The Xothic Legend Cycle

NOTE by Henry Stephenson Blaine, Ph.D., curator of the Manuscripts Collection of the Sanbourne Institute of Pacific Antiquities in Santiago, California:

THE following extract from the journals of the Copeland-Ellington expedition to central Asia (1913), made by Harold Hadley Copeland, the expedition's only survivor, were discovered during a routine inventory of Professor Copeland’s papers, which were bequeathed by his estate to the Sanbourne Institute in April 1928. It is hardly necessary for me to remark that Professor Copeland’s is a very distinguished name in the field of Pacific archaeology. His great text. Prehistory in the Pacific: A Preliminary Investigation with Reference to the Myth Patterns of Southeast Asia (1902), remains the standard classic in its field and has been an inspiration to at least two generations of scholars who have followed in his footsteps—myself but the least among many. Even his Polynesian Mythology, with a Note on the Cthulhu Legend Cycle (1906), although it reflects his unfortunate and growing enthusiasm for questionable occult “theories”, which led to the regrettable erosion of his scholarly reputation and is perhaps indicative of the mental aberrations which dominated his declining years, remains to this day a massive work of scientific research. It is even possible, I think, to admire the monumental scholarship that went into his The Prehistoric Pacific in the Light of the Ponape Scripture (1911), although even the kindest critic cannot bur regret that Professor Copeland's developing mania led him to accept too readily flimsy theories of a bygone Pacific civilization of absurdly remote antiquity based insecurely on doubtful documents and the lore of obscure cult survivals a presumably ancient and highly advanced civilization, of which the enigmatic Easter Island images and the megalithic ruined cities of Ponape and Nan-Matal are assumed mere vestiges.

The reader of this issue of the Journal of Pacific Antiquities in which the directors have seen fit to include the following excerpta, must be aware that the publication of that particular work in 1911 led to a rather hasty prejudging of Professor Copeland’s admitted aberration and to his being requested to resign from the Pacific Area Archaeological Association, of which he was a cofounder and a past president.

In all his colorful career, however, no episode is more controversial than the central Asian expedition of 1915 and the discovery of the so-called “Zanthu Tablets”, reputedly in the stone tomb of a prehistoric wizard in the mountain country north of the Tsang plateau region. The expedition was lost, Ellington having died of red-water fever only a few days our from the advance station at Sangup-Koy; Copeland himself was near death when, three months later, emaciated from advanced starvation and in a raving, incoherent state due to hysteria and deprivation, he was discovered in the dunes beyond the Russian meteorological outpost at Kovortny on the borders of the Chian province of Mongolia. Slowly recovering his health, Professor Copeland unfortunately published, in a privately printed brochure issued in 1916, a conjectural and fragmentary translation of the Zanthu Tablets. The edition contained material so shocking, chaotic, and revolutionary, so thoroughly at odds with even the most imaginative theories yet set forth on early Pacific civilizations, that not only was the booklet officially suppressed, but the resultant public outcry, from press and pulpit alike, occasioned the final extinction of what little remained of his scientific reputation.

Amid the widespread publicity surrounding the discovery and translation of the debatable and blasphemous Zanthu Tablets, no reasonably authentic account has been published to this day concerning the course of the ill-fated expedition itself, nor of the peculiar circumstances precedent and subsequent to the opening of the famous tomb of the prehistoric Central Asian shaman. Professor Copeland’s own account, from his unedited journals, herewith follows. Some will see in these disjointed passages only the psychotic spewings of a diseased brain; others, perhaps more deeply versed in certain obscure texts of ancient lore and in the surviving myth patterns of little-known Pacific and Asian cults, may find troubling hints of a primordial and frightening truth.

—H. Stephenson Blaine

June 1928

Journal of the Copeland-Ellington Expedition, 1913

Sept. 22.

Thirty-one days out of Sangup-Koy. Made about fifteen miles today, more or less, despite dwindling supplies of water—thank the Lord for creating camels! Still weak from lingering traces of fever, but medical supplies low, too. Since Ellington died, native bearers have become distinctly uneasy and are growing ever more troublesome ... muttering about tomb-guarding dugpas again, and most reluctant to travel after sundown. Must have a stern talk with Champo-Yaa; remind him, as chief guide, it’s up to him to keep his boys in line and on the move. Took samples from eroded stone rubble at base of cliffs today; examination in my tent tonight over reeking oil-lamp most disturbing. Expected at least some fossils of rudimentary fish, primitive mollusks, coral, or the like, prob. dating from Silurian or Ordovician, but no signs of fossilized life whatsoever. Surely, this tableland cannot be that old! Cold very intense tonight, air most penetrating, and wind in the distant peaks horribly suggestive of howling ... but Champo-Yaa swears there are no wolves in these regions.

Sept. 23.

Only about thirteen miles today, alas! Traveling in these loose dry sands very difficult going, even for the camels, and the air itself is so incredibly dry that it sucks the very moisture out of the lining of our throats. Spotted the eleventh landmark right on schedule: cairn-like mound of rubble circling central spire with a cloven pinnacle. Ponape Scripture's directions to the burial ground remarkably precise, even after all of the elapsed millennia. My book (when and if I find the tomb of Zanthu) should set the scientific world on its ear and astound the so-called "experts." Pack of damned fools: evidence of primal Mu is written on the labyrinthine walls of immemorial Nan-Matal and Matal-Nim, to say nothing of the aku-aku monoliths on Easter Island. Surprising that the Kester Library has never gotten around to publishing an edition of the Scripture: the scientific find of the century, if only the blind, stubborn fools dared to set aside their preconceptions and prejudices long enough to face the facts squarely. (Shall certainly dedicate my eventual book on the Zanthu find to that gallant and pioneering ship’s master, Captain Abner Exekiel Hoag, who found the book on Ponape during his voyage to the South Seas circa 1734, and brought the document home with him to Arkham, Mass., where his half-breed Polynesian-Asiatic bodyservant translated the Naacal for him ... come to think of it, perhaps it would be better to dedicate the book to the memory of Imash-Mo, High Priest of Ghatanothoa on Mu itself, and to his continuators, who recorded the prehistoric myth-cycle in the first place. Without them, there would have been no Ponapc Scripture for Capt. Hoag to discover.) ... Bad night, more nightmares of howling shapes lurking atop snowy summits crowned with weird architectural remains that looked weathered as if by millions of years ... aftermath of my bout of fever, no doubt, and after all, what harm can come from mere dreams?

Sept. 24.

Managed only twelve miles today. Reserves of water getting very low— damn whoever it was that slashed the goatskin waterbags during night of the 18th! Thought it was some sort of animal, from the way the bags were mangled, cut to ribbons as if some beast had chewed them with his fangs. But now I’m not so sure. May have been chose lazy, superstitious fools, my native bearers. Surly, troublesome louts! Thought I would turn back to Sangup-Koy if they destroyed supplies of water. Fortunately, there is the snow, although Champo-Yaa seems oddly reluctant to drink it ... bearers growing more restive and unruly every day—gave me surly looks today, and overheard them muttering amongst themselves of peling (bad word—something like "foreigner-devil") when I tried to urge them forward. Bur I will not turn back; I walk in the steps of brave and stalwart gentlemen—Steelbraith, Talman, McWilliams, Henley, Holmes. Only poor Richardson and the unfortunate Clark Ulman have gone as far as I into this forbidden Tsang Plateau region; I shall yet outdo them all, or die in the attempt. Remnants of fever lingering in my system, or lack of purified water beginning to take its toll, I fear. Disturbing dreams again, and curious hallucinatory waking visions during the day: like stone outcroppings along summits which begin to take on the appearance of unthinkably vast, inhumanly angled, cyclopean masonry. Probably due to the combined effects of eye strain (wind bitterly cold and horribly dry), dehydration, cumulative fatigue, etc. Perhaps even mirage effects. But the natives see something too along the ridge-line—began whimpering and mumbling among themselves—something about "Old Ones" or "Primal Ones." May have a showdown soon; either that or wholesale desertions. Sleeping with revolver under my pillow tonight.

Pray God—no more of those horrible dreams.

Sept. 28 or 29.

Five more bearers deserted during night. Stupid beggars tried to make it appear they had been bodily dragged away—obviously in attempt to frighten their fellows into taking similar flight. Well, seems to have worked, or at any rate the remainder pretend to be dreadfully afraid of—something. I am not fooled easily, however, and had another little "talk" with Champo-Yaa. (Still and all, if they were faking the signs, how the devil did they manage to carve those hideously suggestive claw-like marks in the flint-hard rock? Clever swine, these Asian native hill tribes! But they are mad if they believe they can scare me into turning back; nothing will do that, I will go forward even if I must continue the journey alone.)

Hallucinations, or mirage effects, growing more frequent along the ridge. Distinct suggestions of tremendous fortifications on the peaks—huge crenelated walls and squat, thick turrets, but of such incredibly vast proportions as to hint they are the work of giants, not of men. Odd architectural style, too: nothing Chinese or even Tibetan about them. Curiously suggestive of the cyclopean masonry on Ponape and of certain horribly old ruins in Peru. Also oddly reminiscent of certain things mentioned in that abominable Necronomicon I foolishly read in Cambridge back in my student days. Vile book, gave me bad dreams for weeks!

... Bearers whispering of dugpas (tomb-guarding ghoul-like things) again, and along toward sunset, one of the men squealed and dropped his load, swearing he had glimpsed something up above amid the “ruins”— thought I caught a glimpse of something moving myself, but it must have been that cursed eye strain. Whoever heard of an animal part lizard, part crustacean, bigger than a grizzly, and—winged! Just another illusion brought on by fatigue, nervous strain, weakened eyes, and the fever—but all the bearers began grunting fearfully something that sounded like "Mi-go! Mi-go!" and would not stir from their tracks one step until I showed them the revolver. ...

Must remember to keep up this journal; have been forgetful recently. Not even certain which day it is, not that it matters much.

About Oct. 1

... This land is more ancient than I could have dreamed; wind has scoured sand and desiccated soil away to lay bare the hill slopes, revealing strata of amazing antiquity—Cambrian, certainly, if not indeed pre-Cambrian—incredible to realize that this region of central Asia has been above the waves for five hundred million years, perhaps as much as a thousand million ... surely it must be one of the oldest continually exposed portions of land area on Earth. ... Suffering terribly from cold and the haunting stillness, also thirst. Snow tastes “bad” again, as if contaminated with some foulness. ... down to five bearers only by now, since Champo-Yaa deserted, or disappeared, or was carried off ... no water at all for eleven days now ... drinking the blood of the camels ... wind like a whetted knife, and more howling in the hills ... but no single sign of life for a hundred miles and more, as if all of this immense region has been sterile since Time began. ...

—That unknown range of mountains closer now, looming monstrously huge, virtually Himalayan ... weird vistas of bare, black, jagged, fanglike peaks marching across supernal sunset skies to the north; sky an amazing sight, a blazing panorama of sulfurous and flame-lit vapors ... somehow, the colossal vista of snow-laden, black peaks and under-lit cloud effects horribly suggestive of a growing and gathering menace, as if with each day I struggle on I draw closer to some stupendous ancient secret those nameless and uncharted ranges have been guarding like a colossal wall for hundreds of thousands of aeons ... oddest of all is the peculiar and haunting sensation of remembering ... doubtless after-effects of that lingering fever and this omnipresent thirst, but—I could swear that I have seen this region before, either in a previous life, or within old, half-forgotten dreams.

About Oct. 3rd or 4 th.

Horrible day—hunger, gnawing cold—thirst a continual torment—snow deposits still polluted and undrinkable—perhaps the uncanny sterility of this region, its total lack of living things, of even the most rudimentary forms of life, due to some inexplicable contamination?—one step after another, boots crunching through dry crystalline sand—Richardson never got this far, turned aside in the hills, searching for some strange, sealed, forbidden cave which was supposedly guarded by degenerate worshipers of that abominable Chaugnar idol ... tortured him to death, I believe, poor, brave man!—remember now that Ulman brought back a horrible stone Thing from chis region—-something so chillingly suggestive, so nauseatingly obscene, that I believe the Manhattan Museum of Fine Arts people never dared put it on public exhibition. ...

This must be the most horribly ancient land on Earth—ghastly place of horrid cold, utterly lifeless, dry, desiccated, no other desert region this bleak and barren, none known to me, anyway ... remember cryptic and frightful hints in the obscure Mu Sang prophecies ... shadowy whispers of age-old survivals from the blasphemous Elder World, hideous hybrids from the squirming ooze of primal swamps ... old gods and demons and darkling horrors that lurk and linger on in the dim, forgotten corners of this bleak legended region of unthinkable and terrifying antiquity. ...

Odd, how that chance reading of the Ponape Scripture years ago has changed my entire life—from the day I first unwisely peered into those curious, thick-fibered pages of palm-leaf parchment, bound between crumbling boards of wood hewn from what some experts unhesitatingly swear is an extinct species of prehistoric cycad or tree-fern, and then first studied the Hoag translation, I have been unable to think of anything else but to locate the tomb of the wizard-priest Zanthu, who fled from the destruction of antique Mu, bearing with him the Elder Lore. And to think that Zanthu himself passed this way, living over this same harsh and desolate ice plateau of dead sand and frozen shadows! ... The quest has been like an obsession with me, as if to the fanaticism of the dedicated scientist was added the blind, unquestioning faith of the occultist or the mystic. ... Dreams very disturbing, and more howling in the hills to all sides, and from that enormous range of unmapped and nameless mountains that loom dead ahead. ...

A bit later.

Have lost much weight and depleted my strength from short rations and fatigue, but thank God thirst no longer a problem, now that we are into the high snows, queer chemical contamination no longer noticeable—it was old von Junzt that confirmed me on my path; his data on Mu, in the copy of the Unaussprechlichen Kulten they keep (for some reason) under lock and key at the Huntington, completely corroborates information in the Ponape Scripture. ...

Found myself thinking lately about certain obscure old books and their puzzling hints as to the fantastic antiquity of all this Tsang Plateau region of Asia—dim whispers of elder horrors that seeped down from the stars when the planet was young and molten, or terrible Visitants from beyond the universe itself, uninvited Things that wandered here through inter-dimensional "gates"—started to remember baffling remarks in that damnable Necronomicon I puzzled my way through so many years ago ... did not the Mad Arab himself, old Abdul Alhazred, whisper suggestively that remote and mythic Leng was thought by some to be located somewhere in this dark corner of forbidden Asia? Horrible, prehuman Leng, guarded by the Tcho-Tcho people, and the shantaks, and the Abom. Mi-Go who haunt the hills? ... Terrible, fragmentary legends of weird, inhuman shapes shambling amid the unbroken snow of polar summits, threshing tentacles in the moonlight, shrill ululations that come from no human or bestial throat gliding pillars of quaking protoplasmic jelly, somehow strayed from other worlds and far dimensions—what is that awful passage from the nightmarish pages of the Necronomicon about "portals to Beyond, and Things from Outside that sometimes stray through the shadowy Gates to stalk through earthly snows" ... antique Leng is coterminous both with obscure regions of High Asia and with other worlds and spheres and planes of existence ... why do I seem to recognize all this landscape, as if I had seen it before, long ago, as though from another, earlier life?

God! I am mad or going mad ... cannot endure for much longer these torments of the mind, body and soul ... near the limits of my strength and sanity ... last three bearers hall-insane themselves with superstitious fear by now; have to drive them on before me all day at gun-point. ...

Much later.

Horrible blind battle in snow—bearers dead or run off—middle of the night, frightful shrill ululation from the frigid darkness, terribly close; snatched up gun and flashlight and plunged out into the moonlight to glimpse bearers battling hulking crustacean-lizard monsters, horribly huge—they bad no faces, but somehow they saw me—had already torn one poor native (poor devil!) limb from limb, the hot blood glistening black on fresh snow in the gray moonlight—came stalking toward me, dreadfully real in the dim light, paying no attention to the gun in my hand ... but most curious and frightening of all, when the flashlight momentarily revealed my face, the monsters whipped about—waddled away, and all the while squealing as in mindless panic—but why should such brutes be afraid of me?

2 clays later.

Into the nameless mountains at last, trudging forward alone, dragging my supplies and records behind me on improvised sledge. ... Two more encounters with the winged lizard-things since that first, shocking scene; each time, they fled blundering and squealing from the very sight of me (perhaps I am the first white man they have ever seen?)—Shot one of them, but didn't succeed in killing it. God forgive me, I had drink its slimy, nauseous, stinking blood, no snow at this height ... hallucinations virtually continuous now, night and day, almost at the end of my strength—queer architectural effects along the skyline clearly visible, though I am half-blind from cold and dryness of the air, so only blurred glimpses of geometrical stone cube sections clinging to the heights above me, worn and weathered as if hundreds or thousands of millions of years had gone by since unthinkable hands first reared them. ... Down into the gullies and ravines amid the foothills now. ... Stone outcroppings unbelievable, Azoic, I swear it! Most horrible ancient piece of continuously exposed land surface on this planet ...

If genuine ruins, works of sentience, then these terraced cyclopean walls and fortifications that seem to throng about the fang-sharp, frightful peaks are, must be, the oldest worked stone artifacts known to science ... older by innumerable ages than dark Lhasa or the labyrinthine ruined cities on Ponape ... surely, survivals of immemorial Mu or of something older even than Mu—titanic glyphs, or suggestions of glyphs, along the stretch of the terraced battlements, uncannily suggestive of the uncouth R'lyehian characters found in Alhazred and von Junzt. ... I am going on somehow; God help me, there is no going back now. ...

Later.

... Must be very near the location of the Zanthu tomb by this time—curse the black day I ever dared peer within the shockingly suggestive pages of the Ponape Scripture they keep hidden away in the archives of the Kester Library, and found the clue that put me on the track of the wizard's tomb and the trove of inscribed tablets supposedly buried with him, rumored to contain frightful lore from the Elder Records. ... If any eye but mine should ever peruse these scribbled pages, listen to me: some things we were not meant to discover. ...

Later (same day).

Have been thinking about those grim, unholy revelations hinted at in Alhazred: I tell you, the old Arab knew, damn him! ... Trudging on through this black realm of icy shadow and whistling wind and horribly ancient rock ... there are incredible survivals that would blast the mind of men, if confronted face to fate, and grisly cults linger in these forgotten regions, whereof the grim Chaugnar-worshipers poor Richardson found are the least frightful (doesn’t Alhazred himself whisper of a corpse-eating cult somewhere in Leng?) ... flaming skies, and Something hidden away behind a wall of black mountains that march across the north like the ramparts of some fantastic, sky-tall barrier built by the Elder Gods to hide and hold prisoned an unthinkable terror ... what gigantic Secret have these frozen hills kept hidden for five hundred million years? The shadowy aura of some tremendous revelation of mind-withering magnitude haunts my feverish and disordered brain—some horrible and unguessed-at Truth which men were never meant to know. ...

—Food gone; crawling forward on hands and knees now; I can suck moisture from the unpolluted snow, thank God, bur nothing to eat ... chewing on the leather straps of the sledge ... if only I could shoot another of those crustacean-things, but the faceless, squealing monstrosities avoid coming near, although they linger on the fortified heights ... I would do more this time than merely drink its filthy blood.

Much later.

I have found the necropolis in a narrow, mountain-walled valley. It is older than the foundation stones of Ur, or the eldermost of the pyramids. Atlantis was not uprisen from the steaming seas when these low, crude, flat-roofed stone tombs were built ... no living thing can have been here for unguessed millennia, but I do not like those nine-clawed pawprints in the age-old snows ... deep-cut, enormous glyphs above the sunken doorway to each comb in Naacal, Tsath-yo, and R’lyehian; if the wizard lies in this burying-ground, I will find him. ... What do you suppose it was that he did, that made the Ponape Scripture curse his name so dreadfully? What unthinkable cosmic blasphemy did he perpetrate, that made Them come down from Glyu-Vho, to drown all of primordial Mu beneath the boiling waves? ... (Later.) I have found the tomb, his name deeply but hastily scratched in the old weathered stone above the crumbling lintel—Iä! Cthulhu! Give me the strength to somehow force the stone slab of the door .... I have crawled inside; nothing but blackness and stale, vitiated air ... can hear nothing, not even the wind nor that accursed and constant howling from the heights ... the sepulcher itself is rectangular and very heavy, with a stone lid that seems to weigh a ton. ... I do not care for the inscription cut around the edges of the lid, and avert my eyes hastily from the Name writ there in warning. ... Ah! the lid is off at last. ... I must pause to rest, must conserve my strength ... very weak; heart laboring ... now, shine the flashlight within—there! Ten black jade tablets, narrowly incised with row upon row of tiny characters that resemble hieratic Naacal ... skeletal hands clutch them to the bony rib cage of the mummified thing .... I must shine the light around to see if Zanthu bore to his grave Other artifacts or talismans of interest to Science—

Oh, God. God. Why did it all seem so horribly familiar to me? I should never have tried to come this far ... “some things we were not meant to discover!" Almost, I could laugh at my own words, now. ... The wind outside is horribly cold, the howling shrill in my ears ... clutch the stone tablets to my breast, icy chill against the flesh under my furs ... our into the hills again, to the desolate sands of the plateau beyond. ... I will die here in the lonely places of Tsang, I think, but not in that shunned valley of prehistoric tombs, not there! ... God, let me shut it out of my mind ... let me forget the unforgettable ... THAT FACE! ... that awful moment of shattering revelation ... the light of my torch shining upward, past withered bony thorax a-dangle with leathery shreds of dried and ancient flesh ... that skull, whereon the flesh had dried, but the features were still recognizable ... how my horrified shrieks rang and rang and died in shuddering echoes in that closed stone room ... I am quite mad ... my brain throbs and burns ... slogging on, the dead crystals of sand whispering about my heavy boots ... but who could blame me? How could I have known? ... “some things we were not meant co discover" ... O, God, the mummy's face ... O, God, O, God, O, God, I should have guessed. For the face was my own.