The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

by Kij Johnson

  Once she woke to feel a rubbery paw grasping her ankle. Had she been a little more awake, she might have spoken first; she might not have swung down with her machete and felt it connect, and heard the anguished cry of a wounded ghoul as it ran howling off, leaving behind an arm severed at the elbow. She was horrified, for it had been the ghoul she called in her mind Yllyn after a second-year Practical Government student at the College, because of a similarity in the way they tipped their heads when they were thinking. For a time, Vellitt could hear the wounded ghoul following them—lacking an arm, she had grown clumsy—until two of the others returned from a private expedition carrying fresh bones and licking their lips. She was not heard again after that.

  The caverns became more populated. These were ghast lands, so the wary ghouls stayed to the rough margins; ghasts usually killed ghouls, but they also captured them to add to their herds. The youngest of the females grew very concerned for Vellitt and patted continually at her hands and clothing. It was a grotesque version of the school-girl crush Vellitt had seen so many times in the College, yet she almost welcomed the attention: watched over with such an obsessive regard, she would not be taken unawares.

  At the center of one of the largest of the caverns was a gargantuan shaft leading downward, a quarter of a mile across and emitting a steady, hot, sulfuric wind. They had entered high on one wall, and she could see a little distance down the shaft. A city had been carved into its walls, with broad steep ramps and square openings, and she was a little comforted, recognizing it for a gug city. Gugs were horrible—elephant-sized; oily-furred and immense-pawed creatures, their eyes staring from eyestalks on either side of the toothed vertical gash of their mouths—but less terrible to her than anything else in these lands. A gug city might contain horrors but it held few surprises, for when she had been lost in the under-realms, she had encountered an infant gug and followed it into its city, where she had survived for a time. Neither it nor any other gug had shown her kindness, but neither had they killed her.

  When the younger females saw the signs of the gug city, they clamored to hunt one, for ghouls hated gugs, and killed them whenever they had sufficient numbers. Experienced with managing the enthusiasms of the young, the elder wagged her greasy canine head: they might, certainly, and it would be a treat; but gugs could be had any time, after all. Did they not want to taste the delights of a waking-world graveyard? Then they must stay focused. Regretfully they agreed, though there were complaints. But they forgot soon enough, when they passed a place where some creature had fallen from a height, as they bickered over the shattered flesh they licked from the lichens with their agile tongues.

  Despite their vigilance, they were ambushed—and not by gugs. The ghouls had been loping in their tireless way down a thick-lichened defile when many ghasts surged suddenly from concealed holes beyond the defile’s lip. Mêlée was instant and universal. Vellitt’s machete was out of reach, but she drew her long knife and fought until it was slammed from her hand by the ghasts, buffeting her with their heavy equid shoulders, grabbing with their strange split forehooves. The ghouls they did not treat so gently. She heard their screams all around, and saw the young female who had declared herself Vellitt’s protector crushed beneath the feet of the largest ghast. But they did not injure Vellitt: only bumped her farther and farther from the screams of the ghouls until, in the end, she heard no more.

  The ghasts did not cripple her (as was their way), nor bind her. They clubbed her with their hooves until she was half-hoisted onto the back of one of the ghasts. She tried to slide off but the other ghasts crowded close until, with a hoot from the largest of them, they departed the blood-soaked defile. They maintained a fast, swarming lope without pause and without sound. It was a little like riding a horse, if a horse’s skin oozed the smells of carrion and its mane were not hair but short writhing fleshy tendrils. After a time, she fell into a miserable trance that was neither sleep nor dream, a daze that did not end until they came to their city and bore her down its broad ramps, down until the very walls seemed to seep darkness. The ghast city shared the pit with the gugs’ city she had seen before; she saw the gug arches and tunnels barely a stone’s throw away across the shaft and shouted, hoping that in some miraculous fashion the gug she had known as an infant might be there and remember her. But it was a ridiculous hope, and in any case the ghasts rammed her with their horrible heads, until she could do nothing but gasp for breath and struggle not to be crushed.

  The ghasts stopped at last. She half-fell from her vile mount’s back, and was forced through a small opening in a wall. A stone door closed behind her, and she heard the heavy sound of a ghast settling itself against it.

  * * *

  Vellitt Boe despaired. The ghasts did not intend to maim her and add her to their herds, but that meant they had another use for her. She was sure that they had learned of her from the night-gaunts, and were holding her until she might be turned over to whatever god sought her, to be cast into the crawling abyss or to suffer some more immediate torment—that, or the ghasts would keep her in secret until they could find a way to better utilize her to their advantage, for ghasts are always aware of the main chance and respect only the highest of the Other Ones, despising the little gods that pursue their venal, foolish agendas across the upper lands.

  The room was tiny, a cube scarce six feet across: nearly the size of her lovely little teak-walled cabin on the Medje Loïc, but too small to serve any purpose she could think of for the ghasts, who might perhaps push their heads and forequarters through the small door but no more. So: a cell. Her opalic sight showed her featureless walls, the sealed door, and two gratings carved into the living rock. As she watched, a millipede the length of her hand slipped from the upper grating, swarmed down the wall and across the floor, and disappeared into the lower one. A moment later it, or a different one, reversed the journey. In time, she realized there were many millipedes, and that this cell was part of a highway of sorts for the millipedes.

  Her knife had been struck from her hand, and the ghasts had torn her pack from her. All that remained to Vellitt was whatever she had been carrying on her person: the red opal pendant; her canteen (full, for she had passed safe water a short time before the ambush, buckling it at her waist rather than returning it to the pack); a single packet of pemmican; the leather pouch of gold and coins, the remaining letters of credit, and the Bursar’s little notebook; the small black-lacquered object from the waking world; matches in a waterproof case. All useless, unless she could set a fire with the matches and notebook, and somehow frighten the ghasts with it.

  And so Vellitt wept. If it was not already destroyed, Ulthar would be, as soon as the Clarie Jurat’s mad grandfather awakened. And Jurat herself, lost into the waking world; and the ghouls that had accompanied her these leagues, dead or enslaved; and the young female who had so foolishly fought for her—and Vellitt herself, unable to save even her own life.

  She wept until her tears dropped to the ground and the busy millipedes ran through the moisture that fell upon their path. They scuttered through her tears and scattered along their many routes, myriad feet tracing secret tracks through every corner of the ghast city, and even into the city of the gugs.

  There are many gods in the dream lands: the great gods, Azathoth and hoary Nodens and the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep that is their messenger; but also many lesser gods, meek and mad, that carry in their hearts secret affections they cannot acknowledge without exposing the things they love to whatever sadistic torments the Other Ones might devise. Certain small gods had lived once on the snow-peaked slopes of Hatheg-Kla, and (though they dwelt now under the cruel eye of Nyarlathotep on cold Kadath), still they remembered their old home, and the pretty valley of the river Skai. Others, even less important, had lived in Ulthar’s Temple of the Elder Gods, drinking the smoke of the sacrifices and gazing with senile affection on their city: the markets, the homes, the squares and fountains. They had watched the University with dim approval: ancien
t Eb-Taqar and many-halled Meianthe, New and Serran and Thane’s-Colleges, Stë-Dek, and even the Women’s College, humblest of the Seven.

  The minor gods could not combat their masters, not directly. But they were not without resources. In a land defined by dreaming men and bickering gods, there were no sure rules, but there was also no certain randomness. Vellitt had once saved an infant gug that had fallen into a pit and been pierced by punji stakes. Already the size of a full-grown wolfhound, and already stocky, ugly, and fetid, the creature had no neonate attractiveness, but she had been alone in the under-realms and this pierced, crippled creature was the first thing that did not strike sick horror into her soul. By the faint light of lichens, she had lowered herself into the pit and levered the young gug free. Though it must have been in great pain, it did not struggle or bite her, but held still, its vertical maw agape in silent panting, expelling the reek of carrion inches from her shoulder. At last she rocked back on her heels and said aloud, “There you go;” and at the sound of her voice, the gug leapt to its six paws and bolted. Only then did she see the other gugs gathered at a distance: adult, gigantic, alien, and terrifying. They had been watching her. She was sure that, had she made different decisions, they would have destroyed her. The infant ran between their feet and was gone; a moment later, the adults followed, and she had followed them, having no better plan for her deliverance.

  The busy millipedes scuttered through the secret places of the gug city and left traces wherever they walked of Vellitt Boe’s tears. And a certain gug, grown to full size and dwelling a thousand leagues from the flesh-lined den of its infancy, padded upon six paws each a yard across, along steep ramps and up broad stairs and over a soaring stone archway that bridged the shaft shared by two cities; until it stalked through the alleys of the ghasts, cracking apart such structures as stood in its way, following a scent it remembered from its earliest youth. For gugs forget nothing.

  The first intimation of this came to Vellitt when she heard panicked hooting outside her cell and a terrible sound, as of something fleshy crushed between great jaws. The door was smashed with a blow that threw stony shrapnel across the tiny room, and a gug’s great paw reached in, patting the cell’s floor and then withdrawing. Because she had nothing to lose (and in any case, to die quickly was better than to be given to whatever gods sought to stop her quest), Vellitt crawled through the opening and stood. Its head was inclined as though it looked down at her from its unfathomable eyes, and she knew suddenly what had happened and why. It was splashed to its belly with the remains of the ghast that had guarded her cell.

  “Now what?” she said aloud.

  She could see with her opalic vision that ghasts were clustered everywhere, just out of reach of the gug. They began a great hooting at the sound of her voice, but the gug made no sound at all: only turned and padded through the ghast city, the creatures falling back as it approached, then pooling to follow behind them. Vellitt walked beside the gug, one hand against an ancient scar upon its flank.

  * * *

  To her surprise, the gug did not leave her even after they had climbed back into the cavern, and the ghasts had relinquished their hooting pursuit. After a time, she realized it meant to stay beside her until she left the under-realms. Gugs made no sounds and did not seem to have ears; but she glibbered in the ghoulish tongue of her goal, to find the cellar in Lelag-Leng; barring that, to find another path into the waking lands. The gug gave no signs of understanding but walked off as though given an order, and she followed it.

  Time blurred. They moved quickly, for the gug did not hesitate to cross open terrain, though it avoided the cyclopean cities of its kind. It neither slept nor apparently did it grow tired. It did not eat. Whenever she collapsed from fatigue, she feared the worst; but awakened each time to find herself untouched, the gug crouched like a gigantic grotesque six-pawed cat, guarding her. The ghouls had taught her things she might eat, so she peeled sheets of rank lichens from the stones and devoured them as she walked. After her canteen ran dry, she licked the walls for the water that ran down their rocky faces. She had been thin but grew gaunt, and felt ancient, inhuman, alien and unknowable. When she remembered Ulthar it was with an abstract concern, as though she had heard once of such a place, of daylight and greenery, crowds in bright colors, voices.

  They came to a cavern where she saw ghasts watching a great herd of blind, shuffling animals: humans scarcely less bestial than their keepers. She begged the gug to free them, but it kept to its silent route and did not even slow. Another time, they came to a lake of dimly glowing fluid, where the gug lowered itself to its knees. She took this to mean she should climb its back, and it was thus they crossed, her face inches above the gaping vertical mouth that split its head in half.

  At one point, she realized she was being followed by a small party of ghouls: not her own, for they were long gone, but strangers. She laid a trap and captured one, a cunning female of middle age with something more of intelligence in her eyes than was the rule for her kind. Vellitt asked questions, but the female refused to answer until the gug placed a forepaw upon her chest and pressed. She squealed and then the answers came, in short, wheezing, rubbery meeps: Vellitt Boe was sought by more than one of the bickering gods, each for his own reason. Some wanted to cause mischief and ending her quest guaranteed this. Others hated the Old One that was Clarie Jurat’s grandfather, and sought to torment him by whatever means they might. For still others, she had herself become the goal; the gods could hate for no reason at all, and their malice had turned toward her.

  The ghoul continued, though a thread of thick blood slipped from her mouth and her voice took on a wet, gobbety sound. One god, more enterprising than the rest, had offered a village of new-made fresh corpses to any dweller of the under-realms that would deliver her to him. This ghoul and her companions had determined to earn the reward.

  Were there routes where she would be safe? Vellitt asked. The ghoul gurgled: she would certainly be caught when she tried to reënter the upper lands. The gug pressed harder, and the ghoul added slowly, in gasps: perhaps, from the ancient ghoulish city beneath Sarkomand. There was a way that went directly from the under-realms to the waking world without touching the dream lands.

  Vellitt opened her mouth to ask more, but the gug at least was done. It leaned forward and tore the ghoul’s head free of its shoulders, and blood and brains gouted across the lichened stones. Vellitt fell back, sickened, but when she looked again, there was nothing left, not so much as a scrap of bone, only blood splashed here and there, and the sounds of the gug swallowing. The first questing beetles, pallid and soft-shelled, emerged from a crevice and pressed their mouthparts against the stains: soon even those would be gone. It was as well. At least this way, Vellitt could not be tempted.

  Gratitude and horror made a heavy mixture, but the gratitude outweighed the horror. The ghoulish passwords could no longer be trusted, and the gug was in its inscrutable way the only ally she had. If she had gone to Lelag-Leng according to her earlier plan, the gods or their bitter messengers would have caught her and her quest would have ended there. There was another advantage that came from trapping the ghoul. It had carried a sliver of obsidian as long as her hand and sharp enough to draw blood. Vellitt slid it into the empty knife sheath beneath her jacket and nearly wept with relief: armed again at last.

  After a forever of walking, they were in a series of vast, high galleries, crafted by huge, unknowable hands or paws. The rooms were all the same, many hundreds of yards long and fifty across, jumbled with ruinous structures, boulders, building stones, petrified wood—and beneath everything, icy water that had collected into fetid pools. The soaring ceilings had been carved into fantastic shapes: venous guilloché of incredible detail in one hall, irregular herati and botehs in the next, vining wormlike fretworks in a third. These were the sky, she realized suddenly: the sky interpreted by beings that had never seen its shifting patterns, but only heard them described. It was not a gug city, yet the gug knew
it well enough, for in the seventh of these galleries, it turned aside into a carved passageway where gaps in the living rock had been filled with tight-laid courses of dressed stone. The passageway began to ramp upward and curved in a decreasing spiral. Occasional steps appeared, until at last Vellitt found herself ascending a great circular widdershin stair, the gug almost entirely filling the passage just behind her.

  At irregular intervals, the staircase widened into circular chambers some twenty yards across and only just higher than Vellitt could reach with her upstretched hand. The gug hunkered low and crept awkwardly across these rooms. Each had seven windows spaced equally around the perimeter. Those of the lowest levels looked down into the halls of the city beneath Sarkomand, but after that she found her opalic vision could not penetrate the veil of darkness beyond the sills, and by this she surmised that they did not open onto anywhere in her own world—or perhaps, any human plane at all.

  They ascended: stairs, chambers, stairs again. She lost count of the seven-windowed rooms. She turned and turned, always up and to the left, numb to anything but the sick burning of her muscles, the cartilage grinding in her knees, her heaving lungs. Drained of energy and then of volition, it became easier to lean against the outside wall and close her eyes as she ascended, only opening them when she felt the moving air in her face that presaged each chamber. She stopped looking from the windows.

  Coming to the fiftieth or seventieth or hundredth chamber, she opened her eyes and felt them pierced by something harsh as a ragged blade. She fell back with a cry, bringing her hands up as a shield, and the gug muscled past her; but it was only interference between the opalic vision and a white light that was shining in all the windows, bright as the sun. She lifted the red opal from her throat, holding it tight in one hand.