That Which Should Not Be (21 page)

Something else stunned me the most, stopped me half way across that floor in the center of that great carven compass.  Something else that caused me to drop my jaw in shock and look hastily up to the man who was staring with an expectant grin spreading wide across his face. 

Sitting on the corner of the Captain’s desk was a book I had only heard of, in whispered words and tales, in the very stories to which I had been privy that night, in fact.  But there it sat, sturdy leather binding and clasp, with two words burned into the center of the cover: 
El Azif
.  But that was not the name by which it was known, the name that howled on the winds, that shook strong men in their beds in the darkest hours of the night.  No, this was the
Necronomicon
.  

“That book,” Captain Gray said, pointing down at that forbidden work, “cost me as much as I paid to build this house.”

I veritably leapt from where I stood to the desk, sitting quickly down in a chair.  I spread my hands over that ancient leather before catching myself.  “May I?” I asked, everything within me yearning to unlock its secrets. 

“Of course,” Gray said with a smile, sitting the glass of what I assumed was brandy in front of me before stepping around to the chair behind the desk.  I unclasped the lock and began to gently turn the withered pages. 

“This is one of the Latin translations of Olaus Wormius, of course.  No blood, I'm afraid.”

It was true.  Faded black ink met my eye rather than the deep brown said to stain the original copy, the copy held deep within the vaults of the Huntington Library at Miskatonic.  Few were permitted access to that rare and priceless treasure, and mine was a treat I wondered if even Thayerson had experienced. 

For a moment, I shuddered as I thought back to William’s story, of the mention of my mentor.  Thayerson must have been only a young man then.  How strange he should play a double role in the events of that night. 

“What do you think?” Captain Gray said, shattering my thoughts. 

“There are hardly words,” I said, looking down at some indecipherable diagram.  I was amazed then, as I am amazed now, at its sophistication.  The theories of non-Euclidean geometry were in their mere infancy in those days, and yet what I held before me, written when the plains of Giza were yet empty, contained illustrations which even the most enlightened and progressive mathematician would have found remarkable.  I have come to understand the truth about that dread tome, that it contains secrets about our world and the spaces between space that we even now can hardly fathom. 

“The
Necronomicon
,” the Captain said as he drank deep from his glass, “is as infamous as it is elusive.  Many speak of it, but few have held it as you now do, and even fewer can understand its mysteries.  It is not, as many believe, a book of magic.  In fact, it is more akin to a journal, one kept by a man who traveled this Earth in search of the darkest and most Hellish of truths, truths that transcend our world, stretching out into a world beyond.”

“Alhazred.”

“Yes.  Abdul Alhazred, who has been called mad not only by his contemporaries, but also by many modern scholars.  But I do not believe he was mad.  I think he simply saw things the world was not ready to acknowledge.  I fear, however, we will all come to acknowledge them soon.”

“Why do you say that?” I said, as I closed the cover on the book once again. 

The captain leaned forward.  He looked at me, arching one eyebrow as he did. 

“I always knew,” he said, “you would come.”

“Me?”

“Perhaps not you,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “but certainly one like you.  The stories you heard tonight were, in my mind, linked by a common truth.  They speak to the uniqueness, to the auspicious nature of this age.  I believe that the Rising will soon begin, or that at least, men will seek to bring it about.”

“The Rising?”

“When they who were before will be again.  When they will pass through the Gate binding this world to the worlds beyond the eye.  That book speaks of it,” he said, pointing to the
Necronomicon
, “along with others.  Yes, the Rising, when he who ruled this world before he was cast down into darkness will rise from his slumber beneath the waves, and walk the Earth again.”

“But what has this to do with me?”

The captain stared into my eyes for a long moment, and something about his gaze cast a pall of fear over my heart.  In one swift motion he reached beneath his desk and slammed a parcel in front of me.  It was wrapped in a tattered cloth and bound by simple twine. 

“Open it,” he commanded, “and find what you seek.”

Neither of us moved.  He looked at me, his eyes filled with expectation, but tinged with fear as well, I thought.  I looked down at the package in front of me.  Then, I reached forward and pulled on the thin piece of twine.  It gave way with hardly any effort.  I unwrapped the cloth and revealed yet another book, but this one was unlike any of the others that filled that library. 

The cover was made of a material that was entirely unfamiliar to me.  It was red, dark crimson really, and flecked with what appeared to be gold.  These golden flakes seemed to shimmer, though whether by the pale moonlight or on their own accord I could not tell.  The paper was not stained, not torn or tattered as the pages of the
Necronomicon
had been. 

“Open it,” he commanded again. 

I obliged, flipping back the cover.  It creaked under my hands, as if it had never been opened before.  To my surprise, the words were in English.  “
The Inferno of the Witch
” it read, as plainly as if it had been written before me that moment. 

“That is why you came, is it not?”  Captain Gray said as he applied a match to his pipe. 

“Something like this,” I said, dropping all pretense, “but this cannot be the book.  I am looking for a much older work, far older than even your copy of the
Necronomicon
.” 

“Oh yes?” he said, holding the still flaming match in one hand, but putting the pipe down.  “Oh well, no use for that, then.”

In an instant, before I could even think to stop him, the Captain flung what remained of his glass of brandy onto the book before me. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he threw the match after it.  I watched it spin through the air, still lit, before landing on the open pages before me.  There was a pause, a moment before the fall, as there always is.  And then, a great whoosh!  The book erupted into flames.  I was stunned by this act, the severity of it, the suddenness.  That it was not the book I sought was clear, but to burn it!  It was like burning a person.  I looked up at the Captain in mixed shock and disgust.  He merely smiled, puffing away at his pipe. 

“Look at it.”

I looked down.  And then I saw what he meant.  The fire burned, but it did not consume, not beyond the brandy anyway.  A strange blue flame danced across the page, kissing the gold lettering, but never scarring it.  The flame died as its sole source of fuel petered away.  When it was gone the Book remained, as untouched as if nothing had happened. 

“My friend, this is the Book you seek.”

I sat stunned, dumbfounded.  I was a youth then, and through all the stories, the tales, the eye-witness accounts, I had held fast to my skepticism, one built on arrogance and ignorance in equal parts.  But what my own eyes had seen, I could not deny. 

“But how?” I said dumbly. 

Captain Gray laughed. 

“It goes without saying this is no ordinary book.  It is indestructible, incorruptible, eternal.  Turn the pages.  You will see they are all in English.  I suspect you expected a Latin copy?  Well, first of all, this is no copy.  And you expected Latin because the last person to write about that book was Fabius Lupercus, a Roman. 

“You’ve heard the common trope, no doubt, that we cannot know the truth of the Bible because it has been translated, and in translation comes change?  For my part, I have long held that a God who can create this world can ensure the fidelity of His work.  But the Devil — and the author of this fell work is he, I can assure you of that — he was cleverer still.  The Book will work its evil, no matter its master.  The man who holds it will see it written in his own tongue.  Fabius Lupercus read it in Latin.  Perhaps it was Greek before that.  German after.  Who can say?”

“What tongue was it written in?”

“Ah, the question of questions.  None your eyes have ever seen, I wager.  Nor any man’s.  I have studied the history of that book these past thirty years.  It is the reason for this library, the cause of what some might call my obsession with the occult.  From these books I have traced some of its history.”

With that, his story began.

Chapter

30

Captain Jonathan Gray:

How long has the Book been?  Always, as best I can tell.  Words, my young friend.  Words are all the power in the Universe.  It was by words God created the Earth, the heavens and Hell.  Is it any surprise that a book be the most powerful force in the world? 

The Book is first mentioned in an ancient Egyptian text known simply as the Nile Scroll.  Its author is unknown.  Its date is more than five thousand years before our own time.  It speaks of an ancient sea people who came to Egypt, a desert land filled with nomads and migrating tribes, seeking only to scrape out a living in a destitute plain.  The leader of the race from the sea was Menes, whose name means, “The Keeper of the Book.”  Even the Book itself, in a time when men chiseled words into stone or brushed them onto papyrus scrolls, must have been a source of wonder to all who saw it. 

They say the Book gave Menes the power to command the Nile itself, to raise and lower it as his needs would be.  To give the fertile waters of life to his followers, and to deny them to those who resisted.  Few did.  Menes united the land of Egypt, from the mouth of the Nile to the first cataract.  They called him by a new name:  Pharaoh.  A mighty civilization rose, and for two thousand years, the power of the Book gave the Pharaohs command of the world.

Then a man named Joseph came to that land, and with him, he brought his family.  A great nation grew, a cancer, a foreign people whose strength increased with every passing year.  There rose a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph.  He enslaved Joseph’s people, but their God heard their cries, and a prince of Egypt led them to freedom. 

They say when Ramesses released the Israelites, the Egyptians gave unto them their treasures so they, and their God, would leave that land forever. The greatest of those treasures?  This Book.  When Ramesses learned the great Book was lost, he followed Moses to the shores of the Red Sea.  He found the people of Israel on the other shore, having passed through the midst of the waters. 

The armies of Pharaoh pursued, through a valley whose walls were not rock but rather the churning depths.  On the other side, Moses held in one hand his staff.  And in the other?  Need I tell you?  Is it any surprise the sea consumed the Egyptians?  Then the sons of Moses became the people of the Book.

The land of Canaan trembled before their arms, and the Book went before them.  For several hundred years, the Book disappeared from the sight of the people.  It was placed in a golden chest crowned with cherubim, its companion two slabs of stone with nothing written upon them but ten simple sentences. 

But the Israelites grew corrupt, as all great people do.  The golden ark that held the Book was lost, passing from one empire to another.  It was a relic to most, and its import was forgotten.  That is, until Alexander the Great found the work and, intrigued by its peculiar nature, sent it to his old teacher and friend. 

Aristotle never mentions the Book in his voluminous writings, and in truth, we only know he possessed it through the journal of Fabius Lupercus.  The Book fell to the Romans upon the conquest of Athens, and Fabius, a former student at the Academy and Tribune in the Seventh Legion of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, was on hand when the city fell.  He returned the Book to Rome.  It remained a treasure of the Republic, passing to Julius Caesar and his descendants beyond. 

We cannot know how or when it was used, but we do know the armies of Rome swept the world.  Unfortunately, the history of the Book falls silent then, lost to antiquity.  Despite my studies, what paths it may have taken and into whose possession it might have passed before I found it, we cannot know.  Or should I say, before it fell to the man from whose dead hands it came to me.

*   *   *

It was thirty years ago, the maiden voyage of my ship, the Kadath, and my first as a captain.  Her keel was laid out in Newburyport, and she was manned by a crew of hard New Englanders.  They say a man who makes his living by the sea is naturally superstitious, but it’s not so.  They’ve simply seen more than those whose feet have never left solid ground.  But that voyage would have shaken even the hardiest soul. 

We were carrying a cargo of cotton shipped by rail up to Boston and bound for London.  It was a journey I had made many times, but never as the captain of the ship.  We had only been at sea for a week when the storm hit.  That morning, I knew we had much to fear.  As the sun rose in the heavens, the sky was blood dark, the reddest I had ever seen. 

“Furl the sails, Mr. Drake,” I remember telling my First Mate.  There was no doubt in my mind we were in for a fight. 

The storm came quickly.  It started with a gentle breeze, one that curled through your hair and kissed your cheeks.  It was almost pleasant.  In fact, it was pleasant, like a whisper in your ear by a beautiful girl.  She speaks to you, caresses you, lulls you into a sense of security, a sense of hope.  Then the dark clouds come, the thunder, the lightning .  The wind is no longer a whisper, but a howl.  No longer a caress, but a slap.  That was what fell upon us that night.

Few men have seen those horrors.  Few men have felt thirty-foot waves smash against and over their ship, rocking it so far to the side I wondered if we would founder then and there.  Few have felt their stomachs climb into their throats as the bow seems to point straight down to Hell itself, sliding like an avalanche down a mountain of water.  We felt it that day. 

I remember one man, Will Flat.  His father had been a friend of mine, a crewman on a ship I had served on during the war.  He had fallen to disease a year before that voyage.  I was there when he died.  He told me to take care of his son, so I had taken him with me.  It was his first trip. 

I saw him the moment before it happened.  He was standing near the railing.  Too near, I remember thinking.  A wave hit us.  How many had come before it?  How many after?  I cannot say.  But it was that wave I remember the most.  Will was standing at the rail.  Then, the water receded, and he was gone. 

I ran down to the deck.  One of the men had already thrown a line to where Will struggled against the drag of the water, pulling against the invisible hand — one I had felt a decade before — that seems to reach up from the depths to yank you down to whatever lies beneath.  He grabbed the rope, and for a moment my heart swelled with hope.  Then another wave crashed over us, and he was no more.  The rope floated alone in the water.  Nothing of Will remained. 

What followed happened in an instant.  There was no time for sorrow.  I had spent enough years on the sea to know that.  But it wasn’t any order from me that brought my men out of their shock.  No, it was something else, something that turned them from sadness to fear in an instant. 

Drake saw it first.

There had been a crackle of lightning, followed heavy on by a clanging thunder.  “Heavenly Jesus,” I heard Drake say.  I would have thought he was speaking of poor Will or of the fury of the storm still raging around us.  But there was something in his voice.  A tremor.  I turned to him, but his eyes were on the heavens.  When I saw it, I feared even Jesus couldn’t save us. 

It was a ship, a two masted brigantine.  A cargo ship.  Blue hull with a golden railing.  It was at full sail, a fool thing in that storm.  Its bearing was upon us, directly on us, and in that gale it could make no move, no turn that would avoid us.  I stood there as if turned to stone and my men with me. 

We watched as death approached, watched as it sliced through the waves.  No, not through them, but over them, as if its sheer speed were so great it no longer touched the water.  It was in that moment I noticed something else — a peculiar glow — as if the very wooden beams holding the ship together reflected the now constant lightning. 

At the last possible instant, the ship turned.  An impossible turn, as if the raging seas gave no resistance.  That insane vessel was now abreast.  I scanned its decks in the brief seconds in which it passed us.  If there was a crew, I didn’t see them.  Not a man moved on that deck. 

My eyes went to the wheel.  A man stood there.  I had spent enough years at sea to know the look of command that bespeaks a captain.  This was the master of that ship.  He was tall, six feet by the look of him.  He wore a sailor’s great coat — blue with large brass buttons.  He was clean-shaven but for a large tuft of hair on his chin. 

He didn’t look at me, not ‘til the last second, and in his eyes I saw a mixture of defiance, determination and hate.  Then he looked away, spinning the wheel with the ferocity necessary to maintain some semblance of control over that hurtling beast.  The ship passed.  Written in great golden letters on its stern were two words —
Lydia Lenore
.  Lightning struck, and thunder boomed through the sky, shaking the timber beneath my feet.  When the flash had passed and the rumble subsided, the ship was gone. 

I held fast, locked by fear and amazement to where I stood.

“The Dutchman!” Drake yelled, falling to his knees.  “The Dutchman!” someone else cried as the murmurs of fear and desperation began to spread like the plague through the crew.  I was losing them, and in my own terror, I hadn’t the heart to bring them back.  We would probably have foundered then, a crewless ship with no captain, tossed about in a maelstrom.

In all my days at sea before and since, I have never seen anything I would call an omen.  But in that night, we had two. 

There was a hissing, buzzing sound — I remember that distinctly.  Then, an explosion of blue light.  I looked up, and the masts were on fire.  But not a fire that consumed, not a fire that burned.  It ran up and down the mast like a dog chasing game.  The yardarms were tipped with it, a pulsating flame that seemed to ebb and flow as the sea. 

“’Tis St. Elmo’s Fire,” Drake cried. 

In that cry I heard a different feeling, one of hope and determination.  Without a word from me, the men leapt into work.  We fought back against the storm, against the sea.  It was a battle that raged all night, but by the third hour of the day, we won.  The sea quieted, as if Jonah had been tossed into the mouth of the ocean.  We were exhausted, all.  I relieved my men of their duties; we were safe for now.  Sleep came quickly.  It was dreamless and void of the fury of the sea.

*   *   *

When I woke the next morning, I felt, in my heart, a rising sense of panic.  Have you ever awoken in a place not your home, and for the briefest moment forgotten where you are or how you got there?  That was what I felt that day.  I sat bolt upright in my bed.  Nothing moved, and that was the problem.  A ship
is
movement.  But not that morning.  I sat still, as if rooted firmly upon the ground. 

A few moments later I emerged from my cabin.  The men stood about, as still as the ship they were on.  I looked out at the waters.  It was a sea of glass: flat, even, unmoving.  No breeze blew.  The sails were limp.  No wind stirred their folds.  But it was the complete silence that moved me the most, even as the ship did not.  The waves did not lap against the boat.  The mainsail did not snap taut.  The rigging did not clank against the wooden masts.  We were, as the poet has said, “As idle as a painted ship, upon a painted ocean.”

I stood riveted, for how long I cannot now say. 

“Captain,” Drake said, the merest tremble in his voice, “may I speak with you.”

“Of course,” I said absentmindedly, still not believing my own eyes. 

“Privately, sir?”

Finally, I awoke from my stupor.  “Ye-es,” I stuttered, and then “Yes,” more firmly.  “I feel we have much to discuss.”

We stepped into my stateroom, Drake carrying a rolled-up chart in his hand.  He placed it on a table, unrolling it without a word.

“Every night I’ve taken our bearings,” he said.  “As you can see, nothing unusual.” 

I looked down at the map.  There were small circles penciled in at regular intervals, starting at Boston and heading to the middle of the Atlantic.

“This was our location before the storm, according to the last bearing I took.” 

He pointed to the last circle on the chart, sitting precisely where it should be.  Then, he straightened himself and put his hands behind his back, waiting for me to make the inevitable conclusion.  I stared at that circle for five minutes, my mind turning over that almost perfectly round marking and what it meant for our current predicament.  Finally, I understood. 

“This can’t be right, Drake.” I said quietly.  “It can’t be right.”

“I know, sir.  But I’ve been at sea all my life.  Each night was clear before the storm.  It’s no difficult thing to chart a course, and I would wager my life each of those positions is correct.”

He spoke the truth.  I knew even as I could not believe what the chart was telling me. 

“I know, Drake.  I’d wager my life on your readings, as well.”

“But you are right, sir.  They can’t be right.  I’ve seen something like this,” he said, pointing towards the door, “only one other time.  Twenty years ago.  We were carrying cargo to Brazil.  We had just crossed the equator when we hit the doldrums.  For four days the wind didn’t blow.  I hoped I would never see the likes of it again.”

“Drake,” I said quietly, “according to your last chart position, we were three thousand miles from the doldrums when the storm hit.  Three thousand miles.  We can’t have been blown that far off course.”