Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred (41 page)

wedges from its point that correspond with the three houses in that quarter of the zodiac.

By observing where the pebbles fall upon the circle and their relationship with one another, the women who conduct this art read the answer to the question asked. The quadrant of the circle on the lower left is given to the houses of the Ram, the Bull, and the Twins; that on the lower right to the houses of the Crab, the Lion, and the Virgin; that on the upper-right to the houses of the Scales, the Scorpion, and the Archer; that on the upper left to the houses of the Sea Goat, the Water Bearer, and the Fishes.

As an example of the practice, if, by the casting of the stones, the pebble bearing the sign of the planet Mars, which is joined with the nature of Cthulhu, should fall upon the house of the Scorpion, its action is considered strong, for this is the native house of Mars. And so by the strengths and weaknesses that astrologers ascribe to the heavens is this foretelling of events conducted upon the bosom of the earth.

They call the names of the seven lords the secret names of the planets, believing these names to be remembered only by their race and forgotten by all the rest of humanity. They have preserved corrupt voicings of them in their oral histories, though only the name of Shub-Niggurath is accurately expressed. Of the natures and appearances of the seven lords they know little. They confuse the Old Ones with the wandering bodies of the heavens, and make no distinction between the planets and the gods when speaking about them. To their philosophy, Shub-Niggurath and the Morning Star are one and the same.

These pebbles they use in another way, for works of malefic magic. When the women who make them harbor hatred toward any person not of their race, they wait for that person to pass, hiding behind a wall or hedge with one of these stones in their hand. As their enemy goes by, they spit on the stone and hurl it so that it strikes the person, then slink away silently, for it is their belief that if they are discovered in this action the spell will come to nothing. They hold that the stone invokes ill fortune upon the head of whomever it strikes, and sometimes will throw them at cattle, or horses, or even at barns and other buildings. Locals who are hit by these stones believe them to be hurled by jinn or other spirits of the hills, and abhor them as unnatural things.

The type of misfortune depends upon the stone chosen for the spell. The stone of Cthulhu provokes disputes and violent injury; that of Shub-Niggurath brings impotence or unhappiness in love affairs; that of Yog-Sothoth breeds family discords; that of Yig provokes infirmity of the body; that of Nyarlathotep causes loss of wealth; that of Dagon, madness; that of Azathoth, the failure of an enterprise.

here would be little purpose in a traveler well versed in the arts of necromancy to keep company with the chosen people of Shub-Niggurath unless they possessed some teaching of value that was not to be obtained elsewhere, for they are a treacherous race and conceal their malice well until the moment of its execution; nor can any man truly assert that he is their friend, unless he is of their blood. The magic of the women is a trivial art unworthy of acquisition, save for a single skill known only to this barbarous cult, the manufacture of soul bottles.

In return for their faith, their obscene goddess has taught them a magic in which the souls of the dead may be summoned and captured within bottles of glass, even as magicians of our own race contain the jinn in rings and brazen vessels. A soul imprisoned by this skill is enslaved to the owner of the bottle, and all the wisdom it possessed during life, as well as its knowledge of life after death, becomes available upon inquiry. The captured soul does not readily give up its secrets, but when the bottle is heated over a fire, the soul suffers the torments of hell and is soon willing to accommodate the wishes of its master.

The souls speak by means of a small lead weight attached within the bottle at the end of a length of silken thread, so that the weight hangs near the side of the bottle. When a question is asked, the lead moves and strikes the side of the glass, causing a sound like a crystal bell. By listening to the tinkling of the glass with a mind made open and vacant, the voice of the soul is heard speaking the answer to the question. Only the owner of the bottle can discern the voice of the soul, for to others it seems merely a meaningless tinkling. The act of making the bottle binds its maker and the soul captured within it so that they have a shared understanding, and each is enabled to comprehend the words of the other.

In appearance, these bottles are no more than half a cubit in height and a span in width, with straight sides and a leather stopper sealed with green wax. The glass is colorless and transparent, and within the vessel there is a swirling vapor resembling smoke that never ceases to curl and fall. The lower portion of the bottle is filled with the urine of its maker, for it is the belief of the women of the Thugians that urine provides a tangible body for the captured soul, and without it the soul would be too insubstantial to hold in any material receptacle. Into the urine they place bits of hair, skin, fingernails, or bone from the corpse of the person whose soul they wish to enslave, and also a few drops of their own blood, shed during the ritual by which the soul is attracted.

The ritual is invariably performed during the new moon, which is the darkest night of the month, when the forces of Shub-Niggurath are at their most potent and are able to move freely across the surface of our world. The sorceress inscribes with black ink upon the palm of her left hand the true name of the soul she seeks to capture, and upon the palm of her right hand her own true name. The true name is the name given a man or woman by the parents that engendered him, or in the case of the slave, by the master who owns him. She takes herself to a high place open beneath the stars. Placing the bits stolen from the corpse into the open bottle, she urinates into the bottle so that her urine is hot during the ritual, for if it loses its warmth before the ritual is enacted, the magic will have no force to compel the presence of the soul. She does this by the light of a candle or oil lamp, and later uses the flame to melt the green wax that seals the stopper once the soul is within its prison.

Having prepared the open bottle with her urine and the relics of the dead, she makes a small cut upon her left palm and allows seven drops of her blood to fall into the urine. Seven is the number of Shub-Niggurath, and in itself is an invocation to the goddess. She smears the blood across her right palm by folding her hands together, then grasps the bottle tightly, pressing the inscribed names on her palms against its sides so that she feels the warmth of her urine on her fingers. She leans her face over the mouth of the bottle and breathes her warm breath into it, as she speaks the true name of the dead. This she does seven times, and holds within her mind an image of the person whose soul she desires. Then she speaks this incantation:

“I am ____, I am the master of the bottle, I am the urine of the bottle, I am the blood of the bottle. Enter herein, ____, by your true name I invoke you, by the heat of this urine I summon you, by the fire in this blood I compel you. I call you from the nether reaches between the stars, I call you from the highest heavens, I call you from the lowest hells. You must obey. I am the child of Shub-Niggurath, by the power of my mother, you must obey. By these words made flesh, you must obey.”

The sorceress then spits into the bottle while thinking the name of the dead, and elevates it toward the night sky. The soul forms in a cloud of silver mist above its open mouth and slowly, as though unwilling but unable to resist, it swirls downward into the bottle. At once the maker of the charm allows the lead weight to hang down the inner side of the vessel so that it is just above the surface of the urine, then while holding its silken thread into position against the rim of the bottle, places the stopper over its mouth and strikes it into place with her left palm so that her blood is impressed into its surface. She melts a stick of wax over the flame of her lamp and allows the wax to drip over the stopper so that its surface is wholly covered by wax.

When the bottle is properly formed, its lead weight will begin to tinkle against the side of the glass immediately, and a white cloud will be visible within the vessel, but the soul will not acquire the power of speech for several nights. The shock of capture renders it insane, and it is not until it regains a measure of awareness concerning its condition that it regains the ability to understand a question that may be asked. This magic may be worked by man or woman, but among the wanderers the women use it most commonly, for the men have little to do with the arcane arts, apart from the rites performed in honor of their goddess.

The utilities of the soul bottle are several. First, it creates a servant that lends the power of its essence to the maker of the charm, so that the maker is strengthened, both physically in his own body and in the force of his will. With each additional soul captured, the power is enhanced. A magician with five or six soul bottles has the strength of two men, and is easily able to compel with the force of his mind the obedience of spiritual creatures of the lesser kind. Second, the possession of a soul bottle allows access to the secrets of the dead. Whatever the captured soul knew during life, and whatever it learned after death, is available to its master, who only needs to question it.

The greatest virtue of the soul bottle is not these gifts, precious though they may be, but the suffering it inflicts upon the soul imprisoned within its depths. The torment of the bottle is greater than the torment of hell, even when the bottle is not heated over a flame to heighten the pain. A necromancer may use the soul bottle as a form of punishment upon his enemies. Those he could not strike down in life, he has the ability to torture after death. So long as the bottle remains intact, the agony of the soul remains unrelenting. The women among the Thugians use this charm not to capture the souls of their friends but to imprison the souls of their foes and bring them suffering.