Brain,” she sang absently. She found a pair of wooden desks and chairs, one with a desk lamp with an old-style green glass shade. Switched on, it contributed little to the watery dimness. “We only need to find one book,” she said, “and I’m going to need your help. It’s the one that contains the key to finding the other things we need.”
I tried not to puff up at her asking me for help. God, get a grip. Show some pride. “Which book?”
“It’s in Latin, it was written by a Carthaginian monk in about 1357. You’d translate the title as Celestial Observations.”
“That doesn’t sound like—”
“I know. But he was offered a covenant.”
“Like you.” I ignored the fresh drumbeat of words in my head at the mention of it, as if it had been a lightswitch that someone was fiddling with, a dog drooling for a treat. Something there. If only she could see it. If only I could see it. I held down my worry and tried to listen.
“Yes. And he did the equivalent of wishing for more wishes: He bargained for the ability to do what Drozanoth does. And They allowed it.”
“Why? That seems like a stupid move. Like a... a country with nukes giving one to a country without any. You could cause a war, disaster. Kill millions of people.”
“Of course. But you can’t tell people what to want. You can tell them it’s stupid and horrible and destructive and self-serving, but you can’t tell them not to want it.”
“I would.”
“I know, but you can’t expect them to stop wanting it just because you did.” She sighed. “They love to make covenants and then wait to see them go sour, knowing that human nature guarantees it. Like mine. They like to see what evil comes of trying to do good. It’s the way They play, amuse Themselves, over the millennia.”
“Did it? Did he fuck himself up?”
“Sure did. Died young. He wasn’t dealing with Drozanoth back then anyway, but Nyarlathotep—someone with whom you do not want to fuck, and humans rarely do, fortunately.”
“Why?”
“He’s bad shit. He’s still asleep after his last banishing, thank God, but he’s really nasty stuff—he likes appearing in human form, which is a problem on its own, of course, but he also likes to have human servants, companions, apprentices, cults. For all intents and purposes he’s the Lucifer of their pantheon. Drozanoth idolizes him, rather than its own master Azag-Thoth, who’s technically more powerful. Nasty politicking there, if the old stories are true.”
“Is there anyone more powerful than Nyar... ghh?”
“Just Azag-Thoth. And one more, with no name, the most powerful of all, there’s hardly anything written about that one. The oldest, most powerful of all, old, old, old. It’s just a thing with a yellow, silk mask over its face that doesn’t touch its features, because not even They can look at it. Don’t let’s talk about it.”
“Let’s not. Tell me about the monk who wrote this book we’re looking for.”
“He asked, he received. He saw so many things, some of which he didn’t even understand. At the end of his life he frantically wrote everything down, encrypted it, and sneaked it into the appendices of a completely unrelated book. There’s only one copy. And it’s here somewhere.”
“What does it look like?”
“No one knows. I only know about it because it was written about in other books. The way books always call out to each other, even if the book doesn’t exist yet, or any more.”
“Well, that can’t be true,” I said, irritated. “One person knows—Akhmetov, because he got the book and put it down here.”
“He probably doesn’t know he has it. In times of normality, the book can’t be known as what it is. But if you find it when the barriers are too thin, when there’s enough magic in the world, it’ll fight you—and it’ll call for help. It’ll call to Them. That thins the walls between our worlds even more, as more of them wake up in response to the call and press against them. If you find it, yell for me. Don’t touch it. Actually, don’t touch any of them. Like the old man said.”
“If you find it, will you be able to touch it?”
“Should do. There’s enough for me to get a spell of subduing on it. I just need to get it back here into the light.”
She took out her Sharpie and drew two complicated magic circles on the backs of her hands, slightly different, unmatched. I felt woozy