Tower of Zhaal

by Phipps, C. T.

  “He got people wound up, scared my daughters,” Farmer Joe said, looking down. “Talked about how we couldn’t avoid our fate and time was a circle and some other bullshit. That we should make our peace.”

  I frowned, now worried for this village. “Whateley has an unusual relationship with time. Perhaps you should have taken him seriously.”

  “I don’t believe in any fate other than the kind I make with my own two hands,” Farmer Joe said, shaking his hammer at us. “A Dunwych mystic once told me I’d die in battle with the Remnant’s military before I made my escape. I got shot on the way out, but I survived.”

  “There’s still time for you to die,” Jessica said, surprising me. “Not a threat, but I’ve learned to take these crazy Wasteland mumbo-jumbo types at their word.”

  “The mystic ended up getting her head split by a Deep One ax,” Farmer Joe said, shrugging. “She’d predicted she’d die in a boating accident. On my end, that’s just further proof we make our own fates.”

  I once believed as Farmer Joe did, that destiny was mutable. Since then, I haven’t been so sure. I don’t believe in predestination per se; Nyarlathotep was far too chaotic a deity to micromanage things like that, and I wasn’t sure the Hebrew God or any other figure from the Dreamlands cared either.

  I did, however, believe that the kind of people we were would determine our decisions rather than the reverse. We reacted to the events around us based on who we were inside, and those events were often out of our control. What could you call that but fate? We were who we were in the dark—nothing more, nothing less.

  Mercury, however, asked a question I hadn’t thought of. “If your fate is already sealed, then why did he warn you?”

  “He said that’s what he did,” Farmer Joe said, frowning. “Got half the town in a tizzy. People have been leaving for parts unknown all week.”

  “I didn’t see any commotion.”

  “It was mostly the outer farms and their folk,” Farmer Joe said. “We’ll deal with any problems when they come. We’ve invested too much in this town, our lives here, and our families to abandon them all for the uncertainty of the Wasteland.”

  I understood that sentiment. Life here seemed to be a blessing. I hoped Marcus was wrong or lying.

  He’s not, Nyarlathotep said.

  “Show us what he’s left us,” I said, walking up to room 42.

  Farmer Joe unlocked the door and I walked on in past him. The interior of the room was, like the rest of Insmaw, unusually pretty for the Wasteland. The walls were freshly painted, the interior smelled of sandalwood, there were pleasant pieces of hand-carved furniture including a rolltop desk, and the bed had a pretty little ocean-themed comforter on top. I noticed a letter and a leather-bound book were resting on top of the pillows.

  Joe looked at the room. “Marcus was too big to sleep in the bed, so he just plopped himself down in a corner. He was the strangest man I had ever met in my life, and I’ve met some weird characters in my day.”

  “He’s trying to destroy the world,” I said, going to the book and letter.

  “A bit late for that, isn’t he?” Farmer Joe observed.

  “We did that joke already,” I muttered, checking the letter. It didn’t seem to be dangerous, coated in poison or some sanity-inducing spell. I opened it and pulled out the contents while the rest of my group waited at the door.

  To Captain Booth,

  I bid you greetings and salutations. If you are reading this, you have managed to pass the first of the horrid traps and assaults the Great Enemy has decided to throw your way. This is good because there are a great number of universes where you die in that filthy tunnel, regardless of what aid I may lend you.

  While I suspect you are disinclined to believe I am not your enemy, I shall reiterate what I told Professor Armitage and the Yithians. I am not trying to destroy the world. Quite the contrary, I am trying to save it. Unfortunately, that requires releasing the Unimaginable Horror for a short time. Such is the only way we can destroy it.

  Professor Armitage and the so-called Great Race are convinced this is tantamount to setting the house on fire to renovate it. In other circumstances, I might agree. However, the Horror has stirred fitfully since the Rising, and its escape is inevitable now. Worse, a veritable army of cultists and agents are working to hasten its return.

  I have no doubt Professor Armitage and the Great Race have colored my actions in less than rosy terms, lying to you so that I might be assassinated without guilt. Likewise, I suspect whatever they have chosen to offer you in terms of bribes will be compelling regardless of what I say in this letter.

  However, believe me when I say I am not your foe. The Great Enemy, what I call the Horror and its minions, is a wily foe. I doubt it acknowledges my existence any more than you or I consider a speck of dust or individual termite, but its machinations reach across epochs.

  Machinations that can only end in the destruction of not just humanity, which is almost dead anyway, but every other world the Unimaginable Horror will later feast upon. This Great Old One has depopulated galaxies, Captain Booth, as if we need any further incentive to stop it.

  Centuries ago, my relation Wilbur Whateley, sought to destroy the universe by bringing Yog-Sothoth into this reality. He held an almost Christian eschatological view of that Other God, believing Yog-Sothoth’s arrival would bring about a paradise where linear time no longer existed. Mad as he was, Wilbur was a fount of great wisdom both before and after his death. Having bound his soul to my body, I know the secrets necessary to achieve my goal.

  Do not try to stop me. We will need to work together to destroy the Unimaginable Horror and the Great Enemy’s minions know this. They will stop at nothing to prevent you and I from reaching the Tower of Zhaal.

  Yours truly,

  -Marcus Whateley

  P.S. Do not stay in this town.

  I stared at the piece of paper in my hand, contemplating the surreal nature of the words within. There was a ring of truth to Whateley’s statement, but quite a bit of it was deranged. The part about releasing the Unimaginable Horror to destroy it was, for instance, lunacy.

  I didn’t believe he had a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping one of the Great Old Ones if it was released. I didn’t think anyone did. The greatest wizards in history and legend were little more than termites gnawing on the roots of a tree grown by far greater minds.

  “What does it say?” Mercury asked, walking in.

  “That things might be a trifle more complex than we first believed,” I said, taking a deep breath.

  I handed Mercury the letter and she read it. She looked up at me. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t it?” I asked, glancing up at Farmer Joe. I had no doubt he’d taken the time to read the letter beforehand. Nothing about the Insmaw man struck me as being particularly respectful of privacy.

  Mercury handed the letter to Jessica, frowning as she did so. While I’d made my peace with Jessica, it seemed tensions were still high between the two women. It was a pity since Mercury and Jessica, while never quite being friends, had once had a close relationship.

  “We need to protect you,” Mercury said, staring at me, then my arm. “We need to protect Jackie. The University is the safest place in the world for her. Plus, John, your condition can be reversed.”

  Jessica looked surprised by this revelation.

  Mercury continued speaking. “Marcus Whateley may or may not be right about this Unimaginable Horror thing, but anything that will let it go is something we can deal with separately. I’m sure the Yithians can whip up another set of spells to keep it sleeping once we’re done with killing Whateley. As for this ‘Great Enemy’, that’s Armitage and company’s problem. We’ll tell him about it when we get back.”

  I looked at Mercury, wondering if she was prepared to risk the safety of the planet on the off chance it wouldn’t be a problem if we got what we wanted. Looking at her earnest face, I realized she was. It was perhaps human nature
to do such a thing. We as a species had always ignored the potential dangers to our long-term future if it meant our short-term advantage. I, myself, wasn’t immune.

  I wanted to kill Marcus Whateley. I wanted to kill him because someone was paying me to do so. I didn’t care if he was innocent; I had a chance for a human life if he died, and that’s all that mattered. But if I did that, did I really deserve to return to Jackie? To have Mercury’s love and Jessica’s friendship? Damn me.

  “We’ll talk to him first,” I muttered, staring down at my feet.

  “I don’t think anyone else agrees, John,” Mercury said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “But I’ll support you no matter what.”

  “So, when did the old fart leave?” Thom asked, scanning the room.

  Farmer Joe said, “Marcus left two days ago. At sunrise.”

  “Shit,” Thom muttered. “He could be anywhere by now.”

  “He said he’d be returning after three days.” Farmer Joe crossed his arms. “I told him he wouldn’t be welcome, but he insisted he would be. Other members of the town were more accommodating. Unwelcome as his advice has always been, he’s brought prosperity to many citizens.”

  “So, he leaves us a friendly letter,” Jessica said, lifting it up. “Then tells the locals he’s going to be back where we are the day after we arrive. Does this smell like a trap to anyone else?”

  “It does have a very distinctive odor, doesn’t it?” I said, taking the letter back and placing it against the book in my hands. “The fact is, it’s a two-day journey to Jessica’s ghoul city.”

  “It’s not my—” Jessica started to say.

  I took a deep breath. “It seems … rational … to stay here and see if we can ambush him.”

  Mercury smiled at me, pleased at my decision.

  I felt sick at it.

  “Right, we’re going to stay at the creepy hotel—” Thom started to say.

  “Creepy?” Farmer Joe asked, offended.

  “—in the rooms provided for us by the guy who wants to end the world.” Thom waved his hand. “No thanks.”

  “We’re the only hotel in town,” Farmer Joe said.

  “I’ll sleep in the car,” Thom said.

  “In the open?” August said. “Once more, I am astounded by your supreme displays of good sense.”

  Thom made a very rude gesture.

  “Can we switch rooms?” I asked, deciding compromise was the best policy.

  “Sure,” Farmer Joe said. “Just expect my wife to charge more.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked down at the book titled, The Unimaginable Horror. I blinked when I saw the author’s name.

  John H. Booth.

  What the hell?

  Chapter Twenty

  I spent most of the rest of the evening poring over The Unimaginable Horror text in my room to see if it contained some hidden insights or secrets regarding the titular Great Old One.

  It also allowed me to avoid having to explain to Jessica and Mercury that “I may be an aeon-old alien who might destroy the Earth.” I’d managed to convince them both I wasn’t a monster needing to be killed and wasn’t anxious to reopen the debate.

  The rest of the group hunkered down in their hotel rooms, fortifying them against possible attack, Bobbie was the only one who chose to interact with the town. The rest of the team spent their time playing cards and discussing what they were going to do when they laid their hands on Whateley.

  It was almost midnight when I finished taking my notes on the book’s contents and Mercury came up for bed. My lover smelled of cigar smoke and more than a few beers. Her pockets were also noticeably lighter. While Mercury brushed her teeth with the bowl and pitcher provided for us, she didn’t change for bed. My lover had learned from our night in the tunnel to keep her clothes on during sleep and have a pair of loaded shotguns underneath the bed. Mercury was being paranoid, but justifiably so given that we knew someone was trying to kill us. People powerful enough to send an army of the dead after us.

  Mercury cast a glance at me when she slid into the bed, moving her hand to the lantern I had by the bedside. “Do you mind if I turn this out?”

  I closed the copy of The Unimaginable Horror in front of me. “No, I’m done. My studies have proven both insightful and useless.”

  “How’s that?” Mercury said, turning the lamp until we were plunged into darkness except for the moonlight through the window.

  “The Unimaginable Horror was written by a United States Army captain who fought in World War One. During his time in France, he encountered horrific living dead created by a scientist operating on the wounded,” I said, thinking about how all of this seemed familiar. “After being dishonorably discharged following a period of amnesia and violence, he spent the rest of his life trying to accumulate information on the supernatural. This book is the collection of his findings centered on the creature he believed to be at the root of all evil.”

  I could still remember one particularly harrowing description:

  The Swami Chandraputra, who I had at first taken for a charlatan due to his ridiculous pseudonym, led me on a dream-quest of breathtaking as well as terrifying unreality. We took ourselves to the darkest of dimensions existing in the shadow of the Earth where not even the psychic will of the Great Old Ones could penetrate.

  There, I bore witness to the Tower of Zhaal, a massive construction which rose an infinite number of miles into the airless void through every facet of the Multiverse. Forged of alien bones and crystalline growths, the Yithians had carved it from the body of something that might have been a Great Old One itself had not it failed the final stages of Nyarlathotep’s Trials.

  The blessings of Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, Great Ka’thu’lu, Yastur and Asumai the Yithian Knowledge Bearers, and others stretched this alien citadel to everywhere but nowhere. The freakish technology of the Yithians was advanced beyond measure, yet trying to keep the Unimaginable Horror bound here seemed like locking up a tiger in a flimsy cage of bamboo.

  Bound to fail.

  We dared not come too close to the alien citadel, but as far away as we were, I could make out a vision that would haunt me until my dying days and lives beyond. At first, it was beautiful, like an endless sea of fireflies moving through the dark to become one with the Tower.

  Then a slow creeping sensation of horrified realization slithered up my spine and chilled me to the core. The wisps of light were the psychic residue of the human consciousness, given life and immortality in the Dreamlands. I saw them absorbed into the Tower, twisted and mutilated as their Second Death screams were a nightmare beyond measure.

  Unable to contain my revulsion, I cried out, “My God, it’s powered by us!”

  The very thought of it all made me sick.

  “So, what was useful and what was useless?” Mercury asked, unaware of what strange aeons and apocalypses I was contemplating.

  “The book contains many insights into the nature of the Unimaginable Horror and its servitor races. Like Hastur, it is responsible for many forms and varieties of living dead. The Unimaginable Horror is also linked to gaseous clouds and corrupting energy beings which sound familiar but I can’t place.” I bit my lip. “There’s also quite a few spells and rituals which Captain Boo, the author, describes as being effective.”

  “Captain Boo?”

  “No wonder he was kicked out of the military,” I said, not wanting to reveal we shared the same name. “The book explains also the Tower of Zhaal can be summoned from places where the barrier between dimensions is weak and has no physical location. He listed a few possible places, but frankly, those are useless to us since the Rising shattered the dimensional barriers in thousands of places.”

  “I love it when you talk smart,” Mercury said, taking the book from me. “Maybe I can figure out a way to combine sorcery with scientific instruments to measure where the biggest dimensional crack is.”

  I looked at her, uncomfortable with such casual use of
the unnatural. “That might work, even if I don’t recommend you doing so.”

  “I’ve accepted you as a supernatural creature. You can accept me as a witch,” Mercury said, joking.

  It was a joke in poor taste since my deal with the Yithians would rid me of my inhuman side forever.

  Your inhuman side is your consciousness, John. Your body just reflects it. The voices in my head were taunting me now.

  Taking a deep breath, I said to Mercury, “I trust you.”

  “Thank you, John,” Mercury said, lying down on her pillow. “I trust you, too.”

  I opened my mouth to confess everything. To tell her that I loved her, that I wanted her to know I would be by her side. That I didn’t want anyone else. When I started to speak, I was interrupted by the sound of heavy snoring.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. I shook my head and lay down beside Mercury, trying to go to sleep despite all the terrible things in my head. For once, Nyarlathotep did not stalk my dreams and I had a peaceful slumber. I dreamt of better, more peaceful, days. Which should have been my first clue that something was wrong.

  Richard Jameson and I were sitting together in the middle of his garage, standing in front of a map with a folded-out piece of cardboard in front of him. There were dice in front of us as well as numerous hand-carved miniatures of humans, monsters, and other near-human races. Half-repaired machines, pieces of salvage, and framed movie posters from the Pre-Rising world decorated his messy home as pigs snarled in the pen outside.

  I was wearing a pair of shades and not looking directly at Richard because, simply put, he was hideous. A furry dog-like face with an extended snout, greenish skin, and shark-like teeth were just some of the horrible features that made his appearance loathsome. Richard tried to disguise his appearance or mitigate it by wearing an outlandish shirt displaying some long-dead musical group called the Grateful Dead. They must have been truly ghastly if they had that name.

  “I don’t see the appeal of this board game,” I said, trying to let Richard down easily.

  “You’re an investigator trying to determine the secret horror that rests in the heart of Salem House,” Richard said.