Acolytes of Cthulhu

THE EYE OF HORUS

BY STEFFAN B. ALETTI

THIS MANUSCRIPT IS HERE PRESENTED BY ME IN ITS ORIGINAL form, as handed to me on an incredibly hot June day by George Warren, an amateur Egyptologist from New York. My name is Michael Kearton; I am an importer of dyes and was staying in a town named Wadi Hadalfa for business purposes. It is the last stop before the train tracks cross through the terrible Nubian desert to Abu Hamed.

Warren had just returned from an expedition to a spot several miles outside of Akasha, a smaller town about seventy-five miles away. He was in a state of shock and fever, and was badly cut and bruised; but in the week and a half left to him, he typed the following report and gave me the carbon for safekeeping. It is well he did so, as the original unaccountably disappeared with his death. As I barely knew the man, I will not make any statements as to my opinion of his mental condition at the time directly before his death; all I will say is that whatever had happened in the heat of the Nubian desert had been terrible, for his physical condition was very bad. Yet, to me, he seemed lucid. At any rate, the reader must form his own conclusions from the manuscript.

M.K.

“I have risen, I have risen like the mighty hawk (of gold) that cometh forth from his egg; I fly and I alight like the hawk which hath a back of four cubits width, and the wings which are like unto the mother-of-emerald of the South.”

So begins the chapter of performing the transformation into a Hawk of Gold, from the great Egyptian Book of the Dead.

“O grant thou (speaking to Osiris) that I may be feared, and make thou me to be a terror.”

These words—I first read them when I was a boy—have now taken on a new and immensely terrifying dimension, a dimension that stretches back in time and touches the most archaic fear of men—the fear of death, and their resulting need for gods. Man still dies, but his gods live on endlessly—I know that now. Some day we will discover Isis and Osiris, Ptah and Anubis, Ishtar, Chemosh, and even Zeus and Jupiter. They are all waiting.

I don’t know precisely where to begin this narrative, but should it turn out to be the only record of this whole affair, I shall start at the beginning.

Suffice it to say that I arrived in Cairo five years ago, an amateur Egyptologist who, by fortune or fate, had come into an immense sum of money by the age of thirty.

By offering money, I immediately became attached to the Cairo Museum expedition to the lower portion of Nubia. There it became obvious that the only reason I was along was that I financed the business, and therefore had a right to go along—but only as an observer. Though I became a friend of Mustafa, the native foreman of the diggers, the staff was no more than coldly polite to me, and my prying into their affairs was regarded with scorn.

Nevertheless I stayed with the museum expeditions and staff for three digging seasons, and got none of the credit for having been in on the discoveries of numerous early and predynastic grave sites.

Sick of being the silent partner with the money, I withdrew my support and went to Nubia on my own, accompanied by Mustafa, who was now too old for the museum’s liking.

Thus we arrived at Aswan. Once there, I found that my fame (that is, my reputation for having a lot of money) preceded me, and shortly I became acquainted with William Kirk and Andriju Kalatis.

Kirk is a British Egyptologist, now a very old man, and generally rather drunk. Among his papers and papyri he found several bills of sale dealing with shipments of grain for the priests to the Temple of Horus, the Falcon God. One papyrus also gives explicit directions on the whereabouts of the temple, and, to my surprise, it was close to a city of which a few ruins still remain, about ten miles outside of a town called Akasha, not far from Aswan.

Kalatis, a young Greek soldier of fortune, proposed to accompany me on an expedition, financed by me, to find the temple.

After checking on Kirk’s background and reputation and, after seeing the papyrus (it was undeniably authentic), I decided to give the business a try. Success would bring me worldwide fame and recognition as an Egyptologist. I did not particularly trust Kalatis, but I can take care of myself, and Mustafa would be along as foreman of the diggings. At any rate, I did not anticipate trouble from Kalatis unless we found something valuable enough to steal rather than give to the Egyptian government.

The first digging season was spent partly in research and partly in the digging of long rows of trenches in the chosen area. Kirk was too old to come, but Kalatis, much to my surprise, proved an admirable companion and a good worker despite his disappointment at finding no great treasure.

The second season went essentially the same way until one day early this month, when Mustafa came running to our tent to announce that he had found the top of what seemed to be a flight of steps. By that afternoon we had uncovered seven stone steps, and a small, narrow door.

II

THE SEAL WAS UNBROKEN! KALATIS AND I LOOKED AT EACH other in astonishment. An unopened tomb meant for me an unparalleled archaeological find, and for Kalatis it could mean the wealth that he so continually dreamed of.

I look the chisel, and, there, in the midday heat of Nubia, in a few moments I broke a seal that had remained perfectly intact since its placement there thousands of years earlier.

Curiously enough, once inside the foetid darkness, there was only an empty chamber less than five feet long, and only about three feet wide. At the end of the room was another very narrow stone stairway.

Our porters and diggers, of course, were too superstitious to enter with us, so, leaving Mustafa to keep an eye on them (these were not the trained museum expedition diggers), Kalatis and I had no recourse but to climb down alone. We were both slightly unnerved, being amateurs, and not a little worried about the condition in which the tomb might be after so many centuries. Also, as the tomb was unopened, there might still be some unsprung grave-robber trap awaiting us.

We began down the stairs slowly and cautiously, training both our lights directly ahead of us. The air was terribly hot and dusty, so much so that we had to hold our handkerchiefs over our mouths to keep from gagging.

Descending in this manner, we reached the bottom after about fifteen minutes. The heat was now so stifling that we both had to lie down and relax, at the same time mopping ourselves off, for we had been perspiring heavily.

The room we were now in was a large chamber with boxes piled up to a height of seven feet or so along the walls. As soon as this was noted, Kalatis went over to inspect them. I told him to be careful, since the boxes were sure to rot away at his touch, but his inspection proved them not to be of wooden gilt as I had imagined, but of gold! Here were perhaps a hundred large boxes, all of gold inlaid with lapis-lazuli and coral, done in an astonishingly sophisticated manner. Kalatis grabbed a box off the top of one of the piles and placed it, with much difficulty, on the floor. We bent over it, and, while I was looking for a seal or lock to open, Kalatis in his haste simply chiseled it open. I was rather angry at him, because archaeology is never served by people who go about breaking things in order to save a few moments.

Once open, the box revealed an exquisitely carved effigy of Horus, the Falcon God, the Avenger, Son of Isis and Osiris. It was about a foot and a half long, and, at its widest part about the shoulders, it was seven inches or so wide. Its grace, fluidity of line, and, if I may say, degenerate quality, dated it at being late in Egyptian history, possibly even as late as the Roman occupation. The figure was hollow, and, I imagine, contained the mummified body of a falcon, the sacred bird of Horus.

Kalatis, of course, was overwhelmed by the incredible amount of treasure that we had before us; from a monetary point of view it was the greatest archaeological find in history. He began to leap about, dancing, and shouting in Greek of his good fortune. For some reason, exactly what I cannot say, his gamboling about the place frightened me. I still had seen no evidence of it being a tomb—it could easily have been a storeroom or treasure room for the great temple—and yet, unaccountably, I felt the presence of something, something very remote in time, and bizarre beyond imagination, something very close to us, watching.

Then, in the beam of my flashlight, I caught a vague movement; there was something stirring on top of one of the piles of chests. I shouted this intelligence to Kalatis, who instantly sobered up and set his own beam atop the same pile. For a moment we saw nothing, then, over the rim of the box, as we drew closer, we saw a form and two positively blazing red dots staring at us. It was a bird—not a bat—a bird, and a large one from its silhouette!

When we got within about five feet, the thing took off and, with a terrible squawking, began to bang itself about the walls and boxes in the manner of birds who are trying to escape from an enclosure. Presently, with a flapping of its wings, it settled back on top of another pile of boxes and rested, glaring at us.

By this time, I was so unnerved that I was all for climbing back up the stairway and out into the fresh air. We were covered with dust, dirt and plaster dislodged by the bird’s wild flight. Actually, a trained archaeologist would have immediately gone above to get cataloguing equipment, wires for stringing electric lights, brushes, and cloths for the handling and cleaning of the ancient trove. How much I wish I had done this straightaway.

In spite of my protests, Kalatis wanted to inspect the entire room before going back. It was, rather, a long corridor of sorts, since it stretched on for what must have been about fifty feet, narrowing visibly at its terminus. There, cut into the stone, was a small entrance. So, with the great treasure gleaming dully in the dim light behind us, we entered the third chamber. The room was again large and narrow, and, in the beam of the flashlight we saw the standing figure of a man with a hawk’s head. There was something about the figure that startled us; it was certainly not unusual for statuary to be placed in tombs or sanctuaries, but there was a feeling pervading the entire chamber, a feeling that there was something alive, and that was the statue.

I don’t know whether Kalatis felt this or not; if he did, it certainly was an immense act of bravery to walk up to the figure. I personally feel that he was ignorant of the entire aura of terror that the place had about it. Perhaps, because my mind is attuned to Egyptology and his was not, he sensed nothing.

At any rate, whether Kalatis was aware of it or not, he went right up to the figure. As he drew closer, his light illuminated every detail of it. It was a representation of Horus, divine son of Isis and Osiris, the Avenger of his father’s murder, and whose great eye lights the world by day and calms it by night. The figure stood erect, in the typical Egyptian pose of walking, with one foot slightly ahead of the other. The fists were clenched, and under the great double crown of Egypt, the large round eyes were closed.

At this time I still had no direct evidence that my fears were anything more than imagined, but suddenly, to my unspeakable horror, the figure snapped open its eyes and fixed them on Kalatis! I screamed, for in that fatal gloom, those bird eyes shone with such malevolent red brightness, that I knew we would never take the treasure out into the light.

Kalatis stopped instantly, drew his pistol, and raised it. For what seemed like hours, the two stood glaring at each other. Then, slowly, the figure of Horus began to move, the dust of centuries flaking off and falling to its feet in gray-white clouds. Kalatis remained still for a few moments, then cocked his pistol and fired it. The first shot slammed audibly into the figure’s body, but aside from throwing up a huge volume of dust, there was no visible effect on the thing. Then, in very rapid sequence, Kalatis emptied the gun, each shot answered by a thump and more dust.

By this time, the creature was less than a yard away from us. Neither Kalatis nor I could move; we were absolutely paralyzed. Then, with a sudden lunge, the hawk leapt to where Kalatis was standing, and grabbed him. Kalatis’ resulting scream was quite sufficient to snap me out of my stupor, and allow me to once again move my legs. I pulled out my gun and, manoeuvering to the side of the thing, put a well-aimed bullet directly into the side of its head. There was more dust, and some feathers this time, and the creature relaxed its grip on Kalatis—who by now was either dead or fainting, for he dropped to the floor—and looked fiercely at me. I immediately turned and ran down the long corridor piled high with the boxes of treasure.

To my immense terror, I was now pursued by birds—the whole corridor was full of them, large birds with great burning eyes and sharp beaks, tearing at my clothes and flesh. These birds were falcons.

In spite of their hindrance, I made it through the corridor, and up the treacherously narrow stairway. I am forever astonished by the ability of the human body to cope with, shall we say, unique and taxing situations. My mind, frozen with horror, was now almost dormant, and my body alone and without mental command, carried me on. Fortunately, the stairway was too narrow to admit many birds and me at the same time, so they became less of a threat to my life now, and, by this time, I was so numb with pain and terror, that I could barely feel their clawing anyway. Every so often I would trip and fall on my knees and elbows—the stairs were irregularly hewn—and the pecking of the birds served to prod me to my feet again.

I don’t know how long it took me to get up the stairway; I couldn’t even make a guess.

When I got to the antechamber described earlier, I fell to the ground and, it being such a small chamber, crawled the rest of the way into the weakening sunlight. As I crawled over onto the sand, I realized that I had absolutely no strength left. I expected to be pecked to pieces, but the birds behind me flew out of the tomb and perched on its lintel. They sat and watched me, but flew at me no more.

The diggers had taken fright and could not be restrained from leaving, so Mustafa was all that was left of our company. He ran up to me, much alarmed at my appearance—when later given a mirror, I too was shocked; my face was (and is, still) a complete mess of bruises and long jagged rips from the birds’ beaks. It was a miracle that my eyes were not touched. The rest of my body was also in terrible shape, and my clothes had just about been ripped off by those fiendish claws.

I collapsed, and, had it not been for the constant ministrations of Mustafa, I should surely have perished on the trip back.

Once we arrived at Wadi Hadalfa by Nile boat, it was an easy operation to get the train back to our base at Aswan.

It is now less than two weeks after that terrible day twenty miles out of Akasha, and now even this short time has begun to cloud my memory of the affair. Mustafa believes me, but he is little more than a superstitious old Bedouin who has been brought up on legends and tales of horror. Kirk and several Englishmen staying here think that I am lying or raving. I have no means of proving the story other than going back—which I will not, except that Kalatis is gone, and I am still recovering from my wounds.

I wired my agent in New York to stand by with ready funds; by this evening I shall be on the train to Cairo, and to the museum (to which I should have gone in the first place). Once there I shall convince them of the truth of the whole affair, and of the importance of my discovery. In the Book of the Dead there is the means of placating the Great Hawk through spells—you can fight the supernatural only with the supernatural. And when Horus is at rest, we can go back, and my find will be catalogued and published, and my name shall go to the head of the list of great Egyptologists.

Should something happen to me, I have made a carbon of this, and am giving it to one of the English businessmen here; I am giving it to Kearton because he is the least interested in the affair, and the least likely to have formed any theories of his own about it.

George Warren

The carbon is signed by George Warren. It was indeed a good thing that he gave me the above testimony. He never got to the train, and the original report was never found.

Just when the train was to have left, his body was discovered in his room. No cause of death could be found; he was just lying face down on his bed, with his hands, curiously enough, clasped at the back of his neck. The room—which was a mess—was literally covered with feathers.

Michael Kearton