The Black Sun, pt. 1

This weeks prompt: 25. Man visits museum of antiquities—asks that it accept a bas-relief he has just made—old and learned curator laughs and says he cannot accept anything so modern. Man says that ‘dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia’ and that he had fashioned the sculpture in his dreams. Curator bids him shew his product, and when he does so curator shews horror. Asks who the man may be. He tells modern name. “No—before that” says curator. Man does not remember except in dreams. Then curator offers high price, but man fears he means to destroy sculpture. Asks fabulous price—curator will consult directors. Add good development and describe nature of bas-relief.

Related Research: Part 1,Part 2,Part 3

The Later Stories:Part 2,Part 3

Derleth had run his antique shop for longer than some of his antiques had existed. A few paintings towards the back, caked with dust, were older than the store, but they were of such poor quality and little worth that Derelth didn’t think of them. The sign outside proudly informed the public that all interred artifacts predated the century and the automobile . It was an attempt both at luring some customers and deter many others.

Such enamored customers did not typically include the likes of Robert Crane. Derelth was reading his books when Robert Crane stumbled in. Robert Crane was the sort that newspapers referred to as “ a product of the lately dismal times”, or as Derelth said “the slag of modern furnace”. His face was puffed as his shirt, his eyes red on the edges from lack of sleep. His coat was a faded blue, far too large, and with worn faux fur trim. A package wrapped in brown paper was in his pale shaking hands.

“Can I help you?” Derelth asked, peering over his glasses. His books needed balancing, due to a recent number of recent antiques flooding the market. Prices had to be managed after all.

“Yeah, you buy stuff right?” Robert said, eyes darting around. Derelth frowned. He was not a fan of informal language regarding his properties.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You buy stuff? Like, rocks and pens and scrolls and the such?” Robert asked, his dilated pupils fixing on Derelth.

“I purchase, collect, and display artifacts, yes sir.” Derelth said slowly, the sir stinging slightly on his toungue. Robert Crane was the very last person that Mr. Derelth would ever call sir. A babe had more right to the term sir.

“Great. I’ve got a new one for you.” Robert said, placing the package on the counter. “Just finished it, should be worth maybe three hundred?”

Derelth stared apoplectic. He was a tad light headed for a moment as the phrase worked it’s way through the gears and pistons of his mind. Eventually, after a good deal of soul searching and mental repair, Derelth believed he, in fact, had heard the words “a new one” refer to an artifact.

“A…A new one?”

“Yeah, like I said, just finished it.”

“Sir,” Derelth said slowly, his voice dropping to the stern tone of an English teacher, “I do not purchase ‘new’ art. There is a gallery down the road, which might entertain your piece.”

“Nah, its too old for them, they wouldn’t get it.”

“Too old? You said it was just finished!” Derelth said, standing up and glaring at Robert, “Can you not read? The sign outside clearly states, in the King’s English, that only antiques predating the century will be sold here. Return in ten decades time, and then we shall talk about buying whatever this is.”

“I made it yesterday, but not here.” Robert said, as if he were explaining the fact that sky was blue.

“Where you made it has no bearing on it’s age. Its a day old, regardless where it was made.”

“Dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia. And thats where I carved this wonder, this little nightmare, was off in the land of dreams.”

Derelth paused at that. Those words, they were not the kind to emerge from someone like Robert Crane’s mouth. They were old words, strange and alien in a faux fur coat.

“Well, I suppose I could see it then,” Derelth said, recovering a bit of his composure. “and better recommend a gallery for your artistry then.”

“I already told you its too old for all that. But you’ll get it when I show it I think.” Robert said, grinning far too wide for Derelth’s comfort. He carefully placed the package on the table. Such caution, Derelth reckoned, betrayed the shape as being of glass or other, more fragile material.

Robert’s hands worked like reverse spiders, rapidly and delectably weaving tears in the packaging. Tiny strips of brown butchers paper gave way as did the tiny bits of tape holding it all together. The fingers did an excellent job of fufilling that mystic paradox, obscuring the very thing they strained to reveal. Why, it was an effort to tell them apart, as Derelth watched them scurry back and forth along the paper, testing here and there for a possible easy tear.

But at last it was revealed. A great disk, maybe two feet in diameter, of carefully wrought stone. No, no Derelth said. It wasn’t quite stone. A bit too shiny, almost a more compromised smoke. Almost out of focus. Squinting, Derelth saw that the stone was finely carved. The flatness of the disk was do to the smallness of the detail. Retrieving a magnifying glass, he examined it. Along the edge were flood waters, a running river. Great fish and crocodiles were carved in minutia.

But the next line in showed more startling things. There were things that Derelth was familiar with, men with fish tails or the like. But the scene itself was not of frolicking mermen or the like, but rather villages and obelsisks being over run by alligators. Or rather, tree like things with alligator heads and arms in place of roots. Many heads decorated the strange creatures necks.

Derelth paused his examination there, slowly looking at the next layer, mountains that had mighty dragons and lions roaming in them. They are full teeth, and a number have skin carved to resemble great boulders. Some had no face or the face of insects, dripping mandibles. Some of the lion-dragons or their kin hearded lines of wild men, naked and miserable toward a mighty pile. Derelth’s eyes widened as he saw a great solar disk atop the temple and shrines.

“This does appear to be an old script. What did you say your name was?” Derelth said slowly, not taking his eyes off the disk.

“Robert Crane sir.”

“No, the other one.” Derelth said, glancing up. “The older one.”

“I don’t get your meaning. I went by RC once, few years back, but I don’t know any older name except when my mum called me Bobby.”

“Let me be clearer.” Derelth said, putting down his glass. “What did they call you when you made this?”

“Ah, I don’t know. I only remember when I’m, you know, there.”

Derelth paused, lost in thought. This was unexpected. The images were startling, but that was more due to their familarity than their shocking depictions. No, Derelth knew those images well. He had a book of them, in a vault in the back.

“Mr. Crane, I know a number of men who would be willing to purchase this, at a nearby museum.I’m willing to offer you a thousand for it.”

“A thousand? Mister, that’d be great, but you seemed a bit spooked by it.” Robert Crane said, slowly putting his hand over the sculpture.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t have someone buy it who’s going to break it.”

“I assure you, I will do no such thing.”

“Still. Hows about something else, just in case? Have you got any of the waters, from the old rivers?” Robert asked, looking around expectantly, “I hear they can take you places.”

Derelth paused, thinking a moment before replying. The answer was a bit complicated.

“I will talk with some of my associates on acquiring some waters from the Gange or somesuch, if that is your price.”

That seemed to satisfy Mr. Crane, who smiled and left. Derelth stood alone with the piece, tempted greatly to smash it. But no, the board would need to see this. This was not something that came out of the times. The times were meant to put a stop to this nonsense.

---

As I said last time, this story will be presented in three parts. As this was the first and introductory part I find it…acceptable? My time working on it was not the best, and while it seems a decent start at times, it also doesn’t quite click on it’s own. What corpse did you uncover, dear brothers and sisters? Did it’s bas relief provide any terrors?

If you’d like to support the Society, receive more stories or research, or are feeling generous, please check out our Patreon here.

Ia Ia, Cthulhu F’taghn. What A Wonderful Phrase.

This weeks prompt: 25. Man visits museum of antiquities—asks that it accept a bas-relief he has just made—old and learned curator laughs and says he cannot accept anything so modern. Man says that ‘dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia’ and that he had fashioned the sculpture in his dreams. Curator bids him shew his product, and when he does so curator shews horror. Asks who the man may be. He tells modern name. “No—before that” says curator. Man does not remember except in dreams. Then curator offers high price, but man fears he means to destroy sculpture. Asks fabulous price—curator will consult directors. Add good development and describe nature of bas-relief.

Later Research:Part 2,Part 3

The Resulting Stories: Black Sun Part 1,Part 2,Part 3

This prompt gifts us with a rather clear cut outline. I will dwell very rarely on the specific here, however, and entire into something a bit more deep of a dive. For the stars have aligned, my good brothers and sisters. Firstly, we approach the fiftieth post (our twenty fifth story). Secondly, fortuitously, this stands as perhaps the prompt for the most famous story of Mr. Lovecraft. The Call of Cthulhu.

For such an occasion, we cannot simply go without celebration. So, we will be extending both the story and the research into three parts. Here, we shall discuss the great priest of the Old Ones himself, his mythic ties, his modern depictions, and ia ia. Our story will like wise be in three parts, such that in six weeks time our revelry will be done. And then our normalcy will return.

If by some luck you are unfamiliar with the story of the arch-squamous one, I recommend reading it now. It is a delight and a classic of horror, if a bit weighty as most of Lovecraft is. The nature of the tale is (like ours) split into three sections, and runs about a novella long.

Cthulhu stands as an interesting character in horror. He is an odd personality, a monster that stands as an icon now…but is rarely present in his own tale. So vast and huge is the difference between himself and his appearance in the popular mind that establishing where his stands from a myth or arch typical perspective is necessary.

While there are hold outs that attest to his nature as an alien power (The Mountains of Madness confirm this), and originally seems to lack any mystical proprieties, he none the less taps into a mythic mold. Namely, a force of Khaos, defeated and sealed ages back.

By this I mean, Cthulhu is (by all accounts) a thinking entity. He is not human, and thinks in a way alien to us, but he is not himself a gibbering god like Azazoth or a massive and mighty Shoggoth. He is alien and disturbing, but he is not insane. And in myth we have plenty of similar creatures.

We have of course mighty Tiamat, mother of monsters, and her lawgiver Kingu. Both, like Cthulhu, bear a resemblance to aquatic lifeforms, and both bear an association with dragons. And both further are defeated by a younger age of similar entities (the Elder Things and the likes of Marduk). Kingu as a subordinate servant with still great power resembles Cthulhu in particular, with Cthulhu being pontiff and grandson of Yog-Sothoth.

Such creatures also bear Lovecraftian description (many heads) things with all description (containing mineral, animal, and vegetable qualities) or even as Hundun, a Chinese entity who walks like a man with no nose, mouth, or eyes. The primeval entity Leviathan in some midrashic lore likewise predates the current creation, and capable of waging war on the almighty YHWH alone.

In the lore of the Aztecs a great crocodile prevented the current creation, with a mouth on every joint, named Cipactli who devoured the foot of one of the great gods. In Greek myth, the Titans lack a clear oceanic link, but Typhon (a mighty dragon like creature that stands like a man) rose from the deep to make war on Olympus. So tall that the stars were knocked aside by his head, the great last son of earth made war on Zeus, driving all other Olympians to flee before him. If it weren’t for a nearby shepherd saving Zeus’s sinews, he would be driven out. Again like Cthulhu he is a descendant of a mightier set parents (Gaia and Erebus for the record).

All this is to say, fear of the sea and great creatures in it extends past song. The sea is often acknowledge as a primeval lord. Poseidon, the great Greek God of the Sea, unleashes storms and rages against the authority of Zeus in the Illiad. In the Oddessey he fathers monstrous races like the Cyclops and worse. The sea goddess of the Netsilik like wise sends terrors and misery when left unappeased, and is mother of all creatures from the sea as well.

The dragon kings of the sea are mighty enough to earn respect from the Jade Emperor in the Journey to the West. Uncheliga emerges from Lakota myth likewise, She was described at first as having no real shape or form; she had eyes of fire, and a fanged mouth that was shrouded in a smoky or cloudy mass. As time went on further, her form was exposed as being massive, with a long scaly body whose natural armor was almost impenetrable. Her eyes burned with wrathful hunger, her claws were like iron, and her voice raged like thunder rolling in the clouds.

Typhon

From the sea comes the enemies of the gods, then. And Cthulhu fits this initially in a symbolic sense, at first anyway. He towers as a draconic-squid-man from the sea, who’s rising would end the age of human dominance (which is also the age of the gods). This notion is reinforced with later inventions by August Derleth, who sets the forces led by Cthulhu against as the Elder Gods (yes, yes the naming is a tad confusing). While Derleth’s connections remove some of the horror and utter alien-ness of Cthulhu and sometimes impose a morality, there is an underlining reason.

Cthulhu’s nature, and what sets him apart from all others (and what ties him to this prompt), is his more than active mind. Cthulhu, when he begins to rise, effects and infects other minds with messages. As we’ve said countless times, visions and inspiration from dreams has divine connotations. This makes Cthulhu’s rise more like a volcanic erruption (which is often called the breath of Typhon) than anything else. It should be said that this is an unusual incident. Only at the right time is something so terrible glimpsed.

Cthulhu bears one more trait akin to those older beings: His kin are terrors. Cthulhu bears four known children by his own kind: Cthylla, Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, and Zoth-Ommog. Each is worshiped in its own right. And then there are his subjects, the alien star spawn who shift shape and size at will like demons or djinn.

Cthulhu’s presence as a divine terror glimpsed in a moment of inspiration ties him to those dread Muses we once discussed, as well as some diabolical tales of musicians making deals with for inspiration. But all that is for another time. For now we will leave the great god below. For now.

If you’d like to support the Society, receive more stories or research, or are feeling generous, please check out our Patreon here.

The Fall of Ziegera, pt 1

This Week’s Prompt:24. Dunsany—Go-By Street. Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years.

This Week’s Research:The Fantastic Fae From Faraway!

I was but a boy when I first ventured past the fields we know. It is domain of children and innocents, that land of imagination that every youth and maiden is familiar with. Ask any of them of the wonders they saw, the adventures they were on, their great companions in that last gasp of freedom. It is an old, ever shifting land. Chaotic and full of ogres.

Adulthood lies to us, and insists that this world, this waking world of skyscrapers and certainty, is the real world. That distant Allnar is no such thing, that the castles beneath the sea cannot possibly be real. And some change comes over us in time. Some shift in the chemistry of the mind, some dilation of the eyes. And we can no longer see that beauty that bewitched us. The world robs us of naïve light.

But some of us, some us will not go quietly. There was a man in the former colonies who shrugged off the chains of this earth long ago. In Ireland, tales persist of those who are ‘whisked’ away. And I, for a time I was such a man. The doors into that great place lay open to me.

Even into the end of college days, I would lie in bed content. I sailed on the great river, which casts it shadow on the world as the shrunken and feeble Nile. With a large red sailed boat I sailed on to Allnar, that city by the sea. Its shining spires and great clock towers. I remember I would dance for days within the courts carved in crystal, with the ladies all dressed in lace.

I rode on the back of black horse to the west, to Ziegera, where the fields were gold with wheat and metal. Where the mighty mountains of iron feed furnaces of the people, to raise glorious ziggurats and temples of steel to idols of bronze. I bowed to priests as I passed, who knew the hidden words of the world.

The north of Ziegera was a wild place, a wood ruled by the King of Bears, a comrade in arms since I was a boy. He was as old as a mighty oak, and as fierce as a thundering storm. There the bears make war against the forces of the north, the whirling wind spirits that would blow the world away. And with them I made jolly pacts and feasted to their victory.

Returning to the world that we know was painful though. The priests at Ziegera told me it must be so. For centuries might pass between our meeting, but to speak with shadows was how it must be. Down into the cave, to be held with iron chains I was sent.

The world we know was always so drab. What man can make his fortune in London these days? Yonder Windgift boasts often that it has jobs to spare, a hungry Moloch looking to consume a helpless flock. The sea sings another song still, that young men might lose life and limb to the treacherous monsters that call it home.

And I believed this even in when the world was calm. When the great guns of war were unknown, when the battery of mighty canon did not echo off the shore of Britannia. When we feared ghosts conjured by suspect spiritualists, shadows of shadows, are delusions of meaning in a monstrous world. I bore the reality of existence as a yoke bears its masters load. Not happily, but not moaning under it either. After all, Allnar awaited in yawning dreams.

I was thirty when I found a route easier than mere sleep. For sleep bought me a few days, perhaps, on the coasts and in the woods of glory. But when I was in that twilight of life, I found something most amazing.

I was walking  down an old path through my families woods, when such things were still respectable. The moon hung full and a light in the sky, shining it’s pale glory down as I walked. There was, to my knowledge, nothing peculiar about my behavior that night. No solemn prayer to pagan gods, no deep mediation. I was walking, can in hand, down the forest street when I came to the river.

There was always a creek in my woods. Since boyhood, there had been but a simple bridge across, and I had paid it no mind in decades. It was maybe two hands wide, barely capable of slowing down even a small child wading through.

But some strange fae light had fallen upon my boyhood creek, and now it looked all the grander. It was a river, mighty and sure, so wide that I could not see the other side. The bridge was still there, stretching out to eternity. But while before it was naught but wood, it now was of brilliant diamond and emerald.  Green and glittering beneath the light of Diana, it waited for me to cross.

Perhaps a wiser man would question it. Perhaps a smarter man would have stared more deeply, inspected it’s construction. Perhaps. But I am more a man of foolishness and bravery than any such man. Despair is Wisdom’s handmaiden, and it is misery’s sweet kiss that shows one the secrets of the world. I walked across trembling at first, then with greater haste, until at last I was sprinting and full of wind.

And then I was in that land again, that wonderful city of stars, that crystalline castle. And there I remained for months, laughing again. My limbs were young, my spirit alive. It was as if I went out into a garden after being sick for ages, as if I was blind and now I saw the wonder of the Sophia. I saw the seasons come and go, the kings of winter riding on horses of clouds. I traveled to new lands yet unseen, distant Cathay and the realm of the evergreens.

For a time, I settled, though were is lost to me. It was stolen, long ago, from my mind. But I recall the joy of life in that cabin or house, entertaining friends and farming soil. But it could not last. One night, they came dressed in iron robes and with eyes of fire.

The priests of Ziegera, with great golden staves and silver knives gathered around my house one night, years since I had come. I was out hunting when they arrived, and when I returned nothing of my hall remained but ash. Flame bleched from the priests mouths upon my fields, and there silver knives were stained red.

I drew my steel, my mind remembering a hundred wars in this world of Allnar, a thousand victories over demons and spirits of the sky. I was, since boyhood, the triumphant hero of creation. Some shambling priests could not stand before me.

“It is not the place for shadows and fancies to linger this long. We warned you often, Jahpeth, we warned you well. Bodies as frail and mortal as yours are not meant for this place.” The high priest said from his throne of sure silver. His mouth and eyes flicker as he continued, his fellows glaring down upon me. “Had you any piety for this place, any obedience to it’s laws, long ago you would have cross that emerald. But you stay, and that we cannot allow any longer. Your presence, you old decayed man, invites your attendants. Look! Do you not see them, swirling about your footsteps, etching themselves into the songs of the world?”

I paid them no heed, a brave fool still. But I forgot that one great word of the Greeks: Not even Hercules may best two. So homeward I was sent tossed into the river against my will. The priests began their solemn chants as I floated along still.

Find part 2 here.

If you’d like to support the Society, receive more stories or research, or are feeling generous, please check out our Patreon here.

The Fall of Ziegera, pt 2

This Week’s Prompt:24. Dunsany—Go-By Street. Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years.

This Week’s Research:The Fantastic Fae From Faraway!

A flood, my savior told me, had nearly washed me under and away. I thanked him bitterly, he knew not what he had done. The next night, for naught but a few hours had passed, I went in search of that emerald bridge. But it was gone. The planks of the old bridge were ripped asunder. There was nothing. I took some solace, reckoning that in my dreams I would witness great rivers and iron mountains.

I was wrong.

I did not dream. I slept and my body seemed to fade into nothing. My mind followed shortly, subdued by slumber. And then I simply was again. If this was always the case, perhaps you cannot grasp the little death that accompanied me.

At first panic seized me. Those priests, who my friends told me where but figments of some over active mind, had banished me back. Cast me down to world that more and more seemed to be the slag and ash of a great wonder. I raced wild for some time, I will not lie. I sought dens of those trying to escape. I went to places that dealt often in dreams.

Panic gave way, however, to his older brother Terror. Day by day the sky turned stained. Hour by hour I saw color slipping through my skin. The woods faded, the roads grew. The great factories continued to rise, and then became ruins in time. The castles and manors were lost, first to monks as stern as stones, then to nothing in particular. Perhaps just to rot.

In time, I grew to look at my sickness as a science. I had heard, from a friend in the Indes, that certain holy waters were said to grant visitations. That if one wanted to cross a fabled river, a glass of its water would do the trick, whisking one’s soul away to that forgotten place. Of course, few had heard of the great river the emerald bridge. A nameless river is, after all, hard to find.

It was a rainy day when at last I found a small store that prided itself in such things. Its own defense against the world I suppose. There were jars of preserved bones, each with the saints’ name slapped on with tape. True crosses lined its walls. Such places are dime a dozen, and grew like weeds in desperate times. But what this place had, it’s perhaps one claim to true fame, was the bottles along the wall. Each had a paper tag, this one from the Egyptian Nile, that one from Roman Tiber, here the great Jordan, there the eternal Ganges.

One of these, I reckoned, was that fateful river of the emerald bridge.

I waited until a night when all was quiet and I was alone. I wanted my passing to be swift and sweet, to avoid interference by misguided relatives. I mixed the ashes of a dove’s feather in the cask and drank a single cup. I heard the steel mug clatter on the floor as my hands began to numb. The numb spread over me in a matter of seconds.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that verdant bridge stretching before me. The ground clinked as I ran and danced down the way to that old familiar shore. My laughter rang unopposed through the sky, the stars shining with all the lights of heaven. I nearly collapsed and kissed the ground when at last I set foot on the firm familiar shore.

But not all was right. The woods I knew was no more, nothing but rent stones and thorny groves grew there.  I thought perhaps this was some new season I had missed. Some strange tide that brought oddities. I resolved to head northward, to follow the river to Allnar. After all, perhaps the cunning priests had moved the bridge.

Northward was not as I remembered. When I reached that place that I supposed the great city of shining crystal stood, I found instead a grim sludge. It was as if the earth was bleeding into the river and ocean, a bloody blaze bubbling out. Great shining pillars still stood, but bit by bit they were dragged down. One day I suppose they will sink.

Something had gone horribly amiss. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps I had the wrong cask. Perhaps some curse of the priests had sent me elsewhere. But even I knew this wasn’t right. The pillars bore the old sigils of the Allnar, and some I recalled from my escapades on the ballroom of crystal. I decided to head west, to see the mountains of iron and the priests therein.

There was a distant clicking behind me of hooves as I walked onto those plains, covered in white grass. You would think snow had fallen if it weren’t for the cracking and crinkling sound they made as you stepped. I turned behind myself to see if anyone was following, to confront whatever grim specter waited. But there was nothing to the horizon, except a storm cloud swirling out by the sea where the river came to an end.

Carrying on west, I found the lands of Ziegera no less terrible. The mountains still loomed tall and might, but there were no temples. Instead, great craters and caverns of fire lined there sides, hungry maws of Moloch roaring with smoke. But unlike Allnar, I did here see some living souls. From a ridge I watched them, broken and bent shapes that resembled men. They pushed mighty carts of gleaming gold and burnished bronze, up paths and dumped them into the maws.

As I watched, strange creatures came and went. They looked the part of mortal men, but stood twice as tall and with the heads of lions and tigers. Their mouths spewed fire, and in their hands were great serpentine whips. In iron chariots they rode, taking glee in assailing the poor workers.

I would have turned tail then and there. I heard the distant hoof beats growing quieter now, and if I was to slip by, now would be the time. But one of the older works spotted me. As I made to leave, I heard an aged voice call out.

“Jared?” he said. I stood stark still, a child caught by his parents. The voice, I recalled it dimly. But I could not, even in the land of dreams, place it. I turned as the old man limped away from his cart. Some of the other workers stared on in hushed silence.

“Jared!” he shouted, rushing towards me. His fingers were so thin, they were like claws on my back. I could feel each rib as he embraced me. “I had thought you only a dream from boyhood, a fiction I’d long forgotten! But at last, at last you’ve returned.”

I stared ahead blankly as he turned to the crowd and told of all the things I’d done when I was a younger man. How I had fought against the winds of the North. How I had quested to see that glimmering lion Sharur. How I had only left when the priests drove me out.

And the hoof beats faded at last. I let out a sigh for a moment, glad that at least I had not been caught unawares by whatever foe pursued me. The workers began to stumble back however. And a voice, a voice of pealing thunder, came from behind me.

“Go on, good sir, and finish your story. I have just arrived, but make no pleasantries for me and mine.”

I turned to face the voice, the elder hanging from me like a sash of flesh. And there he stood, atop a great steed. He was tall, taller than I could quite work my head around. I could feel his shadow, stretching from his feet and out over the land until it dimmed even the distant fires. His skin was dark like soot and slag, his breath a venomous green gas full of flies. And his steed, his steed was a wicked thing. Its head was a rabid dog, its tail a serpent, its feet like a lions.

And behind him were gathered a vast host, each a towering figure atop a monstrous steed, with many heads and mouths. Each bore sword or spear or hammer or whip, cages on their sides and backs. Many roared and bayed as the leader spoke.

The old man stayed silent, his eyes wide.

“No? Then let me intrude. For once I heard of your return, whispered on the winds of the desert, I had to come and pay respect Jared Jahpeth. For without your sturdy bridge of emerald, how could I cross the great river of all torments? Without your cardinal march, I would be bound between the shores. Yet you in your kindness let me in. And now the bridge, broken by the iron of Ziegera a thousand years past opens again! Come, ride with me to glorious conquest and ruination! A thousand year reign, a ten thousand year reign!”

And he reached down a palm the size of nations towards me, aiming to pick me up like a small insect lost in a house. As he lifted me up, I saw that he had a hundred heads stretched above the clouds. Each a new beast, a menagerie of horrors. Each grinned with a thousand teeth and mandibles and in the multitude of eyes I saw cruel delight. And terror held me in place for a time.

I saw stretching before, in those eyes, a mind capable of thousand cruelties upon the soul, a mouth that in ancient times bore plague and war with its breath and words. And when the iron chains of terror loosened on my legs and arms, I turned and leapt off the arm. Limbs outstretched, I flew as only a dreamer can. I dove and swerved over the mountain tall host. A hundred hissing beasts burst from their skin and soared after me, but the mind is faster than the host.

When the familiar green stripe of the bridge appeared, I descended down.  For a moment I let myself breathe, but recalling the hosts earlier trick, the silence was no comfort. I sprinted in a panic towards the bridge. My footsteps in panic trampled their former steps of joy.

At last I found myself in my study. At once I began to pen this note. Trust me well dear reader, for this is locked in my bottom cabinet. Forsake boyhood swiftly, or the realms of dream become a nightmare. Never seek the paths to Allnar, lest they follow you in your steps. The bandits lie in wait on the other side of the emerald bridge, and the once good paths are filled with vipers.

There is no refuge in dreams any longer.

I hope you enjoyed this tale of horror! The body was so big, I couldn’t cut it down to the normal size. Next time, we will have a lengthier research section, as we approach our fiftieth corpse un-interred. Oh, and if you missed part 1, it’s here.

If you’d like to support the Society, receive more stories or research, or are feeling generous, please check out our Patreon here.

The Fantastic Fae From Faraway!

This Week’s Prompt: 24. Dunsany—Go-By Street. Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years.

This Week’s Story: Part 1, Part 2

This prompt brings many things to mind. For starters, we have Dunsany again! We talked at length about him here, for those uninformed. Great author, and all of his works are available online. Go-By Street included!

And Go-By Street is…interesting as an inspiration, since it is a sequel to the Idles of Yann. I will spare you the summation, since the basic premise is outlined in the rest of the prompt. And what a prompt. We have a reversal of a folkloric trope here: Fairyland.

Do not mistake the lands of the fae for kind ones, however. Distant though they are, the fae are a capricious lot. Even when they intend the best, they often do harm. The most famous harm, and one that this bears more than a passing resemblance to, is the habit of changelings. Fae will, for a variety of reasons, make off with a child who isn’t properly guarded by iron (or cold iron, to distinguish from steel). They replace the child with one of their own who is elderly, or a wooden doll.

When Subtly Is Secondary To “Screw The Fae”

The replaced child dies soon, and the stolen mortal suffers whatever fate the fae has in mind. Sometimes it is noble, as Oberon and Titianna’s during Midsummer’s Night Dream. Of course other times it is sinister. Fae are always in need of servants, you see. Even in Arthurian tales, there are stories of fae making off with brides and cattle of mortal lands, and taking them into their misty home.

The other story, and the more direct parallel to our prompt, is that of the traveler who comes to the Fae unawares. He falls in love with the extravagance, partakes of its food and perhaps falls in love with a woman. And then, one day, for whatever reason he decides to leave. This…never goes well. Typically, a condition is placed. The most famous is he must never leave his horse. And if or when he does, he will find age and time lost catch him. He is then rendered to dust.

The fate of faerie gold is likewise dim, turning to leaves upon returning. Beautiful steeds become donkeys. The gifts of the fae are only valuable in their realm, and like dreams, they fade in the realm of mortals. The nature of the fae (immortal, naturalistic, romantic, and captivating but fleeting) has captured imaginations of British authors for a good deal of time, and many a case they have played the role of the dead for cases like Sir Orfeo (the name may ring a bell).

The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania, by Sir Joesph Noel Paton

On the positive end, the Queen of Elfland supposedly granted Thomas the Rhymer prophecy and other gifts. The Faeire Queene ( an epic poem of truly vast proportions) grants also the eponymous character status as a benevolent entity. The authorities in the fae realms tend to be more fickle, but these diamonds cannot be left out.
The mingling of medieval and pre-Christian thought have given the fae the odd place as “not demons, but not angels” in some literature. The origin sometimes given is angels unwilling to revolt or remain loyal (a characterizations perhaps rooted in dreams as paradise, but mortal. Or the fae’s own complex nature). Other times, the fae owe great debt to those below, and pay tithe of seven men and women to the Enemy yearly (again, yes, this is familiar to a certain Greek fable).
The dream world of the fae is therefore, to say the least, complicated. Other similar stories include Rip Van Winkle and the last knight of Charlemagne, who dose off only to find the world shifted centuries in their sleep. The existential dread, then, of one’s world changing while one ‘rests’ is old. Waking up to an unfamiliar place is perhaps, however, a good deal better than sleeping into one.
For dreams are often places of fantasy and desire. Dreams, dreams are escape from reality-as-prison. Even nightmares are escape for more mundane and decaying terrors. Dreams decaying into derelict and destitute ruins is …disheartening. What could so destroy the land of fancy?

Asgardseien by Peter Nicolai Arbo

This pursuit raises perhaps one last story of the fae. The hunt. Oh the Wild Hunt. Trumpeting they come, on the clouds and riding dark horses. Sometimes, they are fae. Sometimes they are the souls of the damned, doing the devils due. Sometimes they are spirits of storm, laughing in thunder. The Wild Hunt is always a terror, bearing pestilence and power. They make off with souls to the land of fae or the dead, and their leader is often the Grim One, the Allfather of the land (Odin to the Norse, Arthur in Brittany) or a particularly cursed man (Count Hackleburg, oddly enough).

The fae version has a unique touch, however. As they draw close, the footsteps sound more distant. As the victim escapes, they sound closer. Thus, the prey runs itself ragged, and rests in the time of emergency. The fae rider is often the color of storm clouds (Dark grey or pitch black). The force of chaos perhaps could be the source of the age and ruin in the dreamland.
Mention must be made of the more obvious notion (albeit after this prompt was written): Narnia. For those unfamiliar…go read Narnia. I don’t really have other advice. It likewise has time skips between visits to a fantastic realm by accident. Go read it. It’s no Dunsany, but Lewis is a decent writer for the most part, with bits of brilliance when he remembers he’s not writing theology.

I love pictures of old authors in black and white. Have you noticed yet?

Structure is heavily preset in the prompt, but I will suggest one theme/scene that occurs in a favorite modern show of mine. That is, the realization that this is a shifted time isn’t simply another land is the recognition by a small child who is now an old man. Otherwise, the structure works out as described above. I have an idea for this work, and with regards to that I will keep my own counsel.

Mr. Jared Jahpeth

This Week’s Prompt: 23. The man who would not sleep—dares not sleep—takes drugs to keep himself awake. Finally falls asleep—and something happens. Motto from Baudelaire p. 214.

This Week’s Research: Insomnia and the Infernal

Windgift is not a place for lost souls. If you ended up lost in my fair city, it wasn’t by accident. The gird would guard against it, and the constabulary was always on the alert for misplaced workers. And when someone wanted to find you in the fog and cloud, beneath the factories churning light, they came to me. Typically, it was over money or marriage. But rarely, ever so rarely, it was to find out why you ran in the first place.

You in this case was Jared Jahpeth.

“He’d been erratic. Kept getting up in the middle of night, staying out late, and then just vanished. Muttering to himself a lot too. I caught him mixing something into his coffee, some pills. He even admitted to taking them at night, to keep himself working through the night. We were going to see a therapist that day, but he never made it to work.” Mrs. Jahpeth said, staring into my eyes. It was a tad unnerving, her eyes staring straight ahead as she talked. I don’t think she blinked.

We went through the more standard line of questioning after that. What did he look like, any enemies, any hangouts, friends, and so on. All out of town. Jared must have deep debts if he had to jump ship. She left a little more than an hour later, and I packed my things to make my way out onto the sky lit by the crimsons sun and steely clouds.

There was a chance that Luke, down at the pharmacy, had heard of him. There were only three pharmacies in town, and if you’re aiming to stay awake for more than a few days, you’ll need some memorable stuff. Coffee can only carry you so far.

Luke was a portly old man with only a few grey hairs left. He felt out of place in the slick and clean pharmacy, full of plastic cases and pills.  He always reminded me of a candy store salesmen from another world, more than happy to sell things that help people go on living.

“Martin! What are you in for? Anti-depressants? Tums?” he asked with a smile. Luke liked to pretend I was a regular for legitimate reasons. Poor guy.

“Nothing of the sort. Listen, anyone strange come in lately?” I asked, leaning on the white counter.

“Strange?”

“Yeah. Unusual new customers or the like.”

“Not that I can think of. Few kids trying to scam fake doctor’s notes by me, but that’s hardly new. Who’s the suspect this time?” He asked with a sigh.

“Guy named Jared. He’s getting something to keep him up. Anyone like that come by? Might have a doctored note. Kinda lanky, bags under the eyes, skittish.”

“Muttering to himself?” Luke asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. Probably carrying some coffee.”

“Guy came in a few hours ago. Can’t say much past that, patient confidentiality and all.”

“ Did you get word where he was staying? Just in passing?” I asked, leaning over the counter.

Luke shook his head. A dead end. Well, there were other sources. Outside of Luke’s and across the street there’s a timid old lady. Mrs. Wilcox, poor thing thinks the world is out to get her. Her paranoia makes her sharp, however, and a few years back I convinced her I was a double agent for the nefarious powers that be.

“He went east, looked awful. They’ve gotten to him, clearly, they have. Poor man,” she said through her peephole.

“Gotten to him how?” I asked, scribbling on a note pad.

“His limbs, they’ve injected them with some of the chemicals from their homeworld. They want to see if people can survive. You can tell, his limbs were twitching all the time.” She continue, her eye darting about.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wilcox.” I said, noting to confirm it when I found Jahpeth. Waking drugs will do that.

“And your end? What’s the latest you and your partner have found?” she whispered.

I got halfway through rattling off a list of local politicians that ‘were actually lizardmen’ before stopping.

“Partner?” I asked, turning around. The street was empty.

“Yeah, your partner. He’s in the alley, isn’t he? He’s been walking with you since you left the pharmacy.”

I nodded a bit, finished the tin foil hat wearing nonsense, and walked down the street for a bit. I waited a few blocks before turning around. Sure enough, I saw a shadow dart behind a building. It was a glimpse, but it was there. Sprinting down toward it, I began reviewing a list of possible enemies.

The alley was empty when rounded the corner. The alley only had one exit, and was completely bare. Past that, however, was Main Street. I continued the chase and looked about. I hadn’t caught a good enough glimpse to spot him by appearance. But behavior? No one was running, or looking over their shoulder. Just, vanished.

I retraced my steps with Jared. Wilcox said east. East was easy. There was a common hidey hole out east. See, the coal plant wasn’t in use any more, but it was still burning. There was a gas leak that caught, and well, the fire kept going.

It was evacuated not long after. Eternal fire isn’t exactly a habitable place. Past the warning fence was a preserved town, untouched and uninhabited for twenty years according to official records. Most of the time they were right. The odd squatter got the idea to hide out here for a month or two before leaving. Place almost radiated a sense of unease.

The dust brushed against my feet as I walked through ashen streets, listening. There was a breeze billowing broken doors and a growling flame still deep in the ground. I walked carefully down the streets, scanning for the remains of tracks before the winds washed them away. There wouldn’t be many, but if you looked closely, you could see shifts in the bigger piles of debris.

Eventually, the little impressions and shifts lead me to an small store front. The door was open, either because of the wind or negligence. I closed it slowly. I could hear someone breathing the stairs, hasty gasps, like he was had just run a mile.

Running up the stairs, I stop to see a single room with a bed. There’s a man, Jared, lying there. There are some packages on the desk next to him. A couple books were scattered on the floor. I stepped over them to get a closer look.

“Mr. Jahpeth?” I asked as I approached. His head bent back a bit, and his mouth fell open. And there was a loud, heave, followed by a rustling sound. And then, out it poured. His lung’s, his entire chest collapsed and ash spewed out of his eyes and mouth. His skin greyed and cracked, broken clay revealing an on rush of darkened blood. His bones were charcoal, an unseen fire burning him up.

I gripped the door frame as, after only a few moments, Mr. Jahpeth was naught but dust and bone. That insatiable curiosity of my profession, however, that demon of dark ambition bit my brain. I hunched over to look at the books scattered on the floor.  The ink was splotched, hard to read, but there were diagrams. A drawing of a horned figure, a thing rising out of a skull. I picked through a few more.

The writing was more legible, at first.

“There is a thing ticking in the back of the mind. There is a thing that I see in window panes in the alleys of my dreams. In eyes of distant mountains, in dark places growling things lie. Something is wrong in the skies.”

But the vague poetics began to decay. No doubt his ability to write decayed with Jared’s health. Sleep deprivation does not refine the motor skills.  Gradually, the ink bled into drawings again. Eyes in the ‘o’s, little trees out of ‘t’s.

But then, as I sat scanning book after book, great diagrams of trees full of fire and great birds with many eyes, I noticed something strange. The process seemed to be reversing. Letters were returning, although not English characters. Nor Greek or even vaguely Eastern letters. No, it was strange blockish script, dotted and swirled within it’s confines.

I collected all of it, all the books I could carry and began to leave the ashen place, the fiery pit beside the city roads. But at the door, I noticed some small impression in the ash. A set of tracks entering the house beside my own, visible only a moment before the wind swept them away.

I followed there general direction as the moon rose, yellow and worn. Starlight showed shining hoof tracks, a goat.  But I never found anything. What took Jared I can’t say. His wife didn’t show up at the deadline to hear what happened. When I got to the station, they denied ever hearing of him. Mrs. Wilcox didn’t open her eyehole after that, and a few weeks later her house went up in smoke.

I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I’m grasping at straws and chasing shadows. I’m lost, and the red high noon sun seems to be mocking me for it.

I am not proud of this story, to be honest. I feel it is truncated, missing an underlying horror, and doesn’t properly exploit the fear in dreams and devils. But perhaps it provided some fright or inspiration for your own work? What did you dredge up from the graveyard of dreams?

If you’d like to support the Society, receive more stories or research, or are feeling generous, please check out our Patreon here.