by J K Ishaya
“Moonlight appeared to slither on the creature’s skin as it circled around and presented its back to me. On, the voice told me, and I did not hesitate. If I saw it as only a beast and not also a man—human or otherwise—it did not seem quite so bizarre. I climbed on and straddled his back, wincing at the strange sensation of tough, leathery skin, and reached into the mane to get a grip only to be startled when the tendrils I had missed earlier emerged from under the coarse, matted fur and twined around my arms. Rather than hold the reins, it was more like the reins held me. I managed to suppress a shout at this, remembering how they had so effortlessly lifted me off the steps as a child and bore me back onto the landing. To do that, they were capable of sprouting far greater lengths than this. More of them shot out to coil around my waist and further secure me. He reared on those two powerful rear legs and the wings unfolded, stretching out at least fifteen feet to either side. They beat the air and to my astonishment gained lift with no problem despite my added weight.
“It was far better than being snatched and tossed about by a swarm of night-gaunts, but I was bound to the beast which bore a discomfort all its own. As we rose higher and caught the first swell of air that Malorix used to soar forward, I heard—or rather sensed—a number of voices. They were communicating telepathically and in a language which I couldn’t understand, but the intention was there in sharp declarations that I’m sure were curses, and then longer sentences that had the tone of orders being issued rapidly. I looked back over my shoulder, wind sweeping hair in my eyes, and saw several figures, including the Nyarlathite woman from the alley, stepping up onto the roof tops. Their pale hair shone against the night, as they watched after us, and then the exchange turned to something of a chant, all of the voices contributing to the same series of words and a certain cadence. It grew louder in my mind for a moment, and then as we swept further away, it faded with distance until it was silent. I wondered if Malorix heard or understood the exchange, but if he did he kept silent and did not answer my enquiries.
“We flew out over the northern city wall that dropped down to the marshes and then Malorix banked left, beat his wings to gain more height, and found greater swells to carry us forward at speeds that awed me. The marshes below were a patch work of reflected moonlight and shadowy reeds that went on for miles. Unlike the night-gaunt attack, this was peaceful, and I relished the feel of wind in my hair and hushing in my ears. My creator’s declaration that I would acquire transformative skills of my own came to me and while I still was not sure I wanted that, from this perspective it did not seem such a horrible thing. To be able to see the world from such an elevation was inspiring, and I imagined what the mountains of Dacia would look like rushing beneath me with their craggy faces, piney ridges and river gorges. I was still not particularly comfortable with the strange organic bindings holding me to the back of the creature, but I understood their necessity. I had so many more questions to ask now, but I reserved them for later.
“Finally, in the distance, a line of solid ground rose, dotted by the lights of cottages, and causeways led out to fishing huts and docks. Beyond it a forest began, looking more like a dense rug from this height.
“Then my reverie was broken by an ear-rending screech from the sky behind and above us. I jolted and twisted around to look over my shoulder again. Silhouetted against the night sky were two large winged forms, much larger than Malorix and myself together. They were hundreds of meters out, but closing in quickly with massive talons lowered, ready to grab. I focused on bodies that were patched with scales amid rangy plumules, while the wing bore feathers that looked as sharp as blades. They had long, bare horse-shaped heads with sharp beaks, and their eyes glimmered with fury.
“While I was staring back at them in both wonder and concern, I felt Malorix drop, the sensation stomach churning, and spun back around to face ahead. He tilted at a hard angle to gain speed, losing height, and soared straight for the forest. The thoughts that he transmitted to me were no longer in word form but images, yet they conveyed his intent perfectly: make for the forest, get to cover.
“In descent we hit several gales that forced him to bank back and forth, losing the distance we would have gained in a straight pattern, and then I heard the great wings of one of the things beat the air right above us and the clawed feet closed in on my shoulders. I cried out, and so did Malorix, issuing a startled roar when I was suddenly pulled up while he was struggling to descend. He found words again and the thought form I heard was an echoing plea: Nodens!
“But neither Nodens nor any of his night-gaunts appeared, and I shouted as the great demon bird pulled me upward and the tendrils around my wrists and middle cinched tight as Malorix tried to hold on, and then the second flying beast came in somehow from the side and to my shock captured Malorix in its claws. One of his wings crumpled in the grip, while the other had him to the side of the neck. He thrashed violently, his great fanged mouth gnashing to reach around and bite at the claw holding him. They were going to tear us apart at this rate, and the whole of Malorix, myself, and both giant bird-creatures commenced to fall. The great wings caused wind resistance that slowed the descent, but if we did not get free of the attack soon, we would all be dashed into the tree line that began to loom. My shoulders had begun to bleed the black ichor that now ran in my veins and I screamed as one shoulder dislocated and skin and muscle stretched taut.
“Beneath me, in desperation, the winged beast that was Malorix morphed anew, accompanied by strains of cries scathing to hear. His winged creature form appeared to almost melt. Body and wings instantly became more oily and took less shape until there was only a twisting, thrashing mass of tentacles with almost-shapes bursting out of it. A spindly claw would emerge, swipe the air, and then reabsorb, then a mouth and teeth would attempt to coalesce and for a scant moment a row of those serpentine eyes appeared before sinking back into the aggregation. The tendrils where a mane had been fell away in globs that rejoined with the whole being which continued to warp and undulate but for the vaguest protrusion of his primary maw that roared and shrieked as I came free in the air, still gripped and torn in the giant claws.
“‘No!’ I screamed and tried to reach for him, but his last thoughts reached out and rang clear in my mind.
“Hold your ground. I will find you in the mountain.
“And then he… it… what was left of him… vanished into thin air.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Sounds so horrific,” Howard says. “I wonder what he felt, changing into that, to lose all form, even that of the creature like that.”
“I can tell you I sensed desperation and surrender. He either chose to force himself awake on the earth plane, in which case his dream body began to deteriorate right there amidst our flight, or it is possible that the entire experience was jarring enough to wake him naturally and he was attempting to hold on to his dream body. I have since experienced similar scenarios.
“In my case, of course, nothing could wake me, so I dangled in the giant bird creature’s grasp, kicking and roaring out rage of my own, while the second bird shrieked at having lost its prey and moved in, its blade-like wings cutting at me. I swung my lower torso and managed to kick it in the beak, and then I pried at the claws gripping my shoulders. My strength was such that I could get one open, but just as it dropped that shoulder, I had to turn attention to my other side which gave it the opening to seize me again in a different grip. We were now in a diagonal descent with the tree line ahead. Meadows of tall grass and shrub shot by underneath us. By now I was as transformed as I could possibly become, my eyes burning with the rage, fangs at full, venomous bud, and my hands were at their most warped with claws out and slashing at the legs of my new captor.
“At a glance, I saw that we were sailing directly into the woods, so I continued my viscous struggle as a distraction. The bird screamed when I swiped it in the belly, opening a cut between the flaky scales large enough for it to bleed. It was only a flesh wound, but greenish
blood dribbled on me and leaked into my mouth. It was incredibly foul and nearly made me gag right there in mid-air brawl. Meanwhile, its partner continued to try to grab one of my legs, and then we hit the trees all together. They were too large to fit through the narrow passages of the forest line, and their descent came to an abrupt stop with a thrash of limbs, a fall of pine needles, and I tore loose and tumbled into the shadows of the trees. My shoulder was almost torn off, and so I flopped and rolled and landed against a tree and amidst clusters of ferns. I did not black out, but I was stunned for a moment, and I heard the slurp and hiss of my tissues mending as my shoulder pulled itself back on under my clothes, and then I startled to full alertness when a beak snapped the air only feet away from my face. One of the birds had managed to maneuver itself past the first line of trees, but its great wings would not let it get much further as it flapped and shrieked and tried to bite at me. The pop of its snapping beak echoed.
“I stayed still for a moment, watching it, seeing that I was out of its range and I sneered back to taunt it, driving it into more of a frenzy that caused a shed of greasy down and scales against the trees where it's wings thrashed. When my healing finished, I eased sideways from my seat against the tree and stood up. The bird flapped wildly to get at me while its companion fluttered in the air just outside the trees, darting back and forth, the wind of its wings powerful as it whooshed at me and stirred the branches, but seeing that I was safe enough, I backed away, not taking my eyes off of them for a moment, then I turned and ran further into the forest. The trees were so dense that it wasn’t long before I could not see them at all, but their angry shrieks and cries still rippled around me and then became more distant before I heard wings flapping away.
“This woodland was not unlike the Enchanted Forest, for the deeper I went, the darker it became—and more comfortable to my vision—though the canopy seemed far higher and there were no phosphorescent fungi scattered amidst the tree roots, and no scampering of any rodent-like things. It was dead silent, only invaded by my breath when I sniffed the air or my clumsier footfalls. Whether this was the quiet effect Malorix claimed our kind had on nature, I do not know, or maybe that forest was simply void of wildlife. I kept up a running pace, determined to put on distance. My senses reached ahead of, and around, me for the sounds of people or more unknown creatures or any uncanny smell that was not a campfire or a simple animal.
“To run endlessly had little impact on me, just as it had not on my excursions after my initial change. But at some point, I did feel tired. Tired in the sense I wanted all of this to simply go away. With no idea where I was even going, I finally stopped and found a tree with a shallow hollow in its side. There I leaned to slide down into a clumsy sit and prop elbows on knees. I was filthy now, the blood from the beastly bird dried on my face and the shoulder of my jerkin completely destroyed by its claws. In that moment, I pondered everything that had happened.
“How almost absurd it had all become. First, I had surrendered my humanity and then been abducted by a supernatural being who needed a host body to travel between two worlds. I had witnessed a sky full of empyrean auroras and voyaged on a black ship with a bizarre crew, been forced to consume human flesh to appease a profane appetite, been swept into the sky by three different types of winged creatures and dropped on my ass in two of those situations.
“Surely it was time for me to wake up, not in that prison cavern but in Dacia. It was time for me to wake up and see Bendis’ beautiful face beside me, to hear my children arguing with each other down the hall in the tower house. Or… I did not care that I might instantly find myself still among my men and holding off the Romans at the gates of Sarmizegetusa. I did not care if I came to consciousness in that cage in Trajan’s camp, septic, dying, and suffering the most bizarre of fever dreams. That would, actually, make more sense.
“For the first time since Malorix had awakened me with his blood, I looked upward into the cathedral of tree branches and addressed the divine as I had known it before as a Dacian and now as I had come to know it as a Dreamer. I did not pray, no. I was long gone from being a praying man.
“Zalmoxis, I thought, you have every reason to abandon me completely. I have blasphemed you, and I still cannot say that I feel bad about that. Are you here, in this land? Are you one of the Great Ones, the old gods of earth? Is that why you left us to the Romans, why you did not send rain? Why you had no mercy on your own people? Do you serve… him?
“I meant Nyarlathotep, of course, but I dared not say his name. I wondered if any of the Nyarlathites I had seen in Ilarnek were descendants of my old god. Did his face resemble that one carved into the mountain on the island? I did not believe I would have an answer to any of my questions, but irony has a strange sense of humor.”
“You mean…?” Howard sits up eagerly.
“No, Zalmoxis did not suddenly manifest to offer a response. More like something else heard my inner dialogue, and it would soon come for me. I closed my eyes and tried to still my mind for at least a moment. I was disoriented with no idea of the time, and the hunger was churning. I needed just enough sustenance to fuel my healing, but I did not feel like hunting so much as a rabbit or similar woodland inhabitant if there were any here at all. Satisfied that I was safe for the time being, I fell asleep sitting up in my tree nook, and I dreamed.
“I dreamed of the anomaly in space that rested within that hole in the stars that I had stared into from the deck of the Phantasm. I floated helplessly around it, never able to see the entirety of it but for a dark, swirling surface of tendrils and caverns that resembled mouths, and then there was the eye with its colossal, horizontal pupil, which gaped and stared back at me, unmoving and emotionless.
“Something woke me. A twig snap, a breeze. I do not know what, but my skin prickled and crawled as if I were doused in ice water. I sat up, rubbed at my eyes and looked around to great disappointment that I was still in the same woods of the Dreamlands, and I had no idea how much time had passed, but I felt that night still cloaked the land. I bent an ear upward to listen and the voice came first, rumbling and monstrous, both in my head and echoing through the forest where it seemed to cling to the trees like a noxious residue. I stood and sought out the direction from which it had come.
“As if its owner had spotted me—and he had—it spoke up again, dragging out my name in a harsh and angry whisper: Zyrrrrraxes.
“The forest around me rumbled then as if an earthquake were rippling through and I could only look past the layers upon layers of trees and the carpets of ferns, seeing nothing at first, until the shadows came rolling in, like heavy black smoke, but living, crawling, and in its midst I made out tentacular ramifications that reached out, coiled around trees or crept across the ground. It closed around everything in its path as if devouring and walled off any escape in that direction. There were no eyes, but it appeared to spot me, identify me, and then I heard a growling hiss of, Yesssssss.
“I could only turn and run the other way, feeling the shuddering earth just on my heels. I jumped over embankments and bounded off trees, zig-zagged between tighter spaces. I was being flushed out of the forest like a deer. Any glance behind me told me that the darkness was still there, still crawling-rolling-seething toward me, and it extended for long distances in either direction. It appeared to be circling around from the sides, like two great arms, as if it would engulf and consume me, too, and ahead I saw a break in the trees where slats of moonlight fell through, and there was a faint glittering in the greater distance.
“As I pumped my arms, picked up speed, I looked down to see the crawling shadow starting to pool around my moving feet, and causing a strange sluggishness to come over me. Gritting my teeth, I drove myself harder, fists gripped so tight my claws were cutting into my own palms, and then just a jump later I was out of the woods and dove as if escaping from a fire.
“I landed on loamy, damp soil and rolled out to come up into a stance near the edge of a lake, and there I spun around, expecti
ng to see the chaotic mass emerge from the wood, and I had no idea what I would do after that.
“I waited, claws at full length and sharpness as if they would do any good. And I waited. Nothing happened. All seemed calm here, just the lap of gentle waves on the water’s edge. The rumble had ceased completely so I wondered if I had not hallucinated the entire episode, and after a long moment, I finally relaxed enough to look more around me. The crescent moon was the slightest bit fatter, telling me I had slept from one night straight through the day and into a new evening. I recalled what Malorix had said about learning to move in the daylight, no matter how uncomfortable, to stave off Nyarlathotep, and I cursed my ill timing.
“Against the moon’s hazy light, a mountain range was silhouetted, with rocky crags, black gaps that could be caves, and clusters of pine spears. The lake glittered for at least almost a mile across from where I stood, but it became broader to my left. I was so turned around, I could not tell you which actual direction this was. To my right, the loamy bank dipped into a marshier section with many reeds and other bog plants, and as I looked beyond them, something not only caught my eye, but began to captivate and draw me toward it.
“I wandered the bank, just shy of the gently lapping waves, and noticed several large water lizards slipping into the lake and undulating away from me as I made my way toward a spread of ruins. Most of them were half submerged, but a few crumbling, marble arches still jutted up on land, and a long row of pillars with the appearance of broken teeth ran out into the water, descending as they went. The marble may have once been a creamy white, but water stains and dirt had turned it more of an umber. Where water pooled around a fragment of wall, I saw more of the inhabitant lizards scurry around to hide or slip away into the lake.