Nyarlathotep Dethroned

“We are the Undying Legion of Nyarlathotep! We are an unstoppable force, crushing all those who oppose his will. The Crawling Chaos has ascended. The Vile Abyss that once served as messenger to the Elder Gods has swallowed them up and made us immortal. And yet…” the inquisitor gestured to the heretic, broken and disfigured before him, “here you are.” His voice boomed and echoed off the crowded grand cathedral’s walls, “The last of a breed. We have purged all unbelievers from the land but you by death or conversion. You think you can stand against the will of the Exalted Nyarlathotep? You have only sampled the pain and horror that we can inflict upon you.” He smirked, “You are the last heretic remaining. But you will not remain as you are. Not after this. What have you to say for yourself?”

The light of the full moon shot through the stained glass window, casting the heretic’s broken face in a kaleidoscopic glow. “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.”

“Nonsense and insanity,” the inquisitor scoffed and gave a signal. The three magicians hand in hand began their chant, an ancient song so cacophonous and confounding that it somehow sounded simultaneously subhuman and yet all too human. The tritones echoed in the dark cathedral once filled with row upon row of joyful parishioners worshiping the True Light, now filled with a mass of worshipers devoted to Nyarlathotep, each one blubbering gibberish, eyes darting all around, barely cognizant of anything, yet becoming more and more rowdy as the magicians’ song continued. In the midst of these haunters of the dark, somehow, though shattered bones peeked out of mangled flesh, the lone heretic emanated an otherworldly peace. It was against nature.

A dull rattle of swords mixed with the chant as the soldiers that stood on either side of the heretic and those corralling the worshipers began to quake in fearful joy of the imminent arrival of their dark master. Louder and louder the chanting grew, until a sound like an advancing tornado emerged from nowhere.

The assembly gasped as the roof was violently ripped from the cathedral and sucked up into the night. The magicians’ song grew more frantic and discordant as it meandered on recklessly. Without warning, and with deafening thunder, the star-lit sky was torn asunder. The remaining Abyss was filled with flashing lights and swirling colors unnameable, nonsense and confusion to any who looked upon them. The soldiers stood hypnotized and seizing. The magicians and the inquisitor veiled their eyes in the deep hoods of their robes. The worshipers were whipped into an unbridled hysteria, smiling like devils and frothing at the mouth as they danced to the horrible song. The bellowing of the void was so loud and thickly layered, composed of sounds of all sorts, some recognizable yet corrupted, like the sound of a bird, but deeply distorted; or an ocean wave that washes ashore, but somehow alien. These were mixed with indescribable horrors of sounds whose origins could not be placed, for they were born outside the realm of mankind and were never meant to be perceived by human ears.

The awful brew of terrifying vision and aural confusion mixed with the unmistakable scent of sulfur and then feces as the soldiers lost all control, their sanity breaking down at the overwhelming sensations. They were completely drawn in, their minds the necessary sacrifice to the overflowing void that was their god. They could no longer remember anything, could no longer think their own thoughts, control their own bodies. They were absolutely nothing but their master’s puppets. A foreign will utilized their bodies to hold their prisoner’s face towards the Chaos, the heretic’s eyes taking in the mystical trance-inducing display as the soldiers forced his eyes wide open.

Louder and more hallucinogenic the suspended abyss became, and louder and louder the chants of the levitating magicians grew as they were slowly drawn in by the vacuum of their worshipful master until, without warning, the infernal night rift was closed, the roof was drawn back onto it’s proper place, and all was deathly still and silent. The magicians gently floated down to their proper places around the altar, and the soldiers guarding the prisoner lay on the ground as dead men, disposed of by the unmerciful Swirling Chaos. The ancient daemon-god of Egypt was hidden once more. All was eerily quiet.

The inquisitor through the ordeal had closed his eyes as tightly as humanly possible. He had no desire to risk an accidental peak at even the reflection of Nyarlathotep in the sides of the burnished altar or on the polished floor tiles. He looked up at the prisoner. He gasped as his eyes beheld the man, broken and bleeding, standing before him with a face that remained serene as a lake on a windless day. He looked into the man’s eyes and recognized a fully sane and uncorrupted mind. The inquisitor flew into a fearful fury, knocking over whatever his hands could find, whether candlesticks or trays of incense. He shouted for fresh guards. They came in with expressions of fear on their faces. When they saw the prisoner, fear turned to abject terror.

The inquisitor was enraged and bewildered. Who was his prisoner? How potent was the magic that sustained him that he could resist the will of a god he himself dare not set eyes upon? The inquisitor spit on the heretic, his heart filled with a fear of the uncanny way of the broken man. A moment of silence was felt by all as the interrogator calmed himself enough to deliberate, glaring at his prisoner like a lion denied his prey. The attentive crowd watched in dumb wonder.

With much effort, the heretic inhaled and parted his lips to testify once more. But at a swift gesture from the inquisitor, he was run through repeatedly in the back by swords, his breath leaving him in a broken exhale. The worshipers roared to life, cheering and jeering. The prisoner had given up the ghost.

*******

A magician and a soldier stood side by side in secret. The heretic’s body had been burned back to the ashes from whence it came, and his bones had been fed to the unclean pigs. The magician had secreted away the book the man carried. And as the unlikely pair read the words together, they believed. Two heretics remained.