The Madness of Cthulhu Volume 2 Read online

  Lovecraft’s Antarctic novella has inspired a legion of writers in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction fields, to say nothing of such films as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012). (Carpenter’s 1995 film In the Mouth of Madness is not directly influenced by At the Mountains of Madness, although there is a definite Lovecraft influence there.) Other Lovecraft conceptions—ranging from the ghouls in “Pickman’s Model” to the toad-god Tsathoggua, first created by Clark Ashton Smith but appropriated by Lovecraft in several late tales—have served as the springboard for other tales in this volume. If there is a dominant theme in this volume and its predecessor, it is that of alien incursion—the notion that “we are not alone in the universe.” But those other entities who share this vast cosmos with a fragile and fleeting race of Homo sapiens are often more baleful than benevolent, and their chance encounters with our species are productive of some of the most clutching terror we can envision. Lovecraft and his successors have drawn deeply upon our mingled fear and fascination with the unknown in the wide-ranging narratives before you.

  20,000 YEARS UNDER THE SEA

  KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  HE DREAMED OF TENTACLES AGAIN.

  The battered Nautilus cruised listlessly through uncharted waters, its engine struggling, pumps and pistons wheezing like an injured man trying to catch his breath. The hull seams showed the strain of the recent battle, and some rivets leaked water, preventing the armored sub-marine boat from diving deep.

  But the dreams of her captain were darker and more restless than the seas around them.

  In his stateroom, Nemo’s bunk was padded with fine cushions, and he tossed under silken sheets that were fit for a caliph—stolen from the corrupt caliph, as was the Nautilus and everything else.

  In the nightmare, he fought alongside his loyal crewmen against the slimy, thrashing tentacles. Though Nemo’s true war was against evil men and their unquenchable thirst for slaughter, the giant squid was a mindless beast of nature. The squid had tried to crush the armored hull in its suckered embrace, and Nemo and his men fought it with cutlasses, harpoons, and daggers, covering the deck with foul-smelling slime and a gushing of black ink like a shadow made out of acid. A well-placed harpoon blinded the monster’s eye and penetrated its rudimentary brain, then the wounded creature released its death grip, slipping away from the sub-marine boat and into the sea, taking four crewmen with it.

  Captain Nemo and his surviving sailors tended their injuries. The men already had many scars from years of engineering slavery at Caliph Robur’s prison camp of Rurapente. After escaping in fire and blood, Nemo had declared his own war on war; Nature, however, didn’t care about their battle or their pain—the giant squid proved that.

  Nemo would not be deterred by storms or by attacking monsters. He tried to rest while Mr. Harding and his engineers repaired the motors. Others caulked and welded hull breaches, reinforcing the seams on the wounded vessel. The navigator steered through the night, looking for some sheltered place where they could put in and complete repairs.

  Exhausted and sore, Nemo tried to rest, if only for a few hours, but nightmares of that soulless tentacled creature granted him no peace. Even in sleep, Captain Nemo continued his battle….

  Thus it was a relief when Mr. Harding tapped on his cabin door. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we found an island. Looks uninhabited.”

  Nemo climbed from his bunk, disentangling himself from the silken sheets that reminded him too much of tentacles. “I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  Nemo was amazed his navigator had been able to find this bleak and rugged island. With its crescent-shaped cove bounded by black walls that plunged down to the waterline, it reminded Nemo of a claw.

  When they encountered the giant squid, the Nautilus had been stalking naval battleships in the southern seas, eager to eliminate the bloodthirsty soldiers before they could prey upon innocents. Nemo left any merchant vessel unmolested, but French, British, or Spanish warships were sunk to the bottom of the sea. No mercy. The sailors aboard would have shown no mercy to those they preyed upon: innocent women and children who became pawns in political power plays, like Nemo’s own wife and son, like the families of the other engineering prisoners from Rurapente.

  Because the seas were so rough south of Terra del Fuego, few sailing vessels wandered far afield for the pleasure of exploring. Now, damaged and limping along, the Nautilus had blundered upon a bleak no-man’s land not far from the untouched shores of the Antarctic continent. This isolated, never-inhabited island was surrounded by mist and freezing drizzle.

  The sun was only a pale, gray fuzz swathed in mist when Nemo emerged from the hatch with Mr. Harding and engineers named Louart and Fallon. He inspected the glistening hull for traces of slime or pools of blood, but the spray of rough waters had washed the Nautilus clean.

  Nemo inhaled the salty, mist-laden air, but there was a sour, rotten taint to it. Louart asked, “What’s that smell, Captain?”

  “This is a sheltered cove,” Harding suggested. “Maybe a school of fish …”

  Fallon said, “I remember each year when the alewives would die off and wash ashore. Made the whole port stink.”

  Nemo did see numerous fish floating belly up on the surface of the cove. “But these are all different species. They wouldn’t have died off at once.”

  Harding got down to business. “No matter, Captain. We’re here to make repairs and be on our way.”

  Nemo gazed up at the sheer cliffs. Seabirds wheeled about, not the usual gulls but black ones that looked like bats. As they hunted in the shadowy mist, their screeches were haunting.

  In some trick of the warming dawn, the mist thinned, and hazy light dappled the surrounding cliffs and the mountains inland. Nemo saw more than just boulders and outcroppings: the cliffs were scattered with blocky geometrical shapes, graceful pillars, magnificent but crumbling towers. Even from this distance, with details blurred by fog, the structures looked unspeakably ancient.

  “They’re ruins, Cap’n!” Fallon cried.

  Nemo frowned. “We’re off the coast of Antarctica. No civilization ever existed this far south. Even the savages in Terra del Fuego have nothing more than huts.”

  Louart pointed toward the mysterious city inland. “And yet, Monsieur Capitan—they exist.”

  Nemo turned to his second-in-command. “Mr. Harding, I’ll let you continue the repairs. I intend to see that city.”

  Harding never argued. “Suit yourself, Captain. We have plenty of work to do.” His bearded face was smeared with grease and his hands were dirty. “I spent hours in the engine room. We’ll have to take the motors apart, replace one of the screws. That squid did us a lot of harm.”

  “Can you fix it?” Nemo asked.

  The other man raised his eyebrows. “Of course, we can fix it—we built the boat in the first place. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Time to explore, then.”

  Joined by five companions, Nemo took a boat to shore, searching for a safe landing spot against the cliffs. At last, they encountered a cleverly hidden road cut at an angle down the rock, all but invisible except when approached face-on. The wide path was paved with moss-slick flagstones cut from black obsidian. The carved steps were at the wrong height for human legs.

  Inland, the strange, bleak island was littered with ruins, white stone structures with trapezoidal doorways that were too low and too wide for an average person. The streets spread out in unsettling angles, and the walls were constructed with a disorienting obliqueness that made Nemo feel as if he were falling when he faced them.

  Temples or observatories crowned outcroppings, and huge columns rose high, but many were broken, strewn about like the bones of prehistoric animals. Boulevards led across a high plateau and then plunged over a cliff edge. Rounded arenas had once hosted some kind of unknown sport or spectacle.

  On the lintels of collapsed buildings and an altar of what must have been a temple of wor
ship, or sacrifice, Nemo saw a repeated dot pattern that seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it.

  Standing tall, dark stone obelisks were covered with strange glyphs unlike any alphabet Nemo had ever seen—a mixture of runes, hieroglyphics, and squiggles. He had learned many languages in his life, and after years of oppression at Rurapente, he was fluent in reading and writing Arabic. His engineers understood the language of mathematics. The language of the ancient engravings seemed an amalgam of all those things.

  Even in the gray cold mist Nemo smelled brimstone, and a pall of old smoke seemed hung in the air. These ruins reminded him far too much of Rurapente….

  He had been selectively captured in the Crimean War along with other scientists, engineers, and visionaries. The evil Caliph Robur forced them to work in his isolated prison. As the ambitious French engineer de Lesseps carved a channel across the Suez Isthmus that would connect the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, the caliph had commanded Nemo and his fellow workers to build him a warship unlike any the world had seen: an armored vessel to prey upon trade ships that came through the new Suez Canal. He could become the world’s most accomplished pirate, the greatest leader, the master of the world.

  For years Nemo and his comrades had toiled in slavery. They were rewarded with wives whom they learned to love, even families that gave them a spark of solace in their captivity. Caliph Robur had made the Nautilus his fortress, until Nemo and his men overthrew and assassinated him during a test voyage, stole the armored sub-marine boat, raced to Rurapente to save their families. But they were too late. The caliph’s political rivals had already marched upon the secret base and slaughtered everyone….

  Nemo could never burn away the images of his return to Rurapente. The foundations of buildings stood like blackened stumps of teeth. The smelting refineries had been caved in, windows smashed, bricks crumbled. The living quarters had been burned to ash and slag. Everything … destroyed.

  The oppressive silence had been broken only by a faint whistle of wind. As he stood there, Nemo had thought he heard the shouts of raiders, the crackle of flames, the clang of scimitars against makeshift weapons, or against soft flesh, hard bone. Screams of pain and pleas for mercy from the desperate slaves, the women, the children—everyone who had endured life at Rurapente. All dead.

  And was this place any different?

  He and his companions found weathered statues hewn from lava rock, details blurred by time and something more. Together, two crewmen pried loose a stone figure that had toppled face-first into the crumbling gravel and frozen mud. When they lifted it up, Nemo saw not the figure of any man, but a creature with a face that was a hideous mass of tentacles, and eyes that even in the pitted and eroded stone looked as empty and unimaginable as the universe.

  Louart paled and made the sign of the Cross, though he had not previously demonstrated any penchant for religion. “It must be one of their gods,” said Fallon.

  “Or one of their demons,” Nemo said.

  They continued to explore, studying friezes that depicted the daily life of a civilization inconceivable even to the most fevered opium dream, populated by barrel-like creatures with starfish heads. None of the men spoke, uneasy, awed, and intimidated.

  The sour smell of rot was more pronounced as he led the way to the steep path down to the cove. The sun ducked behind the mist again, and gray shrouds thickened around them.

  Mr. Harding was on the upper deck of the Nautilus waiting for the captain. “Those are ruins even greater than the city of Pompeii,” Nemo told him.

  The gruff second-in-command scratched his bearded chin. “Then you’ll be even more interested in what we found in the cove, Captain. There’s an even larger ancient city submerged under the water.” His lips quirked in a small smile, “And this one’s intact.”

  When the Nautilus had fought its way to the shelter of the natural harbor at night, no one had been looking deep below. As Nemo peered into the deep cove, he could see the shimmering fever-dream architecture of the sunken city. “That city down there has waited a long time for us. It might have been submerged for twenty thousand years or more.”

  “I don’t intend on staying here anywhere near that long, Captain,” Harding said. “We’ll get to work.”

  Nemo picked Louart and three other men to don exploration suits and join him. The Rurapente engineers had designed the suits for Caliph Robur, after he lied that he wanted to explore the bottom of the sea; in truth, Robur had needed those suits so his underwater army could augur holes in the hulls of helpless ships.

  Nemo gathered the waterproof leather suit, the weights, the buckles, the helmet, and the wrappings that sealed all the seams. As he and his team fastened their helmets and attached the breathing hoses to tanks so they could inhale the stale compressed air, he thought again of his war against war.

  The Nautilus could have been an unprecedented means of exploration, a boon for science. Before being captured in the Crimea, Nemo had seen much of the world, dared many adventures, but thanks to the smoke and the misery of Rurapente his spirit of curiosity had been snuffed out like a bright ember under a boot-heel. Now, though, this ancient and mysterious underwater city intrigued him.

  He sank slowly and gracefully toward the bottom. The pressure of the water closed around him like a squeezing fist, but the reinforced suit protected him. His weights pulled him down until the Nautilus was only a strange angular shape that eclipsed the rippling daylight. The other men spread out as they drifted down and landed with slow gracefulness. Together, they turned on their galvanic lights, shining yellow into the gloom.

  The buildings of the sunken city were similar to the ruins up above, but here they were better preserved. The walls stood upright and arches gracefully framed entryways into ominous temples.

  Taking the lead, Nemo walked with his armored boots on the silty floor, sending up puffs of murk to expose broad flat flagstones. They passed titanic façades, statues, obelisks covered with markings, friezes that depicted the creatures with the barrel-bodies and starfish heads, and another species that were formless conglomerations of bubbles or masses of pseudopods that seemed to be servants or guardians to the starfish-headed creatures. And more images of the tentacle-faced creature from the toppled statue. The arches and rune-encrusted pillars again bore that familiar dot pattern. Perhaps it was something from a book Caliph Robur kept inside the Nautilus library.

  They spread out to explore, and their galvanic lights bobbed along. The sunken metropolis carried a weight of ancientness, a weariness of years that extended far beyond the twenty thousand years he had suggested. Perhaps these buildings had been erected long before humans had ever populated this planet.

  A golden glow flared and then died down, but the suit made Nemo sluggish, and the hazy glow had faded by the time he turned. He felt a chill. He had encountered many predators under the sea, had fought off sharks and a giant squid, but this fear was different and inexplicable.

  Louart approached him, signaling with a gloved hand. The two men pressed their face plates together so that when Louart’s voice echoed through the thick glass. “Notice, mon Capitan. No coral, no seaweed, no rubble.”

  Nemo indicated a cluster of perfectly placed sea anemones and a large fan of corral, but Louart shook his head inside the helmet. They touched panes of glass again. “Those are intentional—decorations. Something is tending this city.”

  Nemo realized the other man was right. Always when he ventured to the sea bottom, the marine flora was scattered and lush: sponges, shellfish, anchored kelp, and waving fronds of seaweed. Here, though, the cove appeared sterile. He realized that he hadn’t seen any fish.

  The group spread out again, wary. Nemo shone his light around, found a line of imposing arches that seemed to guide him on. He walked under the first span, and the second, until he saw a domed and thick-walled structure ahead, sealed and armored like a bunker … or a crypt.

  Nemo felt drawn to it, as if compelled. The vault door was barricaded
with a complex stone mechanism … clean, smooth stone. Any normal ruins would have been encrusted with marine growth and cemented shut by coral, but the lines here were razor-sharp and clear of debris.

  He shone the yellow galvanic beam to illuminate the door. It was covered by a stylized bas-relief that showed a creature with the smooth dome of a skull and baleful red eyes that glowed with inset phosphorescent jewels. The lower half of the creature’s face was covered with twisting, curling tentacles.

  Though the thing was frightening, Nemo felt a tantalizing tug on his heart that ignited his anger. This thing with the tentacled face symbolized Nemo’s own hatred toward those who wrought violence, and it seemed to possess a power to eradicate war. This was something far more deadly than the Nautilus, if only he would set it free….

  With great difficulty, he pulled himself away and withdrew beneath the looming arches. He could hear his breathing in the helmet, and his heart was pounding like drums. He looked around for his companions.

  One figure, Louart, stood close to a tall, ethereal spire of rock carved into delicately balanced segments. The man studied the carvings, then pulled himself to a higher section to see.

  Although the sunken ruins were perfectly preserved, they were still fragile with unspeakable age. As Louart placed weight against the joints, the segmented spire wobbled and bent. He pushed himself backward and out of the way as the stone sections collapsed.

  The galvanic lights flashed in random directions as the other men backed away from the tumbling stone. Suddenly, the golden glow appeared at the edge of Nemo’s vision, brightening and rushing forward. He caught only a glimpse out of the curved helmet.

  A swarm of light and bubbles erupted along the corridors of the ancient city. It was a mass of living spheres, like gelatinous blind eyes clumped into a sentient form. All the spheres turned forward, as if targeting the intruder who had knocked down the spire.

  Louart saw the thing coming and flailed away. The bubble mass moved so swiftly that it reached the man before the last spire block had tumbled to the ocean floor. The shapeless amoeboid swarmed over Louart. He fought with his arms and legs, but the bubble creature surrounded him and squeezed.