"Kyric ar'Daemol is the hourglass god, is the god of the end of the world.
"Kyric ar'Daemol, Kyric Ambrosius, Kyric Oannes.
"The One in Many, the Many in All, the All in One.
"Kyric the Warlock, breaker of oaths.
"Kyric the Heretic, herald of eschaton.
"Kyric the Necromancer, prophet of the dead.
"Kyric the white peacock, Kyric the black sun.
"Kyric the veiled ocean, Kyric the endless night.
"Kyric the dragon at the end of time.
"Kyric ar'Daemol is the hourglass god, is the god of the end of the world. In the end, there is only Kyric ar’Daemol."
The last time that they met, it was at Georgie's home.
The man from the Ministry took her by surprise. She'd been expecting him, preparing for him, but still he took her by surprise, taking control of her television, the state-of-the-art flatscreen that she hardly ever watched anyway.
A spot appeared, and then a line, a curve, a wave, a sine-wave. Like an oscilloscope. Up and down. Controlling the vertical. Controlling the horizontal, as the old television series had it. Taking control of the narrative. The line became an outline, a sketch of a face.
She starred, poker-faced, at the face on her television screen.
Somehow it was only now that she realized he had always been just a face on a screen.
She had looked for the file. The file that she'd been waiting for. That file was rated "above Gold".
Extricating even the knowledge of its existence from the Service had cost her the last of her favours, used up her remaining credit. If Mr Malcolm merely knew that she knew of it, she would be facing a board of enquiry, maybe even the Star Chamber.
On the plus side at least, that was the level of notoriety she felt she deserved.
That file would give her leverage.
She had one last card up her sleeve, and it was time to play it.
"You're Dr Edward Edgar," she said. "You've escaped from your story."
The simulated features on her screen rearranged themselves into a broad smile.
"You've been very diligent, Ms Wade. And I am here to offer every assistance."
"I'm sure the Service would like to know where to find you."
The outline changed to suggest a little tightening around the eyes, a slight furrowing of a frown, a tiny moue of disappointment.
"Do we need to be unsubtle? Please, what can I do to help?"
"You've got me the file on Monkfish."
"I have."
"Are you going to give it to me?"
"I will."
"Right. And what do you want for it?"
"Nothing. I want nothing at all. I want only to talk, first. Don't you enjoy our conversations?"
"Not really."
"But we learn so much from each other."
"So, talk."
"Your brother. Your brother disagreed with your father, yes?"
"Paul was a fucking idiot."
"I believe most people are. In what specific way was your late brother an idiot?"
"He thought he was going to save the World."
"And that was the disagreement, perhaps?"
"No, Dr Edgar, you don't get it at all.
"My dear brother Paul didn't want to save the World out of some altruistic bullshit belief. And he certainly wasn't trying to satisfy some Oedipal revenge rebellion urge either.
"He wanted to save the World so he could go on making money, living on easy street. He thought he could just summon up the Devil and then kill him, and it would all go along just as sweetly as before."
"Summon up the Devil?"
"Yeah, all right, to be precise the god of the end of the World. Karen… Kyle… something."
"Kyric."
"Whatever. What the hell sort of a name is that anyway?"
"A name. A name most people do not know that they know. Its origins are in Urzalk, but I think that is not important for now."
"You're just making up words."
"Kyric is a new god, a very new one. But very powerful. So many people expecting the end of the world. The Bomb; the Cold War; the Eighties; the Millennium; the War on Terror; the Ozone hole; the acid rain; the climate crisis; the Sixth Extinction… so many ends of the world. So many believers.
"This plan to… 'summon up the god of the end of the world…' it would not, I think, work out well."
"No shit!"
"I'm so sorry. Of course. It did not."
"Do you think? Do I get my file now?"
"What happened to Paul?"
"You know what fucking happened to Paul… he… he got his wish."
"The god of the end of the World?"
"His World got pretty ended."
"Perhaps."
"Let me have the damn file."
"Of course."
1970, Mesopotamia
Background:
Lord XXXXXXXX employs a number of agents at large, without specific missions but given a general watching brief. One such agent is Mrs Riches, a roving archaeologist with a particular specialisation for the pre-Biblical civilisations.
On March 16th, Lord XXXXXXXX received a confidential transmission from Mrs Riches urgently requesting assistance from the special oversight committee in connection with her work in the region of the Republic of Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, known as Mesopotamia until the end of British suzerainty in 1932.
Her communication was in an unique code she herself had devised, and the cipher was in the hands of Lord XXXXXXXX alone. This eccentricity, typical of one of Lord XXXXXXXX’s agents extraordinary, ensured that no one in the Service aside from the two of them was ever fully aware of the content of her message.
Lord XXXXXXXX tells us that Mrs Riches expressed that she had reason to believe that a site in the Mesopotamian desert that she had previously discovered, may in fact be of far greater significance to the "foreign powers" than she had at the time surmised. In consequence she urgently wished to return to the site with proper support.
Actions:
Lord XXXXXXXX selected a team of four and despatched them within hours, employing absolute secrecy. He had no particular reason to do this, other than his peculiarly insightful instincts, but the fact that he did so makes the security breach that followed all the more perplexing.
By a fortuitous coincidence, Mr XXXXXXXX had recently returned from the Argentinean business and was able to lead the team. With him, Lord XXXXXXXX also sent Lt. XXXXXXXX, on secondment from the Special Boat Service, to act as bodyguard and enforcer; young Mr XXXXXXXX, the translator who had been so useful in determining the operation of the Edinburgh Device; and Miss XXXXXXXX, even though she was notionally retired from fieldwork, because of her skills as a pilot.
They travelled, separately, by commercial airlines to Greece and then on to Cyprus. From there they flew, by light aircraft from the RAF base, over Israel and into Iraq, using a length of abandoned railway line as a makeshift runway for their landing. Lord XXXXXXXX had communicated this clandestine rendezvous to Mrs Riches and she arrived driving a medium sized truck, adequate for travelling roughly in the desert.
Before they could transfer supplies from the plane to the truck or make an attempt to conceal the aircraft, however, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a dozen Iraqi Arabs led by two westerners: Mr Monkfish and Mr Sole.
How Monkfish and Sole were able to locate them here in the desert wilderness, or indeed how they were even aware of the mission's existence, remains one of the central mysteries in the entire affair. Despite thorough investigations, including Lord XXXXXXXX's private investigation, the Service has been unable to determine how this security breach occurred.
Mr XXXXXXXX recognised Monkfish and Sole at once, from Boston just over five years earlier, except for his surprising report that Monkfish appeared to have aged dramatically: Mr XXXXXXXX's estimate would have been nearer to two decades than just half of one.
They forced their way onto the plane and Sole used a machine gun to spray bullets into the cockpit controls, while Monkfish claimed that this was to preclude the possibility of using the radio or making any escape. Then, Monkfish explained that, at considerable personal expense and effort, he had traced an object of great value to the desert site to which the Service mission was now heading. Rather than cause one another "difficulties", Monkfish proposed that Mrs Riches and Mr XXXXXXXX could bring him and his associates with them and then if he, Monkfish, was allowed to remove the particular item he sought, then they could have everything that was left.
With, in fact, no other alternative, Mr XXXXXXXX agreed.
With the assistance of Monkfish's Arabs, the party carried what supplies and equipment they felt necessary to Mrs Riches' truck. It was fortunate that it was such a large vehicle, and it was still crowded with so many people inside. Mr Monkfish insisted on travelling in the cab with Mrs Riches. Sole travelled behind, driving Monkfish's wide-bodied limousine.
The journey was not difficult, but it was long and would take the better part of three days.
On the first night, they made a small, neat encampment and Sole and the Iraqis took turns watching in pairs. In the morning, however, several of the Arabs came to Monkfish and remonstrated with him. Young Mr XXXXXXXX, who understood the language, informed the others that the Arabs were unhappy that Monkfish had not paid them and that the job was going on longer than he had led them to believe.
Monkfish sulked for much of the day, but by evening he seemed to have recovered his humour.
Pitching camp for the second night, while Sole kept an armed guard over the Service agents and Mrs Riches, Monkfish caroused late into the night with his hired Arabs. Next morning, Monkfish and Sole roused the British early, while the Iraqis still lay in a stupor. Monkfish had apparently little patience with his hirelings demands for money – his expressed reason was that he had become bored of them. Whatever the case, he ordered Mrs Riches to drive him in his limousine while Miss XXXXXXXX would drive the truck along behind, doing her best to keep up, while Mr Sole held her at machine gun point in the cab.
Naturally young Mr XXXXXXXX protested that the Arabs were sure to perish, abandoned here in the desert. Monkfish agreed that it would be unfair not to wake them. And he promptly shot Mr XXXXXXXX dead before mounting into his limousine. The Arabs, roused by the gunshot, awoke to see car and truck driving away.
The party was much subdued for the remainder of the journey. Miss XXXXXXXX and Lt XXXXXXXX took turns driving the truck, and Mr XXXXXXXX did his best to maintain morale with both of them. Mrs Riches, alone in the limousine with Monkfish, was in a state of near hysteria and only able to contain her terror with the thought of what might happen to her if she were to upset Monkfish further by letting it show.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that all were quite worn when, towards evening on the third day, they arrived at the location to which Mrs Riches had been driving them: the Shrine of Oannes.
The upper layers of the Shrine were obscured, partly buried beneath a ziggurat constructed later to the Assyrian prime god Nabu. As has been remarked, Mrs Riches had in the past conducted a legitimate archaeological exploration of the site with the blessing of the (pre-Republican) Iraqi government. However, under orders from the Service, as soon as she had discovered the more ancient Shrine buried beneath the temple, she had sealed the site and brought the dig to a disappointed close.
Quite why she had so suddenly realised the greater or more urgent significance of the site, neither she nor Lord XXXXXXXX were willing to make clear.
Mrs Riches, therefore, led the party down through the dusty sands to the tumbledown pile of weathered boulders that only with the keenest eye or the imagination of an expert could be seen to be the ruins of a pyramidal structure, long since fallen in on itself. Among the wasted stones, they came upon the remains of the wooden shoring used by that prior expedition to support a narrow and irregular passageway that led further down and into the interior of the fallen tomb. Allowing them to use their powerful electric torches, Mr Monkfish gestured to the others to precede Mr Sole and himself into the tunnel that would only allow one to pass abreast.
They entered, Mrs Riches still leading, followed by Lt XXXXXXXX at her shoulder, then Miss XXXXXXXX and then Mr XXXXXXXX between them and the villainous Sole. Monkfish himself brought up the rear.
The passage took them down in staggered zigzags before opening upon a large chamber, littered with debris from where much of its roof had come down. This, Mrs Riches informed them, was the main chamber of the temple of Nabu, and she drew their attention to the remains of a carved relief and early pictograms. Monkfish, however, was growing impatient and urged them on.
Mrs Riches revealed to them a second passageway, that connected to a smaller chamber, probably that of the priests. But within, she revealed a floor panel that could be hinged open. Lt XXXXXXXX expressed astonishment that the counterweight was so smooth after so many centuries of neglect. Mr XXXXXXXX – and, he had to suspect, Mr Monkfish – were in no way so surprised.
The counterweighted panel gave entry to a system of tunnels beneath the floor of the main temple: a warren of secret passageways. Here, Mrs Riches was at a loss, for it was some years since she had been here. However, Miss XXXXXXXX quickly pointed out what the others had already noticed – a clear line of footprints in the dust.
Lt XXXXXXXX now moved to the front and Miss XXXXXXXX and Mrs Riches followed behind. As they went, Mrs Riches expounded the theory that the Assyrians, fearful of Oannes whom they had displaced, built the shrine to their own god in this place so that he might guard them from the other, whom they had cast down.
The footprint trail led the party through the maze eventually to another room as large as the great temple chamber above, but this one hung heavy with age-old dread. In one corner was visible the place where the archaeologists had broken through the thick sandstone of the floor and opened a pit into the underworld below. Mrs Riches gasped. A broken stone tablet to one side was testament to an attempt to cover the pit, but was now cast aside.
Mr XXXXXXXX, Miss XXXXXXXX and Mrs Riches have all reported the nameless horror that clutched at them as they contemplated that pit.
Unmercifully, Monkfish ordered that they descend and Sole gestured with the machine gun to underline his master's orders.
The Shrine of Oannes, which they then entered, was entirely unlike the temple above. The walls, floors and indeed ceilings were constructed of a seamless black stone, more like glass in fact than stone, as if they had been extruded all in a piece. And despite the passage of millennia, there was no trace of dust nor smell of stale air. In form it was like a pyramid but broad at the surface and narrowing as it delved deeper, like the ziggurat of Nabu only in its inverse.
Their every step impressed upon them further a sense of awe, itself close to the supernatural. It was easy, in that lightless and ungodly place to begin to imagine the reality of deities or demons from the dawn of human civilisation.
There were passageways and stairs and ramps between levels, but if there was order to their arrangement it was not apparent to the human minds of any present.
Monkfish, though, now seemed able to navigate them as if drawn by some scent in the air or some eclectic magnetism. Miss XXXXXXXX formulated a theory that the deceptive maze of the Shrine existed not so much in the physical architecture but in the perceptions of the party as they tried to reach its secret heart; Monkfish, driven by more prosaic concerns, was therefore unhampered by the maze of Jungian shadows. Or perhaps merely, finally pushed too far by desperate desire, he could do no other than gamble and win. And so, he led them down and down to the room at the very nadir of the Shrine and the man who waited therein.
It was the light that first told them they had found the centre of this black and glassy labyrinth, the darker light in the heart of the dark maze: an electric, green-white light that had no place in nature and certainly none in these otherwise sightless depths.
Extinguishing their torches, they approached the light and it was revealed as a dazzling column of illumination, like a pillar in the centre of the shrine. In appearance it was like a river, turned to flow vertically, and lit from within by coruscating viridian radiation.
In this etheric illumination, they were able to discern what was doubtless a treasure-trove of "foreign powers" technologies. Both Mr XXXXXXXX and Miss XXXXXXXX report identifying a number of known items, and examples of others believed to have been lost to us over the centuries, and others still the purpose of which were beyond their skills to guess.
But, more astonishing yet, was the figure of a man suspended within the column of light. At first sight, he appeared to be a skeleton, or the shadow of a skeleton, so emaciated and drained of all humanity was he and so blinding the torrent of energy that surrounded him. But, squinting through the glare, they could see the spasmodic twitching of claw-like fingers, the shallow, stuttering rise and fall of his chest, like a death rattle in waiting, and finally the malevolent swivel of his eyes.
To Mr XXXXXXXX's trained mind, clearly this was an example of "foreign powers" technology of the highest order and the figure within was either the operator in person, or some human trained in the use of the machinery or, worst of all, a man guilty of the greatest folly: genius enough to achieve entry to this chamber but such an ignoramus as to become trapped in the system.
Monkfish, conversely, saw only a thief.
On entering the chamber, he alone had not been overwhelmed by awe. Mr XXXXXXXX later speculated that Monkfish was in some way immune or inured to the vibrations of that place which otherwise played upon the human psyche to induce a sensation not un-akin to worship. Monkfish, not distracted by the atmosphere, had hurried to the relics and devices ranged about the chamber, turning them over with disdain and increasing anger.
"What have you done with it?" he raged, shaking his fist at the man. "Where is my Avatar, you ingrate, you conman!"
Each of the surviving witnesses recalls the man in the light's reply differently.
Mr XXXXXXXX reported it thus:
"Ah, Monkfish. Poor Monkfish. You never did understand how these things work, did you. You thought that you could cheat, beat the system. But that doesn't work with metaphors. You have to play by their rules."
Miss XXXXXXXX remembers it like this:
"Monkfish! Ah, that's a pity. It doesn't understand how we work. Or you. You wanted to cheat me, but I beat you here, only it doesn't work. Or is that just a metaphor? You should have played by the rules."
And Mrs Riches recollection is this:
"Monkfish? Ah, pity me, Monkfish. I never did understand how these things work? Did you? Do you want to try and cheat its systems? Beat it! It won't work. It's a metaphor you have to play with. Those are the rules."
Sole then turned to Monkfish and asked if he might kill the man, to which Monkfish appears to have granted assent since Sole quickly opened fire on the column of light with his machine gun.
The man in the column may have hissed or laughed or cursed, again the witnesses' reports differ, but he probably made some gesture with his hand and instantly Sole's gun was enveloped in a light of the same hue as the column. Sole dropped the weapon at once and it fell to the black stone floor and broke as if it were made of flaking charcoal.
Monkfish, however, still in a towering rage, strode forwards and thrust his own hand into the light, moving his fingers in patterns that Miss XXXXXXXX recognised from her study of pre-Masonic rituals. The light in the column turned from emerald to ruby and the man, suspended within, let out a cry of pain like the unexpected high-pitched howl of a slaughtered calf.
Responding with ritualistic movements of his own, he seemed able to change the light column once more, this time to a baleful amber. Monkfish was flung back from the column, but this light seemed in some way not to be sustaining the ghoul within in the way that the green light had been. Visibly his movements were becoming weaker.
Neither Mr XXXXXXXX nor Miss XXXXXXXX were afterwards able to explain why he did it, for the immediate confrontation appeared to be between Monkfish and the man in the light, but Lt XXXXXXXX took this as a sign of weakness and flung himself forward into the light.
For a moment, it seemed, to those watching, that the two of them struggled there and though the lieutenant was young and strong it was the other who had the advantage. But then the light in the column bulged outwards, like a vessel slowly breaking, a glass pipe shattering and the energies like water came flooding out.
The three remaining Service agents ran for their lives, not looking back and not waiting for Sole or Monkfish. The last they heard of either was the sound of Monkfish crying out with fury:
"Where is my Avatar, you bloody bastard?"
Their flight from the Shrine was an ordeal even more terrifying, as the xanthic balefire spread through the black glass surfaces and, from time to time, sparks and random energies would explode across their path. Miss XXXXXXXX was burned across the cheek and Mr XXXXXXXX's coat was set on fire and he discarded it. By the time they reached the pit and could climb back into the secret dungeon beneath the temple of Nabu the blast was just moments behind them, and the entire structure was quivering with groundquakes. Great sandstone blocks began to fall around them, and they were barely able to make it out of the great temple chamber alive before the roof finally and irrevocably collapsed burying any remains of the Shrine of Oannes beneath uncounted tonnes of rock.
Grateful to be alive at all, Mr XXXXXXXX, Miss XXXXXXXX and Mrs Riches took to the truck and fled for the Iranian border.
Conclusions:
Based upon his behaviour in the XXXXXXXX alkitab business, we assume Monkfish intended to obtain some device of "foreign power" manufacture and profit from its disposal. Clearly a specific one, given the range of alternatives available, and we might suppose that he had some specific commission. It is fortunate that he was unable to obtain whatever it was from the Shrine of Oannes and that the site was destroyed.
Several questions remain unanswered:
i) What did Monkfish expect to find in the Shrine?
ii) Who was the man in the "column of light" and what is his significance?
iii) How was Monkfish able to intercept the Service team in the desert given the security employed by Mrs Riches and Lord XXXXXXXX?
iv) Perhaps most significantly, did Monkfish and Sole survive?
Aerial observation of the location has confirmed that the entire site has caved in and is now buried and sealed. It is to be hoped, but not expected, that Monkfish and Sole were consumed in the unnatural blast that demolished the Shrine. Tellingly, however, Monkfish's limousine, although left at the site by the Service agents as they fled, was no longer to be seen there.
[attached, dated 1982]
EXTREME POSSIBILITY: Monkfish has access to TIME TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY.
His actions in Mesopotamia are understandable in a new light if we assume that they are based on information gained previously in a subsequent time zone.
[cross reference file 1977, Singapore]
This means he is almost certainly an agent of the XXXXXXXX, or – even worse – their XXXXXXXX.
DIRECTIVE FROM XXXXXXXX: Monkfish is hereby rated FOREIGN HAZARD: ABOVE GOLD. Do NOT approach. Do NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, attempt to engage. Refer all decisions to XXXXXXXX and await designated taskforce.
Georgie finished the file. She blinked and winced. She swallowed and winced again.
Answers, but no absolution. It wasn't what she wanted.
"You took something." The face on her television screen made it a statement. "From your brother. From the boardroom."
"No." Even she could tell it was a lie.
Her eyes flickered to the box in the corner of the room. The object she had never wanted to keep but could never get rid of. An amber hourglass, carved in the shape of a pot-bellied man, his huge head equal in size to his abdomen, with narrow neck between. All of the sand had long run out.
She remembered when she had found it.
It had been in Paul's office, earlier that evening before the boardroom. It had been on the desk, on top of a velvet cloth that hung over the sides of the table. It had been in the middle of a complex three-part hierogram, drawn in what had looked like mercury and sulphur and blood.
And she took it.
The book had been on a lectern nearby, those spidery words dancing on the open page.
Kyric ar'Daemol is the hourglass god…
And she took it.
Just pocketed it and walked away. Went home.
Later, she could only imagine.
The ceremony. These things always have a ceremony. Whatever it was that answered, whether it was Kyric, whether it was the Grim Reaper, whether it was the Devil himself, they would not be bound by the sorcery, not without its focus.
She thought about it now, the little amber figure, the avatar of an hourglass god.
"Dr Edgar…" she tried. But she had played her card and won nothing.
"I should like to help you, Ms Wade. Believe me, I would. But I don't think that even I can."
She blinked and winced. She swallowed and winced.
The god of the end of the World.
