Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred (10 page)

he city of R’lyeh occupies a series of wide terraces on the slopes of a mountain, deep beneath a great ocean that lies far to the south off the coast of Cathay. Since these waters are unknown to the trading ships of all nations, the precise placement of this mountain cannot be pointed to on any mariner’s chart. In the distant past, long before the creation of our race, great Cthulhu came with his warriors, servants, and many children, and he built the city on the heights overlooking a fertile island as a fortified place where they could dwell in security from their enemies. In construction it resembles a fortress, with each terrace guarded by walls a hundred paces thick. When the island sank into the depths, R’lyeh was submerged together with its inhabitants and their lord.

So say the scattered and solitary scholars of this god in our own age, when they are compelled to reveal the secrets of their studies. It is no easy matter to cause them to speak of these things, for they have no fear of death; however, there are worse torments than the end of the flesh, and life can be the greater evil. Though they respect the power of dead Cthulhu who lies dreaming, they have no wish to emulate his fate, nor to feel the worms and beetles gnaw at their still-sentient corpse; unlike the flesh of the god, their flesh would not renew itself.

R’lyeh is built of rock, and is of vast dimensions, though it did not soar into the air as did the city of the Elder Race that inhabited our world before the coming of the Old Ones, but held close to the earth. In shape its dwellings resemble great blocks stacked like the playthings of a child. The green stones of which they were built are of a size too massive to be moved even by the skills of the Egyptians, yet they are so perfectly set that the blade of a dagger cannot be inserted between them. On the peak of the mountain stands a single stone with squared corners, an obelisk so large that it would dwarf the greatest pyramid of the Nile. Nor is it a slender column, but a thick block with four vertical sides that are covered over their surfaces with carven symbols, the pictorial writing of the Old Ones.

Beneath the obelisk, in a cavern cut into the rock of the mountain, Cthulhu himself is fabled to lie in his tomb. His condition cannot be described by any word in the languages of man, but in the tongue of the Old Ones he is said to be
fhtagn
, which means variously meditating, sleeping, or dreaming. His body is not formed of common sinews, bones, and muscles, but is made of a gelatinous substance similar to bone marrow that heals itself when it suffers violence, and so remains unaffected by the passage of time.

It is whispered that in the dimness of the past, when men were yet like beasts and ran naked, the god foresaw the coming of a time when the stars would conspire with their rays to destroy him and the other lords of the Old Ones who had traveled through space to our world. In his wisdom he devised a protection from the noxious rays of the stars that necessitated a state of torpor resembling deep sleep, save that no life remained in his gargantuan body, only an unquenchable intelligence that planned and waited and dreamed for when the stars would work their way around in their turnings, and once more would become wholesome for his race.

With the strength of his mind alone he guided the progress of humanity, and selected groups of men and women to be his adopted children. He was their
tomasuk,
a word in the language of the Old Ones that means warrior lord to those who owed him fealty. They served him with their lives. Their final purpose is to release Cthulhu from his tomb when the stars have moved sufficiently in the heavens to dispel the danger to his waking continuance; for he cannot awaken himself, but must be awakened from his sleep. Then, so states the lore, great Cthulhu will open the gates to the other Old Ones and they shall return to rule the world, as they did in ancient times, after casting the Elder Race into the sea, and men will serve them as their slaves.

While the island of R’lyeh remained above the waves of the eastern ocean, it was an easy matter for Cthulhu to control the actions of his myriads of worshippers with only the power of his dreaming mind; but a great cataclysm took place, and the island sank beneath the sea, so that not even the top of the god’s titanic monument pressed its head above the tides. The stars revolved in their courses; the aeons came and went; Cthulhu remained unwakened in his tomb, for the vastness of water pressing upon the sealed doors of his house obstructed his mind so that his human worshippers no longer heard the voice of their god, nor could they have reached his tomb in the depths even had he called them. As ages passed they forgot the adoration of the mighty shaker of mountains, yet still they remain his servants.

So is told the legend of Cthulhu by those who dwell in caves in the Empty Space. Yet the fate of the god is not sealed, for it is their belief that at times the city of R’lyeh rises above the waters of the sea, for what has sunk can also rise. Should this ascent of R’lyeh occur when the stars are right, it is asserted that Cthulhu will summon his human servants with the power of his thoughts, and they will open the doors of his house and release him once more into our world.

These matters would not be known to a visitor to R’lyeh who traveled there by soul flight through the portal in the starlit chamber beneath Irem. He would emerge in darkness and cold, with the crushing weight of the ocean upon his host vessel, which can only be some creature of the depths, for the ancient inhabitants of R’lyeh are all dust or lie sleeping in their tombs. There is no one in the shadowy and water-filled streets with whom to converse, only crawling things that have never seen the sun and deep-diving ocean beasts such as the vast leviathan.

Most common among the gargantuan stones of the city are tentacled creatures with one great eye in their heads and beaks for mouths. They are not native to our world but were created by the Old Ones to resemble the beasts of the world they left behind; they have no language, and their intelligence is low and cunning, but their eyes are large enough to see in the dimness of the ocean bottom, and their soft bodies can fit through small spaces, making them useful as aids in exploring the city.

Swim upward through the depths over the battlements of the successive terraces of the city, taking care not to become lost amid the strange angles of the stones, until you reach the base of the great obelisk on the crown of the mountain. There you will find a door like unto no door seen by the eyes of man, made of a metal that resembles tarnished bronze and has almost the look of stone. All across its surface are strange markings that hurt the mind, so that it is impossible to remember their shapes to copy them after returning through the soul portal. The door is sealed, and like as not will remain shut until the end of time, for there is no intelligent being to heed the call of Cthulhu to open it through the endless barrier of the sea.

strange race known to the herdsmen of Leng in their folktales dwells in a world of ice and darkness beyond the sphere of Saturn, yet within the orbit of the fixed stars. They call it Yuggoth, and it is unknown to our astrologers, for it cannot be seen with the eyes. It is not their world of origin, which lies within the constellation of stars known as
Al Dubb al Akbar,
the Greater Bear, yet it is still so remote from the earth that our sun is a mere point of light in the star-crusted blackness of their sky, and offers no warmth that can be discerned to their touch. A single great moon circles their heavens, much larger than the moon we know, and is in color a dull purple similar to the color of bruised flesh. They dwell in caverns, and get their heat from fissures that emit sulfurous plumes of gas. Glowing lichen on the cavern walls offer a faint crimson illumination that is sufficient for their needs, for their eyes are adapted to the murk so that they see as well in the night as we see in the day.

It is difficult for the traveler to judge their size, for there are no measures of comparison with the human form, and the weight of things on their world is less than the weight we know so that, when dropped, a stone falls slowly as through water. Their bodies are covered in a horny armor or shell that is similar to the armor of scorpions, or to sea creatures such as the crab. This natural defense makes them dreadful warriors, as neither sword nor ax can penetrate it. Little can be seen of this shell, for their entire bodies are furred in a white fungus that resembles bristling hair. Only their faces and their powerful hands, shaped much as are the pincers of a scorpion but having more complex movements that allow them to grasp tools, are bare of this fungoidal fur.

They are a race of warriors and farmers. When not making war, all their care is devoted to the cultivation of a single type of fungus resembling that which grows upon their shells. It is their sole source of nourishment; as they are dependent upon it for their survival, so it requires their constant tending to flourish, for it will not grow without their assistance. Indeed, they and the plant they cultivate cannot be said to exist separately, for should either fail, the other would surely perish.

It was their constant need to fortify their fungal crop that sent these creatures to our world in search of certain minerals in the ground that are rare on Yuggoth but abundant here. The minerals are applied sparingly to the fungus beds in the same way that our farmers spread rotted manure upon their fields, and for the same purpose. It is said among the inhabitants of Leng that the race first arrived at a time following the great war between the Elder Things and the armies of Cthulhu, after the Old Ones had retreated from the malignant alignment of the stars, and they came not as humble visitors seeking charity but as conquerors, and such is ever their way. There was no subtlety in their mining; they turned the skin of our world inside out, causing great destruction of plants and beasts. The Elder Ones resented their intrusion into our world and fought them with their arts, but were unequal in might to the space spore from Yuggoth, who drove them from all the northern and central regions of our world, forcing them to seek refuge in the deepest parts of the southern ocean.

The caverns of Yuggoth are splendorous and vast. Where nature on their world has not sufficed for their purposes, they have carved the rock, and have constructed buttresses to reinforce the roofs and great arches to span the crevasses. The floors rise and fall irregularly, but offer no impediment to the progress of the dwellers, who leap across minor barriers on their powerful legs; because the weight of things is less in their world, these leaps carry their bodies farther than the bounds of a mountain ram. They have no families but live in groups of a score or more, and spawn their young from their own bodies in a way that resembles the budding of plants. When the young are mature enough to move about and eat the fungoidal crop, they fall from the backs of the adults like ripe fruit from the tree, already covered in the white fungus that acts as their fur.