What is Kragn?

Kragn is the new cosmic threat in my Z’garh Khrl’ur trilogy. I can’t give too much away – I’ll save that for my second instalment, Kragn Rises – but here’s an explanation from Chapter 2 of Dark Farm. It’s a conversation between 17 year old Dylan Gates and the elderly Wilfred Waite. The exchange happens in Waite’s antiques store …

“Your boy,” said Wilfred Waite, turning to Mike at last, “is the spitting image of me when I was a lad.”

“A century ago,” muttered Dylan.

“Dylan!” scolded his mother.

But Wilfred was nonplussed. “Two to be exact,” he corrected. He eyed the statue and said in a voice that was almost a chant, “Flesh that is yours shall Z’garh Khrl’ur bestow. Inside you Kragn dwells, and to Kragn shall you return.”

Dylan frowned at the store owner’s words. He pushed himself up in the chair.

“You have excellent taste, young man,” continued Wilfred. “That is the great Kragn Z’garh Khrl’ur.”

“The great what?” Dylan turned over the price tag. “Twelve hundred bucks?”

“It’s an antiquity.”

“It’s grotesque,” said Mike.

“What’s it supposed to be?” asked Lauren.

“Kragn is The One Who Came Before,” explained Wilfred, hobbling towards a display cabinet. He lifted the glass top and placed the knife inside. “Z’garh Khrl’ur bides His time in serene contemplation, served by the Eternal Priests, awaiting the day of reckoning when He will tire of His divine benevolence and initiate the Reclamation.”

“What’s that?” asked Dylan.

“What’s what?”

“The Reclamation.”

“The Reclamation? It’s means reclaiming.”

“Yeah – duh … but what’s this thing wanting to reclaim?”

Wilfred raised his eyebrows. “Everything.”

Dylan smirked at the old man’s melodramatic tone. There was the glow of fever in his yellow eyes and he was telling the story of this monster as if he actually believed it. He sniffed the statue’s head. It smelt like stale seaweed. “What does its name mean?”

“Clever child,” purred Wilfred. “The name does have meaning, though it goes without saying it has no equivalent in any earthly language. The closest interpretation of Z’garh Khrl’ur would be ‘Bringer of the Dark’.”

“That doesn’t sound so scary.”

“It’s a promise, boy, not a threat.”

When Dylan looked at him questioningly, he closed the lid of the display cabinet and returned to the armchair. “Kragn ruled the sublime order before this false universe began,” he explained. “He despises what has become, and when He so chooses, shall return time, space, matter and energy to the order of before. In the darkness that preceded the dawn of our delusive reality lies Kragn’s glory and our salvation.”

“You’re saying this thing lived before the Big Bang?”

Wilfred closed his eyes.

“That’s stupid. There was nothing before the Big Bang.”

The old man’s eyes shot open. “The only stupidity is ignorance and fear, boy. There was indeed another reality – the only true reality – a perfect order surpassing anything now in existence within this turgid mess you call the universe.” He glared at Dylan, trembling with excitement. “Greater than your puny mind could ever conceive of, greater than any human mind can conceive, where reality was dark order and Kragn reigned supreme above all.”

“That’s enough chatter, Dylan,” said his father. “We need to make tracks before it starts raining again. Are we ready?” he asked Lauren.

“Assuming for a moment that was true,” continued Dylan, enjoying the debate he felt he was winning, “nothing could have survived the Big Bang. It was, like, a gazillion degrees.”

“You sound so certain for someone so young.”

“It’s science.”

Wilfred smiled at him, revealing small brown teeth. “No, it’s magic.”