Ultimate Spoiler Thread: The Third Quire (Part 1) (Patreon)

This first part covers pages 97 through 120, which is the mid-point of the Quire.

Page 97 ends the audience with Sebek, and begins our exploration of Akili as a Voormi. The Voormi are a creation of Clark Ashton Smith and appear in his Hyperborean tales, especially the Seven Geases and the Testament of Athammaus. In that latter title we meet a character named Knygathin Zhaum who is said to be descended from Tsathoggua and undergoes multiple deaths. Instead of having that be an isolated incident I decided to expand it into a select group, and make a character who undergoes a similar pattern over the course of the book. In the “family tree” Smith made of his deities he lists S’fathl Iq el-lhp (or Sfatlicllp, but I have already written of my choice in naming conventions) as the progenitor of Knygathin, so we get to explore her charater here.. 

On page 101 I list the seven deaths of the Magnum Voormis. Having them number seven comes from an early outline of Testament that Smith wrote in a Letter to Lovecraft. Each of the deaths is named after a deity in the lineage of Tsathoggua. 

On page 104 we meet an old woman who helps reunite Akili’s soul with his body. Here we get a first taste of the larger mythology I am constructing, starting with the role of Shub Niggurath in the larger story (I used Asha-tot as a variation of Azathoth to show that this myth cycle has been interpreted across multiple cultures). The Great Diaspora of the Sequins and the Chiliadal Worlds as honey traps are a concept I first hinted at back on page 4! The idea was inspired by Through the Gates of the Silver Key and relates to the way in which Lovecraft utilizes the concept of souls in his Mythos stories. Souls play an important role in Nyarlathotep, the Dunwich Horror, The Strange High House in the Mist, The Dreamquest of Unknown Kaddath and others. Souls are clearly defined as distinct, transferable, and desirable to certain beings or forces. As part of the greater mythology I had been looking for an explanation in Lovecraft’s writing for why Earth seemed so important to so many alien gods and species. The simple answer is that it actually isn’t, we just often don’t get to see how other worlds are treated. If we make Earth just one of a thousand (chiliadal) special worlds it stops seeming quite so special! So Shub Niggurath has marked these planets, and so Great Old Ones filter down, and from them (and races such as the Elder Things) new life forms across the universe. By her cunning, this life attracts the dispersed sequins… but more on that soon.

Page 105 has a depiction of Shub Niggurath holding her jaw bone. Sir Carter notes that the “vital gift of speech” came from the All Mother.

Page 106 describes the use of honey in the burial ritual (an idea inspired by Herodotus), as well as milk from the Young of the All Mother. This continues onto page 107 where I had fun incorporating the legend of the baobab tree (which looks a hell of a lot like a Lovecraftian monster) and the Mountains of the Moon, which comes from historical mythology as well.

Pge 108 starts with an homage to the Dunwich Horror’s whippoorwills, but in Arabic folklore the preferred animal is an owl-like creature.

Page 109 begins Chapter 3, The Gate of Ghouls. Both the title and the character Shan Nadour are throwaway references from the 1918 story The People of the Pit by Abraham Merritt. Lovecraft collaborated with Merritt on the round-robin story Challenge From Beyond. In any case, I decided to use the concept as an outline for this chapter and will delve into Shan Nadour more as the book continues.Note the Great Seal of Azathoth is intentionally not a real Arabic word.. 

110 has a quick reference to Lord Dunsany’s tale The Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men in the top margin note. This story is also where I took the name Mount Mluna. On this page Akili uses a phrase I borrowed from Arthur Machen’s The Novel of the White Powder. Also, the insults (“hath the Sun entered thy bowels”, etc.) are actually from contemporary sources to the time of Dee translating this.

111 has the third of the Lords of the True Realms greet Abdel as Seeker. This pattern of earning respect or authenticity is an established part of many myth cycles, but may be best known from Biblical examples such as the three Wise Men or Jesus teaching in the temple as youth (Luke 2:46).

Page 112 has the origin on Akili’s new name, as Abdel uses an analogy to a Bull to describe his relationship with his newly-reborn companion.  “Akili the Wicked” reflected Akili’s self-loathing and his belief that he was cursed. Now he is Akili the Bull and this change in name will bring with it a change in attitude. But other changes are in store for Akili…

Page 113 has a fun image of Akili offering worms as food. The ability to summon entities from the earth will develop along with his other changes.

Page 114 returns us to the cave of Ibn Yakrib, and I wanted it to feel different for Abdel, not only because his Master was missing but also because he had seen so much since he had been a student in this cave.

Page 115 reunites Abdel with his two guides, and sets them more urgently on their mission. El-Haddar’s first words were inspired by the Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) by Walter Scott. Their meaning shall be revealed in time. The phrase Abdel recites in Voormis should be familiar (in a distorted way) to anyone who has read The Mound. I had already included the region of Yemen known as the Hadramaut in the book before learning the trivia that it translates to “death hath come”. What a perfect place for Ghouls…

Page 116 at last gets us to the Gate of Ghouls and the perils set before it. The margin note calling this the “Necropolis of Leth-Yoddim” comes from an HPL letter to Clark Ashton Smith. The man pounding on the gate was inspired by the mother in Dracula who comes to plead for the life of her baby. Dracula had snatched the child to feed his brides, and sics his wolves on her. Here Ibn Schacabac does much the same. Akili revealing that he saved Abdel’s hand came as a surprise to me as I was writing.

Page 117 has a description of Ghouls inspired in part by the narrative of Tundale, a religious tale from the Middle Ages. Ibn Schacabac is suspicious of Abdel at first, even though he told him to seek him out. Things can’t come to easily for our main character, and it is more interesting when there are hardships to overcome.

Pages 118-119 are full of hardships! Danhash the Black Goat is named after a djinn in Arabian Nights Entertainments. We meet two humans living in the Ghoul Barrow, and keeping with the format of a memoir I immediately ruin the surprise of future events! So here is Yiban-Nu (a name taken from HPL’s letters), but actually he is Tomeron the Accursed, a character from one of Clark Ashton Smith’s Posedonis tales. There is a method to this madness, I promise. The other is Sefiya, a woman who will play an important role after the death of Ibn Schacabac. I believe I telegraphed his death within the first twenty pages of the book.

Page 120 tells of the forming of the Barrow, and the class structure within it. Eblis is the principal evil spirit in Islam, but I am specifically using the name to refer to a particular Ghoul God, not as the fallen angel of the Quran. HPL was a big fan of invoking him in his letters. We then get a visitation by an eft of Eihort. Eihort is a creation of Ramsey Campbell and is used with his kind permission. The moment when the creatures gropes spasmodically at Abdel’s face comes from an attempt by Lovecraft to write a love scene. See my post back in December called "There's no kissing in Lovecraft". 

This brings us to the middle of the Quire, and I will pick it back up in part 2 of this post.