The Daughter of the Night

by Julian Porter

  ‘And, my sister, be happy. You know not what you are.’

  With which Unity pulled herself together and turned to Cthulhu and Dagon.

  ‘Father, Dagon. There is one final thing that we must do. Azathoth and his servant Nyarlathotep have served me well, but it is time that Azathoth was relieved of his pain and allowed to rest. Will you summon them, please?’

  It seemed to Cthulhu that there was no longer any point arguing, or trying to point out that Azathoth really wasn’t properly house-trained, or even that Nyarlathotep was not and never would be on his favourite people list. Not even the favourite people to eat list. Not because that wasn’t true: in fact he felt free to admit his loathing for the current order of things in a way that he had never before dared, free to say out loud what he had formerly scarcely dared think: that things had been better in the days of R’lyeh. But with this new freedom, and the concomitant freedom to be his essential self (that is, a giant, green squid-thing whose principal hobby was eating people), came the realisation that in the new dispensation his absolute freedom to do whatever he willed would carry with it the will, the want, the need to do whatever Unity required of him, and that he would not resent it, or feel it as an imposition, but do it gladly and with passionate enthusiasm, acting entirely freely and yet entirely in accord with Unity’s desire. And he felt no anger or bitterness at this, but, for the first time in many years, joy. The stars were once more in their rightful places, and the ground of the cosmos and the will of the ground’s great servants were as one. There would be no more bean-counters or computatrons, for why count what you already know? The harmony of the universe was restored and, Cthulhu realised, at this very moment he was hearing the once more concordant music of the spheres, which rolled over him in mighty waves, as far from its puny beginnings as the shrill, predatory Unity of old was from the glorious being now before him.

  So, with a glad heart, he turned to Dagon and, seeing the same mix of joy and peace in his eyes, joined with him in saying the words of the ritual to summon the Elder Gods. Almost immediately, for the invocation itself was quite concise, with a silent implosion Nyarlathotep appeared between them, his basically demonic form far from flattered by the cheap suit that he wore, especially as its strange unearthly colour (selected specially for him by his personal style consultant), in addition to being unnameable, clashed quite unbearably with his carbon-black skin. He looked around himself, more arrogant than surprised, and, seeing Dagon and Cthulhu, gave an ‘I thought so’ shrug and said,

  ‘Okay, what do you two idiots think you’re up to now? May I remind you that my time is very valuable, much more valuable than yours, and that you can’t just interrupt me whenever you want a chat. If you want to talk to me, you do it at one of our regular bi-millenial meetings, assuming I don’t cancel it because I have something more important to so. And I’d like to know what you two are doing here and not at work. This’ll be a black mark on both your records and no mistake. You can’t just . . .’

  ‘Hush, Nyarlathotep,’ the great voice rolled out again, silencing him mid vituperation. He froze, probably with surprise, as no one had dared interrupt him when he was issuing a dressing down, or indeed issuing anything else, at any time in the last aeon or so, and certainly not someone with a voice soft and yet infinitely powerful. At least only one person, and his voice had long since been silenced. And, who knows, the shock might have immobilised him for ever had not the voice said, ‘Come, look at me,’ in a tone of simultaneous entreaty and command. And no-one, no-one, no-one commanded Nyarlathotep. Sure, technically he may have only been Azathoth’s regent, and technically even Azathoth was only a servant to the greatness of the unity, but Nyarlathotep knew, deep in his most secret soul, that he was made for greatness, and that sooner or later he would be the lord of all creations. And who would dare to command the future lord of all creations? Only a fool, that’s who, and so he wasn’t surprised, when he spun round in anger, at what he saw:

  ‘Oh look,’ he snarled, ‘It’s the stupid little girl. I suppose your all undressed because you think it’ll make me want to bang you. Well let me tell you that when I want a woman I get the finest woman money can buy, and you’re not it, so don’t fool yourself. I see it all now,’ he nodded and began to talk in a tone of arrogant confidence, ‘You put up your daddy and his fishy friend to this because you wanted me so bad. Well tough, little lady, because I’m not playing ball, and you can just . . .’

  ‘I can do this,’ said Unity in the same gentle, thunderous voice, though now with a tinge of sadness mixed in with the calm beauty. Nyarlathotep slowly rose in the air, gradually higher and higher until he hovered a few metres in front of Unity, and just above her head. She looked up at him, almost expectantly. He continued with his old, tired line of thought and, struggling to turn, shouted in anger,

  ‘You two had better watch out. I’ve just about lost my patience with you, and if you don’t put me down this instant, I’ll have you up on a disciplinary charge, and then you can . . .’

  ‘Or I can do this,’ said Unity, as if nothing had happened, pre-empting Cthulhu’s intended speech to the effect that Nyarlathotep could put him on as many disciplinary charges as he liked and it wouldn’t mean anything, because with the unity incarnate, and what with him having just insulted it rather comprehensively, anything Nyarlathotep did was likely to be of little consequence from now on in. Instead, Nyarlathotep’s ugly suit quietly and unceremoniously burst into flames, burning away from his body and leaving him naked, facing naked Unity. With a doggedness worthy of a better cause, he said,

  ‘All right, you guys have had your fun, but this is getting beyond a joke, and if you think that just because I’m naked and the little girl’s naked then somehow we’ll end up falling into one another’s arms, then you can just . . .’

  ‘Or I can do this,’ said Unity, with more finality. Suddenly she was no more the most beautiful woman who ever had existed or would exist, and in her place was the vast congeries of bubbles, hanging mysteriously in mid-air. Nyarlathotep, still suspended in space, gasped and seemed to shrink, saying,

  ‘Lord, I didn’t know . . . that . . . you . . .’ in a quaking voice. Instantaneously the bubbles were Unity again, but this time she held Nyarlathotep’s gaze, and, looking at her, now in terror rather than disdain, he gasped out, as if struggling to breathe, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am what I am,’ she said, ‘But you can call me Unity.’ Nyarlathotep relaxed at this apparently friendly tone, then suddenly he screamed and arched his back, as if his whole body was stretched on an invisible rack, while Unity continued, quite unperturbed, ‘And of course you are right in saying that I was not the best woman that money could buy, because I have never been for sale. Oh, and do stop that stupid noise,’ she added, and immediately he was quiet, a collapsed, limp rag where only minutes ago had been a proud master of all being. But now the true mistress of all being and unbeing spoke to him and said, ‘You have tried to be a good servant, but you have become a thing of corruption. Not through your own fault, but simply because your are of this universe, and it is awry. But I am not of this universe; I am, was and will be beyond all being, the ultimate nothingness to which every thing aspires. And, now I have taken it on myself to set this universe straight once more, you cannot serve me as you are. Nyarlathotep, the time has come for you to return to me. Are you ready?’ Nyarlathotep, defeated, looked at her and nodded dumbly. ‘Then let us begin,’ said Unity.

  ‘Azathoth, Azathoth, I know you are here. Come out of hiding and show yourself to me,‘ she said, ‘You know that I will never hurt you.’ There was a brief silence and then Azathoth appeared, standing in front of Unity, his form, as it had done since madness overtook him, shifting constantly, so fast that there was no telling one form from the next, the only constant being his great, sad face that looked at Unity through eyes filled with confusion and distress. Unity’s mighty voice became gentle, as compassion suffused her face and the music once more moved into the minor m
ode while a piping of flutes became apparent in its texture. She said, ‘How can it have come to this? How can what should be been my greatest servant have been brought to this desperate pass by the foolishness of an insignificant nothing?’ Cthulhu, despite himself, shivered with a chill of fear. That his oldest friend, Hastur, was as nothing to Unity meant, surely, that so was he. And now that he had to confront the fact that, in some hard to understand way, his daughter always had been an emanation of the unity into the cosmos, he felt fear at how much he had risked in his negative attitude towards her. He was, he thought, lucky that she had limited herself to ignoring whatever he said and bossing him about. And then he realised that now he was the focus of Unity’s attention, for she said, ‘No, father, I would not harm you. Not now, and not at any other time. And you are not as nothing to me. For truly, as I am everything and nothing, in the ground, I am you and you are me. The least of mortals exists within me and contains me. But Hastur made nothing of himself, a nothing beyond my nothingness, the nothing of my absence, and so he put himself beyond even my redemptive power. And speaking of redemption,’ she turned her attention back to Azathoth, ‘What am I to do for you, Azathoth? I could unmake you, give you the eternal rest of unbeing so complete that you have never existed, but that is no way to treat one who was once so great. So I shall take you unto myself, to let you return to the unity whence you came and become once more whole within the eternal, infinite isness that I am? Shall we do that, Azathoth?’ she asked gently.

  It could not be said that Azathoth replied: speech had been beyond him since the terrible day when the stars changed. But something in his attitude, something in the ever-changing pattern of shapes that made up his form, some change visible only to a being who existed outside of time and space, communicated assent, for Unity said, genuinely quietly,

  ‘Very well. Let us begin.’ She moved without moving and folded her arms around what only she could see as Azathoth’s true form. Simultaneously, Nyarlathotep was drawn into her embrace from where he had been parked, hanging in mid-air, so the three of them stood together. And as Cthulhu and Dagon watched, very slowly, very slowly at first, Unity began to move, and Cthulhu noticed, in the corner of his eye, Nina, who had clearly decided to catch up for lost time, moved in synchrony with her sister. And then Unity, and with her Nina, began to moan in the way of a woman in the throes of love, and a radiance grew around the three linked figures of Unity, Azathoth and Nyarlathotep, a sphere of rushing sparks of brilliant whiteness, at first only a few, but as the movements grew more emphatic and the moans stronger, more and more until only the outline of Unity’s head and shoulders, at the core of the ball of white fire, could be seen. And then, when the light seemed so bright that it must surely burn a hole through the very fabric of reality itself (and yet it did not hurt the eyes of Cthulhu and Dagon), and when it seemed that Unity and Nina had reached the point where there was nowhere they could go, where they had reached the ultimate point in the act act of love that had been started what seemed like an infinity ago, both women were still, threw their heads back and screamed in triumph. They had had their orgasm.

  And at that instant of climax, the ball of light collapsed inwards, seemingly to a single point of infinite brightness, then exploded silently until whiteness filled all of space and time. Eventually it died away, and where there had been Unity and the two Elder Gods there stood the mighty figure of a woman: once Unity, now more, now all women, all men, all things, everything and nothing. Cthulhu saw that she was made up of the rushing sparks of light, so, looking closely at her, he saw constant movement. And somewhere deep inside her core a great light pulsed, as if the point of singularity was still there, now subsumed within her. He felt the sudden urge to worship, but was distracted by a noise coming from the direction of Nina and her boyfriend. Or rather, now girlfriend, for he seemed to have changed sex at the moment of climax, and didn’t seem overly happy about it. Nina was trying to reassure her by saying,

  ‘But there’s nothing to worry about. After all, girls can do it with girls easily enough. I know lots of ways. Let me show you some.‘ He / she made to protest, but suddenly the voice of the unity intervened,

  ‘Young woman,‘ it said, ‘Do not complain at your change. It was needed for the stars to be right and this little creation to be made whole again. A few trivial bodily changes are a small price to pay. And besides, being a woman is much more fun.‘ The (wo)man seemed shocked into silence, but Nina, unabashed, peered up at the great form and said, uncertainly,

  ‘Unity, is that you?’

  ‘I was Unity and will be again. But for now I am the unity.’

  ‘Well, if you want to get all snobby and try to make out your special just because you swallowed a torch or something . . .’

  ‘Oh Nina, you will always be here, vital to the good of this universe, and always fail to comprehend. Be good to your young woman. Guide her to acceptance of her true nature, for she always was, in reality, a woman.’

  ‘What, you mean that wasn’t a dick I was . . .‘ The unity shook its head and smiled, then said,

  ‘No Nina, he was a man, but in his innermost heart he was always a woman. And now she is what he was.‘ Nina looked puzzled and said,

  ‘I don’t understand. I thought people were either men, women or, well, Elder Things and stuff like that.’

  ‘And you never will understand. And I will not try to make you, for your very naiveté is critical to the wellbeing of all that is.’

  ‘Oh don’t be silly.’

  ‘I was never more serious. But enough. Sleep now. Both of you.‘ With which Nina and her girlfriend, quietly and unceremoniously slumped to the ground and vanished. The unity that was Unity turned to the three Great Old Ones, Shub Niggurath still sleeping, Dagon and Cthulhu looking on in awe, and said, ‘Father, Dagon, I must go, but do not fear, I am with you always. And now, your day is dawning. The stars are right, R’lyeh has risen again above the waves, and it is time for Great Cthulhu and his cohorts to ride out, ravening in joy.‘ She appeared to feel for something behind her, and then extended a hand to Cthulhu, giving him stone tablets carved with the ancient Aetheric script of R’lyeh. Then she said, in a more confiding tone, ‘And, father, in case you have any trouble deciding who to eat first, I’ve taken the liberty of making a little list . . .’

  Chapter 6: And So They All Lived Happily Ever After

  There was a house. Somewhere. It never troubled its inhabitants to attempt to discover if there was any world beyond their small valley, for within it they had everything they needed: water, woods, meadows, animals, the house and one another. And just as they never wondered why the outside world seemed unaware of their valley’s existence, or even whether there was an outside world at all, it never occurred to them that it might be considered unusual that in their house the store-cupboards were never empty, waste and rubbish quietly vanished away, and water, gas and electricity were delivered in spite of the fact that they paid no bills. In fact, they never even thought of asking questions like ‘where are we?’, ‘where is everyone else?’ or ‘why are we here?’ As far as they knew, they had always been here and always would be: two women living together in love throughout eternity.

  They rose, worked, played, loved and slept, but apart from this simple cycle there was little sense of time in the valley, and hence no sense of boredom, for without time one cannot bemoan the way one spends it. But let us say one day, for it was light, and it might as well, for want of a better term, be called a day, one day one of the women was outdoors, walking up a gentle rise near the valley floor. And here she came upon something so strange as to almost be beyond her comprehension: another person. It was another woman. The first woman could tell that because this new person seemed to be almost an archetype, a summary of what it was that made women women. She was tall with blonde hair. Her face was so beautiful that it was almost painful to look on her, though having done so one could scarcely drag one’s eyes away. And that only to look downwards to where a garmen
t that might have started out as a simple chiton, but which had clearly undergone drastic alterations en route to its current station, did as little as practically possible to hide the ample curves of a body so perfect as to be beyond even the highest flights of erotic reverie. And indeed, the first woman’s eyes were drawn down and she felt desire, and as inhibition had no meaning for her, she moved towards the stranger, intending to kiss her. The stranger seemed to read her intention and met her half way, taking her in her arms. And they kissed, touched and loved one another.

  When they had finished they moved apart, and for a little while the woman slept. When she woke, she saw the stranger, just as before her slumber, seated a little distance away, looking lovingly at her. And yet it was a different kind of love from that she was used to. The love she shared with her companion filled her life, was her life, but in comparison to this love it seemed a small, shrivelled thing. The stranger’s love seemed to drill down to the deepest depths of her being, encompassing all there was that made her her in one mighty, burning flame that lived within the stranger’s eye, and yet, she realised, was in her, was her. This love was mighty, was beautiful, was terrible, and for a moment she feared lest she be consumed by it, but then the stranger spoke, and spoke in a voice so beautiful, so powerful that when she said,

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the woman was at once at peace. So much so that she might have slept again, or even, had she dared, initiated a further act of love, but the stranger, who seemed almost to read her mind, said, ‘No, my dear, we can do that later, but first we must talk. Though,’ she smiled, ‘It does seem strange for it to be me telling you not to make love.’ The woman was confused and, finding her voice, ventured to say,