THE BEST MUSIC

Chapter 1.

Thout music, life would be a mistake

-Friedrich Nietzsche

This is the tale of which I had hoped to take with

me to the grave and had circumstance allowed I would

have done so if only to spare myself the horror of

recalling that nightmare time. But I have not been

spared my terror for if I don't now recant my tale

in full others will venture to that dark and bitter

place and they too will stare into the maw of

madness.

I have been an associate professor of psychology and

occult studies at Her Britannic Majesty's University

of Belfast for nearly five years not including time

spent in the lands of Turkey and Georgia in study of

near forgotten Eastern Cults. Along with this I have

spent a year of study at the prestigious Miskatonic

University in Arkham, Massachusetts immersed in the

ancient and terrible cults of the world long since

passed and recorded now only in that tome of fable,

the Necronomicon.

I make my credentials clear now so that when you

read my story you will know that these are not the

deluded ramblings of a madman but the facts as

recorded by someone versed in the subject matter and

hardened against its horrors as best the human mind

can be.

Most importantly I wish it recorded that I, Benjamin

Constantine have been entirely outspoken against

Britannic University sending any team out into that

dark and bitter part of Tyrone no matter how noble

the quest to find our lost colleague.

My tale begins at my desk under the criss-crossed

windows of our glorious and gothic Britannic

University, back four months ago when I was

researching a paper on the evolution of the Old Gods

and in regular communication with a recluse musician

from Tyrone, himself obsessed with the elder things.

Little was known to me about this contradiction of a

man that was AJ Valjean save that he disliked

meeting people yet was a passionate letter writer,

Chapter 2.

his music was played on an acoustic guitar recorded

onto an old reel player before being copied to

computer and emailed to a local studio. His music

was tinny and often I questioned if the lyrics were

even the vocalisations of a human tongue, but the

strange warbling found a small following in the

nearest large town of Dungannon and in the rural

communities around.

Apart from that I knew him only as being of medium

height and build, short dark hair and nothing else I

could gleam from the single available photograph

found on the internet.

His writing to me was eager, passionate and with a

great depth of curiosity. He asked of things from

only the fringes of my learning, of faraway cults

and mythical beasts of the old north. On occasion he

offered theories on those beasts of myth and how

they came embedded in the human psyche to which I

would counter in turn how some of our modern deity

myths sprang from older antediluvian times. Our

conversations would form the basis of my proposed

paper of which Valjean initially wanted no credit

despite his obvious knowledge and contribution but

through much cajoling on my part he eventually

accepted a footnote reference in the piece.

Over the course of a month his writing became more

erratic, literally as well as figuratively for

understand dear reader that our entire

correspondence was hand written; Language is art, my

dear Prof. Constantine and deserves to be expressed

as such, one must make the time to compose a word

with a quill like one composes any other note for

the ear. He told me that long ago during our

earliest engagements when I made to him what was an

almost insulting enquiry as to his email address,

and from henceforth in deference to his

sensibilities I too would forgo my word processor

and pen my letters to him by hand.

I must confess this was an attempt on my part to

curry further favour with the musician as I had

great desire to plumb the depths of his knowledge.

The change in his writing came gradually at first

Chapter 3

and accompanied a subtle shift in questioning on his

part, his perfect script became sloppy, almost

rushed in appearance. The questions he asked shifted

from the Great Elder Gods and the Ancient Beasts of

the far off cosmos to strange creatures of the

forest of which I was forced to confess no

knowledge. He asked about amphibian things with skin

that shifted hues like that of a chameleon, large

bulbous eyes that were black with burnished orange

irises, with wide toothless mouths and quills along

the back of the neck.

No such creature existed to my knowledge in any of

the mythos that I had studied, and I struggled to

make any connection even to my readings of that

accursed tome the Necronomicon. I inquired further

as to the nature of these beasts of his fantasy;

their height, the sounds they make, are they

nocturnal, what has been his inspiration for this

flight of the mind? I was curious not only for the

creatures but from a question of psychological study

for you can tell a lot about a person by their

monsters and this creation offered an insight into

the reclusive Valjean.

A true response was not forthcoming, his next

communication was near illegible in script and the

content of the letter was incomprehensible, the

ineffable penned in the unreadable.

It was at this point in the tale that I was joined

by Jonathan Davids, the man whose death I stand

accused but whom I can only say for certain I last

saw walking in the mist toward that broiling lake,

his eyes dead and seeping that fel substance that

had came at him from within the dark.

Professor Davids had lectured biochemistry at

Britannic from long before my time at the university

had come and it is important that you understand he

and I were friends and though I wish that he would

be found wandering aimless and confused in those

Tyrone backwoods I do not hold hope.

Professor Davids came to be involved during the time

that the change came upon Valjean, he suggested that

it was possible the musician was experimenting with

Chapter 4.

hallucinogens in order to develop his odd music and

that a side effect of the drugs and his

conversations with myself were producing these vivid

illusions of beasts. Whilst I agreed this was

possible I had enough doubt as we had never

discussed beasts the like of which he described,

these things of his mind were the result of some

other invention.

With his final letter I became concerned that

Valjean had suffered a stroke or some other

psychotic break, it was out of concern for his

safety that I enlisted the help of my friend

Professor Davids, for who better to identify if

there were some toxin at play than a biochemist.

Furthermore Davids hailed from a small town in

eastern Tyrone, for the best part he could act as

guide for a part of this small country I was

entirely unfamiliar with.

He agreed on the condition that we would stop for

lunch in a small restaurant he knew in the town of

Dungannon before the drive into the deep country. He

argued this on the point that the letters were

always delivered by second class mail which took two

or more days and so a further hour would have no

impact on the condition of which we might find

Valjean. This may sound cold on his part but

understand the Professor Davids was firmly convinced

that the musician had been experimenting with

psychedelics and was most likely shut away on a

comedown from the chemicals, hiding from the light

and at worst dehydrated and hungry. He did not have

much in the way of sympathy for recreational drug

users but seeing my concern for the musician he was

willing to make the journey.

With that agreed we set out from Britannic in the

early afternoon, the sun was high in the sky but the

day was cold still from an overnight frost and there

lingered in the dark clouds a threat of rain.

Leaving Belfast are two major highways, one leading

around the northern side of the large Lough in the

centre of this small nation and eventually on to

both the cosmopolitan North Coast and eventually to

Chapter 5.

the Maiden City on the far side of the country. The

second highway on the south side was really a road

to nowhere, rerouted into the sparsely inhabited

heart of the country because an insecure planning

department did not want to build a road to Dublin

back in the worse days of the history here.

It was this road on which we now travelled and it

was plain to see the density of population fall

dramatically after passing the city of Lisburn until

soon we were passing by green fields under a morose

sky. The journey was pleasant but uneventful and

after around thirty minutes we passed close to the

grey form of Lough Neagh as the motorway met its

southernmost point, the vast expanse stretching

across the northern horizon.

Professor Davids passed the time enquiring as to my

relationship with the reclusive Valjean, how on

earth a travelled scholar such as myself came to be

in touch with an agoraphobe local musician unwilling

even to journey to a studio to record his works. The

answer in itself was simple, AJ Valjean had sought

me out after having his interest piqued by one of my

early papers available on the Britannic's online

archive and then learning that I was at the time at

study in the Miskatonic in Arkham.

The accursed Necronomicon by the Mad Arab Abdul

Alhazred held particular interest to Valjean but of

all the works I had studied that book, that awful

and terrible book I was reluctant to speak of.

Contained therein were things not meant for this

world, dark and evil knowledge that the curators of

the Miskatonic Library had guarded for an age

because the only thing of which they feared more was

its destruction.

Valjean teased this information from me in snippets,

enough at a time that I would not be forced to speak

a full dark tale but of which I knew he was building

a bigger picture. It was in knowing this that I kept

my own council on the greatest of evils held within,

incantations with the ability to stretch across the

vastness of the cosmos and commune with things best

left undisturbed.

Chapter 5.

That accursed book had the ability not only to

pervert and warp the fabric of space and time but to

bend the very mind itself, to twist the psyche to

breaking point and then go beyond. It was something

not meant for this world.

Exiting the motorway we quickly came to the large

town of Dungannon, a town that had grown rapidly

over the last decade as it had seen an influx of

foreign nationals disproportionate to the rest of

the country, who brought with them a diverse range

of strange theologies and mysticisms. Some of these

I knew as off-shoots of more mainstream theologies,

others I knew to be cults new or old that barely

clung to existence in the world as we know it, and

one or two I had heard of only in legend and existed

here as anywhere else in rumour.

Parapsychology bore little interest to my erstwhile

driver who guided us into the car park of some

quaint local shopping mall that had served as a

linen mill during the industrial revolution an age

ago.

A surprisingly modern bistro sat on a corner unit of

the mall, all glass front with trendy chrome chairs

and dark wood throughout and soon we were guided to

a table and upon ordering we returned to our

conversation about the unusual Valjean. That

conversation did not last a great deal of time

however as we had discussed at length during the

journey the details of my entire communication with

the musician and changing tact Professor Davids

enquired as to how I was adjusting to life in

Belfast after my time spent in Arkham. I confessed

that at times I was still caught out by the quirks

of European life compared to those of Americans, in

the United States life and people were generally

simpler in manner but at a faster pace than in

European nations. The best descriptor I could think

of was that in America politics was an occupation,

in Europe it was a lifestyle choice.

As the waitress arrived with our food I came to

realise that I no longer had the attention of

Professor Davids, indeed nothing seemed to be holding his gaze, as if his mind were absent from

his body.

"It's the music,

" explained the waitress in answer

to the question I had not asked and I then noticed

the crackling warble filtering in that I had come to

recognise as the work of my reclusive penpal,

"AJ

Valjean, some people seem to space out listening to

his stuff, it really speaks to them."

"That could prove dangerous,

" I said snapping my

fingers in the face of my colleague breaking his

trance,

"it's like some form of hypnosis."

"I've never seen the harm in it,

" the waitress left

our food and returned to the kitchen area, passing a

waiter who I saw to be moving in an almost robotic

fashion, and after that had caught my eye I came to

realise that maybe half a dozen of the thirty or so

in the room also behaved in the same trance state.

"That was quite an unusual experience,

" the

Professor spoke,

"I felt as though my mind were

slowly draining, it was peaceful, very calming. Your

friend certainly makes music for the soul."

"It certainly is strange,

" I commented, I found it

unsettling how powerful an effect such music could

have on a receptive psyche. Clearly there was some

subliminal waveform or message in the music that

whether intentional or not was at the very least a

hazard to drivers and pedestrians, at the worst I

would dread to think. I ate my meal in uncomfortable

silence, knowing what I know of the interests of AJ

Valjean I doubted that the trance state was

unintentional and could only hope that it did not

exist to serve some hitherto unknown malign purpose.

My eyes followed those who had been under the

effect, watching to see any peculiarities or

behavioural quirks beyond the generally accepted

norm of human activity, indeed I kept one eye on my

companion for having known academically for some

time now he could best serve as a control group.

During my silent observations however I saw nothing

to make me suspect that there was any lingering

effect from that bizarre music, from the end of the

track those in the trance state almost immediately.