"Azathoth in Arkham" is a horror comedy short story set in the Cthulhu Mythos. It is the first 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 Arkham" was originally published in the 1995 anthology The Azathoth Cycle along with the next installment, "The Revenge of Azathoth". The entire series would later appear in Cannon's collections Forever Azathoth and Other Horrors (1999) and Forever Azathoth: Parodies and Pastiches (2011).
Synopsis[]
At the beginning, the story is narrated by Daniel Upton's son, Edward Derby Upton, named after the poet Edward Derby, who was Daniel's best friend before tragedy struck. Daniel confessed to the murder of his friend, while on the doorstep outside the house, his butler Soames found the decomposed corpse of Derby's estranged wife, Asenath, holding a note begging Daniel to commit the crime. Released on bail, Daniel attended the double funeral of Derby and Asenath, but collapsed in the middle of the service and was committed to an asylum, seemingly no longer able to recognise his wife or son. For the next years, he received no visitors, except for the faithful Soames.
Meanwhile, Edward Derby Upton grows up wealthy, as the Uptons inherited Derby's money after a brief legal battle against Asenath's relatives from Innsmouth. Eventually, Edward becomes interested in Derby's work, including his most celebrated book, Azathoth and Other Horrors. When he visits Miskatonic University to try to learn more about Derby, librarian Henry Armitage informs him of a student group called the Dead Edward Derby Society. Edward not only joins the group, but becomes a sort of unofficial leader, owning in part to his seniority compared to the others, as well as being the son of Derby's best friend (even if said friend was also his murderer). At the anniversary of Derby's death, the group visits the poet's grave at night to pay respect, but the ceremony is interrupted by a girl from Innsmouth who insists that Asenath was a greater artist than her husband, for she could master the art of mind transference, even from beyond the grave.
The next morning, Edward receives a message from the asylum informing him that his father's behaviour has changed, as he now claims to be his butler Soames. The narrative voice switches mid-sentence, signalling that Edward's own body is taken over by the mind of Asenath's father, Ephraim Waite, a magician skilled at mind transference who stole the body of his daughter, then Derby's, then Daniel Upton's, and then Soames', before finally moving to Edward's body, thus leaving the real Edward stuck in Soames' body, and the real Soames stuck in Daniel's (the real Daniel having presumably perished when his mind was transferred to Derby's already interred body).
(...The story continues in "The Revenge of Azathoth".)
Behind the Mythos[]
It's not known whether the Uptons' butler Soames is meant to be the same Soames who worked as the Jermyn family butler in "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family". Since that story took place over two decades earlier, in the United Kingdom as opposed to the United States, and Soames was already described as "aged" in 1913, it's more likely that the Uptons' butler might be a descendant or relative of his.