For, notwithstanding his cruelty, which was beyond words, Zar-thule was no fool. He knew him that his wolves must rest before a whelming, that if the treasures of the House of Cthulhu were truly such as he imagined them in his mind’s eye—then that they must likewise be well guarded by fighting men who would not give up easily. And his reavers were fatigued even as Zar-thule himself, so that he rested them all down behind the painted bucklers lining the decks and furled him up the great dragon-dyed sails and set a watch that in the middle of the night he might be roused and rousing in turn the men of his twenty ships in unto and sack the island of Arlyeh.
Far had Zar-thule’s reavers rowed before the fair winds found them, aye, far from the rape of Yaht-Haal, the Silver City at the edge of the frostlands. Their provisions were all but eaten, their swords all oceanrot in rusting sheaths; but now they ate them all of their remaining regimen and drank them of the liquors thereof and cleansed and sharpened their dire blades before taking themselves into the arms of Shoosh, Goddess of the Still Slumbers. They well knew them one and all that soon they will be at the sack, each for himself and loot to that sword’s wielder whose blade drank long and deep.
And Zar-thule had promised them great treasures, aye, even great treasures from the House of Cthulhu, for back there in the sacked and seared city at the edge of the frostlands he had heard it from the bubbling and anguished lips of Voth Vehm the name of the so-called “forbidden” isle of Arlyeh. Voth Vehm, in the throes of terrible tortures, had called out the name of his brother-priest, Hath Vehm, who guarded the House of Cthulhu in Arlyeh. And too Voth Vehm had answered even in the hour of his dying to Zar-thule’s additional tortures; crying out that Arlyeh was indeed forbidden and held in thrall by the sleeping but yet dark and terrible god Cthulhu, the gate to whose House his brother-priest guarded.
Then had Zar-thule reasoned that Arlyeh must contain riches indeed, for he knew it was not meet that brother-priests betray one another; and aye, surely had Voth Vehm spoken exceedingly fearfully of this dark and terrible god Cthulhu that he might thus divert Zar-thule’s avarice from the ocean sanctuary of his brother-priest, Hath Vehm. Thus reckoned Zar-thule, even brooding on the dead and disfigured hierophant’s words, until he bethought him to leave the sacked city. Then, with the flames leaping brightly and reflected in his red wake, Zar-thule put to sea in his dragonships; aye, even did he put himself to sea, all loaded down with the silver booty, in search of Arlyeh and the treasures of the House of Cthulhu. And thus came he to this place.
Shortly before the midnight hour, the watch roused Zar-thule up from the arms of Shoosh, aye, and all the freshened men of the dragonships; and then beneath Gleeth the blind Moon Gods pitted silver face, seeing that the wind had fallen, they muffled their oars and dipped them deep and so closed in with the shoreline. A dozen fathoms from beaching, out rang Zar-thule’s plunder cry, and his drummers took up a stern and steady beat by which the trained but yet rampageous reavers might advance to the sack.
Came the scrape of keel on grit, and down from his dragon’s head leapt Zar-thule to the sullen shallow waters, and all his captains and men, to wade ashore and stride the night-black strand and wave their swords—and all for naught! Lo, the island stood quiet and still and seemingly untended . . .
Only now did the Sacker of Cities take note of this isle’s truly awesome aspect. Black piles of tumbled masonry, festooned with weeds from the tides, rose up from the dark wet sand, and there seemed inherent in these gaunt and immemorial relics a foreboding not alone of bygone times; great crabs scuttled in and about the archaic ruins and gazed with stalked ruby eyes upon the intruders; even the small waves broke with an eerie hush, hush, hush upon the sand and pebbles and primordial exuviae of crumbled yet seemingly sentient towers and tabernacles. The drummers faltered and paused and silence reigned.
Now many of them among these reavers recognized rare gods and supported strange superstitions, and Zar-thule knew this and had no liking for their silence. It was a silence that might yet yield mutiny!
“Hah!” quoth he, who worshipped neither god nor demon nor yet lent ears to the gaunts of night: “See—the guards have known of our coming and have fled to the far side of the island—or perhaps they gather rank at the House of Cthulhu.” So saying he formed him up his men into a body and advanced into the island.
And as they marched they passed him by the paleolithic piles not yet ocean-sundered, striding through silent streets whose fantastic facades gave back the beat of the drummers in a strangely muted monotone.
And lo, mummied faces of coeval antiquity seemed to leer from the empty and oddly-angled towers and craggy spires; fleet ghouls that flitted from shadow to shadow apace with the marching men, until some of those hardened grew sore afraid and begged them of Zar-thule: “Master, let us get us gone from here, for it appears that there is no treasure, and this place is like unto no other; and that it stinks of death, aye even of death and of them that walk the shadowlands.”
But Zar-thule rounded on one who stood close to him muttering thus, crying: “Coward!—out on you!” Whereupon he lifted up his sword and cleft the trembling reaver in two parts, so that the sundered man screamed once before falling with twin thuds to the black earth. But now Zar-thule perceived that indeed that many of his men were sore afraid, and so he had him torches lighted and brought up and they pressed on into the island.
There, beyond low dark hills, they came to a great gathering of queerly carved and monolithic edifices, all of the same strange design comprising confused angles and surfaces and all with the stench of the pit, aye, even the fetor of the very pit about them. And in the center of these malodorous megaliths there stood the greatest tower of them all, a massive menhir that loomed and leaned windowless to a great height and about which at its base squat pedestals bore likenesses of blackly carven krackens of terrifying aspect.
“Hah!” quoth Zar-thule. “Plainly is this the House of Cthulhu; and see its guards and priests have fled them all before us to escape the reaving!
But a tremulous voice, old and mazed, answered from the shadows at the base of one great pedestal, saying, “No one has fled, O reaver, for there are none here to flee, save me—and I cannot flee for I guard the gate against those who may utter The Words.”
At the sound of this old voice in the stillness, all the reavers started and peered nervously about at the leaping torch-cast shadows, but one stout captain stepped forward to drag from out of the dark an old, old man—and lo, all and all they fell back at once seeing the mien of this mage. For he bore upon his face and hands, aye, and upon all visible parts of him, a gray and furry lichen that seemed to crawl upon him even as he stood crooked and trembled in his great age.
‘Who are you?” demanded Zar-thule, aghast at the sight of so hideous a spectacle of afflicted infirmity; even Zar-thule, aghast . . .
“I am Hath Vehm, brother-priest of Veth Vehm who serves the gods in the temples of Yaht-Haal the Silver City. I am Hath Vehm, Keeper of the Gate at the House of Cthulhu, and I warn you that it is forbidden to touch me.” He gloomed with rheumy eyes at the captain who held him until that raider took away his hands.