Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (33 page)

With only a little hesitation, The
Rider/Piishi leapt at the thing, piercing what felt like a physical bubble of
nausea and grabbed hold of the staff. The muddy arms of the melting creature
clamped on Piishi’s’ shoulders, embracing them, dragging them down to their
knees. Where its hands touched, Piishi’s arms sang with a burning pain so
intense that he let go of the staff and it slid into the gaping, smoking face.

Both hands now. The Rider forced it,
pushing beyond Piishi’s screaming, fighting down both their instincts to wither
in the thing’s agonizing grip and die. The staff was slipping further in.
Piishi’s hands were up to the forearms in its head, and the inside felt like an
open flame. First an itching, then a searing burn. They both screamed.

Something slimy and undulous within
the depths of the face slithered over their wrists, binding them to the staff,
now pulling them into the yawning face up to the shoulders, the humanoid arms
grasping, stuffing them in. Whatever Nyarlathotep truly was, it was in that
hole. This man-like form was but a suit to allow it to interact with this
world, like a man in deep diving dress. But the man was without, and the
monster was within.

A great thick black tentacle devoid
of suckers curled up from the smoky hole and lashed at Piishi’s face.

It was like being in a tug of war
over a glowing red iron bar with a herd of elephants knee deep in boiling
water.

The Rider felt Piishi’s flesh
peeling away, dropping in clumps from his hands. Soon there would be no tendons
to even carry on the struggle.

“I
can let go,”
the Rider thought.
“I
must. This isn’t my body. Piishi.”

“
No!”
roared Piishi’s mind.

Then the form of Nyarlathotep
shuddered again, and the nail on glass scream became unbearably loud. The
tentacle retracted, retreated into the hole. The Rider/Piishi fell back,
drawing out the staff with momentum. They fell flat, utterly spent, the Rod of
Aaron across their chest, smoking. The hands that nominally gripped it, Piishi’s
hands, were shredded, devoid of flesh, the bone and muscle exposed.

They were aware of a figure standing
over them, holding a pistol in one hand and a rifle in the other. It was the
Rider’s engraved Henry with its Elder Sign. The old man in blue, his ridiculous
hat gone, his long hair flying about in the violent windstorm Misquamacus was
kicking up.

Nyarlathotep was gone. The Rider and
Piishi felt it depart. It laughed as it went, the insane mirth trailing off
like that of a madman dancing naked down an alley.

Kabede was leaning over them then, a
look of concern on his face. He lifted the Rod of Aaron, winced at the sight of
Piishi’s hands. He began to unravel his headdress to wind through the ruined,
bloody fingers.

“The skinwalkers,” The Rider/Piishi
muttered.

But neither Faustus nor Kabede could
hear him above the blow.

The Rider laid his head back.

The wind was roaring now. The night
sky was a great black hole empty of stars, framed by the unnatural smoke that
had poured out of Nyarlathotep, a great cyclone miles in width poised above
them in the sky. It swept red grit and dust and tore at their clothing and
ripped the gold away in flakes from the teetering colossus that stood behind
Misquamacus. He had ceased twirling his rhombus and now stood on the rock
looking up into the strange storm with open admiration, his clothes and hair
flapping about him.

“Misquamacus!” Faustus yelled.

The old shaman looked to hear his
name and his placid expression fell slightly.

“You!” he yelled, seeing Faustus. “You
are too late, brother. Nyarlathotep is gone, but Ossodagowah is here. Look.”

He pointed skyward.

Something was coming out of the
center of the storm. The dark whirling clouds were parting to allow it. It was
like a gargantuan black and yellow mottled tadpole, underdeveloped limbs
dangling from beneath a tapering body that swished as it navigated the sky. Two
bulging frog-like eyes were situated on either side of its bullet head, and
when its wide maw opened, a mass of writhing anemone-like tentacles sprang
forth. It coughed up thick flocks of smaller winged creatures, swirling about
in odd formations like scavenging seagulls alighting from the corpse of a
whale. A green glow burst within the cloud like strange, hidden lightning.
Thunder rolled across the mountains.

The storm seemed to suck all heat
out of Pa-Gotzin-Kay. The campfire flames were drawn into the sky and died. The
waterfall froze before their eyes and the pool iced over. Snow began to fall.

Faustus raised the pistol and
squeezed off a shot in Misquamacus’ direction.

Something, a bat or a bird, maybe
one of the things swarmed about the creature above, streaked out of the night
and silently intercepted the bullet, exploding in a burst of blood and greasy
down.

He fired again, and another small
flying creature interposed itself and was destroyed.

Misquamacus smiled with a frenzied
glee and raised his arms. His long hair began to stand on end and the little
stones around him took to the air and hovered there.

Then they began to streak out
towards Faustus, one at a time. Slashes of blood opened on his cheeks and
forehead.

Larger stones rolled toward
Misquamacus or rose dripping from the pool to shudder in the air around him.

Faustus dropped the pistol and swung
the Henry rifle with its Elder Sign up to his cheek.

The bullet from the rifle smacked into
the center of Misquamacus’ forehead. The old shaman sank to his knees, still
smiling. Blood trickled from the wound and traced a scarlet mustache over his
lips before he tumbled to his face. In a few moments the great golden statue
wavered in the buffeting wind and crumbled, the head rolling back from the
shoulders, the arms dropping off. The whole thing fell to a shimmering dust
that scattered on the surface of the icy pool and sank.

The wind and the approach of the
massive thing turning ponderously in the sky did not cease. The snow soon
turned everything a luminous white.

The wind seemed to be sentient, as
if it were the invisible arms of the thing in the cloud. It picked the
Rider/Piishi up bodily and hurled them about. They were not aware what became
of Faustus and Kabede or the other Indians. They were treated to racing,
sickeningly fast images as he was caught up in the freezing cyclone and spun
around, dashed again and again against the stone with bone breaking force.

Piishi was dying. The Rider could
feel it. He could feel the tug on his own soul as death overwhelmed Piishi’s
battered body.

“Escape,”
Piishi’s voice commanded, still strong, untouched by the violence of the storm.
“
Escape, Rider!”

It was hard to focus on that voice.
The roaring wind rang in his ears, the ceaseless, furious swirling. He tasted
blood, felt bits of teeth crumble from his mouth. His extremities flapped like
sailcloth, all the bones shattered. Every rag doll movement was a new agony as
the shards of his skeleton clashed and rattled. His torn skin was numb and
freezing. Everything was coming in flashes of black and green and white now.
Were they up inside the storm-thing? Then something was all over him and he
screamed, reminded again of the time Lilith’s
ruhin
brood had swarmed about him in a cloud of nightjars, picking
at him. He couldn’t defend himself this time. His arms were useless. He couldn’t
even curl up. His back was broken. The flying things were in his eyes. He could
feel them burrowing and tearing in. He was blind. He felt blood being siphoned
from him through a dozen different wounds. He turned over and over. It was
impossible to know which end was up. There was no frame of reference for his
mind. He vomited. Tasted more blood. They were in his mouth. He bit down and
something burst between his broken teeth and flooded his mouth with a sticky,
foul tasting syrup, and tore his cheeks away with tiny razors to escape.

“Escape,”
Piishi was still saying. “
Escape. Flee!”

“No,”
the Rider thought.
“No. Fight. Somehow…”

“Only
one way to fight. Go!”

“What
way?”
The Rider asked weakly, feeling Piishi’s consciousness reassert,
pushing him away, wrestling control away from him. In his weakened state he
could hardly resist.

“No,
don’t go back there,”
the Rider pleaded.
“Only pain.”

“One
way…”

“No…what?
Sleep…”

One
word…

“Word?
No!”
The Rider thought. He knew what word. Piishi knew it too. Just as the
Rider had known Apache, known about the Gans, shared their memories without any
words passing between them. Faustus had warned him. Nothing to resonate with.
Nothing to contain the power. No focus…

“I
am the container. I am a bullet,”
Piishi roared in the Rider’s mind. “
A bullet in its face!”

“No…Piishi…”

Then his spirit was kicked out the
back of Piishi’s broken body. He was twisting in the
Yenne Velt
, disoriented, but his sense of mind quickly returning,
his will solidifying, steadying him. He could see, and the pain was gone. He
was falling back to earth, but he remembered Jacobi’s aerial maneuvers and
found he could slow his descent if he concentrated. He was high above the
basin. Down below…so many luminous, departed spirits. The dead…Apache or
others? And what about Piishi?

A great shape suddenly moved past
his spirit, jostling him in the wake of its passing, breaking his
concentration. A naked figure soared towards Piishi’s body, in the mouth of
Ossodagowah, on colossal black feathered wings. An angel…what angel?

Samael. The Angel of Death.

How could he see him? Was it because
he had been so close to sharing Piishi’s death?

Then he heard Piishi’s ragged voice
belt out in the storm, propelled by one last desperate breath—

“
Shamblaparn
!”

The intense white light started in
Piishi’s heart and swiftly consumed his body, as if he’d swallowed a shot glass
of nitroglycerine and burped. He burned up like an exploding star in the night
sky. Ossodagowah, the tearing things, they were all consumed. Even the angel’s
wings caught fire. The Rider fell, end over end, carried back on the supernal
winds, shooting like a skyrocket, Pa-Gotzin Kay receding quickly beneath his
feet.

In the next instant he was gasping,
the smell of candle wax and the closeness of the apparition booth, so compact
it was stifling. He leapt, needles running up and down his sleeping limbs as he
lashed out blindly at dark shapes that moved all around him. He heard breaking
glass and thought of the false face of Nyarlathotep.

Then he was blinking back light and
falling forward, tumbling to the floor of the vardo, ears ringing, brain
pounding with the shock of having been snapped back into his body.

Dick Belden was crouched over him.
He had pulled open the door at the commotion.

“Jesus, Joe,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t
think you’d ever come outta there.”

“Kabede and the old man…” he rasped.
His throat was dry from disuse. He was ravenous and parched.

“They left yesterday with the
corporal of the
rurales
. Hell, I been
worried. Them that stayed behind have been eyein’ me and this coach like we’re
somethin’ to eat. Tell me we can get the hell outta here.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here,”
the Rider said.

Two days later they met Kabede and
Faustus on the road north back to the border. The Rider had known where they
would meet and when. The little amulet Faustus had given him, the one that had
led him to Piishi told him its mate was coming, and he knew Piishi was dead.
Faustus must have recovered it.

He’d had a long hard think in
between Belden’s questions, and Faustus and Kabede could see it in his tired
expression when they met again, though Belden greeted them with small talk and
more questions.

“These camels are harder to drive
than blind mules,” Belden said.

“They’re not used to anyone but me,”
Faustus said. Then, to the Rider, who had been silent the whole time. “Are you
alright?”

“What about the Apache?”

“When I killed Misquamacus all but
Vittorio’s band disappeared. I imagine they went back to San Carlos. I don’t
even know if they’ll remember what happened up there. Vittorio bade us promise
not to tell the secret of the stronghold, and allowed us to leave.”

“Why would he do that?” Belden
wondered.

“He said we walked with the Gan,”
said Kabede.

“What about the Pawnee and the
skinwalkers?”

“Dead or fled,” said Kabede.

“Misquamacus was your brother,” he
said then, to Faustus.

Kabede whirled on Faustus, but only
stared.

“Yes,” said Faustus slowly. “We came
to this universe together, pursuing the Dark Man, Nyarlathotep, the herald of
the Great Old Ones. Misquamacus went first, and was injured in the crossing. I
believe that’s how the Dark Man corrupted him.”