Dreamlands (9 page)

From
a featureless amaranthine void, I stepped again onto the streets of the
nameless city of my old dream, and went among the hooded, candle bearing figures. 
I walked until I was surrounded, and as always the mob subjected me to their
whispered, then roared, mantra, until terror drove me to waking.  It was a familiar
fear however and I quickly set it aside, kicking at the sheets and wishing for
a thicker cover as the sweat chilled my skin in the too cool room.

I
pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked about.  Pale starlight revealed crowded
rows of gambrel roofs outside the window, which surely meant I was in Arkham. 
The industrial green sheets and sterile hush placed me in St. Mary’s Hospital. 
What fresh mistakes had brought me here?  I considered whether I had been
admitted for an overdose, but the protocol for drug users was to send them to
the Asylum, a fact I did not like to dwell on.  I twisted around to confirm I
was alone, and felt a disagreeable tightness a few inches above my pelvis.  I
rested my hand on a ridge of scarred tissue.  The wound was long-healed and
painless, but a lump pressing into my hip provided another distraction.  I
reached beneath me to grab hold of a coiled leather belt that, for some reason,
triggered the flood.

Isobel’s
face flashed in my mind’s eye, and Erik, Ajer, and my crewmates on the
Asphodel, then Zij and the ports of the Southern Sea.  I lay back, my end
approaching with the speed and implacability of a freight train, and experienced
again the thrust of jagged metal which had severed me from my friends and, so I
had thought, my life.  For one vertiginous moment, I wondered if it was all the
elaborate fantasy of a man in a weeks, or months, long coma.  As I struggled to
make sense of the chaos, my hand of its own accord followed the length of belt
and grasped the sheath of my pearl-handled dagger.

I
cried aloud with this discovery, as in the same moment a nurse entered the room. 
Beneath the covers I clutched at the hard lump of the sheath, my anchor to the
place I had left behind, but kept it concealed.  The door closed behind her
with a soft click.

The
woman was tall, yellow-haired, and lovely in an indifferent way, as if chiseled
from marble.  Though St. Mary's was outfitted with gas light, she carried a
candle.  An intolerably strong cinnamon scent wafted along with her as she passed
the foot of my bed to lower the blinds.  She crossed the room again to rummage
about in a drawer, and slipped something into her pocket.  My thoughts darted to
a syringe and morphine, and although much time had passed since I last indulged,
my pulse quickened.

“Miss,
how was I admitted here?” I asked.  “Can you tell me the date?”

She
did not answer, but leaned over me to fluff my pillow.  In close proximity her
perfume, and the smell of something less pleasant beneath it, was so overwhelming
I raised an arm to my mouth, brushing her cheek with my sleeve.  As if I had
disturbed an image reflected in a pool, her cold beauty dissolved before my
eyes.

In
its place, a grey, misshapen form loomed over me, presenting instead of a woman’s
aspect a crawling nest of worms.

I
had been in more than a few fights since I was last in Arkham however, and would
not succumb so easily.  I groped about the bed for the pearl-handled knife.  Instead,
my fingers closed round the solid butt of a revolver.  Yanking it free, I fired
all four cartridges into the slack stomach of the beast, the force of the blasts
knocking it back on its heels.  It stood hunched there in the wavering
candlelight, a colourless ichor streaming from its torso.  The pink facial
appendages gradually slowed their writhing, and when they stilled altogether it
toppled cumbrously to the floor.

I
was weak and my ears still rang with the echo of the shots but, after folding
down the bed’s safety bars, I was well enough to get around.  My newly acquired
weapon was a four-shooter with a worn, pearl-inlaid grip.  I ejected the spent
shells and reloaded with additional bullets from the holster.

I thought
I should examine the thing more closely, but even dead it was such an affront
to the senses I could not bring myself to approach it.  A cursory search of the
room revealed a weary suit of clothes and a pair of scuffed shoes, which I hastily
pulled on.  Behind the door I found a coat as well, in the thigh length style that
became popular during the War.  I buttoned it to cover the holster.  The billfold
in the pocket gave me pause, however.  Inside were about sixty dollars in small
bills and an insurance card made out to a Wendell Richards.  I rushed to the
mirror over the basin in pure panic, but the reflection, whey-faced and skinny,
was the same old Isaac Sloan.  I was straightening my new clothes, considering
what lies I should tell the police, when the silence finally battered its way
into my thoughts.

No
one had come to investigate the shots.

I
exited into a long corridor, brightly lit and perfectly empty, and followed it
to the stair.  I heard none of the sounds one would expect from a busy hospital,
not a stray cough or a snoring patient, just the sibilant hiss of the gas
lamps.  When I descended the stairs to the charity ward, about half the beds were
turned out and ready, the others rumpled with the outlines of human forms, but
empty, as if everyone had decided to use the lavatory at the same time.  Here
was evidence of activity:  a sandwich on a tray, a mop in a steaming bucket,
but nowhere a living soul.  I took several bites of the sandwich, which was
chicken and quite good, and continued past the equally deserted admittance area.

Outside,
I looked back at the lobby and saw a tired receptionist at the front desk and a
doctor reviewing a file.  There were others too, going about their business, unmindful
of gunshots and shapeshifting monstrosities.

A
hand on my shoulder drove me rigid as an electric shock.

“Make
way, please,” someone said.  I spun around.  It was a man bringing his son to
hospital with a hurt wrist.  I muttered an inane reply, wondering how many more
surprises I could endure in one day.

Eager
to be away from St. Mary’s, I headed east towards the downtown, the paving
beneath my feet growing firmer as I went.  I had fallen asleep in my uncle’s
cottage in Kingsport in autumn and had, I deduced by the state of the now
budding trees, woken in Arkham in spring.  I pondered this predicament for an
hour before a fresh idea guided me to Miskatonic University’s library, which
naturally was shut.  I sat on the steps to watch a spiritless light herald the
day.

At
precisely eight o’clock a fellow in a checked tweed suit arrived, his face framed
by round, wire-rimmed spectacles and a heroic white beard of a kind not in
fashion this century.  Offering a gruff “Good morning,” he opened the doors
with a skeleton key.

I
hadn’t been in a library since my college days, and though it held no nostalgia
for me, I did recollect cross-referencing and the working of a card catalogue. 
It took me an hour to find a few written accounts of the place to which I had
traveled.  They mentioned the great cities –Celephaïs, Dylath-Leen, Ulthar– by
name, and called the world itself the Dreamlands.  I soon established these to
be nothing more than outlandish pulp stories however, and of little practical
use.  Through a bibliographic entry, I did discover a more serious study in the
Occult Room, an area sealed behind a locked door.

I
came upon the bearded man scribbling on a pad of foolscap at an enormous desk
heaped with stained and dog-eared books, working counterparts to their primly
arranged cousins which lined the shelves of his office.  He glanced up, ready
to dismiss me for a vagabond, but paused for a closer examination.  Perhaps my
eyes reflected something of what I had seen.

“The
early riser,” he chuckled.  “I expect to see no one at the library at eight
o'clock of a Monday morning except for the most dedicated graduate student, of
which I believe there to be three this year.  I am Henry Armitage, Head
Librarian.”

“Sloan,
sir,” I said, “Isaac Sloan.”  I accepted his invitation to sit on a straight-backed
chair that would discourage all but the most committed seeker of knowledge.  “I'm
not a student at Miskatonic, Professor, but I have been conducting research here
and hit a bit of a dead end.  Apparently, your occult collection is segregated
from the rest of the library.  I need access if I’m to get any further.”

“Ah
yes, the Occult Room.”  His brow furrowed along lines more used to smiling.  “And
what institution did you say you were from, Mr. Sloan?”

“Northeastern. 
I’m a graduate of the Liberal Arts program.  I hope to continue on to an
advanced degree, once I can raise the funds, but in the interim I’m pursuing my
studies on my own.  The notice on the door to the Occult Room says that it is
off limits to the public.”

“You
are correct,” he said, fiddling with his pen as if deliberating whether he
could continue his work while we spoke.  He wiped the tip on the blotter, set
it down, and folded his hands.  “Access is restricted to students with the
recommendation of a full professor.  May I inquire as to the nature of your research?”

“The
Dreamlands,” I replied.

“Hm. 
A rather esoteric field of study, although it is a common interest among morphine
addicts.”  This was, mercifully, a neutral observation.  “I tell them they can
find Coleridge in the regular collection.”

“I
have journeyed to the Dreamlands, Professor.  I lived there for a time, and I
hope to return.  It is a real place.”  This I said as much for my benefit as
his.  “As real as Miskatonic University, as New England.  Do you believe me?”

“Mr.
Sloan,” he replied, “as far as the occult is concerned, I never commit to what
I do and do not believe without a bottle of single malt handy.  What I can say
is that we have no end of folks trying to sneak in, or break in, to our special
collection.  Most are curiosity seekers, but we’ve also had thieves working on
behalf of private collectors, and other unsavoury types.  Besides the headache
of keeping criminals out, the documents themselves are dangerous.”  To himself,
he added, “Sometimes I wonder if hosting the collection is worth the trouble
that goes with it.”

He
had handily dodged my question, but I persisted.  “Sir, the realm to which I’ve
traveled, do you believe me when I say it is a real place?”

Armitage
frowned again, this time setting his jaw.  “You said you are not currently
enrolled at Northeastern, Mr. Sloan?”

“Regrettably,
no.”

“Then
I will wish you a good day.”

* * *

I
left the library to wander through the hours of the day, not stopping until sunset.
 After sitting by the inlet awhile to watch the ships and listen with a dull
ache to the gulls’ cries, I decided to continue until exhausted.  Full night
had come around again when I chanced upon Jacob Roth and his partner
bracing
a man in a derby hat, a sight which left me panting against a grimy Parsonage
Street wall.  I told myself that I had not actually seen him –Boston was his
turf, not Arkham– but nevertheless scuttled away like a cockroach.  Such vagary
was undoubtedly a sign that my opium fever was returning.

I
paid extra for a private room at the Y, and to assuage my anxiety gifted myself
a quart of gin.  Warmed by that liquid fortitude, I lay down on the cot and
circled my problem again, but came no closer to a solution.  What I feared most
of all was to wake once more to this existence.  The world was dusty and
colourless to me now, as if viewed
through the fly-specked
glass of a specimen case.

Then,
in that unpainted room, on a bed not much wider than my shoulders, I dreamed.

I
heard wavelets lapping at the pilings, but though I stood at the edge of a
pier, could not see the water for the enveloping fog.  Bo'sun Longbottom stood beside
me.

“I’m
glad you are here,” he said.  Longbottom was ill at ease, checking frequently
over his shoulder, though there was nothing but white in any direction.

“Why
are you in Arkham?” I asked.  “Did you bring me to St. Mary's?”

“I
am not in Arkham,” he said, plunging his hands in the pockets of his pea coat
to keep them still.  “I can never return there.  For that matter, I should not
even have come here.”

“Are
we in Kingsport, then?”

“You
are known in Arkham now,” he said, neglecting my query.  “A watch has been
posted.  You will need assistance if you wish to return to Zij.”

“It’s
simple,” I said, though it had not occurred to me until that instant.  “I’ll go
back to the cottage in Kingsport.”

“That
way is closed.  You will have to use the front door this time.”

“The
front door?”

Longbottom
did not elaborate, but recited the following message as if from rote: