by Donald Tyson
At assassination no race is more adept. First they lull the victim into a false camaraderie and share his food and drink, then when they are certain that they are alone with him, one of their number grasps the man firmly around the arms while the other, who stands behind him, casts a scarf around his neck and draws it tight so that he cannot cry out. As these murders occur on the road and usually to merchants in transit from one city to another, and as the assassins immediately bury the bodies so that no trace of their crime remains, they easily pass undetected, and by the time the murdered man is missed by his family, those who ended his life are hundreds of leagues from the place where the crime occurred.
It is a part of their covenant with Shub-Niggurath that each man must murder at least once in the course of a year as a sacrifice to her, in order that her bounties will continue to fall upon their heads. Some among them are skillful in the arts of murder and slay more frequently for their own gain, but even the least bloodthirsty among them meets this obligation to their goddess, and the old or very young or infirm are aided by others more nimble and of greater strength. The obligation begins in the sixteenth year and continues until death. It is a matter about which they do not speak, even among themselves, for fear that some detail of a specific assassination may be overheard and remembered, but those who have been present at the recitation of the covenant with the goddess, which is never written down even in their own language, cannot doubt that they fulfill with diligence this requirement of the pact.
They slay indiscriminately the rich and the poor man, but prefer the rich for the bounty of his possessions falling into their hands. Householders they do not kill, even when it would be a thing of surpassing ease. The death of a local man would swiftly raise an outcry in the village or town before the caravan of yellow wagons could move sufficiently far away to be free from suspicion. The men of the villages may eat with them, lie with their women who choose to prostitute themselves, and even insult or beat them, with no fear of death at their hands, so perfect is their control over their passions in this matter essential to their union with the goddess. This, in spite of their hot blood, which is in other respects ungovernable.
Another part of the covenant states that each man before his twenty-ninth year must offer his first child to the prolific goat. Failure to do so invites the wrath of Shub-Niggurath, which descends in the form of profound ill fortune that soon has fatal consequences. So fearful are the men of this forfeiture that those who are by their natures unfit to engender children, which sometimes happens due to injury or disease of the genitals, seek to steal the children of the towns through which they pass that they may formally adopt the infants as their own, and so present them in the rite of the companion of the soul in their third day of life. Only babes in their first three days after birth are at risk of this abduction. They are stolen from their cribs, even from under the soft breaths of their sleeping mothers, and in their place the thief leaves a stone. This has given rise in some lands to the fable that spirits of the fields and trees steal children, a fiction that the crafty race, who are always quick to tell traveler’s tales for money, go to great lengths to encourage.
If a man has a child that is unfit in mind or body, he may seek to exchange it with the child of a householder rather than slay it with his own hand. Infants who are severely deformed or deaf or blind are put to death soon after birth; only if the mother is tender of heart and implores her husband to spare the life of the babe will he substitute the imperfect infant for one that is sound of limb and in possession of all its senses. In these cases, when a child is stolen from a town, in place of a stone the malformed child is left in the cradle. This they do seldom, for it invites an outcry against them, and those who indulge this whim are severely punished by the elders.
Virgins give their virtue to the service of the goddess within a year of the onset of the menses, while assisting in the rite of the companion, and in return, in accord with the terms of the covenant, they are gifted by Shub-Niggurath with the power of second sight, without the need to consume the white spiders in the fungus caves of the Empty Space. All the women of this race can see the presence of the walking dead as clearly as their cats, and are aware when demons move among them. They have great skill at divining the future. Their preferred method is by the lines in the hand, but they also use a technique of divination that exists nowhere else, which they claim was taught to them by the goddess herself.
It is a divination by means of the stars and the earth. Seven flat pebbles are painted in red ink that resembles blood with signs that express the seven lords of the Old Ones and their affinities with the seven wandering bodies of the heavens. The sign of Cthulhu shows two opposed ax heads; that of Shub-Niggurath resembles a tree; the sign of Yog-Sothoth is three interlocking rings; the sign of Yig shows two rows of triangular teeth; that of Nyarlathotep is a pair of serpents entwined; the sign of Dagon resembles interlocked crescents of the moon; that of Azathoth depicts a lidless eye.
These are cast within a circle drawn in the dust of the ground that has a cross through its center, so that it is divided into four quadrants. The Thugian women understand this circle to represent the twelve houses of the stars, and although it has only four divisions, each quarter is assumed to be further subdivided into three
wedges from its point that correspond with the three houses in that quarter of the zodiac.
By observing where the pebbles fall upon the circle and their relationship with one another, the women who conduct this art read the answer to the question asked. The quadrant of the circle on the lower left is given to the houses of the Ram, the Bull, and the Twins; that on the lower right to the houses of the Crab, the Lion, and the Virgin; that on the upper-right to the houses of the Scales, the Scorpion, and the Archer; that on the upper left to the houses of the Sea Goat, the Water Bearer, and the Fishes.
As an example of the practice, if, by the casting of the stones, the pebble bearing the sign of the planet Mars, which is joined with the nature of Cthulhu, should fall upon the house of the Scorpion, its action is considered strong, for this is the native house of Mars. And so by the strengths and weaknesses that astrologers ascribe to the heavens is this foretelling of events conducted upon the bosom of the earth.
They call the names of the seven lords the secret names of the planets, believing these names to be remembered only by their race and forgotten by all the rest of humanity. They have preserved corrupt voicings of them in their oral histories, though only the name of Shub-Niggurath is accurately expressed. Of the natures and appearances of the seven lords they know little. They confuse the Old Ones with the wandering bodies of the heavens, and make no distinction between the planets and the gods when speaking about them. To their philosophy, Shub-Niggurath and the Morning Star are one and the same.
These pebbles they use in another way, for works of malefic magic. When the women who make them harbor hatred toward any person not of their race, they wait for that person to pass, hiding behind a wall or hedge with one of these stones in their hand. As their enemy goes by, they spit on the stone and hurl it so that it strikes the person, then slink away silently, for it is their belief that if they are discovered in this action the spell will come to nothing. They hold that the stone invokes ill fortune upon the head of whomever it strikes, and sometimes will throw them at cattle, or horses, or even at barns and other buildings. Locals who are hit by these stones believe them to be hurled by jinn or other spirits of the hills, and abhor them as unnatural things.
The type of misfortune depends upon the stone chosen for the spell. The stone of Cthulhu provokes disputes and violent injury; that of Shub-Niggurath brings impotence or unhappiness in love affairs; that of Yog-Sothoth breeds family discords; that of Yig provokes infirmity of the body; that of Nyarlathotep causes loss of wealth; that of Dagon, madness; that of Azathoth, the failure of an enterprise.
here would be little purpose in a traveler well versed in the arts of necromancy to keep company with the chosen p
eople of Shub-Niggurath unless they possessed some teaching of value that was not to be obtained elsewhere, for they are a treacherous race and conceal their malice well until the moment of its execution; nor can any man truly assert that he is their friend, unless he is of their blood. The magic of the women is a trivial art unworthy of acquisition, save for a single skill known only to this barbarous cult, the manufacture of soul bottles.
In return for their faith, their obscene goddess has taught them a magic in which the souls of the dead may be summoned and captured within bottles of glass, even as magicians of our own race contain the jinn in rings and brazen vessels. A soul imprisoned by this skill is enslaved to the owner of the bottle, and all the wisdom it possessed during life, as well as its knowledge of life after death, becomes available upon inquiry. The captured soul does not readily give up its secrets, but when the bottle is heated over a fire, the soul suffers the torments of hell and is soon willing to accommodate the wishes of its master.
The souls speak by means of a small lead weight attached within the bottle at the end of a length of silken thread, so that the weight hangs near the side of the bottle. When a question is asked, the lead moves and strikes the side of the glass, causing a sound like a crystal bell. By listening to the tinkling of the glass with a mind made open and vacant, the voice of the soul is heard speaking the answer to the question. Only the owner of the bottle can discern the voice of the soul, for to others it seems merely a meaningless tinkling. The act of making the bottle binds its maker and the soul captured within it so that they have a shared understanding, and each is enabled to comprehend the words of the other.
In appearance, these bottles are no more than half a cubit in height and a span in width, with straight sides and a leather stopper sealed with green wax. The glass is colorless and transparent, and within the vessel there is a swirling vapor resembling smoke that never ceases to curl and fall. The lower portion of the bottle is filled with the urine of its maker, for it is the belief of the women of the Thugians that urine provides a tangible body for the captured soul, and without it the soul would be too insubstantial to hold in any material receptacle. Into the urine they place bits of hair, skin, fingernails, or bone from the corpse of the person whose soul they wish to enslave, and also a few drops of their own blood, shed during the ritual by which the soul is attracted.
The ritual is invariably performed during the new moon, which is the darkest night of the month, when the forces of Shub-Niggurath are at their most potent and are able to move freely across the surface of our world. The sorceress inscribes with black ink upon the palm of her left hand the true name of the soul she seeks to capture, and upon the palm of her right hand her own true name. The true name is the name given a man or woman by the parents that engendered him, or in the case of the slave, by the master who owns him. She takes herself to a high place open beneath the stars. Placing the bits stolen from the corpse into the open bottle, she urinates into the bottle so that her urine is hot during the ritual, for if it loses its warmth before the ritual is enacted, the magic will have no force to compel the presence of the soul. She does this by the light of a candle or oil lamp, and later uses the flame to melt the green wax that seals the stopper once the soul is within its prison.
Having prepared the open bottle with her urine and the relics of the dead, she makes a small cut upon her left palm and allows seven drops of her blood to fall into the urine. Seven is the number of Shub-Niggurath, and in itself is an invocation to the goddess. She smears the blood across her right palm by folding her hands together, then grasps the bottle tightly, pressing the inscribed names on her palms against its sides so that she feels the warmth of her urine on her fingers. She leans her face over the mouth of the bottle and breathes her warm breath into it, as she speaks the true name of the dead. This she does seven times, and holds within her mind an image of the person whose soul she desires. Then she speaks this incantation:
“I am ____, I am the master of the bottle, I am the urine of the bottle, I am the blood of the bottle. Enter herein, ____, by your true name I invoke you, by the heat of this urine I summon you, by the fire in this blood I compel you. I call you from the nether reaches between the stars, I call you from the highest heavens, I call you from the lowest hells. You must obey. I am the child of Shub-Niggurath, by the power of my mother, you must obey. By these words made flesh, you must obey.”
The sorceress then spits into the bottle while thinking the name of the dead, and elevates it toward the night sky. The soul forms in a cloud of silver mist above its open mouth and slowly, as though unwilling but unable to resist, it swirls downward into the bottle. At once the maker of the charm allows the lead weight to hang down the inner side of the vessel so that it is just above the surface of the urine, then while holding its silken thread into position against the rim of the bottle, places the stopper over its mouth and strikes it into place with her left palm so that her blood is impressed into its surface. She melts a stick of wax over the flame of her lamp and allows the wax to drip over the stopper so that its surface is wholly covered by wax.
When the bottle is properly formed, its lead weight will begin to tinkle against the side of the glass immediately, and a white cloud will be visible within the vessel, but the soul will not acquire the power of speech for several nights. The shock of capture renders it insane, and it is not until it regains a measure of awareness concerning its condition that it regains the ability to understand a question that may be asked. This magic may be worked by man or woman, but among the wanderers the women use it most commonly, for the men have little to do with the arcane arts, apart from the rites performed in honor of their goddess.
The utilities of the soul bottle are several. First, it creates a servant that lends the power of its essence to the maker of the charm, so that the maker is strengthened, both physically in his own body and in the force of his will. With each additional soul captured, the power is enhanced. A magician with five or six soul bottles has the strength of two men, and is easily able to compel with the force of his mind the obedience of spiritual creatures of the lesser kind. Second, the possession of a soul bottle allows access to the secrets of the dead. Whatever the captured soul knew during life, and whatever it learned after death, is available to its master, who only needs to question it.
The greatest virtue of the soul bottle is not these gifts, precious though they may be, but the suffering it inflicts upon the soul imprisoned within its depths. The torment of the bottle is greater than the torment of hell, even when the bottle is not heated over a flame to heighten the pain. A necromancer may use the soul bottle as a form of punishment upon his enemies. Those he could not strike down in life, he has the ability to torture after death. So long as the bottle remains intact, the agony of the soul remains unrelenting. The women among the Thugians use this charm not to capture the souls of their friends but to imprison the souls of their foes and bring them suffering.
amascus lies like a shimmering jewel on the belly of the night when approached in the hours of early evening at the end of a long journey. Her ten thousand lamps illuminate the rooftops of her buildings and domes of her minarets, and dim the very stars in the heavens. The barking of her dogs, the soft murmur of voices from those seated in conversations at the thresholds of her houses, and the laughter arising from her taverns and inns combine to make a music of human companionship welcome to the ears of a man tired of travel. Surely no more pleasant city in which to dwell exists in the world for those who possess wealth and the willingness to dispense it liberally in consideration for services.
A class of men known as procurers thrives in this city, for there are constant comings and goings of caravans and the streets are forever filled with those newly arrived who have no knowledge of where to sleep or how to obtain their evening meal. They are as helpless as babes, but for a small fee any of the hundreds of men who adopt this trade will guide them to whatever they require and make their lives pleasant. Nothing is unobtaina
ble in Damascus; those who thirst for wine are quenched; those who flee boredom are entertained; those who lust after women are sated. Even the more obscure desires, which might arouse revulsion in other cities, are easily accommodated in this most beautiful paragon of commercial hospitality.
A newcomer seeking the purchase of a house has many splendid dwellings from which to choose, as the constant arrivals and departures from the city insure the continuing availability of property. In the northern quarter is a quiet street called the Lane of Scholars. Both sides of this winding, paved passage, which is scarcely wide enough to permit the progress of a single ox cart, are lined with walled houses notable for the lack of pretension in their entranceways, for they are little more than rough doors without windows or other adornments set in the unbroken walls that bound the street.
The inhabitants of the Lane of Scholars are seldom seen, and the people of Damascus seek to have as little contact with them as they may, since they are reputed to be wizards engrossed behind their locked portals in the pursuit of arcane studies. Their servants, who never speak of the affairs of their masters, are seen entering the unassuming doors in the morning, carrying food and other goods in baskets from the marketplace; more rarely they are observed in the night leaving with strange bundles and returning with empty hands.
With the aid of an astute procurer the traveler newly arrived in the city, who wishes to remain for a period of years and to pursue the necromantic arts, will be offered the purchase of any one of several of these handsome dwellings that happen at that time to be available. The amenities of the houses, apart from minor variations in appearance, are quite similar. Each possesses its own rear garden of fruit trees and shaded walkways. Their windows are placed high to catch the breezes at sunset, which flow down their marbel halls and stairs and cool even the lowest chamber, and their high walls shut out the noises and foulness of the city. The houses are in three levels, and beneath them are cellars suitable for storage or activities requiring privacy.
