The Nocturnum
Episode 16: The Heart of Ahriman
Original Air Dates: 6/26/2005 (Part 1) and 7/10/2005 (Part 2)
Special Guest Stars:
Omar Sharif as Dr. Armedt
Marisa Tomei as Amara
Lea Salonga as Kay
This Episode was inspired by the Robert E. Howard story, "The Fire of Asshurbanipal." The story itself can be found in the collection entitled Nameless Cults, published by Chaosium. I have taken some liberties and dramatic license with Howard's conception of the Mythos, combining his Fire of Asshurbanipal with his Heart of Ahriman, mentioned in the Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon. I don't feel the parallels are too far of a literary stretch, however. The two gems are similar in appearence and power. 'Nuff said. On to the episode!
Part 1 Synopsis
The Cast returns home from Catheway. They stop for a late dinner, and go their separate ways. That evening, Drake and Kay share a psychic vision: a man, slender and gaunt, looking like he might once have been attractive, but now is malnourished and obsessed, pours over a collection of ancient books, scribbling feverishly in one of a thousand notebooks on his desk. The vision shifts; a woman who was beautiful 20 pounds and 15 years ago tosses and turns in her bed, in the throes of a nightmare. It returns to the man, muttering in strange tongues as he reads and translates.
Suddenly, a vortex opens in the office. Papers blow everywhere, and the vision is shot with bursts of red, yellow, green, and purple lights, as well as lights in colors Drake and Kay have never seen before. A man—at least, it seems to be a man—steps forth from the portal and into the light. The man is Arabic, and yet somehow not Arabic. He wears a head wrap and the robes of a nomad, and sports a thick black beard, but his nose and ears have been cut off, leaving him to resemble a skeleton with skin. He approaches the man, puts his hand on the man’s shoulder, grins, and says, “It is time, Martin. The Fire awaits.”
Perhaps most horrifying is that the man speaks Arabic, but both Drake and Kay understand him clearly.
Then, the two men merge into one, the Arab vanishing into the body of Martin, who hastily collects a couple sheets of paper, throws on his coat, and walks out into the night.
Drake and Kay both wake up in their respective homes.
Drake, upset because the vision interrupted his viewing of the Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willy, first calls Kay to double check that they shared the vision, then goes to wake John, who in turn makes sure Anita and Kay get phone calls. As Drake briefs the group on his dream (and begs anyone around to tell him how Steamboat Willy ends), John gets two phone calls: first, a call from Cyan in England, who gets extremely angry that John and Anita drank a $3,000 bottle of wine, and hands the phone back to Willow as John begins to elaborate on the events of the past few weeks, saying, "I can't hear this if I'm going to get well."
The second call is even less pleasant: Max calls from the Templars to inform John that Catheway is gone, wiped off the face of the Earth by a brilliant green flame that rained down from the heavens about an hour after the Cast left town. John and Anita fear it's backlash from the Elder Signs they carved a few miles away.
The next morning, a woman named Amanda Seymour approaches the Cast, looking to hire Blake Investigations to find her husband, Martin, who disappeared into the night a week ago. The police have been unable to track the man down, though his car was found in long-term parking at the local airport, indicating he's possibly left the country (in which case it is a voluntary disappearence, out of the country and the police can't do anything about it).
Amanda mentions that Martin had been feverishly working on some new “pet project” of his lately, something about the key to translating some ancient historical text or another. Amanda, a housewife with a high school diploma, had little interest in her husband’s passion for amateur archaeology and ancient religions, so she doesn’t know anything about the exact nature of his studies. She will say, however, that recently he’d become more and more obsessive, ranting and raving about “the key” and how the secrets to the universe were his for the unlocking. Once she’d suggested he take a break and get away from the work for awhile, and he went mad, accusing her of working for “them,” and threatening her life if she ever interfered again. A combination of love and real fear of the madness behind his eyes kept her quiet, living in terror, until the night he vanished.
Anita, Kay, and Drake go to investigate the scene, where they find more pages from the Voynich Manuscript, and translation notes. They call Dr. Armedt of the Rosicrucians to inform him they've made an important find, and he says he'll be over as soon as possible; he has a few very valuable books he'd like the Hive security systems to protect, and one in particular could be of use to Anita and crew.
John makes a few phone calls--one to the Templars, and one to a certain high-ranking CIA operative--and is able to determine that Martin bought a ticket to Saudi Arabia.
Armedt shows up and presents Anita a "hot off the presses" English translation of The Necronomicon of Abd Alhazred, completed by a Canadian Rosicrucian scholar named Donald Tyson. He looks over the translation notes from Martin's office and says these are a breakthrough. He moves to take them to Daniel right away and asks that the Cast keep in touch while in Saudi Arabia.
John takes Kay to go get supplies for the trip, and Anita begins reading the Necronomicon. As she reads, she gets a visit from Nyarlathotep in his usual Ebonor guise. He offers information, makes a snide remark about Alan, Anita smarts off to him, he puts her face through a table, and leaves to go talk to John and Kay. John and Kay are more polite and respectful, and Ebonor informs them that one day Anita is going to push him too far and he's going to rip out her spine. Then he tells John and Kay that the path Anita's boyfriend is walking stands a chance of waking up Azathoth, and as he puts it, "you do not want Azathoth waking up and having coherent thoughts. It would be bad." John asks him to elaborate, because John is tired of being in the dark about the Mythos. Ebonor offers to take John to an alternate dimension for a thousand years to "give you the basics," then return him to this very spot in time, after which, "you'll wind up gibbering in a mental institution for the rest of your mortal life, but you'll know the truth, man!"
John declines.
Anita's research indicates that Martin may have summoned the spirit of the Mad Arab himself, and that he is headed for the Nameless City beneath Irem in the Empty Space of the Arabian Desert. The gang correctly surmises that nothing good can come of this and resolves to find and stop Martin before he gets there.
The group sets off for Saudi Arabia, where they learn that Martin has caused some trouble at a temple in Mecca. People are reporting frightening supernatural events occurring. The group charters a jeep and goes north to investigate. It seems that Martin walked into the great temple at Mecca, announced that the Old Ones were returning, cut off his nose and ears, stabbed several people, then lifted off the floor and flew out through a hole in the cieling.
Outside the temple, the group is attacked in an alley by a group of men who have the holy symbol of the Zoroastrian god Ormazd tattooed on their bodies. Drake winds up needing hospitalization, but they defeat the attackers. They try to take one alive, but discover that the agents all wear poisoned rings and have false tooth caps with cyanide capsules in them. Suicide devices.
Not to be outwitted, Anita summons the spirit of one of the men back, and the spirit informs her that they are members of a group called the Society of Ormazd, whose sacred duty it is to protect the location of the Black City. Even the members of the Society don't know how to find the city, but swear their lives to protecting the secret from the world. Hidden within the city, the spirit reveals, is a gem called the Fire of Asshurbanipal, or the Heart of Ahriman. The group recalls that this gem is one of the ways Alan can resurrect Xalotun, and wonders why it is the Mad Arab wants it. The spirit surmises that perhaps if Alhazred gets the gem, he can resurrect himself, but warns that there is a legendary and horrific guardian at the temple that will devour those who try to remove the gem from the priest Xuthltan, who is cursed to hold it in his dead fist for all eternity.
The spirit then reveals that the Cast are not the only ones who seek the city. A group of Tainted individuals have also arrived and are looking for Martin and the city. The assumption of John and Anita is that it's the CoR, sent by Alan. The race is on.
Part 2 Synopsis
The group flees into the desert, pursued by both the Society of Ormazd and the Church of Revelations. After a shootout with the CoR in the mountains, they steal additional supplies and follow the instructions in the Necronomicon: make a deal with the desert ghouls to lead them to the Black City.
They spend the next few days in the company of a pack of ghouls, seeking the city, when finally one morning, they awake to find the ghouls gone, and the city itself in the distance. The sight is foreboding, not simply because the city itself appears to be made of obsidian, but because it's above ground; the Necronomicon described it as being subterranean.
The group, however, has no time to debate. The armies of both the Ormazd Society and the Church of Revelations are hot on their tails, and not far out of rifle range. The group leaps on their horses and races for the city. Once they make the gates, they bob and weave through alleyways, searching for any building where they might find the gem they seek. They ditch their horses, the easier to remain stealthy, and begin their search. Eventually, Drake spots Martin--now quite obviously possessed by Alhazred--making a run for a temple of Ba'al at the far end of the city. The group gives chase just as the Church of Revelations reaches firing range.
With bullets whizzing by their heads, the group makes the temple. Anita, Drake, and Kay dash into the sanctuary after Martin/Alhazred, while John takes up firing position at the entrance, to try and buy them some time. Unfortunately, there are just too many of them, and John is overcome and knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile, in the sanctuary, Martin dashes for the front, where a mummified figure sits upon a throne, clutching a fist-sized glowing ruby: the Heart of Ahriman. Kay blasts Martin/Alhazred with her biokinetic powers, knocking him off his feet, and giving Drake time to try and get to him. Just before Drake catches the man, however, a gunshot rings out and a voice yells, "Stop right there!"
Drake turns to see about twenty to thirty members of the Church of Revelations, guns trained on the group. One of them throws John's unconscious body on the floor at their feet. Anita uses her Necromancy to check on him and announces that he's alive. The leader of the CoR group tells Martin/Alhazred to take the gem.
More gunfire. The Ormazd society has made the town, and the place erupts in chaos. John wakes up from the fire and begins taking out cultists. Kay and Drake turn to see Martin reaching for the gem. Both are accosted by CoR cultists and don't have time to get there to stop him. Anita calls upon her Necromantic powers to force Alhazred's spirit out of Martin's body and hold it prisoner. Martin collapses...but knocks the gem from Xuthltan's fist as he falls.
The temple quakes, and the walls split open, and a horrific tentacled thing emerges, wreaking havoc amongst the combatants, many of whom pass out in sheer horror. Drake, John, and Kay all manage to withstand looking at the thing, but not without certain sanity-draining consequences.
In a moment of desperation, Kay kicks the gem into one of the creature's mouths. There is a blinding flash of light, and the temple begins to sink. The Cast barely has time to notice that the Ormazd Society has emerged victorious in the battle against the CoR as they race for the city gates. They and seven members of the Ormazd Society make it out before the city is once again swallowed by the Desert.
The Ormazd Society thanks the Cast for their efforts, and asks the Cast to agree to be initiated into the group, to swear to protect this secret until the day they die. The Cast agrees, and go through an initiation ritual with the mysterious leaders of the Ormazd Society, the Council of Seven. At the end of the ritual, the Cast realizes that they can no longer remember where the city is, or even details about what it looks like, save the throne room with the Heart of Ahriman. They have no problems with this arrangement.
Returning to their hotel, they are greeted by a young man who asks them to accompany him, saying, "some friends from the United States await you in a nearby cafe."
Amara and Armedt have arrived in Saudi Arabia. Something new has come up for the Cast to look into...
Great Quotes:
Drake: Oh, did I mention the vortex from Hell?
Drake (to Kay): Right, so you saw it, too. Did you happen to be watching the Disney Channel at the time?
(Response to a phone call in the middle of the night)
John: Who is Abdul Alhazred?
Anita: So what did this Martin guy look like?
Anita: We don't check books out of the library, we steal them!
John (hanging up his cell phone): I have some bad news. Catheway is gone.
John: We couldn't have known this would happen.
(Phone conversation)
John: Anita, about your boyfriend. I really think it's time you wrote him a "Dear John" letter and broke it off.
(The Cast rolls into work several hours late)
(On phone with Ekloff)
John: We drank a $3000 bottle of wine.
Ebonor: So, how's your boyfriend doing? Any wedding bells ringing yet?
Ebonor: So whatcha' readin'?
(on being dressed in khaki fatigues)
John: But I don't want to be in Boca Raton when the world ends.
John: Okay, now they've just gone and made me mad.
Anita: C'mon, Kay...eat the spiders...*makes slurping noises*
(Re: ghouls eating dead bodies)
John: I think a demon had sex with me last night.
Anita (indicating Drake): There's just no hope for him.
Anita: You have to embrace your fears...like Batman.
Anita: I was dreaming, Drake. I was having sex. On the Beach. And you called me...to ask me if I own a Mickey Mouse DVD!? You are so evil!
Anita: He was an Arabic guy. He wrote Al Azif, which means "demons howling in the night." It's also...anothernamefortheNecronomicon. (drinks a lot of wine)
John: Whoa, back up a second...
Drake: An idiot.
Drake: See, this is what I'm talking about!
Anita: Hooooooo, that's bad!
Anita: That's not entirely true.
John: Anita...what are you not telling me...again?
Anita: Dr. Armedt said something to me about the consequences of using Mythos magic.
John: Consequences? Like wiping an entire town off the face of the planet, consequences!?
Cyan: Wait a second. You and Anita drank a bottle of wine...together?
John: Well there was an Elder Sign...
Dana: Glad you decided to Join us.
Anita: Yeah, yeah...can I help you?
John: I need to find an idiot named Martin Seymour.
Anita: Do you really have to keep bringing that up?
(Anita glares at him)
Ebonor: Hmm...things not going well for you kids, eh? Shame.
Anita: None of your business.
Ebonor: Don't be that way. Lemme see...Oh, the Necronomcion. Aw, how cute!
Kay: Now we all look like militants!
Kay: I hear they have good margaritas there.
Anita: Keep them happy, let them do what they want.
Drake: You know, that's generally a really bad philosophy.
Anita: Oh, that would be that succubus demon that lives in the desert. Did I forget to mention that?
Drake: What is a bat-man?
Anita: You poor man.
Great Moments:
The gang stops at Cracker Barrel for dinner on the way back from Catheway and introduces Drake to rock candy.
Ebonor/Nyarlathotep puts Anita's face through an oak table when she gets lippy with him.
Anita tries to use her "A Taste of Death" Necromantic power on Martin...and feels the Mad Arab push back!