Haggopian and Other Stories

Now the passage grew narrow, then wider; here it was high-ceilinged, there low; but as the light of the flambeau behind him grew fainter and fainter with distance, until a bend shut it off entirely, and as Tarra burrowed deeper and deeper, so he became aware of more than the work of nature here, where ever increasingly the walls were carved with gods and demons, with stalactites cut in the likenesses of kings and queens seated upon dripstone thrones. A gallery of the gods, this place—of an entire mythology long-forgotten, or almost forgotten—and of them that worshipped, or used to worship, the Beings of that paleogaean pantheon.

Tarra gave an involuntary shudder as he crept silently twixt grinning gargoyles and doomful demons, past looming, tentacled krakens and pschent-crowned, wide-mouthed things not so much men as long-headed lizards; and it was here, coming round a second bend in the passage and suddenly into a great terminal chamber, that he reached the very heart of this secret, once-sacred place.

Or was it the heart?

For here—where the ceiling reached up beyond the limits of torchlight, from which unsighted dome massy, morbidly carven daggers of rock depended, and where the stalagmites formed flattened pedestals now for teratological grotesques beyond the Hrossak’s staggered imagination—here the footprints in the dust led directly to a central area where blazed another faggot, this one thrust callously into the talon of a staring stone man-lizard. And at this idol’s clawed feet lay more bound bundles of dry wood, their knobs all coated with pitch.

Tarra lit a second torch and followed Dyzm’s trail a few paces more, to the exact center of the chamber. Which was where the trail ended—or rather, descended!

Between the twin stalagmite thrones of winged, tentacled krakens (images of loathly Lord Cthulhu, Tarra knew from olden legends of his homeland) steps cut from the very rock commenced what seemed a dizzy spiral dive into unknown bowels of earth. And up from that yawning pit came the reek of Dyzm’s torch, and from vaults unguessed came clatter of pebbles inadvertently dislodged.

Now Tarra knew at this stage that he had come far enough. He felt it in his water: common sense advising that he now retrace his steps. But to what end? No use now to plead ignorance of the oldster’s secret, for certes Dyzm would note the absence or use of two of his tarry torches. And anyway, ’twas curiosity had led the Hrossak on, not greed for more than he’d been offered. In no way did he wish any harm upon the other (not at this stage of the adventure, anyway), but by the same token he saw no good reason why he should remain, as it were, in the dark in respect of the subterranean treasure vaults. Also he desired to know why, in the dead of night, any man should require to venture down into this place. What was it that lured the oldster? More treasure? But surely there would be time enough for that later? Alas, Tarra failed to take into account the greed of some men, which is limitless. To them those fabulous regions “Beyond the Dreams of Avarice” do not exist!

And so he set foot upon the first step, then the second, and by yellow light of flaring brand descended but not very far. At the end of a single steep twist the corkscrew ended in a smaller chamber, where once again two stony sons of Cthulhu sat facing each other this time across a circular shaft whose sides fell smooth and sheer into darkness. And here, too, some curious machinery: a drum of rope with pulleys, a winding handle and large copper bucket, all made fast to the weighty pedestal of one of the Cthulhu images. And tied to the other pedestal, a rope ladder whose rungs went down into gloom. Tarra peered over the rim and saw down there at some indeterminate depth the flickering light of Hadj Dyzm’s torch.

Now the Hrossak examined the rope ladder more carefully, and satisfied himself that it was made of pretty stout stuff. Seating himself on the rim of the shaft, he leaned his weight on the ladder’s rungs and they supported him effortlessly. He began to lower himself and paused.

Again that niggling mini-Tarra, the one that dwelled in the back of his mind, was whispering cautionary things to him. But cautioning of what? If an old man dared venture here at this hour, surely there could be little of any real danger here? Tarra silenced the frantic whisperer in his head and peered about.

Seated there at pit’s rim, he aimed his torch in all directions. There were unexplored niches and recesses in the walls here, true, and also he had this sensation of hooded eyes, of something watching. But how possibly? By whom, watched? These stony idols, perhaps! And Tarra snorted his abrupt dismissal of the idea. At any rate, Hadj Dyzm was below, as witness the flare of his torch. Ah, well, only one thing for it—

And clenching the thin end of the faggot between his teeth, he once more set feet to rope rungs and began to descend. Up until which time, Tarra had not erred…