Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred (33 page)

This puzzle will not long keep the traveler from his purpose, if he reflects that the actions of the monks are invariably governed by compassion. A wealthy merchant or a laborer whole in body and mind they would never admit, but a poor beggar disfigured in his face and maimed in his body, whose feebleness of mind has rendered him unfit to allow him to secure the requirements of food and shelter for his survival, they will pass through the gate that he may be protected from harm, and they will provide him with a place to sleep and food to eat, and give him simple tasks that place no great demands on his broken intellect, such as sweeping the floor of the library and the scriptorium where rare manuscripts are copied, and collecting the empty bowls after the morning meal in the dining hall where it is the custom for senior monks to give lectures in arcane and secret matters while their brothers eat.

The grounds inside the walls of the monastery are spacious and green, for they are daily watered against the heat of the sun, and many shade trees grow amid the pathways that cross these lawns between the three primary structures of the compound.

The principle of these is the great library, which extends out from the northern wall in two projections that face each other, forming an intimate courtyard between that is decorated by a statue of the goddess Ishtar upon a pedestal. The statue is not worshipped by the monks but serves to exemplify in human form the excellence of the celestial goddess. Here the monks study, teach what they have learned, and carry out the administration of the order; it is in this building that the Father of the order, Rumius, keeps his offices and private chambers, which are surrounded by the chambers of his councilors. A portion of each day is devoted by every monk to the copying of manuscripts, unless infirmity of the eyes or hands prevents this noble work.

The second great building is the dormitory near the western wall, where the monks have their cells, and it holds also the halls where they eat and rooms where they gather for prayer and meditation; attached to this are the kitchens and the pens for livestock, such as hens for eggs and cows for milk and cheese, which the monks make themselves. They also produce a beer of excellent quality in their vats. In the rear of the dormitory near the kitchens is the public baths, the waters of which are heated by the kitchen fires and fed into the baths by a cleverly designed series of pumps manipulated by the monks, which force the hot water through lead pipes.

The final structure is smaller and set in the southern part of the lawns, and holds the workshops of the monks and their armories. It is here that they produce their furniture and their cloths, for it is their practice to buy as few articles as possible and to make with their own hands as many as they are able. In this way they seek to reduce their dependence on men living beyond the monastery walls. In their armories they manufacture the unique bows they employ to defend their walls from attack, longer than the common bow of war and thicker at the center, with strongly tapered ends that are curved back upon themselves. So great is their force that the black arrows driven by their strings have the power to penetrate any armor and any shield. The abundance of these arrows in their storehouses is remarkable, for the monks boast that they could loose them upon a foe for three days and three nights without ceasing yet not exhaust their number.

The traveler, having gained by subterfuge the interior spaces, will concern himself primarily with the library, where knowledge is so plentifully displayed by the diligence of the scribes. Provided he simulates the idiot with art, no scroll will be hidden from his gaze and no topic hushed at his approach. In this way the wisdom of the descendants of the magi is to be acquired at no other cost than daily manual labor, and so long as the traveler makes himself useful to the monks, they will not turn him out from their gate.

A recent traveler so well contrived this deception that he was given free access to the scriptorium at all times, even when none of the monks were present. In this way he not only was able to read from the precious scrolls and books in the process of transcription, but from the more recent correspondences between the agents of the order in the far corners of the world and Rumius, who personally directs their actions, since it is the custom to have the scattered and ill-written reports of the agents gathered and transcribed by the more elegant hand of a scribe before the Father of the order reads them. These agents are engaged in a ceaseless battle against the forces of evil, and are amply supported by the wealth and wisdom of the magi.

It once took the fancy of this traveler to add a coda to the transcription of a message from an assassin dwelling within the land of Yemen, concerning the supposed adoption of the worship of the Old Ones by the monarch of that land, a thing most false and perfidious, for this king was a true believer in the words of the Prophet. Indeed the king had no fault, save the tendency to punish with unwarranted severity the violation of his trust by those he favored. As an example of this severity, the tale is told of a youth favored by the king and received into the palace as his adopted son, who violated the trust of the ruler by seducing his only daughter and getting her with child. For this transgression the king had the genitals of the youth struck off with a knife, and his face mutilated by the amputation of his nose and ears, before casting him into the Empty Space to die.

After the addition was made to the report of the assassin in Yemen, within two cycles of the moon word returned to the monastery of the sudden death of this king, seemingly by the fall of a stone from a wall as the king passed beneath it on his daily promenade within the grounds of his palace. Perhaps it was no more than mischance, or perhaps it was an act of divine retribution, for the ways of heaven are impenetrable, and what man can predict the manner of the unfolding of fate?

he monks sit within the scriptorium at long benches with angled tables, well furnished with pens and ink. They spend little effort on ornamentation or illumination, but seek to reproduce with great accuracy the older texts they copy, many of which are in a ruinous state of decay from the effects of mildew and worms. The majority are in our own tongue, but many are Greek and Latin works, and a smaller number are Hebrew or in the ancient pictorial script of the Egyptians, which so few scholars of our day can read.

There are other books not of this world, composed of strange substances and of diverse shapes, some in form like a cube that opens outward in many overlapping leaves, simulating the petals of a great flower, others composed of nesting tubes with letters inscribed around their outer surfaces in parallel rings. Some of these alien works are of gold, but others are in metals not known to our alchemists, and a few are cut into thin stone tablets that resemble polished marble. These strange works are acquired through trade, for all merchants and pilots know that the monks will pay well in silver coins for unusual books, and send forth hired men to scour ancient tombs or acquire what texts they can through still more devious means. Even those in languages the monks cannot read, they copy on parchment to insure their preservation and to make them easier to study.

All the purpose of their work is to learn the history and nature of the Old Ones. Though they value knowledge for its own sake, they sift the work of ages for the smallest scrap of information concerning the seven lords, their spawns, their lesser relations, and their cults. Any symbol or image connected with that race of star travelers who came to our world so long ago is preserved with care and examined for what instruction it may provide in the intentions of the Old Ones toward our world and mankind, and more particularly their strengths and weaknesses, their portals, and their places of repose.

The Sons of Sirius have one reason for existence that is more important to them than any other motive, which is the expulsion of the Old Ones and their spawns and abominable creations from our world, the destruction of their idols and temples, and the extermination of their worshippers wherever they may abide, whether near or in the most distant lands. All the monks of the order swear a solemn oath at their entrance to pursue this course with single intention until its ultimate fulfillment, or die in the attempt.

The traveler who has insinuated himself into the halls and chambers of the order through subterfuge, versed in the skills of necromancy and having perhaps given offerings and prayers to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth on strange altars, does well to conceal his links with the Old Ones from the monks, who are ever watchful, for the merest hint of his associations would result in his instant apprehension. He would undoubtedly be put to torture to determine the extent of his knowledge and his purpose, then executed. There is no fanaticism so potent as that of faith, and it is the faith of the descendents of the ancient magi that they are the chosen and anointed warriors of mankind against the dark gods who threaten our realm from beyond the vault of stars.

In truth, they are fools, for mighty Cthulhu could crush their monastery beneath his clawed foot with a single step, nor could all their armored knights stand against his star spawn for a moment, yet it must be acknowledged that the monks are dedicated in heart and fearless in their devotion to their cause. They worship Ishtar the goddess, not in her earthly form of a graven image but in her heavenly aspect, and call themselves her divine warriors, who will purge the spheres from the taint of the Old Ones and wash away the stains of their unnatural works. Ishtar they associate with the region of space that lies beyond the star Sirius, which they regard as her natural homeland; but it is plain that when they speak of the goddess, they do not understand her as the pagans of old worshipped her, but in a less tangible aspect more akin to an ideal or principle, so that her name is no more than a token for the being they worship. The overriding quality they ascribe to her is compassion.

This heavenly mother, compassionate for all living things, is at constant war with the lords of the Old Ones, who lack all charity or mercy. The magi fight for her because she cannot defend herself; they say she is in all living things of this world save only those things created by the arts of the Old Ones themselves, and even in these she lies sleeping, but it is a deep sleep from which she cannot easily be wakened. The monks are her sons and her lovers and her champions. This is their theology, which they conceal with utmost care from the vulgar, so that no word of it is ever spoken beyond the monastery gate.

The motto of the Greek philosophers was
Know thyself,
but the battle cry of the monks is
Know thine enemy.
They send out agents in common garments to hunt down those who traffic with the Old Ones or their servants and slay them, and to steal by guile or the sword objects of power that can be used in their works of magic, which they constantly make against their foes. The elders of the order are great magicians, having power to bend the minds of men to their will, to command demons and other creatures of the shadow realms, and to cast down lightning and fire upon those they mark for death when they lie beyond the reach of their assassins, but they use their power with discretion, for they do not wish to alert the seven lords of their progress lest the Old Ones find some way to destroy them before they are prepared for the final confrontation.