by Donald Tyson
I might have studied the symbols more closely, but my gaze was drawn to a slight movement within the iron cage, and I realized for the first time that it held a prisoner. It was oddly difficult to focus the eye upon it, in part because its translucent flesh let the light from the guttering lamps pass through, but also because its shape was so shocking to the mind that it resisted comprehension. The thing crouched on its haunches, massive shoulders and folded, unfledged wings almost filling the space within the riveted iron bands. Huge clawed hands rested over its knees. It was like a finely crafted sculpture carved by a madman from a single piece of rock crystal, highlighted within by gleaming silver threads and patches of smoke.
A claw twitched as I regarded the monstrous hands. I searched for the head of the creature, and found only a mass of quiescent tentacles, above which gleamed tiny eyes like rubies, three on either side of its softly throbbing skull. My mind refused to comprehend its face. I could not hold it in my memory for even a few moments before it was rejected with violence, in the way the stomach vomits forth something unwholesome. I wondered if the creature noticed me on the floor below, and whether it possessed the power of speech.
Numbness overcame my thoughts. I shook my head to clear it, and realized with terror that I stood almost beneath the sphere. Another step would put me within reach of those terrible claws, yet I held no memory of moving from my place at the entrance. For a moment my flesh refused to obey me. With an effort of will, I raised my left hand and made the Elder Sign, uttering under my breath words of power. The invisible chains that bound me fell free. Like a mouse that leaps from a closing trap, I jumped backward, bruising my buttocks on the flagstones. In the extremity of my anxiety I did not even try to stand but scrabbled away, my eyes fixed on the twin triangles of blazing rubies. I felt it watching me, and sensed its detached amusement, beneath which lay a fiery lake of hatred.
Thoughts echoed in my mind, as precise and heartless as the beating of a hammer on an anvil.
Slave of Nyarlathotep, have you been sent to free me?
Chapter 47
The monster within the iron cage spoke inside my skull. It knew I was in the thrall of the dark man. Yet it could not read my thoughts, or why would it bother to question me?
That is not quite true. I am able to read those thoughts that lie on the surface of your mind. Or how could you communicate with me?
Blinking and averting my gaze, I saw my dagger on the floor some distance from where I sat and found the strength to regain my feet and retrieve it. I slipped the curved blade beneath my belt. It felt like a tiny thing in my hand, and I wondered if that was my own thought, or the thought of this spawn of Cthulhu. For such it must be. I recognized in its shape the carved statues of the deathless dreaming god that I had seen in my soul travels beneath Irem.
Drawing a long breath that shuddered in my chest, I forced myself once again to look at it. It represented danger, but also opportunity.
“Can everyone see the mark of the dark man on my face except me?”
Its amusement touched me like cold air from a cave of ice.
It was not made for your eyes, but for mine, and others like me.
I gathered my thoughts. With what small dignity I retained, I knelt on the floor and made the ancient sign of obeisance to the Old Ones, covering my eye sockets with the heels of my palms and bending forward until the backs of my hands touched the stones.
“Mighty servant of Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep sends his greetings. He wishes you to tell me all you know concerning the plots and weapons of the Sons of Sirius. And to teach me what arts of necromancy may be of aid in my work.”
The last I added for my own benefit, as an afterthought. It is always useful to acquire knowledge of magic.
It made no response, but stared at me with its unwinking eyes. The tentacles on its face rippled like the many legs of a centipede.
There is a second mind within you. It flees from me when I try to touch it.
For a moment I did not understand the meaning of the creature. Then I realized that it meant Sashi.
“It is a djinn, my sworn companion through life, and of no concern to you. Do not seek to divert my attention with trifles. How do you answer the demand of the dark lord?”
I will give your lord the knowledge he seeks, because it serves the purpose of my lord who dreams in death. First, free me from this prison.
“No, “ I said at once. “You would kill me. I can feel your anger. You lust to destroy and slay.”
It grasped the iron bands of its prison in its claws and shook them, and I expected them to shatter, but the great chains that supported the ball merely clanked with a dull sound. More than iron held it. The painted symbols on the dome were its primary bonds.
Release me, or I will tell the monks what you do.
“Why should you help those who torture you? If you tell the monks, I will never be able to release you.”
For several moments its fury blazed like an open furnace. Then it mastered itself.
Very well. Ask what questions your feeble brain can conceive. I will answer them.
“What trap did the Sons of Sirius use to capture you?”
My mind echoed like a hollow drum. I realized the thing was laughing.
I was here eons before the monks.
“Did the Romans build this place?”
When this cage was made, Rome was no more than mud huts on the side of a river.
“Then who built it?” I asked with impatience at the evasiveness of the creature.
They have been forgotten. You would not know their name.
As it spoke, I felt it tug at the fabric of my mind, attempting to unravel its corners and find an entrance to the places of my secret thoughts. Again I made the Elder Sign. The pull weakened but did not relent.
“If you don’t stop trying to control me, I will leave and not return.”
That would not serve the purpose of your lord.
“Nyarlathotep has his purposes, and I have mine. One of mine is to stay alive.”
Again the hollow laughter, like the beating of a drum inside my head. The worrying at my mind ceased.
I questioned it for several hours. It never gave a direct answer, but spoke obliquely in a rambling way. If it was insane from its long imprisonment and the torture of its translucent flesh by the light rays of the monks, its madness failed to dull its perception. It knew I was not alone in the monastery, and that my companion was a woman. It knew I had died and been resurrected. This seemed to amuse it. The casual way it plucked these secret matters from my memory made me feel like a desert hare beneath the shadow of a hawk.
I learned many things I did not seek to know concerning the Old Ones and their history, but gained little useful information about the plans of the Sons of Sirius. At first I thought the vagueness of its replies was due to the decay of its brain, but I began to realize that the evasion of my questions was deliberate. As long as it kept the knowledge I sought to itself, it held power over me.
I felt the approach of morning and told the creature that I must return to my bed. Pink light flashed through its crystalline limbs.
Release me. I have answered all your questions.
“You have wasted my time,” I said with bitterness. “Where is the necromancy you promised to teach? What are the weaknesses of the Order of Sirius, by which it may be defeated?”
My hostility moderated its rage. It regarded me in the same way a fisherman looks at a fat fish only half impaled on his hook.
Return tomorrow night, necromancer, and I will give you the answers you seek.
Its thoughts went from my head, and I realized how great was the weight I had supported since entering the domed vault. The abrupt lightness of my brain made me dizzy. I backed toward the archway, my eyes never leaving the monster, but its attention had alr
eady left me, and flown far from its prison of iron.
Martala sat on the bed, waiting for me, when I returned to my room. I wondered if she had slept. She wanted to know all that had transpired, but my eyes burned with weariness that was more than mere lack of sleep. I stripped off my robe and shoes, and threw myself upon the straw-filled mattress. If she spoke again, I heard nothing.
The touch of her hand on my shoulder woke me. I forced open heavy lids and saw the infernal glow of dawn through the window. We talked in low voices while we prepared ourselves for the morning meal in the dining hall. I described the vault and the creature in the iron ball. When I told her how it had almost gained control over my mind, she became angry.
“You should have let me come with you. That is what the monk meant about this thing being too dangerous to confront alone.”
“I don’t want you there. I can keep it out of my mind, but it would pick your brain as a monkey picks lice.”
“So you say,” she pouted. “I can keep a secret.”
Indeed you can, I thought, but let no change show in my face.
For the following five days I left my room each midnight and made my way to the vault, where I remained in conversation with the spawn of Cthulhu until the dawn threatened to overtake me. Each night the moon hung longer in the western sky, and filled her face with greater brightness, making it more perilous to cross the lawn beneath the watchful sentries on the walls. I became so deprived of sleep that I began to dream while standing with my broom in my lax hands.
The thing in the cage told me how to release it. If three of the symbols upon the walls of the vault were obscured with paint, or struck from the stones, the spell binding it would sufficiently weaken for it to shatter its prison and rise up through the earth to freedom. I agreed solemnly that I would bring hammer and chisel when I knew that it had taught me all that I required of it. As a mark of its good faith, it taught me the technique of transferring my awareness into the brain of another intelligent being. It was a useful trick worth knowing, since it required neither script nor potion.
In this way I have watched you and your companion from the day you entered the stronghold above.
“You see through the eyes of the monks?” I asked in amazement.
One of them is under my thrall. He is weak-willed and was easy to master.
“What is the name of this monk?”
Tell me your true name, the one you were given when you were born, and I will tell you his.
It was a trick intended to raise my given name to the surface of my thoughts. Names are potent in magic, containing as they do the essence of identity. It failed only because the name of my childhood was lost in the sands of the Empty Space.
The thoughts of the creature held the power to charm with their diversity and amaze with their profundity, but I never forgot the first night, how I had walked across the floor in trance, almost within reach of those swordlike claws. I cared little for the lives of the monks, but knew that were this thing from the depths of the world released, it would kill me first, before it killed the others, so that Nyarlathotep could not profit from the information it fed into my mind. Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu might be of the same blood, but they hated each other. I saw in its thoughts, which it believed hidden from my perception, the contempt of its master for the way the dark man slunk through the shadows and used frail humanity for his servants.
On the last night I asked the question I had waited to ask, but did not dare speak before I gained all that it was willing to teach about the purposes of the monks.
“I seek the location of a well. It is called the Well of the Seraph. Do you know its location?”
The thing pondered within itself for several moments.
The name is familiar. I saw it in the mind of an elder scribe who came to gape at me. It is written on a scroll that he glanced at many years ago.
“Where is this scroll located?” I asked, trying to control my excitement.
Why do you seek the well? What use has your dark lord for holy water?
I sensed suspicion in its thoughts and fought to contain my desire beneath the surface of my mind. I feigned indifference.
“Such information might be valuable. Perhaps I can sell it in Damascus for gold.”
If I tell you where to find this scroll, will you then release me?
“I will release you,” I promised solemnly with the conviction of my heart. I have found that a lie is more effective when the man who tells it almost believes it himself.
The colors of doubt flashed through its crystalline form like sparkles of the sun upon the water of a stream. Its body became smoky as it considered the matter. I cast my gaze over the arcane symbols on the wall, feeling the way a player at chess feels when he is about to checkmate his foe, and does not dare look at the board lest his eyes betray his intention.
Go to the room where scrolls are kept, at the western end of the hall.
“Which level?”
The highest level.
“How shall I recognize the scroll?”
Its roller is made of rosewood. The knobs are carved in the shape of rosebuds.
I tried to keep the exultation from my face. Since gaining access to the library I had searched every day for the scroll, without success. I understood now the obscure meaning of Nyarlathotep, when he said in my dream that I must fulfill his purpose before my own would be fulfilled.
“Tomorrow I will find the scroll and verify its text. If you spoke the truth, I will return in the night with chisel and hammer and strike off three of these signs.”
I turned to go. As I passed through the arch into the passage, I heard its words in my head.
Betray me, and I will seek you out when I escape from this place. You will not have warning of my approach, for I can move unseen through the air. I will make your body resemble your face.
The drumbeats of its hollow laughter echoed in my skull as I walked quickly from the vault, my shoulders shivering at the contact of its malignant gaze.
Baruch waited for me as I entered through the kitchen door of the dormitory. I smelled him in the darkness an instant before he spoke.
“Not so great a fool as we were led to suppose,” he whispered.
My dagger was in my hand before he closed his lips. Neither of us could see the other in the darkness, but his words revealed his position. I had the impulse to kill him at once, but mastered it. Had he betrayed us? If so, where were the other monks?
“I have watched you leave your room these past three nights, and go to the library cellar.”
“How did you come to be watching the door of my room at midnight?” I murmured.
“So? It speaks as well. You play the idiot with skill.”
“Who have you told?”
He remained silent. I considered my options. If I killed him and hid his corpse, I would gain an hour, no more. He would be missed at the morning meal in the dining hall, and an alarm would be raised. Then again, he might not be so easy to slay. All the Sons of Sirius were skilled in combat, even those who preferred the pen to the sword. If I allowed him to live, he held my life in his mouth. A single cry would bring the monks running from their rooms.
“Come with me,” he said at last.
“Where are we going?”
“Your room.”
We made our way by touch through the silent kitchen. A lamp burned on the upper landing of the stair. I saw that his face was bloodless, his mouth hardened into a thin line of resolve. His slender white hands clenched and opened as he climbed the stairs, but they held no weapon. I followed him to the third level landing and down the dimly lit hallway to the door of my room, my thoughts racing furiously. As he reached for the latch, I laid my hand on his arm.
“It is against the rules of the order for a monk to visit another monk in his
room at night,” I murmured.
He glared at me.
“You dare to tell me what is proper for the member of my order?”
I saw that my words had made him hesitate.
“At least let me go in first to warn my brother of your coming. He may cry out in surprise the moment he sees you and betray us all. In any case, it will shock his modesty for you to see him unclothed.”
He considered this for a moment, and reluctantly nodded.
“If you try to keep me out, I will hammer on the door with my fist.”
I opened the door and slipped through the crack sideways, closing it before there was any chance of him glancing past my shoulder. The first glow of morning through the window revealed the shadows of the bed and the washstand. As usual, Martala lay naked on the mattress. She sat up at the brush of the soft soles of my shoes across the floor, blinking her eyes. She had almost been asleep. I knelt beside her and touched her warm lips with my fingers. Her body stiffened.
“Baruch is outside the door. He knows of my deception, and wants to talk to you. I suggest that you get dressed.”
She broke into a silent flurry of activity. As she threw on her robe and coiled her turban, I set my back against the door, in case the impatience of the young monk got the better of his discretion. It was as well that I did. The latch clicked, louder than I would have wished, and the door bumped my back. I pressed my toes against the floor, resisting the pressure. A single rap sounded on the door, not loud, intended as a warning of what would follow unless I let him enter.
“Have you no shame?” I hissed. “Let him cover himself.”
The pressure relented.
When I opened the door, he did not even glance at me as he brushed past. He had eyes only for Martala. He drew her to the window so that he could see her face. I closed the door softly and studied his half-turned back, judging where to place the point of the dagger to find his heart.
“How could you betray me, betray the order, after what has passed between us?”
“Would the order have taken us in if we had told the truth?”