He Who Walks in Shadow (30 page)

I looked out over a vast, stone plain, a flat sea of granite that continued on to the far horizon, endless and infinite and empty. From the dark clouds above, the whip-crack of thunder sounded as a great lightning bolt, larger than any I had seen before, slashed down to the stone in the outer distance. The smell of distant rain filled me.

“Leng,” I whispered to myself.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

The very sound of the words chilled my blood. I turned to find him waiting, and never before in my life have I felt so small, so naked, so alone. He was seated in a chair made of stone. Another sat across from him, empty, a small tor forming a table between them.

“This is only a dream,” I said, but I found no strength in the assertion. Nyarlathotep smiled, and the perfect, pearly white of his razor-blade-straight teeth only made him all the more uncanny.

“Isn’t everything?”

He gestured at the seat across from him. I stood, unmoving.

“Come, Carter Weston. There will be a time for unpleasantness in the future, of that I am sure. Not now. Sit a while. Think of all we have to discuss.”

He pointed again at the stone chair. I stepped forward and he rose, as if he were the courteous host and I a guest in his home. I suppose in a way, I was. The two of us sat down together, he and I, and so the game began, far more literally than I expected.

He sat across from me, his fingers steepled. He wore the sallow robe that was his trademark, and his eyes shone from a face that was long and lined with the burden of command. He had no hair, either on his head or his face, and I wondered if that contrivance was simply too much for him to create. That perhaps of all the things he had mastered, hair was not one. Or maybe he simply did not care to fabricate it. But of one thing I was sure—the legends were right; he really did look like an ancient pharaoh.

He waved his hand across the stone. It rumbled and cracked, dust and smoke erupting from the crevices that formed beneath his hands. Shapes rose from the rock, its surface darkening in spots as if burned by a fire. When the figure on my right resolved into the image of a castle’s turret, the shocking realization of what I was witnessing broke across me like a wave.

“You play, I presume?”

I nodded.

“Then you can play with me. It is, I have found, a singular invention of your race, perhaps the only one for which you merit attention. A diversion unlike any other. A mirror of life, where power is gained only through loss.”

I picked up the king. It pulsed in my hand, hot to the touch.

“And what do I get if I win?”

That almost reptilian smile returned.

“Why nothing, my dear Carter. I am not here to make deals or wagers. This is but a friendly game. Something to occupy our time, while we have our little chat.”

“Well,” I said, for no other reason than defiance, “I guess we know who will take black.”

The grin broadened beyond what might be possible for a human being. “Quite.”

I picked up the white pawn that sat before my king and moved it two spaces forward, e4.

“So it begins.” His long narrow fingers clasped the pawn across from mine by its head, which, in the pale orange light of whatever fire burned in the sky above us, looked like a skeletal face caught forever in a scream. e5. It was then I made the decision—I would throw everything I had against him. If I were to lose, I would lose with style. f4, attacking his middle pawn.

“King’s gambit?”

I nodded.

“Accepted.”

I watched him, seated in a cold stone throne, yellow cloak tangled in the dying breeze, as he moved a pawn to capture my own, exf4, and I wondered.

“So why this?” I asked. “Of all the ways that you could have appeared, why this one?” Bishop to c4.

His mouth twisted into a smirk.

“What we are and what we seem, these things are all illusion,” he said. He casually dropped his queen across the board, putting my king in check. Qh4+. “When Dr. Henry Armitage asks you to his house for a drink or for dinner, you dress for the occasion, do you not? And not just in any attire, but in that which is appropriate. I learned long ago that of all the forms and fancies I might take, this is the one that pleases men the most. And of course, your mind is such a fragile thing. So easily damaged by the truth. If you were to see me as I am, well, it wouldn’t be pleasant. For you, at least.”

I moved my king to f1 and temporary safety, and he responded by harassing my bishop with a pawn to b5. Perhaps I was feeling fragile, because I took it. Bxb5.

“I remember,” he said, “I watched a boy once, a child no older than three.” Nf6. “He had a treasure that he seemed to value above all other things. A common hen’s egg, nothing special or important.” While he talked of eggs, I challenged his queen, Nf3. “I’m not sure how he got it. Whether his mother gave it to him or whether he found it. But he clung to that little white ovoid as if it were the most precious thing in the world.” Qh6. “Of course, you see where this is going. He was clumsy, as your kind often are, even when childhood has fled from you. And he dropped the egg. And it did what eggs do. He wept for it.” d3. My center was secure.

“That is what your mind is like, that egg. I hold it in my hands. And it takes so little to crack it.” Nh5. “So if I were to reveal my true form, if you were to see me as my father made me, then I think you might break, right before my eyes. And I would hate to see Rachel mourn for you, as that boy mourned for his egg.” Nh4.

At this point, I felt rather secure in my position. The center held by my forces; our material, even.

“You can leave Rachel out of it.” I said. Qg5. Now he was harassing my knight. Nf5 to save him.

“Oh, but it was not I who brought her into it.” c6. Now my bishop was under attack. So I threatened his knight, g4. He didn’t seem all that concerned. “That was your friend Henry. And you, of course. From the moment she was born.” Nf6.

“This is between us,” I said, as another crackle of lightning scarred the plain below. Rg1. Nyarlathotep’s laughter drowned out the thunder.

“No, my dear Carter. No, it is not. It never was. And it never could be. You are but the player on the stage in the moment, whose career passes in the blink of a season, never to rise again. Before you were, I was. When you are gone, I will be. This that I give to you now is the greatest gift one of your kind could ever hope to receive. How many times have men fallen upon their knees and called in vain to gods who do not hear, who do not see? I see you, Carter Weston. I hear you. And you would do well to hear me.”

cxb5.

He had taken my bishop right from underneath me. And there was nothing I could do to strike back. A shadow of a grin passed his face, and I did not know if it was a reflection of what he had said or what he had done, that haughty face of triumph. Or maybe I had misread it altogether. Either way, I would not go so easily into the night. h4. The grin faded. For my sacrifice, I had gained a tempo on his queen. She was trapped in a box, both literal and figurative. She was in retreat, Qg6.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What could you possibly want from me?” I advanced a pawn forward, closing the noose around his queen’s throat. h5.

Here, if I had not known it to be impossible, I would have thought that he faltered, as if he were uncertain. The mask of composure, of supreme confidence, had slipped. His move was a simple forward jump one square by the queen. Qg5.

“You don’t have to die, Carter. And neither does your daughter. This world will be changed, yes, and many will perish. But some will remain.”

“As slaves.” I slammed down my queen, Qf3.

He tilted his head to one side. “Alive.” Ng8. He was in retreat.

“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.

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.