“I don’t like it,” Teddy said.

  “Doctor’s orders.”

  The four of them stood in silence for a moment.

  “Wish I had some fucking cigarettes,” Tony mumbled.

  “You know,” Teddy said, “I used to dip a can of tobacco a day, but ever since Amun did whatever it was he did to us, I haven’t craved it at all. Not once.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand what he did to you all,” Sarah said.

  Teddy shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, but basically, he took all of our selves across all of the different realities, and merged them into one.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Not exactly. It felt like we were dying, over and over and over again. I reckon it should have hurt, but it didn’t. It just felt...weird. Kind of like this place does.”

  Tony glanced around the area where Teddy had fallen. “I don’t know how you do it, LeHorn. I see a solid wall here, same as Teddy did.”

  LeHorn shrugged. “The trick is to not focus on one spot. Although, I suppose my magical training might give me some extra insights that the rest of you don’t have.”

  “No doubt.” Tony paused a moment. “Hey, look at this over here. There’s graffiti!”

  They all moved over to where he was standing—Teddy more cautiously than the others. Sure enough, there was faded writing painted on the wall.

  “What language is that?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s Norwegian,” Teddy replied. “Wouldn’t have recognized it before, but now…”

  “I would have recognized it even without Amun’s help,” LeHorn said.

  Teddy turned to him in surprise. “You speak Norwegian?”

  “Some. One of my other selves experimented with gand, also known as gandr—a form of Norwegian shamanism. I don’t know that I could have ordered us dinner if we were at a restaurant in Norway before Amun augmented us, but I could have read what’s written on the wall.”

  “What does it say?” Sarah asked.

  LeHorn paused, peering closely. “It was made by a Gustaf Johansen of Oslo, and it’s dated 1925. It’s incomplete, though. Some of the words have faded completely.”

  “From 1925?” Sarah asked. “I’m surprised any of it remains at all.”

  “Time passes differently in R’lyeh than it does on our levels,” LeHorn said. “From what I can make out, Johansen was the second mate on a schooner called the Emma, out of Auburn. On their way to Callao, they got into a skirmish with a heavily armored steam yacht called the Alert. The captain and the first mate of the Emma were killed in the battle, so Johansen ended up in charge. Apparently, they ended up here. He talks about their plan to escape, but the rest is obscured.”

  “Poor bastards,” Tony said. “I wonder if they made it back home?”

  “Come on,” Teddy said. “We should go.”

  “You sure you’re okay to walk?” Sarah asked.

  “I promise.” He nodded. “Let’s get moving.”

  They continued their descent. LeHorn took the lead. Teddy followed close behind him, then Sarah, with Tony bringing up the rear. The sloped ramp gradually changed into stairs again, and then into another ramp. Teddy had the sensation that they were walking in a spiral, but the path looked straight.

  They heard the throngs long before they saw them—a thunderous chorus of inhuman voices, all bleating, croaking, and screeching. All of them blurting out the same chant.

  “Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!”

  Tony frowned. “The fuck are we marching into?”

  Nobody answered.

  Eventually, the ramp terminated onto a large, open dais bordered by a stone railing. There, spread out before them about five stories below, was a huge, mustard-colored domed citadel. Thousands of creatures simultaneously marched and swam toward it.

  Teddy recoiled, shielding his eyes. “My God...that’s making me nauseous.”

  “Me, too,” Sarah said. “It’s both underwater and not underwater. How can that be?”

  Before anyone could respond, Tony gasped and pointed. “Holy shit! There’s the Exit and Henry!”

  They moved closer to the edge of the platform and stood at the railing. There, far below, were their companions, captured and suspended in some type of bubbles, and being marched toward the citadel by a phalanx of shark men.

  “We’ve got to help them,” Sarah said, her voice tinged with panic. “What’s wrong with Henry? He looks…something is off. Is there something wrong with his arm?”

  Teddy squinted. “Hard to see much from here. I think it’s just whatever it is they’re imprisoned in. Those bubble contraptions. I’m sure he’s okay.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “Sarah…I reckon if he was dead then they wouldn’t be holding him prisoner.”

  Sarah paused for a moment, and then pointed at the domed structure. “What is that thing?”

  “My guess,” LeHorn replied, “is that Leviathan is inside that dome.”

  “Well, that’s just fucking great,” Tony said. “The serial killer kidnapped the kid, and then they both got captured, and now they’re off to see the fucking wizard, who in this case happens to be a giant squid-headed fucking monster. What the hell do we do now?”

  One by one, they all turned to Teddy.

  “We came here to save Henry and destroy Leviathan,” he said. “I reckon we’d better do both. Let’s find a way down there.”

  Tony sighed. “I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

  “Come on, Genova. I may be an old timer, but see if you can keep up.”

  “Hold on just one more minute,” LeHorn said.

  Teddy groaned in exasperation. “We don’t have one more minute. Y’all saw Henry and the Exit down there. Lord knows what those things intend to do with them.”

  “Most likely,” LeHorn replied, “they will sacrifice them both to Leviathan as blood offerings.”

  “Well, that’s my point!”

  LeHorn held up a hand. “We need to be aware of the effect that being in proximity to Leviathan has on human beings. He sends out a sort of psychic wave, that can induce fear, despair, paranoia, and even madness.”

  “He’s right,” Sarah said. “I’ve experienced it firsthand. The sight of him alone is pretty terrifying, but there’s more to it than that. He can mess with your head even if you don’t actually see him.”

  Tony frowned. “Okay, so is this like an active sort of thing, like Scanners? Or is it happening more in the background?”

  “What’s Scanners?” Teddy asked.

  “One of Cronenberg’s best,” Tony replied.

  “It’s passive,” LeHorn said. “At least as much in that it’s a natural occurrence where Leviathan is concerned. From everything I’ve read in the past, it’s not something he has to willfully exert. It’s more of a natural by-product of his state of being. But it is a useful one, for him. History is full of accounts of people driven helplessly insane after encountering him here in R’lyeh.”

  “Shit,” Tony said. “The layout of this place is enough to make people crazy. You don’t need squid-head to do that.”

  LeHorn nodded. “Which brings me to my next point. The non-Euclidean geometry of this dimension also plays havoc on our psychic and mental well-being. Teddy’s accident was just the tip of the iceberg. All of us, right now, are more tense. More panicked. More on edge. That leads to mistakes, and mistakes are something we can’t afford. The closer we get to the citadel, the worse it’s going to be. Not only will we be closer to Leviathan, but the geometry and spatial proportions will most likely get more severe.”

  “How so?” Teddy asked.

  LeHorn pointed at the vast expanse below. “What do you see right now? Does it look both underwater and above water, simultaneously, like Sarah said earlier?”

  “Yes,” Teddy admitted, “I reckon it does.”

  “That’s because it is both of those things,” LeHorn said. “The closer we get to the dome, the worse it will become. Space and sound and even gravity itself will grow more distorted. You may hear something right next to you, but in fact, it will be far off. You may think you’re falling down but instead you’ll be falling upward. And on top of all that, the fear that all of us are feeling right now will probably increase. We need to be mindful of that.”

  “None of us are strangers to this,” Sarah reminded him. “Teddy fought in World War Two—not to mention everything he and I went through together on our Earth.”

  “Yeah,” Tony agreed. “Fear is normal. I don’t care how much of a bad-ass you are, when the bullets start flying, you’re going to be scared. It’s normal. The key is to not let it control you. You’ve gotta use that shit to your advantage.”

  “We’ve all seen our share of things,” LeHorn agreed, “but none of that has prepared us for what we are about to face. We may find that our fear is controlling us, rather than the other way around. And if that happens, then we may have no choice but to...”

  “To what?” Teddy asked.

  LeHorn glanced down at the floor. “To let the Exit do it his way.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “You know what, Teddy. Come on. You’ve known all along.” LeHorn glanced at Sarah and then back to Teddy. “Do I really need to say it?”

  “Sacrifice Henry?” Teddy lunged forward and jabbed one gnarled finger in LeHorn’s face. “You know what? I rarely curse, but let me say it before Tony does. Fuck you, Nelson! I’ll die before I let that crazy son of a bitch kill that boy.”

  “It wouldn’t really come to that, would it?” Sarah asked.

  LeHorn slowly raised his head and nodded.

  Teddy turned away and stalked across the dais. “Come on. We need to find a way down there.”

  They fanned out, following him, but slowly.

  Teddy scanned the area, while below, the bleating chant continued. It occurred to him that LeHorn was right about the sound in this place. Given the massive throng assembled below, the noise of those loathsome upraised voices should have been thunderous. But they weren’t.

  “I need some kind of weapon,” Sarah said. “You and Tony have guns. I need a gun.”

  “I don’t reckon Leviathan has a gun safe lying around.” Teddy walked over to a spire of blue and green coral that hung suspended from the ceiling. “What’s the purpose of this, LeHorn? Any idea?”

  The farmer shrugged. “I don’t know. Decorative, maybe? Some kind of art or sculpture? Or maybe it just formed naturally.”

  Teddy stepped back, raised the shotgun, and set the stock in his armpit. Then he blasted the coral at the point where it met the ceiling. The spiral fell to the floor and rolled to his feet.

  “That was fucking stupid!” Tony’s eyes went wide with alarm. “You don’t think they’re going to hear a fucking shotgun blast from down there?”

  “No,” Teddy said. “Actually, I don’t reckon they will. I was thinking about what Nelson said—about how sound carries in this place. I doubt they heard it at all.”

  Tony stared at him in disbelief. Then, he edged over to the railing, and cast a furtive glance down. He turned back to them, and visibly relaxed.

  “Okay,” he admitted. “Maybe you’re right. But that was still fucking stupid, Teddy.”

  “Well, you can berate me for it later, if we make it out of here alive.”

  Teddy picked up the coral, and hefted it, testing its weight. The length was light, but solid—about as long as his arm, and tipped with a point at one end. Grinning, he handed it to Sarah. “Will this do?”

  “Better than nothing.” She accepted the makeshift weapon. “I’ll make it work.”

  Tony walked away from them, shaking his head. “That still doesn’t solve the problem of how we’re gonna get dowwwww—”

  He vanished from sight, as if the air itself had swallowed him whole.

  “Tony!” Teddy rushed over to where he’d disappeared.

  “Teddy, wait!” LeHorn held up his hand.

  Teddy reached the spot where Tony had been. The floor looked solid. He took another step and then suddenly…

  …he found himself standing underwater, surrounded by Leviathan’s army.

  Teddy drew in a lungful of air to scream, and then realized with a start that he should be drowning. He stood completely submerged, with water completely enclosing him, and yet, he wasn’t drowning. He felt wet, and his movements were slower, meeting resistance from the liquid volume, yet he could still breathe and see and hear as if he were standing on dry land.

  Of course, wet or dry, it didn’t change the fact that he was also standing amidst a teeming mass of zoological obscenities.

  “I don’t think they can see us.”

  Startled, Teddy turned to his right, and found Tony standing beside him.

  “How is this possible?”

  Tony shrugged. “I know, right? It’s some freaky fucking shit. Near as I can figure, it’s like LeHorn was saying. We’re standing here in the middle of them, but occupying a different space. They don’t see us, but we can see them. I figure all we gotta do is wait until they’ve all filed inside that fucking temple or whatever it is over there, and then we can sneak in after them.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “No shit. Especially since the alternative is shooting our way through them. And magic bullets or no, we’re way outnumbered.”

  Teddy was about to respond when Sarah suddenly appeared between them. Her eyes were wide with panic, and she flailed, raising her coral bludgeon. Teddy quickly put a hand on her shoulder to calm her. LeHorn appeared a moment later, his expression one of sheer terror.

  “It’s okay,” Teddy assured them both. “They can’t see us.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Sarah whispered.

  “No,” Teddy replied. “Not one hundred percent. But I reckon if they knew we were here, we’d be dead already.”

  “He’s right,” LeHorn said. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Tony. When Teddy said to find a way down here, that’s exactly what you did.”

  Teddy pointed at the domed citadel. “Now all we have to do is find our way into there.”

  He explained Tony’s plan to them, and they agreed. Then, the four of them stood in silence, watching in fear and disgust as the monstrous aquatic throngs loped, slithered, hopped and swam past them. They saw humanoids with the characteristics of both humans and varying sea creatures—sharks, starfish, jellyfish, octopi, and eels. There were sirens and mermaids and something with a voluptuous body but the head of a manatee. Several different races of frog-like beings bounded past. Some looked like nothing more than giant toads. Others had human characteristics. Giant sea spiders skittered along, and a phalanx of huge snails crawled past, leaving a bubbling, acidic trail of toxic slime in their wake. Schools of fish darted by, including the dreaded flying piranha, and a similar looking specimen that emitted a green, visible cloud from its skin. A horde of what looked like giant Komodo dragons rode by them, sitting astride beasts of burden that looked like a bizarre cross between a lobster, a crab, and a scorpion.

  Tony pointed at the latter. “Those are Clickers. And the lizard people on top of them are called the Dark Ones.”

  “I’ve seen them written about in books,” LeHorn murmured, “but they’re even more terrifying in real life.”

  “Your other selves never encountered them?” Tony asked.

  “No,” LeHorn said, “and thank God for that.”

  “Does anybody see Henry?” Sarah asked.

  Teddy pointed. “He and the Exit are near the front now.”

  “What do we do?” she asked. “What if by the time we get in there, it’s too late?”

  “It won’t be,” LeHorn said. “They won’t begin any sort of ceremony until all of them are inside. Tony is right about waiting until then. Soon as the coast is clear, we’ll go inside the citadel, too.”

  Tony turned to him. “Any ideas on how to do that?”

  “We’ll walk in the front door. Keep in mind, the doorway to our world...well, not our world, but the Earth we just left is inside there, as well. It’s my hope that most of these creatures are going right through it.”

  “Can you be sure about that?” Teddy asked.

  LeHorn nodded. “I can feel it. The pull is strong. The portal’s in there.”

  “Could they take Henry through it with them?” Sarah asked.

  LeHorn shook his head. “I don’t think so. Like I said, I fear they’ll be offered up to Leviathan before that. Probably once the last of the throng is through. So, once we get inside, we need to first free Henry and the Exit. Then we’ll focus on Leviathan. Once we’ve either destroyed him or banished him to the Void, either the Exit or I can close the door.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” Teddy said.

  “It won’t be,” LeHorn replied. “I knew I couldn’t send all of the worms to the Void. I’m feeling a little more confident I can do so with this horde. But, as I said, it won’t be easy.”

  “No.” Teddy sighed. “I don’t reckon it will.”

  The ranks began to slowly thin as more and more of the army reached the domed structure. When the coast was clear, Teddy took one tentative step to the right, and found that only half of him was now standing underwater. He took another step and emerged onto the muddy, slime-covered plain that Leviathan’s army had just crossed.

  One by one, the others joined him.

  Frowning, Sarah patted her hair. “I feel wet, and yet...not wet. Simultaneously.”

  “This place is fucked,” Tony muttered. “Who was that guy? The one that painted all those weird pictures of stairways to nowhere?”

  “M.C. Escher,” Sarah replied.

  “Yeah!” Tony snapped his fingers. “That’s him. I thought the Labyrinth felt like one of those paintings, but this place? R’lyeh or however the fuck you say it? The Great Deep. This is like being trapped inside one of those paintings while tripping on shrooms.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Teddy said. “I was always partial to Norman Rockwell.”

  The four of them smiled at one another for a moment. Then, their smiles faded.