The Heart of Dagon

Creative - Fiction
Written by Harbinger of Dawn
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
A fell wind blew over Caërn. It went pitch black. It was midday and had been clear for the whole day before. The villagers quaked in their boots for fear. Only a small group of people knew what was going on: The Chosen. They were the Seeing Cultists of the dark Lord Dagon and they knew the day had come. Note: the short story 'Heart of Dagon' does not use Lord Dagon in the same context as H. P. Lovecraft, nor is 'Lord Dagon' comparable to Lovecraft's 'Father Dagon' in any way, or is he intended to. I. A fell wind blew over Caërn. It went pitch black. It was midday and had been clear for the whole day before. The villagers quaked in their boots for fear. Only a small group of people knew what was going on: The Chosen. They were the Seeing Cultists of the dark Lord Dagon and they knew the day had come. As people around them screamed in fear, they laughed. They knew they were safe from Dagon’s wrath. Or so they thought. As the wind blew, it grew harder, more forceful. It increased in intensity until if it were a normal wind, no-one would have been able to stand. But this was a wind of Lord Dagon. It grew in strength, until the villagers felt their flesh being gently tugged at. But the wind didn’t stop. The people felt the searing pain of their skin and flesh being torn from their skeleton, so all that remained was a village-full of dead, crumpling skeletal frames. The only difference between this fate and the cultists’ was that the followers of Dagon had their flesh and souls ripped from their frames and were spirited to a higher cosmic level, far from the two realms of the Bible. When Dagon’s wind faded and the sky returned to normal, all that remained was a huge amount of skeletons. II. He is a journalist. His name is John Williams. He has just been assigned to Caërn. Nobody knows of the strange carnage that occurred yesterday. Little does he know of the rôle he is to play in the plot of the long-dead Lord Dagon… III. Williams parked his car, and walked towards the nearest building. He suddenly stopped, and swooned. As he looked around, he threw up. He saw dead skeletons, everywhere. He saw a nightmare. But what he saw then is nothing compared to the horrors he will witness in the catacombs… But then he examined the town for evidence. For hours he will do this. It is fruitless. There is nothing. He must look for something more than murder clues… IV. Williams, the journalist for a newspaper, was confounded. He knew not what to do. Then, he looked up. The sky turned red! Oh, how he suffered fear and pain! He looked around. There, to the north, where the mountains lay, there! A hoard of things was headed his way! He looked around, and spied a crowbar. He picked it up. Little did he know how little he will achieve with mêlée! They drew closer. Now they are at the fringes of the town… Now they reach him! Three score foul spawn of Lord Dagon beset him! He hacked at them with his pitiful weapon. He retreated into the house. What did he see? A pistol. A .44 Magnum. He picked it up. They followed him. The first was through the door. Bang! Bang! Twice he shot, and two fall. He emptied a clip into the mutants. He loaded one of the four clips on the table. With another bullet, the door is blocked, choked with corpses. Williams runs. He hid in an old bathroom. An old bathtub he spied. Against the door he pushed it. He gave a sigh of relief. Then, through the wall they burst! He felt fear! He yelled and cried curses, but they don’t kill. Corpses piled up. Again he reloaded. Six shots and the enemies are gone. He pocketed the gun. He picked up a piece of lead pipe and moved to the breached wall. He kicked the corpses aside, while losing the rest of his stomach’s contents. With a roar, the last two accosted him! He attacks them with the lead pipe. They are now dead. Oh, how he pants! How he feels fear. But as the last dead fell, it punctured a hole into a long-lost tunnel… V. Williams scoured the town. Look what he found: an axe, rifle, some ammunition, and some water. He drank not the water, a wise choice by him: for food and drink which hath been touched by Dagon’s fell wind be poison to mortals! He drank it not because it feels wrong, foul. He placed it on the table of the house he hid in. He pocketed the pistol and clip, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and placed the rifle clips in his other pocket. Hark! How he felt anxiety, fear! He wishes that moment never to end. But it must. He took the axe in both hands. Williams walked towards the house where the catacombs newly opened. He felt apprehension. He prepared to jump into the hole. He jumped into the hole to the catacombs… VI. “Who goes there?” This line was spoken by the Warder of the Blind Monks. He saw not Williams, but sensed his presence in the newly appeared catacombs. Williams was paralyzed with fear! “I said, who goes there?!” This time it was spoken in a gruff voice. The Monks like not to be disturbed in their catacombs. “Fine! Die, outsider!” With this, the monk lunged at Williams. The journalist was surprised! He swung with the axe. Whack! Once, twice thrice! The Monk laid dead, his bloodied corpse prone on the ground. The journalist continued through the tunnel. Every Monk in the tunnel attacked him as he progressed. He murdered them all, simply in his own defence. As he walked, he heard a humming noise. It got louder and louder. But then, look! The tunnels started to branch off. Williams decided to move towards the humming noise. But then, a monk sensed him! The monk grabbed Williams’ axe and swung. The journalist ducked and drew his rifle to his shoulder. Bang! Bang! He fired twice. The monk fell dead and slumped backwards. A great fountain of blood sprayed the tunnel, the corpse, and Williams. The journalist lost what little stomach acids he had recovered since the attack. He snatched the axe as fast as he can from the corpse and hurried on. Soon, the humming noise became a throbbing, pulsing sound like a heartbeat. But he was too afraid to notice this for now. But, he found a door, the first door in this maze of catacombs and tunnels. Suddenly, he was hit on the head from behind. Dazed, he whirled around, and there stood the oldest monk, head of the Blind Dagon Cult. He was hideous, deformed. His face was contorted, his limbs at impossible angles, his eyes filmy, more so than those of ordinary blind people. VII. For this is why the Blind Monks are blind: so they cannot look upon their Lord Dagon or his disfigured Champion. However, the Champion was not blind. He saw Williams and knew he must kill him and reap his soul for Dagon’s use. The Champion held a club, a wooden cudgel studded with iron studs. Williams swung his axe at the Champion of Dagon. The disfigured Champion blocked along the axe’s shaft, breaking the weapon. Williams pulled out his pistol and shot. But the Champion was barely harmed! Then, the journalist spied the door behind him. He opened it, and ran through. It was an antechamber, to what Williams knew not. He slammed the door shut. The journalist ran to hide behind a pillar base. Then, the door opened violently. In walked the Champion! But the Champion didn’t see nor sense Williams behind the pillar. The Champion walked slowly through the narrow room filled with archaic pillars in the Corinthian style. Williams waited until the Champion of Dagon walked abreast him, then, slam! The rifle butt cracked the skull of the hideous being. He roared, and charged the journalist. Williams ducked! The Champion slammed into the column, causing it to crumble. The journalist ran from the debris, but the slow-witted Champion was crushed by the masonry. Safe at last. Or so he believed. Williams looked at the wall opposite the pile of rubble. It was a giant relief carving of Lord Dagon, in the style of the Ancient Egyptians. Dagon was portrayed as an eight-foot tall man. He wore a full set of brutal-looking black-red armor. It covered his entire body. The pauldrons were big, almost circular plates with a protruding spike each. The greaves each sported a great knee spike. The chest-plate was forged to look like a human ribcage—yet devoid of guts. But most terrifying was the helmet/mask. It looked vaguely like a human face, yet bore a spine protruding from the fore-head, and the eye-holes horribly shaped. The chin was sharp and the nose most fierce-looking. The face itself leered out at the world, immovable, set in iron. Surrounding the relief of Dagon were many corpses of enemies of the Lord Dagon. Dagon held a huge sword which was a deep black and a crimson, blood-red color, even richer than the armor of Dagon. Even on the mural, the sword seemed to glow with an unearthly light. The mural was labeled in over 50 tongues: ‘The Lord Dagon with the Holy Dawnsfire’. As Williams snapped as many pictures as he could, the Champion of Dagon rose slowly from the debris. He roared. Oh, no, thought Williams. But, he had to have a picture of this. He snapped at least six before the Champion roared again and charged. Williams stepped out of the way, causing the Champion to crash into the mural, blowing a hole in the wall, exposing a hidden chamber. Out of this chamber fell a sword; the same sword as in the mural; it was from the same place as the painted and carved sword, because it was the sword on the mural: Dawnsfire. Williams picked it up, and took several pictures of it. He then drove it into the Champion’s chest. A great sphere of fire extended from where it made contact with the foul corrupted human. The Champion slumped to the ground, dead. With the death-cry of Dagon’s Champion, the throbbing heartbeat-like noise got at least three times louder. It came from the door at the other end of the antechamber. Williams loosened his rifle, and hefted Dawnsfire. Eerily, his heartbeat started matching tempo with the throbbing sound. Williams opened the door and walked in… VIII. The throbbing noise was incredibly loud. It emanated from a large stone box in the center of the room. This appeared to be a great tomb where the ancient Chosen were buried when they performed a great act in the service of Lord Dagon. The three walls (other than that where the exit lay) had many doors leading off, undoubtedly the catacombs of deceased Chosen. The journalist snapped many photos of the room. He wished to explore the catacombs, but who knew if more Chosen, Monks, or Champions would be rushing through the tunnels to kill him? He focused his attention to the box, perhaps a coffin? The heartbeat noise throbbed, louder and louder. It was definitely from the box. Williams then pulled the lid from it and gasped at the hideous sight. IX. There it was. Right before his eyes. The corpse of Lord Dagon, entombed for untold millennia under the ground in the ever-shifting catacombs. But what grabbed Williams’ attention was the chest. The chest-plate was removed from the body, and, where a heart should have been, there was a stone. It was blue, yellow, orange, red, and violet, in order from outside in. The stone pulsed with energy, and expanded and contracted like a real heart would. That was the source of the ever-present noise in the catacombs. The heart beat still, and it beat, louder, louder, until it heart the ears to listen. Williams couldn’t stand it. He reached in the coffin and ripped out the Heart of Dagon. It still beat. Louder. Williams dropped Dawnsfire, which fell in the coffin. He also dropped the heart. It also fell back in Dagon’s sarcophagus. Williams ran. He ran as fast as he could. That journalist ran as the bird flies, out of the catacombs, to his car. He switched on the engine and drove far away. But no matter where he went, he could not escape the beating Heart of Dagon. X. Since his escape from the catacombs, Williams was treated in an institution for several mental conditions, but nothing worked. He was sent to an asylum, where he eventually hanged himself with his garments, to escape the beatings of the heart. And to this day, his soul drifts forever through the unfathomable cosmos, tormented by a throbbing sound like a heartbeat. And thus, Lord Dagon has had his way: his body was inanimate, yet he drove a human to return his sword, Dawnsfire, and someday, he may return to rule his cult, and ascend to his rightful place in the cosmos.

No Comments.

< Prev		Next >

[ Back ]