The Scripts of the Ancients
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
-H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”
I.
When I first met Doctor Gregory Bolstari in his cramped Columbia office, I had no idea what to expect. In the interview, he seemed an honest man, quiet and humble as true geniuses are wont to be. Despite the growing heat of the late May air, he wore a three-piece suit and a beige overcoat over skin devoid of a tan. As we talked, he kept trying to fix his necktie. Something about the way he had tied it that morning made it always look crooked, and every few minutes he’d ask me if he had fixed it. He never did. I can’t imagine mine was tied much better, though, with my nerves about the interview and all. It was difficult at times to tell who was the more nervous one.
I recall him asking me why I wanted to be his research partner. I had two answers to give. The simple one was I was a young man in need of the money. I was qualified, having just recently earned my doctorate in archaeology from that past year, and I was eager to enter my field on a professional level. The deeper answer was a book that Dr. Bolstari had written in my youth. I remember the day I bought it from that bookstore in Montclair. Cleveland had just been elected president for the first time, and my father had given me a few dollars for my birthday that past week. Even then at fourteen I was an avid reader. In that shop, as I browsed the shelves waiting for a novel to inspire my intrigue, one finally did. It seemed almost hidden among the other volumes, a small tome only six inches in height and scarcely wider than my pinky finger. The only identifying marks could be found as a strange geometric symbol on the front cover, a circle within which were lines seemingly scribbled at ran dom. I was already sitting at my home desk and two dollars poorer by the time I had read its first page.
I discovered as I read that the author’s name and the title, “On the Scripts of the Ancients,” was apparent on the cover for all to see but written in a manner I had never seen before. The lines I thought were scribbles were in fact letters spelling the title! I became enraptured by the book straightaway and especially by the people the script belonged to, an Indo-European (then called Aryan) people called the Ikamil, as Dr. Bolstari spelled it. It was that book that inspired my higher educational pursuits, and to this day I cite it as the foremost inspiration of my studies.
I had this book in mind as I sat face to face with its author. I told him the same story, how I read his book in my youth and how it inspired me, and he seemed both delighted and disappointed to hear it. His disappointment he did not explain, but his delight he did. The book had sold quite poorly, he said, as potential buyers were afraid that by the title, the book would hold some sort of dark magic, which I thought was ludicrous. When I shared my skepticism, Dr. Bolstari only smiled. We spoke no more of dark magic that day.
Beyond the book, he asked me the usual questions one might expect at an interview. “What are your qualifications?” A doctorate from Princeton. “What brought you to academia?” An obsession with books and consequent ostracism from my athletic peers. “Where will you go after this job?” That question gave me pause. I was already interviewing for my dream position, my ultimate goal. After this job? There was no after, at least not yet. Not until I was fully satisfied in scouring the depths of his research into the ancients would I finally move on, and that day would surely never come. I did not tell him this. I instead gave the answer I thought he was looking for: pursuing a research professorship here or elsewhere. I watched his eyes narrow and detect the half-truth, but we moved on without question.
After the questions were asked and the responses given, he told me that while he could not guarantee that another applicant wouldn’t surprise him, I was at the forefront of his personal choices. I was thrilled to hear it, but I bit my lip to hold my tongue and nodded curtly like the professional I had yet to become. When I shook his hand at the conclusion of our meeting, I re member feeling how cold his palm was in mine. We didn’t speak of that either.
II.
I began my position as Dr. Bolstari’s assistant on May the 29th in the year 1910. It was a Sunday and my first experience with my employer’s queer working habits. He would work Sunday through Thursday, spending the remaining days at home. The university had granted him a special privilege exempting him from teaching on Fridays. On that day, I would be in the office alone, doing whatever little tasks I could to lighten the doctor’s workload, and on most Sundays the doctor would be alone. The Fridays would serve as a brief reprieve from the sweltering temperature at which the doctor kept our workspace. He seemed to detest the cold, and I learned quickly to dress for the office in the lightest fabrics.
In those early days I found myself most often grading papers of undergraduates and helping to formulate examinations for his students. New research was slow in coming as tensions in Europe were growing every day, and Dr. Bolstari apologized profusely for every Friday I spent doing an intern’s work. I didn’t mind, really. The easy tasks gave me time to think on other things, such as what my own research would be. There had been interesting developments of other Aryan peoples that year, some scholars beginning to decipher fragments of language found in Mesopotamia. Dr. Bolstari and I read every report that came from that team, but it was hard to formulate valuable opinions on another’s research.
Very early in our partnership, I began to see Dr. Bolstari’s expertise and genius firsthand. It seemed like there was no language that he didn’t know. He threw around phrases in Latin as if he had spoken to Caesar himself, and during his breaks he read Homer’s Odyssey in Greek from a book that looked older than the college itself. He was no linguist, but I was astounded at the depth of knowledge that resided in his magnificent brain on all the world’s tongues, and I aspired to attain his level of expertise. I asked him once how he attained this proficiency and commented that it was like magic. He replied simply and with a coy smile: “something like that.”
On one of the Fridays when I was alone in his, or rather our office, I was overtaken by curiosity regarding how much exactly he knew of the peoples he was researching. We had yet to talk at length about it, although he knew it was my foremost desire to do so. He seemed to dodge every question about them that I threw at him, becoming a different man for a moment. Sometimes he would happily discuss his research, but about some things, especially details of the Ikamil, he would fall silent. A certain feeling I could only liken to fear would enter his eyes, and he would immediately terminate the conversation. In my unsatiated intrigue, I set to finding his notes on the subject. My search led to a locked drawer in his desk for which I could not find the key. I had never witnessed Dr. Bolstari open it, although owing to his secrecy he likely only opened it at times I was not present. Having hit a wall, I gave up on my search for the day, although my curiosity persisted.
After a year spent as Dr. Bolstari’s partner, we became good friends as well, although I never once referred to him as Gregory. Despite being nearly three decades older than I, we had much in common to discuss. It became our ritual on Thursday evenings to talk over a glass of scotch that one of his Ger man friends had smuggled into the country, kept in that same locked drawer that eluded my gaze. Despite his shy exterior, Dr. Bolstari was one of the finest conversationalists I knew. His favorite thing to talk about was, of course, his research into the Aryan peoples, with one exception. He had grown so proficient during his research that he could write in the Ikamil’s strange circular script at will. He often signed his letters and memos in the same script, and I was among the few fortunate souls who knew its meaning, although I could not read it. I asked him once how I could sign my own name in the script, but his ordinarily kind and helpful demeanor was replaced by a wary one. He told me that it was something I would have to discover for myself. I tried to change the subject, but he had to leave the room, apparently in distress. I spent the rest of the night wondering what I had said wrong, and as I pondered this, my eyes drifted over to his serving of scotch and at the frost that had formed on the iceless glass. I said nothing of it, and by the time the doctor had composed himself and reentered, profusely apologizing for his behavior, the frost had melted away.
III.
In the summer of 1912, after two years working with Dr. Bolstari, I found him in our office uniquely happy. As soon as I entered through the door, he gleefully jumped up and thrust a ticket in my face. He said the time was finally here, and that I was finally going to have a good research opportunity. I took the ticket and glanced it over. It was for a ship leaving New York next week for Morocco and then on to Istanbul. I knew as soon as I saw our destination in Anatolia what he meant: we were finally going to visit the Mesopotamian archaeologists. I shared his joy at the prospects, and we both enjoyed a tall pour of scotch before discussing our plans. We would be met in Istanbul by one of his friends, a German archaeologist named Dr. Altemose. He would escort us on to their dig site near the Euphrates River, and we would see for ourselves what they had found. When I asked him if they had found any artifacts with the circular script, he seemed happy to tell me that they had not, adding that there was sure to be other curious objects that a young doctor could write about. I did my best to act content with that. Before he left for the day, the doctor reached into his desk and asked me to deliver a letter detailing our travel plans to the college president, Dr. Butler. I made my way to his office immediately and caught him as he was preparing to leave for the day. Dr. Butler opened the letter in front of me and read it over quickly, casting subtle glances at me as he read. Once he was finished, he placed it on his desk and asked me if I was to accompany the doctor. When I told him I was, he frowned and clicked his tongue. He said he would be sorry if I did because each of the past two assistants Dr. Bolstari had brought on an expedition had elected to stay at the dig site indefinitely. On his way out the door, he tapped me encouragingly on the shoulder and said he would hate to lose me too.
I stood alone in the president’s office for a moment, thinking on what he had said. If the sites were as good as Dr. Bolstari promised, I would be happy to stay there to research their finds in person, but something stuck with me about that word “indefinitely.” Had his assistants really chosen to move to a foreign land just for the sake of research? No, he hadn’t said “move,” he said “stay.” Had they not asked for their belongings? Perhaps the president did not know either way. Perhaps, I thought, I am just scared of going abroad for the first time, making a big deal out of one four letter word over another to justify it. Despite how much I rationalized my feelings, my heart continued to race. I felt a chill come over me for a moment and looked out through the office’s open window at the setting sun. The cool breeze of the summer evening roused me from my fit of anxiety, and I closed and locked the window before I left.
IV.
The heat was nearly unbearable as I stepped out of the car and onto the banks of the Euphrates River. It was my first time ever leaving the United States, and this was quite the jarring first excursion into the wider world. I had never seen so much sand, and our small automobile struggled to pass along the rustic, sandy roads the archaeologists had prepared. I cupped my hands around my eyes to get a clearer view through the sun glare. There was a massive hole in front of where I stood, and beyond it sat a patch of green, and beyond that the Euphrates. I felt like a starving traveler staring at an oasis, and I instinctually stepped toward it.
I felt a hand on my shoulder as Dr. Adolph Altemose stepped up next to me. He handed me a canteen, and I drank the warm water eagerly to replace the moisture that had been leaving me as a torrential rain of sweat. Dr. Bolstari stood at my other side, still somehow standing to wear his full suit and coat, even through the desert heat. I felt the soaked patches of cloth beneath my armpits and truly envied his resistance to temperatures like these.
The three of us walked together down a rickety flight of wooden steps to the bottom of the crater, where multiple white tents were set up. Lanterns were hanging from posts strewn about the place, and piles of books and papers stood tall as mountains upon every table I saw. Within the rock and sand the archaeologists had excavated, I could see a pitch-black rectangular opening within one of the crater’s sides. I was immediately curious what lay within, but I kept still this time, knowing my time would come.
The time came after I had been introduced to the archaeologists working on the site. I recognized their names from the papers the doctor and I had read. Dr. Bolstari knew most of them as friends and greeted them warmly. I kept an ear open for one of his previous assistants, but they were nowhere to be found. I spent nearly two hours discussing the site with them, all the things they had discovered and artifacts they had dated to be tens of thousands of years old, inconceivably ancient. They sensed my incredulity and told me they had shared it at first, but the numbers did not lie. I saw my opportunity and asked if I could see these impossibly old artifacts myself. They laughed at my eagerness and happily escorted me to the opening I had spotted before. One handed me a lantern and ushered me inside. I passed beneath the sand with the glee of a child at Christmas.
The lantern revealed little at first, as my eyes had to adjust from the harsh brightness of the desert. I entered a rectangular chamber with a flat ceiling scarcely taller than me supported by wooden beams. Another doorway led into another room filled with sand that I suspected they had just started clearing. One artifact after another was brought to my attention, and Dr. Bolstari and I examined each one carefully. I recognized some script resembling the carved cuneiform of the Assyrians, a few cups and bowls, and a humanoid figure of clay that I supposed was a child’s doll. Dr. Bolstari agreed with my perceptions and encouraged me to move into the next chamber to see what I could find.
I found a larger rectangular room nearly filled with sand and rocks. A large wheelbarrow and some shovels had been pushed to one side, and I immediately set to excavating. The other doctors joined me in short order, and by the time my lantern began to dim, we had cleared a significant portion of the room. The other doctors had left to find something for dinner, but I was too curious to leave now. I wiped the sweat from my brow and surveyed the newly cleared area. A couple of small tablet fragments were unearthed from beneath the rubble, but they did not seem useful compared to what we had already discovered. I used my foot to brush some remaining particles away and noticed a smooth and flat stone sticking out from the pile we had yet to move. I tugged it out, sadly undoing some of the clearing I had just completed, and glanced it over. On one side was a strange carving of figures seeming to drink from what looked like a horn, almost like a mead horn of the Norse Vikings.
On the other side, I was greeted with a familiar circular script.
My heart seemed fit to burst from excitement, and I sprinted out of the chamber and into the desert sun grinning. Some archaeologists tried to question my energy, but I paid them no mind as I rushed over to the tent where Dr. Bolstari had made his bed. He was writing in a journal when I burst in. My words jumbled together as I tried to articulate what I had found. I must have looked like a raving madman mid-hallucination, and the doctor frowned at me as such, his brow furrowed in incomprehension. After a fruitless moment of rambling, I gave up trying to explain and thrust the tablet at the doctor. A profound horror replaced confusion as he gazed upon the carvings. He ripped it from my hands and demanded to know where I had found it. I breathlessly told him, and he pushed past me out of the tent without another word.
I followed shortly behind and exited in time to see the doctor lift the tablet into the air and throw it at the ground. A loud crack rang out through the air. I cried out in surprise, and the other archaeologists began to gather around us in curiosity. I shouted at the doctor, asking him why he was trying to destroy what I thought would be an extremely valuable resource for the both of us. He gave no reply. The impact against the ground had only chipped off a corner of the piece, and the doctor bent down and grabbed it, positioning his grip to throw it again. His eyes were wide and crazed. Dr. Altemose rushed in to grab his arm, commanding him to stop. Dr. Bolstari tried to wrest himself free, but the younger man overpowered the older. He dropped the tablet, and it clattered against the excavated sandstone. The doctor’s wide eyes glossed over, and he collapsed into Dr. Altemose’s arms. Altemose shouted for a doctor.
I fell to my knees in shock and exhaustion. I couldn’t take my eyes off the chipped tablet, at the strange circular script and the unharmed carving that eluded my understanding. As I knelt panting, I felt watched, but not by my colleagues. It was as if the stone circles were eyes, gazing at me and through me, mocking my ignorance. I stared back at them with defiance.
V.
We were fortunate that there was a British army base two hours down the river, and they graciously lent us a medic to care for the poor doctor. His fit had rendered him nearly comatose, barely able to stomach any food and sleeping most of the day. The excavated chambers had been blocked off from further study until it was determined what happened to him. Some suspected poisonous mold that had not yet been discovered, still others feared a slumbering plague that their surveys had awakened. I knew better. I could not explain it in terms that did not make me sound mad, but I knew that my friend’s illness, the tablet I had found, and what was written on it were all connected. The way he reacted was as if he had seen the carving before, or was at least familiar with what was depicted on it. I still could not read that cursed circular script, and the only one who could had refused to tell me how. If I was to get to the bottom of things, I was going to have to confront my friend.
I sat by his bedside until he awoke. It was mid-afternoon, his lips were cracked from dehydration, and his usual kindly aura had long since evaporated. There was not much the doctor could do but try to keep him cool, and he discovered as quickly as I that doing so was surprisingly easy. The shade of his tent did little to ward off the desert heat, but at least we were free of the sun.
When the doctor awoke, I handed him a glass of water, which he drank eagerly. He seemed relieved to see me, and I was glad to see him awake and apparently lucid. After his cup was drained, the two of us set to conversation. The event was some time ago, and much has happened since, but I will do my best to relay what was said as exactly as possible from memory.
“You gave us all quite the fright,” I told my friend. “When you collapsed I feared the worst.”
“The fault is mine,” he replied. “I forget myself often. I’m a young man no longer, and I can’t afford a young man’s outbursts. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive. You have assuaged my fears by speaking to me now.” I reached over to a nearby table and grabbed a pitcher, refilling the doctor’s glass with water. “You should drink more.”
The doctor grunted in assent and took the drink from my grasp, draining it nearly as quickly as the first. “Where is the medic?”
“Outside, leaving us to our meeting. He graciously complied in my wish for privacy.”
“Privacy?” He stared at me inquisitively “Why on Earth would you ask for that?”
I took a deep breath and began my attack. “You know we must discuss the cause of what placed you in this bed.”
The doctor rolled over, facing away from me. “I am tired. Come back tomorrow.”
“You won’t fool me with that.” Anger began to creep into my tone. “Why did you behave like that when I showed you that tablet?”
“I do not wish to speak of it. Come back tomorrow.”
“You have been telling me that for two years!” My curiosity finally exploded from its cage as indignation. “I have aided you faithfully and without question all this time. I think I am entitled to a little enlightenment regarding what the hell is going on with you! Why will you not teach me the Ikamil script?”
The doctor gave no reply.
“What is that ritual on the stone?”
Silence.
“And why are you so damned cold all the time?”
All of my questions were met with nothing. I stood from my seat and glared at my friend, although he did not see it. “Fine. If you won’t tell me, I’ll go back underground and find out myself.” I turned to leave.
“Wait!” The doctor flipped over to face me once more. “You’re right. Perhaps to save you from the fate which awaits you down there, I must explain myself.”
I turned back, more confused than ever. “Fate? What are you talking about?”
“Listen to me. Do not pursue the Ikamil. I was a young man and a fool when I published that damned book. I was glad to see it sold poorly, but its influence on even a few minds remains my life’s greatest error. When we met, we spoke of a ‘dark magic’ that some perceived in the title. You may not believe me, but there is a truth to that fear.”
“My friend,” I interrupted, “dark magic? You are speaking madness. Must I summon the medic outside?”
“Listen! The ritual on the tablet, I have seen it before! It is a sacrifice, but not of life. It… It’s a…”
I watched in horror as the doctor’s speech failed and his body was overtaken by convulsions. Fearing the worst, I cried out to the army doctor waiting outside. He rushed in and ordered me out of the room. I complied with a deep fear in my heart, a fear that persisted until the sun set and the doctor informed me that Gregory Bolstari was dead.
VI.
I could not sleep the night my friend died. The desert had grown cold in the darkness, and a shiver kept sneaking up my spine despite how many blankets I threw upon my cot. He had died so suddenly, so violently that I struggled to believe it a coincidence that he died in the midst of a confession that I had long awaited. The medic guarded his tent fiercely, so I could not see him if I wanted to. I doubted he could give me any more information about the tablet from beyond the grave. I shed no tears for the doctor that night. I would not grieve until I determined what it was that took him, and in my resolve, a fear was growing. I feared that in order to discover the truth, I would have to disregard his final wish.
I would have to go back underground.
The moon was high in the sky when I peeked my head out of my tent’s flaps. All was quiet and still. Tents fluttered in a faint breeze, and most of the lanterns had gone out. Even in the darkness of night, the blackness of the rectangular doorway into the ancient chambers was striking, like an inky sea blocking my gaze. It was toward that inky sea I crept, careful not to disturb any piles of sand or pebbles that would give away my passage. I was so on edge as I walked that I nearly shouted in surprise at a sudden snore emerging from a tent nearby. When near the opening, I gently tugged a lantern free from its hanger. It cast a dim light upon my feet as I approached the entranceway. A rope had been tied between two posts to block entry, and a sign was hung upon it.
NO ENTRY
POSSIBLE HAZARDS WITHIN
I placed the lantern on the other side of the rope as quietly as I could. Taking one last look around, I swung one leg over the rope, followed by the other. The darkness of the underground was open to me, and I held the lantern up like a blind man in search of a wall to cease his wandering. I was swallowed by the blackness.
The first chamber looked identical to when I was there last. Some tools were haphazardly strewn about, and artifacts were placed on tables with dusting brushes and other such instruments of discovery. My tablet was not among them, but the way into the second room was wide open, even blacker than the first. I entered.
There was less sand now than there was the day I had cleared it. The outline of a top step to a staircase emerged from beneath the rubble and I wondered what might be lying within the lower chambers. I quickly put the thought out of my mind and resumed my search. I figured that there would be more time for exploration afterwards.
I found my tablet on the ground at the far end of the room. I placed my lantern at the center of the chamber and walked towards it with both hands empty. It was placed with the circular writing face down, and I could see the carved artwork clearly in the lamplight. There were five figures depicted, three to the left with hoods, a fourth to the right with their mouth open, and a fifth in the center bearing the horn I had discerned upon finding it. The horn was certainly a vessel for a liquid of some kind. Could it be the soma that the Vedas spoke of, a precursor to the Olympian Ambrosia or the divine mead of Asgard? I was not sure. If this tablet was like others the archaeologists had found, if it was tens of thousands of years old… would that not predate the oldest religious ritual known to archaeology?
I bent down and took the tablet in my hands to get a closer look. The figure on the right with the open mouth had distinctly different features than the other four. His nose was sharper, his chin thinner. He had long hair, whereas the others were either hooded or bald. The bald man in the center seemed to gaze at him with purpose, but what purpose could be conveyed in stone? The purpose of a priest? Was this a baptism of some kind, an initiation? There was no way to know for sure. No way unless I could figure out how to read their words myself!
I turned the tablet over to gaze at the writing, although I knew it would not help. Rows and columns of swirls with harsh lines overlaying them filled the stony surface, carved with a detail and fluidity most experts would deem impossible for the time. In my mind, almost speaking aloud, I demanded to reveal their meaning to me. I commanded it! I needed it!
As if responding to my request, the script appeared to swim before my eyes, enlarging and shrinking, as did the rest of the room. I tried to stand but found my legs failing me. I was overcome with such an intense lethargy I thought I must have been drugged, but as I threw a last look around the room in my stupor, I saw nothing but shadows. The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was the face of the fifth man with the open mouth, long hair and a sharp nose that almost looked like my own.
With a last gasp for air, an inky blackness took me.
VII.
When my consciousness was returned to me, I was against a cold stone wall. My wrists were chained so that I was forced to stand. I tried to cry out for help, but I could not find my voice. Only a pained cough escaped my mouth. Trying not to panic, I surveyed my new surroundings. I was in a large antechamber of stone with a high vaulted ceiling. At the center there was a pool filled with a murky liquid. I could see in a dim light, but I could not find the source of it. Whatever it was, its rays colored the room the deep green of pine needles. A doorway was carved into the far wall from me, but beyond it I saw only darkness.
I tried to call out again, but my voice refused to return. My heart raced, and my breathing quickened. How did I get here? Where is here, anyway? Question upon question entered my mind and found no answer. My wrists began to ache where the chains suspended them, and I began to grow truly and deeply afraid.
This will not do, I thought. If I were to find the cause of my friend’s death, I would have to be brave. Perhaps the people who took me were behind it all, and I would get my explanation once and for all. But what if that explanation cost me my life? I was still young. Was it worth it? Seeing that there was no escape and no way out of these chains, I realized that it was not worth thinking of hypotheticals. The danger was here and now. How I faced it was all that mattered. If I was to die, I would die with the dignity of one who searched for the truth until the very end.
“I will not die here,” I whispered, my voice finally coming back to me. “Not until… I know.”
As I spoke, I heard a rustling echo throughout the chamber. From the dark doorway across from me, four hooded figures wearing long black robes entered the room. I could make out little of their faces from beneath the cloth, but they looked nothing like each other. One looked Arabian, one African, another Caucasian, and the last Indian. My heart sank when I got a glance beneath the African man’s garments. At his waist hung a long, hollow ram’s horn.
As they approached I asked them who they were and why I was here. They gave no response to me, but they whispered among each other in a tongue I had never heard before, a strong, guttural speech that sounded primal in nature. The African man took the horn in his left hand and knelt near the pool. His three fellows stood above him, raising their hands to the heavens. They began to chant something, a repetitive verse in their primal tongue that I dare not translate here.
Glovbhir Sthaloch Kozoliava, Fiar Zoa Gogh!
This they chanted as the kneeling man ran his horn through the pool of liquid, catching some of it within the hollow vessel. I thought at once that my assumption was correct, and that this was a baptism of sorts. But as I thought of this, I remembered the fifth man’s open mouth. Where exactly was this liquid going?
As the African man with the horn rose and the four turned towards me, I feared I was going to have that question answered sooner than I would like. I exclaimed my protestations for the length of their approach, but they gave me no reply. Two of the men took hold of my face, one holding my head back and the other forcing my jaw open, resuming their chant as they did so. T he third stood back and observed as the fourth raised the horn to my face.
As he lifted, he spoke to me. “One has gone away to the Beyond. Another must take their place.” Before I could inquire into what he meant, the water from the pool filled my mouth. I call it water, but it was only identical in feeling. The taste was among the worst sensations I had ever experienced, an assault of bitterness and bile as if five men had vomited into a cup and fed it to me, so foul it was almost painful.
The man with the horn spoke again, louder over the steadily increasing volume of the chanting of his fellows. “It is foolish to resist. Take Her in.”
I had no time to question, nor ability with my mouth full of the disgusting substance. The chanting men were shouting now, shouting at the heavens or something far beyond. Seeing no other option, I shut my eyes and swallowed.
At once, everything was still. As soon as the foul liquid left my tongue and passed my throat, time seemed to stand still. The men seemed frozen as if in ice, their mouths wide and eyes bright in a zealous joy. The forest green light of the room seemed to pulsate above me, and I searched again to find its source.
And that is when I saw it.
What I saw I fear I cannot adequately describe. For the sake of this exercise I shall try my best, but know that no description uttered by mortal men could ever do justice to my vision that night. I sincerely hope it was a vision, because such a sight having happened in the real world would surely have driven me mad, more crazed than I was then. Even now while writing I can feel the remnant of a primal scream echoing from the back of my throat as I gazed up to the ceiling and found out what the African man had meant by “Her.”
At first I thought it was merely a shadow, an odd pattern of discolored stone catching in the light. It was sprawled out upon the ceiling like a blood stain, perfectly random in its array. As my eyes peered more deeply into the shadows, I began to perceive a larger shape from within the black. I saw movement in the darkness, twisting and curling and spinning shapes each somehow darker than the last. Parts of the shadow seemed to bubble and pop like boiling water, churning like an inky soup. Spikes and tendrils appeared at random, each reaching out to me but falling just short. Each tendril that passed within my frozen stare churned on its own like a miniature version of the whole horrible mass that I was forced to witness.
And then it opened its mouth.
Like a water droplet leaking from a gutter, the darkness dipped from the ceiling, descending ever lower toward me. Like lips parting to utter a sound, the darkness opened and revealed a thousand rows of black teeth, each with an eyeball fixed on me. The same liquid that I drank leaked down from the eyes like teardrops and into the pool below. I knew I was shouting, screaming, crying for help, but no sound found my ears, save for a faint rumble like a train passing in the distance. A black tendril like a tongue dripped from above and coiled around my neck. All the warmth left my body. I felt as if I was naked in the arctic, drowning in the icy sea. The cold burned as fiercely as a hot iron, my sweat froze upon my brow. The tendril around my neck grew tighter, and the black gaping maw closer. I tried in vain to cry out again, but its grip was too tight. I was lifted into the air, my wrists burning from the friction of the chains, the rest of my body burning from the freezing cold. I did not hear the chains snap. It raised me higher until my vision passed beyond its horrid lips and into the countless rows of teeth beyond. I felt thousands of eyes pierce through me, horrible eyes with myriad black pupils. Everywhere I looked I was greeted by a new horror, and yet I could not scream nor struggle. All I could do was watch as the creature’s shadowy jaws flexed outwards.
I remember a blur, a crash, and then the void.
VIII.
A shiver passed through every inch of my body to wake me. My eyes flew open, and I shot upright in fear, frantically searching my surroundings for a sign of the horrible creature. To my surprise and relief, I was back in my tent. The sun was peeking through the flaps, and there was no sign of a hooded man, nor tablet, nor monster of shadow. I tried to laugh but my throat was raw and sore. As I tossed my legs over the side of my cot, I told myself that it was all a nightmare. After all, shadow monsters don’t exist. It was impossible to magically transport from one place to another. How could any of that have been real?
I nudged my blanket off of my shoulders and immediately began to shiver. I knew I was in the desert still, and the sun was up which meant the heat had returned. Then why was I so damned cold? I wrapped my blanket tightly around me. I felt at once warmer, but my heart had sunk into a cold, dark pit. It was not a dream.
I had to be sure that I was not sick, so I set out at once to find the doctor. As I threw open the flaps of my tent, I stepped out into the sunlight. I put one foot forward and slipped. Some liquid had fallen on the ground, and I lost my balance. I crashed down into the sand, and I felt more wetness where I landed.
I raised my left hand, which had taken most of the impact, and found it soaked with red.
I jumped up as fast as I could and found the army medic lying beneath me. His neck and arms were covered in small, deep cuts, and a massive pool of blood into which I had accidentally tread surrounding his corpse. The stench was overwhelming, and I stepped around him to survey the rest of the camp.
Every last one of the archaeologists were dead.
Dr. Altemose was leaning against a table, his throat slit and shirt dyed crimson. I saw one archaeologist in a fetal position, several holes punched into his shirt and chest. Another was beside him, a knife sticking out of his heart with his own hand still around the handle. A third had fallen in the doorway to the subterranean chamber, equally as bloody. There were others, but I couldn’t bring myself to examine them. My stomach evacuated its contents. My throat burned even more as I doubled over, retching amongst the dead. Despite my pain, I still found it within my freezing soul to cry out for them.
I had lost my voice by the time I stood again. Steeling myself, I knelt down next to the corpse that was once Adolph Altemose. I took my right hand and closed his eyelids while my left searched his pockets for the keys to his automobile. As I closed his eyes, I noticed a marking on my palm. It was a circle, filled with jagged edges and lines. As I gazed upon the mark with equal parts terror and curiosity, a thought welled up inside my mind and revealed to me its meaning: it was my name. Each line was a letter, and the circle was the whole. At once, the mark began to fade until it was little more than a faint discoloration in my flesh. No one would notice unless specifically looking. My left hand grasped a metal object in Dr. Altemose’s pocket. I withdrew the key and looked upon him one last time.
I drove into the desert, covered in the blood of other men, along down the road that brought me to this place. I had no thought in my mind besides going home, back to the United States, back to Columbia.
I now had something to write about. And this is where I find myself now.
I returned to the university, and Dr. Butler offered me Dr. Bolstari’s old position when I informed him of his death abroad. What was once our office is now mine alone. I had a locksmith force his way into the drawer that so intrigued me, and I found a cipher for the Ikamil script.
I had no need for it anymore. Languages came naturally to me.
I speak Latin as if I was Caesar himself, read the Iliad as if I was by Homer’s side while he was composing it. It seemed that whatever the four priests had done by feeding me that liquid and showing me their god had granted me a great gift. For what purpose I could not say, and I doubt I would ever want to know. What I did know was that I would never again visit the deserts of Mesopotamia, where my friend now lies.
Now after writing, I shall honor my friend and mentor as I always have in the thirty years since his death. I shall sit at my desk and toast a glass of scotch in his name, with my three-piece suit and heavy overcoat worn tightly and the window kept firmly shut.