Haggopian and Other Stories

Then, out of the silence, a low and distant rumble was born; growing rapidly in volume to a roar, to a blast of sound, to an ear-splitting shriek as of a billion banshees—and from the heart of Dylath-Leen a cold wind blew, extinguishing in an instant the hellfires of the horned ones; and all the tiny red points of light went out in a second; and there came a loud, sharp crack, as of a great crystal disintegrating—and soon thereafter I heard the first of the screams.

I remembered Atal’s warning “not to watch”, but found myself unable to turn away. I was rooted to the spot, and as the screams from the dark city rose in horrid intensity I could but stare into the darkness with bulging eyes, straining to pick out some detail of what occurred there in the midnight streets. Then, as the grovellers at the wall broke and scattered, It came; rushing from out the bowels of the terrified town, bringing with it a wind that bowled over the fleeing creatures beyond the invisible wall as though they had no weight at all; and I saw it!

Blind and yet all-seeing—without legs and yet running like flood water—the poisonous mouths in the bubbling mass—the Fly-the-Light beyond the wall. Great God! The sight of the creature was mind-blasting! And what it did to those now pitiful things from Leng!

Thus it was and is.

• • •

Three times only have I visited the basalt-towered, myriad-wharved city of Dylath-Leen, and now I pray that I have seen that city for the last tine. For who can say but that should there be a next time I might find myself as I did once before within that city’s walls—perhaps even within the Wall of Naach-Tith! For the road twixt the waking world and the world of dream knows no barrier other than that of sleep—and even now I grow drowsy. Yet dare I sleep? I fear that one night I shall awaken to the beams of a thin and haunted moon, within basalt-towered Dylath-Leen, and that the thing from the great ruby shall find me there, trapped within a prison of my own making…

The Mirror of Nitocris

Another tale from The Caller of the Black, “Mirror” was written in mid-1968 while I was still in Berlin. August Derleth wrote me to say, “There’s some very good writing here…” which did my ego no end of good! (His comments weren’t always so kind.) “Mirror” is a one-of-a-kind story, in that it’s the only one of my short tales that stars Titus Crow’s sidekick, Henri-Laurent de Marigny, as the principal character and narrator. But Henri did go on, of course, to further adventures with Crow in his battle against “The Burrowers Beneath”, also against Ithaqua the Wind-Walker, “In the Moons of Borea”; even against Cthulhu himself, in “Elysia” the home of the Elder Gods.

Hail, The Queen!

Bricked up alive,

Never more to curse her hive;

Walled-up ’neath the pyramid,

Where the sand

Her secret hid.

Buried with her glass

That she,

At the midnight hour might see

Shapes from other spheres called;

Alone with them,

Entombed, appalled

—To death!

—Justin Geoffrey

Queen Nitocris’ Mirror!

I had heard of it, of course—was there ever an occultist who had not?—I had even read of it, in Geoffrey’s raving People of the Monolith, and knew that it was whispered of in certain dark circles where my presence is abhorred. I knew Alhazred had hinted of its powers in the forbidden Necronomicon, and that certain desert tribesmen still make a heathen sign which dates back untold centuries when questioned too closely regarding the legends of its origin.

So how was it that some fool auctioneer could stand up there and declare that this was Nitocris’ Mirror? How dare he?

Yet the glass was from the collection of Bannister Brown-Farley—the explorer-hunter-archaeologist who, before his recent disappearance, was a recognised connoisseur of rare and obscure objets d’art—and its appearance was quite as outré as the appearance of an object with its alleged history ought to be. Moreover, was this not the self-same auctioneer, fool or otherwise, who had sold me Baron Kant’s silver pistol only a year or two before? Not, mind you, that there was a single shred of evidence that the pistol, or the singular ammunition that came with it, had ever really belonged to the witch-hunting Baron; the ornately inscribed “K” on the weapon’s butt might stand for anything!