“You’d be surprised,” said Burton. “Now what are you? What are you? Because one thing was immediately clear the minute you recovered. You are not Algernon Charles Swinburne.”
Swinburne pushed Burton off of him with a strength the explorer didn’t know the poet’s tiny body could muster. “So the jig is up, eh?” He straightened his lapels. “I do enjoy the clever turns of phrase the naked apes of this time period employ. I suppose our ruse must fall apart sooner or later. So be it.”
“Who are you?” Burton asked again.
“My name is unpronounceable to human lips, tongue and vocal chords,” said Swinburne. “But my kind call themselves, with no small amount of hubris, the Great Race. We hail from a distant world we call Yith.”
“How did you get here?” asked Burton. “And why are you here?”
“We are explorers much like yourself. We escaped cataclysm on our world by leaping through Time and into the bodies of beings that inhabited this world in the deep past. Using these new bodies, we built a wondrous library city on what you now call the continent of Australia.”
“And what happens to the minds of those whose bodies you commandeer?”
The Swinburne-thing shrugged. “They switch places with us and inhabit our old bodies until we are ready to return to our own time.”
“Bismillah! You switched places with Algy.”
“Exactly,” said the Swinburne-thing.
“So that’s where Algy is now. In the deep past. Is he…safe?”
“Perfectly safe. And he has been gifted with sights few other human minds in history have ever seen, and through him our kind learn an inordinate amount about your species, as well as this marvelous time period.”
“What do you want?” Burton asked. “Why here? Why now? Why not journey farther into the future? Surely there is a more technologically advanced time.”
“We do not care about your pitiful technology. We have glimpsed wonders you soft pink apes couldn’t dream of. Besides, greater sophistication leads to earlier detection of our activities. This age is still superstitious enough to believe in demonic possession. When the truth is far more mundane.”
“It is funny what you consider mundane,” said Burton. “Now release my friend.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Our plan is not yet complete.”
“And what is that plan?”
Swinburne uttered a screeching laugh. “Are you really that ridiculous to think that I will just lay out the particulars of our endeavors? Ho ho, Richard. I’m surprised at you. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait and see.”
“What is that black stone for?”
“That? We dug that up in a field in Yorkshire. We knew right where to dig too, because in your year 1684 one of my compatriots, who now inhabits the body of your William Nash, buried it there.”
“Why?”
“For safekeeping, of course. We had no use of it at the time, the stars were not right. And we couldn’t risk its relocation or outright destruction.”
“Ah,” said Burton. “So timing is important to you, for some ritual you wish to complete, and you need that black rock, and the Wold-Newton stones, to help you do it.”
The Swinburne-thing’s body twitched spasmodically, and the creature wearing the poet’s body had to steady himself, closing his eyes for a moment. “You are a clever, clever ape, Captain Burton,” said the Swinburne-thing when he opened his eyes. “I must say I am quite fond of you, and of this period in your history. Not to mention this vessel I currently wear. I will tell you, however, that your friend Swinburne’s body has a singular physiognomy. I am keeping open a tenuous telepathic link to his mind in the deep past—it helps us learn and thus assimilate to this time period faster—and I am receiving the strangest impulses from him.” He shivered and shook again. “My hat!”
“Algy?” said Burton, rushing toward Swinburne’s form once more, grabbing him and throwing him against the wall once more. Pinning Swinburne’s arms with his elbows, Burton began a series of mesmeric touches on the poet’s face and forehead.
“Stop it!” said the Swinburne-thing.
“Algy,” Burton intoned. “If you can hear me, fight them. Fight them and come back to us.”
“My Aunt Betty’s bonnet,” Swinburne squealed. “Richard? Is that you? I’d give my right arm for a drink. If I had any arms. Bloody hell.”
The Swinburne-thing thrashed in his grip, uttering some vile epithet in his guttural, inhuman tongue. He kicked Burton in the shins, causing the explorer to release his grip and back away from the writhing figure. The Swinburne-thing said something else in that bizarre language and ceased his spasmodic twitching. “Do not do that again. I cannot guarantee the safety of your friend if you do. My kind can make of his stay a paradise or a hell. The choice is yours.”
Nash and Goforth returned to the room. “It is time,” said the Goforth-thing.
The Swinburne-thing nodded. “Very well. Let’s proceed.”
“What about him?” said the Nash-thing, pointing to Burton.
“He is free to stay or go as he wishes,” said the Swinburne-thing. “He cannot harm us without harming those whose bodies we have usurped.” The Swinburne-thing straightened his lapels as he walked past Burton toward the room’s exit. “You are welcome to stay and usher in the coming of Yog-Sothoth. You strike me as the kind of man who prefers to see his doom coming toward him, rather than slinking up behind him in the night. Until then…”
The three Awakened left the room. Burton composed himself before following them out. He received a few stares from several of the Awakened’s so-called acolytes, but no one tried to molest him as he left the crowded hall. Herbert and Professor Challenger awaited him out front.
“Thank heavens,” said Herbert. “I was about to call the police.”
“What did you hope to accomplish by going in there alone?” boomed Challenger. “I’m beginning to think you are as mad as I.”
Burton smiled up at the zoologist. “I learned their plan. I also found a weakness.”
13. The Eyes of El-Yezdi
“Perhaps we should go to the police,” said Herbert as they walked up the street and away from the former Theosophic meeting hall. Burton had just finished telling them all that had transpired with Swinburne in the back room. “Where’s your friend Abberline?”
“I told you before we can’t arrest them. That will only put a bandage on the wound,” said Burton. “Staunching the flow of blood, when the wound must be sutured shut. The court could not hold them indefinitely, and as soon as they were released they’d continue with their plan.”
“Or leap out of Swinburne and the others and into someone else,” added Challenger sourly.
Burton nodded. “My point is, they have an eternity in which to scheme; we don’t.”
“This is madness,” rumbled Challenger. I’ve never heard such rot. And yet I’ve seen enough to know our straits are indeed dire.”
“It boggles the mind,” said Herbert. “To think that our universe is not a single cog endlessly turning, but a multifaceted jewel. The implications are…” his voice trailed off.
“We’ve all seen it,” said Burton. “In fact, I believe someone has shown us glimpses of these other facets for a reason.”
“But who?” said Challenger.
“And how?” demanded Herbert.
“I don’t know,” said Burton. “But I think I know a way to find out. Come.”
Burton hailed a carriage and gave the driver an address several blocks away.
They rode in nervous silence, Challenger the most nervous of all, casting a wary, bloodshot eye out the moving carriage at the passersby, his keen gaze no doubt looking for shoggoths.