Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

Along the way, they passed an array of jars, boxes and containers of various shapes and sizes—the morbid chemicals and mordant liquids of the Dark Heptad’s infernal work—all piled against the walls, and here the stench of nameless experiments filled the air to such a degree that even Khai’s sputtering torch seemed to dim a little, as if from lack of good clean air. Then, faint at first, but rapidly growing louder, they heard the low mouthings of an interminably chanted invocation, and Khai’s scalp prickled as he recognized the oft-repeated and monstrously evocative name of Nyarlathotep!

Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. The Howler in the Night. The Dark Messenger of Demon Gods trapped and chained in vaults of space and time since the earliest ages of Earth; master of all the world’s imps of insanity, hatred and despair; and here the Dark Heptad called upon Him to come to their aid!

“This is it,” Khai whispered to his friends as they approached a huge archway in the corridor’s wall, from which issued a flicking blue glow. “And if that chanting is anything to go by, I’d say they’re in!” And stepping forward, he thrust his torch before him into the room to light his way.

The oddly shimmering glow came from a large sunken vat situated centrally in the floor of this den of sorcerers, and as Khai’s torch lit that awful cave, so the unnatural radiance seemed to dim a little. Seated cross-legged on the floor about the vat, hands touching, the Dark Heptad slowly turned their cowled heads to gaze at the intruders. In faces shaded beneath seven cowls, their eyes were luminous and poisonous as they stared. Then—

Before Khai and his Nubians could take a single step forward, the blue light sprang up like a shimmering wall and spread outward from the vat, pushing them back and out of the room! They fought against it, fought to win through that ethereal but seemingly solid wall of light, but to no avail. And all the time, the chanting of the Dark Heptad went on, gaining in volume and racing ever more rapidly from their lips as they hurried to bring it to a climax. Now, narrowing his eyes to squint through the haze of blue shimmer into the den, Khai saw that the magic was working. Shapes were forming in that room, hovering over the vat, writhing and taking on substance. A kaleidoscope of wraithlike forms—and each one a little more solid than the one before—towering and leaping up from the vat like genies to sway over the hysterically chanting figures of the Dark Heptad. And they were shapes of purest evil!

All the horrors of universal insanity were there, the unclean spirits of Man’s blackest nightmares, and Khai saw ghouls, afreets and ogres come and go in the ever-changing nimbus that rose over the vat. As for Kindu and Nundi: they saw their own demons, the night-things of the jungles and the leering familiars of witches and black M’gangas. And as each leering or frothing shape melted into the next, so it took on firmer form.

The chanting voices of the Dark Heptad were now reaching a crescendo. Khai knew that whatever was coming must come soon, and so he threw himself once more against the wall of blue light that filled the doorway and forbade him entry. Such was the energy he expended that his muscles corded and the veins stood out on his straining brow as he shoved against nothing; until his very mind grew numb with the effort. Only then, when the one thought in his head was an overriding determination to break through, did he hear that whispering voice in his mind, that voice he knew of old and which he had learned to trust.

It was the voice of the wind-carved, sun-scorched Syran mage—the Mage of Mentalism—and Khai fastened desperately upon it and forced himself to listen.

“Good, Khai, Good!” praised that voice, but it carried an ominously sad note. “Now listen and understand. You may not break through this barrier, for it is a mindwall. Their wills are greater than yours, their minds stronger, and so you may not proceed. And this time we cannot help you, Khai, for we, too, are helpless against a mindwall… .”

Khai looked again through the blue haze and saw a fresh shape writhing into view above the vat. And this time the shape was semi-solid, clearly discernible ... and human! Human, and yet inhuman. For this could only be Nyarlathotep in His earthly avatar: a young man with the wickedly proud face of a fallen God, whose great black eyes contained a hideous humor. His mouth was cruel and yet langorous, and His lips had sipped of all the world’s sin. Pschent-crowned, this tall sardonic Being reminded Khai of Pharaoh and of a great task as yet unfulfilled, and aloud he cried out to that dimly receding voice in his head:

“What may I do? What is this mindwall that resists me? Answer me—help me—but don’t desert me now!”

Faint and fading came his answer: “The mindwall is an illusion, Khai, it is not real. But since the barrier exists in your own mind, you may not cross it. No thinking creature may breach a mindwall….” And the voice of the Mage of Mentalism receded and was gone.

“But I must breach it!” Khai howled. “I must!” And again he hurled himself at the blue, impenetrable haze. In another moment, the hands of Kindu and Nundi were on his straining arms, dragging him from the doorway. Then, as he fought them off, his eyes lighted upon a row of large stone jars where they stood along the wall of the corridor.

He shook himself free of the Nubians. “Mindwall?” he gasped to himself. “An illusion!”

“Lord, what ails you?” Nundi asked. “Come, we must leave this place.”

“No, no, wait,” Khai answered, his forehead creasing in concentration. “A mindwall!” he said again, this time in a whisper, and his eyes went wide in sudden inspiration. “Aye, but since when has oil a mind of its own, eh?”

“Lord?”

“Never mind,” he cried. “But quickly—help me!” And together they lifted the jars of oil and threw them against the blue glow where it issued from the door of the Dark Heptad’s den. The jars passed through the glow without hindrance, smashing when they struck the floor within. Instantly thickly cloying, exotically scented fumes flooded from the sorcerers’ den, and on instinct Khai swept his torch forward and sent it spinning into the room.

The searing heat from the holocaust of flame which then spilled out into the subterranean corridor drove Khai and his Nubians back as it scorched the walls. And as the fireball shrank, they heard the terrified shrieking of the Dark Heptad above the roar and crackle of flames. They heard them … and they heard something else, something much worse.

It was laughter—lunatic laughter that turned to a roar of outrage even as it dwindled and died. On the very threshold, Nyarlathotep had been sent back to those mental hells which spawned him. A moment more and two capering, flaming human torches leapt out into the corridor, beating at their blazing bodies in a vain attempt to smother the flames. While still they danced, the trio of invaders cut them down. Khai stepped over their crisped bodies and shielded his face as he stared at the inferno within the den. The heat was blistering and he knew nothing could possibly live in there.

Satisfied, he was turning to his companions when a movement farther down the corridor caught his eye. A tall, spectrally slender figure stared at him, then melted back into the flickering shadows—but Khai had seen him. He would recognize that figure anywhere: that black sheath of a robe and bald dome of a head.

“Anulep!” Khai snarled.

He made to run after the Vizier, but at that moment a fresh ball of fire shot out from the mouth of the wizard’s den and drove him back. For precious seconds the flames licked the corridor, then died away.