The Ashen Funeral of Nath-Hortath, or Sharnoth of the Jet Black...

Author: Hikaru Sakurai

Barely visible under the streets Engine Light in the center of darkness was a lone gentleman.

He was a tall gentleman.

In the gorgeous Engine City of London, he stood there dignified in the nighttime city filled with fog mixed in with exhaust smoke with no sort of faltering or confusion on them.

Everyone knew of his name.

His saga has been widely written in newspapers and autobiographies, known to the leaders of groups willing to enact murders, the minds of an occult-like magic society that runs deep within the darkness of Europe, those who are in the heart of the British Government known as the Club, and above all, the citizens.

This was a man with a pipe in hand.

This was a man who has seen everything from the abyss of knowledge.

One of the world's leading consultants, known for his great achievements not only in Britain but all of Western Europe as well as even large, foreign empires.

He is a man that had solved many cases all over Europe.

He is a man who can be called the King of Detectives.

A man who can even called as a Genius despite not being a Scholar, the only one to have been granted the great title of He Who Knows by Kadath's Northern Central Empire at the time.

Such an abundant amount is even written in autobiography novels.

As was true for his high nose---

"And a dangerous dog is a fitting match for a dangerous being."

The gentleman was dressed in a thick cloak.

His name is Sherlock Holmes.

Yes, the Detective. Known as the Great Detective, he was even a genuine celebrity that has been featured in major newspaper and radio broadcasts. But what on earth could such a person be doing in a dark alleyway at night?

---He's exterminating a monster.

---He's going to destroy an illusion.

This was not even a jest.

This was not even a joke.

The proof of this was where he was staring at.

To where his pipe with the trailing smoke is pointing to.

"Now then. Show yourself, you Ghoul."

In accordance with that voice---

Something appeared from the dark alleyway.

"Grr..."

It was a living creature.

He could clearly tell it was a living creature due to the way its shoulders were rising and falling with each breath. Although it didn't exactly have a full human shape, it looked similar to one. Its posture could be described as standing upright on two legs, but was hunched over with some dog-like features on its head. Covering the surface of its body was black skin with the elasticity of a rubber material.

It was a monster.

Such a creature was not something that likely doesn't exist in the unexplored parts of Africa or the remote regions of Kadath. No Naturalist could grasp such a creature. Not unlike that of an unbecoming thing.

He wonders if a woman or child, let alone an average gentleman or police officer would be able to handle its screams. Even for a soldier, they likely would not think calmly when faced with the smell of the creature's odor that was so foul as to be like they were the most polluted of the Thames itself, or its pure white eyes that glistened without light reflecting off of it, or even to its array of fangs lined all over.

However.

The Great Detective was calm and composed.

He wasn't panicking.

Nor was he trembling.

All he did was merely look into those white eyes in silence, of that which has lost intellect, with a gaze as sharp as a hawk.

"Professor Presbury. Indeed, your pet dog was a fine one. He had sensed his master's transformation...nay, that of the transformation itself. Your dog, Roy, had no choice but to bite your hand."

"Grr..."

Mister Holmes calls out to the creature, but it does not respond to him. The only thing that did was a cry. O' Beast that you are not, Prebury. No longer do you have any intellect.

"Seems you can no longer hear my voice anymore, Presbury. In that case, I'll have the Ghoul be my opponent."

The Great Detective's tone of voice changed.

Was he attempting to do something?

But he didn't do anything special in particular, like drawing his gun or raise his walking stick. For starters, he didn't even had his cane in his possession.

He did nothing.

However, he gave off the vibe that he was going to do something.

In response, the abomination was furious. With a howl laced with resentment, it hunches over and crawls across the city's paved road. It was going at breakneck speeds. In a few seconds, it will reach the Great Detective and tear out his throat with its unsanitary fangs.

However---

That didn't happen.

"You're very starved."

Words were spoken.

To the darkness behind the abominable beast in silence.

"You've lost your humanity."

A precept is given.

To the darkness at the heart of the cruel beast in sternness.

"Just like that of a Ghoul."

The Great Detective's neck was nearly torn off! Right there, the rubber-like beast shattered with the sound akin to the exhaust of a clogged Steam Engine. Just like a dissipating cloud, it scattered into ashes and vanished.

What was left behind--

Were the Great Detective and the Old Professor whose eyes were wide open.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"That was a close call."

"Not really."

"Well, well."

The next afternoon.

1908, the 20th of a certain month. 2:00 PM.

Mister Holmes was smoking purple smoke in his parlor room at B221 on Baker Street. The pipe wasn't that of the current fashion Engine kind, but rather a wooden one said to be nostalgic. He once used a type made out of a hallucinogenic leaf from South America, but currently settles for the mass-produced cigarette from Kadath. 

He didn't want any expensive cigarettes.

Especially when he's talking to someone like this.

This someone might have been from the government or the military (particularly the Air Force) who wouldn't even give their name to him. This someone might be a person who had a habit of bringing up his brother's name of Mycroft without having prepared a letter of introduction. This was a person who wore a suit with no personality to it, wore an expression with no personality, and even spoke without a personality.

"No writer would be so bold as to utter even a single word in crushing evil and spreading the truth. For that, the story of the Crawling Man case involving Professor Presbury has come to an end. A new chapter has been added to Sir Holmes detective story. Amazing, I'll say. What's the truth behind the incident?"

"There is no truth. Just the facts."

He utters a word in a single breath of purple smoke.

"The Professor used a monkey serum that caused him to temporarily transform, but it seems to subsided. That is all."

"Is that really true?"

"Of course."

He nods---

Mister Detective spoke a single word.

"You underestimate a writer's importance."

"A cheating writer does make for bad business, after all. For instance, when it comes to us who try to protect the interests of the Royal family and the citizens, it can be even harmful."

"I wonder if you can say the same about Sir Byron? A seance is something you would have liked, would it not?"

"That's a harsh way to put it."

"Harsh, you say?"

The eye said to be able to see through everything caught sight of the London skyscraper complexes visible through the window. He glares in disgust at the buildings, which were taller than the skyscrapers that were boasting dozens of stories above ground and spewing out smoke that filled the sky in gray.

"The Sharnoth Plan has failed."

"Yes. The Zoth Engine Plan, to be exact."

"Publically speaking, that is."

"Haha, is that so?"

Why laugh about it? There's nothing to gain from doing that.

"The Sharnoth Plan was foiled, and Queen Victoria passed away unable to maintain her impossible reign. Even then. there have been remnants of illusions that flicker from time to time, as though they're cursing the modern Engine civilization for dying the sky in gray."

"What do you suppose the reason for that be, Great Detective?"

"The final steps. Or..."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Or...

Maybe it was a harbinger of some sort?

I didn't know everything of what Mister Sherlock Holmes was thinking about. Despite attending a Scholar University, I've mastered neither the depths of Mesmerism nor was I an expert in it. My major was a mix of linguistics and Kadath archaeology, which was supposedly useless so I didn't quite feel good in knowing what Mister Holmes thought.

In a corner of the Westminster area late at night, I, Mary Clarissa Christie, a Royal College student who has been working as Mister Holmes temporary assistant since Spring, was conversing with the Great Detective. 

He said that the case with Professor Presbury, stemming from a request by a "Trevor Bennett", was resolved last night (without me being able to see it, for better or worse!). But why exactly was I walking around London at night like this?

It was the Sharp-eyed Gentleman. Mister Holmes.

This situation wasn't even likely or possible.

It was 11 PM nighttime when I was walking down a deserted alleyway with the gentleman---especially that of the Westminster Area---and was having a conversation with him, Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective famed not only in Britain but all of Europe. It's not like we were completely alone, as there was a black puppy with us at my feet.

Heh. I felt them.

Or perhaps it was a harbinger of some sort.

This hasn't happened before. It's been about three months since I started working as the Great Detective's assistant. We don't talk much, so there wasn't anything we mentioned to each other.

Namely, it was concerning me knowing about Him.

Him...him?

That man---

I didn't quite know how to express them. They certainly weren't a female and I wasn't convinced they even were so both I and Mister Holmes referred to them as Him.

For starters, how could one even describe Him if he's not even properly Human?

Yes. Expression. Words---

We were having a conversation.

It wasn't about the incident. It wasn't about Professor Presbury.

It was about Him, who sat in that world of darkness called M, who was once called James Moriarty. It was little by little. It was probably me who started the topic.

"He's not as bad you say he is."

"I doubt that."

"I mean, I once heard he was called the King of Crime or of that sort. But I'm sure that's referring to the organization He was apart of..."

"Are you referring to them as an individual?"

"Yes..."

"I see. But you are aware that there are many contradictions in your words, Mary Clarissa."

"...Yes."

"I'd say He is more like a phenomena."

At that time, Mister Holmes was looking up to the sky.

He was looking towards to the sky that will never clear up.

Looking to the sky that has turned into a perpetual darkness that obscured the countless stars there from the previous century, attempting to grasp with his gaze a radiance that isn't visible.

As if he was staring at the end.

"Think of them as the stars, atmosphere, the very darkness of space itself that drifts in the universe. That which is not within. That which is outside. Perhaps that is Him. They are neither Good nor Evil. At least, there's probably a will to them that we cannot perceive or something that is even remotely involved in our activities."

"I think I understand what you're saying..."

I didn't look at the sky. I was staring at the gray mist gathered at my feet.

"I'm sure I understand it, but..."

"If you think He has a will, then that is nothing more than a fleeting yet beautiful illusion. That is something we, as the Human race, must discard in exchange for the light of civilization, Clarissa."

Why is that---

That moment.

That instant.

For some reason, I couldn't help but see the image of Mister Holmes right now and Him telling me of something I couldn't comprehend.

It's like they were similar.

Something like that---

I thought---

"What is it?"

"No. It's nothing."

"Were there anything in the conversations we've had at any point that made you smile?"

"It was just something strange."

"...I'm surprised. Astonished even. Who'd have thought that Sherlock Holmes, he who can see through everything, would make you feel strange?"

"Heh."

"Are you surprised?"

"I am surprised."

He wasn't smiling at all when he said that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

---The next day.

I was reading up on the telegram over and over.

There's a theory going on that M, the King of Crime, and Mister Holmes are the same person, and some tabloid circles have even made headlines calling it as a Decisive Dance between the Criminal and Great Detective. I was greatly perplexed by the prank made by my childhood friend, Zack Murray, who sent said telegram along with a "Naturally you'd know of this, right?", but that's another story to be told.

Or rather a sequel to the story.

(Fin)