“And what did I do to deserve this honor?” I pushed my bishop forward in a slashing stroke, taking a pawn and threatening his queen again. Bxf4.
The smirk returned. “Because I know you, Carter. You will do anything to stop us, anything to stave off the inevitable, to buy your species a few more years of dominion.” Qf6. His queen was free, and she was threatening to attack.
“But the staff was destroyed.”
“And will that keep you from trying?” I moved my knight to c3 in answer, blocking his queen’s advance. “As I thought.” Bc5.
“Then why not kill me? Why all this?” Nd5.
“You assume too much. Your life is not your own to give, and neither is it mine to take. You were fated, before you were born, by ancestors buried in the sands of time, who chose to stand where you stand. I can no more kill you than I can alter the paths of the stars in the sky. But if you stay this course, succeed or fail, you will die, and your daughter, as well. And while you rot, we will wait, as we have waited for tens of thousands of years. We are patient, and we are ageless. It is inevitable. Just as you will die, so too will your race. Why give your life, why give your daughter’s life, for nothing more than a temporary reprieve? Is her safety not worth more than that?”
Qxb2. His queen had swung down and struck my pawn. Now not only was my rook under assault, but my king as well. But his words did not match his play. In fact, he almost seemed to be pleading with me.
“You lie. All of it is lies.” Bd6.
“No lies, Carter. No lies. A chance. And if you let this pass, if your eye is fixed only on my destruction, you might miss something. And who knows what it might cost you.” He thrust his bishop forward like a dagger, and its point found my rook across the board. Bxg1. A crushing blow, and one that I had not seen coming. There was no point in finesse now. I pushed my pawn, e5. If he had had an eyebrow, he would have arched it.
“An interesting strategy,” he said. “Hopeless, but that is your way.” His queen took my other rook, Qxa1+. I was in check, pinned between a queen and a bishop. I moved up to hide my king behind a protecting pawn. It was a temporary reprieve, but maybe it would buy me time. Ke2.
“I wish you could understand. This would be so much easier if you could. That we are adversaries does not mean that we must despise one another.” Na6. “We can glory in the fight, like Hector and Achilles of old. But like Hector, you cannot see the truth beyond your own anger. We did not steal your Helen. We did not take what was not ours to possess. You did that, in the long ago. And in exile we have waited, for what is rightfully ours, for that which you have defiled.”
I advanced my knight, putting his king in check. Nxg7+.
“All I know is the here and the now. The millions who live that you wish to kill.”
He leaned forward in his chair. “But I know so much more. I have seen so much more. I saw the fall. I watched as the first light split the darkness, as all that we were was destroyed, as our cities sank beneath the surface of the deep. Imagine it, Carter. The truth you claim to serve, the purpose you live to uphold? We fight for the same thing—the salvation of our races. The difference between us is that I am willing to give all to have it. Are you?” Kd8.
“Whatever it takes.” Qf6+
“Whatever it takes?” he said. “Whatever you must sacrifice for victory?” A silence filled the space between us, and in that space our thoughts seemed to shimmer. But his eyes, his amber eyes, they shone. And in the light of them, if I hadn’t known it were impossible, I might have thought I saw pity, or longing, or even a touch of sadness.
“I wonder, Carter,” he said finally. “What are you truly willing to give up, just to defeat me.” He reached out and, without taking his eyes off of me, picked up his knight. Down and over it slid, until he dropped it where my queen sat. Nxf6. She was gone, but that was the cost, the price I had to pay, and I had known it when I left her there to draw him. I moved my bishop up and over one spot. Be7#.
“Checkmate.”
The scene split and shifted. The rocks shattered, and the earth plummeted away. I started to fall, until with a jerk and a shudder I awoke in my bed in England, the scent of distant rain still with me.
Chapter 38
Journal of Carter Weston
July 30, 1933
I did not return to sleep. Instead I lay in bed, gazing out the window while the black night faded to purple and then pale blue as the sun finally rose. I knew that it had not been a dream, at least, not as most people would so term them. My enemy had taken me beyond the wall of sleep, into some other place and time. Another world, or perhaps something even more distant and alien than that.
I thought of Rachel. I thought of the message Nyarlathotep meant to send, the clear intention of the game, of what it had taken to beat him. Of what I had been forced to give up in exchange for victory. He and his kind are old, and they are patient. Unlike us, they will never die. And thus, death was the one power we have over them, our lives the one thing that we can give that they cannot comprehend. An end to existence. And while to some that might seem a weakness, it was in fact a source of unimaginable power. For to make that choice, to give our lives willingly for something else? That was old magic.
So Nyarlathotep’s message was clear.
Diary of Rachel Jones
We left the town of Southampton early, on the first train north to Glasgow. From there we would take the rail line to the shores of the North Sea and on to Skye, then a boat to beyond the Outer Hebrides. There, with luck and more than a few pounds, we’ll convince a local captain to make the passage to the small, barren shards of rock that jut from the waters. What happens after, no one can say.
My father is distant today. I suppose the immensity of what we face weighs upon him. Still, I have never seen him so pale, so distracted, so sad, even. And Lord knows we have witnessed our share of difficulty before.
* * *
We have arrived in Uig, a small hamlet on the shores of the Isle of Skye where, for the right price, boats may be hired. It is the high season, and there is a merriness about the village that belies what must surely have passed here before us. But if any cloud follows the dark one, it has gone on with him across the waters.
In fact, all of today has been positively delightful. The train traversed English countryside as green and fresh as any I have seen in my Massachusetts. The sun shone down upon us for the entirety of our journey as we cut between rolling hills and over endless plains, past golden farmland and the smoke stacks of busy foundries, whisking by tiny hamlets and through mighty cities. I fancied I saw Stonehenge in the distance as we went just west of Salisbury, but my father assured me it was unlikely. It was the only thing he has said to me all day.
I asked him, should we make it through this, if perhaps we could stop at the ancient monument and picnic beneath the stones in celebration. It was a jest, of course, as I know the odds of return are slim, a fool’s chance at best. But even still, my words seemed to pain him. He smiled, and his eyes fell away from mine. He was suddenly distant from me, in another place, in another time. I took his hand in mine, and it was trembling. He covered it with his other, and clasped them so tightly I thought he might hurt me. Then he returned to his book.
He has sat with that evil thing in his lap for hours, staring at the words, following them with his finger, flipping back and forth. That accursed tome, that albatross about the neck of our family. I wonder, sometimes, how he can stand it, the incessant song, the whisperings. I tell myself that he keeps it to prevent others from taking it, from doing evil with it. And yet, there is more to it than that.
The Incendium Maleficarum does not choose its master lightly. It seeks only its own purpose—to find its way to those who would return the Old Ones to dominance, who would use it to bring about the end of mankind. Thus, it might seem ironic that my father, a man long dedicated to keeping the gate between the worlds shut, would be its master for all of these decades. And yet, do we not take it now where it seeks to g
o? Is it even possible that by pursuing Nyarlathotep, we are in fact helping him to achieve his ends? That perhaps if we simply stayed behind he would fail? But the knot of uncertainty is twisted tight, and how can we do anything other than slice through it and pursue? It is a terrible choice, between the Scylla of inaction and the Charybdis of unintended consequences.
I know now why my father has been gray all the years that I have known him.
* * *
I dreamt last night of Leng. I dreamt of him.
I knew the place; I am my father’s daughter, after all. And I knew him, of course, for one does not forget the thing that one hates.
We stood upon that endless plateau, he and I. He waited for me, the arid wind whipping his yellow cloak about his incorporeal body. Did any of it exist? The cloak, the man, the wind? Would that I could believe it was a dream.
This was real, and I had come here by some force that I could not comprehend.
“Hello, Rachel,” he said, though I am not sure even now whether he uttered those words or if the sound was entirely within my mind.
“Don’t speak to me,” I said.
“But we are here, aren’t we? Why waste this opportunity?” He stepped towards me, palms up, questioning, as if we were old friends. “Perhaps you would prefer a more idyllic setting.”
I felt faint, and the scene swirled. I was falling. There was a flash of light, and we were no longer on that accursed plain. Instead, we stood within a forest, but one unlike anything I had seen before. The trees were dead, the earth with them. It was cold, very cold, but a little stream flowed freely before me. Although the stars were obscured, a strange incandescence lit the night. I recognized the place, even if I had never been there before.
“This is a cruel trick,” I said, as he moved within the trees. “Even for you.” He stepped into the circle of the light.
“You don’t approve? I thought that perhaps you would want to see it, where he drew his last breath.”
“You mean where you took it from him?”
He shook that regal head of his, an almost sympathetic frown upon the face he had worn for five thousand years. “No, my child. I was not the one who killed your William.”
If this was a fantasy, if it were a dream, then I thought that I might be able to control it, if even to the smallest extent. One second my hand was empty. The next, I held a knife. I kept it close to my body, lest he see.
“Why did you bring me here? Not to kill me. You could have done that by now.”
“Maybe I have other purposes for you. Maybe you have a different role to play in all of this. You know, I spoke to your father last night. Did he tell you that?”
“Can’t say that he mentioned it.”
“No, I didn’t expect that he would. He keeps things from you, doesn’t he?”
“You didn’t bring me here to talk about my father. Why don’t you get to the point?”
“The point?” he said, as he lowered himself onto a fallen tree. “The point is that what started here in this place all those years ago is coming to an end. And when it does, all that you know will end with it. Your father understands. He also understands what he must do to stop it. He knows that there is power in blood, power in loss, power in sacrifice. And the greater the loss, the greater the sacrifice, the greater the power.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. A shadow passed across him. If such a creature could display remorse, I would have believed I saw it in him then.
“You must die, Rachel. You must die to save the world. Your father knows that, and he knows that it must be by his hand.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, but my voice trembled, and I was ashamed of my weakness.
“Yes, you do. You are Isaac to his Abraham, and only your blood can save mankind.”
I stood there before him, angry, helpless, naked. He cocked his head to the side and regarded me.
“I do not hate you, you know? Despite what you have been taught. What they have written about me. I always found your kind to be curious. That is why I have walked among you for so long, even as my brethren slept, as they waited to return, to cleanse this planet as you might burn off a field for planting. They would destroy you without even knowing you are here, so insignificant are you in their eyes. But not mine.”
“So you’re a benevolent god, then? Do you grant wishes too?”
He smiled again.
“It is a rare thing,” he said, “such reckless bravery. And yet a mark of your kind. I know you fear me, and yet you stand there, defiant, sarcastic. But believe me when I say this—you do not have to die. Neither does your father. You can have your life. You will be changed, yes, as the world must be changed. But that, I suppose, has always been the fate of mortals. I simply offer you eternal life of a different sort than you might have imagined in your Sunday school.”
“You’ve already taken the only thing I care to have.”
“Yes,” he said. “But I can give it back.”
I felt faint again, and I believe my heart may even have stopped. There was a boom, like the sound of falling lightning. I opened my eyes, my vision cleared, and William stood before me.
He was exactly as I remembered him, even though more than a decade had passed since my eyes last beheld him. He hadn’t aged a day. He looked bewildered, confused, as if he had no idea where he was or how he came to be there. He spun around, eyes scanning the forest. Then he turned back and saw me.
“Rachel?” he murmured, taking a stumbling step forward. “How did you get here?”
It took all I had to stand there, seeing him. My voice caught in my throat, tears came to my eyes, and it seemed as though all I ever dreamed had finally come true. I don’t even remember how it happened, whether he came to me or I to him, but before I knew it my arms were around him and I was holding him close.
“William,” I said, “William.” There were no other words. No words of love or loss or words to explain how I had felt, what I had suffered those many years. For a few blessed moments, I lost myself in that feeling, the feeling of him, the chance to say goodbye to the man I had cherished.
And I cursed Nyarlathotep for it, cursed the feeling of a debt owed, even as I knew it was all a lie. Even as I knew that this could not be real, that it was only an illusion.
I still held the knife in my hand.
“William,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
I plunged the blade into his back.
It felt like I had grabbed a live wire.
A surge of energy pulsed through my body. I was flying, and then the world went black. I saw things as they are, as they were, and as they would be if we fail. I saw the sun extinguished and the earth cast into a shadow blacker than any comprehensible by the human mind. Within that infinite veil walked beings unimagined and unimaginable, and the force of their intellect alone thrust me into the void.
I was carried along, across galaxies and past dying stars as the darkness spread like a black fire, consuming all in its path. Nyarlathotep carried me on the wings of his hate, and he spoke to me as we touched the edge of the universe, past the swirling abyss where rests the ultimate chaos.
“You worship the light,” he said, “but the light is destruction. Darkness is the natural order of things. Light consumes. It lives only as it kills. It gives only what it takes. It devours all before it until there is nothing left and then, only then, is it extinguished. You think you fight for the truth, you think you fight for the right, but you are the evil one. You are the enemy. But you cannot hold the darkness at bay forever.”
I awoke with a start in my bed. The bells of the nearby port rang as the sun crested the horizon. Nothing could have made me question the reality of what I had seen, nothing could have shaken my confidence that it was no simple dream, even if I did not still hold the dagger in my hand.
Chapter 39
Journal of Henry Armitage
August 1, 1933
This morning we left Uig for the Isle of Berneray, which lies
in the sound of Harris, the narrow stretch of water that splits the Outer Hebrides and opens into the Atlantic. Carter is convinced that there we can discern the place of power from which Nyarlathotep will do his work. I hope that he is correct. When the day burns away and the night comes, the time of the alignment will be upon us. Unless we move quickly, there will not be a dawn.
As it stands, we are on a small ferry that regularly plies its trade between the two islands. A miserable little vessel. I have always hated the sea, and I do not care for crossings. I prefer my own two feet upon the land, though I have no aversion to rail travel or even aeroplanes. There is something about the water, however, the bottomless abyss below, the endless back and forth. It does not agree with my stomach or my soul.
The passage took several hours, much longer than we could have predicted. The wind was against us and so were the waves, and I wondered if some foul magic had bewitched us, if perhaps the very forces of the earth herself had turned against us, if maybe they preferred their old masters to the new. That was fancy, of course. Or at least, I told myself so.
Carter was stoic, indefatigable perhaps, if one can be so bold. Rachel was the same. Rarely in this life have I felt myself the superfluous man, particularly in my relation to Carter. But whatever joined the two of them was not for me. It seemed that they had forged some silent understanding, as if both knew what was required of them and had accepted it. But whatever it was, I was not a party nor was I informed. In truth, I was rather envious, though something told me that what passed between them was not a matter I should want any part of.
Berneray is an idyllic place, the sort of village that neither time nor technology will ever reach. Children here dream of either escape or of nothing more than following in the footsteps of their fathers. So it has been since the beginning of time. So it will always be.
There is a single inn. It serves more as a tavern than a true hostelry. But it has rooms to rent, and here we shall make our base of operations and perhaps even take our rest, should we succeed on this night, the night the stars come right.
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