Mad Moon of Dreams Page 4

  If the horned ones have a monopoly on gold, which I believe they have, why do they bother to deal with Isharra at all?

  Secondly: it is rumored that both Isharra and Leng have recently had dealings with Zura; Zura the land, and Zura the vile Princess of Zombies. To what end? Not to any end beneficial to the dreamlands, you may be sure. Similarly, galleys of the horned ones have been seen sailing into Thalarion, whose hive queendom is ruled over by the Eidolon Lathi. Now I know that you believed you had destroyed that monstrous Queen of termen hordes (and indeed I am sorry you have not!) but she lives still and her termen with her; aye, and they have started to build Thalarion all over again from the ashes you made of that execrable paper city. And the Lengite galleys that sail so readily into the stench of that place—why!—they sail out again, which could never have happened in the olden times. If Lathi does not destroy them, what, pray does she do with them? What hideous plots are brewing even now in dreamland’s darker places, and how may we deal with them?

  4. Finally, and in an attempt to tie all of these foregone facts together (even though I am well aware that I could be wholly mistaken), I will draw my own conclusions. This is how I see it:

  For some as yet unknown reason or reasons, the malignant side of dreamland is recruiting and massing its forces. We may count Leng, Isharra, Zura and Thalarion as being the enemy. Something sinister is in the wind in respect of the massive distribution of “Leng” gold. Worse than all of this, the moon draws closer every night, bringing a madness and a terror to the sane and civilized places of Earth’s dreamland. When it comes (whatever the culmination of all this will be) I am sure that the push will be massive, its machinations monstrous, and its effects devastating!

  Moreover, it may well be that the root of the problem—the enemy command post—lies within the moon itself. If I may be permitted to digress for a moment:

  In olden Theem’hdra, the waking world’s Primal Continent at the dawn of time, the moongod was known to some as Gleeth, to others as Mnomquah. It is interesting to note that there were no cults dedicated to Gleeth, for he was that smiling, serene god of the full moon whose round, yellow, changeless face was formed of craters and mountains. He was a blind god and deaf—blind to the revels of lovers, mercifully deaf to the death-screams of warriors—and he had no favorites. In short, he was an elemental god whose presence was reassuring to the primitives of a dawn world

  He and Mnomquah, however, were not one and the same god. No, Mnomquah in no way corresponds to Gleeth; for where the latter was a half-imagined face espied on clear nights, the former was very real! He had his cults, his sacrifices, his dark worship … and he has them still. I suspect that the moon’s jelly-like toad-things worship him to this day, but of course I can’t prove it …

  In that time when Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones oozed down from alien stars and dimensions and built the throne-city of R’lyeh in the waking world, Mnomquah was one who fashioned himself a mighty crypt at moon’s heart, there to rest from his billionyear’s journey across strange universes. Aye, and when the Elder Gods came and sealed Cthulhu and his ilk in their immemorial prisons, Mnomquah too was sealed in the moon. His mate, Oorn, however, fled before the coming of the Elder Gods. They found her somewhere in the dreamlands—it is not known where—and prisoned her where she was found.

  Now this last is lore; it is written in the Pnakotic Manuscripts, which I have read—though often I wish I had not—and it might explain many things which must otherwise remain mysteries. The influence of the moon at its full on dogs in the waking world and cats in the dreamlands—and men in both dimensions. The incidence of lycanthropy. The strange activities of gaunts and ghouls. Aye, and it is of old renown that dreamland’s gugs and ghasts became the subterranean things which they now are because they could not bear the moon’s glooming upon them.

  Now, I have taken a few moments to read over all I have written here, and I find it jumbled and less than completely coherent. But … I am in haste, and it says most of what I desired to say. As to why I called upon you for aid: you have more than once proved yourselves true friends of the dreamlands, while yet you have retained certain instincts and talents of the waking world. If I had ten such as you, then I know the threat could be combatted, contained, conquered …

  Kuranes has promised aid; three of his vessels are on their way from Serannian even now. Three more ships of my own fleet are standing by at your command. Also, I have sent a letter to one Gytherik of Nir, of whom I have heard many good things. He is a friend of yours, I believe, who in some way controls a grim of night- gaunts? That is something I must see with my own eyes! And then again, perhaps not …

  And now I must away. If I can find my old friend Etienne-Laurent de Marigny out there in the lands of alien dreams—or perhaps Titus Crow and the marvelous time-clock—I am sure that either one would make an ally of fantastic strength and amazing ability. As to the dreamlands, these beloved lands of Earth’s dreams: I leave them in your care. They are yours to protect as best you can, and so I command it. How you will do so is your concern, but I am convinced that you, above all others, have the necessary skills.

  Use those skills wisely and wish

  me luck as I wish it for you—

  Randolph Carter.

  Hero finished reading and looked up. “He knew nothing of the moon’s magnetic beam,” he said.

  “Eh?” Arra’s eyes peered through the thick lenses of his spectacles, moving from one face to the next. “Beam? Magnetic?”

  “Well, perhaps not magnetic,” Limnar answered, and he quickly told what they had seen of that terrible attack from the moon and how close they had come to being trapped in the beam’s golden, nightmare net. And as the sky-captain talked, Eldin caught Hero’s arm and drew him to one side.

  “What Limnar just said,” he grunted low in his throat. “About the moon’s ‘golden net’—”

  “Yes?” Hero pressed, frowning. “Go on.”

  “Well, you know how a northstone always points north, or toward any massive concentration of iron?”

  “Yes, of course. What are you getting at?”

  “King Carter’s letter went on about the horned ones and the Isharrans selling vast amounts of gold at ridiculously low prices,” Eldin’s voice was growing louder as it picked up momentum, his excitement plainly visible in the bristling of his beard.

  “That’s true,” Hero’s frown deepened. “But iron is iron and gold—”

  “Is gold!” Eldin cried. “Are you blind? How do you suppose the mad moonbeam finds its targets?”

  Meanwhile Limnar and Arra had drawn close, listening to Eldin’s reasoning. Now Limnar said: “And that party of horned ones we saw, so close to Ilek-Vad. Do you suppose …”

  At that moment a palace attendant appeared at the door. He bowed nervously, and to Arra Coppos said: “Arra, Lord, a strange thing—”

  The four turned toward the newcomer and Arra answered, “What’s that? Something strange? Of what do you speak?”

  “One of the King’s patrol vessels has just now returned to the city,” said the man. “They found something in the desert to westward, and they brought it back with them.”

  “Found something?” said Arra. “What did they find?”

  “A statue, Lord. In the image of King Carter himself, and seated upon a great horse.”

  Arra sighed. “And you disturbed us to tell me that? There are many statues of the King. Some sculptor has doubtless been at work in the seclusion and privacy of the desert. Is that so strange?”

  “No sculptor, Lord,” the man replied. “Goldsmith, perhaps!”

  Eldin stepped forward and grabbed the attendant by the satin lapels of his jacket. “Are you saying that this—this statue—is fashioned of gold?”

  “Indeed, Wanderer, that is what I am saying …”

  Eldin released the man and wheeled to face the others. “The last time something like this happened the horse was of wood,” he gasped. “If I remember aright the name of the
city was Troy—and she was doomed no less than Ilek-Vad!”

  CHAPTER VI

  The King in Gold

  “This statue, where is it now?” Eldin snarled. His face was a mask of mixed emotions—mainly fear, but not for himself. For the city, for Ilek-Vad.

  “In the gardens, Lord Wanderer,” the bewildered attendant haltingly answered. “By the great fountain.” And he shrank back before the four, unable to understand and unnerved by the tensions he had thrown into them.

  “Show us,” cried Hero. “Come on, man, quickly—lead the way!” And he thrust the little man out of the room ahead of him into the corridor.

  “Arra,” said Limnar to the old counsellor, “Do you think you can find this metallurgist friend of yours? I would like him to see this statue before we move it back out of the city.”

  “I know where he is,” Arra nodded, glad to be of service. “I’ll bring him at once.” He turned on his heel and headed in the opposite direction.

  “And what time is moonrise?” Eldin cried after him.

  “An hour or so at most,” Arra called back. “You’ll find it’s grown quite dark outside.”

  “Arra.” This time it was Hero calling. “Can you muster the Master of the Dome, whoever he is? The chief technician or magician or whatever, the one who controls the shield about the city?”

  “There are several,” the answer came back as the counsellor passed around a bend in the corridor and disappeared from view. “I’ll send the top man to see you in the gardens,” his voice trailed off.

  Now the three friends clattered along hot on the heels of the small but fleet-footed attendant; and though they ran for all they were worth, still the way through the great central palace seemed far longer than it had been when they entered. At last they burst into the gardens and headed for a mighty fountain where it jetted water to a height of a hundred feet or more.

  Unfortunately Gnorri II was moored some hundreds of yards away, her sails furled, crew gone “ashore”; it would take some little time to get the men recalled and the ship ready for the skies. And as Arra Coppos had pointed out, it was now quite dark and the moon would soon be up. The ship which had brought the statue into Ilek-Vad had already left to carry on with its patrol; it stood off in the sky, a dark silhouette that sailed for the invisible wall of the dome where soon it would signal its need to exit.

  And now the three saw the statue itself: a massive, crudely structured thing. Obviously the golden figure which sat the golden horse was that of King Carter, but he was in no way flattered. There was something sardonic about the statue: the King’s lips displayed a spiteful curl, and the horse’s nostrils flared viciously while its ears lay flat along a lumpy, less than elegant head.

  “The thing’s a mockery!” cried Limnar. “The king is not like that—nor would he sit so mean a beast. No, this work should be destroyed.”

  “First it must be shifted,” Eldin grunted, his eyes keenly scanning the as yet quiescent horizon. “You can destroy it later if you wish, but not until we’ve moved it. Aye, and if we don’t move it right now—why, it will very likely destroy us!”

  Limnar needed no further urging. He was already running toward Gnorri II, his voice ringing through the muted lighting of the gardens, calling his skeleton crew to him and ordering that they get into the city at once and return immediately with as many of his men as they could muster. Hero and Eldin were close behind him, offering their help, full of a hideous frustration, a monstrous urgency. And even as they ran, so the mad moon’s pitted rim rose like the notched blade of some cosmic scythe behind a distant range of mountains.

  “Ropes!” Limnar was shouting. “Hawsers and nets, tackle to lift ten tons of gold!” Then, as a new thought struck him: “No, belay that. I’ll have ropes, yes, but get me a dozen of the ship’s flotation bags. There are plenty of spares below. Fire the flotation engines and get ’em filled at once.” He turned to the waking-worlders to explain, but Hero cut him short:

  “By the time the crew gets back we’ll have the statue roped up to your flotation bags. We can tow the thing out of the city!”

  “Right,” Limnar answered, “but not with Gnorri. She’d never make it, for the wind has died away. No, we’ll have to manhandle it.”

  “What?” cried Eldin. “Why, it’s two or three miles to the wall of the dome!”

  “So?” Limnar turned on Eldin with a snarl which would do the Wanderer himself justice. “We tow the damn thing, I said, and so we do. And we start before the crew gets back. When they return they can spell us. It will be a hard job and a slow one—agonizingly slow. So the sooner we get started the better.”

  By now a small party of men was hurrying out of the palace gardens and into the city proper, and others aboard the ship were dragging balloon-like flotation bags onto the deck, attaching mooring ropes and tossing the loose ends down to the three. Others of the crew came clambering down rope ladders to lend a hand, and soon the first two bags were being hauled across and roped to the statue. Amazingly buoyant (and despite the fact that they were only part-filled), each bag took three men to hold it down, so that in the darkness they looked like massive kites in tow behind frantically toiling, grotesquely bounding children.

  Seeing their struggle, many of the city’s people came into the palace gardens to offer their help. These were mere passers-by, folk on evening errands eager to be home before the moon was full risen. But the urgency of Hero, Eldin, Limnar and his men was infectious. The common folk of Ilek-Vad could not help, however, but only served to get in the way. They were truly Homo ephemerans and now, where physical bulk and muscle were needed, they seemed more insubstantial than ever and all of their efforts less than useless.

  But at last members of the crew of Gnorri II were returning from their brief excursion in the city, and under orders from their Captain they were soon far more effective. Something of the waking world’s vitality had rubbed off on them from Hero and Eldin (particularly onto Limnar Dass), giving them an unaccustomed purpose and direction in the land of Earth’s dreams. And so at last the massive golden statue of man and horse began to move, suspended beneath a cluster of flotation bags, dragged along behind a gang of men, through the palace gardens and into the city’s streets. And all of this taking place as Limnar had said it would; agonizingly slowly. The great statue kept getting stuck in narrow alleys where the balconies of houses jutted out over cobbled streets; the ropes would make themselves fast to ornate stonework; the flotation bags threatened time and again to burst against the spiny ironwork of balcony rails or wrought iron signs above the many shops. But somehow, after what seemed like several hours, the sweating, swearing, weary gang maneuvered the clumsy aerial thing out through the suburbs and toward the wall of the force dome where it reared invisibly to the west of the city.

  Now out in the open, the toilers could see just how high the moon had risen—the vast pitted orb of it, whose lower edge was just clearing the horizon of hills—and the sight renewed their flagging strength and drove them to further excesses of muscle-wrenching labor. A slight breeze had sprung up which caused no end of trouble: being enclosed by the dome, the gusts of air came from no certain direction but tugged the balloon-borne mass of metal this way and that, willy-nilly. And now the gold of that awful work was a sickly yellow to match that of the clammy moonbeams which fell in nauseous waves from on high; and the sardonic face of the golden King of Ilek-Vad seemed demonic in the terrible light, and the eyes of his steed full of moon madness.

  “Damn it!” cried Eldin in a rage, putting his massive strength to work and hauling on a rope until the muscles bulged in his back, arms and legs. “We’re not going to make it!”

  “We must!” Hero answered, straining just as hard, his teeth gritted against the night and yellow with sickly moonlight. Then, exhausted for the moment, the pair handed over their ropes to a team of Gnorri II’s crewmen and rested a while. Limnar joined them, and a moment later a figure came running from the city where it sprawled behind them on
its great glass promontory.

  “Lord Hero,” gasped the man, struggling to draw air, “Lord Eldin and Limnar Dass. I am Eeril Tu, the Master of the Dome. Arra Coppos sent me …”

  “Listen, Dome-Master,” Hero grabbed hold of the newcomer. “I’ve a feeling your dome is useless against the mad moon. Its beams come through unaffected, and there’s a special moonbeam which might yet suck us all up to hell! Now tell me, how may the dome be strengthened?”

  “Strengthened?” The man had his wind back. “It may not be strengthened! All available power is already in the dome, but it will not shut out the light—it will not shut out moonbeams.”

  Hero gripped him tighter and almost shook him. “There must be something else you can do. Think, man!”

  “I am thinking, Lord,” the other gulped and wriggled in Hero’s grasp. “Perhaps—”

  “Yes?”

  “The city has a battery of ray-projectors, Lord. The batteries store energy—the energy of the sun—during the day, and so may be used at night. They were used in the Bad Days. Their clean light draws the life out of foul and evil things, burns them up, removes them utterly.”

  “But moonbeams have no life!” Hero cried, his frustration mounting. “Of what use—”

  “Fight light with light!” Eldin snapped his fingers. “It might just work.”

  “What?” Hero and Limnar asked in unison. “What might work?”

  “Let the ray-projectors play their beams onto the ceiling of the dome,” Eldin grunted, “into the descending moonbeam when it comes. Diffuse the damn thing, scatter its evil rays, destroy its power!”

  “You,” Hero turned back to the Master of the Dome. “Eeril Tu. Do you follow the Wanderer’s reasoning? Good! Now get back to the city. Have the ray-projectors manned and prepared. It’s worth a try. Only run now, run!” And he released the Dome Master and propelled him on his errand with a hearty shove, sending him hurrying back in the direction of Ilek-Vad.