Songs_of_the_Satyrs

by Aaron J. French

  “This?”

  “That,” Carter said. “It’s hideous.”

  “It’s a woman,” Warren said, quirking an eyebrow.

  Carter shuddered. “Not any woman who ever existed, thank God,” he said.

  “Your worldliness is exceeded only by your open-mindedness, my friend.” Warren put the image onto his desk and idly rubbed the steel rings that occupied four of his fingers.

  Carter frowned, but didn’t rise to the bait. He had shared Warren’s Charleston home for close to three years now and had become used to his friend’s acerbic commentary. “I take it that it only recently arrived?” he said instead.

  Warren pulled a cigarette case out of his dressing gown’s pocket and flipped it open, taking one for himself and offering the case to Carter, who demurred.

  Lighting the cigarette, Warren said, “Special delivery from a friend in Massachusetts. It was found in an estate sale. It’s a curious thing, eh?”

  “Yes,” Carter said, looking at the image more closely. It had been carved from a single piece of wood, and with great skill and patience, that much was obvious. But the shape it had been carved into . . . curls of carven hair and ivy sprouted from the sloped skull, showering back in a shaggy mane, from which a quartet of curving horns projected. Instead of legs, the jointed hairy limbs of a goat, with heavy hooves that provided sharp contrast to the almost delicate hands, which were clasped between the ankles.

  Despite Warren’s earlier assertion, it was no woman. It was feminine, true, but to such a degree as to be too much of a good thing, with too many soft curves. The face was almost featureless in its perfection, with eyes that seemed to pull at him for all their sightlessness. They were just wood but they seemed darker, somehow, than the rest. The image smelled of—what was it?—something familiar, and his extremities tingled.

  “Briggs’ Hill,” Warren said.

  Carter looked away from the image, blinking. “What?” he said.

  “Briggs’ Hill. Near—ah—Zoar, I believe the town is called.” Warren sucked on his cigarette thoughtfully. He ran a finger across the length of the image. “The owner died, and her belongings passed into the hands of her creditors.”

  “Where it should have stayed,” Carter said. “It’s horrible.” He shuddered again, rubbing his arms.

  “Matter of opinion, I expect,” Warren said.

  Carter looked at him, frowning. “Why did you want that thing?”

  Warren shrugged. “Why do I want anything?” He indicated the rest of the closed-in porch that served as his office. Freestanding shelves, overstuffed with books and folios of all types. The floor was covered in yet more books, piled haphazardly. Statuary and iconography from one end of the globe to the other occupied what free space remained—African hate-fetishes and Auckland grindlywags competed for space with Catholic saints painted in the colors of the Loa and Inuit whalebone statues.

  Warren hunted the unknown through yellowed pages and across rolls of papyrus and cowhide, looking for any gleanings of old knowledge left behind. He looted tombs—or paid others to do so—and collected the detritus of centuries with compulsive glee.

  As far as Carter knew, the knowledge was its own reward. Warren had an obsession with knowing, which sometimes drove him to altogether unpleasant lengths.

  Still, Warren’s obsessions, though ugly, had their uses. They’d saved Carter’s sanity, if not his life, when he’d come to Charleston, soul sick and half mad, and a half-dozen more times since.

  Warren collected the hideous and the beautiful in equal measure, and Carter occasionally suspected that he, too, was a part of his friend’s collection. This latest acquisition was nothing out of the ordinary. And yet the questions arose unbidden to his lips.

  “Yes, but why this thing, specifically?” Carter said. “It’s—”

  “Intriguing,” Warren said.

  “Not the word I would have used.”

  “No, I suppose not. A number of unusual rumors abound about Briggs’ Hill and Zoar; the usual strange noises and the like . . . black-winged things flitting across the moon and such.” He waved a hand, adding, “Witch gossip, mostly.”

  “But,” Carter probed, knowing Warren wanted to be prodded. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  “Well, that depends, don’t it?” Warren smiled. “What do you know of night visitors, Carter?”

  Carter blinked. “By which you mean . . .”

  “Incubi. Or succubi, in this case,” Warren said. “Night hags, spirits of the quiet moments, bringers of the little death,” he went on, seeming to relish each word.

  “I—oh—no, nothing,” Carter said hurriedly, his face flushing.

  Warren’s smile grew. “A puritanical upbringing isn’t conducive to certain kinds of knowledge, eh?”

  “No.” Carter frowned. “What does this have to do with anything?”

  “The men of Zoar fear music and goats,” Warren said. His attentions were back on the grotesque statue. He stroked it affectionately, and Carter’s hackles rose as the light coming in through the window made the icon look as if it were thrusting itself up to meet Warren’s fingers. “Even today they make the lords of old Salem look hedonistic by comparison. But some say this is only a mask—that by night they consorted with—well—” He broke off abruptly and looked at Carter. “You wouldn’t be interested.”

  “If you knew that, then why even bother?” Carter snapped.

  “Aren’t you snippy this evening.”

  Carter opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it. He turned and left the porch, shaking his head.

  They ate in silence and retired in the same manner. Carter to his room and Warren to a hammock on the porch. But Carter lay awake, waiting for dreams that never seemed to come anymore.

  Sometimes, he was thankful for it. At other times, he wondered whether the bargain he’d made to save his soul had damned him to stultification. His dreams had once threatened to kill him, but Warren’s teachings had helped him to dull his dreaming mind and to lock it away from the greater seas of sleep. Unfortunately, it often made rest hard to come by.

  He rolled over, eyes closed, trying to ignore the sound of the night waves slapping against the Battery. Warren’s Charleston home overlooked the sea, and its sound was omnipresent. Carter had a pronounced distaste for the sea, but he was beginning to enjoy its fruits, despite his reservations. Another of Warren’s contributions to what he called his “Carter project.”

  Carter opened his eyes, looking up at the ceiling. The cracks there seemed to look down at him, as if they formed the features of a larger face. He blinked. The room was stifling. He sat up and went to the window, wrestling it into submission.

  A sea breeze slipped in, curling around him, and he leaned against the frame. A soft rain began to fall, growing harder by the minute. Falling drops beat a stinging tattoo upon his exposed hands and face.

  There was a strange smell on the breeze, not the salty taste of the sea, but something else. Carter coughed as the smell grew stronger. He felt flushed and his nightshirt was uncomfortable against his skin.

  His bedroom door creaked. He turned as it swung open. “Harley?” he said.

  There was the clop of a hoof on wood. The smell enveloped him, pressing on him from every direction. It was a musty smell, like a goat pen on a hot day. And then, it was something else again, something more pleasant and less brutish.

  Carter stumbled forward, as if pulled by the scent. He felt intangible fingers drift across his cheeks and jaw, grasping at him, forcing him on. The sound of hooves rattled before him, and he broke into an awkward run, following them.

  When he got downstairs, the door to the porch was wide open, as was the door from the porch to the backyard. The latter was a jungle of untended, hardy foliage—kudzu, elephant ears, and ferns, as well as sharp-trunked palmettos. Books lay scattered and open, their pages flipping in the quiet wind.

  There was a pressure against his back, rough and smooth at the same time. It
was warm—no, hot . . . terribly hot. Something wet and agile dabbed the length of his neck and he jerked forward, his shoulder connecting painfully with the doorframe. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of something lithe and feminine dashing past him on ghostly hooves, out into the backyard.

  Curiosity warred with other, baser desires; but Carter followed, stepping out into the wet night, trampling ancient wisdom beneath his bare feet. Warren was, of course, already there.

  Carter’s friend stood among the sword-bladed palmettos, chest bared to the rain and the dark, arms spread as if in benediction.

  “H—Harley?” Carter said.

  Warren turned. His eyes were dark slits. “Can you feel it, Carter? The path is opening just for us.”

  “Path?” Carter said. “What path?”

  A trill of laughter slithered through the rain and rustle of leaves. A shape moved through the shadows between the trees. Carter spun, but for some reason his eyes could not focus on the house only a few feet away. Fingers played in his hair and down his spine, eliciting a shiver from him.

  Warren was still speaking. “Horned god, Ms. Murray? No, no I think not,” he said, his words tripping over one another. “Not a god of fertility but a goddess of fecundity, eh Carter?”

  “What?”

  Warren whirled, grabbing Carter’s face almost tenderly, his fingers caressing the edges of Carter’s eyes. He hauled the other man around and stood close behind him. “Look! Look at her!”

  Carter looked. She swayed beneath the trees, balancing on cloven hooves, her fingers trailing across the bark of the palmettos. Lush vines of kudzu slid across her skin as she stepped forward. Rainwater rolled across the smooth curves of her heavy breasts and down the flat pane of her stomach before disappearing into the hairy recesses between her oddly jointed legs. Arms stretched above her horned head, she thrust her hips forward, one leg placed in front of the other.

  A sound like music trickled from her full lips, teasing Carter’s ears and sending a pleasant sensation along his spine. Her head nodded in time to some distant harmony and her pearly horns sliced through the rain, the tips catching and flicking drops in a shimmering halo.

  “What is she?” Carter whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” Warren replied, his voice hoarse. “I hadn’t quite expected to encounter her so soon, but, then, it has been several weeks since . . .”

  “Since what, Warren?” Carter asked.

  “Since she was last sated,” Warren said, shoving him forward. Carter stumbled to his knees, eyes wide.

  “Warren, what—” he began, his fear pulsing through him in quivering spurts.

  “Sorry, old boy. I’m not the one she wants. I tried my best, but, well, you know women.”

  “No!” Carter said. He tried to get to his feet as the dancing hooves brought the she-thing closer to him.

  But Warren’s iron grip held him down on all fours. “No? Then it’s time you learned,” he murmured.

  Carter struggled ineffectually as the goat smell washed over him, hot and perfumed. He twisted his head, but slim fingers tangled in his hair and wrenched his face up. Music splashed across the surface of his mind as she spoke and Warren released him, stepping back.

  “She’s as old as time, Carter. All sin and fire. She demands nothing that no man is unwilling to give. Life unbridled, unbound. The old woman of Briggs’ Hill was her priestess, her prophetess, and the men of Zoar her secret shameful worshippers, delivering her nightly offerings.”

  Warren’s voice faded into silence, and Carter could hear him stepping back and away. Another voice took his place.

  It whispered, “IA . . . ,” as the she-thing pulled Carter to his feet; her features were blurred, all save for those eyes, eyes that burned into his and filled him with a painful heat. He staggered forward, clutching at the smooth flesh. His fingertips sizzled as he touched her, and she flowed into him, teeth nipping at his earlobe. A twisting, turning tongue squirmed across his bare chest, trailing glistening strands of saliva in strange burning patterns.

  “IA—IA . . .”

  She was known by many names . . . Ishtar and Hathor, Astarte and Cybele, the black she-goat who yearned only for man’s love in the form of seed and blood. Her names skidded across his stumbling mind, insinuating themselves into his consciousness even as her fingers and tongue probed his flesh.

  “IA SHUB-NIGGURATH . . .”

  His breath came in stifled gasps as he reached up and took her horns, yanking her closer. Her pelvis ground into his, and he could feel the coarse brown hair of her lower extremities through his pajamas. The hairs seemed to curl and convulse as they tore his pants like thorns.

  Clawed fingers descended, cloth ripped, and he was naked. Head thrown back, he writhed stiffly as she slid down him, her voice drowning out his thoughts, her touch plucking his nerves.

  He wanted to pull away, to flee, but neither his mind nor his body was his own. A skirl of distant pipes sounded beneath the rumble of thunder. Her teeth flashed as she dragged them gently across his belly.

  Carter gasped as she seized him, and a moan escaped his throat. He felt as if he were burning from within, and his body moved on instinct. She turned, her claws leaving bloody trails across his arms and chest, and sank forward, her horns dipping in readiness.

  As the rain pelted down, Carter took her, and her voice changed in pitch, scratching joyfully at his soul. Somewhere, buried beneath the lust and inflamed hormones, his mind shrieked at the obscene nature of the congress.

  “Carter . . .” Warren’s voice tugged at him.

  What had Warren said before? Was this what had afflicted the men of Zoar in the night?

  Hooves dug into the ground as they strained together. Her claws flashed, tearing at him.

  “Carter!” Warren said again.

  Pain swept over him and his eyes sprang open.

  “Carter! Damn it! Carter, WAKE UP!”

  Carter tried to focus, but something blocked his vision and bound his limbs. He realized he was still in bed, still fully clothed. Something indescribably foul crouched on his chest. He tried to scream and caught sight of Warren standing over him, face twisted in an expression of horror and disgust.

  Strange syllables were fired like bullets from Warren’s lips, and the undulating, goatish mass uttered a shrill, inhuman shriek in response. It expanded and contracted like a plume of smoke, twisting in on itself as if weightless, yet somehow managing to keep Carter pinned in place.

  He thrashed, trying to free himself. Warren grabbed his arm and thrust his free hand forward, stiffened fingers carving sigils on the humid air. As Warren yanked Carter off of the bed, the shapeless thing cycled up and around and spilled past them, still shrieking.

  “What—what—what—” Carter babbled.

  “A few choice phrases of mimetic verse I learned from a friend in Tibet, enough to shatter the thing’s link to your subconscious.” Warren pulled Carter to his feet. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. No. What was that?”

  “Something unpleasant, come on,” Warren said, heading downstairs. Carter followed him on shaky legs.

  “I saw it, but it wasn’t like that, it was . . .” Carter shook his head, trying to put his dream into words. “What was it?”

  “A remnant of an older time, something—ah,” Warren said. The wooden icon of Shub-Niggurath sat where he’d left it on his desk. “A memory of a ghost of a thing,” he said as he picked up the statuette gingerly and carried it toward the fireplace. “I had hoped to add this to my collection, but obviously it’s still dangerous, even with its owner’s passing.”

  “You—you knew?” Carter hissed. His skin crawled as Warren started a fire.

  “I suspected. But I hoped it would come for me, as opposed to you. Unfortunately, you’re a much stronger dreamer than either of us gave you credit for.”

  The fire blazed to life and Warren tossed the image into it. “There. That should do it.”

  The woman shape seemed to twist and tu
rn in an attempt to escape the flames, and Carter felt a stab of something inside him.

  The dream hung heavy on his mind, and he could taste the salt of her kisses and feel the rough press of her limbs. Part of him yearned to dive headlong into that fireplace and rescue the thing. Then, the wood cracked and blackened, emitting a shrill whine that might have contained a trace of music in it—but, then again, perhaps not.

  Regardless, Randolph Carter shuddered and looked away.

  Goat Songs

  By Mark Valentine

  The wooden door had swollen in the rain and the paint, once bright yellow, had peeled away, leaving large patches of streaked bare wood. He pushed hard and it grudgingly opened. A thick odor descended upon him, the same one that seemed to linger in every secondhand record shop he had been in: an acrid mixture of patchouli, sandalwood, and sweat. Except that this one had another sharp tang to it, really rich and rank: French cigarettes, he guessed, like those fat cylinders of black tobacco he’d once smoked himself.

  He nodded at the counter. He hardly needed to look to know who would be there. They were nearly always the same: men with gray flesh that seldom saw daylight, a large never-quite-white T-shirt from concerts ten years ago, and an unbarbered beard, often full of crumbs. There was also something grave and slow about them, as if they lived in a world where time went on differently, a dimension that only existed in these sorts of shops.

  He’d lost count of how many he must’ve been in. There were a lot less than there used to be. Most weekends, he’d take a train or bus to some obscure provincial town, work through the market stalls, junk shops, and charity shops (hard work in its way, and usually for nothing much), and keep a look out for any surviving record shops. They were usually in back streets and had names like Rock of Ages, Second Spin, Wax Works, or simply, for the less imaginative, Bob’s Records.

  He’d started young, when he was seventeen, and all his friends were buying disco records or painting themselves up for the New Romance. They didn’t call to him: what did were the heady days of the sixties (which also happened a lot in the early seventies, but time was never neat like that). He loved the hazy psychedelic albums, with their cover designs of flowers, pixies, and mushrooms; the spaced-out drones from primitive synthesizers or mishandled sitars, with their images of deep, star-strewn space; the triple gatefold concept albums about Nirvana, Arcadia, Atlantis, and other way-out places. They were well out of fashion when he began collecting them, and he bought boxfuls for a few shillings each. But now their rarity, even more than their weird qualities, was much better understood, and it was desperately hard to find anything out of the way or unheard of. He still followed his rite of visiting distant little towns, but it was as if the search itself was now as important to him as the finding. It had become just what he did.