Consume, the Journal of a Dreamwalker: Final Entries

NINETIETH TOTEMPHATHT

This almighty titan knew much, and its power consumes me. 

But for all its power and knowledge, the lingering titan-self cannot satisfy my desire. Instead I have been filled with an aching void which demands substance I cannot provide. Is this how the deiphagists feel in the end?

FIRST UNKEMSPRECHT

Today I glimpsed a mirror. I did not recognize myself. My skin was pale, and my face was not my own. What have I become?

FIFTY-SIXTH UNKEMSPRECHT

I was searching for something. Something important. Can’t seem to remember what it was. Once, though, I was a titan.

SEVENTIETH UNKEMSPRECHT

I don’t remember my name…

FIRST LUONG

My name is Akhule Otimnhir. Eons ago I ruled a thousand stars. Now, I am reborn.

Consume, the Journal of a Dreamwalker: Nineteenth Faroe

A deiphagist accosted me as I wandered blindly near the abattoir mines wherein the city finds its sustenance. Ducking through a beaded curtain of knucklebones, I found myself facing the first female deiphagist I had ever met. The males of the deiphagists are fish-belly pale, their faces misshapen and lopsided, and their arms stretch almost to the knee. This female, and all others I subsequently encountered, was corpse-grey, and though their facial structure is often distorted, it is not to the extent of the male deiphagists. This creature’s husband, it appeared, was one of the flesh-miners toiling not far distant. She informed me that often these miners uncovered dim chunks of some crystalline but malleable material. As the chunks were not the flesh on which they dined nor the bone with which they built, the miners ignored their discovery at first. But one enterprising worker brought out a fist-sized lump and displayed it at market, where a traveler recognized pure memory of a titan. For titans are unlike the beings which serve them. Their memories and their deeds become intrinsically part of their physical form, just as they are sustained and grow ever stronger from the offerings of their slaves.

Consume, the Journal of a Dreamwalker: Seventy-Fourth Luong

At last the labyrinth streets of Akhule Otimnhir swallowed me up with a sigh, and I walked alleys and thoroughfares as a Buddhist walks a mandala. In contemplation I sought to regain those long-dormant childhood dreamlands whence my scintillating dreamcity had come. All that lingered from those carefree days was a memory of an inverted crystalline palace, balanced on its central spire. So much I could see clearly. But remembrance is not the same as experience, and I greatly desired to dwell in that dreamcity once again.

As any Dreamer knows, all forgotten dreamworlds drift slowly into the Void-Between-Voids and rest there for eternity and a day. A dedicated explorer might step among the dusty creations of young Einstein, or wander the twisted hallways and unnatural geometry which Hitler once imagined. I had no such lofty goals. All my desire was bound up in that diamantine palace, to stand at its peak once again and look over my lands.

At times I stood in Akhule Otimnhir’s five-cornered squares watching crowds swirl by, charting patterns of infinite complexity. Exported Victorians haggled with native deiphagists, ethereal beings glided past crinoid things, all interacting in a grim pavotte orchestrated by the pipe of dreams. For even the Void-Between-Voids, the absence of all existence, is subject to the whims of the blind idiot piper. Though in many worlds Azathoth remains unknown, in the Void-Between-Voids some offer prayers and incense to deepen his slumber while others seek realms beyond all thought in hopes they will be beyond his reach. It is in the shops and libraries of such escapists I hoped to find a trace of my childhood dreamcity.

Consume, the Journal of a Dreamwalker: Twenty-Second Luong

Searching for that childhood dreamcity, I stepped out from the eighty-first gate of the City of Countless Doors into the Void-Between-Voids, and there I saw much which has been forgotten throughout history, and still more which was never learnt.

Cadaver-titanss wallow there, cosmic beings lost to memory before our civilizations were conceived. In the lee of such fallen titans, massless hordes ebb and flow, their cities anthills upon an elephant’s corpse. Eons flow past and yet these long-abandoned corpses linger on, ravaged but enduring. Many memories and nightmares stalk such deiphagist cities, last remnants of souls haunting those who inhabit their remains. Consuming the flesh of a titan even a dead one, is a perilous act, and to huddle in the aura of unimaginable power brings awareness of cosmic secrets vaster than living minds may safely comprehend.

For an unguessable age I wandered amongst the whiteness of the void, searching for the dreamcity of my youth. My footfalls echoed in temples built before the first human left the cradle of Africa, pleasure-palaces of beings even the most ancient of races knew not, cities which were to Olympus as Xanadu is to London, vistas of such exquisite beauty that even my  memories of mother and wife and child greyed in comparison. But still my dreamcity called to my soul and I wandered on.

Consume, the Journal of a Dreamwalker: Seventh July

As a child, I was sickly. A frail constitution, inherited from my father, plagued me into my early teens. I spent many weeks confined to my bed by racking coughs or fever or any number of other ailments. No doubt my parents worried about me a great deal.  

But early on I discovered the secret of dreaming, of stepping into worlds created by the unconscious mind and taking control. The fashion now is to refer to such a practice as lucid dreaming, but at the time I encountered the idea in a popular weird fiction magazine, it was merely known as Dreaming. The capital stood for the control one influenced over the imagined worlds. Dreaming was my escape from countless pokes and concoctions from doctors and faith healers. Indeed, I spent so much time in the lands of sleep that I constructed a city therein, a glimmering city of gold and precious jewels, inhabited by all the heroes and adventures of my waking reading. Conan the Barbarian resided there, and Tarzan, and Sherlock Holmes, all the idols of a sickly boy, alongside my sometime friends and playmates and, later, girls whom I admired from afar. 

Short Story: The Worms Crawl In

A man and a saddle emerged from the warm spring sunrise. Fifty miles or so back into the prairie lay what might qualify as a horse, if horses consisted of skin, bone, and bloodshot eyes. The Walking Fella treated horseflesh like his own body: As a tool. His bullets lasted longer than his horses. Some cowhands named their favorite horse. The Walking Fella struggled to remember his own name anymore. At night, he lay reciting “Ethan Walker, your name is Ethan Walker” until he could grasp his vanishing identity.

Three years awake in the darkness and dirt while maggots chewed his flesh. If the gang had finished their work, he wouldn’t be hunting them now. But they’d left him alone, alive, half-hung and gut-shot and worm-gnawed, with only fading memories to keep him company. So he would chase them down.

Story: "Nameless, Timeless"

"A temple to the faceless god lies within those sands, and with this map I will find it!"

Edgar Hamilton carried himself in that cocksure way only men who know the whole world adores them can. Given his recent discovery of an ancient map, perhaps the world did. However, I hated him, and his awful rose-scented cologne, and his Souvarov moustache. What my brother saw in him, I do not know.

Edgar and Roger--my brother--possessed a shared obsession with ancient religion. Roger lectured on the historical occult at Miskatonic, while Edgar traveled far afield in search of ruined temples. Perhaps this is what Roger admired in that loathsome man. But many  men were archaeologists and also not Edgar Hamilton.

At some point in his friendship with Roger, Edgar mistook my polite dislike for coyness. Since then, I have been quite unable to halt his unctuous attentions.

Story: "The Last Immurement"

Long ago in the time of kings, many dark and bloody superstitions flourished. The Bleis Lavaret, the wolf-in-men's-flesh of France. The Chorazos Cult, reviled throughout England and Scotland for their outlandish practices. The Cult of the Bloody Tongue. Scaphism. Human sacrifice. And immurement--the walling up of the living inside some structure, whether as punishment or as a guardian for the construction.

Story: "The Last Tall Ship"

Drowning is a terrible death. In my few short years as a port-town doctor I have seen many drowned souls, man, woman, and child. Every face bore a rictus of pain unlike any other I can recall. The few survivors say it is akin to your own body strangling you.

And yet, after three days adrift in a lifeboat, I began to find drowning somewhat appealing. Had I not been certain Aunt Mathilde drowned, I should have cursed her name with a great deal of rancour.

Story: "Duinn"

A willow tree stood near the ford. Its branches shrouded a boy from the grey fungus-light. He lay there, tartan sopping with blood. The wound was mortal. An arrow to the gut killed men as it killed deer—slow but certain. But while he lived, the ford belonged to clan Drugaine. Drugaine, last of the high clans. Long may it last through the lightless years. The barrow-folk could not prevail while Drugaine stood.

In the half-light of morning, a barrow-folk raiding party attempted to ford. Clan Drugaine drove them back. Crows stooping upon worms. Last night, he was a cowherd. This night, a corpse. But for an hour in the bleak spring, he felt the glory of the old days before the pall: The cattle-raids, the great battles, the clan-feuds. Petty rivalries which blinked out with the first star. Now the sun shone like the moon, and the moon like a ghost’s dream.

Story: "Net Maski"

James Hopkins was the sort of writer Hollywood loves. You know the type. Starving artist, typing away at night in a dingy little one-room apartment while he worked a bland data-entry job for minimum wage. Unfortunately for Jim, Hollywood wasn't directing his life, so neither a tragic death and posthumous recognition nor a loving spouse and fulfilling career lay in his future. Instead he worked at data entry. At lunch he wrote one-act plays centered around themes of ennui and disillusionment. In other words, he had a Bachelor's in English.

Story: "Statement at the Automation of Tuskar Rock Lighthouse"

The sea hungers for me. For six generations, the men of my family have kept the Tuskar Rock lighthouse, off the Irish coast at County Wexford.  Even before the lighthouse was built, the sea devoured us. As my thrice-great-grandad and thirteen others laboured building the lighthouse tower, the sea rose up and swept them into the deeps. Only two men survived, an old Manx-man laborer, and my twice-great-grandad.

Well, we built that lighthouse. And my family, we manned it, ever since my twice-great-grandad's day. We were the only ones fool enough to--for the sea round Tuskar Rock is greedy. Oh yes. One hundred seventy-six ships the sea here has claimed, since first we began our watch, and no doubt more besides. Aer Lingus flight 712 crashed within sight of our lighthouse, and we watched the sea swallow those passengers down.

Story: "Gnóthaire Bréagach"

Twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds after beginning his daily jog, Luke Puntum realized he lacked a pulse. This discovery troubled him slightly. Twelve minutes and fifty-two seconds after beginning his daily jog, Luke Puntum was dead. This troubled him immensely. Five days, eleven hours, and forty-two minutes after beginning his daily jog, Luke Puntum woke up.

Story: "Le Cochon Gris"

One night in winter a wolf came to the village of St. Louis-Pierre. He did not come howling, as a wilder wolf might. No, this wolf, this loup-garou, padded about on paws of cotton fluff. Behind animal instincts lurked a cunning earned from years of evading hunters. 

Snow slashed about the wolf. For weeks now, winter had smothered all the forest around, finally driving the wolf further afield in search of prey. This winter cut to the marrow, and the wolf was lean. 

Sniffing frozen air, the wolf approached a cottage at the village’s outskirts. No light glowed from within, though it was but early evening. Nor did any man-scent drift out into the night. Puzzled, the wolf moved on to another cottage, only to find a similar vacancy. One by one, each home proved empty. 

Growing bolder, the werewolf began entering the cottages, nosing open latches or bursting through thatch roofs. Not a soul did he find. More than vacant, the cottages were barren, with nary a side of bacon or wheel of cheese to be discovered. And not for lack of the werewolf’s trying. Even a crumb of bread or moldy carrot would have satiated the werewolf. 

But naught was found. So the wolf drifted ever closer to the village’s heart. There he found the inn. Alone of all the buildings, it gold-glowed with light and warmth. Food. The wolf smelt food within. With food, however, came the scent of humans.

Hunger outweighed caution and the wolf approached. Slinking beneath the eaves, the wolf heard a solemn voice within. This wolf was a clever one, and spoke the peasant tongue. And so it listened, and this is what it heard:

“Truly, my dear neighbours, it has been a long sad winter for all of us. Some have resorted to uncharitable acts in order to survive, breaking our neighbourly bond to sate their base desires. I am speaking of the theft and hoarding of food. Jean LeDuc, you have been judged guilty of such a crime. Your punishment is thus: You and your family shall replenish our communal foodstock. Such is our law.”

There were no screams; there was no time. The wolf snuffed blood. Once more, it padded off into the night. For there are men, and there are wolves, and then there are wolves in the guise of men. The village of St. Louis-Pierre lay quiet once again. In the night, a wolf howled a requiem. 

Short Story: "The Holms"

“That is, they engaged in single combat; the spot for such encounters being called a holm, consisting of a circular space marked out by stones.”

Once, there had been twenty stones around the holm. Twenty stones, almost too large for a man to carry comfortably in one hand. Nine of those stones remained. Skulls had replaced the other eleven stones—skulls of men who would be king, each fleshless bone scoured clean by ice and wind.

Regin Radsvid knew each skull by name. Lugal Redtooth, first to die at the holm, and his slayer, Hlaeving Holm-Crowned. Skogul of the Longships, distant relative to Regin, who had led the raiding fleets under Hlaeving’s rule. Larger than the other skulls was Atrid Man-Mountain’s, for Atrid had been a giant of a man. He had fought honorably only to be slain by a poisoned blade. On it went. Each skull once had entered the holm to contest their right to rule.

Very Short Story: Vitae Homunculae

Buying the garden gnomes was my first mistake. I don't even have a garden--just a balcony with some planters of ferns, overlooking midtown. But I saw the little guys--gals--whatever--in a pet shop window. Their teensy gnome houses carved out of tennis-ball halves, their grey peaked caps... You watched The Smurfs as a kid, right? Who wouldn't want some Smurfs?

Anyhow, I took a dozen. That's how many the pet shop lady said was enough to start a colony. I brought them home, set them up on the balcony. They liked it out there, I guess. Kind of hard to tell, since I couldn't really hear them. But they would stand and stare up at me when I came out to water my ferns, then run shrieking into their tennis-ball huts when the watering can rained down. 

That went on for a few months and we started to get along. By now I could recognize each gnome on sight--Poopsie was the fat one, Dum-Dum was the muscle, and so on. But fall was getting cold, and these gnomes couldn't survive a North Dakota winter. 

So I made mistake number two. I brought the gnomes inside. Oh man. They loved it indoors. The carpet was practically a savannah to them, and there were all sorts of resources to plunder. Like the wiring in my headphones, or my rice, or... Look, suffice to say they got into things. At first it was cute, but after the third set of headphones, not so much. 

Which leads us directly to mistake number three: Teaching them English. Now I'm staring at a "Declaration of Gnomish Rights" and--no, please, you're the fifth attorney I've visited!

Story: Eight Bells For Jonah

Was the Manx-man what gave the order, but we all done the deed. I was a foremast hand on a clipper out o' Baltimore, bound for the opium routes. She'd been built the same year, special, for Jonas Hart, son o' the magnate Thomas Hart. His first command. A maiden captain for a maiden ship. We the crew more'n balanced that out. Mate Thurston was nearing forty, overdue and overlooked for his own command, and none o' us common swabs had under five voyages to boast. Myself, I shipped first when I was fifteen—I'm twenty-two now an' getting hungry for land-life again. Been saving pay for a farm an' a wife.

The ship herself was fine enough, trim an' well-provisioned an' spankin' new. Couldn't say the same for her name. Never did fancy bringing no albatross into things without cause. Not that I'm superstitious. Just believe in caution, is all. But Captain Jonas, he named her, so we were the Albatross's crew.

Short Story: The Cattle Raid of Rio Cherche

Cattle die,

Kindred die,

We ourselves also die;

But the fair fame

Never dies

Of him who has earned it.

Cattle die,

Kindred die,

We ourselves also die;

But I know one thing

That never dies,

Judgment on each one dead.

--"Havamal," The Codex Regius

To my eyes the stranger didn’t look much like a gunslinger, but Pa seemed glad to have another hand. Guess it didn’t matter any, so long as I didn’t have to share my food. Beans and biscuits weren’t much but they were MY beans and biscuits. Manwel’d say nothing in life’s ours—it all belongs to Haysoos. He says it funny, Mexico-style. Manwel’s pa’s hired hand.

Pa and the stranger were riding point, with Manwel at t’back. I rode circuit, keeping the cattle from straying. Almost a hundred head, all dumb instinct and nerves. Riding circuit’s important, so Pa trusting me stiffened up my backbone with pride. This’d be my first cattle drive and I didn’t intend to let Pa down. He’d given me a rifle an’ everything. This trip meant a lot to him. Meant a lot to us all. We didn’t turn a profit, we lost the ranch. 

Short Story: Under the Silent Guns

Leyte, Philippines, 18 December 1944
Interviewee: Pfc. Gerard Rogers
Interrogator: Lt. Charles Munroe. 

Pfc. Rogers shifts in his chair. He does not look at the interviewer. He is dressed in filthy, but standard-issue, fatigues. His face is covered in small scratches. Occasionally he fingers a cross around his neck. 

Pfc. Rogers: “Jim Fulton found the first one. We were patrolling pretty far afield. There’s a thick patch of jungle north of Valancia Airfield. Forward camp there kept getting hit by artillery from the area, so they sent us out to shut the guns down.  About two miles in, the jungle just...opened up. Ten feet back in the jungle, you couldn’t see a thing. We stumbled right into it—really stumbled. Frankie Calloway had point and he fell flat on his face.”

The Walking Fella in Hell: Heretical Murmurings

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

He meandered past my window in that devilish fog, chanting quietly to himself in some heathen tongue. Doctor Henniway told me all about the walking fellow and his murderous ways. Shameful that in a civilized society men should still be killing men over trifles. And now Sheriff Hedge had gone mad and shot the little Vandeusen boy. Such a terrible shame. All this violence. Most certainly caused by the walking fellow. He had brought trouble with him to this little town—though we have long deserved chastisement for our sinful name. Blasphemy and pride! It has called down ruin upon us!