The Cry of Cthulhu: Formerly: The Alchemist's Notebook

by Byron Craft

  I would have been better off that evening if I had retired and gone to bed after wishing Peter a good night rather than behaving like a foolhardy drunk. I could not wait until morning, with a more sensible head, to see if the two pieces would fit the machine properly. I had to know if I had followed the specifications correctly in building the device. Did indeed the pieces fit?

  I staggered down the cellar stairs, across the stone floor and eventually into the vault. This is my bastion below the earth. The combination that unlocks its door is only special to me.

  It took me a few moments to master the lighting of a candle. In my state, I had difficulty in lighting a match. After managing to get a candle burning, I had no difficulty making the pieces fit. In fact, it surprised me that they fit so remarkable well. I was very proud of my workmanship.

  I stared at my finished masterpiece for several minutes without moving. I am not sure how to explain my actions next. Perhaps it was the excitement of the achievement, the years of work culminating into a silent accomplishment…curiosity? I don’t know what ran through my head at that moment. I guess I wanted to know if my past years had been spent in vain. I just had to see what would happen if I turned it on. With my right hand extended stiffly, I switched the lever into what I believed was the start-up position.

  A ball of static electricity crackled and leapt across the room. The hairs stood up on my arms and legs. The room grew brighter, almost blinding, as the ball rather than dissipate, grew in size. The machine started to hum and the floor beneath my feet began to swell and I felt it rupturing.

  I fell across the table, almost upsetting the machine which was glowing as if red hot. As I touched it, I expected to be burned, and was surprised to find it was cool. I pulled the lever from the device which activated it and fell to the floor. Immediately the room was plunged into darkness. The candle went out from a gust of wind that came out of nowhere and the ball of electricity disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

  Fear over came me. I was in total blackness and could not tell if I had acted in time to stop the machine from doing any further damage.

  I remained there on the floor for a long time and listened. There was no sound but my own violent breathing. Presently I stood up and groped around the dark until I found the box of matches.

  As the light flared out, I quickly looked around the chamber and found everything to be as it was before, with one exception. On the floor, beneath my feet, was a long, thin crack that extended over three quarters of the way across the room.

  The incident was sobering. Regaining my composure, I became conscious of the sound of breathing in the vault other than my own. It was across the room, small and huddled in a dark corner. It was terrified. The little thing must have come up when the cellar floor cracked. The floor had rolled and swelled beneath my feet just as the candle went out. Then the crack, possibly much larger than it was then, could have closed when the violence subsided along with that gust of wind. Or maybe he just passed through the atmosphere. The poor thing was probably a sentinel perched on the edge of our dimensional plane waiting for the proper time to lead its master when I accidentally pulled him over to our side with my meddling.

  He was small, hairless and ugly, and although he had arms and a head, he was not human. For that matter, I don’t know if “it” was male or female. It was small, very small like a newborn infant, but without any legs. It propelled itself with its two muscular limbs. If human in origin, which I doubt, it was another species of human being.

  The “Other”, as I came to call it, looked vicious but that evening it was more afraid of me than I of it. I felt sorry for the little creature and responsible. The “Other” eventually became comfortable with my appearance as I did with its and after a short span of time I was able to cradle it in my arms. It seemed to take great comfort in this and although it was very alert and, I think if there would have been more time for us together, I would have discovered the creature to be intelligent. Its needs were childlike depending on a lot of comforting and play. It would romp through the old schloss with amazing alacrity walking and running on its two hands. It would disappear for hours on end only to be discovered peering over my shoulder while I worked or read. I never found out what the Other ate. It refused the offer of any food nor did I witness any of its eating habits. But it always seemed healthy and as the summer solstice approached, the Other became more comfortable with its surroundings.

  I stopped feeling guilty about it being with me after a while. To the best of my knowledge the Other appeared to be happy and it would only be a few more months when I would be able to reunite it with its own kind.

  The months that followed were the happiest I had known since childhood. Peter would drop in for short durations and we would exchange notes, while at the same time I felt that in no way my beloved solitude was being violated. I kept the Other hidden in the tower on these occasions. Although Peter moved to neighboring Valsbach, his business would keep him away at Stuttgart for weeks at a time. He was not candid in discussing his business matters, nor did I care to delve into his professional life.

  I did not tell him of my blunder in the laboratory beneath the schloss, nor did I say anything about my certainty that the time was at hand. If I had been able to harbor enough energy to almost set free the minions at that time, then after the weeks that passed to June there should be enough power generating from the cosmos to complete the task.

  I can hear the hollow mocking laughter that is outside the thin shell of our world. It fires me with rage. It gives me insight, not of God or some rational scheme of things but of Cthulhu and a new world yet to come.

  In the over seventy years that I have dwelled on the planet I have witnessed the growth of grotesque art forms, a global war, countless blood baths all over Asia, the death of God, the disintegration of culture, the cremation of Hiroshima, an international drug culture, a type of music form which causes measurable damage to the hearing, Hells Angles and terrorist bombings...is it no wonder that I seek a change.

  I did not want to tell Peter of my intentions until the gateway was opened. I wanted no one to try to stop me and there was just something about his manner which I did not trust. Forgive me, my friend, but when the gateway is open and the confusion is past, I know that you will find your way to my home and knowing the truth, you may join me on the throne I will possess. We will make this world right, together and none will be as powerful. The Old Ones will rejoice and leave us to rule our planet while they regain their command over the vast universe. The human race will be ours to shape and rising out of the ashes of disillusionment, we will create the New Reichstag.

  It was during the span of one of those weeks that I made the third discovery. The strange hieroglyphics that decorated the wooden box housing the two antique components to my machine had taken on a curious appeal to me. They were not the type of pictorial writing I was accustomed to. They were in no way similar to any of the writings I encountered in Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon or the Dr. Dee English version; nothing like that which appeared on my diagram acquired from the Innsmouth sailor, nor did they resemble in any way the style of writing occasionally referred to in the Pnatonic Manuscripts. Although their likeness was unfamiliar to me, I had a gnawing feeling in my bones that their meaning would open new vistas for me in my research.

  It was quite by accident that I finally discovered their meaning. There were few books left in my uncle’s library after the war and one in particular that never held any appeal to me. It was Espenshade’s Ancient History of Britton. The volume was written in English, which probably explains why none of the German soldiers during the occupation saw fit to steal it. I am, of course, well versed in the language but I had no desire to acquaint myself with the subject until one afternoon when I knocked the book from its shelf while searching for another item. When I reached down to pick the book from the floor, I was shocked to find the same hieroglyphics that I had been researching adorning the open page.

  A
fter a quick examination, I found the symbols to be Runic in origin and I further learned that they had been carved ages ago on one of the monoliths at Stonehenge.

  With the aid of the Espenshade’s book and my gifted talents, I was able to translate the symbols after only three days of work.

  The first part of the translation was familiar to me which made it easy for me to unravel the rest of the cipher. The second section, although following similar lines on the poetic scale as the first, was totally new and lifted a dark veil from my eyes.

  The translation read:

  IN HIS HOUSE IN R’LYEH DEAD

  CTHULHU WAITS DREAMING

  The second verse read:

  BENEATH THE EARTH IN N’KAI

  YATH-NOTEP LIES SLEEPING.

  After this translation things began to take on a clear meaning. After nearly forty years of collecting threads of information on the Commorium Cycle, N’Kai and Cthulhu, the fabric of the studies was finally, and for the first time, beginning to weave itself into a neat, concise pattern.

  Cthulhu waits dreaming. Yath-Notep sleeps. They both remain eternal.

  But who was Yath-Notep, a name unfamiliar to me? It had to be one of the lost Old Gods of Hyperborea, banished with Tsathoggua and the others by the Elders before the Great Cataclysm. Yath-Notep could only be the missing link but the intent of such a deity clouded my imagination. Through decades of research and ceremonial incantations, could the cults dedicated to the Ancient Ones have been appealing to the wrong sources when attempting to find the link between the dimensions? When the third and last line of hieroglyphics was finally translated, the sum total of their parts and their transparent simplicity was a shock to me.

  With this translation, I hold the secrets to unlock the gateway and the time of the return is at hand. The others have been fools to profess that they know the time, the place and the secret. I know that it is here and now, and I shall stand next to the Masters when they again take reign, as they conquer by fear this world which is rightfully theirs. I will be the most powerful of men and even the Order of Dagon will kneel at my feet and will worship me as their savior and king...the new time of the Great Old One will begin soon and I shall be the one to lead him forth from the dimensional prison he has been forced to dwell in for eons, imprisoned by the Elder Beings who took heed to the pitiful cries of the ancient races. The world will be ours and the way will be littered with the rejects...pitiful human rejects!

  The entire fabric of the conflict between the Great Race of the Elder Beings and the Old Ones became clear to me along with the incredible fact that a single Old One had escaped the terrible wrath of the Elder Beings when they banished the Old Ones from our universe long before the first timid mammal was born; One who yet lived to haunt the Elder Beings, and that was Yath-Notep, fierce demon god of Hyperborea!

  The ancient lands of Atlantis, Lemuria and Hyperborea worshipped Cthulhu until the Elders who watched our world took action against these races. To punish them, the Elder Beings caused the Great Cataclysm and sunk Atlantis and Lemuria beneath the oceans and ice. Hyperborea was destroyed by earthquakes and great bursts of fire which erupted from the bowels of the earth itself. It was at this time that Yath-Notep was sent to the inner dimension of black N’Kai to dwell there for eternity.

  The Elder Race used the machine, the wonder which I now possess, to imprison the Old One. And, as they captured the thing, so shall I release it. I, Heinrich Todesfall, will open the gateway and set forth the great dark thing...Yath-Notep to cry forth into the multi-dimensional planes to the Ancient Ones. First the minions shall come; Dagon and the Deep Ones, Yibb-Tsill and the Gaunts of Dark Night, Yig and its serpent children of Valusia, and all the others. Then shall follow the six Old Ones: Cthulhu, foremost of the Old Gods on Earth; Azathoth, most powerful Ancient One who blasphemes at the core of infinity, Yog-Sothoth, the all-in-one and conqueror of space and time; Shub-Niggurth, the black goat of the woods with a thousand young; Hastur, the unspeakable; and Ithaqua, the wind walker. They shall all come again to regain their thrones!

  It is a great risk that I take that they will favor me to stand beside them in their new domain and not send me into a black murk of screaming slavery with the rest of the human race. But, without my aid, they would remain prisoners of their fate for eons more and perhaps for eternity. And what if, after some undetermined length of time, they were to find themselves thrust back once again behind those dimensional barriers, would they not need my assistance to battle the Elder Beings and release them again from their prisons? Yes, I feel that I will be a very valuable Tanist for them and that they will make me a new Lord among their timeless deity. I shall be immortal with the Old Ones and they will let me rule over this planet. Nothing will stand in my way! I hold the secrets! I have interpreted that which the Elder Beings have written! I know the powers behind the machine. I know the scientific secrets which come from the time of the Elder Race on Earth, when they eventually lived here in Kadath, a metropolis which once covered the entire planet.

  The Elder Beings came to our world from beyond the stars. They found that the universe was beautiful and promising but that it was ruled by their adversaries, the Old Ones. The Elder Beings knew that if this universe was ever to be inhabited by new life, first the Old Ones had to be banished.

  The Great War followed wherein the Old Ones were defeated and the Elder Beings could enjoy the beauty and wonders of our time and space. Eventually they came to dwell on Earth, a particularly rich planet with incredible potential. They brought with them many races from other worlds and times and among these prehistoric creatures, man evolved.

  The Elders left the world to Man and the others and only one Elder Being remained behind. It was written that this being became a sentinel and by means of the machine it kept guard over the prison of Yath-Notep and his minions.

  Through placid ignorance, man remained earthbound. It is my opinion that the early men of this region were meant to be gods, while the others will once again wallow in slime and squirm in slavery as subjects when I am master and take charge, releasing the Great Old Ones from their bonds. No longer will I be forced to view the inferior races of men as they abuse this world!

  The time of revelations is at hand. The Great Ones will again take reign and I hold the key to vague and secret visions of dim gulfs beyond this world. I now have in my possession the book that holds the solution to the puzzle and all the runic symbols have been translated revealing the hidden way across the void through time and space to the multi-dimensional worlds.

  The hour draws near and I must be concise in my account. It is unfortunate that most of humanity is too restricted in mental vision to consider with patience and intelligence those phenomena felt by only a few psychologically sensitive individuals.

  Quite possibly it is merciful to keep the human beings that occupy this planet ignorant to their surroundings but I feel that some men were meant to voyage far! Men of special intellect know that there is little distinction between the real and the unreal and that all things appear as they do through our conscious and subconscious mental images of them.

  All these thoughts rushed in on me in what was the most lucid moment of my life. My brain reeled in giddy elation at the third deciphered line that was before me. The words that must have been carved into the lid of that box thousands of years ago caused those series of thoughts to come crashing in upon me...and the pattern came together. There, impossible as it may seem, was my destiny laid bare before me. My translation was unmistakable and after checking it against Espenshade’s book a third time, my hands trembled so that I could scarcely hold the paper I had written on. I set it on the table before me and sat down to ponder my fate.

  How in the world could this be possible? Could those past eons that held the imprisonment of the ancient gods also included me in what now seemed an age old plan. There could be no other answer. I had no choice but to discount coincidence and embrace the words before me.

  The last line read:
>
  YATH-NOTEP WAITS FOR THE SIGN FROM TOD-FAL

  ***

  To people lacking the clear and distinct vision I possess it would seem that these writings were the ravings of a madman, but, is it not so that there are legends which are older than man? How then did we come by them if an intelligent force apart from man didn’t convey them to this world? Of course, man has transformed them and molded them to conform to his own pre-conceived notions of the universe. The ancient writings still exist and the age old legends of mankind’s early history, vague and unconnected as they may seem, remain everlasting through the generations.

  For all the ages of man there have been few who knew the truth, the ones who dedicated their entire being to the discovery of the power and the secrets of demonology and Satan, as it was foolishly labeled. If the people of our world knew, or even had the slightest conception of the different dimensions and worlds beyond ours, they would welcome their imaginary devil with open arms.

  Fantastic I know it must sound in the face of the scientific world we live in, but what is magic and what is science, except the preconceived notions of men. After all, is not black magic a science unto itself? Those dark brotherhoods consisting of alchemists, sorcerers and magicians who worked and fought through the decades for the power and truth are all pitiful failures compared to me. The knowledge of Yath-Notep’s existence is mine alone, and with this knowledge my power will be built and when the time is at hand, I will open the gateway.

  ***

  I received a letter from the Order of Dagon pertaining to a recent intercourse about my studies. They take delight in disagreeing with me at my every turn. Now they choose to argue about the time of the cosmic elations. They say the revelation time will be in the Fall, on the night of Satan and his hosts. I proclaim that it will be a mid-summer’s eve and the fools will soon know that they were wrong. Even Peter has sided with his old order on this matter and I feel that it has affected our friendship, because he has not been around in a while.