by Brian Lumley
III
There came a time, after I had been with him for a number of weeks, when it seemed plain that Sir Amery was rapidly recovering. True, he still retained his stoop,—though to me it seemed no longer so pronounced—, and his so-called eccentricities, but he was more his old self in other ways. The nervous tic had left his face completely and his cheeks had regained something of their former colour. His improvement, I conjectured, had much to do with his never-ending studies of the seismograph: for I had established. by that time that there was a definite connection between the measurements of that machine and my uncle’s illness. Nevertheless, I was at a loss to understand why the internal movements of the Earth should so determine the state of his nerves. It was after a trip to his room, to look at that instrument, that he told me more of dead G’harne. It was a subject I should have attempted to steer him away from…
“The fragments,” he said, “told the location of a city the name of which, G’harne, is only known in legend and which has in the past been spoken of on a par with Atlantis, Mu and R’lyeh. A myth and nothing more. But if you give a legend a location you strengthen it somewhat—and if that location yields up relics of the past, of a civilization lost for aeons, then the legend becomes history. You’d be surprised how much of the world’s history has in fact been built up that way.
“It was my hope, a hunch you might call it, that G’harne had been real—and with the deciphering of the fragments I found it within my power to prove, one way or the other, G’harne’s elder existence. I have been in some strange places, Paul, and have listened to even stranger stories. I once lived with an African tribe who declared they knew the secrets of the lost city and their story-tellers told me of a land where the sun never shines; where Shudde-M’ell, hiding deep in the honeycombed ground, plots the dissemination of evil and madness throughout the world and plans the resurrection of other, even worse abominations!
“He hides there in the earth and awaits the time when the stars will be right, when his horrible hordes will be sufficient in number, and when he can infest the entire world with his loathsomeness and cause the return of others more loathsome yet! I was told stories of fabulous star-born creatures who inhabited the Earth millions of years before Man appeared and who were still here, in certain dark places, when he eventually evolved. I tell you, Paul,” his voice rose, “that they are here even now—in places undreamed of! I was told of sacrifices to Yog-Sothoth and Yibb-Tstll that would make your blood run cold and of weird rites practiced beneath prehistoric skies before old Egypt was born. These things I’ve heard make the works of Albertus Magnus and Grobert seem tame and De Sade himself would have paled at the hearing.”
My uncle’s voice had been speeding up progressively with each sentence, but now he paused for breath and in a more normal tone and at a reduced rate he continued:
“My first thought on deciphering the fragments was of an expedition. I may tell you I had learned of certain things I could have dug for here in England—you’d be surprised what lurks beneath the surface of some of those peaceful Cotswold hills—but that would have alerted a host of so called ‘experts’ and amateurs alike so I decided on G’harne. When I first mentioned an expedition to Kyle and Gordon and the others I must have produced quite a convincing argument for they all insisted on coming along. Some of them though, I’m sure, must have considered themselves upon a wild goose chase for, as I’ve explained, G’harne lies in the same realm as Mu or Ephiroth—or at least it did—and they must have seen themselves as questing after a veritable lamp of Aladdin; but despite all that they came. They could hardly afford not to come, for if G’harne was real…why! Think of the lost glory… They would never have forgiven themselves. And that’s why I can’t forgive myself; but for my meddling with the fragments they’d all be here now, God help them…”
Again, Sir Amery’s voice had become full of some dread excitement and feverishly he continued.
“Heavens, but this place sickens me! I can’t stand it much longer. It’s all this grass and soil. Makes me shudder! Cement surroundings are what I need—and the thicker the cement the better… Yet even the cities have their drawbacks… Undergrounds and things… Did you ever see Pickman’s Subway Accident, Paul? By God, what a picture… And that night… That night! If you could have seen them—coming up out of the diggings? If you could have felt the tremors… Why! The very ground rocked and danced as they rose… We’d disturbed them, d’you see? They may have even thought they were under attack and up they came… My God! What could have been the reason for such ferocity? Only a few hours before I had been congratulating myself on finding the spheres, and then… And then…”
Now he was panting and his eyes, as before, had partly glazed over. His voice had undergone a strange change of timbre and his accents were slurred and alien.
“Ce’haiie, Ce’haiie… The city may be buried but whoever named the place dead G’harne didn’t know the half of it. They were alive! They’ve been alive for millions of years; perhaps they can’t die… And why shouldn’t that be? They’re Gods aren’t they, of a sort?… Up they come in the night…”
“Uncle, please!” I said.
“You needn’t look at me so, Paul, or think what you’re thinking either… There’s stranger things happened, believe me. Wilmarth of Miskatonic could crack a few yarns, I’ll be bound! You haven’t read what Johansen wrote! Dear Lord, read the Johansen narrative! Hai ep fl’hur… Wilmarth… The old babbler… What is it he knows which he won’t tell? Why was that which was found at those Mountains of Madness so hushed up, eh? What did Pabodie’s equipment draw up out of the earth? Tell me those things, if you can? Ha, ha, ha! Ce’haiie, Ce’haiie—G’harne icanica…”
Shrieking now, and glassy-eyed he stood, with his hands gesticulating wildly in the air. I do not think he saw me at all, or anything, except—in his mind’s eye—a horrible recurrence of what he imagined had been. I took hold of his arm to calm him but he brushed my hand away, seemingly without knowing what he was doing.
“Up they come, the rubbery things… Goodbye Gordon… Don’t scream so—the shrieking turns my mind… Thank heavens it’s only a dream!… A nightmare just like all the others I’ve been having lately… It is a dream, isn’t it? Goodbye Scott, Kyle, Leslie…”
Suddenly, eyes bugging, he spun wildly round.
“The ground is breaking up! So many of them…I’m falling…it’s not a dream! Dear God! IT’S NOT A DREAM! No! Keep off, d’you hear! Aghhh! The slime… Got to run!… Run! Away from those—voices?—away from the sucking sounds and the chanting…”
Without warning he broke into a chant himself and the awful sound of it, no longer distorted by distance or the thickness of a stout door, would have sent a more timid listener into a faint. It was similar to what I had heard before in the night and the words do not seem so evil on paper, almost ludicrous in fact, but to hear them issuing from the mouth of my own flesh and blood—and with such unnatural fluency…
“Ep ep fl’hur G’harne,
G’harne fhtagn Shudde-M’ell hyas Negg’h.
While chanting these incredible mouthings Sir Amery’s feet had started to pump up and down in a grotesque parody of running. Suddenly he screamed anew and with startling abruptness leapt past me and ran full tilt into the wall. The shock knocked him off his feet and he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
I was worried that my meagre ministrations might not be adequate, but to my immense relief he regained consciousness a few minutes later. Shakily he assured me that he was “all right, just shook up a bit!” and, supported by my arm, he retired to his room.
That night I found it impossible to close my eyes so I wrapped myself in a blanket and sat outside my uncle’s room to be on hand if he were disturbed in his sleep. He passed a quiet night, however, and paradoxically enough, in the morning, he seemed to have got the thing out of his system and was positively improved.
Modern doctors have known for a long time that in certain mental conditi
ons a cure may be obtained by inciting the patient to re-live the events which caused his illness. Perhaps my uncle’s outburst of the previous night had served the same purpose, or at least, so I thought, for by that time I had worked out new ideas on his abnormal behaviour. I reasoned that if he had been having recurrent nightmares and had been in the middle of one on that fateful night of the earthquake, when his friends and colleagues were killed, it was only natural that his mind should temporarily become somewhat unhinged upon waking and discovering the carnage. And if my theory were correct, it also explained his seismic obsessions…
IV
A week later came another grim reminder of Sir Amery’s condition. He had seemed so much improved, though he still occasionally rambled in his sleep, and had gone out into the garden “to do a bit of trimming.” It was well into September and quite chill, but the sun was shining and he spent the entire morning working with a rake and hedge clippers. We were doing for ourselves and I was just thinking about preparing the mid-day meal when a singular thing happened. I distinctly felt the ground move fractionally under my feet and heard a low rumble. I was sitting in the living room when it happened and the next moment the door to the garden burst open and my uncle rushed in. His face was deathly white and his eyes bulged horribly as he fled past me to his rooms. I was so stunned by his wild appearance that I had barely moved from my chair by the time he shakily came back into the room. His hands trembled as he lowered himself into an easy chair.
“It was the ground…I thought for a minute that the ground…” He was mumbling, more to himself than to me, and visibly trembling from head to toe as the after-effect of the shock hit him. Then he saw the concern on my face and tried to calm himself. “The ground. I was sure I felt a tremor—but I was mistaken. It must be this place. All that open space…I fear I’ll really have to make an effort and get away from here. There’s altogether too much soil and not enough cement! Cement surroundings are the thing…”
I had had it on the tip of my tongue to say that I too had felt the shock but upon learning that he believed himself mistaken I kept quiet. I did not wish to needlessly add to his already considerable disorders.
That night, after Sir Amery had retired, I went through into his study—a room which, though he had never said so, I knew he considered inviolate—to have a look at the seismograph. Before I looked at the machine, however, I saw the notes spread out on the table beside it. A glance was sufficient to tell me that the sheets of white foolscap were covered by fragmentary jottings in my uncle’s heavy handwriting and when I looked closer I was sickened to discover that they were a rambling jumble of seemingly disassociated—yet apparently linked—occurrences connected in some way with his weird delusions. These notes have since been delivered permanently into my possession and are as reproduced here:
HADRIAN’S WALL.
AD 122–128. Limestone Bank. (Gn’yah of the Fragments)??? Earth tremors interrupted the diggings and that is why cut, basalt blocks were left in the uncompleted ditch with wedge holes ready for splitting
W’nyal-Shash (MITHRAS).
Romans had their own deities but it wasn’t Mithras that the disciples of Commodus, the Blood Maniac, sacrificed to at Limestone Bank! And that was the same area where, fifty years earlier, a great block of stone was unearthed and discovered to be covered with inscriptions and engraven pictures! Silvanus the centurion defaced it and buried it again. A skeleton, positively identified as Silvanus’s by the signet ring on one of its fingers, has been lately found beneath the ground (deep) where once stood a Vicus Tavern at Housesteads Fort—but we don’t know how he vanished! Nor were Commodus’s followers any too careful. According to Caracalla they also vanished overnight—during an earthquake!
AVEBURY.
(Neolithic A’byy of the Fragments and Pnakotic Mss???) Reference Stukeley’s book, A Temple to the British Druids, incredible…Druids, indeed… But Stukeley nearly had it when he said Snake Worship! Worms, more like it!
COUNCIL OF NANTES.
(9th century) The council didn’t know what they were doing when they said: “Let the stones also which, deceived by the derision of the demons, they worship amid ruins and in wooded places, where they both make their vows and bestow their offerings, be dug up from the very foundations, and let them be cast into such places as never will their devotees be able to find them again…” I’ve read that paragraph so many times that it’s become imprinted upon my mind! God only knows what happened to the poor devils who tried to carry out the Council’s orders…
DESTRUCTION OF GREAT STONES.
In the 13th and 14th centuries the Church also attempted the removal of certain stones from Avebury because of local superstitions which caused the country folk to take part in heathen worship and witchcraft around them! In fact some of the stones were destroyed—by fire and douching—”because of the devices upon them.”
INCIDENT.
1920–25. Why was a big effort made to bury one of the great stones? An earth-tremor caused the stone to slip, trapping a workman. No effort appears to have been made to free him… The “accident” happened at dusk and two other men died of fright! Why did other diggers flee the scene? And what was the titanic thing which one of them saw wriggling away into the ground? Allegedly the thing left monstrous smell behind it… By their SMELL shall ye know them… Was it a member of another nest of the timeless ghouls?
THE OBELISK.
Why was Stukeley’s huge obelisk broken up? The pieces were buried in the early 18th century but in 1833 Henry Browne found burnt sacrifices at the site… And nearby, at Silbury Hill… My God! That devil-mound! There are some things, even amidst these horrors, which don’t bear thinking of—and while I’ve still got my sanity Silbury Hill better remain one of them!
AMERICA: INNSMOUTH.
1928. What actually happened and why did the Federal government drop depth charges off Devil Reef in the Atlantic coast just out of Innsmouth? Why were half Innsmouth’s citizens banished? What was their connection with Polynesia and what also lies buried in the lands beneath the sea?
WIND WALKER.
(Death-Walker, Ithaqua, Wendigo etc….) yet another horror—though of a different type! And such evidence! Alleged human sacrifices in Manitoba. Unbelievable circumstances surrounding Norris Case! Spencer of Quebec University literally affirmed the validity of the case…And at…
But that is as far as the notes go and when I first read them I was glad that such was the case. It was quickly becoming all too apparent that my uncle was far from well and still not quite right in his mind. Of course, there was always the chance that he had written those notes before his seeming improvement, in which case his plight was not necessarily as bad as it appeared.
Having put the notes back exactly as I found them I turned my attention to the seismograph. The line on the graph was straight and true and when I dismantled the spool and checked the chart I saw that it had followed that almost unnaturally unbroken smoothness for the last twelve days. As I have said, that machine and my uncle’s condition were directly related and this proof of the quietness of the earth was undoubtedly the reason for his comparative well-being of late. But here was yet another oddity… Frankly I was astonished at my findings for I was certain I had felt a tremor—indeed I had heard a low rumble—and it seemed impossible that both Sir Amery and myself should suffer the same, simultaneous sensory illusion. I rewound the spool and then, as I turned to leave the room, I noticed that which my uncle had missed. It was a small brass screw lying on the floor. Once more I unwound the spool and saw the counter-sunk hole which I had noticed before but which had not made an impression of any importance upon my mind. Now I guessed that it was meant to house that screw. I am nothing where mechanics are concerned and could not tell what part that small integer played in the workings of the machine; nevertheless I replaced it and again set the instrument in order. I stood then, for a moment, to ensure that everything was working correctly and for a few seconds noticed nothing abnor
mal. It was my ears which first warned of the change. There had been a low, clockwork hum and a steady, sharp scraping noise before. The hum was still attendant but in place of the scraping sound was a jerky scratching which drew my fascinated eyes to the stylus.
That small screw had evidently made all the difference in the world. No wonder the shock we had felt in the afternoon, which had so disturbed my uncle, had gone unrecorded. The instrument had not been working correctly then—but now it was… Now it could be plainly seen that every few minutes the ground was being shaken by tremors which, though they were not so severe as to be felt, were certainly strong enough to cause the stylus to wildly zigzag over the surface of the revolving graph paper…
• • •
I felt in a far more shaken state than the ground when I finally retired that night. Yet I could not really decide the cause of my nervousness. Just why should I feel so apprehensive about my discovery? True, I knew the effect of the now—correctly?—working machine upon my uncle would probably be unpleasant and might even cause another of his “outbursts” but was that knowledge all that unsettled me? On reflection I could see no reason whatever why any particular area of the country should receive more than its usual quota of earth-tremors. Eventually I concluded that the machine was either faulty or far too sensitive and went to sleep assuring myself that the strong shock we had felt had been merely coincidental to my uncle’s condition. Still, I noticed before I dozed off that the very air itself seemed charged with a strange tension and the slight breeze which had wafted the late leaves during the day had gone completely, leaving in its passing an absolute quiet in which, during my slumbers, I fancied all night that the ground trembled beneath my bed…
