Elysia (16 page)

Nyarlathotep, before grinding them to pulp in his nightmare machines. Look!'

Enlarged by the time-dock's scanners, the lower slopes of the mountain to the west seemed suddenly enveloped by a sickly, crawling mist. Except this mist writhed and put out feelers, then drew itself into the mountain via the extinct, half-choked lava run which opened on that side. 'Nyarlathotep, in just one of his "thousand forms"!' de Marigny rasped. 'Well he hasn't come here for nothing, and so there has to be time yet.'

Then, without further pause, The Searcher dropped the time-clock vertically down the shaft, at the same time scanning the darkness below as the crusted lava walls rushed upwards at a terrific pace and dawn's natural light narrowed to a pallid circle receding high overhead ...

'Well then, what are you waiting for?' Eldin roared up at the massed ranks of wide-mouthed faces leering down on Hero and himself. 'On you go, hack away! Or better still let me up off this cross, give me a sword and
I'll
hack away — but not at any ropes, be sure! Ha! Scummy sons of Leng — your fathers were spawned in moonlit mud and your mothers went on all fours! You weren't born but spawned! And when you die — which you all will, and soon if there's any justice — why, not even Zura would welcome such as you to the Charnel Gardens! What? I've seen handsomer night-gaunts!'

`Much handsomer-' agreed Hero, if a bit less boisterously, and not a little envious of Eldin's inspired taunting, — and they've no faces at all!'

Their comments bothered the almost-humans not one bit, but Gudge, on the opposite side of the pit from where they were hanging, now pushed wobblingly forward. As he neared the rim, so the Lengites hastily made room. Hero and Eldin had met Gudge when the black ship brought them here in the first place. He hadn't fooled them then and made no attempt to do so now.

Robed in red silk, but loosely for there was no longer any need to conceal himself, not down here under the volcano Gudge was far less than human. As Eldin had once long-since pointed out: 'Whoever dreamed a thing such as that must have been a madman!' And only half-hidden behind the shuddering folds of his robes, Gudge was indeed a leprous white anomaly; vaguely toadish yet able, within limits, to contract or expand his jellyish body at will; eyeless, yet obviously very clearly sighted; with a blunt snout that sprouted a vibrating mass of short pink tentacles in twin bunches, whose purpose was purely conjectural. Or perhaps not; for certainly
the
thing's hood, thrown back now, was equipped with wide-spaced eye-holes. So perhaps the pink tentacles served as 'eyes' of a sort. But voiceless beyond any doubt, Gudge conversed by means of a whining ivory flute which he carried in a mushy paw. His interpreter as he played or 'spoke' was one of the Lengites, a more than usually puffy horned one whose position puffed him up more yet.

'Questers,' he translated now, while the torches of his massed brothers flared up evilly all around, — you, Hero of Dreams and Eldin the
Wanderer
Gudge wishes you to know that you are singularly honoured. Nyarlathotep himself comes to examine you.
Even
the Great Messenger of
Them
Gudge is pledged to serve! How say you? Are you not overwhelmed?'

`I vomit on Nyarlathotep!' cried Eldin. 'If he smells and looks half as disgusting as Gudge, I vomit twice on him! Even Hero vomits on him, and he's not as fussy as me!'

`In short,' Hero added,
'we're
not impressed.'

The cloven-hooved interpreter tootled their comments back to Gudge, whose form at once commenced a rapid shrinking and swelling and fluttering which the questers took for an expression of some fury. And before he could bring himself properly under control —

'Not impressed?' came a new voice, and all heads turned toward the mouth of the west-facing lava run, from which poured a sickly mist that lapped like sour milk and pulsed with a life of its own. The voice — a young voice, whose tones were rippling and mellow, so languorous as to be almost hypnotic — had issued from this bank of seemingly sentient mist. And as the Lengites drew back toward the east- and north-facing tunnels, so the mist began to thicken
or to be
sucked in
toward a focal point, to form -

The shape of Nyarlathotep!

Tall and slim, clad in bright cloth of gold and crowned with a luminous pschent, the human-seeming figure became more solid as the mist merged into it. He was (or appeared to be) a man with the proud face of a young Pharaoh of ancient Khem — but his eyes were those of a Dark God, full of a languid, mercilessly mordant humour.

'So, questers,' he stepped forward a pace or two, causing Gudge himself to draw back in wobbly alarm, 'you are not impressed And he smiled a very awful smile. 'But you soon will be, believe me.'

For once Eldin was lost for words. Head level with the floor of that central cavern, where the crosses were roped with their tops projecting, he tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat. For there was that about the sinister newcomer, quite apart from his method of arrival, which was infinitely more frightening than Gudge and his horned ones could ever be. It was an alien something which Eldin didn't quite know how to handle.

Hero, who hadn't done so much shouting and whose spit was still comparatively fresh, stepped into the breach:

'Nyarlathotep, who or whatever you are, I don't know why you're so interested in us, but you'll get nothing Out of us while we're hanging here. Have us hauled up and cut down from these crosses, and then we'll consider chatting to —'

'Be quiet!'
the Pharaoh-figure hissed, his lacquered eyebrows arching in a scowl. Gudge and his pirates drew back farther yet, and now Nyarlathotep approached to the very rim of the pit, from where he glared across at the two helpless dreamers. 'You dare to attempt to bargain with me? I am the very
mind
of Cthulhu! I carry the seething thoughts of Yogg-Sothoth! I speak with the tongue of Ithaqua the Wind-Walker, and thus know all the secrets of the winds that howl between the worlds! I am Yibb-Tstll, Atlach-Nacha, - Tsathoggua the toad-thing, Nyogtha and Shudde-M'ell! My mind is
Their mind,
acrawl with
Their
thoughts. I am Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos!'

Now Eldin found his voice, however croaky. 'Well said,' he nodded his approval. 'A bit theatrical, perhaps, but —'

'Silence!'
howled Nyarlathotep. And more quietly: 'Silence, and live a little longer. Soon enough the engines of horror shall have you, and the essence of your crushed, terrified souls sent to start dreamers madly awake and raving forever — or would you go down to the pits of nightmare right now, on the instant, without more ado? For the longer you talk to me the longer you live, and when you stop — '

'Then make an end of it,' Hero blurted. 'If we're to die anyway let's have it now, rather than hang here passing the time with the source of all nightmares!'

'Make an end of it?' the Pharaoh-figure was obviously taken aback; but he smiled his monstrous smile to cover his confusion, and when he spoke again his voice was once more languid: 'Is that really your preference? But that implies a choice, and you have no choice.'

And now the questers knew the worst: that indeed there would be no resisting Nyarlathotep, for he commanded — he
was —all
the telepathic power of the Great Old Ones, who read the minds of men like men read open books. A creeping numbless settled over their brains, an iciness as of outer space invaded their staggering minds. And
knowing
he would be answered, Nyarlathotep began his inquisition:

'Dreamers, you have grown learned in the ways of the dreamlands and fast grow into legends. At least, I shall make legends of you - when I send you to be pulped in the grinding cogs of nightmare. But you two have talked with that old fool Atal, who in reality is no one's fool, and dined and chatted in company with triple-cursed Kuranes, even conversed with Randolph Carter himself. You are accepted in dreamland's highest echelons, and yet have plumbed the lower levels with equal flair. Lathi knows you, and Zura of Zura. Indeed it is your panache, your talent, that dooms you; too many powerful dreamers control man's subconscious mind in these times, which is not in acordance with
Their
plans. Especially not at this time. Which is why, when I am done with you, you are to be stopped ...

'Ah! But where Kuranes and Carter and Atal have learned bow to close their thoughts to me - to
us
- your minds are like open doors as yet! You may not deny me access. Now know you:

`The stars are very nearly right! The Great Old Ones are coming to claim what is rightly Theirs, in the dreamlands, the waking world, throughout all the worlds of space and time, and all the super- and sub-strata of endless dimensions. This
will
be! The multiverse
will
dissolve to chaos when Cthulhu comes. But there yet remains one great obstacle, one first and final goal which
They
must achieve: the discovery and destruction of Elysia!

`The way to Elysia, however, is a hidden way. The so-called "Elder Gods" hide there; they hide from Cthulhu's wrath, who has sworn vengeance on
them that
bound him in immemorial aeons. But you two - ex-mortals, men late of the waking world - perhaps you two may know something of Elysia, of the way to that place of the Elder Gods. Incredible, that perhaps you have knowledge of that which Great Cthulhu himself has not yet discovered! And yet I am reliably informed that
even
now One has come into the dreamlands to seek you out; aye, and he too searches for Elysia. Perhaps he has already found you, talked to you, learned from you ... ? I, too, would learn from you - if you have anything to teach me - so now I command you: open up your minds to me, let me see all!'

Twin tendrils of mist reached out from Nyarlathotep's dark eyes, flowed writhingly through the. air across the pit, fastened like lampreys to the foreheads of the questers where they fought a last desperate mental fight to keep their minds to themselves. Their brains felt like onions, being peeled layer by layer as Nyarlathotep commenced his 'examination' - but only for a moment.

All eyes were on the tableau formed by Nyarlathotep and the questers, all concentration centred there, so that none had seen the fractionally slow lowering of the time-dock down from the flue of the central vent.
The
first the horned ones, Gudge, Nyarlathotep, questers and all knew of it was when de Marigny's amplified voice boomed out in the confines of the cavern junction:

`Am I this "One" you seek, Nyarlathotep? If so, why not speak to me directly? For these questers know nothing of me.'

Now all eyes gazed upward; simultaneously, as the silently hovering time-clock was spied there, a concerted gasp broke out from all ranks. But de Marigny had confronted Nyarlathotep before and knew the danger;
he
had the advantage here and must be careful not to lose it.

`Your
the Pharaoh-figure's voice was now a croaking bass belch of sound. `You, The Searcher, de Marigny!'

`We meet again,' said de Marigny - and he
,
triggered the time-clock's weapon.

A pencil beam of incredible light sizzled down from the clock's dial, drove back the flickering shadows and put the torches of the petrified almost-humans to shame, cut through the tenuous tendril of mental mist stretched
between Nyarlathotep and the questers. The connection was severed; but more than that, the shock of the severance was felt throughout the multiverse!

Yogg-Sothoth in his prison dimension beyond chaos reeled as his telepathic polyp mind felt that hot, cleansing breath of Eld; Cthulhu, dreaming mad dreams of universal conquest in R'lyeh, started fitfully, lashed out with terrific tentacles and crushed several aquatic shoggoth guards, who instantly re-formed and backed off; Shudde-M'ell convulsed deep under Earth's mantle, then dived down through salving lava as he felt even his mind singed by that pure, clean fire.

And Nyarlathotep, staggering back from the pit's rim, clapped his manicured hands to his head and croaked: 'Gudge, the questers
- send them to hell!'
And before de Marigny could trigger his weapon again, the Crawling Chaos dissolved into dank mist which writhed away into the crevices of the west-leading tunnel and was gone.

The horned ones were fleeing, stampeding down the north-leading tunnel toward their black ships of Leng, hastened by a salvo of fire from the time-clock; but Gudge, commanded by Nyarlathotep, was forbidden to. flee. He took up a fallen sword and flopped wobblingly toward Hero and Eldin - toward the ropes which alone held their crosses in position over the pit's rim. Now that sword was lifted on high, and now it flashed down in an arc which would find both ropes at once where they were made fast to a projecting knob of lava. But -

That arc of bright steel was never completed. Caught by a pencil-beam from the time-clock in mid-sweep, Gudge's sword shivered into shards and took his arm, or whatever he had that passed for an arm, with it! A second stabbing beam struck him full-face, ate into his frantically scrabbling snout-tentacles, the leprous jelly face behind them, and finally the brain or ganglion behind the face. And voiceless though he was, still that creature uttered his first - and last shriek, like a jet of steam escaping under pressure, as he floundered to the edge of the pit, flopped to and fro there, toppled into nightmare. A shower of lava-dust and other cavern debris went with him, missing the dumbstruck, delirious dreamers on their crosses by inches.