To Patricia Meredith, Keeper of Right, Righter of Wrongs.

© 2012 by Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc.

All rights reserved. 

eBook edition published in 2012.

Cover illustration by Anders Finér.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print Edition ISBN: 978-1-61661-221-4

iBooks Edition ISBN: 978-1-61661-522-2

Arkham Horror, Bones of the Yopasi, all associated characters, character names, and distinctive likenesses thereof, Fantasy Flight Games, and the FFG logo are trademarks owned by Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

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Part One

Flotsam and Jetsam, 1926

Chapter One

Many are the great emotions of mankind, and though poets may claim love as the highest and most noble, they do so with sunlight warming their skin and the comfort of their fellows close at hand. But as night falls and the dread of vanished shadows creeps into parlor, slum, and palace, even the most romantic must at last admit to the greater power of fear.

Such an emotion comes in many guises and plentiful hues. All men fear the dark, a primal memory of when beasts of fang and claw hunted in the night. Many fear crawling things, the loathsome touch of wriggling worms and hideous spiders. Others fear blood and injury, or the lingering agony of prolonged infirmity.

Yet of all these fears, greater still is the fear of the unknown, and no realm on this globe is more mysterious than the depths of the ocean, with its secret lore and unexplored depths, where things undreamed of since before mankind rose to dominance still hold sway. In its blackest chasms and unknown deeps, secrets thought lost and terrors buried long ago remain, dreaming of the day when the stars will be right and their dripping bulk will rise to the surface once again.

Only in fantasy has man explored these depths, and all too often those fantasies turn to nightmares of drowning, of isolation and the unimaginable vastness of the aquatic domain. Only the bravest souls dare venture into this dreaming realm on their flimsy ships of wood and iron, and those mortals who willingly sail from terra firma to mare incognitum, do so in the knowledge that they are unwelcome travelers in a hostile land.

The timeless ocean has inspired dreamers and artists from the pillared halls of Irem to the white cliffs of Albion’s green and pleasant land, but nowhere does the subtle body lift from the sleeper with such ease as those places where the realm of dreams and the domain of men intersect in fateful geometries that no map dare record.

The Plateau of Leng is such a place, as is the lightless depths of N’kai beneath ruined Yoth, where once dwelt a race of serpent people, but such places are shunned and few are the travelers that would dare visit such abhorred latitudes. But in such places where the artist, the poet, and the feckless wanderer gather, the boundary between things misnamed may be crossed without undue risk to the physical body. The modern world’s rush to embrace the assurances of science denies the existence of such slumbering places, and with bittersweet irony, seals them up as men accept the Euclidian certitudes of the physicist, the astronomer, and the chemist.

But there are yet places on earth that resist the cold assault of reason and cling to the ways of old, where sleepers can wander the arbors of the Enchanted Wood, explore the basalt avenues of Dylath-Leen, and where a life lived in dreams is no less real than one lived in the waking world.

Arkham is such a place, a town that slumbers uneasily beneath the gaze of the rounded hills that surround it, and from which unknown fires burn in the night. Salem is another, and its evil, witch-haunted reputation is known far and wide.

But there is another town close by, where dreams pass freely between worlds to those whose minds are receptive to such things. It is a township nestled at the foot of a titanic crag that thrusts for the sky as though seeking to link heaven and earth by some enormous causeway of rock.

It is the city in the mists.

It is the town of Kingsport.

* * *

One man who knew better than anyone the power of dreams and the folly of men who follow them stood upon the narrow walkway of a tall tower that shone with dazzling brightness over the fog-wreathed ocean. October’s chill was in the air and cold winds whistled around the lighthouse as breakers foamed white on the rocks far below.

Built three miles offshore, his lighthouse rested on a rocky island of jagged stone, and save for a small structure at its base where he slept, there was little to suggest that anyone lived here. Only those of solitary mien would choose an existence of such isolation, but Basil Elton had been destined for this life even before his birth.

Despite the winds, he lit his clay pipe with practiced ease, drawing the heady flavor of the tobacco deep into his lungs. The cold troubled him not at all, and he cast his gaze to the south, seeking the glint of white on the horizon. The mists looked back, ghostly and inconstant, but guarding their secrets jealously.

The light from the kerosene lamp pulsed once again, sweeping around the limits of Basil’s world, the top of the North Point Lighthouse, and dimming as the buzzing hum of the electric motor that drove the lamp in its circuit faded like a forgotten dream. The sea was restless tonight; he could sense it as easily as a mother senses the mood of her child. The waters of Kingsport were always restless, churning the bay as though eager to impart some secret lore to those who dwelled on the shores, but Basil sensed something more.

A soft mist hugged the choppy grey water, like a blanket of translucent white clouds torn from the skies and deposited far below. Like the ocean, the mists of Kingsport were laden with secrets and phantoms, but they were not for the ordinary man to know. They too kept their counsel, and only occasionally parted the veil for those with the will to see what they concealed.

Once, Basil had counted himself among that select group, for he had dreamed of faraway lands unknown to any cartographer, of fabulous cities and exotic beasts. As keeper of the lighthouse, Basil had continued the tradition of his family, for he was not the first of his line to man this post. His father and his father before him had kept the beacon of Kingsport lit and made safe the treacherous New England coastline.

His grandfather and father had spoken of wondrous things, the tales of old men intended to thrill a youngster, and they had fueled Basil’s dreaming when he had taken his rightful place as keeper of the lighthouse. Alone on the edge of the waking world, Basil had dreamed of great things, of ancient peoples, of fantastical wonders, and of strange birds of vivid blue. In time, the dreams of his forefathers had come to him, but that was a time long passed, and Basil no longer dreamed.

Basil blew out a long breath of smoke, turning his gaze back to shore. The glow of firelight from Kingsport’s windows was faint and shimmered through the curtain of mist creeping in from the sea. The lights of the Congregational Hospital shone from Central Hill, and Basil shivered as the light on its tallest tower seemed to wink at him like a conspirator. Little else of the town was visible, though a point of light shone from the farthest edge of South Shore.

Nightly the mists rolled in and sealed the coastline from prying eyes. The town’s fishing fleet was long since tied up against the quayside, for only a fool would take his shallop out to sea in the dark. Kingsport sailors would be drinking in the Harborside taverns or wrapped in blankets at their hearths, grateful to have returned with a catch to be processed at Pickering’s fish packinghouses. Grateful to have returned at all.

The waters around Kingsport suffered no fools to sail them, and the seabed beyond Jersey Reef was littered with the wreckage of vessels whose captains had risked too much or not shown the ocean its proper respect. Rumors abounded of sunken treasure lying in the holds of privateers or merchantmen sent to the bottom of the ocean by the British during the Revolutionary War, but no one dared venture into the inky blackness to claim it.

Basil rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin and tapped his pipe on the iron railing that encircled the upper walkway of the lighthouse. The wind eagerly snatched the ash and billowed it into the air. Basil watched a glowing ember as it spun like a dying firefly, his eyes drawn, against his will, to the vast, rearing crag of rock that dominated the northern skyline of Kingsport like some great monolith from ancient times.

Men called it Kingsport Head, the result of a freakish accident of geology that had crafted a tapering wedge of rock jutting out to sea like the prow of an impossibly vast ocean liner. It dwarfed the town below, its cliffs of dark and rust-colored stone virtually sheer and impossible to climb. A man would have to travel a long way west along the turnpike that led to Arkham before he could reach a point where it would become practical to climb back east to the top of the monstrous outcrop. Bitter family experience had taught Basil that it was dangerous to venture onto Kingsport Head, but he shied away from that train of thought, unwilling to relive the memory of his father’s death.

Why any man should wish to climb that accursed headland was beyond Basil, and the last fellow to make that journey in the summer of ’25 now wished he had not. A solitary light gleamed at the very tip of the outcrop, a single candlelit window that glowed unwaveringly from a strange house built in the mists. The house had been there for as long as anyone in Kingsport could remember, and even the old-timers in the Rope and Anchor told how their grandfathers had known of it.

Basil’s eyes were drawn to the haunting glow of the light, and he felt a momentary pang of jealousy, for the one who dwelt in that strange high house was a man who lived where dreams and reality met, a liminal space between worlds. Basil had once thought to climb Kingsport Head to speak to the man who lived there, but his nerve had failed him. One Elton meeting his end on that towering rock was enough.

He tore his eyes from the house and looked out to sea as he heard the creak of wood, the rasp of hemp, and the snap of sails. None of Kingsport’s boats would be out in the dark, and Basil felt his heart pound in his chest as he saw a pellucid light bobbing in the depths of the mist. Fear touched him, but greater than his fear was the hope that the White Ship had returned, that he had at last been forgiven. Basil searched for a bird of wondrous blue plumage, but the sky was empty, even the gulls content to keep to their cliff-side nests in the dark.

A dolorous pealing echoed softly in the mist, a distant bell rung to mark the passing of a lost soul at sea, and Basil gave a solemn nod of respect. He knew he should retreat within the solid stone of the lighthouse until this ocean revenant had passed, but his hope that this was something more kept him immobile.

Another pulse of the lighthouse beacon illuminated the world, but of the mysterious vessel in the mist, there was nothing to be seen save a faint silhouette of a tall ship of the sort that had sailed these waters in the time of Eben Hall. Basil heard the water slapping its splintered hull and the wind bellying its tattered sails, but he could see nothing of this phantom ship save the corpse light of its flickering lamps.

Great sadness welled within his heart, and tears ran down his cheeks as the bell of lost souls rang on and on. Basil bowed his head, counting himself among those lost souls.

“May the four winds fare thee on thy way,” he said as lanterns swaying from rotten spars faded from sight and the ocean once again claimed its prize. The mists closed in once more, and the tantalizing glimpse of the beyond vanished into the night.

Basil let out a pent-up breath and silently implored the ocean to forgive his hubris and reckless yearnings for the splendid shores of Cathuria, as he had every night for the last two decades. Basil wept mournful tears of regret as his hopes of forgiveness were met with empty silences and the soft swell and dip of the sea.

For the ocean has a long memory, and does not easily pardon those whose hubris offends it.

* * *

Pennsylvania Station, the gateway to Manhattan.

Oliver Grayson felt dwarfed by the magnificence of the structure, its towering majesty of steel and glass, and its boastful display of man’s ingenuity. Stepping down from the electric train that had carried him under the North River from Boston, Oliver took a moment to savor the thrill that all inhabitants of small towns feel upon arriving in such a vibrant metropolis.

The crowded mass of debarking passengers surged from the train and made their way along the wide concourse to the stairs that led up to the main waiting hall. Oliver was carried along with them like a leaf flowing in the gutter toward a storm drain. Uniformed conductors waved flags and blew whistles, directing the flow of people like conductors of an orchestra.

Hot fumes billowed from the tracks, though none of the trains were driven by steam. Only electric-powered trains were allowed within New York, but the effect was akin to images Oliver had seen of coal-hungry trains pulling into the frontier towns of the Klondike during the gold rush. There the passengers had been migrant workers in dungarees and rough cotton shirts, desperate men and women looking to find their fortune in the hills and rivers of the west. But in New York, the men were dressed in Brooks Brothers suits, the women in dresses from Lord and Taylor.

Oliver looked around for Morley, hoping to see his old mentor from Brown University in the crowd of faces on the concourse above. He’d telegrammed Morley the train number and the time of his arrival in New York, but had received no reply before he’d boarded the train at Arkham’s Northside Station. Three hundred miles and many hours of travel later, there was no sign of Morley, but Oliver had half-expected that to be the case.

Trains squealed and horns blared, filling the air with mechanical noise as well as human as newspapermen yelled the latest headlines, shoeshine boys yelled for customers, and Pennsylvania Railroad employees yelled destinations and track numbers over the barrage of sounds. Oliver let himself get carried along with the crowd, feeling utterly insignificant amid this throng. Even Baltimore seemed quaint and homely compared to this.

He felt a tugging at his valise and looked down to see a young girl in short pants and a flatcap that was much to big for her, beneath which an untidy mop of dark hair spilled. Her face was serious and pale, her nimble fingers wrapped around the handles of Oliver’s case as she attempted to lift it from his grip.

“Carry your case, mister?” asked the girl. “For two bits I’ll carry it to the taxi stand outside.”

“No, thank you,” said Oliver.

“Please, mister,” insisted the girl, pulling at the case as though sheer effort and determination would get Oliver to change his mind.

“I said no thank you,” said Oliver, more sternly than he’d intended. He knew the contents of the valise, and wasn’t about to let a young girl bear such a damnable burden.

“I won’t steal it or nothin’,” promised the girl, her eyes widening in a display of innocence that would have shamed a saint.

“Let go,” said Oliver. “Trust me, you don’t want to take this case.”

The girl looked into Oliver’s eyes, and her young eyes changed from pantomime innocence to wariness. Then from wariness to sly avarice.

“Why, what ya got in there? Booze? Dope? Something you don’t want no one to see?”

Oliver was genuinely shocked. “What? No, of course not,” he said, though in truth he didn’t want the contents of his valise to be examined. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Yeah? Gimme a buck or I’ll tell the railroad bulls that you’re a dope runner from Boston.”

“Are you trying to blackmail me?” asked Oliver, increasing his pace. The girl kept up with him, refusing to release her grip on the worn leather handles of the valise. Oliver fished in his pocket for some loose change, hoping that would get rid of this urchin.

“Nope,” said the girl, and despite himself, Oliver believed her. “I just need enough to get a ticket to Arkham.”

That stopped Oliver in his tracks, earning him a stern New York rebuke from the people pressing in behind. Oliver looked at the young girl, seeing the fierce determination in her eyes, and the glitter of something silver around her neck. She saw his gaze and pulled her frayed collar tighter.

“What’s your name, little girl?”

“Wendy,” said the girl. “Wendy Adams.”

“Why do you want to go to Arkham, Wendy?” asked Oliver.

The girl hesitated before answering. “I want to find my pa,” she said at last.

“Does he live there?”

“Dunno, maybe. He went missing, but I know he’s up there.”

Oliver felt a surge of sympathy for this little girl, for he knew only too well how easily people could go missing in Arkham.

“What’s your father’s name?”

“Eugene Adams, you know him?”

Oliver shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

He saw her disappointment and handed her a crumpled dollar bill from his pocket. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Oliver didn’t know if Wendy would even be allowed to buy a ticket, she couldn’t be more than ten or eleven years old, but this was New York, and her money was as good as anyone’s.

“Thanks, mister,” said Wendy, finally releasing her grip on his valise. The dollar disappeared into her threadbare coat, and she gave Oliver a smile that was warm and genuine.

“I really wouldn’t have run off with your bag, mister,” she said.

“I believe you, but there are some things little girls shouldn’t have to carry,” said Oliver. “No matter how brave they are.”

“I carried heavier,” said Wendy with a shrug, and Oliver saw a core of determination and strength that saddened him that it should be found in one so young. Wendy turned and vanished into the crowd. Oliver silently wished her well as she hunted for new arrivals to relieve of their loose change. He joined a flow of people heading for the stairs and climbed to the concourse, knowing he was looking like a rube as he stared up at the high ceiling of glittering glass panels supported by the slender latticework columns of steel.

An even grander sight awaited him as the passengers emerged into the grand waiting hall of the station—a cathedral-like space of polished pink granite and gold leaf that echoed with the sounds of thousands of voices and blaring announcements of times and platforms. Pennsylvania Station was a great Doric temple to transportation; vast Roman arches soared overhead, and the serried ranks of fluted columns brought the ruins of the Parthenon to mind. The architects had borrowed liberally from the ancient traditions of the Greeks and Romans, but the grand structure was, in reality, plasterwork moldings over steel.

Like many things in this modern world, reflected Oliver, the station’s painted-on grandeur hid a more prosaic truth. The thought strayed uncomfortably close to the revelations contained in the books within his valise, and he put such gloomy thoughts from his mind as he admired the splendid appearance of Pennsylvania Station. Oliver had never seen so many people gathered together, a swarming mass of humanity that jostled and barged and swore as it flowed, merged, and broke apart in a graceless ballet that somehow seemed to work.

Oliver pushed through the crowds and noise toward a great portico that a sign assured him was the exit. Hawkers and street vendors gathered at the entrance—more shoeshine boys, fruit sellers, newspaper stands, and touts for Broadway shows.

A fire and brimstone preacher swayed on an empty fruit crate and promised the godless heathens who partook of the devil’s brew that they would drown in the whiskey-soaked fires of damnation. That the man reeked of cheap rotgut didn’t speak volumes for his sincerity, but Oliver couldn’t fault his conviction as he jabbed the air and spittle flew from his mouth in the fury of his oration.

A burly man with a heavy sandwich board suspended from his shoulders barged past Oliver; as the man bumped his shoulder, he heard the clink of glass. The man turned and glared at him.

“You want a drop o’ the real stuff?” said the man, and Oliver recognized a thick Irish brogue similar to that of his erstwhile comrade-in-arms, Finn Edwards. The man turned to the side and Oliver saw numerous bottles of whiskey slung beneath the sandwich board.

“No, thank you,” said Oliver.

“Best o’ gear,” said the man, nodding to the preacher. “Just ask Father William there.”

Oliver shook his head and pressed on toward the exit. The Irishman shrugged and moved deeper into the crowd.

“Is every Irishman involved in liquor?” he wondered aloud.

Oliver put the man from his mind and walked through the grand archway that led out into the streets of New York.

* * *

Evening light shone down Seventh Avenue. A barrage of sensations assaulted Oliver as he stepped from Pennsylvania Station onto the sidewalk. In Arkham, the streets would be nearly empty, the God-fearing citizens of that upstanding Massachusetts town settling down to dinner and an evening beside the wireless or immersed in a good book.

New York City ran to a different beat.

The streets were filled with people. Men in fashionable Oxford bags strutted like peacocks as they smoked and laughed with their friends. Women in scandalously short dresses and fringed shawls walked arm in arm. The streets were filled with automobiles. Mr. Ford’s reach extended to Arkham, but only a few of its wealthier and more forward-thinking inhabitants owned an automobile. Oliver counted himself among the latter, but where driving in Arkham was a leisurely affair, New York traffic was something to be feared.

Scores of cars jostled for space on the road, weaving between the slower horse-drawn carts that clung to the curbside; a lively exchange of insults in a variety of languages zipped back and forth. Coal smoke smudged the air, and the reek of humanity was almost overpowering. Pushboys roamed the streets, dragging long carts hanging with suits and dresses for sale, and cigarette vendors with heavy boxes hung from their necks hustled the sidewalks. Tall buildings of stone and glass reared up on the street to either side of him, and wide billboards advertised Chesterfields and the latest model of electric vacuum cleaner.

A church steeple protruded over the glass roof of the station, but the scale of the buildings around it overshadowed the holy building without effort. Looking down the street, Oliver saw edifices of even greater stature taking shape, vast skeletons of steel reaching impossibly high and dominating the skyline for miles around. Hundreds of feet above the sidewalk, men walked along naked steel beams like tightrope artists, and Oliver’s spine tingled with sympathetic vertigo at the hellish risks they were taking. New York was home to the Woolworth Building, the world’s tallest skyscraper, but he suspected the city’s architects had even grander designs in mind for their city’s skyline.

Oliver looked for any sign of Morley, but was again disappointed, though he reckoned it would be nigh impossible to spot anyone in such a thronged environment. Music spilled from a nearby doorway, together with the smell of cheap tobacco and even cheaper booze. Prohibition had been in effect for seven years, but judging by the state of intoxication of the men Oliver saw emerging from the doorway, no one in New York seemed to care.

He saw a taxi stand farther down the street and made his way toward it, digging out the address Morley had wired him. It was a Midtown address, on the edge of an area known locally as Hell’s Kitchen, a name that didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Morley had told him that his apartment was within walking distance of the station, but Oliver didn’t fancy making his way on foot somewhere with such a foreboding name.

Oliver joined the line at the taxi stand, listening to the distinctly sharp accent of the people around him. New York was a polyglot city of a hundred nationalities, yet it had still found a way to cultivate its own unique sound. The talk was of the latest jazz clubs in Harlem, the best speakeasies of Uptown, and the best dance halls. The prevailing opinion seemed to suggest that Connie’s Inn of Harlem was the “swingingest” joint in town, and that the rumor of Louis Armstrong’s return to the Big Apple was just that.

Much of the language passed over Oliver as though the New Yorkers were speaking a different language. They used words like palooka, hotsy-totsy, and jive, which Oliver presumed were English, but which might as well have been ancient Egyptian for all the sense they made to him. Language was a living thing, an organism like any other, and it evolved and developed over the years. As a professor of anthropology, this evolution fascinated Oliver, and though many of the words made no sense to him, he could fathom their meaning from context and their likely etymological roots.

He wondered how the language of the land would change into the next century. Would it be recognizably English? Might so many languages have been blended into the melting pot that should a scientist of the future—like Wells’s time traveler—return to 1926, would he and Oliver be able to communicate, or would their contemporary patois and argot render them as aliens to one another?

Such abstract thoughts vanished as Oliver saw a headline on the facing page of the newspaper the man in front of him in the line was reading. His heart chilled and he felt the blood drain from his face.

“Good lord,” he said.

The man turned and gave him a scathing look.

“Hey, I’m readin’ here!” he said, before holding the paper out. “You wanna read the news, buddy?”

“If you don’t mind, sir,” said Oliver, reaching for the paper.

The man folded the paper and wedged it under his arm. “Then get your own.”

“My apologies, sir,” began Oliver, remembering the warning Alexander had given him regarding the brusqueness of the typical New Yorker.

The man ignored him and Oliver tried not to jump to conclusions as he turned the words he had read over and over in his mind. Was it possible something of the horror they had faced in Arkham had escaped and come south, or had Henry Cartwright’s mad scheme of transforming healthy young men into slavering cannibals been more far-reaching than anyone had imagined?

Despite the evidence against his old friend, Oliver still found it almost impossible to believe Henry had been so utterly insane as to attempt the creation of an army of ghoulish beasts. With the end of the monstrous affair in Arkham, Henry had fallen deep into a catatonic state from which no modern pharmaceutical infusion or technique of therapy could rouse him. Dr. Hardstrom had assured Oliver that Henry would receive the very best of care, but having dealt with the orderlies that worked at Arkham Asylum, Oliver wasn’t so sure, and he had vowed to find a way to bring Henry back from whatever abyss his madness had dragged him into.

At last the line moved onward, and the man before Oliver boarded a taxi. Before he closed the door, the man looked back at Oliver and waved his newspaper.

“Hey, buddy! Catch!”

The man threw his paper like a cycling paperboy and Oliver caught it only with the greatest of luck.

“Thank you,” he said, fumbling with his valise and the crumpled paper as another taxi pulled up behind the first.

“All’s it is is bad news anyway,” said the man.

* * *

With his valise beside him on the back seat, Oliver flipped through the pages of the New-York Evening Post as the taxi lurched and sped through the crowded streets of New York. He skimmed over the society pages, reports of local sports fixtures, and celebrity gossip until he reached the page he had glimpsed over the man’s shoulder. At first he thought he had imagined the words, but sure enough, buried amid reports on the hurricane that had hit Cuba recently, Oliver found what he was looking for.

The headline was particularly grotesque, but with every paper vying to outdo its competitors, that was only to be expected.

HARLEM HORROR: CANNIBAL KILLER!

Another Body Discovered in Harlem.

Victim Beaten to Death and Eaten!

Local Residents Demand Justice from Police.

Oliver read the rest of the story with careful attention to detail, making sure he assimilated every word as opposed to skimming it. He read it as it was written, and then read it again, making his own inferences and assumptions based on what the writer of the article had said. Gabriel Stone had once told him that you could learn as much from what was missed out of an account as what was actually included. The story as written was simple.

A young girl had been beaten do death after leaving a Harlem rent party. No mention was made of drugs or alcohol, but the writer of the piece implied that the girl might have been ejected from the party for being too drunk. Alone, she had left to walk the three blocks to her own apartment, which she shared with her mother and five brothers, but had never arrived home. Delivery boys for a local grocery store had found her the next day inside a dumpster, her body pummeled black and blue with enough force to break every bone in her skull and those of her forearms.

Worse, the story gleefully imparted, portions of her fingers had been bitten down to the bone and stripped of flesh. Whereas the police were quick to blame rats and stray dogs, the writer of the story showed no such discretion and speculated about what manner of monster could eat the flesh of another human being. Oliver knew full well what manner of creature could do such a thing, but they had all perished in the fire that had consumed the frat house.

The idea that such a creature could travel so far south without detection was clearly ludicrous, but Oliver couldn’t suppress a shiver as he imagined the poor girl’s terror at facing so diabolical an attacker. The police were at a loss to find the killer, who had apparently struck several times before in different parts of Harlem, and many local Justice Committees had organized protests outside City Hall.

Though Oliver was certain the events in Harlem were unconnected with the bloodshed in Arkham, it was a sobering reminder that the horrors of this world were not confined to his adoptive home. Alexander’s books had opened Oliver’s eyes to a stark new reality, one in which the comfortingly mundane veil of the world was stripped aside and the true darkness of the universe could be glimpsed. In his quieter moments, as the noonday sun shone down on the pleasing vista of a green field or park, Oliver found comfort in knowing that the greater mass of humanity suspected nothing of such things, for what manner of species could live with such awful knowledge.

The poet John Keats had once accused scientists of destroying the poetry of nature with their desire to “unweave the rainbow,” and until recently Oliver had always found that sentiment infuriating. Perhaps there were some things that should be left unexplored by science, but Oliver knew that scientists and philosophers would never stop seeking to expand the frontiers of knowledge and understanding.

Men were driven to explore, and as each of the scientific disciplines pushed further and further in unravelling the secrets of the world, it would only be a matter of time until something too awful to contemplate was discovered.

Pushing such gloomy thoughts from his mind, Oliver watched the city streets speed past as the cab driver swerved and jinked to avoid horse-drawn carts or pedestrians who seemed heedless of automobiles on the cobbled streets. Three times Oliver gripped the back of the driver’s seat in panic as they roared around a corner at speed or swerved to avoid another car. Horns blared and profanities that would have made an Innsmouth fishwife blush were yelled from car to car. Strangely, it seemed as though this was the norm, and none of the drivers appeared to take any real offense at the barrage of familial, gynecological, or scatological insults.

“Crazy,” said Oliver as the cab pulled up to the curb and the driver twisted around in his seat. The man, a heavy-set fellow with European features tapped the meter.

“You pay two dollar,” said the driver, and Oliver reached into his coat for his wallet. A mounting sense of irritation gripped him as he checked every pocket in his coat and trousers, but came up empty. The wallet, which had been in the inside left pocket of his coat when he had disembarked from the train, was now missing. Oliver thought back to his arrival in New York. Had young Wendy Adams relieved him of his wallet, or had the burly Irishman with the bootleg whiskey lifted it when they had bumped into one another? He supposed it didn’t matter, but the fact of the matter was that he had no money with which to pay the cab driver.

“Ah, I’m terribly sorry, but I think I’ve had my wallet stolen,” said Oliver.

“You pay two dollar,” repeated the driver, and Oliver had a feeling that fares and street names were the extent of the man’s grasp of English. Oliver looked out of the window to see where Morley’s address had taken him, and immediately saw a tenement building with the correct number across the sidewalk.

“My friend’s house is just there,” said Oliver, indicating the front door to the tenement block. “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll fetch him. I’m sure he’ll lend me the cash to pay your fare.”

Oliver reached for the door handle, but stopped when the man lifted a baseball bat from the front seat. The man nodded at Oliver’s valise and said, “Go get friend, but leave case.”

“Leave my case?”

“Make sure you come back.”

Oliver was loath to leave the valise unattended. He had nothing of conventional value within, simply a fresh shirt, some undergarments, and a copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth. But the other books he had brought, those taken from Miskatonic University’s Orne library, were of a different stripe altogether. Such books were of incalculable worth and would be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands.

Nestled beside his Verne lay Celaeno Fragments, a book questionably translated as Nameless Cults, and Laban Shrewsbury’s book on the cults of the slumbering Old One whose name Oliver would not willingly speak aloud. It had taken Oliver and Alexander’s combined charm to compel Daisy Walker to release the books from Armitage’s restricted collection. As he had signed the loan slip for Celaeno Fragments, Oliver had seen the book had been signed out numerous times by Daisy herself, and fervently hoped her interest was purely academic. Nothing good could come of close acquaintance with such damnable writings, and Oliver had charged Alexander to keep an eye on the pretty librarian for any signs that she was delving too deeply into forbidden lore.

“Isn’t there something else I could leave?” asked Oliver.

A creak of a callused palm against hickory convinced Oliver that negotiating would be a fruitless exercise. Reluctantly, he released the handle of his valise, but before he could exit the cab, a man’s face appeared at the window, energized with manic vitality and alive with febrile ticks. The man’s eyes were intense and the ghosts of past horrors and ongoing nightmares haunted his expression.

He reached inside the cab and took hold of the valise.

“You’re not actually thinking of leaving that case, are you?” asked Morley Dean.

Chapter Two

Golden sunlight fell on the wharves of Baharna, and myriad points of light shone from the porphyry stonework. With the coming of the sun, the twin lighthouses of Thon and Thal had doused their great beacon fires, and the day’s work had begun. The harbor was already busy; a number of heavily laden galleys had arrived with the dawn from Ilarnek. The local stevedores were hard at work unloading the cargoes of spiced wine, aromatic oils, and incense onto wide carts pulled by yoked teams of zebras.

Luke Robinson sat on the edge of the sea wall as a light wind blew in off the ocean. The salt tang of the air reminded him of a town a long way away, both in time and space. Dressed in loose white trousers and a flowing burnoose, Luke’s attire concealed his robust physical appearance, and his long dark hair was bound at the nape of his neck by a thin leather thong. He had a handsome, wistful face, his classically proportioned features speaking of one who forever sought the best in people, but which bore the scars of his disappointment.

Over one shoulder, Luke carried a leather satchel in which he kept his sketchbook, pencils, charcoals, and inks. Alongside the tools of the artist was a silken bag in which was concealed an ornately wrought box of brass and metals unknown to men of earth. Perhaps five inches square, the box was heavier than its dimensions would suggest, and his uncle’s last gift to Luke was more valuable than the combined cargo of the galleys being unloaded onto the docks.

More valuable than anything else in the world.

Luke took his pad from the satchel and began sketching the men at work on the wharves. Though most of his contemporaries in Baharna painted landscapes of the island—the vast mountain of Ngranek, the purple sunrise over Lake Yath, the starry mirror of the city’s great harbor at night, or the mighty flames rising from Thon and Thal—Luke preferred to capture the quiet beauty of life in all its mundane wonders and everyday miracles. Ptoleus and Ndoto often teased him that his fascination for the minutiae of ordinary life was a legacy of his earthly existence, and Luke was hard pressed to argue the point.

Few were the buyers for his paintings and drawings of the weaver at his loom or the potter at his wheel, but Luke was not creating art for financial gain, but simply to express the beauty that could be found everywhere a person might look had they but eyes to see it. It had been this urge to see beauty in all things that had brought Luke to these lands, for there was precious little of it where he had come from.

He sketched with quick strokes, borrowing the passion of the Fauvists and letting the emotion of the scene before him guide his hand, if not its reality. His style was rough and unfinished, with a raw power and vibrancy that more measured, methodical artists could never match. Charcoal streaks slashed the page, and Luke let the sun warm his skin as he decided he was done with this sketch. It was, and would likely remain, unfinished, for the restlessness that had recently possessed Luke’s work—a restlessness he tried not to analyze too closely—intruded once again.

He had felt it for some months now, and had tried to put it down to the artist’s need to experience new things and behold fresh vistas, but he knew it was more than that. Luke had traveled this incredible land a great deal, and had seen wonders that most men could only dream of in opium-fueled delusions. He had explored the onyx quarries of Ingarok, walked the ruined streets of Sarnath, and climbed the slopes of Ngranek where the faceless black-winged creatures hunted.

Yet still he hungered for places familiar to him from his previous life, as though his quest to capture the essence of ordinary life was his subconscious beckoning him home. He shook off the notion. Baharna was home to him now, and he loved its ever-changing stone terraces that rose up like stacked blocks into the hills, its spice-scented air, its wide cobbled boulevards, and its sun-kissed towers of porphyry and marble. Its people were golden-skinned and welcoming, speaking with lyrical poetry in every word. They had long, lissom bodies and valued art as much as commerce.

Nowhere else in his long travels had Luke encountered such a happy people, and the thought that he might have to leave this city was like a missing tooth that couldn’t help but draw his tongue. Frustrated at his inability to finish the sketch, Luke slid the pad back into his satchel and moved on from the harbor wall, letting an instinct for ways unexplored take him back into the many streets of Baharna.

Each time he came to a meeting of streets, he took the path that looked least familiar, and soon he found himself in an area of the city into which he rarely journeyed. Sunlight fell in diagonal spars between the buildings—handsome structures of black stone and inscribed with words in a language none could now remember. He passed few people here, and Luke smiled to feel so isolated in such a populous city. It was an underrated thing to feel solitude, and he relished the sensation as he took another turn he didn’t know. His steps were echoing faintly behind him, and Luke took a deep breath, the air scented with cinnamon and freshly baked bread. He smelled something burning, and smiled as he imagined the curses of the baker as he took his ruined loaves from the oven.

The smile fell from Luke’s face as he tasted an unpleasant edge to the aroma, like fat on an old pan that has burned one too many meals. Like scorched meat and cloth combined, the stench was fouler than anything he could recall, and Luke searched around him for the source of the reek. Was there a fire somewhere nearby? Was someone trapped in a burning building?

Luke could see no sign of a fire, and ran toward the source of the smell, imagining a citizen of this fair city in peril. He came to a corner and turned this way and that, seeking some sign to guide him. No plumes of smoke climbed to the radiant sky and no flickering light of flame lit the black buildings. In fact, he could no longer smell the wretched reek of burning. Had he imagined it?

In this land, such a momentary hallucination was certainly possible, Baharna liked to tease its inhabitants with unknown fragrances of far-off places, but the sensation that it had been real persisted. Luke closed his eyes and let his senses stretch out around him, hearing the sounds of a city waking up. He heard the bark of a dog pack farther up the hill, the singing of washerwomen at one of the city’s crystal fountains, and the lyrical bartering of the market-traders as the set up their stalls in the open squares near the wharf.

Then he heard the whimpering cry of a lost soul, and Luke set off down a narrow, shadow-choked alleyway at a run. The sound was coming from the far end of the alleyway, and Luke slowed his headlong dash as his eyes adjusted from the brightness of the morning to the gloom of the alley.

“Hello,” he said. “Is there someone there? Are you all right?”

He received no answer and continued onward as more of the alleyway came into focus. Piles of crates were stacked against one wall, and a number of cats were gathered around a heap of carelessly discarded spoiled fruit and fish. They hissed at Luke, and he gave the cats a carefully judged wide berth. Dark rumors of events in Ulthar had reached Baharna, and Luke knew better than to antagonize the servants of Bastet.

The end of the alley was dark and the smell of burning waxed strong in Luke’s nostrils once more. He could see no fire, only the hunched figure of a man who stood with his back to Luke, and who was dressed in a manner unlike anything seen in Baharna, but which was as familiar to Luke as his own face. The man wore a tweed suit of moderate expense, flatteringly cut and shiny with wear at the elbows. On his feet were well-made brogues, and he had his hands pressed to the wall in front of him as though attempting to push it over.

“Sir,” said Luke, “can I be of assistance to you?”

The man looked over his shoulder at the sound of his voice, and Luke saw unreasoning terror in his eyes, like a child trapped in the dark. His greying hair was neatly combed, and Luke recognized the man’s fear. He had seen it many times before on the faces of those who were new to this land.

“I can help you,” said Luke. “I know this all seems strange, but in the morning you’ll wake and this will all be nothing more than a memory.”

The man shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t know where I am.”

Luke extended a hand to the man. “You’re in the city of Baharna, on the island of Oriab.”

“I don’t know those names,” said the man, his face lined in confusion. “Do I?”

“I’d be surprised if you did,” replied Luke. “My name is Luke Robinson.”

The man nodded and gave a weak smile.

“Henry Cartwright,” he said as though only just remembering the fact of his own name. “At least…I think it is. I’m not sure. I don’t really remember much.”

Henry reached out to take Luke’s hand.

“Where did you say I was?” he asked.

“Baharna,” said Luke.

“And where is that in the world?”

Luke shrugged and gave a wry laugh. “It’s everywhere in the world, Henry,” he said. “Wherever there are dreamers, it can be reached. Welcome to the Dreamlands.”

* * *

“Are you quite insane?” asked Morley as they reached his apartment door. “Did you learn nothing after the things we discovered in Alaska? Surely you understand enough to know that such knowledge is dangerous and should not be left in the hands of those ill-equipped to face such damnable truths.”

Morley paused in his diatribe to slide the first of six keys into the myriad of locks on his apartment door. Each one unlocked with the metallic clunk of heavy-duty bolts, and only after checking the hallway was deserted in all directions, did Morley dare to push the solid wooden door open.

Oliver followed Morley into the apartment, noting the strange star-shaped symbol carved into both the inner and outer faces of the doorjamb. He had seen that symbol somewhere before, but didn’t have time to recall where as Morley ushered him inside and shut the door before locking all the bolts again and sliding home a heavy latch.

Oliver placed his valise of books on a table already heaped with scrawled papers and folded maps as Morley turned from the secured door to face him. “And to think you were going to leave these books in the hand of a common cab driver as collateral.”

“He wasn’t going to drive off, Morley,” said Oliver. “Not while he was owed a cab fare.”

“And what if I hadn’t been here?” demanded Morley. “What if you couldn’t pay the fare, and that man had kept the books? Who knows what he might have done with them or where they might have ended up. Really, Oliver, I’m disappointed in you.”

“My wallet was stolen,” explained Oliver, his fatigue and annoyance with his experience of New York thus far beginning to get the better of him. “If you had met me at the station as I’d hoped and expected, then this would never have happened.”

“I received your telegram, but I don’t like leaving the apartment unattended as night approaches.”

Oliver took a moment to appreciate the strangeness of that remark, and reined in his rising ire. Morley had always been a man who understood the value in securing dangerous information, and the locks on his apartment door spoke volumes as to the level to which that had become an obsession.

His own home in Arkham was eclectic and shambolic, as one might expect of a university professor, but Morley’s apartment went beyond the pale. Oliver tried to hide the extent to which he was shocked by the condition of his old mentor’s living conditions. The room Morley rented was small, no more than fifteen or twenty feet square, but unlike a great many of the inhabitants of Hell’s Kitchen, at least he had the space to himself.

Sagging bookcases lined every wall—save for where a small fireplace burned low with softly glowing coals—and each shelf was stuffed with books, papers, and periodicals. What little furniture Morley possessed was piled high with what looked like research papers from around the world, strips of newspaper received from a clipping service, and unfinished notes in well-thumbed journals. Almost no trace of sitting space remained, and even the lumpy sofa was overflowing with papers.

The curtains were partially drawn and rippled as a breath of wind sighed through a cracked pane of glass. A tasseled lamp on a slender occasional table cast weak illumination, and a thin line of light from the gas lamppost outside neatly bisected the room. A black iron pot steamed on a hot plate, and the pungent aroma of strong coffee had seeped into the atmosphere with such thoroughness that no amount of fresh air would ever purge it.

“Sit,” said Morley, lifting the coffeepot and pouring a tar-like liquid into two chipped cups. Oliver looked around for somewhere to sit that wouldn’t involve shifting a swaying tower of papers, and settled eventually on a creaking wooden chair that wasn’t too overcrowded. He moved the open books from the chair to the floor, reading the opening lines of what appeared to be an unfinished letter of introduction to a private library in San Francisco tucked within one of the book’s pages. Oliver recalled the library as one his old friend, William Hillshore had consulted, and wondered if the two men had ever chanced to meet amid its labyrinthine shelves.

Morley handed a cup to Oliver and paced the room like an imprisoned cat, sipping his coffee and scratching what looked to be at least three day’s worth of stubble.

“Where do you sleep?” asked Oliver, looking around for a bed.

“Sleep?” said Morley. “On the couch, when I am able.”

Looking closer in the wan light of the apartment, Oliver saw the dark rings beneath Morley’s eyes, the sagging, careworn features of a man who has seen too much and risked a great deal to learn things he rather wished he had not. Was this what lay in his future?

Oliver felt his anger drain from him and said, “It’s good to see you again, Morley. I mean that—I’ve missed you, old friend.”

Morley’s features softened for a moment and he gave a crooked smile. “And I you, dear boy. Of all the students who passed beneath my aegis, you were always the one I felt had the most potential to achieve great things. It saddens me that we must meet again under such grim circumstances.”

“I didn’t think I would ever hear from you again,” said Oliver.

“I understand you must think me a terrible old fool for breaking off contact, but you must trust me when I say that I believed it was for your own protection. My reputation was already in tatters, and I knew that continued association with me could only tarnish yours.”

“Are you talking about what happened after the Alaskan expedition?” asked Oliver.

“That and other episodes that were less reported,” said Morley. “Suffice to say, I stretched the credulity and indulgences of the masters of Brown beyond breaking point. A number of incidents in which I had become embroiled were sufficiently scandalous that the board of governors could no longer look the other way.”

“Scandalous? I don’t understand.”

“No, and I shan’t expound upon them,” said Morley. “But after the events described in your missive to me, you know exactly the type of affairs of which I speak. You and I are privy to hidden truths, Oliver, blasphemous secrets and horrors no man should know. I had hoped my severing contact with you would have prevented you from uncovering such things, but I should have known that my most promising student would find his way to them.”

“I was shown them, really,” admitted Oliver.

“By whom?”

“Alexander Templeton, a fellow professor at Miskatonic.”

“He is a man of good character?”

“The very best,” agreed Oliver. “I doubt we would have prevailed without him.”

“Then keep him close, for such men are rare,” said Morley, finishing his coffee and setting the cup down next to Oliver. His fingernails were black with ink, and Oliver saw a number of poorly healed scars on the backs of his hands. Without the cup to still them, Morley’s hands shook with a palsied tremor, but seeing Oliver’s scrutiny, he laced them together behind his back as he resumed his pacing.

“So, tell me everything that happened in Arkham,” said Morley.

* * *

Oliver began recounting the horror that had unfolded in the streets of Arkham: the missing girls, the mysterious sphere Finn Edwards had found in the woods, and the loose alliance he had formed with fellow seekers after truth. He told Morley everything, from his introduction to the truths of the cosmos in Alexander’s books, to the attack on his office, to the fantastical trip through a shimmering gateway to a strange netherworld and the desperate flight from the flesh-hungry monsters that dwelled there. He recounted the final act of the drama, where he and a Pinkerton named Gabriel Stone had finally put paid to the monsters that had murdered Stone’s daughter and preyed upon the young girls of Arkham.

He left nothing out, and illustrated portions of his story with references to the texts he had brought from the Miskatonic library. Whenever Oliver consulted one of Armitage’s books, Morley would cease his pacing and the rigorous academic in him would return to the fore. Here and there, Morley would ask penetrating questions, and by the time Oliver reached the end of his narrative, he felt as though he had just emerged from the burning frat house once again, such was his exhaustion. 

Morley had emptied the coffeepot, and in defiance of Oliver’s expectations, this had stilled the tremors in his hands. The manic energy that had spilled from Morley now appeared more focused, more clearly directed, as though this meeting had galvanized him in a way that had been lacking in his life until now. Though the awfulness of what they discussed was beyond imagining and despite his protestations to the contrary, it seemed as though Morley was somehow enjoying the fact of his involvement.

“It’s a dreadful mess, Oliver,” said Morley at last.

“It was,” agreed Oliver, “but the creatures we faced are all dead. They burned in the fire, so I had hoped the matter concluded.”

Morley shook his head. “No, matters of this nature are never concluded. There is always a thread left to fray anew, a corrupt seed yet to bear poisoned fruit. The translations you sent me, the ravings of your friend Henry Cartwright? There is more to them than simply cannibal monsters, a great deal more.”

“Yes, so you said on the telephone,” said Oliver. “You said the horror had just begun. What did you mean by that?”

Morley sighed, and for a moment it looked as though he would not be drawn further. A gust of wind disturbed the papers on the table, and a lump of coal spat an ember to the carpet.

“Come on, Morley,” pressed Oliver. “You sent for me, remember? You said I had to come to New York immediately. I have traveled a long way, been hustled by a child, robbed by a liquor seller, and been threatened by a cab driver wielding a baseball bat. Now, I want to know what was so important that you had me subjected to such indignities by coming to this dreadful city.”

Morley nodded and took a loose collection of papers from the shelf next to him. He cleared a space on a chair opposite Oliver and set the papers down. His eyes would not meet Oliver’s and he sighed heavily as he spoke.

“You must understand that this is difficult for me,” said Morley. “I know well the cost of standing against such things as lurk in the dark places of the world. I have lost a great deal by doing so, more than I can explain, and I would not wish such a heavy burden on any other soul. But to let you advance into peril only half aware of what you face would be more dangerous than to forewarn you. Understand, though, it is no easy thing to share such detestable lore with someone I hold in such esteem and friendship.”

“I apologize for my brusqueness, Morley,” said Oliver. “But if you have something to tell me, then I must hear of it. If what has begun in Arkham is yet to reveal its full horror, then I need to know how to stop it.”

Morley pushed the papers across the table and said, “I know only fragments, but enough to know that there is a confluence of events drawing ever tighter around Arkham. I have read the works of Fitzgibbon, and despite the ridicule in which that disgraced scholar is held, there is truth in his ravings.”

“I read his book,” said Oliver. “But I find it hard to credit it with any validity whatsoever.”

“That is what they want you to think.”

“Who?”

“Our enemies; they find ways to discredit those whose work comes close to the truth. Fitzgibbon was a fool, that much is certainly true, but even the fool can sometimes be proven right. He speaks of the kings of Atlantis and how they fought against an undersea monstrosity in an age now forgotten by history. In that, at least, he is correct. That monstrosity destroyed Atlantis, and it lingers still, sealed in its sunken city in the deepest reaches of the ocean.”

“R’lyeh?” asked Oliver, and the wind rattled the window hard enough to make him jump.

“Speak not its name, nor that of its star-spawned inhabitant,” snapped Morley, moving to the window and looking down the street. “Some words are not for the cold night.”

“Amanda Sharpe dreamed of that place,” said Oliver as Morley pulled the curtains completely closed. “She saw it in the deep, and she saw it rise to the surface.”

“As did a great many others, Oliver,” said Morley, lifting a pile of clippings from the sofa and returning to his chair. He spread them across the table, and Oliver’s eyes scanned the headlines and subheadings of the various stories. They spoke of mysterious suicides, and incidences of delusional behavior where poets, sculptors, and artists had, for a period in 1925, been driven to create incredible works of hideous aspect that all shared a damnable connection, though none of the named people were even aware of the others’ existence.

Oliver knew of two people in Arkham who had endured similar bouts of morbid creativity at that time. Rex Murphy had found his reporter’s pen flowing with words of death that were akin to the dark verse of Poe, and Minnie Klein’s photography had rendered images of such grotesque strangeness that she had burned them to ashes rather than have them in her home. Along with Gabriel and Alexander, both had been instrumental in the rescue of Amanda and Rita after their abduction, and though Minnie was now in France, and Rex had withdrawn into his work, Oliver still counted them as staunch allies.

“It rose once before,” said Morley. “The sunken city, but it was only a terrible accident that saw it show its face to the world. The stars were not right, and the world was spared. But I have studied the writings of Herschel, and I see the approaching patterns in the celestial arrangements. Very soon, the heavens will align, and the dweller in the deep will rise again. That is what has begun in your town, Oliver—someone has begun the great ritual to awaken he who lies dreaming in his cyclopean tomb.”

“Why would anyone do such a thing?” asked Oliver. “What manner of lunatic would wish to destroy the world?”

Morley shrugged. “Who can know? Better not to, I think.”

“Can we stop this wretched city from rising?”

“I do not believe so, not in the long term,” said Morley, “but much must come to pass before such a benighted horror can emerge from so deep an entombment. As great and powerful as the Old Ones are, they require their mortal agents to prepare the way for their return. It is them we must vex at every turn.”

Oliver felt his resolve strengthen at Morley’s words. Ancient deities from beyond the stars were impossible to truly fight, but cultists, fanatics, or madmen. They could be fought.

“This girl, Amanda?” asked Morley. “Has she had any further dreams?”

“No, thankfully.”

“Good, then perhaps her connection to it is broken. Better for her that she never dreams again. And you are certain her visions corresponded exactly with your discoveries amongst the Yopasi tribe?”

“As certain as I can be,” said Oliver. “Her dreams matched the rubbings I took of the megaliths on their island, and there were too many instances of correlation between her dreams and the facts I accumulated for it to be coincidental. But the island and everything on it was laid waste by some terrible devastation. I was never able to corroborate many of my initial findings. You must have heard, the anthropological quarterlies took great delight in recounting my failure to submit any papers of note.”

Morley nodded in sympathy, well aware of how the razing of the Yopasi’s island had brought a premature end to Oliver’s researches and damaged his reputation almost beyond repair.

“And no one ever found the Yopasi? No bodies were washed up on a nearby island?”

“Nothing. Not a trace of them, as far as I know.”

“Which is damned unusual, eh?” said Morley. “Almost like someone didn’t want you to make the connection between what the Yopasi shamen were doing and the sunken city. And of course to stop them from enacting their rituals of warding against the Old One.”

“You think they were attacked?”

“Don’t you?”

“I hadn’t considered it a possibility,” confessed Oliver. “What manner of weapon could wipe out the population of an island and lay the entirety of its land to waste?”

“If the bloodshed of the Great War has taught us anything, it is that man’s capacity for invention is second to none where weapons of ultimate destruction are concerned, but I don’t think any invention of science laid waste to the Yopasi’s island.”

“Then what did?”

“There are lesser things that can be called upon if the right words are spoken and the right offerings are made.”

“What sort of things?”

“Monstrous things,” said Morley, lowering his voice. “I have caught glimpses of their nightmare forms, and I shall never sleep soundly again for the traces they have left in my brain. The insectoid creature you saw in the boarding house? Hideous, yes, but a mere trifle in the grand scale of horrors that can be brought forth by evil men. There are beings of such cosmic proportions that the destruction of an entire city might pass beneath their notice. The San Francisco quake of ’06 was caused by one such burrowing entity.”

“Good God!” cried Oliver. 

“So you see, to raze a small island in the South Pacific would require no effort at all.”

Oliver sat back and massaged his temples with the heel of his hands. He let out a deep breath and looked Morley in the eye. The wind had picked up outside, and the papers on the shelves rustled as stray gusts blew in through the cracked pane and between the imperfectly fitted window frames.

“How do we fight enemies who can call upon such monsters?”

Morley reached out and gripped Oliver’s arm. 

“By thwarting their earthly schemes wherever we may find them,” said Morley, his eyes alight with the intensity of a zealot. “The Old One’s time on this earth has passed, but it will come again. All we can do is try to keep them at bay for as long as possible. Though man now lives where they once dwelled, they do not easily forget that this fragile ball of rock hurtling through the vastness of space belongs to them.

“But so long as they slumber, we might yet defy them. They have left their likeness and their mark upon the world, and those with the wit and strength of mind to follow their spoor may learn of them and the means by which they can be undone. You now know something of the nature of the enemy you face, and I can offer you some means and formulae by with which you might defend yourself, but there is a book you must read that speaks of how they may be cast back to the formless void. It is a hateful book that has poisoned the minds of men down the centuries and which should have been burned from existence in the fires of the Inquisition. No man should willingly risk his sanity by reading its words, and it saddens me that I must tell you of it, but the old adage that says ‘to fight your enemy you must first understand him’ is never truer than here and now. In this book’s blasted pages you will find the words of the Atlantean priest, Nereus-Kai, and perhaps a means to combat this rising evil.”

“What book is this?” asked Oliver, looking around the room. “Do you have a copy here?”

“No,” said Morley. “I had a copy, but I entrusted it to the care of an institution in San Francisco.”

“Why?”

Morley’s eyes took on a distant look, one Oliver had seen in the eyes of servicemen returning from the war, men who had seen too much and stared into the abyss. Oliver thought Morley wasn’t going to answer, but his mentor’s stout character asserted itself once more, and he gave a rueful smile.

“I once feared I was going to my death, and gave the book to those who would keep it safe in the event that proved to be the case. Thankfully, it was not, but I rest easier knowing it remains in good hands.”

“Then we must book passage to San Francisco,” said Oliver. “I know a trustworthy man out there, a doctor.”

“A good man to have at your side in a tight spot?”

“One of the best,” said Oliver. “Professor William Hillshore, do you know him?”

“By reputation only,” said Morley. “But there is no need to venture westward, Oliver. There is another copy much closer to hand.”

“Where?”

“Your library at Miskatonic,” said Morley, producing an envelope sealed with a blob of green wax. “Armitage rightly keeps it locked away, but give him this letter and tell him I need you to consult it.”

Oliver looked at the seal, recognizing the star-shaped emblem as the same one carved into the doorjambs of Morley’s flat. And now he recognized where he had seen that symbol before. Henry Cartwright had taken a butcher knife and carved it into his chest the night he had been taken to Arkham Asylum.

“Does it have a name, this book?” asked Oliver, almost dreading the answer.

“It does,” said Morley, and it seemed that the light of the solitary lamp dimmed as he spoke. “It is called the Necronomicon.”

Chapter Three

Saint Nicholas was generally regarded as the patron saint of sailors, but the previous owner of Josiah Washburne’s boat had named her Saint Nicodemus. He had no clear idea who Saint Nicodemus was, but that he was a saint was enough for him to not bother changing the name.

The fishermen of Kingsport had warned him not to buy the Nicodemus, but the price had been too good to resist, and in these times of austerity, could any captain without a boat afford to be too choosy about what took him out to sea? No one else wanted anything to do with the Nicodemus, and Washburne had bought her for a fraction of her true worth at the salvage auction. She was sea-worthy, stout, and well-made, so he saw no reason not to buy her. He’d heard the whispers in the Rope and Anchor. Men said that the boat was cursed, that she was a dead man’s vessel.

Washburne wasn’t a superstitious man, and had no qualms about buying a boat that had drifted back into Kingsport harbor one night with its crew nowhere to be found. Thaddeus McCormack had vanished from her decks along with his three crewmen, but Washburne knew McCormack and his crew were hard drinkers, so it was no surprise to him that they had eventually gone to a watery grave.

No bodies ever washed ashore, and the taverns had been thick with wild tales of their doom. Some men said they had been taken by the ghosts of the merchantmen sunk by the British during the Revolutionary War, others that they had been seized by a strange form of ocean madness and leapt into the ocean to let the currents carry them out to sea. Still others claimed that jealous fishermen from Innsmouth had attacked them for daring to drag their nets in the fish-rich waters around that shunned town. 

Washburne didn’t care what had befallen McCormack and his crew. All that mattered to him was that no one else wanted the Nicodemus, and that his own boat had been holed beyond repair on the treacherous outcroppings of Doyle’s Rock six months earlier. A fisherman that couldn’t fish was a poor excuse for a man, and after borrowing the money from the First Bank of Arkham, Washburne had deposited a thick wad of notes on the auctioneer’s block.

And hadn’t the Nicodemus more than repaid his faith in her?

Together with his first mate, Dalton Mather, and the muscle-bound twins, Robert and Billy Barnard, they had brought in record catches of cod, mackerel, and lobster. Within six months, he had repaid his loan to the bank, and had been able to pay off many of his creditors. If that was what sailing in a cursed boat got you, then he’d buy a fleet of them if he could!

The Nicodemus was a thirty-foot shallop with a mast fore and aft, and paired rowlocks, though her oars were only put in the water when she came to berth at the Kingsport wharf. Her hull was pale cream and the blue rim around her gunwales made her a fine-looking boat, a limousine of the sea, and her hold was more than capable of keeping a fair-sized catch.

A hooded lantern shone from the bowsprit, and Washburne kept that aimed at the distant glow of the North Point Lighthouse. They were farther out than was sensible, but the fish were practically throwing themselves into the nets, and Washburne knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. He kept the boat as steady as he could in the choppy swells as Billy and Dalton worked together to haul the net onto the deck. Dalton had complained bitterly at having to work the nets, but with Robert ashore nursing a broken hand after one too many whiskeys had caused him to sock Zeke Updike in the Rope and Anchor, they were a man down.

Washburne looked up at the sky, not liking the bruised purple working its way to the horizon. Night fell fast in Kingsport, and only fools or desperate men kept their boats out past sunset. Already the horizon was a white line as the mists gathered for their nightly assault on the town. Though he gave no credence to the local fear of the mists, Washburne knew better than to tempt fate. Trying to navigate past Jersey Reef in the dark while surrounded by thick banks of impenetrable mist was just asking for another hole torn in the bottom of a boat.

“Hurry it up there, damn it,” he shouted to Dalton and Billy. “Time we was getting back to shore.”

Dalton shot him a venomous look and hollered back, “We’d be done by now if Robert were here! Bloody fool getting in a fight like that.”

“Here you,” said Billy. “Robert was defending the Nicodemus. Zeke said she were a coffin ship. If you’d had any guts, you’d have done it first.”

“I got a living to make, boy,” said Dalton. “What the hell do I care what some damn fool drunk says in his cups? You think your brother’s getting a share of this haul? Not likely.”

Washburne cursed under his breath. He’d wanted to wait until they were ashore to break that bit of news to Billy. But what could Robert have expected? A man who doesn’t fish doesn’t get paid. The economics of the ocean were brutally direct, and every man who owed his life to the sea ought to realize that or else find himself a new way of earning a living.

“He’ll get a share,” said Washburne, “but it ain’t gonna be a full one. Dalton’s right: a man’s got to earn his money. Robert knows that as well as anyone. You hear me, Billy Barnard? Now both of ya, put yer backs into getting those fish on board. Night’s on its way, and I don’t want to be out here when it gets here.”

Billy nodded and resumed pulling the nets onto the deck. Washburne stared at Dalton until he too got back to work. The Barnard boys were good workers, but Dalton was a snake, always ready with a poisonous word or a scornful remark. His dark moods and too-wide eyes had given rise to rumors that Dalton had Innsmouth blood in him, an allegation more than one loudmouthed drunk had come to regret in the dark outside a Harborside tavern. Dalton claimed to have come down from Gloucester back in ’98, but Washburne knew a few old-timers who ran boats out of that town and no one there had heard of a Dalton Mather.

Washburne didn’t much like Dalton, but he knew the reefs and the best places to fish like no other, so he allowed the man’s bitter carping to wash over him. He let Dalton and Billy get on with their work and stifled a yawn. The life of a fisherman was hard. Early mornings, backbreaking labor in the cold and wet for precious little reward. He wondered if the swells in the restaurants of New York or Arkham appreciated how much effort went into putting that fine fresh fish onto their expensive china.

Washburne put thoughts of ungrateful city folk aside as he realized he could only see one glowing light ahead of his boat. At first he thought a rogue wave had extinguished the lantern on the bowsprit, but as he squinted through the spray he saw it swinging from the timber.

The beacon atop the North Point Lighthouse was gone and night had closed its fist around the Nicodemus. How long had he been lost in thought? In the dark, a sea-going vessel becomes its one and only point of human reference, and without the glow of the lighthouse, it would be easy to become hopelessly lost. The mist on the horizon was growing thicker, and tendrils of milky white drifted past them, getting thicker by the second.

“Damn you, Elton,” snarled Washburne. “You let the bloody light go out!”

Washburne looked over his shoulder to see a faint smudge of light on the underside of the clouds beyond Jersey Reef. That was Kingsport, and it was his only point of reference now.

“Have you got those nets secure?” he shouted to Dalton.

“Hold your horses, kaputnik!” answered Dalton. “We’re doin’ it now.”

“Never mind,” cried Washburne, keeping his gaze fixed on the dim glow of Kingsport. Was it his imagination or was the mist around his boat getting thicker? Quickly he angled the tiller and turned his boat around in a sharper maneuver than he intended. Dalton shouted in annoyance, and Billy cried out as he was hurled to the deck and banged his head on the gunwale.

Washburne angled his boat toward Kingsport. He reckoned he had at least half a mile before they were in danger of running aground on the reef, but in the dark and without the lighthouse to be sure, there was a very real possibility of breaking the boat in two on hidden rocks, but what choice did he have?

“What the hell are you doing?” said Dalton, clambering back to the tiller.

“Look,” said Washburne, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

Dalton looked and immediately saw the problem.

“Gimme the tiller, Josiah,” said Dalton. “Now.”

“What? No way, this is my boat.”

“Josiah, I know that reef better than anyone, and you’re heading straight for the rocks. Trust me, you keep on this heading, and you’ll prove the bastards who say this is a cursed boat dead right.”

Washburne risked looking up from the lights ahead of him and cursed softly. To relinquish control of his boat was something no captain relished, even to a trained pilot, but Dalton was right. He nodded and they swapped positions. Dalton tucked the tiller under his right shoulder and grunted as he changed their course with more finesse than Washburne had employed.

Billy joined them at the stern, and Washburne immediately saw the boy’s fear. He didn’t blame him; he felt it too. But then he saw that Billy wasn’t looking at the reef that lurked somewhere out in the darkness or the creeping banks of mist that oozed over the gunwale.

“Cap’n,” said Billy. “I don’t think we’re alone out here.”

Washburne followed Billy’s pointing finger and his jaw fell open as he saw the outline of another ship through the mist. Limned against the pale fog, Washburne saw the shape of a vessel that hadn’t sailed these waters in decades. Water cascaded from its decks and ruptured hull as though it had risen from the bottom of the ocean. Waterlogged timbers groaned and iron plates squealed as the ship hauled its rotten bulk through the water as though pulled by Poseidon himself.

“Holy Mother, there’s another one!” cried Billy as another vessel drifted across their stern like a ship of war crossing the T. Its hull was decayed and had so many holes that there was no way it could possibly be afloat. Rotten lengths of rigging and seaweed hung like a loathsome spiderweb across her length. Movement caught his eye and Washburne saw a human skull topple from the sagging deck of the hulk. Something hideous and stoop-shouldered lurched out of sight behind a stump of a mast, but not before Washburne caught a glimpse of something ape-like with bottle green skin staring down at him.

Though he hadn’t set foot in a church for seven years—not since his beloved Abigail had been taken from him by influenza—Washburne crossed himself like a guilty priest as the vessel sank back into the ocean, taking the terrible thing on its deck down with it.

“What’s going on, Cap’n?” Billy begged to know.

“Hell if I know,” he replied, then instantly regretted it as the Nicodemus lurched upward as though struck from below. Water sloshed onto the deck as the boat heeled over to the side and Washburne heard a sickening scraping run the length of her keel.

“Damn you, Dalton! I thought you said you know this reef!”

“That weren’t no reef!” answered Dalton, wrestling with the tiller.

The Nicodemus spun around, caught in a sudden riptide or perhaps the powerful surge of an underwater maelstrom. Washburne lost his balance and he fell. The breath was driven from him as his ribs slammed into the side of his boat. Billy toppled over the edge of the gunwale, and Washburne shouted his name as he leapt to grab him.

His hand grabbed Billy’s sleeve, and he cried out as he felt his arm almost wrenched from its socket. Cold water splashed his face as he leaned over the side and swung his other arm over the side of the boat to grab Billy’s collar.

“Hold on, boy!” he shouted as a bright light shone like a submerged lighthouse far below.

“Help me!” screamed Billy between gulps of cold water. “Don’t let the ghosts take me!”

Washburne didn’t answer, and hauled with all his strength as a heavily timbered leviathan rose from the water alongside them. This vessel was old, a warship with a number of iron carronades sagging in gunports or dangling on rusted chains. Mist clung to her, and Washburne saw jagged tears ripped in the hull from cannonball impacts. Her splintered mast lay like a broken bone across her prow, and the regal figurehead wept silt-laden tears dredged from the ocean floor.

“God in heaven,” said Washburne, finally dragging Billy back on board. “That’s a damn British warship.”

Billy retched a lungful of seawater and coughed as he rolled onto his back. 

“Get us outta here!” cried Washburne.

The Nicodemus surged away, and a wall of mist swallowed the relic of the Revolutionary War. Dalton was sailing hard, and Washburne prayed that if the ghost ships didn’t get them, that the reef wouldn’t finish the job. He couldn’t see Kingsport’s lights, and doubted Dalton could either. Despite that, the first mate was steering the Nicodemus with sure purpose.

“You see where you’re going?” he asked, spitting water.

“Nope, but I’ll get us home, don’t you fret none, Josiah.”

“You do, and you and I are going to get roaring drunk in the Rope and Anchor for a week, and I ain’t lettin’ you put your hand in your pocket once.”

“Sounds good to me,” answered Dalton with a rare grin.

Washburne looked back to check Billy was okay, and let out a relieved breath. He couldn’t see any more of the ghost ships or the hideous undersea lights, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. He rubbed his bruised side where he had struck the gunwale and winced.

“I’m gonna put my fist through Basil Elton’s face for this,” said Washburne.

“Join the line,” said Dalton.

* * *

A hubbub of voices filled the square, energetic hawkers and craftsmen extolling the virtues of their wares while good-naturedly belittling those of their competitors. It was a well-understood tradition of Baharna’s markets, and a successful stall owner was as much a wit and raconteur as he was a salesman. Luke wove a path through the crowded throng of buyers and sellers with Henry Cartwright following in his wake, dumbfounded by the myriad colors, smells, sights, and languages in evidence.

An ostler with a string of zebras yelled numbers at an auction block, and a fire-breather pranced at the edge of the crowds. People threw him coins to keep him away as much as for his skill. Veiled women, wreathed in intoxicating clouds of perfume, moved through the crowded bazaar in the company of gimlet-eyed men armed with golden tulwars, and the crowd parted before them. A heady mix of spices, exotic perfumes, alien tobaccos, and vigorously fanned cook fires filled the air, and though they had recently eaten, the smell of roasting meat made Luke’s mouth water. A traveler could find anything he desired in such a market, but always at a price.

“It’s incredible,” said Henry, as they passed the zebra auction.

“I remember the first time I came to one of Baharna’s market squares,” said Luke with a smile. “It almost ruined me.”

“I can imagine,” said Henry. “I’m glad I have no money.”

“I only come with a small amount each time. The sellers here have a way of making you part with your coin like no other.”

“It’s like a Berber souk,” said Henry, “or something in Cairo or Alexandria.”

“You’ve visited Egypt?”

Henry paused to consider his answer. “I don’t know, possibly. Dash it, why can’t I remember.”

“Don’t worry, Henry, it’s quite common for travelers to the Dreamlands to forget parts of their waking lives. It’s like forgetting a dream when you rise from your bed.”

“I suppose, though I still have a hard time believing this is all just a dream.”

“It gets easier,” promised Luke.

“So does this mean my body is asleep somewhere?”

“Somewhere in the waking world, yes.”

“Will I remember any of this when I awake?”

“Some, but most of it will fade. Only experienced dreamers who have trained their entire lives can live with a foot in both worlds and keep their sanity.”

“Dreamers like you?”

“No, not like me,” said Luke with more intensity than he had intended. “I stepped from your world into this one without looking back. This is my home now.”

“So you are not dreaming? You are really here, I mean physically.”

“Yes.”

“Incredible,” said Henry again, plunging into the market with the confident aplomb of Mungo Park setting off into the wilds of Africa.

Two weeks had passed since Luke had met Henry in that blind alley in the wandering streets of the city. With nowhere to stay, and no memory of his life before his arrival in Baharna, Henry had accepted Luke’s offer of hospitality until his senses reoriented or he awoke. Luke had precious little room in his humble artist’s abode, but after clearing out some unfinished canvases and a collection of aborted sculptures, a place had been found for Henry to lay his head.

Henry reached a shadowed stall where a swarthy-skinned man with pale eyes topped by a black turban unveiled a black cloth strewn with dark rubies and beckoned him over. Henry paused to admire the gemstones, but Luke shook his head and stepped between him and the turbaned man.

“Leave him be,” said Luke, staring at the swarthy man.

The man bowed his head and spread his arms in a gesture of innocence that was entirely unconvincing. A pale shimmer, like the moon on the surface of a still lake, shone in the corner of the man’s eyes as he met Luke’s gaze.

“All men are free to spend their money as they like.”

“But I know the price he would pay for your wares,” said Luke.

“Perhaps he would prefer to make up his own mind.”

“Begone from here, or I will tear that turban from your head and everyone here will see what you truly are.”

The man retreated into the shadows of his stall, folding the black cloth over the rubies with a hiss of anger that was reptilian and unlike anything Henry had heard before.

“Come on,” said Luke, guiding Henry onward with a gentle pressure on his arm.

“What was that all about?” asked Henry.

“Best not to stare too long at the wares of the Men of Leng,” he advised. “They serve dark masters, and those rubies were once diamonds of the moon that have turned red with slave blood.”

“Goodness gracious,” said Henry, looking back over his shoulder, but the turbaned man and his stall were gone as though they had never existed. “Slaves. The very notion.”

“This is not your world, Henry,” said Luke, paying another market trader with a semi-circular coin of bronze and receiving two tin cups of a reddish gold liquid poured from a clay ewer. “You would do well to remember that.”

“I will,” said Henry, taking one of the tin cups. “What is this?”

“Sydathrian wine,” said Luke, tilting his head back and downing his drink in one go. “Best to drink it all at once.”

Henry followed his example, and Luke laughed as he choked back a snort of aromatic breath.

“It’s good, yes?”

“Very good,” agreed Henry. “Strong.”

“Most things in the Dreamlands are.”

“Why is that?”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps because everything in a dream is more vivid, more real than anything you experience in the waking world.”

“You keep saying ‘waking world,’” said Henry as they passed the cups back to the smiling vendor, who begged them to try more. “You don’t say ‘real’ world. Why is that?”

“You spotted that,” said Luke. “Whoever you are, Henry Cartwright, you’re not a dullard.”

“I should hope not,” said Henry.

“Perhaps you were a scholar?” suggested Luke. “Or a teacher?”

Henry nodded with a sad smile. “That would be pleasant. I think I would have enjoyed the quiet of academic life.”

“Then you’ve obviously never been a teacher,” said Luke.

Henry laughed and dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. In deference to the warmth of Baharna, Henry had been persuaded to abandon his heavy tweeds and swap them for lightweight linen trousers and an old burnoose of Luke’s. The fit wasn’t exact, but it was close enough.

“A skilled deflection,” said Henry. “But I can’t help but notice that you didn’t answer my question.”

“It wasn’t deflection, Henry,” answered Luke. “Who is to say which world is the real one? Perhaps this is the real world and we go to your world when we sleep. Perhaps none of it is real, and we are all the collective dream of a sleeping god. ‘Real’ is such a subjective word that it is almost ridiculous to use it in such a context.”

Henry shrugged. “Real is what I can see and hear and touch and feel. A limited perception, I know, but what else is there? If we question the reality of everything, then we fall into a philosophical abyss. Some things have to be taken on faith.”

“Speaking of which, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine,” said Luke as they passed a trestle table where a sculptor with skin as black as coal was selling small figurines carved from dark, glassy stone. At first it appeared the figurines were all black, but upon closer inspection, Henry saw they were actually a variegated myriad of subtle colors. The sculptor smiled as he saw Luke approach, and waved to him with great affection.

“Friend Usiku,” said the man in a booming voice that carried throughout the square.

“I keep telling you to call me Luke.”

“I do not like that name,” said the sculptor. “My name is better.”

“Henry, I’d like you to meet, Ndoto, though I suspect that’s not his real name.”

“You would be right, but who is to say what is real and what is imagined in a dream?”

“Funny, we were just talking about that,” said Luke.

“Here we make our own reality,” said Ndoto, taking Henry’s hand in a crushing grip.

Henry freed his hand from that of the sculptor’s and flexed his fingers to make sure none were broken. Luke saw the gesture and remembered the first time he had met Ndoto. He couldn’t hold a piece of charcoal straight for a week.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” he said, “but Ndoto is one of the best sculptors in Baharna. Don’t let those climber’s hands fool you; he can be quite dexterous when the mood takes him.”

“One of the best?” said Ndoto with a sharp edge to his voice.

“My apologies,” said Luke. “The best.”

“For that you must buy a piece,” declared Ndoto. “To salve my pride and give your apology meaning.”

“Very well, Ndoto,” said Luke. “Though as a guest in Baharna, I’ll let Henry pick one.”

Henry nodded and his eyes roamed the figurines with interest. Luke saw the strange look in Ndoto’s eyes as he studied Henry. The normally affable sculptor had been strangely abrupt today, and Luke had never known him to take offense so readily at what was clearly a joke. Something about Henry was putting Ndoto on edge, but what that might be, Luke had no idea.

“These are incredible,” said Henry. “What are they made from?”

“I am a lava sculptor, and while fearful men only dare chip the dull glass from the skirts of Ngranek, I climb above the clouds to the domain of the black-winged beasts and hack the best stone from the summit. I have seen the likenesses of the gods carved into the far side of the mountain, and these are their many faces. Make your choice and you will learn of your true nature.”

“That’s not just a sales pitch, Henry,” said Luke. “That’s simply the truth.”

Henry nodded and bent over as he reached for a figurine carved in the form of a leaping dolphin. The sculpture was incredibly delicate and shone with a reddish blush to its reflective surfaces. His fingers trembled as they touched the object and his lips moved in a whisper of syllables that Luke could hardly hear over the din of shouting traders, braying animals, and haggling customers.

He leaned closer, and his hackles rose as he heard what Henry was saying.

“Iä Cthugha, na, Fnagt…”

Ndoto heard the words too and backed away from his trestle table as the dolphin began to shine with its own inner luminescence. A thin tendril of smoke rose from the carved blowhole of the sea mammal, and it split in half with a sharp crack of breaking glass.

“Henry, stop!” cried Luke, pulling him upright.

The man’s eyes were as glassy as the lava sculptures, and Luke tasted the same horrid stench of burning meat and fatty smoke he had smelled on the day he had met Henry.

Ndoto lifted a bluish figurine from beneath the table and pressed it into Henry’s hand. He spoke a word that Luke did not recognize, and the lost look in Henry’s eyes vanished a heartbeat later. The smell of fires and scorching flesh vanished with it.

Henry let out a shuddering breath and his eyes refocused. 

“Good God, Luke,” he cried. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m quite well,” said Henry, looking down at his open palm at the figurine Ndoto had put into his hand. Its deep azure hue was subtle, and caught the light strangely, as though refracting it in opposition to any physical laws of man. It resembled a curved five-pointed star with what might have been an eye at its center.

“That is the one you need,” said Ndoto, swiftly packing the rest of his wares into a wooden box lined with soft velvet padding. “Take it, friend. Keep it close, and it will protect you when your need is great.”

“Where did you learn those words, Henry?” asked Luke.

“What words?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember reaching for the little dolphin…then I remember you pulling me away. What was I saying?”

“Nothing I want to repeat,” said Luke. “But they were words of power.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You spoke the name of god,” said Ndoto. “One of them at least, and it is not wise to draw their notice to you. Not in this place. Not in any place.”

“Come on, Henry,” said Luke. “We should go.”

“His name is not Henry,” said Ndoto as they walked away.

“It’s not?” said Luke.

“No, that is a mundus name. Here, he is Mfungwa.”

“What does that mean?” asked Henry.

“It is your true nature,” said Ndoto. “Just as Usiku is his. Now leave, I do not wish to see you again. Awaken, and never come here again.”

* * *

Dorothy stamped her feet on the shingled beach and wrapped her arms around her thin torso in an attempt to keep the heat being leeched from her body. Cold winds blew in from the Atlantic, and the skin of her face felt frozen solid. The uniform worn by students of the Hall School were smart, sober, and regal, but the one thing they were not was warm. Dorothy was glad of her heavy socks and scarf, but wished she’d brought her woolen hat to school today. 

The bow of Kingsport’s shoreline spread out to her left and curled around on itself, huddled in the rocky bowl gouged, Mr. Winthrop enthusiastically assured his class, by the action of a retreating glacier. How a bit of ice could make a town, Dorothy didn’t know, and didn’t much care, but it seemed to be of great interest to Mr. Winthrop. A lot of Mr. Winthrop’s enthusiasms held no interest for Dorothy, but the chance to get out of the looming, perpetually gloomy school was too good to pass up.

This was Dorothy’s second year at the school, a place her parents were convinced would make her buck up her ideas and set her straight. Dorothy hadn’t realized her ideas needed bucking up; they had been just fine as far as she was concerned. Still, at least it got her out of Arkham, where Dorothy had always felt like a prisoner. She’d dreamed of heading out to New York or Chicago to sing with a jazz band, or maybe even farther west to California where they were making movie stars out of girls like her every day.

A jingling bell made her turn in time to see a man in a long winter coat with his hat pulled down emerge from the curio shop with a tightly wrapped bundle pulled in close to his chest. The shop’s blinds were tilted toward being closed, as though it was half-asleep. Its paintwork was peeling and in need of a fresh coat, and a hanging sign creaked in the wind, promising Ancient Reliques, Bizarre Creatures, and Exotic Mysteries from around the Worlde. Having had a look in the window as the class made its way past to the beach, Dorothy knew that was stretching it a bit. All she had seen was a collection of strange-looking junk, pickling jars with what looked like hairless monkeys stuffed inside, and teetering piles of dusty books.

The owner peered out through the glass like she was a potential burglar and turned the sign on his door to read “Closed” with a furtive, fearful glance. Dorothy looked for the man who had emerged from the shop, wondering how he had managed to get served when the shop was closed, but he had vanished from sight, ducking into one of the narrow alleyways that led into the maze of Hilltown.

The street was pretty quiet, the tourists having returned to warmer climes away from the ocean now that winter’s approach had turned it into a mist-embraced slate grey. A few bohemian types sat posing outside the more fashionable coffee houses, smoking and occasionally pretending to draw on sketchpads that flapped in the wind. The men had long hair, and the women wore trousers and loose scarves wrapped around their necks that made them look like something from The Thief of Bagdad. Though had they been wearing what the lady playing opposite Douglas Fairbanks had been wearing, they’d have been a lot colder.

“Dorothy Hartwell!” shouted Mr. Winthrop from the shoreline, beckoning her onto the beach with an imperious wave of his hand. “Planning on joining us today?”

Dorothy looked up from her lonely reverie, unaware that she had been left behind. The rest of the class were combing the beach, laughing and teasing one another as they searched for any signs of fossils. Mr. Winthrop had brought them to the town’s South Shore on a grand hunt for dinosaur remains, but no one had found anything yet.

“Coming, sir,” she said, but didn’t move as Mr. Winthrop started to turn back to his fossil hunters.

“Sometime today, Miss Hartwell, if you please.”

With a sigh, Dorothy made her way down the beach, ignoring the scornful glances of her classmates. Most of her fellow students were from well-heeled Arkham families or from the richer neighborhoods of Boston and Marblehead. Dorothy’s family was neither, and they knew it. She ignored them and joined the long line of students as they worked their way along the beach. As one of the last to join the line, she was forced to take the position nearest the shore, and stray waves lapped at the edge of her shoes.

The beaches of Kingsport’s South Shore were dark and mostly gravel and shingle. The water was cold and uninviting, and you wouldn’t want to lie on a blanket unless you thought hypothermia sounded like the cat’s pajamas, and signs placed every hundred yards or so advised against swimming in the strongest possible terms. People had died trying to swim from South Shore to Harborside. Some people called them adventurers or daredevils, but Dorothy just thought they were stupid. Who cared if you could swim Kingsport Harbor without managing to get yourself killed?

Dorothy’s breath misted the air before her, and she kept her long black hair loose to try and keep her neck warm. Ahead of their slowly advancing line, the Coast Guard station with its forest of radio masts and lifeboats was a brightly painted shack set back from the shore, and beyond it at the point itself was the white mansion of the yacht club frequented by the swells of Kingsport and neighboring towns. 

Expensive-looking boats bobbed and rolled in an exclusive marina, each one tall-masted and gilded with gleaming chrome and brass fittings. The men working the boats there were tiny dots, and at least they had the sense to wrap up warm. What kind of sadist brought a class of girls to a beach scoured by bitter Atlantic winds at the tail end of October anyway?

A wave washed over her feet and freezing water soaked her socks through.

“Great,” said Dorothy, stepping away from the water’s edge. “Just great.”

A foghorn blew somewhere out at sea, sounding forlorn, and as the echoes over the water faded, Dorothy heard a strange clacking sound, like dominoes rattling in a box. A stray frond of seaweed, carried back to sea by the tide, curled around her ankle, and she bent down to untangle it. Livid green and with black patches like a burn, it was a strange-looking piece of seaweed, unlike the grassy stuff that normally grew around Kingsport. Something hard bumped her ankle, enveloped by the seaweed, and Dorothy shook her foot to work it loose.

A white object, gleaming and round, dropped into the water at her feet, and Dorothy let out a horrified breath as the polished dome of a human skull rolled over to face her. She backed away from the shoreline as the noise of rattling dominoes grew louder and she looked out to sea as a whole host of bones washed up onto the beach.

The sea did not want these remains, and the tide refused to carry them back out to sea. Ribs, leg and arm bones, cracked pelvises and oddly cursive spines lay wedged in the shingle and sand. Dorothy clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. A graveyard’s worth of bones from hundreds of bodies surrounded her, many white and bleached of color, many more edged with black scorch marks.

Her classmates saw the charnel house of bones surrounding her, and where Dorothy had let out only a panicked breath, they unleashed a chorus of screams that echoed all the way to Harborside and which, in time, would reach as far as Arkham itself.

Chapter Four

The remainder of Oliver’s trip proved to be tiring, nostalgic, and slightly inebriated, with he and Morley spending the rest of the night talking of their time at Brown and what had become of their contemporaries. The gloomy atmosphere of the evening gave way to one of fatalistic bonhomie, as Morley brought out a bottle of Scotch and they shared a number of glasses.

Oliver spoke of the years he had spent in Arkham and his experiences on the Yopasi expedition, letting his frustration at his wasted time spill out in a bitter diatribe. Morley sympathized with the loss of his work, and gave him numerous ideas with which he might salvage a great deal of the research he had already undertaken. As a doyen of academia, no one understood how to extract information and best turn it to usefulness better than Morley Dean. In turn, Morley had briefly spoken of the work that had occupied him at the Pierpont Morgan Library.

Donated to the public by the nation’s foremost banker and financier, the library was a repository of classical works, artistic treasures, and manuscripts from all around the world. Oliver immediately saw why Morley would be attracted to such a place, but on how he had come by the position and what exactly he did there, Morley was curiously reticent to say. He dismissed Oliver’s enquiry with talk of helping out an old friend, and said no more.

They cleared some space on a second sofa—the existence of which Oliver had been completely unaware, so covered with books had it been. As the city that never sleeps finally took a catnap, they snatched a couple of hours’ rest before morning woke them with the raucous sound of rattling delivery trucks and roaring automobiles.

Once Morley had locked his apartment securely, they took the elevated train to the tip of Manhattan, where they purchased strong coffee and a sandwich from a vendor pushing a steaming cart down Wall Street. The man offered to add a dash of whiskey or rum for a nickel each, but neither Oliver nor Morley accepted. 

They continued on, passing the great banking houses of America, with their splendid mishmash of Gothic and Roman architecture intended to proclaim the nation’s dominance to all and sundry. Morley pointed out the offices of J.P. Morgan and the columned mausoleum of the US Treasury, and Oliver saw the scars and gouges cut in the stonework from the bomb of September 1920. Though six years had passed since the attack, Oliver still sensed unease among the people on the street.

He shook his head and said, “Anarchists, eh? Since when does the murder of ordinary men and women achieve anything?”

“Anarchists?” said Morley.

“That’s what they say,” said Oliver.

Morley grunted, and it was clear he had his own opinion as to what drove someone to park a horse and cart containing a hundred pounds of dynamite in the center of one of Manhattan’s busiest districts. What that opinion was, he did not say, and, sensing his old mentor’s reticence, Oliver did not pursue the matter.

They sat in Battery Park and watched the great liners setting out on their trans-Atlantic voyages and the low steamers pulling into the harbor and disgorging their holds of immigrants from Europe onto Ellis Island. War had driven many of them to seek a better life in America, and, having seen the polyglot nature of New York, Oliver could only imagine the great things that might be achieved by a nation that boasted such diverse cultures at its heart.

Welcoming the immigrants to America was the towering form of the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe’s Island. Oliver marveled at the pale green form of the mighty statue, with its upraised torch and tabula ansata held at her side. As the Atlantic winds grew stiffer and more invasive, Oliver began to regret declining the offer of whiskey in his coffee.

Their conversation was slow and confined itself to trivial matters, and as the clock on the nearby Federal Building chimed twelve, Morley hailed a cab to take Oliver back to Pennsylvania Station. They parted well, and Morley promised to keep in touch, though Oliver had his suspicions they would never correspond as they once had.

With Morley reminding Oliver of the letter he had given him the previous evening, they went their separate ways, and Oliver’s last sight of Morley was a lonely figure against the stark emptiness of the skyline with Lady Liberty at his shoulder.

It was a comforting image, one that would remain with him until his dying day, when thoughts of Morley would often return to him in his darkest moments.

At Pennsylvania Station, Oliver kept his eye out for the bootlegging Irishman in the sandwich boards as he passed the hectoring preacher atop his fruit crate. Oliver was quite unsure what he would do if he saw the man, for he had looked easily able to handle himself in a fight, and was most likely carrying a knife or perhaps even a gun. In any event, Oliver did not see the man, nor did he see young Wendy Adams. He wondered if she had managed to get herself a ticket to Arkham, or whether her words had been simply a calculated tug on his heartstrings designed to part him from his cash. Part of him hoped she would scrape together the fare, while another part hoped she never saw Arkham, for the sake of her continued sanity and health.

The rest of Oliver’s journey was uneventful, and stepping onto the platform of Arkham’s Northside Station from the steam locomotive he’d boarded in Boston, he felt a curious sense of homecoming, as though Arkham itself was glad to see him returned safely from the big city. Emerging into a purple twilight, Oliver took a moment to breathe in clear air that didn’t taste of coal, iron, and millions of people crammed together.

It felt good to be back in Arkham, with its familiar streets that ran with a slower pulse than New York’s, its wider sky, and its friendlier, if guarded, people. Arkham was like a town in a broken movie projector running at half speed, and Oliver welcomed its more relaxed pace. After the affair with the ghoulish monsters, it was a sentiment Oliver never thought he would feel again toward Arkham, but which pleasantly surprised him.

Though it was not late, only a very few cabs loitered around the entrance to the station, their drivers gathered around a drumfire that bathed them in a warm orange glow. With fall coming to an end and winter just around the corner, daylight was gone by late afternoon, and the temperature in Arkham had officially changed from chilly to cold. Oliver took a cab to his home in Easttown, and, exhausted from his trip, fell into a deep sleep where he dreamed of a man in the mist who called to him from a distant island of the dead.

* * *

If anything could be said to embody the quietude that had returned to Arkham, it was the campus of Miskatonic University. Though scarcely a few weeks had passed since the horrible murders that had held the town in a grip of terror, little remained to suggest that anything untoward had happened at all. It was one of Arkham’s queerer traits; that no amount of strange or outlandish incidents would ever linger long in the consciousness of its inhabitants. Oliver supposed it was a kind of survival mechanism, for what manner of people could live in a town of such indefinable strangeness without developing some form of collective amnesia?

The academic year was well underway, and the hubbub of new admissions, fresh classes, and sophomore pranks were long gone. Now the serious business of learning could begin, and the streets of the campus were busy with students wrapped in thick coats and heavy scarves as they hurried between lecture halls. Oliver had just spent a frustrating hour explaining to a class of freshmen the difference between anthropology and archaeology, and suspected this year’s intake of students were going to be a tough nut to crack. 

With classes finished for the day, Oliver strolled quickly along College Street on his way to meet Alexander Templeton at the Copley Tower. They had agreed to meet at the end of the teaching day and continue onward to the library. Knowing what he now knew, and with Morley’s letter secure in his pocket, the square, red-brick edifice of the library took on a somewhat sinister aspect—a repository of secret and forbidden things as well as a shining beacon of knowledge just waiting to be imparted to eager minds.

Next to Morley’s wax-sealed letter was an altogether more prosaic communiqué, a telegram sent from San Francisco, and Oliver smiled at the notion of calling a method of communication that could cross so vast a continent as the United States in a matter of moments as prosaic. In lengthy prose that must have cost the psychiatrist a small fortune to send, it informed Oliver that William Hillshore would be arriving in Boston on the 25th to attend a symposium on the latest works of Freud and Jung in relation to the treatment of the poor unfortunates suffering from shell shock. It went on to inquire upon the possibility of meeting Oliver in Arkham and taking a trip to the asylum to undertake an evaluation of Henry Cartwright.

It was the 23rd today, and Oliver had sent a return telegram to the Fairmont Hotel where Hillshore was staying. The thought of seeing his English friend again filled Oliver with pleasure, and he had made a note to purchase some Earl Grey from Madison’s down the street from his house. If Hillshore’s psychiatric treatment could make some kind of breakthrough with Henry, Oliver would be forever in his debt.

Oliver put thoughts of Hillshore aside as he saw Alexander seated on a bench at the foot of the looming bell tower. He was reading a paper and hadn’t seen Oliver approach. Dressed in an expensive suit and a thick woolen coat that reached to his knees, Alexander Templeton was every inch the war hero he was—clean-shaven with a strong jawline and curly dark hair kept under control by a glistening coating of pomade.

One of the leading researchers in the fields of Ancient Religions at Miskatonic, Alexander had published numerous papers since assuming his professorship at Miskatonic in 1923, and Oliver had come to know him as a friend and confidante in the struggle against the dark forces ranged against them. It had been Alexander’s books that first shattered Oliver’s comfortable fiction of a caring universe and any notion of natural justice in the world. Though part of him wished that veil could be drawn back over his eyes, Oliver knew that the truth, however discomfiting, should never be flinched from.

“Alexander,” said Oliver, sitting at the bench and feeling the cold seep from the timbers to his posterior. “Good to see you again.”

“And you, Oliver,” said Alexander with a wide and open smile. He folded his paper and placed it beside him before shaking Oliver’s hand. “You survived your excursion to the big city then?”

“Only just,” replied Oliver. “It was quite an adventure.”

“I can imagine,” said Alexander with a nod. “I would rather stick forks in my eyes than visit one of America’s burgeoning metropolises these days.”

“Anything interesting by Rex?” asked Oliver, indicating the paper. The Arkham Advertiser was primarily a local paper, but sometimes extended its reach to comment on the world beyond the town’s borders, albeit with a faintly disapproving tone. Since the fire at the frat house, Oliver had yet to read any stories from Rex that weren’t simply puff pieces on local dignitaries or inflated tales of the new wireless station the paper was constructing in conjunction with the university on the upper slopes of Kingsport Head.

Oliver saw real despair in the careworn lines of Alexander’s face as he answered. “No, just the usual doom and gloom from stringers with an eye on a desk at the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. It seems war drums are beating across Europe again.”

“Really?”

“Yes, the Italians are making noises in the Balkans and it looks like the Chinese will be at each other’s throats within a year,” said Alexander, shaking his head. “Didn’t the war teach us anything? Was the slaughter in Europe so trivial that men wish to set the world on fire once more?”

Oliver had no answer for Alexander.

“Oh, and that actor who died in August, Valentino? Apparently his legions of adoring fans are hurling themselves from tall buildings in the throes of grief. Ridiculous. The man was just an actor. What did he ever do to earn such adoration? Did he discover radium? Did he heal the sick with his touch? No, and yet these foolish youngsters rend their garments and wail and gnash their teeth like lunatics. I despair for the youth of today, this world is wasted on them.”

“That explains the hair then,” said Oliver.

“What?”

“The pomade—you look just like Valentino.”

“Don’t be moronic, Oliver, I’m just trying something new,” said Alexander, but the hint of a smile made Oliver laugh.

Alexander pushed himself upright and said, “I need no sartorial lessons from you, Oliver Grayson. That rumpled suit’s been on you since you left for New York, so I am assuming you had a fruitful meeting with Professor Dean. Would that be a fair assumption?”

“It would,” said Oliver, rising to join Alexander. He was about to expound more fully when he saw a female student across the park in which the bell tower stood. There were few enough women at Miskatonic University that she attracted attention by that fact alone, but despite the thick scarf wrapped around her face, Oliver was sure it was Amanda Sharpe.

Oliver had seen little of Amanda since the struggle with the beasts in the cellar, and was about to call out to her when Alexander took his arm.

“Best to leave her alone, Oliver, don’t you think?” said Alexander. “Give the girl a chance to put the infernal affair behind her.”

Oliver nodded. “If you think that’s best.”

“I’ve seen a number of fellow Marines who came back from the war after suffering terrible things, and the best thing was simply to give them time to heal on their own.”

Oliver watched as Amanda turned down West Street and disappeared from view. He wasn’t sure if she’d seen him or not, but accepted Alexander’s words. After all, who knew better the horrors of war than one who had seen them firsthand?

“You’re probably right,” agreed Oliver.

“The light’s already beginning to go,” said Alexander. “Shall we proceed to the library before it closes?”

“Yes, let’s,” agreed Oliver.

* * *

On the way, Oliver brought Alexander up to date on what Morley had told him, and by the time they reached the third floor of the library, the light had completely vanished from the sky. Though the library was still open to students and professors, it was eerily deserted, and the wan glow of the electric lamps on Garrison Street cast stark shadows between the stacked shelves of books. As they reached the top of the stairs, Oliver heard a low murmur of voices, and something of their tone set the hairs on the back of his neck upright.

It was cold here, and a breath of wind from outside sighed through the library, ruffling the pages of open books scattered on a table next to the elevator. The lights were turned off, and only a faint glow from the left gave any clue as to the location of the library’s current occupants. A bitter odor, like soured dairy milk caught in the back of Oliver’s throat, and he lifted a hand to cover his mouth.

“Good God, what is that smell?” he said.

A door opened and a strip of lamplight spilled into the empty library. Two figures emerged from the corner rooms of the library, one clearly supporting the other as they made their way toward the stairs.

“Harvey? Is that you?” asked Alexander. “What the devil is going on?”

Harvey Walters was, in theory, simply a visiting professor at Miskatonic, but he might as well have been given tenure by the board of governors for the length of time he had been in residence. A stout fellow with muttonchops that would have made a Civil War general proud and a tangled mass of white hair, he was the very image of a Yankee professor from a bygone age. Normally somewhat befuddled-looking and eccentric, with his monocle and walking cane, the sight of him coming toward them with purposeful strides was quite the most unexpected thing Oliver could imagine.

Or at least it would have been were it not for the young girl slung under his arm.

“Ah, Grayson, Templeton,” said Harvey, his eyes darting to the stairwell entrance behind them. Oliver could only see the top of the young girl’s head, for it appeared she had fainted dead away. At first glance one could be forgiven for suspecting some impropriety between Harvey and the young girl, but such an idea was as far-fetched as the writings of Verne had been to the people of France when his books had first been published.

“Is that Miss Walker?” asked Alexander. “Is she unwell?”

Now that he looked closer, Oliver saw that the slumped figure was indeed Daisy Walker, a leading librarian of the Orne Library, who—along with the redoubtable Professor Armitage—was the chief custodian of the university’s extensive collections. Blond hair spilled around her neck, and spots of what looked like blood dotted the shoulders of her lavender cardigan.

“Yes, I’m rather afraid she is,” said Harvey, as Daisy groaned and slurred something Oliver didn’t catch, but which sounded like Lavinia. “Poor girl, took quite unwell as we were finishing our work for the day.”

“What happened?” asked Oliver, reaching out to help shoulder some of Harvey’s burden.

“No need for that, old boy,” said Harvey, edging to one side. “Poor girl just fainted and banged her nose on the edge of the table. She’ll be as right as rain in the morning, I assure you. No need to worry.”

“Please, Harvey, let us help you down those stairs.”

“Not at all—Miss Walker’s very lightweight, and I’m stronger than I look. In fact, I’ll be taking the elevator; it’s quite all right,” said Harvey, dragging the limp figure of Daisy Walker toward the metal-fronted elevator doors. As the doors clattered open, another figure emerged into the library, silhouetted by the light coming from the room out of which Harvey and Daisy had stumbled.

“It’s late,” said Professor Armitage. “Can I help you with something?”

Oliver started to ask about the peculiar sight of Harvey Walters supporting Daisy Walker, but one look at the stoic features of the library’s head custodian convinced him that his efforts would be in vain. Dressed in a sober grey suit, the only thing to spoil the illusion of his constancy was the askew bow tie at his neck. Bearded and with a pate that gleamed with the light from the room behind him, he brushed his hands down his trouser legs. He snapped off the light switch before closing and locking the door behind him.

“We’ve come to consult a particular book,” said Oliver. “One of the ones kept apart from the rest of the library’s collection.”

Armitage folded his arms and removed a walnut pipe from a pouch in his coat pocket.

“This book, does it have a name?” asked Armitage. “Or am I supposed to guess?”

“It has a name,” said Alexander, “but one, perhaps, not to be spoken aloud in a darkened building from which a young girl has just been led in a state of distress.”

Armitage lit his pipe and the bowl glowed a soft orange, reflecting on the lenses of a pair of glasses that had slipped down to the tip of his nose.

“We need to look at the Necronomicon,” said Oliver.

“Out of the question,” said Armitage, turning and making his way along the corridor to where his office was located.

Oliver followed the professor and removed the letter Morley had given him from his pocket. As he reached the doorway through which Harvey and Daisy had passed, he saw numerous gouges torn in the door and its frame, as though a lion or a bear had struck the timbers. But such an incredible inference was surely preposterous, for what lion or bear had seven parallel claws on its limbs? Oliver shuddered as he recalled the attack on his own office by the demented cannibal beasts, and hurried his step away from the splintered frame.

“I’m afraid I really must insist, Professor Armitage,” he said, reaching Armitage just as the professor took hold of the door handle to his office.

Armitage spun on his heel, and Oliver was shocked at the anger he saw there.

“Do you realize the nature of the book you are so eager to see?” he asked.

“We do,” said Alexander, standing shoulder to shoulder with Oliver. “Its contents and subject matter are not unknown to us.”

Armitage shook his head. “So you have read a few lurid books of the occult and think you know the true nature of the world? Such things as you have read are like The Adventures of Johnny Chuck compared to the evil verse contained in that dreadful tome. No, I will not allow it; too much harm has already been done by the uninitiated reading things that ought not ever to have been committed to paper. No, I quite forbid it. Now, good night, gentlemen.”

“Forbid it?” said Oliver. “This is a library. How can you forbid anyone to read one of its books, let alone your fellow professors?”

Armitage took a pull on his pipe and leaned in close to Oliver.

“I have read that damnable book, and not a day passes when I do not wish I had not,” said Armitage. “I would not wish that knowledge upon another, so again I bid you good night.”

Oliver held out the letter Morley had given him and he saw Armitage’s eyes widen at the sight of the waxen seal and the star symbol at its center. He took the letter and pushed the door to his office open. He threaded his way through the piles of books stacked haphazardly around the room and took a seat behind his desk, an impressive expanse of dark oak strewn with papers to be graded, volumes of reference to be ordered, and lists of overdue books.

Armitage switched on an electric desk lamp and placed the envelope on the blotter before him. Oliver and Alexander entered the office warily, for the inner sanctum of Armitage was a place spoken of in hushed whispers, even amongst the faculty staff. His correspondences, especially those with the Whateley family of Dunwich, had been the source of much speculation amongst the staff of the university, and had seen numerous strange artifacts delivered to the library.

The desk lamp threw only limited illumination around the room, and its peripheries were still in darkness, with only the faintest light to fall upon the shelves of idols, figurines, and dusty tomes. Some were strangely proportioned, while others seemed to retreat from the light as though afraid to show themselves fully. Oliver threw off such macabre thoughts as Armitage employed the athame of a Salem witch as a letter opener upon the envelope, conspicuously avoiding breaking the green seal.

Armitage withdrew a folded letter and swiftly read its contents. When he had finished, he rose from behind his desk and said, “Wait here.”

Without another word, Armitage left his office and Oliver exchanged a puzzled look with Alexander.

“What did Professor Dean write in that letter?” asked Alexander.

“I have no idea,” replied Oliver. As much as his curiosity was piqued by Armitage’s reaction to Morley’s letter, he would rather have burned his first edition of From the Earth to the Moon than reach over the desk to examine its contents. Instead, he allowed his eyes to roam the walls of Armitage’s office, seeing the gold-limned outlines of his doctorates from Princeton and Cambridge, the photographs of London, and a family that Oliver hadn’t known existed. He kept his gaze averted from the things on the shelves at the outer extremities of the light provided by the desk lamp.

Moments later, Armitage returned, bearing a heavy book bound in what appeared to be faded rust-colored leather and secured with a heavy iron lock. Armitage placed the book in the center of his desk and procured a key from the darkness of one of his shelves. Oliver saw that Armitage’s hands were shaking, and he found the professor’s silence quite unnerving. He licked his suddenly dry lips as he wondered if reading this book was such a good idea after all.

Oliver’s heart was racing, and he was dismayed to find that his palms were damp with sweat. The light of the desk lamp seemed to shrink, and Oliver was certain the creak of timber and glass throughout the building was becoming more agitated. Armitage opened the book, and the smell of far distant days wafted up from the ragged-edged pages of yellowed parchment. Armitage lifted two lengths of slender velvet ribbon and placed one in the center of the opened pages, and another some ten pages deeper into the book. 

“This is it,” said Armitage, turning the book around to face them. “The Necronomicon. I am instructed to allow you to read only the pages between these two ribbons. Understand me, gentlemen: this is for your own protection, for there are blasphemies contained in these pages to which no man should willingly expose himself. Trust me, I know.”

With that, Professor Armitage excused himself, but paused at the door to his office with a final warning: “Neither you nor that book leaves this office, and you are to make no notes of any kind whatsoever,” he said. “Do you understand?”

“We understand,” said Oliver.

“Indeed,” added Alexander.

“I have your solemn oath on the matter?”

“Of course,” said Oliver for the two of them.

“Call me when you are finished,” said Armitage before slipping from the room as though grateful to be gone.

* * *

Oliver pulled his chair in close to the desk, reaching out with tremulous fingers to the pages of the Necronomicon. As much as he knew he needed to learn the secrets contained within its pages, the image of Morley Dean’s wretched existence returned to him. Was that fate to be his were he to read this book? He closed his eyes and took a calming breath, letting the air out of his lungs in time with the slow, measured beats of his heart.

Oliver opened his eyes and scanned the pages before him. They were almost orange with discoloration, and he guessed this copy was at least four hundred years old. The true age of the contents was unknown to him, but Morley had intimated that much of its text had been written some time in the eighth century. The language employed on the pages was a mix of Latin and fractured English, as though the translator had sought to give a future reader one last chance to reconsider his decision to read the book.

“Who wrote this?” asked Oliver as he struggled to make sense of the opening words.

Alexander did not look up, but said, “Supposedly a mad Arab named Abdul Alhazred wrote it, but who knows who made this translation. Some poor unfortunate soul forced to write in haste and fear for his sanity by the look of the penmanship.”

Oliver had to agree with this last remark. Where many such books were written by serried ranks of monks who’d made it their life’s work to produce fantastical tomes of vibrant color and exquisite artwork to glory God, this was more akin to a fevered journal, the writings of a madman as copied by a lunatic.

Between them, Oliver and Alexander had enough Latin to work their way through the pages indicated by Armitage. Though deeply hampered by the professor’s imperative that they not take notes, it soon became apparent that the translator had only a few stock phrases by which to make himself understood.

The more Oliver pieced together, the greater his horror and the more he dreaded taking his eyes to the next line. These were the channelled words of a priest of Atlantis named Nereus-Kai, and they spoke of a war fought between the enlightened inhabitants of that lost island and a race of undersea creatures that served an ancient star god, whose name Oliver knew only too well.

Cthulhu…

That name had been burned on the surface of his mind, one whose maddening syllables had first come to his attention in the works of Laban Shrewsbury, a professor of anthropology at Miskatonic who had mysteriously vanished in 1915. Here was hideous confirmation of everything Shrewsbury had written: the existence of the monstrous Cthulhu and his dread minions, and the insidious influence that spread across the globe from his abhorrent tomb city at the bottom of a nameless ocean.

Oliver pressed on, and he felt himself gripping the edge of Armitage’s desk with white-knuckled fingers as he read of how the debased followers of Cthulhu had plotted with those jealous of the wealth and dominance of Atlantis to destroy it. The priests of Atlantis had long joined forces with the peaceful tribes of earth to keep Cthulhu’s cyclopean fortress city forever on the ocean floor, and their reach had spread far and wide.

To bring their entombed god to the surface, the Cthulhu cult knew that Atlantis must first be destroyed, and began a war that would have dreadful consequences for the world. Seaborne raiders on reaver ships had laid siege to the coastal fortresses of the great island, while horrors from the deep had assaulted the underwater gates from which issued fabulous war-machines that could traverse entire oceans without once coming up for air, like the Nautilus.

Against such mundane foes, the priests of Atlantis had weapons the likes of which had never been seen beyond their borders and which, until now, they had never dared wield. Weapons that could project a beam of such intense heat that ships would instantly erupt in searing flames the moment it made contact with their decks. Others could create fierce storms to dash ships upon the rocks, or summon violent maelstroms that would swallow entire fleets.

But the enemies of Atlantis were cunning and had sought the aid of one who had been cast from the island for crimes so hideous not even the mad translator could bring himself to relate them. With his help, an artifact had been crafted: a celestial prism whose insane geometries would distort the light of distant stars and wheel the heavens like the hands of a clock until auspicious constellations were achieved.

Upon an island described as being as far from land as it was possible to be on this earth, this exile had used his crystal to turn the gaze of heaven until the stars were right, and the great undersea city of Cthulhu had broken free of the ancient chains that held it shackled to the seabed. Though the crystal’s power had driven him to the brink of madness, the exile’s diabolical creation had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

The text then descended into lurid hyperbole that spoke of continents overturning and the earth splitting apart to swallow entire civilizations, but as the writer spoke of how the world had been reshaped, it seemed to Oliver that there was an understanding of current terrestrial geography that must surely have been unknown at the time.

Yet still the Atlanteans had endured, meeting these cataclysms with magic or science of their own until finally, the island that bore the hateful name R’lyeh broke the surface of the waters and lifted its dreadful occupant once again to the light of the world. Against the might of the risen Old One, the Atlantean priests had only one defense, but even as their cities collapsed and their people died screaming, they balked at its power.

As their land burned, an inner circle of priests led by Nereus-Kai unleashed their most potent magic, and its power exploded from their last temple with the force of a boulder dropped in a pond. Such terrible forces were never meant to be unleashed, yet with that power Nereus-Kai was able to cast Cthulhu back to his seaweed-garlanded city and sink it beneath the entombing waters once more. Though the star god had been defeated, the alchemical rule of balance required a terrible sacrifice to match the priest’s victory.

Whether the Atlanteans had been aware of this when they’d employed their terrible rites was not clear from the text, but as monstrous earthquakes spread across their homeland, cracking its foundations and dragging the island beneath the waves, they knew their civilization was ended. The writer spared no grisly detail of the ruination of the Atlantean cities, the loss of life, and the loathsome revels of the deep-dwelling monsters that worshipped Cthulhu even as their master sank back into the dreaming slumber of imprisonment.

The dreadful, linguistically nonsensical incantations of Nereus-Kai were long streams of consonants and vowels that had no business being neighbors, and which made Oliver’s head ache abominably to read. Were these the words spoken of in Prothero Fitzgibbon’s discredited book, the (though even now his mind balked at the term) spell to banish Cthulhu to the bottom of the ocean once more? If so, Armitage’s condition of taking not a single note made them valueless, for surely there was no way to memorize so maniacal an arrangement of letters?

By the end of the text, it was clear that the world had survived a critical moment in its history, only to plunge into a new ice age and a period of darkness from which its inhabitants had emerged with only rudimentary memories. Only in dreams and nightmares would this secret history be told, and only then to those who would heed the warnings inherent in the fate of the lost Atlanteans.

A last postscript spoke of the Atlantean exile whose crystal had destroyed Atlantis. Horrified at the devastation he had wrought, he’d fled the vengeance of those he had betrayed. Though replete with artifices to hide himself from mortal eyes, he had been caught and killed upon an island on the far side of the world.

What had become of his unearthly prism of the heavens, the translator did not say, save that he prayed nightly to God that it had been lost in the destruction of the island it had helped usher to its doom.

Chapter Five

Cigarette smoke, fish guts, and spilled beer were the principal smells that permeated the Rope and Anchor most nights, but tonight there was an ugly aftertaste of anger and fear in the air. Basil Elton had sensed it the moment he’d walked in, and he knew he should have turned around and walked away right then. But he hadn’t, and as he nursed his mug of brackish beer, he was just waiting for something to happen.

Ever since the fateful night he had boarded the White Ship, Basil had been blessed—though that was a word he used guardedly—with a prescient feeling for the underlying mood of a place. The emotion of a building and its occupants would slowly seep into his bones, like some strange form of osmosis. In Kingsport, that meant a sullen sense of defeat and resentment that bigger fishing ports like Gloucester were destroying their livelihoods, or that the once proud New England town was now a haven for tourists and wastrel artists.

Set back from the water amid a tangle of sagging, abandoned warehouses, the Rope and Anchor was the domain of Jonas Riggs, a stocky, heavily bearded man with a grim temper who always affected an air of shared hardship with his clientele. Basil knew for a fact that Jonas was a wealthy man; the liquor trade was brisk in Kingsport, and no one profited from the fisherman’s need to drink more than the owner of a Harborside dive.

The one concession to Prohibition was the painting over of the word Tavern on the sign outside. Everyone in Kingsport knew the Rope and Anchor still sold alcohol, and the police were no exception. So long as Jonas kept the peace and didn’t flout his illegal activities too openly, the police left him and the tavern alone. God only knew what would happen if they ever tried to shut the place down. Denying a fisherman the chance to drink would be a sure-fire way to start a riot.

Though money was scarce, the tavern was busy. Fishermen huddled around tables with beaten copper tops, and a log fire burned in a hearth said to have been salvaged from a Kingsport merchantman sunk by the blockading British fleet a hundred and fifty years ago. The Rope and Anchor attracted a steady crowd, and Basil knew most of the faces here. A few tourists that had wandered in searching for an authentic Kingsport tavern looked awkward pressed into one corner, and a man in a long naval coat with the insignia ripped off and a wide flatcap pulled down over his forehead sat alone at a table next to the fire.

Men smoked and talked of the day’s catch, the prospects for tomorrow, and the likely spots where the fish would be gathering. Basil listened to their conversations without really hearing the words. The cares of the real world washed over him now, the mundane reality of everyday life pressing down on him like a lead weight. These were his fellow Kingsporters, and he knew he should care for their woes and share their troubles.

After all, he was one of them, wasn’t he?

Basil didn’t know if that was true anymore.

How could a man who had beheld the secret face of the universe—only to have it snatched away—be expected to face the grim, dreamless face of the waking world once again? Basil didn’t know the answer to that, and every night that passed without a visitation from the White Ship or its attendant blue-plumed bird brought him closer to taking his .38 revolver from its oiled rag and putting the barrel in his mouth.

Ned Targen finished yet another of his particularly graphic jokes, and the men around him laughed mightily, but Basil heard the hollow echo of it. As the band on the Titanic was said to have done, they played while the world ended around them. Basil took a drink, savoring the taste of the beer, even though he knew Jonas Riggs watered it down. Beer wasn’t anywhere near as profitable to the bootleggers as hard liquor, but Basil had never liked whiskey or gin. In lieu of dreams, his father had succumbed to the lure of whiskey, and it was common knowledge around town he had fallen to his death from Kingsport Head after consuming a bottle of Canadian rye.

Basil knew better.

His father had been chasing the dream he too was seeking. The North Point Lighthouse, like that strange house, high in the mists on Kingsport Head, was a sentinel at the gateway to somewhere magical, a realm of miracles and wonders. To know that and be denied entry was a torture not even the madmen of the inquisition could have bettered. Who knew what Theodore Clement Elton had been chasing when he’d taken that last step from the cliff, but Basil only hoped he had found it before that final impact on the rocks below.

He heard a growling voice and only looked up when he realized the speaker was addressing him. This was what he had been sensing, this was the ugly trouble he’d felt in the air the minute he’d walked into the tavern.

“You and me got a beef, Elton,” slurred Josiah Washburne. Dalton Mather stood beside Washburne, a nasty gleam in his slightly too-wide eyes, and the heavily built twins, Robert and Billy Barnard brought up the rear. Robert’s hand was in a sling and wrapped in bandages, but he looked ready to swing it at Basil if he said so much as a single wrong word. Billy looked scared, but ready to back up his captain. 

“I think you’re mistaken,” said Basil.

“Oh, no,” snarled Washburne, pulling over a stool and sitting opposite Basil. The man reeked of whiskey, enough to make Basil want to pull away in disgust. “We ain’t mistaken, are we lads?”

“No, Cap’n, we ain’t,” agreed Dalton Mather.

“Sure ain’t,” said Billy Barnard. “You almost got us sunk!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just th’ other night,” said Washburne, jabbing an accusing finger at Basil. “We was out past yonder reef, bringin’ in the nets, gettin’ ready to head for shore, when you let that damn light of yours go out. Damn nearly got us lost at sea.”

Basil sat back on his stool and shook his head. “When was this?”

“Two nights back,” said Dalton Mather. “You know when it was, don’cha? I bet you was fast asleep in that comfy bed of yours, passed out after a whiskey bender, just like your old man. That it, Elton? That how you let the light go out?”

“That light has never failed once in all the years I’ve kept watch on it.”

“Two nights ago it did!” said Billy Barnard, leaning over Mather’s shoulder. “Black as pitch it was out there, no light and only mist around us. Then…”

“Then?” asked Basil, sensing that Billy’s terror owed to more than just their ridiculous idea that the lighthouse had gone out.

“Then nothin’,” snapped Mather, shooting a poisonous glance at Billy.

“Yeah, we just about ran the Nicodemus onto the reef,” said Washburne, raising his voice so that the rest of the tavern could hear. “Thank God, Dalton here knows these waters better than any man living. Otherwise you’d all be singing hymns for us down at the Mariner’s Church, and you’d have blood on your hands, Basil Elton. What you got to say to that?”

“That you’re wrong,” said Basil. “The lighthouse didn’t go out two nights ago or any other night. Nor will it ever go out, not while I’m its keeper.”

“You’re a damn liar!” shouted Washburne, pushing away his stool and rising unsteadily to his feet. His cheeks flushed red and Basil saw the need for violence in his bloodshot eyes. 

Though he knew he was only pouring oil on the fire, Basil couldn’t resist a jibe of his own. He rapped his knuckles on the bottle he knew Washburne kept in his right pocket.

“Instead of blaming me, Josiah Washburne, perhaps you should think twice before taking a bottle with you next time you head out to sea.”

That was the only spark needed to ignite Washburne’s temper. The man drew his elbow back for a thunderous right hook. Basil pushed away from the table as Washburne’s meaty fist pistoned around, all callused knuckles and grime-encrusted fingers. He tried to duck, but wasn’t quick enough, and the impact twisted his head around.

Basil fell to his knees, seeing double, and he heard Washburne yowling in pain as he waved his hand like it was on fire. Landing a punch on someone’s jaw was almost as sore as being on the receiving end.

“You got a hard head,” hissed Dalton Mather, grabbing him by the front of his coat and pulling him upright. “You get that from your da?”

Basil didn’t answer as he slammed his forehead into the center of Dalton Mather’s face. Blood squirted from the man’s nose, and he yelped in pain. He released his grip on Basil and stumbled into a nearby table with a clatter of breaking glass. Billy Barnard leapt forward and barreled into Basil, pinning him against the wall and smashing a mirror with a brittle crack of breaking glass.

“You let the ghost ships come up!” cried Billy, his elbow cocked and ready to punch Basil’s lights out. The irony of that wasn’t lost on Basil, but he was more concerned with the pain that was soon to follow. Billy was built like Jack Dempsey and looked like he could punch clean through the wall.

“I did what?” coughed Basil through a mouthful of sticky blood.

Billy’s brother landed a roundhouse with his good hand in Basil’s breadbasket. Though not his punching hand, it was still a scorcher of a blow. Basil folded like a broken deck chair and retched air as he fought to breathe. He rolled onto his back as rough hands pinned him to the muddy floor of the tavern.

Dalton Mather’s face loomed above him, a mask of blood spreading from his broken nose.

“You’re gonna pay for that!” said Mather, aiming a punch for Basil’s jaw.

Before the blow could land, another hand intercepted the fist and twisted it aside. Mather howled in pain as he was hauled to his feet by Basil’s helper. A wide-shouldered man pushed himself between Basil and his attackers, and through tears of pain, he saw it was none other than the man dressed in the old navy coat and flatcap who had been drinking alone.

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” said the man.

“He almost got us killed!” protested Washburne, still clutching his hand to his chest. Despite the pain he was in, Basil was surprised to hear a note of wariness in Washburne’s voice. Basil blinked away his dizziness and pushed himself upright against the wall.

“No,” said the man, his accent thick and redolent of the sea. “He didn’t. I was at sea two nights ago and that light never went out once.”

“What the hell’s this got to do with you anyway?” snapped Mather.

“Not a damn thing,” said the man, “but I was out until just ’afore dawn and I followed the lighthouse home when I was done. Mr. Elton here’s telling the truth.”

“It damn well went out,” spat Dalton Mather. “We all seen it go out.”

“No,” said the man again. “You didn’t.”

“What was you doing out all night anyway?” said Billy, before an elbow in the guts from his brother shut him up.

“Hush up, Billy,” said Robert. “Don’t ask his kind nothin’. They ain’t right in the head.”

Further violence was averted when Jonas Riggs pushed his way through the crowds gathered around the combatants. The owner of the tavern had a face like thunder and he held a heavy length of carved hickory in his hands. Riggs claimed it was the cudgel Eben Hall had carried when he and the God-fearing townsfolk of Kingsport had put paid to the devil-worshippers of the Congregational Church back in 1722. Basil thought it looked like a baseball bat someone had taken a wood plane to and then heavily varnished.

“Josiah Washburne, you get out of here and don’t come back until you’ve sobered up!” yelled Riggs. “And that goes for the rest of your lads. I don’t want no trouble here, you understand? You want the cops crawling all over this place? Now get out!”

Washburne and his crew barged their way through the tavern’s patrons and slammed the tavern doors behind them as they left. No sooner had they gone than the usual hubbub of conversation resumed as the fishermen went back to their drinks and to whisper of what had just happened.

“You okay, Basil?” asked Riggs.

“I’m fine,” said Basil, pulling himself upright and rubbing his bruised jaw. “Or at least, I will be in a moment.”

He sat down at his table as Jonas Riggs returned to his usual position behind the bar. Eben Hall’s cudgel was replaced above the collection of bottled ships, and business went on as normal. Basil replayed the fight in his mind once again, wondering what had driven Washburne to make so foolish an allegation. The mists beyond the reef had been thick that night, and that was the only way Basil could imagine that someone might believe he had allowed the light to fail. He thought of what Billy had said, about the ghost ships, and knew there was more than a chance that they had seen something out at sea.

Then Basil remembered that it hadn’t been Jonas Riggs that had saved him from a savage beating at the hands of Dalton Mather, but another man altogether. He looked across the bar for his rescuer, but the stool was empty. Basil rose to his feet and made his way from the Rope and Anchor, all appetite for beer vanished utterly.

Outside, the street was almost pitch dark and the cold taste of the fog-shrouded sea was in the air. A bell tolled down at the quayside, muted by the mists hugging the shoreline. A couple of gas lamps hung from hooks outside some of the buildings, and candle flame danced in the windows of a few nearby houses. The mist hadn’t reached this far up yet, but give it an hour or two and it would be nipping at the base of the cliffs.

Basil looked left and right, finally spotting the broad-shouldered shape of his rescuer walking steadily away from the tavern, his steps carrying him toward the slopes of Central Hill. Knowing better than to shout, Basil set off after the man, wincing as each footstep sent a jolt of pain through his bruised torso. He followed the man along Ship Street and onto Abbott, almost losing sight of him as he took a quick turn into the narrow alleys winding through the upper slopes of the town.

At last he saw his benefactor as he paused to light a cigarette at a mist-filled intersection. The match light illuminated his face, and Basil saw features he had never seen, but knew well enough from quayside talk and dark rumor-mongering. Though it was deep night and the only light was the ember-glow of the match, Basil still felt a crawling revulsion work its way up his spine at the sight of the man’s pallid features. His skin had an oily, waxen texture to it, the lips holding the cigarette flabby and full, his eyes wide and saucer-like.

The man’s eyes darted in Basil’s direction, but thankfully the match blew out before he could see any more of his subtly repellent features. The man moved on and turned the corner ahead of him. Basil let him go, any thought of thanking him evaporating like water droplets on a hot skillet.

Why would Silas Marsh of Innsmouth bother to save him from a beating?

* * *

The brush swiped and slashed over the page, moving with passion and vibrancy. Colors bled into one another, creating hues unknown beyond the wall of sleep. Pigments from Ogrothan, Sona-Nyl, and even wondrous Thalarion blended in ways no earthly painter could match. Luke had saved these paints for a special project. What that was going to be, he had not known until the moment in the high market when Henry had reached for Ndoto’s carved dolphin. Three days had passed since then, and though neither man had mentioned the incident, it was clear they both thought deeply of what it might mean.

How had Henry learned the forbidden words, and what did the attendant reek of burned flesh and acrid smoke mean? These were questions that no amount of cajoling could shake loose a solution, and Henry’s frustration had grown with every enquiry into his past to which he could provide no answer.

Luke had returned to the market to quiz Ndoto, thinking that he might learn the meaning behind the name the burly trader had bestowed upon Henry, but the man had vanished and none of the other merchants could say where he had gone. A zebra trader had said he thought Ndoto had retuned home to Oonai, but he’d just shrugged when asked how he knew this.

For his own part, Henry had spent his days exploring the city and learning of its history and people, hoping that some sight, sound, or smell might awaken a memory of his own. He climbed the towers of Thon and Thal and watched the ghost ships ply the clouds, walked in the vine-hung arbors of the city’s inner groves and listened to the chorus of magah birds in their tall resinous trees. Luke procured books from Ptoleus for Henry to read, and he devoured them with a thoroughness that reinforced Luke’s suspicion that his absent-minded guest was a scholar of some kind.

This morning, as the sun shone through the purple and yellow of false dawn, Luke had risen early and rummaged through his few belongings until he found the case of rare paints he had been keeping for a work that men would remember for ages to come. Luke knew that had been his vanity speaking, for there was now a task for these paints that was more important than one man’s ego.

As Henry had emerged from his room with a book describing the sad customs of the dying city of Thorabon, Luke had broached the idea of his painting him. At first Henry had been reticent, but gradually Luke had managed to persuade him with promises that the magical tinctures might shed some light on his current predicament.

Now, as the paint flowed across the stretched silk, Luke knew he had been right to save these paints, for the life that shone from each new element was like desert sunlight through colored glass.

“What do you think this will achieve?” asked Henry, seated in a wicker chair on the roof of Luke’s home. The city stretched around them, stepping upward at their backs to the high cliffs above, and dropping sharply away before them to the sea. Tall ships jostled in the red stone harbor, and the shouts of seamen and traders drifted up on the warm, perfumed breeze in languages from innumerable worlds and dreams.

“I’m not sure,” said Luke, switching to a thinner brush as he painted Henry’s hair. “But it’s said that the artists of Thalarion learned the secrets of the gods, and though they were forbidden to speak of what they discovered, they pass that wisdom on to those with eyes to see it through their art.”

“Do you believe that?”

“They certainly make paint like no one else,” answered Luke. “But whether that’s the same thing, I couldn’t say.”

The painting was taking shape, the outlines, colors, and background still part of a blended whole rather than individual pieces. Detail would come later, but for now, Luke was happy simply to apply the basic colors and geometric shapes that would form the heart of the painting. Like a building, a painting needed foundations upon which that which was visible would be built.

Henry looked out over the harbor, and Luke saw the wonder of his surroundings fill his features with vitality. No matter how long a person spent in the Dreamlands, its miraculous wonder never left them, no matter if they saw it every day or only once in their life. Once a man had seen wonderland, it would forever mark his soul, for good or ill.

“I know I keep saying it, but this is a marvelous place,” said Henry. “I wish I had known of it sooner.”

“You’ve known of it all your life, Henry,” said Luke.

“I have? No, I’m sure I’d have remembered something like this.”

“From the man who can’t remember anything apart from his name.”

“Fair point, but I just know I would never forget this place.”

“You already have, many times,” said Luke. “It’s the curse of humankind that they forget. As children we come to the Dreamlands almost every night, but as we get older, the iron grip of reality closes off those parts of the mind that allow us to travel here. Once they’re closed, only certain opiates or rituals can reopen them, but of course such means carry their own dangers. That we forget the Dreamlands is one of the great tragedies of our species.”

Henry sighed and took a breath of fresh sea air. “I think you might be right. But if that’s the case, how can you be here, or me for that matter? If I’m asleep somewhere, why haven’t I woken up yet? It’s been almost three weeks since I first came here. How could any man possibly sleep that long?”

Luke had been wondering that too, but the most obvious answer was one that Henry might not want to hear. He sat back on his stool and placed his brushes down on the palette of swirling colors.

“Have you ever noticed that when you’re dreaming, time doesn’t seem to matter as much as it does when you’re awake?” he began, knowing he would have to take Henry through the inexact laws that governed life in the Dreamlands gradually.

“What do you mean?” said Henry.

“Like how you can be doing things in a dream that would take much longer in the waking world. Like how you can travel the world in the blink of an eye or climb the highest mountain in a heartbeat. Time passes differently in the Dreamlands, and what might seem like a week in a dream would only be a single night’s sleep to a dreamer.”

“I see,” said Henry, though Luke saw he was struggling with the concept. “Does this have anything to do with the relativity theories of Mr. Einstein? I attended one of his lectures at Columbia in ’21, but I confess a lot of it went over my head.”

“You remember that?”

“Good Lord!” said Henry. “A memory! Perhaps you’re right, perhaps I am an academic.”

“Just not a scientist.”

“No, clearly not, but still, it’s a breakthrough, yes?”

“Yes,” agreed Luke. “But no, I don’t think the workings of the Dreamlands owe anything to relativity, general or otherwise.”

Henry was silent for a moment, pondering Luke’s words. “So I could have been asleep for a single night, you say?”

“It’s possible,” allowed Luke, taking up his brush and continuing to paint. The rhythmic cadences of their voices was inspirational, and he felt as though the colors were leading him onward, as opposed to him choosing their placement on the silk. 

“But something in your tone makes me think you don’t believe that.”

“For someone whose physical body is still in the waking world, it’s rare for someone to be here for as long as you have,” said Luke, painting with a speed and verve that frightened him just a little. “Normally a dreamer can pass a week or so in these lands before the pull of their body brings them back to the world.”

“And I’ve been here three weeks at least,” said Henry, “suggesting I have been unconscious for at least a similar number of days and nights. What might cause a man to dream for so long?”

“Like I said, there are drugs that can keep a man stupefied for great lengths of time.”

“I feel sure I can say that I would not have partaken of any such drug willingly,” said Henry, and Luke smiled at the arch, disapproving tone.

“I didn’t think so,” said Luke. “But perhaps there is another option.”

“Are you planning on enlightening me?” asked Henry when Luke didn’t continue.

“You may have suffered a grievous injury,” said Luke. “Sometimes when people are badly hurt and slip into a coma they come here. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s the body’s way of easing their passage into death.”

Henry said nothing for long moments, and Luke took advantage of the silence to bring more of the painting to life. The backgrounds were in place and the details of the painting had begun to lift off the silk to create a shimmering piece that Luke knew he could (though he never would) sell for a small fortune.

“I see,” said Henry. “And what happens to such people.”

Luke answered between brushstrokes. “They wander the lands. Lost. Alone and sad. Eventually they fade away as their body deteriorates in the waking world. You see, no dreamself can survive the death of its physical form. If your body dies, then your dreamself fades to nothing soon after.”

“What if your dreaming body should die?”

“Then you will wake in your bed as you would on any other morning, but you will never be the same, and you will never again return to the worlds you explored while asleep.”

“How utterly terrible!” exclaimed Henry.

“Death is terrible, awake or dreaming,” agreed Luke. “If I were to die here, no one would ever remember me on earth. It would be as though I had never existed. My body would remain here as a dream within a dream, and I think that would be a wonderful end to anyone’s life.”

Henry brightened at the idea. “I suppose so. But, given your description of those poor souls who languish in comas, that doesn’t seem to match my current state of being.”

“No, you’re right, Henry,” said Luke, putting down his brush after applying what he knew would be the last stroke he ever laid upon this silk. “There’s too much life in you for me to believe you’re in a coma.”

The certainty of his words made Henry sit up, and he rose from the chair to come around the other side of Luke’s painting.

“Heavens above,” said Henry, looking at the image Luke had wrought. “From the canvases stacked in my room I knew you were talented, but this is…”

“The artists of Thalarion pass the secrets of the gods onward,” said Luke. “And the gods see things no mortal can see.”

“And what do they see here?”

“That you are right to think you’re not in a coma,” said Luke. “Someone put you here.”

“I don’t understand,” said Henry. “What do you mean put me here?”

“You’re a prisoner,” said Luke, at last understanding the name Ndoto had bestowed upon Henry. “Someone has sent your mind to the Dreamlands and trapped it here.”

“Good God, but why?”

“I don’t know, Henry,” said Luke. “But where better to imprison someone than in a place from which they would never wish to return?”

Chapter Six

Aunt Lucy’s was quiet. The Friday lunchtime crowd had eaten their fill and the evening diners hadn’t yet worked up appetite enough to come inside and grab a table. A couple of red-skirted waitresses cleared tables, and a chef in greasy overalls looked through a hatch to see if anyone was likely to bother him while he went on his smoke break. A coffee pot bubbled on a hot plate, and the rattle of cutlery and flatware was a comfortingly ordinary backdrop.

Oliver sat at a table in the far corner, where he could see the front door and had easy access to the rear exit of the building. It had been Gabriel Stone who’d always picked this table whenever they’d had cause to meet before, and Oliver saw no reason to break the Pinkerton agent’s sensible habit. It was Friday afternoon, and classes had finished early, allowing him to make his way from campus without attracting any notice.

A pot of tea and a folded newspaper sat before him. He hadn’t touched the tea and the paper remained unread. Its banal stories of local events, births, marriages, and the like were of little interest, and even the newly installed International Section seemed irrelevant now. He scrawled a few answers in the crossword, and looked up as the bell above the door rang with a musical tinkle.

Alexander Templeton walked in, elegant and well-proportioned in a crisp suit of dark pinstripe and a grey fedora tilted back on his head. He carried a leather briefcase and ordered at the counter before making his way over. He took a seat across from Oliver and removed his hat.

“Meeting like this, it’s like something from Agatha Christie, eh?” said Alexander, smiling as the waitress brought him his coffee.

When she had moved back to the counter, Oliver leaned forward and rested his palms on the tabletop. He kept his voice at a whisper, but there was no mistaking his urgency.

“Dash it all, Alexander, the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and yet we still have to teach freshmen? It will be a dreadful irony if the world’s future is destroyed because we were teaching its past to the next generation.”

“I agree it is frustrating,” said Alexander. “But after the censure the dean heaped upon us at the number of classes we were forced to abandon without adequate explanation a few weeks ago, it seems prudent to upset the academic timetable as little as possible, don’t you think?”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Oliver, sitting back and finally pouring himself a cup of tea.

“Earl Grey?”

“I acquired a taste for it in England.”

“And you are seeing your friend Hillshore later today are you not?”

“That too, and when encountering an Englishman, I’ve learned it’s always better to understand what sustains him. In Hillshore’s case, it’s Earl Grey.”

Alexander took a drink of his coffee and as their eyes met, all levity was banished as the things they had learned from the hideous pages of the Necronomicon passed between them.

“So,” began Oliver. “Have you had any thoughts as to how we proceed? I confess, I have no clue as to what avenues we ought to pursue.”

“I think I may have,” said Alexander, fishing out a notepad from his briefcase and opening it to a page covered in numbers, complex mathematical formulae, and what looked like sketches of constellations.

Alexander traced his finger over outlines of Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, and Canis Minor, each rendered with a precise hand. “Every book I have read on the matter of such ancient creatures speaks of auspicious planetary alignments, foretold arrangements of celestial bodies and the like. I believe the plans of the star god’s cult to raise the sunken city are crucially dependent on the motion of the stars above.”

Oliver nodded. “That makes sense. There’s been lots of things written of great events coming to pass ‘when the stars are right.’”

“So if we take the importance of the heavens as a fact, then it follows that the sunken city can only rise at certain times in earth’s history and future.”

“Agreed,” said Oliver. “Do we know what those times are?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Alexander. “There is a banned volume of Ptolemy’s Apotelesmatika that speaks of a hideous arrangement of stars known as the Tempestus Mundus Incognitio.”

“The storm that makes the world unknown?” ventured Oliver.

“Indeed.”

“Do you have a copy of that arrangement?”

“No, I’m afraid not. No one does. It was lost when Aurelian’s men burned the library at Alexandria in the third century. Some say the scholars of the day threw that particular volume in the fire themselves, so that men might never learn of such evil omens in the celestial vault.”

“Then our enemies are as stymied as us,” said Oliver with a smile as he finished his tea.

“Exactly my point,” said Alexander. “Unless these cultists know what arrangement of stars they are looking for, there is no way for them to recognize when the time is right. Of course, there are always prophetic texts, but such documents are so subjective and woefully vague as to be next to useless.”

“Then surely that gives us an advantage.”

“It gives us time, Oliver, nothing more, I’m afraid.”

“How so?”

“Remember the tale of the sinking of Atlantis,” said Alexander, tapping the side of his head where the dark hair gave way to silver. “The sunken city was raised, but that terrible feat was only achieved by manipulating the celestial alignments with an artificial element.”

“The crystal of the exile?”

“Exactly. If I understand the text correctly, the crystal acts like a form of prism and somehow renders the stars into the correct alignment to make the raising of the star god’s city possible. If I were the enemy, I would be bending all my efforts into locating that crystal.”

“Then so must we!” exclaimed Oliver, drawing strange looks from the bored-looking waitresses. Alexander glared at him and shook his head slowly.

“Sorry,” said Oliver.

Alexander opened his briefcase and removed a slender volume. Its spine was creased and the gold leaf on its title was faded to the point of illegibility. Oliver turned his head to read the author’s name, but it too was little more than a faded impression in the leather.

“I did some checking in my collection last night, and thought back to what we’d read in Armitage’s book. Something in that horrid account of the sinking of Atlantis struck a chord with me, though it wasn’t until I cross-referenced it with a number of letters I recalled from my researches into the attempts of that loathsome Englishman, Aleister Crowley, to obtain a number of occult artifacts, that I stumbled upon something fruitful.”

Alexander opened the book and turned it around to face Oliver. He immediately recognized it as the third of the three volumes of Hawkesworth’s Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, the lamentably prolix and overtly philosophical account of Joseph Banks’s famous voyage to the South Pacific aboard the Endeavor with James Cook. In preparation for his own voyages to similar latitudes, Oliver had, of course, become intimately familiar with these volumes. Filled with copperplate engravings and reproduced sketches of those made by Banks and the crew of the Endeavor, it was—despite the failings of the compiler—still an impressive record of a milestone in exploration.

“Why are you showing me this?” asked Oliver.

“I think the most important thing Hawkesworth recorded in this account was the addendum he added many years later after all the scorn heaped upon him at the time of its publication.”

“Yes,” agreed Oliver. “He recorded the voyages of others who came after Cook and Banks.”

“Indeed he did. And I believe it is this that may shed some light upon why our enemies have chosen this region of New England to pursue their agenda. You recall Tobias Philemon?”

Oliver cast his mind back to his early studies of the exploration of the South Pacific, the monumental voyage of Banks, and the numerous other expeditions that followed in his wake. Tobias Philemon was a name that struck a chord for its geographic proximity, for he had been a wealthy landowner and merchant of…

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Oliver. “Philemon was a Kingsport man.”

“That he was,” said Alexander.

Oliver leaned forward as more of his knowledge of Tobias Philemon swam to the surface of his recall. It had been a long time since he had consulted the works of Hawkesworth, but as each fact slipped into place, its presence cast more light on the greater sum of his knowledge. His fingers beat a nervous tattoo on the tabletop as he spoke.

“Philemon was a trader, yes, a very wealthy one who wasn’t afraid of breaking a few blockades here and there if it meant a greater profit. He plundered a whole host of islands in the South Pacific and there were dark stories of his hired soldiers massacring entire tribes just so he could steal their treasures. It’s little wonder the islanders learned to fear the sight of sails on the horizon.”

“A despicable fellow, it’s true,” said Alexander. “But imagine for a moment the things he might have discovered on those islands, the things he must surely have brought back with him, hoping to sell them as exotica to those enamored with tales of far-off lands.”

“No one knows for sure what Philemon brought back,” said Oliver. “After his last voyage, he never went exploring again. Very few of his findings were ever catalogued and what was recorded were mainly just simple tribal carvings. Fertility symbols and the like. His house burned down in the late 18th century, so no one knows for sure the full extent of his plunder.”

“I remember hearing a few stories about old Tobias down at the yacht club,” said Alexander. “Some of the old Kingsport families still speak of him, how he spent his last years locked in his house on Central Hill, beset by nightmares and wild fantasies of deep sea monstrosities.”

“And you think he might have encountered something of the star god’s cult?”

“Perhaps,” allowed Alexander. “And you remember how the man died?”

Oliver nodded. “They say he died when he sailed one of his ships from Kingsport Harbor in the dead of night and ran afoul of a British warship whose captain had refused to be bribed.”

Alexander tapped a finger on the rim of his coffee up. “What madness might drive a man like Tobias Philemon to try and run an armed blockade that night?”

“I don’t know, but I suspect you have a theory.”

“Perhaps he desired to be rid of something so terrible that its foulness could only be disposed of in the deepest canyons of the ocean.”

“You believe he discovered the crystal of the exile?”

“I do indeed. If Tobias Philemon found the crystal and brought it back to Kingsport, might it have driven him to lunacy? It would certainly go some way to explaining the strangeness of his later years and the insanity of taking on a host of British warships.”

“If you’re right, then the crystal may still be aboard its wreck,” said Oliver, catching the scent of excitement. “But how could anyone retrieve it?”

Alexander shrugged and sat back in his seat. “There are diving bells and undersea armors that can reach such depths, but a vessel capable of mounting such heavy equipment would surely be noticed in the waters of Kingsport. We must consider the possibility that our enemies may have other means of searching the deep waters.”

“Then we must make haste to Kingsport,” said Oliver.

“Absolutely,” agreed Alexander. “I intend to leave within the hour, and once you have concluded your business with Professor Hillshore this evening you must join me tomorrow.”

“Of course,” said Oliver, checking the watch he lifted from his waistcoat pocket. “Speaking of which, the Boston train will be arriving soon.”

“Yes, you must be on your way, it would be impolite to keep your friend waiting.”

Oliver stood to retrieve his hat and coat, and shook hands with Alexander.

“I will drive down to Kingsport in the morning,” he said. “Where shall we meet?”

“I have taken the liberty of arranging lodgings for us at the Lighthouse Inn. The owner is an unctuous fellow, but his rooms are clean and the food passable. I shall await your arrival there, shall I?”

“That sounds like an eminently sensible plan,” said Oliver.

* * *

The state of Rex Murphy’s desk was something of a legend among the staff of the Arkham Advertiser, with its mountains of piled carbons, the drifts of paper that spilled from his in-tray, and the forest of wadded up copy that hadn’t met his standards. Rex assured people who dared ask that there was in fact a system, but that he hadn’t yet decided what it would be. In truth, he did know what much of the paper detritus was, but the bulk of it he didn’t want to face. Either too banal or too horrible, neither was appealing.

His eyelids drooped and he blinked away the grit of another sleepless night and smacked his lips to try and dispel the aftereffects of too many mugs of cheap liquor brought in from Newburyport. The typewriter before him stared at him, each of its lettered keys like an accusing eye, the hammers of its inked letters like bared teeth that grinned at his inability to write anything worth reading. A blank sheet of paper yawned like an abyss of white.

Go on, I dares ya, I double dares ya. Beat the words outta me. Get the story, save your life…

Rex snapped awake with a start. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep.

How long had he been sleeping? He pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose as he looked around the office, but no one appeared to have noticed his lapse into slumber, so it couldn’t have been that long. Harvey Gedney, the paper’s belligerent but decent-hearted editor, was hunched over a stack of photographs in the corner by the window, and the rest of the staff were busy at clacking typewriters. Business as usual for a small town newspaper.

His own typewriter was still in front of him, but the paper was part-filled with words. Dull words, small town words. He leaned forward, having quite forgotten what he was supposed to be writing. His eyes skimmed the words; sentence after sentence clanged with dull lifelessness. A book fair in Manchester had drawn Gloria Goldberg from the salons and parlors of New York to the wilds of New England. Rex had read one of her offerings a year or so back, and found it little more than an overwrought, Gothic melodrama with unlikeable characters and a downbeat ending that left him in a black mood for days.

This bestselling author of the strange and the bizarre was touring the towns of New England to promote her latest fabulist tale, and would be taking in Arkham and Kingsport along the way (though the Innsmouth leg of her signing tour had been canceled). The words on the page were those of a man going through the motions and getting down what everyone expects to read and no more. Where was the inspiration? Where was the strange muse that had gripped him in the spring of ’25?

He would give anything to feel that creative power surging through him again, and his hand inched toward the locked drawer in his desk. He clenched his fingers into a fist and took a deep breath.

No, he had been looking at that picture too often of late.

Rex blinked away the compulsion to open his desk drawer and forced himself to concentrate on the real world.

The typewriter filled his world, and he ripped the paper from the smug machine then tossed it into the pile of abandoned pieces. Another wadded up ball of failed copy to join the ever-expanding forest.

“You know, sooner or later, you’re going to have to finish one of those,” said Darrell Simmons, perching himself on the edge of Rex’s desk. “Sooner or later, Harvey’s going to realize you’re pushing him off with all this talk of a big story.”

Rex took off his glasses and looked up at Simmons. He forced himself to smile. Darrell was an Arkham boy, through and through, and his big, open face was one you couldn’t help but warm to. A born and bred New Englander, Darrell was a decent photographer who’d taken up the slack now that Minnie was over in France documenting the reconstruction work going on after the war.

“It’s just around the corner, Darrell,” Rex assured him. “It’s the biggest story this paper’s ever seen, and it’s going to blow the lid off this one-horse town.”

“Come on now, Rex,” said Darrell. “Arkham’s moved with the times—we’re a one automobile town now. Pretty soon I hear we’ll have two.” He winked.

“The march of progress, Darrell,” said Rex. “Looks like even Arkham’s going to have to drag itself into the twentieth century, whether it likes it or not.”

“So what were you writing?” asked Darrell, reaching over to unwrap Rex’s latest rejected piece and skimming the crumpled words there.

“Don’t,” said Rex, reaching out to grab the paper, but Darrell pulled back. “It’s garbage.”

“Gloria Goldberg?” said Darrell. “Didn’t peg you for a fan of weird tales. You branching out from town fairs and local politics?”

“Just something to keep Harvey off my back while I…”

“While you what?”

“You know, gather information, check sources,” said Rex, snatching the paper back and flattening it out on the desk.

“Sure, Rex,” said Darrell, and Rex hated the pity he heard in the young photographer’s voice. “Well, let me know if you need anything snapped. I got a couple of kids up on Northside say they saw a bat as big as a horse over by the station, and the mayor wants a shot of him opening the new post office annex. But, you know, let me know if you need me, okay?”

“Sure, Darrell, yeah. I’ll let you know,” said Rex, knowing that he’d never make that call. There was only one person he’d trust behind the lens of a camera, and she was on a different continent.

“Okay, well, I’ll let you get back to it,” said Darrell. “Good luck on taming the beast.”

“What?” said Rex with an alarmed jolt. “What did you say?”

“Easy, fella,” said Darrell, giving the metal keyboard in front of Rex a tap with his knuckles. “I just meant the typewriter.”

Rex gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I know, sure, the typewriter. Sorry, I’m just a little strung out just now.”

Darrell leaned in close, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was within earshot.

“Jeez, Rex, you need to get some sleep. Go home, take the phone off the hook, and close the curtains for the rest of the day. Before Harvey sees how tuckered out you are.”

“I’m fine,” said Rex.

“No,” said Darrell, “you’re not. Look, I know I ain’t as experienced as you, Rex, but I’ve seen what booze can do to a man. It damn near killed my pop before he signed the pledge, and I’ve taken enough shots of the bums down at the docks or hiding out from the railroad bulls on the tracks to know that the bottle only leads you to one place.”

Darrell rose from Rex’s desk and took a folded flyer from his coat pocket. He put it on the desk beside the typewriter and said, “I’ve been a Lincoln since I was a boy, and I think you’d do well to come along to a meeting sometime, Rex.”

Rex lifted the flyer and slid his glasses back on, knowing what it would be before he read so much as a single word.

“The Lincoln-Lee Legion,” he read. “Arkham Chapter.”

“We hold regular meetings,” said Darrell. “Down at South Church with Father Michael. You’d be more than welcome.”

Rex winced at Darrell’s earnest sincerity, trying to keep the cynicism from his tone as he read aloud from the flyer.

“‘Whereas, the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is productive of pauperism, degradation, and crime, and believing it our duty to discourage that which produces more evil than good, we therefore pledge ourselves to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage.’”

“Good words, Rex,” said Darrell. “Words to live by. There’s a rally organized for this weekend—you should come along. You won’t regret it.”

“Sure,” said Rex with a nod. “I’ll think about it.”

Darrell smiled and made his way back to his own desk without another word. Rex would never go to that meeting, not in a month of Sundays, but Darrell’s suggestion that he take off for the day wasn’t without merit. It wasn’t like he was achieving anything here.

Perhaps he’d go to the Commercial and knock back a few shots before heading home. Rufus always had something special there for him, drinks that hit that sweet spot and smokes with herbs from places he’d never heard of and doubted he’d find on any map. Rex didn’t know whether the old blind guy owned the joint or just worked there, but he knew just what you needed the minute you walked in.

Rex never remembered much of his visits to the Commercial, but one thing Rufus had said to him had stuck in his mind as though it had been branded there.

“You gonna be the one to tell this story,” Rufus had said, and even though his eyes were little more than puckered scar tissue, Rex had had the powerful sensation that the old man was looking right into the heart of him. “But not now, not while you still hooked on the fire. Let it go, my friend. Let it go.”

Rex had pretended not to know what Rufus was talking about, but the old man had just laughed and moved on to talk to someone else. Thinking of that night, Rex lifted the key he kept around his neck on a thin chain and unlocked the drawer of his desk. He checked no one was looking before sliding it open and removing a thin, cream-colored folder and placing it in the center of his desk.

It was risky and dumb to bring it out in the office. Sometimes he would take it out, just for a quick glimpse, and find that hours had passed before hunger or cramp drew him back to the real world. But he couldn’t wait until he got home. Rex flipped open the folder and took a deep breath as he stared into the nightmarish hues and unimaginable patterns captured by the photograph. He doubted anyone but Minnie could have taken this shot—no one else had her eye for the macabre and the off-kilter.

Madly swirling fires spun in the unruly heavens, a kaleidoscope of abominably sentient light that cascaded from the heavens with mindless ferocity and gleeful hunger. Rex remembered the night the fire had set the sky aflame from horizon to horizon and turned the AQA frat house to a smoldering pit of ash and cinders. 

The frat house was the only anchor of normality within the frame: a squat clapboard house typical of Arkham with its sagging ridge, blunt gables, and shuttered windows. Only these shutters had hidden a terrible secret. Knowing what he knew of the monsters that had once dwelled beneath that forsaken house, it seemed inconceivable that people had not immediately known what its bland frontage had concealed.

But it had been an ordinary townhouse, such as might be found anywhere in Arkham, and its very normality chilled Rex’s blood more than anything. If such horror could lurk beneath that house without anyone suspecting its existence, what might lie behind the innocent facades of other homes? Rex stared into the maelstrom of light and color and abhorrent will that Minnie had somehow been able to capture through the lens of her camera, feeling himself losing awareness of his surroundings and welcoming that loss.

The fire was all that mattered. 

Such fire was surely divine.

Such fire deserved devotion.

“Damn it!” shouted a voice from across the newsroom, and Rex was jolted from his enraptured reverie. He lifted his head, feeling as though he were pulling back from a yawning chasm of madness from which there could be no return. Rex’s heart was beating a furious tattoo against his ribs, and he quickly stuffed the photograph back in its folder and slammed it into the drawer. He locked it and pushed his chair back, rising to his feet with a guilty ache in his belly. He took his coat and hat from the stand next to his desk, knowing he’d need that drink more than ever now.

He’d just pulled his arms through the sleeves when the shadow of Harvey Gedney fell across him. Harvey wasn’t an impressively big guy, and was in almost every regard nondescript, but everyone on the staff of the Advertiser knew his shadow when it fell over them. It almost never portended anything good.

“Going someplace, Rex?” asked Harvey in a tone that demanded his answer be a good one.

“Hey, Harvey,” said Rex, turning and sketching his editor-in-chief a casual salute. “Yeah, I was just heading out. Got some leads to follow up on a story.”

“Oh, really?” said Harvey, folding his arms across his chest. His suit made Rex’s look as though it had come fresh from the dry cleaners, and his florid features made him seem like he was chewing on something unpleasant.

“Yeah,” said Rex, sweeping up the flyer Darrell had given him. “Big temperance rally this weekend, thought I’d do a piece on it to show the good people of Arkham that the Advertiser is fully behind the 18th Amendment.”

Harvey took the proffered flyer and cast suspicious eyes over its contents.

“You’re going to report on a temperance rally?”

“Sure, why not?”

“You know why not,” said Harvey, letting his gaze encompass the entirety of Rex’s dishevelment.

“Look, I figure I’ll be able to offer a counterpoint, provoke debate. That sort of thing.”

“The only thing you’ll provoke is getting thrown out for reeking of cheap whiskey.”

“Should get some great copy, though,” pointed out Rex. “Angry folk on a moral high horse say the damnedest things.”

Harvey had to concede that point and Rex could see the owner of the Advertiser wrestling with his desire to believe what he was hearing and his natural disbelief of anything that came out of Rex’s mouth these days.

“Who’s your contact there?”

Rex struggled to remember the name Darrell had mentioned, buying time by pretending to fumble with the buttons of his coat.

“Father Michael,” said Rex, warming to his lie. “Down at South Church.”

Harvey nodded. “Okay, get it done. But after that, I’ve got another job for you.”

“What is it? Mayor turning up for the opening of a letter?”

“No,” replied Harvey, “and you’ll keep that smart mouth of yours shut if you know what’s good for you when I’m talking.”

“Sorry, Harvey,” said Rex, instantly contrite.

“I want you over in Kingsport tomorrow. One of the workers over at the new wireless station up on the Head got himself killed the other day. Fell from a scaffold or something. Get over there and talk to his workmates, find out what happened. The Gazette’s bound to run something on this soon, and we need to beat them to the punch. Find out if the guy was drunk or just careless. Either way, make sure they don’t say squat to Peck’s reporters.”

Rex understood Harvey’s concern. The world was becoming a smaller place, and readers were expecting news from around the world to be on their doorstep within hours of it happening. The new wireless station the Advertiser was building up on Kingsport Head would mean they could get the straight dope on stories from all over the world way before the Gazette even sniffed them. Miskatonic university was partially funding the work, hoping to piggyback on the signal to keep in contact with its upcoming Australian and Antarctic expeditions.

Of course, Willard Peck over at the rival Gazette never failed to try and ridicule the expense of the wireless station’s construction, and would point out that nothing ever happened overseas that was worth knowing about with such speed.

If a worker had died there, the Gazette would be sure to spin the story in a way that would strangle the already meager public monies the mayor had granted the construction work to bolster the funds provided by the paper and the university.

“Sure, Harvey,” said Rex. “I’ll get right on it.”

* * *

Arkham’s Northside Station was never the busiest transport hub, and after the awe-inspiring sight of New York’s Pennsylvania Station, it seemed positively backwoods. Yet it still boasted an ornamented stone frontage that dated back to the Civil War, and an impressive brass-rimmed clock that had been a bequest from a local landowner who had apparently led a charge at the first Bull Run. That the Union forces had lost that battle did not, apparently, diminish the heroism of the charge or the generosity of the gift.

Oliver waited on the platform with his coat pulled tight and his hat pressed firmly down on his head like a spy or private detective from the pulps sold at the dime stores. Having met a real-life PI in Gabriel Stone, Oliver knew such creations were as fictional as the fantastical visions of Poe, Wells, and Gernsback.

Two trains sat idle on their platforms and a third was just pulling into the station with labored emphysemic wheezes that sent up thick banks of steam. The Boston train ground to a halt with a clatter of carriages and a squeal of escaping gases. Even as the driver let loose the iron machine’s whistle, Oliver felt a tremulous frisson of excitement.

Another conductor waved a flag as the steam began to dissipate, and the doors to the train’s carriages began opening as its passengers disembarked with the haste of new arrivals. Oliver peered through the crowd, searching for the face of his old friend from Cambridge.

A solitary figure, surrounded by people but seeming to somehow be apart from them all at the same time, walked with purposeful strides toward Oliver. The man wore an impeccably cut Savile Row suit over a cricket-player’s physique and a bowler hat upon neatly combed hair. He carried an umbrella hooked over one arm and clutched a red leather briefcase that looked as though it had traveled the world in the other hand. A pair of wire-frame glasses were perched precariously on the bridge of his nose above the precisely trimmed mustache gracing his upper lip.

Oliver proffered his hand and said, “I greatly feared you might be delayed.”

“‘Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety,’” replied the man, his clipped English tones delivering Plato with aplomb. “Now, shall we continue our discourse en route to Arkham Asylum? If I am to give your friend the full benefit of my expertise, then I shall require some quite considerable time with him.”

“It’s good to see you again, William,” said Oliver.

“The feeling is quite mutual, dear boy,” agreed Professor William Hillshore.

Chapter Seven

As he always did when he visited Henry Cartwright in Arkham Asylum, Oliver felt the gloomy presence of the building pressing in around him like a heavy weight on his chest. He and Hillshore had driven straight from the train station to the asylum, and though the afternoon sunlight was still clear and bright, it wouldn’t take long for the Massachusetts autumn to swallow that light with darkness.

The trip through the town had been filled with inconsequential discourse, the conversational niceties that must be observed before the real meat of any encounter could be attended to. Once the health and well-being of each man’s family had been attested, and the academic status of their researches revealed, enough politeness had been observed that such matters could be dispensed with.

Monroe, the sullen orderly who had once so intimidated Oliver, opened the outer door of the asylum and allowed them access. After a brief wait in the gloomy entrance vestibule, Dr. Hardstrom himself emerged from his office to greet them. His manner immediately suggested that he was well aware of Hillshore’s reputation and published work on the insane. Oliver couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not, for no clinician likes the idea of another professional second-guessing his work and diagnosis.

“Professor Hillshore, it is an honor to meet you,” said Hardstrom with guarded politeness. A curt nod of acknowledgement was as much of a greeting as Oliver warranted. The head physician of Arkham Asylum was a tall, saturnine fellow with receding hair and the beginnings of a middle-aged paunch. He had the air of a man comfortable in his surroundings, and Oliver was put in mind of a custodian as opposed to a man in search of cures for those in his care.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Dr. Hardstrom,” replied Hillshore. “Quite an establishment you have here. The work of Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee, if I am not mistaken.”

Hardstrom had the decency to look impressed. “Why, yes, I believe it is. I didn’t take you for a student of architecture, Professor Hillshore.”

“As a former resident of Boston, it would be hard to be ignorant of Bradlee’s work. His Unitarian Church in Brunswick is a particular favorite of mine,” said Hillshore, gesturing to the doors that led deeper into the asylum. “But shall we be on our way? I confess I am most eager to see Mr. Cartwright.”

“Of course,” said Hardstrom, taking a ring of keys from Monroe and making his way to the barred door. “This way.”

Hardstrom unlocked the door and allowed Oliver and Hillshore to pass through before turning and locking it behind them. The man led the way deeper into the asylum, and as the institutional grimness of the building closed on him like a fist, Oliver had to remind himself that this was a hospital for the care of the mentally ill, not a jail for dangerous criminals.

The herringbone pattern of the parquet floor seemed designed to confound the eye, and the paintings hanging at irregular intervals along the wall were a mixture of dour portraits and gloomy landscapes representing the hills, woodlands, and towns around Arkham. Oliver had never paid the paintings much heed on his previous visits, but as Hardstrom and Hillshore discussed the latest works of the notorious Austrian, he turned his attention upon them.

None were rendered with any great skill, but each possessed a manic vibrancy that spoke of a terrible need to apply paint to the canvas. One painting displayed the rearing crag of rock that so defined Kingsport, while another portrayed rotting wharves and blackened structures that could only be Innsmouth. Gloucester’s fishing fleets sallied forth in another painting, and in yet another, the strange standing stones that crowned the summits of a number of hills around Arkham were painted in dull browns and greys.

Kingsport appeared in a number of paintings, and he remarked upon this fact to Hardstrom as they paused by yet another locked and barred door.

“A great many are painted by the inmates,” explained Hardstrom.

“You mean your ‘patients,’” corrected Hillshore.

“Of course,” said Hardstrom quickly. “We find it therapeutic to direct their energies into creative pursuits.” The doctor laughed. “It’s either that or let them bang their heads on the walls.”

They moved deeper into the asylum and Oliver felt as though a bleak shadow were slowly enveloping his soul. He knew this corridor well, having walked it like a condemned man many times in his visits to Henry. As they rounded the last corner before Henry’s room, a nurse in a starched white uniform passed them, and Oliver recognized the tightly wound bun of her hair and the brightness of her red lips against pale skin. She gave Oliver another of her enigmatic smiles, then passed on like a shimmering apparition before he could work out what connection they might share that made her give him such strange glances whenever they crossed paths.

Hardstrom reached the door to Henry’s room and pulled aside an iron slot that afforded visual access. He peered inside and said, “Same as always, I’m afraid.”

Another key opened the lock, but as Hardstrom pushed open the door, Hillshore placed a restraining hand upon the doctor’s elbow.

“I find that most patients are more relaxed when their primary doctor is not present for my initial examination. It provides a clean slate, if you will, a fresh start without the pressure of previous examinations and earlier encounters with an existing physician hanging over proceedings. I’m sure you understand.”

“It’s most irregular,” said Hardstrom, his professional pride forcing his bluster.

“And I appreciate your concern, but I really must insist,” said Hillshore. “The work I have undertaken with the veterans at the Presidio leaves me in no doubt as to the efficacy of such an approach.”

“I am afraid that it is hospital policy to ensure no one is left alone with inmates who have a history of violence,” said Hardstrom. “For your own protection, you understand.”

“Of course,” said Hillshore, removing a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and pretending to study them closely. “While I appreciate your concern, Henry Cartwright is, from what I read in his case notes, catatonic.”

“That’s true, Professor, but—”

“And unless the definition of catatonic has changed since last I consulted the Statistical Manual, then I believe we will be quite safe.”

Hillshore pushed open the door and ushered Oliver inside. With a last nod to the outmaneuvered Hardstrom, he closed the door behind him. Oliver heard Hardstom’s footsteps echoing on the parquet flooring and a slow smile spread across his features.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hardstrom wrong-footed like that,” he said.

“The man has a positively Dickensian approach to the care of wounded minds,” said Hillshore. “He has forgotten the first rule of the physician. This is supposed to be a place where the mentally afflicted come to regain their sanity, not a dungeon in which we lock them away like shameful secrets.”

Reminded of why they had come, Oliver turned to see Henry Cartwright lying supine on his bed, a form so still that it would have been easy to assume the room was utterly vacant. Ever since he had been incarcerated at the asylum, Henry had begun to lose weight, but since falling into this catatonic state, the flesh had simply melted from his frame. Bony ridges marked the jutting edges of his elbows, knees, and hips, and the skin across his face was like faded cotton stretched across a drying rack. 

“Gracious,” said Hillshore, moving across the room to look at Henry. “And you say he has been like this for a fortnight?”

“No more than that,” agreed Oliver, finding it hard to speak without emotion clogging his throat. “They’ve been feeding him like a baby. He eats and drinks, and moves with help, but he makes no movement of his own volition.”

“Dreadful,” said Hillshore, lifting Henry’s arm and removing a pocket watch from his coat. He placed his thumb on the underside of Henry’s wrist and Oliver waited as Hillshore counted the beats. “A strong pulse, at least. His mind may be in absentia, but his heart is still strong. Your friend is a fighter.”

“Can you help him?” asked Oliver.

“Steady on, dear boy,” admonished Hillshore. “Give me a moment to ascertain his physical health before undertaking the more delicate deconstruction of his mental pathology.”

“Of course, sorry,” said Oliver, taking a seat at the far end of the room.

“No need to apologize, Oliver,” said Hillshore. “The man is your friend, and one would require a hard heart indeed not to be moved to pity to see him in extremis.”

Hillshore spread the photostatted notes Oliver had sent him at the foot of Henry’s bed and, though he had undoubtedly read them time and time again, gave them careful consideration. Hillshore was fastidious in his research and thoroughness, a trait that had won him many admirers in the field of clinical psychiatry.

“Help me sit Henry up, there’s a good fellow,” said Hillshore.

Oliver rose from his seat and assisted Hillshore in maneuvering Henry into a sitting position. There was no weight to his friend, and lifting his body was as easy as lifting a small child. Henry did not resist them, but nor did he help in any way. With Henry seated upright, Oliver retreated to his chair once more as Hillshore administered a thorough physical examination.

Satisfied as to the current state of his patient, Hillshore sat across from Henry and fished a simple wooden pipe from his coat. He filled the bowl with aromatic tobacco from a locked metal box he removed from his briefcase. The scent of the tobacco reached Oliver from across the room and he felt a momentary dizziness.

“Good Lord, Hillshore, what is that? It reeks.”

“This?” said Hillshore, feigning surprise. “I acquired a fondness for a certain Arabian leaf while traveling in Egypt many years ago. A filthy habit, I know, but one I find enhances my own cognitive faculties. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Good man,” said Hillshore, taking out a box of matches and placing the sulphur tip of one against the textured strip on the box’s side.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” asked Oliver, remembering the last time a naked flame had ignited in Henry’s presence.

“Absolutely,” said Hillshore, turning to face Henry and striking the match.

The match head burned with a bright yellow flame, and Hillshore held it up before Henry for long seconds, moving it back and forth in the air before applying the flame to the bowl of his pipe. A cloud of blue-tinged smoke billowed around Hillshore’s head, and he leaned forward to stare into Henry’s eyes, taking his wrist once more to read his pulse.

“This man is no pyromaniac,” said Hillshore, dropping Henry’s wrist and sitting back with his legs crossed before him.

“You can diagnose him that quickly?” asked Oliver.

“Any fool with an iota of education in the mind’s complexities could see it,” said Hillshore, taking another long draw on his pipe. The fragrant aroma of the Arabian tobacco filled the room, and Oliver felt himself becoming quite lightheaded.

“No catatonia is complete in and of itself; any mania of sufficient strength will always dominate the psyche of a patient,” explained Hillshore. “The true pyromaniac will always be a devotee of the flame, but when I lit that match, Henry evinced no reaction whatsoever. No pupillary dilation, no increase in heart rate, nothing. Even in the most shell-shocked veterans I have treated, the merest hint of what sits at the heart of their mania is enough to drive them into fits of hysteria. True, Henry’s catatonia could be so deep as to shut him off from his mania, but I have never met a patient who has fallen into so deep a level of insensibility without some terrible precipitating event to catalyze it.”

“So what do you think is wrong with Henry?”

“Ah,” said Hillshore, blowing a series of elaborate smoke rings. “Without a conscious patient, that is more difficult to deduce. Any such diagnosis relies upon delving deep into the hidden layers of the subconscious, a long and often traumatic experience for both the patient and their family, for the two are almost always inextricably linked.”

“So we can do nothing for him?” said Oliver, unable to keep the disappointment from his voice. “Then Henry is truly lost to us.”

“No one is every truly lost, Oliver,” said Hillshore. “Not so long as there is someone left to remember them as they once were.”

Oliver rose and stood beside Henry’s bed. He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, feeling the bone and thin flesh beneath. Henry’s pajamas were patterned cotton, and as Oliver removed his hand, Henry’s collar fell open to reveal the upper portion of his chest. Thin lines of scar tissue were visible, but before Oliver could fasten the buttons, Hillshore took a firm grip of his wrist.

“Wait,” said Hillshore, easing Oliver to one side and gently undoing the buttons on Henry’s pajama shirt.

“What are you doing, William?”

Hillshore did not answer, but undid enough of Henry’s buttons to reveal the full extent of his scarring. Oliver saw the color fade from Hillshore’s face as he sat back on the bed and took a calming draw on his pipe.

“You mentioned scarring, but I had not realized it was so extensive. Good God, the trauma this poor man must have endured…”

Hillshore rose from the bed and gathered his case notes with great urgency. He replaced them in his briefcase and snapped it shut like a man in a hurry to catch a train.

“William?”

“Not here, Oliver,” said Hillshore with a seriousness he had heretofore never heard in the Englishman’s voice. “You have a residence in Arkham?”

“Of course.”

“Then let us repair to more homely surroundings with all due haste, dear boy,” said Hillshore. “Some things are best spoken of in the light with strong tea to hand. Or, failing that, a good scotch.”

* * *

Cold water closed over Silas Marsh’s head. With bloodied hands he clung to the splintered gunwale of Neptune’s Bounty, all that remained of a five-man fishing sloop that had sailed from Kingsport harbor at first light and had enjoyed, for a time, one of the most prosperous days it had known in many a month. With Silas at the prow to guide the captain’s tiller, they had sailed into shoals of fish eager to find their way into the Bounty’s nets.

Despite the shock that gripped the town in the wake of what had washed onto the beaches of South Shore, the fishing fleet still sailed each morning without interruption. Times were hard enough without letting a few bones on a beach cost a crew a day’s worth of catch. While the police tried to figure out who the heaps of bones belonged to, the hard-working fishermen of Kingsport had livings to earn.

The crew of Neptune’s Bounty had been God-fearing men from a variety of cultures and countries of the world: two Portuguese deck hands, a Dutchman, and a captain from some island to the south of Italy. On land they might never have been friends, but at sea every man was a brother.

Unless that man hailed from Innsmouth.

Yet they’d forgiven Silas his birthplace for the fish he guided them toward. Or so he had thought until the mists closed in and the world went away. The swift onset of night and the coming of the mists had surprised them all, stealing upon them like an assassin with its suddenness. Though the captain had turned for Kingsport with alacrity and an elaborate curse that involved copious hand gestures, it hadn’t taken long for the mists to surround them and cut them off from any visible signs of life. Only the shimmering beacon of the North Point Lighthouse had provided an anchor to the real world.

No, that wasn’t quite true…a pulsating illumination shone from deep in the water, crystal bright and burning with the light of a thousand dead stars.

Silas had felt the fear of the men around him, and that fear hadn’t taken long to turn to anger as shouted voices accused his ill-favored blood of leading them to their doom. But as fearful as the men were at being lost in the mists, it was nothing to the terror that followed when the ghost ship had risen from the churning waters.

The prow of a rotting hulk had surged to the surface beside them in a tall spume of frozen water, as though being dragged from the deep by Poseidon himself. Silas had seen the danger and shouted a warning, but it had been already too late for the crew of Neptune’s Bounty. The barnacle-encrusted hull of the wreck had smashed into the underside of their boat and Silas had heard the awful, splintering crack of their keel splitting in two.

Broken in half, the Bounty hadn’t lasted long. Her precious catch of mackerel, cod, and herring had spilled from her holds like mercurial blood, and water had rushed to fill the freshly vacated holds. One of the deckhands had gone overboard instantly and was dragged under the surface before anyone could reach him. Silas had gripped one of the gunwale spikes as the broken front of the boat heeled over and deposited him in the ocean with a vicious slap of icy cold that drove the breath from his lungs. He’d lost sight of the captain and the rest of the crew as a frothing current had spun the remains of the boat around.

Booming waves had pounded the wrecked Neptune’s Bounty, and Silas had swallowed water as breakers crashed over him and sought to drag him under. He’d felt himself being spun around and saw to his horror that the sea was swirling in a vast, seething maelstrom that was pulling the water down into a concave depression with a churning funnel of impossibly bright light at its heart. He’d struggled as he saw a flailing hand sucked downward, but it was impossible to say to whom it belonged.

Though he’d known there was no way he could possibly escape the power of the maelstrom, Silas had kicked anyway, the primal survival instinct of every human being compelling him to at least try. He hadn’t known how long he’d thrashed and fought, but it seemed the ocean was toying with him, pulling him down to the light, spinning him beneath the surface, then spitting him out like a wad of tobacco juice.

Near dead and breathless, Silas had been ready to give up when the howling maelstrom of water had finally grown tired of his struggles and tossed him aside. Silas had felt the power of the sucking underwater currents release him and had let the more gentle ebb of the tide carry him along, still clutching the fragile lifeline of the gunwale timbers.

Now he drifted in the cold waters, the mists all around him and the faint glow of the distant lighthouse watching over him as his body slipped into hypothermia. His entire body was going numb, and he welcomed the sensation. How bitter a fate to have survived such a tempest from mariner’s legends, only to die frozen clinging to the wreckage of his ship. Yet even though he knew the odds against his survival were next to nothing, Silas knew that he would not die out here. How he knew this, he did not know, but he understood on some deep, unrecognized level of his mind that the ocean was no enemy to him, that it understood some hidden nature of the pitiful man alone and adrift upon its surface.

But just as the ocean was not his enemy, neither was it his ally, and without some effort on his part, his life would still be forfeit.

“The ocean helps those who help themselves,” said Silas between gulps of air.

He rolled himself flat, holding the timbers out before him. He didn’t remember having kicked off his waders in his struggles, but supposed the raging currents must have torn them from his legs. He’d be limp and dead on the seabed by now had it not. Silas could see the regular sweeps of the lighthouse over his right shoulder, which told him where Kingsport was, so he turned himself around and began kicking. His legs were aching, and his body was slowly freezing to death, but Silas was determined to earn his survival this night. Though the mists clung jealously to the surface of the water, Silas kicked and kicked, gaining yard after yard with his determined efforts.

At length, Silas saw the rocky outline of an island emerge from the mist, and he let out a near-hysterical laugh as he recognized the jutting crags of Pilot Island. Named in the heyday of Kingsport’s time as a trading hub on the eastern seaboard, ships from all over the world had once anchored here to await the arrival of a local pilot to guide them in through the unforgiving reefs.

Silas released the timber that had borne him to safety and swam with the last of his energy toward the edge of the island. He grabbed the rocks and hauled himself from the sea, heaving gasping lungfuls of air and allowing himself to rest for a moment before turning his face toward the steep-sided cliffs that led to the island proper. It would be a tough climb, but having sailed past the island many times before, Silas knew there were plenty of places he could shelter from the wind and last the night until morning brought the fishing fleet past.

It would be dangerous to wait too long, so Silas pulled himself to his knees and began the tricky climb. With only the lighthouse and the moon to show the way, he made his ascent slowly. Here, the mist revealed its true capriciousness, plunging him into intermittent periods of darkness as though daring him to reach for a handhold without light to guide him.

“The sea di’n’t take me,” grunted Silas. “Damn sure a bit of dark won’t.”

Hand over hand, slowly and carefully, Silas worked his way up the face of the cliff. Waves pounded the rocks far below, roaring and booming as though now angry at being denied his body as a prize. The wind threatened to pry him from the rocks with every howling breath. One slip would see him dashed to his death, and Silas tried not to think of how high he’d climbed.

He reached for a handhold and his questing digits found only empty air. Silas looked up and saw he’d reached the top of the cliff. He rolled onto the craggy, gorse-covered ground, breath heaving in desperate gulps and his limbs burning with the heat of his recent exertion. Silas closed his eyes for a moment, letting the exhaustion bleed out of him. He knew he should find shelter, but his body had long since passed beyond endurance.

His eyes fluttered shut, and it seemed that he must have dreamed, for he could hear a voice carried on the winds swirling around the island. Silas wondered if this was how a man died, hearing the voices of angels coming to take him up on their gossamer wings.

But angels should sound like the tinkling of bells or silver trumpets, not like a voice that mangled syllables and gave life to strange, nonsensical utterances that were painful in their terrible cadences. Silas listened for a moment, slowly coming to realize that he was not in the midst of a dream, but fully conscious. As ridiculous as it sounded, this voice belonged to a man, one who stood on Pilot Island.

And such a man must have a boat.

That thought galvanized Silas into motion, and he rolled onto his side as the abominable non-words were hurled into the wind. Dimly it occurred to him that any man who would willingly speak such infamy might not be a man who would offer him a place in his boat or who would take kindly to being discovered here. Silas cared nothing for this man’s business. If bootlegging or insanity had driven him to howl his hellish incantations into the wind, it was of no consequence to Silas.

The voice was coming from over a raised crag at the eastern end of the island, where tall stones stood like great menhirs. Silas edged his way over the rocks, his pace increasing as the voice grew louder. As he neared the source of the voice, that part of every human being that had once known the terror of being hunted in an age long passed brought him up short. He knelt beside a rearing stone, standing proud against the wind, and peered cautiously around its weather-worn corner.

Silas hadn’t believed he could be any colder, but when he saw what lay before him, his abused body felt as though it had been plunged into the heart of a glacier.

Standing on an outthrust crag of rock was a man dressed in a long robe of deepest red, stark against the white mist like blood on a bandage. The man’s arms were spread to the sides, and though the wind blew around him with terrible force, his head remained enclosed within an unmoving cowl. Though the hooded man’s appearance was otherwise unremarkable, Silas felt nothing but horror at the sight of him, as though he was the most loathsome man alive, a blighted soul whose gaze would burn the eyes from his skull with the merest glance.

Floating behind the man was a creature, a thing that Silas couldn’t quite bring into focus: a hybrid, aborted scrap of membranous flesh, rotten meat wings that beat furiously to keep it aloft, and clawed, whip-thin appendages that were at once vestigial and vital. Its body had something of the quality of a glossy grub, fresh hatched from a glutinous nest, and also the suggestion of a segmented beetle. Its head was a nightmare of black teeth and multi-faceted eyes, without form or hint of a defining skull.

As fragile as it looked, there was no question that it could tear him apart with its claws and teeth, and Silas dropped to his knees in mounting panic as the floating thing turned its amorphous head in his direction. He could feel its crawling sentience slithering over him, the touch both repellent and violating. Silas kept his eyes closed and silently mouthed a prayer to the ocean to keep him safe from this thing of the air. He sensed its confusion, as though it suspected his presence, but couldn’t be sure that anything was there. 

The horrid touch of its otherworldly senses withdrew and Silas let out a terrified breath. What manner of creature could hunt by such means? More to the point, what manner of man would countenance such a mount, for there had been no doubt in his mind that the man and beast were of one purpose. Silas waited in the shadow of the rock for long minutes until the guttural chants of the man were finally ended.

Moments later, Silas heard a sound like tearing wet leather and knew the man and his terrible mount had taken to the air. Even though he knew they were gone, Silas stayed hidden in the lee of the rock, his knees drawn up to his chest. He kept his eyes closed, letting each breath ease from his lungs slowly, as though the monstrous red-robed man and his unearthly companion might yet hear him and return.

Silas wanted to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he saw the nightmarish flying thing and felt its invasive gaze crawling within his flesh. He shuddered at the thought, and kept his gaze fixed on the rolling tides of the ocean before him, as if by ignoring what he had just seen he could purge it from his memory.

Though he was chilled to the bone, Silas knew he wouldn’t dare move from his sheltered spot until dawn broke over the horizon and the first of the Kingsport fishing fleet sailed past the island.

Chapter Eight

The journey from Arkham Asylum to Oliver’s house in Easttown was quiet, and that stillness was echoed on the empty streets they drove through the town. Independence Square passed on their right, and where Oliver might have expected to see a few late night perambulators, the square was empty; even the bandstand where some of the bums gathered to drink hooch before being chased off by the police was deserted. The great archway into the common was, instead of a welcoming sight, a threatening portal through which any number of beings inimical to life might appear. 

After perfunctory words with Dr. Hardstrom as to the frustrations of examining Henry, they had departed the asylum, and Hillshore had been silent since then. Oliver sensed it would be unwise to derail whatever train of thought was traversing his mind, and left his friend to his silent reverie. The lights at the front of his car cut a bright swathe through the light mist that had gathered in the gloom of evening, and Oliver eased off the gas, knowing that to encounter another car in this mist would likely end badly for both drivers.

Independence Square was soon lost to the darkness behind them, and as they drove sedately through the tangled, treelined streets of Easttown, Oliver swiftly pulled his Model T to a halt before his modest dwelling. Some gas lamps farther down the street cast fitful illumination, and long shadows reached from the distance like clawing hands. Oliver shook off the image and walked the short distance from the curb to his front door. Hillshore followed close behind, and only when he flicked up the switch to turn on his electric lights did Oliver realize how tense he had been in the darkness.

Hillshore put down his briefcase and surveyed Oliver’s inner sanctum: the eclectic collection of mismatching furniture and the copious bookshelves filled with works on history, anthropology, religion, the occult, and a hundred more diverse subjects. 

“Homely,” said the Englishman. “Reminds me of my old student digs in Cambridge.”

“It suits my needs,” said Oliver, moving through the clutter to the walnut-paneled sideboard where he kept the one bottle of alcohol in the house. He removed the bottle from the sideboard and showed Hillshore the label. His friend nodded appreciatively.

“Talisker, twelve year old,” he said. “The next best thing to Earl Grey.”

“I remember the nights we spent in the local pub,” said Oliver. “You always did have a fancy for the Skye malt.”

“Nectar of the gods, dear boy, nectar of the gods,” smiled Hillshore, fetching a pair of glass tumblers from the kitchen and holding them out to Oliver. The glasses were filled and drained, then filled again now that the edge of their journey had been smoothed out. Oliver took the bottle and sat it beside him as he took a seat beside the wireless. Hillshore sat opposite him, cradling his glass and staring into its amber depths as though seeking to discern some secret held within.

“A rum business, eh, Oliver,” said Hillshore, apropos of nothing.

“Quite,” agreed Oliver, unsure of Hillshore’s meaning.

“That scarring on Henry’s chest,” began Hillshore. “Dreadful, quite dreadful. He must have suffered terribly.”

“Have you seen its like before?”

“Not exactly, but things like it. Mental damage suffered by war veterans quite often turns to self-mutilation, but I have never seen something so deliberate,” said Hillshore, taking a sip of scotch. “It’s almost as though the poor man was enacting some bizarre ritualistic act. Do you have any idea what it might represent?”

Oliver did indeed have an idea of what Henry had been trying to achieve, and he saw Hillshore read that damnable knowledge in his eyes. A moment of unspoken communion passed between the two old friends, and where once they had been as mentor and student, they now regarded one another as equals.

“You’re right in that it has some ritualistic connotations, similar to those employed by certain ancient civilizations,” said Oliver, not wishing to reveal too much of his abhorrent learnings to his old friend.

“Interesting,” mused Hillshore. “Perhaps in his delusions, he fell back upon his academic knowledge and groped blindly for some talisman of protection, as ridiculous as it might seem to rational men.”

Hillshore paused to remove his pipe and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“Go ahead,” said Oliver, and Hillshore stuffed and lit his pipe with the practiced ease of a habitual smoker. The aromatic smoke billowed up in a soft, mushroom-shaped cloud, the fragrant aroma of Hillshore’s tobacco redolent with sun-baked souks and bazaars of exotic lands with names he could not pronounce.

Oliver reached out to pour them both another glass of scotch, and Hillshore gratefully accepted as he puffed contentedly on his pipe. With each puff on his pipe, Hillshore’s features had become more relaxed, and he even went so far as to undo one of the buttons on his waistcoat.

“I am very sorry I could not be any more help to your friend, Oliver,” said Hillshore at last.

“You’ve already done enough, William,” said Oliver.

Hillshore shook his head. “No, Oliver. It is my calling to comprehend the mysteries of men’s minds. To grasp the subtle complexities that govern our inner workings is to know the touch of something indescribable. It is what separates us from the beasts, that spark of intellect and awareness. I have made it my life’s work to heal those whose minds are broken, and it galls me to think that Henry’s cure is beyond me. Trust me, I have helped men who were little more than gibbering imbeciles once the war had finished with them. The things those poor souls saw and experienced in Europe were unlike anything you can comprehend, industrialized horrors that were entirely man-made and wholly inexcusable. Henry’s mania, if mania it be, is so utterly unlike anything I have seen before.”

“But you were able to deduce that he was no pyromaniac,” pointed out Oliver. “That gives me some comfort.”

“A mere trifle,” said Hillshore, waving away Oliver’s remark. “His retreat into catatonia is a phenomenon that could be cured were we to know the true nature of what drove him to madness in the first place. When a patient’s mind flees into the dark, there is always, and I do mean always, a root cause, a traumatic trigger event that drives the conscious mind so deep inside that it cannot find its way back out. In most cases, such triggers might be guilt, horror, or incomprehension, but Henry has been incarcerated at Arkham Asylum for a number of years, so it is safe to assume his life follows a predictable pattern, yes?”

“I would assume so,” agreed Oliver.

“Then some outside agency has done this to Henry,” stated Hillshore. “It is the only rational explanation, though I, of course, use the word ‘rational’ with a degree of irony.”

“You think someone put Henry into his catatonic state?”

“Ridiculous as it might sound, I do indeed,” said Hillshore. “Just as the medical physician may induce unconsciousness for the benefit of his patient, I believe that some people have the ability to do likewise for the mind, to lock a man inside his own skull, though for what purposes I dare not imagine.”

“Good God, then Henry may be a prisoner within his own mind?”

Hillshore drained his glass and nodded. “If the new theories of Jung and Freud are to be believed, then psychology may achieve remarkable results, though not all of them may be for the betterment of the patient.”

“Why would anyone want to do such a thing?”

“Who can know for sure, but the most likely reason he was rendered catatonic was to prevent him from revealing some hitherto unknown fact.”

“But wouldn’t it be easier to just kill him?”

“Perhaps, but what greater torment can there be than to exist as an impotent passenger in one’s own brain, helpless to communicate with the outside world and robbed of all means of interaction with those who are trying to help you? I shudder to think of so terrible a state of existence.”

“Then how might we undo this imprisonment?”

“Ah, there’s the rub indeed, Oliver,” admitted Hillshore. “I am at a loss as to how such a mental prison may be unlocked. It may be that only Henry can free himself from within.”

“I can’t accept that, William,” said Oliver, resolve hardening in his heart. “If there’s a way to get Henry back, I’ll damn well find it.”

* * *

The sound of a muttering voice awoke Luke before the dawn and he was instantly awake. Though the inhabitants of the Dreamlands generally left their pettiness and avarice back in the waking world, it was not unheard of for some to bring their more venal sides into their dreams. Luke knew of at least three people who had suffered loss at the hands of thieves who had raided their homes in the hour before dawn.

He sat up in bed and swung his legs onto the stone floor of his room. The sun had yet to rise and warm the interior of his house so the floor was cold. Luke pulled on his baggy trousers and padded to the locked chest he kept at the foot of his bed. Taking the key that never left his person from the thin chain around his neck, he unlocked the chest and opened its carved wooden lid. Reaching below folded shirts and assorted knick-knacks, he felt the silken bag in which was contained the ornate box of strange metals and woods his uncle had given him on his deathbed.

This was surely the only reason a thief would break in, and satisfied the box was secure, Luke closed the chest’s lid and locked it once more. He moved to the door of his room, wondering how he might confront this intruder. He had no weapon to hand, only a few palette knives that were quite useless for defense, nor would he have used one if he had. Luke had long ago given up violence as a means of solving his problems.

Luke pressed his ear to the gap between door and doorframe, listening for the voices again in an attempt to discern how many intruders he might be dealing with. He could hear sighs of frustration and the clatter of paint pots, and wondered for a moment if someone might have broken in just to steal some of his work. Were the thieves looking for one particular piece?

The ridiculousness of the notion struck him suddenly and he almost laughed at the idea of an art thief raiding his home at this hour of the morning. Emboldened by the absurdity of being robbed in the Dreamlands, Luke opened the door of his room and strode the short length of hallway to the main room.

Dim light filtered in through the shuttered window, making motes of the dust in the slanted rays of pre-dawn. A figure sat at his easel, partly obscuring the canvas, and it took a moment for Luke to recognize Henry, such was his state of distress. His guest of the last few weeks was sitting with his back to Luke, and his shoulders heaved as he wept at the easel. The dangling fingers of Henry’s right hand were black with charcoal dust, but Luke couldn’t see what was on the canvas. Had Henry woken in the night with the need to sketch?

That seemed unlikely, for Henry had never evinced the slightest interest in sketching or painting in all the time he had been with Luke.

“Henry?” said Luke. “Are you all right?”

He received no answer, and took a step forward to place a hand on Henry’s shoulder.

“It’s Luke,” he said. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

Henry wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I think I was dreaming,” said Henry, “but that’s absurd isn’t it? After all, I’m in the Dreamlands. Where do you go when you dream in a place like this?”

“I don’t know,” answered Luke truthfully. “Some people say that every Dreamlands has its own dreams. Earth can’t be the only place to have one after all. What did you dream about?”

“It was a face,” said Henry. “The face of a man I knew, but I can’t remember him.” 

“Is that why you’re up sketching before dawn?”

“Yes, but I don’t think I’m cut out to be an artist.”

Luke moved around Henry’s shoulder to look at the canvas. The face of a slender man of early to middling years was outlined there, but the picture was little better than a cartoon image from the funny pages of a newspaper. The man Henry had drawn could pass through this very room and they wouldn’t recognize him.

“You saw this man in a dream?” asked Luke.

“Well, yes, though he looked nothing like this,” said Henry, gesturing at the canvas.

“Perhaps you were dreaming of the world you left behind,” said Luke, fetching his sketchpad from the table in the center of the room. “Maybe he’s the man who put you here.”

“No,” said Henry, shaking his head with utter certainty. “No, this man is a friend of mine. I’m certain of it.”

Luke pulled over a stool and took the charcoal from Henry.

“You might not be much of an artist,” said Luke, “but I’ve been told I’m not bad. If you can describe this man to me, I’m pretty sure I could create a decent facsimile of him. I once did a stint of sketching for the Boston Police,” said Luke. “It was my drawing of Frank Wallace that allowed the cops to link him to the Charlestown bootlegging murders. It’s also one of the reasons I decided to come here. I’d seen and heard enough to know that I wanted no part of the waking world.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’m game if you are,” said Henry, running his hands through his hair as he composed himself. Henry closed his eyes and cast his mind into the memory of his dream. Slowly, and with halting fits and starts, he began to describe the man he had seen. Luke said nothing, letting Henry’s words direct his hand until, as dawn finally began to light and warm the room, he had a finished picture.

He handed the sketchpad to Henry and said, “Is this the man you saw?”

Henry’s eyes lit up at the sight of the man, a serious-looking man with high cheekbones, narrow glasses, and soberly cut hair, such as might be possessed by a grade school teacher or college lecturer.

“That’s him,” said Henry. “I know him!”

“You know him? His name, you mean?”

“Yes, yes!” cried Henry as his memory unfolded like the petals of a flower welcoming the sun. “That’s Oliver Grayson from Arkham!”

“And you’re sure of that?”

“I would stake my life on it,” said Henry.

Luke sat back on his stool, contemplating something he had long ago vowed he would never do. He had the power to help Henry, and the secret of the box locked within the reinforced chest in his bedroom was the key.

“Henry, you’re going to have to stay here for a few days on your own,” said Luke. “Will that be a problem?”

“I should think I’d be able to survive on my own. But why, where are you going?”

“I’m going home,” said Luke.

* * *

It was still dark by the time Oliver made it to the university. Though his watch and the Copley Tower told him it was already half past eight in the morning, the sun had yet to fully rise and cast its golden autumn light over the campus. He stifled a yawn as he guided his car into a parking spot outside the Liberal Arts building, ratcheting the handbrake and letting the engine idle while he buttoned up his long coat and pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. Though it was a distance of only a dozen yards or so to the entrance of the building, the morning’s chill was sharp and biting, a timely reminder that winter was just around the corner.

The roads had been empty en route to the train station, and Hillshore had commented on how refreshing it was to see empty streets instead of the thronged thoroughfares of San Francisco, with its steep hills, rattling trolleys, honking swarms of automobiles, and straining carts.

“Reminds me of the byways of Cambridge,” Hillshore had said as they passed through the less built-up areas of Arkham on their way to the station. The conversation of the previous evening had turned from matters psychological to matters more mundane, and Oliver had been taken back to his days in England, whiling away the evenings in academic discourse with the erudite professors of Cambridge on such diverse subjects as philosophy, humanities, the nature of the divine, and matters of free will and predetermination.

At somewhere approaching midnight, Hillshore had all but passed out in his chair, confessing to a bone-deep weariness, and Oliver had shown the stumbling psychiatrist to the guest room. More tired than he believed possible, Oliver had also retired, and slept like a babe, with only the lingering memory of a pleasant dream where he floated above the marble-cream streets of a coastal port of some southerly latitude.

Though the dream had been pleasant, its character had changed in the moments before he’d awakened. The great city had been overtaken by a rolling mist, and Oliver had had the sense of flying over a vast expanse of ocean. A voice had called to him from the mists, a voice he’d felt he should know, but could not identify. He’d seen a pair of haunted eyes—piercing amber flecked with silver—that implored him to heed some message, but before any substance of that message could be imparted, Oliver had felt himself rising from the dream.

He had awoken with a mild headache, a dry mouth, and a mighty hunger that had driven him to toast several slices of bread before Hillshore had risen. His dreams had already begun to fade by the time his old friend had finally descended the stairs from the upper story of Oliver’s house, and they’d shared a hearty breakfast before each man attended to his ablutions and grooming. Attired to face the day, they had climbed into Oliver’s car in the stillness that only ever exists in the hours before reasonable men and women are about their day.

Even at such an ungodly hour, Arkham’s train station had been busy. The steam locomotive to Boston had already been boarding its passengers, and a number of trains had stood idle, awaiting their scheduled time to depart for Newburyport, Essex, and points north. People had thronged the platforms, attended the ticket office, and purchased coffees from the stand outside.

Oliver and Hillshore had shaken hands at the steps to the passenger compartment, and though it had been many years since he had seen the Englishman, he suspected it would not be so long until their next meeting.

“Thank you for coming, William,” Oliver had said. “It means a lot to me that you took the time to come to Arkham and examine Henry.”

Hillshore smiled. “‘He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.’”

“Aristotle?” ventured Oliver, not recognizing the words.

“Sophocles, dear boy,” Hillshore had said with an amused shake of his head.

“Ah, you always did have a fondness for the Greek tragedians.”

“The benefits of a classical education, Oliver.”

“I’ll see your Sophocles and raise you a Heraclitus,” said Oliver. “‘I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.’”

“Ah, the weeping philosopher. Touché,” said Hillshore, turning to board his train. “Until next time, Oliver. Good day and fare thee well.”

Oliver had driven from the station with mixed emotions: sad that his old friend was departing after so short a sojourn, yet pleased to have seen him and intrigued by the nebulous idea that he would soon meet him again. He passed few other automobiles on the way back into Arkham, and those few he did were mostly delivery trucks and bakery vans. When at last he’d pulled up in front of the Liberal Arts building, it had been with a strange sense of the day’s potential, as though something important was just waiting on the right moment to spring its news upon him, like the guests at a surprise party.

Oliver stepped from his car and slammed the door shut with rather more force than he’d intended, looking about for any sign that he had disturbed anyone. The streets of the campus were more or less deserted, only a few well-wrapped students making their way between the dorms or heading out for an early breakfast. It took Oliver a moment to reconcile this stillness with the fact that it was Saturday morning. Few, if any, students would be up and about at this hour on a weekday, let alone a weekend.

Oliver followed the pavement until he reached the door to the building that housed the department of anthropology, and climbed the steps with brisk strides. He was eager to begin the drive to Kingsport and rendezvous with Alexander, but there were a number of books in his office relating to the exploration of the South Pacific that might be of use that he wished to collect before taking the south road past the airfield toward the city in the mists.

An overnight bag was stowed in the trunk of his car, and as soon as he had the books, he would be on his way. He wondered what Alexander might have already discovered relating to Tobias Philemon and the strange cargo he had brought back from the paradise islands of the Pacific. Though part of Oliver still felt deep dread at the course his life had taken, he could not deny the illicit thrill he took in being part of something greater than most men ever knew. As much as the evidence he had been shown was contrary to the fact, Oliver felt that he now mattered. His life and deeds were important to the world, a fact that no man can grasp and not feel a little thrilled.

Pushing through the doors, the building had that peculiar echoing quality that spoke more of abandonment than of simple emptiness. No one was on the desk in the cold and echoing vestibule, though there were likely a few secretarial staff and maybe a couple of professors scattered throughout its stories.

Oliver climbed the stairs to the anthropology department and made his way along the corridor that led to his office. The only light was that coming from the windows at either end of the corridor, and his shadow was thrown out before him, comically exaggerated in length, though the smile fell from his lips as Oliver remembered the shadows of clawed arms reaching along the walls when he had been chased by the degenerate monsters loosed from the frat house.

Hurriedly, he made his way to his office door and unlocked it with a set of keys he drew from his coat pocket. He flicked on the light and shut the door behind him, wanting to be done with collecting his books and on his way to Kingsport. Oliver knelt beside his bookcase and ran his fingertips along the cracked leather spines of his books. His reference library in relation to the South Pacific was extensive, but he did not want to have to carry entire armloads of books downstairs to his car.

Instead he picked out some early Magellan, the missionary writings of Francis Xavier, and Journal Extracts from the Expeditions of Abel Janszoon Tasman. He ignored the Hawkesworth, knowing Kingsport’s Historical Society would have a plentiful collection of works relating to James Cook’s and Joseph Banks’s expeditions. Oliver was debating on whether to include some Samuel Wallis in his growing pile of books, when he heard a dry, papery rustle from his doorway.

He turned to see a plain envelope slide beneath his door, and the clandestine nature of such an occurrence put him in mind of his Dr. Thorndyke mystery novels. Oliver rose and stared at the envelope dumbly, as though expecting that it might reveal its contents if he stared hard enough. He bent to retrieve the envelope, and tore it open with feverish hands. Inside was a folded piece of paper that upon opening turned out to be nothing more than an overdue book notice from the Orne Library regarding Prothero Fitzgibbon’s discredited book, Dreams of Atlantis. 

A sudden thought struck Oliver and he opened his door as he heard the sound of footsteps from farther down the corridor. He peered down its length and saw a rotund figure kneeling beside Professor Freeborn’s office door. The figure looked up at the sound of his door opening, and Oliver smiled as he recognized the bookish features of one of the university’s librarians.

“Carol?” said Oliver, relieved to see a familiar face.

“Professor Grayson,” replied Carol. “You got your overdue notice, I see.”

“I did indeed,” confirmed Oliver. “You have my apologies for being so tardy.”

“Quite all right, Professor.”

“If I might ask, what brings you around the campus so early?” asked Oliver.

Carol gave a shy smile. “It’s easier to deliver these late notices without anyone around to get mad at them,” she explained. “And Dr. Armitage is in one of his ‘collating’ moods, where he wants pretty much every book in the library back on the shelves.”

“Ah, I see,” said Oliver with a conspiratorial wink. “I shall endeavor to get Mr. Fitzgibbon’s book back to the library as soon as possible.”

“Monday morning would be best,” advised Carol. “You know what Dr. Armitage is like.”

“Indeed,” said Oliver, well aware of Armitage’s view on the library’s collection of books. Armitage seemed to believe each book was part of his own private kingdom, and were only begrudgingly loaned out to students and faculty members.

Before Carol could move on, Oliver asked, “How is Miss Walker feeling now? Has she recovered from her ordeal in the library the other night?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Professor Templeton and I encountered her and Professor Walters by the restricted collection the other night. She seemed somewhat unwell.”

Carol’s look of confusion was so complete that Oliver began to question his own recall of that night.

“I think you must be mistaken,” said Carol. “Daisy hasn’t been in the library for a few days. I think she’s taken some time off. Perhaps you mistook someone else for her?”

Confused at Carol’s dismissal of his concerns, Oliver decided against pressing her with questions, and simply nodded and smiled as though amused at his own foolishness.

“Yes, of course, that must have been it, you’re right,” he said. “My apologies, Carol—it’s been a busy few days, you understand?”

“Quite all right, Professor Grayson,” said Carol, moving on from Freeborn’s door to yet another faculty member who had incurred Armitage’s wrath. Oliver watched her until she turned the corner at the end of the corridor. He returned to his office to collect his books, wondering why Carol would have no knowledge of what had happened to her fellow librarian.

Oliver just hoped that whatever had happened to Daisy, it would not come back to haunt her at some point in the future. Putting the matter from his mind, Oliver placed his collected books in his briefcase, when there came a knocking at his office door.

“Carol?” said Oliver, opening the door.

“Nope, not today,” said a young man dressed in the navy blue of a Kingsport policeman’s uniform. “Patrolman Darnell, sir. James Darnell.”

“Oh, sorry, Patrolman,” said Oliver, feeling the dread common to all men, whether honest or criminal, at the sight of a policeman at their door. Under normal circumstances, Oliver knew he had nothing to fear from the long arm of the law, but the last few weeks had seen him break numerous laws of mortal men and the physical universe. Had some evidence emerged from the blackened ruins of the frat house that implicated him in some heinous crime?

“Who’s Carol?” asked Darnell, and Oliver saw the policeman was little better than a boy, fresh-faced and clearly just out of Berkeley Street academy. That, Oliver knew, was a bad sign; the moment you started seeing policemen as boys was surely a herald of a fast-approaching middle age.

“One of the university librarians,” said Oliver, covering his nervousness by beckoning Darnell into his office. “I was hoping she’d be by to pick some books I need to return.”

“On a Saturday? They must work them girls hard in Arkham.”

“She’s very dedicated, yes,” agreed Oliver as Darnell looked around in wonder at the amount of books crammed into so small a space. His eyes narrowed at some of the stranger carvings Oliver had brought back from the Yopasi expedition.

“Now,” said Oliver. “What can I do for you, Patrolman?”

“Your name Oliver Grayson?”

“It is, yes.”

“Professor Oliver Grayson?”

“Yes,” said Oliver, amused at the idea that there might be more than one Oliver Grayson in the Miskatonic campus. “I am he.”

“Great,” said Patrolman Darnell. “I tried going to your house first, but you weren’t there.”

“No, I was taking a friend to the train station.”

“Right, yeah, so I figured I’d try your office next.”

When Darnell didn’t go on, Oliver filled the lull in the conversation. “And here I am. Now that you’ve found me, what can I do for you?”

“I need you to come with me, sir. I got a patrol car outside ready to go.”

“Can I ask why?” asked Oliver. “And, of course, where?”

“I got orders to bring you to Kingsport, Professor.”

“Kingsport?” said Oliver. “I was just about to drive there as it happens.”

“You was?”

“I was,” said Oliver, forcing himself to ignore the man’s grammar.

“You already get a call then?” asked Darnell. “Damn it, why the hell they get me to drive all this way if you was already comin’ down?”

Oliver had a sense of a conversational car crash, of two spiraling threads going in divergent directions, and held up his hand.

“No one’s called me. I was going to Kingsport to meet up with a friend. Who do you think might have called me?”

“Professor Angell said we oughta bring you in, seeing as how you’re the expert on them bones that washed up on South Shore.”

Once again, Oliver felt himself losing his grasp on events.

“Professor Angell?” he said. “Professor George Gammell Angell of Brown University?” said Oliver, recalling many a bucolic afternoon in the classrooms of the Professor Emeritus of Semitic languages at Brown University.

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” said Darnell. “He said you were the guy to talk to.”

Though well into his eighties when Oliver had last seen Angell at Brown, there had been no diminishing of his scholarly zeal, and he had been full of passionate, if secretive, vigor concerning some strange cult that had latterly come to his attention in the swamps of Louisiana. Widely known as an authority on ancient inscriptions, Angell had frequently been consulted by the heads of many of the nation’s most respected museums.

“And he said you should talk to me about…bones?” asked Oliver. “What bones?”

“Don’t you read the papers?” said Darnell. “A graveyard’s worth of bones washed up on Kingsport’s South Shore. You ain’t heard about that?”

“I confess I have not,” said Oliver.

“Sheesh,” said Darnell, as though Oliver’s ignorance of the bones had cast some doubt on his expertise in the matter.

“Anyways,” continued Darnell, “this Professor Angell says you’d know more about these bones than anyone. He told me to tell you that you’d understand as soon as you saw them.”

“He did? Did he say why?”

“Yeah,” said Darnell, removing a small notebook from his breast pocket and flipping it open. “He said they were the bones of the Yopasi.”

Part Two

Riding the Night Mare, 1926

Chapter Nine

Rain. Why did it have to be rain? Of all the weather October could throw at Rex, why did it have to be the one that made him the most miserable? Cold, he could handle. Fog was no problem, and heat, well, he’d traveled to some countries that were so hot you couldn’t move for the best part of the day without feeling like you’d been locked in a giant oven. Heat he could handle, but this rain was just depressing him.

Rex remembered covering a story in Egypt where a big corporation’s mining operation in the desert had been blown sky high, supposedly by a band of anarchists. That had been heat. Rex had stayed in a hotel run by an Arabian Anglophile who never missed a chance to blare God Save the King at the drop of a hat and lecture him on how much better off America would be if it had a royal family. Worse, Rex had managed to miss a meeting with a source who’d claimed to know the truth of what had really happened in the desert. He’d been struck down by a bad case of the Cairo two-step, and had to remain glued to the toilet for the better part of the day.

His source had gone on to give his story to a French reporter working for Reuters, which was just typical of the luck that had seen Rex end up at the Arkham Advertiser.

Typical of the luck that saw him standing by his battered Model T in the rain on the lower slopes of Kingsport Head in the midst of a building site with a raging hangover. Heavy bags of cement lay stacked like barricades, and hundreds of tied lengths of steel poles lay stacked like cordwood, awaiting a welder to assemble them like some giant Meccano set.

No sooner had he emerged from his car than three sullen-looking men detached from a body of workers sheltering beneath a hastily erected tarpaulin strung between the branches of two trees. All three were dressed in thick carpenter pants and wore heavy woolen coats over cotton crew-necked shirts. Their engineer boots were muddy, and all three smoked foul-smelling rollups.

“Hey, Donald,” Rex said as the first man reached him. “Heard you lost a man here recently. That true?”

Rex had met Donald “Jock” McCarney several times over the years, and they’d shared more than a few whiskeys before Andy Volstead set out to ruin the working man’s fun. Donald was a tough guy, a straight-talking Scottish immigrant whose family had fled the violence of the Highland Clearances a hundred years ago. He eyed the two men with Donald. Both were wiry and leathery from lifetimes spent lugging steel and stone and hammering the two together. They were clearly there to back Donald up, and Rex wondered why he’d felt the need to bring extra men with him.

“Maybe’s aye, and maybe’s no,” said Donald, and Rex knew he’d have to buy the man’s cooperation.

“What’s it going to be, Donald? Jamaican rum? Canadian rye?”

“Och, that pish? Nah, a bossman from the big university says I’m no’ supposed to talk to any reporters. It’s more’n ma job’s worth to talk to you.”

“Come on,” said Rex, removing his glasses and giving them a quick polish, even though he knew the damn rain was just going to continue to fog them up. “I work for the Advertiser. We’re partially funding this work. You know that kind of makes me your boss…”

“Aye, right,” said Donald with a hacking laugh that was like the cough of a consumptive.

“Okay, that was a cheap shot,” agreed Rex. “What if I said I could get you a bottle of whiskey. Not the shine they brew in the woods that makes you go blind, but the good stuff, from the old country. What do you say, Donald?”

“Proper scotch?” asked Donald. “A drop o’ the real stuff?”

“Sure, and I’ll even throw in a whole bunch of smokes for your lads.”

“That’s more like it, sonny,” said Donald. He turned to the men with him and said, “Beat it, you two. And keep yer mooths shut, ye hear me?”

The men nodded and tramped back to their fellow workers under the tarpaulin. With their price agreed, Donald leaned against the fender of Rex’s car and scratched his crotch with his free hand.

“So?” said Rex. “What’s the rumpus? Did you lose a man or not?”

“Aye, stupid eejit jumped off yonder cliff is whit the rumpus is, Rex,” said Donald. Though he had not—to the best of Rex’s knowledge—ever set foot in Scotland, Donald still spoke with the guttural tones of a Glaswegian docker. “Stone died n’all.”

Much of what Donald said went straight over Rex’s head, lost amongst the Scottish brogue, but he pressed on, pulling out his notebook and trying to shelter it from the rain.

“Who was he? One of your regular crew?” asked Rex.

Donald nodded. “A boy fae Arkham, sure enough. Dale Butterfield, lived oot wi’ his ma doon Southside way. Shiftless wee numpty most days, but when he was here he’d work his arse off. Got to gi’ him that.”

“So he fell off the cliff?” asked Rex. “I heard he fell from some scaffolding.”

“Scaffolding? Whit scaffolding?” said Donald, waving a hand like a shovel back up the slopes of Kingsport Head. The farthest reaches of the towering crag were obscured by the mists, and for some unaccountable reason, Rex was intensely glad of that fact. Donald’s other hand indicated the heaps of building materials lying untouched behind him.

“Hey, that’s what my editor told me.”

“We’ve no’ even got the foundations poured in the trenches yet, Rex,” explained Donald, as though speaking to a kid on his first day on site. “We dinnae need scaffolding yet. And you’re no’ listening to me, Rex. He didnae fall off the cliff; I told ye, he jumped.”

“Deliberately?”

“Aye, deliberately,” said Donald with an exasperated sigh. “How else d’ye jump? We’d done fir the day and we wir heading back tae the truck when we finds him sleeping in the lee of some sheet metal we’ve got for lining the trenches. I gies him a steel boot in the backside and he jumps up like Lucifer and all his wee devils are standing above him.”

“Was he having a nightmare?”

At this, Donald looked uneasy, and Rex’s reporter’s instincts sniffed the beginnings of an angle. “Aye, well, it’s no’ like we don’ all grab a wee kip now and again. It’s hard work digging trenches in this weather. An’ there’s a more’n a few of us have had some right bad dreams here.”

“What kinds of bad dreams?” said Rex, more than familiar with nightmares, though his were of fields of fire and the agonizing pain of burning to death…

“Ach, ye know, the usual,” said Donald. “But yon boy was wide awake when he jumped off that cliff. Woke up and kept screaming that he’d seen the end of the world or some daft stuff about drowning. Ran like Tam o’ Shanter up the Head and we ran efter him, like, you know?”

“Not even a little bit, but go on.”

“He gets to the edge of the cliff, right, yelling blue murder and tearing at his face and arms like he wis covered in beasties, just like they bampots up at the asylum that think there’s worms under their skin. Turns to me, and I’m standing beside him, just as close as you and me, Rex. Looks me right in the eye and says, ‘He’s coming.’”

Donald paused to roll another cigarette, no mean feat in the constant drizzle.

“He’s coming?” repeated Rex, peering over the top of his glasses. “Who’s coming?”

“That’s whit I asked him, and you know whit he says?”

“No, Donald, that’s why I’m asking you.”

“Hold yer horses, Rex, I’m gettin’ to it,” said the burly Scotsman, lighting his cigarette with a lighter he produced from the pocket of his mud-spattered pants.

“‘Who’s coming?’ I says to him, and he gies me this look that gave me chills, I swear to ye. It was like the Bean-nighe screamed my name right in ma ear, so it wis. Looks me right in the eye and says, ‘The dweller in the deep.’”

“‘The dweller in the deep,’” repeated Rex, and the words felt natural to him, as though he’d heard them before, or like he’d always known them and had just been waiting for the moment when they’d return to the forefront of his memory. Though he couldn’t grasp it, he sensed a terrible import to the phrase, and he struggled to find something meaningful to say in the wake of such awful, blood-chilling words.

Donald saved him the trouble. “And then Dale turns and flings himself off the cliff. I tried to grab him, but he caught me on the hoof, and he was gone before I even got a grip on his shirt. Watched him fall all the way doon. Smashed onto the rocks back of Harborside, down by the yards at the back of the fish-packers. Poor lad bust apart so bad ye couldnae tell him apart from all the fish guts spilled there.”

“Jesus,” hissed Rex. “Say, you got one of them rollups for me, Donald?

“Aye,” said Donald, expertly rolling and lighting a cigarette for Rex. He lit it and Rex took a deep draw into his lungs. The tobacco was rough and cheap, but the smoke helped calm nerves that were jangling like tense piano wire getting beat on by a virtuoso.

“That’s a hell of a story,” said Rex. “What do you think made Dale act like that? Was he drunk? High?”

“Dale? Nah, didnae smoke and couldnae afford to drink, not even the rotgut stuff,” said Donald with a furtive glance back toward his men. “It’s this place. It gets inside yer head.”

“Kingsport?”

“Aye, but more than that; it’s here, the Head.”

“What do you mean?”

As if to punctuate Donald’s story with proof, the mists enveloping the farthest tip of Kingsport Head parted, as though pulled aside like a theatre curtain. The slopes of the colossal promontory were rough and rocky, punctuated by scrubby woods, patches of gorse, and thickets of tangled brush. Hard terrain for even an experienced walker. Yet at the end of the crag stood an incongruous sight that took Rex’s breath away: a grey-walled house of incredible age, with an unnaturally tall peaked roof perched at the very edge of the cliffs. 

The house was surely well over a mile away, yet Rex could clearly make out the thin line of smoke that curled from the crumbling chimney and the fact that there appeared to be no doors he could see. Rex had known that this house existed—everyone in Kingsport knew of it and most of Arkham did too—but seeing it now as the mist unveiled it was like discovering it for the first time. As he saw the strange house high on the cliffs, it felt like it too was watching him and judging his worth.

Rex felt a strange, questing sensation within his skull, like a creeping burglar rummaging through his private papers and photographs. Rex immediately thought of the picture Minnie had taken and felt the intrusive feeling in his mind flinch as though burned by the light and heat of what was represented on the photograph.

Rex shook off the strange sensation, and returned his attention to Donald.

“Aye, you know whit I mean, son,” said Donald, seeing the faraway look in Rex’s eyes.

Rex nodded, though he felt a fogginess to his thoughts that had nothing to do with his hangover. Kingsport had long been known as a town of dreamers. How else would you explain the dogged determination to hang on to a place that was dying a slow commercial death and was only just hanging on by its fingernails by attracting rich tourist dollars from the big cities.

“Sooner we’re done here the better,” said Donald. “It gets inside ye, this place, an’ I don’ want to find out whit I’ll do if I wake up too sudden-like, ye ken?”

Though Donald’s words were like another language, Rex understood the sentiment clearly. He was about to reply, when he saw a black car coming down the Arkham road, headed for Kingsport. The rain had eased up enough for him to recognize the livery of a Kingsport patrol car, and he wondered what it was doing so far out of town.

The car swept down the road and Rex shielded his eyes with his palm as it drove past. Driving down the hills to the bowl of Kingsport below, a car needed to take its time, and Rex got a good look at the driver and his passenger.

He didn’t know the driver, some young cop with a fresh face and old eyes.

But the passenger…

“I’ll be damned,” said Rex.

“You ken that fella?” asked Donald.

“I sure do,” said Rex, pocketing his notebook and pulling open the driver’s door of his car.

“I’ll be expecting that scotch in a day or so, sonny,” said Donald, pushing away from Rex’s car as the engine fired up with a roar of thrashing pistons.

“Sure, Donald,” said Rex. “I’ll be by beginning of the week with something. Thanks!”

Rex pulled away in a hurry, back wheels spitting mud and crunching gravel. He hauled the heavy Ford around in a wide circle and felt the familiar thrill of events slotting together whenever a story was beginning to cohere. First the death at the wireless station, and now this. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Before he could follow the route to town, another vehicle appeared from over the brow of the hill, the Arkham bus to Kingsport, and Rex cursed as it slowly made the turn onto the road he needed to follow.

“You gotta be kidding me!” snapped Rex.

Driving like Rex’s grandmother was at the wheel, the bus made its tortuously slow journey down the hill. With nowhere to pass, Rex was forced to inch his way down the steep road to Kingsport in the wake of the wide bus, cursing with every slow yard they were covering.

“At last,” said Rex, as he pulled around a bend in the road, and saw the town of Kingsport laid out before him.

“Now what brings you to Kingsport in the back of a cop car, Oliver Grayson?” said Rex.

* * *

The dream was brief, but horrifying in its clarity.

Silas threw off his blanket and sat bolt upright as though a heavy weight had landed on his belly. His lungs drew in great, sucking breaths and he waited for the horror to bleed from his mind. Sweat cooled on his body as the blanket fell away and the cold air of the room snatched away his warmth.

The dream was always the same, always terrifying, and yet somehow familiar; like an old friend come to keep him company in his hour of need. Silas had been having the same dream for as long as he could remember. His father had called it The Dream, as though there could be no other dreams, as though this was the only dream he would ever know. His eyes were wide with the old fear, but there was something different in the quality of this incarnation of the dream that made Silas sick to the pit of his stomach.

He looked around his room, a squalid little box in the attic of a Hilltown boarding house with space for a bed, a seaman’s chest, a narrow dresser, a pot to piss in, and not much else. Situated in the heart of what folk in this town called “the artists’ colony,” a place he’d come to know well in the six months he’d been in Kingsport, it was relatively clean and, most importantly, cheap. Weak sunlight filtered in through a cloth-draped skylight that let in a chill draught when the wind blew, and Silas wasn’t surprised to find that he’d slept late.

Folk in this part of town were pretty friendly, though they were for the most part an itinerant diaspora of poets, artists, musicians, and more than a few writers who hoped the dreamy atmosphere of the town might act as their muse. A great many had drifted away from Kingsport now that the tourists had gone and winter was on its way.

In an irony that wasn’t lost on Silas, it had been Josiah Washburne’s boat that had picked him up from Pilot Island as the sun crested the horizon and the mists retreated in the face of the new day. At first he’d feared the Nicodemus would sail past him, but the code of the sea was unbreakable, and Washburne wouldn’t have been able to show his face around town if it’d came out he’d ignored a fellow mariner in distress.

It was out of the question that the Nicodemus would turn back to shore, so after changing into a set of warm clothes belonging to Dalton Mather, he’d put in a day’s work on the boat despite his bone-weary exhaustion and aching limbs. None of the crew had spoken to him beyond what was necessary, and at day’s end he had stepped onto the wharf and headed to the harbormasters to report the sinking of Neptune’s Bounty.

He’d omitted the part about the red-robed man and the abominable flying creature on Pilot Island, knowing the authorities would think he was mad and haul him off to Arkham’s asylum. Silas had the feeling that to mention what he’d seen on that island would be very bad for his health in all kinds of unpleasant ways. 

The loss of the boat and its crew had hit Kingsport hard, and though the townsfolk were outwardly grateful at least one soul had survived, Silas sensed their wary distrust lurking in every sidelong glance that came his way.

He’s an Innsmouth man, their eyes said. No wonder the sea wouldn’t claim him…

All the same, those Innsmouth folk. Probably led those poor sailors to their deaths…

Silas had heard their whispers in the languages of a hundred ports around the world, the words different, but the sentiment always the same.

He’d only recently returned to America, having sailed the world on tramp steamers and cargo ships from the horn of Africa to the frozen ports of northern Russia. As happy as he’d always been working the shipping lanes of the world’s oceans, moving from port to port, Silas had always known he’d come this way again to seek the truth of his affinity with the sea.

Yet as much as Silas desired to know of his origins, part of him feared what he might learn. Rather than go straight to Innsmouth, he had traced a circuitous route to the town his father claimed as his family’s ancestral home, learning what he could of Innsmouth from afar.

And what he’d learned hadn’t made him want to get there in a great hurry.

In Arkham, he’d worked the docks for a time, but the call of the sea had proved too strong and he’d come to Kingsport. He had enjoyed his life here, reveling in the hard labor of a fishing boat, and sampling the bohemian pleasures of the artists’ colony.

He’d kept a low profile for the most part, aside from the altercation with Washburne’s crew in the Rope and Anchor, and the townsfolk had let him be. He still didn’t know why he’d intervened on Basil Elton’s behalf. He didn’t know the man and owed him nothing, so why had he felt the need to step in and defend him? Silas told himself it was simply that he disliked bullies, that he knew the light from North Point had not gone out as Washburne claimed.

But he knew it was more than that. He had never spoken to Basil Elton before, but recognized some kindred spirit to the man, a shared secret knowledge that neither could fully articulate, but about which both were painfully aware. Silas shook his head and put Basil Elton from his mind.

His clothes lay folded on the chest, and he swung his legs out of bed, forcing himself to recall his terrifying dream and figure out what was different this time.

He had been at sea again, a lost soul alone in the midst of an impossibly vast ocean with no land in sight. Stars had wheeled above him, each one a curved streak of light in the sky as they spun through their nightly revolutions with unnatural speed.

The water had closed over his head and unseen hands had dragged him beneath the surface. They were not unkind hands, and Silas had sensed no desire to do him harm, simply a wish to bear him onward. Dimly he’d perceived shapes around him, vaguely human-like, hunched and simian, but their features were lost in the murk and gloom of the depths. For this small mercy, Silas was immeasurably glad, for he felt that should he clap eyes upon them, he would surely go mad with horror.

Down he’d gone, borne endlessly into the gulfs beneath the ocean, deeper than anyone had any clue the sea could possibly be. The light of the sun was unknown here, yet Silas had seen clearly his surroundings. The ocean floor had been carpeted with enormous, cyclopean blocks of some ageless stone, black and veined with gold and green. Toppled statues had lain where they had fallen, and though he had no means of judging their scale, Silas knew that each was mightier than the skyscrapers of New York and Chicago combined.

The more Silas had seen, the more he’d realized that this jumbled collection of stone was no random debris, but a structure of such immensity that no human brain could fully comprehend its enormity. Such scale made the endeavors of man meaningless, rendered the pyramids of Giza as trifling structures, and dwarfed any attempt to reconcile its existence with the idea of a builder.

And Silas had suddenly known with total certainty that this abhorrent city had not been built, it had been willed into existence by an intelligence that defied understanding or explanation. As he’d floated toward it, his escorts from the surface having abandoned him at some earlier juncture, he’d seen them capering in the ruins of the vast sepulcher. There could be no doubt that this abandoned place served as a house of the dead: its seaweed-garlanded columns and barnacle-festooned stones were redolent with graveyard imagery, albeit of a hideously alien and previously unknown design.

His escorts had danced to the music of a caterwauling pipe as played by a blind flautist in a fit of delirium. The music had been maddening, but Silas had felt his limbs jerking with spastic motion, like the frenzied tugging of an unseen puppet master on invisible strings attached to his limbs. Silas had joined the dancing masses, feeling his body changing around him, as though better adapting itself to match the motions of the dance. Limbs swelled and elongated, bones liquefied then hardened and his eyes grew ever wider to encompass the full beauty of the city around which he danced the dance of the damned. 

He’d felt no fear there, no revulsion at the creatures alongside which he danced. He’d seen them now, not as vile monsters to be hated, but as brothers and sisters. Kin to him as he was once kin to the people in the world above. He’d bellowed his joy and they’d gargled, hooted, and brayed their acceptance of him.

And then the lunatic flute had ceased its dreadful piping. The dance had immediately halted and every wide-eyed face had turned its gaze upon the great portal toward which Silas now realized every step of the dance had been carrying him.

He’d felt the first stentorian heartbeat of the being imprisoned within this tomb city—a mighty drum beat that boomed its nightmarishly slow cadences to a rhythm set down in the eons before the upstart race of hominids had been a blink in the universe’s evolutionary eye.

Silas had felt the exultation of those around him and let it fill his body with an anticipation that was so keen and so welcome that it made him want to shriek until his lungs ruptured in his chest. He’d felt the colossal heartbeat quicken, a rousing climb from the deepest slumber to the moment before waking.

And with that thought, Silas had catapulted to wakefulness.

He blinked away the last of the dream—he had long ago ceased to think of it as a nightmare—and padded softly over to the chipped ceramic bowl of water atop the dresser. He splashed his face and rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. He took a deep breath and stared at the sickly reflection that stared back at him in the dresser’s cracked mirror: a flat nose and eyes that were slightly too wide and too rounded to escape notice, an unkempt beard of black hair and a powerfully muscled body that bore more than its fair share of nautical tattoos across his pectorals and across the curve of his shoulders.

His mouth was gummy from sleep, and his breath tasted of salted fish. Silas leaned forward and put his face in the bowl of water to wash his mouth of the taste. The water was bitterly cold, but refreshing, and he kept himself immersed until he realized something was very strange.

He was breathing.

In itself that wasn’t unusual, but his nose and mouth were still below the water.

Silas jerked his head from the bowl in shock, rubbing his face with the heels of his palms. Had that really happened? Had he breathed water? Surely not, human beings couldn’t breathe underwater, that was the quality possessed by denizens of rivers, lakes, and oceans, not upright mammals. Silas backed away from the bowl of water in fright, now understanding what it was about his dream that was different from before.

The dance around the undersea tomb city used to terrify him.

Now he reveled in it.

* * *

Oliver gleaned nothing more from Darnell beyond the basics of the story. The patrolman remained close-mouthed on their journey, his earlier loquaciousness replaced with a sullen apathy as they hit the street. From a folded copy of the Kingsport Chronicle in the patrol car’s passenger seat, Oliver learned that a host of bones, which at a conservative estimate the local coroner estimated belonged to at least four or five hundred people, had washed ashore.

The streets of Arkham were soon left behind as Darnell drove straight to the edge of town and turned onto Hill Road that led down to the coast. The route between Arkham and Kingsport was relatively well-traveled, and much of the tarmac was relatively free of potholes and bumpy depressions. As the sun spread its light over the landscape, Oliver took a moment to appreciate the glory of a New England autumn.

The trees were in the process of shedding their leaves, the green giving way to gold and brown and fiery red. Folk came from as far away as New York to New England and Maine to watch the leaves change, and though Oliver had scoffed at such foolishness before coming to Arkham, he now fully appreciated the vividness of the spectacle. Red-gold trees lined the roadway, ageless watchers that had stood for hundreds of years in this landscape and which had seen countless great men and women come and go, empires rise and fall, wars begin and end in the blink of an eye.

Such permanence gave Oliver hope that whatever lay at the end of this strange voyage he and Alexander were embarked upon, the world would endure. Even if mankind no longer claimed dominance over its lands, planet Earth would endure.

The road wound a meandering path through the hills that kept Arkham from the prying eyes of the world, and Oliver’s gaze was drawn up their rugged slopes to their curiously rounded tops. Legend said that an ancient race of giants had laid the stones that stood like heathen henges upon their summits, but having made the long climb up Sentinel Hill outside Dunwich one spring afternoon, he imagined the stones to be no more than a few hundred years old. Though how they had been brought to the top of such precipitous and treacherous slopes remained a mystery.

With the hills behind them, the patrol car began a slow descent toward the coast as a misty drizzle began to fall from the sky. Looking past Darnell, Oliver saw the ground to the left of the car becoming progressively more rocky and untamed. A portion of the road split off, little more than a dirt track that ended in a wide clearing filled with what looked like building materials. Oliver wondered if this was the proposed site of the new wireless station. Seeing a number of men in work overalls huddled beneath a sagging tarpaulin seemed to confirm his suspicion. A parked town car Oliver thought he recognized was parked at the foot of the slope, but Darnell swept them around a wide, curving turn that brought them onto the main road into Kingsport before he could get a look at the owner of the car.

Farther on, the car passed a crumbling structure built like a round brick drum. The walls were obscured by climbing plants, but Oliver knew enough of his Revolutionary history to recognize a powder house once used to store shot and powder barrels. Sensibly located away from town, the tower had since fallen into disrepair, though halfhearted attempts to shore up its crumbling walls by some heritage society had kept it from collapsing completely.

The road diverged at this point and Darnell kept to Hill Road, keeping his foot on the brakes as they negotiated the rain-slicked road descending into town. A steep-sided hill rose to the west of the road, and through crooked wrought-iron railings Oliver saw a number of gravestones. They leaned to and fro as though the souls buried beneath them rested uneasily, and Oliver wondered why these former residents of Kingsport had chosen to be buried beyond the outskirts of their home.

The silent graveyard was soon lost to sight as the car made a last turn on the road.

“Welcome to Kingsport, Professor,” said Darnell, finally breaking his silence.

Oliver forgot the powder house and graveyard and looked down the road to see the town spread out before him. Nestled in a bowl-shaped depression that encompassed the wide bow of the harbor, Kingsport was built on a series of low hills that gave the town an undulant character, with homes stacked haphazardly on slopes, nestled cheek by jowl and overlooking one another precipitously at all manner of angles.

The streets were narrow and threaded the town like veins, twisting around like a labyrinth designed by some sadistic puzzle maker. With eyes half-closed, it was possible to imagine the town had changed little since Revolutionary times, for the signs of modernity were few and far between. In the space of a breath, Oliver felt he had stepped back in time to an earlier age when the nation was still finding its way and forging its own identity from the cauldron of war-fresh thinking. 

At the heart of Kingsport rose the imaginatively titled Central Hill, and it was to here that Oliver knew they would be headed, for this was the site of the Congregational Hospital, where Darnell had told him the washed-up bones were being stored.

The mighty Atlantic filled the horizon, a great slab of dismal grey that made Oliver cold just to see its wind-tossed surface. Clouds scudded low over the waters, and Oliver could see the wave-lashed outlines of a number of islands and reefs in the mist that clung to the edge of the horizon. A few boats plied the waters, and farther out to sea, Oliver saw the ghostly outline of a number of fishing vessels.

Yet for all its quaintly old-fashioned charm, it was the monolithic cliff of Kingsport Head that constantly drew Oliver’s gaze upward. Rearing over the town like an immense tsunami frozen in the moment before it crashed down over the town, the immense cliff face dominated the town’s landscape. Atop this vast headland was a shimmering dot of grey that Oliver realized with a start was a house. Amused at this odd placement for a dwelling, Oliver started to ask who might live in such an isolated place, when the streets of Kingsport swallowed them.

Hilly streets rose to either side of them, and Darnell slowed the car to navigate the narrow streets of the town, passing between buildings that Oliver knew must be early eighteenth century if not older. A veritable pageant of gambrel, hip, and gable passed by, the old pressed up against the new, with low bridges crossing the streams of runoff coming down off the Head. Though the hour was still early, the streets were busy with people, all of whom gawped at the patrol car as it made its way toward the heart of the town.

Where Arkham’s streets bore the hallmark of the town planner and the architect, Kingsport’s thoroughfares felt like they had grown organically, molding themselves to the land and wending their way as they pleased, like worms wriggling through soft loam.

Oliver had no idea where this last image had come from, the metaphor troubling in its directness and overt nature. He shook off a lingering unease as the ground began to rise and he saw a wide expanse of open ground appear. Like the cemetery outside the town, this graveyard was encircled by a high fence of black iron, but where that repository of the dead had been populated by only a few headstones, this was clearly the final resting place of the majority of Kingsport’s dead. Willows hung low to the ground and many of the gravestones were crumbling and in need of restoration.

Across the street from the graveyard was Kingsport’s Congregational Hospital—a tall, recently constructed building that superficially resembled Arkham Asylum, with its wide wings and central tower—and it was to this building that Darnell guided the car. Despite that resemblance, the Congregational Hospital retained none of the brooding character of Arkham’s fearful sanitarium, yet there was a lingering sense of dark history to it that no amount of modern architecture could quite conceal.

Darnell killed the engine and said, “Here you go, Professor.”

“I’m supposed to be meeting a colleague,” said Oliver. “At the Lighthouse Inn.”

“What’s her name?” asked Darnell with a smirk.

“Professor Alexander Templeton,” replied Oliver, not liking the man’s insinuation.

“Oh, sure, yeah. I’ll drive past on my way back to the station house and let him know you’re here, okay?”

“Thank you. Is it far from here, if I have to walk once I finish here?”

“No, it’s not far,” said Darnell. “Nowhere’s far in Kingsport, but be sure to get good directions or you’ll get lost.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Oliver assured him.

“Trust me, Professor. Outsiders get all turned around in Kingsport’s streets. It’s like they want you to get lost and leave.”

Oliver tried not to read too much into Darnell’s choice of words, and climbed from the passenger seat. After retrieving his overnight bag and books from the back seat, Darnell drove off deeper into the town, leaving Oliver standing in the rain before the hospital. Oliver watched the car disappear over the brow of the hill, feeling like he’d been abandoned, as though the patrolman couldn’t wait to get away from this high vantage point.

He made his way along the graveled path toward the main doors to the hospital, letting his eyes roam the facade of the building, seeing a restrained hand in its design, as though the architect had known that anything too ostentatious would be frowned upon. The doorway into the hospital was set back in a shallow alcove, the archway above bearing a stone inscribed with the year 1912.

Oliver put down his bag to free up a hand to open the door, and his lip curled in a grimace of distaste as he saw a mass of glistening worms writhing in the waterlogged mud at the base of the wall. Nothing unusual to see worms in the earth, but the sheer number of these invertebrates was unusual.

He recalled a childhood friend from Baltimore who had been terrified of worms, a fear that had been explained and obscured at the same time by the boy saying, “It’s because they’ve got no legs.” The presence of the graveyard across the street most likely explained their presence and numbers, and Oliver put the tangle of glistening worms from his mind.

Oliver reached for the door handle, but the door opened of its own volition and a soberly dressed gentleman of advanced years smiled in welcome. He wore a long white coat over his suit, its cleanliness smeared with black streaks and rust brown stains that looked like old blood. He wore elbow-length gloves of black rubber and extended a hand.

“Ah, Oliver, glad you could come,” said Professor George Gammell Angell.

Chapter Ten

The house. That damned house in the mist. Why did it always look at him with its unblinking windows like accusing eyes that saw past the mask he’d worn for most of his life? They judged him, those eyes, and they were pitiless in exposing the lie that lurked at the heart of his existence. Even with the shutters pulled tight and the curtains drawn, he could feel the presence of the house and the mind that lurked within.

Charles Warren squatted in the basement of the townhouse, hands knotting and clenching, always in motion and rubbed raw. He didn’t feel the pain of the blisters he brought to the skin, having long since shut off that part of his brain that bothered with such meaningless things as pain, fear, and suffering, and other such petty wants. All that remained to him was desire and a lust to inflict those things on others.

Though he had been here for less than a week, it already felt like an eternity. To be shut off from the things that sustained a man was as good as killing him. The rational fragments of his mind recognized that his master had no choice but to remove him from society, that his crumbling control had fallen past the point where he could maintain his public facade or restrain the urges that had been unlocked in the dusty catacombs beneath the French chateau.

Corporate lieutenants would run his oil business, for Charles had long since grown tired of incestuous back-room dealings with lobbyists, government-appointed stooges, and yapping blue-collar sheep. The boardrooms of New York were no place for Charles Warren; the filth-choked streets of the city had been the only place his lusts could be sated.

Lesser men called New York a city, but to Charles it had been a hunting ground.

For a time he had been able to maintain the mask of normality, at least to those who cared, but with each bludgeoning fist that sent a vapid young girl to the bottom of the Hudson or East River wrapped in a weighted canvas shroud, he’d felt himself slipping into a chasm where he would have no control whatsoever.

He’d ventured farther afield to hunt for the right ones upon which he could unleash his fury, into the booze and dope-wreathed streets of Harlem and Queens where no one who mattered would be missed. The darkness of the streets were his territory, gaudy stone and steel playgrounds where a baseless culture of misfits and worthless animals made their sport.

He listened to their music, jangling, clashing sounds that hurt his ears. He drank their illegal shine and it burned his throat like poison. He touched their skin and it make his stomach lurch with the sickness at their heart. They were a poisoned generation that danced and laughed and smoked and drank while the world was ending around them. The claws of the world’s true masters were at their throats, but they didn’t see it.

Feckless and rootless, they valued nothing, for they had earned nothing. A great war had been fought, a globe-spanning conflagration that engulfed entire nations and devoured entire generations, and they danced the Charleston and sipped Manhattans while millions died. Disease ravaged the nation while they lionized musicians and singers, actors and adventurers.

What of the men who built this nation? What of the men who ushered in a new age?

Charles Warren had promised that they would see. In the moments before their death, they would appreciate what he had done for them. What he was doing for them. He was opening them up. Literally and metaphorically. With each blow that spilled their blood and with every bite of their warm meat, he would tell them of their meaningless lives, the debt they owed to men like him, and the great things that would soon come to pass.

He almost felt sorry that they would miss the world’s great apotheosis.

Almost.

That was his master’s word, and when he had looked up its meaning, he had reveled in the newness of it, the great things promised by its elaborate sound. Charles had lost count of how many he had killed, but he knew that he could not stop until every one of them came to know the pain and suffering he had forgotten. If he could not feel such things, he would experience them vicariously in the screams of those he freed from the burden of life.

Only once had he come close to capture at the hands of a rookie cop who’d had the misfortune to come down a particular alleyway in Harlem when he’d been chewing the rubbery cheek of a man who’d stumbled drunkenly into an alleyway to take a piss. Charles had been stalking a young woman moving from rent party to speakeasy with a succession of different men when he’d seen the man unbutton his trousers in the alley.

Incensed by the animalistic behavior, Charles had caved in the back of the man’s head with a brick and set about him with his fists, his normal sermon forgotten in the rush of anger. Men and women had died to keep this country free, and this was the thanks of those who had benefitted without taking part? The man died weeping in a pool of blood and urine, and Charles had taken a bite of his face, ripping the flesh from his cheek and eyebrow in one ripping, tearing swallow.

He hadn’t heard the cop approach, the blood thundering in his ears like a roaring tide that would drown the world, but he’d felt the kiss of the kid’s nightstick across the back of his neck. Any other man would have been out cold, but Charles no longer knew anything of pain. He’d surged to his feet and rammed the cop against the wall, tearing the nightstick from his hand and turning it upon him in a relentless, pummeling rain of blows that split his skull like a rotten egg.

That was when he knew he’d gone too far.

The cops would turn a blind eye to drunks, bums, and good-time girls, but this was one of their own, and they would overturn every dismal stone in this town to catch and punish the killer. Even Charles had known that this killing changed everything, that his master could no longer ignore the demons that drive him. Charles did not fear capture or death at the hand of New York’s finest, but the thought of displeasing his master sent cold barbs of terror into his heart, a feeling to which he’d long ago thought himself immune.

He’d wondered if he would be killed, but dismissed the thought, knowing that his master would always have use for one such as he. 

The next morning, a telegram had arrived, informing him that he was to leave town immediately and take up residence at an address in Kingsport. A car would be at his door within the hour, and he was not to set foot in New York for the foreseeable future. Charles had balked at the idea of leaving before his work was done, but even he knew better than to defy such an order.

His master was not yet done with him. He would have further need of Charles’s single-minded clarity of purpose, but until then he was to remain in seclusion.

The journey north had been one of long swathes of boredom, watching the green and muddy landscape turn to brown and gold. He knew these were colors he might once have appreciated, but over the tedium of his journey they had blended to a uniform grey like the uniforms of the Germans he’d killed in the war. He’d thought their flesh would taste different, all that sauerkraut, schnitzel, and schnapps, but their meat was just the same, burned by shellfire or scorched by the flamethrowers, or by the glorious fire that had fallen from the heavens and devoured the woods.

Kingsport had turned out to be a dreary collection of decrepit houses gathered in a bowl that filled with mist on a nightly basis, and whose people were likely as thoughtless and undeserving of life as those of New York. Charles had managed to remain within the walls of the house for a day before the compulsion to venture outside into the streets had became too strong to resist.

The door had opened easily, which surprised him. He’d expected it to be locked.

The house sat within a walled courtyard, with extensive gardens that were obviously well-maintained and an attached garage that contained a gleaming Packard and a well-used town car. Charles had made his way through the garden, feeling the familiar excitement build as he thought of the ruin he would make of the first deserving person who had the misfortune to cross his path. His fists had bunched in anticipation, but as he had opened the gate and stepped through, he’d felt a strange, twisting sense of dislocation, not into the open air of Kingsport’s streets, but back into the house.

He’d stood in the tiled vestibule, the door to the receiving room to his right, the withdrawing room to his left. A wide staircase led to the bedrooms above, and Charles had looked about himself in confusion. A lingering fogginess had clouded his mind, and he’d turned to see the garden bathed in crisp autumn sunlight. Shaking his head at the absent-mindedness that had seen him return to the house, he’d made his way back to the gate, through which he could see a narrow, cobbled street.

Once again, he had stepped through the gate, and once again he’d blinked in surprise as he found himself within the tiled vestibule.

Angry now, Charles had tried again and again to leave, but each time he was stymied by some mysterious artifice that saw him returned to the house like a willful child. No way out was available to him, not over the high walls, not through the gate, and not through the wider gap in the walls through which automobiles entered and departed.

For all intents and purposes, Charles was stuck here.

He’d raged at his confinement, smashing pieces of furniture and crockery until his rage was satisfied with his violence. Though his anger was incandescent, the stillness in his mind that had maintained his mask of sanity for so long knew that this was the only way it could be. And as the hours passed, Charles had sat down to wait for his master’s command, falling into a routine of sleeping, eating, and waiting.

Each morning, the pantry would be restocked, and fresh clothes would be laid out for him by his bed, though he never once saw any hint of a manservant or cook. Clearly he was not to be trusted around other people, a frustrating precaution that Charles begrudgingly admitted was eminently sensible.

At night he would sit in the casement window, staring at the sky in search of the stars. The mists made this a futile task on most nights, but when the ghostly veil parted, the stars winked in the sky like tiny diamonds. He remembered a song from his childhood about that, but the words were lost to him behind blurred memories of punishing fists, lashing leather belts, and words of scorn that cut deeper than any knife.

Among the stars, one light shone brighter than any other, a warm light that never wavered and never moved. Though the other stars pinwheeled around the fixed locus of Polaris—that leering eye that shone with the memory of a long since forgotten message—this warm, honeyed starlight remained immobile. Such was its distance from the town below, Charles had dismissed the possibility that it could be a house, but as the mist had cleared with the onset of dawn, Charles had seen that the light was the glow from a window.

It came from a strange house, perched on the edge of the cliff as though about to attempt structural suicide, and now that he recognized it for what it was, Charles knew it had been studying him.

And he had let it.

In a fit of fearful anger, Charles had rushed through the house, closing every window, drawing every curtain and slamming every shutter. Whoever dwelled in that house now knew what lay beneath his mask, the true heart of him. The naked self that had been awakened in France and been allowed to swim to the surface. The dweller in the house knew him, and Charles suddenly felt horribly exposed. He’d retreated to the basement, a dark, spider-webbed cave where no light entered and all secrets were safe.

Yet even here Charles could feel the probing touch of a distant mind, and feel the crawling presence of the light from the high house as it sought him. No matter where he hid, the light always found him, seeping below the door and spilling down the stairs like a creeping dawn.

In those moments he would welcome the light, knowing he could hide nothing from it.

Yet as the days and nights passed and the light learned of him, so too did he learn of it.

Charles saw a white-bearded man with the oldest eyes in the world; eyes that had beheld cities with names no map dared record, eyes that had known wonders and miracles the men of earth had long forgotten. Beyond the light, floating in the sky like a heavenly dimension barely visible beyond the clouds, Charles saw a land where dreams and reality merged, a land where the sins of the past, the hope for the future, and the terrible moments in between were irrelevant.

This was a land where a soul could begin again in forgiveness.

Charles felt that land of dreams calling him, and knew that the man with the oldest eyes in the world was its earthly guardian. Such a man would never allow a beast like Charles to enter his dominion of wonders and magic.

So be it.

If the man would not willingly allow him passage, then Charles would beat him until the life fled his immortal body and the way was opened on that high cliff.

His fists clenched in anticipation.

* * *

The bones were laid out in gleaming surgical trays, neatly arranged and labeled with tags to indicate to which body they belonged (or at least, as best as could be established by the coroner without detailed scientific examination). One of the hospital’s larger wards had been cleared of beds to make room for the bones, and Oliver felt as though he’d been punched in the gut when George led him to where they were laid out.

Though he had known whom he would be meeting upon arrival at the Congregational Hospital, it had still been a shock to see the venerable professor at the door. George Gammell Angell was a man to whom it appeared the barriers of age had ceased to mean much. At ninety-two, an age when most men of academia had long ago retired to lament on the shortcomings of the younger generation of scholars, he pursued his interests with a passion that would be commendable in a man half his age. Thin and wiry, with a shock of thin white hair that clouded his head like vapor, his eyes were piercing orbs of pale green, set amid a face burdened with uncomfortable truths.

After a perfunctory greeting and a vigorous shake of the hand, George had led Oliver through the echoing corridors of the hospital. The institutional nature of the interior was familiar to Oliver, though he had never set foot in Kingsport’s new hospital before. Here and there, the architects had sought to retain some of the character of the building that had occupied this site previously, a crumbling church of age-blackened stone that had stood abandoned and shunned for generations. A pervasive stench of acrid disinfectant oozed from the walls, as though the building’s janitorial staff spent their days doing nothing but cleaning. Yet for all such diligence, their efforts couldn’t quite cover the lingering residue of fresh-turned earth and the unpleasant aroma of spoiled meat.

A patrolman who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else stood at the entrance to the ward, and once George had introduced Oliver, the man allowed them through. As the doors of the ward closed behind him, Oliver’s breath was snatched away by the incredible vista.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” said George, as Oliver picked his way between the specimens.

“Something of an understatement, Professor Angell,” replied Oliver.

“Come now, it’s George. You’re not my student anymore.”

Oliver smiled, pleased at the gesture. As true as that might be, Oliver still found it easier to think of the old man as his senior rather than as an equal.

“Very well, George it is,” he said, seeing the determined look in George’s eyes.

An orderly stationed at the far door to the ward coughed, and Oliver looked up to see a nurse with a tightly wound bun depart the room. He had a momentary flash of déjà vu as she turned and gave him a coquettish smile.

“So,” said George. “Take a look at the bones and tell me I was right to have you notified.”

Oliver put the familiar-looking nurse from his mind and made a circuit of the room examining certain trays of bones, stooping to examine some and lifting others from the trays. At last, Oliver knelt beside one tray, a collection that included a pair of femurs, a partially fused pelvis and hip joint, and a skull with three holes punched through the bone above each eye socket. This latter detail was of particular relevance, and Oliver reached out to lift the skull with careful fingers. It was light, lighter than the repository of a man’s intellect, personality, and memories ought to be, thought Oliver. He turned it over in his hands, noting the porcelain-like sheen to the bone, as though it had been subjected to a short, but intensely violent fire. He ran his fingertips over the three holes.

“I thought you would go for that one,” said George, appearing at his shoulder.

“This is how you knew?”

“Knew is too strong a word. Suspected would be better. Not long ago, I read your piece on The Rites of Passage within South Pacific Islanders, with especial reference to the Yopasi Tribe in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and thought these markings bore a remarkable similarity to your description of the Yopasi rites of manhood.”

Oliver nodded, then said, “Wait, that piece was never published. The magazine kept stalling, and Hrdlicka all but accused me of falsifying my findings.”

“I am good friends with Ales Hrdlicka,” said George. “And since he became head of the American Anthropological Association, he regularly engages my services in peer-review of articles whose veracity he describes as questionable.”

“And he gave you my paper on the Yopasi?”

“I asked for it, as I have followed your work since Brown and the Alaskan expedition with Morley Dean with some interest,” said George, sweeping his arms out to encompass the entirety of the room of bones. “Which is fortunate for us, as I would never have thought to contact you in regards to this affair without having read it.”

“The markings aren’t just similar, they’re identical,” said Oliver, remembering the moon-drenched night on the island’s beach when the Yopasi shaman had permitted him to witness the tribe’s ritual of manhood.

“Kaula would take the young boys of the tribe as they entered their tenth year and hammer three bone hooks into their forehead, one for each of the sacred tasks they could be duty-bound to attend upon over the course of their life; war, family, and warding.”

“A barbaric practice,” said George, “though I should know better than to judge the Yopasi through the distorting lens of my western eyes.”

“Exactly,” agreed Oliver. “An anthropologist’s job is to report and analyze his findings in context of a better understanding of the human condition. Though, I’ll admit, it was hard to watch those boys writhing in pain and not feel the need to intervene.”

“And the purpose of these hooks?” asked George.

“Kaula told me they were a conduit to the gods, and what happened to the hooks was read as divine will as to which path in life a boy was to pursue. Once the hooks were implanted, the shaman watched closely over the next few days. Some hooks would take hold in the bone and become permanent adornments to the skull, while others would become infected and eventually fall out. If all three hooks took hold in the bone, it marked the youngster out for great things; he would be a warrior, have the pick of the island’s women, and be inducted into the mysteries of the shaman. They would be the ones to watch the ocean for any sign of the sunken sea devil’s return. They would be the ones to learn the secret incantations that would keep it from rising to the surface and devouring the world.”

“And those not so fated?”

“Depending on which hooks did remain, a boy would either be given the role of warrior or farmer. Both tasks were honorable pursuits, but to be taken on as an acolyte of the shaman was a great honor for the family of the chosen boys.”

“A curious ritual, certainly,” said George, “but self-mutilating practices amongst tribal cultures are hardly unique to the Yopasi.”

“Agreed, but most of these rituals are confined to women, inflicted with little more than cosmetic change in mind—an elongated neck, a dangling earlobe, or a more desirable body shape—but this was different. Rituals that involve the menfolk are of a much more serious nature, as men in such cultures rarely subject themselves to pain without a good reason.”

George paced the line of bones and laced his hands behind his back.

“So why does that skull have three holes above each eye?” asked George.

“This is Kaula’s skull, I am sure of it,” said Oliver. “Out of all the tribesmen, he was the only one with six hooks in his brow. The rest of the tribe thought he was the most favored by the gods, but in his cups one night, Kaula told me the shaman before him just kept hammering hooks in his skull, knowing he would be the last of the Yopasi to keep their vigil.”

“Looks like he was right,” agreed George.

Oliver replaced the skull in the metal tray. “All of which, while interesting from an anthropological context, fails to answer surely the most perplexing question.”

“How is it that these bones came to wash up on the eastern seaboard of the continental United States?”

“Exactly. If these are the bones of the Yopasi, and not some elaborate hoax, then how in the blazes did they get here? Even allowing for ocean currents and the like, I would have thought it impossible they could have reached here at all, let alone in such numbers. Though I’m loath to use the word, it’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” said George. “Trust me, Oliver: my recent work has given me cause to doubt my own sanity many times over the last months over what is possible and what is madness. We can count nothing in this world as impossible. I suspect we may never uncover the truth of so fantastical an event as bones from across the world turning up here and now, though it cannot be happenstance that the very man who was researching the Yopasi happens to live a few miles from where they washed ashore. I believe damnable purpose is at work here, and I am growing too old to face such horrors without flinching.”

Only now did Oliver begin to see the good professor’s age begin to weigh upon him. With every word his shoulders became more stooped, his brow heavier, and his eyes clouded over with knowledge he wished he could unlearn.

“So how would you begin to explain how the bones of a lost tribe from the South Pacific ended up here?” asked Oliver.

“I cannot, but the evidence is incontrovertible,” said George, pointing to the gleaming skull of Kaula. “These are the bones of the Yopasi, yes?”

“So it would appear,” said Oliver, once more moving through the collected human remains. Most were incomplete, the bones glossy with heat residue or blackened where they had been more completely burned. He paused as the pervasive smell of spoiled meat returned to him, like an open grave that heaved with wriggling worms just waiting on the interment of new flesh beneath the ground.

Surely such an aroma would long since have been burned from these bones?

“They certainly match what I would expect to find in the wake of the devastation we discovered upon the island,” continued Oliver. “It resembled a battlefield, George; the ground was blackened by fire and broken trees were blasted flat in an outward radiating pattern, as though something enormous had exploded in the center of the island.”

“Just like Tunguska,” said George.

“Similar, yes, though of much smaller magnitude than the Russian event,” said Oliver.

“And this is the first sign of the Yopasi since then?”

“As far as I am aware,” said Oliver, overcome by the enormity of this impossible occurrence. “It’s incredible, absolutely incredible. I never thought I would ever lay eyes on the Yopasi again. It’s nothing less than miraculous. Even though I’m looking at their bones now, I still can hardly credit this as true.”

“This could restore your reputation entirely, Oliver.”

“Better than that, it could shed light on what happened to these poor people. For I fear they were very deliberately attacked.”

“Attacked? By whom?” asked George, though Oliver suspected the venerable professor already suspected such malice. “Only the great nations boast weapons that could inflict the grievous damage you describe.”

Oliver shook his head and gave a nervous laugh. “If I told you, you would think I’d taken leave of my senses.”

“Not at all, for I too have recently been forced to question the evidence of my own eyes in recent months. Knowledge has come to my attention that I would have considered impossible but a short time ago—connections between the babbling of inbred deviants in the Louisiana swamps, certain bloody tribes of the northern latitudes, and the horrid work of a young sculptor of my recent acquaintance. And now this. Such dreadful things I have heard and seen that make me believe you and I share a common purpose, one that these unfortunate souls also shared.”

And Oliver knew then with sudden clarity that it was no accident that George Gammell Angell had happened upon his work. He let out a breath, unsurprised to discover that so eminent a researcher and academic would also be aware of the dreadful things that sought to bring the world to ruin.

“You are talking of the sea devil the Yopasi sought to keep confined to the ocean depths,” said Oliver quietly. “Aren’t you?”

George nodded, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Yes, I am talking of Cthulhu.”

* * *

At least the rain had eased up. That was about the only good thing Rex could say about this day, though a part of him he’d thought long-buried had surfaced the moment he’d finally gotten ahead of the bus and parked up in the shadow of Kingsport’s Congregational Hospital. Rex climbed from his car and leaned against the trunk, lighting a cigarette as he waited for Oliver to emerge from within the hospital. A few well-greased palms had bought Rex the patrol car’s destination, and he shivered as he swept his gaze across the austere facade of the building.

A mask hiding something terrible.

You can build anew, but the earth remembers…

Though the imagery was grim, Rex smiled as he recognized the faint glimmers of his old reporter’s instincts. Back in ’25, he’d conjured images and metaphors like a Hemingway of the macabre, writing like he’d never written before or since. He’d had a sniff of it when he and Minnie had staked out the Miskatonic University’s athletics ground, hoping to catch a glimpse of a killer, but he hadn’t been able to write that story.

Not the truth of it anyway.

Rex took another draw on his cigarette, letting the deathly muse settle upon him.

He’d taken an instant dislike to this building, though it was no less institutional than any other hospital or government office he’d seen. It’s greying stone was weathered, as you’d expect on a building on a hill in the middle of a coastal town, but where the rest of Kingsport wore its age with dignity, the hospital’s newness seemed out of place, like a tuxedoed swell at a Harlem speakeasy.

Rex had seen Minnie’s old pictures of the Congregational Church that had occupied this ground before the hospital—a crumbling, Gothic edifice that was a strong breeze away from collapse. Minnie had only reluctantly shown it to him a few years back, a last remnant of the ghastly photographs she’d taken as a youngster and which had eventually seen her father take her to Arkham Asylum to make sure she wasn’t wrong in the head.

Like all of Minnie’s photographs, it had been a good picture, a great picture even, one that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the cover of any dime store horror novel. Taken as the sun set over the hills around Kingsport, the shadows around the ruined church had been long, full, and dark, the holes in the roof where the tiles had fallen through the rafters like wounds gouged in a buffalo carcass by wolves, the windows like screaming mouths, and the few shards of glass their broken fangs. Yeah, Rex remembered that picture well, and understood exactly why the good people of Kingsport had torn the church down in 1910 to make way for their new hospital.

Rex felt his hand reaching for the photograph tucked away in the inside pocket of his coat, but clenched his fist and dropped his hand to his side. Standing on an exposed hill, with a brisk Atlantic squall blowing in over the harbor below, some warmth would be good. Though Rex knew the fire of the photograph was only an artificial representation of the glorious entity he’d seen that night, it still warmed him to think of it and imagine that flame coming back down to earth to consume him…

Rex flinched from his fiery reverie as sudden burning pain stung his fingers. He dropped his cigarette, the tip burned down to the end, and crushed its faintly glowing remains underfoot. Water oozed up over his shoe and he grimaced as a number of glossy worms wriggled away from the pressure. Fat and with a faintly greenish cast to their segmented bodies, they were repulsive-looking things that creeped Rex out far more then they should have. He threw a glance over his shoulder at the somnolent graveyard across the road.

“Must be nice having an all-you-can-eat buffet on your doorstep,” he said.

He wanted another cigarette. He wanted to write a story that mattered.

The instincts that had seen him travel the world in search of a Pulitzer-winning scoop that always seemed within his grasp, but always remained just out of reach, were telling him that story was here.

It’s this place. It gets inside your head.

Donald had said that, or words very close to that, and looking out over Kingsport, Rex had an idea of what the gruff Scotsman meant.

Kingsport was a sleepy-looking town, but Rex had a suspicion there was more going on beneath its jumbled roofs and hidden in its labyrinthine streets and shadowed alleyways than met the eye. He didn’t know what it was hiding; after all, the town was nothing much to look at, nothing you couldn’t see in a a dozen other struggling fishing towns up and down the New England coastline. Yet something intangible lurked in the heart of this town, something you could only glimpse out of the corner of your eye, something that would only make itself known if you could just bring it into focus.

A secret face only the dreamers can see.

Awake, you can’t see the truths beneath the surface.

Rex didn’t know what that meant, but had long ago learned to let the muse speak without interruption. She was useful in spades, but she was sparing with her wisdom, and Rex knew better than to question the wiles of so capricious a femme.

He took a deep breath and tilted his head back to look up at the towering peninsula of rock that sheltered Kingsport from the worst of the northerly winds. From his vantage point on Central Hill, he could make out the cleared patch of ground that marked the beginnings of the new wireless station, but far above that was the strange house that looked out over the waters, like some last, lonely sentinel left to watch for someone or something they know in their heart of hearts will never ever come. He wondered how the person who lived there survived, for it would surely be a murderously difficult climb to reach so isolated a dwelling. Only a madman or a fool would choose to live so close to the edge of the world.

Perhaps he was a mixture of both.

Rex could relate to that.

Before he could ponder more on the mysterious occupant of the high house, the oak-leafed doors of the hospital opened and two men emerged into the wan afternoon sunlight. One was Oliver Grayson, but Rex didn’t know the other guy. Whoever he was, he looked old enough to be Methuselah’s granddaddy.

Rex walked toward them with a reporter’s confident stride.

He stuck his hand out and said, “Long time no see, Oliver. You need a ride into town?”

Chapter Eleven

All things considered, it had been a fortuitous meeting outside the Congregational Hospital, for no sooner had Rex introduced himself and been introduced to Professor George Angell, than the rain resumed its deluge of the town. And not just the light drizzle that had smeared the air beforehand, but a downpour of biblical proportions.

Driving downhill with his new passengers, Rex constantly had to fight the wheel as rivers of water cascading down the streets threatened to turn his motorcar into a very badly designed boat.

“Are you sure you are qualified to handle this vehicle?” said George from the backseat. “I may be ninety-two, but I’m not quite ready to meet my maker.”

“Relax, pops,” said Rex. “Me and the old girl go way back; she’s a square shooter and she’s not let me down before.”

He hoped the car wouldn’t make him a liar, for it was taking all his concentration to keep it from losing traction as they descended the winding streets of Central Hill toward the less precipitous locale of downtown Kingsport. With every wheel-wrenching turn, the car was in danger of sliding onto the pavement and taking out a pedestrian unlucky enough to be still out in the open.

Rex let out a breath as the car leveled out and ceased its relentless fishtailing, but kept his foot light on the gas just to be sure. Down in the main part of town, the buildings were older, huddled together as though afraid to stand apart from their neighbors. Even through the obscuring blitz of rainfall, Rex made out signs of the town’s heritage: crossed fishing lines strung between the eaves, eyes painted on lintels, and hanging baskets fashioned from old nets and lobster pots. Here and there, an old figurehead decorated a gable, and on one ironwork finial, Rex saw a corroded anchor hung by a chain that looked old enough and large enough to have been brought up from the Titanic.

After his initial surprise at Rex’s presence had given way to genuine pleasure, Oliver had directed him to the Lighthouse Inn, a modest guest house-cum-restaurant overlooking the harbor on the eastern slopes of South Hill, where apparently both he and George had taken lodgings. Pretty soon the brick-fronted Victorian buildings of downtown Kingsport gave way to more traditional-looking Federal styles and Greek revival. The Lighthouse Inn wasn’t hard to find—a building with more than its fair share of architectural stylings run together in its various extensions and additions, and a swinging sign depicting the North Point Lighthouse.

Rex parked the car beneath one of its bevelled bay windows and followed Oliver and George as they hurriedly climbed the steps through the rain to the main reception area. Oliver practically sprang up the steps, and even the old professor didn’t seem too out of breath by the time he got to the top and passed through the door. Rex locked the car and made his way up the stairs.

Oliver made brief enquiries with a small, wiry man with the worst toupee Rex had ever laid eyes upon, who directed them all to the restaurant parlor. They hung their dripping coats and hats on a stand by the door and took a moment to straighten ties and waistcoats before entering.

A phonograph played a touch too loudly in the corner, and Oliver had to admit the parlor was more spacious than it appeared from the outside. Currently, it played host to an old couple who had the air of wealthy Yankee tourists from Washington, as well as a pair of giggling flappers who looked like they thought they were in one of the Big Apple’s more fashionable parlors. Both were pretty in a provincial kind of way, and—thanks to Minnie—Rex knew enough of women’s fashion to know that their clothes were a season or two behind what was currently in vogue with the designers of New York.

They cast admiring glances at another woman who sat alone at a table next to the crackling fireplace, a bookish sort with old eyes set deep in a serious face, hair cut in a sharp bob, and a green silk print dress that probably cost more than Rex earned in a year.

She scribbled in a black notebook, oblivious to the looks of attention the two wannabe flappers were casting in her direction. She looked up briefly as Oliver, George, and Rex entered the parlor, but returned to her work almost immediately. Her face was familiar, and Rex tried to place where he’d seen her before. She was probably the wife of some Kingsport or Arkham politician he’d seen at some civic event.

Rex put the woman from his mind as he saw Alexander Templeton rise from his seat at one of the bay windows tucked away in a secluded corner of the parlor. Rex hadn’t seen Alexander since the end of the affair with the cannibals, and he found himself curiously reassured by the man’s stolid presence. Where Rex was sometimes prone to reckless flights of enthusiasm and Oliver was still pretty green, Alexander had an anchoring quality to him that made the dreadful things they had seen seem marginally less terrible.

“Professor Templeton,” said Rex, taking Alexander’s hand and shaking it earnestly.

“Come on, Rex,” said Alexander. “I think we’ve all been through enough to dispense with such formality, haven’t we?”

“I guess,” said Rex, taking a seat opposite Alexander as Oliver introduced George to his fellow Miskatonic professor. No sooner had the academics seated themselves and established their bonafides, than the thin man from reception approached, wringing his hands as though freshly washed and with his head bowed in supplication.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” said the man. “Albert Dukes at your service, proprietor of the Lighthouse Inn. Firstly, may I say it’s a pleasure to have you with us today, though the heavens have opened upon us as they did upon Noah himself. Though I fear I have no ark with which to ride out this apocalyptic deluge, I can, however, offer you a selection of teas, carbonated fruit drinks, or some good old-fashioned coffee.”

The man’s manner was slippery, like a man who knows his place on society’s ladder is low, but always seeks to ascend beyond his place. Despite that initial impression, Dukes’s words were said with enough sincerity that Rex found himself ashamed of his pejorative judgment.

“A pot of hot coffee would be great,” said Oliver, and Rex found himself wishing they’d retired to somewhere that might have a sly tot of whiskey to spice up that coffee. One look at the decor and clientele told Rex this wasn’t such a place. Dukes bowed and scraped as he withdrew, leaving a faint whiff of camphor and lavender in his wake.

“So you’re here too, Alexander,” said Rex, taking out his notebook and scrawling the date at the top of the page. “Are you going to tell me what brings three big brains like you to Kingsport?”

George gave Oliver a glance, and Rex immediately saw his wariness.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

“You will forgive me, Mr. Murphy, if I am somewhat hesitant in speaking openly to a man I have only just met. There are matters afoot that would be best kept out of the pages of a newspaper, even a small town edition like the Arkham Advertiser.”

“I’ll try not to be offended at that, Georgie,” said Rex, smiling as his deliberate over-familiarity drew a grimace of displeasure from the ancient professor. “Okay, cards on the table here. I just saw the cops drive a professor of Miskatonic University to Kingsport’s Congregational Hospital, where the boneyard that washed up on South Shore is being kept. Now that smells like a story to me.”

Before anyone could speak, Rex leaned in like a conspirator.

“Now, I understand if you want to keep whatever this is hush hush, but haven’t we been through enough together that you know you can trust me?”

“Rex is right,” said Oliver. “After all we’ve seen, I think we know he understands the value of discretion. He is part of our band of brothers is he not? One of our happy few?”

“He is that,” agreed Alexander with a mirthless smile. “And perhaps his vocation will prove of use to us in our researches.”

George looked Rex square in the eye and the venerable professor’s intense gaze narrowed as though looking past the bluff facade of a hardened reporter that Rex liked to project. He nodded and sat back, folding his hands across his chest as though he had discovered some concealed facet of Rex.

“I thought there was something amiss with you, young man,” said George. “And now that I know that you have glimpsed some of the terrible truths of this world, I am even less inclined to trust you.”

“George, I can assure you that—,” began Oliver.

“No, I’ve seen this before,” snapped George with a vehemence that caused heads to turn in their direction. “Some people fall suddenly to madness, but others slip slowly into its implacable grip, falling inch by inch into the morass of conflicting impulses brought on by the loss of blissful ignorance. I once knew a man, a policeman of good character, who glimpsed but a fraction of what we know. He recovered his wits eventually, but was put on indefinite medical leave after an incident at Red Hook left him traumatized beyond his ability to cope. He did not fall suddenly, but by degrees, and I see the same look in your eyes, Mr. Murphy, that I saw in his. You have seen too much, and what you have seen still has its dreadful claws in you.”

Rex kept his face neutral, though he was reeling at George’s insight to the secret corners of his soul. But he’d played poker with the best of them, and no one bluffed like Rex Murphy.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Professor,” said Rex with a nonchalant shrug. “I’m just jim-dandy. So, if we’re all agreed I’m not a raving lunatic, will someone tell me what the hell’s going on here?”

* * *

Albert Dukes brought their coffee together with some complimentary biscuits, and when every cup was filled, Oliver and George spoke at length of the provenance of the bones that had brought them to Kingsport. Before leaving the Congregational Hospital, Oliver had appraised the police of his findings, and though they’d scarcely been able to credit that the bones of a South Pacific tribe could wash up on American shores, it at least ruled out the possibility of a nearby mass murderer.

Then—with Rex contributing—Alexander and Oliver brought George up to speed regarding their encounter with the cannibalistic ghouls that lurked beneath Arkham and the dreadful plot they feared was in motion to awaken the slumbering star god. Oliver retold the story of the sinking of Atlantis from the book Armitage kept under lock and key, together with their suspicions regarding what Tobias Philemon might have brought back from the south seas. Though they kept their voices low, Rex was conscious of how their conversation might be deemed shocking were anyone to eavesdrop over the music of the phonograph. As the tales unfolded—sotto voce—Rex stared through a window that was growing dim as the grays of the afternoon deepened to evening purples.

The sea was a gloomy expanse of dark grey, a vast, fathomless expanse that suddenly seemed a lot bigger and a lot deeper than anything on this earth had a right to be. Rex knew his geography, and understood the vastness of the oceans on an intellectual level, but to imagine that these dark waters could swallow entire continents so completely that the rest of the world forgot they had ever existed except in myth and legend was a profoundly unsettling thought. Who knew what else might reside sunken in depths unknown? What wriggling nightmares might be waiting for their chance to return to the surface?

Numerous lights bobbed in the harbor, the fishing fleet returned to port with the gloaming. With perhaps an hour of daylight remaining, the boats were tied up earlier than Rex would have expected, but with the coming dark and the mists gathering on the horizon and in the hollows of the town, he didn’t blame the fishermen for wanting a swift return to their hearths and the bosom of family.

The clouds had finally ceased their relentless downpour, leaving the drains and creeks that carried water from the high ground toward the ocean to gurgle with the last of the rain. When the tales were complete, the four men stared at one another, watching the slow osmosis of the scale of what they were up against seep into their very bones. The coffee pot had long since been emptied, and Dukes, perhaps sensing the mood of their conversation, had not returned to fill it.

The parlor was all but deserted, the elderly couple having retired to change for dinner, and the young flappers departed to explore what little nightlife Kingsport had to offer after a giggling conversation with the woman in the green silk dress. Her face was so familiar, but Rex couldn’t place it.

George was the first to break the silence. “It appears we have little time to waste, gentlemen. Taken with my own researches, I fear the deranged followers of the sleeping god may be on the verge of discovering this crystal of the exile, as you call it. If Philemon did bring the damnable artifact back to Kingsport, it gives the rumors and quayside tales of ghost ships much more credence to my eyes.”

“How so?” asked Oliver.

“Like any coastal town that depends on the sea, Kingsport is replete with tales of ghostly mariners, sunken ships still haunted by their long-drowned crews, and whatnot, but lately those tales have taken on an altogether more strident note. Though Mr. Dukes is a somewhat over-unctuous host, he is a treasure trove of local gossip and scandalmongering. Admittedly, much of what he says is useless flimflam, but his talk of frightened sailors has the ring of truth to it. He regaled me at length with a tale of a man by the name of Josiah Washburne who became embroiled in an altercation at a nearby tavern with a fellow named Basil Elton, the lighthouse keeper at North Point. Apparently this Washburne claimed Elton allowed the lighthouse to go out, almost causing them to become lost on the ocean at night.”

“That doesn’t sound too strange,” said Oliver. “Perhaps the light did go out.”

George nodded in agreement. “Perhaps it did, but I doubt it. Especially when you hear that Washburne’s younger crewman was saying that they were almost sunk by ancient wrecks coming to the surface.”

“Good Lord,” said Alexander. “Might one of them have been the vessel of Tobias Philemon?”

“It’s certainly possible,” allowed George. “And only a few days ago, a fishing boat was sunk just off Jersey Reef. An old boat, captained by an Italian, though local opinion appears to hold no doubt as to his competence as a seaman.”

“What sank it?” put in Rex.

Though George and Rex hadn’t gotten off to the best of starts, the professor didn’t hesitate to answer. “I’m told the boat hit a hidden reef, though that seems a little unlikely.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Alexander, rubbing tired eyes.

“Because there was a survivor,” said George. “And when a boat strikes a reef that far out, the odds of returning alive are so huge as to be unimaginable.”

“There was a survivor?” said Alexander. “We should talk to him, find out what he saw.”

“Would that we could,” said George. “The man was newly arrived in Kingsport, but Mr. Dukes had no information as to his name or exact whereabouts beyond that he was said to dwell somewhere in the artists’ colony.”

“We got a missing sailor who might be holed up among a bunch of delinquent, opium-sucking artists and degenerate, alcoholic writers?” said Rex. “Sounds like my kind of assignment.”

“Do you think you might be able to find this man, Rex?” said Oliver.

“If I can’t, I’ll have a damn good time trying,” he said with a grin.

Further discussion was ended by the arrival at their table of the woman in the green silk dress. Seen up close, she was taller than most women and thin to the point of skeletal. She smiled at Oliver and Alexander, and gave a brief inclination of the head to George. Rex didn’t miss the fact that she all but ignored him as though he were a panhandling bum. Given his unshaven chin, wild hair, and slept-in clothes fashion aesthetic, he couldn’t really hold that against her. All four men pushed their chairs back and stood as she approached their table, though Rex only got up grudgingly.

“Pardon the intrusion, gentlemen,” she said, as they sat back down. “Despite your seclusion and conspiratorial whisperings, I couldn’t help but overhear you mention the talk around town of ghostly ships and sunken vessels returning from their watery graves.”

Rex felt the tension around the table rack up a notch. If she’d heard that, what else might she have heard? He saw that same thought in the eyes of his comrades-in-arms.

“Indeed we were, Miss…,” said George, recovering his wits first and pulling over a seat from an empty table.

“Miss Gloria Goldberg,” she said, leaving an expectant pause as she took her seat at the table. No one but Rex seemed to know the name and, stupidly, he filled the silence with the one fact he knew about Gloria Goldberg.

“I read one of your books,” he said. “The Horror of Highborne House, I think it was.”

“Yes, Mr. Murphy,” she said, as though ridding her mouth of something unpleasant by saying his name. “My clippers sent me your review from the Advertiser, so you’ll pardon me if I choose not to waste words on a man who clearly has no sense for Gothic drama or storytelling.”

Rex laughed. “Drama? Lady, my life is one big drama.”

“I’m sorry?” said Oliver. “I’m not following. Rex, are you and this good lady acquainted?”

“Miss Goldberg here is a bestselling author,” said Rex. “She writes penny dreadfuls about ghosts and and the boogeyman, and the paying public adores her. I read one of her books for the paper, but I didn’t much like it.”

Gloria shot Rex a withering stare and said, “That was abundantly clear, Mr. Murphy. Not that I’d expect a small town hack like you to appreciate the subtleties of my prose.”

“You’re a writer, Miss Goldberg?” said George, his deferential tone defusing her indignation.

“I weave exotic tales of the fantastical and the arcane, yes,” said Gloria. “Mr.…?”

“George Gammell Angell, Professor of Semitic Languages at Brown University,” said George, accepting her hand for a gentlemanly kiss. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise, sir,” said Gloria, turning to Oliver and Alexander.

“And these are my learned colleagues, Professors Oliver Grayson and Alexander Templeton of Miskatonic University. I’ll assume you already know Mr. Murphy. Now, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I do hope you’ll forgive my directness, Professor Angell, but I wondered if I might join you,” said Gloria. “I am recently arrived in town and crave the boon of convivial conversation.”

“Of course, Miss Goldberg,” said Alexander. “You will find none more convivial in Kingsport. Your timing is fortuitous; we were about to partake of our host’s dinner menu, so it would be remiss of me not to ask if you would consent to dine with us.”

“I couldn’t possibly intrude,” said Gloria with a coquettish smile that made Rex roll his eyes at its theatricality.

So much for figuring out what the hell we were going to do here…

“Not at all,” added Oliver, also realizing that any chance of formulating a plan of action had been well and truly sunk. “We insist; it would be an honor to dine with a wordsmith.”

Oliver’s honeyed words found receptive ears, and Rex groaned inwardly at Gloria’s practiced humility.

“Then I shall accept,” said Gloria with a smile that Rex figured she had to practice in the mirror to get right.

“Excellent,” said Alexander.

“So I take it from the latter substance of your conversation that you are devotees of the fabulist, the macabre, the spine-chilling, and the ghastly?”

“Indeed,” said Alexander. “Oliver here is partial to some Jules Verne, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely,” replied Oliver. “The man was a genius.”

“He had some interesting ideas, I’ll grant you,” said Gloria, as though unwilling to concede that another writer might have ideas as grandiose as her own.

“So what brings you to Kingsport, Miss Goldberg?” asked George.

“I’m currently engaged on a speaking tour of New England,” said Gloria. “My publishers in New York thought it would be advantageous to promote my new book with talks in the community.”

“A most excellent idea,” agreed Alexander. “And you are giving a talk in Kingsport?

“Indeed. I am giving an evening talk tonight at the Kingsport Historical Society. You all must come.”

“And you’re traveling alone?” asked Rex.

Gloria’s fixed smile faltered, but she recovered quickly and said, “One must soak up the atmosphere of a place if one is to write about it with authority, Mr. Murphy. Even someone of your limited ability as a writer must appreciate that.”

“Sure,” said Rex. “I just thought they’d have sent some of their people with you to keep the golden goose safe.”

“I prefer to travel alone,” said Gloria haughtily. “I find the presence of others hinders my creativity, and I am quite comfortable in my own company. It’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to travel alone without the protection of a man, or are you one of those throwbacks who still clings to Oscar Leser’s view on a woman’s place in society?”

The words sounded good, but Rex knew enough of rhetoric to know they were well rehearsed. As impassioned as Gloria was, her words just didn’t ring true, and for a moment Rex saw past her righteous, emancipated ire. Gloria Goldberg wasn’t traveling alone because it was part of her creative process or as an embodiment of the spirit of the age, she was traveling alone because she was afraid of something. Afraid of what might happen to others were they to be in her company for too long…

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Rex shook his head and held his hands up before him. “Woah, I’m all for women’s suffrage,” he said. “Hey, my go-to photographer’s a gal, and she’s the best in the business. Don’t worry, Miss Goldberg, I ain’t one of those guys who thinks women ought to be chained to the stove. I just thought it might be a bit dangerous to be traveling alone, is all.”

Rex saw her irritation subside and pushed his chair back.

“Listen,” he said, making a token effort to smooth out the creases in his pants. “If you’ll excuse me, I think you good folk will have a swell time without me, so enjoy your dinner and Miss Goldberg’s talk.”

“Where are you going?” asked Alexander.

“I’m gonna take it on the heel and toe and mooch around the wharfside bars, see if I can’t get a lead on the guy who survived that wreck on Jersey Reef.”

“Yes,” said Oliver with a sidelong glance at Gloria. “Perhaps that might be best.”

Rex leaned over Gloria and said, “The Case of the Mysterious Missing Mariner. How ‘bout that for a title, Miss Goldberg?”

* * *

The sunlight over Baharna was fading, and the beacon fires atop Thon and Thal had just been lit by the time Henry returned from his walk. On Luke’s advice, Henry had taken to making long circuits of the city, exploring its hidden byways and becoming acquainted with its amorphous geography. The residents of the city traversed its thoroughfares as though its existence was constant, but no two roads ever took Henry to the same destination, as though the city reinvented itself with every dawn.

At first this had troubled Henry, but he had grown to love the sense of anticipation that greeted every rising of the sun. A walk to the markets might take him through arbors that echoed with the curiously human calls of the magah birds and which were filled with trees hung with ripened fruit that smelled of cinnamon and rose petals. A journey to the wharfs could involve a detour along the upper ramparts of what appeared to be a tall keep, though no one could tell him who ruled Baharna, and no flags hung from its vacant-eyed towers.

Perhaps Luke imagined that the solitude of Henry’s walks might unlock the memories hidden within his mind, but such had not proven to be the case. As much as he tried to keep Oliver Grayson’s face in the forefront of his mind, Henry could summon no more information save that the man they had sketched was a friend and could help.

Today’s walk had wound a shadowed course through the upper slopes of the city, between tall buildings constructed of black stone and walls inscribed with lettering rendered in gold leaf. The words were in a language unknown to Henry, yet he felt he should know them, as though the buildings themselves were imparting a message that was of enormous importance, but which might as well have been in ancient Aramaic for all the sense it made.

Most of his walks were joyous affairs, with a fresh wonder revealed or a strange facet of dreaming life uncovered in the course of his random perambulations, but today’s circuit had brought only a lingering sense of unease. When Henry had at last decided to return to Luke’s home, the winding streets appeared to be confounding him with deliberate malice, turning through endless twists like a maze with no solution. Afternoon’s light was already fading by the time he finally found his bearings, but even then, the road was contrary.

Only as the sun began to sink behind the horizon did Henry finally spy the familiar outline of the house he had called home these last weeks, and it was with some relief that he felt the city finally relent in its willful misdirection. That sense of relief had swiftly been replaced by a sense of vague unease as he saw the lightless windows.

Luke always kept a lantern lit in the front room of his house, but today the windows were dark and empty—sullen, like the mood that had taken his host of late. Luke had been withdrawn since the night they had created the image of Oliver Grayson, and Henry wondered if the artist now regretted his promise to help.

Henry could understand that. How terrible would it be for a dreamer who lived in a land free from everyday cruelties to return to the world he had foresworn? Humanity had not, Henry suspected, improved much in the years since Luke’s departure, and he hoped his dreaming friend would not be too disappointed in what he might find in the waking world.

Henry pushed open the door to the house and stepped into the gloomy front room. The lantern stood unlit on the table, its wick trimmed from the night before, and as Henry shut the door, he had a prescient feeling of abandonment.

“Luke?” he called, and his voice echoed strangely, as though he stood in a wide amphitheater instead of a room made small by stacked canvases and handmade furniture. The house possessed a sense of open space, like standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling nothing but air around you. A sudden sense of vertigo seized Henry and he reached out to steady himself on the table.

The house was empty. Even without checking the other rooms, Henry knew he would not find Luke within its walls. The sense of emptiness was potent, and Henry looked around the room as though it was somewhere unfamiliar, its windows looking out over unknown vistas and its doors leading to unexplored spaces. He was a stranger in a strange land, but until now, Henry had never felt truly alone.

He moved along the corridor that led to Luke’s room, feeling like an intruder in a place he had come love. Luke’s door was closed, and the sense of trespass as Henry opened it was so strong he almost pulled it shut without entering.

“Come on, old boy,” Henry chided himself. “You’re being damned foolish here.”

Steeling his nerve, though he knew he had nothing to fear, Henry pushed open the door.

Luke’s room was empty, as he had known it would be, and the sense of emptiness was stronger than ever, as though no one had ever slept here and dreamed of a land even more exotic than this. The bed was made and the room’s few items of furniture were neatly arranged, like a hotel chamber awaiting a new guest. The only thing not squared away was a chest at the foot of the bed with its curved wooden lid lying open.

The chest contained fresh clothes and a random collection of ephemera—keepsakes from the waking world: a shaving kit, a baseball bearing a signature that had faded to illegibility, a sealed envelope yellowed with age and addressed to someone named Alice, and a collection of photographs of a smiling man and woman with grey hair and kindly faces. Henry saw the familial resemblance between Luke and the man he assumed was his father. He replaced everything, feeling heartbreaking sadness and loneliness in every achingly ordinary reminder of a previous life.

Neatly folded in the center of the bed was a silken drawstring bag. Stitched into the fabric was a curved star symbol that echoed the glassy figurine Ndoto had given him. Seeing that sigil once again, Henry groaned as he felt a strange pain across his chest, as though some long-past injury swam to the surface of his memory with a physical reminder of its infliction. The pain diminished as swiftly as it had arisen, and Henry let out a relieved breath. He had no clue what the bag might have contained to provoke such a sense memory, but understood its importance with a certainty that made him clutch it tight to his chest like a protective talisman.

Whatever Luke had kept in this bag had allowed him to return to the waking world, and the magnitude of so selfless an act of kindness brought Henry close to tears. With the bag still held close to his heart, Henry made his way back to the front room of the house and sat at the table. He took the lantern and lit its wick from a taper he lifted from the smoldering remains of the fire.

Wherever Luke had gone, there would be a light to guide him home.

Lantern light filled the room, and Henry felt his spirits lift as its warmth illuminated walls that were once again familiar. A smile of understanding tugged at the corners of his mouth as he understood his role here. For the time being, this was his house, and Henry would keep it just as his host had left it until his return.

“Godspeed, Luke,” said Henry.

Chapter Twelve

Like Arkham’s Historical Society, Kingsport’s repository of its past was housed in a two-story Georgian manse, complete with a museum housing artifacts dating from the first arrival of the town fathers and an extensive library. With the rain’s abatement, Oliver and his companions had chosen to walk the comparatively short distance to the Historical Society.

Though he had initially been frustrated at Miss Goldberg’s insistence that they come to her talk, she had proved to be vivacious and engaging company over dinner. With the mists halting their nightly advance at the sea front, they descended the gentle slopes of South Hill and strolled through the crumbling warren of steep sidewalks, curving stairs, and treacherously rain-slick paths of Central Hill to an area known locally as the Hollow.

Here the buildings had taken on an older, more colonial feel, with wood-paneled sides, ironwork weathervanes, and slatted wooden shutters. Nestled in the low ground between the hills of Kingsport, the streets were misty and reminded Oliver of the pea-soupers of Victorian London in which Jack the Ripper had hunted and which were the staple of Conan Doyle’s detective fiction.

A bespectacled man with a wild mane of silver hair, kindly smile, and a nose that looked like he’d gone ten rounds with Jack Dempsey greeted them at the green-painted door. Introducing himself as Wallace Eckhardt, the curator of the Historical Society, his manner was genial and his enthusiasm infectious as he led them into the museum and pointed out particularly interesting facets of Kingsport’s history.

“This is the cannonball that killed the captain of the HMS Drake in 1778,” said Eckhardt as they passed an age-pitted iron sphere set upon a velvet cushion. “It was said to have been fired by John Paul Jones himself. Of course, there’s no firsthand evidence for that, but I like the notion and feel if I tell the story often enough it will become fact.”

“And one should never let the truth stand in the way of a gripping yarn, eh?” added George with mischief in his eye.

“Quite right,” agreed Eckhardt delightedly. “Don’t you agree, Miss Goldberg?”

Gloria smiled and gave a gracious nod. “Sometimes the needs of the tale outweigh the needs of the true.”

“Wonderful,” said Eckhardt. “We’ve quite a crowd tonight, Miss Goldberg. You’re quite the toast of the literary circle in Kingsport. The Immortal’s Club was a real page-turner; kept me up well past my bedtime, and I kept the candle lit through that night, I’m not afraid to tell you.”

Oliver hid a smile at Eckhardt’s boyish pleasure at having a celebrated author making an appearance at his humble museum by studying a rusted spyglass with a cracked lens that rested on a thin shelf. The plaque informed Oliver that the telescope had once belonged to a local man by the name of Hollis Tremaine, navigator of the Persephone, a clipper sunk by the villainous British during the Revolutionary War.

“Well, here we are,” said Eckhardt as they entered the museum proper. The lower floor of the manse was home to numerous glass-fronted cabinets, polished display cases, and shelves stacked with artifacts from the town’s history. Maritime memorabilia dominated the collection on display: brass-rimmed compasses, windlasses, figureheads, the personal effects of long-dead sailors, and innumerable miniature ships sealed forever in glass bottles. 

The museum was already busy, perhaps twenty well-dressed men and women in their Sunday best, each with a number of books clutched under their arms. They stood around like people waiting on a trolley, pretending to look at the exhibits in the manner of those who felt duty-bound to show an interest in their town’s history, but had no real enthusiasm for the subject. Oliver had seen something similar on the streets of New York, a city so enraptured by its potential for the future that the foreign country of its past no longer mattered.

Excited whispers spread around the room at Gloria’s arrival, and every head in the room turned to face them.

“If you’ll just come with me, Miss Goldberg, I’ll show you the library where you’ll be giving your talk,” said Wallace Eckhardt, gesturing to a door on the far wall. “I do hope you’ll find it to your satisfaction.”

“Thank you, Mr. Eckhardt, I’m sure it will be fine,” Gloria assured him. She turned to Oliver and his companions and said, “If you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to go to work. Thank you for your company over dinner and your escort across town.”

“You’re very welcome, Miss Goldberg,” said Alexander. “It was our pleasure.”

Gloria smiled at him, and Oliver saw her predatory smile widen as she noted the absence of a wedding ring on his left hand.

“I do hope you enjoy my talk,” said Gloria.

“I’m sure we will, Miss Goldberg,” said Oliver.

Eckhardt gently eased Gloria away from them with deft subtlety and said, “Gents, feel free to browse at your leisure while I escort my guest to the library.”

Oliver let out a sigh as Eckhardt led Gloria away.

“So much for a quiet evening to plan a strategy,” said Alexander, mirroring Oliver’s thoughts.

“On the contrary,” said George. “I can think of no better place to draw our plans to thwart the schemes of our enemies. Should anyone overhear our discussions, it will be easy to pass them off as tales we intend to write ourselves, as I’ll wager a number of the people here tonight are budding authors with a multitude of esoteric narratives in mind.”

“Hiding in plain sight,” said Oliver with a grin.

“Just so, Oliver, just so,” said George. “Now, shall we do as Mr. Eckhardt suggested and take a look at some of these artifacts.”

Smiling politely at the gathered townsfolk whose eye they caught, Oliver and Alexander made a slow circuit of the museum’s collection. The exhibits ranged from the prosaic—a pump handle from the first deep well sunk in town—to the esoteric—the strangely shaped jawbone of a creature said to have been killed on Pilot Island in 1731 by the town’s most infamous resident, Eben Hall. Taking a moment to study a number of the older-looking artifacts, Oliver saw many dated from before the Declaration of Independence, with some tribal-looking artifacts dated many hundreds of years before that.

Most were little more than corroded arrowheads, axe blades, and decorative necklaces, but one cabinet contained a handful of rounded stones, worn smooth by the action of decades of tidal movement. Oliver was about to move on, when he was brought up short by a moment of horrid recognition at the star-shaped symbol incised on the stones.

He bent to read the text accompanying the stones: Green soapstones carved with decorative symbol. Origin unknown.

“Ah, so you’ve seen that one, too,” said George, appearing at his shoulder.

“I know this sigil,” said Oliver. “I know what it means.”

“As do I, Oliver,” George assured him. “I call it an ‘elder sign,’ for it is said to have been devised by an ancient race of beings that predate known history.”

“What is it doing here of all places?” asked Alexander.

George shrugged. “I have no idea, but perhaps our encounter with Miss Goldberg has proven to be more fortuitous than we might have imagined. This is the perfect place to uncover what the reclusive Tobias Philemon might have brought back with him. At the very least there will probably be plentiful town records of such an eccentric fellow’s dealings with the good citizens of Kingsport.”

“Then we should return tomorrow and make use of the library,” said Oliver.

“Indeed we should,” agreed George. “And making a friend of Mr. Eckhardt would be no bad thing either. His knowledge of the museum’s collection will be unparalleled, and he’ll be sure to know a great deal that may be of use to us. But chivalry demands we stay for Miss Goldberg’s talk, don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” said Alexander.

“I suppose,” agreed Oliver. “Though whatever horrors Miss Goldberg has penned won’t hold a candle to the things we know.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said George with a grin. “Like your scruffy friend, Mr. Murphy, I too am no stranger to her writing, and it is quite the most wretched prose I have ever had the misfortune to read.”

* * *

As matters transpired, Miss Goldberg’s talk was immensely enjoyable, the author quickly winning over her admirers with her easy charm, New York wit, and fashionable stylings. The library of the Historical Society was a warmly paneled chamber that smelled of age-bound leather, dusty paper and old wood. Oliver and his professorial companions felt right at home, surrounded by history and its written record. Nothing pleases a man of letters more than to be surrounded by the work of his peers.

Oliver, George, and Alexander took seats at the back of the library as Miss Goldberg began talking of her early inspirations and desire to become a writer. Much of it sounded invented, a retroactive fiction put in place to glamorize her current position. Laced with hints of phantasmagorical incidents in her childhood, mysterious gypsy pronouncements, and talk of diabolical visions, it was the perfect biography for a writer of fantastical fiction.

Oliver didn’t believe a word of it.

As Gloria began reading an excerpt from her latest potboiler, Oliver, Alexander, and George leaned in to formulate their plans to a Gothic backdrop of a dark and stormy night being evocatively, if somewhat melodramatically, brought to life by Gloria’s energetic oratory.

“So, how shall we proceed?” said George, soto voce. “What avenues of investigation are we to pursue?”

“As you say, we should scour the shelves of this library for any information on Tobias Philemon and the plunder he may have brought back,” answered Oliver.

“Indeed, a man of such infamy in the local community is sure to have left his mark on many of the works here,” agreed George. “Some of what he took may even be stored in this very museum’s archives, though I doubt we should be so lucky as to find the crystal of the exile in a packing crate alongside a seaman’s sewing kit and compass.”

“And Rex is bound to unearth something,” said Oliver. “The man has a bloodhound’s nose for the seedier sources of information.”

“Perhaps,” allowed George. “But can we trust him? The man has seen terrible things, and I fear he is on a slippery slope to mental ruin. Clearly he is no stranger to drink, but I detect an altogether more unwholesome compulsion within him.”

“What manner of compulsion?” asked Alexander.

George paused, and Gloria’s voice filled the silence, a sonorous description of an abandoned graveyard that, to Oliver’s ears, bore a striking resemblance to the cemetery opposite Kingsport’s Congregational Hospital.

“Knowledge is a boon to all mankind, but some knowledge is a curse,” said George, earning an irritated glance from a matronly woman in front of him who clutched sheafs of handwritten pages. “To look into a glass darkly is to ever be drawn back to it, and Mr. Murphy has seen something that has a stronger grip on him than hard liquor or any earthly vice. And such things do not let go until a man has lost everything he holds dear.”

“Rex is a good sort,” said Oliver. “He saw the same things I saw, and he won’t let us down.”

“He may have seen the same things you did, but Mr. Murphy has the look of a man of impulse, where you are clearly a man of reason. You are a professor, a doyen of learning. He is, and I mean this with no disrespect, an ordinary man. And ordinary men should never delve too deeply into such forbidden lore.”

“For what it’s worth, I agree with you, Professor Angell,” said Alexander, as Gloria began taking questions from the assembled crowd. “But as Oliver says, Rex could be extremely useful. He’s bound to have contacts with the local paper, and if we need someone to scour the drinking dens of the wharfs for local knowledge, I can think of nobody better to loosen tongues with a few belts of whiskey.”

George nodded, but his reluctance was plain. “Very well, but we must all agree to watch him for signs of mental degeneration and moral turpitude.”

Oliver caught Alexander’s eye and stifled a grin. “More so than usual?” he asked.

Even George allowed himself a smile at that.

“Very well. Mr. Murphy will be our eyes and ears among the fishermen and tavern-goers of Kingsport. I will attempt to cultivate a scholarly friendship with Mr. Eckhardt to learn what might be held unseen in the museum’s collections. Oliver, you and Professor Templeton should consult the history books of this library to uncover any mention of Tobias Philemon and his expedition to the South Pacific.”

“I might be better employed elsewhere,” said Alexander. “Oliver is the far better at that sort of thing anyway, so perhaps I could make some enquiries at the South Shore Yacht Club.”

Oliver frowned. “What good would that do?”

“The club’s members come from the oldest Kingsport families, and go back to the town’s founding,” said Alexander. “The kinds of tales we’re looking for aren’t always the ones that find their way into the history books. If Philemon was driven to madness, then stories about him will have been passed from family patriarch to scion down the years. Trust me: if there’s old gossip, hearsay, or rumors concerning Philemon, the yacht club will be the place to hear such things retold. No one enjoys a lurid tale of a rich man going mad more than his contemporaries.”

“And how will you gain access to this club?” asked George. “Such places are trickier to get into than the Federal Reserve.”

“Well, you see…I am a member of the club,” explained Alexander, as though faintly embarrassed by the fact. “I own a yacht, and have a mooring berth down on South Shore.” 

“I remember you telling me that you had a boat,” said Oliver, “but I never took you for the yacht club type.”

Alexander shrugged, and took a moment to compose himself before answering Oliver.

“When I came back from the War, a number of wealthy acquaintances advised me of some stock options on Wall Street they believed would be profitable ventures. My wife, Virginia, was taken by influenza not long after I came home, so I took what she had left me and, well, let’s just say that my friends were more than proven correct.” Alexander smiled ruefully. “And nothing opens the doors to such exclusive clubs like money or breeding.”

Oliver heard a mix of grief and disdain in Alexander’s voice as he spoke. He had only briefly heard Alexander mention a wife, and now he understood why. In the wake of the Great War, the influenza epidemic had ravaged the world, and the United States had not been spared its horror. Hundreds of thousands of Americans had died, and at a stroke, the average life expectancy fell by over a decade. To have lived through the nightmare of war only to return and have a loved one die…

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Alexander,” said Oliver, knowing how wholly inadequate that sounded.

Alexander nodded in thanks, but it was clear he did not wish to dwell on the death of his wife, and Oliver had no wish to cause his friend more pain. 

“Then we are agreed,” said George, moving swiftly onward. “Oliver and I shall focus our attention on the Historical Society and will leave no book unopened, no exhibit unexamined. Rex will allow no tavern to go unvisited, and you, Alexander, must ensure that no talkative New Englander goes unsolicited. Gentlemen, I believe we have a plan of action.”

Oliver nodded and sat back as Gloria fielded another question from the audience. From the forest of raised hands, it was clear no one was going to get out of here any time soon, so Oliver sat back to hear what Miss Goldberg had to say.

For all that Professor Angell and Rex had dismissed her literary work, Gloria was an articulate speaker who clearly enjoyed her work. Listening to her answer her admirers’ questions with intelligent, thought-provoking clarity, Oliver resolved to order a copy of her latest novel from Jaywil’s bookstore on Church Street.

Its subject matter might be grotesque horror, but it could be no more fantastical than their current enterprise.

* * *

It had almost been too easy.

For starters, the Rope and Anchor was the only tavern of note where sailors went to drown their sorrows, and it was hard for a man who’d survived a shipwreck to remain anonymous for long. A short walk downhill from the Lighthouse Inn had taken Rex to the area known as the artists’ colony, a shabby, run-down district of tenements, bungalows, and walk-ups. The street lamps illuminated painted buildings of bright colors, and more than one gable was home to murals that were too abstract to mean much to Rex’s literal eye.

He was still congratulating himself on his last zinger to Gloria by the time he reached the edge of what the locals imaginatively called Hilltown. The woman had deserved it, treating him like something she’d scraped off her expensive Delmans. Rex remembered her book, a love story set against the backdrop of a haunted house that was a gateway to hell or some-such nonsense. At the time, Rex had dismissed the lurid passages of purple prose, but having now met Gloria Goldberg, he wondered if he might have been a touch too hard on her.

George had irritated him too, though for different reasons. The man had seen right through Rex, and though he couldn’t possibly know about the gloriously fiery photograph, it was like he knew of the clawing desires that filled Rex’s nightmares and brought him out in a cold sweat of anticipation every time he beheld a naked flame.

But what if he was right?

What if Rex was slipping slowly into madness? Would he be aware of it? Could you know if you were going mad?

Surely a man going mad would feel his mind coming apart at the seams, and Rex had never felt better, never felt more alive than when he stared into the depths of that photograph. He’d shaken off such morbid thoughts as he reached the outskirts of Hilltown and a bitterly cold wind blew in from South Shore and banished all thoughts of fire.

A number of street-level coffee houses had still been open, though the clientele was spread thinly between them. Rex was content to wander, letting his reporter’s instinct guide him. It didn’t take long to figure out which was the most popular joint, and a few bucks, liberally spread, had bought him a couple of names.

A ship: Neptune’s Bounty.

The survivor: Silas.

Everyone knew of him, though no one seemed to actually know him, like he was some kind of loner or outcast. One man, a drunk with a face so wrinkled it was as though the puffy folds of his cheeks and brow conspired to swallow his eyes entirely, claimed that Silas was cursed, that he’d been spat back to the land because the sea didn’t want him. Another man, smoking filthy rollups that made Donald’s seem fragrant as lily blossoms, told him to leave Silas be, for no good could come of speaking with an Innsmouther.

Innsmouth.

Shunned and riddled with wormy decay.

Yeah, Innsmouth was a real humdinger of a place, one that all right-thinking folks in these parts avoided if they could. A ramshackle bus ran between Arkham and Innsmouth, and Rex remembered seeing the driver once, a hunched man with oily skin to whom he’d taken an instant and intangible dislike.

Among the various descriptions Rex collected of Silas from the glassy-eyed bohemians, strange eyes, a heavy brow, pallid skin and, most curiously, a repellent fishy odor were most prominent. He supposed that last detail came from earning a living on a fishing boat; after all, the smell of cheap whiskey clung to a reporter like a second skin, so why not fish to a fisherman? Yet it seemed like an odd thing to mention, and stuck in Rex’s mind as he pushed open the door to the Rope and Anchor, the one place everyone he’d spoken to named as his best chance of finding Silas.

From the outside, it looked like a dive, and the inside only confirmed that suspicion. Rex liked that honesty. Most speakeasies did everything they could to look like anything but a speakeasy, but this place wore its boozy heart on its sleeve. The only acknowledgement Rex saw of Prohibition was that someone had scratched the word Tavern from the sign outside.

The bar was busy, and pretty much every table was taken. Big men in heavy woolen sweaters looked up as he entered, and the smell of second-hand whiskey, spilled beer, and cheap cigarettes was like an invitation to Rex. It wasn’t the Commercial, and there was no one like Rufus around to dispense cryptic bon mots or hand out free smokes, but it was a proper, honest-to-God bar, and Rex loved it for that.

He took his hat off and scanned the patrons as he made his way through the clouds of cigarette smoke and soused fishermen toward the bar. Most were exactly the sorts of people he’d expect to find in a place like this: tough-looking men with broad shoulders, solid frames, and faces aged prematurely by hard work in the harshest elements. They gathered in groups, most likely defined by the boat they sailed on.

Rex cozied up to the bar and while he waited for the barman to notice him, studied the layout of the place. He instantly saw the hierarchy at work—who were the captains and which men were the first mates versus simple deck hands. His knack for recognizing the dynamics of human interaction told him the spots to avoid, and where he might actually learn something. 

“Got whiskey?” he asked when the barman finally deigned to approach him.

“Sure, what kind you after?” said the barman.

“The kind where you don’t go blind after drinking it.”

“That’s the expensive stuff.”

“Figured,” said Rex, pulling a money clip from his pocket and making sure a number of the men at the bar saw him. In some places that might see him robbed the minute he set foot outside, but here it would make him a good few friends eager for a drink.

“Canadian okay?”

“You got any Irish?”

“Yeah, I got a nice Bushmills,” said the barman, his demeanor suddenly much improved.

“Hit me,” said Rex. “Two glasses, three fingers in each.”

The barman nodded and Rex slid his money across the bar as two generous measures were poured into mismatched glasses.

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to know a guy by the name of Silas, would you?”

“Silas who? I know a few fellas by that name.”

“I guess I forgot his last name,” said Rex, sliding another bill across the bar. “The guy that swam ashore after Neptune’s Bounty got sunk on that reef. Innsmouth fella, so I hear.”

The barman’s freshly improved demeanor instantly reverted to surly wariness, but the addition of a third bill caused him to jerk his head off to one side. Rex followed the gesture, and saw a man sitting by his lonesome in the corner of the bar.

“Much appreciated,” said Rex as the barman left him with his whiskeys.

Rex took a moment to study this Silas, wishing he’d taken a little more time to scan the bar patrons before paying off the barman. He’d have known straight away that the man on his own would be the Innsmouther. 

He pushed away from the bar and made his way over to where the man sat nursing a cracked glass of clear liquid masquerading as gin. Without waiting for an invitation, Rex sat opposite Silas and gave him a friendly smile as he looked up. Rex hid his surprise as he got his first look at his quarry.

If anything, the descriptions he’d heard en route to the Rope and Anchor had been flattering.

The skin on Silas’s face was pallid and greasy-looking, like he was coated in sweat, and Rex would have said his black hair hung in clumped rat’s tails only if those same rats had been monstrously bloated specimens. The man looked positively unwell, and even over the reek of cheap rollups and even cheaper whiskey, the pungent aroma of rotting fish was unmistakable. A number of tattoos poked out from the cuffs and collar of the man’s sweater, and from what Rex could see of them, most looked as though they’d been done overseas.

“Evening, Silas. Rex Murphy’s the name.”

“I know you?” asked Silas, his voice sounding like he needed to hawk a wad of tobacco juice into a spittoon.

“Nope,” said Rex, sliding the second glass of amber gold toward Silas. “But I have a feeling we’re going to be good friends.”

* * *

Gloria Goldberg’s talk at the Historical Society eventually concluded to rapturous applause, and Oliver sighed with relief. Courtesy had kept him from checking his watch, but now that Miss Goldberg was done, he consulted his timepiece and saw that nearly three hours had passed since they had climbed the stairs from the museum to the library.

“Thank goodness that’s over,” said George. “I don’t think my old bones could stand much more inactivity. When you reach my age, you have to keep moving or the Grim Reaper thinks you’re dead.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” said Oliver.

“That may be so, but the hour is late, and I have need of a comfortable bed and a good night’s sleep.”

“As do we all,” agreed Alexander. “We have a great deal of work ahead of us.”

The crowd rose from their seats, and Oliver and his companions made their way to the table at the end of the library where Wallace Eckhardt beamed as Miss Goldberg signed copies of her books. As much as they all desired nothing more than to return to their lodgings, it would be impolite to leave without bidding farewell to Gloria. As they waited patiently for an opportunity to snatch a few words, Oliver took a moment to study Gloria’s admirers. They were an eclectic mix of people, most of whom Oliver would never have pegged as devotees of fantastical fiction, but which was proof—if proof were needed—that it was impossible to know a person by outward appearances.

When at last Gloria caught Oliver’s eye, he was surprised to see her skin was flushed and her eyes alight as though caught in flagrante. Clearly the evening’s talk had been as stimulating for her as it had been for her audience.

“Professor Grayson, how delightful to see you again,” said Gloria. “I’m so glad you were able to come. I hope you found the evening to your satisfaction.”

“It was very diverting,” said Oliver. “I’ve never been to an author’s talk before.”

“Then you have been denying yourself a very real pleasure,” said Gloria, opening her handbag and handing him a card. She gave one each to Alexander and George, saying, “I hope we shall meet again, as it would be a pleasure to share another dinner. This is my publisher’s address and telephone number in New York, so please do not hesitate to get in touch should your travels ever take you to Manhattan.”

“Indeed we shall,” said George, pocketing the card. “But the hour is late, and we three have dusty tomes to consult and freshmen’s papers to grade, a task more onerous and tedious than Sisyphus ever knew.”

“Of course,” said Gloria, proffering her hand and allowing each man to plant a kiss.

“A pleasure to meet you,” said Alexander, and with the proper courtesies observed, Oliver, Alexander, and George made their way from the library, where a custodian they had not noticed before now opened the door to the streets of Kingsport.

By now the sky was black and glittering with stars, but the mist that had heretofore held its advance to the wharf had now conquered the streets, and a ghostly fog clung to the sidewalk, cutting visibility to only a few yards in front of them.

“Good Lord,” said Alexander. “We’ll be lucky to make it back to the Lighthouse Inn before morning through this.”

“Kingsport’s not called ‘the City in the Mists’ for nothing,” said Oliver.

“Damnable fog will have us wet through,” complained George. “I’ll catch my death of pneumonia.”

“You’re far too stubborn to depart this world by something as banal as pneumonia.”

George laughed. “I suspect you’re right, Oliver.”

“Shall we attempt to hail a taxicab?” suggested Alexander.

“I won’t hear of it,” said George. “Though I acknowledge the usefulness of Mr. Ford’s automobiles, I prefer to trust to the legs I was born with. Back in Providence, I regularly enjoy walks from the Newbury boat up the precipitous slopes to my home on Williams Street. I think I can manage a walk through Kingsport’s gentler avenues.”

“Then let us be on our way,” said Alexander, and the three of them set off on the walk back to the Lighthouse Inn. The streets were deserted, most right-thinking inhabitants of Kingsport remaining within their homes and allowing the mist free reign over the outside world. Oliver couldn’t blame them, for streets that had once assumed a quaint, welcoming air were rendered ghostly and threatening.

The mist deadened sound, and their footsteps did not echo. A ringing bell from the shoreline hung in the air long after its dolorous peals should have faded, and Oliver felt as though a hundred eyes were watching him from the shadows. A sound like wet, tearing leather sounded from above, like flapping sheets in the wind, but it too faded into the night. They crested the lower slopes of Central Hill, and the gushing streams that had followed the torrential downpour earlier were now reduced to gentle trickles.

Oliver thought he caught a glimpse of a shadowed figure at the intersection of two streets—a man of considerable stature—but when he looked closely, there was nothing to be seen. Conversation between Oliver and his companions was minimal, restricted to observations on the obscuring quality of the mist and the queer sensation that they were making precious little headway. 

Once again, Oliver saw the faint outline of the broad man, this time catching a glimpse of tattooed skin the color of olive gold and a strange walking cane that was almost as tall as the man himself. Oliver stopped and fixed his gaze upon the spot where he had seen the man, as though daring him to show his face again. There had been something familiar about him, something that tugged at the edges of Oliver’s memory, but which the cloying presence of the mist seemed to smother.

“Oliver?” said Alexander. “Are you all right?”

Oliver nodded, but kept his eyes fixed on the spot where he had seen the man. He could see no sign of him, and though he was certain he had seen something, he was equally certain he would see no more of him in that spot.

“It’s nothing,” said Oliver. “I thought I saw someone.”

“In this mist?” said George. “I doubt it.”

* * *

Despite the occasional wrong turn, Oliver, George, and Alexander made it back to the Lighthouse Inn just as Albert Dukes was in the process of locking the outer doors to his establishment. Declining the offer of some lemongrass tea, the three professors all made their way to their rooms. Oliver bid his companions a pleasant night, and after securing a plan to meet for breakfast at eight thirty, each man retired for the night.

Oliver closed the door to his room and secured the latch. He turned the key in the lock and left it there, feeling a vague, but very real suspicion that such secure measures might be necessary. Although he had sensed no overt threat from the man he’d seen in the mist—or thought he’d seen, it was hard to be sure—there was, nevertheless, a potent sense of threat to his bearing.

The room was clean and comfortable, with everything a man needed to spend a night in comfort away from home. Oliver undressed and climbed into bed, and the exhaustion that had been kept at bay with fevered speculation on the machinations of their enemies now overtook him with unheard of rapidity. Oliver could not have fought sleep had he wanted to, and as his eyes closed he sank into a deep slumber.

And dreamed of the man in the mist.

Chapter Thirteen

Sand oozed pleasantly between Oliver’s toes as he walked aimlessly along the shoreline. Waves lapped indolently up the beach with a soft susurration that put him at his ease as he stared at the distant horizon—an unbroken line of blue where the ocean met the sky. Exotic and brightly colored birds sang from the thick canopy of palm trees, and the very air thrummed with the fecundity of life.

The sun shone down like a golden sun god of legend, a perfectly circular orb of molten metal that should have felt searing on his pale western skin, but which was merely pleasant. Oliver kept walking, though he had no particular destination in mind, enjoying the peace of the island and keeping his eyes trained on the expanse of sun-baked sand before him.

He saw that he was without clothes of any sort, but his nakedness did not trouble him. Far from feeling exposed, Oliver felt at one with the natural harmony of his surroundings. Clothes would be an imposition here. Besides, he had no need of clothes, for he was as much a part of the landscape as the trees farther up the golden beach and the creatures that lived within the vast swathes of rainforest that shawled the high mountains of the island’s interior.

This was the island of the Yopasi, and the crescent-shaped bay where he now walked was as familiar to him as the run-down wharfs and factories of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It did not seem strange to Oliver that he walked on the beach of the Yopasi, and he slipped easily into the strange logic of his surroundings.

With the recognition of the island, Oliver saw the jagged line of carven stones that crested the beach at the middle of the bay. A flat shard of black stone the size of a loading dock jutted from the edge of the trees like the prow of an ancient war galley, and surrounding it were five tall megaliths.

Oliver had spent many days studying and sketching these standing stones—so like the great faces of Easter Island, yet without the human quality of those intriguing carvings. The central altar piece (as Oliver’s grad student had dubbed it) was a single, enormous piece of basalt, a stone not native to the island, and the megaliths were composed of a mineral not one geologist from Miskatonic, Princeton, Harvard, or Yale could identify. Its mineral composition bore no relation to anything they could find on their periodic tables or reference works on the geology of deep time. 

Oliver knew the natives engaged in curious rituals within the semi-circle of standing stones, but he had not yet earned the trust of the tribal leaders to be allowed to document them. As he strolled toward the giant stones, some instinct made him glance over his shoulder. Out to sea, three ships weighed anchor in the middle of the ocean, their sails hanging limp on their masts and the distant form of sailors tugging them from the rigging were like ants climbing the vine-hung trunk of a tall tree.

He hadn’t noticed the ships before, which seemed odd, but perhaps the sunlight on the water had dazzled him and kept them from view. Oliver did not recognize what manner of ships these were; they were of a sort that might have sailed in the time of Magellan—full-bodied galleons, merchantmen, or imperial ships of the line. Each flew a colorful flag from their stern, but Oliver could not see to which country their captains owed allegiance.

Oliver put the ships from his mind as a group of people emerged from the trees—tall, muscular men in vine and leaf kilts and whose necks were hung with animal bones. Their chests, arms, and faces were heavily tattooed, the ink derived from distilled wood bark, vitriol, and various insect deposits scraped from the walls of darkened caves. Each of them bore curled hooks of bone through their eyebrows, and Oliver wondered what that signified, even as he felt like somehow he already knew.

He suspected he knew these men, that he had shared meals with them and their families within their homes, but for some reason they came toward him with hostile intent. They carried bone-bladed axes, flint-tipped spears, stone clubs, and long, slashing weapons edged with shark teeth. He knew of no reason these men would wish to do him harm, but when he looked around for some other source of their anger, Oliver saw that he was now clothed in stiff canvas trousers, a heavy woolen coat of a faded blue with golden epaulettes at the shoulders, and a black tricorn hat. He carried a long-barreled rifle that trailed smoke from its muzzle, and blood dripped from the foot-long bayonet affixed to the barrel.

Bodies surrounded him, though Oliver could not recall having seen them before. Young men and women, shot through with musket balls and gutted with the sharp stab, twist, withdraw maneuver of a bayonet thrust. The bodies lay six deep around him, and Oliver realized with mounting horror that he must surely have killed them all. His hands were bright red, and the stiffness of his trousers was thanks to the blood drying into the fabric.

He wanted to shout to these men that he had no memory of this atrocity, that he was incapable of such slaughter, but the words that issued from his mouth were meaningless to the tribal warriors who surrounded him with hatred in their eyes. A spear jabbed out and pierced his chest, a bright pain that made him drop his musket. He wept with fear as a stone club swept out and smashed his knee. Oliver dropped to the ground, but a shouted command from the trees put an end to the warriors’ attack.

Lying in a pool of his own blood in the sand, Oliver looked out to sea for any sign of aid from his shipmates, but the three vessels had vanished as though they had never existed. Rough hands gripped him and unkindly dragged him up the beach toward the standing stones. He screamed in pain, but that only seemed to give the warriors grim satisfaction, and he bit his tongue to keep from crying out again.

Oliver looked up and saw a man atop the basalt slab, his skin a full canvas of tattoos. Almost no hint of his original skin color remained to give any clue to his ethnic origin, but Oliver knew he was the tribe’s shaman, a practitioner of magic and the keeper of the tribe’s spiritual and physical well-being. The shaman wore a wooden mask carved in the form of a leering demon over his face, and like the warriors, he too was festooned with fetishes, animal bones, and ritual scarification. He carried a tall wooden staff, gnarled and polished, topped with the stylized form of a star with an eye at its center.

Through his rites and visions could the gods be appeased and the Yopasi’s future be assured. Oliver was dragged up onto the altar, where warriors held his body splayed out as his blood seeped out onto the rock. The shaman stood over him and squatted down upon his chest. Oliver fought to hold a scream at bay, but the shaman placed a finger on his lips and the pain went away. 

“Do not fight,” said the shaman.

“I don’t want to die,” sobbed Oliver.

“None of us do, but we are motes in the eyes of the gods, beneath notice and regard. Our wants count for nothing. Less than nothing. Now get up, for time is short.”

The warriors holding Oliver released their grip, and their expressions changed in an instant, conveying a brotherhood and love he had never before known. Oliver pushed himself into a sitting position as the shaman stood and moved to one side. Oliver’s bloodied clothes had vanished, and he was now clad in the same manner as the warriors, tattooed as they were and bearing a long curved weapon with a saw-toothed edge.

Night had fallen, though Oliver had sensed no movement in the sun’s passage across the heavens. Such jumps in time and perspective no longer surprised him, and as he stared at the waves battering the shore, he felt the onset of a terrible storm. The sky boiled with thunderheads, and clouds flickered with lambent lightning in their depths. The ocean churned with motion, as though an army gathered beneath its surface, and the thought struck a sickening chord within Oliver as he knew that was exactly what agitated the sea.

Oliver looked to his left and right, now seeing hundreds of warriors gathered on the beach, an army to face whatever hellish undersea monsters were gathering beneath the waves. He knew he should be afraid, but he took courage from the defiance he felt in the taut readiness in every man around him. Oliver knew this battle would be fought again over the years, but this battle was all that mattered right now. The by-blows of the ocean would be vomited up from its depths and the Yopasi would cast them back to their submarine realm of toppled obelisks and debased chasm cities.

A sudden reek of rotten fish and spilled entrails warmed by the sun rose from the water, and with a roar of bestial hatred, the sea erupted in a welter of hunched forms. Their flesh was glossy, their bodies humpbacked, yet they loped up the sand with a terrifyingly fast, ape-like locomotion. The darkness of the night hid much of their vileness, and Oliver was spared the full horror of forms so hideous that no sane god would have willingly wrought them into being. The warriors of the Yopasi surged to meet these alien creatures from the deep, howling ancient war cries in a language that Oliver knew with sudden certainty had not been heard beyond this island’s shores in hundreds of thousands of years.

He felt himself being carried along with the charge and screamed words he did not know. A vaguely anthropoid shape reared up before him, reeking, rotting, and dripping with stagnant water. Fangs and claws gleamed. Oliver swung his club and felt the teeth bite into wet, rubbery flesh. He wrenched the weapon to the side, letting the tearing teeth do their work. The squeal of pain was animalistic and agonized. A viscous fluid, odious and sticky drenched his hands.

Another form barreled into him, its limbs like iron and he ducked as a heavy, clawed arm slashed for his throat. A downward sweep of his weapon cut the arm from his attacker in a stinking wash of brackish blood, and the salty stink of it brought tears to Oliver’s eyes. All around him, Oliver heard the screams of men and monsters, and he felt his anger burn hotter within his breast at the thought of these unseen, unknown monsters setting foot on his island.

The battle devolved into a swirling morass of jostling, heaving bodies. Claws disemboweled, axes beheaded, the sand became like quicksand as blood and seawater from the deepest undersea caverns turned the ground underfoot to a sodden quagmire.

A hand fell upon his shoulder, and Oliver turned with his bloodied weapon upraised.

The blow did not fall, as he found himself face to masked face with the Yopasi shaman.

“This was but the first attack,” said the shaman.

The beach was deserted, all signs of the furious battle gone; no bodies, no blood, and no hint of the diabolical, retching stink that had preceded the attack.

“What just happened?” asked Oliver as the shaman turned and walked back to the basalt altar beneath the light of a full moon. “Where did they go?”

“We held them back this time, but there were always more attacks.”

“What were they?”

“Things from the deep,” said the shaman. “Monsters. Servants of our enemies. It does not matter what they are, only what they attempt.”

“To kill you?”

“That will happen soon enough, but it is what they will do when we are dead that matters most. Without anyone to watch the ocean, the time of rising will follow swiftly. The dark waters will rise and claim the world for the great devil who sleeps. We will be gone, but there must always be a shaman to watch for his awakening.”

“I don’t understand,” said Oliver.

“No,” said the shaman, turning and removing his mask. “But you will. You must.”

The shaman’s face was heavily mortified, a mask of raised scar tissue and brands so extensive that his original features had long since been obliterated. Three bone hooks had been driven into his skull above each eye, and Oliver realized he knew this man. His presence here was out of sync with what he had just witnessed—the men with muskets, the ships of the line, and the bloodshed on the beach.

“I know you, don’t I?” said Oliver.

“You did,” agreed the shaman sadly. “Here you have only fragments of memory, but when you accept your role in this life, you will understand.”

“Kaula? That’s your name, isn’t it?” said Oliver. “Is this a dream? Is that why I can understand you?”

“Perhaps,” allowed the shaman. “Or perhaps this is a dream of a dream. Whatever the truth, it is time for you to come of age.”

“To what?” said Oliver warily. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Yes, you do,” said the shaman, opening his palm to reveal three bone hooks. He bent to retrieve a small stone club from the altar and beckoned Oliver to him. “Kneel before me and I will pierce your skull three times. Only then will your true purpose be revealed.”

“No, please,” begged Oliver, wanting to back away, but finding his steps carrying him toward the shaman.

He knelt before the scarred man and said, “No, I don’t want this.”

“You do not have a choice,” said Kaula, placing the first bone hook against Oliver’s forehead and raising the stone club. “No one ever does.”

The club slammed down and Oliver awoke with a scream on his lips.

* * *

“Good lord, Oliver,” said George as he entered the parlor for breakfast. “You look terrible.”

“I feel terrible,” agreed Oliver, massaging his forehead as he took a seat at the table. Breakfast service was in full swing, with the two young girls from the night before chattering away to one another in conspiratorial hushed tones. Gloria Goldberg was nowhere to be seen, and Oliver wondered if she had already departed for the next leg of her speaking tour. 

Albert Dukes gave a smile of greeting as he passed their table, but Oliver declined his offer of a morning repast. When the owner of the boarding house had moved on, Alexander poured Oliver a cup of coffee. 

“Are you coming down with something, do you think?” asked Alexander. “That walk through the cold mist can’t have been good for any of us.”

Oliver nodded his thanks and said, “No, I don’t think it’s anything serious. I didn’t sleep well is all, I think.”

“Bad dreams?” said George, tucking into a hearty breakfast of toast, scrambled eggs, and sliced bacon.

“Yes,” said Oliver, taking a sip of hot coffee and feeling a curious reticence to elaborate.

“What did you dream of?” asked Alexander.

Oliver struggled to recall the substance of his dream, but it was as insubstantial as a childhood memory. The more he sought to pin it down, the more it resisted his efforts.

“I think I was on the island of the Yopasi, though I’m finding it harder to remember exactly what happened. I saw old ships from the age of sail dropping anchor in the bay, and I think I was in a battle, though I can’t be sure who I was fighting. I met a man there, and he seemed desperate to tell me something, but I don’t remember if he ever did.” Oliver sighed. “Perhaps seeing all those bones yesterday has been weighing more heavily upon me than I thought.”

“Perhaps so,” agreed George. “And I have heard that Kingsport is notorious for provoking dreams and nightmares. It seems those tales are not without some foundation.”

“They say that’s why so many artists and writers are drawn here,” added Alexander.

“Which could be why Miss Goldberg chose to come to Kingsport,” said Oliver. “Perhaps she hoped for fresh nightmares to include in her next book.”

“I think that woman carries nightmares enough of her own,” said George between mouthfuls. “Though I firmly believe her talk of gypsies and strange childhood incidents are pure invention and poppycock, I feel there is some truth to her talk of apocalyptic visions. After all, we know that those of a creative mien are more susceptible to abhorrent dreams of things that slumber in the darkness than those with a more literal mindset.”

“True,” agreed Oliver, rubbing the skin above his right eye. The headache was damnably localized to the area of his skull at his eyebrow, as though someone had taken a hammer and bludgeoned him in the night. A memory threatened to surface, but before he could grasp hold, it flitted away like a startled bird.

Oliver caught George’s eye and though the professor looked away quickly, Oliver caught a glimpse of something shared.

“What about you, Professor?” asked Oliver. “Did you dream last night?”

George nodded and put down his cutlery. “Yes, Oliver, I too dreamed last night. And, like you, not pleasantly.”

“Oh? What did you dream about?

“My home in Providence.”

“That sounds pleasant enough,” said Alexander.

“It would be, but I dreamed that Providence was a dead place, a tomb where I was the only man left alive in its streets. The buildings were all empty, and as I stepped from the Newport boat, I was jostled by some stout fellow I hadn’t seen. He passed me and boarded the boat before I could accost him and ask him what had become of the town.”

“What happened next?”

“I continued onward, climbing the steps to the upper districts of the town to my house, but no matter how high I ascended, I could never reach it. Ever onward I climbed, but the bleak steps stretched on endlessly in front of me. I turned to make my way back downhill, but the wharfs had vanished and as many steps awaited me below as above. Then I saw the fellow who had bumped into me on the steps farther down, but in his eyes was a look of such murderous intent that I did not dare await his passing. I climbed and climbed, but ever was the man behind me, until at last I could climb no more and I collapsed, breathless and terrified on the steps.”

“Then what happened?” asked Oliver.

George shrugged. “I don’t know. I woke up before he reached me.”

“What do you think it means?”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” said Alexander. “It was just a dream.”

“Did you dream, Alexander?” asked Oliver.

“No, I don’t think so. If I did I do not recall its substance.”

“Then count yourself as fortunate,” said George, picking up his knife and fork once more.

Oliver nodded in agreement and poured himself another coffee. The pain above his right eye had begun to diminish, though it still throbbed in his skull like an old wound.

“Any word from Rex?” he asked.

“Nothing yet,” said Alexander. “Though if he found the survivor in a wharfside tavern, I wouldn’t expect to see either of them before dinner.”

As though to contradict Alexander’s words, the disheveled form of Rex Murphy swung around the corner of the arched entrance to the parlor. His clothes were those he had been wearing yesterday, and his unshaven chin, bleary eyes, and uncombed hair suggested he had slept little, if at all, since they had last seen him.

“Greetings, fellow seekers after truth,” said Rex, pulling a chair over from another table and slumping his limp body onto it. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a profitable night. An expensive night, but, I think, a profitable one.”

“You’re very hungover, Mr. Murphy,” noted George.

“Not a bit of it, Professor,” said Rex. “I’m still drunk.”

“So what did you find out?” said Oliver, intercepting a caustic remark from George. “Did you find the elusive sailor?”

“That I did, Oliver,” said Rex with a smile as he helped himself to some coffee. “Wasn’t too hard—there’s only one dive in this place serves a drink any sailor’d touch: a shitty dive down near the wharfs called the Rope and Anchor. Found him there all on his lonesome. Bought the guy a drink and he was good enough to stick around to let me buy him another. Then he bought one, then I bought one. It gets a bit hazy after that, but my wallet’s a lot lighter than it was when I left you guys.”

“Yes, but did you find out anything of use?” pressed George. “This man’s name, for starters?”

“Hold your horses,” said Rex, twisting in his seat to catch the eye of Albert Dukes. “Can I get some toast and some eggs? I’m so hungry I could eat a Kentucky Derby winner and chase the rider if you put enough ketchup on him.”

“Rex,” said Oliver with a warning tone.

“Sure, sure, I’m getting to it. Yeah, his name’s Silas Marsh, used to work on Neptune’s Bounty till she got sunk. And you were right, George, it weren’t no reef that sent her to Davy Jones’s Locker.”

“What was it?”

“Way he told it after a skinful of expensive Irish whiskey, some ship came up from the water and broke the Bounty in two. Old thing too, with cannons and sails and rigging. It was real old, you know? Says there was a giant whirlpool with a bright light at its heart that dragged his ship down and tossed him about like a steer in an Oklahoma twister.”

“Marsh?” asked George. “You said his name was Marsh?”

“Yeah, that’s what he said.”

“As in the Innsmouth Marshes?”

“Judging by the look of him, I’d say so,” said Rex as a scowling Albert Dukes brought over a plate of hot eggs and slightly burned toast. “Thank you, my good man.”

Rex tucked into his breakfast with gusto, pausing only long enough to swig mouthfuls of scalding coffee. The smell of stale sweat and cheap booze lifted off him in a fug, and Oliver kept his coffee up to his mouth to keep the stench from catching in the back of his throat.

“So, anyways, Silas says that he managed to swim to, what did he say…oh yeah, Pilot Island, where he climbs the cliffs to the top. He figures he’ll wait out the night in the shadow of the rocks and wait for the fishing fleet to pick him up on its way past in the morning. So far so good, but when Silas gets to the top of the cliff, he finds he’s not the only one there.”

“There was someone on the island?” asked Oliver.

Rex nodded. “Sure was, some guy in a red robe standing at the edge of the far cliff, screaming some gibberish into the night. Crazy stuff, words that weren’t words and things that didn’t sound like no language he’d ever heard. And he’s heard a lot, by the sounds of all the ports he’s seen in his time.”

“A man in a red robe!” exclaimed Oliver. “Just like the man Finn Edwards saw in Billington Woods. The same man who tortured Amanda and Rita! Good God, it’s all connected! The silver sphere Finn and I brought to Kate Winthrop, those winged insect beasts that chased us into that strange netherworld, those ghoulish cannibals, and now this…”

“Steady, Oliver,” cautioned Alexander. “This all sounds like drunken nonsense. Rex, this man told you what you wanted to hear.”

“Yeah? Were you there? You ever had to get a story out of a guy who doesn’t want to tell it? No? Didn’t think so. I’ve been getting guys to spill the beans for years, and I know when someone’s feeding me a line, okay? This guy was a straight shooter, and I got the real deal from him. But what I told you so far? That ain’t the weirdest part, not by a country mile.”

“It isn’t?” said Oliver.

“Nope,” said Rex, draining his coffee and savoring the moment. “Silas said this guy had some kind of monster with him, like a floating jellyfish and a giant cockroach got together and had a miscarried flying beetle baby. Said once this guy in red finished up his chanting, he got on this thing and flew off. Hell, even I got to admit that sounds bogus, but Silas was damned insistent and got pretty shirty when I laughed at him.”

“Would Silas remember the words this man said if I spoke to him?” asked George.

“Maybe,” said Rex. “He got real spooked when he talked about what this guy was saying, like he couldn’t forget them even though he wanted to. So, yeah, maybe.”

“Then I must talk to this Silas character,” said George. “Where might I find him?”

“Out at sea would be my bet,” said Rex. “He’s out again this morning on the Saint Nicodemus, the boat that picked him up. Apparently the captain don’t much like him, and the crew hates him, but they’re a man down, and Silas needs the work. Money’s money after all. My guess is you’ll find him at the Rope and Anchor again tonight. Or back home sleeping off last night’s booze.”

“Then tonight we shall venture to the taverns of Kingsport,” declared George.

“Sound plan, George,” said Rex with a wide grin as he rose from his chair on unsteady legs. “I like it, but in the meantime, I’m going to speak to the owner of this joint and see if I can’t get a room. My car’s great at getting me around, but she don’t make a good hotel room, and that stick shift dug right into my ribs all night.”

“But we need you to speak to the local newspapers,” said Oliver. “We formulated a plan last night, you see.”

Rex held up his hands. “Sure, I know Big Stan that runs the Chronicle. He published a couple of pieces of mine before I went to work for the Advertiser. Haven’t seen him for a couple of years, but we go way back. What you want me to find out?”

“Whatever you can,” said George. “Strange happenings, unusual occurrences, anything relating to the sea that might offer a clue as to the whereabouts of Tobias Philemon’s sunken ship.”

“Got it,” said Rex with a slightly swayed bow. “If there’s anything to find, I’ll find it.”

As Rex departed the parlor, George leaned into the center of the table. “As rambling as that was, I believe Mr. Murphy may very well have stumbled onto something crucial. If this fellow in red is involved, we may be certain that we are on the right track.”

“Do you believe he’s trying to raise Philemon’s sunken ship?” asked Oliver.

“It seems certain that is exactly what he is attempting,” agreed George.

“Could that be what was causing the glow at the heart of the maelstrom Silas described? The crystal of the exile?” Alexander asked.

Oliver felt a shiver of excitement at the thought that they were closing in on their enemy, and that they weren’t already too late.

“It could very well be, Alexander, yes,” said George. “Which means they do not yet possess it. Which means we can still thwart their attempts to retrieve the crystal. Now, come, there is no time to waste. While we wait for the fishing fleet to return, we should proceed as we discussed last night. Alexander, you charm the wealthy widows of the yacht club, and Oliver and I will peruse the works contained in the Historical Society for any mention of Philemon.”

“We’re getting close, aren’t we?” said Oliver.

“I think that we are,” replied Alexander with a grin.

Chapter Fourteen

The night with Silas Marsh had taken it out of Rex, and though he didn’t like to admit it, he was no spring chicken anymore. Time was, he could drink a skinful of whiskey and beer, then face the morning without ill-effect. But that had been in the days when you could trust the corn mash not to have been laced with battery acid or formaldehyde. 

Despite appearances to the contrary, Rex had managed to convince the owner that he wasn’t a bum who’d happened to luck out and find a sawbuck on the street. With evident reluctance, the man had given Rex the key to a room on the top floor—a deliberate and petty gesture in Rex’s eyes—but declined to show him to his new lodgings.

The walk upstairs reminded him of the time in Cairo when he’d been forced to climb the steps of the great pyramid at Giza. He’d lost a bet to a fellow newshound by the name of Fieldsy that had seen him climb to the top of the incredible structure and plant a flag of his pants at its summit. Rex couldn’t remember what exactly the bet had involved, but seemed to recall it had something to do with a drunken argument regarding the superiority of His Majesty’s rule as opposed to that of a president.

At the time, Warren G. Harding had been America’s president, and Rex had been forced to concede the Englishman’s point. Too bad it hadn’t been a few years later, when Harding was dead and that sly dog Coolidge would’ve seen Fieldsy atop the pyramid sans pants.

His room was clean and nicer than his own place back in Arkham, and the bed looked like something a movie star might sleep in. Rex closed the curtains, shutting out the weak morning sunlight that was hurting his eyes, and threw his coat on a chair in the corner of the room. He took off his glasses and clothes as he walked back to the bed, flopping face down on top of the sheets with a groan of weariness.

“Never again,” he said as the full force of his hangover rose up to claim him.

* * *

Right away, he knew he was dreaming. You couldn’t put away that much whiskey and smokes without seriously messing with your brain chemistry. Whatever impurities were contained in the whiskey had juiced him badly, but not so much that he’d lost the part of him that knew the difference between dreams and reality.

The city around him was in ruins, only the tall frontages of its many buildings left standing, with only the timber beams laced into their structure holding them upright. Debris from the floors and roofs had fallen inside, and the walls were pocked with craters where bullets and shrapnel had torn the stonework.

He didn’t know where he was exactly, but could guess.

Entire districts had been leveled, and as Rex wandered the streets of this dream city, he wondered why his mind had chosen to create this vista for him. He hadn’t covered much of the Great War, save a few pieces from north Africa in the early twenties, but he’d seen the pictures and movie footage of the ravaged continent to know roughly where he was.

This was France, a nation torn apart and laid waste by the Kaiser’s war machine.

Knowing where he was and understanding why he was here were two different things, and Rex paused by the ruins of a smoldering building as he pondered what he should do. He’d heard that if you realized you were dreaming you could mold its reality around you, and figured that if he was going to dream then he might as well dream of something pleasant.

No sooner had he closed his eyes than a woman’s voice called out to him from across the street. Rex smiled and reached for a cigarette.

“Hey you,” said a gently mocking voice at his ear.

“Hey you, yourself,” replied Rex.

He opened his eyes and felt as though someone had punched him in the gut. In a good way. Minnie Klein was just like he remembered, though his dream had clothed her in the latest fashions to come out of Paris.

“Trust the French to be thinking of fashion in the aftermath of a war,” said Rex.

“Just because their country’s in ruins don’t mean a girl can’t look good,” said Minnie.

“And you do look good,” said Rex, letting his eyes work their way around her curves.

“Easy, tiger,” laughed Minnie. “At least buy me a drink first.”

“Sure thing,” said Rex. He wanted to give her a big hug, to sweep her into his arms and plant a long, lingering smacker right on her lips, but even though this was a dream, his dream to be precise, he had a sneaking suspicion that all he’d get for his trouble would be a slap in the kisser.

“So this is France,” he said. “Not as glamorous as I’d expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Chandeliers, fancy dances, folk eating frogs’ legs and snails with smiles on their faces?”

“Shows what you know,” said Minnie, turning and walking down the street toward a tall building with a cracked, sagging dome and a tumbled front wall. Smoke billowed from fires burning inside, and Rex had a nasty suspicion he wouldn’t like what he saw if he were to go inside.

“Okay, so that’s the cliché,” said Rex, taking a moment to light his cigarette. He noticed a sharpness to the taste and coughed at the strength of the tobacco. He reached into his pocket and took a look at the packet. The label said Gauloise, and bore the slogan Liberté Toujours, which with even his limited understanding of the language he knew meant Freedom Forever. Rex supposed it was only natural that he’d be smoking a French cigarette in this dream.

“You coming or not?” asked Minnie from a crossroads farther along the street.

“Yeah,” said Rex, feeling lightheaded as though some aspect of his dream had slipped beyond his control. He reached the crossroads and gave Minnie one of his winning smiles.

“Okay, Minnie, so where are we going?”

“I don’t know, Rex,” she said. “That’s up to you.”

“Right enough, I suppose it is my dream after all.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Minnie, and Rex saw she had a camera hung on a leather strap around her neck. He hadn’t noticed that before, but tried not to be worried. Strange things happened in dreams, and nothing should surprise him. Yet the presence of the camera unsettled Rex in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Then what did you mean?

“I mean that this is where you have to choose which direction you go in,” said Minnie, taking hold of his arm and squeezing. “Take a look around you, Rex. Any of these streets look like you’d want to go for a stroll along them?”

Rex did a slow circle, taking in the vistas of destruction and ruin filling the streets that led from the crossroads. Each was filled with the smoke and flames of bombing. Burned trees and buildings slumped into the street with a rain of breaking glass and crashing brickwork.

“They’re not exactly the Parisian boulevards of La Belle Époque, no.”

Minnie gave him a look of contempt that was so out of character for her that Rex wanted to flinch from its harshness. 

“You never take things seriously, Rex,” said Minnie. “That’s always been your problem. You think you’re invincible, but if you’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s surely that you’re not. You’re only human, with all the wonderful, miraculous frailties that make you who you are.”

Minnie stood aside, and Rex found himself standing directly in front of the building with the sagging dome, though he couldn’t remember taking any steps toward it. The interior of the building had been gutted by fire, its walls blackened and reeking of soot and meat left on the grill too long. Fires burned in pockets of green flame, and dancing sparks, like animated fireflies, spun through the air with gleeful abandon that spoke of a ghastly sentience.

A guttural chanting bubbled just beneath the threshold of hearing and a deliriously whimsical flautist piped a maddening tune from somewhere within. Despite his fear of the burned building and the hungry sparks, Rex couldn’t deny a horrid fascination and unaccountable desire to venture within. He placed his foot on a pile of bricks that led up to the gaping hole torn in the front of the building, but felt Minnie’s hand on his arm once more.

“Are you really sure, Rex? Once you go in, you won’t ever come out.”

Rex felt the urge to take another step, but kept himself from moving only with gritted teeth and sweat popping on his forehead.

“I need to go in, Minnie,” he said.

“No, you don’t,” she replied. “It wants you to. It needs you to. Things like that can’t exist without people to bring them into the world. It feeds on you and takes everything good about you, then spits out what’s left. If you go in there, it’s all over for you. I know you know that, so why are you doing it?”

“Hell, Minnie, if I stopped doing everything that was bad for me, I’d have no fun at all.”

“What, like those nights down at the Commercial? Is that fun? Coming home with no memory of the night before, smoking tobacco you know is killing you? You must have a pretty messed up idea of fun.”

Rex turned to Minnie, and let out a gasp of fear as he saw the hems of her coat and skirt were smoldering. Smoke rose from her garments, and even as he watched, he saw flames licking at her legs and curling the ends of her hair.

“What’s happening?” he cried. “Oh, God, what’s going on? This is my dream, dammit! I don’t want this! Stop it! Stop it right now!”

“It’s not me,” said Minnie. “It’s you.”

“No,” cried Rex. “No, it’s not, I’m not doing this.”

“Look where you are,” said Minnie, and Rex realized that he was inside the smoldering building, where the firefly sparks spun in welcome. They buzzed around him, scorching his skin with tiny burning kisses, and he was disgusted to find he was enjoying the sensation. He looked up into the void of the dome, and saw the magnificence of the heavens spread before him, the impossible scale of the universe laid out in all its unimaginable splendor.

Galaxies spun in a celestial ballet, twisting and colliding in a dance that had begun unimaginable billions of years ago. At their heart seethed a chaotic mad thing of light and sound and grotesque insanity, sentient, yet made lunatic by the crazed piping that surrounded it. This was no creator god, no cosmic intelligence that orchestrated the intricate song of the universe, but a crippled malignity that lashed out in blind idiocy and whose mindless writhing caused the universe to jerk and twitch with its madness.

Descending from this impossible map of the universe was a bloated mass of fire, solid and liquid and gaseous all at once. Its heat should have burned him to cinders in an instant, but Rex stood beneath its glorious fire and recognized his flaming apotheosis. This was the god of Minnie’s photograph made real. This was the object of his desire and his devotion…

Words of worship gurgled up from his chest, climbing the fleshy pipe of his throat to be said. Rex didn’t know the words or where they came from, all he knew was that he had to say them. It felt like a bilious tide of vomit burning his throat, and Rex gagged on the sensation of them crawling in his mouth.

He turned to the the building’s entrance and saw Minnie standing there, her clothes ablaze and the flesh running from her bones like liquid wax. Though her body was being seared from her bones, she still lived, and her skeletal mouth was stretched in a scream of unending pain, a scream that would only ever stop when the light of the last star was extinguished.

“Oh, God, Minnie! No!” cried Rex, his terror and love for her pushing the alien words back down inside him. They fought and screamed and clawed his throat, but he would not say them. He ran back to the fading slice of daylight at the building’s entrance and fell into Minnie’s flaming arms, letting the furnace heat of her body fuse them together in a last, deathly embrace.

“I love you, Rex,” said Minnie.

Rex closed his eyes as her arms enfolded him.

* * *

The weather was altogether more clement than the previous day, though the foulness of the rain had done nothing to wash away the somnolent lethargy that hung over Kingsport. From this vantage point on South Hill, Oliver could see a great deal of the town—jumbled houses sweeping up and over the steep slopes in a confused, jostling mess of American Gothic, gambrel roofs, painted gables, and labyrinthine streets. The otherworldliness he had felt last night was still there, and a number of church bells tolled across the town. Oliver could pinpoint none of them, the undulant expanse of the town and its serpentine street plan serving to distort the sound in such a way that it appeared to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

The sea remained a threatening expanse of flat grey blue that stretched out to the east, and the only boats to be seen were pleasure yachts that looped around the protruding southern tip of the town. These kept close to shore, as though their owners were too afraid to venture far from sight of land.

Given the recent spate of maritime incidents, Oliver couldn’t blame them.

Alexander buttoned up his coat and pressed his grey fedora tightly onto his head. He knotted his scarf around his neck and shook hands with Oliver and George.

“Shall we reconvene here early this evening?” he asked.

“Yes,” said George. “If we’re going to head to the Rope and Anchor, then I suggest we gather for an early dinner. Shall we say around five o’clock?”

Alexander consulted his pocket watch and nodded. “That should give me plenty of time to engage several of the club’s denizens in conversation. I can see from the sails out on the water that there’s a number of crusty salts around who should have a goodly amount of old time scandal they’ll just love to dish to a willing ear.”

“Sounds like you’ll be having a ball,” put in Oliver.

“The surroundings may be pleasant,” agreed Alexander, “but once you’ve heard one rich blowhard’s story about how he made his riches and how he had to pull himself up by his bootstraps you’ve heard them all.”

“We all must make sacrifices,” said George.

Alexander chuckled. “Good hunting at the Historical Society,” he said with a wave as he set off downhill to South Shore and the coast road that led to the yacht club. Alexander was soon lost to sight amid the tangled maze of whitewashed houses, and Oliver blew on his hands to warm them as George shivered in his long, knee-length woolen coat. Though the day was crisp and bright, the wind reminded both men that winter was just around the corner, and few places knew winters as hard as the New England coastline.

In deference to George’s advanced years and the exertions of last night’s walk, Oliver had insisted on having Albert Dukes telephone a local taxi firm to send a car to collect them. The journey to the Historical Society was long, and though George appeared fit and healthy, there was no denying that a walk of such length would exhaust the good professor prematurely.

As they waited on the taxi, Oliver took a moment to think back on his dream of the previous night. Portions of it lingered in his memory, but they were little more than vague impressions, jumbled fragments that made no sense and which caused his head to ache if he thought about them for too long.

“Penny for your thoughts, Oliver,” said George.

“Sorry, George,” replied Oliver. “I was miles away.”

“Thinking of your dream again?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Because I was brooding on mine.”

“I shouldn’t worry about it,” said Oliver, forcing a lightness to his tone he didn’t feel. “A dream doesn’t have to mean anything. I remember a friend of mine from San Francisco once telling me that dreams were simply a means for the mind to process the events of the past without getting in the way of the daily cognitive processes we take for granted. Given the things we were talking about yesterday, I’m not surprised we all had strange dreams.”

“I suppose you’re right, Oliver,” said George. “But at my age, it’s hard not to read portents of doom into such dreams.”

George paused, as though unsure of whether to continue. At length, Oliver saw him come to a decision within himself. “I have a grand-nephew in Boston whose erudition and diligence are a source of great pride to me. He too is a scholar, one whose achievements will, I suspect and hope, surpass my own. Upon my death, I have entrusted him with the custody of my private papers—documents that deal with matters esoteric and blasphemous, such as the venture upon which we are currently embarked. I should esteem it a signal honor were you to assist him in the event of my demise.”

“Good Lord, don’t talk that way,” said Oliver, not liking the finality of George’s words. “It sounds like you’re saying goodbye.”

“Maybe I am at that,” said George. “This is no idle matter we engage in, and I am not a young man.”

“Still, I don’t like to hear you say such things.”

“But you must,” pressed George, gripping his arm by the elbow. “There must always be someone to watch for the return of the ancient gods. Men rule now where they ruled once, and it is only by the artifice of men that we will keep it so. Promise me you will do as I ask.”

Something in the substance of George’s words sounded dreadfully familiar to Oliver, as though the venerable professor was repeating some vital mantra someone else had attempted to impress upon him recently.

“Of course, George,” said Oliver. “Absolutely, without hesitation. You can count on me.”

George nodded, and the intensity of his gaze softened. “Thank you, Oliver. You are a good man, and I hope you will forgive the ramblings of an old man who ought to know better.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” said Oliver. “We’re all under a great deal of pressure, and to think that we could pursue such affairs without cost to our mental well-being is naïve indeed.”

“Just so, Oliver,” said George, and the matter was dropped.

Oliver let out a steaming breath as he saw a white-liveried taxicab wending its way uphill through the streets of South Hill. This was undoubtedly their car, for there could be few inhabitants of Kingsport who would bother traveling by taxi on a day when all God-fearing citizens should be at church.

Just as Oliver was about to call George’s attention to the approaching taxi, a lone figure came into view at the end of the street. Oliver saw a man dressed in thin garments of white, whose steps had the hesitancy of one who has completely lost his bearings. The clothes were lightweight, more suited to a much warmer climate, and the man’s lips were blue with cold. He was looking about himself, as though unable to match his current surroundings to where he had expected to find himself. In his trembling hands, he held a box that he consulted as though it was a curious kind of map.

“It looks like Rex wasn’t the only one to drink too much whiskey last night,” said George, noticing the young man for the first time.

“I don’t think he’s drunk,” said Oliver, seeing the man look up and stare directly at him. Recognition lit up his eyes, though Oliver had no recollection of ever seeing him before. George came alongside him as the man hurried his steps toward them, swaying from side to side with exhaustion.

“Can we help you?” asked Oliver as the man came closer.

The man opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, and he stumbled just as he reached them. Oliver caught the man before he hit the ground, and his slender form reminded him of Henry Cartwright. He eased the man into a seated position as George knelt beside him to retrieve the box the man had been carrying.

“Are you all right?” asked Oliver, though the question was patently ridiculous. “What happened to you?”

“Oliver…,” said George.

“Do you need a doctor?” asked Oliver, and the man shook his head.

“Oliver,” repeated George, and the authority in the word made Oliver look up.

George held the box out before him. It had the appearance of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, and its multi-faceted surfaces were fashioned from a strange dark wood. Each corner was edged in metal that looked like bronze, but had a rainbow iridescence to its surface like gasoline in water. On the face George held out for Oliver’s inspection was a circular panel of crystal that revealed a swirling luminance within, like captured clouds and sunlight. Through this glassy window to the box’s heart, Oliver saw the faint outline of what looked like a world whose coastlines were unknown to this world’s mariners, lands dreamed into existence by a cartographer with no earthly horizons left to map.

It was quite the most remarkable contraption he had ever seen, and had clearly been constructed by means and materials not of this world.

A thin hand grasped Oliver’s arm, and he returned his attention to the fallen man.

“Are you Oliver Grayson?” he said in a voice parched with dehydration.

“I am,” confirmed Oliver. “How do you know me?”

The man smiled, as though he had reached the end of a journey that had taken a lifetime to complete and which had drained him of his last scrap of energy. His eyes fluttered as exhaustion dragged him down into the pit of unconsciousness, but with the last of his strength he was able to answer Oliver’s question.

“My name’s Luke Robinson,” he said. “And Henry Cartwright needs your help.”

* * *

Rex opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling above him.

Plain white paint, cracked in places and peeling at the corners of the room.

His heart was pounding in his chest like there was a chain gang inside his ribcage trying to bust out. Rex let out a breath that felt like it had been building up in his lungs for weeks. 

No celestial orrery wheeled above him and no nightmarish vision of the sentience at the heart of the universe stared back at him. The flames were gone and the sheer ordinariness of his surroundings was blessedly welcome. The dream was fresh in his memory, every last detail etched on the surface of his mind. Rex didn’t normally suffer from nightmares, but this was Kingsport, and normal wasn’t on the cards anymore.

It’s this place. It gets inside your head.

Without moving his body, he turned his head to the left and then to the right.

The room was just as he’d left it the night before, his clothes lying in a crumpled heap on the chair and his room key in the door. A thin line of daylight cut across the floor, and the sound of voices came from downstairs. Rex felt completely drained, though he had probably been asleep for hours. Dreams like the one he’d just endured took it out of a man. The thought occurred that he might still be dreaming, and he waited in silence for something else to happen that might confirm that nagging suspicion.

Nothing happened. Rex let the silence and the stillness wash over him until he was sure he was properly awake. He sat up slowly and massaged his temples, then ran his hands over his body, looking for any lingering evidence of the burns he half-suspected he might find.

Hair still in place, face unmelted, limbs still attached and all apparently in working order.

The last thing he remembered was falling into Minnie’s arms, the two of them going up like a pair of Salem witches. He remembered the searing agony of it, but far worse was his anguish at the pain he was causing Minnie and the terror that he’d never see her again.

God, he missed her.

She’d always been the one to rein in his wilder side, the calm blue ocean to his whirlwind of frenetic motion. Rex swung his legs off the bed and put his head in his hands, letting the horror of his nightmare ooze out of him like rank sweat. He put on his glasses and rose from the bed, walking naked to the curtain and pulling it open with a flourish. He stared out over the ocean. He didn’t think anyone would be looking up this high, and if they did…well, if they got an eyeful of Rex’s pride and joy, then that was just their good luck.

He blinked, trying to guess what time it was.

From the look of the shadows, close to midday.

Oliver and the others would be long gone, and that left him the job of speaking to Big Stan Goodman, the current editor-in-chief of the Kingsport Chronicle. He and Stan went way back, their relationship based on mutual respect and an honest-to-God love of the job. Rex had sent a couple of juicy pieces Stan’s way back before he’d headed to Lithuania to cover the Klaipėda Revolt and that witchy old dame had spat her curses at him.

Back when his words had mattered a damn.

Rex squinted through smeared lenses into the brightness of the day, rubbing a hand over his stubbled chin and tasting the sour breath of a morning after the night before. He lifted an arm and smelled his armpit, then wished he hadn’t. He was a mess, little better than the bums he’d seen gathered at street corners with flyers for some new vagrants’ church.

How had things gotten so bad?

Rex didn’t know the answer to that one, but knew there was only one way for him now.

Minnie had shown him that.

She’d shown him the crossroads, and he remembered each of the paths before him being hellish wastelands of self-destruction. Only one person had the power to change where he was going, and that person was none other than Rexford T. Murphy.

He grabbed a bathrobe from the back of the door and made his way along the corridor to the washroom, where there was a shower and a fresh bar of Lifebuoy soap. Rex twisted the handle and enjoyed a long, hot shower, scrubbing the last remnants of his dream from his skin with the cleansing balm of scalding hot water.

Freshly cleaned, Rex made his way back to the room and did his best to beat the creases from his clothes. With his body clean, it seemed perverse to be wearing last night’s threads, but it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to follow Oliver to Kingsport, and he had no luggage or clean duds with him. He wondered if there were any shops open where he might buy a clean shirt at least, but figured the shopkeepers of Kingsport would all be at church on a Sunday.

Despite that, Rex wasn’t worried that the newspaper offices would be closed; Stan Goodman was a man who practically defined the word workaholic, and Rex would be sure to find him at his desk buried in a mound of copy for the morning edition.

Rex fished his wristwatch from his coat pocket.

It was closer to one than noon, so he still had time to get to the offices of the Chronicle if he drove like he didn’t give a damn about pedestrians.

“First thing’s first,” said Rex, reaching into his other pocket and withdrawing the manila folder that held his copy of the photograph Minnie had taken that night at the frat house. He could feel its heat through the thin card, but didn’t open the folder, pleased to find that he had absolutely no urge to.

Rex went back to the window and pulled it open. He took a seat on the sill, fishing out a book of matches he’d picked up somewhere along the way. With expertly nimble fingers, Rex broke a match off and lit its tip in one smooth motion.

He held the small flame to the corner of the folder, letting the flame build before blowing out the match. Yellow fire quickly consumed the folder, the emulsion chemicals imprinted on the photographic paper going up like a Roman candle. When Rex could no longer hold onto the photograph, he tossed it out the window and watched as it burned to cinders on the wind, falling like black confetti at a wake.

“I love you, too, Minnie,” said Rex.

Chapter Fifteen

Oliver and George stood by Luke Robinson’s bedside and waited for the doctor to finish his examination of the young man. The taxi ordered for their journey to Kingsport’s Historical Society had, instead, been pressed into service as a makeshift ambulance, transporting the three of them to the Congregational Hospital with all possible speed.

The delirious man had said little on the journey, save to mutter as they climbed the last portion of the road at the top of Central Hill.

“No…,” Luke had hissed from the back seat. “Not…the…church…”

Oliver didn’t quite know what to make of that, for the old church that had once occupied the grounds had been torn down long ago. He remembered seeing a date stone in the hospital doorway that read 1912, so while this man was clearly familiar with Kingsport, he must have been away for some time to not be aware of the church’s demolition.

At length the doctor stood straight and folded his stethoscope around his neck.

The doctor’s name was Caleb Spencer, and his manner was that of a kindly southern family practitioner from a bygone age. His hair was silver grey and neatly combed, his beard clipped close to his chin.

“How is he, Doctor?” asked George.

“He’ll live, though this fella’s just about as dry as a gator’s belly in a heatwave, and it don’t look like he’s eaten more’n half a bean or two in a week.”

“Can we talk to him?”

“Sure,” said the doctor. “If you don’t mind holding up both ends of the conversation.”

“He’s unconscious?”

“No, but I don’t reckon on you getting a whole lot of sense out of him. He’s talking crazy, fellas, and I’m of a mind to send him on up to the asylum at Arkham. They got doctors there that know what to do when a man loses his mind. Me, I just know what the body does, and aside from needing plenty of water and a good home-cooked meal, there ain’t a lick wrong with this young man. What he needs now, more than anything, is rest.”

This last comment was followed by a meaningful pause, and the meaning was clear. Oliver understood perfectly well what the doctor’s words implied, but given Luke’s assertion that Henry needed his help, he couldn’t just walk away without at least trying to find out where he had come from.

“Perhaps we might speak to him for a few minutes,” said Oliver.

“Tell me again how you know him,” asked Spencer.

“Well, that’s just it, we don’t know him at all,” said Oliver, turning to George for support. “He approached us outside our guest house and after he told us his name, he collapsed. We didn’t know what else to do but bring him here.”

“You did the right thing, though I find it mighty odd that a man you claim not to know should seek you out when he’s so plumb tuckered out.”

“That’s why I wish to talk to him,” said Oliver.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Spencer, gesturing away from Luke’s bed. “This is not a well man.”

Oliver didn’t move, and Spencer saw the determination in his eyes. Seeing that an imperious gesture wouldn’t be enough, the doctor changed tack.

“What you need to understand, Mr. Grayson, is that this is my hospital, and—”

“I know that within the walls of a hospital, the word of a doctor is as good as the word of God,” snapped Oliver, “but this man sought me out so that I might help save the life of a very dear friend of mine. And neither you nor God is going to stop me speaking with him. Do you understand? And if I have to get one of the policemen guarding those bones to pull his gun on you to get you to move, then so help me, I’ll do it.”

Spencer was taken aback by the force of his words, and—truth be told—Oliver was no less surprised, but he was damned if he was going to leave this ward without speaking to Luke. He met Spencer’s haughty stare and surpassed it with steely will and the implacable need to save a friend. In such a contest there could be only one winner, and Spencer threw up his hands in defeat.

“Very well, Mr. Grayson, but I’m going to tell you to keep it short. This man needs rest, and you’ll do your friend no good if you cause this man an injury in your misguided determination. So talk to him, but I’ll be right over there with my eye on you, young man.”

The doctor moved away, and Oliver let out a shuddering breath. He disliked confrontations, especially with professional figures like doctors where he felt his own authority to be the lesser. He glanced at George, who gave him a look of respect that more than made up for the brief loss of composure.

Oliver moved to the end of the bed, and took a moment to examine Luke Robinson. The sheets couldn’t disguise the slenderness of his limbs, and a suspended glass bottle of water fortified him with tonics and restorative drugs through a thin rubber hose connected to a needle in his arm.

Luke’s face had a pinched quality to it that reminded Oliver of those poor unfortunates who had been displaced by the Great War in Europe and who’d walked hundreds of miles in search of safety with all their worldly possessions piled on a rattling cart.

“Do I look that bad?” asked Luke suddenly, apparently reading Oliver’s facial expression.

“No, not at all,” said Oliver hurriedly, moving closer to Luke’s side.

Luke shook his head. “You’re not a very good liar. Don’t worry, that’s a good thing.”

George went around Luke’s bed and took a seat.

“Good day, Mr. Robinson,” he said. “My name is Professor George Angell, and I am an associate of Oliver’s. If I might ask about that box you carried…”

Luke sat up, suddenly animated by the realization that he no longer possessed his strange box. “Where is it? Tell me you have it! Please, I’m lost without it.”

“Don’t worry,” said Oliver, placing a soothing yet firm hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I have it here. It’s quite safe. A remarkable construction.”

He reached into the cabinet by Luke’s bed and lifted the wooden box with its crystal panels and alien metal corners from within.

“You have no idea,” said Luke, reaching for the box. Oliver let him take it, and the look of relief that crossed Luke’s face was like a mother being handed her firstborn son in the delivery room. “I meant what I said: I’d be lost without it.”

“So, Luke,” said George, leaning forward on his elbows. “Why don’t you tell us how you came to collapse on a Kingsport street with a message for Oliver?”

Luke nodded and placed the box out of sight beneath his bedsheets. He seemed only now to notice the needle in his arm, and took a moment to lift his arms up as though seeing them for the first time. He touched his face and ran his fingers over the bony extrusions of his cheekbones and thin neck.

“I’ve been away for so long,” he said, and the realization of how weakened he had become caused him to sink into himself a little. “I’d forgotten how much we invent of ourselves.”

“Where have you come from?” asked Oliver. “And how do you know that Henry needs our help? You spoke about him as though you know him?”

“I do know him,” said Luke with a weary sigh. “Or at least, I have come to know him these last weeks. He has been a guest in my home.”

“These last weeks?” said George. “How is that possible? From what I understand, Henry Cartwright languishes catatonic in Arkham Asylum.”

“Is that where he is?” said Luke with a nod of understanding. “That makes sense.”

“It does?” put in Oliver. “Now see here, Mr. Robinson, we brought you here and I think it’s high time you furnished us with an explanation of what you’re up to. Do you know Henry or not?”

Luke took a moment to gather his strength and regard his questioners. “I will tell you it as simply as I can, but I must warn you it will be difficult for you to understand. It will sound preposterous, I know, but I must ask you to believe me.”

“Go on,” said Oliver. “I can assure you that neither George nor I are strangers to tales that most would find preposterous.”

“Very well,” said Luke, taking a deep breath. “I left this world many decades ago to live by my art in a land of dreams, a world that exists invisibly beyond the wall of sleep. I dwell in the city of Baharna, on the Isle of Oriab, which lies in the Southern Sea. I know you won’t have heard of such places, but they are very real.” Luke held up his thin arms. “More real than the waking world is to me now.”

“And Henry is there with you?” asked Oliver.

“He is,” confirmed Luke. “I left him in my home and came here to find you. He has virtually no memory of himself, but he remembered you, Mr. Grayson. He told me you were a friend that would help him, so I returned to the waking world to ask for your aid.”

“That’s quite a tale, Mr. Robinson,” said George. “It’s a lot to ask us to believe.”

“I know, but it’s all I have.”

Oliver saw the skepticism in George’s eyes, but he was less inclined to dismiss Luke’s story out of hand. Not long ago he had breached the walls between worlds and traveled to a nightmarish realm beyond earth’s horizons thanks to the bizarre silver sphere Finn Edwards had come across in Billington Woods. If one such world could exist beyond the fields that he knew, why not others?

“How do you get to this place?” asked Oliver.

“You’ve already been there,” said Luke. “When you sleep and travel to exotic lands, meet past loves, childhood friends, or fly like a bird on the wing, you’re traveling in the Dreamlands. You see wonders and things thought lost, but each morning you wake and the memory fades. Some people can will themselves into the Dreamlands if they are taught the correct rituals, while some reach its shores with opiates. Others can leave this world behind and travel there physically.”

“People like you?”

“People like me,” agreed Luke. “And then there are people who are trapped there, like Henry. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but someone in this world has cut your friend’s mind from his body and stranded it in the Dreamlands.”

“Is he in danger?” asked Oliver.

“Very great danger. He is beginning to fade. His physical body is slowly slipping away, and if it dies, Henry will be no more. I said nothing to him before I left, but he is already growing weaker.”

“So how can we reunite his mind and body?” asked Oliver.

George interjected, “Oliver, are you really giving credence to this fellow’s words? I know we have encountered much that is strange and fantastical, but this sounds like pulp fiction of the worst kind.”

Oliver shook his head and said, “I know how it all sounds, but I swore I would do whatever it took to save Henry. If Luke knows how to help him, then I am duty-bound to hear him out.”

“Henry said you were a good man,” said Luke. “I was right to come here.”

“That’s another thing,” put in George. “How did you find us?”

Luke placed his hand on the box hidden beneath the bedsheets, and Oliver couldn’t decide if it was protectiveness or a reluctance to reveal too much of it that caused him to cover it up.

“This was given to me by my uncle just before he died, and it is the most valuable object I have ever owned. This brought me to you.”

“What is it?”

“My uncle called it Ariadne’s Gift,” said Luke, and Oliver saw he was speaking of the box’s origins only with great reluctance, as though he perpetually lived with the fear that it might one day be taken from him. “A traveler can look into its interior while visualizing where he wishes to go, and the box will find a way to bring him there.”

“How does it work?”

“I have no idea,” said Luke. “And I don’t think I want to know. My uncle always said that to unweave the rainbow of its mystery would be to render it powerless. With Henry’s help, I sketched a likeness of you, Oliver, and using that as my lodestone, I asked the box to guide me to you. I arrived in Kingsport this morning, the very place I left this world, but I could barely walk. It’s no small matter to bring a living soul back to the waking world, for once a man’s flesh lives a life of dreams, it will not willingly return to a world of pain and woe.”

“Can we use it to bring Henry back?”

“No,” said Luke sadly. “It only works on creatures of flesh and blood; Henry exists there as a memory of himself, a ghost that fades a little with every passing day. If he is not brought out soon, there will be nothing left of him.”

“Then how can we help him?” asked Oliver.

“You are going to have to return with me to the Dreamlands and bring him back,” said Luke.

“By using…Ariadne’s Gift?” asked George, his skepticism pushed aside by the potential of traveling to a realm where dreams were made real, where that which was only ever imagined could be touched and experienced.

“The box can only bring you back,” said Luke, shaking his head. “It can’t take you there.”

“So how do we get back to Henry?” asked Oliver, failing to hide his disappointment.

“I can’t get us there,” said Luke. “But there is one man in Kingsport who can.”

“Who?”

“The one who dwells high in the mist,” said Luke.

* * *

The offices of the Chronicle were half the size of the Advertiser’s, but it was a much smaller paper and largely confined its reporting to local events in the Miskatonic Valley. A twice weekly paper, only the entry of the US into the war had prompted Stan to put out an extra edition. Rex climbed from his car and took a moment to lift a cigarette to his lips, a reassuringly American Chesterfield, and lit it from the book he’d used to torch that damned photograph.

Though the sky was still an oppressive leaden grey, Rex’s spirits felt lighter than they had in as long as he could remember. He should have burned that photograph a long time ago, and now that it was gone, there was a lightness to his step as he crossed the street. A couple of cars honked their horns, but Rex didn’t even look up as he hit the sidewalk and pushed through the glass-fronted doors that led into the Chronicle’s office.

A number of desks were placed with no apparent consideration given to efficiency, and the cork board walls were tacked with photographs and piled high with overflowing cardboard boxes. A haze of cigarette smoke smudged the air, and a couple of old-timers with rolled up sleeves and ink-stained hands worked at a long row of typesetting plates. The smell of printers’ ink, fixative, and hot paper brought a fond sense of nostalgia racing to the forefront of Rex’s brain, reminding him of when he’d first worked as a runner and copy boy.

At the far end of the office, one pencil tucked behind his ear, another in his hand, the burly form of Stanley Goodman worked furiously on a sheaf of papers. His pencil darted out like the battering keys of a typewriter, correcting typos, amending grammar, and applying his masterly eye to make the copy before him readable.

“Big Stan Goodman, I remember the sinking feeling I got when I saw what you’d made of the first article I sent you,” said Rex, loud enough to be heard by the entire office. “More corrections on the paper than there were words.”

The old-timers barely registered his presence, but Stan looked up with a look of genuine pleasure.

“That’s because you’re a damn lazy reporter, Rex Murphy,” said Stan in his distinctive Boston growl. “Always burying the lead and never remembering the first rule of local news.”

“People, people, people,” said Rex. “See, you did teach me something after all.”

Stan got up from his desk and crossed the office in four giant strides. Stanley Goodman was a bear of a man, almost rectangular in shape. He still had the perfect physique for a linebacker, the role he’d played for the Crimson at Harvard, and as he swept Rex up into a crushing bear hug, Rex felt sorry for all the Bulldog quarterbacks he’d sacked.

“Rex Murphy, damn, how long has it been?”

“Christ, Stan!” wheezed Rex. “You’re breaking my ribs!”

Stan released Rex and sat on the edge of a nearby desk, his ham hock arms folded across his chest. He looked Rex up and down with a critical eye, already forming the words in his head he’d use to describe him were he ever to write this up. Rex knew that look well—snapshots with the eyes Stan called it, that ability to pick out those few features and important details that would allow the reading public a get a quick impression of the subject.

“So how’ve you been, Stan?” said Rex, flexing his bruised torso.

“All kinds of good, Rex,” said Stan. “Got some decent stringers chasing down the local stuff, though the owner keeps pestering me to print stories from around the country. Like folk in Kingsport care what’s happening out in the boondocks. And these old boys are still the fastest typesetters outside of New York or Washington, so I guess I can’t complain. You?”

“Yeah,” said Rex with a noncommittal shrug. “Pretty good, I guess.”

“Still working hard for that slave driver, Harvey Gedney?”

“More hardly working than working hard,” admitted Rex.

“So how come he hasn’t fired your sorry ass?” said Stan, heading back to his own desk and dragging a chair over for Rex and indicating that he should sit.

“What can I say? I’m a charmer,” said Rex, taking a seat and putting his feet up on the corner of Stan’s desk.

Stan produced a bottle of genuine-looking rye and two glass tumblers, cocking a raised eyebrow at Rex.

“Not for me,” said Rex with an upraised hand.

“Rex Murphy not taking a drink?” said Stan. “You signed the pledge?”

“No, though one of the Advertiser’s photographers did try and get me to go to a temperance meeting a few days back.”

Stan laughed. “He a new kid?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty young,” agreed Rex with a grin. “Doesn’t know me very well yet.”

“Go on, take a drink,” pressed Stan.

“No, really, I’m fine.”

“Go on, just one. Don’t make me drink on my own.”

Rex knew it was pointless to resist. When Big Stan decided you were having a drink, there wasn’t a lot you could do except take it. He nodded and Stan poured two glasses, passing one to Rex and taking the other himself.

“Veritas,” said Stan, knocking back the drink.

“Cheers,” answered Rex, taking a hit of the bona fide rye.

“Right, so what really brings Rex Murphy to my office?” said Stan, putting the bottle back in his desk drawer. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you, but you were never the kind for social calls without some angle in mind.”

“I’d be hurt if you weren’t right,” said Rex, taking his feet down and leaning over Stan’s desk. “I’m doing some research for some professor types at Miskatonic, background stuff, providing context, that sort of thing. I need to go through your morgue, check back over the old editions for any stories that might be relevant.”

“What kinds of stories?”

“Ships lost at sea, wrecks, that sort of thing.”

Stan’s eyes narrowed and he steepled his fingers on the desk. “You wouldn’t be chasing down a lead and keeping me in the dark about some big story, would you Rex?”

“No way, Stan,” said Rex. “Purely background I’m after.”

Stan looked unconvinced and said, “Hey, listen, I’m all for cooperation and helping out an old friend, but you want to raid my archives, then I want a piece of any story that comes out of it, you get me?”

“Goes without saying,” said Rex. “So you gonna help me out or what?”

“Yeah,” said Stan. “I’ll even get Buckman to help you. No one knows the archives like he does. Hell, he’s so old, I think he wrote half the pieces down there.”

Stan waved over one of the old-timers laboring at the setting trays, and now that Rex got a good look at him, he understood just what Stan meant. This guy made George look like a fresh-faced grad student.

“Buckman, I want you to help Rex out in the basement,” said Stan. “Help him find whatever he needs, but keep an eye on him. He’s a shifty character and needs watching.”

Rex pretended to look hurt, and shrugged as if to say he had no idea what the big man was talking about.

“Supposed to be a day of rest,” grumbled Buckman. “Don’t you know it’s the Lord’s day?”

“Yeah? Well the Lord don’t have to get a newspaper ready to print by the end of the day, does he?”

Rex got up and shook Stan’s hand.

“Thanks for this, Stan,” he said. “I owe you.”

“Yeah,” said Stan, all levity gone. “You sure do.”

* * *

Though he had allowed them to talk to Luke, Dr. Spencer flat out refused to allow his patient to leave the hospital, and no amount of cajoling, threats, or pleading would change his mind. In the end, Oliver and George were forced to admit defeat, and promised Luke that they would return tomorrow. In the meantime, Luke should rest and regain his strength. If they were to entreat the one who lived high on Kingsport Head for aid, they would all need to be rested before making so arduous a climb.

Their taxi cab had long gone, but it was only a short distance downhill to the Historical Society, and so Oliver and George decided to walk. Oliver felt energized at the prospect of coming to Henry’s aid, pleased beyond words that he would be able to make good on the promise he had made to Hillshore. The prospect of traveling to another world was an intriguing possibility, and one that did not fill him with any thoughts of trepidation.

The glimpse of the strange world through the crystal window on the side of the strange box Luke carried had been beguiling and enticing. He felt an ache to see its vistas, to travel its unimagined highways and see its incredible cities. He had no conscious knowledge of such places, yet instinctively knew he had seen them in the dreams of his youth. Had his beloved Verne brought back memories of this land of dreams and wrought them as best he could in fiction? Had Gloria Goldberg inadvertently tapped into this imagined realm in her writings? Did every author whose words were glossed with the sheen of the fantastical know on some level that their tales were woven from the dreams of wonderland?

He knew George was less convinced of the sense in following this new direction, but Oliver was convinced that every thread in their investigation was linked. Far from being a diversion, Oliver was sure that freeing Henry Cartwright from his mind’s imprisonment would be a boon to their cause.

They walked downhill past the graveyard, following Hill Circle down onto High Street, listening to the sound of church bells. The streets were quiet, with only the occasional motorcar or horse-drawn cart forcing them to press close to the buildings to allow it to pass. Pedestrians were nowhere to be seen, and as they descended further into the town a light mist settled in the streets. Oliver had the potent sense that they were venturing into an area of town that had been abandoned.

That was patently ridiculous, as the looming buildings to either side of the street were clearly inhabited, yet he could not shake the sense the obscuring mist had not arisen of its own accord. Muffled voices drifted from behind shuttered windows and here and there Oliver would see a lace curtain twitch as a face was hurriedly withdrawn.

“Is is just me, or do you feel distinctly unwelcome at the moment,” said George.

“It’s not just you, George,” replied Oliver. “I feel like we’re walking into the lion’s den.”

“I wonder why that should be.”

Oliver had no answer, but remembered the cloying, claustrophobic sensation he’d felt walking back from the Historical Society the previous evening. Seen at a distance, Kingsport was picturesque, but deep in the warren of its streets, there was an unwelcoming air to the town that Oliver found faintly disturbing.

“It feels like people are staying indoors because they know something we don’t.”

“I think you have hit the proverbial nail on the head, Oliver.”

“Should we turn back?”

George attempted a smile, but if it had been intended to reassure Oliver, it failed miserably.

“Are we frightened children, scared of a little bit of fog?” said George. “No, we press on.”

There wasn’t far to go, though the journey took a little longer than either man had expected thanks to mist forcing them into a series of wrong turns that saw them turned around on themselves and heading down to the wharfs of Harborside. Eventually they chanced upon a familiar corner and made their way along a road they recognized toward the green-painted door with the brass plaque that confirmed they had reached their destination.

“Here at last,” said Oliver with a forced lightness of tone.

“Absolutely,” said George, looking over his shoulder as though expecting to see a gang of ruffians or worse gathering behind them.

“Best knock then,” said Oliver, though he did not reach for the brass knocker.

Realizing he was being childish, Oliver rapped the knocker on the door several times, wincing as the echoes filled the street like gunshots. He heard the sound echo within the building, and the clear indication was that the spaces within were unoccupied.

“Looks like no one’s home,” said Oliver.

George leaned down to look at the plaque, wiping away droplets of moisture that had settled on the embossed lettering.

“Ah, that explains it,” he said, his relief evident. “The place is closed on the weekend. It says so quite clearly here. I suppose we should have thought of that.”

Before Oliver could reply, he heard a scrape of a footfall on the sidewalk behind them. He turned to see a wizened old man standing before the lighted window of a sturdy, whitewashed home. Despite his obvious advanced age, the old man stood nearly six feet tall, though he leaned heavily on a knotted wooden cane. A long navy coat was wrapped tightly about his body, and an unruly mop of tangled white hair spilled from beneath a woolen seaman’s hat. His beard was similarly unkempt, and Oliver thought he detected an unhealthy jaundiced tint to the man’s eyes.

“Won’t find what your lookin’ for in there,” said the man. “Ain’t nothin’ in there but history of people. What folks have done ’round these parts they’re proud of; that’s what’s in there.”

“Hello,” said Oliver. “But how do you know what we’re looking for?”

“I got eyes don’t I?”

George started across the street with his hand extended, but the old man shook his head, and the professor—who had a good decade on the old man—stopped in his tracks.

“I believe you’re just fine where you stand,” said the man, and Oliver was forced to agree.

Something terrible emanated from this old man, a ghastly sensation of time out of joint, of things that still lived that should have died a long time ago. Though there was no outward sensation to pinpoint, Oliver felt as though there was an opened grave nearby, a yawning black abyss that wriggled with hungry worms awaiting their banquet.

Oliver took a deep breath and said, “So where would we find what we’re looking for if not here? Could you help us to learn more of Kingsport’s past?”

Though the street was deserted and the surrounding mist curiously muted the sounds of the town, imparting the sensation of great isolation, Oliver clearly heard the sound of clinking glass, like a pebble or coin gently tapping on the side of a bottle.

The old man nodded, as though answering some unheard question.

“Ain’t no good ever comes of diggin’ up the past,” he said, as much to himself as to answer Oliver’s question. “Past’s where it ought to be, and all it brings is trouble. Take my word, there’s things would like as not be best forgotten. But I see you ain’t the types to take another man’s word on it. You gotta get burned afore ye know the fire’s no good for ya, eh?”

The old man laughed, though there was no humor to the sound, only a bleak sense of vast emptiness and the unending passage of lonely years.

“Aye, you won’t find nowt of use in there, ’cept these,” said the old man, turning to place something on the low sill of the window behind him. “Keep ’em close, and them’s that slithered and flopped out of ol’ mother Hydra’s belly won’t touch ya.”

Oliver peered through the mist that separated them from the old man, trying to discern more of this mysterious figure. Yet no matter how he squinted and turned his head, the capricious fog conspired to always conceal the details of the old man’s appearance. All Oliver could say for certain was that that this old man possessed a terrible aspect, and his eyes had seen more than any man ought to know in one lifetime.

“Thank you,” said Oliver, as the old man turned to leave.

Before he left, the old man dug in his pocket and pulled out something that glittered in the muted, mist-diffused light of the street.

“And if you’re gonna go see him as lives up in the mist, you’d best not go empty-handed,” said the old man. “It ain’t good to waste his time.”

The old man flicked his thumb, and a coin spun through the air. Oliver caught it and turned it over in his palm. Heavy and round, Oliver gasped as he saw it was solid gold, with a regal head stamped on one side and a galleon on the other. Some words were written around the edge in what looked like Spanish, and a date had been beaten into the rim beneath the sailing ship: 1688.

“That’s the best I can give ya,” said the old man.

“Wait!” said Oliver, as the mist gathered about the old man. “Who are you?”

“My name don’t matter,” said the old man as he reached the corner. “Never did count for nothin’ back in the day, and don’t suppose much’s changed. Better if you don’t know me.”

“Better for whom?” asked George. “You or us?”

“Better for me,” said the old man.

Chapter Sixteen

As arranged, Oliver, George, Rex, and Alexander reconvened at the Lighthouse Inn at five ‘o clock. Alexander had returned first, with Oliver and George arriving to find him seated in the parlor with a coffee and a leather-bound book of considerable antiquity. No sooner had they joined him at their customary table than Rex sauntered into the guest house, clutching a number of bags.

Oliver was shocked at Rex’s appearance, though in a way that was wholly pleasant.

“Good Lord, Mr. Murphy,” said George, echoing Oliver’s unspoken thought. “You look like a new man. Transformed.”

Rex took a seat and lit a cigarette as Oliver poured him a coffee. The reporter was dressed in a smart new suit that fitted him so perfectly it might have been tailored for his exact measurements by Henry Sands Brooks himself. A clean shirt and a shave had also done wonders for his appearance.

“You’ve scrubbed up rather well,” said Alexander, indicating the bags Rex had brought in. “And clearly found time to get in some shopping.”

“Well, by the time I got done at the Chronicle, the place across the road was just about to close for the day, but I was able to sweet talk the old gal that owned it to help me pick out a suit for a big interview I told her I had on Monday morning. I’ll tell you, boys, there ain’t a woman alive can resist the Rexter when he turns on the charm.”

“Except Miss Goldberg,” said Oliver.

“Yeah, that dame might be a tough nut to crack, even for me,” laughed Rex. “But I feel pretty shiny. A good sleep and a good day’s work makes a man feel tip-top about himself.”

“They do say that hard work is its own reward,” said Alexander. “I take it from your ebullient demeanor that you had a successful day?”

“And then some,” nodded Rex. “Normally I got the worst luck when it comes to research. Takes me a week to find something that a rookie’d find inside of five minutes with dumb luck, but I hit pay dirt today. Like I said, the head honcho at the Chronicle and I go way back, and he let me into his archives without batting an eyelid. Then, even though he’s up against it with deadlines, he gets one of his best typesetters to help me out.”

“Looks like your luck’s changed,” said Oliver. “You didn’t meet any black cats en route to the newspaper offices did you?”

Rex tipped his coffee at Oliver and said, “I think a whole pack of cats must’ve crossed my path, Professor.”

“Really?” said Oliver.

“Yeah, because I think I found what we’re looking for.”

George and Alexander leaned in as Rex pulled out a notebook crammed with photostats and carbons taken from the Chronicle’s basement morgue. He spread them out on the table and outlined what he had learned.

“There’s all sorts of stories about weird things happening at sea,” began Rex. “Just like you’d expect with a coastal town, right? Sightings of ghost ships, drowned mariners supposedly returning to their loved ones, that sort of thing. But when you look at the pattern of where ships were being lost at sea, it gets more interesting.

“Now the Chronicle’s records only go back as far as 1829, but the archives were full of tales of vessels that didn’t make it home. Since the paper’s first edition, twenty-two vessels have been lost at sea. Of those, nine don’t look like there’s suspicious circumstances surrounding them, but the others are a different matter. In each case, an account of the sinking, either from a survivor or an eyewitness on land, talks about a glowing light below the ocean or a swirling vortex that dragged the ship down.

“Of course, those stories were more or less ignored or dismissed by contemporary authorities, and it’s only when you look over the course of a century as a whole that you start to see a pattern.”

Rex pulled out a long tube of rolled paper, which he proceeded to unroll over the table.

Oliver saw it was a map of Kingsport harbor, with sandbanks and reefs marked in precise detail. Maps had always fascinated Oliver, and this one was no exception. Penciled lines crisscrossed the map, and numerous scrawls in Rex’s illegible handwriting connected them.

“I took each account that didn’t seem natural and marked the location of the sinking as best I could from the written accounts,” said Rex. “Now, I’m no navigator, and I get lost on the way to work, but I reckon that whatever we’re looking for is right here.”

Rex jabbed his finger at a point on the map just off Pilot Island, a mile or so out from the easternmost tip of Kingsport Head.

“Every ship that sank was headed out that way,” said Rex. “Seems there’s some dangerous reefs out there, but if you know your way around them, you can catch some fast current that’ll zip you out to the best fishing grounds lickety-split. It’s not exact, I know, but if we were to look in that general direction, I reckon we’d find something mighty strange at the bottom.”

“Mr. Murphy, you may very well have given us the upper hand,” said George, his earlier animosity and mistrust of Rex apparently forgotten. Rex rolled the map back up and slid it back into one of his bags, smiling from ear to ear at the day he’d had.

“Good work, Rex,” said Alexander, turning his attention to Oliver and George. “And did the Historical Society yield up similar bounty?”

“Not exactly, though we did have an unusual day,” replied Oliver, and he went on to describe their encounter with Luke Robinson and his curious claims of coming from a faraway land beyond the confines of earthly terra firma. Though Alexander and Rex were openly wary of such claims, they had both seen and heard enough that was beyond most men’s understanding that they took Oliver’s belief in Luke’s honesty in good faith. Oliver then spoke of his intention to climb Kingsport Head and visit whoever it was that dwelled in the high house there, and no objections based on the difficulty of the climb could sway him from his course.

Between them, Oliver and George then retold their encounter with the loathsome old man outside the Historical Society. Though neither Rex nor Alexander had been present, they felt a strange revulsion at the description of the cryptic old man, as though even by hearing of him they experienced a measure of his terrible presence.

“How could he know anything of our business?” asked Alexander. “This man could be one of our enemies for all we know.”

“He could be,” allowed Oliver, “but I don’t think so.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Rex, draining his coffee and pouring another.

“I’m not sure, but I got the impression that if he’d wanted to do us harm, he could have done so easily. In fact, he furnished us with some objects that may prove useful to us,” said Oliver, fishing in his coat pocket and depositing a gold coin in the center of the table.

George lifted it onto its side to reveal the crowned head on its face. “Though my grasp of Spanish is rudimentary at best, I believe the date on this doubloon indicates this to be King Charles II of Spain, a king so beset by physical, mental, and emotional disabilities that he was known as El Hechizado, which means ‘The Hexed,’ as he believed his infirmities were caused by sorcery.”

“So what’s an old geezer doing lurking in the mist with coins from a pirate’s treasure chest?” wondered Rex. “And why’s he giving them away? This has got to be worth a fortune.”

“I don’t know,” answered Oliver. “He said that if I was going to see the man atop Kingsport Head, that I shouldn’t go empty-handed. I think this is supposed to be…tribute maybe.”

“So you’re really going to climb that giant rock?” said Rex.

“I am,” said Oliver. “Henry needs my help, and I don’t have a choice, so stop trying to talk me out of it.”

Rex held up his hands. “I’m not going to. I’m going to come with you.”

“You are? Why?”

Rex shrugged. “Call it a newshound’s hunch, but I think you might need someone who knows how to spin a good yarn when you get there.”

Oliver accepted Rex’s offer with a grateful nod and slipped the coin back into the breast pocket of his shirt. He reached into his coat once again and withdrew a number of smooth stones, each small enough to fit comfortably within a man’s palm. He placed them on the table before him—four greenish blue stones, veined with hairline streaks of gold and black. On the upper flat surface of each stone was inscribed a curved star with what appeared to be an eye with a single flame emerging from its pupil.

“Aren’t those the soapstone charms we saw in the museum last night?” asked Alexander.

“I believe they are,” agreed Oliver.

“So this old man you met is a cat burglar as well as a pirate,” said Rex.

One by one, Oliver took a stone and placed it in front of his companions. “I’m told that this is a symbol to ward off evil. George here calls it an ‘elder sign,’ and the old man said they would keep us safe.”

“Safe how?” asked Rex, turning the stone over in his hand.

“He didn’t say,” replied George. “But I am inclined to take his word for it. I have seen this sign repeated in places that once knew the tread of ancient beings, but which are now anathema to them. It would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to possess such a talisman.”

“Better safe than sorry,” agreed Rex, pocketing his stone.

“So will you visit the Historical Society again tomorrow?” asked Alexander.

George said, “I certainly will, yes. Notwithstanding these protective stones, I believe we might learn a great deal from its collection. Alexander, if Oliver and Rex insist on trying to kill themselves by climbing that sheer cliff tomorrow, perhaps you might aid me by bringing your expertise in the library to bear on hunting out anything of relevance to our quest?”

“Of course, George,” said Alexander. “It’s been too long since I engaged in pure research.”

“And what of your efforts today, Alexander?” asked Oliver. “Did the wealthy Kingsporters recall any gossip regarding Tobias Philemon?”

“As a matter of fact, they did,” said Alexander. “So it seems we’ve all met with success.”

“What did you find out?” asked Rex.

“It took a bit of finagling, as it’s been quite some time since I’ve shown my face at the yacht club, but I was eventually able to enjoy afternoon tea with two of Kingsport’s finest gossips, Hetty and Tilly Throckmorton—twin sisters of nearly ninety years whose sense of mischief has only increased with age. They were taking tea with Claudia Cabot, a shrewish young woman with airs and graces beyond her means who makes it her business to know everyone’s secrets.”

“She sounds like just the kind of person you were hoping to meet,” said Oliver.

“Mrs. Cabot is a widow, having buried several husbands already,” said Alexander. “And though Mr. Cabot is barely cold in the ground, Claudia is already on the lookout for a future husband to outlive.”

“Let me guess,” said Rex with a grin. “You fit the bill nicely.”

Alexander had the decency to look a little abashed, giving Oliver and the others a rare chance to laugh at his discomfort. “So it seems, though that only helped inveigle me into their company and twist the conversation to my purposes.”

“Did you learn anything beyond society gossip?” asked George.

Alexander smiled and said, “Indeed I did, Professor. It seems that Miss Hetty and Miss Tilly both remember their grandfather, a stout Kingsporter by the name of Bennett Throckmorton, taking great delight in regaling them with tales of ‘Mad Old Tobias.’ It seems that Tobias Philemon was universally disliked around Kingsport, but when he returned from his last voyage, he was a changed man.”

“Changed?” said Oliver. “How so?”

“Prior to his last voyage, Tobias was given to strutting about the town in gaudy silks and velvets, riding upon a palanquin like a French aristocrat before the Revolution. We New Englanders don’t like pomp and circumstance at the best of times, but back then it was even worse. Apparently, after his last voyage, that all stopped, and Tobias kept himself to himself in his house. The one time Hetty and Tilly’s grandfather saw Tobias, he was described as looking like he’d escaped from Bedlam itself.

“Tobias was deranged, raving of nightmares the ‘crystal eye’ was sending him. He couldn’t bear to look at the night sky and evinced a dreadful terror whenever his manservants left an open curtain through which the stars might shine. And this is the interesting part: Tobias claimed the stars were moving of their own accord, racing across the heavens, as though a hundred nights passed overhead in the space of a single earthly night.”

“That sounds damnably familiar,” said George. “This ‘crystal eye’ could be just what we’re looking for.”

“It gets better,” said Alexander. “Not long after that encounter with Bennett, Tobias set sail on his last voyage, taking only a single locked iron strongbox with him. Kingsport was under blockade at the time by the British, and Tobias had obviously been lax in paying off the captains commanding the warships beyond Jersey Reef, as his vessel was sunk just after it cleared the harbor.”

“The details are fascinating, Alexander, but so far your efforts haven’t yielded anything more than we already suspected.”

“I haven’t finished yet,” said Alexander. “The name of the ship was the Persephone, a clipper that went down just about exactly where Rex’s mysterious light has been repeatedly reported. Gentlemen, I think I can say with some surety that we have found the crystal of the exile.”

No one said anything. The thought that they were so close to their goal had robbed them of speech. Yet, even as Oliver realized they might at last have the advantage on their faceless enemies, another thought occurred, hard on the heels of his elation.

“We have to consider that the servants of the star god may know this.”

“Indeed we must,” agreed Alexander. “And that is why we must act sooner rather than later. We need to take a boat out to where the crystal is located and find a means to raise it. Then we need to discover how to destroy it.”

“I thought you said you had a boat berthed at the yacht club,” said Oliver. 

“I do,” said Alexander, “but my boat is a thin-hulled pleasure yacht, and the channels we would be sailing through are treacherous with rocks just below the surface. If we were to strike even one of those rocks, it would sink in minutes. No, if we’re to take a boat out there, it’s going to have to be a sturdier vessel than mine.”

“Just as well we’re in a fishing town, then,” said Rex. “But are we really saying we want to take a boat out to where all those other boats have been sunk? That sounds kinda dangerous.”

“It may be dangerous, yes,” said George. “But those who seek to raise the sunken city will not shirk from placing themselves in harm’s way to find the crystal. We must be no less bold.”

Rex shrugged. “Then I hope you’re all good swimmers, but okay, I’m game.”

With a course of action decided, the four men ordered a light supper from Albert Dukes and passed a pleasurable hour teasing Alexander about his imminent conquest by the black widow, Mrs. Claudia Cabot. And for a little while the worries and fears of the world were lightened, the human heart finding relief in the smallest of things and laughing in the face of the apocalypse. It was the same fighting spirit that had seen humankind endure terrible wars, cataclysmic plagues, and the threat of extinction over countless millennia. Each man knew on some primal level that they were coming to the end of their time in Kingsport, for good or ill, but they ate and drank with a lightness of heart that none had expected to feel again.

With appetites sated, each man retired to his room to change for their excursion to the Rope and Anchor, donning attire more suited to a dockside drinking den than Kingsport’s yacht club or museum. Half an hour after finishing their supper, Oliver, Rex, George, and Alexander gathered in the vestibule of the guest house.

“Gentlemen,” said Rex. “Let’s get ourselves a drink.”

* * *

Hunger drove Charles from the basement. As always, the pantry was fully provisioned, a plentiful supply of meat, bread, cheese, and assorted fish and game. The refrigerator was filled with bottles of milk and a jug sat next to the sink, filled with crisp, cold water. Charles had kept to his dungeon in the basement, squatting and sleeping in pools of his own expulsions, caring nothing for the wretchedness of his condition, only that the light from the great cliff overhead could not reach him there when the sun chased the leering moon from the heavens.

He smelled the reek of his body and the stiffness of his clothes. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten or washed. Such concerns seemed irrelevant now. He had evolved beyond such petty concerns as the mores by which the rest of the world lived. Charles knew the truth of what was coming for the world. He knew the floods would wash away all things, and cleanse the polluted surface of the planet of mankind’s verminous existence.

His master’s words, but learned by rote, repeated like a mantra in the darkest hours of the night until they were all that filled Charles’s mind. In the face of such a tidal wave of apocalypse, what did it matter that he no longer adhered to so-called “civilized” behavior?

But hunger and thirst couldn’t be denied.

Charles had held out as long as he could, but his frail human flesh was weak, and eventually he had been forced to climb from the fetid depths of the basement. Upstairs was clean and sterile, as though an army of cleaners had disinfected every surface with bottles of bleach and boxes of soap. Hunched over like Notre Dame’s tragic bell-ringer, Charles left a filthy residue behind him, a grotesque human snail depositing a glistening trail of his own bodily waste and decaying skin.

The refrigerator yielded its bounty, and Charles’s mouth filled with saliva as he lifted out a cooked turkey from the metal shelf within. He didn’t bother with cutlery, and simply tore handfuls of white meat from the bird’s carcass and stuffed them in his mouth like a savage on the prehistoric plains with a freshly slain mammoth at his feet. He devoured the turkey and washed the dry meat down with half the jug of water. A string of beef sausages were devoured next, raw and cold. A pork chop and a muslin-wrapped wedge of cheese followed that, and only as Charles scooped handfuls of ground beef into his soiled jaws did he become aware of the insistent pressure behind his eyes.

More of an ache than a pain, it nevertheless irritated Charles, and he blinked angrily as the pressure grew stronger and stronger. With grease-stained hands, Charles rubbed his eyes, smearing gobbets of meat onto his cheeks.

Charles paused in his riotous feast and looked around the gloomy kitchen, hearing a voice calling his name just below the threshold of hearing. It sounded like someone calling out to him from the farthest room in the house, as though daring him to come and find them.

“I’ll find you,” he snarled, wiping his hands down the front of his shirt and leaving bloody, raw meat smears down his chest. “I’ll find you and kill you.”

Charles loped through the house, head cocked to one side to better hear the softly insistent voice that drew him on as though he was being wound on a bobbin. His hands clenched and unclenched, already imagining the taste of fresh meat. His belly groaned with the quantity of food he had already consumed, but such dead, bland fare was nothing compared to the sensation of warm meat torn from the bones of a living being.

Whoever had dared to break into this home was foolish indeed.

The owner of this house was a powerful man, able to bend the laws of the natural world to his desire, and he had left a powerful guardian within to ensure its security.

The voice echoed from upstairs, and Charles followed it like a bloodhound with the scent of its quarry burning in its nostrils. Though he had not moved from the basement to eat or drink in many days, Charles felt his strength returning with every stride. On the upstairs landing, Charles passed a number of paintings hung on the walls. One in particular caught his eye, that of a pale-skinned woman beside a dogwood tree with an American Foxhound at her side. She held the hand of a young boy dressed in his Sunday best, and Charles paused to give a respectful nod to the woman, though he had no idea who she was. 

Charles had only ever come upstairs to shut the windows, and he could remember little of the layout. A few bedrooms, a study, and a child’s room where the furniture was covered in white drapes. The voice came from the far end of the upper level, and Charles made his way along the corridor to a wooden door that lay ajar and through which he could hear the scratching voice, like a singer on a gramophone disc that kept skipping the needle.

Though he had strength and endurance beyond that of most men, Charles suddenly felt wary, as though the source of this voice might be something he might not wish to face. After all, anyone who could breach the perimeter of a house that could bend space must surely be a foe worthy of respect.

Charles bared his teeth and pushed open the door. The scratching voice grew louder, beckoning him onward with continually enticing tones. He found himself powerless to resist, and entered the room, a ghostly chamber hung with white sheets that were dusty with abandonment. Though the rest of the house had the air of having once been lived in, this room had always reeked of despair and emptiness.

A rocking horse lay half-exposed beneath a sheet and from the scale of the concealed furniture, it was clear that this had once been the bedroom of a young child. The drapes were shut, and only a thin, diffused light illuminated the room, giving a soft edge to everything within. Charles took a breath of stagnant, unloved air, and stepped inside. He had entered this room once before to close the windows and draw the drapes, but he had been in such a flurry of terror at the time that he had paid scant attention to his surroundings.

Normally immune to the feelings of others, Charles felt unbidden tears well in his eyes at the crushing sadness that filled this room. This place was a tomb, a space trapped in the past, forever enveloped by grief and loss. Sheets or not, Charles knew that whoever had once called this room their own was now dead, and though he had no idea who that might have been, he felt himself almost overcome with grief at the thought of this life cut short.

A breath of wind stirred a sheet that covered something tall and upright, and the source of the scratching, insistent voice was coming from whatever lay beneath. Where before the voice had been beseeching and beckoning, now it was insistent and demanding. Charles took a hesitant step toward the shrouded piece of furniture, reaching out with a filthy hand to grasp the sheet. Taking a deep breath, Charles pulled the sheet away, revealing a tall mirror, but what its silvered glass revealed was something repulsive.

Like the abhorrent painting kept in Dorian Gray’s attic, the image Charles beheld was utterly monstrous, a devil of depravity and debauchery made flesh. It took a moment for him to recognize that demoniacal visage as his own. Far from shocking Charles, the image only confirmed what he already knew, that his true self was emerging from the sham self he had constructed over the course of his life.

Even as he stared in the demonic eyes of his mirrored twin, the image in the mirror began to change, warping and rippling like mercury. His reflection disappeared and in its place, Charles saw the image of a bearded ancient, an old man who sat by a guttering fire in a thick sailor’s woolen jumper. A wild mane of white hair spilled from his crown and his matted beard was stained yellow by a lifetime of cheap cigarettes. A gold coin twisted and spun between his fingers, like a huckster’s sleight of hand at a shell game. Charles did not know this man, but the scratching voice in his head was telling him what he had to do. He grinned a bloody grin, and his fists bunched into meaty bludgeons. 

Charles had been taken from his hunting grounds in New York and brought to Kingsport to keep his urges in check, but now his master had a use for those violent lusts.

Charles didn’t know why his master wanted him to unleash his fury now and didn’t care.

He turned from the mirror and pulled open the drapes, sending years’ worth of dust spinning in tiny vortices from the floor and furniture. Charles stood at the window and looked out. Below was the courtyard and gate that had thwarted his every attempt to leave the house. The gate swung open as he watched, and beyond its threshold Charles saw the streets of Kingsport. The invitation was clear.

Daylight was almost a memory, and the mists were rolling in from the sea. The lights of Kingsport were visible across the harbor, and the lonely beacon of the lighthouse pulsed far out at sea. Charles felt his eyes drawn up the sheer sides of Kingsport Head, toward the solitary light that burned in the window of that house in the mist. A smear of light hazed the sky beyond the Head, and Charles let out a breath of such longing that he had to hold onto the drapes for fear of dropping to his knees.

Beyond that light in the sky was the dominion of dreams, a wonderland of limitless possibility and unbridled potential.

He looked over his shoulder at the image of the old man by his hearth.

His master wanted death and destruction.

Fine, Charles would make it happen, but after that…

After that, he was going to storm wonderland.

* * *

The Rope and Anchor was just as Oliver had imagined it, a crowded room filled with too many bodies than could possibly be sanitary. Despite their best attempts to dress appropriately, none of them—with the exception of Rex—looked even vaguely like they belonged there. Heads turned as they entered, and Oliver saw more than one salty sea dog shake his head and mutter the word “tourists” under his whiskey-sodden breath.

Rex led the way, winding his way through the crowded tavern with the ease of a man who knows when to dodge, when to barge, and when to use a friendly word. The gaps he opened sealed almost instantly behind him, like the Red Sea upon Pharaoh, leaving Oliver, Alexander, and George to flounder in his wake. Oliver had visited speakeasies on occasion, but had found the clandestine thrill outweighed by the fear of incarceration. He didn’t make a habit of frequenting such establishments; as a professor at Miskatonic, it wouldn’t do to be discovered in such a place, but circumstance had forced his hand here.

At least, he reflected with wry amusement, he wouldn’t be discovered alone.

Already in the dean’s bad books, violating the Volsted act would be a final nail in his academic career’s coffin. Which reminded him that he’d need to place a call to the Liberal Arts building to feign sickness and give him more time in Kingsport without earning further disapprobation from the ruling body of the university. If they were able to save the world from the minions of the star god, Oliver wanted a job to go back to once the affair was ended.

Eventually the four of them reached the bar and Rex ordered whiskey, though Oliver couldn’t help but notice that when the barman offered up what looked like a genuine bottle of Irish malt, Rex shook his head.

Sensing Oliver’s scrutiny, Rex grinned. “Hey, a reporter’s salary doesn’t go that far.”

Whiskeys poured, the four men clinked their glasses warily, unsure as to the exact contents of the drink that swilled within.

“Bottoms up,” said Rex, and Oliver took a sip of his drink, finding it surprisingly palatable.

“So where’s this Silas?” asked Alexander. “Is he here?”

Rex cast his gaze over the throng, eventually nodding in the direction of the fire, where five fishermen sat around a circular table. Each man stared into the fire, as though the answers to whatever problems plagued them lay within the dancing embers.

“No prizes for guessing which one’s Silas Marsh,” said Rex.

One man stood out from all the others by virtue of his unhealthy pallor and the strange…wrongness to his features. Eyes that bulged a little too much, a face that seemed just the wrong shade of skin tone for any normal man’s, and a wretched air to him that was at odds with the general atmosphere of the tavern.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you,” said Rex, as though they were about to meet one of his oldest friends and not a mariner from a town with a growing reputation for bad luck. “But let me do the talking, okay?”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” said Oliver as Rex forged a path through the burly sailors. As though sensing their destination, the tavern-goers were only too quick to ease out of their way this time. Oliver and the others followed at the back of Rex toward Silas’s table. Oliver could see the man’s sullen expression as he saw who was coming toward him. Rex sat next to Silas on a bench pushed hard against the wall, and gave the man a winning smile.

“You again?” said Silas.

“None other,” agreed Rex. “Thought I’d look you up again. After last night, I wasn’t sure you’d be able to face another drink, but you fishermen are hardy types aren’t you?”

“So are reporters by the look of it,” replied Silas.

“This the fella you was telling us about, Marsh?” asked a bearded man sitting opposite Silas.

Silas nodded and Rex stuck his hand out. “Rex Murphy, reporter for the Arkham Advertiser, how’d you do? What do I call you, big fella?”

“Washburne,” said the man, taking Rex’s hand and giving it a crushing shake. “Captain Washburne.”

“Josiah Washburne?” asked Oliver.

“Aye, that’s me,” said the man, as though begrudging even that morsel of information. “Who wants to know?”

Oliver followed Rex’s example and held out his hand. “Oliver Grayson, professor at Miskatonic University.”

Washburne ignored the outstretched hand, and Oliver sheepishly lowered it to his side. Rex covered his embarrassment by introducing Alexander and George, and Washburne gave each of them a perfunctory nod of acknowledgement that wordlessly expressed his level of respect for their small group.

Washburne inclined his head in the direction of the two men to his left. “This here’s Robert and Billy Barnard, deck hands on the Nicodemus. And this is my first mate, Dalton Mather.”

Mather’s features bore such a striking resemblance to those of Silas Marsh that Oliver wondered if the two men might share some common ancestor. One look at Mather’s bilious demeanor suggested that such a line of enquiry would be best left alone.

“So what you folks want with us?” asked Dalton Mather. “We ain’t got nothing to say to the likes of you.”

“Come on, you just met us,” said Rex. “How do you know you’ve got nothing to say? Listen, Silas already told me what happened to him on Neptune’s Bounty, but a little bird told me that you had an interesting night not so long ago, too. Matter of fact, the way I heard it, I’m surprised to see you all sitting around the same table. Weren’t you just about at each other’s throats a few days back? Something about Basil Elton over at North Point Lighthouse letting the beacon go out. “

Washburne glared at Silas, who shrugged and lifted his whiskey glass.

“Yeah, that’s true, but then we ain’t never caught as big a catch as the day we had Silas aboard,” said Washburne. “Way I figure it, any man can find that many fish is welcome on my boat.”

“Forgive and forget, eh? Even an Innsmouther?” said Rex, and Oliver didn’t miss the almost imperceptible glance Washburne threw at Dalton Mather.

“Yeah, even an Innsmouther,” said Washburne. “Listen, folks ’round here already think my boat’s cursed, so the last thing I need is professor types like you coming down here and getting everyone all riled up thinking there’s something to that kind of talk.”

“No,” said Oliver. “That’s not why we’re here.”

“Don’t matter none why you’re here,” spat Dalton. “People’ll talk, and we got a hard enough time getting the packing houses to take fish from a bad luck boat. C’mon, Captain, we don’t need to talk to these folk. Send ’em packing. What they got to say we want to hear?”

“Dalton’s got a point,” said Washburne. “What you got to say I’d want to hear?”

“We want to hire your boat,” said Alexander.

Dalton and Washburne laughed, and Silas shook his head at the idea.

“Case you hadn’t noticed, Saint Nicodemus is a fishing boat, not a ferry,” said Washburne.

“Whatever you’d make on your best day’s fishing, we’ll double,” said Alexander, holding his hand out to Washburne. “Guaranteed.”

“Double?” said Washburne.

“Absolutely,” said Alexander, and Washburne’s eyes narrowed. Oliver could see the rest of the crew wanted him to take Alexander’s offer. After all, carrying passengers was a lot less work than fishing, and would net them a guaranteed amount of money. Despite that, Oliver wasn’t sure if Washburne would agree. The man was proud of the way he earned his livelihood, and clearly didn’t like the idea of having a boss, even for a day, but cold hard cash was cold hard cash.

“Say I say okay, where’d you want to go?”

“Not far,” said Rex. “Just off Pilot Island, pretty much just the mouth of the bay, out by the tip of the Head.”

“Cap’n, that’s where we saw those—”

“You hush that mouth, Billy Barnard,” hissed Dalton.

“Them’s dangerous waters,” said Washburne. “Lot of boats hit bad tides out there.”

“Yeah, we know,” said Rex. “For the record, I think going out there is crazy, too.”

“And what you wanna do when you get out there?” said Washburne.

Rex looked to Oliver for aid, but it was George who stepped into the breach. “Nothing more than taking research notes, gathering some scientific data and atmospheric readings.”

Washburne looked straight through George, and Oliver had the powerful sensation that the man knew he was being lied to. Yet, the thought of some quick and easy cash was too tempting a lure to pass up, and he nodded. 

“You got yourselves a boat,” he said, shaking Alexander’s hand. “When you want to sail?”

“Well, that’s just it,” said Oliver. “We’re not exactly sure, though it’d be soon. Within a few days at most.”

Washburne grunted and shook his head at Oliver’s vague answer. “Well, whenever you make your mind up, Professor, let me know the night before and be at the wharf, seven sharp. I sail with the tide and if you ain’t there, tough luck. We’ll go out to fish and you’ll pay us anyway.”

“Understood,” said Alexander. “And more than fair.”

Washburne nodded and said, “Now I get the powerful notion that you fellas are really here to speak to the newest member of my crew, so me and the rest of my boys’ll take our drinks elsewhere, if it’s all the same to you.”

Dalton Mather was the first to rise, and the look he gave Silas Marsh was one of such venom that Oliver wondered how Washburne had convinced the two men to work together. If Silas was aware of Mather’s look, he gave no sign and simply stared into his whiskey. Washburne led his crew over to the far side of the tavern, leaving Rex, Oliver, George, and Alexander alone with Silas.

“You might fool the captain with all that talk of ‘scientific data,’ but I know what you’re really after,” said Silas. “You not get enough last time, Mr. Murphy? Why you have to keep bothering me? I already told you all I seen.”

“Mr. Marsh, it’s what you heard that I’m more interested in,” said George, withdrawing a fountain pen and a small notepad from his coat pocket.

“What I heard?”

“Yes. Rex said you heard the man hooded in red chanting, and I’d like to see if you could remember any of the words he said.”

Silas gave a bitter bark of a laugh, and Oliver saw he was on the verge of tears.

“Remember them? I wish I could forget them. I lie down to sleep and I hear them. I listen to the sound of the waves on the hull and I hear them. Damn words, they’re etched on my brain. You want them, you’re welcome to ’em.”

Oliver tapped the notepad. “Perhaps telling us what you heard will prove cathartic, Mr. Marsh. It might help you exorcise their power. I can’t promise that, of course, but a good friend of mine told me that no good can come of bottling our emotions up. Only by talking about the fears that are eating away at you inside makes it easier to deal with them.”

“That sounds like fancy talk,” said Silas. “Like the kind of talk educated folk like yourself might use to try and confuse a dumb fisherman like me.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Marsh,” said George, resting a hand on Silas’s forearm. “It’s been proven to help with many of the poor souls who came back from the war with all manner of terrible mental afflictions.”

“Please, Mr. Marsh,” Oliver said. “You would be doing a service of great magnitude were you to help. Much depends on what you might be able to tell us.”

Silas looked right at Oliver, and a moment of perfect understanding passed between them. Though the man looked unhealthy and on the brink of nervous exhaustion, he saw the simple truth in Oliver’s eyes and nodded slowly, as though coming to a decision within himself.

“How in the hell did you get hitched to these guys?” Silas asked Rex.

“Long story,” said Rex. “Buy me a drink another time and I’ll tell you.”

Silas nodded at the notepad and said, “Sure, okay. I’ll help you.”

“Capital,” said George, taking up the fountain pen.

Silas shook his head and plucked the pen from George’s hand.

“I can write just fine, Professor,” said Silas.

The pen darted over the page, and it seemed that the hubbub of voices in the tavern began to fade and the heat from the fire diminished as Oliver read the words Silas had written over his shoulder.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming,” said George.

But Silas wasn’t done.

Part Three

Unholy Salvage, 1926

Chapter Seventeen

Though the ward was kept dim and he was exhausted beyond reason, Luke found it almost impossible to sleep. Moonlight pooled on the floor through a gap in the curtains of the window behind his bed, but every time his eyes drifted shut, he would feel the tug of Ariadne’s Gift on his mind. Even Luke did not fully understand its powers, and though he had told Oliver that the box could not take them back to the Dreamlands, he wasn’t entirely sure what it might do were he to fall asleep and dream in its presence while in the waking world.

Like so many things associated with matters esoteric, there were no fixed rules, and anything that could be imagined could be made real with the magic of dreams. Instead, he lay awake, listening to the creak and groan of the building as it settled in the cold night. He shared his ward with three other men, one with a broken leg encased in plaster and supported by a complex arrangement of pulleys and ropes, the other two with ailments less obvious, though both coughed frequently.

A uniformed matron had been sitting behind a desk at the far end of the barrel-vaulted ward, but an emergency elsewhere in the hospital had called her away over an hour ago and she had not yet returned. A clock ticked loudly on the wall above the main door to the ward, and Luke tried not to count the passing seconds.

He hoped that Henry was safe and well. Knowing now where Henry’s physical body lay, he understood much more of how he had come to be in the Dreamlands. In the time Luke had spent in the waking world, almost a week would have passed in Baharna, time that would have seen Henry begin to lose touch with the world around him. The more Henry’s body deteriorated, the more the city would unravel. His spatial awareness of its geography would become more and more intangible until all around him was chaos.

To save Henry, he and Oliver would need to leave for the house in the mist sooner rather than later, but that was a climb and a meeting Luke was not looking forward to. The man who dwelled atop Kingsport Head was not known for his kindnesses to travelers, and was frequently capricious with those who sought to travel through the gates over which he stood sentinel. Luke remembered well the day he had stepped from this world, never—so he had thought—to return. A cold wind had blown over the headland, and gulls had wheeled overhead as men slaughtered each other in Europe for the sake of nation’s pride. He had been only too glad to leave this world behind, yet here he was once more embroiled in its petty dramas.

The man had looked covetously at the box Luke carried, and he’d sensed his urge to do violence to obtain it. Before giving him the chance, Luke had stepped from this world to a brand new life, but what would the man on Kingsport Head demand for his passage this time? 

Yet for all that Luke disparaged the waking world, there were still good people who lived in it. Oliver Grayson was one such man, and he understood why Henry had clung to his memory like no other. George was a good man, but where Oliver’s heart drove him to make the right choices and face his fears, Angell was driven by a more intellectual desire to know things for the sake of their knowing. His quest for knowledge was a dangerous one, and Luke had felt the shadows of dark dreamers around the venerable professor.

A wracking cough from the next bed startled Luke, and he glanced across the ward. The bed of the cougher was surrounded by a thin curtain, but the man was clearly reading, as the electric lamp beside his bed was lit and shadows moved languidly over the curtain’s rumpled surface. A gas nightlight burned behind glass at the door to the ward, and Luke’s attention was drawn to it as he heard a fizzing, popping sound like the pockets of swamp gas that burbled and belched on the muddy shores of Lake Yath.

At first, he didn’t see anything amiss, but then he noticed the flame within the glass was burning with a queer greenish light, like the illuminated emeralds a man who placed little value on his soul could purchase from the veiled houri of Hazuth-Kleg. It cast no shadow as a healthy light ought to cast, and coated the wall behind it with a venomous stain like verdigris.

The man in the bed nearest the door coughed, a retching expectoration that sounded like he was bringing up part of his lung. Luke saw the man cover his mouth and squeeze his eyes shut as though he was about to vomit. Seconds later, Luke realized why.

The omnipresent taint of disinfectant and cleaning products scrubbed into the walls and floors left an acrid burn in the nostrils, but still wasn’t quite enough to cover the faint, earthy smell of the air. That smell was growing steadily in power until Luke felt as though he could taste the wet clods of earth being forced into his mouth. The stench of rotten meat hit Luke’s senses like a blow, and he felt his stomach rebel at the horrendous reek of it.

“Gods above,” he muttered, pulling his sheet over his mouth in an effort to spare him the full stench. The fellow with the broken leg made a loud, retching sound and bent over as the odious smell reached him.

“Good God, what is that?” cried the man.

Luke tried to answer him, but the abominable stench filled his mouth and nose with such a disgusting potency that the words were stillborn. It tasted like curdled cream and roadkill left out in the sun for a month. His eyes watered with the abominable foulness and it was all he could do to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged. The flame of the gas nightlight flared brightly, a serpentine pillar of green light that twisted and danced like a charmed cobra. Luke felt the presence of eldritch powers that had never been meant for the sons of Adam, but before he could do anything about it, the man in the bed opposite screamed, a terrifying shriek that spoke of frantic horror and unendurable agony.

Through tear-blurred vision and the contorting folds of the curtain, Luke saw the misshapen shadows of the man thrashing as though in the grip of a grand mal seizure. Luke watched in horror as the grotesque shadow play gave terrible clues to events behind the curtain: flailing limbs, writhing amorphous shapes that were at once solid and permeable, and spatters of viscous fluids. Something splashed the floor behind the curtain and the man’s screams were reduced to a feeble gurgling, like a backed up drain that foams and bubbles with runoff. That horribly final sound was followed by a rain of wet slaps, like a wet mop on a tiled floor.

Luke felt his gorge rise and leaned over to lift the bedpan sitting on the chair beside his bed as his stomach contracted violently. He grabbed the silvered basin and puked like a drunk as the rank smell of the an opened grave overcame him. Acidic vomit spattered the bowl and dribbled over the rim in glistening ropes of bile. Chest heaving with exertion, Luke recoiled as he saw dozens of fat, wriggling worms slithering across the floor with a horrid, glutinous, peristaltic motion.

Cries of disgust from down the room told him that he was not the only one aware of the presence of grave worms. Luke raised his eyes from the floor in time to see the curtain around the bed opposite part as a deluge of worms spilled from the bed. The man who had occupied the bed was no more, his body little more than a bloodied skeleton hanging with dripping gobbets of partially digested flesh.

In a rush of wriggling, segmented bodies, an oozing tide of worm flesh slithered across the room toward Luke.

* * *

Their business at the Rope and Anchor concluded, Oliver, Rex, George, and Alexander took a taxicab back to their lodgings. Little was said as the automobile wound its tortuous way over the steep curves of Central Hill and labored up South Hill. The streets were ghostly, the mist oozing between the buildings and creeping along the sidewalks glowing with spectral light in the headlamps.

The smell of whiskey and tobacco clung to them, and what Silas had written in George’s notebook lay between them all like a guilty secret. To the blessedly uninformed, the hideous collision of consonants and vowels that were never meant to be neighbors were meaningless, but to those aware of the means by which the things of the outer dark could be conjured, they were horribly familiar.

The taxi deposited them at the Lighthouse Inn, and as they climbed the steps to the guest house, Oliver took hold of George’s arm. The professor kept his notebook held tightly to his chest, as though afraid its contents might fly away the moment he loosened his grip.

“Those words Silas wrote,” said Oliver. “Do you know what they are? They’re not just a prayer or a hellish sort of hymn, are they?”

“No, they’re much more than that,” said George, and Rex and Alexander paused at the top of the steps to hear what he had to say. “I’ve only ever seen fragments of it before, badly transcribed recitations of raving lunatics and bayou witch doctors who dwell in the swamps of Louisiana.”

“So what is it, George?” asked Rex.

“Perhaps we might continue this indoors,” said George. “It’s damnably cold out here and I don’t like to speak of such things in the dark.”

Everyone agreed and they moved indoors, taking up residence at their secluded table in the parlor. Albert Dukes welcomed them back, and after a few minutes of murmured conversation with Rex, was persuaded to produce a bottle of cognac and four crystal balloons, which he filled with generous measures before discreetly withdrawing.

“Well?” asked Oliver, when George had taken a belt of expensive cognac.

George held up a hand as he dealt with the fiery aftereffects of the drink.

“I’ve never seen such a full rendition of these words, though, of course, they’re not really words as we understand it. They’re poor vocal approximations of certain cosmic vibrations that can be used to alter the natural laws governing what we know and perceive as reality.”

“Ah,” said Rex. “That makes perfect sense. Come on, Professor, spare a thought for those of us that don’t read the kinds of books you read. What does that mean?”

“It’s hard to explain, Mr. Murphy,” said George. “These words are like spoken keys that, uttered in a particular way, can open gateways—doors if you will—to other dimensions. They can be used to converse with dreadful things, even summon them and bind them to your will if one is so foolhardy as to risk such a frightful thing.”

“And that’s what those words were?” asked Rex. “Some kind of spell to summon something. If it was, I don’t think it worked. Did it?”

Alexander shook his head. “No, we’d know if it had.”

“How?”

“For starters, the world would be ending.”

“Oh.”

George took another drink and placed the notebook in front of him, keeping one hand pressed tightly against its cover. “These words aren’t words of summoning, at least not like the ones I’ve seen before. Way back in ’08, I spoke to a man named Legrasse at the annual meeting of the American Archaeological Society in St. Louis, regarding his experiences with what has since been erroneously labeled a voodoo gathering that was broken up by the police around New Orleans. Much of the chanted doggerel uttered by these degenerate swamp dwellers matches with what Silas has just told us. Legrasse’s story also shares many similarities with the researches of the late William Channing Webb, a fellow attendee of the Society’s meeting, into the Esquimaux cults of the West Greenland coast. Oliver, I believe you came upon similar deviant forms of worship in Alaska with Morley Dean.”

“I remember all too well, George, but even Morley couldn’t discern the purpose of their incantations,” said Oliver. “So if they’re not words of summoning, what would be your best guess as to their purpose? You’re the expert on ancient languages, after all.”

George shook his head. “It’s impossible to be certain what they are; as I said, this isn’t language. There’s no recognizable syntax or grammar to it, only certain…ideas and concepts that apply to unique combinations when placed in a particular order. Like the tumblers of a lock, useless by themselves, but placed in the correct alignment with others, they can open a door or allow other arrangements to cohere.”

“So if it wasn’t a summoning, what do you think it was?” asked Rex.

“I believe it to be an instruction,” said George.

“An instruction? An instruction to whom?” said Oliver.

“Something beneath the ocean,” said George, his eyes closed as though in an effort to hide from some horror only he could see. “I believe this man in red was communing with the loathsome servants of Cthulhu that dwell in the deepest recesses of the ocean. I believe our enemies are using a nightmarish race of subaquatic horrors to scour the seabed around Kingsport for the wreck of the Persephone.”

* * *

Luke sprang from his bed with a cry of horror, throwing the bedpan of his vomit into the gelatinous mass of worms that spread on the tiled floor like an oil slick. The door to the ward was illuminated by the lambent green shimmer of the nightlight, and he thought to make a dash for it, but a rolling carpet of worms slithered through the gap between the bottom of the door and the tiles. The men in the other beds were screaming, and Luke shared their terror.

The voracious scavengers of the grave heaved and rippled like protoplasmic ooze, thousands of eyeless bodies entwined in an advancing tide of devouring mouths. Luke snatched up his uncle’s gift from his bed and cast his gaze about the ward for a means of escape. The door was out of the question and the only other exit was beyond the bed upon which the worms’ first victim lay, utterly bereft of flesh.

“What the hell is going on?” screamed the man with the broken leg.

“I’m sorry,” said Luke. “This is all my fault. I should never have come here.”

“What in the blazes are you talking about?” demanded the man. “Help me out of this damn thing!” 

Luke nodded and tore out his intravenous drip before scrambling over the bed. He put the box down next to the man and took a second to examine the bewilderingly complicated arrangements of pulleys, levers, and ratchets supporting his heavily splinted limb.

“I don’t know how to free your leg,” said Luke.

“Just do something, buddy!” pleaded the man. “Pull something, cut the rope if you have to.”

The man nearest the door scrambled from his bed, staggering at the noisome stench filling the ward and reeling at the horror of thousands of gnawing worms. Foolishly, he’d chosen the side of his bed nearest the door, and his foot squelched down into a knotted mass of the fat, blood-bloated invertebrates. He cried out in revulsion, his yells of disgust soon turning to ones of agony as hundreds of tiny mouths wriggled up to fasten on the soft meat of his calf.

Pain forced the man to the floor, and more of the worms slithered over his body until his lower half was completely obscured. His shrieks were desperate as he tried to wade through the worms toward the door on his knees. The emerald glow of the flaring nightlight gave the worms a nightmarish hue, and the blood that poured down the man’s body as the worms ate their way through him was a vivid hue of jade. Luke saw worms slithering over the man’s neck and into his mouth and nose; his screams turning to hideous, gagging grunts as the worms devoured him from the inside out. Mercifully the dying man toppled onto his front before Luke saw the worms feed on his eyes.

“Buddy, you gotta help me,” said the man with the broken leg, grabbing Luke’s hospital gown in a bunched fist. “I ain’t going out that way.” 

“I’m trying,” said Luke, pulling coiled ropes and twisting Gordian knots in a vain attempt to free the man’s plastered leg. Luke kept one eye on the worms, their advance like a slow-moving flow of lava, seemingly benign but deadly to anything it touched. He could hear a ghastly wet sound of thousands of mouths gnawing their way through human meat, and saw with mounting horror a fresh wave of the feasting things roil from beneath the dead man’s bed, leaving smeared trails of fresh blood on the tiles.

“I’m so sorry,” said Luke, knowing he could not free this man from the contraption that held his leg aloft. “I can’t…”

“Please,” begged the man, alternating between pleading with Luke and watching the advance of the bloated worm creatures. “You can’t leave me here with these things!”

“I’m sorry, I’m so very, very sorry,” said Luke, lifting Ariadne’s Gift and backing away from the bed with tears in his eyes.

“God damn you!” screamed the man, as the first questing tendrils of worms slithered over the edge of his bed. “God damn you to hell, you bastard!”

Luke wept for the man as he turned and grabbed the chair beside his bed. With strength born of terror and desperation, Luke hurled the chair through the window behind his bed. The glass smashed in a shower of crazed diamond shards and splintered wood. Freezing wind blew into the ward, flapping curtains and bedsheets like demented ghosts. The cold hit Luke like the breath of the Wendigo itself, and his body almost seized up with the icy slap of it.

“Forgive me,” said Luke as he heard the screams of the man he’d left to die. He didn’t dare look back, and climbed onto his bed as the rapacious worms gathered beneath him.

Luke leapt through the shattered window frame and landed with a grunt on the loamy earth beyond. Wet grass smothered him and mud caked him as he rolled onto his side. He felt tiny, nipping teeth at his feet and gave a shout of revulsion at the sight of yet more worms pushing their way up through the grass.

He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the gates of the hospital grounds.

* * *

The stink of sweat and bloodlust clung to Charles as he made his way through the mists, following the invisible trace of his prey. The streets of Kingsport were glorious, dark, brooding, and inviting in equal measure. Though without the majesty and scale of New York’s wide boulevards, Kingsport’s streets conspired with him as though only too well aware of the monster that trod their sidewalks. They closed ranks behind him and opened up before him, the mists gathering and receding as he approached each gnarled intersection.

The town felt empty, its townsfolk wisely remaining indoors as the beast that Charles Warren had become prowled their twisting avenues like a wolf on the hunt. It was taking him the better part of an hour to traverse the town’s irritatingly steep and winding streets to even get close to his destination. Though he’d never set foot in this provincial little town before, his steps unerringly carried him toward his victim, as though steered by some invisible guide.

The mist closed behind him like a cloak as he made his way down to the streets that bordered the crumbling, seaweed-draped wharfs of the town. The smell of the ocean was strong here, an oily tang of damp wood, sodden ropes, fish, and salty air.

The mist was thicker here, and he worried for a moment that a single misstep might inadvertently plunge him into the freezing waters of the harbor. His bare feet slapped on the wet cobbles—he had not though to don shoes before leaving the townhouse—and though he shivered with cold, the thought of what he was going to do to this old man kept him warm. Drool gathered at the corners of Charles’s mouth as his tongue flicked across his too-thin lips.

Charles froze as a shimmering beacon shone brightly ahead of him, sheening the mist with the unearthly light of a hundred moons. Like a beast caught in the headlamps of an oncoming car, Charles felt powerless to move. Then the light faded and he realized he had been mesmerized by the pulsing watchtower of the North Point Lighthouse. He tried to laugh, but the sound that came out was more like a guttural bark.

As the light faded, Charles moved off once more, hugging the edges of the streets and moving from cover to cover as though expecting German machine gunfire at any moment. The sounds of the ocean were close, along with the creak of fishing vessels tied up to iron rings, but a sudden sensation of being watched halted him in his tracks. Over the sound of the sea, Charles heard a thin tink, tink, tink noise, like a small pebble or a coin tapping on glass.

He ducked into a crooked alleyway and paused to examine the house on the corner ahead of him. A weathered dwelling, three hundred years old if it was a day, built over two stories with a number of small windows to its front and a heavy-looking wooden door at its center.

This was where the old man lived, and warm lamplight from an upstairs room illuminated the mist-shrouded sidewalk. Charles grinned as he imagined finding the doddering old man asleep in his bed, waking only to find his killer’s hands wrapped around his scrawny neck.

Charles padded over to the front door and pressed his ear to the timbers. The strange clinking glass sound was stronger here, but he dismissed it as a wind chime in a neighboring garden or hanging unseen from a nearby eave. He turned the iron handle and eased his weight against the door, surprised to find that it was unlocked. The door swung open soundlessly on well-oiled hinges, revealing a small entrance hall with openings to either side that led to a parlor and living room. Both were dark and empty.

The light he had seen from the street spilled down a set of stairs in front of him in a muted waterfall of dim yellow light. Charles climbed to the upper floor with careful steps. He kept his feet on the outside of the treads to make less noise, his fists clenching and his heartbeat racing. The damned sound of clinking glass was getting louder, and this time he was sure it was in the building with him.

Charles looked back down the stairs, but there was no sign that anyone or anything had followed him inside. He kept going, warily checking behind him with each step that carried him toward the man he was to kill. He stepped onto the landing, a tiny square of hardwood with a brass-rimmed ship’s barometer hanging from a bent nail. Charles paused as he saw the needle was bouncing wildly between Stormy and Change.

He ignored the broken barometer and moved into the room to his left, a gloomy study with an oak desk sagging under the weight of piled books and model ships. A sideboard on one wall was lined with queer statues carved from a greenish black stone, stuffed birds, and a number of bottles with gently swinging pendulums suspended inside. A long-bladed carving knife sat next to one bottle, and Charles took it, liking its heavy heft.

A pair of heavy cutlasses hung above the bottles, along with a weapon of a type that was unknown to Charles: a long oar-shaped object with rows of serrated shark teeth set along both edges. It seemed there was no order to the chaos, simply a clutter of mementos, keepsakes, and knick-knacks accumulated over a lifetime spent at sea. Rolled up charts were stacked in an old sea chest, and a map of the world was tacked to one wall, with numerous red pins dotted around in various exotic locales.

The room lit up with the glow of the lighthouse, silvering everything and giving the statues arranged on the sideboard a curious animation. The light faded, but not before Charles saw another door in the far wall, almost obscured by a heavy curtain. Grinning, Charles padded silently over to the door, but paused as he heard that damned tink, tink, tink sound again. He waited for the lighthouse to fill the room with light again, and scanned the room as the sound came again.

Nothing was moving, though were the pendulums in the bottles swaying just a little more than he remembered?

Charles put the bottles from his mind and softly pushed the door behind the drape. It too opened silently, and Charles felt his excitement build. To be in the home of an unsuspecting victim, to know that he had the power of life and death over them, was a sublime thrill, and Charles entered what he saw was a small library. Shelves lined its walls, and hundreds of books filled the room, all ancient and moldering by the look of them. He stifled a grin, wishing he had brought some gasoline. He relished the thought of torching these pathetic memories of mankind’s futile endeavors to understand the world they lived in.

He crossed the library to the shelf next to the far window, running his callused fingertips over the worn leather of the bindings. Many were impossible to identify, the leaf of the lettering long since worn away, but those he could make out gave him a shiver of apprehension, though he could not say why that should be so.

They had titles like Ponape Scriptures, Celaeno Fragments, Cthäat Aquadingen, and The King In Yellow. 

The library in the townhouse had books like this on its shelves, and Charles had a fleeting moment of unease at the thought that this man was somehow like his master.

“See anything you like?” said a voice behind him.

Charles let his fingers fall from the books and turned to see a tall man with broad shoulders and a heavy cudgel standing silhouetted in a doorway from which the harsh glare of an electric lamp shone. 

“I’m not much of a reader,” said Charles, his voice slurred by the hugeness of his swollen tongue and his pounding excitement.

“No, I can see that,” said the man.

The light from the distant lighthouse filled the library, and Charles grinned as he saw the man who addressed him. What he had mistaken for broad shoulders was simply a thick blanket wrapped around his upper body, the cudgel simply a gnarled walking stick. The man was old, his face deeply chiseled by the passage of years, and his wild beard was a bedraggled mess of tangled, matted hair.

Charles took a step toward the man, rolling his shoulders and flexing his thick fingers. He raised the knife and tried a few experimental slashes. He preferred using his hands, but perhaps a blade would be an interesting diversion.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the man. “Do you know who I am?”

“No,” said Charles, taking another step. “And I don’t care.”

“You should have cared.”

“Why?”

“It might have made you think twice before you broke into my home.”

Charles heard the tink, tink, tink sound again, louder this time and more agitated.

“What is that damn noise?” roared Charles.

“That? That’s my crew,” said the old man, and before Charles could ask what he meant, the door to the library burst open and three men entered. Dressed in rough canvas trousers and loose linen shirts with boot-lace collars, two carried the cutlasses that had hung on the study walls, while the third was armed with the toothed oar weapon. Their skin was waxy and dead, drained of color and bloated by years spent at the bottom of the ocean. Their eyes were the gleaming black of dolls, and a ghastly moaning sound, like the last breath of every drowned sailor, burbled from water-filled lungs and spilled over their blue lips. Glimmers of corpse-light clung to their limbs, and the reek of saltwater was appalling.

The rattling of pendulums on glass became more frenzied, a constant rat-a-tat-tat from the other room that was maddening in its timbre. The old man shook his head, as though just as exasperated by what he was hearing.

“What do you think I want you to do with him?” he said in answer to a question Charles hadn’t heard asked. “Kill him.”

The wraith sailors advanced toward Charles, and he backed into the corner of the library, repulsed by the thought of these dreadful revenants touching him. His lusts still burned within him, and he drew on his anger and urge to cause pain. He was damned if these dead things would keep him from his master’s victory when the great flood came! He had sacrificed too much, endured so many things, and served without question to be denied a place at his side.

Charles roared and threw himself at the sailors, barreling into them with his newly acquired knife sweeping out before him. He felt its impact on the wet meat of their bodies, and a searing pain slashed across his back as a cutlass sliced through his shirt and the upper layers of skin. One man went down under him, a dead thing with a freshly opened scar running across his neck and over his jaw. Charles smashed his fist into the sailor’s face and a wash of brackish water that stank of rotten fish sprayed him.

Cold hands gripped his shoulders and hauled him off the ground. Charles struggled like a wounded beast against the implacable strength. Water poured over his face as the sailor wrestled him away from the scarred man. Charles smashed an elbow back into his attacker, and a froth of dead matter spilled over his shoulder as the man’s throat split open with a sound like a bladder deflating. The reek of rotten meat made Charles gag, and he fell to his knees at the overpowering stench.

The dead sailor fell with him as the third revenant, a man wearing an eyepatch and with a red bandana around his neck, slashed the toothed oar toward Charles. He threw his arms up in a reflex gesture. Blood sprayed from his arm where the teeth bit into the flesh of his bicep and tore away a good portion of the muscle tissue. Charles howled in pain and threw himself away from the sailors as scar-face climbed to his feet and advanced toward him with his cutlass poised to strike.

Charles pushed himself to his feet, weeping in pain and terror; not even the urges that had driven him to kill dozens of men and women on the streets of New York could sustain him against so awful a foe. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, and it felt like the entire side of his body had been bathed in acid. The dead sailors blocked the route back to the study, and no force on this earth could compel Charles to try and make his way past the old man. 

“Do you know what they call me in Kingsport?” said the old man as the room filled with light once more.

Charles shook his head, too afraid to answer. Scar-face raised his cutlass, ready to split Charles in two. Charles screamed and threw himself at the dead sailors. Terror and desperation gave him strength, and the three of them crashed to the wooden floor of the library in a thrashing tangle of limbs and sharp steel. A blade sliced over Charles’s back and the toothed club ripped down the side of his leg, but he was up and running for the study before the corpse sailors could follow him.

He pelted down the stairs and barged through the front door into the mist with the old man’s last words ringing in his ears like a curse.

“They call me the Terrible Old Man!”

Chapter Eighteen

The beach had turned to glass. The palm trees that once fringed the sand and anchored the island’s topsoil were scorched black nubs. What had once been a paradise the equal of any painted by Gauguin was now a hellish wasteland of low-lying fog and ruination. Oliver wandered numb and uncomprehending through the drifting smoke of burned bones and wept for a lost people.

The Yopasi were gone, that much was obvious, but what had happened to them?

Vitrified sand crunched underfoot, and Oliver saw the hundreds of bones bobbing in the grey swells that crashed on the beach with mournful breakers. Skulls and femurs, pelvic girdles and arches of spines, tunnels of ribcages and the jutting blades of clavicles littered the beach like seeds scattered from the hand of a sowing giant, and Oliver felt the pain of their passing in every scorched breath he drew.

He had seen this place before, weeks or months after whatever catastrophe had overtaken the landscape, but then it had been little more than a bare rock. This destruction was freshly wrought, the architects of the Yopasi’s doom having only just completed their grim slaughter. A booming thunder rumbled, but this was no storm blown in from the trackless expanse of the Pacific, this was a tremor of impact. Oliver looked to the island’s interior, seeing a colossal shape moving in the shadows of an enormous column of smoke and steam.

Like a mountain given locomotion by some mad divinity, the shadow of the colossus moved with ponderous steps. A giant in motion, it trod the violated earth with ponderous steps that echoed throughout all the dimensions known to man and others as yet undreamed.

Oliver could make out hideous suggestions of shape and form, but dared not look too close for fear of what madness he might make out. It glistened wetly, like rubber in the rain, and its gelatinous movement through the water put Oliver in mind of the kraken of the titans returning to its undersea lair.

Oliver let out a breath as he saw a figure standing by the smashed remains of the great standing stones that had once topped the ridge at the edge of the beach. He recognized the dreaming form of Kaula, the Yopasi shaman, and wondered how he could have survived the complete devastation of his island home. Kaula pointed out to sea, and Oliver saw the capricious tide carrying the bones of the Yopasi out to sea. The earthly remains of an entire tribe drifted on the azure waves, dragged along and down by strange tides, like iron filings to a magnet.

“Our ancestors swore mighty oaths to be forever bound to the Eye of Infinite Stars,” said the Yopasi shaman, his voice growing ever more distant with each word. “It was ours to protect, but we failed in our duty. Now you must take up the role fate has chosen for you.”

Oliver cried out as sudden, searing pain flared in his forehead. Blood dripped into his right eye and he turned back to the shaman with a question forming on his lips. Before he could give voice to it, he heard the dreadful booming of the leviathan’s steps once more. Like distant thunder drawing nearer with every breath, the tempo of the booming increased until it was a deafening crescendo of noise that…

…Oliver sat bolt upright in bed, bathed in sweat and breathing like he’d just run a marathon. He blinked gummed eyes and smacked lips that whiskey and cognac had made dry. His forehead throbbed in pain and he looked around his room in a daze, the fading of the lighthouse’s beam returning his room to darkness.

“Just a dream,” he said to himself, though he was coming to realize that there was no such thing as “just” a dream in Kingsport. The booming noise came again, and this time Oliver recognized it for what it was: someone on the other side of his door hammering away like blazes. He felt a dim ache of something left incomplete, but the dream was already receding and the nagging suspicion that he had woken without learning something fundamental to his continued survival was so strong that he almost ignored the knocking.

“Mr. Grayson?” said a voice on the other side of the door he recognized as belonging to Albert Dukes. “Mr. Grayson, are you awake? I am most dreadfully sorry to disturb you at such an ungodly hour, but a matter that requires your immediate attention has arisen.”

Oliver sighed and rose from his bed. Throwing on a dressing gown, he turned the key and opened the door to his room. As expected, Albert Dukes stood before him, fully clothed and holding an oil lantern in his hand.

“What is it, Mr. Dukes?” asked Oliver, rubbing the heel of his hand on his temple.

“Ah, well, you see, you have a visitor. Normally I do not allow visitors after ten o’clock, and this, I’m sure you’ll agree, is well beyond the bounds of convivial politeness. But the gentleman was most insistent.”

“What time is it?” asked Oliver, trying to decide if Dukes was angry at him or the caller.

“Nearly one o’clock in the morning.”

“One in the morning? Who makes house calls at one in the morning?”

“Well, quite,” agreed Dukes, moving to one side and gesturing to the stairs that led to the guest house’s reception. Sighing, Oliver moved past Dukes and descended the stairs, gradually rising to full wakefulness with every step he took. He arrived in the vestibule to find a bedraggled Luke Robinson pacing back and forth between Dukes’s reception desk and the parlor. His clothes were filthy, mud-stained, and soaking wet.

“Good Lord, what happened to you?” asked Oliver as Dukes ensconced himself behind his reception desk and made a show of leafing through his guest book.

“Oliver!” cried Luke, rushing to close the distance between them. “Thank all that’s holy you’re all right.”

“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t have time to explain fully, Oliver, but we have to go now! Right now!”

“What? Go where? What are you talking about?”

Luke took hold of Oliver’s arm and though he was slim to the point of being underfed, there was strength there.

“We have to climb to the house in the mist,” said Luke. “Right now.”

Oliver pulled his arm free and placed his hands on his hips. “Now just wait a minute, Mr. Robinson. Tell me what’s going on or I’ll have Mr. Dukes here call a cab to take you back to the hospital right this instant.”

Luke shook his head. “No, no! Listen to me. I can’t go back there. Someone tried to kill me there. They don’t want me to take you back to Henry, so we have to go now before they try again!”

“Someone tried to kill you? Who? Did you see their face?”

Luke visibly bit down on his exasperation. “No, Oliver, I didn’t see their face. It wasn’t a person who tried to kill me, it was a plague of worms. Thousands of worms that ate the flesh of the men trapped in the ward with me.”

“Worms?” said Oliver in disgust.

“Yes,” said Luke, and Oliver saw the dreadful guilt he carried. “God help me, I left a man there to die. I couldn’t save him. His leg. His leg, you see. It was tied up, pulleys and the like, I couldn’t get him out of it in time. God forgive me, I left him there to be eaten alive.”

Luke sagged against Oliver, and he felt how weak the man had become, how much effort it had taken him to cross the town to get here. Desperation had driven him, and Oliver felt a dreadful pity for this man, even as he did not fully understand what had really happened at the Congregational Hospital.

“You’re saying that someone sent this horde of worms to kill you?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” gasped Luke. “I’ve heard of…incantations used to bind animal spirits in hostile ways, but it’s that place, that church. The one before, I mean. The church that stood where they stupidly built that hospital. I saw the green flame; I know it was meant for me. The worms of Tulzscha gnaw the earth deeply, and there are things below that have learned to walk that ought to crawl. Listen to me, Oliver: whoever trapped Henry in the Dreamlands does not want me to lead you to him.”

At last the seriousness of Luke’s wild story began to penetrate Oliver’s awareness.

“You’re saying we should leave now?”

“Of course,” said Luke. “There’s no time to waste.”

Rex Murphy appeared on the stairs, closely followed by George and Alexander.

“Oliver, what’s going on?” said Rex. “Do you know what time it is?”

“I’m well aware of what time it is,” said Oliver.

“Mr. Robinson?” said George. “Oliver, what’s going on here?”

“Apparently, I’m going to climb Kingsport Head in the dark,” said Oliver.

* * *

Rex’s dented Ford sped through the mist-shrouded darkness, following the arcing curve of Howard Street around the western flank of Central Hill. The town was in a state of uproar, though it was difficult to make out exactly what was going on without stopping, and Luke assured them that halting their journey would not be safe. 

A number of flashing police lights strobed the mist from the grounds of the Congregational Hospital. The lights were on in a good number of houses, and Oliver saw people out on their doorsteps looking up at the hospital with fearful expressions.

On every face, Oliver saw the dread of men and women who have woken to realize that a terrible secret they thought long-buried in the darkness had found its way into the light once more. He saw a mix of guilt, fear, and apprehension, and wondered what collective secret lay at the heart of Kingsport’s existence.

Oliver directed their journey from the front seat next to Rex, and Luke—freshly clothed in an extra suit of Oliver’s—sat in the back with Ariadne’s Gift on his lap. None of them were dressed appropriately for such an arduous climb as lay ahead of them, but the urgency in Luke’s pleas had convinced Oliver that waiting for Kingsport’s purveyors of sturdy clothing and boots to open their establishments on Monday morning wasn’t an option.

George and Alexander had stayed behind at the Lighthouse Inn. The climb would be too arduous for a man of George’s advanced years, though it had taken them a good ten minutes to convince the professor of that fact. George’s disappointment at being denied the sights of a world as miraculous as Luke had described was palpable, but there was simply no way for him to accompany them.

Alexander and Henry had a complex past, and it was decided that it would be better if the first face Henry saw was not that of a man with whom he’d had a terrible falling out some years previously after their time in the Marine Corps. Alexander had wished them luck, and promised to aid George in his research at the Historical Society in the morning, after securing a promise from Oliver to telephone him there the moment they returned to Kingsport.

“Whole town’s jumping tonight,” said Rex, glancing uphill toward the black slice of architecture atop Central Hill. “Whatever happened up there certainly got the cops riled up.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Luke slowly, each word a leaden weight around his neck. “Three men died there tonight because of me. Maybe more.”

Nothing more was said, and the hospital was soon lost in the enclosing mist as the road began to rise, winding its way out of the shallow bowl in which Kingsport nestled. It felt as though weeks had passed since Oliver had last traveled this road, and he found it hard to countenance that it had been less than two days since Patrolman Darnell had driven him here.

The Ford’s engine protested at some of the steeper portions of the road and the wheels skidded more than once where the rains that had deluged Kingsport the previous day still lay in wide puddles. The higher the car climbed, the more the mists receded, until the car slid from its clammy embrace at the edge of the Arkham road. Being free of the mist was like a pressing weight being lifted from Oliver’s shoulders, a weight he hadn’t even been aware he was carrying. His mind felt clearer and his senses sharper.

One look at Rex and Luke told him that they felt exactly the same.

Rex kept driving through the darkness until he arrived at a bare patch of rocky ground where the road curved back north to Arkham. The car’s headlamps lit up a cleared area of the forest, its shorn trunks lying stacked in a wide clearing alongside piles of stone, bags of cement, and enormous stacks of steelwork.

“Welcome to the the site of the Advertiser’s wireless station,” said Rex.

“Doesn’t look like they’ve gotten very far with it,” noted Luke.

“Well, they’ve only just started,” said Rex. “And they’ve had a few problems already. One of Donald’s work crew jumped from the cliff and killed himself, a kid from Arkham.”

“I didn’t hear anything of that,” said Oliver.

“No, it’s been kept out of the papers for the time being,” said Rex, opening the car door and climbing out. “My editor sent me to do the story, spin things in a way that didn’t make out it was a huge waste of time building the station. That’s how I knew you were on your way to Kingsport: I was talking to Donald McCarney, one of the workers here, when I saw the patrol car taking you downtown.”

“Why did the worker jump from the cliff?” asked Luke, as Rex retrieved a flashlight from the trunk of his car and tested it by flicking it on and off a few times.

Rex shrugged, though Oliver felt the gesture was forced. “Donald said he was having bad dreams and woke up from a really bad one. The other workmen tried to talk to him, but before they could stop him, he jumped.”

“It’s this place,” said Luke, staring back at the distant glow of Kingsport’s lights, a shimmer of light against the night’s blackness. “It gets inside your head.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Rex with an involuntary shudder, thinking of Donald saying exactly that not too long ago on this very spot.

“What was he dreaming about?” asked Luke.

“All Donald said was that the kid kept yelling that someone called ‘the dweller in the deep’ was coming. He was going nuts, tearing at his arms like there were bugs or worms under his skin. Then he jumped.”

“‘The dweller in the deep,’” repeated Oliver. “I think we all know what that means.”

“Yeah,” said Rex slowly. “Though I kind of wish I didn’t.”

Without any word being spoken, the men squared their shoulders and made their way through piles of building materials to the access road that would, in time, lead to the wireless station. The road ended after ten yards, and Oliver’s heart sank as he saw there was no path up Kingsport Head, no well-trodden route, and no easy way to reach the house in the mist.

It would be a difficult journey through steep ridges of briar, tall grass, thick copses of wiry trees, and treacherous patches of slippery rock. Rex switched on the flashlight and swung the beam over the rocks and overgrown briars where the road petered out and wilderness reigned.

“Let’s get going,” said Rex. “This is going to be one hell of a trek.”

* * *

If anything, Rex had undersold the difficulty of the climb. Traveling by day would have been arduous and challenging, even for experienced hikers, but making their ascent in darkness, wearing suits and brogues and with only the light of a single flashlight to guide them, it was close to madness. Occasionally, a slice of moon would peek from behind a cloud to give them a brief moment of illumination, but such instances were rare. Their ascent was punctuated by bouts of inventive profanity and grunts of pain as they tripped, stumbled, and fell over protruding rocks, jutting roots, and hidden rabbit burrows.

Progress was painfully slow, but at least it was progress.

The light of the flashlight was a thin lifeline, and Oliver kept his eyes fixed upon its wavering beam as he tried to keep his steps free of anything that might trip him again. Their trousers were ripped and each man had cut his knees and palms open on sharp rocks. 

At one point, they were forced to detour to the very edge of the towering crag when they came upon a deep gorge that offered no easy route across. To Oliver’s right, sheer cliffs dropped for hundreds of feet to jagged rocks that looked like the upraised points of spears, while to his left, the gorge tumbled down in a slope of craggy projections that would be no less fatal. Only a thin strip of loose rock skirted the gorge, and their intrepid band was forced to make their way over on all fours. Oliver wanted to keep his eyes closed, but kept his gaze trained upon the bobbing circle of light that shone from Rex in the lead.

With the gorge successfully circumvented, the climb became steeper, with each man forced to clamber over projecting spurs of rock and push their way through dense thickets of overgrown brush. The trees grew thicker and thicker, and out of the corner of his eye, Oliver fancied he saw spiked branches stark against the sky that looked like clawed hands poised to reach out and hurl him from the cliffs.

To add to their misery, the mist that engulfed Kingsport far below began to thicken around the promontory until it seemed as though they were afloat in the air, carried on a bridge of the flashlight’s light. Oliver had quite lost track of how long they had been climbing, surely several hours, and paused to remove his pocket watch to check the time, before realizing that it was, of course, too dark to read. In any case, all that remained of it was the broken chain attached to his tattered waistcoat, and he shook his head, irritated at the loss.

He turned to resume his climb and saw with mounting fear that he was alone in the mist. Rex and Luke were nowhere to be seen, and his heart pounded in sudden panic at the thought of being lost up here with sheer drops to either side and only hazardous terrain behind and before him.

“Rex! Luke!” cried Oliver, but the mist swallowed his words entirely. “Can you hear me?”

No one answered his shouts, and Oliver bellowed himself hoarse as he called out to his vanished companions. The moon broke free from a cloud, drifting into a clear patch of sky, and Oliver took advantage of this boon to push onward, pausing every now and then to call out to his fellow climbers.

He soon became aware of a nearby presence, a half-glimpsed form that was shadowing his every move. At first he ignored it, assuming it to be some trick of the light, a strange optical effect of the moonlit mist. But as time went by, the ghostly figure moved out of step with Oliver and he came to realize that this was no reflected doppelgänger.

He stopped and called out to the figure.

“Rex? Luke, is that you?”

The figure didn’t answer, and took a step toward him.

Oliver backed away, sensing no threat, but the burden of a duty he feared to shoulder in the figure’s grim purpose.

“Who are you? What do you want from me?” asked Oliver, and some trick of the mist’s acoustics threw his words back at him in a mocking echo. He took another backward step, feeling the ground underfoot change from spongy earth to hard, rain-slick rock. Oliver didn’t dare risk looking behind him, knowing on some instinctive level that were he to take his eyes from this strange apparition that it would be on him in a heartbeat.

He could see nothing of the figure beyond its outline, but he felt a terrible desperation in its every movement, as though appearing like this was requiring unimaginable effort. Yet still Oliver wanted nothing more than to be reunited with the companions with whom he had begun this climb. Oliver took another step backward.

His questing foot found nothing but air, and he felt himself losing his balance.

Oliver spun around, his arms flailing as his center of gravity tipped and he found himself staring down at Kingsport, more than a thousand feet below. Yawning space stretched out in front of him, and vertigo made traitors of his limbs as he tried to back away from the brink.

Oliver cried out as he felt himself falling.

Hands grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back from the edge, his rescuer dragging him to the ground to keep him from vanishing over the edge of the cliff. Oliver fought the tight grip, even as his brain tried to tell him that this man had saved his life.

“Who are you?” demanded Oliver, scrambling away from the man.

A flashlight beam snapped on, revealing the breathless, ruddy features of Rex Murphy.

“Jumping Jesus, Oliver! It’s me, Rex! What the hell were you dong? You almost fell off the cliff for heaven’s sake!”

Oliver drew in a deep breath, relieved beyond words to see the reporter’s familiar face. Luke Robinson stood over Rex, and Oliver had never been more grateful to see another pair of human beings. He scanned the mist behind them, grateful it was no longer as thick as it had seemed only a moment ago.

Of his shadowy pursuer, there was no sign.

“It’s this place,” he said with a juddering sigh. “It gets inside your head.”

“Yeah, well get it out of your head,” said Rex. “Damn it if we didn’t make it, Professor.”

“What?” said Oliver. “We’re here?”

“We’re here,” agreed Luke, pointing along the crag to where Oliver saw a steeply roofed building with a single light burning in its low windows at the farthest tip of Kingsport Head.

“The high house in the mist,” whispered Oliver.

* * *

With slow steps, Luke led Oliver and Rex toward the house. It was old, ancient even, and Oliver wondered how anyone had managed to bring the slates, timbers, and stones used in its construction up from below. A shingled roof formed the bulk of the dwelling, tall and steeply angled, such that only a narrow strip of timber and grey stone was visible at its low eaves. A crumbling chimney breast leaned drunkenly from the center of the roof, and a thin line of white smoke drifted from its cracked clay pots. A small latticed window punctured the stonework, and light seemed to drift from the thick blocks of rippled glass.

“What kind of person builds a house with no door?” asked Rex.

“There’s a door,” said Luke. “Just not on this side.”

“Okay, then who builds a house with the door facing away from the land?”

“Someone who doesn’t like people much?” suggested Oliver, remembering the old man who’d warned him that it was perilous to waste the time of the one who lived in this house.

Luke nodded and said, “The door’s on the far side of the house. We’ll need to go around, so watch your step.”

As Oliver drew near to the strange, high-roofed house, he saw that was good advice, for it was built on the farthest spur of Kingsport Head. Barely a yard separated either side of the building from a sheer drop into the mist.

“Holy Christ,” said Rex. “This had better be worth it.”

Rex eased up to the house, turning to face it so that he could lean on the roof slates as he sidestepped along the grassy ridge. Oliver went next, trying not to think of the vast distance he would fall if he lost his balance, slipped, or suffered another dizzying spell of vertigo. Before he set off after Rex, he turned to Luke.

“This is where you left this world, isn’t it?”

Luke nodded. “Yes.”

“You don’t look too happy to be back.”

“I’m not,” said Luke. “The one who lives here is not a man to be taken lightly. He has great power, and does not easily allow others to pass through his gates.”

“Will he remember you?”

“I think that he will,” said Luke, and Oliver saw the involuntary glance Luke gave to the bag containing Ariadne’s Gift. “But I hope he won’t.”

Oliver nodded and took a deep breath as he stepped onto the thin strip of damp grass that was all that stood between him and a thousand foot plunge to his death. The ground was soft and damp, water droplets hanging from the long stems of grass, and the distance to the front of the house stretched out for what seemed like hundreds of yards, but which was probably only ten at the most.

Resting his hands on the stippled surface of the roof slates, Oliver took one slow step after another. He stared straight ahead, focusing on the tiny details of the roof in front of him: the rust patterns on a nail, the crack running down a shingle, and the mossy growth running between an overlapping joint. No matter how he concentrated, he couldn’t shake the image of the yawning drop at his back, the death that was only a single misstep away. He kept his feet shuffling sideways on trembling legs.

Luke was following behind him, but he didn’t dare look up to see if Rex had already reached the front of the building. Oliver kept going, one foot after the other, sliding his hands along the rough surface of the age-cracked shingles. At last his hand reached the end of the roof and he panicked, pressing himself flat against the roof and closing his eyes tight.

“Relax, Oliver, you’re here,” said Rex. “Gimme your hand and I’ll guide you around.”

Oliver nodded and let Rex take his right hand. With his left pressed firmly against the roof, Oliver opened his eyes and stifled a yelp of fear as he saw the torrid expanse of the ocean stretched out before him in a vast, unending vista of star-dappled blackness. He was so high! The trembling in his legs increased, and his stomach flipped over in terror as he saw the mist had receded to reveal the colossal scale of the peak they had just climbed.

Kingsport was little more than distant speckles of light in the darkness far below, and the lights of the boats moored at the wharf bobbed and swayed in the brisk waters crashing on the quayside. Oliver’s heart battered his ribs, and he felt a nauseous wave of dizziness come over him at the sight.

Rex grabbed hold of his coat and dragged him around the corner of the house, pushing him hard against the front of the building. The area before the house wasn’t much wider than the strip at the side, but even that little bit of solid ground was welcome. Oliver sank to his haunches with his back against the painted timbers of the house and drew his knees up tight to his chest. His breath came in terrified, hiked gulps and his eyes were wide with fear. Rex helped Luke around the corner of the house, and now that they were safe, Oliver took a moment to control his wild heartbeat and take stock of their surroundings.

Two windows lit up the narrow ledge before the house, and a door of huge proportions, much larger than even the tallest man would require, offered entry to the building. Isolated banks of mist gathered beyond the ledge onto which the door opened, and hazed bands of half-glimpsed colors and smeared light striated the billowing clouds that gathered around the tip of the crag like observers.

With great care and effort, Oliver pushed himself to his feet. He kept his hands hard against the wall of the house, as much for reassurance as balance. Out of the three of them, Rex was the only one who appeared to be enjoying this expedition. Though his clothes were ripped and he too gasped for breath, there was a fevered excitement to his eyes that made Oliver smile in the shared experience. Luke, already exhausted from his grueling passage from the Dreamlands to the waking world, looked ready to collapse, but his desire to help Henry had given him strength enough to endure.

“Okay, so we’re here now,” said Rex between breaths. “Now what?”

Oliver looked over at the door.

“I guess we knock,” he said.

Seeing that no one else was going to step forward, Oliver moved past Rex to stand in front of the door. Its timbers were ancient and weathered, as though they’d been salvaged from the wreck of a sunken galleon. The gleam of what looked like an embedded musket ball only added weight to that notion.

Oliver bunched his fist and drew back his hand to knock.

The door opened, and a rough voice of grinding gravel said, “Don’t just stand there, you bloody fools, get in before something sees you.”

Chapter Nineteen

A single room filled the space beneath the high roof, a spacious area dominated by a central hearth that crackled with a ribald fire. Sea chests and bookcases lined the walls and, like much of Kingsport below, maritime personal effects were the theme of what little decor there was. Candles set on iron sconces lit the room with a warm, flickering glow, and the man who had admitted them carried another on an iron holder shaped in the form of a rearing mermaid.

Dressed in a strangely tailored suit of dark cloth with a Revolutionary era double-breasted coat, he looked like some sort of historical re-enactor. His thick beard was black, his hair neatly combed, and his appearance like that of any respectable middle-aged man. As he put down the candleholder and turned his gaze upon them, Oliver saw his eyes were deep pools of age-won wisdom. Even George looked young compared to these eyes.

This man had seen wonders they could never even imagine, had traveled to places beyond the reach of all but the most adventurous explorers, and learned things that would sear most men’s souls. Oliver saw all this and more in the man’s eyes, and felt himself almost repulsed by the span of years within.

The man smiled, but there was no hint of reassurance in the expression. He regarded his visitors as a scientist might examine a fresh specimen on his dissecting slab. Indeed, he seemed more amused than irritated at their presence. He gave each of them a perfunctory glance, but Oliver had the keen sensation that their every secret was laid bare to this man’s eyes. Too many years had passed for him to be fooled by mortal wiles, and Oliver knew with complete certainty that to lie to this man would be a grave error in judgment.

“I wondered when you’d be back,” he said, the words addressed to Luke.

“I didn’t expect to be back at all,” replied Luke.

“No one does, but it’s hard to leave everything behind. We all have something that brings us back to this world.”

“Not me,” said Luke. “Everyone I knew in this world is dead.”

“Not everyone,” said the man. “What about her?”

“What about her?” said Luke. “She made her choice.”

“Maybe she regrets that choice. Maybe she’d finally see sense and leave her adulterous husband and run off with her artist lover. Maybe, but maybe not.”

Anger made Luke’s face ruddy, and veins stood out on his neck like taut iron cables.

Rex laid a restraining hand on Luke’s shoulder and the man sagged visibly, as though the air had been let out of his lungs. Oliver felt an instant dislike for this man who used words like weapons and relished the pain they caused.

“Do you know why we’re here?” he asked, before the man could twist the knife further.

“Of course I do,” said the man, without taking his eyes from Luke or the bag that held Ariadne’s Gift.

“My name is Oliver Grayson, and—”

“I know who you are,” said the man, pouring himself a measure of a curious drink from a decanter of veined green glass. It sparkled like red-gold molasses embedded with sugar crystals, and Oliver could smell its sweetness from halfway across the room.

“Sydathrian wine,” said the man. “In honor of our guest from the Dreamlands. I’d offer you some, but I think it might be somewhat sweet for your earthly tastes.”

Rex pushed himself in front of Luke and jabbed a finger toward the man.

“Listen, buddy, we came a long way to get here, so you’d better start talking and making sense, ’cause I don’t like making a lot of effort for no reward.”

“Reward, Rex?” said the man. “You already had your reward, but you let her go.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Rex, but even Oliver could tell he was bluffing and knew fine well to what the man alluded.

“Come on, you must have known Minnie loved you?” said the man. “All that time together and you never knew? I don’t believe that for a minute. You knew, but you didn’t do anything because you thought you were better than her. You thought you’d be off to New York or Washington to the big leagues, and didn’t want some small town gal holding you back.”

“That’s not true,” said Rex.

“Isn’t it?” said the man, shrugging. “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, but you’ll never know now, will you? A chance like that only comes once in a lifetime, you know that don’t you?”

Rex bit his lip and Oliver could see what it was costing Rex to keep from saying something stupid. Rex knew they were here to help Henry, and Oliver loved him for his strength of character, a strength for which he knew he hadn’t given Rex enough credit.

The man laughed and turned his penetrating gaze on Oliver.

“Say what you’re going to say, it won’t change why we’re here,” said Oliver.

“And what would I say about you, Mr. Grayson?” said the man, sitting on a bench seat beside the fire and swirling the glittering liquid in his glass. “That you’re on a fool’s errand, or that you’re blind to the failings of those closest to you? Would you listen to me if I told you those things? Would they stop you from asking me what you’re about to ask me?”

“No,” admitted Oliver.

“Good, I like a man who ploughs on regardless of insurmountable obstacles.”

“Who are you?”

“Haven’t you heard of me?” asked the man, affecting a hurt pout. “I’m ‘The One.’ At least, that’s what they used to call me.”

“‘The One’? Don’t you have a proper name?” asked Rex.

“Of course I do. Would you like to know it?”

“No,” said Oliver. “I don’t care to know your name. All I want is to ask you to open the way for us to reach the Dreamlands.”

The man laughed. “You say the name like you know something about that domain. If you knew half of what the Dreamlands would do to someone like you, you’d be back down Kingsport Head quicker than a jackrabbit with a fox on its tail.”

“Will you help us or not?” asked Oliver.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said the man, and the fire in the hearth burned brighter, as though fed by the eagerness Oliver saw in the man’s eyes. “Convince me that it would be a good idea to let you through the gateway. And be truthful, because it’s not good to waste my time in this world.”

Oliver fished in his shirt pocket for the gold doubloon, but discovered to his horror that it was gone. He spun around, hoping to see it glinting on the floor, but knowing that it was most likely lost somewhere on the crag or had fallen from his pocket when he’d teetered on the brink of the cliff.

“Looking for this?” said the man, holding up a gold coin that Oliver knew was the one the old man had given him.

“I was, yes,” said Oliver, trying to retain his composure in the face of the man’s smug preening. “It’s yours, a tribute if you will. Given freely in the hope that you’ll help us.”

“This token got you in the door, that’s all,” said the man. “But if he thinks you’ve got something worth saying, then I’ll hear you out.”

Before Oliver could even open his mouth, Rex appeared at his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “I’ll take this one, Professor. If there’s one thing Stan Goodman taught me, it’s never, ever, bury the lead. You’re a clever guy, Oliver, but the way you’ll tell it, you’ll get lost in a sea of information. Trust me, one of the worst things about knowing a lot is that you’re tempted to share it all, and I get the feeling this guy’s all about the lead.”

Oliver smiled gratefully, and nodded. Rex rolled his shoulders and rotated his head on his neck, as though about to go ten rounds with a prize-fighter. He took a seat opposite the man in the dark suit and began his telling of the events that had driven them to climb Kingsport Head in search of a dream.

The words flowed from Rex like an undammed river, starting with why they were seeking to venture into the Dreamlands. Rex spoke as though these things were the most natural thing in the world, and his easy charisma gave his words an extra emphasis that Oliver could never match. From there, he worked backward through events in Kingsport and Arkham, and Oliver had to fight the temptation to pitch in with facts and details of his own.

As the tale wove on, Oliver was put in mind of seduction, as Rex teased with one fact that then demanded the listener follow him to the next one. Each element of the story provoked involvement, and Oliver saw that, despite himself, the man was following Rex’s narrative with great interest. Eventually, Rex’s story wound back on itself, bringing everything full circle to the three of them climbing to this lonely house in the mist.

The man nodded as Rex finished his tale and said, “Makes a change for someone to come to me with a real reason to reach the Dreamlands.”

“So you’ll help us?” asked Oliver.

“I’ll get you through,” said the man, moving to the back of the room. “But whether that’s helping you is another matter.”

He rifled through a chest emblazoned with the faded impression of a flag bearing a St. George’s cross in the canton and a number of alternating red and white stripes. Oliver recognized the flag as that of the East India Company, one of the older versions.

“You tell a fine tale,” said Oliver, taking Rex’s hand and shaking it. “I was there for most of it and I seem to remember rather more terror than I heard in your account of events.”

“I don’t bury the lead,” said Rex with a grin. “But I don’t let too many grubby facts get in the way of a good story, neither. I call it the Florence Nightingale effect. Folks care more about people than they do about abstractions, so you get them to care about the people and they become part of the story.”

“You’re cleverer than you let on, you know that,” said Oliver.

Rex winked and said, “Don’t tell no one, yeah?”

“Your secret is safe with me,” said Oliver, as the man returned from the back of the room with what appeared to be a rolled up captain’s chart. He also carried a strange object fashioned from the same iridescent material that formed the corners and edges of Ariadne’s Gift. It’s angles, notched arcs of metal, and prism-like lenses put Oliver in mind of a bizarre form of optical sextant that might have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci.

The man unrolled the map and laid it flat upon the floor.

It was a thing of beauty, the cartographer’s art rendered with exquisite love and attention to detail. The parchment was soft, like kidskin, and its edges were golden. The land represented on the map was unknown to Oliver, a world described in fluid sweeps of ink, rugged arcs of coastline, and mountains that fooled the eye into thinking they were rising from the contours of the map. Each word was picked out in crimson ink, every line straight as a moonbeam, and even the gilt border that enclosed the land was worked with filigreed scrollwork.

Yet even as Oliver stared at the map, he saw it was impossible to be certain that it represented a static landscape. Its boundaries were fluid and ever-changing, and no sooner had Oliver’s eye roamed to some new land with names foreign to his earthly understanding than a coastline would shift, an island sink, or a mountain range re-establish itself just a little farther north. Of course he saw none of this, and could never be certain of what he thought he was seeing, but the powerful impression of a land forever in flux was impossible to shake.

“So you want to go to the Dreamlands,” said the man, placing the curious, sextant-like device in the center of the map. “It’s a big place, and doesn’t easily submit to being pinned down, even by Ibn Ghazi’s encaustum. Where exactly do you want to go, but bear in mind I use the word exactly with the caveat that there’s no such thing where dreams are concerned.”

Luke knelt by the man’s side and pointed to a small island in a southern ocean that Oliver would have sworn hadn’t been there a moment before.

“Baharna,” said Luke. “On the island of Oriab.”

“I know it well,” said the man. “Tell me, do the Men of Leng still trade there?”

Luke nodded. “They do, though we drive them off whenever we see them.”

“And does the prince still rule Dylath-Leen?”

“He does,” confirmed Luke.

The man nodded, and, seeing Oliver’s look of confusion, said, “Dreams are not constant things, they move and twist back on themselves. Where you enter and when you end up can be two very different things. Knowing when you want to go is as important as where, which is why I’ll need Carter’s oneirolabe if I’m to get you anywhere near Baharna and not lost in the cold wastes of Kadath.”

“I’m guessing that would be bad,” said Rex.

“Unless you think being eaten alive by the Gnoph-Ke is a good thing,” snapped the man, beckoning Luke to his side. “Montague’s box, do you have it?”

Luke’s hand moved protectively to the bag containing Ariadne’s Gift, and he stood suddenly, taking a step back from the man.

“Don’t be foolish, boy,” said the man dismissively. “You think I need that trinket of yours to navigate my way around the universe? If I wanted that box, do you really think you’d be able to stop me taking it? The only reason I allow you to hang onto it is because I knew your Uncle Monty and I owe him my life.”

“You knew my uncle?”

“I still do,” said the man, but would be drawn no further.

Reluctantly, Luke removed Ariadne’s Gift and handed it to the man. Despite his assurances that he did not desire the box, Oliver saw his eyes light up as he saw the strange puzzle box and its window into worlds unknown. He placed the box next to the device he had called the “oneirolabe,” adjusting its ratcheting arms and prisms until they were aligned with the crystal panel on the box.

A faint light appeared between the two devices, a suspended corposant that spread over the map like a steadily growing spiderweb of glowing threads. Oliver watched, astounded, as the map began to shift and change, continents coming together or breaking apart as though he were watching geological ages of the world passing in the blink of an eye. Sweat appeared on the man’s brow as the arms of the oneirolabe began moving like a confused metronome that could no longer keep time. 

“Be ready,” said the man, pressing his hands to the surface of the map as its rebellious ink continued to twist belligerently at being forced into compliance. “When I tell you to run, you run. Out that door and through the gate. No hesitation or you will veer wildly from where I am trying to send you.”

A howling wind sprang up around the house and every single flame in the room was snuffed out, leaving only the glow of the map to cast its fitful illumination around the room. Though the world beyond had been silent and calm moments before, all the tempests of the seven seas seemed to have gathered beyond the walls. The thick glass of the windows rattled and shook in their latticed frames, and the door banged against its frame as though assaulted by an army of besieging warriors.

“Good Christ,” said Rex, spinning around at the frenzy of shadows. “What in God’s name is going on out there?”

“Nothing in your god’s name,” said the man. “The gate is open, but there are things that dwell in the timeless wastes between worlds. And they do not miss a chance to vent their fury on those that open the paths. Now go, I can hold the gate open for a moment only!”

Luke snatched up Ariadne’s Gift as the door burst open and the violent winds blew in like invaders and the shadows ran riot in the high-ceilinged room. Oily black silhouettes slithered and clawed their way over the walls: demonic things, winged things, clawed things. Things that laughed like loons, things that cackled with dark amusement, and things that growled with unquenchable bloodlust.

“Go!” yelled the man. “This is your only chance!”

Oliver needed no further encouragement, and ran toward the banging door of the house. Through the frame, which seemed to bulge and contract like a reflection in a fairground mirror, Oliver saw the sky was alight with multi-colored fire. Lightning arced up into the sky in defiance of the laws of electromagnetism. It was the phantom kin of the aurora borealis dragged from the upper atmosphere and set in the clouds of Kingsport. It was magnificent and terrible, a tortured rupture in the fabric of the world.

Rex and Luke ran with him, and as he emerged onto the thin slice of land that was all that stood between them and the sheer drop into the ocean, he was brought up short at the incredible sight before him.

Oliver saw myriad tears in the sky, a vast nexus of cosmic gateways that led to destinations unknown and realms unimagined. The beauty and terror of the sight all but paralyzed Oliver, and he stared into the fantastical vistas of a thousand worlds laid before him, feeling tiny and insignificant in the face of such unimaginable scale.

“Jump!” shouted Luke, leaping from the cliff with the aplomb of an athlete.

Rex and Oliver looked at each other in wonderment and disbelief.

“You ready?” said Rex.

“A leap of faith,” said Oliver, remembering something Finn Edwards had once said to him.

The shadow creatures in the house shrieked and bellowed, and the light of the map within was extinguished. With devil-may-care cries, Rex and Oliver threw themselves into the swirling nimbus of light that surrounded Kingsport Head.

And vanished from the face of the earth.

* * *

At first, Oliver thought he was dreaming of the beach again. He was lying on soft sand, staring up at a sky that was too blue, too crisp in its blueness, to be real. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the soft sigh of water on a nearby shore and the occasional cry of some animal he couldn’t quite identify. Though he had just climbed the immense scarp of Kingsport Head, he felt completely refreshed, as though he had slept for a week in the softest bed in the world. Oliver smiled, feeling stronger and more alert than he had in months.

In fact, he felt better than he had in his entire life.

Oliver sat up and looked about himself, unable to prevent a wide grin spreading across his face as he saw tranquil beauty spreading in all directions. In front of him was a wide lake of crystal clear water, as vast and clear as any of the Great Lakes, while to his left was a towering black mountain whose summit was wreathed in concealing clouds. Farther along the lakeshore, a collection of ruined structures rose from the ground, a city of silver towers, fallen temples, and ruined arches engulfed by weeds and overtaken by time.

Birds wheeled overhead, and Oliver climbed to his feet as he heard voices. From his vantage point he saw Rex down at the shores of the lake, his hands cupped before him as he scooped water into his mouth. Luke stood beside him, though it took Oliver a moment to recognize him, such was the difference he saw in the man.

“Oliver!” cried Rex, seeing him farther up the beach. “You have to try this water—it’s incredible!”

Oliver made his way toward the shore, pleased to see that their arrival in the Dreamlands seemed to have affected Rex in a similar manner. His physique was robust and lean, like the reporters that populated the movies.

“You look good, Rex,” said Oliver. “But Luke…I hardly recognized you.”

Luke was no longer the man of skin and bone they had known in the waking world; here he was full-shouldered, wide-bodied, and powerful. This was Luke as he had dreamed himself into being, his sense of self unfettered by earthly constraints.

“When you live in the Dreamlands for awhile, it reshapes you as you imagine yourself to be,” said Luke with a knowing grin. “Take a look and see.”

“Yeah,” said Rex. “You look pretty different too.”

Oliver bent down to the water’s edge and leaned over to examine his reflection.

The face that stared back at him was at once familiar and subtly different. Oliver’s slender, ascetic features were now fuller and more striking, and he was at once put in mind of the cover of The D’Arblay Mystery, which depicted his favorite fictional detective, Dr. John Thorndyke. But stranger than his sculpted patrician features were the three bone hooks piercing his right eyebrow. He lifted a hand to touch the curling hooks, and the memory of his dreams on the island of the Yopasi returned to him in every detail.

Oliver gasped and rose to his feet, backing away from the water as though afraid it contained some hideous undersea monster.

“Good God,” he said. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor me, but we’re here,” said Rex. “If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes, I’d have had a hard time believing it. I know you told us about that trip you took with the Irishman and Miss Winthrop, but I think I always thought you might have imagined it all. But now…”

“It takes a bit of adjustment,” said Luke, “but you’ll get used to it soon enough.”

“But these…,” said Oliver, touching the bone hooks gently. “Kaula hammered them into me in a dream I had the other night. I woke up as he did it, but…now they’re in my face.”

“Who’s Kaula?” asked Rex.

“He was the shaman of the Yopasi,” said Oliver. “He’s dead.”

“A shaman in a dream did that to you?” said Luke.

Oliver nodded.

“Then he must have had a good reason,” said Luke, turning and walking along the shore of the lake. “Come on, we’d best be moving. Oriab is a pretty safe place, but I don’t want to have to spend a night beside the ruins of Tyrihhia.”

“That’s Tyrihhia?” said Oliver, pointing to the ruined city by the water’s edge.

Luke nodded, but did not look back. “Yes, no one remembers who built it or who lived there; it’s been ruined as long as even the oldest dreamers here can remember, and that’s a long time, trust me. Mad things that are no longer men are said to haunt its ruins, things it would be best we never met.”

“So how far are we from Baharna?” asked Rex.

Luke shielded his eyes from the sun and stared off past the bulk of the mountain.

“I’d say around a week’s walk,” said Luke.

* * *

In the end, it took them only three days to reach Baharna.

At the end of the first day’s travel, Oliver, Rex, and Luke came upon a small fishing village perched precariously over the water on a number of thin wooden stilts. The people were welcoming and provided the weary travelers with a warm meal of salty fish and rice, then offered them a bed for the night in return for tales told around a warm fire.

Oliver regaled the eager-eyed villagers with a condensed retelling of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and his audience was thrilled at the idea of a machine that sailed beneath the water. Rex spoke of his travels around the world, the strange people he’d met, and the even stranger tales of their lives. The villagers saw them on their way the following morning with three zebras to bear them to Baharna, together with panniers filled with bread, cheese, and dried fish. The travelers had no need of water, for Lake Yath was clear and drinkable.

Though traveling by zebra was alien to Oliver and Rex, the beasts were a pleasure to ride and both men laughed as they set off at a gallop. The zebras seemed only too grateful for the chance to travel farther afield, and bore their swaying passengers without complaint.

The journey along the shores of the lake was a time of peace that Oliver had felt certain he would never know again. The attraction of coming here to live forever, leaving the waking world far behind was obvious, but the thought of doing so never crossed Oliver’s mind. A terrible threat gathered against his world, and he could not flee for safety when the minions of Cthulhu plotted its doom.

He had fretted about the time they were taking on this journey, but when Luke had explained to him the difference in the passage of time in the Dreamlands, he had relaxed somewhat. His initial disappointment that they were so far from Baharna had been offset when Luke explained that they were lucky to have arrived on Oriab at all and not in the wilds of Lomar or the spider-haunted plains of Leng.

The thought of seeing Henry again filled Oliver with excitement, though a kernel of unease lodged in his gut as Luke warned him that Henry’s prolonged time in the Dreamlands and the deterioration of his physical body would likely have wrought profound changes to the man he had known. He tried not to think of that as the spires of the distant city and the nighttime blaze of twin pillars of light came into view over the undulant horizon of rugged cliffs.

Though the edges of the city came into view late in the evening of the second day, they camped beside Lake Yath, in the shadow of Mount Ngranek, and Luke told them of his travels around the Dreamlands and the people he had met. He spoke of one man, Randolph Carter, who had shown him how to travel without attracting undue attention, and another—whose name he had never learned—who had devised earthly means of interpreting the dreams of the waking world and relating them to the daily struggles of life.

Upon the morning, they rode up to the crest of the cliffs overlooking Baharna and set the zebras free. The creatures bowed their equine heads, and Oliver saw an intelligence there that humbled him. The striped mounts galloped off to the south, leaving Oliver, Rex, and Luke at the head of a cobbled path of pale pink stone that wound downhill into the city. From the top of the cliffs, the view over the handsome city was incredible, a tumbled cascade of houses like the most picturesque Mediterranean village, as imagined by the most optimistic poet embarking on his literary grand tour. 

The buildings were solid and robust, the streets fragrant, and the air redolent with the promise of far-off lands and exotic wares. The people they met were beautiful, clean-limbed, and golden skinned. Many greeted Luke by name and welcomed him back as though he were a long lost son. Oliver wondered how much time had passed here while Luke had been in the waking world, now realizing how much of a sacrifice Luke had made to seek him out. Nothing he could ever do would repay that act of kindness, but should Luke ever need help from the waking world, Oliver would ensure he was not found wanting.

They encountered a crowded market that almost drew them from their course until Luke hustled them through it, though not before making a purchase of his own. Oliver did his best to etch every sensation, every smell, and every sight into his memory. From what little he knew of the Dreamlands, those abed and living out lives here would soon forget what they had experienced, but as physical travelers here, Oliver hoped he would remember everything.

Passing through an overgrown arbor filled with trees exuding a sticky, resinous sap that smelled of warm honey, cinnamon, and apples, Oliver watched the colorfully plumed birds that followed their steps and made curiously human squawks. Every turn brought fresh wonders and strange sights: acrobats who vanished through hoops of fire only to reappear from thin air, dancers who defied gravity and spun colored streamers of light, and ad hoc masques of dark-robed assassins and righteous avengers.

At length their journey ended at an unremarkable structure of polished earth-colored stone. Compared to the rest of the city, it was almost a disappointment.

“This is where you live?” asked Rex.

“It is,” confirmed Luke with a relieved sigh. “Home sweet home.”

“And Henry is within?”

Luke pointed to a window that shone with welcoming lamplight.

“Yes,” said Luke. “Henry is within.”

* * *

The interior of Luke’s home smelled of warm bread, instantly putting the dusty travelers at their ease. Oliver followed Luke into the building, letting his eyes roam the interior without really taking in any of the details. Seated at the table, with one hand resting on its flat surface, was Henry Cartwright, and Oliver felt his heart quicken at the sight of his old friend.

He ran past Luke and knelt beside Henry, taking his hand and shaking it vigorously.

“Henry, by God it’s good to see you! Here of all places,” said Oliver. “You’ve no idea what we’ve been through to get here, old fellow, but…”

Oliver’s words trailed off as he saw that Henry had barely registered their presence in the house beyond a slight turn of the head. 

“Henry? Can you hear me?” asked Oliver. “Henry?”

Luke moved past Oliver and set down Ariadne’s Gift on a workbench against one wall.

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Rex. “Why doesn’t he remember Oliver?”

Luke took a deep breath, as though reluctant to speak. “Henry’s body has almost faded away in the waking world, and that’s having an effect on him here,” he said. “It was already beginning before I left, but it’s gotten worse.”

“Can it be reversed?” asked Oliver, distraught at the idea that they had come all this way for nothing. “Can we bring Henry back?”

Luke nodded. “Henry came to the Dreamlands with only scraps of memory, but when his dreaming self and his body are reunited, his mind should be restored.”

“You’re sure about that?” asked Oliver.

“Nothing in the Dreamlands is certain,” said Luke, placing a hand on Henry’s shoulder.

“Henry, it’s Luke,” he said. “I’ve come home. I saw the light and it brought me home.”

Oliver let out a hiss of breath as he saw a flicker of life behind Henry’s eyes.

“You’re home now?” said Henry slowly, as though in a deep slumber. Luke retrieved a piece of paper from an inner pocket of his shirt.

“I am,” said Luke, unfolding the paper and placing it in Henry’s hand. “And I brought Oliver with me. You remember? Oliver Grayson.”

Henry looked down at the paper Luke had given him, and Oliver saw it bore a remarkable likeness of his own features rendered in charcoal.

“Yes, Henry, I came here with Luke to bring you back,” said Oliver.

“You came back for me?” said Henry, his voice swimming to the surface of recall.

“Of course,” said Oliver. “You’re one of my dearest friends, Henry. Of course I’d find you.”

Henry turned his face to Luke and the trance-like cast to his features fell away, as though a smothering blanket had been removed. His eyes gained a measure of focus and Henry looked at Oliver with a slow smile.

“Oliver? Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me, Henry.”

“I know you. I don’t remember how, but I know you. We’re friends, yes?”

“We are indeed,” said Oliver happily. “You’ve been trapped here for a long time, but it’s time to go home now.”

“Home?”

“Yes, to Arkham,” said Oliver. “It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. Some rum doings are afoot, and the world is in terrible danger, but we’re doing our best to save it.”

“Who?”

Oliver turned and beckoned Rex forward. “Well, there’s me for starters. And Rex, a reporter for the Arkham Advertiser; he’s a good sort. And you remember George Gammell Angell from Brown? Turns out he’s been a student of the mysterious and the occult for longer than either of us could have imagined. And then there’s Alexander Templeton from Miskatonic. I know you and he have had your differences, but I don’t think any of us can deny that he’s been a great help in our fight against our enemies.”

“Enemies? I don’t understand… Are we at war?” said Henry.

Oliver took a breath. “Well, in a way, yes. It’s a lot to take in, I know, but when we get you out of here, I’ll explain it all to you, I promise. The people that put you here knew you would be a great adversary and did their best to keep you from joining the fight.”

“You’ll take me home?”

“Absolutely,” said Oliver, rising to his feet and turning to Luke. “We can get him home, can’t we?”

Luke sat on a nearby chair and ran his hands through his hair. He returned Oliver’s gaze only with reluctance. “I know of a way Henry can go home, but none of you will like it.”

“If it gets Henry home to the waking world, then I assure you I will like it,” said Oliver.

“You won’t,” said Luke, lifting out the object he had purchased at the market and setting it on the table. Oliver recoiled as he saw a bone-handled dagger encased in a jeweled scabbard worked in chased ebony and mother of pearl.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s that for?” asked Rex. “Why do you need a sultan’s dagger?”

“It’s Henry’s only way home,” said Luke. “I had hoped seeing Oliver would dislodge whatever bindings are keeping Henry’s dreamself from returning to his body, but that’s not been the case.”

Henry got up from his seat, and Oliver was heartened by the strength of purpose he saw in his friend’s demeanor. 

“Is this the only way?” he asked. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, Henry,” said Luke, and there were tears in his eyes. “I wish I wasn’t, but…”

Henry embraced Luke and said, “Thank you, Luke. For everything you’ve done for me since I came to Baharna. For bringing Oliver to me and for letting me live in my dreams.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” said Luke.

“Will I ever see you again?”

“No,” said Luke. “I’ll not go back to the waking world.”

Henry turned to look at the dagger on the tabletop. “And I’ll never be able to come back here, will I?”

“No, Henry,” said Luke. “You won’t ever return here.”

Henry nodded. “You tried to tell me this might be how it would have to be.”

“I’d hoped it wouldn’t.”

Henry stepped away and lifted the dagger from its sheath. The blade was long, straight, and its edge sharper than any earthly armorer could ever attain. In his other hand, he held a glassy blue figurine depicting a star symbol with which Oliver had become increasingly familiar over the last week.

“You could stay,” suggested Rex.

“And fade away like a forgotten ghost? No, that’s not for me,” said Henry, turning and offering the dagger to Oliver. “Here, it has to be you that brings me back.”

“What? No!” cried Oliver. “I didn’t come all this way just to run you through!”

Henry pressed the dagger’s bone handle into Oliver’s palm. “You have to. It’s the only way to bring me back. Don’t think of it as killing me, think of it as freeing me. This isn’t my body anyway. As I understand it, this is just a vision of how I have dreamed myself. Please, Oliver, I think this is why I remembered you. It has to be you that breaks whatever is holding me here. Please, Oliver. You have to do it.”

Oliver looked at the wicked edge of the weapon. Its mirrored edge shone like polished silver, and his tears fell on the blade as he lifted it to press the tip in the center of Henry’s chest.

“I’ll see you in Arkham very soon,” he said.

“Count on it,” said Henry.

Oliver closed his eyes and thrust the dagger into Henry’s heart.

Chapter Twenty

The Sunday night to Monday morning shift was always a slow night at Arkham Asylum. Monroe never normally cared which shift he worked, but this one was always slow to the point of boredom. During the week, the inmates were often feisty and in need of a hefty baton to the back of the legs before a doctor could arrive on the scene to administer sedatives.

Monroe hadn’t started out as a cruel warder, but years of being spat at, clawed, and otherwise abused by the lunatics kept confined in the asylum had driven any hint of compassion for his charges from his body long ago. Monroe had assumed the role of jailer more and more, until he no longer thought of the men behind bars as human.

They were inmates, numbers, and conditions.

Problems to be contained.

Yes, the Sunday to Monday shift was always a slow night.

Which was why this particular shift would stand out in his memory as being so different.

On his nightly rounds of the corridors, Monroe smoked his pipe with the air of a man not quite used to its subtleties. He’d given up smoking cigarettes after that incident with Henry Cartwright where his rollup had burst into flames and burned his lips. He’d given the old man a few discreet whacks the next day to make up for it, though he’d felt a vague discomfort at such petty cruelty.

The paintings on the wall stared down at him, but Monroe paid them no mind. Whatever kept the inmates quiet was a good thing, though why anyone would want to hang the work of madmen on the wall was beyond him. “Treat them like kids and they’ll behave like kids” was what he always said when he’d had a few whiskeys, but who ever listened to a guard?

Hardstrom had already gone home for the night, and only one of the cover doctors from the university was on the staff. Monroe turned a corner, and that was when he heard the yelling. He paused in his walk, taking a puff of his pipe and cocking his head to one side to be sure he was hearing what he thought he was hearing. Working in a place like Arkham Asylum, a man got so used to hearing screams and yells that it was easy to filter them out.

No, there was definitely yelling coming from farther down the corridor.

He tapped his pipe out in a nearby ashtray and jogged down to the next locked gate. While he searched for the right key, he took a moment to listen to the shouts. He heard a number of different voices, all shrieking, yelling, and hollering at different levels of coherence. Most likely one had started off with some mania and set the others off. Whoever had started this was in for a severe, baton-inflicted reprimand.

Locking the gate behind him, Monroe set off down the corridor. The electric lights flickered, like they had when that power surge had blown the generator out last year.

“Shit and damn and hell,” he muttered. “Don’t let it go dark, not now.”

He reached the turn in the corridor and took a moment to compose himself in a more authoritative manner. The lunatics might not respect his authority, but he would damn well look guard-ly when he beat them quiet.

The corridor of cells was in uproar, every door banging and rattling in its frame from assault from within. Thankfully none of the maniacs had strength enough to batter their way out, but the noise was unsettling in its furious intensity.

“All right, what in the blazes is going on here?” shouted Monroe, flipping the heavy switch to turn the lights on. He moved down the corridor with steady strides, banging his baton against each door as he went. “Keep the damn noise down!”

His words had no effect, and as he reached the end of the corridor and turned around, he heard the sound of more guards responding to the clamor. He was about to move on when he heard a polite, but insistent knocking coming from the door beside him. Like an urgent caller and not a deranged madman. The fact that this cell’s inmate wasn’t attempting to break his door down was enough to attract his attention.

Checking the name chalked on the plate below the bolted vision slit, Monroe was surprised that any sound at all was coming from behind this door. He slid the vision slit open and flinched as he saw a pair of eyes staring back at him with complete lucidity.

“Mr. Monroe, is that you?” cried Henry Cartwright. “Please, you have to get me out of here! It’s a matter of great urgency!”

“Get you out?” said Monroe, forgetting for a moment that Henry Cartwright was supposed to be lying flat out in a catatonic state. “Why the hell would I do something as stupid as that?”

“I have to warn Oliver!” shouted Henry. “Dear God, I remember everything! I have to warn him before it’s too late!”

* * *

Oliver was relieved beyond words that there had been no blood. The dagger had pierced Henry’s chest and no sooner had he driven it home than his old friend had vanished as though he had never existed. With Henry gone, he dropped the blade back onto the table as though it was a venomous snake.

“It’s done?” he asked Luke.

Luke nodded.

“Good,” said Oliver. “I never want to have to do that again. Even if it wasn’t real, that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

“It won’t be the hardest you’ll have to do,” said Luke.

“What do you mean?” asked Rex.

“You’re going back to the waking world, aren’t you?” said Luke. “You know you don’t have to. You could stay here. Your bodies are here, so you could stay here. Like I do.”

Rex shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, Luke.”

“Why not? You wouldn’t have to face what’s waiting for you back there.”

“There’s someone there I’d miss too much if I was to stay here,” said Rex. “I couldn’t bear the thought of what she’d think if she knew I’d just ducked out when there was a big story in the offing. Anyway, my editor would kill me if I miss deadline again.”

“And you know I can’t stay,” said Oliver. “Not after all we went through to get here. Not after what Henry’s sacrificed to return.”

Oliver reached up and touched the bone hooks driven through his eyebrow. “And I have a job to do now. Someone has to watch for the return of the star god, and since the Yopasi are gone, that task seems to have fallen to me.”

Luke nodded and shook Oliver’s hand. “It was worth coming to the waking world to meet you, Oliver Grayson. You too, Rex Murphy.”

Rex shook Luke’s hand and said, “So if I dream and come back here, I’d be able to look you up? Here in this house?”

“You would indeed,” said Luke. “And you’d be most welcome.”

“Then I’ll not say goodbye,” said Rex.

“No, don’t. It’s too final,” agreed Luke. He paused, as though reconsidering a decision he had made long ago. “So I wonder if I might ask you a favor.”

“Anything,” said Rex. “Name it.”

Luke disappeared through a door at the back of the room and returned a moment later with a yellowed letter. He handed it to Rex and said, “When you get back, could you deliver this for me? It’s something I should have done a long time ago, but never had the courage to put in a mailbox. She deserved better, and she’s owed an explanation, even after all these years.”

“Consider it done,” Rex promised him, pocketing the letter.

“Thank you, Luke,” said Oliver. “Thank you for keeping Henry safe and thank you for coming to find me. I can’t ever repay you.”

“There’s no need,” said Luke. “I thought I’d cut every tie with the world, but it turns out you can’t ever leave a life behind completely; there’s always some part that remembers where you came from and looks back. No matter how appealing the view in front of you might be.”

“Listen,” said Rex, looking nervously at the gleaming dagger on the table. “We don’t have to get stabbed by that pigsticker do we?”

“No, you don’t,” said Luke, retrieving Ariadne’s Gift and placing it next to the dagger. “Nothing quite so brutal. This can get you home.”

“That’s a relief,” said Rex. “I’ve had enough dreams of dying for now, thank you very much.”

“So what do we do?” asked Oliver.

“Put one hand on the box, and hold onto each other’s hand,” said Luke.

Rex and Oliver did as Luke instructed.

“Wait,” said Oliver, lifting his hand off the box. “You said it wasn’t easy to return a physical body from the Dreamlands. Will this be painful?”

“It was painful for me because I’ve lived here so long, but it will be just like waking up for you. Neither of you have been here long enough for your body to truly crave this place.”

“Right, if you’re sure,” said Oliver, placing his hand back on Ariadne’s Gift.

“Close your eyes and picture where we entered the Dreamlands,” said Luke. “Picture that house in the mist. Remember every detail of it: the sagging ridge, the rotten shingles, the peeling paint on the stonework, the giant door. Every detail you can think of. Do you have it?”

“Yes,” said Rex and Oliver together.

“Good, keep it uppermost in your thoughts,” said Luke, twisting the crystal pane in the center of the box as the image of a distant land began to cohere. A crackling nimbus of light shimmered over the surface of the box, spreading like corposant up Rex and Oliver’s arms.

“Now what?” asked Oliver.

“Open your eyes,” said Luke.

* * *

Oliver opened his eyes and found himself standing on the grassy promontory atop Kingsport Head. The sudden sense of dislocation made his limbs tremble, as though he had made a journey of many miles. He let out a shuddering breath as the aches and pains of their climb up the soaring cliff returned to him. His palms were once again bloody and the muscles of his legs burned with fatigue. Instinctively he reached up to touch his forehead, but the bone hooks that had been part of him in the Dreamlands were gone.

“Holy Mary Mother…,” whispered Rex beside him.

“Just what I was thinking,” agreed Oliver.

The strange house they had climbed to reach stood in front of them, just as they had left it, though no light shone through its latticed windows and no haze of the mysterious gateways they had leapt through could be seen on its far side. Mist gathered around the eaves and Oliver had the profound sense that were they mad enough to re-enter the house, they would find it completely empty. He didn’t know what had happened to the one who had helped them enter the Dreamlands, but guessed he’d survived the onslaught of shadow creatures that had howled into his home.

“You want to know something crazy?” said Rex, examining his pocket watch.

“What?”

“I reckon we’ve only been gone a few hours.”

“Really?”

“Unless my watch is busted, then yeah. It’s only a few hours later than when we got here.”

Oliver looked back the way they had climbed and his spirits sank as he realized they would have to make the return journey back down Kingsport Head on foot.

“Do you think it’s too late to reconsider Luke’s offer?” said Oliver as he took a painful step.

“I was just thinking that,” agreed Rex with a rueful grin. “Hey, at least it’s not as dark as when we set off.”

“No,” said Oliver, “it’s not is it? I wonder why that is… The sun won’t be up for another few hours yet.”

The mist around the house parted, and Oliver’s question was answered.

Far out to sea, maybe a mile or so beyond the tip of the promontory upon which they stood, a shimmering, multi-faceted light glared from the depths of the ocean. Strange currents surrounded it, and Oliver felt the dull ache in his forehead throb with sympathetic vibrations.

“Is that what I think it is?” said Rex.

Remembering what Kaula had told him, Oliver said, “It’s the Eye of Infinite Stars.”

* * *

High on North Point Lighthouse, Basil Elton saw the light beneath the waves and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The seas had been restless for the last few days, and he’d felt a growing sense of inevitability ever since his confrontation with Josiah Washburne and his crew in the Rope and Anchor.

He’d avoided the tavern since then, only venturing into town to purchase supplies for his long winter vigils atop the lighthouse. He’d seen Silas Marsh on one of those trips, and though he’d wanted to thank the man for what he’d done for him, Basil had felt his natural tendency to avoid Innsmouthers keeping him from making an approach.

What would he say to the man anyway?

Thank you was an obvious answer to that question, but even that seemed too much to say to a man from that benighted, decaying township. Basil chewed the end of his pipe as he watched the underwater light pulse in almost direct counterpoint to the beacon light atop the lighthouse. No one abed in Kingsport would know of the light beneath the water, and Basil had the distinct impression that such ignorance was for the best.

Basil had long known of Kingsport’s association with the dreaming life of the world, but he had given up hope of ever seeing such wonders again. The glimpses of the ethereal and the mysterious were as much as he could hope for. Basil would forever be the man outside the room, the uninvited guest and the forlorn passerby—a man who had once glimpsed wonders, but who was now forever denied them.

Yet even as these morose thoughts consumed him, a nugget of something else uncoiled in his heart, an emotion he’d long consigned to the past. He smiled bitterly as he recognized it as hope.

Hope that this night might be different from all the hundreds that had preceded it.

Hope that he might at last have been forgiven for his hubris and be allowed to travel in realms beyond imagination.

Basil looked up as he heard a curious flapping, tearing sound. The wind was always fierce around North Point, but that didn’t sound like any wind he’d ever heard. More like a ship’s topsail tearing apart in a storm, or tanned leather in the curing shed pulled too tight on the stretching rack.

Basil moved around the top of the lighthouse, shielding his eyes each time the banks of electric lights sent their warning pulse from the top of the tower. He scanned the sky, but all he could see were grey cotton clouds scudding across the sky in a gathering wind. A bad storm was in the offing, that was for sure, though none of the weather reports from the meteorological stations up by Gloucester had reported anything inbound.

Basil returned to the railing and looked back to Kingsport Head. He’d seen some strange lights in the mist earlier this evening, a brief squall of lightning around the very tip of the crag, but no adverse weather had developed from it.

He returned his gaze to the water, wondering what fresh secret was developing beneath the ocean. Basil kept a motor launch moored in a rocky inlet below, and the thought crossed his mind that he should take it out to see what was going on. No sooner had the thought occurred to him to take the boat out than he dismissed it. What manner of vessel would willingly venture into such mysterious waters?

Such was Basil’s lot, to bear witness to mysteries and never now to know their secrets.

He let out a pained breath, cursing the all-too-human weakness that fostered hope in his heart when there was no hope to be had.

Basil turned and made his way to the heavy timber door that led back within the lighthouse. He gripped the salt-corroded handle and twisted it savagely.

But before he could open the door, he heard a faint sound that stopped him in his tracks and sent his spirits soaring.

Basil Elton turned toward the source of the sound.

Sitting on the iron railings of the lighthouse was a twittering bird with plumage of brilliant blue, the color of the sky in heaven. A celestial bird that sang a sweet song of welcome.

And behind it, the moon waxed full and bright from the south.

* * *

The journey back down Kingsport Head was so much easier than the ascent that Oliver began to suspect their climb had been hindered by more than simply natural phenomenon. The moon decided to aid Rex and Oliver in their journey downhill, emerging with its full face and illuminating the world in a shimmering argent glow. Roots that had tripped and burrows that had twisted ankles made no effort to bar their passage, and with each step it seemed as though they would be back at the car within moments. Their steps were urgent, for both men had sensed a grave finality to the appearance of the light in the waters offshore, a sense that their enemy was finally making a move to seize the crystal of the exile.

On their way down, Oliver explained the newly awakened memories of his dreams the Yopasi shaman had been sending him, and Rex nodded stoically. Whatever dreams Rex was having had clearly rendered him more receptive to the idea of messages being conveyed to a sleeper by an outside agency. Oliver did not question this, but merely accepted it as part of Kingsport’s power over the dreaming mind.

At last Oliver and Rex reached the car, finding it just where they had left it.

“I half-expected it to be gone when we got back down,” said Rex.

“I know,” agreed Oliver. “I remember the days that passed for us, but I can’t quite get my head around the fact that it’s only a few hours after we left.”

Rex unlocked the door of the car and looked back up the rearing slopes of Kingsport Head. “So how long ago do you think Luke left this world?”

“I don’t know,” said Oliver. “A long time go.”

“You think the dame he wrote this letter for is still alive?”

“Yes,” said Oliver. “She’s still alive.”

“How do you know that?”

“Luke knew she was alive. I think perhaps that he dreams of her.”

“Dreaming of the waking world when you’re in a dream world?” said Rex. “Damn, so how do we tell which one is the real world? Are we dreaming them or are they dreaming us?”

Oliver smiled. “You know, I don’t think it matters too much, Rex. So long as we’re dreaming, there’s always a land where we can go that’s bright and full of life. If that’s us or them doing the dreaming, I don’t mind.”

“I suppose you’re right,” agreed Rex. “Still, I can’t help but feel we left someone behind.”

“Luke’s where he wants to be,” said Oliver.

“I wasn’t talking about Luke. I meant Henry. We went to get him, but he hasn’t come back with us.”

“Henry is still in Arkham Asylum,” said Oliver. “And when we finish our business in Kingsport, we’ll go and see him, you and me. What do you say?”

“I say I’ll take you up on that,” said Rex. “Now what do you say to getting the rest of the gang together and seeing if Washburne’s still up for taking us out to sea?”

Oliver nodded and climbed into the passenger seat as Rex gunned the engine and fishtailed the car back onto the road down into Kingsport. The streets were deserted, as the hour was still early and the night’s mist still loitered around the town’s eaves and gables. Rex’s pocket watch said it was just approaching seven in the morning, so it wouldn’t be long before the merchants of Kingsport opened their shops and the business of the town shifted into gear. Rex drove past Central Hill and brought them around the tangled curve of fog-bound streets with greater finesse than he’d managed on the way out. Days of driving around the town had given him a better grasp of its strange turns and winding roadways.

The car skidded up South Hill, making the last turn on two wheels as Rex hauled on the handbrake to make the particularly sharp bend. The Lighthouse Inn was well-lit, with the parlor lights on and a number of the guest rooms illuminated. No sooner had the car pulled to a halt outside, than Alexander and George appeared at the top of the steps. Both were dressed in outdoor coats and had their hats pressed down onto their heads.

“You saw it?” said Oliver as he climbed from the car. “The light in the water?”

“We saw it,” confirmed George. “Though we were forced to ask Mr. Dukes to let us into Rex’s room on the top floor to be sure.”

“Is it still there?” asked Oliver. “We lost sight of it as we came down from the Head and drove through the town.”

“It’s still there,” said Alexander, bursting with excitement. “We have to get to the wharfs. We have to get Washburne to take us out there!”

George and Alexander came down the steps to the car, but before Oliver could get back in the car, George said, “Were you successful? Did you reach your friend?”

Oliver smiled and nodded. “We reached him, yes. And I’ll tell you of our journey when we get back to shore and share a pot of hot coffee. How does that sound?”

“That sounds splendid,” said George, climbing in the back of the car.

Alexander climbed in beside George, and Rex floored the gas pedal once Oliver had shut the passenger door.

From South Hill, it was a drive of only a few minutes to reach the wharfs, where the fishing fleet was already rousing itself for the day’s toil, though the sea was still a mist-choked bank of grey. The wharf was a flurry of activity, with fishermen rigging lobster pots and furling nets to be hung on sagging timber spars. Empty creel were loaded and stowed, while rope lines were birled along gunwales and ribald jokes exchanged between captains.

“I don’t see him,” said Oliver. “Do you think Washburne’s already sailed?”

“I doubt it,” said Alexander. “That kind of money gets men lollygagging in the hope that the person who offered it turns up.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” said Oliver.

“I will be,” said Alexander. “I’ve seen his type all over.”

Alexander’s scathing remark on Washburne’s character surprised Oliver, and in a bid to change tack asked, “What did Washburne say his boat was called?”

“Saint Nicodemus,” said Rex. “Look, there she is.”

The boat indicated by Rex was a low-slung shallop, riding heavy in the water and with a fresh coat of paint that was already starting to peel, as though the vessel sought to display its previous heraldry. The boat’s name was painted on her flat stern and in red lettering on the curve of her prow. To Oliver’s eyes, she looked like a sturdy yeoman of the sea, but he allowed that he knew very little of boats.

Rex pulled the car to a stop on the edge of the sidewalk and the four men disembarked with urgent purpose in their strides as they crossed the rope-and-fish-strewn detritus of the busy quayside. Oliver saw Josiah Washburne issuing orders from the rear quarter of his boat, while his sour-faced first mate smoked up at the prow. Silas Marsh and one of the Barnard brothers, Billy thought Oliver, stowed nets and rolled lines in the gunwale spaces.

“Captain Washburne,” said Alexander, striding up to the gently bobbing prow.

Washburne turned and gave Alexander an appraising glance, one that said he wasn’t impressed by what he was seeing. He turned back to his boat and said, “I told you that if you was wanting to hire my boat to speak to me the night before.”

“Circumstances have somewhat overtaken us, Captain,” said Alexander. “And we need your boat right now.”

“We’re all packed up for a day’s work, Mr. Templeton. Got fish to catch. Come back tomorrow and I’ll see what we can do for you.”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand; it’s vital that you take us out now.”

Washburne turned back to Alexander, now seeing Oliver, Rex, and George.

“You professors don’t hear too good, do you? I said come back tomorrow.”

Alexander reached into his coat pocket and said, “I’ll give you five hundred dollars right now if you’ll take us out. Another thousand when we return safely to Kingsport.”

Oliver saw Washburne try to conceal his surprise at the money Alexander was offering, and he was sure that same surprise was echoed on his face also. To his credit, Washburne regained his composure swiftly and gave a slow nod, as though considering Alexander’s offer. Oliver already knew Washburne would accept. What working man could pass up an offer of such easy money?

Oliver wondered if it would be easy money, given what they were sailing toward.

“Okay, Mr. Templeton, we’ll play it your way,” said Washburne. “But just ’cause you’re throwing money our way don’t make this your boat. I’m still captain, and even Billy here is senior to you when we’re out at sea. We clear on that?”

“Perfectly,” said Alexander, leaning over the stern and handing Washburne a money clip thick with bank notes.

The money disappeared into Washburne’s sou’wester, and he nodded to Alexander, who stepped onto the boat and beckoned Oliver and the others to join him.

Rex hopped onto the boat with a nimble jump, and reached back to help George aboard, despite the old man’s protestations that he could manage quite nicely, thank you very much. Oliver climbed aboard the Saint Nicodemus and felt his stomach lurch at the boat’s motion. Seen from the quayside, the boat had seemed solid and well-built, but standing on its wet deck, Oliver felt every creak and groan of timber, and wondered if it would survive a trip through the dangerous reefs to which they were headed.

Washburne seemed competent, issuing orders with a strong, confident voice and possessing a clarity of purpose to his every movement. Finishing his cigarette, Dalton Mather made his way down the length of the boat and said, “Any of you clever fellows ever been on a working boat?”

None of them had, and Mather shook his head at their foolishness.

“This ain’t a pleasure cruise, and it ain’t gonna be a smooth ride,” said Mather. “The sea around Kingsport’s choppy as all hell, and twice as mean. You keep to the bench seats along the gunwale and you hold tight to the rope lines hitched around the cleats, ’cause if one of you goes overboard, I ain’t jumpin’ in to fetch you back out. If you gotta get up and move about, you keep low, cause Nicodemus here, she’s a roller and likes to show you who’s the boss out at sea.”

Mather nodded, as though he’d done his part to earn a share of the money, and headed forward once again. Silas Marsh approached, a length of rope coiled around his shoulder. His eyes were narrowed and he checked to make sure none of the other members of the crew could hear him before speaking.

“I thought you were taking scientific readings,” said Silas, looking around their feet. “I don’t see no instruments, but I guess the captain’s too taken in by that wad of cash you gave him to ask too many questions. Just be sure you don’t go doing anything stupid and getting us into no trouble. I don’t want to have to swim back to Kingsport again.”

“I assure you, neither do we,” said Oliver, and Silas glanced at the quayside, as though deliberating whether or not to get off the boat. At length, he shook his head and returned to his duties in getting the boat ready to sail.

“That was a lot of money you offered the captain,” said George.

“It if means acquiring the crystal, then it is money well-spent,” said Alexander. “Besides, what does money matter if the world ends?”

“You might have a point there,” allowed George.

Billy Barnard untied the last mooring line and hauled the wet rope aboard the Saint Nicodemus. A throaty roar and a chop of foam at the stern announced the engine’s ignition, and the boat pulled away from the wharf with a powerful surge. Oliver held on tight to the rope lines as instructed, watching as they plunged into the growing dawn and the reassuring sight of Kingsport was gradually obscured in formless banks of spectral mist.

Chapter Twenty-One

Despite his fondness for the tales of Captain Nemo, Oliver had never acquired a taste for the open ocean. It was just too…big, too open and threatening with its vastness. Two thirds or more of the earth’s surface was said to be water, and that scale of space simply defied understanding.

Fitting then, that it should be an undersea god that sought their destruction. The far corners of the world where man had not delved were the homes of such beings, the foul places of the earth where civilization had not yet carved its swathe. Oliver knew many writers of fabulist fiction reached to the gulfs of space in search of incredible settings for their stories, but what more unexplored reaches of understanding were there than the depths of the oceans?

Black water slapped the timbers, and Oliver was glad he had not eaten in many hours as the lurching, swaying motion of the boat was making his stomach flip over and over. George seemed unperturbed by the rolling motion of Saint Nicodemus, and Rex appeared to be enjoying himself, standing by the captain and explaining where they wanted to go. Alexander was positively energized, rapping his knuckles on the gunwale and peering out into the mist, though there was nothing to see in the cotton-thick clouds that surrounded them on all sides.

“How can Washburne even know where he’s going?” he asked.

George smiled. “There’s such a thing as compasses, Oliver. They don’t care for mist, only the earth’s magnetic polarity.”

“Still, aren’t we going a bit fast? I thought he’d said these were dangerous waters?”

“And so they are,” put in Alexander, “but this Silas fellow apparently knows these reefs like the back of his hand. A stout compass and his knowledge of the reefs will see us to where we need to go.”

“And what will we do when we get there?” asked Oliver. “How do we bring the crystal to the surface? And what if there are people already there? We can’t be the only ones who saw that light under the ocean.”

“Perhaps not,” said Alexander. “But we are not without our defenses.”

“If you mean those stones that old man gave us outside the Historical Society, then I’m not sure they’d do us much good if we get into a fistfight,” said Oliver.

“I didn’t mean that,” said Alexander, opening his coat to reveal the butt of a pistol. “I meant a more mundane, but no less effective, means of defense.”

Oliver frowned. “I remember you saying that you’d sworn never to use a gun again, outside the AQA frat house.”

“Times change, Oliver,” said Alexander. “And I feel I should have need of it tonight. If anyone stands in our way, then it would be foolish to let an oath sworn when I was a different person stand in the way of achieving what we came here for. Don’t you agree?”

“I suppose, but…”

“But what, Oliver? You would have this venture fail because we were disinclined to bring a gun with us? Does the fox arm the chicken with a switchblade to make his raid on the henhouse fairer? Did the Germans wait until we manned our dugouts and trenches before bombing us at Belleau Wood? No, they dropped thousands of tons of high explosive shells on our men to kill them as quickly as they could, and then we did the same to them when we drove them out of that wood.”

Alexander turned away and gripped the edge of the wheelhouse, his shoulders slumped as though venting such strong feelings had exhausted him. Oliver had never seen his friend so distraught, and that worried him more than the fragility of their boat. Before he could say anything, he heard a warning cry from up ahead as Rex shouted back to them.

“Oliver, George, you gotta see this!”

* * *

It was a graveyard of ships.

Dozens of rotting hulks dragged from the ocean floor and deposited on gnarled reefs like ocean-blown driftwood washed up on a beach. Grey mist slithered between fetid reefs brought to the surface by a strange receding of the tide, and the sense that they were utterly alone out here returned with a powerful jolt to Oliver’s stomach. Ancient rotted barques listed on jagged spars of rock, and sunken cutters lolled alongside holed merchantmen.

Saint Nicodemus drifted between them, a silent observer of its fellow travelers on the ocean’s highways. Where its brethren had fallen the long, lonely fathoms to the bottom of the ocean, she still plied the surface. It seemed the vessel sailed in mute respect of the fate that she would one day share.

“What the hell have you brought me to?” demanded Washburne. “I ain’t going down like this. We’re getting out of here.”

“Which way, Captain?” said Silas, looking about left and right. “I ain’t seen none of these reefs before. One way’s as likely to sink us as see us outta here.”

Washburne rounded on Alexander and gripped him by the lapels of his coat. “You knew this was out here, didn’t you? You’ve brought us out to Davy Jones’s Locker, ain’t ya? What you go and do something so damn stupid for?”

Alexander pushed Washburne away. “Hold your nerve, Captain,” he said, his voice commanding wary respect from the captain.

“Steady as she goes, Marsh,” said Washburne, without ever once taking his eyes from Alexander. “Keep us as far from those wrecks as you can, and find a way out of this.”

Oliver watched the corpses of long-dead ships pass by on either side of them, decayed remains from long-vanished eras. Their timbers were swollen and waterlogged, bent and dripping with seaweed and barnacles. Here and there a frayed rope swayed silently and every creak and groan of wood seemed magnified by the silent mist.

“What brought them to the surface?” he wondered aloud.

“Not the hands of men,” said George.

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” replied Oliver, hearing a splash that sounded like something heavy slipping into the water behind them.

Rex came alongside them as the Nicodemus slipped slowly between the reefs.

“You remember I said I thought this was a damn foolish idea?”

“Yes,” said Oliver.

“I hate being right,” said Rex. “It’s always about something bad.”

Oliver was forced to agree as Silas Marsh twisted them through turn after turn in search of a way out of this graveyard they had sailed into. With one turn of the wheel, the mist would thin and reveal jutting teeth of rock or a drifting hulk. At another, a mess of tangled ropes would be sure to foul the blades of the engine’s propeller. 

“What in the blazes is that?” said Washburne, squinting through the mist.

Oliver looked to where the captain was indicating, seeing a smear of light against the uniform grey of the mist. Oliver felt his heart quicken, fearful yet elated to have found the Eye of Infinite Stars. From the position of the light in the mist, it seemed as though the source of the light was on the surface, which would make things much simpler in regards to retrieving it. The thought then occurred to him that if the wreck of the Persephone had been brought to the surface by a race of subaquatic monsters, as George had suggested, then they would in all likelihood have to deal with them first. He found himself wishing he had brought a gun as Alexander had.

“Steer us away from that,” ordered Washburne. “Whatever that is, I don’t want no part of it.”

“Aye, Captain,” said Silas, spinning the wheel to find another way forward.

But with each turn of the wheel, it became clear that there was no way to go but forward. Oliver had the uncomfortable sense of being herded, and the strange ripples in the water and the splashes that followed each course change did nothing to disabuse him of that notion. He looked up as he heard the faint sound of flapping cloth, like a tattered sail. The sound didn’t register as out of the ordinary until he realized that none of the shipwrecked vessels surrounding them had any sails left to them.

“You hear it too?” asked Rex, peering over the stern.

Oliver nodded. “Yes, and I don’t like the sound of it. Not one bit.”

“This is altogether a most disquieting experience,” said George with masterful understatement. Oliver found himself reaching into his pocket to take a hold of the soapstone the old man had given him.

“Holy Jesus Christ and all his merciful angels,” hissed Washburne.

Oliver, Rex, and George turned at the captain’s colorful oath.

Ahead of the Nicodemus rose a cliff of tortured timber and dripping rope; a holed merchantman listing to one side lay wedged between two lumps of craggy reefs as though deposited there. Its hull was battered and its keel split, yet it had somehow survived the rigors of the deep better than the other wrecks they had seen. Water spilled from its ruptured timbers, as though the vessel had only been freshly lifted from its grave.

One mast lay toppled over its fo’c’sle, while the other leaned over the water like a gallows. Beneath the fallen mast and its web of seaweed hung ropes, Oliver saw a figurehead of a robed woman carrying what looked like a sheaf of grain.

“That’s…,” said Oliver, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“Yes,” said George, pointing to a rusted nameplate hanging from the upper reaches of the prow. In curling, Gothic script, Oliver read the ship’s given name.

Persephone.

The lost vessel of Tobias Philemon.

* * *

It took the combined efforts of Alexander, Oliver, and George to persuade Washburne to moor alongside the Persephone, and even then it required the offer of another five hundred dollars. Silas guided the boat closer to the wreck with tentative turns of the wheel, feathering the engines with the precision of a master seaman. Billy Barnard and Dalton Mather eased their contact with the merchantman with hooked poles, and moored them to the reef with knots that could be slipped with ease.

“I don’t like this,” said Washburne. “Not one bit, but now we’re here, I’ll tell you this, I ain’t leaving this deck. No matter how much money you throw at me, I’m staying right here.”

“That’s quite all right,” said Alexander. “You’ve already done more than enough.”

Oliver stood at the gunwale as Dalton Mather tied off the last line. The man gave Oliver a look that was part contempt, part pity, and backed away. Silas had brought the boat in alongside the point where the Persephone was lowest in the water, near a broken portion of her deck where a mess of timber and rope afforded a means of boarding.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he said as Rex stood next to him.

“Join the club,” said Rex. “But we’ve come this far, right? In for a nickel, in for a dime.”

“What happens if it starts to sink?”

“I reckon Dalton Mather’ll pull those mooring lines and that’ll be the last we’ll see of the Nicodemus,” said Rex.

“That’s not very reassuring,” said George.

“Sorry, didn’t realize that’s what I was here for,” said Rex. “In that case, I’m sure we’ll find what we’re looking for in double-quick time and be back in Kingsport in time for supper.”

“You know, for a reporter, you’re not very convincing,” said Oliver.

“I’m not usually in my own stories.”

“Shall we?” said Alexander, rubbing his hands and reaching for the wet ropes. “No sense in wasting time when we could be on and done with this place.”

Oliver nodded and screwed up his courage. The sounds of the creaking timbers and water splashing against the hull and rocks seemed louder, but that was probably just his imagination and fear getting the better of him. Alexander stepped up onto the ad hoc net ladder and began hauling himself up to the Persephone’s deck. Rex followed after him, and George put his foot up on the gunwale next.

“George, are you sure you’re up to this?” asked Oliver.

“Damned if I’m going to miss this chance,” said George. “Might never get another.”

Oliver nodded and envied the old man his strength of conviction and sheer pluck as he scrambled up after Rex with the agility of a man a quarter his age. Oliver stepped up to begin his climb, but before he was able to ascend, a hand took his elbow.

“You don’t have to do this, either,” said Silas Marsh. “There’s nothing on that ship except death. I can feel it all around us. Tell your friends to get back here as soon as they can. The captain don’t want to hang around here any longer’n we got to, and neither do I. You sail far enough, you get a sense for the sea’s moods, and she’s a feisty mare today. She don’t like what she’s taken to her bosom being brought up to the surface, and she’ll have it back sooner rather than later, if you take my meaning.”

Oliver didn’t, but he nodded. “Trust me, I don’t want to be on this wreck any longer than I have to, but there’s something on here we need to find. Something we can’t let fall into the wrong hands.”

“Okay, but you best be sure you know whose hands is wrong when you find it,” said Silas, turning away and making his way back to the wheelhouse. With Dalton Mather and Billy Barnard standing by the mooring lines, ready to free them from the reef, Oliver climbed the sodden ropes and slippery timbers to the angled deck of the Persephone.

George and Rex stood by the wheel atop a crushed portion of an upper level of the ship where a British cannonball had clearly smashed through. Alexander heaved at a cascade of heavy timbers that blocked entry to the rear quarters of the ship, a series of cross masts and brace beams that had ended up out of position in the vessel’s sinking.

“Oliver, Rex, help me with this, will you?” he said. “This door leads to the captain’s chambers. If we’ll find the crystal anywhere, it’ll be back there.”

Oliver negotiated the slick surface of the deck with difficulty, his brogues proving to be less than ideal for this kind of surface. He reached Alexander without falling over and put his back into levering the largest beam free. Inch by inch, the heavy wood ground to the side, until Rex reached them and lent his shoulder to the work. The beam fell, and the deck buckled under the impact as the rest of the timbers fell away.

The Persephone tilted, and they four of them held onto each other to keep from falling. Something below them cracked with a sound like a gunshot, and Oliver heard the sound of water rushing in to fill the spaces beneath them.

“We don’t have much time,” he said.

“Come on then,” said Alexander, delivering a well-heeled shoe to the door. It splintered under the impact and the reek of rotten fish and decay that wafted out was sickening. It smelled as though entire sacks of sugar had been burned within, a rank, sickly sweet smell of corruption and things gone bad.

“Good God,” said George, holding a wadded handkerchief to his face. “What is that smell?”

Oliver recalled a similar stench in the moments before the monstrous, winged creature had attacked in Ma’s Boarding House. It was a stench he’d come to associate with the foulness that attended the bestial servants of the star gods.

Alexander was already through the door, and Oliver followed him into a wide room with a low ceiling and a number of smashed pieces of furniture scattered about. Most were chairs, but it was difficult to be sure, such was the volume of broken wood. Rotted wall coverings hung from bent nails, the fabric reeking of stagnant water. Rusted cutlery was strewn everywhere, lending weight to Oliver’s growing suspicion that this was a dining room.

“Through here,” said Alexander. “The captain’s quarters will be at the back of the ship.”

George knelt to lift items of cutlery and Rex took a moment to examine the wall hangings.

“I wish Minnie could have seen this,” said Rex. “She’d have gone nuts for all this. Creepy stuff was so far up her street it was practically in her house and making her a cup of coffee.”

“Fascinating,” said George. “French cutlery from the time of Louis the Fourteenth. This Tobias Philemon was clearly no stranger to luxury.”

Oliver followed after Alexander, passing through the door at the far end of the room. Beyond was a wood-paneled corridor, the walls bulging inward with age and water damage. The floor was buckled up at an angle, and a rotted carpet was patchy and soggy underfoot. A constant drizzle of brackish water from the split ceiling soon had Oliver soaked through.

He passed a number of doors, one leading to a small washroom and toilet, another to what might once have been a storage pantry. The stink coming from this latter space was so great as to make Oliver press his hands to his mouth and nose to keep from puking. His equilibrium restored, Oliver carried on toward a door that swung on rusted hinges and through which he could see Alexander kneeling by something just out of sight.

“Alexander?” he called, feeling the bulk of the ship creak and tilt alarmingly.

“It’s here, Oliver,” said Alexander.

“You found it!” said Oliver.

Alexander rose to his feet and turned to Oliver. He clutched his hand, and Oliver saw the lines of pain etched on his face. His left hand was a glistening mass of red and black: red where the skin was raw and bleeding, black where it had been scorched to the bone.

“Good God, Alexander!” cried Oliver. “What happened?”

Alexander grimaced through the pain. “It looks like old Tobias wasn’t quite as mad as we thought. He knew the crystal was dangerous and protected it.”

Oliver looked past Alexander and saw an iron strongbox, impossibly untouched by the ravages of a century and a half of submersion in the ocean. Its metal sides were as fresh as any strongbox the First Bank of Arkham might employ, and Oliver couldn’t imagine how it had remained so pristine.

“You’ll have to get it, Oliver,” said Alexander. “My hand…the pain is too great.”

“Of course,” said Oliver, warily approaching the box. The lid was open, the latch that secured it shut a shattered, glutinous mess. Dripping blobs of molten metal plopped to the warped timbers of the deck, and Oliver thought he saw the familiar star and eye symbol dissolving just before it slid from the ruined lock. The stench of burned meat was stronger even than the ubiquitous smell of dead fish, sodden wood, and decay.

“Don’t worry, Oliver, it’s quite safe,” said Alexander, his voice strained and brittle. “The damn box spent its fire on my hand.”

The interior of the box was lined in crushed cerulean velvet, soft and untouched by so much as a drop of water. Something around the size of a football nestled within, concealed by a fold of fabric. It was wider in the middle, tapered at both ends, and even without touching it, Oliver knew it was heavy. Alexander appeared at his shoulder as he reached into the box and lifted the fold of velvet clear.

“The Eye…,” said Alexander.

“My God,” whispered Oliver. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never…”

The crystal of the exile glittered like the brightest diamond, as though all the light of the stars had been distilled into its million facets. It filled the rotted cabin with radiance, sparkling and silver, pure and unsullied by any of the upstart colors that pretended to purity. A fragment of the light of every sun, from the dawn of creation until the end of time, was bound within its multi-dimensional lattice, the key to unlocking the secret mechanisms at the heart of the universe. The greatest artifice of the long-lost Atlanteans’ forgotten science and magic was bound in its creation, and as Oliver stared into its innumerable facets, his mind filled with a whirling kaleidoscope of images: toppling mountains, skyscraper-sized tsunamis, and golden temples cast down by a race of monstrous, simian abominations with rubbery bottle-green skin and predatory, fish-like faces.

It could have lasted an instant or an eternity, the blink of an eye or an eon.

Oliver gasped and his breath was hot with the power contained in the crystal.

He felt the ship groan beneath him, as though whatever power had dragged its unwilling carcass to the surface was almost exhausted. A portion of the wall bent inward, the timbers snapping like firecrackers as the wood panels splintered and buckled. The floorboards popped, nails pulled from beams as gravity reasserted its hold on the sunken hulk. 

“Oliver, quickly, we have to go!” said Alexander. “Take the Eye now!”

Oliver shook off the disorientating effects of the crystal’s power and replaced the fold of cloth over its shimmering surfaces. He lifted it from the iron strongbox, feeling its weight against his chest. No sooner was the crystal removed from the box than the weight of ages took hold of the metal with long-delayed vengeance. Rust and corrosion spread over its surfaces like bacteria in a petri dish, and the sides sagged inward as the sustaining power of the crystal was removed.

A portion of the ceiling fell in a rain of sodden timber and mud. Water poured in, black and oily. Oliver spat a mouthful of its foul reek and staggered over the uneven floor toward the open deck.

“Hurry!” said Alexander, pushing him ahead with his good hand.

“Wait,” said Oliver, pulling up suddenly with delayed realization. “How did you know the crystal was called the Eye…?”

* * *

On deck, the situation was no less grim. Portions of the gunwale broke from the side of the ship and fell into the water like wet icing sliding from a cake. Rex struggled to find something to hold onto that wasn’t coated in repulsive-looking seaweed or some other unidentifiable underwater goo. The stench from inside had driven him out on deck to try and get some fresh air, but that had been wasted effort. The air out here reeked of rotted fish and stagnant water, like a mill pond cut off from the stream that fed it.

The noise around the Persephone was getting louder. Bits of the ship were falling off at an alarming rate, and Rex wasn’t sure how much longer she’d hold together. The water around the wreck was dark and threatening-looking, the light that had brought them here now utterly absent. The mist surrounding them had cut off the dawn and only a fierce spot of light from the direction of the lighthouse provided any hint of light. Strangely, that light was now constant, not the regular, pulsing beat Rex had gotten used to.

“How long you gonna be up there?” shouted Dalton Mather. “That ship ain’t gonna be on the surface much longer.”

Rex leaned over the side of the Persephone and cupped his hand around his mouth.

“Oliver and Alexander just went back to the captain’s cabin,” he shouted.

A crack of breaking wood echoed over the suddenly silent graveyard of ships, and Rex followed the source of the sound to the bow, where he watched the figurehead of the Persephone tumble gracefully to the water. It landed with a fearsome splash, and as the ripples spread, Rex saw something haul its obscene, glistening, scaly bulk from the water. Two elongated and wiry arms clamped onto the rotten timbers of the ship, chisel-like claws digging into the wood as the beast climbed with powerful surges. Another followed behind it, an identical ape-like creature with monstrous, oversized shoulders and a tapered head like that of a hideous moray eel or mutant barracuda.

“What in the name of God…?” was all that Rex managed before he heard a scream from below. No man should make such a scream, so pain-filled and desperate was it. Rex tore his eyes from the creatures dragging themselves from the water in time to see Billy Barnard pounced upon by three more beasts as they slithered onto the deck of the Nicodemus.

One swipe of a powerful arm had opened the lad’s chest to the bone, and another taken his arm from his shoulder in a welter of blood. Billy dropped to his knees, wailing in abject horror and agony as his lifeblood jetted from his body in heaving, arterial spurts. Josiah Washburne leapt to his crewman’s aid, swinging a heavy carpenter’s axe at the beast’s head. The blade bit home, and the creature toppled back into the water with a gurgling wet rasp.

Washburne set about hewing his heavy-bladed axe like Paul Bunyan himself, cutting down two more of the beasts with powerful strokes. Dalton Mather drew a revolver from beneath his sou’wester and fired three hastily aimed shots at two more creatures as they tore pieces from Saint Nicodemus’s hull in their frenzy to climb aboard. The redoubtable fishing boat listed to the side as repeated impacts from below tore through her copper bottom.

“God help us,” said Rex, backing away as he saw Silas Marsh leap onto the back of one of the monsters, hacking at the blubbery, muscular mass of its shoulders with a long-bladed knife. He looked around for anything he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing obvious to hand. Every loose length of timber was rotten and soft, every piece of metal rusted and stuck fast. The two creatures at the Persephone’s bow finally clambered through the tangled mass of rigging and fallen mast, and Rex felt his legs grow weak beneath him.

“Oh God…,” whispered Rex, backing away from the two monsters. His mind refused to accept that these things could be real. These were ancient myths of the sea come to life, monsters from the deep come to drag them to a watery grave. Yet even as he knew he could not fight such monsters, he felt a terrible anger ignite in his belly at the thought that he was going to die without seeing Minnie one last time.

“Oliver! George!” he shouted. “Time to abandon ship!”

* * *

“How did I know?” asked Alexander. “I’ve known all along, Oliver. Hasn’t it been obvious to you that I’ve always known more than you.”

Oliver tried to understand what Alexander was saying, but the ramifications were too awful to contemplate. He backed through the door to the corridor as Alexander drew the pistol from beneath his coat and leveled it at Oliver.

“Alexander, what are you doing?” asked Oliver, hearing strange sounds from beyond—screams, breaking wood, and shouted voices. “What are you doing with that gun?”

“Taking what I came to find,” said Alexander.

Oliver looked down at the covered crystal he carried in his arms. His hesitant steps carried him past the reeking pantry and crazily angled toilet cubicle. Behind him, the sounds of terrible screaming and gunshots grew louder.

“This? You want this? I don’t understand… We need to destroy it.”

“No, Oliver, I need it to align the stars. You remember how important it is that ‘the stars are right,’ don’t you? How else can I awaken Great Cthulhu?”

“You…,” breathed Oliver, not daring to believe that what he was hearing could be true.

“I didn’t want things to end this way between us,” said Alexander, thumbing back the hammer on his pistol. “I gave you every chance. You’ve seen how sick the world has become—the industrial-scale slaughter in Europe should have shown you that. The vacuous youth that waste their tears on nobodies, the false sybaritic excesses of the world are a sickness that needs to be washed away by the dark waters of a risen R’lyeh.”

“You’re mad,” said Oliver, now seeing the lunacy behind Alexander’s eyes, a madness concealed behind a mask of normality. “You can’t want this. I won’t believe it.”

“You can’t see it?” said Alexander, genuinely bemused. “The earth has gone to hell, and we don’t deserve to inherit a world that wasn’t ours to begin with. There’s no good left in it—all you have to do is listen to the news on the wireless every day or read a paper. All we do is kill each other and wage wars. What other species is so hell-bent on self-destruction? What other species willingly kills one another for such idiotic notions as ‘honor’ or ‘love.’ Let me tell you, such concepts are non-existent. I saw that on the battlefield, and I saw it when I buried my wife and son. What sort of world lets a man go to war to defend his country only to come back and find his family dead? Influenza took my Virginia and my little boy. He was named Adam, and he was only five years old.”

Oliver shook his head. “You’re wrong, Alexander. I know you are. There is such a thing as love, you know there is. You must have loved Virginia and Adam to mourn them. Grief can drive a man to terrible things, but this…this is madness, Alexander. You must see that!”

“All I see is a species that doesn’t deserve to exist,” said Alexander.

“I know you don’t mean this, so please put the gun down,” said Oliver, treading on the Sun King’s priceless cutlery as he took backward step after backward step. “Come on, we can go back to Kingsport and talk about this.”

Alexander laughed. “Go back to Kingsport? No, I don’t think you understand. It was amusing to keep you and your merry little band around for awhile, and you actually furnished me with some useful information along the way, but now I have everything I need, and it’s time to end our business. Cthulhu will rise and this cesspool of a world will return to its primordial state.”

“I won’t let you do that, Alexander.”

“You can’t stop me, it’s already begun,” said Alexander. “Thanks to Amanda Sharpe, I know where to find R’lyeh. The crystal is simply the last part of the puzzle.”

“I’ll not let you take it. I’ll throw it back into the ocean.”

Alexander shook his head and smiled. “I command the deep dwelling monsters of the ocean. Now that the Eye is no longer protected by its trinket box, there’s nothing to stop them just bringing it to the surface for me. Throw it in the sea, Oliver; it won’t do you any good. I’ll still take it.”

Though he knew it likely meant a bullet in the back, Oliver turned and ran out onto the deck. Alexander might have lost his mind, but Oliver still had the crystal of the exile. If it was instrumental to whatever insane scheme his erstwhile friend had set in motion, then he would finish the task Tobias Philemon had singularly failed to complete, and see it sent to the bottom of the ocean. Even if Alexander’s monsters of the deep could recover it easily enough, this would be Oliver’s last act of defiance, so it would have to be enough.

A bullet smashed the doorframe beside him as Oliver staggered out onto the deck.

And his jaw dropped open at the sight before him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The deck of the Persephone heaved and split along its length as the rotting vessel broke in two. Her keel snapped and the entire vessel collapsed in on itself. Rex and George clung to the rotting gunwale as the simian, fish-headed monsters scrabbled over the slick timbers as easily as a man might negotiate a set of stairs.

George clung to him as though he were a life preserver, and Rex desperately tried to think of some way they could defend themselves. Leaping overboard was always an option, but not a realistic one. Rex, Oliver, and Alexander could maybe swim to shore, but George would never survive the icy cold of the water, let alone have the strength to reach Kingsport.

“Time to desert this sinking ship,” said Rex.

“I couldn’t agree more!” agreed George.

Rex backed away from the advancing creatures going hand over hand on the slippery wooden railing. The first monster leapt up at him, its dead black eyes rolling back into its skull like a shark’s. Rex lashed out with his booted foot and, more by luck than martial skill, his heel connected with its lower jaw. Fangs snapped and the beast gave a liquid growl of pain as it fell back. It slipped and rolled down the deck, vanishing into the yawning blackness that had opened at the center of the Persephone. The second beast leapt onto the rigging above Rex, sending a rain of black droplets falling on him. It roared, and the decaying matter stench of its breath made him gag. It swung down onto the deck beside him and fastened its jaws on his arm. Serrated teeth bit down and Rex howled in pain as they sawed through the meat of his upper arm.

A clawed hand gripped his side, and tearing claws gouged his ribs as the creature’s head drew back for another bite. Through pain-blurred eyes, Rex saw he had one chance and one chance only. Like the pub-brawlers of Glasgow that Donald had often told him about, Rex slammed his forehead into the monster’s face. The impact was horrendous, and he felt his grip on the side of the ship loosening.

The monster reeled away from Rex. Blood streamed down his face and bright lights pinwheeled behind his eyes.

“Oh God…that hurt,” he said.

“Look out!” cried George, and Rex blinked away a mix of blood and seawater. The creature was still below him. Claws digging into wood had halted its slide into the water pouring in through the vessel’s guts. Hand over hand, it hauled its bloated bulk back toward them. Rex had no more strength, and the blood pouring from his arm was making him dizzy. Saltwater spray was stinging his wounds, and he was already feeling colder than he knew he should.

The monster reached up and its claws sank into the wood just below them. It pulled itself up still farther, fangs bared and bloody, but this time George was waiting for it. Still holding onto Rex, George brandished the greenish soapstone token the old man had given him and brought it down hard on the creature’s splayed paw.

The creature’s hand disintegrated. Sure he couldn’t have seen that right, Rex blinked away the sticky fluid in his eyes and watched the creature slide down the deck. Its distended jaws were stretched in agony, and its bulging black eyes blinked furiously. Its wrist ended in a melted stump of tattered flesh where George had struck it, and it vanished into the water with a shriek of abject misery.

“That’s some arm you’ve got on you, George,” hissed Rex through the pain.

“So it would appear,” said George, hefting the stone once again. “Somehow I doubt this is what the old man meant when he said these stones would protect us.”

“Shame he didn’t have any Tommy Guns with elder signs on them, eh?”

“Quite,” said George. “Any thoughts as to how we might live through this?”

“Nope, you?”

“I confess I am at a loss.”

“Damn.”

“Then may I take this opportunity to say farewell, Mr. Murphy,” said George.

Even though he couldn’t see a way out of this for them, he didn’t like the finality of that, and when he saw Oliver emerge from the cabin door with a cloth-wrapped bundle held tight to his chest, he felt a sudden flare of hope.

Which was brutally extinguished when he saw Alexander with the gun.

* * *

Silas swung his knife in a low slash, aiming for the beast’s hamstrings. He cut through where the tendons would be on any creature known to anatomists, but this thing was a nightmare of gelatinous flesh composed of nothing that could be understood by any earthly scientist. It spun around and loosed a bellowing, salivary roar, and Silas ducked a swipe of its wide, claw-tipped paw. He buried his knife in its guts, once, twice, three times.

He rabbit punched its ribs at the same time, but it was like hitting a padded wall.

The beast towered over him, its jaws spread wide, and its greasy, orb-like eyes focused on him with baleful intent. It lumbered toward him with its arms outstretched, but Silas sidestepped nimbly and slashed his knife through its side. The stinking fluid that gushed forth couldn’t be called blood, the stench too ripe and oily to be anything life-sustaining. He spun around behind the beast and kicked it in the back, sending it tumbling down the sloping deck.

He pulled himself up the length of the boat toward where the captain and Dalton Mather were fighting a losing battle against a pack of the ravening beasts. The rear of the Nicodemus was already underwater, and the prow was rising fast as water poured into the stricken vessel. Cracks and tears along her timbers were snaking along her length, and it was only a matter of time until she was reduced to kindling.

Silas threw himself at the nearest monster, succeeding in pitching it from the boat. He fell into another beast, jabbing his knife into its eye and eliciting an animal shriek of pain. It leapt away from him into the water.

Washburne’s axe was slick with black fluids, and he nodded to Silas as he plunged the blade into the head of the last of their grotesque attackers. Dalton Mather, having fired all his bullets in a maddened fusillade, had been reduced to using his pistol as a club. Both men were smeared in blood, theirs and the creatures’, but both had a grim look in their eyes that said they were far from beaten.

Silas took a position between them.

“Billy?” he asked.

“Dead,” said Washburne.

“Hell.”

“Aye, hell indeed,” agreed Washburne, hefting his axe as more of the shimmer-scaled beasts climbed aboard the Nicodemus. 

“You know, Josiah,” said Dalton Mather, “I’m beginning to think folk might have a point when they say this is a cursed boat.”

“Shut your mouth, Dalton. We’re still alive, ain’t we?”

“Not for long if we stay here.”

“I hate to agree with Dalton, but he’s right,” said Silas. “We need to get off this boat.”

“And go where? Leave one sinking ship for another? Not on your life. If the sea’s gonna take me, then sure as hell I’m going down with the Nicodemus. She’s done right by me, an’ I aim to do right by her.”

“Cap’n, please, we can’t stay here.”

Washburne nodded and risked a glance behind him.

“You go,” he said. “I’ll keep these fishy bastards from the deep busy. No arguments. Go!”

“Give ’em hell, Cap’n,” said Silas, before jamming his knife back into its sheath and leaping for the swaying mass of timber and rope dangling from the deck of the Persephone. With the agility of a tree monkey, he scrambled up, hearing the wet thud of an axe blade in the hideous non-flesh of the monsters. He glanced down in time to see Dalton Mather following him.

An explosion of foam and dark water broke the surface beneath Dalton, and a pair of monstrous arms closed around the man’s waist. Silas had time to see the look of abject horror in the man’s eyes as he fell into the water. He thrashed for a moment on the surface, screaming as the water filled his mouth and he was dragged under.

Silas climbed the ropes to the deck of the Persephone, but couldn’t take his eyes from the sight of Washburne hacking at the roaring monsters like a Norse berserker as they came at him from all sides. His axe split skulls, caved in chests, and lopped arms from shoulders, but the beasts were simply too numerous.

The last Silas saw of Josiah Washburne was his roaring defiance as the gushing sea finally dragged his boat under the water and the aquatic beasts swarmed him. In seconds, all that was left of the Saint Nicodemus and her brave captain was a foaming mass of bubbles and a spreading slick of blood and oil on the surface.

“Godspeed, Josiah,” said Silas, clambering over the rotting gunwale of the Persephone.

* * *

Oliver scrambled over the madly tilting deck toward Rex and George as another bullet tore up a portion of the deck at his feet. He clutched the Eye of Infinite Stars tight to his chest while groping for a handhold and fighting to keep his balance. He saw the looks of horror and incomprehension in their eyes, but didn’t have time to explain. Grotesque creatures, part fish, part man, and part scaled ape, thronged the rails of the sinking ship, and Oliver’s already stretched sanity frayed just a little more.

“Oliver! Hurry!” shouted George.

He fell to one knee as the Persephone lurched and more of her structure crashed back into the sea. Oliver fell against a raised portion of the deck and cried out as the impact drove the wind from him. Struggling for breath, he tried to stand and force himself onward. He could see no way out of their predicament, yet he was loath to surrender meekly to one who had betrayed them all so heinously.

Oliver rose to one knee, but before he could take another step, the deck beside him cracked apart as a powerful arm smashed through from below. A blunt-snouted head of fangs and rolling, glassy eyes followed it, twisting side to side with bared teeth. A second arm smashed through the deck, clawing madly for him. Oliver kicked out at the monster rising from the geysering depths of the ship. A clawed arm slashed for him, falling short, but snagging the soaked velvet bundle in his arms.

The cloth tore and the gloom of the deck was suddenly awash with light as the crystal rolled from his embrace and skittered over the bucking surface of the deck.

“No!” cried Oliver, watching as the vile creatures of the deep honked and brayed at the sight of the tumbling crystal. They leapt upon it as Oliver scrambled back from the beast forcing itself through the cracking timbers. Tears of frustration streaked his face, mingling with the spray of water from the disintegrating ship.

George and Rex pulled him to the rail as one of the grunting monsters lifted the crystal and handed it to Alexander.

“What the hell’s going on?” hissed Rex. “Why is Alexander helping them?”

“It’s him,” gasped Oliver. “It’s been him all along. He’s our enemy; he’s the one who’s been orchestrating this entire diabolical affair.”

“What? You gotta be kidding me!” said Rex. “That damn, dirty, two-faced, conniving…”

Rex trailed off into a flood of invective, but Oliver paid no more attention.

“Sorry for dragging you into all this, George,” said Oliver.

“Not your fault, dear boy,” said George with all the charm and courage of a Providence man. “It was naïve to think I would live through such events. Remember what you promised me, Oliver. My grand-nephew in Boston—aid him in whatever ways you can!”

Oliver nodded, and jumped in fear as he felt a presence behind him.

Slathered in black ichor, Silas Marsh swung his legs over the railing and spat a mouthful of seawater. Breathless and bruised, the man looked about ready to throw in the towel.

“Not much better up here, is it?” said Silas Marsh.

“I’m afraid not,” said Oliver, looking over the railing at the foaming mass of debris below. The Nicodemus was gone, and the unnatural reefs that had raised the graveyard of galleons, barques, merchantmen, and cutters were sinking back into the cold depths of the ocean. The Persephone wouldn’t be far behind them. 

Oliver felt a painful sensation of broken glass in his ears, tearing at the nerve endings in his brain, and let out a gasp of bone-deep numbness. He turned his gaze back to Alexander, whose torn and soaked clothes billowed in a wind without apparent source. The vile enemy who had worn a friend’s face gave voice to hideous sounds that surely should not have come from the throat of a human being. Blasted syllables and discordant anti-words clashed and sawed the air, and Oliver felt the sheer wrongness of them assaulting his very soul.

“It’s him!” cried Silas, drawing a long knife. “That’s the voice! It’s him what was on Pilot Island! I’ll gut the bastard!”

Before Silas could move, the sodden, wet-leather sound of tearing cloth Oliver remembered hearing on the night they had returned from the Historical Society came from above. Amid the weaving spars of the masts and flapping scraps of sail, Oliver saw a deeper dark moving against the sepulchral shroud of mist that surrounded them. A screeching, winged monstrosity descended from the sky, a rabid creature of scraps left over from some aborted birth. Amid the horror he had experienced already, this was yet one more nightmare to add to his lengthening list.

Its head bulged and seethed with mutant growths, beaked and multi-eyed, insect-like and reptilian. Alexander climbed onto its gnarled back of spines and grotesque fleshy frills, with the crystal of the exile tucked in close to his belly.

“Don’t worry,” said Alexander. “The deep ones won’t kill you. Not right away. They prefer to mate and torture victims while they’re still alive.”

Alexander replaced the gun in his pocket. “It would be a kindness to shoot you all dead, but alive you will be a far more welcome offering.”

With one hand gripping a barbed extrusion of bone, Alexander uttered one last blasted word of command and the hybrid flying thing spread its tattered, membranous wings. It took the sky with a spasmed leap, and with jerking, irregular flaps pushed higher and higher until it was lost in the mist.

“Now what?” said Rex, as a dozen of the benighted deep ones closed in and the ship bubbled with rushing water. Only a few feet of the Persephone remained above the surface.

“Now we die,” said Silas.

Oliver tried to think of some rebuke to Silas’s defeatist sentiment, some inspiring last words that would give them comfort as the ocean’s by-blows claimed them. But for all his education and knowledge of history, Oliver could think of nothing. He thought of all they had suffered, and all they had lost, and this was how it would end—trapped on a sinking vessel in the middle of the ocean with nothing to defend themselves with but harsh language.

Except that wasn’t true, was it?

Oliver reached into his pocket and withdrew the green soapstone the old man had given him. The symbol George had called an elder sign seemed bright against the darker hue of the stone, and the words of the old man returned to Oliver.

Keep ’em close, and them’s that slithered and flopped out of ol’ mother Hydra’s belly won’t touch ya.

“The elder signs!” he yelled, holding the soapstone out before him. The beasts nearest to Oliver flinched at the sight of it and halted their relentless advance. “They can’t touch us if we have them.”

Seeing the pained reaction of the beasts to Oliver’s stone, Rex fumbled for his, removing it from his pocket with a yell of triumph. Yet again the beasts snorted and grunted in hate, the sight of a sigil that was anathema to them keeping them at bay.

“George!” cried Oliver. “Use your stone!”

“I already am!” returned George, brandishing his stone in his fist.

Water rushed up over the deck, and though the beasts clawed the air and roared, they did not advance. Oliver saw the power of the elder signs had given them a temporary reprieve at best. Soon the water would claim the wreck of the Persephone, and they would be in the water. The ocean was the deep ones’ arena, and regardless of the elder signs, they would be easy meat for the monsters.

“Gentlemen, it’s been an honor,” said Oliver.

“What is it with you guys and last goodbyes?” said Rex.

All that remained of the Persephone above the water was the upper deck and the roof of the captain’s quarters, but soon even they would be underwater. The four men felt the icy chill of the water traveling up their legs, but before anyone could answer Rex’s rhetorical question, a sudden light blazed in the sky to the east.

The beasts recoiled from its dazzling brilliance, and many hurled themselves into the water rather than have their hideousness revealed fully. Others stamped and roared and clawed the air as the light grew brighter and brighter.

Oliver shielded his eyes from the blinding glare, wondering what new devilry Alexander had conjured to see them dead. Over the rushing water, the cracking of breaking timbers, and the hooting brays of the monsters, Oliver heard the boom of a fair wind filling silken sails, and the rhythmic creak and sway of banks of oars moving in perfect harmony.

“What in the world?” said George.

Oliver had no answer, and watched in amazement as a fluttering bird with perfect blue feathers alighted on a swaying spar of the Persephone’s rearmost mast.

A powerful voice, elated and brimming with the joy of a forgiven soul, shouted to them from somewhere high above.

“Hurry! Follow the bird of heaven if you want to live!”

* * *

A great white ship hove out of the darkness, an impossible vessel that sailed on a tide of moonbeams and dispelled the cloying mist wherever it touched. Like a galleon of old, its curved prow was elegant and sleek, cutting through the air with ghostly grace. A full-bellied sail of silk and damask empowered the white ship, and the bird with the glossy, azure feathers took to the air at the sight of it with a trill of joy.

At the tiller was a wondrously beautiful man with a long, flowing beard and powerful shoulders, his back bent in the steering of his proud vessel. Leaning from the graceful prow of this magnificent vessel was another man, one of more mundane, yet no less welcome, appearance. Dressed in a heavy naval coat, he held his hand out to them.

“Hurry!” shouted the man. “Get aboard!”

“Basil Elton?” cried Silas. “God bloody damn, if it ain’t Basil Elton.”

Oliver remembered the name, but had no time to wonder how the keeper of the North Point Lighthouse came to be aboard a celestial white ship and coming to their rescue. Silas broke from the railing and waded through the gurgling, sucking waters to reach the last remaining portions of the Persephone that remained above the surface.

“I’ll help George,” said Oliver to Rex. “You go.”

Rex nodded and set off after Silas. He kept his bloodstained arm tucked in close to his chest, while using the other to wave his elder sign around like a crucifix-bearing virgin faced with a host of Stoker’s vampires.

“Time to go, George,” said Oliver, wrapping the elderly professor’s arm around his shoulder and setting off toward the gleaming ship on its nimbus of glittering moonlight. Those few undersea beasts that remained on the Persephone snapped and roared, but were helpless to do anything more in the face of the powerful magic woven into the soapstone talismans of Oliver, Rex, and George.

Oliver helped George onto the upper timbers, the water raging around his waist. Silas and Rex were already aboard the white ship, and Basil Elton reached down to lift George onto its deck. Oliver hauled himself higher and splashed through the water to the shimmering hull of their rescuer’s ship.

“Give me your hand,” said Basil Elton, and Oliver gratefully accepted the man’s help in climbing aboard. Though he was chilled to the bone, weary, and grief-stricken almost beyond measure, Oliver felt his spirits lift the instant he set foot on the ship’s golden deck. He let out a shuddering breath as the white ship lifted away from the doomed Persephone, and leaned against the gracefully shaped wood of its reborn hull. How he knew it was reborn he would never understand, but everything about this vessel felt freshly wrought into being.

The vessel of Tobias Philemon sank beneath the waves, and Oliver prayed it would never again see the light of day. All that remained of the devils that had almost killed them and taken the crew of the Nicodemus were humped shapes swimming through the wreckage with repellently sinuous movements.

Basil Elton appeared at his side, and Oliver took the man’s proffered hand.

“Thank you,” said Oliver. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything,” said Basil.

Oliver nodded gratefully at the man’s understanding, and turned from the watery graveyard as it sank beneath the ocean. Silas and Rex sat slumped against the mast, both men bleeding from the numerous injuries they had sustained in the struggle against Alexander’s deep ones. George knelt beside them, tearing strips from his shirt as he bound Rex’s fiercely gouged arm with a tourniquet.

“What is this vessel?” asked Oliver, watching the blue-feathered bird flying ahead of the ship as though guiding it through the air. “How is it possible?”

Basil shrugged. “I’m not sure I have an answer for you. This is the White Ship, and long ago I traveled by its grace to distant lands of dreams, but my pride and longing for shores where no man ought to travel saw it destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” said Oliver. “Then how is it here?”

“It is a ship of dreams,” said Basil. “That’s the best answer I can give, and that which can be dreamed of is never truly lost to us.”

The answer felt like a hope made real and Oliver nodded in understanding.

“But how did you know to find us?” he asked.

“That wasn’t me,” said Basil, pointing to where the bearded steersman guided the white ship with a powerful hand on the tiller. “The captain of the White Ship knows where he is needed most, and he came to your rescue. But the celestial bird is leading the steersman home again, for he has dreams of his own to chase.”

Oliver smiled and followed the arcing flight of the bird as it climbed onward and upward.

“Where is his home?” said Oliver.

“The Dreamlands,” said Basil, pointing to a shimmer of light that swirled and danced at the very edge of the high-roofed house that stood at the farthest tip of Kingsport Head.

* * *

The White Ship drifted to a halt just behind the house, swaying gently in a dream-like breeze that nourished the soul and lifted the heart. Expertly piloted by the silent steersman, the ship moved with silent grace, and Oliver felt a terrible reluctance to step from its golden-timbered deck. To return to the land was to return to a world of betrayal and impending doom. What sane man would wish such a thing? After all Oliver had seen and learned in recent times, could he really count himself beyond lunacy?

He turned to Basil Elton and said, “Will you travel with the ship?”

“I will,” said the keeper of the lighthouse. “It has been too long since I beheld the crystal headlands and golden cities of Sona-Nyl.”

“Who will man the light while you’re gone?”

Basil smiled and said, “I can see in your eyes that you’ve been to the Dreamlands, so you should know by now that the light will never go out. Whether I travel its miraculous seas for a day or a lifetime, I will always be here to keep the beacon lit.”

“Then I hope you find what you’re looking for,” said Oliver.

“Who says I’m looking for something?”

“You’re not the only one who can see things in another’s eyes,” said Oliver.

“Take care, friend. I believe you have a hard road ahead, but you have strong friends and more allies than you know. Be wise, be cunning, and—most of all—be lucky.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Oliver, though he felt neither wise, cunning, nor lucky.

Rex, George, and Silas made their way from the mast, and with Oliver and Basil’s help, they disembarked the wounded men and the elderly professor. Rex complained loudly as his bitten arm was jarred by his landing on the grassy ledge, but Silas bore his hurts without complaint.

With the four of them safely deposited on the peak of the crag overlooking Kingsport, the White Ship began to lift away, carried by dreams and the light of the moon. Basil Elton waved them goodbye, and the bearded steersman gave them each a nod of acknowledgement that touched them deeply.

Its prow turned toward the haze of light beyond the house perched on the cliff edge and with stately poise, both it and the bird of heaven faded from sight until both light and ship were no more.

Oliver felt a great sadness that the ship and its crew were gone, but also a sense of rightness at the sight of the magnificent vessel, of a cosmic balance restored. As the last of the ship’s light faded, Oliver let out a soft breath and turned from the house to begin the long journey back to Kingsport. It was going to be a long walk, but now they were free of the enclosing mist and unnatural darkness of the ocean graveyard, the light of a new day was spreading over the eastern horizon. Despite the lateness of the year, the day was clement, and the wind that blew over the high headland was cool and refreshing.

“Damn, feels like we were just here,” said Rex.

“We were,” said Oliver.

“Then I just hope the climb down is as easy as the last one. I’m not really ready for an arduous climb. You know, what with almost having my damn arm bitten off.”

“Blood loss and near-mortal injuries appear to make Mr. Murphy cranky,” said George.

“I know how he feels,” grimaced Silas.

“I’m sure,” said George. “Though I have to say, I agree with his sentiment. At my age, climbing hills—going up or down—becomes a hazardous occupation.”

Oliver took Rex’s weight, and the reporter accepted the help gratefully, staring at the silent house, with its tall, peaked roof and empty latticed windows. 

“Should we go in?” asked Rex. “Maybe get some help?”

Oliver considered the question, but shook his head.

“No, I think it would be best to steer well clear of that one,” he said.

Rex nodded in agreement. “My thoughts exactly. No reason to stay here then, so let’s get going.”

Oliver turned, but before he could take a single step, a broad, lumbering shape emerged from the undergrowth before them, like a wolf lying in wait for its prey. Something bright flashed in the dawn light, fast and glittering and sharp. It struck Silas in the belly and quickly stabbed again at George. George cried out in shock, collapsing onto the cold, hard ground.

“What in the name of God?” shouted Oliver at the sight of a filthy, matted, blood-spattered, and mud-caked man with a carving knife in his hand. His eyes were wild and his face was twisted in a crazed leer of hunger and simmering violence.

“Bring it back!” he roared, brandishing the blade in Oliver’s face. “Bring the light back!”

Oliver flinched from the polished steel tip of the knife, backing away from the madman’s fury. The stink of sweat and excrement was overpowering, and yellowed spittle flew from his cracked and scabbed lips. His clothes were torn and bloody, soaked with viscous fluids, and a flensed hunk of skin and meat flapped on his arm.

“Bring it back!” roared the man again. “Bring it back and I’ll kill you quick.”

“Easy, buddy,” said Rex. “Just calm down and tell us what you want. Who the hell are you anyway?”

“I’m Charles Warren and I want to go to wonderland!” screamed the man, his voice choked with desperation, pain, and longing. “This is the way to wonderland, and you’re not going to stop me from getting in!”

Oliver knew exactly what Charles Warren wanted, but what he wanted wasn’t within his power to grant. He held up his free hand in what he hoped was a placatory gesture, stealing a glance at his fallen companions. Silas writhed in pain in a pool of blood, and George lay on his side, but it was impossible to tell if the old professor still lived.

“Look, you don’t need to hurt anyone,” said Oliver. “There’s a man who lives in that house who knows how to open the way to…wonderland. He can help you.”

“You’re trying to fool me, aren’t you?” said Charles. “I saw you on that white ship. Call it back, call it back now! I want to see wonderland before it’s destroyed!”

The pained terror in the man’s eyes almost made Oliver forget that this man had brutally stabbed George and Silas.

“The ship’s gone,” said Oliver. “It won’t be coming back.”

“You’re lying!” roared Charles digging the knife against his belly. “I saw it come for you out of the mist; you can bring it back!”

“Kill us and you’ll never see it,” said Rex, and Charles pushed him back. Rex yelled in pain as he and Oliver stumbled back, dangerously close to the edge of the cliff.

“I’ll kill you and kill anyone who tries to stop me,” promised Charles. “Starting with you.”

The knife stabbed out, quick as a striking snake, and buried itself in Rex’s wounded arm. Rex howled in pain and Oliver lost his grip on the reporter as Rex dropped to his knees. Anger flared in Oliver’s heart, and he lashed out as Rex fell. His fist connected squarely with Charles’s chin, but it was like striking a brick wall.

The crazed man lashed out with the knife, but Oliver leapt away from its slashing edge.

“You’re going to bring it back!” screamed Charles, advancing on Oliver with the knife cutting the air in glittering arcs in front of him.

“No,” said a powerful voice behind Oliver. “He’s not. These gates are mine, and I will never allow a man like you to pass through them.”

Charles took a step back at the power of the voice, and even without turning, Oliver knew who had spoken. Impossibly bright light flooded the summit of Kingsport Head, and Oliver’s shadow was thrown out before him. The madman’s eyes opened wide in horror, and Oliver dared not look over his shoulder. The howling of a thousand moon-maddened wolf packs echoed from the cliffs, and Charles was lifted into the air by a whirling storm of dust and midnight forms.

Shadow-swift shapes of utter blackness, horned, winged, and faceless, tore at Charles, shredding his flesh and ripping strips of skin from him with invisible claws and fangs. Blood misted the air as he screamed and slashed his knife in vain. Oliver could not tear his eyes away as the living mechanisms of Charles’s body were unmade, veins unravelling, meat and muscle pared back to the bone.

Then, in an instant, he was gone, carried over the edge of the cliff and screaming as the ruin of his body fell to its doom on the rocks below.

The blaze of light and the horned shadows were snuffed out in the blink of an eye, leaving only the natural sheen of daylight to illuminate Kingsport Head. Oliver let out a pent-up breath and pressed his hands to his face as the nightmarish fate of the madman threatened to claim him.

“You should go. And never come back,” said the voice, and Oliver nodded as the presence behind him diminished.

The crag was silent, save for Silas and Rex’s grunts of pain.

Without daring to look back at the house, Oliver rushed to George’s side and rolled the aged professor onto his back.

“George, speak to me. Oh God, don’t be dead. Not like this…please, not like this…”

“Don’t fret, Oliver,” said George, with a relieved shudder. “I’m quite well.”

“You were stabbed,” said Oliver. “I saw the knife go in.”

“The old man told us the stones would protect us, but I’m not sure this is what he had in mind,” said George, removing the soapstone talisman from his breast pocket beneath the tear in the tweed where the knife had penetrated. A deep gouge had cut a neat groove in the stone, bisecting the symbol carved onto its surface.

Oliver laughed, letting the terror, frustration, and betrayal of the last few hours wash from him in a tide of near-hysteria. Tears spilled down his cheek, and the thought of what they had risked and what they had lost threatened to drag him down into an abyss of grief and lunacy from which he knew he might never emerge.

But even as he teetered on the brink, he pulled back, knowing there was too much at stake to give in to madness. His sanity was stretched thin, like a fraying rope whose wound fibers were snapping slowly and relentlessly, but he clung tight to the task still before him. Oliver reached up to touch the skin above his right eye. The bone hooks were there, even if he couldn’t feel them or see them. A duty had been passed to him, and it was a duty he could not turn from, even in the face of loss, grief, and horror.

Now you must take up the role fate has chosen for you.

Words spoken to him in a dream, but no less true for that.

“Is that detestable man gone?” asked George.

“Which one?” said Rex, kneeling by Silas’s side and pressing his hand against his belly.

“The one who stabbed me, of course.”

“He is,” said Oliver. “But don’t ask how, you wouldn’t want to know.”

“You’re one tough old bird, George,” said Rex. “No wonder you’ve lived so long.”

Oliver and Rex helped the two men to their feet. Silas pressed his hand to his stomach and nodded as Oliver sent him a questioning look.

“I can make it,” he said. “Takes more’n a knife in the guts to put an Innsmouther down.”

Oliver risked a glance at the house on the edge of the cliff. The high promontory was deserted, the house dark and empty.

“We should get going,” said Oliver. “It’s a long way down.”

Epilogue

The Arkham train station was quiet, for George had chosen a train to Boston—and thence to Providence—that departed at an unpopular hour. The morning was cold, and white hoar frost gathered on the stained glass panels of the building’s facade. Oliver was well-wrapped in his long winter coat and scarf, with his battered fedora worn low over the tips of his ears.

The hands of the brass-rimmed clock hung from the arched ceiling gave the time as ten minutes to two in the morning, an hour that Oliver hoped never to see again. The train that vented steam and champed at the bit like an unruly colt was a freight train, not one intended to carry passengers, but one which Oliver hoped might avoid scrutiny by unfriendly eyes. A handful of ten dollar bills in the hands of the engineer had secured George a berth in the crew compartment for the journey to Boston.

Upon reaching the site of the building supplies intended for the new wireless station, they had come upon Donald McCarney and his work gangs as they arrived for the day’s work. The gruff Scotsman had immediately ruled out a return to Kingsport, blaming the prevailing activity around the Congregational Hospital, and instead insisted on driving the four of them back to Arkham in the back of his truck, a jarring, bumping ride that had seen Rex and Silas pass out with pain. 

Given that their enemy had been among them all along, Rex and Silas were registered under assumed names. Rex spoke urgently with Donald, and within the hour, four leather-tough workmen with arms like tree trunks and chests like brick outhouses were stationed at their door to keep out any unwelcome attention.

The doctors at St. Mary’s hospital had wanted to know exactly what had happened to Rex and Silas, but Donald had spun a tale of a building site accident with stern tones and enough of an impenetrable accent for the medical men to give up asking for a more coherent explanation.

Rex and Silas were safe for the time being, but as Oliver had told them what Alexander had said during their confrontation aboard the Persephone, how long that safety would last was another matter entirely.

Rex had suggested that Alexander might believe them dead, but George advised against such easy complacency, positing that the monsters from the deep would surely inform him of the appearance of the White Ship and their rescue.

Now there was the very real danger that their every movement might be watched, and that nowhere was safe for them. With two of Donald’s men as escorts, George and Oliver had risked a quick trip to his home in Easttown to retrieve a suitcase of clothes and assorted books from his cluttered shelves. It would be too dangerous to remain at known addresses, and thus Oliver had taken a room at Ma’s Boarding House. George had reluctantly concluded that his own possessions in Kingsport would need to be sent on to him in Providence.

While Donald and his burly workmen kept watch over Silas and Rex, Oliver took George to the Arkham train station in a taxi, and now the two men stood on the platform awaiting the conductor’s whistle. The steam from the idling engine drifted like low fog, and Oliver was uncomfortably reminded of the spectral mists of Kingsport.

“I wonder if I’ll ever feel comfortable seeing mist again,” he said as the last crates of cargo were loaded on the train’s freight cars.

George nodded. “Brings back rather too many memories, I know.”

“You know you don’t have to return to Providence alone, George,” said Oliver.

“I know, but I feel I will attract less notice alone, and stealth is, I suspect, our best weapon for the foreseeable future. At least until we can regroup from this dreadful setback.”

“Alexander has the Eye,” said Oliver. “I’d describe that as more than just a setback. It’s an unmitigated disaster.”

“Perhaps,” allowed George. “He may have the Eye, but we still have time to marshal our energies and our allies. We may yet thwart his insane ambitions.”

“I wish I shared your optimism,” said Oliver.

“What was it Basil Elton said to you? That you have strong friends and more allies than you know. Keep that thought close to hand and you will stave off despair. That’s what will finish us off, Oliver, despair. After all, it was despair that drove Alexander into madness, therefore I refuse to succumb to its touch, and so should you.”

Oliver took George’s hand as a piercing whistle echoed throughout the deserted station.

“Be wise, be cunning, and—most of all—be lucky,” said George.

“You too, George. Send me a telegram when you are safely home. At times like this, it’s vital we keep in touch.”

“I will, but are you sure this Ma’s Boarding House is safe?”

“Finn Edwards once hid out there,” said Oliver. “If it’s good enough for a bootlegger, it’s good enough for me. You can reach me there under the name of Ned Land.”

“A whale of a tale indeed,” said George with a grin. “Inspired. So what’s next for us, dear boy? Where shall we rendezvous?

“Wire me once you have the papers you need, and then we’ll sort that out,” said Oliver. “But I think a big city is the best place to keep from sight right now. New York maybe. Or perhaps Chicago or San Francisco.”

George nodded and climbed onto the steps of the train.

“Fare thee well, Oliver,” said George with a wave as the iron wheels screeched and spun to gain purchase on the tracks. Slowly the train gathered speed and Oliver lost sight of his old friend from Brown as he climbed into the windowless compartment.

He watched George’s train pull out of the station until it rounded a bend in the track, and wished he could have departed with the old man. Another whistle blew and a puffing steam train from Newburyport eased its way toward the fenders at the end of its journey south. A few weary individuals entered the station, and just for a moment Oliver envied them the illusory safety of their lives.

Oliver turned and made his way to the taxi stand, stepping into a cold Arkham morning and an uncertain future.

END OF BOOK TWO

About the Author

Hailing from Scotland, Graham was first exposed to the horrors of the uncaring cosmos when he came across the works of H.P. Lovecraft in the sci-fi section of his local library. Haunted by the experience, he narrowly avoided the sanity drain of a career in surveying to join Games Workshop’s Games Development team, which, frankly, was a lucky escape. He worked there for six and a half years before taking the plunge to becoming a full-time author. With a New York Times bestseller under his belt (and a replica of Snaga, the axe of Druss the Legend, which he received after his novel, Empire, won the 2010 David Gemmell Legend Award) and twenty-five novels in his back catalog, he reckons he chose the right path.

Graham lives and works in Nottingham. You can keep up with what he’s up to by visiting his website at

www.graham-mcneill.com.