THE NECRONOMICON ~ The Cthulhu Revelations (32 page)

The Lord in Ebon ascended unto me.  And as before, we did speak of many things.

I cried out:  “What has happened here?”

And he, with his mind: 
What indeed, always and forever?  The Doom hath come.

I could not speak to this.  I was trembling with rage, for—although I did not know it, until that moment—I blamed the Lord in Ebon for all the agonies of sorrow I had suffered.  I screamed at him, I beat upon his chest.  “You killed her!”  I shouted.  “Murderer!”

He caught my fists as they flurried upon him, gently and with great strength.  The too-familiar chill of his skin iced through my fists, and eased them once more into open hands.  As he held me there, he looked down upon me in love.

It is not over, Abd-who-is-Samir.  Your Adaya has denied the trials of the second flesh.  But in escaping the vessel of Hadjara, she has been set to wander upon this world for all eternity.

Strength escaped me.  I faltered, and would have fallen from the great height had the Lord in Ebon not gripped my shoulders and held me fast.  I asked of him:  “Forever she wanders, then?  Have I denied her heaven?”

What is heaven?  Listen to me, Samir.  There is another way for Adaya to live again.

“She will not suffer,” I said.  “I have tortured her enough.  By my hand, she will suffer no more.”

She wanders alone, Al-Azrad.  She is cold.  You are the one who snared her into that fate, by opening Yog-Sothoth, the gate of Death, and releasing her thence.  You are the only one who can save her.

“And how?  There is a way for my Adaya to live again?”

There is.

“I do not believe you.  I will never hold faith in you again.”

O, Samir.
  He released me, all the more gentle.  His expression was one of pain; I would never have believed that I could wound him.  Having done so, I felt not only righteous anger, but satisfaction.  And shame.  So many feelings coiled and warred within me that I was overwhelmed.

Your powers are great now, that which was impossible now might hope to be.  She could live with you in the Dreamlands, should she choose to do so.  She could come to you.

“How could such be?” I asked.  “We … no.  There was a time, a dream, I … a Palace of Nothingness.  There was birdsong.  And twilight, and endless halls all carved into shapes of majesty.  We tried, we descended unto the cavern of flame, and there the Khomites, Nasht and Kaman-Thah, did deny her.”

That is because they ward the Dreamlands from those who are brought to descend against their will.  But if she should
choose
to venture forth, to be with you?  This might be.

“But the priests would bar her way once more, for she is dead.”

No,
said Nyarlathotep.
  There are three ways into the Dreamlands which lie deeper than the cavern of the priests.

“Three?  And how are such infernal ways to be found?”

The Lord in Ebon drew a mist about me, a silver radiance of pleasure.  As he did so, weaving his hands upon the air, he said:

Let there be moonlight once again, for where the Doom hath been rendered in its judgment, to the innocent, to my Samir, there shall hope arise.  Think of the Ghuls, my love.  Those of Arabia and Sumeru are weaker, younger, knowing less of their own creation.  They dwell in the earthly paradise of deathlessness beneath the sands, but the Ghuls of Egypt—of Khom—live entranced and in two worlds as one, both the netherworld and the Dreamlands.

Think, Samir.  If you could enter upon the Empire of the Blackened Mind while awake, in your own flesh?  This is what the Ghuls do.  If you could enter thus by a cavern deeper than that of Nasht and Kaman-Thah, what would happen?

“I do not know.”

I do.  You would sunder the Seal of Koth, you would make the two worlds one.  You would live in the trance of many-all, breathing both in the Real and in the Dreamlands while awake, shifting between the two as ever you desired.  And Adaya, if her spirit was to be revealed and shown the way?  Of her own freedom, without pain, she could come to you.  She could live again in the Empire, only ... and only if she were to make the same journey of the deeper ways, in denial of the priests.

“And how then would she and I live, in but a dream?” I asked in contempt.  “Through the power of the gods of Kadath?”

They?  They are weak.  They could grant you this, for some few centuries.  But only I can grant such a gift unto you both.  Should Adaya come to you of her own free will, and be your bride, I could grant you the greatest gift which mortals of your kith have ever known.

“And what is that?”

Do you not know?  Eternal life in wisdom, Samir.  Immortality in the Endless Hall, enthroned beside Nebuchadnezzar and Queen Amytis, as Ancient Ones.

I did not want to be lured by such a dread temptation.  But love is not a fool, it is the life of an ideal.  As such, it cannot die, however bloodied it might be.  And in being an ideal, forever purer than what we know and yet enticingly forever near our reach, love is the one promise I can never bear to disbelieve.  Love is thus the fruit of Tantalus, forever I believe it can be mine.

I can seize it.  Nay, I do not believe.  I
know
.

I did not ask: 
What would be the price?
  But I did ponder this, and asked it within my mind.  And so, opening his mouth for the first time, did the Lord in Ebon answer me.

“You must serve me,” he said.  “Already, in the name vengeance, you are preparing to do so.”

“What vengeance?” I asked.  “Upon whom?”

But then I knew:  the Cult of Cthulhu.

Yes
, his voice echoed in my musings. 
There is … an imbalance, Samir.  The One, enthroned by Chaos, Azathoth.  The flutes speak in the echo of his will.  He wills this planet to be destroyed, in the precision of its moment:  near to the end of time, nigh to the collapse of this one cosmos.  Yet the ravening Cthulhu seeks to rule and then destroy this world in quickening, to empower himself.  In feeding, he will grow mighty upon feasts of dreams.  He leaps from world to world, devouring dreams in the scatterings of all the aeons, forever seeking a way to live beyond the end of the cosmos itself.  Should he ever triumph, he would defy the destruction of All, he would master time and space and become Azathoth’s new herald.  In doing so, he seeks to overthrow me.

Of this, I understood very little.  But I was still awash in hatred and anger toward my Lord.  And I asked of him:  “
Can
you be overthrown, O Lord?  Is such possible?”

To my surprise, he answered me.  Again he spoke with his mouth, and for some reason that made me believe him all the more.

“It is … unlikely,” said the Lord in Ebon.  “Yet I abide in the palaces of mine own will, for the laws of Chaos are mine to interpret within the chronicles and strictures of eternity.  There are one thousand and one worlds where I strideth amongst the dreamers.  In each, I am setting my own chosen—and you stand as the worthy amongst them, my Samir—against the Cult of fell R’lyeh.  The rise of Cthulhu must come, for in every aspect of improbability, and in every possible future, it is fated to be so.  Nevertheless, the rising of Cthulhu must be delayed.”

I risked a faltering step, and stood back from him.  In choosing a higher vantage from the rubble, I stood eye to eye with Nyarlathotep.  He smiled, a patient and solemn gesture which angered me yet further.  This Thing had caused me to bring my beloved back from the dead, and the horror of it had destroyed her.  Instead of wandering lost and formless for an age, she would roam the trackless waste forever because of what I had done.

What I had done, in the name of Nyarlathotep.

With her remembered heart beating as an echo of my own, I stood higher.  I looked down on the Lord in Ebon and I did not falter.

And I said:  “You require one so weak as I to do your bidding?  You wish the Cult of Cthulhu to be slaughtered, and the rising of R’lyeh to be slowed?  Can you not do this yourself?”

He smiled more.  And,
My purpose is not to war with Cthulhu.  I will say nothing more of such a secret.

Smiling myself, I dared more.  “Have you a master, Nyarlathotep?”

His smile faded.  For a moment, before he could govern his mask once again, he bared his teeth. 
Careful, Samir.  I could destroy you.

“I believe that you will not.  Why do you wish for me to do this for you?”

To restore the imbalance, and to prove to … another … that creatures such as yourself are not made to be meaningless.

“And why would I do this?”

To live again with your Adaya in the Dreamlands.  And, should you please me greatly, it is I alone who can carry you both into the Endless Hall to live in joy as Ancient Ones.  Remember, she must come willingly.

“You speak so freely of her will, my Lord.  Do you not?  Did you not see what she suffered as I brought her forth from the dead?  She could not bear the torment, the pain of being spun into another woman’s body.”

I know.  To her it was an abomination.

“Did you know that she would suffer so?  Why did you not tell me?”

The Lord in Ebon said nothing.

“And if I were to draw her deeper into the Dreamlands …”

She longs for that, Samir.  I know this to be true.

“Already you are changing what you know.  What other secrets will you not reveal to me?”

My gifts are my own,
said the Lord in Ebon,
until you prove yourself to be worthy of receiving them.  If you would save her, then serve me.

“I will not.”

And if I were to tell you true, that it is Najeed who murdered her?  And that he did so at the bidding of the Cult of Cthulhu?  And that I know where he did flee?

I had long suspected this, but still, the revelation did take my breath away.

When I could speak again, it was only:  “It
was
he.”

So it was.

“And why?”

Because she knew their secret, Samir.  Your Adaya was nearly a young woman, and not so innocent as you long to believe.  To a songstress and a temptress, however a child, Sana’a is a city more of revelation than of mystery.  There are many things she did not tell you.

I laughed, but it was a brittle sound of hurt.  “Then tell me,” I said in reckless spite.  “Tell me but one of these secrets, and for now I will serve you if not tomorrow.”

You dare a gift,
said Nyarlathotep. 
And daring one, this shall I bequeath you.  There are many ageless powers, Samir.  Some, They would fathom, to be as powerful as myself.  There are the Great Old Ones, and there remains Yog-Sothoth.  If you would know the powers which will allow you to kill the Cult in all their legions, and have your vengeance upon Najeed?  Then you must bow these mighty powers to your will.

Though weak, you are not insignificant.  Tomorrow night, should you still swear yourself to me, I will begin to teach you of Them.  Knowing such, in years to come, you will be certain to find your way unto the nether where lies the Seal of Koth.  This is the path to your Adaya.  She refused the flesh, yet she doth long to live forever at your side.  Know this, for it is true, and her salvation is solely a matter of your own conviction.  Or do you consign her to oblivion?

The wind rose once more, and the dead leaves cascaded all around us.  Already I knew that I would leave Tadmur and Sarnath, and that I could not take my life without dooming myself to an existence forever without Adaya.  No.  Instead, there would be purpose to my life, and I would be reawakened, rekindled, reborn.  I whispered, “Revenge.”

Yes.

Najeed would not only be tortured by my own hand; before his suffering, he would know who I was, the boy I had been, and the memory of the girl whom he had slain.  I would destroy the Cult if I could, but for myself, the hunt would be far more personal and a solitary thing.  I would ruin Najeed, I would break him and he would beg, and only then would I see him die.

I sat, and the Lord in Ebon considered me.  Looking out over the lake and the emerald darkness of the night, I asked him:  “What must I do?”

I will tell you what you must know.  Najeed lives, diseased and shattered.  He hides himself in the land of Khom.  I will help you to hunt him.  In return, you must slay the minions of the Cult of Cthulhu wherever you may find them.  There are assassins, priests, necromancers who will know you by the mantle of shadow I now place upon thy brow.  These shall be your servants, should you choose them.

And too, you will find the way into the Dreamlands, the deeper netherworld under the cavern of flame, guarded by the Ghul Hetshepsu.  Too, if you are worthy, you will find the most favored of my chosen.

“And who is he?”

She.  She is Klocha, the crone of the river’s breaking.  If she deigns to find you worthy, she will teach you all that you must know to find a way for Adaya to follow you into the Dreamlands.  And there shall she reign, as your Queen.  What say you?

I had already made my choice.  I would live for my own purpose, but if the powers of the Lord in Ebon would ease my way, I had no more shame with which to deny his grace.

“I do not love you, my Lord,” I said to him.  “But for this moment I will serve you.”

He sat beside me, crossing his legs and poising his upturned hands upon his knees.  “I do love you, Samir,” he said to me in the tongue of the Babylonians.  Again, that curious sorrow in his voice.  I knew he was the Lord of all deception, but too, I believed in him.  His capacity for lies was exceeded only by the sincerity of his pain.  “And that will be enough.  One night, you will understand me and why I am.  Now rest, my child.  Rest.”

He turned, and I did let him kiss me upon my brow.

~

And I turned in my fitful sleep, there alone in my loft in the god-lavished city of Tadmur, where the nightbirds sang in the wind-tossed palms and the moon belongs to no one.  I would never sleep again within that city.