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Robert M. Price
Here is the true account of the rediscovery and restoration of the long lost Noctuary of Vizooranos, an ancient parchment of great sorcerous potency by the testimony of the wizards of olden times. And though I, Eibon of Mhu Thulan, may justly claim credit for the exhumation of the scroll, the restoration was even the labor of another, the which I mean now to relate as a wholesome caution to whatsoever scribes may in future take in hand the transcription of these, mine own testaments.
Long had I searched among the libraries of what palaces and monasteries I might gain access to, and moreover inquired among my necromantic colleagues, in quest of a half-fabulous volume of occult lore, even the aforesaid scroll of the mighty Vizooranos, mage of elder days. Little was known of the exact contents of the writing, but legend held that the scroll bore revelations of a kind so black that Vizooranos must needs write them by night shrouded in the utter dark of the New Moon, with not a candle burning in the house. These oracles did he receive from certain devils of the Outer Darkness, the which did send his pen curling and swerving in all manner of eldritch hieratic scripts, yet supplying withal the arcane sentience wherewith to unriddle the same when he should peruse the screed in the dawn of wholesome daylight.
It was whispered that the revelations contained in this Noctuary of Vizooranos had been wrung from the fraying lips of damned souls dipped screaming into the magma pits of the Eleven Scarlet Hells of ancient myth. Such dread oracles were said to concern the secrets of infernal torture and how they might be wrought upon still living flesh, as well as a catechism of the inconceivable lecheries and blasphemies for which these damned had been consigned to the boiling lakes.
For a time I set my search aside, for that no success appeared forthcoming, and other, more urgent tasks did press upon me. And so it was quite by chance some years later that, in the process of collating divers manuscripts treating of the deposition of wizardly relics, I found a clue. It is not exceptional that two or three sites may claim to be the final resting place of a sorcerer or sage of renown; nor is it rare for all these asseverations to have some merit, as the bones and possessions of such men are often divided and distributed among their followers, who build shrines in divers places. But when it chanceth that two shrines should each aver to guard the whole of a great one's mortal bequests, the scholar must suspect either pious fraud or simple error. Haply may it eventuate that two ancient ones of similar names or epithets become confused as the memories of men, even of attendant priests, do fade. And thus had I identified twain mausolea professing to house the complete remains of the mage Lithondriel of Uzuldaroum. Some inner voice whispered unto me that more might lie at the root of the conundrum than mere error and misclassifying. And so I set out on pilgrimage to one site, then the other.
At the first shrine I besought the priests of the crypt to permit me to apply certain tests to the entombed remains of the supposed Lithondriel, and at this they seemed somewhat affronted, as if they themselves feared it might not be the venerable Lithondriel in truth who lay within. And should such prove out, they liked not the prospect of the fact being noised abroad and their livelihood withering even as the body within the tomb, whosomever's it might be. But with appropriate pledges of silence I persuaded them, and much were they relieved when the trial did corroborate the tradition of their shrine. This left me the task of determining who might repose in the second tomb, as it were, of Lithondriel, and to this I now hastened, seeking out the second crypt in a village not far from the former.
Myself now being well apprised that the occupant of this second mausoleum was anyone but the dead Lithondriel, I was not such a fool to vouchsafe these tidings to the custodians of that fane, but rather repeated those things I had formerly told the priests of, as it chanced, the true Lithondriel. These, too, gave assent with no great difficulty, and, with their help did I contrive to open the great sarcophagus.
The supine form of the one within was even one with the dust of the ages, the merest shards of brittle bone remaining unto him. But there in the sacred casket lay a metal tube, which I knew for the repository of a tight-rolled scroll! The corroded cartouche thereof gave me to think that my olden quest had borne fruit at last, for if my widening eyes deceived their master not, the faded glyphs gave forth the name Vizooranos. Claiming this treasure as the price of my service, I hesitated not in solemnly assuring the anxious priests that it was indeed the earthly detritus of the master sage Lithondriel who drowsed away the ages under their gentle care, and I was on my way again.
Having returned again to mine own tower of solitude, I made to open the cylinder, having first dismissed the guardian demons who, long since bored with their duties, were glad enough to depart and put up no resistance. Removing the cap, I tapped the antipodal end and gingerly took hold of the parchment roll within. Sanding away the waxen seal, I set about unfurling the scroll, mindful of its brittleness that it not shatter like the fallen egg of an archaeopteryx.
But to my dismay I saw how the parchment book lay already in tatters, veritably riddled with lacunae. Manifestly, someone had sought not so much to preserve the Noctuary of the wizard Vizooranos as to inter its forlorn remains along with those of its owner! It had suffered ruinous damage before being deposited with the corpse of the mage. I was no stranger to ancient and fragmentary texts, and I knew that with ingenuity and intuition, the clever scribe might make ample progress toward restoring what had been lost.
And yet what held true for ancient records and annals might not avail for such a text as this terrible Book of Night, for that the matters treated of in the parchment required adamantine certainty. One dared not trust to approximation and conjecture when in their zone of indeterminacy lay the difference between commanding a fiend and being devoured horribly by the same. One likes not to wager his immortal essence upon a vowel point.
The hour was late, and mine eyes grew red and sore from much scrutiny by the green flame of my tallow, so I snuffed it out and retired. Mayhap, methought me, I should approach the task upon the morrow with clearer mind and quicker wits.
And even so it seemed to eventuate, for, having completed my mundane chores, from which even a wizard be not exempt altogether, such as feeding mine basilisk, reinforcing anew the warding charms containing the seven headache demons which would miserably afflict me if I kept them not at bay thus wise, and suchlike, I returned to the tattered scroll of Vizooranos, and I rubbed mine eyes in astonishment. Had senility in truth crept up so stealthily? For before me lay a scroll noticeably less decrepit than it had seemed the preceding night! But, faugh!, I chided myself and my errant imagination: it could be naught else than a mischievous memory which had overmagnified the plight. In the light of mid-morn the difficulty simply appeared less daunting to a refreshed spirit, and that was doubtless the whole truth of it.
Though the text was after all fearfully torn and decomposed, it did seem plainer to my gaze that these rare hieroglyphs concealed blasphemies which ancient rumor had not greatly exaggerated. A weight deposited itself upon the shoulders of my soul, and I commenced to musing that mayhap it were not so grave a tragedy as I had deemed it for such secrets as the mad Vizooranos had set down here to have perished. Almost I hoped that the remainder of the text might refuse to yield up its enigmas, though not once did I make to leave off my task. For knowledge must be preserved, its nature notwithstanding, and any who doth not what he may to prevent its perishing is surely a murderer and rightly so judged.
On the next day of my studies in the Book of Night of Vizooranos, I marked again the unmistakable reaugmentation of lost portions of the text, almost as if some scribe had secretly penetrated mine own inner sanctum, bearing with him a more perfect copy, and filled in what was lacking here and there, so that, while much remained in fragments, substantially more might now be read.
It was evident to me, reading the newly recovered passages, that by far the blackest and most foul pericopae had been anciently effaced, and that not by chance. And, moreover, though the script be mostly alien to me, I fancied that the scribal hand was somehow familiar. Verily, the mystery of the repristination of the Noctuary had become even one with the secrets the text did purport to vouchsafe, though I confess I was no closer to solving the one than the other.
On the fourth day I found more of the missing text had been filled in, and even rents in the very parchment repaired in some wise not apparent. And I went back through those portions I had conjecturally restored. Where once I had thought to find gaps and erasures at crucial junctures, and speculated accordingly, I now found lines of script clearly and boldly legible. Moreover, on comparing mine own notes with the veritable reading of the text, I saw most dreadful errors which would shortly have spelled my doom had I proceeded to conjure on the basis of them.
As I pored over the scroll, what had formerly teased me became plain at last: the writing in which the corrections had been made was precisely like unto mine own! With this I did set quill and ink pot aside, resolving to wait till the next dawn when mayhap the scroll should have been altogether restored to its first state, whether by mine own hand or another's.
And forsooth, by the bulging belly of Zhothaqquah, it was! I sat, slowly and full of awe, before my reading stand, the fully intact Noctuary of Vizooranos spread out before me. Here was the fruit of long searching, won through despite the naysaying of rivals and brethren alike, who averred the Book of Night no longer lay anywhere upon this terrestrial disk. Now it was mine to delve into the disquieting secrets of mummified devils and aeon-perished Nephilim. But was it in truth a cup of poisoned wine I sought to quaff, however sweet its vinous taste? For a time I dared not let mine eyes sink to the Gorgonic sight that might forever damn them to look upon steaming infernos of bubbling gore.
And softly did a whisper intrude upon my fear. Without articulate sound it bade me trace with pointing finger, as if another guided it (and I bethought me of the manner in which the scroll had first been transcribed by devilish afflatus), till I came upon a necromantic litany, even the frightful Disgorging of the Pit. As I read with silent trepidation its loathsome vocables , I began to sense the gathering of ectoplastic atoms and knew that so potent was the invocation that it had no need of being enunciated aloud! By doing naught but reproducing the words in my mind I had caused them to work their wizardry!
I staggered back, upsetting my heavy chair, as a Being materialized before me. Having never seen his likeness, I nonetheless knew the visage for that of old Vizooranos himself, smiling evilly.
A Voice issued forth, investing all things nearby with an ultrapolar chill. "Thou hast freed me, O Eibon, with the commendable zeal of thine erudition. Such was mine own in my day that I plumbed depths undreamt of before or since in gaining the ultimate knowledge, for all that it did forever blast my soul. Yet have I abided, all these ages, trapped in my mortal dust with the gaoler's key almost in reach. For the spell thou hast read ought to have called me forth, save that the dead cannot raise himself, and my disciples to whom I had entrusted the Book proved unworthy, letting it fall prey both to natural desuetude and to the violations of the faint-hearted and the inquisitor, till at last the potency of the thing was lost. But thou hast found the Noctuary and, bearing it away, thou hast borne me with thee also, and now I have caused thee to rise each night unknowing and restore what was lost, so that in the end, the spell might be there to be read again, as thou hast read just now , unto the freeing of my essence from this mortal sphere."
His translucent form began to drift away as mist in the face of the rising sun, but before it was entirely dispersed, of a sudden, I had scooped up the scroll and held it out to the vanishing spectre. And thus was the Noctuary of Vizooranos restored unto its owner and unto the Elder Night from whence it had first come. And I count myself in no wise poorer for the loss.
Copyright © 1997 Peter A. Worthy
"Annotations for the Book of Night" © 1997 by Robert M. Price
