by Jack Yeovil
As a lesson to him, Ba’alberith had allowed him to dip into an alternate in which he was a fearsome sorcerer, rotting behind a mask in a seven-turreted castle at the edge of a great empire, doing battle with swordsmen, magicians and a leech lady. Seth was whipped through this life in an instant, from a violent clash on a primordial plane to another, fifteen thousand blood-soaked years later, in the heart of his castle. It was over within the blinking of an eye. From this experience, Seth learned the futility of a pure devotion to self. In that life, he had been simply obsessed with his continuing existence, with the gratification of his every whim and impulse. Upon his death, he had left nothing behind him in that universe except dust and bad memories. When he returned to his Earth, to the course of his history, he would be humbled. He would live purely to do the bidding of the Dark Ones, happy in the knowledge that in his servitude his life would mean something. He was the man born to end the world, and he would leave behind him the void through which the Dark Ones could have access to his physical universe, the predestined site of their Great Tourneys, the killing games from which would emerge the Three Champions of the Night who would join battle with the Nullifiers for the fate of the eternally expanding Empire of the Actual and its infinite number of Shadow Selves.
All this was far in the future, far beyond any physical life he could expect, but he knew he would be present in some altered form at the end of the conflict. From the lip of the funnel, he saw the timelines spiralling away into the Darkness. The culmination of his struggles was within his grasp, and beyond that was the restful blackness of the Nothing that would be the lot of the peoples of the Earth. He would bring them a merciful oblivion, freeing them from the need to endure through another cycle of pain and suffering as the whole story was played out again.
This was the future, he knew; but it was also the past. The Outer Darkness was set sideways against the progress of time…
He stepped back into his body at various points through his long career, reinforcing his original decisions, initiating sequences of action whose consequences would only become apparent as the 20th Century drew to its fiery close. He relived his finest moments, his memories becoming the realer as he sped through them, cannonballing through his own life towards the Nguyen Seth who waited in his tank in Salt Lake City.
Back in the world, he was possessed by the needs of his flesh, and took the time to satiate himself before gathering the Twelve Elders of Joseph in the Central Chamber of the Tabernacle.
Back on the lip of the funnel, the Jibbenainosay gathered itself, the alien matter of a hundred universes concentrating in the centre of its cloud, vast discharges of world-shattering electricity signifying its thought processes.
Seth had taken a tendril of the Jibbenainosay with him to the world, and now he would have to pull the whole being through the funnel, and turn it loose…
As he strode through the corridors of the Tabernacle, Roger Duroc at his side, Seth felt the ache in his gut where the tendril ended in a diamond-hard fragment of concentrated matter.
The hurt was growing as the Jibbenainosay squeezed itself towards reality, lusting titanically for the destruction of its Ancient Adversary.
V
A clawed hand reached into his dream, and shook him awake.
Hawk-That-Settles started up in his cot, the blanket falling away from his nakedness, and the claw was around his heart, squeezing.
He forgot his dream, but the world he awoke to was nightmare enough.
The room was full of moonlight, and Krokodil was standing there, cloaked by her hair.
He saw a woman, but he felt the presence of a ghost.
She spoke, in her old voice. “Something is coming through,” she said. “We must fight again.”
He didn’t know what to say. He had emptied a bottle before stumbling to his cot. His thinking was muddied by sleep and tequila, and he felt worse than he would have if he’d been kicked in the head by a mule.
She walked over to the bed, seeming to glide, her hair rippling.
She knelt, hair parting over her body as she stretched her arms out to him. Pale in the light of the full moon, she was lovely.
This was part of the story of the Moon Woman. His father had told him many times of the lucky brave whom the Goddess selected as her lover, and of the many heroic deeds he would later perform.
He wanted her—not just physically, his entire spirit wanted to join with this unearthly creature—and yet he was afraid. When her cool fingers touched him, he stiffened, and shrank away, feeling the stone wall behind his back.
She was not offended by his reluctance, and slipped easily into the narrow cot, pressing the length of her body against his.
Underneath her hair, she wore nothing.
She kissed him on the lips, passing a little of her cool to him. She wasn’t even wearing her eyepatch. His eyes open as they kissed, he found himself looking past her fluttering eyelids, first at her clear, green right eye, alive and intelligent, then at the blue crystal facet of her optic burner, dead and deadly. He shut his eyes, and she sucked his tongue into her mouth. Her hands moved up and down his body, tracing the lines of old sandfighting scars, probing the untidiness under his right lung where his ribs had been broken and set out of true.
He touched her, smoothing her flesh. Krokodil felt different from Jesse. He could no longer feel the machinery inside her, as if it had been digested, truly becoming one with her living tissue and bone. Her skin felt silky and cool like a beautiful snake’s, and her muscle tone was superb, no longer that of a soldier but of an athlete, a dancer.
With Jesse, lovemaking had been often hurried, rough. She hadn’t known her newfound strength, and often left him bruised or even bleeding. They had found pleasure in sex, but no true union. Had their son been born, his spirit would have been divided against itself, the product of two people too wrapped up in themselves to care fully for each other. Now, with Krokodil, it was different. She was confident enough to take him slowly, to caress and cajole him, to prolong their climaxes. Hawk couldn’t think of himself as he moved together with her. The memories that came to him were of her; no, they were hers. She was leaking her past into him, just as she was sipping his spirit…
Jessamyn, Jazzbeaux, Jesse, Frankenstein’s Daughter. He loved all the fragments of the person she was still becoming…
… if only, he wondered, he could love Krokodil.
When it was over, they lay awake in each other’s arms, their bodies too charged and relaxed for sleep, and Hawk’s fugitive spirit returned, plunging him back into himself.
They didn’t move. The moonlight fell on their bodies, dappling them as if with a skin disease.
Hating himself for it, Hawk wondered if he was being rewarded, consoled or persuaded.
The moon set, and daylight inched into the room.
“Tonight,” she said to him. “It will come. Hawk-That-Settles, you must help me get ready for it.”
VI
The Inner Circle sat around the table, nervously waiting. Elder Beach was doodling on a notepad, crosses, goats, and skulls with Josephite hats. Roger Duroc stood by the door as Nguyen Seth walked around the room, taking a full, slow circuit of the table. He seemed to pause momentarily behind each Elder, and to a man they tensed as if expecting a killing blow.
“Brothers,” said Seth, assuming his seat. “I have gathered you here to demonstrate that the Path of Joseph is never smooth.”
The Elders mumbled in collective agreement. Seth smiled, and adjusted his mirrorshades. He still seemed bleached from his spell in the tank, and the mirrorholes made his face look like a grinning skull.
“We must make sacrifices if our Great Work is to be achieved.”
Someone said “amen,” and other people nodded.
“Blood sacrifices.”
This was nothing new.
Seth signalled to Duroc, and he stepped forward.
“Please take any belongings you have left on the table off,” he said.
Beach picked up his pad. Elder Hawkins, the financial comptroller of the church, shifted his briefcase. The table was covered with a stiff circle of linoleum. Duroc rolled it up, and took it away.
The table beneath was inset with a series of shallow channels, all feeding into a central funnel.
Everyone looked at the hole in the middle of the table. Suspended in the air by no apparent means was an irregular lump of crystal. It spun slowly, silvery chips in its core catching the light.
Duroc dimmed the lights. The Inner Circle were enraptured by the crystal.
“This is a simple tool for the focusing of our spiritual energies,” Seth said. “It is not especially elaborate. I did not foresee that such a great effort on our part would be necessary until some time nearer the fulfilment of our purpose, but M. Duroc has done his best with the materials at hand.”
Nobody turned to look at Duroc. He knew this was where the spooky stuff began again.
The crystal rose a little, floating a few inches above the level of the table. It pulsed now, seeming to change its solid form as it spun, faster and faster.
“I would ask you to concentrate your prayers on the Cynosure.”
Beach was sweating, but could not take his eyes away from the crystal. The others mainly seemed hypnotized, completely lost in the Cynosure’s spell.
There was a blot of darkness in the centre of the Cynosure now, an absence of matter.
“Roger,” Seth said. “Bring it to me.”
Duroc took the dagger out of his pocket. It was old, and he had no idea what its culture of origin could have been. The handle had once been covered in carved designs, but many hands had worn these away to suggestive shapes. The blade was long, thin and honed to perfection. Carefully, Duroc gave the instrument to Seth. The Elder held it up, catching the light along its silvered edge.
With his left hand, Seth unfastened the tags on his kimono and bared his chest. The Inner Circle observed with interest, and just a touch of dread.
Duroc’s hand settled on the butt of the revolver slung in the small of his back, under his coat. He had orders not to allow anyone to break the circle.
“Brothers, I beseech your blessings upon the endeavour of this day.”
The chorused “amen” was ragged, unenthusiastic.
Seth stood up, allowing his robe to fall open. He touched the point of the dagger to a spot an inch above his knotted navel, and eased the tip inside him. His jaw was set, and he contained a groan as he slipped the metal into his flesh.
Elder Curran put a hand over his mouth to contain his disgust.
Inch by inch, Nguyen Seth fed the dagger into his body. No blood flowed from the wound. Seth’s shoulders heaved as he probed the inside of his stomach, and he choked back yelps of pain.
Elder Javna tried to stand up, but Duroc placed a hand on his shoulder, gently forcing him back into his seat.
Seth gave out a cry and put out his hands to steady himself against the table. The dagger shook, and slowly slid out of the wound, as if pushed by something inside the man’s vitals.
He grabbed the handle, and shifted the blade in the hole, enlarging it. A light came from inside him, a violet-white light. He withdrew the dagger and dropped it. His stomach was heaving now, the slit pulsating as something inside tried to be born.
With his fingers, he peeled the lips of the aperture away, and the light shot out. It moved fast, and struck the Cynosure. There was a flash and everyone covered their eyes. Blinking, Duroc looked at the crystal. The darkness at its heart was replaced with the light from inside Seth, and the light was rhythmically pounding like a beating heart.
Seth was chanting now, in a language Duroc had heard before but could not identify. He spoke the words of a ritual that was old when continents were young.
As he chanted, some of the Elders joined in, infiltrating newer prayers into his rite. The words didn’t matter, just the feelings. Seth massaged his wound, smoothing it shut, and it seemed to shrink, to pucker into a second navel.
Yellow fluid was leaking from the corner of his mouth as he continued to speak the words of power.
Elder Wiggs had his hands locked together in traditional prayer, and his eyes jammed shut. Nothing he could do could make this go away.
Apart from the ceremony, Duroc was awed by its beauty. He tried to look away from the Cynosure, but was incapable of heeding any distraction. The crystal was expanding now, almost like an egg swelled to the point of bursting by a hatchling.
Hawkins screamed, his cry lost in the rising chant. Many voices were issuing from Seth’s mouth now, a choir lodged in his throat. Hawkins grabbed his chest and struggled in his seat. The man had a history of angina, Duroc knew. He was having a seizure. Perhaps a fatal seizure. Nobody made a move to help him. He spasmed, kicking the tablelegs, his hands twitching on the table, fingertips scrabbling at the channels.
Seth held out the dagger, and passed it to the Elder on his right hand, Curran. The handsome man, a former televangelist, examined it as if it were a fine cigar, but had no idea what to do with it. Duroc stepped in and showed him, pulling Curran’s sleeve away from his wrist, and tracing a line along the artery from hand’s heel to the inside of the elbow.
He had once explained it in a lecture to the Violent Tendency on avoiding torture. “Find something sharp, and bare your arm. Remember, across—for the hospital. Along—for the morgue.”
Poking his tongue out with concentration, Curran stuck the dagger into his wrist, and pulled it down. He was inexpert, but he severed the artery. Blood gushed, and fell onto the table. His hand fell, and the wrist continued to pump out blood. The red trickle flowed into the channel, and towards the Cynosure.
Wiggs picked up the knife, crossed himself, and struck down with such force that he nearly severed his left hand. He smiled as if relieved, and his blood joined Curran’s.
“No,” said the next Elder, half-rising. Duroc thumb-jabbed him in the back of the neck, forced his head down onto the table, and slit his throat. The channels were thick with blood now.
Seth’s chanting was a deafening thunder now.
“Joseph is merciful,” said Elder Javna, surgically opening his wrist, “Joseph is…”
Next was Hawkins. Duroc put the dagger in his leaping hand, but he couldn’t get a proper grip on it. Duroc made as if to take the knife himself, but suddenly the Elder found his last strength. He took the blade, and thrust it at his burning heart. Duroc heard metal scrape bone. After a brief and bloody frenzy, Hawkins fell forwards. He must have been the first of the Inner Circle to die.
Most of them didn’t have to be prompted. Those who hesitated, shut their eyes and did the deed after a touch from Duroc.
Beach was the last. He opened his throat with resignation, knowing he had no choice. Duroc took the dagger from him, and wiped it off with a handkerchief.
Seth’s chant slowed to a whisper.
The twelve Elders of Joseph slowly emptied, their flowing blood picking out intricate patterns in the shallow bowl of the table. The Cynosure was splattered red, and still pulsed.
Then, it imploded, shrinking to a red dot with an audible pop as air rushed into the vacuum where the crystal had been. Electrical discharges crackled, and the dead and dying men writhed, cries wrung from their throats. Beach stood up, a bib of blood standing out on his black vest. He half-turned and collapsed, as if the life were suddenly whipped out of him.
There was a smell of ozone in the air. Duroc saw Elder Curran’s plump face shrink onto his skull in an instant, all the moisture sucked somehow out of his corpse.
The red dot shot up into the air like a firefly, and exploded. Nguyen Seth finished his rite, and sat down, exhausted, among his dead followers.
Duroc saw the dot whizzing up into the vaulted arches of the Tabernacle. The central chamber was a hundred and twenty feet high, and the light was careening off the ceiling.
There was a great wind. Hawkins’ briefcase came open, and a storm of papers circled like a torna
do.
Duroc suddenly felt tired, as if all his strength were being sapped in a single draught. He sank to his knees, his head swimming, and held fast to one of the chairs. A great weight seemed to fall upon him, pushing him downwards. The floor was covered in sticky blood.
He tried to raise his head, to look up, but couldn’t.
Above him, floating under the domes of the Tabernacle was something vast, unearthly and hungry. It had forced itself through into the world with Nguyen Seth, and nourished itself on the lives of the Elders of Joseph.
Duroc was surrounded by hanging tentacles, as if an unimaginably huge jellyfish were hovering above him. The tendrils brushed him, but did no harm. He felt almost lulled by the contact. The sensations they brought were entirely new, beyond pleasure or pain. It would be easy to sit here forever under this shower, exploring the new feelings.
Then the tentacles were gone.
“Roger,” said Seth. “Permit me to present to you one of the Dark Ones whom we serve.”
Duroc forced himself to look up at the enormous, amorphous entity that hung above them. It was beautiful, it was terrible. He had been expecting an angel, a demon or a monster, but this was none of those. This was a prodigy, an anomaly. He wasn’t sure it actually existed. Its surface rippled as if it were a liquid, or a turbulent gas contained in a molecule-thin balloon of living matter. It had eyes, faces, mouths, hands, but they were like nothing Duroc had seen on any earthly creature. Inside it somewhere, organs pumped and pulsed and squirted. It had a smell, a taste, a sound.