A Brightness From A far
by Lord Borleskine
An account of his celebrated voyage to New England. 1824
Aleister Publications. Cambridge.
following a splendid journey, the sunny
harbor came into sight. The locals were
much impressed with one's arrival in
their midst. One had time to sketch
several of them and notice signs of degeneracy.
Some children showed one their
queer hands that would inspire uneasiness.
Upon the promise of
a few coins, a child is undertaken to reveal
to one a most "prodigious phenomenon" of a
natural order. One admits to being
skeptical as to the prodigiousness
of the marvel, whatever it may be;
indeed, one suspects it to be little more
than an evening stroll to some charming
wooden hut situated in the forest hereabouts.
One will nonetheless go, for it is
always well to submit to such local
enthusiasms.
One admits to be
somewhat flabbergasted! The Milky Way
shone like the fires of the Apocalypse
from the inky celestial vault.
Certain distant stars, normally invisible to the
naked eye, were clearly visible,
glittering indeed with a strange
intensity. The heavy clouds that had
settled above the village had no hold
over that place.
If would be pointless to offer here the
names of the constellations one
perceived in utter clarity; apart from
the interminable length of such a list,
one might conceivably risk being charged
with exaggeration!
The cross
cast it shadow on the ground. The sea, in the distance,
was dead calm. Tonight one will
return to that spot and draw those stars.
Tomorrow night, one will at last see
Halley's comet in all its brilliance.
The youngster will carry torches.
Despite one's developed sense of
direction, honed by years of travel,
one feels incapable of finding one's way
through the dark forest unaided.
The drawings will, one is convinced,
set light to the souls of men!
Such a Moon!
One lost count of the craters,
so sharply was their definition.
Loath as one is to seem excessive in one's appraisal,
one cannot but feel that the forest clearing
is indeed a place outside the common
laws of time and space.
Surely it is not
an hallucination!
How strange
to consider that idle conversation, some research in
the British Museum and a voyage to this
backward village should culminate and so
astounding a discovery.
It may be that others have noticed the
extraordinary nature of that place;
how else could one explain the presence of
that cross?
Diary of Jeremy Hartwood
September 27, 1924
I have decided to keep this diary.
Too many inexplicable events have taken
place recently. Never have dreams so
haunted my every waking moment.
Perhaps my romantic mind was too dull,
and has only now woken up to these new
paths and visions.
Some, seeing my recent paintings, may question my sanity.
I can only ask them, "What is sanity?
where does madness begin?"
September 28, 1924
The night is pitch black.
I'm again drenched in sweat.
I was wandering in the dunes among giant
standing stones. They were arranged in a
circle and the wind
whistled about them.
I plunged my hands into the soil, and felt that
repulsive thing which was trying to
catch me.
It seized me. I struggled to break free of
its loathsome embrace, and managed to
tear my hand away; it was covered in
sticky substance. I was gripping a knife...
October 5, 1924
The stone circle is a pentacle. Derceto's library if filled
with books on the occult.
I will study those books until I find some
explanation for the dreams.
The visions that haunt me must be connected to my discoveries.
I shall have to undertake a profound
exploration of my dreams.
December 16.
Dear God! I found the knife.
It was hidden here and what I have learned
fills me with apprehension.
It is a sacrificial dagger, belonging to some unholy cult.
The thought of that blade tearing
through human flesh horrifies me.
Yet I must continue my research.
Derceto is a storehouse of treasures.
Was my father right after all?
January 23
I spend all my days plunged in dusty books.
The servants are convinced i am mad.
At night, i awaken them with my screams.
The dreams are draining what sanity i still have.
I have tried staying awake, but in vain.
My visions have changed,
no doubt the influence of my father's research.
February 7, 1925
The dark man ( that is what i call him) has revealed his true face to me.
He appeared, as usual,
near the fireplace; but this time, he approached me.
His terrible smile will haunt me to my dying day.
His breath was ice and his
burning eyes froze me; I could not move!
I know, as surely as I have ever known
anything, that the face I saw, the face
that has turned my nights into a hellish torture,
is the mask of death.
March 10
My exhaustion is beyond description.
The endless reading burns my eyes.
it seems that pirates frequented the area.
Dr. Herbert insists i keep to my bed.
I have moved to another bedroom and
sleep much better now
The dark man has not gone, however. I know it.
He will wait for as long as he must...
Unless I, Jeremy Hartwood, can find a way
to send him back to whatever hell he
comes from.
March 11.
My poor knowledge of Greek and Latin
is a serious handicap to my reading.
I have nevertheless made a great step forward.
I drew the symbol on the floor:
he can no longer go there.
I want him to understand that i can do the same thing i n my bedroom.
I can imagine his rage and frustration;
only last night he found his way back into my dreams.
March 13
The translation will seriously dent what money I have left.
I cannot paint! My pictures are clearly the
work of a lunatic.
The Collector Thornhill's embarrassed smile was proof of that...
March 29.
He has come back...
He found the door to my dreams.
I am too weary to attempt any defense.
I have no strength left to fight
and he knows it.
He considers me dead already.
Could I possibly...
March 30
How ironic...
The cave my father sought for so many years is here...
beneath the house.
Waites, the butler discovered a crack in the cellar wall.
A breeze blows in through it,
Ice and repugnant, ...
I am filled with horror at the the thought of my father
dying in this place.
I will carry to my grave the vision of
his face contorted in the agony of that
fatal heart attack.
His body was twisted.
He had wept ...
His finger nails were torn and bloody from scrambling
at the floor.
Dr Gray concluded that death had been
due to a heart attack
It was Waites who, sometime later,
was informed that my poor father had in fact
bitten off his tongue and choked on his own blood.
March 31
I explored the caverns in a dream.
The dark man came with me.
Strangely, i felt almost well,
How can I describe what i saw?
No. What words are capable of explaining such evil?
I realized that my death was of no interest to him.
The dark men wants something else;
He seeks a body.
He avid servants are now free...
I am the cause.
It is almost funny.
A curse is on Derceto,
from the foundations to the very rooftop.
I can no longer struggle, let alone
eradicate the evil that grips the house.
The end is very near. I can feel it.
I have taken the decision to...
May he who finds this diary pray for my soul
The sacrificial dagger
Otto Stern.
Lumina Books.
the importance placed on ritual
sacrifice is constant in religious
cult practice. Propitiating the god is
a theme common to many religions;
The Old Testament affords many examples.
Primitive polytheistic belief systems integrate
sacrifice in their rituals as part of
the current process of reaffirmation and,
naturally enough, group cohesion.
The members of their social and
religious community come together in an
act of purification and atonement.
It would be erroneous to imagine the act
of human sacrifice, linking priest,
offering and god (cf Manzetti, "Stone Cults"),
as anything less than a vital focusing
of the group's faith.
The act also ensures the continuing appeasement
of the god, but only if practiced by a
recognized officiating priest using the
appropriate instrument.
Studies made concerning primitive religious groups
bear witness to the central role of
sacrifice in living ritual
My own work
in the field of ethno-psychology brought me into contact
with a sorcerer living in the region of Arkham.
He introduced me to the "right of steel",
linked to a ceremony known as
"Adoring the Black Goat of the woods with a thousand Young's".
The god being adored
is known as the Vagabond.
Here, the daggers role, which allows the
life-breath to pass from one dimension
to another, is essential.
The Vagabond
is a frightening figure,
being able to move where he wants
and to kill those who have displeased
the goat-god for whom he acts as a
go-between.
The goat is clearly a fertility god.
The priest, having spoken the invocation,
must choose the appropriate dagger for
the sacrifice.
the knife with the sinusoidal blade that must be
dipped seven times, on nights when the moon
is full, in water that has been distilled
a hundred times, will be laid aside,
since it would send the Vagabond back into his
own dimension (see illustration).
The priest will rather choose the dagger
with a curved blade that is more
appropriate for slitting of the lamb's
throat. This act transfigures the sorcerer
priest and plunges the assembled
worshipers into a divine trance.
Use the curved dagger and stab once the bubble monster (The Vagabond)
CONTINUES
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