He stared impassively at the knight’s followers, judging their strength. Boorish, thick-set with the ignorant features of young men born to nobility and privilege; they had not struggled and strived as he had for an ideal, had not sacrificed their youth for devotion to a duty. No, they were nothing more than robber-knights, taking the Cross merely to enrich themselves with overseas plunder and satisfy their bloodlust.
But there was no denying their strength and bearing, and Massoud was unarmed, dehydrated and suffering from sunstroke. Their eyes widened with greed at the sight of his burden and what they believed to be treasures within. No, he could not hope to defeat them.
Not alone, anyway. Not without assistance from…he shuddered at the thought of summoning help from the djinni.
The leader narrowed his eyes. The knights’ gauntleted hands reached for their sword pommels, and oiled steel slid smoothly from scabbards. Massoud had to think fast.
He pointed to the sack. Perhaps it was the sunstroke, but it appeared to move, swaying like a bloated sandworm that had gorged itself on putrefied flesh. The fluttering of his rags told Massoud the desert wind had returned. The salibyyun grimaced, turning their heads away from the dust and sand blown into their eyes.
Except the leader. The grey knight seemed unaffected by the wind-borne particles; or else he chose to hide his discomfort. Massoud nodded imperceptibly. Truly, this man was a force to be reckoned with.
“Is this what you came to the Holy Land for? A statue of no worth, no significance? Why do you not return to Jerusalem and plunder the silver and gold of Muslims and Jews?”
The grey knight laughed, oblivious to the sand filling his open mouth. “Others have come for plunder, to stake their fortune on land that will become the new Kingdom of Christ; and others have come from a misguided sense of duty, a belief they have been chosen to do God’s work, to punish the heathen for their arrogant appropriation of land rightfully ruled by Constantinople.” He rested folded hands on the pommel of his saddle and bent forward, in case the wind took his words away. There was no fear of that; Massoud heard him perfectly.
“Make no mistake, boy. I labour under no such illusions, and I know exactly the worth of this statue. Your Order thought itself wise, did it not? That it had kept secret her power. After all, in a city with three religions battling amongst themselves for supremacy, who would notice a fourth, hiding in the shadows?”
For the first time since leaving al-Quds, Massoud felt cold. He tensed, dared not even breathe. The knight continued.
“She came to me in dreams, little Saracen. She has haunted me since childhood, demanding I come to the desert to seek her out. To free her from her dark master Nyarlathotep.”
At the mention of the name Massoud let out a cry. It was a strangled, hoarse howl of despair, the utterance of which caused him to stumble backwards and lose his footing. He sank to the ground, but didn’t feel the pain of sharp protruding rocks and gravel tearing his flesh. He didn’t feel the sand blowing across his skin, powered by the strengthening wind.
“Oh, I have seen him, little Saracen. I have travelled the length of the Arab lands in pursuit of her. In Egypt, I saw what lies behind the black mask of her master, the Crawling Chaos that assumes many forms. I know him to be Satan.”
“You – you saw his face? That cannot be!” Massoud’s voice was high-pitched, almost a shriek. Each word burned his parched throat, but he could not suppress the horror of what he heard. The wind whipped the leather sack, the opening widening like the dark smile of some hellish creature. The knight glanced at the blackness within and smiled, his eyes lighting with an unholy greed.
The greed of a man deceived by Nyarlathotep.
Massoud tried to claw his way to the sack, each inch an agonising distance, but the sack shifted in the sands and moved away from him. Closer to its new owner.
He knew now why the man’s features were so colourless, so devoid of warmth and the light that shines within every human soul. To most humans the sight of the darkness behind the black mask – a darkness older than the stars, which impatiently awaited its chance to consume their light – would invite despair and death; to others predisposed to cruel actions and unnatural desires it would kindle a dark fire, a madness capable of destroying multitudes before claiming its unwitting slave and plunging him into unfathomable horrors.
And he has it – he has the Taint of Nyarlathotep. Did he order the slaughter in Jerusalem? How many others have followed his lead, believing their murder to be divinely ordained by God, rather than an act of appeasement to the Dark One?
“What name do you know her by, Christian?” Massoud spat out the last word. “The Hated One has learned much from her marriage to the Shaitan; she too has become proficient in lies and deception.”
“Lilith,” the knight whispered. “The original mate of Adam.” Now there was a fanatical gleam in the knight’s eyes, and a dulling in the eyes of his followers. That confirmed it for Massoud: the companions were freebooters, attaching themselves to any knight with enough money to finance their expenses.
He felt sick, sicker than he thought possible. The true nature of humanity stood before him, revealed on the road from Jerusalem: evil triumphant in a man of power and influence, and two others sworn to serve a chivalric ideal but paying mere lip service to it, not even attempting to hide their true intentions.
It would not be enough to pray for them all to meet their end in the blood and terror of battle, for that would merely seal their reputation as knights of honour, defending the Cross, while he and his Order – the true servants of humanity, protecting itself from entities beyond time and space – had fallen, would be forgotten and maybe even reviled when the victors rewrote the history books.
Is this what you came to the Holy Land for? His question to the grey knight needed to be screamed to every man of arms who set sail from Messina or crossed the European Continent. But it was too late. In a land of three faiths, where sites were sacred to all, and shared by few, there could be no hope when men used religion as a cover for their own ends; be they greed or the wishes of darker forces.
“Lilith.” Massoud shook his head and laughed. “You are a greater fool than I realised.”
The gleam left the knight’s eyes, and the shadow on his face deepened. “Enough of this.” He beckoned to his followers and pointed to the sack. “Bring it to me.”
They hesitated, glancing at each other. One coughed, wiped his face with a gauntleted hand, blinking furiously in the assault of the desert wind.
Massoud felt the sand across his own face. He had believed he would never feel heat as painful as that of the desert sun, but now the granules dug into his scorched flesh and added to the dulled pain with multiple pinpoints of fire. The sound they all heard was a hiss, an overture to the song of the sirocco, but there was something else that came with it.
The hiss of serpents, the moan of the dead, and the laughter of demons. He stared at the sack and knew where the sounds came from.
He knew now why the two knights hesitated. They sense it as well! But the grey knight seemed unaware. With a disgusted expression, he dismounted and shoved the reins of his destrier at the closest horseman.
Massoud’s hand was on the burlap, trembling as it fought to press the opening into the sand. He looked up and saw the knight tower above him, a grey shadow that obscured the sight of al-Quds. The Dome of the Rock flashed gold once as the knight shifted and raised his right leg; then it was lost to view as the booted foot came down on Massoud’s fingers. The crunching of bone and grinding of flesh accompanied the sounds from the black leather sack, then the boot shifted and shot into Massoud’s chest. Ancient stone disintegrated as shards of the seal drove into his shattered ribcage, but Massoud felt nothing.
The shadow descended.
* * *
He awoke to blue skies and a cool breeze soothing his forehead. Palm trees bent towards him, offering their fronds as further protection, as though the desert was apologising for its h
arsh treatment.
His cheeks moved apart, and he realised he could smile again. A sense of serenity filled him, and the memory of his desert nightmare and encounter with the brutal grey knight faded. He looked to his hand, stretched his unbroken fingers and savoured the feeling of moist, cool sand beneath his unblemished palm. Beyond he saw a vast pool of clear, unsullied water.
A shadow fell over him, and he started; the memory of the darkness that fell earlier returned, and with it the fear this was a dream, a mirage. He scrabbled in the sand and got to his feet, turning toward this new shadow.
Black robes and a matching shemagh billowed in the breeze, but did nothing to reveal the figure’s identity. Only when a withered hand rose to unwrap the veil did Massoud breathe a sigh of relief.
“Hassan! My master! You are alive!”
Hassan ibn-Sadak’s smile was bleak. He shook his head slowly, and with each movement despair sank into Massoud’s heart.
This pain was greater than the physical agonies he had endured in the desert. Grief took hold of every aspect of his being and he howled his despair to the oasis.
Hassan laid a hand on him. “It will pass, my son. There are greater things awaiting you.”
But Massoud was inconsolable. His shoulders shook and sobs racked his body. Tears fell to the sand. “Nothing can console me, Master. Nothing.”
“Your time on that sphere is ended. No one could have asked more of you. Your service, your faith and duty to the Order will be rewarded.”
“You do not understand.” Massoud wiped his tears and gazed into the soulful eyes of his mentor. “Those knights, those accursed salibyyun: they took the idol of the Hated One. The grey knight has been in communion with the Shaitan. He has been deceived, and his actions will bring death to the world.”
Hassan shook his head. “The world is already dead to us, my son. There are other spheres, other places we shall go.”
Massoud felt the familiar stirring of rage. He glared at Hassan, and for the first time felt contempt for his master. “No! We cannot allow this to happen! Send me back!”
“Back? Massoud, you do not understand. You have passed on. You cannot go back. Your body is ruined, your bones broken. Even now your blood seeps into the desert sands. Were it possible for you to return, you would not last a day before death claimed you again.”
Massoud ignored this. He went to the shallow banks of the waterhole and stared into the waters. They appeared even clearer as Massoud stared into the depths. The breeze did not ripple the waters.
“Massoud!” There was fear now in his master’s voice, and Massoud knew then that he had a chance to return. The pool was the gateway: from life-giving water to barren, desiccated earth. This was how he would prevent the devastation the grey knight would unleash. He turned and smiled.
“I disobeyed you, Master. The seal –”
“Was destroyed when I burned the Al-Azif! You swore you had done so.” Hassan’s shoulders slumped with the awful truth imparted by Massoud’s words.
“You carried the Seal of Solomon into the desert. Why? Why did you disobey me?”
“I did not know of its true power until it broke in my chest. Shards...penetrated me. Became one with me”
“It matters not. Its power died with you.” Hassan’s words lacked conviction.
“Its power came with me! It crossed the Great Divide, carried within my soul. I can go back.”
“Why? To prolong the world’s agony, as well as your own? Do you know the pain your soul will endure?”
“We swore an oath, Hassan!” He abandoned the honorific, for in his mind this man no longer had claim to the title of Master. “To guard the barriers between worlds, to ensure the Old Ones will never return! Death is no barrier to them; why should it mark the end for us?”
Hassan closed his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Please, my son. Journey with me to Paradise. Forget the world, and enjoy your well-earned pleasures in the next sphere.”
“My faith comes first, Hassan. Above and beyond everything. Above and beyond…even death.” He took a step forward.
Behind him, the breeze intensified, became a howling desert wind; a howl that was uttered by the thing garbed in the robes of Hassan. The robes tore into pieces that were seized by the wind, rags that fluttered in the sky like vultures and assaulted Massoud. The material expanded, extended claws and fangs that tore into his back.
The sky darkened and the palm trees stiffened; their branches became brittle and the fronds erupted with a fire that spread around the oasis, scorching the very air from which Massoud took his final breath before the waters of oblivion swallowed him and returned him to the shadow over Jerusalem.
* * *
He returned to a body that no longer felt pain. Perhaps his joy at defeating Nyarlathotep, the Great Deceiver, had deadened him to all other sensation. Perhaps it was the relief that he had not abandoned his faith, that he had willingly chosen death, pain and struggle over the joys of Paradise.
He almost shuddered at the thought of what may have happened had he accepted the offer; what tortures and horrors the Shaitan would have granted him. The fires and creatures that scorched the oasis were the expression of Nyarlathotep’s rage at being thwarted, a mere precursor to the horror that would come.
Then the realisation of how the Shaitan had perverted his memory of his beloved master, mentor and friend struck him, and rage returned. Now he could feel.
He felt hatred. He felt rage.
He clenched his hands. Flesh tore under the assault of his fingers – fingers that remained broken, yet empowered by a righteous fury – and released sinews and tubes and a spurt of hot blood that felt cool and comforting, like the blissful waters of Nyarlathotep’s oasis.
The continuing howl of the desert wind and the screaming of the knight accompanied his fury. Massoud heard a hissing, took it to be the wheeze of air escaping from his victim’s punctured lungs - until it formed patterns, became the unearthly sounds he had heard from the leather sack he had tried to defend.
I am not alone.
The blood splattered into his eyes – or rather, eye sockets, as he felt the sticky fluid well up in the cavernous space where his eyes used to be, before dripping down his cheeks into his mouth. He could not taste it, and then realised he had found another empty space.
I will never smile again. Neither will I laugh or make another sound. But the things accompanying his slaughter – who had travelled the Great Divide with him when the seal was broken – would laugh for him. This he knew, and he rejoiced.
Eventually Massoud’s victim went still, and his blood became a cold, sticky clotted layer in the rapidly cooling air. Night has fallen. Yet the shadow over Jerusalem remained.
But with darkness came light. He saw pinpricks of light in the curtain of night, knew them to be stars. A crescent moon bent sorrowfully over the glowing spires and domes of Jerusalem, mourning for the dead of those who worshipped under the banner of the same shape.
I can see. I can feel the cold air on my skin – skin that is no longer desert-ravaged. He opened his mouth, spoke words that were familiar but unnatural. He touched his throat, wincing at the sharp pain that greeted his gauntleted fingers.
Gauntlets? He peered closely, then saw bright starlight reflected off the linked mail rings covering his arms. A coat of mail, he realised, one the Franks wear.
The surplice was dark and sticky; he realised the white of the material had disappeared under the blood spilling from his jugular.
My jugular. And yet…he tore away the gauntlet and touched his throat once more. His bare fingers gingerly touched fragments of torn skin. Skin that even now shifted, melded, knitted.
Healed.
He stood, swayed when the stars above him spun. He stumbled in the sand, put out a hand to arrest his fall; it landed in a pile of cloth and leather. Only when he tore the rags away and the starlight, now steadying, shone on the white shards of bone that pierced the crushed hand, did he realise who
the body belonged to. Nothing else about it was recognisable.
The creature who pretended to be Hassan had said: Your body is ruined, your bones broken and your blood seeping into the desert sands. Massoud knew then that the Great Shaitan had understated the ravages done to his body.
And I have overestimated my victory against the Dark One. Truly, his Taint is within me now!
Rage and hatred, fury and bloodshed. Will that be my new destiny? He crouched beside his former body, shuddering with horror. No learning had ever prepared him for this. To see his own shattered body, to see the contorted features in death that bore witness to the cruel suffering inflicted upon him…
A well of self-pity rose in his chest, but he stifled the waters of sorrow by turning his attention to the abdomen.
Cracked ribs had broken through the skin. In places he could see the crushed jelly of his lungs, but the skin that bore the mark of his Order remained intact. He muttered a prayer of thanks, and then searched the knight’s saddle bags for a knife.
His head rose at the sound of hooves on sand and rock. The horse whinnied, disturbed by Massoud’s actions.
His task was complete. He would require needle and thread before the skin dried, but there would be time for that later. He placed the sliced flesh in the leather sack and glanced behind him.
The glitter of starlight on chainmail and the shimmer of moonlight on a white surplice told him the other companion of the grey knight had returned to see why the third of their company had delayed.
“Where is your horse?”
Massoud shrugged. “He took fright, ran into the desert.” His own voice was unfamiliar to him, the words spoken in the same English the grey knight had used.
The other laughed and pointed towards the crushed body, the last member of the Order. “Perhaps he invoked a djinn, or whatever spirit of the desert these pagan scum keep as pets.”
Dreaming In Darkness Page 12