Mako Mankanshoku
10:10pm, March 09, 2015
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[Delete] | A black-robed figure scurried through the midnight streets of stormy Neo-Tokyo, ducking from doorway to doorway, and reached a grim and forbidding portal. No mere doorway got that grim without effort, one felt. It looked as though the architect had been called in and given specific instructions. We want something eldritch in dark oak, he'd been told. So put an unpleasant gargoyle thing over the archway, give it a slam like the footfall of a giant and make it clear to everyone, in fact, that this isn't the kind of door that goes 'ding-dong' when you press the bell.
The figure rapped a complex code on the dark woodwork. A tiny barred hatch opened and one suspicious eye peered out.
"The significant owl hoots in the night", said the visitor, trying to wring the rainwater out of its robe.
"Yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men", intoned a voice on the other side of the grille.
"Hooray, hooray for the spinster's sister's daughter," countered the dripping figure.
"To the axeman, all supplicants are the same height."
"Yet verily, the rose is within the thorn."
"The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy," said the voice behind the door.
There was a pause, broken only by the sound of the rain. Then the visitor said, "What?"
"The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy."
There was another, longer pause. Then the damp figure said, "Are you sure the ill-built tower doesn't tremble mightily at a butterfly's passage?"
"Nope. Bean soup it is. I'm sorry."
The rain hissed down relentlessly in the embarrassed silence.
"What about the caged whale?" said the soaking visitor, trying to squeeze into what little shelter the dread portal offered.
"What about it?"
"It should know nothing of the mighty deeps, if you must know."
"Oh, the caged whale. You want the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night. Three doors down."
"Who're you, then?"
"We're the Illuminated and Ancient Brethren of Ee."
"I thought you met over in the Dragons Highway," said the damp man, after a while.
"Yeah, well. You know how it is. The Otaku club have the room Tuesdays. There was a bit of a mix-up."
"Oh? Well, thanks anyway."
"My pleasure." The little door slammed shut.
The robed figure glared at it for a moment, and then splashed further down the street. There was indeed another portal there. The builder hadn't bothered to change the design much.
He knocked. The little barred hatch shot back.
"Yes?"
"Look, 'The significant owl hoots in the night', all right?"
"Yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men."
"Hooray, hooray for the spinster's sister's daughter', okay?!"
"To the axeman, all supplicants are the same height."
"Yet verily, the rose is within the thorn.' It's pissing down out here. You do know that, don't you?"
"Yes," said the voice, in the tones of one who indeed does know it, and is not the one standing in it.
The visitor sighed.
"The caged whale knows nothing of the mighty deeps," he said. "If it makes you any happier."
"The ill-built tower trembles mightily at a butterfly's passage."
The supplicant grabbed the bars of the window, pulled himself up to it, and hissed: "Now let us in, I'm [i]soaked[/i]."
There was another damp pause.
"These deeps ... did you say mighty or nightly?"
"Mighty, I said. Mighty deeps. On account of being, you know, deep. It's me, Brother Fingers."
"It sounded like nightly to me," said the invisible doorkeeper cautiously.
"Look, do you want the bloody book or not? I don't have to do this. I could be at home in bed."
"You sure it was mighty?"
"Listen, I know how deep the bloody deeps are all right," said Brother Fingers urgently. "I knew how mighty they were when you were a perishing neophyte. Now will you open this door?!"
"Well . . . all right."
There was the sound of bolts sliding back. Then the voice said, "Would you mind giving it a push? The Door of Knowledge Through Which the Untutored May Not Pass sticks something wicked in the damp."
Brother fingers muttered a phrase that the room would frown upon as he aimed his shoulder to slam against the door and coincidentally, against its warden as he marched in. This Cult had better be worth it.
The others were waiting for him in the Inner Sanctum, standing around with the sheepish air of people not normally accustomed to wearing sinister hooded black robes. The Supreme Grand Master nodded at him.
"Brother Fingers, isn't it?"
"Yes, Supreme Grand Master."
"Do you have that which you were sent to get?"
Brother Fingers pulled a package from under his robe.
"Just where I said it would be," he said. "No problem."
"Well done, Brother Fingers."
"Thank you, Supreme Grand Master."
The Supreme Grand Master rapped his gavel for attention. The room shuffled into some sort of circle.
"I call the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren to order," he intoned. "Is the Door of Knowledge sealed fast against heretics and knowlessmen?"
"Stuck solid," said Brother Doorkeeper. "It's the damp. I'll bring my plane in next week, soon have it-"
"All right, all right," said the Supreme Grand Master testily. "Just a yes would have done. Is the triple circle well and truly traced? Art all here who Art Here? And it be well for an knowlessman that he should not be here, for he would be taken from this place and his gaskin slit, his moules shown to the four winds, his welchet torn asunder with many hooks and his figgin placed upon a spike-yes what is it?"
He said testily as a hand raised from the midst of the believers.
"Sorry, did you say Elucidated Brethren?"
The Supreme Grand Master glared at the solitary figure with its hand up.
"Yea, the Elucidated Brethren, guardian of the sacred knowledge since a time no man may wot of-"
"Last February," said Brother Doorkeeper helpfully. The Supreme Grand Master felt that Brother Doorkeeper had never really got the hang of things.
"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry," said the worried figure. "Wrong society, I'm afraid. Must have taken a wrong turning. I'll just be going, if you'll excuse me . . ."
"And his figgin placed upon a spike," repeated the Supreme Grand Master pointedly, against a background of damp wooden noises as Brother Doorkeeper tried to get the dread portal open.
"Are we quite finished? Any more knowlessmen happened to drop in on their way somewhere else?" he added with bitter sarcasm.
"Right. Fine. So glad. I suppose it's too much to ask if the Four Watchtowers are secured? Oh, good. And the Trouser of Sanctity, has anyone bothered to shrive it? Oh, you did. Properly? I'll check, you know ... all right. And have the windows been fastened with the Red Cords of Intellect, in accordance with ancient prescription? Good. Now perhaps we can get on with it."
With the slightly miffed air of one who has run their finger along a daughter-in-law's top shelf and found against all expectation that it is sparkling clean, the Grand Master got on with it.
"BROTHERS, OUR TIME IS NOW!" He intoned quite well he thought as all present tensed in anticipation. "For too long have we been oppressed by the corrupt, by those in power- Yes, what is it?" He said testily as a hand rose.
"That's right," said Brother Plasterer. "My landlord oppresses me something wicked. Banging on the door and going on and on about all the rent I allegedly owe, which is a total lie. And the people next door oppress me all night long. I tell them, I work all day, a man's got to have some time to learn to play the tuba. That's oppression, that is. If I'm not under the heel of the oppressor, I don't know who is."
Silence came like a creeping shadow as all gave this support the consideration it deserved, before the Grandmaster spoke again.
"BROTHERS, OUR TIME IS NOW! For too long have we been oppressed by the corrupt, by those in power. And we shall make them regret it, yea verily by means of the Arts Arcane, to call upon such a beast of great power as to- Yes, what is it this time?"
Brother Doorkeeper had raised his hand, looking somewhat sheepish as he spoke. "Weeelllll....Its just, that Magic. None of us really have any experience see and something on the scale you're suggesting sounds a lot like the end for us. Not that we're saying anything of the sort of course! He said hastily, looking at the black void that was the Grandmasters hood before deciding to stop ahead of time.
"Thankfully for all of you, I had foreseen this and had decided we shall practice first. Behold."
And with a flourish, he revealed the tome they would be using to the incredulity of the group.
"....Its cute."
Said one flatly.
"IT is the Necromonicute! Bound in baby blankets and written in crayon, it is the LEAST threatening spellbook I could find for you pansies. I'm SURE we could all be able to HANDLE whatever comes from this, yes?! Now shut up and chant with me."
Little did anyone know, save one just what effect this little thing would have.... |
