That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
No sooner had Hamilton ceased these utterly alien mouthings and the paradoxical couplet that completed them, and while yet the green glow continued to dim and fade, than he spoke again, this time all in recognizable English. Such was his murmured modulation and deliberate spacing of the spoken sequences that his hidden brother immediately recognized the following as a translation of what had gone before:
“Oh, Great Cthulhu, dreaming in R’lyeh,
Thy priest offers up this sacrifice,
That thy coming be soon
And that of thy kindred dreamers.
I am thy priest and adore thee…”
It was only then that the full horror of what he had seen—the cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a man by either some monstrous occult device or a foreign science beyond his knowledge—finally went home to Anderson Tharpe, and barely managing to stifle the hysterical babble he felt welling in his throat, he took an involuntary step backwards…to collide loudly with a cage of great bats.
Three things happened then in rapid succession before Anderson could gather his wits to flee. All trace of the green glow vanished in an instant, throwing the tent once more into complete darkness; then in contrast, confusing the elder brother, the bright interior lights blinked on; finally, as he sought to recover from his confusion, Hamilton appeared through the partition’s canvas door, his eyes blazing in a face contorted in fury!
“You!” Hamilton spat, striding to Anderson’s side and catching him fiercely by the collar of his dressing-gown. “How much have you seen?”
Anderson twisted free and backed away. “I…I saw it all, but I had guessed as much some time ago. Murder—and you my brother!”
“Save your sanctimony,” Hamilton sneered. “If you’ve known so much for so long, then you’re as much a murderer as I am! And anyway”—his eyes seemed visibly to glaze and take on a faraway look—“it wasn’t murder, not as you understand it.”
“Of course not.” Now it was Anderson’s turn to sneer. “It was a—a ‘sacrifice’—to this so-called ‘god’ of yours, Great Cthulhu! And were the others all sacrifices, too?”
“All of them,” Hamilton answered with a nod, automatically, as in a trance.
“Oh? And where’s the money?”
“Money?” The faraway look went out of the younger Tharpe’s eyes immediately. “What money?”
Anderson saw that this was no bluff; his brother’s motive had not been personal gain, at least not in a monetary sense. Which in turn meant—
Had those rumours and unfriendly whispers heard about the stalls and sideshows—those hints of a looming madness in his brother—had they been more than mere guesswork, then? Surely he would have known. As if in answer to his unspoken question, Hamilton spoke again—and listening to him Anderson believed he had his answer:
“You’re the same as all the others, Anderson—you can’t see beyond the length of your greedy nose. Money? Pah! You think that They are interested in wealth? They are not; neither am I. They have a wealth of aeons behind Them; the future is Theirs…” Again his eyes seemed to glaze over.
“Them? Who do you mean?” Anderson asked, frowning and backing farther away.
“Cthulhu and the others. Cthulhu and the Deep Ones, and Their brothers and kin forever dreaming in the vast vaults beneath. “Iä, R’lyeh, Cthulhu fhtagn!”
“You’re quite—mad!”
“You think so?”Hamilton quickly followed after him, pushing his face uncomfortably close. “I’m mad, am I? Well, perhaps, but I’ll tell you something: when you and the others like you are reduced to mere cattle, before the Earth is cleared off of life as you know it, a trusted handful of priests will guard the herds for Them—and I shall be a priest among priests, appointed to the service of Great Cthulhu Himself!”His eyes burned feverishly.
Now Anderson was certain of his brother’s madness, but even so he could see a way to profit from it. “Hamilton,” he said, after a moment’s thought, “worship whichever gods you like and aspire to whichever priesthood—but don’t you see we have to live? There could be good money in this for both of us. If only—”
“No!” Hamilton hissed. “To worship Cthulhu is enough. Indeed, it is all! That, in there”—he jerked his head, indicating the enclosed area behind him—“is His temple. To offer up sacrifices while yet thinking of oneself would be blasphemous, and when He comes I shall not be found wanting!” His eyes went wide and he trembled.
“You don’t know Him, Anderson. He is awful, awesome, a monster, a god! He is sunken now, drowned and dead in deep R’lyeh, but His death is a sleeping death and He will awaken. When the stars are right we chosen ones will answer the Call of Cthulhu, and R’lyeh will rise up again to astound a reeling universe. Why, even the Gorgons were His priestesses in the old world! And you talk to me of money.”Again he sneered, but now his madness had a firm grip on him and the sneer soon turned to a crafty smile.
“And you’re helpless to do anything, Anderson, for if you breathe a word I’ll swear you were in on it—that you helped me from the start! And as for bodies, why, there are none. They are gone to dreaming Cthulhu, through the light He sends me when I cry out to Him in my darkness. So you see, nothing could ever be proved…”
“Perhaps not, but I don’t think it would take much to have you, well, put away!” Anderson quietly answered.
The barb went straight home. A look of terror crossed Hamilton’s face and, plainly aware of his own mental infirmity, he visibly paled.
“Put me away? But you wouldn’t. If you did, I wouldn’t be able to worship, to sacrifice, and—”
“But there’s no need to worry about it,”Anderson cut him off. “ I won’t have you put away. Just see things my way, show me how you dissolve them in that green light of yours—I mean, in, er, dreaming Cthulhu’s light—and then we’ll carry on as before, except that there’ll be money…”
“No, Anderson,” the other refused almost gently, “it can’t work like that. You could never believe—not even if I showed you proof of my priesthood, which hides beneath this false head of hair that I’m obliged to wear, the very Mark of Cthulhu—and I can’t worship as you suggest. I’m sorry.” There was an insane sadness in his face as he drew out a long knife from its sheath inside his jacket. “I use this when they’re stronger than me,” he explained, “and when they’re liable to fight. Cthulhu doesn’t care for it much because he likes them alive initially and whole, but—” His knife hand flashed up and down.
Only Anderson’s speed saved him, for he turned quickly to one side as the blade flashed down toward his breast. Then their wrists were locked and they staggered to and fro, Hamilton frothing at the mouth and trying to bite, while Anderson grimly struggled for dear life. The madman seemed to have the strength of three normal men, and soon they fell to the ground, a thrashing heap that rolled blindly in through the flap of the canvas door to Hamilton’s “temple”.
There it was that finally the younger brother’s toupee came away from his head in the silent struggle—and in a burst of strength engendered of sheer loathing Anderson managed to turn the knife inward and drive it to the madman’s heart. He was quick then to be on his feet and away from the thing that now lay twitching out its life upon the sawdust floor—the thing that had been his brother—which now, where the top of Hamilton’s head had been, wore a cap of writhing white worms of finger thickness, like some monstrous sea-anemone sucking vampirishly at the still-living brain!