Historical Lovecraft: Tales of Horror Through Time (9 page)

Timos raised a limp hand, indicating a shelf above the desk.

“Come on, now. Get hold of yourself; help me. I can’t do this alone.”

Timos lit a fire in the brazier and passed the shaman’s scroll to Probus, who studied the diagram indicated by Timos and began to assemble a collection of noxious herbs in the brazier. During this, the book hissed and muttered at the two men. When all was ready – Timos protesting weakly – Probus lit the pile of aromatic plants.

Taking Timos’ hand in his, the Bishop pulled the trembling man with him to lean over the smoking fire. Together, they inhaled the bitter smoke from the herbs. The air around them grew dim; the room began to spin, faster and faster, until the evil book rose into the air and took flight, leading them towards a cave, laughing as a powerful wind pushed them into a yawning cavern. Deep below, spirits cackled from bubbling and seething flames. They were falling, helplessly, eternally falling.

The Bishop landed with a crunch on his backside. Falling back against a wall of the cave, he cracked his head. All around him, dazzling and swirling, a myriad of images shifted from shape to shape – some too vague to parse, others sickeningly clear. A dragon breathing flames of blood, with blazing wings, each feather ending in a claw, clutched the book. There were snakes – hundreds, writhing and hissing – and scorpions, rats, lizards; giant orange-and-black-striped spiders – all fearsome and poisonous, crawling towards him.

While Probus stood there, gasping, drawing ragged breaths, willing his heart to stop thudding in his chest, a monstrosity before him coalesced into a luminous purple blob with tentacles.

“Enough!” he screamed. “What do you want?”

“It is I who should be asking that of you; you have invaded my sanctuary.”

“Who are you? What are you?”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to answer one question with another? Who I am is not pertinent to this discussion. The relevant question is, I believe: ‘What do you want?’”

“I can’t answer that until I know if you are the per ... er ... entity that can satisfy my request?”

“Clever answer. Let me assure you that I am the only being that can satisfy the pilgrims who find their way here.”

“If that is true, where is Timos?”

“Your unfortunate slave?”

“My companion and friend.”

“Ah ... look to your left.”

“Timos, Timos ….” Probus tried to rush to his friend struggling on the floor of the cave.

Timos yelped and gurgled.

An unseen force more powerful than Probus’s will to aid Timos held him fast in place.

“You cannot touch him, now. He journeys to another realm,” the monster said.

Drawing a knife hidden under his
dalmatica
, the Bishop leaped at the monster, “You fiend. Let him go!” He sliced off a tentacle before the blade was wrenched from his hand.

“That wasn’t polite,” the creature said, licking the bleeding stump of the severed tentacle.

“Release my friend, you beast – you monster!”

“My, my. Does he mean that much to you?”

“He is the kindest, most decent, thoughtful, caring person in my life. Without him, I would be nothing.”

Lying in the dirt by the wall. Timos’ eyes, round with surprise, showed that he understood every word.

“And this is really so?”

“I swear to it on this cross that has never left my body since the day I was baptized.” Raising the heavy gold cross, Probus kissed it and held it out towards the demon.

“Ahem, we don’t think much of crosses here,” it said, backing away. “You may put it back into its nest on your chest.”

“How else may I convince you of my sincerity?”

“I believe you. You argue very convincingly for an illiterate churchman. However, I cannot be expected to give up my prize without receiving something of equal value in return,” the monster purred.

His insides turning to jelly, his belly twisting and cramping, Probus did not feel very convincing or very brave. He wanted to be home in his study, drinking camomile tea and discussing the latest madness from the
Polis
with Timos.

“What would you have of me?”

“Well-spoken, my good man – only that which is most precious to you.”

What an odd question,
Probus thought. “The thing I hold most dear – that which sustains me through every trial and pain – my faith in the Almighty God?”

The waving tentacles shrivelled, shrinking back from the sound of those two words. “Give up your faith? You would do that to save your friend?”

“Gurgle, gurgle …,” Timos protested.

The Bishop ignored him. “For Timos, yes. I would ... try.”

“So, tell me about your faith; how would you be experiencing that, then?”

“I see God in everything. Once, when I was a lad, I saw His face in the knot of a tree trunk.”

“You didn’t tell your father that, I’ll wager.”

“Er ... no. He sees the face of God in a glittering helmet, carrying the Roman
fascia
.”

“Is that bad?”

“No, it makes him happy.”

“But not you?”

“People are different.” The Bishop shrugged.

“You really are a Holy Innocent.”

“There’s no need to be insulting. I have refrained from commenting on those ridiculous tentacles you are waving in my face.”

“Argh …!” squealed Timos.

“You don’t like them? Excuse me; I’ll change.”

The air around Probus vanished; a flash of light blinded him and a stink, far worse than sulphur, rose from the floor of the cave. When he could see again, before him slithered a snake – grown to monstrous size and smirking at him.

“That’s worse than the tentacles. Couldn’t you change back?”

“Sorry, you hurt its feelings. It’s gone all shy; I don’t think I can persuade that
persona
to return.”

“That’s too bad. This
persona
is really,
really
ugly.”

“Are you certain you want me to switch again? You only get three chances. What if my next face is worse than the first two?”

Probus hated and was more afraid of snakes than anything. He was even more afraid of them than he was of his father. Ordered by the General to kill a snake that had frightened his horse, the young Probus had picked up his sword to decapitate the beast. It had raised its sleek, green head, gold eyes glittering within iridescent scales, pink tongue flicking in and out of its mouth, and smiled. Probus had fainted. More than any other dereliction, that disaster had convinced his father that his son would never have the readies to become a soldier.

Probus clenched his sphincter muscles and stared directly at the monster, willing himself not to faint.

“Where were we?” it said. “Oh yes, you were going to give me your faith in exchange for restoring your friend’s sanity.”

“I could try, but I don’t think I’d succeed. Thing is, it’s too deeply ingrained in every part of me – not only in my mind but in all the fibres of my body, even the soles of my feet – all belong to God.” He lifted his hat. “It’s even in every strand of my hair.”

“Ew! Put that back. It’s disgusting.”

The Bishop returned his cap to his head, methodically tucking all the greasy strands under its edges. The corners of his lips curved, a tiny bit, like a new crescent moon.

“You may be right. We haven’t had much joy of faith-renouncers. If their beliefs are strong enough to make them worth having, the pesky things always seem to find a way to sneak back to their original owners.”

“There must be something else of mine worth having. I’m not a rich man, but my father … you seem to know my father.”

“Bah, earthly riches mean nothing to us. Now that I look at you more closely, I see ... There is something else, something you value and depend upon so much that you’ve stopped thinking about it.”

“What is that?”

“Arrrrrrrrr!” screamed Timos, writhing in the corner, his inchoate mouthings ever more desperate.

“Your dreams.”

The demand was so unexpected, Probus swayed, dizzy from trying to contain his fear and understand the game the monster was playing.

“Maybe you do need a less threatening
persona
to deal with. I can’t negotiate with an unconscious supplicant,” the beast said, before shifting once again. Before Probus now stood a singular, ancient man. His skin was jaundiced; bruised purple bags hung below each goiterous eye. What remained of his hair – grey-white, unwashed and smelling of mould – was plastered across the top of his ash-grey scalp. He stank of decay and resentment – like the deepest pit of a neglected cistern.

“That’s better, ‘” the apparition croaked.

“Marginally.”

“So, your dreams, your ability to have and remember the lands you traverse when asleep … Are you willing to part with them to save your friend?”

“If that’s what is required to reclaim Timos from this nightmare, I will do it.”

“So be it.” The ancient creature reached out a horrible, slime-yellow hand, wet and slick like a dying man’s sputum. It plucked at his hair and caressed his cheek.

Determined not to disgrace himself, Probus held his breath and his body rigid, eyes fixed on Timos against the wall, while the monster explored the crevices of his face and head, alighting at last in his ears. Probus felt the tentacle fingers probing his ear canals, pushing deeper into his brain. The pain of it increased and increased, but he found himself powerless to move or scream, as a burning fluid washed out of him and into a jar the demon was holding.
What a pretty shade of azure
, he thought, just before he fainted.

He woke – if you would call tumbling around in a maelstrom of whirling dust, shrieking ghouls and giant, cawing, glittering black birds – wakefulness. Falling through the murk, he was aware of Timos clutching his arm, like a drowning man determined to not lose the life-saving ring he had caught. The wretched, evil birds dove and slashed at their eyes and faces, howling and spitting. Probus knew that if he let go of Timos’ hand, his friend would be lost to him forever.

“Hold tighter, Timos. We can do this.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying,” a hoarse cry came back to him.

A part of his mind registered that if Timos could speak, he must be improving. Filling his lungs with air, Aaron Probus, drawing on courage he never knew he possessed, shouted with all his strength at the birds and the whirling clouds, “Damn you all to Hell! You will not take my friend.”

The cyclone revolved faster and faster; an inferno of dust, flying branches, rocks, stones, sand, and bits of dying sea creatures pushed them forward. The howling voices began to recede; the bombarding birds gave up pursuit, until he and Timos were expelled in a heap on the floor of Timos’ chamber.

“You look better,” Probus said, picking himself off a floor for the second time that day.

“Thanks to you. How are you?” asked Timos, regarding the Bishop as if he were afraid the good man would dissolve into a pile of ash at the slightest breeze.

“All right, I think. Do you remember where we have been and the promise I made?” Probus said, shaking his head.

“I remember everything. You shouldn’t have done that – you know – agreed to give up your dreams.”

“What good would my dreams be to me if I didn’t have you to tell them to?”

Timos made a face. Sometimes, there was no arguing with the Bishop’s logic. “So, how are you, really?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure – lighter, I think,” Probus said, tapping his head. “Ask me in the morning.”

Note: The city of Celestia no longer exists – if, indeed, it ever did. The descriptions and geographical errata are consistent with the Eastern shore of the Black Sea, in the area now known as the Republic of Georgia.

Martha Hubbard
left New York City in the early 80s and spent nearly twenty years roaming around Europe. In 1997, she washed up on an island off the north coast of Estonia, where she has been teaching English to Culinary and Service students ever since. She has written a first novel, which was rubbish. The Good Bishop stories will be the second novel.

The author speaks:
The middle of the fifth century was a time of powerful and far-reaching transitions. Christianity had ‘won’ its battle with the pagans. The Roman Empire in the West was a shambles, supplanted in the East by the glittering metropolis, Constantinople. Far from the intrigues of the capitol, on the Eastern shore of the Euxine Sea, Bishop Probus and his scribe, Timos, explore what it means to be human, to be a friend and to live a life infused by faith – even if not one sanctioned by the authorities.

THE SAGA OF HILDE ANSGARDÓTTIR

Jesse Bullington 

1

A
nsgar Grímsson was a man of many great deeds, a warrior and a hunter and an explorer, and he earned his place as a
jarl
in the realm of Garðar, on the island of Grænland. Ansgar was long-descended from that noble hero Leif the Lucky and so, Ansgar ruled at Brattahlíð on Eiriksfjord, just as his ancestors had done since Eirik Thorvaldsson first tamed that savage place. Ansgar was as strong of mind as he was of arm, and fair in his dealings, and so, when it was decided that a council should be held after some time without one, the other rulers of that land agreed that Brattahlíð was a worthy place to hold the Althing. Men came from Hvalsey and Vatnahverfi and even Herjolfnes, and among them were kingly men with kingly gifts, but also among them came Volund Deep-Friend, slinking up the steep slope of Brattahlíð like a lean wolf looking to steal from a camp of men.

Volund Deep-Friend was not trusted, for he had named the island he settled on the western coast ‘Hymirbjarg’, claiming it was the point from whence the giant Hymir launched his boat to fish for the World Serpent with the old god Thor. It was not only Volund’s talk of old gods that earned him scorn and hatred, for it is fine to tell stories of the old times, but there was rumour that Volund still held such things sacred, that he had not taken to the true Lord, but still bowed before heathen altars. Worst of all, those who steered their boats near Hymirbjarg, as dusk fell on those cold waters, told of hearing strange bells in the mist, and chants echoing down from the high crags, that called out not to the old gods of men but to other things, not gods nor giants, but names forgotten or never known by good Christians.

No word had been sent to Volund inviting him to the council, for no more than twenty men and half as many women dwelt at Hymirbjarg, and so, few would call him
jarl
, but Volund heard and Volund came, and the true men of Grænland cursed to see him approach. Ansgar was proud, as well as strong and clever, and would have no whisper spoken that he was afraid to council with Volund, and so welcomed him into the hall. Ansgar poured ale and bid his prettiest daughter Hilde deliver it to Volund, but when he pulled back his cape and revealed himself to be a man changed by the sea, she dropped the tankard, spilling it on Volund’s feet.

More than one man turned his eye to the weapons cache at the doorway, where he had surrendered sword and spear before entering the hall, and more than one who called himself a man turned his eye into his ale or up to the rafters rather than looking a moment longer at the visage of the Deep-Friend. He had no hair nor beard, and long, thin scars looped and wrapped around his face, as if a whip of fire had scourged him. These scars were black, instead of white, and pitted with yellowing circles. He paid no mind to the slight of the spilled ale, instead reaching into his cloak and drawing out a sparkling chain, which he held out to the girl.

She turned to her father rather than accepting it, which cheered the assembled men as surely as it irked Volund. Pushing past her, he went to the honour seat and sat opposite Ansgar as though he were welcomed to it. Other men protested and Ansgar might have cast Volund out if his eyes were not captured by the necklace the Deep-Friend pushed across the table to his host, a necklace unlike any seen by the men of Grænland, and Ansgar quieted the council with a wave of his hand as he took up the jewelry.

The chain was of a metal neither gold nor iron but somewhere betwixt them, the necklace shining like seafoam at sunset in the firelight. At its center hooked a tiny tusk inlaid with such scrimshaw work that in all his years of horde-gathering and wealth-trading, Ansgar had never seen its equal. When he peered at the imagery, it fairly swam across the ivory and that great man, who knew not fear when the battle raged, nor when waves ate the capsized longboat, nor when the hunt went long and no choice remained but to find game or die in the wilds, that great man Ansgar Grímsson became afraid to his very bones and knew not why. When he looked up from the necklace, he saw Volund Deep-Friend smiling and, casting the jewelry back at the interloper, Ansgar spoke:

Volund, who men call Deep-Friend,
You come here with fine gifts
And take your place at the honour seat
Yet, in all the years I have lived,
I have never before seen your face.
What cause have you to join us now
And claim such an honour as the throne you take?

Volund Deep-Friend was no longer smiling and spoke with none of the courtesy he owed his host:

I come as I choose, as is my right.
For I am lord of this island.
None may question this
And the time has come at last
To return to the true ways,
The old ways,
The ways that once were
And will be again.

Now at this the council of men raised voices and cries, each eager to be the one to challenge this scoundrel to a duel and end his disrespect, his heresy, his madness. Again, Ansgar silenced them, though a wave of his noble hand did no longer suffice. Instead, he stood and bellowed for silence then turned to Volund, a smile now creasing his bearded face:

Volund, who is friend of the Deep
But no friend of mine, nor my Althing,
I see you are as mad as they tell
And a great boaster beside.
What say you to meeting me
On the island of the shield-sea,
Where we shall prove who is lord of this place
And Lord of the heavens.
For it is not your giant Hymnir,
Nor the Midgard Serpent Jörmungandr.
The true Lord God rules above
And in his name, I shall teach you
Who rules this land.

Volund shook his head, as if it pained him to say this next, and spoke as if to a child:

This is not a quarrel you may win
And you prove your folly yet again.
For his name is not ‘Jörmungandr’
But something like what your priests call ‘the Dragon’,
In the tongue
they
call old.
A name you’re not fit to hear
And even He is not most low beneath the waves.
You will bow, or this place shall fall
And I –

But none could hear the end of Volund’s boast, for Hilde, prettiest of Ansgar’s daughters, struck Volund a blow with the tankard she held. She was a wild girl when angered, fearless as her father, but given to the old ways – unbeknownst to all those wise, assembled men, she herself bowed low before heathen altars, but not those favoured by Volund and his people. She was a seeress and, in an earlier age, should have been heeded for her second sight instead of considered only for the bride-price her beauty would command. She spat on Volund, who crouched low where he had been knocked from the honour seat and, as the council roared with laughter and approval to see this villain struck down, and by a girl at that, she spoke harsh truths to Volund:

‘Deep-Friend’ they call you,
But who should desire such friendship?
You are a coward and a devil,
You who blaspheme all gods.
Long have you been laughed at
And short will you live in our memories.
You and your wretched island-dwellers,
Living in sea-caves like rooks,
All so horrid of visage that children,
When they seek to quarrel, tell each other
That one has the Hymirbjarg look.

Volund spoke something else, then, but not in a tongue of men, and before he could be properly taken to task for it, he fled and the thingman who tried to stop him fell, with his neck running red. At this, the council realized Volund had brought a weapon into the hall and, if for nothing else, they leapt up as one and followed him in pursuit, each man thinking to be the one to bring the captured wretch before Ansgar, and Ansgar thinking to strike down Volund himself. Under the light of the full moon, they saw Volund rushing down the path to the fjord and gave chase as one. Yet, for all their speed and rage, Volund was too quick and gained the beach. He had no boat awaiting him, instead plunging into the chill cove as if it were the Sun month and not Hay-time. A few men swore there were other shapes in the water with Volund Deep-Friend as he swam out into the night, but none were willing to paddle after and find out.

2

The Doom that came to Grænland was fast in coming, and cruel when it came, for not a fish was landed from Cape Farewell all the way to Dyrnes Church after the night Volund Deep-Friend was chased from Ansgar’s hall. It was as if the sea-crop had quit those waters altogether. The only walrus that was caught from Hay-time to Slaughtering month was a terrible black brute that had human teeth in its mouth and writhing cuttlefish arms instead of tusks. It killed Biôrnólfr Snorrason, the man who speared it, and those hunters who came close enough to slay the walrus in turn swore it cried like a child as they cut it down. The meat was black and oily and rank as its hide, and it was agreed upon that no good would come of keeping it. They returned its corpse to the sea and rowed home, and no more walrus hunts were raised.

After Volund Deep-Friend had invaded Ansgar Grímsson’s Althing, Ansgar and his council waited only so long as the dictates of custom required before suiting up for war and rowing to Hymirbjarg. Yet, when they arrived, they found the coward Volund and all his fellows absent, their longboats flipped and fled, the island abandoned save for heaps of waste and countless bones, many of which were the skulls of men. When they departed, Snorri Ketilsson, a friend of Ansgar’s from childhood, discovered what appeared to be altars nestled down in the flood pools, but even at that low tide, the carven stone statuary was too deep beneath the icy water to extract and demolish.

One pool in particular seemed to give way to a cave and, squatting down for a look, Ansgar clearly saw a great wooden door set into the side of the tidepool. This door was carved with runes and icons that seemed to shimmer and move like the scrimshawed necklace Volund had shown him. Vowing to return in the Lamb-fold-time when there was heat enough in the water to dive down and explore the sunken mystery, Ansgar returned home to Brattahlíð.

The news of Volund Deep-Friend and his people fleeing their island cheered all, save Hilde Ansgardóttir, who thought more and more that it boded ill. She was clever as her father, no slouch himself, and more than he, she knew the danger of scoffing at the old ways, for her mother and her mother’s mother and her mother’s mother’s mother, and so on, had been seeresses of no small renown, before they were forced to hide their talents, and of no small prowess, both before and after their husbands forbade them from sitting on graves and praying at crossroads for hints of the future. Hilde did not assume Volund had come to the council and then fled with his men simply out of folly or madness. As it became clear that the sea would provide no provender that winter, she wondered more and more at what secrets the Deep-Friend knew and what counsel he kept.

Hilde could find no answer in the scudding grey clouds, or the murder of ravens that sometimes hung above her like a small thunderhead as she wandered the high places, and she sat at each crossroad without answer. When she served the ale for her father one night, she heard him and Snorri Ketilsson discuss returning to the old countries if the fish and walrus did not return. To hear them speak of the sea-roads gave her such pause that she almost spilled the drink. Knowing what must be done, she waited until the morn and then instructed her most trusted slave to keep word of her departure hidden from her father as long as possible. She then set out in a small boat, pausing on the cold, stony shore only long enough to smear herself with seal fat, lest she tumble into the water, for there was talk that the sea was rougher than it had ever been.

She rowed out the length of Eiriksfjord, which should have taken some time indeed, yet a current took her and she scarcely needed to dip wood in water to propel herself along the wide, rocky canal. As the sun set, she saw the bay yielded to the emptiness and so, moored herself on a spit of rock long anchored against for that purpose. She ate dried reindeer and drank from her waterskin, and slept on the cold, wet floor of her boat. That night, sights came to her. She knew even in her fear that she was right to seek the crossroads of the flood and surf.

A man was sitting above her on the seat of the rowboat when she opened her eyes, the year-counter full and casting its wan light upon the fishing ground. She did not know him at once, for without his scars, the Deep-Friend seemed as any man, hale and fierce-bearded. Then he bared his teeth at her as he spoke. Seeing the white saw-blades of the mackerel shark shining behind his lips in the lune-light, she knew him for Volund.

You slandered me, child
And called me mad.
Yet, here you sit amidst the tempest,
Alone upon the Engulfer.
I should accept this sacrifice,
If that was your father’s purpose
In letting you come.
Yet, I am gone from this place
And while I walk the sea-roads,
Instead of sailing them,
And walk the dream-roads
Like my Lord Beneath,
I find you beyond the cut of my teeth.

At this, Hilde grew bold, for she had long trafficked in the sleeping places and knew she could not be harmed by such as he while she slept. Thinking to have her answer, she demanded then of Volund,

Where have you fled, fiend
And why, if you be so kingly,
Do you run
Instead of making the Raven god’s sport
With my father and his men?
You chose a quarrel at the Althing
And now, the sea-fields lie fallow.
How might this curse be lifted?
Heed my word, oh grey sea-beast,
Watcher from the tarn heath,
And answer, or risk my wrath.

The laugh of Volund Deep-Friend was the sound of a cog scraping its belly on a gravel shoal. He winked at Hilde as he stood, revealing his nakedness.

I am bound by your weird
To answer, it is true.
And so know, O daughter of Christmen
And Giant-bane alike,
That I sailed for the Markland.
When you and your father would not hear me,
I sought to save this place.
But only through peace could I stave off
The Encircler of All Lands.
And now He shall have his due.
Unless you row further, look deeper,
The last hope of dying Grænland
Dies along with you.