"The Doom of Enos Harker" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story based on Lin Carter's unfinished tale "The Strange Doom of Enos Harker". It was completed by Laurence J. Cornford and published in 1997.
While Carter's fragment was already part of a loose trilogy continuing from August Derleth's "The Return of Hastur" and Carter's own "Behind the Mask", Cornford also makes it a direct sequel to Derleth and Mark Schorer's "The Lair of the Star-Spawn".
Synopsis[]
Fragment by Lin Carter[]
The story is narrated by Paxton Blaine, an anthropologist graduated from Miskatonic University in 1931, who is hired as a secretary by Arkham resident Dr. Enos Harker, a priest and former missionary who has spent years in India, Burma and Tibet, and who claims to be afflicted by a severe skin condition that forces him to keep his hands and parts of his face bandaged. Blaine's job consists of organizing Harker's notes on obscure Asian cults, and assisting him in his research, which involves books such as the Unaussprechlichen Kulten, the Cultes des Goules, and the Necronomicon, among others.
A lot of Harker's research concerns the mysterious Tcho-Tcho people, believed to inhabit both Burma and a place known as Leng, the location of which Blaine is not able to pinpoint. The grimoires tell of strange gods worshiped by the Tcho-Tchos, and of a Tcho-Tcho lama who wears a silken yellow mask over his face. Blaine is disturbed by how this mythology seems to be related to a number of recent events in the vicinity of Arkham, all of which appear to have been hushed up by the authorities. These include the destruction of the Tuttle house, the military operations in the nearby town of Innsmouth, and the case of Bryant Hoskins, who went mad in a cabin in the woods and died in an asylum.
Two passages from the Necronomicon interest Harker particularly, the first claiming that the Tcho-Tchos originate from the Dreamlands and first came to the Waking World via Sarkomand, and the second concerning an incoming event called the Great Awakening, in which gods such as Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath will call to summon their followers and all those "who carry the Emblem" as well as all those who have seen it.
As the days go by, Blaine notices that Harker's health seems to be worsening. He speaks in whispers, his eyesight is deteriorating, his entire body seems to be bloated, and has a repulsive smell. The bandages now cover almost his entire face, as well as his hands, and he becomes increasingly dependent on Blaine to help him with the house chores, as well as handle his correspondence with scholars from other parts of the world. From them, Blaine learns more about the ancient deities, said to have been defeated by their enemies, the Elder Gods, who placed something called the Elder Sign to keep their foes imprisoned long before the evolution of mankind. The Great Old Ones' servants, however, are still free to move about and do their masters' bidding. Said servants include the fish-like Deep Ones which serve Cthulhu, as well as the Tcho-Tchos who serve Zhar and Lloigor.
Above all, Harker is looking for someone to translate the R'lyehian language of the appropriately named R'lyeh Text, some portions of which are kept in the library at Miskatonic. Fortunately, a journalist who has investigated the circumstances of Bryant Hoskins' death reveals to the public that Hoskins had produced a translation of the R'lyeh Text, currently held in Miskatonic. On the next day, Blaine heads straight to the library to have a look at it.
Completed version by Laurence J. Cornford[]
The librarian, Dr. Cyrus Llanfer, refuses to allow the Hoskins manuscript to leave the university, but agrees to make a photostat copy for Dr. Harker. Returning to his employer's house by the beach, Blaine notices an area in which the sand has been excavated, and finds a number of five-pointed star-stones carved with strange symbols. Blaine recognizes them from his occult studies as the star-stones of Mnar, and places one inside his pocket, planning to show it to Dr. Harker later.
As soon as he enters the house, a nervous and agitated Harker greets him and instantly starts looking over the photostat of Hoskins' manuscript. Unfortunately, the ritual he needs is not there, as Harker realizes that Hoskins never completed his translation. He laments that he and Blaine will have to translate the rest of the text themselves.
Blaine asks for an explanation, and Harker at last tells him that he needs the ritual to ward off the Elder Gods. Back in 1926, when Harker was a missionary in Burma, he was called by scared villagers and saw the mutilated remains of the Hawks Expedition that had been slaughtered by the Tcho-Tchos. Harker and the villagers buried them. Soon afterwards, a giant explosion took place in the nearby Plateau of Sung, which Harker headed off to investigate, alone, as the villagers were too scared to accompany him. On the Plateau, Harker found the ruins of the Tcho-Tcho city of Alaozar, destroyed by the wrath of the Elder Gods, and several hundred star-stones scattered about. Harker took some of them as souvenirs, at the time unaware of what they were.
Back in the valley, the villagers were horrified to find that Harker had taken the star-stones, and told him to return them, but Harker's travels took him to other parts of Asia before his research into obscure cults finally taught him the significance of the things he had stolen. At this point, Harker started to be afflicted by the first signs of his "disease": actually a curse placed on him by the Elder Gods as punishment. In Tibet, he tried to reach out the Tcho-Tcho lama for help, but found instead that the Plateau of Leng held its own dangers, and barely escaped alive. He then moved to Arkham to seek help from the books at Miskatonic, only to find that his curse had progressed to a point in which he could no longer hope to travel back to Burma to return the stones. Harker laments that the Elder Gods aren't the compassionate deities that some believe them to be, and that they won't have pity on him. To prove this point, he unwraps his bandages and shows Blaine his disfigured flesh, bloated and rotting away while he's still alive.
Harker tells Blaine that he tried to ward off the Elder Gods for a while by using their own star-stones to form a specific pattern on the beach that would keep the house protected for the moment. Unfortunately, Blaine reveals the stone he had removed and placed inside his pocket, inadvertently ruining the pattern. Luminous beings start to manifest inside the room, as Harker and Blaine run to the beach and Harker tries to reform the sigil. Dark clouds cover up the sky, leaving only the constellation of Orion visible: the abode of the Elder Gods. Blaine watches powerless as the luminous beings seize Harker, lift him in the air and tear him apart before dumping his remains in the ocean.
Blaine and Dr. Sprague (Harker's physician) search for Harker's remains to no avail, and Blaine tells the police that Harker had gone swimming when the "freak storm" must have caught him. What's left of his body is found four days later, and the authorities conclude that it must have been severely damaged by the rocks. At this point, Blaine starts to show the same symptoms that Harker did, as the curse has been transferred to him. Unable to recover all of the star-stones to return them to Burma, he keeps on probing the R'lyeh Text for the ritual that will keep the vengeful Elder Gods at bay.