Tower of Zhaal

by Phipps, C. T.

  Looking at the large, black amorphous blobs sloshing towards us in obscene ways, it was difficult to believe the shoggoth race could be so beaten down. I knew it to be a near-universal fact of their existence. The Elder Things had created the shoggoths using a form of organic nanotechnology far beyond anything Pre-Rising scientists could have conceived of and then proceeded to use them as workers to serve their civilization.

  Every shoggoth had powerful psychic commands built into their consciousness, and while tens of millions of years of abuse had given them the strength to rebel against the Elder Things, those commands were still there. The Deep Ones, Ghouls, Tunnelers, and a dozen other species (including humans) with knowledge of the Elder Things’ control spells used them to re-enslave the strange creatures. As a result, every shoggoth I’d encountered burned with a lust for freedom and desire to avenge itself upon those who had done it wrong. That was why shoggoths terrified me. Having fought and killed one before, I now realized they were a race motivated by something I understood all too well—a need to be freed from the chains of others.

  “Don’t worry,” August said, raising his hands. “These creatures are the servants of the ghouls here.”

  “I’m not,” Bobbie said, staring at them. “Shoggoths are mindless animals. I’m worried about who is holding their leash.”

  August frowned. “I’m sure they’re just here to investigate us.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Bobbie said, raising her hands as well.

  I frowned at both, then did the same.

  Mercury also raised her hands. “I’ve always felt the shoggoth was a fascinating creature. I suggested in one of my reports if New Arkham could get one, it could process all of our organic waste into food and valuable materials.”

  “I might be able to make arrangements for something like that,” August said, looking mercenary. “If the price is right.”

  “I wonder what the shoggoths would think of that,” I muttered, appalled by their discussion.

  “Who cares?” August replied.

  The shoggoths, eleven in number and all smaller than the one I’d fought in Joseph Ward’s cathedral, gathered around us and formed a massive barrier. Despite my newfound abilities, which I didn’t understand in the slightest, I was absent any of the weapons that might do harm to the beings around me. Likewise, I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be possible for them to kill my “other” self in a way the Deep Ones had been unable to. The creatures’ foul odor caused me to choke up with nausea. I was exhausted, too, from my earlier labors and general lack of sleep. Yet fear as well as fascination kept me from showing more than the barest reaction to the beings surrounding us.

  “Um,” Mercury said, waving. “Hello.”

  One of the shoggoths sloshed like an amoeba going through mitosis before its liquid body created a spire of entwined tendrils. The ooze transformed into the face of a Ghoul who spoke to us in a crisp Old Texas accent. The kind I used to hear in the half-functioning movie theaters back in New Arkham. “Judge Hoade wishes to speak with you, Captain Booth, Doctor Halsey. Please accompany us to the palace.”

  “Were we just ignored?” Bobbie asked.

  “Yes, I do believe we were,” August said, frowning. “I’m quite offended.”

  “We accept,” I said, nodding.

  “What sort of rank is a judge?” Mercury said, looking up at me. “I mean, here?”

  “Richard said ghouls didn’t have rulers the way humans do,” I said, frowning. “Judge is about the highest position they have.”

  Indeed, as the shoggoths sloshed away, merging into one gigantic version of themselves, I caught a sense of just how paradisiacal this place was. Referring to a single palace was inaccurate because the entirety of Shak’ta’hadron was composed of palaces. The place was beyond wealthy by both Pre- and Post-Rising standards, but even so, the wealth seemed to be evenly distributed.

  This was not to say some palaces were not bigger, more ornate, or better maintained. No, some ghouls were richer than others, but everyone seemed to be sharing in the abundance of their society. Even the humans lived in luxurious mansions, adorning themselves with gold and jewels like sultans. The source of this prosperity soon became clear, though, as I saw many more shoggoths at work. They repaired roads, altered buildings, cleaned the streets, and even served meals at restaurants. There were at least five hundred thousand beings in Shak’ta’hadron, but it seemed that just as many, if not more, shoggoths were present. I even saw the blobs used as pets, with one girl carrying around a puppy-sized one while another was led around by a woman on a leash.

  “There’s always someone to scrub the toilets in paradise,” I muttered.

  “What, Booth?” Mercury asked. I noted she was avoiding meeting my gaze now.

  “Nothing.”

  “I have an idea of what he’s contemplating,” August said, shaking his head. “And if he’s going to develop an overabundant sympathy with the slime-monsters around us, I’d like to point out that civilization is made on the backs of others. No empire, kingdom, or nation was built without an underclass, and their suffering gives birth to prosperity. If humanity wants to rebuild itself, it should put the next sixteen generations to work building pyramids and temples to placate the Old Ones along with canals alongside roads. Tens of millions would suffer and die in bondage, but the civilization that resulted would carry on.”

  I blinked at August, realizing he was serious. “Is that the ethos the University lives by?”

  “It is my ethos,” August said, shrugging. “Human beings are selfish and short-lived creatures. I serve my needs or the needs of the whole. Nothing in between. A nation can last a millennium while a human being is dust within sixty to eighty years. That’s the best form of immortality for those who, unlike me, can’t figure out how to work an immortality spell.”

  “How do you do that last one, anyway?” Mercury said, a little too curious.

  “Regular human heart consumption. At least once per year,” August didn’t hesitate to say.

  Mercury looked ill.

  August snorted. “As if you didn’t kill someone every month. Why waste?”

  “I don’t believe nations should be served by the individual,” I replied, wondering what the shoggoths thought of our conversation. “I believe the individual should be served by their nations. That is their purpose, to enrich the lives of the many through mutual cooperation and benefit.”

  “Kennedy would have disagreed,” Bobbie said, referencing someone I recalled from history class. There were plenty of Pre-Rising textbooks left over, but their recorded histories were less relevant to modern audiences with each passing year.

  “I don’t truck with slavery,” Mercury said, following me. “The permanent job system in New Arkham is different. Besides, shoggoths are different from human beings. They may even like serving.”

  The shoggoth in front of us made a gurgling noise.

  “See? It agrees,” Mercury said, pointing to it.

  “I don’t think it’s agreeing,” I said, looking at it. “The shoggoths rebelled once. They can do so again.”

  “Not if they’re properly enchanted,” August replied. “That’s another reason for keeping them greased up to the—well, they don’t have eyeballs, but you know what I mean. They’d kill us all if they had the chance. Keeping them under control prevents them from destroying what little remains of the human, ghoul, and Deep One races.”

  I could have pointed out that the shoggoths hadn’t destroyed humanity in the million or so years from when the Elder Things had first created our species from apes. They’d stuck to the dark corners of the Earth, only slaying those humans who ventured too far into their territory or who sought the treasures of the Elder Things.

  I didn’t have much time to ponder the moral questions of keeping an alien being with alien values enslaved. The palace of the judge was an impressive structure even by the standards of Shak’ta’hadron. Rather than a single stalactite, it was several individua
l ones and a few stalactites from the ceiling all bonded together by bridges, walkways, and arches formed together into a kind of estate.

  The place was like a vision from another world. Eerie fairy-fire lights illuminated the thousands of windows throughout the palace. I took back my earlier statement about the ghouls distributing wealth evenly because the judge’s residence, unless he or she received this place as part of their office, was far beyond any I’d yet seen. The long-destroyed palaces of Versailles, Hearst Castle, and Schloss Neuschwanstein had nothing on the building we were venturing to.

  Mercury gave an appreciative whistle. “At least we know the person we’re visiting has taste.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not for us,” Bobbie said.

  “Ghouls don’t eat living meat,” I replied, sighing. “As you know.”

  “I know what I’ve heard,” Bobbie said. “Little of it is good.”

  “They could just kill us and eat us,” August said, a grin on his face. “However, they’d throw you away, Bobbie. Or should I say back?”

  I’d always found the Deep One’s distaste for the Ghoul species (and vice-versa) inexplicable. They had much in common, including that they were immortal races that could interbreed with poor, weak humanity.

  Yet as badly as most Post-Rising humans got along with both, the relations between Deep Ones and Ghouls were always genocidal. The two did not tolerate the other in their territory, and I was now quite worried for Bobbie’s safety. The doors to the metal gates opened when we presented ourselves to them, using some form of strange motion-sensing technology that might have been common in the Pre-Rising era. Following the shoggoth as it sloshed into the courtyard, I felt dread creeping up and down my spine.

  There was an evil in this place, one cold and filled with hate for my kind. Whether this was for the Eyes of Yog-Sothoth or for humanity, I couldn’t say, but I recognized the sensation. I could feel the emotions as if they were shouted from the highest hills.

  “This is a beautiful city, John. Safe too,” Mercury said, looking at me. “We may not be together anymore, but maybe it’d be a good idea to bring Jackie here. She could be—”

  “We can’t let her grow up among slavers,” I said, my voice cold.

  “That’s not your decision to make, John. It’s mine and Jackie’s. The other option is deranged cultists.”

  I had no answer for that.

  I didn’t know why I drew the line at slavery over other, equally heinous, crimes. I had abandoned all of my previous morality. I no longer believed in the jingoistic nationalism supported by the puppets the Council of Leaders had installed in our self-congratulatory church system. Everything I believed in was something I’d chosen for myself, often in direct opposition to the values I’d been raised to believe in.

  I still held some of my old principles out of a belief they had merit, but I was a self-made man in terms of my morality. Of the principles I used to shield myself against the insanity of the apathetic, madness-filled universe, one was a simple but universal truth: Fuck slavers.

  Having spent the morning burying bodies of children, the elderly, adults, and soldiers, I was not in the mood to debate the subject with August. I did not care if he believed slavery was justified when it involved nonhumans or that it was an excellent means of building up civilization when most humanity was content to live as scavengers on Old Earth’s refuse.

  I didn’t care if the shoggoths wanted to kill us, especially as they might just want to do so because they were enslaved. I didn’t care about any rationale a man would want to offer about why, in this specific case, it was justified. Even those who voluntarily submitted to slavery so they could be fed and clothed did not change my view.

  “I’m sure you will do right by her,” I said, hoping Mercury let me play a role in Jackie’s life.

  Our group went through the front door of the Judge’s Palace and we found ourselves surrounded by even more displays of opulence. There were antiques, paintings, sculptures, and other relics from the Pre-Rising era.

  The ghouls, despite their inhuman appearance, were possessed of a keen aesthetic sense like mankind’s own. A hushed silence fell over our group as we passed by a doorway to a library greater than any I’d seen outside of the University.

  After several minutes of wandering around the halls of the Judge’s Palace, we passed through a set of black metal doors decorated with images of ghouls hunting down Deep Ones. On the other side was a magnificent fifty-foot-long mahogany table, polished to shine, with golden plates and utensils. A gigantic feast of meats and unidentifiable odd-looking fruits was on display before us. The places at this huge table were relatively small but occupied by two dozen or so figures, most of them ghouls. The ones who were not, however, disturbed me to the core.

  I wasn’t sure which ones were more bothersome, though. The first was a group of six Faceless Ones, wearing the same robes as the one who’d tried to kill me in the Tunnelers’ cavern. The second was a single person.

  My wife, Martha.

  OK, that was unexpected.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I blinked several times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

  “John, correct me if I’m wrong, but is that your wife there?” Mercury asked, looking just as perplexed as I was. “In the middle of an underground city populated by ghouls?”

  “Ex-wife, but you are otherwise correct,” I said, frowning.

  Martha Washington Booth was beautiful, in a cold way, with shoulder-length silvery-white hair. She had albino skin that never seemed to sunburn or tan and dressed for cold weather no matter the temperature. Her eyes were charcoal gray and had the ability to stare down even the strongest-willed person. Martha was wearing a long, heavy woolen coat, a turtleneck sweater, and a set of dress pants over black jackboots.

  Martha was once an agent for the Senior Council charged with telepathically rooting out dissent and coming up with new strategies to guarantee our little city-state’s supremacy. She was one of the few sorts of “permissible” mutants, since looking like a marble statue and possessing superpowers was the least of the effects the Wasteland could have on a person. We’d been happy in our relationship for a long time, perhaps because our first years of marriage had been spent with lengthy periods apart. Unfortunately, as she rose in rank and I became more educated in the ways of the Wasteland, we butted heads more often.

  Children often brought marriages together, but other times, they highlighted irreconcilable differences. For me, Anita and Gabriel were everything, but for Martha, only Gabriel showed true promise. I think I knew our marriage was over when, at ages eight and five, she’d asked if we could have them transferred to a new family.

  By the way Martha’s eyes widened, I gathered this meeting wasn’t intentional. This gave me far too much pleasure. It was a rare occasion I managed to put one over on a psychic.

  Martha scrunched her brow and attempted to scan my thoughts. I could feel the wispy tendrils of her mind reaching into mine, but as much to my surprise as to hers, they were blocked by whatever had happened to me.

  Fascinating.

  “Well, this is surprising.” Martha was sipping from a teacup with no sign of meat on her plate.

  Probably a good idea.

  “Welcome,” the ghoul at the end of the table said. He was twice the size of the rest of his kin and possessed of huge razor-covered back of deformed proportions. Yet like the rest of his race, he sounded like he could have come from the street I grew up on. Ghouls had their own accents, inflections, and vocal quirks, but all of the ones I’d met spoke English like natives. Which, I supposed, many ghouls were.

  The shoggoth split into a dozen smaller versions of itself and slithered away through holes in the walls, maneuvering to get out of sight.

  “Judge Hoade, I presume?” I said, walking forward. “I am sorry to impose upon you and your city’s hospitality.”

  The gigantic ghoul nodded. “I am, indeed. As for intruding, not at all, not at all. We’v
e long considered your associate, Jessica O’Reilly, to be a friend of our city. I was just mentioning that to your former mate. Please take a seat.” He gestured to the unoccupied seats around Martha, which I wouldn’t have taken under normal circumstances. They put us right across from the Faceless Ones.

  “With pleasure,” I said, faking civility. I would have attempted to gauge the reactions of the Faceless Ones to our presence, but as one might imagine, they were difficult to read.

  August turned to me and asked as we walked to our seats, “Is it just me or is it a staggering coincidence your ex-wife is here?”

  “There’s nothing coincidental about Martha,” Mercury muttered, glaring at my wife. “Watch yourself, she’s psychic.”

  “I’d focus on the people trying to end the world,” Bobbie muttered, sitting down at the farthest seat on our side from the judge. Her eyes were squarely focused on the Faceless Ones, looking at them as if they were the most freakish abominations she’d ever seen.

  As I sat down beside Martha, she shot me a look of confusion before looking over each of my companions. If she couldn’t read my mind, I was certain she’d try to read theirs. August and Bobbie might be able to block out her thoughts, but I wasn’t sure about Mercury. Stronger magicians than her had been shredded by Martha’s abilities.

  Taking a napkin from the table and placing it in my lap, I said, “I regret to inform you that Jessica O’Reilly has passed. She died a hero, attempting to save the lives of innocents. I intend to carry word of her death to her followers in Boston once I have finished my present quest.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Judge Hoade said. “She was a good woman, for a human being. Do any of you have any objections to eating the flesh of your own kind?”