Forbidden Research

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Two: Serious Business

Forbidden Research

* * *

Rayne Hermit watched dispassionately as the latest trial spasmed out the last of his life at her feet. She waited a full minute after it stopped moving to crouch and feel for a pulse and respiration.

Feeling exasperation but no longer any sorrow, Rayne stood and walked quickly back to the scaffold. What happened to the bodies of these failed experiments was not something she cared to witness again.

The sand crunching under her boots looked black. A close inspection upon first arriving showed is was really a very dark indigo. Centuries of travel along the same path had broken up the crystalline stone that defined the landscape everywhere else.

Her gaze followed those crystals as they undulated in jagged facets and soared in twisting spires and improbably narrow mountains silhouetted against the sparkling grey of the sky. The whole island was covered so.

This small spot of land was one of the thousands more that comprised the Evanescents, the only known land actually in the Silvergrey Sea. Its existence was a carefully guarded secret.

It was one of many arcana of the Meraculus Mercurius that was hidden from all, even the Mercurii. The Order of Hermes had last exposed them three hundred years ago and had done their best to purge the M. M. from its ranks. It was to their credit that they almost succeeded. Ignorance of the Evanescents had been the deciding factor in the survival of the Pure Mercury.

The Meraculus Mercurius believed that knowledge was all; that its attainment justified any price. The chiefs of Order of Hermes had known about the true nature of the Silvergrey almost since the Order’s beginning, yet they had forbidden all research into that nature, giving as reason an outrageous lie concerning the Sea God, Poseidon. Any attempt to make use of existing knowledge of the Sea for research was also forbidden under the most severe of penalties; despite knowing it was a treasure trove of ancient wisdom.

The real reason was one the M.M. had never been able to uncover; just as their knowledge of the existence of the Evanescents was never revealed. The secrecy of the factions of the Order of Hermes frequently came back to haunt it.

Rayne was greeted with a question upon her arrival at the scaffold.

“Is he dead?” asked Brian. The young Hermetist, mostly in black, wore that look of tender concern with which only the very new to this endeavour were infected.

“Yes.”

“Why do so many fail?” The naïve idiot sounded plaintive.

She tried not to let her annoyance show. Brian Hermit’s emotions should anesthetize soon. If they didn’t, there was always the Sea, though she hated killing siblings.

“It’s a question of inner passivity,” she explained. “Few have the mindset that permits deliberate domination by another.”

“I thought we screened them for that.”

“It’s not easy to tell who has a true understanding of what ‘surrender’ means. Even for those who do know, the mind may rebel at the reality of what they are being subjected to.”

“Could it be the others?” Brian asked, referred to the souls snatched from the Sea.

Rayne and other members of the Meraculus Mercurius had entertained that question. They had no way of discriminating between individuals pulled from the Silvergrey until they could be questioned. Some may have had an opposition to the notion of living again. It was an idea not many found plausible.

If that were the case, the sheer number of failures would likely mean that almost all the others preferred non-existence. She, like most of the Meraculus Mercurius, rejected the idea out of hand. That those souls in the Sea should have being—could actually be alive—while in that Sea was one more thing she and her compatriots dismissed as nonsense. “Possible, but unlikely.”

There had been no successes in the years she had been a part of the M. M. According to the records to which she had access, there had been less than a dozen in the last thousand years. What those few had revealed had reinforced the resolve of the Meraculus Mercurius to continue. If they could manage handful of successes, they might be strong enough to come out in the open and remake the Order of Hermes into what it should be.

“Brian, go to the ship and tell the others we’re ready for the next candidate.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” If he felt troubled, he was hiding it better.

Or maybe he was finally acquiring the proper detachment.

As she waited for the next candidate, Rayne Hermit was again troubled by the notion that a soul welcoming incarnation would be one that sought to accomplish a sinister deed.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

© Gideon Jagged
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