Synopsis of The Black Stone
This story opens with our narrator coming across a reference to a Black Stone while reading Nameless Cults or Unaussprechlichen Kulten in its original German. In that book, there is a reference to a Black Stone high in the mountains of Hungary. He mentions it much in passing, since it’s use in ancient cultic ceremonies is long since dead, and he wasn’t much interested in it. However, the appearance of age speaks to the narrator. He digs further.
He finds a quick mention in a historical book and says that it is right outside of the town of Stregoicavar – which means something like witch-town. It’s such a small town it’s not even on maps or in travel books. Then he realizes a connection between Justin Geoffrey, the mad poet and this stone. In one of his poems, he discusses the People of the Monolith. He finds the whole thing extraordinary and plans a trip to investigate.
This is nearby the battle site where Count Boris Vladinoff tried to hold off the Turks, but ultimately failed in 1526. His train meanders through the hills, and he discovers a passage on the battle. It describes Vladinoff having originally won the first battle, and then an aide brings to him a small lacquered case confiscated from a famous Turk historian. He reads the case’s contents, but gets very pale. Then cannon reinforcements from the Turks arrive and blast the ruins of a castle in which he had made his headquarters. He was buried underneath the rubble and to this day that is his tomb. They pass the rubble on the train, where it is believed that he still rests.
The town of Stregoicavar is a sleepy little town. They mention that they had a visitor about ten years before named Justin Geoffrey, confirming that the mad poet had come through here. He gets some people to talk about the Black Stone. There are rumors about staring into it too long and about what happens on Midsummer’s Night. The inhabitants of Stregoicavar are from other Hungarian towns. The Turks killed everyone here and they moved in after the Turks left. They have no resentment towards the Turks, because their ancestors didn’t like the people here any more than the Turks did.
The following day, our narrator sets out to find the Black Stone. After a bit of hiking, he encounters it. There are unusual markings present that speak of lost languages from far off. He discovers no connection with it and anything else. He returns and finds someone who has dreams about the Stone and talks with him. He finds the schoolmaster is not as reserved when discussing the stone as the rest of the village and discusses it at length with him. The schoolmaster believes the stone was not built by those who worshipped it but simply used by them. He believed that the legends around the stone were just myth.
As that night was Midsummer Night, the narrator takes a trip to the Black Stone, and sits right where he believed Justin Geoffrey must have sat. He observes the setting of the sun, and the ebbing of day. Soon midnight strikes, and he begins to witness a scene. Many people are coming to the Stone, but they are not the people he has met. A Priest in a deer skin and a naked woman arrived. The Priest whips the woman, who frantically dances in a pagan ritual. An evil ritual results, which the killing of people, at the end of which, a toad like figure appears over the stone and the priest brings it a struggling girl, but then the narrator falls unconscious.
He awakes and it is dawn. He believes that what he saw was the vision of something from the past, but maybe it was just a vivid dream, heightened by the nighttime. He realizes, that he can find proof! He moves to the place where Count Vladinoff supposedly fell and begins to excavate the ruins. He finds the bones of a man and a small damaged, case. Inside is a scroll written in Turkish and an object wrapped in silk. It describes a scene very similar to what he saw, and the item is a toad like medallion that matches a place on the priest where one was missing. The Turks tortured the people in Stregoicavar to find out what was happening, and then they hunted down and killed a toad like creature that resulted in the death of many Turks.
Our narrator realizes that the stone is not a stone at all, but the spire of a castle built long ago but covered by earth over the years.
Key Quote at the end:
Quote:
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Man was not always master of the earth – and is he now?
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