Mayhem at Miskatonic
A Lovecraftian Short Story for Macabre Monday's Sepulchral Roots Project
Dr. Andrew Armitage looked out of one of the windows on the library’s west side. From there, he had a good view of Lich Street. It projected out from Garrison Street in a remarkably straight line. He imagined he could follow its moonlit progress past the old burying grounds until it dead-ended halfway up the slope of French Hill.
The thought of a dead end made him chuckle, though the sound was cold and raspy. Many a plan would hit a dead end tonight if they weren’t successful.
“Professor,” said a familiar voice behind him. “Mr. Carter has arrived.”
Dr. Armitage turned away from the window and tried to smile, though what he managed was more like a twitch in his lips. “Very good, Muhit. Tell him I will meet him at the front desk.”
Muhit, his assistant, who had recently graduated from the university summa cum laude with a degree in English literature, looked over at Armitage’s desk. “Will you need help carrying anything, Professor?”
Armitage shook his head. “I can still carry a book, you know. Now, don’t keep Mr. Carter waiting—oh, and get him some coffee.”
“Right away, professor.” Muhit gave him an enthusiastic nod and hurried away. As soon as he was out of sight, Armitage shook his head a little.
“That young man needs more ambition,” he muttered to himself as he hobbled over to his desk, feeling every minute of his seventy years pressing down on him.
Muhit was a puzzle in many ways. Intelligent, hard-working, polite without ever being obsequious, Muhit was over-overqualified to be Armitage’s assistant. The young man, who knew not only his native Arabic but also English, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, could have been a much sought-after translator, a writer, or a graduate student training for a professorship of his own. Why had he settled for a low level administrative position in what was, much as it pained Armitage to admit it, a second-rate school?
The school had once enjoyed a much better reputation. Back in the 1920s, when Henry Armitage, Andrew’s distant relative, had been the librarian, Miskatonic University could claim to be the equal of Harvard, Yale, or Brown. But over the years, a layer of rumor, like dust in a poorly kept museum, had thickened upon it, until it became fodder for tabloids rather than a beacon of knowledge. If not for an array of government grants, which Armitage hadn’t understood until recently, the place might well have gone bankrupt and closed its doors years ago. It still managed to fill the seats in its classrooms, but mostly with students of dubious academic talent, many of whom had been rejected from more prestigious institutions. Muhit was an exception to this general pattern.
Dr. Armitage bent over the desk and carefully gathered up Henry Armitage’s journal and other papers, slipping them into a bag sized to fit them smoothly, without unnecessary wear and tear. He’d had them digitized recently for fear that continued handling would wear out their brittle pages, but the originals remained important—particularly the ones that included incantations. Paper preserved a link to the original magic. Computer files didn’t.
Completely filled, the bag was heavy. Armitage felt the strain on his left arm and back as he lifted it. He had to keep his right arm free to use his cane. He should have had Muhit wait and carry the bag for him, but somehow, he never felt right about letting those writings out of his own hands.
Even though he wore braces, his knees throbbed as he walked. Under normal circumstances, he should have retired by now. He didn’t because he suspected his unique knowledge and abilities would be needed.
Sadly, he had been right.
Since Henry Armitage’s time, the library had been retrofitted with elevators. Andrew Armitage was thankful for that every day. His office was on the top floor, and making his way up and down the stairs all the time would be torture.
Even as it was, it took him far longer to get to the first floor and proceed to the front desk than he would have liked. Despite the dim, after-closing-time lighting of the library, Muhit saw him in the distance and ran to help him. Embarrassed and reluctant, Armitage passed him the bag, more from a desire not to be rude to him than from a genuine willingness to give it up.
Raymond Carter stood, fidgeting, next to the front desk. Far closer in age to Muhit than to Armitage, Carter had broad shoulders and muscular arms that suggested he could hold his own in a fight. But that wasn’t why Armitage had summoned him. It wasn’t the main reason, anyway.
Carter moved in Armitage’s direction to shorten the walk. “Dr. Armitage, it’s a rare pleasure to finally meet you.” He gripped Armitage’s hand in a firm handshake.
“The pleasure is all mine,” replied Armitage, subtly shifting his hand in a way calculated to get Carter to release him from the knuckle-bruising handshake.
“This is a historic moment,” said Muhit. “The first time a descendant of Henry Armitage, who defeated the Dunwich Horror, has met a descendant of Randolph Carter, who freely entered the Dreamlands and reached unknown Kadath.
Armitage wasn’t sure in the dim light, but he though Carter blushed a little.
“Distant relative, not descendant,” said Carter. “Though I did end up inheriting all of Randolph’s surviving possessions.”
“Distant relative also,” said Armitage. “And in any case, my forebear had the help of two colleagues, Warren Rice and Francis Morgan.”
“But it is true that the two of you may be our best hope against the new threat.” Muhit’s tone, verging on that of a fanboy, made a shadow of guilt fall upon Armitage. Was he the reason the young man had neglected his own career?
“Let us hope,” said Carter. “Neither of our relatives ever faced Cthulhu. And the rise of violent incidents near the sea shore suggests that we may already be too late.”
Armitage shuddered despite himself. Arkham wasn’t a coastal town, but the Miskatonic River, which lay only a few miles north of the campus, connected directly to the sea. Further north lay Innsmouth, a now deserted coastal town once populated by descendants of the Deep Ones, who worshiped Cthulhu and were rumored to still inhabit their own city under the sea, just beneath Devil’s Reef. To the Northwest lay Dunwich, or what was left of it, anyway. Arkham itself, where the university was located, had not been as directly troubled. But it seemed as if it would be an early target if Cthulhu’s forces managed to break through the defenses provided by the Second and Fourth Fleets of the U.S. Navy.
Though the government released no news about the progress of the naval campaign—or lack thereof—Armitage had heard tales suggesting terrible human casualties. Local volunteers manned small boats to patrol the Miskatonic River where it flowed through Arkham. But what match would fishing boats be for creatures capable of sinking battleships?
“Are we safe here?” asked Carter, looking around as if Cthulhu himself was hiding somewhere in the stacks and could at any moment lunge at them, tentacles flailing.
“Certain sigils from the Pnakotic manuscripts have been subtly incorporated into the campus architecture,” said Armitage. “It is my understanding that more have been added in each remodel since the 1940s. Psychics brought in by the university administration were definitely able to feel the presence of the sigils and locate them accurately. But short of bringing one of the Old Ones here to actually test the sigils, we have no way to know. uh—”
“Whether they work or not,” Carter finished.
“There was supposed to be a U.S. Army detachment to guard the campus,” said Armitage. “But it didn’t show up. Nor did the agents the FBI and DHS promised to send from their Boston field offices. When the university president inquired, the army made an apologetic but vague statement about when troops might actually arrive. Calls to FBI and DHS went straight to voicemail.”
Carter’s eyes widened, and even Muhit fidgeted nervously. Never had the phrase, “straight to voicemail,” sounded so ominous.
“If need be, I can summon the cats of Ulthar to aid us,” said Carter in a calmer tone than such a revelation merited.
“I had heard that Randolph Carter could visit the Dreamlands, but I never found even a hint that he could bring anything back with him, let alone a whole army of felines.” said Armitage.”
“My predecessor at first relied on his own innate abilities. When those faded, he relied on this key.” Carter pulled from his coat pocked a silver key that glowed more brightly than the moonlight. “I still have whatever dreaming ability runs in our family—and I have the key. Combining both gives me a limited ability to bring guests into our world. ”
“What good are cats against the kind of adversaries we might face?” asked Muhit,
“Don’t let them hear you say that,” said Carter, glancing over his shoulder as if expecting an army of enraged felines to leap from the shadows. “These are no ordinary cats. In the region in which they dwell, they are the apex predators. And they have no reason to love the Old Ones, who can get into the Dreamlands more easily than into our world.”
“Cat allies or not, we need to complete our preparations,” said Armitage. “Follow me to the Special Collection Room,” He hobbled back toward the elevator. Carter and Muhit were right behind him, though they politely slowed their natural paces to avoid trampling him.
The elevator appeared perfectly normal as the doors opened, and the three men entered. However, Armitage pressed his thumb against a barely visible reader directly below the basement button. A panel above the floor buttons at about eye level slid back, revealing a retina scanner.
“Quite a nice setup,” said Carter.
“Your federal tax dollars at work,” said Armitage. As he made another failed attempt to smile, he bent close enough for his eye to be scanned. He heard a slight click, and then another panel slid aside, revealing an additional, unmarked button below the basement one. Armitage pressed the newly revealed button, and the elevator began a surprisingly rapid descent.
The library had long had a special collections room, but after the Whateley incident, it had been moved temporarily to a more secure location, then returned following the clandestine addition of the library’s subterranean level. Among other things, it was far from any water source and lined with protective Pnakotic sigils. Assuming the magic part worked, it might be the most secure place in New England.
As the group exited the elevator and headed down a long corridor, Armitage decided he’d better start explaining the possible options. Who knew how much time they might have before an attack started? The Cthulhu cultists couldn’t be aware of everything in the Special Collection, but at the very least, they knew the university possessed copies of spells that could hinder their endeavors.
“The Old Ones have caused trouble since before humans even evolved,” said Armitage. Despite the cold chill that had settled over him, he try to stay clinical, as if lecturing to a room full of undergraduates, much as he had before taking his place as librarian.
“But recently, Cthulhu, who was said to be sleeping in R’lyeh, seems ready to awaken, an event his cult has always been sure would happen. We don’t know how to put him back to sleep, which would have been the easiest solution to our immediate problem. But even if he wakes, we do know that another step may be required before he is free to manifest completely in our world.”
“I’ve never heard before,” said Carter. “Nothing about it in Randolph’s journal, either.”
“But there is some evidence in HA’s journal,” said the librarian, quickly summarizing the story of the Dunwich Horror, otherwise known as Yog Whateley.
“Let me see if I understand this,” said Muhit. “Yog-Sothoth could not fully enter our world, but he could manifest enough to impregnate Lavinia Whateley, The twins to whom she gave birth were supposed to open the way for Yog-Sothoth to enter our world completely. That’s why Wilbur, Yog’s fraternal and more human twin, was trying to get the Necronomicon.”
Armitage nodded. “Exactly right. The spell that could open the gateway between the native universe of the Old Ones and our own is in it.”
They reached an imposing looking metal door. Armitage scanned his retina again, and the three men entered the Special Collection Room.
“This is…surprisingly unspectacular,” said Carter. The room had bare metal walls. A table and chairs sat in its center. Otherwise, it was empty.
“This is just an antechamber of sorts,” said Armitage, hobbling to the far side of the room. Another thumb print, another retinal scan, and a well-concealed vault door opened. Motioning to his colleagues, Armitage stood aside as they entered the vault.
Armitage wasn’t sure why the inner vault, instead of being modern and metallic, looked older. The walls and ceiling were covered with brown sandstone. Instead of being flat, the walls were broken by periodic columns, which became arches as they ran up, across, and down the ceiling. Light fixtures were recessed enough to hide the modern bulbs. Only the glass cases protecting the manuscripts and the smooth, pearl-gray flooring suggested more recent construction.
Of course, it was not the vault, but what it contained, that was truly eye-catching. Muhit had never been in the vault but had some idea what to expect. Carter, despite having traveled the Dreamlands, looked like a little kid in a candy store.
“I knew Mistkatonic had one of the few surviving copies of the Necronomicon,” said Carter. “But I know a little Arabic, and…and that manuscript over there seems to be the original Arabic version. I had no idea that had even survived.”
Armitage nodded. “The original language text, the very words of the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred. But mostly it affirms the accuracy of Olaus Wormius’s Latin translation. Rare though it is, it pales in importance when compared to the Arabic text of a somewhat later, expanded version of the Necronomicon, lost for centuries and never translated until just recently.”
Carter, eyes wide, pointed to another manuscript. “Isn’t that a complete version of the Pnakotic manuscript?”
“As complete as we could find—” began Armitage.
“Uh, the plan,” prompted the ever efficient Muhit.
Armitage smiled again. “Forgive an old scholar for becoming too engrossed in such matters. Yes, the plan. I have long been in communication with others who have studied the Old Ones—which is how I found you, Carter. In any case, most experts became convinced some time ago that the periodic attacks by allies of the Old Ones were not the worst menace we faced. The attempt by Yog-Sothoth to enter our world, witnessed by the elder Armitage, was not the only such attempt.
“Two things are clear. First, though the Old Ones may be extraterrestrial, they are also extraplanar—they come from a plane of existence far different from our own. The elder Armitage copied this passage from the Necromonicon into his notes. ‘The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.’ The passage goes on to talk about how Yog-Sothoth is the key and knows the location of the gate. As we know, Yog-Sothoth failed in his first attempt. As a result, the impact the Old Ones can have on our plane remains limited—so far.
“Second, it is clear that Old Ones need the aid of someone on this plane to enable them to enter our world. Powerful enough aid might throw open the gate forever, enabling them to become permanently present here. The human race would not long survive such a presence.”
“Forgive me, Professor, but how do we know that Cthulhu isn’t already awake and that the gate isn’t already open?” asked Muhit.
“So far, only Cthulhu’s minions have attacked. Many of them have lurked in the unexplored depths of the sea since before the evolution of humankind. They didn’t need to come through the gate. As of yet, there has been no sign of Cthulhu himself—in the flesh, as it were.”
“The world is a big place,” said Carter. “How can you be sure?”
Armitage looked at him for a moment. “Because we are still alive, for one thing. Because Cthulhu has not risen from the sea and destroyed entire cities with a single sweep of one of his massive tentacles.
“In his journal, HA recorded this statement, derived from Cthulhu cultists. ‘Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.’ No doubt, cultists are engaged in the liberation even as we speak.”
“But there are cultists all over the world,” said Carter. “Even if you are correct, the attempt could happen anywhere.”
“Yog-Sothoth needed an Old One/Human hybrid to complete the ritual. It is likely that Cthulhu needs the same. There were isolated areas in which a large part of the population was composed of hybrids, but they are several generations removed from Cthulhu. His power in them is much diluted.”
“What about the Deep Ones?” asked Muhit.
“Not human enough,” replied Armitage. “As far as we can tell, the ritual requires someone more or less evenly balanced between human and other.”
Carter nodded. “You plan to find the chosen offspring and kill him…it…whatever. But the world is still a big place, and the hybrid could be anywhere.”
“Could be,” said Armitage. “But the cultists would need to have some idea of where the hybrid is and what the plan is in order to provide proper coordination and support. Fortunately for us, they have been communicating on the dark web for months. Those messages were coded, of course, but the NSA cracked the code shortly before communication became spotty.”
“So where is the offspring?” asked Carter. “Since you wanted to meet here, I assume it’s somewhere nearby.”
“The ruins of Innsmouth,” said Armitage. “Cultists have been gathering in small groups in nearby towns for about a month. A few here, a few there, in an effort to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Shortly before you arrived, Carter, I noticed an unusually large number of vehicles traveling north on Garrison. That’s the most direct route to Innsmouth. Such a caravan almost certainly means that the ritual is supposed to be tonight. It will take a fair amount of time to organize the large number of cultists, but I am certain the ritual will begin as soon as possible. Innsmouth is just a short way from here, but we should make preparations to leave immediately.”
“At the risk of pointing out the obvious, there are only three of us,” said Carter. “It will take time for the cats to arrive.”
“The navy will have taken care of the Deep Ones by now,” said Armitage, though he doubted the odds of that were any better than fifty-fifty. “As for the cultists, from what little information I have, they aren’t exactly a well-disciplined force. Most of them are more…academic, like me—younger, almost certainly, but also likely insane. The only real threat is the hybrid.
“If this one is anything like Yog Whateley, it will be invisible to us if it chooses. But we’ve already prepared the powder of Ibn Ghazi, which will make it visible. I have a copy of the spell Henry Armitage used to banish Yog Whateley, and I’ve also memorized every syllable. Don’t look so skeptical, Carter. My mind is in far better shape than my body.”
“I never doubted that,” replied Carter, though he looked down rather than meeting Armitage’s eyes. “But Yog Whatelely was banished by three professors.”
“I’ve had far more time to study the magic than they had,” said Armitage. “Most of my life, in fact. I can do this.”
“We need protection while you chant, though,” said Muhit. “It isn’t likely that the cultists will just stand around and let us banish their messiah.”
“I was promised there would be some marines in the area,” said Armitage, though he had no way to confirm their presence. “However, we do have one surprise that may even be better than marines. Carter, bring me that sword, please.”
Carter moved in the direction Armitage had pointed, found a sword lying on one of the display tables, and brought it back with great difficulty.
“This is…far too heavy to wield,” he said, panting. “It appears to be made of…what? Stone?”
“Meteoric stone, to be precise,” said Armitage. “Most meteors are from our own plane, but there are a few exceptions that come from others—some may even come from the native plane of the Old Ones. The particular meteorite from which this blade was fashioned contains elements unidentifiable by current science. It also has a strong magic ‘vibe,’ which you will probably notice if you concentrate on the blade.”
“What good does any of that do if we can’t lift the blade?” asked Carter.
“It may be that its very presence will distract the hybrid. But the sword has been examined by both psychics and outright clairvoyants. They all agree that it has some kind of power against the Old Ones and their inhuman followers. A few believe it can be used to perform magic, though they were unable to give specifics.
“One even identified it as Dhami, the sword of Antarah ibn Shaddad, the pre-Islamic hero of mixed Arab and Ethiopian lineage who rose from slavery to become a great warrior. It is said that Abdul Alhazred revered him, at least before Alhazred went insane.”
Muhit’s eyes widened. “Allah has brought this blade to us for a reason.”
Armitage wasn’t surprised by the young man’s ever-present enthusiasm, but he was thrown off balance by Muhit’s religious reference. He’d never before mentioned being a Muslim, though Armitage had assumed he probably was. But he’d often spoken of various fortunate happenings without ever attributing them to Allah. His doing so now rang false, at least to Armitage’s ears.
The librarian had never thought about it before, but Muhit was an unusual name. It meant ocean in Arabic. It was exactly the sort of pseudonym a Cthulhu cultist might use.
Armitage shivered as if someone had stepped on his grave.
Could it be that Muhit was a sleeper agent for the cult? That would explain why he had taken a dead-end job instead of finding something more prestigious and lucrative.
The young man was reaching for the sword with suspicious eagerness. Armitage raised his cane to block him, even though he almost lost his balance.
“We have no time for admiring the blade now,” said Armitage in a harsh tone that caused Muhit to raise his eyebrows. “We must get the car loaded immediately.”
Muhit turned to Carter. “I will help you carry the sword,” he said.
“Why don’t you go up and check for danger?” said Armitage. He realized even as he said it that the suggestion was ludicrous. If there were any real danger, they ought to stay together. And while Armitage and Carter both had at least some sensitivity to magic, Muhit had none. He could walk right by an invisible Old One and be none the wiser.
Muhit looked puzzled, but he didn’t argue. Indeed, he raced out as fast as possible.
“What was that about?” asked Carter.
“Perhaps just an old man’s foolishness,” replied Armitage. Logically, if Muhit might be a threat, Armitage ought to warn Carter, but the professor found himself unable to speak the words. He’d known Muhit for years. Wouldn’t he have noticed more discrepancies than he’d seen tonight if Muhit were really a cultist?
Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. He tried to figure out what that might be as Carter, grumbling, hauled the sword back up into the library with Armitage hobbling behind him, the powder bag in one hand, and his manuscript bag slung awkwardly over his shoulder. Muhit should have carried both, but Armitage feared to give him either one.
The professor felt even more tired than usual, and his knees ached worse as well. Only the knowledge that the end of the human race could be mere hours away kept him going.
Muhit waited for them at the front door of the library. “All clear, Professor.”
“Good,” replied Armitage. “We should head for Innsmouth right away.”
“Campus security seems to have deserted us,” said Muhit. “Should one of us stay to guard the library?”
Armitage’s eyes narrowed. “There are only three of us as it is,” he replied. It wasn’t like Muhit to be so out of touch with ordinary logistics. “Two of us couldn’t even handle all that we’re bringing. And I have to be one of the people who goes, which complicates matters.”
“But don’t the cultists need the Necronomicon to complete the ritual? You told me yesterday that all known copies were still accounted for. That means they have to steal the one we have. Well secured as it is, they must have a plan to take it, or they wouldn’t be assembling for the ritual.”
“Your logic is sound,” said Armitage slowly. “But remember, I told you and Carter tonight that I saw some of the cultists passing by on their way to Innsmouth. If they still needed the Necronomicon, they would surely have stopped here. Instead, they just kept going.”
“Oh, right,” said Muhit—who had a great mind for detail and had never before forgotten something so obvious. “I’m…I don’t know. I’m suddenly feeling not quite myself.”
Armitage looked at him closely. For a second, he fell into a waking nightmare in which tentacles started to sprout from Muhit. The professor blinked a few times, but he couldn’t see much out of the ordinary. His young assistant looked a little paler than normal. There was more perspiration on his brow than one might expect in the relatively cold night air. Maybe he was just running a low fever.
Carter ran back to them. “I need to go back into the Dreamlands for a while.”
Armitage looked nervously at his watch. The ritual could start at any moment, and it would take several minutes to drive to Innsmouth.
“We don’t really have the time.”
“We need to make it,” said Carter. “I have the strangest feeling that we may have immediate need of the cats.” He looked back over his shoulder as if expecting to be jumped at any moment.
“Maybe Cthulhu is already here.”
Armitage’s head was spinning. Even an Old One as large as Cthulhu was supposed to be could certainly become invisible if he wished. But if the lord of R’ley was here, why not kill them all immediately? Why were they still alive?”
“Powder, Professor?” asked Muhit quietly.
Armitage shook his head. If Cthulhu was here, they didn’t have enough powder to blanket the whole area. They needed an idea of where he might be.
Carter withdrew the silver key from his pocket again, then raised it as if he were turning it in a lock.
“Carter!” said Armitage, reaching out for him, but it was too late. The silver outline of a door swung open for him. Muhit picked up the sword with his free hand, lifting it as is it were light as a pillow. His eyes looked glassy, and for a moment, they seemed to glow in the moonlight.
Muhit had started to seem a little off after encountering the sword. Was it brining out something from the depths of his mind? Causing him to revert to his true form? Armitage took a step away from him and nearly fell down.
His young assistant looked in Carter’s direction and lurched toward him. Carter turned and beckoned to both of them. Shimmering light poured from the doorway he had used the key to open. The light swirled around Muhit and Armitage. The professor felt disoriented, as if any step he took would sending him plunging into an abyss. But he didn’t entirely lose track of the situation around him.
“Carter, watch out!” Armitage tried to yell, but his voice came out as hoarse whisper. His heart felt as if it would burst out of his chest. Muhit continued to stagger toward Carter, sword extended. Carter seemed oblivious to them now, his eyes out of focus as if he were already halfway into the Dreamlands.
Armitage tried to intercept Muhit, but he saw the effort was futile immediately after he started it. Even in whatever trance now gripped him, Muhit was moving far faster than Armitage. A second after the professor realized the hopelessness of his situation, the light from the silver doorway blinded him. He became dizzy and even more disoriented.
The light disappeared abruptly, leaving Armitage in darkness for a moment. But it wasn’t really darkness. He noticed smudges of light that, as his eyes recovered, resolved into torches.
He was standing in wet sand on a beach lit by torchlight and moonlight. In the distance, a darkened coral reef cast a jagged shadow upon the water.
Devil’s Reef! In the distance, he could see the rotting docks of Innsmouth harbor. Much closer than that, he saw the disturbingly large mob that was carrying the torches. But instead of charging, They looked beyond Armitage to something behind him.
Unsteady on his feet, Armitage managed to turn around and saw Carter standing in the now dim light from the door to the Dreamlands. Or was that what it really was? Armitage knew of no way a portal to the Dreamlands would deposit someone in a real-world location. Could it be that he was dreaming?
If so, it didn’t take him long to realize that he was having a nightmare rather than a dream. One look in Carter’s eyes, now as deep as the ocean and utterly inhuman, made reality clear as the moment before death.
“You thought to thwart Cthulhu, and yet you missed what was right in front of you,” said Carter—or whatever he now was. His voice roared like a stormy sea.
“I…I don’t understand,” said Armitage. He started shaking despite himself.
“Of course, you don’t. You were so careful with all your sigils. And they would have stopped me, too—if I hadn’t found a human shell to fool them.”
“Shell? Then Carter—”
“Is trapped in the Dreamlands somewhere. I found his spirt there, captured it, followed its link to his body, possessed it, and took his key.”
“Who are you really?” asked Armitage, already knowing the answer.
“Son of Cthulhu and a human woman,” said Carter. “But not one here. That’s why all the human intelligence agencies and even psychics didn’t notice the anomalies connected to my birth. Being asleep, my father became attuned to the Dreamlands—even the human ones. It took some effort, but he found a girl, a runaway no doubt, in the Nomad Lands. I grew up rapidly there, where reality is so flexible. Once I was grown, I was ready to fulfill my destiny.
“Replacing Carter was easy enough. Because I’d grown up in the Dreamlands, I’d gained his power and more. With the key, I could open any door, even blur the line between waking and sleep enough to travel to any place in either.”
“But you can’t complete the ritual,” said Armitage, his voice weaker than he’d hoped. “You don’t have a copy of the spell.”
“Fool!” said Cthulhu’s son. He laughed as a serial killer might. “Henry Armitage copied out an acceptable spell for opening the gate in his journal. It’s not the famous one used in Dunwich, but it will do, especially with the key to help it along. All I need is the journal.”
Armitage froze. He wouldn’t have time to cast the banishment before the hybrid would be upon him, and he wouldn’t last two seconds in a physical fight.
A shadow fell across Cthulhu’s son just as he started moving. Jumping into the air above the hybrid—too far above for the jumper to have been an ordinary human—Muhit began to descend toward the abomination. Only the jumper wasn’t Muhit—not entirely, anyway. Armitage felt as if was seeing a reincarnation of Antarah ibn Shaddad, who alone could wield the meteoric stone sword Muhit now held with such ease.
Sensing more danger than he had anticipated, the hybrid tried to back away, but the transfigured Muhit fell in his direction like a comet, striking awe into the hearts of all the cultists, who froze in place light a bizarre collection of sculptures.
Armitage didn’t know why, but he threw the whole supply of the powder of Ibn Ghazi at the hybrid. His throw was weak, but the wind blew the cloud of dust right into the face that looked so much like Carter’s.
The magic should have bee ineffective. After all, the son of Cthulhu’s physical body was neither here nor invisible. But as if transformed by the proximity of the meteoric sword, the powder revealed a glimpse of the offspring’s true form—an impossible nightmare tangle of tentacles that stretched far beyond poor Carter’s abused body.
It was at those tentacles that Muhit aimed his blade, and they proved more physical than Armitage had dared hope. The sword plunged through one of the largest, which sprayed black blood onto the sand as the hybrid screamed. Now on the ground, Muhit swung the blade so fast it blurred. Each blow struck true, wiping out another tentacle.
But like the hydra’s heads, two more tentacles began to sprout where one had been cut away. Muhit sped up, but Armitage wasn’t sure he would triumph. Who knew? Perhaps the hybrid was able to dream them up. Shaken though he was, the professor knew what he had to do. He begin to recite the banishment spell in a language humanity had long since forgotten.
Cthulhu’s son felt those word, turned his head in Armitage’s direction. But the hybrid dared not focus on the professor when Muhit was butchering him so thoroughly. As for the cultists, they had eyes only for Muhit, whom they were too cowardly to approach. They lacked the magical sensitivity to realize that Armitage, whom they could easily have overcome, posed as great a threat to their master’s son.
Muhit hacked off tentacles faster than the hybrid could regrow them. The meteoric sword glowed hungrily, and as the battle progressed, some of the stumps began to glow in the same way. Those that did sprouted no new appendages.
The young man might have taken poor Carter’s head off at any time, but he focused instead upon those manifestations of the creature within. Perhaps Muhit hoped to save the real Carter, though Armitage had no idea how such a thing might be accomplished. In any case, the professor kept his mind on the spell, wielding each syllable like a dagger that would pierce the black heart of Cthulhu’s son.
Armitage’s former assistant hacked away the last tentacle at the exact moment that the professor uttered the final syllable. Thunder deafened everyone in range, and a bolt of purple lightning struck Carter’s body. But instead of frying it, as normal electricity would have done, the magic instead passed right through him, engulfing the intruder within its purple flame.
Carter lay still. Armitage thought his body might be breathing but couldn’t tell. Either way, his soul had not returned. Perhaps it never would. But at least the body could no longer be used as an instrument of Cthulhu’s vile plans.
Muhit turned toward the mob and roared a battle cry. With their leader gone, the cultists lost what little courage they might have had. Their torches fell to the sand as they ran screaming off into the night. No one answered their cries.
Armitage fell to his knees, which protested sharply. Muhit looked in his direction, and whatever Arab version of berserker fury had possessed him faded away. He had to drop the sword, which now too heavy for his arm, in order to limp toward Armitage.
“Is it over?” he whispered when he reached the fallen professor.
“For all we know, Cthulhu has other spawn. If not, he can easily enough make more.” Seeing the crushing disappointment in Muhit’s eyes, he added, “But it is over for a while.”
Armitage noticed that the doorway the hybrid had opened flickered. Now that it source of magic had died, it would fade away completely.
Yet it didn’t. It stabilized, and from its dark maw sprang several cats, eyes glowing like tiny stars. With unfeline strength, they gently lifted the vacant body of Raymond Carter and pulled it into the Dreamlands. Only then did the doorway fade back to nothing.
Muhit, who had missed that lightning-fast incursion behind him, nodded slowly at what Armitage had just said. “Allah be praised.”
Exhausted, he down fell next to the professor, and for some time, they lay quietly, listening to the sounds of the sea.
Lovecraft fans will notice that, thought the setting is contemporary rather than the earlier 20th Century one in which Lovecraft wrote, the details are true to Lovecraft’s universe. Henry Armitage is one of the main characters in “The Dunwich Horror,” and Randolph Carter is the leading character in the Dream Cycle stories. The geographical references are taken from Lovecraft’s handwritten map of Arkham and from clues in some of the stories. Most of the books and artifacts are likewise found in Lovecraft’s writings, and the quoted material comes from his stories.
The one exception is Dhami, the sword of Antarah ibn Shaddadd. This comes instead from Arabian folklore. But Lovecraft himself was much influenced by such folklore. The name Abdul Alhazred was a name Lovecraft gave to himself when he was a child and crazy about the Arabian Nights.
This is a worthy addition to the Lovecraft Lore. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought I was reading an old story. Good job.
Very nicely done, especially the twist with Muhit - the setup leading us to believe he was up to no good, then the realization he wasn’t the one to worry about - excellent!