Vermistaad's book

 As dust falls

It was a Tuesday in June when I cracked the third of Vermistaad’s ciphers and could, after months of struggling, read the second chapter of his magnum opus: Diaries of Carnamagos.  

The first chapter was written in a mixture of Latin and Greek, and though scholars disagreed on the intent behind it, all agreed that it was disturbing material and that Vermistaad must have written it shortly before, or perhaps even slightly after, he was committed to the New Bethlehem Asylum.  All subsequent chapters were seemingly gibberish but many had postulated that they might be written in code.  Several scholars, including deGriff, had investigated the possibility and had discovered the first cipher — an achievement in itself as it turned out that Vermistaad, confusingly, had switched to writing in French.  Sadly the cipher appeared to apply to random sentences throughout the chapter and did not appear to work for any later chapters; the inability to make progress was why many scholars had given up at this point.  It further didn’t help that the deciphered and translated lines were, if anything, more disturbing than the previous chapter.

The second cipher was uncovered by me last year.  I considered letting the scholarly community know about this breakthrough but the additional lines, bringing the total decipherment to a little over half the text of the chapter, was both chilling and thrilling at the same time.  It seemed that Vermistaad had, as the book alluded to, owned a copy of the Testament of Carnamagos and had read it.  That strange tome, of which all copies and editions are considered lost, would be worth a fortune to the occultists and collectors and, as venal as it may be, I did not want to risk letting someone else beat me to such a prize.  Being a scholar does not bring wealth and fortune in general and I relished the idea that I might be able to afford to spend my days in study in a warmer climate with other people looking after the mundane drudgery of life for me.  It seemed a just reward for my efforts to decipher Vermistaad’s text.

The third cipher fell to my efforts (and my computers) only when I considered that Vermistaad might have chosen yet another language to have written in.  Neither Dutch nor German yielded any results, but curiously Portuguese turned out to be the missing link.  When I woke that Tuesday morning and found my computer placidly sitting there with the full, undeciphered text on the screen and an initial translation — poor, as is to be expected when using online translation tools — waiting to be read I nearly fainted.  I forced myself to make a cup of tea and then sat down to drink it and read what Vermistaad had to say.

Even knowing that Vermistaad was quite likely mad when he wrote this the chapter was barely coherent and hints and allusions were so thick that it was hard to locate a single sentence that concretely described anything.  My tea grew cold as I sat there, sifting through his words, trying to make sense of something it was quite clear he had failed to make sense of.  I was certain after a couple of hours that his experience with the Testament had affected him quite severely, and for the substantially worse, but beyond that there was little to go on.  I reached the final page, sat back and stretched, and then was astonished to find that the text was practically lucid!  For four paragraphs Vermistaad explained where he’d found the Testament and that he’d decided, after studying it, that it was not safe to leave it lying around where anyone might claim it.

And then the inchoate mixing of thoughts returned and the last few paragraphs, those that should tell me where he hid the Testament, were as opaque and illucid as all the rest of the chapter.

I poured the tea away, made another cup, and sat down again.  The promise of having the Testament in my hands — or rather, a secure bank vault guarded night and day — was too much to pass up.  I had broken two of the ciphers that Vermistaad had used to hide things; I could find a way to pierce the veil of his confusion and locate the Testament itself.

It took a full week of dead-ends, blind alleys and stumbling around as though in a darkened room full of sharp and mobile objects.  Every time I thought I was making progress with one allusion another one would bring me up sharply and force me to admit that I was wrong.  The hints seemed to link to each other but when I tried following a path through them I invariably found myself turned around and going backwards.  Even when I assumed, improbable though it was, that each hint was intended to be used more than once I made no progress.  But slowly I found small things that were invariable and as I pieced them together the text started to show a greater cohesion than I believed possible.  When I set my pen down Tuesday evening, one week after deciphering the text, I had the strangest set of instructions I have ever been given: under the light of the full moon, when a certain constellation was high enough in the sky, there was a path to be found that would lead to the place where Vermistaad had placed the Testament.

It sounds magical, and it may have been intended that way, but written out coldly and devoid of Vermistaad’s mazing words, I understood it to mean that it was like Stonehenge.  Vermistaad’s path was visible always if you knew what you were looking for, but until then you had to be there at the right time when the light was right and then you could see the way to go.  I did not believe for a moment that strange gods would open diabolical ways for me to tread, or that Vermistaad had (as he appeared to claim at one point) hidden the book outside of time and space; only that I would be pushing through trees and bushes that overgrew a forgotten path in the Lancashire countryside.

I shuddered.  I do not like hiking.

Cthulhiana

The high street was quiet; there was a homeless woman, dressed in a damp dressing-gown, sitting cross-legged in front of a cardboard box outside the Post Office, and there were two dogs trotting happily along, each holding the other's lead in its mouth.  A single car had driven past them in the last five minutes, and the traffic lights appeared to have defaulted to a holding pattern of green, perhaps hoping that being obliging they might summon more traffic.  Miss Flava looked at Detective Inspector Playfair, who was looking in the window of a travel agency.
"I thought all of these had closed down," she said, nodding at the window where sun-faded posters showed white-sanded beaches and palm trees.  There were a number of hand-written index cards advertising trips to Jordan, Syria and Israel for fifteen nights and upwards.
"The internet's done for a lot of them," said Playfair.  "But don't underestimate how lazy people are.  There are still those who'd rather watch someone else use the internet for them than learn how to do it themselves."
Miss Flava hmmed to herself, thinking of several of the older officers back at the police station whose only activities seemed to be making tea and watching other people do things for them.
"Right," said Playfair, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.  "Let's get this over with then."
They looked both ways, even though the road was so empty that it deserved tumbleweed, and crossed over.  On the other side of the road, sandwiched between a Subway and Starbucks, was a small shop with a mullioned bay window and a black-painted door with a little, corroded, brass bell at one corner.  The sign painted above the window read "Tea and Tentacles".
"What does this place do again?"  Playfair's voice was gruff and he appeared to be fascinated by the scuff marks on the bootscraper outside the door.
"Cthulhiana," said Miss Flava after a moment; she had to consult her notepad to check what the word was.  "Louise said to tell you that it's like Victoriana, only with more tentacles."
"Japanese?"
"No!" Miss Flava couldn't decide if she was more shocked that her boss, who was definitely in his fifties, knew about that kind of cultural reference or that she found the idea of it somehow creepy.  It didn't fit with her self-image of independent, well-read and liberal.
"Ah, evil squid monsters that will arise when the stars are right then," said Playfair.  Miss Flava shook her head, knowing that he couldn't see her, and wondered if he'd sneaked a look at her pad back in the car.  What he'd just said was word for word what Louise had told her over the phone.  "Well, let's get inside and see these knick-knacks, gew-gaws and whatjamacallits for ourselves then."
"Goo-gor?" asked Miss Flava, feeling rather out of her depth.
"You probably pronounce it jew-jaw," said Playfair without a trace of humour but still managing to condescend like a deity.
"I don't pronounce it at all," she said primly, the effect rather ruined by the bell ringing as Playfair pushed the door open and drowning out her last words.
The interior of the shop was patchily lit, with small LED spotlights in the ceiling picking out display cases and shelves, leaving shadows to pool along the walls and occasionally in the middle of a display for no apparent reason.  There were bookcases along the back wall, some of which were located unobtrusively behind a small counter. On the counter was a cash-box and a large calculator, and behind it was a wooden stool on a cast-iron pedastel that looked as though it belonged in a Charles Dickens novel.  There were a grand total of five display cases set in the middle of the room, each containing two glass shelves and holding an oddity of items.  One case seemed to be mostly jewelry, another was knives, and a third seemed to hold maps, or possibly odd drawings.  Against another wall was a collection of scarves with eye-watering patterns blotched on to them by what looked like unskilled batik.  In the corner nearest the door was a stuffed cat with demonic red eyes and possibly a touch of mange.
"Can I help you gentlemen?"
Miss Flava stiffened with outrage as the owner of the voice, an elderly woman shuffling along with the help of a stick, came into view from out of one of the patches of shadow.
"Police," she said, holding out her warrant card.
"Bless you dear, I can't see a thing," said the woman.  "Not since the Mi-Go took my eyes away with them.  They're going to bring me back some new ones you know.  Improved ones, that can see into many more places."
"OK," said Miss Flava, her voice neutral.  She risked a glance at Playfair, quite expecting him to be inflating his lungs ready to lecture the woman on the improbability of her eyes being worked on independently of the rest of her body, but he seemed more interested in the contents of one of the display cabinets.
"Playfair?" she said, wondering if he'd been listening.
"This statuette," he said, pointing.
"Bless you dear, I can't see a thing," said the woman as though it were an automatic response.
"It's about a foot tall," said Playfair, leaning back as though the statuette were hard to see too close up.  "Has about sixteen arms, head is a bit like an exploded tulip, and appears to be standing on a pile of children's corpses."
"Oh that one," said the woman.  "£170 dear, and I won't take any less."
"Doesn't it look familiar to you?"  He was looking at Miss Flava, who's eyebrows elevated so rapidly they pulled her crow's feet taut behind them.
"I'm pretty certain I'd remember anyone with thirteen arms," she said.
"Sixteen, dear," said the old woman.
"Not the arms," said Playfair.  "The face.  Look at that and tell me that isn't Tommy Richards."
Miss Flava leaned forward, her skepticism written all over her face.  A moment later it had vanished.
"That's better than the police photo-fit managed," she said.  "If it weren't for the arms I'd swear it was him."
"Well, and the head's a bit on the squished side," said Playfair.  "But still.  Who's the sculptor?"  His voice was now directed at the old woman.
"Cassandra Styles," said the woman.  "I've got all the paperwork here somewhere, though if I'm going to get that out you're going to buy it."
"Not necessary," said Playfair with a ghost of a smile.  "It's evidence in a presumptive murder investigation.  Miss Flava, take it into protective custody please."
"What?" said Miss Flava and the old woman simultaneously.
"Now, please," said Playfair.  "I want to talk to Cassandra and find out what else she's been sculpting."

Camera obscura

Black and white.

A moment, frozen in time. The brilliance of the sheet of light from the flash-bulb, firing through the air, striking the tableau.  Like lightning, like divine fire.  Desaturating the scene, stealing all the colour, the life; freezing everything in black and white for a moment in time.

Literally freezing everything for a moment in time.

*

The camera now sits in an evacuated bell chamber on an ornate wooden pedestal, where the museum-goers can see it but very definitely not touch.  There is a weight-sensitive plate at the top of pedestal that controls a steel cage.  Pick up the bell jar, even break the bell jar and let air in, and the cage will fall from the ceiling and slam down against the floor.  The cage is actually two cages, one inside the other, so that the camera will be protected from touch even when the cage has fallen.  There are lasers criss-crossing the area around the pedestal, and breaking them will set alarms off and bring security guards running from hidden corridors and unsuspected recesses.  There are, in total, eighteen well hidden traps to protect the camera from anyone trying to get close to it, and over half of them are lethal.  One of the conditions that the museum must abide by to keep exhibiting the camera is that nothing, not ever human life, is more important than making sure that the camera is never used again.

Why exhibit it at all?  The question is regularly asked in newspapers, and agony aunt columns.  Whenever someone else dies because they can't obey a simple Don't touch order, people start demanding to know why such a temptation was put in front of them to begin with.  The right believe that it is part of a left-wing plot to kill off people who believe that tools were meant to be used, not waved around as a deterrant.  The left believe it is a right-wing plot to kill off people who believe in civil liberties.  The centre believe that it is a clever plan to increase government control and get the populace suitably cowed and obedient.

The real reason was listed in a now-censored paper written by Professor James DeWitte and published in the Journal of Occult Paraphernalia by the Arkham University Press: there is no knowing, a priori what will happen when the camera is destroyed, and the potentially outcomes are ineluctably catastrophic.

*

David  looks at the artefact in front of him.  It looks like a large, dirty chunk of ice, though there are no signs of it melting despite the warmth of the museum's Small Workshop.  He walks around it twice, noting the size of it – a little over six feet tall and three feet wide –, its rough-hewn appearance and jagged edges, and the fact that on one side only, call it the front, there appears to be a black and white picture of a street scene.

"Arkham, in the mid 1890's," says James DeWitte.  He's sat down on a claw-footed chair with a carved wooden back that's probably a valuable museum exhibit in its own right.  As far as we know, it's the last time the camera was used.  It froze a moment in time, and that's what you have there right in front of you.  Coalesced, solidified time."

"What happened to the street?" asks David.  He reaches out a tentative hand and touches the ice; it's warm under his hand and feels soapy.  He doesn't see James flinch as he touches it.

"It's still there," says James, nodding.  "We think it had been there for long enough that it could persist in time around the moment when it was taken."

"That means that the people...."

"Finish your sentences, David.  It's a bad habit to get into, expecting other people to follow your train of thought like that.  Yes, the people all vanished, all locked into this frozen moment.  Horses vanished too, and some newer buildings suffered damage.  You can go and inspect some of it still if you like, the street still exists."

"Still exists?"

"The name's been changed, but that's a precaution.  We don't know what would happen to this frozen moment if the street stopped existing."

"It seems like there's a lot we don't know."  It sounded accusing, though David hadn't meant it to.  James nodded, more slowly.

"There is," he says.  "That's why I'm inviting you to research this."

"What do you hope to get from my research?"  David's eyes narrow and he studies James more carefully now, noting the slightly fussy dress: a full three-piece suit with a gold fob chain, a white shirt with heavily starched collar, the highly-polished shoes with pointed toes that are surely three inches longer than necessary.

"A decision."

"As to what?"

There's a longer pause, and then James looks David straight in the eye and holds his gaze.  "As to whether it is safe to destroy the camera or not."

"Why not weaponize it?"

Now James's gaze drops, all the way down to his shoes.  Another long pause, and David repeats his question.  Finally James answers.

"That's the alternative," he says.  "There is a man, let's call him General for now.  He would like to deploy this camera as a weapon.  If it's useful, he'd like to make more of them and deploy them also."

Now David looks a little concerned, and he steps in closer still to the block of ice, caressing its surface as he speaks.  "More might not be a good idea."

"But we don't know how bad an idea it is.  Yet."

"Do we know how to make more cameras?"

"Oh yes.  And that's the problem.  That's why this research needs to be done."

"Why don't you do it yourself?" asks David, his fingers finally coming to rest on the black and white picture that the ice has solidified.  Before James can answer David is pulled inside the picture, disappearing into the block of ice so quickly it seems as though he's just faded away.

"Because I'm too sensible to do that," says James, but there's more sorrow in his voice than anger or rancour.

*

The horse is startled by his sudden appearance on the street and rears, striking out with its hooves and hitting David twice on the head.  Iron shoes connect heavily, denting his skull and rattling his brain into darkness and he falls to the ground, unaware of the horse screaming and raging above him.  Light sleets around him, passing him by, and his last thought is an awareness that he's been left behind, in black and white.

The King in Yellow

The ambulance turned out to be for Julie; she had been pregnant and had taken something, some abortifacent to end it. Only she hadn't known how far along she was, and she hadn't listened to whoever had sold her the drug, and... well, it was messy. She had collapsed in her sister's kitchen, landing in the dog's food bowl, and her sister had found her two minutes later, pale, gasping, and being head-butted by the hungry dog.
I sat in the hospital corridor, inhaling deeply and trying to hide it, waiting for the nurses to decide that Julie was strong enough for a visitor. No-one else wanted to tell her the bad news -- the baby, despite being a whole trimester premature, had survived and appeared to be doing well.
The disinfectant they used in the hospital, which I kept inhaling as deeply as I dared, reminded me of the desert, and the King in Yellow.
It wasn't long after I'd encountered the psychotropic sand, perhaps the next day or the day after. I'd spotted some rocks sticking out of the sand, and although it was somewhat aside from the path I hoped I was sticking to, I decided to detour and take a look. If nothing else, they were higher than the sand dunes, and it would be nice to see if there was anything other than sand and sun on the horizon. It took longer to get there than I expected, even though I'd learned by that point that everything appears closer than it actually is in the desert. I did find that the quickest approach was never to take my eyes off it though; whenever I looked away it seemed to try to sidle off and hide. I'd been out in the sun for too long by then to find anything odd about this either.
The rocks were, of course, sandstone, and showed signs of weathering, which I took as a sign that it did occasionally rain in this yellow aridity. They went both up and down, forming a deep canyon that stretched away and turned round corners, and put me in mind of a World War I trench. I could almost hear the crack of rifle-fire, and I could easily spot places to sand-bag and uncoil the barbed wire. I resisted the temptation to go down and play soldier, finding instead a narrow stone tower with a staircase carved around the outside. I followed the steps up, and then in, and then I stopped.
Inside the tower was a room with a paved floor with only a thin scattering of sand across it. The walls were carved with images in panels, that seemed to lead around the room in a dramatic spiral. A throne, or at least a large, ornamented chair, carved from yet more sandstone, was placed at the golden ratio; the point where the two arms of a cross would intersect were they drawn of the length and breadth of the room. Sitting on the chair, was an ancient man dressed in heavy yellow clothes: a thick yellow jacket of brocaded silk, heavy yellow trousers that might have been dyed leather, and yellow Caterpillar-branded boots.
"Look around," he said. "See the history of this place, and understand why I'm here."
"Who are you?" I said. His teeth were yellow when he opened his mouth to speak, and his skin appeared jaundiced.
"The walls will tell you," he said, a yellow, forked tongue flickering over dry lips.
"I want you to tell me," I said. "You're here in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, and you want me to start reading the walls like an archaeologist? If you've already done that, then save me some time and tell me yourself!"
"I carved the damn walls so I wouldn't have to!" His voice started to get louder, but then it cracked and went squeaky, and although he tried hard not to, he started coughing after he finished speaking.
"That was a bit silly," I said. "If you're going to do that, why are you still sitting here? No-one's going to read the walls if they can just ask you instead."
"Just read the damn panels. Or at least, read the last two. They're at the bottom, over there." He pointed, a skeletal finger jutting out from his jacket like a twig on a dead tree.
"No." I was too tired for reading, and his strange insistence was getting on my nerves. "I don't actually care who you are. I'm just here for the view."
"I am the King in Yellow, and I order you to read those panels!"
"I am Lady Muck, and... where the hell are the windows?"
Finally I realised that all the light in the room was emanating from the King in Yellow, and if I ignored its yellowish cast, it was the same sparkly, shiny light as Mordechai had had shining around his eyes.
I turned round and walked out immediately, ignoring what sounded like some kind of fit happening behind me. I got about a hundred yards from the rocks before the tower I'd climbed collapsed in a cloud of dusty sand and an echoing crash like thunder over the desert.

Travelogue V: the approach to the plateau

The wind howls around the mountain like a banshee, and like the banshee it never has any good tidings to bring. Up above us -- and not a very long way above us at all -- are dull clouds that look heavy with snow or hail. The last of the sunlight is still falling on the mountainside below, but it's a little too late now to turn back and try to pitch a tent to wait the weather out. It would take us at least an hour to find a surface we could secure ourselves too.

Ahead of me, Jordan is hammering pitons into the rock and behind him David is passing rope through his belt and then throwing it down to me. It's a scant comfort, but at least we'll be trying to hang on with more than just our hands and feet if the wind grows stronger and the clouds decide to drop their burden on our heads.

We begin our ascent again, slower now than before because of the need to hammer in the pitons ahead of us, and I retrieve them as a pass over them. It's hard to pull them out again, but I know that if Jordan didn't make them properly secure we'd all regret it.

Below me the mountain cascades down to a high pasture where rare cattle are summered and bred, and a small group of people make the kind of living rich Westerners pay holiday money to go and pretend to do. The mountain seems haphazard, almost careless, like a woman who has lost her sense of style and dresses in the morning with her eyes closed. The people in the high pastures wouldn't talk to us, and when it became apparent that we were planning on climbing the mountain they wouldn't even look at us. I'd heard rumours that the mountain was considered sacred, and perhaps, to these people, it is.

We've spent two years planning this ascent, researching the mountain as much as we could. There's not a lot written about it, and it's debatable if anyone's ever reached the top. Some of the books that had the most information were unobtainable; there are apparently only four copies of De Vermiis Mysteriis left in the whole world and a mountain-climber doesn't have the clout to get access to a copy. It might not have helped anyway, my Latin is barely remembered from my schooldays. I casually asked the British Museum why they didn't make more copies of the book and, before the assistant was hurried away by a senior-looking man in a very sharp suit, was told that they couldn't afford the staff attrition.

There's a cry from up ahead and Jordan waves, makes sure he has my attention, and points. The next plateau is visible now, maybe only a cautious half-hour's climb away, and we might even get there before the clouds descend on us. We shout a brief conversation and decide to be a little less cautious and try to beat the weather to the top.

What awaited us on the plateau was a scene of horror.

Travelogue I: The Elder Kitchen

I was driving down the old coast road towards Dunwich late one afternoon when I realised that I was getting low on fuel. Not wanting to spend the night in Dunwich again, I pulled off at the first exit and drove another mile or so to a small village with a single petrol station. Just behind the petrol station was a restaurant, with the odd name of the Elder Kitchen. I was just starting to feel hungry, so I decided to give it a try, and see what it had to offer.

I walked in and was immediately greeted by the Maitre'D, a squat little man with warty skin, a squint, and a clammy handshake. I recognised this as the Dunwich taint, that set of slightly squamous characteristics that affect the inhabitants of Dunwich and a couple of the surrounding smaller villages, and pretended that I hadn't noticed any of it. He was smartly dressed in a white ruffled dress shirt and a tuxedo that looked strangely damp, and asked me if I had a reservation. I conceded that I hadn't, and he smiled and said he was sure he could find me a table anyway. Looking around me at the dining room, I was sure he could too, of about twenty tables, only two were seated.

My table was against a wall of the restaurant, well away from the other two seated tables, and afforded me a view of most of the dining room and the entrance. The door to the kitchen was behind me. The table was well-laid with a crisp white tablecloth and sparkling silver and glassware. In the centre of the table was an off-white ceramic vase filled with a fragrant oil that held a floating wick. The Maitre'D was quick to bring me both the menu and a separate wine menu, and lit the wick. Almost immediately a rich, spicy scent rose from the liquid candle, reminding me of my time in the Middle East as a temple inspector.

I opened the menu first, wondering if the quality of the food would live up to the expectations set by the restaurant decor, or those set by the Maitre'D and the Dunwich Taint. The menu was short, with only two starters, five mains and two desserts offered, which I felt boded well: this allowed the chef to concentrate on producing quality food. As I read through the choices though, I was surprised to find that I had never seen any of them offered anywhere else before.

For a starter then, I had a choice between Mi-go Salad and Zoog skewers. The menu described the former as delicate pieces of Mi-go lightly fried in lemon and olive oil served on a bed of conventional salad leaves and the latter as three individual zoog roasted alive and skewered with peppers and onions. The mains were no more helpfully described; I was offered Roast young of Shub-Niggurath in an Abhoth sauce with no further explanation, Leg of Leng Spider served with your choice of vegetables, Tindalos steak with Dijon mustard and sour cream, chunky chips and black pepper served on a perfectly circular plate, Shoggoth shoulder with wilted vegetables from Leng, and Shocked chicken a l'Hastur. I was certain I didn't want the spider's leg, and a little curious as to how big the spider was that the restaurant could offer just one leg as a main course. The roast young of Shub-Niggurath sounded interesting, but I thought I would probably go with the safe sounding option of the steak.

For dessert I had a choice of Color Essence and Chocolate Nemesis. I was fairly certain I'd had a chocolate nemesis while in London a few years back, and the Color Essence didn't sound all that filling -- very avant garde I thought.

A waiter now appeared carrying a bread-basket and asking if I was ready to order, so I asked him for more information about the starters. He told me that the Mi-Go were also known as the Fungi from Yuggoth, but that they were a lot more like lobster than any earthly fungus. The Zoog he said, were rodent-like creatures that they had to source especially. Deciding that lobster sounded better than rat, I opted for the Mi-go salad. When I asked for the Tindalos steak though, the waiter turned pale. I pressed him on this, and he finally admitted, with a lot of reluctance, that they obtained the steaks 'very fresh' and that this was 'a little dangerous.' I insisted on the steak, and decided to defer choosing a dessert until after I'd eaten these.

I opened the wine menu at this point, and found that there were only two items listed: Ulthar Riesling and Fischwasser. I asked the waiter if this was a misprint for Kirschwasser, a spirit I found a liking for when posted in Mannheim studying the sewers there, and the waiter shook his head. This, he suggested, was not really suitable for me, and that I should try the Riesling. I accepted, not quite graciously, and the waiter disappeared with the menus and my order. I tried the bread.

It was extremely good, a little malty, and had a flavour that was almost meaty. Little seeds crunched when I chewed it, and it was moist and light. I ate all of it ravenously, only realised when I'd finished it that I was probably making a pig of myself. I sat back and looked round, and was relieved to see that the other diners had paid me no attention. My attention turned back to the odd listing in the wine menu; my German was good enough to translate Fischwasser as Fish water, and I now wondered if perhaps this was reserved for the locals from Dunwich, and maybe this was why it wasn't suitable for me. I'd never heard of Ulthar, but a Riesling is a hard wine to spoil in my opinion.

I heard the door to the kitchen open behind me, and for a moment I heard hysterical shrieking and a deep growling that seemed to vibrate in my bones, and then my waiter was placing my salad in front of me. He looked a little shocked, and there were two deep wounds on his arm clearly visible through a torn sleeve, yet neither was bleeding; they seemed like something has punched cleanly in and out, pulling away a plug of flesh and sealing off the surrounding tissue in the process. I opened my mouth to ask him about this, but was distracted by the rattle of a trolley across the floor, and saw a silver-cloched platter being delivered to a table across the room. The platter was the size of an occasional table itself, and my question became asking what was.

Chocolate Nemesis said my waiter quietly, and quickly left. I watched as the cloche was lifted off to reveal a large, deep pool of chocolate above which small twists of steam seemed to writhe. Around the edge of the pool were designs in some rich red sauce that seemed almost runic, and from where I was it was hard to focus on them, they seemed almost to be squirming beneath the weight of my gaze. I had turned my attention back to my salad -- glistening green leaves with succulent lumps of something pink, not unlike lobster nestled in it, and a fragrant aroma mixed with something vinegary rising from it -- when the two waiters that had brought the trolley in started chanting. My fork, raised halfway to my lips, slowed and halted and my gaze was pulled to the table as strongly as though someone had seized my head and were turning it for me. My lips started to move of their own accord, and I found myself chanting strange words I'd never heard before in time with the waiters.

A strange somnolance seemed to come over me then, and though I still chanted I felt drowsy and my body felt heavy, too heavy to stand up or move. A slight chill came over me, and my fingers, toes and lips went numb, but this didn't stop me chanting. I could see across the way that the diners who had ordered the Chocolate Nemesis were also lolling back in the chairs, seemingly dazed. One of them spasmed for a moment, his eyelids fluttering, and a hand lifting, stretching out towards the platter, but then it fell back and he became still again.

Then the deep, dark pool of chocolate rippled, and rippled again though nothing was touching it. The ripples grew into small waves, which became choppy and splashed, growing taller and taller, until suddenly a tower of chocolate rose from the platter, formed itself into a tentacle, and seized one of the diners, wrapping around his neck and snaking down his body. It reached his waist, and then retracted, pulling him out of his chair and down into the pool, impossibly swallowing him inside the dessert on the dish. Something in the back of my mind screamed and howled, thumping mental fists on whatever it was that numbed and bedazed me, but I couldn't stop chanting or turn my gaze away, watching at that dreadful dessert formed another chocolate tentacle and ensnared the other diner.

Something broke in my mind, and my fork fell from my hand. It tinged brightly against the plate, and the numbing oppression lost its grip on me, and I could turn away from the abominable dessert at last. I found my waiter stood on the other side of me, looking at me appraisingly.
"Only one diner has ever survived to eat that dessert," he said quietly. "It's a bit too extreme for most people."
"Bill please!" I said brightly, suddenly desperate to get out of the restaurant.
"Just go," he said.

I left as fast as I could, and made no note of the roads I took to get back to something approaching civilisation. I had no wish to return to the Elder Kitchen again. Though to this day I still wonder about that Leng Spider. Perhaps if I see they're offering a take-away and delivery service I might order it out of curiousity.