"Azathoth in Analysis" is a horror comedy short story set in the Cthulhu Mythos. It is the fourth installment of Peter Cannon's six-part novella Forever Azathoth, which serves as a humourous sequel to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep".
"Azathoth in Analysis" was originally published in the August 1998 issue of the magazine Tales of Lovecraftian Horror. The entire series would later appear in Cannon's collections Forever Azathoth and Other Horrors (1999) and Forever Azathoth: Parodies and Pastiches (2011).
Synopsis[]
(Continued from "The House of Azathoth"...)
Part four of the series is narrated by Arkham Sanitarium psychoanalyst Dr. Zimmerman, who treated Azathoth House editor Vartan Bagdasarian (referred to in this story as "patient Aa" due to doctor-patient confidentiality) after the latter came to him claiming that he couldn't remember anything from the past ten years. After learning of Bagdasarian's lifelong devotion to the works of the late Edward Derby, the doctor comes to the conclusion that his patient has found an abstract father figure in the poet, and an even more abstract one in Azathoth, an ancient deity that figures prominently in Derby's works. Bagdasarian also confides that he has dreamed about a tunnel that leads to a pit of shoggoths: protoplasmic amoeboid creatures that are usually almost brainless, but capable of developing high levels of intelligence, as Bagdasarian claims to have learned by communicating telepathically with one of them.
After Bagdasarian disappears, leaving a note about seeking "the House of Azathoth", Dr. Zimmerman joins forces with Azathoth House lawyer Judge Hand and the teenager Eph Upton, who is very attached to the editor, to try to figure out his whereabouts. The three of them travel to the woods of Chesuncook, Maine, where the incident that triggered Bagdasarian's amnesia took place. They camp in the woods close to the house of Jacob Derby, the inventor. When Zimmerman wakes up in the morning, however, he sees no sign of Hand or Eph. When he does find them, Hand is injured, dazed, and incapable of speech, with the only explanation offered by Eph being that he tripped and hit his head. They seek help from Jacob, who contacts the local asylum. There, Hand is diagnosed with brain damage and starts repeating the words "Azathoth... the pit of the shoggoths...".
Almost six months pass by before Zimmerman receives a letter from Bagdasarian apologising for having disappeared and explaining that he found work editing the manuscripts of another late author, Robert Blake, and won't be returning. Zimmerman, in the meantime, has started to court Wendy and assumed Judge Hand's duties as a member of the board of directors of Azathoth House, whereas Eph opts to abandon high school to become the House's new editor.
(...The story continues in "Bride of Azathoth".)