Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred (23 page)

he journey up the Nile from the Delta region is pleasant and uneventful, unless the small sailing ships used for this purpose by the Egyptians are molested by the crocodile or by a type of great beast known in the sacred books as the behemoth, the jaws of which can cut the body of a man into two parts. It lies in wait beneath the water and watches for boats. If the unwary pilot fails to see the nose of this creature projecting above the surface, and sails too near its resting place, it attacks with sudden ferocity, overturning the craft and killing all who fall into the water, so that the river runs red with their blood. The Egyptians fear it more than the crocodile, and shun its habitations. It eats both plants and the flesh of men, and seldom ventures on land, for it is all belly and moves awkwardly on its thick legs; yet in the water it travels lightly and can traverse great distances in moments when enraged.

The behemoth is descended from the evil things created by the Old Ones, for the Elder Race did not fashion all forms of life that now dwell in this world; most were their creations, along with humankind, but a few were the work of Cthulhu, who in the early times made experiment with many forms in his effort to generate armies of warriors that might aid his battles against the cities of the Elder Race. Hence, all of the creations of Cthulhu are noxious and of evil disposition, and inimical to the creations of the Elder Ones. They appear to have no natural place in our world but rather to have been imposed upon it by a malicious will, to either make their own place by force or to perish away. The sea-dwelling octopus is such an abomination, as is readily apparent, for who has seen this beast, which has no bones but only a soft body that may take on any color or shape, and eight legs that twist and wriggle like worms, and has not sensed in his heart that it is an alien thing unnatural to this world?

On an arid plain called Giza, no great distance from the river, stands the largest idol ever carved from stone, known to the vulgar as the Sphinx, although the true and secret name of this god is Harmakhis. It is somewhat similar to the Sphinx described in the fanciful tales of the Greeks, and there is no doubt that the idol itself was the cause of these fables. In form it is the body of a crouching lion with the head of a man, of noble and imposing aspect. It watches the dawn, as it has watched for ages beyond counting, for its origins are unknown, it is so ancient a monument. The head is in the image of Kephren, a pharaoh of Egypt who caused to be built one of the pyramids that rise on the plain not far from the Sphinx itself.

Kephren found it so weathered with years that its original face could not be recognized, and so caused his craftsmen to put his own image on the head, which for this reason appears unnaturally small for the body. Few know what the original face of the Sphinx resembled, and it is better so, for the knowledge would haunt their dreams and cause them to wake with cries of terror in their throats. It is whispered in dark places by things not wholly human that the great statue once bore the true image of Nyarlathotep, who is commonly supposed to have a thousand masks but no face of his own. By this monument the dark lord of the Old Ones marked a place beneath the earth where power is concentrated.

It is old; far older than the pyramids or the temples, older even than the Nile itself, which flowed by a different course when the Sphinx was shaped by inhuman hands and lush jungle covered the plateau upon which it crouches. There are wise men who have called it the oldest carven image in this world, and this may be true, for it is more ancient than any work of man, and yet older than the works of other races that shared the earth after the changing of the stars rendered our world unfit for the Old Ones. It may be that the monuments of the Elder Race in their great city far to the frozen south were made before Nyarlathotep shaped the Sphinx, but of these nothing is known, for no man has seen them.

The Greeks tell a fable of a creature they call the Sphinx, who has the head and breast of a woman, and who waylays travelers on a lonely mountain road and demands that they give the answer to a riddle she proposes. Those who fail, she devours. All who tried failed, until at last the hero Oedipus gave the correct response, and the Sphinx in vexation and despair hurled herself off the edge of an abyss. The answer to the riddle is well-known, but it is not well understood; it has two meanings, one for children and the other for the wise.

The Sphinx of the Greeks asked the question of travelers: What beast goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? The answer given by Oedipus was man, who in the morning of life crawls on his four limbs, in the noontime of manhood walks on two legs, but in the evening of infirm old age must seek the aid of a stick, and so goes on three legs. The Sphinx, despairing, destroyed herself, misunderstanding the perception of the hero, who guessed the surface of the truth but did not penetrate to its heart.

The race of man was made by the Elder Things in jest to have a foolish creature to mock and to study for their diversion, yet they did not make us as we now appear, but in the beginning our bodies were bestial and hairy, and we progressed across the ground with the aid of our arms, which were longer and more powerful than they are at present. Over time our bodies changed their shape, and became upright and almost hairless. No doubt the Elder Things would have found our present forms less amusing and would have exterminated us, but they were in decline and had been forced to the southern waters of our world, and had no time to play with the form of our race. At some time in the distant future, our shape will be unlike what is seen in this age, and we will go on three legs instead of two. For the riddle of the Sphinx does not concern a single man, but all of mankind.

How childish the tales in the holy books of Adam and Eve in the Garden, where is it written that man is the most beautiful of all creatures, being made in the image of God. Man was made in the image of a crawling, hairy beast for the diversion of overlords not of this world, and our present form is but a passing dream that will give way to some unguessed horror that would frighten women and children, could it be seen, but mercifully it is hidden in the dim mists of future time. Our bodies continue to change because they were made imperfectly, and there can be no stability or rest in imperfection. It is known that the Elder Things themselves go about on three feet that are triangular in shape; but this speculation cannot be pursued in this work, for at its end lies madness.

n the Sphinx there is a doorway that leads to a sloping tunnel extending for three hundred and twenty-six paces beneath the sands of the plateau. The location of this door is hidden both physically by the art of the ancient Egyptian stonemasons, and by spells of misdirection that turn the mind of any common man who happens to stumble on its mechanism, so that he forgets and fails to see what is before his face. Those who know of it, and can resist the clouding of the mind long enough to pass through this portal, are sworn by an oath of most solemn and horrific portent never to reveal its location or the manner by which it is opened. Most scribes, having heard rumors of this door, place it between the paws of the Sphinx, but a hint only may be given in observing that Nyarlathotep was not a god of the rising sun.

At the end of the inclined corridor is a double door of bronze that is sheathed in pounded gold leaf, so that it shines like the sun itself in the light of torches held in the hands of those who approach. The bronze door, like the tunnel before it and the chambers that lie within, are of human workmanship. Whatever older corridors lay beneath the Sphinx before the coming of our race to this world have been obliterated by the reworking of generations of craftsmen over ages of time, for this place has never suffered neglect but has always been the retreat of the worshippers of Nyarlathotep, who study the ways of sorcery and the secrets of death.

Beyond the doors is a long chamber that is perpetually illuminated by oil lamps set in the walls. A row of eleven stone pillars runs down either side of the central walkway so that there are twenty-two pillars in total supporting the low ceiling, which is painted blue and speckled with numerous golden stars. The pillars are not of the common Egyptian lotus or papyrus designs but are square and black, made from a type of stone not native to the region. Upon each is deeply cut a letter, or rather a number, in the ancient script of the Hebrews, for the Jews use their letters for numbers, having no numbers of their own similar to those we possess.