When the sun had been exchanged for the moon, I found myself at Arkham’s large cemetery, armed with a few memorized passages from Liber Ivonis, a powerful torch, a coil of rope, a small knife with a retractable blade and a reliable lighter. I didn’t know what to expect, but thought too much preparation would hinder improvisation once the events got underway as I expected they would and deemed it better to be loose and responsive than clinging tightly to a fixed plan. The night was dead quiet. As the previous nights, there was no wind, the temperature had decreased from that of the day, but it was still warm. The heat made the stars look distant and weak but the moon was large and yellow like a harvest moon.

The quiet cemetery lay in darkness. Except for the lamps in the streets bounding the cemetery, there was nothing illuminating the area. Large and profusely growing trees and bushes dominated the small city of the dead. What kind of unnameable resources nourished these plants I preferred to keep out of my mind.

I retraced a path I had walked three weeks before to the older section of the graveyard and the moss covered and crumbling giant gravestones and mausolea dedicated to Arkham’s rich of the past. Aided by the torch and memory, I had no problems finding the simple granite slab lying level with the ground bearing the inscription “Hesper Payne, 1686-1732”. Hesper Payne, accused of witchcraft and fraternizing with the devil in 1732, sentenced to death by crushing of stones the same year, but who had mysteriously disappeared from her cell a few days before the sentence was to be carried out. All that had been found in the cell was an oddly angled symbol on the floor, which was erased as soon as Cotton Mather, the leader of the witch investigations, had taken a look at it. Payne was never seen again.

In the old days symbols had to be drawn for a gate to be effective, spells had to be chanted, the site sprinkled with blood or holy water in elaborate rituals in methods that were haphazard at best. But modern parapsychology had worked out that the symbols, sounds, patterns and gestures were nothing but focal points to guide the mind of the person performing the ritual to will movement of energy and objects between different planes. Hyper Euclidean geometry was one of the sciences which had solved some of the mysteries about such movement. Direct and applied parapsychology were other such sciences and knowledge from all of them were at my disposal.

By visualizing a memorized hyper Euclidean geometrical pattern to concentrate on as an abstract pointer for the summoning, I began to set up the gate. After spotting her in dreams, Hesper Payne had appeared from interdimensional space using one of her crude geometrical gates in an attempt to bind me for purposes unknown. Hesper Payne never left Arkham, she merely went into hiding and kept spying on the town which she regarded as her own. From time to time she would contact and call men which she drew to her. The last time that had happened was four years ago when Walter Gilman disappeared in Payne’s old home at King street. But knowing the paranormal history of the town I knew who I was dealing with when discovering her and avoided falling in her trap.

A summoning spell carried a great risk, Payne was certain to desire revenge for the humiliation of being summoned and then bound as was my intention to do to her but I wasn’t afraid. I had methods to banish her from this and the neighbouring planes forever and she knew it. Five yards in front of me, above the stone slab which covered Hesper Payne’s mock grave, a memorial she nevertheless was emotionally attached to because of her thirst for revenge on her jurors and thus an appropriate location for summoning her, a greenish glow appeared. As I focused my mind on the pattern I had prepared the light increased in strength. The summoning would soon be complete.

“Nice job, Leonheart,” a voice growled behind me. I turned quickly but not fast enough. A heavy blow hit me in the chest and knocked me sprawling on the ground. I gasped for air and trying to open the painful knot in my chest, my eyes filled with tears and blurred my vision. But the voice had been enough to identify my assailant as Almasy, I didn’t need to see him to be certain of that. I quickly pulled the knife out from the right pocket and released the short blade from its casing, keeping it close to my body. With strained breath I struggled to my knees to face Almasy.

He looked even more ragged and gaunt than last time, his limbs having turned to nothing but matted fur and bones and his face being little more than a domed forehead, short snout and small dark eyes, having nearly lost all traces of humanity. I guessed the changes were caused by the death process he had been through. He now truly looked like a reanimated corpse. My surprise and disgust must have been visible, because suddenly Almasy began to laugh.

“Not proud of your work, are you Leonheart?” He grabbed hold of my jacket front, leaned down and breathed into my face. “Take a good look because it’ll be the last thing you’ll see in this life.” I didn’t wait for his move but quickly extended my right hand to drive the knife into his left arm. He howled and instinctively lashed out. I reeled backwards but held the knife out in front of me. Another blow and I ended up on my back but by concentration and luck, managed to hang onto the blade. He was over me in an instant but I had the knife ready and slashed him again, this time in the belly.

He retracted for a moment, clutching his stomach. I scrambled up and closed in to try to get another hit. But it had been a feint, suddenly he grabbed my right wrist with both hands and twisted it. I yelled and let go of the knife, the pain too sudden and too strong to be suppressed. Almasy put one claw around my throat and began squeezing. I knew I would not be able to talk my way out of it this time. Almasy wanted revenge and it was too close for him to be reminded of human sensitivities now.

“Enjoy your death, Leonheart,” Almasy growled. “I’ll be waiting for you on the other side and give you a lesson in the life of the undead.” I fumbled in my pocket for the lighter. Where was it? My fingers felt stiff and uncontrollable and I was beginning to become tempted by the idea of giving in to the drowsiness which was clouding my mind. Distantly, I felt Almasy shake me once and thought “this is it”. But at that moment, my fingers grasped the square metal of the lighter and that gave me hope. With unseeing eyes I pulled the lighter out, flicked it open and lit it. Then I held it against Almasy’s side. The moment a cloying darkness began to envelop my consciousness, I saw a flickering yellow light in front of me. Almasy’s flesh was burning. He let go of me and pulled backward but I fell with him and we both ended up on the ground. I held onto Almasy and kept the small fire of the lighter close to him. He bellowed as his left arm caught fire and began to burn with preternatural speed. I pulled away from him.

“Give it up, Almasy and I’ll get you home,” I panted. “Believe me, you can be cured!”

He looked up at me, both arms on fire and the flames spreading to his shoulders and chest, no longer caring whether he was burning or not.

“Was that the only thing I was to you?” he asked with a tremor of sadness in his thick voice. “Your big experiment? A test for your smart spells? You were aware of my family’s history and knew that Payne would easily trap me once you deflected her attention to me, using the heritable elements to her advantage. I had no way of resisting her binding spells . You let me take your place in her snares. You knew this would happen! I’m not the monster here. You are.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Please come with me and we can work this out. I’m sure there is a cure to be found.” His only reply was a bitter laugh. Then the flames on his body died down as suddenly as they had appeared. I steeled myself and tried to concentrate.

The shadowy form of Hesper Payne appeared next to us, a billowing form of impenetrable darkness and a pair of malevolently glowing eyes hovering above the tall grass. She extended one hand and passed it over Almasy’s face.

“Sleep,” she commanded and his dark and smoking form fell to the ground. Then she looked up to face me. Her form seemed to stretch out.

“Boy sorceror. Thinking you could best Hesper Payne.” She laughed. Her rasping voice was carried through multiple dimensions and had a strange echoing quality to it. I didn’t reply, but kept concentrating on the binding pattern I had secured for her in the hope that there was enough time for the pattern to be activated.

“You and he were easy catches,” she continued. “So eager for power and so blind. You certainly are your forefathers’ descendants. Men, how easily seduced by their own power and arrogance they are.” She laughed again and looked back at Almasy’s immoveable form on the ground behind her. The pattern ready, I stretched out my mind to include her in it. She looked up.

“Your magic, not bad because of your blood. But your deflecting spell never worked. Instead I decided to take the sacrifice you offered and come for you afterwards.” Shutting her venomous remarks out, I increased the strength of my concentration, focused on the pattern to the exclusion of all else and reached out for her mind again. This time I managed to take hold of her but only momentaily before icy pain shot though my head, breaking my concentration completely.

“Stupid boy, never knowing when to give up,” she hissed. “You will be a good catch when you’re dead.” She lifted one hand in some kind of signal. Numerous shadows appeared from the bushes separating each headstone around us. Some of the shadows seemed to appear right out of the earth itself. The air filled with the stench of the grave and the sound of tittering and growling voices. I looked around. About ten ghouls were closing in on me. Hesper Payne’s shadowy form faded into the darkness. I saw a pair of ghouls bend over Almasy and pick him up. Then a blow hit me at the back of the neck and I knew no more.

Lemon sails and the creaking of wood against wood. The sound of air straining sail tarpaulin and water rushing past the bough. The smell of salt water and good weather. The gentle movements of the ocean. I was back at the ship.

I recognized the ship, the bearded and turbaned crew and even some of the other passengers onboard. Time again became drawn out into an infinity of warm and lazy days on an open and featureless sea under a generously blue sky. I spent the time conversing with the passengers and learning some of their stories and destinations. I even asked one of the crew where were headed.

“The Plateu of Leng,” was the reply. Then the turbaned man turned away and walked over to his shipmates and entered conversation with them. I asked the other passengers about our destination while trying not to appear too ignorant about our destination. Most of the passengers seemed to be going to Leng to trade some kind of object or other which had a name but one I didn’t understand. I decided that Leng was a trading port of some kind, much like the city we had departed from and most were headed to Leng to sell the wares they had bought there.

I received a strange flutelike instrument from a gaunt blackskinned passenger who seemed for a time strangely curious about my presence on the ship. In order to gain some peace from his incessant and sometimes unanswearable questions, I begged the flute of him under the excuse of being bored and wanting to learn to play it.

“By all means, take the flute,” the black man said. “But beware, it’s a lamp eft flute.”

“What does it do ?” I asked.

“The flute emits vibrations which are particularly harmonious to lamp efts, causing them to follow you wherever you go. You are strong, it shouldn’t be particularly difficult for you to befriend a couple of them and keep them alive.” The black man grinned at me and handed me the slim wooden instrument. “Try it if you dare, but only after nightfall,” he added with a wink. Then he got up and disappeared into the doorway leading to the cabins.

I watched the endless sea and the endless blue sky until forgetfulness overcame me. Then it became dark and white stars filled the sky with extraordinary, unearthly brilliance as if the distant suns were closer to us here than they were in the waking world. I looked down at the flute in my hand debating with myself whether I should take the chance of testing it or not. I didn’t know what a lamp eft was and whether it would represent a danger for the ship. But I had a feeling I knew how the dream would end no matter what I did, so I put the flute to my lips and blew into it. The flute produced a thin clicking sound, not the melodious tone I was expecting. It was a dry but startlingly loud noise which seemed to increase in strength as it spread into the air before finally dying out in a whisper.

After a few minutes, several lights appeared some ways off starboard side, white orbs of light moving up and down in the air. A high pitched vibrating noise could be heard as the lights grew closer to the ship’s side and soon a melodious whistling, not unlike that of birds could be heard.

“Lamp efts approaching! Hurrah!” a female passenger with long green hair, the most outrageous hair color I had seen in my life, shouted and laughed. An elongated creature with a flattened newt like tail appeared in the air next to her. On top of its narrow head were two enormous eyes occasionally producing a beam of intensely bright white light. As the creature moved its body through the air, undulating like a fish swimming in water, the light beams from its eyes moved and played over the deck. Soon another light creature appeared, then another, swinging their eye beams back and forth as they moved in the air. The creatures’ flanks held a row of bright spots, one on each annulum of the body. These spots changed color, and the sequence of light passing down the body changed in rhythm with the general motion of the animal. When the animal moved slower in the air, the lights on the flanks changed less quickly, when the animal seemed to be roused by the promiximity of other efts or humans, the bright spots lighted in quick sucession along the animal’s sides.

Several of the passengers came out to watch the efts and their improvised light show. The lamp efts seemed to enjoy having an audience and accompanied the performance with a flute like monotonous song which was strangely calming. I watched the movements of the lamp efts for a long time, marveling at their graceful movement through the air and the hypnotic blinking of lights on their sides until I fell asleep on the ship’s deck.

Then it was day again and the storm broke loose. Knowing what lay ahead, I stayed in my bunk being violently seasick and nervously awaiting the sinking. When the sickening ripping sound of the main mast breaking reverberated through the ship, I went outside. As the ship turned and I hit the water, I had time for one last draw of breath. Then I began sinking, pulled down by the raging sea and the sinking ship. I concentrated on a bright spot inside my mind, imagined it the eyes of a lamp eft and tried to remember their montonous and calming song. I fell through the water with great speed as if I were trapped in a strong current leading down into the Stygian depths.

I had air left when the light at the surface was but a faint memory above and a subtle green glow appeared in the darkness below me. I looked around and became astonished. As I had glimpsed in the previous dream, I was at the bottom of the sea looking down on the skyline of an entire sunken city. Through the blackness and silhouetted against the green glow that seemed to come from the buildings themselves I could make out the shapes of towers, a few bridges and numerous smaller buildings. There was indeed a current present and it seemed to pull me quickly towards a specific structure, a twisting and oddly shaped tower in the middle of the city. I had the sensation of someone calling my name over and over again. Then I ran out of air and gasped my last breath into the black infinity of deep ocean.

I watched the treeline above me sway in an unfelt breeze. The sky held the bruised violet of dawn. From far away I heard the morning chatter of birds sitting inside the vegetation of the cemetery. I was lying on the ground by Hesper Payne’s slab. I turned and vomited up the water that had gotten into my lungs. It wasn’t half as frightening now that I knew what to expect, but it was still scary and painful. The salt water burned in my chest. I was soaking wet and still cold.

“Tough trip?” someone asked. I flinched and looked up, expecting a vengeful Almasy. A hunched shadow rose from the headstone it had been sitting on. A ghoul, but much larger and gaunter than Almasy and being clad in nothing but a few rags, obviously not being Almasy. In the predawn light, something blinked on its face. A pair of round spectacles were sitting at the ghoul’s nose. I stared at the ghoul.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the ghoul said. “My name is, or rather was, Richard Upton Pickman. Your uncle was a close friend of mine and we traversed the dreamlands together many times. Boy, I had never expected to meet his nephew. But I can see that you are your uncle’s blood and travel the dreamlands as easily as he did.”

“Pleased to meet you,” was the only thing which came to my mind. I strained my tired head to try and understand what had happened. Dreamlands? Ghouls? Uncle Randolph? I coughed to get rid of the last bothersome drops of water from my lungs.

“How do you know Carter was my uncle?” I asked. The ghoul grinned at me, baring a mouthful of yellow but finger long canine like teeth, a fairly unsettling sight.

“I can smell your kind, too curious for your own good.”

I looked at him, wondering if this was true. As if the ghoul had read my mind, he quickly added: “Not really. I had a debt to Carter I never had the chance to pay, so I kept an eye on his family after he died. Didn’t look like I ever would get the chance to repay him, but then I heard his nephew had started at Miskatonic and knew the time had come. If Carter’s nephew was half as curious as his uncle, he’d land himself in paranormal trouble sooner or later out of the studies he would see at Miskatonic. But never had I expected you to get into the mess you have.” I looked down, not knowing what to say.

“I guess your debt is paid now since you got rid of the other ghouls and Hester for me,” I finally said. The ghoul grinned.

“I reckon I did although convincing the others to leave you here despite Payne’s orders wasn’t too difficult. She had bound us and being bound is always a source for revolt. She is a royal pain in the ass, thinking we’re her personal servants, demanding us to do this and that for her with no right other than the strength of her magic,” he confided. “She has no respect and certainly no love for us ghouls and that is reciprocal. The others recognized you as Carter’s blood kin too, so they were quite curious to see what kind of fellow you were and wanted to let you live. No, it was more difficult to keep your friend away from you. He is young and still somewhat human. He won’t esily forget what he thinks you have taken away from him, his life as a human being.”

“I… I didn’t think the masking spell would work,” I stuttered, taking the ghouls rebuke. “I didn’t think Payne actually would confuse him for me and I certainly didn’t know she would change him into a ghoul.”

“But you did want someone else to take your place with Payne,” Upton countered. “You weren’t too eager to become her target, were you?”

“No I wasn’t,” I admitted. “I wanted things to stay the way they were for a while longer. I couldn’t face it, not when I had a way of trying to prevent it. And I was so certain if something happened to Almasy, there would be a way to mend it, one way or another,” I muttered. The ghoul made another grin and shrugged.

“It’s human I guess. No one wants to be a target and be hunted down by ghosts and other beings. And maybe someone will find a way to reverse the ghoulish condition some day. Your uncle used to think so. But until then, we ghouls have our own ways and our own lives to tend to.”

“You will take care of Almasy, won’t you ?” I asked, hearing my own voice tremble. “Even if he was created by Payne? You’ll take him in like the others did with you that time when uncle Randolph met you?” The ghoul sighed and looked at me with a stern gaze, but not without some humor.

“Yes, of course we will. He is one of us now. But he will be out for revenge, at least for the years ahead, so you should watch your back. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes now, having one vengeful ghoul after me and Hesper’s big hit on Arkham to look forward to tonight.” I looked at him.

“Big hit?” I asked. The ghoul nodded.

“Hesper has finally become strong enough to get her revenge on Arkham, the city which condemned her to death so many years ago. The power she gathered from your friend and you was the last thing she needed to complete her summoning.” I felt dizzy.

“What is she going to do?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. But she said she’d flatten Arkham to the ground. If I’m not mistaken, she will summon her master, the Black Man and he will appear in one of his 999 other forms and wreak havoc on the city.” When hearing that something screamed inside me.

“The black man?” I asked. “What does he look like?”

“Like the name says, completely black but not looking like an African, just his skin is black, absorbing all light.” I felt a growing fear mix with the confusion and remorse I was feeling.

“I met a black man in my dream,” I said. “He gave me this.” I pulled out the slim instrument I knew was still in my right pocket. The ghoul jerked backwards as if in surprise.

“That was him!” Pickman said shrilly. “The Black Man, Nyarlathotep himself!” I just looked at the ghoul. “Your uncle challenged him and won on the roof of the world in the dreamlands,” he explained. “Nyarlathotep may be out to call in some debt on his own through Hesper Payne.” The ghoul turned his face to look at me sideways. “You’re in deep caca now. I would definitely not want to be in your shoes. Nyarlathotep is the heart, soul and messenger of the gods. He doesn’t take trickery lightly and especially not by a mere human being. Your uncle humiliated him. He will be taking revenge on any Carter coming to the dreamlands.”

“But he only talked to me and gave me the flute,” I said. “He didn’t do anything. The flute only called up some flying newts with light for eyes. They were peaceful.” The ghoul frowned.

“Strange. Maybe he’s grown soft in his old days. I would have expected him to have tracked you down and killed you instantly the moment you entered dreamlands. No by the way, that’s not Nyarlathotep’s way. Of course he’d talk to you and see what kind of a man Carter’s nephew is. Then when he’s checked you out, he’ll get his revenge, one way or another.”

“Much encouragement you are, “ I muttered. It seemed as if every being in the other planes were out for my head.

“I’m sorry,” Pickman replied. “But there’s no way I can get you out of this one, even if I tried. Nyarlathotep is way out of my league. We’re not talking ghouls and lamp efts and zoogs here, this is The Old Ones, they are god like in their powers but malevolent and impossible to understand. Needless to say, they’re not healthy for your kind, human beings or their cities.”

“So that’s what Hesper Payne is planning to do,” I asked, wanting to switch his attention to a slightly different subject. “Calling this black man to her and have him destroy the city of Arkham.”

“Most probably, yes. Or have him summon something for her.”

“How can I stop her? My powers are not strong enough to even bind her.”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Pickman said. “You have to figure that one out by yourself. But you have my word, if you need something done which the ghouls actually can assist you with, we’d be willing to help, for a small fee of course.”

“Of course,” I muttered.

“Call me if you need me.” I nodded.

“Thank you.”

The ghoul that was Richard Upton Pickman grinned, bade me goodbye and rose from his macabre seat. Then he retreated to the darkness of the line of trees behind the small glen in which we were sitting and was gone. I got to my feet, gathered my torch and rope and started on the long way home.