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The hour was late, and I had retired to my study to spend the remainder of the night studying an old manuscript lent to me by an old colleague. Upon the weathered pages was transcribed in hand-written ink the long history of our Order. I had accepted the offer to read it with some surprise, as the knowledge it contained was a closely guarded secret, known only to the eldest, most trusted members. My hands shook slightly as I absorbed the manuscript's contents, for although there were no laws forbidding me from reading it, I could not help but fear the disapproval of my superiors.

I started violently, and very nearly scattered the pages of the manuscript, at the unexpected sound of tapping against glass. Turning in my chair, I saw the ruffle of black feathers against the moon-lit sky as a Murkrow swooped from the sill of my window and took flight. A chill passed through me as I comprehended what had occurred, for although it was spoken of only in rumor amongst the Order, the manuscript had confirmed the full truth behind those whispers, and I knew that I had received a summons from the Inner Circle.

With great haste, I placed the manuscript in my desk drawer and took only enough time to don my long black coat as I hurried out the door and into the night. Without being told, I knew where I was expected to go. As I traveled, the moonlight began to fade as ominous clouds began to fill the sky.

In this back country, the dirt roads were rarely used and poorly maintained. Although I could barely see, I knew the rocky path well, and I stumbled along in the dark towards my destination. Before long I came upon it; one lonely lamppost lit the spot where four paths crossed, the feeble light it cast trying vainly to push back the blackness of night. A figure dressed in a flowing black hooded robe was waiting here, as I knew there would be.

Holding out a small hand lamp, the figure beckoned wordlessly for me to follow. To my surprise, he led me to the west, directly away from the run-down building in which our Order usually gathered. I followed his silhouette in silence, knowing he would not respond to questions, had I even the nerve to ask them. The night pressed in around us, my companion's hand lamp being the only source of light now, as we proceeded towards some new, unknown location.

As the road dipped down, the moon once again peeked out from behind the clouds and I beheld that we were descending into a valley. Before us stretched out some long forgotten graveyard, and a shiver ran through me as I realized that I knew this place without ever having laid eyes on it before, for it too had been written of in the history of the Order. I knew that below the earth sprawled a vast network of decrepit and ancient tunnels, older even than the Order itself, with passageways leading deeper into the ground than anyone had dared to explore, and I knew that it was within these tunnels that the Order performed its most secret rites.

My companion led me through the graveyard's rusted gateway and past the twisted maze of crumbling headstones until at last we came upon a mausoleum of marble, its doors thrown open to reveal the yawning mouth of a chasm. Unlit stairs descended into the ground, and it was down these stairs that I was now led. The footing was perilous and steep, made even more so by the scant amount of light filtering back from the lamp my companion held aloft. I peered anxiously into the darkness ahead but could discern nothing of what awaited us at the conclusion of our descent.

After what must have been several hundred feet, the passage leveled off and the stone walls of the tunnel closed in tightly until we were forced to walk single file. From time to time, the tunnel would branch off to either side, but the robed figure continued to walk straight ahead unerringly, leaving me to only guess where the other tunnels led. As we walked, I instinctually drew closer to my silent companion, knowing that if he were to leave me here, alone in the darkness, I would likely never find my way back to the surface again.

After I had long since lost count of the number of junctions we had passed, we made an abrupt turn into what appeared to be a small ante chamber. My companion gestured towards a small alcove set into the wall on the far side of the room. Upon approaching, I saw laid out within it another black robe, as well as a mask in the design of a smooth, featureless face carved from what appeared to be ivory. I donned the robe and mask before pulling the heavy black hood over my head; so arrayed, I turned back towards my companion for further instructions. This time he directed me towards another doorway, opposite the one from which we had entered, and as I made to leave he did not follow.

Proceeding with some trepidation now, alone and in utter blackness, the corridor closed in even further until there was barely a hand's width between my shoulders and the cold stone walls. I ran my hands along the sides of the passage to keep myself from falling, for although the floor was smooth and easily traveled, I could see nothing at all before or behind me. Shuffling along in the darkness, I soon came upon another set of stairs leading further downward, which I began to climb down with great care.

All around me was an impenetrable silence, broken only by the muffled sounds of my own footsteps and labored breath. A great fear had been building within me and now, here in the dark emptiness, it threatened to overtake my faculties as my mind raced and I imagined what unknown horrors might be contained within the cyclopean depths into which I now descended. It was only the knowledge that retreat would leave me just as certainly trapped within these catacombs that kept me from fleeing desperately and vainly back towards the surface.

My pace quickened as I began to make out a faint light at the end of the long tunnel. Coming at last to the landing at the bottom of the stairs, I discovered that the cramped tunnel let out into a large natural limestone cavern. A dozen hooded figures, lit only by dim candlelight, waited here with arms folded and heads downcast towards the floor. Innumerable wax candles were set about the room and the shadows they cast danced wildly, perhaps almost purposefully, against the walls of the vast cavern. The atmosphere here was thick and oppressive, and as I entered I was struck by the sudden feeling that some hideous and alien sentience had fixed its gaze upon me.

As one, the hooded figures lifted their gaze towards me. Behind their hoods, each wore a different mask fashioned after a human face, though they all had displayed upon them a different expression. The forefront figure leered at me with a mask of burnished gold, its features twisted into a malicious grin. Around his neck he bore a golden medallion cast with an ancient and sacred symbol, and it was by this token that I knew him as the Head of the Order.

It was then that he spoke to me, his wizened and gravelly voice breaking the heavy silence that had thus far permeated my journey. Not without purpose had the manuscript been given over to me, he said, but rather it had been by their design. My devotion and work within the Order had not gone unnoticed and I had been summoned here to be inducted into the Inner Circle, if I proved myself capable. He asked if I was ready to undertake the initiation rites, and I answered that I was.

The procession of robed figures directed me to the back of the cave, whereupon there sat a large altar of hewn basalt. As they bid me lay upon it, it was explained to me that each aspirant must submit themselves to forces beyond knowing and, in so doing, bond themselves to a creature from the other side. Of this ritual they would speak no more, saying only that I would be required to surrender a part of myself to it as it offered itself to me. Peering upward, I realized that the roof of the cavern must be quite high, for above me stretched nothing but seemingly infinite darkness. To say that I was not terrified, lying flat upon my back on that rough stone slab deep in the inexorable bowels of the earth, would be a lie. Nevertheless my fate was sealed now, and I tried to brace myself for whatever unknowable test I was to be given.

Bearing silent witness to my ordeal, the masked and robed members of the Inner Circle congregated at the center of the cavern. I could hear their chanting, at first just a low murmur, then rising higher and becoming impossibly deeper. Their indistinguishable prayer took on an otherworldly and inhuman tone as the shadows on the walls leaped and cavorted maddeningly, rising up impossibly tall as they stretched towards the black heights of the cavern where no light could reach, and I could swear that the darkness reached back towards them. Gripped with a desperate madness born of fear, I clawed at the altar beneath me and tried to shut my eyes, only to find that my body would not respond. As all light bled from the world, I found myself a silent prisoner within the immovable cage of my own body.

There I lay in that unending darkness between the worlds to which I had been borne, utterly alone, until at once I felt the presence of another; not another human such as I, or even any such physical being as I had ever known, but something else entirely. In this place I had no eyes, nor a body of any sort, but still I could somehow perceive the formless being before me. I felt it touch my mind, and to my surprise I was at once drawn to it. It spoke to me without words or language, and I responded in kind.

I opened my eyes, although I could not remember them ever having been shut, and found myself back in that subterranean limestone cavern, my back still flat against the stone altar. The chanting had fallen back to the sound of a low murmur and the shadows playing upon the walls seemed somehow dull and lifeless in comparison to their original fervor. For a moment I wondered if everything had been merely an illusion born of fear and stress.

Then I saw something descend from the darkness above me, a ghostly apparition of deep violet. She appeared to wear a flowing dress of deep violet, ornamented by three inset jewels, and beneath her wide-brimmed hat was a face bearing little resemblance to that of a human; it was, in fact, entirely devoid of any features save for a pair of bright yellow eyes and a thin mouth bent in an almost feline smile. From my brief connection with her, I knew this creature of illusion and shadow to be a Mismagius.

Gazing up at the limbless apparition that now hung suspended in the air mere inches above me, I felt a curious sensation spread throughout my body, as though a pair of invisible hands were upon me. The feeling began at my chest and circled around the sides of my torso, then down to the small of my back, and in its wake my flesh prickled. As the peculiar sensation moved further down my body I felt a familiar twinge of virility, which I tried and failed to suppress, in my groin. Though my mind screamed at me to maintain control of myself, I was helpless but to respond to the intimacy of this invisible force as it cupped my manhood, and my arousal was soon plain as I felt myself begin to rise.

I stifled a sharp gasp as the Mismagius lowered herself further down upon me. Her deep purple vestments rippled and undulated like a living part of her, and although the many layers of my clothing lay undisturbed and heavy upon me, I felt myself enter her as though she were flesh and blood. My mind railed in the prison of my body as I found myself reaching up against my will to embrace her as a lover; an attempt that was nonetheless in vain, for my hands passed uselessly through her incorporeal form. Regaining something of my freedom, I found there was nothing else to do but to lay my arms back down upon the altar as my otherworldly partner rocked back and forth on top of me.

It was a strange feeling, to be fully clothed and yet to feel the warmth of my ghostly lover so enticingly around me. There rose in my belly the sensation of overwhelming giddiness and pleasure, which began to spread throughout the entirety of my body in waves. I was soon alight from head to toe with the fires of passion as my lover's fervor increased; there was about her now an almost animal hunger, as if she were feeding upon me in some way, and I was filled by an intoxicating mix of pleasure and fear as her gleaming eyes bore into me.

Cold sweat formed underneath my ivory mask, and I blinked in order to clear my vision. As my eyelids closed shut I realized that I was at least partially still present within that otherworldly emptiness, my bodiless essence completely engulfed in the overpowering presence of this other being. Caught between two worlds, I had no choice but to submit entirely to her will.

When my eyes opened again I found myself once more in my own physical body, my passions rising towards untold heights and, finally, release. My hips bucked upwards and my eyes locked with hers as I felt my seed issue forth. She stayed disconcertingly still while my warm essence passed somehow into her and I knew that we were now bonded. Once the act was finished, the Mismagius lifted back into the air and I realized that no trace of our intimate liaison was readily apparent upon me.

Rising up, I felt a wholeness within me that I had never known before, and as my brothers came forth to give me solemn congratulations I knew that the ritual was finished; one last incantation was spoken and my ascendancy to the Inner Circle was complete. The Head of the Order explained to me that my companion would be with me and only me for the rest of my days, just as each member of the Inner Circle was followed by theirs. It was then that I realized she was apparent only to me, and I was left wondering what it was exactly that they had witnessed as I had lain before them upon the altar. What had been real and what had been illusion I could never know, but as I was led back towards the surface with my Mismagius following close behind me, I knew that a new chapter in my life had only just begun, and that there could be no going back.


__________________________________________________________Chapter End Notes:Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly his short story 'The Book,' as well as the works of Aleister Crowley and other practitioners of occult sex magick. This is entirely unlike anything I have written before, and I hope you enjoyed it