Out of the Jar

"Out of the Jar" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Charles R. Tanner, originally published in the magazine Stirring Science Stories, in February 1941.
==Synopsis==
In 1940, a collector of curiosities named James Francis Denning acquires an ancient jar sealed with a six-pointed star and decorated with strange symbols. The jar soon catches the attention of Denning's friend, Edward Barnes Halpin, a knowledgeable occultist of "the Miskatonic school", who has published papers on the Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules and translated sections of the Gaelic Leabhar Mor Dubh. Halpin becomes fascinated by the jar, judging from the seal that it must have belonged to the legendary King Solomon.
Halpin repeatedly tries to purchase the jar from Denning, and when the latter refuses to sell it, the occultist proposes to break the seal to see what's inside, which Denning also forbids. One night, Denning is awakened by noises and is shocked to find that Halpin has broken into his house and is trying to open the jar. Halpin insists that he wasn't going to steal it, but couldn't resist the opportunity see if the legends are true. He hastily explains to Denning that, before the rise of humankind, the Earth was ruled by alien creatures called Jinn, and that some survived the ice age and persisted into the time of Solomon, who found a way to imprison them inside objects such as the jar.
From the damaged jar oozes a mass of luminous bluish fluid that forms itself into a tall creature, vaguely humanoid, with an eyeless tentacled face and a beak. Halpin addresses the entity as Psuchawrl and claims that, as the one who freed them from the jar, Halpin is entitled to a wish, which the Jinni is obliged to grant. Halpin wishes to know "the place of man in this universe, and the place of this universe in the cosmos". In response, Psuchawrl moves their hands and creates a small portal, and invites Halpin to peer into it. Halpin does so, staring into the portal for a few seconds, them quietly backs away. Psuchawrl dematerializes, and Denning recovers from the shock and turns on the lights. Halpin, who has looked into the portal, never recovers, and is interred in an asylum, where he meditates quietly with a look of constant despair on his face.
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Charles R. Tanner works