The Gods of HP Lovecraft

by Martha Wells

  In ancient times he wore the splendor of a prince of Egypt, and appeared to men in a royal crown and royal robes of gold, with his eyes lined with kohl and his mouth reddened with henna. In his hand he carried a royal scepter, and his countenance shone with its own inner light. But in these degenerate times it is said that he walks the sands in the gray cloak of a hermit, and wears a hood upon his head to conceal his face in shadow.

  It is not fortunate that the awareness of this dreadful being, who is no less than the soul and messenger of Azathoth, should focus itself upon a single man, for he regards our race as mere toys to be played with and then discarded after they are broken. Many a weary night traveler has encountered one he mistook for a humble Christian mystic, one of those monks who dwell alone in the desert and pace the sands mumbling prayers, only to recognize his doom when it was too late to avert it. Woe to the man who tries to speak to this hooded wanderer. Let him pass in silence, and pray to your chosen god that he does not turn his head and look back at you.

  For when he beckons, you must go to him. There is no escape. He smells your fear like a blood spoor on the sands. When he speaks, you must answer. His face is always shadowed, and fortunate it is so, for should he throw his hood back so that you see his liniments by moonlight, you will surely die. If you run from him, he will never rest from the chase until you are brought to bay. He will haunt your dreams, inhabit the shadows at midday and the gloom of dusk, the blackness of midnight and the bleak gray that comes before the dawn. Always when you look behind, he is there waiting.

  It is the office of this fell being to regulate the music of Azathoth, for he is the eyes and tongue of the idiot god, and more than this, he is Azathoth’s mind and heart. He is bound by his nature to fulfill the unarticulated purposes of Azathoth, and this he does, but he does so with malice, for he hates his bondage to Azathoth and longs to slay the idiot god and assume his authority. In spite of his vast wisdom he does not understand that the music of creation and the mind to regulate its measures cannot coexist. The harmonies that flow from Azathoth’s flute spring from a chaotic source. They can never arise from a mind that is restricted by hatred and passion.

  From the dawn of time Nyarlathotep has walked the sands of Arabia, brooding on his own thoughts which are as far beyond the ken of men as the planets in their crystalline spheres. Men have called him Death, for one brush of his hand and they fall to black ashes and dust and blow away on the night wind. Of all the old ones he is the easiest to evoke, and the most perilous. His promises are all lies, and pacts made with him end in betrayal and sorrow. We are as flies to him, to be ignored or if noticed, crushed with a careless gesture. Summon him not! It is not good to be noticed by this old one.

  The Doors that Never Close and the Doors that Are Always Open

  David Liss

  Artúr gave himself an hour and a quarter to get to his appointment, even though the most pessimistic estimates put the trip at a half an hour, door to door, but he was still almost late. He had lived in New York all of his adult life, yet he’d still never figured out the mysteries of the Wall Street area, where the epicenter of 21st century capitalism was built along the outline of arbitrary colonial streets. Lucile from the employment agency, whose position on Artúr’s chances in the employment market had moved, quite suddenly, from apathetic to optimistic, assured him that finding the building would be simple. She breezily explained that it was just downtown from the IRT Wall Street station, between Beaver and South William. Artúr had wandered aimlessly, moving in circles, for what felt like hours before finding the CapitalBank headquarters rising luminously above dingy diners and tiny shops selling umbrellas and luggage made in China.

  Artúr’s one suit had just come back from the dry cleaners, and he thought he looked polished and professional. All his life he had held Wall Street guys in contempt—people whose only goal in life was to make money. He had nothing against people who got rich doing something they found interesting or exciting or creative, but cutting out the process, going after wealth for the sake of wealth, struck him as bleak and soulless. Now, here he was, not looking to get rich, but to be a very small cog in the larger machine, a little underpaid stooge whose work, in some nearly immeasurable way, would help aid a tribe of chest-thumping degenerates to inflate their own holdings. Even going on the interview embarrassed him, demeaned him. He hated the feeling, but he hated the feeling of having an empty bank account even more.

  After checking in with a security guard and making his way through a metal detector, Artúr was directed to wait in the lobby. His appointment had been for 2:00, and he’d walked in the door pretty much on the dot, but now he began to worry. There had been a sandwich delivery guy ahead of him, and by the time Artúr had actually spoken with anyone, it had been closer to five after. Had he been technically late? He didn’t think it should matter, but he knew how intense these Wall Street types were supposed to be.

  After half an hour, he decided he should check with the security guard again, but he found a sign telling him he could not leave the secure area without an exit pass, and the security guard was on the other side of what appeared to be bullet-, sound- and explosion-proof glass. After a few awkward minutes of trying to signal the guard, who appeared to be deliberately ignoring him while he fiddled with a control panel that could have come from a commercial passenger jet, Artúr gave up and sat back down on the padded bench.

  Twenty minutes later, the elevator doors chimed open and a curious, and extremely un-Wall-Street-looking man hobbled out. He was tall, almost unnaturally so, well over six and a half feet, though he walked with a pronounced slouch. His skin was nearly translucently pale, and his shaggy hair, equally shaggy eyebrows, and close-cut beard were all snowy white. He wore faded green corduroy pants, an oversize white button-down shirt, and a tweed jacket. He looked more like the professors Artúr had left behind than an employee of a high-powered financial firm.

  “Artúr,” the pale man pronounced, like a birdwatcher identifying a species on the wing. “Kevin Jacks.” He held out a thin hand that seemed to be made of rice paper.

  Artúr reached out to take it and discovered that in addition to being tall and pale and fragile-looking, Jacks had a distinctly unpleasant smell about him, something hard to pin down, but it was animalistic and wild, like wet fur and rotten wood and clumps of moist dung moldering in a barn. In fact, there was something goaty in general about Jacks—the beard, even the cast of his face, which seemed neither young nor old.

  Artúr tried not to move away from Jacks or let his face show the impact of the musky blast assaulting his nostrils.

  “Thank you for coming out today,” Jacks said, his voice a little high, and curiously detached. “I know you must be very busy.”

  Artúr was not busy. He spent most of his days looking through employment websites and worrying about how he was going to pay the rent in a couple of weeks or, more immediately, eat something other than plain white rice for his next meal.

  Jacks led Artúr back behind the elevator bank he’d emerged from to an alcove, this one containing a single elevator. Once enclosed within the confined space, Jacks’s smell made Artúr’s eyes water, but he attempted to keep up bland and meaningless conversation. Yes, summer is coming on. Going to be hot. Yankees should be back in first place by the end of the month.

  He’s got to know, Artúr thought, that he smells horrible. This is a test, like those urban legends about people in interviews being asked to open unopenable windows. They were seeing how he would react. Did they want him to call Jacks out, tell him he smelled? Artúr didn’t think so. He figured he’d err on the side of politeness and try to ignore it as best he could. For now, he was grateful he hadn’t eaten any breakfast or lunch—he hadn’t been able to face another bowl of rice—so he didn’t have to worry about throwing up.

  Artúr wasn’t sure what he was expecting when the elevator doors opened, but he’d had his share of office jobs—temp work before grad school—and he’d assumed he’d
be met by either a reception area or a bustling open workspace full of hustling financial types and ringing phones. Instead, he saw an empty corridor, unadorned and bleak. Had he not felt the elevator ascending, he would be certain he was on some sort of basement level.

  They stepped out of the elevator and Jacks turned around, removing an antiquated circular keychain from his capacious pockets and inserting one of the gigantic Scooby-Doo style keys into a hole next to the elevator call button. He rotated it, mumbling, “Two and a half times. That’s the way. That is still her way.”

  They moved down the corridor into a spare room with a large table and nothing else. The walls were unadorned cinder blocks. Jacks beckoned Artúr to sit, and he positioned himself across the table from Jacks to try and lessen the smell.

  “Tell me,” Jacks said, leaning forward, folding his wispy fingers together. “Why do you want to work for CapitalBank?”

  “Honestly, I just need a job,” Artúr said. “The employment agency said you had an opening that suited my skill set.”

  Jacks nodded and made a note on a yellow legal pad.

  “Artúr Magnusson. You are of Icelandic descent?”

  “Are you supposed to ask questions like that?” Artúr asked. He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he didn’t like flagrant rule breaking. He didn’t like these big firms who decided they would do what they wanted, and the rest of society could shut up about it. “Isn’t it against the law to ask about someone’s background?”

  “We have a form 11-B dispensation from federal hiring laws,” Jacks said with a smile. “Does your family still use patronymics?”

  Artúr sighed. He didn’t much care to talk about his family, but this wasn’t worth making a fuss over, and while he had no idea what an 11-B dispensation was, he figured it had to be a real thing. “My grandfather came from Iceland. Magnusson is just a family name now.”

  “But your mother is also Icelandic?”

  Artúr figured there was no point in fighting this. “She’s of Icelandic descent. Why?”

  Jacks wrote for a while, maybe three or four lines. Then he looked up and fixed Artúr with his pink eyes. “No reason. Just a little genealogical curiosity. What do you think of what we do here at CapitalBank? We want an honest answer, not the one you think we’re looking for. If you feed me any ‘important pillar of the economy’ or ‘presence in global markets’ nonsense this interview will be over.”

  They wanted to know, so he’d tell them. “I don’t much care for large financial firms,” Artúr said. “They exploit and distort the market for their own gain and they don’t care about the consequences because the only outcome that matters is profit. CapitalBank, and firms like it, are completely removed from the rest of the economy, so success and gains not only no longer reflect the success and gains in ordinary people’s lives, they actually detract from the ability of ordinary people to succeed.”

  “So, CapitalBank is like a vampire?” Jacks asked, his voice neutral.

  “I suppose,” Artúr said thoughtfully. “Really, though, it’s more like a dragon in a fairy tale, hoarding all the treasure for itself, gaining more only by destruction and fire and ruin.”

  Jacks made a note. “Devouring. Yes,” he murmured.

  “Does that mean we’re done?” Artúr asked, wanting to get out of this airless room, wanting to get away from Jacks’s scent. He’d take a job working in Starbucks, driving a taxi, whatever he had to do. He did not want to be here with this weird man any longer.

  “Oh, no,” Jacks said, still jotting down notes. “I told you I wanted honesty, and you were good enough to be honest. We’re looking for a researcher,” he added without any indication that he was changing topics. “You have some experience with research.”

  “I was a doctoral candidate in history,” Artúr said. “I’m good at research, and I’m good at picking up new topics and managing new sources, but I have no experience in the financial sector.”

  “Why did you leave Columbia’s history department?’ Jacks asked.

  Artúr shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I ran out of funding. My advisor… left. No one else was interested in my project, and I think the professors I asked to vouch for me might have sabotaged my chances, written lukewarm letters of recommendation.”

  Jacks made notes for what seemed like a very long time. The room felt warmer, more airless. Artúr wished for that unopenable window right about now. He’d happily throw a chair through it…

  “Tell me about your advisor,” Jacks said, still writing. “Professor Thanton. She simply quit one day, if I understand correctly. Didn’t even clean out her office or her apartment. She announced that she was done, and walked away. Never answers email or letters.”

  This, as far as Artúr was concerned, had gone on far enough. “Mr. Jacks, I appreciate your taking the time for this interview, but—”

  “Did she ever mention to you a name?” Jacks asked. “A name that, upon hearing it, made you feel… things? Or speak of a door?”

  “Thank you for your time,” Artúr said. He put his hands on the arms of his chair, but seemed unable to rise.

  Jacks looked up, meeting Artúr’s gaze with his own colorless stare. “We believe you are amply qualified for this position. I don’t see the point in meeting with other candidates. We’d like to offer you the job immediately: Head of Special Projects Research. We believe the compensation is competitive within the marketplace.”

  He slid an index card over, on which was written: Annual compensation, $325,000.00. Plus bonuses.

  Artúr stared at the card, letting the numbers move in and out of focus. One month’s salary would be more than all of his annual graduate student stipend. What would he do with money like that? Fast cars and women in slinky dresses? Bottles of champagne at a nightclub? It seemed absurd. “This has to be some sort of joke,” Artúr said.

  “The position comes with its own housing,” said Jacks, “located within these very walls, so you would not be obligated to pay rent. I should warn you, however, that our CEO does not wish to haggle over the matter. What we offer is not open to negotiation—not one part of it. You may take it or you may walk away.”

  Of course he was going to take it. How could he not? No matter how demeaning or distasteful the work and the co-workers, he would take it. “But I don’t understand,” he said. “What is the job? What would I be researching?”

  “Our CEO may send you assignments from time to time, but for the most part, you are free to research whatever you like. Mr. Ostentower expects full access to whatever you discover and whatever you write, but what that is remains entirely up to you. I shall tell you what we would like, however, what would make us most spectacularly happy. I shall tell you what would make these old walls reverberate with delight. Would you care to hear it?”

  “Okay,” said Artúr. “Sure.”

  “We would like you to continue your work on your dissertation.”

  ***

  When he’d first started the doctoral program in history at Columbia, Artúr had been confused about what to do or even why he was doing it. His sophomore year of college he had floated the idea of becoming a history professor experimentally to his father, a long-haul trucker who thought of school as nothing more than a way of avoiding work, and who saw his son’s bookishness as a secret shame. Artúr thought his father would have been more comfortable with a serial rapist for a child. At least that was, in some twisted way, manly. Artúr’s father’s response to the idea of a graduate degree in the humanities had been so drunkenly hostile and befuddled, that Artúr’s course had been more or less set, rooted purely in rebellion. His graduate school application essay had included some rather obvious bullshit based on his senior thesis about a group of 17th century Dutch explorers and their efforts to find the lost continent of Mu. In truth, Artúr had hated working on that project, and he wanted nothing to do with it ever again.

  It attracted the interest of Professor Amanda Thanton, however, who had pushed aggressively
for Artúr’s acceptance into the program, and if the rest of the faculty had been unimpressed with Artúr, they eventually gave in. Later he would learn they’d done so because Amanda could be an unstoppable pain in the ass if she got a bee in her bonnet. She was four years into the tenure clock with little to show for herself, and she was certain to wash out before the dust settled, but she had an iron will that few could resist.

  Every professor in the department warned Artúr against working with her, but none of them expressed any interest in Artúr’s comments in class, and their feedback on his class papers tended to be lukewarm at best. Amanda, meanwhile, invited Artúr into her office where she would talk at length about her theories. These conversations would frequently spill over into dinner or drinks, and somewhere along the way Artúr had begun to find her thin, austere looks, her huge and dazed gray eyes, attractive, even sexy. He was, he realized at some point, in love with her, but he dared not say anything, dared not make a move, lest it ruin their professional relationship.

  Instead he decided he would spend as much time with her as he could. That was why he had ended up following Amanda’s advice and started researching a dissertation on various 19th century efforts to find K’n-yan, a subterranean realm believed to lie somewhere underneath Oklahoma.

  Amanda’s enthusiasm began to catch on with him, even infect him, and Artúr had been fascinated by the explorers and archivists and religious ecstatics who had dedicated their lives to the search for K’n-yan. Their quest intersected with some of the most interesting ideas and movements of the time—westward expansion, secret Masonic rites, the rise of Mormonism, abolitionism—you name it. Artúr had been a good year into his project when Amanda began to bring him documents, not because they were useful for Artúr’s dissertation topic—situating K’n-yan obsession within the context of the Second Great Awakening—but because she believed she had found clues to its location.