The path was overgrown in places, but fairly well marked, so that he had little difficulty following it. The moon had risen above the black branches to the east when he finally came in sight of the ruins for which he searched.
Ahead of him several large stones rose out of the darkness, and a strange sensation of apprehension fell over him. He realized at that moment that he had the choice to turn back or press on, and suddenly it seemed a momentous choice. But he had come so far already that he hated to let all his effort go for nothing. So he pressed on.
Around the clearing, and scattered throughout it, rose broken, time-decayed monuments to the Elder Gods, their horrid visages obscured by darkness and the ravages of the passing years. The moment he set foot in the clearing, beneath the blind gazes of the great stone figures, he knew he had made the wrong choice. The muttering he had heard at first grew louder as he stood there. A lurid glare shone some distance ahead, and an impulsive urge drove him to get close enough to see what cast that light.
Moving from one stone figure to another, he managed to draw closer to the gathering in the center. He peered around the flank of a monolith and paused, for he could not believe his eyes.
He saw a gathering of figures from his most terrifying nightmares. Some were tall and thin, with wizened heads and pendulous ears; others sat upright on their haunches and opened huge gaping jaws as they spoke; still other monstrosities had heads of twined serpents that slid and slithered horribly. The pale light that illumined them came from a lantern on the ground. He felt faint as he watched from his hiding place, but he kept very still, for he could envision nothing more horrible than to be discovered by this rout of ghastly creatures.
It occurred to him too late that perhaps they could catch his scent. Abruptly the one nearest to him turned with a horrid sniffing, and jumping to its feet seized him by the collar before he could back away. He fumbled for his pistol, but his hands were stiff with fear. A tentacle slapped it out of his hand. The creatures swarmed all about him, snuffling and making hideous, indescribable sounds of surprise and satisfaction.
He nearly fainted, but did his best to hold himself upright. One pushed itself forward, the strangest, most grotesque of the group, its face formed of writhing entrails. “What is your name?” it asked him in a guttural parody of human speech.
They were clutching him so tightly that he could scarcely breathe, and his heart beat so hard he feared it might burst. But he faced the creature as boldly as he could. “My name is John Riley,” he said, his voice trembling. “Release me, spirit of horror.”
They laughed at that, twittering, raucous, bellowing laughter with more than a hint of madness in it. “We are not spirits, Johnriley,” it said. “We are flesh and blood just as you are. But you are ours now, for you have trespassed on our gathering, and we will decide your fate.
“We will release you now, to spread the fear of us among your kind. But we will come for you . . . Yes, we will come, and you will have nowhere to fly that day. Then we will strip your skin from your bones and suck your brain from its case, and take your mind on a journey into the freezing darkness that no human mind can escape with sanity intact. We will take you to the center of the universe, where mad Nyarlathotep rules, and you will see what all your valiant battles and accomplishments amount to in the end: and that is exactly nothing! Listening to your screams as you descend into madness will be a source of much amusement for us. And when we are done you will gibber forever with the hordes of those who have fallen afoul of the Elder Gods, and that will be your worship.”
The creature raised a tentacle and shoved him. He fell, then scrabbled to his feet. The others parted to make room, howling derision at his fear.
“Go,” cried the monster. “But do not forget. We will come for you when you least expect it.”
Riley backed away, consumed by terror, and fled. He did not remember how he got back to the road, or how he found his way without the flashlight he had lost. He came to himself lying in the mould beside his car, groveling in terror. It was some time before he could recover enough to drive back to his apartment, and still longer before he was able to fall asleep without waking with screams.
He did his best to return to his routine, but it was only with great difficulty that he was able to concentrate on teaching his classes. When he least expected it he would fall into a reverie, and find himself trapped in that clearing once more, facing unimaginable horrors. He would come to himself shivering, white-faced, unable to regain his train of thought with any coherence. His students began to whisper together, and to stop abruptly when he entered the room.
He spent all his free time attempting to devise a means of escape from his hideous fate. He pored over old manuscripts and tales, seeking more information on how others had dealt with their fears; but there he found no solace. From the book of the mad Arab to the most recent biographer of the Elder Gods, every tale ended with the disappearance under devilish circumstances or the descent into madness of those who came to know too much. He saw at last that it was hopeless, and began to fall into despair.
It was on a Friday afternoon as he sat under the elm outside his study, his head in his hands, contemplating the appalling fates he had read of, that his student Andrew approached him. “Excuse me, Professor,” he said, “could you spare me a moment?”
“Why not?” said Riley with a weary smile, for all uses of his time seemed equally futile.
“Forgive me,” said the young man, “but I’ve noticed that you seem somewhat depressed at times.”
“You might say that,” Riley replied.
“I think I know someone who might help you.”
“Really? Does he sell patent medicine, or give spiritualist readings?”
“Neither. He’s given me some very good advice about some problems I had, and I wonder if he might not be of service to you.”
“What kind of problems did you have, if I might ask? I doubt they were anything like mine.”
The young man hesitated. “It’s not something I’m proud of. I got involved with some occult influences, and he helped me break free.”
Riley shook his head. “I’m afraid no one can help me.”
“Then you have nothing to lose.”
Riley squinted up at him. “You are persistent.”
“I’m sorry to see you so down, sir. I wish you’d let me introduce you.”
Riley allowed himself to be persuaded, and found himself following young Andrew across the square to a tiny tobacconist’s shop, squeezed in between a grocer’s and a bakery.
There behind the counter, in the fragrant tobacco-scented dimness, stood a little brown man with a fringe of white hair, who smiled cheerfully at his visitors. “How do you do?” he said, offering his hand. “I am Mr. Brown.”
Andrew introduced his professor and tactfully departed, leaving Riley wondering what to say. But the little brown man soon put him at his ease. “Come outside,” he said, “and smoke a pipe with me.”
They sat on a bench outside the shop, and in the growing twilight Riley soon found himself telling the strange little man all about his foray into the countryside, his meeting with the Elder Gods, and their terrifying threats. He mentioned his subsequent efforts to discover a way of escape, and his despair now that he was sure there was none.
Silence fell when he had finished. “I see,” said Mr. Brown, pulling on his pipe and blowing a smoke ring into the air. “That’s very interesting, indeed.”
“You don’t think I’m mad?” Riley asked. It was a relief to be able to speak of his fears, even if no help could come of it.
“No, no, by no means. There are more strange things going on than we can possibly imagine. But the really strange thing . . .”
“What is that?” Riley asked uneasily.
“The really strange thing,” said Mr. Brown, “is that you believed them.”
“What?”
“You believed them when they told you that all human endeavor is meaningless, that the
center of the universe is the mad god What’s-his-name, and that they have control over your ultimate fate.”
“But all the tales . . .”
“Ah, the tales. Suppose,” said Mr. Brown, “that you worked in a large office building, which was said to have been designed, built, and managed by the wealthy owner, a Mr. Primus. But suppose a group of your coworkers came and told you that Mr. Primus had always been mad, confined to one room, and incapable of putting on his socks without help. Furthermore, that all the work produced in this building was worthless, despite what you or anyone else might think of its value. Would you not suspect their motives, possibly even their truthfulness? Might you not suspect them to be influenced by spite or jealousy, and to have as their end the supplanting of Mr. Primus?”
“When you put it that way . . .” said Riley.
“I do put it that way. I submit to you that when someone admits to you that he delights in inflicting suffering on others, he is not someone to put your trust in. That if you want the truth, you should not consult creatures who appear to be the spawn of evil. And further, that for corroboration, you might not want to delve into the works of men adjudged insane, beginning with the mad Arab.”
“You have a point.” Riley said. “But then, what is the truth?”
Mr. Brown chuckled. “The truth is a very large thing. But I can give you a small glimpse of a part that your monsters neglected to mention.” He went into his shop, rummaged behind the counter, and came out again with a small flask that he gave to Riley. It appeared to be made of glass, but faceted, and the facets flashed like diamond in the last rays of the declining sun. It contained a red liquid.
“It’s only a little wine,” he said, “but it may help you see more clearly. Go out to the city gates, take a sip, and see what you can see. Then we can talk further.”
Riley put the flask in his pocket, thanked his strange interlocutor, and left. It was nearly dark, and he had a fear of the darkness now. But he was determined to try the experiment the next day.
After work the following day he found himself walking in the park at the city gates. It was a small park with a fountain, where children came to sail boats or run on the grass. He sat down on a bench, feeling a little foolish and uneasy at the same time, and taking the flask from his pocket, took a drink. It was sweet wine, with a pleasant, slightly acrid taste. Then he looked around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
A little girl in a yellow dress was playing near the roses. She had picked a pink rose, and stood with the solemn gravity of childhood, immersed in the beauty of the petals. He realized as he looked at the fresh cheek of the child, with her dark curls tangled by the breeze, and the vivid pink of the petals, that she was the loveliest child he had ever seen. She stood thus a moment only, then ran to take the flower to her mother. He realized that he had been concentrating on his fear so much recently that he had been oblivious to anything of beauty.
He looked up at the gates then, and stiffened at what he saw. For there, translucent, but clearly visible to him, was the giant figure of a shining being, who stood with arms cruciform and head bent, his back to the iron spikes of the gate, muscles straining to hold it shut.
Behind the gate struggled a horde of amorphous, frightful creatures, gibbering, screeching, clawing, trying to force their way in, but they could not compel the shining man to move one iota.
A moment only Riley stared at this sight, then the vision vanished and he saw only the high gate itself, closed now at the end of the day.
At length he rose unsteadily and made his way back to the tobacconist’s shop. There he found Mr. Brown, pulling his shutters closed and as cheery as usual. Riley told him what he had seen.
“Well, that sounds a deal more cheerful than what you saw before.”
“Yes, but was it my imagination? Or the drink?”
“Did it seem like your imagination?”
“No-o,” said Riley. “But what was it?”
“You saw the Guardian,” said Mr. Brown. “Now, I’ll give you a word of advice, if I may be so bold. When you get into a tight spot, sometime down the road, you can always ask the Guardian for a hand. That’s what he’s there for.”
“You mean, as long as I’m here in Cobham?”
“No, I mean anywhere—anywhere you could go. You have only to ask for help, and I expect you might get some.”
Riley shook his head. “I wish I knew more about all this.”
“Have a cigar,” said Mr. Brown.
They smoked awhile in companionable silence, then Riley went home to bed. He did not see the tobacconist for the next few weeks, and when next he thought to visit the tobacco shop, it was closed. That is, it had vanished. The bakery and the grocer’s stood next to each other, and there was no longer any sign of the little door and narrow window full of pipes, tobacco and dusty cigar boxes. In answer to his questions, the plump woman in the bakery said that her shop had always stood next to the grocer’s. She looked at him so dubiously that he did not pursue the matter any further.
He thought it odd, but no more odd than other things that had befallen him. Over the next few months he regained some of his cheer, for the little man’s manner had been infectious and his advice gave Riley hope that all might not be lost. He still woke choking and gasping at times from his nightmares, but they were not nearly as bad as they had been earlier.
Seven years passed, and Riley thought the Elder Gods must have forgotten their threats, for nothing untoward had occurred. He came home late one night, past the dark mouth of the alley that he usually passed. He was thinking about Alice, the lovely young library assistant, and wondering if he should ask her out, when he heard a rustling in the dark. He caught the glint of a knife as a fist jerked him into the alley, and the blow to his throat took him utterly by surprise.
He fell against the brick wall as the mugger’s running footsteps faded, and felt the blood pouring from his throat, and knew he could not survive. His last earthly thought was, at least they have forgotten me.
But it was not to be.
Only a flicker of consciousness remained to him when he heard a whisper in his ear, and felt a breath of wind even colder than his encroaching death. “We have come for you, Johnriley,” said the gleeful, hideous voice.
Then suffocating darkness descended and he died. But his mind awoke, and he found himself rising, trapped in a metal device of the creatures who had terrified him so when he had met them in his body. Now he was only a disembodied brain, a mind for them to torment, and he felt even more vulnerable than the first time.
He felt a whistling chill wind, and although he had no eyes he could see through the walls of the device out into the dark night. They carried him through desolate distances of space and time, over the barrenness of vast desert planets, through the freezing darkness of the space between the stars. His fear was great, but he refused to give in to despair.
They sucked him down the maw of black holes, to the edges of infinite darkness, and he did not give in to despair, for he was determined to remain human.
They took him through the caverns where gibber the shadow hordes of those who have succumbed to despair, and worship the Elder Gods in their madness and anguish. The creatures’ insane laughter in his ears tormented him like the meaningless buzzing of flies, but he did not despair.
Then they took him last to the lonely asteroid at the center of the universe, where in his cavern Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players and defecates on himself.
Riley said, “You are no god of mine. I defy you.”
But the buzzing in his ears whispered, “There is no meaning. There is no one to hear your defiance.”
Then his last hope crumbled and he felt despair flooding him. But the words of the tobacconist came to his mind. With his last scrap of courage he whispered, though he had no voice, “Guardian, help me.”
At once there came to him the memory of the lovely little girl, with her brow
n curls and pink rose. He realized that in the freezing eons of space he had forgotten the existence of beauty. Then he looked beyond the ugly little blind god in his dark cavern, and saw a crack in the cavern wall.
He moved toward the crack, and saw that it opened on a bright blue sky suffused with sunlight. The crack widened as he looked and became a window.
The blind god behind him howled with rage. But he felt the warmth of the sunlight, and he could hear laughter that had no madness in it. And he could feel sorrow, but it was sorrow that he would rather have felt than all the pleasures of earth. Filled with immeasurable gratitude, he fell into the deep blue well of eternity.
The End
Silent Presence
“You’re wasting your time,” said the manager, slamming his fist on the desk. “And what’s worse, you’re wasting our resources.”
“I think not,” said Father Horace, raising mild eyes to the man’s choleric face. “If I’m not mistaken, the church pays for my keep as long as I’m here.”
“A pittance.” The manager, whose name was Joshua Simon, waved a dismissive hand. “I’m sure you eat up more than they pay.”
“But that’s not your real objection, is it?” Father Horace asked.
Simon folded his arms. “No. I hate to see a man hitting his head against a brick wall. The supply ship leaves next week. I suggest, again, that you be on it.”
“I haven’t given up.” Father Horace glanced out of the vast window that overlooked the quarry below, where the dogmen were working. “I’m sure they recognize me now.”
“Of course they recognize you!” Simon thrust a hand at the pit bull lying beside his desk, wearing a steel prong collar. “Rebel here recognizes you, you’ve been around long enough. That’s no sign of intelligence.”
Horace sighed and hoisted himself to his feet. “Well, we don’t agree. But I appreciate your concern.”
“Huh!” snorted Simon. “Even if they did start to understand you, you’d just be causing trouble. I don’t want you putting any ideas in their heads. There’s a reason they picked dog DNA, you know. They’re docile, hard workers. I tried working with the cats; they just look at you and sneer, and of course the rats steal everything that isn’t bolted down. Take the next flight, if you have any sense. I’m sure you could be doing some do-goodery that actually does good, somewhere else.”
The Golden Helm: More Tales from the Edge of Sleep Page 4