Chapter 1: Crystal Manuscript
Miskatonic University, Arkham, Massachusetts. Friday, November 14, 1975.
"Professor Carter!"
Neal spun around to see Charlene waving at him as she determinedly plowed a path through the crowd of students coming down the main stairway at Wingate Hall. Charlene was in his Anglo-Saxon seminar. A junior, she was earnest to the point of being obsessed. She was president of the college's Middle-earth club, and Neal suspected she dreamed of becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien. For that glorious future to come to pass, she believed the essential first step was a mastery of Anglo-Saxon.
It was disheartening that she had so little aptitude for languages.
Not that Charlene realized that. She'd latched upon Neal to be her Gandalf on the road to enlightenment. The path ahead was a dangerous one, fraught with harrowing obstacles. The dragon confronting her at the moment was her final paper. The selection of a subject had turned into an agonizing process not only for her but for him as well. Neal steeled himself for another onslaught of questions.
He'd arrived at the front entrance a few minutes earlier and taken his designated position by the bulletin board where Peter had arranged to meet him. They planned to go to the library together.
Charlene's face was eloquent of distress as she approached. "I just heard that you won't be teaching the lecture on Science of Language anymore. Tell me it's not true."
"Professor Whipple is an outstanding scholar," he reminded her. "You should count yourself lucky to have the head of the department teach it instead."
"But she can't be as inspiring as you! When you lecture, you transform language into an art form." Before Neal could divert her onto another subject, any subject—her final paper, for instance—she plunged ahead. "You'll still have office hours for students, won't you? Can I come to you with my questions?" As she continued to plead her case, Neal saw Peter walking down the stairs. He slowed down as he drew near, apparently amused by Neal's efforts to placate her.
"You should give Professor Whipple a fair chance," Neal said finally, cutting short her entreaties. He attempted to use Peter's no-nonsense voice which was so effective on his own students.
"Besides, Professor Carter may be away on field work in December," Peter added.
Charlene gave Neal a horrified look. "You're scheduled to speak to our club in December! Can you meet with us next Thursday instead?"
Neal knew Charlene. When it came to Tolkien, she would haunt his office until he agreed. A few minutes later, Charlene left satisfied, having extracted his commitment to the new date and a promise to discuss the dreaded paper with her on Monday.
"Are all your students reacting the same way to the news?" Peter asked after she headed back upstairs.
"Pretty much," Neal admitted. "When Marjorie offered to take over the lecture, I didn't realize it would cause such a furor. The library vault will be a welcome escape."
In the wake of their discovery of an ancient artifact underneath a mausoleum in Arkham, his and Peter's lives had been transformed. The disk, dated to 6,000 BC, was composed of a bronze alloy containing trace amounts of algolnium, a rare element that so far had not been officially recognized.
The university president was now lending Miskatonic's full support to their research into the civilization that had crafted the disk. He arranged for both Peter and Neal to have reduced teaching loads. A major benefactor to the university, Gideon Talmadge, offered to back the effort. The fact that the disk enabled them to seal a wormhole to another world was a closely guarded secret for now. How would the public react to the news that Earth had likely been visited in its remote past by extraterrestrials? Until more evidence was obtained, the wisest course was to delay announcing the discovery.
No longer would Neal and Peter be forced to sacrifice their free time for research. Marjorie Whipple, a senior professor of linguistics in Neal's department, had been delegated to teach his lecture course. Assisting Peter was Eleanor Templeton, the head of the archaeology department.
"Aren't your students reacting the same way?" Neal asked. "Having your professor reassigned midterm can be a traumatizing ordeal."
Peter shrugged. "It's character building. What is the club Charlene referred to?"
Neal told him about the Middle-earth group. "When she found out I have photos of Tolkien's home and the tree that inspired him to create Ents, she insisted I meet with them."
"You're teaching Anglo-Saxon. You were at Oxford last year. No wonder she's fixated on you." Peter pointed to a poster on the bulletin board. "Did you meet Professor Dittlesworth when you were in England?"
The poster, illustrated with a colorful image of a Hyacinth Macaw, had been tacked in a prominent spot. The text read: The Amazon comes to Miskatonic! One night only. Phineas Dittlesworth, renowned Professor of Ornithology at Oxford University will present a lecture on Amazonian birdlife at the Wingate Hall of Humanities on Wednesday, November 19.
"I used to run along the River Cherwell at Oxford. I often saw him leading bird walks."
"El and I plan to attend. Dittlesworth has written articles in Archaeology Review about the connection between birds and ancient ruins. He's made quite a study of the subject, pointing out how careful observation of bird behavior can lead to the discovery of hidden sites."
When they exited the building, Neal buttoned his wool overcoat. A cold wind was blowing through the university quad. The trees had lost their leaves a month ago and were now mere skeletons. The library was set on an isolated knoll on the hilly campus—a brisk walk away.
"When Kate visited me over Christmas, we joined his group on a couple of walks," Neal said.
"I didn't realize you're into birding," Peter said, turning up his coat collar. "El will be delighted. She'll ask you to come along on our field trips."
"I dabble," Neal corrected. "Kate was the birder, not me."
"Ah yes, birding can make a great excuse for romantic strolls around Lake Whittier."
The wooded path surrounding the campus lake was a favorite destination for couples, and yes, he and Kate had made the circuit many times. Neal took it as a sign of progress that he could revisit those memories without them being too painful.
"What's Dittlesworth like?" Peter asked.
"He's one of those quintessential British eccentrics who are lampooned on Monty Python. His standard wardrobe consists of safari clothing complete with a pith helmet, even in winter. I half-expected to see a bird poking out from one of his pockets."
"We should go to the lecture together," Peter declared. "Come to our house for dinner first. Would you like to invite Sara to join us?"
He cocked a brow as if expecting Neal to give him grief, and earlier in the month Neal might have. That was when Sara was merely his fake girlfriend. She'd tossed him a life preserver when she made the offer at the start of the school year. Neal had enough of a challenge learning the ropes of teaching, but some of his students were more fascinated with him than their assignments.
Sara was between boyfriends and volunteered to help him out. He and Kate had hung out with Sara as undergrads. Maintaining the pretense was easier than he'd expected, and the plan had worked. Once his students saw them together, they quickly got the message.
But the fake girlfriend nonsense had now been cast aside. Sara was now someone much more meaningful. She'd graduated to her new role of private investigator, and she was a natural at it. She'd majored in journalism and was now an investigative reporter for the Arkham Gazette. There was nothing Sara loved more than a mystery, and Neal had mysteries in spades for her.
"Thanks for the invitation," he said. "Sara arrived back in Arkham today. I'm meeting her this evening at the coffeehouse and will ask her. She's not a birder, but her dreams of being an international investigative journalist may include the Amazon."
"Do you know if she's included Egypt in her plans?"
Neal stopped, suddenly suspicious. Peter was organizing a series of expeditions to search for more artifacts. At the top of his list was Abydos, an ancient site in Egypt. A predynastic tomb in that archaeologically significant region was where Peter had discovered a starfish carving. Neal's sensitivity to the object had led to the discovery of algolnium. Sara knew about Abydos and liked teasing him about how she'd figure out a way to go along. Had she taken matters into her own hands?
"Talmadge called me about her," Peter said, answering Neal's unspoken question. "You shouldn't be surprised. We both knew that once she found out about our plans she wouldn't stop until she wrangled a way to go with us."
Neal sighed. "The woman has the persistence of a mockingbird. I used to call her a news-ferret but she's gone beyond that."
"I'm glad you changed her title. Ferret is too close to weasel, and Sara's not a weasel."
"So what did she do?" Neal asked uneasily.
"Your mockingbird made an appointment to meet with Talmadge this morning. She pleaded in no uncertain terms that a journalist needed to be present to document any discoveries we'd make. Talmadge called me to talk about it. That's why I was late meeting you."
Neal winced. That was the problem with mockingbirds. Never content to sit on the sidelines or consult with others first. "Was Talmadge upset?"
"He didn't appear to be. Sara had prepared an extensive portfolio of her work. She must have spent several nights cramming in preparation. Talmadge said he could hardly get a word in edgewise. Didn't she tell you anything about this?"
"Not a word."
Peter made a halfhearted attempt to restrain his laughter. "Fascinating. Especially since she claimed we were her colleagues and in full support of her inclusion."
"Why didn't she check with us first?"
"Hey, don't ask me. She's your fake girlfriend, not mine."
Sara had returned to Arkham last night. She'd finagled an assignment from her newspaper to cover a story in Providence and used the opportunity to research an armillary sphere in Mozzie's possession. He'd purchased the ancient astronomical instrument after a ghast attempted to steal it from a local shop.
A couple of weeks ago, Neal discovered that the brass rings surrounding the sphere were inscribed in an unknown language that appeared to be the same as the script embedded in the crystal manuscript. That priceless relic in the library vault was a slab of translucent quartz-like material. Deciphering its language had become an even higher priority since they discovered the ancient disk in the mausoleum was inscribed with the same script. They now had three objects—a disk dating back thousands of years, an armillary sphere from the Renaissance, and a crystal slab of unknown origin—all bearing the same language.
Deciphering the crystal manuscript had at first seemed unfeasible. How do you even start to decode three-dimensional intricate threads of Gordian knot complexity? Recently, however, Neal had reason to be optimistic.
He discovered that if he let his eyes unfocus while staring at an unknown script, gradually it would make sense. He'd first used the technique to translate the Necronomicon appendices. Mozzie said the process was comparable to his experience when he observed the night sky. In a flash of insight, he saw underlying cosmological patterns—links connecting his observations to the structure of the universe.
Eureka effect or osmosis? Sara called him a psychic linguist. Whatever it was, Neal was convinced the crystal manuscript would follow the same pattern.
#
When they reached the library vault, Peter signed in for both of them while Neal chatted with Ephraim Nash, the guard stationed at the entrance. His job was a lonely one. The intimidating head librarian, Lavinia Armitage, granted access privileges to only a select few. Many of the treasures were unique copies and literally priceless. Despite their value, Peter wasn't aware of any attempts to break into the vault.
Ephraim had retired from the police force. The low-stress job appeared to suit him. He enjoyed acting as a senior uncle to the students and was equally popular with the faculty. Peter wished some of his congeniality would rub off on Lavinia.
He and Neal had the vault to themselves that afternoon. The focus of Peter's current research was Laban Shrewsbury. The famous anthropologist led groundbreaking expeditions for Miskatonic University from 1910 to 1930 when he traveled the globe searching for evidence of lost cultures. His death at the relatively young age of fifty-one was a great loss to the scientific community.
Over the past couple of months, Peter and Neal had spent countless hours in the vault. Neal's initial goal was to translate the appendices to the Necronomicon, a task his former advisor Thaddeus Shrewsbury, Laban's son, had assigned him shortly before falling into a coma. Neal had succeeded in the project a few weeks ago, but Thaddeus would never know as he'd already passed away.
Peter had only occasionally visited the vault before he met Neal. Lavinia granted him access two years ago when he solicited her help with cryptic starfish symbols he'd found in an ancient Moroccan tomb. She encouraged him to explore the illustrations in the Necronomicon. It was the first time he'd heard of the eighth-century work by an Arab scholar. He had no idea that some of the creatures described within that tome would be found on the streets of Arkham, and that the discoverer would be one of the unlikeliest of people—the quiet young linguistics scholar sitting across the table from him.
He glanced over at Neal, already buried in his translation work. The intersection of their lives contained so many puzzling elements. They'd both been found to contain algolnium within their spinal fluid. The element would have continued to be unknown if Neal hadn't experienced such a strong reaction to its presence in a starfish-shaped artifact Peter had discovered only a few months earlier. What were the odds of that happening?
Now they were on the trail of an early advanced civilization that had created bronze alloys containing algolnium. Peter's earlier skepticism of Earth being colonized by an extraterrestrial civilization had crumbled in the face of mounting evidence.
Thaddeus had granted Neal access to the Shrewsbury cabinet within the vault. There weren't many documents from Thaddeus inside, but it was a treasure trove for his father. There were handwritten accounts of expeditions to sites Peter had read about nowhere else. And perhaps even a greater puzzle was that so many of the documents were written in unknown scripts. Laban had been an anthropologist, not a linguist. Where had he acquired such an extensive knowledge of languages? Peter was familiar with many ancient tongues, but he, like most archaeologists, relied on experts for extensive translations.
A gasp from Miskatonic's wunderkind roused Peter from his musings.
"What did you find?" Peter asked, walking around the table to view what Neal was studying so intently. In his hands, he held a single sheet of notebook paper, yellowed with age. At the top, in Laban's distinctive scrawl was the date of September 30, 1929. Laban had returned from his last expedition on September 10 of that same year. The body of the text was in one of the unknown scripts. To Peter's eyes, the closest approximation was an ancient Chinese cursive script.
When Neal didn't answer, he repeated the question. They'd been searching for records of Laban's travels in the late '20s. For the period from May 1928 until September of the following year, they'd so far drawn a blank. "Is that about his last expedition?"
"If he'd used a spaceship." Neal took a slow breath. "I can't believe I just said that." He put the paper down to look at Peter. "I wasn't having any luck with the crystal manuscript so I put it aside to work on this document. Laban wrote it in English, but he used a script of his own devising. It's a code, based on ancient Chinese."
"Why would he have gone to such extreme lengths?"
"Perhaps to keep others from reading it?" Neal scanned the page. "Laban mentions visiting an alien planet with Andrew Phelan."
"The man you believe may be your grandfather?"
Nodding, Neal pointed to a word on the page. "This translates to Celaeno. Do you remember when I first scanned through Laban's journals, I found the line: My dreams are haunted by Celaeno? We tried to figure out what he was referring to. It turns out Mozzie was the closest when he explained that Celaeno is one of the stars in the cluster Pleiades. Laban claims he visited the fourth planet orbiting Celaeno. He calls it Celaeno-D."
"Did he explain how he got there?" Peter asked, excited about the implications. In October, he and Neal had traveled through a wormhole in an abandoned house. They'd emerged in a tower overlooking an alien landscape and the Plateau of Leng. Was that Celaeno-D?
"He didn't describe the method, but he explained that they were helped by a man claiming to be from the third planet orbiting the star Merope. That's another star in the Pleiades star cluster."
An extraterrestrial walking on Earth? Mozzie liked to joke that Neal and Peter were starmen, but this was the real thing. Someone who looked human but wasn't. Even more significant, it was an alien who was friendly to Laban and Andrew.
Over the past few months, Peter and Neal had encountered several hostile alien species—ghasts, nightgaunts, gugs, and zoogs. The closest they'd come to a friendly species was when Peter heard a voice inside his head giving him directions on how to seal off a wormhole.
"Laban said the alien couldn't be distinguished from a human but he possessed abilities that demonstrated categorically he wasn't from our planet. Unfortunately, Laban didn't describe what they were. This alien—Zophar was his name—said that his people were fighting an intergalactic battle with another race of extraterrestrials." Neal paused to scan the text. "Laban calls them the Ymar. He further explains that the Ymar are the same race that Abdul Alhazred calls the Outer Gods in the Necronomicon."
Peter's heart sank with a thud. The criminal cult they'd tangled with—the Church of Starry Wisdom—worshiped an entity called Azathoth. In the Necronomicon, he was described as one of the Outer Gods. Azathoth was supposedly the creator of all the other gods, an amorphous mass of tentacles who dwelt in the center of the universe in a region of chaos. Neal had encountered a priest on the Plateau of Leng who asserted he served Azathoth. Alhazred wrote that the priest went by many names, but his true name was Nyarlathotep and he was also one of the Outer Gods. If Laban was right, they weren't deities but a race of warlike aliens.
Peter wrenched his mind from the unsettling possibility that Azathoth was real. "Why did Zophar take Laban and Andrew to Celaeno?"
"The Celaenians are supposedly the only ones who know how to defeat the Ymar. They maintain a library on their planet that contains the accumulated knowledge of the galaxy. The Ymar had in the distant past ruled Earth and are coming back to reclaim it. Zophar said they're completely evil and must be destroyed." Neal sat back and exhaled. "Can this be true? Should we warn someone? But who would believe this?"
"I don't know."
"Peter, look! The crystal manuscript!"
Neal had laid the slab of crystal off to the side while he worked on the Shrewsbury document. No longer translucent, it was now an incandescent red.
"Is it hot?" Peter asked. "I don't see any smoke but it looks to be on fire."
Neal held his hand a few inches away. "It's not radiating heat, but the script is dissolving." He looked up, horrified. "We can't let that happen!"
"How can we stop it?" Already the threads of text were blurring into the background. In a few seconds, not a trace would be left.
"We have to do something," Neal said, reaching for the manuscript.
"Don't touch it," Peter warned, but he was too late. When Neal's hand came into contact, it sank into the crystal and disappeared. "Pull your hand out NOW!" he ordered.
"I'm trying! I can't." Neal used his other arm to brace himself against the table, but the slab appeared cemented to the surface. It didn't budge nor would it release his hand.
Peter stood behind him and tried to wrest him free, but to no avail. Within a few seconds, Neal's appearance began to change. His body was turning as translucent as the crystal manuscript had been. And not just Neal. Peter's arms were transforming too.
Neal stared at him aghast. "Let go of me! You're turning invisible!"
But before Peter could release his hold, he was flung into blackness, spinning ever faster until it seemed every molecule in his body would be torn apart.
Notes: Arkham Files is a mix of original and borrowed elements, and that's the subject of my blog post this week. Laban Shrewsbury is a case in point. He's the main character in a series of short stories written by August Derleth called "The Trail of Cthulhu." I've modified his biography extensively for Arkham Files. The title of the post is "Arkham Files: A Hybrid Blend."
Neal's studies at Oxford were a year after J.R.R. Tolkien's death. I've pinned the photos he referenced, including the Ent tree, to the Cinereous Skies Pinterest board.
In 2021, I revisited this story and expanded the content. As a result, some of the reviews no longer match the chapter references.
Introduction to Arkham Files for new readers: This series is part of the Caffrey Conversation AU created by Penna Nomen. FBI Agent Diana Berrigan began writing Arkham Files as part of a strategy to capture a cybercriminal nicknamed Azathoth. Most of her characters are drawn from the world of White Collar and retain their same given names. The series is a meta work. Events and characters in Arkham Files are sometimes referenced in the Caffrey Conversation stories and are a factor in plot development. The cybercriminal Azathoth made his first appearance in the story The Woman in Blue. Diana's stories are mentioned for the first time in The Dreamer. You may wish to check out the resources on the Arkham Files page of the blog I co-write with Penna: Penna Nomen & Silbrith Conversation.
Visuals and music: The Cinereous Skies board on the Caffrey Conversation Pinterest website