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After the reveal of the sunset city’s secret, Randolph Carter feared that he would never be able to visit the Dreamlands again.
Many nights passed with only dreamless sleep, gradually becoming weeks of dark, peaceful yet dispiritingly dull stillness. Carter fretted and paced upon awakening, causing his faithful companion, a placid and gentle black cat, to look up at him with wide golden eyes and utter a questioning mew.
Carter tried everything within his power to return himself to the wondrous world of dreams. He sought comfort and relaxation in the mundanities of warm milk, soft blankets and deep breathing, and in the more arcane rituals of ancient meditations and whispered prayers to powers beyond the gods of humankind or the ordinary world.
All his efforts, however, were in vain. Each night, Carter would find himself in bed either tossing and turning in wakeful frustration or opening his eyes at the first light of dawn from yet another sleep devoid of dreaming.
“Warren,” Carter whispered with a sigh, as he awoke on the first morning of his seventh week of dreamlessness. “Warren is the only answer… he will help me find the pathway back!”
Harley Warren was Carter’s friend and mentor, knowledgeable in all that was occult and mysterious. With Warren’s help, Carter knew that he would at least have a chance of returning to the Dreamlands.
Warren was more than eager to assist, providing Carter with a thick, leather-bound tome of ancient incantations, and a strange, spicy-tasting substance that smelled of earth and the dust of forgotten ages. He also gave Carter a pendant of carved bone, bearing archaic runes of unknown origin, upon a leather thong.
“Partake only sparingly of the drug and make sure to chant aloud the prayer for protection in this book before you fall asleep,” Warren had instructed, his tone solemn and serious. “The drug will make the dream-state more intense, but too much could put you in dire peril. And above all, make sure to put the pendant around your neck before you go to bed. Do not enter the dream-state without it, Carter, do you understand? It can bring you back to the waking world in seconds if you sense danger. “
Carter had agreed, eager and impatient to begin his fascinating dreams again, but Warren laid a warning hand upon his arm as Carter thanked him and prepared to depart for home.
“Take the utmost care, Carter. I cannot place too much emphasis on the necessity for caution! Great power lies in that substance I have given you, and great peril should you misuse it, by accident or by design!”
As the shadows of evening fell, Carter made his usual preparations for bedtime, his excitement growing. Striving to keep calm and level-headed, he followed Warren’s instructions to the letter, and lay down, closing his eyes as one hand curled around the bone pendant, a slight twinge of apprehension tempering his eagerness.
Carter fell asleep at last, and at long last, he dreamed.
It was a dreamscape unlike any other that Carter found himself in. This was not Ulthar beyond the river Skai, and neither was it the cloud city of Serannian. And it could never have been any realm where the ghoul who was once Richard Upton Pickman might choose to lurk.
The land upon which Carter stood was a vast, seemingly endless steppe, which stretched for miles as far as the eye could see. Far in the distance loomed a shadowy mountain range, tinted in delicate hues of mauve and blue. Upon the wide, flat grasslands, nomadic people, strong of limb and sturdy of build, tended to their grazing herds. Several nomads, glimpsing Carter where he stood, shouted friendly greetings, their voices carried by the light breeze across the plain.
Carter raised a hand in polite acknowledgement, then froze, astounded, for the beasts the nomads herded were no creatures he had ever encountered before, in waking or in dreams. Instead of the goats or cattle one would expect, they were massive, yak-like beasts with triple horns and triple eyes, their sooty fur trailing down over appendages that were not the hoofed legs of earthly animals, but writhing, pulsing tentacles that seemed to ooze across the earth as they moved, consuming grass and stray wildflowers with wide and ravenous mouths. Rugged, handsome herdsmen, mounted not on horses but on massive flightless birds with shimmering blue feathers and long, dangerously sharp bills, circled close to the herd and moved them from one grazing area to the next, or to the nearby river to cross and drink.
Above the lowing of the eldritch beasts, and the shouts of the herders, eerie but beautiful music began to echo across the steppe.
Sounds of faraway flutes and delicate stringed instruments drew Carter’s attention away from the nomads and their creatures and towards a magnificent palace that had seemed to appear from nowhere. Like a mirage, it shimmered in front of the mountains’ shadow, glowing with the sheen of silver and opals combined, a glorious and preternatural jewel.
Carter found himself moving towards the towering silver gates and was met by guards in armour of burnished steel, who made respectful salutes towards him and guided him inside the palace’s shining walls and towards a resplendent throne room.
A high-backed throne of black marble and purple velvet stood at the far end of the room, and on it sat a King in silver robes, his hair and eyes glistening with the same ghostly brilliance as the palace’s opalescent walls.
The King spoke, and his voice was alien, yet oddly familiar, a tone that Carter could not place and yet seemed somehow to remember from a past life or past dream.
“Welcome, honoured guest,” the King in Silver said with a beaming smile. “You are most welcome in my realm, Randolph Carter, conqueror of the sunset city and victor over the dread emissary of the Other Gods. Stay here as long as you please, my friend; every form of hospitality I have is at your disposal, and every pleasure that I can provide you with shall be yours for the asking.”
Satin-clad attendants ushered Carter to a luxurious chamber, with a four-poster bed hung with red velvet and an adjacent room where a massive white marble tub awaited. The tub, deep and inviting, was filled to the brim with warm rosewater and surrounded by candles scented with myrrh and cedar. A tall and slender young man stood beside the bathtub, indicating with one graceful hand that he was there to serve Carter.
He did not speak; he only looked upon Carter with eyes that were filled with past sorrows and present submission. Eyes that were enthralling and enticing despite the pain within, dark jewels In a face that bore a strong resemblance, in Carter’s mind, to that of a young Pharaoh.
Absent were the pschent and the wondrous robes that should have adorned this being; the man who stood before Carter, awaiting his command, wore only the simple black wool garment of a common servant. His warm skin bore the faint marks of fading bruises, and traces of a formerly proud and regal bearing clung to his comely frame despite his lowly status.
Catter’s heart was gripped by a sudden chill, and he trembled.
“Could this be my ancient enemy, cast out by the Other Gods, brought low and made mortal?” Carter wondered, his eyes wide with disbelief and apprehension. “Is this the fearsome being who tried to drive me into the clutches of dread Azathoth? Is this youth before me my former nemesis, the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep?”
The youth fixed his gaze upon Carter with a slow nod and bowed low before him.
Carter gasped, and clutched the carved bone pendant around his neck, stepping swiftly back.
He awoke in his comfortable bed at home, breathing hard and slick with sweat.
Unnerved and shaken beyond belief, Carter did not enter the new and alien dream-state for several days, keeping to his tasks in the waking world and soothing his soul at night with dreamlessness and peace. But Carter’s sense of intrigue and fascination had been piqued, and the final Sunday of the month saw him again perform the rituals that Warren had prescribed.
As the second dream began, Carter stood in the palace before the enthroned ruler of this dreamland, who was even more gracious and welcoming than he had been before. Robes of gold and crimson were brought to Carter, and the King in Silver bestowed upon him a golden belt adorned with rubies and a coronet of purest silver with a diamond at its highest point.
The youth who had once been the Crawling Chaos awaited Carter in his chambers, and with a formal bow, motioned him towards the ornate bathtub Carter had seen in his first dream.
Naked in the perfumed water, Carter allowed himself to relax and enjoy the warmth and fragrance. The strange melodies that Carter had heard out on the steppe played softly all around, as if conjured by magical, unseen musicians. Carter breathed deeply, intoxicated by the heady aromas of flowers and spice, and found himself unable to resist when he felt the hands of the beautiful youth caressing his bare skin, reverently bathing him as if he were a monarch or a god.
It was with the greatest reluctance that Carter pulled himself away from the bliss of the young man’s touch, using the bone pendant to return to his quiet bedroom. He was dry and fully clothed, lying still and calm, but his heart was pounding with a strange exhilaration, a gradual dawning of what the King in Silver’s most magnificent gift truly meant.
“The King gave Nyarlathotep to me as my servant, and there is nothing to prevent me making him truly my own,” he whispered to his cat, who had run up to the bed, purring, and jumped up to rub his face against Carter’s stroking hand. “That sweet submission in his eyes and his attentions to my body… was he not seducing me with each look, and every touch? I can claim him, use him as I please, all by the will of the King in Silver… the power is now in my hands, and the Crawling Chaos will never mount another reign of terror!”
Carter smiled, a slow, dark triumphant smile, and reached for the powerful drug on the bedside table. He felt victorious, invincible, and believed with all his heart that this time he would not enter the dream-world as an explorer, but as a mighty conqueror.
His impatience to enter the dreamscape again had reached a fever pitch by nightfall, and when the time came, Carter imbibed far more of the spicy sleep-drug than he should have and neglected to chant the protective prayer. All he craved was the beautiful youth who had once been the emissary of the Other Gods, pinned beneath him and crying out in pain and ecstasy.
Carter regained consciousness in his grand palace chamber, lying in his splendid four-poster bed upon sheets of midnight silk, and the youth who was once the Crawling Chaos was held tight in his arms.
The night of passion that ensued was all that Carter had longed for and more; the youth was enchanting, seductive, submitting to every act of exquisitely depraved pleasure and half-pleading for, and half-demanding, more. His lips were soft and his kisses wild, and Carter was swept away by a lust more powerful than any other he had ever known.
Carter knew not whether it was the spicy drug or simply the ferocity of his desire, but this dream felt more vivid, more intense than any other. All the adventures from his many excursions into the Dreamlands paled before this maddening, exquisite bliss.
In the embrace of his new beloved plaything, he became not merely human, but divine. As the boy who was once Nyarlathotep willingly surrendered to him, Carter allowed himself to feel a surge of power that only the gods must have tasted before that debauched and sacred moment came to pass.
Carter knew beyond all doubt that no force on earth or in Heaven could ever make him relinquish this dream-world, even though a tinge of fear still lurked at the edges of his perfect rapture.
That evening, as the boy who was once the Crawling Chaos slept, the satin-clad attendants from the first dream reappeared to dress Carter in his finest robes and his magnificent coronet, and usher him into the throne room for an audience with the King in Silver.
The King was smiling, his multicoloured eyes glowing like the stars on a frosty night, and he bestowed more luxurious gifts upon Carter, including a golden leash with which to tether his captive lover.
“My friend, you have made quite the conquest,” the King in Silver said. “Your former foe is now your bondsman, and you have your heart’s desire and more within my realm. All you could ever wish for, I will give without hesitation… but heed my words, Randolph Carter, and remember. Dreams shift, and shimmer, and change… and not all is what it seems.”
The King’s voice was light and gentle, a smile of amusement playing about his lips. “He who is your treasured possession now once had a thousand forms… for all we know, he could still take a thousand forms and still hold the reins of power on some other plane of existence!”
With eyes burning like those of a predator in the shadowed gloom, the King leaned forward, transfixing Carter with his hypnotic gaze.
“Enjoy your nights of wild abandon, friend, but take the utmost care that what you own does not strike when your guard is down and bring about your eternal ruin!”
Carter shivered but did not speak a single word; instead, he merely bowed low to his gracious host and returned to his private rooms. The beautiful youth who was once his ancient nemesis was awake now and waited in a far corner, silent and deferential, awaiting Carter’s orders, but Carter did not acknowledge him.
With two short strides, Carter moved to the wide and ornate window, and gazed down at the plains below, towards the industrious nomads with their tentacled bovines and their fearsome bird-steeds. Some of the herdsmen looked up to where Carter stood, and made strange signs with their hands, as if to ward off demons.
A heavy sadness fell upon Carter’s heart, and he reached to grasp the carved bone pendant that, with a sudden, sickening lurch of terror, he realized he was not wearing.
The words of the King in Silver were echoing inside his head, stirring memories of other dreams and other journeys. Bringing back a vision of a Pharaoh’s face and reminding Carter of where he had heard the monarch’s dulcet tones before.
A warning spoken by his eternal enemy, his beloved servant, his benevolent captor of a thousand forms.
“Farewell, Randolph Carter, and beware; for I am Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos!”