Matthew Griswold VI received the following four tomes from the safe of Robert Carlyle, when visiting her sister, Erica Carlyle.
LIFE AS A GOD (ENGLISH)
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
White leather over wood, crown quarto, 7½” x 5”, unnumbered but about 160 pages; a holographic (i.e., handwritten by the author) account by one Montgomery Crompton bearing the title “Life as a God” within a poorly rendered frontispiece of faux-Egyptian styling. The text is sloppy and erratic in brown, and sometimes fading, black ink. The book was amateurishly bound and the spine is separating in places.
CONTENTS AFTER QUICK SKIMMING:
This work purports to be the diary (though it functions more as an autobiography) of Montgomery Crompton, a British soldier and artist. Its first few pages recount his life as member of the landed gentry in Northern England up until he is dispatched in 1801 to Egypt under General Sir Ralph Abercrombie.
Seriously wounded in battle, he recovered after several weeks of a high fever and a series of what he claims were occult visions. Remaining in Egypt to recuperate, he was inducted into a secretive cult. Claiming to have survived from ancient times, the cult worshiped a mythical figure known as the “Black Pharaoh”, a forgotten ruler of ancient Egypt said to have possessed magical, possibly divine, powers. As a cult member, Crompton witnessed and participated in acts of torture, murder, and rape, as well as weird magical ceremonies all in praise of this Black Pharaoh (sometimes called “Nivrin Ka”).
In 1805 he returned to Great Britain where, settling near Liverpool, he and a group of other British converts attempted to replicate the cult and its depraved rites before being thwarted by unnamed, but mockingly condemned, local authorities. Crompton apparently composed this work whilst incarcerated in an asylum. Even from a quick skim, it is obvious that the author was a murderously sadistic lunatic prone to megalomaniacal delusions, foremost of which is that he would achieve god-hood through his occult practices.
QUOTES:
The man standing before me was of swarthy complexion, but with a haughty bearing befitting an Emperor. He reached out a hand to touch my cheek, my wound shrieking in agony until he brushed it, washing away my pains. He spoke to me, in low tones, with a voice like a mother to an infant babe. He spoke to me of his grand design which would unseat the rule of Man for the rule of the true Gods, and how I might serve him. I knew in my truest heart that this was the purpose I had so long sought, that in His service, I would be made whole and pure and that those who had wronged me so greatly would be brought low. I wept in joy and promised I would serve him gladly.
<•>
The beggar was held fast by my brothers and I, eyes tearing with joy, struck him mightily with the sacred club again and again, until he was rendered insensate by the pain and his limbs were useless. Filled with wordless praise for Him who Dwells in the Shadow before light comes, I turned it in my hands then pierced the wretch’s heart with the cunning bronze spike. His scream of agony washed over me and I was reborn as a full Brother and servant of the Pharaoh of Shadows.
<•>
Its angles were magnificent, and most strange; by their hideous beauty I was enraptured and enthralled, and I thought myself of the daylight fools who adjudged the housing of this room as mistaken. I laughed for the glory they missed. When the six lights lit and the great words said, then He came, in all the grace and splendour of the Higher Planes, and I longed to sever my veins so that my life might flow into his being, and make part of me a god!
PEOPLE OF THE MONOLITH (ENGLISH)
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
White leather, 6¼” x 10½”; 104 pages, title on cover page. This slim volume looks to have been hand-crafted with an eye towards quality bordering on opulence. The pages and leather cover are excellently hand-stitched and the paper used is top quality. The pages themselves were printed as individual lithographic plates, that is to say, etched on plates rather than with a regular moveable-type press. Every page has elaborate geometrical designs along the border; there is no artwork as such, save for grotesques incorporated into the first letter of each poem.
The most striking feature of the book is the unusual medallion on the front cover. It appears to be a very thin slice of some sort of polished translucent rock, placed over a thin sliver backing, creating a weird mirror-like effect in rich gray and white tones. The pattern of crystal formation is highly symmetrical and suggestive of organic forms.
The front page bears, in a bold hand, a dedication “To Mister Roger Carlyle. I hope you find these words to be as inspiring as yours were to me at our last meeting. My regards to Anastasia—Tyler.” There is no publisher or date of publication given.
CONTENTS AFTER QUICK SKIMMING:
This work is a collection of poetry by one Justin Geoffrey. The poems are in a modern style, generally without fixed meter or structure, but with a clear thematic link—menace, horror, and a (sometimes romantic) nihilism. Titles include “Out of the Old Lands,” “Strutter in Darkness,” and the titular poem “People of the Monolith”.
The work is disturbing and shocking, at least to amore sheltered reader. The stark horror of the poet’s words are not tempered by the beauty of his writing.
QUOTES:
They say foul beings of Old Times still lurk
In dark forgotten corners of the world,
And Gates still gape to loose, on
certain nights,
Shapes pent in Hell.
– “People of the Monolith”
They lumber through the night
With their elephantine tread;
I shudder in affright
As I cower in my bed.
They lift colossal wings
On the high gable roofs
Which tremble to the trample
Of their mastodonic hoofs.
– “Out of the Old Land”
THE PNAKOTIC MANUSCRIPTS (ARCHAIC ENGLISH)
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
A manuscript, 10” x 12.5” bound in pale green leather. The cover has no title, only a peculiar pentagram-like symbol, seared into the heavy bindings. The title page gives the work’s name, followed by a subtitle “As written in the so-called Pnakotik Scrolls, as translatid from the Greke by the author togeder with addicional remarkes upon that worke in the light of Newe Lerning.”
The print is neat, typeset in archaic English. A printer’s mark says “Trevisa et fils. 1496,” but the binding appears to be much more recent. Periodically plates (presumably bearing illustrations) appear to have been carefully cut from the book. Pencil annotations in modern English appear frequently in the first third of the work (usually glossing the more archaic language), but decrease in frequency afterwards.
CONTENTS AFTER QUICK SKIMMING:
This work claims to be a translation of an otherwise unknown series of documents (The Pnakotic Manuscripts) brought to the West after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. These are said to be Greek translations of even older documents chronicling an otherwise unknown epoch of the pre-human history of Earth. The unidentified translator claims to have obtained this work, also called The Pnakotik Scrolls and The Scrolls of Pnakotus, from an unnamed refugee from the Byzantine Empire. This translation was made in conjunction with the help of another (also unnamed) Greek scholar.
The body of the text is a haphazard jumble of myths outlining the history of various fabulous kingdoms and civilizations of Earth before the rise of Man (as well as other places specifically said to be not of this world). Discussions include a catalogue of various races in residence on the Earth during the ages before man, the actions of various legendary figures, and the myriad inhuman deities worshiped by both. A final section traces the mythic history of the book itself, from fragments uncovered in some vast non-human library (the so-called “city of Pnakotus”) to the scribes of vast pre-historic human empires who consulted with improbable “others” (some sort of flying, barrel-shaped beings) in their efforts to understand the work.
It seems likely that this work is a compilation of a host of mystical texts, many of which arepreserved only in fragmentary form.
QUOTES:
“And from Sykranoetia reysed Xatogia, taking the forme of a grete furred tode, he dwelled in the cavernes of Ienkae and the walkyng serpents of Ioth helde Him in grete reveraunce much to the grete anger of Yigge, the God of thosebeasts…”
—•—
“Myghty was the war betwixt the Elder Ones and the Dwellers in Real-yea and yet upon the endyng dayes of sayd war, the Elder Ones drew strong powyrs hild by the Spear of Neth and unmayd the verry lande of the Earth and Realyea was caste downe beneeth the wayves of the Grete Western Ocean.”
—•—
“Hyer on the sloep climmed Goode Sansu, tho the sloep of Hatikala grewe ever more steep, for he sot the Gods themsylves, sayd as they were to dwellin at the verry sumit of the Peake. But naughte was to be found there save Ice and Snowe, for the Gods dwelt ayleswere…”
SELECTIONS FROM THE LIVRE D’IVON (FRENCH)
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
A parchment bundle, 10” by 15”; 179 pages. The pages are obviously old, and have suffered from both the elements and the negligence of past owners. The most obvious damage to the work is that the back edge of each sheet is ragged. The work is handwritten and copiously illuminated with grotesque faces, obscene marginalia, and a recurring curious sigil resembling a triskelion. While it is obvious that Roman characters are used, the condition and age of the manuscript makes the language difficult to determine but judging from the paper and script used, an expert can date the creation of this work to the mid to late 15th century though the language is a Norman variant of French from an earlier period.
CONTENTS AFTER QUICK SKIMMING:
The book purports to be a commentary on the Liber Ivonis (Book of Eibon), a work supposedly written by Eibon, a sorcerer in distant antiquity. The author of the commentary is one Gaspar du Nord, a self-proclaimed sorcerer from Averoigne, a region in south central France. The discussion within, written in an elliptical and didactic manner, is a wide-ranging commentary on ancient and contemporary theology, magical ritual, and fantastic history.
The author focuses upon the lives and magical discoveries of several antediluvian sorcerers in a kingdom called “Hyperborea,” with a particular emphasis on “Eibon,” the supposed author of the original work. Eibon apparently entered into some sort of pact with a powerful being (perhaps a god?) known as Sathojuè, granting him both greater magical abilities and access to arcane secrets. Other powerful beings and species are mentioned in only passing detail, but include a race of ophidian magicians and a malevolent and immense white worm that brought Hyperborea low in some icy apocalypse.
The author also boasts not only of his own magical studies under the wizard Nathaire, but also of his defeat of his former master. Though du Nord claims that his purpose is to give instruction to the novice magician, he often obscures his meaning in allegory or oblique references. A reader lacking a copy of the Livre d’Ivon will find Selections from the Livre d’Ivon a daunting and frustrating work.
QUOTES:
“…I therefore submit this commentary. It contains no wisdom that is not a reflection of the wisdom of the Unfathomable One, Eibon the Inscrutable. It contains no secret that is not His, and no power. I, whose language is paltry and whose art is dim, scribe this meager work only because I fear that in my error I have corrupted the text of the Book, and wish to absolve myself to the reader of my crimes of omission by presenting what little knowledge I possess of the land above the north wind, and the deeds wrought by the men who dwelled there.”
– – –
“By certain signs and secret signals, it may be deduced that the hoary huntsman whom the Unfathomable One speaks of in the parable of the Eremite is one and the same as the Huntsman, whom the witches and the farmers whisper of in the dark forests of the Empire to the east. Those who would speak with Him would be wise to travel where men do not go: to the dark places of the forest, or the harrowed shore. It is there that the seeker must make the sevenpointed star upon the ground, and burn the seven tallow candles, and break a stave of ash, and mend a spear of elm. It is there that one must call Him by his secret name, Nodens, and mediate upon the Eremite’s rhyme: ‘King of empty spaces/Lord of lonely places/I risk the huntsman’s wrath/my mind has wandered from the path/as sun slips beneath the sky of grey/Huntsman make me predator not prey.’ Know this, however: He is no friend of the magus, for he hates the magician’s gods.”
– – –
“The sky grew dark when I reached the blighted lands, and I knew that Nathaire had grown very strong indeed. He had scribed his name in the Black Book, and his new master, le Homme Nuit had sent two black dragons to serve him. In the endless night they were ever-watchful, but the learned one need never hold fear in his heart save of Sathojuè, who is everything and nothing. Recalling the texts I had studied so long, I considered Eibon’s symbol and how it might call forth a wheel of mist, that I might travel unseen by yellow eyes. It is written that one need but cross the arms across his chest and speak the words: xiothui terragyrus maturin…”