TOPIC: Horror on the Orient Express - All Rotations

VII THE SHORT VERSION

1794
Its five years since the start of the revolution.
Robespierre has abolished the First and Second Estates
His Cult of the Supreme Being replaces the Catholic faith as state religion.
The guillotine’s work is never ending
Le Comte Benoit, Pressi’s would-be Father-in-Law, is beheaded
Pressi doesn’t seem too upset. In fact he escorted Benoit to the scaffold.


Monday 2nd June 1794
Five years to the day, we’re back on duty outside the city catacombs
Citizen Rigaut (no longer a royalist physician) leads a precession of carts laden with bones
The overflowing cemeteries require the bones of the dead to be removed to the catacombs
Rigaut’s workers carry the bones.
The workers are silent, shuffling obedients with burlap sacks over their heads
We are ordered not to go into the catacombs
We follow Rigaut and his workers into the catacombs

Babin pulls a sack off a worker’s head
The dead face of Le Comte Benoit stares back at Babin
The purple dust vampire in the passage
The creature that we once knew as Doctor Rigaut
The flesh of thousands of skulls

An unexpected friend aids our escape
Tunnels far beneath the streets of Paris
The ghoul den in the ancient Roman ruins of Lutetia
Breaking out of the underworld tunnels we return to gay Paris

VII THE LONG VERSION

Spring 1794
In the five years since the start of the revolution, Pressi, Hugeland Beaumains had become stalwart veterans of the First Republic. Joseph maintained an open secret of her identity. Her colleagues knew, but her military paymasters did not. Dupois and Renault remained in the army too, but more out of necessity than loyalty. Renault had a family to feed. Dupois had an addiction to feed. Babin alone had turned his back on the military but hard times forced his return.

Many institutions suffered under the censorship of the Committee. Colleges and medical institutions were closed, the churches too had been closed and all royal iconography was banned. The First and Second Estates had been effectively dismantled. Catholicism had become a matter for private devotion; there were no priests, no masses, and no meetings for common prayer allowed. A new state religion had been introduced to replace traditional norms, one of control, namely Robespierre’s Culte de l'Être supreme—the Cult of the Supreme Being.

Despite five years of cruel persecution, the business of the guillotine showed no signs of abating in its daily public displays at le Place de la République. In April 1794, Captain Louis Malon was beheaded in public having been accused of being an enemy of the Republic for daring to raise a drink to the memory of the king during a drunken moment in a Paris tavern. A few days later Malon was followed to the guillotine by Le Comte Benoit, the long-time prospective father-in-law to Christophe Pressi. Pressi was part of the escort that led Benoit to the scaffold. Benoit had always despised Pressi. A lowly soldier was not good enough for his daughter Melody. Their marriage was never to be allowed. Pressi suppressed a smile as the blade dropped. Melody, in the crowd to witness her father’s demise, screamed and fled the execution square, utterly distraught. With the obstacle to their love removed, Pressi made a mental resolution to console poor Melody as soon as he could get off duty.

Monday 2nd June 1794

Five years on, our lot hasn’t changed much
There was much to do for the Revolutionary Guard, the Festival of the Supreme Being was less than a week away. This was to be the great celebration in Paris of Robespierre’s new cult. The city was to look its best. For us, this evening, it meant being part of the operation to tidy the overcrowded cemeteries. The graveyards brimmed with the victims of consumption, starvation and the guillotine. Five years ago to the day we were posted to the catacombs and here we are again, on guard duty at the catacomb entrance. A convoy of black carts would bring the remains of the dead for re-internment in the great labyrinth beneath the city, and we have the exciting obligation to oversee the movement of bones.

Bring out your dead
In the darkness of late evening, a gaggle of destitutes gathered nearby in hope of finding casual labour. A procession of black carts soon emerged from the gloom. Their horses were spooked and skittish—the drivers needing to keep them in check. Aside from the driver, each bone-laden cart carried a passenger. The passengers wore burlap sacks over their heads, like hoods, with no holes cut for eyes or mouth.

Citizen Rigaut
Lucien Rigaut, accompanying the carts, rides up on a horse. No longer Doctor Rigaut, but Citizen Rigaut. His fashions have changed, no more dandy wig and white powder make-up of the aristocracy, he looks instead every bit a citizen of the Republic. As he dismounts we cannot but notice the mottled skin of his neck partially covered by a high collar. He orders the carts to halt and the burlap-hooded workers begin transferring the bones. Rigaut strides up to us with an air of arrogance. He narrows his eyes and speaks to us with authority, “Do I know you?” before we can answer he continues in a facetious tone: “Oh yes. You’re the men responsible for taking down that monster. France owes you a debt.” Rigaut gives an unnerving smile. “Clear the area of that rabble!” he orders, gesturing at the crowd of hopeful labourers. There would be no requirement for extra labour this night and there were no priests present to bless the dead.

Do we stay or do we follow?
“Remain here at your post,” barked Citizen Rigaut as he ushered the hooded workers into the catacombs. Each worker moved in silence with a hunched shuffle and an armful of bones. Their facial features were hidden by the sacks over their heads. Rigaut led his entourage into the catacombs holding up a lantern against the darkness of the black passageways beyond the entrance. Periodically workers would reappear empty-handed to collect more bones. As each cart was emptied the driver would take it back to the cemetery to refill it. Eventually we became restless. What’s going on in the catacombs? Do we stand at our posts as ordered or will our curiosity to investigate prevail?

Unmasked
Dupois relieves a cart of its lanterns and we use them to light our way into the catacombs. We do our best to follow the tracks of the workers. Thousands of skulls lining the walls of the depressing passageways stare back at us as our lanterns reveal them. Oddly, some have a strange mandala symbol carved into their foreheads. At one point a worker passes us as he makes his way back to the waiting carts outside. The worker seemed to be unhindered by the darkness and made no effort to avoid bumping into us as he shuffled along his course. When the next worker came into view, Babin stood in his path and reaching out, removed the burlap hood from the worker’s head. Everyone recoiled in shock.

Haven’t we met somewhere before?
Beneath the hood was a hideous visage. It was the dead face of Le Comte Benoit. The eyes were blank, the skin was pale and rough stitch work held together decaying flesh. There was a thin but clear line at the severed neck. The whole head had been stitched onto the body of a lithe woman. Once its head was exposed the creature animated with rage and lurched forward smashing a fist into Babin’s jaw. Pressi steeped up and ran his blade through the body beneath Benoit’s head, before a sweeping blow of Renault’s sword beheaded Benoit..…again. The shuffling of workers’ feet somewhere further along the passage stopped momentarily, then started up again in its monotonous dragging sound.

The purple dust monster
As we continue to follow the workers’ tracks, admittedly with more trepidation than before, we pass numerous branching passage ways leading into deep black voids. Every passage is lined with the bones of the dead. We notice among them more and more skulls carved with the mysterious mandala pattern. And then, up ahead, we spy a strange purple luminescence. The dim purple glow attracts motes of dust that dance around it. We watch aghast as the dance of dust and detritus of the ancient dead whirls around to become an eddy, despite no breeze in the catacombs to fuel it. For a moment we thought we could see a fanged maw in the swirling dust. The whirlwind abruptly rushed toward us and burst past us in the blink of an eye. It then disappeared as suddenly as it had manifested.

The Defiler
Recovering our courage we continued to move on, deeper into the underground world. Eventually we caught up with Rigaut. When we find him he is busy with a surgeon’s scalpel, carving a pattern into the flesh and bone of Captain Malon’s decapitated head. Dupois cries out, “Defiler of the dead!” Rigaut looks up and flashes a malignant grin. He drops the head and strides confidently toward us. His shirt is open and we can see his skin is covered with thousands of skulls marked on his flesh like brands or tattoos. Rigaut has a daunting inexplicable presence about him and his eyes are a deep black-in-black flecked with stars.

Nothing left of the man we knew
Rigaut’s movement is a blur. Not since the vampire of Poissy have we witnessed a creature move so fast. Dupois manages to fend off the assailant with his sword. Pressi and Renault launch a concerted counter-attack and strike true with their blades. Two deep cuts are delivered to Rigaut, but the wounds heal instantly, though two small skulls etched on his skin scream and fade away. Babin sweeps his axe along a row of skulls destroying at least one marked with a mandala. Another skull on Rigaut’s skin fades away with a shriek. Rigaut is only getting angrier and his body is covered in thousands of pictogram skulls. It is clear that whatever manner of creature it is that the person we once knew as Doctor Rigaut has become, we cannot hope to defeat it. We turn and run.

An unexpected friend
As we flee in terror, Rigaut gestures with his hands and in response carved skulls explode and cause passages to collapse, blocking our escape route. We are forced to turn down branching paths, plunging into unknown depths. As we run we hear the thumping footfall of our pursuer some way behind us. It is then we are startled by a voice in the shadows: “If you want to live, follow me,” the voice hisses. We shine our lanterns to see a strange creature—a repellent parody of humanity—hunched almost down on all fours by a low tunnel entrance. Its eyes glint in the lantern light and its curled lip reveals pointed fangs. It signals us to follow and crawls into the burrow. Rigaut’s stomping is closing in on us. We choose the lesser of two evils and plunge into the tunnel.

Lutetia
For a while we scramble along the tunnel, sometimes having to shift loose earth, sometimes tumbling as the tunnel slopes downward and other times clawing our way uphill. We are utterly lost in a subterranean realm, but we are confident that we have at least shaken our pursuer. Eventually we emerge into a cavernous space to be faced with the buried ruins of Lutetia, the Roman town upon which Paris was later founded. Our guide continues to beckon us to follow as it navigates broken Roman foundations. It pushes through an opening and as we follow we find ourselves dropping down onto a triclinium, marking the dining room of a Roman villa. In this ancient chamber is a den of creatures that look just like our guide—feeding on a headless cadaver, freshly stolen from the catacombs. The creatures react angrily to our intrusion but our guide interjects himself between us and frightens them to back down. “Ghouls” whispers Pressi to the rest of us. One of the creatures clutches a human torso protectively as if afraid we are here to steal its meal.

The smell of fresh air
Passing through several more Roman ruins our guide leads us to an upwards tunnel that eventually breaks out into the city above us. We draw lungfuls of fresh air. Trying to orientate ourselves, we recognise the Jardin de Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens). We have emerged in the heart of the city. Grateful though we are to our mysterious guide, we still find the creature quite repulsive. Having broken out of the tunnel ahead of us, it now squats above us on a mound of earth, glaring down; its repugnant visage and deadly fangs accented by the moonlight.

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VIII THE SHORT VERSION

Monday 2nd June 1794
Interview with the Ghoul
Speaking in riddles.
The end of times. The vortex.
The void at the heart of the cosmos.
The opening of the Eye of Azathoth.
The toll of ten thousand souls.
The Festival of the Supreme Being is just days away.
How do we save the world?
The black book.
Stop the toll. Unmake the ritual. Defeat Rigaut. Home for tea and scones croissants.


Wednesday 4th June 1794
Stake out at Rue Nueve Saint Augustin
The chaos sigil etched above the door lock
Dupois picks the lock
The sigil transfers to his fingertip
The surgery. The coffin. The decapitated body. The head.
A trunk full of robes and burlap sacks.
The nine-fingered cadaver in the study
The ledger of 9,974 souls.
We have the black book.


Thursday 4th June 1794
Dupois is cursed. The sigil marks both hands.
Blanco is taken out.
The Supreme Void
What we really need is a willing martyr and the Music from Beyond.

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VIII THE LONG VERSION

Disclaimer: I did my best with note-taking this week. It wasn’t easy. In order to present a coherent story (I hope) I’ve had to employ a modicum of poetic license.


Monday 2nd June 1794

Interview with the ghoul
To satisfy a point of personal curiosity Pressi asked the ghoul: “Were you human once?” The ghoul tilted his head as if trying to remember. “Yes. Once……….Yes, I was Guillame. But that was long ago and I recall so little of before.” Guillame, with a sad countenance, gazed toward the pallid moon hanging in the night sky. “These are the end of times,” he sighed. Dupois asked: “How so?” Guillame turned his attention to Dupois. “You think Paris is normal like this? All of this death; this disease, starvation……the guillotine? Hmmn?” the ghoul mused in its rasping speech. The creature returned its gaze to the heavens, lost in its own thoughts.

Speaking in riddles
Renault re-engaged the ghoul in conversation “Do you know the man who chased us?” Guillame ignored the question and instead began to spout nonsense: “The citadel is a swirling vortex. The vortex is the void that spins as the blade falls. The souls of the beheaded are sent to the void at the heart of the cosmos; the realm of Azathoth—the Demon Sultan. There, for a moment, their voices join the melody of the stars. When ten thousands souls have been sent to the throne, the choir of skulls will sing and the eye of Azathoth will open.”

Guillame slackened his posture, looking suddenly forlorn, like one resigned to an inescapable and terrible doom. The creature continued: “The toll is almost complete. I have seen the proof of it in the dream city of Inganok. There is a blind onyx carver who chisels the names in a language he does not understand. The names are the daily toll. In his moments of rest the blind man listens for the sound of ending, so that he may lay down his tools.”

A language he does not understand? asked Babin, trying to keep up with the ghoul’s riddles. “French!” stated Guillame boldly, as if this should be obvious. The ghoul then elucidated, "The daily toll is the count of victims, beheaded by the falling blades across all of France. The toll is almost reached!”

What about Rigaut?
Renault asked Guillame again, “Do you know the man who chased us? Do you know Rigaut?”
“I have seen him” replied Guillame; “I have seen him consult the black book with the shining bindings.”
“And these portents you describe. Does Rigaut conspire to bring about some sort of doom?”
“He is the architect.”
“How do we stop him?”
“You have seen his power for yourself. He is invincible” breathed Guillame. The creature looked thoughtful for a moment, then spoke again: “The black book he possesses. It is a book of power and knowledge. Perhaps it may hold the means to unmaking. If the toll is broken, the eye will not open. Rigaut would no longer be the instrument. Surely then he would be reduced to mortality once more?”
Renault sensing urgency pressed Guillame, “Can we not find a way to kill Rigaut right now?”
“Without the unmaking? Hah!” scoffed the ghoul. “The power within Rigaut is shared among an army of skulls in the catacombs beneath our feet. Even if you were to crush every skull, the power would reside in the dust. The dust of the skulls would still remember. And you cannot destroy the dust.”

The toll
As if reading our next thought, Guillame continued. “Nor can you end the toll by destroying the guillotines that send the souls to the chaos void. That task would be futile. The blades are many and divided across the breadth of the nation. You have not the time. So many have died across France. The toll will soon be complete. The great festival is only a few days from now: The Festival of the Supreme Being. A fitting title for the coming of an entity of immeasurable power, n’est pas?”

The book
We need to find the black book. We recognise Guillame’s description of it. There was one just like it among the tomes on the shelf in Fenalik’s dungeon. Captain Malon had everything confiscated. He and Rigaut took control of it all. Rigaut must have had the black book in his possession this last five years, ever since the episode at Poissy. “More than enough time for a tome of the occult to corrupt a man” suggested Pressi.

Fenalik
As we discussed this topic amongst ourselves Guillame picked up on the mention of Fenalik. “Do you know the monster Fenalik? he asked. “Before the revolution and his disappearance Fenalik had great influence. He felt untouchable in these days and he murdered freely. The remains of his victims became our sustenance.” Guillame licked his lips. “One day I crept into the dungeon below his mansion at Poissy and witnessed the Count caressing the limbs of a white statue. His touch was soft, as if caressing a lover. He flew into a rage when he realised I was there. I ran. Fenalik pursued me to Paris where I sought refuge with my kin beneath the city.” At this Renault and Dupois spoke in unison: “We defeated Fenalik. He was committed to an asylum from which he will never be released.” Guillame started, “He is imprisoned?” the ghoul looked at us doubtfully. “Then Rigaut is the stronger. Unlike Fenalik, it is not blood that feeds Rigaut.”


Tuesday 3rd June 1794

A day of rest
The moon dipped and the first rays of the morning sun pierced the horizon. Guillame was overtaken with a sense of urgency. Without a further word the ghoul dove into the hole from which we had recently emerged and returned to the safety of its underground world. Wearily we trudged back to our own homes and each spent the day in periods of reflection and much-needed sleep.

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Wednesday 4th June 1794

Rigaut’s place
Rigaut resides at his splendid two storey apartment on the corner of le Rue Nueve Saint Augustin and le Rue de la Paix, close to the new government buildings near le Jardin des Tuiliers in Central Paris. The streets are densely built-up in terraced blocks of houses with tall facades and have no alleyways to divide them. The buildings lack spacious frontages; their front doors open directly onto the public pavements. The grand terraces however are well-kept and full of charm and character; the homes of citizens of good standing.

Stake out
We arrive early in le Rue Nueve Saint Augustin to establish a watch of Rigaut’s house from a vantage point across the street. At 6 am Rigaut arrives home on foot, from presumably a late night out. Four hours later he reappears and takes a carriage in the direction of central Paris. Beaumains hails a sedan to follow him whilst the rest of us remain on watch to observe the routine of Rigaut’s house. There is no access to the rear of the property so we must watch the front, where we are restricted from approaching any closer without drawing attention to ourselves, due to the constant flow of traffic and pedestrians. We notice the occasional household servant pass by a window, but so far only Rigaut has passed the threshold of the front door.

The afternoon
Beaumains returns to us just after midday to report. He followed Rigaut to le Place de la République, where he has gone to watch the day’s executions. Joseph grumbled quietly, “To watch all those souls disappear to the centre of the universe.” In the middle of the afternoon Rigaut returns, and just in time too, because a number of people begin to arrive over the next couple of hours in ones and twos. A butler admits them on their arrival. Each stays a few minutes and departs again. We recall that Rigaut is a physician and surmise these must be his patients. But is he running a genuine practise or is this all a front for something more sinister? We consider sending one of our own to the house in pretence of being a patient. Rigaut though knows us all, but perhaps he wouldn’t recognise Joseph as Josephine. In the end we decide against this course of action and continue our watch instead.

The evening
It is after 5 pm and the comings and goings continue. First a black funeral carriage arrives in the street. Rigaut’s butler emerges from the house, converses with the carriage driver and hands over money. The driver then supervises as labourers take a coffin from the carriage and deliver it into the house. Delivery complete, the carriage leaves. Later a gaggle of well-dressed visitors arrive. We recognise one of them as Prosecutor Fouquer. The butler admits the guests who stay for less than an hour before all depart. It is now 9 pm and the traffic in the street is thinning out. At 11 pm a red coach draws up outside Rigaut’s apartment and waits for a few minutes. Rigaut steps out of the house, climbs into the coach and with the clatter of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones, the coach moves away. At midnight, the lights at the house windows were extinguished and the household servants left the building. Unless there are live-in servants, the house should now be empty.


Thursday 5th June 1794

The chaos ward
Now is our opportunity. We move directly over to the house. Dupois unravels a leather pouch containing wire picks. Above the door lock is a strange sigil, carved in the form of a circular swirling mass. Pressi is convinced it’s an occult ward, but we have no other point of access. Dupois fumbles at the lock and with a click the front door swings open. As the door moves Dupois recoils as a spike of unnatural force jolts his arm and his picks break off in the lock. Joseph notices the door sigil is gone. Dupois looks at his hand to see the sigil has transferred to his fingertip. Joseph volunteers to cut off Dupois’ finger, “A curse. That finger must come off!” Dupois declines the offer.

The surgery
We push our way inside the building and enter a spacious vestibule. Several doors lead off the hall and a sweeping staircase leads to the upper floor. We split up to search the property. Babin finds a surgery on the ground floor. There is a treatment table and pharmaceutical cabinets containing numerous bottles, surgical instruments and medical texts. There is also a trunk and a wooden coffin. Inside the trunk are folded dark robes and burlap hoods. Inside the coffin were the decapitated body of a young woman and the head of a middle-aged man. Babin gives an involuntary shriek at this discovery.

An old nine-fingered acquaintance
Aside from the surgery, the other downstairs rooms—the vestibule, kitchen, scullery, parlour and drawing room, yield nothing of interest. Upstairs consists of several bedchambers and a study. Pressi pushed the study door and was startled when the preserved cadaver of Pope Martin V lunged at him. The cadaver was inert. It had simply toppled forward in response to being knocked by the opening door. The study had a window overlooking the street and within was dominated by an imposing leather-topped desk, a cabinet of drawers and numerous wooden bookshelves. A poster adorned one wall and several texts were arranged along the shelves. On the desk rested a large ledger.

The study
The wall poster was an advertisement for the upcoming Festival of the Supreme Being, encouraging the masses to attend. The desk ledger contained a register of names, arranged by date and listed under several French towns. A running total of the number of names was provided. The current total read 9,974. Realising the significance Dupois went to put his head in his hands, only to notice the mark of the sigil had moved from the tip of his finger to the palm of his hand. In the cabinet we discovered a number of wax-sealed scrolls and a leather-bound black book with brass bindings, its handwritten pages inked in a crabbed Latin. We had found the book.

Time to leave
With the book secured, and after pilfering food and a few silver valuables for good measure, we exited the apartment. As we walked away along the street, Dupois’ arms hung limp at his sides. He felt a great weight dragging at them. The sigil of swirling chaos was now clearly marked on both of his hands and exuded a faint purple glow. “I am doomed,” sighed Dupois. It was now well after midnight. Dupois invited us to his house to rest. “If I’m to die. I want to die there,” he said with resignation.

Jean Dupois
By the time we put a weary Dupois to bed, his chest laboured to breath and his heart glowed with a dim hue of purple. He could hardly lift his hands now. He felt weak. A pang of guilt overtook him when he realised he would not be able to care for his beloved dog. “Take Blanco out,” he implored us. Pressi fired his pistol and the dog gave a pathetic yelp. “No. I meant for a shit,” cried Dupois.

Reading the book
We plied Dupois with enough cognac to knock out a lesser man, and then left him to rest and weep in bed while the rest of us settled down with the black book. Its first page was inked with the words—The Supreme Void. Below the words was a sketch depicting human sacrifice beneath a starry sky. The stars seemed to move in swirling patterns, even as we regarded them. We flipped through the dense pages of Latin script hoping something would catch our eye. Many of the pages were filled with mind-bending diagrams and stanzas espousing themes of madness of which we were unable to make any sense. Though the author is not named, the clues in the pages reveal he was a Spanish friar, excommunicated and expelled to the New World. Eventually we alighted upon a passage that may have relevance to our cause:

Excerpt from The Supreme Void
We no longer do the Lord’s work. The excesses of the Inquisition are a bloody continuation of Satan’s own scheme to devote souls to the blackest of hells, an infernal expanse so benighted that it lies behind the stars and eclipses heaven itself. This nightless realm is the domain of the fallen angel Uzotottal, a being of supreme evil, worshipped with blood sacrifice by the Uztecs.

Should ten thousand souls be sacrificed to this terrible devil beyond the stars in the space of one year, cut open with a blade inscribed with that foul circular design, then Uzotottal’s hell of unending night shall open on Earth. Heaven would be lost to us forever.

Only music beyond even that of angels could exorcise this greatest and supreme of all demons, greater than Lucifer himself. If a martyr who has heard such Music from Beyond would offer himself up for sacrifice even as did the Son upon the cross, only then would Uzotottal be undone and the fields of the Earth denied to him in his shame and unworthiness.

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IX THE SHORT VERSION

Friday 6th June 1794
Two days until the Festival of the Supreme Being
We need to find Dietrich Zann (and a willing martyr)
Our search leads us to the tenements of Rue Feydou
There’s dozens of tenements and hundreds of apartments
Little man syndrome—let’s knock the door of the tallest tenement
The attic room—home of the Zann family

Zann is in a world of his own
Renault provides Selene and Hieronymous with a safe place to go
The music from beyond
The room melts and our ears bleed
The chaos at the heart of the universe
Azathoth is with us—everybody scream
Babin’s brain melts