bundled the broken skeleton into a soldier's cloak, and tied it tight with a belt. I slung it over my back and stumbled down the pyramid, in the direction of the city. Surely one of the remaining dark priests would know what to do. If I could bring back my concubine, she could reunite me with the artifact. Nothing was going to stop me.
Days passed.
Delirium increased.
I ate bugs and small animals raw, crawling, dragging myself ever onward. Fever rushed through my body. Eating away at me. Burning me. Killing me. I did not sleep. I pushed onward, through the darkness, strange beings and spirits watching me along the jungle paths, urging me onward toward my destiny. I did not abandon my armor, nor my ax. They were symbols of my authority, and I would not give my enemies the satisfaction of abandoning part of my birthright to rust in the never-ending rain of the hated jungle.
My first sign of the city was the towers of black smoke and the clouds of milling vultures.
It was a city of the dead.
A month had now passed since my expedition had left. The bodies of the people were mostly in their homes, on their sleeping mats, pustules open on their decaying forms, taken by a fever.
I walked down the empty streets. The brilliant songbirds had starved in their cages. The only movement I saw was the carrion animals inside the doors and openings as if they were the new owners. In a way they were. Stray dogs, brought here by my men, prowled the streets, fattened by the vast stores of available meat.
Fires had caught, and now burned out of control, with no one left to fight the blaze. The air was thick with smoke and ash. I did not know if any of the people of the city had survived, but if they had, then they had fled this cursed place.
I made my way to the temple. The priestess had taken me deep beneath it, far down into the bowels of the earth, where strange things lived, and the very walls were alive. She had shown me the ancient obelisk and its prophecy. Surely there I would find my answers.
Infection had set into my wounds, dripping green pus and leaving a trail upon the paved road. My body stank like the corpses in the surrounding buildings. I was aflame with fever, yet shivered because I was so starkly cold. I could not remember my trek to the temple, nor the long deep descent to the ancient unnatural cavern. I do not know how much time passed on my journey down the endless stairs and tunnels.
I found myself in the cavern, reduced to crawling like some pathetic forest beast. The damp bones of Koriniha rattled on my back. I pulled my ax along, dragging a trail through the soft living floor. Now, so close to death, I pushed myself along by will power alone. I had no torch, so I moved through the dark. Strange things skittered over my body, or slithered over my hands. I crawled, hopelessly lost, pushing onwards toward where I felt the obelisk to be. The air rushed and changed direction overhead, as if the cavern itself was breathing. It stank of rotting fish, but I could barely smell it over the stench of decay coming from my own flesh.
At last my quest ended.
The black obelisk was there-still impossibly thin, and disappearing into the darkness above. The ancient writings of the prophecy gave off a faint light of their own. My swollen fingers struggled to uncinch the remains of the priestess from my body, and after much effort I was able to spill her bones upon the patch of floor where I had taken her to consummate our pact.
'Old Ones. I have come,' I croaked through my parched throat, barely able to produce any sound. 'I demand you return your Priestess Koriniha to life.'
Nothing happened.
I lay gasping and heaving on the floor. I forced myself upwards, knees buckling, I fell against the obelisk, barely holding on.
'Old Ones. I am he whom you prophesied.' The writing was there before me, glowing, providing scant illumination. It was still in Latin. I read the words again. Surely it was I.
'I have done what you asked. I have fulfilled my part,' I demanded. 'Give her back to me. Give me my power.'
The giant breathing continued, each exhalation brought a greater stink of rotten ocean. Nothing responded. I grew angry. I found the strength to push myself away from the obelisk, standing shakily on my own feet. I pulled my ax into my hands.
'It is mine! Give me my power!'
The breathing continued.
'Damn you then.' I found the strength to lift my ax. I swung it into the narrow obelisk. Obsidian chips flew as I struck. 'Damn you!' I struck again, finding strength in my fury. Lines of the prophecy winked out of existence. 'I do not need you!' Bits of the obelisk embedded themselves in my skin as I hammered it. 'I am the one!' The narrow thing cracked and shifted from the roof. More lines disappeared. 'The power is mine!' A final blow turned the center into powder. 'I curse you, Old Ones!' I spit on their prophecy.
The obelisk toppled, the lower part shattered, and the top hung suspended for a long moment before detaching from the unseen ceiling of the cavern and falling, exploding like glass on impact. I was left alone in the dark, gasping, heaving. Dying.
We must go now, Boy. Hurry.
The cavern shifted. I had drawn the attention of the Old Ones. Shapes dropped down around me, somehow visible as darker than the shadows.
Come. Must leave his mind.
What's happening?
He has-how you say? — pissed them off.
Ten thousand glowing eyes opened on the cavern walls as the giant tentacles encircled me, suckers piercing and ripping into my rotten flesh, lifting me upwards through the cavern, into the gaping gelatinous maw of an Old One. I screamed, but acid filled my mouth and poured down my throat, burning, tearing.
Darkness…
Pain…
I was once again my self. Owen Z. Pitt.
Thank goodness.
The memory was fading away as the Old Man pulled me back toward light and sanity.
I saw Lord Machado as he was cruelly twisted into the Cursed One. His human form was stripped away, replaced with the foul organic materials of the ancient alien trespassers. His mind was probed and tortured, shattered and pulped against incomprehensible forces, pushed beyond the breaking point of any mortal being. The torment lasted for a hundred years.
Finally satisfied at the punishment, or perhaps growing bored and tiring of it, the Old One dropped the pulsing mass of black tissue back to the floor where it landed with a wet splattering.
Somehow his spirit survived the unspeakable torture, driven by hate, anger and lust for power. Those things were his anchor, keeping him from being absorbed completely into the ancient beast. The inky mass slithered away into the darkness, husbanding its strength.
Planning for its return.
The Polish village was silent. I shuffled through the snow, making my way through the rubble of homes and businesses, looking for the church, what I knew now to be the chosen Place of Power from the winter of 1944. My feet were bare, but the jagged stone, shell casings, and broken glass did not harm me.
'Mordechai!' I shouted. 'We need to talk!'
I found the church. The steps were barren. I hurried up them and through the entrance.
'Byreika!' I bellowed, cupping my hands over my mouth. The Old Man was nowhere to be seen. I kicked over a damaged pew. I did not have time for this. 'Where are you?'
'Greetings,' called a voice. I turned to see a man, a stranger, approaching down the aisle. He was short, dressed in an archaic steel breastplate and plumed, rounded helmet. A yellow and brown family crest was emblazoned upon his chest. His goatee was black and grease-slicked down to a point. His eyes were small and dark, set deep into a face tanned like leather. He glared at me from under bushy eyebrows. 'Your friend will be along shortly.' One arm hung at his side, lazily holding the handle of his battle-ax, the blade dragging a furrow through the ash and snow on the church floor.
I realized he was speaking archaic Portuguese. The language of Lord Machado's memories.
Not good.
