Trials of the Guardians

The Cthulhu Mythos, Kentucky's history, and the Bluegrass's strange topography blend in a tapestry that'll please aficionados of the Mythos and introduce new readers to it. Along the Kentucky River in the Bluegrass at the turn of the Twentieth Century, when riverboats are starting to vanish from waterways, and automobiles are starting to drive horse-drawn carriages from highways, Great Old Ones, descending from imponderable dimensions, threaten a land at peace. How does the earth stay safe from ancient intelligences, and how does the general public stay unaware of them? Guardians, persons versed in the Mythos, take on the challenge of using it against the entities it describes. Still, how can the finite comprehend infinity? How can the temporal grasp eternity? In the guardian's hands, the Mythos becomes "magic" worked by "spells." The magic does work -- sometimes -- at great cost to the guardians. Loners, even recluses, they might be Knights Templars but that they must keep their very identity secret along with the Mythos. Their calling condemns them to be mistrusted by the very humanity they protect. Theirs is a thankless task, but someone must do it. A cruel calling has determined that it must be they. Three guardians -- a shy scholar, a professor fighting prejudice against his race, and a half-Deep One -- must oppose with the academic equivalent of beads and rattles beings some might call gods. In the face of the Mythos, we're but children watching waves break on the shores of eternity and infinity. What can we do when beings greater than ourselves arrive in our world unforeseen and use it -- and us -- for purposes not our own -- purposes maybe inimical to us? Beyond doubt, we guardians...

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