The Weird Company Read online

  Carter, the alien warlock, was back at the thing before I could even move. He slashed at it with his chitinous claws. Carter was fast, but he was massive and Elwood dodged him easily, and then turned the wizard-warrior’s momentum against him, flinging him back toward the ramp. This time the throw was farther and Carter hit the wall with a sickening thud. I waited and watched but Carter did not get up.

  As I watched for some sign that Carter was recovering, I saw Ys back away. I, however, couldn’t move, I was mesmerized by the obscenity that stood imprisoned out there in the sky. It seemed to stare at me, to slice me open with its eyes and crawl inside my very soul. It was a wrong thing, an abomination that didn’t belong in this world or any other. I knew this at a cellular level. Its very presence was a corrupting influence. It needed to be expunged, destroyed and so did all those who followed him. So as Ys stepped to the rear I surged forward. I dodged the flailing tentacles and plunged my claws into the pulpy mass that had once pretended to be Frank Elwood. I tore at the strange flesh, casting great gobs of the stuff behind me.

  The shoggoth was letting out a kind of high-pitched keening as I cut into it, and it took me a minute to realize that the creature was screaming. I was hurting it, and it was writhing in agony. It tried to pull away, but I grabbed on to something solid inside with one hand and continued to tear at it with the other. The keening devolved into a whimper, but I could barely hear it. Something had snapped inside my head and I had gone both blind and deaf to anything but the attack itself. I tore and tore and tore until the thing I was tearing into shuddered and collapsed.

  It was only then that I backed away. As I did, the globs of material that I had torn apart began to shudder and crawl toward each other. As they reached one another they flowed into each other and merged into even larger pieces. The thing was reassembling itself, slowly but surely the monster was coming back.

  Hartwell pushed his way past me and pulled from his pocket a very large makeshift syringe. “I’ve been waiting to try this.” He pushed the plunger and began spraying the shoggoth flesh with a thick, green fluid. “Have you noticed that the shoggoths didn’t touch the dead Q’Hrell? They eat everything else, devour it, and mimic it, except for their masters. I have a theory about that you see? I think they can’t. I think the blood of the master is toxic to the servant. Let us see shall we?”

  At his feet the masses of alien tissue began to smoke and bubble. They writhed in agony and squealed like animals being slaughtered. It took a few moments, but the protoplasmic jelly finally deteriorated into little more than sticky, bubbling slime.

  Hartwell was smug as he walked back to the real Elwood. “Clever things these Progenitors, clever things.” He cast an eye at Ys. “Cleverer than you I think.”

  Mister Ys stormed down the ramp, leaving the Weird Company to tend to the wounded. Asenath hurried us along, making sure that we were no longer under the cyclopean gaze of the thing that stared down at us out of its ancient prison. I could still feel the thing staring at me and trying to get into my mind when Asenath took my hand and put her arm around me. That touch, that human touch was all I needed to block out the crawling, insistent thing that clawed at my mind.

  CHAPTER 17

  From the Account of Robert Martin Olmstead

  “The Weird Reformation”

  Down on the lower level out of the horrific gaze of the thing that hung over the city we regrouped and tended to our wounds both physical and psychological. Hartwell was ministering to Elwood using a diluted form of the blood of the Q’Hrell which he said would heal the young man’s wounds. More importantly he was getting some water and a modicum of sustenance which we were all partaking of. It was an oily stew of some kind, and there were chunks of some kind of root and shreds of something that could have been fish or fowl. Hartwell said it was better for us not to know the source of any of the ingredients. Though I was thankful for the chunk of rock salt he offered up to add some flavor to the broth.

  While he ate, Elwood explained what had happened. “I had been out hunting. The first pond had been empty, completely devoid of both fish and penguins. That should have been my first clue. While I was making my way to the second pool, I was attacked from behind. A shoggoth, I had no opportunity to fight back. He swallowed me whole and began absorbing me both physically and mentally. I don’t know why he stopped, but he did. It took him hours, but he mimicked me perfectly, well almost. It seems he couldn’t replicate my ability to step in between. I don’t even know how he knew about that, but he was obsessed with it. It is all he talked about. He demanded that I teach him how to do it, tortured me when I refused. I tried to explain that I didn’t understand the process myself, but he didn’t believe me.” He seemed on the verge of panic, but Hartwell seemed to have a way with the young man and quieted him down.

  Elwood was not the only one in need of care. My arms and hands, which had been exposed to the strange jellied matter of the shoggoth, and had come back burned from some kind of organic acid. My own inherent healing factor was repairing my body, but I still needed time, several hours, to let that happen. Asenath and Carter helped, they knew some simple cantrips that could speed the healing, at least the physical part. The psychological healing was more difficult, perhaps because it was a deeper kind of pain.

  Mister Ys had retreated away from the rest of us. He seemed shattered by what he had seen above the city, which I didn’t fully understand. While Asenath worked her magic I asked her if she could explain what that thing was, and why it was imprisoned above the city. I had other questions as well. It seemed that Ys had known about the thing, but why had seeing it impacted him so much? Why was he impacted to a greater extent than anyone else?

  At first Asenath seemed reticent to discuss the issue. “Knowing these things won’t make your life any easier.”

  I grinned. “I think it is safe to say that I’ve given up on the easy life.”

  She glared at me in amusement, those big eyes growing even bigger. “You’ve been told about the Dunwich Horror, the Whateleys?” She knew I had. “The thing that rampaged through the countryside, Lavinia’s other child, the one that took after the father. That thing out there imprisoned above the city, it’s the same kind of thing. It’s a child of Yog-Sothoth, a Vugg-Shoggog, but in this case the other parent wasn’t human, it was one of the Q’Hrell. As for why, these things are essential to the Q’Hrell way of life. The Vugg-Shoggog is the gate between two universes, ours and the realm of pure chaos where the Lurker at the Threshold originates. One of his followers, a man named Billington, had a theory about the All in One. He thought that it was only in our universe that the god-thing had almost absolute power, he suspected that in its home realm, it was nearly powerless.”

  “This Vugg-Shoggog, does it have a name?”

  Asenath shook her head. “Would you name an engine, or a furnace? That is all that thing is to the Q’Hrell, a machine and nothing more, but one that can move an entire city from the real world into a realm of their own making, one where the rules of the universe are shaped by their own design, and bend to their own will when need be. It is a universe where they are more than they are here. In our world, they are aliens, powerful, ancient aliens, but in the other world they are more than that, in that world of their making they are gods.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “You should tkrt Olmstead,” said Carter, still trapped in that massive alien body. “I’ve been there, I’ve seen tkrt them, seen what they can do. Most of them tkrt are content being petty, tyrannical things. Some however tkrt have chosen to be something even greater, they’ve tkrt found a way to move beyond their manufactured realm, and back tkrt into our reality. They are titanic, terrible things, equal tkrt in stature and power to any of the Old Ones. There is a reason the universe tkrt calls them the Elder Gods.”

  “You still haven’t told me why Ys is so upset. Didn’t he know that thing, that Vugg-Shoggog, was going to be here?”

  My voice must have been too loud, for Ys
overheard my conversation and seemed to have taken some offense. “I am concerned Mr. Olmstead, because I thought I had accounted for this variable. I travelled your world, researched all your libraries, scoured the lonely places, educated myself on the state of this primitive age, and what artifacts and relics remained intact and active. There was no evidence that the Vugg-Shoggog was still here, let alone active.” His manner was suddenly introspective. “Given the weakness between this world and the virtual one, there seems to be no shortage of ways for the inhabitants of one realm to transit to the other, as Mr. Carter is well aware. The prevalence of such points of transit usually implies that the mechanism that keeps the two distinct has fallen into disrepair. The most common of failures is the slow collapse of the energy lattice that imprisons the thing, which eventually results in the creature’s destruction. My assumption that the thing was dead or dying has now been proven incorrect, which means that something else has gone wrong in the mechanism, something catastrophic.” He paused, and I was not sure if it was because he didn’t know what to say, or if it was just for effect, “and yes, for your information that concept does give me pause.”

  “Thank providence for small favors,” muttered Hartwell. At our incredulous looks at his callous comment he took umbrage. “For years I suffered under your oppressive control, did your bidding and your dirty work. It’s nice to see you cowed for once.”

  Ys turned away, but Asenath called after him. “Did you think this would be easy Mister Ys? Did you think that you could come to this place and not face obstacles? For all your planning and plotting you are just as vulnerable to the whims of chance as any one of us. You and your kind, so pretentious, so haughty, but it’s all an act isn’t it? Take away the advanced science, and the foreknowledge, and what do you have? Just a man, just a man like anybody else.”

  Asenath had shamed the time-traveling alien mind, and in doing so had re-established herself as the dominant factor in our little party. In that one outburst, that one rant, Asenath Waite had wrested control from Mister Ys and once more become the leader of the Weird Company. What’s more is that she resumed her mantle as if she had never lost it. It was as if we were back in Arkham, in her great hall, and she was barking orders, and cajoling us to join her on her fool’s quest. This time however, instead of looking at her with reticence and loathing, I saw her through eyes that were tinged with something else, and I marveled at her prowess and ability.

  “Tell me Mister Ys,” Asenath was not done with the man yet, “how exactly did you come to be here? Gedney was dead, and yet here you are inhabiting the body of what I suspect is something akin to one of Dr. Hartwell’s experiments. You’ve even crudely bandaged yourself, but to what end?”

  Ys turned and there was a calm venomous look in his eyes. “We have many strategies Kamog, more than you could possibly understand. Number nine has to do with the reanimation of the recent dead, a process we can accomplish from the depths of space or even across the millennia. The resurrection of Gedney so that I could occupy his body was a trifling matter. As for the bandage, I thought it would garner a sense of compassion, and ingratiate myself with you and yours.”

  He tried to continue but Asenath cut him off. “Shut your mouth you deceitful creature. I don’t know why you are here, or what you want but you’re here now, and I have to deal with you. We are here for a reason, to put an end to the shoggoth threat, you will assist us. You will follow my orders, and you will help the entire team accomplish our goals. If you do not, or if you put any of the team in danger, or fail to properly protect them I will kill Gedney’s body.” She paused and let what she had said sink in. “I know what happens to Yith when the bodies they inhabit are destroyed before they are properly extracted. I have no qualms about letting that happen to you. Do you understand me?”

  Her demand was met with a reluctant but definite yes.

  “We’ve been wounded and waylaid. We are going to take some time to recover and heal. We’re also going to come up with a plan of attack, using the mapping machine over there. Dr. Hartwell, are you capable of producing more of that reagent?”

  He nodded. “I know where there is a cache of dead Q’Hrell that I can harvest the ingredients from.”

  “You and Elwood will be responsible for that. Carter, you will do something that you should be quite used to. Somewhere in this city is a gateway to the Q’Hrell’s virtual world. You will find that gate and descend once more into the Dreamlands. There I expect you to find the allies we need, whoever or whatever they are.” She didn’t even bother to look for confirmation, and instead turned to look at me. “Olmstead and I will find where the shoggoth’s are staging their operations and attempt to assess the situation. As soon as the rest of you are able you shall join us.”

  “What about me, what shall I do?” It was Ys that was asking, and his tone wasn’t its usual flavor of imperial haughtiness.

  Asenath smiled and in a sweet, almost loving voice responded, “Mister Ys, I thought that would be obvious. You’re going to go with Carter, and meet with your own kind.” She was still smiling as she added, “I wonder what they’ll think of you?”

  CHAPTER 18

  The Statement of Dr. Stuart Hartwell

  “The Blood of the Progenitors”

  I write this at the bequest of Mr. Robert Olmstead who I suppose is searching for some sort of closure. Of all of us, and I say this understanding the irony, he is perhaps the most human. He has spent his days documenting our adventure, remembering what he can of his recruitment, of his rescue of Frank Elwood, of our excursion to Antarctica and our less than triumphant return. That five of us began that journey and only four of us returned seems to have had a profound impact on the young man. That he was not with Elwood and me when we went to collect the circulatory fluid of the Q’Hrell leaves young Olmstead with a knowledge gap that he seems uncomfortable with. He’s looking for an explanation for what happened. He thinks that there might be a clue to what happened in the time that we were below. I think he is wrong, but I’m willing to help him see that in his own way, in his own time.

  Just hours after his rescue, Elwood’s recovery, accelerated by the factor I had isolated from the Q’Hrell, was nearly complete. Using the mapping device we located the three areas that each team would need to investigate. The entry way to what Carter called the Dreamlands was deep in one of the central towers, beneath a honeycomb of chambers filled with dormant Q’Hrell. Most of these chambers were indicated as being sealed, and impossible to open. One section however indicated that it had been penetrated, the seals degraded and the residents within, dozens of Q’Hrell, had all expired. There was an indication that something was still alive within that chamber, but what it was the machine could not seem to define. The third destination was some kind of massive chamber within which swarmed an ever-changing number of shoggoths. Thankfully this location was in the same tower complex as the places the other teams were going, though forty-five levels higher. Olmstead commented that at least we were lucky, given the size of the city, that all our objectives were in the same complex. Ys didn’t think it was luck, instead he suggested that the entryway to the Dreamlands and the associated Dreaming Chambers were the reason that the shoggoths had set up their operations in the tower above. The gateway and the chambers were the primary users of the energy still being generated. Indeed, when it came to energy, the complex in question had primacy over all others. Whatever the shoggoths were doing, it seemed they needed a secure source of power.

  Committed as we were to Asenath’s plan, the six of us made our way to the tower which contained our targets. We had expected some resistance, that as we travelled we would be beset by monsters, but there was nothing. Perhaps we had seen enough horrors, perhaps the universe was finally allowing things to go our way, or it could simply be that the shoggoths did not see us as a threat. Such a conclusion seemed to fly in the face of logic. Elwood had previously been attacked and replaced, and it seemed that our opponents knew about us, enough perhaps to d
ismiss us as a danger.

  When we finally came to the central shaft we bid farewell to our teammates and Waite and Olmstead went up, Carter and Ys went deep, and Elwood and I went down to the Dreaming Chambers.

  As we walked along those gently sloping paths Elwood took the time to apologize to me for being caught by the shoggoth and allowing himself to be mimicked. “The thing was obsessed with trying to learn how to step outside. I think it was the only thing that kept me alive, him wanting me to teach him my trick.”

  “Did you?”

  “How could I, I don’t even know how I do it, I just do.” His voice was full of frustration. “I suppose it was a gift of a sort, from poor Walter. He is the one who figured all this out, or did he? Perhaps like myself Walter was gifted with his ability from someone else. Perhaps it is infectious. I caught it from Walter, and Walter from that hag Keziah Mason. Could it be Doctor, that the ability to move through space and time can be passed from one man to another as others pass the common cold?”

  I pondered my friend’s theory for a moment. “I suppose anything is possible. I didn’t used to think so, but that was when I was younger, before medical school, before my parents were killed, before I followed in the footsteps of Herbert West.” I let loose a cynical laugh. “If you had told me that a boy from Arkham could study medicine, and grow up to battle monsters in the polar wastes I would have called you mad. Yet here I am, far, far from home, up to my neck in what most men would call madness, ready to act the hero and do battle against monsters.”

  Elwood stopped in his tracks and stared at me with those strange violet eyes. He seemed to be assessing me, trying to take my measure. “Do you really think that? You and I, we’ve done terrible, monstrous things. I let Gilman die, you experimented with death itself and in the process you may have been responsible for the death of millions. That night at the hospital, we both did horrible things just to save ourselves and cover up the truth. But here and now, in this place, are we heroes Doctor?”