by Nelson Rusk
The second sense under attack was my sense of smell. The same oil smell permeated the underground as if it had bathed in this substance for the past century. However, over this stench, reigned an ozone scent that opened the nostrils and went directly to the lungs. To this day, I do not know where it came from. It was like the fragrances announcing a storm but accentuated to an inconceivable paroxysm. I had the impression, which was impossible to confirm, that this smell came from the breach in our reality and the acts defying its elementary rules that took place before my eyes.
This is when I get to the last of my senses under assault. Why my vision took so long to become clear, I can't say. Perhaps the vastness of what I saw contradicted my preconceived expectations of what I would find in this room, leaving me confused and reeling. Perhaps it was because of the play of light dancing in the air like wild will-o'-the-wisps, sometimes lighting the scene, other times hiding it. Or maybe worse. Maybe my mind, repelled by the scene it was contemplating, refused to process the information my eyes transmitted it. All these answers were possible. I had the impression that none of them were true.
The near part of the room conformed to what Mr. Muir described an eternity ago. It was a large room, an extension of the underground tunnels dug under Quebec City, still containing its share of incendiary oil tanks. This room, however, distorted over about six meters, quickly losing its definition, while the stone transformed into an unsubstantial and undefined material. At the end of this antechamber, nothing common, natural, or understandable existed anymore. At the exact point where the real world ended, the physical limits of the room swelled to titanic proportions. I perceived a faint agitation, but I was too far away to discern anything exactly.
Hypnotized by this scene, I walked forward, crossing the physical and real room until I found myself near the abyss, contemplating this incoherent vision. Sinuous pipes of tempered glass flowed from the tanks and penetrated the other dimension, continuing off in the distance. A wide staircase of black, smooth onyx-like material descended with a slight slope. I went down that path, currently doubting all my senses. As soon as I stepped into the breach in our reality, I felt my mind being pulled from all sides. I had the impression that this intrusion into our world was not only physical but also psychical. Mental waves swept over my being like a raging sea and I had to maintain a firm hold on my conscience not to be swept away.
Oppressive spots of darkness filled the new world I entered, as if the god ruling this universe had spilled black and dirty ink on it while supervising its creation. Around me, far away, I could see an orange and shifting surface. I was inside a gigantic sphere with shifting and swarming surfaces. A layer of flames or magma whose volcanic heat dried my eyes covered the walls. Despite this apparent inexhaustible source of light, it could not drive away the grimy darkness that accumulated in all the interstices like dirt. I saw movements at the bottom of the slope, like strange colors wriggling in all directions, attracting me, urging me to come closer.
The stairs were longer than they seemed. The pipes connected to the oil tanks were running near me, also going down to who knows where. At regular intervals, cylindrical obelisks of the same black material rose on either side of the steps. A crude torch surmounted each obelisk, repelling the parasitic darkness for a negligible distance. On several occasions, I knelt near an elaborate railing to look under the stairs. I saw no beam supporting this massive stone construction. The structure was floating anchorless over the sea of spherical magma extending under my feet and over me.
As I descended, my destination became clear. The staircase led to a platform extending from the right and left sides, closed at the back by a single vaulted wall. On the platform, a congregation of about forty followers indulged in their libations. The fact Robert Muir, in his time, had to fight over a hundred cultists encouraged me. Perhaps the cult had failed in reaching the same state of preparation as before, due to a lack of time or manpower. It was good to know the machinations of the god which the cult served were not infallible.
There was unrest near the vaulted wall. The glass cables I had been following since the beginning of my descent joined two large tanks, whose contents were boiling. I kept getting closer until I saw what was happening. I went down the stairs with my legs bent, folded over myself so they would not discover me. I ran the last distance with my head down, then wedged my back against an obelisk, using it to hide from the followers. Staying covered, I glanced down to the scene at the bottom.
I heard her at the same time as I saw her. Her cry of distress pierced my soul. Alise was lying on an altar at the foot of the vaulted wall, tied up and trapped. The cultists had removed her clothes. She was there, innocent and at the mercy of the congregation of howling wolves that surrounded her. I almost rushed forward with rage but reason held me back. I had the impression that there was something else in this scene, something else that I did not see. While I concentrated, my eyes adjusted, as if my will alone was enough to illuminate and pierce the darkness. Above and behind her, also tied up but standing, something terrible, unavoidable, nightmarish was looming. Possessed by this vision, I focused on it. Soon, the veil that hid the abomination of my sight gave way like a dam and horror filled my eyes like an empty jug.
On the wall was attached a horrible creature, larger than any land animal. On closer inspection, it hid almost entirely the wall behind it and I did not understand how it was possible I had not seen it before. It dominated the scene. The creature was anthropomorphic, but its front and rear limbs multiplied into a disgusting redundancy. Its burnt and calcined flesh showed in some places a slow and tedious healing. Some patches of bluish flesh superimposed on pieces of dead skin detaching from the bones. Obviously, a long and painful encounter with flames had marked the horror, disfiguring its already inhuman features.
The members of the detestable creature hung, limp and helpless. Only the face still displayed a spark of life. Its features were human but crude and distorted. Its jaws endowed with long, sharp fangs had been partially torn off, subjected to a shock that had to be cataclysmic to cause such damage. However, it was the creature's eyes that caught my attention. Stealthy and sneaky, as if embedded in their orbits, they looked at the victim lying before them with malevolent greed. More than any other part of the abomination, its eyes reflected its inhuman and extra-dimensional character.
I could not help but think of the disgusting figure that Robert Muir saw at the final ceremony, and who took the place occupied by the aide-de-camp Phillips. Had this abomination survived for nearly a century in this devitalized body, reduced to a charred mass? By what blasphemous sustenance and sacrilegious ceremonies had it defied the years in this dormant condition? Could it be that for decades, several generations of sectators have nurtured this incarnation of absolute evil, feeding it power by means of barbaric rituals and sacrifices?
Horrified to the core, engrossed in this hallucinated vision, I remained frozen and mute behind the obelisk as the ceremony reached its climax. On the vaulted wall, runes of power gleamed in electric blue. Light rays danced in the gaps between the stones. The oil from the cisterns bubbled and overflowed from the top, spreading over the floor near the worshipers. A low gurgling sound rumbled from the walls of the flame sphere, which shuddered from one end to the other as if an electric current flowed through it. Around the head of the abomination, I saw a halo forming, distorting reality. The halo stretched and projected toward Alise, forming a spear, then came to surround the young woman's body. At that moment, the followers screamed in unison: “Iä! Iä! Azathoth! Om Namah Shivaya!” I could see Alise's face twisting and contorting in screams of pain and horror, but none of her cries pierced the racket.
I had already left my hiding place behind the obelisk and was heading down the stairs when a massive coruscation of flames erupted from the creature, consuming it on the spot in an instant. The gush of fire propelled itself high into the air and then descended toward Alise like a meteor imbued with a will of its own. As I screa
med in vain, a maelstrom of incandescent plasma flooded the sacrificed woman, enveloping her like an avid lover. This ignited the pools of oil on the ground. A fire snake spread to the tanks, which exploded in a powerful burst of blue flames. The choir of sectators sang until the last second before being engulfed in the igneous ball thus formed. The multiple conflagrations shaking the platform sent shock waves that threw me violently against the steps.
Stunned and lying on my back, struggling to get up, I screamed and screamed without ever hearing my voice. I watched helplessly as the fire raged in front of me like a rabid beast. The explosion had engulfed Alise along with the rest, leaving me alone, mad in front of the devastation that had taken place. What was the purpose of all this? Had I witnessed a simple collective suicide? Nothing had survived this combustion, which seemed to be all the more intense because of its localized proportions.
I lamented my inability to intervene when I detected a movement in the molten sphere. Coming from the flames, as if emerging from a plasma baptism, Alise came toward me, apparently unaffected by the fire. "Alise... Did you... What happened to you? "I stammered, unable to find the words. She approached without answering me. Only when she was a few meters away from me did she finally looked up and stared at me. I flinched involuntarily. Her eyes were no longer Alise's: they were the eyes of the demon consumed by the flames. The senseless combination of the pure and innocent features of Alise's face and the perversity of the demonic eyes was a blasphemy to the divine creator who had brought life to humanity. It was an unconscionable stain whose infamy the image I had of Alise in her lifetime multiplied tenfold.
“No, it is impossible!” I began, filled with fury but not knowing on whom or what to vent it. “No one could have survived this explosion. You are not Alise!
What a pity, Mr. Roussin. I thought you would be happy to see your dear Alise again.” The creature made a slight sneer. The voice was Alise's, but never in our conversations had she shown such arrogance, such apparent contempt for me.
“I want to see her again, but not in this state. You have no right to walk among humans, demon! Leave this world and never come back.
And to go where? The execrable entity I used to inhabit no longer exists. Alise's body, alive, young, promising, capable of creating life, suits me perfectly.” To prove it, she waved her arms, then her hands and fingers, one after the other. “Yes, it feels good to be in a new carnal envelope. When one has traveled to the outer spheres, beyond the limits of our dimension, any mortal coil is a handicap. But I can tell you that after a hundred years in a ruined body, even this weak flesh is welcome.
So, you are the aide-de-camp Phillips? You have kept yourself in this borrowed body for a century and now steal that of an innocent woman to perpetuate your cursed condition?
Phillips?”
The creature burst out with a sardonic and deep laughter, breaking and distorting Alise's voice in a thundering crescendo. The sudden and irresistible power deployed by the entity made me back off while half-standing, but keeping my eyes fixed on her. It was impossible, despite her frail body, to doubt her superhuman magnetism. The creature resumed, this time not deigning to imitate Alise's voice. Her natural voice was deep, gravelly, and full of malice. All humanity had left it:
“Emmett Phillips had already been dead for a long time when I arrived in Quebec City. He did not survive his meeting with my master. Few can. I am the Messenger of Azathoth. I was old when your first civilizations learned to walk. I was the first to throw a torch at Persepolis in front of Alexander's army. I cremated Rome in six days and blamed the Christians. I have plunged humanity into ignorance from the depths of time by burning the library of Alexandria. I would whisper in Hulagu Khan's ear as he looted and burned Baghdad. Even as a prisoner of the body Shiva had given me, I sent my servants to throw the spark that engulfed London!”
Great London fire in 1866.
Calling out his litany of poisoned sentences, the Messenger advanced as I backed away, iridescent flames appearing in his hands. He seemed enthralled by his thirst to praise his past exploits, as if a century locked in a lifeless shell surrounded by sycophants had suffocated him. The more he let his memories surface, the more his mind expanded, drifting and wandering.
“...under the aegis of Azathoth. For everything is one in Him. The cycle of creation and destruction is the most important of all. The others are nothing but pale subordinates to Him. The flame of purification burns, eternal and vindictive. It is the long-awaited elegy after the long agony of life. It recovers the decaying elements and restores them to their primordial essence. It prepares the inanimate for the divine breath of life. Iä Azathoth! In all your aspects, creator or destroyer, you reign over consecrated life and deified death!”
The creature stopped moving. Carried by an invisible rising blast, it rose into the air. At the same time, I heard an abominable noise, the same chaotic and incessant hum that accompanied the creature I had met while dreaming of the outer gods, the one who called itself Azathoth. The sound came from all directions and emanated from the walls of the gargantuan sphere of fire that surrounded me like a cocoon. The inside of the sphere shuddered. Burning waves rose to its surface in response to the Messenger's invocations. A dry whistle rang out as the air heated up in an instant and oxygen became scarce. Coming here had been a mistake, I realized with a sudden, terrifying clarity. I was in the Leviathan's belly. I was in the gaping molten hole at the heart of Azathoth himself.
This realization plunged me into an abysmal dread that tore my mind apart. I plunged into the heart of an unspeakable crisis of horror that only those who have experienced absolute emptiness can know. I lost my mind at that moment, but maybe that was what saved me. Without reflecting, I grabbed the gun that Sir Hugh had given me, hastily aimed at the Messenger and emptied the gun's magazine. In my state of dementia, I could not tell how many times I hit him. The vile creature crashed to the ground with terrible screams. I turned around and climbed the stairs at full speed.
I ran and ran until I lost my breath. All around me, the surfaces of the sphere erupted, sending molten matter and huge flame columns in my direction. Tremors jolted the stairs, making my ascent dangerous. I ignored as much as I could the imprecations intoned behind me and intended for me by the Messenger. I did not turn around, for fear of what I would see. No physical attack befell me, no concrete wound scarred my body as I raced upstairs. However, I felt my vitality escaping from my cracked soul, pouring down after me on the onyx steps. A part of me remained in the depths of Azathoth. The best part, the part that could laugh, flourish, and enjoy the beauty of life. It was consumed by the extra-dimensional abomination that chased me.
Many times, I thought my end was near. I imagined myself caught by a ball of magma that would, in an instant, evaporate my flesh and blood, and reduce my bones to ashes. I thought the staircase, in the throes of cataclysmic shocks, would collapse into the magma that had formed it at the dawn of time. I saw myself crumbling under a psychic scream that would reduce my brain to amorphous jelly. None of this happened. For a reason I will never know, I reached the top of the stairs, panting, my skin deeply burned in some spots, my hair melted and shredded, but alive.
When I turned around, the painting before me was worthy of John Martin. Flames swirled like infernal winds, forming sinuous and moving arabesques. Pressurized heat waves were blowing against the staircase, whose stone melted and dripped into the void. Explosions roared as if they were the expression of an unnamed and unfulfilled rage. The Messenger, wounded, staggered up the stairs. He was still far from the summit. Next to me, the tanks connected to the platform at the bottom were boiling due to the clashing supernatural forces. Lightning flashes of pure energy circulated from one tank to another like senseless wildfires.
Part of me wanted to flee and postpone to the distant future the existential problem represented by the Messenger. Leave to others, later, the colossal task of eliminating this peril for humanity and the world. I re
alized I could not do so. I had vowed to act. I had to do it for myself. Above all, I owed it to Alise, who had given her life for the incarnation of this infamous entity. Her body could not remain so tainted by the presence of the intruder.
I looked around, knowing time was running out. The portal to the other dimension was raging on all sides and the Messenger was approaching. I had to close this rift in our universe, but how? Desperate, I was furious at my inability to solve this problem when a diffuse thought led me to approach a tank that had reached a violent boiling point. I had seen this liquid in such a state before. Robert Muir had mentioned the phenomenon in his memoirs. The oil seemed to react in this way when worshipers engaged in unspeakable rituals to use supernatural forces. Did the substance maintain or act as a catalyst for these reactions?
Moved by this idea, I backed away to gain momentum, then rushed toward a cistern. I jumped before reaching it and crashed my shoulder against the glass wall in a violent and painful shock. The massive container swayed just enough to lean backward. Seeing I had almost succeeded, I pushed against the tank with all my strength, burning my hands on the white-hot surface. In a thundering crash of broken glass, the tank spilled against a series of pipes and stills leading to the platform at the bottom of the stairs, smashing the fragile assembly. The cistern continued its fall and disappeared into the abyss of the other dimension. I approached the border between our reality and that of Azathoth. I saw the flaming jar being swallowed by the rising winds. A moment later, a loud detonation resounded as the tank and its contents exploded.
The fiery breath of the impulse threw me rearward. When I looked up, I noticed cataclysmic bursts still rocked the other dimension. However, an opaque blur obscured the threshold, making it difficult to see inside. I hurried to recover my senses and repeat this process, throwing myself with all the strength I had left on another tank. Once more, it wobbled. I nearly broke my back to give it the final push. Fear and panic alone supported me, because my muscles had failed. I did not see the tank fall into the depths of the alternate dimension, but I heard and felt the explosion. The opening to the other world seemed to be on the verge of failing. Another tank, perhaps, and it was over.