Shadows Bend

by David Barbour

  Y’ AI ‘NG’NGAH,

  YOG-SOTHOTH H’EEL’GEB F’AITHRODOG

  UAAAH

  “This is gibberish,” she said. “It’s not any kind of Latin I’ve ever read or heard of.”

  “It has a certain guttural resonance to my ear,” said Lovecraft. “That would be in keeping with the speech apparatus of the Old Ones. A corruption, perhaps?”

  Smith perched on the stool, adjusting the uneven three legs. “MY guess is that we have anagrams of Latin terms,” he said. “The symbols in the margins might serve as a key to how they are to be unscrambled.” He read a few lines himself, trying the words in different configurations of letters until he arrived at something familiar.

  Glory began to write them down in the order in which they made sense of the individual words. But what they had was still gibberish.

  “I recommend you apply the same logic to the words,” offered Lovecraft. “Rearrange the words until they appear as sentences?”

  “We don’t have enough words yet for that,” said Glory.

  “Then I suggest you proceed.”

  “HP,” said Howard.

  “Eh?”

  “I suggest we let them get at it. I could use a little leg stretchin’ myself. If the two of ya don’t mind, me and HP here are gonna go have a look around,” said Howard.

  “You appear to be getting on just famously without us,” said Lovecraft.

  Smith gave the men an arched eyebrow, but Glory hardly noticed,

  “Don’t be away too long,” said Smith. “And don’t stray too far. There are still lots of unmarked and abandoned mineshafts in these hills.”

  “We ain’t kids, Clark.”

  “Duly noted,” said Lovecraft.

  The two men walked toward the cabin and then past it on the trail.

  In the late-afternoon light the oaks looked especially blue, their leaves almost surreal against their dark gray trunks. When they looked back toward the cabin poised there in the dry landscape with the empty Chevy standing in front, the place looked utterly abandoned.

  “I have a bad feelin’ about all this, HP.” Howard hunched his shoulders and kicked at a rock in the dust. “We never shoulda picked her up.”

  “She seems to have become rather essential to us, in my humble opinion,” Lovecraft replied.

  “Aren’t you suspicious? It’s like she was planted there waiting for us. How do we know she ain’t the real servant of Cthulhu and the odd men are just following you around to throw us off?”

  “That hardly seems likely, given how she has suffered on our account, and given how much of her tragic history we have learned over the past days.”

  “Would ya put it past your Cthulhu people to fake all of that?”

  “In one of our stories, perhaps,” Lovecraft said thoughtfully. “If Glory were a character in one of our Weird Tales, then one might expect some machinations in the plot that would expose her as an ally of the Old Ones. But, remember, Bob, this is not one of our tales. This is reality, which is hardly as interesting, and such machinations are unlikely to obtain.”

  “I’ll tell ya what else is unlikely,” said Howard. “I’d say Klarkash Ton finding a real copy of the Necronomicon is pretty damn unlikely since you’re supposed to have made it up. I wouldn’t be usin’ our stories as examples for makin’ arguments about what’s real these days.”

  Lovecraft paused his steps for a moment. “Touche,” he said to Howard’s back.

  Howard stopped and turned around. He was about to reply when a long swath of the tall grass along the trailside rustled in unison. The motion carried sinuously up the incline behind Lovecraft until it stopped at the base of a large rock.

  “It’s just the wind,” Lovecraft said, noticing Howard’s alarm. But there was no wind.

  “Clark said there were open mineshafts.”

  “An exhalation from the netherworld,” said Lovecraft.

  Howard smiled. They continued down the path, trying to enjoy the quiet, dissipating heat of the day.

  GLORY AND SMITH made better progress alone. They were able to unscramble a few strings of words that almost sounded like sentences.’

  But during the pauses while Smith scratched out variations of the anagrams they had discovered, Glory was compelled to page through the book, and what she saw disturbed her in unexpected ways. The book was clearly based on some long-lost original whose pages must have been damaged somehow, perhaps in a fire. Some of the illustrations were only partial, their missing areas left blank because there was no way for a human imagination to predict what might have been there. The bookmakers had made precise woodcuts, but from the way the ink had blotted between the finer lines, Glory could tell the plates must have been old or their edition had been printed late in the run.

  She had seen many old books, and so the pages of astronomical charts and symbols were familiar even when the particular figures were not. But she had seen nothing before like those pictures. Hieronymus Bosch came immediately to mind, but his work was clearly derivative of these unholy visions that had come from some entirely alien imagination. The abominations depicted in the woodcuts evoked in her some primitive, instinctive revulsion. She had seen plenty of depictions of Hell and demons in the medieval text collection at Vassar; her imagination was vivid enough to anticipate the extremes of such depictions, the lurid grotesqueries that a mind like de Sade’s might have added to such images; but it was not possible to anticipate these protohuman, protoamphibious obscenities.

  Her response was like the instant nausea and disgust one feels at the sight of spoiled food-it was something that visceral and primitive.

  And yet these images had some sort of symbolic or ritual meaning that was abundantly clear by the careful attention paid to their composition and execution, by the way certain configurations would appear again and again like the organic embodiments of some alien alphabet.

  Glory turned to another page, this one illustrated by a single small image near the center. “Clark,” she said.

  Smith looked up, scratching his head.

  “Have you seen this?”

  He leaned toward her to get a closer look. “There’s something wrong with that page,” he said. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. “Did it get wet?”

  “Wet?” When Glory looked down, she saw what Smith referred to. The image, at first, appeared simply to be another woodcut illustration surrounded by text, but now she could see that it was much more complex, and the text at the borders of the image had begun to bleed-or at least that’s how it appeared. When she rubbed her eyes and looked again, the letters seemed to have gotten distorted, stretched out like fibers, and the symbol seemed to have grown larger and more distinct.

  “I think our eyes are fatigued,” said Smith. “I, could swear that image was only half that size when I saw it last. All this staring at letters can distort one’s sense of scale.”

  Glory looked once again at the illustration, then looked away and then quickly back again. She couldn’t see any motion, but it seemed to have changed again between glances. It was like comparing sequential frames in a motion picture film to point out the almost invisible differences. “Let’s take a break,” she said. As she placed a paper marker and closed the book, she saw the image move out of the corner of her eye. One of the tentacles had extended beyond the frame of the woodcut.

  She went through with the motion and closed the book, then opened it again, quickly. “Look,” she said.

  Smith, now standing, peered over her shoulder. “Hideous,” he said. “Truly hideous. More repulsive than I recall.”

  “But Clark!” Glory saw the eye of the squid creature suddenly blink , open and stare into hers. She felt the gorge rise in her throat, tasted the acrid bile. She closed her eyes and slammed the book shut.

  “Let’s rest a while before we become irrational,” said Smith. “This book does strange things to the imagination. How about some coffee?”

  “That’s just what I need,” said Glory.
/>   While Smith busied himself with filling the pot, Glory moved to< the fire and poked at the wood to feel its warmth. She realized she was cold for some reason, as if the chill of Smith’s underground pantry hadn’t quite left her bones. She shivered again. She wanted to talk, about something other than the book now.

  “I feel like I stepped into some sort of dream when I left Texas,”

  Glory said. “HP and Bob are about as queer as they come, but then ‘ those men in black and the old Indian medicine man-who would believe all of that? Last week I was living in a hotel and minding my life like anyone else.”

  “Our lives are hardly ever as mundane as we assume,” said Smith, arranging the pot over the flames. “We’re always on the threshold of the fantastic, and you’ve just crossed it for now.”

  “I’d rather go back. All I wanted was a ride to my sister’s place, and now I’m in some sort of mortal danger.” Glory lit a cigarette and flicked the match away.

  That alarmed Smith. The instant the match hit the dry earth he stepped over and ground it under his heel. “You can never be too careful about the threat of fire this time of year,” he said. “Things are easily inflamed this season. Obviously, you haven’t been in this part of the country before. Tell me about your home.”

  “Enough about me,” Glory said, somewhat embarrassed at her carelessness. “Let’s talk about you.”

  “Me?” Smith said with mock modesty. “Why, I’m just a self-educated handyman who dabbles in the arts.”

  “You really underestimate yourself, don’t you?”

  “There really isn’t much to measure. At least not of great quence.”

  “Some people have gone as far as to say that you’re the American Keats,” said Glory.

  Smith knew exactly who those people were, but he pretended ignorance. “Sheer flattery,” he replied. “I hardly have the adolescent idealism of Keats. Nor do I want to die so young.”

  “The hottest flame burns most brief?” said Glory.

  “But smoldering embers can keep you warm through many a cold night,” said Smith. “I’ve dabbled in lots of forms, but I haven’t found my true calling, at least not yet.”

  “Why are you wasting your time writing for those awful ‘magazines? ”

  “You have little faith in the power of imagination.”

  “I’d hardly rank the likes of HP and Bob with Keats and Shelley,” said Glory.

  “They don’t purport to be poets, you know.”

  “Well…”

  “And you forget that Bob and HP-and I, for that matter-never enjoyed the education those poets did. We’re less beholden to the ghosts of tradition and convention. We’re creating our own. And I would dare to say that given another fifty years, it’s the stories in Weird Tales, if not the names attached to them, that will have the more profound effect on your Everyman. Who even reads the Romantic poets outside the classroom anymore?”

  “I do,” said Glory.

  “So do I.”

  They laughed.

  “I hope this isn’t too forward of me, Glory. But I was wondering if you had any attachment to Bob or HP.”

  “Attachment? You mean romantic attachment? Why, you are being forward, aren’t you?”

  Smith gave a crooked smile.

  “The answer is no.”

  “The reason I ask is because I couldn’t help but notice there’s a certain tension in Bob’s manner when he’s around you. Not exactly a possessiveness, but a sort of watchful quality.”

  “Oh, be frank about it, Clark. He seethes when he’s around me, and I’m largely to blame. I confess I made advances at him one night while HP was asleep. I really shouldn’t have.” Glory smoothed back her hair and noticed the faint disk of the moon in the blue sky. “Bob’s the sort of man a girl would love to have as an older brother. He’s strong and he’s protective. He’s kind of thick when it comes to women, though.”

  “Thick?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. He rebuffed me that night pretending he was morally outraged, but I think it was really because he was scared.” She paused momentarily. “Do you think he might be a virgin?”

  “Given the deportment of his heroes in his writing, that wouldn’t surprise me at all. We really can’t hide our true selves even in our most fantastic work.”

  “You write those sorts of stories, too, don’t you?”

  “Me?” Smith laughed. “My heroes are suave men of the world compared to Bob’s.”

  “Suave? In what way, exactly?”

  Smith approached her and looked down, obliquely, past his nose.

  “Maybe I should offer an example?” he said, and kissed her.

  Glory felt her knees go weak, but she drew back before things got out of hand. “I don’t feel right about this,” she said. “It feels like I’m betraying their trust.”

  “I thought—”

  “I’d rather know I’m going to be alone with you, without someone barging in.”

  “They’re tired,” said Smith. “Let’s meet when they’ve gone to sleep for the night. Would you join me for a moonlight stroll?”

  “I bet you say that to all the ladies in Auburn.”

  “No, just the married ones.”

  “Scandalous,” said Glory. “I quite agree.”

  WHEN THEY RETURNED, Howard and Lovecraft found Glory perched on the fallen oak, smoking a cigarette. She waved a mug at them. “Fresh coffee!” she called.

  They convened around the table once again, and Smith gave a report of their meager progress. Lovecraft glanced furtively around until Howard pointed out the can of sugar, and then he spooned so much of it into his coffee that Smith’s eyes widened in concern.

  “I’m not sure what to suggest,” said Smith. “The wisest course of action would be to take the book to Berkeley and let the antiquarians and philologists at it. Even so, it could take months or years to translate the text.”

  “The span of months and years is hardly available to us.” Lovecraft added another spoonful of sugar. “Yet I am confident that something will transpire in a timely fashion.”

  “And why’s that?” asked Howard. ” ‘Cause the crazy old Injun told us his tall tale? I wouldn’t be so happy about that, HP, since he told us we was all gonna die.”

  “That seems rather moot,” said Smith. “We are all going to die, aren’t we? Eventually.”

  Glory noticed the sun had already set. The horizon stretched purple and maroon across the west and the sky above was a cobalt blue and blue-black; a few wisps of cloud had drawn out like unraveling threads, gray-black on one side, tinted with a miasma of colors on the other. “He gave details,” said Glory. “Could we talk about something else?”

  “Well, let’s have a little something to eat and then retire for the night. Sleeping out here, we’ll be up at the crack of dawn.” Smith got up and busied himself setting up the kerosene lamps and checking the supply of firewood.

  The twilight didn’t linger for much longer, and soon, after a small snack and some incidental conversation, they set up their cots and got ready to sleep. Smith offered Glory the option of sleeping in the bedroom in the cabin, but she decided it would be safer for her to camp there with the men. She took the third cot, and Smith made himself a bedroll on the ground.

  “I trust we shall have eventful dreams,” Lovecraft said by way of good night, “though I myself would much prefer a boring sojourn in the realm of Hypnos. I bid you all pleasant adventures.”

  “I trust in cold steel and hot lead,” Howard mumbled.

  “Good night, boys,” said Glory.

  They continued to exchange quips for a few minutes before they said good night to Smith, who, by then, had silently entered the portals of sleep.

  15

  HOWARD WOKE UP in the middle of the night with an uncomfortably full bladder. He grumbled and sat up, scratching his head, momentarily disoriented. There were the coals of the fire still glowing, and above the black wall of the nearby tree line, the faint wash of stars beh
ind the face of the moon.

  He sat up and disengaged himself from his half-open sleeping bag, then swung his feet over the cot and tapped around for his shoes, which he now regretted taking off. For a moment he thought he had a headache, or perhaps that the coffee had been too strong, but then he realized that the night was vibrating with the sound of crickets, millions of them, it seemed. Recalling the scorpions, he quickly found his flashlight, switched it on, and pointed the beam down into his boots. They were empty.

  Now he took his pistol from under his make-do pillow and swept the beam of his light around the campsite, half-expecting to be surrounded by a swarm of insects. There was nothing but the usual debris of camp.

  He slipped his boots on and made his way to the tree line, where he paused, and then thought better of it and simply relieved himself, there, shivering with the release.

  When he turned back toward the camp he thought he could hear something through the shrill droning of the crickets. It was his imagination, he knew, that made It sound like a low ringing chant-

  “Cthulhu, Cthulhu, Cthulhu”-but after recent events he could not be sure. He swept the tree line behind him once again, then turned the beam back to the camp. There was Lovecraft on his cot, safely away from the wood smoke; there was Smith, oddly languid on the ground in his bedroll; there was his own empty cot near the fire; and there was Glory, bundled under her blankets. But where was her red hair? He walked briskly forward, realizing something was wrong, and just as he got to Glory’s cot the whispering abruptly stopped. A loud shriek came from the direction of the cabin, and with it a blast of blinding blue white light that cut through the darkness like the giant blade of a sword.

  “HP! Smith!” Howard called, but they were already up, turning toward the sound. “Glory’s missing,” Howard said, and not waiting for the others, he immediately ran stumbling toward the cabin, eyes dazzled by purple afterimages.