I have been reading the Necronomicon a lot, these empty days, waiting for the nights to come and the Voices to begin.
I think I will move back to Uncle Hiram's house in Durnham Beach soon. After all, it belongs to me, now.
It, too, is part of the Winfield heritance.
THIS brief story, which first appeared in Crypt of Cthulhu #56 (Roodmas 1988), is a crossover between two Lin Carter series, both involving the Cthulhu Mythos. The hero—not just a protagonist this time, but a hero—is Dr. Anton Zarnak, Lin’s version of Scabury Quinn’s occult detective Jules de Grandin, who is even mentioned by name in this story (just as Lin’s Prince Zarkon, his Doc Savage analog, hobnobbed with most of the old pulp heroes at one time or another). Zarnak made his initial appearance in Lin’s first attempt at a novella, Curse of the Black Pbaraoh (which will appear in the forthcoming Chaosium collection The Nyarlathotep Cycle), where, for all his occult powers and accomplishments, he somehow manages to come across as a colorless figure. Decades later Career returned to Dr. Zarnak, sprucing him up considerably for a pair of brief tales, the one you are about to read here and “Dead of Night” (which appeared in The Book of Iod). I have, by the way, undertaken co continue Zarnak’s adventures, one of which appears in the new Chaosium edition of Edward Paul Berglund’s The Disciples of Cthulhu. Another appears in this collection.
The other Carter series hybridized here is, of course, the Xothic cycle. Various familiar names and associations reappear here. In fact, “Perchance to Dream” resembles an epitome of the whole Xothic series thus far: Zarnak’s client is named Winfield, yet he seems to have no connection with the Winfields in “The Winfield Heritance.” His inherited collection of South Pacific artifacts comes not from the Copeland bequest, nor even from Captain Hoag, but from his own sea-faring Hoag analog, Grandfather Winfield. He is plagued by a series of maddening dreams quite similar to those of Henry Stephenson Blaine (and Bryant Hoskins—see below). And the method Zarnak uses to solve Winfield’s problem is the same Gordian strategy used by the unfortunate Hodgkins in "The Horror in the Gallery.” In this story Lin has used his own previous Mythos stories as a motif pool in precisely the same way he elsewhere uses the work of Lovecraft and Derleth.
Finally, some readers may need to be informed that Zarnak’s location on seedy River Street derives directly from the adventures of Robert E. Howard's detective Steve Harrison. The reference to Clithanus is a tip of the turban to August Derleth, who invented this mad monk and his revelations for a set of early Mythos tales (which are planned for inclusion in the forthcoming collection of Derleth’s Cthulhu Mythos tales, In Lovcraft's Shadow, edited by Joe Wrzos and distributed by Arkhum House).
Perchance to Dream
by Lin Carter
THE cab drove past Fourteenth Street and continued south, driving between Chinatown and the river. This part of town was shadowy and disreputable—the streets grew narrow, crooked, the corner lamps dim, the shadows deeper, the people fewer and more furtive. There were Levantines and Turks, Portuguese, Lascars: the gutter-scrapings of half a hundred Eastern ports. The shops became smaller and their signs and windows bore inscriptions in queer Oriental letters. Heaven alone knew what crimes were plotted in these black alleys, these crumbling tenements ....
Of all these matters, Parker Winfield was all too uncomfortably aware, and with every block his taxi bore him deeper into a tangled maze of decaying slums, his discomfiture grew. Damn that nosy Muriel van Velt for goading him into making the appointment, which made him come into parts of the city that he had always instinctively avoided, far from the luxurious clubs and fashionable, expensive restaurants that were his usual habitat! And damn the mystery man, this seeker into strange lore and forbidden places, for daring to dwell in such a hellish neighborhood!
Fog was drifting in from the riverfront as the cab drew up to the yawning mouth of one black alley, whose gloom was feebly dispelled by a lone lamp that shone above a doorway off Levant Street.
"That's it, buddy, Number Thirteen China Alley," announced the cab driver. Parker peered at the narrow cobbled way with strong emotions of misgiving.
"You’re quite sure?" he quavered. The driver nodded curtly.
“Sure. Number Thirteen China Alley, between River Street and Levant. That’ll be six seventy-five."
Winfield tossed him a crisp ten-dollar bill and got out of the cab.
“How the hell do I get back?" he demanded petulantly. The driver shrugged and pressed a card into his hand.
"Call the garage—if they got a phone in there,” he muttered, with a dubious glance at the one dim light that glowed above the door. Then he drove off, mist swirling in gray tendrils in his wake. Hesitantly, Parker Winfield drew his expensive topcoat more closely about him to ward off the damp and chill and entered the alley’s yawning mouth. The glow of a streetlight illuminated his features, revealing a spoiled young man with lines of dissipation under watery eyes and a weak, indecisive mouth which a costly Bermuda tan did little to disguise.
The house was narrow and small, two stories in height, shouldered to either side by taller brick tenements. The door, surprisingly, was a heavy slab of polished oak with stout hinges. A small brass plaque above the doorbell bore the single word Zarnak. The visitor thumbed the bell and waited, wishing he had never let Muriel van Velt talk him into coming.
The door was opened by a tall man in a turban, lean and rangy, his aquiline features swarthy, hawk-like. Keen eyes sharp as dagger points scrutinized Winfield from top to toe.
"You will be Mr. Winfield," said the turbaned man in flawless English. "Pray enter; the sahib is expecting you."
As the door was shut behind him and steel bolts slid home, Winfield gave the servant his hat and topcoat. staring about him with vague astonishment. He had not known quite what to expect, but certainly nothing like this. The small foyer bore an immense bronze incense burner on a teakwood stand; Tibetan scroll paintings hung on walls covered with silk brocade; lush Persian carpets were soft underfoot.
He was ushered into a small study.
"Pray make yourself comfortable, sir; the sahib will attend you in one moment,” said the Indian servant. Left alone, Winfield glanced with dazed eyes about the room. Furniture, evidently of antique workmanship, stood here and there, all of heavy, polished teak inlaid with ivory or mother of pearl. Damask-hung walls displayed illuminated cabinets crowded with curiosities, among them Etruscan, Hittite, Egyptian, Greek artifacts. The carpeting underfoot was ancient Ispahan, faded bur still glorious. A subtle fragrance sweetened the air, rising in lazy blue whorls from the grinning jaws of a brass idol.
Bookshelves held hundreds of scholarly looking tomes; Winfield scanned them absently but they were in Latin, German, French, with titles unknown to him—Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Livre d'Ivonis, Cultes des Goules.