In the Vale of Pnath

"In the Vale of Pnath" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Lin Carter, first published in the 1975 Arkham House anthology Nameless Places.
==Synopsis==
In Hyperborea, the wizard Eibon tries to obtain the ingredients for the powerful Ygthar elixir that he learned about from the scrolls of Zon Mezzamalech, but cannot complete the recipe without the enigmatic "Glund fluid", the nature of which is unknown to him. Using a crystal to contact the great sorcerer Maal Dweb, from the world of Xiccarph, Eibon learns of a mage named Shuggob who might be able to help him.
Eibon travels to the Dreamlands and reaches the shadowy Vale of Pnath, where he meets Shuggob, a scholarly ghoul who lives in a stone house and offers him a meal that might have been made from human flesh. When Eibon asks about Glund fluid, Shuggob tells him that he has a cauldron of it brewing at the moment, and offers some. Inside the cauldron there is a swollen, wrinkled grey mass with hooked knives buried into it, causing it to produce a slimy fluid. To Eibon's shock, he realises that the thing is the still-living brain of some undisclosed creature. The horrified wizard runs away, never to visit the Vale of Pnath again.
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Lin Carter works