This is the second story I wrote in my 'one a day' week during my time in London. See Looking East for the first one.
I'd been reading quite a bit of Lovecraft at the time, and this is my version of a Lovecraft story. I'm not too happy with it to be honest: I think it's too cliched and the language only half works. Oh, and the Latin is almost certainly completely wrong. On the other hand, the cliched aspect of it is sort of the point, since I was aping Lovecraft. I could improve the languate a lot if I redrafted the story, but that's against the spirit of what I was trying to do, so I've decided to leave it as it is.
Reading The Book
Finally, the Book was mine. After so long: after years of waiting, planning, investigating. Thousands of pounds spent. Romantic and platonic relationships ruined. After thefts, threats, violence, deception, and after committing crimes too heinous to recount, finally I held the Book in trembling hands.
It was huge and heavy. Quarto format and approximately one thousand pages thick. The cover was leather of some sort. Crudely cured and even more crudely bound to the Book, it had split in several places and been inexpertly stitched back together. Whatever colour it had originally been was now impossible to tell. Currently it was a dirty brown, covered in darker stains, pinhole burns and tiny bleached pits. The title, if the cover had ever shown it, was now no longer visible. That, however, was immaterial, as anyone who would desire to read the Book already knew its name. It was the Libris Necrodei: The Library of the Dead God, and now it and the forbidden knowledge it contained were mine.
I entered my office (formerly the bedroom of the flat I'd shared with my girlfriend, before she'd left) and ensured all four of the locks were secured. I placed the Book reverently on the desk, turned on the reading lamp and drew the blackout curtains.
Taking a deep breath and a gulp of whiskey from my hip flask in order to steady my nerves (and hands), I opened the book and gazed upon the first page.
I stared for several minutes - how many exactly I do not know - before letting out an involuntary howl of commingled rage and delight. The wealth of legends surrounding the Book said it was written in a long dead language and I had expected to have trouble deciphering it, but what met my eyes upon opening the Book was both exciting in its simplicity and infuriating in its complete and utter bafflement. It was written in three languages and what appeared to be three different inks, although whatever colour they had been originally, they, like the cover, were now no more than varying shades of brown. Two of the languages I recognised - Aramaic and Mayan pictograms - and I knew enough of them to attempt a crude translation of several passages. The third language, which was part of what caused my rage, was completely foreign to me. The shapes were simple curves, lines and dots, yet they resembled no language I had ever seen. My eyes had trouble focussing on them, for they seemed to shift and squirm on the page. Forcing my eyes to stare at the mysterious script, I felt an unformed and unreasoning horror creeping over me.
Forcing my childish fears aside, I concentrated on the two languages I could identify, and my initial suspicions - which had formed most of the rage I had felt - were confirmed. The Book was gibberish. The passages and phrases I could read meant absolutely nothing: mere collections of disparate words placed, apparently without meaning, together. If there was any sense to be made from the Book, it must, I knew now, lie in the third, unidentified language.
I spent the afternoon attempting to drag some scrap of meaning from the unidentified glyphs - some spark of recognition or a recollection of a similar root to one of the ancient languages I had learned or learned about in my long years of searching for the Book. The more I stared at the alien markings, the more I felt the childish fear creeping over me, and the more disoriented and finally nauseous I became due to the way the words appeared to squirm on the page. Finally, I abandoned the attempt, and my evening was spent alternately vomiting and checking that all the doors and windows in the flat were locked.
This pattern continued for some weeks: I would awake, miserable and already tired, in the morning, spend as much time as I could bear attempting to decipher the Book, then retreat from it, queasy and weeping with fear. I grew ill and lost a considerable amount of weight, and I am certain that I would soon have succumbed to death, but for a chance discovery.
One afternoon, maddened by my lack of progress, I hurled a sheaf of notes at the Book. The loose pages almost covered the text of the Libris, leaving only fragments of words visible. Fragments, and one complete word written in the horrifying, unknown script. My eyes fell on the word, and it remained perfectly legible. There was no trace of the apparent movement which normally caused me such nausea, and nor was there any increase in the fear I felt. Curious, I moved some of the notes to reveal the previous word of the Book, and immediately the fear and visual disorientation - though neither as strong as usual - returned. I covered the newly revealed word again, and I could focus on the unknown script. My fear even lessened a little.
This breakthrough accelerated my decryption of the Book immeasurably. I discovered that on its own, the unknown language was no more fear inducing than any other, and nor did it appear to move on the page. It was only in relation to certain words and phrases that this occurred, and this cemented my deduction that the conjunction of those three languages created phrases of power. I continued my researches, possessed of a kind of manic obsession.
Ten months later, I was finished. I will not reveal what my translation of the Book showed me - I cannot, for it is too horrific. I knew, though, that I must travel in order to finish what my years of sin in acquiring the Libris had begun.
I spent the last of my meagre savings financing my trip, and two weeks later I found myself in Eastern Europe, in the foothills of a mountain range, trekking through a remote region covered in dense, malignant primeval forest. I searched for almost a fortnight, and finally, my food having run out several days previously, hungry, tired and despairing, I found what I sought.
An ancient ring of standing stones, brutal and sinister, dark with awful stains and covered in a necrous, slimy mould. Thirteen of them in all, standing silent guardians of the squat black obelisk at their centre.
I approached the obelisk and saw, as I expected, that it was covered in the awful script from the Book: what I had learned was the language native to the Dead God Itself. After a little more searching, I found the ten circular indentations in the stone. I placed my fingers and thumbs in the holes and recited the incantations I had learned from the Libris.
I have no further memory of that night, save of a foul stink and a grinding noise, as if the mountains themselves were being torn asunder.
When I returned once more to consciousness, it was only to be greeted by fear and misery the likes of which I had not even imagined could exist. If I were permitted, I would open an artery and put an end to my continued existence, but I am no longer capable of that sort of free will. Instead I must serve eternally at my unspeakable Master's bidding, longing always for the blessed release of oblivion.
Oh God! It comes! I hear that unearthly tread approach. It begins again!