Two minutes to Midnight, to kill the Unborn in the womb.
- Iron Maiden, Two Minutes to Midnight
"It's a child, it's a child," the pilot whimpered. "Kill the mother, kill the child... It has to die, has to... has to..."
I looked beyond the terror only momentarily, and saw the Bloody Tongue God gesture with a claw. Something off to one side of the mountain shimmered, and a wall vanished to unveil stairs, stairs which the countless cultists began using to travel up and into the temple. Penhew remained at the altar, chanting and praising wildly, while M'weru and her honor guard proceeded up and into the temple. In that moment, something in me snapped and reformed, something came to a head and burst, and I realized what must be done even as the world descended into chaos around me.
"Sarah, focus, do you still have that curare you stole from Ho Fong's?"
As luck would have it... she did. Then I recognized something about the onyx pillars, about the way they were arranged. "Ludwig, get me the dynamite, and Enala, give me that nautical clock... I have an idea."
"A time bomb?" the doctor said in astonishment. "Herr Byrd, you are brilliant! The stairs will act as a bottleneck, and they will not be able to escape. We can destroy them once and for all with a single blow!"
"But the timing must be right," interrupted Enala, somehow calmer than anyone else here and slowly catching on to our plan. "It is a good distraction and a better way to end the threat, but someone must plant it. If you, the doctor, and Francis can get to the pillars and place them, I think I can make it to the altar in time."
"What good will that do?" whined Francis, but the Aborigine hushed him.
"The altar swirls with mystical energy, and I can feel that the Priestess uses it for her own ends," she explained. "It is like the many places of power where Rainbow Snake has touched the earth back in my own land. I believe I can use it to some end, perhaps even neutralize its threat... At the least, Penhew will not expect me, and placing the time bomb, as you called it, there will destroy a center of power."
"That's smart, and I like it." I smirked grimly, focusing on the others to protect my own sanity from crumbling into the Pandora's box around me. "Here's the plan, then..."
It came to fruition as quickly as any I had ever done. Three sticks of dynamite, one each to a pillar, would be laid along one side. This would damage the structural integrity of pieces of the open roof, and bring down hell on the cultists when the dynamite exploded. We'd lay the bombs while Enala made a sneak-run for the altar. Meanwhile, Sarah and Muuzaji could use the curare to hopefully deal with Hypatia and her spawn. It was an insane plan to do all this, let alone to do it quite literally under Nyarlathotep's nose, but at that point it was all we had. Launching into it, we took to our positions, the doctor and I trying to keep Francis focused while he rigged the timed explosive for 15 minutes. That was how long we had, only 15 minutes to save the world and end this whole thing. No pressure, right?
It seemed to go off without a hitch, at least our half of it, until I realized that Muuzaji and Sarah hadn't joined us yet. What was going on? I looked back and saw them... talking to Hypatia? No, to her spawn? Another long minute passed before Muuzaji, looking conflicted, finally touched a poison-soaked bandage to Hypatia's swollen stomach, and joined us along with Sarah. Not even two more minutes later, Hypatia shrieked and began to convulse, dying, and the thing inside her thrashed and cried in pain. There was one upside to this extended time taken to kill her though - Penhew noticed, just in time for the ladies to get the hell away from there, and both he and two guards rushed to aid the ailing mother.
"What took you so damn long?" Francis demanded.
"It could speak, McCloud," Sarah replied, eyes wet with... tears? "It didn't know any better, it was taught evil and had no concept of humans being worth saving. Nyarlathotep gave Hypatia that child as a gift, but... It had to die... didn't it? It had to die?"
"Yes, Fraulein McCain," the doctor reassured, patting her shoulder. "It had to die. It would have destroyed the world..."
While others comforted her, I saw only the ticking bomb literally twenty feet away, and then realized I had a clear shot at M'weru and Enala had a clear shot at the altar. Now was our chance! I took aim at the priestess' head, ready to destroy her...
You know what Murphy's Law is, right? That everything that can go wrong, will? Well, either Murphy is another form of Nyarlathotep, or Murphy was having a hell of a field day, because things suddenly veered sharp left. And I mean really sharp left. By the time Penhew got to Hypatia, he cried out something about intruders, having noticed that the mother had died and sending his men to look for us. At the same time, my bullet launched, the noise lost in the chanting crowd, and M'weru fell in a spray of crimson that was lost in the spilled blood of her countless victims. The crowd began to panic and trample each other, meaning Penhew had to try and corral the herd while his guards began seeking the source of what had killed M'weru. I glanced to the time bomb - ten minutes left. All this before the sickening wet squelching pop was heard, and a sick sense of dread hit us as we all turned to see Hypatia's body had burst like a slimy balloon, oozing a sickening thick syrup, something writhing inside the burst skin. Oh yes, the mother had died... but the Spawn itself had not, which we understood instantly as its seething, orange, hideous, cyclopean yellow-eyed and tentacled form crept from the mass, its skin glistening with slime and its bulk as large as a house or more...
I think we all lost it seeing that thing. I remember Sarah shrieking and pulling her gun, and the cage holding Who the Chameleon shattering as it dropped to the ground. There was a sudden shuddering of the reptile's body as she landed, and then... well, you ever seen a Chameleon turn into a dragon? Because that's about the gist of what happened. By now the cultists were in a frenzied panic as Who, now many magnitudes larger, began snapping them up with her tongue like two-legged flies. Meanwhile, I just recall running. Running and running towards the monstrosity, weapon ready, prepared to die...
No one stopped me, not even the various cultists seemed to notice as I, praying Rainbow Snake and my ancestors guided my hands, set them upon the oddly cool, glowing violet stone. The first thing I felt was a surge of power and a sapping, like that of a biting fly for the soul, and I focused even further. I could not let it destroy me now... Soon, the surging energies focused back through me, coursing through my veins like lightning, empowering me... and I could not contain the conduit any longer. The energy had to be used, it could not remain in me, it would kill me if it did...
I do not know the nature of what it was I did, but I perceived a blinding black bolt of energy, electric and fire at once, aimed squarely at the orange beast that assailed my friends. The monstrosity screeched in agony and its skin began to wither, slowly, smoldering from the attack. It moved back from my maddened friends, so small before it, and looked around for the source of its agony but could not find it. Sand-Bat-as-the-Howling-One above me faltered and peered around at the crowd of cultists, angry, shocked at the sudden pained cry of its child, but it did not seem to notice me. Not yet.
Seeing the effect I had on the Spawn of Sand Bat, and feeling the power use me as its conduit, I grinned. I felt as if a god, a death-bringer and life-giver, not unlike Sand-Bat-as-the-Howling-One itself. Another arcing flash of dark energy, aimed at the orange beast, this time hitting its single yellow three-lobed eye as it shrieked in fear and pain. Another, and it died smoldering, and Sand-Bat-as-the-Howling-One responded by howling in rage and sorrow as it frantically searched the sea of humans panicking below for the source of its anguish. I recall Penhew being the one it scooped up, the man begging for his life and pleading with his god for mercy in failing his plans, but to no avail. Sand-Bat-as-the-Howling-One seemed to sneer despite its lack of face, and it closed its claws about the panicking man until he was no more. This was the end of Sir Aubrey Penhew, destroyed for failing his dark god and forgotten to history and the Dreamtime both.
This frail mortal body began to fail me as the energy continued using me as its conduit. I began to feel faint. I remember the others, on the back of a large walking lizard-beast I vaguely recognized as the reptile Sarah had been carrying, approaching me as I swooned. I remember Sand-Bat-as-the-Howling-One finally noticing us as they pulled me to safety on the back of the thing. I remember clinging for dear life as the lizard-beast carried us away from the Mountain, then a tremendous explosion from below as Sand-Bat-as-the-Howling-One chased us. But we were too quick, and as I looked back towards the Mountain from a distance, I saw a great flash of light and heard an enraged howl.
"Checkmate," murmured Clayton, and this was the last I recalled before I fell into unconscious sleep.
I was not in the Sahara, and none of my assumptions were true, I realized as my eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness and the new landscape. It was a vast desert that I was in, that we were in, but it was not in any way normal. The sand was ashen black, dunes of it rolling as far as I could see, and instead of a single sun high in the bizarre, blood red sky above, there were seven, all in different stages of setting and rising. Their light did nothing to obscure the countless stars and galaxies I could see from my location, not even the pale blue-green dot of Earth that shimmered like the faintest hint of a mirage. It was desolate, lifeless... yet strangely beautiful and awe-inspiring. Like something from a strange dream.
"Where...?" I croaked, trying to get my bearings as the others around me stood and perceived the surroundings. All seemed bewildered, save for one person...
"Oh God, not here," Francis moaned, the fear in his eyes palpable. "Not here. He's here... This is where He lives..."
"What do you mean, where He lives?" Dr. Hildebrand parroted, eyes narrowing as he squinted in the sunlight. "There is nothing here, McCloud, you are crazy!"
Then Sarah interrupted with a little whimper, and we turned towards her, her eyes wide and her face pallid. "Behind you... look," she muttered, and we followed her pointing finger into the far distance.
There stood a massive desert complex or city - which, it was hard to tell - but it reminded us uncomfortably of one of the Pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza, yet also of some long forgotten Egyptian temple. It was carved of stone so black, even the blazing intense light of the suns was absorbed by it, leaving it little more that an ominous shadowy mirage unaffected even by the shimmering heat coming off the sandy dunes. It beckoned us to it, its shade seeming an oasis of cooling refuge, and we could not help but feel ourselves drawn to it. Embarking over the dunes, sweating and burning and thirsty, we began towards the strange mecca, despite every instinct telling us not to. Something was waiting for us there. Something we had to meet with. Something that did not, could not, abide being ignored...
Standing at the gates of the terrible and awesome edifice was akin to standing before the gates of Hades. Closer up, we could see the stone bore fine engravings. They were like hieroglyphs, depicting hundreds of unfamiliar gods we could not place, and yet, many we could. Many that we recognized as forms of the very thing we had been struggling against all this time, and we soon realized that all of the depictions were He. All of them, the same being, Masks of the same god, avatars of the same nebulous, shifting, Crawling Chaos that is Nyarlathotep. Francis had been right - this was indeed His home turf, but why had He brought us here? Were we actually here, or collectively hallucinating? If not... what possible final horror was He about to wreak on us next? None of us could tell, and none of us wanted to know, but all the same... our damned curiosity got the best of us. Pushing against the massive onyx gateway with all our strength, it soon opened into a vast, dark hallway of endless shadow, and we entered like lambs being lead to the slaughter.
The temple was wrong, in every possible definition of that. It was magnificent, like the halls of a pharaoh in his heyday, but it was as if the architect had erected it whilst in the throes of a fever dream. The glyph-covered walls seemed to shift ever so slightly, moving like a sliding puzzle or like those of some twisted labyrinth and losing us in its tangled passages. Its strange angles and impossible columns seemed to be alive with malicious intent, guiding us... somewhere. Stairs proceeded upwards into nothing, and doors opened onto ceilings and walls. There were doorways to places that shouldn't have existed, to the temples of His worshipers and beyond. One led to an eerily fantastic forest, where strange squirrel-like creatures with tendriled noses like a mole scampered and observed with curious, round eyes. Another led into empty space, and we could hear from it the sound of monotonous, shrill flutes and drumbeats that echoed our racing pulses. It was as if the very place itself was one large puzzle, testing our wits and our sanity even as it toyed with our perceptions, And everywhere, we felt His eyes upon us, watching, mocking... beckoning us.
Soon, we came to a great door, and upon it, a needlessly complex lock. Six doorways leading to other places, other realms of being, surrounded us like a central hub, and holding the dark but massive room up were columns in the shape of those forms we had met, those sinister shapes he had taken to fool and torment us. I shuddered as I looked upon them, and cast my eyes to the door. Made of thick stone of an unknown nature, it squirmed like a living thing from carved tentacles, stared from unblinking stone eyes, and gripped its lock in jealous onyx talons. The lock itself was wheeled, and I soon perceived it was a zodiac wheel, corresponding positions of stars, sun, moon, and planets. The intent was clear - we had to solve it if any of us wanted to see what was behind that door.
I called over Dr. Hildebrand to help me while Sarah, Muuzaji, Francis, and Enala visually explored the doorways, and together we slowly pieced together the puzzle. Turn by turn, alignment by alignment, it was fiendishly designed and seemed near impossible, but eventually it clicked apart, and the door began to moan open like a maw as I pressed onward. The others at this point joined me, and I perceived a near blinding reddish light as I entered, like a stage's spotlight fitted with a colored gel, engulfing me...
When my eyes adjusted, I was alone, standing in a smaller room than the last where the floor was a massive, illuminated checkered pattern of black and white marble. Before me, I saw stone figures, of the same black and white marble as the floor. In the background, I saw that all of the black statues were cracked or fallen, and their faces seemed hauntingly familiar... the faces of the Carlyle Expedition, of M'weru and Gavigan and Penhew, and of others I had to strain to remember. Then my attention turned to the white statues, and taking a closer look jarred me, because as I observed one of the fallen... I recognized it as Brad. Another, and I recognized Ralph. Another was Bridget, another Ewan, another Dr. Baker... all dead and broken and tilted. Yet others still stood - Francis, Muuzaji, Dr. Hildebrand, Sarah... but not me. Some of them were people met on the travels, and others were those we had never seen. Soon it hit me, where I was, what I saw. I was alone, walking amidst a great chessboard at the end of some particularly intense round of chess, one played with human lives... the aftermath of His Great Game. But if this was so, why was I the only mobile one when we had all entered, where was Nyarlathotep, and why couldn't I find my old friend, Jackson Elias, anywhere amongst the pieces?
I got my answer as I came to the center of the room, at first thinking I heard a piece of rubble skittering across the floor from where my boot hit it, but then it repeated, echoing. One, another, another... The sound of polished shoes on tile, and the sound above that of someone clapping, and I spun on my heels, prepared to attack if need be. I knew whom was coming, He had pulled the same trick in the Bent Pyramid, and I was not going to allow Him to have the upper hand or intimidate me again. But as that dark figure entered, as I perceived his shadow striding from beyond the edge of the black side of the board, my heart caught in my throat. It was Him, there was no mistaking... but His form was in the shape of none other than Jackson Elias, His black and void-like eyes glimmering with amusement from my friend's face, twisting my friend's boyish smile into a haughty smirk...
"Checkmate indeed," Nyarlathotep purred in that voice I had so come to loathe. On instinct I reached for my gun, but found it absent, and resigned myself to clenched fists and an angry glare in response.
"Why?" I asked, accusatory. "Why did you bring me here, you trying to taunt me further? Fuck with my head even more? What do you want from me now?"
"Nothing." The god chuckled darkly. "I want nothing from you, you've given me what I want. More than what I wanted, actually."
"Yeah? And what's that? I'm not going to dance for you, play your little game any longer. It's over. You lost. You and your sick followers lost. Whatever you do now to me, it doesn't matter..."
"Calm yourself, Clayton Byrd." His eyes burned into me, scrutinizing above His widening smirk. "I come as a friend! I only brought you here to speak again, not to toy with you. The game is over as you have said, and there is nothing left to toy with..."
"A friend, sure," I murmured, not trusting Him in the slightest. He was mere feet from me, but I didn't run, not this time. Not this time. "You're not my fucking friend. Where the hell are the others, what did you do to them?"
"I'm speaking with them, as I'm speaking with you," He replied. "I told you once that you were players in a Great Game, Clayton. You've served your purpose already. Hell of a ride, wasn't it?"
"Ride?! Your followers killed everyone I cared about!" It was all I could do to keep from being irrational and hitting Him right in his smug smile. "Do you know what that did to me? They killed half the people I met this year. They destroyed people's lives, they... They killed my best friend. They killed Elias. You killed Elias..."
"Did I really, though?" He chided, smirk widening into a smile. "Did I kill him? Or did mortal men who became zealots kill him?"
"Drop the fucking mask," I demanded, but He did not yield. "Stop taunting me with his face... just... please stop. Please..."
"Do you remember when you were eight years old?"
Confusion marred my features, and I looked to Him. No, it couldn't be... could it? "I don't get it," I stammered, "What does that have to do with -"
"You took the curve too hard on your bicycle," He continued. "Fell down the hill and dislocated your arm, even then you popped it back into place and tried to splint it."
"Elias tried to follow and nearly broke his leg, too... But why does that even matter?"
"He smiled when your mother was panicking, and said..."
"Helluva ride, wasn't it?" It hit me, sudden, intense and pure... "No... this... this entire time... You were Elias?"
"I come as a friend," He repeated with a wry smile as He turned from me, hands clasped behind His back, thinking. "You were always one for adventure, Clayton Byrd. You all were. I told you once it was a Great Game, and so it was... A thousand times I've played it, a thousand people have taken me up on the offer... And so it will continue. You mortals... you continue to surprise me, even after all this time."
I had no idea what to say to any of that, so said nothing. He faced me again, His smile more open and genuine, His face as unreadable as blank paper.
"Things are never what they seem, you know," He added. "All the same, you played very well. You bested me, and that is no easy task. I find that... admirable. Very few could ever face me and even hope to survive, but you have managed it... And for that, I congratulate you. All of you."
"I... don't understand," I muttered, trying to piece things together. "I don't understand any of this..."
"Don't try," was His sarcastic response, and I dropped it. "As you said, you have won and I have lost. Good game. For this... I will reward you. I like it when you silly things think outside of the box and actually manage to surprise me with it."
"I'm not taking anything you offer," I spat back. "I know how stacked your deals are, there's always a catch with you. Always."
"Nothing? Not even to become a better treasure hunter?" He taunted. "You know you've never been very good at that..."
Now it was my turn to smirk, my turn to get the better of Him at his own game. I can't help but feel, even now, that maybe that was His intent the entire time.
"You know what?" I replied, smiling. "No. Not even that. Actually... I think I'm a pretty damn good treasure hunter after all..."
"Very well then," He said, His smile mirroring mine as I turned away to leave. "The door's right behind you. Leave if you wish, pursue the life you desire. I will interfere no longer, but I do believe we will meet again at some point. And Clayton... if you should decide to seek something more... you know where to find me."
It was these words that carried me into the flash of white light beyond those massive doors, and I blanked from there. I don't know if I woke up from a dream, or was transported somehow, but I do know that I bolted upright to find myself sitting in a hospital bed, covered in burns and cuts, an IV drip in my arm and bandages around my head.
"Relax, Mr. Byrd, all is well," said the nurse, and I looked to her in confusion. "You've been out for about a week. You're in Nairobi, Kenya... Do you remember what happened to bring you here?"
"I remember..." My voice was strained and a bit weak. "The mountain, it exploded..."
"There was a terrible storm, Mr. Byrd," she continued, checking my vitals. "Storms all across the country. The rescue team found you and your friends knocked out not far from the epicenter of the storm... You were all bleeding and burned, looked like you had been through hell or worse. A scarred, native man brought you here, then ran off before we could get the full story. Haven't seen him since."
I looked around the room, half convinced I'd hallucinated the entire thing, but it was not the case. I saw Muuzaji and Francis in nearby beds, looking to me with relieved smiles, and Enala not far from them. I didn't see Sarah or Ludwig though, and it frightened me.
"There were two others," I murmured. "Where did they go...? A woman, and a German man... Are... are they...?"
The nurse seemed confused, and double-checked my bandaged head. "Took quite a knock there, we think a concussion," she said. "I don't know about the woman, but we found your German friend raving in his native tongue about diseases that didn't exist. He kept screaming about viruses that make you bleed to death, and things that got into your cells and couldn't be cured. Absolute nonsense. The poor man was absolutely mad... and he kept screaming for a woman, we think it may have been his wife. We couldn't contact her... as far as we know, she's dead. He didn't seem to have any extended family to care for him in his fragile state, so we sent him back to Germany. I'm sure he'll be given the best possible psychiatric care there..."
"Sarah?" I asked, throat dry. "Sarah McCain? You... you're sure that you didn't see a woman with dark hair and fair skin with us?"
"Not at all, please lie down, sir," she said. "It was only the five of you... You should all get some rest, you've a long flight back home once you've healed..."
I was stunned. How had Ludwig become a shattered wreck? What did he see when Nyarlathotep spoke to him? And Sarah... no, how could she have simply vanished? Did... He take her? It was the only conclusion I could reach, and she had been acting so strangely. The other three shared my confusion, and all we could do was mourn their loss. They were such good people, such brave souls... and now, they were gone. Gone in a snatch of an instant, right from under our noses, never to be spoken to again...
Reflecting back now, it's strange to think we even survived. We really shouldn't have. Even now, weeks of healing later, I can't believe we made it. What made us so fortunate to have bested a god and lived, when so many others fell? What made us so special? Or is it as Nyarlathotep said, all a game played a thousand times by a thousand others? What if He is watching us even now? What if the cults return?
I want nothing more to do with adventure, not for a good long while. The time has come to settle down, and with my discoveries this past year, I think I know just the place to do it. That is, if the archeological community will have me. In any case... I must further my education. Someone needs to archive all this, after all... right?
-- Clayton and Enala (February 2nd, 1929)