The Magnus Archives - MAG 143 - Heart of Darkness

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

Case #0181606Statement of Manuela Dominguez regarding the fall of the Church of the Divine HostAudio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.Thanks to this week's Patrons: Cait F, Morrow Grove, Elizabeth Cornwell, Kerry Lloyd, Casey Peavler, Flighty Broad, Rebecca Coffey, Tatum B, Addy Bats, Gladys Gonzalez, Zedd Newton-Whitaker, Anna Z, Megan Griffin, Emptyface Buttercup, Kathryn Cwynar, Kylee Berry, Emily Johnson, John Cullen, Metrophor, Meghan O'GradyIf you'd like to join them be sure to visit www.patreon.com/rustyquillEdited this week by Elizabeth Moffatt, Brock Winstead & Alexander J Newall.Written by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J Newall.Performances:- "The Archivist" - Jonathan Sims- "Basira Hussain" - Frank Voss- "Manuela Dominguez " - Layla Mannings- "Helen Richardson" - Imogen HarrisSound effects this week by previously credited artists via freesound.org.Check out our merchandise at https://www.redbubble.com/people/rustyquill/collections/708982-the-magnus-archives-s1 You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast software of choice, or by visiting www.rustyquill.com/subscribePlease rate and review on your software of choice, it really helps us to spread the podcast to new listeners, so share the fear.Join our community:WEBSITE: rustyquill.comFACEBOOK: facebook.com/therustyquillTWITTER: @therustyquillREDDIT: reddit.com/r/RustyQuillEMAIL: [e-mail] Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill Ltd. and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International LicenceContent warnings for:- Gun shots- Human sacrifice Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull-Apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. Hi everyone, Alex here. I'd just like to take a

moment to thank some of our patrons. Kate F, Morrow Grove, Elizabeth Cornwell, Kerry Lloyd, Casey Peavler, Flighty Broad, Rebecca Coffey, Tatum B, Addy Batts, Gladys Gonzalez, Zed Newton-Whitaker, Thank you all. We really appreciate your support. If you'd like to join them, go to www.patreon.com forward slash Rusty Quill Presents The Magnus Archives Episode 143 Heart of Darkness I'm sorry. Sure it's this one? Yeah.

Tape recorder thinks so too. Right. Something's coming then? Could be. No windows. Guess that makes sense. We still alone? I never said we were.

Just said I couldn't see anybody. Oh, I thought you meant like, see, see. Uh, no. We need to figure out Robert's house for this. What are you doing? Closing the door. Uh, no. We need to figure out Robert's house for this. What are you doing? Closing the door. Leave it open. We need as much light as possible and I'm not seeing any bulbs.

Right. Eyes peeled. Was that a joke? Yeah. Any clue where everyone is? Your guess is as good as mine. Well, my guess is an ambush. I don't know.

Everyone back at the research base seemed pretty sure this place was empty. And you believe them? They weren't lying. Wait, you... Did you... Oh, yeah, no, I don't think they noticed. So they were serious. It's been empty for, what, a year?

A bit more. As far as they knew, anyway. So what? This was another waste of time. No church, no dark sun. I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch. No, I... I think it's here. I can feel it, like a...

a hole in my mind. They just left it here maybe kind of wish Daisy was here I know this isn't... Behind you! Down! Don't move. Charming. Who are you? John? Who are you? Manuela. Manuela Dominguez

Where is everybody? Go to hell Answer her They're dead Because of you Me? What did you do? Nothing, I don't think

Your institute What? So she sent you to finish the job Who? Your archivist Gertrude Robinson Gertrude? It doesn't make any sense.

What happened? Don't... don't make me, please. Tell me. Fine. Fine. And what do you wish to hear? Shall I tell you of the decades of preparation? The long wait for the eclipse? And what do you wish to hear? Shall I tell you of the decades of preparation, the long wait for the eclipse? Three hundred years from the failure that birthed the thing that preached from the depths

of Maxwell Rayner? The sacrifices made to birth the dark star that would make it all possible. It was to be a week of night and horror, culminating in the eclipse that passed over Nielessund on the 20th of March 2015, almost 300 years after Halley's eclipse passed over London. We had hundreds of sacrifices prepared and ready, plunged into darkness and terror for days on end, all prepared to culminate in the unveiling of that point of purest night at the moment of the eclipse's height.

It would open the door to a world of true and holy darkness, extinguish the sun, and take us to a place where we would be redeemed of our base and corrupt need for light and warmth. Maxwell was here with me, prepared for our moment of triumph, and our churches around the world were ready in those lost and forgotten places of worship, shut up and left in shadow. Hither Green was, I believe, where your Institute was watching, but Natalie's efforts were a small and meagre part of the greater effort. When they collapsed, it was as nothing to the grand ritual, though perhaps we should have seen it as the first sign of

what was happening, but we had no idea. To begin our seven-day feast we slew the still and lightless beast and drank of its stagnant blood submerging the first of the sacrifices in the brackish water it had blessed with its stillness. Maxwell plunged its claws into his chest freeing the darkness within him and we waited, and we sang,

and we exulted in divine stillness. The darkness was beyond anything that could be imagined, and even in my wildest experimentations in the void of space, I could not have believed such a peace was possible, as I felt in the quiet whimpering terror of that place. The sky was light, but we were well protected, and we knew that when the sun was swallowed in eclipse, the darkness would be complete. We believed it far too late for anyone to stop us, and the crude methods of your archivist least of all. The death of a few have never been more than an inconvenience, and that's all she was ever really capable of. You were not the first to try and stop us, you know. Not even within living memory. I was but newly joined when Lynette fled the church and Maxwell had her

silenced. But I remember her brute of a husband. He fed the beast for us, you know, when first he believed Lynette might still be saved. Then, later, we faithful served as his fuel to banish it. But not for long. That's the thing about darkness, isn't it? You try your hardest to eradicate, flood your surroundings with light, but it's always there at the edges, waiting for the glow to weaken, to return and cover you forever. Robert Montauk discovered that the hard way, and someday someday so will your Gertrude but we got so close we touched it

there is another world a world of still and quiet darkness where no heat touches and death cannot find you you might wander beneath that empty sky of void forever and never see a light to guide your way. No left, no right, no up or down. Only forward into the crowded, shivering gloom. For that night is not empty, far from it. For that night is not empty, far from it. Things move there. The sounds of shuffling, scuttling, crawling, a scream.

The fall of gentle, stagnant raindrops that chills you as you try desperately to know if that is the sound of the storm or something out there. It is a world of the fear of darkness, and as I began to see it, I felt again that celestial terror that had not gripped my heart since first I gazed upon the pitch black sun that I had created. The scream was mine, and it was joined by uncounted voices in fearful song. I was complete. It was so very close. We were to slice a hole in the world, and this paradise would flow through the wound like ink, smothering the sun and all its children. Maxwell had always had the visions, the drive. Whatever was inside him pulled him to this end, to this great undertaking like a magnet,

and I was so very honoured to be his right hand. Natalie and the others followed, but they did not truly understand. Not truly, with their talk of peace and unity and Mr Pitch, a friendly name to try and hide from a concept they couldn't grasp. Vardhan Darvish had an inkling, I thought, but he crossed a Montauk which has traditionally gone poorly for us. But as the hours turned into days, and the final dusk got closer, it seemed as though all the uncertainty was washed away.

I don't know exactly when it all started to come undone. I think Maxwell first felt the ripples four days before the eclipse was due. It was strange, like a pause in the hysterical whimpering and fruitless prayers of the sacrifices, and a ripple that was felt through the waters and the stagnant blood that bound us, a disruption. We would later learn that this was the collapse of the ritual at Hither Green, but it was only the first. Our congregation in Alaska disappeared the next day, and Russia as well. One by one, it seemed our scattered whisperers of night were falling, and holding it together, keeping the lightless world anchored to our star,

bringing it closer, was becoming an almost unbearable strain on Maxwell. I helped as I could, but without knowing what was happening, there was little I could do to stabilize it. I began to drown the sacrifices. Too soon, perhaps. But it worked, to keep it going and keep it together, I began to drown the sacrifices. Too soon, perhaps. But it worked, to keep it going and keep it together. Until at last, we felt it. The eclipse.

We had been worshipping in the deepest dark, and yet, when it crossed the sun, I felt it roll over us like a cooling balm on a summer's day, plunging us into a deep black void, far more complete than I can ever convey with mere words. It was more than beautiful. It was divine. And as we unveiled our new and absent son, the sacrifices who remained screamed and fell in holy agonies, and the world of endless night we had been promised began to pour in, shining out and all around us. It touched and caressed our souls with the soothing fears of night, and I heard Maxwell weeping with joy at what we had done. And then it stopped. It just stopped. All at once, that loving embrace was stripped from us,

All at once that loving embrace was stripped from us and it began to retreat, to recede back into the place that it had come from. We were so close. We were so close. I heard Maxwell cry out, scrambling desperately into the dark sun, stopping just short of touching it. But it was too late. Whatever it was that you and your archivist did, it clearly worked. We left, half of us dead, and the other half destroyed by coming so close to the true essence,

and being denied. In my most wretched hours, I wonder. Perhaps it was us. Perhaps we simply lacked faith. We weren't worthy. The world wasn't worthy. But no, we were ready. We had earned our dark rapture. And we were robbed. I don't

know how long we waited after that. It was weeks before anyone spoke. And then, when they did, the arguments began. The recriminations, the desperate resolutions to try again, to find what went wrong. But I could see in his eyes that Maxwell was so very tired, and all the words fell to nothing. Instead, we began the search for his successor, a new host for his continuation. He would regain his strength and we would plan our next move. It was difficult, though. The approaching culmination had meant Maxwell had not prepared another host, and the search for another vessel was long and involved. Finally, about 18 months ago, we found one. A child, whose father had, by coincidence, been directly marked by the dark. It was a desperate plan, but we were desperate.

A shadow of what we had been. Maxwell left me here to guard the Black Sun, and everyone else left to help in his rebirth but it didn't work, did it? I can only assume we were too weak to hide from you and you struck when Maxwell was vulnerable for the first six months I let myself hope that my suspicions were unfounded

that the silence I felt was simply him lying low, recovering before returning to his abandoned disciple. But no. Soon enough, I could no longer fool myself. He had been slain, and I was alone. And here I have remained. Perhaps I have told myself that I am preparing, gathering my own strength and making my plans to continue the Church in his name. But I think in my heart I have been waiting for this moment, for the final axe to fall and finish the last remnant of our holy crusade. And here, at last, you are. There.

Now you can kill me like the others. Is she telling the truth? Yeah. I mean, unless she can lie to me somehow. You said it wasn't the eclipse. It's not the time. Well, she believes it at least. This doesn't make any sense.

Well, where is she? Afraid to face what she's done. Just shut up. Coward. So, how did she do it? It's been three years. Waiting. Guarding this place without hope. At least do me the courtesy of telling me how she collapsed our moment of triumph.

You really don't know, do you? Know what? Gertrude's dead. She died right around the time of your ritual. So, stopping us took everything she had. You wish. She died right around the time of your ritual. So, stopping us took everything she had. You wish. She was murdered. Unrelated, as far as we can tell. That's... I... Then why are you here? Maxwell is dead. The ritual failed. What's left? A good question. Becerra? left? A good question, Becerra. You said the Dark Sun was still here. Fine, if you're so keen to take everything, undo the work of centuries, it's just through that door. John? How dangerous is it?

How dangerous is it? Only myself, Maxwell and Natalie could even look upon it. It will annihilate you both in an instant. Ask her how we can destroy it. I know how. I just need to see it. See as in? As in, actually see it.

Go ahead. Just try. Look, it's all right, John. No one else knows it's here. And if we just leave it, no one will know. No. I'm doing this. Get out. It's... It's beautiful.

No! No! John! John! No, I'm okay. Get down! Visera? I'm alright, just one second.

Stay here. Look, I'm okay. I can help! Did you catch her? Yes. She needed a door. How did you... Finding this place was easy without the darkness. Will she be coming back? No.

This one I think I'll keep. Why are you here? I told you. I've decided to help. I thought you might like a way home. Another door? If you want it. How was it, looking upon the dark? I thought I was going to die. You seem to think that a lot. I remember when you thought you were going to die at my threshold. Yeah. Go find your Basira. Then let's get you both home. The Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill

and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 international license. Today's episode was written by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newell................................................................................ . . . . . .

....................................-D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D. rustyquill.com. Join our communities on the forum via the website or on Reddit at r slash the Magnus Archives. Thanks for listening. To be continued... stories, Audible has everything you need. Audible is the leader in audiobooks, so you'll always find the best and freshest selection of mysteries and thrillers to choose from. Sometimes you just want to get lost in a classic whodunit, and sometimes you want to get wrapped up in a twisted new mystery where the tension is high and you just can't stop listening until you find out what happens next. Audible can take you places only you can imagine and whenever you want, on a run, doing errands, commuting, or just relaxing at home. And it's not just audiobooks. Audible can take you places only you can imagine and whenever you want. On a run, doing errands, commuting or just relaxing at home. And it's not just audiobooks.

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