by Martha Wells
“Well, this is what I really want to show you,” Howell said, and he handed over a photograph. “This is where I found that piece.”
Ellison frowned, turning the picture vertical then horizontal, not sure which way it was supposed to go. “What is it?”
“A room I found underneath a building,” Howell said, turning the photo upside down to the correct position. “Built under an overhang like Mesa Verde. According to establishment archeologists, it’s a grain storeroom. Does that look like a storage room to you?”
It did not. In fact, Ellison did not know what it looked like. The proportions of the space seemed based on an alien geometry so far beyond human experience that, even looking at it from the proper perspective, it still did not resemble a room. He turned the photo in his hands, trying to force it to make sense.
“You can’t see it here, but there’s an opening in the floor with a ladder that leads down to a series of tunnels.” Howell handed him a stack of photos, all of which showed underground passages and chambers. “I searched those tunnels. Until I was kicked off the team. After that, the entire dig was shut down. Too remote, too expensive to maintain. But I was close. Close!”
He didn’t have to tell Ellison what he meant by “close.”
“Are you sure?”
Howell nodded. “I could feel it.” He pulled out a hand-drawn map and another photo, this one almost entirely black. It was hard to tell what it showed, but in the center was a lightening of the picture and a hint of wall and rock roof that made it appear to be of a cave. He pointed to the photo and to a spot on the edge of the map, marked with a red X.
This was where the Dark Man lay.
Petohtalrayn
Why, though? Why was he entombed underground? They could only speculate. Ellison thought about what Jenny had said, how she thought the Dark Man was trapped someplace and able to communicate only through dreams. Perhaps he had displeased his masters: gods or monsters even more powerful than he was, who had banished him, imprisoning him beneath the earth. There seemed to have been a concerted effort on his part to destroy civilization after civilization, perhaps to completely eradicate mankind, and maybe it was humanity’s ability to fight back, its will to live, its unwillingness to succumb, that had doomed the Dark Man, that had made those who pulled the strings put him out to pasture.
“Not him,” Jenny reminded Ellison. “It.”
Howell nodded in agreement.
Ellison had brought a flash drive containing his own work to share with Howell, and he gave it to the other man, who plugged it into a computer. A file titled “Petohtalrayn” popped up. “We believe that’s his name,” Ellison said. He glanced over at Jenny. “Its name. It was given to the Minoan conception of the Dark Man in the nineteenth century by British scholars—”
Howell shook his head. “No.”
“No?”
“They were afraid to speak Its real name, so they spelled it backward so as not to have to see or say the word.” He typed over the name of the file, reversing the letters, and Ellison read the word aloud: “Nyarlathotep.”
Howell shivered. “Yes. That is Its name.”
Ellison knew it was true. Something about those syllables spoke to him even now, engendering within him a bone-deep revulsion, a close cousin to the abhorrence he’d felt upon seeing the contents of that secret room in the British Museum. Jenny held his hand, clutching it too tightly.
They spent the next several hours exchanging information. It was Howell who pointed out that, with the Nahapi site currently untended, they could explore it themselves. He pointed to his map on the table. “I could take you down there.”
“Do you think we could find—”
“I think it’s possible,” Howell said.
The next day they set off, Ellison and Jenny in the rental car, Howell in his Jeep. Farmington was much closer to the Colorado border than Ellison realized, and it was a mere three hours later that they were at the site, an unprepossessing box canyon cordoned off from the surrounding wilderness by a chain link fence. Ellison barely had time to wonder how they would get in before Howell’s Jeep was smashing through the gate that crossed the narrow dirt road, and the two vehicles were racing toward an impressively preserved cliff dwelling at the canyon’s end.
The tunnels were just as Howell had said they’d be, just as they’d appeared in the photos, and the hand-drawn map was astonishingly accurate. But there were far more tunnels than Ellison had expected, and by the time they emerged before nightfall to set up camp and eat, he realized that Howell had mapped only a small fraction of the underground passages beneath the abandoned city.
A very small fraction.
And what remained went deep.
***
That night, Jenny dreamed of the Dark Man—
Nyarlathotep
—and when Ellison was awakened by her screams and shook her to bring her out of her nightmare, she told him that It had talked to her again.
That It was waiting for them.
***
The search was maddening and fruitless, and even after his allotted time frame was up, Ellison stayed on at the site, not making a conscious decision to do so, not bothering to inform his supervisor or anyone at the university, merely continuing with what had become his daily routine, as though this was and always had been his life: waking up with the sun, eating a quick breakfast bar with Jenny and Howell, then heading underground, the three of them splitting up to map ever deeper passages before reconnecting at night, eating a cold dinner and sleeping in the ruins. Every few days, Howell would go off to buy food and batteries from the closest town, over an hour away, but Ellison refused to leave, maintaining his focus, knowing as the map expanded into a maze that they grew ever closer to their goal.
There were, as he’d been told, sounds in the tunnels, the ratlike scurryings of small creatures through unseen parallel passages, and though he saw nothing, he thought of those skeletons Crowley had shown him in the secret room of the British Museum.
It was ten days in, when Howell didn’t come back in the evening from his underground sojourn, that Ellison knew their search was finally over. Jenny, tired after a long day’s exploration, and more frightened than she was willing to admit, wanted to give Howell more time, but he excitedly insisted that they go down immediately and retrace the missing man’s steps.
Two hours down an unfamiliar passage, their lights beginning to dim perceptibly and with only one backup flash between them and the floor sloping sharply downward, they saw a faint glow originating from behind a curve in the rock wall ahead, a glow accompanied by unfamiliar sounds, low and faint and impossible to make out.
“Let’s go back,” Jenny said, and he heard the terror in her voice.
He grabbed her wrist so she could not run, feeling the tautness in her muscles. “No.”
Down the slope, around the corner, they were hit with an odor so rotten that he gasped and gagged, while Jenny doubled over and vomited. The passage opened on a cave so massive that he could not see its end, with stalactites and stalagmites larger than buildings, twisted, eroded and formed into unwholesome shapes that he did not consciously recognize but that he apprehended on some deep instinctual level and that made him recoil in horror.
He thought of a line from the Coleridge poem “Kubla Khan.”
Through caverns measureless to man.
That was what lay before him, a subterranean topography so gargantuan that it would take a lifetime to explore and so foul that no human being would dare to do so. Light from an unspecified source dimly illuminated the gigantic space, revealing a scene that not even his most depraved imaginings could have conjured. For in an open area the size of a city, he saw untold hordes of shiny white humanoid figures, all facing a much larger jet-black form occupying a park-sized clearing in their midst. He knew now what had happened to the Nahapi, the Hohokam, the Anasazi, the Minoans, all of the peoples who had disappeared over the centuries. They lived down here in this unholy lair, tho
usands of blind, albino minions, hairless inhuman descendants of those who had once lived above, now worshipping this mad faceless being.
Nyarlathotep.
The god had taken those who had not been killed, bringing them down here into the bowels of the earth, where they had bred and interbred into the slimy horrors that now lived in this sunless domain.
Ellison should have fled instantly and run back the way he had come, should have dragged Jenny through the tunnels to the surface and made sure that the entrance to this hell was sealed with enough concrete that it could never be accessed again. But he was not as frightened as he should have been. He was not frightened at all, in fact. He understood completely the horror of the scene before him, but he viewed it dispassionately, as an observer not a participant.
No, that was not exactly true. He was a participant. As was Jenny.
But he wasn’t afraid.
Holding her hand, he stepped forward, moving down the sloping ground. The floor rippled before them, what he’d thought was black rock parting to reveal the real rock beneath, and he realized that what he’d taken to be a solid floor was a teeming multitude of misshapen rodents. They were not merely deformed rats, he understood, but children, the spawn of those albino supplicants, and they surged over the floor and walls, the roiling movement offering occasional glimpses of lighter human appendages attached to those dark furry bodies.
The two of them continued on. Seconds before they reached the outskirts of the assembly, the entire congregation, as one, dropped to their knees, bowing down before their god following some unseen, unheard cue. The simultaneous movement of thousands of bodies unleashed a fresh wave of that nauseating odor, and, gagging, Ellison and Jenny pinched their nostrils shut.
Yet they kept walking.
Ahead, Nyarlathotep stomped about in impotent fury, strangled sounds unlike any Ellison had heard before issuing from somewhere within Its featureless face, and Ellison knew that he and Howell had been right. It was a prisoner down here, banished along with those It was supposed to have eradicated, punished by beings far more powerful—and far more terrible—than It.
And where was Howell?
Dead, he thought. Eaten.
That may or may not have been true, and as they walked deeper into the cavern, he continued to look for the other man in the enormous crowd, but he did not expect to find him.
Why hadn’t he and Jenny been killed?
Ellison didn’t know, but their presence did not seem to have been noted at all. It was as though they were invisible, and while he knew that could change at any moment, he was grateful for it.
As horrible as the rotten stench were the sounds that tortured their ears: the whooshing of the rat things surging throughout the cave; the guttural grunts of the albino worshippers; the strangled cries of the madly stomping god. But beneath it all was something worse: continuous tuneless music, the faint sound of a high mindless piper playing notes that were the aural equivalent of those terrible shapes and angles, and he tried to ignore the sound, knowing that if he concentrated on it for too long it would drive him insane.
There was no change in the furious movements of Nyarlathotep, but he heard Its Voice, calm and commanding. The Voice was in his head, deep and inhuman, speaking words he understood though they were not of any known language. He was ordered to bring Jenny to the clearing, though he did not need to be ordered. It was what he wanted to do. It was what she wanted him to do, and he led her by the arm as the two of them strode between the kneeling supplicants until they stood before the Dark Man.
It turned to face them. This was why Jenny had been summoned, why she had dreamed of It and dreamed of him. This was her purpose, and she ripped off her clothes, laying prostrate before the god.
It took her immediately, in a violent depraved frenzy that could have taken seconds, could have taken hours, could have taken days. Time did not exist here, and however long it took, it left her bloody and mad, wailing in pain and laughing in her lunacy, while Its spawn, needing no gestation period, oozed out of her split thighs: a black liquid slime that once in the open coalesced into a warped human shape.
The Voice was in his head again, filling his mind with images and ideas that were utterly insane and made absolute sense. He bowed down in fealty, understanding what he needed to do and thinking that it had been part of his plans all along. He murmured thanks to Nyarlathotep, praising the god and pledging his everlasting obedience. The Voice told him to rise, and, standing, Ellison faced the ranks of mutated albinos, who stood as well.
He could lead them from this place, an army of the saved, descendants of the disappeared who could finish the job Nyarlathotep had started, clearing the earth of unworthy humanity, paving the way for the return of Howell’s eldritch gods. Its task completed, Nyarlathotep would be freed again by Its masters, finally able to leave this underground prison.
He felt as though he should say something, a speech to rally the troops, an announcement of plans, but he was not really a leader, he was a pawn, and the Voice of the god that told him what to do was issuing orders to the minions as well.
The tunnels through which he and Jenny had arrived were far too small for the thousands of bodies that needed to pass through them to the surface, but Ellison learned that he was not needed to find a way up top; he was needed to navigate the land once they were there. He was the only one who knew of the outside world, and it would be his job to guide the army from city to city as they advanced and conquered.
The followers were holding weapons now, he saw, weapons that resembled spears and knives and swords but that seemed at once older and more sophisticated, their shapes and forms profoundly wrong to human eyes.
They would be leaving this realm through an opening miles away, and as soon as that knowledge registered in his brain, he fell onto his back and was carried forward, held aloft by the speeding ratlike spawn who shot him through the gathered multitudes and deeper into the hellish cavern. Ellison closed his eyes against the shapes of the rocks, afraid to look at them. He could feel the slimy stickiness of the massed legions as he passed, his skin brushing theirs, and hours later, he found himself at the head of the army. Nyarlathotep had accompanied him, stomping heedlessly upon those who were in Its way, clearing a path through Its worshippers, until they both stood before a breach in the cavern wall that was as big as Mount Rushmore. From the world above blew warm air that was like a breath of heaven after the fetid stench of the underground atmosphere. He breathed it in deeply, gratefully.
There were no last minute instructions, only a sharp mental push that sent Ellison into the breach, followed by an endless stream of mutants.
The god remained where It was, Its titanic frustration filling the air with a psychic turmoil strong enough to be palpable.
They were farther under the earth than Ellison had thought, but with each step forward, his mind and head grew clearer, the foul odor fading away, the mad piper’s endless music diminishing. Before them was blackness, but gradually the gloom began to lessen, and eventually a faint glow let him know that they were approaching the surface. His eyes adjusted, what had been sheer white light separating into the colors of sky and clouds. He wondered about the effect on those behind him, and he turned to look, seeing them clearly for the first time, small black eyes staring unblinking in white rubbery newt-like faces.
Ellison reached the surface, emerging from beneath a sandstone cliff, facing an unidentified Southwestern town less than two blocks away.
“Forward!” he said, because he thought he should say something.
His shout was greeted with a reply of anguished shrieks and cries of agony. He turned. The members of his army were burning as soon as they hit the sunlight. Skin hissing like fat upon a frying pan, the white figures fell to the ground, writhing in pain as their slimy forms blackened and shriveled like worms exposed to fire.
And still more kept coming, trodding upon those who had fallen before them and suffering the same fate, scorched by a sun
they had never seen.
He heard the Voice screaming in his head, could feel Nyarlathotep’s impotent rage, and he wondered how often this had been tried before, how many attempts the god had made to escape Its prison.
Scores were dead now and burning, but finally the onslaught had stopped and those still in the cave had turned around and were retreating.
Ellison looked toward the town, thought about striking out for it alone, but he felt the pull of Nyarlathotep and instead turned around and withdrew into the dark safety of the earth. The attempt had failed before it had even begun—
Yet again, the Voice said
—but no matter. Ellison knew now what needed to be done. He would be the father of the next army. If Jenny was still alive, he would mate with her, her and whoever—whatever—else might live underground. Nyarlathotep had been banished and neither It nor Its offspring could leave their prison. But Ellison was immune to the sun, and it might take generations, but he would create an army that could survive above. They would cleanse the earth of humanity once and for all, and Nyarlathotep would once again be granted Its rightful place among Its eldritch brethren.
In his head, he had maps, maps of cities, states, countries, continents, and he would teach them to those he spawned, building a force that was powerful and smart and could not be beat, a force that would cleanse the world, a force worthy of Nyarlathotep.
Taking a last breath of fresh air, a last look at the sun and the sky, Ellison followed the retreating minions and descended into the darkness of his new home.
Nyarlathotep
Of all the old ones who haunt the desert places of this world, none takes a greater interest in the race of men than he who is called the Crawling Chaos, or by another name, Nyarlathotep. He has no form as we know it, but he comes in various guises as it suits his capricious humor. Most often he appears as a man who walks on the desert sands at night beneath the stars or moon. Woe to the wanderer who encounters Nyarlathotep alone in the darkness, for his days are numbered.
