Indeed, the chief’s wives were given that responsibility, so that during Atmaas’ convalescence old An’noona spoke often with him and soon came to know of the pigmy lad’s intelligence. And so impressed was the chief that he made an order that henceforth any child of particular brilliance or talent should be named Atmaas after the hero; and thus Atmaas himself became first among An’noona’s advisors. This was the youth’s story . . .
III
By now night was drawing in, and soon a waxing moon was riding high above a mist that seemed to settle from the sky. Lanterns were lighted and Atmaas led us to a small hut on short stilts, which he indicated was ours for as long as we cared to stay. Now was not a time for sleeping, however, but for rejoicing; and when Phata and I would have gladly climbed the short ladder to bed, Atmaas stopped us and pointed through tendrils of thin mist and wisps of fragrant fire smoke to where numerous lanterns were bobbing and gathering at a central place. There was to be a feast, Atmaas informed—a celebration, a gorging of choice gobbets, a great guzzling of mildly opiate and heavily intoxicant beverages—and all for us! For An’noona had found us pleasing and desired to honour us.
Already the night was a muted hubbub, the air filled with enticing, exotic smells and the sounds of strange instruments; so that Phata and I felt a rising excitement as we tossed our necessaries in through our hut’s high doorway and followed Atmaas to the feast. And as we seated ourselves cross-legged before a vast, low log table, of which there were a dozen, so an endless stream of laden platters of gold began to appear. There were more than two hundred of them, all of thick, beaten gold, all heaped with every sort of meat and fish and fruit and nut, until the tables were a-groan with their weight. Finally, by the time it had grown totally dark beyond the circle of lantern light, when it seemed that the entire tribe must be seated in the central clearing, only then did An’noona appear, taking his place at the head of our table.
The chief smiled a toothy smile at us and made a sign with his hand; and the horde at the tables immediately began chattering and chewing, and the babble grew deafening as a pigmy band struck up on tomtoms, wind and string instruments. We too would have eaten, for the sight of all this food had made us hungry and it was impossible to stop our mouths from watering; but we held back, however reluctantly, until Atmaas who sat with us saw our hesitation and knew the source of our discomfort.
No, no, he informed us: there were no enemies of the N’dolas on the menu tonight. There were ribs of wild pig and steaks of water buffalo, moorhens and jungle quails, river oysters and rainbow trout and smoked eels of a rare and delicate texture—but no man-flesh, no. Of course, there was one who would dearly love to see us trussed up and simmering in the cooking pots, who even now stood to one side in the shadows and kept his evil eyes glued upon us where we sat. And Atmaas, inclining his great and misshapen head, indicated where we should look to see this would-be malefactor.
Even before we turned our heads that way, Phata and I knew who the silent watcher would be. None other but Ow-n-ow, the witch-doctor himself. We would be well advised, Atmaas needlessly informed, to keep out of the way of the nganga, lest he find a way to pay us back for the humiliations we had heaped upon him. And all through the celebrations which followed, from time to time as the night wore on, we would feel Ow-n-ow’s gaze burning upon us, Phata Um and I, and so knew beyond any slightest doubt that Atmaas’ advice was well founded.
What with the gorging on marvellous gobbets, however, and gulping down great two-handed jars of beer—and the pigmies doing their intricate tribal dances, and the music which grew, as the night progressed, more wild and rhythmic and repetitive, so as to become almost hypnotic—Ow-n-ow gradually slipped to the back of our reeling minds, becoming less a threat than an annoyance. Until eventually, drunk as lords, stepping carefully over the still forms of little men where they had fallen in their excesses, as the sky to the east began to lighten a little, we wove our weary way to our hut and climbed, however teeteringly, to bed.
And even here the pigmies were not remiss in their hospitality; for giggling coyly in the darkness of our tiny rooms were a pair of pigmy girls, black as the night but not nearly so secretive, who had doubtless waited for us through all the long hours of revelry and who now set about to put the finishing touches to our welcome. Through the thin, woven wall of my room I heard Phata’s puzzled, boozy query: “Well, little one, and just what am I supposed to do with you?” And I smiled at the silence which then ensued, being certain that just like her sister who now pleasured me, Phata’s visitor had doubtless taken the initiative . . .
FOR THE NEXT three days and nights we did very little. Indeed, two whole days were required merely to recover from the festive excesses of our welcoming celebration, so that our condition was only very shaky as we went about the village and took note of the tribe’s way of life, its customs, habits, its social structure in general, and particularly its utensils, even the commonest or most mundane of which were of gold. It was a source of constant astonishment to us to see boys fishing in the lake with hooks of pure gold, and gardeners at work with forks and hoes of that same precious metal, and girls washing their scraps of clothing in great basins of the stuff!
Then, on the fourth day, Atmaas came to us and told us that An’noona had decided to honour us above all others. For no other outsiders had ever entered the fane of the slug-gods or seen the treasures therein, and this was the invitation which the chief now extended to us. Moreover, we were also to be his guests at the quarterly propitiation of the gods themselves; when with our own eyes we might gaze upon those monsters as Ow-n-ow called them out of their deep swamps to accept burnt sacrifices of buffaloes and pigs. For in two more days the moon would be at its full, and then it was that the ceremony must take place; and for a further three-month the slug-gods would be appeased and the village would prosper. First, however, we were to visit the fane of the gods and offer up our prayers to those gigantic gastropod deities; for it was only right that we who had found favour in the eyes of An’noona should now ask it of his gods.
That same afternoon, as Phata and I finished a simple meal prepared and served by our pigmy paramours, An’noona and his councillors, accompanied by the nganga Ow-n-ow, came to where we sat in the shade of our hut. Atmaas explained that we were to go with them to the fane of the slug-gods, and so we followed the party to the lake’s edge where the chief’s royal barge—a trimaran built of terrific tree trunks—lay waiting with its crew of smooth-muscled paddlers. With the chief seated centrally and in the prow, his retinue close behind him, and with Phata and me each in an outrigger, we soon were on our way.
Long that journey and tiring, so that the team of twenty paddlers was obliged to work in shifts of ten; but soon our craft had entered the wide body of the river where it came down from the central mountains and then, against the steady but gentle flow of water, we made good headway between banks strewn with orchids and overgrown with dense foliage and huge trees whose vines hung down to the river itself. And again we felt ourselves transported as if by magick to jungled Shadarabar.
As the hours passed so the night drew in, and great moths came to investigate the lanterns with which the trimaran’s crew lighted its watery way; and as the full moon rose up into the sky, so we were able to discern ahead the rising cliffs of a great canyon. Only then did Phata and I know the real source of the river, which could be nowhere else but the mighty Inner Sea itself. For this was one of those outlets by which that imposing inland ocean emptied itself through the Great Circle Mountains.
And so, by light of moon and lantern, we proceeded until, deep within the defile, the canyon opened out to form a sort of small valley within the range. Here, on the nothern bank of the river, the land was a rank swamp a-crawl with lizards, crocodiles and great frogs which ran, slithered or hopped through rotting foliage and creeping vines of an unnatural, venomous black and green. And away in the dark distance, where the great cliffs rose up once more against the starry night, there we cou
ld see the glowing, smoky red fires of volcanic blowholes, which we knew for such by a sulphurous taint in the warm, clinging air of the place.
To the south there was neither bank nor marsh, only great cliffs rising into darkness, whose feet the river followed from that mighty Inner Ocean of legend. Here the current was a little stronger, the water deeper, and our craft hugged the sheer rock as it moved slowly forward.
Now Atmaas called to us from his position to the rear of the chief, pointing to the sprawling swamps of the northern aspect. That was forbidden territory, he told us, taboo, the domain of the slug-gods, where two nights from now we would see them called forth by Ow-n-ow to accept the tribe’s tribute. But no sooner had he finished speaking than Ow-n-ow himself, whose seat was in the stern of the central hull, gave a great howling laugh that echoed back from the rock walls like the lunatic chorus of a pack of hyenas!
White in the near-darkness, I saw Phata’s face as he turned it to stare at the nganga where he sat in the rear, rocking in crazed glee, his glowing eyes first on me, then on Phata, as if he knew some marvellously malicious joke about us and would love to tell it. But at that very moment, taking our minds off the evil witch-doctor, there came the cry of a pigmy who stood and leaned forward in the prow of the larboard outrigger, drawing all eyes to where he swung his lantern in darkness. For here the cliffs had been washed away to form a vast cave like the yawning mouth of some monster, into whose inky shadow our craft now slid as we stared about in lantern-flickered gloom.
Here the water was calm and still, and as torches were lit to augment the light of the lanterns, so we found ourselves in a high-domed natural cavern whose branching throat went back into untold labyrinths of rock. Huge stalactites hung from the bat-clustered ceiling. Between those needle points the paddlers now guided the royal vessel unerringly toward one dark canal whose walls seemed all agleam with winking, luminous green eyes. Since the channel was narrow, however, and since Phata and I occupied the outriggers, we were soon able to discern that these winking points were not eyes but the facets of fabulous emeralds in their natural state, imbedded in the glassy walls and polished by untold centuries of flooding waters! Moreover, the walls themselves were yellow with thick branching veins of raw gold! The place was nothing less than a vast, natural treasure cave; and I admit that my throat grew dry, as Phata’s must have done, at the thought of the untold wealth mere inches from our itching fingers.
In a few moments more the channel widened out and we saw to our left a wide shelf of rock which reached back toward the cave’s shadow-hidden wall. And I knew at once that this was the fane of the slug-gods, for the sight that greeted my unbelieving eyes in that secret place was of such magnitude that it utterly dwarfed all which had gone before.
Can you picture endless ranks of great gastropods—giant slugs fashioned in precious yellow metal, with stalked eyes of uncut emeralds big as a man’s fists—marching away into the gloom of the place; and the flames of the torches and lanterns reflected into our eyes from the nearest sculptures, until it seemed that the whole cavern flowed with molten gold, through which auric effulgence the emerald-eyed monsters seemed silently to glide on carpets of golden nuggets, imbued with an awe-inspiring sentience all their own? You cannot, nor could any man who has not seen it with his own eyes!
IV
As our eyes grew accustomed to the yellow dazzle, so we noted that upon rock-cut ledges to the rear of the temple stood dozens of smaller slug replicas, some large as dogs and others no bigger than small rats—but all of solid gold. We were given no great time to consider the vastness of the wealth here amassed, however, for no sooner had we disembarked to stand upon the great shelf than the members of An’noona’s party prostrated themselves and Atmaas indicated that we should do likewise.
All of us, with the sole exception of Ow-n-ow, went down on our knees, heads bowed; and now, without more ado, the tiny nganga began his dance of propitiation. As he danced—a weird, gliding dance, hands held at the sides of his head, index fingers extended in imitation of horns—so one by one, beginning with the chief himself, each member of An’noona’s party stood up, took out from his ceremonial robes a miniature golden slug and went to place it in its chosen niche, returning immediately and once more prostrating himself.
Even with bowed heads Phata and I managed to keep track of all this, until we were the only ones who had not paid tribute to the gods of this grotto fane. We need not have felt dismayed, however, for Atmaas had not forgotten us. Where he kneeled beside us, he produced two tiny miniatures from his red robe, giving one each to my colleague and me. Phata rose first, went to the wall and found a tiny niche for his effigy. As he returned so I rose up and did likewise—at which the chief and his retinue stood up as a man and solemnly applauded.
And all of this time Ow-n-ow kept up his eerie, gliding dance in imitation of the great slugs. Then, of a sudden, the witch-doctor hurled himself down amidst ankle-deep golden nuggets, wriggled on his belly to the base of the largest effigy and kissed its yellow bulk in a sort of frenzied fervor; following which he slowly stood up. Again the chief’s party applauded, we two outsiders also, and with that the ritual was over.
We all returned to the trimaran, Ow-n-ow bringing up the rear, and in a solemn silence broken only by the dip of paddles and the grunts of the paddlers, we returned through the great cave to the river. Thus, in the dead of night, Phata Um and I were brought weary but full of wonder back to the pigmy village; and thus, all unbeknown to us, Ow-n-ow had set in motion that monstrous plot with which he intended to destroy us . . .
THE FOLLOWING MORNING I sought out Atmaas and took him to one side. If tomorrow night, at the full of the moon, Phata and I were to witness the calling forth of the actual slug-gods to accept burnt offerings, we would not want to be caught short (as might well have happened in the cavern fane) by being unprepared. Thus I begged Atmaas that he tell me whatever he could of the great creatures and explain the nature of the imminent ceremony. Would it be in any way similar to the proceedings of the previous night?
No, the pigmy youth informed, last night had merely been preparatory to the main event. What we had done last night was a prayer for the increase of the giant gastropods by increasing the number of their effigies. What we would do tomorrow would be an appeasement, that the slug-gods might look favourably upon the N’dolas and the tribe itself prosper. And in answer to my further questions he told me more about the “gods” themselves, though I suspected he was clever enough to realise that I had little or no faith in the creatures as true gods; in which deduction he would have been absolutely correct.
Why (I wanted to know) did the pigmies sacrifice cooked flesh to their gods, when it seemed to me that in the wild the diet of the creatures must surely be raw, be it flora, fauna or whatever? In answer to which Atmaas told me a very strange tale indeed.
The slug-gods (he said) were of a most capricious nature, with moods often as transient as the phases of the moon. Normally they fed on the vegetation of their swamps, though certainly they were omnivorous and could happily consume whatever presented itself. Indeed, it had more than once been apparent that their moods went hand in hand with their diet, which was the main reason that the sacrifice would be of sweet, cooked meats: to sweeten their tempers, as it were, and guide them to beneficent thoughts in respect of their worshippers.
But what in the world did Atmaas mean (I pressed) by his statement about the moods of the gastropods? In what way might their diet possibly determine their actions, beneficent or otherwise? Here the great-headed youth was at a loss. He did not know how it could be so, he said, only that it was so. Three years ago, for instance, there had been a plague of crocodiles. The rivers, swamps and forests had been alive with them. In the swamps particularly, the creatures were so numerous that the morass heaved with their movements. And so of course a great many were eaten by the slug-gods, being simply ingested before they could get out of the way.
This precipitated a period of nightmarish act
ivity in the gastropods, which only ended when the crocodiles themselves died from lack of food or were killed off by the pigmies, who organised massive hunts specifically for that purpose; to decimate the reptiles and thus deny them as food for the slugs, which in turn should curb the wholly unprecedented—activities of those deities.
When I further pressed Atmaas in respect of these activities he was at first loth to answer. But eventually he told me that I must try to understand: the actions of gods were invariably hard for mere mortals to fathom. Who, for instance, might follow the whims of the moon-god in his continuous waxing and waning? Who could say when it would or would not rain? Or when the sun-god would choose to dry up the river? Or why the gods did these things at all? And if the great elemental gods were hard to understand, how then these purely mundane but utterly strange gods of the swamp?
As to what the slug-gods had done to terrorize the pigmy tribe: that was simple. They had adopted the sly, voracious, murderous ways of the crocodiles themselves. That is to say they had become like the unfortunate reptiles upon which they had fed, developing despicable habits and growing vile in their attitudes even toward the N’dolas. Aye, and some of them had even made their way through the canyon to the pigmy village; and that had been a very terrible time indeed!
But a slug big as a mammoth is not a crocodile, for all that it adopts the other’s ways; and however sly it may be, still it may not come upon a man unobserved. As soon as the villagers knew their danger they called on Ow-n-ow to do something about it; and he, using knowledge passed down from past generations of ngangas before him, knew exactly what he must do. Having crocodile appetites without crocodile stealth—which with their bulk would be quite impossible—those few gastropods which made the journey to the village were quite ravenous. They no longer required vegetation but flesh, which for the most part their great size denied them. Ow-n-ow’s answer to the problem was therefore simplicity itself. He merely fed the great beasts—on rabbits.
The House of Cthulhu: Tales of the Primal Land Vol. 1 Page 16
