This month and the next two we’re going to making some
changes to Lovecraft’s Mythos, taking inspiration from Norse mythology. We’re
going to play fast and loose here, just warning you. Going back and forth
between Lovecraft and the Norse until eventually we take a flying leap away
from both.
As always, this is free for the taking. Use it in a book
or a short story. Grab half of it, twist it around like it did to Lovecraft,
and then smoosh it in with another pack of ideas. It’s all fine.
Fallen Giants and Oceans of Blood
Many billions of years ago the Earth was with form, but
as yet was lifeless, for there was “naught but a yawning gap, and grass
nowhere.” Then came the Elder Ones, which call themselves the Ymacyo. They were
explorers, not colonists. They subsisted on the produce of the authumla tanks,
which recycled their waste, and there abided for many years.
And then it came to pass that one of them, whose name was
Yima, was betrayed and slain by its friend, Ve. Its corpse was disposed of,
never to be found, and the rest of the Elder Ones departed soon thereafter, fearful
that they had come into some kind of curse.
Their descendants would not visit again for a long time.
All this is according to what is written in the libraries
of Innan, whose recorders and curators are from before the world was, and from
after it will was. And thus it was, according to the will of one that was
nameless, who was in the body of Ve.
The Cord-men of Innan
Inann is not, but was and will be. For it does not abide
They have been called the Great Race of Yith and, thus, Yithians,
but that is the name of their homeworld. Their people do not call themselves
Yith, any more than humans call themselves Earth or Earthers, but Innan. It
means something like “blessed” or “exalted,” but with a tense that implies an
ongoing and yet-to-be-completed process, rather than something that has
occurred in the past.
There is no difference in their tongue between the bodies
of the people and their culture. For a species that propagates by transferring
some of its minds to a set of entirely alien bodies, they are unconcerned with
molecules. Innan are Innan because they have the culture and learning of Innan.
And if we are to refer to them at a specific point in time, or their political
territory, we would do well to call it Innan-guard.
It was one of
Innan, whose mind had been projected years in the past into Ve’s body, that slew
Yima. Innan did not originate from Earth, but they abode there for a time, both
before and after humankind, and they arranged the death of Yima so that its
corpse would provide the raw materials from which life might spring forth in
the oceans of that world. And this was so, that Innan might have bodies in
which to abide for a time.
Magic
“Magic” is a word that refers to many things. Magicians
work with principles, according to their knowledge, and this is all that magic
is, the production of the miraculous through mundane means that are
nevertheless unknown to most.
To some it is the pipe-playing which calls heralds of
Nyarlathotep. To others it is the use of old technology from before the rise of
humankind. Some are binders, who must know the desires of the bound to have
success. But to most, it is a writing.
There is no human alive that can translate the words of
Innan. Some glyphs were handed down to us by Innan, or by older races that had
been given them, and others were stolen away, remembered by those who had been
taken to Innan-guard itself and had seen its libraries. But it is known what
may happen when a certain glyph is marked down.
When you write a message to a time traveler, it doesn’t
need to get the message right away. Probably, your message will be received,
and though it be in thousands or millions of years, Innan will be able to act
on it all the same. While we do not know exactly what a glyph means, we may
have a rough idea of what is being requested. And sometimes, if it fits with
the unknown agenda of Innan, the glyph will be answered.
Some write the glyphs in ink or carve them into stone.
More valuable, though, is the knowledge of the glyphs as thread. Before Innan
departed from Yith, they were blind, and their records were made in the form of
threads, not unlike quipu. Although Innan are wholly incapable of using the
system when they are in certain bodies, they treasure it throughout all times
and are more willing to answer the calls of those that also know it.
This is the name of the glyph by which magicians identify
themselves: Kunna. It means “to know by heart” and “to have insight in the
knowledge that has passed away.”
This is the end of the Earth and all that inhabit it. It
is when the sun grows cold, and the surface of the Earth becomes tolerable once
more for the Cold Ones that have inhabit the frozen places in the depths of the
sea and deeper still.
Azathoth will be loosed, and his herald will go out
before him. Cthulhu will be loosed from his chains. Yig will uncoil himself and
breach the surface of the waves. Hastur and Shub-Niggurath will ascend from the
buried halls of Kelyo, which is before Irem.
The outposts of Innan which abide at that time will be
driven out, and the records kept there destroyed, to be remade at other points
in time and space. The remnant of the Elder Ones will be destroyed and all
their children with them, by their cousins and their thralls, and the world
which was life-filled by Yima’s spilt blood will be made clean and barren once
more.
And it will come to pass that in the waste will dance the
myriad children of the Cold Ones, until these too pass away, and go out to
other worlds. And in the emptiness of the waste there will be left only one
being, who is neither Azathoth nor Nyarlathotep, and neither their children or
their chosen. And its name is not given to be known even unto Innan, and for
this cause it is known simply as The One, who is alone, and reigns alone, and
will be alone from eternity to eternity.
This is the end and the way of the world. Foretelling is
merely recalling according to the memories of those who have gone further down
the river of time, and then returned. Thus, let it be remembered, for it is
written even as it happened, as observed by Innan which was present and beheld
it all.
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