“Well, you know, the one about me being a guest of your boss...”
He shook his somber head. His voice was so soft that she could have only heard him within the soundproofed confines of the first-class cars, but there was a subdued mania to his demeanor. He reminded Yael of the businessmen her father entertained until late at night with wine and cigars, except that he appeared nervous and rather sickly.
“Miss Kaufman, I assure you that I was sent by my employer with specific instructions to retrieve you. And, I should mention that he has already informed me some time ago that you were to be considered his guest, at any place that the two of you might be so... fortunate as to meet.”
Yael froze in mid-step.
“What? I don’t understand.”
The man patted her hand comfortingly.
“I assure you, Miss Kaufman, you have nothing to fear from me. If you don’t mind me saying – it is my master that you should be concerned with. He will, however, be able to explain the situation more capably than I. Now, if you will follow me...”
Yael had to remind herself that she was on a train. Only the swaying walls reminded her that she was moving. The space between the cars was enclosed and virtually silent, and Yael dragged her feet as she passed through bead curtains and ornate hangings. The smoke was overpowered by a heady floral incense, the air so thick with it that Yael’s head swam. The glass in the car was chemically treated, and the light coming through the windows recalled for her the night in the Waste and its awful moon.
The car was a maze of interconnected chambers and corridors, separated by cloth hangings that were reminiscent of silk, lined with tiny bells or beads made of quartz and shaped bone. Behind curtains and tucked away in alcoves, figures obscured by veils and wildly-colored robes chanted softly in a language that Yael preferred not to recognize. The lamps bled a feeble yellow light. Yael could not have found her way if not for the strange man’s guidance.
“I forgot to ask your name, sir. You seem to already know mine.”
“Indeed. Forgive my rudeness. My name is Hildred Castaigne, Miss Kaufman. I have been aboard this train for a very long time.”
“Could you not simply leave at the next station?”
“I erred as a result of my ambition when I was a younger man. I found myself in rather dire circumstances. With no obvious relief in sight, I took the only assistance that was offered. The price, as it turns out, was rather dear,” he said sadly, helping her around a protruding machine of unidentifiable purpose. “If I may be so bold, Miss, you must be careful.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You walk on a knife’s edge, Miss,” Hildred Castaigne said, glancing back at her with an unreadable expression. “I do not blame you for attempting to thwart the machinations of the King in Yellow – would that I had been so wise in my youth – but I would warn you to choose your allies carefully. Some help, Miss Kaufman, comes at too great a cost.”
There were a number of eyes in the darkness of the chamber, glittering through a haze of sinuous and pungent smoke. Yael wondered how much longer the car could possibly be.
“I am afraid I don’t understand. What is it you are trying to tell me?”
“I know you, Miss Kaufman. I am familiar with the fate to which your family is consigned to suffer. I admire your drive and perseverance, your determination and independence. But you must be cautious – it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living god.”
Yael pulled Hildred to a stop in the hallway, going up on her tiptoes to kiss the nervous man’s cheek.
“You have to give someone power over you, Mr. Castaigne.”
He looked startled, then his face broke into an enormous grin.
“Perhaps you are right, Miss Kaufman.”
He led her through another chamber, even more crowded with silent, veiled creatures. The air was dense and humid, the smoke parted and rolled around them like water. Someone was playing a flute – or something vaguely like a flute – in a flight of wild and unfamiliar scales, dissonant and jarring. At the end of the room, there was an alcove with two paintings on opposite walls and a door nestled between, polished old wood and peeling blue paint.
On one wall there was a monstrous print by Francisco Goya depicting an artist with his head buried in his arms, assailed by a frightful assembly of winged things.
On the other, there was an indescribably hideous figure study by Richard Upton Pickman: a monstrous thing crowned with tentacles, gnawing on the remainder of a human carcass clutched in one malformed limb. The very appearance of the sketch was so blasphemous that Yael shuddered and averted her eyes. Hildred glanced over at the object of her revulsion.
“A fearful thing indeed, to find oneself in the clutches of a living god...”
Yael touched her chest where the key rested, cold silver against her breastbone.
“God does not have tentacles, Mr. Castaigne.”
Against all expectations, Hildred Castaigne smiled at her. He opened his mouth as if he had something to say, but Yael was deafened by a ringing in her ears as the door in front of them suddenly slid open.
Yael felt compelled to follow the crimson carpet forward, her eyes fixated on the intricate and disquieting designs woven into it. Her gaze drifted naturally to the red cushions and engraved ivory of the elaborate couch at the end of the room, where a boy with perfect hazelnut skin and impossible emerald eyes smiled languidly and beckoned to her.
Yael sat across a low table on a moderately comfortable divan, moving fast so he wouldn’t see her legs shake. There was something terrifying about the boy, despite his fragile and almost feminine appearance.
“After all this time, it is good to finally meet you, Miss Kaufman. Do you know me?”
10. My Voice is Dead
Without a name until a name is given, an empty room is sacred, a broken window is an altar. Casus Belli. The way she smiled before she was gone, her place in the bed still warm, the pillow smelling vaguely of her hair. Wind ruffling the feathers of a corpse of a bird on a grey beach in Virginia.
It was not the voice of a human – truthfully, it wasn’t a voice at all. It was a mockery of human speech, a cunning and spiteful imitation, at once familiar and horrifyingly wrong. The sound set her teeth on edge, made her press her knees together and curl her feet with tension.
A lifetime of aversion made it difficult to speak his name, but Yael fought through it.
“Nyarlathotep.”
His smile was positively joyous.
“Excellent. I am pleased to meet you in person. Your doomed and remarkable family has long been an interest of mine.”
“And I’ve been afraid of you since I was a child,” Yael said frankly, her eyes watering as if she were staring into a bright light. “But now that I see you, that seems rather ridiculous.”
The boy’s laughter was gleeful and spontaneous, but it filled Yael with unutterable anxiety. She felt vaguely queasy, as if he had done something lewd or disgusting.
“You are as spirited as I have heard, Miss Kaufman. What you see before you, however, is only an avatar. My true form, regrettably, cannot enter the atmosphere at this time. It remains in orbit,” Nyarlathotep said agreeably. There was something Egyptian in the lines of his nose and his cheekbones, most evident when he smiled. “Perhaps one day you will have an opportunity to encounter me as I truly am. I doubt you would find it a disappointment.”
“I have already seen more of you than I care to,” Yael muttered, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “Why did you wish to speak to me?”
“So very polite! How admirable. I wish to speak to you primarily out of curiosity. After all, I was well-acquainted with your brother. He dreamed some truly astounding things. Such a frightful imagination! Still, perhaps certain of his dreams were best left unrealized. Don’t you agree?”
Yael dug her fingernails into the yielding fabric of the divan. She didn’t want to ask the question that was already bubbling up inevitably behind her lips.
/> “Did you take him?”
The boy laughed at her, making a dismissive gesture with his slim, immaculately manicured hands. Yael’s eyes watered and her stomach complained, her anger diluted by waves of disorientation and anxiety.
“Now, Miss Kaufman. I did nothing of the sort. Your world and your peculiar family, as you well know, are the domain of the King in Yellow. Your family’s misfortune has little to do with me. While I’m certain that he would have been offended by the notion, in his own unique way your brother served my purposes.”
Yael grimaced at the thought, clutching the divan in a desperate attempt to keep herself upright as the room twisted and spun around her. Her stomach clenched and her whole body broke out in frigid sweat, her skin tingling and a pins-and-needles sensation in her feet.
“Chaos.”
That laugh again. Like the whine of a drill against the interior of a molar.
“Of course. That is my nature, Yael.”
She managed to glare through her splitting headache.
“Don’t you dare say my name.”
He laughed his horrid laugh, then filled two cups hardly largely than thimbles with a pungent tea, pushing one in her direction as a conciliatory gesture.
“As you wish, Miss Kaufman. I meant no harm. I have no ill will toward you. On the contrary, I wish to offer you my assistance on your journey. Please, drink. I assure you, the sickness will fade.”
Nyarlathotep picked up his absurdly delicate tea cup and gestured for Yael to do the same. Risking falling over, Yael folded her arms across her chest, hoping that she looked steadier than she felt.
“You first.”
His laughter hurt her sinuses and made her eyes water, as acrid as burning plastic.
“Very well,” he agreed mildly, pausing to take a sip. “I had hoped to start our relationship off on more amiable footing...”
Yael raised her cup, then paused just as the rim touched her lips. She cradled the cup carefully in both hands as she set it down and then pushed it across the table.
“Switch with me.”
Nyarlathotep paused momentarily, evaluating her, before he nodded and acquiesced, whether impressed or annoyed by her caution, Yael couldn’t tell.
Yael sipped hesitantly from the new cup, careful to avoid the side that his lips had touched. He hadn’t lied about the tea. Her equilibrium returned before the liquid made it to her stomach, radiating out from her throat with a warm throb that flushed her skin. Her disorientation faded rapidly. The room, while dark, smoky and filled with bizarre hangings, was nothing more than a room. If Yael strained she could hear the sound of the train’s tortured progress across the tracks, but it seemed a world away.
“Are you feeling better? Good, then we can talk.”
“I’m still not certain what we might have to discuss,” Yael said tartly. “I already have a God, thank you very much.”
“You are spirited. Your brother said as much when we first met. He was as reluctant to speak to me as you are now.”
Some of her composure eroded at the mention of her brother, though Yael knew that was Nyarlathotep’s intention. His eyes laughed at her across the rim of his tea cup.
“What could the two of you have had to talk about?”
“The same thing I wish to discuss with you,” Nyarlathotep said pleasantly, smiling amiably at Yael. “You would oppose the King in Yellow. I wish to aid you in this endeavor.”
Yael’s jaw dropped, much to Nyarlathotep’s evident amusement.
“Are you truly so surprised? You are far beyond the pale, Miss Yael, beyond the safety and the restrictions of the world you knew. Did you think you could elude notice forever with your brother’s key and the help of your rather motley companions?”
“I suppose not,” Yael conceded, wincing when he mentioned the key. “But my understanding was that most of the Old Ones preferred to act indirectly, through intermediaries.”
Nyarlathotep nodded pleasantly, finishing his tea with a contented expression.
“That is true. I am the exception to that rule.”
“Very well. What has you in such a giving mood?”
“I am concerned with your journey, Miss Kaufman. You do realize that simply by making it this far, you and Miss Frost have profoundly upset the natural order of things, don’t you?”
“Oh, dear. Have we?”
Yael did her best to feign innocence. Honestly, she felt she deserved a medal for attempting to sass an Elder Horror.
“You have indeed,” Nyarlathotep said with a smile. “And I mean that as a compliment. The two of you have become thorns in a remarkable number of sides. Most especially for the King in Yellow. You know what was promised to him, by your ancestors, yes?”
“Why isn’t Je – Miss Frost here? Why only talk to me?”
For the first time, his expression soured, the beautiful face twisted with rage.
“Why would I strike a deal with something like Miss Frost? Oh, she is dangerous, I will give you that. But she is something far less than human. Admiring her survival is akin to admiring the tenacity of the rat. She lacks the nobility of your motivations.”
Yael shook her head.
“You shouldn’t say bad things about rats.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“I was helped by a rat when I was lost in a dark place. They are actually quite nice if you share your egg salad with them.”
“My dear, I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.”
“I am not your ‘dear’. I’m not anything to you but an enemy. Now tell me your offer, so that I may refuse it.”
His smile broadened, and Yael felt the ghost of her early motion sickness, a ringing in her ears like a distant wail.
“I’m glad you plan on giving me a fair hearing. Very well. Pleasantries aside, Miss Kaufman, I know where your brother is presently. And I know how to reunite you with him.”
Yael’s smile was bitter.
“And what must I do in return?”
“Well, you will never be able to return to your home, of course, but I trust that it is only a minor inconvenience. Simply take my hand,” he said, lazily extending one perfectly formed hand to her, “and I will take you to your brother, for a tearful reunion between siblings. Think of it. Your journey would end in triumph.”
Maybe it was the tea. Maybe it was the fond way he mentioned her brother, as if he were someone he knew, an old friend, that got to her. Whatever the case, when Yael smiled it was with the confidence of a gambler holding a winning hand.
“What a positively generous offer.”
“Do you accept, then?”
Nyarlathotep scratched absently at his neck with his other hand, leaving red streaks on his skin. His eyes wandered briefly, tracking the erratic movements of something above her head and behind her.
“Tell me,” Yael suggested, brushing her hair behind her ears and leaning forward so he could see her clearly in the smoky half-light, “do you think that I am stupid?”
Nyarlathotep shook his head in disbelief and withdrew his offered hand.
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh, you should be, but you probably aren’t.”
He tried for his smile, but it came out all wrong. The muscles in his perfect face were rebelling one after another.
“I must confess, Miss Kaufman, that I have not met another quite like you. Those who are aware of my true nature often regard me with a certain... apprehension. Only the truly ignorant scoff at me. Given who your brother was...”
Yael stiffened with outrage.
“Do not dare question the caliber of my education,” Yael said archly. “It was of the finest quality. I know you and your many names, your service to the Outer Dark – I know more than I care to.”
Nyarlathotep swayed gently, whether to the sound of the hideous piping or to the almost hidden motion of the train, she couldn’t be certain.
“And you are not afraid?”
“Of course I am. I am sca
red of any number of things. I don’t care much for spiders – can’t stand them, actually – but if there isn’t anyone else around, I still have to take care of them.”
“Are you comparing me to a household pest?”
“No. That would be a bad comparison. Spiders serve a purpose, creepy though they may be. You don’t serve anything besides the Outer Dark.”
One of his eyelids drifted slowly down, only to arrest halfway and snap back open. The other eye remained unaffected. Nyarlathotep appeared oblivious.
“I assume you are refusing my offer?”
“Of course,” Yael scoffed. “I know perfectly well where my brother is. He warned me of the potential consequences of his research when I was eight years old. He tried to outwit the King in Yellow, most likely by enlisting your help, and he failed. He was taken to Avici, the rotten core of the universe, where mad Azazoth dwells. There is no retrieving him. Not ever.”
Nyarlathotep seemed partially consumed with studying his swollen fingers.
“I don’t understand. If you don’t seek the return of your brother, what is your purpose in all this?”
“That is why you will not be able to stop me,” Yael said, standing triumphantly. “Because you don’t even know what it is that I want.”
Nyarlathotep poked at his enflamed lymph nodes and cheeks, ran his fingers across his bloated neck. His skin had begun to purple at the extremities.
“Miss Kaufman,” Nyarlathotep hissed through swollen lips and spittle. “What have you done to me?”
“You tried to trick me into consigning myself to the same hell to which I lost my brother. I simply returned the favor of your hospitality.”
One of his eyes locked onto her, the other twitching as if in sleep. His face had started to puff up, swelling with blood.
“The tea? A poison? Foolish child. Nothing can kill me. And this is no more than an avatar. My true form is elsewhere.”
“I know that,” Yael gloated, knocking his tiny tea cup over as she stood. “It’s not a poison, it’s a drug. In any case, I am perfectly aware that it won’t kill you. But it can incapacitate you long enough for me to finish my train ride in peace, yes?”
The Night Market Page 14
