“You don’t want them to notice you not working,” the white human man continued. I could feel his urgency and even in the dark I could form a clear picture of the panicked desperation that must have gripped his face. He breathed with a soft sigh at each exhale.
“Follow me,” he said and I watched the man pick up a wheelbarrow from a line of them. They were made of wood and seamed with metal, and their aged and worn appearance was of something more akin to a torture device than a tool for moving the mounds of glistening rubies that lines of weary humans slow walked out of the deep mine that extended into the back of the extensive cave.
I grabbed a wheelbarrow as the white man instructed and I followed him down a rocky road that was carved from the cave floor and was elevated up a considerable distance from a deep darkness on either side that I was afraid to stumble and fall into. The wheelbarrow was a torture device, the handles were cracked and splintered wood and I had to ignore the tiny pricks and cuts because I had no gloves and neither did the white man. He was hustling quickly down the road and I struggled to keep up, until I realized why he was moving so fast.
I didn’t notice it immediately. I was overwhelmed by the vastness of the space and incredible expenditure of effort on the part of the humans who hauled the rubies along the carved roads for the long distance that they ran. The load seemed to be very heavy and I hoped that I wasn’t expected to haul any stones, I could just give my wheelbarrow to someone who had lost theirs and maybe prattle around with a pickaxe until the Brethren of Leng found me again.
But then I noticed the shape along the side of the rocky road that seemed to bob up and down as we moved. I tracked it as closely as I could as we went deeper into the mine and eventually, the shape sped up and then emerged on the road. It was one of the Moon Beasts that the Brethren of Leng seemed to bow to and the white man stopped so suddenly that I almost ran into him.
“I…I’m sorry…” the man said and dropped to his knees. “I was just getting back down the mine…”
The large toad-like creature with its slick skin squatted on four strong legs that bent into angles and made it look as though it was ready to pounce. I fell to my knees as it made a wet, sucking sound and wiggled the pink tentacles that sprouted from the space where a face should have been on its head.
Then I felt it enter my mind and it spoke to me.
“You are Leeland, of Earth.”
Suddenly I was standing alone with the thing under a spotlight, but still on the road carved from the cave floor.
“What brings you to these lands?” the thing asked with a voice that came from its tentacled mouth. “We don’t normally get your kind around here.”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” I said honestly.
“I’ve heard of humans like you, but I was told that you all lack the imagination, even in your subconscious, to access the Dreamlands.”
“Humans like me?” I said. “What do you mean by that?”
“The Brethren call you a Scorched Man, but I know what you really are. You’re the slave of a slave, now free and existing alongside your masters. How is that life? The denizens of the Dreamlands fear us and call us beasts because we give some of them the purpose of working in the mines, they would never live alongside us, even if we found the heart to pay them. What kind of existence do you make for yourself in a world that you share with former slavers who can’t recognize your humanity?”
“I have never been a slave, sir,” I declared boldly. “I am the model human man. The very same denizens who fear you, look upon me with wonder. Why, I would say that I am on equal footing with your kind. I see now that Scorched Man is your name for what I am, a black man, an American of African descent, and we are feared in my world just like you. Our enslavement was a coincidence of history, had my ancestors made different choices they could have sold their enemies into slavery and made pacts with vile men to rule the motherland. You have only learned of Scorched Men from the Pale ones and of course their perspective is skewed. If you would listen, I would gladly educate you on the truth.”
The Moon Beast was intrigued and I captivated him for what felt like days with stories of the lives of Scotched Men.
“We could be so much more,” I said as wrap up, “but there is a steep pit that most of us are forced to dig ourselves out of, though some work harder than others. So you see, I am more complex than the entitled Pale Man allows himself to be.”
“You are most impressive, Scorched Man,” the Beast said with pleasure in its voice. “You are a persuasive creature. You are no mere slave, you are truly black. Nyarlathotep will find you most intriguing. Beings like you are an untapped source of worship for the great Nyarlathotep. Follow me.”
Suddenly, I was kneeling behind the white man again. I stood and saw the Beast writhing it’s tentacles on the stone path before me and then it walked from the path and down the rocky side to the darkness.
I followed it. I didn’t want to, but I went to the spot on the road where it had crawled down the side, and I sat, then slid down after it. I was afraid, but I was not in complete control of myself.
It was a long way down before I hit a stone ground that I could not see. My back was scratched, but the pain was mostly an annoyance. I was in complete darkness and didn’t know what to do.
Then I felt tentacles grab me and I knew that the Moon Beast had me in its nightmare of a mouth. I yelled, sure that I was being eaten, but I wasn’t. The tentacles held me while the Moon Beast ran and soon we arrived at a location that I assumed was still inside the cave on the moon. We came to a smooth wall with four torches illuminating a doorway. It was a black rectangle in the yellow-tinted stone wall. The Moon Beast released me and I fell to the ground. When I stood, I heard it in my mind.
“If Nyarlathotep appears to you within the stone temple, you will be exalted. If nothing happens inside, you will be thrown back in with the slaves to toil for however long your being dwells these lands.”
The Beast pushed me toward the door and I was stricken with fear. I walked unsteadily toward the black rectangle, unable to stop my march forward.
PRL Serials 