Club Vesta, Level VII, Round 3, Parlor 2, Chapter 8
Club Vesta:
A Journey Beyond the Mountains of Madness to Find a Sea of Stars
(Love-Letter to America)
The Novel
Level VII: The Violent
Round 3: Violence Against God, Nature, and Art
Parlor 2: Violence Against Nature: The Alien Connection
Chapter 8: “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”
(“The Wonderful All-Girl Dog-and-Pony Show”)
The daemon said that he would take me home
To the pale, shadowy land I half-recalled
As a high place of stair and terrace, walled
With marble balustrades that sky-winds comb,
While miles below a maze of dome on dome
And tower on tower beside a sea lies sprawled.
Once more, he told me, I would stand enthralled
On those old heights, and hear the far-off foam.
All this he promised, and through sunset’s gate
He swept me, past the lapping lakes of Flame,
And red-gold thrones of gods without a name
Who shriek in fear at some impending fate.
Then a black gulf with sea-sounds in the night:
‘Here was your home,’ he mocked, ‘when you had sight!’
- H. P. Lovecraft, Fungi from Yuggoth, Sonnet V: “Homecoming”*
*In H. P. Lovecraft, Fungi from Yuggoth and Other Poems (Formerly titled Collected Poems) (New York: Ballantine Books, 1963, 1971), p. 113.
“ . . . And I who share their torment, in my life
Was Jacopo Rusticucci; above all
I owe my sorrows to a savage wife.”
I would have thrown myself to the plain below
Had I been sheltered from the falling fire;
And I think my Teacher would have let me go.
But seeing I should be burned and cooked, ,my fear
Overcame the first impulse of my heart
To leap down and embrace them then and there.
“Not contempt,” I said, “but the compassion
That seizes on my soul and memory
At the thought of you tormented in this fashion -
It was grief that choked my speech when through the scorching
Air of this pit my Lord announced to me
That such men as you are might be approaching.
I am of your own land, and I have always
Heard with affection and rehearsed with honor
Your name and the good deeds of your happier days.
Led by my Guide and his truth, I leave the gall
And go for the sweet apples of delight.
But first I must descend to the center of all.”
- Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, XVI:43-63
* * *
Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man! My man!
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady!
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me,
Come with Apollo in bridal dress
(Shepherdess and pythoness),
Come with Artemis, silken shod,
And wash thy white thy, beautiful God,
In the moon of the woods, on the marble mount,
The dimpled dawn of the amber fount!
Dip the purple of passionate prayer
In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare,
The soul that startles in eyes of blue
To watch thy wantonness weeping through
The tangled grove, the gnarl‚d bole
Of the living tree that is spirit and soul
And body and brain - come over the sea
(Io Pan! Io Pan!),
Devil or god, to me, to me,
My man! my man!
Come with trumpets sounding shrill
Over the hill!
Come with drums low muttering
From the spring!
Come with flute and come with pipe!
Am I not ripe?
I, who wait and writhe and wrestle
With air that hath no boughs to nestle
My body, weary of empty clasp,
Strong as a lion and sharp as an asp -
Come, O come!
I am numb
With the lonely lust of devildom.
Thrust the sword through the galling fetter,
All-devourer, all-begetter;
Give me the sign of the Open Eye,
And the token erect of thorny thigh,
And the word of madness and mystery,
O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan Pan! Pan,
I am a man:
Do as thou wilt, as a great god can
O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! I am awake
In the grip of the snake.
The eagle slashes with beak and claw;
The gods withdraw:
The great beasts come, Io Pan! I am borne
To death on the horn
Of the Unicorn.
I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan!
I am thy mate, I am thy man,
Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks
Through solstice stubborn to equinox.
And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend,
Everlasting, world without end,
Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!
- Aleister Crowley, “Hymn to Pan”
(In Aleister Crowley, Magick
[edited, annotated and introduced by Hymenaeus Beta.
York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1994], p. 123)
What has gone before:
So it was that a fortnight later, after a truly delightful interlude at Missus Lizzy’s, complete with two seven-course meals a day and a wake in honor of Vaudir in the form of a series of romps with the exquisitely gifted talent employed there, which took place in the huge bed the house provided for us as well as in the baths and the exercise rooms, we stood nervously in front of a mahogany door set in the wall of the lowest basement of the establishment, which seemed to have more dungeons than Torquemada (much more enjoyable for extended stays than his, too).
“Girls, I’d love to go with you, but I’ve got a house to run,” Missus Lizzy, dressed only in the sheer peignoir she had thrown on after a last delicious tumble with us along with three of her girls, her breathtaking charms entirely unobscured thereby, told us. “You sure you’ll be all right? If you’re not sure, you can always stay here -”
“No,” Lu’ told her with real regret, “we do have to go on.”
“You sure? From what I’ve heard, if you go through that door, you can never come back. I’ve always wondered if this place was haunted by whoever built that thing . . .”
“We’re sure,” I told her fondly. “We really loved it, though. I only wish Vaudir could have come with us . . .”
“From what you’ve told me about her, I do, too! She must have been exquisite!”
“She was one of the finest beings it has ever been my honor to meet,” Lu’ told her solemnly.
“Well,” I told Missus Lizzy, “If we ever do ever manage to come back this way . . .”
“You’ll come by, won’t you? - All right, then, I suppose what must be, must be. Now, give Lizzy a proper kiss for good luck . . .” Each of us gave her a long, searching kiss, the passion entirely honest.
“Okay, ladies,” she told us, giving each of us a pat on the fanny, a suspicious liquid glint in her eyes, “best get it over with. Take care . . .”
With which, giving us a last, lingering look and a wave, she turned and went back up the stairs, not looking back.
“Well, darlin’ - ready?” Lu’ asked me huskily.
“Yep.”
* * *
“Okay,” she said, reaching for the crystal doorknob, “let’s go . . .”
A moment later, we had stepped through the doorway, into what seemed to be an arena surrounded by a high, circular wall covered everywhere, ground to rim, with beautifully executed murals of the sort that could well have graced the dining-halls unearthed at Pompeii. We had apparently come through a door in the side of this wall, out into the arena. The ground on which we stood was flat and covered with a thin, even layer of fine, light-blue sand.
“Ohmigod - it’s a circus!” exclaimed Lu’, looking around her in disbelief, her gaze swinging wildly from the bleachers far, far above us, filled with cheering spectators, all of whom may have been illusory, so little detail could be made of them at this distance, to that which took center stage in the middle of the arena.
“Hi, ladies - wanna dance with us?” said the cheerful lady who, stark, bare-ass naked, sprawled on her back on a nearby table, her legs spread wide to accommodate the goat heaving himself against her groin, bending his head down from time to time to work his tongue along her vulva. “I -unh! Oh, that’s so good, Horny, don’t stop! - if you’ll just wait a minute or two - oh, if you’ll just wait a minute or two - oh, yessss! - I’ll go fetch Hector and Mr. Ed and fix the two of you right up . . .” The girl, a natural blond, was exquisitely beautiful, in her late teens, at most, with skin the color of fresh cream, eyes the color of cornflowers, and, judging from her diction and vacant glance, wits the density of soft vacuum.
“Oh, shit,” moaned Lu’, “not again! Spiders were bad enough - this is ridiculous!!!”
“Dear God,” I cried, “what is this - the Original Wonderful All-Girl Dog-and-Pony Show? - Oh, Lord, look out, Lu’, the wall -”
To one side, the wall that encircled the arena was falling away, and with it the apparent rows of spectators far above it, proving the latter to be truly illusionary, a product of holograms and hidden audio speakers. Lu’, glancing toward it and backing away as she saw it coming down, let out an involuntary scream.
The great, ragged gap in the wall now before us was bounded on one side by a satyr that seemed to be trying to hump the air where, moments before, a charming, plump little nymph had crouched before him submissively, her back toward him, her rump conveniently high in the air for him to mount, and on the other by two priestesses of Diana engaged in a rather interesting rite of Eros. The spectacle framed by these two exquisitely executed scenes, however, wasn’t at all entertaining. In fact, it was downright terrifying.
Revealed behind the wall was a grove of oak and aspen trees, gathered in the midst of which was a group of gigantic goats, all but one of which were obviously, even obscenely male. The lone female among them, the largest of all, reclined on a dais in the midst of the others.
For only a moment did she appear as a goat. Then she seemed to fade into a great noxious cloud from which hoofed feet and tendrils constantly protruded and were reabsorbed, and from whence issued a stench far worse than that of the he-goat which was still energetically boinking the loudly rejoicing lady down in the center of the arena.
“Behold Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!” cried a penetrating tenor voice that seemed to come from all over and everywhere and nowhere at all, uttered by no one we could see. “All Hail Mother Shub, the Jewel of Yaddith, Queen of Yesod, Ram with a Thousand Ewes, Bride of Hastur, Consort of Hekate, Lover of Yig, Resplendent Divine Bisexual Font of Procreation! All bow to Mother Shub!”
A maddeningly persistent two-note piping filled the air, likewise coming from an unknown source, identical to that brain-mangling melody which we had encountered as we went through the woodlands to the Tower through which we came to Delilah and the gentlemen from Arachnos IV. Though the sky above the tops of the trees was a pellucid blue and a summer Sun warmed the air everywhere but among the trees, as if everything here were part of a Maxfield Parrish painting, the light in the grove itself was crepuscular, an omen of oncoming night.
Standing to one side of Shub-Niggurath, as if dancing attendance on her, was a weird little creature with the head of a bird, the two halves of its long, long beak curving away in different directions so that the beak couldn’t close properly, tiny molars visible toward the back of the beak. It had long, floppy ears like a spaniel. A piece of paper that might have been a written note folded over once was impaled on the lower half of the creature’s beak. For a hat, it wore a blue, inverted funnel with a thin branch stuck in the funnel’s outlet, to which was tied a red ball on a string. On its feet were black shoes and stockings and wooden ice skates - now why did that thing look so familiar? Hadn’t I seen it someplace before? - Oh, yes, I’d first encountered it among the nasty little horrors that had attacked me when I had taken off my ankh on that starlit hillside where I’d begun my search for Lu’ after she’d gone haring off on a hysterical search for Erik . . . Damn, that thing sure got around here!
The goats surrounding that mephitic, continuously transmuting cloud in their center, blinking in a way that was both ominous and disconcerting, began to approach us in a most menacing way. Each male goat was about the size of a Percheron, and all of them had deadly sharp horns. Their queen, if that’s what she was, had one tremendously long, sharp horn that appeared from time to time as the cloud morphed from one form to another. If she really had been a female goat, I’d have judged her horn to have been produced by twining together the two original horns with which she must have come into the world to produce something like a unicorn’s horn. All the goats had enormous cloven hooves sharp as razors, gleaming as if they were made of steel. So their ominous approach was no small matter.
The two of us, beholding that terrifying phalanx bearing down on us, turned and fled, running toward the far side of the grove and away from the goats and the girl being serviced by a goat. As we raced away from that alien grove, we could hear a sweet, seductive, ambisexual voice with nasty undertones in it calling to us, “You’ll be sorrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeee . . .” The voice trailed away to a dreadful blethering bleat as we got farther and farther away from who- or whatever was its source. At first I thought it was that girl being serviced by the goat down there in the arena; but then it came to me, with a shudder, that it was Shub-Niggurath, calling to us in a voice part seductive human female, part beautiful and viciously adept pan-species eroteur, part female goat in heat, part Billy-goat in rut, part something utterly unnamable, alien and unclean in a way that was beyond the power of words to describe.
As we ran, the grove seemed to extend away indefinitely in front of us, becoming a dark, crepuscular forest in which frigid, clinging mists stinking of rot and decay began to rise and fill the air. But behind us we could hear the bah-ing of the goats and, suddenly, the agonized screaming of the girl, even at all this distance - what the hell were the goats doing to her? If the goats weren’t to do it to us, perforce we must keep running on and on into that weird forest.
Finally, when we could no longer hear the girl’s hideous screaming or the bleating of the goats, we stopped for a few moments to catch our breath. Pulling in air in great, ragged, sobbing breaths, we began to look around us.
That was when we found we had left the day entirely behind us. Night had fallen on this land, and a freezing-cold wind had begun to keen softly through the trees. However, in the north, the horizon, what we could see of it at the end of a long aisle between the trees along which we had been running, was beginning to brighten with a cold, eerie light. It couldn’t have been the sun - in fact, the moon was beginning to rise there. A moon, rather, for in the northwest another moon was already high in the sky, shedding a sick, putrescent light that seemed to increase the terrible cold of the place.
In our flight, we crossed what seemed to be a four-lane highway. The vehicles racing along it in both direction were huge, living, winged skulls gliding along on four to eighteen giant truck tires. With one exception, the only sound they made was the whispering wind of their passage - the exception was a low, eerie, moaning cry, like the haunted cries of titanic birds of passage, which some of the skulls uttered from time to time as they passed us. The skulls were a deep chestnut brown in color, as if they had been scorched in a fire; their wings were black, white, or brown. Somehow we managed to cross the highway and make it into the woods on the other side in spite of the heavy traffic and the tremendous speed of the winged skulls, terror adding strength to our tiring legs as we ran.
Then a chorus of stridulating insects and booming toads began, so loud that we couldn’t hear themselves think over it. I looked over to the right, toward the east, through another aisle in the trees, trying to find the source of the noise, and saw something there like an enormous cockroach, one as big as a large man, perched on something that looked like a low, gray stone altar; in the center of what might have been its face was one enormous, glowing scarlet eye. Just then Lu’ screamed, “Oh, my God, Esh’ - look out!” Whirling around, I finds herself confronting a toad as big as a Volkswagen van bearing down on us; its huge yellow, slitted eyes were filled with an unholy light, and its vast mouth, filled with countless tiny razor-sharp teeth, was curled in a hideous leer of delight. It had a pair of horns on its head that might have been taken from a couple of rhinoceri. But the crowning touch was that the toad, obviously male, had an erection larger than that of a randy Percheron stallion - in spite of the fact that no other toad or other lissamphibian ever born to the daylight world had ever had external genitalia - and the way it leered at us made it clear that species differences be damned, it intended us to be the recipients of its lust . . . maybe prior to gulping both of us down for a quick snack. “Breep-breep-tood-tood-breep-breep-tood-tood!” the damned thing bellowed at about 200 decibels as it bore down on us.
Instinctively the two of us separated, Lu’ heading west and me going east, scrambling madly through the aisles among the trees. Behind us, I could hear the bewildered toad crash to a halt, trying to decide which way to go, croaking plaintively in a voice loud enough to literally rattle the stones and trees in all directions. By the time he finally made up his mind, we were both long gone.
But now the two of us were separated, with no clear indication of where we were or how to find each other again. At first, I was terrified of calling out to Lu’ for fear that the toad, hearing my voice or Lu’s reply, would know where we’d gone and come after us. So rattled was I by what had happened that it had never once crossed my mind to turn back and use my guns on the toad, ending the ordeal and allowing me to go search for Lu’ unmolested (assuming nothing else was waiting to pounce on us there in these dreadful woods). Instead, filled with despair, I slumped against a tree-trunk, trying to decide what to do next.
For a while I stared about me, trying to make out my surroundings. At first, as dark as it was, all I could see were the black, indistinct masses where the trees stood and the even blacker shadows beneath them that were occasionally interrupted by patches of moon- and starlight. Then suddenly I spotted something odd, a lumpy sort of shadow dangling from one of the trees that didn’t seem to be part of the tree, nor much like anything else familiar to me. Getting out my flashlight, I went over to the tree where the thing hung. to get a better look at it.
I nearly screamed when, with the aid of my flash, I finally saw what it was: a vaguely humanoid, writhing figure completely wrapped in winding-sheets of sticky gray, filth-encrusted webbing hanging from the branches of an eldritch oak whose gnarled trunk was fantastically molded into the features and bodies of countless tortured beings. A huge black widow spider about the size of a dinner-late hovered over the breast of the hanging figure, as if preparing to feed; another crouched at what might be its loins in a clearly predatory attitude. Their victim, twisting in the thin, keening wind, moaned incoherently.
Suddenly something cold and slimy pressed itself against my face. Whirling about to see what it was, I found myself looking into a writhing mass of tentacles like those of a squid, each one at least two yards long, lined with suckers, and bearing hooks or claws at its end. Where they were coming from, what they were attached to, I couldn’t see; there was a vague suggestion of darkness amidst them, as if the tentacles all originated in a huge, hulking, half-human shape whose lineaments hinted obscenely of a bastard mix of cephalopod, primate, arthropod, and the wholly incomprehensible alien.
Before I could react, tentacles seized me everywhere, and I was being borne off among the trees and out into an enormous meadow filled with the unholy radiance of those two pustulent moons.
In the meadow there was another altar. Carved out of what might have been slabs of pure ivory taken from some unimaginably huge creature, it stood about three feet high and was perhaps three feet wide and as long as I was tall. Binding me so tightly with its tentacles that I could only move my head, and that just barely, the being that had abducted me now threw me on my back onto the altar, holding me down with some of its tentacles while it proceeded to strip my clothing from my body as if it were husking corn. Then, its grasp on and manipulations of my body strangely tender, it bound me hand and foot to the altar with manacles on chains bolted to its corners for just such a purpose.
Then it went through my backpack, contemptuously holding up various items from it and throwing them away as if they were offal and trash, or the garbage of a savage culture beneath its notice.
Naked on the altar beneath those two putrescently pearlescent moons, I writhed futilely, my mind on the verge of snapping, as the mucus-covered tentacles of the whatever being had kidnapped me began to caress me, then probe my body obscenely, knowingly.
Then it began to ravish me in every possible way - vaginally, anally, orally, all the while continuing to caress me in a way that simultaneously made me sick unto death and filled me with an infernal delight. Its touch covered my body with slime, nauseating me and, at the same time, racking up my orgiastic pleasure to a near-lethal degree. As it did so, gradually it morphed into a man-like being with a countenance black as outer space, features from some branch of the hominidae that must have died out half a million years or more ago, its eyes twin pools of scarlet fires, its mouth a pit in which was a tongue black as midnight. As it violated me in every orifice of mind, body, and soul, it hissed to me in a strange, high voice like that of a hurricane or typhoon, “O belovèd, how do you like the embrace of Nyarlathotep, herald of the coming of dread Cthulhu? Be grateful for my touch, savage wench - you are honored above the dreams of mortals!”
[Continued in next post]