That Horrid Tome

The Codex Importunica! Could it really be? I had long thought it the stuff of legend, a bogey man to frighten neophyte librarians. Tales of the horrid tome had long circulated among the occult set; how it was bound in human flesh or worse, how the knowledge contained therein had its roots in bloody empires won at the dawn of time, and, most importantly, how even the most casual perusal could turn a sane man into a gibbering idiot.

Here it is before me. Dare I continue? It is not a large book, its cover black with the grime and decay of centuries, yet it is disproportionately weighty. It settles here in my lap like a great beast and I imagine I can almost feel it expand and contract with hellish breath.

The purported author, the insane Englishman Catsmeat Featherstone, is said to have died alone and penniless despite having inherited millions from the family fortune. His forays into the increasingly bizarre reaches of the occult sciences divorced him from house and home, driving him to the most remote ends of the earth in search of ruins so ancient, the mind reels at the vast gulf of Time which separates those ancient relics from ourselves. Through frozen waste and dripping jungle, he pursued the unearthly knowledge and then, alone and raving in a London flat, he wrote the Codex in a single night.

His body was found three days later, still sitting erect at the desk but, oh, so pale. For he had written the evil thing in his own blood!

Very well. The book is finally in my hands. Contained within is the knowledge which could save Professor Champion and perhaps even reality as we know it. I must venture on.


It is some time later. I can not relate to you those words that burned mine eyes, for you have not the protective devices I bear, given to me by the Witch Doctor on the moor. I can say nothing of those ancient gods and their unseen battles which threaten our very existence - Zsazsa, whose unholy appetites are too horrible to contemplate, Klaatunikta, she who hunts by the light of the moon. Certainly I can say nothing of the Lord of Despair, the many-headed mad god -----, whose name is spoken on pain of death. I see now the ties which bind the fabric of this reality and how simple it would be to undo them, with such grotesque and dire consequences. But I was careful not to go too deep, looking only for that shard of information which will liberate my friend and master from his terrible bonds. Even now, I feel the terror fading, slipping back into those vestigial recesses of the mind, only to make itself felt in the black of night, when shadows take on a life of their own.

My task complete, I exit the water closet.