The Black Hand (Црна рука, Crna Ruka) is a Serbian-Balkan conspiratorial organization whose oath, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (“Union or Death”), is a chronomantic pact formula. Its documented existence in common history runs from 1901 to 1917; in the chronomantic archive it works on longer cyclical calendars, each great century of the shared cosmos receiving its own version, with different names and the same operating signature.
| Type | Faction |
| Leaders | Apis; Black George |
| Seat | Uchronic Belgrade |
| Emblem | Skull over crossed sabers on a yellow field |
| Houses of the Cycle | ⌖ House of History · ⏳ House of Carnal Time |
| Spanish entry | La Mano Negra |
Nature
Its emblem is a skull over crossed sabers on a yellow field, with a bomb and a flask at the sides. It works by seal, slogan and closed meetings in back rooms, and is known more by its posters than by its faces.
Whoever swears at its table is bound to a device that ties the swearer’s death to the political effect of the act sworn: if the act is carried out, the empire falls; if not, the swearer dies anyway, but the empire falls later. Unlike a common Masonic oath, sworn on the swearer’s life, the Black Hand’s oath is sworn on the swearer’s link to the event: the swearer is bound to the consequence.
Structure
- Apis (Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević in common history) runs the operational section. In the chronomantic archive he was vampirized after his initiation, a demonic amplification of an already considerable power.
- Black George, chronomantic namesake of the 18th-century Karađorđe, commands the Sarajevo planning table in 1914.
- The brotherhood keeps cells in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Paris, Istanbul and Bucharest.
It operates behind the throne and sometimes over it.
Role
In Uchronic Paris the Black Hand is not a front-line villain but a continuous conspiratorial background: the Circle of the Serpent, the May regicide of 1903, the Sarajevo attack of 1914 and the disappearances in Uchronic Belgrade all pass through its table. It is fused with vampirism (through Apis) and doctrinally with the Circle of the Serpent. Its link with the Inevitables, chronomantic figures who carry out necessary historical actions, is operational: where the Black Hand places a cell, the Inevitables find an instrument.
The cardinal date
The Black Hand reserves 28 June — Vidovdan, Saint Vitus’s Day, feast of vision and dance — for its major acts:
- 1389: fall of Prince Lazar at Kosovo Polje (Battle of Kosovo), the chronomantic antecedent of the founding pact.
- 1914: the Latin Bridge attack at Sarajevo, carried out by Gavrilo Princip.
- Earlier and later dates are not yet fully catalogued.
Exactly 525 years separate the two major documented dates.
History
- 1389 — Kosovo Polje.
- 1901–1917 — active cell in common history.
- 1903 — the May Regicide in Uchronic Belgrade, a major earlier operation.
- 28 June 1914 — Sarajevo; the Time Bandits confront the operation.
- Later, in Uchronic Belgrade, the group is imprisoned.
- Ongoing transits through Paris, Istanbul and Bucharest.
Conflicting accounts
- It nominally serves the House of Obrenović — or conspires against it, depending on the record and the century. Both functions are held compatible with the brotherhood.