The Siege Against Tolkeen

The elite Tolkeen sniper crouched behind a prickly bush, trying to stay carefully hidden from his prey. He had been hunting a wild psi-stalker for several days. The monster was sneaky and it was as fast and vicious as hell, but in the final analysis it was little more than an animal.

The sniper's bright red uniform had been rendered almost invisible with the touch of a button, and the sounds that he made were rendered inaudible with the flip of a utility belt switch. His silenced sniper rifle had been padded in just the right places, so that not even the tiniest noises could be heard when it fired. The sniper had to deal with D-Bee terrorists, wild demons, mutant animals, and Coalition rangers. It made good sense to be thorough.

The man took another look at his prey. The psi-stalker was taking a moment to urinate on a tree. He was naked, except for a knife sheath strapped to one of his calves. His hairless skin was as white as milk, except for the pupiless orbs of black which were his eyes. Some blood was caked on his mouth, from a wandering vagabond that the psi-stalker had attacked yesterday.

The sniper looked into his scope, and carefully settled the cross-hairs right behind the thing's eyes. I've gotta kill it in one shot, he thought to himself. If he lives, he'll get away and the entire hunt will be ruined.

Suddenly, the psi-stalker turned and began screaming at the sniper. The gunman panicked, his mind racing with possibilities as how the thing might have been alerted to his presence. Could it have been his scent, the magic in his suit, a noise that somehow got past his sensors, even a flaw in his camouflage device? And then, as a brief volley of brilliant red laser beams sliced through the air and blasted half a dozen bowling ball-sized holes in the creature, the sniper realized that it had been looking at something behind him.

The sniper turned, and saw a human in street clothes, crouched in a nearby tree branch, with a smoking las-pistol clutched in his hands. The newcomer smirked, and blew his gunsmoke away. "Get naked," he said to the sniper, pointing his gun at the hunter. "I need your uniform."

"Who are you?" asked the sniper. He wanted to bring his rifle to bear on the man, but knew that if he tried, his enemy would get a shot off first.

"Does that really matter to you, screwhead?" asked the man, suddenly indignant. "Get out of your friggin' clothes! And drop that rifle, too."

The sniper considered his chances for escape, and then dropped his gun. He then slipped out of his bright red jumpsuit, utility belts, and combat boots, leaving him with only his underwear on.

The man jumped out of the tree, grabbed up the uniform, and then began to walk off. "I really oughta kill you," he said indifferently. "But I don't feel like it, and I don't think you'd want it much either. So today I'll ignore protocol, and leave you alive. Fair deal?"

The sniper stared at his enemy as the mysterious man vanished into the undergrowth, his ears and cheeks burning with shame. And then, when the sweet, tangy smell of roasting flesh, from the body of the dead psi-stalker, was absorbed into his nostrils, the sniper began to vomit violently. It was just not his day.

"The day of a Saint is the Light shining from the Face of God," remarked the psychopath, paging through an ancient, yellowed book of religious lore. "Never have truer words been stated outside of the Bible." The lunatic sat in a dark, underground library, full of ancient artifacts and texts. Some of its contents were antiques at the Time of the Rifts. They had been obscenely expensive then, and truly priceless after the apocalypse.

The killer added the old book to a paper bag under one of his arms. The sack was full of other such books, all of them related to the subjects of religion, politics, and a rare few on occultism. His collection would be truly perfect once he got out of the library with this current haul. The psychopath reflected briefly on how a place containing such precious items had such a poor security system.

Suddenly, the room's harsh lights turned on, and an old man entered. He was human, but was clothed in the festooned robes of a ley line walker. "What are you doing in here, young man?" he demanded. "The library is closed!"

"Who ordered this place of precious knowledge closed?" asked the psychopath coldly. "If it was a worthy man, I shall leave immediately."

"The library's hours were set by the Tolkeen Council on Knowledge," said the old man rather proudly. "The only ones exempt from it are them, and of course the members of the High Council. Are YOU perhaps a member of either one?"

"You mock me!" screamed the psychopath, flecks of spittle shooting out of his mouth. "Know this...your Councils are nothing more than the children of the Whore of Babylon. They are as flawed and blasphemous as the Seven Governors of R'yleh."

"Th-that's treason!" said the old man, thoroughly shocked. He didn't know who the Seven Governors of R'yleh were, but didn't think that comparing the Council to them was intended as a compliment.

"You don't know who the Seven Governors of R'yleh are?" asked the psychopath, drawing a vibro-blade. The old man could feel an intrusion in his head. It was like the stranger was...stealing his thoughts. "You really ought to know that!" snapped the m adman, advancing slowly.

"Stay back!" pleaded the old man, trying to back away.

"Cthulhu, master of the seas and the waters, the inhabitant of R'yleh!" the lunatic yelled. "He is the first amongst them! Then, Hastur the Unspeakable! Then, Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods With a Thousand Young. Nyarlhotep, the Messenger of the Seven! Chudde Mell, He Who Is Eminent Amongst Cthonians! Dagon, Lord of the Degenerate Deep Ones! And finally, at the heart of all the evil, Azathoth himself, the mad nuclear chaos that IS your magical energy! When you cast a spell, you summon Azathoth's blasphemous blood! When you call up a monster, you summon his spawn! THAT IS YOUR MAGIC! THAT IS YOUR REVELATION!! THE SEVENTH LORD OF DARKNESS IS YOUR SLAVE, MAGICIAN!!!"

And then, the expression on the psychopath's face changed from one of rage, to one of extreme and bitter hatred. "And you throw away the Lord of Heaven," he hissed. "The one and only force which can stop them."

"Help!" shrieked the old man, and then the blood ran out of him.

"What the fuck?" muttered the psychopath, shaking his head. He couldn't tell where he was, and was very, very surprised to find blood on his hands, a bag of books at his side, and a corpse on the floor. Panicking, he ran for all his worth. He brought the books with him. A little voice inside his head said that he'd need them soon.

Next Chapter

By David Haendler.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.