by Donald Tyson
A faint breeze stirred the tiny hairs on my bare cheek. It had been there all the while, but so soft was its touch, I had not noticed. I soon determined that it did not blow from the source of the ever-present stench. It must be the wind on the plain forcing its way down the pit between the pillars. The angle of the fallen pillars, coupled with the slope of the ground at the entrance of the pit, would form a natural funnel for the moving air.
I tossed the skinless corpse of the rat aside with regret. There was still good meat on it, but I had consumed the best portions. With care, stopping every few paces to test the faint breeze, I increased the distance from the pit entrance. It was delicate work, for the cooling air was faint and hard to feel, but eventually I was rewarded by a thickening in the foulness of the stench that found its way to us against the current. How strong the smell would be, were the breeze not present to counter it, I could only imagine. The tunnels descended in a gentle slope, taking us deeper under the center of the city.
We emerged into a large circular chamber lit with the dull green luminescence of decay. The air hung almost too rank to breathe. I heard Martala choke and fight to keep her gorge from rising in her throat.
“Tie a kerchief around your face.”
She fumbled in the front pocket of her leather wallet and pulled forth a red cotton cloth, which she wrapped around her mouth and tied behind her head. It would have no effect on the stench, but it would cause her to feel that she had done something to make it bearable.
The chamber was thirty or so paces across, vaulted with a shallow dome of bricks arranged in concentric circles. We stood on a narrow walkway that ran completely around its diameter. Five other openings similar to the one through which we had emerged interrupted the curved wall at regular intervals. The catch basin that formed the center of the chamber was almost completely filled to the level of the walkway with excrement, in which was embedded bones, armor, and bits of clothing. They shone with greenish fire as I looked at them. I saw swords, helmets, and shields amid the charnel mound. The bronze blades of the swords were bright with verdigris. I wondered how many centuries they had lain there.
My eyes fixed on a large mass of a dark red color, similar to a clot of dried blood, at the center of the heap. At first I thought it was blood. I stepped forward off the edge of the walkway to see it more clearly in the dimness. As my boot grated on the bones, it stirred and turned its heads, opening its eyes to regard me with awareness. Before I could act, it sprang with terrible haste and bore me backward to the wall. I heard Martala cry my name, felt the needle-sharp daggers of its claws prick my chest, and saw the gray wedge of its massive beak gape.
It hesitated. I held my breath, not daring to move. A deep sound, like the puffing of a bellows, came from its open beak. I realized that the monster was tasting my scent.
“Alhazred?”
Martala’s voice came softly from my right side.
“Stay back,” I murmured quietly.
With excruciating slowness, I reached my hand to my throat and drew forth the leather thong to reveal the gold medallion. The heads of the beast regarded it in turn, their eyes rolling, as they twisted on their sinuous necks, which writhed like the arms of an octopus. Its foreclaws released me, and it backed up with an air almost of deference until it sat once more on its mound of phosphorescent shit and bones. It settled itself as I had first seen it, and its heads drooped.
“Stay close to me,” I told the girl as I inched toward her, unwilling to remove my gaze from the monster. “The medallion may not protect us both if we separate.”
How could a creature so large move with such quickness? I studied it as I felt the girl’s arm slide around my waist. She trembled against me.
Its body was the size of a large horse, though more compact. Each leg ended in a claw armed with four talons a span in length that curved like the waning moon. Its rear legs were longer than its front and heavily muscled. A whip-like tail curled around its hip to its knee, the end barbed and black like the talons. Scales covered all of its reddish body apart from its black wings, membranous like those of a bat and folded on either side of its spinal ridge.
I found it impossible to look away from its heads. They were seven, all of them human in appearance but no two the same. In unceasing motion, they melted and merged, forming on the ends of the necks the way fruit swells on the vine, to persist for a time, only to shrivel away to nothingness and be replaced by a different head, a different face. They swelled and diminished by turns in a process of growth and decay that was almost liquid. In their fullness they were perfect in every detail, with hair, beards, even eyelashes. Most were the heads of men, but some were women, and there were even a few children. They murmured uneasily, eyelids almost closed, as though in troubled dreams from which they could not wake.
The Beast settled upon the bones to resume its interrupted sleep. A deep rasp came from the parted gray beak at the base of its necks, below its amorphous heads. I realized that in its own way, it was snoring. Anyone coming upon it like this, who had not seen it move, might make the error of judging it harmless. The mistake would be fatal. Only the medallion had prevented it from tearing my body to pieces as easily as I stripped the hide from a rat.
“This is the Beast the river men feared,” Martala said softly into my ear.
“It can be no other,” I agreed.
“The mad priest sent you here to be killed.”
I remembered his words and his dying laughter.
“We should leave this place while it still sleeps.”
“We came to consult the head of Babylon.”
“What head?” she said in contempt. “There is nothing here. We’ve walked the tunnels and they are empty, apart from the rats.”
When I did not speak, she withdrew from my side in irritation. Blows and harsh words she might tolerate, but not being ignored. Lost in my own thoughts, it was a few minutes before I realized that she stood some paces away.
“Come here, fool,” I hissed.
She returned with a petulant expression, her lower lip pressed outward. I held up the Elder Seal.
“Without this you are a corpse. Can you form the Elder Sign with your hand?”
Reluctantly, she shook her head.
With my right hand, I showed her how to make the sign of protection.
“Tip of the index finger touching the tip of the thumb, second finger crossed over third, little finger raised straight upward. Do it.”
Awkwardly, she formed the sign with the help of her other hand. She did not yet have the trick of crossing the second finger over the third unaided.
“If we are separated, use this. It may save your life. Stay near my side and pray you never need to test it.”
I lowered myself to the walkway and sat with my back against the wall. The girl imitated my posture, but asked no questions. There was a strange fascination in watching the dreaming heads rise from the flesh of the Beast’s shoulders like fungoidal growths, only to shrink to nothingness. Each endured less than the tenth part of an hour. Since there were seven necks, a new head appeared almost every minute, providing constant novelty to the eye. Most heads came forth only once, but a few emerged repeatedly, and seemed more aware than the others even in their dreaming.
The head of a bald and beardless man grew with regularity, so that it was seldom absent from one of the necks. It was of small size, the skull rounded and the brows of delicate shape, the cheekbones high. Fine webs of lines creased the yellowish skin on his cheeks. His intense dark eyes never closed for longer than a moment, and seemed to regard me from beneath their drooping lids. Even in sleep they held veiled awareness that was akin to the mind of a man drugged with the gum of the poppy.
The head of a young woman of considerable beauty slowly parted its long lashes as though waking, and gazed at me with an expression of the most abysmal desp
air. She rolled her eyes to peer around the domed chamber so that their whites shone in the lambent glow of the bones. Tears seeped from their corners and made wet tracks down her cheeks. Other heads began to open their eyes. A bearded old man cursed and made the motion to spit with his lips, although no spittle came forth. He began to sing in a thin tuneless voice, but so badly I could not distinguish the words or even the language of the song. A younger man with a scar on his cheek twisted around on his neck and snapped his teeth with a sharp click in front of the elder’s nose. The old man fell silent, glaring his hatred at the younger head.
The scaled body of the Beast stirred restlessly and stretched like a cat, with its shoulders down and hips in the air. As it came to life, the animation of its heads increased. They began to babble in different tongues, crying out names, reciting prayers, begging for mercy from some oppressor only they could perceive. It was evident that most of the heads were insane. Those who took notice of us sitting on the walkway either cursed or mocked us. Their voices echoed from the bricks of the dome and filled the round chamber with a sound that was like the noise of many birds nesting in the reeds.
“You must help me,” cried the head of a balding man of middle years, who wore a short beard flecked with gray. “I will pay you.”
He spoke in my own language, or I might not have distinguished his words over the confusion of voices.
“Tell my wife, the gold is hidden in the well. Go to her with this message, and tell her to give you ten dinars for your trouble.”
“What is the name of your wife?” I asked in Arabic.
The ears of the head had already melted into the neck as I spoke. He gave one last look of dismay before his face dissolved and was replaced by that of a small boy, who at once began to scream for his mother.
The Beast circled on its pile of dried excrement with restless paces, then sat on its haunches. Every few minutes it stood and repeated the action, like a wolf in a cage waiting to be fed. I realized that it must be waiting for the sun to set, so that it could fly through the heavens in search of prey. It gave no attention to Martala or to me. Either it had forgotten our presence, or the power of the Elder Seal turned away its awareness. Neither did the voices of its own heads distract it, although it used their eyes to see its way, forcing them to turn at its will where it placed its steps.
The heads held little converse between themselves, but contested for the chance to pray or sing or speak without being overwhelmed by the other voices. They did this by snapping their jaws in a menacing way, and making savage expressions, as well as with screams and curses. They twisted their lips into snarls and widened their eyes until the white showed all around, so that they resembled the masks of demons more than the faces of human beings. Never did I see a head bite another head. It was all threat and bluster. Perhaps some power of the Beast prevented them from harming each other.
I began at last to grow weary of the ceaseless displays and quarrels among the heads. They seldom appeared more than once, save for the sallow-cheeked elder with the keen gaze, but behaved in much the same way, bemoaning their fate and cursing their neighbors during their brief presence. My attention wandered to the Beast itself, and its black wings that were like the folded sides of a portable tent. They appeared too small to bear up such a weight upon the air.
“Alhazred, do you see?”
The girl dug her pointed fingernails into my shoulder. A head newly formed on the lowermost neck blinked and stared around with a dazed wonder. I recognized the bearded face of Bassarius at once. The likeness was perfect. His brown eyes turned to me in puzzlement.
“Alhazred, what is this place?”
Even his voice was so like that of the fat physician, had I closed my eyelids I would have seen him in his coat of red silk. I pushed myself to my feet, moving slowly to avoid arousing the attention of the Beast.
“Do you remember nothing?”
His expression grew thoughtful and uncertain, like a man overcome by wine who tries to recollect his actions of the night before. Comprehension of his plight came slowly, mingled with equal measures of horror and fear. He craned his sinuous neck from side to side to view the scaled haunches of the Beast, and stared with revulsion at the other heads that screamed and chuckled and babbled. All but two, who were most in madness, turned to glare at him with expressions of malicious glee.
“I stood on the hill beside the river at dusk,” he said in a voice that trembled. “Something caught me up into the air and carried me to a distant hilltop. Allah be merciful, it held me to the ground and bit open my chest—”
Horror overwhelmed him. He began to scream repeatedly, his voice rising higher and higher amid the laughter and jeers of the other heads, until it was no more than a breathless shriek stretched thin and shrill. Martala clutched my arm and pressed her face into my shoulder. Her hot breath penetrated my garments and warmed my skin.
Some shadow of sanity returned to the physician’s expression. Awareness of his fate gave place in turn to desperation, sorrow, anger, bitterness, and at last to hope and strengthening resolve.
“Kill me, Alhazred, for the mercy of Allah. Use your sword. Cut at my throat and release me.”
I looked into his eyes and shook my head. I might as well have struck him with my fist.
“I beg you to kill me. I have gold in my trunk. Take it all, only free me from this hell.”
When I made no move to draw my sword, he fell to begging and cursing me by turns. He felt his head being drawn into the fleshy neck that supported it and wailed. The other heads jeered, turning on their necks to gaze at him and savor his torment. Only one of them, that of the hairless old man, remained silent. His bloodless mouth twisted in an expression of sardonic amusement, but his dark eyes watched me. In another moment the head of the physician was no more, replaced by the idiot grin of an old woman who wagged her head from side to side with a grunting noise so that her long white hair fell over her face like a veil.
“Why did you refuse to kill him?” Martala demanded, pulling away from my touch. There was accusation in her gaze.
Before I could answer, a high clear voice spoke in Greek, penetrating the babble the way a flute sounds above the thunder of many drums.
“It would serve no purpose.”
She stared in surprise at the Beast. The yellow head nodded, watching us.
“Strike off a head, and it grows back. We cannot die.”
Martala glanced at me.
“You knew this, Alhazred?”
I studied the cynical eyes of the yellow head. There was no madness in their depths, only a bitter amusement mingled with contempt. As I watched, the head melted into its neck and vanished, replaced by another. I turned to the girl, and tried for the sake of politeness to keep the irritation from my tone.
“Why should I be fool enough to strike at such a monster with my sword, to comfort a fat physician who did nothing for me during life but annoy me with his endless talk?”
Her expression hardened.
“Sometimes I think you have no feeling in your heart.”
“Then you think rightly, if you equate compassion with acts of charity toward fools.”
“What is a man without human kindness?”
“In the Empty Space, he is a man who lives.”
We argued in this way for several minutes. I became aware that the head of the yellow-skinned ancient had reformed on a different neck, and was watching us.
“You are the one I have come for,” I said, pointing at the head with my finger. “You are the wisest head of Babylon. Deny it if you can.”
He pursed his mouth in reflection, regarding me with catlike ease.
“Is that how they call me in the outer world? The wisest head of Babylon?”
I nodded.
“Then you have found what you seek.”
“Who are you?” Martala asked, her irritation at me replaced by curiosity.
He considered her question and decided to answer it.
“In life my name was Belaka. A score of centuries ago, I was a necromancer who dwelled in the lands east of Persia. I came to this accursed city seeking wisdom. I was arrogant in my own power, and took no precautions. The Beast caught me sleeping. Its claws severed the cord of my spine when it lifted me up, so that I felt no pain but was unable to move my arms and legs. It carried me many leagues into the distant hills before setting me on a peak and tearing out my entrails. It was an amusing circumstance. I watched it feast on my blood and flesh without pain or feeling of any kind, until at last it set its beak into my exposed throbbing heart. I awoke as you see me now, and have been this way for over two thousand years.”
“We also are necromancers,” Martala said.
“Are you indeed?” He fixed his glittering gaze upon her, and imitated her smile. “Necromancers? Like me?”
“I have questions for you, Belaka,” I said with more harshness than I intended.
“Ask them swiftly, fellow necromancer, for the sun falls, and soon the Beast will leave this place to hunt.”
“How did you become a part of this monster?”
He seemed to shrug, although he had no shoulders. His finely drawn eyebrows, as black as painted lines of kohl, arched up the merest degree.
“It is a drinker of blood and an eater of souls. Perhaps the souls enter it with the blood. Who can say, save the one that created it and her kindred.”
“Tell me the name of its creator.”
“Shub-Niggurath is its mother. As for its father . . .” He laughter was like the tinkling of small bells. “Shub-Niggurath was always a whore.”
“A spawn of the Old Ones,” I murmured to myself. “A child of the Prolific Goat.”
He nodded, eyes fixed on mine.
“You have little time, young necromancer. Tell me what you really wish to learn. You did not come to this place to gossip about the Old Ones. What has a slave of Nyarlathotep to do with the plaything of Shub-Niggurath?”
