Sorry about the time taken for a relatively short chapter, but the internet across Scotland chose this weekend to keel over and temporarily die. Here's wishing everyone a good Halloween.
Nyarlathotep was unsettled and angry in equal quantities.
Angry at himself; that mere humans had been able to banish him from their pathetic world, that he had permitted them to call upon the resources and knowledge to win a battle against him. Angry at them, for daring to face him, for daring to presume that they could ultimately succeed against the power he could bring to bear.
Unsettled by what had transpired in that house; with an old target resurfacing and not only proving himself not dead, but to be plotting against Nyarlathotep and presumably all the Outer Realms. An old target with too much knowledge about the Outer Gods.
How long had the man survived the cancers inflicted on him from afar? How long had he been scheming and uniting all those scattered survivors, who had not merely banished, but killed, one of the most powerful shoggoths available to the Crawling Chaos. To what extent had this rot set in amongst humanity?
The humans had not won the eternal war, but they had won one battle too many.
Nyarlathotep circled and fretted, his true form drifting amongst the infinite chaos of the Outer Realm. The closest a human could come to beholding his form would have been as a great serpent, lithe and shimmering with obsidian scales and topped with a dark grinning skull. Eldritch green fire flickered through the gaps between scales and the sockets in the skull. His true length could encircle galaxies, his eye centres were black holes, his malevolence was unending.
He was concerned by the battle, for it set the natural order on its head. What right had humans to challenge the gods? What right had they to succeed?
This had to ended now, decided the Crawling Chaos. All the long-nurtured development of humanity by the Outer Realms could be cast aside; there was too much risk in allowing humans to develop with Lovecraft's order amongst them. Especially if a mere child could participate in his destruction.
And luckily, Ulthar would provide the means for that ending.
Nyarlathotep's will alighted upon the satchel, a tiny material thing encased in a pocket of unreality in the Outer Realms.
"Ulthar," hissed Nyarlathotep, "I require the unbinding of the Great Old Ones."
+You'll understand, I'm sure, if I express a certain lack of desire to inflict those abominations upon the world,+ came the voice of the cat.
Nyarlathotep ignored it, reaching down towards the satchel and folding it within his nightmarish form. The Outer God then focused his will into his surroundings, making them crackle with power. Black marble arose around him, and the rising concentration of energy acted as a clarion call throughout the Outer Realms.
And they answered.
One did not disobey the call of an Outer God, not even Great Old One. In time and ways unmeasurable or inconcievable, their forms gathered and clustered on the Court. Cthulhu's avatar was the first, and thousands followed in his wake.
+You have shed your human form, my lord,+ said Cthulhu. Eyes as black as the void between galaxies regarded the form of Nyarlathotep with a mild curiosity. +Did you tire of it?+
"Be silent unless you are addressed, slave," snarled Nyarathotep, his usual affability evaporated. "Call the rest of your brethren to attention."
Cthulhu, without comment, turned the others and loosed one trilling note from his hidden mouth that rooted them in place.
Nyarlathotep, composing himself, began.
"At the Court called by Zoth-Ommog, the capacity of humans to challenge us was dismissed by myself. I was wrong. They have..." He hissed to quell the sudden burst of questions. "I shall have silence. When I pursued the child that so afflicted Zoth-Ommog, I encountered the most recent of the far-seers. We thought him dead. We were mistaken. And he has been gathering together those who have also encountered us and our servants. Gathering them into an order. An army."
+what is the problem? they will not be listened to...+ began Hastur.
The Crawling Chaos turned and struck. A shriek of agony erupted from a thousand mouths, and Hastur scrabbled across the marble and grovelled as best he could.
"Listen, you cur, and do not interrupt me," raged Nyarlathotep, the eyes of emerald flame flaring and spitting, the centres seeming to shriek with emptiness. "There are dozens, if not hundreds, in this new order. Hundreds who know about us, a number which can only increase! Hundreds who can educate their fellow man about us, and they shall listen! And they will strike back."
He stopped and simmered, leaving the circle of Great Old Ones frozen in fear.
"They shall strike back, and they have already done so. The far-seer used sand from Kadath to banish me for a month. I cannot intervene on Earth for thirty of their days, by which time they could have alerted the rest of humanity. The rot is too deep to be cut away. Humanity must be purged from its world before the month is out, and we can start anew with whatever survivors poke their heads out from the caves in cratered mountains."
Cthulhu coughed, or the Outer Realms equivalent at least.
+How, my lord? We cannot intervene directly, and you by your own admission cannot act. And such a matter would be beneath the notice of Azathoth or Yog-Sothoth.+
"Well," said Nyarlathotep, with an insidious smile, "It so happens I have the means to release you from your bindings."
The Great Old Ones surged forward with interest., and Nyarlathotep produced the satchel, which he emptied out onto the plaza. Ulthar weakly stirred as he fixed the assembled company with a look of absolute loathing.
"Behold the greatest of the Elder Gods," announced Nyarlathotep, circling the prone cat. "The traitor to the Outer Realms, who chose to guard human interests against our intentions. Behold his form, a sentimental reminder of another Elder God, Bast, who I killed myself. Weak, corrupt, tainted by human morality. Pathetic and beneath our notice, but for one thing. He holds the bindings which keep you all imprisoned. Bindings which shall be broken, here and now."
He turned down to the cat. "Waste no time, Ulthar."
+Do your worst.+
The Crawling Chaos smiled. "Gladly." And the entirety of his will turned upon Ulthar, raking across his soul, stabbing into his essence, slicing into and exposing and shattering the core …
And Ulthar broke. He writhed in pain before the gods, and crackled with green fire. The air's texture changed slightly, and Ulthar lay still. The Great Old Ones began to notice a change, began to feel some great weight lifted off their backs. Those who could smiled, terrible ghoulish smiles.
"Go, all of you," commanded Nyarlathotep. "Act in my stead. Rise from the oceans and tombs and stars. Break like a tide upon the earth, and make humanity remember why it once feared the gods. Make them beg for a new dark age. Burn them all. Unleash your servants, unleash your fury, and shatter earth once and for all."
And as the Great Old Ones streamed out of the Outer Realms, Nyarlathotep waited alone on the great dark plaza and smiled down at Ulthar.
"Don't give me that look," he said. "Soon, we shall re-educate you on your proper place in the universe. No more shall your conscience force you to bend the knee to apes. You shall see," he chuckled, "Oh, you shall see. No more loose ends at all, ever."
His laughter echoed across the cosmos, a dead empty sound that spread and spread.