Necropolis: Book 3: Pharaoh

by Michel Weatherall

  I’m confused. There are no animals other than the bats and giant moths on this island. What could have taken and eaten it?

  ~

  Feb. 5th, 2001

  The next morning my bat-net had three bats. I killed them by bashing their heads with a rock. This time I took one to skin and cook, but let the other two dead and tied in the net.

  Again, after eating the cooked bat for my supper I suffered debilitating stomach cramps all night. I decided in the morning I would take down and discard the bat-net.

  ~

  Feb. 6th, 2001

  I was shocked by my discovery this morning. The two bats tied in my bat-net overnight were frantically flapping their wings! Not only were they trying to escape, they were alive, their bashed in heads still dented and misshapen!

  With shaking hands I cut them free. I touched the side of my head and blurry eye. Maybe I did die when I fell two years ago?

  ... and what of the bats I skinned and cooked and ate...?

  My legs shook and my heart was filled with icy dread as I reluctantly limped to the latrine in the forest. Even though I had half expected what I found, it did not lessen the horror.

  The digested remnants of my meal floundered and swam beneath the surface in the latrine.

  ..................

  The Eye of Osiris

  circa 1242 BCE

  Moshe’s mastery of Gateways and teleportation wasn’t due to experience, but to a natural and innate sense. He could feel them. It was a weird, esoteric and profound knowledge. It coursed through his blood, woven into the very fabric of his being. He was a Symbiot-hybrid.

  As odd as it was to say, little surprised Moshe in these surprisingly outré spaces between the spaces.

  But this time was different. He sensed the extreme, the maximum, of distance traversed in his pursuit of Pharaoh. He instinctively knew Pharaoh Nyarlathotep teleported to the other side of the world.

  Although surprisingly distant, it was still only a location. What caught Moshe off guard was that – somehow – they weren’t alone. As he plunged down this metaphysical corridor he could feel the eyes – nay, the awareness - of a monstrosity boring into him. He could hear Its call just at the peripheral edge of his mind; calling just from the edge of sanity. But even hidden and cloaked and submerged, Moshe could feel Its very nature. Its nature was anything but sane. Its call was subtle, alien, contagious, infective, insidious, but most definitely, madness. It left a taint.

  He simply blocked it off; turned the signal off. The final fleeting impression he received before the vault-like doors of his mind clanged shut was one of absolute shock and surprise! Whatever – and wherever – this thing was, it had never encountered the likes of Moshe before.

  Nyarlathotep’s teleportation trail through the psychic ether was unmistakeable. The exit-point from this bodiless nowhere realm came into focus in Moshe’s mind. As he focused on this point Moshe exited this realm of the nothing and entered into the realm of the real.

  ..................

  Oceanic Point of Inaccessibility,

  Central-South Pacific Ocean,

  circa 1242 BCE

  (3168 years ago)

  A forested oasis sat atop a stalagmite column of stone and cliffs. Three hundred feet in the air it towered over a quiet and black ocean. To Moshe, it seemed like a phallic symbol or an obscene gesture towards the sacredness of nature. It was a blight, a mockery; an insult.

  The sky was black on one horizon and the colour of a purple bruise on the other. Moshe’s sense of direction was askew. He couldn’t tell East from West. If he had needed to pray, he couldn’t begin to have guessed which direction he should face in. He didn’t know if the sun was rising or had already set. The indigo-skied twilight cast strange shadows and played with his sense of perspective.

  But strangest of all, most obscene of all, sat a squat stone structure in the island’s centre. Both temple and pyramid, it conformed to absolutely no architectural style, culture, or people Moshe was familiar with. Its oddly cut stones were carved with sharply etched runes or hieroglyphics of extreme alien design. The colour of its stones were impossible to tell. The dark purple sky tainted everything indigo or left it hidden in shadows.

  Moshe needed to get a better view of the temple-pyramid. As he pushed his way through the foliage he was surprised to encounter strange large fruit of the most unusual sort. As large as his head, the colour of a cadaver, they belonged in nightmares. They were covered with spikes. He winced and quickly withdrew his hand as he touched one, its spikes razor-sharp! He carefully avoided them for the remainder of his journey inland.

  When he entered the central clearing and stood before the alien temple-pyramid, he felt his eyes had betrayed him. Was it the twilight that played tricks with his eyes? The stone squat pyramid stood directly before him in the clearing one moment, and then the next it seemed to sit off in the distance on the horizon. Although it was as solid as the stones it was made of, and there was no movement, it flickered back and forth between perspectives, never committing or deciding whether it was near or far.

  Moshe wasn’t going to be lulled into its trap. He didn’t need his eyes to find Pharaoh. He cleared his mind, closed his eyes, and lowered his thought-shields.

  He immediately picked up the taint that was Pharaoh in the squat pyramid before him. But the presence of that monstrosity returned. This time it was significantly stronger and nearby. He could taste it strongest towards to bruised coloured horizon. No longer on the peripheral edge of his sanity, it outright whispered in his mind now! Like an exposed boil on his mind, it begged to be itched! It called out to him. It courted his sanity and insanity to elope!

  Moshe recognized it. He had heard it before, but never so loudly; never so clearly! Krulgh, Cthulhu’s High Priest of dreams! He closed his mind. Shut it out. Krulgh wasn’t his concern. He needed to finish Pharaoh.

  ..................

  Schäfer’s Expedition

  Egypt, Pharaoh’s Tomb, 1925

  (3168 years later)

  The Stanton brothers were making noise in the corridor. Otto had his sketchbook open and was drawing the Egyptian hieroglyphic Music of the Spheres while Donita went to investigate the commotion.

  Further up the corridor the brothers were unpacking their bags and backpacks. They were equipped with tripods, cameras with large accordion-like bellows, and other photographic paraphernalia.

  Donita was somewhat surprised. It was odd and strange to see the Stanton brothers with such high-end equipment and cutting-edge technology. She had always viewed them as backwater, inbred American hillbillies. The two were like water and oil. What the hell were they doing with this stuff?

  “Dr. Schäfer?” Donita called back over her shoulder and down the hall. The Stanton brothers were clearly wrapped up in their work and hadn’t noticed Donita until she spoke. Ezra snapped his attention on her.

  “Jeb! Get dem odder two, quiet-like,” he said to his brother as he drew his knife.

  Jebediah drew a short sword sized Bowie knife, pinned Donita to the wall as he squeezed past into the tomb behind her.

  “Otto!” Donita shouted into the tomb, “Run!” She never took her eyes off Ezra. “What’s all this about?” she asked. “Leave the other two out of this.”

  Ezra crouched into a fighting stance. He looked like he knew how to use the knife. “Don’t you worry youse pretty lit’le head,” he said. “We like you! And besides, you’s useful to us. You can read the Music!”

  Donita was shocked they were even aware of this esoteric knowledge and music. She realized she had underestimated and misjudged the pair. “What do you want with the Music? You’re just a pair of simpletons!” She was trying to rile Ezra up, make him lose his patience, make him make a mistake.

  “But your friend and the Doctor, well, they ain’t so useful to us!” And as Ezra spoke the words, the German Doctor’s scream from the tomb was cut short by a choking gurgling sound.

  Ezra inched closer to D
onita with his knife in hand.

  Donita tilted her head to one side and smiled out of the corner of her mouth. “Only a stupid little cunt like you would bring a knife to a gunfight,” and she drew her revolver.

  Ezra reached behind his back to draw his pistol.

  ..................

  Diary of a Madman

  VII: What Lurks Below

  March 9th, 2001

  I had long since abandoned hope in the GPS. If its intermittent results were to be believed, my island is in the central-south Pacific Ocean, far outside any shipping lanes or even ocean currents. I could not be more lost. I don’t however believe it ever worked correctly.

  But now I am fearful as to where I truly am. I fear the worst. I need to get off this island! When I had first arrived on my island over six years ago, I had tied or anchored – I’m not sure what the correct term is? I had tied my lifeboat to the cliff-face and climbed up. I had no way of knowing at the time of this island’s strange tides and ocean swells. When the ocean rose, I thought the lifeboat lost – sunk. When the ocean dropped to reveal the plateau-like secondary lower island, the boat was left hanging and dangling from the cliffs.

  This repeated action damaged the lifeboat beyond repair. I wish I now still had the lifeboat. I welcome the death at sea over this fearful cursed island!

  The boat seems like it belongs in another life. I keep the supplies and tools in my lean-to shed. When I was searching for tools to fashion a chisel I stumbled across my flare-gun. It was what jogged my memory.

  ~

  March 13th, 2001

  I fashioned my chisel out of the old lifeboat’s metal oar locks. I will begin carving Its face into the largest stone on my floor.

  ~

  April 3rd, 2001

  Although my makeshift chisel works well, it dulls quickly. It makes my project of engraving Its face much more effort than I imagined.

  ~

  June 4th (?), 2002

  I have long since finished the engraving. I regret carving the face into the stone. It makes this nightmare creature all the more tangible and eerily real. Every morning I am drawn to greet it. Every morning I make a concentrated effort to cover it with dirt. I am once again out of projects to occupy my time and avoid sleeping at night. I need something to do.

  ~

  August 2nd (?), 2002

  I shall collect vines and weave a long rope. I feel confident after my bat-nets. I shall explore the depths of this island’s central cavern.

  ~

  October 7th (?), 2002

  My first attempt at exploring the central cavern’s depths ended in failure. The rope I constructed simply wasn’t long enough. I don’t know how long to make it. I cannot imagine how deep the throat-like cavern goes.

  ~

  Dec. 9th (?), 2002

  On my second attempt, once again, my woven rope wasn’t long enough. I believe it is currently 200 feet long. I’ll weave it to a length of 400 feet before I try again.

  ~

  Apr. 4th, 2003

  I reached the bottom of the central cavern today! Clearly there must be a network of caverns that extends further as the spring water cascades from the cavern walls must drain somewhere, but my exploration had proceeded no further due to what I found.

  I found what I originally thought to be a mummy. Part of it reminded me of the peat-bog mummies, its skin perfectly preserved and black as pitch. But on some deep level I knew this was impossible. It was exposed to the open air. I knew peat-bog mummies were preserved due to the absence of oxygen.

  It half sat slumped to its left side, its left arm and legs submerged in a small pool of water. Its legs were encrusted in limestone. Its left arm, right up to and including its shoulder was solid stone – fossilized! How long had it been here?

  What little remained of its clothing were in tatters, but around its neck it wore jewelry; a single oddly cut gem embedded in a golden amulet.

  The gem played tricks with my eyes. At times it appeared to radiate an ever so faint light of its own from within. It had to have been an optical illusion; a trick of the light filtering down from the daylight above.

  I thought I had discovered the mummified remains of my island’s previous occupant... until it moved!

  There was no mistaking it. This was no illusion of the light. Its right arm slowly clasped its necklace as it slowly – every so painfully slowly – turned its head towards me and open its eyes!

  My hand is still shaking as I record this entry into my journal. I swear, as I climbed and fled from the cavern – I swear to God! - I heard it crying out to me!

  CHAPTER VI: THE SANE EDGE OF R’LYEH

  The Eye of Osiris

  Oceanic Point of Inaccessibility,

  Central-South Pacific Ocean,

  circa 1242 BCE

  (3168 years ago)

  The green and gold flecks in Moshe’s eyes became animated with a life all of their own. They seemed to swim and swirl as he took in the details of this aeons old forgotten alien temple on the other side of the world.

  Although Moshe did not have the words, the vocabulary, or the science to name what his eyes saw, he intuitively knew. They were gravity fluctuations. Sporadic and intermittent time-space curvatures. He could feel it in his bones. He could sense it flowing through his blood. The ancient alien temple-pyramid sat at the very edge of an event; a time-space curvature ‘bubble’ or occurrence. Its bizarre outré laws of physics – or lack thereof – were only beginning to extend their influence here. But enough for him to feel them; enough for them to influence visual perception slightly.

  Although Moshe could taste Pharaoh Nyarlathotep’s influence and presence here, he couldn’t pinpoint it. It wasn’t just the minor gravity fluctuations, but the presence – the taint – of something else. There was an ever present blanketing miasma permeating throughout the psychic ether. Like a cloud of mosquitoes in the wilderness, it simply couldn’t be ignored.

  He knew it was the High Priest Krulgh, but he had never heard its whispering call so strongly, so loud before. It must be very near.

  Moshe’s ears barely heard the whistling blade before he managed to block the sword with his staff, its wickedly hooked sickle-like blade arching past and grazing his shoulder, drawing blood.

  With his free hand, Moshe pushed with a telekinetic force at his assailant.

  Pharaoh was physically thrown and slammed into the strange stone walls but – offering Moshe no reprieve, no time to regroup his thoughts – immediately returned his attack!

  Pharaoh’s telekinetic tentacles snaked through the ether and shattered several stone pillars, but before their debris could fall, launched the stones at Moshe.

  This return barrage happened so quickly, had Moshe been forced to think first, he surely would have been crushed! His reaction was instinctive and immediate. The green and gold flecks in his eyes shone brightly as a series of purple gateways snapped open and disappeared, existing only long enough to swallow the largest stones.

  He drove his staff at the ground and both physically and telekinetically threw himself up and out of the path of Pharaoh’s thrusting sword. From his aerial position he let go a psychic concussion wave, blasting the smaller rubble and debris to dust.

  Pharaoh was thrown to the ground. Dust fell from the alien stone overhead and sharp cracks spread across the floor where Moshe’s staff had struck.

  Moshe allotted Pharaoh no time from his prone position.

  Moshe didn’t need the Music of the Spheres for his mastery of Gateways and Gatespheres. It was innate and woven into the very fabric of his being. His eyes were blazing beacons of light as the black walls of his summoned Gatesphere sprang into existence and raced past them in its expansion. But as Moshe was about to summon a Gateway into the Prison-Universe, he felt the strange curving time-space tides of the neighbouring event. The occurrence hungrily eating at the boundaries of the Gatesphere. It demanded his near full attention to maintain the Gatesphere. Opening the Gateway required
too much concentration. Moshe was momentarily surprised and distracted by this turn of events.

  Pharaoh wasted no time, telekinetically lifting pieces of the shattered stone floor and launched them at Moshe.

  Another concussion wave pulverized the stone to smithereens.

  From Moshe’s higher vantage point he could see nothing beneath the broken stone floor; a dark yawning chasm of blackness. The alien pyramid must have been build upon some sort of abyss or pit or cavern.

  He might not be able to banish Nyarlathotep into the Prison-Universe, but he could kill him, forcing him to exit Pharaoh’s body and reincarnate.

  From his hovering levitated position, Moshe began drawing every ounce of energy he could find and muster from his surroundings. Outside the temple-pyramid the sky churned violently and the ocean rose and rolled. Moshe focused the collecting energy into the palms of his hands as he released concussion wave after concussion wave, protecting himself and pinning Pharaoh.

  So cogent was the power in his cupped hands as it grew exponentially, it became visible! It glowed with the brightness of a noon-hour sun! It wanted to break free. Moshe felt its energy surging and twisting against the very fabric of the nearby time-space curving event, but he held its growing power.

  ...then Moshe released the gravity-pulse. The shock wave shattered the walls and ceiling of the temple. The remnants of the floor were crushed and tumbled down the chasm. Pharaoh’s bones were pulverized by the initial impact. The entire stone structure of the alien temple-pyramid collapsed and plummeted down into the abyssal pit. Moshe levitated higher still, exiting the ruins of the temple and entering open sky. He released another gravity-pulse. He could feel the shock waves batter against temporal curvatures. Momentary flashes of different times and alternate universes showing between the ripples. The crushed and shattered remains of Pharaoh were bashed and crushed like a bloody rag by the colliding stone masonry as it thundered and roared down the cavern’s throat!