The Illuminated Masters.

The Illuminated Masters.

It was a grey night in April that the men finally came to beat me and drag me before the Illuminated Masters. "Make it look good" Carstairs had said "Otherwise they'll realised that I told you", but after an evening of drinking Claret so red it was nearly black it would have seemed odd if I had thrashed the first two as he suggested.

Their ambush had been well planned, I'd been at a meal in the old Ashmolean all evening, Old Culpepper was once again trying to woo me to his cause, practically pleading on bended knee for funding for his mad plan of a Museum of Science. Of all the worthless things I had ever heard, a museum to commemorate Mankind's ignorance was by far and away the most ridiculous. Culpepper however always laid on a good table, and when not banging on about his pet project was amiable enough company. He'd known my father, and had been acquainted with my grandfather, although to hear him tell it they had been firm friends. Somehow I doubted it, of all the things Grandfather had been, Visionary, Mystic, Captain of Industry, friendly was not among them. Still in return for a hearty meal of Partridge (excellently hung), Trout (excellently prepared), and Cheese (excellently sharp), I allowed the man his fantasies.

By the time I left I should have been reeling from the amount of wine we had put away. Culpepper had been led away by two of his servants, still able to walk, but not in a straight line. He waved me off as they kept him on the straight path up to his rooms and I collected my hat and cane and putting on a deliberate weave of my own walked out into the black night.

People would tell you that Oxford is picturesque, or idyllic, or any number of other positive and entirely untrue things. Oxford is a warren, packed with people scurrying this way and that in their lost little lives hoping against hope that no one realises just how worthless they are. The cobbled streets are covered in horse manure, and the drays and carts raise a racket on them as they pass. The grey drizzle showed Oxford's true face finally, grimy, grey, and stinking, without even the crowds of robed masters or morning suited students to at least hide the ugliness a little. I weaved my way down a few side roads before finally locating the ambush on a street that was a short cut between the main road and my lodgings. For all of their ineptness my intended assailants had at least done their homework.

I noticed my attackers lurking in the shadows before anyone could possibly have noticed them, but I knew better than to acknowledge the fact. The believed that they had gone to every effort to camouflage themselves, their long dark grey robes (not black, black is infinitely visible in darkness) were padded to break up their shapes, and the leather coshes they carried had been darkened using ash mixed with bees wax. Anyone else would surely have been taken unawares even with Carstairs’ warning, but I could smell the wax on the coshes, could see their bulging misshapen robes, and could feel the buzzing of their tiny vacuous minds. When they finally come to write the story of my glorious life one thing will certainly be included, they will certainly say that I knew when to play the fool. So I blundered blindly down the road as if oblivious to the men hiding in the deep shadows around me.

I continued oblivious as one, with footsteps even one of their own would have heard stepped up behind me and brought his cosh unskilfully down upon my shoulder as opposed to my head as he had intended. The darkness that had aided them was also hindering them now that the attack had begun. Thinking swiftly I let loose a pained grunt, and staggered sideways, purposefully presenting him with a perfect target for his next blow. Instead one of the other men behind me swept his cosh into the back of my knee so hard he actually managed to force it out from under me. I swore, and not as part of the act, as I crashed down on my side. Any one else would likely have been nursing a broken knee from such a vicious blow. I wondered whether I should feign agony, but then caught the smell of another scent over the beeswax. The men had all been drinking, almost as heavily as I had by the smell, the cloying stench of cheap gin gusting from their mouths with every breath. Realising this I rolled away from him and towards the other man once more, preferring his wild swings to those of the man who had struck at my knee. Unfortunately his wild swings mostly landed on my shoulders and arms, and the man behind landed a crushing blow on the back of my head. If this was their usual method of capture I marvelled that the Illuminated Masters did not have to spend half their lives in the Docks of the Old Bailey. Hoping that this signalled an end I immediately went limp and crashed to the ground, but the imbecile continued striking at me. By the fifth blow I began to wonder if I should finally give up the pretence of unconsciousness and tear his head from his shoulders but luckily one of the other men grabbed him and in an urgent whisper impressed on him that I’d stopped moving some time ago. My attempted murderer slurred something back so utterly mangled as to be not even recognisable as English, before staggering off into the darkness leaving me with the other two, who with difficulty secured a black sack over my head and getting my arms over their necks lifted me and began to drag me away.

I was dragged through the night, down stinking alleys and along the sides of the foetid canals that spider web this pitiful country in the name of 'progress', thousands of man hours spent to create nothing more than a series of stinking open sewers all over their pristine countryside. We continued down the tow path for a good few minutes until we stopped. I heard the sound of a gate being opened and then the crunch of their feet on the gravel of a path. For all their precautions I knew where we had come to, and it was no surprise to find I had been brought to the Earl of Brichester's Oxford Manor. I had expected that he would be found at the centre of the Illuminated Master, but to have it so simply confirmed was gratifying. My captors employed a complicated knock at the door and were soon granted entry. Feet scuffed over fine oriental rugs and I was dumped unceremoniously onto a couch to recuperate. Another man entered the room and approached them.

“How did it go?” the new man asked.

“We got him easy enough, but Kiltern got drunk before we went out and beat him pretty badly before we got him off.”

“Damn the drunken sot! If he's injured this one badly there will be hell to pay.” the new man sounded angry, it was good that they had realised my worth, although little did they know how special I truly was.

“Go get the smelling salts, bring him some brandy as well.” he continued and the others scuttled off to do his bidding.

Soon I found myself assaulted by fouls smelling chemicals and fine tasting brandy as the robed and masked figures moved around me. They were careful to ensure that they did not use each others names, and their masks stayed resolutely attached to their faces. It was of no real worth, I could tell that one was Carstairs by the way he walked, Lutiss from his accent, and Mallory from the way his hands shook. They fussed around me until I was satisfied that my act of disordered senses had been accepted. Eventually they left me again, and the new man, who I could not yet place returned.

“Do you know why you have been brought here?” he intoned in a solemn voice that almost caused me to laugh in his face.

“I... I don’t, what… why am I here?” I stammered in my best confused voice.

“You have been brought here for initiation into a very select group” he continued.

“The Masons? I'm already a member.” I thrust the ring forward towards him, “See! I am a member in good standing already”

He laughed and finally I placed him, the landlord of the George inn on the main street. His voice had changed completely, so much so that even I had been unable to tell who he was. The Illuminated Masters had a few secrets in their arsenal that I had not seen before which in and of its self was concerning.

“We are not the Masons my boy, although some of our brethren are also members of that group. We are greater than them, far greater. When the Masons were a young group they formed themselves as an echo of us, the merest shadow of our knowledge. We are the Illuminated Masters, and you have been selected because of your purity of spirit.”

This time I did laugh but managed to change it into a startled cough. I had indeed been selected but my 'purity of spirit' had nothing to do with it at all. The depth of my pockets had far more to do with my selection than anything so obscure.

“I don't understand” I said as the Pub Landlord drew me to my feet and pushed a robe into my hands.

“No you do not, but I am here to Illuminate you.”

For the next hour he ran me through the same forms of initiation that all such secret societies use to make themselves seem more obscure and knowledgeable. Pushing me blindfolded over drops of a few feet, telling me it was a chasm and the like. How they hope to confuse even people without my talents with such parlour games I am unsure, but still they persist. Eventually though I had passed all of the children’s tests they intended to force me through and I was brought before the combined mob of the so called Illuminated Masters. Thirty or so of them packed into the small, room, crowding round to clap me on the back and tell me how pleased they were to have me amongst them. All had removed their masks for what little use they had been. Even the Earl took the time to greet me, give me the sort of firm handshake that borders on a wrestling match, intended to impress you with their honesty and strength. I resisted the temptation to crush his hand to paste, but I was surprised to realise that he was not the Leader of the Masters.

Instead the Master, the only man still masked in the room, watched as each of the men clasped my hands and made their greetings. Once they had finished, he rapped his staff of office for quiet, and the herd went silent, staring raptly towards him. When he spoke his voice was measured and sonorous, like a deep rolling wave of sound, and most interestingly one that I again could not place.

“Our newest brother now stands amongst us as one of the Illuminated Masters. Grant to him all due respect.” Here a cheer went up from the Herd, stifled by the raising of a single, porcelain like hand. “However, in light of his singular spirit, it has been decided that he shall be raised immediately to the inner circle.”

The entire room erupted into a low chorus of murmurs and in some cases complaints, seemingly most of the people in the room were not members of this inner circle. I could see why I had been chosen however by the wide grin on Carstairs’ face. Again I suspected my money was more the point than any singularity of spirit that I might still posses. However I was more than happy to play the part if it furthered my aims.

“Why... I am honoured, but surely there are others more worthy than I?” I stuttered in false cloying humility.

The herd lapped it up, immediately the murmurs of complaint ceased, and there were a few exclamations of “Well said!” from the rear of the group. The Master again waited until the murmurs had nearly died down to nothing before silencing the few remaining murmurs. It was a simple trick but I could see how it would impress upon the herd his pre-eminence, giving him the seeming of immense influence when in fact the sound would have petered off itself in a few more seconds. The Master truly was that, a master of manipulation, but compared to me he was still no better than the lowest mammal, when compared to the insects that made up his herd.

“I understand your nervousness, but be not afraid. I have looked upon you and see that you are indeed of the stuff that the inner circle demands. Surely Brothers” here he addressed the Herd, “You would not wish to see our new Brother turn down such an honour despite his special qualities, just because of his recent inclusion to our numbers?”

Again the herd fell into the trap he deftly placed before them, with a few dissenters shamed into silence by the others. The master called for the inner circle to follow him, and Carstairs and the Pub landlord seized me carrying me along with them. I was amused to see that the Earl was not permitted to follow, and he watched our little party of three with envious eyes as we left the room by a door at the rear and followed a small passage to another strongly barred and locked door. Here the master produced a key, and unlocked the thick new chains that held the bars in place, and setting them aside opened the door. The stairs that led from it were of modern design made from brick, but soon gave way to mouldering ancient stone, deeply dished where for hundreds of years feet had fallen in the same places. A greater show of the worthlessness of human life I had never seen, thousands of people had descended these stairs over the centuries, but the only sign of it was the groove their trudging feet had wrought in the stone. The thought warmed me somewhat despite a vague feeling of apprehension that was growing in my mind, at least when I finally ascended from this world I would have wrought changes upon it that would echo through the ages.

Finally we reached the bottom of the moss covered and foul smelling stairs and reached another far older door. Made of thick oak planks and studded all over with huge iron nails it would not have looked out of place in an ancient castle. The master rapped his staff of office against it, and a small window, protected by thick iron bars opened in the door. It revealed a pair of eyes surrounded by sallow waxy looking skin and a few lank strings of hair falling past them. The man’s voice was as degenerate in sound as his flesh was in appearance, as he slobbered out a demand for a password, which the master duly whispered to him. When the creature had  finished drawing back the bar the door swung open with a torturous creak, like the sound of some tortured animal.

Beyond was an antechamber, which the gangling creature ushered us through to another much larger portal on the other side. This portal was carved with sigils of protection and warding, but I was glad to see that they had forgotten the most important of all, the terrible elder sign that would have prevented me from entering. I made a great deal however of looking in wonder at their protective works, for all the worth that they were but the act impressed the Master, who turned extending a hand to me, which I took.

“You are right to hesitate, for once you step beyond this portal there will be no turning back, your life will be changed, you will be illuminated and raised above the common herd.”

The pretensions of ants are always amusing but I managed, just, to conceal this from them, but they took my silence and covered mouth for awe.

“Don't be afraid”, said Carstairs, “I was scared when I was inducted into the inner circle, but it opened my eyes, and when I met you I knew that you were exactly the sort of person we needed.”

I muttered some empty platitude and with some degree of ceremony I stepped through the portal eliciting claps of delight from the Landlord and Carstairs, and a firm handshake from the Master. Keeping hold of my hand he led me into the cavern beyond the portal. Indeed the cavern was the first thing about the Illuminated Masters that genuinely impressed me, we stood upon a small spur of rock thrust out over a great tartarean chasm. Above us great stalactites thrust down from the roof like the great white fingers of some Cyclopean beast, each one had been carved with yet more of their useless protective symbols. Beneath these however, at the very end of the spur of rock stood a great wooden lectern, and upon it covered in a cloth embroidered with symbol of their order was a huge book, almost certainly their holy scripture and it was before this lectern that they took me to. Once there the Master stood before the book and Carstairs and the Landlord moved to block my exit. I was more than a little perturbed when they reached inside their robes and drew a long Indian style punch dagger of some strange ivory like substance.

“Do you renounce the works of the thing that lurks beneath the waves?” asked the Master suddenly serious, and I was suddenly very aware of the danger of my position. Even sheep can drive a wolf over the edge of a cliff if it strays too close to the edge.

“Do you renounce the works of the thing that lurks beneath the waves?” the master asked again impatiently.

“Yes, I err of course” I stammered feigning ignorance of that which they referred to.

“And of the Mother of the Woods, do you shun her worship and her children?” he asked next.

“What?” I responded “Yes I suppose but what is all of this...”

“And the Gate, and the Key, do you confirm that his touch lies not upon you? That you are uncorrupted by him, do you confirm this?” he demanded earnestly

“Look I don't know what you are talking about!” I tried but the massed pressed me again for a confirmation, which I gave

“Finally, The Eater of Woe, Say to us that you shun him and you shall be free to be told our secrets, do you shun him?” he asked lastly.

Faced with an oath I could not give I was finally forced to end the ridiculous charade, so instead I rounded on Carstairs.

“Look Carstairs I don't know what all this is in aid of but I think it's a pretty poor look out to demand oaths of a chap when he doesn't know what he's agreeing to. If you aren't going to start explaining then I'm going to leave!”

It was an empty threat of course, there is no way that they would have allowed me to escape, but I rightly guessed that Carstairs would be shamed by my outburst, and he turned an imploring glance on the master.

“He's right you know... We need him Johns, couldn't we tell him some of it first?” he asked almost in a whine.

With the name I finally placed the Master of the Illuminated, Johns, the educated beggar who spent his days panhandling around Oxford. I was shocked, I had expected the master to be some powerful man, an MP, a Bishop, or Professor, not some form of faceless nobody. I replayed every time I had met Johns in my head, had I ever given myself away to him? I could remember thousands of times when I pushed past him, ignoring his pleas for money. As he nodded to Carstairs however I realised he had no idea of my true purpose.

“Very well”, he said in his strangely anonymous voice, “I will tell you of what the Illuminated Masters were created for. For long centuries we have stood as the a force against the darkness.”

I pushed a skeptical look onto my face although of course I knew exactly what he was going to say, but he took the look as it was intended and continued.

“You do not believe but you do not know what we have stood against. In the aeons before mankind took rulership of this world, hideous ancient gods seeped down from the stars, they were beyond our understanding and their rulership of the world was total. They remade whole races, raised huge cities, and formed the world around them. They unlike us however were not of this world, and could only live here when certain conditions applied. For some it was the alignment of certain cosmic radiations, for others a certain amount of worship, for others the blood of sacrifices willingly given. When these conditions no longer applied the ancient gods could not survive, they did not die, but they ceased to live. So they hid themselves away to await the time that the conditions were right for them again.”

The man paused and crossed to the mighty book, opening it to the first page, and showing what looked to be an enormous family tree.

“Mankind would have remained unknowing of these ancient gods however if it were not for their own machinations against us. Even when in their unliving state they could still affect the weak willed, and insert themselves into their dreams, or infect them with manias. In this way they seeded the world with cults dedicated to themselves intended to ready the world to receive them when their time came once more. In doing so they tipped their hand, and their existence became known to certain wise men. These wise men realised the threat of the Ancient Gods, and they set themselves against them, hunting down their cults and wreaking their plans. In their dreams the Ancient Gods took note, and began to fight the Wise Men, forcing them to hide themselves away from prying eyes. This was the genesis of the Illuminated masters.”

I was growing bored of the history lesson, but I still needed to confirm my suspicions, so nodded sagely as he showed me another picture of some wise men passing tablets to cowled figures.

“So the Illuminated Masters were born, and a war between the hidden cuts of the Ancient gods and them began. The war has proceeded from ancient times, and several times we have gained the upper hand. The Ancient gods are however implacable and every time we stamp out one cult another springs up. We had held our own however, secrecy keeps us safe, but now we are hard pressed again and so we must increase our membership. This is why you are here, we think you are just the sort of person we need.”

Still he skirted round the subject that I needed him to answer so I tried to prod him back to the subject.

“Why are you hard pressed now? Has something happened?”

“Oh yes.” he continued, “the Ancient gods have a new weapon in their arsenal, we call them the converted, humans taken and changed with the gods power. Outwardly they look just like normal people but they are not, they are monsters, killers. They are stronger and faster than normal people, capable of terrible things that no normal person can achieve. They have begun to hunt down the cells of the Illuminated Masters and we do not know how they are doing it. They are however very effective and we are now the last of the cells, but we will rebuild and spread, and this is what we need you for. Only with your help can we spread again, establish new cells, and continue to fight against the dominion of the Ancient Gods. Your father's business has branches all over the world,  if you help us we can establish cells amongst the workers, and in so doing ensure that the fight can continue.”

The question had been answered. This cell of the Illuminated Masters was the very last. All of the work that I had been made for was nearly complete, my fathers pact with the old ones, the pact that made us so successful and so rich was close to being fulfilled. The cults throughout the world he had set up, all of the rites, my own terrifying inception and birth, all of this had been building to this moment. I called upon the the gifts of my blessed birth, my muscles flooding with power, my bones crunched as they moved into positions that allowed me to use my strength to their fullest. Of course they heard, the 'master' and his cronies, but where before they could have stopped me, the revelation that they were the last of their hated sort leant me new strength. I grasped the master by the throat and held him aloft as I killed Carstairs and the landlord with my free hand, sweeping their heads from their shoulders with an elongated claw hand. Then I allowed myself the pleasure of force feeding him the pages of his tome of knowledge, leaving him choked on the knowledge he believed would save him before I ascended the stairs and the screaming of the herd began.