Letter 1 - 25th July 2005

Dear,

Thank you about your kind letter about the monster I spawned all those years
ago. I have no idea who owns it, where its present incarnations rests, nor who
profits from its sales to this day. Certainly not I, nor any of my former
colleagues who worked on the game for about three years. One could almost say
that it “died” under the same circumstances that gave it birth. One week it was
#1 best selling game in the US, the following week Inscape folded and the game
was buried. Conspiracy? I have no idea. I pulled the sequel Cult as I had no
wish to return to the blood arena that is software publishing. No wish to return
to that haunted city of Lost Angels. I feared that Cult had a dangerous side
effect and the actions of Aum, The Solar Temple, and the Branch Davidians stayed
my hand. I think it was a wise move. The world is too fucked up without me
adding to it. I went back to writing children’s books and being an artist. But
your letter is moving. I read it to my wife Mandy and she was pleased that
somebody out there remembered it and enjoyed it. Drowned God was such a mammoth
venture and it remains for me under the category of misunderstood. It’s
beginnings were humble. A notebook that remained from 1983 when I penned the
antique forgery The Diary of a Plagiarist and sold it (12 volumes) in the
Cowgate, Edinburgh. A film of that episode was commissioned by Channel 4 but was
once again thwarted. Ten years later I resurrected the basic premise for Drowned
God. Time Warner bought the rights. The game was commissioned before the X-
Files, suddenly what had seemed a left field minority interest was propelled
into $3 million dollar flagship for Inscape. This was a pity, because it meant
that much of what I had written was censored. Even the last realm of the game,
Chokmah, is merely a 1/10 of what was made. The military temples and underground
bunkers were reserved for Cult. Where they are now I have no idea. I was locked
out of my own game. Indeed, so much was cut that I fear the story made no sense.
Perhaps there is a fitting justice to all of this. My partners in the
construction of Drowned God were seduced by promises of great wealth. The
English producer made secret deals with Time Warner for a bigger portion of the
pot. Film deals, 5 book deals with Eranta, a record deal, etc. A paid for and
promised engine to realise a personal route through the game, devised on the
numerology of the Bequest Globe, failed to materialise. For the nine personality
types there were nine pathways. Even the running order of the Realms was
changed, with Binah starting the game, where the original game had begun with
Chesed, the Mayan realm. My original storyteller in the game, the Relic Hunter
(Richard Horne) was cut and only makes a brief appearance in Din. It was through
this character that all loose ends were tied and explained. When the game came
out it was critically hailed and panned at the same time. Loved or loathed, my
favorite quote from Playboy(?) who said it made The Twilight Zone seem like Pee
Wee’s Big Day Out, the game languished for a month with sales of 100,000 before
disappearing. I have never made a penny in royalties. But I still feel proud of
my monster. Your letter reminds me of the same thrill that I had devising it.
Recently I was approached by Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City) to consider
making Cult. My feelings for the moment remain the same, as I have said. Perhaps
later… For now this is enough. Write back and perhaps we can continue our
discussion. My sister lives in New York state in a place called Goshen. Mandy
and I sometimes see my publisher in NY so who knows… A glass of absinthe for me.
And we’ll talk it up a storm, Best wishes to you, Harry Horse “What were we if
our souls have lived before; We teem as sand grains to our present shore, Yet
all may be dust from some opening door!” – RH Orion, 1846

Letter 2 - 10th august 2005

Dear,

Your letter arrived this morning and awakened in me ideas that

had for several years lain dormant. For the topographical inspiration
for DG came from a dream and last night my dreams were disturbed by low

visions of military temples and unholy crypts, shifting sands over barren
deserts and forgotten decaying landscapes. Your letter added to the feeling that
something in me had shifted and despite my resolution that this umbrageous
legacy should remain closed, sealed, something in your perceptions about the
horrific endings of Kether and Malchut was resurrected...

Perhaps my dreams are informed by my current nocturnal readings.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by HP Lovecraft, a tale of mingled terror and

fascination set in the decaying seaport towns of New England; fishy hybrids

and ancient secrets locked in extraterrestrial vaults under the spume of

troubled waters. All those abandoned wharves and warehouses crumbling into the
sea. Crooked eaves and terror soaked inhabitants scuttling to preserve the
secret from prying outsiders, all grist for the mill for my own febrile
imagination, the foundations for which our nightmares are built upon. Blame
myself for making that ground fertile, for allowing the seeds of horror to find
dark soils worthy for those’ mares to take hold, but wether I read Mailer, Henry
Miller or that mad mage the crafty one, still am I troubled. Like the ten year
old boy I once was I enjoy scaring myself to sleep, though the waking moments at
3.am promise hat filled cranial machinations. I am a cosmanaut venturing into
the unknown inner spaces of the unconcious. I bring back scattered fragments of
the dream and try to weave some semblance of coherance. The first dream in 1981
informed the making of 'Diary of A Plaguarist', the 18th century manuscript
describing the fall of Atlantis and the subsequent cyphers of the secret,
complete with the rival factions who vie for control. In those days my knowledge
of the arcane and occult was minimal. The work was simply to acquire a sum from
the pompous booksellers in the capital. I was poor and the income I generated as
an artist was minimal. Finding blank papers in a drawer and soaking them in tea
produced a pleasing antiquarian effect. My copperplate handwriting ( enclosed
sample, only a copy I am afraid) and emulation of illustrations of that time
provided decent subterfuge. I produced 11 chapters or manuscripts, thusly
decorated. Each copy bound and sewn. Orange juice to culture a mould on the
covers. Dust from the fireplace scattered on those mouldering covers. Greased
endpapers mothballed and tinctured, even the smell was authentic. Let me explain
that my real name is Richard Horne ( though for reasons I shall not enter into
here I prefer to be recognised by my nom de plume) and for the purposes of
disgusing the true authorship of these manuscripts I simply spelt that name
backwards- hence Dracir Enroh, dated 1846.
The contents of the Diary were rambling and nonsensical. I was merely after the
prize. Selling the diaries as they were produced very fortnight to a dealer
called Armstrong. He was taken with the look of the books and offered me the sum
of £ 50 for each one( a pittance, but fortune for me) on the understanding that
I bring him all 12 in due time. He believed as I had told him that the
manuscripts belonged to my father and were kept in a drawer of his bureau, and
that it was necessary for me, so as not to arouse suspicion, that I remove them
one by one, with a period of weeks between each theft. Colluding with me in this
way I was given ample time to concoct the latest version. At first the Diaries
were concerned with the Blavatskian ramblings of the Theosopshists. As you have
so rightly noted, the ramblings of the Relic Hunter, much given to discourse
upon Atlantean airships and manimals. After three volumes cyphered in this
manner, replete with diagrams and maps of the citadel, pages filled with
Sumerian cryptograms and number codes, German expressionist poetry copied from
unread books on the subject, I began to exhaust my small library and turned
instead to filling the pages with diagrams from a nuclear fission handbook from
a power station, engineering blueprints for aeroplanes and other delights into
the handbook of a modern Nostradamus. Joyfull as this was to the japester in me,
it was my final undoing. I had been carefull to select a bookdealer who dealt in
bric-a-brac, rather than an authentic expert in antiquarian books. The inclusion
of these groundbreaking discoveries whetted the appetite of Armstrong. This
unpublished manuscript made the work of HG Wells seem like the blind musing of a
pulp writer. Here, afterall, were the rudimentary and accurate sketches for a
fission, nearly a hundred years before the discovery by modern science. Here,
the dates of the two great wars and the descriptions of the vessels that would
carry those dread payloads. Turn a page and see the blueprints for the
aeroplane, the tank, the motor car. And unlinke Nostradamus, the names of the
players. Not Hister but Hitler. Armstrong the dealer went to his fortune. He
took my forgeries to a publisher.

I believe in synchronicity, not coincidence. The 23 Skidoo Principle.

Schroedinger's Cat. Call it what you will. I should tell you that I was already
a published author and illustrator in the employ of Canongate Publishers. Indeed
I took some of the manuscripts there to be photocopied. I was working on
drawings for 'Jekyll and Hyde' (pub. Canongate 1985) and would mix up these and
the secretive workings of my efforts to preserve something of my labours - for
posterity. Armstrong took my seven manuscripts to an expert called Dr.Black (I
kid you not) who in turn took them to Christie's, the internationally held
experts in the field of antiques - and rare manuscripts etc. Now here is the
strange part. Unknown to me there really was a writer called Richard Horne who
was working in 1846. His most famous book is called Orion, a verse poem
recalling the slaughter of the Sons of God by Diana the Huntress in Merope. He
was born in 1803 and his last book written in 1884 was called 'Sithron the Star
Stricken', subtitled, a 12th century manuscript discovered under the ruin of
Solomon's Temple, translated from the ancient Arabic manuscript by Salem Ben
Uzair (really Richard Horne). Orion was published in 1846. The expert was
convinced that this was one of his forgeries of japes. Thrilled, Armstrong took
my manuscripts to the first publisher he could find... Canongate. I was
discovered ofcourse and prosecution was threatened. A deal was struck in the
musty backroom of the shop. I was to provide the rest of the manuscripts at a
reduced cost. It served me right I suppose. I only wrote up to the 11th Diary of
A Plaguarist and then escaped to France. Sithron begins thus :
'I pray the lord Christ's pardon, having found,
Something perhaps I should not, underground.
But human good and ill the mind alone can bond
If it shall change the arms, force, Art of War.
Extremes will come and end the bloody jar
And my space wandering ghost find its absolving star,
For days must dawn when men will tire of strife
And touch the trembling secret of this life
And catch a glimpse beyond with different wonders rife...'

Now I must return to my daily work though even writing this letter has whetted
my appetite for further discussions. I am intrigued by your ideas.
More...More..more. I can tell you that you would not have been dissatisfied with
Chokma. Certain recordings by remote viewers on those underground labyrinths
under White Sands and the Four Corner Area of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and
Arizona hold secrets that we cannot concieve of. Experiments in flesh, on animal
and man. Who's now the nutter? Military temples and desert venom... The pigman
is a Nostradamus quatrain. Perhaps it is a description of the gas masked
biological warrior or else it is one of those Cayce inspired
animals...transmuted flesh..the hybrid that my dear collegue Prof.Hapke from the
University of Edinburgh spoke of in the taverns of the Cowgate. His theory, that
could clear a room in minutes, was that the pig was a relative of ours, a mutant
result of an ancient nuclear war described in the Maharrabata (Vishnus and
Vhiminis, an Indian epic describing a war between the gods that vapourised
elephants and armies into dust, flying chariots that were controlled by the
pilot's mind alone) and that the food taboo associated with certain religions
was an unconcious memory of this fact. Under the Pyramid at Giza, the cult of
Horus underwent their Right Eye training. Tunnels that led to deep pools, filled
with crocodiles. The adept went swimming down these terror filled tunnels. His
mission to avoid the crocodiles and emerge only to begin the Left Eye
training..worse still...as described in Under the Pyramids by HPL...'Hippopotami
should not have human hands and carry torches...men should not have the heads of
crocodiles...'
My salutations to you,
Harry

P.S. Mandy says that I should tell you that 20 years ago I tried to buy back
those manuscripts from Armstrong.
He would not sell them at any price.