Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (16 page)

“Well, we reached the island at last, and on closer examination I could see that many of the carvings, besides the half-fish, half-manlike things, consisted of many other less familiar creatures; all tentacles and ropy filaments. I thank God that those carvings were as old as they were, because if they had been any more distinct, I think I may have lost my mind. I reeled as it was as Walakea steered us toward a single gargantuan block while his men pulled thick strands of old and rotted seaweed from about its face. When they had finished, they all fell to their knees and the chief led them in some kind of prayer. I noticed then how the image on that great stone resembled those of the small idols the natives possessed back in the village. This was the image of their god, a god who answered their prayers in a most concrete way, a way easily understood and appreciated by a poor and backward people. I actually found myself feeling jealous of them! I must admit that the thought did not immediately strike me as absurd; it was all a part of the hideous nature of the situation. After a few minutes my senses returned and I was able to rethink my feelings. Of course it was all absurd! Their god could not be a real god. I thought I had the problem settled in my mind until Walakea revealed the ultimate secret about the Kanakys’ relationship with the sea-things.

“We re-entered the canoe and paddled back to the main island, but instead of taking us back to the village where we had been feted last night, Walakea took us to the opposite side of the stream where a second village site stood. It seemed deserted, but as we soon learned, all those who resided there lurked indoors. We approached a lone hut and Walakea bid us follow him inside. I followed the Captain and when I straightened from my stoop my eyes fell on a sight I hope never to see again. Even with the interior of the hut in semi-gloom, I could make out the features of the figure before me. It was no doubt human, but it was more fish than man! I saw all the same queer attributes in it that we have seen in most of the villagers here, but they were all horribly exaggerated; the eyes were great, unblinking orbs without pupils, the hands and feet were webbed and the skin where the light fell on it, glistened in thousands of iridescent scales. What must have been rudimentary gills opened and closed at the side of its misshapen head as if the creature had difficulty breathing. Entirely hairless, it crouched on the dirt floor staring at us with the emotionlessness of a fish.

“I was repulsed and even the Captain took a step backward. Then Walakea told us the final horror. After his people had been sacrificing their youths to them for some time, the sea-creatures began to tire of them and made a further suggestion: they wished the opportunity to mate with members of the tribe. At first, the idea was resisted, but soon they were persuaded to comply. Over the years, almost the entire tribe had been tainted with the aquatic streak, thus the queer looks we noticed among the villagers. But the strange looks did not come altogether, they came over time. When a villager advanced in years, the changes began to come over him with increased rapidity until, at an advanced age, he resembled the creature I saw in the hut last night. Soon after that, the urge to go to the sea would become too strong, he would be unable to endure it and he would join the sea-creatures beneath the waves, very infrequently to return.”

I began to protest the veracity of his story, to suggest alternative explanations to what he had seen, even as I knew no other explanation could make sense of the strange look of the villagers. Eliot shook his head.

“It’s all too frighteningly true, Hosiah,” he said. “But the sight of that fish-thing was not the worst of it. Do you know what the natives received in return for their miscegenation? Immortality! You do not understand do you? They have gods who not only answer their prayers in a most efficacious manner but who also grant them eternal life! What argument is there against it and in favor of our own Christian religion? We are only promised our eternal reward and perhaps an all wise God may deem fit to answer our prayers, but their gods are less discerning, being here, now, serving them! That is the most insidious fact about the whole thing, do you think that men, ruled mostly by greed and lust could long resist the lure of such a practical faith? Yes, yes, I know it is all preposterous. They are not true gods, but mortal creatures even as we, only with preternaturally long lives, but I say to you, that they could easily prey on the ignorance and selfishness of many men. They must remain here, unknown.”

I suggested an immediate return to the
Queen
, but he shook his head.

“The Captain, unbeliever as he is, is the first of those fools to embrace these devils. Even now, he speaks with seriousness with Walakea on the whys and wherefores of their worship. Oh, he does not believe in the creatures’ divinity any more than I do, but his greed yet leads him into a situation that will not only damn his own questionable soul but anyone else to whom he introduces the secret.

“The Captain will surely work on the men’s greed to win them over to his way of thinking. He will swear them to silence and you will see, a regular run to the Kanakys for trade gold will become an accepted fact back in New England.”

I protested that I would take no such blasphemous oath.

“I believe you, Hosiah, but are you prepared for the consequences? I have sailed for Captain Marsh for many years and feel I know him as well as any man. You saw to what lengths he was willing to go to force the native warrior to talk? Believe me, he will display little more compunction to keep you from talking. Would you like to remain behind on this here island? Perhaps to end up as another sacrifice to those creatures?”

I shuddered and shook my head.

“Then we both will take whatever oath is demanded of us and keep our mouths shut. There’s no shame in it as it will be a vow made under duress. Our real problem will be in trying to find a way to thwart the Captain should he decide to work directly with those sea-creatures himself. Aye, he would do that if it meant cutting out the middle man and increasing his profits. Already, when I left him, he was working on the chief to show him how to call up the monsters.”

I asked him how we could do such a thing; who would believe such a wild tale back in Innsmouth?

“I have an idea about that too,” he said. “Most folks here are tainted by the fish-blood except for Walakea’s immediate family. He had to preserve it in order to keep open the possibility of inter-marrying with the daughters of neighboring chiefs. But there’s one other person that is not tainted…”

“The shaman!” I said.

“Aye, there must be a reason why he has managed to hold on to his humanity while everyone else has succumbed. We’ll go and see him.” At that, he rose and began making his way back to the first village. I followed him, not knowing what else to do. In truth, I did not even know if I believed all that he had recounted to me. It was all so utterly fantastic, completely incredible! And yet, I had seen and wondered at the queer look of the villagers, the meaning of the disgusting carvings on the golden ornaments and the fetid inspiration of the tiny idols. In my mind they added up to irrefutable evidence of Eliot’s story. In addition, a strange disquiet had been building in me ever since our arrival in these distant waters and I was loath to remain blissful of any threat to myself or the
Queen
.

It did not take long to locate the shaman’s hut. It stood alone a good ways off in the surrounding forest and one smelled it long before seeing it. The remains of dismembered animals lay all about the site and drying and rotting fish hung from the structure’s outer walls. We called out and received a reply from within the hut. Eliot led the way inside and I followed, vainly holding my breath against the overpowering stench. The shaman himself was one of the ugliest humans I had ever seen, but even then he seemed more pleasant looking than the tainted creatures his brethren had become. His hair was a tangled, dirty mass and his skin was smeared in fish oil. He was naked but for a loin clout about his hips. As he squatted to the side of the hut, I noticed one thing immediately, there was no sign of the island’s gold nor any aquatic idols. Eliot spoke to him and must have received a positive reply because he bade me sit. I sat cross-legged as far away from the old man as I could as Eliot sat alongside me but a little ahead. He leaned forward and asked the shaman a question. The following is the translation he gave me of his conversation with the witch man, who barked a sort of laugh before he spoke.

“He says he knew we would come around to see him sooner or later. That any normal men, even sickly looking white men, would be repulsed by what had happened to his people and be compelled to seek out their own kind. He is laughing at his own joke, and I cannot say as I blame him. We white men always think ourselves the superior of other races and now we can see just how closely related we really are to them. Our differences amount to nothing compared to the gulf between us and those ‘Deep Ones’ as he calls them. Aye, he has a name for those creatures whose likenesses I saw carved on that island. He says everything Walakea told me is true and I gather he and the chief are not on friendly terms. It seems when the Deep Ones began mating with the Kanakys’, his forbears held out and kept their line pure. Seems the shaman here, is jealous of the Deep Ones. Ever since making their unholy bargain with the creatures, the villagers have had little need for his services. They get all they want from the Deep Ones. These days, he ekes out a living by working a few cures for bellyache and infection. I asked him if there is anything the Deep Ones fear and he said something about how do I figure he and his father and his grandfather were able to remain pure blooded all these years? The Deep Ones fear only two things he says: someone or something called Clooloo I think, and a certain kind of symbol of things called the Old Ones.”

By this time, I was a bit confused, no doubt the result of a mixture of Eliot’s inadequate translation and the shaman’s ignorance. Who were these Deep Ones and Clooloo? They seemed nothing less than the embodiment of the Biblical fish god, Dagon. There was a pause in the conversation as the shaman reached into his loin clout and pulled out a small stone. He showed it to us by the fading light of afternoon and I could see the simple markings of a what looked like a crooked cross on its face. Quickly, he returned it to its place and resumed speaking.

“He says he can tell that we are still having a difficult time believing his story, but that perhaps he can offer us more proof.” The shaman stood and preceded us out of the hut. The sun was well down on the horizon when we started up a path different than the one we had followed earlier. As we walked, it grew darker and soon I could hear the sound of the surf in the darkness. We came upon a rock-strewn beach. The shaman bade us be silent on pain of our lives, and showed us to a spot laden with concealing underbrush. A hundred yards or so in front of us, the beach was well lit with many torches and Walakea stood there with a great many of his people. The light of the torches flickered over the incoming waves and in the distance, I could make out the dim outline of the island of the Deep Ones. Suddenly, Eliot took my arm in an almost-painful grasp and hissed a warning. He inclined his chin toward the crowd on the beach and, for a moment, I did not see what he was attempting to point out to me. Then it was my turn to stiffen as I saw Captain Marsh step out from behind one of the warriors and take a place beside Walakea. The shaman nudged us and indicated we look out to sea.

At first, I thought he meant for us to observe the island in the distance then, as my eyes adjusted to the weak torchlight, I saw that there was something else out in the water between us and the island. It was a jagged log or something that thrust itself a good six feet from the surface of the water. There was an irregularity upon it that I suddenly saw move.

“It is that native prisoner the Captain gave to Walakea yesterday,” whispered Eliot in my ear. “They got him tied to that log. They intend the poor creature to drown in the incoming tide.”

Unfamiliar stars began to twinkle overhead and a dull glow was all that was left of the setting sun in the west. All was silent except for the lapping waves when Walakea began intoning a guttural prayer. Soon, his followers began to join in. There was a disturbance on the surface of the water a little distance from the bound native. I tried to focus my eyes upon it, but failed to see what was happening in detail. I thank God to this day that I was not successful! Slowly, the disturbance grew in violence until the captive seized his struggles in momentary confusion. Then the movement halted and all was calm once more. I had turned a moment to ask about the phenomenon of Eliot when a blood-curdling scream pierced the gathering gloom. My head shot around in a flash as I could see the captive struggling mightily against his bonds, to no effect. All the time his screams continued, melding with the droning chant of the group on shore. Then, if possible, the man’s screams became even more shrill as his body seemed to stiffen. I saw something break the surface of the water around the native’s legs. It slid slowly upward, its hide glistening wetly in the torchlight. I watched transfixed as the thing inched its way ever higher, now to the man’s thighs, now his waist. It seemed in that concealing gloom that it was a giant slug as its movement suggested an arching and contracting to help pull its bulk along.

The screams continued until they seemed to become a part of the universe, a natural noise like that of the wind or the surf. Then the gelatinous mass seemed to begin to tug, to drag its massive weight downward. The native’s bonds snapped with a sound that was clearly heard even over his screams as his body began to slide downward into the water. By then, his mind must have been completely emptied of rational thought by the horror that had hold of him. I gulped heavily and breathed, I think, for the first time since the screams began. Another snap and the native, one arm flailing, slid beneath the waves as his screams bubbled into silence. The only evidence of the horrid scene was a shiny slick left upon the upright log. Dimly, I heard the chanting die out and the crowd turn back toward the village. I do not know how long it was before I was shaken by Eliot and pulled back along that path to the shaman’s hut, but I remember watching the first mate working frantically through the rest of the night with the shaman’s inadequate tools to reproduce the Old Ones’ signs on a few smooth stones. The shaman’s ironic chuckling, tinged with not a bit of madness, shall remain with me the rest of my days.