The House of the Worm

by Gary Myers

  So Leshti fell down weeping, and Loth would have thrown himself upon his sword; but Snid only sat dejectedly upon a stone, biting his nails and considering how things were not going at all as he had planned.

  Now it no longer made any difference to Snid why the name and painted eyes of Anubis (and not sinful Nyar-lathotep, who has no eyes) were effaced by the vengeful priests, for his reputation was at stake. Nor was he ever one to leave perfectly valuable sapphires lying in a desert. But Snid was having uncomfortable suspicions about what a certain thing that had left Golthoth desolate may have been; and had he not his reputation to think of, he might almost have slipped quietly back to the watch-fires before anyone there even realized that Snid had been away. Then avarice got the better of him. Never telling the younger thieves what he feared, he made instead some likely reference to wind and sand and Time: for the Desert, as he said to Leshti and Loth, was always jealous of his secrets, and there were four thousand years to be considered. Then those notable thieves took heart, and lighted the copper lanthorns they had, knowing that no one who spies strange red lights out in the desert at night is likely to investigate, and unpacked their spades and mattocks. And there beneath the stars, under Snid’s shrewd direction, they set about their heroic project, the unearthing of the high pyramid tomb which the desert was inhospitably concealing.

  They worked very quickly in the starlight, driven by sheer avarice. Still Leshti and Loth were not happy as they dug; though when the oddly moist clay began to assume an unhealthy shade that was not reassuring, they said it was only the red beams of their lanthorns, and dug stoutly on. The cleverly muffled spades made less noise than their breathing, they heard the jackals draw near with terrible smiles, and heard them whine nervously as they slunk away with their shadows and tails between their legs. But Snid would only scoff at omens. And when the thieves had dug down to the depth of a grave, they uncovered three small diorite cubes bearing an exceedingly peculiar inscription on five of the six polished faces of each, and the sign of the five-pointed star. These Snid eyed perplexedly for several minutes, then cast from him in revulsion, muttering something about their being of little market value. Still he would not admit that it might be as he feared, for his reputation was at stake. But much later even Snid could not hide his unease, for they all loathed the way that viscid, quivering mud clung to their spades and crept and bubbled noisomely, and the horrible way it ate holes in their boots.

  Now when evening comes the dark wanderers sing the old songs no longer, and light incense only to conceal a certain terrible odour which has haunted their wagons since the morning, long ago, when they fled from Cuppar-Nombo. They have since tried to explain that odour away in view of what they now know to have happened, but of the way the ground beneath the painted wagons behaves at evening they never speak. Once a man admonished them to return to the worship of the old gods who sleep, and to offer sacrifice to Anubis lest the World swallow them as well; but they slew him with a curious rite and buried him beneath one of the wagons where the ground acted strangely. It is many years since the burgesses of Ulthar have heard any rumour of the dark wanderers.

  This is what the dark people found on that morning they came down between the crumbling lesser tombs, to the place where they looked to find the high tomb of their hearts’ desire: a lonely crouching shape that snarled and laughed and scrabbled in the dust, whom they recognized as Snid by the little lines of greed about the eyes. But there was very little human in those eyes now, and even less in the ghoulish aspect of the face. And observing then the spades and mattocks where they had been laid, and the three dead zebras, they guessed what Snid had planned, and searched his pockets to learn whether he had found the treasurer of the old kings. But there were only some white finger-bones, a number of teeth, and a portion of somebody’s femur. They wondered at the freshness of those pitiful osseous relics, and at the hideous way Snid leered at them and laughed and called them by name. No recognizable traces of Leshti or Loth were ever found.

  Yet despite these queer portents the dark people would have begun an excavation of their own. Only after they saw how the earlier digging had not been filled in, as they had supposed, but had closed up in a horrible smile, did they drop their implements and hurry judiciously away.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Four Sealed Jars

  The Four Sealed Jars

  There are things in the shop of Getech that they bring in by the back door and do not display openly. On that counter loll many curious gods of wood and jade and gold, having benign smiles; and there are chests of camphor wood; and that very crystal once spoken of in connection with a name grown mythical, exorbitantly priced for showing things no crystal ought to show; and the beautiful iridescent silks of that which some name the spider and some the worm, and some say neither of these. The selection of their spices is unmatched even in song. In a locked room near the back are kept the several poisons that shop has for sale, and certain exotic powders they will not sell you elsewhere, save perhaps the Moon, and whose use is punished strangely.

  One dreams sometimes of how the stars light the squat cottages where the green hill of Nithey-Vash falls away. The thatches of those cottages go all silver with the starlight, and the lamps they light within turn the lozenge panes one by one into jewels, they are more beautiful than the silent houses whose windows overlook the edge of the World. On this night Wesh saw them from his own window, and conceived a longing: Wesh longed in his soul to see what the Night was like in those pleasant little streets between the cottages… The watchmen opened their dark lanterns and did not smile when Wesh walked past the gate the watchmen watch.

  And perhaps the streets conspired against him as he walked, for too quickly the star-lit cottages were hidden behind high walls of ugly brick, and the paths twisted and would not go in any of the proper directions. The bleak warehouses on either side of him confined the Night to a narrow channel overhead—even the stars were changed —and Wesh despaired of ever finding the little cottages. But turning a corner he spied a dim light far off in the dark before him, and hurried on.

  That shop bearing Getech’s mark on its iron lintel is very lean and high, and set between two tottering old houses with no lamps in their windows, that wear an evil look. But there was little comfort in certain menacing shapes in the shop-window either. Only one twinkling eye of a quaint little jade god recalled the stars Wesh had seen from his own window… A bell rang when Wesh opened the door. He had already examined three wonderful dusty tomes bound all in copper (whose pages were closely writ in bestial characters he was unable to decipher), and nodded as he passed the amethyst cups, and was picking up from the counter an ivory daemon, when someone behind him uttered a cough. And the proprietor peered up into the face of Wesh with watery little eyes and made him eagerly welcome.

  Only those sinful eyes and the top of a nasty bald head showed above those black wrappings many sizes too large for him; but seeing them made Wesh remember an appointment he did not have, and turn to go. Then that gnomish being plucked at his sleeve and smiled.* There was really no reason to be nervous, the proprietor only wished to see that Wesh’s curiosity was wholly satisfied. Would he not examine the wares of that shop more closely? But when Wesh would have inquired after the price of the quaint little jade god he had seen in the window, the proprietor only hurried him through the dim aisles to a dark little room near the back, which he unlocked, and urged Wesh through the door.

  *Some wrinkles in the wrappings curled up at the ends.

  This room was empty but for four jars and the long, lidded wooden box propped in a corner. To that suspicious box the proprietor hopped, and began to fumble the iron padlocks. And even before the first lock fell Wesh noticed something very peculiar about those jars: three of those bulging earthenware jars were making tiny noises, disturbingly like bats or the tapping of somebody’s fingernails; but the fourth jar was empty, and Wesh did not entertain his idle fancies about the proprietor and the suggestive emptiness of tha
t jar for long. And when the second lock fell he asked what the sealed jars might contain; but the proprietor would only say, cryptically, “Better not ask,” and laugh at some private jest. Then the third lock fell, the lid opened noiselessly, and Wesh saw the golden mask which the occupant of the box was wearing. One gravely doubted whether either could be described gracefully. The proprietor snatched the mask from the mouldering face and held it so that Wesh might see more clearly, and thrust a finger at him through one of the narrow eyes. This article, the proprietor averred, was rumoured by some to have certain properties which might be of interest to philosophers, and had been invoked upon only four occasions since that evil One who made it gave it unto the World. He knew nothing of the first three owners, save that the third had died insane two centuries ago; the fourth had been a poet and flung the mask away in an alley in Celephais and sliced both his wrists. And always the mask returned to the Guardian that One had set over it, the Occupant of the Box. He would not tell how it came into his shop. But the properties which rumour attributes to the golden mask are nothing less than to reveal to men the shapes of their own souls.

  The look in the proprietor’s watery little eyes was not pleasant as Wesh counted out the price into that eager palm, or left that shop with a parcel under his arm. He found his way back to the streets he knew without further incident. But once he heard a soft scuttling noise on the cobbles behind him, as something black with bandages on its wrists laughed and slipped down a storm drain.

  But now a greyness was in the East, and dawn like a pale smoke rose to eclipse the stars. It was the hour when the watchmen put out their lamps and steal home in the shadows, and the things whose home is Night go secretly to hide by day in cupboards and unlighted places, and wholesomer persons rise to open their shops and go about their business. But there would be no morning for Wesh, who was already beginning to notice strange things about the streets he knew. He should have been in the neighbourhood of that temple wherein Nath-Horthath is glorified in Nithy-Vash, almost he heard Night muttering in the temple’s shadowy portico; but the patter of his footsteps seemed oddly misplaced. Now rows and rows of bleak warehouses peculiarly altered, the ways grew darker, and into those narrow aisles between not even the stars peeped. Wesh hurried on with his parcel, all the while mumbling to himself, “What if—?” and cursing because the alleys were pinching shut behind him. Such occurances, as Wesh well knew, are not wholly sane; but when he considered the only alternative to his own madness, he fervently hoped he was going mad. Bricks should not smell of leather and mould, bricks should never arrange themselves with such damnable suggestiveness, until they cannot be discerned from rows and rows of dusty books whose bestial characters Wesh now was very glad he could not read. An ivory daemon on the counter leered at him…

  That same morning, four sealed jars from the shop of Getech came into the possession of a prominent merchant of Celephais who fancied himself a connoisseur of old wines and hoped by this purchase to add something diverting to his cellars. There was some unpleasantness when his servants effected an opening of one of the jars.

  CHAPTER X

  The Maker of Gods

  The Maker of Gods

  It should also be said of the shop of Getech, that in the left-hand window long sat, and perhaps is sitting still, a last uncollected masterpiece by none other than Yah-Vho. It is a little idol in jade, with two eyes; the crowning achievement of his early anthropo-morphic period. In his modest studio in a by-way of Nithy-Vash, Yah-Vho lived and worked for years and years; and the lava-carvers of Ngranek knew of him, and wept.

  Yah-Vho, who made many gods, worshipped only Yop, a little idol he had carved in his own image out of diorite. But Sthood was an idol altogether too horrible to be worshipped by men. His priesthood had been initiated solely to prevent men from offering prayers to Sthood, lest Sthood be wakened by their prayers, and perform a miracle. Sthood had performed only three miracles since he was carved out of sandstone, concerning which no records survive; but the last was to create men. But Zith was not adverse to extortion, and knew that it would be worth much to the priests of Sthood to keep silent the prayers of Zith.

  So he put on soft slippers and pittered out under the stars, from shadow to shadow up the cobbled lane, till he came to the temple of Sthood; and entered to see that god dreaming like an onion, on the high sheer pedestal where no prayers reach, where Sthood had dreamed five million years before men came and built his temple around him, and where, if the prayers of men are heeded, he would dream five million more. And Zith quietly strangled the priest whose duty it was to see that none offered prayers to Sthood. Then uncoiling that slender rope with the hook on the end, he cast the hook neatly about the lumpy throat of Sthood, nimbly he leapt up the rope. And that bulbous idol reeled forward beneath the weight of the thief…

  And things might have gone less badly for Zith had he been slower to spring away when that toppled idol crashed to the brazen flags, for then he would never have had to meet those whom the startled echoes had summoned. They did with that unhappy thief that which is better not to tell; and afterwards shut themselves away all night with the strangled priest and some pieces of Sthood, to cast certain dreadful runes and recall their god’s soul from the abyss whither it had flown; and in the morning went to see Yah-Vho.

  They found him sweeping clouds of powdered marbles and flecks of gems out of his modest studio. And what gods had sprung from the marbles and gems whose sparkling dust it was, who knoweth? He laid aside his broom, and they spread before him a roll of new parchment disturbingly shaped like Zith, whereon were traced the outrageous lineaments of the god which Yah-Vho was to carve.

  And Yah-Vho explained to them how it was not fashionable in that part of the Dreamlands for an idol to look so like an onion as theirs; and the priests pointed again to their plan. Again Yah-Vho looked at the plan, and frowned; but said that eyes were just the thing, pointing out that he had in stock just then a few suitable emeralds.*

  *His imitations in paste defy detection; they are classic, the model offered to students of the art.

  And they said that for Sthood to have eyes was unheard of, and muttered terrible things against emeralds. Then he asked what sort of stone, and they said sandstone. And Yah-Vho resumed his sweeping to show that the audience was over, because he could not adequately express his contempt for worshippers of an idol of that sort. And they named a certain figure, in opals.

  So Yah-Vho procured what was necessary. And on the following morning those three high priests returned, all in their figured robes, with tripods and charcoal braziers and wonderful resins. But the strangled priest who came in behind the subservient high priest wore no robe, and the body was ill-suited to its hideous soul. Yah-Vho was not happy about the knavish eyes he perceived were watching him through holes the ill-fitting soul had rubbed in the body; but the body’s eyes regarded him not at all, having already been hooked out to accommodate that terrible soul. But this was none of Yah-Vho’s affair. He mounted the step-ladder and began vigorously to chip away the stone that imprisoned Sthood; and the high priests chanted, “O Sthood, Sthood,” and burned their wonderful resins.

  And every evening just as the stars came out they left that modest studio, and every morning just as the stars began to pale they came quietly back to resume their chanting, and always that strangled priest followed them. And whether Yah-Vho worked that day or whether he worked not, the high priests came and chanted all the same.

  Now the clientele of any reputable idol-carver are by nature given to such practices, and to discourage them is not good business. But after the first week Yah-Vho came to suspect an ulterior motive for burning the wonderful resins; for the strangled priest had a bad way with the air which it must have seemed expedient to conceal, lest someone ask pointed questions.

  But it would not be fair to Yah-Vho to write that ever he came to regret a bargain from mere squeamishness. The limitations of sandstone were starting to chafe him. Yah-Vho had his little way
s with gold, could hollow it and weight it with just the exact amount of lead; but with sandstone you could overcharge and no more, and Yah-Vho considered that the high priests were cheating him of his rightful profits. And their demands upon his time could only be hurtful to business. Who now would finish the little jasper image of Mup? The acolytes of Tamash would come for the six golden attendant daemons of Tamash, and how would it be if they found their daemons without eyes? The iconoclasts continued to blackmail him, and what tasks could he set them now? And the dull orange dust of Sthood choked him and turned the beaded sweat of his brow to blood, and clouded forever after the flecks of gem that had sparkled in Yah-Vho’s black beard.

  Thrice in the midst of his labours he turned and threw his chisel at their heads, crying out that their parsimonious opals were not adequate to the magnitude of his effort; and thrice the high priests only smiled, cheerfully agreeing to raise their figure. They only smiled, but almost Yah-Vho detected something unpleasant about their smiles. And when he saw that they intended to answer his every demand with those same smiles, he wept and prophesied ruin.