“This shape/form? sickens me. Thanks be there is not long to wait. There is difficulty in the fact that this form/body/shape? would not obey me at first, and I fear it may have alerted—(?—?) to some degree. Also, I have to hide/protect/conceal ? that of me which also came through with the transfer/journey/passage?
“I know the mind of (?—?) fares badly in the Deeps…and of course his eyes were ruined/destroyed? completely…
“Curse the water that quiets/subdues? Great (?)’s power. In these few times/periods? I have looked upon/seen/ observed? much and studied what I have seen and read—but I have had to gain such knowledge secretly. The mind-sendings/mental messages (telepathy?) from my kin/brothers? at (?—?) near that place which men call Devil—(?) were of little use to me, for the progress these beings/creatures? have made is fantastic in the deep times/moments/periods? since their (?) attack on those at Devil—(?).
“I have seen much and I know the time is not yet ripe for the great rising/coming? They have developed weapons of (?) power. We would risk/chance? defeat—and that must never be.
“But if (?????? they ???) turn their devices against themselves (??? bring ?) nation against nation (?? then ??) destructive/cataclysmic? war rivalling (name—possibly
Azathoth,
as in
Pnakotic Mss).
“The mind of (?—?) has broken under the strain of the deeps…It will now be necessary to contact my rightful shape in order to rebecome one/re-enter? it.
“Cthulhu?
(?) triumph (???) I am eager to return to my own shape/form/body? I do not like the way this brother—(the word brother implying falseness?) has looked at me…but he suspects nothing…”
There was more, much more, but I skipped over the vast majority of the translation’s remaining contents and finished by reading the last paragraph which, presumably, had been written in the diary shortly before Julian took himself off to London:
“(Date?)…six more (short periods of time?) to wait…Then the stars should be right/in order/positioned? and if all goes well the transfer can be performed/accomplished?”
That was all; but it was more than enough. That reference about my not “suspecting” anything, in connection with those same horrors which had been responsible for his first breakdown, was sufficient finally to convince me that my brother was seriously ill!
Taking the diary with me, I ran out of my room with one thought in my mind. Whatever Julian thought he was doing I had to stop him. Already his delvings constituted a terrible threat to his health, and who could say but that the next time a cure might not be possible? If he suffered a second attack, there was the monstrous possibility that he would remain permanently insane.
Immediately I started my frantic hammering, he opened the cellar door and I literally fell inside. I say I fell; indeed, I did—I fell from a sane world into a lunatic, alien, nightmare dimension totally outside any previous experience. As long as I live I shall never forget what I saw. The floor in the centre of the cellar had been cleared, and upon it, chalked in bold red strokes, was a huge and unmistakable evil symbol. I had seen it before in those books which were now destroyed…and now I recoiled at what I had later read of it! Beyond the sign, in one corner, a pile of ashes was all that remained of Julian’s many notes. An old iron grating had been fixed horizontally over bricks, and the makings of a fire were already upon it. A cryptographic script, which I recognized as being the blasphemous Nyhargo Code, was scrawled in green and blue chalk across the walls, and the smell of incense hung heavily in the air. The whole scene was ghastly, unreal, a living picture from Eliphas Lévi—nothing less than the lair of a sorcerer! Horrified, I turned to Julian—in time to see him lift a heavy iron poker and start the stunning swing downwards towards my head. Nor did I lift a finger to stop him. I could not—for he had taken off those spectacles, and the sight of his terrible face had frozen me rigid as polar ice…
• • •
Regaining consciousness was like swimming up out of a dead, dark sea. I surfaced through shoals of night-black swimmers to an outer world where the ripples of the ocean were dimly lit by the glow from a dying orange sun. As the throbbing in my head subsided, those ripples resolved themselves into the pattern of my pin-stripe jacket—but the orange glow remained! My immediate hopes that it had all been a nightmare were shattered at once; for as I carefully raised my head from its position on my chest the whole room slowly came under my unbelieving scrutiny. Thank God Julian had his back to me and I could not see his face. Had I but glimpsed again, in those first moments of recovery, those hellish eyes I am certain the sight would have returned me to instant oblivion.
I could see now that the orange glow was reflected from the now blazing fire on the horizontal grill, and I saw that the poker which had been used to strike me down was buried in the heart of the flames with red-heat creeping visibly up the metal towards the wooden handle. Glancing at my watch, I saw that I had been unconscious for many hours—it was fast approaching the midnight hour. That one glance was also sufficient to tell me that I was tied to the old wicker-chair in which I had been seated, for I saw the ropes. I flexed my muscles against my bonds and noticed, not without a measure of satisfaction, that there was a certain degree of slackness in them. I had managed to keep my mind from dwelling on Julian’s facial differences; but, as he turned towards me, I steeled myself to the coming shock.
His face was an impassive white mask in which shone, cold and malevolent and indescribably alien, those eyes! As I live and breathe, I swear they were twice the size they ought to have been—and they bulged, uniformly scarlet, outwards from their sockets in chill, yet aloof hostility.
“Ah ! You’ve returned to us, dear brother. But why d’you stare so? Is it that you find this face so awful? Let me assure you, you don’t find it half so hideous as I!”
Monstrous truth, or what I thought was the truth, began to dawn in my mazed and bewildered brain. “The dark spectacles!” I gasped. “No wonder you had to wear them, even at night. You couldn’t bear the thought of people seeing those diseased eyes!”
“Diseased? No, your reasoning is only partly correct. I had to wear the glasses, yes; it was that or give myself away—which wouldn’t have pleased those who sent me in the slightest, believe me. For Cthulhu, beneath the waves on the far side of the world, has already made it known to Othuum, my master, of his displeasure. They have spoken in dreams, and Cthulhu is angry!” He shrugged, “Also, I needed the spectacles; these eyes of mine are accustomed to piercing the deepest depths of the ocean! Your surface world was an agony to me at first—but now I am used to it. In any case, I don’t plan to stay here long, and when I go I will take this body with me,” he plucked at himself in contempt, “for my pleasure.”
I knew that what he was saying was not, could not, be possible, and I cried out to him, begging him to recognize his own madness. I babbled that modern medical science could probably correct whatever was wrong with his eyes. My words were drowned out by his cold laughter. “Julian!” I cried.
“Julian?” he answered. “Julian Haughtree?” He lowered his awful face until it was only inches from mine. “Are you blind, man? I am Pesh-Tlen, Wizard of deep Gell-Ho to the North!” He turned away from me, leaving my tottering mind to total up a nerve-blasting sum of horrific integers. The Cthulhu Mythos—those passages from the Cthaat Aquadingen and the Life of St. Brendan—Julian’s dreams; “They can now control dreams as of old.” The Mind Transfer—“They will rise”—“through his eyes in my body”—giant gods waiting in the ocean deeps—“ He shall walk the Earth in my guise”—a submarine disturbance off the coast of Greenland! Deep Gell-Ho to the North…