Gary Mayers - The House of the Worm

And every evening just as the stars came out they left that modest studio, and every morning just as the stars began to pale they came quietly back to resume their chanting, and always that strangled priest followed them. And whether Yah-Vho worked that day or whether he worked not, the high priests came and chanted all the same.

Now the clientele of any reputable idol-carver are by nature given to such practices, and to discourage them is not good business. But after the first week Yah-Vho came to suspect an ulterior motive for burning the wonderful resins; for the strangled priest had a bad way with the air which it must have seemed expedient to conceal, lest someone ask pointed questions.

But it would not be fair to Yah-Vho to write that ever he came to regret a bargain from mere squeamishness. The limitations of sandstone were starting to chafe him. Yah-Vho had his little ways with gold, could hollow it and weight it with just the exact amount of lead; but with sandstone you could overcharge and no more, and Yah-Vho considered that the high priests were cheating him of his rightful profits. And their demands upon his time could only be hurtful to business. Who now would finish the little jasper image of Mup? The acolytes of Tamash would come for the six golden attendant daemons of Tamash, and how would it be if they found their daemons without eyes? The iconoclasts continued to blackmail him, and what tasks could he set them now? And the dull orange dust of Sthood choked him and turned the beaded sweat of his brow to blood, and clouded forever after the flecks of gem that had sparkled in Yah-Vho’s black beard.

Thrice in the midst of his labours he turned and threw his chisel at their heads, crying out that their parsimonious opals were not adequate to the magnitude of his effort; and thrice the high priests only smiled, cheerfully agreeing to raise their figure. They only smiled, but almost Yah-Vho detected something unpleasant about their smiles. And when he saw that they intended to answer his every demand with those same smiles, he wept and prophesied ruin.

Upon a day the last deft touches were put to that hateful idol. Yah-Vho, soothed somewhat by the completion of his task and the promise of opals, covered his handiwork with a sheet, and went down to the wine shops of the city to wash the dust from his throat. The high priests watched him go, and smiled.

And a little while past midnight, three high priests and a strangled priest slipped out of the darkened temple of Sthood, observed only by the Moon; and stepping very carefully around the rectangles of yellow lamplight that fell from the shaded windows, made their stealthy way to Yah-Vho’s modest studio. After several hours only the high priests went away, holding folded handkerchiefs over their noses.

When the maker of gods left the wine shops in the small dark hours of morning, and returned to his modest studio, he found first the broken lock on his doorstep, and then the door creaking subtly open. Three pairs of sandalled feet had tracked a foulness across the floor of that evil-smelling studio, and out into the night; someone had taken the sheet off that hateful idol, and tried to hide that noxious spreading puddle on the floor. Three trails led away, but that sinister bulge under the sheet might almost have suggested human bones. Very carefully, with thumb and forefinger, Yah-Vho drew back one corner of the sheet… Then he turned, and almost dropped his lamp.

For Yah-Vho knew that there is something very wrong with any image whose bulbous stone is noisomely soft and plump, wholly unlike what one comes to expect of sandstone; the ring of fleshy pink horns about the mouth glistened moistly, and something wet dribbled down the neck. And Yah-Vho turned to run.

But Yah-Vho did not turn quickly enough, and his tiny incessant screams continued for many minutes after the idol proceeded to devour him.

Gary Myers is a native of South Gate, California, where he has lived his entire life. He is a self-proclaimed pessimist with “disappointingly ordinary dreams,” a remarkably modest self appraisal in view of his talent for creating boldly imaginative fiction. He can write only by sunlight and enjoys walking. Other interests include reading fantasy for pleasure and copying the fiction of Lord Dunsany.

It was the discovery of the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft that prompted Mr. Myers to compose the episodes that are collected in The House of the Worm. Since writing this hook he has earned his B.A. in art from the University of Redlands. Sonnets by Gary Myers have appeared in The Arkham Collector.

The cover artwork and illustrations in this book are the work of Allan Servoss. Mr. Servoss is a native of Great Falls, Montana. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Montana in 1970 before moving to Wisconsin where he taught for several years. Since 1974 he has been living in Qampbelltown, Australia, a suburb of Sydney. Besides teaching art on the high school level, Mr. Servoss conducts pottery-making classes in night-school and plays his guitar at a local restaurant. Mr. Servoss is also an accomplished photographer.