It took hours of meditation to pass through the Inner Temple of my mind, and then to enter into the Shadowgate and to look out upon the Bonelands. I cannot describe what I saw of course. I looked at the world through the worldless eyes of perfect meditation, without thinking. If I were to describe what I saw, my description would immediately describe only a Shadowlands illusion of the Bonelands and the Shadowgate. Such is the price of seeing the Bonelands. And of course, I may be wrong, a stray thought may have slipped through as I stepped to (but never crossed) that threshold leading out of Shadow. But I shall never know.
Be. Fire. Be it. A wing beats. Beats in the darkness. A wing beat that promises fire. The great firebird flies. In darkness. It nests. Light. Be.
Mystery. No. Mystery knows. Nothing knows Mystery. Mystery can but be sought. But what can come at end of day? Things known must pass away. And leaving what? But Mystery. So. Mystery.
Out beyond the edge of the Visible Universe, hidden by the limitation of the speed of light and the age of the universe itself, lies the realm of Mystery- a great bird of fire nesting in the void of the darkness, huge wings wrapping around all that is, shrouding it in wonder. Before and after: Mystery. With each new question: Mystery. In the stillness of the night when minds question all they know: Mystery.
Mystery. What is Mystery? Mystery is the time before the big bang. But that’s impossible. Precisely so. Mystery is the impossible fact that every answer generates more questions. That answers are fractal and exponentially growing. Mystery is the only of the Great Elders of Story to live in the Bonelands. But probably not. Of course not. Definitely not. Why not? Mystery is the phoenix of story, the rebirth and regeneration when a new generation says once upon a time. Mystery is the honesty of the Agnostic when they admit why and how they cannot know. Mystery is the hole in the zero and lives in the question mark. Mystery is shaped like infinity and probably doesn’t exist, but must be conceived for the Bonelands extent to be properly believed. A Firebird in the Darkness. Mystery is more than you know and less than you’d like.
Mystery is not God and not a god. Mystery is the freedom given by doubt. Mystery is the humble caution borne of an understanding of the limitations of knowledge. Mystery is the wonder and curiosity that seeks knowledge, and the intellectual honesty that acknowledges how little we know. Mystery does not preach. Mystery does not claim knowledge it does not have. Mystery knows that everything believed yesterday could be proven wrong tomorrow, but uses the existing knowledge until it is actually proven wrong, but does so without attachment to that knowledge.
That is Mystery and yet, that it completely insufficient to explain Mystery. Do you understand? Then obviously you don’t.
Frankie isn’t doing well. Medicine doesn’t help. The Doctors have given up. Strange, even writing about it hurts. The doctors have given up. Stephen won’t help. He’s acting strange. I won’t give up on Frankie. I can’t. Love makes us crazy.
And so, magick.
I’ve never attempted anything this heavy, this personal before. Shakti recommended against it, told me to consult another practitioner- said my closeness would corrupt the process, my bias would seep into the rituals. Nobody will touch this though. The black rot is an unpleasant way to go, and even other Archmagi are afraid they can’t hold off the infection with their wards. So biased or not, corrupting or not, it is my magick and mine alone, or Frankie dies.
Frankie won’t die.
I won’t allow it.
I have failed. Frankie is no better. I have cast my best protective wards, which do nothing to slow the rot. Whether carved into stone or painted in my own blood upon parchment older than this city, my wards are worthless before this mindless little bacterial colony. My curative oils and herbs and medicines are impotent before the spreading rot. I have inscribed my sigils and meditated one them, burned them in sacred pyres and even sacrificed to empower them. Nothing of note occurs.
Modern medicine has failed me. The traditional practices have failed me. Neither acupuncture nor moxibustion have made an impact. The Water cure and the sauna make no difference. Bloodletting and detoxification cleanses just leave Frankie looking weaker than before. Science has betrayed me and my magick has abandoned me.
Spells from the great grimoires in my collection might as well be simple words on paper for all the good that they do. I burned my copy of Lesser Key of Solomon I was so angered by the lack of success. It exploded of course, but that seemed like too little power too late to save it- it couldn’t provide that power when I needed it. My library is exhausted now. My back is to the wall.
I have heard tell of a text, the so called Ars Holistica- written before the fall- and translated into a hundred languages as it spread across the globe. It may be a myth and may be a lie, but supposedly it contains the secret process to control one’s life. Perhaps also how to save one?
I must try, nothing else have proven useful. Perhaps it is a fake, but I out of options.
I have found tell of an expedition or similar to the far east orchestrated by one Anita Kane, a scholar from before the fall. She believed that the Ars Holistica was found there. The documents I have recovered suggest that her team was able to obtain a transcription- partial from the sound of the writings or the Ars Holsitica.
Kane lived on the east coast prior to the Fall. Perhaps a copy of her transcription still exists? But this is not a easy journey, through the Steel Canyonlands, through the Bannerlands with my appearance. I don’t relish this journey. But Frankie’s hands are black and the skin is pulling open into horrifying painful sores. I cannot bear what I see day by day. The pain for both of us is unbearable. The chances that Kane’s transcripts survived the Fall are slim. The chances that the transcripts contain what I need is also slim. Poor odds piled upon poor odds. I cannot look at Frankie’s hands.
I must investigate.
Men have been looking for me. They wear expensive suits of black and white and mirrored spectacles. I have moved Frankie into the care of my apprentice, and advised him to flee and go into hiding. I will not record his name in this Journal, as I am still documenting events here like a good magician and if my suspicions are correct then anything I carry with me may be used against those I love if I am compromised.
Even paranoids have enemies.
I wrote the above while breaking my fast. It is now nearly supper, but I will be dining tonight hidden in the Ring, eating with beggars and vagabonds. My apothecary and home has been burned to the ground along with several adjacent buildings. I hear my name in the mouths of newsboys and am apparently wanted by the Sheriff for questioning. Somebody is after me. I assume this is regarding the Ars Holistica, for I can think of no other motivation- but how could they even know I am looking?
Questions questions questions. Still Mohinder Suresh was right when he noted that: “Every question met with another question. Never an answer. Only ‘why?'”
I have stumbled upon further writings of Professor Anita Kane. Apparently in later life she spent a great deal of time attempting to piece together the mythology and cosmology of the Ars Holistica. Much of her early research seems focused on the symbolism and recurring presence of the Great Serpent throughout history. She seems not to have stumbled across any references to the Sundering of the Serpent and the birth of the sick Serpent: Falsenight. This concerns me. I would have assumed that this would be part of the mythology by the time Professor Kane was researching the subject. Was the tale of Falsenight not written down initially? Was the story of the sundering still a oral tradition, an urban legend, when Professor Kane was doing her research?
This leaves me flabbergasted. Worship of Falsenight was near universal during the reign of the False King and the ten thousand years of darkness. Has the modern retelling of the stories changed the name of the being? Should I be looking for something else? Perhaps I should look for representations of humanity’s worship of Falsenight through different symbols, perhaps the worship has transformed since Professor Kane wrote her work. Trying to imagine what could have changed, I am struck by a terrifying thought- what if the connection between Falsenight and the Great Serpent is a recent one? What if people did not see a connection between the drive and ambition of the Great Serpent, it’s will to do great things, and the twisted unending hunger of Falsenight? What if something other than a serpent was used to personify what we today describe as Falsenight, the Sick Serpent? I would have to look for things used to symbolize hunger and greed, power and wealth, but to do such a search divorced from the serpent symbolism of the modern era. But this makes no sense. Abrahamic mythology shows the corruption of the serpent in the earliest books of Genesis, certainly this was a reference to Falsenight? The tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, a town built upon the bitumen and asphalt production destroyed by the source of their prosperity, certainly indicates that the keepers of the western Abrahamic tradition were familiar with the sources of Falsenight’s power and hunger. Did they not connect these things? If not, what was their image for the Falsenight?
I have left the west coast and traveled out across the Bannerlands. I have managed to avoid the Steel Canyon lands thus far. However at each little hamlet where I stop, I see men in suits with mirrored spectacles. I have dreams now. I try not to think of them. The dark serpent devils me. I pray the Hound is not next. But of course, as Spider Jerusalem pointed out “A paranoid is merely someone in possession of all the facts.”
Or was that R.A. Wilson?
I killed one of the men in the mirrored spectacles. I say killed, but I think that destroyed is a better term. He fell to dust and smoke with my strike. The Innkeeper swore that nobody had rented the room next to mine, and yet I found a man in mirrored spectacles. People seem to distrust my words of late. The Coachman called me mad and the apothecary in the last town accused me of paranoia. But you’re only paranoid when you’re wrong after all.
The men in the mirrored spectacles seem not to be my only opponents. Other practitioners of the craft have been asking after me. An old snappily dressed man and a pristine young woman who travel with a huge mastiff have asked after me several times. A group of elderly women, clearly a full coven of witches also has asked after me on several occasions. I will likely need to deal with them at some point.
My research and my vision work leads me to believe that the transcript is still on the east coast and so I travel on. I travel at night now, and stay away from busy trade routes or large towns. I think the hound follows me. I have heard rumors of a great black dog when I stop in the little farm communities that have become my constant companion on this journey. I know that the hound never stops and so I must not stop as well. Frankie will be well.
The librarian at the monastery I visited two weeks past said that the Ars Holistica was a myth. He decried my mystic arts as a whole and called me a blasphemer. After I dealt with his objections, I perused their collection and found bits and pieces of other academic research into the book. but nothing useful. Professor Kane seems my best hope.
I’ve reached reached reached the ruins of the Miskatonic and even the river has run dry rotten luck. I’ve not slept for quite some time and I can feel that I am being tried by my mortal failings but my spirit spore it remains strong although I can tell I’m a little scattered in my thinking. But I am here! I will find it and I will sleep then. The little coven tried to stop me but the did not know who I was was for they called me fool and not Archmage. Not to worry. I corrected their error and they eventually showed me the way. They lied to me right to the end but I saw through their lies. Rambles about my failure to see the Bonelands clearly show how weak they are before my power. I am unstoppable and I shall bend all reality to my will.
Crowley said it best in The Book of the Law. VERSE I:40: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”
Reality can’t stop an Archmage. All reality is language is words and even that old book agrees with me.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – John 1:1
No other archmagi will help me well screw them because language is the whole of the law and the word and the word is mine and it will obey me!
Its a library it think at least thats what armitage keeps telling me and he wont leave me alone my head hurst hurts and i think ive forgotten how to sleep i think ive hurt people and i think ive done wrongbut surely if i find IT surely if i find IT then it will all be worth the work
armitage speaks of Mymentor’s secret journey into ceremonial magic and chaos magic on his obsessive quest for the lost (and probably fictional) grimoire of magick known as the Ars Holistica. no WAIT, that isn’t right who wrote that i didn’t write that. IT’S REAL IT HAS TO BE
im in the library ithinkiam and will look until the word finds me
Much of his notes are illegible, owing to Harbinger’s horrible penmanship, and I have been unable to transcribe them. – seem to frequently refer to the concept of time as a spatial entity. Harbinger seemed obsessed with attempting to visualize time as a spatial dimension, that in addition to traveling northwest, one should indicate if they are travelling forward, backward or somehow laterally in time
the word is with me and the word is me
I can remember conversations with him that reference this idea. He seemed to want to send information back before everything went wrong, a warning to an earlier era about what must be done. He kept talking about what he called a war of stories, a conflict of ideology. He mentioned many times the idea of forewarning previous generations about the dangers we know must grapple with, as an idle day dream I had previously thought- but apparently not.
all reality is me and it will obey me and and and
The crow flies backwards with the message
-FOCUS-
Focus Victor. Focus. FIND THE BOOK.
There is no book
it is not reality that bends it is only yourself
The book is a lie
Professor Harbinger's School for Villains 