Polaris

Polaris
by H.P. Lovecraft

Into the North Window of my chamber glows the Pole Star with uncanny light.
All through the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there. And in the
autumn of the year, when the winds from the north curse and whine, and the
red-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of
the morning under the horned waning moon, I sit by the casement and watch that
star. Down from the heights reels the glittering Cassiopeia as the hours wear
on, while Charles' Wain lumbers up from behind the vapour-soaked swamp trees
that sway in the night wind. Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above
the cemetary on the low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in
the mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in
the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to
convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message
to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep.
Well do I remember the night of the great Aurora, when over the swamp played
the shocking corruscations of the daemon light. After the beam came clouds, and
then I slept.
And it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the first
time. Still and somnolent did it lie, on a strange plateau in a hollow between
strange peaks. Of ghastly marble were its walls and its towers, its columns,
domes, and pavements. In the marble streets were marble pillars, the upper parts
of which were carven into the images of grave bearded men. The air was warm and
stirred not. And overhead, scarce ten degrees from the zenith, glowed that
watching Pole Star. Long did I gaze on the city, but the day came not. When the
red Aldebaran, which blinked low in the sky but never set, had crawled a quarter
of the way around the horizon, I saw light and motion in the houses and the
streets. Forms strangely robed, but at once noble and familiar, walked abroad
and under the horned waning moon men talked wisdom in a tongue which I
understood, though it was unlike any language which I had ever known. And when
the red Aldebaran had crawled more than half-way around the horizon, there were
again darkness and silence.
When I awaked, I was not as I had been. Upon my memory was graven the vision
of the city, and within my soul had arisen another and vaguer recollection, of
whose nature I was not then certain. Thereafter, on the cloudy nights when I
could not sleep, I saw the city often; sometimes under the hot, yellow rays of a
sun which did not set, but which wheeled low in the horizon. And on the clear
nights the Pole Star leered as never before.
Gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on the
strange plateau betwixt strange peaks. At first content to view the scene as an
all-observant uncorporeal presence, I now desired to define my relation to it,
and to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the public
squares. I said to myself, "This is no dream, for by what means can I prove the
greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick south of the
sinister swamp and the cemetery on the low hillock, where the Pole Star peeps
into my north window each night?"
One night as I listened to the discourses in the large square containing
many statues, I felt a change; and perceived that I had at last a bodily form.
Nor was I a stranger in the streets of Olathoe, which lies on the plateau of
Sarkia, betwixt the peaks of Noton and Kadiphonek. It was my friend Alos who
spoke, and his speech was one that pleased my soul, for it was the speech of a
true man and patriot. That night had the news come of Daikos' fall, and of the
advance of the Inutos; squat, hellish yellow fiends who five years ago had
appeared out of the unknown west to ravage the confines of our kingdom, and to
besiege many of our towns. Having taken the fortified places at the foot of the
mountains, their way now lay open to the plateau, unless every citizen could
resist with the strength of ten men. For the squat creatures were mighty in the
arts of war, and knew not the scruples of honour which held back our tall,
grey-eyed men of Lomar from ruthless conquest.
Alos, my friend, was commander of all the forces on the plateau, and in him
lay the last hope of our country. On this occasion he spoke of the perils to be
faced and exhorted the men of Olathoe, bravest of the Lomarians, to sustain the
traditions of their ancestors, who when forced to move southward from Zobna
before the advance of the great ice sheet (even as our descendents must some day
flee from the land of Lomar) valiently and victoriously swept aside the hairly,
long-armed, cannibal Gnophkehs that stood in their way. To me Alos denied the
warriors part, for I was feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected to
stress and hardships. But my eyes were the keenest in the city, despite the long
hours I gave each day to the study of the Pnakotic manuscripts and the wisdom of
the Zobnarian Fathers; so my friend, desiring not to doom me to inaction,
rewarded me with that duty which was second to nothing in importance. To the
watchtower of Thapnen he sent me, there to serve as the eyes of our army. Should
the Inutos attempt to gain the citadel by the narrow pass behind the peak Noton
and thereby surprise the garrison, I was to give the signal of fire which would
warn the waiting soldiers and save the town from immediate disaster.
Alone I mounted the tower, for every man of stout body was needed in the
passes below. My brain was sore dazed with excitement and fatigue, for I had not
slept in many days; yet was my purpose firm, for I loved my native land of
Lomar, and the marble city Olathoe that lies betwixt the peaks Noton and
Kadiphonek.
But as I stood in the tower's topmost chamber, I beheld the horned waning
moon, red and sinister, quivering through the vapours that hovered over the
distant valley of Banof. And through an opening in the roof glittered the pale
Pole Star, fluttering as if alive, and leering like a fiend and tempter.
Methought its spirit whispered evil counsel, soothing me to traitorous
somnolence with a damnable rhythmical promise which it repeated over and over:
Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,
Six and twenty thousand years
Have revolv'd, and I return
To the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise
To the axis of the skies;
Stars that soothe and stars that bless
With a sweet forgetfulness:
Only when my round is o'er
Shall the past disturb thy door.
Vainly did I struggle with my drowsiness, seeking to connect these strange
words with some lore of the skies which I had learnt from the Pnakotic
manuscripts. My head, heavy and reeling, drooped to my breast, and when next I
looked up it was in a dream, with the Pole Star grinning at me through a window
from over the horrible and swaying trees of a dream swamp. And I am still
dreaming.
In my shame and despair I sometimes scream frantically, begging the
dream-creatures around me to waken me ere the Inutos steal up the pass behind
the peak Noton and take the citadel by surprise; but these creatures are
daemons, for they laugh at me and tell me I am not dreaming. They mock me whilst
I sleep, and whilst the squat yellow foe may be creeping silently upon us. I
have failed in my duties and betrayed the marble city of Olathoe; I have proven
false to Alos, my friend and commander. But still these shadows of my dreams
deride me. They say there is no land of Lomar, save in my nocturnal imaginings;
that in these realms where the Pole Star shines high, and red Aldebaran crawls
low around the horizon, there has been naught save ice and snow for thousands of
years of years, and never a man save squat, yellow creatures, blighted by the
cold, called "Esquimaux."
And as I writhe in my guilty agony, frantic to save the city whose peril
every moment grows, and vainly striving to shake off this unnatural dream of a
house of stone and brick south of a sinister swamp and a cemetery on a low
hillock, the Pole Star, evil and monstrous, leers down from the black vault,
winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some
message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey.