Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred (14 page)

So it is written, and men who are devout believers accept it as the sacred word of God, but a few among our race who are uncontent to receive teachings as an infant receives its milk, but must restlessly seek them out where they lie hidden, know that on the spaces between the days other creatures were made by other makers, and since they were made at night, they have remained unseen and veiled in shadow.

Neither may it be presumed that our race is the most ancient or last of the masters who rule this world, or that the aggregation of living forms known to man walks unaccompanied. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. They walk not on the places we know but between them, tranquil and primal, by us unseen, for they are formless. Yog-Sothoth remembers the gate; Yog-Sothoth is the gate; Yog-Sothoth is the key and protector of the gate. What was, and is, and shall be are one in Yog-Sothoth. He remembers where once the Old Ones broke through the vault that separates our sphere from the outer darkness, and where they shall break through again. He remembers where they left the imprint of their feet in the mud of the earth, and those places where they still walk to and fro, and why no one can behold them as they pass.

By their odor can men sometimes know their presence, but of their semblance no man can know, but only indirectly by peering into the liniments and expressions of those they mingled with mankind; and of those there are many types varying in appearance from the mirror of man to the shadow outline of that invisible and formless presence that made them. They walk unseen and reeking in desert places where the words have been intoned and the rites howled through at their proper times. The wind gibbers with their voices and the earth rumbles with their thoughts. They bend the trees and crush the cities, yet neither forest nor city beholds the hand that strikes.

Kadath in the cold waste knows them, yet what man may truly boast that he knows Kadath? The ice wilderness that lies far to the south and the isles drowned beneath the seas bear stones upon which their seal is cut, but who among common men has seen the frozen city or the sealed tower garlanded for ages with seaweed and encrusted by barnacles? Great Cthulhu is their kin, yet he can discern them only dimly.
Iä! Shub-Niggurath!
As a foulness shall you know them. Their hand is at your throats, yet you see them not; and their dwelling place is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate wherein the spheres meet. Mankind rules where they ruled once; they shall rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait, patient and potent, for here shall they rule again.

At their return all men shall bow their heads and serve them as lords; those few who remember their ancient presence with invocations and offerings given at their places of power shall command the mass of our race who bleat as sheep and low as cattle when they are led to the slaughter, for we are as food to them and as beasts of burden that toil in the fields. The prayers of the prophets shall not prevail against them; neither crescent nor cross nor star can forestall their approach, when once again the heavens align and the gate is opened.
Iä! Nyarlathotep!
They shall visit us in darkness, but by their fires the night will be made flashing with the brightness of polished brass set against the face of the sun.

Seven are the lords of the Old Ones, six who are as brothers and sisters, and a seventh who is to them as the son of a father’s brother, and who stands apart although he is one with them. The names of others of their race are whispered in the deep caverns, but the others have not the same family blood, and these seven are the leaders or heralds in our world. Among the seven are those better known and those obscure, for not all the Old Ones interest themselves equally in the affairs of this world. Their names are Azathoth, Dagon, Nyarlathotep, Yig, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, and the seventh who stands apart, Cthulhu.

Within the room of seven soul portals, in the nameless subterranean city of the reptilian race, are cut in rock the seven seals of the lords, each above one of the gates, though it is not always apparent what connection the lands beyond these portals bear the Old Ones. Murals in other chambers, and passageways, tell of their forms and natures, so that by a careful study of these images they may be known in part, and only in part, for no man has ever comprehended all their ways or their purposes upon the earth.

The magi who dwell in the valley of the Tigris allotted to these lords of the Old Ones the spheres of the wandering bodies of the heavens, not because they dwell in the planetary spheres, nor yet because the planets have power over them, but for the reason that the rays of the planets are in a certain accord with the potencies of the lords. Under the heads of the planets, as under titles of authority, shall they be severally examined herein.

rom the beginning man has feared the serpent, but why this lowly creature that crawls upon its belly and nests beneath the earth should be an object of dread and wonder has been forgotten, though the causes are echoed in our dreams and in the myths of our ancestors. In the sacred book concerning the creation it is the serpent who teaches wisdom to Eve, and for its reward it is written that humankind and serpentkind are forever after to become deadly enemies, and so it came to pass. The serpent has ever been regarded as the wisest of living things, and deathless, for it renews itself by the shedding of its skin. How shall it be that the wisest of beings is the most reviled and feared?

Know that the wisdom of the serpent is the wisdom of Yig, most ancient of the lords of the Old Ones. In the dimness of time Yig made approach to the ancestors of man and spoke silently in their minds, offering to teach our race the secret of eternal life in return for loyalty and worship; but the prophets feared the knowledge of the serpent and counseled that the covenant with Yig be rejected by the people, lest they be tainted in their souls with the poison of the viper and the asp. For this reason all snakes are killed at first sight, even though they be harmless and offer no inconvenience. Yet not all the people followed the prophets; some made secret pacts with the lord of the serpents, and they are known by their adoration of his favored creature.

The serpent is not native to our world, but was carried here from beyond the stars before the awakening of our race as a thing of amusement and diversion by Yig, and as a reminder of the world where he arose, for the shape of the serpent is the shape of this god, his true shape, for he goes sometimes in the form of a man with the head of a snake, but this is only the shape he puts on for his dealings with men; in his true shape he undulates upon his belly and has no limbs. Damballah he is called by the black-skinned barbarians dwelling on the coast of Africa, and by the Egyptians he is known as Apep. He is remembered in the myths of the Greeks as the cosmic serpent that encircles the world, who is without beginning or end, for he is deathless.

Many are the places of his worship. He is strong in the temples of the eastern lands, where the basilisk is especially revered and protected as the monarch of serpents, for it consumes lesser snakes as prey and stands upright upon its tail to the height of a man, and its gaze has the power of causing entrancement in the minds of those who look into its eyes; there is no power of human will strong enough to resist its seduction. Only by the music of the flute can it be controlled, and when it hears this sound it begins to dance and loses its power to strike so long as the music plays. Learn herein a deep mystery, known to few, that the music of the flute is the song of Azathoth, the blind idiot god, he who is the center of creation, whose song made the myriad of worlds; the flute of Azathoth all created things obey, be they ever so unwilling to do him homage, for in their hearts they despise this lord for his mindlessness.

Stronger still is Yig in the temples of the unknown lands that lie beyond the western ocean, where he is worshipped as a god in the form of a winged serpent; the wings express the flight of Yig, who has the power to bear himself through the airy zone of our world as though carried on the wings of a bird. These lands are known to but a few tribes that dwell in the distant northland of Hyperboria where it is perpetual twilight, for these tribes are great seafarers, and worshippers of Yig; their very ships are shaped with the heads of dragons, and their swords are patterned after the scales of serpents. The dragon that flies in its serpentine shape expresses yet another form of this Old One.

A wise man disregards the teaching of the prophets and will not slay a serpent, not even if struck and envenomed, for to kill serpents is to invite the displeasure of this god, who uses the serpent for his eyes in all parts of our world; wherever a serpent crawls and watches, there watches Yig, even though it be the least of snakes scarce larger than a worm. All are his children, for all hold in their nature the essence of this god, who is great with their multitude but diminished when they are slain. It is whispered that were all serpents to be killed, so Yig would pass out of our world, but whether there is truth in this saying only the event will show, and that shall never be witnessed by men, for the serpent is aeons more ancient than our race and will endure aeons after our fall to dust.

Those who worship Yig summon him to their rites by means of his seal coupled with the following invocation, which they chant in unison while swaying their bodies to the sounds of flutes. The constellation sacred to Yig is that known as Draco, and his sect believes that the god dwells there and gazes down upon the world. He is called into the body of a priestess who lies naked upon the sand, writhing her limbs and hissing through her lips, her thighs anointed with blood and her eyes rolled back into her head so that only the whites may be seen.

“Approach, Deathless One; heed the summons of the flute of Azathoth your creator, the song of which none of his blood may deny; descend slithering down the rays of the stars from the coils of the dragon. Great Serpent old of years and wise in wisdom, at the beginning of time you gave the gift of knowledge to the race of man, through the embrace of a woman during the forbidden days of her cycle; enter again this female vessel whose thighs are streaked with blood and insert your teachings into her mind, that your faithful servants may profit from her instruction. Render sweet the fruits of her womb. Empower her with your mighty arts to defend us against our enemies, and against those who would defame your memory.
Yë, y’ti mn’g thu’lh ugg’a aeth Yig fl’anglh uuthah!”