Yhagni's Priest

by James William Hjort




I. DRIFTING INTO COHERENCE

How long he lay, companioned only by the pain, he could not determine, could not calculate, for his thoughts did not flow in coherent channels. There seemed naught but the agony, and the underlying longing for relief.

He found himself lying upon a bed of thick blanketings in a room litten by nineteenth century lamps. A yellow glow diffused through the chamber, imparting a warm softness to all the furnishings, the wall tapestries, the desk in the corner, and the shelves of disarrayed and well-thumbed books.

But he paid no attention.

His head throbbed incessantly, eyes ached, and there was a buzzing which filled his ears as of ocean waves badgering rocks. The misery precluded all thought, all perception save its own insistent presence.

Dimly, through eyes which squinted like those of one coming out of long confinement in a dungeon, he saw the door swing open, and a graceful form enter, carrying a tray of some sort. The tray bore no food, but merely a glass, brimful with an amber liquid.

"You are awake at last," he heard the soft voice of a girl speak. He closed his eyes from the pain.

"Here," she said, even as he felt a small glass being touched to his lips. "Drink."

Like an automaton, like an ill child fevered and delirious, he obeyed, quaffing slowly the amber fluid.

"There," she said, in tones soothing as the drink itself.

And gradually, over the space of several moments, he sensed a lessening of the aching. At last his breathing eased, and the lines corrugating his brow softened like harsh facial features mellowing with age. Soon he found he could open his eyes without the accompaniment of agony.

For the first time, he gazed upon the room with awareness. Its furnishings were unfamiliar, the books and roll top desk, and bizarrely embroidered wall-hangings.

Closer at hand, like soft incense, a night stand's lamp cast a sullen glow upon the face of the girl. She sat upon the edge of the bed like a beautiful nursemaid, softly stroking his forehead with a cloth dipped in a basin of cool water.

Once again his eyes narrowed, not from pain, but puzzlement, and wonder. For although it seemed the girl knew him well, her face was as unfamiliar to him as the room. Recognition escaped him.

When he attempted to sit and speak, the pressure of her hand upon his shoulder easily restrained him.

"No," she whispered with words flowing like streams. "You must rest. Regain your strength. Do not hurry it, let it return of its own accord. You have suffered a great ordeal, and it will require time."

He sank back, drinking in the loveliness of the girl's features, round, fine, with hair held away from her face by strangely ornamented silver braids. Her garment reminded him of something out of Canterbury Tales, a pastel gossamer gown whose transluscent character revealed more than a hint of flesh underneath.

He averted his gaze when his focus suddenly became embarassingly apparent.

"You do not recall my features," she said. "I can sense it in your eyes, the way they shift in silent questions."

A smile touched her lips, not expansive, but gentle. "You do not even recall yourself as yet, do you? Think. Tell me your name?"

He tried. And although it flitted on the edges of his consciousness with the elusiveness of a butterfly, still he could not grasp the name.

"Soon enough your memory will return. And you will know who you are, what has been done, and what yet remains to be accomplished."

She rose with the smile yet upon her features. "Now I must tend to Father."

He tried to speak, but she interrupted with a finger over her lips. "Shhh. Try to sleep. Soon I'll return." she interrupted with a finger over her lips. "Shhh.

After gathering the tray and empty glass, she left the bedchamber, left him alone with a mind overspilling with questionings.

II. RECOLLECTIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION

It was true. He did not recall the girl, the place, even his own identity. These things eluded him, as one who tries to contain the wind. Perhaps, he conjectured, if he could see the reflection of his face? He glanced about. A mirror hung upon the far wall. But even without rising, he sensed that his legs would yet be too weak and insupportive.

He thought therefore of the girl. Her manner was tender, reassuring. And yet he could not banish the tenuous impression that there lay something else beneath the comfort of her words.

An apprehension perhaps? Something plagued him, as if all were not aright, the atmosphere tinged with an unidentifiable darkness, like a shadow darting beneath waters of a crystal pool.

But despite this, at least there was comfort. The awful headache had been relieved for the nonce. Evidently he was well looked after. And without recollection of past events, he had no desire to be elsewhere.

He lay back, closing his eyes.

Perhaps by association he would be able to summon an inkling of his identity, where he was, or where he belonged.

He thought of cities, sprawling metropolises of sky- scrapers and dim-lit alleyways. Boston. New York. Dallas. Tall phallic structures of concrete glass and steel, teeming with life and yet somehow lifeless. And smaller ones, Colfax, Arkham, Melando. They possessed a familiarity, but he could not envision himself as having dwelt in any such places. No reconstruction of his past came, and there was no sense of belonging attached to the names.

With surprising ease, names of other places came to mind. Kali, Ignar-Vath, Carthmesh, the abyss of Y'qaa, Yuggoth, Irem and the city of Pillars. Again, a vague association existed, but nothing substantial.

"Rest," the words of the girl returned like echoes flung against grotto walls. "Soon enough your memory will return. And you will know who you are, what has been done, and what yet remains to be accomplished."

With the headache abated, it was but a matter moments before submerging into a slumber deep and prolonged.

His sleep did not remain tranquil, however, and the bed shook often with his tossings and turnings.

As one consumed by fever, his face contorted from the visions within his head. A cold sweat beaded his brow, trickled into the furrows of his cheeks, and ran in tiny rivulets onto his pillow.

In his dreamings, eidolons moved, swirling like varicolored inks in a sorcerer's pool, or the patterns of mothwings. They merged, coalesced into shapes which were indistinct, and yet not wholly formless.

Gradually, as with the lifting of a fog, he became aware of his surroundings. Vast walls extended on either side, fronted by close-fitting pillars, whose bases touched, and whose tops stretched away at odd angles and tilting inclinations.

Like sentinels, the pillars towered on either side, in rows, adorned by carvings and runes of some alien language, hieroglyphs whose illustrations depicted scenes of uncanny vistas, and creatures foreign to earth's nurturing.

There were winged beings whose spongy faces mimicked hands which ended in clusters of tentacles, or worms, hideous black dog-like things, hounds with snouts like malformed aardwolves.

And yet as he gazed upon the unearthly, multi-appendaged abortions, it seemed as if they were not completely foreign, as if he had seen them before, somehow, somewhere. As if they were more than figments of a weird mythology, or dream-induced fantasy

He walked, and the zoophoric columns before him converged toward what seemed to be some sort of altar, or dias. And behind, two huge doors stood ajar, yawning, beckoning darky. They invited him to explore the secrets beyond, summoning him like a lamia who curls her fingers, luring her victim and lover with the promise of purple lips and sublime death.

Somehow, within the deepest recesses of his mind, draped behind veils of nescience, he knew what lay beyond the doors. But as with the other aspects of his life, the memory escaped him, evanescent as mortuary perfumes, whose scents can be recalled only through experiencing them anew.

Ultimately, there came a creaking, a grating of ancient hinges, of metal against metal, like gates of a shunned mausoleum, like doors of a crypt where things moved which ought to be dead.

Even as the sound stung his ears, his heart fluttered in silent response. Nameless dreads prodded his feet to mercurial action. He turned to flee, running swiftly as if formless demonian things slavered at his heels. On either hand, the pillars whizzed past like the rushing of vulturine wings, till they merged into a blur which spread to fill his entire vision.

He awoke, with the pillow soaking with perspiration. His clothes clung to his skin as if he had been plunged into a midnight pool, a cavern of cold clammy waters.

The dream vanished upon awakening, leaving but a stale residue in his mind, and a lingering mood of menace. To his consternation, the headache was resurging like the inexorable flow of moon-drawn tides, like a potent bewitchery which can be banished only briefly.

Palsied hands rose to massage his temples, only to jerk suddenly away. He winced, for there bulged outward, from his right temple, a lump. It stung at his touch, and burned with the same fierceness as if he had scraped the flesh of an open sore with glass.

The incident set his head athrob with greater intensity even than before, so that, amid the suffering, he wondered at his past, --- if he had not experienced some severe blow to the temple, some violent accident which had left him with a concussion, an absence of memory, and the resultant headache as blood throbbed through damaged tissue.

Perhaps he had even splintered the bones of his skull. Such an injury would do much toward explaining his plight and convalescence.

He longed for the girl's promised return, for more of the amber fluid to alleviate the pain, for a return to narcolepsy. For despite the ill dreams, his body craved for more rest.

How long had he slept? The sole window of the chamber was hung heavily with curtains, so it admitted no light and he could not determine daytime or night. No clock hung upon the wall to mark time's passage, nor upon the desk in the corner, which lay covered with books and papers and scrolls.

The books were piled in a disorderly way, but with pages open, indicating their use in some manner of research, or inquiry, rather than casual reading. Something in the thought of papers and scrolls struck a chord in his memory. Names wandered to mind, perhaps meaningless, but with the flavor of antiquity--- the Pnakotic manuscripts, the Shards of Koth, and Yhondau Thane. The names were like a handful of musical notes, familiar --- and yet too brief to reconstruct the symphony.

Music, he thought. There had been music.

He closed his eyes, consciously relaxing his facial muscles. Resistance to the pain only served to increase it. He allowed the strains of music to return of their own accord. Gentle sounds gathered, like delicately played flutes, and yet undertoned with other noises, vague, indefinable, as though not music at all. He drifted as one afloat on serene waters, whose current runs inevitably to the lair of singing lorelei.

Again he found himself in the temple.

Now he knew it for what it was, a sanctuary, a fane, a temple of perpetual shadow where the light of the sun never filters, located deep within the earth, buried beneath immeasurable layers of stone and soil.

Noises were distinguishable beneath the music, like groaning sounds which issue from vocal cords of flesh, and not handcrafted instruments... thick, gutteral sounds, waxing almost to a bellow.

The fluting increased in intensity in response to the deep rumbling sounds, or were they more like words? --- the noise of some vast inhuman thing, unearthly, sickening and yet somehow alluring, akin to the low moan of lamia before she devours her lover. Then, through no discernible intimation, he knew that the music was meant for him, as a song sung unto him, and he shuddered.

Thoughts flowed effusively now, and so long as he allowed their entry, he forgot the agony which burned his temple. He sat awake in the room, impressions conjuring themselves as they willed.

The scene of his daydreaming shifted. Other shapes passed before his visioning, shapes such as those in the carvings which adorned the temple pillars. But these were no mere images chiselled and painted in stone by unknown hands, but the reality itself, fully fleshed out.

Things. Things which flitted above spiring towers on leathery wings, intent upon darksome errands. Batlike things whose bodies were long and serpentine, with faces little more than glowing orbs sunken in scaly skulls. They darted above a city of crowded constructions and cone-shaped buildings, like piles of sand in monstrous hour-glasses.

And in the city below, myriad other creatures lumbered on steeply inclining streets, upon oblique ramps, which passed beneath oddly curved archways. Creatures which oozed rather than walked, which flowed or crawled like huge blasphemies of serpents and insects. In shadows they moved, like slithering corpse worms, or snails, or slugs; with unseen methods of locomotion, and appendages whose function was as indeterminable as the basalt-like architectures through which they travelled.

And there were others, others who dwelt in sundry places, vistas and climes beyond recounting, count- less others, winged, crustaceous, insectoid, things covered with glaring, penetrating eyes, red clacking mouths, and tentacles bristling with spines and protrusions and wide slitten gullets.

The children, he thought. All the children. The thousand young. The Spawn. The Minions. In a thousand places, separated by seas of time, and gulfs of space, they dwell, and wait. Wait.

He blinked his eyes and all were gone, gone from his immediate thoughts, and yet ever-remaining to plague the edges of his consciousness. Why did these visions come with such ease, while details of his past life remained fogged and ungraspable?

III. HER FIRST RETURN

Dimly he realized that the sound of a knocking had drawn him back to the reality of the bedchamber. A feeling of relief and anxiousness overcame him. The girl, he thought, pleased.

"Come in," he blurted, and was surprised at the sound of his voice, for it seemed strangely not his own, as if heard now for the very first time.

"Ahhh," she smiled as she entered, again bearing a tray with a goblet. "You're awake. Have you slept?"

He nodded affirmatively, even as she offered him the glass. With a hand still palsied, he clasped it, and raised it to his lips. It was deeper of hue than before, almost crimson, as if the amber drug was laced with a blood-red additive. It seemed thicker, too, than before, and salty-sweet. A broth, he assumed, added to aid him in regaining strength.

She gazed for a moment upon his forehead. "Yes," she said. "You're doing fine. It won't be long now. Father is also progressing quite well."

"Tell me," he said, having found his voice. "Tell me who I am? What has happened? And of us, are we friends, brother and sister... lovers?"

She halted in her efforts of stroking his forehead with cloths, of exchanging his pillow for one dry and comfortable. He stared into her eyes, and the expression returned was one of yearning, longing. But it was equally evident that something restrained her, vying against her desire to answer. A struggle ensued in silence behind her eyes.

"No, I mustn't," she said, finally. "Father says your memory must seek out its own paths, through its own discoveries. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise?"

There was a pause, while her gaze shifted down- wards, breaking the bridge which had joined their eyes. "Otherwise the shock... might cause your mind to retreat yet further, and our work would be delayed weeks, maybe even months."

"What do you..."

"Please, don't ask. I love you, can't you see that? It's better that you come back on your own... How I long for that time." She took his hand, " ... when we can be as we were."

He still did not know her, but his heart responded to the emotion she had expressed. He tried to draw her close, compassion and perhaps more welling within him. But she pulled away.

"Soon enough. Soon enough," she said, with words spoken to console herself perhaps moreso than him. She rose, quickly, as if to tarry would break her resolve.

He was confused, befuddled, plagued by the impression that there was more here than a mere injury to the head.

"Give me something," he pleaded, as she reached for the ornate door handle. "A name. Your name, at least..."

"Karina," she surrendered as the door closed.

Karina, he reflected as he lay back. The name rolled on and on in his mind like the endless washing of waves upon the shore.

IV. LIBRARIE

Indeed the broth she had added to the cup was potent and enlivening. It warmed his stomach and soothed his trembling hands and knees, so that he even fancied rising from bed to gaze in the mirror and peruse the manuscripts spread upon the desk. There, he hoped, he might uncover some clue as to his identity, something to enkindle his remembrances, and banish forgetfulness. Although, on the other hand, he reflected, if his amnesia were due to a blow upon the head, perhaps only time would heal the injury and bring with it the return of his past.

When he flung back his blanketing and rose from the bed, his head throbbed in response. A dizziness seized him as though he stood upon the vertiginous battlements of ancient ruins, gazing down upon deathly heights. But in a moment, these qualms subsided. Slowly he strode to the table and a wall-hung looking glass.

A face glared back at him, imprisoned in the quicksilver. It was a face at once both familiar and that of a stranger. He brought fingers to his cheeks, traced the lines of his thin, gaunt face. His eyes were deep set and ringed with purple, as one who has undergone a terrible ordeal, or suffered a prolonged sickness. But even so, there was a glint of determination in those eyes, as well as a softening of the edges, as if he were one whose resolution and intentness were coupled with understanding and compassion. The features were not unhandsome, however, and in a more healthy state would have been strong and well-defined.

Brows of blondish hair furrowed as he saw the nodule which painfully adorned his temple. For it seemed more than a lump of pinkish flesh, being laced with dark veinings and a mottling of color like the egg of some obscure reptile.

Unfortunately the sight of his features did not break open the floodgates of memory. The only intimations he possessed of anything beyond that of the girl and his present situation were those things visioned in his dreams, and they were doubtless the spawn of nightmared sleep, the creations of a troubled mind. Of his past, his identity, his birthplace, how he had come to be in the house, who Karina's father was, --- of these and myriad more he was wholly nescient.

Perhaps some clue inhered in the pages strewn below him, some hint, some phrase or writing which would serve as the catalyst to reestablish him in reality.

But while he stood there, an eerie sense of detachment prevailed --- akin to the inexpressible feelings of aloneness and non-existence which come in moments of solitude, of quiet contemplation of the abysses of space and stars at night. For the moment he felt strangely alien, as if somehow he did not belong, as if he had been snatched from another world, another life, and thrust into a foreign environment.

To him, the girl seemed unreal, the room, the body with which he was draped. Reality seemed somehow allied with the features of his nightmares, the temple, and what he knew must be waiting behind those massive doors.

He shook his head as one tossing off a daydream, and thumbed through the papers which now demanded his attention. As he had suspected, they were notes of some manner of researches, correspondences, and pertinent passages marked in various reference works, --- some recent, some fairly crumbling in their moldiness, with leather binding, and clasps of iron and small copper padlocks.

As he perused, his bewilderment increased. Much of what he saw seemed utter gibberish, chronicles of some manner of heretical superstition or fable or folklore. But the writings attempted to trace certain links and similarities present in the doctrines of Egypt and Babylon, Druidism and even certain North American Indian beliefs.

Scattered papers, he found, were written recently on clean paper, and were evidently a compilation of various underlined book texts and passages. And these drew his scrutiny.

Whether he had been the author or recipient of these particular notes, he could not determine. But what they suggested was darkly intriguing. The one which he now held appeared to be a letter to a scholar or colleague...

"Think not, Jonathan, that what is written in those manuscripts you have uncovered tells the whole tale. For even as the patterns of fabric may be altered or paintings retouched to please the viewer, so to has the truth been distorted through passage of time. As with histories of mankind, the changes have been accomplished more by omission than by outright fabrication. Though I am afraid we have seen our fair share of that, too.

"Well it is said that histories are written by those who win the battles.

"As for these studies in which you are involved, Jonathan, doubtless you acknowledge much of the truth which underlies the legends of Cthulhuism. And though publicly the theories are scoffed at or at least held in disregard by the academia at this university, there exists a core of persons who know otherwise. As you know, I number myself among these.

"But whether these tales are to be taken at face value, or explored as allegories of conflict and power and resurgence of another reality, I do not know. Time and further researches, perhaps, will tell. Though more and more I am becoming convinced that the underlying basis for these legends is a viable reality with which to contend.

"I have long been looking forward to the time when a grant will allow me the freedom to pursue the researches necessary to establish the validity of some of these matters, and would be most overjoyed if you would visit me at your convenience to discuss further the possibility of your joining such an expedition. I'm sure that Karina, whom you have met, shares my enthusiasm and anticipation of your visit.

Yrs. MacKenzie."

And another:
' "It is not what he wrote that drove Abdhul Alhazred to madness, as loathesome and nightmare- inducing as those things are... but those things that he failed to write, or were later expunged from the original Arabic manuscript by his own hand. That there have been alterations at various times is evident. It is known, for example, that the Miskatonic copy of the Necronomicon omits several passages which are found in the Arabic. One pertaining to the resurrection of a sorcerer's dead corpse through the efforts of his own indomitable will. As well as others. This tampering was accomplished with purpose. "There are words which when written set aflame the very paper they embellish, and others which, when spoken, rot the tongue in the mouth of the speaker. In CoIfax I found such a reference, as well as this rather unusual phrase:

Yhagni pthagi tal kai pthagiis
Yhagni dreams her own dreams

"There is a text, the Shards of Yhondau Thane, which purports to reveal certain inconsistencies in the Orthodox Cthulhu texts. There is presented, therein, evidence of tamperings, alterations, omissions. And it lays bare the existence of heretofore unknown members of the Great Pantheon.

"There are deeper secrets than those of Hastur and Yog Sotthoth, and Azathoth and Nyarlathotep.

Yhagni dreams her own dreams

"Though I have gathered photocopies of scrolls which predate first century codices, the Shards of Yhondau Thane seem of much latter origin, perhaps eighteenth or nineteenth century... certain phrases, word usages, suggesting the latter date. Some portions are in need of no translation whatsoever...

" Shards of Yhondau Thane, initial translation of the ckulf athx manuscripts:

"Great and wondrous Yhagni, in the gates your children shall laud you, and await with open arms your glorisome return.

The winds gibber with their voices, and the earth mutters with their consciousness. In darkness they tread, and Great Cthulhu, who is their cousin, espies them but dimly.

"Of their glory and grandeur, the chosen ones shall know. And when the hateful gates which hold them in abeyance are dissolved, and the stars move aright, then shall they return. Then shall the Messenger go forth to R'yleh and Kadath and Yuggoth and all other places, manifold and scattered, where they wait...

"And woe shall be to those who have [obscure]

"Till that time shall arrive, and the cycles revolve, those who serve them shall give them shelter and worship and feed them.

"And when [obscure] Those hidden in the depths, the primal lurkers beyond time and yet in all time, shall [obscure] And the hellish minions, the spawn who prepare for their return to greatness, and bear the mark in their flesh [obscure] And this shall be the sign of acceptance into the priesthood, a [obscure] and from it grows the very flesh of Yhagni,

"Yhagni pthagi tai kai phtagiis
"Yhagni dreams her own dreams.

"Her name is extinguished from the annals, and shunned even by the priests of Cthulhu... even the Mad Arab did not give mention of her in the Necronomicon, save in symbol and obscure prophecy.

"Cthulhu knows the deep ones, and his brothers know the Dhols, the Abominable Mi Go, the Tcho Tcho People, the Gugs, the Gaunts of the Night, the Shoggoths and Voormis, and the Shantaks, and all the others... All those who are children of the Children of the Old Ones, and who await their return.

"But Yhagni dwells alone, served only by her priests in her Temple of Pillars at the depths of Kyartholm.

"She is shunned even by her cousin Cthulhu, and hated of Hastur for her hideousness. And more... for she dreams her own dreams, and Yhagni dreams of dominion. And from sea to sea, and the moon to the setting of the sun, shall she one day hold sway.

"For she was imprisoned, not by the ELDER GODS in ages past, but by those of her OWN KIND , long before they themselves were overpowered by the Lord of the Abyss and cast into Outer Darkness and far flung places of death and divers places of sleep and restraint.

"It was their hands which raised themselves against her. And Yhagni forgets not. Yhagni dreams of vengeance.' "

He paused, massaging the bridge of his nose with his fingers, to relieve the eyestrain, and insure that what he had read was truly there, before him, and not some extension of his ill dreamings. Once he caught his hand moving in an unconscious gesture to his temple, but the remembrance of its extreme tenderness quickly halted his action.

He was tiring, but could not pull himself away from the papers, for, in spite of their wild and fanciful doctrines, they were intriguing, and drew him like a sliver of iron to a lodestone.

He examined another letter, or portion thereof:

" 'Where is her haven? The Shards delineate her stars and their positions. Do you realize what this means? The stars are right for this hemisphere! Even taking into account the shift since the Shards were written, they are visible only from the North American continent, in their prescribed positions in relation to one another.

"She is here! She is here!' "

An extension of the Shards was upon another page:

'"Of the Great Old Ones, it is said that they are immortal, for theirs is not the possession of life as it is known to man, nor is it death. And yet, betimes, they do draw sustenance, and feed.

"As for their spawn, hideous and manifold are these, who bear varied resemblance and kinship to their sires, and who exist in sundry forms and secretive places.

"Their authority and power is lesser than their sires', and yet hideous it is, and awesome and deadly. And these bear fruit on THIS side of the gates, and spawn their young in earthly warrens. Some are held by sigils of old, and dwell in confined realms and limited spaces. But these are not wholly restrained in their places, and are mobile in cycles, and breed in their seasons.

"But their seasons are not those of the sons of men, and their ways not those of humankind. In horrid ways are their offspring engendered, and in unspeakable ways... [obscure].

"For the gate is flesh And ravenous are the young when born... Yhagni dreams of children.

"But Yhagni is ALL, and needs no mate. She is father and mother, progenitor and begetter, beginning and end. And she dwells alone in her -Temple of Pillars.'"

Here followed some scribbling, added in red pencil beside the quotation:
"'The priestly line died out, or were murdered long ago, she has been unserved and unattended for decades. It is not known whether the priests of old were the original builders of this house, or not. Perhaps some unsuspecting parties constructed it with the intention of using the caverns below for the protection they afforded in windstorms or times of war... and were later ousted by the cult.

"Beware her touch. For flesh she takes, and makes it her own. For her touch is death and her flesh walks alone.'"

Here followed a question mark, and notes scribbled in commentary or possible explanation.

"'She devours flesh ? Assimilates it into her being, as we do the food we consume? Or can she appear in the guise of flesh ? Take on a humanoid appearance and likeness? What? Is she mobile? The sigils define her sphere of activity, do they not? Could our discovery have been more than chance? Could her mind have reached forth, because it was time for the priesthood to be renewed? Because she prepares for emergence?'"

These things he read, and more. And from them, as pieces of a vast puzzle, he began to reconstruct at least a probable background of himself.

For the time being, he felt that his name was Jonathan, that he had been a teacher of some sort, or at least an assistant to a professor, in the specialized field of historical research, chronicalling folk-lores and religions of old, possibly archaeology.

In conjunction with another pedagogue, a collegiate, MacKenzie, he had embarked upon more specific researches. They had uncovered vague references to a heretofore unknown deity or abstruse fetish, some deity who belonged to an obscure and yet seemingly consistent mythology of alien beings, who filtered to the earth in primordial times, who held dominion, and who were ousted by dimly described elder gods, and imprisoned in various times, dimensions, and places hidden on the earth and throughout the universe.

There prevailed a recurrent theme of resurgence of rebirth, and re-emergence of their dominion, not unlike the Messianic Cycle of Biblical themes; but of a malevolent nature, more akin to portions of the Book of Revelation which presents the Serpent being cast for a thousand years into the abyss, only to return to do battle with the holy ones.

And there were countless facets of the mythos whose precise inter-relation he could scarcely fathom at this point.

He suspected that he and MacKenzie had traced the worship of the deity to the surrounding locale. Priests had possibly dwelt in that very house. There were catacombs and passages below ground throughout the region. Perhaps beneath his very feet.

What had happened to him? How had he been injured? The papers revealed nothing, nor could he justifiably have expected them to. Had they been on the trail of something, he and MacKenzie, who was doubtless the father of the girl, Karina?

Had they been attacked by someone, someone who resented their prying? Or had they merely fallen? Perhaps while exploring some ancient warren, or ruinous temple constructions located nearby? He found no marks or bruises elsewhere on his body to substantiate the theory of having suffered a fall, but the knot on his head bespoke of some memory-jarring encounter or mishap.

He recollected a phrase. "Soon shall rise the day, and in that day, all that which is in secret shall be uncovered, and that which is hidden be brought to light."

He hoped, with a mirthless grin, that the same would prove true of his memory.

For a long while, his debility, his weakness, had been returning. And as he lay down one of the last pages, he felt a tinge of queasiness grip his intestines, a tinge which quickly waxed to nausea. Amid sudden heavy breathing, he stumbled towards his bed.

Pulling forth the bedpan with epileptic fingers he withdrew it just in time to receive his nauseation.

Thick globules of blackish slime filled the pan. With the giddy weakness that follows vomiting, he pulled himself to the bed.

Once before he had bled, in profusion, from a tooth extraction, and afterwards disgorged clots of stomach-thickened blood. But when he tried to seize upon the recollection, it vanished, as if some will forestalled his effort.

With the nightstand towel, he wiped his mouth, nervously, tremulously. He had exerted himself overmuch, and the broth had not settled on his stomach.

Sleep came, heavily nightmared, and wet.

V. PHANTASMAGORIUM

When Karina returned, he was the first to speak.

"I had a dream," he said, holding the goblet before him, staring into its swirling depths. "... about this broth. I dreamed I saw someone slaughtering small animals, bringing me their blood in this bowl, I..."

The tray she held slipped from her hands, clanged to the floor loudly, like a shield dropped by an arrow-pierced warrior.

Without reply she rushed through the ritual of wiping his brow, caring for his bedding.

"I cannot stay. Father's improvements were short lived. He has had a relapse, and I must see to him." She voiced her words with a thickening in her throat, suppressing a sob.

At the door, in agonized silence, she locked eyes with him, almost sadly. "What am I supposed to do? You read the books, you must have..." She half pleaded, half sobbed. "Answer me... it's part of the ritual. It's necessary. You were the one who always had to convince me of each step, each phase, overcome my reluctance, objections... You and Father... And now you want me to... Oh Jonathan, I can't..."

Her words hung in her throat, but found expression instead in tears. She left.

He was stunned, trapped in the silence of dumbfoundment. Was there some truth to the outre' things he had read on the scrolls and papers and handwritten notes? Evidently he had been embroiled in some venture beyond that of mere researches into a dead belief, more than the uncovering of a revival of an ancient worship. More and more he suspected that he and MacKenzie and the girl were the revivalists, the worshippers. And that they had sought some sort of entry into the priesthood of the obscure goddess Yhagni.

He thought of patriarchs and colleges of the mysteries of old, the priests of Babylon, the hierophants, the bridge-makers between gods and men, the ministrants, the keepers of perpetual flame, overseers of oblations of blood and wild frenzied rituals of knife-slicing and incantations. What were the duties of the Priests of Yhagni? Had he undergone some ritual of initiation, leaving him without identity, his head screaming in pain save for the drug?

Enough of his former character of inquisitiveness, his sense of wonder, had survived into his amnesiatic state, so that he yearned to know what dark secrets could drive men such as MacKenzie and himself to such actions. And yet, with this revelation, this conjecture, there came a resurgence of the nervousness, disquietude, that had smothered him in his nightmares. Anew, he felt the clammy terror experienced as he had listened to the music of the idiot flute players, stood before the doors, and heard them creak in grim opening.

And upon his bed he shook, with dozens of questions racing unresolved through his head, transforming themselves into horrid dreamings as he passed from consciousness into sleep.

When again he heard sounds from without the chamber, and the girl Karina entered the room, he spoke, choosing his words carefully, never averting his eyes from the girl, so as to gauge her reactions.

"When will the Ordination be complete?"

Karina's face, which had avoided him as she proffered the goblet of brew, suddenly brightened. "Your memory has returned!" she exclaimed. But while she beamed at him, he remained silent. So that soon her countenance fell, passed over by a shadow of doubt and reservation. She sought her own indications that he had truly returned to his senses, but there was no outward flow of love from him, no joyousness at the sight of her face, no evidence of a lover's reunion.

"No," she " said slowly, with sadness and disappointment. "It has not returned, or else you have changed."

"It has returned, partially. In pieces. I'm sorry, but what exists between us is yet a blank. Now tell me. When do we return to the Temple of Pillars? What has MacKenzie said?"

She seemed undecided for a moment, but then resigned, evidently convinced of his partial recall.

"Tonight, the cycles are aright. And then not again until the two days of the full moon a month from now. But will your feet carry you?"

"Yes," he said, and was not fabricating. "The broth has strengthened me. Now go, tell MacKenzie that I'm ready."

She frowned, not a scornful frown but one of grave concern. "Even if you are ready, I don't know about Father. Something about his condition worries me. It's not as we were led to believe. Perhaps it would be better to await the next opening." She shrugged. "But the decision isn't mine. It never has been. I'll see what he says..."

Karina gathered the tray, and in one impulsive moment, he reached out to take her hand. And this time she did not draw away. There was warmth, tenderness, and much more in her touch. But upon her face, there was concern, a visible manifestation of the subtle, ill-premonitions that he had felt when she had first come into the room, hours beforehand. The shadow was still there, the lurking beneath the pool, the darkness in the mirror, the quiver in the voice.

And as she departed, he felt the growing of both tension and excitement; for the first time, he felt as though he were playing an active role in that which befell him.

VI. THAT IS NOT DEAD...

A scream, shrill and piercing, shattered the air, shattered his concentration, causing him to jump from his bed. There followed a clangor as of a metal tray falling, and glass shattering. The screams were unabated, terrifying, chilling the blood and senses.

All the unformulated fears and apprehensions he had borne, all the terrors of his dreams, all his own suspicions were given sudden violent voice by the screaming.

With heart in his throat, he ran out of his room for the first time, ran into the hallway, a lavish, museum-piece of decor of polished wood, and luxurious furnishings, strange decorations, tapestries of inhuman creatures and men in postures of obeisance, prostration.

But he paid no attention, seeking out the sound of the screaming. It beckoned him unerringly to a room round the corner of the corridor.

Karina stood in the hallway. The screaming had stopped now, and she was heaving, sobbing uncontrollably. " My God, my God..." She staggered like one smitten by unbearable grief. Her hands covered her eyes as if to catch the tears.

She had closed the door behind her after having emerged, and she leaned back against its carven surface for support, conveying the impression that she held back something within, shut away, and out of sight.

Through misted and swollen eyes, she glanced up at his feverish approach. A thousand thoughts flared behind those eyes, unfathomable, unvoiced. The love was gone, replaced by something else.

Like an irrepressible fountain, those thoughts were suddenly unleashed.

"I should have known. God, I should have known... now it's too late... This was madness from the start. You're insane. Both of you. And I was a fool to help..."

He reached for her.

"No, don't touch me! Let the wrath of Yhagni fall on me. What does it matter? Eternal Priesthood, what blasphemy! What an abomination! You've been deluded all along."

She laughed bitterly at some secret understanding. "She never intended to give you and Father life on her level, to serve her as she is... to initiate you to her priesthood. You are food for her children! Do you hear me? Food! Poor Father, poor Father, the blind fool!"

Again, he extended hands to comfort her, enfold her, to calm her, as if by holding her, he might also quell the dread which ate at his own soul and could not be vanished.

"Oh God, leave me alone. Just leave me alone..."

She drew in a breath of air, as if to steady herself, upbrace herself for some action.

"There's so little time. So little time. If you have any humanity left in you, Jonathan, you won't interfere."

Even as she spoke, Karina crossed the hall. When she returned, she bore a sword culled from a decorative wall holder.

"The blade is of silver," she muttered cryptically.

A gleam smoldered within her eyes. "Don't try to stop me." She added with intensity, "She'll not have even a part of Father. I won't give her even that..."

Impassioned determination replaced her tears. She pushed on the door handle, which swung inward on its hinges in mute protest.

As she vanished into the dark interior, he stood dumbfounded, muddled with confusion, alone, like a sailor adrift without bearings, faced with a sudden and unnerving calamity.

He had nothing to offer the girl, no consolation, no true grasp of what was taking place in that shadowed house. Even now he was more a spectator than a participant. He saw the door, silent and grim. Whatever had driven the girl to such a sudden and radical change lay beyond it.

Muffled sounds wormed their way to his ears, groans and bleatings, and heavy breathing.

In the dim light, he witnessed a scene the equal of any snatched from his nightmares. Karina stood at the bedside, the sword held aloft in hands which seemed paralyzed between action and indecision.

And there on the bed itself, he saw something, something as hideous as the most abominable of his dream-spawned creatures. It huddled over the corpse of the old man, or its remnants.

The man's head was split in two, skull bones hollow, and the chest cavity shredded as though ripped open and gutted. The thing was hovering, crouching, squatting, its outlines wavering as if it were growing larger and stronger with each passing moment.

It occupied itself with licking the corpse, licking the ooze as a cat licks mucous from a newborn kitten. Portions of the thing's body were disturbingly clear, horrifyingly alien, while others appeared even more hideous due to their formlessness, --- like newly hatched wasps, white and partially developed, slimy as slugs or mollusks ripped from their shells.

From the doorway, he stared at the scene, believing and yet disbelieving the testimony of his senses.

Repulsion and fascination, horror and enthrallment, melded together.

The thing on the bed, in its vulturine posture, did not see the girl, did not see the silver blade glinting in the lamplight, nor the way Karina's eyes closed in tears as her arms fell, again and again, upon the thing.

She stabbed at it, hacked at it wildly. Her chest heaved and sobbed with each swing, each blow.

The abomination which huddled over the corpse, its extremities almost indistinguishable from the remaining portions of the body, did not scream. But it exhuded a sickening whine. It sputtered from vocal cords of appalling locations, and moaned from mouths in multiple places.

The shadows of the chamber misted. Blood and ichor spattered upon Karina's gown and face, and yet still she hacked.

Tentacles twitched spasmodically, curling like earthworms, wet and thick.

Finally their motions ceased. Karma fell to her knees, her hands frozen upon the sword's hilt, knuckles white as bones, fists clenched like vises.

She looked up at him.

"Give me that," he said, extending a hand to take the sword. She glowered at him, and aimed the befouled tip his way, holding it aloft now with arms dipped to the elbows in a bloody bath.

She rose from the bedside, away from the wet sheets and gory blanketing. Maintaining her face and the swordpoint toward him, she backed to the doorway.

"See what your madness has brought? At least Father has been released. And she did not touch me. I am clean of her foulness. Goodbye, Jonathan. You're one of them, and she can have you..."

Karina's last words were heard obscurely. His eyes did not follow her as she fled, running down the maze of hallways, hopelessly lost to him. A stab of pain gripped him, like a branding iron shoved through his temples.

The sudden and violent resurgence unmanned him.

His head throbbed, and when he touched the lump, it seemed to be extended, elongated, swelling, bulging. The pain waxed a hundredfold, and when he took a step, he staggered, his balance stolen. The pressure within his head pulsed unbearably. The buzzing assailed him anew, roaring like a thousand maelstroms.

He clutched his head, screaming, as hands encountered the things which now extended from his temple like horns or snakes.

He staggered drunkenly, poised upon the brink of some great abyss. He stumbled to- wards the center of the room. The momentum of his weight carried him into the bed, onto the sodden mash which befouled the blankets. His face fell a- ground in a green and crimson slime, sticky as the oozing from a broken egg. His hands pushed ouf in a vain attempt to rise, touching the shattered skull fragments of old MacKenzie, the clumpy piles of grue, the wet vileness of his remains, and the re- mains of the thing which had been consuming MacKenzie's corpse.

Acheronic vapors rose from the remains, stung his eyes, his nostrils, clung to him unattenuated.

Somehow he slid away from the bed, and through misted eyes saw the flask of amber fluid, unbroken and brimful of the drug. On knees and hands, he sought the table, crawling blindly, groping for the bottle.

And when at last he felt it within his grasp, he thrust it towards his mouth, unfeeling, all sensations blurred by the white hot agony of his temple.

The whole bottle was downed. But pain attenuated only slightly. Through a haze, he managed to rise to his feet, to stagger into the hallway, and stumble down the stairway.

Tables were shoved aside.

Lampstands fell from their perches.

Curtains were torn down as he grasped for support and many times fell to the ground.

But still he continued on, reeling through the passageways, lurching down stairways into subterrene vaults, into catacombs and tunnels which led deeper and deeper and deeper.

Yhagni pthagi tai kal pthagiis
Yhagni Yhagni Yhagni

The words floated, like drumbeating, throbbing with the same regularity and intensity as his protrusions.

They issued from both within his own brain, and from outside, from beyond, from the place to which his feet conveyed him.

He knew the passageways.

He followed instinctively, on and on until once again he stood beside the zoophoric columns, the carven pillars, the high vaulted ceiling.

Tonight the cycles are aright.

Yhagni Yhagni Yhagni
Yhagni dreams her own dreams

The noise of the fluting filled the chamber, echoed endlessly from the vast columns, the inclining walls. The groaning arose. Low alluring sounds mingled with the high shrill music of the spheres, and with the noises in his head.

In an instant he knew. The cycles were right.

Yhagni had come into her season. She had given them, not the mark of the priesthood in their flesh, but more. She had impregnated them with her seed.

They had served, not as fathers, but as carriers, hosts, for the embryo. One of her children had been hatched from MacKenzie, consuming his corpse for strength even as the growing fetus does the embryonic fluid.

Yhagni Yhagni Yhagni

He saw the marvelous doors beyond the dias, and they were opening, slowly, beckoning, summoning. They demanded entry into the shadows where she waited.

Before Jonathan saw her in her true form.

Before his vision split and his eyes waxed unfocused as the distance between them widened.

Before his head cracked open.

And the tentacled thing wormed its way out of his broken skull and out of the rent-open chest cavity.

Before he fell beside the open-leaved doors in one last paroxysm, ---- Jonathan gave voice to one final utterance....

"MOTHER."


Copyright © 1982 by James William Hjort. Minor text changes © 1998 by James William Hjort


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