four sides are stained with the rust of dried blood, and this same stain colors the stone wheel that supports it, for the primitives adore the black stone as their god and offer a sacrifice of blood to it daily. They will not eat one of the wild pigs that flourish in such abundance in the forest unless it has had its throat slashed with a stone knife against the black pillar before the assembled multitude of the tribe. Their god must eat before the people feed, and this is their manner of homage. Having no means to cook meat, they consume it raw in thin strips, but pounded with dried herbs to soften its texture.