Shadows over Ice (The Mazu-Kin Files part 2, a cosmic horror flash fiction series)
Shadows over Ice (The Mazu-Kin Files part 2, a cosmic horror flash fiction series)
Story time! "The mummified corpse that allegedly belonged to the mortal form of Mazu was wrapped in the facsimile of a mermaid. It had severe deformities, her feet formed fins like that of a fish..."
“There was a race of cockroach men before the rise of the first ape, when great dragons ruled the primeval Earth. They sacrificed all of their children and became extinct. The corpses of their larvae are the locks upon the Gate. Once it existed on the Fire Star, then on the surface of the world before the Heavenly Waters became one with the Earth, and now it lies beneath the Sea. The Gate is sealed and will be forever sealed. Do not open it. I beg you.”
— The Sutra of the Cockroach Man (purported Terma revealed by a Terton who was founded dead in his locked room in 1925)
Analysis of the Specimen uncovered from the Tomb of Mazu, January 19XX
This is Professor Annie Zhang nee Johnson reporting on a special investigation into the New England incident and the San Francisco Chinatown incident.
My search lead me to look more closely at the life of the Chinese Goddess Mazu. She had her origins in the Fujianese Shamaness Cults. She is specifically identified as the apotheosized form of the 10th Century Shamaness, Lin Moniang. Today she is the key deity of all coastal Chinese communities, of the Chinese diaspora in general, and is specifically the Patron Deity of Taiwan.
She gained prominence in the Song Dynasty when an Imperial Envoy reported seeing her manifestation at sea, saving his life from a storm.
In the Ming Dynasty, Admiral Zhang He, a Muslim Eunuch, became a devoted follower of Mazu after she apparently blessed his voyages and saved his life numerous times.
In Zhang He’s secret communication towards Fujian, he wrote, “Great Mazu lies sleeping. But what is dead may eternal lie, and rise again.”
In the Qing Dynasty, during the 1884 Battle of Tamsui over the Northern Coast of Taiwan, the Chinese commanders were secretly instructed by Oracles allegedly possessed by Mazu to blow a conch shell left in the tomb of Admiral Zhang He. This would “call the gods of the deep and strike down the hated Westerners.” It is unclear if anything of a supernatural bent occurred, but the Qing forces did prevail and attributed the victory to Mazu. A
French sailor that survived the sinking of the ship he was serving on was later admitted to an insane asylum for claiming that the ship was sunk by demons from the sea.
I have investigated her tomb in the Town of Nangan in the Mazu islands, accessing her sarcophagus through a hidden mechanism.
The mummified corpse that allegedly belonged to the mortal form of Mazu was wrapped in the facsimile of a mermaid. It had severe deformities, her feet formed fins like that of a fish and parts of her legs were fused together, her fingers were unnaturally long and there appears to be gill like structures on her neck. There was a strange crustacean like exoskeletal carapace covering her torso that I initially thought was some kind of ceremonial armour, but upon closer examination, I discovered that this was grown from the ribcages. Extending from this carapace were large wing like membranes that reaches all the way past the legs and revealed deadly finger like appendages covered in the robes of Imperial officials. Could she have been able to fly as well as swim, was that how she was able to rescue fishermen and sailors lost at sea?
Curiously enough, she wore a death mask that was bolted into the skull. I lacked the equipment on hand to find what was underneath.
There is some cursory similarities to the corpses recovered from the cult site in New England and congenital deformities common to the Cheng, Lee, and Wang families in San Francisco.
She was clearly not human and may have been one of the ancestors of the entities encountered in New England and of the Cheng, Lee, and Wang families.
Jade Jars lined a nearby wall, and inside I discovered what appeared to be larvae of some kind of fish that bear a close resemblance to parasites uncovered from the corpses that washed up all along the East and West Coasts of the USA; our impetus for investigating in the first place.
They may have required a human host to mature. Are these a different species from whatever Mazu was, or are they her children?
A final disturbing quirk needed to be mentioned. The corpse of Mazu was warm to the touch.
“I have looked upon The Gate in the palace of the Naga Kings. It is taller than the tallest mountains and is suspended in the deepest trenches of the oceans. A billion petite forms were squashed into the grooves between its crystalline surface, their insect-like exoskeletons dried with the vast passage of time of the past kalpas. A whole race destroyed themselves, committing an unforgivable sin to seal the Gate. It should never be opened. The Nagas live in terror, for each corpse of a cockroach child that crumbles into dust, the Gate inches open by a milimetre. This world may not be here when Maitreya arrives.”
— The Nargajuna Codes (decoded by a hidden department of the US Government, from a series of signals detected by the Telescope Arrays at SETI in 1999)