By John Tynes, © 1994
[This was the first “Message” to really work, I think, and I’m still pleased with it. Astute readers will notice the “Masks of Nyarlathotep” reference contained herein. — John Scott Tynes, 1994]
Johann faxed me the note from the plush home of a minor despot somewhere in the jungles of Malaysia. The man was a callous butcher; had he ruled a larger area, Amnesty International would have been on his case long ago. But his cooperation with our efforts was essential in getting the work done in his private little backyard of a feifdom, and Johann and I had years ago ceased to view morality as a force of any importance whatsoever.
Johann’s note was succinct, written in the careful penmanship drilled in him by the nuns at St. Elegius: “Tomb explored. Artifact en route to you via FedEx. Definitely of Jeffersonian origin.”
Jefferson’s parents had named him Thomas Xavier, reflecting their admiration for a firebrand politician and a musician named Cugat. The three of us – Johann, Thomas, and I – had been partners of sorts, brothers in secrets. We’d smuggled guns and drugs and people: dictators and dissidents, couriers and killers. Our private interests had little to do with how we made our living. Profits from our enterprises were funneled into strange purchases, bribes, and the sponsoring of quiet expeditions. We were searching for knowledge that would have bored or frightened most people, knowledge of what had lived before our species arose, and lived yet in secret places.
Then Jefferson fell in love. Suddenly he regained a semblance of conscience, and clutched for the threads of a soul. When he abandoned our efforts and became an interference, Johann arranged for Jefferson’s lover to have a fatal “accident.” That night, the minions of Cthugha struck, burning three of our warehouses full of metal merchandise waiting to be shipped. It was obvious who was responsible.
Miles Shipley’s hungry painting brought things to an end. I had acquired it only recently, and Jefferson knew nothing of it or its power. It was not difficult to have it slipped into the sleazy apartment he had just taken under an assumed name. Come morning, I retrieved the painting, approaching it from behind and draping a cloth over it so as not to suffer from its effects. Thomas Xavier Jefferson simply vanished.
Morning brought the arrival of the promised package from Johann. Within it was a corroded liquor flask, the initials TXJ still barely visible. The tomb it was discovered in was older than mankind, though no archeologist would accept this as true. The serpent people of old knew how to make things last.
The metal flask had lain in this tomb for thousands of years, undisturbed, until now. Jefferson had left it there, knowing that we had already worked out a rough idea of the tomb’s location from references in a few moldering texts and something glimpsed through the conjure glass of Mortlan. He knew that we would go there before too long, and that when we did we would know that he had been there already, thousands of years before.
According to our researches, the tomb contained a time portal, one keyed to astronomical events. As I write this, on July 11, 1991, CNN relays footage of the beginnings of this century’s greatest solar eclipse. It begins with the dawning of the day in Hawaii, then creeps across the continent. By all reports, here in Mexico City the view of the eclipse will be extraordinary. In an hour or so I’ll step over to my balcony and stare directly into the blinding gulf of the eclipse, like they tell you not to. I’d like to have done something memorable before Jefferson comes back.