The Heart of the Master

Vox. The captain cries: “Behold, the Star in the West!” Instant on that comes silence. But among us the sudden stirring warns me that not all were sleeping; that there were watchers like myself, men more intent than I. I hear a murmur on my left. I catch three words: “The Zero Hour.” They call me back to myself: I know now that I am one of a great army—an army baffled and broken, but yet in being. Sharp comes a whisper of swift absolute authority: Zero is Two. Somehow I am aware—like a man stricken of lightning, in the same moment slain and initiated—that the strange phrase declares a final Mystery of Truth, the word of the Plan of Battle, the Key of the Campaign. But in my mind its meaning is most utter darkness. Again the solemn stillness. Few were they who had heard the voice of the young captain: for the sleep of all but the youngest and strongest was the sleep of death. Even of these the fate was ill indeed; for their minds had been distraught by the bitterness of their hearts. So, when they noticed the Voice, they mocked. I heard: “A Star in the West. What folly!” or: “That is no voice of any leader of ours.” or: “Star in the West? Beware: that is the Star called Wormwood.” Then, presently, from the blind land behind the mountain, comes one heavy groan, then the sound of a fall, made vile by a titter of malignant tinkling laughter. There follow ghoulish wailings. The mystery, the evil darkness of these incoherent cries, sets my teeth on edge with horror. And yet I cannot give up the hope which thrilled me at the Voice. But so keen, so desolate, so deadly is the pain of my spirit that blank darkness overwhelms me altogether. Umbra. Within the Vision is a dream—I struggle in my sleep in a morass of blood and mud. Howlings more bestial than hell's: stench at whose touch, solid as putrid flesh itself, I retch with the pangs of death; most frantic madness: phantoms of crime, ice-cold, ghosts made of murder—the nightmare seems interminable—no, it exhausts itself, sick with its own foulness, and sinks into a solid stupor.