The child spoke to me then in perfect Spanish, and his deep voice was that of a man.
“Rejoice, Father,” he said. “In thirteen days the Gates will open.”
I shoved him, meaning only to push him away from me, but he tumbled backward into the black pit. He did not scream as he fell, but plummeted silent as a stone into the void.
I ran, clutching the green stone in my fist as if it were the last drop of my sanity.
I raced howling into the dunes, and the Azothi did not care to stop me.
How I escaped death among the dunes a second time I do not know. Perhaps some charm of the Azothi’s unholy magic led me from that place. It could be that the green stone I clutched was enchanted with some protective spell, or curse. Perhaps my survival was simple dumb luck. Yet some time later I staggered, nearly dead, from the killing sands. My singed flesh was pealing, my tongue swollen from extreme thirst, and I had not slept for days on end. I remember only running through terrible heat, as if the entire world was burning about me. I ran with mindless, moronic glee, desperate to escape the Land of the Azothi.
I collapsed somewhere along the trail to the mission. Walking Ghost and his Quechan brothers found me there, though I do not remember it. They carried me back to the mission, where I awakened a day later, still half-starved, my face obscure behind a madman’s tangled beard. Yet my body had been washed and dressed in a clean robe. For a moment I thought the entire ordeal had been only a dream, and I had awakened from it into the comfort of my own sleeping cell in the Mission Puerto de Purísima Concepción.
Walking Ghost sat patiently at the side of my bed, and for a moment I saw the face of the hunchbacked Azothi. I started away from him, but he grabbed my arm and spoke gentle words.
“Be calm, Father,” he said. “You know me. Look at my face. You know me.”
Then I recognized him. I raised a hand and found that my fist was still clenched. I opened it painfully to see the green stone lying in my dirty palm. The strange glyphs carved into its substance pained my eyes.
“It is true,” I said.
“What is true, Father?” Walking Ghost asked. His war paint was gone. His face was young and handsome. He wore the simple shirt of a Quechan farmer with breaches of soft leather. I stared at him, but could not explain myself. So I listened, trembling, as Walking Ghost told me his story.
“The magic of the Christ is strong,” said the warrior, smiling. “Stronger than the magic of the Maricopa. Thanks to your medicine, Father, we took back our stolen children. We killed many Maricopa warriors, yet we lost no men of our own. My daughter is safe now with my wife, and my brother’s son with his true father. So I must keep my promise. I will walk the war path no more. I will lay down my knife and axe to plant the corn and squash. I will accept the Word of Christ, as will my children. We will live in peace here in the river valley.”
“No,” I said. “No, you must not.” Walking Ghost looked at me with disbelief. “The Gates will open soon! The Azothi are coming — they need sacrifices! Go and tell the Fathers! We must fight! We must kill them, keep their god behind the stars! Thirteen days! Only thirteen days!”
I must have been screaming, for the sound of my voice brought my brother priests running into the room. Waking Ghost regarded me with awe and horror. I strove to resist the hands of my brothers on my body — I remembered the grasping claws of the Azothi — yet I was too weak and famished. They overpowered me easily, and persuaded Walking Ghost to leave me in peace.
Then the Fathers tied me to the bed, so insistent was I that they listen to me. I told them all that I had seen, but they did not understand. I warned them that the Azothi would come for them soon. How many days had passed since the idiot-boy placed the green stone in my hand? I told them that the people of the river valley would be slaughtered, that everyone here would be sacrificed, yet they only shook their heads and told me I was “sick.” They prayed for me, but they would not heed my words.
I understand now why they considered me insane. How could anyone believe what I had seen? Father Espinoza could not verify my story. Even if he had not been cooked and devoured, it appeared that he had actually converted to the faith of the Azothi. Perhaps, he too, had only been a misguided madman. I screamed and wailed and insisted that my brothers listen to me.
“You are all going to die!” I bellowed.
They locked me in my cell. Eventually I ceased raving and fell asleep.
I dreamed of the ultimate chaos boiling at the heart of Eternity and woke up screaming the name of Azathoth.
So it began: First the news came that savages had attacked the Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer. The chapel was burned to the ground, the surrounding field set aflame, and all the priests slaughtered. The women and children of the nearby pueblo were taken as captives. This came as no surprise to those who knew the ways of the warring tribes.
When Father Ramirez whispered to me of these terrible events, I knew that the Azothi would neither adopt nor ransom their captives. They would torture them, spill their blood and bones into the great pit in the name of Azathoth. Only blood and pain could open the Gates of Eternal Night. I had seen it in my vision.
Father Ramirez indulged me by listening patiently. Yet he would not untie my restraints, and he did not believe me. He prayed once more for my lost sanity, asked Christ to bestow me his infinite mercy. This only enraged me more, and I spouted blasphemies.
“We are next!” I told him. “They will come for us!”
Two days after the slaughter of the Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer, the Azothi descended upon our own mission. They came in the night, setting fires and slitting throats. The black coyotes of the desert came with them, tearing out the throats of men and lapping at their blood. I lay helpless in my cell, weeping while the slaughter proceeded outside the adobe walls. I smelled burning wood, then burning flesh.
The cries of women and children drifted to my ears, and Father Ramirez came rushing into my cell. He locked the door after him but it splintered open. An Azothi rushed in with a flint-headed spear and impaled him through the belly. Ramirez fell across my bed and his blood stained my new robe.
I thought the Azothi spearman would kill me too, but instead the one-eyed hunchback entered my cell. He laughed upon seeing my helpless state, then raised his bloodstained knife and cut my bonds.
“Come,” he said through broken teeth. His companion grabbed my wrists and dragged me out of the cell into the courtyard. There I was forced to my knees among a crowd of wailing women and children. The Azothi strolled about the burning mission grounds like gruesome warlords, cherishing their victory.
They mutilated the bodies of my brother priests, hanging them from the walls with strands of their own entrails. Yet they refused to kill me, even when I begged for death. They tied rawhide thongs about my wrists, as if I were one of the women. They led me away from the burning mission as if I were no more important than any of their captives. The crying of the women echoed the despair in my own soul. I knew what awaited us at the heart of the unholy wasteland.
Once again I endured the hellish crossing of the dunes, this time with my wrists bound and in the company of thirty-six women and forty-eight children taken from the peaceful Quechan river valley. I would have prayed for death then, yet I no longer possessed the faith to do even that. I had seen the reality behind the myth of a Supreme Being, and it was not my god. It was the god of these monstrous freaks. They had stolen my faith, my sanity, and my mission.