Curse of the Ancients

Snow swirled around the runners as they sprinted toward the buildings in the distance, their boots crunching with each heavy step. Viktor and a half-dozen of his followers paused at the chain-link fence.

"One moment, my children!" Viktor shouted over the rising wind.

A dark, roiling shadow fell across them. Viktor gestured, and out of the snowscape came his star-spawn abomination, equal parts monstrosity from beyond space, ancient evil from the desert sands, and obscene tumor-thing from an eldritch cancer. Aloft on leathery wings, it encircled each of the tiny figures, pulling them into midair, over the fence, and toward the top-secret installation where Viktor's final rival waited.

Returned to the ground, Viktor felt the flicker of mutating reality as he briefly took on a monstrous lizard-shape, then resumed his human form.

Must be a side effect of Nyarlathotep's presence, he thought. Things are starting to change of their own accord. It feels like I'm donning a mask when my form changes like that. I suppose that means Nyarlathotep's manifestation is growing stronger.

The star-spawn swooped ahead, its crimson eyes bathing soldiers in hellfire. Its tendrils licked outward, tearing the rifle-bearing troops in half in the blink of an eye. Those who weren't burning or dismembered fled into the snowy wastes or fell insensate, unable to comprehend the tentacled horror before it.

Another flicker, and Viktor felt the foreign presence of another mask sliding across his face. He looked down to find white, tufted paws where his hands once were. Viktor blinked, and his gloved hands were back -- but with thumbs on the other side of each hand.

And Viktor shuddered as he entered the base of a radar tower. Another force tugged at his soul, a steady pull like sand falling through an hourglass. Viktor's followers stumbled exhausted into the building after him. Two collapsed, barely breathing.

"The enemy would consume us from within, my children," Viktor said. "Be strong in your faith, and follow me to eternity!"

That force I feel is too consumptive to be Omega alone -- Omega must have summoned Moloch. My followers can't survive long here, and I'll last only a little longer. If my star-spawn can't break the connection somehow, Omega wins.

A downward staircase led Viktor and his haggard cultists to a wide tunnel spiraling deeper into the earth. A wave of Viktor's hand, and the star-spawn reincorporated, its bulk nearly filling the passageway. The pull of Moloch strengthened near the end of the tunnel, and another of Viktor's followers collapsed. It feels like my soul is being sucked through a straw, Viktor thought.

The star-spawn rushed into the massive chamber at the end of the tunnel, Viktor in its wake. Behind barricades were more soldiers with rifles -- inconsequential, thought Viktor. At the edges of the chamber were podlike clusters of pipe and wire, slowly waving as if stirred by an occult breeze.

In the center of the chamber was an abomination of chrome and sinew. Dragon scales merged with high-tensile cables and armored steel. Turrets formed its joints, and each of its four limbs was equal part talon and tank-tread.

The soldiers began firing their rifles at the star-spawn, which ignored their petty bullets as it swooped toward the metal creature before it. The red searchlight eyes of the star-spawn turned soldiers afire as its tendrils snaked around Omega's abomination. But then the star-spawn croaked and screamed, some of its tentacles ripped away in a jackhammer roar of pistons. The metal abomination whirled in place, then extruded a tank cannon that spat a sizzling, gray goo at the star-spawn.

Viktor pressed himself against a pylon at the chamber entrance, then extended his sorcerous senses, seeking a weak spot in the rival abomination. He could feel Moloch's dark presence like an anchor weighing everything down, and Nyarlathotep's power like a skittering swarm of insects, alighting briefly on friend and foe alike.

Viktor immediately sensed three things, all of them bad.

He saw Omega's power like a crystal lattice surrounding the chamber. I'm inside Omega, he thought. Not exactly a position of strength when Omega's trying to consume everything.

And like a torch in the miasmic darkness of Moloch's presence was a soul Viktor recognized as Agnar. But Agnar was immobilized in a mass of animate cables and pipes, held fast to the wall.

Amid the whirling energy that gave motive force to Omega's abomination was a sinister overmind: Gilman. I thought Agnar killed him, but he lives on as part of Omega's abomination.

A massive overhead blow from the Gilman-abomination knocked the star-spawn out of the air and made the whole chamber shiver. Then Gilman pounced, extruding spikes and sawblades that cut deep into what passed for the star-spawn's flesh.

The star-spawn partially discorporated, then reformed above Gilman, raining down streams of fire and venomous jabs from its stingers. Gilman responded with another volley from its cannon, landing a splat of gray on the star-spawn.

The star-spawn screamed an unholy, keening wail, rendering soldier and cultist alike insensate. It sloughed off a boiling mass of useless hide and lurched toward Gilman, growing new tentacles for another assault.

Shrieking and croaking, the star-spawn threw most of its tentacles at Gilman's forelimbs, tearing one from its mooring and finding purchase under the armor plates. Eldritch poisons coursed through the veins and conduits of the Gilman abomination's form. But a wide, arcing buzzsaw from Gilman cut though the star-spawn's tentacles, freeing Gilman. The star-spawn screamed again, fell to the chamber floor, and lay there quiescent for a moment before lurching into the air, spewing ichor and star-stuff in its wake.

New armor plates fell into place as the hobbled Gilman abomination paused. Then it began to stalk the star-spawn, firing its cannon, then rushing toward the star-spawn whenever it paused.

The Gilman-thing will slay my star-spawn the next time they clash, Viktor thought. And it'll kill me before I can use my sorcery. I need one more good trick, and I need it now.

Viktor concentrated on the flickering sensation that was Nyarlathotep. I have to time this exactly right. Like a flash of lightning, Viktor felt a form change wash over him, blunted by Moloch's presence. But the thinnest connection might be enough. It'll have to be.

Viktor held an image of Agnar in his mind, visualizing every strand of blond hair and mimicking his posture from their Amazon jungle meeting. I am Agnar of the Gjallerhorn. I am the harbinger of the end of the world. Concentrate. Concentrate! Nyarlathotep's flickering change-energy receded like the tide, but Viktor could feel an invisible mask surrounding him.

"Omega, you don't get to end the world! Only I do!" cried Viktor/Agnar from the chamber entrance.

Pipes, cables, and wires detached from the walls and hissed through the air, entangling Viktor/Agnar in a whirling spiderweb and freeing up the real Agnar at the same time. He wrestled against the constriction, but he could feel Omega tightening around him.

Almost forgotten by endbringer and god alike, Gilman pounced on the star-spawn, ripping tendrils from the polyped mass of its body. The star-spawn delivered one last soul-shattering scream, then struggled feebly against the metal monstrosity.

Wrenching his neck to one side, Viktor could dimly make out another human on the periphery of the chamber. A hoarse cry escaped Viktor's lips: "Agnar, sound the horn!"

Agnar rose to one knee, wavered, then pulled the Gjallerhorn from his waist. "But if I do --"

"The world will end if you don't!" Then a steel cable wrapped around Viktor's windpipe, silencing him.

The Gilman abomination arose from the muck of the star-spawn carcass and began limping toward Agnar. Omega sent a snake-swarm of pipes and cables rushing from the walls.

Closing his eyes, Agnar raised the horn to his lips and blew.

A sonorous, clarion tone resounded through the chamber, echoing upward. The tone quavered as it spread across Vardo Island, then across the seas. All could hear the Gjallerhorn, near or far, awake or asleep, living or dead.

The spiderweb of pipes and cables released the captive Viktor, then hung in the air, unmoving. The Gilman abomination stopped with a clatter, then began to belch smoke, blood, and oil as it collapsed in on itself. The supernatural darkness of Moloch faded like shadows before the dawn.

And below a faraway mountain, a great stone disc cracked, shattered, then crumbled into dust.

"What happens now, Viktor?" Agnar shook the endbringer's shoulders.

"You were the final ingredient. The world ends now, with Nyarlathotep revealing the contradictions and lies that lie beneath the surface of reality." Viktor sat up.

"You planned this all along, didn't you? You set it up so I had to blow the horn." Agnar gripped Viktor's shoulders tighter.

"No, I merely took advantage of the circumstances that presented themselves. I thought I was going to end the world without your help. If you're an endbringer, the Gjallerhorn is the most frightening thing in the world, because we can't account for it in our plans."

Agnar loosened his grip and threw his head back with a mirthless laugh. "Maybe I shouldn't believe you, but I do. How'd you trick Omega into thinking I'd gotten free?"

"For a moment, I actually became you, so it wasn't a trick from Omega's point of view. But I didn't have the Gjallerhorn, so the original Agnar was still crucial."

Agnar paused, then looked around the ruined chamber. "So what happens now?"

"Reality is being revealed as the grandest lie of all, so it'll fall apart over the next few minutes. Ever tried to lift a completed jigsaw puzzle? That's what it'll be like. The edges of reality will crumble away, then more and more will fall apart until there's nothing left," Viktor stood up and began to make sorcerous gestures.

Agnar stood next to him. "What about you? I know enough about endbringers to know that most believe that if you end the world, you get to create the next one."

"Well, there's an element of truth to that, but it's not that simple." Viktor turned toward Agnar. "After all, you lived in this world for centuries. Can you imagine anyone creating this existence on purpose?"

"Good point."

"I am making a door into the next world, however. You could walk through it too -- if you like."

Agnar shook his head. "No, I think I'm supposed to stay here until the bitter end." Another short, sharp laugh. "Besides, you're just going to destroy the next world, too, right? You don't want me there, because I'd stop you cold."

Now Viktor laughed, long and hard. A few more gestures, and a golden rectangle appeared before them. "Farewell, Agnar."

"You can't say farewell. In another minute, nobody's going to fare well or poorly. But goodbye, Viktor. I hope the next Agnar makes life hard for you endbringers."

"Goodbye then, Agnar. Enjoy the end of the world." With a step, Viktor vanished beyond the golden rectangle.

Agnar picked the Gjallerhorn off the floor. Cradling it in his hands, he smiled a broad grin.

"Well, Viktor shouldn't have it too easy in the next world," he said to himself, then hurled the horn through the rectangle and into the world beyond.

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