The Night Sea-Maid Went Down

"The Night Sea-Maid Went Down" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Brian Lumley, first published in his Arkham House collection The Caller of the Black, in 1971.
Along with "Cement Surroundings", it is one of the two stories that Lumley later incorporated into his 1974 novel The Burrowers Beneath.
==Synopsis ==
The story is told in the form of a letter from Bernard Jordan, nicknamed "Pongo", to his boss, explaining why he decided to quit the prospecting business after the sinking of the oil rig Sea-Maid in the North Sea.
About two months before that disaster, the Sea-Maid had retrieved a number of star-shaped stones buried in the sea floor, and Jordan recognized them as the same uncovered by another platform that had been mysteriously lost in a "freak storm".
One of the Sea-Maid's crew, a superstitious man named Joe Borszowski, becomes extremely agitated at the sight of the five-pointed star-stones, the nature of which the geologist, Carson, is unable to identify. Jordan also notices that the rig is enclosed in mist and the fish are inexplicably aggressive, attacking fishermen and divers.
Borszowski quits the job and explains that there are monstrous gods imprisoned under the sea floor, able to control the weather and the minds of animals, and that the five-pointed star-stones are the seals that keep them imprisoned. He worries that the removal of the star-stones might set one of these creatures free. After he leaves, a thick fog emanates from the ocean, cutting off visibility. A worker falls into the sea and is heard screaming in agony, but the others are unable to locate him.
On the next day, as soon as the drill reaches what is assumed to be the oil deposit, the rig is caught in the middle of a storm and destroyed by a seaquake. Jordan is the only survivor, and sees something that convinces him that Borszowski's claims were true: the liquid jet emerging from the perforation site is not black as an oil blowout, but blood-red, as if the drill had perforated the hide of a colossal creature.
== Publication History ==
After its initial appearance in The Caller of the Black, "The Night Sea-Maid Went Down" was included in Lumley's collection of Mythos short stories, Haggopian and Other Stories (Subterranean Press, 2008). It was also reprinted in Sea-Cursed: Thirty Terrifying Tales of the Deep (Barnes & Noble Books, 1994), The Starry Wisdom: A Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft (Creation Books, 1995), and Brighton Shock! (PS Publishing, 2010).Internet Science Fiction Database, "Title: The Night Sea-Maid Went Down."
A French translation appeared under the title "La nuit où la Sea-Maid fut engloutie," in a French edition of Lumley's stories, Compartiment terreur (Néo, 1989).
== References ==
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Brian Lumley works