Cthulhu’s Dark Cults: “Sister of the Sands” by David Conyers

My story rounds off the Cthulhu’s Dark Cults collection, with a tale set in Egypt, a land which for me is at the heart of all things Lovecraftian and Outer Godish. I’d always felt that The Masks of Nyarlathotep supplement for the Call of Cthulhu game was the best supplement ever produced, even if one considers that it came out more than 25 years ago. It’s a global adventure with an excellent back story, and like the Cthulhu Mythos, its central location is Egypt. The cult that features in my story and in Masks of Nyarlathotep is the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh, what I considered to be the perfect example of the cults I wanted to portray in this collection.

An extract from my story follows:

SISTER OF THE SANDS
David Conyers

In the many eyes of the Outer Gods, a failure to understand one’s self-capacity for evil is the greatest of all sins. - Sharinza, The Masked Messenger

White Desert, Egypt, 1933

Unfazed the strange woman strolled from the deep desert, the hot winds whipping at her tatters, presenting her as an ominous crow. With a scalp shaved bald, she was covered only in blood and a dirty white wrap loose about her thin figure. Beneath the red ichors reflected a skin that was dry and pale. If her face were not so cold to gaze upon, I would have thought her beautiful.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, as she stood before me, her back arched and head held high. Under normal circumstances, I would have expected a woman in her state to collapse from exhaustion, or to beg for water, but this enigma requested neither. She just stared though and beyond me, into nothingness, as if eternity was all she could fathom. “Do you require assistance?”

Only then did her eyes find mine. Grey and deep, as if the soul they hid stretched to the beginning of time. She opened her mouth to speak, and did so gutturally in a language that I not only failed to understand, but one that I failed to even recognize. Our spooked and tethered camels responded differently, obtusely, by grunting and baulking with terrified agitation.

“You are in shock,” I blurted concerned that she might be babbling from sunstroke. I offered a hand of support. I saw that her shroud was drenched in so much blood I knew it could not all be hers. So I examined her as best I could without compromising modesty, until I was certain she was not wounded. “Here, let me take you to my tent,” I offered. I presumed she must have escaped some terrible ordeal, and probably required a space of her own to feel safe again.

At my words she offered her hand daintily, as if she were the Queen of the Nile and I her undeserving servant. Her bone-cold fingers in my grip, we rushed to my tent, more my urgency than hers. I had a supply of medicines locked away, and a cot for her to lie upon.

“Lieutenant, who is this?” called Karim Ibn-Shadar. The chisel-face man frowned despondently through a tight-lipped grin, for my long-suffering assistant from the War Office often thought me brash and unconventional. Appearing with this strange woman in tow would only add to his concern. “Where did she come from?” His eyes grew wide as he took in the bloodstains. “Praise Allah, what happened to her?”

“I don’t know, but she walked out of the desert, over there.” I pointed, across the salt-colored gypsum outcrops and gravel plains of the White Desert, deceptively likened to a snowfield frozen in time, except these sands were blisteringly hot. Karim and I both understood that there was nothing in that direction for thousands of miles, only the arid heart of the merciless Sahara.

“Is that possible?”

“Well, obviously not impossible.”

“And so much blood.”

Albedo One 38 Released

Just received notice that Issue 38 of Albedo One is back front the printers and available for purchase in print and low-cost pdf formats.

This issue's fiction is by Bruce McAlister, Aaron Polson, Priya Sharma, Matthew F. Perry, Martin Belderson and a story from Allison Francisco, which was placed third in the Aeon Award 2008 contest.

Issue 38 also features an in-depth interview with Jim Gunn, as well as book reviews from regular columnists Juliet E. McKenna and, yes, that's right, me. Further review contributions come from Peter Loftus, John Kenny and Peter McClean. My reviews are for Zima Blue by Alastair Reynolds, Saturn's Children by Charles Stross, The Opposite of Life by Narrelle Harris and Horn by Peter M. Ball.

The cover is truly excellent, one of the best speculative fiction pieces that I've seen in a long time, by U.S. artist Jacob Probelski. Check out his folios here, here and here.

I'm proud to be member of the Albedo One team. I don't do much but write reviews and the occasional interview, well one inteview. I think it is a top notch magazine regardless.

Cthulhu’s Dark Cults: “The Nature of Faith” by Oscar Rios

In my forth profile on the various stories appearing in Cthulhu’s Dark Cults, I’m going to focus on Oscar Rios and his tale “The Nature of Faith”.

Oscar is probably today’s most prolific writer for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. He has appeared in several Chaosium monographs including his own Ripples from Carcosa and The Ravenar Saga. He then appeared twice in Miskatonic River Press’ first publication, Tales of the Miskatonic Valley. He was then asked by Miskatonic River Press to join the team as a staff writer and associate editor, and ever since he has been churning out material at a phenomenal speed.

Oscar lives in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut tri-state area. By day he is the assistant manager for a crematory in Astoria, Queens. He is also a happily married husband and father of two.

“The Nature of Faith” is Oscar’s first foray into fiction writing. In his novella he takes us into the haunts of Lovecraft Country and the town of Dunwich. His inspiration was the Keith Herber classic gaming supplement, H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich. Oscar has this to say about his contribution:

“I was thrilled with the opportunity to be a part of this collection, but I wanted to explore a different aspect of the traditional mythos story. I wanted to write a love story because who does that? I also wanted to explore one of the most harmless cults in the Cthulhu Mythos, the Believers of Dunwich. Lastly, I wanted to delve into the struggle between modern and ancient, between urban and rural, between scientific discovery and metaphysical balance. The main characters in this story are people firmly grounded in one of these two camps; one a professor of ancient history and the other member of the Believers cult.

“The inspiration for this story came when I was in Catholic grade school. In science class we were learning about evolution and two periods later we learned about creation in our religion class. Our young minds struggled to decide which was right. The title of the story, “The Nature of Faith” is something said by my science teacher at the time while discussing this difficult topic.”
An extract from the story follows:

THE NATURE OF FAITH
Oscar Rios

Dunwich, Massachusetts, United States, 1927

The spring storm swept up the coast, covering all of New England in thick clouds and pouring rain. In the hills of Dunwich this was a good thing. Farmers had smiled as they looked out over their newly planted fields of pumpkin, corn and wheat, reassured that their crops would get a right proper soaking. As the storm raged through the night, some of that smile faded as they moved to lock their doors. Strange things sometimes moved out of the Dunwich Hills on nights like this.

Visible only in the infrequent lightning flashes, a filthy, ragged creature stood motionless in the pouring rain. After a moment, it shook itself off, eyes darting about in confusion. It muttered to itself, then crept out of the wilderness and entered Dunwich Village.

With long white hair matted to its body, claws caked with earth, the creature moved with purpose, stealthy on its bare feet towards the home of Andy and Mildred Tanner. Rattling the back door but finding it locked, it nimbly scaled a nearby tree, climbed across an overhanging branch to a window on the second floor. Effortlessly, it reached out, opened the window and shimmied into the darkened room, closing the window behind it.

Once inside, the creature let out a long sigh, shaking out its soaking wet hair with its hands, and began fumbling for the light switch. Crash! Down came a ceramic shaving cup and the straight razor beside it, shattering loudly as it struck the floor.

Down the hall the sleeping couple sat bolt upright. They listened, hearing the sounds of movement from their bathroom. Andy Tanner crept out of bed, moved to his closet and loaded his shotgun with salt shot. He waved for his wife to remain in the room. She shook her head mouthing the word “No”. Together, hearts racing, they crept down the hall.

They halted, hearing water filling the sink. Holding the weapon steady Andy cried out. “Al’rite now, ye come outta there this instant. This here’s private property. No funny business now, I’ve got a gun.”

Slowly the door opened. In the lit doorway was a girl, soaking wet in a filthy sundress. Her white hair matted, her pale skin splattered with mud like some crazed feral thing. Then she smiled, her ice blue eyes shone with mirth. “Yer not gunna shoot me, are ye Andy? Beside, it’s just rock salt. It won’t really hurt me, just sting like the dickens.”

The shotgun instantly lowered, the pair relaxed for a moment, but only for a moment.

“Damn it Gerdy, I couldda shot ya! What the hell are you doin?” Andy asked.

Interviewed in Shroud Magazine, Issue 8

Jeff W Edwards informed me today that the interview he conducted with me last year has just been published in Shroud Magazine, Issue 8. We even made the cover.

In the interview I talk about how I got started as a writer, the experience of writing Secrets of Kenya and The Spiraling Worm, collaborations, how my marketing background has helped my writing and promoting my work, on the good and the bad of running writing workshops, and some background information on Cthulhu's Dark Cults, so the interview is well timed. Jeff did a wonderful job at making it all happen.

If you wish to purchase a copy, buy it here.

Cthulhu's Dark Cults: "Requiem for the Burning God" by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

The longest story in Cthulhu’s Dark Cults was penned by Shane Jiraiya Cummings, a novella of 18,000 words which involves a sinister global corporation that featured in the Call of Cthulhu gaming supplements Day of the Beast, At Your Door and Unseen Masters. Shane’s tale, “Requiem for the Burning God”, like “Devil’s Diamonds” by Cody Goodfellow and my “Sisters of the Sand”, is a tale written in pulp adventure style with lots of action, suspense and intrigue. I put all three stories last, as the energy and pace picks up in these tales compared to the more subtle and personal horror of earlier tales. I also did this because the later tales are more in line with the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game’s Pulp Cthulhu style adventuring, if that supplement is ever released.

Shane Jiraiya Cummings is one of the most active members of Australia’s horror writing communities, and in the small press, one of our countries more successful writers with more than sixty short stories published in Australia, the United States, and Europe. He is the Vice President of the Australian Horror Writers Association and an active member of the US Horror Writers Association. Shane has won the Ditmar Award twice, and has been nominated for over twenty other awards. Recently moving into longer works, Shane's recent books include Shards (Brimstone Press) and Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves (Damnation Books). He is currently working on a Japanese fantasy series and other novels.

Shane said this about his story, “As a Lovecraft fan, I've always wanted to write a Mythos-inspired story, and when David Conyers invited me to contribute to Cthulhu’s Dark Cults, my dream was realised. I wasn’t very familiar with the Call of Cthulhu game, but David gave me the scenario and – Peru, early 1930s – and the rest of the story leapt onto the page. “Requiem for the Burning God” soon became an epic that incorporated my fascination for biplanes, zeppelins, and the corpses of mysterious gods.”

An extract from his story follows:

REQUIEM FOR THE BURNING GOD
Shane Jiraiya Cummings

Callao, Peru, 1932

Part I

A week at sea was one thing; a Pacific storm adding a day to the voyage and wobbling Max’s sea legs was something else altogether. Used to the constant downpour, the gloom, and the isolation for seven very long days, he was caught off guard by the glare of the dawn sun and the noise as he disembarked the gangplank onto the Callao docks.

A man with ferret features pushed through a knot of wiry, brown-skinned dock workers. “You Calder?”

“Who’s asking?”

“The name’s Neville.” He extended a hand, which Max shook with the curtness of a professional. “C’mon. The others are in the truck.” Neville thumbed at an open-backed truck parked on the dock. The paint job looked fresh, with a prominent New World Incorporated logo emblazoned in red on the door.

The four men sitting in the back, all white, wore uniforms that matched the newness of the truck. Three clutched rifles. The Peruvian dock workers circled wide of the truck. For their part, the NWI men watched everyone with suspicion.

“Those are German rifles, right? Mauser carbines?” Calder asked.

“Very good, Mr. Calder.” Neville stroked his chin. “You know your guns.”

“That’s what I told your man in San Francisco. That’s why I’m here, I guess.”

“Yes, yes. Tell me, Mr. Calder, are you a Max or a Maximillian?”

“I’m a Maximillian but Max will do.”

“Very well then, Max. I can’t place your accent. South African?”

“Displaced British, actually.”

“Displaced?”

“Yeah.” Calder kept his eyes ahead, studying the NWI recruits who in turn studied him as he approached.

Neville waved a hand at the truck. “Up you go, Mr. Calder. Make yourself as comfortable as possible. The trip to the mountains is long and bumpy to say the least.”

As Max tossed his backpack up into the truck, Neville opened the passenger door and stepped up. “A word of advice, Mr. Calder.” Neville paused on the threshold of the cabin. “Keep your eyes open for trouble. President Cerro’s government may welcome New World Incorporated but some of the locals are less enthusiastic about our presence. These are difficult times and you know why you’re here.” As if to emphasize the point, Neville pivoted to reveal the handle of a Colt .45 auto jutting from his belt.

Cthulhu’s Dark Cults: “Perfect Skin” by David Witteveen

Here is the extract from Cthulhu’s Dark Cults, this time a story from fellow Australia author David Witteveen with his short story “Perfect Skin”.

David lives in Melbourne, Australia. He won the inaugural Australian Horror Writers Association's Flash Fiction Competition. His other published Mythos work includes the story “Ache” in Hardboiled Cthulhu, which was reprinted in Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror Volume 2. By night he writes, drinks absinthe and wears cravats. By day, he does something dull with computers. He’s a very talented author and I’ve always admired how he can say so much with so little words.

David and I are long time friends, having met in high school. For a time we shared a flat with another friend, and backpacked through Africa and the United Kingdom together. We’ve also collaborated, on the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game supplement Devil’s Children and more recently in a short story appearing in Macabre from Brimstone Press, out later this year.

“Perfect Skin” is set in Istanbul featuring the cult that is central to the Call of Cthulhu campaign Horror on the Orient Express. David was inspired by two things when he wrote this story, as he explains, “The first was the factoid that President Ataturk banned the fez from Turkey in the 1920s. He wanted to transform Turkey into a modern, Western country rather than a traditional Oriental one. As part of that, he wanted Turks to wear Western clothing. But not all the citizens felt the same way, and there was a black market that smuggled fezzes in from other countries.

“The second inspiration was Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies. It's the definitive novel about the Bright Young Things. I love how the dialogue is so breezy and witty, but it's very clear the characters are all terribly sad underneath.

“The honeymooners Charles and Evelyn in "Perfect Skin" are my humble attempt to write something similar. And like Vile Bodies, my story starts off being quite light-hearted and amusing, and ends up somewhere very bleak.

“Something else I enjoyed about writing this story: there's not a squid-headed monster or unpronounceable name in sight. Lovecraft’s Mythos are a rich and deep platform for telling stories, and there’s a lot more that can be done with them than just the usual clichés.”

An extract from the story follows:

PERFECT SKIN
David Witteveen

Istanbul, Turkey, 1922

The sun rises in the east. Five hundred years ago the Ottomans swept out of Istanbul into Europe as a tide of Islam and blood. Now Europe sends its revenge –- a dozen luxury carriages, drawn by the very latest thing in steam locomotives. The Orient Express, a luxury hotel on rails, carrying smiling tourists to holiday in the city where the Sultans once plotted war.

Come into the dining car. Breakfast is being served.

Businessmen and diplomats sit side by side with gangsters and flappers. Look there by the window: newlyweds Charles and Evelyn Drake are sharing a meal. Such a handsome couple. His suit is expensive, his skin tan, his smile rakish and charming. And Evelyn -- slim and blonde, skin white and fresh as milk, her blue eyes wide with excitement.

“How long until Istanbul?” she asked.

Charles flicked back his sleeve to check his watch. “Another hour yet, darling.”

Evelyn watched the brown hills flicker past the window. She was a London girl, born and raised. The landscape out the window was as alien to her as the moon. Charles, who made business trips here six times a year, barely glanced up from his omelet.

“Where shall we go first?” she asked. “The bazaar?”

“If you like. They sell monkeys there, you know.”

“Really? Monkeys? Will you buy me one?”

“Of course. Nothing says ‘I love you’ quite like a small hairy mammal.”

Someone coughed behind Evelyn. She turned, thinking it was the waiter come for her plates. And her breakfast lurched back up in her throat.

A man stood there. Half his face had melted. The skin was rippled and scarred like the wax on the side of a candle.

Evelyn tried to swallow, but the food was stuck in her throat.

“Charles Drake?” asked that horrific face. “My name is Colonel Phelps, British Embassy. We need to talk.”

Charles stared up at him coolly. “You’re scaring my wife, Sir.”

“My apologies. But I insist that we talk.”

“Insist away. I’m having breakfast.”

“It concerns one of your clients in Istanbul, Mr. Drake.”

“We’re here on our honeymoon, Colonel. This trip is strictly pleasure.”

“Sir...”

Charles sighed and put down his cutlery. “Look. You’re scaring my wife and you’re spoiling my breakfast. If you want to talk, go talk to a mirror. Otherwise I’m calling the waiter.”

Cthulhu’s Dark Cults: “Captains of Industry” by John Goodrich

Cthulhu’s Dark Cults has gone to print, scheduled for release on the 27 May 2010. I also noticed that the anthology reached #15 in the Horror Anthology best sellers on Amazon.com today.

Here is my first post on the various stories included in Cthulhu’s Dark Cults. This post focuses on “Captains of Industry”, an opening novella by John Goodrich.

John lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont, which he calls “the last remnant of true Lovecraft country”. He has published several Cthulhu Mythos stories, all of which reflect some aspect of his unsavory life-style. When not writing or reading tales of madness and horror, he divides his time between hepatomancy, fencing, Facebook, and an obsessive regimen of feline grooming. He regularly gets Honourable Mentions from Ellen Datlow in her Year's Best Horror summations. An exciting new voice in the Cthulhu Mythos sub-genre of horror, he's appeared in the anthologies Cthulhu Unbound 1, Tales Out of Miskatonic University, R'lyeh Rising and Arkham Tales.

I asked John to provide me with some information on his story, which is set in Boston, Massachusetts and features the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight from the first Call of Cthulhu role-playing game campaign, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. In his tale union members of a washing machine manufacturing company wanting better work conditions, and so are forced to go up against a private detective agent in the pay of the company owner. The owner in turn is backed by a more sinister organisation.

John said about his story, “one of the major inspirations for “Captains of Industry” is the fiction of Robert Howard, specifically, his dichotomy between barbarism and civilization. For Howard, barbarian meant freedom, as opposed to the lockstep knuckling under required by civilization, and I wanted to explore those themes for myself.

“Just before writing this story, I had spent six months working in factories. I realized that it didn’t matter who you were when you worked on the line. You could be strong as a bear, swift as a panther, or as brilliant as Steven Hawking; to the guys upstairs, you were just a cog in the machine. I decided to write a story in which Conan was forced to get a factory job to feed his family, and the character of János was born. At the same time, I learned that my government was torturing people at Camp X-Ray, and the story came together.

“The story is intended to feel like a twenties-era Socialist protest story, in the tradition of Jack London and Upton Sinclair, while (hopefully) maintaining its readability for a modern audience.”

An extract from the story follows:

CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY

John Goodrich

Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 1921

The strikebreakers formed a grim skirmish line opposite the strikers. Whatever the color of their greatcoats, they looked grey against the gently falling Boston snow. Among the union men, an uneasy current of conversation sprang up, muffled by fear and snow. They held the bottleneck, the defensive ground just inside the black, wrought iron gates of Emerson’s washing machine factory. To break the line, or even get to the factory, the strikebreakers would have to physically smash their way through the striking workers.

“Come away.” Dimitri’s insistent hands plucked ineffectually at the threadbare cuffs of János’s woolen overcoat. “The strike is over.”

János looked down at the narrow shape at his elbow. Dimitri’s mouth was full of rotten teeth, and his small, delicate hands would not be much use in the battle with the strikebreakers. The pipestem Russian read books aloud on the factory floor, to keep the workers somewhat entertained. He had been a good friend to János, even if their countries had fought in the last war. There was something somehow refined about the small Russian, but János couldn’t say how the impression had wormed its way into his brain. While Dimitri had been a great supporter of the union and the strike, the fight with the strikebreakers was not going to be something he should be involved in. János placed a powerful, calloused hand on the Russian’s smaller one in a gesture meant to reassure his fellow striker.

“I owe it to the union. But you should go.”

“Little brother, they are from the Agency. They had coal miners hanged in Pennsylvania, and burned women and children who were hiding from their machine gun bullets in Colorado.” His clutch on János’s coat was hard with desperate strength. János watched the easy, familiar way that the strikebreakers held their long truncheons.

“It is 1921. Emerson cannot simply hire a gang of thugs to beat us into submission in the streets.” János knew how hollow his words sounded.

“You will get your head knocked in.” Dimitri’s voice was hard and angry, but it did not make him any less right. The Agency men weren’t here just to break the strike; they were here to break heads. Where anger had failed, Dimitri began to wheedle. “Who will look after your wife and beautiful baby?”

János’s face clouded, and he gave the little man a hard shove.

“Run while you can, Dimitri. This will get bad.”