At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft - Chapter 3

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter three of At the Mountains ofMadness by H. P. Lovecraft.
This LibriVox recording is in the publicdomain. Read by Bin Tucker, Chapter
three. None of us, Iimagine, slept very heavily or continuously that
morning, for both the excitement ofLake's discovery and the mounting fury of the

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wind were against such a thing.So savage was the blast even where we
were, that we could not helpwondering how much worse it was at Lake's
camp, directly under the vast unknownpeaks that bred and delivered it. Mactigue
was awake at ten o'clock and triedto get Lake on the wireless, as
agreed, but some electrical condition inthe disturbed air to the westward seemed to

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prevent communication. We did, however, get the Arkham, and Douglas told
me that he had likewise been vainlytrying to reach Lake. He had not
known about the wind, for avery little was blowing at McMurdo's sound,
despite its persistent rage where we wereThroughout the day. We all listened anxiously
and tried to get Lake at intervals, but invariably without result. About noon,

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a positive frenzy of wind stampeded outof the west, causing us to
fear for the safety of our camp, but it eventually died down with only
a moderate relapse at two PM.After three o'clock, it was very quiet,
and we redoubled our efforts to getLake. Reflecting that he had four
planes, each provided with an excellentshort wave outfit, we could not imagine
any ordinary accident capable of crippling allhis wireless equipment at once. Nevertheless,

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the stony silence continued, and whenwe thought of the delirious force the wind
must have had and his locality,we could not help making the most direful
conjectures. By six o'clock our fearshad become intense and definite, and after
a wireless consultation with Douglas and Thorphinson, I resolved to take steps toward investigation.

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The fifth aeroplane, which we hadleft at the McMurdo sound supply cache
with Sherman and two sailors, wasin good shape and ready for instant use,
and it seemed that the very emergencyfor which it had been saved was
now upon us. I got Shermanby wireless and ordered him to join me
with the plane and the two sailorsat the southern base as quickly as possible,
the air conditions being apparently highly favorable. We then talked over the personnel

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of the coming investigation party and decidedthat we would include all hands together with
the sledge and dogs which I hadkept with me. Even so great a
load would not be too much forone of the huge planes built to our
special orders for heavy machinery transportation.At intervals, I still tried to reach
lake with the wireless, but allto no purpose. Sherman with the sailors

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Gunnarson and Larson took off at seventhirty and reported a quiet flight from several
points on the wing. They arrivedat our base at midnight, and all
hands at once discussed the next move. It was risky business sailing over the
Antarctic and a single aeroplane without anyline of bases, but no one drew
back from what seemed like the plainestnecessity. We turned in at to a

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clock for a brief rest after somepreliminary loading of the plane, but we're
up again in four hours to finishthe loading and packing. At seven fifteen
January twenty fifth, we started flyingnorthwestward under Mactique's pilotage with ten men,
seven dogs, a sledge, afuel and food supply, and other items,
including the plane's wireless outfit. Theatmosphere was clear, fairly quiet,

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and relatively mild in temperature, andwe anticipated very little trouble in reaching the
latitude and longitude designated by Lake asthe sight of his camp. Our apprehensions
were over what we might find orfail to find at the end of our
journey, For Silence continued to answerall calls despatched to the camp. Every
incident of that four and a halfhour flight is burned into my recollection because

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of its crucial position in my life. It marked my loss, at the
age of fifty four, of allthat peace and balance which the normal mind
possesses through its accustomed conception of externalnature and nature's laws. Thenceforth, the
ten of us, but the studentdan Forth and myself above all others,
were to face a hideously amplified worldof lurking horrors which nothing can from our

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emotions, in which we would refrainfrom sharing with mankind in general if we
could. The newspapers a printed thebulletins we sent from the moving plane telling
of our NonStop course, our twobattles with treacherous upper air gales, our
glimpse of the broken surface where Lakehad sunk his mid journey shaft three days
before, and our sight of agroup of those strange, fluffy snow cylinders

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noted by Emmonson and bird as rollingin the wind across the endless leagues of
frozen plateau. There came a point, though, when our sensations could not
be conveyed in any words the presswould understand, and a later point when
we had to adopt an actual ruleof strict censorship. The sailor Larson was
first to spy the jagged line ofwhich like cones and pinnacles ahead, and

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his shouts sent everyone to the windowsof the great cabined plane. Despite our
speed, they were very slow andgaining prominence. Hence we knew that they
must be infinitely far off, invisibleonly because of their abnormal height. Little
by little, however, they rosegrimly into the western sky, allowing us
to distinguish various bare, bleak,blackish summits, and to catch the curious

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sense of fantasy which they inspired,as seen in the reddish Antarctic light against
the provocative background of iridescent ice dustclouds. In the whole spectacle there was
a persistent, pervasive hint of stupendoussecrecy and potential revelation, as if these
stark nightmare spires marked the pylons ofa frightful gateway into forbidden spheres of dream

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and complex gulfs of remote time spaceand ultra dimensionality. I could not help
feeling that they were evil things,mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out
over some accursed ultimate abyss. Thatseething half luminous cloud background held ineffable suggestions
of a vague ethereal beyondness far morethan terrestrially spatial, and gave appalling reminders

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of the utter remoteness, separateness,desolation, and eon long death of this
untrodden and unfathomed austral world. Itwas young Danforth who drew our notice to
the curious regularities of the higher mountainskyline, regularities like clinging fragments of perfect
cubes, which Lake had mentioned inhis messages, in which indeed justified his

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comparison with the dreamlike suggestions of primordialtemple ruins on cloudy Asian mountaintops so subtly
and strangely painted by Rooric. Therewas indeed something hauntingly Rooric like about this
whole unearthly continent of mountainous mystery.I had felt it in October when we
first caught sight of Victoria Land,and I felt it afresh. Now I

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felt, too, another wave ofuneasy consciousness of archaean mythical resemblances of how
disturbingly this lethal realm corresponded to theevillly famed plateau of Ling in the Primal
Writings. Mythologists have placed Ling inCentral Asia, but the racial memory of
Man, or of his predecessors islong, and it may well be that

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certain tales have come down from landsand mountains and temples of horror earlier than
Asia, and earlier than any humanworld we know. A few daring mystics
have hinted at a pre Pleistocene originfor the fragmentary Narcotic manuscripts, and have
suggested that the devotees of Sathagua wereas alien to mankind as Sathagua itself.

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Lang, wherever in space or timeit might brood, was not a region
I would care to be in ornear nor did I relish the proximity of
a world that had ever bred suchambiguous in archaan monstrosities as those Lake had
just mentioned. At the moment,I felt sorry that I had ever read
the abhorred Necronomicon or talked so muchwith that unpleasantly erudite folklorist Wilmarth at the

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University. This mood undoubtedly served toaggrobate my reaction to the bizarre mirage which
burst upon us from the increasingly opalescentzenith as we drew near the mountains and
began to make out the cumulative undulationsof the foothills. Seen dozens of polar
mirages during the preceding weeks, someof them quite as uncanny and fantastically vivid

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as the present sample. But thisone had a wholly novel and obscure quality
of menacing symbolism, and I shudderedas the seething labyrinth of fabulous walls and
towers and minarets loomed out of thetroubled ice vapors above our heads. The
effect was that of a Cyclopean cityof no architecture known demand or to human
imagination, with vast aggregations of nightblack masonry, embodying monstrous perversions of geometrical

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laws and attaining the most grotesque extremesof sinister bazaary. There were truncated cones,
sometimes terraced or fluted, surmounted bytall cylindrical shafts here and there,
bulbously enlarged and often capped with tearsof thinnish scalloped disks, and strange beetling
table like constructions suggesting piles of multitudinousrectangular slabs or circular plates, or five

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pointed stars, with each one overlappingthe one beneath. There were composite cones
and pyramids, either alone or surmountingcylinders or cubes, or flatter truncated cones
and pyramids, and occasional needle likespires, and curious clusters of five.
All of these fabrial structures seemed knittogether by tubular bridges crossing from one to

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the other at various dizzy heights,and the implied scale of the whole was
terrifying and oppressive in its sheer giganticism. The general type of mirage was not
unlike some of the wilder forms observedand drawn by the Arctic whaler Scoresby in
eighteen twenty. But at this timeand place, with those dark unknown mountain
peaks soaring stupendously ahead, that anomalouselder world discovery in our minds, and

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the fall of probable disaster enveloping thegreater part of our expedition, we all
seemed to find it in a taintof latent malignity and infinitely evil portent.
I was glad when the mirage beganto break up, though in the process
the various nightmare turrets and cones assumeddistorted temporary forms of even vaster hideousness.
As the whole illusion dissolved to churningopalescence, we began to look earthward again

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and saw that our journey's end wasnot far off. The unknown mountains ahead
rose dizzyingly up like a fearsome rampartof giants, their curious regularities showing with
startling clearness even without a field glass. We were over the lowest foothills now
and could see, amidst the snowice and bare patches of their main plateau,
a couple of darkish spots, whichwe took to be Lake's camp and

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boring. The higher foothills shot upbetween five and six miles away, forming
a range almost distinct from the terrifyingline of more than Himalayan peaks beyond them
at length ropes. The student,who had relieved Mctigue at the controls,
began to head downward toward the lefthand dark spot, whose size marked it
as the camp. As he didso, Mctigue sent out the last uncensored

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wireless message the world was to receivefrom our expedition. Everyone, of course,
has read the brief and unsatisfying bulletinsof the rest of our Antarctic sojourn.
Some hours after our landing, wesent a guarded report of the tragedy
we found and reluctantly announced the wipingout of the whole lake party by the
frightful wind of the preceding day orof the night before that. Eleven known

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dead young Gedney missing people pardoned ourhazy lack of details through realization of the
shock the sad event must have causedus, and believed us when we explained
that the mingling action of the windhad rendered all eleven bodies unsuitable for transportation
outside. Indeed, I flatter myselfthat even in the midst of our distress,

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utter bewilderment and soul clutching horror.We scarcely went beyond the truth in
any specific instance. The tremendous significancelies in what we dared not tell.
What I would not tell now,but for the need of warning others off
from nameless horrors. It is afact that the wind had wrought dreadful havoc.
Whether all could have lived through itwithout the other thing is gravely open

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to doubt. The storm, withits fury of madly driven ice particles,
must have been beyond anything our expeditionhad encountered before. One aeroplane shelter,
all its seams had been left ina far too flimsy and inadequate state,
was nearly pulverized, and the dericat the distant boring was entirely shaken to
pieces. The exposed metal of thegrounded planes and drilling machinery was bruised into

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a high polish, and two ofthe small tents were flattened despite their snow
banking. Wooden surfaces left out inthe blast were pitted and denuded of paint,
and all signs of tracks in thesnow were completely obliterated. It is
also true that we found none ofthe Arcadan biological objects in a condition to
take outside as a whole. Wedid gather some minerals from a vast tumbled

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pile, including several of the greenishsoapstone fragments, whose odd five pointed rounding
and faint patterns of grouped dots causedso many doubtful comparisons, and some fossil
bones, among which were the mosttypical of the curiously injured specimens. None
of the dogs survived. They're hurriedlybuilt snow enclosure near the camp, being
almost wholly destroyed. The wind mayhave done that, though the greater breakage

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on the side next to the camp, which was not the windward one,
suggests an outward leap or break ofthe frantic beasts themselves. All three sledges
were gone. We have tried toexplain that the wind may have blown them
off into the unknown. The drilland ice melting machinery at the boring were
too badly damaged to warrant salvage,so we used them to choke up that
subtly disturbing gateway to the past,which lake had blasted. We likewise left

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at the camp the two most shakenup of the planes, since our surviving
party had only four real pilots,Sherman Danforth, Matigue and Ropes, and
all with Danforth in a poor nervousshaped to navigate. We brought back all
the books, scientific equipment, andother incidentals we could find, though much
was rather unaccountably blown away. Sparetints and furs were either missing or badly

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out of condition. It was approximatelyfour pm, after wide plane cruising had
forced us to give Gedney up forlost, that we sent our guarded message
to the Arkham for relaying, andI think we did well to keep it
as calm and noncommittal as we succeededin doing the most. We set about
agitation concerned our dogs, whose franticuneasiness near the biological specimens was to be

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expected from poor Lake's accounts. Wedid not mention, I think their display
of the same uneasiness when sniffing aroundthe queer greenish soapstones and certain other objects
in the disordered region, objects includingscientific instruments, aeroplanes and machinery both at
the camp and at the boring,whose parts had been loosened, moved,
or otherwise tampered with by winds thatmust have harbored singular curiosity and investigativeness about

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the fourteen biological specimens. We werepardonably indefinite. We said that the only
ones we discovered were damaged, butthat enough was left of them to prove
Lake's description wholly and impressibly accurate.It was hard work keeping our personal emotions
out of the matter, and wedid not mention numbers or say exactly how
we had found. Those which wedid find. We had by that time

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agreed not to transmit anything suggesting madnesson the part of Lake's men, and
it surely looked like madness to findsix imperfect monstrosities carefully buried upright and nine
foot snow graves under five pointed mounds, punched over with groups of dots and
patterns exactly like those on the queergreenish soapstones dug up from Mesozoic or tertiary
times. The eight perfect specimens mentionedby Lake seemed to have been completely blown

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away. We were careful too,about the public's general peace of mind.
Hence Danforth and I said little aboutthat frightful trip over the mountains the next
day. It was the fact thatonly a radically lightened Plaine could possibly cross
a range of such height, whichmercifully limited that scouting tour to the two
of us. On our return atone am, Danforth was close to hysterics,

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but kept an admirably stiff upper lip. It took no persuasion to make
him promise not to show our sketchesand the other things we had brought away
in our pockets, not to sayanything more to the others than what we
had agreed to relay outside, andto hide our camera films for private development
later on, so that part ofmy present story will be as new to
Pebodie, Mactigue, Ropes, Sherman, and the rest as it will be

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to the world in general. Indeed, dan Forth its closer mouth than I,
for he saw, or thinks hesaw, one thing he will not
tell even me. As we allknow, our report included a tale of
a heart ascent, a confirmation ofLake's opinion that the Great Peaks are of
archaean slate and other very primal,crumpled strata, unchained since at least Middle

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Commanchean times, a conventional comment onthe regularity of the clean cube and rampart
formations. A decision that the cavemouths indicate dissolved calcareus veins, a conjecture
that certain slopes and passes would permitof the scaling and crossing of the entire
range by seasoned mountaineers, and aremark that the mysterious other side holds a

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lofty and immense super plateau as ancientand unchanging as the mountains themselves, twenty
thousand feet in elevation, with grotesquerock formations protruding through a thin glacial layer,
and with low gradual foothills between thegeneral plateau's surface and the sheer precipices
of the highest peaks. This bodyof data is in every respect true so

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far as it goes, and itcompletely satisfied them. In at the camp,
we laid our absence of sixteen hours, a longer time than our announced
flying landing, recon ordering and rockcollecting program, called for to a long
mythical spell of adverse wind conditions,and told truly of our landing on the
farther foothills. Fortunately, our talesounded realistic and prosaic enough not to attempt

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any of the others into emulating ourflight. Hadn't he tried to do that,
I would have used every ounce ofmy persuasion to stop them, and
I do not know what Danforth wouldhave done. While we were gone.
Pebody, Sherman, Ropes, McTeague, and Williamson had worked like beavers over
Lake's two best plains, fitting themagain for use despite the altogether unaccountable juggling

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of their operative mechanism. We decidedto load all the plans the next morning
and start back for our old baseas soon as possible, even though indirect.
That was the safest way to worktoward McMurdo's sound, for a straight
line flied across the most utterly unknownstretches of the Eon Dead continent would involve
many additional hazards. Further exploration washardly feasible in view of our tragic decimation

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and the ruin of our drilling machinery, and the doubts and horrors around us
which we did not reveal, madeus wish only to escape from this austral
world of desolation and brooding madness asswiftly as we could. As the public
knows, our return to the worldwas accomplished without further disasters. All planes
reached the old base on the eveningof the next day, January twenty seventh,

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after a swift, non stop flight, and on the twenty eighth we
made McMurdo's Sound in two lamps,the one pause being very brief and occasioned
by a faulty rudder, and thefurious wind over the ice shelf. After
we had cleared the Great Plateau infive days more, the Arkham and Miskatonic,
with all hens and equipment on board, were shaking clear of the thickening

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field ice and working up ross sea, with the mocking mountains of Victoria Land
looming westward against a troubled Antarctic skyand twisting the winds whales into a wide
ranged musical piping which chilled my soulto the quick. Less than a fortnight
later, we left the last hintof polar Land behind us and thanked Heaven
that we were clear of a haunted, accursed realm, where life and death,

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space and time have made black andblasphemous alliances in the unknown epochs since
matter first writhed and swam on theplanet's scarce, cooled crust. Since our
return, we have all constantly workedto discourage Antarctic exploration and have kept certain
doubts and guesses to ourselves with splendidunity and faithfulness. Even young Danforth,

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with as nervous breakdown, has notflinched or babbled to his doctors. Indeed,
as I have said, there isone thing he thinks he alone saw,
which he will not tell even me, though I think it would help
his psychological state if he would consentto do so. It might explain and
relieve much. Though perhaps the thingwas no more than the delusive aftermath of

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an earlier shock. That is theimpression I gather after those rare, irresponsible
moments when he whispers disjointed things tome, things which he repudiates vehemently as
soon as he gets a grip onhimself again. It will be hard work
deterring others from the Great White South, and some of our efforts may directly
harm our cause. By drawing andinquiring notice, we might have known from

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the first that human curiosity is undying, and that the results we announced would
be enough to spur others ahead onthe same. Age long pursuit of the
unknown. Lake's reports of those biologicalmonstrosities had aroused naturalists and paleontologists to the
high pitch though we were sensible enoughnot to show the detached parts we had
taken from the actual buried specimens,or our photographs of those specimens as they

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were found. We also refrained fromshowing the more puzzling of the scarred bones
and greenish soapstones. While Danforth andI have closely guarded the pictures we took
or drew on the super plateau acrossthe range, and the crumpled things we
smoothed, studied in terror, andbrought away in our pockets. But now
that dark weather more party is organizing, and with a thoroughness far beyond anything

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our outfit attempted. If not dissuaded, they will get to the innermost nucleus
of the Antarctic and melt and boretill they bring up that which may end
the world. We know, soI must break through all reticences at last,
even about that ultimate nameless thing beyondthe mountains of madness. End of Chapter three