Chapter 1.
Thout music, life would be a mistake
-Friedrich Nietzsche
This is the tale of which I had hoped to take with
me to the grave and had circumstance allowed I would
have done so if only to spare myself the horror of
recalling that nightmare time. But I have not been
spared my terror for if I don't now recant my tale
in full others will venture to that dark and bitter
place and they too will stare into the maw of
madness.
I have been an associate professor of psychology and
occult studies at Her Britannic Majesty's University
of Belfast for nearly five years not including time
spent in the lands of Turkey and Georgia in study of
near forgotten Eastern Cults. Along with this I have
spent a year of study at the prestigious Miskatonic
University in Arkham, Massachusetts immersed in the
ancient and terrible cults of the world long since
passed and recorded now only in that tome of fable,
the Necronomicon.
I make my credentials clear now so that when you
read my story you will know that these are not the
deluded ramblings of a madman but the facts as
recorded by someone versed in the subject matter and
hardened against its horrors as best the human mind
can be.
Most importantly I wish it recorded that I, Benjamin
Constantine have been entirely outspoken against
Britannic University sending any team out into that
dark and bitter part of Tyrone no matter how noble
the quest to find our lost colleague.
My tale begins at my desk under the criss-crossed
windows of our glorious and gothic Britannic
University, back four months ago when I was
researching a paper on the evolution of the Old Gods
and in regular communication with a recluse musician
from Tyrone, himself obsessed with the elder things.
Little was known to me about this contradiction of a
man that was AJ Valjean save that he disliked
meeting people yet was a passionate letter writer,
Chapter 2.
his music was played on an acoustic guitar recorded
onto an old reel player before being copied to
computer and emailed to a local studio. His music
was tinny and often I questioned if the lyrics were
even the vocalisations of a human tongue, but the
strange warbling found a small following in the
nearest large town of Dungannon and in the rural
communities around.
Apart from that I knew him only as being of medium
height and build, short dark hair and nothing else I
could gleam from the single available photograph
found on the internet.
His writing to me was eager, passionate and with a
great depth of curiosity. He asked of things from
only the fringes of my learning, of faraway cults
and mythical beasts of the old north. On occasion he
offered theories on those beasts of myth and how
they came embedded in the human psyche to which I
would counter in turn how some of our modern deity
myths sprang from older antediluvian times. Our
conversations would form the basis of my proposed
paper of which Valjean initially wanted no credit
despite his obvious knowledge and contribution but
through much cajoling on my part he eventually
accepted a footnote reference in the piece.
Over the course of a month his writing became more
erratic, literally as well as figuratively for
understand dear reader that our entire
correspondence was hand written; Language is art, my
dear Prof. Constantine and deserves to be expressed
as such, one must make the time to compose a word
with a quill like one composes any other note for
the ear. He told me that long ago during our
earliest engagements when I made to him what was an
almost insulting enquiry as to his email address,
and from henceforth in deference to his
sensibilities I too would forgo my word processor
and pen my letters to him by hand.
I must confess this was an attempt on my part to
curry further favour with the musician as I had
great desire to plumb the depths of his knowledge.
The change in his writing came gradually at first
Chapter 3
and accompanied a subtle shift in questioning on his
part, his perfect script became sloppy, almost
rushed in appearance. The questions he asked shifted
from the Great Elder Gods and the Ancient Beasts of
the far off cosmos to strange creatures of the
forest of which I was forced to confess no
knowledge. He asked about amphibian things with skin
that shifted hues like that of a chameleon, large
bulbous eyes that were black with burnished orange
irises, with wide toothless mouths and quills along
the back of the neck.
No such creature existed to my knowledge in any of
the mythos that I had studied, and I struggled to
make any connection even to my readings of that
accursed tome the Necronomicon. I inquired further
as to the nature of these beasts of his fantasy;
their height, the sounds they make, are they
nocturnal, what has been his inspiration for this
flight of the mind? I was curious not only for the
creatures but from a question of psychological study
for you can tell a lot about a person by their
monsters and this creation offered an insight into
the reclusive Valjean.
A true response was not forthcoming, his next
communication was near illegible in script and the
content of the letter was incomprehensible, the
ineffable penned in the unreadable.
It was at this point in the tale that I was joined
by Jonathan Davids, the man whose death I stand
accused but whom I can only say for certain I last
saw walking in the mist toward that broiling lake,
his eyes dead and seeping that fel substance that
had came at him from within the dark.
Professor Davids had lectured biochemistry at
Britannic from long before my time at the university
had come and it is important that you understand he
and I were friends and though I wish that he would
be found wandering aimless and confused in those
Tyrone backwoods I do not hold hope.
Professor Davids came to be involved during the time
that the change came upon Valjean, he suggested that
it was possible the musician was experimenting with
Chapter 4.
hallucinogens in order to develop his odd music and
that a side effect of the drugs and his
conversations with myself were producing these vivid
illusions of beasts. Whilst I agreed this was
possible I had enough doubt as we had never
discussed beasts the like of which he described,
these things of his mind were the result of some
other invention.
With his final letter I became concerned that
Valjean had suffered a stroke or some other
psychotic break, it was out of concern for his
safety that I enlisted the help of my friend
Professor Davids, for who better to identify if
there were some toxin at play than a biochemist.
Furthermore Davids hailed from a small town in
eastern Tyrone, for the best part he could act as
guide for a part of this small country I was
entirely unfamiliar with.
He agreed on the condition that we would stop for
lunch in a small restaurant he knew in the town of
Dungannon before the drive into the deep country. He
argued this on the point that the letters were
always delivered by second class mail which took two
or more days and so a further hour would have no
impact on the condition of which we might find
Valjean. This may sound cold on his part but
understand the Professor Davids was firmly convinced
that the musician had been experimenting with
psychedelics and was most likely shut away on a
comedown from the chemicals, hiding from the light
and at worst dehydrated and hungry. He did not have
much in the way of sympathy for recreational drug
users but seeing my concern for the musician he was
willing to make the journey.
With that agreed we set out from Britannic in the
early afternoon, the sun was high in the sky but the
day was cold still from an overnight frost and there
lingered in the dark clouds a threat of rain.
Leaving Belfast are two major highways, one leading
around the northern side of the large Lough in the
centre of this small nation and eventually on to
both the cosmopolitan North Coast and eventually to
Chapter 5.
the Maiden City on the far side of the country. The
second highway on the south side was really a road
to nowhere, rerouted into the sparsely inhabited
heart of the country because an insecure planning
department did not want to build a road to Dublin
back in the worse days of the history here.
It was this road on which we now travelled and it
was plain to see the density of population fall
dramatically after passing the city of Lisburn until
soon we were passing by green fields under a morose
sky. The journey was pleasant but uneventful and
after around thirty minutes we passed close to the
grey form of Lough Neagh as the motorway met its
southernmost point, the vast expanse stretching
across the northern horizon.
Professor Davids passed the time enquiring as to my
relationship with the reclusive Valjean, how on
earth a travelled scholar such as myself came to be
in touch with an agoraphobe local musician unwilling
even to journey to a studio to record his works. The
answer in itself was simple, AJ Valjean had sought
me out after having his interest piqued by one of my
early papers available on the Britannic's online
archive and then learning that I was at the time at
study in the Miskatonic in Arkham.
The accursed Necronomicon by the Mad Arab Abdul
Alhazred held particular interest to Valjean but of
all the works I had studied that book, that awful
and terrible book I was reluctant to speak of.
Contained therein were things not meant for this
world, dark and evil knowledge that the curators of
the Miskatonic Library had guarded for an age
because the only thing of which they feared more was
its destruction.
Valjean teased this information from me in snippets,
enough at a time that I would not be forced to speak
a full dark tale but of which I knew he was building
a bigger picture. It was in knowing this that I kept
my own council on the greatest of evils held within,
incantations with the ability to stretch across the
vastness of the cosmos and commune with things best
left undisturbed.
Chapter 5.
That accursed book had the ability not only to
pervert and warp the fabric of space and time but to
bend the very mind itself, to twist the psyche to
breaking point and then go beyond. It was something
not meant for this world.
Exiting the motorway we quickly came to the large
town of Dungannon, a town that had grown rapidly
over the last decade as it had seen an influx of
foreign nationals disproportionate to the rest of
the country, who brought with them a diverse range
of strange theologies and mysticisms. Some of these
I knew as off-shoots of more mainstream theologies,
others I knew to be cults new or old that barely
clung to existence in the world as we know it, and
one or two I had heard of only in legend and existed
here as anywhere else in rumour.
Parapsychology bore little interest to my erstwhile
driver who guided us into the car park of some
quaint local shopping mall that had served as a
linen mill during the industrial revolution an age
ago.
A surprisingly modern bistro sat on a corner unit of
the mall, all glass front with trendy chrome chairs
and dark wood throughout and soon we were guided to
a table and upon ordering we returned to our
conversation about the unusual Valjean. That
conversation did not last a great deal of time
however as we had discussed at length during the
journey the details of my entire communication with
the musician and changing tact Professor Davids
enquired as to how I was adjusting to life in
Belfast after my time spent in Arkham. I confessed
that at times I was still caught out by the quirks
of European life compared to those of Americans, in
the United States life and people were generally
simpler in manner but at a faster pace than in
European nations. The best descriptor I could think
of was that in America politics was an occupation,
in Europe it was a lifestyle choice.
As the waitress arrived with our food I came to
realise that I no longer had the attention of
Professor Davids, indeed nothing seemed to be holding his gaze, as if his mind were absent from
his body.
"It's the music,
" explained the waitress in answer
to the question I had not asked and I then noticed
the crackling warble filtering in that I had come to
recognise as the work of my reclusive penpal,
"AJ
Valjean, some people seem to space out listening to
his stuff, it really speaks to them."
"That could prove dangerous,
" I said snapping my
fingers in the face of my colleague breaking his
trance,
"it's like some form of hypnosis."
"I've never seen the harm in it,
" the waitress left
our food and returned to the kitchen area, passing a
waiter who I saw to be moving in an almost robotic
fashion, and after that had caught my eye I came to
realise that maybe half a dozen of the thirty or so
in the room also behaved in the same trance state.
"That was quite an unusual experience,
" the
Professor spoke,
"I felt as though my mind were
slowly draining, it was peaceful, very calming. Your
friend certainly makes music for the soul."
"It certainly is strange,
" I commented, I found it
unsettling how powerful an effect such music could
have on a receptive psyche. Clearly there was some
subliminal waveform or message in the music that
whether intentional or not was at the very least a
hazard to drivers and pedestrians, at the worst I
would dread to think. I ate my meal in uncomfortable
silence, knowing what I know of the interests of AJ
Valjean I doubted that the trance state was
unintentional and could only hope that it did not
exist to serve some hitherto unknown malign purpose.
My eyes followed those who had been under the
effect, watching to see any peculiarities or
behavioural quirks beyond the generally accepted
norm of human activity, indeed I kept one eye on my
companion for having known academically for some
time now he could best serve as a control group.
During my silent observations however I saw nothing
to make me suspect that there was any lingering
effect from that bizarre music, from the end of the
track those in the trance state almost immediately.