by J K Ishaya
“’But let us focus on this world,’ he said. ‘You are in another body here, an astral duplicate of the one you left on Earth, and yet as solid as that tree over there. There now, touch it, see how it feels as real as the pines in your home forests?’
“I did this and observed that the bark was as rough and shingled as that on any tree in Dacia. Ahead I heard more skittering through the trees, and I caught glimpses of something rodent-like and slippery darting out of sight and then eyes. When I focused, I saw thousands of tiny eyes, beady and bright, watching us from every shadow, crack and crevice between roots, branches and underbrush. I could reach out with my senses again here, and I heard an echo of whispers around me, all in a bizarre, almost fluttering language that I didn’t remotely comprehend.
“Nyarlathotep ignored them, and as we walked, they receded further back into the trees. ‘We have much traveling to do,’ he said. ‘There is a place far from here that I wish to show you before we have another journey ahead, and then you will understand everything. I promise.’
“He proceeded to explain the Dreamlands a little more to me and the difference between a human simply dreaming and a Dreamer. I began to understand that I’d been born a Dreamer, and had Malorix not interfered, I’d have probably descended the steps years ago and long since learned my way around, if I had survived.
“The Dreamlands were not without their treachery, Nyarlathotep told me, and a Dreamer could die there, essentially losing his or her astral dream-self while remaining alive in the waking world. The repercussions were an inability to access the Dreamlands, or to dream at all. This, he said, often leads to its own special insanity. And I will add that he sounded delighted as he spoke of this. The human mind needs dreams in whatever form they take, good or bad. They are a tool of consciousness, a means to diffuse and decompress the abundance of trial and emotion of daily, waking life.
“Again, all of this was beyond my Dacian thinking, but I had little choice but to ponder it, to correlate it in my own way. But there was even more complicating this world beyond the temporal veil.
“’Many a Dreamer has come here after death in the waking world,’ Nyarlathotep said. ‘This is their afterlife, from which they will never return to Earth, but should one die a second time, that spells oblivion for that soul.” He dared to lay a hand on my shoulder as if we were old chums. “Is it not auspicious,’ he said, ‘that you can no longer die by any means, even here? That is another gift I gave you. Perhaps indirectly, but had Malorix not been susceptible to my efforts, you wouldn’t be here now.’
“’How did you change him?’ I asked. ‘I mean actually change him?’
“’Ah, but that is a complicated matter,’ he replied. ‘I obtained a substance, the source of which I shall have to explain later—when it will make more sense—which held great promise, and then I gathered subjects to see who would respond to it. Malorix was much like you. He would have died by Roman hands anyway.’
“’Were you trying to raise the dead? Turn a man into a god? What?’ This was the easiest conclusion I could come to given what I knew and my own history. I was raised on the myths of gods and humans at odds over immortality and death. Zalmoxis himself was believed to have been a mortal man who attained godhood and the power of creation.
“’To your first question, no, not at all,’ Nyarlathotep said. ‘A dead body would have been no good to me. I needed a man who was living but wounded in body and spirit, someone so eminently filled with rage and despair that he was willing to give up his very soul for revenge. Sound familiar?’ He gave me that sardonic smile again and I remembered with a chill that he had already reaped my memories of such fine details as the events that led up to my transformation. Indeed, I fit that description when Malorix had given me the choice, but if what Nyarlathotep said was any indication, Malorix had been through a similar situation once in his own human life. He had dealt with the Romans and seen his own people conquered, as had I. Had he loved and lost in similar ways, too? I recalled how my maker had paced before the fire that night. He was wary of passing on this gift at all, his emotions clearly torn over whether to let me die or offer me this dreadful eternity. It was clear now, however, that Malorix and I had a mutual creator, the source of it all, whom I was beginning to hate much less.
“Nyarlathotep had promised to reveal things to me, and so far, he had. I now had some comprehension of the Dreamlands and what purpose the steps had served. He had also, I admit, churned up some level of resentment in me toward Malorix that I had been denied this experience sooner in life. As a child, I would have been filled with such wonder at the forest through which we roamed. I was, as an adult, still touched by that wonder but it was with the tarnish of all that I had been through in life, everything I had lost, including my humanity. I mourned that I had never had the chance to carry back stories of this place to Bendis or our children. I would have had to present them as fairy tales, but still I could imagine Breslin’s little face lighting up when I described that forest, or what I was to soon see beyond its shade.
“’And as for your second question,’ Nyarlathotep continued. ‘Yes.’ And in that affirmation he sounded especially pleased. ‘I had not thought of it that way before, but molding a godling was very much the objective. Of course, you know I chose others besides Malorix, there was always the chance that the substance could fail, which it did in those cases. Malorix was my prize in the end. I suppose that his status as a Dreamer may have had something to do with it, but that is unproven. The fact that you are a Dreamer as well lends more evidence, but we will not jump to conclusions.’
“’Where are we going?’ I asked.
“’Beyond these woods we shall rendezvous with my attendants and board my ship on the river Skai. From there we will travel to Dylath-Leen. There we will polish you and make you more presentable before we proceed.’ He gave me a most distasteful look, not that I cared, as he regarded my shirtless state and that even here in the Dreamlands, the blood smeared and dried upon my body in the waking world was still present. I stank, too, astral form or not, so I couldn’t exactly argue over the idea of a bath.
“I followed him without any further argument. We passed through more bizarre hollows of twisted trees and bioluminescent life clinging to them. The canopy above remained so thick that my eyes were comforted by the shade and at times it was hard to be sure if it was day or night. The skittering noises grew more active and my acute hearing picked up more of the fluttering language of the forest’s rodent-like inhabitants following us again. They were curious things, but I only continued to glimpse the sparkle of their eyes in the deeper depressions, and hear their tiny claws on bark, and if I focused, I heard thousands of tiny heartbeats trailing off through the ragged trees. From their whisperings, I deduced that they were no mere forest animals but something intelligent enough to know and understand who Nyarlathotep was and perhaps that I was something to be avoided as well, and yet I learned how dangerous they were when we came upon a clearing.
“I smelled the rot first, heard the buzz of flies. It was nothing I had not experienced before as a man in the aftermath of battle, or even when I had been dying in that Roman camp, but this was elevated more for my new senses. Our path turned and revealed the source of this new unpleasantness. The body was stashed between the roots of a tree and male, I suppose, given the style of the remnants of clothes hanging off of it. There was plenty of flesh left, but it was gnawed to shreds, the face especially, with dark, oozing hollows where eyes should be. A warning trill went up and instantly a swarm of the rat-like creatures scattered up the tree, into the underbrush, and one last one, covered in smelly ichor, slipped out from under the corpse’s clothes near the belly, indicating it had been feasting within the chest or bowel cavity.
A most sour expression invades Howard’s face.
“My first reaction was very human, to feel horrified, and then afterwards realize that I related too well to these creatures and their diet. Beside me, Nyarlathotep only chuckle
d. ‘Poor soul,’ he said. ‘Poor stupid soul that wandered the woods too far. Did I not say that death still holds sway in this world?’
“‘Was he a Dreamer?’ I asked.
“Again he laughed. ‘A Dreamer visiting, an inhabitant, what does it matter? He is obliterated either way.’
“To either never dream again or to simply cease being at all,” Howard reflects. “In body or intellect. It is rather hard to imagine, isn’t it?”
I nod to that. “I felt a twinge of disgust over my companion’s callous attitude, but it was short lived since I hadn’t known the unfortunate individual, and with my human history I did come from a now very jaded place.
"We moved on through, past more exotic trees, blossoms and fungi, and my wonder returned. I touched different textures of bark, caressed flower petals, even teased some of those carnivorous tendrils that I mentioned, the way a botanist might insert a twig into a Venus fly trap simply to observe it closing.
“We emerged on a rise, and a sunset such as I’d never seen graced the horizon. At its base were the expected orange hues that transitioned to rose and purple, but above it danced an aurora of soft blue that whispered on the sky as it slid and slithered back and forth and swirled in a lonely dance. Not far, emerging from the woods within a half mile away in the shallow valley, the glittering waters of a river undulated into the distance. It caught the colors of the sky so that glowing blues, pink, and green hues flickered.”
As I speak of this, Howard’s eyes glaze further, and I sense the longing in him to see this for himself.
“Yes, the Dreamlands are magnificent, Howard. They are the sum of all that mankind finds beautiful in the waking world, and the horrors, too. Few of us see them in their entirety. As I’ve said, most only glimpse them. The average sleeping person might manage to make a little tear through the veil here or there, just enough to peek through, but it is not remotely the entire picture that you will get from using the stairs or a portal to stand directly within it and watch the auroras or the unsullied vault of stars beyond.”
“I want to go there,” he says mournfully. “The stairs have frightened me, but if all I must do is get past the two red priests…”
“You heard what I said of the hazards there, did you not?” I ask, suppressing a stern tone.
“Of course, but in the interest of knowledge, and to see these places, I would hardly need to travel in this world. All I need do would be to close my eyes and sleep.”
“That is one way of looking at it,” Kvasir says, his good humor returning. “To escape through your pillow is very convenient indeed.”
“Do not butter his ass, Vassie,” I quip, tired of all formal addresses, bitterness slipping free as my jaw clenches. “Yes, it is a beautiful place, but wander into the wrong areas and it will fuck you soundly. Did my encounter with the corpse in the woods not convey that?” They both fall silent, Howard looking away and blushing as usual, Kvasir glaring at me.
“Vassie?” Howard asks quietly.
Drawing a tense breath through his nose, Kvasir ignores it and sits forward. The glare in his jade eyes bores into me, pupils constricted to the thinnest of slits becoming more viper than cat. “Nyarlathotep sought you for a specific reason, Yuri, but the average Dreamer is of little concern. There is no reason why Howard couldn’t explore the peaceful regions.”
After a moment, Howard clears his throat and looks up, and for the first time I see and sense not just frustration in him but anger… at me for my foul language… for my suggestion that he should avoid the Dreamlands when his palms are sweating from the urge to go there already. “And may I ask how often you go there now, Mr. Corvinus? When you sleep, do you go down the steps on a regular basis?”
He’s trying to call me on my pessimism, and I have to admit, it is a dismal thing lurking inside me that does need to be called out. “Our fight is ongoing, so yes,” I say more calmly. “It is as you might say theses days, a business trip more than anything.” I decline to expound.
“But you do not go for the desire?” Howard asks. “You describe the beauty so well. Why wouldn’t you want to go there for the enjoyment of it, at least occasionally?”
“Were it that I could enjoy the beauty as I did the first time,” I say. “On that first expedition, I was a child in awe and that awe had already begun to blind me.
“Nyarlathotep had already begun to blind me,” I add more firmly and before my audience can side track me further, I continue. “He was quite patient as if he knew what I needed at that very moment. Likely he was still quietly tapped into my mind, dissecting every little thought. He shut his mouth for once and gave me a wealth of time to stare at that peaceful valley and sunset, the sparkle of the river and the distant gold pin lights of a village with the gentle rise of smoke from its chimneys. As I stood there, that aurora whirling in my eyes, and the rich air permeating my head, the rage I’d carried diminished. There was still grief in me over my family, but I’d had my revenge on the person who mattered. I had killed Bielis in a most horrific manner, and he’d seen his death coming with the greatest fear I could inflict upon him, so I was satisfied. The rage simply drained. I began to see Nyarlathotep’s point about my potential. The experience of being decapitated and healed became simply a lesson on this new thing that I was, and I began to feel that he did have much more to teach me. I forgot, for the time being, everything that my prison mate had told me about this creature and its host body.
“Was Nyarlathotep stealthily influencing those thoughts? Perhaps. I just know that I felt I could continue cooperating without vindictiveness. After I’d watched that sunset, and the aurora remained with a wash of stars behind it, I swallowed a hard lump in my throat and accepted my Dreamland guide completely.
“‘Show me everything,’ I said.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Nyarlathotep knew to maintain his silence right then as he led me down the slope and we made our way toward the river. The ground gave way to reedy marsh and a series of docks had been built there for pathways, connecting little fishing huts. It all felt so natural, peaceful, like the edges of true home. Like Dacia where the Danube delta empties into the Black Sea. The familiarity continued to unravel my discomfort. Beyond the reed-strewn edges, a much greater dock stretched out into the river and at its end sat a strange ship. Decebal had taken me on the Danube out to the Black Sea with him many times in my life and even as far south as the Adriatic, and I had seen many a style of ship, sail, and oar galley from war ship to trader vessel. This one was far different, larger than any ship of my time, something like a caravel with fore and aft castles and three blood-red rectangular sails running down its middle, but its wood shown like polished ebony and the prow emulated some strange beast head that somewhat reminded me of the Dacian Draco with its combination of wolf head and serpent. There were two extra-long rectangular sails, however, one on each side of the aft and each folded up. They were so gracefully tapered as to look like wings on some huge water bird. But the physical beauty of the ship was almost overridden by its smell, which cloyed the air. Not quite decay, not quite excrement. It wafted then waned with the wind, and gods, I was thankful for any wind that carried that foulness away.
“Nyarlathotep allowed me to pause again and brace myself, to adjust to the odor as well as the beauty, before he ushered me aboard. ‘I present you the Phantasm,’ he said. It was a strange name for a ship, but I had no idea how appropriate at the time. ‘This way, Zyr.’ I shot him a look when he used my abbreviated name. ‘That is what your men called you, did they not?’ I nodded numbly. ‘I rather like it,’ he said. ‘Yes, I like it very much. Come.’”
“So he was getting more personal,” Howard says, and I note the caution in his voice. As if he’s reading an adventure book, he wants to shake that old me in the story and warn that Zyraxes not to listen to the devil who is obviously leading him on.
“Yes, he was,” I say. “I realize now how subtly that acted on me, gradually putting me more and more at ease
. I followed him aboard, and there I looked around at a strange crew. At first, I thought I was looking at men, but they had such pronounced features: large jaundiced eyes and cheek bones and especially large and expressive mouths with thick lips. They wore turbans on their heads that were wrapped so as to create two large frontal humps over their low foreheads, and any facial hair was combed and joined into a goatish wisp on their chins. Their strange shoes clipped and clopped over the boards, and upon glimpsing one, I swore I looked at not a shoe but a hoof. The deck was completely floored with planks, surprising me that the rowers and oar galleys were not visible at all but kept below decks. Nyarlathotep introduced me to none of them and, anyway, they spoke their own language in low, gruff whispers as they took orders to prepare the ship, pulled in the gangplank, and the Phantasm cast off from the dock to drift down the river, with little need of oars or sail on the strong current.
“I was mostly left alone to stand at the ship’s wall and watch the landscape go by, silvery under the stars and the rising full moon, while my new vision still picked out little details such as ripples among the reeds along the bank, or strange farm beasts in meadows or drinking at water’s edge. I was informed when we drifted past Nir, a town set back from the water enough that I could not see anything other than outlying cottages, and then we came to Ulthar, also a small distance inland but larger and spanning over hills with a town center that rose higher with terraces and staggered abodes of rock. I could make out that these structures, while bearing certain common traits that many abodes and businesses have, were far different to any architecture I had ever seen, whether Roman, Dacian, or otherwise. There were more cottages along its entry roads, these often of white-washed walls and thatched roofs, and a greater system of docks reached into the river. I noticed the lounging shapes of several cats on the docks, and watched a night fisherman pull in a net by lantern light and throw out an offering of eel that was immediately surrounded and devoured while it still flopped wetly on the boards. But as the ship veered slightly closer, only because the current temporarily dictated, the cats lost interest in their meal and turned to look at us, raising their backs and hackles. I heard them hissing and issuing warning growls.
