Dear Crane, good Sir,<\/p>\n
My hands have finally stopped shaking: the laudanum has taken its effect, and it is now with a firmer resolve and a greater degree of control over my mind and body that I take up a pen to write. I promised Bennington, your counterpart here, that I would only take what little I needed and reserve the rest for the other poor souls\u2014if they return.<\/p>\n
I am distressed to hear about Smythe and Dodgson, although not altogether surprised. I did not know Smythe well except that he had been a soldier in the Blood War. Dodgson, however, I thought well of, especially after his success in safely securing the first leg of our passage.<\/p>\n
Robards is a good man, and I took some hope when your letter reminded me that he commands your part of the expedition. I fear our Thorpe is too brash, too impatient. We cannot spare the five that are with him now, and they have already been gone a day longer than expected. If he does not return, I shall assume control of this camp; and in that case, I will set out a plan to rendezvous with you and Robards. I have invested too much of my private fortunes to declare failure this early, and I confess my patience is wearing thin with Thorpe\u2019s distractions.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, I will set to answering your inquiry as best as I can relate, scrawling a few details here before Alia leaves.<\/p>\n
Yes, indeed, my friend, there have been untoward changes since the Incident. Thorpe, Bennington\u2019s man Graustein, and the others were well outside of the chamber where we found the stone, but I daresay that it has left none of us unaltered: Thorpe complains of discolored skin, Bennington wakes with night terrors not unlike the ones you describe, and Graustein has begun to show signs of albinism. I cannot account for all of it.<\/p>\n
In the weeks that have followed since we parted, I have turned to a nightly regimen of three drops of laudanum in purified water. I find that this has been an effective way to dull the noises I hear, now constantly. Crane, perhaps you are right to speak of sanity; the first few days after the Incident I thought I was going slowly mad, as I was hearing sounds and voices keening on the wind or coming up from the earth. I dismissed them at first, thinking them only my imagination mixed with the stain of what we had just endured and seen.<\/p>\n
By the second week I began to notice patterns: the sounds could be localized by direction, and they were almost absent during the day, intensifying markedly after sundown. One night, I chose to forgo the laudanum, and instead gave into hearing them in their full vigor; I recognized the distinct voices of our companions, including yours, even though you were well south of here already. Try as I might, I could not separate out words or ideas, but I could feel emotion and meaning conveyed in the voices. It was if I were my dream-self who came upon a great library, and, upon selecting a book, I learned its content, yet could not recognize the shapes of the individual letters. Since that night, I have had neither the energy nor the courage to try the same experiment again.<\/p>\n
Crane, I hear the propellers of brave Alia\u2019s aeroplane outside the canvas, and I must hastily close this letter or otherwise cause her, and you, undue delay. I will tell you more when I write again, and by then I will also know the outcome of Thorpe\u2019s sally into the ravine. One question I would ask of you in you next correspondence: please tell me anything you concluded from the autopsies of our stalwart companions, and let me know your wishes should Thorpe have failed.<\/p>\n
Wishing you godspeed,<\/p>\n
Rackham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Crane, good Sir, My hands have finally stopped shaking: the laudanum has taken its effect, and it is now with a firmer resolve and a greater degree of control over my mind and body that I take up a pen to write. I promised Bennington, your counterpart here, that I would only take what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.the-epistolary.org\/rackhamandcrane\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}