The Tree of Azathoth, page 24
The words coming from her mouth were ones I wanted to hear but not the ones I believed Jessica would say. They were influenced by something else, a script written somewhere and forced into her mind by powers unknown. I had no evidence for this supposition, but something told me in the depths of my now extra-dimensional undifferentiated tissue body that it was the truth.
“I need to see what’s become of him,” I said, staring at her. “I can’t just stay here.”
“Booth doesn’t play house,” the Baroness said.
“Fuck off!” Jessica said, putting her hand to my face. There was a desperation to the touch, and I knew the person created in Jessica’s image was feeling like her life’s purpose was slipping away. “John, I don’t care about what you’ve become. I love you. You’re a hero of the City and it doesn’t matter if you’re human or otherwise. You’re John no matter what and you’ll always have me at your back.”
I stared at her, pained. It was everything I wanted to hear. It was everything I’d wanted to hear from her decades ago when I was undergoing my transformation into a monster. There was a reality where she had been able to accept me, and we’d built a life together in our dying world.
This wasn’t that reality.
I gently, then more forcibly, pushed her away.
“That’s, sadly, how I know you are not the Jessica I knew.”
Jessica slapped me and balled her right first as if she was going to punch me, tears in her eyes, before she walked away. She had been born from a wish, but it had not been my wish. It had been my son’s to give me a happily ever after. But he did not know me, he only knew the impression of me he’d gotten from our short time together.
“Poor John,” the Baroness said. “You never love the people who can accept you for what you are and crave the love of those who would hate you as much as you hate yourself.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I said, remembering the only other woman I’d truly loved—and the awful evil things she did for survival or her own benefit. I shook my head and turned away from the stranger beside me. Then I saw Jackie stare at me, an expression of anger on her face. Jessica was her friend and I’d broken her heart.
“I’m sorry Jackie, I didn’t mean—”
“Shut up, Dad,” Jackie said. “Please. Just go find Gabriel and when you do, tell him he’s an asshole.”
“I will,” I said, sucking in my breath and clutching my hand around the Silver Key absently. “I just need to figure out how to use this thing.”
“Ahem,” Blackman said.
“Yeah,” Penny said, pointing behind me.
I turned around and saw a door standing in the middle of the room where it hadn’t been before. It was closed, and had a plain brass knob. I took a second to look around it and saw that it had seemingly appeared from nowhere.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“No one said the Silver Key had to be hard to use,” Blackman replied. “Previous users just had to go to sleep. That’s not really necessary when you’re already in the Dreamlands.”
Why did I feel like I was a rat running through a maze? Oh, right, because it was obvious this was someone’s scripted drama. I just had no idea whose it was. If it was my son, was it a gift or an elaborate form of revenge? Could I even step outside the role set before me? At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was reality or fiction anymore.
“Then I guess it’s time for me to depart,” I said, looking at Jackie. “Please, talk to Jessica. Don’t let her do anything rash.”
“She was dreamed stronger than that,” Jackie said, but turned around to walk away.
“I may not be coming back,” I started to say.
“Booth…Dad,” Jackie changed her tone. “If there’s one thing that you’re good at, it’s surviving. If you die out there, I’m sure you’ll be back.”
I didn’t dare correct her. Instead, I just watched her leave and contemplated the two remaining people beside me. I also wondered how long it would take for more people to rush in. Depending on the size of the massacre outside, we’d have at least some time before having to explain ourselves.
“You really don’t remember us, do you?” Penny asked.
“I’m sorry, no,” I said.
Penny shrugged. “It’s fine, I’m no one important. Just someone you saved.”
“I hope you made a good life from it,” I replied.
“Oh fuck no,” Penny said, smirking. “I’m reprehensible.”
I smiled. “And you, Baroness?”
“I’ll tell you next time we see each other,” the Baroness said. “I hope you find what you’re looking for on the other side of the universe.”
I almost remembered her.
Then didn’t.
“Yes,” I replied, turning around, and walking through the doorway. The key hummed with a music I didn’t understand, and I found myself no longer where I once was. The sensation of moving from the Near Dreamlands to the Deep Dreamlands was a bit like throwing oneself into the air before being rocketed at speeds faster than the human—or Kastro’vaal—mind could collate.
There was no air where I went but that didn’t matter because I had no body, I had to will that into existence again. There was no up, no down, or even time and space. All of that had to be imagined and I soon found myself inside a pocket of reality formed around me. I pushed it like a soap bubble against the outside until I could have a frame of comprehension. The interior of the bubble was opaque, steamed over with a weird fog that I suspected was my mind just trying to protect me from what was on the other side. It reminded me of a damp windshield of a car on a cold day with the heat turned too high.
Blackman was at my feet. “Oh, that’s clever. Really taking advantage of the fact this is a land of metaphors and ideas here. Most people go mad and get torn to shreds by a stray thought. You made a nice little anchor point. Top marks. Your son did the same thing when he first arrived here.”
I stared down at the cat, wondering how the hell he’d gotten here. “You’re not just a cat, are you?”
Blackman looked up. “No more than you’re a human or Kastro’vaal, or shoggoth for that matter. However, I will be wearing this form for a bit longer.”
“Nyarlathotep?” I asked, guessing.
Blackman snorted. “He does have other things to do, you know.”
I stared. “You are a god, though. Of sorts.”
“I have been worshipped by many,” Blackman said, his smile unsettling. “I’ll give you a clue, you know my name. I am not of the Other Gods, and I am not of those fools who rest on Kadath either. I am neither Kithnid nor Bast nor Thoth nor Nodens. I was once a man but made the journey to the foot of Yog-Sothoth and was transformed into something immortal. Knowledge and art are my gifts but those who learn from me quickly learn to regret it. Who am I?”
“I have not the slightest fucking clue,” I replied.
Blackman frowned. “Riddle talk always seems so much more entertaining in books.”
“That’s because the author knows the answer beforehand,” I replied. “I will note you are awfully chatty for a god.”
“So are you,” Blackman said. “Maybe because it’s we’re both insane.”
“I’m not insane,” I said.
“What would you call a man who talks to termites and chooses to live among them?” Blackman asked. “It’s almost as ridiculous as a cat choosing to live among humans but at least humans are domesticated livestock.”
I took a deep breath. “I need to see where we are.”
“No, you really don’t,” Blackman said.
I ignored him and wiped away the mist from the bubble’s interior to see what lay beyond.
Holy shit.
Chapter Twenty-Six
* * *
“What… the fuck… is that?” I said, in perhaps not my greatest moment of elocution.
What I saw beyond the bubble of reality I’d conjured was mercifully distorted, but I could still make out details—details that stripped away what little anchor I had to the universe making sense. The fact I was no longer human—that I was merely pure consciousness here—was something that allowed me to perceive more than whatever should have been seen by mortal minds.
If I still qualified.
The sight was of, for lack of a better terms, a massive growth of something that defied description as either flora or fauna. It had a vague trunk, roots, and branches that spread out from its base throughout surroundings that could best be described as leaves of universes. Yes, universes, for the thing’s size was what stunned me.
The thing stretched through the whole of the Dreamlands, physical reality, and several other layers that humans were not aware of. It was forever growing and expanding through other realities, too, conjuring and creating variant universes with each possibility. I shouldn’t have been able to take in what I was witnessing but, somehow, I understood.
Someone wanted me to understand.
It was a cancerous growth in the fabric of raw elemental chaos, uncountable possibilities existing as everything all at once before the festering wound infected them. This infection locked them into a single tortured form and created the horrific state of order that allowed existence as I knew it to burst forth from infinity.
The Great Old Ones surrounded this creature, this injury, this ultimate thing. The giant things were like termites burrowed into its side, absorbing its energy, and soothing the terrible madness that radiated out of the painful, horrid existence of it all. I could see that if it ever lashed out or thrashed, then whole swaths of an endless multitude of realities would vanish. Not even Great Cthulhu or Shub-Niggurath were anything other than vermin to it. It was far as above them as they were above me.
“The Tree of Life, Yggdrasill, or any number of other names,” Blackman said. “You perceive it through metaphor as I’m letting you see through my eyes. Others who have looked upon it have perceived it in other ways: a dark tower, a great wheel, and a big bang. It is the thing that holds up all that is, gnawing endlessly on infinity and vomiting forth realities.”
“Azathoth,” I said, finally understanding.
“Among other names,” Blackman said. “It is the terrible sum of the mistake that is everything. Without it suffering, nothing would exist or perhaps everything would. It is from here that the secret of creation was stolen. The fire from the gods so to speak. It is the avatar of this thing, the Tree of Azathoth, that set you on this path. Behold the Father and Mother of the Other Gods. A god that does not care for anything but the terrible music that keeps it asleep, so revel in absolute freedom for no one judges you but yourself.”
I couldn’t respond, couldn’t move, and just sat down in the middle of my bubble for what could have been moments or could have been years. Blackman just stood there, staring at me, until I was able to speak.
“Well, that’s messed up,” I said, finally collating the sum of my mind’s contents.
“Yeah, I agree,” Blackman said. “Your son put half of his soul in my conjuration. It allows me to communicate with beings lesser than myself. It also gives me my wicked sense of humor. I suspect that aspect of my summoner was hereditary.”
“Does the soul even exist?” I asked, not able to follow Blackman’s ramblings.
“Depends on how you define it,” Blackman said. “We’re all just the products of a giant tumor’s dreams after all.”
Well that certainly put things in perspective so I rubbed the cat’s ears.
“Please don’t,” Blackman said. “I only like it when Jackie does it.”
“Right,” I pulled my hand back. “So this is the sum of the universe’s truths.” I realized that this is what must have driven my son mad.
“There is no such thing,” Blackman said. “Truth is infinite and nonexistent.”
“If all things are possible then all things are real, as well as none of it,” I said. “If there are an infinite amount of realities, all choices are arbitrary.”
“Except of course to you,” Blackman said. “The Mystics of Ped-La, Tibetan Buddhists, and Shepherds of Hali know that whenever you talk to a god, you are talking as much to yourself as the reverse.”
“Is my son on that thing?” I asked.
“We’re all on that thing,” Blackman said.
I sighed, annoyed with the cat. “Will you ever give a straight answer?”
“No,” Blackman said. “What makes you think I’m on your side in all this?”
I blinked. He had a point. “Alright then, I guess I need to look for him.”
“It could take you a million lifetimes, each lasting a million years, and you would still be surrounded by a sea of ever-growing places to look,” Blackman said. “Unfortunately, I know you’d do it so I’m just going to tell you to use the key.”
I’d forgotten about its existence.
“Will it help here?”
“Everything you could think of is here, Booth,” Blackman said. “Many a sorcerer has ventured here in hopes of becoming a god. They usually find themselves eaten by a stray thought, but woe is the ones who get exactly what they want.”
A part of me wanted to know where Yog-Sothoth fit into all of this—and Nyarlathotep—but I suspected the answers would be my final end. I had already crossed the line of what man was not meant to know and run screaming past it. “So, just close my eyes and wish for it?”
“And don’t imagine a monster eating you while you have your eyes closed,” Blackman said. “Despite how hilarious that would be.”
“You are an evil little cat,” I responded.
“Thank you,” Blackman said. “I am as your son envisioned me.”
Blackman’s constant taunts, allusions, and hints were becoming infuriating. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure it out. The pieces simply would not fit together into a coherent picture. Perhaps that was because I’d been raked over the proverbial coals by my wife, faced the end of my world, experienced Jessica’s pseudo-resurrection, and discovered that my son had become some sort of deity at a terrible price. Maybe, under those circumstances, I might cut myself a little slack that my mind was unable to catch up.
“Catch up, John, or fall behind. Just remember that to fall behind is to die, regardless of whether your family thinks you’re immortal,” Blackman said.
“Fine.” I closed my eyes and thought of Gabriel.
I did my best to keep my thoughts clear and hoped that a stray thought didn’t send me to Cthulhu’s feet or into bubbling lava. Indeed, as I thought that, I fully expected to wake up in the middle of bubbling lava with Cthulhu but instead found myself somewhere decidedly different.
It was a house.
Specifically, an all-too-human study inside a house. The walls were covered in books, mostly the same sort of pulps I’d found in his temple but a few occult resources, and there was a roaring fireplace. The place had the warm scent of cinnamon to it and there were big stuffed leather chairs. A staircase led up to a second floor and there were multiple doors present but, strangely, no windows. The style of the place told me it was a Pre-Rising house, perhaps around the 1920s or even older. There was a vague noise in the background that I couldn’t quite place but sounded like…typing?
There was a dining table to the side of the study and on it was a model city of impeccable design. It was a reproduction of the Dreaming City and had moving parts spread through it. I could even see Angelwood’s hills on the outskirts. There was something sinister about it, like it seemed to change whenever I looked away, growing slightly larger or moving around its pieces. A stuffed doll resembling Jackie seemed to watch me. Weirdly, I almost found the juxtaposition worse than Azathoth outside, as if the familiarity was worse than the surreal.
Blackman stretched on the ground. “Well, this is nicer than I expected.”
“I’m going to regret asking, but where the hell are we now?” I inquired.
“The Empty House,” Blackman said. “An archetypal representation of the concept of home that exists as a bulwark against the sanity-blasting horrors outside. It is an infinite angled location formed from the unconscious longing for a place that one can be safe and thus empowered by all species’ idea of it.”
“Really?” I asked.
“No,” Blackman said. “This is just Gabriel’s workshop.”
I debated taking off my shoe and throwing it at Blackman. “Do you take anything seriously?”
“Everything of importance,” Blackman replied. “You must realize by now that the only reason you’re here is the Dreaming King wants you to be. I’ve been assigned the role of Iago or Montressor to guide you along the path to him.”
“Iago and Montressor both killed the person they led around,” I replied.
“Yes,” Blackman said. “But Virgil was too obvious an allusion.”
“Does my son even want to see me?” I asked.
“Don’t be silly,” Blackman said. “If he didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. I will warn you, though, that you are in the heart of Carcosa now. In the kingdom of Hali, on the Plateau of Leng.”
“In the Eye of Azathoth,” I said. “We are in the King in Yellow’s court. It’s not safe here.”
“It’s not safe anywhere,” Blackman said.
There was a ding noise as if someone had reached the end of a line on a typewriter. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Blackman asked. “Tell me, what do you hope to find?”
I paused. “Redemption.”
“There is no redemption in Hell, Booth,” Blackman said.
“All the devils have left and they are here,” I said. “My son and I always shared a love of reading. That’s why there are so many damned literary allusions.”
“Carcosa is where all art is born,” Blackman said. “It is why there is nothing new under the son.”
“I want to free my son,” I replied. “I want to take him from this place and bring him back to his people. To sever his relationship with the evil gods he’s sold himself to and let him live a normal life. Maybe with someone or someones he loves.”
