And so Azathoth the Ultimate, Lord of All Things, touched down upon planet Earth without a host to contain its splendor. PA systems across the grounds of Mercatilly ripped to life to announce the God’s arrival, but their crackly rendition of the Canticle of the Hunter was immediately trumped by the glorious sound emanating from the fires of Azathoth’s own eternal furnace — fishermen on trawling boats up to fifty miles away were stunned in their sleep, and altered.
Azathoth tucked Hyperon Talta between its many nests of luminous eyes and galloped northward into the night, leaving brilliant green aurorae burning in its wake.
The Church of the Holy Star wept, for we had been abandoned. But by the grace of St. Sasha we picked ourselves up, and just as she had chased the gold medallion we chased Azathoth the Ultimate, following the trail of skeletonized human wreckage. For glory and grandeur, we will chase forever.
We believe that we will win.
Lois H. Gresh
Lois H. Gresh’s inspiration for “In the Sacred Cave” came from a museum visit where she saw “thousands of Inca clay pots representing all realms of life, death, and whatever lies beyond death. To the ancients, these realms were intertwined, and one could communicate with and perform actions with beings in these other realms. What came before the ancient Incas? Could they have been unknown Old Ones, and their realms unknown times and spaces? Why would human life matter in such a vast multi-dimensional context? Lois pondered these ideas while in Peru, where she wrote “In the Sacred Cave.”
Gresh is the New York Times best-selling and USA Today best-selling author of twenty-nine books and sixty-five stories. Look for her trilogy of Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes thrillers coming soon from Titan Books. Her latest book is collection Cult of the Dead and Other Weird and Lovecraftian Tales (Hippocompus), and she recently edited Innsmouth Nightmare and Dark Fusions (both for PS Publishing). She has weird stories in eighteen recently released anthologies, including, Dreams From the Witch House, New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird, Black Wings III, Gothic Lovecraft, That is Not Dead, Dark Phantastique, Mountain Walked, Madness of Cthulhu, Searchers After Horror, Expiration Date, Black Wings IV, Eldritch Chrome, Summer of Lovecraft, Mark of the Beast, and more.
In the Sacred Cave
Sky so brown, like rusty iron. Tarnished clouds.
Never anything to do here, just listen to the insects buzz and the world groan.
Chicya can’t spend another day here, she just can’t.
Far below, the river thrashes as if trying to punch its way through the mountains. Nearby, her alpaca dips its head, and teeth rip the scabby ichu from the ground.
Chicya swishes lime around in her mouth, and it mingles with mashed coca leaves. The mountain seems to tremble with her.
The air vibrates slightly. A vehicle rattles.
She scrabbles to the edge of the terrace and cranes her neck over Orq’o Wichay, the sacred mountain of her ancestors. Wriggling down the opposite mountain to the river is the Owambaye pass, known only to the indigenous Inca, never to the Spanish or those of mixed heritage. A pickup truck rumbles around a boulder and totters on the edge of the Owambaye where it hangs a thousand meters over the water.
Chicya blinks to keep colors from swirling before her eyes. What’s a truck doing here? They never come this far into the Peruvian mountains.
Should she warn the elders?
No one will believe her. They always say she’s loco, born under a dark moon.
The truck vanishes around a bend, and perhaps she hallucinated the whole thing. Chicya hangs her head, and the black mood settles over her. If only I had enough nerve, she thinks, I’d throw myself off the mountain and hit bottom, crushed to dust, and let the river heave me downstream.
If only . . .
The birds cry. The flowers, once drenched in honey, smell stale. The clouds part, only for a moment, and exhale a strand of sunlight before closing again.
Time creeps into the distance.
Suddenly an animal screams, and Chicya’s alpaca freezes, head high, drip of vegetation hanging from its mouth. Screams rise and echo and expand in bands of air that puff up to where Chicya slumps on her terrace.
She leaps up, and a wave of dizziness hits. She almost falls but staggers back, careful not to slip off the ledge, for now is not her time. She doesn’t have enough nerve. Not yet.
The screams are odd. They’re not from any mountain creature she knows. Nor are they the shrieks of people, a sound she knows well from childhood. The Shining Path killers are long gone, sequestered in the Amazon now — and let them have their cocaine trade, for who needs it, not the pure Inca, no, not those of us who still chew the leaf.
Chicya scrambles up the grass to the plateau and stumbles through the woods. A chinchilla peeks from beneath yellow flowers that spread like stars across the boulders. The blood-colored bark of the paper tree exfoliates, and the twisted limbs grab at her and branches rake her hair. Roots crack through the earth and trip her, and she lurches but regains her footing and scuttles down the trail to the bottom of the mountain. She has to catch her breath, let her heart slow. She leans, hands on knees, and stares at the ground. It’s red from clay, red from blood.
The scent of grilled meat floats past, and she lifts her head. She hasn’t eaten in two days.
She scoots past the lapacho trees to the clearing by the village, then stops. What good will it do to go there? This is where she was found as a baby. Shining Path killed her parents, the villagers said. Sixteen years ago they died. They rescued her, but the villagers have always hated Chicya. “A drain on our resources,” they say, and “you eat our food and live nowhere, and all you do for us is nothing.”
Yes, that’s what she is, nothing, and she knows it. A freak of nature, alone, as adrift as the clouds.
In the clearing, a lopsided van crouches. Its rear lights are bashed, the tires deflated. Dents bruise the back and the side panel, where red letters spell TRUE SACRED VALLEY. The words look all drippy as if an idiot smeared them on with a brush.
Next to the van is the pickup truck. Up close, it doesn’t look so good. Rust scabs the body like a pox. The paint is a color that reminds Chicya of rat skin. Steam rises from three bowls on the open cargo bed. Stew. Grilled alpaca with tomato, cilantro, and lime.
Near the vehicles, dozens of villagers huddle in a tight knot. They’re all indigenous Inca, just like Chicya, but they’ve lost their way. They no longer follow the three main Inca laws. They lie and gossip about each other. They’re too lazy to rise up and fight the oppressive government. And every one of them would steal from his own mother if given half a chance.