I, Theodore Himmel, who am of the kin known as ouroboran, the snake that swallows its own tail, leave this message for future descendants of my kind who may seek knowledge of my fate. As a child I was saved from the weariness of my life by the Cronus Club, who came to take me from poverty into riches, companionship and comfort. As an old man, I sought to do the same for the younger generations of my kind, a service I have performed for many lives before this one. Yet in this life it was not to be.
Up to the year of Our Lord 1894 the children of our kind had all been born as they should be. Yet from that fated year onwards more and more of our kin have been born with no memory of what they are, and there are some indeed who are not born at all. It would appear that in their previous life they were captured by a force unknown, and their minds, their souls, the repositories of a great knowledge and character accumulated over hundreds of years, destroyed. It is a sin against learning, a sin against men, a sin against all our kind, and I have seen my friends, my colleagues, my family, reduced to infants again. For them there is no Cronus Club, and I can only pity the journeys they must undertake in their next lives, as they go through the pain of rediscovery once again.
If you read this, know that I am dead, and that the Cronus Club in this life has been damaged beyond repair. Do not seek it, for it is a trap; do not enquire after others of your kin nor trust them. For so many to have forgotten so much, for some to have been destroyed absolutely before their birth, can only be treason.
I ask you to bury this stone again, for any others who may come to find it, and pray that the Cronus Club will rise again, as our future lives roll by.
I read it only once, by the light of my torch, and then, as requested, returned it to the bottom of the grave.
Chapter 62
I had to find Vincent Rankis.
Infuriatingly, I knew that doing so would not prove easy and, perhaps yet more infuriatingly, that to do so actively in this life would arguably expose me to far greater danger than if I were to do it in the next. If I were caught in this life, it would be proof sufficient that the Forgetting had not worked, and I had little doubt that next time Vincent would not be so sloppy as to let me take rat poison before he had finally extracted my point of origin. Likewise, if I were to pop up on the social radar as too prominent or powerful a figure, it could well lead to questions being asked by linears, as well as kalachakra, as to my origins, and that information was now the most precious I possessed.