An Ancient Evil Waits Dreaming

Inspired by The Call of Cthulu by H.P. Lovecraft

Like ripples upon calm waters, reality warped and shifted as Doctor Strange stepped from one location and entered another.  His stomach performed acrobatic somersaults as his mind reoriented itself, finally calming with a deep inhalation of salty sea air. 

“I swear I’ll never get used to that,” he muttered to himself, combing his scarred fingers through the greying hair at his temples as he took in his surroundings.   

An old, decrepit warehouse sat precariously on thick wooden stilts above the water.  Portions of the building dipped beneath the surface where rotting wood had failed its purpose, making it appear as though it had begun to melt.  Windowless panes just below the half caved-in roof stared out at a picturesque, oceanfront view; empty sockets holding dark secrets within.  Despite the waning sunlight, a blanket of shadow inexplicably covered the crumbling structure exuding a dark sense of wrongness.  This was definitely where he was meant to be. 

Strange summoned a small scrap of paper from thin air, the catalyst to his little trip to the coast of Rhode Island, and reread the plea that had piqued his interest. 

Upon the waters darkness slumbers, ancient evil waits dreaming.  You are needed, Sorcerer Supreme. 

The coordinates below this cryptic phrase had led him here, to a naturally formed jetty hosting this rundown building.  The phrase itself had been curious enough, paraphrasing dark words once scribbled on ancient pages.  The classical Arabic, on the other hand, had convinced him it was no mistake; his unknown tipster had written a description uncomfortably similar to a phrase from the Darkhold (a dangerous tome of black magic) in an uncommon language closely associated with the book. 

“This isn’t ominous at all,” Strange said, sighing heavily and dismissing the note with the flick of his fingers.  Accented by a fanciful flourish, his crimson red Cloak materialized in his hand before settling comfortably on the royal blue shoulders of his sorcerer’s robes.   

“Shall we get this over with?”   

The Cloak bunched around his neck as though offering a noncommittal shrug before sending them gently floating toward the slightly elevated walkway outside the warehouse’s rusted double doors.  Strange’s confidence wavered with the deep creak that gave way as his feet alighted upon it.   This ‘dock’ was little more than a cobbled together collection of rotting wood posing as a structure suitable for human travel.  He hastily pushed open the door which released an ungodly screech as it scraped across the metal flooring beyond. 

“Well, whatever demon or monster is waiting for me certainly knows I’m here now,” he muttered.  With forced confidence, he pushed his way further into the dark, damp confines.  The warping of the air immediately surrounding him was the only indication of his protective energy shield’s arrival, summoned by faint mutterings under his breath.  What little sunlight let in by the partially ajar door did nothing to dispel the darkness within.  Waves lapped lazily somewhere in the gloom beyond his sight. 

“I think we could use a little light,” he said, hoping the false cheeriness of his own voice would calm his steadily growing unease.  With the proper incantation and finger gestures, a ball of incorporeal light materialized hovering just off his left shoulder. 

“He has come at last.” 

Strange yelped (a certainly undignified response that would not be included in future retellings of the incident), and leaped away from the stooped, cloaked figure not three feet in front of him.  Though the voice sounded human, he could see no face within the pitch-black confines of its hood.  Besides, he had personally witnessed too many entities that were good at imitating an innocent little human moments before revealing their true monstrous form.   

“Follow,” the stranger rasped, voice reminiscent of rusty nails scraping metal sheeting.  A gnarled hand, little more than pale, white skin tightly stretched over long, slender bones, beckoned him forward as the figure turned further into the dark.  Strange reluctantly followed at a safe distance, tracking the black cloak swishing at the edge of his floating, wan light.   

As they approached the far wall, the floor suddenly dropped away revealing an untied wooden dinghy gently rocking in the water as the waves lapped relaxingly against it. 

“In.”   

The shrouded figure’s command sent chills down Strange’s spine, though he still needed answers before he blindly trusted a mysterious figure waiting in a dark, abandoned warehouse. 

“Was it you who sent me this message?” he asked, once more summoning the scrap of paper from thin air and proffering it forward. 

“Forces move beyond.  He who sleeps is now stirring.  Show haste or suffer.” 

“Wonderfully helpful,” Strange muttered before soldiering on.  He would get what he needed.  “Does someone have access to the Darkho-” 

Blurred movement was his only warning before the stooped figure was upon him.  Pale, white, skeletal fingers dug into his upper right arm while one knobby finger gently touched upon his lips. 

“Shhhhhhhhhh.  Dangerous, no?” 

It took Strange only a moment to realize his shield had done absolutely nothing to prevent this… thing from grabbing him.  Sizzling power emanating from the figure’s surprisingly strong grasp shot tingles through his arm.  Powerful indeed.  This was not a being to underestimate. 

“Got it,” he said, words uncomfortably muffled against the finger still pressing firmly against his mouth.  “In the boat, then.”   

As the stranger turned, Strange thought he caught a glint of something deep within its hood, like the eyes of a predator faintly glowing through tangled branches on a moonlit night.  It had been years since he had felt like prey, and it was not a feeling he relished.  He unsurprisingly had a strong desire to be away from his presence and moved toward the gently sloshing waves. 

“One word of caution,” the stranger hissed, once more covered in shadow.  “Worlds beyond await you, Strange.  A different version.” 

Strange froze, one foot hanging precariously over the water far below.  “A different version?  What do you mean?” 

“Power flows away.  You are you, and yet not you, Sorcerer Supreme.” 

Strange spun to face him, head spinning with nonsensical ramblings.  “If you brought me here to stop… whatever it is that’s coming, why the riddles?” he asked.   

“I am limited,” he replied, a sense of desperation tinging the words.  “I see all but cannot stray.  Must not draw Their gaze…” 

A chill dripped down Strange’s spine like a single raindrop gently crawling down a pane of glass.   

“Can you give me anything?  A hint?  A lead?  Where I need to go at least?” 

“Another realm, yes?”  Pearlescent white teeth flashed beneath the hood as the stranger grinned.  “Magic flows more freely here.  There?  The flow is damned.”   

The stranger waved a casual hand dismissing Earth’s most powerful magic user as if he were a child dismissed from class.  Without Strange’s command, the Cloak gingerly lifted him from the ground to place him in the tiny boat below.  Even it apparently knew who the true master was. 

“Begone.  Time is short.  Return or not… but caution…” 

The words were no longer audible, his deceivingly frail voice overpowered by the sound of rippling water, but they reverberated through Strange’s mind, dug into his very soul. 

“It.  Must.  Not.  Be.  Freed.” 

Strange’s feet met wood as the final warning tolled.  The dinghy shot forward abruptly throwing him unceremoniously on to his backside.  With his concentration disrupted, his summoned ball of light snuffed out plunging him into near total blackness. 

“Where were you on that one?” Strange asked, rubbing his smarting behind.   

The Cloak didn’t respond.  It always responded.  He quickly touched his shoulders to find the familiar crimson Cloak thankfully still clasped around his neck.  Except it wasn’t his Cloak; it had always warmed to his touch, given strength when needed.  Now, he sensed nothing more than fabric.   

Strange looked up toward where the warehouse floor should have been, but the building, along with the stranger, was nowhere to be seen.  A deep, vast absence was all that stared back. 

Moving instinctually, his hands shifted to positions of power as he moved to leap from the boat.  Just like his Cloak, there was no response.  The forces of the universe, his constant companion for the better part of the past three years, were ignoring him. He could sense its presence, see it as though through a frosted window, but it did not share in his recognition.   

Something was blocking his full access to the mystic arts, like a faucet plugged ineffectively by a wadded-up cloth letting only tiny rivulets of water through.  Except it wasn’t water.  It was his ability to summon light, to shift dimensions, to banish demons, and shift his astral form beyond this physical plane.  It terrified him like nothing else could.  He felt himself drawn back; back to when his mangled hands reflected his broken and battered soul.  Back before he had learned what it meant to be Sorcerer Supreme. 

He shook his head, hoping to shake loose those lingering feelings of helplessness and self-doubt.  “Think, Strange.  You’ve wrestled your way out of much worse than this.”  Though his magical abilities were stunted, he had to remind himself that his God-given intelligence was anything but (at least in his own, unbiased opinion).   

He tentatively reached a trembling hand outward through the darkness beyond the edges of the boat.  Feeling a slight resistance, like pressing on a taught but flexible fabric, he pressed harder.   

In an instant, the world around him flared to life.  Whatever barrier that had surrounded him popped like a flimsy bubble.  Bright stars flared to life above, their light shining brilliantly upon the vast, endless waters around him.  Before him lay an enormous mountain stretching far above the surface of the ocean.  As his eyes further adjusted, he picked out where his vessel was drifting; a small, empty, well-maintained dock stretching from the shore of the much smaller island directly beside the larger one.  A well-trodden path wound its way up a short hill, disappearing beyond where his sight could follow.  Faint orange light flickered invitingly, highlighting the top of the rise. 

Strange looked down at his hands, still sensing the unseen force preventing him from fully accessing his powers.  He grit his teeth and snarled.   

“Whatever you are, if you can hear me, I don’t find this amusing.”  Nothing responded but the faint slap of water hitting wood.  Strange closed his eyes and quickly parsed the scrambled musings of the stranger just before he entered the boat. 

“Realms,” he muttered to himself.  “Realms where the flow of magic is damned.  I am me, but not me.”  His brow furrowed.  “Does that mean… if I’m not a native part of this realm, my body cannot fully sense the magic here?”  A faint surge of energy temporarily pulsed through his core, nothing more than a flicker of encouragement.  He was onto something.   

As he glanced up at the towering majesty of the nearby mountain, the final words echoed once more through his mind; it must not be freed.  Strange felt an unbidden shiver roll once more down his spine.  There was a stifling presence as he locked his gaze on the rounded peaks.  Something ancient.  Something evil.  He couldn’t look away.  Though it must have been a trick of the light emanating from the sea of stars above, he swore he saw that mountain shift. 

The dinghy bounced gently off the tip of the dock rousing Strange from his intent inspection.  Hesitantly at first, he lifted himself free of his seat and scrambled up onto the relative safety beyond the boat.  As he rushed ashore, he glanced back to find the boat gone without a trace.  An unconscious shiver ran down his spine, and he glanced once more at the massive island beside him. 

“This is, quite literally, the worst possible time and place to lose my magic.”   

His mind continued reviewing the stranger’s riddles as he wound his way along the short dirt trail taking him closer to the source of the light beyond the hill.  As he crested the top, he froze.  Part self-preservation, part sheer shock had kept him from bumbling his way straight into the horror stretched out before him. 

Dozens upon dozens of people, some robed, many more in nothing but a dirty loincloth, faced away from him chanting and swaying to an unheard beat.  Unintelligible symbols were carved along their necks, arms, and legs; some fresh and bleeding while others were gnarled and scarred over.  Torches displayed in an oblong circle around the entire pinnacle of the hill cast menacing shadows across the unsettling scene.  But the true focal point, the thing that immediately drew Strange’s eye, was the hastily drawn circle written in shining, crimson blood upon the ground.  Crude crisscrossing lines within formed an ancient symbol.  Candles sputtered at each point where the circle met the line.  At the center of it all lay a single, yellowed, weathered page, edges torn and blackened.  An overwhelming sense of wrongness wafted from it in waves, offering a hint at its origin. 

As he stared at the gruesomely etched symbol, willing his mind to remember what it meant, Strange’s ears caught hold of the chant itself.  His blood ran cold. 

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Chthon R’lyeh wgah-ngal fhtaga!” 

“Ph’nglui mglw-nafh Chthon R’ley wgah-ngal fhtaga!” 

Though he couldn’t grasp the entire phrase, two words stuck painfully in Strange’s mind; R’lyeh, and Chthon.   

He finally understood where he was and why he was there.  R’lyeh, ancient city of the Old Ones.  Home to the imprisoned monstrosity, Chthon.  And these cultists were waking him up. 

Strange glanced longingly at his mostly inert hands.  “Again, the worst timing here.” 

Slipping cautiously forward, he made his way to the edge of the clearing just beyond the flickering torchlight.  He had to get that page.   

“Hey!  Who are you?” 

A formerly unseen cultist just off to his right, hidden among the shadows, stepped toward him.   His hand reached warningly to the knife tucked into the rope wrapped around his waist. 

“I seem to have lost my way.  I was looking for the bathroom.  They said left, I went right.  You know how it is.” 

The robed cultist started shouting, strange, guttural words catching in his throat.  He turned toward the flames, orange light highlighting the deeply carved grooves in his forehead.  Pulling the knife free, Strange caught sight of more symbols carved along his forearms.   

“Ah, screw it.”  Strange leaped forward, catching the man’s wrist before he could raise the knife in defense.  As skin met skin, he felt an odd yet familiar tingle at the tips of his fingers.  It slowly rolled up his palm before stopping at his wrist.  By the confused look on the cultist’s face, he appeared to feel it as well. 

“Hello old friend,” Strange said, quickly recognizing it for what it was.  Though he was not native to this realm, this man apparently was, and with it came a familiar connection.   

Strange flashed a snarky smile.  “Bye bye.” 

With a single word of power, the cultist rocketed violently backward, thrown heartily off his feet by Strange’s forceful blast.  Before he could sail over the symbol on the ground, he connected with an unseen barrier that briefly flashed with a brilliant, red light.  The cultist rebounded heavily to the ground where he stilled.   

As Strange lost physical contact with his would-be attacker, the tingles in his hand quickly faded, any residual connection to his magic going with it.  The familiarity of power coursing through his veins, however brief it may have been, gave him a surge of confidence.  He just needed to get that page and get out.   

Strange’s scuffle had caught the attention of several cultists close by who were, understandably, a touch upset.  Four robed figures, three men and one woman, advanced cautiously, hands slowly reaching to the weapons at their sides as though approaching a skittish wild beast.  They were moving to intercept him, to place themselves between him and the page. 

“I’d like to talk,” Strange said.  He took a hesitant step forward.  “Can we talk?” 

The nearest cultist muttered something unintelligible under his breath and lunged.  The dagger gleamed in his raised fist, dried flecks of what could only be blood still staining the blade.   

Strange leaped awkwardly to the side, narrowly avoiding the madman’s swipe.  As he turned, ready for another attack, the bloody symbol on the ground began to glow an ominous, ruby red.  While faint at first, it quickly surged to match the luminescence of the light cast by the surrounding torches.  Sporadic cries of joy rose from unseen members of the crowd. 

“He comes!” 

“The Old Ones return!” 

“Dream no more!” 

The island shivered with a menacing rumble.  What Strange had initially taken for the peak of the large island shifted, twisting to face the group of revelers.  Two soul-piercing eyes, ruby red to match the symbol holding the page, slowly opened. 

The island wasn’t holding Chthon.  The island was Chthon. 

“Time to go,” Strange muttered, hoping that by forcing a cheery tone it would somehow make his situation better or his outlook less bleak.  It didn’t.   

He needed his magic.  There was only one solution.   

“I’m so sorry about this.” 

The female cultist’s eyes widened in shock as Strange rushed her, grappling for her wrists and sending them both toppling into the strange barrier that protected the page.  Rather than bouncing off as the first cultist had, he forced the woman’s back against it, freezing her in place.  She began to writhe and cry, small tendrils of smoke rising above her shoulders.  The familiar tingles crawled along his fingers once more giving him a spoonful, a tasty morsel of the feast he normally took for granted.  It would have to be enough. 

Strange let go with his right hand and began the complicated hand gestures and vocal chants to cast a spell of removal.  Shadowy figures approached from the corner of his eye, spindly limbs flailing threateningly.  Beads of sweat bubbled on his brow as he struggled against his captive, wails of pain and anger filling his ears.  What was once a fairly simple spell took monumental concentration, and he felt it slipping as the first cultist reached for his gesturing hand.   

His spell blessedly took hold just as the woman’s cries escalated to bellows of horror.  The sickly-sweet scent of sizzling flesh filled Strange’s nostrils, and he thought he might retch.  A flash of blazing, white light filled his vision for the briefest of moments, and the barrier was gone.  Shouts full of angry words and promises of violence erupted all around as the few remaining chanting cultists were thrown from their collective trance, the spell interrupted. 

There was no time.  Strange threw the woman to the ground and lunged for the page.  The fingers on his left hand brushed brittle parchment as someone grabbed hold of his ankle.  White-hot, searing pain lanced up his arm and into his temple, sending a jolt through his brain with the afterimage of red, ancient eyes turning their full attention to him.  A single breath stretched for eternity.  Pain was a memory.  Physical touch had no meaning.  He was somewhere.  He was everywhere.  He was nowhere.  Still, the eyes watched and waited. 

In an instant, sensations returned like a rushing wave crashing against the sea wall.  That, unfortunately, included the pain radiating down his arm, over his shoulder, along his neck, and piercing his temples.  Coarse sand grated against his cheek as his eyes fluttered drunkenly.  Blazing rays from the noonday sun above threatened to push his headache into a full-blown migraine. 

“Where the hell am I?” he slurred.  With a herculean effort, Strange managed to push himself into a sitting position.  Ocean waves lapped lazily against his calves.  His Cloak, fastened securely to his shoulders, dragged him further up the beach and out of the surf. 

“Thank you,” he muttered, grateful the Cloak was feeling more like itself. “If you’re back, that must mean I’m back.”  

Strange moved to stretch his throbbing left arm and noticed, balled up in his clenched fist, the ancient parchment.  Slowly, he uncurled his fingers.   

“The page.  From the Darkho-“ 

The paper flared with a burst of raging fire.  Strange yelped, dropping it.  It disintegrated before it touched the sand, black ash drifting off with the sea breeze. 

“What a waste,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose between his left pointer and middle finger.  Thankfully, the pain in his arm had quickly begun to fade.   

As he pulled his hand away, he glanced at his palm.  A strange, ancient symbol glimmered briefly with a deep, orange ember before fading to nothingness, sinking into his skin.   

Strange’s stomach lurched.  His eyes met the horizon.  The horizon stared back, ruby red eyes unflinching.