The sing-song of unknown Kadath
Sun 11 Aug 2002 by mskala Tags used: cthulhu, fiction, poetryNot always was Antarctica a cold and barren wasteland, but a lush green continent of ghoulish degraded tribes. They were grey and they were rubbery and dined upon corpses. They made a nameless sacrifice and danced upon a mountaintop and called up the Lesser God Yig.
They chanted to Yig as the moon was at the quarter, saying "Grant us dominion over all the globe's surface by five this afternoon."
Up slithered Yig from his throne in the snake-pit and hissed, "The stars are wrong!"
They were grey and they were rubbery and dined upon corpses. They shrieked the nameless vowels of an evil ancient liturgy, and called up the black goat of the woods.
They sought Shub-Niggurath by gibbous moonlight, saying "Grant us dominion over all the globe's surface, the air and the caves and the places below, by five this afternoon."
Up came a voice from the orgy in the clearing, saying "The stars are wrong!"
They were grey and they were rubbery and dined upon corpses. They read all the nameless footnotes in the curséd Necronomicon, and called up the Elder God Hastur.
They did the invocation below a waning crescent, saying "Grant us dominion over all the globe's surface and raise the sea-bed to expand our purview, by five this afternoon."
Hastur manifested from an alternate dimension and said, "The stars are right."
Hastur called Cthulhu - Squid-God Cthulhu - always hungry, slimy in the moonlight, and showed him the cultists of Kadath. Hastur said, "Cthulhu! Fthagn, Cthulhu! Ia, br'kek eish wmblah, nugga wugga xzxwz? Yarble gffuf 'dominion', znargle bffuf Rley'eh. Cthulhu, tik'ty-pu!"
Up rose Cthulhu from his bath in the Atlantic, and said, "Grkzkx, blorf hat-gibble?"
Off ran Cthulhu - Squid-God Cthulhu - always hungry, grinning like a cesspit, ran to devour their souls.
Off went the cultists on their little rubber legs in terror.
This, O whisperer in darkness, ends the first part of the tale!
They ran through the desert; they ran through the mountains; they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go; they ran through the plains and they ran through the stream-beds; they ran till their bodies ached.
They had to!
Still ran Cthulhu - Squid-God Cthulhu - always hungry, grinning like a sausage-grinder, never getting nearer, never getting farther, ran after the cultists of unknown Kadath.
He had to!
Still ran the cultists - the cultists of Kadath. They ran through the blech-trees; they ran through the fungi; they ran through the stock-pens; they ran past the slaughterhouses; they ran through the twilight of a funguous grotto; they ran till their spirits ached.
They had to!
Still ran Cthulhu - Squid-God Cthulhu - hungrier and hungrier, grinning like Apocalypse, never getting nearer, never getting farther; and they came to the coastal city of Klee.
Now, there wasn't any bridge, and there wasn't any ferry-boat, and the Kadathians didn't know how to get over; so they hotwired a time machine and hopped.
They had to!
They hopped through the gum-trees; they hopped across the salt-pan; they hopped among the mountains in the middle of Antarctica. They hopped to escape their fate.
First they hopped one year; then they hopped three years; then they hopped five years; the world growing older; the cultists growing bolder. They hadn't any time for backups or safety measures, and they wanted them very much.
Still ran Cthulhu - Squid-God Cthulhu - very much eldritch, very much hungry, and wondering what in the cold waste or out of it made the Kadathian technology go.
For the time machine ran by negating local entropy; they drained all the heat from the plains of their home.
They had to!
They balanced the flywheels; they topped up the radiators; they left behind their bodies and became as ghosts; and they hopped through the centuries of History.
They had to!
Still ran Cthulhu - Tentacled Cthulhu - hungrier and hungrier, full of nameless malice, and wondering when in the cold waste or out of it would the cultists of Kadath stop.
Then came Hastur from an alternate dimension and said, "It's five o'clock."
Up reared Cthulhu - Deep-God Cthulhu - always hungry, slimy in the moonlight; waved his tentacles and howled.
Up glanced the cultists - the cultists of Kadath - looked at the God with despair on their faces, and said, "Oh, goodness, we're finished!"
Then said Hastur, who is always an egotist, "Why aren't you grateful for Squid-God Cthulhu? Why don't you thank me for what he will do to you?"
Then said the cultists of unknown Kadath, "We've been chased away from the homes of our childhood; we've been driven out of our rubbery bodies; we've altered the climate and we'll never get it back; and our time machine's busted its hinge."
Then said Hastur, "Perhaps I'm mistaken, but didn't you ask me to raise up the sea-bed? And now it is five o'clock."
"Yes," said the cultists, "We wish that we hadn't. We thought we were masters of great cosmic forces, but now we're in fear of our souls."
"Your souls," said Hastur, "were lost from the get-go. Complain any more and I'll whistle up Cthulhu, and you'll find out what else you can lose."
"Eaagrgh!" screamed the the cultists, in the throes of the god's wrath. "A bargain's a bargain and you needn't alter it so far as we are concerned. We only meant to explain to Your Lordliness that we left our bodies in a cave in Peru some time in the late 1700s, and it's very inconvenient indeed."
"Yes," said Cthulhu - Squid-God Cthulhu - "I am in much the same situation. You've raised me up from my bath in the Atlantic; but what may I have for my tea?"
Then said Hastur from an alternate dimension, "Why not snack on the humans? I hear they're good with ketchup."
As they were rent into subatomic particles, as they dissolved in unimaginable pain, the High Priest of Kadath and the Grand Holy Acolyte each told the other, "This is *your* fault."
0 comments
