Historical Lovecraft: Tales of Horror Through Time Read online

  The Pharaoh shrieked; my brother had begun to dissolve before her eyes. Those seams came apart and a thing that none of us could imagine broke out of him. A creature that seemed made of wine-dark water clawed its way up and out, discarding my brother as one might a robe of linen. My brother pooled against the floor, blood and water washing over the Pharaoh’s feet, while this monstrosity lunged for our beloved Hatshepsut.

  She pushed backward from the thing, her chair toppling. The Pharaoh’s guards stepped forward, but they seemed baffled as to where they might attack the creature without harming Hatsheput in the fray. The thing spilled her into the bounty of treasure from Punt, into baskets and boxes, into linens and incense. Crying, she crawled through the fortune and, all the while, the living horror stalked over her, reeking of the deepest Nile, black with fertile revulsion. Purple-black water oozed around them, soaking the Pharaoh’s linen gown until she looked bruised. Many-limbed arms (Oh, they were the arms beneath the water of my pool, pressing with small, warm hands) latched onto her legs and pulled hard, bringing her back from the treasures, the gems and daggers and dishes. But, in her shaking hands, Hatshepsut held a broken ivory dish and she slashed its ragged edge against the grim ovoid head of the thing upon her.

  The creature fell apart with a cry that felt to me like that voice, that dark and terrible voice. That scream seemed to reach deep inside of me, to curl around my heart and pull. As the creature flailed, still trying to reach the Pharaoh in its death, I crumpled to the floor. Now the guards rushed forward to Hatshepsut, hacking at each long, watery arm as it whipped free from her body. These arms came apart, splattering everyone within reach with a thick liquid that smelled to me like the stars. Clear, cold, stinging. Vast and empty.

  The silence afterward was peculiar. The women in the room had leaped away from Hatshepsut, but now they moved forward; the drenched guards stepped warily back and made to secure the entries to the chamber. But it was too late, I thought, watching from narrowed eyes. Those small, warm hands pressed against my heart and that voice … that fathomless voice … whispered its plea in my ear. Let me come through you.

  My gaze focused on the discarded skin of my brother, on the bloody footprints near the edge of the table. My tall and beautiful brother, with his hands that could make music. That blood called me as much as the voice did; that blood anchored me as much as those small hands. And my Pharaoh … the Lady of the Two Lands … struggling to her feet, unable to rise because her legs shook so terribly ... I ached for her, for the lotus and olive taste of her. It was that ache which became the seam, the seam which broke me apart with a scream that tried to shatter the heavens. Let me come through you.

  I let it come, if only to taste her again.

  — For Joseph

  E. Catherine Tobler lives and writes in Colorado – strange how that works out. Among others, her fiction has appeared in Sci Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She is an active member of SFWA and the fiction editor at Shimmer Magazine. For more, visit www.ecatherine.com.

  The author speaks: I’ve always had a soft spot for Egypt and I’m not sure why. I wish I could retrace the steps that got my brain to thinking, “Oh, wow” about the place for the first time, but that is, alas, lost. Still, all those ruins that were once not ruins were absolutely fascinating. In doing research for a novel, I came across the Pharaoh Hatshepsut and my interest deepened. A female pharaoh? How could that be? Her image largely destroyed after her reign? Why in the world ...? One intriguing part of Hatshepsut’s reign was the ships she sent to Punt, which returned with Many Fabulous Things. In some accounts, the fish that came back could be identified down to their very species from ancient drawings ... Fish from strange lands? O, what other marvels might have come back with them? I wondered and therein found this story.

  SHADOWS OF THE DARKEST JADE

  Sarah Hans

  When the Guru asked me to explain the horrors Satindra and I had witnessed, I found that I could make no words to explain what had occurred. When he asked me write the words I still could not explain. Only now, as I lie dying at last, am I able to write, but even so, there are parts of the tale that must remain known only to me. There are things that weigh on a man’s soul that simply should not be shared.

  We followed the Silk Road out of Gandhara and down into the plains of the Empire of Han, surrounded by merchants and travelers. The people we met along the Indus River, even many miles beyond prosperous Gandhara, recognized our saffron robes and gave generously to our alms bowls. We sat at their fires night after night, welcomed guests. In exchange for food and a warm place to sleep, Satindra told them of the dharma, mediated their disputes, and blessed them with his quiet strength. I knew, as I sat listening to him retell the tales I had heard a hundred times, that the Guru had chosen wisely when he sent Satindra among the Han, for he had the calm charisma and sagely demeanor that befit a true disciple of Amitabha Buddha.

  As we journeyed, the number of other travelers on the road began to dwindle. Eventually, we left the great Silk Road and walked into unknown territory. The road narrowed and wound its way through expanses of rice paddies, where stoop-shouldered peasants laboured in the hot sun.

  Unfortunately, the people of the Han Empire had rarely seen monks and, even more rarely, begging monks, and did not know what to make of us, especially as one of us was a foreigner and the other was barely a man, then unable to grow a beard. When we brought out our alms bowls, they scoffed, made offensive remarks about beggars, and some even spat on the ground at our feet. We ran out of our carefully preserved rice ration within a few days of leaving the Silk Road, and were so hungry our steps began to falter.

  “Brother Satindra,” I said reluctantly, as we trudged through another hot, dusty day, “we must find food.” I meant to imply that we should steal what we could not beg, though I could not bring myself to suggest it outright.

  Satindra nodded. “Amitabha will provide,” he said, with perfect faith, never indicating whether he understood my hidden meaning. “The Guru sent us here to bring the dharma; Amitabha will provide.”

  I am ashamed to say that I lost faith, but Satindra never stopped believing. Even as we staggered up to a small, bamboo-and-mud hut, so exhausted we could barely stand, he drew his alms bowl from his robes and said the traditional words of blessing in a voice weak with hunger. The smell of the evening meal drifted out to us, a scent so tantalizing that I moaned aloud.

  The girl who came to the door of the hut could have been my sister. She was small and golden-skinned, her jet-black hair tied modestly at the nape of her neck. She wore the simple, cotton garments of all the Han peasants. Her narrow eyes – so like mine! – grew wide, and she turned and ran back into the house, calling to her elders in the local dialect.

  I groaned again, this time sure of defeat, certain that we would be turned away and meet our deaths on the dusty road. Satindra turned and looked at me, a small smile curving his chapped lips, and said “Have faith, Little Brother.”

  The girl returned with a hugely pregnant woman in tow and behind her followed a little elderly woman with a round, plump face. Both women immediately ushered us into the hut, without any questions or explanations, and just like that, we were saved and Satindra’s faith was proven.

  The girl’s name was Jun.The pregnant woman was her mother Bao-Yu and the elderly woman was Jun’s grandmother, Grandmother Mei. The men of the household were off drinking rice wine and gambling, Grandmother Mei explained, so the women could do what they liked, including feeding wandering monks. She explained all this while we eagerly devoured rice and what I can honestly say was the most delicious hot soup I have ever eaten. Grandmother Mei chattered throughout the meal, gesturing with her small, shriveled hands, squinting at us with her beady, black eyes and smiling a toothless grin. Unfamiliar with the local dialect, I only understood about half of what she said and poor Satindra, who spoke only the scholarly language of the Han and none of the ro
ugh dialects of the peasants, understood nothing, but we nodded enthusiastically and tried to be a good audience.

  Finally, when our appetites were sated, Grandmother Mei asked us to tell our story.

  “You will have to excuse Brother Satindra,” I said. “He only speaks the scholar’s tongue.”

  “Your accent is strange,” Grandmother Mei said, squinting at me over her plum-like cheeks.

  “I was raised in a village near here,” I said, “but I have been away for many years. I remember very little.”

  She nodded, sitting back on her pillow, and repeated her request for our story.

  I obliged as best I could, using words from the scholar’s tongue and the dialect of my village interchangeably. This seemed surprisingly effective.

  “We are monks from a monastery in the nation of Gandhara,” I told her. “Satindra is gifted with languages and I was born in Han, so our Guru thought it would be wise to send us to spread the word of the dharma here. We have walked a long time, seeking the village where I was born. I do not remember the way, because I was very young when I left home.”

  Grandmother Mei snorted. “Why did your parents send you away? A healthy, strapping young boy?”

  I shrugged. “I was told later, when I was older, that I was sent away because my family was so large my parents were unable to feed all of us.”

  The old woman nodded sagely, her head bobbing on her neck. “A few years ago, there was drought. I remember well, there were many families whose children starved.” She clucked her tongue at the misfortune of it all. “Your parents were farmers, then?”

  “Yes. My father and mother both worked in the rice fields. I remember four brothers and one sister, but there may be others, who were sent away like me, or who were born since I left,” I said.

  “You should be grateful that your mother sent you to live with the monks,” Grandmother Mei chided me, perhaps hearing some sorrow in my voice when I spoke of my family. “She saved you from a life of backbreaking work, toil and sorrow. Instead, you have learned to read and write, haven’t you? And now you travel the world!” She snorted. “It is a lucky thing for you. I only wish that little Jun were a boy so we could send her with you, away from this life.”

  I looked at Jun, who blushed and looked away. “Some say that the Amitabha Buddha’s most dedicated disciples were his wife and consorts,” Satindra volunteered, speaking slowly in the scholarly language of the Han nobles.

  Grandmother Mei guffawed her skepticism. “The day women are allowed to become monks will be the day we learn to piss standing up,” she declared and then laughed wildly, slapping her small hand against her thigh. Bao-Yun and Jun looked uncomfortable, but smiled obediently at the old woman’s coarse joke. Wheezing with laughter, Grandmother Mei requested tea and little Jun hopped up and began preparing tea for all of us.

  “Tell me more about your Amitabha,” Grandmother Mei demanded and, while Jun ground tea leaves and boiled water, Satindra and I – Satindra speaking in the scholar’s tongue and I translating some of the unfamiliar concepts into a more familiar dialect – did our best to explain the dharma.

  While we talked, Jun placed an earthenware bowl of tea in her grandmother’s little hands, and the old woman sipped and made appreciative sounds. “It’s too bad neither of you needs a wife; little Jun is an expert tea-maker, already, and she is barely ten years old! Think what a woman she will be in just a few years!”

  Satindra and I blushed and looked at the floor. Some orders of Ambitabha’s followers took consorts, but ours did not; we were humble monks dedicated to poverty and chastity. Grandmother Mei chuckled at our modest reaction to her words and said, “Did your mother make tea like this, Little Brother?”

  “You should call me ‘Wen’, Grandmother Mei,” I replied. “And yes, she did. I remember the scent of it.” And it was true: the scent of the mint leaves crushed with the tea leaves brought back memories of my childhood and the bamboo house where I had slept chest-to-back with my brothers.

  “Then the village of your birth is near here, Brother Wen. You will always know what part of the Han Empire you are in by the taste of the tea, because the leaves taste differently and are prepared differently wherever you go.” She took another sip and sighed contentedly.

  My memories stirred as Jun placed a bowl of tea in my own hands. The minty scent and warmth of the pottery clasped in my hands brought me back to that dark, warm bamboo hut with my family. “I don’t remember much about the village, not even the name,” I said softly. “But I do remember a festival, where we burned offerings of tea leaves like this ... the festival of the Jade Crane.”

  Grandmother Mei threw up her hands so quickly her tea bowl dropped to the floor, spilling hot liquid across the dirt floor. She shrieked something unintelligible and the eyes that she turned to me were no longer sparkling with kindness and amusement, but rather were full of fear and loathing. Her toothless mouth opened, a black maw, and she made a loud keening sound that raised the hairs on my arms. The change was so abrupt that I had no time to react; no one did. We all just stared at Grandmother Mei for a moment, baffled.

  Then the little girl and her mother took action. Bao-Yun put her arms around her mother and began speaking calmly to her, so that gradually, the keening subsided to a low moan. It was still a terrible sound, like the squalling of an infant. Jun, meanwhile, collected the tea bowls from me and Satindra, and began hustling us out of the house.

  “What did you say?” Satindra asked, as Jun pushed us from the hut.

  “I only said that there was a festival in my village,” I replied. “The festival of the Jade –”

  I could not finish this thought, because Grandmother Mei began to shriek again, and little Jun pressed one small hand against my mouth. She shook her head fervently, her narrow eyes so wide that I could see the whites all around her black irises. She pushed us both out of the hut and down the road a little ways, and then ran back into the house.

  Satindra and I stood in the dark road for a few minutes, listening to Grandmother Mei’s terrified wailing. It had all happened so quickly that I did not know what to make of it. We stared at each other numbly, then placed our alms bowls back into our robes and began to move down the road, away from the house.

  Eventually, the wailing stopped and we heard the sound of footsteps. We turned to see Jun running toward us, a small bag of uncooked rice in her arms. Wordlessly, she pressed the bag into my hands. Her eyes were full of fear, but also compassion, and I thanked her for the generous donation. Then I said, “What did your grandmother say when I mentioned ... the bird?” I asked, careful to avoid using the phrase that had so upset Grandmother Mei.

  Jun frowned, licked her lips, and glanced back at the hut, where the firelight spilled out of the open doorway and onto the road. “‘Cursed’,” she said, in a whisper, and the wind seemed to steal the word from her mouth, so that it did not linger, but was whisked away into the night, so that it almost seemed unreal. I wanted her to repeat it, so that I could be sure of what she had said, but instead, she turned and ran back to the house.

  “‘Cursed’?” Satindra repeated in the Han dialect. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  To my surprise, Satindra laughed, drawing one arm around my shoulders and patting my back. “Don’t let a superstitious old woman frighten you, Little Brother. Cursed. Ha! If anything, we are blessed. Let’s find a field where we can spend the night.”

  We slept under the stars that night and, though I glowered, Satindra remained in high spirits. He detailed the reasons we were lucky: before her fit, Grandmother Mei had blessed us with a generous meal and a chance to share the dharma; the evening was a pleasant temperature, and no storm clouds threatened to interrupt our sleep with rain; we had not been robbed or set upon by criminals; and we knew that soon, we would arrive in the village of my birth, and perhaps even find my family. Two wandering monks could hardly want for more, he said, as we bedded down in a c
ow field.

  The following day, I was melancholic, having slept fitfully. Our morning meditation, where we chanted a mantra as we walked, brought me no comfort. During the hottest part of the day, we rested. Satindra cooked a little of the rice Jun had given us and we ate it slowly, savouring every grain. It tasted of mint and the flavor brought me a confusing jumble of memories.

  As we had walked on the Silk Road, we had passed many shrines to local gods. Some of the richest had been statues carved of jade or ivory, housed in pagodas and tended by priests. Travelers had laid offerings of milk, honey, rice, and even meat at these shrines. As we had left the main road, the size of the altars had become less impressive. Every day or so, we passed one of these little shrines, with a tiny, crude stone likeness of some god or another, or simply a collection of pebbles meant to be a marker. There were usually the remains of meager offerings at these smaller shrines, or no offerings at all, because so few travelers passed them.

  Now, as we walked farther from the Silk Road and Grandmother Mei’s house, the character of these shrines changed. Though we had ignored the altars previously, I now felt compelled to look at the small statues. The other shrines along this country road had been simple cairns or had little hand-carved animals made of a common stone or wood, something that would have no value to thieves. But the afternoon after our encounter with Grandmother Mei, we passed a shrine with a statuette, carved with great detail, out of what appeared to be some kind of jade.

  I crouched in front of the shrine, staring at the dark statuette it housed in what might have been half of a huge, stone bowl, turned on its side. The little statue was black, and mostly in shadow, but when the sunlight hit it just right, it looked green, like the darkest jade. The details of the statue were difficult to discern because it was so dark, but the shape was not human, nor that of any animal I had seen before. I got the impression of bulbous eyes and an elongated head and many arms, like the Hindu goddess Kali, but no matter how I squinted, I could not determine the exact features of the statue. Finally, thinking that perhaps my fingers could make sense of what perplexed my eyes, I reached out and ran my fingers over the stone.