The Daughter of the Night

by Julian Porter

  'I think you'll find, er, madam, that the more usual interpretation of “The Unnameable” is that it is, as is typical of Beckett, about despair induced by the futility of existence.' This seemed to cut no ice, for the woman said,

  'Sure. I mean, why else would Hastur bugger off? Obviously he was feeling pissed off. Look, I've read some of it. The bits I could understand, and it's clearly some bloke telling Bucket how unhappy he is. And then at the end he vanishes away. I mean, is it just me, or isn't it obvious what happened?'

  'Er, no.'

  'Well,' she said rather impatiently, for all the world as if she were the professor and he the dim undergraduate, though if he had had tutors looking like her he probably wouldn't have got a first-class degree, though he might have got a first-class education, 'Clearly Bucket met Hastur somewhere. In a bar probably. And they got talking. And Hastur said how he was fed up and about to bugger off, and then he did, and Bucket, being the sort of person authors are, naturally wrote it down and claimed it was all his own work, safe in the knowledge that the only person who could prove him wrong was elsewhere. And,' she added triumphantly, 'My boobs are wobbling, so it must be true.'

  Well, Professor Hopkins could see that. It was strangely – absorbing – to see those – oscillations – strangely – moving. In sundry places, some of which he hadn't been moved in for decades. But, moving though it was, he didn't see why a sudden jiggle should mean that this ludicrous theory was true, and that Beckett was reduced from an artist whose vision was so uncompromising that only the chosen (and well paid) few could even begin to comprehend it, to someone who wrote down what people he met in bars told him. Now if it had been Dylan Thomas... But no, even he wouldn't have taken such nonsense seriously. And it was nonsense. But then, this woman clearly believed it, and appeared to have some primitive beliefs about sympathetic magic as relating to her breasts that his colleagues in the anthropology department would no doubt find fascinating (and they might find the beliefs pretty interesting too), which meant that she was mad. And given her somewhat unusual behaviour, it was a foregone conclusion that she was bad. And – he looked again at the two headless corpses – she was also dangerous. And you don't cross mad, bad and dangerous people. Not if you want to live. So he said,

  'That's an – interesting – hypothesis. Not one I've come across before. I'm not sure, though that it sheds much light on the central problem of the text, which is . . .' The woman didn't want to know.

  'So where is this Bucket bloke? He must know where he last saw Hastur.'

  'I'm afraid he's dead.'

  'Oh.' She looked crushed for a moment, then she brightened. 'I know. I might be prepared to make love with you if you agree to tell me how to find Hastur. So how about it?' What a dilemma Professor Hopkins found himself in. The thought of making love with this glorious woman was too good to be true, too good to miss. But he had seen what she did to people who annoyed her, and he didn't want it to happen to him, which it undoubtedly would when she realised that he didn't have a clue who Hastur was, let alone where he was. So, regrettably, he had to set aside all thoughts of caressing that body, kissing those lips, squeezing those – and try to find a way to get her out of his life, and fast. Before she became peeved again. And then he had it. The perfect solution. The head of the theology department was his principal rival for a prestigious new chair. If he could, oh Professor Hopkins didn't know, accidentally get his head removed by a female lunatic, then obviously he would no longer be in the competition, and so the chair would be, as it rightly should be, his. And all this stuff about Hastur and Great Old Ones and so on and so forth sounded like religious mumbo jumbo anyway. The perfect solution. The perfect crime. So he said, very carefully,

  'I'm afraid I can't help you, but,' he got in quickly before she could start do anything explosive, 'I think I know someone who can.'

  So, a little later, Professor Hopkins knocked on the door of the Professor of Theology's chambers and, hearing a shout from within, ushered his guests through the door. The Professor of Theology had looked irritated on seeing Professor Hopkins, but as our heroine sailed in, his jaw dropped. Which was not entirely surprising, as she tended to take men that way. And women. And, on occasion, rocks and trees. But Professor Hopkins, who was not a subtle man, more used to reading impenetrable modernist literature than human countenances, saw nothing amiss and said, with that false heartiness that had made him so disliked by his colleagues, to the extent that if they heard that, say, his head had been turned into a grenade by a sexy lunatic who had proceeded to pull the pin, they would probably break out the last of the crusty port to celebrate,

  'Oh hello, old thing. Got a, ahem, lady here who's got a problem with some mumbo jumbo. And that's more up your street than mine. So I thought you and she could have a good chin-wag about the old guy in the sheet, while the time away until your next nap, that sort of thing.' Then, in what he clearly thought was an undertone, 'Bit of a handful actually, but I mastered her.' And so, confident of having said all he could, he turned to Unity and said, 'Well, toodle oo, and don't go getting any silly ideas like you were telling me. Girls like you should be happy just to be pretty. Bye.' And he was about to leave when Unity said, in a quiet, almost demure, quite uncharacteristic in fact, voice,

  'Professor?' He turned back, irritated at having even more of his precious time wasted.

  'What?' She said nothing, merely smiled sweetly at him, but suddenly Professor Hopkins felt pressure growing inside his head as if it were about to blow. He blenched and, for a moment, looked as if he might solve everyone's problems by expiring on the spot. But he recovered, and beat a far hastier retreat than had been his intention.

  Unity smiled a little private smile and turned to the Professor of Theology, who was still dumb-struck. She quietly made her way over to the chair next to his, gesturing to the one true love that he should sit at the other end of the room, which he did. Then she sat down and modestly arranged the wisps of fabric that made up her clothing so as to cover up as much as was feasible of her magnificent womanhood. Which wasn't all that much, if truth be told. But it's the thought that counts. Then she reached out and, ever so carefully, as if she were a bomb-disposal expert considering the disposition of a jar full of nitroglycerine, took the Professor's hand and said, as gently as she knew how,

  'Professor. I need your help.' Hearing her voice, the Professor jumped, though without taking his eyes away from her – his gaze had been locked onto her all this time – and finally spoke.

  'Surely you must be, though I cannot believe it, that such a being should enter my office, the ideal form of beauty, of carnal love. What do you want with me?' Unity sighed.

  'I know, people – well, actually, mostly things, not people – keep on telling me that I embody this, am the archetype of that. Great. But what does it mean?'

  'You don't know?'

  'No. I'm just a good time girl out for a good time. Oh yes, and she,' she gestured vaguely, 'Wants her true love. He's over there.' The Professor seemed amazed and said, out loud but to himself,

  'She doesn't know. The personification of order walks into my office and she doesn't know who she is.' He looked astounded, and Unity wished she knew why. He spoke again, this time to her. 'Tell me, my dear, who are you? What are you? Where did you come from?'

  'Well,' said Unity, 'Who I am is simple. I am Great Cthulhu's daughter, born of a human mother. He thought of doing the incubus thing, but decided that was old-fashioned, so he got in a surrogate mother and had her artificially inseminated with his hellish seed. As for what I am, over the last days I've been hearing some bloody funny stories about that, with Elder Things claiming I'm something to do with the unity, and the Yithian's, who I reckon were just looking for an excuse to get into my knickers, only I'm not wearing any, so more fool them, going on about something they called the hypostasis. And there's the thing I mustn't talk about.'

  'Mustn't talk about? Because it's an eldritch secret?'

  'No, because if I do
those bloody children start singing, and they really get on my nerves.'

  'Ah, I see,' and, astonishingly, it seemed that he did. At least, he had not yet tried to give her a reference to the nearest booby hatch, or suggested that a pretty girl like her shouldn't think about such hard things, and why not have sex instead? No, he seemed to take it all quite seriously, and said,

  'So, you are the child of the greatest of the Great Old Ones, those who should be, and once were, the unity's instruments for the ordering of this cosmos. But that all changed.'

  'I know,' said Unity despairingly, 'Everyone says so, and they all say that I'll only get an orgasm if I can get Hastur back, and I just don't understand how or why or anything. I just want an orgasm. I'll do anything for an orgasm. I'd even let Uncle Aleister touch me again if I thought it might help. That shows you how desperate I am.' She was almost in tears and, in a surprisingly successful attempt at comforting her, the Professor reached out and laid a hand on one of the less curvaceous and more covered parts of her body (her right thigh, if you must know).

  For a while they said nothing and then, somehow sensing that Unity had recovered her poise, he said,

  'Well, that fool Hopkins brought you to the right place. Must be the only time he's been right these twenty years. But enough of that. I do understand your situation, and I do understand what these people have been talking to you about, and I can explain it. Would you like me to?' She nodded. He began, 'Well, let me first clear up a misconception. You don't have to bring Hastur back, because you can't. He is no more.' Unity sucked in her breath in horror and then wailed,

  'But how am I going to get an orgasm if he's dead? I was told I needed him and he's dead, and now I'll never, ever, ever have an orgasm, and everyone but me has them and, oh it's not fair,' and this time she did start to sob. The Professor reached out and held her again, then said,

  'But I said, my dear, that it was a misconception. The reason why you cannot have an orgasm is linked to Hastur's disappearance. But that does not mean that he has to reappear for you to have one.' She looked up and, her voice still tremulous, said,

  'What's that?'

  'I mean, my dear, that you will have orgasms. Oodles of them. But before you can you must understand why Hastur vanished, what it meant for the cosmos, and how you fit into the greater picture as seen by he who stands at the gate.'

  'Grandpa Yoggie?'

  'Indeed, Yog Sothoth: the ground of the unity. The eternal, because outside of time, godhead. But let me explain. But before I do, would you care for some refreshments, as I fear my story may be long and rather dry?'

  'No thank you, I'm fine.'

  'I'd like a drink,' put in Nina.

  'How are you going to drink, idiot? You don't have a mouth.'

  'Sorry.'

  'Very well,' said the Professor, as if it was an everyday occurrence for him to talk to beautiful women who were accompanied by a disembodied voice. Now, make yourself comfortable, and I will begin.'

  'Before there was such a place as this cosmos, before there was such a thing as time itself,' said the Professor, while Unity stared at him with a rapt look that would have had lesser men begging on their knees, 'There was Yog Sothoth. The pure, undifferentiated godhead. And then, in an act of will, indeed by virtue of manifesting his will, the cosmos came into being and within it his extension, Azathoth, the father of all. Azathoth was not then mad, he was pure energy, pure potential, pure isness. And out of that potential was born creation. Manifesting creativity in the form of Nyarlathotep, whom he begets from instant to instant, he turned from being the pure essence of totality into that through which the totality took on being. So all is by virtue of the continual begetting of the creator by the potential. The potential is the essence of all, and the creator turns that essence into being.'

  'And yet, all things have an element of the potential in them, and hence, at a remove, a direct link to the godhead itself. For they are formed by Nyarlathotep from the essence that is Azathoth. And thus all things felt love, love for the godhead within them. And the highest love was that between Azathoth and Nyarlathotep. It was pure love, and once it existed and was manifest, but it has not been seen for long whiles and its name is lost to us.'

  'But you said that I . . .'

  'Yes, my dear. You are the pure type of love and beauty. But hush, and all will become clear. In those early days, when the hypostasis, which is a fancy way of describing the three-fold extension of Yog Sothoth into our continuum, existed, and formed what is called the unity, there were nine, not seven as now, Elder Races. The fifth race, the four Great Old Ones, were the instruments of the unity, while the other eight were grouped into four pairs, each with a higher and a lower member. And for each pair there was a Great Old One, and for each Great Old One an element. Shub Niggurath, the lowest, for earth; Dagon for water; Hastur for fire and Great Cthulhu, their ruler, and the highest, for air. And so there was a perfect symmetry, and the cosmos was filled with the love manifested in the unknown third person of the hypostasis, which passed on upward to the pure godhead of Yog Sothoth.' He paused, and said in a slightly different tone, 'My dear, I hesitate to mention something so personal, but your rather splendid bosom has been vibrating quite noticeably for the last few minutes, and I have to admit that, despite my age, I do find it somewhat distracting.' Unity actually blushed and said,

  'Oh, it's er nothing. It means that what you're saying is part of helping me get an orgasm. They're very useful, though it does make keeping a secret hard.'

  'I see. Well, I am an old man, but not so old as to be unmoved by such beauty as yours, especially when it is so – dynamic. And your rather fetching dress is not really up to the job of covering your bosom, for of course, it was expressly designed with the intent of uncovering it, was it not? So . . .'

  'I could go and find a sheet if you like.'

  'No, I was going to say . . .'

  'That you want to fuck me,' she said in a tired tone of voice, amazed at, for the first time in her life, finding something that was not sex more interesting than sex. The Professor looked at her quizzically and said,

  'What, I? Make love to a goddess? I would not presume. No, what I intended to say was that I shall just have to summon up all my resolve and ignore them. Oh yes, and may I also mention that we seem to have acquired some muzak.' Unity blushed again.

  'Er, that's me too. It follows me around, and whenever I begin to get close to understanding the negation of negation it starts up.' The Professor brightened,

  'Ah, so you have heard of the negation of negation. Good. But that explains the music. It is, in its degenerate form, the shadow, the remnant, of the grand symphony that the cosmos once played, with each thing having its part, pouring out love to Yog Sothoth. And now it emerges from you, the ideal of love. Oh well, let us hope we can ignore it.'

  The Professor settled down again and said,

  'Now, what I have described is the perfection of the unity. But it didn't last. The problem lay with Hastur. Or Hastur the Unnameable, as he insisted on calling himself. Well, as any half-way competent philosopher, which rules out half of the faculty of this university by the by, can tell you, if you cannot name something, you cannot think about it. And if you cannot think about it, you have no way of knowing that it is there. And soon it might as well not be. And this is what happened to Hastur. As the Unnameability spread, he shrank until, eventually, when he had passed entirely out of epistemic contact with any of the Elder Races, he shrank to a point and vanished.'

  'And so the unity was broken. Immediately, the two Elder Races of fire were cast adrift and lost. They vanished into the universe, and where they went is not known. But there was worse to come. What we call the stars turning bad was in fact the breaking of the cosmic order resulting from the loss of the fourth pillar of the tetrad of Great Old Ones. R'lyeh sinking beneath the seas was but the least damage. The worst damage was that the hypostasis was shaken and, under the strain, torn apart. The potential of Azathoth and the creat
ion of Nyarlathotep were sundered, and in that instant, the third person, the embodiment of their love, and of the cosmos' love for Yog Sothoth, was destroyed. So great was the shock that Azathoth lost his mind, and became the drooling idiot we see today, while Nyarlathotep and the three remaining Great Old Ones took it upon themselves to, if not serve the glory of Yog Sothoth, at least preserve the cosmos in its fractured condition until, or so they hoped, some day something might come to pass that might restore the unity of the hypostasis, and return things to their proper place.'

  'And now, I believe, it has. And this is where you and your orgasms come in, my dear.'

  'I was beginning to wonder,' said Unity, 'But I didn't like to ask. But what can this have to do with me? I'm just a woman who'd like to come for once in her life. I don't have any great cosmic goals. I just want to be able to understand what the hell those articles in Cosmo are going on about.' The Professor smiled,