Dark Aeons

  Chapter Fifteen

  ASSOCIATED PRESS - The small college town of Gorey, home of the esteemed Malacky University, was destroyed today in a freak catastrophic event that no officials have been able to explain. Much of the matter in the town appears simply to have vanished, and what little remains is disfigured and damaged in horrible ways. Bodies are lying in the streets with burns all over their bodies in what many would describe as “otherworldly runes,” and pieces of wood are twisted and bent as only metal can be. The current consensus among experts is that a freak storm destroyed the town. The “runes” remain unexplained. Nothing substantial was found in the town save for one item that sheds some light on the matter, penned by a man who undoubtedly had gone mad under the stress of whatever real catastrophe hit the town of Gorey. Attached is a copy of the document, the pages found scattered throughout the town, surprisingly intact.

  “It was the alignment of the stars – I should have seen it. Fomalhaut and Sirius, lined directly with our own dear Sol and dreaded Yugoth, caused whatever power that granted strength to the Parallax to be increased a hundredfold. The bridges… they were controlled by the beings, the daemons, who inhabit the damned Parallax. They were directing their paths, and they caused them all to converge upon my home at the moment of the crescent, moving with a speed that I had never before seen, nor indeed even believed possible.

  “And then they all merged, and then they expanded, covering the whole town it seemed. Henry was watching through the goggles then, not I, and he dictated with horror what was occurring, but soon I could see it too as the dimensions merged into a hideous combination of both our reality and theirs.

  “And then armies came, descending down from the skies and coming from all over. Our house was gone, yes, but the radiation from the boards should have been enough to keep them at bay… but they did not work as we had planned, and the beasts were upon us in moments, trying to take us. Devalier and I hurled up our powder at the terrifying beasts, the likes of which I hope none shall ever see again on this earth – scorpion and bat, spider and shark, mantis and serpent, flying and diving down from the heavens at us. We took them face on, and we won against their first wave, the powder causing them to disintegrate rapidly on contact.

  “Then came the ground forces, more terrible than those that flew – the snapping jaws and scythed limbs, my god – they were more terrible than anything I have ever seen, and yet we tossed forth the powder still, blindly at times, and kept the next wave at bay as well.

  “Then they came from under the ground, massive centipedes with too many legs and eyes and tongues, and tried to drag us beneath with them – they got my leg several times, and only the quick action of young Devalier saved me time and time again, and we stayed strong against the dread beings of the Parallax… but I fear it was all for naught from the start, for their power was far greater than ours, and our resources limited… we had no chance of lasting more than a few hours. Would that we had known and been spared all of this effort and terror-”

  [page missing]

  “-then bearing torches and fire, and strange weapons of war. Our powder supplies were then necessarily low, down to a mere cauldron and a half; we tried to conserve all that we had, but there were so many of them, and even one getting through to us would have been deadly… we were so tired and thirsty, but could not stop our defense, for their offense was great and their strength greater… The rest of the town has been slaughtered, I fear, and their blood only makes our terrible attackers stronger. We could see as we fought many of our fellow humans captured and bound, then carried away screaming for unspeakable purposes out of sight. God, it was terrible… there is no hope for our kind, not when the damned Daemons are lurking everywhere, with the power to slowly whittle away our race, as I fear they have been doing for many thousands of years…

  “And then we ran out of powder, and the nightmare began… we resorted to the dagger, for the device, the thing that had gotten me into this damn trouble in the first place, was transported with us. The dagger was useless compared to the dust, and only a dozen or so were kept at bay before one of the dread flyers swooped down from the sky and grabbed Henry. He screamed in utter fear and terror as the loathsome creature flew away into the sky, towards the terrible waxing crescent of the moon, and a hideous cry of exultation came forth from all of the beasts that surrounded us, and I was left alone on that hill, the last living resident of the good town of Gorey. It is on what scattered papers I have found that I have composed this document, and I hope that they do not take it from me when I have died, or that the wind that howls through this place does not carry them far. I am old, and the horrors of this world have become too much for my bleeding heart. I will join my dear Sebastian now, something I should have done long ago, before these damned experiments went too far – there is no hope for us, none at all, but for those of you who still insist on clinging to it, I offer you this, so that perhaps you can give some of those bastards what they deserve.

  “Make a powder, three-quarters of which is a mixture of equal parts powdered gold and diamond, completely pure. The remaining fourth should be equal parts charcoal, black powder, ground wyrdroot, powdered cinnamon, and ground sycamore leaf. Mix the ingredients evenly. If you have done this correctly, the powder will glow red and be both hot and cold. Mix this powder then with an equal volume of water and half as many evergreen needles, and then extract one cane’s worth of sugarcane sugar into the mixture. Then chant these words over the powder:

  “Vorkari iette tekkilo iaten potenti affus faliel horvanus est tore mananum.

  “Once this is done, the powder will take on an otherworldly, indescribable glow. Let the mixture then sit under the light of the moon, preferably during the waning crescent. This will complete the powder. Throw it upon the Daemons of the Parallax and they shall disintegrate.

  “This is then the end of Siegfried Reinhouer, and I wish humanity and the Earth all the best. May God be with you.”