First, I stared at him. Then, I may have snapped a little. Only a little. Actually, I snatched the brochure of At the Mountains of Madness from him and slapped his face with it. Just a calm and totally justified reaction.

I also may have shouted at him, asking if he had READ THE DAMNED BOOK or something like that. It's hard to remember clearly the things you say when you are filled with blind and unbridled rage.

Armitage in person appeared for an instant among the shelves. His raised eyebrow remembered me that he had allowed his old friend's grandson to break one or two rules, but he wouldn't go easy on an unrepentant sinner like me. Much calmer, I released the young one's collar (I didn't notice that I had grabbed it) and asked him, in a steady voice, why he thought that he could convince me to go back to that frozen hell.

Van Helsing didn't look offended or scared by my outburst. Mildly amused was closer to his reaction. He talked to me calmly:

"I'm so sorry, Prof. Dyer. I didn't mean to offend you, I just couldn't resist the temptation to do some drama. It's true that the Starkweather-Moore Expedition hired me (or, more precisely, that I pestered them until they allowed me to be a volunteer), but it doesn't mean that I don't agree with you that it's dangerous. I'm here because I believe you. And because it's clear that the expedition is too well funded and motivated to be stopped, so, the best way of protecting it is going with them and acting when time is due."

I know that, at this point of my life, I should be grateful that at least one stranger believed my story and was trying to do something. The thing is, life had made me too cynical. I couldn't see how the boy could be serious. I asked him incredulously if he was so insane that he had felt the urge to act simply by reading a horror tale. His reply made me feel a chill down my spine:

"Of course I didn't, sir. I was compelled to act because I received a call. A call from these very mountains of madness that you describe so vividly. Tell me, Prof. Dyer, what do you feel when you remember your time there? Can you still feel the terrible winds that fly through your face like a million daggers? Can you still hear an unnatural musical sound in the winds, going up and down like it's desperate? Can you still feel like half-articulated voices are shouting your name in the back of your head? Voices that you are pretty sure that no one else could hear?"

That brought to me all the feelings that I was repressing since my return. I couldn't help but feel all the fear and all the doubts I had there. It was like I was back at Lake's camp, with bodies, blood, green ichor and this hellish musical wind all around me. But what startled me even more in the lad's speech is that I had told no one about the voices. "Voices in my head" was a line that I didn't want to cross while telling my story to the Lovecraft fellow. How could he know…?

I didn't have to say my question out loud. As soon as our eyes met, he explained:

"I dreamed with these things. A frozen waste, a gargantuan city of stone, winds that sing and pipe and voices in the back of my head, half-forming my name. But it wasn't a common dream. Tell me, have you ever heard about the Dreamlands?"

Of course I had heard about the Dreamlands. Everyone from my class had heard about them. Carter wouldn't shut up about them. He was that kind of person that will tell you his dream, want you or not. At least, his dreams were always creative and weird, instead of the standard I-was-nude-before-a-crowd. I had also read about that place in the books of the forbidden section of the library. Remember when I said that all of my worst decisions were made there? I still can't understand what trick of mind made me think that reading the Necronomicon and his "friends" was a good way to spend a leisure afternoon.

The Dreamlands is a dimension in which you can enter through an astral projection when you are sleeping. You can also create new locations on these lands by the force of your thoughts. It is a dimension with its own inhabitants and natural laws. That much, I knew. I also knew that not every human being was able to enter there. I, myself, never saw a hint of it during my dreams.

Van Helsing nodded to the things I said and went on.

"Great. You know the basics. I'm a dreamer. Not a very good one, since I'm banished from the places that those pesky priests guard, but I can explore the parts of the Dreamlands that are closer to the Waking World – you can call them the Upper Dreamlands – and also Nodens' Abyss.

Long story short, I got lost. I was trying to get to the Upper Dreamlands and ended inside a stone building. When I peeked through a window, I saw a land covered in snow. Voices were trying to communicate with my mind. When I finally understood them, they told me their tale. It wasn't that much different from what you could deduce in this book.

These two voices were from an old race that lived in the Earth eons ago. You called them "The Elder Things" in your book. Eight of them woke up from a deep slumber to meet strange beings that made a hellish sound and attacked them. Confused and afraid, they slew the beings and just then could cool their mind enough to understand where they were. Soon, it dawned to them that they were in the same place in which they fell asleep: just outside their city. Then, they hurried to the place, just to discover that much more time passed than they could foresee. They made everything they could to find their race, not wanting to admit that they were alone.

Then, shoggoths happened. You know the deal. Four were killed right way. The other four ran as fast as they could, but two were cornered. The remaining two would be killed, too, if it wasn't by a distraction that put the shoggoth out of their tracks: two weird 'simian-like' beings that screamed in the caves.

Thanks to that short diversion, they could hide in a safe room, but it turned out that this room was more like a prison. The shoggoth gave up on looking for them after a few days, but at that point, they had already collapsed under their millennial hunger. Their bodies are paralyzed by now, almost frozen again, only their minds are still active, still trying to escape."

I had held my breath when he was talking and only noticed it when he paused. I took a deep breath, and he did the same. I thought that he would talk many things yet, but he merely added:

"And that's why I'm going with this Antarctic expedition. I want to free these poor things. I also believe that there is some kind of anomaly in the Antarctic that is making a giant portal between the Waking World and the Upper Dreamlands, where this version of the Leng Plateau really is. If I can find and destroy this anomaly, this accursed place won't be reached by humans of our world anymore. At least, not when they are awake. To do this, I have to be quick and precise. That's why I need you. You were there, you know the place better than me. Will you go with me? Will you answer the call of the Elder Things?"

What could I answer to that? It's true that, for an instant at the beginning of our conversation, the young man had reawakened my old fears and traumas, all the primal feelings that sometimes would make me wake up in the middle of the night and shout. But this call to adventure was different. It brought to me a feeling that I thought that was lost. It was a feeling of wonder and reverence that the incredible old city of the Elder Things inspired me. That ardent curiosity that made me drop the common sense and explore the place even with all the warnings that it was a bad idea. I wanted to see an Elder Thing. I wanted to talk with them, I wanted to hear the wisdom of beings from a civilization that was already old when mankind didn't even exist.

Again, I didn't have to say anything to Van Helsing. I offered him my hand and he shook it with a bright smile. As he went out of the library, he added:

"The expedition sets sail in one week. I'll be waiting for you."

I was feeling high and inspired. Then, I fell all the way back to Earth, as I discovered what was bothering me in that young man. It's that he wasn't a young man. He was a twelve-years-old child when his grandfather visited Arkham, thirty years ago. How could he look like a twenty-something?

It would be a long journey.