by Nelson Rusk
You already know that.” The young man allowed himself a slight smile.
“We want to hear it from you.” Thompson got no answer. He continued “Who protects your activities? We know that you have high-ranking contacts in the Quebec City police and authorities. Give us names and we can protect you from reprisals.
You have absolutely nothing,” he replied, his frivolity turning to a stoic seriousness. “The master already has you in his sights. The only question is when He will strike. Only one small mark is required. A single small, harmless mark and the Universal Destroyer will be unleashed on your souls.” This perspective illuminated his face with a blissful smile.
“What mark are you talking about? It's about time you start answering or I swear it'll be a long night for you. I've broken up much more resistant men than you!” Thompson was furious, and Muir increased his armlock accordingly. The young man continued to smile. It was Mr. Lavoie that continued the interrogation. No one was prepared to it, not even the young man, who flinched.
“Answer, mon tabarnaque!” he shouted as he sent a right hook to his face, causing a scarlet stream to burst out of his nose in an instant. “Why did you do that to Anne? Huh, why? She trusted you, esti de sale! Answer or else, as God is my witness, I'll rip all your limbs apart one by one, mon câlisse!” Lavoie screamed as a man possessed and his two compatriots felt pain in their soul to see him in this state. This time, the young man did not flinch, on the contrary. Mr. Lavoie's hatred and grief nourished him. Muir said that, at that moment, he felt the man’s soul expand, become tangible, as if he saturated the room with his malicious presence. His armlock on him loosened without him noticing.
Ah! God!” shouted the young man with contempt, covering the ambient noise. “I obey laws much older than those of your God! I am the agent of the founding powers of the universe, those who were and will always be. I am the hand of the fiery fire, the sword of annihilation that reduces everything to ashes, without distinction. I am one with the Universal Destroyer. Through me, he addresses men! Through me, his words take shape. His judgment is fire, flame, and the primeval forge’s inferno, and it will fall upon Man when the stars are right! Iä, Azathoth, Iä!” The cultist on the ground, still held by Thompson, answered his last exclamation with an exalted cry “Om Namah Shivaya!” The two demented men answered to each other in turn. “Iä Azathoth, Iä! Fire and water will ravage the earth when Master Shiva returns.”
The momentary stream of madness exuding from their prisoners overwhelmed Thompson and Lavoie. It shook even Muir, who had proven his composure many times in combat. These words resonated in his ears more than in those of the others. They brought him back to the Island of Abraham, to this nightmarish scene with the young girl who may have been Anne. This moment of weakness almost lost them all. Moving with an unsuspected strength, the young man contracted and got rid of Muir's armlock as if Muir was made of straw. As he continued his litany of hatred and inconsistent babbling resulting in a thundering “Iä”, he grabbed a candle and threw it into the pool of liquid spilled on the ground. The room exploded in a ball of magma-like liquid fire, forming on the ground and spouting up to the ceiling. The explosion threw Muir and the cultist, as well as Mr. Lavoie, out of the kitchen and into the lobby. Thomson’s reflexes saved him again. He threw himself backward and tipped the man he was holding on the ground to use him as a shield against the fiery wave.
The monumental force produced by the sudden ignition shattered and blew away all the decrepit furniture in the room. The flames spread with supernatural speed, creeping on the floor and walls. They covered the three drug addicts lying on the floor, who never had time to understand their fate. Thompson avoided the impact on most of his body thanks to his human shield. His hands, with which he held the man in front of him, were severely burned and inundated him with terrible suffering. Knocked down by the pain, he had to use all his will to climb out of the apartment through the window from where he had arrived, and to slump on the balcony’s floor. Smoke was coming out of his clothes, which had reached the threshold of ignition in a few seconds.
Robert Muir, on his part, stood up, helping Lavoie do the same. The young cultist already stood but remained there, motionless, arms in the air, as if invoking a higher power that only he knew. Flames licked his legs. They engulfed the extremities of his clothes. Muir, while keeping his eyes on their enemy, whose gaze had lost all humanity, retreated to the door, pushing Lavoie in front of him. Both had barely enough time to reach the threshold before the fire reached them. Meanwhile, the young man remained there, staring at Muir and clucking with a wild laugh, as his skin fell off like a molten wax statue. Soon, the flames threw a veil on the scene. Lavoie rushed down the stairs while Muir went to pick up Thompson, who had fainted under the window, and took him in his arms to a safe place.
A few seconds after the fire broke out, the apartment was a gigantic blaze. Its structure was invisible under the flames. Rather than face the consequences of this disaster, the three companions ran away from the scene of the fire, Muir and Lavoie carrying Thompson on their shoulders. They accompanied him to the Hotel Dieu, where the suspicious but attentive personnel treated his wounds. The fire had burned large areas of his hands but not in depth. The wounds would leave obvious scars but without incapacitating him. As a preventive measure, the nurses kept him in the hospital for the night. The other two men recovered from their emotions in a café. They both spoke little. That night's events had revealed to them a facet of their enemies they did not like. Such fanaticism, such a lack of consideration for their own survival, seemed impossible to combat. The two men parted their own way after about thirsty minutes and returned to their respective homes.
The next day, the narrator bought a copy of the newspaper Le Canadien as soon as the newspaper boys announced it. The fire was on the front page. With a sigh of relief, Mr. Muir noted that the fire had remained localized. As the writer indicated, the flames had been so powerful that the building had collapsed on itself, causing the loss of only three buildings, which, in Quebec City's history, did not represent a major fire. Despite its violence, the blaze burned until late at night. It was only the next day, in the early hours, that the police could examine the rubble and discover human remains. The authorities estimated the number of victims at ten. However, they could not certify it because the extreme temperature partly disintegrated some human remains.
The volunteer fire chief, a middle-aged man with long service, told the newspaper he had never seen such a fire in a residential area. According to him, it was impossible for the fire to have reached this temperature and degree of destruction without fuel and accelerant. Such blazes, he testified, were more common in Quebec City’s harbor, where the presence of chemicals and explosives fueled the flames.
Typical Quebec City fire protection equipment, 1895.
Unholy Ceremonies
During Constable Thompson's convalescence, Robert Muir kept a close watch on the activities of aide-de-camp Phillips. As he rancorously noted in his diary, he even refused a promotion that would have required his reassignment to the Halifax garrison to continue keeping watch on Phillips’ activities. In the days following the major fire in the apartment, Phillips was particularly cautious. There were no deliveries to his quarters, and the soldiers did not hear any singing. During this lull, the police reported few fires, whereas an average of one per evening had become the norm in that dire period of Quebec City’s history. The alarmist English-language newspapers referred to that winter as the “Winter of Fire and Brimstone”, probably to make headlines. The French-speaking newspapers, which did not want to be outdone, quickly translated it as “Hiver de Dante”, referencing the Florentine writer's masterpiece. None of the newspapers, however, explained this truce. Everyone, journalists and civilians alike, expected the fires to start up again at any moment.
The hospital soon discharged Thompson. The man made it a point of honor to continue his relentless research. Mr. Muir praise
s the young constable's valor and admits bluntly that he could not have faced the magnitude of the darkness covering Quebec City without his help. Before long, Thompson made another breakthrough in investigating the cult’s activities. He located an entrance to the underground passages running through the upper town. This discovery required countless interviews with criminals, junkies, and all kinds of ill-famed individuals in the St. Roch district. The entrance was at the end of rue St. Nicolas, near the site of the New Palace of the Intendant, now abandoned. The gate was embedded in the cliff and led, about ten meters underground, to a structure that was part of the city's surrounding wall. Thompson passed this information to the narrator. Muir, with the same promptness he had previously showed—promptness he attributed to his Highlander blood—prepared to explore the underground as soon as the opportunity arose.
View of the former Palace of the Intendant, on the site of the New Palace of the Intendant, circa 1761.
Robert Muir had long suspected the existence of underground tunnels under the upper town. When researching the history of the colony, he had uncovered several authentic sources claiming that various governors and intendants of Quebec City built or expanded underground passages linking the lower and upper cities, as well as connecting several important buildings to each other. Secret investigation reports discovered that Intendant Bigot used these underground passages to facilitate his illegal trade. This occurred at the time of turmoil when New France was in agony. Other more recent and tangible evidence proved the existence of large galleries in the ground. During a fire of unprecedented violence in the former post office building, witnesses had seen columns of smoke in remote areas, so much so that citizens had firefighters dispatched there, fearing further fires. The engineers soon realized that these columns came from places that were not flammable at all, such as a sealed opening in the city's perimeter wall or a crevasse that apparently had no way out of the Quebec City cliff. The rumor of the supposed undergrounds had spread even more prominently in the newspapers.
Due to Thompson's injuries, Officer Muir went alone to the discovered underground entrance on January 10. He chose a night with heavy greyish clouds hiding the moon and stars to facilitate his intrusion. He did not inform his friend Thomson to prevent him from insisting on being part of the expedition. Mr. Muir brought a backpack containing an all-purpose iron bar (which I would describe today as a crowbar), a lantern and some rations, in case the exploration dragged on. Mr. Muir added his officer's sword to this basic equipment, attached to the back of the bag. He avoided the few soldiers on guard near the ammunition reserves occupying the former palace site in the lower town. The narrator had little difficulty finding the entrance to the underground, barely hidden behind a stone shed. A heavy lock barred the wooden door, signifying the cultists and all the scum of the earth hiding in the underground passages treasured their secrecy. Either through decadence or carelessness, they no longer did, as I discovered this morning. After some efforts, Mr. Muir broke the lock with his crowbar.
Equipped with his lantern, which he did not light before entering the underground complex, Robert Muir walked through the darkness of this floor at a good pace. The man is generous in his descriptions and seems not to have appreciated his visit in the catacombs. The smell of mildew and decomposition was overwhelming. The putrefaction suggested that many animals lived and died inside the underground. However, during his journey, Mr. Muir saw none of them. He assumed the existence of ventilation ducts bringing air from galleries inaccessible to humans and inhabited by local wildlife.
After crossing indistinct corridors of bare stone, Mr. Muir reached the base of Quebec City’s surrounding wall. A spiral staircase, probably like the one I had used myself, led after a grueling climb to the upper floor of the underground, which was still several meters below the ground of the upper town.
It was at this moment, according to Robert Muir's account, that he heard or noticed a distant song with low notes. The repercussion of the intonations on the wall surfaces, besides multiplying the echoes, made it impossible to locate the source of the sound. As the singing increased in intensity, Mr. Muir concluded that its source must have been in the same general direction in which he was heading, toward the Château Saint-Louis. Although the syllables of the song were incomprehensible to him, Mr. Muir noted with some apprehension he had already heard something similar. The dissonant melody sounded like what he heard from Phillips' quarters. The same tune, the same liturgical style, and the same incomprehensible language. Nevertheless, it was one thing to hear this evil music from the familiar comfort of one’s room, surrounded by brothers in arms, and another to hear it alone, in the depths of the earth and in the heart of a labyrinth of darkness. Even so separated by the imperfect medium of writing, it was possible to perceive the anxiety felt by the man as he recalled these moments and put them on paper.
Robert Muir pressed on and soon reached a solid reinforced oak door inside a doorway cut into the rough stone. The source of the ambient song could no longer be far away. However, the door was locked and the lock was on the other side. As the narrator points out, even if it had been possible to break open the door, which he doubted, the noise produced would be sure to alarm anyone in the area, despite the singing. This door seemed to be the only way to proceed further underground, so Mr. Muir considered the option of turning back. He had walked a few meters in the opposite direction when he saw an opening in the stone wall on the side of the corridor.
As he illuminated the opening, the narrator saw it led to a small room extending in the precise direction of the locked door. Reasoning that someone in the past may have had the same dilemma as him, and had made an opening to solve the problem, Mr. Muir removed his bag to go through the narrow opening. Squatting in the hole, he passed his bag after him through the opening. According to the narrator, he was then in the gap between the underground passage and Quebec City’s surrounding wall, composed of much more massive stones than those of the underground. This gap extended long enough so that, by walking on hands and knees, it was possible to reach another opening, just as narrow, and leading on the other side of the door. The song penetrated through the opening, more powerful than ever.
Excessively cautious due to his growing fear, Muir looked at the other side of the opening to make sure that no one was there. Then he stepped over the crack in the wall and found himself beyond the door that blocked his way. The ceiling was higher and Muir noticed, in the light of his lantern covered to emit minimal light, that a layer of bluish smoke had accumulated here. The corridor continued for a few meters and then turned. A pale light emanated from it, denoting a human presence. With his heart beating, cautious, Mr. Muir approached the turn, taking care not to make any sound.
On the other side of the corner, Officer Muir saw a spectacle he will never forget. The tale became confused at this point, as if the narrator himself had difficulty restoring coherence to his ideas. I can only rely on what the narrator wrote on the page. I thought it unlikely Robert Muir could have knowingly lied in his memoirs. I had never met the man before but I felt I had become his close friend while reading his tale. However, due to the series of troubling events he had experienced in a short period, it was reasonable to doubt Muir's mental state.
According to the narrator's description, the corridor led a few meters away to a larger room. A series of lanterns on elaborate pedestals formed a large circle in the middle of the room. It was possible to see the old underground furniture: desks, tables, and chairs, piled up on the perimeter of the walls, dilapidated and abandoned. The rest of the chamber was empty, making way for a congregation of about ten individuals dressed in a scarlet red toga, forming a circle outside the perimeter of the lanterns. The song heard came from these guests, although, as Mr. Muir notes, at no point could he see their faces, hidden in the shadow of their hoods. These diabolical monks were swirling in all directions, gesturing to the frenetic rhythm of their unnatural choir.
The cornerstone of this ceremony w
as the scene in the center. There was a complex machinery whose improbable mechanisms made no sense to Mr. Muir. Glass cylinders, some filled with a semi-opaque, viscous liquid, clear except for a few red threads, surrounded a large stone altar reaching the general height of the knees. On the altar was a naked man, his body emaciated, denatured and mistreated, tied by iron handcuffs to the stone. Many tubes and conduits connected to various parts of the man’s body and linked him to one or the other of the cylinders. The cultists had made no effort to soften the connection of these abominable appendages on the man. Where they grafted, they crushed and shredded the repentant flesh, and blood flowed from it in streams, especially from the conduit connected to his temple. The man seemed delirious with pain. His face was twisting all directions like a broken machine. Obviously, the congregation had administered a paralyzing or sedative substance since no sound came out of his mouth, except for abject gurgling.
Observing the martyr, presiding over his sufferings, was another individual, dressed in a similar but more elaborate way to the others. He wore a golden shawl in his neck and, on his head, a huge ornate curvilinear tiara topped with an orange-red stone in the middle. Even from the distance where he was, it was possible, according to Mr. Muir's description, to see on the tiara the engravings of grotesque faces, cyclopean landscapes populated by impossible shapes and monstrous entities haloed in flames. Near this man, on a massive stone structure reaching his waist, lay a massive manuscript of ochre color, blackened in places, and from which the man read passages at key moments of the unholy ceremony.
Despite the coolness that Mr. Muir had showed during the story, he admitted in his memoirs that the subconscious evocative power of this scene petrified him. He attributed his uneasiness to the primordial nature of the ceremony, dating back to the dark dawn of humanity, when our barbarian ancestors, in their ignorance, invoked forces external to the human experience, from other worlds and dimensions. The ancestral song, the consecrated gestures, the ritual sacrifice, the elaborate symbolism with outré aestheticism, all this conspired to evoke the forgotten recesses of the human soul, where our ancient fears, free from the constraint of reason and logic, continue to dance, squeal, howl, cry, and scream to the rhythm of our primitive instincts.
