The House of Cthulhu: Tales of the Primal Land Vol. 1

by Lumley, Brian

  At this point I might have fancied that the pigmy youth was pulling my leg, but Atmaas assured me it was so and that he told only the truth. Following the destruction of part of the village wall by the slug-gods as they foraged for meat, on the very next night Ow-n-ow put out a great number of live rabbits tethered to small shrubs. The gastropods, when with the fall of night they returned, immediately took the bait and retreated into the forest shade to digest their victims—and they never returned.

  In the early hours of the next morning they were seen making their way back along the river toward the canyon, all atremble and furtive—if that may be imagined—as if anxious now to be gone from the tribe’s territory back to their own domain. And it was noted that they were now as timid as—as rabbits! And when Atmaas told me this last, finally I began to understand.

  Over all the long, dim centuries since the Beginning, Nature had endowed the gastropods with a unique talent: the short-term ability to assume certain of the characteristics of whichever species they chanced to feed upon in their browsing. How or why this was so was a mystery, but so are so many things in Nature. Perhaps the talent had been a guard against great predators, when by eating the flesh of one such—perhaps accidentally fallen—the slugs would “inherit” its knowledge and so be able to combat or at least avoid the unwanted attentions of others of its sort. Whichever, the puzzle was too great for my fathoming.

  Having talked with Atmaas for well over an hour, I wandered freely through the village, amused myself for a little while watching the pigmy children at play, and was thus engaged when Phata found me. He had borrowed a large canoe, he said, and a fishing net. Having watched the village fishermen, he now wished to try their methods for himself. Would I care to join him? Having little else to do, I agreed.

  But down at the lakeside, as I dragged Phata’s borrowed craft into the water and while he was busy folding his net thus and so, I noticed in the tall reeds close by a grinning, evil face which gazed intently upon our activities. Then the face was gone, but not before I had recognised it as the poisonous visage of Ow-n-ow. He was not done with us, that little man, not by a long shot. And all through the rest of the day that fleeting glimpse of his face, framed by reeds, kept returning to the eye of my memory, so that on several occasions Phata was moved to inquire if aught were amiss . . .

  THAT AFTERNOON IT WAS very hot and so we slept in hammocks slung in the shade of our hut; but as evening came on we were up and about to greet our pigmy paramours as they came, all giggles and flashing white pointed teeth, to serve our evening meal. They ate with us, as usual, but no sooner had we begun to eat than there came a surprising diversion. Ow-n-ow, coming upon us from somewhere close at hand, clapped first myself then Phata Um upon our shoulders where we sat, chucked our concubines under their chins, and chuckling (benevolently?) went on his way.

  “What in the name of Great Black Yib—?” f began.

  “Perhaps the nganga’s mother-in-law died!” Phata grinned. “Or maybe he’s just unwell, eh?”

  “Let’s hope so!” I answered. And laughing, however wonderingly, we finished our meal—which act, apart from climbing in a sort of drunken and totally inexplicable stupor to our beds, was all that we were ever able to remember of that entire evening and night!

  V

  That we had been drugged—the girls, too—did not become apparent until late the next morning, when rising haggard and in great misery from our beds we discovered An’noona, his councillors, a triumphant Ow-n-ow, and several other tribal dignitaries waiting for us to put in an appearance. And once Atmaas had made clear just what was going on—why, then we also knew just whose hand had done the deed! For now we found ourselves accused of an infamy far and away above all others; and of course it was Ow-n-ow who brought the charge against us, and his glib tongue which condemned us as Atmaas stumblingly did his best to translate the nganga’s accusations.

  Oh!—and how that little monster had excelled himself in his deviltry!

  He had noticed (as he now explained to a rapidly growing crowd of silent pigmies) a certain furtiveness about us in the fane of the slug-gods; and he had also observed the way our fingers lingered over the golden nuggets and effigies in that holy place. Then, because he had not wished to believe that we were capable of such evil thoughts and unnatural avaricious urges, he had put the matter to the back of his mind, telling himself that he—even Ow-n-ow, a nganga of the greatest power and perception—must be mistaken.

  But then, later, he had seen us with a canoe out on the lake. What had we been doing, he had wondered? We had seemed to be fishing, and yet . . . could we have been practising the art of canoeing? If so, why?

  Finally, last night, we had retired early, very early indeed, and this too had puzzled the witch-doctor (or so he said).

  Indeed his suspicions were such that he waited until dusk to see us stealing through the quiet village to the lakeside, where we boarded our canoe and paddled away up river into the evening mist. He had then returned to our hut, intending to waken our sleeping-partners and question them as to our mysterious activities. He was unable to waken them, however, for they were in a deep, drugged sleep and would remain so until the drug had burned itself out of their systems. We (quite obviously) had drugged them in order to hide our absence from them.

  Thoroughly alarmed now, Ow-n-ow had waited all through the night; and finally we had returned through the early morning mists, mooring our canoe and stealing back to our hut in a most suspicous and secretive manner. Then the nganga went to our canoe and discovered, within its hollowed interior where doubtless it had fallen from one of our pockets, a golden, thumb-sized miniature of a slug-god! So saying, and as Atmaas continued to translate, Ow-n-ow held up the alleged proof of our guilt for all to see.

  And now the pigmies had drawn back from us, their mouths open in shock; even Atmaas (though I could see he was torn two ways) staring up at us in a sort of astonished disbelief; aye, and our pigmy paramours too. Frankly, I was too stunned to make a move, but Phata Um suffered no such restriction. He strode forward, his great hands reaching down and toward Ow-n-ow’s scrawny neck. And certainly he would have killed the treacherous, lying little dog there and then—had he not found himself staring down the flaring snouts of half-a-dozen blowpipes, appearing almost magically in the hands of pigmies whose services had doubtless been acquired by the nganga against just such an eventuality.

  Now we were ringed about by the tiny warriors, and quick as a flash our accuser had climbed like a monkey to our hut and disappeared within. A moment passed and we could hear the witch-doctor rummaging about—then another moment in complete silence—and finally, dramatically, the small fiend reappeared at the top of the ladder, his hands weighted with a pair of golden miniatures large as babies’ skulls.

  That was enough, the dog had done for us!

  Oh, I suppose we might have argued, but I doubt that we could have won. The “evidence” against us was far too strong. We were haggard-looking, as well we would be after a night of furtive canoeing and temple desecrating; the girls we slept with could neither confirm nor deny our presence through the night, for of course “we” had drugged them; and most damning of all, Ow-n-ow had produced those golden miniatures, proof positive that we had indeed robbed the fane of the slug-gods.

  And in our favour—nothing! We had no proof at all of our innocence, not a shred of it, and any denials or counter-accusations we might make must be through Atmaas, who would surely be seen as biased in our favour. And so, un-protesting, still a little dumb-founded by it all, we were taken away, bound hand and foot and locked in a tiny bamboo stockade or cage; and there we spent the day, working at the thongs that bound us and dreaming of sweet revenge against the little black devil whose evil wiles had brought us to this pass.

  Toward late afternoon Atmaas came to see us, and just a single glance at the long and doleful face beneath that heavy, bulbous head of his was sufficient to tell us the worst. The pigmy council had met; we were guilty; our p
unishment would be . . . would be—

  But he did not need to say any more; even a blind man could have seen our futures . . .

  How would it be done? I asked the youth. When? But before he could answer I went on to tell him of our innocence, of Own-ow’s treachery. I may even have started to babble a little (for certainly I was afraid for my life) but Phata Um’s elbow in my ribs warned me to be quiet. And of course he was right for the N’dolas despised cowards, and Atmaas was a N’dola after all.

  Finally, after sitting in a sort of sad silence for many minutes, at last the lad told us the worst, the how and the when of it. Which did nothing at all to calm us or allay our burgeoning fears.

  It would be tonight! Oh, and there would be sweeter meat than pig and buffalo on the menu of the slug-gods this night. As to how: we would be staked out at the edge of the swamp, amidst the slaughtered, roasted beast carcasses; and when the great gastropods came in answer to Ow-n-ow’s calling, then we would be put quickly out of our misery by a fusillade of poisoned darts. We would see the slug-gods, aye—and at very close quarters indeed—but mercifully we would never know the slow, deadly burn of their digestive juices.

  Only one more thing I asked of Atmaas before he left us: that he ensure the poisons would be quick. In answer he told me that I need have no fear. One or two darts would merely paralyse, but five or six would certainly kill. Since we would be feathered by at least a dozen darts each . . . and he shrugged, however sadly, and left us to the speeding hours.

  When the river mists were beginning to curl and the sun was sinking toward the high horizon of stirless trees, then they came for us. We were bundled without ceremony into a log canoe which took the tail position in a large procession of these crude craft, being paddled round the island and along the tree-shaded river toward the great canyon. And if our single previous trip along that way had seemed a long one, this present journey passed in a flash.

  For to my mind it was only a very short time indeed before our craft beached on a loamy, swampy shore; and there we were lifted from the canoe and carried to an area of comparatively dry ground, and propped with our backs to the boles of trees so rotten that they were close to falling. Now that we could gaze all about, we saw that this was none other than that great swamp where the canyon widened into a sunken valley; and that apart from this small clearing at the edge of the river, the swamp pressed close, dark and ominous on all sides.

  Never in my life had I looked upon a region of grimmer aspect than the one which presented itself in that swamp. Huge humps of nameless, rotting vegetable debris rose everywhere, between which the mud bubbled up with a yellow froth of sulphur. Massy leaves, green and black and glossy, lay low to the surface, cloaking the movements of things which wriggled, crawled or swam through the quaggy morass beneath. And occasionally there would come a commotion of foliage and flesh, a thrashing of leathery limbs and clashing of jaws as battle was joined or prey snapped up; and in a little while the eerie silence would once again descend, only to be broken by the distant screams of predators or the noisy emission of pockets of gas bursting in great bubbles which oozed up from the depths of the bog.

  “A great place for gods!” said Phata, his voice full of a doleful sarcasm. “But better by far for demons . . .”

  By now the pigmies had built fires in the clearing close to the water’s edge, where they proceeded to roast the many carcasses which they had brought with them from the village. And as the light quickly faded so the aroma of cooked flesh began to mingle with the fetors of the marsh, and the figures of the pigmies where they worked and moved became as grey ghosts in that awful twilight.

  “Phata,” I said, my voice a whisper, “this looks like the end. Man, I’m frightened!”

  “Aye, me too,” growled my friend, “but the end is not yet—not quite. I’ve been working on these bonds of mine, and I believe—uh!” And for a moment he fell silent and peered about with lowered brows, making sure that his actions went unobserved. “My hands,” he finally continued, “are free—but I’ll keep them behind my back a while longer. What of the thongs that bind you?”

  “No good,” I shook my head. “I haven’t your strength, Phata. But listen, if you can move your feet a little, get them tucked in behind my back—”

  Gloomier still the glade as I got my stiff fingers to work on the knots which bound Phata’s feet, and as the fires burned lower so the golden edge of the moon appeared above the forest and distant cliffs. When Ow-n-ow saw that first moonbeam come stealing into the darkening clearing, then he laughed hysterically—like a maniac where he stood at the water’s edge—and in another moment he laid back his head and gave a great baying howl which echoed all through the horror-laden swamp.

  VI

  Frantically now I worked on Phata’s knots, for the fires were turned to embers, the sacrifices all prepared and the night closing in like a great black fist. And away in the swamp there were flickering blue ghosts, faint as foxfire but mobile and monstrous. The pigmies had seen these lights too, and the bulk of them soon retreated to their canoes. Some were left, however, who beat around the edge of the clearing with clubs and long, sharp knives, keeping away the crocodiles and other creatures attracted by the far-drifted aroma of cooked flesh.

  Aye, and others of the pigmies there were too, who simply stood in a group with their blowpipes and waited. And then there was An’noona, seated in a sort of open, bamboo sedan, with his bearers close to hand; and finally Ow-n-ow, the grinning black devil, who now commenced that gliding, twin-horned dance of his, that impersonation of a slug as he moved about the clearing. Every few minutes he would pause, cup his hands to his mouth and utter a strange, coughing bark, the snort of a wild, alien thing. And in answer to this calling—

  The blue fires came closer, glowing through the rotting, creeper-festooned swamp, moving less aimlessly now and with a sort of terrible purpose. And suddenly it dawned on me that this must be the sign of the slug-gods; that they glowed with that same luminosity as their lesser, aquatic cousins cast up on Theem’hdra’s shores. In the instant of realisation, the last knot binding Phata’s feet came loose in my fumbling fingers—and in that self-same moment the blowpipe marksmen formed themselves into a line.

  Ow-n-ow’s dance was no longer a dance so much as a darting here and there in the darkness and a crazed snuffling and snorting; but worse by far were the answering calls which now issued from out the swamp itself! The slug-gods were closing with the clearing; it would not be very long before Ow-n-ow ordered that we be killed, following which the rest of the pigmies would flee the clearing and doubtless watch the spectacle of their deities feasting from the safety of the river.

  No sooner had this last thought come to me than An’noona’s bearers picked up his litter and bore the chief swiftly away toward the river. The beaters at the edge of the clearing likewise took their departure, their actions made hurried and clumsy through a shivery terror which was now clearly apparent in their every move. Until only Ow-n-ow and the marksmen remained, and they too fearsomely a-tremble as they cast all about in the night with bulging, staring eyes.

  By now the bluely luminescent slug-gods were close indeed and their coughing calls loud in the darkness; and lesser predators must surely have left the immediate vicinity as they sensed the approach of those Lords of the Morass, for apart from the aforementioned calls and the continual bursting of gassy bubbles, all was now silent. Even Ow-n-ow had ceased his dancing and calling, and he stood with the marksmen where they awaited his command. Then—

  Suddenly, with a great rupturing of squelchy, rotten toadstools, one of the towering vegetable humps at the far side of the clearing was shoved aside; and in the next instant a great shape moved slowly into the glade. We saw it—outlined in its own blue glow, silhouetted against the night—that vast slug-shape whose eyestalks stood out like horns from its head, whose motion was a slow contraction and expansion which was yet sufficient to glide the thing along at a not inconsiderable speed.

 
Even as the great gastropod appeared, a second creature’s head and waving eyestalks slid into view at the edge of the clearing close by; and now Ow-n-ow gave his near-hysterical word of command, and at once the pigmy marksmen lifted their blowpipes to their lips. This was what Phata had waited for. As the pigmies moved, so he moved.

  In one motion he turned to me, ripped away the thongs that bound me to my tree and scooped me to his shoulder. No time to work on my actual bonds, however, those bindings which yet held my feet and hands fast; for even now a great head swayed out of the darkness, bluely-illumined eyestalks turning this way and that, and a corrugated grey-blue bulk loomed close.

  Then I heard Phata’s grunt as a dart struck him, and almost simultaneously I felt a swift stab at my own shoulder where another poisoned missile found its mark. In another moment we were away, Phata plunging into the swamp, wading chest-deep through slime and weed and vilely smelling rot, and me over his shoulder, head down, my face brushing the very skin of that quaggy, scummy surface.

  Screams of fury behind us and harshly gabbled orders—and the hiss of darts cleaving the noxious air—and a second sharp pain in my back—and Phata grunting three, four times in rapid succession as his broad back and shoulder took the brunt of the fusillade. But then the clearing was behind us, lost in a boggy mist, through which the many blue-glowing forms of the slug-gods were seen faint as ghost-lights receding in our fetid wake.

  For a little while longer Phata ploughed through nameless mire, where at any moment we may well have disappeared for ever beneath its surface, but then at last he stumbled up on to a sort of island and dumped me against the broad bole of a squat, stunted tree. It was the work of mere seconds then for my mighty friend to tear away my bonds, and at last I was free—but free to face what fearsome future?