CARCOSA STORY ABOUT HALI

(FRAGMENT)
by LIN CARTER

Carcosa Story About Hali (Fragment)

Rough Draft, Detailed Synopsis: Lin Carter

I. Now, it came to pass late in the first year of the Terror that They
That Reign from Betelgeuze spake in his dreams to Their Servant, the
necromancer Hali, yea, even him that was called Hali the Wise; and
he rose up and departed him hence from the Immemorial City and
did wander for some certain time in the wilderness, beneath the twin
suns and the strange moons that illume the skies of that world of
Carcosa that is in the Hyades, and whereof the scribe doth write. And,
in sooth, now that the grave did give up its sheeted dead, to stalk and

gibber through the streets, it beseemed wise for a necromancer like

Hali to make himself scarce.
II. And these things had come to pass in the days that followed hard
upon the heels of the appearance of that Apparition that arose up
from out of the Nothingness that was before Time and that is beyond
Space, and that smote Fear into the hearts of all those that did dwell
in the beshadowed ways of the Immemorial City; the which befell in
the early years of the reign of that Aldones, even he that was the Last
King of the Immemorial City, at least until the Coming-Thither of the
King in Yellow, as had been aforetime foretold by that very Apparition
of the Phantom of Truth.
III. In the fullness of time did it occur to one Elhalyn, a priest of the
Elder Gods in the Immemorial City, that Hali the Wise had writ in his
Testament much that foreshadowed the Curse that now smote the
City of Aldones, in that he had writ of the shades and permutations of
that state that By death is wrought greater change than hath been
shewn, whereas in general the spirit that removed cometh back upon
occasion and is sometimes seen of those in the flesh (appearing in the
form of the body it bore), yet hath it happened that the veritable body
without the spirit hath wal ked. And it is attested of those
encountering them who have lived to speak thereon that a lich so
raised up hath no natural affection, nor remembrance thereof, but
only hate. Also, it is known that some spirits which in life were benign
become by death evil altogether.
IV. Thus writ Hali the Wise, and these words brought the priest
Elhalyn to the attention of the King Aldones, for it beseemed to this
priest of the Elder Gods that if this necromancer was so deeply
learned in the Mysteries of Death, he might well know the cause of
the curse that now plagued the very streets of the Immemorial City,
where the dead walked and raved, and the living fled therefrom in
fear. For it is not meet or seemly that the living and the dead shouldst
commingle, since that each belongeth to a different sphere; and to
these sentiments agreed, and right full-heartedly, the King, Aldones,
gave as his fiat that the priest Elhalyn shouldst seek out the
necromancer Hali in whatever far and fabulous bourne he now had
taken as his home.
V. Now, for a time did the sage Hali wander in this wilderness, the
which wast not habited by men such as he, but only by the shy and
furtive Yoogs, the which be but rarely glimpsed by mortal eyes, and

then but dimly and from afar; and these quaint and curious creatures,
the Yoogs, be of much interest in that they perambulate about upon
three legs instead of two, and in a mode and manner most novel and
intriguing; and there were, as well, in these parts the loathly and
abominable Nests of the Byakhee, the which were wont to roost in
peaks adjacent to these regions. But of the Byakhee the Scribe writeth
naught, by reason of the grisly Ways thereof, the which be not quite
Wholesome to discuss.
VI. Now, the Black Lake on whose bleak shores the sage soon reared
his hut or hovel was in no wise like unto the other lakes to be found
upon this world of Carcosa in the Hyades; for the waters thereof were
dark as death and cold as the bitter spaces between the stars, and
naught that was composed of simple flesh lived or could live in the
gloomy and fetid Deeps thereof. And it is said that a cold and clammy
mist drifted ever above the bitter waters of the Black Lake, as a
shroud clings to a moldering corpse. And this mist swayed to and fro
with the wheeling of the black stars and the strange moons of
Carcosa, and they in the Immemorial City knew this as the cloud
waves.
VII. And it was whispered by men that these cloud waves hid forever
from the sight of men a Monstrous Thing that had fallen upon
Carcosa from the stars uncounted and uncountable aeons before this
time, and that this Thing yet lived albeit in a state of somnolence,
from the which it woke betimes, ravening with hungers unspeakable.
And the sages said that this Dweller in the Depths was of the very
spawn of Azathoth and half-brother even to Dread Cthulhu, the Lord
of the Great Abyss, and that the Thing in the Lake had mated with the
Black Ewe with a Thousand Young, aye, even Shub-Niggurath; and
upon that hellish and cloud-like Entity had begotten the Twin
Abominations, even Nug and Yeb. And it was deemed unprudent to
utter upon the lips of men the Name of the Thing in the Lake,
wherefore was it known as The Unspeakable.
VIII. When, in the fullness of time, the priest Elhalyn had sought out
the hovel wherein dwelt the necromancer, and had made converse
with Hali the Wise upon that matter the which had roused all of
Carcosa, and they spake of the Dead that had risen to wander abroad
and to ravish the living (even the living that they themselves had
loved and cherished when they had been on live), Hali mused and at
length spake thusly, from the profundities of his wisdom: Know, O

Hal Elhalyn, for that there be divers sorts of deathsome wherein the
body remaineth, and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit.
IX. And sayeth yet further: Now, this commonly occureth only in
solitude (such being the will of the Elder Gods), and, none seeing the
end thereof, we say the man is lost, or gone upon a long journey
which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in full sight of
many, as abundant testimony sheweth. In one kind of death the spirit
also dieth, and this it hath been known to do whilst yet the body wast
in vigor for many years. Sometimes, as it is veritably attested, it dieth
with the body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where
the body dids't decay. Thus spoke the necromancer Hali to the priest
Elhalyn.
X. Now, at length it came out in their converse that those of the Dead
whose like had been seen to stalk and raven through the very streets
of the Immemorial City were even those the which had been given
over unto the Thing in the Lake in sacrifice thereunto, that it was
given unto Hali the Wise to ponder greatly thereat. For such as he,
that knew the many forms and shapes of death, was greatly puzzled
and baffled at this manifestation of a law of the dead hitherto
unbeknownst, even to a necromancer such as he.
XI. Long had Hali the Wise known of the abominable custom of
binding and of hurling into the bitter depths of the Black Lake certain
victims, such as were designated to feed the hunger of Him That Slept
Beneath, and long had Hali the necromancer loathed and abominated
this custom. And now that it was revealed unto him that those of the
dead who rose to walk again the beshadowed streets of the
Immemorial City were even the same as them that had been fed to the
Thing in the Lake, he had great cause to think and to ponder.
XII. For well wast it known to such as Hali the Wise that the Thing
that had been of old hurled into the Black Lake was even Hastur
Hastur the Unspeakable, Him Who Is Not to Be NamedGreat Prince
of the Old Ones, prince and rebel against the Elder Gods. Not chained
in the depths of the Black Lake wast Hastur in these days, but hiding
therein, wary and fearful of discovery by Those whom he hadst
betrayed and fled therefrom. And very great and powerful was Hastur
the Unspeakable, greater than any mere mortal man...
XIII. And that very night, under the blaze of black stars and beneath
the leprous glimmer of strange moons, did the Elder Gods whisper in
his dreams unto Their Servant, even the necromancer Hali. But

whereof wast spoken the Scribe knoweth not, and therefore he

writeth not. But, upon the morrow, it is said that the necromancer
sought out the shale of the rocky cliffs and found thereamongst a
certain grey- green stone, whose name the Scribe knoweth not; and
that from this stone, with patient labor, did the necromancer cut
certain signs and sigils. Five-pointed stars were these, with blunted
tips, and in the very midst thereof were cutten shapes like lozenges,
open at both ends, containing Shapes like unto Towers of Flame.
XIV