Hello everyone and welcome to the tenth week of our Dream Cycle Book Club. In this thread we'll be discussing Lovecraft's epic novella The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.
This week's reading is The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Written in 1927. This is another novella of Lovecraft, weighing in at 104 pages in my copy of his fiction. I'm aware that 100 pages of Lovecraft's often verbose prose can be trying. Thankfully, Lovecraft actually separated this story into parts, which allows for easy splitting up of the reading. Our reading for this week is parts I-III, with parts IV and V covered next week. The text is available in PDF format courtesy of the Arkham Archivist here. Audio is provided by the talented HorrorBabble here
Image Credit Jian Guo
In chapter 6, Carter ventures to Inganok and the cold desert beyond. There he meets a familiar face and surely his certain doom.
The voyage to Inganok is mostly uneventful. The one event of note is when Carter points out a craggy island and asks of it. The captain says that they have no name for it and do not venture towards it, for strange sounds come from that island at night. They later dock in the amazing carved onyx town of Inganok, where reverence to the old gods and old customs are observed. The town is seemingly filled with carvings similar to that on the mountain Ngranek, though far less impressive.
In town, Carter acts as an onyx miner and asks after quarries. The locals warn of a strange quarry that none venture to, for it was seemingly mined by a strange hand. Carter notes that Kadath is fabled to be made of onyx. While in Inganok he notes a familiar face: a particular merchant he met in Dylath-Leen, who is known to trade with the people of Leng. He trades giant shantak eggs for onyx.
Soon Carter departs for the desert and the giant quarry. He comes to a smaller quarry, where the miners warn him of not venturing further. He ignores them and carries on. Looking back, he is perturbed to see the familiar merchant arriving at the quarry. He ventures ever onward with his hired yak until he reaches the fabled quarry. He is astonished to witness the sheer scale of the quarry. Clearly giants have mined at this quarry. His yak is spooked and runs away. Carter gives chase.
Carter soon realises that the sounds of yak hooves he believed he was chasing are actually coming from behind. He runs on frantically, not wishing to confirm his fears by looking back. Eventually he is struck by a horrific realisation. He is trapped by three colossal carved mountains in the distance. Flying to meet him are elephant sized reptilian Shantak birds. Certain of his doom, he turns to face his pursuer and sees the familiar merchant, atop a yak mount and herding a flock of giant shantaks. The merchant dismounts and forces Carter to mount a shantak. He also mounts and they fly out of the quarry. During their flight, Carter looks down to see huge craters which remind him of the colossal cave on Nganek which led to the abyss. The shantaks fear these holes.
Passing by the impassible mountain range, Carter finds himself at the plateau of Leng. He sees yet more familiar figures, as the hooved and horned men of Leng were in fact the slaves and cattle of the moon toads.
Carter dismounts and is led to the temple in the middle of Leng, where the High Priest Not to be Described resides. In this temple, he gains important knowledge on Leng and its environs. Leng and few other places are home to passages to the abyss and the waking world. The abyss is the dominion of the celtic god Nodens, who uses night-gaunts to his bidding in order to guard these passages to earth. Even the gods fear the night-gaunts. This confirms Carter's suspicion that the nearby craters are similar to that cave on Nganek. The murals also describe the worship of the toad-beings from the moon, and how men of Leng are transported on slave barges to the moon via the island that Carter passed on the way to Inganok.
finally bringing himself to face the High Priest Not to be Described, Carter is horrified to learn its true identity (which is left a mystery to the reader). He tackles a guard and makes his escape.
In this chapter we see references again to Celephaïs and The Strange High House in the Mist. In the latter story, Nodens is one of the gods who arrives to the house to escort dreamers safely on their journeys. It is interesting that he employs a gruesome creature that even gods fear. In Celephaïs we learn that the only other known character to escape the clutches of the High Priest Not to be Described is Kuranes himself.
I'm interested in the imagery of the High Priest. He wears all yellow and covers his face with a yellow silk veil. When I first read this I thought of Hastur, which Lovecraft namedropped in at least one of his stories. Another possibility that I've thought of is that perhaps the people of Leng have some manner of cult to Hastur.