Crossover of the Week

1881

THE WAR SHAMAN

The Merkabah Rider gives his ally Kabede a pistol with the Elder Sign imprinted on its side. Kabede refers to their conflict with the Great Old Ones. The two of them, along with the Rider’s old friend Dick Belden, are visited by Shar-rogs pa, the blue abbot of Shambhala, aka Faustus Montague. The monk Chaksusa told the Rider of the abbot when he’d battled Shub-Niggurath, the Yiggians, and the Black Goat Man. Faustus’ brother is Mun Gsod. Faustus tells the Rider, Kabede and Belden of stories that are true: a whaler with an Indian figurehead pursuing a pale leviathan to the doom of her crew and her scarred captain; a young boy putting his hand on a sword and drawing it lightly from a stone, becoming the greatest king the world has ever known; and thirteen heroes with two hearts between them, who set themselves between an insignificant world and all the evil that time and space can muster. He further states a word Chaksusa taught to the Rider, when combined with the Star-Stones of Mnar, is doubly detrimental to the Great Old Ones. The Apache Piishi has seen the Rider’s old acquaintance Misquamacus. Ten of Faustus’ disciples died battling Adon’s Creed on a mesa at a place called Stallions Gate in New Mexico. Among the allies of the Merkabah Riders are the Kun-Sun-Dai and the Watchers. Faustus thinks Misquamacus may be serving Nyarlathotep. The Rider’s own claustrophobia reminds him of his boyhood friend Aloysius Monkowitz’s many phobias. The Rider and Piishi faced Shub-Niggurath and the Cold Ones together. Misquamacus has manipulated the Billington family in the past. The geometric patterns in sand-images made by a group of skinwalkers remind the Rider of the diagrams in the Book of Zylac. Misquamacus summons Ossodagowah.

Short story by Edward M. Erdelac in Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel, Damnation Books, 2011. The Elder Sign, the Great Old Ones, Shub-Niggurath, and Yig are from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The Star-Stones of Mnar are from August Derleth’s The Lurker at the Threshold. Misquamacus is from both The Lurker at the Threshold and Graham Masterton’s Manitou novels. The Lurker at the Threshold mentions both Misquamacus’ devotion to Nyarlathotep and his conjuring of Ossodagowah. The Billington family is also from The Lurker at the Threshold. “Shar-rogs pa” and “Mun Gsod” are Tibetan approximations of “Darkness Slayer” and “East-helper,” the English translations of the names of the blue wizards Morinehtar and Rómestámo from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This story reveals Rómestámo and Misquamacus are the same being. The whaler is the Pequod from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The boy who drew the sword from the stone is King Arthur. The thirteen heroes with two hearts between them are the various incarnations of the Doctor, of Doctor Who fame. While most of the Doctor’s exploits take place in an alternate universe, it has been established the Doctor has a CU counterpart, who often goes by the name of Doctor Omega. Stallions Gate, New Mexico, is the future site of Project Quantum Leap, from the television series Quantum Leap. The Watchers (more properly the Watchers’ Council) are from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while the Kun-Sun-Dai (whose full name is the Order of the Kun-Sun-Dai) are from the “Awakening” and “Calvary” episodes of the Buffy spin-off Angel. Aloysius Monkowitz is an ancestor of obsessive-compulsive private investigator Adrian Monk from the television series Monk. The Cold Ones and Zylac appear in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Clark Ashton Smith. Zylac’s book, The Wisdom and Sacred Magic of Zylac the Mage, appears in stories by Joseph S. Pulver.