Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos Page 9

  Thus, argues the legend, the furtive faith was lost to reputable history. As to Nephren-Ka himself, a strange account is given of his end.

  The story ran that the dethroned Pharaoh fled to a spot adjacent to what is now the modern city of Cairo. Here it was his intention to embark with his remaining followers for a “westward isle.” Historians believe that this “isle” was Britain, where some of the fleeing priests of Bubastis actually settled.

  But the Pharaoh was attacked and surrounded, his escape blocked. It was then that he had constructed a secret underground tomb, in which he caused himself and his followers to be interred alive. With him, in this vivisepulture, he took all his treasure and magical secrets, so that nothing would remain for his enemies to profit by. So cleverly did his remaining devotees contrive this secret crypt that the attackers were never able to discover the resting-place of the Black Pharaoh.

  Thus the legend rests. According to common currency, the fable was handed down by the few remaining priests who actually stayed on the surface to seal the secret place; they and their descendants were believed to have perpetuated the story and the old faith of evil.

  Following up this exceedingly unusual story, Cartaret delved into the old tomes of the time. During a trip to London he was fortunate enough to be allowed an inspection of the unhallowed and archaic Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred. In it were further emendations. One of his influential friends in the Home Office, hearing of his interest, managed to obtain for him a portion of Ludvig Prinn’s evil and blasphemous De Vermis Mysteriis , known more familiarly to students of recondite arcana as Mysteries of the Worm. Here, in that greatly disputed chapter on oriental myth entitled Saracenic Rituals, Cartaret found still more concrete elaborations of the Nephren-Ka tale.

  Prinn, who consorted with the mediaeval seers and prophets of Saracen times in Egypt, gave a good deal of prominence to the whispered hints of Alexandrian necromancers and adepts. They knew the story of Nephren-Ka, and alluded to him as the Black Pharaoh.

  Prinn’s account of the Pharaoh’s death was much more elaborate. He claimed that the secret tomb lay directly beneath Cairo itself, and professed to believe that it had been opened and reached. He hinted at the cult-survival mentioned in the popular tales; spoke of a renegade group of descendants whose priestly ancestors had interred the rest alive. They were said to perpetuate the evil faith, and to act as guardians of the dead Nephren-Ka and his buried brethren, lest some interloper discover and violate his resting-place in the crypt. After the regular cycle of seven thousand years, the Black Pharaoh and his band would then arise once more, and restore the dark glory of the ancient faith.

  The crypt itself, if Prinn is to be believed, was a most unusual place. Nephren-Ka’s servants and slaves had builded him a mighty sepulcher, and the burrows were filled with the rich treasure of his reign. All of the sacred images were there, and the jeweled books of esoteric wisdom reposed within.

  Most peculiarly did the account dwell on Nephren-Ka’s search for the Truth and the Power of Prophecy. It was said that before he died down in the darkness, he conjured up the earthly image of Nyarlathotep in a final gigantic sacrifice; and that the god granted him his desires. Nephren-Ka had stood before the images of the Blind Ape of Truth and received the gift of divination over the gory bodies of a hundred willing victims. Then, in nightmare manner, Prinn recounts that the entombed Pharaoh wandered among his dead companions and inscribed on the twisted walls of his tomb the secrets of the future. In pictures and ideographs he wrote the history of days to come, revelling in omniscient knowledge till the end. He scrawled the destinies of kings to come; painted the triumphs and the dooms of unborn empires. Then, as the blackness of death shrouded his sight, and palsy wrenched the brush from his fingers, he betook himself in peace to his sarcophagus, and there died.

  So said Ludvig Prinn, he that consorted with ancient seers. Nephren-Ka lay in his buried burrows, guarded by the priestly cult that still survived on Earth, and further protected by enchantments in his tomb below. He had fulfilled his desires at the end—he had known Truth, and written the lore of the future on the nighted walls of his own catacomb.

  Cartaret had read all this with conflicting emotions. How he would like to find that tomb, if it existed! What a sensation—he would revolutionize anthropology, ethnology!

  Of course, the legend had its absurd points. Cartaret, for all his research, was not superstitious. He didn’t believe the bogus balderdash about Nyarlathotep, the Blind Ape of Truth, or the priestly cult. That part about the gift of prophecy was sheer drivel.

  Such things were commonplace. There were many savants who had attempted to prove that the pyramids, in their geometrical construction, were archeological and architectural prophecies of days to come. With elaborate and convincing skill, they attempted to show that, symbolically interpreted, the great tombs held the key to history, that they allegorically foretold the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Great War.

  This, Cartaret believed, was rubbish. And the utterly absurd notion that a dying fanatic had been gifted with prophetic power and scrawled the future history of the world on his tomb as a last gesture before death—that was impossible to swallow.

  Nevertheless, despite his skeptical attitude, Captain Cartaret wanted to find the tomb, if it existed. He had returned to Egypt with that intention, and immediately set to work. So far he had a number of clues and hints. If the machinery of his investigation did not collapse, it was now only a matter of days before he would discover the actual entrance to the spot itself. Then he intended to enlist proper Governmental aid and make his discovery public to all.

  This much he now told the silent Arab who had come out of the night with a strange proposal and a weird credential: the Seal of the Black Pharaoh, Nephren-Ka.

  3

  When Cartaret finished his summary, he glanced at the dark stranger in interrogation.

  “What next?” he asked.

  “Follow me,” said the other, urbanely. “I shall lead you to the spot you seek.”

  “Now?” gasped Cartaret. The other nodded.

  “But—it’s too sudden! I mean, the whole thing is like a dream. You come out of the night, unbidden and unknown, show me the Seal, and graciously offer to grant me my desires. Why? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “This makes sense.” The grave Arab indicated the black Seal.

  “Yes,” admitted Cartaret. “But—how can I trust you? Why must I go now? Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait, and get the proper authorities behind us? Won’t there be need of excavation; aren’t there necessary instruments to take?”

  “No.” The other spread his palms upward. “Just come.”

  “Look here.” Cartaret’s suspicion crystallized in his sharp tones. “How do I know this isn’t a trap? Why should you come to me this way? Who the devil are you?”

  “Patience.” The dark man smiled. “I shall explain all. I have listened to your accounts of the ‘legend’ with great interest, and while your facts are clear, your own view of them is mistaken. The ‘legend’ you have learned of is true—all of it. Nephren-Ka did write the future on the walls of his tomb when he died; he did possess the power of divination; and the priests who buried him formed a cult which did survive.”

  “Yes?” Cartaret was impressed, despite himself.

  “I am one of those priests.” The words stabbed like swords in the white man’s brain.

  “Do not look so shocked. It is the truth. I am a descendant of the original cult of Nephren-Ka, one of those inner initiates who have kept the legend alive. I worship the Power which the Black Pharaoh received, and I worship the god Nyarlathotep who accorded that Power to him. To us believers, the most sacred truth lies in the hieroglyphs inscribed by the divinely gifted Pharaoh before he died. Throughout the ages, we guardian priests have watched history unfold, and always it has agreed with the ideographs on those tunneled walls. We believe.

  “It is because of our belief that I have sought you out. For within the sec
ret crypt of the Black Pharaoh it is written upon the walls of the future that you shall descend there.”

  Stunning silence.

  “Do you mean to say,” Cartaret gasped, “that those pictures show me discovering the spot?”

  “They do,” assented the dark man, slowly. “That is why I came to you unbidden. You shall come with me and fulfill the prophecy tonight, as it is written.”

  “Suppose I don’t come?” flashed Captain Cartaret, suddenly. “What about your prophecy then?”

  The Arab smiled. “You’ll come,” he said. “You know that.”

  Cartaret realized that it was so. Nothing could keep him away from this amazing discovery. A thought struck him.

  “If this wall really records the details of the future,” he began, “perhaps you can tell me a little about my own coming history. Will this discovery make me famous? Will I return again to the spot? Is it written that I am to bring the secret of Nephren-Ka to light?”

  The dark man looked grave. “That I do not know,” he admitted. “I neglected to tell you something about the Walls of Truth. My ancestor—he who first descended into the secret spot after it had been sealed, he who first looked upon the work of prophecy—did a needful thing. Deeming that such wisdom was not for lesser mortals, he piously covered the walls with concealing tapestry. Thus none might look upon the future too far. As time passed, the tapestry was drawn back to keep pace with the actual events of history, and always they have coincided with the hieroglyphs. Through the ages, it has always been the duty of one priest to descend to the secret tomb each day and draw back the tapestry so as to reveal the events of the day that follows. Now, during my life, that is my mission. My fellows devote their time to the needful rites of worship in hidden places. I alone descend the concealed passage daily and draw back the curtain on the Walls of Truth. When I die, another will take my place. Understand me—the writing does not minutely concern every single event; merely those which affect the history and destiny of Egypt itself. Today, my friend, it was revealed that you should descend and enter into the place of your desire. What the morrow holds in store for you I cannot say, until the curtain is drawn once more.”

  Cartaret sighed. “I suppose that there is nothing else left but for me to go, then.” His eagerness was ill dissembled. The dark man observed this at once, and smiled cynically, while he strode to the door.

  “Follow me,” he commanded.

  To Captain Cartaret that walk through the moonlit streets of Cairo was blurred in chaotic dream. His guide led him into labyrinths of looming shadows; they wandered through the twisted native quarters and passed through a maze of unfamiliar alleys and thoroughfares. Cartaret strode mechanically at the dark stranger’s heels, his thoughts avid for the great triumph to come.

  He hardly noticed their passage through a dingy courtyard; when his companion drew up before an ancient well and pressed a niche revealing the passage beneath, he followed him as a matter of course. From somewhere the Arab had produced a flashlight. Its faint beam almost rebounded from the murk of the inky tunnel.

  Together they descended a thousand stairs, into the ageless and eternal darkness that broods beneath. Like a blind man, Cartaret stumbled down—down into the depths of three thousand vanished years.

  4

  The temple was entered—the subterranean temple-tomb of Nephren-Ka. Through silver gates the priest passed, his dazed companion following behind.

  Cartaret stood in a vast chamber, the niched walls of which were lined with sarcophagi.

  “They hold the mummies of the interred priests and servants,” explained his guide.

  Strange were the mummy-cases of Nephren-Ka’s followers, not like those known to Egyptology. The carven covers bore no recognized, conventional features as was the usual custom; instead they presented the strange, grinning countenances of demons and creatures of fable. Jeweled eyes stared mockingly from the black visages of gargoyles spawned in a sculptor’s nightmare. From every side of the room those eyes shone through the shadows; unwinking, unchanging, omniscient in this little world of the dead.

  Cartaret stirred uneasily. Emerald eyes of death, ruby eyes of malevolence, yellow orbs of mockery; everywhere they confronted him. He was glad when his guide led him forward at last, so that the incongruous rays of the flashlight shone on the entrance beyond. A moment later his relief was dissipated by the sight of a new horror confronting him at the inner door way.

  Two gigantic figures shambled there, guarding either side of the opening—two monstrous, troglodytic figures. Great gorillas they were; enormous apes, carved in simian semblance from black stone. They faced the doorway, squatting on mighty haunches, their huge, hairy arms upraised in menace. Their glittering faces were brutally alive; they grinned, bare-fanged, with idiotic glee. And they were blind—eyeless and blind.

  There was a terrible allegory in these figures which Cartaret knew only too well. The blind apes were Destiny personified; a hulking, mindless Destiny whose sightless, stupid gropings trampled on the dreams of men and altered their lives by aimless flailings of purposeless paws. Thus did they control reality.

  These were the Blind Apes of Truth, according to the ancient legend; the symbols of the old gods worshipped by Nephren-Ka.

  Cartaret thought of the myths once more, and trembled. If tales were true, Nephren-Ka had offered up that final mighty sacrifice upon the obscene laps of these evil idols; offered them up to Nyarlathotep, and buried the dead in the mummy-cases set here in the niches. Then he had gone on to his own sepulcher within.

  The guide proceeded stolidly past the looming figures. Cartaret, dissembling his dismay, started to follow. For a moment his feet refused to cross that gruesomely guarded threshold into the room beyond. He stared upward to the eyeless, ogreish faces that leered down from dizzying heights, with the feeling that he walked in realms of sheer nightmare. But the huge arms beckoned him on; the unseeing faces were convulsed in a smile of mocking invitation.

  The legends were true. The tomb existed. Would it not be better to turn back now, seek some aid, and return again to this spot? Besides, what unguessed terror might not lair in the realms beyond; what horror spawn in the sable shadows of Nephren-Ka’s inner, secret sepulcher? All reason urged him to call out to the strange priest and retreat to safety.

  But the voice of reason was but a hushed and awe-stricken whisper here in the brooding burrows of the past. This was a realm of ancient shadow, where antique evil ruled. Here the incredible was real, and there was a potent fascination in fear itself.

  Cartaret knew that he must go on; curiosity, cupidity, the lust for concealed knowledge—all impelled him. And the Blind Apes grinned their challenge, or command.

  The priest entered the third chamber, and Cartaret followed. Crossing the threshold, he plunged into an abyss of unreality.

  The room was lighted by braziers set in a thousand stations; their glow bathed the enormous burrow with fiery luminance. Captain Cartaret, his head reeling from the heat and mephitic miasma of the place, was thus able to see the entire extent of this incredible cavern.

  Seemingly endless, a vast corridor stretched on a downward slant into the earth beyond—a vast corridor, utterly barren, save for the winking red braziers along the walls. Their flaming reflections cast grotesque shadows that glimmered with unnatural life. Cartaret felt as though he were gazing on the entrance to Karneter—the mythical underworld of Egyptian lore.

  “Here we are,” said his guide, softly.

  The unexpected sound of a human voice was startling. For some reason, it frightened Cartaret more than he cared to admit; he had fallen into a vague acceptance of these scenes as being part of a fantastic dream. Now, the concrete clarity of a spoken word only confirmed an eery reality.

  Yes, here they were, in the spot of legend, the place known to Alhazred, Prinn, and all the dark delvers into unhallowed history. The tale of Nephren-Ka was true, and if so, what about the rest of this strange priest’s statements? What about the W
alls of Truth, on which the Black Pharaoh had recorded the future, had foretold Cartaret’s own advent on the secret spot?

  As if in answer to these inner whispers, the guide smiled.

  “Come, Captain Cartaret; do you not wish to examine the walls more closely?”

  The captain did not wish to examine the walls; desperately, he did not. For they, if in existence, would confirm the ghastly horror that gave them being. If they existed, it meant that the whole evil legend was real; that Nephren-Ka, Black Pharaoh of Egypt, had indeed sacrificed to the dread dark gods, and that they had answered his prayer. Captain Cartaret did not greatly wish to believe in such utterly blasphemous abominations as Nyarlathotep.

  He sparred for time.

  “Where is the tomb of Nephren-Ka himself?” he asked. “Where are the treasure and the ancient books?”

  The guide extended a lean forefinger.

  “At the end of this hall,” he exclaimed.

  Peering down the infinity of lighted walls, Cartaret indeed fancied that his eyes could detect a dark blur of objects in the dim distance.

  “Let us go there,” he said.

  The guide shrugged. He turned, and his feet moved over the velvet dust.

  Cartaret followed, as if drugged.

  “The walls,” he thought. “I must not look at the walls. The Walls of Truth. The Black Pharaoh sold his soul to Nyarlathotep and received the gift of prophecy. Before he died here he wrote the future of Egypt on the walls. I must not look, lest I believe. I must not know.”

  Red lights glittered on either side. Step after step, light after light. Glare, gloom, glare, gloom, glare.

  The lights beckoned, enticed, attracted. “Look at us,” they commanded. “See, dare to see all.”