Best Mythos Tales, Volume Two
Brian Lumley
Haggopian & Other Stories: Best Mythos Tales, Volume Two
Copyright © 2008
by Brian Lumley. All rights reserved.
Dust jacket and interior artwork Copyright © 2008
by Bob Eggleton. All rights reserved.
Interior design Copyright © 2008
by Desert Isle Design, LLC. All rights reserved.
Electronic Edition
ISBN 9781596064270
Subterranean Press
PO Box 190106
Burton, MI 48519
www.SubterraneanPress.com
“The Caller of The Black,” from the collection of the same name, Arkham House, 1971.
“Haggopian,” from F&SF No. 265, 1973.
“Cement Surroundings,” from Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Arkham House, 1969.
“The House of Cthulhu,” from Whispers No. 1, 1973.
“The Night Sea-Maid Went Down,” from The Caller of The Black, Arkham House, 1971.
“Name and Number,” from Kadath, Vol. 2 No. 1, July 1982.
“Recognition,” from Weirdbook No. 15, 1981.
“Curse of the Golden Guardians,” from The Compleat Khash, Vol. 1, Weirdbook Press, 1991. “Aunt Hester,” from The Satyr’s Head, Corgi, 1975.
“The Kiss of Bugg-Shash,” from Cthulhu 3, Spectre Press, 1978.
“De Marigny’s Clock,” from The Caller of The Black, Arkham House, 1971.
“Mylakhrion the Immortal,” from Fantasy Tales, Vol. 1 No. 1, 1977.
“The Sister City,” from Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Arkham House, 1969.
“What Dark God?” from Nameless Places, Arkham House, 1975.
“The Statement of Henry Worthy,” from The Horror at Oakdeene, Arkham House, 1977.
“Dagon’s Bell,” from Weirdbook 23/24, 1988.
“The Thing from the Blasted Heath,” from The Caller of The Black, Arkham House, 1971.
“Dylath-Leen,” from The Caller of The Black, 1971.
“The Mirror of Nitocris,” from The Caller of The Black, 1971.
“The Second Wish,” from New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Arkham House, 1980.
“The Hymn,” from HPL’s Magazine of Horror No. 3, 2006.
“Synchronicity or Something,” from the chapbook of the same name, Dagon Press, 1989.
“The Black Recalled,” from the World Fantasy Convention Book, 1983.
“The Sorcerer’s Dream,” from Whispers 13/14, 1979.
CONTENTS
Foreword
The Caller of The Black
Haggopian
Cement Surroundings
The House of Cthulhu
The Night Sea-Maid Went Down
Name and Number
Recognition
Curse of the Golden Guardians
Aunt Hester
The Kiss of Bugg-Shash
De Marigny’s Clock
Mylakhrion the Immortal
The Sister City
What Dark God?
The Statement of Henry Worthy
Dagon’s Bell
The Thing from the Blasted Heath
Dylath-Leen
The Mirror of Nitocris
The Second Wish
The Hymn
Synchronicity or Something
The Black Recalled
The Sorcerer’s Dream
Dedication:
To the Memory of August Derleth
FOREWORD:
Notes on the Cthulhu Mythos,
August Derleth, and Arkham House
This book of short stories is presented as a companion volume to my Subterranean Press collection of Cthulhu Mythos novellas, and to repeat what I said in the introduction to that book, it isn’t my intention to offer any kind of in-depth definition of the Mythos here. That has already been done by too many others. Also, because it seems you’ve opted to read this book, I think I can be reasonably sure that you are already familiar with H. P. Lovecraft’s most enduring, most fascinating creation. (Well, at least he created its roots, since when the vast bulk of the Mythos—much like the gradually expanding acreage of diseased earth and vegetation around HPL’s “Blasted Heath”—just keeps on growing, though by no means as slowly!)
When they talk about the Mythos, most people automatically associate it with HPL. And rightly so, to a degree, insofar as Cthulhu was his creation…but the Mythos itself was not. It came into being when HPL’s friends—fellow authors with whom he regularly corresponded, certain revision clients, and others that he himself invited to build upon his literary foundations—when they began to contribute their own stories fashioned in the same vein. But it was not until August Derleth established Arkham House to immortalize Lovecraft, and set about publishing his own Lovecraftian pastiches and so-called “collaborations,” along with the Lovecraft-inspired works of other authors, that the more solid foundations of the Mythos were laid. Indeed, it was with Derleth’s remarkable landmark anthology, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos—the Arkham House volume that finally tied the ungainly thing together—that the first real cornerstone was set in place. For Derleth had collected together such an appropriate list of titles—some of which, because of their vague yet tantalizing similarities, themes and allusions, had puzzled and obsessed me when first I had read them as individual tales in this, that or the other magazine or anthology—that now in their entirety they loaned a semblance of order to the Mythos, making a generally acceptable sort of sense of everything.
The book was full of the stories of former correspondents and friends of HPL—such people as Derleth himself, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Robert Bloch, J. Vernon Shea and one or two others—along with more recent or relative newcomers to the Mythos, such as Ramsey Campbell, Colin Wilson, and myself. I found Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos an excellent read and Derleth’s choice of material first class…but then I would say that, wouldn’t I? For after all, this was the very first hardcover book in which a story of mine—two of them, in fact—had seen print.
Anyway, from an entirely personal point of view I believe that second only to Necroscope, my breakthrough book, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, was (probably) more important to me than any other volume; my reading copy has long since been thumbed close to death!
But where Derleth and Arkham House were concerned I wasn’t the first (or last) writer who would have his initial forays in fiction preserved in shining Holliston Black Novelex; no, not a bit of it! For Derleth had published Robert Bloch’s first collection, The Opener of the Way; and A. E. van Vogt’s first hardcover, Slan; even Ray Bradbury’s first book, Dark Carnival. And there were many others, and several still to come even after I, a relative late-comer, had made it onto the list.