I was in a long hall with a high vaulted ceiling that was supported by pillars of purest ebony; along both sides of this chamber were lined creatures of various nightmare shapes. Khnum the ram-headed was there, as was jackal-headed Anubis and Taueret the Mother, terrible in her obesity.
Leprous beings gibbered and leered, and cancerous things eyed me with malignity; through these ranks of amorphous and hellish creatures my body dragged itself against my will. Talons clawed at my arms and legs, and my stomach twisted with revulsion at the touch of diseased flesh. The air was filled with the sound of their titterings and screamings as they danced obscenely and capered around me in a blasphemous ritual of depravity; and at the far end of the hall was the most terrifying sight of all, that dread black colossus of my visions, the inhabitant of the palace, Nyarlathotep.
The Old One looked upon me intently, his gaze tearing at my soul and filling me with a horror so terrible that I screwed my eyes shut so as not to see that terrible visage of unnameable evil. Under that gaze my being began to melt away, as if it was being absorbed by some irresistible force. I was losing what little identity was left to me; my necromantic powers, which I now realized were as nothing compared to the powers of the inhabitant of this dark world, were stripped from me and scattered across the universe, never to be recovered.
Under that gaze my mind and soul were attacked from all sides by fear and loathing; I staggered as he tore at my being, peeling away my life layer by layer. Sheer desperation took hold of me, but I was powerless to fight, unable to hold back the irresistible force that overwhelmed me. Slowly something was drawn out of me, something insubstantial, but totally necessary to my future existence; I could do nothing, in my folly I had taken a step too many, and now I was paying the ultimate penalty. My vision clouded in a myopic haze; images and visions of my home and family swam before my eyes and then vanished as if they had never existed. And then, slowly at first, I felt myself melting, dissolving into nonexistence.
I rose upward, bodiless; above the heads of that nightmare throng I drifted, passing through the cold stone ceiling of the palace that was no obstacle to my progress, and out into the evil light of the planet. I was something less than alive, yet death had been made unavailable to me. The city spread out below me in a panoramic view of splendour and terror, and from that grim black edifice that was the palace of Nyarlathotep I saw a gigantic amorphous mass spreading over the whole metropolis. Slowly it radiated outward until all was hidden from sight, and when it had covered the whole landscape as far as my eyes could survey, it contracted to form once more the black colossus of my visions. Inwardly I shuddered, but as I rose ever higher, away from the city, the scene shrank to microscopic proportions and I viewed the spectacle with a more detached interest.
Gradually the land mass below me took on the appearance of a globe as I journeyed away from the planet and into the black depths of space. Hanging motionless, neither moving towards nor away from the realm of the Ancient One, I witnessed the last act in the drama that had unfolded before me. From the planet's surface there issued forth a beam of light or energy, travelling away from that world and into the starless night, voyaging, I knew, to the planet of my birth. Then all was still, and I was left totally alone in that universe beyond the stars.
My memories fade by the hour; soon I will remember nothing, soon I will be empty of all vestiges of humanity. And as I hang here, suspended in time and space as I shall be for all eternity, I feel something akin to contentment. I have peace here, a greater peace than the dead will ever know; but this peace is disturbed by one barely remembered thought, and I am glad that soon it will be put from my mind for ever. I do not remember how I know this, but I am more certain of it than of my own existence. Nyarlathotep no longer walks the surface of Sharnoth, he no longer holds court in his great black palace, for that beam of light that journeyed into the dark aether carried with it the scourge of mankind.
In a small dimly lighted attic room a body stirs and raises itself to its feet. His eyes burn like smouldering black coals, and across his face plays a dreadful enigmatic smile; and as he surveys the roofs of the city through the small dormer window, his arms rise in a gesture of triumph.
He has passed through the barriers set upon him by the Elder Gods; he is free, free to walk the earth once more, free to twist men's minds and enslave their souls. It was I who gave him his chance of escape, I, through my insane quest for power, supplied him with the means he needed for his return to earth.'
Nyarlathotep walks the earth in the guise of a man, for when he took my being and my memories he also took my physical aspect. My body now houses the immortal essence of Nyarlathotep the Terrible.
Than Curse the Darkness by DAVID DRAKE
What of unknown Africa? - H.P LOVECRAFT
The trees of the rain forest lowered huge and black above the village, dwarfing it and the group of men in its centre. The man being tied to the whipping post there was grey-skinned and underfed, panting with his struggles but no match for the pair of burly Forest Guards who held him. Ten more Guards, Baenga cannibals from far to the west near the mouth of the Congo, stood by with spears or Albini rifles. They joked and chattered and watched the huts, hoping the villagers would burst out to try to free their fellow. Then killing would be all right...
There was little chance of that. All the men healthy enough to work were in the forest, searching for more trees to slash in a parody of rubber gathering. The Law said that each adult male would bring four kilograms of latex a week to the agents of King Leopold; the Law did not say that the agents would teach the natives how to drain the sap without killing the trees it came from. When the trees died, the villagers would miss their quotas and die themselves, because that too was the Law -
though an unwritten one.
There were still many untouched villages farther up the river.
'If you cannot learn to be out in the forest working,' said a Baenga who finished knotting the victim to the post with a jerk that itself cut flesh, 'we can teach you not to lie down for many weeks.'
The Forest Guards wore no uniforms, but in the Congo Basin their good health and sneering pride marked them more surely than clothing could have. The pair who had tied the victim stepped back, nodding to their companion with the chicote. That one grinned, twitching the wooden handle to unfurl the ten-foot lash of square-cut hippopotamus hide. He had already measured the distance.
A naked seven-year-old slipped from the nearest hut. The askaris were turned to catch the expression on the victim's face at the first bite of the chicote, so they did not see the boy. His father jerked upright at the whipping post and screamed, 'Samba!' just as the feathery hiss-crack! of the whip opened an eight-inch cut beneath his shoulder blades.
Samba screamed also. He was small even for a forest child, spindly and monkey-faced. He was monkeyquick, too, darting among the Guards as they spun. Before anyone could grab him he had wrapped himself around the waist of the man with the whip.
'Wau? shouted the Guard in surprise and chopped down with the teak whip handle. The angle was awkward. One of his companions helped with a roundhouse swing of his Albini. The steel butt-plate thudded like a mallet on a tent stake, ripping off the boy's left ear and deforming the whole side of his skull. It did not tear him loose from the man he held. Two Forest Guards edged closer, holding their spears near the heads so as not to hit their fellow when they thrust.
The whipped man grunted. One of the chuckling riflemen turned in time to see him break away from the post. The rough cord had cut his wrists before it parted. Blood spattered as he took two steps and clubbed his hands against the whip-wielder's neck. The rifleman shot him through the body.