Song: “Secret Journey” by Police, The from Ghost in the Machine

26 June ____

The exhaustion has sunk deep enough into me I feel as though I shall drown in it. To paraphrase my dear and departed friend Walter, the tired is bone deep.

Nonetheless, I must relate the events of the mountain and the cave before I slumber as I fear my mind may set about to erase them as quickly as possible. Some things the mind is not meant to retain.

I accepted Lord Wortham’s invitation with a bit of smugness.

A trip to an isolated cave in the mountains to acquire some secret forbidden knowledge? How wonderfully ludicrous. And for that amount of money? I would gladly set about separating Wortham from his haypennies for a fruitless mountain hike.

Even after I learned more of the “quest,” I remain mildly delighted by the daft Lord’s nonsense. A woman who closed herself away from the world lest she accidentally share the knowledge and cause the undoing of mankind? What a lark to spend your hard-earned treasure on. The wealthy truly are a different species.

My eyelids continue to droop so I will move this along quicker.

The gathering of the team was rather perfunctory. We all saw the shine of golden coins and could not agree fast enough. We might have all been foolish enough to attempt a life of intellectualism but even we could see the benefits of an easy adventure followed by a life of leisure funded by a man too wealthy to have sense.

It was not until weeks later, already halfway up the mountain, that it would occur to any of us how strange a team we are. Of all of us, I was the only one who had serve Her Majesty in combat. Roger had familiarity with the blade thanks to years of fencing forced upon him by his father. Walter was quite the sportsman, but rugby is hardly the same as fighting for one’s life against someone who wishes you harm. Gilbert and Gerald had never even fired a gun hunting. It was an odd group to send. Especially given Wortham’s beliefs about what awaited us.

It is only now I realize, writing this in the dying light of the kerosene lamp, that I realize it was the Lord’s prejudice that led him to choose us. He simply could not imagine men of action or trade could deal with the knowledge that awaited us. He felt the danger of possessing it would far outstrip the danger of acquiring it. While I do not agree with his rather dim view of the non-noble and intellectual classes, it does seem he was correct.

A shame he is not alive to gloat. Thankfully his estate still honored his eccentric desires.

But I get ahead of myself.

We came upon the cave earlier than expected. While it is tempting to claim we simply were stronger and faster than anticipated, it seems as though the cave had moved from the location charted. Perhaps Wortham simply had bad information for us. It seems odd that it would be bad and yet put us on the direct path to the cave however. I do not know. I can only offer speculation, and empty speculation at that.

What we found was not at all what was expected. I do believe Wortham knew and chose not to tell us. The supplies indicate this. Swords for all, guns, dynamite. Without warning us, though, he damned us.

The woman, who we learned they called The Madame of the Word, had built herself a near army.

Fanatical men seemingly starving and yet impossible strong fell upon us. Gilbert and Gerald fell immediately, one beaten so badly his organs must have been ruptured beyond all repair. The other’s head twisted about so far it sat back where it started.

Their deaths bought the other three of us enough time to arm. Roger cut through them with alarming efficiency, his clothes rapidly crimson from arterial spray. Walter and I favored firearms and fists, working in tandem to provide each other cover. Our guns boomed and echoes, our hands ached with impact and effort. While it was an incredibly rapid fight, it seemed to stretch for hours. When the waves of acolytes stopped coming, we were exhausted, soaked in blood and sweat. We swayed and leaned against one another to stand. It was not until we reached the lip of the cave and Roger stumbled that we realized he had been injured. The wound gaped, impossibly large and jagged. He swore a man had bitten it out of him. Before I could even fill the wound with cloth, he expired. Despite our Christian upbringing, we left him where he fell. We could honor the dead later.

The Madame introduced herself from the shadows before stepping into view. She seemed impossibly old and stooped when she first appeared. She spoke to us of how ready she was to die, to give up her duty. She praised us for coming to kill her. In the years before, other men had tried but she was not ready. She broke their minds, one by one, and enraptured them in her service. Those were the men that died by our blade, our flintlock, our hand.

Strangely, the longer she talked, the younger she began to appear. When she finally paused, she appeared to be our age. Younger even. In a moment of levity, I told Walter she might be as pretty as his sister. He was not in the mood for my humor and cast me a dark look.

When we revealed the why of our arrival, however, the Madame became enraged. She shrieked at us, our arrogance, our stupidity. I could see that years of isolation had driven her mad. She, like Lord Wortham, believed the lie of “forbidden” knowledge. That was the true arrogance, believing that somehow she had protected the world for years from doom by sitting around in a cave and making men do her bidding. I wondered if she too was of the noble class like Wortham and her love of self, bloated by years of being told she was special by birth and needed to do nothing else to prove herself.

She warned us that now was the time to run, to get away. We refused. We had given our word. More importantly, I refuse to bow to people so convinced of their worth by the outdated nonsense of pre-Great War classes. We had moved beyond the Dark Ages and I no longer accept that anyone is better than me simply because the inherited a title. Especially not this woman of the mountain.

Walter and I circled her. She moved in a flash, knocking me backwards. While I clambered to my feet, she somehow seized me dear friend. In the half light of the cave it was difficult to see what she did. All I could hear was Walter’s screaming, followed by a wet bubbling kind of giggle. Then he disappeared. She claimed her jumped off the into the darkness to his demise, that he could not possess the knowledge and bear to live. I know this could not be true. Walter would never. She murdered him and I failed to do a thing about it.

My rage like fire, I charged her. I spent three guns into her and then ran her through with the blade. On her knees, life slipping away, I lodged another sword against her throat. She smiled, a sick horrible look upon her visage. Then she whispered the knowledge to me. What I had come for. What Lord Wortham sought. How I would make my fortune.

It was simple. I felt bile rise in my throat as I delivered the slaying blow. It did not seem worth seeking or dying for or living a life in a cave to protect. Nobility rots the brain.

As I said, Lord Wortham died while we were on our journey and I confess I am pleased by this. An idiot brute, his daft obsession cost my associates, my Walter, their lives. And for what? A sentence that a woman in a mountain kept to herself for years? What hideous business.

The estate did pay out though, giving me my payment plus those of my fallen team. The attorney begged me to forgot Madame’s secrets and never share them. Told me they were too dangerous.

I laughed bitterly.

Tomorrow, I plan to put a small portion of my new fortune towards a printing press. I will publish a pamphlet to share with the world the knowledge. Enough of this nonsense. I have heard it and a fortnight later, I remain as solid as ever.

Exhaustion and trauma have conspired against me to leave me confused. I hear things and see things others do not. These are true problems. But the knowledge? The knowledge is just a sentence, a collection of words. It has no power, no danger to it. I have heard it and I remain as I ever was. A good A night’s sleep and the voices and visions will go away. And then I will share the knowledge with the world. Then we will see how right I am and how wrong Wortham and his lot are. We will see that words do not damn. Not the Madame, not the people. I am proof of that.

When the knowledge is known, everyone will understand. We will be reborn. I will be seen for what I have always been. The nobility will be brought low and I shall be raised up. I shall be appreciated rightfully for who I am. A new dawn comes and all shall see. All will know.