Elysia (24 page)

`They?' Crow's eyes narrowed. 'Ah, yes!'

It was then that the centuried odour of deep water hit them. That and the alien stench of things no ordered universe should ever contain. And into the vast hall, squeezing his bulk in under the arch of the main entranceway, came Cthulhu, the Lord of R'lyeh — now destroyer of Elysia. Behind him and from all quarters crowded the rest. And there across the floor of the Great Hall of Crystal and Pearl, four human beings gazed into the very eyes of hell itself.

The tableau held, for a moment. Then —

Cthulhu's
mind
reached out, spoke three words, and in so doing paid humankind its greatest ever tribute:

CROW!
that awesome, threatening thought rumbled like thunder in their minds.
AND DE MARIGNY!

The tide of uttermost horror swayed forward — and Titus Crow, a man, held up a hand to stop it. For one and all they remembered, respected him, even though they would now, in the next moment, destroy him.

'Cthulhu!' he called across the sweep of the floor, his voice strong, unwavering. 'You came for Kthanid and the Elder Council and found only me. But Kthanid left you a message. It is written in his great crystal there.' And he pointed.

As the nightmare horde turned to observe the new scene now framed in the shewstone, so Crow whispered to his friends: 'Now, into the clock!'

Moreen and Exior obeyed at once, but de Marigny must see this out. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Titus Crow, and:

MESSAGE? WHAT MESSAGE?
Cthulhu gazed rapaciously into the sphere.
I SEE ONLY... CHAOS!

`That's right!' .Crow yelled, and his laughter rolled out to fill the Hall of Crystal and Pearl. 'It's the legend you brought with you when first you came, Cthulhu — don't you remember? You spoke a word, a Name, and worlds burst into flame. The crazed children of Azathoth destroyed themselves at your command, to light your. coming. Isn't that how the story goes? And now you've used two more of these bereft nuclear beings to blast your path into Elysia. Aye, but there's one here who
knows
what you've done. One who doesn't fear you, who fears nothing. One who was satisfied simply to exist and serve, who now
is satisfied to sacrifice himself in the name of Sanity! Now
I
speak a word, a Name ... Can you not guess it, Cthulhu?'

The Lord of R'lyeh's octopus eyes bulged hideously, focussed on Kthanid's crystal, where a seething holocaust raged. And so intense his gaze that the shewstone shattered, spilled cold white liquid fire across the paved floor. As if in answer to which -

The floor bucked, heaved - crashed upward and open! Elysia reeled!

NAME? WHAT NAME?

The hell-horde could not be contained; they surged forward.

Crow balanced himself on the tilting, grinding floor, shoved de Marigny toward the clock. And:

'Azathu!'
he cried. 'Azathu, who has powered Elysia from the beginning - who was sane and sedated, kept that way by Kthanid - and who now takes his revenge, for his poor demented brothers' sake!'

NO!
Cthulhu's mental croak of denial followed Crow even inside the time-clock.
NO, NO, NO!

`Damn you,
yes!'
answered Titus Crow and de Marigny together. And together they piloted the clock a billion miles distant ...

The scanners showed the rest an area of space-time warped and torn beyond recognition. A supernova to end
all
supernovas, one whose energy could not be contained in this continuum, and so flowed through into another. It brought into being the mightiest black hole ever to exist, which
itself
swallowed up the nuclear holocaust that made it. All that had been Elysia -. and all it contained at the end - was sucked into the funnel of that hole and passed into the far, fabulous legend of The Beginning.

And as far as Crow and de Marigny had shifted the dock, still the waves of that massive disruption reached to them. The time-clock tumbled end over end in deepest night, slowly righted itself, warped back into normal space and time. Stars twinkled afar.

`What ... what the
hell ...
was that?' de Marigny finally found strength to ask.

Crow's voice was tiny as he answered. 'Creation, Henri. That was Creation ...'

After some little time, de Marigny said: 'Three questions, Titus - to which you'd better have the answers. Because if someone doesn't tell me the whys and wherefores of it, then I'll surely go out of my mind. I mean, I realize that I was used, that I was made a focus for
Their
attentions, some sort of decoy - and of course I knew that Cthulhu intended to take his revenge on Elysia, and that like me he therefore sought to discover its whereabouts - but
how
did he do it? How did he follow me through, him and all the rest? That's my first question.'

'Cthulhu knew all the angles,' Crow answered at once. 'I mean that literally, not in any sort of slang context. He had had billions of years to calculate the vectors. But it must be done in one fell swoop: all of the greater Beings of the Cthulhu Cycle brought through the gates at the same time.'

`Gates?'

'Yog-Sothoth's department,' said Crow with a nod. 'Yog-Sothoth knew the gates, he
was
the gates. The stars were coming right - made to come right by Cthulhu -when all restrictions would be lifted. Then for a period the Great Old Ones would be able to move at will through the space-time continuum, go wherever they wished to go. It was like that at the beginning - though by the time you have all your answers, "the beginning" as a phrase probably won't make a lot of sense any more. Didn't they come "seeping down from the stars ... not in the spaces we know but
between
them"? And don't we use our time-clocks to achieve the same sort of travel? Anyway, Yog-Sothoth, coexistent with all time and conterminous in all space, would be the guide, would show them the gates. First they must strike at Elysia, remove all opposition. But in fact Elysia would be the only real opposition. As for the rest ... a walkover.

'You were a decoy of a sort, yes. They knew you were coming through. It wasn't that you were cleverer than them, simply that in the end you would have Elysia's assistance. In the end you would be
directed.
And so they focussed on you. Oh, if they could they would kill you en route, certainly, for you were a great danger to
them.
You must be, for why else would Kthanid want you in Elysia? They would kill you in Borea, in the dreamlands, in Theem'hdra, wherever - if they could. In which case Kthanid would have relied on Ardatha Ell. That was Ardatha's other reason for being in Lith: to act as the lure if you ... if you didn't make it. But the laws of probability said you
would make
it, and of course you did.

'So, when the stars came right - with Lith's termination when space-time was warped and the gates were opened ...'

Still de Marigny didn't understand. 'But they
all came
through together, physically en muse! Teleportation?'

'No,' Crow shook his leonine head, `though certainly you can be forgiven for that wrong conclusion. It
looks
like teleportation, but it's a world apart. Even Kthanid can't teleport, and neither can Ardatha Ell. Riding their Great Thoughts is about as close as they can come. Likewise Cthulhu, except he uses Nyarlathotep.'

De Marigny nodded. 'I see. They were all in telepathic contact with one another at the moment the barriers went down.'

'Of course. When Lith blew and warped space-time, Cthulhu guided the Great Old Ones along the Vectors and Yog-Sohoth was there as he is "everywhere" - to bring them through the gates. From there they could go anywhere they wanted to, but this was their main chance. You were going to Elysia. So they followed you.'

`That's my second question,' said de Marigny. 'Why Elysia? Couldn't I have been caused to guide them elsewhere? I sought for a dream only to see it shattered, to watch it turn into a nightmare ..

For a moment a shadow passed over Crow's face. 'No,' he said then, 'it could only be Elysia. The destruction of Elysia was Cthulhu's greatest ambition. And after Elysia ... there'd be nothing left to stand in his way. It
had
to be Elysia, surely you can see that? Would you have had hint start with the Earth and "clear it off"? Or with Borea? Or any of the civilized worlds and races you've visited?'

'No,' de Marigny shook his head, 'of course not. But that leads to my third question. I can't believe that we've finally destroyed them. Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones were, they are, and they always shall be. That's the way I'll always think of them. But if not dead, where?'

'Cthulhu, dead?' Crow shook his head. 'Oh, no, not dead, Henri, but only dreaming! Their misguided followers, some of their inexperienced progeny, their lesser minions — these can be destroyed. But not the Great
Old
Ones themselves. They're beyond death. Truly immortal. Their bodies regenerate, reform, renew themselves. But their minds, their memories, they
can
be damaged, erased! That was why they feared the Azathi: not for their destructiveness but their contamination, their contagion! And they were right to fear them, for now they have scars — mental scars, gaps, erasures which will be a long time in the healing, Henri. Even billions of years ...'

Exior K'mool touched de Marigny's elbow. 'Do you recall, son of my most distant sons, what Ardatha Ell said of Kthanid: that he, too, was a miraculous mathematician? Cthulhu wasn't alone in his knowledge of the angles. No, and Yog-Sothoth didn't know
all
the gates. That final "gate" — the great black hole — that was the Completely Unknown ...'

De Marigny's mind suddenly reeled, somersaulted. He looked at Exior and Crow and his jaw fell open. 'Dreaming but not dead,' he whispered. 'And that great black hole, a monstrous gateway into the past.
Into their own past!'

Crow smiled.

`Titus,' said de Marigny, his mouth dry as dust, 'tell me, just exactly
where is
Kthanid? Where is he, and where the others of the Elder Council right now? Where — or when?'

'AM' said Crow. 'But that's your fourth question, my friend. And I won't answer it for I know you've already worked it out for yourself.'

De Marigny felt dizzy, feverish with the one gigantic notion spinning like a top in his head. 'Time is relative,' he whispered, more to himself than to the others. 'If anyone knows that, I do. In "the beginning" Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones "rose up against the Elder Gods and committed a crime so heinous ..." '

`Like ... the destruction of Elysia?' said Crow.

But the Elder Gods pursued them to punish them. And back there in the dim mists of time ... back there .. . memories mostly erased ... they only remember their hatred of the Elder Gods and Elysia ... and ... and ... damn!
The whole thing is a cycle!'

Crow clasped him by the shoulders. 'But haven't we always known that, Henri? Of course we have - it's the Cthulhu Cycle ..

A long time later:

De Marigny came out of his mental torpor. He was still a little feverish, but Moreen was there to hold and kiss him. 'Where are we going?' he asked, when he was able.

'There's a world in Arcturus which is a jewel,' said Crow. 'Elysia's peoples are there right now. Tiania, too. They're building new lives for themselves, and for us.'

`But it isn't Elysia,'
de
Marigny's voice was flat, without flavour.

`It can be, my friend,' said Crow, helping him to his feet,
'it can be. In any case, I'm going there because my woman is there - but we don't have to stay. Elysia? I loved Elysia, Henri - but look out there.'

In the scanners, all the stars of space receded to infinity in all directions. 'Done, Henri,' said Titus Crow, 'a chapter closed. Or perhaps a new one started? And as I believe I've said to you before -

`Wait,' said de Marigny, no longer The Searcher. His smile was still wan, but at least there was feeling in it now. 'Let me say it this time,' he said. 'Damn it all, it has to be my turn
this time:

`Worlds without end, Titus - worlds without end!'