"The Seal of R'lyeh" aka "Seal of the Damned"

 by August Derleth

originally published Fantastic Universe, July 1957 

Marius Phillips grandfather ("whom I never saw except in a darkened room") always warned his parents to keep him away from the sea.  Which was odd to him since in fact he was drawn to the ocean as far back as he can remember.  Nevertheless his parents raised him landlocked environs.

By the time he's in college, both parents have shuffled off and so has an eccentric uncle who leaves him boatloads of money and two houses - one in Innsmouth, one on coastal hills above Innsmouth looking out onto the ocean.  Marius moves in to the latter.

Throughout the house, and especially embroidered into a great round rug that nearly fills a study, is a seal depicting an Aquarius-type figure surmounting what appears to be symbols of a city and an octopoid beastie.

He hires a young woman, Ada Marsh, from the town, to do some housekeeping for him.  She's not much of a housekeeper, as he keeps catching her snooping around, as if looking for something.  When he asks her what she's looking for, she behaves oddly, telling him (a notebook or diary or papers) but refusing to explain what for, telling him he's too young and stupid and an outsider to understand.

Inexplicably, Marius doesn't get rid of her and in fact finds the papers hidden behind the usual books.  Unc's diary includes the whole back-story of Innsmouth, the usual blah-blah about Elder Gods and Great Old Ones, maps of the Plateau of Leng and Kadath, and notes about Unc's attempts to find R'lyeh and Cthulhu himself.  This leads Marius into several paragraphs of speculation on the Mythos and comparative religion, references to the events of "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".  

However, when he presents what he's learned to Ada, she's unimpressed and insults him.  She also tells him to find his uncle's ring.

Which he promptly does.

The ring, when worn, makes him psychically aware and changes his perception of the world.  Using it, he finds a trap door in the study that leads to a huge, deep underground cavern that opens out to the sea.

Marius gets himself some diving gear and hops in. Once in the water, he finds an unknown force starting to draw him in deeper, risking his being too deep when his oxygen runs out.  He is rescued by Ada, who is able to swim effortlessly and to breathe underwater.  She frees him of his diving gear and he discovers he too can breathe underwater.  They swim out to Devil's Reef.

Ada now joins him in his quest for R'lyeh.  They charter a boat and make for Ponape.  From there they begin to visit the various cities of the Deep Ones, finding allies.  Finally they think they have found R'lyeh.  They charter a boat out there.  A great wave seems to wash them off the boat and into the sea.  They are never seen again. 

While I can't call this a great story its certainly one of Derleth's better attempts at a Lovecraftian tale.  Obviously, he's riffing heavily (and less effectively) off of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", and the usual lecture on the nature of the mythos is just as painful as always.  But it is effective, breaks the mold of the straight Lovecraft rips at least a little bit, and is at times effectively spooky (I find the never-properly-seen Grandfather bit kind of eerie even though I knew instantly why he never got to get a good look at him).