“So let’s get it done,” said Mark, a little distracted by the thoughts evoked by the eel man’s proximity.
“Oh, and one other thing,” said Laura brightly. “We’ll work images of Mark and me into a lot of the ads. We’ll be wrapped around glyphs of love and trust and acceptance, you see. That way those government pigs will be primed to pardon our so-called crimes. In case we, uh, ever want to go home.”
“We will be mailing our press-kits to whomever you suggest,” said Ola smoothly.
The quartet worked congenially all that day in the mould-lit cavern. Elver wasn’t a bad guy, for being an immortal subaqueous demigod who communicated via pictures on his flesh.
Around tea time they took a break, and Ola fetched them a picnic basket of wine, berries, bread, and smoked eel-meat, along with a blanket to make it more comfortable on the stony edge of the underground lake.
As he lay resting from the repast, idly dreaming up still grander plans, Mark noticed one of Elver’s tendrils snaking across the cloth to alight on Laura’s leg. Laura sighed and smiled, shifting onto her back. Ola was watching too, and batting her eyes. Mark felt himself slipping into the same erotic intoxication that had possessed him the night before. He turned to look at the ålefisk man.
Although Elver possessed no precise human countenance, Mark could detect what passed for a smile in an eel.
THE HPL COMMONPLACE BOOK
11 Odd nocturnal ritual. Beasts dance and march to musick. [x]
Dancing with Your Familiar: A Manual for Witches and Warlocks is requisite reading for any lonely practitioner of the black arts. No longer need the hideously deformed sorcerer, mage, crone or necromancer lack for a date on a Saturday evening, when all the other villagers, even the hybrid merpeople, are cavorting at the local dance or ritual invocation. A simple transformation spell turns your hellish cat, bat, owl, or hound into an alluring human companion of either gender, fit to whisk about the dance floor as the envy of all. No need to make banal chit-chat with your terpsichorean partner either, so long as you remember to keep a pocketful of your familiar’s favourite treats. Although those coastal wizards who favour seal familiars are advised to try dried kelp rather than raw fish, if they wish to remain socially acceptable.
24 Dunsany—Go-By Street
Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years.
The Michelin Guide to the Ruined Cities of Futurity is a must-buy companion for travellers in the astral realms. Whether the spectral tourist wishes to discover the best spot for ghoulish cemetery snacks, the most well-preserved library of mind-shattering tomes, or the café tres chic where ghosts of the beau monde endlessly replay their assignations, this volume has all the answers for a variety of cities across many dimensions. Be sure to check out their sidebars on how much to tip skeleton staffers and where to purchase the dustiest cerements.
51 Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye.
Martha Stewart’s Handbook of Phantom Gardening is calculated to let even the rankest amateur produce a soul-curdling display of teratogenic horrors that will keep the whole neighbourhood awake and shivering beneath their beds by night. With the aid of special seeds and tools (available quite reasonably from Martha’s own catalogue), plus a set of prisms designed to impart special quickening qualities to moonlight, the beginning occult horticulturist will soon be able to harvest a fine crop of gruesome vegetal nightmares. Share the bounty with your neighbours, and they’ll never steal your more conventional produce such as apples or tomatoes again!
98 Hideous old house on steep city hillside—Bowen St.—beckons in the night—black windows—horror unnam’d—cold touch and voice—the welcome of the dead.
Selling Your Shunned House: A Realtor’s Guide will help even the most inexperienced real estate salesman unload—at a good profit—that cursed property in a jiffy! The writer is an expert of long standing, having once sold Charles Dexter Ward’s home with the original malign inhabitant still in it! Tips on dealing with interdimensional cracks in the spacetime continuum or countervailing claims by Elder Gods, evicting undead tenants, and placating the residents of trespassed burial grounds will give confidence to any agent. This tome does not neglect arcane rituals such as burying a statue of Cthulhu upside-down on the property to invoke his aid. A complex discussion on what to do if your client is eaten before the deal can be sealed concludes the book.
PROFESSOR FLUVIUS’S PALACE OF MANY WATERS
I awoke in a soft, damp bed, atop the covers, not knowing my name.
A standing man hovered solicitously over me. His genial face, with wine-dark eyes, reminded me of someone I thought I should know. Thick white wavy locks cascaded to his shoulders. A Van Dyke beard of equal snowiness did little to conceal his jovial, ebullient expression. Yet despite this arctic peltage, his unlined face and clean limbs radiated a youthful vitality.
“Ah, Charlene, you’re with us now! Splendid! We have much to do.”
My name was Charlene then. That seemed right.
The man announced, “I am Professor Fluvius. Can you stand?”
“I think so….” Professor Fluvius placed a hand on my shoulder, and a sudden access of galvanic spirits coursed through me. “Why, certainly, I can stand!”
In one fluid movement I came to my bare feet on the warm wooden floorboards. I was wearing an unadorned white samite smock, the hem of which hung to just below my knees. A balmy wind blowing in through an open window, past lazily twitching gauzy curtains, stirred my robe and conveyed to me certain bodily sensations indicating that undergarments of any sort appeared to be lacking in my wardrobe. But the clement summer atmosphere certainly did not require such.
Professor Fluvius, I noted now, was dressed entirely in aquamarine blue, from long-tailed coat to spats. He took my hand as a favourite uncle might, and again I felt a surge of vigour through my cells.
“Let me introduce you to the other ladies first.”
We stepped forward toward the door leading from the single room, which appeared to be a guest bedchamber of a quality sort.
Looking back at the bed where I had awakened to myself for the first time, I saw a long slim twisting tendril of bright green water weed adorning the damp duvet.
The carpeted corridor beyond that room hosted a dozen other doors, each bearing a brass number. Professor Fluvius and I crossed diagonally to Number 205.
“You rejoined us in my own modest quarters, Charlene. All quite proper, I assure you. But just across the corridor here, I have chartered an entire suite for you and your peers.”
Professor Fluvius knocked, then cracked the door of 205 wide without awaiting a response.
Inside, draped languorously across an assortment of well-upholstered chairs and divans, six smiling women calmly awaited our arrival; plainly, they had been expecting us. Exhibiting a variety of beautiful physiognamies of mixed ethnicities, they all wore simple shifts identical to mine, and remained similarly unshod.
I caught my own reflection then in a canted cheval glass, and was perhaps immoderately pleased to find myself wholly a match to my sisters in terms of mortal beauty.