magic Professor Schnackenburg's mistake Chapter Ten

[Hialmar]

The beginning of this story may be found HERE

Chapter Nine of this story may be found HERE

 

Professor Schnackenburg's mistake

Chapter Ten

Night! Roaring blackness, reminding humankind of the vastness of interstellar space, and the insignificance of any man or woman in the grand design. Night! Tiny spots of stellar light, veiled by thunderous clouds driven before insanely yelping gales of increasing wind. There was a storm coming, no doubt about that. 

Watching from the balcony of the Archaeology Department's exterior, and clutching the heavy tome which was the rumoured and dread Necronomicon, Professor Schnackenburg blamed himself. Earlier, the streets surrounding Campus had fallen prey to looting, when everyday normalcy had broken down under the onslaught of the Old Gods' whims, but, now, nightwanderers, far and few between, either ran away from the central parts of the city, or huddled against walls or behind dustbins with eyes wide by fear and incomprehension. Nightmarish panic had the city in its paralysing death-cold grip, and only the disciplined mind of a trained occultist like Schnackenburg was able to withstand the breakdown of all laws of nature, as he knew it. The nocturnal sky over the city, particularly the part of the sky in the direction of the harbour and the beach, flickered in patterns defying the human mind, forming a purple-black brocade of unspeakable spirals and cracks in space itself, flashing by black light and impossible colours, and inverting themselves into dimensions uncomprehended by any sane mind. Schnackenburg felt, like he was slowly going mad under the pressure of the night's development.

Roaring against the night-sky, the muscular titan, which was Kortoth-Gnaah, war-god of Anghra-Lemur and one of the Old Gods, could be seen as an outline in the east, towering over cranes and buildings, and the being, which he defied with his battle-cry, was The Old Serpent. There were cracks in existence itself, and unholy denizens of all sorts seeped through the cracks, seen or unseen. There was a hint of scales and fangs, but also mandibles, pseudopods defying human ability to designate or conceptualise. The combatants flickered out and in of existence, moved through spaces unheard of, and their mere movements defied any mortal conception of direction. Increasingly, there was even something wrong with angles of things, as was the four corners of a cube no longer supposed to add up to the sum of 360°. 

And then there was peace. Any hints of serpentine malice had disappeared. The war-god had triumped over his aeonic foe, and a sound was growing in force, first only as a soft whisper. Louder it became. Louder and louder. Black rain whipped Schnackenburg in his face, as the comprehension slowly dawned. The Sea Goddess! Held captive by The Old Serpent, but now liberated and released. There was truth -- aye, bitter and alarming truth -- in the old adage written in the Book of Eibon and the Necronomicon, and itself a quote from the graven image of Ngranek:

"Unseeing eyes and hearts unable to comprehend the limitations of Man do they have -- the Old Gods -- and only the unwise conjure the dance of Powers, that will crush surrounding mortals unknowingly and without intention. Do not evoke the Old Gods, and do not evoke That, which Thou hast no ability to send back."

The sound was growing louder. Schnackenburg opened the Necronomicon, inhaled, and prepared himself for the incantation, that would make amends for his foolish mistake.

The next second the tsunami hit him and the entire city.