Bad News for an Illicit Society

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Three: Conspiracies and Secret Orders

Bad News for an Illicit Society

* * *

As one of the two Elect, the direct advisors to the Mercurius, the Albedo’s was a busy life. He had to snatch sleep where he could. As the journey to the Evanescents would take almost thirty hours, he took the opportunity offered by isolation to reflect and to rest.

His assistant, Manfred, roused him to announce their goal was in sight.

The White Elect didn’t like taking one so new in the Order into his confidence to this degree but, as the Kokkinos had said, few could be trusted, now.

When the Albedo had first heard that Drago lived, he immediately informed his fellow Elect. Together, they took it to the Mercurius. The report had indicated the Hyborean had died subsequent to being rescued, but the trio all doubted that. The question raised was whether the Superior of the local chapterhouse, Abram, was in the Meraculus Mercurius or not. They decided to wait and keep watch on him.

Then the eruption in the archipelago in the Silvergrey Sea happened and removed their time for careful observation. Being privy to aspects of Order history denied all others, or so they thought, the triumvirate knew what it meant. No matter the risk, they had to move in and take whomever they could find now.

The Albedo was here to accomplish just that, while his fellow governors took steps to secure Mother Lodge and prepare to weather the coming storm.

The Elect climbed the short companionway to the steel deck of the Paracelsus. She was one of the newer ships in the armada. Sleek, sailless, and tiny, she was built for a maximum crew of only five. The Paracelsus was designed to move under as well as on the Sea. There were hidden pathways under the Silvergrey that greatly shortened travel times. Several destinations could only be reached with great difficulty other than by following them.

The anomalous archipelago called the Evanescents was one such.

He stood on the only bit of deck that existed on the small craft, clutching a pole that rose to meet his hand as he reached the top of the ladder. Before and below the Albedo he could just make out the hat of Manfred Hermit through the forward viewport as he piloted the ship toward the nearest island.

All seemed serene, but they were only getting started.

The Evanescents had never been completely mapped. What the Order knew of them extended over some half a million square miles of Sea. The islands were less land than they were steep, jagged spires. They got higher the farther from open Sea one went. Narrow passages, inlets, lagoons, coves, isolated pools, and even small lakes could be found among the countless bits of land. The rock was crystalline and a deep indigo, almost black.

The area where the Meraculus Mercurius had been committing its crimes three hundred years ago was close now. Manfred found an inlet that opened into a narrow river. The Paracelsus followed it slowly as it twisted between sheer spires for ten minutes. The ever-present light of the Silvergrey dimmed the farther it got from the open Sea.

Rounding a sharp bend, the Albedo could see a large pool of mercurial liquid. This was the stuff of the Silvergrey Sea. It looked so different because the light was so much dimmer here. Not that it was difficult to see. Everything was sharp etched and clear.

Too clear for his nerves, as it turned out.

A space a mile wide all around the lagoon had been blasted flat. Bits of midnight crystal lay about, some driven into what remained of spires still standing at the perimeter of the blast. The flattened areas were a paler purple, in places almost white. Crushed and shattered crystal covered them.

But all this damage was over three centuries old.

It was the blood and bodies on the shore that had the Albedo’s heart in his throat.

They had been here.

The rites had started again.

Manfred pulled closer to the shore and anchored the ship, extending the steel gangplank as he did so.

The White Elect slowly walked to the gravel beach.

A scaffold had been erected that overhung the edge of the lagoon. To one side were piled about thirty bodies. They had been from many worlds and were of all genders, all ages. A few more were scattered around, as if they had been dropped carelessly.

Suppressing sorrow and revulsion, the Albedo bent to examine one; a woman passed middle age. Eyes burnt out. Skin covered in eruption blisters, as if the blood in her veins had boiled. Her back was bent at a grotesque angle. He counted four crushed vertebrae that seemed to be the result of a massive seizure.

Manfred walked by to his left, as the latter’s examination proceeded, and began checking another. The Albedo stood and went to him.

He looked a question up at his superior. The Elect nodded. It was same as the one he had just examined.

They all were.

The reports of this happening long ago had not done justice to the horror of the thing.

Past the scaffold was a lighter line of sand: a trail.

“Come on, Manfred.” The Albedo pointed.

With a heavy sigh, his frowning assistant followed him.

The squealing and crunching of the sand under their boots were the only sounds. The report had mentioned an extensive area of occupation by the M. M. but didn’t give details.

It became clear as the two approached the broken wall of spires that there had been a much more recent disaster.

A smaller crater, only twenty yards across, and five deep interrupted the path.

At the bottom of it was a small pool of Silvergrey Sea. It was bubbling, as if more liquid were coming up. As he watched, the Elect could tell that was exactly what was happening.

He turned to tell Manfred to go and wait by the ship only to find he’d already left.

Something cold and heavy sat down in his bowels. The Albedo hurried back toward the ship.

He wasn’t halfway there before he could see the boat was gone.

Marooned.

But on whose orders? Who of his Order, besides his closest aide, had betrayed their Meraculus Mercurius allegiance?

The Albedo was afraid he knew but had to make sure.

Drawing his silver sword, the White Elect held it, point down by the handle, fingers interlocked on the hilt at the level of his heart.

Silently, the Albedo put out the call to the Kokkinos, his fellow Elect.

Silence only. Not even the strange pulling sensation that would have told him the Red Elect was unavailable.

The link had been severed. He didn’t bother trying anyone else and wondered if he’d be declared dead or a traitor.

Not that it mattered. That sickening sensation in his gut competed with a heavy weight of sorrow on his chest. Betrayed by his fellow Elect. For a dizzy moment, the Albedo thought the entire Order of Hermes had gone dark.

But no. The bulk of its leadership perhaps, no more.

The Albedo was not marooned. Not really. He was still a highly skilled Hermetist. The White Elect wondered at the wisdom of his betrayers, abandoning him as they had, when he could almost certainly manage to return and plead his case, or at least show that he was still alive. If the Mercurius were involved in the conspiracy, the Order’s Outer Head could declare his White Elect an apostate and order him killed on sight, he supposed.

The Albedo hoped that was not so. If the Hermetic Avatar had succumbed to the lure of forbidden knowledge, the Order of Hermes was as good as dead.

Enough gloomy thoughts. He shook off his funk and became the Purifier of Hermes once more.

First, the Albedo had to find out what happened here, then arrange transportation out of the Silvergrey.

He headed back to the smaller crater with its odd spring.

That crater was now almost half-full. He wondered if it would stop when it reached Sea level. He hoped it would. He’d never heard of anything like a spring in the Silvergrey Sea.

The Elect set to work.

Nothing that occurred in this strange pseudo-reality containing the Silvergrey Sea went unwitnessed. Truly, the Silvergrey and its strange sky were made of nothing but witnesses.

The Albedo set about calling some of them.

Once again, he drew his sword. This time he held it point up at the limit of his arms’ reach.

Silently, he called to the Watchers, the Garda.

At length, they descended. The Elect apprehended them as ripples against the background sparkle of the sky. Closer to, they couldn’t be seen, but he did feel them as tingles as they spiraled out of the sky and circled him.

The Albedo asked them, in that peculiar way they communicated, what had happened here to cause the filling crater.

They showed him.

He saw the preparation of a living being.

The summons of a dweller in the Silvergrey Sea.

The unholy union of the two.

He saw the horrible death that followed.

This happened repeatedly during a time span of decades, of centuries.

The Meraculus Mercurius had never been extinguished. Here had they dwelt, continuing their efforts to wrest information from the Sea in defiance of decency and the strongest laws the Order of Hermes could devise.

None of this included the disaster he’d had asked to see.

They saved that for last.

That last working had been done here, out of sight of the lagoon.

What happened had been unplanned and unprepared for.

The Albedo saw a creature of the rock of the Evanescents come alive and force its way into the body of a Hermetist.

The explosion that followed, even in memory, drove the White Elect to his knees, stunned.

When it settled, only the Hermetist possessed remained.

Nothing of the other dozen Hermetists and victims could be seen.

He saw her, that unfortunate Hermetist, floating above the crater, clothing burning away as he watched, eyes blazing with white light.

The Albedo saw, as the watchers explored her mind, her name, both old and new, and her mission. The Rebirth of the Templars was immanent.

Stunned, the Elect watched as she soared skyward and vanished among the sparks in the grey sky.

Drago was the Watr Man. The Albedo had just witnessed the incarnation of the Erthe Woman. She had to be headed for Azhure’en to fetch the Aer Elders.

She was after the dragons.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

© Gideon Jagged
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