The following was found during an excavation of the ruins of a medieval keep north of Brussels. It was the sole document found to be in English and in relatively preserved condition. It was found along with several other manuscripts that seem to date from as early as the 7th century and as late as the 13th century, none of which were in very good repair. The original occupants of the keep are unknown and the local townsfolk only refer to it as “Duivels Houden”, which is Dutch for “Devil’s Keep”.
I write this as the witching hour falls, the winds outside maddening, its howls seem that of the fallen angels straining against their prison. I write in the English, so that, should this document be discovered, none in my family should be able to read it, for reasons which will soon be clear. My heart is heavy and laden with anger and hate for my father, Lord Gulfric Prague, who informed me at last supper that I was to depart for on the morrow for Calais, to board the Lord's ship Verlossing. I am to sail to Alexandria, where I will meet up with Charles of Anjou’s forces for another assault upon the holy land and the great city of Jerusalem. Only a short time ago, such a command would have filled me with pride. Me, a third son and a bastard at that, chosen to become a holy warrior, a member of God’s righteous army! Now I feel nothing at the thought of spending the next year in travel to fight for a cause I now know to be worthless. God’s army indeed! I now know the truth of the matter and I curse those long ago fools who duped us all into believing a fairy tale, a lie which has cost so many lives.
My eyes were opened the day my father, in an uncharacteristic show of feeling towards me, came home with a book. He knew of my fascination with the saints of old and had somehow found a copy of Liver de Virtutibus Sancti Columbae, an ancient work in Latin describing the miracles of the Saint Columba, founder of the great Abbey of Iona. I set to work almost immediately, devouring tales of his healings and visions. I was soon presented with another portrait of the man, one not of a godly saint who healed the masses and performed Gods holy work, but that of a deceiver, a charlatan who duped the gullible with tricks and sleight of hand. Of course the author of this work praised Columba for his miracles but it was a parchment hidden within the text that brought my soaring faith to a crashing end. A text written in what was apparently the hand of the saint himself. It was old and near crumbling. How could it not be, were it his hand that penned the thing? Columba died over 600 years ago! I have taken great pains to reproduce what he wrote here, as I fear the original will not last much longer, certainly not as long as father intends me to fight Edward’s unholy crusade for him. I am likely to be gone for years, assuming I survive and when (if) I return, I am likely to find little that is familiar. I have a place I can hide this until such time as I return to reclaim it. For I shall return! Father thinks he can ship me off to die in some blasted desert? I shall return and when I do it will be with the power to show him what a true warrior is capable of, one who knows that there is no good and evil, only power and those strong enough to wield it.
Columba was, it seems, an Irishman of noble birth who forsook his crown to serve his God. A noble aspiration and one which I had, at times, considered in my early youth. Father disapproved, however, saying that I was to be a Knight and captain his men, since by order of birth, there would be little for me to inherit. That was the province of my older brothers, Frederick and Hans. Columba traveled with his half-brother, Odra, who was it seems, made a saint simply by virtue of associating with Columba. Indeed, after reading the account of his “death”, it seems Odra was a key player in many of Columba’s early miracles and was very likely the shill for which many of them relied upon. Not that this saved him in the end…Odra’s fate was a ghastly one according to Columba and the message which sealed it for him frightening beyond belief, at least to those unwashed mases who blindly follow, like sheep to a slaughterhouse. It is with this in mind that I copy Columba’s account of his brother’s death and the revelation’s which followed.
In the year of Our Lord 547, we came to the Isle of Iona, so close to the home land which Odra and myself missed. It was here that the local priesthood were having difficulties building a chapel to the Lord God. It seemed that work completed by day was rent asunder by night, stones laid and sealed were found toppled in the morning and the local friar, a Pict named Germont, was at his wits end.
The local population blamed evil spirits, the fey folk, for the nightly destruction and were demanding that Germont perform the rite of vivisepulture, or the foundation burial. I myself was of the mind that the culprit would more likely be a group of disgruntled Picts, a few who still clung to the unholy pagan rites of their forbearers. As for the local’s demands, it was unthinkable! To actually expect a godly man to willing allow himself to be buried alive in the foundation of a building, just to appease some “spirit” who, like as not, is nothing more than a group of vengeful neighbors upset at losing their right to sacrifice a goat or a bull upon a bloodstained altar was the height of lunacy! After spending some days watching the workmen and a few sleepless nights trying to determine the source of the damage however, I was less certain. I watched each night as stones literally slid from the walls, areas I had myself inspected and that seemed to be firm simply collapse as if the mortar was no more than mud. I still suspected that some of the workmen were to blame, perhaps defiling the mixture of mortar to become unstable. Unholy spirits, more often than not, were unhappy people, in my experience.
After the third day and night, I held counsel with Odra, my brother and loyal companion, partner in countless conversions of the unbeliever. He and I hatched a plan to both appease the masses and solidify my reputation as a cleric…not the first time we had resorted to “helping” a miracle along, but no one who ever reads this will deny that it is a common practice. The trick is to not overdo it. A lot of small miracles can add up to a large effect, if used judiciously. After much debate it was allowed that Germont must be told as well. He was a pious man, if a bit of a drunk, and his cooperation was necessary if we were to succeed.
The locals demanded that a man, of his own volition, must allow himself to be walled up inside the foundation, his death baptizing the stones so that the spirits could no longer have the power to demolish the structure. After speaking with Germont, I came to learn this had been a common practice long ago but had fallen out of favor except in the most remote of areas. The plan was simple. Under the pretext of a prayer vigil, Odra and I would create a hollow in the foundation, secreting food and water for three days. We would instruct Germont to inform the locals that we must remain undisturbed while we seek the Lords guidance in these matters. Once completed, Odra would announce that God had instructed that he himself be the sacrifice and would allow the workmen to seal him into the cavity. After three days, I would feign grief and demand his “tomb” be unsealed so that I might perform the rites of passage upon my beloved brother’s corpse. When Odra emerged from the cavity alive and whole, it would be counted as a sign that God had dealt with whatever forces were at work there. The masses would be pleased, unbelievers converted and the chapel finished. Germont had also agreed to fire selected workmen, those deemed most likely to be the real cause of the problem and replace them. It was a plan which could not fail…or so I believed.
All was made ready and the day came when Odra announced that the Lord God had commanded him to be the sacrifice and that he would obey, his fear assuaged by the Lords promise that he would be lifted to heaven and given a place for all eternity. I made my show of sadness and acquiescence, marveling at how quickly the locals were impressed that a foreigner would so willingly give his life for them. I saw several looks of relief when the announcement was made as well and am convinced that, had we not concocted our bit of mummery, there were a few whom the local elders had commanded to step forward. Without hesitation, Odra selected several workmen and commanded them to perform the rite immediately. Thus, by the end of the day, my brother was walled shut inside our carefully constructed hollow. The back wall of it having been falsified so as to give him access to an area with a chair, light and the supplies to survive. Luckily, the workman paid no heed to it, otherwise our crude workmanship might have been discovered. To them, it appeared as though Odra was in space only slightly large enough for a man to stand. Three days, I had thought to myself then. Three days and Odra will emerge and these backward people will see the power of a true God…or at least the power of his true clerics. How wrong I was….my Lord how wrong!
On the morning of the third day, Germont and I staged a loud conversation where some of the locals were sure to hear and spread the word of my grief and desire to bless my brother’s body and his journey to our Lord. Within the hour, the yard was filled with those eager to see the body exhumed, for none dared disagree openly. In the three days, no damage had occurred to the walls and the chapel was beginning to take shape, no doubt due to recent addition of Roman masons shipped from Gaul and the departure of those Germont had identified as malcontents. Given a hammer and chisel, I went to work dismantling the set stones where my brother was entombed, expecting to hear his cry of joy at any moment. When no sound was forthcoming, I worked franticly, opening the wall until I could squeeze inside, instructing the guards that had arrived with the masons to form a protective ring about me with their backs turned. For what I saw as I shone the lantern into the space was enough to immediately impress that our plan had gone horribly wrong! I hurried out almost as soon as I entered and instructed the guards to clear the worksite. Germont was obviously in panic and I assured him all was well but that something had happened that I must investigate on my own. Mollified, he left and I reentered the space. Many tales have emerged from this day over the years and while none have the whole truth, at least one of the guards overheard a fragment of what occurred next. I myself have only stated that my brother was indeed dead and the hours I spent in the wall afterwards was merely a discharge of my duty to the church and his memory. This is a lie, one which may damn me for all eternity but one which I still feel was necessary, if the church is to be the force in the world it is meant to be. The belief in God and his only begotten son must endure, if for no other reason than to repudiate the blasphemous things I learned there in the dark with my brother. Although, by the time I emerged, I no longer considered the “thing” entombed in that space my brother. My brother was dead before I opened that wall, replaced by something else, something monstrous and unholy and I have spent many nights trying to convince myself that my brother is indeed in heaven, a place that it becomes harder and harder each day to believe exists.
There was a smell as I entered the tomb, like that of spoiled meat and wine turning to vinegar. I saw that my brother sat in the chair in the space we had made, his lantern dark, his head drooping low to his chest and hidden by his unkempt hair, once brown but now white as snow. He made no sound as I approached him and I whispered his name, frightened that he had indeed died, despite all our careful planning. The food I could see lay untouched at his feet, cheeses and bread still wrapped in the cloth. Another stench, that of human dung struck my nostrils and I realized my brother had soiled himself at some point. As I said his name again, I heard the sharp intake of breath and I relaxed a bit, hope for his survival blossoming in me. This was dashed as he turned and saw my brothers face.
His eyes were those of a blind man, his once steel blue eyes now clouded with a milky cataract. What I first mistook to be scratches upon his cheeks I realized were rivulets of dried blood, snaking like the tracks of tears from his sightless eyes. His face was gaunt, like that of a prisoner kept upon base rations for months and gave his face the appearance of a skull with the skin stretched tight over it. It was the face of an emaciated man, not the hale and joyful visage of three days prior. Then he spoke.
“Who comes?” His voice was hollow and inhuman, grating upon my nerves like the screech of an owl in darkness.
“It is I Odra, your brother” I shakily replied.
“Odra?” came the hollow voice once more, the question followed by a chuckle which shall haunt me for the remainder of my days. It was the laugh of the devil in his torture pits, the humor of the madman before flaying his victim. “Odra is gone, left to serve those in the great darkness, his feet bleeding upon the stones of the ancient city while the overseers whip him to work faster.”
“Odra, what is this…?” I began but the unholy voice cut me off as sharply as a schoolmaster must when faced with an unruly pupil asking too many questions. Merciful father, would it that I had left then, not asked the questions that eventually came, nor listened to the foul words of that the creature spoke. Alas, I stayed, even did the creature bidding when it demanded I take down its foul message. For you see, I still believed it was Odra to whom I spoke, not a demon dressed as my brother.
“I tell you Odra is no more, no longer here. He has been conscripted to serve those whom your puny god would quake in fear before, if he even existed, which I assure you, he does not.” A smile crept upon its face at these words and it was the smile of one utterly insane, a grimace that would send a lesser man screaming in terror. I began to anger, the words a challenge to which I could not refuse to rise.
“The Lord God is the God of Abraham and Isaac, The father of the Hosts of heaven and for you to say he does not is exist is a blasphemy my brother would not commit!” I roared, my anger briefly burning from me the fear.
“Silence! “The thing before me shouted, the command in its voice irresistible. “Puny mortal, you know nothing of the beyond, the place from whence I come! God? There is no God, no heaven, no hell, only the darkness and the city and those who build the great engines of the Old Ones…and the souls of the men and women and children chosen to serve.” I could feel the dark magic’s in the room and I trembled once more. I sought once more to establish my supremacy of the spirit by launching into the scriptures.
“And the Lord saith, come for I have prepared a place for thee…” The words dried on my lips as the laughter of a demon from the pits of hell silenced me once more.
“Would you know of the darkness then?” it whispered, the lips through which it spoke cracking and bleeding like those of a man too long without water. “Then take heed, false priest. Gather your instruments of recording, for I bring tidings from the lip of the universe.” The thing masquerading as my brother shifted upon the chair and I heard the crack of bones against the wood and realized my brothers once robust from was as gaunt as his face. Without knowing why, I stepped to the entrance of the tomb and called for pen and velum which a guard brought to me very quickly. I was in a daze, under the spell of the creature and was not to be released until it had performed the task for which it had come.
As I made ready to record the blasphemies the creature intended to spew, I tried to recite the Lord’s Prayer in my mind, trying to break the fog that had settled upon me. I found I could not remember it, the words once so familiar dancing just beyond my grasp. The creature smiled once more and I screamed silently, praying for that inhuman regard to pass from me. It was not to be.
“Know this, charlatan, that your God is a falsehood, a fairy tale dreamed up to protect your puny minds from the truth of the universe. There is only the darkness. No light. No joy. No hope. Only the Old Ones and their engines of death. They play in the beyond, laughing with insane glee as they send the souls of those that do not build to war with one another, to the final death from which there is no reprieve. Others are food, served screaming upon the dinner plates made of bone. For there is one constant that is true there as it is here….we all must eat.” My gorge rose at this and yet I scribbled madly, unable to stop myself.
‘You lie…” I countered meekly and was immediately rebuked.
“No, cleric of a god who never was. Truth is harsh, yet you must hear it. My masters have commanded it. They care not whom humanity worships for in the end, all come unto them and their judgement is most harsh indeed.” The creature stopped and suddenly pushed several teeth from its mouth. They clattered upon the stone floor and I was reminded suddenly of a soothsayer I had met years ago and the sound that the bones she used to prophecy with made as rolled upon a tavern table. I began to fear that, once the demon had delivered its message it would take me to the place of which it spoke. I began to shake as visions suddenly rose in my mind’s eye. Would that I could un-see those terrible sights, forget the sounds and the knowledge which has threatened my sanity ever since that day. Some have said that forgetfulness is the sweetest of man’s abilities. I would agree.
I saw a great stone road leading off into the distance where a black sun lay in perpetual dusk. Lines of men, women and children trudged upon it naked, their bloody footprints staining the ancient cobble stones. They strained to haul great metal weapons, unrecognizable to me but their purpose known. These were the engines of death that the creature spoke of, weapons which could destroy suns and devour worlds and did so in this place with frightening regularity. No rollers were beneath the sledges and hundreds of souls strained to drag even one. I saw a man, a roman by his visage, fall in exhaustion, only to be swooped down upon by great black birds which appeared to be bats at first but with the faces of snarling wolves. They snatched the man upward and began to fight over him, his screams cut short as his body was torn limb from limb and disappeared down those unholy gullets. Blood rained upon the weeping souls below and I saw the overseers, lizard like monstrosities that carried barbed whips which they used to urge the workers onward. To the left and right of the causeway lay the ruins of some massive ancient city, great blocks of greenish stone tumbled and overgrown with a greyish, moss like substance. Here and there lay broken statues of hideous aspect, some vaguely human, others of some monstrous octopod race which I prayed I would never know the name of. Pulses of light occasionally flashed across the black sky, each one revealing a brief glimpse of stars which glowed too brightly and with a sickening twinkle. I screamed and the overseers turned to regard me with faces that either possessed no eyes or far too many, like spiders. Their shrieks filled my mind and I quailed as it briefly drowned out the screams and cries of the souls imprisoned here. I saw one of the overseers begin to stride towards me, it’s many fanged mouth dripping poison below a face which lacked eyes but which I knew saw me all too well. Without warning the vision ended and I was once again in the tomb with my “brother”, tears streaming down my cheeks and my hand furiously recording what I had seen.
“Beautiful, wasn’t it?” the creature before me sighed in obvious pleasure at my discomfort. “Thou art privileged mortal. You have been given a sight few have ever witnessed and returned to tell the tale.” The only sound my throat could make was a low grunting noise.
“Speechless? It is to be expected. To witness the Old Ones supply lines in action is a bit overwhelming.” I saw that blood ran freely from his mouth and more teeth had fallen to the floor.
“Now, mortal man, know this. The Old Ones were here first, before light, before the universe, they lay sleeping in the darkness. Then the hateful light was born and they could not bear it so they fled to the beyond and found it to their liking. But, they always hunger to return, for this universe is rightfully theirs. One day, when they have tired of their sport with men’s souls, they shall once more stride across this universe and all living things will be in their dominion. And oh what fun will be had then!” I heard voices and knew that the guards outside heard some of what the creature was saying. How could they not? At the very least the hollow laughter which emanated from it seemed as loud as the shouts of a thousand warriors.
“There is only power and those strong enough to wield it, human. The Old Ones left some of it here and other men have tried to use it and been consumed. Those that the Old Ones find sufficiently amusing are given the privilege of commanding the armies of death and execute the battle plans of the Old Ones. These are the only mortals who find peace in the grave, for they laugh at the sport as the Old Ones do. Even they eventually become grist for the grinder. The Old Ones favor is fickle and fleeting at best.” The voice become guttural and words in language unknown to me but impossibly ancient began to issue forth, each syllable an offense to the ear and a dagger in the mind.
“Ig-nahh, Shub-Niggurath, fghan nir Fhagn, Ry’leh syt sgonn, Cthuluhu….”
“These are the words of power mortal man. Take heed, for when you hear them next, your service will have only begun!”
Suddenly, the creature’s hold over me was broken and I fled the tomb. Even though it was no more than five steps to the entrance, it seemed as though I raced down an endless tunnel, the light at the end dim and far away. And then I was free, stumbling into the light of sunset. What seemed to be no more than a few minutes had been hours and the guards stared at me with fear and suspicion. In my hand I clutched several sheets of velum covered in frantic scribbles that were barley legible. It mattered not, for every word the creature had spoken was etched into my brain, to be remembered forever and the sights to be conjured up nightly in my nightmares. I turned and looked for the last time into the tomb and saw a pale sickly green light which illuminated a filed strewn with bones. Great carrion birds circled in the monstrous skies, swooping down occasionally to tear a strip of flesh from the fresher corpses. I saw my brother, the creature, walking into that field and raise his arms, only to have one of the birds rip them from his body, blood jutting from the ragged stumps. As the sight faded, I heard the hollow laughter and a faint voice whisper “see you soon, false priest…”
I am unsure how I managed to compose myself. I have little memory of what occurred next, but, by all accounts I ordered the guards to seal the tomb and to avoid looking into it. Those whom I spoke to later say that I told them that my brother had been sanctified and taken to heaven and that to look upon the place where this occurred would be a sin and an affront to the majesty of God. I soothed poor Germont as best I could ship bound for Rome.
I have chosen to omit the rest of the document of the “saint”. It contained nothing more of value and was merely the ramblings of an old man begging for forgiveness from a god he no longer had faith in. My plan is simple. If power is to be had here and the church is nothing more than a mummers farce, then I choose power. I will find what has been left here and use it to extend my life at any cost. I know now that that is all that matters. Life. To become one of those bloody footed souls whipped along that road of doom is a fate I will not countenance. I will make my place here, in this world and cheat the Old Ones of their prize. I laugh as I think of Columba awaking after his death to find himself chained to one of those great engines of destruction. Or, perhaps, the Old Ones ate him for supper as he lay screaming upon their foul dinner table. I care not. The Saracens, it is said, are great wizards and know much of the power of the mystical world. I will travel to the holy land, as my father has commanded, but I will not be a pawn for those fools who claim to be “God’s Chosen”. I will be a free man and soon I will be a sorcerer whose power will not be denied. I deny the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and I forever renounce my father’s name. I will, instead, adopt the name of my mother, who has long since gone to serve the Old Ones in their wars. So help me, I do declare this by the only power I hold true any longer, me.
Ludwig Von Prinn
At the urging of my colleagues, I have attempted to verify the events and personages related in this manuscript. There was indeed a Ludwig Von Prinn and he was a self-proclaimed sorcerer but his death occurred in the mid 16th century, far later than the obvious age of this manuscript. As for the tale of Saint Columba, he did indeed travel to Iona in or around 560 A.D. and he was credited with helping build the abbey which stands there today. No known complete copy of Liver de Virtutibus Sancti Columbae exists today however and his life is based as much upon speculation and myth as it is known facts. The story of his “brother” (some accounts claim Odra or St Oran, to be an uncle) is one such obvious myth. The official myth is that Odra did indeed volunteer to be walled into the foundation of the abbey and that after three days he emerged speaking hideous blasphemies concerning the afterlife. Columba is said to have had him re-entombed and to have left the island shortly thereafter. St. Columba returned to Iona a decade or so later in exile after drumming up a minor war and bad blood between two Scottish clans. The Chapel of St. Oran supposed marks the place where his brother was entombed and St. Columba died around 598 and was buried on Iona in an undisclosed location. While the story is intriguing, it is obviously an early example of fiction, for the name Lord Gulfric Prague appears nowhere in the local histories and is unfamiliar to local historians. The death of Ludwig Von Prinn, however is well documented and the keep could indeed have been his. This cannot be confirmed as the land records from the time are nearly all missing. It is possible that the individual known as Von Prinn could have found this document and from it formed the basis of the now rare De Vermis Mysteriis, an occult tome that was banned and nearly eradicated by the church in the late 17th century. I do not truly know what to make of this account but I am convinced that its age is unassailable. The paper upon which it is written is correct for the time period and the inks seems to legitimate. I will however reserve final judgement until the results of carbon testing have been concluded. For now, it remains a very singular work of fiction from a time when few learned men would have expended the resources of paper and ink to put down such a tale.
Timothy Whately, BS of Archeology
Graduate Assistant Miskatonic University
October 14th, 2014