Chapter 43
The Hebrides Post, 13 August, 1933, Front Page
An unusual event in the St. Kildan Archipelago continues to mystify both local authorities and investigators dispatched from London’s Scotland Yard. What we do know, we report here.
A fortnight ago, three Americans were transported to the deserted island of Hirta by way of Berneray, carried in a fishing boat owned by a local seaman, Diarmad Brodie. We can report here, for the first time, that the visitors were two professors from the famed Miskatonic University in America—Henry Armitage and Carter Weston—along with the latter’s daughter, Rachel Jones (née Weston). Remarkably, Professor Weston was reported missing and presumed dead in Arkham, Massachusetts, nearly a year ago. How he came to be in Scotland and why his colleague and daughter were traveling with him is, as of this writing, unknown.
Moreover, inquiries made of Mr. Brodie have failed to reveal the purpose of the voyage to Hirta, and we can only assume that some strange curiosity drove them. Whatever the case may be, the events of 1 August are truly extraordinary.
Upon arriving at the island, Mr. Brodie reports that the three visitors struck off on their own while he tended the boat. Brodie claims that, after surveying the abandoned village, the Americans headed to what he describes as “a mountain, a kind of flat-top pyramid on the other end of the island.” Brodie is embellishing, of course. There is no such mountain on Hirta, the most prominent rise being a small hill just beyond Village Bay. In any event, Brodie reported to the police that he waited for several hours for the visitors and had in fact begun to prepare to find them when there was, and we quote now from his testimony, “a crash unlike any I have heard upon God’s earth. There was a flash of light that turned the night to day, and then an explosion upon the hill. I ran to the rise, climbing as quick as I could. When I reached the top, there was one of the professors and the Miss, passed out on the plain. But the other gentleman, her father, he was nowhere to be found, and by God, I do not think you’ll ever see him again.”
Investigators are said to have questioned both Dr. Armitage and Mrs. Jones extensively as to the whereabouts of Professor Weston, but no satisfactory answer was forthcoming. In fact, there are reports that the two remaining visitors both offered a strange and fantastic story to explain the Professor’s disappearance, one that investigators have dismissed as a joint-hallucination, brought on by extreme stress.
In any event, with Professor Weston’s complicated status and the lack of any evidence of foul play, investigators were forced to release both Dr. Armitage and Mrs. Jones to the American authorities. What truly happened on the Isle of Hirta, we may never know.
Diary of Rachel Jones
August 22, 1933
It’s been a week since we came home from Scotland, and three since my father gave his life for the cause he had lived to uphold. Carter Weston spoke often of turning back the night, of the light that shines in the darkness. On the plains of Leng, at Kadath in the cold waste, he became that light.
Henry may never be the same. Before, when my father disappeared, he was so certain that he was still alive. And he was right, of course. My father did live. But now, his death seems without question. Of course, it’s hard to say exactly what his fate might have been. Did he die? Or was he transformed? Perhaps it wasn’t just that he became the light. Perhaps he is now also the guardian of that light. Someone to watch over us all.
I hope that one day Henry can see it that way.
He came to visit me two days ago. He wanted me to know about something he discovered in his research. There is a legend, it seems, that holds that the Old Ones cannot return without a sacrifice. A human sacrifice. One given freely, and with very specific requirements. It must be a woman, and she must be killed by her own father. Henry believes that this explains much, that Nyarlathotep had allowed us to follow him for a special reason. And that had my father killed me instead of himself, all would have been lost.
Perhaps, but I think it goes beyond even that. I think, in that place of fear and shadow, Carter Weston proved a truth older than time—that love is stronger than hate, kindness more powerful than cruelty, light far greater than darkness. That it was my father’s love, more than his sacrifice, that saved us all.
As for my future, I’m not sure where I go from here. My father taught me, from a very young age, about the things that move beyond the civilized world. But the old saw is true—seeing is believing. And once you see, there is no unseeing.
He taught me something else, too. Knowledge is a burden, and ignorance is bliss. If most people knew the truths we know, they could never go on. They could never go to work, raise families, live their lives or do a million other ordinary, everyday things if they knew that in the deep woods and empty plains and wild places of the earth there waited beings ready to devour them. And since they cannot, it falls to those of us who do know to stand against those forces. That was the burden my father took up. Now it falls to his daughter.
Of course, Henry does not agree. He thinks the world should know. And that’s fine, too. But the fact of the matter is simple in my view—it’s not just that people cannot handle the reality of this world; it is that they will not accept it. Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, and all the other unpronounceables, to most, will remain nothing more than dark tales and legends, scary stories to tell in the dark around the campfire.
So it is, and so it shall be. I’d have it no other way.
And whatever I face in the days and years to come, I do not walk this path alone. Yes, there is Henry, my friend, my mentor, and an ally till the end. But there is another now, too. I hear it even as I write this, calling to me, singing its song, urging me to open it, to read it, to learn its secrets. For it was not just Henry and me that the good Captain Diarmad found on that desolate plain, a fortnight and a half ago. The book was there, too.
And it has chosen a new master.
Epilogue
Arkham Advertiser, May 1, 1934, Page D-1
We at the Arkham Advertiser rarely make editorial comments on personal announcements, but in this instance, we have deemed an exception appropriate. It is our great pleasure to announce that last night, former Arkham Advertiser investigative reporter Rachel Jones safely delivered a healthy baby boy, Carter Weston Jones. We understand that mother and baby have been discharged from the hospital and are recovering at home.
The father of the new arrival is unknown and we understand, of course, that certain members of the community may look askance at celebrating an unwed mother. Nevertheless, we believe that, given the tragedies that have befallen Mrs. Jones over the past few years—including the loss of her husband fourteen years ago and her father in recent days—we can both uphold the moral standard that has long marked the Arkham Advertiser while still acknowledging this happy event.
So to Mrs. Jones and the baby, we at the Arkham Advertiser offer hearty congratulations.
Truly, the blessings of the Lord are without limit.
THE END
Brett J. Talley is the Bram Stoker Award nominated author of That Which Should Not Be and The Void. His work has been featured in the shared-world anthology, Limbus, Inc., and he is the editor of the forthcoming sequel, Limbus 2. He is also a lawyer, speechwriter, and an avid fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide. He makes his internet home on his website, www.brettjtalley.com.
Footnotes
45 Though some contend that some or all of these references refer to Azathoth himself.
29 This particular passage was most difficult to locate, as it is not included in extant original Latin texts of Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Why it has been excised, I do not know. The existence of a record of Caesar’s visit to the island that would become Mont Saint-Michel was widely known among historians, but thought lost. I was able to locate the following passage in a rare translation produced by a Dr. Charles DeWitt of Cambridge University in the early years of this century. I cannot, of course, vouch to the accuracy of the translation. The footnote containe
d herein describing the translator’s unfortunate prudishness is his own.
30 Caesar recounts various methods employed to disqualify the girls at the time of this reaping, including examples of incestuous debauchery which, for propriety sake, I do not include here. Those who wish to inquire into the matter further are invited to study the text in the original Latin.
1 While the best available sources transition at this point to other aspects of the Gallic campaign, there are some—of questionable authenticity—that maintain Caesar did not so easily abandon his assault on the myth-haunted island. In one likely apocryphal tale, Caesar is able to discern a path through the shifting sands by way of consultation with another local, an outcast shunned by his tribe for his ability to commune with dark spirits. Upon setting foot on the island, Caesar is then confronted by Nyarlatorix himself. This entity, whom Caesar refers to as “He Who Walks in Shadow,” makes unto the ambitious general a proposition—he will give him dominion over all the world as well as the eternal glory that comes with it if he will but perform one task—take his legions to Egypt and burn the library at Alexandria, destroying an ancient artifact sheltered therein, one of some esoteric power. Caesar agrees, and thus ends the story.
History tells us that the terms of the agreement were fulfilled. Alexandria burned, and Caesar’s name ascended to the heavens. And yet, the great man was struck down, on the eve of his complete triumph. Could it be punishment for some failing on his part? Indeed, one source records that before the great library was put to the flame, Caesar removed one item—a simple wooden staff that he intended to be an heirloom of his reign and his line. Perhaps this was the relic that Nyarlatorix sought to have destroyed, and thus also became the cause of Caesar’s ultimate downfall. But what became of the staff? Sadly, the texts are silent on this point, the answer lost to antiquity.
He Who Walks in Shadow Page 27