Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred

Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred by Donald Tyson Page B

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Authors: Donald Tyson
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untroubled, pursuing their studies and creations, for they are curious creatures who seek to know all the mysteries of the worlds they have opened.
    Then came the armies of Cthulhu that drove them back into the seas and destroyed their city. After the passage of a span of time that cannot be measured by our arithmeticians, since there is no word for so large a number of years, the Elder Ones again emerged from the depths and built a new city upon the ruined foundation of the old, in the land that lies at the southernmost extremity of our world; for over time this land had floated upon the great subterranean ocean from the north to the south. Here they remained until the coming of the ice, when they again returned to the sea.
    All these matters are to be gathered from their paintings and their speech with each other, but not easily, for the bodies of the Elder Ones cannot be controlled as can the bodies of most other vessels. They do not appear to resist the effort to make them walk this way or that, but merely to be unaware of it; however, from certain amused remarks that pass between them, it is likely that they know when they are inhabited by a visiting soul traveler, but that this occurrence is of so little importance that they choose to ignore it.
    Much of their time is expended in intellectual discussion, for their minds are keener than those of any other living being attainable through the portals. Yet they also delight in describing among themselves various bloody tortures inflicted on several kinds of living things bred expressly for this purpose. Torture is to them a form of high art and their chief recreation. The creatures who suffer to amuse them are bred to enhance their sensitivity to pain, so that their writhings are more strenuous. The quality of the artistry and the entertainment, for it is both, is determined by how severe it can be made without cutting short the life of the performer.
    A blasphemous thing must be written, the utterance of which would cause outrage and death in both the lands of the Prophet and those of the Cross. It is whispered that the Elder Ones, who were skilled in the making of all manner of things both inert and living, are the creators of mankind. They made numerous forms of life to fill up the barren lands of our world, and we were only one among many. Why they created us is unknown to our scholars, nor has it been heard uttered by the Elder Ones, but it should be considered that when they refer to mankind in their conversations it is always with a kind of piping laughter, as though the mere mention of our name amuses them. It is perhaps no accident that in our anatomy the organs of reproduction are combined with the organs of excretion, whereas these organs are widely separated on the bodies of the Elder Ones.

he city of R’lyeh occupies a series of wide terraces on the slopes of a mountain, deep beneath a great ocean that lies far to the south off the coast of Cathay. Since these waters are unknown to the trading ships of all nations, the precise placement of this mountain cannot be pointed to on any mariner’s chart. In the distant past, long before the creation of our race, great Cthulhu came with his warriors, servants, and many children, and he built the city on the heights overlooking a fertile island as a fortified place where they could dwell in security from their enemies. In construction it resembles a fortress, with each terrace guarded by walls a hundred paces thick. When the island sank into the depths, R’lyeh was submerged together with its inhabitants and their lord.
    So say the scattered and solitary scholars of this god in our own age, when they are compelled to reveal the secrets of their studies. It is no easy matter to cause them to speak of these things, for they have no fear of death; however, there are worse torments than the end of the flesh, and life can be the greater evil. Though they respect the power of dead Cthulhu who lies dreaming, they have no

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