Tower of Zhaal

by Phipps, C. T.

  “Yes,” Mercury said.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s against my religious practices,” I said, bowing my head. “Please forgive me, I do not wish to insult my host by refusing hospitality.”

  “I only partake for medicinal purposes.” August placed his hand over his heart.

  “It depends what you mean by own kind,” Bobbie answered. “Human? Yes. Deep One? Even more so. Non-sentient life in general? No.”

  Judge Hoade curled up his considerable snout at Bobbie. “I will not speak to the Deep One, Captain Booth, it is against my people’s traditions to communicate with their kind. Please make sure she behaves herself in the presence of a sacred official to Seth-Yigg, Mordiggian, and Tsathoggua.”

  I pursed my lips, torn between my desire to be diplomatic and my desire to punch him in the face to defend Ms. Merriweather’s honor. “I’m sure she’ll be able to look after her own behavior, Your Honor.”

  “Ah,” Judge Hoade said, not correcting me. He then began speaking of the dietary laws of ghouls, reinforcing my opinion of his position being primarily religious in nature. “You should respect your dead more, Captain Booth. To eat of their flesh is to do them honor. I have all the accumulated knowledge of previous judges by eating their brains and someday will pass along my knowledge the same way. The same for my strength. Each ghoul generation is stronger for this act and we honor humanity by dining on them.”

  “Also, we taste good,” Mercury muttered.

  “That, too,” Judge Hoade said, unashamed.

  The Faceless One who seemed to be leading the group across from us, lifted its palms up and began speaking through them. I decided she was female since her figure was curvier than the one in the tunnel. “Why are you here, Mister Booth?”

  “We’re investigating a cult that’s attempting to release a very powerful and dangerous supernatural entity,” I said, not missing a beat.

  Martha whispered over to me. “Something’s changed in you.”

  “You have no idea,” I muttered.

  The female Faceless One, who I named the Matriarch for lack of a formal name, said, “It sounds like a worthy cause. That still doesn’t explain why you are coming here of all places, though.”

  I gave a half-smile, wondering if the Faceless Ones across from me were involved in the attempts on our lives. I was ninety percent sure they were. Call it gut instinct. “It is my hope, if the city’s inhabitants do not mind, to consult with their oracle. The one Jessica said was called the Keeper.”

  I wanted to reach across the table and murder the Faceless Ones on the merest suspicion they were involved in bringing the Deep Ones down on our head. The loss of my oldest friend was a heavy one, and I wanted to repay it in blood. It was strange how I barely remembered we’d been estranged for almost a year—that seemed unimportant now.

  All that mattered now was vengeance.

  Judge Hoade seemed oblivious to our tension. “The Keeper lives in our palace, and indeed, is the one whose palace this is.” There was a moment in its dog-like features where I thought I saw fear.

  “I will relay your request to him,” Judge Hoade said, a trio of small shoggoths bringing us selections of fruit and fungus while laying meat down in front of the Faceless Ones. “However, I would not get your hopes up.”

  “Thank you,” I told the shoggoth, frowning at its treatment. “And why is that, Your Honor?”

  Martha answered instead of the Judge. “Because the Keeper despises humans and it considers us little better than domesticated animals who have turned feral. I have been here for the better part of a week attempting to negotiate trade agreements between Shak’ta’hadron and New Arkham. We have run into numerous difficulties because of the Keeper’s interference.”

  “The Keeper provides for and protects the ghouls of this land,” Judge Hoade said, maneuvering his face into an expression I assumed was a frown. “Without him, we would not have the amazing technology and labor force that has brought us such prosperity.”

  “You mean the shoggoths?” I asked, wanting to be clear just what sorts of benefits they’d reaped.

  “I do, indeed,” Judge Hoade said, nodding. “Other ghoul cities may employ one or two or perhaps as many as six, but do not risk using them long due to their orneriness. Shak’ta’hadron, by contrast, makes use of over a million of their kind.”

  “I see,” I said, stunned by the numbers.

  Mercury paled at this revelation. “That seems a bit dangerous.”

  Judge Hoade waved his hand over the table in a dismissive gesture. “Nonsense. The Keeper has perfected the techniques that failed his race. Now, the shoggoths are docile and content to be ordered around. They like doing work and have much better lives in our service than trying to survive the hell outside.”

  I was amazed that the circumstances, nations, and even species changed but the rationales didn’t.

  “It is one of the points of contention that I’d hoped to acquire a dozen or so shoggoths for New Arkham and Kingsport,” Martha said, smiling a mirthless stare. “The Keeper has so far blocked our attempts to reach an agreement. I believe that it was your idea, Doctor Halsey?”

  Mercury looked ill. Perhaps she was starting to realize the shoggoths weren’t such a great thing to keep enslaved. “Yes, yes it was.”

  “I would advise against that,” I said, imagining New Arkham turning into a slave state. We bordered on that sometimes, especially with our treatment of farmers, but under President Ashton-Smith, they’d been allowed a great deal more in the way of rights and privileges.

  Ironically, it was probably the desire to lighten their burden that was behind New Arkham’s desire to acquire shoggoths. With the ability to recycle all of our wastes, the oppressive handling of food production wouldn’t be necessary.

  “Why is that?” Judge Hoade said, surprised by my reaction.

  I realized I’d committed a faux-pas. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to apologize for the statement either. “I speak in ignorance of your ways of handling shoggoths, Judge Hoade. However, history has shown them to be beings who do not wish to remain under the control of others. The Elder Things’ society was destroyed by their turning against their masters.”

  Judge Hoade looked furious and started to say something.

  The Matriarch spoke first. “Mister Booth shows a remarkable awareness of history, Your Eminence. While the city of Shak’ta’hadron has long been an ally of the True Humans, we have records dating back to the original days of the shoggoth revolt. Unimaginable bloodshed occurred, and ninety-nine out of a hundred Elder Things were slaughtered along with most humans. The shoggoths are like my people, intelligent and cunning creatures. They are immortal in ways ghouls and Deep Ones would envy and may plot for millennia to gain their revenge—but they will have it.”

  “Interesting,” Martha Booth said, looking at the Faceless One.

  Judge Hoade didn’t get to respond to our dual proclamations when I felt the earlier chill pass over me again. The malevolent distaste for myself and humanity’s source was now in our presence, concentrated and distilled in fleshy form. Turning my head, I didn’t even need to look at it to know what the source was.

  The Keeper. It had come in from a set of octagonal doors on the other end of the hall, shambling along on its multiple legs. The Elder Thing stood eight feet tall. It had a barrel-like chest and starfish-esque appendages where its head and feet should be. It had other inhuman qualities that unsettled me, stalks for eating and seeing in ways humans could not appreciate, but it was the creature’s crystal rod that interested me. It was similar but different from the kind the University’s magicians had used. I’d seen this brand before, however. It had been used by the Elder Things that killed my friend Richard.

  The Keeper was one of them.

  When it spoke—which is a misnomer, for it communicated via telepathy translations of its weird, high-pitch squealing—the “voice” was haughty and condescending. “[The opinions of lesser beings do not concern me. As far a
s I’m concerned, with the exception of the ghouls of Shak’ta’hadron, you’re all human beings—little more than tools that have started malfunctioning.]”

  “I see,” I said, trying to conceal my pure congealed hatred of the Elder Thing before me. “I was curious if I might avail—”

  “[No,]” the Keeper replied.

  “But I—” I started to say.

  “[I know who you are and whose blood you have shed,]” the Keeper replied. Which was interesting because the Elder Things didn’t have “blood,” per se. “[You think your quest is justified, but so do the degenerate primitives your race is mutated from across the table.]”

  The Matriarch pressed her fingers together, her posture going very still at the Keeper’s insults.

  “[I could provide you and the Yithians with the location of where the Tower of Zhaal will manifest, but I choose not to. I do not believe there to be a danger to the Elder Things and my chosen people. The ones who I am going to uplift to a proper civilization. Even if they were, I can remove them from this dimension to safer domains. There is nothing for you here and I suggest you retreat from this place before I decide to evict you.]”

  “I see,” I said, taking note that he did have the information we needed. That meant we needed to figure out a way to extract it from him. “Thank you very much, Keeper. I appreciate your taking the time to speak with us.”

  “[The feeling is not mutual,]” the Keeper said, turning around, and exiting out the same door from which it came. It seemed the Elder Thing had come here for the explicit purpose of insulting us. Given that I’d killed one of his number and indirectly caused the deaths of others, I shouldn’t have been surprised. The surprising thing was, he hadn’t attempted to have me killed. Perhaps the Keeper’s influence was not so grandiose as he liked to claim?

  If so, I found that worth investigating.

  Judge Hoade placed a furry hand on the top of his face in a surprisingly human gesture. “My apologies for the Keeper’s behavior. He is an excellent aid to our land, but a bit … theatrical.”

  “Has he shared any technology or knowledge other than how to control shoggoths?” Mercury asked, zeroing in on something I’d picked up on.

  “No,” Judge Hoade said, frowning. “Perhaps he doesn’t know any more of the Elder Things’ science.”

  I found that difficult to believe. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Your Honor. Would it be too much to impose on your city’s hospitality for another couple of days? We have to prepare for the next phase of our journey.”

  Mercury looked confused. We, after all, didn’t have anywhere else to go yet. She also wasn’t used to me planning something as ruthless as putting the screws to an alien. Torture wasn’t an effective means of interrogation—she knew that better than anyone—but I was sure we could come up with something.

  After all, we had the world to save.

  “Of course,” Judge Hoade said, guileless to my planned treachery. “I’ll have your rooms prepared immediately.”

  “Thank you.”

  Now I had to talk to Martha.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Our meal, the ghoul equivalent of lunch, lasted for the better part of an hour but everyone was exhausted when it was over. After all, we’d barely gotten any sleep the night before and had spent the resulting morning in a state of heightened wakefulness. Everyone looked ready to crash except me.

  I didn’t feel like I needed to sleep anymore. I hoped I still did because without the opportunity to slumber, I wasn’t sure I could keep what little remained of my fragile humanity. For all that poets talked about sleep being akin to death, it was rest that allowed us to appreciate life.

  Admittedly, I wasn’t too keen to go to sleep while the Faceless Ones were nearby. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure they were involved in the attack on Insmaw. All I knew was that one chose to assault us with a bunch of Reanimated, and that Whateley seemed to think they were involved with this Great Enemy or were the ones he was referring to. Even more so than the Keeper, they might hold insights into where Whateley and the Tower of Zhaal summoning point might be.

  Hell, I was more than a little curious how the Keeper had known that was what we were after in the first place.

  After we finished, a trio of shoggoths led us to our stone rooms. They had stone beds with feather pillows but no blankets, crystal lamps, and a curious blocky geometric pattern to all the furnishings. Everything was square, made of rectangles, or octagonal. Given the importance of the octagons to the Elder Things, I’m not sure why that was, I wondered if the interior design reflected the Keeper’s influence.

  All of our rooms were adjoining and there were no doors or curtains between them. Ghouls did not have the same requirements for privacy humans did. This was strange, because there were doors to functional rooms like the dining hall or kitchen. They also had public bathrooms, which I suspected might irritate some of our group. Unfortunately, the absence of doors meant that if the Faceless Ones wanted to kill us in our sleep, then they would have an easy time of it. They weren’t staying anywhere near us per a ghoul I chatted up, so there was that at least.

  While Mercury and the others were settling in (in some cases, using the furniture to barricade the doorways), I decided to pay a visit to Martha. She was staying a number of rooms down and I passed by my group, two humans having sex who didn’t seem to mind my passing through, and a ghoul who was eating a fresh corpse with several sharp utensils. The latter almost caused me to vomit but I managed to control the urge.

  Martha had already changed into a diaphanous white nightgown, which seemed to accent her already eerie but beautiful features. While the only vampires I’d ever encountered were wizards like August who used human blood and organs to extend their life, I couldn’t help but be reminded of them when thinking of my former bride. Which was amusing given I was the monster.

  “Did you know H.G. Wells was friends with a ghoul?” Martha said, referencing one of the Pre-Rising authors whose works survived in the Remnant’s library. She was pulling out a hair brush from her bag.

  I wondered at her choice of topic. “And how do you know that?”

  “I met him while acquainting myself with this group. He claimed they’d been close friends and he’d revealed his true nature to him. Sadly, this seems to have gone over like a ton of cement and resulted in him writing a fanciful warning against them in The Time Machine.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re claiming the ghouls are the inspiration for Morlocks?”

  “They are an advanced underground civilization of creatures that feed on humans.”

  It sounded like a made-up story to me, but I didn’t care. Fiction wasn’t what I’d come here to talk about. Still, I decided to indulge her while I came up with a way to discuss my situation. “I always felt the Time Traveler was unfair to the Morlock species.”

  Martha gave a half-smile. “I’ve always felt you’ve had a disturbing kinship with the monsters. The ghouls are enemies, John. All nonhumans are humanity’s enemies. In the end, there can be but one race that dominates the world.”

  “Humans live above ground, Deep Ones in the ocean, and ghouls live underground. shoggoths can live anywhere. I’m not seeing a lot of overlap.”

  “So, you’re saying we should all sit around the campfire and play nice?” Martha scoffed, sounding almost offended.

  “I’m saying that people have always glorified war and conflict but it’s a more expensive proposition than peace,” I said, sighing. “Given the status of the rest of the world, you might want to advise the new president to rethink any strategy that relies on the premise of driving out the other species, most of which have been here longer than humanity.”

  Martha focused her gaze on me. “Is that why I shouldn’t consider you an enemy?”

  Ah. She knew. “My body has changed. My mind has not.”

  “Ridiculous,” Martha said, snorting. “Our bodies influence our mind. We’re products of chemicals generating electricity
.”

  “Says the woman who would be burnt at the stake anywhere but New Arkham and a handful of other places,” I said, crossing my arms. “And could survive her body’s death by seizing someone else’s form.”

  Martha batted her eyelashes. “That was actually a decent rebuttal. Your debate skills have improved. I would have divorced you sooner if you’d been this good earlier.”

  “You didn’t divorce me until you were forced to by the Council of Leaders. Which, I suppose, I should be grateful for.” I gave a half-smile. “Needless to say, I’ve been undergoing quite a few changes. For the time being, at least, I still seem to be me.”

  “Yes, for the time being,” Martha said, sitting down on the edge of her stone bed. “Now, what’s all this nonsense of you being on a mission for the Yithians?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  But the world didn’t. Still, Martha might prove useful and it’d be good to get an outsider’s perspective on all this madness. “Alright, here’s the story…”

  About twenty-minutes later, Martha was staring at me. “John, if you weren’t such an awful liar, I’d say you made that all up.”

  “I am not an awful liar,” I said, offended. “You’re just psychic.”

  “Both can be true,” Martha said, sighing. “Your situation does, however, put me in a difficult position.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean to say the Faceless Ones and New Arkham have been cooperating to try and release the Unimaginable Horror.”

  I blinked. I raised a finger and opened my mouth. I closed my mouth. “What?”

  “They came to us with an offer about eight months ago,” Martha said, brushing her hair. “While we couldn’t communicate it to our citizenry lest they revolt, it was an opportunity too good to miss.”

  I was silent for almost a minute.

  Martha blinked. “John, I can’t read your mind anymore so….”