The House of Cthulhu: Tales of the Primal Land Vol. 1 Read online

  Now for certain the stream flowed down out of the Great Circle Range, and equally obvious the fact that it passed through a vein rich beyond precedence. The nuggets and dust we had taken from the stream already were sufficient to set us up comfortably, but the source of this wealth, the mother lode—ah!—that would make us rich beyond all dreams of avarice; aye, and all our descendants after us. So it pleased us to fancy.

  But here let me tell you about Phata Um, my partner. He was younger than me by ten years, Phata: big, blond, slow moving, with the frame and supple limbs of a young god—but quiet and generally resentful of people. They made fun of his slow, easy-going ways—of his slow smile and his shyness. But they made it behind his back. He could pull the head off an ox, that one, and a single blow from his mighty fist would surely crush and kill any lesser man.

  That was why he was a prospector. There is no one to laugh and poke fun at you in the mountains or along the great rivers. Only other prospectors. And because I myself am not much for company—a bit of a loner, you might say—why we got along splendidly, Phata Um and I. I suppose I might put it in a nutshell by stating quite simply that if I was the brain of our partnership, then Phata was the brawn; but at the same time I hasten to impress that I was not his master but a true partner, and the split was always right down the middle. Phata was like a little brother to me and loved me dearly, and for my part I guarded his interests as were they my own.

  Indeed, in country wild and uncharted as this, my partner’s interests were my own; his senses of direction and survival were unexcelled, and I swear he was as great an outdoors man as any long-maned barbarian from the north-west. Where I could get lost and starve in a back-street in my own town (I exaggerate a little, you understand) Phata Um could happily navigate the stormy Teeth of Yib or dwell for a six-month in the heights of the Great Circle Mountains themselves; and all without the least discomfort!

  Even before we met Phata had been a great traveller; he knew the mountains, plains and deserts, the rivers and the lochs—all of the places where a man would go to commune with himself, to find peace in utter loneliness. Which was why I listened to him whenever he had something to say about the dangers of the regions in which we travelled; and usually I would follow to the letter his advice in such matters—except where gold was concerned. Nor was I alone in my avarice, for Phata too would seek far beyond all wise or commonsense boundaries for sight of that heavy, yellow, precious stuff of dreams.

  Such was now the case as, still following the stream, we entered the foothills of the Great Circle Mountains. As we went we still collected the occasional nugget and continued to fill our tiny leather sacks with dust; and the fact that already we were wealthy men served only to spur us on, despite Phata’s warning that we rapidly approached a region of extreme hazard. For as my partner began to read signs in the sudden luxuriousness of vegetation and the steamy breezes blowing from the distance-misted peaks, so he remembered things heard from other adventurers who perhaps trod this road before us. Phata himself had never wandered this way, and now he told me the reason:

  Rumour had it, he said, that at the foot of the mountains where they climbed sheer to the sky, in a place where volcanic vents drove jets of steam and boiling mud high into the air, there one could find a marsh and a jungle of tropical aspect. More green and luxuriant than the coastal forests of the south, that region, whose fringes housed a pigmy race of men at once curious and terrible. Their weapons were blowpipes whose darts were dipped in orchid-extracted poisons, and their gods—

  Their gods were monsters of the marsh, great slugs as big as mammoths, whose nocturnal habits had awed the pigmies since time immemorial, elevating the monstrosities to the plane of deity. Of the worshippers of these loathsome beasts, Phata had also heard it said that they were shy. Normally they would keep their distance and only intervene when strangers pressed too closely upon their preserves: their settlements and the marshes where dwelled their slug-gods, which were taboo, forbidden to any outsider.

  A little more than this my partner knew, but not much. The pigmies respected strength, but if a man was a coward . . . then let him not go into their jungles or anywhere near their marshes. Their darts were swift and certain and their cruelties toward their enemies enormous. They had filed teeth and they ate the flesh of any that wronged them; either that, or they fed them to their slug-gods.

  And so Phata’s warnings should have been deterrent enough, and perhaps would have been but for his final word: that he had also heard it said of these little men that they all wore great bangles and necklets and earrings—aye, and massive noserings, too—and all of purest shining gold! Which seemed to me to hint that the mother lode might well lie central within their domain. So be it; we would befriend them, if indeed they existed at all . . .

  Well, they did exist and we found them—or rather they found us—but not for a good many days.

  In between we panned and pocketed, and ever the fruits of our labours were richer, until our yaks were heavy burdened with the weight of our wealth. And the forest grew up around us as we followed the stream toward its source, so that we walked in rich leaf-mold through sun-dappled groves of exotic blooms; and ever the way became more lush and steamy. The foliage grew more tropical in appearance, and the raucous cries of beasts and birds more frequent and more clamorous, until it became hard to believe that we were on the mainland at all but must surely, miraculously have been transported to orchid-wreathed Shadarabar across the Straits of Yhem.

  By now our beasts had had enough. Their hooves were not made for this sort of terrain and they grew more rebellious by the hour. We put them on long tethers in an open if somewhat bushy pasture close to the stream and left them there, at the same time relieving the yaks of their golden burden, which we buried in an unmarked cache pending our return. Then we pressed on.

  Now it was not our intention to avail ourselves of more gold, not at this time, but simply to see if Phata’s myths and legends had any truth in them. In any case, we had neither the strength nor the facilities for handling more of that weighty stuff; but our curiosity was aroused in respect of the pigmies and we wanted to know more about them, to see them for ourselves and perhaps strike up a trading relationship with them. Of course, being prospectors, we still greatly desired to know the location of the mother lode—that mighty deposit whose merest traces had been washed downstream over long centuries—but only as a prelude to future and better equipped expeditions.

  After three more days of penetration into the now dense jungle, always following the stream—though this was now much more difficult due to the generally swampy nature of the region—Phata Um and I arrived at a blue lake whose central island seemed feathered with a village of tiny houses on shivery stilts, above which drifted the blue and grey smoke of cooking fires. Small brown men in hollow-log canoes fished in the lake with nets weighted with nuggets of gold, and their appearance was in accordance with Phata Um’s earlier description. His informants had not lied.

  At this point we might have turned back, or perhaps negotiated the lake until we discovered once more the course of the stream on its farther shore, except that any such decision was taken completely out of our hands. For two days and nights now we had suspected that we were observed, that secret watchers lurked behind the hanging vines, in the thickly clustered ferns and wide-leaved foliage, and on several occasions slight movements had been noted on our flanks which had a stealth not normally apparent in common animals. We had felt intelligent eyes upon us where we walked the stream’s bank, and there had been whistled calls which had not the ring of ordinary birds but hinted of the conveyance of certain secret messages.

  Nevertheless, and for all that we were prepared for the confrontation and had indeed expected it sooner or later, we started horribly when the flared snouts of long blowpipes emerged suddenly from the lakeside’s fringing foliage; and without conscious volition both Phata and I reached for our knives. With ferocious warning hisses—filling their cheeks with ai
r as they came into view and gripping the stems of their deadly weapons with their teeth—the pigmy party emerged from hiding and we saw that we were surrounded.

  “Well,” said I, placing hands on hips and smiling, however nervously, “this is what we expected, Phata . . . but what do we do now?”

  II

  My partner said nothing but having recovered from his initial shock he merely held out his great hands before him at arm’s length, his fists open and palms uppermost. Lying in the cup of his left palm, in clear view, was a tiny golden whistle with which I had heard him imitate certain birdcalls. Deliberately and very slowly he placed the whistle in his mouth and blew a mellow, throaty warble, somehow managing to smile the while. The pigmies immediately lowered their weapons and clustered to him, their brown eyes aboggle, their mouths brimming with a strange and primitive language beyond our ken. Encouraged, Phata broke into a piercing trill which trailed off into a series of sharp, piping chirrups of inquiry.

  The pigmies were enthralled. One of them, stepping forward, pointed excitedly at his own mouth and said something utterly unintelligible. When Phata frowned and shook his head, the little man looked momentarily frustrated and began to hop up and down; but then he grinned, stopped dancing and handed Phata his blowpipe. This was done with a spontaneous naivete which could in no way be construed as acknowledgement of subservience; but it did have the effect of leaving the pigmy’s hands free. The smallest fingers of these he now placed in the corners of his wide mouth, and using fingers and mouth together he delivered a sustained blast of a whistle which was very nearly deafening. Phata and I made loud noises of approval and I ventured so far as to pat the performer upon his brown back.

  It was now my turn to show my talents, and being something of a sharp (that is to say, I have a certain knack at sleight of hand), I confounded the small folk by pulling nuggets of gold from their ears and noses, by making my thumbs disappear and reappear momently, and by use of my speciality, which was to toss a nugget into the air—only to have it fall back to earth as a shower of fragrant flower petals. Child’s play for sure, but effective beyond all expectations. We had mighty juju indeed, Phata and I, and the N’dola—for so they called themselves—made us most welcome from that time forward. Alas, this happy state of affairs was not to last; but of course we were not to know that.

  In no time at all we found ourselves seated in a hollowed-out log canoe and paddled out to the isle of the N’dolas, where immediately we were taken to see the chief, An’noona. An’noona’s hut was taller and bigger than any other, and its stilts correspondingly stronger; but they nevertheless trembled and swayed a little as the chief himself—a tiny, ancient, wizened pigmy—descended fragile looking ladders to meet us.

  Close by was a large open space with a dais and throne, upon which the chief seated himself with a pair of pigmy councillors standing behind him. Phata and I were led to the space in front of the dais, where once again we performed our repertoire of tricks. Thankfully, An’noona was no less appreciative than his subjects, and each phase of our performance was greeted with hand-clapping and a great deal of chatter and grinning. And my partner and I kept smiling, but we exchanged meaningful glances at sight of all the sharply pointed teeth which the concerted grinning so amply displayed.

  Just as we were reaching the end of our show, a disturbance at the rear of the pigmy crowd (for by this time the entire village had turned out to see us) drew our eyes. And now, as the milling ranks of tiny people grew silent and shrank back from the place of the disturbance, so for the first time we saw the tribal witch-doctor, Ow-n-ow. At first glance we knew we had an enemy in this evil looking midget; the way his hooded eyes met ours, the way he pointed with his feathered wand and shook his bone rattle in imitation of a deadly snake told us so.

  And now he approached, with many a leap and bound, gyrating wildly as the crowd gave him room and his naked feet sent the dust flying. Right up to us he came, leaping high in the air to point his gold-tipped wand first at me, then at Phata Um. And now he paused before us, arms akimbo, his wicked monkey face contemptuous as he silently defied us to do our worst.

  “What now?” asked Phata Um from the side of his mouth. “They hate cowards.”

  “Then we must show them what we’re made of,” I countered. “Now is not the time for faint hearts. Let’s see if we can deflate this little dung-beetle.” So saying, I stooped and pretended to snatch up a handful of sand, which I hurled straight into the witch-doctor’s face!

  Instinctively, he threw up his hands before his eyes—but instead of stinging dust and grit he found himself surrounded by a settling shower of tiny, rose-tinted petals. Before he could recover, Phata Um took hold of his shoulders and lifted him up bodily until he stared directly into his startled, frightened eyes. The little man knew that my partner could crush him there and then, if he so desired. Phata did no such thing but merely blew a deafening blast on his whistle, already secreted in his mouth. Then he put the shrieking, wildly kicking little man back down on his feet again.

  Backing off in confusion, Ow-n-ow tripped and sat down hard in the dust, and the momentarily silent crowd at once burst out afresh with hoots of derision and raucous catcalls, until the witch-doctor scrambled to his feet and fled. Then for some little time the clearing was full of tiny mimics who replayed over and over Ow-n-ow’s downfall and less than graceful exit, until the chief clapped his hands sharply and brought the assemblage back under control.

  Briefly, in a voice wizened as its owner, which yet carried across the clearing, An’noona then spoke to his subjects, the while pointing at Phata and me where we patiently stood; and in the next instant the entire crowd prostrated itself before us, then quickly jumped up and danced all about us. We had been accepted—which did not say a lot for Ow-n-ow’s popularity!

  After a moment or two An’noona stood up and came forward on the log dais until his eyes met ours on a level. He lifted a heavy golden chain from his neck and placed it over Phata’s head, unclasped from his own krinkly hair a massive brooch of gold crusted with gems and pinned it to my jacket, then stood back and admired us. Not to be outdone, Phata handed the chief his golden whistle, and for my part I gave to him a jewelled northstone set on a pivot in a little silver box. Delighted with this exchange of gifts, An’noona went back to his hut and Phata and I were left in the care of his councillors.

  One of the latter pair—little more than a youth but with a great head of almost acromegalic proportions, which bore a livid scar running from his left temple to his chin—astounded us by speaking to us in our own tongue, however distorted by a twanging barbarian influence and accent. His name was Atmaas (the Knowing One) and he stumblingly explained his familiarity with our language by telling us the following story:

  As a boy Atmaas had been constantly mocked by the other children of the tribe because of his cranial deformity. Eventually, unable to bear any more of these jibes and taunts and general cruelties, one day the dam broke within Atmaas and he fled the village into the Great Circle Mountains. There he was befriended (in however harsh and brusque a manner) by a dozen wandering, outcast barbarians from the north-west. They took from him his golden bangles, nose-ring and other trinkets, but in return gave him food and taught him their tongue.

  Atmaas was quick to learn—which argued for a sound brain in that large, ugly skull of his—and soon his proficiency was such that he was able to converse freely with the longmaned outcasts from the north. Now they were able to question him about his golden ornaments, which had been divided between them, and they asked him to lead them to his homeland where they might find more of the precious yellow metal. At first he attempted to dissuade them, and such were his warnings that three of the barbarians did in fact split off from the main body; but the rest were not cowed by the lad’s tales of great slug-gods and poisoned darts, and they pressed him to show them the way to his swampy homeland.

  Fearing for what they might do to him if he refused them (and perhaps relishing a little th
e thought of sweet revenge for miseries his tribe had heaped upon him in the past), Atmaas at last agreed and brought the barbarians down out of the mountains, through treacherous swamps and reptile-infested forests to the lake of the N’dolas.

  They arrived by night, and silently the barbarians paddled out to the island and stole into the village. Their intention was to fire the village and raze it down, killing any pigmies who might escape the holocaust; and perhaps they might have succeeded, for certainly the village was at that time tinder dry and the element of surprise was on the side of the northmen.

  But by now Atmaas was beginning to feel pangs of guilt and remorse; and so, as the barbarians ran silently here and there in the night, setting fire to stilts, ladders, animal pens and the logs of the perimeter walls, so he stole away to the great golden gong whose voice was only ever heard in times of danger. As the fires began to take hold, he beat upon the gong and cried out in a loud voice to tell the men of the tribe to bring out their weapons and defend themselves and their families.

  One of the startled barbarians came upon him as he thus thundered, and in a berserker rage sought to cut him down. The single blow from the northman’s sword caused the hideous gash to Atmaas’ face and hurled him down half-dead; and thus he remained while the tribesmen in their high windows picked off the barbarians one by one with their poisoned darts. And at last, when the fires were under control, then the villagers discovered Atmaas where his crumpled body lay; and now they knew of his bravery—knew Atmaas of the Ugly Head as a hero—and now too they set about nursing him back to health.