#damn polish jenga is intense

[alchemisland]

The Antiquarian and the Devil's Dog - I

The week we spent cleaning out Great Grandad's house was an eventful one. More exciting at least than the days previous spent in various offices gathering the correct permissions to enter the old place. In the oldest parts of the house damp rotted the old floorboards until they warped, collapsing under their own weight leaving perilous apertures eager to swallow clumsy steppers. Agencies were reluctant to hand over the keys without first checking everyone's insurance ad nauseum.

The old stone stairs leading to the basement, chipped from a thousand previous descents, looked liable to break if one wasn't selective with their boot placement. It's funny, I thought, if you fell through one of those holes and ended up in the basement, you'd be avoiding the dangerous stairs; the lesser of two evils. Note to inform the insurance company of a possible loophole. Desperate to avoid litigation on our part, the agencies agreed that we could enter under supervision.

The world had changed since this place was last inhabited. When the door finally opened, stubborn in its frame after years of neglect, it seemed a room unstuck in time. Dust particles hung in the air and as they danced I wondered what secrets they were privy to, and whether they had been the component atoms of a larger host previously. Even her ghosts were bent and haggard with age, bones wilting in the oppressive dank. A hundred years ago the servants were so afraid of the myriad spectres said to inhabit the long halls and shadowed staircases that they had refused to enter certain rooms, but no such reports have been filed in nigh on seventy years. If those same ghosts existed now, they languished apathetically in the walls, stirring only occasionally to rattle the pipes or drag their boots. Curios and trinkets plundered at the height of Empire decorated every mantel in the house and although it went unsaid, everyone in the family was petrified of stumbling across something less than savoury. Just to be sure we cross referenced some of the dates in our literature and found the Nazi party came a little after Bryn's time. Spared of that anxiety we set to looking, for what we weren't sure. Something of value, some seemingly insignificant object that might illuminate this murky character.

Bryn, God rest him, was a renaissance man in the style of the natural philosophers of his age; a doctor, an artist, a war hero, an antiquarian and amateur archaeologist all rolled into one. Of course it would be remiss not to mention his more illicit interests like bootlegging alcohol and collecting occult manuscripts, but the more sordid of the two pastimes fell by the wayside when he raised his station in society, becoming an educated and respected member of a prominent archaeological interest group. Selous' Sweat they called themselves, in tribute to the conservationist and African big-game hunter of the same name.

Selous some of these artefacts for mad stacks, I thought with a smirk.

Everything in the house had a double coating of dust. Doing our rounds and cataloguing the cabinets of curiosities meant that doors long undisturbed were opened, both literally and figuratively. Turning the handle of one particular door, I saw it led to an upstairs sitting room on a landing between two flights of stairs, one spiralling down towards the sitting room, although there was scarcely room to sit amidst the Grecian urns and Japanese decorative plates precariously hanging from the walls, and the other up towards the darkroom on the top floor. The sitting room was strangely devoid of clutter except for an enormous table. The rounded surface was a dark mahogany, polished until shining with a protective glass covering placed on top.

I wondered why a table, even one so fine as this, was given a room to itself above the other priceless artefacts in the catalogue, which included a Han dynasty vase, the glasses worn by W.B. Yeats in his twilight years and an enormous set of ornate mirrors purchased at auction when one of the grand manors in Kilkenny was forced to liquidate all non-holdings related assets following the collapse of the family after the war. The mirrors, according to the former owner Mrs. Fitzbannion, were the pride of their manor house. Mrs. Fitzbannion hung the mirrors in the centre of the main hall, ensuring all visitors knew the extent of their wealth. The frames were carved to represent natural wonders, a pinecone here, an antler there, and each coated in burnished gold leaf. Gold had faded to brass in the intervening years, as if the mirror losing its place of prominence in its household stole the last scion of lustre from it altogether, and I wondered had the mirror ever been so ostentatious as described.

Inspecting the table, I ran my finger along the protective glass panel and found no trace of dust. Doubly curious. Bryn was an adventurer and had no shortage of vigour in his old age, but he was still not one for dusting. Attributing his longevity and stamina to a liquid concoction that he called Lightning Wine, part alcoholic cocktail, part vegetable juice with a hint of soda water. In truth I had only agreed to help with this jumped-up Spring cleaning session in the hopes of finding a vat of the naughty sauce hidden in a secret panel, which I would ferry out under my coat and imbibe later on with the lads.

I knelt on my haunches to inspect the legs of the table, wondering if they might shed light on the mystery. Clean as a whistle below too. Ivory. That was it. The legs were made of ivory. Holy shit, was this stuff even legal anymore? I heard a story in school that at one time ivory was so coveted they had to remove the tusks from museum specimens to discourage robbers, low-hanging fruit and all that. My sister volunteered in the Natural History Museum in Dublin while studying zoology and recounted wondrous tales over dinner about their storage rooms in the inner-city; numerous thylacine specimens, gigantic Irish elk antlers and wooden storage crates full of elephant tusks, corridor after corridor of specimen jars like one imagines Noah's Ark appeared at capacity. Into the table legs were carved detailed images of warriors armed with spears facing down ferocious lions. No doubt an artwork of such fine craftsmanship was either manufactured by British labourers merely basing their work on an existing tribal peace, or worse, plundered from a deposed native royalty, like that Malaysian ruby. Something else there too, a piece of paper placed under one of the legs to balance it. I pulled the parchment out slowly, like the highest-stakes game of Jenga you can imagine and saw that it was written in blue ink. Unmistakably the spider-like scrawl of Great Grandad Bryn; prone to eccentricity and hyperbole in his cups though. I doubt any of what was written should be taken as gospel, but damned if it doesn't make for a spooky story. The following are the excerpts from what I assume was a field diary, kept as part of his funding agreement with the local museums. They would fund his expeditions and as long as he provided colourful commentary and witticisms enough to draw a crowd. They proudly patronised his occasional dalliances into the otherworldly in the spirit of derring-do! Bryn mentions early in the text that he keeps a formal and an informal diary, the latter only for his own perusal. If what I read is his own private correspondence, then why hide it?

April 1928.

I, Martin Bryn-Kolkiln, wish to commit to paper the strange events of Friday last, April 9th 1928. For the first time in some weeks I have had time enough to sit down and gather my thoughts, my rest of late being much disturbed by strange fancies and day-time delusions. My postprandial scribblings have long been a stable of my working week and no servant dares to stir past my quarters upon noticing the glow neath the door that signals its occupancy. Lately the notepad remains devoid of ink or flourish and I strain my ears to catch the scratching of a passing servant stepping a mite too hard on the creaky floorboard, hoping to catch some snippet of gossip in the scullery that might rouse my wrist to swiftness. In less fanciful terms I have been much beset by idleness and my usual studious nature replaced by bouts of idleness and procrastination. I do not fear that you will judge me too harshly for my slovenliness though once I recount my adventure in full.

I find the drone of chatter where people gather too distracting to complete any semblance of serious writing. Even the purchase of army-grade ear plugs have not relieved the issue, much to my chagrin. Three pairs for a pound, army surplus. Let me say this; if they cannot stop the sound of idle chatter, they aren't going to do much when a whizzing mills explodes just shy of your nape. The seller, one Mr. Kieran Malleus - 'hearin' Kieran' to his friends - in due course will read my thoughts on his wares, in so many crass words as can be mustered in the shrill silence they offer.

Recently I have been away from kith and kin, pining for home comforts in the scalding desert sun, an enormous white offensiveness radiating omnipresent heat. By night when the flaming orb retreats beneath the dunes, the shifting sands hold much latent heat. Torturous for a Kentish gent like myself. I will keep complaints brief. I am grateful of course for the patronage of my peers, and for the many strange and exotic sights I witnessed, including the discovery of a buried idol in the former fertile crescent which spurred my journey to action. Natural sights of great wonder met my eyes at every turn; clear skies above the dunes like reflected water, the night a matte-painting of stars in every hue; twinkling blues shining intensely for a moment only to disappear against the force of its own vibrancy, white and yellow dazzling celestial bodies too winking in turn, and a fiery red one clearest of all. Fayzad, my loyal manservant and foreman, informs me this was Venus. Brutal aerial bombing raids and fierce close-quarters combat destabilized the region. A land rent asunder yielded treasures hidden since ancient epochs, including our idol. In the charred frame of a ruined mosque, a set of dusty steps led us to the idol, stark and malignant in its shadow-haunted grotto. The discovery provided ample fuel for speculation among my wider uneducated workforce, whispered stories of Templar treasure and forbidden Rosicrucian gospels abounded, spreading like wildfire.

The journey from the train station in London towards Matfield in Kent is punctuated with occasional wondrous natural vignettes. Wild horses cresting grassy knolls against the backdrop of God's own country. White blossoms on trees, ranks of saplings, stunted now but enormous come the vernal bloom. I attempted to conduct my preliminary report of sites I'd visited but, through my rubber stoppers, I made out the voice of an inebriated Scot over the din. A veteran was seated in the opposite carriage, alone. The poor creature must have been exposed to gas in some forgotten melee, of which he was perhaps the surviving witness. Across the British Isles there was a thousand such sad scenes. Pineapple gas by the sound, that consistent hack. Each time he flurried, it knelled the end of my creative spell.

Upon returning I informed colleagues and close friends of my intent to convalesce, retiring to my chambers in solitude for a fortnight to document my trip. It came as a reluctant surprise then when a letter arrived, delivered by hand, requesting my urgent presence at the servants graveyard on the grounds of the Powers Estate. The letter spoke of a strange discovery when work for a proposed pleasure garden began requiring the removal of several headstones. The author of the note, which was neither signed nor written in a hand I recognized, went on to state that he or she supposed that their discovery would be pertinent to my historical interest. This mysterious invitation stoked the embers of my imagination ablaze. I was suddenly keen to reevaluate my proposed 'mental wellbeing day', instead thinking perhaps I took those days on the insistence of a friend, nothing more.

I set off that same balmy spring evening, with only a light jacket tossed overshoulder, a saggging houndstooth peak unsteady on my head like an ill-fitting wig and a whistle on my lips; no rain had been forecast. The note went on to describe the dig, which had concluded. My field tools were not required. The closing statement, worst of all, sent shivers through my body. The scribe, although amateur, was firm in his words. Confident in his assessment, they had uninterred the skeleton of an enormous hellhound, three times larger that the most gargantuan of Siberia.

My mind was aflame with vivid images of a shadowy hyena howling, cackling, pooling stinking saliva in the sharp corners of its mouth. I wondered might their excavation have uncovered Black Shuck or some folkloric descendant; an enormous wolf-like creature that stalked the leafy lanes of Suffolk in the 15th century. Standing a keen seven feet, allowing for an inch either end, 200 pounds at a glance, around the average weight of a heavyweight pugilist, the fearsome beast came fearless. When mist swirled underfoot making each step unsteadier than the last, when the wind carried whispers of movement on the moors, Black Shuck had left his cave. So bulky was he that the thudding sound of his footfalls roused the town from sleep and into panic. He came in the night, terrible and formless, gliding unseen like steam. The panicked citizenry heard that same familiar padding, the warning bell would sound, sending the denizens spilling towards the abbey. Room was made for all to shelter in the house of God. Assembled clergymen bolted shut the door, placing large timbers across in a x. The beast effortlessly barged through as if hurtling through a wall of damp paper. A hulking mass of muscle, rippled and bulging as if cast in alabaster. The archives make no mention of how the beast was slain. The last word on the matter is not even a word but a sketch of a boulder by one Father Nestin Goodfaythe, showing where the beast is supposedly interred on hallowed ground, underneath a weeping willow near the west wall of the piper's rest.

I cycled to the train station within half an hour and caught the evening train. Upon detramming, it was only a short stroll past the hamlet to the Powers Estate, a foreboding stone fortress stark against the pastureland. The sky was flecked with silver dots, like an enormous glowing wisp out of space had poked a hole in the fabric of our world, allowing a sliver of otherworldly pearlescence through.

Clouds gathered ominously above the rounded domes of the main compound. Various follies, fountains and statue-strewn walkways decorated the grounds, paling in comparison to the oppressive majesty of the Grand Lodge. The design was an eclectic mix of Eastern and Western classical art styles, rounded arches and marble pillars dappled with grey, obsidian gargoyles with contorted faces, forked tongues lolling out of their pursed half mouths. Other misshapen oddities perched on the buttresses. French tapestries and Roman marbles hung on every landing, enormous paintings of the glorious hunt in gilt frames on every inch of spare wall. Pictish stones looted from Scotland decorated the fish pond, inscribed with mysterious runes that no doubt held eldritch knowledge.

Casement Power, younger brother of the late Lord Richard, inherited no property or bonds. Instead he was allowed an extremely modest annual wage. He spent the days hunting. No scurrying fox or baited badger could satiate his warrior spirit, so he traveled to Africa, there shooting the largest game.

It was there he spoke with cannibal tribes, saw serpents of enormous size unfurl endlessly and slither away into the brown water and met great heroes. He also had collected many curios and tribal artworks on his expeditions. The remnants of his leaden conquests lined the walls as trophies. Enormous mammoth tusks from Siberia carved with runes framed every double door, spears crossed above every mirror.

Somewhere inside, although I can't recall where, the skeleton of the beast that hunted the denizens of Gevaudan is displayed. I know for a fact that this grizzly exhibit exists, it's listed on the manifesto of items in their portion of Stately Homes of England. I cannot verify as to the validity of the article. I'd vouch many a French peasant eats well selling hundreds of such cryptozoological items. Could the hell hound I am to examine be a relation come to England, or worse, brought?

I have heard tales from reputable sources of large cats loose on the moors. Escapees from circuses and private menagerie. Others, former pets released by their owners after quadrupling in size.

Perhaps these amateurs had merely uncovered the remains of an exotic pet. The grounds were no stranger to beasts from the dark continent; crimson parrots in enormous metal cages, striped fish that glowed when moonlight struck on the pond, peacocks from India striding the grounds, ducks from Canada. Would it be completely out of question for a jungle cat to have made this castle its home? I think not.

On his extensive travels around China and Africa studying prehistoric art Richard Power collected many priceless artworks and looted great tombs of their treasures years before the arrival of Western antiquarians. His horde included petroglyphs, gilded sarcophagi and even a mummified cat from a Witch's Bazaar outside Khartoum. If Richard Powers was alive today, he would sit coiled atop his twinkling doubloons with plumes of smoke trailing from either nostril, content to wait for judgement day in the cavernous treasury rumored to exist beneath his house.

Many of the great houses had fallen to destitution, their custodians gathering dust on gilded thrones. The best of their heirs sent to France among the officer classes. Although the bulk of the BEF was made up of working class men, the aristocratic classes were decimated also. Such was the ways of war. These men playing chess with the lives of the small folk would, to fulfill their end of whatever Faustian pact, give up their own sons. Of course not all elderly Lords were callous in sending their offspring away, perchance to die. Many wrote letters to school chums occupying lofty administrative positions requesting exclusion in exchange monetary reward. All such offers were denied.

Powers lost three son. Two at Mons, another at Ypres. The angels had not seen fit to protect them.

That dread sound of motorcycle tyres across pebbles as it stirs to a halt. The clink of medals as the messenger spans the drive. Measured footfalls, a military gait, approaching the door. Closer now, the parent white-faced knowing what dread news awaits.

Folklore and farm chatter aside; the Powers had deep roots here. A Powers had lived on this land since 1640. Who knew what secrets those whispering old stones might yield to those inclined to listen.

Fortunately the Lord has a nephew, strong, sensible and of age. Lord Nigel Power, Earl of Sookford and 3rd Baron of Westian, current custodian of the Powers Estate was not unkind. Scholarly and stoic like the Greek philosophers he admired and quoted in his cups, but always keen to share a nod and wag in passing. Not to give the impression we are acquainted, for I hardly know the man but to don my hat in passing, occasionally commenting if the weather be note-worthily tempestuous.

Already noting my own apprehension, measured steps, breath slowed and women unless necessary, I proceeded toward the gate. Wintry grass crunched understood. Hypnotised by its granduer, I craned to see the lip of the battlements. A fortress grim and impregnable, fit for a martial family.

Arrows, oil and boulders would have rained from on high to decimate prospective invaders. Just then, a gust swept past violently, lifted my tails and carried with it faint sounds of distant war. A whispered scream. Snippets of intense crackling fire. Rhythmic thwacks of loosed bows in tandem. I shivered. I begged the spirits leave me, confine their unrest to the kirkyard.

The last light faded. I approached the iron gates. Each rail was a jagged black spear rising from the capstone. A black bas relief centred the entryway. I pushed it open. It dragged on its hinges, howling in dull flight. A dread chorus, shrill and how long it lasted - I almost placed my fingers into my ears for relief!

This fright rather knocked my senses. I stirred on the threshold and gathered scattered wits. Every loose stone, dancing leaf and singing spring breeze now whispered portents. I resigned to ignoring whatever gnostic Delphian beckoned. I accepted the languid gate swing as a sign of reluctance to permit my entry on the house's part. Old places do not lightly relinquish their secrets.

I immediately turned sharply right upon entering, moving from the winding gravel drive lined with golden cedars down a snaking path trodden through the grass, towards a distant glow I assumed to be the site. With forearm raised against grabbing branches, I fumbled through the darkness, taking little note of the uneven terrain underfoot. I strode toward a copse copse with a clear vantage of the servant's graveyard. The site was cordoned with rope. Torches jammed into the ground illuminated the site, presumably for my own benefit. A small crowd had gathered, huddled together, gnattering around one of the beacons. A man turned and waved upon seeing my shaded form, evidently the letter writer.

Grass grew greyer, more sickly inside the roped area. Scions of jagged rock tore through the topsoil giving the impression of a golem beneath the firmament. This field was the only spot that didn't yield healthy bloom. Small surprise it was designated such a dark purpose. Its owner had little use for land that didn't yield.

A terrible scream rang out as I took my first ginger step toward him. Shrill, unpleasant, razorlike. The banshee's wail, a chorus of seven trumpets that tolled the opening of the seventh seal, the Howling of the Djinn! Hark! The dread screech of a terrible wyrm, phasing through realities in permanent agony.

A bright spark glowed brightly in the sky above the open grave. Unaccustomed to the light, my eyes began watering heavily. I tried sjtitkng my eyes tight, but like raging floodwaters surmounting an impassable object through the smallest grikes and stony slits, they coarsed unheeded. I turned and a strange thing occurred. I found myself back in the thicket, where the branches like fingers had caressed me only a moment before. The light of the site up ahead in the distance. What vile trickery this?

I stared at my hands, barely able to discern their shape in the darkness. I raised them, cupped my face and messaged my crown. I needed to feel the bone and blood underneath. Something tangible now that I was untethered from the real. I needed to be positive I wasn't dreaming. It was bitterly cold. Was it possible to feel cold while unconscious? Doubtful. Sudden nausea stole my legs. I keeled over, holding my stomach, retching onto the damp grass.

The beacons in the distance began igniting and extinguishing in sequence, strobing and contorting, casting long shadows. I tucked my head to my chest, as a hedgehog does under duress. Then all was dark. The beacons doused simultaneously. The wet grass beneath my head changed to something hard and slick, with many sharp points. I lifted one eyelid and saw the gates. I was outside the compound, as if I had never before entered.

The dark contours of the bas relief were more ominous now. The bulbous shapes made my skin crawl. Brushing rocks in my palms on the thigh of my trousers, I winced to my feet.

Yes, the beings that had at first seemed Grecian effigies of perfect men hunting now altered in the pale moonlight. One idle moonbeam shone directly on the relief, as if a cherubim spotlight was held fast. These hulking icons, although lacking perspective, seemed a forbidden sight. I recoiled in horror but dared myself to investigate further. I stooped closer, focusing on one particular figure. Let me first describe the image whole; pitiful, by compare I can only cite passages from Revelations, even they do not convey the full horror I beheld. Lacking the vocabulary to describe the 'otherness' of its shape, Revelations must serve as an imaginative stimulus. The beings were contorted demons. The bodies and genitals of men but coated every inch with coarse black hair, thick and spidery. Enormous round eyes like that of a fish, but where a fish emits vacancy and the black of their eyes reflects rather than radiates, these implied great wisdom. Enormous descrying orbs, omnipresent to witness all events for all of time, as Mathesula.

Where their mouths should be instead jutted enormous jaws like that of the snapping Nile crocodiles, who since antiquity have smiled menacingly beneath the murk. The figure I was hypnotically drawn to had an enormous stinging tail protruding from the end of his tailbone, hanging low off the ground before looping upwards into the sky. A stinger slick with venom poised at the shoulder to strike, dripping evilly. Alone among his number, he was armed with a this pestilent whip, clad in hard black plate no sword would dent, distinguishing him as a leader of sorts, if rank exists within an anarchy of grotesques.

Even as fantasy this folly was something gratuitous. The metal seemed slick, oozing, though no rain fell that night. No hint of varnish in the air. Perhaps twas merely the combination of moonlight trickery and the all-night reading sessions of yesteryear where I filled my mind with all manner of sidhes, dobhar chus and mushrooms out of space. The relief was a ballroom fancy, no more. A remnant of the freakshow era, like some stately houses with curiosity cabinets intact.

I pushed the gate open as a matter of promptness. Again it swung slowly and screeched, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - like a vixens wail. Events were playing out exactly as they had only moments ago. Only now, when I entered the dig site was to my left, and much closer besides.

I was sure I had turned right last time. Did the last time really happen? A trick of my own mind or played by something darker. Some being drawn to bored mischief, interfering with the affairs of mortals. Perhaps twas some fancy I took. A moon dream. Lord knows I had heard tales of drunken farmers roaming around small paddocks unable to find an exit, while the faeries peered through the hawthorn barbs in hysterics.

While we are in the realm of loons, perhaps it was an angel's vision of the future. Warding me away from the toothed darkness inside the grave.

To steady my nerves I decided to voice the skeptic aloud into the night. Gases and wisps in marshes were spirits to feudal farmers, before wise men came and dispelled their ignorance with the torch of logic. Perhaps all I was experiencing now was merely some as of yet unexplained phenomena. An unseen chemical in the air released by the digging causing hallucinations. I had been travelling recently, a surefire way to unsettle oneself. Any excuse that steered my mind from abject terror.

I proceeded to the site, only this time no sliding mud prevented passage; the thicket of thorns where I had surely stooped and spied the distant braziers nowhere to be found.

There was still time to turn for home. Trains wouldn't run until morning, I might safely walk the tracks and upon reaching my station, fetch my bike. If I departed and kept a keen pace, I would be abed before the witching hour.