Misquamacus’ army sprang almost as one to their feet.
Kabede took the Rod of Aaron in one hand, held it back over his shoulder, and brandished the sharpened end of it like a spear. Then he flung it down.
It whistled over all their heads, and landed with a smashing sound in the mirror face of Nyarlathotep.
The creature reared back and screamed, a sound like rusty nails dragged across glass.
The wolf men of the Ishaks and the Tonkawas were the fastest. They sprang toward the rocks and bounded up the sheer stone, claws scrabbling, digging into the rock like pitons. Bloody Jaw and Moon Cloud led the charge, baying madly. They raced on all fours straight up at Kabede. In response, the five Gans leapt as one from the rocks and came down full force on the wolf men, tumbling all the way back down with them, powerful, painted legs wrapped around their lupine necks, hacking and hewing into them with their short swords with no regard for their own safety. Blood flew into the air.
Kabede looked in wonder and confusion, then began to climb down.
“He doesn’t see them,” the Rider thought in wonder. “Kabede doesn’t see The Gan.”
“No,” said Piishi. “He looks with a white man’s eyes.”
The Pawnee and the outlaw Apache took up their weapons and rushed Vittorio and the others. A few shots were fired, but the fighting was soon too close. Again clubs and axes rose and fell and screams were heard, but not the pitiful wailing of slaughtered victims. These were the war cries and death calls of warriors clashing. The unarmed reservation bands fought with their hands and belt knives, and soon had captured weapons which they turned on their enemies.
Slim Ghost and his skinwalkers alone did not join the battle. They gathered into a circle and faced each other. Words were muttered, which the Rider/Piishi could not discern. Soon they too were transforming, each man in his own way. Some grew tall, their limbs elongating, swelling with muscle and hair and bursting from their clothes. But they were not werewolves, like the Ishaks and the Tonkawas. They resembled ape-like perversities of men now, every tooth jagged as no animal’s maw was, and yet their bulging yellow eyes remained cunning and full of their former malevolent intelligence. They turned as one outward, and fished in their magic bags for dark implements.
Whatever they were about to do, the Rider knew they had to be stopped before they completed it. But there were other threats. Misquamacus staggered, but pulled the big Bowie knife out of his chest and let it fall.
He drew out his rhombus again and began to twirl it in a strange pattern, mumbling at the night sky.
Nyarlathotep had been dealt a grievous blow by Kabede, and his physical form seemed to be deteriorating. He was sinking back into the ground, the sand painting in which he stood distorting, turning into a dripping mud, a sinkhole. But the staff was sinking with him, sliding into some space behind his shattered face.
Something in what the old shaman was doing was reacting with the form of Nyarlathotep. The black, stinking smoke that had been leaking out from around the glass face was pouring out of the hole the staff had opened now, and it seemed to be drawn into Misquamacus’ rhombus like a cyclone, the smoke twisting and funneling up into the sky.
“He calls something else,” Piishi guessed.
“You may be right,” the Rider thought. “The skinwalkers or the staff?”
“We have no weapon,” Piishi reasoned.
“The staff then.”
The Rider/Piishi ran through the battle, ducking blows and suffering accidental slashes from the preoccupied combatants. The baying of the Ishaks and the Tonkawas had gone from a snarling in the air to a howling and yelping as of a pack of hound dogs sustaining a beating from an irate master. The Gans were doing their part, no doubt. Then he heard a rifle crashing in rapid succession, and he knew Kabede had reached the bottom of the rock wall and was blasting away with his chain rifle. Hopefully Belden’s shooting lessons would pay off.
Finally they burst from the fray and reached the base of the stone upon which Misquamacus had climbed once more to summon his new threat.
Nyarlathotep was waist high, its melting head tilted back. The end of the Rod of Aaron was only just visible in its face now, sinking not into the earth, but into some void behind its face.
With only a little hesitation, The Rider/Piishi leapt at the thing, piercing what felt like a physical bubble of nausea and grabbed hold of the staff. The muddy arms of the melting creature clamped on Piishi’s’ shoulders, embracing them, dragging them down to their knees. Where its hands touched, Piishi’s arms sang with a burning pain so intense that he let go of the staff and it slid into the gaping, smoking face.
Both hands now. The Rider forced it, pushing beyond Piishi’s screaming, fighting down both their instincts to wither in the thing’s agonizing grip and die. The staff was slipping further in. Piishi’s hands were up to the forearms in its head, and the inside felt like an open flame. First an itching, then a searing burn. They both screamed.
Something slimy and undulous within the depths of the face slithered over their wrists, binding them to the staff, now pulling them into the yawning face up to the shoulders, the humanoid arms grasping, stuffing them in. Whatever Nyarlathotep truly was, it was in that hole. This man-like form was but a suit to allow it to interact with this world, like a man in deep diving dress. But the man was without, and the monster was within.
A great thick black tentacle devoid of suckers curled up from the smoky hole and lashed at Piishi’s face.
It was like being in a tug of war over a glowing red iron bar with a herd of elephants knee deep in boiling water.
The Rider felt Piishi’s flesh peeling away, dropping in clumps from his hands. Soon there would be no tendons to even carry on the struggle.
“I can let go,” the Rider thought. “I must. This isn’t my body. Piishi.”
“No!” roared Piishi’s mind.
Then the form of Nyarlathotep shuddered again, and the nail on glass scream became unbearably loud. The tentacle retracted, retreated into the hole. The Rider/Piishi fell back, drawing out the staff with momentum. They fell flat, utterly spent, the Rod of Aaron across their chest, smoking. The hands that nominally gripped it, Piishi’s hands, were shredded, devoid of flesh, the bone and muscle exposed.
They were aware of a figure standing over them, holding a pistol in one hand and a rifle in the other. It was the Rider’s engraved Henry with its Elder Sign. The old man in blue, his ridiculous hat gone, his long hair flying about in the violent windstorm Misquamacus was kicking up.
Nyarlathotep was gone. The Rider and Piishi felt it depart. It laughed as it went, the insane mirth trailing off like that of a madman dancing naked down an alley.
Kabede was leaning over them then, a look of concern on his face. He lifted the Rod of Aaron, winced at the sight of Piishi’s hands. He began to unravel his headdress to wind through the ruined, bloody fingers.
“The skinwalkers,” The Rider/Piishi muttered.
But neither Faustus nor Kabede could hear him above the blow.
The Rider laid his head back.
The wind was roaring now. The night sky was a great black hole empty of stars, framed by the unnatural smoke that had poured out of Nyarlathotep, a great cyclone miles in width poised above them in the sky. It swept red grit and dust and tore at their clothing and ripped the gold away in flakes from the teetering colossus that stood behind Misquamacus. He had ceased twirling his rhombus and now stood on the rock looking up into the strange storm with open admiration, his clothes and hair flapping about him.
“Misquamacus!” Faustus yelled.
The old shaman looked to hear his name and his placid expression fell slightly.
“You!” he yelled, seeing Faustus. “You are too late, brother. Nyarlathotep is gone, but Ossodagowah is here. Look.”
He pointed skyward.
Something was coming out of the center of the storm. The dark whirling clouds were parting to allow it. It was like a gargantuan black and yel
low mottled tadpole, underdeveloped limbs dangling from beneath a tapering body that swished as it navigated the sky. Two bulging frog-like eyes were situated on either side of its bullet head, and when its wide maw opened, a mass of writhing anemone-like tentacles sprang forth. It coughed up thick flocks of smaller winged creatures, swirling about in odd formations like scavenging seagulls alighting from the corpse of a whale. A green glow burst within the cloud like strange, hidden lightning. Thunder rolled across the mountains.
The storm seemed to suck all heat out of Pa-Gotzin-Kay. The campfire flames were drawn into the sky and died. The waterfall froze before their eyes and the pool iced over. Snow began to fall.
Faustus raised the pistol and squeezed off a shot in Misquamacus’ direction.
Something, a bat or a bird, maybe one of the things swarmed about the creature above, streaked out of the night and silently intercepted the bullet, exploding in a burst of blood and greasy down.
He fired again, and another small flying creature interposed itself and was destroyed.
Misquamacus smiled with a frenzied glee and raised his arms. His long hair began to stand on end and the little stones around him took to the air and hovered there.
Then they began to streak out towards Faustus, one at a time. Slashes of blood opened on his cheeks and forehead.
Larger stones rolled toward Misquamacus or rose dripping from the pool to shudder in the air around him.
Faustus dropped the pistol and swung the Henry rifle with its Elder Sign up to his cheek.
The bullet from the rifle smacked into the center of Misquamacus’ forehead. The old shaman sank to his knees, still smiling. Blood trickled from the wound and traced a scarlet mustache over his lips before he tumbled to his face. In a few moments the great golden statue wavered in the buffeting wind and crumbled, the head rolling back from the shoulders, the arms dropping off. The whole thing fell to a shimmering dust that scattered on the surface of the icy pool and sank.
The wind and the approach of the massive thing turning ponderously in the sky did not cease. The snow soon turned everything a luminous white.
The wind seemed to be sentient, as if it were the invisible arms of the thing in the cloud. It picked the Rider/Piishi up bodily and hurled them about. They were not aware what became of Faustus and Kabede or the other Indians. They were treated to racing, sickeningly fast images as he was caught up in the freezing cyclone and spun around, dashed again and again against the stone with bone breaking force.
Piishi was dying. The Rider could feel it. He could feel the tug on his own soul as death overwhelmed Piishi’s battered body.
“Escape,” Piishi’s voice commanded, still strong, untouched by the violence of the storm. “Escape, Rider!”
It was hard to focus on that voice. The roaring wind rang in his ears, the ceaseless, furious swirling. He tasted blood, felt bits of teeth crumble from his mouth. His extremities flapped like sailcloth, all the bones shattered. Every rag doll movement was a new agony as the shards of his skeleton clashed and rattled. His torn skin was numb and freezing. Everything was coming in flashes of black and green and white now. Were they up inside the storm-thing? Then something was all over him and he screamed, reminded again of the time Lilith’s ruhin brood had swarmed about him in a cloud of nightjars, picking at him. He couldn’t defend himself this time. His arms were useless. He couldn’t even curl up. His back was broken. The flying things were in his eyes. He could feel them burrowing and tearing in. He was blind. He felt blood being siphoned from him through a dozen different wounds. He turned over and over. It was impossible to know which end was up. There was no frame of reference for his mind. He vomited. Tasted more blood. They were in his mouth. He bit down and something burst between his broken teeth and flooded his mouth with a sticky, foul tasting syrup, and tore his cheeks away with tiny razors to escape.
“Escape,” Piishi was still saying. “Escape. Flee!”
“No,” the Rider thought. “No. Fight. Somehow…”
“Only one way to fight. Go!”
“What way?” The Rider asked weakly, feeling Piishi’s consciousness reassert, pushing him away, wrestling control away from him. In his weakened state he could hardly resist.
“No, don’t go back there,” the Rider pleaded. “Only pain.”
“One way…”
“No…what? Sleep…”
One word…
“Word? No!” The Rider thought. He knew what word. Piishi knew it too. Just as the Rider had known Apache, known about the Gans, shared their memories without any words passing between them. Faustus had warned him. Nothing to resonate with. Nothing to contain the power. No focus…
“I am the container. I am a bullet,” Piishi roared in the Rider’s mind. “A bullet in its face!”
“No…Piishi…”
Then his spirit was kicked out the back of Piishi’s broken body. He was twisting in the Yenne Velt, disoriented, but his sense of mind quickly returning, his will solidifying, steadying him. He could see, and the pain was gone. He was falling back to earth, but he remembered Jacobi’s aerial maneuvers and found he could slow his descent if he concentrated. He was high above the basin. Down below…so many luminous, departed spirits. The dead…Apache or others? And what about Piishi?
A great shape suddenly moved past his spirit, jostling him in the wake of its passing, breaking his concentration. A naked figure soared towards Piishi’s body, in the mouth of Ossodagowah, on colossal black feathered wings. An angel…what angel?
Samael. The Angel of Death.
How could he see him? Was it because he had been so close to sharing Piishi’s death?
Then he heard Piishi’s ragged voice belt out in the storm, propelled by one last desperate breath—
“Shamblaparn!”
The intense white light started in Piishi’s heart and swiftly consumed his body, as if he’d swallowed a shot glass of nitroglycerine and burped. He burned up like an exploding star in the night sky. Ossodagowah, the tearing things, they were all consumed. Even the angel’s wings caught fire. The Rider fell, end over end, carried back on the supernal winds, shooting like a skyrocket, Pa-Gotzin Kay receding quickly beneath his feet.
In the next instant he was gasping, the smell of candle wax and the closeness of the apparition booth, so compact it was stifling. He leapt, needles running up and down his sleeping limbs as he lashed out blindly at dark shapes that moved all around him. He heard breaking glass and thought of the false face of Nyarlathotep.
Then he was blinking back light and falling forward, tumbling to the floor of the vardo, ears ringing, brain pounding with the shock of having been snapped back into his body.
Dick Belden was crouched over him. He had pulled open the door at the commotion.
“Jesus, Joe,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think you’d ever come outta there.”
“Kabede and the old man…” he rasped. His throat was dry from disuse. He was ravenous and parched.
“They left yesterday with the corporal of the rurales. Hell, I been worried. Them that stayed behind have been eyein’ me and this coach like we’re somethin’ to eat. Tell me we can get the hell outta here.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” the Rider said.
Two days later they met Kabede and Faustus on the road north back to the border. The Rider had known where they would meet and when. The little amulet Faustus had given him, the one that had led him to Piishi told him its mate was coming, and he knew Piishi was dead. Faustus must have recovered it.
He’d had a long hard think in between Belden’s questions, and Faustus and Kabede could see it in his tired expression when they met again, though Belden greeted them with small talk and more questions.
“These camels are harder to drive than blind mules,” Belden said.
“They’re not used to anyone but me,” Faustus said. Then, to the Rider, who had been silent the whole time. “Are you alright?”
“What about the Apache?”
&
nbsp; “When I killed Misquamacus all but Vittorio’s band disappeared. I imagine they went back to San Carlos. I don’t even know if they’ll remember what happened up there. Vittorio bade us promise not to tell the secret of the stronghold, and allowed us to leave.”
“Why would he do that?” Belden wondered.
“He said we walked with the Gan,” said Kabede.
“What about the Pawnee and the skinwalkers?”
“Dead or fled,” said Kabede.
“Misquamacus was your brother,” he said then, to Faustus.
Kabede whirled on Faustus, but only stared.
“Yes,” said Faustus slowly. “We came to this universe together, pursuing the Dark Man, Nyarlathotep, the herald of the Great Old Ones. Misquamacus went first, and was injured in the crossing. I believe that’s how the Dark Man corrupted him.”
“You didn’t tell us that,” said Kabede, appalled.
“It didn’t come up,” Faustus said.
“A half truth is a whole lie,” said the Rider.
“Would it have made a difference?” Faustus said.
Kabede dismounted and went to stand beside the Rider, who got down from the vardo with Belden. He took out the Rider’s Bowie knife and handed it to him.
“Very likely, yes,” said Kabede.
“You did what needed to be done,” said Faustus.
“You knew he wouldn’t listen to reason,” said the Rider.
“I suspected. But there was a chance with you. With me he would’ve called down all his powers from the start.”
“Nyarlathotep is Adam Belial,” the Rider said, making his way to the back of the wagon where his onager and Belden’s horse were tied.
“How do you know that?” Faustus asked.
“He told me so,” he said, untying the animal and stroking its bristly mane.
Faustus sighed and stared up at the sky. The clouds from the night of Ossodagowah had never really dissipated, but they were a healthy gray now,as if expunged of infection. The mountains were pungent with the fertile smell of impending rain.
Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel Page 23
