X's for Eyes by Laird Barron Page B

to establish greater communion. Tom suggests I might be restored to full glory with the proper rituals and concomitant astronomical alignment. A damned lie, alas. Silly bastards will do anything to win favor with the unholiest of the unholy.
    “What’s the point in misleading his own followers? I don’t get the impression he cares for material wealth. He’s no evangelist.”
    Make no mistake, certain favored mortals know the truth and consider Tom and his servitors an enemy for my affection. As to why he mistreats his own followers so shabbily? Base lust, sad to say. Tom eats some and rapes the sanity from others. Their pitiful appeals to greater meaning delight him. Isn’t that the way of your kind, though? To attribute motives and pattern to the inscrutable and the ineffable?
    “He implanted a post hypnotic suggestion in my mind that permitted me to open the way.”
    Indeed, Tom sent you to me. He has an agenda.
    “I wonder what that could be.”
    His motive will become apparent. In the meantime, trust that I personally hold no malice for the people of the Earth. A teeny-tiny piece of me that sheared off during the trilobite era of your world’s prehistory can be malicious. My lesser self remains fast asleep and harmless for eternity—unless some idiot rouses it.
    “Swell,” Mac shook his head. “Sheared off when you tried to invade? What happened? Too much god to squeeze through the portal? Took it out on Tom when the door snapped shut? Pardon me if I withhold my trust regarding your intentions.”
    Oh, come now. Bygones should be bygones after a few hundred million years. Ruling over invertebrates did not excite me. I withdrew. My circumstances changed. You might say I went through a rough patch. Here we are.
    “We’re here because NCY-93 flew off course and fell into your clutches . . . ”
    There are no accidents. Think clearly. Think as a Tooms older than nine.
    “Oh. I’m an idiot.” Mac smiled bitterly. “The trip to photograph Pluto was a ruse. The malfunction of the drive also a ruse. The Great Dark was always the destination.” He understood with horrifying certainty that Granddad and Dad were fully aware of Mr. Gray. They’d designed a probe to travel into a parallel universe and gather unholy knowledge from a source of incalculable evil. He could imagine their smug grins as they anticipated the launch, and their resultant fury when the probe blew apart before escaping the Earth’s gravity. Which held true? The reality wherein Nancy crashed with a dire payload, or the reality wherein the probe exploded?
    Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies. This you may have for free—whatever you suppose, you are only half right. However deep you think the rabbit hole descends, it goes deeper. The ground vibrated and cracked. In the near distance, a metal ziggurat rose from the dust. The structure appeared identical to the one frozen inside the Ugruk Glacier. A doorway spiraled open.
    This planet and its inhabitants slaked my desires in happier times. An advanced species lies buried beneath these wastes. I annihilated the last of them centuries ago. Their doors remain. Their projectors.
    “Your son designed this one as well, I suppose.”
    No, my daughter did. Hell of an inventor, that girl. Step through the membrane from this reality and be reunited with Drederick. Fix him in your mind. The cogs of the universe will slip and align.
    “Yes, and after the hugs and teary kisses?”
    Arthur Navarro is not lost to you. The Arthur who returned to your world was a candle flicker of himself. The best of his life force resides in the outermost reaches of my honeycomb prison.
    “Fine news, sir. Tell me the catch.”
    The catch is you and your devious kin will continue to dance for my amusement. Drederick is near the Lagerstätte, my web of death dreams. Go to him, together you’ll retrieve your friend and all will be well. Or you’ll die horribly. It’s always a tossup.
    “I’d dance a jig to see