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the-quicksilver-diary · 9 days

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The Woods

[Below is a translated excerpt from a diary penned by one Gottlieb Schneider found in a ruined campsite in southwest Germany, dated to sometime in the early-to-mid 19th century]

November 17 I've made arrangements to head westward into the woods outside of town for a hunting expedition. For now is the season for fine deer and boars out in the forest, whose meat should keep well into the winter in the storehouse for Heidi and myself. I'll be taking with me my rifle, a few dogs, and some basic provisions that I expect to last me about a week. I will leave tomorrow before the sun awakes, such that I can reach the woods before nightfall. Yours, Gottlieb

November 18 I made quite good time today, making it to the edge of the woods just as the sun was setting into the trees. As dusk fell, a brisk chill welcomed me to the hunt ahead. I am grateful now that I remembered to bring my hat, for I am sure it will only get colder from here as I venture deeper into the woods. The hounds are already with great excitement, particularly the green ones. When I set up camp for the night, I took some time to review my rifle, ensuring its cleanliness and function for the hunt ahead. I broke off some hard cheese and some rye bread from one of my loaves as my dinner for the night. Yours, Gottlieb

November 19 Despite the sticks and stones on the forest floor, I awoke most refreshed today. However, it is already much colder today than I anticipated it to be. To warm my bones for the day ahead, I brewed a pot of coffee over the fire from the night before. The trees are thick here, making it difficult to find much in the way of available sight lines. I did, however, find scraps of cloth fixed to trees along my path. [Pictured below is a pencil illustration of a jagged scrap of red fabric that is frayed at the edges] A few hours into the afternoon, I was able to find a few does drinking water from a still and pristine pond. The sound of a brook hid my approach. Upon picking up the scent of my dogs from downwind, however, they fled deeper into the woods. This sighting gives me confidence in the swiftness and success of my hunt. Yours, Gottlieb

November 20 I had great difficulty sleeping last night. All night I heard creaking and moaning coming from the trees nearby, and insects bit relentlessly at me and my dogs. I took out a bit of cheese and sausage, tossing a few morsels for the hounds. Despite my weariness, I am eager to continue on the trail of those does that I encountered yesterday. Before me lies a clear corridor through the trees that stretches on for a few miles. There are no stumps or signs of destruction, but the trees themselves seem to have bowed away from the corridor. There are more bits of fabric here, scattered throughout the corridor and caked with mud. One of the does from yesterday has reappeared. She jumped out from behind the wall of bowing trees and devoured some of the fabric from the mud. The doe's emergence raised the hackles of my hounds until she went back into the woods. I spent the rest of today following some sets of hoofprints I came upon. A few hours after sending my dogs to follow the scent left within the tracks, they bayed to alert me to their location. I followed the sound and found my hounds barking at a buck standing atop a nearby hill, who all but refused to flee until I attempted to fire at it. Today caused great exhaustion and disappointment. I pray that tomorrow will be easier on me than today. Yours, Gottlieb

November 21 The air has grown even colder and more bitter, taking on a quality I would not expect for another two months. To breathe burns my nostrils and fogs my breath, though no snow has fallen. I heard in my dreams last night the sound of a great moaning and creaking on the wind, like that of a home dying of age. I knew not its source, but it gave my visions an eerie quality. I ventured to find some more water to fill my canteen this morning. When I reached the lake, its water that was without flaw just yesterday had fouled. Leaves that had fallen upon the water have now turned to primordial scum. The sound of a babbling brook has been drowned out by the buzzing of flies. I took no more water then, for I doubt even pouring it into my campfire could clean it. Still determined to find my kill, I set out into the woods once more. After a few hours, I came upon a small herd of does attended by that most impressive buck from yesterday. I stilled my breath, took my aim at the buck, and fired my rifle into his shoulder. As I went to the fallen buck, the nearby does made no motion to move. In fact, they watched me with great stillness and intent, heads and eyes following my every move in unison. They even watched me as I dug my knife into the buck to remove his viscera. I dragged the carcass back with me to camp, but even still those does watched me. I don't think I'll ever forget the way they watched me. The buck was quite easy to carve and prepare for smoking. I even fed some fresh venison to the hounds which they readily devoured. Yours, Gottlieb

November 22 My oldest dog has died in the night. I expected this to be his last year, but I had no expectation of a fate so gruesome. His hide was perfectly intact, with no sign of injury of any sort. It lay mere feet away from his bones that were cast aside in a hasty pile and cleaned of all debris. My other dogs can barely move without trembling. I looked for tracks around my campsite to see what manner of beast was capable of such an act, but all I found were splintered and gnarled bits of oak and more of that dreadful red cloth. I spend the rest of my day digging a grave and performing a service for my hound, may she rest in peace in these woods. As I make my preparations to sleep, I pray to the Lord that I may return home safely to Hilda. Yours, Gottlieb

November 23 The corridor of trees from several days prior has appeared near my campsite, though I remember its location being a few miles south and its length being substantially shorter. Even with one dog dead, I must continue my hunt. As I trudge through the black woods, I notice that the birds have gone quiet. If I listen closely, I can hear now a faint, hollow, rhythmic rattling against some sort of dry membrane. Shortly into my walk, I see that a doe lies before me, still and lifeless. Her skin is icy and tough. After making an incision, I understand that her meat is still viable. In short order, I drag the doe's carcass back to camp and prepare it for curing. It is of great providence that this doe has fallen, as my provisions are growing scarce. Ice is beginning to form around my knuckles and fingers. Though I feel that my vitality has gone from me, I must return home at once. Yours, Gottlieb

November 24 The rest of my dogs have forsaken me during the night. I suppose they were wise to do so, for none have any chance out here in the black woods, not anymore. How fitting is it then, that the Final Sunday should be still and silent as the dead? As I break camp and make swift retreat to Schramberg, I hear once more that damnable rattling. It courses harsh and sorrowful through frigid autumn air, sending a chill up my spine and unease through my bones. I must move quickly before the cold catches and devours my very soul. The trees in the direction of my egress creak and bow before my eyes, they bend softly and turn away from it. Its rattling - its breathing - is growing louder. I hear the distant sound of a hymn for the dead. The choir is all-encompassing, coming from all the directions of the black woods: the north of devastation, the south of hunger, the east of decay, and the east of terrible and inexorable Death. Scraps of red fabric faded with age shed from its teeth and flitter about and dance. Its song is deafening, a choir of the countless thousands that rot, forsaken deep in the black woods. May God be with

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the-quicksilver-diary · 16 days

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The Song

Have you ever tasted the song of a clockwise fish? It swims with great elegance through the ever-howling wind. Its scales reflect the visions of grandeur you once held in your naivety and youth. It sings of the present, it sings of the past, it sings for the future. Round and round goes the voice of the clockwise fish, sound spiraling around an axis of time, in a direction unchanging only in its inevitability. The clockwise fish sang to me, and I knew then the taste of its song, so vibrant and rich in its experience. "Go now, to a forgotten sky. Shrouded in sleep lies a god in the deep. The seeing-eye fades and squiggle-shapes dance. Experience mumbles and dreams now bleed in." And when I tasted the song of the clockwise fish, I dropped from my hands any ability to define form in recognition. Features melt, arrangements shift, bones sublimate. I looked through you, marble enemy with nothing on which to grab. A vision fell flat, colors silent, sensation swirling. As you forgot me, in turn I forgot you. The thick and pulsating skin you wore now blankets all things by which you may have been remembered. No eyes by which to see, no nose by which to smell, no mouth by which to Taste. Skin, skin, skin. All that remains is the body demarcating your relation and task, a shadow with a name, but no visage that can be assembled and understood by the parts of its constituency. And in such an experience lies bliss, the simplicity of uniform canvas stretched tight over needle-points of aching bone. You never owned a face anyway, did you? You wore a cover to protect the muscles inside from the bitter cold. So fitting is it, then, that the song of the clockwise fish granted you a truer meat-cover, a parody of nothing by which I cannot tell your name. So listen, then, won't you, to the song of a clockwise fish?

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the-quicksilver-diary · 23 days

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The Archive

Thunder rolls far beyond, resounding across an endless sea. The ocean crashes upon an island's sheer and jagged cliffs. And on this island, that forsaken hunk of ancient stone cradled in boundless sea and thundering sky, sits the Archive.

The Archive contains mathematical theorems written by the first scholars of the desert lands, and blueprints for vast machines dreamt by visionary artificers. It is a library of genius. The Archive contains forbidden esoterica, and secrets whispered to mad prophets in twilight hours. It is a vault of arcane power. The Archive contains maps of all the stars ever born, all the lands ever roamed, all the children of creation. It is a store of wonder.

For all it contains, the Archive serves as a bastion of memory. Its bricks, whose clay was made wet by tears and made stone by hellfire, were laid by the tireless constructs of yore. Each brick remembers the life cut down to make it, each cry of a widow or whimper of her young. And within those walls, anything known by man, beast, or god is recorded in a book for future retrieval.

The Archive, its name long dead with the poor soul who drafted its layout, is a structure erected aeons ago by sleepless builders, housing all the knowledge ever conceived. Its spires reach tall into the terrible night, grasping for a semblance of starlight unreachable by mortal-laid stone. Along the outer walls of the Archive, facing forever to the moon, are cast a row of stained-glass windows depicting strange geometries.

The moon, in accordance with her cyclical temperament, shines angles of light that refract through these geometries. While within her candle-wax humours, the windows filter light such to display small creatures of the pasture, mirages of wonder and fondness. And while the moon is within her waning and hollow humors, the glass bends to a crueler will and spawns countenances of nightmare and shadow.

These monsters blur the quality of their own outline, substance uncertain against the aether of being, demeanor hostile to the concept of life. Countless visitors to the Archive have become lost in its labyrinthine halls, devoured by phantoms whose rasping bellows call to mind a place that never was.

There once was a Librarian who lived within this grand and damnable Archive. None knew his name, even if such a thing could ever have been important. The Librarian was brilliant, he knew the home and content of every book in his domain. The Archive, as a result, was kept in impeccable and pristine condition. It was a monument of glory and brilliance sought by all in the kingdom of men, holding texts on still-fresh vellum and ink retrieved with lightning swiftness. That is, until came the inexorable end of the Librarian.

The Librarian, alone in his keep, was driven mad by visions of shadows that stalked the Archive's halls. Stalked by shadows that never were, he sought the cold embrace of the deep below. His fall was unremarkable, the splash of his body upon the water unseen among the havoc of the waves. Only the tide mourned for him.

And once the Librarian was gone, the shelves grew angry and afraid. They lost their cohesion, books dissolving through higher dimensions and rotating themselves to opposite ends of the complex. No-one can recall the order or material within these texts. Curious men still search the Archive, some to find wisdom of decaying sages, others to map its Escherian routes. Books open, and their pages bleed, their words illegible to the conscious mind. The Archive has lost its glory, containing still all the knowledge there ever was. And all the same, the hallowed sea sings a dirge for the corpse she cradled, and so sway shadows dreamt by glass.

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