Ramsey Campbell - The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants

As he reached the center of the fifth catwalk, a raucous croaking rang out behind him. He tottered and slammed down on the metal, clawed and scrabbled to the last roof and looked back.

The noise came from a speaker vibrating atop a grey metal pylon. It seemed purposeless, unless it were a warning, or an announcement of his own arrival. He ignored it as a warning, not wishing to return to Earth after coming so far; and even if they realized his presence, they would flee before the name of Azathoth. He walked to the roof’s edge and peered for a way down.

It consisted of an unprotected stairway which led around the outer wall of the tower, spiraling steeply to the street. He started down as the shrieking speaker quietened, and realized that the steps were set at a definitely obtuse angle to the wall, so that only their pitted surface prevented him from plunging to the street below. Ten feet down a piece of stone slid away under his foot, and had he not clutched the step above he would have toppled into the darkness. He made the remainder of the streetward journey more slowly, his heart pounding.

So he finally came to that pavement of octahedral, concave black stones. He shone the slightly-dimmed torch beam down the thoroughfare. Ebon steeples stretched away on both sides into night, and on Taylor’s left was a right-angle intersection. The buildings were all set in the centers of individual ten-yard squares, through which cut paths of a blackly translucent mineral, and in which grew accurately-positioned lines of that half-animal fungi which he had seen on the plateau. As he left the tower his torch illuminated a fork in the road, at the intersection of which stood a squat black building shaped like a frustum, and he decided to take the left branch of this fork.

The metal which he sought was so brittle that it was not used for construction in the city. To gather specimens he would have to visit the actual mines, which were habitually set close to the crustaceans’ settlements. But he was unsure of the city’s layout. Nothing could be seen from the roofs, for his torch-beam did not reach far, nor did he know how far the settled area extended. Not even the Revelations Of Glaaki gave maps of the cities on Yuggoth, so that his only plan was to follow some street at random. However, it was usual for such cities to be encircled by mines at quarter- mile intervals, so that once he reached the city’s edge he would be fairly near a mine. These mines mainly produced the black stone used for building, but a certain percentage of the ore was extracted from the stone and refined in factories around the mine-pits.

Five hundred yards along the left fork he noticed a change in the surroundings. While the towers still occupied one side of the street, the right side’s steeples now gave way to an open space, extending along the street for fully two hundred yards and inward fifty yards, which was filled with oddly-shaped objects of semi- resilient deep-blue plastic. Despite their curious shape, he could see they were intended as seats; but he could not understand the discshaped attachments which rose on metal rods on each side of each seat. He had never read of such a place, and guessed that it might be the crustaceans’ equivalent of a cinema. He saw that the space was littered with thin hexagonal sheets of blue metal covered with raised varicolored symbols, which he took for documents. It looked as if the space had recently been hurriedly vacated. This, coupled with that warning siren, might have hinted something to him; but he only began to continue down the street.

The open space, however, interested him. The discs might be some form of receiver, in which case the transmission might give him an idea of the direction of the mines. Perhaps the crustaceans were able to transmit mental images, for some of the legends about their outposts on Earth spoke of their using long-range hypnosis. If the discs worked on a variant of this principle, the power ought not to harm him, for since passing through the barrier he should have the metabolism of a crustacean. At any rate, he had three batteries left for his torch, and could afford to waste a little time, for he could protect himself with the feared name if any of the citizens came upon him.

He sank into the plastic of one of the deep-blue seats. He leaned back in it, placing the torch on the ground beside one of the batteries which had fallen out of a pocket. He sat up a little in the chair, and his head came between the metal discs. A deafening whine came from these, and before he could move a bright orange spark flashed from one disc to the other, passing through his brain.

Taylor leaped up, and the orange ray faded. A metallic odor came from his left pocket, where he had placed the other two batteries. He slid in his hand, and withdrew it covered with a dull- grey fluid which was plainly all that remained of the batteries. The torch and one battery, which had not been in contact with his body, still stood nearby, and the bulb was still lit. But in spite of what the ray had done to the batteries, he was untouched; and he wanted very much to return to the chair, so that he turned off the torch to conserve the battery and sat back on the plastic. For that ray had the property of forming images in the mind; and in that moment between the discs Taylor had seen fleetingly a strange vision of a metal-grilled gateway, rusted and standing alone in the middle of a desert, lit by a setting green moon. What it had been he did not know, but it had an air of distinct and unknowable purpose.

The ray began to pass even before he came between the discs, and an image formed, only to fade and be replaced by another. A series of unconnected visions paraded and blurred the surrounding darkness. A snakelike being flew across a coppery sky, its head and tail hanging limply down from its midsection, where a single bat- wing rotated. Great cobwebbed objects rolled from noisome caverns in the center of a phosphorescent morass, their mouths opening wetly as they hastened toward where a figure screamed and struggled in the mud. A range of mountains, their peaks ice-covered, reached almost to the sky; and as he watched, a whole line of peaks exploded upward and a leprously white, faceless head rose into view.

Rather disturbed, Taylor thought defensively, "What a waste of time!” and began to stand up.

Immediately on the word "waste,” a new picture formed. A close-up of one of the crustaceans appeared, and what it was doing was nauseatingly obvious, even with its unaccustomed shape. What was unusual was that it was performing this act in the garden of one of the towers, by a specimen of the ever-present fungus. When the crustacean had finished, it stood up and moved away, while Taylor received a close view of what it had left behind. As he watched in horrified fascination, the leaves of the nearby fungus bent and covered the offal; and when it rose from this position, the ground was bare at that spot. He now saw the purpose 0f the lines of fungi.

More important, however, he realized that he had just discovered the method of referring to the knowledge stored in this library. He must think of some key word — that was how "waste” had evoked such an unfortunate vision. Now, swallowing his nausea, Taylor thought: "mines connected with this city.”

The vista which now appeared to him was an aerial view of the city. It was totally lightless, but in some way he sensed the outlines of the buildings. Then the point of view descended until he was looking down from directly above the library; and it gave him an odd vertigo to see, in the seat from which he was viewing, a figure seated. Whatever was transmitting the images began to move along the street bordering the library, traversed a straight toad directly to a widening of the road, and showed him the mitie-pit a few yards further on.