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VI
In the beginning he was glad to have taken into account what the doctor told him. The journey through the Pacific was something that he should allowed himself to do it a lot time ago. His wife and the kids were delighted. The traveled from California, going across the Pacific till Japan and making a stopover in Hawaii. Nevertheless there were moments in the still of the night, late, in which Pedro was unable to sleep. He got up and went out alone to deck, moments in which he unevitably stood staring the horizon to the southwest. He had a feeling that it was a fixed point in the middle of the empty ocean, since each night he seemed to note how the ship advanced regarding it. After a while in which he fought against the impulse to swim towards it with all his might, he came back to bed, dreaming restless with an enormousness which laid below the waters in a ciclopean sunken city with strange angles and curves that were convex and concave at the same time.
One night he was on deck staring to the ocean beyond the Equator. The revellers should have retired already to sink into their alcoholic torpor, or maybe to devote themselves to enjoy their night companies, the fact is that there was nobody where he stood. Lost in his thoughts a cough by his side startled him. Shaking his head, leaving his self-absorption, Pedro looked to his right, from where the noise came, and he saw a strange man. He was covered with a black jacket and a black tie over a dark grey shirt and he wore Japanese cut trousers that cloaked his feet, that couldn't be seen. But, bizarre as his clothing was, stranger was to see his skin.
He had totaly caucasic features, however, his skin was black as coal, like the one of the darkest africans, maybe more. And he was bald, not even a hair could be seen in his round head. He was so dark that starlight mirrored in his skin, creating a malignant and sickly resplendence. When the man spoke it was as if he were scratching glass, at the same time his voice remained deep and perfectly modulated.
He had totaly caucasic features, however, his skin was black as coal, like the one of the darkest africans, maybe more. And he was bald, not even a hair could be seen in his round head. He was so dark that starlight mirrored in his skin, creating a malignant and sickly resplendence. When the man spoke it was as if he were scratching glass, at the same time his voice remained deep and perfectly modulated.
-You can't sleep, can you? These journeys by ship always make me feel dizzy. If it were possible I'd rather travel underwater...
Pedro was surprised by the strange voice of the bizarre and sinister man that was by his right, and he couldn't prevent a little shiver to run across his back despite the warmth of the night.
-But where are my manners? I'm Schwartz, Cornelius Schwartz- the stranger extended a hand.
-Pedro Mejías- he greeted back, amazed. Indeed, the man sounded nothing like a German with an enough neutrum accent-. Are you too here on holidays, Mr. Schwartz?
-Of course. Call me Cornelius.
Cornelius and Pedro stayed talking almost till sunrise. Their conversation treated science, archeology, astronomy... all of them topics that Pedro was interested in and which the visitor seemed to know a big deal about them. He asked about his cabin to be able to chat on, but the now-not-so-stranger prefered to leave to chance to meet again.
-She usually is wise for this kind of things. Take care, Pedro.
Later, two more things drawed Pedro's attention. Nobody, even ship personnel, were on deck on the whole evening with Schwartz, it was as if they were completely alone. And other thing disturbed him more, although he didn't know say why at first, but above all was the fatherly way in which he seemed to be treated by Schwartz, and nevertheless, at the time he thought it was the most natural thing in the world.
The cruise went on and Pedro kept feeling how he moved regarding his point of attention. He still woke up at night, and in many of them he met again with Schwartz, who fascinated him more and more each passing time with his learned teachings. The man was indeed a endless wealth of new discoveries and that's why he hadn't any doubt about him when, little by little, started to introduce also esoteric matters in their conversations, talking about how magic and mathematics weren't but different aspects of the same thing, which was the manipulation of the space with pure mindforce, but we weren't ready yet to develop it by a mathematical way. He talked about strange geometries, dimensions out of ours, new universes and everything that still hid in this. About legends that were told about races able to ride the infinite vacuum between the galaxies and fly through the skies propelled by the solar winds of millions of dead stars. He started talking about beings elder than man and the universe itself, and how those beings that were now in decline will rise again. And he talked about all of this over the course of many nights. The began to include Crowley and other great occultists in the conversation, and to talk about how fragiles are actually the walls of what we call reality and how easy would be to tear them down to pieces if we had the right stone.
As his nights with fatherly Cornelius sank him into a frenzy of new revelations and misteries about the cosmos which surrounds us, Pedro was neglecting himself day to day, almost forgetting about the presence of his wife and children, and sometimes even considering them a nuisance for his night jaunts. He knew that his wife suspected that he was cheating on her and he laughed seeing how far was she from the true root of what was happening.
One of the last nights of the cruise Cornelius asserted him that that would be the last time he would see him on board that ship, but that they would met again later. He said that when the moment were right they would go together to the place that were calling him so much and they would leave behind every problem from the routine and common world in which he was immersed. They hugged each other goodbye and that left Pedro with the feeling of being touching embers.
The arrival to Japan happened with no more occurrences, and that the last nights have been quiet on his part helped Pedro's wife to discard her suspicions, at least for the moment. Once arrived to the docks of Osaka a bus took them to the hotel, and the next morning a train took them to Kansai airport, from where they departed back to Spain.
During the long journey Cornelius' peculiar countenance came back to him on his dreams. This time he wore a long black tunic that covered till his feet, and he was waiting for him in a chamber of wet brick walls. Saying nothing in spite of wearing a slight smile on his black face, he pointed to a dim lit corridor with braziers along the whole path. Pedro followed him without hesitation.
As they came forward Pedro could hear chants and, although he didn't identify nor the words nor the languaje, he understood it perfectly. They spoke how the Elder One would rise on his stone throne when the stars were right and that nothing could resist his power. Only the key was needed. The key that only one of the Crwaling Chaos' blood could obtain.
Cornelius took him to a larger chamber, so, that it could have included a little city inside. Ceilling lost itself into the darkness, the same as the bottom. On that moment Pedro found quite plausible to consider that such things didn't exist there. Near the middle of the room (or what seemed to be to Pedro, since he didn't see the ending of the room) there was a gathering of figures on a stone platform, which trunk lost itself into the murk below. Unhealthy green fire torches lit them. In the lounge there were more stone pillars, huge, that sank into blackness too. Everything seemed to join together with a web of wooden gangways linked with ropes with a most unsecure outlook, like the one that surrounded the room, which was the one on which Cornelius and Pedro were watching the setting. The chants that were heard all the way came from the hooded ones group...
Cornelius started to head in their direction and Pedro followed. Over the wooden gangplanks and feeble outlook ropes they moved, while those totter dangerously and non-stop. With secure and agile step they reached the group, a host of misshappen beings, most of them humanoids, but with features and traits that marked them as something completely different. There was even a shapeless and mutant hulk from which constantly emerged and disappeared eyes and mouths, and several kinds of extremities, everchanging and different.
Every one of them, without exception, bent down at Cornelius' and Pedro's arrival. He ordered him to step into the centre.
-Now, my son, watch which is the key that will open the Great Cthulhu's grave, who lies dead and sleeping in his city of R'Lyeh, who you will bring out from his slumber.
Before Pedro materialized a black stone with golden arabesques all over its surface, elongated and of dreadful looks. Pedro shivered at its sight. It ended in a cruel and rulthless-looking point.
-For it to be effective must be bathed on the blood of one of my offspring, straight from his heart, over the old R'Lyeh, sunk at the South of the Pacific...
And Pedro woke up screaming.
It will continue... soon
