Icebound

"Your eyes, they've changed."

He drew his clasp-knife from his coat pocket and popped open the blade. It glittered wickedly under those hellish Witch-Lights as the eldritch colors flickered over the steel.

Keeping his eyes fixed on mine, McCrudden stood slowly. "It's you. I don't know how or why but you killed these men. Not just these two but all of them somehow. You're that body from down below. Somehow it's taken you over, sir. You shouldn't have read that book or spent so long with the body. Well, you're not getting me - I'll see you in hell first."

He was fast. I'll give him that. Faster than lightning, he lunged at me, intending to bury that blade in my heart. I hadn't reached new immortality yet and I leaped backwards with a cry of alarm. Yet his speed was his undoing. I had fought savage Gnophkehs in Lomar and knew some combat. I swung my hip into his, unbalancing him, and he slipped on a patch of smooth ice. The knife skidded away and dropped into the ocean.

McCrudden looked up at me with fear and hatred. "You...," he gasped, trying to rise. But then I frowned with concentration and felt a spate of energy as I stole his life-force as well. Now I had enough. Now I could continue...

Thrusting these invading thoughts from my mind, I forced myself away from this insanity, regaining control of my own knowledge. McCrudden was right. It was that long dead wizard entombed below. Somehow, using who knows what devilish spells, he had come to life and taken over my mind. There could be no other explanation.

I will have to deal with him while I still can. However, in case I fail and, given his control of me, that is quite likely, then I need to tell the world about this horror we stumbled across in the Arctic wastes. Taking out a notebook from an inside pocket, I have returned to the ice-grotto where I shall write a message before venturing down one last time to destroy the wizard's body. Partly I am writing this as a warning and partly I am putting off the evil hour when I shall have to confront what lies below.

Now I have finished, in a moment I shall seal this message in the brandy bottle and cast it into the sea. If this message is ever found, please pray for my soul.

EXTRACT FROM THE LOG OF HMS ORFORD.

15 MARCH 1942.

71.86 degrees North, 4.43 degrees East.

On our return voyage from Murmansk, approximately two hundred miles north-northeast of Jan Mayen, we found the sole survivor of a shipwreck clinging to the remnants of an ice floe. He was clutching a strange rod and bronze book but on perusing it, we found it to be in no known language. We picked him up and placed him in the sickbay while the book was locked in the Captain's safe in case it was a German code. Despite suffering from exposure and hypothermia, the young man seemed in surprisingly good shape but was unable or unwilling to tell us his name.

On our return journey to Liverpool, far more casualties died in our sickbay than we expected despite the excellent work of Dr. Jacobson and his team. We foresaw that some men would die from their injuries but not the amount who succumbed. However, the man rescued from the iceberg made an astonishingly complete physical recovery but was still unable, or unwilling, to reveal his name.

When we docked, ambulances were summoned to carry the injured to hospital. However, an air raid occurred during that time. During the confusion, the man slipped his guards and disappeared. Searching the ship, we found the Captain's sentry dead at his post with the safe standing open. The man's body was unmarked and he appeared to have died of fright. The rod and bronze-bound book were the only items missing.

Assuming the man must be a Nazi spy and the book was in some sort of new code, we immediately reported his loss to the authorities so they can search for him. To date, I have not heard that he has been caught.

FROM THE CURATOR OF THE ABERDEEN MARITIME MUSEUM, SEPTEMBER, 1948.

The bottle containing this message was found washed up on Newburgh beach, near Aberdeen last month. The finder, a schoolboy out walking his dog, brought it to the museum. My colleagues say it shows the tragic extent to which extreme fear, cold and dehydration coupled with superstitious beliefs can affect a man's mind.

They say it would be interesting to know if anything was ever found in the iceberg. If so, they must be at the bottom of the sea after the berg melted.

After searching War Office records, both in Britain and Canada, nothing more is known of Third Officer William Abbott so my fellow curators presume he perished on the ice, another unsung casualty of the recent War. They say that the survivor picked up by HMS Orford probably came from another shipwreck.

The message itself lies in the museum's archives.

On a personal note, I am not so quick to write this off as the ramblings of a dying mind. The fact of this man's escape into Liverpool's crowded streets makes me very uneasy. For some reason, I rather wish that this survivor had not been found on the ice.

Some things are better off staying lost...