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man apes had began to diversify and selecting the most likely stock had encouraged their emerging xenophobia and aggression by subtle alterations to their body chemistry. He had watched with growing pleasure as one branch, expanding into colder climes had engaged with and eventually eliminated a rather hairier and more beetle-browed tribe of their distant relations. After that it was only necessary to make small adjustments to specific individuals to ensure an ever-growing harvest of their raw emotions.

  Re-engaging with the fourth and fifth Sschai t'aan navigated through a haze of fractal colours shot through with cloudy odours of angular momentum until he emerged in a pendulous bubble of entwined cadences. Again he closed down unwanted aspects of the higher dimensions and unwinding the lowest three peered through the opening doorway.

  A thin wind blew across the dry earth of the open ground just outside the city walls. At its centre was a line of six tall posts, spaced well apart, each surrounded by its own pile of oil-soaked faggots. The crowd had already assembled but were held well back by the guards. Pedlars made their way through the throng offering sweetmeats and trinkets. A low stand erected along one side of the stakes had filled with the town gentry. Seated with the nobility was a row of sombre figures, black cloaks over white habits. At their centre a heavily built figure, blunt faced with a prominent nose and pendulous jowls scowled across the arena, irritable with impatience, turning from time to time to speak to the scarlet robed cardinal beside him. There was a stir from the crowd nearest the city gates. The procession could be seen winding its way down from the Castillo de San Servando and thence through the Puerta de Bisagra into the quemadero – the burning place. An excited roar burst from the onlookers as the penitentes, dressed in black sambenitos decorated with yellow sackcloth flames were marched onto the field, stumbling as they were dragged to the posts and secured there by their chains. The Dominican priest who had accompanied them stretched out his hands towards them.

  'Make a true confession,' he implored, 'repudiate your false beliefs and make your peace with God.'

  The prisoners, dazed by hours spent with the rack and the stapado, stared back at him. One spat, another moaned softly and a third muttered a prayer.

  The priest signalled to the waiting executioners and flaming brands were applied to the faggots. As the flames licked upwards he raised his hands to heaven and prayed for the souls of the heretics.

  Sensoria fully extended, Sschai t'aan drank in the emotions, the mixture of fear, hatred and prurience from the crowd, the agony of the victims, wafted up by the greasy smoke, as their skins blistered and charred, until their lives were extinguished. He drank in the smug satisfaction of the holy orders as they carried out God's will. All too soon it was over. The blackened corpses hung loosely in their chains as the embers crackled and hissed and the fires died away. Sschai t'aan reached down and touched the mind of his protégé.

  Thomas de Torquemada, Confessor to Her Imperial Catholic Majesty Isabella of Castile, Inquisitor General of Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia by writ of Pope Sixtus IV, filled with pride at carrying out his ordained task of hunting down the backsliding conversos who made a mockery of the holy sacrament which had been given them by continuing with their own abominable religious practices in secret. He turned to the Papal Legate beside him.

  'You see we are ready to enforce the Holy Father's Papal Bull to the best of our ability,' he said. 'Please impress upon his Holiness that we shall continue to ensure that the full rigour of the Inquisition is employed throughout their Imperial Majesties' domains and beyond if God so wills it.'

  Sschai t'aan felt a quiet glow of pride. Religion was proving an even better tool than politics. At first he had thought little of these primitive's inventions of a pantheon of gods, spirits and supernatural beings but as individuals began to use this to assume the control and manipulation of their fellows he had begun to realise its immense potential. A few deft touches had seen the rise of monotheism which with its accompanying fanaticism had created endless possibilities for oppression, carnage and genocide. It had amused Sschai t'aan that a few of the more sensitive of the humans had in some way detected him and incorporated him in their beliefs.

  Another time, another place.......

  He parted the lower dimensions and looked down through early morning mist onto a battlefield obscured by drifting smoke. A long line of trenches stretching from horizon to horizon, weaved snakelike across the barren marshy landscape, dotted with the blasted remains of trees and covered in craters filled with pools of stagnant water. They were packed with khaki-uniformed soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder in ankle deep mud. To their front, on the other side of the muddy morass that separated them, was another line of facing trenches, Grey-coated figures sheltered in deep dug-outs from an incessant rain of falling shell. Sschai t'aan savoured the air. It was redolent with fear and desperation, essences which he adsorbed, eager for the feast which was to come. An immense explosion from an underground mine ripped out a large section of trench. Earth, rock, timber facings and body parts rained down through the rising cloud of smoke. A few minutes later the bombardment lifted and began to creep towards the enemy trenches Soldiers, rising up from no-mans land where they had been lying in hiding began a steady advance behind it, rifles with fixed bayonets held at the high port. The second attack wave climbed from the front line of trenches and made after them. Suddenly their opponents boiled out of their dugouts, which had remained virtually unscathed by the bombardment. Hastily they mounted machine guns and firing on fixed lines in overlapping arcs began to pour a withering fire into the advancing troops. The khaki figures broke into a desperate run only to be brought to a stop by long barbed wire entanglements which despite assurances to the contrary had remained uncut by the artillery fire. Soon it was adorned by the bodies of desperate men as they tried to climb across it in the face of the enemy fire. The concussion of grenades added to the cacophony of death, screams of agony and plaintive shouts for help. A counter barrage of shells began to fall in no-mans land, blasting the advancing troops. Sschai t'aan extended his sensoria as far as possible over the carnage, sucking up the pain, the misery, the agony, as men on both sides died, the ground soaking up their life blood. A third wave scrambled out of the trenches. He adsorbed their fear as they stumbled over the torn ground, littered with the torn bodies of their comrades, into the hail of bullets and shell fragments. For hours the conflict waged. Small groups battled their way through the enemy trenches, hurling bombs as they went, fighting desperately with bayonets, entrenching tools, fists and boots as well they were able. Many hours later the forward troops, reinforced by fresh soldiers settled down, consolidated their position and awaited the inevitable counterattack which, when it came, forced them back almost to their starting positions.

  Sschai t'aan, bloated with adsorbed essence prepared to withdraw. First he reached out and touched two minds.

  General Sir Douglas Haig stared grim faced at the situation map table in front of him. The first day of the battle of the Somme had not been the success he had anticipated. He rapped sharply on the table and a hush fell over the staff officers around him.

  'As I understand it, from the intelligence we have received so far,' he said, 'the total casualties are estimated at over forty thousand. However,' he continued, 'this cannot be considered severe in view of the numbers engaged and the length of the front attacked. We shall of course continue with the attack in the morning and I expect all involved to show rather more fighting spirit than was evident today. Please make this point most strongly to the commanding officers. I shall view any future lack of enthusiasm with particular displeasure.'

  Not too far away a dispatch runner, dressed in the uniform of the Bavarian 16th Infantry Regiment crouched in his dug-out. Adolf Hitler's mind filled with resentment against the forces that had brought the Fatherland to this present state. The Kaiser and his Jewish cronies were guilty of a crime against the people. He realised that it would b
e his destiny once this war was over to take up the struggle for a new socialist republic, cleansed of all the unwholesome elements which so besmirched it. As he cleaned his rifle he began to make his plans.

  Replete, the storage sacs within his body stretched to bursting with the condensed emotions which he had garnered from the weak inhabitants of this time stream, Sschai t'aan re-entered the higher dimensional reality frame and began the return journey to his starting point. He savoured the pleasure of his accomplishment and happily anticipated future hunts when these puny beings would have invented even better ways of destruction, better methods of spreading misery and despair. So engrossed was he in these pleasurable thoughts that he failed to notice a slight shimmering around him until it was far too late. A black glutinous mass dropped from the ninth dimension and enveloped him in its mantle. Curved fangs sank into him, injecting paralysing venom. Digestive juices ate their way through his flesh and slowly he was adsorbed by his capturer. The shuggoth slurped up the remains and spat out the few hard