I have no clear recollection to write down about the return trip from that damned channel, no matter what entreatments you may make. I know that we hugged the coast, daring the open water only when we left Hazard Point to angle northwestward to Bowen Island. Jonathan was clearly elated, but he gave me no hint as to the meaning of his ritual, nor as to why nature reacted so violently to it.

I would have very little else of interest to add to this statement I am forced to make if not for the incident on the fifteenth of October. Jonathan had returned to his marathon studies in the basement, and the steadily declining weather only caused me further concern for his health. He waved off my pleas to shorten his work with an almost haughty contempt.

"What is dampness to me, who has dined on raw fish in the ocean depths of Y'ha-nthlei, or dwelt in the maze-mirrored streets of Irem, City of Pillars?" he demanded over dinner one night. "Your constitution should not be used as a yardstick for mine, little brother. While your skin has remained thin and colorless, mine has been hardened by the wind and browned by the sun. Your hands are still soft and well-preserved, while mine are scarred, the edges hard as horn. Soon, I will complete my work, when I have received that which we lost, the stone that Enoch let slip from him so many decades ago. When it is here, the avatar of Nyarlathotep will again be in the world."

"You speak again of this avatar, this reincarnation, if you will, as if it is assured."

"It is, have no fear. The writer, Robert Blake, released the avatar that Enoch had locked in the tower of the church of Starry Wisdom in Providence, the avatar that should have taken human form, to wear the waxen mask, and the robe that hides. It destroyed Blake, but found good lodging in the doctor who pronounced Blake dead, Doctor Dexter. Dexter became the avatar, and now Dexter is dead."

"Dead?" I demanded. "Slowly, Jonathan, this trail grows dim and confusing. How did Dexter gain the avatar when Enoch did not?"

"Enoch had no concept of what he was dealing with. He called up Nyarlathotep, the mighty messenger, he of the thousand masks, but was unable to merge with him, to become the avatar. Perhaps Nyarlathotep was not ready. The black Pharaoh resided in the steeple of Enoch's church, and many people disappeared from the streets of Providence to sate that powerful being. All were found wanting, and none were seen again. Then Robert Blake stumbled onto the Trapezohedron. He gazed into it, bridging the gap between worlds, and again Nyarlathotep sprang forth into the darkness of the steeple. In his called form, light was unbearable. Only as the avatar could he stand luminescence. So, he dwelt in the dark, waiting for sufficient dimness to move about Providence. During an electrical blackout, he broke from the church, sought out Blake, and blasted him for his foolishness. Blake's last words were incoherent, thrilling. He speaks of the avatar as having taken human form in ancient Khem, and ruling. He writes of black wings, an odor, and the three-lobed, burning eye."

"You still have neglected Dexter," I reminded him.

"This Dr. Dexter was a shrewd and crafty man. He took in the import of Blake's scribblings almost at a glance. He realized that the avatar in its embryonic form could exist only in darkness. He sailed out in Narragansett Bay and dropped the Trapezohedron into the Stygian depths, thereby freeing the avatar to roam unmolested in the dark deeps. Roam it did, finding and mating with Dexter, fusing their forms until Dexter had become one with Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. Years later, a friend of Blake's, Edmund Fiske, attempted to run down Dexter and unmask him. Dexter, at that time, had been involved with bringing the atomic secrets to the world. It is of old prophecy that Nyarlathotep will cause the destruction of civilization, as a first step to bringing back the rule of the Great Old Ones to earth. Giving us the weapons of mass annihilation was the perfect way to do so. Dexter almost succeeded. He was testing an even more frightening weapon in the Pacific when the plane he piloted flew directly into the atomic cloud. Nyarlathotep's earthly form was obliterated, and now his spirit roams again through the void, traveling the worlds of space, spreading the marvels of Azathoth, demon sultan of the Old Ones, preparing for the time when he will return to lead us."

"And you propose to bring him back to earth?" I queried.

"Yes!" His cry was whispered, almost reverent.

"And who will be the receptacle of his spirit, his avatar?"

"Myself."

I consigned Jonathan to madness at that point. His tremendous ego had devoured his good sense, and he was deluding himself into candidacy for godhood.

"I am going to the mainland," he announced suddenly, "in the morning. I need to study some of the records in the courthouse at Princess Anne. Do me a favor and don't go knocking about in the basement. I've got some delicate things there that might be broken."

"Like the Shining Trapezohedron?" I demanded.

"Would to Azathoth I had that alien jewel. What sights might I see when I gaze into its multifaceted surface! Perhaps the true form of Nyarlathotep, Great Messenger, bringer of strange joy to Yuggoth through the void, Father of the Million Favored ones."

"How would you know it to be the true form of Nyarlathotep?" I challenged, growing tired of his pedantic lecturing. His lust for power was appalling, and I was beginning to resent my newly returned brother. Were my feelings loathing, or, perhaps, jealousy? That is for those who have asked me to make this statement to decide.

"A good question, brother," he acknowledged. "His form has been described by many beings in many ways. Closest, I believe, is his most monstrous form, that vast, anthropomorphic body from whose mouth projects a single, blood red tentacle that uncoils when Nyarlathotep howls at the moon. What a wondrous creature to serve! I shall call him, and we shall rule as one. And you, little brother, a position of power shall be found for you, I am certain."

I went to bed that night uneasy over my brother's pronouncements, and his offering of morsels from his Olympian table. I had strange dreams as I lay tossing in my four poster bed, dreams that slashed and tore at my psyche. Vague, obscene shapes stalked through my slumbering mind, and those minions of Hypnos dragged dripping red claws across my being. I saw alien worlds, vast basalt monoliths, and weed-choked citadels populated by fish-men whose round lidless eyes bored into my soul as they flitted in and out of their huge structures, made with a geometry undreamed of by men. I gazed into labyrinthine corridors tiled with octagonal stone, viewing monstrous alien beings shaped like truncated cones with an array of tentacles. I wandered amongst basalt cities hidden away beneath the ice of Antarctica, where barrel-shaped beings with starfish-shaped heads battled creatures that appeared to be vast congeries of foamy jelly, alive with eyes.

I awoke from this cacophony of slobbering sounds and flashing visions sweating and shaking, my mind wrenching in its trough from the blasphemous views I had witnessed. Behind all these scenes dwelt a lumbering, profane shape, mercifully undefined, save for a scarlet thrashing near the head. I stayed awake the rest of the night, staring into the blackness in search of the unnameable. When dawn had sent gray bars of light through my gauzy curtains, I stirred from my bed and dressed, my fingers still trembling as I buttoned my shirt. This was the morning of the fifteenth.

I went downstairs and brewed my own coffee, the clock telling me that Thomas would not be awake for another hour. I heard noises emanating from the door to the basement, and I fancied that I could hear what sounded like gurgling drifting up from below. I attributed it to my rough night, and took no further notice as I poured the steaming coffee and sat at the kitchen table until Thomas appeared. Surprised at seeing me up this early, he was immediately concerned.

"You ain't been sleepin' too well, eh?" he observed.

"I had some nightmares, that's all," I replied. "How about some breakfast? I hear Jonathan down in the basement. He's probably going to want something to eat before he goes over to the mainland."

"Yessir." Thomas began to hunch over the stove, breaking eggs into a skillet. His taciturn manner broke abruptly with those eggs, and his voice curled around his broad back as he worked.

"I hadn't oughter mix inta family business," he said, slow and drawn out, the way most people from Smith Island talk, "but there just ain't no cause for you to be so wrought up, like you are. If I was you, I'd clear that weirdo brother of your'n right on out of here. He ain't done nothing but get you tighter'n a drum, stayin' up all night and hollerin' and screamin'. I'd do it, yessir, damn me if I wouldn't."

"I'm alright, Thomas," I averred, running a hand through my hair as I sipped at my cooling coffee. "Jonathan's peculiarities are foreign to us because he has been to strange and exotic places. If he is, as you say, weird, then it is for us to keep an eye on him. It is the compassionate thing to do."

"I ain't so sure. If a dog goes mad, back on the island, then we shoot it, you know."

"That's a terrible idea, Thomas! How can you apply such an action to the human condition? Now, I'm going to take a walk along the beach. I'll be back in an hour or so. Don't mention any of our conversation to Jonathan, please. Things will work themselves out, I'm sure."

As I reached for my jacket, I heard the basement door bang. Jonathan appeared in the kitchen, and I gave Thomas a stern look.

"Good morning, Jonathan," I greeted.

"Hello, Edward, stepping out?" he returned.

"Thought I'd get some fresh air. I didn't sleep well."

"You don't say." A look of apparent genuine concern flashed over his longish face, blue eyes studying me closely. "Anything in particular the matter?"

"Nightmares, that's all."

"What sort?" His curiosity was evidently aroused.

"Vague stuff. Chased by monsters, that sort of thing."

"Sit down and have a bite with me, tell me about it."

At that moment I remembered having commanded Thomas to prepare food for the two of us, but my mind was still too unsettled to think about eating. I had to get out of this house, this nest of mad visions and equally mad occurrences. I pulled on my jacket.

"By the way," Jonathan stated abruptly, "remember what I said about the basement. I shouldn't be more than three hours at the most."

I nodded curtly and reached for the kitchen door. Going down the back steps I descended the hill on which the house stood and walked west to the knot of conifers that marked the beginning of the marsh that comprised nearly a quarter of the main part of the island. I tried to find some signs of clean, normal life -- birds, perhaps, or the rabbits that a former Bowen had brought here to breed, but the serried rows of grass stalks beyond the pines were silent, save for the sibilant rustling of the tan blades of the marsh grass. The tide was high, and the rising water in the marsh served to unleash an unpleasant odor from the black ooze that the grasses were rooted in. I turned away from the marsh, hearing, as I did, the coughing of the Mercury's outboard. Jonathan was undoubtedly leaving for the mainland, so I knew that I would not have to encounter him if I walked over to the beach near the boathouse.

This I did, skirting the sepulchral marsh and making for the clean whitish sand that segregated the cold, dead-seeming water from the brown hibernating grass. I stood for a moment and stared out across the irregular surface of the sound, searching for, and finding, the small bobbing image of the scow, making for the blue-hazed mainland to the east. As I watched, an incongruous movement caught my eye. A wiggling black line drew my attention about fifty yards from the beach. As I watched, a flat, diamond-shaped head undulated to the fore of the squirming body, questing occasionally, for what I had no idea. It was obviously a water snake of some sort, but I thought I had seen the last of them before the weather turned. It appeared to fix its gaze on me for an instant, then dived until I lost it completely.

Giving the ophidian apparition no further thought, I turned away and walked along to the little gut that severed the main island from the smaller one. The boathouse had been situated on this smaller piece of land because the coast favored it, having a deep natural indentation that made a good place for the dock and boathouse. I turned inland again, until I came to the little plank bridge that connected the two islands. I glanced into the gray-tinted brown water of the gut, mulling over the possibility of crossing over, when a sudden squirming near the shadow of the bridge made me look there.

Again, to my surprise, I made out the coiling form of a watersnake, its sinuous body gleaming sleekly as it huddled against the black-shot sand of the island. This time, it was not alone, as I picked out the yard-long silhouette of another, the dirty-white scales of its body flashing as it tumbled along in the stream. I shuddered at this, never having seen so many snakes about the island, even in hot weather. No birds, no animals, but these slimy monstrosities seemed to be in abundance.

It was then I heard Thomas' screams.

His hoarse bawl broke the nervous sluggishness that I had been falling into, and I turned from the bridge and raced up the low hill to the looming house. I banged open the front door, calling Thomas' name. Receiving no answer, I rushed into the kitchen. He was not there. I looked where I prayed he would not be. My heart pulsed ice instead of blood when I saw that the basement door was wide open. What had Thomas encountered down there to make him holler so? I thought about seeking out the shotgun in the closet, but why? We were alone on the island.

The light was on down there, and I stood in the doorway and looked down. My vantage point was not a good one, but I could see one wall completely. Thomas was plastered against it, his hands clawing frantically at the rough gray concrete, red face stretched in soundless terror, colorless eyes wide and staring at something out of my sight. Slowly, cautiously, I descended the stairs.

Thomas directed his apoplectic gaze at me the instant he heard my tread upon the steps. His thick lips tried to form words, but they trembled and shook, and no sound came from them. I continued downward, and he constantly alternated his face from me to whatever was frightening him at my right. When I had traveled about halfway down, I leaned below the frame of the staircase to bring my gaze below the level of the floor above. The jumble of palleted crates had been moved, and in the raw luminescence of the unshaded bulb near my head, I saw that which to this day I am unable to describe adequately, even though you wring the details from me.

Was this the culmination of my brother's mysterious work down here in this damp, stifling world? It was man-sized, hunched and gnarled as it groped almost blindly amongst the crates. Piscine scales the size of my hand coated its rubbery body, gleaming iridescently in the naked light. The head was long and repulsive, with an icthyic mouth agape and lined with ridgy teeth. The lidless eyes swiveled in the circular sockets, and the slitlike gills beneath its jaws pulsated abhorrently. Flabby webbed claws flailed palsiedly at the ends of anthropoid arms, and the thing stood upon splayed feet, scimitarlike nails scratching against the damp concrete floor. Behind it, I saw with horror how this unclean thing had gained egress, for in the floor of the basement was an irregular gap in the cement, a mud-rimmed hole from which I could hear the sucking gurgle of the sea!

The blasphemous thing directed its remorseless eyes at me and mewled obscenely. I became aware of a miasmal odor permeating the room, far exceeding the musty smell normally associated with damp basements. I stared at this Neptunic horror, wondering if it had been bidden by Jonathan, or had come of its own accord. It appeared confused rather than belligerent, the sudden activating of the light by Thomas probably startling it into inaction.

Apparently, it was unaccustomed to bright lights, but I could tell that it was focusing its attention on me now. Its hissing tongue was unlike anything human, but it was evidently attempting to convey some concept to me. Perhaps its assaulted senses took me for Jonathan, I cannot be sure.

Finding my voice, I shouted, "What do you wish here? What is your business?"

It cried on in its steam-engine voice, gesturing with one malformed paw at the worktable ahead of me. There upon the varnished pine planks of the table lay an object I had never seen before. It was a small, asymmetrical box, made of some yellowish metal. The object was encrusted with barnacles and lay in a lucid pool of water, appearing as if it had lain for some time at the bottom of the sea. I returned my attention to the inhuman creature that had burrowed into the cellar using an undreamed of accuracy, exhibiting amazing strength. I pointed to the jagged hole in the concrete that the thing had split asunder like rotten cloth.

"Back to your hole, wretch!" I commanded. "Return to the abyss that spawned you. Go!"

The thing turned, again flapping its disfigured hands, and began to descend into the burrow that called gurglingly as water sloshed in and out of its convoluted tunnel. As soon as the repugnant head dipped below the crumbling perimeter of cement, I clambered down the stairs and rushed to that awful cavity into insanity. Only brown water met my vision, layered iridescently with some bubbling, oily material.

With an oath, I dragged the nearest pallet to conceal that odorous hole, then began to drag crates over it, my muscles performing wonders as I stacked crate upon crate. This whirl of activity brought Thomas from his stupor, and he moved forward unsteadily to assist me until we had formed a wooden pyramid over that ghastly sinus. Exhausted, we staggered backward, and I turned to the slime-coated object that had been left by that unspeakable profanity.

"Why did you disobey Jonathan?" I demanded as we approached the worktable.

"I didn't like what was a'goin' on here, the way he was treatin' you," breathed Thomas hoarsely. "I was bound'n determined to come down here and see what he was a'doin' down here. I seen you through too many hard times to let that batty little sucker a'drive you crazy, damn me if I did."

I fought back an urge to hug him for his noble loyalty, and bent to the encrusted case on the table. As I said, it was metal, and I noted odd bas-reliefs on its surface beneath its coating of barnacles. At first I thought it to be a solid object, but examination revealed a thin line and hinges on one side. A knife from the worktable enabled me to pry the lid off, and it sprang back easily to reveal the amazing contents of its interior.

Immediately, a purplish glow sprang from the box, pulsing iridescence that seemed to have a life of its own. Within was the stone depicted in my great-great grandfather's portrait, gleaming blackly along the angles of its polished uneven sides. Seven struts connected the inner walls of the box to a metal band encompassing the stone. Red striations arced here and there through the irregular polyhedron, and I thought that the thing was translucent. Here it was, laying nonchalantly on my father's worktable, the cause of our being driven to this lonely island. This was the thing my brother had made unspeakable alliances to gain. By pure chance, I became the first Bowen in over a century to behold the Shining Trapezohedron.

As I stood there gazing at its alien beauty, I sensed movement within its crystalline sides. Where this stone had been brought from, and how it was that Enoch Bowen had found it in Egypt, I knew not, but it was clearly possessed of a power beyond anything on this earth. I drew nearer and tried to make out the Trapezohedron's interior. Like peering through sunglasses, what I glimpsed within that object were tinted darkly. I thought I saw worlds, vast and uncharted by any astronomer, swirling orbs that drifted through the void, dotted with monumental cities. Were these the cities my brother alluded to, Shaggai, Yaddith, Yuggoth? Malignant, anomalous shapes writhed and pulsated in the ether between these planets, the most repulsive of which was the most profane. Gigantic and distorted, this being was both amazing and shuddersome. Long, ropy arms extended on either side, and the prodigious head that surmounted the outlandish ophidian body was dreadful and stupefying. Issuing from its voluminous mouth was a seemingly endless scarlet tentacle, writhing and vibrating in the soundlessness of that alien jewel.

With an effort, I drew myself away from that terrible vision and turned to Thomas' ashen face. I feared him to be near a stroke, and even now I feel him to have been unbalanced by this affair, especially in the light of his subsequent testimony.

"What is that thing?" he demanded, lips still trembling equinely.

"It's what my brother has been looking for," I replied.

"And -- that -- that fish man -- or whatever the hell it was -- it brought that box here. Oh my gawd, Mr. Bowen, what was it? I ain't never seen nothin' like that in these waters, and I'll be sixty next year. It weren't like no creature on earth. Where did your brother a'call it from?"

"From the darkest abysses of the ocean. It's part of a monstrous scheme, that at first I thought ridiculous. Now, I am beginning to believe that the Bowens are a family endowed with power, linked inextricably to the beings of the outer cosmos. We must do something about Jonathan. He goes too far. I want you to accompany me to the mainland. We are going to get some concrete and fill this accursed pit. Get the workboat ready."

"You want me to fetch the shotgun?"

"Mad though he is, I refuse to shoot my own brother, and I don't think lead shot will be much good against something that can split concrete like tin foil."

I stopped in the house only long enough to scrape together what cash lay about the house. I was agitated then, and not thinking too clearly. I wanted to stop Jonathan's work, but I was unsure how. I only knew that Jonathan's madness threatened to engulf me, Thomas, and perhaps the entire world.

As I hurried to the boathouse, I could not help but scan the metallic water of the gut when I clomped over the plank bridge. The two snakes were still there, strangely quiescent, exhibiting tendencies more in line with the cool temperature. In the boathouse, Thomas had started the inboard gasoline engine on the twenty-foot workboat that was used for heavy loads. Taking up the waterproof gear once more, I boarded the larger vessel, shuddering at the empty space usually occupied by the scow.

Thomas took the steering wheel and shoved forward on the throttle, ejecting us rather abruptly from the boathouse and out onto the achromatic surface of the sound, the day dominated by a weak and pallid sun that peered through the gauzy curtains of cloud blurring the sky. We were off.

The day ended all too soon, and twilight had thrown its mantle over Tangier Sound as Thomas and I motored back from Deal Island. Our mission had been successful, our draft lowered several inches by the dozen or so bags of concrete distributed about the workboat. I had also managed to find a few panels of sheet steel, with the idea that I would reinforce the cement as best I could.

I reflected back on my quiet, if sheltered, life before Jonathan's tumultuous arrival. Without electricity, my life had been one of studious reading, illuminated by gaslights unchanged since the house had been built in Victorian times. Television and its popular-culture mirroring had never really interested me, being too shallow for one of my intelligence. I wanted to see the real world, not some diluted image flickering within the confines of its electronic prison. Now, an unreality had intruded upon my ordered existence, a cosmic awfulness whose ties to my family I had never fully appreciated.

The boathouse door was still open, and the rear of the scow glowed whitely from its depths. Thomas cut the motor and we slid in beside it. He secured the lines and I gained the dock. Thomas moved quickly to join me, and I am not sure whether it was out of concern for me, or merely a fear of being alone.

A sallow, full moon hung over the rising landscape as I exited the boathouse and approached the mansion through the muddying gloom. Even before I was within a hundred yards of the bridge between the islands I could hear the sibilant rustling and sloshing in the gut.

Undeterred, but with rising fear, I put one foot on the planks of the bridge and leaned over the rail. Only a yard below me was a squirming boiling mass that writhed in the scanty light. Never had I seen such a chaotic scene, flat triangular heads bobbing and darting in the dark waters. Snakes! Yes, anomalous as it may seem, even more of the reptilian menaces had arrived, their prodigious numbers animating the turbulent liquid until it seethed. I felt as if there presence was more than a freak of nature, almost as if they were guarding the approach to the mansion.

Behind me, I could hear Thomas start loudly. "Oh my gawd," he gasped as he viewed the infested gut. "How are we gonna get to the house through them?"

"Certainly they are but common watersnakes," I reasoned. "They have no intelligence, and are not poisonous, at any rate."

"I wouldn't want ta stake my life on that statement. I think we oughta get some things from the boathouse."

"What things?" I demanded. "Tonight is no time to unload the boat. We can take care of things in the morning."

"We got to get by them black sons o' Satan 'fore we do anything."

He turned back to the boathouse and I followed him curiously. He unlocked the door to the adjacent storage shed from his ring of keys and flipped on the light. He rummaged around inside for a few minutes and came out with a machete that sported a three foot blade. Then, he ducked into the boathouse and returned with one of the red-painted gas cans that we use to fill the tanks of the boats.

"This may not even be necessary," I told him as we marched back to the bridge.

The frenzied writhing was unabated as I prepared to cross the bridge. I trod the boards unsteadily, expecting a vile rush from below. Suddenly, the appendaged mass stilled, the viperous bodies floating supinely in the gleaming water of the gut. When I had crossed completely, I rotated to watch Thomas' progress.

"Come on," I urged. "They've calmed down."

His longish face was dubious, but he advanced resolutely, still clutching the machete and gas can. Before he was two steps onto the planking, the serpentine thrashing renewed, water splashing up over the edge of the bridge. A dropped-bomb whistling erupted from the gut, and the golf-club silhouettes of watersnake heads popped up on the shoreline at either end of the bridge.

"Thomas!" I called, fear making my heart surge. "They mean to cut you off!"

Thomas uncapped the gas can swiftly, its lid twinkling like a flipped coin as it disappeared into the shadows. With wide swinging motions, he poured its contents in glittering arcs on either side of the wooden bridge. The hissing accelerated to a vile shrieking, and wriggling forms could be seen coiling about the railing of the bridge. Flame sprouted in Thomas' hands and it sailed comet-like onto the surface of the gut.

Fire flashed and bulged in white and yellow blossoms as the gasoline ignited and burst in bluey tongues along the length of the water. In its lurid glow I could see twisting forms, hundreds of snakes writhing in their death-throes. The cascading flames threatened to engulf Thomas, but he pulled his coat over his head and rushed headlong across the bridge, pausing only to strike out with the machete and bisect one of the snakes that was blocking his path.

With one more leap, he was beside me, and the radiance of the flames made me sweat as I watched he timbers of the bridge begin to catch and blacken. Thomas' soot-swept face was set and grim, the fear evaporating in the energy of the moment.

"Ain't there some sayin' about burnin' yer bridges?" he asked me as we resumed our advance on the house.

"I don't know if it was meant to be literal," I replied.

Up the low hill we went, the mansion squatting evilly before us, a rugose shape against the bilious, protuberant moon. My mind was churning, visions of the myriad blasphemous things I had experienced in the last few weeks lashing me mercilessly. I had to deal with Jonathan, to detrack his scheme to become one with that gnawing chaos, Nyarlathotep, that outer being who wielded so much power. In the radiance of the burning bridge, I could see his spare form on the porch -- waiting.

As we drew near him, I noticed that he was dressed in a long, black robe, like a priest or sorcerer might don. It clung to him like a negative thing, leaving his long, bony arms protruding palely from the voluminous sleeves. Red spots seemed to dance like living things upon his face as his eyes reflected the fire. I could still feel its heat upon my back, seeming to push me forward with waves of hot air.

Jonathan's arms were spread, and his face was set in an almost mad caricature, large teeth twinkling as his lips uncurled in a leer that made me shudder. I stopped at the bottom step and looked up at him, trying to appear resolute.

"So, Edward, you did not flee as I had supposed from viewing your handiwork in the basement," he greeted, his voice strained.

"No, Jonathan, I was casting about for a way to put an end to your insane dealings before you destroy us all," I replied.

"Insane! It is you who are insane, brother. The Bowen family has been given the opportunity to become leaders in a new order. The Mighty Messenger from the throne of Azathoth will come to Earth, and we shall begin the task of eradicating the human fungus that has overgrown this planet until the time is right for the return of the Great Old Ones. From Aldebaran will Hastur the Unspeakable filter, and from the depths of the sea will rise R'lyeh the tomb-city of Cthulhu. Beyond time and space, Yog-Sothoth dwells, awaiting the day when the stars will align and Earth will shine as the jewel of the cosmos. Join me brother, chant the chant of the ages! Together, we shall call up the Black Pharaoh."

As he spoke, again, a hell-spawned wind whipped up from the sound, plastering the ebon robe against Jonathan and outlining his spare form in its billowing folds. Witch-fire danced along the lightning rods on the roof, and unknown sounds gibbered and shrieked in the wind. Power crackled all about me, and I could feel a sensation like white fire coursing through my body, yet I did not flee. Was I not also a Bowen?

"Seven and nine, down the onyx steps," howled my brother, "on the wings of night out beyond space, to that whereof Yuggoth is the youngest child, rolling alone in black aether at the rim ..."

"Wait, brother, is now the time?" I called. "What of the Shining Trapezohedron?"

"Into it have I stared!" he mouthed, voice high and breaking. "I have seen the gulfs of space, the planets like jewels. He is coming, I have glimpsed his shape, and we shall be one."

I could feel the opening of the way, the yawning of the abyss of lightless space. Above the bleating wind, I could hear the flap of titanic wings, and a billowing foulness crept over the face of the moon. Only the reddish pulse of the fire lit the scene now, and I fancied that I could see that terrible, three-lobed burning eye. Everything on the island was changing. Subtly, even the basest items seemed different, askew. I felt my consciousness swimming, but I remembered the words of Robert Blake: "What am I afraid of? Is it not an avatar of Nyarlathotep who in antique and shadowy Khem even took the form of man?"

"Death to the human slugs!" Jonathan cried out. "The avatar of Nyarlathotep is here! The reptile minions of Yig and the Deep Ones of Cthulhu have done his bidding. The stone has brought him. Ia! Ia!"

"The snakes do not obey you," I retorted. "They fell silent at my approach."

"They knew you to be a Bowen," he returned. "Do not interrupt my thoughts. I must be open to the entrance of Nyarlathotep. I open my arms. 'And He shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides ...'"

"'... and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock ...'," I finished the quotation. "The snakes are stupid. They could not know I was a Bowen. Only Yig, father of serpents, could order them not to bite a human. They bow down only to the Great Old Ones."

"No!" Jonathan screamed. "I am the vessel of the avatar! I, and only I, have looked into the depths of the Shining Trapezohedron! My thoughts, trapped in its crystalline sides, have enabled the avatar to cross the black universe beyond the light. Dark is light and light is dark. Come into me, Nyarlathotep!"

"What," I asked him, "if you were but a pawn of Nyarlathotep? What if you were just a tool, a means of getting the stone back to where the receptacle and the avatar could be mated? Why would Nyarlathotep wish one as mad as you to cloud his thoughts as he dwelt in your body?"

"You're wrong! You're a fool, blind jealous fool! You wish the power for yourself! It is mine alone. Bow down, the moment is at hand. The Crawling Chaos is unleashed upon humanity. Ia! Ia! Nyarlathotep, Great Messenger, bringer of strange joy to Yuggoth through the void, Father of the Million Favored Ones, Stalker among ..."

That is when Jonathan collapsed from a stroke and broke his neck on the steps at my very feet.

This concludes the deposition you have asked me to draw up. In addition, I wish to add that I feel I have been very cooperative with the various authorities, notwithstanding the way I have been treated by the minions of the law. I felt I was very hospitable to the marine policeman that Thomas frantically summoned on the shortwave. I put down some new planks to replace the ones consumed in the fire so that he could come across and examine my brother. Certainly there is no cause to have me reside in that damp cell any longer. Obviously, Jonathan died of a broken neck, I was there. I don't see why I must be held here any longer because of Thomas' ravings. I told you before that these distressing events unbalanced him.

There is absolutely no truth to his statement that, as I stood before Jonathan, my face split wide and a single, blood-red tentacle lashed out and strangled my brother.

Created: December 2, 1997; Updated: August 9, 2004