The Strange Doom of Enos Harker

"The Strange Doom of Enos Harker" is an unfinished Cthulhu Mythos short story by Lin Carter. The fragment was published posthumously in the magazine Crypt of Cthulhu in 1989. It is both a continuation of Carter's "Behind the Mask" (itself a sequel to August Derleth's "The Return of Hastur") and tied into his Xothic Legend Cycle, as the protagonist, Paxton Blaine, is the nephew of Dr. Henry Stephenson Blaine from "Out of the Ages".
"The Strange Doom of Enos Harker" was later completed by Robert M. Price, and the finished version was published in the 1997 collection The Xothic Legend Cycle: The Complete Mythos Fiction of Lin Carter.
In the same year, Laurence J. Cornford also penned a different ending, and the resulting tale was published under the slightly altered title "The Doom of Enos Harker".
==Synopsis==
===Fragment by Lin Carter===
The story is narrated by Paxton Blaine, an anthropologist graduated from Miskatonic University in 1931, who is hired as a secretary by Arkham resident Dr. Enos Harker, a priest and former missionary who has spent years in India, Burma and Tibet, and who claims to be afflicted by a severe skin condition that forces him to keep his hands and parts of his face bandaged. Blaine's job consists of organizing Harker's notes on obscure Asian cults, and assisting him in his research, which involves books such as the Unaussprechlichen Kulten, the Cultes des Goules, and the Necronomicon, among others.
A lot of Harker's research concerns the mysterious Tcho-Tcho people, believed to inhabit both Burma and a place known as Leng, the location of which Blaine is not able to pinpoint. The grimoires tell of strange gods worshiped by the Tcho-Tchos, and of a Tcho-Tcho lama who wears a silken yellow mask over his face. Blaine is disturbed by how this mythology seems to be related to a number of recent events in the vicinity of Arkham, all of which appear to have been hushed up by the authorities. These include the destruction of the Tuttle house, the military operations in the nearby town of Innsmouth, and the case of Bryant Hoskins, who went mad in a cabin in the woods and died in an asylum.
Two passages from the Necronomicon interest Harker particularly, the first claiming that the Tcho-Tchos originate from the Dreamlands and first came to the Waking World via Sarkomand, and the second concerning an incoming event called the Great Awakening, in which gods such as Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath will call to summon their followers and all those "who carry the Emblem" as well as all those who have seen it.
As the days go by, Blaine notices that Harker's health seems to be worsening. He speaks in whispers, his eyesight is deteriorating, his entire body seems to be bloated, and has a repulsive smell. The bandages now cover almost his entire face, as well as his hands, and he becomes increasingly dependent on Blaine to help him with the house chores, as well as handle his correspondence with scholars from other parts of the world. From them, Blaine learns more about the ancient deities, said to have been defeated by their enemies, the Elder Gods, who placed something called the Elder Sign to keep their foes imprisoned long before the evolution of mankind. The Great Old Ones' servants, however, are still free to move about and do their masters' bidding. Said servants include the fish-like Deep Ones which serve Cthulhu, as well as the Tcho-Tchos who serve Zhar and Lloigor.
Above all, Harker is looking for someone to translate the R'lyehian language of the appropriately named R'lyeh Text, some portions of which are kept in the library at Miskatonic. Fortunately, a journalist who has investigated the circumstances of Bryant Hoskins' death reveals to the public that Hoskins had produced a translation of the R'lyeh Text, currently held in Miskatonic. On the next day, Blaine heads straight to the library to have a look at it.
===Completed version by Robert M. Price===
Dr. Llanfer, the librarian, reluctantly allows Blaine access to Hoskins' translation of the text, which he transcribes and gives to Harker. That night, a nightmare causes Harker to scream, so Blaine rushes to his room and sees his employer without the facial bandages. Harker's face is revealed to be horribly disfigured, his eyes almost entirely covered by outgrowths of pale blue-veined flesh, and his nose abnormally elongated. On the next day, Harker tells Blaine how he came to his current predicament.
As a missionary, Harker sought to find the mysterious Leng, a location he first learned about in a dream, which he believed had come as a message from the Holy Spirit. After treading through northern Tibet, he came across a stone monastery and was taken in by strange men entirely clad in green cloaks, whose movements suggested that their anatomy might not have been human, and whose voices seemed to resemble "the hypnotic drone of distant insects". The cloaked men took Harker before a robed amorphous figure hidden behind a yellow mask of silk. Surrendering himself to what he believed to be a divine inspiration, Harker uttered the words "Pnglui ngah Cthulhu fhtagn", the meaning of which was unknown to him, but which had a great effect on his hosts.
For the next years, Harker lived among the monks of Leng, learned their language, and studied their occult tomes. Among other things, he learned that Jesus of Nazareth himself has lived among and apprenticed under them. When the bloated lama with the silken yellow mask died, the monks prayed for his spirit to return through the gates of Sarkomand to the "Maw of Chaos" from which it had come from. They then commanded Harker to eat the flesh of the deceased, which he did.
After returning to Arkham, Harker tried to make sense out of the belief system of the monks of Leng, which includes a realm of dreams and two opposing factions of deities, as well as a higher ultimate layer of cosmology in which chaos reigns and all beings are mere refractions of a void that is variously called Azathoth, Achamoth, or Vach-Viraj. The deities that the Lengians pray to are two divine manifestations of this primordial chaos known by many names: Zhar and Lloigor, Nug and Yeb, or, when the stars are in a certain configuration, Klulu and Nyarlathotep. In ancient times, they have assumed human form to spread chaos on civilisation, Klulu under the guise of Kathulos of Atlantis, and Nyarlathotep under the guise of Nephren-Ka of Egypt. However, Nyarlathotep has never abandoned his worshipers in Leng, and he always chooses the body of a follower to be his vessel among them. Inhabited by Nyarlathotep's spirit, this hierophant or lama goes through the mysterious transformation into a bloated creature who receives the Yellow Sign, the Pallid Mask, and the Silken Mantle, and remains in telepathic contact with the other god, Klulu, waiting for the end of the current era of cosmic cycle, when the stars will be right again.
Harker realizes that by eating the corpse of the previous hierophant, he has been chosen as his successor, and his body is already being transformed into the bloated creature that shall house the soul of Nyarlathotep. His subsequent studies, up to the translation of the words of the R'lyeh Text, have only confirmed his worst fears. However, he reveals to Blaine that there is one last hope, as he has contacted a knowledgeable man called the Swami Chandraputra, who has given him a Silver Key. Although he can't stop Nyarlathotep from taking over his mind, Harker plans to escape to the Dreamlands, and prevent the god from accessing the Waking World through him.
Harker realizes that time is running short, as the god's dreams are already impinging on the Waking World. Blaine notices the sound of giant footsteps that seem to come from below the ground, and when he turns back to Harker, he finds that the latter has vanished. Instinctively aware of the danger he's in, Blaine takes the Silver Key and leaves the house in a hurry, after which the whole place is destroyed by a massive column of bluish light, inside of which a witness sees a number of silhouettes struggling, one larger than the others. The authorities are unable to explain the phenomenon, but the whole area of the beach in which Harker's house stood is turned to a giant sheet of glass, and the house itself is reduced to a thin layer of soot.
==Characters==
*Paxton Blaine: The story's narrator, a student of obscure Asian cults who is hired as Enos Harker's secretary. He is the nephew of Dr. Henry Stephenson Blaine from "Out of the Ages".
*Dr. Enos Harker: A missionary priest and amateur anthropologist who has traveled extensively in Tibet, and was one of the first men to explore the ruins of Alaozar in the Plateau of Sung in Burma.
*Dr. Ephraim Sprague: Harker's physician, who previously appeared in "Behind the Mask" and "The Return of Hastur".
*Dr. Cyrus Llanfer: Miskatonic University's librarian, also from "Behind the Mask" and "The Return of Hastur".
*Bryant Hoskins: Llanfer's assistant and the protagonist of "Behind the Mask". Hoskins went mad in a cabin in the woods after completing a translation of the R'lyehian language, and died in a sanitarium. The particulars of the case were never revealed to the public.
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Lin Carter works
Category:Robert M. Price works