Strange Eons (26 page)

Safe they were from any human interference, for no other vehicles appeared on these perilous passes through the peaks. As a sullen crimson sun rose in the eastern sky a reddish radiance shone through gaps between the mountains at their left. Its source was the sun’s reflection on water beyond and below, but Mark could not remember ever seeing the ocean so close to the mountain ranges here in the north. It was the jumbled geography encountered only during journeys into dreams.

Again he seemed to sink into a deeper slumber, rousing fitfully from time to time when the car halted to cool the boiling radiator. But always it started off once more, and the endless hours passed in undisturbed silence, for while his captors retained their grasp on his arms they made no effort to address him.

Dreams are timeless and he could not tell when it was that they skirted the valley where flood-waters covered houses to the very rooftops. Nor did he know the moment when they drove overlooking a muddy, rushing torrent in which bodies of men and cattle swirled amidst the red-flecked foam.

He roused himself to find that dusk had descended once again, and now the car was passing a leaning signpost:
Los Gatos—30 mi.

They must be somewhere in the Santa Cruz mountains, or would be if such things actually existed in dreams. And it had to be a dream, he told himself; a dream of death. Reality had died somewhere back there in the city, just as he himself had died in the pool, drowning because he’d never learned to swim.

Better that it was so; better to be dead and dreaming than alive and actually in the clutches of these creatures, climbing once again into the tree-crowned twilight hills.

Occasional houses could be glimpsed now, scattered and silent, lightless and empty amidst the towering redwoods. He caught a glimpse of a street sign and its legend:
Skyview Terrace.
The car passed it, then angled off up a steep and narrow dirt road, scarcely more than a trail, leading up through a tangle of trees.

It was illusion, of course, for the dream was the only reality; this dream and these creatures. He knew what they were now, these fishlike hybrids; he knew from whence they came and where they must be going.

They were taking him to Innsmouth . . .

“Innsmouth?” said the voice. “Surely you know it doesn’t exist. And never did—at least not by that name.”

Mark opened his eyes.

The room was dark and the night sky beyond the picture window was darker still. He seemed to be seated on a couch beside that window, a couch covered with a peculiarly coarse, rough cloth. Then he realized why it was so abrasive to his skin; he was naked.

The air was clammy and chill but this did not disturb him; pain and headache had faded so that he felt almost himself again. But how could that be, when he was dead and dreaming?

“Not dead, not dreaming,” said the voice.

Mark peered around the room, seeking its source. Gradually his vision adjusted to the lack of light and now he could vaguely discern the outline of a shadowy form occupying the chair beside the far wall.

The substance of the figure was dim, but its erect posture, combined with the absence of the reeking odor and the precision of its speech, indicated to Mark that he was not in the presence of one of his abductors.

“Not abducted,” said the voice. “You were conducted here.”

Belatedly, Mark realized that he himself had not spoken aloud. And that meant—

“Reading your mind?” The voice held a hint of amusement. “Intuition. A parlor trick. If I could truly do so I would have known Moybridge was not to be trusted. As it was, I suspected such a possibility and ordered the search of his home. What was found there in the safe confirmed my suspicions.”

“You had him murdered,” Mark said.

“A harsh word. He would have died by this time in any case, when the waters rose.”

“Waters?”

“I forget, you don’t know about the tidal waves in the wake of last night’s tremblors. The Los Angeles basin is no longer empty. The coastline from Baja California to San Francisco Bay has been inundated. Even here in the mountains we are only temporarily protected. See for yourself.”

Mark glanced through the picture window at his left. He heard the murmuring sound before he saw its source; the unbroken expanse of water churning against the cliffside forty feet below.

“Still rising,” said the voice. “It will reach us very soon now.”

Involuntarily Mark started to rise, and his movement was greeted with a sardonic chuckle.

“Stay,” said the voice. “There’s nowhere left to go. What the quakes spared will be taken by the sea. Throughout the world the proud cities have fallen, and only the highest peaks remain. But new lands shall rise from the deep—old lands, really, for once they held domain over all the earth and now they emerge to rule again. Ancient ones and ancient ways shall be rightfully restored, and what remains of mankind will play a lesser role. Some as slaves, others as cattle to breed with those beneath the sea or feed those beneath the land.”

“No!” Mark shook his head. “I don’t believe—”

“Not even the evidence of your own eyes?” Again the chuckle sounded in darkness. “The breeding and the feeding have always endured, even when humanity thought itself supreme. Offspring of that breeding brought you here. As for the feeding—what men called their last resting place was never truly that. Every cemetery is accessible from below, and all earth is riddled with gateways to the grave. What you saw last night is only a hint of what lurks there and in the caverns under mountain peaks.”

Mark stared at the shadowy shape that was the voice’s source. “Who are you?”

“My true name would mean nothing. But here on earth, in Egypt long ago, men called me Nyarlathotep.”

The name echoed against the sound of rising waters.
Nyarlathotep. The Mighty Messenger of the Old Ones. Lovecraft’s stories—

“He knew, of course,” the voice murmured. “A few have always known. Alhazred set down his knowledge in the
Necronomicon
so that men could communicate with their true masters. Still those spells and incantations held the possibility of harm if they fell into the wrong hands. It was necessary to seek out and destroy his work and brand him mad, even though he intended only to enlighten.

“But Lovecraft meant to warn, and this was the greater danger. Blind chance alone halted the coming of Cthulhu a little over a century ago; Lovecraft chronicled it all too clearly and foretold a time when Great Cthulhu would rise again. Widespread publication made it impossible to eliminate all copies in printed form, and inevitably some readers suspected the fact behind the fiction.

“It became important to discredit his tales, link them with so-called freak religious cults like the Starry Wisdom, a quarter of a century ago. To the initiates was entrusted the secret task of removing any tangible evidence that might confirm Lovecraft’s revelations. Documents and letters serving as his sources were traced, the paintings of Richard Upton and their owners—men like Albert Keith—were destroyed.

“Then the prophecy of Great Cthulhu’s coming was again fulfilled, or almost so. But somehow those in authority were alerted, and through a series of circumstances Keith’s former wife became involved.

“A mission was sent against him, and I did what was necessary to thwart it. But to all intents and purposes it appeared that Cthulhu perished, and those in power felt safe once more.

“In that climate of complacency I resumed my task, creating the conditions that would disrupt man’s rule. I devised the Black Brotherhood—using terrorism and assassination to distract mankind from the true nature of what was to come.

“This time there were no mistakes. And when the stars were rightly conjoined in the heavens, when the signs of earthly destruction neared again, all was prepared. Now it has come to pass.”

“Why tell me this?” Mark stirred uneasily. “I don’t see—”

“You shall.”

There was a faint clicking, and suddenly light flared forth, flared with such blinding intensity that for a moment Mark’s vision vanished. Then, slowly, his sight accommodated the intensity of the iridescence and he saw all too clearly.

Seated across from him was a black man wearing black clothing. There was something odd about the even intensity of his coloration, but this was not as disturbing as the source of the light that revealed it.

The light issued from a box of tarnished golden metal resting in the black man’s lap. Its sides bore designs of writhing figures, all eyes and tentacles, which resembled no life-forms Mark could remember. The box itself was neither square nor rectangular; it seemed shaped in accordance with a geometry of its own.

But the light itself captured his attention now, streaming forth from a great crystal supported by metal bands affixed to its multifaceted sides and base. The crystal appeared to be black, flecked with reddish veins, but the radiance it sent forth was like green fire.

Mark blinked. “What on earth?”

“It was not always on earth,” the black man murmured. “Though it is here now to fulfill its power and its purpose. The Shining Trapezohedron—”

Lovecraft’s name for it,
Mark remembered. “Wasn’t there a story,
The Haunter of the Dark?”

The black man nodded. “The light summoned an entity, which brought death to its discoverer. But it has other properties. It is a focal point, a gateway linking the stars, opening the way to dwellers from other dimensions. The light can heal as well as destroy, and most importantly, it can transform.

“It was through the agency of the Shining Trapezohedron that I first assumed the semblance of man, long ago in ancient Khem. And it is destined to serve a still higher role.”

Mark blinked again. It seemed to him that the crystal was pouring forth heat as well as light—and yet the heat was cold. He remembered his dream of freezing flame in Laurel’s house; was this too a part of that dream?

“No,” said the black man, softly. “The time for dreams is past and the dreamers—Alhazred, Upton, Lovecraft—have perished. Albert Keith dared to seek the source of his dreams and he too is dead. And you—”

“What have I to do with these things?” Mark murmured.

“Can’t you guess? Moybridge knew, of course, but he never spoke. We counted on that because we rewarded him, and when he wrote the book at our command we felt secure. He helped discredit Lovecraft and we had no reason to believe he’d ever reveal his secret allegiance to our cause. But he
did
know and he retained information we furnished him, things like that microfilm you found. We promised he’d be spared in return for his aid, but when the quake came he was bound to suspect otherwise.

“It was then too late for him to reach the authorities, but there was still a chance he could use some of those spells and formulae against us. And we knew that you’d seek him out. So it became necessary to recover the material in his possession and eliminate him.”

The cold heat was everywhere; Mark felt a tingling in his head and shoulders. “Why am I here?” he said.

The black man leaned forward. “I told you that Albert Keith’s former wife became involved in the attempt to destroy Cthulhu. But before it succeeded, she was captured and taken to where the Old One waited. That night the bombs fell on Easter Island and even Great Cthulhu could not withstand the forces unleashed against him.”

“Then he is dead?”

“Only two escaped—the woman called Kay Keith and myself. I brought her secretly and safely to a place that had been prepared and watched over her until her time came. She died during the delivery, as was only to be expected. But the child lived.”

Mark frowned. “What child—”

“The union was consummated before the bombers came.” The black man stared from behind the beam of icy, burning light. “As for the rest—a man named Heisinger was in charge of the Keith estate. He had a nephew and through him arrangements were made to rear the child as an adopted orphan until the time arrived. Thus the seed of Great Cthulhu survived. No one suspected, least of all the child himself.”

The black man smiled at Mark. “And you never did suspect,” he said.

Mark tried to rise then, but the box tilted forward so that he was held helpless and paralyzed in a column of livid light. The scream died in his throat and he could only stare; stare at the beam bathing his body and burning into his brain.

The seed of Great Cthulhu survived. Genetic heritage—no wonder he hadn’t drowned there in the pool. And the pains, the difficulty in breathing, were part of a mutation process, metamorphosis into a shape that could survive beneath the sea or soar between the stars. That change was not yet completed. But
the light transforms—

Staring, it seemed to him that the black crystal behind the beam was a mirror in which he saw himself reflected, bathed in a funnel of flame.

And now, somewhere within his cerebral cavity a pinpoint of light pierced the pons, penetrating the
locus couerulus.

His image blurred, wavered; limbs melting, then multiplying—sprouting and spreading from a faceless, expanding form in which mere mortality merged into a greater guise of gigantic god-hood. No pain now, only a pulsing and a potency, a pride and a power.

That is not dead which can eternal lie, and the time of strange eons had arrived. The stars were right, the gates were open, the seas swarmed with immortal multitudes and the earth gave up its undead.

Soon the winged ones from Yuggoth would swoop down from the void and now the Old Ones would return—Azazoth and Yog-Sothoth, whose priest he was, would come to lightless Leng and Kadath in the risen continents that were transformed as he was transformed.

He stirred, and the walls surrounding him splintered and fell forward.

He breathed, and Nyarlathotep vanished into nothingness, clutching the tiny toy that was the Trapezohedron.

He waved, and the waters below surged upward, boiling and beckoning.

He rose, and mountains trembled, sinking into the sea.

Time stopped.

Death died.

And Great Cthulhu went forth into the world to begin his eternal reign.