Today's Topics:
A True Story (Part I)
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To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: A True Story (Part I)
Organization: Locus Computing Corp./Boston, (617)229-4980 x169
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 94 10:44:16 EST
From: mjl@bosserv.bos.locus.com
Message-ID: <9401051044.aa00986@bosserv.bos.locus.com>
For those who don't have time to follow every religion-oriented newsgroup...
mjl
------- Forwarded Message
From: bsc7@po.CWRU.Edu (Bradley S. Corsello)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.dinosaurs.barney.die.die.die,alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die,alt.best.of.internet,alt.horror.cthulhu,rec.arts.prose,alt.alt,alt.evil,alt.mythology
Subject: A True Story
Date: 31 Dec 1993 19:10:16 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bsc7@po.CWRU.Edu (Bradley S. Corsello)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc12.ins.cwru.edu
The tale I am about to tell is true. My name is Arthur
Fortesque, and I am a professor of folklore at Miskatonic
University. As I write this, I am awaiting death by hanging for
a crime I did not commit. But it is not in the hope of saving
myself that I write now, but rather, to deliver a most urgent
warning, a warning against an antique horror once locked away
within the womb of the Earth, a ravenous horror now set loose to
prey upon an unsuspecting Humanity, all due to my damnable, foolish
pride.
When this dreadful adventure began, I just was settling down
to what I had hoped would be the most peaceful, productive time of
my life. The faculty had granted me a year-long sabbatical, partly
because the Great War had decimated our entering classes for a few
years, reducing the need for teaching staff. Thus freed from the
burden of teaching, I looked forward to a period of scholarly
contemplation and research. On the first day of my repose, I sat
in my tastefully appointed chambers, drawing thoughfully on my
prized meerschaum while my silver Himalayan, Kelly, purred
contentedly before the fire. While Heinrich, my secretary, poured
me a small Amontillado, I sorted through the stacks of notes and
manuscripts, the labor of many years, that I planed to compile into
the definitive monograph on folk drama in 17th century New England.
But this was never to be.
From my antechamber I heard an unfamiliar voice. "Dr.
Fortesque? You in here?" My secretary replaced the decanter on
the tray and met the unlooked-for visitor. When Heinrich announced
"Lane Kirkland to see you, sir," my serenity gave way to seething
irritation. Kirkland was a well-known dabbler in folklore, and,
to put it charitably, his reputation in academic circles was not
high. Frankly, we regarded him as a flashy but unlettered
treasure-seeker. True, he had made a few notable discoveries while
mucking about, including some especially remarkable ones in Arabia,
but nothing that couldn't have been duplicated by the steady,
persistent efforts of responsible scholars.
Scholars like myself, I thought, as Heinrich ushered Kirkland
into my chambers. I rose stiffly to greet him. Kirkland's
leathery, sunburned face told the tale of many years' exploring in
the tropics. His conservative clothes seemed strangely out of
place on his lean but stocky frame, as though he had just dashed
off a resplendent military uniform and donned the garb of a
civilian, better to blend into the crowd. As he heartily gripped
my hand in greeting, I noticed that he had tucked under his left
arm an ornate box of ebony, locked with a lock of iron. He sat in
the leather armchair nearest the fire. As we exchanged
pleasantries, he grew increasingly nervous, and he took a glass of
sherry from Heinrich with a trembling hand.
"Listen," he said at last, "can we talk... privately?" I
nodded to Heinrich, who drifted out of the room. Kirkland rose
from his chair and drew the shade over my single window, so that
we were illuminated only by flickering firelight. He turned to
face the fire, still clutching the ebony box. "Arthur, what do you
know of . . . Barney?"
I drew deeply on my pipe. "Well," I began, "not much. Nobody
knows much about him. He was worshipped by a degenerate clan of
settlers somewhere in New England in the seventeenth century. They
left no writings, ruins, or artifacts of their own. The only way
we know of the Barnites at all is that every society in New England
with knowledge of writing condemned them for their hideous, unholy
practices."
Kirkland turned to face me. "Arthur, would you believe me if
I told you that I now know more about Barney than all the
folklorists in the civilized world combined? And that I am very,
very, close to knowing everything about him?"
I couldn't conceal my incredulity. "Well, Barney is one of
the great mysteries of pre-Revolutionary paganism . . . ," I
sputtered. I could hardly believe that a rank amateur like
Kirkland could gain any ground where the sharpest minds in folklore
had failed.
"I don't expect you to take my word for it," he said, reaching
into his jacket pocket. He stepped up to my desk, placing the
ebony box before me. "Don't ask me where I got this," he
shuddered. He then unlocked it with an iron key he drew from his
jacket. From the box, he produced two objects. The first was a
strange purple stone, smooth, about fist-sized, of some material
I could not identify. As I examined it in the firelight, I noted
that was approximately the shape of a quadruped, tailed and
standing upright, with a long, saurian head. A patch of green
appeared on its "underside". It seemed strangely, achingly cold
in my hand, as though it had just been brought to the surface after
spending many eons buried in the chilly, lightless subterranian
depths. Kelly, who until this point had been lounging in front of
the fire, was suddenly on her feet, back arched, her glowing jade
eyes fixed on the purple stone in a wild blaze of animal fear. She
hissed and spat furiously, then tore out of my office as though
every fiend in Hell was pursuing her.
But I hardly noticed, so engrossed was I by the second of
Kirkland's treasures. It was a roll of parchment, or some other
sort of skin. On it was some nearly illegible scrawl that I barely
recognized as being similar to an obscure Colonial dialect I had
studied in the course of my work as a folklorist. "Incredible,"
I muttered.
"That's why I came to you," Kirkland said. "That fragment you
have in your hand is the only known written record of the Slaves
of Barney! And you are the only scholar in the world who could
read that dialect and pinpoint their exact geographical location."
His voice dropped to a trembling whisper. "There, I'm certain, we
will uncover the secrets of the Barnites! Their artifacts! Their
treasures! And I'll split everything with you, fifty-fifty! Are
you with me? Arthur?"
But I didn't hear him. I sat insensate, transfixed by the
opening verse on the archaic scroll:
EI LU'HV YUU
YUU LU'HV MII
WEIR AE HAPII FAH MILII
My mind, my soul, were wracked by a tempest of emotions!
Merciful God, If only I had heeded the primal fear that welled up
from deep within the most primitive parts of my brain, those parts
devoted to the survival of the organism! But pride, my damnable
pride, overcame my saner instincts. To solve the riddle of Barney
would make me immortal among folklorists. What a fool I was! If
I had at that moment even an inkling of the terrors we would soon
face, I would have cast the scroll into the fire, smashed the stone
into dust, and thrown Kirkland out of my high window, sending his
soul screaming to hell!
We went right to work on the Barnian Fragment. Or, rather,
I went right to work, and Kirkland paced around my chambers, drank
my sherry, and smoked my cigars. For nearly six days I
continuously poured over the scroll, taking only brief naps when
fatigue drenched my burning curiousity. All the while, the strange
purple stone sat upright on my desk, grinning in anticipation of
some ephocal event long looked-for. I occasionally dispatched
Kirkland or Heinrich errands to the Miskatonic Library, there to
dig up obscure, sometimes blasphemous tomes from the darkest
recesses of the collection. The Fragment was maddeningly
difficult to unravel. It had been written either by a moronic
child or a mind of genius far beyond what we would consider sane.
Finally, at my wit's end, I consulted the abhorred NECRONOMICON,
ignoring the frightened whispers of my wiser colleagues.
[Continued next post...]
- - --
Brad Corsello (bsc7@po.cwru.edu) - 3L Case Western Reserve U. Law School
"Sir, the law is as I say it is, and so it has been laid down ever since
the law began, . . . and so held and used for good reason, though we cannot
at present remember that reason." Y.B. 36 Hen. 6 fo. 24, 25b-26 (1458).
------- End of Forwarded Message
-- Michael J. Leibensperger ___ "Rats and roaches live by competition under the Locus Computing/Boston \X/ laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege 8 New England Executive Park of human beings to live under the laws of Burlington MA 01803 <mjl@locus.com> justice and mercy." -- Wendell Berry Member of the League for Programming Freedom --- write league@prep.ai.mit.edu------------------------------
End of Subgenius Digest ******************************
