“You have been in this place before,” the children chant in their sing-song voice and I know that they are telling the truth. It is etched in my memory, engraved along the grooves of my brain. I know where they are taking me now, to the cave without a ceiling, to the Wound-Well. I make the token effort to escape, but the wound in my chest burns me, bites into my heart with brand-new fangs.
“Soon, no pain. Soon...” the halfwit says, soothingly. We walk down an impossibly steep path, our feet sticking to the rock in defiance of reason. Down, down, down...all the way into his grasp. And he is beautiful, he is wondrous. He is bloated and infested with sores. The eight digits in each divine hand grasp for the world above, lap at me with their tongues. Their saliva burns through my clothes, singes them to tatters. I am naked, the great sucking thing on my chest plain for all to see.
“Bless us, o Mwyl. We bring you the ultimate offering!” The halfwit calls out. The thing in the pit moves lightning-fast, grasping him in its hand-mouth. It devours Simon whole, crushes him in its teeth. Simon squeals in ecstasy. Such is the fickle nature of the Hungry God, driven by the burning in his belly.
The sacrifices have been made, o Mwyl. The vessel has provided the slaughter, the children sing and my entire life falls into place, each moment arranged like an intricate mural: I taste the black milk that fed me in my mouth, know the kiss of the Hungry God on my chest. Muscle memory flashes me back to the pain of my bare flesh against the hot rocks as I was laid in the desert, raised by parents who took pity on the poor, deformed child. Visions spill out from the halls of memory, a lifetime of subconscious preparation for this: the calculated slaughter of my adopted people. The paving of the way for the Hungry God who would swim across the face of the Earth on a river of blood.
“You know now, don’t you Rabbi?” the children ask over the horrible growl of the Hungry God’s immense thought-projections. “You know what you must do.”
I nod. All it would take would be words, spoken a hundred thousand times by wise men. A spell, cleverly disguised as a verse in the book of Numbers, uttered a hundred thousand times over the course of generations. Nowhere near enough to weaken the fabric of reality, not without considerable sacrifice. As it was expected of me, I had opened the way for the Hungry God. Nothing was left but a mere incantation that would let him loose upon the face of the world.
“Y’golognac,” I spit the Hungry God’s True Name, whispered to me in lullabies in my infancy to bind my soul to his. The children whisper and scatter. The Hungry God reads my mind, knows what I am about to do. It flexes its mind, enveloping my mind with its raw, naked power. “Va’ gull thon’thok!” I speak the incantation backwards, reversing the spell just as part of my skull caves in.
There is a thunderous noise everywhere and lights and a spray of red.
The Hungry God falls down, down, down.
I wail like an infant.
The mountain collapses.
***
I see these things through a crack on the face of the Universe:
Roman soldiers come on horseback. The terrible rumbling sound draws them. One howls in horror, his hair turning white. He catches a fleeting glimpse of the world beyond. The straggling rebels are caught up in it as well. They all but tumble down the mountain. Arrows and pila cut them down to the man.
I watch Judea speed out and away through time, out of my reach. I am in the Wound Well, with him. In his rage, he pulls my limbs apart like an insect. He feeds on the children but lets me linger forever. This is my punishment.
I love him. I betrayed him. I hate him. I saved them.
It goes on and on forever, down there in the dark.
Time Devours All
by Pete Rawlik
It was raining when Vulpinius and his prisoner entered Rome. Two centurions stopped him at the Porta Latina, but a quick flash of his medallion, the one that bore the stylized X symbolizing the Decemviri, made sure that the guards knew who he was. The Decemviri Sacris Faciundis had been the Quindecemviri for more than 400 years, but they still used the old symbol and name, it carried weight, age, and respect. Enough respect to warrant a boy to guide them down the Via Latina and through the city. It had been four years since Vulpinius had been in the great metropolis, and much had changed. Emperor Vespasian had embarked on an unprecedented series of public works projects, and the city was literally littered with construction equipment. Not that it had ever been easy to get around Rome. The city was a conglomeration of roads and alleyways and bridges, and while the great via helped, moving from one via to the other was notoriously difficult. In all truth it was easier to either pass through the center or leave the city entirely, than to move from via to via. It is not that such connections didn’t exist; they were just too small and too crowded to make them viable as travel routes. In a city the size and complexity of Rome, roads themselves were valuable commodities.
If they had been to walk straight, the trip from a main gate to the Temple of Apollo Patronus on the Palatine might have taken little more than an hour, but in Rome such a trip took twice as long and meant moving through secret alleyways and byways and private gardens that the centurions had, through wit or favor obtained the right to pass through. It was a labyrinth and on more than one occasion Vulpinius knew that they had crossed back onto a previous path to access an uncrowded section of road, or to avoid construction. Even in the torrential rain the commerce of Rome and her citizens failed to cease its constant chatter, whether that was in Latin, Greek or Hebrew. Vulpinius, which was not his real name, it was not even good Latin, knew a smattering of all these languages but was most fluent in the growling Germanic tongue his Batavian mother had taught him. His father a retired centurion, had never married his mother, and so he had no proper Roman surname either, but rather went by the Romanized family name his mother had used. Neither was proper, and he would never rise high in the ranks of his profession because of it, but in some circles the name Vulpinius Pistorius was respected, in others it was feared, and as far as he was concerned one was as good as the other.
When they finally made it to the temple, Vulpinius dismissed their guide and then made their way to the base of the bridge that linked the Temple of Apollo to the Bibliotheca Apollonis. There was a fresco there, an idyllic scene of an arched bridge beneath which children and women lounged in the shadows. Few patrons of the temple or library paid it much attention, and fewer more noticed that one of the archways wasn’t painted but real, and the man who lounged in the shadow beneath it was armed and watchful. As Vulpinius and his charge approached he again flashed the seal of the Decemviri and with a quick nod both travelers vanished into a well concealed door.
As they passed the guard nodded and whispered “Welcome home, Vulpinius, you have been...missed.” Whether this was a greeting or a warning the tired agent wasn’t sure.
The way down was old and constructed from stones salvaged from the original headquarters of the Decemviri that had been in the Temple of Jupiter before it had burned a hundred and fifty years prior. That was when Sulla had expanded the collegium from ten to fifteen men, and began the quest to replace the treasure that the flames had devoured, a quest that still continued and gave Vulpinius and others purpose in life. He served the Empire, he served Rome, but before all else he served the Decemviri, and the mission they had set for him. Once they had been guardians and interpreters of the Sibylline Books, three volumes of prophecies that Tarquinius Superbus had purchased from the Cumaean Sibyll. There had been nine books once, but six had been consigned to the fire before Tarquinius had agreed to the oracle’s price. For more than four centuries the Sibylline Books had helped guide the rulers of Rome, and the Decemviri had controlled their reading and interpretation.
Until they were lost.
Most believed that the Temple of Jupiter had been just another victim of the civil war that had placed Sulla on the throne, that the temple and the original Bibliotheca X with it had been destroyed in battle between one faction and another. The Decemviri b
elieved otherwise.
There was a man, a Quaestor by the name of Titus Sempronius Blaesus, who had one day collapsed as he did his work and suffered through a delirious fever for the next day or so. When his strange spell finally broke his family had found that he had undergone a radical change. Of his friends and family he had no memory. Nor did he have any recollection of his own life, his occupation or his own desires and habits. Cases of amnesia were not uncommon, particularly amongst soldiers, and little was thought of the man and his affliction. Doctors and philosophers came to see him, and some commented on his strange manner of speaking, and his own odd questioning manner concerning subjects ranging from philosophy to science to religion and even politics and war. He was suddenly a voracious reader, and devoured not only the news of the day, but the histories of Rome and its predecessors, and he became a common sight amongst the crowds that gathered to hear the orators of the Senate speak. Given his previous position, and his frequent association with Senators and proconsuls, no one gave a second thought when he sought shelter with the other dignitaries within the center of Rome. It came as quite a surprise when he forced his way into the offices of the Decemviri and proceeded to spread oil over the archives that had come to be known as Bibliotheca X. The fire burned the original Sibylline books, their copies and translations, supporting documents and three archivists. Titus Sempronius Blaesus was never seen again, and it was assumed that he too was lost in the flames, or perhaps killed by soldiers when they breached the defenses.
More than one-hundred and fifty years later and the Decemviri had finally rebuilt the archives and was once more able to help the support the Empire through the interpretation of prophecies. The Sibylline books were still lost, but there were other prophets and other prophecies, and the world was full of wonders just waiting for Rome and her agents to grab them. Most of the citizenry, and even the patricians, had thought the scouring of the empire for prophets and prophecies had long been completed. The words of the Tiburtine Sibyl and the Brothers Marcius were the primary texts, but they paled in comparison to what had once been, and so the law concerning oracles still stood. The Senate had, over the decades, simply forgotten to repeal their decree, and therefore the private possession of books of prophecy was forbidden. Even those with the gift itself were compelled into the service of Rome and the Decemviri.
Which was why Vulpinius had gone to Sicilia and returned with the man who had may have been a prophet himself.
The man had arrived in Syracuse from Aegypt with no papers, no money and chattering in the language which no one could understand. The only thing that held any clue to his origin had been a scroll in a language the local officials did not recognize. A scroll tied by an odd chain of rods and crystals. It took weeks for the local constabulary to discover that the man was speaking a dialect from an area far to the East in Parthia. Even once they found someone who could speak his barbaric language, the man still could not provide any information about himself. He had, it seemed, suffered some kind of amnesia. He claimed to be named Beazlae and been a simple scribe from the city of Susa. How he had come to be on board the vessel, or how he had accumulated certain scars and tattoos he could not say. He was confused for when he looked at himself he was older than he remembered, leaner and more muscular as well. It was as if he had aged years and had no memory of it.
All of this would not have been enough to arouse the interest of the Decemviri, but then there were the pages. Pages that Beazlae claimed were written in his own hand, and in his native tongue. Pages and words he had never read before, but somehow knew from the Summa Ysgl, a legendary book of prophecy that was old before even the Akkadians had walked the Earth. The Summa Ysgl, which some claimed to translate as the “The Prophecies of the Monsters of the Earth.” It was a book so rare, so legendary, that even these few pages had attracted the attention of the Decemviri and had forced the dispatch of Vulpinius aboard The Latro to bring Beazlae and his pages to Rome and Bibliotheca X. There, he and his writings were to be interrogated by the Decemviri, perhaps even all fifteen members.
All this ran through Vulpinius’ head as he and Beazlae descended the torch lit steps that led down from the surface and into the vaults beneath the temple that served as the headquarters of the library of prophecies and the men who ran it. Who those men were was a well-guarded secret for while the Emperor ruled Rome, the Decemviri made sure that he knew what he needed to insure the future of the empire. Fifteen men who kept to the shadows and guided the future of the world. Vulpinius had his suspicions, one might have been General Aulus Caecina Alienus who had been charged with suppressing Vespasian’s attempted coup, but then had suddenly switched sides. Another, Vulpinius suspected, might have been Titus Clodius Eprius Marcellus, the current Roman Consul, the leader of the Imperial Senate and Vespasian’s closest advisor. Vulpinius had no proof of this of course, but he had heard these men speak in the Senate, and recognized their voices when he was given his orders in the Shadow Chamber.
The Shadow Chamber was always cold and dark. The only light came from the lamps that silhouetted the members of the Decemviri who deemed it appropriate to be present. Today was no different. He and Beazlae were seated in the dark, the scroll removed from their care and passed to the men beyond the curtain. He could count six men seated back there, six men whose faces he could not see. But he could see their shadows and hear their breathing, and beyond that he could hear the wheezing, labored lungs of a seventh man, an old man, tired and phlegmy. A man Vulpinius had never heard before, a man who didn’t belong. A man who smelled of hemp smoke.
“Your report, Vulpinius.” The voice was cultured and tired, and definitely that of Eprius Marcellus.
“I present to you Beazlae of Susa. A man who cannot recall how he left Parthia, or when, or why, or even how he came to be in Sicilia. He recognizes that his intrusion is an insult and begs our pardon. He wishes nothing more than to return home.”
“And what of this scroll?” There was a rustling of papers and the thin chain of rods and crystal chimed as it was unraveled. “How does he know it to be from the Summa Ysgl?”
“When I and the translator questioned him about this he was very clear that while he had never seen a copy of that book, or could read what he himself had apparently written, he somehow knew beyond all doubt that these words had come from that accursed work.”
“You are sure he has no memory of any of this?”
Vulpinius nodded. “I am sure. Whatever task the Gods used this man for they seem finished with him. He can be of no use to us.”
Alienus spoke next, or at least so Vulpinius thought. “He cannot be returned to Parthia. We offer him a choice, he can travel to Britannia and live out his life there, or we can execute him here.”
“No!” The old man who could barely breathe cried out. “He has no choice. He must go to Britannia. We will have need of him there, someday.” He coughed and gasped for air. Two guards emerged from the darkness, grabbed Beazlae by his shoulders and dragged him away.
After the poor man was gone the old man spoke again. “Bring me the scroll.”
“We must translate it first, our best linguists will be set upon the task.” Alienus again, imperial but rough, a man of action.
“I have no need for your clumsy translators,” coughed the old man, “I can read whatever is written on the page well enough for our purposes.” He took a deep gasping breath. “Bring Vulpinius Pistorius as well, he might as well see what he has brought to Rome.”
The veil was parted and a new lamp lit, General Alienus and Consul Marcellus rose from their seats but the others, the shadowy forms of the other members of the Decemviri remained seated, it was all that they could do for they were nothing more than crude statues, busts of the great men that were meant to be sitting in the great collegium that was the Decemviri Sacris Fundis. Out of respect for the general, Vulpinius went to one knee.
He was immediately chastised by General Alienus. “On your feet. You are no Centurion, and I am not your
commander. Here in this place we are equals,” he looked about the room at the missing members of his order that chose to be represented by silent uncaring stones, “though some are more equal than others.”
Through the door in the back of the room the three members of the Decemviri moved. Up small steps and a winding passage to a balcony that overlooked the Shadow Chamber. There in a bed draped in curtains and covered in pale white linens lay a man of such age, such antiquity, that most would have mistaken him for one of the dead, or perhaps a victim of some horrific wasting disease. It was only when he moved and spoke that Vulpinius realized that the poor creature was still alive and still capable of rational thought.
He waved weakly with a single decrepit finger. “Na Marcellus, my pipe.” Here was the smell of hemp, and something more, something Vulpinius hadn’t smelled since his time in the East, an extraction of the black lotus that was known to induce bizarre hallucinations.
Alienus took Vulpinius’ arm and led the imperial agent to the side of the bed. “Vulpinius Pistorius may I introduce Titus Sempronius Blaesus.” The old man waved his pipe in a casual gesture of acknowledgment.
Vulpinius was stunned. “It’s not possible, Titus Sempronius Blaesus burned Bibliotheca X more than a hundred and fifty years ago, he would have to be almost two hundred years old, how is that possible?”
The old man hacked and coughed out thick grey smoke. “One hundred and seventy-six years old Na, and as for how, that is a secret that even your controllers do not know how it is done, though I admit that even my secrets are beginning to reach their limit.” Vulpinius didn’t know what the word Na meant, but it was clearly some sort of title.
“The Decemviri captured Blaesus as he ran from the archive. We’ve kept him all this time, and used him as needed,” announced Alienus.
Vulpinius felt a sense of outrage boiling up within him. “What does ‘as needed’ mean?”
Tales of Cthulhu Invictus Page 5