by Donald Tyson
The second great building is the dormitory near the western wall, where the monks have their cells, and it holds also the halls where they eat and rooms where they gather for prayer and meditation; attached to this are the kitchens and the pens for livestock, such as hens for eggs and cows for milk and cheese, which the monks make themselves. They also produce a beer of excellent quality in their vats. In the rear of the dormitory near the kitchens is the public baths, the waters of which are heated by the kitchen fires and fed into the baths by a cleverly designed series of pumps manipulated by the monks, which force the hot water through lead pipes.
The final structure is smaller and set in the southern part of the lawns, and holds the workshops of the monks and their armories. It is here that they produce their furniture and their cloths, for it is their practice to buy as few articles as possible and to make with their own hands as many as they are able. In this way they seek to reduce their dependence on men living beyond the monastery walls. In their armories they manufacture the unique bows they employ to defend their walls from attack, longer than the common bow of war and thicker at the center, with strongly tapered ends that are curved back upon themselves. So great is their force that the black arrows driven by their strings have the power to penetrate any armor and any shield. The abundance of these arrows in their storehouses is remarkable, for the monks boast that they could loose them upon a foe for three days and three nights without ceasing yet not exhaust their number.
The traveler, having gained by subterfuge the interior spaces, will concern himself primarily with the library, where knowledge is so plentifully displayed by the diligence of the scribes. Provided he simulates the idiot with art, no scroll will be hidden from his gaze and no topic hushed at his approach. In this way the wisdom of the descendants of the magi is to be acquired at no other cost than daily manual labor, and so long as the traveler makes himself useful to the monks, they will not turn him out from their gate.
A recent traveler so well contrived this deception that he was given free access to the scriptorium at all times, even when none of the monks were present. In this way he not only was able to read from the precious scrolls and books in the process of transcription, but from the more recent correspondences between the agents of the order in the far corners of the world and Rumius, who personally directs their actions, since it is the custom to have the scattered and ill-written reports of the agents gathered and transcribed by the more elegant hand of a scribe before the Father of the order reads them. These agents are engaged in a ceaseless battle against the forces of evil, and are amply supported by the wealth and wisdom of the magi.
It once took the fancy of this traveler to add a coda to the transcription of a message from an assassin dwelling within the land of Yemen, concerning the supposed adoption of the worship of the Old Ones by the monarch of that land, a thing most false and perfidious, for this king was a true believer in the words of the Prophet. Indeed the king had no fault, save the tendency to punish with unwarranted severity the violation of his trust by those he favored. As an example of this severity, the tale is told of a youth favored by the king and received into the palace as his adopted son, who violated the trust of the ruler by seducing his only daughter and getting her with child. For this transgression the king had the genitals of the youth struck off with a knife, and his face mutilated by the amputation of his nose and ears, before casting him into the Empty Space to die.
After the addition was made to the report of the assassin in Yemen, within two cycles of the moon word returned to the monastery of the sudden death of this king, seemingly by the fall of a stone from a wall as the king passed beneath it on his daily promenade within the grounds of his palace. Perhaps it was no more than mischance, or perhaps it was an act of divine retribution, for the ways of heaven are impenetrable, and what man can predict the manner of the unfolding of fate?
he monks sit within the scriptorium at long benches with angled tables, well furnished with pens and ink. They spend little effort on ornamentation or illumination, but seek to reproduce with great accuracy the older texts they copy, many of which are in a ruinous state of decay from the effects of mildew and worms. The majority are in our own tongue, but many are Greek and Latin works, and a smaller number are Hebrew or in the ancient pictorial script of the Egyptians, which so few scholars of our day can read.
There are other books not of this world, composed of strange substances and of diverse shapes, some in form like a cube that opens outward in many overlapping leaves, simulating the petals of a great flower, others composed of nesting tubes with letters inscribed around their outer surfaces in parallel rings. Some of these alien works are of gold, but others are in metals not known to our alchemists, and a few are cut into thin stone tablets that resemble polished marble. These strange works are acquired through trade, for all merchants and pilots know that the monks will pay well in silver coins for unusual books, and send forth hired men to scour ancient tombs or acquire what texts they can through still more devious means. Even those in languages the monks cannot read, they copy on parchment to insure their preservation and to make them easier to study.
All the purpose of their work is to learn the history and nature of the Old Ones. Though they value knowledge for its own sake, they sift the work of ages for the smallest scrap of information concerning the seven lords, their spawns, their lesser relations, and their cults. Any symbol or image connected with that race of star travelers who came to our world so long ago is preserved with care and examined for what instruction it may provide in the intentions of the Old Ones toward our world and mankind, and more particularly their strengths and weaknesses, their portals, and their places of repose.
The Sons of Sirius have one reason for existence that is more important to them than any other motive, which is the expulsion of the Old Ones and their spawns and abominable creations from our world, the destruction of their idols and temples, and the extermination of their worshippers wherever they may abide, whether near or in the most distant lands. All the monks of the order swear a solemn oath at their entrance to pursue this course with single intention until its ultimate fulfillment, or die in the attempt.
The traveler who has insinuated himself into the halls and chambers of the order through subterfuge, versed in the skills of necromancy and having perhaps given offerings and prayers to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth on strange altars, does well to conceal his links with the Old Ones from the monks, who are ever watchful, for the merest hint of his associations would result in his instant apprehension. He would undoubtedly be put to torture to determine the extent of his knowledge and his purpose, then executed. There is no fanaticism so potent as that of faith, and it is the faith of the descendents of the ancient magi that they are the chosen and anointed warriors of mankind against the dark gods who threaten our realm from beyond the vault of stars.
In truth, they are fools, for mighty Cthulhu could crush their monastery beneath his clawed foot with a single step, nor could all their armored knights stand against his star spawn for a moment, yet it must be acknowledged that the monks are dedicated in heart and fearless in their devotion to their cause. They worship Ishtar the goddess, not in her earthly form of a graven image but in her heavenly aspect, and call themselves her divine warriors, who will purge the spheres from the taint of the Old Ones and wash away the stains of their unnatural works. Ishtar they associate with the region of space that lies beyond the star Sirius, which they regard as her natural homeland; but it is plain that when they speak of the goddess, they do not understand her as the pagans of old worshipped her, but in a less tangible aspect more akin to an ideal or principle, so that her name is no more than a token for the being they worship. The overriding quality they ascribe to her is compassion.
This heavenly mother, compassionate for all living things, is at constant war with the lords of the Old Ones, who lack all charity or mercy. The magi fight for her because she cannot defend herself; they say she is in all living th
ings of this world save only those things created by the arts of the Old Ones themselves, and even in these she lies sleeping, but it is a deep sleep from which she cannot easily be wakened. The monks are her sons and her lovers and her champions. This is their theology, which they conceal with utmost care from the vulgar, so that no word of it is ever spoken beyond the monastery gate.
The motto of the Greek philosophers was Know thyself, but the battle cry of the monks is Know thine enemy. They send out agents in common garments to hunt down those who traffic with the Old Ones or their servants and slay them, and to steal by guile or the sword objects of power that can be used in their works of magic, which they constantly make against their foes. The elders of the order are great magicians, having power to bend the minds of men to their will, to command demons and other creatures of the shadow realms, and to cast down lightning and fire upon those they mark for death when they lie beyond the reach of their assassins, but they use their power with discretion, for they do not wish to alert the seven lords of their progress lest the Old Ones find some way to destroy them before they are prepared for the final confrontation.
This is their interpretation of the Christian book of St. John the Divine, which they say is veiled so that common men cannot fathom its true meaning. The Great Dragon and his demonic servants described in that book they identify with Cthulhu and his spawn, and the pit or abyss into which he fell they claim is the abyss of the ocean where lies sunken R’lyeh, both home and prison to sleeping Cthulhu. The chosen warriors of light in that book they believe to be the monks of their own order, who will cleanse the world from the plague of the Old Ones in the final confrontation between mighty Cthulhu and our race. Their star goddess Ishtar they identify with the Queen of Heaven described in that book, having the moon beneath her foot and a crown of twelve stars upon her head.
Enough of their puerile fantasies, which have nothing to do with the majesty and power of the great Old Ones, who will crush these warrior monks as an elephant crushes an ant when the stars come right and R’lyeh rises. Then will those among us who have with foresight and prudence given worship to the lords be rewarded, and granted dominion over the defeated fools of our race, who will serve them as slaves. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be again. So it is written in the pattern of the stars, and not all the faith of man can alter it.
he magi of the Tigris hold the secret teaching that it is not the pattern of the stars that binds Cthulhu in his watery tomb, as is widely believed by sages who have ventured to comment on this matter; rather it is the color of the stars in the complex interactions of their rays that poisons the airy element of our world, which is the zone between the fiery firmament and the watery abyss. Hence it is that the Old Ones can move easily above the air, and beneath the waves or the surface of the earth, but not through the air, save only for Nyarlathotep who is in part immune from the noxious colors out of space.
Each star has its own color that is distinct from the colors of all other stars, though these colors can be subtle and difficult to discern. They do not remain fixed and unchanging, but become paler or more intense over the passage of years. Any man who gazes into the night sky knows that Mars is red, but it is not always the same red, for at times it is like a ruby, but at other times it grows pallid and becomes almost the color of milk. So it is for all the stars, both those that are fixed and those that wander from place to place, even when the changes in colors are not as easily remarked upon as those of Mars.
No astrologer can tell what causes these shiftings of color amid the stars, but the magi believe that the great change in the heavens that drove Cthulhu to seek safety in his house on R’lyeh was the result of a cloud of mist or dust high above the region of fire. The colors of the rays from the stars passing through this veil of dust were tinted as the light of the sun is stained with red or blue or green when it passes through a jewel, and the gates between the stars were obstructed. The Old Ones do not reside in our world in their natural bodies, but in bodies that have been compounded and composed by the power of their souls, which have been thrown across the gulf between the stars by the force of their wills. The space portals through which their minds traveled were opened by the colors of the stars striking the earth with their rays, and the magi believe that when the veil of dust covered the heavens, and the colors became impure, those mind gates were in part closed, so that the full power of the seven lords and their lesser brothers and sisters could not awaken and move upon the earth.
To maintain the links between their far-darting minds and the bodies of matter they had formed for themselves in our sphere, they found it necessary to protect those bodies from the colors of the stars until the dust passed and the stars shone down with clean rays once again. The rays of the stars penetrate through air in both night and day, but cannot penetrate into the coils of the earth or beneath the waters of the oceans. In the deep places the Old Ones concealed their weakened bodies, or withdrew through portals in space entirely from this world, to await the passage of the dust, all but Nyarlathotep, who defies the poison of the stars and walks among us beneath the moon; yet even the Crawling Chaos cannot for long endure the hideous colors out of space but must withdraw himself to a place of protection.
The gates between the stars can still be opened, but opened only in part for the transmission of small things and small beings, and it is with utmost difficulty that the Old Ones use them, and only then at certain times when the colors are not so baneful to their natures, for the poison of the colors of the stars is not constant, but waxes and wanes, and at rare intervals of years, it diminishes so greatly that it is almost absent, and the Old Ones feel strength flow into the bodies they have composed for their souls in this world. Alas, the stars do not remain clean for long, but invariably return to their polluted state, driving the Old Ones into hiding. A time is foretold when the dust shall pass away from the upper reaches of our world, and the protection offered our race by the taint of colors from the heavens shall be lifted; then the Old Ones will once again rule our sphere as they rule all other spheres; but when this time shall come is not known, unless to the Old Ones themselves.
The magi make great experiments in their workshops with polished jewels of different colors, in the hope of discovering a weapon of light that shall have the power to mimic the poison of the stellar rays, with the intention of employing it against Cthulhu and his spawn should he rise from his tomb at R’lyeh; for they know full well that when the protective colors of the stars are no more, Cthulhu shall be their greatest foe. So lustily did he love the dominion held over our world and its creatures, and so jealously did he fight against expulsion by the rays from the heavens, he is certain to be the first to gather his strength and seek to conquer anew the lands he ruled of old.
o test their colored rays of light for efficacy against the Old Ones, the magi hold imprisoned in a chamber beneath their library a thing that was captured in the lowest depths of the caverns that reach to the center of our sphere. It is made of the same star-borne substance of which the seven lords are composed. Centuries past, when the walls of the monastery were raised on the foundations of an ancient ruin, the builders discovered this creature beneath the hill, imprisoned by potent seals of magic within a strange cell of iron. How it was compelled to enter its prison and who or what imprisoned it remains unknown. Instead of seeking to destroy it, the monks preserve it for their study. Either they are more courageous than the ranks of other men or more foolhardy, for it is certain that they hold a dragon coiled in a net of gossamer, and what shall it matter whether they are brave or foolish when the dragon opens its mouth to breathe forth fire?
In the deepest cellar of the library is set a small and uninteresting door of plain wood planks, its lintel low enough so as to require even a man of moderate height to bend over when passing through its frame. It is kept locked with an iron lock of simple design, very easy to force using the thin blade of a dagger for a man accustomed to such work. Stone stairs l
ead steeply downward immediately beyond the door into darkness, so that care must be taken not to stumble. At the bottom of the stair is a vaulted corridor of roughly dressed stone blocks illuminated at infrequent intervals by oil lamps that hang from chains set into the walls. These lamps are kept perpetually refilled and are always burning.
No sentries are placed in these lower levels, for the magi do not believe that any but they themselves could traverse the corridor, and they have complete trust in all members of their order. Nor would they suspect danger from a feeble-minded and mutilated slave that they have in their compassion taken into their care. During the day the chance of discovery is great, for there are frequently men moving about, but in the hours after midnight the lower levels of the library are abandoned, and the risk is slight.
At the end of the corridor is a large, circular chamber with a domed ceiling that appears to be of Roman design, and may well be centuries older than the monastery above it. An iron cage in the shape of a sphere composed of interlocking bands riveted together at their intersections hangs above the floor on three massive chains, the links of which are so large than the hand of a man could easily pass through their openings, were it possible to reach them. The cage hangs suspended above the stone floor higher than a man can reach, but by jumping upward it would possible to touch it, should anyone be so foolish as to try; for the thing within would surely reach downward between the iron bands and slay any who ventured so near.
The iron bands of the sphere are massive enough to withhold the ram of a siege engine, but alone it is doubtful they could retain the creature that crouches on its haunches within their boundary, filling their compass with its translucent bulk. On the inner surface of the dome, the floor below the sphere, and on the walls surrounding it are painted pentacles of dread significance, so arranged that their aspects conjoin at the center of the chamber, and it is these rays of subtle and unseen force that are the true prison.