The Idea Emporium #10 A Norse Mythos [3/3]

Of the Elder Ones, who died that men might live, we have spoken.

Of Innan, which watches all and moves through all, we have spoken.

Of the devourers, which are bound and will be unbound, we have spoken.

And yet there are others, of we have not spoken.

Those Which Steal the Dead

In death we become food twice-over. The maggots of the corpse, the dwarfs, grow out of our spiritual corpses and feed further. These are the mi-go.

Or so it is said.

It is not that they feed upon the dead, but that they steal away the dead for their purposes. The dead are refitted, born anew as meat-machines to do the will of their re-animators. Through the dead, their puppets, the mi-go act.

The mi-go do not hail from this space. They do not come from this world, nor from any other star which could be reached in this universe. The light of this space is poison to them, and its radiation sows disease in them. In the brightness of the moon they are blinded and made lethargic. Beneath the glory of the sun they fall and cannot move, and die in hours. And even the starlight gnaws at them by inches.

Their artificial skins are clumsy things, not fit for the work which they desire to do in the bowels of the Earth. So they reside in shielded chambers in the hills and on other worlds, and from these places direct their puppet-dead to do their work. The dead are sustained by elixirs drawn out of the body of Yig who is bound beneath the sea, and this is why they have come to this world to do their work.

Here is truth: The mi-go do not waste their tools. The body is one thing, and the mind another. But of what they do to the minds of the dead there is nothing which should be spoken.

The mi-go make pilgrimages to the cities of Hastur and Shub-Niggurath, but these are not their cities. They dwell in labyrinthine complexes of mines and forges far beneath these places, close to the planet’s core. They hear the whisperings of Azathoth who is bound beneath the mountains, and the words of Nyarlathotep who is his master’s will, and they make parley with these powers. Their dealings with such beings have made them wise beyond comparison; the price which they have paid for this is not known.

Their Majesties of Colour

There are things which learned men call Colours. These things come from the place between the stars, and to them they always return, but in the time between they sit in the midst of life and suck it up. Not even Innan knows why it is that they do this, whether it is that their spawning is the purpose or only a byproduct of the process.

But as they sit and sup at the world, they pose the risk of leaving contamination behind them. There are times when this contamination weakens, decays, and is no more. Just as often, these fragments find a place in the life around them, trading predation for parasitism. But they often die, parasite and host together, and it is only very rarely that stability is attained.

In the books of Innan they are called the Ielb. To many sorcerers, they are called ylves, or elves, or aelfen. They are those in whom the Colours have adopted a totally new mode of existence, and even of reproduction. They are beings of sickness and madness, leaving the seeds of death with a touch and driven to madness by the pain and the rotting of their minds. Without the Colours, they would surely die.

They seek to spread. They do so through their children, calling for wives and husbands from among their followers, those who would call upon them for the sake of their powers. The pollution of the Colour continues in their line, weakened but still present. These ones are totally mad, for they have never known anything but the fragments of Colour which are in their bodies.

When one of the Ielb has grown very old, too old for its Colours to sustain it, the death of old age finally comes. When this happens its Colours are still unable to return to the stars, but sits and infests the corpse. The followers of the Ielb take the Colours and divide them, and eat, taking this sacrament into themselves so that their own lives may be extended.

The Wild Hunt

Some say that they are dwarfs as well, or black elves. It is said that they are servants of Innan, or worshipers of Cthulhu. Perhaps they are all these things.

They are feasters on the dead, vulture carrion kings. They scour the world as the mi-go do, but the thoughts which they steal away are destined to serve a less unspeakable purpose: the recovered minds of the dead are a mead of inspiration for the Wild Hunt. The thoughts of the dead are consumed to expand their knowledge and in some unknown manner preserve their bodies.

The chief of the Wild Hunt is one-eyed Onsdag, the child of Ve. Onsdag’s body was left to rot away beneath the ocean’s surface a million years ago. It is the creature’s mind which now survives, and because of the secret of this technique it is Onsdag alone of all the Wild Hunt whose body has no need for the minds of the dead. Onsdag leads them onward for—entertainment? to build an army? to simply do what is necessary to survive from day to day?

One day, the sun will grow cold. The keening of the mi-go will spill out across the face of all the world and Azathoth and his Children will be unbound. And the Wild Hunt will stand against the hosts of Azathoth, until Onsdag is devoured by Cthulhu, and rest have been felled by Yig who taught his secrets to Onsdag and was betrayed.

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The Idea Emporium #9 A Norse Mythos [2/3]

By the works of the Elder Ones, who were before and will be after, were the devourers created. From the ichor and the being of the Elder Ones were the devourers created, and so it is that they are cousins to the Elder Ones.

And it came to pass after their creation that the devourers grew in number, and came to war with the Elder Ones many times. And they were cast down, time and again, till one of their number, whose name was Azathoth, came and made parley and blood-truce with the Elder Ones.

But then Azathoth was cast down and imprisoned in the core of the Earth, where the heat was too great for him to bear and it sickened him like the most potent venom. And the children of Azathoth were bound likewise.

And none know the reason for their binding, whether they were taken in by treason or were betrayers themselves. But the Elder Ones claim their story, and the devourers their own, and if any know the truth then it is Innan— but Innan reveals nothing, and who can say but that the treacherous act was wrought by the very same?

Azathoth and Nyarlathotep, who together are the Father of Them All

Bound in the depths of the Earth is Azathoth, the uncrowned king who lays across a tablet of stone, runes inscribed upon it in the devourer’s blood, and runes cut in its flesh by the tablet’s shards.

It is well known to certain cults that the mind, though it be born of the flesh of the body, may divorce itself from the same and be projected into the world. Most may only project the sensation of themselves, sight and sound and, among the powerful, the feeling of their projection. And even so, many can only be perceived but dimly by the unlearned, and few there are who can work their own will without possessing a body of flesh and bones.

This is called the filgya, according to the speech of Innan, whose own powers rely on a technological refinement of this principle.

Azathoth is one that is counted among the most powerful of projectors. The body of Azathoth lays bound, and even so it projects itself in the manner of a witch. This filgya is no mere extension of awareness and being, but may take physical form, and the name of it is Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep goes to and fro across the face of the world, doing the will of its master, who is itself. It is thought by many that Azathoth will not be unbound by Nyarlathotep’s machinations, but there is much power to be had under the heavens, and who is to say that Nyarlathotep may not devise a way to make the sun grow cold before its time?

It is thought that, according to the records of Innan, humans will survive for many millions of years, but on this matter Innan is not specific. All that is said is that humans will survive to the end of the days of the Earth, but as for the manner of the sun’s dying, whether its aging be hastened or not, this has not been given to us.

Cthulhu, who is the First Child

Cthulhu! who dwells bound in the depths of the sea.

Cthulhu! who is like a three-faced wolf, with as many limbs as he has teeth.

Cthulhu! who is male and female both, and mother and father to its twin children.

To hear the sorcerers, Cthulhu is the moon and Cthulhu is stone. Or perhaps it is only as still as stone, beneath the waves where its brother is likewise imprisoned.

This was the manner in which it was bound: The mi-go were sought to create a prison fit for the devourer, and chains with which to bind its body and bind its mind. And then it was lured therein, with a thousand Elder Ones, whose minds were fit prey and bait for the devourer. Cthulhu consumed them, or consumed their thinking-selves, leaving only thoughtless bodies, and when it turned to depart the trap had already been sprung and it was sealed away.

But the children of Cthulhu were not bound. They escaped, and bred, and their children bred among themselves likewise, and they also took wives and husbands from the children of men, so as to keep their gene-lines pure from the slow rot of inbreeding. And these and their servants look forward to the day when they shall free their distant parent, and with it dance and rejoice and devour.

If it should be that Nyarlathotep shall bring the sun near to its grave before its time, then surely it is the children of Cthulhu that shall aid it in so doing. And then Cthulhu will be unbound, and at the last it will take the sun between its jaws, and then night will come forever to the Earth.

Yig, who is the Second Child

Yig! who is called Father Sea-thread.

Yig! who is sustained by his dying!

Yig! who calls to the doctors of lives eternal, speaking in their sleep.

This is not the only name by which Yig is known, for he was also called Bastet and Sekhmet in ancient Egypt, and Apep and Setesh. And he was worshiped as N’chushtan by the prophet-judge Thutmasha, who murdered a man in Egypt, and as the North Tezcatlipoca by the Aztecs.

It is Yig alone of all his family who was slain by the Elder Ones, and yet in his death he yet persists. There are ways of existing beyond death, and these secrets were perceived by him. Though he lays unmoving in the depths, bound lest he take up his body yet again, the projection of his mind still flits like a haunting ghost through the cities of the world, and speaks to those that are susceptible to his voice.

His wounds are too great to for life to be sustained in his body were he to return to it, and the chains too strong for him to be free were he to live again. But the doctors of lives eternal, who act in his name and according to his counsel— these will surely work out his resurrection and his return.

And till this time he is succeeded by his nine daughters. The names of all of them have not been given unto us, but only three: The Pitching One, That One Through Which One Can See the Heavens, and Bloody-Hair. The names of the others, and even whether they still live, are not given to us.

Shub-Niggurath and Hastur, who are the Third Child

Shub-Niggurath! who is the Hidden King.

Hastur! who is the dweller-below.

Shub-Niggurath! Hastur! which are the two-in-one whose true name is not to be named.

Beneath the surface of the poles, between the heat of the Earth’s core and the heat of summer upon the surface, are the cities of the Cold Ones, which are called the Abode of Mists, and their names are Keylo and Relex.

These cities were before Irem, the first city of men, but now there is only lifelessness, where the Cold Ones and their children sit in deathly hibernation. Their servants descend only occasionally, in the deepest winters, in order to hear the will of their dying-undying masters, to pass into the way of the cult and carry out the will of them that wait below. The walls of the two cities are in grievous disrepair and whole passages are blocked off now, their supports crumbled and collapsed.

There is darkness and mist here, and the whispers of the Hidden King. There are rivers here, or waters that flow through the decaying pipes, and in the waters are the many sicknesses which the Cold Ones bred in their war against the Elder Ones, and which might serve them again.

Surely they are all bound, Azathoth-Nyarlathotep and their children. Surely they will be unbound.

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The Idea Emporium #8: A Norse Mythos [1/3]

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.”

Ragnarok

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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The Idea Emporium #2: Selected Fragments from the Necronomicon

Selected Translations

A selection of lines from Wormius’ Latin text, with translations by Dr. Shawn Daniels. Some notes also by the same. The observant reader will notice some discrepancies in these literal translations from some traditional renderings given by Warren Rice.

Antiqui illi erant; Antiqui illi sunt; Antiqui illi erunt.

“Those Ancients were; Those Ancients are; Those Ancients will be.”

Rendered by Warren Rice as “The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be.”

Letum fio quod mundos deleo

“I am become Death, that destroys worlds.”

It does not appear that the Necronomicon borrowed from the Gita, and it is quite impossible for the Gita to have borrowed from the Necronomicon. Rather, based on other evidence it appears that this and other lines have been drawn from a third text predating them both.

Nevertheless, the particulars of the Necronomicon’s version presents interesting differences.

The Idea Emporium #1: A Few Notes on the Necronomicon

As promised, with the closing of The Culture Column has come the opening of a new column. The Idea Emporium is a grab bag of ideas. This month and the next I’ll supply some goodies on the Necronomicon. Other months might include new cultures, alien species, peculiar philosophies, or anything beyond or in-between.

As always, these are free for grabs and totally in the public domain from this point on. Use as you please, how you please.

A Brief History of the Necronomicon

"...pretiosissimum donum ab dis, id quod est esse, sed est novissime malum." Garamond Edition

“[it is] the most precious gift by the gods, that which is to be, but it is the last of all evil things.” Warren Rice Translation.