"Old One?"
In the mirror, I nodded, my eyes glowing slightly. "Yes."
"Why don't you tell me what this is about?"
So I settled back onto my couch and listened to the tale.
* * *
The streets of Manhattan channel the flows of humanity, gutters of intellect and emotion on the feast of interaction that is urban life. Walking east towards Central Park from the 1/9 train I reached out with what senses I have and those I have stolen, but felt nothing out of the ordinary.
The Djinn's story has brought me here. He is gone, into a random commuter in the 14th Street Subway Station without a backwards glance, merely an assurance in my head that he will know to find me if I am successful. I reached a hand into my coat to touch the talismans for reassurance, feel their energy slick and warm near me. Bobbi-Bobbi's spearhead crackled strangely.
I passed the Museum of Natural History, settled in for the night in its small but comfortable block of parkland. The Planetarium building was a riot of glass and light on the north side, drawing my eye as I walked on towards Central Park.
The Park itself was dark, but not completely. Not the lethal anarchy of even ten years ago, Central Park now held strollers, the curious, the amorous, and even tourists. I slipped into the interior, heading for the eastern side of the Reservoir, where the Djinn had said to look. Still nothing to feel, nothing to See or Hear.
But perhaps a half-kilometer short of my goal, all that changed.
I stopped short, there on the paved ribbon of the Park Drive, looking eastwards into the gloom. There was a presence there, some distance off but definitely in the direction I was heading. I'd never felt its like, but it was muted, somehow. A muffled basso drone of power.
I continued on, reaching the Reservoir, and circled it until I reached the closed and locked access point, iron door solidly shut in masonry stone. A maintenance access only.
The pocket watch flared, once, beneath my coat. There was a groaning shriek of metal and the door opened to let me slip inside and struggle to pull it shut. No-one noticed me inside my shield of ripples, the watch holding me invisible, but the sound might have gotten out. I hadn't thought of that. A few moments of waiting brought no response, however. I turned, pulled a mini Maglite from my coat, flicked it on and headed down the narrow steel stairs.
The pumping station wasn't quiet. I can't imagine it would ever be; its silence would imply New York's death, the water stopped. A constant moaning roar pervaded the space, which is lit somewhat indifferently. Gigantic shapes of piping, valves and locks huddle at the bottom of the space, much taller than a person, creating valleys and hummocks of shadow and steel. I let myself out of the access stairway and look around. There was an operator's booth visible down the gallery, some fifty meters distant, lit much more brightly than this sullen open space. I didn't see anyone in it, but if they're there, they wouldn't see me out here in the dimness. I stepped to the middle of the room and looked around myself at the pipes.
Then I Looked at them.
In my gaze, they changed. Sharply defined edges vanished; straight lines wavered. The ranks of industrial machined forms shimmered in my vision, settling into a row of gigantic squared stone shapes, no two alike, with the steel pipe visible at their heads and feet where it disappeared into the wall.
Sarcophagi, for what I could tell. The thought was chilling, more so than the billions of calories of heat energy stolen into cold water rushing through the chamber. I climbed up on the middle of the seven visible shapes and examined the top. There were strange runes there, carved into the metal, which I couldn't read. At one end, the shape was higher. I caught a glint of reflection there and moved to that end, balancing carefully atop the shape which part of my mind still saw as a giant pipe. There was a portal there, some form of glass or crystal, set in the smooth surface.
I really, really didn't want to look. But I had no choice. The Djinn had charged me with a task, and I'd accepted, although I still wasn't sure why. I lifted the Maglite to the window and shined the small beam through it.
Whatever was within was gray, and green, and filled the sarcophagus, unmoving. Water was rushing past it, bubbles indicating the speed of its passage and that whatever else this was, it was a pipe, still. I twisted the Maglite's end to widen the beam.
An enormous head, perhaps a meter and a half in diameter, looked up at me above a mass of what could only be tentacles. My chest contracted in purely involuntary response, and I'm quite certain I would have screamed had I not been too terrified to move a muscle. I was only released from my terror when there was a flash of color as the shape beneath me opened bright yellow eyes the size of dinner plates.
I fainted.
Irem Zhat al-Imad
means 'Irem of the Pillars.' It's an ancient city of myth, lost in the deepest deserts of Araby, inside The Empty Quarter. Some say that 'pillars' in this case don't mean pillars, literally, but are a metaphor for the Old Ones - ancient gods who are singularly unconcerned with the fate of mankind. Being so far above Man in terms of their power, Man is nothing more than a slight pest, or infestation of the world that they
are
interested in. Some legends say that other gods united to banish them or imprison them so as to make the world a place safe for lesser deities to play in, and, coincidentally, for man as well.
Only one of those Old Ones has anything resembling tentacles. It has various names, but most seemed to center on the Arab word 'Khadulu' or 'abandoner.' It is the most powerful of the beings left physically on our world - one who could open gateways to the Great Old Ones, and in whose power the fate of our world rested.
His name has been corrupted many times. Only one thing was constant, in the various descriptions of him among the various tellers of myths and keepers of lore - Cthulhu didn't care much about Men, among whose number was I.
I awoke at the base of the pipe I'd been kneeling on. My head, right arm and left side ached sharply, indicating that they'd probably taken a hit on my way down. My gun was digging painfully into my ribs. There was a burning feeling on my chest.
I struggled to my feet and looked around. A pool of dim light indicated the Maglite; I collected it (dented but unbroken) and pocketed it again. This surely didn't look like any form of Empty Quarter, but the Djinn had said that didn't matter. "
The Rhub al-Qali is as much a place of the mind as of the world, Michel. It exists, or co-exists, with your own. It cannot be found on its own. It can only be found when it overlaps with yours, much as I can only be addressed when I overlap with Mankind."
Well.
The image of those enormous eyes filled my head, and I shuddered. The Djinn hadn't told me what I would find, here. He'd hinted there might be 'gods' but for sure hadn't mentioned anything like
that
. Time to be elsewhere.
MICHEL
.
Have you ever heard a thunderbolt voice your name? I hadn't either, until right then. I clapped my hands over my ears reflexively, realizing even as I did so that it would make no difference. "Fuck!"
MICHEL, FACE ME
.
I looked longingly off towards the staircase. Then I reached a hand inside my jacket, cuffed away the sweat of terror with my other arm, and turned back to climb the pipe. It was easier the second time, knowing what I was about, and although I wanted to be absolutely anywhere else, I found myself looking down at the transparent portion again. There was a soft light behind it now, and the great gray-green face was there, eyes open. They tracked me as I came in view. There was nothing visible that resembled a mouth. If the rest of this fucker was in scale, he was probably around seven meters tall. I was uncomfortably aware, all of a sudden, that his presence in the pipe was possibly entirely voluntary, and hoped like hell that my discovering him didn't change that.
YOU KNOW WHO I AM
.
I nodded. "I thought you were in the Pacific, somewhere. If you existed."
NO. I AM IN THE ABYSS.
"You're not in this damn water pipe?"
I AM ALSO IN THE PIPE. YOU HAVE A MESSAGE FOR ME
.
I nodded again. "Uh, yes. I was charged to bring this message to you. Do I need to say it?"
IF YOU DO NOT SPEAK THE MESSAGE, YOU HAVE NOT FULFILLED YOUR CHARGE.
I thought furiously. Hopefully, that didn't mean it could kill me after I finished speaking. Hell, be realistic, I told myself - it can kill you anytime it wants. I turned my gaze downwards again. "Very well. I was sent by Azif. He wishes you to know he has not broken allegiance, and he remains in this place where he awaits your call."
YOU HAVE FULFILLED YOUR CHARGE, MICHEL
. The great yellow eyes flared into brightness, briefly. I noticed that they had vertical pupils of greenish black, although not quite catlike.
GO AND TELL HIM THAT I HEAR AND UNDERSTAND.
I bowed slightly. "I will." Wanting now more than ever to be gone, I turned away from the face and began to kneel in preparation to sliding down off the pipe. Before I could do so, the portal glowed briefly again.
FOR YOUR GRANDMOTHER'S SAKE
, the voice tolled in my head, and my chest flared into pain. I cried out, sliding off the pipe. When I reached the ground, I frantically tore my coat open and pulled out the pocket watch, source of the burning. Its leather pouch was blackened around it, but by the time I retrieved it, it was cool again. The face was no longer white, however. Instead, the hands rested on a perfectly clear starscape, twinkling slightly. I brought it to my face and turned it, realizing that I could see past the watch's edge, as if it was a portal to deepest space. I swallowed once and placed it carefully back in the bandolier.
Then I ran like hell.
I made it to a wine bar on Columbus Avenue and was on my fifth drink when a hand fell on my shoulder. I snarled "What!" as I turned to find a woman standing there with her purse held defensively before her, wearing a leather jacket and middling-expensive jewelry.
She withdrew her hand and looked confused. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"
Hello, Michel.
I looked at her, the anger draining. "No, I don't think so. Sorry." She nodded nervously and drew back, looking around herself in confusion. I watched her leave the bar, trying to hide her frightened gaze up at the street sign, before turning back to the mirror behind the tender and looking into my flame-flickering eyes there.
"You didn't tell me."
"I didn't tell you many things."
"You didn't tell me HE existed, for Christ's sake."
"Would you have gone?"
"No." I sighed and finished my drink. My reflection cocked his head.
"What did he say?"
I looked back. "I want answers first. What the hell was that about? All the legends say his purpose is to bring about the return of the Great Old Ones, and damn any of us who happen to still be around."
"Yes, they say that."
"Then what the hell are you reporting in to him for, if not for that? Doesn't the legend say you were the first masters of Earth, and will be the last?"
The Djinn raised my eyebrows. "Your knowledge is extensive."
"Don't shine me on. I can fucking read." I waved at the bartender for another drink. "And
answer the question.
"
"I cannot."
"If you can't, then you don't get an answer either."
"Michel, you took the charge. You swore you would. You know you cannot withhold the information."
Shit.
I rubbed my face with my hands. "Look, answer me this then. Am I doing something that will end up contributing to the death or harm of humans?"
My reflection cocked his head, eyes flaming brighter. "I would be lying if I said no."
"I knew it. Fuck." I told the Djinn what had happened. His face blazed with excitement and he nodded in the mirror.
"Ah, he
was
there. Yes. Yes! It will be, then. It will be."
"Whenever you're finished being mysterious, just fuck right off. I agreed to help you because I believe in talking, and that's what you wanted to do. I didn't know you were going to carry out some ancient evil that affects my race, and I don't want any more part of it."
The Djinn leaned forward in the mirror, a disconcerting sight since I hadn't. "Michel, I will go, but let me ask you this question, and please think about it in days to come. What makes you think one such as He, and one such as I, wish you ill? What makes you think, that if we were undertaking something which concerned you so little that your deaths would not be of importance to us, that He would be manifesting inside New York City public works, or that I would be using a human agent to converse with Him?"
Then my hand reached out of its own accord and brushed a man walking behind me on his way to the door. He blinked, then his eyes refocused and he continued on his way, turning his head once to wink at me.
Shit.
VII
A thousand winding stairs lead down before us
* * *
If you take the East Side IRT - the 6 train - to 116th Street, then get off and walk a couple of blocks, you'll come to a small head shop tucked away between a Mexican restaurant and a neighborhood supermarket. It's fairly unremarkable, except that even in these more gentle times for gentrified Manhattan you really don't find many people as pale-faced as I hanging out in front of it.
I nodded to the four or five kids sitting around on crates there as I went inside. One of them knew my face and nodded back. As I went in, he was muttering to his companions, something, which I assumed and devoutly hoped was the patois equivalent of 'he's cool.'
The interior of the shop was just as it always was. Not so much cluttered as intricately packed in three dimensions with junk - at least, objects that I would label junk, but which were likely treasures to someone, somewhere. The entirety of the airspace that was left was redolent with what I was sure was incredibly high-grade weed, well-aerosolized by the enormous bong that reached from floor to ceiling at the back behind the counter.