The Shoggoth Concerto

by John Michael Greer

  It really wasn’t that horrible to look at after all, she decided, and the only scent she noticed from it was faint and not unpleasant, a little like the odor of Brie cheese. Its outer layer caught stray glints of sunlight and turned them into dim opalescent splashes. Where the light was clear, she could see the shoggoth’s eyes sliding out from some deeper layer, among the clusters of black bubbles, and returning again. ♪Food will be ready soon,♪ she told it.

  ♪I thank you,♪ it replied. ♪Today my name is Leaf On Wet Stone.♪

  Brecken took that in. ♪Is it different every day?♪

  The shoggoth seemed nonplussed. ♪Yes, of course.♪ Then: ♪Do you keep the same name from one day to another?♪

  ♪Yes, of course, ♪ Brecken whistled, startled by the question. A moment’s reflection, though, left her doubting that matters were all that obvious. ♪Each of us gets a name when—♪ There was no word for “born” in Chalmers’ notes, so she improvised again. ♪When we start being. It isn’t changed very often after that.♪

  ♪How very strange,♪ said the shoggoth.

  The oats got to the right consistency, and Brecken dressed them with brown sugar and half-and-half and dished them into bowls. Those, coffee for her, and water for her guest—what effect caffeine might have on a shoggoth wasn’t something she wanted to find out the hard way—went on the carpet. The shoggoth sat closer to her this time. As before, it waited for her to begin eating, tasted the food tentatively, and then engulfed it. ♪It is very good.♪

  ♪I can make some more for you if you want,♪ Brecken whistled.

  ♪I thank you, but—but I am well fed now.♪ The piping tones wavered, as though some strong emotion moved through the creature.

  They finished the meal in silence. As she sipped her coffee, Brecken thought of something she’d been wondering since the shoggoth’s first appearance on the kitchenette floor. ♪Can I ask a question?♪

  ♪Yes.♪

  ♪I have—♪ The lexicon didn’t provide her with the word for “read” or anything else having to do with writing, and she decided that finding out whether shoggoths were literate could wait for another time. ♪I have heard that your people are big.♪ She gestured at the walls of the apartment. ♪Big enough to fill this place. ♪

  ♪You have heard of the greater ones.♪ The shoggoth considered her through pale eyes. ♪My people are not among those, or even among those of middle size. We were small even in the very old times, before the times of hiding, and I am small among my broodmates. We—♪

  All at once the shoggoth began to tremble, and a sharp bitter scent tinged the air. In a sudden shrill tone: ♪Why do I say we? There is no we. They are all dead, all dead, I have seen the flames and tasted the smoke of their burning, and I am alone, alone, alone—♪

  Appalled, Brecken reached out to touch the shoggoth: an act of raw instinct, as though she’d meant to comfort a terrified child. An instant later she caught herself, but by then her hand rested on it. It felt as cool and dry as the skin of a snake, as smooth and shapeless as water.

  Eight eyes popped open, stared at her. For a frozen moment neither of them said anything. Then, for want of anything else, Brecken whistled, ♪Leaf On Wet Stone,♪ hoping that its name would calm it. If anything, the opposite happened; the shoggoth trembled even more violently, and something that felt like ambivalence tensed within it to the breaking point. It wanted and it feared—what?

  A moment later she guessed what it might be. It took an effort to push past her own reluctance and fear, but she leaned forward, used her free hand to shove the empty dishes aside and, with the other, gently pulled the shoggoth toward her. It stiffened, and then the stiffness broke and it flowed to her, draped itself heavily over one of her folded legs like a shapeless lapdog, settled trembling against her belly and side. She made herself put her arms around it, the way her grandmother had done for her so many times, and held the creature as it shuddered.

  Minutes passed and the shaking gradually subsided. Finally a speech-orifice appeared on its upper surface. In a piping low as a whisper it said, ♪I should not trust you.♪

  That confirmed one of Brecken’s guesses. ♪My people did it, didn’t they?♪

  ♪Yes.♪ After a moment: ♪Do they hunt and kill each other too?♪

  She drew in a breath, made herself tell it the truth. ♪Yes, sometimes.♪

  One eye gave her a horrified look, closed again. The creature huddled against her.

  Brecken glanced up at the clock on the kitchenette wall. She had nothing that day but Intro to Music Education I at 11:30, and she’d planned to devote the morning to study, but there was no reason she couldn’t do that and still put some time into comforting the terrified creature. After a few more minutes passed, she whistled, ♪Leaf On Wet Stone.♪

  An eye blinked open, looked up at her.

  ♪If we could move there—♪ She glanced at the futon, saw its gaze follow hers. ♪—it would be more comfortable for me.♪

  ♪I should not trust you,♪ it repeated in the faintest of whistles, but it slid off her lap, freeing her. She turned, moved slowly across the floor to the futon, keeping one hand in contact with it, and it moved with her, clumsily, as though its strength had given out. When they reached the futon she braced herself for an effort, guessing that the creature weighed about as much as she did, but it surprised her, flowing up onto the futon like a waterfall in reverse; the frame creaked beneath its weight. She sat down within easy reach of her tote bag and books, and the shoggoth waited until she was still and then slid close, tentatively at first, then slumping onto her lap, clinging to her. A pseudopod probed the quilts, pulled ineffectually at one end.

  ♪Are you cold?♪ Brecken asked it.

  ♪No.♪ It shivered. ♪Unsheltered. I—I—♪ The shivering grew more intense.

  She pulled a quilt over and got a fold of it settled atop the shoggoth, then put her arm around it. It stared up at her again with three wide baffled eyes, but the trembling gradually stopped, and the sharp scent faded out. Most of its eyes sank out of sight, leaving a few to surface and sink in a drowsy rhythm, seeming to see nothing.

  As carefully as she could, she fished her copy of Fantastic Literature: An Anthology out of her tote bag, and had to suppress a laugh: was there anything in it as fantastic as the thing sprawled over her lap? Still, she opened the volume one-handed and set it on her unencumbered knee. Before she started the next item in the book, “An Ode to Antares” by Theophilus Alvor, she took a few moments to consider the creature next to her.

  This is a person, not a monster, she thought. Professor Boley’s comments about the gender of shoggoths came to mind. A person, and her name today is Leaf On Wet Stone.

  Brecken frowned, then, thinking of the complexities of remembering a different name for each day. Did shoggoths have nicknames? Nothing in Professor Boley’s lecture or the stories she’d read denied it, certainly, so she decided suddenly to give the shoggoth one.

  Sho, she said to herself. It was simple enough, just the word “shoggoth” rounded off for casual use, but it felt right. She nodded, satisfied. Alvor’s poem waited, but her thoughts and her gaze kept drifting over to the iridescent black shape huddled against her, the eyes that rose and sank with hypnotic slowness. She blinked, thought about reading the poem, and then let her eyes drift shut—just for a moment, she told herself. A few heartbeats later she was asleep.

  FOUR

  Music for the Dead

  VAGUE UNQUIET DREAMS GAVE way slowly to a place of darkness.

  Brecken stood beside her own futon, naked, looking down at two others who sat there, slumped motionless as though asleep: a gawky young woman with light brown skin and unkempt black hair, dressed in mismatched sweats, and a shapeless black presence from which pale luminous eyes emerged slowly and then vanished again. One of the woman’s arms cradled the shoggoth. Two of the shoggoth’s temporary pseudopods clung to the woman. A moment passed, and then another, before Brecken realized she was looking at hers
elf and Sho.

  She looked up, expecting to see the familiar surroundings of her apartment, but a blackness deeper than the darkest midnight coiled around the futon, like a gap in the fabric of reality. She stared at it, and knew obscurely that though it had no eyes that she could see, it was looking back at her. Then its attention seemed to shift to the sleeping figures on the futon, and Brecken felt her own gaze pulled the same way.

  Still asleep, the Brecken on the futon shifted slightly. Two pale eyes opened on the surface of the shoggoth closest to her, considered her for a time, sank back out of sight. All at once, as she watched them, the Brecken who stood became aware of the flowing curves that defined Sho’s body and the interplay of angles and curves that defined her own. Somewhere, Brecken sensed, somewhere there were beings that were all angles and no curves, beings that could move toward her through unimaginable angles, and she was desperately afraid of them.

  The surrounding blackness regarded her. Off beyond it were other curves and other angles, paired geometries that reached out in directions that seemed to embrace time as well as space. There was something wrong with the way the curves and the angles twisted and strained against one another, she could sense that at once, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

  Then the darkness turned toward her, and regarded her again—

  BRECKEN WOKE WITH A low cry from a nap she hadn’t intended to take. For a moment, heart pounding, she stared up at a blank space without angles or curves, until it turned back into the ceiling of her apartment. She let out a ragged breath she hadn’t been aware of holding, smelled something like Brie cheese, and belatedly noticed the shapeless mass nestled up against her.

  She glanced down, to see four pale eyes looking at her. ♪It is well with you?♪ Sho asked.

  ♪Yes.♪ Brecken blinked, tried to clear her head. ♪I had a very strange dream.♪

  The shoggoth was silent for a while, and then piped, ♪I also watched my dreams.♪

  Brecken considered that. Something in Sho’s tone made her wonder if her words had been rude, or otherwise crossed a line. After a moment, she paged through the lexicon to find a word, and asked: ♪Is it proper to talk about dreams?♪

  ♪Sometimes.♪ Sho regarded Brecken for a time, then asked, ♪What did you dream?♪

  ♪I dreamed that I stood a little away from us and watched the two of us. And then—♪ She reached for the lexicon, and found no help there. ♪I don’t know the words to talk about what happened then. There were things that scared me, and then I—♪ There was no word for “wake up” in Chalmers’ notes. ♪I stopped dreaming.♪

  Two more eyes blinked open in surprise. ♪You stop dreaming?♪

  ♪Yes, of course.♪ Then, catching herself: ♪You don’t?♪

  ♪No. How could I?♪ Lacking a face, Sho didn’t have an expression to change, but the positions of her eyes shifted in a way that hinted at second thoughts. ♪But you do. How strange.♪

  ♪What were you dreaming just now?♪ Brecken asked.

  Sho considered her, and then said, ♪I had a strong dream. I dreamed of the dweller in darkness, of—♪ She piped a complex trill that Brecken found oddly familiar, though she couldn’t remember why. ♪He spoke to me in my dream, and that has not happened before now. He spoke one word, and that was ‘abide.’♪ She huddled down. ♪You have said I may hide here.♪

  ♪And I mean it,♪ said Brecken. ♪As long as you need to.♪

  ♪Then I will abide.♪

  Just then a low buzz sounded from inside Brecken’s purse. She glanced at it, startled, and then realized that she’d forgotten to turn the cell phone off vibrate after her flute lesson the day before. With a frustrated sigh, she pulled out the phone, woke it, and gave it a dismayed look once the screen came on. It was past one o’clock, and her music education class was long over.

  ♪That thing talks to you,♪ said Sho.

  ♪Yes.♪ She checked messages, found nothing of importance but two texts from Rosalie, one from the evening before apologizing for the way the study session had ended, the other just moments old hoping she was all right. M OK C U @ R&T 2MRO, she texted back, and then put the phone to sleep and returned it to her purse. ♪Right now it says that I don’t have to go anywhere until the light goes and comes back.♪

  ♪I am glad,♪ said Sho.

  Brecken gave the shoggoth a long considering look. ♪Before you came here,♪ she guessed, ♪you spent your time close to others, the way we are now.♪

  ♪Yes. It is—it was our way.♪ In a hushed piping: ♪In all my life I had never been alone and unsheltered so long.♪ A moment passed, and then Sho went on. ♪I have seen you dreaming alone. Do all your people do that?♪

  Flustered by the thought that Sho had watched her sleeping, Brecken fumbled with the lexicon. ♪No. Sometimes. It’s—complicated.♪

  ♪I understand. There are customs.♪

  ♪Yes, exactly.♪

  ♪Then I am glad those allowed you to comfort me.♪

  Brecken blushed. The shoggoth considered her for a long silent moment.

  ♪When you drew me to you earlier,♪ said Sho then, ♪I was afraid that—that you meant to trap me somehow.♪ A little shudder reminded Brecken of a choked laugh. ♪Though you could have done it many times before then. I thought of fleeing from this place, but I could not bear it. I so badly needed the comfort you offered me. So I resolved that if you meant me to die, I would die.♪ Brecken gave her an appalled look and opened her mouth to speak, but the shoggoth went on. ♪And then you went over onto the dreaming-side with me, and showed me that my fears were empty. I do not understand why you are so kind to me but—but I am grateful.♪

  Donna’s scornful words about strays from the day before suddenly lost most of their sting. ♪It is a thing I do,♪ she whistled. ♪Sometimes my people—♪ She couldn’t think of any way to say “laugh at me,” and reached for the lexicon. ♪—think me foolish because I wish to be kind.♪

  ♪They are wrong.♪ Sho’s whistle was harsh. ♪Wrong and cruel.♪ She considered the photocopies in Brecken’s hand, then, and asked, ♪Is that—♪ She used a word Brecken didn’t know, and it took a few minutes of discussion before Brecken was sure that the word meant “writing.” ♪Yes,♪ she whistled, and handed Sho the top sheet of the lexicon.

  The shoggoth took it neatly in a two-pronged pseudopod, considered it with half a dozen eyes. ♪Strange.♪ After a moment: ♪Is there something proper for writing?♪

  Guessing at her meaning, Brecken got out a notebook, opened it to a blank page, handed it to Sho. Another pseudopod took it, and then a third brushed across the paper. Where it passed, dots of some black fluid formed neat groups on the paper, dried quickly into hard glossy marks.

  ♪That is my name today,♪ she said.

  Brecken considered the dots, then picked up a pen and wrote her own first name underneath them. ♪And that is the name I always have,♪ she whistled, and spoke it: “Brecken.”

  Sho pondered that, opened a speaking orifice, and tried to pronounce it, producing a gurgling whistle with a click in the middle. ♪I cannot say it properly,♪ she whistled.

  ♪I would not be able to say your name if I did not—♪ Brecken couldn’t find a phrase for “play music” in the lexicon.

  ♪I understand,♪ said Sho. ♪I have heard you singing with the long bright thing, and with the dark thing with many voices, and a few times I watched you.♪ A silence passed. ♪That was another reason I did not want to flee from this place. When you sing with the long bright thing it is like voices, like my people speaking. I hope you will do that again.♪

  ♪In a little while, yes,♪ said Brecken. There was nothing in the lexicon that told her how to say “Friday afternoons,” but she did her best. ♪There are times when the light fades, when I sing with the long bright thing. The songs are special songs, for one who is dead.♪

  That got her a wide-eyed look, and then all at once Sho slumped and huddled against her, as though some last defense had given way. �
��I am glad,♪ said the shoggoth. ♪If you sing for your dead as my people did, there cannot be so very great a difference between us.♪ In a low unsteady whistle: ♪Someday I will sing for mine. It is still too close now. But—someday.♪

  SINGING FOR THE DEAD, Brecken thought. If only it were so simple.

  She got her music stand set up near the piano, assembled her flute, gave the angle of the mouthpiece a critical look and adjusted it fractionally. The score for Telemann’s Fantasia #8 in E minor went on the stand. Then, the thing that set Friday afternoons apart from all the other times she played her flute: a photo in a dark wooden frame. She got it out of the top drawer of the dresser, propped it atop the piano. From within the frame, a face looked out—a plump middle-aged woman with light skin, graying black hair, thick glasses, a wistful smile.

  All the while, a shapeless black thing with pale temporary eyes sat on the futon, watched her with an attentive silence that made Brecken think of the one time she’d watched a Japanese tea ceremony. She didn’t usually like to have people listen to her on Friday afternoons, but there were exceptions, and she’d begun to suspect that Sho might be one of the exceptions.

  She picked up the flute, played a Taffanel and Gaubert exercise. The notes rippled through the air, awakening memories. That finished, she started the Telemann piece, played it once for precision, once for interpretation, once to let the music flow the way it wanted to flow.

  Mrs. Macallan, she thought. Patricia Lynn Macallan: that was her full name, though Brecken had never once called her that while she was alive.

  She’d met her that first day at Oakmont Middle School, as September began to gild the leaves of the woods around Woodfield. The bell rang for sixth period; Brecken filed into the girls’ gymnasium with the others, clutching a case that contained a well-used but serviceable flute bought at a pawnshop, giving her classmates uncertain looks. Then Mrs. Macallan came bustling in, greeted them all, settled them in groups by instrument, and got them warming up. Harsh echoes came down from the ceiling—the gym had dismal acoustics—but Mrs. Macallan’s ready smile and encouraging words made that easier to tolerate.