DAUGHTERS OF BASTET: ninth portal
Outside there were explosions, screams, automatic weapons firing. I felt now secure enough, in the hiding place I had found, for drawing out from my bag the most precious thing it contained: the small, in-16, 1526 edition of Brunetto Latini's Le Livre Du Trsor. Written in the 12th century, it had been constantly, first recopied, later reprinted during the four following centuries, as an epitome of erudition on all known living beings. This copy reproduced the original medieval french text, printed in convoluted black letters. The booklet had traveled through the pockets and bags of many owners with eclectic tastes for beverages, judging from the diversity of stains sprinkled across the cracked parchment cover and the yellowed paper leaves. As we had done so often Kristi and me, I thumbed through the pages until I reached the marked paragraph:
"....et la plume de son col enqui entor est reluisante comme fin or arrabien; et en aval jusqu'a la coe est de color de porpre, et la coe rose, selonc ce que li Arrabien tesmoignent, qui maintes fois l'ont veu"...
It was there, in the margin, the angled minuscules hand-written annotations started:
"The only times Phoenix Birds are seen in Aegypt -according to the Heliopolis priests- are, when some Phoenix's father dies. For carrying safely its father's corpse from the Deserts of Arrabia to the Temple of the Sun, the bird uses such a cunning: first it builds, using myrrh, a solid egg as large as its strenght allows it to carry; it tries himself carrying it as long as it's used to; it thereafter digs a hole into the egg, the size it's father's corpse, enshrouding said body in myrrh; then it flys it to Aegypt, to the Shrine of the Sun for the secret ritual to be performed. The greek Herodotus reported this whithout having seen it: this I report for having seen it with my very eyes".
Kristi was sure from the beginning these marginal notes had been made by Paracelsus himself. She had made a lot of palaeographic searching to prove it, searching whose result she had left unpublished, for reasons of her own. Even after she had left me the booklet as a souvenir, I had always thought she had not lost all interest in this old story: Paracelsus's alleged travel to Egypt, all his biographers were sure was purely fictitious.
In the larger lower margin of the following page there was the magical square drawn with the narrow pen favored by Paracelsus, and the warning: " As large amounts of this rarest substance, the petrum oleum (that only matures deep in the mineral furnaces of the Arrabian Desert, under the unbearable rays from the Sun at the Zenith), are needed for performing the ritual, any attempt to complete it in our countries -exposed, as they are, to the adverse breath of Boreus and the Septemtriones- would be futile. However, having no intent to unveil the ritual in front of profane eyes, I'll write it using the Zodiacal cypher the Philosophers will know is appropriate for such a task".
Judging by the height of the fire pillar that now spouted from where once had been a gas station I hadn't been too bad at deciphering.
Outside there were explosions, screams, automatic weapons firing. I felt now secure enough, in the hiding place I had found, for drawing out from my bag the most precious thing it contained: the small, in-16, 1526 edition of Brunetto Latini's Le Livre Du Trsor. Written in the 12th century, it had been constantly, first recopied, later reprinted during the four following centuries, as an epitome of erudition on all known living beings. This copy reproduced the original medieval french text, printed in convoluted black letters. The booklet had traveled through the pockets and bags of many owners with eclectic tastes for beverages, judging from the diversity of stains sprinkled across the cracked parchment cover and the yellowed paper leaves. As we had done so often Kristi and me, I thumbed through the pages until I reached the marked paragraph:
"....et la plume de son col enqui entor est reluisante comme fin or arrabien; et en aval jusqu'a la coe est de color de porpre, et la coe rose, selonc ce que li Arrabien tesmoignent, qui maintes fois l'ont veu"...
It was there, in the margin, the angled minuscules hand-written annotations started:
"The only times Phoenix Birds are seen in Aegypt -according to the Heliopolis priests- are, when some Phoenix's father dies. For carrying safely its father's corpse from the Deserts of Arrabia to the Temple of the Sun, the bird uses such a cunning: first it builds, using myrrh, a solid egg as large as its strenght allows it to carry; it tries himself carrying it as long as it's used to; it thereafter digs a hole into the egg, the size it's father's corpse, enshrouding said body in myrrh; then it flys it to Aegypt, to the Shrine of the Sun for the secret ritual to be performed. The greek Herodotus reported this whithout having seen it: this I report for having seen it with my very eyes".
Kristi was sure from the beginning these marginal notes had been made by Paracelsus himself. She had made a lot of palaeographic searching to prove it, searching whose result she had left unpublished, for reasons of her own. Even after she had left me the booklet as a souvenir, I had always thought she had not lost all interest in this old story: Paracelsus's alleged travel to Egypt, all his biographers were sure was purely fictitious.
In the larger lower margin of the following page there was the magical square drawn with the narrow pen favored by Paracelsus, and the warning: " As large amounts of this rarest substance, the petrum oleum (that only matures deep in the mineral furnaces of the Arrabian Desert, under the unbearable rays from the Sun at the Zenith), are needed for performing the ritual, any attempt to complete it in our countries -exposed, as they are, to the adverse breath of Boreus and the Septemtriones- would be futile. However, having no intent to unveil the ritual in front of profane eyes, I'll write it using the Zodiacal cypher the Philosophers will know is appropriate for such a task".
Judging by the height of the fire pillar that now spouted from where once had been a gas station I hadn't been too bad at deciphering.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
my grandmother snores so loud that one time last trip i slept on the balcony with the sound of traffic lulling me to sleep...
Still got much work to do on the Tomb Kings, hope to have 1000pts ready for Saturday this week. I remember the Grenadier models, there were some good ones out. Most places in London stock GW stuff more, although there's a few nice little independent specialists in some of the other miniature companies. I'll have to go back to them soon, been a while.