The Diary Of Montague R. Thames.

The Diary Of Montague R. Thames.

By

Donald Harry Roberts

An Introduction.

The Asylum of The Seven Crows. It is in this place that I was sequestered so that a certain group of doctors could study me, pick my brain, and assess the depths of my madness. I have been an inmate within these walls of stone and chinking since my age of thirteen. I am now four and one hundred, the last surviving member of my blood line to carry the surname of my family, which is not equal to the name I have penned this essay. I use a pseudonym to preserve the dignity of those gone before me who cherished their honour above all other things. I was born in a manor overlooking the river Thames and my favourite Shakespearian Play/story contains the name Montague, thus my own chosen alias. Montague River Thames.

I spent eight of my thirteen year at the Manor in which I was born in an attic room hidden away so that I would be forgotten and no one knew of the affliction with which I was born.

Over the years I have managed to keep a diary of my life long incarceration from which I am penning this essay.

You will note that I employ, first person singular, third person observationist and first person narrator, with second person in brevity.

Admittedly, the name, Asylum Of The Seven Crows is my name for this barbarically designed institution and the seven crows, though the number remains the same have changed by name and appearance, thrice times over my tenure as a star madman. All twenty one of these fine scientists of psychiatric research have written many papers on the various afflictions I have been accused/diagnosed of possessing.

To be utterly candid, though I do play along and offer insight into my madness I have on occasion played them for fools and led them into something completely and utterly fictional, a point that I have never revealed until now…now that the last of my jailers have ventured into the here-after and I have been delivered to the care of a home geriatric populace, still mad but in full control of my faculties with but the occasional venture into my madness which is in part now referred to as senility or Alzheimer’s disease. These new keepers are quite confused how I pop in and out of said afflictions and for the most part am an amiable character that makes them laugh and pleasantly tolerate my ‘Tall Tales’ which I do on occasion share with my fellow geriatricians.

 I must add that I am pleased that I am no longer a human sized germ in a huge imaginary petri-dish being poked prodded, examined and assessed ever 90 days. I am however asked about my health and briefly observed by a doctor, simply because of my age and mildly admired for my health and longevity.

I shall begin my story on the day that determined my incarceration at the Asylum Of Seven Old Crows, the day my father screamed with immense anger, “This is the last straw. Get rid of that monster before he actually harms or kills someone.”

It was really an accident that Nanny went tumbling down the stairs when I opened the door excitedly just as she was coming in. Father happened to be there at that time coming for his monthly inspection of me.

I told Nanny I was sorry and didn’t mean to shove her down the stairs and that I was elated that she was not harmed. She believed me. She was the only person who understood my madness, but she still believed I was mad, utterly so. I believe she would have cared for me as long as she lived, but that choice was taken away when I was ship off to the asylum. Nanny, as long as she lived was the only person that ever come to see me, once a month, bearing pastry, my favourite, and our secret. She even began to refer to me as Montague, believing I think, to compensate for my incarceration, knowing I would never be set free.

I did however managed to escape upon occasion, which will come into a least two chapters of this treatise.

I remember the day as clear as the one upon which it occurred, The 10th of October 1891. As mentioned I was thirteen and had been since the later part of June, the exact date having never been recorded. I have chosen thus the solace of that season.

The Day And The Days After Nanny Went Down The Stairs

It was pastry day, a day that happened weekly, usually on a Saturday. I heard her heavy clumps as she forced her ample person up the steps. I could hear my Father grumbling about feeding her to well.

I rushed to the door and pushed it open just as she was reaching for the handle. I heard her cry out as the door bumped her rather soundly and I heard her tumble back down the stairs slamming into my father with such force that he landed with a thump on his own, rather bulbus derriere.

I ran out wailing, “Nanny, Nanny, I am sorry. I am sorry.” I gave Father no such consideration. I did in fact laugh, seeing him there on his butt, held up by the wall with his face red with rage.

It was when he regained his feet that he bellow with demonic anger, “This is the last straw. Get rid of that monster before he actually harms or kills someone.” Then he ascended the stairs, shoved me into my cell with such great force I went backward and cracked my head on the stone floor, but not so hard that it did more than rattle me a little.

Nanny was back on her feet and up the stairs to help me up, pastry undamaged. “I will deal with him My Lord.” She assured.

“I am sending a letter to the administrator at the asylum this minute. This monster will be out of my home within the week.” Father growled like an old mean bear.

Father stormed down the angled flight of stairs. Nanny, secretively, extracted the pastry from the pocket of her apron. It was a little squashed but none the less tasty.

“Your Father will not relent this time my dear. But I will come as often as I can to look in on you and bring you your favourite pastry. I am sure those keepers at the asylum will allow your old Nanny a visit now and then.”

I should have been angry, or frightened, or something but I wasn’t, especially with Nanny’s promise to visit.

Besides I couldn’t imagine being an inmate at the asylum could be any worse than the horrible nature of my Father, who, as I have yet to mention, beat me regularly, during his monthly inspections, with hopes I think of beating the madness out of me. The truth is it served only to cause me to hate him.

Thereafter Nanny came to my cell several times a day instead of just twice. She brought my pastry morning and evening and sat every evening with me, instead of only on Saturday afternoons listening to my mad stories, of which I shall be the primary theme of this treatise/essay once I have finished setting the stage of my incarceration.

Somehow, even in her simplicity I think Nanny believed my tales of ethereal wanderings. I believe this because she believed in fairies and gnomes and all those mystical magical creatures of the Isles. Her being Irish by descent believed enthusiastically in Leprechauns. She even claimed to have seen them, but I think she said that so I would not feel quite so alone in my madness.

I have mentioned that I was thirteen years of age, a little short and, though not fat like my sire and dame I was a little on the plump side, do to my lack of activity and my physical strength was somewhat lacking as well. But that all changed shorty after my incarceration commenced. Then being active, slaving in the vegetable garden and working the hay fields for the milk cows. I actually grew quiet strong. But that was ahead of this part of my transportation to incarceration.

As Father promised he sent out a letter to the Asylum administrator as well as his solicitor and the local magistrate, just to make sure nothing would abort my incarceration, and nothing did.

In my own anger I must admit I wished some terrible things on my father, some of which transpired, according to reports from Nanny, such as Father being plagued with all sorts of ailments and maladies, rashes, and Mothers constant bickering about there never being enough of anything though the manor was among the wealthiest in the region. Father was, “A stingy old coot.” According to mother.

One of fathers mysterious ailments was believed to have occurred with the aid of some obscure, indetectable poison, but that was never proved, even though it did put him in a deep sleep for a fortnight.

On the eve of my departure there was something not quite so horrible about Father.

It was more like a sadness or probably more correctly identified as self-sympathy. “Yet he said in the least harsh words he ever spoke to me, “I wish it had not come to be this way and come to this. I had high hopes of an heir when you were born, but that delight has failed me. I am loathed that my fortune will go to your cousin, but at least he is right in his mind and his place in life, though not lordly in his current circumstance, the son of a Solicitor of all things.”

He never spoke to me again, not even when the jailers came to take me away. Nor did mother provide him with an heir or any other children for that matter. Nanny told me that soon after my departure she ran off. “It is believed, with a wealthy business man in the colonies, though that was only rumour. There was another that she went off to India, with an India man.

Father procured a divorce and married again, but to no avail as goes an heir. That woman died giving birth to the possibility of the matter, and so did the infant. I have often wondered if that was caused by one of my curses though I do not recall ever invoking such a one.

They came in the night under lantern light and stormy skies, quickly and silently so that none in the manor witnessed my abduction. for it happened as an abduction would.

And so I was spirited away though I think it was realized only by the few of the household for beyond our doors, save the asylum people and a solicitor no one had seen or heard of me since my sixth birthday. Father may even have told the locals I had died of some malady. I will never know the answer to that, nor have I cared much about it in these many passing decades. Yet in those same decades I have missed Nanny sorrily and remember her with such kindness that in my aging mind she has come to be my only family worth mentioning. Not even Mother came to visit me after s ran off or just conveniently disappeared.”

The Night I arrived At The Asylum

This and the following two years I report by memory for I had not yet begun my diary for my jailers would not provide pen, ink nor paper to write upon. It was not until Nanny brought these items to me and warned my keepers that if I was denied the occasion to keep my diary she would cause them no end of trouble and embarrassment. She had by then left my father’s service and married well to a wonderful man who owned and operated a newspaper. She brought me books filled with lined paper, several at a time at first then at last five, five year diaries. Ink arrived periodically and was delivered immediately.

But again I have skipped the moment so here I return to my first night of my imprisonment, which was not so horrible as I was believing it would be. It was in fact a rather interesting transportion.

I think in this case first impressions delivered me into a lesser antagonistic abduction. When the two attendants took me from my cell and out the back, servants door I gave them no resistance. I actually walked compliantly, which was, apparently, very unusual, and though the two men remained cautious they handled me less vigorously. Things improved even more when I told them, “Do not worry. I may be mad as my father claims but I have no regret leaving that wretched house. I will give you no reason for alarm.”

The one I came to Know as Geoff said amiably, “You be startin out in a kindly way so it is likely you will find yourself in a less terrible circumstance.”

I was fortunate that I did not have one of my uncanny fits of which there are three, one being that I would fall into a deep sleep suddenly, even if I was walking. The second I would collapse to the floor and wreath about uncontrollably for up to a minute at time and the third I would babble in some unmentionable language and run hither and tither. There was a furth state of mind in which I would simple stare into nothingness for hours and hours but those episodes were the least common, once, or twice in a year.

The storm was raging when we arrived at the asylum, which was but an hour’s coach ride from the manor and still within sight of the Thames. That was calming in its own right. The fact that my attendants handled me with some version of gentleness according to their kind caused me a small relief as to what I should expect.

They took me to a room with a desk at which sat a woman whose demeanor was sharp and her nature was inherently strict. It was she that did all the paper work and interrogating for my induction into the asylum structure. My two attendants remained with me and when all the legalities and instructions as to my attitude and punishments for not following the rules they escorted me to my cell, a small room with just enough room for a bed and table and one chair.

It was in that room that I spent my first thirty days before the men I called the Seven Crows beckoned me to a study, not unlike my fathers and set about asking me questions, most of which I could not answer. Geoff, during the afternoon and evenings was my watch. I was one of several but he spent little time attending me because I was undifficult. And, instead of being a tyrant during one of my various episodes he merely did as I aske and watch over me until I was right again. He also listen to my stories about what happen during those same episodes and not surprisingly reported the stories in brief to the Seven Crows. I learned later that Geoff was more than just and attendant, with some minor medical credentials fitting his station. It was he that advised that I be taking off all medications. “I heard that he explained, “I believe your research would benefit if the boy is allowed to live out his episodes in their natural forms.”

This event occurred within the first few days so I was able to experience my life clear of mind, meaning my veins were not filled with such drugs as opium to keep me calmly.

I heard screaming coming from other cells as I was being escorted to my own but given the late hour I saw none of the other inmates. I counted five men and nine women. Geoff explained that most of the ‘Patients,’ were female and that most were no more evidently mad than myself. Many years later I learned the truth of those days that some women would have difficult times during their monthly time and their husbands would put them away for those days. Other woman during their transition into what is now called menopause were incarcerated until the madness receded if ever someone said it had. It was used liberally in those elder days simply to be rid of an unwanted or unproductive wife.

The bed was not but two ends held in place with raw boards and cross-planks. I was afforded one blanket. However Geoff brought me extra blankets to make a mattress and a pillow.

 Since he would be my attendant no one would challenge my luxury. I suppose because of his kindness I was less agitated in the years ahead than other. I also believe that I was a valuable asset for the Seven Crows.

That night I slept without incident or dream, having been drugged. Being drugged only occurred during my first five nights, for reasons I have already explained.

Before I received the injection though Geoff told me that I would have to labour in the gardens and fields and that there was nothing he could do to prevent that. In the end I really didn’t mind and because the Seven Crows used me for their psychological Petrie sample I

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only laboured in the mornings.

Incident Of The Darkenwitch

The incident came during one of my wreathing fits, scrambling wildly on the floor which occurred during my third session with the Seven Crows. The attack only lasted two minutes but in that time I experience an adventure of the most horrific nature in which if I had failed the entire scape held together in the embrace of Ethermatter might well have collapsed and sundered all infinity inert.

I was answering the question, “Are you aware during these episodes?”

I had barely uttered a word when I fell to the floor in wreathing about involuntarily and frothing at the mouth. When it was over Geoff took me away so I could change my cloths for as most often happens I wet myself.

Upon returning to the study I found seven very excited and expectant crows waiting to devour the carrion of my episode. And they wanted to know every detail.

“But will you just think me as mad as I have been accused of?” I challenged.

“We already believe your father who claims you are utterly insane, not just mad so little that you might say could make things worse.” Answered the crow I called Three. I never could remember their names. Maybe it was something my mind simply refused to retain, sort of a version of defiance. It also caused the crows to believe my madness went beyond deep. Of course the account of my adventure during the seizure was the most damning of evidence.

“You must first understand that the world, the universe has infinite multiples that only a very few minds are capable of experiencing. I am by good fortune one of those people though it has deemed me a madman in your singular reality. On this occasion I was transported to a world called Arnox, one that is separated from this dimension by but a weak swathing of Ethermatter.”

The Crows scribbled in their note books vigorously and urged me to tell all.

Arnox is much more vivid than here which means it is much more beautiful. It is of course unlike here as we know it and more like the time before there were trains telegraphs and even the electric light. I was in a time when witches were being pursued by the Hammer Lords and when one witch in particular was bent on ruling Arnox through the manipulation of Ethermatter.”

“What exactly is Ethermatter? Crow 6 interrupted.

“I will not tell you that. It is not for you to know.” I replied and at first he was angry but he soon settled and insisted I continue my story. “However mad it is.”

**

They called her the Witch Queen, though she was monarch over none but a few trolls and ogres. But she was powerful and was slowly, systematically devouring villages into her realm and try as they might the witch hunters were unable to thwart her efforts. She saw them coming in her crystal ball and she sent out her Henchguard to murder them before they could even begin to assault her fortress. She even knew when spies were sent in. She could do these things because her power could manipulate the Ethermatter of Arnox.

Usually the dimensions are left to their own devices to deal with the likes of Darkenwitch, but then she revealed an even deeper plot. She wanted to combine two dimensions, then three and four and so on. But it would destroy everything in existence just to unite two. An Etherparadox.

When the keeper of the Great Nexus understood what was happening he was compelled to call on those who could stop her. The task fell to me and as such this body was accosted and while you were watching me wreath and froth upon your floor I was away in Arnox to fight Darkenwitch, to the death if necessary.”

“You can die during a fit?!” said Crow Five.

“I can or at least I could enter a sleep from which I might never awake. A Coma I believe it is called. Fortunately defeat has never tread upon my life’s threshold.” I replied then said, “Now I continue my testimony.

Geoff caught me with true curiosity. “Are you always the hero in your stories?”

“I am indeed, What else would I be since I am A knight of the Ethermatter Guard.”

Geoff smiled delightedly.

I continued.

Not all dimensions have humans in them but this one did and I might say that Arnox was not so unlike this world, at least in its version of civilization. There were, as I mentioned other species like trolls and other mythicals and it might even be that Arnox and our world once shared a common plateau, but if so that state of existence changed long ago.

I said I am a knight but I don’t always seem so. In this case I entered Arnox as a mere commoner, a villain to be honest, but in that world villains of some sorts is a profession rather than a crime. My sense of knowing that comes with any transportion advised me of my vocation and thus I would have the skills to deal with Darkenwitch, at least the skills to try. I suppose I was chosen for this adventure because of its intensity and the fact that I have not yet failed in completing a mission.

It is never my task to cause a death. My nature would punish me severely if ever I committed a murder, which is anything other than causing a death to protect my own and even that the act is only committed if there is no other choice. It has come to that only once and even then I wish apon many wishes there had been another way.

My goal in this case was not to harm Darkenwitch, for reasons I need not discuss here, but they are substantial in the whole of things. My goal was to discover the method she planned to employ to accomplish her desires. It could be mechanical or chemical but of the likes that would appear to be magic. In this case the studies would be enhance by Ethericology, the manipulation of Ethermatter for the use of corporeal magic.

I n order to discover the whats and wherefores of the drama I needed to get within the walls of Darkenwitch’s fortress to discover the theme and science of her magic. Thus I went as a villain, a thief of the highest order.

I should explain I was no longer a boy, as such though not of any great age either. Grown to a man is the best I can offer and my skills as a thief were learned during the differentiating years, though I do not remember them passing. There is much I never remember of my excursions beyond.

The fortress was well guarded by Gargoyles mounted on evert hump and jagged edge, in ever nook and cranny and as is the most common place, upon the eaves. I could see their eyes, green points of light that seem to hang and shift in the dark for in some places I could not see the dark stonish heads to which they belonged.

Clad in a Gi and hood like garment not dissimilar to a ninja, shadow blue in colour I slipped through the night shadows like a ghost and as silent as a still night in winter.

The watchers were completely unaware of my presence though I had to pass within a few steps of many until I at last discovered a window that had not been locked tight for the nigh, though the latch was swung. I merely had not caught well enough to engage.

In an instant I was inside the fortress finding myself with the walls of a library, with shelves heavy with leather bound books. Upon a brief examination I discovered they were volumes depicting the nature o the multi-verse and their countless dimensions, the formulas that turned Ethermatter into spells and beasts, dreams and nightmares and an infinite supply of elixirs and potions. It was Darkenwitch’s library of magic, but also their were volumes concerning all the quantum sciences and it those that alarmed me the most for it signified that Darkenwitch was dabbling in such elements far greater and dangerous than any magic that mortals might devise.

I crept like a wraith from chamber to chamber, searching with my eyes and ears and a vague notion of ethereal intuition, a discipline I am not rich in and have never quite come to grasp. Still, I had the usual awareness of an enlightened human so I could feel the vibrations upon the ethermatter and were duly guided in some sense of voracity. Mostly in heightened natural senses.

The rooms were uncountable, and many were but small chambers devoted to trinkets and various other paraphernalia and innumerable paintings.

The hallways and corridors ran like a maze, for miles it seem but at end, when I delved beneath the main floors I found the rooms and finally the room I was searching for, though at that moment there was no sign of Darkenwitch, and I suppose that was a good thing for the room I found myself in was in current use with a variety of alchemy, electronic, mechanical and Ethermatter instruments which I was afforded time to examine with some small thoroughness.

Under other circumstances I would have been delighted but at that moment and in that situation I was only too aware of the purpose of that room. It appalled me that anyone would desire wealth and power to such an extent that they would give little concern to the repercussions of their actions.

My first thought was to destroy every thing in the room but it struck me in time that she would just rebuild and probably do so with an even greater determination and hatred. However I would eventually render the equipment there designed for destruction inert by one means or another and at the same time discover a way to prevent the self-styled queen from rebuilding her dark dream.

I was examining a machine that for all that it was appeared to be a machine that involved time…or dimension or possibly both if not space as well. A machine that could accommodate the amalgamation of dimensions. And in my examination I found a crystal, much like a ball but hollow. Within it I saw creatures ever so similar to fireflies I guessed they were some species of said insects, but there was also silky essence swirling about in rainbow colours that I knew were fibres of Ethermatter. And I knew in that moment that this machine was the bane of all existence.

“And what angle do I tack from here.” I pondered silently looking about the room as if something would render up an applicable resolve, which of course nothing did. Everything in the room was bent toward the success of Darkenwitch’s plot. A foul thing that could bring fear the most courageous of creature.

The machine was fashioned after the structure of a dragon, which I thought might be because it was a fancy of it maker. It was blue like wyvern and its eyes were made of glimmering sapphire. It was, despite its intention a beautiful thing and had it not been that it was construct for an evil purpose I would have venture to preserve it. But that was impossible. And destroying it, I pondered, could be as devastating to existence as its purpose.

“You came a thief for a reason.” I reminded my self. “If it should not be risked to destroy it then you must steal it and place it in the care of something or someone who could keep it from ever doing harm.

“But I must know how it works.” I thought and there my mind sent me in search of the thing it must have been created. A design, a schematic rendering portraying all its parts and the purpose of those parts.

So it was that I was rifling the room when I heard light, almost dancing, feminine foot steps descending the stairs, incautiously. But as the foot steps came to the threshold of the door the owner, she that is Darkenwitch came gently to a halt. Then she glanced about for a minute. Only when she was convinced nothing was amiss did she step forward. And to my amazement she began to sing.

The words I did not understand nor did I recognize the melody but in just a verse I felt myself being drawn in.

I would have inevitably been drawn out of hiding if my mind had not found its way out of the closing net.

I managed to block out her song. I wasn’t sure if she was aware of me and aware of the effect her music had, had on me, or not but now that my mind was clear I focus turned to the machine which I could still see from my hiding place.

It occurred to me, oh such a simple resolve it was, how I could render the machine inert. Simply remove its heart, its core, the thing that made it work. Don’t try and steal the machine. You need only remove the crystal ball. It is the ethermatter which gives it its power. You need only wait until the witch is gone then…

So I waited, not an hour, not two, but six long hours crouched in the shadows of a large wardrobe hoping she would find no reason to come this way. My bones and muscles were growing stiff and began to ache.

But at last, taking with her a vile of blue liquid that had taken her those long hours to concoct she retired from her task and went out of the room. I couldn’t help but wonder what the precious elixir was that she toiled over for so long. But the thought escaped my consideration when the door closed and I turned my attention on securing the orb, the crystal ball that harboured the ethermatter.

In but a minute I went to the machine, examined it closely and quickly realized it was held in place simply by sitting within a ring too small around for it to slide through but wide enough for it to cling to it place just below it greatest girth.

I lifted the ball in my hands. It was heavy, much heavier than I had imagined for something but no more than six inches in diameter. It was cold and hot. It vibrated to my touch. Then I swooned and in a moment I was adrift in something that could have been nothing if there is such thing for even in space and the spaces between the spaces there is always something.

But that lasted but a moment because I had retained the state of wherewithal and was able to place the ball in a fold of my Gi, until I could find a suitable container the bear the sphere in.

Alas, as clever as I believed I was it had not occurred to me that in touching the orb of power I set off an alarm that wailed throughout the fortress like a great air raid siren. It had not come to me that such technology would be utilized in such a place so embroiled in medieval trappings.

I found a sack and put the sphere in it then I fled but not the way I had entered.

There was a secondary exit. I had found it when I was exploring the room. It was tucked out of sight behind the wardrobe obviously meant for a meant of escape. I hoped Darkenwitch would not realized I had discovered it, but then she had not even been aware of my presence, so how could she guess my resolve to avoid be capture…abducted.

The way of a thief, a good thief is to accomplish a caper without conflict. Whisper away his treasure before any one could interfere with his escape. Thus, I believe I can claim to be a good thief for I was away from the room, out of the fortress via the secret tunnel and at last afloat again in the vastness of the Nexus hoovering before the keeper.

“What must I do with it?” I presented the orb.

The Keeper said no words. He simply took it from me with a wave of his had and sent it soaring across the expanse of the Nexus. In a moment it exploded, noiselessly and the rainbow coloured ethermatter fell like rain into nothingness, or rather, back to the ether where it belonged.

***

My body relaxed. The foaming receded and I lay there still and calm though somewhat mystified. Geoff lifted me gently in his arms and carried me back to my cell saying, “There now Montague. It is over now. When you are able you must tell me of your adventure.

I looked up at him and asked, “Is all well in the world? Are the stars where they belong? Did the moon set right? Did the sun rise as it should?

Geoff replied, “Well we will just have to wait and see. It has been but a few seconds since you began your seizure.”

“Of course. For me it has been considerably longer and I have saved existence.” I said and remembered nothing more until I woke with the sun the next morning. My sleep was but a dark thing with not a single image to disturb me.