Waking a second time, now with more wits about me, I turned to face the mountain only to see the rift had closed, no trace of its existence appearing in front of my eyes. Had this all been a dream. I looked to the skies to see a completely clouded abyss. Overcast, yet, clearing partially in spots. Behind the clouds, a faint green light pulsating and emanating between the faint cracks in the cloud cover. This was no dream, we had done something, something world changing. As I closed my eyes a racked my brain in an effort to remember what I had seen, all I could think of was the painting hanging in Samson Trammell’s library entitled “The Gazer’s Perspective”. The stars in the painting were similar, yet somehow wrong, different from the starts I had seen above me as I exited the rift.
Our wits slowly returning to us all, Tom and Will were the first to suggest we begin our decent, seconded quickly by Pierre. Taking our packs that had remained at the peak of the mountain, a thin layer of ash covering them, we began our decent, slowly, Carter’s leg proving not to be broke, however causing him more pain than I had seen him in since the loss of his hand. Two days of hiking down this mountain, pitching our tent on the first night, although difficult to tell if the night was indeed a darkened sky, the clouds refusing to part for more than a few moments, enough time to see the faint green light protrude briefly. Our tent covered in a thick layer of Ash on the second morning, whatever this was, it was not right. Will made mention of a Volcano that erupted last century, ash covering the world from the eruption, reassuring in the least, we all knew that this was no eruption, this was our doing.
As we reached the bottom of the slope, our bones tired, our muscles weak, we were expecting to see the pilgrims buzzing around the base of the sacred mount, instead, we were met only by empty paths and ash covered snow. We knew it was another half days walk to Darchen, the two housing buildings that stored pilgrims on their journey. The thought of fire and warmth enough to make us walk with more vigor. We approached the buildings with much caution, the path that had usually been teaming with pilgrims was all but deserted, not a soul in sight, the only signs of life, dim light emitting from the buildings and smoke from the chimneys, although dark, it was almost lost in the light ash that continued to fall everywhere.
We entered the usually crowded buildings only to find a handful of people occupying them, after talking as best we could to the people here, many had returned to Burang in search of news relating to the strange events leading to what seemed to be never ending cloud cover and the strange green light that formed behind it. Many spoke of potential volcanic activity; however, none were sure, none but us.
Not knowing if we had been spotted returning from our expedition, Tom arranged plates of food to feed our famished bodies, Will stayed on guard, allowing us shifts to rest before we also followed the masses to Burang, not without a night’s sleep, exhaustion close to setting in.
After two days of rest and recovery, Carter and I were keen to press on, knowing that if what we suspected was true, we were now on the clock, something was coming, something that wasn’t going to wait for us. We began our march to Burang, moving quickly as Carter’s leg slowly improved from the rest we had been granted. The day’s journey to Burang was slow, passing through the lakes rather than stopping seemed to speed things up somewhat. As we approached the limits of the town, we were met with the sight of dark red robes and the burning of torches. A sea of monks, all across the city, facing Mt Kailesh. As we drew closer, it was clear that these men were all praying and shouting repentance and desperate pleas for forgiveness to the mountain. We did not seem to draw much of their attention, our faces covered in the skins and furs we wore, making us appear as regular pilgrims as we passed by them in search of the inn we had stayed previously on our way to the mountain.
We continued our journey back to the plane, it was going to take a week, by foot, by truck, through Delhi and on to Karachi. The walk was grueling, all we could think of was the consequences of our actions, what were we going to tell Janet, or our families, that we had destroyed the world?
Time seemed to pass quickly now, before I could focus on the reality we had been walking through, we had already reached Delhi, every day and night blending into one continuous haze of dull light and cloud. The chaos had already started in the city, people walking, running, trampling each other to get as far away from here as possible. Pressing on, only stopping to refuel the truck, we reached Karachi, again as we suspected after our journey through Delhi, the airport was a nightmare. Making our way to our private plane, so far unmolested by the hordes of people trying to escape the country, Tom wandered through the airport in search of newspapers for any information on the rest of the world, was this a localized event, or was it global.
Frank did not wait for flight plans, confident he could pilot the plain in this weather, as soon as the plane was ready, we were gone, airborne, on our way to Marseilles. As we broke through the cloud cover, everything in front of our eyes was a blur or spectacle and wonder. The green lights that littered the sky in long wisps from horizon to horizon littered the sky, the clouds above barely visible through the green. The patterns above us in the sky constantly changing, like bursts of colour through the maze of luminous green. Pulsing and repeating, as if the sky itself was acting as some kind of beacon across the blanket of dark space. The patterns that formed took many shapes, some in brilliant trails of patterns forever disappearing into the infinite abyss, others forming familiar shapes and symbols that I had seen scattered throughout the wall art and etchings of every strange place I seen with Carter over the last few months.
Will could barely keep his eyes from the window, looking deeply into the constantly changing sky, he seemed quiet, deafeningly so. Tom also took in the sight, slapping himself constantly to make sure he wasn’t in a dream of on some bad opium ride. As we continued to watch, lighting began to form, strange lightning, red and orange, skipping from cloud to cloud below us, every so often a slim streak of red falling from the sky, being caught by the clouds and then passing it around across the canopy of cloud formations only every now and then, blink and you would miss it. Was I the only one who saw it, no one else seemed to pay it any mind.
Arriving in Marseilles, everything was chaos again, the harbour was a mess, the sky still clouded, ash falling and green emitting from the gaps in the clouds. The town was on the verge of rioting, buildings were burning along the coast, people were slowly turning from civilized into something else, more primal, survival seemed to be the only thing people were thinking about. The drive to Nice was difficult, the roads often chaotic with people, bicycles and assorted modes of transportation. As I looked out the window of the car, the clouds had begun to separate slightly, however not in the same fashion as normal clouds do, fracturing rather than parting, like glass with pressure slowly increasing on its surface.
We arrived at the mansion to see Janet waiting at the front door. Entering the library, searching for anything that seemed to have any mention of gazing or star constellations. It didn’t take long before I found the book entitles “The Gaze of Azathoth”, strange that I had come across the book “Azathoth and other terrors” not a few days ago.
This book tells the tale of a nameless who lives amidst the “dying lights” of the end of days. Blessed with the “thrice-cursed immortality” this man nevertheless feels as if a creeping doom has crept into his bones. His dreams are slowly filled by the recurring image of a great and terrible Eye which “gazes down upon the world”, and he is disturbed to find that many others among his friends and acquaintances have begun to share these dreams.
At last this “gnawing Eye” – belonging to the “dread amorphity of Azathoth” – manifests itself and its horrible gaze is “turned upon the last, burning days of his twilit world”.
Rather than embracing or accepting the doom of his world, however, the man seeks an escape. He finds it in the “flesh of Yog-Sothoth”, creating a gate which allows him to escape to another world.
Unfortunately, the “Gaze of Azathoth” had become “locked upon him” through the “barbs which bear the runes of Nyarlathotep”, and the Eye follows him to the new world and turns its destructive force upon it. The man escapes again, using the same gate as before. And, once again, the Eye pursues him.
The man skips from one world to the next, watching as the stars he had doomed wink out one by one from the many skies above him until his nights are marked only by a “haze of unseen red”. But still he runs, carrying with him the curse of Azathoth’s gaze.
At the end of the story he makes the decision to stop running and throws himself prostrate upon the ground. But as he does so, he finds that he has landed “at the feet of the Herald”, who reveals to him a great truth: That the worlds he has left in his wake have not been burdened with destruction, for as long as Azathoth’s gaze is fixed upon the man, he will carry that destruction away with him and spare the worlds behind.
The Herald’s words, however, come too late, for the mind of the man has been consumed by his “gibbering madness”. And neither he nor any of the worlds he has saved will ever know his sacrifice.
As I read this book, oblivious to the fact that Janet and the rest had entered the room, a strange sensation began to wash over me, as if this book was in someway a separate version to the book of Revelation, predicting the end times. Something however was missing, this book seemed to have no starting point, no way of actually starting the end, only a middle and an end. This book, formerly of Echiavarria and Trammell, was there a piece that had gotten lost along the way? Was this revered nameless man Edgar Job? Carter had already asked of Janet to reveal his location, followed by a telephone call to make sure he was still there, in Danvers Asylum for the Insane in Massachusetts. Our attention was shortly called away to the window by Frank who was gazing at the canopy of clouds overhead, the faint red streaks we had seen above the clouds had begun to build, now dancing from cloud to cloud for all to see. The bright red streaks blazing across the sky, was our time running out, or was it already over, were we already lost?
I told Carter and Janet of the missing piece of the book, the starting point from where we are, to how to change what was happening around us, we needed to get back to Trammell’s library, I had to find the rest of the book. The faceless man who bounces around the universe, what was his means of doing this? Was it the way I had contemplated getting us out of the Yucatan? The so-called Hyperspace Gate? Did Job already know how to do this? So many questions, how to answer them all. This was not the sort of transportation between place to place, but rather planet to planet, was this even possible.
Returning to the plane, Frank concerned for our travel through the lightning scorched sky, however knowing that we had to get back to the
Studying this book, the same feeling kept washing over me, like this was all true, something to be read as foresight, something pre-destined, more so than the book I had based my entire life upon, at the back of my mind, the uncertain feeling that my life based solely on something less than tangible in the physical world as what we had been experiencing, I felt sick.
Tom consistently grabbed the local and international newspapers wherever we went. I was purely amazed that with everything happening, papers will still being published. Everywhere we went, looting, rage and strangely, disappearances. According to the papers, thousands of people had been disappearing all over the world. It was when we hit Canada that horror found us. The headline reading, “Chicago Burns”, a picture of a lightning strike so large that it engulfed the city.
I woke in the darkness of the dimly lit night sky, the dull green and flashes of red lighting the cabin of the plane. Looking around, Tom and Carter were snoring loudly at the back of the cabin, Will to my right, across the aisle, his mouth open, his head resting against the window. Looking ahead of me, someone else sitting there, someone still and not moving, I tried to listen but could not hear breathing. Looking past the curious sight, Frank was asleep in the cockpit, his obvious form appearing against the dim backdrop of the green light coming through the wind shield. Alarmed at this new occupant, I reached inside my coat for my pistol, holding it outstretched in my hand at the back of the head of the man a few rows in front of me. I tried to call to the others to wake, however no noise exited my mouth. I walked slowly closer, the only thought in my mind, John Smith, the silent and breathless man who had entered Carter’s office when I was sleeping, completely undetected.
I placed the barrel of my pistol to the back of the man’s head, slowly circling around to see his face. Stunned at what I saw, it was my friend, my best friend, Father Tom.
The same mad I had thrown from my house, a man I once trusted deeply. His face, although covered in darkness from the dim light, was unmistakable. I at across from him, never taking my gun off him, my voice finally returning to question his reason for being here. Speaking to me of his sorrow, he in turn questioned my faith, my reasoning, my role in the end of the world. I pressed Tom as to why he was here, his answer catching me off guard. Speaking abstractly, he stated that “he” whoever he was, is not going to want to die alone, not like Tom did. As he spoke, a bright flash of lightning revealing Tom to me in some light, his body was mangled, his face rotting, his glasses broken, around his neck, bruising of a rope, was this even real. Asking through my shocked expression, Tome told me that it was time to go, he could feel the gaze shifting, his words so cryptic, telling me he could feel the angles of Tagh-Clatur hyper extending. I shouted for him to explain, as I did, I woke, back in my seat, my lamp shining on the book that had fallen from my hands into my lap. Cold sweat bleeding from my face, looking in front of me, Tom was gone, was it a dream?
We landed near LA, unable to access the chaotic airport, we drove to Trammell’s mansion, Frank stealing a car as there seemed to be no need for pleasantries anymore. Everyone checked themselves for what they carried, shotguns, pistols, the familiar sight of a duffle bag for books to be collected. Everything here was broken, every window, the glass observatory, the windows in the servants building, everything was broken, whatever happened here, no one stopped it. The gate open, we drove down the driveway to the familiar door we had entered on our first incursion. Each door however was already ajar, no need for lock-picks or silent movements, every sound echoing through the empty rooms. Through the observatory, into the library, everything was a mess, books riddled the floor, this was not going to be easy.
Will, Frank and I all took to the floor and walls, looking for anything regarding Azathoth, Carter and Tom watching the doors. A strange smell, something pungent, rotting flesh mixed with something else, something fresh, cigar smoke. I looked at Carter, the same instant he looked at me. There was only one person here we knew who smoked, and he was dead. I rose from my haunches, clutching the shotgun I had taken from the plane, the waft of smoke coming from the study in the next room, the door only open a slither. Tom, Carter and I decided that we needed to see what was happening, Tom taking the lead. We moved silently, no sound at all, the doors well-oiled hinges sliding without noise. We entered the study to see the painting of the Gazer’s Perspective hanging across the wall, underneath it, a large, leather, winged back chair, its back towards us, plumes of smoke emitting upwards from the occupant who remained hidden to us. On the desk, a large revolver, Carter was the first to move forward, again perfectly silent. Within a moment, we were at arm’s length from the back of the chair, Carter looking at Tom, who suddenly moved and grabbed the chair, spinning it around. To our surprise, sitting proudly in the chair, Captain Walker, the man I had been hunting, the man Tom had been hunting.
Walker laughed at us, all of our questions dismissed in jest, throwing insults at us through his large swigs of whisky from the bottle in his hand. It didn’t take long, Tom was visibly driven, Walker moving from Carter to me to Tom in terms of insults, it only took one from Tom, his pistol barking as Walker was silenced by a 38-calibre bullet blowing the back of his head all across the chair. Tom then holstered his pistol and walked back to the library, Carter looking at me, was it shock on his face, or understanding, it was hard to tell.
My eyes moved to the large painting, the Gazer’s Perspective, what was this, these stars, familiar, however different, they were wrong. Then it hit me, these were the same stars I had seen in the sky above Mt Kailesh after Gol Goroth had done his work. These were the same, only backwards, as if this painting was done to emulate the exact sky, only a mirror image. As if what I was looking at were a window, and this painting had been done by someone on the other side, seeing what I see, only reversed.
I returned to the library, Carter calling Tom to help him clear the house, their search finding little more than a well-stocked pantry. This was going to take some time, hours, perhaps a day just to get the books back into some sort of order, then the search for what I was hoping to find. We got to work, everyone reading book spines and shelving books in a crude order. Carter told me that they checked the basement, the room where we had seen Trammell was a graveyard, only a mountainous graveyard, corpses on to of corpses, that was the smell, thick and evil, filling the house. After another day of organizing and reading, a book stood out, only for its loose binding, its spine reading “The Bronze Age of England”, the paper within loose and not properly bound. As I opened the cover, inside was a familiar word, the cover page reading “The Gaze of Azathoth”.
I had found it, I stopped the search, it was time to go to Danvers, it was time to find Job. The looks of relief that overtook Will and Frank’s faces seemed obvious, both had become quieter since arriving here, something was off with them. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. Carter asked if we should take the painting, seeing it as something potentially helpful, I agreed and Tom cut if from its frame, rolling up the canvass and throwing it into a duffle bag. We returned to the plane as fast as we could, we needed to get to Danvers, the red lightning had started striking the ground more regularly, falling like rain, only without thunder, just light, striking buildings, setting them ablaze. Once on board, Carter and I both noticed the quiet demeanor of Frank and Will, both seemed withdrawn, as if there was something they wanted to say, yet were not able to. Carter entered the cockpit, doing his best to find out what was wrong with Frank, our most steadfast companion. I stood from my seat after the plane had taken off, moving towards Will. As I held the corner of the chair closest to me, everything exploded, something struck the plane, sending me hurling towards the back of the cabin. Glancing out the window, one of the plane’s engines was on fire, everything was shaking, everything was tumbling, then there was only black.
I woke to find myself in a field, the smoking wreck of the beautiful plane that had been our chariot across the world laying some distance from me. Carter, Frank, Tom and Will, all standing close by, all bleeding somewhere, yet no serious wounds seemed apparent. Walking to join them, Frank was already talking about the distance, it was going to take at least two days driving to reach Danvers, pointing towards a small barn off in the distance, we had crashed in farming country, our only hope, finding some method of transportation. We trudged towards the structure, luck finally on our side, inside the barn, a large flatbed truck, with an hour of tinkering, Frank had it roaring to life.
We all climbed aboard, sitting in the cabin, I continued to read the book I had found. For hours I read, what was happening in my head? Everything was starting to make sense. Echavarria had planned this from the beginning, it was starting to make sense now.
Before I knew it, we had stopped driving, all getting out at an abandoned house, we were halfway to Danvers, we needed to rest. All of us fanning out across the house, everyone selecting a spot to rest for the night.
The book was speaking to me, I had worked it out, this book was a guide, a way to get the attention of Azathoth, the incantations within revealing the way to awake Azathoth, a spectral being of sorts from across the stars, the incantations and symbols, something I could not understand, only the hundreds of pages all reading the rites for one single action, to wake the sleeping giant. As I read, thinking to myself of the pure insanity this book was, yet something still seemed so real. In order to get the attention of the entity, several things were needed, someone with a great knowledge of mathematical calculus, astronomy and geometry, and a sacrifice, a sacrifice of note, the sacrifice of a god.
It all was falling into place. The ritual of the barn in 1924, they were summoning the mouthed monster, the god Y’Golonac, only to sacrifice him. Was Job the man with the knowledge and mathematical genius required, he must have been. The separate circles of stones surrounding the barn, the ones Savitree had not understood, one circle to summon Y’Golonac for sacrifice, the second to summon something bigger, Azathoth. Continuing to read, the Hyperspace Gate was becoming more and more a reality, could I do this, as I continued to read, it was like flying a plane, the further you go, the more it would take a toll on you, however the ramifications, this was not going from Mt Kailesh to France, this was an immeasurable distance across immeasurable space. What would this do
to me?It took all night, but I had solved it, to do this, it would cost something, either my mind or my life, what was more important, was that worth the fate of the world.
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