The Strange Dark One Read online

  within a column of sentient air in which something called my name. Although my lips were numb, I mumbled a passage of alchemy that Simon Gregory Williams had taught me, and suddenly the sound of wind was silenced and my senses calmed.

  I was standing near my landlord’s desk, where there were piles of books. The title that lay open was familiar to me, as I had seen a copy in Adam Webster’s book store in Sesqua Valley. It was a rare volume of verse that had been published decades ago by the Onyx Sphinx Press, and the verse on the page before me was one that I had often read. My lips were still feeling weird, so I read the words silently:

  And waves of bitter wind deluge my brow

  As shards of cosmic mem’ry split my brain,

  And in the clouds before me I behold

  The bat-winged things that frolic in mid-air

  As to my ears there spills some blasphemed sound

  That issues from the reed of one cracked flute

  That (now I see) is clasped in clumsy paw

  By the queer thing that squats and blows before

  The strange Dark One who holds to me His hand.

  I turned away from the desk and noticed a small object on the floor. Picking it up, I was surprised at how light it was, and as I tried to study it my eyesight began to play tricks again, for the thing seemed to shift its shape just slightly. I lifted the thing to my mouth but before I could press it to my lips it was snatched from my hand. I turned as Mr. Nithon spoke my name.

  “Cyrus, please help me to my easy chair. Yes, slowly. Ah, thank you. Oh, my poor old lungs! It was a mistake to wander out on so chill and damp a night. But I had to clear my head. But of course it was just as strange outside, beneath those moving stars! That devil wind! I thought that it had followed me from the house and was up among the weird clouds, which it moved so suggestively. How queer, those clouds that came together and formed a black titan in the sky! And those two dark stars that opened up where there should have been a face but was not! And the wind came from the faceless thing, like a voice, a voice that was suddenly inside me and mine own! Yet how could I speak those alien words, those monstrous syllables?

  It was a form of dream, of course, some waking delusion. The chilliness of night awakened me and I found my way home. Where I have always felt so safe, but now...now...” He finally looked at me and began to laugh. “I’m rambling like a mad thing, dear boy. Could you pour me a cup of coffee? It’s already brewed and in the Thermos flask on the kitchen sideboard. Thank you.”

  When I returned from the kitchen, two coffee cups in hand, Mr. Nithon was standing by the desk and scanning the pages of verse that I had read. “Are you feeling better?” I asked as I handed him his cup. The black flute had been placed on one of the pages.

  He turned to me and looked at me with slanted eyes. “You’re a very devil, aren’t you, young man? No, don’t look surprised.” He picked up the flute and wiggled it at me. “I see that you found the wee thing. I must have dropped it when...” He shook his head and returned to the easy chair, into which he fell exhaustedly. He massaged his brow with an aged hand on which the flesh was thin and delicate. He lifted the flute to me, and I walked to him and took hold of it again. “Of what would you say the thing is composed?”

  “It’s smooth, like wood or bone – yet so light.”

  “Indeed, it’s very smooth, almost silky, like some delicate eggshell or polished bone. And yet it feels like nothing I have ever known. Quite intriguing.”

  He paused in contemplation and then closed his eyes. “Are you feeling more yourself? Would you like more coffee? You’re shivering.”

  He shook his hand dismissively. “I do not shiver from any earthly cause. No.” He tilted his head and gave me a queer look. “What brought you down, lad?”

  “I was awakened by the sound of windstorm.”

  “Just so. And what did you hear – beneath the wind?”

  “Nothing. I guess I was distracted by your, um, odd behavior.”

  He smiled. “No doubt. I imagine that I wore a multitude of odd expressions, so as to bespeak a mass of emotions. And I blame you! No, don’t look at me with those innocent eyes – those queer silver eyes. We spoke, when first we encountered each other, of dreams. You then astonished me by speaking of dreams as gateways to buried memory. Learning of my intellectual interest in occult matters, you guided me to certain works of poetry, which I now suspect are something more than poetry. You encouraged me to chant certain lines of verse as I lay in bed awaiting slumber, assuring me that the spoken words would – how did you phrase it? – ‘usher one into a world of intoxicating dream as never before experienced.’ You sometimes speak like a poet yourself. Your phrase proved prophetic, and I entered into a realm that was beyond my wildest dreams.”

  “I thought it might.”

  “Did you, clever boy? Did you also suspect that it would affect my waking world? Did you realize that aspects of the real world (as we call it) would take on characteristics of dreaming? I see by your smile that you did. Thus, when I went to visit my friend in New England last month, she and I discovered a charming old shop of curios, wherein I thought perhaps to find some rare old books of poesy. I found that book, by Justin Geoffrey. Since reading it my mind has been deluged with odd impressions, and when I dream I dream of black things, of a black monolith, of a figure robed in black and crowned with some triple diadem that I believe signifies some kind of royalty, but of what land I cannot now recall. At this figure’s feet was a shapeless creature that played a pipe in praise of its master, and the music was so intoxicating that I knelt before the thing and tried to mimic its song with my humming. This creature, that could not keep a solid form, offered me its instrument, which I took into my hand.”

  I waited as he seemed to lose himself with a memory of horror. “Wakefulness came as violent shaking,” he continued. “Unfathomably, I had been dreaming while standing on my feet. I nearly fell when I finally came to my senses, because of the thing that I held in my hand. I brought it with me, you see, from beyond the wall of sleep – that black pipe that had been played in praise to a faceless thing!”

  II.

  (Sesqua Valley)

  The cosmic storm, spawned among dead stars, felt the force of she who summoned it, the curious she who was a blend of earthly magick and unearthly alchemy. She called to the stars, and something crawled from them, through darkness and to the place wherein she stood. It brought with it, this star-wind, the memories of the dead-yet-dreaming who tainted the places between the stars, that dimension of the Outside. Some part of her had known these memories in another place, beyond time. A sentient wind fluttered about her black skin, encasing it; it tugged at the paper crown that perched over her luscious red hair, and she wound her fingers into that lengthy hair as she danced upon a large flat stone in some sequestered spot in Sesqua Valley, a place deep within the woodland where she sensed another forest encroaching on the mortal plane. She saw it for just one moment, that other forest with its tunnels of dense trees, and as she gazed into it the weird windstorm rushed from her and to that other place, which swallowed it and melted from her view. Had she seen a figure, tall and lean, standing within the shadows of that other woods, watching her? She could not be certain.

  She danced again, to the music in her mind, as the valley’s natural wind came to her and playfully pushed the paper crown from her head. She watched the beast that emerged from a place of darkness as he stalked to her and bent to pick up the paper crown. Playfully, he placed the crown on top of his wide-brimmed hat, removed a flute from its place within an inner pocket, and began to caper to the noise he produced. She watched him for a moment, but something caught her attention, a wisp of the cosmic aether that had fallen from the starlight and now sailed to her, beclouding her eyesight. Shutting her eyes, she knelt and tried to listen for the storm that had slipped from reality into the world of dream.

  “Selene.”

  “I saw the Other Place, and the strange Dark One of whom you are so
afraid. The astral storm swept into it, and I would have rushed therein myself, had I been able. He calls to me, my dark brother.”

  “We do not enter into that realm, Selene, nor do we allow its inhabitants entrance into our demesne.”

  She smiled. “You have no power over it, which is why it so disturbs you. You like to pretend you are lord over all the valley, and yet there are many things beyond your hold – of which I am one.” She opened her eyes and turned to peer into his own.

  “Do not play with me,” he answered, peering at her. “What is that in your eyes?”

  “A thing from Outside. It blurs and burns just slightly, gathering as tears in my eyes. Here, let me blink so that you can kiss my eerie brine.”

  “Don’t be absurd. You’re not the only one who can summon the Winds of Yith. As for the forest of the dreamlands, they are nothing compared to my realm of shadow.”

  She looked at the bulky shape of his knapsack. “What book have you? Are you come to teach me some new thing?”

  He sat on the grass and leaned his back against the large flat rock, his head now level with her own. “This is a stunning discovery,” he informed her as he removed the large wormy book from his shoulder bag. “You’ll remember that Adam and I journeyed to Providence, Rhode Island earlier this year, so as to visit a church that was scheduled for demolition?”

  “Yes, the Free Will Church, from which you brought certain moldy tomes and a singular stained window of black glass. I could smell the residue that coated that glass, and something in its aroma teased my other memory, tickling some thing buried deep within my Outside psyche.”

  “Adam has kept the book with him until now, greedy thing that he is. He thought to place it in some special display box in his shop, but I said nay and wrestled it from him. And how astonished I was to discover that the thing is a bound edition of the diseased Liber Ivonis. Great Yuggoth, you cannot comprehend its importance. What are you sniggering about?”

  “You get so excited about these old books that are falling apart, these flimsy tools of fragile paper and faded ink.”

  “How remarkable, your disinterest in elder lore. You cannot understand how rare a thing this book is. But here is the really remarkable thing. Since studying its text, I have had a series of dreams, in which I have pierced the deepest veil of mortal slumber and caught sight of the realm Outside, from which the Dark One has his origin! Yes, I knew that would startle you. This is a realm of which you have often spoken, that you have almost glimpsed in that which composes your own dreaming. My, how astonished you look now!”

  “I was under the impression that you never dreamed, Simon, for so you have boasted once or twice. I thought it a dubious thing to be proud of.”

  “Dream is the province of mortal men, with whom we have little in common. But it is in dream that mortals gain a potential otherness that links them to the Outside. It has something to do with human blood, which is an elixir that excites the Other Gods, for some inexplicable reason. Some few have dreamt of Nyarlathotep and witnessed his unmasked essence, but none have dreamt so deeply, so fiendishly, so as to bow before the throne of Azathoth...”

  “It isn’t wise to speak these names aloud, Simon. Especially here, where we are so close to one of the Dark One’s special realms.”

  “No, my enthrallment has me speaking carelessly. But you’ve interrupted me. No one has dreamed so deeply as to approach that cosmic throne, until now!”

  She pushed herself off the stone and, kneeling next to him, took hold of his coat with both of her hands. “Inform me.”

  “Cyrus has found a rather fascinating soul, an elderly poet in an industrial city, an innocent yet potent dreamer who has never sought the dark side, but with whom Outside darkness has conjoined.” The beast ran his hand through her streaming red hair. “You have been restless, Serene. You haunt this place because you sense that it is near unto your elder sibling, the Dark One, of whom you are but one aspect of his million forms.” A sound of thunder came from some place over the twin-peaked mountain. “Ah, can you smell it, the thunder? It smells like the Outside and they that dream within it.” He smiled. “Do you dream of them, my girl? For I am certain that they dream of you, their sister of star-stuff.”

  “Is that what your rare dreaming has told you?”

  “My dreaming, such as it is, yes – but moreso I have been informed by this book. Do you know what these books of lore are, Selene? They are records, of the dreaming of lunatics. Do you know what madness is? It is a piercing into the veil, through language, through signals of blood and bone.”

  Thunder sound above the white mountain. Selene breathed heavily into the air. “Well, none are more insane than you, beast. But let’s set your boring lunacy aside and taste some potent magick.” The rain began to fall. “Open your mouth, Simon, and taste the sky. Then let me breathe this wisp of wonderment with which I have been tainted onto your eyes, and you can tell me of the visions that becloud your bestial brain. Come, animal, into my arms. I will enchant you as you have never experienced such things, and never will again.” She raised her black face to the sky and Simon watched as lightning flashed onto her daemonic eyes. Tugging at her hair, he pulled her face to his.

  III.

  (From the journal of Philip Nithon)

  I don’t pretend to understand what’s happening. I guess a part of me rather likes this new sense of adventure, bewildering as it is. I’ve been in such a rut these past two decades, living my quiet life, devoting myself to good food and enchanting literature. It has always been there, since early adulthood, my growing interest in morbid verse, although I’ve never been what one would call Bohemian. I liked the other-worldly quality of the imagery, I suppose, and the play of language. I had an inkling, of course, that this was a rather peculiar interest, for I knew no one else who shared it among my poet pals. I think it resulted, in part, to my hermit-like existence, my feeling that my growing interest in macabre and supernatural verse was queer; and the less my friends showed any interest in it the more boring they became to me. That’s why I was so instantly intrigued with Cyrus, I think, when I met him at the cafe. There he sat, reading from a chapbook edition of the fantastic verse of Clark Ashton Smith, and I could not help myself from acting just a bit foolish and standing by his table and speaking some lines from “The Eldritch Dark,” thus:

  “A wizard wind goes drying eerily,

  And on the wold misshapen shadows crawl,

  Miming the trees, whose voices climb and fall...”

  Ah, the boy’s broad smile! He invited me to sit and ordered me a coffee. Our fascinating conversation ending with my inviting him home for supper and a glance at my library; and when I heard that he was seeking inexpensive accommodations I shocked myself by inviting him to rent, for a pittance, my extra bedroom. My arthritis makes climbing those stairs an ordeal, so I spend all of my time on the first floor of my modest home. Having him here has been like finding some portion of my lost youth – for he is ridiculously young. I like the sharing of meals and the quiet evenings reading before the hearth, the silent companionship as we read our books.

  Last night, however, something happened that gave me pause. I feel strangely certain that some hand of fate has brought this lad into my life. We took a taxi to a rather squalid part of town. It was late afternoon and the sidewalk was infested with humanity. I hate crowds and did not want to get out of our taxi, claiming that I would much prefer to return to our quiet home. But Cyrus was insistent and led me from the cab to a high metal gate beyond which I could see a narrow cobblestone courtyard between the high walls of two mammoth office buildings. Holding my hand, the boy guided me along the cobblestones to narrow cement stairs that descended into a place I took to be a sequestered speakeasy. “Why don’t you sit at this table, Phil, and I’ll order coffee?” I sat and watched him go to a window in a wall and order drinks. Looking around, I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. Here were people of all ages, sitting at tables, in quiet discourse, lounging on huge
sofas with books in hand, or roaming the room and studying the pieces of (mostly bad) artwork on the walls. It was wonderfully quiet. Cyrus brought our coffees and we sipped in silence when, suddenly, the lights dimmed three times. “Time for readings,” he informed me.

  A modern Bohemian type, a white boy with nappy blond hair, went to one of the bookshelves and selected a volume as a spotlight appeared at one place on the floor. Moving into the light, the boy opened his book and declaimed, “A poem by Samuel Loveman.” He proceeded to speak a lovely piece about a dead poet, Thomas Holley Chivers. There was no applause as he returned the book to its shelf and resumed his place on one of the sofas. Next an elderly woman rose and read from a book that was apparently her own, a collection with which I was familiar, of verse by the fascinating and mysterious New England poet, Edward Derby. The woman read badly, alas. I watched as Cyrus rose and walked into the light. “A sonnet by William Davis Manly,” he announced, and then recited a poem from memory.

  I was trying to decide if I should stand and recite one of my favorite pieces by Poe when, from a darkened corner, something emerged with aching deliberation. I watched the obese creature slowly maneuver its wheelchair to the area of light as Cyrus leaned to me and whispered excitedly, “It’s Kyle Gnoph, the blind poet! This is brilliant! He rarely reads.” I watched the person wheel into the light, to which he held up a hand so as to position himself, perhaps by the sensation of heat upon his palm. I scolded myself for the revulsion that I felt, but I could not help but find the (presumably) young person grotesque. I had never seen such a shapeless mass of distended flesh, with arms of spreading flesh that drooped heavily over the arms of the wheelchair. The flabby hands held onto a piece of parchment, and then one hand began to smooth over the surface of the thing held, as if its language had been composed of Braille. Sluggishly, the heavy head was lifted into the light, revealing the ruined remnants of what had once been eyes. The awful and shapeless mouth opened, releasing a string of drool. With uncouth enunciation, the mouth began to recite.