by Ken Asamatsu
The mask was still there on the desk.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” I was sure that the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon was to blame.
“You called those sea lilies, and their shoggoths, and their great light beasts. So, what if you disappeared?” I said, and before I was done I had gone to the desk and picked it up.
It was made of metal, but nevertheless felt as soft and pliant as rubber. The feel of it gave me goosebumps, but I had no time to be afraid. I gripped it under one arm.
I then pointed my Bergmann at the frozen boards over the west-facing window, released the safety, and pulled the trigger. The boards exploded into splinters. I kicked out the ruined stumps, then climbed out the open window.
When I did so, I got a view of our grand tanks on the field. Klenze and his men had finally gotten them crewed and were bringing their attack to bear on the shoggoths.
Klenze was standing head and shoulders out of the hatch of the lead tank.
He noticed me and, grinning, turned to give me a salute.
Naturally, it was the proud salute of the German army, not the ridiculous Nazi wave.
I returned his salute.
Klenze then ducked down into the turret and closed the hatch.
The tank moved and trained its cannon on the nearest shoggoth, not but 300 meters away now.
“Major!”
I heard Heinrich call for me.
I turned to him and shouted, “Get one of the Junkers ready to go!”
“Are we running away and leaving Klenze and his men behind?!”
“No! I think I can draw the shoggoths back beyond the Mountains of Madness. With this!” I said, and showed him the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon. “I’m going to use the mask!”
“Yes, sir!” Heinrich answered and ran off toward the runway.
The tank cannons roared and along with them the machine guns. Looking their way, I saw all three tanks firing one round after the other at the shoggoths.
I saw a shell leave red traces in the cold air as it pierced the bloated membrane of one beast, plunging into its protoplasmic mass and then exploding inside it. A yellow-rimmed orange flame erupted and burst the gelatinous monstrosity into shreds.
“Yes!” I yelled, and smiled grimly.
But seconds later the smile left my face.
It was unspeakable. The twitching remains of the shoggoth were scattered to the four winds, but they began to move, to gather together and fuse into larger and larger pieces. The shoggoth resurrected itself and, steaming white in the cold air, moved directly in front of Klenze’s tank as if to show off its fluorescent pink glow.
It bulged at the top like a mushroom, and that rim spread further out. It flew out over the tank like a great net, and then enveloped it completely.
“Klenze!” I called out the name of my comrade in arms.
But I still believed that the armor of that Panzer II tank, the pride of the German army, could withstand any mere monster.
I was wrong, though.
As I watched, the shoggoth flattened out more and more. I could hear Klenze crying out from within the protoplasm-covered armor.
And then....
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
There was a weird fluting voice, sometimes high, sometimes low, coming from the shoggoth. Suddenly I realized that it had begun moving again, this time toward me.
And... Gott im Himmel... behind it, where Klenze’s tank had been, it left only smooth ground, glistening in the light of the aurora. Nothing else.
“Quickly, Major! The plane is ready to take off!” Heinrich called out, but he was barely audible over the sound of the propellers.
I had no time to pray for the souls of Klenze and his men. I bit my bottom lip, and when I glanced at the other two tanks saw a shoggoth spreading out to envelop each.
I threw off my Bergmann and clasped the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon to my breast with both hands—and ran.
I ran to the Junkers, toward where Heinrich was waiting, to the last hope we had.
I ran with all my strength.
Fear bit at my legs and the mud sucked at my feet, trying to hold me back.
And still I ran, ran for my life.
I finally drew near enough to make out Heinrich’s face as he sat in the Junkers’ canopy, waiting for me. And then... .
“Richart!”
“Major... .”
“Herr Major... .”
I heard Heinecke calling to me, and Müller, and the voice of Klenze. All of those devoured by the shoggoth were calling out to me in unison from behind me.
I stopped and turned, as if by reflex—and I saw.
I saw, and I screamed, and closed my eyes. I stumbled and ran back toward the plane, weeping, and screaming as if to shred my throat.
For those blank voices calling my name were proof that the shoggoth still pursued.
I reached the Junkers and I climbed on the wing and into the seat behind Heinrich as if death itself pursued me, for it did.
The plane began taxiing down the runway. It left the pursuing shoggoth behind, and finally, after an endless thirty seconds or so, lifted off into the air.
I turned my tear-streaked face back, gasping and sobbing, to see the shoggoth below.
To see the faces of the dead.
Indeed....
The faces of my dead comrades, those who called out to me. The shoggoth had stretched out until it was the size of a building wall, and there! There, Heinecke, Müller, Klenze.... Their faces floated, and deeper in I saw the murky faces of the tank crew, blindly calling out.
The soulless voices of my dead comrades echoed still through Neuschwabenland, as if to chase our plane from the sky.
That is all I have to report, for our mission ends here.
We are currently circling in the air above the Mountains of Madness.
I am going to place this report in a metal tube. We will return to fly over the base and drop it, then Heinrich and I will return here.
After that, we are going to aim our plane for the far side of the Mountains of Madness, with its sea lilies and shoggoths and its hidden beasts of light, and we are going to crash our plane into the middle of them, taking the mask with us.
For as long as the mask is there, they’ve got no reason to cross those mountains.
If, by some chance, someone should read this, I beg you: heed my warning.
This is no New Swabia, no secret paradise for the Third Reich.
This is a land where monsters sleep, monsters who once ruled all the earth.
It is a place where mankind should never tread.
And if the one who reads this happens to be a soldier of the glorious German army—
I beg you, bring all our army’s might to bear and attack the land beyond the Mountains of Madness. Burn it to cinders, and leave nothing left alive.
April 20th, 1889
“A feast for life
and a greater feast for death!”
—Aleister Crowley
“The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.”
—Jack the Ripper
I Around August 31st, 1888
The Magical Diary25 of “J” (Encrypted)
M m m meee I I I I I Whowhat Who? Who is this now?
Me! I am me. New. New personality. New man. Big man. Strong man.
New man, new land... New world. American. Write like it.
Color, not colour, I guess!
But I ain’t goin’ round with no sixguns at my hip under my black duster. Nope. My tool of choice is a surgical knife in the pocket of my suit.
“There’s no time to sit and ruminate, J,” a fluttering shadow called out from the corner.
When I turned around, a man’s shadow like about seven foot tall slipped through the planar corner
and came over to me.
“J? That supposed to be me?”
“Indeed. Just as we stand atop the street called Buck’s Row, your name is J, beyond a doubt,” the shadow answered, and as it did so it started swelling out until it looked like a real tall man with pitch-black skin.26 Not black like a Negro, but like night, like coal. Its eyes glowed ember red. It was dressed like an old engraving of Death hisself.
When I looked around, sure if it wasn’t Buck’s Row we was on.
It’s a back street behind Whitechapel Underground Station, off Whitechapel Road.
That side is a row of Essex warehouses, and on this side is a row of cottage houses. There’s a single gas lamp on the corner, and not another light to be seen.
“It’s 3:35 in the morning. Do you not think it a perfect time to begin our festival of blood?” the tall cloaked man said, and choked out a deep laugh.
“Just who are you? What are you talking about, festival of blood? And how the heck did I get from my basement to Buck’s Row? Am I dreamin’?”
“Ah, a dream is it, J? If t’were a dream, then not only I but thou art the dream. Nay, as I did say, we have no time. Thou mayest call me N. Ah, to think I was once worshiped as the Faceless God on the banks of the Nile itself, in the sealed and unknown valley of Hadoth during the age of Pharaoh Nephren-Ka! Alas, I fear that in today’s London, seat of the great British Empire, such stories are as meaningless as the wrappings on a mummy.”
“N? Faceless God? What in tarnation?”
“Ahh, pay no mind to my reminiscences. Our sacrificial lamb approaches. Ready thy blade.”
I shut my trap and nodded. When I turned ’round, all I saw was my own shadow on the cobblestones.
Next I heard sharp footsteps echoing off the wall in front of me. They were coming this way from Winthrop Street, where the knacker’s yard was.
I could see someone coming now, outlined against the dim blue light of the gas lamp. It was a woman wearing a black straw bonnet.
She was middle-aged and she had on a cheap reddish-brown ulster coat over a brown dress, and black wool stockings. She stank of liquor, like she’d taken a bath in gin.
She’s from the east end, or maybe homeless. Irish or Jew. And a shameless whore to boot.
My mouth started working the minute I saw all this. “Hey there, pretty lady.”
The woman twitched a bit and stopped short. She lifted her face.
That face looked to be about forty or forty-five. Not much of a sacrificial lamb if you ask me, more of an old nanny goat. That N feller needs to get his eyes checked.
“What d’ye want?” The nanny goat did have a pretty voice, though.
Now how does such a pretty voice come out of a face like that, I wonder? I’m going to have to take a long look at that throat of hers.
But I kept such thinking to myself.
“It sure is cold tonight, pretty lady. What’s your name, anyway?”
“It’s Mary. But everyone calls me Polly, like.”
“OK then, Polly. So, um,” I said, and made a show of digging in my pocket. “How would you like to earn a pound in about thirty minutes?”
Of course, I wasn’t reaching for my wallet. I was gripping the handle of my knife.
◉ Use left hand to throw off detection.
◉ Throat in two strokes. From below left ear to middle of the throat. Then, to bottom of left ear.
◉ Third stroke on N’s orders. From right groin area up to left kidney. Pull out at an angle. Second cut is from lower abdomen up to the solar plexus, reaching the breastbone.
◉ The need for autopsy tools is clear.
◉ The Formula of Dho-Hna. Sing the Dhôl Chants.
◉ N’s Departure.
◉ Cast off the veil of J and close the gate.
Letter from S. L. Mathers27
Care of W. W. Westcott28
London, Camden Road 396
August 31st, 1888
My Beloved Mina,29
Before you read on to the contents below, I pray you to swear not to mutter such things as “what an exaggeration” or “he could have simply come talk to me” or, above all, not to laugh.
This is neither a joke, nor some insipid ghost story.
I swear upon the name of Isis our lady and mistress that everything I write is as I heard it myself.
For inasmuch as I style myself an adept of ceremonial magic, you know that I would never stoop to passing on stories merely to get a fright out of my beloved.
Do you recall having met my roommate, the great William Wynn Westcott?
He is a tall, sturdy gentleman with black hair, and not only is he magus of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, but he is also highly placed in the English Masonic Lodge.
He’s an international scholar, having engaged in wide correspondence with occultists on the continent as well. Well, I believe at the time I introduced him by saying he and I have formed a very close understanding.
However, I never knew of his more mundane employment.
As it turns out, Westcott works as a coroner at Scotland Yard.
This means that his job is to perform medical examinations and court-ordered autopsies on the victims of the most chilling crimes. Oh, but do not ask me to explain any further!
And despite his frightful job, Bill (as only I am allowed to call him) always appears as calm as any village doctor.
Apparently, the man himself says, “A body without its soul is simply a pile of bones wrapped in meat and skin.”
And so, to my point. When Bill arrived home this evening and saw that I was reading the Illustrated Times, he had the most extraordinary reaction, like that of a maid of fifteen or sixteen upon being shown the corpse of a cat.
“What the devil are you reading, Sam?” Bill stammered, his face white as a sheet.
“There’s a story here about a dreadful murder in Whitechapel. It says that the body of an alcoholic prostitute was found early this morning near the underground station there. She’d apparently been stabbed repeatedly.”
“Stabbed repeatedly. . . .” Bill repeated this last phrase as he reached the table and started eating.
“Actually, you know, this might not be the first such murder. Similar incidents have taken place in the slum districts like the East End. On April 3rd, a forty-five-year-old prostitute was attacked on the street, and on July 7th, another of thirty-five years old was murdered. I was in charge of her autopsy. But why again? And why are you so interested in this Whitechapel incident?”
“There was a dream warning,” I answered, still reading the extra edition.
“Oh, now that is interesting. I must say it’s a rather more psychically-oriented reason than befits a student of ceremonial magic.”
“I can’t deny that. However, I was not the one who received the message. That was my beloved.”
“Hm? Oh, yes, that lovely little black-haired girl. French, wasn’t she? What was her name again?” Bill asked, frowning.
“Mina.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Mina. Related to a famed philosopher, if I recall correctly?”
“Indeed she is. Mina Bergson, sister of Henri Bergson, one of France’s most celebrated spiritual philosophers. Heh. I call her Moina, myself.”
“Ah, how sweet. Well, that was a lovely meal, thank you.”
“Never mind that! Listen, won’t you? My Moina says that lately she’s been having the most vivid dreams, and all of them are the same. She says she sees five women of the same unfortunate class murdered in five different places by the same man.”
“You can’t be serious?!” Bill frowned and bent forward. “So, then, has she seen the murderer?”
I nodded. “Oh yes. Quite clearly.”
“What sort of man is he?”
“He is short, with his hair cleanly parted and
a tiny moustache. She says he is Austrian, with the initials A. H.”
“Is she quite certain?”
“Quite. Mina is deeply spiritually gifted. I have tested her myself repeatedly through magical means.”
“Hmmm,” Bill tugged at his lower lip in thought. “I see. Well, if she’s seen so much and so clearly, I suppose there’s no use in keeping it secret. Truth is, I’ve been put in charge of this Whitechapel victim’s inquest.”
“Aaaah, of course,” I said.
“And the Yard has kept certain facts hidden from the papers. I hope I can trust you to keep a secret?”
“That does depend on what it might be. If it doesn’t put Mina in any danger, I’ll take your secret to the grave.
“There were two incisions inside the victim Mary Ann Nichols’s mouth, presumably carved there with the tip of a knife. They were both magical in nature.”
“You mean something like the astrological symbols of the Rosicrucians, or alchemical codes?”
Bill shook his head and stood without a word. He went to his writing desk and sketched something on a scrap of paper.
This he handed to me.
“Look for yourself. One was this glyph, known as the sauvastika,30 in its reversed orientation. Do you know the meaning of this sigil?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Then I would ask you tomorrow to go to the British Museum and investigate it, along with a rather mysterious word. This one.”
I read out the word Bill had written on a note card.
“Nyarlathotep? What does it mean? And why on earth would someone carve such a queer word inside someone’s mouth?”
“I have no idea. It’s all a mystery. There is one thing I do know, however.”
“And that is?”
“That seeing as how your Mina knows that there are still four victims coming, and who the murderer is, she is likely in grave danger. I’m certain of it.”
And of course, it is just as Bill said. Mina, I beg you to take every precaution. Stay safe. I myself plan to perform the Purification of the Rosy Cross to pray for your safety today. And tomorrow, on September 1st, I shall go to the British Museum to find out the meaning of this sauvastika, and this ‘Nyalala’ word, or whatever it might be.