Title
"_keys_!--aye! Keys to Outer Doors--links with an abhorrent past and--who knows?--of abhorrent spheres of the present."
Wilhelm Von Junzt, Unaussprechlichen Kulten
After the post by +Daniel Richter and the questions posted by Yik Sheng Lee, I got my hands on an audiobook that includes The Black Stone among others. ("The Thing On the Roof" was also included. I think it's a sort of followup story. It contains some narration linking the two stories we might consider references to Shaper Glyphs.)
The story is available online for free, at least two podcasts have released readings of it which are also free, or you can get it from any seller of audiobooks as part of a larger collection called "The Horror Stories of Robert E Howard", where you will find it listed as Chapter 31. Do a google search, you'll find it.
There is a bit in this story I want to draw your attention to, as I think it MIGHT be the reason it's particularly significant.
The basic gist of the story is that an academic finds vague-yet-interesting information in a number of obscure books on the occult about something called The Black Stone which had been written about by an insane but brilliant poet. He figures out where it is, learns some interesting local history and superstitions about how it's bad to sleep near said Black Stone. Supposedly, it's bad to do that because nightmares will haunt you forever more if you manage to keep your sanity and your life... and then... Can you guess?
Yeah, he goes out and falls asleep at the foot of the Black Stone.
Idiot.
Let me just say that the description of the "dream" he has is... well, I am less interested in visiting Cross Planes on Midsummer Night than I was previously. :)
He is smack dab in the middle of a great throng of people, but they are unaware of him. These people are screaming and beating on drums, but the sound is muffled as if he's is hearing them from very far away.
During the dream he describes what he decides to call a Priest, and he mentions that the man is wearing a thick gold chain around his neck from which dangles a smaller chain that suggests there SHOULD be a pendent.
When he wakes in the morning there is no sign of what he witnessed in the night. However, he's sure its not a dream.
He desecrates the grave of a war hero and obtains a box with a scroll and something wrapped in a bit of silk.
The scroll is the account of Selim Bahadur, a General and scribe to Suleiman the Magnificent, who swept through the area and slaughtered every man, woman, and child. It describes what was discovered about the religious practices of the inhabitants (no-doubt the reason for the genocide), it confirms the narrator's idea that what he saw was not a dream but something that was actually happening. He unwraps the thing in the bit of silk and it is a small depiction of a creature he saw being worshiped in the "dream".
Here is the kicker.
The object is the pendant. The pendant worn by the Priest. Selim ripped it off the chain when the Priest was killed for generally being a bad dude nobody who would be left alive was going to miss.
Now go back and look at the quote I started the post with. It's from near the end of the story where the Narrator quotes a book called "Nameless Cults" (a contribution of Howard's to the Mythos).
If the Narrator was looking through the portal of the Black Stone into the past, it would have to be something that took place BEFORE Selim killed the Priest and his people.
But the Priest is missing his pendent, which was taken from him at the time of his execution. So if what is described in the story is supposed to have been something that already happened, the pendant would have been on its little chain.
Howard, through Von Junzt, tells us that we can see through these "doors" to the past and the PRESENT. (Saying nothing about the future, which I frankly find comforting.)
Is this story about a man who peers through a portal and sees the XM Patterns of people, and their loathsome god, long dead on this side of the portals continuing their existence?
... That sentence got away from me a little... I hope it makes sense.
Anyway, I think it is.
Thoughts?
Wilhelm Von Junzt, Unaussprechlichen Kulten
After the post by +Daniel Richter and the questions posted by Yik Sheng Lee, I got my hands on an audiobook that includes The Black Stone among others. ("The Thing On the Roof" was also included. I think it's a sort of followup story. It contains some narration linking the two stories we might consider references to Shaper Glyphs.)
The story is available online for free, at least two podcasts have released readings of it which are also free, or you can get it from any seller of audiobooks as part of a larger collection called "The Horror Stories of Robert E Howard", where you will find it listed as Chapter 31. Do a google search, you'll find it.
There is a bit in this story I want to draw your attention to, as I think it MIGHT be the reason it's particularly significant.
The basic gist of the story is that an academic finds vague-yet-interesting information in a number of obscure books on the occult about something called The Black Stone which had been written about by an insane but brilliant poet. He figures out where it is, learns some interesting local history and superstitions about how it's bad to sleep near said Black Stone. Supposedly, it's bad to do that because nightmares will haunt you forever more if you manage to keep your sanity and your life... and then... Can you guess?
Yeah, he goes out and falls asleep at the foot of the Black Stone.
Idiot.
Let me just say that the description of the "dream" he has is... well, I am less interested in visiting Cross Planes on Midsummer Night than I was previously. :)
He is smack dab in the middle of a great throng of people, but they are unaware of him. These people are screaming and beating on drums, but the sound is muffled as if he's is hearing them from very far away.
During the dream he describes what he decides to call a Priest, and he mentions that the man is wearing a thick gold chain around his neck from which dangles a smaller chain that suggests there SHOULD be a pendent.
When he wakes in the morning there is no sign of what he witnessed in the night. However, he's sure its not a dream.
He desecrates the grave of a war hero and obtains a box with a scroll and something wrapped in a bit of silk.
The scroll is the account of Selim Bahadur, a General and scribe to Suleiman the Magnificent, who swept through the area and slaughtered every man, woman, and child. It describes what was discovered about the religious practices of the inhabitants (no-doubt the reason for the genocide), it confirms the narrator's idea that what he saw was not a dream but something that was actually happening. He unwraps the thing in the bit of silk and it is a small depiction of a creature he saw being worshiped in the "dream".
Here is the kicker.
The object is the pendant. The pendant worn by the Priest. Selim ripped it off the chain when the Priest was killed for generally being a bad dude nobody who would be left alive was going to miss.
Now go back and look at the quote I started the post with. It's from near the end of the story where the Narrator quotes a book called "Nameless Cults" (a contribution of Howard's to the Mythos).
If the Narrator was looking through the portal of the Black Stone into the past, it would have to be something that took place BEFORE Selim killed the Priest and his people.
But the Priest is missing his pendent, which was taken from him at the time of his execution. So if what is described in the story is supposed to have been something that already happened, the pendant would have been on its little chain.
Howard, through Von Junzt, tells us that we can see through these "doors" to the past and the PRESENT. (Saying nothing about the future, which I frankly find comforting.)
Is this story about a man who peers through a portal and sees the XM Patterns of people, and their loathsome god, long dead on this side of the portals continuing their existence?
... That sentence got away from me a little... I hope it makes sense.
Anyway, I think it is.
Thoughts?
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