Haggopian and Other Stories

Of what I saw and did in Kara-Shehr I will not write. It must suffice to say that I learned of things which struck chords in my subconscious; things which sent me off again on my travels to seek Sarnath the Doomed in what was once the land of Mnar…

No man knows the whereabouts of Sarnath and it is better that this remains so. Of my travels in search of the place and the difficulties which I encountered at every phase of my journey I will therefore recount nothing. Yet my discovery of the slime-sunken city, and of the incredibly aged ruins of nearby Ib, were major links forged in the lengthening chain of knowledge which was slowly bridging the awesome gap between this world and my ultimate destination. And I, bewildered, did not even know where or what that destination was.

For three weeks I wandered the slimy shores of the still lake which hides Sarnath and at the end of that time, driven by a fearful compulsion, I once again used those unnatural aquatic powers of mine and began exploring beneath the surface of that hideous morass.

That night I slept with a small green figurine, rescued from the sunken ruins, pressed to my bosom. In my dreams I saw my mother and father—but dimly, as if through a mist—and they beckoned to me…

The nest day I went again to stand in the centuried ruins of Ib and as I was making ready to leave I saw the inscribed stone which gave me my first real clue. The wonder is that I could read what was written on that weathered, aeon-old pillar; for it was written in a curious cuneiform older even than the inscriptions on Geph’s broken columns, and it had been pitted by the ravages of time.

It told nothing of the beings who once lived in Ib, or anything of the long-dead inhabitants of Sarnath. It spoke only of the destruction which the men of Sarnath had brought to the beings of Ib—and of the resulting Doom that came to Sarnath. This doom was wrought by the Gods of the beings of Ib but of those Gods I could learn not a thing. I only knew that reading that stone and being in Ib had stirred long-hidden memories, perhaps even ancestral memories, in my mind. Again that feeling of closeness to home, that feeling I always felt so strongly on the moors in Yorkshire, flooded over me. Then, as I idly moved the rushes at the base of the pillar with my foot, yet more chiselled inscriptions appeared. I cleared away the slime and read on. There were only a few lines but those lines contained my clue:

“Ib is gone but the Gods live on. Across the world is the Sister City, hidden in the earth, in the barbarous lands of Zimmeria.

There The People flourish yet and there will The Gods ever be worshipped; even unto the coming of Cthulhu…”

Many months later in Cairo, I sought out a man steeped in elder lore, a widely acknowledged authority on forbidden antiquities and prehistoric lands and legends. This sage had never heard of Zimmeria but he did know of a land which had once had a name much similar. “And where did this Cimmeria lie?” I asked.

“Unfortunately,” my erudite adviser answered, consulting a chart, “most of Cimmeria now lies beneath the sea but originally it lay between Vanaheim and Nemedia in ancient Hyborea.”

“You say most of it is sunken?” I queried. “But what of the land which lies above the sea?” Perhaps it was the eagerness in my voice which caused him to glance at me the way he did. Again, perhaps it was my queer aspect; for the hot suns of many lands had hardened my hairless skin most peculiarly and a strong web now showed between my fingers.

“Why do you wish to know?” he asked. “What is it you are seeking?”

“Home,” I answered instinctively, not knowing what prompted me to say it.

“Yes…” he said, studying me closely. “That might well be… You are an Englishman, are you not? May I enquire from which part?”

“From the North-East.” I said, reminded suddenly of my moors. “Why do you want to know?”

“My friend, you have searched in vain,” he smiled, “for Cimmeria, or that which remains of it, encompasses all of that North-Eastern part of England which is your home-land. Is it not ironic? In order to find your home you have left it…”

That night fate dealt me a card which I could not ignore. In the lobby of my hotel was a table devoted solely to the reading habits of the English residents. Upon it was a wide variety of books, paper-backs, newspapers and journals, ranging from The Reader’s Digest to The News of The World, and to pass a few hours in relative coolness I sat beneath a soothing fan with a glass of iced water and idly glanced through one of the newspapers. Abruptly, on turning a page, I came upon a picture and an article which, when I had scanned the thing through, caused me to book a seat on the next flight to London.