by J K Ishaya
“To look upon the form Nyarlathotep had taken was to forget that he had many, one of which appeared as a beautiful, young Borean male. I had seen two of those alternate forms, but this one was by far the most terrifying. It was as amorphous as the other two, but when that long vertical mouth opened to roar out his angry displeasure, one looked into a million voids, all agents of madness and loss.
“Kvasir reached my side and I handed over his pale queen’s care too him. ‘Make for the passage,’ I said in a voice ragged from the dust and smoke. ‘I will join you.’
“He nodded, spoke something to her in their language, and then quickly began to escort her back through the rubble. From our mutual enemy, there was surprising silence, and then I felt a sort of nudge to my consciousness, like a tap on the shoulder that raised my hackles. I slowly turned to face him again and found there the form I had known the most, that of the entrapped Lyrr.
“‘Zyraxes,’ he said with the same caring as an old friend as he stepped through columns of smoke. There were no traces of the amorphous, fanged monster. ‘You have freed yourself. And your power…’ He released a gasp and then an incredulous but pleased smile spread across his face. ‘How it has grown tremendously already. You do not know what you just did, do you?’
“‘I certainly felt it,’ I replied with something of a snarl.
“‘Magnificent,’ he said, stepping ever closer. ‘The essence of Azathoth does run strong in your veins, perhaps more so than in Malorix’s. I thought you two would be equally measured, but now I suspect that is not the case.’ A loud, pleased peel of near hysterical giggles erupted from him which caused a tight hum of caution to brace every muscle in my body.
"When this giggling and cackling began to die, he shook his head while mirth remained on his face, gleaming in his eyes. 'Extraordinary,' he remarked more quietly while still making little sniveling noises as if he simply could not contain himself.
"I took a breath to interrupt him and dared to explore yet new and startling territory based on Malorix's last words. 'Is he my father?' I asked. When he continued musing to himself, I spoke louder. 'Is Malorix my real father?'
"He blinked for a moment only to have a new disgusting smirk crawl over his lips. 'What? Tell you that, did he? I suspected it,' he finally said but that did not really answer the question. 'For so many years he evaded me both in and outside of the Dreamlands, that he should drop seed along the way is no surprise.' When I said nothing else immediately, he sniffed more quietly. 'Fucked a princess of Sarnath, no less. Well done, Malorix.' Then his humor at the situation dispelled and he stepped forward.
"I, in turn, retreated a step, coiled and ready to fight again, no longer knowing what to say and utmost aware that I had no idea how to end this situation. I may have just tapped a new level of my potential, as he liked to call it, and I could fight for a long period, but I would tire, I would need food to heal, and I would grow weaker against him, while he had now shown how much more he was capable of than I was and had no such enervations to deter him. The evidence lay around me in the rubble and cracked columns, the milky, bloodied bodies of his own creatures destroyed by his wrath while he had been focused on the pale queen.
"'Ah, Zyraxes, do you not understand by now that you have nothing to fear from me? We are of the same substance. You and Malorix are, together, pieces of my own father, the spring from which all of our kind branch. You are both gods, my brothers.’
"How deranged this sounded, yet I could not deny that there was some truth in it, that we were in some ways brothers via aberrant bond, and that churned up a new terror within me which in turn provoked… something else. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I felt a new stir of desperation, and those pieces of Azathoth wormed their way up to lurk under my skin.
"'The power you two alone could wield together,' he said, holding a fist in the air. 'You have no idea.' And now he began to step closer and closer, and I stopped retreating and just as he started to reach out a hand as if in offering, I lashed out.
“Malorix had told me that I was not monster enough, but now I clutched at the monster inside me, pulled it, raging, to surface, to go beyond what I had just done to shield the Borean woman.
"Everything happened within a matter of seconds, but to analyze it is a much slower process. To say what happened to my body then is still impossible, only that it warped in ways beyond my imagination. My fangs budded to greater lengths, oozing their venom as my jaw unhinged, and I felt my face elongate into a gargantuan maw as my other teeth also grew, and the scope of my vision strangely spread, giving me greater perspective of my surroundings from the altar behind me to the one standard that remained upright and billowing potent smoke into the air. Extra eyes, perhaps.
“I cannot say what was left of my human form in those moments. I struck out with what I thought would be a claw but before me swept a mass of fleshy whips tangled around each other. This manifestation slapped Nyarlathotep across the middle, sending him flying backward into the stub of a column that crackled behind him under the force. The flaxen hair around his face hung disheveled as dust rained upon it, and his teeth gritted in a feral grimace. There was no real pain on his face, but he did appear stunned for a fraction of time and then he stepped forward out of the impression his shoulders had made in the stone.
“’Excellent,’ he said under his breath, and suddenly he was again no longer the figure of Lyrr but a murky mass that grew rapidly and loomed over me. It opened its own great maw of jagged teeth and plunged down, ready to gobble me up, but I moved away with speed that would be dizzying for a mortal man to comprehend, flowing around boulders and n’gai bodies as he rumbled after me, and in a blink as the form raised back and a roar of outrage shook the temple, I raised up and reached for him, thrusting my own reach into the edges of that great mouth and pushing back, hyper extending what passed for a jaw before it snapped in half like a steel trap and I screamed as my perception was of having the equivalent of my thumbs bitten off even though I had not hands but something indefinable.
“The sound that came out of me was no mere scream, however, but a roar of my own that sent a ripple of air through the cavern and up into its deepest corners where the clusters of surviving n’gai squirmed and then scampered in multiple directions, running across the ceiling, seeking new shelter before they were caught up in the struggle and joined their dead brethren on the floor.
"We tangled around each other to a degree that I could hardly tell his matter and form from mine, and at times my mind blurred as if unable to keep up with my own actions. This erratic movement, the sensations of being clawed or whipped or ripped, took the tole of making it harder for me to maintain a grasp on the monster. I might have been finding my greatest strength and freakish abilities in that moment, but I was still a novice at applying them, and his far superior experience soon took control of the situation. As we metamorphosed in and out around each other, I found myself seized in great tendrils that curled tightly around a vicinity that I perceived to be my neck, and before I knew it I was spun and thrown into a wall of the temple's arcade.
"The force shook the cavern and rained down new dust. Our entire battle threatened to bring down the last of the temple upon us both, but that threat did not seem frightening at all to me. I pulled myself back into place, the shape of a man, for only a moment to collect my wits, and then I dove at him again, blurring back into my un-form. I manifested teeth again in a long, reptilian snout and opened wide, hoping to clamp down on his middle. Or, at least, the semblance of his middle. With all of his undulations, morphing in and out of a smoke-like state to one of tendrils or claws or even hundreds of mouths, I had no clear target, and when I struck, biting down, I tasted only sourness and ash and a new force blasted me back. I was already changing back into human form as I sailed through the air, trailing remnants of tattered darkness behind me, and then I crashed through the last remaining standard, knocking it to the ground in a clang of bronze and a spew of coal sparks and reignited flames
. My final landing point was the top edge of the altar where I hit the stone square in the middle.
"The stone broke under me, cracking in two as well as collapsing the front wall into a hollow inside the altar, and I landed on my ass, covered in dust and and streaks of my own black ichor. My back had broken in that last collision, leaving me sprawled and clenching my teeth while my spine healed all over again. I strained to push myself up as I looked through the dust and smoke and saw nothing. The flames licked the air near me, warming my face.
"As the last vertebrae slipped back into place with a crick-crack and I started to sit up, he spoke again, his voice an eerie echo that was not in the cavern but within my own mind, speaking the language that I now understood without effort.
"'There is no point fighting, Zyraxes. I have existed since before the birth of the cosmos, while your life is only a spec in time. I will always be stronger than you, little brother, as long as you hold onto your humanity.'
"He began to emerge from the cloudy veil, back in the form of Lyrr, striding toward me with purpose and confidence. I came back around to my prior realization that I was against a tireless foe, and our battle was only a tiff for him, a little sport that he could play indefinitely. I could morph and tear at him and thrash and unleash all the fury in the world, but I would get nowhere.
"I grunted as I started to push myself up out of the crumbled hollow, hoping that at least I had done some good here by allowing the Boreans to escape if they had discovered Malorix's route. It was then that something red flickered in the corner of my eye and I angled my gaze subtly to look upon something lying there in the dust and broken stone inside the altar. The item had been situated upon a cushion, but my inadvertent demolishing of its sanctuary had bounced it off into a nook formed by the angle of broken flat rock, and there it was, catching light on one of its facets. There was a briefness as I pondered why it seemed familiar. After all, it had been over a week's journey through the Dreamlands since I had heard of it, but then everything Kvasir had told me about the shining red gem came rushing into my thoughts, particularly that it was Nyarlathotep's own personal portal into this world, his means of connecting with and possessing a human host.
"'All I know is that it must be stored in complete and utter darkness for him to maintain a firm hold, and so it must be within these caverns somewhere,' my prison mate had said.
"It had to be the one, I thought, and though it was well coated in gray dust, I saw not only a red gleam but the dark striations he had described. It would have definitely been in complete darkness inside the altar until now. Immediately a new hope and idea rose in my mind, and all the while, Nyarlathotep came closer. He stopped and stood some twelve feet away, and I looked up at him with dread, trying not to betray my discovery.
"'No matter where you go or what you do in this world, Azathoth will always be with you, calling through your dreams,’ he continued, 'and one day you will accept him.'
"My hand eased into the nook and gripped the stone, a thumb gently wiping away some dust, feeling how perfectly smooth the surfaces were and how cleanly cut the edges. It terminated at both ends, the points sharp. With a breath I rose and thrust it out before me to show him what I had and, importantly, that I knew what it was.
"'Maybe,' I said with a raspy voice, 'but not today.'
“There was a subtle shift in his expression from confident to concerned. He swallowed as if his throat had suddenly grown extremely tight.
"'It is yours, is it not?' I asked.
"He paused, clearly collecting a response that would deter me. 'Just a ruby. You know where it is from.'
"'Oh, I believe it is more than just a ruby,' I said as I eased toward the lingering fire that still clung to a few coals from the overturned standard.
"'No, merely a ruby,' he said with deeper calmness. I have to say, his bluff work was amazing.
"'Then you will not care if I do this,' I said as I held it over the flames. 'Sunlight would be better,' I said, 'but I'd think fire would do just as nicely to… Drive. You. Out.'
"I had his complete attention then, and he knew that I was in no way bluffing at all.
"'Zyr,' he uttered, the gentlest of pleas that made him seem more human than ever. 'Do not…'
"'Do not what?' I lowered it deeper, until I felt the flames lick my hand around the gem and my flesh burn. I held on to it there, even as black blisters formed and popped around my wrist, on my knuckles, and I gritted my teeth against the pain, tried not to smell my own flesh roasting and crisping.
"I had him," I say lowly as I relish the memory of that moment. Then with more gusto. "I had him."
Howard's eyes are the widest they have been all night while he draws in and chews on his lower lip.
"'Zyr,' he begged, 'please put it away, back into the dark.' When that did not illicit what he wished, he said, 'Who will guide you, in your new existence? Only I have the key to make you whole, for you to fulfill your potential.'
"'That is a risk I will simply have to take,' I replied and with that I dropped the stone into the fire completely.
"He gasped then and a hand reached out, fingers curled, but he did not make a move toward the flames. It was as if he instantly became paralyzed. 'You have accomplished nothing, Zyraxes,' he said with a new rustiness creeping into his voice. 'Sooner or later, you will return to the Dreamlands. They are as much your home as this world… and I will be waiting.'
"I do not know what I expected to happen. Perhaps to see Nyarlathotep burst, in tenebrous spirit form, from his host and descend into the ground as if banished to some underworld for Outer Gods. But he went with barely a whisper more, withdrawing as if slipping through a backdoor. The ever-present glow of the scarab jewel in his head band faded on his brow. As he stared at me, black ichor suddenly oozed from the edges of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. It left behind the clearer green eyes of a Borean man who looked thoroughly dazed. Then those eyes rolled up inside his head and he started to collapse.
"I shot forward in a dash and caught him, or rather, I caught the unconscious body of Lyrr."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
"Just like that," Howard says, the slightest happy smile on his lips. "You defeated him with his own device."
"Defeated?" I say. "No. But I chased him off for a time." I look at Kvasir who quietly nods. "I know that is no satisfying answer for you."
"Then what happened?"
"I lowered Lyrr's body to the ground and gave a quick examination to find that he was breathing, if shallowly. Whether or not he was still in there, I could not say, nor could I be sure that Nyarlathotep had actually fled his host's person or merely crouched down to hide within. I had no answers, so I could only take chances, and I felt that if I could at least save this individual, that would be something. A single win in the maddening eternal war that I saw stretching before me. This man, Lyrr, was affected by Nyarlathotep's schemes much the way Malorix and I had been, and so I could not help but feel a connection to him, even while I had only known him in name.
“I gazed across the floor where I saw the gem sitting in its nest of flames, flickers of bright red swirling with the black striations that appeared to be near its surface. There would be no way to understand more about the device without bringing it along. Bracing myself for more pain, I reached forward and snatched it from the flames, burning my hand again. I juggled it somewhat as I made my way back to the prone form and there nested it tightly into one hand where it continued to cook my palm while I awkwardly gathered Lyrr's body back into my arms and hoisted him over one shoulder with his upper body and head dangling behind me.
"My fight with Nyarlathotep had further weakened the cavern supports, and the mountain was now more impatient. The great hollow of the temple, at least, would go first, while the rest might hold up but there was no guarantee of that. In the crevasses above, the remaining n’gai, stricken completely by the unexpected expulsion of their leader, were scrambling deeper into the areas that composed the temple's arcade, d
ucking out of sight behind the crumbling arches.
"I stood with my cargo and carried him back toward the passage, dodging long drips of raining dust and chunkier rocks as they fell. In the passage I sniffed out the others along with that fresher air that came through on the faintest current. I followed this while the rumbling behind me continued and could only hope that a cave-in would not follow me all the way through the tunnel from the temple or destroy the rest of the lair before I might have a chance to try to recover Malorix.
"Billows of dust pushed through the passage behind me, and I quickened my pace to turn a bend and nearly run into Kvasir and his queen. I barely glimpsed the lady as she remained slightly ahead of us, a luminescent figure melting around corners, but he was gaping in amazement to see me.
"'Lyrr?’ He gasped the question. ‘You have him? How?’ His voice was every bit as rusty as mine had become, and he attempted to get a better look at his foster brother.
"I understood his anxiousness to examine the situation, but we had not the time. 'Go,' I rasped back at him. 'Go-go-go.’ I sniffed the air, searching for the current that would lead us to freedom. Kvasir nodded but still walked awkwardly sideways so that he could look back at my load, nearly tripping, while I continued to herd him. In his distraction—and mine, too, since I was carrying both a limp body and a hot stone—he turned directly into the attack of a single n'gai that sprang screeching from a cross passage. So sudden was it that I stumbled backward and felt Lyrr slide from my shoulder. I shifted quickly to allow him the softest landing possible as I shot forward while still clamping the burning red gem.
