The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3)

by Adam Lance Garcia

  “It is time, Dumont,” Heydrich said with a horrific grin.

  “Yes,” Dumont nodded without emotion. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  Nyarlathotep silently walked around Dumont and placed a hand on each wrist. Black ooze grew out from Nyarlathotep’s fingertips, binding Dumont’s arms together.

  As they led Dumont out, only Gan noticed the small pile of shattered glass and flecks of salt. A hallow smile formed on his lips and hope sparked his eyes.

  • • •

  “Look down there,” Ken said as a steady stream of Nazi soldiers flowed in through a large doorway at the back of the Temple. They were soon joined by a medley of creatures, from Deep Ones to shoggoths, flying polyps to nightmarish dragons, marching in unison until they filled the plateau, leaving a narrow aisle leading toward the peninsula.

  Jean’s face silently steeled over. Her knuckles turned white as the Third Tablet rattled in her hands.

  “Another sacrifice?” Gan whispered to Gottschalk as they marched into the Temple. “Sir, what have we allied ourselves with?” Gottschalk glanced around nervously at the incalculable creatures surrounding them. “I no longer know.”

  “We must not let these monsters go through with this horror,” Gan pleaded, gripping Gottschalk’s arm.

  “We do as the Führer commands,” Gottschalk said, his voice cracking.

  “Even at the cost of our souls?” Gan asked sharply.

  Gottschalk sighed and looked to Gan with a glassy gaze. “Is it such a large price to pay for the safety of Germany?”

  • • •

  Caraway, Rick, and Vasili found themselves on a large horseshoe terrace overlooking the Temple floor as Jethro was being dragged before the mound. Glancing across the way Caraway caught sight of Jean, who waved silently and pointed toward the far end the horseshoe balcony.

  “Well, looks like the gang’s all here,” Caraway whispered as he waved back in understanding; that was where they needed to place their Tablet.

  “What’s going on?” Rick asked, looking down at the throng of Nazis and monsters.

  Caraway risked a glance down and swallowed the lump in his throat, remembering those horrible moments before Sotiria was killed. He felt a familiar scratching at the base of his spine, the thousand whispers of demons echoed in the back of his skull. He pitched his eyes shut and pushed the sensation away. He was stronger than them, he told himself. They wouldn’t take him again. He pushed them away, down back into the depths of hell. He was immune to their touch, he realized, like chickenpox. Then he heard the laughter come from behind him. He forced open his eyes and glanced over at Vasili, whose eyes had suddenly gone black.

  “Armageddon,” Vasili whispered. A lascivious grin spread across his face as he grabbed Rick and tossed him across the balcony. Rick’s head smacked hard against the wall and he dropped unconscious to the ground. Vasili then spun around to Caraway and laughed, “Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn!”

  Silence fell over the temple as Jethro headed the small, final procession into the Temple, followed closely by Nyarlathotep and Heydrich. He could feel a thousand eyes follow him as he made his way toward the end of the coral peninsula. He gazed out into the darkness as a loud buzzing began to echo out from the back of his mind, a thousand mad, screaming voices. The shadows moved and broke open, forming two red, green, and yellow slits. Tentacles slithered out into the light, grasping for him. Reaching the mound, Nyarlathotep forced Jethro to his knees as the black bindings on his arms evaporated. Heydrich then grabbed his right arm and pressed his ringed hand into the imprint. Bright green light erupted from the Jade Tablet, throwing a deathly hue over the massive creature in the darkness. Jethro felt his graze drift away, unable to look at the monstrosity without feeling his mind begin to unhinge.

  Nyarlathotep turned to the crowd on the plateau. He raised the Necronomicon and screamed. “Now begins the new dawn of Cthulhu!”

  Ken braced himself against the parapet. “Oh, God. Jethro…”

  Jean’s heart hammered against her chest as she watched helplessly, the crystalline egg glowing bright. Everything she had seen, everything she had learned, it was going to be all for naught. She was going to watch the man she loved murdered before her eyes.

  And there was nothing she could do.

  On the coral peninsula below, Heydrich gripped Jethro by the hair, pulled back his head, and turned his face to the ceiling. Heydrich’s eyes burned with madness. A wild grin stretched across his broken and deformed face, a living, breathing nightmare. He held the Shard’s glowing serrated edge against Jethro’s neck, drawing blood. He leaned in close, his breath like brimstone. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this day, Dumont,” he whispered, black ooze dripping down his ruined face. “Truly, I feel as though my whole life has been leading to this day.”

  “This isn’t over, Karl,” Jethro said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh no, Dumont. I am afraid it is.” Heydrich thrust the Shard over his head. “To the end of an era! To the beginning of the next! In the name of the Führer! In the name of the Old Ones! I awaken the Sleeper! Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn!”

  “Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn!” the Temple thundered in unison.

  Jethro’s eyes rolled back in his head and he began to whisper: “Salutation to the Buddha. In the language of the gods and in that of the lus, in the language of the demons and that of the men, in all the languages that exist, I proclaim the Doctrine…”

  “Cthulhu rises!” Heydrich shrieked as he plunged the Shard into Jethro’s throat, breaking off a piece of the blade’s tip against the spine. He sliced to the side and ripped open the jugular, taking pleasure in the distinct wet sound of shredding tissue. Blood poured down the Green Lama’s throat onto the altar, turning his robes a deep maroon. The Temple fell silent as a green beam of light shot out from the mound into the shadows. Then, from all around them, they heard the roar of Cthulhu. Heydrich’s heart raced, lusting in the sound. He had done it; he had killed the Green Lama. He raised the Shard over his head once more, the Green Lama’s blood dripping down the crystalline blade and onto his arm, staining his sleeve.

  “Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn!” he screamed, feeling the great wizard’s hot, sulfurous breath flow over him.

  “Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn!” Nyarlathotep repeated with satisfaction as they both fell to their knees in unison, bowing their heads before their master.

  Gan fell a step back, his mind nearing the breaking point as he stared at the hideous god, his hand instinctively reaching for his Lüger. “Hashem, no,” he whispered.

  Beside him, Gottschalk fell to his knees, his face twisted with madness as he screamed,” ür das Vaterland! Für den Führer!”

  Above on the balcony, Jean covered her mouth and fought back a scream as she slid down the parapet and collapsed to the floor. She sobbed silently as tears streamed down her face. She had failed. It was all over, everything and everyone. This was the end.

  Ken crumpled. “Oh, God no,” he whispered. “Oh, please God, no.”

  In the shadows below two broad, leathery wings extended out, eliciting a sound like of breaking bones ripping through skin. The Temple rumbled as bits of stone and coral rained down, punctuated by screams of ecstasy and terror. An immense clawed reptilian hand struck out from the darkness and hooked onto the coral cliff, then the other, the fifteen foot long nails driving into the coral with a deafening crack. Elephantine muscles flexed as the beast pulled itself forward. A pulpy octopus head surmounting a grotesque scaly dragon-like body appeared out of the darkness and roared with a thousand voices. The Green Lama was dead. Cthulhu had risen.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE GREEN LAMA, UNBOUND

  “Well, Tsarong,” Dumont said as the S. S. Heki approached the Brooklyn Navy Yards, the sun shining brightly on Manhattan’s brick and glass mountains. He had forgotten how beautiful they could be, a reminder that people could still accomplish wonders. “We’ll soon be landing in New York! I confess I have waited t
en years for this!”

  Tsarong firmed his lips, unable to look Dumont in the eye. “Waiting and studying hard, Tulku!” he said without much emotion.

  Dumont nodded. “But all that time I was studying, Tsarong, it was with the idea that someday I would return and teach America the peaceful ideas of the Dharma.”

  Tsarong placed a cordial hand on Dumont’s shoulder. “A most worthy reason, my friend.”

  Dumont smiled somberly. “A most humble reason,” he added softly.

  The ship’s horn blared. They had docked. For the first time in a decade, Jethro Dumont was home. Collecting their meager possessions, they exited their cabin into the sea of disembarking passengers.

  “Mommy!” a little blonde girl cried pleasantly as she walked past them with two other children, tugging at her mother’s skirt. “Mommy, look, a real live Oriental man!”

  “Meredith!” the mother scolded. “That’s very rude!” She turned to Dumont and Tsarong, smiling bashfully. “Sorry, she didn’t mean anything by that. You know how children can be.”

  “No offense taken, young miss.” Tsarong bowed his head warmly. “May your children always be filled with such wonder.”

  The mother’s smile broadened with bewilderment. “Huh, yeah. Hopefully, right?” she said as she was pulled away.

  “You’ll get a lot of that,” Dumont said as they made their way through the ship’s hallways toward the gangplank. “Though most of it won’t be so innocent. They like to say New York’s a melting pot, but discrimination and hatred still run rampant. It is worse in other parts of the country where men in white sheets slaughter their fellow man for the color of their skin.”

  “Perhaps it is an injustice you can correct, Tulku.”

  Dumont nodded. “I hope so, Tsarong, though I don’t think it will be an easy task. But, we will do our best to teach my countrymen, no matter how long it takes,” he said as they disembarked.

  Ahead of them, the young mother struggled with her baggage as her three children continued to drag her forward, all three rattling off all the stories they were going to tell their friends once they returned to school. Dumont smiled faintly. The excitement of children; he had forgotten how intoxicating their laughter was, how much he missed it. Maybe, now that he was home, perhaps, one day—

  “Outta the way!

  A sweaty, gruff looking man in tweed pushed his way down the gangway, knocking past Jethro and Tsarong, before shoving aside the young mother and children. The mother shouted after him, but the man in tweed ignored her as he stumbled toward the dock holding his suitcases shoulder high in a vain effort to quicken his pace. As the man reached the dock, Dumont heard the once familiar sound of squealing tires as a car came speeding down the shipyard, knocking over luggage and machinery as it raced toward the ship.

  “There’s that dirty rat now!” Dumont heard the driver shout. “He did come on that ship! Let him have it!”

  “No! No! They found me! How did they find me?!” the man in tweed screamed. He stumbled backwards up the gangplank as the car drove up. A machine gun appeared in the passenger window.

  “Get down!” Dumont shouted, throwing himself over Tsarong and the young mother as the machine gun sang its song of death.

  As they tumbled down, Tsarong heard something whisper by his ear, quickly followed by an odd, hollow THUNK! as something warm splattered across his face.

  “That got him! Step on it, Slug!” the shooter said as the car peeled away.

  “Is everyone okay?!” Dumont said as he stood up, flecks of blood covering his white safari suit. He moved to help the woman back to her feet when he saw the bullet hole in her temple, and the brain matter spilling out the other side. Dumont’s hand jerked away in shock, his fingers shaking uncontrollably. The man in tweed lay on his back in a growing pool of blood, his eyes stared vacantly up into the sky, a black and red bullet hole between them. Then Dumont saw the three children, facedown on the ground.

  “Tulku…” Tsarong breathed as Dumont stumbled over to the little girl’s limp form, blood staining her golden locks. “They have killed the little ones!”

  “What manner of men are these who make war upon children?” Dumont asked mournfully as he carefully cradled the girl’s body in his arms, when he caught something in the corner of his eye. Shifting his gaze he saw the Jade Tablet glowing subtly in the sunlight, and Jethro Dumont at last realized his destiny.

  • • •

  Jethro was standing in a seamless white room. There was no singular source of light; it was as if he were in the center of a cold sun. He took a tentative step forward and realized he was barefoot. He felt he should be cold, but he was warm, content and at peace. He glanced down and found himself dressed in familiar green robes; the chest stained a sickening maroon, though he was at a loss as to how they had come to be like that. He had no shadow. He instinctually looked at his right hand and found a glowing red scar where the Jade Tablet had once been. He blinked. He didn’t remember taking it off.

  “Tashi shog, Tulku,” a familiar voice said.

  Jethro turned to find a being of pure green flames standing behind him, its face constantly shifting, always beautiful and serene, but never human. Even so, Jethro recognize her instantly.

  “Hello, O Magga,” Jethro said with a calm smile, bowing his head in reverence. “I was wondering when I would see you again.”

  Magga bowed her luminescent head. She held a lotus flower in her hand. “But now you see me as I truly am. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. And no.” He looked over Magga’s glowing form, finally piecing together all the mysteries surrounding her. “Are you an angel?”

  Magga smiled. “Oh, Jethro…After all your time in Tibet, after all your studies, you still cling to so many Western notions.” She held up the lotus flower in her hand, which shimmered into a jewel. Jethro peered into the center of the gem and thought he could see the swirl of galaxies. “Once, I was Yeshe Dawa, though I have been given many names since, some remembered, some forgotten, some truer than others. I am a Bodhisattva, much like you, but I am not of your realm. You may consider me a guardian, a guide, and, as always, the Revealer of the Secret Paths.”

  “Is this Nirvana?” he asked, gazing over the white expanse.

  “It is…” she hesitated, searching for the word, “a gateway, a bridge between worlds.”

  Jethro blinked, he could feel his memories slowly reform, like a fog burning up in the sun. His hand went unconsciously to his neck. “Heydrich.”

  Magga nodded.

  “And where are Jean and the others?”

  She tilted her head to the side, trying to read his expression. “They are still in R’lyeh. Cthulhu has risen.”

  Jethro’s face fell. “Then I have failed. Heydrich has won,” he said mournfully. He looked to Magga. “Was that truly my destiny? To bring about the rebirth of Cthulhu?”

  Magga smiled and shook her head. “No. Your destiny is far greater.”

  “But what of the Tablets?”

  “The Tablets give access to one of the greatest powers in the universe. When the Great Old Ones came to this world they thought they could pervert it and use it for their own purposes. And for a time they did. But they quickly came to realize that even they could not control the Tablets, going so far as to try and break the Third Tablet in hopes of finding a way to mitigate their power.”

  “That was how Prometheus and his kind first obtained it,” Jethro said. “And how they were able to defeat the Great Old Ones.”

  Magga nodded. “The Fire from Olympus. The Tablets were the source of the Great Old Ones’ power, as well as their downfall.”

  He glanced down at the scar on his right middle finger. The Jade Tablet was still there, just not in this realm, he could still feel its echo across the divide. “Nyarlathotep said that Tsarong knew this day would come,” he said; this was not a question. “That he has been training me for this…”

  “Nyarlathotep is the Father of Lies, but in this instance,
” Magga added mournfully, she had hoped to avoid this conversation, “he speaks the truth.”

  Jethro scowled, biting back his anger. “Why didn’t Tsarong tell me? There was so much we could have done to prevent this. “

  “To know one’s destiny is to void it. Tsarong knew, as I knew, that were you conscious of the path laid before you, you would do all you could to prevent it, allowing you to fall prey to those hoping to alter your decisions, leading, ultimately, to this world’s destruction.” She took a step toward Jethro as bright light appeared beside them. “But now, Tulku, it is time for you to make one final choice, between this life and the next.”

  Jethro looked toward the light, then at Magga. “I need to go back,” he said simply.

  Magga touched his face. “So brave. Even now, you turn down Nirvana for Earth.”

  “I can’t leave her there.”

  She smiled sadly. “I always knew you two would work out.”

  Jethro smiled.

  “Go, Tulku, back to one you love. Be prepared, for the final battle has only just begun,” Magga said as the light began to fade. “And remember to thank Tsarong for stacking the deck.”

  • • •

  “Om! Ma-ni Pad-me Hum!”

  Heydrich’s eyes went wide. “No,” he whispered. He turned toward the voice to find the Green Lama forcing himself to his feet, the gaping hole in his neck healing before Heydrich’s eyes. “No! No! No! It’s not possible!” Heydrich screeched. “You’re dead! You’re dead!”

  • • •

  “Jean!” Ken screamed, tugging at her sleeve. “Jean, look!”

  Jean struggled to stand. Her vision blurred with tears, she looked down at the Temple floor in amazement as the Green Lama stood.

  “Jethro!” Her eyes shot to Ken. “We don’t have much time!”

  • • •

  Flashing forward, the Green Lama grabbed Heydrich by the throat and lifted him off the ground. “I’ve already killed you once, Karl,” the Green Lama said quietly; “hopefully the Dharma will forgive me for repeating the offense. Om! Vajrasattva Hum!” He raised his ringed hand to Heydrich’s jaw and wordlessly unleashed a torrent of energy, disintegrating most of Heydrich’s head in a tremendous flash. The Green Lama dropped the partially decapitated body, along with the Shard, into the abyss. Black ooze poured out from the wound as it tumbled down.