by Gary Myers
CHAPTER II
Yohk the Necromancer
Yohk the Necromancer
Verily was it know to the good cotters of Vornai that Yohk, the fat-bellied clerk in the Street of Frogs, was a sorcerer of no little accomplishment; and when it happened that many of their number disappeared mysteriously and under curious circumstance, these same cotters were scandalously quick to lay blame at his dubious threshold.
This Yohk had entered the city, by way of the Gate of Mists, in the grey dawn of that morning three madmen came down the hill there is outside Vornai, shrieking disquieting things of shadows and the World’s ending. The day is one of especial note to the purple-robed chroniclers of the city - though whether because of Yohk’s coming or the madmen’s is uncertain - and they still relate how the terrible history of the Old Man of Whom No One Likes to Speak was muttered because someone remarked upon a startling resemblance between those madmen and the unfortunate three who never returned from dining at the old man’s sinister House, and how Yohk listened avidly to those tales, and smiled. They tell too how it was Yohk who first advocated the destruction of that great House which some name the Worm’s for no sensible reason, and particularly the breaking of the five shocking pillars that guard it. But the people did not like his soft flabby face and tiny eyes, and feared too the ire of strange gods.
Shortly thereafter, Yohk rented the abandoned temple of a lesser god in the Street of Frogs to dwell in, taking the clerk’s trade for his own, but practicing frightful thaumaturgies at his leisure, as old wives attest. Where the madmen chose to live is nowhere recorded.
Now it was soon obvious to the indignant cotters that the fat clerk did not intend to behave at all properly, in those accepted patterns custom dictates. Yohk spurned the city’s rightful gods, Nasht and Kaman-Thah, and worshipped an idol carved out of jade and set on a smoky crystal wherein fitful shadows danced—it looked for all the World like a squid with ears. And when priests of Nasht and Kaman-Thah came to admonish him against this wicked idolatry, Yohk only made a curious gesture with his left hand and laughed horribly. He had taken something of the priests’ that he kept imprisoned in a little ebon box and subjected to inexplicable tortures. And his appalling refusal to eat as other men gave rise to much speculation about his obesity, and whether he was mortal. Such speculation Yohk always found entertaining. And had the precise nature of certain visitors who came with the Moon been revealed, it is doubtful whether the gossips had dared utter another word.
So when a seller of myrrh disappeared one evening exactly two weeks before Walpurgis Night, it seemed only natural that Yohk should be blamed, and no one was surprised.
In years that are one with the dust, Yohk had visited that cryptic, yellow-robed One whose silken veil bulges damnably, and heard the voiceless oracle of Bokrug piping strangely of Sarnath’s dreadful doom. He studied long with pale hands trembling in the mildewed scrolls of black magic and lunacy, bartered from the meeping, hound-faced ghouls who pilfered them from the shadow-guarded crypts of Leng. He sent his soul to gaze on the Vale of Pnath, and the grim onyx walls of Kadath in the Cold Waste where no man treadeth; where it pronounced the detestable runes graven there, and the unspeakable name of Azathoth, and in age-old corridors of madness searched frantically, until the ravening Guardians sent it fleeing. At night beneath the wan Moon’s leprous face he sloughed away the dust mercifully hiding that which sleeps in certain unhallowed graves.
And in these forbidden delvings he found again the spell that was lost with primal lb, whereby men are transformed into spiders with maimed and broken legs; and how to invoke the dead, which is perilous, and how to clothe in flesh the spirits of them that never lived, which is infinitely worse. He knew signs that grant power over storms and supremacy over Hell’s black legions. He learned how one might traverse those whimpering zones that lie beyond the nethermost dark stars. The seven thousand appellations of daemons he consulted, and the five hundred and fifty and five chants of the Dholes, and the scriptures of Dzyan and Klek—but the Word of unbinding, the Key that opens no door save One, he never found: the spell that if any in the World must free the Great Old Ones. For Yohk well knew of those Old Gods Who lay entombed and dead in the dark places of the World, and knew too that They would not always stay dead. Yes, Yohk knew! And so he prayed to Their images and sought ever that one Word, knowing that at its utterance his gods would be freed to reward Their chosen with the dark jewels of incredible wealth and power beyond the dreams of avarice, as is taught among those who expect to receive them and therefore must be true. But Yohk was certain now that the spell he sought was nowhere in the World, and so he must search behind it. He would open a Way that something might pass through, something that knew things and would tell, for a price.
And at last, armed with his scroll and all the proper accouterments, he made his way by devious paths out of the city at evening, to the wooded hill that cotters shun who know the tales of that Old Man of Whom No One Likes to Speak, and know them to be true. It was not yet dark when he set out. But soon the stars crept out from behind the East and Night came like a furtive thing. Red Betelgeuse peered threateningly down through the sinister clouds, but the fat clerk paid no heed; he trudged on through the watchful, evil trees and brambles and thorns, up to that doubtful House where the rats hold blasphemous revels and chuckling, sapphire-eyed spiders spin crazily in the dark, and where Yohk had good reason to know his shocking god lay sleeping. He went in by the back door, picking his way very carefully over fragments of broken stone - grey stars that almost unsettled him - into that dim, pentagonal hall silent with Time’s unprinted dust, where once a drunken old man spoke of dreadful things to his guests. And there in the dust Yohk traced those three charmed concentric circles as is prescribed in such matters, and lighted the black candle made from the fat of corpses, and spoke thrice the summons to those beings who wait for just such purposes somewhere outside the World. And nothing at all happened.
So Yohk the necromancer swore wickedly and dropped his guards and stamped out of the House of the Worm, forgetting that not all things who come when they are called are readily seen, a fact which cannot be forgotten with impunity. And that night something followed him home.
Now when that unfortunate seller of myrrh was followed in the next two weeks by no fewer than ten of his neighbours, the cotters were understandably distressed; but there was something not wholly logical in their anmity towards the flabby clerk. Certainly Yohk was never seen, only a gathering of shadows and a scream cut off with horrible suggestion, and somebody was missing who had not been before. Indeed, when these regrettable happenings finally ceased, Yohk seemed to have vanished quite as completely as the others. No more was he spied passing silently along the Way of Tombs as he was wont, or peering evilly at honest cotters from his window. In secret temples men burned incense and thanked the inscrutable gods. But there were others who whispered that the clerk had only shut himself away from prying eyes, to work some new blasphemy whose like had not been seen for many years more than a hundred, not since that infamous old man raised up from Hell the House of the Worm. Indeed, these people pointed out, already had a winged devil descended from the Moon to light on the sorcerer’s doorstep. Nobody seemed to remember that it flew away when no one answered its knock.
Soon Yohk’s neighbours were complaining loudly of a frightful smell, and certain well-fed rats that had taken to skulking in the Street of Frogs by night and leering at pedestrians. At last the gaunt mayor and his five augurers, abetted in their plan by those vacant-faced priests who once found Yohk’s laughter disconcerting, and hoped to recover their souls the sorcerer took, came armed with scrolls and holy periapts and chanting of the goddess N’tse-Kaambl whose splendour hath shattered worlds. They marched straight up the hated Street of Frogs from the Square of the Thirteen Pomegranates, singing of N’tse-Kaambl, and the plump rats fled scurrying. Right to that dubious threshold of Yohk they came—where it became necessary to wait on the doorstep until the int
ricate black lock would be picked—and muttering each a zealous prayer to his particular god, they entered and shut the door behind them.
Before many minutes had passed they all rushed franticly out again to cringe in alleys and less likely places, and would not willingly tell what they had seen.
But they found only a room with tapestried hangings depicting old, slant-eyed faces and cryptic signs that clearly meant something unspeakable, and deep blue rugs sprinkled with myriad little jewels arranged in constellations no eye looks on in any gulf. Somewhere a languorous incense burned, and four curious globes of light floated serenely just below the high vaulted ceiling. On a table of graven ebony was spread a crumbling scroll; a silver pen was dropt to the stone flags as though from the writer’s forgetful hand; the writer sat slumped forward on the table, very still. It was the unorthodox clerk Yohk, who had lost much of his flabbiness. So they left quickly, showing no proper respect for the dead, and sealed up the temple with the clerk still seated there, for none would touch him when they saw the look in his dead eyes. They did not even take away the eleven peculiarly marked bodies they found in the cellar.
CHAPTER III
Xiurhn
Xiurhn
Opposite the grim onyx temple of Unattainable Desires, in the Street of the Pantheon in Hazuth-Kleg, sacred to the Moon, there stood long the low, terrible house of Skaa that figures oddly in myth. Skaa dwelt all alone in her terrible house and worshipped her carven idols, and chanted and lighted unwholesome candles and made the Voorish sign. But there are those who do not scruple to consult witches, and Thish was used to dealing with persons of doubtful character in his business, which was nothing less than robbery.
He had heard it whispered by certain jewel-merchants, before his knotted cords silenced them completely, that the gem of immeasurable worth is kept by the Night in fabled Mhor. He heard it first in Celephais, from a fat jeweller seeking to buy his own life with that peculiar knowledge, and Thish had not trusted his whimperings. But in Vornai he was less sure, and in Ulthar’s scorpion-guarded shops he wondered whether it might be true, and in the yak caravan on Kaar’s sunny plain he could doubt no longer; the ruby-merchants who come to Dylath-Leen he robbed not. The truth and other pertinent matters, he knew, might be read in the mouldering Pnakotic Manuscripts wherein is recorded all things it is better that men should not know, but he did not wish to pay the Guardian’s price to peruse that hateful tome. Less perilous would be to consult one who had already paid the Guardian’s price.
In that low house shadows dwelt, despite the Bickerings of a little oddly-painted clay lamp. Thish did not like the way those shadows behaved, and Skaa’s eyes that shone like the nethermost stars of some nameless gulf were less than reassuring. He entered by that disturbing door which stands open at all seasons between dusk and dawn, and did what was expected of clients, and in turn was told what he wished to know. For beyond the unknown East, mumbled Skaa, there must certainly lie that great, silent vale which is the Night, whence he sends forth his shades at evening to slay the bleeding sun, and whither flee all dreams when the sun returns at dawning. And in that shadow-guarded vale (if one may believe the queer sayings of them that mouth strange secrets to any who may hear) is the high, haunted tower of stone wherein the myth Xiurhn sits and mutters dreams to himself and watches over the gem of immeasurable worth. As no other in the World is this gem, for it was made by the craft of the Other Gods as supplication to the mindless daemon sultan Azathoth, and cut in a semblance of some droll blending of sloth and vampire bat whose pulpy, sinister head is slyly concealed behind its folded wings. It is better that mortals do not think of it, for the Other Gods are not as men (whose tiny souls are bound to them by silver threads), but find earthly focus in certain horrible links, and the noxious soul of Xiurhn haunts the Dark Jewel. It would not be pleasant to meet Xiurhn or his soul, and the Other Gods have shocking methods of punishment. Yet it is known that the yellow-skulled priests of Yuth possess a talisman they anoint in adoration of N’tse-Kaambl, that is useful in protecting those who would profane what belongs to the Other Gods. And Skaa told how one might come to Yuth and the talisman; and casting at the witch’s webbed feet his payment in opals, Thish hurried out into the winding cobbled streets beneath the stars.
When Skaa opened the little bag and found only pebbles, for Thish was a robber of note, she drew a pattern known to the skull-faced priests of Yuth and nailed it to the brow of her messenger, who made an obeisance and vanished in a rustle of leathery wings. She described then a sign in the dark with her forefinger above the worthless rocks to change them into opals, and gave no more thought to the thief.
In seven nights a stealthy shadow passed on stockinged feet through the third and most secret vault of that abhorred monastery where the priests of Yuth celebrate the mass of Yuth with curious torments and prayer. When the yellow-skulled priests found the strangled witch with the knotted cord still about her throat and the talisman gone from its proper place on the altar, they only laughed softly and returned to their curious tortures.
That even the East must end if one only travels far enough, all sane men know, despite what philosophers may say; but Thish on his journey watched the four seasons of Earth come in file down through the fields of man and the fields that know him not, come each and pass and come again. And queerer and queerer grew the lands as one rode further East. Beyond the last of Six Kingdoms Thish beheld the dark, mordant forests of trees whose knotted roots fasten like leeches to the mould and moan and bleach the earth, and in whose loathly shadows the inquisitive brown Zoogs caper and leer; and evil bogs whose pale, luminous blooms are foetid with swollen worms having astonishing faces. The deserts on the thither side of Gak are all strewn with the gnawed, untidy bones of absurd chimeras. Thish spent a week in crossing those deserts, and day by day prayed to his gods that the gnawers might remain comfortably hidden. Beyond the deserts is the city it is not well to enter, for the portcullis mimes teeth entirely too well to be canny. And upon a time Thish led his famished zebra across the barren, stony ridge which is the East’s farthest border, and peered down to see the Night lapping evilly below, a sluggish, viscid pool in fabled Mhor.
There he turned free his zebra. Already the bleeding sun failed at his back, and then sinister Night would rush terribly up from that vale with strange intent, and Thish did not need to be told what hellish spawn might lurk in the dusk athirst for that which he could ill afford. He lighted a little oddly-painted clay lamp that did not belong to him, and sitting down on a broad, flat rock, with his back to the stone and his jewelled sword at his side, he drew his cloak up to his eyes and waited. But Thish did not have to wait long… For then with many a subtle flap and whisper the shadows sprang, amid a bitter cold of the star-spaces. An object with clammy feelers and wings splattered against his brow. Queer half-glimpsed shapes of nightmare clamoured just beyond his feeble light, he heard the brief, frenzied screams of his zebra out in the dark with the titter he hoped but did not really believe was the wind. Then that shadowy horde had wriggled obscenely over the high ridge and into the World beyond, and Thish was left all alone to creep down the treacherous slope, bearing his lamp before him. The very stones oozed a horrible dew of fluid shadows, and were pitted everywhere with fiendish burrows, and the burrows were not always unoccupied. Thish stumbled more often than he must have liked, for the little lamp could not dispel the blackness, only its vile children, and once his hand slipped down into one of the burrows… Later he found those worn steps at the base of the tower, where something began to slither nastily behind him, snuffling in the dark and disturbing ancient bones. Thish was glad he could not see what he suspected. He could only gibber a meaningless prayer to the talisman in his pocket, and froth and scramble madly up the dizzy stair on his hands and knees in the dark, while the little suspicious noises behind him got bigger and bigger, and something wet twisted the lamp from his nerveless fingers and swallowed it with bestial slobberings and panted on his neck until his bleed
ing hands found the brazen tower door and pulled it shut behind him. Something knocked on the door and chuckled ominously.
Crouching there in the dark with his sword and mumbling to himself, of a Dark Jewel of immeasurable worth kept by the Night in fabled Mhor, of amorphous Xiurhn, whose noxious soul it is, who sits in a high tower in the dark and talks with those Other Gods whose methods of punishment the thief had most reason to fear, but who cannot abide the talisman sacred to that goddess N’tse-Kaambl whose splendour hath shattered worlds, Thish in the dark of his own shattered mind never knew when that talisman left his fingers at the silent beck of the yellow-skulled priests…
And then Xiurhn came downstairs with his soul to answer that persistent knocking.
CHAPTER IV
Passing of a Dreamer
Passing of a Dreamer
Opening into the narrow windowless alley behind the solemn Hall of Burgesses on the one side and the shop of Woth the baker on the other, in Ulthar that lies beyond the river Skai, is that hidden door whose existence is only suspected. It is said of this door that there squats behind it, on an altar of what the unimaginative think are merely human bones, that strange and dubious idol named in certain obscure references as the Keeper of Dreams. There it crouches in the dark behind that misleading door, patiently awaiting those who have always come seeking that which only that unlawful idol has to offer, and always afterwards it locks its fees away in a little painted box whose rumour disturbs the sleep of the gods. What those fees are the legends do not willingly say, hinting only that Snireth-Ko knew once; and the fate of Snireth-Ko remains a matter of grim speculation.
