James Palmer - Shadows Through Time

Next, he saw a pair of dark eyes burning through him, familiar. He realized with a start that they were his own, looking out at him from inside another face. Black jewels gleamed upon this Other’s brow like spider’s eyes.

When Burton opened his eyes, he was sitting up in his bed, right hand outstretched, fingers balled into a fist so tightly his knuckles were white. “Blast it all,” he swore, releasing his grip. There was no key in his hand, but he could still feel its weight, its coldness there on his palm. He wiped his hand on the front of his jebba and doubted his sanity.

“I am the Dream Key. Bismillah. What does that mean?”

It had been seven days since the meteorite robbery, and no arrests had been made, by order of Mycroft Holmes. More police had gone missing, and there were reports of “odd, slithering slime moving of its own accord” reported all over the city. It seemed everyone had a sense of creeping dread that no one could explain, especially Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, who seldom ventured out and only peeked occasionally from his study window just to make sure the city he knew was still there. Today he stared out on a decimated metropolis. The buildings and row houses opposite his home were utterly destroyed, the ruins leaning in toward one another like broken teeth. In the distance a large dome-shaped contraption walked carefully through the wreckage on long tripod legs, metallic tentacles flailing. The whole thing gleamed like brass in the sun.

“Time for tea,” said Miss Angell as she entered the room with a silver tray laden with steaming tea and biscuits.

Burton sat and stared as his housekeeper began preparing his afternoon tea, oblivious to the nightmare tableau evident through the window.

“You really should get out and take in some fresh air,” she said. “You haven’t even visited your club in a week.”

Burton said nothing as she dropped a sugar cube into his tea. “There you are,” she said. “Drink up. It will do you some good. I know you’re worried about your friend Mr. Swinburne, but he’ll recover his wits.”

She smiled at him and left the room. Burton watched her go, then turned back to the window, where a normal London afternoon once again presented itself. The buildings across the way were whole, and there was no sign of the tripod contraption. Burton sighed and sipped his tea, wondering what sanity-blasting new vista next awaited him. He had long since given up on his sanity and was now simply waiting for the men in white coats to come and seize him.

At night the dreams assailed him, strange visions with familiar faces in new roles. In one, he fought John Hanning Speke in a sword duel, the two of them dancing about an assemblage of vast basalt ruins, Burton parrying as Speke lunged for him around the black cyclopean masonry.

“The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind,” Speke said.

In another, he captained an airship under siege by some blasphemously hideous, winged creatures with long barbed tails and faceless heads capped with inward curving horns. “Night gaunts!” someone near him shouted as a series of shots rang out.

In yet another, he wasn’t himself at all. He wasn’t even human, but a massive insect-like creature enshrouded by a golden carapace. He and his kind chittered wordlessly, their many legs moving across smooth blocks that shown like polished hematite. Burton and the others surrounded a towering figure, vaguely humanoid in outline, covered in what looked like a burial shroud. It stood upright inside a great circle of green flame, and Burton and the others bowed toward it, as in supplication. Burton’s mind wanted him to scream, but he dared not. He felt as if he were hiding inside this insect thing’s body, and if he gave away his presence, the others would turn on him, devouring his chitinous flesh.

It went on that way, night after night, and Burton was no closer to figuring out what the mysterious yet familiar voice wanted him to do. He only got the sense that he was somehow important to whatever was about to take place regarding he Awakened, along with the unsettling feeling that he wasn’t alone, that there were these mysterious Others watching him from afar. Not malevolent toward him, like the Elder Things that groped toward them with gruesome appendages from the Beyond, but not comforting either.

Burton attempted meditation to steady his mind, but these sessions too were interrupted by eerie sensations of being someone else and somewhere else. He felt once again the presence of some intrusive Other, much as the Lurker on the Threshold had haunted him during his last adventure, the other Burton from the stream of Time that had been disrupted by their journey into the past aboard Nemo’s Nautilus . But this was different. Burton could not see him from the corner of his eye. This was not a feeling like things had fractured, but an intrusion from an entirely new plane of existence, and the rational part of Burton’s mind wanted to run from it, to deny it and go about his business. But he could not, for when he closed his eyes the dreams assailed him with how solidified and real they felt. As tangible as the reality he journeyed through in his waking hours.

It was one of these troubling nights, during which he lay awake, that he heard a knock on his door.

“Bismillah,” Burton swore, donning his dressing gown and slippers and heading downstairs before the persistent knocking awoke Miss Angell. He opened the door and found Professor Challenger and the Time Traveler on his doorstep. Herbert was hefting a glowing lantern, while Challenger held the shoggoth gun.

“We’ve found those Awakened scoundrels,” boomed Challenger, a devious grin playing on his lips. “Your friend Swinburne is among them. We were hunting shoggoths.”

“An unusual pastime,” said young Herbert. “But one that has yielded positive results.”

“What the deuce are you two talking about?” muttered Burton. “Come inside before you wake half the street. And turn off that flame on your shoggoth gun, if you please.”

Professor Challenger twisted a nozzle on the side of the weapon and the flame spurting from the end of it went out. They stepped inside, and Burton poured them all brandies.

“Hunting shoggoths builds up a powerful thirst, eh Herbert?” said Challenger, taking a glass and draining it.

“I must ask you to please keep it down,” said Burton. “My housekeeper is sleeping.”

“I’m sorry to barge in like this,” said Herbert. “The Professor insisted.” He sipped his brandy leisurely. “I’m sorry we woke you.”

Burton shook his head. “I wasn’t sleeping. Tell me about the Awakened.”

“They’ve taken over the Theosophical Society meeting hall,” said Challenger. “Apparently it was quite the row. Split their organization in two. They brought most of the membership over to their cause with their talk of other worlds and ultimate knowledge.”

“Inspector Abberline and I suspected as much,” said Burton. “He said their leader and some of his lieutenants were ejected the other day. What are they doing now?”

“They’re helping people tap into their past lives,” said Challenger. “Pure bunk of course, but after all we’ve seen…” his voice trailed off. He poured himself another brandy and drained the glass.

“They have these glittering black jewels set into elaborate headpieces,” said Herbert. “Similar to the one we saw aboard Captain Nemo’s Nautilus .”

Burton felt a chill. “The crowns of the Deep Ones.”

“The same,” said Challenger. “I thought we had rid ourselves of those abysmal creatures.”

“It never ends,” said Herbert, sadly, draining his brandy. “Time on an infinite loop.”