Saturday, April 14, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.104: The Ring of the Deep



Last night the Silver Key opened a portal in my dreams leading to a crooked old chapel, which stood at the edge of a salt marsh a short distance from a decrepit coastal town. At the entrance to that curiously ramshackle place of worship, I was greeted by a robed and hooded figure, who beckoned me to follow within. 

Thence I was led down the nave to the alter, which was carved with strange and monstrous designs, and bedecked with strange and unfamiliar implements and ritual regalia. Beyond the altar a trapdoor yawned open to a set of stone steps, down which I followed my silent guide. 

The cellar below reeked unwholesomely of the sea, yet formed the habitation of a group of figures arrayed in a circle and garbed in shapeless black robes like unto that of my guide: they stood there motionlessly, chanting words in a coarse and inhuman tongue I was unable to comprehend. 

The cowled being who had led me into that realm of subterranean horror then turned and drew me into the centre of the circle; with cold, clammy hands that hooded thing forced something onto the little finger of my left hand, declaiming in gutteral tones that this was the seal of the First Oath of Dagon, to which I was now committed. I was then given a black robe of my own, and instructed to join the others in the circle in their aberrant hymnal. Lacking volition in that dream-like state, I did as I was commanded - and found to my surprise and horror that I was able to comprehend the strange and unearthly song of my new companions. 

The terrible secrets and cosmic abnormalities revealed in the alien phraseology of those lyrics - which I dare not repeat here - forced me to a screaming wakefulness...on which I discovered, thrust upon the little finger of my left hand, a ring of unearthly metal, wrought into a curious tentacular design...

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