Ch.135Act 1: Ch.9 – The King Sleeps in Carcosa (4)

“Who are you?”

The deep voice snapped me back to reality. Turning around, I saw a man in a security guard uniform standing with his hands on his hips. The pistol in his holster gleamed.

“I’m a private detective. I’m looking for Professor Henry Armitage from Miskatonic University. I understand he’s somewhere around here.”

The guard approached closer. Having identified myself, he seemed to decide I wasn’t suspicious and removed his hand from his waist. Under the shadowed brim of his hat appeared the face of a sturdy Black man with a goatee. His name tag read “E. Derby.”

“Miskatonic University, eh.” The guard stroked his smooth chin. “The folks who came here a few days ago. They’re not here. Don’t know where they went. All I know is that you don’t have prior authorization to enter.”

“I wasn’t aware that was necessary.”

“You didn’t try to find out. Now that you know, please leave.”

“Quite the defensive fellow.”

Guard Derby merely raised one corner of his mouth in response.

I took a step back. This man was clearly an obstacle, but with the right approach, he could become a stepping stone. For that, I needed to prod him a little.

“I don’t intend to cause trouble, Mr. Derby. The person I’m looking for is just here, and I didn’t particularly need to enter ‘this place’ – I merely stepped on it by chance, so to speak. Everyone’s worried about Professor Armitage since there’s been no contact from him for days.

If I return empty-handed, they’ll demand I earn my pay. Then I’ll simply say that Reservoir Guard E. Derby was so diligent in his duties that I had no choice but to turn back. That’s all I’ll say. That’s probably how it’ll appear in the Arkham Times as well.”

“With this kind of approach, how could I not be defensive?” Fortunately, Derby gave a short laugh.

“I don’t know much about them either. Nobody properly maintains the entry logs except me. That’s the regulation, but nobody follows it. Not every civil servant can work with a sense of calling, but at least they should make it look like they’re doing their job.”

I felt I understood something about this man Derby. He was a principled man who would struggle to work even in the countryside, let alone a big city. He must have lived for years without compromise and eventually drifted to this remote place.

“I don’t want to do anything illegal. I’ll just operate within the authority you grant me. My job is to safely return an elderly professor to his family, and if I succeed, the Armitage family will surely remember the name E. Derby. You’ll receive gratitude for your kindness.”

Derby wiped his forehead. “Follow the path, but don’t go near the reservoir. There are dangerous wild animals in the forest, but they won’t be a problem if you don’t provoke them first. Do you have a lantern?”

When I said no, he brought out a spare from the security office. “Be careful with fire. It would be troublesome if a fire broke out. If you don’t come out within six hours, I’ll call the police immediately. Then the number of missing persons will increase from three to four.”

“Armitage’s party was three people?”

“According to the log, yes, but it only says ‘Armitage plus two,’ so I don’t know their identities.”

I expressed my gratitude to him. Derby opened the way for me to pass. As I walked by, I glanced at the reservoir from the corner of my eye. It had returned to being just an ordinary, unremarkable reservoir. A terrestrial cradle, rocking back and forth as if cradling the night sky in its embrace.

* * * * *

The reservoir was larger than I expected. It rivaled the size of a decent park, or even a lake. The moon reflected in the reservoir shone beautifully. Like a child whose eyes sparkle more the more you try to put them to sleep, it was round and distinct.

Hoo-hoo. Hoo-hoo-hoo. The sound of an owl. Or perhaps a screech owl. With its neck twisted strangely, it brushed past above my head. ‘The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk.’ A passage from a book I read long ago. I also remembered the inevitable sneer I had whenever I read that passage.

Scholars interpret Hegel’s passage like this: thought and philosophy only emerge after the world has fully taken shape. Thought and philosophy are, after all, the process by which an individual accepts and understands the complex and unjust nature of the world.

But speaking of the existence of something doesn’t only involve affirmation. There are plenty of ways to negate as well. When told not to think of an elephant, we think of an elephant. When told the murderer is not in that room, we think the murderer must be in another room.

If one can understand the world through infinite affirmation and understanding, there must also be a way to perceive the world through infinite negation and incomprehension. Either way, one walks the edge of irrationality and unreason. Both being forced to love what cannot be understood and endlessly approaching the unknown with fear.

Crayfield. The unfortunate man.

He knows this world is artificial. He is a meddler who prevents the final punctuation mark of the world from being placed. It is both admirable and pitiful, and sometimes even ridiculous, that he, who is nothing more than a string of characters and a combination of words, makes such efforts. But that is his way.

Yet he tries to hold onto this falsehood. He accepted too easily the fact that he himself had become part of the illusion. He breathes according to the rules of falsehood and frolics within it. He seems like a cheerful man, but some gap within him, the realization after the final period that this world is wrong and he doesn’t belong here, must have shaken his foundation. And that is also why I don’t particularly try to stop Crayfield’s heavy drinking.

What could it be?

I stopped in my tracks.

What made that man cling to such abstraction? He is a capable man. He knows how to twist the rules of the world, find gaps, and exploit them, and he has courage too. He could become anything he wanted if he just tried.

Yet he merely rots away on Pollard Island. With his abilities, he could go anywhere, but he stubbornly refuses to leave Pollard Island. He doesn’t even seem particularly attached to it.

He recognizes it’s fake. He knows it’s an illusion. Yet he still clings to it. Like trying not to break a child’s Santa Claus fantasy.

But why?

I recalled what I had seen in the reservoir. Inside that reservoir, infinite Crayfields were spinning around. Crayfields walking in a single line to the bottom of a giant spiral were devoured by the emptiness at the bottom. I know what lies at the bottom of that abyss.

It was what I encounter every time I look in a mirror, what I can only see when looking in a mirror. What I can never see with my own eyes, what I can only know when reflected somewhere.

My eyes.

It’s a terrible and mean-spirited irony. I can see everything in the world, but I can never directly see my own eyes. Let’s dispense with the crude joke about taking one eye out to look at it with the other.

* * * * *

Even the moon was swallowed by clouds. I lit the lantern. There was a rustling sound of small animals scurrying in the underbrush. I put the pistol in my thin coat pocket, ready to fire at any moment.

In that state, I walked with muffled steps.

Light is strange. Light illuminates everything within sight but shows nothing outside it. Light creates boundaries. It divides what is light and what is not. What is in the light is messy, and what is outside is merely frightening.

The forest grew increasingly bizarre. Trees were tilted at strange angles. The ground visible under the light was close to ash-colored. Patches of red soil mixed in made it even more unsettling, reminiscent of a rat killed by a stone, bleeding. When combined with the oddly soft feel of the grass, it really felt like walking on the back of a dead rat.

The clouds spat out the moon. The moon reflected in the reservoir was blue and shimmered with neon light.

This is impossible. The moon in the sky is silver. A beautiful and enchanting color, like Abashina’s hair. After spending a night together, she would sleep with her back turned to me. She trembled like a delicate bird caught in the rain.

Even under the moonlight, I saw her bony back. The small shadows cast on that small body. I saw the loneliness that wouldn’t erase even though I kissed her and wrote sweetness on her. So finally, I covered that delicate and sorrowful naked body with a blanket and embraced her from behind. The same kind of loneliness was in Aurora too. Even though she was different from Abashina in every way.

Perhaps it’s the ash left after desire has burned. The empty space that remains between our bones and flesh after a moment of passion. And so it rises again like a phoenix. Not like one that transmits the light and heat of the world, but rather like a dark phoenix that devours it.

No. No. I see that because I saw it with my eyes. In their eyes, I saw understanding. In the eyes of others looking at me, I read myself. There was no dark phoenix there, no bird flying around after all the final periods.

It was just me. That was all. When we embraced each other. There was only us in the world. It was completely different when I was alone. Since there’s only you and me in the world. Since we love each other. Since we accept each other. That was enough.

It was also frightening. Love could be transformed into fear. If only fear lay between it and me. If only I, the world, and fear were left alone.

What expression would I wear when smiling then? I cannot imagine. But that is the world Crayfield carries around. It is the world Lovecraft carried, and the path walked by all who carried his shadow like a cross.

“That’s why I wear a mask.”

I flinched. I lowered the lantern’s flame and gripped the pistol in my pocket. Not a sound could be heard – no insects, no squirrels, not even the wind splashing on water.

It was quiet. The moon hung over the reservoir. There was no moon in the sky. The clouds had devoured it.

‘Don’t go near the reservoir.’

The warning echoed vividly in my ears. And because it was a warning, I approached. Through negation, I would finally complete existence. I had to know. If that shining thing down there was the moon. What world does it contain? What exactly is that thing resting in that quietly undulating cradle?

If the moon in the sky has disappeared. Then whose sky does the moon reflected in the reservoir belong to? I remember the day I first met Abashina. She led me to memories of blood. I recalled that world where everything was inverted.

So. This should rightfully be called ascension.

I walked up to the reservoir. Deeper into the center of the reservoir. My body rose with a gurgling sound. Breathing was not difficult.

Ia-ia. Cthulhu fhtagn. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. The star-rippling sea touches my cheek. The universe connected to the sunken hole of the earth calls me. The howling, screaming, lamenting Aldebaran. The torn wound of a rat killed by a stone. The cosmic vulva.

So. This should rightfully be called ascension. I rise to the sunken city. I turn the pages of falsehood upon falsehood. I will face my complete eyes with my complete eyes.

And thus I see the world with my complete eyes.

And thus I try to understand the world.

The dark phoenix flies away, spreading its wings of wisdom, cycle, and voracity.

From my bosom, the pages of the Necronomicon in an envelope unfold. They lay out my path like stepping stones. They lead me as if showing the way I must go.

To the dim city, Carcosa.