Professor Fredrick opened the first pad, then fell into a concerned silence. For the next twenty minutes he examined one page after another. He seemed to be transfixed.
“What? What’s wrong?” Dr. Harold finally asked.
Professor Fredrick glanced up quizzically. “Ur-locs,” he said.
“What?”
“Several thousand years ago, Doctor, there was an offshoot of the Chiltern race. They were called the Ur-locs. It was an occult society, and one, I might add, that we know very little about. There can be no mistake here. Tharp knows more about the Ur-locs than most archaeology professors.”
Ur-locs, Dr. Harold thought.
“They were one of the most unique societies in history, and the only settlement in England to successfully resist every invasion of the island—the Celts, the Romans, the Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, even the Normans. We only know about them from the registries left by each invader. Every army that was ever dispatched against the Ur-locs never returned, and the Ur-locs, mind you, were an entirely female-dominated culture.”
That at least explained something. Tharp’s delusion was based on a premise of female superiority. All of the men in the sketches were clearly subservient to a female hierarchy.
“The Ur-locs themselves,” the old man continued, “were small in number, yet somehow they maintained a great power over large male populations. They were served entirely by men enslaved from invading camps or conquered settlements. Men did everything for them: fought their wars, cultivated their foods, built their towns. The Ur-locs reigned over a body of men dozens of times their own size.”
“But…how?”
“Probably just a very clever management of power and fear, like any successful monarchy. And then, of course, there are the legends.”
“What legends?”
Fredrick again attempted a smile. “The registries claim that the Ur-locs were witches and that they used witchcraft to enslave their attackers. That’s where the religious part comes in. The Ur-locs were savagely ritualistic. Their existence revolved around a single religious belief. They sacrificed thousands in appeasement to their god. These people made the Aztecs look like the Girl Scouts.”
So Tharp’s delusion was based on an actual ancient religious system, and that religious system was based on a specific object of belief.
“Tell me about their god,” Dr. Harold inquired next.
“Here, this right here,” Fredrick said. He pointed to the most memorable sketch, the beautiful buxom woman in moonlight whose face was just a maw of needlelike teeth. “They called it the Ardat-Lil. Tharp’s rendition is nearly perfect.”
Dr. Harold looked at the sketch again, and shivered in its obscene impact of perversion and beauty. The flawless hourglass figure and flawless breasts. The taloned feet. The three-fingered claws for hands. And the face, the face…he could only glance at it a moment before having to turn away.
Ur-locs, he thought again in a strange, slow pulse. Ardat-Lil.
Now Professor Fredrick was getting up. Was it the chair that creaked, or his old joints? A small statue of the incubus Baalzephon stared down from a high bookshelf, along with the multi-limbed Bengalian Kali and the squat Babylonian Pazuzu. Fredrick removed a thick, dusty text: Pre-Druidism: A Study of the Mythologies of Angle-Land. “This should enlighten you,” he proposed, and lay the book down at a specific chapter. “Here’s a field summary from an Oxford University dig near Ripon, in the summer of 1983. Quite by accident, the dig uncovered the original Ur-loc ruins. It was tremendous, I can tell you. I personally supervised the dig.” One photo showed several big iron pots. “Fek cauldrons,” he explained. “The Ur-locs were cannibals, and these cauldrons, which they called chettles, were what they cooked their festival meats in.” The next photo showed a great stone slab on plinths. “A ceremonial dolmen, part altar, part sacrifice platform. The Ur-locs iconized dolmens; after a thousand sacrifices, it’s said, they cut the dolmens up and made things out of the pieces: jewelry, tools, religious regalia such as fonts and tribal pendants. The very first dolmen, according to the myth, served as the central icon. They called it the nihtmir, or night-mirror. High priestesses were said to actually be able to see the Ardat-Lil in it. All sacrificial communities used dolmens, and many similarly retired the older ones for a higher use in their ceremonies.”
“At this dig,” Dr. Harold asked, “did they find the original Ur-loc dolmen?”
“The nihtmir itself? No, and that’s a bit strange. All the archaeological evidence suggests that the Ur-locs willingly dispersed themselves—disbanded, I should say—between 995 and 1070 A.D., and they apparently took their nihtmir with them, which must’ve weighed, mind you, close to a thousand pounds. It was probably about the size of a desktop.”
Nihtmir, Dr. Harold reflected now. Night-mirror. Hadn’t Tharp mentioned something similar during his narcoanalysis? And he’d mentioned chettles too, hadn’t he? “What’s this?” came the next query. A photo showed a pile of scrolls or something, as a field technician gingerly dusted them with a camelhair brush.
“It’s a manuscript,” Professor Fredrick informed him. “The only direct written record of the Ur-loc race. It had been buried in a cairn, in some very peaty high-sulfur/low-oxygen soil. The excavators were able to photograph most of it before it disintegrated. And this,” he said, “you should find very interesting.”
The next photo showed a drawing on a manuscript page. Dr. Harold recognized the sleek body and long flowing mane of hair, the talons and tiny slits for eyes above the stretched maw for a face, and the stubby protuberances, like little horns.
“The Ardat-Lil,” he muttered. “It’s almost identical to Tharp’s sketch.”
“Indeed it is,” Professor Fredrick replied. “No doubt Tharp researched the Ur-locs at a college library, and based his delusion on the information.”
Of course, Dr. Harold tried to agree. What other answer could there be? Still, the proposition pricked at him, like briars. “Do you think it’s even remotely possible, though, that some very distant remnant of the Ur-loc culture still exists, some cult or something?”
Professor Fredrick’s eyes fixed on him. Then the old, cragged face broke, and he began to laugh.
«« — »»
“I suppose now is a suitable time.”
“Yes,” Dr. Heyd agreed.
Milly and the wifmunuc peered down from the foot of the bed, the breasts bare, the faces intent in glee. Dr. Heyd opened his black medical bag.
“Nis hoefonrice gelic tharn lige,” said the wifmunuc.
“Fo hir doefolcyniges,” Milly finished.
Dr. Heyd filled the 10cc syringe, watching a few droplets sparkle.
“I want his death to be relishing,” the wifmunuc ordered.
“Nice and slow,” Milly added, her dark nipples erecting at the thought. “Nice and slow, for her.”
Dr. Heyd nodded. The pale figure on the bed seemed to tense a little, jaundiced eyes staring up, mouth propped open.
“He’s served well, in his own way.”
Goodbye, Josh. Dr. Heyd inserted the needle into one of the pulsing veins of Joshua Slavik’s upper arm. Then he slowly depressed the plunger.
“Wîhan!” whispered the wifmunuc.
—