by Donald Tyson
She did not recognize the traveler as the lover of her childhood, for his face was horrifyingly disfigured, and though he might have used a simple glamour of magic to present to her a false visage, he chose to meet her eyes unchanged, and found to his amazement that his heart was unmoved by the haughty glance from her curtained coach as she passed, so completely had the fire of love that had once burned in his heart fallen to ashes. In truth it has been spoken that all wounds are healed with the passage of time, yet not without scars.
He watched the caravan pass from sight and beyond hearing, then followed in its track until dark, and when the camp was asleep, he entered the tent of the sleeping princess and took from her private jewel case a pendant he had given her as a pledge of his love so many years before. It was not a thing of value, but to reclaim it amused him. In its place he put a living scorpion, then softly closed the lid of the box. His power of magic made it an easy matter to enter and leave the armed camp without discovery. Not waiting to learn the outcome of his little jest, he returned to his own road and continued on his way to Damascus.
Upon this road are to be encountered at intervals bright yellow wagons enclosed by wooden canopies that serve as the living places of a devious and arrogant people erroneously believed to originate in Egypt, although they have no appearance of the pure-blooded Egyptians presently to be found in Memphis or Alexandria, nor do they resemble the wandering bands of tinkers who derive their name among the common people from the land of the Nile. This degenerate sect call themselves Thugians, which in their tongue signifies the crafty race, and roam throughout the world with impunity. They may be known by the image of a red eye, tipped on its point and standing upright, which they paint upon the fronts of their wagons.
Wherever they go, they earn the reputation of thieves and vagabonds. Having no fixed homes, neither do they possess dedicated professions, but make their living, the men by cutting wood or shaping pots or grinding knives, and the woman by assisting at childbirths and divination with the lines of the palm. At any rate, these are their purported occupations, for it is well-known that the men gain most of their wealth through theft, and the woman through whoring and the inducing of abortions, along with the sale of love philters.
A few among our scholars have speculated that they are the descendants of Cain the accursed, who when marked by God after the murder of his brother was shunned by all creatures; others believe they are the lost tribe of Israel, condemned to wander the world yet never to find a home. It seems a more probable conjecture that they came from the distant east, harried from their place of dwelling by the Greek conqueror Alexander, who led his armies into India and despoiled many uncouth and pagan realms before succumbing to disease. As for their more primal origins, understanding may be found in the seventh book of Herodotus, in which the historian describes a Persian tribe called Sagartians, who fought in the ranks of the great army of Xerxes.
They are hated and shunned in every land, so that even the nameless bands of wanderers seek to slay them whenever they encounter their piss-colored wagons, for they say that the Thugians pretend to be them, and poison the minds of townsfolk against all wayfarers. To avoid the wrath of their foes, the Thugians never make camp for more than a few nights in one place. The road itself is their home, and they obey no laws other than those they have formed.
The men are resolute and bold, with handsome faces and strong bodies, while the women possess a dark beauty. In each traveling band one among them is known as their lord, and to him they give grudging obedience, though in truth they all carry themselves with the haughtiness of noble blood, and offer no more than a guarded acquaintance to those not of their own race. Their children are without playfulness. Even at the age of five years they mimic the distant and appraising looks of their parents, and go about walking rather than running, and silent rather than laughing.
It is an easy matter for a necromancer versed in the arcane arts to gain their sufferance as a travel companion, for the women are ever eager to learn new methods of magic, though they share little of their own knowledge in return. Their interests are of a petty sort, for they value only charms that can be turned to a profit or used to injure their enemies without fear of detection. Though both men and women are fearless in battle, they do not scruple to employ deceit where it suits their purposes.
In their souls is a harsh joy for life but no gentleness or kindness, either toward beasts or men.
When Christian monks or followers of the Prophet on the road in pilgrimage ask about their faith, they pretend that they worship the sun and moon, but if pressed for the details of their beliefs, they cease to speak and turn away with sullen expressions. This is merely a pretense, for no race in this world is so skillful at lies. A traveler who rides and camps with them along the road, and who observes their ways with keen attention, will be able to discern the matter they wish to conceal. In every family wagon they keep a portable shrine made of carved sandalwood, with closed doors that hide its contents. Each night the father makes worship before this shrine, and before the idol it holds, leading his family in chants and prayer. This is done within the wagon, after its entrance has been sealed against the night, by the light of an oil lamp; and his slaves, if he has sufficient wealth to own slaves, remain outside the wagon.
The traveler who has succeeded in gaining a portion of the trust of this strange race, for no outsider can ever gain their complete confidence, will be able to purchase for gold a brief glance within one of these shrines. He will discover that the goddess of these wanderers is an obscene form of Shub-Niggurath, the goat of a thousand young. The Thugians keep numerous goats, which serve them for meat, milk, and cloth, and they value fertility in their women above all other virtues or beauties. They believe that Shub-Niggurath blesses them with abundance both of their livestock and in the number of their children. They venerate the womb and the things that issue from it, and for this reason their female infants are valued as highly as their males. It is their faith that they hold a unique covenant with Shub-Niggurath established in the most ancient times, before the recording of histories, and that for so long as they uphold their part in this bargain, the goddess will favor them with fertility.
The image of Shub-Niggurath kept in their family shrines is not to be seen elsewhere in the known world, though perhaps it is common in the undiscovered land of their origin. It consists of a small stone idol in the shape of a dancing woman, her breasts and vulva exposed. Her hair is ragged, her eyes blaze with fury, and her tongue hangs from her open mouth, which is distorted by a leer of lust. About her neck hangs a long necklace made up of human skulls. Her swollen belly shows that she is pregnant. Men and women touch the belly of this image when they seek to conceive children, and before coupling chant the words A’ai y’gatu I’il ro’kanah Shub-Niggurath, which may be translated into our tongue from the language of the Old Ones, Fulfill thou thy covenant with the crafty race, Shub-Niggurath. They chant the words but have forgotten their meaning, since' no Thugian understands the tongue of the being they serve.
he young men of the Thugians carry neither sword nor lance, for it is a decree of the covenant established with their obscene dancing goddess that no man of the tribe may shed even one drop of the blood of a foe. Instead, they wear a yellow and white scarf about their heads, or sometimes their necks, knotted in cunning fashion to provide firm grips for the hands, and equipped with a loop that may be used to make an expandable noose. All of their killing of men is done by means of strangulation. They are trained in this method of murder from boyhood, and even the least of them is possessed of uncanny stealth and skill.
The way of the art is this: they approach from behind, cast the scarf around the neck of their prey, and hold it tight until he ceases to struggle; then they thread the end through the loop to make a sliding noose and draw it tight while standing over their fallen foe with their foot against his neck. This posture they maintain until death is certain. Women they do not kill, for it is forbidden by Shub-Nigg
urath. The women of the tribe suffer no similar constraint, and bear long knives in their girdles, which they employ at the slightest provocation against those who do them injury.
In explanation of this curious prohibition against the shedding of blood, the women of the wagons tell a legend from the beginning of the world. Human children borne in the ever-fertile womb of the goddess were being consumed as quickly as they issued forth by a monstrous demon, preventing the Black Mother from creating the race of man. So vast was the bulk of the demon that when it stood in the midst of the deepest sea, the waters did not rise above its waist. The Mother grew angry at the deaths of her children and used a great sword to battle the demon in the sea, but each time she cut its body, the drops of its blood formed demons similar to itself, though smaller of stature. They contested with her so fiercely that she despaired of ever defeating them.
Wiping the sweat from her brow, she made from it two men, the first of the crafty race. She tore strips from the hem of her garment and gave one to each man, commanding them to strangle each small demon as it issued from the blood of the parent. This task they accomplished with such swiftness and skill that she was able to prevail over the monster with her sword and send it beneath the waves. In gratitude for the help of the two stranglers, the goddess forged a covenant with their tribe, commanding that they slay all those not of their blood in her name, yet never by the sword, only by the noose. In return, she pledged to send them good fortune and perpetual fertility.
So diligently has the crafty race performed their part in the compact, they continue to be a source of terror even in our age of the Prophet. For they have the hellish skill to disguise themselves as the common people of the lands through which they pass, gaining the trust of strangers and allowing them to plot death with impunity. Nor do they kill in passion or those they hate or fear, but coldly and without feeling they slay any who fall under their knotted scarves, making of it a kind of sport and competing with each other to achieve the greatest number of deaths or the most artful murders, all for the honor of their religious faith.
The most important part of the covenant is known as the rite of the companion. On the third day after the birth of a child, a ritual is performed by the Thugians in which the child is pledged to the service of Shub-Niggurath for the remainder of its days of life. By the pattern of this rite a spiritual creature that is an unbodied offspring of the prolific goat is called down and induced to enter the flesh of the infant. Soul of the child and soul of the spiritual creature become united. It is this that most distinctly sets this race apart from other men, for in later years this servant of Shub-Niggurath is always with them and obeys their will in the capacity of a familiar demon; at their command it leaves their flesh and flies to fulfill their errands.
The traveler fortunate enough to have gained the partial trust of this most secretive race, and able to purchase a seat at the rite of the companion, will find himself in a ring with many others around a large fire blazing beneath the stars. All their communal rites and social customs, other than the private nightly worship of the family within the wagon, are performed beneath the open sky. Care is taken to choose a place that is far enough apart from local habitations to prevent discovery. If the terrain permits, a sheltered hollow between low hills is preferred, since this provides a mask for the fire glow.
The father of the child, whether it be a girl or a boy, carries the infant naked in his hands from his wagon. The elders of the race who are passing through the region where the rite is conducted, and who have gathered to assist in its fulfillment, draw close to the fire, and the four most senior among them approach the flames until they stand near enough to touch them, and though it appears that they must be scorched by the heat of the fire, they are not injured or in any way inconvenienced by the blaze.
The father approaches the fire with his child, and stands close so that his body, when joined with the four seniors of the rite, forms one of the five points of a pentagram around the fire. In the outer ring the women begin to sing a wordless song composed all of vowel sounds that are droned on the breath in the nose and back of the throat, and the young men to play music on flutes and flat drums that are struck with curved sticks and have silver rattles set in their sides. With the song and music they raise their emotions to a fury and sway their bodies rhythmically forward and back.
The most senior of the four who surround the fire with the father begins to make invocation to Shub-Niggurath in their own language, which is unknown outside their race but does not resemble the ancient tongue of Egypt nor the language of the Hebrews, as some scholars have written on the evidence of spurious assertions by those who have claimed to know this race. It may also be written with assurance that this invocation is not in the language of the Old Ones, save only for the single phrase a’ai y’gatu I’il ro’kanah Sbub-Niijtjurath, which is many times repeated, and serves as a kind of chant of power to punctuate the various parts of the invocation.
As the music and wordless song rises in strength, the father passes the naked babe through the smoke and flames into the hands of one of the four elders, and as the exchange is made, a great shout goes up from all assembled. Five times the child is passed through the fire, but this is done swiftly so that no harm comes to it from the flames, though the irritation of the smoke in the infant’s eyes and lungs causes it to cry lustily. A secret may be revealed not written elsewhere, and perhaps unknown outside of the camps of the wanderers themselves, for not even Ibn Schacabao alludes to it in his voluminous texts. The infant is passed from man to man in such a way that its progress around the fire imitates the interlocking rays of the pentagram drawn with one continuous stroke of the pen against the course of the sun; for it is well-known to students of the necromantic arts that the pentagram is inscribed as a sign of power only when drawn with a continuous line that joins its end with its beginning.
At the fifth great shout, when the pentagram has been completed around the fire, a young goat white and spotless is led into the circle by the mother of the child. It walks calmly, without resistance, as though aware in some dim way of its higher purpose, and submissive to the will of the goddess. Two girls in the first season of their flowers hold it with ropes tied to its forelegs to prevent its escape, should it attempt to flee the fire, but this is said to be seldom necessary. The mother of the child draws back the head of the goat with one hand, and with the other cuts its throat, as the father thrusts the wailing infant beneath the fountain of blood that issues from the wound. The baby is bathed completely in blood before the goat stumbles and falls dead, while the frenzied observers of the rite make an enormous din by shouting, clapping their hands, stomping their feet, and beating on metal pots and shields with sticks and stones.
The elders pick up the carcass of the goat and cast it upon the fire. As the smoke from its burning coat rises into the night sky, the senior among them takes the child from the blood-stained hands of the father and elevates it directly above the fire as high as he is able to hold his arms to prevent the child from being burned. What happens next is a mystery of this race, that all observers of the rite are pledged on their life never to reveal, and none have done so, for it is universally believed to be unlucky to speak of the mysteries of any people, and that such irreverence to sacred matters calls down upon their heads the wrath of the gods. However, it may be written that a presence in the form of a mist or smoke descends from the stars against the course of the smoke rising from the fire, and it envelops the body of the infant and is drawn within its flesh.
At the very moment the presence enters the child, it ceases to wail and becomes silent and alert. Those who gaze into its eyes detect an unnatural awareness that is the sure sign of the indwelling of its familiar demon. Although the mind of the babe is unformed, the mind of the demon is complete and mature. It is years before the awareness of the child and the awareness of its familiar spirit become merged in harmony.
The rite concludes with much celebration and fornication, which
takes place just beyond the ring of wagons and the illumination of the fire. If either of the two girls who led out the sacred goat is a maiden, she is ritually deflowered on that night and her virginity given as an offering to Shub-Niggurath, and this is considered to increase the luck for the child. An attempt is always made to find at least one virgin for the rite, but this is not always possible, and where none is available the rite proceeds to the discomfort of the parents, who look upon the lack of a deflowering as an ill omen. The people dance, drink wine, and feast, but they do not partake of the charred flesh of the goat, which is permitted to be wholly consumed in the fire. To insure this result, wood is constantly added to the flames for the remainder of the night. The rite does not conclude until the first light of dawn, when the revelers retire to their wagons to sleep.
he goat with a thousand young gives the roving race that worships her abundance and fertility and a measure of good fortune in matters of chance that is above the allotment of common men. The luck of the Thugian allows him to commit housebreakings or thefts without discovery, and if he is found out and taken, to escape his captivity with ease, so that no bolder band of robbers walks this earth. It also assists in the more sinister act of murder, which they commit against strangers not solely for the greater glory of their goddess but also for profit. When they kill openly in sight of men it is in the heat of passion, but when they kill for money it is done coldly and in secret.