Haggopian and Other Stories (12 page)

That last shock…ceiling coming away in chunks…coming up. Heaven help me, they’re coming up…I can feel them groping inside my mind as they come—

Sir,

Reference this manuscript found in the ruins of number 17 Anwick Street, Marske, Yorkshire, following the earth tremors of September this year and believed to be a “fantasy” which the writer, Paul Wendy-Smith, had completed for publication. It is more than possible that the so-called disappearances of both Sir Amery Wendy-Smith and his nephew, the writer, were nothing more than promotion stunts for this story… It is well known that Sir Amery is/was interested in seismography and perhaps some prior intimation of the two ’quakes supplied the inspiration for his nephew’s tale.
Investigations continuing…

Sgt J. Williams.

Yorks. County Constabulary.

2nd October 1933.

The House of Cthulhu

This one was written in November 1971. It was supposed to appear in a magazine called
Pulp
(just that?) which to my knowledge promptly disappeared—an all-too-regular occurrence! But then Kirby McCauley sold it to a brand-new magazine, Stuart Schiff’s
Whispers
. In fact it was the very first story in the very first issue in July 1973; following which it took off. This tale has now seen more reprints and translations than anything else I’ve ever written: in DAW’s
Year’s Best Horror
; in the first
Orbit Book of Horror
; in Doubleday’s
Whispers
anthology; in Jove’s paperback
Whispers
; in Josh Pacter’s
Top Fantasy
, and so forth; until, in 1984, W. Paul Ganley used it in (and as the title of) my Weirdbook Press Volume,
The House of Cthulhu And Other Tales of the Primal Land
, in both hardcover and paperback editions. Not to be outdone, in 1991 Headline in the UK published the book in paperback, and most recently (2005) TOR Books in the USA have done a lovely little hardback, with fabulous jacket art by my good friend Bob Eggleton. All in all, a very long (and very satisfying) road for this short Mythos story.

Where Weirdly angled ramparts loom,

Gaunt sentinels whose shadows gloom

Upon an undead hell-beast’s tomb—

And gods and mortals fears to tread.

Where gateways to forbidden spheres

And times are closed, but monstrous fears

Await the passing of strange years—

When that will wake which is not dead…

“Arlyeh”—A fragment from Teh Atht’s
Legends of the Olden Runes
. As translated by Thelred Gustau from the Theem’hdra manuscripts.

Now it happened aforetime that Zar-thule the Conqueror, who is called Reaver of Reavers, Seeker of Treasures and Sacker of Cities, swam out of the East with his dragonships; aye, even beneath the snapping sails of his dragonships. The wind was but lately turned favorable, and now the weary rowers nodded over their shipped oars while sleepy steersmen held the course. And there Zar-thule descried him in the sea the island Arlyeh, whereon loomed tall towers builded of black stone whose tortuous twinings were of angles unknown and utterly beyond the ken of men; and this island was redly lit by the sun sinking down over its awesome black crags and burning behind the aeries and spires carved therefrom by other than human hands.

And though Zar-thule felt a great hunger and stood sore weary of the wide sea’s expanse behind the lolling dragon’s tail of his ship Redfire, and even though he gazed with red and rapacious eyes upon the black island, still he held off his reavers, bidding them that they ride at anchor well out to sea until the sun was deeply down and gone unto the Realm of Cthon, even unto Cthon, who sits in silence to snare the sun in his net beyond the edge of the world. Indeed, such were Zar-thule’s raiders as their deeds were best done by night, for then Gleeth the blind Moon God saw them not, nor heard in his celestial deafness the horrible cries which ever attended unto such deeds.

For notwithstanding his cruelty, which was beyond words, Zar-thule was no fool. He knew him that his wolves must rest before a whelming, that if the treasures of the House of Cthulhu were truly such as he imagined them—then that they must likewise be well guarded by fighting men who would not give them up easily. And his reavers were fatigued even as Zar-thule himself, so that he rested them all down behind the painted bucklers lining the decks, and furled him up the great dragon-dyed sails. And he set a watch that in the middle of the night he might be roused, when, rousing in turn the men of his twenty ships, he would sail in unto and sack the island of Arlyeh.

Far had Zar-thule’s reavers rowed before the fair winds found them, far from the rape of the Yaht-Haal, the Silver City at the edge of the frostlands. Their provisions were all but eaten, their swords all ocean rot in rusting sheaths; but now they ate all of their remaining regimen and drank of the liquors thereof; and they cleansed and sharpened their dire blades before taking themselves into the arms of Shoosh, Goddess of the Still Slumbers. They well knew them, one and all, that soon they would be at the sack, each for himself and loot to that sword’s wielder whose blade drank long and deep.

And Zar-thule had promised them great treasures from the House of Cthulhu; for back there in the sacked and seared city at the edge of the frostlands, he had heard from the bubbling, anguished lips of Voth Vehm the name of the so-called “forbidden” isle of Arlyeh. Voth Vehm, in the throes of terrible tortures, had called out the name of his brother priest, Hath Vehm, who guarded the House of Cthulhu in Arlyeh. And even in the hour of his dying Voth Vehm had answered to Zar-thule’s additional tortures, crying out that Arlyeh was indeed forbidden and held in thrall by the sleeping but yet dark and terrible god Cthulhu, the gate to whose House his brother-priest guarded.

Then had Zar-thule reasoned that Arlyeh must contain riches indeed, for he knew it was not meet that brother priests betray one another; and aye, surely had Voth Vehm spoken exceedingly fearfully of this dark and terrible god Cthulhu only that he might thus divert Zar-thule’s avarice from the ocean sanctuary of his brother priest, Hath Vehm. Thus reckoned Zar-thule, even brooding on the dead and disfigured hierophant`s words, until he bethought him to leave the sacked city. Then, with the flames leaping brightly and reflected in his red wake, Zar-thule put to sea in his dragonships. All loaded down with silver booty he put to sea, in search of Arlyeh and the treasures of the House of Cthulhu. And thus came he to this place.

• • •

Shortly before the midnight hour the watch roused Zar-thule up from the arms of Shoosh, aye, and all the freshened men of the dragonships; and then beneath Gleeth the blind Moon God’s pitted silver face, seeing that the wind had fallen, they muffled their oars and dipped them deep and so closed in with the shoreline. A dozen fathoms from beaching, out rang Zar-thule’s plunder cry, and his drummers took up a stern and steady beat by which the trained but yet rampageous reavers might advance to the sack.

Came the scrape of keel on grit, and down from his dragon’s head leapt Zar-thule to the sullen shallow waters, and with him his captains and men, to wade ashore and stride the night-black strand and wave their swords…and all for naught! Lo, the island stood quiet and still and seemingly untended…

Only now did the Sacker of Cities take note of this isle’s truly awesome aspect. Black piles of tumbled masonry festooned with weeds from the tides rose up from the dark wet sand, and there seemed inherent in these gaunt and immemorial relics a foreboding not alone of bygone times; great crabs scuttled in and about the archaic ruins and gazed with stalked ruby eyes upon the intruders; even the small waves broke with an eerie
hush, hush, hush
upon the sand and pebbles and primordial exuviae of crumbled yet seemingly sentient towers and tabernacles. The drummers faltered, paused and finally silence reigned.

Now many of them among these reavers recognised rare gods and supported strange superstitions, and Zar-thule knew this and had no liking for their silence. It was a silence that might yet yield to mutiny!

“Hah!” quoth he, who worshipped neither god nor demon nor yet lent ear to the gaunts of night. “See—the guards knew of our coming and are all fled to the far side of the island—or perhaps they gather ranks at the House of Cthulhu.” So saying, he formed him up his men into a body and advanced into the island.

And as they marched they passed them by other prehuman piles not yet ocean-sundered, striding through silent streets whose fantastic façades gave back the beat of the drummers in a strangely muted monotone.

And lo, mummied faces of coeval antiquity seemed to leer from the empty and oddly-angled towers and craggy spires, fleet ghouls that flitted from shadow to shadow apace with the marching men, until some of those hardened reavers grew sore afraid and begged them of Zar-thule, “Master, let us get us gone from here, for it appears that there is no treasure, and this place is like unto no other. It stinks of death—even of death and of them that walk the shadow-lands.”

But Zar-thule rounded on one who stood close to him muttering thus, crying, “Coward!—Out on you!” Whereupon he lifted up his sword and hacked the trembling reaver in two parts, so that the sundered man screamed once before falling with twin thuds to the black earth. But now Zar-thule perceived that indeed many of his men were sore afraid, and so he had him torches lighted and brought up, and they pressed on quickly into the island.

There, beyond low dark hills, they came to a great gathering of queerly carved and monolithic edifices, all of the same confused angles and surfaces and all with the stench of the pit, even the fetor of the
very
pit about them. And in the centre of these malodorous megaliths there stood the greatest tower of them all, a massive menhir that loomed and leaned windowless to a great height, about which at its base squat pedestals bore likenesses of blackly carven krakens of terrifying aspect.

“Hah!” quoth Zar-thule. “Plainly is this the House of Cthulhu, and see—its guards and priests have fled them all before us to escape the reaving!”

But a tremulous voice, odd and mazed, answered from the shadows at the base of one great pedestal, saying, “No one has fled, O reaver, for there are none here to flee, save me—and I cannot flee for I guard the gate against those who may utter The Words.”

At the sound of this old voice in the stillness the reavers started and peered nervously about at the leaping torch-cast shadows, but one stout captain stepped forward to drag from out of the dark an old, old man. And lo, seeing the mien of this mage, all the reavers fell back at once. For he bore upon his face and hands, aye, and upon all visible parts of him, a grey and furry lichen that seemed to crawl upon him even as he stood crooked and trembling in his great age!

“Who are you?” demanded Zar-thule, aghast at the sight of so hideous a spectacle of afflicted infirmity; even Zar-thule, aghast!

“I am Hath Vehm, brother-priest of Voth Vehm who serves the gods in the temples of Yaht-Haal; I am Hath Vehm, Keeper of the Gate at the House of Cthulhu, and I warn you that it is forbidden to touch me.” And he gloomed with rheumy eyes at the captain who held him, until that raider took away his hands.

“And I am Zar-thule the Conqueror,” quoth Zar-thule, less in awe now. “Reaver of Reavers, Seeker of Treasures and Sacker of Cities. I have plundered Yaht-Haal, aye, plundered the Silver City and burned it low. And I have tortured Voth Vehm unto death. But in his dying, even with hot coals eating at his belly; he cried out a name. And it was
your
name! And he was truly a brother unto you, Hath Vehm, for he warned me of the terrible god Cthulhu and of this ‘forbidden’ isle of Arlyeh. But I knew he lied, that he sought him only to protect a great and holy treasure and the brother-priest who guards it, doubtless with strange runes to frighten away the superstitious reavers! But Zar-thule is neither afraid nor credulous, old one. Here I stand, and I say to you on your life that I’ll know the way into this treasure house within the hour!”