I cannot[32] even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and desolation;[33] the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation;[34] the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world—or no longer of this world—yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy,[35] disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more.
I was almost paralysed,[36] but not too much so to make a feeble effort toward flight; a backward stumble which failed to break the spell in which the nameless, voiceless monster held me. My eyes,[37] bewitched by the glassy orbs which stared loathsomely into them, refused to close; though they were mercifully blurred, and shewed[38] the terrible object but indistinctly after the first shock. I tried to raise my hand to shut out the sight, yet so stunned were my nerves that my arm could not fully obey my will. The attempt, however, was enough to disturb my balance; so that I had to stagger forward several steps to avoid falling. As I did so I became suddenly and agonisingly[39] aware of the nearness of the carrion thing, whose hideous hollow breathing I half fancied I could hear. Nearly mad, I found myself yet able to throw out a hand to ward off the foetid[40] apparition which pressed so close; when in one cataclysmic second of cosmic nightmarishness and hellish accident my fingers touched the rotting outstretched paw of the monster beneath the golden arch.
I did not shriek, but all the fiendish ghouls that ride the night-wind shrieked for me as in that same second there crashed down upon my mind a single and fleeting avalanche of soul-annihilating memory. I knew in that second all that had been; I remembered beyond the frightful castle and the trees, and recognised[41] the altered edifice in which I now stood; I recognised,[42] most terrible of all, the unholy abomination that stood leering before me as I withdrew my sullied fingers from its own.
But in the cosmos there is balm as well as bitterness, and that balm is nepenthe. In the supreme horror of that second I forgot what had horrified me, and the burst of black memory vanished in a chaos of echoing images. In a dream I fled from that haunted and accursed pile, and ran swiftly and silently in the moonlight. When I returned to the churchyard place of marble and went down the steps I found the stone trap-door immovable; but I was not sorry, for I had hated the antique castle and the trees. Now I ride with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind,[43] and play by day amongst the catacombs of Nephren-Ka in the sealed and unknown valley of Hadoth by the Nile. I know that light is not for me, save that of the moon over the rock tombs of Neb, nor any gaiety[44] save the unnamed[45] feasts of Nitokris beneath the Great Pyramid; yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage.
For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.
Notes
Editor’s Note: In the absence of a manuscript, we are reliant on the two publications in HPL’s lifetime, both in Weird Tales (April 1926 and June–July 1931). The second appearance reveals numerous divergences from the first, but these seem to be in line with Weird Tales’ usual emendations of HPL’s texts in accordance with “house style”; they do not appear to constitute deliberate revisions by HPL. Unfortunately, the Arkham House editions followed the second appearance. Aside from restoring many readings from the first appearance, I have made other emendations in conformity with HPL’s customary usages.
Texts: A = Weird Tales 7, No. 4 (April 1926): 449–53; B = Weird Tales 17, No. 4 (June–July 1931): 566–71; C = The Dunwich Horror and Others (Arkham House, 1963), 53–59. Copy-text: A.
1. woe;] wo; A, B, C
2. That . . . be-nightmared. / —Keats.] That . . . be-nightmared. —KEATS B
3. content,] content B, C
4. horrible;] horrible, B, C
5. relief;] relief, B, C
6. cannot] can not A, B, C
7. cannot] can not A, B, C
8. myself;] myself, B, C
9. shirvelled,] shriveled, A, B, C
10. strowed] strewed A, B, C
11. every-day] everyday A, B, C
12. coloured] colored A, B, C
13. mouldy] moldy A, B, C
14. forest.] forests. C
15. mould] mold A, B, C
16. place;] place, B, C
17. a] om. C
18. aeons] eons A, B, C
19. chiselling.] chiseling. A, B, C
20. daemoniacal] demoniacal A, B, C
21. bizarre] bizzare C
22. a] the C
23. gaiety] gayety A, B, C
24. park;] park, B, C
25. well-known] well known A
26. before;] before C
27. recollections;] recollections, B, C
28. realisation.] realization. A, B, C
29. come;] come, A, B, C
30. clamour] clamor A, B, C
31. escape;] escape, A, B, C
32. cannot] can not A, B, C
33. desolation;] desolution; C
34. revelation;] revelation, B, C
35. mouldy,] moldy, A, B, C
36. paralysed,] paralyzed, A, B, C
37. eyes,] eyes C
38. shewed] showed A, B, C
39. agonisingly] agonizingly A, B, C
40. foetid] fetid A, B, C
41. recognised] recognized A, B, C
42. recognised,] recognized, A, B, C
43. night-wind,] night wind, B, C
44. gaiety] gayety A, B, C
45. unnamed] unamed C
The Other Gods
Atop the tallest of earth’s peaks dwell the gods of earth, and suffer no man to tell that he hath looked upon them. Lesser peaks they once inhabited; but ever the men from the plains would scale the slopes of rock and snow, driving the gods to higher and higher mountains till now only the last remains. When they left their older peaks they took with them all signs of themselves;[1] save once, it is said, when they left a carven image on the face of the mountain which they called Ngranek.
But now they have betaken themselves to unknown Kadath in the cold waste where no man treads, and are grown stern, having no higher peak whereto to flee at the coming of men. They are grown stern, and where once they suffered men to displace them, they now forbid men to come,[2] or coming, to depart. It is well for men that they know not of Kadath in the cold waste,[3] else they would seek injudiciously to scale it.
Sometimes when earth’s gods are homesick they visit in the still night the peaks where once they dwelt, and weep softly as they try to play in the olden way on remembered slopes. Men have felt the tears of the gods on white-capped Thurai, though they have thought it rain; and have heard the sighs of the gods in the plaintive dawn-winds of Lerion. In cloud-ships the gods are wont to travel, and wise cotters have legends that keep them from certain high peaks at night when it is cloudy, for the gods are not lenient as of old.
In Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, once dwelt an old man avid to behold the gods of earth; a man deeply learned in the seven cryptical books of Hsan,[4] and familiar with the Pnakotic Manuscripts[5] of distant and frozen Lomar. His name was Barzai the Wise, and the villagers tell of how he went up a mountain on the night of the strange eclipse.
Barzai knew so much of the gods that he could tell of their comings and goings, and guessed so many of their secrets that he was deemed half a god himself. It was he who wisely advised the burgesses of Ulthar when they passed their remarkable law against the slaying of cats, and who first told the young priest Atal where it is that black cats go at midnight on St. John’s Eve. Barzai was learned in the lore of[6] earth’s gods, and had gained a desire to look upon their fac
es. He believed that his great secret knowledge of gods could shield him from their wrath, so resolved to go up to the summit of high and rocky Hatheg-Kla on a night when he knew the gods would be there.
Hatheg-Kla is far in the stony desert beyond Hatheg, for which it is named, and rises like a rock statue in a silent temple. Around its peak the mists play always mournfully, for mists are the memories of the gods, and the gods loved Hatheg-Kla when they dwelt upon it in the old days. Often the gods of earth visit Hatheg-Kla in their ships of cloud, casting pale vapours[7] over the slopes as they dance reminiscently on the summit under a clear moon. The villagers of Hatheg say it is ill to climb[8] Hatheg-Kla at any time, and deadly to climb it by night when pale vapours[9] hide the summit and the moon; but Barzai heeded them not when he came from neighbouring[10] Ulthar with the young priest Atal, who was his disciple. Atal was only the son of an innkeeper, and was sometimes afraid; but Barzai’s father had been a landgrave who dwelt in an ancient castle, so he had no common superstition in his blood, and only laughed at the fearful cotters.
Barzai and Atal went out of Hatheg into the stony desert despite the prayers of peasants, and talked of earth’s gods by their campfires at night. Many days they travelled,[11] and from afar saw lofty Hatheg-Kla with his aureole of mournful mist. On the thirteenth day they reached the mountain’s lonely base, and Atal spoke of his fears. But Barzai was old and learned and had no fears, so led the way boldly up the slope that no man had scaled since the time of Sansu, who is written of with fright in the mouldy Pnakotic Manuscripts.[12]
The way was rocky, and made perilous by chasms, cliffs, and falling stones. Later it grew cold and snowy; and Barzai and Atal often slipped and fell as they hewed and plodded upward with staves and axes. Finally the air grew thin, and the sky changed colour,[13] and the climbers found it hard to breathe; but[14] still they toiled up and up, marvelling[15] at the strangeness of the scene and thrilling at the thought of what would happen on the summit when the moon was out and the pale vapours[16] spread around. For three days they climbed higher, higher,[17] and higher toward the roof of the world; then they camped to wait for the clouding of the moon.
For four nights no clouds came, and the moon shone down cold through the thin mournful mists around the silent pinnacle. Then on the fifth night, which was the night of the full moon, Barzai saw some dense clouds far to the north, and stayed up with Atal to watch them draw near. Thick and majestic they sailed, slowly and deliberately onward; ranging themselves round the peak high above the watchers, and hiding the moon and the summit from view. For a long hour the watchers gazed, whilst the vapours[18] swirled and the screen of clouds grew thicker and more restless. Barzai was wise in the lore of earth’s gods, and listened hard for certain sounds, but Atal felt the chill of the vapours[19] and the awe of the night, and feared much. And when Barzai began to climb higher and beckon eagerly, it was long before Atal would follow.
So thick were the vapours[20] that the way was hard, and though Atal followed on[21] at last, he could scarce see the grey[22] shape of Barzai on the dim slope above in the clouded moonlight. Barzai forged very far ahead, and seemed despite his age to climb more easily than Atal; fearing not the steepness that began to grow too great for any save a strong and dauntless man, nor pausing at wide black chasms that Atal scarce could[23] leap. And so they went up wildly over rocks and gulfs, slipping and stumbling, and sometimes awed at the vastness and horrible silence of bleak ice pinnacles and mute granite steeps.
Very suddenly Barzai went out of Atal’s sight, scaling a hideous cliff that seemed to bulge outward and block the path for any climber not inspired of earth’s gods. Atal was far below, and planning what he should do when he reached the place, when curiously he noticed that the light had grown strong, as if the cloudless peak and moonlit meeting-place[24] of the gods were very near. And as he scrambled on toward the bulging cliff and litten sky he felt fears more shocking than any he had known before. Then through the high mists he heard the voice of unseen[25] Barzai shouting wildly in delight:
“I have heard the gods![26] I have heard earth’s gods singing in revelry on Hatheg-Kla! The voices of earth’s gods are known to Barzai the Prophet! The mists are thin and the moon is bright, and I shall see the gods dancing wildly on Hatheg-Kla that[27] they loved in youth![28] The wisdom of Barzai hath made him greater than earth’s gods, and against his will their spells and barriers are as naught; Barzai will behold the gods, the proud gods, the secret gods, the gods of earth who spurn the sight of men!”[29]
Atal could not hear the voices Barzai heard, but he was now close to the bulging cliff and scanning it for footholds. Then he heard Barzai’s voice grow shriller and louder:
“The mists are[30] very thin, and the moon casts shadows on the slope; the voices[31] of earth’s gods are high and wild, and they fear the coming of Barzai the Wise, who is greater than they. . . . The moon’s light flickers, as earth’s gods dance against it; I shall see the dancing forms of the gods that leap and howl in the moonlight. . . . The light is dimmer and the gods are afraid. . . .”
Whilst Barzai was shouting these things Atal felt a spectral change in all the air, as if the laws of earth were bowing to greater laws; for though the way was steeper than ever, the upward path was now grown fearsomely easy, and the bulging cliff proved scarce an obstacle when he reached it and slid perilously up its convex face. The light of the moon had strangely failed, and as Atal plunged upward through the mists he heard Barzai the Wise shrieking in the shadows:
“The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth’s gods. . . . There is unknown magic on Hatheg-Kla, for the screams of the frightened gods have turned to laughter, and the slopes of ice shoot up endlessly into the black heavens whither I am plunging. . . . Hei! Hei! At last! In the dim light I behold the gods of earth!” [32]
And now Atal, slipping dizzily up over inconceivable steeps, heard in the dark a loathsome[33] laughing, mixed with such a cry as no man else ever heard save in the Phlegethon of unrelatable nightmares; a cry wherein reverberated the horror and anguish of a haunted lifetime packed into one atrocious moment:
“The other gods! The other [34] gods! The gods of the outer hells that guard the feeble gods of earth![35] . . . Look away! . . . Go back![36] . . . Do not see! . . . Do not see! . . .[37] The vengeance of the infinite abysses . . . That cursed, that damnable pit . . . Merciful gods of earth, I am falling into the sky!” [38]
And as Atal shut his eyes and stopped his ears[39] and tried to jump downward against the frightful pull from unknown heights, there resounded on Hatheg-Kla that terrible peal of thunder which awaked the good cotters of the plains and the honest burgesses of Hatheg, and Nir,[40] and Ulthar, and caused them to behold through the clouds that strange eclipse of the moon that no book ever predicted. And when the moon came out at last Atal was safe on the lower snows of the mountain without sight of earth’s gods, or of the other [41] gods.
Now it is told in the mouldy Pnakotic Manuscripts[42] that Sansu found naught but wordless ice and rock when he climbed[43] Hatheg-Kla in the youth of the world. Yet when the men of Ulthar and Nir and Hatheg crushed their fears and scaled that haunted steep by day in search of Barzai the Wise, they found graven in the naked stone of the summit a curious and Cyclopean[44] symbol fifty cubits wide, as if the rock had been riven by some titanic chisel. And the symbol was like to one that learned men have discerned in those frightful parts of the Pnakotic Manuscripts[45] which are[46] too ancient to be read. This they found.
Barzai the Wise they never found, nor could the holy priest Atal ever be persuaded to pray for his soul’s repose. Moreover, to this day the people of Ulthar and Nir and Hatheg fear eclipses, and pray by night when pale vapours[47] hide the mountaintop[48] and the moon. And above the mists on Hatheg-Kla[49] earth’s gods sometimes dance reminiscently; for they know they are safe, and love to come from unknown Kadath in shi
ps of cloud and play in the olden way, as they did when earth was new and men not given to the climbing of inaccessible places.
Notes
Editor’s Note: The surviving A.Ms is HPL’s original draft, written on the back of correspondence to him. A T.Ms. was apparently prepared by Donald Wandrei; it is quite accurate and is slightly corrected by HPL. The Fantasy Fan followed the T.Ms. when it published the tale (November 1933), making some serious errors. The Weird Tales appearance (October 1938) derives from the Fantasy Fan text, repeating its errors and making the usual alterations. The Arkham House editions derive from the Weird Tales text.
On p. 5 of the A.Ms. is found a synopsis of the story: “Barzai thinks he can with his wisdom defeat the gods of earth & witness their conclave. He climbs high & sees—X X X X—Just as Atal is about to see the sight the moon goes into eclipse. Shrieks. Black shapes—Barzai is gone & on the face of the peak are strange coloured characters newly engraved in the stone that make him fear.”
Texts: A = A.Ms. (JHL); B = T.Ms. (JHL); C = Fantasy Fan 1, No. 3 (November 1933): 35–38; D = Weird Tales 32, No. 4 (October 1938): 489–92; E = Beyond the Wall of Sleep (Arkham House, 1943), 13–15; F = Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (Arkham House, 1965), 111–15. Copy-text: A.
1. themseves;] themselves, C, D, E, F
2. come,] come; C, D, E, F
3. waste,] waste B; waste; D, E, F
4. Hsan,] earth; C, D; earth, E, F
5. Pnakotic Manuscripts] Pnakotic Manuscripts E, F