Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft
Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft 1918
Into the North Window of my chamber glows the Pole Star with uncanny light. All
through the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there. And in the autumn
of the year, when the winds from the north curse and whine, and the red-leaved
trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of the
morning under the horned waning moon, I sit by the casement and watch that star.
Down from the heights reels the glittering Cassiopeia as the hours wear on,
while Charles’ Wain lumbers up from behind the vapour-soaked swamp trees that
sway in the night wind. Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above the
cemetary on the low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in the
mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the
black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to
convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message
to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep.
Well do I remember the night of the great Aurora, when over the swamp played the
shocking corruscations of the daemon light. After the beam came clouds, and then
I slept.
And it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the first time.
Still and somnolent did it lie, on a strange plateau in a hollow between strange
peaks. Of ghastly marble were its walls and its towers, its columns, domes, and
pavements. In the marble streets were marble pillars, the upper parts of which
were carven into the images of grave bearded men. The air was warm and stirred
not. And overhead, scarce ten degrees from the zenith, glowed that watching Pole
Star. Long did I gaze on the city, but the day came not. When the red Aldebaran,
which blinked low in the sky but never set, had crawled a quarter of the way
around the horizon, I saw light and motion in the houses and the streets. Forms
strangely robed, but at once noble and familiar, walked abroad and under the
horned waning moon men talked wisdom in a tongue which I understood, though it
was unlike any language which I had ever known. And when the red Aldebaran had
crawled more than half-way around the horizon, there were again darkness and
silence.
When I awaked, I was not as I had been. Upon my memory was graven the vision of
the city, and within my soul had arisen another and vaguer recollection, of
whose nature I was not then certain. Thereafter, on the cloudy nights when I
could not sleep, I saw the city often; sometimes under the hot, yellow rays of a
sun which did not set, but which wheeled low in the horizon. And on the clear
nights the Pole Star leered as never before.
Gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on the strange
plateau betwixt strange peaks. At first content to view the scene as an
all-observant uncorporeal presence, I now desired to define my relation to it,
and to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the public
squares. I said to myself, “This is no dream, for by what means can I prove the
greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick south of the
sinister swamp and the cemetery on the low hillock, where the Pole Star peeps
into my north window each night?”
One night as I listened to the discourses in the large square containing many
statues, I felt a change; and perceived that I had at last a bodily form. Nor
was I a stranger in the streets of Olathoe, which lies on the plateau of Sarkia,
betwixt the peaks of Noton and Kadiphonek. It was my friend Alos who spoke, and
his speech was one that pleased my soul, for it was the speech of a true man and
patriot. That night had the news come of Daikos’ fall, and of the advance of the
Inutos; squat, hellish yellow fiends who five years ago had appeared out of the
unknown west to ravage the confines of our kingdom, and to besiege many of our
towns. Having taken the fortified places at the foot of the mountains, their way
now lay open to the plateau, unless every citizen could resist with the strength
of ten men. For the squat creatures were mighty in the arts of war, and knew not
the scruples of honour which held back our tall, grey-eyed men of Lomar from
ruthless conquest.
Alos, my friend, was commander of all the forces on the plateau, and in him lay
the last hope of our country. On this occasion he spoke of the perils to be
faced and exhorted the men of Olathoe, bravest of the Lomarians, to sustain the
traditions of their ancestors, who when forced to move southward from Zobna
before the advance of the great ice sheet (even as our descendents must some day
flee from the land of Lomar) valiently and victoriously swept aside the hairly,
long-armed, cannibal Gnophkehs that stood in their way. To me Alos denied the
warriors part, for I was feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected to
stress and hardships. But my eyes were the keenest in the city, despite the long
hours I gave each day to the study of the Pnakotic manuscripts and the wisdom of
the Zobnarian Fathers; so my friend, desiring not to doom me to inaction,
rewarded me with that duty which was second to nothing in importance. To the
watchtower of Thapnen he sent me, there to serve as the eyes of our army. Should
the Inutos attempt to gain the citadel by the narrow pass behind the peak Noton
and thereby surprise the garrison, I was to give the signal of fire which would
warn the waiting soldiers and save the town from immediate disaster.
Alone I mounted the tower, for every man of stout body was needed in the passes
below. My brain was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for I had not slept
in many days; yet was my purpose firm, for I loved my native land of Lomar, and
the marble city Olathoe that lies betwixt the peaks Noton and Kadiphonek.
But as I stood in the tower’s topmost chamber, I beheld the horned waning moon,
red and sinister, quivering through the vapours that hovered over the distant
valley of Banof. And through an opening in the roof glittered the pale Pole
Star, fluttering as if alive, and leering like a fiend and tempter. Methought
its spirit whispered evil counsel, soothing me to traitorous somnolence with a
damnable rhythmical promise which it repeated over and over:
Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,
Six and twenty thousand years
Have revolv’d, and I return
To the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise
To the axis of the skies;
Stars that soothe and stars that bless
With a sweet forgetfulness:
Only when my round is o’er
Shall the past disturb thy door.
Vainly did I struggle with my drowsiness, seeking to connect these strange words
with some lore of the skies which I had learnt from the Pnakotic manuscripts. My
head, heavy and reeling, drooped to my breast, and when next I looked up it was
in a dream, with the Pole Star grinning at me through a window from over the
horrible and swaying trees of a dream swamp. And I am still dreaming.
In my shame and despair I sometimes scream frantically, begging the
dream-creatures around me to waken me ere the Inutos steal up the pass behind
the peak Noton and take the citadel by surprise; but these creatures are
daemons, for they laugh at me and tell me I am not dreaming. They mock me whilst
I sleep, and whilst the squat yellow foe may be creeping silently upon us. I
have failed in my duties and betrayed the marble city of Olathoe; I have proven
false to Alos, my friend and commander. But still these shadows of my dreams
deride me. They say there is no land of Lomar, save in my nocturnal imaginings;
that in these realms where the Pole Star shines high, and red Aldebaran crawls
low around the horizon, there has been naught save ice and snow for thousands of
years of years, and never a man save squat, yellow creatures, blighted by the
cold, called “Esquimaux.”
And as I writhe in my guilty agony, frantic to save the city whose peril every
moment grows, and vainly striving to shake off this unnatural dream of a house
of stone and brick south of a sinister swamp and a cemetery on a low hillock,
the Pole Star, evil and monstrous, leers down from the black vault, winking
hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some message, yet
recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey.