Read The New Death and others Online
Authors: James Hutchings
Tags: #fiction, #anthology, #humor, #fantasy, #short stories, #short story, #gothic, #science fiction, #dark fantasy, #funny, #fairy tales, #dark, #collection, #humour, #lovecraftian, #flash fiction, #fairy tale, #bargain, #budget, #fairytale, #fantasy fiction, #goth, #flash, #hp lovecraft, #cheap, #robert e howard, #lord dunsany, #collection of flash fiction, #clark ashton smith
The New Death and others
The New Death and others
Published by James Hutchings at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 James Hutchings
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CONTENTS
How the Isle of Cats Got Its
Name
Under the Pyramids
(based on the
story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft)
The Prince of the Howling
Forest
The Moon Sailed Sadly Through
the Sky
The Doom That Was Laid Upon
Fame
The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune
(based on the story of the same name by Robert E. Howard)
The Adventure of the
Murdered Philanthropist
The Garden of Adompha
(based on
the story of the same name by Clark Ashton Smith)
Legend: The Story of Kevin
Marley
The Construction Workers of
Telelee
The Handsome but
Impossibly Demanding Prince
Charon
(based on the story of the same name by
Lord Dunsany)
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The God of the Poor
In the beginning of the world the gods
considered all those things which did not have their own gods, to
decide who would have responsibility and rulership.
"I will rule all flowers that are sky-blue in
colour," said the Sky-Father.
"I will listen to the prayers of migratory
birds, and you all other birds," the goddess Travel said to him.
And so it went.
At last all had been divided, save for one
thing.
"Who," asked the Sky-Father, "shall have
dominion over the poor?"
There was an awkward silence, until the
Sky-Father said,
"Come--someone must. Those with no gods will
grow restless and cunning, and in time will cast us down, and we
shall be gods no more."
"Not I," said blind Justice, and her stony
face flashed a momentary smirk at the thought. "Why not Fame or
Fortune?"
"Darling I
don't
think so," said the
sister goddesses together.
There was a long pause. The gods shuffled
their feet and avoided one another's gaze. At last a voice broke
the silence.
"I will," said Death.
++++
How the Isle of Cats Got Its
Name
Death stalked the cats of Telelee.
Throughout the city there was much hiding
under couches, and a yowling fear of shadows who came in the night.
These shadows gathered squint-eyed kittens and cats trembling with
age. Starving alley cats like leather bags filled with bones, and
pampered house-cats more spherical than cat-shaped, alike were
taken. The shadows asked not whether a cat was tom or queen. White
cats and black, tabby and orange, grey and tortoiseshell, cats that
looked like their owners and cats that looked like nothing but
cats, the shadows hungered for all.
---
Once upon a time there was a city called
Telelee.
In this city there lived the sorceress
Abi-simti. All the sorcerers in the world trembled at her name, and
before her they were as puddles before the sea. But she was like
one who drinks salt water; the more magic she knew, the more she
wanted.
This was all very well for a time, while
there were still tomes to find and entrails to study and beings to
summon forth and bargain with. But after a time, Abi-simti had
learned all the magic that could be discovered by mortals.
Thus she set her greedy heart on the magic
known only to the immortal gods.
Now this was easier said than done. For if
the gods gave their secrets then they would be cast down, and would
rule mortals no more. This they could not tolerate. The gods are
monsters of vanity. They must always justify and explain their ways
to mortals, and demand praise, and are greatly jealous as to who
has the most worshipers, though they affect a haughty disdain.
Abi-simti went to every temple in Telelee,
and spoke most sweetly and learnedly to the priests thereof, and
sought to learn whether this god or that would trade away their
secrets. But each time she went home disappointed. The priests too
were disappointed. It was a small thing for Abi-simti to know the
desires of the priests, and to appear as a man or woman with all
that the priest admired, whether flaming red hair, or coal-black
skin, or violet eyes, or all three. Though she could work no magic
on her voice it was pleasant enough, as befits one who must cajole
and command the spirits, and she could pitch it low when pretending
to manhood. And though she could not mute the clacking of her left
foot upon a marble floor, this foot being in truth a cloven hoof
after an unfortunate summoning of a certain efreet, this detail
went unnoticed by the priests.
At last she had visited every temple. She had
even gone to the secret temple wherein a hyena-mouthed Lady is
offered human hearts, which her worshipers call the
fruit of the
spear
. She had gone to those caves and abandoned buildings
where worse is done, to please gods that have no face or name.
These gods promised to give away power. But it was clear to the
wise sorceress that the secrets they told were as the cheese in the
trap, which is not laid out for the rat's sake.
---
It is well-known that cats have the ability
to sense entrances to the infernal realms, and the desire to enter
therein, in order that they may combat demons and devils. This
explains why they spend so much time under houses, and why they
often disappear, never to be seen again. At night they gather to
share news of the things below. The subjects of which they speak
are so horrid that the conversation sounds sinister even to those
who do not speak Cat. It is not a good sound to hear in the night;
yet such things may not be spoken of by day.
On this particular night the boldest cat in
Telelee came to the temple of Bast, which to human eyes appears to
be an alley behind a fish-market. She was a white moggy with a
black patch on one eye, and her name was Artemisia.
"Is there a greater thaumaturge in Telelee
than the bull-footed Abi-simti?" she asked an ancient grey cat, who
was the high priest.
"I have not seen nor heard of a greater in my
eight lives past, nor in this ninth," said the high priest. "Not in
Telelee nor in the wide world".
"It is whispered in the depths," replied
Artemisia, "that she has spoken with the worshipers of the Lady.
Yea, and even gone to the grottoes of the skinless devourers who
are worse than Her." This news made both cats arch their backs, and
their fur stand on end.
"Only the desperate and wretched, who have
some wrongness of body and mind, worship those of whom you speak,"
said the high priest at last. "Thus these gods are like wolves who
are half-starved, and whose meager food is rotten. The one who
dines on Abi-simti's worship will grow strong. Many things which
hide in the darkness below shall hide no longer". The old cat
lifted and shook all four of his paws, one by one, as if he had
stood in something foul.
"Yet your whiskers are longer and more
sensitive than any others," said Artemisia, "and can feel even into
the future. Can you not therefore tell us how we may thwart the
wizardess' designs?"
The high priest stood for a long while with
ears cocked and eyes wide open, listening for the faint vibrations
of future things.
"I can," he said at last. "Yet the witch is
not a ball of wool, that may be knocked one way or the other with
ease. We are like a cat who walks upon a fence lined with shards of
glass. Yet there are dogs on either side, and I can see no other
way".
---
Exhausting the gods that are known in
Telelee, Abi-simti then studied those only known in other lands.
But Telelee is as the sea into which all rivers flow, or the market
where all gather, or as some moralists have it, the lowest point in
all the world, to which all base matter must descend. Thus most of
the gods not known there were dead, or senile, or had passed from
the world in which Telelee is found. Just when she was close to
despair, she learned of the god who had been driven away.
He had come from another world, younger than
hers, where the gods still lived among mortals. This god kept a
group of witches, who were called Snake-Wearers. These women would
drive themselves into a frenzy with wine and dancing. Then they
would bare their necks to the fangs of venomous snakes. The poison
would drive out their reason but increase their strength. Their
nails would grow and harden until they were like the claws of
lionesses. To stand against them in battle was to take a sword to
stop a river, or to argue against old age. Wherever they went the
people hid, and envied those who were visited by locusts and
plague.
Finally all the other gods made war on him,
whether for despoiling the land or for giving away his power none
may say. He and his followers fled, through a great desert and to a
high mountain. The journey to reach the god was long and dangerous.
Yet every so often a farmer would find a sheep or an ox mutilated
and dead, and no wolf or boar about who might have done the deed.
Then folk would say that it must have been a witch, on her way to
join the god.
Having read this, Abi-simti longed to pledge
service to the god and thereby to be told the secrets of the
Snake-Wearers. Yet her desire did not overwhelm her cunning. There
was the problem of the desert, so barren that there were not even
djinns. If there had been djinns, then she could have bound them to
her service to carry her. She would have arrived in an instant, in
a chariot of finest crystal, and her arrival would have been as the
entrance of the Queen of Sheba into the city of King Solomon (an
event which is known in almost all worlds). She wasted little time
on such thoughts. For there were no djinns. And there is a law of
the universe, as immutable as the desire of all matter to bind
together which grows more ardent the greater the mass, and is
called
gravity
. This law is that, of all spirits, only
djinns may bear one across a desert.
Abi-simti contemplated this desert that she
must cross like any traveler, enduring days of cruel sun and nights
of sepulchral cold, and the bleached bones giving demonstration of
her likely fate. She beheld with mind's eye the bare mountain that
must be climbed, and the sharp rocks which waited to embrace her,
and felt despair.