The Amorphous Flute-Player
entityTibicen informis—Piping noisomely beyond the light
A shapeless, flute-piping entity that provides the music for the underground Yule-rite beneath Kingsport, its change of key triggering an unspeakable horror.
An amorphous shape squatted in the darkness beyond the ring of cold flame during the underground Yule-rite beneath Kingsport, piping noisomely on a flute whose noxious muffled flutterings answered from the fetid dark where nothing could be clearly seen.
At a signal from the old man who led the rite, the thing shifted its feeble drone into another key, precipitating a horror unthinkable and unexpected that transfixed the narrator with a dread not of this world. By the time the narrator staggered back to his feet, the amorphous flute-player had rolled out of sight, leaving only two of its patient winged beasts standing by.
Haunts
Sources
Every fact above traces back to the text.
“I saw something amorphously squatted far away from the light, piping noisomely on a flute; and as the thing piped I thought I heard noxious muffled flutterings in the fetid darkness where I could not see.”
The Festival (1925)
“the old man made a signal to the half-seen flute-player in the darkness, which player thereupon changed its feeble drone to a scarce louder drone in another key; precipitating as it did so a horror unthinkable and unexpected”
The Festival (1925)