Spawn of the Maelstrom

"Spawn of the Maelstrom" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by August Derleth and Mark Schorer. It was originally published in the September 1939 issue of Weird Tales.
==Synopsis==
A Londoner named Bassett meets with his friend, Jason Warwick, who is obsessed with mysteries. Warwick tells him that he's going to the Lofoten Islands, Norway, to investigate a local legend about the uninhabited island of Vömma, and asks Bassett to notify their common friend Sir John Hardie. According to the legend, Vömma Island is inhabited by an immortal being spawned from a nearby maelstrom. Some say the being is a man, while others say it's an animal.
When Warwick returns, Bassett notices several differences in his voice, mannerisms and movements. His skin is cold to the touch, and he seems to have trouble recognizing people and remembering things. One night, when Bassett is visiting Hardie, they witness the latter's watchman yelling about a burglar and being attacked by a man they both recognize as Warwick, who steals several letters and escapes. The watchman, Sullatt, is now dead, and his body is inexplicably cold and rigid. Strangely, the letters that Warwick has stolen are his own, written to Hardie during Warwick's trip to Norway. Hardie believes that he himself was the intended victim, and that Warwick mistook Sullatt for him in the dark, as they are both of the same height and built.
Hardie shows Bassett the one letter that Warwick has failed to steal, as Hardie had kept it in his pocket. The letter, written by Warwick during his trip to Vömma, was found inside a bottle cast at the sea. It reveals that a Norwegian priest had pleaded Warwick not to go to Vömma, and given him a five-pointed star-stone as an amulet, which Warwick left in the boarding house, as he thought he wouldn't need it. According to the priest, the entity that inhabits Vömma is an immortal shapeshifter, which can assume the form of any man or animal, and feeds on the life force of humans, leaving its victims' bodies cold and rigid. Ever since it came out of the maelstrom, the monster has been confined to the island as its prison. However, by consuming the life of three humans, it would become strong enough to leave the island and roam through the world, consuming more and more people. Before Warwick, there had been two historical cases of men who went to Vömma and whose bodies were found cold and rigid. Once alone in the island, Warwick realized that he was being stalked by the shapeshifter, and about to become its third victim. He finished the message by asking whoever finds it to send both the letter and the star-stone he left in his boarding house room to Hardie. The star-stone, Warwick reveals, is an amulet forged by the Elder Gods, and has the power to defeat the deathless shapeshifter by banishing it back to "the ever damned depths from which he first came upon earth".
Bassett is initially skeptical about all this, but becomes less so as Hardie points out that there have been reports about mysterious deaths all the way from Norway to England, in the exact times and places that would match Warwick's return trip. Furthermore, the bodies, in all cases, have been found cold and rigid, no matter how recent the death was. Hardie concludes that the man who returned from Vömma is not Warwick, but rather the shapeshifter pretending to be him. Bassett remains doubtful, but concedes that there would be no harm in giving the star-stone to Warwick. The two spend several days trying to track down the evasive shapeshifter, during which time more people are killed. At last, they locate the Warwick doppelgänger attending a social event, and trick it into unknowingly touching the star-stone. As soon as it does so, the creature crumbles to dust before their eyes, leaving only its clothes behind and a few fragmentary bones that are clearly not human.
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:August Derleth works
Category:Mark Schorer works