The Strange Dark One

by W. H. Pugmire

  “The Audient Void. That passage haunts me. I’ve seen this thing eddying in my dreams. It’s dark and cold. It spins and pulses and listens as I whisper alchemical language in its praise. It echoes my name when I call to it.”

  Simon smiled. “Indeed, how tantalizing.”

  “I think you’ve been studying that thing too intently,” said young Nelson as he ran a pale hand through his unruly black hair. “You should be cautious, you know; occult language can cast a kind of enchantment that is difficult to escape.”

  “Pish,” Simon spat. “Are you certain that you’re a child of Sesqua Valley’s shadowland? You preach caution? You have yet, Nelson, to evoke any kind of force, to bend the air with alchemy. You have not, as tradition dictates, departed from the valley so as to explore the uncanny regions of the globe and allow those regions to inculcate your little brain with dark wonder. Are you really one of us?”

  “Oh, be quiet, Simon,” Amanda admonished. “You’ve only to look at his eyes to know that he is Sesqua’s spawn.” She leaned to the lad and kissed his face, close to one of his slanted alabaster eyes.

  “I will not be so spoken to by you, mortal woman. Remember that you dwell in Sesqua Valley because of our gracious decree.”

  The woman laughed. “That’s what you like to preach, beast; but the truth is, you have no say in who the valley chooses to adopt. I am here because Sesqua Valley called to me in dreaming.” She reached for the scroll and took it from his hand. “And now some other thing summons me, something wonderful and rare.” Playfully, she pinched Simon’s cheek, and he pretended to be offended; and then she waltzed from the room and danced down the chiseled winding steps. Nelson followed her to the scented floor of woodland.

  “You’re the only one I know who speaks to him like that. Doesn’t he intimidate you?”

  “Of course he does – he’s insane, and dangerous. That’s why I ape bravery and nonchalance.” She linked her arm with his. “But he’s right about you. You aren’t like the others. Why have you never left the valley and sought the arcane places of the globe?”

  “Sesqua Valley contains wonder enough for me.”

  “Oh, Nelson, Nelson. There are so many places that contain a portion of the world’s magick. Do you think this valley unique? You know nothing of the outside world except the fables you’ve been told. You’ve never stood on the domed hills of Dunwich and felt the shifting of the stars. You’ve never listened to the whistling shadows on the Rue d’Auseil, the beckoning blackness. You’ve never dreamed of the sentient void and its faceless master, Nyarlathotep, the only god before whom I grovel.”

  “My dreams are just as delicious, just as potent, as anything in cursed Arkham. I like my place here. And as for ‘beckoning blackness,’ I really think you should leave that parchment with Simon and forget this seductive thing.”

  She laughed. “You’re such a boring young man. No, I prefer seductiveness to tame security. I shan’t release this delicious artifact to the beast in the tower. I’m going to place it under my pillow and let it debauch my dreaming. Shall I try to seduce you to come and join me, give you a taste of occult adventure that will warp your brain and debauch your soul? No, I see you lack backbone. Very well, I’ll travel the cosmic terrain alone. Goodbye, gutless youth.”

  She laughed and playfully tugged a strand of his wild hair, and then she skipped away and out of view. But when she was well out of sight of him, she slowed her playful pace and stopped to study once more the bound leaves of parchment. She brought the pages to her face and drank in the smell and taste of dark sorcery. She tried to pronounce the words of one particular passage, and she marveled at how that language seemed to spill as symbols from her mouth that shaped themselves in the surrounding aether. She followed that airy alphabet to the small cabin in the woods that was her home, and climbing into bed she did as she said she would and placed the sepia parchment of The Book of Eibon beneath her pillow.

  Amanda Jessel shut her eyes and dreamed about a book. She saw again the dancing alphabet that frolicked in the air. She clutched the arcane language and bit into it, tasting magick. Around her, the wind sang words of incantation. Something in the darkness of dreaming called her name. Awakened, she lit a candle and listened to the wind gushing at a window. No, not wind; rather, it was something that breathed hunger as it spoke her name. Her fingers found the candlestick as she stood and advanced toward the sibilant sound. The flame before her was like a beacon, and in its glow she could vaguely discern her reflection on the windowpane.

  Her reflection melted from her view. She now saw only the blackness of space illimitable, a blackness that whirled with spectral sentient. It was a gloaming that knew her name. And she witnessed a sinister suggestion of the master of such darkness, the Faceless God that held to her a midnight hand. She pressed her hand upon the glass before her, the surface of which was chilly with an iciness that pierced her flesh and spilled into her. She heard once more the thing that longed for her, and she spoke to it the words that she had learned from ancient parchment, words that the blackness before her listened to with alert longing. The surface of glass melted beneath her touch as her hand reached into living shadow.

  The candle’s flame went out, and she released its holder from her hand. There was no noise of it hitting the cabin floor. Looking down, Amanda saw naught but writhing blackness, a thing that pulsed and waited and listened to the fear that finally tainted her mortal exhalation. But this fear was a momentary thing; for as she gasped and panted, a portion of the cosmic entity flowed into her mouth and churned her heart. It sheathed her hand that reached into the void, and she watched in wonder as that clumsy human paw was touched by another hand, a hand of crawling chaos to which her mortal tissue now conjoined. It pulled her into the void and howled as she moaned again and again the arcane name of Nyarlathotep, the deity who was the soul of darkness absolute.

  Some Bacchante of Irem

  I.

  Simon Gregory Williams stood in the silent gallery and marveled at the sight before him. He had seen the thing – or something like it – only in dream. Of course, in his vision the site had been far more expansive, so as to contain its thousand pillars. But the aura was identical to what he saw before him in this Boston art gallery; and the one addition, the figure that stood like some implacable god on its dais of black rock, caused his silver eyes to shimmer in adoration. Simon walked among the thirty-three pillars, uncertain if it would be gauche to touch his hand to these works of art, to smooth his fingers against the signals etched upon them. The symbols were familiar, for he had found their likeness if various copies of the Necronomicon that he had committed to memory; but their combined force and formulae were new even to his expert experience. He looked above him, to the ceiling that had been painted deep crimson and on which there sparkled a conglomeration of black stars.

  Simon spoke a passage of the Necronomicon from its 13th century French translation and began to make unto those black stars the Voorish Sign; but then he stopped his conjuration, aware of the presence that watched him. He turned and studied the beautiful black woman who smiled at him, taking in the perfect complexion of her amazing face, her jade eyes and long red hair. Returning her smile, he bowed to her.

  “Was that a passage from the Livre d’Eibon?”

  “No. It’s from an elder work, but the translation was composed around the same time that Gaspard du Nord made his transcription of the Greek manuscript.”

  “Ah. I knew it was an older dialect. You spoke it so smoothly, and from memory. Impressive.” She walked to a pillar and ran her hand against its surface. “I copied some of these symbols from an old translation of Eibon that’s been in my family for generations. My great, great grandmother made an abridgement of the book, but these signals were never explained.”

  “They call forth the black stars, which fall from cosmic aether like dark sand, the sentient silica that howls among the thousand pillars of Irem, beneath which sleeps an elder race.” He grinned. “So leg
end tells. You know of this, obviously.”

  “Actually, I don’t. My French is pedestrian at best. I’ve been trying to teach myself the language so as to study my ancestor’s codex; but so many passages are a combination of French and Latin and Greek – it seems an impossible task.”

  “Perhaps I can assist, if you show to me the text, Miss…”

  She moved away from the pillar and took his proffered hand. “Charmian Auriol, of Boston.”

  “Simon Williams, of Sesqua Valley.”

  “Where’s that?”

  He touched the nearest pillar and ignored her question. “You have had some success in deciphering your ancestor’s text, if indeed this work of art is your creation.”

  “It is.” She looked wistfully about at her creation. “But, no; this piece wasn’t inspired by the vision of Eibon. I saw this in a dream. That’s why I’ve titled it ‘Nocturnal Ecstasy.’”

  She fingered the amulet that dangled from a gold chain around her neck. Simon boldly reached for it with his large sallow hand. The smooth thing was a small crocodile head composed of pale faience. He turned to one of the pillars and saw that a semblance of the image had been etched thereon, and then he noticed another repeated delineation. “This is interesting,” he told her. “It reminds me of the crocodile-men depicted in the African rock art of Zimbabwe.”

  “You’re well-informed. And I know that rock art, so of course it might have had something to do with my inspiration. But this, too, was an aspect of dream imagery, although in a very fleeting and surreal way. It was such a weird dream! I can still hear the strange wailing wind and feel the falling sand.”

  “Falling sand?”

  “Yes, that was one of the oddest sensations. It was almost like I was in some colossus hour glass. Like all dreams, it made absolutely no sense.

  I remember that I had been reading an article on the discovery of what is thought to be the lost city of Ubar. Perhaps that inspired the image of a city of pillars; but, of course, the original was a city of tent poles – certainly not as impressive as what I saw in dream.”

  “And the Faceless God?” Simon moved toward the figure on the dais of obsidian rock. It was a figure he had often encountered, in countless representations; but it always thrilled him with uncanny sensation to encounter it anew and unexpectedly.

  “She’s also something I saw in dream. I don’t understand the triple crown. There were women pharaohs in ancient Egypt. Why do you call her ‘god’?”

  “There is a repeated legend in certain esoteric sources of such a deity, although it is usually referred to as male. Of course, it’s absurd to consign human gender to these Old Ones.” He turned to look at her and laughed. “But I’m bewildering you with my arcane enlightenment. It certainly takes no occult intuition to enjoy the success of your art. It’s magnificent.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Williams. Do you drink? I’m just on my way home, and I feel a strong impulse to invite you to join me for a nightcap.”

  “Excellent. Perhaps you can show me your ancestor’s selected translations from the Ebony Book, and I can help explain some of the more perplexing portions.”

  She led the way out of the gallery and to her small European car, in which they traversed to her modest apartment in the North End. Simon sauntered through the living room and admired the many interesting artifacts. He touched a hand to a crude miniature rendition of Hermes Holding the Infant Dionysus that is believed to be the work of Praxiteles, said to have been the greatest Greek sculptor of his time. Unlike the original work, this replication had an unnatural air about it that Simon quite appreciated. He loathed how human the Greeks made their gods appear. Here before him, the tiny Dionysus looked quite bestial and bereft of infant innocence, his rapacious mouth seeming to twitch for coveted wine. On the wall above the altar was a copy of another Greek work, a relief of an older Dionysus being given wine by some sardonic satyr.

  “‘Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape

  Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine.’”

  Charmian approached the one who whispered verse, holding aloft two glasses of dark red wine. “Is that Shakespeare, Mr. Williams?”

  Simon took the wine. “Milton.” Clinking his glass to hers, he sipped; and then he closed his eyes and sniffed the air, until the scent of necromantic art came to him. Finishing his wine, he set down the glass and approached a stand upon which were a variety of wooden caskets of sundry size. Opening a long and narrow teakwood box, he found that it was empty, except for an effluvium of agedness. He picked it up and admired the exquisite craftsmanship for some moments; then he set it down and touched his large hand to several of the boxes until coming at last to the largest. Opening it, he saw the prize. Turning to his hostess, he motioned toward the antique thing that nestled in the box. Charmian came to him and took the bound pages from their cypress container.

  “What a clever trick, sir. And what expression tugs at your features! You’re hot to scan these leaves.” He smelled the wine on her breath and noticed the vinous effect that was taking hold of her senses. Giving him the journal, she reached for the bottle and refilled their glasses. Simon drained his glass in an instant and walked away from her, finding a deep easy chair in which to plop.

  “Have your kindred been long in Boston?”

  “For generations,” she answered. “Family legend tells that one of us is buried in Copp’s Hill.” She shrugged.

  “And the granddames have always had the gift?”

  “Oh, yes. We be rich with hoodoo.” She opened another of the boxes and reached one hand into it, spilling wine with the other. “These were my grandmother’s rune bones. You can see where she etched the little runic signs. Anytime there was a family crisis, the bones were pulled from their burlap bag. Kind of quaint, the old memories.” She turned and tossed the bones to the floor, next to Simon’s feet, and then she giggled. “That’s supposed to tell us something.” She watched as her visitor fell to the floor and seemed to sniff the bones. Simon examined their positions carefully, and then he gathered them in one massive paw and returned them to their box. Falling onto the sofa, he resumed his study of the pages held in his other hand.

  “And what can you tell me of your curious dreams?” he asked as she sat next to him. Her hand touched his face, and he nuzzled the black skin with wide nostrils, taking in her scent.

  “What’s your race? Roma? There’s something gypsy about you, except for your eyes.” Her face was very close to his. “They’re so pale, but I can see flecks of multi-color in their depths. God, your smell. An earthy sweetness, like rare incense.” Her nose and mouth investigated his throat.

  Simon’s hands took her face in their forceful grip. His alchemical eyes bore into hers. “Your dreaming.”

  “I can’t remember. I see patches, but…”

  His mouth pressed against her eye. “You will dream again,” he whispered. “And when you awaken, you will remember. We will meet tomorrow, at the burying ground, and you will relate your vision. I’ll borrow this ancestral scribbling and return it anon. Sleep now, for this couch is comfortable. Let me lift your legs – there, now you can stretch those heavy limbs. Your eyelids demand closure.” She saw a blurring image of his countenance hovering above her own. His mouth touched hers, and she shivered at the breath he pushed into her. That weighty effluvium slipped into her and convulsed her brain. The last thing she remembered was his hand shutting her eyes.

  II.

  Vision churned behind her eyes, a solvent phantasm that melted from her mind and found her face. She could taste it on her lips and hear it at her ears; her nostrils sucked in its antediluvian odor. Time fractured and passed away, and she walked through an ageless realm between the towering pillars. The sand was cool beneath her naked feet, but the clawed hands that led her were hot with saurian sentience. They found the place that led beneath the sand, to a chamber low and dark. Her mind flashed with those few images she had been able to comprehend from her antecedent’s scrawl in the
secret book. As her companions led her down a treacherously steep decent of chiseled steps, she tittered at the deepening gloaming and spoke these lines from Thomas Moore in husky voice:

  “A reservoir of darkness, black

  As witches’ cauldrons are, when fill’d

  With moon-drugs in th’ eclipse distill’d.”

  Ah, her granddames had leered over their wanton cauldrons, beneath the noses of sanctimonious witch-finders. And she had eaten of those moon-drugs that had freed her to be licentious and liberated. She had quaffed the intoxicant, that grog of fire, and she had answered its riotous call. The memory of this caused her limbs to quake, and thus her wardens tightened their hold. But she would not be contained. Stretching wide her lips, she howled the name that she had learned from a portion in her granddame’s fragmentary transliteration of the Livre d’Eibon, the name of crawling chaos. This yowling had its effect, for they now stopped before mammoth bronze doors. From a case of polished wood and glass one of her captors brought forth a triple crown of white gold; and as it was fitted over her flowing hair she saw for one clear moment the crocodile that held it.

  She became aware of the low and distant sound, the deeply moaning wind. And with the wind came the smell of a crumbled past, an end of civilization. A sudden blast of night-wind pushed her into the massive doors, which opened at her touch. Beyond their threshold was naught but an unechoing black abyss. Yet, in that blackness she could just make out one other form that steadily approached. Swarthy, slender and sinister, he stood before her and made signals with regal hand to her triple crown. She felt again the churning vision beneath her icy eyes, and mordant nightmare so corroded her brain that she could not help but scream into the audient void. And to her screams came an answering accompaniment of piping, from the flutes that were held, she now witnessed, by mindless things that huddled at their master’s cruel feet. The Outer One scanned the firmament with his all-seeing eye, and she raised her head to watch the black stars that sneered in crimson sky. Those dark stars fell as ebony sand which was heaved unto her by tempestuous wind. She felt the stuff cling to the fabric of her flesh, that mortal texture that melded with the disintegrating granular cosmic stuff that sifted into her.