by J K Ishaya
“’Where I come from?’ I was too mystified to consider that he meant more than my Dacian heritage. He only smiled as he went to sit down in the chair, which was ebony and carved with figures such as I had never seen before. Strange, fanged beasts chased each other up the front panels on the arms. Or maybe they were one beast with many faces and many fanged mouths. I could not tell. He made himself comfortable and stared at me as if awaiting a show to start, and Amarisa approached the edge of the circle again.
“I frowned and cocked my head, wondering what was going on here, and then she held out a hand before her, directed at me and made a gentle waving gesture. She spoke words in another language that I could not understand as her hand swept around, graceful. I heard my prison mate shouting at me, but it was distant and sweeping away like an ocean wave receding underneath the witch’s speech until there was nothing but her voice alone lulling me.”
“I was trying to warn him,” Kvasir adds, “but she had him snagged in seconds.”
I nod to that. “She did. Hypnotized by her seductive motions and whispers, I felt my eyelids droop, and my legs turned to jelly beneath me. I collapsed to my knees and wavered, forcing my eyes open as my head swam, and then I could not balance upright at all. The cavern rippled around me and I fell over on my side, my head tilted heavily and bounced on the ground before lying still, and I glimpsed only the rock beneath me and a glowing line from the circle’s inner sigil. That line was the last thing to fade from my vision as I fell into blackness.”
Chapter Fourteen
“The witch had enchanted me to sleep, and I instantly fell into dreaming. I had a sense of floating, briefly, before I found myself manifested upon that too familiar balcony that looked out on a void of darkness. Looking down, I saw that my body appeared the same as in its earthly prison, still smeared with dried blood and dirt, and Decebal’s wolf ring still graced my finger. Some force compelled me to approach the edge and there I found the stairwell that had been with me in my dreams for years. It stretched downward, floating over the nothing as always, with that distant arc of light below. I thought maybe I was free now, able to move about, with the circle gone from under me, but then within my periphery, Nyarlathotep stepped to my side, appearing the same as he had in the cavern.
“He looked at me with those ink-washed eyes that were narrowed with amusement. ‘My, your vision of the steps is bleak. Many Dreamers see much more color, but your mind peers upon the dark vastness between and beyond. No illusions here.’ The most slimy and rubbery of smiles writhed on his mouth. ‘How delightful.’ He watched me turn my gaze upon the descent before us and grew more serious and with a sudden tone of understanding asked, ‘You once wondered what is down there, did you not?’
“Having just been somewhat more educated as to who and what a nefarious thing he was before finding myself on that landing, I wanted to turn on him, grab him by the throat, feast on his blood, anything to avenge the terror he’d put me through, but he did not so much as wince as I started, but then a telekinetic force jolted and held me.
“’Uhp—“ he tsked at me. ‘No-no-no.’ Like scolding a pet. ‘Patience, Zyraxes, I think you will be very interested in what I have to show you. I know from your memories that Malorix always stopped you here. Even showed his nature a bit, did he not? Showed you his other face.’
“My thoughts flashed back to that dream so long ago when, as a boy, I’d attempted to slide down the steps only to be snared and pulled back to the landing by the black creature with its folded leather wings and long, whip-like protrusions.
“’But he is not here now, and look, I shall release my hold on you.’ He raised a hand within my line of sight so that I could see it had been clasped into a tight fist. His fingers and palm bloomed open and instantly I felt the invisible force let go so that I could once more move of my own volition. I took a deep, relieved breath, not because of any necessity to breathe—gods, I had learned already that I did not need to do that anymore—but because it was the natural thing to do in that situation. ‘Come now, shall we explore it, just you and me?’ He moved to the edge of the balcony and put one foot down on the first step. ‘I assure you, there is nothing to be afraid of down there, especially for two creatures such as we. I have no intentions of doing anything other than… expand… your perceptions.’
“I didn’t trust him at all, and I vehemently hated his tendency to pause and choose certain words so carefully. It was something I’d witnessed for years among Roman dignitaries trying to convince Decebal why Rome should annex Dacia. But I was faced with new questions that were hell and gone from old human politics and border wars. Kvasir had educated me on much hidden history, but now I came back to the warped path of my own life and the more immediate situation. Why had Malorix kept me from exploring what lay at the bottom of the steps? What answers were to be had there?
“Before me, Nyarlathotep began to descend, two, three, four steps. He paused, turned and looked back up at me. ‘Come along,’ he said. ‘There are so many extraordinary things for you to see.’ The green scarab jewel in his head piece shimmered alluringly at me, and I, too curious and feeling I had nothing left to lose, convinced myself that it was my choice to follow. I proceeded behind him, always a few steps back. In no other situation could he have demonstrated more how he had absolutely no fear of me at all. I had the high ground, more instinct and ability to kill than ever before, and yet his back remained toward to me. Still, I dared not try anything and he knew that. With each step, my body began to hum as a current of new excitement rose under my skin. His composure never faltered with the vast drop offs to either side of us, and I recalled the creature that had terrified me as a child launching into that void and flying away.
“Below us, the archway grew brighter, larger, more detailed. It towered at least thirty feet above and was columned on either side with two winged figures that were neither angel nor demon, each in a twisted capture of light and dark forces in stone. When at last we stood on that bottom landing, I stared in awe at such craftsmanship, seeing it differently than I might have as a man. My keen eyes picked up the details in the figures, how smooth and lacking any chisel mark as they appeared to melt outward from their columns, reaching slick and shiny as if being born from the stone. ‘What is this place?’ I asked. I could hear the roar of flames ahead and beyond Nyarlathotep’s figure I saw the brilliant dance of golden light.
“’Merely a gate,’ he said and proceeded under the archway.
“I followed, dragging my eyes away from the arch and tilting down to see a vast marble floor, creamy and veined with dark green; then back up to a vaulted ceiling of the same marble with a wide oculus in the center that looked upon a sky of stars. This was disorienting. Only black void surrounded the steps and landing, but through the oculus there were stars over this massive chamber. The fabric of existence was skewed here, and I was quickly forgetting that I was trapped in Dream. The light flickered upon the edges of the oculus and I looked upon a single thick column of smokeless fire, swirling around itself in a cyclone of rose and titian and blinding whips of white. My sensitive vision forced me to squint and blink at these flares. The column, unlike any fire I’d ever seen before, further cemented the understanding that the world I’d known was no more. It rose out of a round pit that mirrored the oculus in size. From either side of it, two figures appeared.
“I focused on one as it scrambled closer, first as a silhouette, and then the definition of a man appeared: an old man with a beard, in red silken robes with gold trim, bearing a tall, Pharaonic pschent upon his head. His clothes might have been foreign to me, but I knew a priest when I saw one. The clothing easily reminded me of Vesina’s garb and his taller nobleman’s hat.
“The second figure, coming from the other side of the flames, was similar: same robes, same pschent, also bearded. They were almost the same height, same build. Their eyes and the sides of their mouths were well lined with tanned wrinkles. Given that I had a tour guide who seemed well in the k
now where we were and what was going on, I simply watched for the first few moments. Nyarlathotep, however, brushed through the vast chamber with little more than a sniff.
“’My lord, this is unexpected.’ One priest dipped his head low, scrambling after. He seemed jittery and uncomfortable.
“’You came down the steps? That is not your usual gateway, my lord,’ the other said, sounding as confused as his counterpart. Then his eyes danced over to me and focused, going from cloudy and old to clear and sharp. ‘You!’ he exclaimed and the other spun to see what the outburst was about.
“’The one from above, the child,’ the other said. ‘He’s finally descended.’
“’You know about me?’ I asked. It vaguely occurred to me that they were speaking my language.
“’Of course! We watched you years ago, when you were a boy and Malorix used to impede you.’ His old eyes wandered over me and then widened as if he suddenly realized something was off. ‘Oh, look at you,’ he uttered with an apparent shiver. Then his voice lowered to a whisper. ‘He had to do it, didn’t he? Malorix adapted you.’
“’You knew Malorix?’ I asked incredulously, not quite registering his last question and statement.
“’Of course! Since he was a child, too, and for all of his adult years and beyond. A skilled Dreamer that one, and even after becoming Other.’ Again he looked over me. ‘You’re so tall now!’
“I started to ask him more questions, but the first of these two priests raised his voice as he scurried to remain on Nyarlathotep’s heels. “’Lord, I say, what is this about?’ he demanded to know.
“’Nasht— “Nyarlathotep finally nodded a greeting to him. ‘Kaman-Thah— “to the one who scrutinized me. ‘My companion and I are just passing through. Zyraxes, this way.’
“’But he’s not ready to pass through,’ Nasht argued over me. ‘We have not queried him yet!’ As if this were some heresy.
“Nyarlathotep didn’t give a rat’s ass. ‘Fuck your queries, old man, he is as ready as any Dreamer to pass this way, and I am his guide.’ His voice took on a deeper, even more unearthly tone, the Dacian almost lost within the harsh language that floated beneath it. ‘I have the authority here.’
“I looked at the one near me, Kaman-Thah, and wished I could ask him more what he and his counterpart had witnessed on the balcony above. How could they even see it from way down here to recognize me way up there? And Malorix, too? Had they seen how he had frightened me all of those years ago? They must also, I deduced, have some kind of psychic means to understand these things.
“’He has you tangled in his schemes,’ Kaman-Thah said in a continued hush and his eyes widened to glassy, fear-filled saucers. ‘You poor… poor… boy.’ I had no time to question him further.
“’Zyraxes, now!’ my captor roared, loud enough to be heard over the fire. ‘Follow me, now!’ In an instant he’d clenched his fist and again my body was seized in his telekinetic control. I stole one final glance at Kaman-Thah. Perhaps my eyes even pleaded for help. Then my legs began moving and I stiffly walked away from him and around the edge of the fire. Both priests stayed where they were, daring not to challenge Nyarlathotep any further. On the other side of the column of flame, I was released. ‘Stay by my side,’ Nyarlathotep hissed angrily, ‘do not look back at them. They are beneath me. They are beneath you.’
“I think I gave a weak nod, though I couldn’t actually agree with him. They’d done nothing to offend me personally, but they seemed bent on following a set of rules that Nyarlathotep was, in turn, bent on treading upon with utmost displeasure. ‘Who are they?’ I asked.
“’Nothing,’ he said. ‘They are nothing for you to be concerned with. You are royalty, and they have no business even blinking at you.’”
Howard still remains stable on the edge of the sofa. “So these priests… Nasht and Kaman-Thah? They are what is to be found at the foot of the steps? If I were to go all the way down to the gate?”
“Not the foot of the steps, but at the midpoint of descent,” I correct him. “But yes, and they would bombard you with questions to deem you worthy of going further or not.”
He stands and paces, excitement and agitation radiating off of him in a wave that is almost deafening to my senses. “Do you know what these questions are?”
“You think I would help you cheat the game?” I raise a brow at him. He stares, mouth agape as he looks for an argument.
“He’s fooling with you, Howard,” Kvasir says.
“Oh.”
“No, I cannot tell you what the questions are. I was spared them, as I said, but at the worst you would not be allowed beyond the gate and that would be the final decree of Nasht and Kaman-Thah. You would have to find another way into the Dreamlands.”
“What are some other ways in?” Howard asks. “You’ve talked of portals in the waking world.” He looks at Kvasir. “And your people took one such path out of the Dreamlands into our world.”
“Remember how Malorix took me to see Kogaionon, the sacred mountain of the Dacians?” I reply.
He nods slowly at first, and then, recalling that part of our discourse, his head bobs faster. “Oh yes, you said that it seemed to disappear at certain times of the day.”
“Exactly. I had no idea of it being a gateway at the time, of course, but that is one example which I learned of later as I puzzled more of my existence together. It is not the easiest hike for a human, but if you find yourself there at just the right time, you may or may not be transported into the Dreamlands, and when you are, the descent from there is far worse than getting to the summit from the waking world side. Also, you would be in your living body, not just your Dreamform, which would make it all the more dangerous.” I withhold that it is no longer called Kogaionon, its name changed long since the fall of Dacia. Kvasir notices the intentional gaffe and gives me the side-eye.
What? I reply. It’s not as if he’ll ever leave the country and hike in Romania. It is too full of foreigners and non-English speakers. My sarcasm elicits a new eye roll from my companion, then quickly I get back on track for our audience.
“I wouldn’t say that my first way in was any better, though, considering the circumstances and my company. Nyarlathotep guided me out of the Cavern of Flame and through another archway onto a new platform where the steps picked up again, and now there were more: seven hundred of them in all, and like the ones on the first level, these passed down through void and darkness. The stars I had seen through the oculus above the Cavern of Flame were gone again. I followed him down, for what felt hours, until finally we came upon the bottom landing and there the second gate.”
✽✽✽
Howard raises a hand for a pause before I continue and asks, “Pardon me, but Nyarlathotep indicated that the steps are perceived differently by other people?”
“Yes.”
“You perceive a dark void, a drop into nothing to either side, not even a banister?”
“Yes, and yes, Howard, I know where this is going. I have already seen how you perceive them.” I tap the side of my head with a finger. “Please sit back now before you fall off of that sofa.”
“Oh.” Again he looks away, and eases his bottom back onto the faded velvet seat. “So they are the same steps, just different?”
“Yes, the same, and it seems your view is every bit as bleak as mine, though you do not look on quite the same black void as I do. There is a reason for such differences. My perception of the steps, and that void, my awakening, all were clues to how I could become this thing to begin with. There was far more to it than Malorix’s blood, and Nyarlathotep knew this. He was, in fact, thrilled over it, but holding back from telling me everything. There was something else he wanted to show me first.
“’I promise you, Zyraxes,’ he proclaimed on our way through that second gate, ‘you will not be disappointed.’ He gestured me on, and we passed under a second, high arch. This one was simple carved onyx, polished to a high sheen, and there was no temple beyond, but it
was not unlike emerging from a cave.
“We stepped directly onto an ancient stone dais where the steps led down to a forest path. Like no forest I had seen before, it was full of massive, twisting trees, with a lush canopy that filtered down emerald light. I smelled the tart, live greenery over the other natural smells of dead leaves mulching on the ground and fragrant, exotic blooms that spilled from heavy vines. Unlike in the world above, here the birds did not go quiet in my presence, or even Nyarlathotep’s. They continued to sing, accompanied by the sound of little claws skittering over bark as something watched us descend to the path. I was in true awe now, as this was not something I had expected at all.
“’The Enchanted Wood,’ my guide informed me and then laughed harshly as I stared around me like a child in wonder. There were bizarre fungus growths that formed glowing shingles of soft purple and pink, and slick, white tendrils that smelled of honey curled out of dark hollows and captured strange insects before curling back up with their prey. In the distance, wings fluttered before something screeched as if caught in curved talons. This place was as treacherous as it was gorgeous.
“’I give you the Dreamlands, Zyraxes,’ Nyarlathotep said. ‘You wonder how Malorix could keep this from you? It was always your right to see them, and yet he kept you from descending.’
“’Dreamlands?’ I asked, and my mind spun to grasp the vision before me. ‘This is only a dream then?’
“’No, far more. You have come here through dream, but it is a place as real as your earth. It reaches beyond your very planet and out to touch others in the galaxy.’
“He was already about to lose me here, for I knew only of earth and stars, but nothing of whole galaxies. Dacian culture was, in times long gone, influenced by the Greeks, and we knew the world was round, and that there were other spheres coursing the vault of heaven, but we also believed Earth was stationary in space and that the sun and stars circled it, so anything beyond that was indeterminate, a huge, unsavory blur to a Dacian mind.
