From: Mysoreans Abroad — News from the Benighted West.
28: Sri Nripendra Rao: La Ville de La Mort
Beloved Bapu-ji,
Most unexpectedly we have been to the French capital of Paree, and are likely imminently to return there. If I should not return, I wish you to know what has become of me.
When we first returned from Birmingham and Derby, Colonel Mustard had some army business to attend to with new recruits: poor souls willing to forgo reincarnation in favour of a very prolonged and — in some regards only — enhanced life in Bhuloka. The process is horrific physically and spiritually, and I chose not to be present when they surrendered all hope of Nirvana, or even the Abrahamist heaven, to become marionettes of clay.
It was while we awaited the Colonel’s pleasure that we first heard of trouble in Paree.
Since we encountered the Red King in his Loka, it seems that the walls between Paree and another Loka have thinned to the extent that there are nightly incursions of the dead into the cellars and streets of the capital. There was some suggestion of a tide; whether metaphoric or literal remained unclear — the appearances were linked with low, damp places like cellars and wells. The date when the incursions started did not tally with our destruction of the engines used to reach the Red King’s Loka, so the exact cause is similarly unclear; they started before the engines were destroyed.
As before when such things have been encountered, some claimed that their vacant eye sockets glowed red or green, and it was noted that as well as attacking the living, the dead fought between themselves.
Having introduced ourselves to the authorities — such as remained — we were directed to a market place courtyard, surrounded by mean residences and alleyways. Most pertinently, however, it had a single entrance archway that might perhaps be defended against the egress of the phantoms.
In that archway we established our engine in such a way that the Area of the passageway would be Warded against the fiends, while the broader avenue outside was covered by a troop of French musketeers in case we fell before them. (We had little apprehension of such an outcome, but the French were of course unfamiliar with our ability.)
A volunteer was instructed by Colonel de Tournier of the 13th Foot to accompany, guide and observe us: Sous-Lieutenant Jean Tiens-Laplace. Being a little short of hands, we were careful to instruct Tiens-Laplace to initiate the work of the protective engine by striking the appropriate lever.
With midnight, the first of a multitude of skeletal apparitions appeared and of an instant Tiens-Laplace was so unmanned that he fled precipitately, without so much as striking the lever first. Attendant upon his departure, a volley of musket fire was heard from the avenue.
This left us in a position of some embarrassment, for trusting the Frenchman with the simplest of tasks we had all advanced to engage and drive back the fiends that we might pursue them to their lair — in consequence, leaving the arch unguarded by man or machine.
Fortunately, the English men accompanying me did not between them have the “fortitude” of a single Frenchman, but trusted in my ability to save them. While they held back the numerous hordes, I fought my way back to the engine and began its machinations. With a safe refuge established, and the dead commencing to fight each other, we retreated to observe for what remained of the night.
The tide ebbed and flowed, but it seemed a constant once they encountered each other that they fought among themselves — a fact that made our own withdrawal a simpler affair, as they abandoned us for their privy combats.
In time, a chastened Sous-Lieutenant crawled to join us, his tunic more perforated — by some generous fortune — than his torso.
When morning dawned, the dead returned to their holes, and as swiftly as we followed we saw little of where they went — as the last departed into the dark, the very shadows pursued him so that all that was left was a cellar of four walls.
By the light of day we were delivered in more ways than one, for it had emerged in darkness that the defence most effective against the creatures of night was a portable engine of daylight, some few of which had of late been purchased in Birmingham.
We returned to London, to revisit Paree better equipped anon.
Namaste,
Your dutiful Nripendra