Black Lotus

by Robert Bloch

The tale of a Dreamer whose dreams merged with grim reality.

Originally from Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1047

This is the story of Genghir the dreamer, and of the curious fate that overtook him in his dreams; a story old men whisper in the souks of ispahan as other old men once whispered it in fabled teraz, five thousand years ago. What portion of it is truth and what portion only fantasy, I leave unto your judgment. There are strange sayings in the banned books, and Alhazred had reasons for his madness; but as I have said, the judgment rests with you. I but relate the tale.

Know then that Genghir was lord over a distant kingdom in the days of the griffin and the fleet-winged unicorn. Rich and powerful was his domain, and peaceful and well-ruled withal, so that its sovereign need occupy himself only with his pleasures.

Handsome was Genghir, but formed as a woman is formed, so that he cared not for the chase or manly combat. His days were spent in rest and study, and his nights in revelry amongst the women. The functions of government rested upon the shoulders of Hassim el Wadir, the Vizier, whilst the true sultan dallied at his pleasures.

Grievous was the life he led, and soon the land was torn by dissension and corruption. But this Genghir heeded not at all, and Hassim he ordered flayed for misuse of his office. And there was revolution and killing throughout the land; and then a fearful plague arose; but all this Genghir minded not, even though two-thirds of his people died. For his thoughts were alien and far away, and the weight of his rule he felt as but a feather. His eyes knew only the musty pages of ensorcelled books and the soft white flesh of women. The witchery of words and wine and wenches cast a spell upon his senses. There was dark magic in the black-bound books his father had brought from ancient conquered realms, and there was enchantment in the old wines and the young bodies that his desires knew; so that he lived in a land of unreality and dreams. Surely he would have died were it not that those left in the land, after the plague, had fled to other kingdoms, leaving him in an empty city. The report of their going never reached his ears, for well his courtiers knew that those who brought displeasing news were beheaded. But one by one they slipped away, taking with them gold and precious jewels, until the palace lay deserted under a sun that shone upon a barren land.

No longer did the women rest within the zenana, or disport as nymphs beside the amber pools. The sultan turned to other pleasures from the realms of Cathay, and in robes of velvet black he lay and toyed with the juices of the poppy. Then did life become indeed but a dream, and the opium-visioned nightmares took on the semblances of events and places mentioned in the eldritch volumes that he read by day. Time became but as the lengthening of a monstrous dream. Genghir ventured forth into his gardens no more, and less and less did he partake of food or wine. Even his books he forgot, and lay for all the time in a drugged sleep, nor heeded the coming and going of the few followers that remained within his retinue. And a silence of desolution fell upon the land.

Now it came to pass that opium and other drugs were not enough, so that Genghir was forced to seek recourse in other and more potent distillations. And in one of the curious evil books he read of a subtle potion brewed from the juices of the Black Lotus that grows beneath the waning moon. Dire and dreadful were the warnings of the scribe regarding the concoction of this forbidden preparation, for its genesis was deemed unholy, and the dangers surrounding its use by a novice were couched in trenchant terms. But Genghir thirsted for the lurid magic of its dreams and for the promise of its delight, nor would he be content until he should taste of its forbidden ecstasy.

His palace stood dim and deserted, for in the latter days the remnant of his sycophants and houris had departed from the dusky halls whose cheap splendors had long since been bartered for the true delights found only in the land of opiate dreams. There now remained but three faithful servitors to guard Genghir on his couch of visions, and these he called unto his side and commanded them to journey forth and seek the venom-distilled beauty of the Black Lotus, in the hidden swamps afar of which the cryptic book had told. And they were much afraid, both for him and for themselves, because they had heard curious legends; with one accord they beseeched him to recall his words. But he grew angered, and his eyes were seen to flame like opals, whereat they departed.

A fortnight passed ere one of them returned—a fortnight during which the dreamer tried in vain to beguile his satiated senses with the common reek of the white flower. Overjoyed was he when the slave returned with his precious burden and brewed from it the blissful juices of nepanthe, following the injunctions set forth in the curious book. But he did not speak of his journey, or venture aught concerning the fate of his two companions; and even the dazed dreamer wondered why he kept his features veiled. In his eagerness he did not inquire, but was content to see the philtre carefully compounded and the pearly-hued liquor inserted in the nargileh. Immediately upon the completion of this task, the servitor departed, and no man knows the manner of his going, save that he lashed his camel far across the desert, riding as though possessed by demons. Genghir did not note his genii-beset progress, for already he was enraptured at the thought of what was to come. Indeed he had not stirred from his divan in the palace chambers, and in his brain was naught but the thirsty dement of desire for the strange new thrill foretold in the elder lore. Queer dreams were promised to him who durst inhale the fumes, dreams of which the old book dare not even hint—"Dreams which surpass Reality, or blend with it in new and unhallowed ways." So spake the scribes, but Genghir was not afraid, and heeded only the promise of delights it was said to hold.

And so it was that he lay on his couch that evening and smoked his hookah alone in the deepening darkness, a dream-king in a land where all but dreams was dead. His divan overlooked the balcony high above the empty city, and as the moon rose, its crescent-given rays glistened upon the iridescent bubblings of the white fluid in the great bowl through which the smoke was drawn. Sweet indeed was the essence's taste, sweeter than the honeycombs of Kashmir or the kisses of the chosen brides of Paradise. Slowly there came stealing over his senses a new and delightful languor—it was as if he were a creature free-born, a being of the boundless air. He gazed half-seeing at the bubbles, and suddenly they bubbled up, up, up, until they bathed the room in a veil of shimmering beauty, and he felt all identity vanish in their crystalline depths.

Now ensued a period of profound and mystic sadness. He seemed to lie within the graven walls of a tomb, upon a slab of pale-white marble. Shrill funereal pipings seemed to echo from afar, and his nostrils were titillated by the distilled aromatic incense of the sepulchral lily. He knew himself to be dead, and yet he retained the consciousness that was his own in life. The timelessness of common dreams was not his lot; centuries passed on leadenly, and he knew every second of their length as he lay within the tomb of his fathers; enmausoleumed upon a slab covered with stone that was carven with demon-given basilisks.

Long after the odors and the music had faded from the darkness in which he lay came the advent of corruption. He felt his body grow bloatedly purulescent; felt his features coagulate and his limbs slough off into charnel, oozing slime. And even that was as an instant in the weary, dragging hours of his eternity there. So much longer did he lie bodiless that he lost all conscious recollection of ever having possessed one, and even the dust that had been his bones lost all significance to him. The past, present and future were as naught; and thus unconsciously Genghir had revealed unto him the basic mystery of life.

Years later the crumbling walls clove thunderously asunder, and shards of debris covered over the decaying slab that now housed naught but an undying consciousness. And even they were overcast by dust and earth, until there was but nothingness to mark the sight of the proud tomb where once lay the lords of the house of Genghir. And the soul of Genghir was as nothingness alone amongst nothingness.

Such was the substance of the first dream. As the flicker of his soul expired into everlasting darkness within the earth, Genghir awoke, and he was sweat-bathed, trembling with fear, and as pale as the death he feared. And anon he turned the pages of his book to where it spoke of the Lotus and its prophecies thereof and this he read.

“The first dream shall foretell that which is to come."

Whereat Genghir grew much afraid, and closed the book in the ensilvered moonlight, then lay back upon his couch and tried to sleep, and to forget. But then there came stealing upon his senses the subtly sweet odor of the essence, and its magic englamored and engulfed, till he grew frantic with the insidious craving for its sinister soothing. Forgotten was fear and prophetic warning; all dissolved into desire. His fumbling fingers found the hookah, his feverish lips closed upon the stem, and his being knew peace.

But not for long. Once again the opaque mists of roseate, sweet voluptuousness parted and dissolved, and the enchantment of rapturous, ineffable bliss faded as a new vision supervened.

He saw himself awaken and rise from the couch in the light of dawn, to gaze haggardly upon a new day. He saw the wretched agony of his being as the drug wore off its potency and left his body racked with spasms of exquisite pain. His head seemed to swell as if about to burst; his rotting, benightmared brain seemed to grow inside his skull and split his head asunder. He beheld his frantic gropings about the deserted chamber, the mad capers of grotesque agony that made him tear his hair and foam epileptically at the mouth and gibber terribly as he clawed with twitching fingers at his temples. The white-hot mist of searing anguish sent him reeling to the floor, and then it seemed as though in his dream-consciousness there came to him a horrible longing to be rid of his torment at any cost, and to escape from a living hell to a dead one. In his madness he cursed the book and the warning; cursed the ghastly lotus flower and its essence; cursed himself and his pain. And as the stark biting teeth of his torture bored still closer to the roots of his sanity, he saw himself drag his rigid, paralytic body to the outer balcony of his deserted palace, and with a grimace of agony greater than can be sensed by sanity, he raised himself slowly to the rail. Meanwhile, as he stood there, his head swelled and bloated to monstrous, unbelievable proportions, then burst rottenly asunder in a ghastly blob of gray and scarlet putrefaction, from which arose the stupefying scent of black lotuses. Then, with a single inarticulate cry of horror and despair, he crumpled and toppled from the balcony, to spatter himself in red madness upon the court below.

At this instant he awoke, and his teeth shook inside his mouth as he gagged and retched in terrible repulsion. He felt old and decrepit, and the tide of life ebbed in his veins. He would have fainted were it not for the revivifying fumes of the nargileh that still smoldered beside him. Then unto himself he swore a mighty oath to abandon the ways of the dreamer forever, and rose to his feet and took unto himself the book and turned the pages to the passage of warning, wherein he read this rune:

"The second dream shall show what might have been."

Then there descended upon him a resignation and a black despair. All of his life unrolled before him once again and he knew himself for what he was—a deluded fool. And he knew also that if he did not go back to his drugged slumber there would come to pass the horror of his second dream, as it foretold. So, wearily, and with queer wonder in his heart, he clasped the book to his bosom and betook himself once again to his couch in the moonlight. And his pale fingers lifted the hookah to his ashen lips once again and he once more knew the bliss of Nirvana. He was under the compulsion of a sorcerous thrall,

... Oh night-black lotus flower, that growth beneath the River Nile! Oh. poisoned perfumer of all darkness, waving and weaving in the spells of moonlight! Oh cryptic magic that worketh only evil! ....

Genghir the Dreamer slept. But there was brooding ecstasy and mystic wonder in his dreams, and he knew the beauty that lies in twilight grottoes on the dark side of the moon, and his brow was fanned and his slumbers lulled by the pale wind that is the little gods who dance in paradise. And he stood alone in a sea of endless infinity, before a monstrous flower that beckoned great, hypnotic petals before his dream-dazed eyes, and whispered unto him a command. In his vision he glanced down to where a dagger hung by his side, in his jeweled stomacher of sultanship.

And there came to him a sudden gleam of understanding. This before him was the Black Lotus, symbol of the evil that waits for men in sleep. It was casting a spell upon him that would lure . him to death. He knew now the way of atonement for the past and the release of his enchantment--he must strike!

But even as he moved, the great flower shot out one velvet petal steeped in the cloying scent that was a wind from the gate of heaven. And the black petal entwined itself about his neck like a loathsome and beautiful serpent, and with its succubi-like em

· brace sought to drown his senses in a sea of scented bliss.

But Genghir would not be frustrated. The allurement of delight left him cold, but his numbing brain commanded him. He raised the silver dagger from his side and with a single blow, slashed off the twining coiler from his neck....

Then Genghir saw the flowers and the petals vanish, and he was left alone in a universe of mocking laughter; a dim world that rocked with leering mirth of idiotic gods. For an instant he awoke to see a ruby necklace encircling his bare throat; to realize monstrously that in his dream he had cut his own throat. Then, on a bed of moonlight, he died, and there was silence in the deserted room, while from the dead throat of Genghir the Dreamer little drops of blood fell upon an open page of a curious book; upon a curious sentence in oddly underlined letters:

"The third dream brings reality."

Nothing more remained, save the all-pervading scent of lotus-flowers that filled the nighted room.

END