A Beleriand Treasury of Childish Tales by Clodia

Sleeping Beauty

"Sleeping Beauty"

taken from

A Beleriand Treasury of Childish Tales

as told to

Erestor and Melinna of Ered Luin

(arising from the non-Euclidean nightmares of H.P. Lovecraft)

On July 16, 1980 T.A., we sank the new shaft beneath Barazinbar. The digging had been a stupendous task, for the ore that might easily be mined was all but exhausted; yet because there remained lodes of true-silver still undiscovered deep under the mountains we let no hardship deter us. The metal had been the source of our wealth since the time of Durin the Deathless, when a chance discovery of intensely fortunate, though largely mysterious, nature had brought to light a material that could be wrought as easily as copper despite being harder than tempered steel. With the greed of the Elves in particular aroused by the alluring sheen of the polished metal, our ancestors had begun to mine true-silver, nor had they ceased to seek out new lodes when that first vein failed. Stimulated by some desire greater than that of gold or eros, and conscious only of the overwhelming beauty of the exhumed mineral, the Longbeards of the Mountains of Mist delved near to Kheled-zârum, the Mirrormere, and there founded the city that before very many years passed had become known as Khazad-dûm.

Khazad-dûm had remained prosperous, though later besieged by the hideous forces of Sauron and somewhat troubled on that account; a trouble made less aggravating by the undaunted valour of the people and the strength of their subterranean halls. During the war our treasuries were retained and our population preserved by the closing of the West-door, the entrance onto the Elven-way to Hollin. Our ancestors, trusting in their defences, had sealed themselves into their city, and with them the mines that assured the continuation of their fortune. The digging of these mines was a very singular occupation, becoming annually more difficult as the lodes sank ever deeper beneath Barazinbar and yet one in which we engaged willingly, for the value of true-silver was ten times higher than the highest value placed upon gold. Increasingly our intricate and cunningly worked mines became the object of the greatest admiration among our kin, but the Elves hated them. They gladly seized the true-silver wrung from the rock by our unending labour, but the mining itself they hated and the deeper we delved, the more regularly came the warnings that no good could come of it. I had not ordered the new shaft to be sunk a week before I knew I should regret it. And this day the alarm has been raised, and soon we shall march to reclaim the mines.

The bare statistics of the operation all had known, together with the fact that the Elves had come to detest our mines under the mountains. Of details, however, they had always been sparing through a policy of reticence that was presumed to conceal superstitious ignorance or otherwise envy of our untouched riches. That they were no less concerned now than at any prior time in their history to possess true-silver was shewn by the chance arrival, shortly after we had begun work on the new shaft, of an Elvish emissary to commission a neckpiece and other jewellery for the Lady of Rivendell. Fair, tall, and somewhat youthful in aspect, this Elf-lord was accompanied by two dark companions who professed an antique acquaintance with our ancestral halls. The truth of this claim having been confirmed by recourse to crumbling records in our archives, all three Elves were admitted to Khazad-dûm and given lodging in the guest chambers near to the East-door. On being escorted through the city, the fair Elf-lord displayed some discomfort; for (as we then assumed) the Elves of Rivendell are not accustomed to underground dwellings, and become unhappy when confined below the surface. His guides did not comment on his obvious unease, but sought with some subtlety to set the Elf's concerns to rest. In this regard their efforts were not without success, or so I was later informed.

I myself was occupied with other matters at that time. The digging beneath Barazinbar required constant oversight and this I was at pains to provide, for as the King of Khazad-dûm it was my duty to ensure the smooth running of the mines. In recent days, however, I had found myself harassed by strange dreams, at first sparse and insidious, but increasing in frequency and vividness as the nights went by. Great smoking pits opened out beneath me, and I seemed to drift through titanic iron-roofed vaults and labyrinths of vast Cyclopean walls with grotesque wolves as my companions. Then the other shapes began to appear, filling me with nameless horror the moment I awoke. But during the dreams they did not horrify me at all – I was one with them; cloaked in their blasphemous darkness, treading their fiery ways, and bowing monstrously before an evil wrought-iron throne.

There was much more than I could remember, but even what I did remember each morning was enough to cast a shadow over the ordinary events of the day. It is not easy to concentrate one's efforts upon mining – not even upon the mining of true-silver – when one's thoughts dwell irrationally and incessantly upon such frantic recollections. One night I had a frightful dream in which I saw the occupant of that impious throne. In His loathsome crown were set two jewels of unbelievable brightness and when He raised His arms in a hateful gesture of command, I saw the charred blackness of His maimed hands. Sinister hieroglyphics covered the walls and blackened pillars, and from some undetermined point below came a voice that was not a voice; a chaotic sensation in that hideous phantasy which I can only attempt to render by an almost unpronounceable jumble of letters, "Belegûr fhtagn".

At that, I awaked with a stifled scream. Those recurring visions, whose burden was always some terrible Cyclopean vista of smoke-wreathed dungeons, had certainly been disquieting; but this new dream of brilliant jewels and charred hands, with that subterrene voice or intelligence shouting monotonous and enigmatical gibberish, had left a profound impression on me. Still, the meaning of this unpleasant verbal jumble was profoundly unclear, and being of a sceptical disposition I resolved to set all nocturnal imagery aside. I can at this date scarcely envisage the callous rationalism with which I dismissed these evil premonitions; but it must be recalled that since no cause for concern had presented itself during the daylight hours, apprehension would have been absurd despite my nightly wanderings. This I truly believed, and when the foreman of the mines mentioned the peculiar quality of the rock through which the new shaft was then being sunk, I suggested that it had been compressed by the unthinkable weight of Barazinbar over many thousands of years, and that even our ancestors had never delved so deep beneath the Mountains of Mist, where the discovery of queer and perhaps valuable minerals should not surprise those of us who mined there for true-silver.

In light of this possibility, I gave orders that samples should be preserved for further study. The material was indeed a mystery, for the soapy, reddish-black stone with its silver or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar from the surrounding substrate. Strangest of all, some peculiarity in the cleavage gave the distinct appearance of pictorial diagrams of a sort horribly remote from any usual form of symbolic representation. Of course this was merely an extravagant delusion on my part; though it was true that the foreman had earlier commented on the curious patterns that seemed to sprawl unpleasantly across the new shaft. The rationalism of my mind and the fanciful nature of the whole subject led me to adopt what I thought were the most sensible conclusions, however. So, after thoroughly studying the specimen again and attempting to correlate the foliated texture with the nearby mineral deposits, I determined that the stone was without value and set it aside, expecting to think no more of it.

By this time the Elf-lord from Rivendell and his companions had been in residence at Khazad-dûm for almost a fortnight. Since the cost of the jewellery commissioned by Lord Elrond comprised an unusually large sum in gold and precious gems, I had been at pains to keep his emissaries appraised at every stage of its development, and our meeting that day was neither unprecedented nor unusual. It so happened that most of the work had already been completed, and after exchanging some desultory comments concerning the work remaining to be done, it occurred to me that my venerable interlocutors might have some knowledge of the mysterious stone that had been discovered by those mining beneath Barazinbar. I therefore produced the specimen and set it before them.

I was scarcely prepared for the sensation which my offering created. One sight of the sample was enough to throw the Elf-lord's companions into a state of tense excitement, and they lost no time in crowding around to gaze at the peculiar specimen of stone whose utter strangeness hinted so potently at undiscovered and completely novel minerals. It was not so much the material, however, as the cryptic semblance of writing that excited their interest; for it was bizarrely akin, they said, to the crude scrapings that they had seen inscribed on the ruins of an island tower previously occupied by an accursed daemonic host in the days before the War of Wrath. Besides those ruins, which had long been subject to the cleansing influence of the sea, they had once before seen similar pictorial cryptograms inscribed on stone of this kind under circumstances such that they hesitated to share what they knew for fear of meeting with intense disbelief.

This data, received with suspense and astonishment by myself and the Elf-lord, was doubly exciting and I began at once to ply my informants with questions. There then followed a story to which I could not help but attach profound significance, although it savoured of the wildest flights of Elvish fancy. These two Elves were explorers of no slight note, as the records in our archives confirmed. At a time so ancient that the Moon had not yet arisen and Durin the Deathless still ruled in Khazad-dûm, there had come to their ears rumours of several ruined fortresses that were to be found in the far north of antique Beleriand. Their attention thus piqued, they had determined to make an expedition in that direction, despite the solemn warnings of their friends and acquaintances. After a journey both difficult and perilous, they had come to a desolate wasteland pitted with bottomless chasms and the broken spires of a terrible citadel – the corpse of the nightmare tyrant-city of Udûn, that was built in measureless aeons behind history by the loathsome Being who is still accounted the worst Enemy among all who have ever given trouble to Middle-earth. Of these ruins the Elves spoke little; for instead of describing any definite structure or building, they mentioned only vague impressions of vast angles and blackened surfaces – surfaces too great to belong to any thing right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphics. And it was those hieroglyphics that the Elves claimed to have later encountered in the ruins of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and which they now recognised, having developed organically through some frightful aberration of nature, in the specimen of the stone that had been found in the mines beneath Barazinbar.

This tale, as I have said, bore some resemblance to the wilder stories of Elvish invention, and yet I swiftly became convinced of their absolute sincerity, for they spoke of the devastated citadel in a manner none could mistake. Moreover I could not but be troubled by the curious parallels between their conversation and the dreams that had of late been disturbing my sleep with weird and terrifying imagery. When I strove to think of some way in which I could possibly have received the frightful impressions, I felt sure that I must have heard a tale of Udûn or its hideous neighbour Angband in some casual way, and had soon forgotten it amidst the business of my quotidian existence. Later, by virtue of its sheer impressiveness, it had found subconscious expression in my dreams. My attitude was still one of absolute materialism, as I wish it still were, and I discounted with almost inexplicable perversity the tremendous coincidence of the dreams and the hieroglyphics apparently embedded in raw stone.

At one point during our discussion, I had mentioned the curious patterns visible on the sides of the new shaft. To this subject the Elves now returned, suggesting with obvious eagerness that they might be shewn the patterns in question. Although it was not customary for outsiders to be permitted into our lower workings, this seemed to me a harmless plan, and so we descended through the city and passed without delay into the mining complex. I was amused to observe the Elf-lord's obvious discomfort as we progressed towards the deepest tunnels, for at that time I thought merely that he was suffering from a very common Elvish complaint; which is to say the distress that results in members of that frivolous and feverishly imaginative race when they are confined without access to the illumination of the celestial bodies. His companions exhibited no such unease, however, and when we arrived at the site of the new workings they went directly to examine the horrible semblance of unintelligible writings that had developed without reason or explanation in the queer, soapy stone.

It was by now clear that this bizarre phenomenon extended throughout the stratum. The Elf-lord's companions immediately proceeded to question the foreman and his miners closely concerning the discovery of this nefandous imagery, which they said was practically identical in all respects to the hieroglyphics that had sprawled over the crazily elusive angles of carven rock in ruined Udûn. There then followed an exhaustive comparison of details, and a moment of really awed silence when both Elves agreed on the virtual identity of the writing common to two inexplicable surfaces so many worlds of time and distance apart. What meaning the hellish text contained was beyond anyone's power to explain, however. Deeply impressed and not a little bewildered, I was about to propose an investigation in the city archives when something quite unexpected occurred. The Elf-lord, who had been examining the uneven rock face that currently brought an end to the unfinished shaft, fainted silently away.

Amidst universal excitement and concern, the Elf-lord was at once rushed to the nearest hospital. There he shortly awaked, exhibiting every appearance of great mental turmoil, and declared in the strongest language possible that he had sensed the presence of something hideous and indescribably malevolent while we had been examining the peculiar writings on the sides of the new shaft. Certain episodes in the distant past had familiarised him with this sensation, but it was hardly possible – certainly it was unthinkable – that the source of his current alarm should be such a being. Nonetheless, he said, some ancient evil undoubtedly lay buried (or perhaps imprisoned) under the awful weight of the Mountains of Mist.

He could tell us no more; but his conviction was absolute and sincere, and he advised us to block up the shaft and cease from mining beneath Barazinbar, lest some creature more terrible than anyone's worst imagining should be roused from timeless slumber. For himself, he would remain in the vicinity for not a moment longer than it took to fulfill Lord Elrond's commission. This resolution the Elf-lord maintained; and when shortly afterwards the last piece of true-silver jewellery had indeed been completed, both he and his companions immediately departed from Khazad-dûm, even though it was late in the day and the weather was far from pleasant. Of this I was not wholly sorry, for it was plainly impossible that the mines should be closed and their wild talk was beginning to alarm the miners. That these recent coincidences were multifarious and troubling was undeniable, and I did not doubt that the Elves had spoken in good faith, but I remained determined to sustain a sternly rational outlook. The mines that had continued to produce true-silver despite the full onslaught of Sauron's forces would certainly not now cease activity merely on account of a curious discovery and Elvish fears of unproven validity.

As I have said, we sank the new shaft on July 16, 1980 T.A. The strange stone having proven peculiarly malleable, the digging progressed at a swifter pace than we had anticipated, so that by the end of August the work was close to completion. Around this time, the men began to complain of unusual conditions on the lower levels of the mines; specifically, the increasingly unpleasant quality and heat of the air. Concerns about the presence of lethal gases having been demonstrated to be misplaced by the application of the usual tests, we were left bewildered by such unprecedented phenomena. We had scarcely begun to develop new methods of pumping fresh air down to the lower levels when the miners at work on the new shaft broke through into the cavern that lay below.

I must be very deliberate now, and choose my words.

The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That tenebrousness was indeed a positive quality; for it spread perfidiously through the places where their lamplight fell, and actually burst forth like smoke from its aeon-long imprisonment, rushing up through the new shaft and smothering the lights of the miners as it crept away into the unwary upper tunnels on clawing membraneous limbs. The charnel odour arising from the newly opened depths was intolerable, and at length a particularly sharp-eyed miner thought he saw an ominous flicker of light down there. Everyone stared, and everyone was staring still when It arose in an unstoppable surge of flame and shadow and poured Its fiery cosmic immensity through the narrow opening into the fervid air of that hieroglyph-marked exit from the depths of the earth.

The voice of the only surviving miner almost gave out when he spoke of this. Of the nine men who never escaped that shaft, he thinks three perished of pure fright in that accursed instant. The Thing cannot be described – there is no language for such shrieking abysms of blazing and infernal oxymoronity, such eldritch contractions of all matter, energy and divine order. An inferno strode or staggered. Mahal! What wonder that the mind of an Elf had failed on sensing that terrible underground presence? The Thing of my dreams, the blasphemous shadow-cloaked worshipper at that impious throne, had awaked to claim his freedom. After vigintillions of years a great daemon was loose again, and ravening for delight.

Four men were swept up in a tide of fire before anybody turned. Mahal rest them, if there be any rest in Eä! The other six were climbing frenziedly up the workings of the new shaft, and the sole survivor swears that the markings on the obscene walls glowed enough to drive a sane man mad. Only madness or poetry could do justice to the roar that rocked the mines then, but an approximation has been proposed that ensures I shall never sleep calmly again: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Belegûr Void wgah'nagl fhtagn! Iä! Iä! Belegûr fhtagn! In that infernal moment, five of the remaining miners were shaken loose and thrown back into that screaming, hellish chasm. So only one man reached the top of the shaft, and raced desperately for the upper levels as the blazing monstrosity surged up the shaft and hesitated unspeakably on the edge of the lower tunnels.

That was all. After that I believed the warnings given by the Elves. There are those who still talk of accidents of the sort not uncommon in mines; the only survivor, they say, having heard wild Elvish talk of ancient evils and being the impressionable sort, was driven mad by the explosion; and some even whisper that his tale is a fabrication to conceal his responsibility for the disaster. I know better, for I have seen the origins of the terrible Thing in my dreams. And so the alarm has been raised and the mines evacuated, for within that black abyss It awaits us still. It must have returned there when the man escaped, I suppose, or the lower levels would by now be awash with flames and cacodaemonic conflagration. Who knows the end? What has slumbered may awake, and what awakes may slumber. An inferno prowls and seethes in the deep, and if we hope to delve again beneath Barazinbar for true-silver, the new shaft must be closed down and the Thing sealed up once more behind that obscenely marked stone. The only alternative – but I must not and cannot think! There is no other way. So it is that the men are mustering for battle, and this day we shall march against the Thing in the mines.

Chapter End Notes

Lovecraft is Lovecraft. Read him. See especially 'The Rats in the Walls', 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'. Among other things, the 'dark speech' here definitely isn't mine. Again, you may be surprised to see who's been influenced by Lovecraft. You may also be surprised to see that he's been reading Dunsany.

Cthulhu fhtagn!