by Ken Asamatsu
I turned and looked around the room once more.
Blaski lay on the floor to the right of the door, face up. His monocle had fallen away, but at least he hadn’t been dissected. His eyes were wide open, and his face fixed in an expression of immense terror.
I noticed a rifle lying next to the body and crouched down by it.
“Dead of shock?” Klenze asked, finally reaching the room.
I lifted the rifle and stood up slowly.
“Yes. I assume he had a heart attack when he saw that... whatever it was,” I said, and showed the rifle to Klenze. There were fine but very deep scratches running not only along the wooden stock but the steel as well. “What do you think? Did the gunshot we heard come from this?”
Klenze brought the muzzle close to his nose and sniffed it audibly. “I’m sure of it. You can still smell the gunpowder.”
He looked around the room and rested his Bergmann on his shoulder.
“I imagine,” Klenze said, shrugging, “that all those prostitutes Blaski killed came back to haunt him. When he saw them, he got scared and fired his rifle. They ran off when we got here.”
“So the ghosts broke that glass and flew off, did they?” I asked sarcastically.
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw something, Klenze. It flew right out the window. It was some kind of black, barrel-shaped creature.... You know, it was like that thing Müller said he saw, in his vision!”
“So, you say it flew? Where to?”
I pointed silently out the window. It faced west, across the camp, looking toward the mountain range tearing at the sky like the fangs of a beast.
The Mountains of Madness.
VI The Miskatonic Expedition’s Report
The Oberstleutnant’s room was jammed full of oddities, but a wooden box atop his stuffed desk caught my eye first. The label read “The Mask of Yoth Tlaggon.”
Naturally, I refused to lay a finger on the thing.
On the contrary, what I found more interesting was the jam-packed bookcase covering one wall. I felt the key to unlocking this madness must lie somewhere within.
I left the stack of orders and dispatches addressed to Blaski for Klenze. He’d once been in naval intelligence, so it was a natural choice. He would be sure to find anything of value faster than I.
I went over everything else. Generally speaking, the rest could be divided into two types. One group comprised reports from other Antarctic expeditions, like those of Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, Byrd, and others, as well as geographical and geological surveys.
The other group, though....
It was a collection of materials on occultism, theosophy, even black magic, demonology, witchcraft.... Incredible.
I saw names like The Deceits of Azzoth by Klingen Mergelsheim, Friedrich von Junzt’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten, De Vermiis Mysteriis from Ludwig Prinn, Friedrich Franz von Siebold’s Geister des Nippons, Michel le Garrault’s Les Murs S’ écroulés, Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine....
Books that I could otherwise go my whole life long without reading, or indeed understand even if I did.
I turned away from the occult tomes and looked back to those dealing with Antarctic expeditions.
I picked up Amundsen’s report to see what it said, and as I did a thin pamphlet fell to the floor. It looked to me something like a summary from a scientific society or some kind of university bulletin. I bent over to pick it up, and saw printed on the cover in English:
“Report of the 1930 Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition.”
I frowned and opened it. The table of contents indicated it was made up of a variety of reports, like one from Professor of Geology Frank H. Pabodie, of that same university, on boring, as well as one from a Professor Lake of the Biology Department discussing the ancient fauna of the continent.
As I looked through the contents, one title in particular stood out so much as to cause me to gasp aloud. It read:
At the Mountains of Madness
The report started out like so:
“I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the Antarctic—with its vast fossil-hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice-cap—and I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain.”
According to the report, the Miskatonic University expedition left Boston Harbor on September 2nd, 1930, and comprised two ships: the Arkham and the Miskatonic.
The two sailed together down the coast of North America, through the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean. From there, they sailed on to provision at Samoa and then at Hobart, Tasmania, before leaving on the final leg of their journey. The schedule included was:
Oct. 20Crossed the Antarctic Circle.
Oct. 26Saw the Admiralty Range for the first time.
Nov. 7Passed Franklin Island.
Nov. 8Saw volcanoes Erebus and Terror on Ross Island.
Nov. 9Landed on Ross Island at dawn by ship’s boats.
Nov. 21Flew south over the Ross ice shelf in four aircraft, landing at the base of Mt. Nansen to establish a base at south latitude 86° 7’, east longitude 174° 23’.
On January 6th of the following year, 1931, smaller teams boarded two aircraft to fly to the South Pole.
Up to this point, the writer seemed almost proud of their accomplishments.
However, from January 22nd, 1933, the writing began to display anxiety and unease, when Professor Lake of the Biology Department left to survey an area never before discovered.
A report from Professor Lake’s plane claimed that they had discovered a towering mountain range.
But those mountains....
Here I reproduce the radio reports verbatim:
“Reaches far as can see to right and left. Suspicion of two smoking cones. All peaks black and bare of snow. Gale blowing off them impedes navigation.... Swept clear of snow above about twenty-one thousand feet. Odd formations on slopes of highest mountains. Great low square blocks with exactly vertical sides, and rectangular lines of low, vertical ramparts, like the old Asian castles clinging to steep mountains in Roerich’s paintings.”
The Mountains of Madness.
In other words, the other side of those mountains was home to something.... It had structures, massive and unearthly, structures built by hands....
What could lie beyond the Mountains of Madness? What could the Nazi leadership be so afraid of? I was so wrapped in thought that I let the reports fall to the floor.
“I’ve got it!” Klenze cried, and slapped the desktop.
“Huh? Wha— What was that?” I turned to him.
He waved a military operations order under my nose.
“Look at this! It was the Führer who gave the order to explore Neuschwabenland, but Himmler was the one who wanted the base. Ritscher came and discovered the area and built the base as ordered, but he didn’t stop there! He went beyond the Mountains of Madness on his own—and he awakened the sleepers there!”
“What?!” I took the orders from Klenze.
They included a set of aerial photographs of the other side of the Mountains of Madness.
They showed just what Professor Lake had described: endless rows of massive cubic structures, like some monstrous ogre’s castle.
The mountains themselves, unlike natural cliffs, were riddled with artificial tunnels and caverns, their entrances gaping in the stone. And there, from one of the entrances.... How should I describe it? Something like a giant amoeba was poking out.
“Himmler gave a name to this operation,” Klenze went on, his body trembling as if he were fighting hysteria. “Operation Shoggoth.”24
I could only nod.
Someone, presumably Himmle
r, had scrawled across that one photograph, in black, a single bizarre word:
Shoggoth!
Looking at it, I could only wonder at the monstrous size of it.
The thought filled my heart with unease, for although the picture was taken from high overhead, one could clearly see every detail of the creature: the horrid, foamy skin, dripping with viscous ichor, and the amoeba shape of it with neither eyes, nose, nor mouth.
I could not bring myself to believe this was some clever model created in the UFA studios.
VII Operation Shoggoth
We spent the rest of the day gathering all the parts of the scattered SS and Gestapo corpses, cleaning the barracks, and covering Blaski’s broken window.
After dinner, Heinrich, Klenze, and I gathered in the Oberstleutnant’s room to discuss our plan going forward.
“I’ve read the entire Miskatonic report. There are more than shoggoths beyond the Mountains of Madness. It says there are countless others, those sea lily things who made and used the shoggoths sleeping there. They appear to be full of curiosity, as they dissected some of the Miskatonic men as well,” I told them.
“I guess Kapitän Ritscher barely escaped these shoggoths with his life, eh? Whoreson. I wish he’d been eaten by the damned things!” Klenze grew angrier as he spoke. He poured brandy into his coffee cup.
“But we’ve been ordered here for a full year. I just tried calling the Hölderlin on the radio. Do you know what they said? ‘See you in a year! We’ll pray for you!’ The bastards.” Heinrich grimaced and took the bottle of brandy from Klenze.
“We must assume that Müller and our other comrades were taken by the shoggoths. The report says that they can move underground.”
We all looked at each other for a while. When I spoke again, I couldn’t help but sigh. “If that’s what the shoggoths are capable of, there’s not much we can do. Our Bergmanns are clearly not going to be of use.”
Klenze nodded.
“But now we have three tanks and five Junkers planes. That is quite a feat, getting five planes down here in just a year... .” Heinrich snorted and took a swig of brandy.
“I wonder what Blaski planned to do?” I said, and lit a cigarette. I held my lighter out to the other two. “I bet he was going to use the gunpowder.”
Heinrich and Klenze leaned forward.
“So that’s what all that gunpowder is for,” said Heinrich quietly as he set his cup down. He licked his upper lip carefully.
“Not just that,” Klenze said. “There’s a load of diesel fuel behind the barracks. 200 barrels of it. That’s in addition to the year’s supply of gasoline and oil, of course.”
I nodded to Klenze and put out the lighter. “The planes are the only way past the Mountains of Madness. So, we can take the planes over the mountains and circle to draw the shoggoths out.”
Klenze grinned widely at the idea.
“Then we can lead them to this side of the mountains and attack with the tanks. And if they come even closer, we hit them with the powder and diesel fuel!” Klenze threw back a slug of brandy.
“I think we can be ready in a week,” Heinrich said.
“So then, tomorrow’s July... Hey, what day is it tomorrow?” I asked, and Klenze just shrugged.
“OK, let’s say it’s July 16th. Heinrich’s birthday.”
I drew the short straw, so I had to sleep in Blaski’s room.
It was bad enough with the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon in its box, but the shelves full of books on magic and the occult and who knows what made it worse. There was no way anyone could get a good night’s sleep in there. So even snug in a massive bed as good as any in a four-star Berlin hotel, I remained awake.
I gripped my pistol under my pillow and leaned my Bergmann up against the head of the bed. Although I was ready if that barrel sea lily monster thing showed up again, I still couldn’t relax.
For that Miskatonic team had been a scientific expedition taken under peacetime, but now we were military men here in a state of war and had to stay for a year. If the shoggoths came to eat us, or the sea lilies came to dissect us, we had to defend this base with our lives.
And so tracing that line of thought, envisioning one scenario after another, I finally fell into a light sleep.
I thought I heard Müller’s voice from afar. He was calling my name.
Then Heinecke’s voice joined his.
And the voices of all my comrades taken down below the ice, dog sleds and all... .
The voices of the dead are calling.... I thought, still in my slumber. But what about Blaski and his SS men? Why don’t I hear them?
The voices of the dead became wails and wordless screams that filled the air around me.
Far, then near, then far again, and finally right at my ear!
I awoke with a cry and sat bolt upright, but the wailing of the dead did not cease.
“What is going on? Am I still dreaming?” I shook my head, still in a groggy stupor. After sitting there for another ten seconds or so, the sound of the screams gradually became the sound of the wind. I looked at the window next to the bed, but the boards we’d nailed over it were still in place.
I sighed in relief, then looked over and saw a laughing face on the desk.
Is that a severed head?! I thought, my heart pounding in my breast. I went over, one hand clutching my chest.
It was no severed head.
Indeed, it was something far more frightening.
It was a platinum mask in the shape of a long, thin triangle.
The Mask of Yoth Tlaggon had gotten out of its box!
The mask’s lips were twisted in a V-shaped sneer, leering at me. A low wail came from behind it, like the shrieks of the dead from my dream. I was overcome with the conviction that the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon was laughing at me. Then the door shook with a fierce knock.
“Major, wake up! Major!” I heard Heinrich’s voice.
“I’m coming!” Luckily, I’d slept in my uniform. I was buckling on my holster even as I answered and picked up my Bergmann on my way to the door. When I opened it, I found Heinrich in a cold sweat.
Behind him, Klenze was waking the other soldiers with cries of “Attack!”
“Is it that sound?” I said.
“Exactly. It looks like the enemy knows we’ve arrived at the base.”
“I see. And are they shoggoths? Or the sea lilies?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Very well. Let’s hurry up and get out there!” I said, then called out to Klenze. “Get the tanks ready to go!”
“Yes, sir!” Klenze answered promptly, and I led Heinrich outside the barracks. Once there, I stopped, staring in awe at the phantasmic scene that met us. The starry sky was draped with shimmering curtains of light, the aurora casting its glow over the whole of the horizon.
Then I looked to the Mountains of Madness. Beyond them, I saw countless pillars of blue light stretching up toward the heavens.
“Something is happening behind those mountains,” I said to myself.
“Major! What is that?” Heinrich pointed to one corner of the Mountains of Madness, where creeping shapes were silhouetted against the light show.
I strained my eyes to see.
It was a scene to cause any man to faint, as Müller had done that day, which now seemed so long ago.
“Shoggoths,...” I said in a trembling voice.
Indeed, the terrible creatures approaching us were shoggoths!
They came creeping between the fanglike-peaks of the Mountains of Madness, bathed in pink light. Their massive shapeless bodies streamed one after the other.
The beasts were beyond counting as they glided down from the heights and into Neuschwabenland.
Their massive size and the speed of their approach made them look like a squadron of planes bearing down on us.
As they advanced, the shoggoths seemed to dissolve and absorb everything in their path. The first three shoggoths reached the foot of the mountains, and every tree and bush in front of them was devoured, leaving behind only smooth soil. It was is if they were turning the land into a paved highway or an ice skating rink.
“Why didn’t they show up earlier? Verdammt noch mal, why did they decide to attack on the very night we arrive?” When Heinrich spat this last query, I had a sudden realization.
Without a word, I turned and rushed back to the barracks.
The mask has got to have something to do with this. I bet the sea lily was there to take it, but for some reason got distracted by the rifle. The rifle went off and brought us running, and we drove it off! Everything that’s happening here in the shadow of the Mountains of Madness is because of that mask! The thought drove me faster.
VIII Assault of the Mountains of Madness
I passed Klenze and his team at the entrance.
“Get to the tanks and begin the attack. The rest of the men should be ready to stop them with the powder and diesel. If the worst happens, we can escape in the planes,” I told Klenze, and then hurried into the barracks.
I kept thinking of a certain paragraph of the Miskatonic report.
“...manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of moulding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community.”
As I ran through the mess, the report kept playing in my head.
“They had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the Old Ones, and had modelled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs; but now their self-modelling powers were sometimes exercised independently... .”
I ran on, through the narrow triple bunk-bed lined room.
“The newly bred shoggoths grew to enormous size and singular intelligence, and were represented as taking and executing orders with marvelous quickness.... The phosphorescent organisms supplied light with vast effectiveness, and doubtless atoned for the loss of the familiar polar auroras of the outer-world night.”
I rushed into the Oberstleutnant’s room.