Free A Lonely and Curious Country by Matthew Carpenter, Steven Prizeman, Damir Salkovic Page B

arches, which seemed even larger. I thought perhaps these massive spires were our destination, but instead we floated off to one side and skimming over the surface of the great barnacled city we ducked beneath a huge tubular outcropping that seemed to connect two different lobes of the metropolis.
    There in the shadow of this weird bridge I was ushered into a kind of cave or tunnel, which seemed not only artificial, for it was symmetrical, but also natural for the walls seemed to be composed of imperfect layers and veins. The chamber inside was vast and throbbed with a strange rhythmic vibration, the water was strangely warm and carried with it a peculiar scent that reminded me of blood and other bodily fluids. Across the floor a trail of globular cysts lay imbedded in semitransparent, gelatinous ooze that trailed off to the walls of the cavern which were lined with row upon row of telamons, sculpted male figures that functioned as columnar supports.
    If only that had been true.
    Pth’thya-l’yi pointed at the carvings and I heard the word nthlei. I saw that there was a vacancy amongst those grim statues of amphibious men, and toward it I was ushered. As we drew closer I saw the details on those strange carvings. I saw the fine scales, the muscular arms, the veins that ran beneath, the blood that coursed there. I also saw the queer tendrils that seemed to hold them in place against the wall, the same tendrils that slowly unfurled from the wall and reached out from the vacancy and groped in my direction. In my mind I suddenly understood the true meaning of the word nthlei.
    As that terrible realization suddenly dawned on me and I recognized where I was and why. I recognized the horrific position I had been led to and was expected to voluntarily submit. I broke free from the gentle grip of my escort and fled toward the strange cleft that we had passed through. My captors seemed startled and I somehow knew that in the eons that this ceremony had been carried out, that no one had ever rejected the honor. The Daughters of Y’ha-dra had been entombing their male brethren in this place for more than a hundred thousand years, and none had ever rebelled.
    Until now. Until me.
    They didn’t know what to do. My reaction was unprecedented and so I was allowed to escape. Through the fathoms I sped, desperate to reach the surface and escape the fate I seemed destined to. I looked back only once, and that was enough to drive me to move faster, for what I saw, what I finally comprehended, what I finally understood about Y’ha-nthlei was enough to drive me over the edge. If I wasn’t mad before, surely this revelation was enough to accomplish the task and set me firmly into the mantle of lunacy.
    I broke the surface and discovered that the sun had set and the moon now reigned in the sky. That dim light glistened off of the surface and illuminated the rocks of the Devil Reef. In the distance the village of Innsmouth glowed weakly, barely breaking the darkness that marked where the night was eclipsed by the land itself. Hours earlier I had had but one desire, to leave the world of the surface behind, now it beckoned to me and seemed my only salvation. With every effort I struggled against tide and time to lessen the distance between myself and that decayed refuge. I feared that in an instant the sisters would overtake me and drag me back down into the darkness, down through those black abysses.
    That was hours ago. It had taken them time, but once the Daughters had recovered from their shock they had no choice but to pursue me. Their voices called to me in my head, searching, pleading, and even commanding me to return. With each passing moment those voices are growing stronger, which I can only assume means that they are getting closer. My time is short. The trail I left from the harbor cannot have gone unnoticed. Either the soldiers or my ancestors will have found it by now. My discovery is inevitable.
    The clues were there all the time