Immortalis

One cold night in the spring of 1963, the disparate threads of a darkly arcane narrative become interwoven upon the lonely plains of North Dakota.

***Content warning: Episode contains violent scenes and references to historical atrocities. Listener discretion advised.***

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NARRATOR

Episode Thirty-Eight: Immortalis.

(Sound of wintry wind whistling)

(Subtle, disquieting music)

NARRATOR

The man called the Ossuarian waits in a lonely field fifty miles outside of Fargo, gazing up at the frigid stars with a faint smile upon his lips. The thing within him pulses with excitement he cannot help but share – indeed, he can no longer say where it ends, and he begins.

Once, this might have troubled him. Once, he would have feared the fate that he knows now barrels toward him in a ’58 Studebaker Scotsman, and would have fought with all he had to resist it. Once, he was merely human.

Headlights cut the night, and the Ossuarian shifts, warming his frail body against the chill night. The black Studebaker pulls only a little way into the field, then stops when the terrain becomes too uncertain. The man called Brayden emerges from the driver side, moving cautiously but with a certain predatory confidence. Limned in the yellowish glow of the headlights, the Ossuarian can sense in the newcomer the lean hardness of an old soldier who feels more at ease hunting his fellow man than trying to understand him.

The Ossuarian stands patiently, silently, observing Brayden’s approach. Even when Brayden calls to him by his former self’s name of Joe Vrabec, the Ossuarian makes no reply beyond sharpening his smile ever so slightly.

Only when Brayden has come close enough for his face to be almost visible in the faint backwash of the headlights’ glare does the Ossuarian reach out, not with his body or his voice, but with the gifted power that flows in his veins. Thrusting his will into the other man’s mind, he feels Brayden shock at the incorporeal assault. The killer’s soul is like cast iron, obdurate but brittle, and he feels Brayden begin to fracture ever so slightly.

The Ossuarian releases his hold, satisfied. Brayden staggers briefly, his eyes wide. Struggling to regain his erstwhile poise, Brayden draws a Colt 1911 from within his long coat, and fires three practiced shots into the Ossuarian’s chest. The man who entered the world in 1917 as Joe Vrabec, and spent the better part of his life as a humble Amarillo bookseller, falls soundlessly to the earth, left leg scrabbling senselessly at the patchy snow for several seconds before gradually stilling.

Brayden takes four paces forward until he looms over the fallen man, and directs two more .45 caliber rounds through his quarry’s cranium. Then he waits for the thing which he cannot truly believe will come, no matter how firmly or repeatedly he has been assured of it. He has learned many strange and incredible things during the two years that he has dogged Joe Vrabec, but still, he cannot believe.

A small protuberance, like a blossoming cyst, rises on the dead man’s forehead, then slowly splits like an opening third eyelid, revealing an orb beneath as red as chianti. The object, roughly the size and shape of a billiards ball, finally frees itself from the flesh with a small popping sound.

Despite his disbelief, Brayden, a consummate professional, promptly kneels and retrieves the object as he has been instructed. The orb is intolerably cold in his hand, its glassy surface seeming to sap all warmth and vitality from his hand through even this briefest contact. He stows the thing shiveringly into his coat pocket, carefully holsters his pistol, then turns and walks back toward the Studebaker, reflecting on the murky and arcane history he has pieced together during his long hunt.

[Short pause]

THE PROFESSOR

Professor Andreas Halvorsen, 8 Oktober 1907: Vi snek oss over den russiske grensen i går kveld. Jeg var et nervevrak og helt ubrukelig. Det var Juuso som fikk oss forbi grensevaktene, om det var ved overtalelse eller bestikkelser, vet jeg ikke… [Fade out]

Professor Andreas Halvorsen, 8 October 1907: We slipped across the Russian border last night. I was a nervous wreck and completely useless. It was Juuso who got us past the border guards, whether by persuasion or by bribery, I do not know. He is such a clever young man, and how I would be lost without his guidance!

I am naturally most eager to begin my study of our hard-won prize in earnest, but it must wait until we are safe from prying eyes. For most, it would seem nothing more than a polished stone, having no more value than its unusual luster and shape might imbue, but even given the small chance that someone might recognize it for the wonder that it truly is, I have no doubt that they would steal or even kill to obtain it.

We must be cautious.

[Fade in] …men selv gitt den lille sjansen for at noen ville gjenkjenne det for hva det virkelig er, er jeg ikke i tvil om at de ville stjele eller drepe for å få det.

Vi må være forsiktige.

THE DOCTOR

Doktor Erich Martense, 24 April 1939: Ich bin absolut sicher, dass wir es endlich gefunden haben. Die Italiener wollten es nicht aufgeben, doch wolltten sie auch meinen Einfluss nicht herausfordern… [Fade out]

Doctor Erich Martense, 24 April 1939: I am absolutely certain that we have found it at last. The Italians did not wish to relinquish it, but neither did they want to challenge my influence. As if the ignorant fools understood what they possessed! If they did, they would never have surrendered it so easily. A lifetime of ridicule for following in the titanic footsteps of Agrippa and Paracelsus, and at last I have the proof!

How maddening, though, to finally have it in my hands, but be forced to wait until we reach Berlin to make the proper tests! It is difficult to believe that the memory of this thing, the highest achievement of humankind, has become so corrupted as to survive only in the paltry legend of the philosopher’s stone. It is, in truth, the essence of mankind, distilled into tangible form: all of our ambition, all of our ingenuity, all of our wonderful destructive power. Perhaps God created the world, but Man will conquer it and, at the end, lay it to waste, and with it the weak old deity.

I cannot seem to tear my gaze from it. The beauty of its luster, its glassy smoothness and perfect roundness, like a polished pearl of the purest blood…

[Fade in] …darauf zu starren. Die Schönheit seiner Glanzes, seine glasige Glätte und perfekte Rundheit, wie eine polierte Perle aus reinstem Blut…

THE SMUGGLER

Emilio Serraglio, 17 agosto 1922: La pietra è una cosa strana. Non sono nemmeno sicuro che sia davvero una pietra: sembra quasi artificiale. Ma cos'altro potrebbe essere? [Fade out]

Emilio Serraglio, 17 August 1922: The stone is a strange thing. I am not sure it is even truly a stone – it seems almost artificial. But what else could it be?

It is lucky I managed to convince the Lithuanian sailor who found it that it was essentially worthless, and he parted with it for only twenty lire. If it is worth even half what I suspect, I will profit a hundred times over. If not, I will make a gift of it to Adriana. She is still angry with me, I think, for lying about the wine run to Marseille. She will have to forgive me. It is such a beautiful thing!

[Fade in] ...altrimenti lo darò ad Adriana. Credo che sia ancora arrabbiata con me per aver mentito riguardo al viaggio del vino a Marsiglia. Dovrai perdonarmi. È una cosa così bella!

UNKNOWN AUTHOR 1

Author and date unknown: Malum immortalis est.

Evil is deathless.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Brayden drives for thirty minutes before he finds a place with a pay phone. The bar is far too crowded for his liking, but he has been at this game long enough to know that risk can only be mitigated, never wholly avoided.

The voice on the other end answers his cryptic relay with curt instructions on where to meet his contact for the exchange – a little Greyhound station in a town almost another full twenty minutes away.

Brayden tersely acknowledges the instruction and hangs up. Then he moves toward the bar and orders a mid-range Scotch, neat, and begins to chat idly with the bartender, donning a cloak of tedious mundanity to allay any undue interest he might have aroused. The bartender, a muscular and heavy-jowled man with a small and faded bald eagle tattoo on his left bicep whom Brayden takes for a USMC man who served in the Pacific theater, proves a little too keen for his liking. When the bartender asks what brings him through town, easily marking the well-dressed stranger for an outsider, Brayden improvises a fictional farm machinery sales trip for International Harvester. The bartender seems to accept this, but Brayden can feel the weakness of his impromptu cover, and thinks that he is no longer the man who served in the OSS, no longer the operator with skills and wits honed to a razor’s edge. Time, he reflects bitterly, dulls and rusts even the sharpest blade.

[Short pause]

THE SMUGGLER

Emilio Serraglio, 12 dicembre 1922: Non posso lasciarlo andare. Dovrebbe andare ad Adriana, ma trovo la sua bellezza accattivante... [Fade out]

Emilio Serraglio, 12 December 1922: I cannot seem to part with it. It should go to Adriana, but I find its beauty captivating.

Perhaps this Christmas.

I miss how close we once were, before her dear mother departed this world, and I worry for her. She does not think I know of her involvement with the communists, but of course I do. I pray every day that she does not suffer for the sins of her father.

The clashes in the streets become ever more worrisome.

[Fade in] … Gli scontri nelle strade si fanno sempre più preoccupanti.

[Short pause]

THE PROFESSOR

Andreas Halvorsen, 28. oktober 1907: En katastrofal utvikling under vår hjemreise til Tromsø. En vinterstorm har strandet oss i Ivalo på ubestemt tid… [Fade out]

Andreas Halvorsen, 28 October 1907: A disastrous development during our return trip to Tromsø. A winter storm has stranded us in Ivalo indefinitely. Juuso warned me that the Lapland winter comes early and suddenly, but in my eagerness, I foolishly insisted that we brook no delay and take the most direct overland route.

Since we may now be trapped here for seven months, I have begun to examine the object as thoroughly as I dare. The Saami family with whom we shelter have proven most excellent hosts, but I find it ever harder to trust anyone other than Juuso, who has seen me through so many trials. He has become almost like a son to me, or perhaps a younger brother.

The object is not at all what I expected. The accounts in the classical, medieval, and Renaissance sources are woefully incomplete and unreliable. It seems to have no effect at all on metals, base or noble, and if it has any influence over the health or longevity of its bearer, it has yet to make itself manifest.

If we must be trapped here, I pray that this long, dark winter will reveal more of its closely guarded secrets.

[Fade in] … Hvis vi må være fanget her, håper jeg at denne lange, mørke vinteren vil avsløre flere av sine nøye bevoktede hemmeligheter.

THE DOCTOR

Erich Martense, 5. Juni 1939: Was für ein Wunder! Die Kraft und das Wissen, die der Stein verspricht, sind fast unvorstellbar. Doch mit dem Erfolg kommt ein neues Dilemma... [Fade out]

Erich Martense, 5 June 1939: Such wonder! The power and knowledge that the stone promises are almost beyond comprehension. Yet with success comes a fresh dilemma: do I share the discovery, and risk losing the stone forever, or conceal it and risk discovery? I am a fool to even write these thoughts.

But then, I am not entirely certain what I have learned, and an abundance of caution is warranted in such a momentous undertaking. I must verify what I have learned before I even consider reporting such a matter to the state.

I believe that the promised substance may be milked somehow, for lack of a better term, from the stone, and then imbibed. It is this ingestion which begins the process of the final transformation, if I understand the couched mutterings of these clever old mystics correctly. However, the exact manner in which the milking may be accomplished still eludes me.

[Fade in] ... wenn ich die subtile Weitschweifigkeiten dieser klugen alten Mystiker richtig verstehe. Allerdings ist mir die genaue Art und Weise des Melkens noch unklar.

THE OSSUARIAN

The Ossuarian, February 12, 1951: The human animal disgusts me now. To think I was ever one of them. Since that awful, glorious day I killed Martense and took his prize for myself, I have diverged so far from those apes in trousers. Already, I am like a god from those Greek stories my papa read to me when I was small, except I am real.

The stone is a part of me now. After I coaxed out the blood and drank it, I could feel it in swimming around in my veins, filling up my soul.

UNKNOWN AUTHOR 2

Author and date unknown: Alsharu la yamutu, bal yantaqil min 'ard 'iilaa 'ukhraa.

Evil does not die, but passes from one land to another.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

Brayden blinks sleepily. The open country road stretches before him, bone-pale in the moonlight and twisting tortuously across the darkling prairie.

The hour is now approaching midnight, and he can feel the weight of too many hours accumulating on his eyelids, pulling him down toward oblivion and the nightmare that lurks underneath.

He shakes himself awake, and thinks, Decay, the world is all decay.

It is a midnight thought, the kind that not only makes sense to rest-starved mind, but seems like a deeply revelatory truth.

Once more, the ceaseless winding of the road lulls him into soporific and murky reflections.

[Long pause]

THE PROFESSOR

Andreas Halvorsen, 9. november 1907: Steinen fyller mitt sinn med slike visjoner, slike forunderlige løfter… [Fade out]

Andreas Halvorsen, 9 November 1907: The stone fills my mind with such visions, such wondrous promises. It so much more marvelous than the silly alchemist’s dream I once pursued with such passion.

Yet the thing’s affinity for blood troubles me. I still sometimes see the way it drank so greedily, when Juuso cut his hand. He calls it the Devil’s toy, and refuses to even share a room with it now. Perhaps he is right in this.

I wonder how such a thing is created, and how many of its like there are in the world.

I remember what my grandmother used to say, in her rustic dialect: rotlaust tre fell, a rootless tree falls. As a boy, I could never make sense of it, but I think that perhaps now at last I understand. One must be firm in conviction, and never waver.

[Fade in] …Man må være fast i sin overbevisning, og aldri vakle.

THE REVOLUTIONARY

3 marzo 1924: Mia carissima Albane, Mio padre è morto. Gli scagnozzi di Mussolini sono venuti a prenderlo di notte... [Fade out]

3 March 1924:

My dearest Albane,

My father is dead. Mussolini’s thugs came for him in the night, claiming suspicions of his involvement with the mafia, which was of course a lie. A smuggler and a swindler he may have been, but he never bowed to any authority, legal or otherwise.

They hung him in the market square, along with twelve other men and three women from the village. I do not even know of what crime the others were accused, but I am certain that none of them deserved the rope so much as do their executioners.

I am leaving tomorrow. I will take nothing with me except what I can carry, and hope that I can reach the French border without issue. I will never abandon the fight, but I fear that Italy is lost to us. My heart breaks for my father and for my country.

I hope that I will see you soon, my friend, my sister. Whatever may come, I know that you will carry on the struggle for a just and equitable society. Never let men like Mussolini rise unchallenged.

With deepest affection,

Adriana Serraglio

[Fade in] …Non permettere mai che uomini come Mussolini si elevino senza essere sfidati. Con il più profondo amore, Adriana Serraglio.

THE OSSUARIAN

I so relished killing the German. He was so damn sure that he was safe, that the government would protect him. Even after all he’d seen and done, he still didn’t understand what I did long ago: we’re all livestock, destined to end up on the butcher’s block sooner or later. And for the kind of men who play games of power and blood, there is no piece that cannot be sacrificed if it wins the game. Dumb son of a bitch, no wonder the stone tired of him so soon. Martense had stopped being useful long ago, to both it and to the men who spared him from the gallows. Watching him realize this, watching him finally know that the end was upon him, filled me with a kind of delight I’d never known before.

But he’ll live on, in a way. We all will, through the stone.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

The Greyhound station is all but deserted at this hour, with only one other soul present. A young woman sits at a bench as far removed as possible from Brayden’s own, and occasionally regards him sidelong with obvious mistrust.

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Brayden consults his watch. The man from the CIA is almost seven minutes late. Brayden regards the shadows that stretch primordially wide and deep in the midnight station.

A briefcase rests at his feet, containing both the object itself and the extensive documentation he has gathered regarding its recent history. Of the latter, naturally, he has made his own copies, for his own protection and against his employer’s explicit instructions.

He hardly needs it though, in truth, so ingrained are their contents in his brain.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

From the March 7, 1924, edition of La Dépêche du Midi:

Une jeune femme a été agressée et grièvement blessée hier soir dans le train en provenance de Milan. L'agression s'est produite tard dans la soirée, à l'approche de Toulouse. Aucun suspect n'a été arrêté ni identifié. La victime, une ressortissante italienne au nom inhabituel de Mlle Adriana Serraglio, serait toujours inconsciente. [Fade out]

A young woman was robbed and seriously injured last night on the train from Milan. The attack occurred in the late evening, as the train approached Toulouse. No suspects have been apprehended or named. The victim, an Italian national with the unusual name of Miss Adriana Serraglio, is reportedly still unconscious.

THE DOCTOR

Erich Martense, 19. Juli 1942: In den letzten Jahren hatte ich so wenig Zeit, meiner eigentlichen Arbeit nachzugehen. Mein Dienst für das Reich hat mich in vielerlei Hinsicht überfordert... [Fade out]

Erich Martense, 19 July 1942: With the last few years, I have had so little time to pursue my true work. My service to the Reich has left me stretched thin, in more ways than one.

The silver lining is that I have been assigned to a distant facility, and now enjoy both minimal oversight and an almost limitless supply of test subjects.

Perhaps I can find a way to align personal pursuit with official duty.

[Fade in] ...Vielleicht kann ich einen Weg finden, persönliche Ziele mit meinen offiziellen Pflichten in Einklang zu bringen.

THE SMUGGLER

Emilio Serraglio, 18 febbraio 1923: La pietra è qualcosa di diabolico. Mi sussurra di notte. Grazie a Dio non l'ho dato ad Adriana... [Fade out]

Emilio Serraglio, 18 February 1923: The stone is something diabolical. It whispers to me at night. Thank God I did not give it to Adriana, though perhaps even that was the thing’s influence.

I dream of it melting into my forehead as easily as a hot knife passes through butter, and within the dream this brings the greatest ecstasy I have ever known, but I feel ill upon waking.

I will keep the stone and hide it away. The Devil will not have me, or my daughter.

[Fade in] ...Terrò la pietra e la nasconderò. Il Diavolo non avrà me, né mia figlia.

THE PROFESSOR

Andreas Halvorsen, 13. desember 1907: Juuso er død, ved min hånd. Vi har hatt så forferdelige argumenter de siste ukene… [Fade out]

Andreas Halvorsen, 13 December 1907: Juuso is dead, by my hand.

We had such terrible arguments these past few weeks, and he repeatedly threatened to leave as soon as the roads clear, even without collecting the payment he is due for this expedition. Somehow, I never quite believed him until last night.

He walked in upon my experiments with feeding the stone, which I had until then managed to keep from him. It partakes of no animal blood, only sustenance extracted from a human source. Seeing what I was doing, he demanded that I forsake the stone, angrier and more desperate than I had ever seen him previously. I, of course, refused to relinquish such a marvel, beyond all accepted science or theology. He then said that, if I would not see reason, he would leave in the morning, regardless of the snow and ice. I could not bear the thought of losing his companionship, he has become so dear to me, and I begged him to reconsider. When he reviled me as an old fool, anger and hurt such as I have never known seized me, and…

I cannot bring myself to say more of that awful moment. If I ever doubted the reality of damnation, I am certain of it now.

Juuso was right about all of it, I finally understand. Perhaps I have always known, but refused to accept it. How corruptible is the human heart! My grandmother’s words take on new meaning now. The rootless tree falls. I look over this Finnish village, and think of sprawling Tromsø, and see that we are all rootless trees awaiting a strong wind.

And I remember another of her sayings: vondskap døyjar aldri, men går frå ein hond til ein annan. Evil never dies, only passes from one hand to another.

When the thaw comes, I will cast the stone into the North Sea. Thereafter, I do not know.

[Fade in] …Ondskapen dør aldri, bare går fra en hånd til en annen. Når tøen kommer, skal jeg kaste steinen i Nordsjøen. Etterpå vet jeg ikke.

UNKNOWN AUTHOR 3

Translated from Syriac, date unknown, attributed to Zosimos of Panopolis:

The substance can only be drawn from a living body imbued with first matter, through the method known as the Opening of the Hidden Eye. Newly created, it is purest white. The more of the world soul that the substance consumes, the redder it becomes.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

As he waits, that moment in the field wherein Brayden felt that outside will enter him, vast and inexorable as the primordial dark ocean, keeps replaying in his mind. He tries to explain it away as some mesmerist’s trick, but the explanation falls flat even within his thoughts.

Checking his watch, he finds that the CIA man is now thirteen minutes late. His limbic system is beginning to thunder, screaming at him voicelessly that something is very wrong, that he needs to move, move. The young woman stares at him, eyes wide and pale in the station’s murk, as he stands and walks away from his bench, out into the night.

The feeling of wrongness deepens as he walks toward his now dust-strewn Studebaker. He thinks, No, they cannot do this to me, not after all I have done for them.

But a wiser, colder part of himself knows that men who have done far more have been killed for less, that there is no sentimentality in the world of covert operations and power brokerage.

The crack of a Springfield splits wide the night, and Brayden falls to the earth, clawing at the cold, cracked pavement more in shock than pain. Within the briefcase, the stone begins to hum droningly, its hunger awakened by what leaks from Brayden’s chest. He alone sees the reddish, smoky shadow that seeps from the briefcase’s seams, forming something of vaguely human outline, but far, far too large, blotting out the stars like a swelling storm cloud.

And as he lies there, the numbness of the shot through his chest turning into a slow, throbbing burning, he recalls inanely the old Norwegian grandam’s words – the rootless tree falls, and evil changes hands but never dies.

[Short pause]

THE DOCTOR

Erich Martense, 29. September 1948: Der Stein hat mich verlassen. Nach all meiner Mühe und meinen Opfern gab es mir nur vierzehn Monate lang die Kommunion, bevor es mir von der Stirn fiel wie eine große blutige Träne… [Fade out]

Erich Martense, 29 September 1948: The stone has forsaken me. After all of my toil and sacrifice, it blessed me with only fourteen months of communion before it fell from my forehead like a great bloody teardrop, like a stillborn calf.

I will guard it until I find a way to regain its favor. I must win its favor again. It is utter torture to be merely human once more.

[Fade in} …Ich muss seine Gunst wieder gewinnen. Es ist mir unerträglich, wieder nur ein Mensch zu sein.

UNKNOWN AUTHOR 4

Buchenwald inscription, anonymous, circa 1945: Das Böse stirbt nie, sondern breitet sich von einem Mund in viele Ohren aus. Evil never dies, only passes from one mouth into many ears.

THE PROFESSOR

Andreas Halvorsen, slutten: Ondskap er roten og blomsten til menneskehetens tre. Andreas Halvorsen, the end: Evil is the root and flower of the human tree.

UNKNOWN AUTHOR 5

Graffiti discovered in a culvert near the body of Cory Brayden, later determined to be unrelated to his death: It took Mother Nature millennia to build these prairies. It took the white man a generation to destroy them.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

So many things flash through Brayden’s fading mind, as it gropes frantically through its contents for anything that might save it from the yawning abyss. He remembers that everyone who came into contact with the object came to a bad end: the old Norwegian professor hanging himself in a deserted Latvian barn in 1913, the Italian smuggler and the German doctor coming to violent ends, and of course, he himself having brought such an end to the Ossuarian. Even the smuggler’s daughter, who survived the attack and woke from her coma nearly two months afterward, was irrevocably changed, retiring to a convent in the Swiss Alps despite her lifelong atheism, and never speaking another word during the remainder of her life, which was cut tragically short at the age of forty-two by an aneurysm.

Evil never dies, Brayden whispers, and then his eyes go blank, never to close of their own accord again.

A tall man emerges from the shadows, breath pluming in the cold night. He looms over the former OSS man, a human weapon too dulled and worn to be of further use. In the darkness, the CIA man does not see how Brayden’s blood has pooled under the briefcase, against the flow of gravity, or how it has run impossibly up the sides and through the clasped opening.

With a leather-gloved hand, the tall man reaches downward.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro]

NARRATOR

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[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro - Continues]