Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois Read Online Free PDF Page A

big, smallish and lumpy rather than chiseled and raised upright, but they sported the same kind of hieroglyphic markings that those other stones did. Over them was a soft glow, but from where it came, she couldn’t be sure.
    Off to one side, beyond the perimeter of light, stood Daniel naked from the waist up. It seemed to Ruth that his posture was much too stiff to be normal, and she guessed that perhaps he might be in a sort of trance. That impression was reinforced when she laid eyes on the second figure sitting on a big, discarded tree branch just outside the circle of stones. Dressed in overalls and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Adele Turner looked exactly the way Ruth had imagined her: long dark hair, tall and slim. Men, she was sure, no doubt found her attractive. Just at the moment, she was speaking aloud in an unfamiliar language whose syllables seemed to rise and fall to a beat she kept on a small drum gripped between her knees.
    Azathoth
…
demonicus
…
sultanus
…
Azathoth
…
primus
…
intelligenci
…
Azathoth
…” she recited monotonously before repeating the strange chain of words all over again.
    Suddenly she stopped, and Adele stood bolt upright and, if it were not for the darkness, Ruth was sure her eyes would have been shooting daggers.
    “Who are you?” Adele demanded. “You’re trespassing on private property!”
    “I’m Ruth Mills, Dan’s wife, and I demand to know what’s going on here!”
    “None of your business, girl,” retorted Adele, surprising Ruth with the bold comeback. “You have no right to come here. This is private property and I’m telling you to turn around and leave right now.”
    “Not on your life,” replied Ruth, who could be as testy as the next woman. “I’ve come for my husband and don’t mean to leave without him.”
    “Stop right there!” Adele positively screamed, moving to come between Ruth and Daniel.
    Surprised at the note of desperation in the woman’s voice, Ruth halted despite herself.
    “Dan is here because he wants to be,” Adele said. “Now leave this instant!”
    Ruth wasn’t sure what the woman meant by her comment, whether it confirmed the gossip she’d heard in town or not, but she wasn’t about to surrender her marital rights on the say so of a stranger.
    “He does, does he? Then let him speak for himself.”

    Ruth never found out how Adele would have replied to the demand because, at just that moment, there was a sudden wavering in the air above the circle of stones. With the movement, Ruth expected some sound to accompany it but there was nothing, instead there was a certain thickening of the atmosphere all around that she felt as pressure on her eardrums. She swallowed in an attempt to unblock her ears and gave her head a little shake. Her behavior however, did not go unnoticed by Adele, who immediately whirled back in the direction of the stones and, when she saw the vague but growing movement in the air that now seemed to be steadily expanding, she screamed.
    But Adele’s shout was not one of fear, but of defiance.
    “No!” she cried. “Not now! Not yet!”
    Quickly, she ran to Daniel and stood before him as if shielding him from something and began reciting the same strange words she’d been saying when Ruth first encountered her.
    “
Azathoth
…
phnglwnph
…
urgll
…
echinisis
…” Over and over she repeated the unintelligible phrases, as if trying to ward off whatever was happening. But if that really was what she was trying to do, her efforts seemed useless. “
Azathoth
…
phnglwnph
…
urgll
…
echinisis
…” she tried again, advancing a little way toward the center of the stone circle. “Stop, O Great One!” she shouted, unconsciously switching to English. “I implore you with the utterance of your secret name…” And here she spoke aloud something that Ruth recognized vaguely as the word that had been written on the note attached to Adele’s refrigerator. She repeated it a number of