The old man was of an
inordinate age—
He left a mound-lore (of the Tor)
Perhaps mostly of fragile gossip, yet it was food
for thought.
“It is the only hillock around Summerset, and
considered quite old…
A manmade structure, once known as Avalon, which had a moat of water
surrounding it…!”
My start was timid—
I carried a handbag, field glasses, a steel pistol,
strong rope, incidentals for emergencies, and a trench-knife, along with a
heavy battery-operated flashlight—
To those who knew me, I was set out for a certain
doom.
At one time, the mound, or Tor—during the 10th
Century A.D., was known for its expression of infinite evil.
Although I could not concur with this.
At present there was a slight decadence to the
ancient long-rounded- mound, with striking features, as I did my surveying and
orbiting by foot to its perimeter—
Hence, convincing me it was an artificial tumulus (perchance dating
as far back to the days of the Neanderthal, if not proto-Neanderthal, or some
intergalactic alien burial grounds, like Stone Heap of the Wildcat, in the
Golan Heights of Israel).
But where was its inner door to its massive
passageways, roads, corridors throughout its body?
No maps or signs existed to or from its lower to
its top, of where once it had been quite visible to the monks of old.
On its summit was a plateau of some three-hundred
feet in dimensions, and a section of an old relic tower, perhaps once a chapel,
or monastery, destroyed in the late 10th or 11th Century
A.D., after King Richard the Lionhearted visited Glastonbury (Summerset,
England), coming home from the first of the Crusades, stopping to see King
Arthur’s grave site, which I had visited ((dating back to the 4th or 5th
Century A.D.)(At the time of the fall of the Roman Empire))
The whole mound was covered with rank grass, dense
underbrush.
The old man had told me of several friars, who had
found the entrance, sometime in the14th or 15th Centuries, only one
finding his way out, a monk who had become known as the Mad Monk, thereafter.
Now as I turned about, the old man had disappeared
a little hauntingly-like; then I made a complete 360-degree turnabout, no
longer was in sight.
In consequence, I started to wonder, as I climb the
mound of his identity, he had just happened to be there when I arrived, full of
information—
‘Could he have been a collective hallucination with
the community?’ I pondered on that thought for a moment, or an apparition? Who’s to
say!
As I looked back at the village, I knew but a few
of the town’s folks, for this was my second visit, my first in 2002, wherefore,
I had visited the Tor, and at which time I had also visited also King Arthur’s
gravesite, this time—fourteen years later, I wanted to find its entrance; find
it and venture into its labyrinth, into its heart!
Several of the town’s folks were by the guesthouse
I was staying, some 300-feet from the skirt of the mound, leaning on the thick
wooden fence, watching me with spyglasses, studying my every step.
I waved my hand to show jauntiness, and self-confidence.
Then picked back up my shovel and machete to clear
a path through the high grasses and thickets.
It appeared to me at times, there was a drawing
force not uncommon to the town’s folks—but to me—who found themselves often at
the skirt of the mound, unaware of them having walked there, perhaps that was
the simplest explanation for the old man’s presence, and disappearance.
By late afternoon I noticed a light slump alongside
the east end of the mound, halfway up her slope, covered by entangling roots
and earth and several large boulders.
I figured behind these large rocks would be a good
place to start my digging stage.
My shovel quivered, as I made my first strike into
its side…
The shovel acted as if attracted by some draw or
attraction, some magnetism in the soil.
Then I turned up the soil with my trench-knife, cut
the heavy roots away, layer after layer…
I could smell the prehistoric dirt, it had a
submitting odor, and the roots were like thick elephant trunks, I tugged harder
and harder, chopping harder and harder, more and more, harder always prying
inwardly.
After an hour or so, I had uncovered an old
cylinder, hard as teakwood —
It was eldritch dark within that manhole I had
unearthed, hence finding the entrance large enough for me to crawl in on my
belly, but not stand up, perhaps move about like a giant gopher might—
It was too late for the village personage with
binoculars to have seen this discovery!
And so I sat back, and looked at the craftsmanship
of the item, it was of a carved Christian cleric representation of the
apostles, with fancy designs rippling from the top to the bottom of the thing.
The opening to the cylinder was quickly opened and
its sole contents was a haughty if not pompous, if not ostentatious scroll, in
old English.
It was hard to decipher the script of the vanished
writer—
From what I could make out of it and confirm, is
the fury of the person writings, and for me the curiosity of its age, which I
placed between the 14th or 15th Century; a good guess at
best.
The scroll told about the prior clergy who had
risked all to circumvent, to outwit the tunnels of the Tor, in finding its
underground cavities, its ancient relics, there within hidden.
So I had found the entrance to the mound’s
subterranean world—
It appeared to me this writer of the scroll never
made it back out of the mound, but knew of the mad monk that did.
His name was not on the scroll, of which was of an
earlier date, from his exploits.
Now came the onrush of the night, and as a result,
the whole day had overtaken me.
I had not finished reading the scroll, lest I use
up my battery, nor dare I return to the village—
As I gazed for the last time with my flashlight
into the Tor’s strange deep mouth where no humans had entered for untold eons,
deep into its paleoanthropic night, it produced goosebumps all over my body.
I knew inside that aperture it would be another
world.
What did the mad monk see that sent him back?
What made him thunderstruck?
The scroll would not tell, but he knew.
Surely there was an evil world within the maze of
the mound!
Probably many of the passages were now closed-up,
sunk from one layer down to another.
Save demons could very well be in league with evil
spirits, or ghosts down where they dwelt, in its core belly, or wherever.
A dark-blue shaded mist came seeping out of the
entrance, old gases held in for centuries I presupposed, it provided, I felt, a
false lurking terror.
I replaced the scroll back into its home, till
morning (not wanting to explain my curious finding to the village folk, as I
remained put), and then fell to sleep.
I could not help shivering throughout the night,
awakening, and falling back to sleep several times, it was as if those elephant
roots I cut turned into abnormal snake-like forms.
In the morning I found those roots were still
roots, but somehow they seemingly transformed into an octopus arrangement, or
in preparation to do so.
At the time I took it for a sort of occipital
interference.
I again pulled the cylinder to my side, opened it
to read another paragraph, it read, and I shall paraphrase it in brief:
“The roots to the entrance will form heads, should
you venture beyond them, and follow you like snakes, so the mad monk told me.
I have yet to find out. If there is any truth to
that.
These roots are as old as the antediluvian age, I
believe.
And are semi-anthropomorphic, that is to say:
unhuman with human motivation.
It is said the treasures of King Arthur are buried
under the mound. I leave this scroll for he who dares!”
I lowered the scroll, perhaps the writer was
exaggerating, and perhaps he was mad too, then read onto the 3rd
paragraph:
The Scroll ((to the cryptic
doorway) (3rd Paragraph))
“This
mound, the Tor, had nightmare battles reflecting those which had been fought in
those far-off days, before the openings was closed, so the Mad Monk had told
me, how he learned this, is a mystery.
Whomever
the Old Ones were, which is seldom brought to light, they themselves were
half-ghosts, or aliens, who’s to say, indeed, they were different in that they
never did grow old, yet they remain as being the Old Ones, consisting of flesh
and spirit, perhaps inhabiting human bodies, as would a demon.
But
they did breathe, with a faint strain of human blood, a people of a carnivorous
race.
Perchance
they recruited those who searched those tunnels, to become their human flesh
slaves, revived.
In
essence what I am saying, these beings, knew how to make a corpse into a
mechanization, or automation to represent them open-endedly, and perform at
their will, when engaged by streams of thought.
This
Tor is eon’s old, with entities from the stars, hideous beings.”
Surely there were burial chambers throughout the
mound, in its long history, but for me to venture into the tunnels throughout
the Tor, was liken to climbing Mount Everest, of which only a few have done.
In this case, only one man in all of history had
accomplished this, and went mad in doing so.
But he did return, meaning he found a turnabout, a
U-turn of sorts within this earth heap.
But to return as a mad cockroach, was not to my
taste.
I also know in this part of Summerset, England
there were many brooks, linking to rivers, underground water, and wells that
led to brooks and alike.
This could be a means of escape, for the Tor was
once called Avalon, to which it was more of an island, with a drawbridge,
crossing from one side to the other.
. . .
An hour inside the site, into the belly of the Tor,
it was as if I was in the belly of Jonah’s whale.
I was crawling on my belly, arms extended forward,
I heard in the distance some sort of thing, or things rattling on, panicking to
get out of my way.
The quality of the air, was washed-out, just
tolerable, and the dampness depressing.
I found a
cyclopean chamber, here were the great roots, the mad monk was talking about:
then quicker than a clap of an eye, the horror started, they took on a human
metamorphoses, forming into serpents with small human heads, then: took to
dematerialization, then a re-materialization, my mind was all blunted out by
the overabundance of these happenings: ‘Were these nightmares, or visions, or reality…?’ I questioned
myself, and how long could I endure this?
The longer I stayed in this chamber within the Tor,
the more I wished to leave, turn back, based on impulses of course.
Your body has radar, it tells you the radius of how
far your heart can go, or take before it bursts.
It also tells you of your mind’s capacity, to what
tolerance it can withstand before it breaks down.
I will resolve to hint here at last to the readers
what I dared not have even hinted to the village folk:
On that terrible March morning, I do not know just
how to say it, for it is strange: you see, a horror is a horror, but once seen,
it is forevermore never forgotten; hence, it is another thing!
It is as one might see a miracle, one never forgets
it, say what you will, but s/he who has experienced it, will validate it to the
day of death.
I stayed in that chamber for a dozen hours, and
came back out at night, as the village stood by awaiting to see if I’d return!
As a consequence, I came out babbling like an
idiot: crawling out of the hole like a mole, or a dried up cockroach: babbling
of these roots that turned into snakes with human heads, whom had kept moaning
for me to leave the Tor.
Those creatures had told me there was much more
brooding and festering awaiting for me, if I dare go any further, as I assumed
all but the mad monk did.
These creatures had no lower legs, or arms, just
heads, and a few customary parts of a human being, like hairy chests, small
saber-like teeth, as if for vampirism.
I got thinking, were these the same roots I chopped
or new ones within the earth mound’s soil? And were these half human serpents,
once human beings?
Very obviously, they were warning me.
I don’t think they were the same I had cut, but
they were as large as an elephant’s trunk, similar to those ones.
Thereafter, I was hospitalized for six months in an
asylum, no one believing a word of my madness, as expected of course, everyone
for the first month in the psych ward, kept their distance from me.
Then as I changed my story, to admitting I was
having hallucinations, only then did the hospital staff and psychologist agree
I had found my way back to reality!
But if you ask the town’s folks, they’d say: “He saw
something, a horror! Just like the Mad Monk.”
The Cyclopean Chamber (narrator’s point
of view)
Amongst
those serpent type creatures, I know I mentioned I saw, I also saw images of
men with blank stone or metal faces, and told this to the psychologist, nurses
of at the hospital, and other patients.
I
think to them—they thought—I conjured up a wretched semblance of what these
men, those before me who tried to navigate the tunnels, and had been long dead,
these lifeless forms who lorded above me like stolid monsters, that they might
have ruled, controlled or directed some immobility imposed upon me, should I go
forward of how to present them, was simply part of my hallucinations, and a
story to be told to some Weird Magazine, or newspaper for profit.
In
brief, those Old Ones in the Tor, wanting men to think the worse of them, lest
they seek to explore the Tor more…!
Yet
had I not my large battery light, the stone darkness of the tunnels, and that
cyclopean chamber would have forced me forward, and this story would have never
been told.
(The
narrator cannot help talking advantage of this moment, referring to the
Cyclopean Chamber, and a word of course is here for the protagonist, he is well
aware of the reproach, or criticism he got from the hospital staff, for
speaking of those effigies of men who made him in respect, what he saw.
He
was compelled, as indeed every human body was compelled to give a lighter
account or attention to those images—should they be allowed to escape the Tor,
and explain their ordeal—which was of course, left up to them to proceed
forward, or to turnabout!
In
any case, let us not assume that the protagonist acquired an assumed morbid
mind overnight, for such concrete illustrations of those beings and happenings,
for he ran a risk in telling, lest he be converted himself into the company of
the living dead.)
(3-31-2016 thru 4-3-2016) Drawing by the
author, 6/2007 / Copyright © by Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c. /“The Abomination of
the Tor”
