"Indeed. He was certainly a very ambitious man. Captain Walker must be such a change for you. Given his more... practical... bent."

Mordred knows approximately two facts about Captain Walker and one of them is 'I hate him.' This is slightly less true of Trammel but honestly Mordred just despises everyone who was involved with running the cult in Los Angeles.

"If I may be frank," he says, "I think I would prefer your employer to either of them."

"Ah. --I do as well."

"What she means," Louise says, "is that Mr. Trammel is a smug condescending ass and we toasted each other when it turns out he was dead of cancer. I speak Mariam."

Mariam neither confirms nor denies this. "Captain Walker is a talented businessman and I am certain he shall increase the revenues of Los Angeles a good deal."

Mordred was intending to say something very neutral before Louise spoke, and is instead visibly trying not to laugh. "Not incorrect. On either count."

"I like you. Glad to see someone else in the business."

"For now, information sharing, I think," Mariam says.

"Information sharing," Mordred agrees. "Thank you both. It's been a pleasure."

"You too. In the future, if all goes well-- who knows? Savitree is always looking for talent."

The next morning, Araari and Zoe go to visit the rare book room monk again. 

"Hello again! --I don't actually think I've introduced myself properly? I'm Sister Araari."

"And I'm Zoe, I'm not sure that we've met before."
 
 
 
 

"Lovely to meet you both, I'm Brother Gadisa."

To Zoe: "You haven't met, no, I've come with a different person each day. First with Oswald, then Mordred, and now you."

To Brother Gadisa: "The--topic Mordred and I were discussing with you yesterday, is this a private enough place to discuss it?"

"Let me take you into my office." He does so. "Sister Araari, what was it you wished to discuss?"

"Is there a particular reason that St. Frumentius's career as an exorcist is being hidden? I knew it was talked about rarely, but not that it was actively being removed from libraries. I apologize if I have erred in discussing it too freely in the past. Or is it something else that just happens to be connected in your books?"

"Ah. There are-- dark records, we have, Sister Araari. The true story of St. Frumentius's work. They are not for the eyes of those who... are not prepared to hear it." Glances at Zoe.

"I could wait outside, if need be. I wouldn't want to get in the way. But depending on what you mean by 'prepared to hear it'... possible I've already heard worse."

"Is this necessary, Sister Araari? For your work, as a member of the Order?"

"I cannot be truly certain, but I believe so. The people I travel with, they have--brought news that the Mouth has awakened. Elsewhere. Sister Berhane spoke with them, and believed them to be genuine in opposing it; I was sent with them to aid them, as God has granted me strength to oppose demons before. Any information would be a great gift."

"The Secret Book of Aksum does not speak of the Mouth, but... perhaps it will be an aid to you." He disappears into a back room and returns with a book.

The Secret Book of Aksum is an eclectic collection of ancient documents purportedly revealing the “true history” of the founding of the Ethiopian Church, St. Frumentius of Tyre, and the reign of King Ousanas. Of particular note among these documents are the “Testament of the Kesate Birhan” and the “True Testament of King Ezana,” allegedly written in the hand of St. Frumentius himself. 

Testament of the Kesate Birhan

(Bringer of Light, e.g. Saint Frumentius) 

In my youth I walked often on the pilgrimages of my uncle, the great and holy St. Meropius of Tyre. In my tenth year we walked from the harbors of our homeland to the bleak peaks of Pannonia. We brought the word and the truth of Christ. Meropius sought to break open the shadows of the heathen beliefs which still clutched these murky hills…

We came to stand before the flint-shaded monolith which we had been told the people venerated. It was octagonal in shape, some sixteen feet in height and about a foot and a half thick. Its surface gleamed with a darkened light. Characters our guide did not know and which even my uncle’s learned eyes could not decipher spiraled in a broken and yet unbroken line around the shaft to its very top. It seemed to my young eyes that the whole was merely the base of some long-vanished column…

Meropius brought workers to the monolith. They labored to break it or to mar its surface. But despite the mightiest of holy labors, their hammers did little more than flake off small bits of stone. The surface seemed thickly dented by their efforts, and yet its sepulchral gleam seemed somehow undiminished. One night, after the workers ceased their labors and the stars gleamed above, I entertained a thought that my faith might succeed where their labors had failed: I took a small vial of blessed water which my father had entrusted to me. Leaving the camp I approached the monolith, gave a lengthy prayer unto our Holy Father, and then cast His water upon it.

A dark ecstasy followed. And in that ecstasy I saw the master of that place: a huge, monstrous, toad-like thing which squatted atop the monolith…

I was found feverish and ill at the foot of the monolith the next morning. My uncle took me and retreated back to the capital and later that year we returned to Tyre…

In my sixteenth year, my brother Edesius and I traveled with my uncle once more, this time to bear the words of Christ unto the lands of Axum.

We were betrayed in the port of Batsi…

During the attack, my uncle and all of the ship’s crew were killed. Only my brother and I were kept alive, valued for our youth…

And I spoke unto King Ousanas and I told him of the many learned gifts I had and I told him how they could be used. And in his wisdom he saw the value of these gifts and all that my learning could bring unto him and his people. And so I pled for him to take back from his Twin King my brother. And King Ousanas went unto King Wazeba and paid for my brother so that we could both serve him together…

When I saw Wazeba’s Obelisk, I saw in it the same contours-- however different, however refined by human craft into something less terrible than the alien monstrosity of Pannonia…

Know now and know for all time that the blade which slew Wazeba was held righteously in the hand of Edesius. And no sin shall pass unto him for this, for in this deed he rid the world of an evil spawned from beyond holy countenance. 

True Testament of King Ezana

The True Testament of King Ezana documents a secret history of his reign.

His widowed mother prevailed upon Frumentius and Edesius to remain and instruct King Ezana in learned ways. Frumentius, in particular, “taught me the truth of Christ and His holy ways” and began spreading Christianity throughout the Kingdom of Axum.

In the sixth year of Ezana’s reign, the “cult of Wazeba” attempted to assassinate him. In the aftermath, Wazeba’s Obelisk is pulled down and the cult is driven underground. Edesius returns to Tyre, but Frumentius journeys to Alexandria where he petitions for Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, to send Christian missionaries to Ethiopia to help wipe out the cult. Athanasius consecrates Frumentius as a bishop and sends him back as the church’s envoy.

Frumentius returns to Axum and erects his Episcopal see. He baptizes King Ezana and comes to be known as Kesate Birhan (Revealer of Light) and Abba Salama (Father of Peace). The cult’s presence in Axum is completely suppressed. 

Twenty years later, however, the remains of the cult of Wazeba have taken hold in the kingdom of Kush. King Ezana wages war on Kush, conquering the kingdom in order to suppress the cult once more. In the aftermath of the campaign, the Ezana Stone is erected. Of this, Frumentius writes:

The blasphemous statue taken from the inner chambers of that place was inverted and half of it pared back until it was a tablet upon which could be written as much of the Truth as could be safely known. And that other half beneath our Stone was buried in ground consecrated so that Truth might be above it and God’s grasp might be all about it.  

“The monolith—is it the same one the archaeologists are studying?”