by JG Faherty
As we walked, a peculiar sensation blossomed at the back of my skull. I’d felt it before, when I first left the cavern after my transformation. It was stronger now, and with it came an image. A cephalopodal creature, vaguely similar to my half brothers and sisters from my father’s loins. As if in a waking dream, I saw that the creature lay trapped in some unnatural hibernation. Something descended from Mother? The image was too blurred for me to say for sure. It drew me, though, acting like a compass needle to guide me between the ancient buildings.
I increased my speed, forcing Callie to almost run in order to keep up. Another turn, and another.
There!
A three-story stone structure loomed over us. I recognized it immediately: the antiquities building, the same place Callie had sent Flannery and me in search of Professor Angell. I turned and confronted her.
“You knew when you sent us here that the professor was in Antarctica. So why did you do it?”
She answered without any trace of remorse for her actions. “For the book, of course. The moment you spoke of needing something translated, I knew you had to have it. We were desperate to have it back so Professor Gardiner could translate the pictoglyphs on the monuments.”
“Gardiner was one of the Followers?” He hadn’t struck me as such, but then, I would never have expected Callie to be part of such a cabal. Neither of them had the sullen, evil disposition of Angell’s secretary.
“Of course. Without the proper training and preparation, no one could possibly work among those ruins without going insane.”
I remembered my own encounter with the queer writings on the stone blocks and columns, how they seemed to come alive and bring forth such intense feelings of doom and terror within me.
“We did not anticipate anyone coming to steal it again. Had we known the truth of your father at the time…. We thought it had been taken by a simple thief. The rumors of the Fish Street Strangler…we were waiting to see if they were true or just fanciful tales.”
Her voice remained emotionless. I sensed no sadness for Gardiner’s death, despite that he’d been one of her own. Truly, Callie Olmstead was cold as winter ice beneath her pleasant exterior. She’d fooled us all for so long.
I approached the door and waited while Callie produced a key. Inside, a hushed silence surrounded us. I breathed bitter mildew and dust, the sharp tang of old parchment and leather, the syrupy scent of dry, cracked bindings. The weight of centuries lay upon us, a physical thing. Tiny whispers caught my ears, the rustlings of insect and rodent feet inside the walls. It reminded me of my visits to the university library as a student, when I would marvel at the vast stores of knowledge hidden in the stacks.
Now I wondered what magical tomes waited for me there, treatises and grimoires filled with dark spells to aid me in my quest for domination. But they would have to remain mysteries for the time being, until after my current enemies had been slain.
The magnetic force pulling me along doubled in strength and shifted direction, tugging me forward and back equally. I stopped in the middle of the foyer and turned in a slow circle, trying to get a sense of where the source of the power that had captured me lay.
Not in this room, not ahead, but below us.
“The basement?” I asked, and Callie smiled.
“They are waiting for you there,” she said. I didn’t question where. Professor Angell’s storeroom, of course.
We descended the staircase, Callie in the lead. Angell’s dour secretary was nowhere in sight when we entered the office. At the door to Angell’s inner sanctum, Callie stepped aside and nodded, indicating I should have the honor.
By then, the feeling in my head was an almost physical thing, urging me onward. Hurry. Hurry!
I pushed the door open and beheld the vast space once more, only this time there was none of the dread I’d experienced on my previous visit, only a vast, soul-encompassing feeling of coming home. Of belonging. The towering columns and megaliths doubled in my vision, ’Fhalma’s memories overlaying my own. I saw the reconstructed ruins through my eyes and hers, as pieces of a puzzle only partly reassembled and as a massive city stretching on to the horizon, gigantic buildings and temples lining avenues paved in stone. Creatures of all shapes and sizes traveled those streets, many familiar to me from the carvings I’d seen, others so bizarre they seemed spawned from the nightmares of Satan himself.
Someone had placed lanterns throughout the room, and the wavering light emphasized the primeval atmosphere and the duality of the now and then merging in my brain.
The faint odor of mineral-laden water reached me from somewhere deep within the maze of monoliths. I’d smelled something similar when we crossed the Miskatonic River, but we had to be too far from its shores for it to be the source. Before I could question Callie, two people emerged from behind one of the stone blocks and knelt before us. One of them, a matronly woman with a grandmotherly mien, held a large glass jar filled with cloudy liquid. Movement deeper in the recesses of the storeroom told me more of the Followers lurked in the shadows between the columns.
I was instantly drawn to the vessel and knew it for the source of the peculiar sensation I’d been feeling. The two Followers bowed their heads at my approach. Ignoring them, I took the jar and beheld the wonder floating inside.
Its enlarged head was more amphibian than human, with bulging eyes and a wide slit for a mouth that ran from one circular ear hole to the other. Instead of a nose, it had parallel slits partially covered by flaps of skin. Its arms and legs were human but undersized, like those of a dwarf or midget. Four tentacles, very similar to my own, grew from the lower torso, below the sternum. Diaphanous wings lay folded across its back.
A fetus, but not one born of anything of this world.
Although the creature didn’t move, I sensed that life still existed in it, that it slept in some sort of dormant state.
More than that, I discerned it held a relation to me, in more than just the physical sense.
“Behold, your distant brother,” Callie said from behind me.
My heart soared. Somehow one of Mother’s previous offspring had survived! Rescued by the Followers and kept safe for how long? Decades? Centuries? Hidden away all these many years, until….
What?
I stared at the thing, so similar and yet so different from my half brothers and sisters that were even now staking their claims in the rivers and sea trenches surrounding Arkham and Innsmouth. Did the Followers expect me to do something with it? I cursed the continuing misfortune that seemed to dog my every step. Not only was my brain still struggling to comprehend the knowledge passed down to me by ’Fhalma, bad luck had taken from me the very book of spells I needed to revive my slumbering cousin? Half brother? What relation was it to me?
I withheld a sigh of despair as I handed the jar back to the old woman. Much as I desired to wake the creature, it would have to wait for another time.
I had more urgent matters to take care of.
First, I needed to gather the Followers to me and prepare for whatever assault Ben Olmstead had in store. Secondly, I would amass an army so that I could begin my conquest of Innsmouth and the surrounding areas. I would not repeat my father’s mistakes. When I launched my attack, it would be with a force large enough to assure an easy victory.
A force I needed to begin assembling. My enemies would no doubt be doing the same. Guns, fire, and explosives. Flannery knew what was needed.
“How many are we?” I asked. The other supplicant, a gaunt fellow with a hairless, liver-spotted pate, stood and motioned toward the ruins.
Figures appeared, emerging in twos and threes. Men and women, some no older than myself, others well along in years. Their clothing marked them from all walks of life. The ragged uniforms of laborers and the fancy suits of well-heeled businessmen and professors stood side by side. All wore a pin or brooch in the now-familiar octopod
al design.
As they approached, they formed rows and went down on their knees. Twenty, thirty, then forty. When the last of them knelt before me, I counted fifty-three. Enough to take on Flannery and his squad? Probably not, unless we had weapons of our own.
Or another type of advantage.
The answer appeared in my head as if I’d always known it. A single egg, placed in the bloodstream. Similar to what my father had done with the dead men, only the effects would be far different in living flesh. They would not be true hybrids such as I, but rather living hosts, hidden demons capable of walking unnoticed among humans.
Would there be enough time? The hatchlings would require at least three days to metamorphose fully, but far less than that to begin melding with muscle and bone, adding supernatural strength and healing power to human flesh.
It would have to do.
“Come to me and become one with Scythalla.” I extended my tentacles, like an otherworldly preacher addressing his flock.
They rose and approached in single file. As each one stopped before me, I pressed a tentacle to their neck and introduced one egg into the carotid artery. A gasp of pain, and then the acolyte moved on, new life already blossoming inside them.
I recognized Professor Angell’s secretary among them, her eyes cast downward now, no sign of her former arrogance evident. That act of respect stayed my hand from using more force than necessary to inject her. A good leader ruled strongly but fairly, and I intended to be a good leader. Demanding but not unnecessarily cruel.
When I finished, I entered the ruins, my Followers behind me. As I passed through the obelisks and columns, the symbols and glyphs formed patterns again, but this time rather than making me dizzy with terror, they delivered snippets of information about the race that carved them – which I now read as the Xothians – and their ancient city of R’lyeh. Not Celephaïs, as Angell had thought, although I knew now that place, too, existed, only at the opposite pole. If anything was buried there, it was either too deep or too dormant for me to sense.
Looking around, I understood the problem Angell and Gardiner had encountered, and why they could never solve it on their own. Angell had been correct in his belief that the carvings told of a battle, but that was only half the story. In fact, they contained not only a history of the Xothians’ attempted colonization of Earth and the Great Wars that followed, but also all the rites necessary to raise Asgotha from his slumber in Antarctica. There was only one problem.
The ritual required the physical presence of another Xothian, or one of their descendants.
In order to raise the last Xothian on Earth, I would need to travel across the world and perform the ritual in person.
I added that to my list of things to do once my present situation was resolved. There was no need to rush. Staying alive and hidden was paramount; the rest would follow. Move slow and steady, one step at a time. Once I defeated Flannery and his men, then I could assemble my army at my leisure, while my children matured out at sea. After that, with an unstoppable army at my side, the conquest of Innsmouth and the surrounding towns. Only then, with land and water under my control, would I venture to Antarctica and free Asgotha.
And the whole world would tremble at our feet.
Until that day, I must remain vigilant and ready. No doubt Ben had gone to Flannery and he was already mustering his troops for the attack. I had to assume Ben overheard Callie and me discussing Miskatonic. Although not a learned man, Flannery possessed a better than average intelligence. His first guess would be the same as mine were he in my position.
Here, in the history building. The place of the ruins and Professor Gardiner’s death.
“We must mount guards,” I said to Callie. “Is there another entrance other than the outer office?”
“No. And there are no windows. We are in the lowest level.”
“Good.” That would make it easier to defend. “Arrange our people in rows. Use the columns for concealment. If there are any weapons in here, gather them.”
Callie nodded, and I noticed her hair had receded several inches up her forehead. Her eyes appeared different as well, larger and rounder, the pupils no longer perfect circles.
The changes are beginning already.
Whether from my offspring growing within her or my blood transforming her flesh, I couldn’t say. Nor did I care the reason why. The only thing of importance was that it happened, and it happened quickly, to Callie and the rest of those I had changed. Only with a superhuman army behind me would I defeat Flannery and his guns.
“Come. There is something you must see.” Callie motioned for me to follow her into the maze of obelisks and statues.
I perceived the pattern instinctively even though it was incomplete, the majority of the columns and monuments still buried deep in the ice and rock of Antarctica. Four concentric spirals, each radiating from a central shared point, a common design for Xothian cities. As we walked, my mind – or Scythalla’s memories – filled in the gaps between the stone blocks. Temples, war rooms, mating chambers. Earth had little in common with Mother’s home world, a massive planet with an atmosphere thicker than water, through which she and her kind propelled themselves like the squids they so resembled. On Earth, this limited them to large bodies of water, rivers and oceans, and the nearby shorelines. Thus the necessity for breeding with select humans and creating hybrids. Creatures equally at home on land and in the sea, with abilities far beyond the ken of mankind. Not gods, but in eons past looked upon as such.
Or as demons.
We had already walked much farther than possible, given the size of the building. Yet still the edifices continued, disappearing into the distance as if we’d been transported to another place entirely, to the very source of the ruins perhaps.
The deeper we penetrated the ruins, the more my comprehension of the symbols and the language of the Xothians grew. My flesh rippled and shivered, my body changing along with my mind. Complex formulae appeared in my head, part magic and part science, or perhaps something in between. Incantations and equations to control forces natural and unnatural.
I examined each one, trying to find anything I could use against my enemies, but the information I needed lay frustratingly out of reach, like trying to understand books with too many missing pages.
With my thoughts consumed by the coming battle, I didn’t notice the path widening ahead of us until Callie came to a stop.
“For you,” she said.
Ahead of us sat a stone platform, a pyramid sheared off through its center, easily twice the height of a tall man. A large object sat in the center of it.
A throne.
Carved from basalt so black it seemed to absorb the light like a bottomless chasm, it captured the eye with its otherworldly magnificence. Complex etchings covered the arms, legs, and back with creatures, planets, and words that defied description. I bounded up the stairs and approached it. Despite the unforgiving look of it, I felt comfortable when I sat, as if it had been hewn specifically for my measurements. Which in a way, it had. For surely the ancient artisans had known what they were making, and how the human form would transmogrify after being granted Scythalla’s gift.
Four of the Followers brought forth a smaller seat, similar in shape and carved from the same stone, but without decoration. Callie motioned at it. “With your permission, my king?”
“Of course.” Only fitting that my first queen should sit by my side. Together we would bring forth a new world and rule over it. She would be my right hand, and someday one of my offspring would sit at my left. It would take decades, perhaps even a century, to remake the Earth so that the gateway to the stars could be opened. And during that time I would place my progeny on similar thrones throughout the continents, each ruling their own city.
With the powers of the gods to back them.
All the things my father could have had, if only he�
��d not been lost in his own desire for absolute supremacy.
I hope you can see me, Father, from your place in the cold fires of hell. Is your heart burning with envy watching me do what you could not? Be what you could not? The world will be mine.
I could see it, cities in ruins, land and sea overtaken by the minions I would place throughout the globe. Things of nightmares, brought forth not just from my loins but through magical castings. They would be my foot soldiers and serve alongside those of my own blood….
Wait.
Blood.
My head snapped up. I hadn’t even been aware I’d fallen asleep. Or into some kind of trance. Whatever state I’d been in, something had happened. A door opening, just a crack. But enough for me to view the answer to my current problem.
And it lay within me.
Blood. How could I not have seen it before? Mother’s blood had transformed me, and my father before me, and at least one other before that. Blood capable of waking the dead, just as it had brought Flora back to life. Yes, it had also changed her, turned her into a living ghoul. But that shouldn’t matter this time.
The one I needed to awake wasn’t human. Nor was it completely dead.
“Bring the sleeping one,” I commanded.
Two Followers scurried off like mice fleeing a hungry cat.
“You’ve an idea?” Callie asked. Her face had taken on a greenish pallor and her once-emerald eyes were now the emotionless gray of a shark’s.
“I know how to bring him back to us.”
Far above us, voices shouted, followed by the unmistakable sound of gunfire.
“Good. For I fear my brother has found us.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I stared at the devilish chimera afloat in whatever preservative surrounded him and fought to keep self-doubt from showing on my face. A king couldn’t display weakness.
