by Alan K Baker
‘That’s bought us some time, I reckon,’ said Capone with a wide grin.
‘That it has,’ said Fort as he got to his feet. ‘By the way, has anyone seen Sanguine?’
‘Not since the Dero appeared,’ O’Malley replied. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’
‘Me neither,’ said Capone. ‘Fuckin’ night-walkin’ coward! But he’ll be back when the fightin’s done, mark my words.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ muttered Fort. ‘Okay, let’s keep going. This is just an Atlan transit tunnel, built for the monorail.’
‘Do you think there are more Dero in here?’ asked Lovecraft as he peered uncertainly into the darkness ahead.
‘I doubt it,’ Fort replied. ‘It’s too narrow for them to come through in much more than single file. Doesn’t suit their tactics. My guess is we’ll be okay for a while. But we shouldn’t hang around…’
‘Then let’s go,’ said Capone.
As they made their way along the transit tunnel, they heard the distant shouts and grunts of the Dero echoing strangely. The vast honeycomb network of caverns and tunnels was acting as an amplifier, so that it seemed as though the enemy were all around them – which was, in fact, the case.
Presently, the tunnel opened into a vast cylindrical chamber, the centre of which was dominated by a complex switching mechanism for the monorail cars. There were five other openings in the curved wall, containing other monorails.
They cast their flashlight beams up and could make out at least ten more levels in the gloom above them, each with its own switching mechanism anchored to the wall of the cylinder by thick metal stanchions.
‘Transit hubs,’ said Fort, pointing at the multiple openings in the chamber wall high above, each of which contained a monorail.
Lovecraft looked around at the five other tunnels on their level. ‘But which do we choose? And is the right one even on this level? We certainly can’t get up to any of the others…’
Fort checked his compass again and pointed to one of the openings. ‘That one heads east, more or less. That’s the direction we need to be headed.’
‘YES,’ said a voice that boomed and echoed through the switching chamber. They all jumped at the cacophonous sound. ‘THAT IS THE DIRECTION YOU NEED TO TAKE.’
‘What the fuck!’ shouted Capone.
‘Crystalman,’ said Fort. ‘You can hear us?’
‘I CAN HEAR YOU AND SEE YOU,’ the booming voice replied. ‘I CAN WATCH YOUR ACTIONS AND DIVINE YOUR THOUGHTS AND INTENTIONS. YOU HAVE COME FAR. I CONGRATULATE YOU.’
‘Keep you damned congratulations!’ cried Fort. ‘We’ve come to stop you, Crystalman. We know what you’re planning to do, and we’ve come to put an end to it.’
‘I KNOW. I APPLAUD YOUR EFFORTS, BUT I REGRET TO TELL YOU THAT YOU WILL FAIL. YOU KNOW THIS YOURSELVES IN YOUR HEARTS. AT THE VERY CENTRE OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS LAY THE SEED OF DOUBT, WHICH HAS ALREADY FLOWERED INTO THE REALISATION THAT YOU CANNOT SUCCEED… FOR YOU KNOW WHO AND WHAT I REALLY AM.’
‘Yes,’ said Fort. ‘You’re an avatar of Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, Messenger of the Great Old Ones… the only one of them who has ever interacted directly with humanity – and then only to cause misery and strife amongst us.’
‘You are the great antagonist, the being of a thousand forms,’ added O’Malley. ‘You have always delighted in the cultivation of madness upon the Earth… that has always been your aim, your terrible delight… so why, now, do you want to destroy it?’
‘DO YOU THINK EARTH IS MY ONLY PLAYGROUND, PRIEST? DO YOU THINK THAT CRYSTALMAN IS ANYTHING MORE THAN THE MEREST FRAGMENT, THE THINNEST SHARD, THE MOST SUBTLE AND FLEETING SHADOW OF NYARLATHOTEP? HOW SMALL YOUR MINDS! HOW WEAK YOUR HEARTS!’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ said O’Malley. ‘Why must this particular… playground be destroyed?’
‘BECAUSE MY FATHER HAS BID IT TO BE SO. HIS GAZE AND HIS BREATH HAVE GROWN RESTLESS IN THEIR CONFINEMENT AT THE CENTRE OF THE RED PLANET; THEY GROW WEARY OF THEIR QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT WITH THE MIND OF HAQ UL’SUUN; THEY WISH TO BE FREE TO SATE THEMSELVES ON THE EARTH, JUST AS THEY DID ON MARS FIVE MILLION YEARS AGO.’
‘Is that what you want, Crystalman?’ asked Fort. ‘If that happens, your playground will be taken away; your toys will be gone…’
The voice laughed. ‘I SAY AGAIN: HOW SMALL YOUR MINDS! DO YOU THINK THIS IS THE ONLY EARTH? THERE ARE COUNTLESS OTHERS IN NEIGHBOURING DIMENSIONS: AN INFINITE NUMBER OF PLAYGROUNDS, AN INFINITE NUMBER OF TINY BEINGS TO BE TORMENTED. ALL DIFFERENT.’ The voice laughed again. ‘THERE IS EVEN ONE, LOVECRAFT, WHERE I AND THE REST OF MY KIN ARE THE CREATIONS OF YOUR IMAGINATION, FOR IN A UNIVERSE THAT IS INFINITE IN EXTENT AND ETERNAL IN TIME, ALL THINGS COME TO PASS. WHEN THIS EARTH IS DONE, I SHALL MOVE ON TO ANOTHER, AND ANOTHER, THROUGHOUT TIME AND SPACE, INTO ETERNITY!’
The voice of Crystalman paused, and then concluded: ‘BUT NOW IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO EXIT THIS LITTLE DRAMA, FOR YOU ARE ABOUT TO BECOME THE PLAYTHINGS OF THE DERO, AND I MUST PREPARE FOR THE ARRIVAL OF LIEUTENANT CARTER, WHO IS DESCENDING TO MY CAVERNS AS WE SPEAK. FAREWELL!’
‘We’re too late,’ said Lovecraft, his voice heavy with despair. ‘Dear God, we’re too late!’
‘And here come the Dero,’ added O’Malley, indicating the mouths of the transit tunnels all around them, from which the vile, misshapen creatures of the Inner Earth had begun to emerge, their hideous faces twisted with lopsided grins of anticipation.
Fort and the others looked up at the vast cylindrical shaft stretching into the distance far above. More Dero were emerging from the tunnel mouths along its length and scuttling down towards them, clinging to the wall like huge, hungry spiders.
Fort glanced back the way they had come. There would be no escape through that tunnel, thanks to Capone’s grenades.
O’Malley looked at Fort. ‘Well, Charlie, what do we do now?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Fort.
CHAPTER 35
Manticore
‘Well, Miss Links,’ said Fort, ‘looks like you’re going to get your comeuppance after all. Nevertheless… I’m sorry it has to be this way.’
He glanced at her and frowned. She was looking down at herself, a smile spreading slowly across her face. She handed him her machine gun and replied: ‘We’re not finished yet, Mr. Fort.’
Then she took a couple of steps towards the advancing Dero and began to take off her clothes. They halted, eyeing her, their mouths open and drooling. Fort and the others were disgusted to see their rapidly growing erections.
Rusty tossed her clothes to Lovecraft. ‘Be a darling and hold onto these for me, would you? I’ll need them back later.’
The drug’s worn off, thought Fort. She can feel it.
Now completely naked, Rusty turned back to the Dero and said: ‘Is this what you want?’
The creatures responded with loud, lustful grunts.
‘Well, boys,’ she laughed. ‘Good luck getting it!’ She glanced at Fort and the others. ‘When I’m through changing, climb aboard.’
‘Aboard what?’ said Lovecraft.
‘You’ll see.’
The transformation was rapid, and astonishing and terrifying to behold. Rusty’s beautiful naked form expanded and darkened, quickly shedding all resemblance to a human being and becoming…
‘A manticore,’ whispered Lovecraft. His mouth hung open in astonishment and his eyes were wide with wonder and terror. ‘She’s turned into a manticore!’
The great beast of Persian legend possessed the body of a lion – albeit three times the size of a normal one – and the head of a handsome, mahogany-skinned man with long, flowing black hair. From its shoulders sprouted two enormous, bat-like, membranous wings, and its thrashing tail was the segmented whip of a scorpion. The comma-shaped stinger at the tip was the size of a large watermelon.
The manticore’s mout
h widened in a combination of snarl and feral grin, revealing three rows of glinting white teeth like those of a shark.
Enraged that the object of their lust had become this outrageous beast, the Dero howled and surged forward.
The manticore roared in return and brought its whipping tail to bear.
‘Get down!’ screamed Lovecraft. ‘The tail! The venom!’
They all threw themselves flat upon the ground as the barbed tip of the stinger sprayed a thick, milk-white liquid in every direction, drenching the onrushing Dero, whose bodies fizzed and bubbled and collapsed into melting puddles of gore.
‘Come on!’ shouted Fort as he shouldered the Teleforce Projector and climbed onto the manticore’s back, securing himself with great handfuls of the creature’s long, thick fur. The others followed suit; Capone climbed onto the hindquarters, whose muscles flexed and rippled as they took his weight.
The bat wings spread wide and slapped the air, and the manticore launched itself from the floor of the shaft, its handsome face straining with the effort. As it steadily ascended through the shaft, its tail swung around, spraying the Dero who were still clinging to the walls with its venom. They screamed and fell, landing amongst the others with loud, messy splats.
The manticore had reached a height of a hundred feet or so when an insistent bleeping emerged from one of Fort’s pockets. Reaching with one hand, the other still clutching the creature’s fur, he withdrew the Anomalous Oscillation Detector. The yellow light was on.
‘Hold on, Miss Links!’ he cried. ‘We’re within two hundred yards of the Falcon!’
The manticore paused in its ascent, its wings scything the air with great whooshing sounds. A tunnel mouth loomed directly in front of them.
‘In there,’ said Fort. ‘That way!’
The manticore surged forward and into the tunnel, alighting on the floor and folding its wings away. Fort and the others began to climb down, but the manticore said in a powerful, inhuman voice: ‘No! Stay on my back. Quicker like this, Mr. Fort. There will be more passageways. Tell me which way to go.’
Fort held the AOD in front of him, keeping an eye on the yellow light. ‘All right, Miss Links. Away we go.’
With Fort and the others still on its broad back, the manticore sprang forward into the darkness.
None of them noticed that they were being followed; that they had, in fact, been followed ever since they descended through the borehole from the surface of Long Island… by a small bat.
A vampire bat.
CHAPTER 36
The Falcon and the Rock Book
The avatar of Nyarlathotep that called itself Crystalman watched as the elevator containing Lieutenant John Carter descended to the floor of the cavern in which he had his ‘drawing room’. The elevator doors opened and Carter emerged, carrying the ninth rock book.
‘Welcome, Lieutenant,’ said Crystalman.
Carter walked towards him, his face expressionless, and handed him the rock book. Crystalman examined it in the manner of an antiques collector who had been presented with a particularly attractive objet d’art. ‘Quaint technology,’ he mused. ‘Quite delightful, in its own way. Come.’ He beckoned Carter to follow him as he walked across the chamber to the monorail car.
‘You have done very well, Lieutenant Carter,’ he continued as the car sped through the transit tunnel, towards the chamber containing the telaug machine and the Martian Falcon.
Carter said nothing – nor did Crystalman expect him to, for in this state he was voiceless unless given a voice through the telaug. It amused him, however, to converse with his slave like this, as if the man’s sleeping consciousness were awake.
‘And for that reason, I shall allow you to witness the beginning of the end: the process that will bring about the denouement of Earth’s long history. It will be quite fascinating, I assure you. Perhaps I shall release your mind from its confinement in the moment before the end begins, so that you may see that which you have helped to unleash.’
A minute later, the monorail car swept into the chamber and slowed to a halt. Crystalman and Carter got out. Carrying the rock book, Crystalman walked across to the telaug machine and flicked a few switches. The large, asymmetrical display screen flickered to life, revealing an image of Mars.
‘The Atlan penetrays are most useful,’ said Crystalman. ‘They can produce a real-time image of any location in the world, or in the Solar System.’ He examined the ruddy-hued image of the dead planet for a moment and then smiled beneath his crystal mask. ‘Soon,’ he whispered.
He turned from the machine, walked to the centre of the chamber and placed the rock book on the floor. Then he went to the table on which the Martian Falcon stood, gently picked up the statuette and carried it towards the rock book.
When he had got to within five feet of the book, it sprang open, unfolding itself again and again by means of tiny metal hinges concealed within its mineral pages, until it had transformed itself into a single rectangle which covered an area of the floor about ten feet by eight.
‘You see, Lieutenant?’ said Crystalman over his shoulder. ‘An automatic process. At the end of the punishment, the Martians would place the rock book in the near vicinity of the Bird of Justice. The book would open out automatically into the device you see now. All that was then required was for the bird to be placed at the centre of the device, and the mind of the prisoner would be released. Normally, of course, the prisoner’s body would be nearby, waiting to receive the mind… but poor Haq ul’Suun’s body was destroyed five million years ago. There is nowhere for his mind to go.’
He lifted the Falcon and the silently-raging mind it contained and held it before his eyes. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘Your freedom will be short-lived indeed. With no physical form to inhabit, you will fade from the universe, and with your dissolution, the quantum bonds which bind the breath and gaze of Azathoth will be broken. Let it be so!’
Crystalman walked onto the stone rectangle. As he did so, a pale, circular glow ignited at the centre. He walked to it and placed the Falcon there, then stepped back onto the floor of the chamber. ‘This will take some time,’ he said. ‘It has been five million years since the Falcon or the rock book were required to perform their function. They are unused to this activity…’ He glanced at the telaug screen. ‘And yet, even now Mars trembles!’
The image on the screen showed a great gathering of red-orange clouds which began to obscure the surface of Mars, as if the distant world were experiencing a planet-wide quake which cast gargantuan plumes of dust into the thin atmosphere.
‘It stirs,’ said Crystalman. ‘Already it stirs! Soon, it will emerge!’
He glanced at the Falcon, which had begun to take on the same glow that was now slowly pulsating at the centre of the rock book. His glance flew to Carter. ‘Now, Lieutenant, let us rouse you from your own slumber, so that you may gaze upon the instrument of your own destruction, and that of your world.’
He moved across to the telaug and called up Carter’s brain pattern on a small screen. His hand approached the lever that would break the machine’s influence.
‘Crystalman!’ shouted a voice.
He turned in the direction of the voice, which came from a monorail tunnel heading deeper into the cavern system beneath Long Island.
The manticore exploded from the mouth of the tunnel and skidded to a halt. On its back were Fort, Lovecraft, O’Malley and Capone.
Crystalman laughed harshly. ‘Your efforts were admirable, but you’re too late! The Falcon has been reunited with the rock book. The breath and gaze of Azathoth are stirring.’ He pointed to the telaug screen. ‘Look! See how Mars shudders with their awakening!’
Fort unshouldered the Teleforce Projector and took aim at the rock book. ‘We’ll see about that!’ he cried.
‘Carter!’ shouted Crystalman. ‘Your needle gun. Shoot the manticore!’
Carter reached into his jacket and withdrew the weapon.
‘Capone!’ yelled Fort.
The diesel-powered gangster jumped down from the manticore as Carter took aim, and flung himself into the line of fire. The needle bounced harmlessly off his metal chest and dropped to the floor. Carter moved to the side, looking for another clear shot, but before he could do so, Capone had sprinted across the chamber, his metal feet smashing thunderously into the stone floor, and sent the detective flying against the wall. Carter slumped to the floor and lay still.
Fort took aim at the rock book and fired the Projector. The flood of incandescent energy splashed against it, making it glow even more… but it remained intact.
‘Damn it!’ shouted Fort.
‘You’ve still got it set to a wide dispersal, Charles,’ said Lovecraft. ‘Try narrowing the beam. That may do the trick.’
‘You could be right, Howard,’ said Fort as he twisted the control on the side of the Projector.
At that moment, the small bat that had been following them ever since they entered the realm of the Dero fluttered into the chamber and hovered above Carter’s needle gun, which lay on the floor near his unconscious body.
The bat exploded in a shower of darkness which instantly coalesced into the form of a black-suited man. The man reached for the needle gun, brought it up swiftly and fired at the manticore. The needle struck the beast in the face. The manticore staggered, its bat wings spreading as if in an effort to escape what had already happened.
The great beast fell onto its side, throwing off Fort, Lovecraft and O’Malley. The Projector flew from Fort’s hands and skittered across the floor.
Capone lunged for the vampire, but he was far too fast – supernaturally fast – and in another instant he was across the chamber and seizing the Projector.
‘Good evening, everyone,’ said Johnny Sanguine, who appeared beside the vampire. ‘This is Carmine, my right-hand man. We’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since Charlie and the gang came down from the surface.’ He looked down at Rusty Links, in her true form once more, lying unconscious on the floor. A thin trickle of blood issued from the puncture wound below her left eye. He shook his head. ‘Twice in one night. You gotta be more careful, hon.’