The cozy cosmic, p.1
The Cozy Cosmic, page 1
The
Cozy
Cosmic
Edited by
Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito & Mark Teppo
Underland Press
This one is for those who carry on.
Death, in Two
~ John Shirley
1. Memento Mori
His eyes are white-light ceiling bulbs; his teeth, syringe needles—
he’s attended by a retinue of shiny scarab beetles.
I stood a-teetering on the vacuum-breathing brink,
where you fall with the weight of a single thought you think;
where laughing things rise to find they truly sink
and white on white on white on white—is the color of my ink.
I didn’t pass through the tunnel; the tunnel passed through me
And death will not hesitate, to come unseasonably.
Memento mori, remember death—I recall it clearly: yes yes and yes.
I’ve bargained with that smug, smiling merchant of rest;
though that time is past, and I pretend we never met
you know what hasn’t happened—will, onward, happen yet.
I no longer taunt the lion, nor will I walk the edge;
I withdrew from the void that shimmers past the ledge.
But every morning when I wake, I see the shadows smile;
I know that it is but his whim to smirk and bide a while.
2. No Refuge
So you think you die when you die
(When you die)
it’s all over, no more life
(No more life)
Truth ain’t that peaceful,
(Believe me!)
You won’t get off
Quite that easily
You’re going to wriggle
On the hook
Of being alive
It’s never one or two or three
or four
Always a five
No real end to strife--
Because there’s always
An afterlife
Oh don’t think you won’t feel
Oh don’t think you won’t see
You won’t get away
So easily:
Maybe it’s servitude
Or maybe it’s hell
Maybe it’s a color
That has its own smell
Maybe it’s a weight
That cries out aloud
Maybe it’s the razor’s edge
Of an unseen cloud
I don’t know what shape
it’ll take;
Or what color
it’ll be—
I only know,
(only know this!)
There’s no escape from
What Must Be:
The relentless trap of being
You will never
Finally go free:
There’s no refuge—
From eternity . . .
On Hearing the First Shoggoth in Spring
~ Tais Teng
New Haven sounded kind of hopeful, Lilian Wu had always thought, a quaint, cobble-stoned village sheltered by high cliffs and safe from any storm.
Lilian knew better. Put all hexes and ghost-catchers you want on your roofs, sacrifice your firstborn and the Mi-go would still sweep down from the sky, harvesting the brains of any careless boy who left his amulet dangling from the back of his chair when he crept outside to meet that lovely girl which might even be human.
Deep Ones would crawl from the sea on moonless nights and rattle your doorknob, bubbling and croaking, peddling dried sea anemones and the powdered beaks of Kraken.
Lilian had heard them a dozen times. “Just a pinch of our excellent dust,” their glutinous voices would wheedle, “and you’ll walk the streets of the great human cities again. Of Shanghai and Quebec. Jet planes will paint your sky with contrails as white as freshly fallen snow. Nothing bat-winged, dear human, no, no. You’ll be masters and mistresses again. Strong, so strong. The most fearful predators of Earth!”
One night her father must have listened to those voices and now she didn’t have a father anymore. Her mother had found him the next morning in a puddle of green slime and his staring eyes had crystallized into orbs as clear as water. They still lay on the shelf above the fireplace. If Lilian peered into their pupils she saw miniature skyscrapers and the strangely blue sky from Before.
Well, such things happened. It was the sixty-fourth year after the return of the Elder Gods and Lilian saw nothing wrong with her world. Take Amanda Giraud: she was all of forty-three and had still most of her teeth and fingers. You just had to be careful.
“There,” her best friend Susan whispered and raised her cross-bow. It was one of those clever Mi-go weapons. The arrowheads branched out into a dozen dimensions and could pierce any armor. It was a family heirloom and had only cost three babies.
“What?”
Susan kept pointing until Lilian got it. The bush in front of them stood completely motionless. Not a leaf stirred and that was a sure giveaway. The green sky was filled with scudding clouds and Lilian felt the breeze caressing her brow. This Shub must be very young to be so careless, though her camouflage was otherwise perfect.
“One of the Shubs,” she nodded and unrolled her net. It was made of aramid, a relict from the olden times, and not even the claws of a Shub-Niggurath kid couldn’t tear it. There was only a single Shub-Niggurath, just one Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, but that was enough. A thousand Young was an understatement: they were common as rats and cockroaches now and quite palatable if you first dipped them in vitriol and then left them hanging for a fortnight in your shed.
“Iä!” Susan yodeled, “Shub-Niggurath, the Goat with a Thousand Young!”
The leaves stirred and Lilian caught a glimpse of glittering eyes. The kid jumped and Susan’s bow sang, a note high as the screech of a gull. The Shub’s snarl stopped in mid-jump and the monster rolled through the gorse, clawing at the arrow.
The girls waited until the convulsions stopped and the glow in the eyes died to a milky white before walking closer. Shubs weren’t exactly intelligent but how smart do you have to be to play dead?
“Perfect shot,” Lilian said. Susan’s quarrel jutted from the skull, exactly between the two horns.
“Thank you. But we’d better make sure.” Susan pointed her amulet. It remained ruby-red, not a trace of vital blue. “Dead as a beached jellyfish.”
Dead, no longer in her chameleon mode, the Shub didn’t look very much like a goat. The pale body was grub-like, segmented and only the eyes could have been a mammal’s.
The Shub was unexpectedly heavy for something not much bigger than a hare: at least thirty pounds. It must be the bones, Lilian thought. Some trans-plutonium metal. Perhaps the smith can use them to forge spearheads?
“That boy,” Susan said when they were halfway to the cliff. “That Mike.”
It was like an electrical shock, just hearing his name.
“Yes?” Lilian swallowed. “Are you still sweet on him?”
“I was. No use now. He stepped on an egg case and a larva bored right in his foot. His brother tried one of the forbidden words but it didn’t help. Justin lost half his teeth and burned his tongue so bad he still can’t speak.” She balled her fists. “I hate all those stupid squid-heads! Why the hell did they have to wake up?”
“The stars,” Lilian automatically replied. “They went wrong. It was nothing we did.” She could have bitten her tongue. Susan didn’t want an explanation. She just wanted her support. “It is a pity and a waste. Still, there are other boys.” She couldn’t believe her own mouth saying such crap.
“Less each year and none like Mike.”
“Fewer girls, too. It evens out.”
“There is just no justice,” Susan muttered and there was nothing Lilian could say about that. It only now sank in. Mike is dead. Lilian felt very strange, almost tongue-tied. Mike had been Susan’s boyfriend, almost from the moment girls and boys started noticing they were different. Lilian had seen them walking hand in hand, kissing, burning blue incense when the black gulls returned from the Mountains of Madness in the ultimate South. Probably they had been doing more than kissing on the afternoons Susan didn’t want to go hunting or beach-combing. I loved him and I can never tell Susan. She felt like the mistress in the Severn Castle DVD, standing in the shadows of the cypress, yearning, while her king was buried by his wife and children.
“What happened exactly?”
“Exactly?” Susan’s smile was a savage thing, baring all her teeth. “Well, that larva first devoured his liver and his entrails. Kept his brain for the last. Kept him alive and screaming even after he was a hollow shell.”
She hates him. She hates Mike for dying and leaving her behind. I would still love him after he died.
“Girls,” a voice like a woodwind said. “Walking alone.”
A Mi-go stepped from behind an oak tree, his aether wings folded like tightly rolled umbrellas. From his belt dangled half a dozen brain cylinders. Empty cylinders Lilian instantly saw: the plug-in-eyes didn’t glow.
‘Such beautiful brains,” the monster continued. “Convoluted like the mountains where the continental plates clash. Glowing with vitality and fear.”
His fe
“You can’t harvest us,” she said. “Our village, we paid in advance. We are safe for the next half year.”
“It isn’t night,” Susan added. “Not your hunting time at all! And we are wearing our amulets.”
“Such amulets only protect against lesser star spawn. Not against higher beings like us or our esteemed enemies.”
“Ha!” Lilian snorted. “You are nothing but a mushroom. A walking mushroom!” All her fear was gone, transformed into pure and shining hatred. There was nothing they could do, anyway, not against a demon like this. Spit in his face and bite his hand when he tries to touch us.
“The Kingdom of the Fungi is the mightiest Kingdom of all,” the Mi-go lectured. “Every living being will become humus and food for us fungi in the end.” He shook the sack which wasn’t a head exactly. “Your lives are so short. Like the blooming of a single-season orchid. In my cylinder, you would live for centuries. You would see pulsing Algol rise above towers of burning ice. Hear the star whales scream while we spear them.”
They really don’t understand us. How could he? He is a goddamn mushroom! “To hear the sky-whales scream? That is not exactly my kind of entertainment.”
“You would live for a long time. You could see all your enemies grow old and die. See them feed the mushrooms, eh?”
‘Sorry, mister toadstool,” Susan said. “We may be only human but we have fangs.” She reached behind her back and the crossbow unfolded in her hands like some magic origami trick. “Fangs you gave us yourself.”
“How droll! A class nine weapon in the hands of a third chimpanzee. And it is pointing to the only vulnerable part of my body, too.”
“Yes. Your second brain node. A hunter told me.”
“Humans hunting Mi-go? Such a fascinating concept.”
“A priest of Hastur instructed him. The King in Yellow isn’t your greatest fan.”
The Mi-go hopped backward and opened his bat wings. They started out small, the kind of wings devils sported in the old pictures. But these wings kept unfolding, getting more attenuated until they reached the top of the sky. A single wing-beat and the monster dwindled to a spot, was gone.
“You drove him off,” Lilian said. “He was afraid.”
“I bluffed him.” Susan started to shake and Lilian embraced her, feeling Susan’s whole body quake.
“I had only a single Mi-go arrow and that is still sitting in the skull of the Shub. My other arrows are forgeries. Carved to look like the real thing. If he had looked closer . . . The arrowhead doesn’t branch out into other dimensions. It is as 3-D as us.”
The encounter with the Mi-go had helped Lilian get her priorities straight. Love and happiness were only options: the only thing that counted, really counted was surviving. Seeing the light of another day. Mike was gone. Some other boy would have to do.
At the edge of the cliff, Lilian looked down at New Haven. There were the twin capes with the lighthouse to the left, and the jetty with their five fishing boats. Purple smoke rose from the smithy. Whatever metal Abdul Hunrabi was melting and hammering wasn’t something from this solar system or perhaps even from this universe.
It looked so peaceful and it was all a lie. Take the zigzagging stairs that had been carved in the cliffs and reached all the way down to the village. They had appeared overnight and when you put your foot on a step you instantly shriveled, and turned into a mummy.
“No one is fishing,” Susan said. “There is only that single sail and it isn’t one of our boats. A lure I guess.” The jellyfish had been growing more intelligent over the last five years, clumping together until they grew to the size of ancient oil tankers. The white sail probably was only the top of a monstrous jelly, with tentacles that reached for half a mile. “I think it is even flying a flag.”
“I’ll have a look.” Lilian took her treasured binoculars from her pouch. It was upgraded by the Tinkers and could look straight through the thickest mist or even rock.
“It is a flag, one with red stripes and a blue field with white stars. It got it almost right. Only there are too many stars and that red is more like purple.” She laughed. “And it is waving but in the wrong direction. Against the wind.”
“It is hoping someone will think it is the US Navy and sail from the harbor.”
“Nobody is that stupid. If they are rescuing us they are sixty years late.” Lilian raised her hand, “Wait. Something is happening.” The flag suddenly grew slack and then the whole ship started to go down. Only a few heartbeats later even the tip of the mast slipped beneath the waves.
“End of the show,” Susan said. “Let’s climb down at the lighthouse. It is still a long walk.”
The next morning her mother woke her before dawn was even coloring the sky.
“What?” Lilian muttered and opened her eyes which were still heavy with sleep.
“Your friend Lilian is down in the kitchen. She wants to see you.”
“I am coming. One second.”
She stumbled down the stairs on bare feet.
Susan was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a glass of steaming goat milk and she looked just terrible. Pale and her eyes were red from crying.
“He came back, Lil. Last night.”
Lilian didn’t have to ask who. “What did you do?”
“I called my father and I held him by his wrists while my father cut off his head. I mean, it sure wasn’t Mike. Mike is dead.”
Lilian felt a delicate shudder, something that was almost sexual.
“But how did you know? I mean, something could have resurrected him. It happens. They are the Elder Gods. Some are heavily into resurrection. I know vampires are only a rumor, but . . .”
“A vampire or a zoumbay at least have known my name. I know Mike quite well. We didn’t only kiss and the thing at my door called me ‘Suzanne’. It was like he had done all his homework, but the wrong homework. Mike always called me Sue. I have known him since kindergarten and it always was Sue. Mike was the only one who ever called me Sue.” She sighed. “He was exactly like Mike and he looked completely alive. ‘Hi Suzanne,’ he said. ‘Let me tell you how I came back.’ And that was the moment I knew he was an impostor.” She nodded. “This time we didn’t take any chances. We burned his body and threw his head into the sea. Let the black gulls have that liar and dine on his eyes!”
Lilian was walking down the beach, searching the flotsam and the tangled weed on the tide line. It had been spring tide that night, with the green and red moon full in the sky, bearing no less than four shimmering rings.
What came back once can come back twice. If it hadn’t been Mike really it came close enough and Susan had scorned him. Now it is my turn.
Her friend had probably thrown the head from the rock that jutted out just below the lighthouse. With the flood coming in it had probably ended up somewhere left from the middle of the beach. She took her upgraded binoculars from her pouch, put them to her eyes, and whispered; “Find him. Please.” The instrument moved in her hand, projected a circle on the beach, and added cross-hairs.
Lilian nodded. “Got it.”
Seagulls were screeching and swarming at the indicated place. She pulled a driftwood stick from the kelp and ran at them.
There wasn’t much left, only a jawbone with a few shreds of skin and three teeth. She could only hope it was Mike’s. She had counted on a more or less intact head.
There was a movement in the corner of her eye and she looked up. The Mi-go landed light as a thistledown on the sand.
“I followed you,” he said, “planning to catch you without your fierce friend. You had such a dazzling brain! I would have kept you fresh and screaming for a thousand years.” He folded his clawed arms. “This is a much better story, though.”
“Story?” Lilian asked. It was useless to run. He would catch her and she didn’t want to play his cat-and-mouse game.
“We love dark stories, full of betrayal and selfishness. We like such stories even better than living brains. Think of it! You are stealing your best friend’s lover, her dead, resurrected lover. How she will hate you! Perhaps he still loves her? That would tie a love knot made of barbed wire.”
