For the Book of Dead Names Project. Story & art by Aladdin Collar. 1500 words, based on details from HP Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.
IN HER WAKING LIFE, princess Snireth-Ko was kept shuttered in a high tower, protected from all who might want to do her harm. She heard many tales of horrors beyond the castle, stories of cruel men and hungry beasts, and she did not wish to leave her comforts. She was taught to be quiet; to be kind; and always to honor her King.
But in dream, Snireth-Ko was free to wander, and she obeyed no rules at all.
She frequently visited the Temple of the Hushed Bog. There, the butterflies were twice her size; the Hulking Spotted Toads had soft wet pelts like otters, and had tremendous throats that could spit a stone over a mountain. The Priests of the Temple paid Snireth-Ko no mind, so long as she was quiet, and so long as she wore bright colors for to scare away potential predators. The princess was very good at being quiet, and all her silks and dresses were dyed with the most vibrant hues. She spent many dreaming nights in the swamp.
When Snireth-Ko wanted to run and make noise, and went to the Meadows of Rakk, the Golden Hills, where sloped plains of wheat rolled openly for miles. Here lumbered the herds of buopoth, docile creatures with strong hooves and sharp beaks, which paid Snireth-Ko no mind. The Meadows were broken up only by leviathan trees, whose heavy branches dipped down to the ground, from whence Snireth-Ko could climb. At the highest branches, hundreds of feet above the Earth, Snireth-Ko could see the Dreamlands stretch out for many miles. She saw great forests, webs of streams and rivers, treacherous steppes and mountainous juts out stone. The many terrains twisted and changed from valley to valley.
Sometimes, Snireth-Ko wandered along the banks river Skai, and listened to the songs of magah birds at rest in the canopies, and to the mocking fish that whistled the birdsong back to them, in bubbling minor harmonies. The most wonderful vessels would pass; merchants and traders with ornately woven gold through dark oaken boughs; naval ships, carrying armored warriors, and flying intricate coat of arms; even the fisher folk and humble boats and rafts had their own unique designs, carvings, and colorful flags upon the mast.
One day, along the River Skai, Snireth-Ko was amusing herself by focusing light through crystals, for to set dry kindling ablaze. With her intense focus on combustion, she did not notice the approaching merchant vessel - as beautiful and decadent a ship as any that had come before.
The merchant vessel, sighting Snireth on the shore, dispatched a pinnace and two brutish men with long mouths, dressed in dreary brown robes. They captured Snireth-Ko, and brought her aboard their ship.
A horrible greyish white creature emerged from the galley - it was built in stature like the Hulking Spotted Toads, but it was hairless and muculant, with a mass of wriggling tentacles where its face should have been. Snireth-Ko knew that it was called a Moon-Beast - it played a hidious song on a crude pipe, and the ship began to rise out of the water, sailing through the air.
Before long, the ship was higher than the highest Leviathan tree; after several hours of ascension, the whole Dreamlands below were but an distant orb, a shrinking marble wrapped in fog, clutched in the black void of unplumbed space. Above, another cosmic body swelled; the moon, it all its pale illumination, grew huge upon the ship’s approach. All the while, the Moon Beast piped his odious notes.
Snireth-Ko had heard many tales of the Moon-Beast, how they captured slaves from the ranks of men, used them for horrible experiments, and sold the remains to traders on distant worlds.
Snireth-Ko would not be conquerored. As the great port city came into view, red litten by ominous lamps hung through the streets, she slipped out of her shackles, and deftly plucked the Moon-Beast’s pipe from its bulbous paws. She blew one shrill note - and the whole ship heaved, tipped, picking up speed at it careened downwards at a treacherous angle towards the horizon.
The Moon-Beast and the Long Faced Men attemped to reclaim the pipe, but Snireth-Ko threw the instrument off the starboard deck, and the vessel could not be rightened.
The ship flew past the red litten city, and on beyond the white dusty hills beyond, and towards the unknown dark of the moon’s far side. As the sailors saw their fate approaching, they threw themselves overboard, rather than endure the horrors of the unknown. The Moon-Beast was last to hop off.
As the ship was cast in shadow, the new terrain could be distinguished. It was a vast swamp of ash and pitch, bubbling craters of oil and tar, surrounded by stony patches and clumbs of brush, scrub, moss, and lichens that held no color at all. There were a few luminations across the landscape; some glowing cat tails; little bursts of electric activity between trees; and a few small, slow burning fires, where the tars and oils were alit in their craters.
As the impact approached, Snireth-Ko felt the flutter in her stomach that typically preceeded a return to waking life - but she did not want to wake, and the ship, it did not crash; it merely skimmed along the muds and wet swamp until it came to a sluggish halt, intact. The oaken vessel then began to sink, the soggy mire below bubbling and releasing long trapped pockets of suphuric gas.
Snireth-Ko hopped off the galley, onto a stone - the first of her kind of set foot upon that dark expanse. Beyond the mineral wastes and pallid vegetation, she saw no signs of movement, no signs of life. She picked up a stone, and threw it as far as she could - when it clattered against the rocks, there arose a command of many hushed voices, as projected from within the moon itself: “Hush.”
Snireth-Ko thought perhaps she’d just imagined it, but, nonetheless, she did her best to walk quietly among the alien landscape.
Then, at the far horizon, from whence she’d come, she saw them - a fleet of silhouettes against the rose glow that hung low in the otherwise blackened sky. They were merchant ships, two dozen of them, in flight - the Moon-Beasts, surely - and their galleys were aglow with red litten lamps that cast focused spotlights down to the craggy terrain below, and the odious piping crescendoed. The song was clear - they were searching for Snireth-Ko.
Again, as if from within the moon itself, came another whispered command: “Hush.”
As the ships barrelled forward, their lights reaching closer and closer, Snireth-Ko looked for some cover, some saftey, but could find none. The vegetation was not thick enough in which to hide, and she would not submerge herself in the sucking mire.
It was too late; the red light swept over the land faster than any beast, vessel, or messanger of the gods, and Snireth-Ko was spotted in its focus. She felt a warm heat all over her body. All she could see was bright red light, as the piping grew louder. As the notes swelled, the ships drew closer, and each focused their light upon her, increasing the heat.
Like the smouldering tar pits that surrounded her, Snireth-Ko began to slowly boil, blinded and deafened by the assault of the proud Moon-Beasts, who would not be bested on their home world. There was no escape from the light. She fell to her knees, enduring the rays in silence.
Again, Snireth-Ko heard the voices: “Hush,” they commanded, no longer at a whisper. The sound no longer came as if from underground, was all around her - and the princess saw, from the tar pits, from the oils and mud and clay, hulking spotted figures beginning to to emerge, toadlike, with soft wet pelts like otters.
The spotlights suddenly lost their focus, as Snireth-Ko heard a crash; when she regained her senses, she saw one of the sky ships spinning out of the control, and crashing, with great calamity, upon the rocks. At her side on the ground, a thousand Huking Spotted Toads had revealed themselves, dripping with pitch and mire. They scooped into their mouths great masses of stone and tar, and, like cannons, violently expelled the compounded material from their tremendous throats.
The Moon-Beast fleet was quickly demolished; the wooden planks were shattered, and vast canvas sails torn asunder. The frantic survivors, piping moonbeasts and screaming humans alike, were quickly devoured as they attempted to flee from the wreckages. None of the Toads dared eat Snireth-Ko; even in the dark, the vibrant colors of her dress signaled danger.
When Snireth-Ko awoke the next morning, she was no longer afraid of the world beyond the castle. She packed a bag, and picked out a vibrant dress. Without telling anyone, she took a pony from the stables and left her home and crown behind.
