The Room of a Thousand Faces Read online

  The Room of a Thousand Faces

  by Jason R. Forbus

  Copyright © 2018 by Jason R. Forbus

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

  Ali Ribelli Edizioni

  www.aliribelli.com – [email protected]

  The Room of a Thousand Faces

  by Jason Ray Forbus

  Contents

  The Room of a Thousand Faces

  From the Chronicles of Master Jacopo:

  THE ROOM OF A THOUSAND FACES

  «... if it is light you seek, Benedict, why did you choose the caves?.

  «The caves won’t offer you the light you seek. Nevertheless, keep looking for its rays in darkness, because only in the dead of night do the stars shine.» [i]

  – Inscription at the entrance of the Santo Speco Monastery, Italy

  Complete darkness had fallen upon the small monastery on the mountain. It was a dark, starless night. The dim light of a torch guided two hooded shadows through a maze of narrow corridors. The master and his pupil felt as pilgrims in their own house, deformed by alien shades and secret whispers. The porticos, so bright during daylight, now looked like the jaws of a sleeping dragon.

  «W-where are you taking me?» The boy, gripped by cold and fear, hesitantly stammered.

  The old master looked at him as if to order silence, or maybe to encourage him. Jacopo never learned the truth. His master spoke not a word that stern man was not going to break the Rule.

  The silence was absolute. Nothing murmured now. The shuffle of their long robes was absorbed by the ancient, smooth stoned floor.

  They came to the “Door That Must Never Be Opened”, as the monks called it when the Abbot was not around to hear. The student recognized the door as the nightmare and mystery it represented for him and his companions. He so wished they were all here, now! He would not have been afraid of just about anything, then.

  The call had come unexpectedly, while everyone was asleep. Brother Phillip had woken him quite brusquely, as he did when something bad happened and everyone woken in the middle of the night to pray and pray, to cast away evil spirits. However, his master’s eyes, tonight, looked different… they were cold, terrible eyes. Jacopo, cold and scared, had gotten up from his pallet and followed the master in pensive silence.

  No key was needed to open the door. When they approached, it creaked on rusty hinges and slowly opened, as if someone was waiting for them. Maybe someone really was. The boy started with fright as the heavy wooden door opened, revealing a pitch-black room.

  «W-what p-place is this, Master?»

  «Come» a hundred year old voice answered, dust brushing his cheeks «the trial awaits you.»

  The shoulders of the Master were perfectly still, he had not spoken. Then who had, and where did that voice come from?

  The Master nodded, it was time to enter. His moment had come. After years of apprenticeship, he was finally going to face the trial.

  “There is no return for those who fail.” The boy could not help remembering the precept of the trial as, his heart in his mouth; he made the first, hesitant step into the room. The door immediately closed behind him: he was somewhat expecting that. The Master had not accompanied him inside, the trial was for him alone to face. Jacopo was alone… or so he hoped.

  Shaking like a leaf, the boy began exploring the darkness surrounding him. He groped about as if he was blind. The room was unbearably hot, and thick with humidity. What kind of place is this?

  Hundreds of greenish glows suddenly appeared, dotting the walls of what proved to be a small, square room. In the beginning, Jacopo thought of candles covered with that Persian powder of which he could never remember the name. However, when he looked again, after his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, the boy saw what they truly were.

  «AAAAAHHHH!» An indescribable horror froze the blood in his veins. His legs failed him, and Jacopo fell clumsily to the ground.

  Faces, everywhere, melted in the rock, contorted in terrifying grimaces. Their eyes popping almost to the point of exploding. They groaned, begged, and cursed, victims of great torment. Those faces stretched, desperately attempting to reach him; they reminded Jacopo of hungry beggars asking for alms. The color of those deformed faces that no longer held any trace of humanity. Their greenish, fluorescent glow illuminated the small room with a sinister light. All of those faces belonged to only men, mostly young boys… young boys like him.

  «Jacopo, I’m here.»

  Hearing that voice was like a punch in the stomach. A very hurtful one.

  That faltering, childish voice… he would have recognized it among millions.

  «J-John? Is that you?»

  «Yes, I’m over here. Look, to your left…»

  “Don’t turn, don’t turn, don’t do it!” He repeated to himself for long, long seconds before he felt his head turning against his will.

  Then he saw him: gasping, his eyes bulging, agape with horror… yet it was him, dear God, it was his best friend. He had disappeared some months earlier, in the middle of the night…

  «Jacopo, they lied to us! My blood burns, it hurts! Help me, Jacopo, help me!!»

  Then John, or what was left of him, contorted his mouth and began screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and that scream was inhuman, agonizing.

  «NOOOOOO!!» Jacopo shut his eyes and covered his ears. Seconds passed, maybe minutes, before the boy had the courage to look again.

  John’s eyes were closed now, and his face had grown still, as all the others had. It seemed as if they were sleeping. Their dreams were certainly troubled ones.

  Jacopo gulped and turned his look towards the ceiling, unconsciously hoping to find the gates of heaven in such a hellish place. On the ceiling, written in elegant gothic letters, a Latin inscription read: “The Room of a Thousand Faces”. Beside the inscription stood two masterly sculpted high-reliefs: the first depicted the face of a handsome man, with soft curls of stone framing his angelic features; the second, instead, was the horrific face of a demon, jaws agape and long, menacing horns. The boy realized that somehow the two sculptures represented the trial he had to face. But how?

  The answer had to lie somewhere in the room. In spite of the fear that was gripping his heart, Jacopo felt the irresistible call to duty. He was not going to disappoint his father, not after all the sacrifices he had undergone to pay for his studies. Jacopo scraped together the last remnants of his courage and began searching the room, while trying to keep a safe distance from the walls.

  All those faces made him uncomfortable. They possessed a latent, evil intelligence. Jacopo somehow felt they did not want him there. He also felt… hatred, a deep hatred in those painful expressions.

  He was sweating. The boy took his heavy winter robe off, letting it fall to the floor covered in dust. Jacopo immediately felt better once free of that oppressive weight.

  When it fell, the robe raised a cloud of dust, revealing a small niche. Inside of it, lay a sling, a stone, and a scroll all rolled together. Jacopo took the scroll in his hands, cold in spite of the unbearable heat, and slowly unrolled it. The scroll read: “Hit the true face of evil with the weapon of David. Eternal torment awaits him who proves unworthy before the eyes of the Lord. Amen.”

  Jacopo read and reread those words several times, vainly hoping to disco
ver something else, another clue. His only certainty lay with the “weapon of David”, the sling. He held it tight in the palm of his hand. The wood was warm and solid, and instilled him courage.

  The pupil went back to the high reliefs. Challenging the blank stares of the faces, Jacopo had explored the entire room, and this seemed the only possible solution to the enigma. The boy could not help but sighing as he pointed the sling towards the two faces.

  “The true face of evil, the true face of evil”, he kept repeating to himself, conscious that a mistake would cost him far more than his life. The obvious solution was striking the face of the devil. The devil was evil, the true evil of the world. Years of careful study of the Scriptures had taught him as much, imprinted it in his mind. Yet, he could not fling the stone. Something in his heart warned him, and Jacopo feared it was the treacherous voice of the Evil One; the writing on the ceiling made up his mind. His final decision.

  The Room of a Thousand Faces seemed to him a place of deceit, where evil is subtle and hides behind masks… There was a time long ago when Lucifer had been an angel, “the bringer of light”. Since then, he had assumed a thousand names, and a thousand shapes.

  A thousand faces a thousand masks.

  Jacopo threw the stone, not allowing the doubt to stop his hand. The stone hit the angel’s face, which broke into a thousand pieces, revealing the horrendous face of a screaming demon. At the same moment, the mask of the demon broke, showing the smiling face of an angel. The whole room shook for a few seconds, as if struck by an earthquake. Then the faces on the walls contorted, whirled, and grew smaller until they disappeared into nothingness. As if by magic, the doors of the room swung open.

  The first rays of the rising sun illuminated the porticos, and the small monastery on the mountain now looked like a palace of light. When the brisk morning air gently brushed his cheek, Jacopo finally realized it was over and he began to cry.

  The master was anxiously waiting for him on the threshold. Jacopo came out, the sling held tightly in his hand. It was then that the old monk greeted him, finally breaking the long silence of the trial:

  «Jacopo» he said, «I declare you Master of the Thousand Faces.»

  [i] Lumina si quaeris, Benedicte, quid eligis antra ?/ Quaesiti servant luminis antra nihil. / Sed perge in tenebris radiorum quaerere lucem / Nonnisi ab oscura sidera nocte micant.

 

 

  Jason Ray Forbus, The Room of a Thousand Faces

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