“You were right, as always,” said Abdullah the Bushri to the thin man. “He was right where you said he’d be. Now what?”
“Now offer him a drink,” said the wizened man with a thin smile. Abdullah motioned toward a wooden sideboard laden with clay decanters of wine.
“Help yourself,” he said. “We’re all friends here.”
Burton poured himself a glass of rich dark wine and drank, recalling cherished memories of his own time in Persia. Then he turned and took a chair opposite the mechanical armed Burton.
“I suppose some form of introduction is in order,” said Abdullah. “We can’t very well call each other by our given names, now can we?” He went down the line, pointing at each of them in turn. “We call him the Captain,” he said, pointing to the eye-patched Burton. “The fellow with the mechanical arm goes by the nom de guerre Ruffian Dick, and that mystical fellow on the end calls himself Abu El-Yezdi.”
“Just call me Burton,” said Burton. I’ve seen some of you before. In my dreams.”
“As have we,” said Abdullah.
Burton addressed the Captain. “You command the Nautilus, yes?”
“Aye,” said the Captain grimly. “After Nemo was killed battling the cursed Deep Ones. My world has been besieged by them. They held dominion over two-thirds of the planet for millennia, and now they almost have the final third in their grasp.”
“I lost my bloody arm to John Hanning Speke,” declared Ruffian Dick. “That mad blighter grew crazed when we happened upon a series of ruins near the Mountains of the Moon.” He patted his mechanical arm. “This little beauty was a gift from Mycroft Holmes. A clever gentleman by the name of Daniel Gooch designed and built it for me.” He balled its brass fingers into a formidable-looking fist. “It has its advantages, but it’s just not the same.”
“El-Yezdi brought us all together,” said Abdullah. “Though we’re still not exactly sure why.” He brought out a pipe and lit it.
“The Man of Truth is beyond good and evil,” El-Yezdi intoned. “The Man of Truth has ridden to All-Is-One. The Man of Truth has learned that Illusion is the One Reality, and that Substance is the Great Impostor.”
Abdullah sucked on his pipe thoughtfully, nodding. Ruffian Dick rolled his eyes. “There he goes again.”
“What’s he talking about?” said Burton. “Bismillah, I have had enough of riddles. Especially from myself.”
“We are all but aspects of the same Self,” said El-Yezdi, “facets of the same Reality.”
“But why have you brought me here?” asked Burton. “Why have you brought any of us here? And where the bloody hell is here?”
“That last one I can answer,” said Abdullah. “We’re in the Dream Realms that wind between realities.”
“And as for the first question,” said El-Yezdi, “because it is too late for us. And because you still have a chance to save your reality, your Earth.”
“What do you mean?” asked the explorer.
The commander of the Nautilus said, “Eldritch forces have decimated us. Our civilizations are in ruin. Those that are left are slaves to those terrible star things. El-Yezdi reached out to us, pulled us through the First Gate, to the Dream Realms. To find and help you.” He looked at Burton with his remaining eye grimly. “He said you were the key.”
“Yes,” said Burton. “He told me that in my dreams. But what does it mean? What is the Dream Key?”
“You are,” said El-Yezdi. You are our Facet in your reality. You anchor us and allow us to break through into your version of the All-is-One.”
“That still doesn’t make any bloody sense,” said Burton.
“We escaped our realities, with El-Yezdi’s help, through the Dreamlands,” said Ruffian Dick. “The Australian aborigines call it the Dreamtime. But it’s real. As real as my bloody brass arm. It’s like a nexus between all the facets of reality.”
The eye of every Burton turned toward him.
“What?” said Ruffian Dick. “I listen.”
“So the visions I saw. That was you lot coming to get me.” said Burton.
“Yes,” said Abdullah. “This desert, all the things you saw in your dreams, just dream-vistas, flashes from us as we moved closer and closer toward your facet. El-Yezdi sent them to you.”
“This boggles the mind,” said Burton. “We grow accustomed to the world being a certain way. We think we understand it, and then a new understanding upends it. What can I do? The Awakened are many, and have a small army of acolytes. I am but one man.”
El-Yezdi laughed then, a dry, almost ominous cackle.
“No,” said Abdullah the Bushri, “you are five. We are all you, remember? And you are all of us.”
“Bismillah!” Burton swore. “I didn’t think of that. But what exactly are we to do about the Awakened? They have hijacked the bodies of innocent people, including my friend Algernon.”
“Algy?” said Ruffian Dick. “I haven’t seen him in ages. Not since the Deep Ones took Trafalgar Square. How the bloody hell is he?”
“Alive,” said Burton, eying his doppelganger grimly. “And imprisoned in the deep past in the body of one of the Great Race.”
“Do not fear,” said El-Yezdi, “all shall be as it was. We have dealt with the Great Race of Yith before. We cannot kill them, but we can send them back to where and when they came before they complete their terrible ritual.”
Burton arched an eyebrow. “How?”
“The Great Race’s hold on your time is tenuous, and only moves easily in one direction.” said the mystic. “To return to their bodies they must make use of a special device they have someone build in whatever time period they have invaded.”
“Of course!” said Burton. “I’ve seen that device. My friends have the plans for its construction.”
“Excellent,” said El-Yezdi. “Truly you are the key.”
Burton raked a hand through his beard. “They are anticipating returning to their own time and bodies should their mission fail, and this Yog-Sothoth refuses to grant them their wish.”
“And what might that be?” asked Abdullah the Bushri. “And who or what is Yog-Sothoth?
“Yog-Sothoth is an outer god,” said El-Yezdi. He is the progenitor of Yug and Neb, sires of Cthulhu. He is omniscient, locked outside of all Time and Space. Yog-Sothoth sees all and can access all.”
“Why hasn’t he done anything about the four of you?” asked Burton.
“He does not care. We are beneath his notice and too far from his center of influence. Would you care that an ant is carrying a breadcrumb a mile from your house? As for the Great Race, they wish to have access to the other facets of reality,” said El-Yezdi. “That is why they summoned Yog-Sothoth in my facet. They have traveled ahead, far into the future, to the very death of your universe, to see how it all will end. They are ageless, timeless, but they cannot escape the end of Time itself. They will be torn apart by entropy just like everything else. Unless they can travel to another reality in which the universe is not yet in its death throes.”