Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred (11 page)

The creatures worship their moon, and seem to have no other religion or god apart from the livid sphere that rises and falls in their dark sky. Its cycles govern the growth of the crop they rely upon for nourishment, and it is also their expressed belief, when they speak of such matters among themselves, that it generates the heat within the center of their world that causes the sulfurous plumes to issue from their vents, providing warmth for the living things of the caverns. It is forbidden to journey to the moon, under penalty of death both of the flesh and of the soul. Indeed, violation of this prohibition is their greatest sin, and is accorded the most severe punishment in their laws. It is equally a crime to speak about it or even to look upon it when they travel across the upper surface of their world.

A soul flyer of our race who journeyed to Yuggoth once used the power of his will to compel the inhabitant serving as his vessel to go to the surface and gaze up at the moon, for they can be ridden like a horse but do not completely lose their awareness and at times resist instruction. Great was the battle of wills before the monster would lift its eyes, and the sight of the moon filled it with such terror and nausea that it became weak and fell to the earth upon its face. When it recovered its strength, it drew forth a blade and, by inserting it in some clever way between the plates of its armor above its heart, killed itself before the traveler could prevent it. Such is their veneration for their lunar orb.

Upon their moon’s face is a curious pattern of rings and lines that is the holy symbol for their race. When graven into an amulet by our necromancers, this sign confers certain perceptions that are useful in dealings with the dead; however, the scattered few of these creatures who continue to inhabit our world can sense its presence when it is near to them, even when the amulet bearing this seal is hidden from their sight, and they will seek out with tireless intention its possessor and slay him, then take the amulet away with them.

Their voices upon their own world are silent, for the air is too thin for speech. They communicate by means of colored lights from their heads that flash on and off, constantly changing with all the hues of the rainbow and with the rapidity of

lightning. On our world, they are said by the shamans of Leng to speak most eloquently in the language of Leng. It is rumored in dark places that a small number of the race of Yuggoth still inhabit the mountains of the east, where they live in deep caverns and cultivate their crop as they do in their homeland. They are spies left upon this sphere to report its changes to the leader of their race. The hardy native folk who dwell in tribes under the authority of shamans in those heights call them
meegoh,
and sometimes hear their murmuring voices echoing from the mountains as they talk in the tongue of the mountain race, and sometimes see their footprints impressed upon the snow that forever covers the peaks; yet they are elusive and subtle beings, and are seldom seen, and if observed they swiftly slay those who watch them so that their activities cannot be described.

It is spoken in Yuggoth in the language of lights that the minerals in ancient times gathered and carried away from our world will soon be exhausted, and then their armies must return to take what they need from our soil. Not the kingdoms of men, nor the arcane knowledge of the Elder Race, perhaps not even the Old Ones and the death spawn of great Cthulhu himself, should he awaken at that time, will have the power to stand against them.

he gateway to Atlantis crosses not only space but time, for the traveler is precipitated into the distant past when most of our race dwelled in caves and wore uncured skins, possessing only stones with which to hunt, and lacking the skill of writing whereby they might record their works. Atlantis was the highest achievement of man, as the Greek philosophers attest, and though aeons have passed since its fall, man has yet to regain its wisdom. Why the reptilian beings who dwelled beneath Irem chose to create a portal leading to the eve of its destruction is not evident from their murals, but it may be that they found amusement in observing the fall of the city, as a kind of entertainment of infinite variety, for each journey results in a different human vessel, and hence a varied experience for the traveler.

Of the geography of the city little need be written, for it was well recorded by the Greeks; let it only be stated that Atlantis was founded upon a group of small and rocky islands in the ocean that lies beyond the Pillars of Hercules, far from any other lands. It was arranged in a series of concentric rings made up of great curving causeways that overlapped the islands, with roads that radiated from its center like the spokes of a wheel. In the exact center of the city stood its parliament building, a magnificent edifice of white marble quarried from distant lands and carried to the isles in ships, for the people of Atlantis were sea traders who profited greatly by conveying goods between the distant human settlements of the world. There has never been so bold a race of mariners. No sea was too remote or too dangerous for their sturdy galleys, and no coast unknown to their cartographers.

In appearance the Atlanteans were fairer of skin than our desert peoples, and some possessed golden hair and blue eyes. Enjoying both grace of body and strength of limb, they were reputed to be the most beautiful of all men, but their hearts were evil, and their fair exteriors concealed a blackness within. They came by their great sciences not honestly, but in dealings with the children of the god Dagon, one of the lords of the Old Ones who lies in his house beneath the waves beyond the Pillars of Hercules, waiting for the stars to realign and become wholesome to his kind.

His children have been called the dwellers in the deep. They have power to travel both across the land and through the water, although it is said that they much prefer the waves above their heads, and cannot with comfort long endure dryness on their skins, which have a faint bluish cast and are pallid, like the bellies of frogs. Their heads are blunt and rise from their shoulders without the mediation of a neck, their fingers and toes are webbed for easier swimming. At their sides are gills like those of a fish. They wear no clothing but delight in costly ornaments and jewelry, and no superior workers in precious metals and jewels are to be found anywhere in this world. Endless wealth is theirs, for they are aware of all the shipwrecks that have ever been and have easy access to the wrecks to despoil them of their treasures.

It is a strange characteristic of the dwellers in the depths that they feel affinity for our race. Tales are told of friendships, and even loves, between the children of Dagon and the children of man, and by some unnatural art they are enabled to breed with human beings when they wish to create offspring from these abhorrent couplings—for it was never meant by nature that the Deep Ones and the surface dwellers should engender children, and such spawn is cursed to the tenth generation, for breed as often as they will thereafter with men, they can never expunge the traits of their alien blood.

The women of Atlantis bred freely with the males of the children of Dagon, in their degenerate lusts preferring these couplings to union with men of their own race, and many children of mixed blood were created. They came to rule Atlantis, although they never appeared unveiled under the light of the sun nor openly challenged the arrogance of the pure-blooded citizens of the city, who regarded the mixed spawn of the deep with revulsion and contempt, even as they became dependent upon their unnatural intelligence and their associations with the children of Dagon to increase the power and prosperity of the city.

Those of mixed blood grew to hate the much more numerous citizens of pure blood, and their hate burned even more deeply in their hearts than the hatred of the slaves stolen from many lands by the Atlantean ships; for the Atlanteans scorned physical labor of any kind, and relied upon the services of slaves for their every common need, so that the population of slaves within the walls of the city was greater than the number of those native born.

The city was powered by the fires within crystals gathered by the children of Dagon from deep rifts in the floor of the ocean. These same stones were used to build terrifying weapons that could burn ships and overthrow fortifications. In their conceit, the Atlanteans considered themselves invulnerable to invasion, both because of the weapons and by virtue of their remote location so far from the lands of the barbarian races. The half-breeds with the bluish blood of the Deep Ones flowing coldly through their veins were content to run the affairs of the city, and wait and watch for their opportunity to overthrow the arrogant nobles. In secret they devised a plot with the foreign-born slaves and with the children of Dagon to overthrow Atlantis and slay all those of pure blood—for they reasoned that the nobles contributed nothing to the keeping of the island, and therefore served no purpose.

A soul traveler to Atlantis through the portal beneath Irem emerges within the body of one of its inhabitants, but whether in the body of a slave, or a noble, or one of mixed blood is a matter of chance that cannot be controlled. The portal is so constructed that the visitor emerges in the mid-morning, and for several hours may observe the works of art and social pastimes of the city through the eyes of his host. In the afternoon the invasion of the dwellers in the deep begins, in unison with the uprising of the slaves, and the chaos that ensues makes observation difficult, for the vessel of the traveler is often swept away on the ebb and flow of warfare, or may even be slain outright in the first clash of arms.

It is at once apparent to the traveler that the blue-blooded traitors who conceived the overthrow of the city miscalculated in their assessment of the decadence of the nobles, for though they had little skill in any other field of endeavor, the nobility excelled in warfare, which was the devotion of all their energies throughout their lifetimes. From the age of five years they were trained daily in the use of the sword, the javelin, and the bow, and soon became wise in innumerable ways of killing. The half-breeds sought to keep the nobles away from the weapons vaults, where the energy crystals were stored, but they were swept aside in the first assault of the nobles so that when the forces of the Deep Ones arose from the sea, the noble warriors of Atlantis stood ready to repel them.