Set Me Free

AU: This page is not yet finished. I could not find anything in the rules of the Spinpasta wiki for such pages to be deleted - if anyone deletes it, can they save it first to my talk page? Thanks.

Okay, I have to write this down, before... no, you won't believe me, Jack, you would just throw this out of your inbox. I know we did not leave as the best of friends, but please, just hear me out. Please.

You know I'm a historian, and latin teacher. I taught at Cambridge for many years, until now. I don't know if you remember my age, but with a few disabilities, I was unable to conveniently make the journey from my home to Cambridge every day, thus settled into early retirement at fourty, ten years ago. I had left a wealthy man, and if I balanced my savings, I could live the rest of my days without working another day. But my work is never done, oh how I wish it were so.

Every now and then, usually once a month, I get an offer from some archaeologist or historian, asking for my help. Most of these I decline, but sometimes one gets stuck in my head, and I accept, if only to relieve the unending boredom of retirement. Even though, officially, I gave up on life with disabilities, I still had a bit of youth in me. If only I had not.

The most recent of these requests came two months ago, from Cornwall. An old college of mine, Martin, claimed to have found something. He would not say more than that, and simply told me to be there at the nearest opportunity. Overcome with curiosity, and filled with the boredom of ten years retirement, I agreed.

What did he find? When I reached Martin, he seemed in obvious excitement, tinged with shock, or perhaps fear. Hegave me what looked to be a book, missing one half and the back cover, cracked with at least four hundred years of age, bound in leather. 'Be delicate,' he told me, then proceeded to gently lift the cover.

What I saw was a symbol. It looked to be a small circle, in the direct center of the page, the ink eroded with time. The circle had, upon it, a diagonal cross, appearing like an X mark.

'Every page is like that,' Martin told me later in his study. 'Every single one. Some of my contacts carbon dated the leather to be seven hundred years old. Now try this.' He raised a small vial, filled with a black, powder like substance, and sprinkled it on the open page.

'Carbon,' he informed me when I brought to him the question of what it contained. 'The page isn't damaged, just watch.' Now he took out half a lemon, and squeezed a single drop. 'Sulphuric acid,' he informed me. 'Now watch the symbol.'

All I could see was Martin damaging the book. But looking at the symbol, there was a clear L in the center. You would have to squint to see it, but you would be able to. 'Carbon and sulphuric acid,' Martin informed me. Someone figured out a chemical reaction even we don't know about - this is going in the books. Someone knew about chemistry that we don't know about six hundred years ago. Someone hid a message in here.'

I pressed Martin for questions, but he halted them with a parchment of paper. 'Dave, I think you want to see this. The letters, in order of how they appear. That pattern is repeated through the hundred and four pages, those exact letters in that exact order, over and over again. Thirteen times over.'

I glanced over it. LIBERAME. A piece of information came to mind. 'Martin, you made a mistake. Add a space here,' I told him, pointing at the thin line between the A and the M. 'Set me free. Libera, to liberate. Me, carrying the same meaning today as it did in ancient Rome. One thing,' I continued, 'does not make sense. Why would a middle ages man find out about these chemical reactions even we have no clue about, then learn a language dead to his time, and repeat those words over and over again? Explain that.'

Martin spoke up. 'Even google translate can tell you what it means. I hoped you would know why that happened. And there is one last thing. Look at the back page. Page one hundred and five, or the inside back cover, or whatever you want to call it. Take a look.'

A figure was on that page. A humanoid creature, with strange proportions I could not explain. Its legs and arms were abnormally long, and there seemed to be four additional limbs, more like ropes or tentacles, on its back. It stood between two rocks, with what looked like chains reaching from them into the additional limbs. Or perhaps those additional limbs were part of the chains. And beneath it, a sentence. This one had not been doused in carbon nor sulphuric acid. This one was meant to be read. Ud Rocashaas.

Martin spoke up. 'Old Cornish. The Latin I discovered by chance - the carbon dousage was routine for carbon dating, the sulphuric acid added accidentally when we tested it. The Cornish proves it to have been written here, but why the latin?'

'What does it mean, though?' I asked.

'Ud Rocashaas. It hated the dark places. I believe its a metaphor for slavery - look at the image. A man, chained between two stones.'