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

  “Yib!” the barbarian croaked, and then: “Get you gone, Theen of Vilthod’s Guard! I know you, lich—and you’re impotent to harm me in death even as you were in life. Aye, and for that matter impotent of all else!”

  Yet still the shade came on, shuffling on its knees before the Northman who fell back until once again he was hanging by his fingertips only. Blood flowed freely from between the horror’s thighs, ghost-blood that yet splashed Kank Thad’s face and ran scarlet down his straining arms, lich-blood that yet wetted the smooth rock of the cliff and made it slippery to the barbarian’s fingers. In his mind’s eye the terrified Northman saw himself once more in the tavern of Hethica Nid, and for the first time he recognised the monstrousness of the drunken atrocity he had perpetrated there. More freely yet ran the blood from the apparition’s violated loins, wetter the rocks and slimier still.

  “Oh, Gutrip!” the barbarian moaned once. “Why did you let me use you so?”—with which his fingers slipped in the blood and his great back arched in a death-embracing rigor and his eyes closed to shut out forever that ancient world.

  And his body fell with the speed of one of those stars that slide down the heavens at night . . .

  A mile below, Thamiel broke into a little dance and chortled and slapped his fat thighs, flinging his glass away in his complete exuberance and finally giggling hysterically. It had looked like the barbarian had won, and then, for no reason apparent in his glass, the great savage had fallen. Oh, how he laughed and stamped his feet.

  Then, remembering his Imperishable and Immaculate Justice, he puffed himself up, set his scarlet turban a trifle more correctly upon his head—and quickly got out of the way.

  And a few seconds later Kank Thad returned to Bhur-Esh.

  The Sorcerer’s Book

  ITEH ATHT of Klühn, having ofttimes conversed with my, wizard ancestor, Mylakhrion of Tharamoon (dead these eleven hundred years), now tell the tale of how that mighty mage was usurped by his apprentice, Exior K’mool. At least, history has always supposed that he was usurped.

  The story begins some fifty-three years before Mylakhrion’s demise, at the fortress city Humquass on Theem’hdra’s eastern strand, where that oldest and craftiest of sorcerers was the then resident mage, answerable only to the King himself. Humquass is no more, swept away by tides of time and war and Nature, but the legends live on.

  I

  Now in that day Humquass was a warrior city and its King, Morgath, was a warrior King; and the walls of the city were high and wide, with great towers where the soldiers were garrisoned; and the King’s territories extended to the south, even to the Hrossak border which Morgath would push back if he had his way. For the King hungered for those southern lands and his warrior’s heart ached for a kingdom which would enclose not only Hrossa to the River Luhr, but Yhemnis too. And Morgath would send ships across the Straits of Yhem to annex even Shadarabar, the island stronghold of savage black pirates.

  As for Mylakhrion: he had served the King for fifteen years, since that time when first he came out of the west and across the mountains into Morgath’s fierce kingdom. Aye, and in his way Mylakhrion had been a faithful servant, though truth to tell there were those who wondered who served whom.

  For Mylakhrion’s palace was greater than the King’s—though far less opulent—and where Morgath received common men, Mylakhrion would receive none at all. The mage’s familiars gave audience in his stead, speaking with Mylakhrion’s voice and in his manner, but any emergence of the sorcerer himself was a singularly rare thing. Indeed, the very sight of Mylakhrion abroad and active in the topmost turrets of his palace tower—no less than the passing of comets across the sky or eclipses of the sun and moon—was almost invariably taken as portent of great wonders . . . and sometimes of dooms and disasters. And lesser mages seized upon such sightings, reading strange weirds into the wizard’s ways, what little was known of them.

  One thing which was known for a certainty was Mylakhrion’s great age; not his actual age in years, but the fact that he was far older than any other living man. So thin as to be skeletal—with wrinkles to number against his years upon a skin of veined parchment pale as moonbeams—and with a long, tapering beard almost uniformly white, the wizard was

  ancient. Grandfathers could remember their grandfathers whispering of sorcerous deeds ascribed to his hand or wand when they themselves were mere children; and it was known for a fact that a previous apprentice of Mylakhrion’s, one Azatta Leet, had recently died in Chlangi at an estimated age of one hundred and eleven years!

  But in general the sorcerer’s astonishing longevity was not much mentioned. People were mindful of his magnitude—and of Morgath’s dependence upon him—and it was deemed neither moot nor even wise to probe too deeply into the hows, whys and wherefores of his attainment to so great an age. For all that he was ancient, still the mage’s mind was brilliantly clear, his eyes undimmed and his sorceries (benevolent or otherwise) marvellous and utterly unfathomable to adepts of lesser learning. Moreover, he might not take kindly to allegations of vampirism and the like, practised to extend to eternity his existence in the world of men.

  And in their thinking and their muted whisperings, the wizard’s would-be compeers came close to the truth; for in his long search for immortality Mylakhrion had indeed performed many morbid magicks, though mercifully vampirism was not numbered amongst them. That is not to say he would not be a vampire if in that way he might prolong his life or regain his lost youth, but he knew better than that. No, for vampires were far too restricted and their lives in constant danger from attendant perils. Besides which, they were not truly immortal, not as Mylakhrion desired to be. He wanted to live forever, not to be eternally undead—or if not eternally, at least until the stake should find his heart.

  On many occasions that master of magick had believed himself close to hitting upon the correct formula for immortality, that at last his feet were set upon the right path, but in the hour of his supposed triumph always he had been frustrated. He had prolonged his life far beyond the normal span, most certainly, but still he had grown old and must eventually die. And in any case, who would wish to live forever in a defunct body?

  Now, knowing that his years were narrowing down, his search was more desperate and his disappointments deeper as days passed into years and the solution drew no closer. Now, too, he saw his coming to Humquass as an error; for while Morgath protected him and provided for his purely physical needs, his demands upon him grew more and more tiresome and consumed far too much of his time. Of which he might not have a great deal left.

  For being a warrior King and going often to war, Morgath was constantly in need of favourable forecasts for his battle plans. Too, he sought for dark omens against his enemies, and he was no less interested in their stars than in his own. What with prognostications and astrological readings, auguries and auspices, personal weirds and bodements in general, Mylakhrion had not the time he required for his own all-important interests and darkling devotions.

  Nor could the King’s business be kept waiting, for the Hrossaks and Yhemnis had their wizards too, and Mylakhrion was required to turn aside the monstrous maledictions and outrageous runes which these enemy mages were wont to cast against Humquass and its King. Black Yoppaloth of the Yhemnis, a sorcerer of no mean prowess, was particularly pernicious; likewise Loxzor of the Hrossaks; and so it can be seen that Mylakhrion was hard put to attend his many duties, let alone pursue his own ambitions. And perhaps that would explain, too, Mylakhrion’s reasons for sticking so close to his apartments. Why, his duties were such as to make him virtually a prisoner there!

  And yet Mylakhrion had prospered under Morgath and so felt a certain gratitude toward him. Moreover, he liked the King for his intelligence. Aye, for intelligent kings were singularly rare in that day, particularly warrior-kings. And so the sorcerer felt he must not simply desert Morgath and leave him to the mercies of his equally warlike neighbours, and his frustration continued to grow within him. />
  Until the dawning of a certain idea . . .

  NOW AMONG THE city’s common wizards—real and assumed—there dwelled one Exior K’mool, a talented apprentice of Phaithor Ull before that mage rendered himself as green dust in an ill-conceived thaumaturgical experiment. A seer whose betokenings showed promise despite the fact that as yet they remained undeveloped, essentially Exior was oneiromantic. His dreams were prophetic and generally accurate.

  And it came to pass that Exior dreamed a dream in which Mylakhrion took an apprentice to assist him in his sorceries, and Exior himself was the chosen one and rose to great power in Theem’hdra in the service of Morgath, King of Humquass. Upon awakening he remembered the dream and smiled wryly to himself, for he believed his vision had been born of wishful thinking and was in no way a portent of any real or foreseeable future. But then, a day or two later, Mylakhrion made it known that indeed he sought a young assistant . . .

  Exior’s heart soared like a bird when first he heard this news; alas, for a little while only. For how could Exior—a ragged street-magician who sold charms and love potions for a living and divined the futile dreams of his penniless patrons for mere crusts of bread—possibly apply for a position as apprentice to Mylakhrion the Mighty? The idea was preposterous! And so, however reluctantly, he put aside the notion and forced himself to consider his vision as purely coincidental to Mylakhrion’s requirement.

  And as days passed into weeks so Mylakhrion gave audience to many young men who presented themselves as prospective employees. As usual, the interviews were carried out through his familiars (though many applicants got no farther than Mylakhrion’s gate) while the wizard, unseen by those aspirants who were actually allowed to pass into his palace, busied himself with more pressing matters in hidden rooms. In this way, many who might have impressed quite favourably confronted by a merely human interviewer—even by so awe-inspiring a man as Mylakhrion—found themselves completely overwhelmed in the presence of his familiar creatures; for these were three great bats whose faces were those of men!

  Indeed, they had once been men, those fearsome familiars; wizards who had formed a sorcerous triad to crush Mylakhrion when he refused to join them. Unfortunately for them, his talents had been greater than all of theirs combined, hence their hybridisation. That had been many years ago, however, before ever he came to Humquass, and Mylakhrion had all but forgotten the details of the thing. He trusted his familiars implicitly; and besides, they had only the faces of his old enemies. Their minds were their own, or Mylakhrion’s when he chose to use them as he now used them.

  Finally, when even the older, failed magicians of Morgath’s lands began to present themselves at Mylakhrion’s gate, Exior K’mool dreamed again; and in his dream he saw the man-faced bats nodding to him in unison before bidding him enter Mylakhrion’s inner sanctum, where that Master of Mages was waiting to hand him his robe of apprenticeship. That was enough.

  At dawn of the next day Exior dressed himself in his finest jacket and breeches—the ones with only a few minor repairs—and made his way tortuously through the mazy streets of Humquass to the walls of Mylakhrion’s palace. There, at the great gate, he timorously took his place behind three others and waited . . . but not for long. A small barred window opened in a door in the gate and each of the other aspirants was cursorily dismissed in his turn. Seeing this, Exior began to turn away, at which point a voice stopped him. It was the voice of the man whose face peered through the barred window, and it said:

  “Young man, what is your name?”

  “K’mool,” said Exior stepping warily forward. “Exior K’mool.”

  “And do you seek employment with Mylakhrion?”

  “I do,” he answered, wondering at the echoing and sepulchral quality of the man’s voice. “I desire to be . . . to be the mage’s apprentice.”

  “You seem uncertain.”

  “I am certain enough,” said Exior, “but I wonder—”

  “If you are worthy?”

  “Perhaps.” He nodded nervously.

  “My master likes humility in men,” said the face at the window. “Aye, and honesty, too. Enter, Exior K’mool.”

  The door in the gate opened soundlessly and Exior took a deep breath as he stepped over its sill. He expelled the air in a loud gasp as the door closed behind him, and glancing about wide-eyed he was almost startled into flight at sight of the things he now saw. But where to flee? Where a moment before the sky had been blue and the sun warm, now, seen from this grey courtyard, the heavens were dark with racing clouds and a chill wind ruffled the fur-covered body of . . . of the bat-thing whose man’s face had spoken from the window in the gate!

  “Do you fear Mylakhrion’s familiar, Exior K’mool?” asked the great bat-thing. “Or are you alarmed at the season here, which is ever different to that outside.”

  “A little of both, sir, I fancy,” Exior finally managed.

  The bat-thing laughed a loud, baying laugh and flapped aloft. “Fear not,” it boomed, hovering in the air, “but follow behind me and you shall see what you shall see.”

  Exior gritted his teeth, put his fear behind him and strode after the creature across the windswept courtyard to enter into the palace proper: a stark and massive building of huge basaltic blocks with openings like black mouths which seemed to grimace hideously. Following the flap of membranous wings, he mounted corkscrew stairs of stone within a tower whose base must surely be big as the tavern where Exior lodged; and soon, arriving at a landing, he found the freakish familiar waiting for him before an entrance whose arch was carved with all the signs of the zodiac. Now, as the creature hopped across the threshold, he followed into a vast room whose contents held him spellbound in a single instant of time.

  Mylakhrion’s familiar settled itself upon a high perch, where it hung upside down the better to observe Exior’s astonished reactions. After a little while it said: “And are my master’s possessions of interest to you, young man?”

  “Indeed they are!” the youth gasped, his jaw ajar and his eyes gazing in ghastly fascination all about the room. Why, if the contents of this single room were his, even Exior K’mool could be a mighty magician!

  For here were scattered all the appurtenances of Mylakhrion’s art, every sort and description of occult apparatus. There were acromegalic skulls of monstrous men and shocking skeletons of things which never had been men; strangely shaped phials and bottles filled with quiescent or bubbling liquids of golden, green or dark hues, all of a usage utterly unknown to Exior; bagpipes made of ebony and ivory and the cured intestinal sacks of dragons, whose music was doubtless used in the propitiation of certain demons; shelf upon shelf of books bound in brown leathers and yellow skins, and at least one whose umber bindings bore—Exior would swear to it—the purplish mottlings of tattoos!

  Here too were miniature spheres of alien worlds and moons, mapped out and inlaid with cryptic runes of gold and silver; and all slowly turning where they hung from the fretted ceiling on ropes of tiny cowries. And here pentacles of power adorning the mosaic walls and floor, glowing with the inner fire of the gem-chips from which they were constructed. And sigil-inscribed scrolls of vellum upon a marble table, together with a silver-framed magnifier, an astrolabe, calipers and tiny bronze weights. And central in the room and resting alone upon a small stand of carved chrysolite, a great ball of clouded crystal.

  The workshop of Theem’hdra’s greatest wizard, thought Exior—his entire library too—and all in this one room! But as if divining his very thoughts, the perch-hung chiropteran shook its head. “Nay, lad,” the creature said, “for this is only one tenth of a tenth part of all my master’s mysteries. I am his most trusted familiar, and yet there are rooms here which I have never entered, and others I would not even dare to seek out! Nay, this is merely his room of repose.”

  “And am I . . . am I to see . . . him?” Exior asked.

  “If you are so fortunate to be chosen as his apprentice, certainly you shall see him. Daily. Perhaps too
often! He shall instruct you thus and thus, and you shall do so and so. And if you are quick to learn, one day you may even grow mighty as Mylakhrion himself.”

  “I meant,” said Exior, “am I to see him . . . now?”

  “That depends . . .” the creature answered, and went on: “But now there are things I must ask you, Exior K’mool, and you shall answer truthfully to each and every question.”

  Exior nodded and Mylakhrion’s familiar demon continued: “Good! Then answer me this: why do you seek this position?”

  “I would study under the greatest mage in all the land,” Exior answered at once. “Also my master would know how best to employ my own minor talents.”

  “And what are those talents?”

  “I scry the future in dreams,” said Exior. “Aye, and my dreams have never lied to me.”

  “Never?” The sepulchral tones of the bat-thing seemed honed with a certain scepticism.

  “I have common dreams like any man; but there are special dreams, too, and when they come to me I can usually recognise them.”

  “And is that all you are, a dreamer?”

  The blood began to burn in Exior’s face, but he felt less humbled than angry. “I also translate tongues, read runes and fathom cyphers,” he snapped. “My seer’s eyes scry the meanings of even the most obscure languages, glyphs and cryptograms.”

  “Is that all?” The creature’s voice was cold as deep, dark oceans of ice, drawing all of the heat out of Exior in a moment.