carry on cthulhu 2

 

I awoke under canvas in the damp morning chill. The evening mist had crept into my tent and brought with it strange dreams. In these dreams I had awoken, my slumber disturbed by a fitful moaning. When I looked out to determine the source of these disquieting ululations, I saw that the whole field was covered with a spectral fog, and that in the distance, peculiar unnatural lights danced around the standing stones. One of these lights seperated itself from its twirling brethren and floated its way across the field until it landed not nine yards from where I peered out on this absorbing spectacle, upon which it transformed into a ravishing damsel, dressed all about in ancient garb, who beckoned me to leave my tented abode and join the merry throng who pranced and caterwauled around the archaic edifice, revelling in the freedom from sane and moral law (that was a long sentence wasn't it? only apropos for one so guilty of murdering the english language). Well, all that sounded like a bit of a lark, but I didn't want to get my pyjamas wet. At which point the lights and the damsel disappeared, and the fog receded until it was the normal mist you might expect to find hovering over the Upsen Downs.

Over breakfast, I ventured to ask if anyone else had heard strange moaning during the night. Professor Digger and Miss Rutmore exchanged quick glances.

"Oh .. oh, that will be the Professor's lumbago, won't it Professor?"

"What? Oh.. aye, my lumbago. Plagues me something rotten it does. I must have put it out when I was working on Miss Rutmore's trench. The one she dug I mean."

By now, Miss Rutmore was concentrating with excessive seriousness on turning over the bacon. The stove must have been hot because she appeared quite flustered.

"More breakfast anyone" she said abruptly. "Personally I think I could handle one more sausage."

"I don't know about that Gladys," said the Professor. "I expect young Bodkin here ( for that was my name, Ivor Bodkin, did I not say?) .. young Bodkin here is curious to see my trinkets."

Indeed I was! And fortuitously, the Professor had laid them out ready for me to admire. The trinkets were small at first, but gradually worked up to something more impressive. So, there was pottery, then finely crafted hairpins and brooches, and finally bone fragments.

"But look at this," said the Professor. From the box where he'd stored his best finds he pulled out a complete skull. "Look at this fellow, he doesn't seem happy does he?"

"Well, you did disturb him from his slumber, so to speak."

"No, I reckon its just because he's got nobody to hang out with."

"Yes, but maybe that's because he's got no backbone."

"True, but he seems 'armless enough."

"Maybe if we took down to the pub and got him legless too."

"I don't know about that by the look of it he's already out of his skull."

"We need to stop ribbing him."

"Well, enough of that, the important thing is... look here."

He handed me a brooch. It was like no piece of jewellry I'd seen before. With its intricate swirls and complex geometry it reached and surpassed the heights of celtic craftsmanship. And the more you looked at it, the more its patterns began to interlace and twist. It hurt my eyes. And the material.. was not gold or even copper, but a greenish metal that was alien to me, and must have been alien to the celts, from all I'd read.

"So what is it? Not native surely," I asked.

"Native in design . but the material .. and the craftsmanship, only a wizard could have made such a thing surely, maybe even the great Melvin himself, eh?"

"It was found with the skull?"

"That it was, and I reckon there's more hereabouts. The roman records speak of a feared tribal king .. Bran Flakius they called him .. whose druids summoned dreadful creatures to fight off the latin invaders. In the end, the provincial Leggit brought in five whole legions and a priestess from the temple of Hecate Thump, who called upon the goddess to drag all the demons back to the underworld.

"A marvellous legend, but subject to tremendous embellishment surely?"

"Well, that's what youre going to find out. I'm sending you down to the manor house to meet his excellency Count Godley and examine his archive. Its a trove of regional history apparently. "

"And is he a real Count?"

"Oh he's a real Count alright, you can be sure of that."

What an opportunity! Although I was uncertain, if I were more excited to be meeting the local aristocracy or for the chance to immerse myself more in this intriguing story.