Xiurhn is a 1975 short Cthulhu Mythos story by American author Gary Myers.
Synopsis[]
Skaa is a witch who lives in a house in the Street of the Pantheon of Hazuth-Kleg opposite the onyx Temple of Unattainable Desires. There she worships her carven idols and performed rituals with the Voorish sign. A consort named Thish arrived after traveling a long way to Vornai seeking the Dark Jewel of Mhor. He is told of the unknown East of endless night where he will find the Dark Jewel in a peak haunted by the mythical Xiurhn, which was made by the Other Gods as supplication for Azathoth. To protect himself from Xiurhn, he seeks a talisman made by the yellow-skulled priests of Yuth anointed for their goddess N’tse-Kaambl. After scamming Skaa by paying with pebbles instead of opals, Thish set out. But Skaa used a ritual to turn the pebbles into opals.
Thish went to Yuth and stole the talisman and framed a witch for the crime, arriving in the unknown East upon a zebra to Mhor. He witnessed the arrival of beasts from the viscid Pool of Night. He found himself pursued and managed to enter the tower of stone to safety. He found the Dark Jewel and met the amorphous Xiurhn, who wanted to punish the thief but also recognized the talisman of N’tse-Kaambl, and instead answered the door that the creature who pursued Thish was pounding on.
Publication History[]
First printed in the collection The House of the Worm, "Xiurhn" has since been reprinted several times, and has been translated into German and Italian.