Yesteryear Fiction

Interpreting The Sigil
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 6, Object 791: site C)


Follow the light arrow, find heaven.1.
Follow the dark arrow, find oblivion. 2.
Follow the green arrow, find life.
Follow the red arrow, find death.

He who walks the circle willingly
Encounters all of these arrows in turn.

He who walks the circle without rhythm
Of intent
Will always be drawn
To the darkness.


1. Heaven both in the sense of bliss and in the sense of the greater cosmos, as the natives understood it. There seems to be a linkage hinted at by the related glyphs that, to the natives, the darkness of a starry night, complete with astrological phenomena, was the domain of a bliss-like heaven.

2. In much the same way that the natives’ concept of heaven incorporates space, their concept of oblivion includes the vastness of space and the incredible distances of void between stellar objects.

“Litany”
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 4, Object 68, site C)


The hammer falls
The blade cuts
The nut is crushed
The head falls
Only one rolls away.1.


1. Accounts associated with this frieze seem to indicate that the unnameable king, whose ultimate fate may have been decapitation (though evidence gathered by Dr. R. Morgan seems to indicate that he had a Rasputin-like resistance to fatal injury) escaped by “rolling away” in the night and only later reconnecting his head with his body.


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”Star Seed”
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 2, Object 15: site A)


The seed of stars spreads wide
Across all heavens, life.
We cry out to our sky brothers
We cry out to the gods among the stars
The mind, the seed, the clay that makes the man.1.
We cry out a welcome
Our souls are heard
We are heard
And the abyss welcomes us.


1. “The clay that makes the man” is a loose transliteration of the glyphs on plate 2. The original phrase communicates a series of concepts relating to the creation myths of the natives, as well as combining elements from the greater cosmological sphere. (Hinting at a knowledge of the cosmos that transcends that of most native traditions.)


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Call of Blood
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 2, Object 42: site B)


Blood is the name.
Blood, blood, blood 1.
Blood is the source
Blood is the life-water
Blood is the soul
Blood is the soul
I cry out to the unnameable king
I cry out to the lord of the abyss
I cry out to the master of demons
I cry out and am heard
I am heard.
Blood spills across our country
Blood fills our country
Blood fills out mouths
We drown in blood
We drown in blood
We become blood
We become blood


1. The chant uses a series of characters which seem to indicate that T’klan, the word for blood (specifically the freshly spilled blood of the living) was chanted beneath the litany by a crowd supporting the priest in charge of the ritual.


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The Flute-Cryer
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 9, Object 27: site B)


The Flute-Cryer cries
Through the flute of the night

His notes are black
His notes are glass
He dances
In the halls of the unnameable king
A puppet
Stitched of strings
And bone.


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Rider of Wind
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 1, Object 89: site B)


The man who rides the wind is less man than beast.
His hands span ice
His breath comes like fire
His heart is a ball of lightning
His legs carry him with the flow of water
All who stand before him
All who try
Sages
Fools
Mighty warriors
Priests of elements
Priests of steel
All are as dust
Before him.
Dust
Scattered on wind.


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Call of the Indigai
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 6.7, Object 5: site A)


Swarm of darkest depths
Swarm of wet flesh
Swarm of sinuous meat
Swarm of corded muscle
Swarm of deep-meat-upon-bone1
Swarm of meat layers beneath skin
Swarm of living-while-cut-by-edge flesh
Swarm of bleeding, pulsing meat
Swarm of quivering flesh beneath the knife
Swarm of muscle beneath dead skin
Swarm of marrow, cracked
Swarm of supple, infant flesh
Swarm of butchered organ meat
Swarm of flaccid, bloodless muscle
Swarm of raw, bruised and skinned flesh
Swarm of stinking, sweet meat
Swarm of salt-rubbed meat
Swarm of needled meat
Swarm of flesh-ground-beneath-wheels
Swarm of slashed, ragged meat
Swarm of peeled, layered meat
Swarm of flesh-in-blood-water
Swarm of translucent flesh
Swarm of boiled fat and meat
Swarm of soft-shredded skins
Swarm of bleeding, cast-off meat
Swarm of flesh rippling-in-shadows
Swarm of muscles during lust-making
Swarm of need and endless hunger
Swarm of the horde

Hear my call
Rise
Rise from the depths of the earth to grow,
Grow,
Rise to sweep across the land like a wave of bodies
Rise to sweep across the land like a wave of flesh
Rise and devour
Devour all,
Devour all,
Nailed hands carry back to the depths
All
Nailed hands devour all.


1. !agth, literally the thick, deeply colored meat which clings to bone. The natives had roughly 217 different recorded words for flesh/meat, most of them relating to butchering of living animals, including humans.


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Call of Power
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 6, Object 66: site A)


I place the sigil of the sun to the east
I place the sigil of the moon to the west
I place the sigil of distant Rt’Ffick to the north1
I place the sigil of the unnameable king to the south2
I place the sigil of my heart at the center and call to the mother 3

I feel the darkness within me.
I feel the darkness rise to fill me.
I feel the darkness become me.

I am the darkness.
I am the one before which all foes are felled.
I am the darkness.
I am the one before which all obstacles are dust.
I am the darkness.
I am the hand of the unnameable king
And all the world
Bends supple before me.
Bends to suit my will.


1. Doctor R. Morgan believes that this word (transliterated from the glyphs associated with darkness, distance, the underworld and the frozen wastes of outer layers of being) indicates the natives had knowledge of Pluto or an as yet undiscovered tenth planet which makes a circuit around the sun so wide that it only comes into view once every few thousand years. Rt’Ffick is also associated with elements of the abyss, and referred to as the home of demons.

2. Unfortunately, despite our efforts to obtain a rubbing of this sigil, it appears to have been lost. Doctor R. Morgan and I speculate that the natives themselves removed it from all the monoliths at sites A, B and C due to some cultural superstition.

3. Mneg’ia, Mother of the Abyssal Depths


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The 72 Names of the Unnamed King
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 6.7, Object 5: site A)


Note: I have included, for comparison purposes, both the original names of the Unnamed King and the transliterations in this translation of the text found on the stone obelisk at site A.


Here are the names of the king who must not be named:

!Nkth’an (King of Ashes)
Tak’lthk (Master of Black)
Y’nnagn!’tklkuak (Betrayer of Many Souls)
Bo’itykh (Master of the Alien)
Ga’hkk (Tomb-Scryer)
Juwrt’klah (Bloated Lord Worm)
Ww!’iirt (Living Death)
Qu’yothlee (Master of Keys)
Sno’verr (Skin Stealer)
B’!tyty-ja (Bone Chewer)
J’latornis (Ghost Dance Man)
G’rfty-p! (Skull hand)
Frotonst (Man of Stone)
!eeyaya (Unwinding of the Medicine)
G’henc-tolen’llah (Peeler of Infant Skin)
J’staa-p! (Man of Abyss)
Rt’kkaniyyk (L’thauun’s Hand)
Stakk’httan (Black hand)
Ghhk’an (Future-King)
T’yaan-Oolora (Void Lord)
F’v-ick-ala-breank (The Never Forgotten)
D’laan gorit-pan (Star-Stealer)
Lee’bran fortoick (Lord Star Watcher)
T’yall (Charter of the Signs in the Stars)
Borit-M’yaan (Bender of the Will)
Y!!-stan (Time Bend Lord)
R’blax!n (Soul of Blood)
G’at-baeik (The Hated)
Kri’lljan (Arcane Lord or lord of the forgotten knowledge)
Fe’i’i-!a (Dark Glyph)
Unous-La’a (Fallen Betrayer)
Jer’m-aan (He Who Grasps Time)
Fres’G!tylan (Cold Touch)
Nai’en-laev’n (Light Smother)
Wassa-gub’ent (Deep Black King)
Set’hap (Moonless)
X!-l’suh-meeuh (Robe Lit With Eyes)
Y’y’y-lileed’yot (King Hate)
Hyam Sa’wheech (Man of the Lying Tongue)
Urr-moam (Speaker of Demons)
G!-y’lan-Mneg (Mneg’ia’s Hand)
G!-p’tan-Mneg (Mneg’ia’s Consort)
(undecipherable)
Btla’ykk-hoam (King of the Dark Flag)
Nawta-Ry’syst (Master of Tattered Black)
Mo’tylan-kyack (Chaos King)
Pt-fft’haen botan leeanc (Lord of Spawning Nothingness)
Vo’lala-pek itan (Master of Biting Beetles)
J’reeptan alat (Famine Dancer)
Kori’yack (Onyx Phallus)
Bwanalaan-myan’g (Lord of the Skin That Burns)
P-e’stois ghae (Poison King)
Sele’yuan F’paan (Lord of Ripping Fungus)
Uokan Metow (Rot Shuffler)
P’sta silcvah (Bones Exposed)
Yuan’haj-la (Cruel Glove)
W’quoan (Abyss Rider)
Syan-forran (Smite Fist)
Pylan’hdam (Lord of Fire and Sound)
Reelan’mogaa-yoopa’la (Death Creator)
Y’y-iiat-g’la’la!-! pwyat (He Who Pushes The Wheel Back)
Hyanfopar-la (King of The Unknown Garden)
N’gendeean (He Who Crafts Fate)
Mon’routlan (Lord of Annihilation)
Ll!-groo’an (King of Blades)
Uon’sta’ast-ngk (Bone Wing)
Ngk’bub-snikt (Talon Glove)
R’huinliak (Great Defiler)
Krai’yunarr-fhun (Rampant Death)
L’vatieror-br! (Plague Lord)
Vh’aggra (King of Stagnancy)
Bhao’bdhole (Demon Bender)


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Mneg’ia, Mother of the Abyssal Depths
Aid of the Mother (Calling to)
Transcribed from the original by L. Abraham Armitage, PhD

(Plate 4, Object 39: site C)


Note: This plate depicts a series of natives prostrating themselves before the bloated, headless body of Mneg’ia (credited as mother of the abyssal depths - roughly transliterated from a much larger true name which reflects a certain womb-moistness, a heat and the rough-sliding of spines along the throat of a raw cervix.


Mother! Mneg’ia!
Mother! Mneg’ia!
Bring forth the birth of the dead
Bring forth the demons of your loins
Bring forth the demons that tear
Bring forth the demons that slice
Bring forth the demons that slash
Bring forth the demons that crawl
Bring forth the demons that slide
Bring forth the demons that stride
Bring forth the demons which devour
The walls between the now
And the future
Bring forth the future
Bring forth the future
Bring forth the now
We are the future
In a ring of demons
The future
Serving
The now1


1. Beneath the frieze and the passage, a tiny line inscribed into the monolith at site C proclaims:

Call to the future: it is not deaf
Sign (glyph) to the future: it is not blind
Become the future: it is--

(the rest of the passage has been irrecoverably damaged by chipping of the stone.)

It is interesting to note the natives’ preoccupation with time, specifically with the future. Another passage recovered from a possibly related artifact echoes this with the broken triplet:

Hail Goddess of Demon Abyss (Mneg’ia?)
To return, return
When the stars are right


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