15. The Coming of Yog-Sothoth
The doors had been heavily bolted from the inside by the Awakened’s acolytes, but Burton and Abberline moved around the building until they found an unsecured window. With some difficulty they managed to crawl through it into a small room cluttered with occult ephemera left behind by the Theosophes. “There are a few of those Theosophes outside as well,” said Abberline. “Eager to get the use of their building back, I suspect.”
Burton moved to the door, trying the knob. It opened a crack. “Come on. And be quiet.”
Abberline drew his service revolver, and Burton wondered idly if he should have brought a weapon. He wanted this to have a peaceful resolution, and meant no physical harm to any of the Awakened, especially Swinburne. When all was made right, each of these men would no doubt feel no small amount of guilt for the actions of their commandeered bodies this night, and he didn’t want them to also have spilled blood on their hands.
They moved into a dimly lit hall, through which chanting could be heard.
Abberline tightened his grip on his revolver. Burton, his nerves taught as piano wires, took a deep, steadying breath. The chanting grew closer, louder.
“This Yog-Sothoth must respond well to flattery,” Abberline whispered.
“Shhh!” Burton scolded. They were at the end of the corridor now, which opened out into the wide central space crowded with black-robed acolytes, ordinary Londoners who had been taken in by the Awakened’s feats of clairvoyance, and had no idea of the doom about to befall them. He scanned the room, picking out each member of the Awakened—Swinburne, Goforth, Nash, Peacock, Greensmith, and Whiteside—who were all standing in a circle around the immense black stone, their hands joined, their bodies swaying in supplication. The black jewels on the malformed headpieces they wore glinted darkly in the gaslights.
Burton stood ready to pounce, though to do exactly what he had no idea. Abberline placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Wait until they turn off the gas.”
Burton nodded, noting Swinburne’s position among the throng. If they could knock the malignant crowns from their heads, they would decrease the influence of the Wold-Newton stones, perhaps even disrupt the ritual enough that they would have to start it all over again. He felt the eyes of El-Yezdi upon him, could feel the presence of the other Burtons. His right arm felt strange, as if it was gone, and in its place was something heavy, a thing of brass and wood where blood and bone should be. He felt something covering his left eye, though he could still see. Felt the weight of a slim scimitar on his left hip. The others were here with him, guiding him, goading him forward.
The gaslights sputtered and died. The throng of huddled acolytes exchanged worried exasperations, but the Swinburne-thing urged them to keep going. Their chanting increased, and Burton thought he saw a strange electricity crackling along the rough-hewn edges of the stone.
They heard a thunderous noise coming from the main double doors into the hall. “Battering ram,” said Abberline. “My boys are coming in.” He moved around Burton, gun raised in the dark. “Metropolitan Police! You are all under arrest!”
“Poppycock!” he heard the Swinburne-thing screech. “Who dares interrupt the coming of Yog-Sothoth?”
“It’s over, Algy,” said Burton as he stepped up beside Abberline. “Or whoever you are.”
A robed figure moved to confront him. Burton sent a fist into his face and the figure went down in a heap.
Lightning danced across the stone, blue claws arcing to the surrounding support pillars.
“How joyous!” said the Goforth-thing. “Look! Yog-Sothoth comes.”
There was a tinge of ozone and something fetid as the hairs on Burton’s neck stood at attention. A blast of cold air that whipped through his beard as he felt a vague sucking sensation, as of the sudden presence of a vacuum. He couldn’t see well in the darkness, but as his eyes adjusted he got an impression of movement coming from the stone, long, ropey tendrils stretching out, wrapping themselves around the surrounding pillars. Interspersed along their length were large pale orbs.
The Awakened had backed away, and were the only ones still chanting, most of it in their bizarre guttural speech. But one phrase could still be clearly made out: Yog-Sothoth. Yog-Sothoth. Yog-Sothoth.
“Hear us, Opener of the Way!” someone near Abberline shouted.
So transfixed were the Great Race’s thralls that no one tried to molest Abberline or Burton any further. They were all staring into the black void they all sensed rather than perceived was yawning open toward them. And through that limitless void something was coming.
Burton stood frozen, his heart hammering in his chest. In his mind’s eye he could see El-Yezdi, could hear him whispering from across an immense distance.
The Man of Truth is beyond good and evil. 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. His forehead itched, and he reached up, feeling a series of cold lumps, the Wold-Newton stones embedded in the skin there.
Burton clenched his right fist, and found that it was made of brass. Afraid to break the illusion, he did not look down at it. He flexed the fingers, feeling the whir of tiny pneumatic pistons that could rend metal, crush rock.
We are with you, said Abdullah the Bushri, his whisper like a breath of hot desert wind. Burton clutched the handle of the gleaming scimitar with his left hand, the hilt cool and hard beneath his fingertips. The smell of Persian spices filled his nostrils, masking the fetid stench that came at them from the yawning opening.
He heard the sound of something wet sliding along stone, as if something very large was trying to fit through an opening much too small for its bulk. He sensed more of the pale orbs, and had the eerie feeling he was being watched by a million eyes, not unlike the sensation he got from being pursued by a shoggoth. But this was no shoggoth. Those loathsome creatures were nothing compared to the entity that was pulling itself into this world right in front of them. An army of shoggoths would cower in fear at this thing that loomed up before the assembly.
The pounding of the coppers attempting to batter down the door grew louder, more insistent.
“Yog-Sothoth,” said the Swinburne-thing. “Scion of the Nameless Mist. Opener of the Way, Beyond One, hear our cries. We are of the Great Race of Yith, whom you have gifted with the ability to move through Time. We wish to join you through the Gate. We wish to leave behind our earthly shackles and move through the facets of reality as you do. Please help us, and this world is yours.”
This world is but one facet of the All, and is already mine. The pitiful creatures who live within it are as base as the insects that grovel at your feet.