“Why, then! You must accompany us to Arkham-Town! Brother Dog and I are on our way there to become famous musicians. We have definite need of a soprano!”
“Famous musicians?” The cat preened. “I should like that very much, I think! Yes. Let us be off at once!”
So they were off at once. Though, as the cat had to frequently stop to wash her face or groom her magnificent coat, they made rather less good time than they otherwise might have done.
It was coming on toward dusk when they first heard the eerie, warbling cries. The noises sounded something like the hoot of a barn-owl, something like the dawn-crowing of a rooster, and something like nothing ever voiced by the throat of any earthly creature.
Along the road there ran a ragged line of stout old fenceposts, the fence itself now long gone. Atop one of these, the unlikely trio saw as they drew closer, perched the source of the cries, holding on by the grip of scabrous orange-brown talons. Matted-looking feathers stuck out in uneven clumps from black, rubbery flesh. A stinger-tipped tail waved from its hind end and it flapped wings of leathery membrane for balance.
Where a face should have been found, there was none, nor mouth, nor beak. How it therefore uttered such a voluble and incessant din, they were at a loss to wonder.
The donkey attempted several times to hail the winged creature as they approached, but it must not have heard, for it paid no notice until suddenly and with a tremendous start of surprise it broke off mid-crow.
As mouthless and faceless as it was, that it was eyeless also came as no shock, yet somehow it seemed to fix them with a piercing stare. Upon closer inspection, its aspect was that which might result had a chicken been mated with a night-gaunt. A reddish coxcomb on its head suggested it was male.
“Good evening,” the donkey said. “How do you fare this day, Brother …?”
“Rooster,” came the answer provided. “Or, near enough, for such have I lived as. And this day, Brother Donkey, I do not fare well at all, thank you for your polite inquiry.”
“Why do you crow so full-lunged at this hour?” asked the dog. “The sun has all but gone down.”
The rooster’s leathery wings hitched in a helpless shrug. “What else can I do? What else have I known? I crow because I can, because I can do nothing else, and because it is only by purest good fortune I am still able to crow! Another day might have seen me silenced once and for all!”
They of course asked him how so, and what he meant by that, and why. To this, the rooster gladly responded.
“Until yesterday,” he said, “I belonged to a chicken-farmer who lived in the hollow. Such a brute he was, in-bred, degenerate of nature and intelligence! He, not realizing my true nature, mistook me for a common cock and put me in with his hens. My presence alone so terrified them that, from thenceforth, they would lay far more than the usual number of rare double-yolked eggs.”
No one chose to reply further to his remark as to his true nature, only musing to themselves that their initial supposition must in fact be not far from the case.
“Such eggs, of course, fetch a fine price at market,” the rooster went on. “As for myself, it was no unpleasant living … I had, of course, as many fresh-laid eggs to eat as I wanted, and the occasional pullet or cockerel when I fancied warm blood and tender meat. I was required to do nothing more than crow with the dawn, and drive off any intruding foxes to the hen-yard – which, believe me, was no difficulty at all.”
“No, it would not be,” said the dog. “Foxes are slink-thieves and cowards. You must have scared them stark-white.”
“Then, yesterday, the farmer’s brother came visiting. A brute no less ill- and in-bred, though possessed of a slightly craftier cunning. When the oddity of the double-yolked eggs was boasted of at supper, this brother devised a notion to increase their profits even more. They resolved to rent their prize rooster around to other farms, sure that their neighbors would pay handsomely to share in the bounty.”
“Ah,” said the cat with an air of understanding. “The other farmers, however, might have recognized your night-gaunt lineage.”
“Precisely so, Sister Cat. My neck would have been wrung in a trice. I made my escape this morning, before sunrise and without crowing, while the farmer and his brother slept. I only paused here to rest my wings, when the thought came to me that I had no other prospects and would likely not survive the night. I commenced, therefore, crowing for all I was worth, so as to get some final use from my voice.”
“Your voice would have much use if you joined our company!” the donkey said. “We three are musicians, going to Arkham-Town to seek our fortunes. With such a practiced throat and lungs as yours, I have every confidence you will be a great success!”
Without hesitation, the rooster gave his most ready and enthusiastic assent. Because his wings were still tired, he rode perched upon the donkey’s broad back.
The trio now a quartet, they resumed their travels, a jolly party in the highest of spirits. But such high spirits, it is sad to say, could not last long. The heavy clouds that had been building over the hills soon spread dark over the valley. Rain pattered down. The road went muddy.
The four quickly became miserable, the cat most of all. They trudged with heads down, squishing in mud, splashing in puddles. The donkey tried to keep them in cheer with glowing accounts of the fame and prosperity they would find in Arkham-Town.
“We will have a fine house,” he said. “A fine brick house with a slate-shingled roof. Rich cream for you, Sister Cat, instead of milk. Rich cream in a silver bowl, with a cushion by the fire! For you, Brother Dog, prime cuts of red beef, and all the ham-bones you can gnaw. I will have oat-mash with honey for breakfast, and a bed of softest new-mown alfalfa!”
“What of me?” asked the rooster, who, being able to fold his leathery wings over his head and ward off the rain, fared somewhat better – though no less miserably – than his other companions.
“Oh, whatever you should like!” said the donkey. “More eggs and hens, if that is your will. Sleeping until well past noon rather than having to wake to crow the dawn.”
In this manner, they went on a while further, until the dog with his keen hunting eyes spotted a glimmer as of light from a window, off in the distance. It appeared to come from within a stand of tall trees, and a narrow track led that way from the main road.
“Let us seek shelter,” said the cat, her proud fur coat soaked and bedraggled.
“Yes, perhaps it is an inn,” the dog said. “We might find lodging there.”
“We’ll sing for our supper,” said the rooster.
Since the rain was growing steadier, and no other options presented themselves, the donkey wasted no time in agreeing. Single-file along the narrow track they proceeded, wending through the woods, catching yet more tantalizing glimpses of warmly lit and beckoning windows.
Upon reaching the building nestled amid the trees, they discovered it to be not an inn but a quaint little farmhouse, old-fashioned, neglected, and in some need of repair. Its barn had collapsed, its garden was weedy and overgrown. The roof sagged, cracks ran up and down the wall-plaster, and the lights that had guided them hither shone through missing shutter-slats over windows lacking glass panes. But, to the wet and weary travelers, it might as well have been a king’s palace.
Low sounds as of chanting came from within. Moving shadows sometimes passed in front of the windows, blotting out the light … which, by its flicker and hue they judged to be candle-glow.
“Sister Cat, you are stealthy, and Brother Rooster, you can fly,” said the donkey. “Go see what’s what, then come back to us.”
They did as he directed, returning shortly with the news. Instead of the elderly farmer and his wife that might have been expected in such a place, several people – a dozen or more – crowded the house’s single main room.
“They wear robes,” reported the rooster.
“And carry candles and chalices,” said the cat.
“Their leader is a bald
man with a wispy grey beard like that of a goat.”
“He holds a book with a Greater Sigil branded into the leather.”
“And stands at a round stone altar.”
“Lined with chalk, and sprinkled with ashes and salt,” the cat concluded.
The donkey’s wither-tentacles twined about each other with a bristly rasp. “Aha!” he cried. “Cultists! They’ve remade this old farmhouse into their church! How splendid! Do they have a church-choir?”
“None. Only the chanting.” A fat raindrop struck the cat on the nose and she flinched. “We must do something!”
“Indeed we must, and indeed we shall!” The donkey started for the nearest window, from which one shutter hung by a hinge and the other was missing altogether. “You stand upon my back, Brother Dog,” he instructed. “Let Sister Cat stand upon yours, and our winged brother perch upon hers. Then we shall give them a taste of our choir, and they will be bound to welcome us!”
The others deemed this a good plan and readily took their places. With his fingerlike fore-paws, the dog clutched the donkey’s thick hide. The cat stepped up daintily and hooked her fine needle-claws in the dog’s fur. Lastly, the night-gaunt rooster fluttered to perch on the cat’s shoulders, head bobbing this way and that, wings spread.
“On three,” whispered the donkey, then stamped time softly with his front hoof.
And, on his count of three, the company of musicians burst into song.
“Eee-yaw, eee-yaw, fthagn!” brayed the donkey.
“Yog! Yog-Soth! Yog-Soth-Oth!” barked the dog.
“Ia! Ia!” cried the cat, in her high and piercing meow.
“Cthu-hu-hu-hu-lu!” crowed the rooster at the top of his lungs.
All their voices together raised such a harmony the likes of which the cultists – or indeed any other living soul on this earth! – had ever heard. They spun from their altar. They dropped their candles and chalices. Their leader squealed like a girl, letting the book with the Greater Sigil on its cover fall with a hefty thump onto the pattern of chalk, salt and ashes. With a flapping of robes, bumping and stumbling over each other, they all dashed for the door and fled through it, scattering into the rainy night.
“I think they did not care for our music,” the dog said, after a startled moment of some disappointment.
“Their loss, then,” declared the cat, “for they obviously must lack any proper sense of refinement, culture or appreciation.”
“Even so, and good riddance,” the rooster said.
“Ah well,” said the donkey. “As we are here and the hour is late, let us make ourselves comfortable. We may pass the night here nicely enough, I daresay.”
It was so decided, and the four musicians went inside. They found the place small but cozy. They feasted on the remains of the cultists’ supper, laid out on a table, and made merry drinking each other’s health from a jug of good wine.
Though the candles had gone extinguished, embers glowed warm in the hearth, and the cat settled herself quite happily there to groom. The donkey found hay strewn in a side-chamber, and while it was not new-mown alfalfa, he made a good bed of it. The dog, finding the bone of a leg-of-mutton still thick with meat-scraps, stretched out long and gnawing contentedly in front of the door. The rooster flew up into the rafters to perch on a roof-beam, holding fast with his talons and folding his leathery wings around his body.
Now, it happened that the cultists had run for some considerable distance in their fright, before they stopped and re-gathered themselves, and were greatly chagrined.
After all, they said to one another, had not they been gathered there for the very purpose of effecting a summoning of some eldritch creature? Was that not the entire sole aim of their ceremony? How foolish of them, then – and how shameful besides! – to scream and flee when the object of their ritual itself should appear to them in answer!
They must, they decided, return. They’d left in such a state of panicked rapidity that they had even left behind their book, an ancient tome acquired at considerable risk and cost from the library of Miskatonic University. Gaining access there again would be next to impossible, particularly since the events of the preceding August, when one Wilbur Whateley was said to have met his messy and unfortunate end within those hallowed halls.
Yes, they must return. Of that, there could be neither doubt nor dispute.
However, when they again approached the farmhouse, there arose doubt and dispute aplenty over whose task it should be to go in first and investigate. The windows were dark, the structure itself seemingly silent and unoccupied.
Of the creature that had manifested at the window – such a sight, even half-glimpsed! Conical and misshapen in outline, tapering to a height taller than that of a man! Many-headed, many-limbed and many-eyed! Worst of all, of many gaping mouths from which had issued those hideous, screeching ululations! – there was no current and obvious sign.
It must have, the cultists assured themselves, gone back to whichever realm from whence it had come. They should, should they not, be pleased by this development? Surely it was a sign of the Old Ones’ favor!
Indeed! And indeed! And indeed thrice more!
Yet none were eager to volunteer, regardless of the threats or inducements offered by their leader – who could not, he explained, of course, himself go … the precise reasons for which he somehow neglected to fully articulate. In the end, they set to draw lots, with whosoever drew the short one being the first to enter.
The man who drew short was reluctant but had no other choice. He went on tip-toe to the farmhouse, peered into the darkness, listened to the silence, and finally climbed in through a window.
By then, of course, the four musicians, exhausted from their day’s adventures, had gone to sleep. They did not waken as the cultist, oblivious of their presence, groped about until he found one of the dropped candles. He then crept toward the fireplace, thinking he might kindle a flame to its wick from the embers.
That was when the cat, curled there with her fur nicely dry and groomed, woke and opened her eyes. The cultist, seeing them shining there in the gloom, mistook them for coals and poked the unlit candle at the cat’s face.
She, anything but amused by this indignity of treatment, sprang with a fury of spitting and hissing onto the man. Her needle-claws sliced his cheeks to ribbons and a darting bite of her ivory fangs nearly tore off his nose.
The cultist, screaming, stumbled backward and trod on the dog stretched in front of the door. The dog, likewise, sprang up in a fury. His powerful jaws took a swath of robes, and a chunk of buttock with it.
Shrieking now, in agony and terror, the man crashed into the table. The rooster, who’d been perched on the roof-beam just above it, dropped down to seize him by the collar. The rooster’s whip-thin tail coiled, tickling, around the man’s neck and stung him with itching welts.
Well into a panic, beset on all sides, the unlucky cultist ran for what he only guessed might be safety … the side-chamber where the hay had been strewn on the floor. Instead of safety, he was met with a strong kick from the donkey’s hind legs. The force of that kick propelled him clear through a wall, leaving a great ragged gap in the plaster. He ran for his life – or hobbled – as fast as he could.
The other cultists, who’d been waiting, heard the sudden terrible commotion with great apprehension. Their comrade staggered into their midst, so much plaster-dust caked in his hair that they first thought it had gone white from fright. His face was furrowed with gashes, his backside bleeding profusely. Welts rose up red and inflamed on his skin, and several ribs had been broken.
He babbled at them from a frantic state of madness, babbled of devils and monsters, witches with knives for hands, beasts that bit like bear-traps, snakes that had vicious crab-pinchers at one end and scorpion-tails at the other, hulking indescribable horrors with hard hooves.
The cultists decided as one that they wanted no more of this. Casting off their robes, beating themselves about the heads in rep
entance, they ran every step of the way to the next town and its church without stopping, pleading for God’s forgiveness with all of their might.
But, as for the donkey, the dog, the cat and the rooster …
Well, the four musicians decided the little farmhouse suited them quite satisfactorily, so that there was no more need to finish the long journey to Arkham-Town. They settled in, singing whenever they pleased, until the place got the reputation for being most dreadfully haunted so that the nearby folk stayed well away.
This made the quartet happy, for they had discovered they did not need fame and fortune after all. A roof, a well-stocked larder, and good company were more than enough.
And if no one has yet killed or banished them, then they must live there still.
There are human beans and then there are alien beans. How was I to know I was getting the alien kind? Sure, they came in all sorts of pretty colours, but everything does these days. I handed the milk glands over to the old man and I took the jar of beans from him. It glowed, it did, shining soft and strange in the dewy morning and now I could get home and have stew and then sow the rest of the beans. Maybe they'd even take root and grow.
Ah, but mama, mama didn't care for what I'd done. Mama was furious, her round face turning all red, tomato-headed angry mama cursing me, cursing me for being my father’s son and he his father’s and so forth. I am almost sure papa was mama's brother, so I guess all the papas all the way back were dorks. Were all the mamas tomatoes? I will probably never know. I also don’t know where papa went, but whatever. Mama says it would take forever to name all the things I shall never know.
Speaking of names, she called me some pretty ripe ones and I was torn between feeling bad and being kind of impressed. Mama had a way with words. But I wasn’t taking it anymore. I clunked her over the head with the jar, same way I’d seen her clunk papa back in the days when papa and mama and baby - that's me - made three. Only, once I’d clunked her she stayed clunked - all the red tomato juice flowed out of her round head, mama swayed back and slowly sat down on her heels, then her upper body toppled over and her legs spread out in front of her.
A Mythos Grimmly Page 2
