The Daughter of the Night

by Julian Porter

  ‘I do not understand.’ The stranger looked at her, resigned, and said, with apparent irrelevance,

  ‘Do you know me, my dear?’ The woman shook her head, for indeed, she knew of none save her companion and herself. She said,

  ‘No, this is the first time any stranger has entered the valley.’ The stranger nodded and said, almost to herself,

  ‘Well that is true,’ and then, returning her gaze to the woman, who felt it as a rod of iron linking her to the stranger, said, in another strange shift of topic that was beyond the woman’s ability to comprehend, ‘And what is your name, my dear?’ The woman, puzzled, said,

  ‘Name? Why would I have a name?’

  ‘To call yourself by, my dear.’

  ‘But there are only I and my companion. What need have we of names?’ The stranger smiled and said,

  ‘You have a point there. So the name Nina means nothing to you?’

  The woman was taken aback. Why should a pair of meaningless syllables mean anything to her? And then, at first slowly, then picking up in speed until they formed a torrent, memories that she had never known she possessed, memories from some other life in which she had been a person going by this strange name, rushed into her mind, turning her briefly into two people. But then the onslaught of memory ceased and, after a moment of utter confusion the two personae merged and Nina, nameless woman no more, said,

  ‘Is that you, U . . . Unity?’ The stranger looked thoughtful and said,

  ‘I was Unity, that is true. And I will be Unity, at times when it suits me. And I suppose now will be one of them. But of course I am not Unity so much as . . .’ but this was too much for Nina, whose head was now spinning thanks to the stranger’s eclectic way with causality, which, though entirely explicable to one who lived outside of time and space, was somewhat challenging to one whose concept of time consisted only of the eternal succession of nights and days. So she said,

  ‘Unity, I don’t understand.’ The stranger looked at Nina and said, in a resigned sort of way,

  ‘Then I suppose, in that case, I had better be Unity for now. Until I discover that I decided not to be. Or perhaps . . .’

  ‘Unity!’

  ‘I am sorry Nina. I will try to be Unity for you.’

  Unity shifted a little, settling herself into a comfortable position, while Nina stared at her, her mind, by her standards, racing. She asked the first question that came to her, that is,

  ‘Why are you here?’ Unity smiled and said,

  ‘Why am I here? You might just as well ask why are you here, or this grass or this valley. If I was not here, there would be no here to be, no you to question me. But I see,’ she said, observing Nina’s growing distress, ‘That you do not understand. I forget that though you were once part of me, in a sense prefiguring the way that now everything is a part of me, you are, and have always been, fully human. So,’ she said, much to the relief of Nina, who found this panentheistic talk somewhat above her head, ‘I shall respond in human terms. I took this form here and now because I want to talk to you. Or is it that I will want it? No matter. Though you do not know it, you serve me, and I must ensure that you continue to serve me, and that your service is a guarantee that the catastrophe never occur again. I am sorry. Do you understand me, Nina?’ Nina thought very hard. Though she had always rather looked down on her sister, even disliked her, there was something about this Unity that ruled out her old response of saying that Unity was talking rubbish and then ignoring her for the rest of the afternoon. Deep intuition told her that this Unity was not to be lied to, but in her heart there was a demon of jealousy that had always shaped her responses to her sister, and that even now was telling her to lie, to flounce off, to be spiteful. But then Unity said, ‘You have no need to envy me, sister. My destined role may be greater than yours, but my burden also is greater. Now be healed,’ and the demon was no more. And so, with a whole heart, Nina said,

  ‘No, Unity, I don’t understand. I’m sorry, I’m very stupid.’ At this Unity actually laughed and said,

  ‘The stupidity is not yours for not understanding the nature of the unity, which, after all, can only be known, not understood, but mine for expecting too much of one of my servants. Come, Nina, let us walk together.’

  Nina found herself on her feet and strolling, hand in hand with Unity, through one of the valley’s meadows. She felt brief confusion because she knew she had moments ago been sitting on the ground, trying to understand what Unity had been saying, but simultaneously she knew that they had been walking and talking like this for as long as she could remember. For a moment her mind rebelled, but rebellion died in the face of the sheer reality of Unity’s presence, and the new reality took hold. Unity continued what she had been saying:

  ‘. . . And of course you must have wondered what came of the other two Elder Races?’ To be honest, Nina didn’t think she had and, now that her attitude to her sister consisted only of love, tinged with more than a little awe, she had no hesitation in saying,

  ‘Er, well actually, no. Not really. What other two Elder Races?’ Unity sighed and said to herself,

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. The penalties of being a god. No matter,’ then, in her normal voice, to Nina, ‘Well, my dear, how many Elder Races are there?’ Nina thought hard and counted carefully, which required that she retrieve her hand from Unity’s as an aid to computation, and then hazarded,

  ‘Er, six?’

  ‘Well done. And how many Great Old Ones are there?’ This only needed the one hand, so the other could go back into Unity’s, giving Nina a moment of rapture almost as great as the gift of love, and nearly causing her to forget Unity’s question. But not quite, so she said, a bit less hesitantly.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘I said “are”. Oh wait, did I get my tenses wrong? I am sorry, it is hard for me to think like one of the time-bounded. I should have said how many Great Old Ones were there?’ This took serious thought, and Nina stared blankly at her hand for some while, trying to make the answer come to something different to three, which, given that arithmetic had never been her strong suit, resulted in considerable confusion, which resolved itself when Unity sighed again, more deeply this time, and said, ‘Let me help you. Are you ready? Now, name the Great Old Ones for me.’ Nina, glad to be rescued from her labyrinth, readily said,

  ‘Great Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub Niggurath.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And - I don’t understand.’

  ‘There was another. A long time ago, Nina. He had a special title.’ Suddenly clarity filled Nina’s mind, and a name came, unbidden, to her lips,

  ‘And Hastur the Unnameable.’

  ‘Indeed. And that makes?’ More muffled counting, then Nina said,

  ‘Um, four.‘ Unity smiled at her, seeming to Nina almost like a benediction, and said,

  ‘Indeed. There are, were, are four. But only six Elder Races. So?‘ This was worse than the mathematics. Nina thought hard about the Elder Races, and the Great Old Ones, and the numbers four and six, and eventually said,

  ‘Er, there’s more Elder Races than Great Old Ones?’

  ‘True, but not the answer I seek. I see that I shall have to explain,’ which was absolutely fine from Nina’s point of view.

  Unity paused for a moment, then began. Nina soon lost even the most tenuous grip on what she was saying, but nonetheless she continued, as if what mattered was not that Nina understood her words, but simply that she heard them and, in some deep, unconscious way, internalised them, made them her own and lived them.

  ‘When I made this universe, long, long ago, long before you and I were born,’ this being where Nina’s thinking mind broke down, leaving only the mysterious something that lay beneath Nina and yet reached out to the divinity it recognised in its companion, ‘I made four great servants to oversee it. They were the Great Old Ones. And, to assist them in the working out of my great design, I gave to each two peoples, a greater and a lesser. These were the Elder Races. Each of my servants was ma
ster of one of the four eternal elements that make up the physical realm. For Earth, there was Shub Niggurath, Goat of the Woods with, I believe it’s about twenty thousand at the moment, young, and her subjects were, as the lower people, the Fungi, who I never intended to be brain fetishists, but then that’s free will for you, and as the higher people the Hounds of Tindalos, my lightning-fast messengers, that is assuming they don’t meet a man with a stick on the way. For Water, there was Dagon, master of the oceans and of the lame riposte. Subject to him were the Deep Ones, his lower people, with whom I really need to have a long talk about miscegenation, and his upper people, the Shoggoth, who actually make very good recyclable furniture if only you can stop them from engulfing you when you sit on them. Then for Air there was our poor father - are you listening, Nina?‘ Nina jumped, roused from the state of pleasant bafflement into which she had fallen, and said,

  ‘Oh, er, ah . . .’

  ‘I thought not. No matter. As I was saying, for Air there was Great Cthulhu, the eater of souls and Lord of R’lyeh. His lesser people were the Elder Things, the scientists and analysers and very dull company too, while his upper people were the Great Race of Yith, the philosophers, whose purpose was to divine my purpose and so inform the leaders, the navigators of this mighty communion of the direction they should take. For, Nina, as I am sure you will have noticed so far I have described only those who serve, not those who lead.’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘As you will have rightly divined, all is subject to my will, but it is not my intent to create automata. I create that I should be enhanced, not merely to mirror what I already was. Or is it will be? So, though I may mark the starting point, and send my children out, I do not set their path back to me. There are risks. Freedom always brings risk, and freedom brought this universe to the brink of catastrophe. But now . . .’

  She paused for a moment to look around her and then, apparently pleased with what she saw, continued,

  ‘And so came the last and mightiest of my servants, the Great Old One of Fire. He was Hastur, who called himself the Unnameable and so became unnamed. So great was his task that his two peoples were one: each of the upper kind was joined in spirit to one of the lower kind, and so though they lived as individual creatures, they served me as one. When Hastur was unmade the links that joined these spirits were sundered, and his peoples fell away, in their separation as much lower than the Elder Races as they had been higher before. And of my great intent, it seemed only ruins remained.‘ Unity stopped walking and Nina, as she too halted felt almost a chill as she sensed, rather than understood, the bleakness of Unity’s words. There was a brief pause and then Unity shook herself, as if rousing herself from slumber, and said, ‘So, Nina, can you guess who the mightiest of the Elder Races becomes, I mean became?‘ Nina shook her head and Unity actually laughed, a sound of delight that brought the warmth back into the air and colour back into the world. ‘Why,‘ she said, ‘It was the humans. Plato learned something of the truth and described the paired state of humanity before the fall, but he did not fully comprehend, and he mistook the spiritual bond for a physical one, imagining two-bodied grotesques.’

  ‘But now,‘ said Unity, ‘I am once more whole, and the greatest of the Elder Races is once more in its place. And a new Great Old One has arisen, greater even than Hastur, who need only learn one final lesson to burn for eternity as a beacon bright for the whole universe to follow.‘ She paused, as if expectant, and Nina, gamely trying to keep up, said,

  ‘And who is it?‘ Unity turned to her, took hold of both of her hands, and said,

  ‘Do you need to ask? Is it not obvious?’

  ‘No,‘ said Nina, humbly. Unity smiled,

  ‘Why, it is you, yourself, paired in spirit with your companion.‘ Nina tried to object that she was nothing, nobody, not special at all, just an ordinary woman who loved her companion, but Unity’s gaze held her and prevented her from speaking, while Unity continued, ‘The pair of you will burn together with the purpose for which I created you, for I did create you, though you are my sister, born beside me. And my purpose,‘ she said, as her eyes turned to burning fire, and her clothes and Nina’s vanished away into nothingness, leaving Nina caught between the fire of her eyes and the burning glory of her beauty, ‘Is that all should return to me and become me. And I am love.‘ Then she embraced Nina, kissed her and loved her.

  The woman awoke a little distance from the house. As she pulled herself together, she felt that she must have had a most peculiar dream, though she could remember nothing of it, for she was filled with a sense of purpose and a passion that she had never felt before. Entering the house, she was greeted by her companion, who ran to meet her and said,

  ‘Oh my love, where were you? I began to wonder that you were away so long.‘ The woman did not answer immediately. She felt as if the echoes of a voice, mighty yet gentle, sounded within her head, and yet she knew not what it had said. If she had known of such ideas she would have said that she had received a visitation, a blessing from the gods. But all she knew was this valley, this house, this companion. And that was all she wished to know, for her companion’s love was enough. But such thinking led nowhere, so, shaking the residue of a higher power from herself, she focussed on her companion’s anxious face and said,

  ‘My love, there is no need for fear. For you know that I am with you always. And now,‘ she said as her loving companion’s expression turned to pleasure, ‘Let’s have sex.‘