“Keep your eyes skinned and let me up the next step before you follow,” he grunted.
They did this time and again simply to climb the leviathan stair, until they reached the top. Doors like those that led into the mountain were upon this temple. But these were open only a crack. Porter didn’t think he could squeeze through but supposed Mary might.
“Let’s see if we can’t open it enough for both of us to get through before we commit to what is on the other side.”
Mary nodded and took hold of the door, and each of them strained to pull it open a fraction. The huge doors gave with little enough effort and Porter was relieved that they did not creak but seemed well-oiled. Peering in, faint blue light cast from far above came down in slanted blades, illuminating tiny sections of massive sarcophagi. This place was enormous as well, stretching on farther than he could see with the simple light he held along with the overhead blue coming from who knew where. The air was stale but not unpleasant. He wondered if the lake and waterfall kept preservation qualities here, as he had seen no sign of any form of the usual cavern dwelling animals. There had been no sign of fungus either. This truly was a city of the dead, for, so far, there had been no living thing save for the terrible Night Gaunt.
Porter held the star as high as he could reach, letting its wavy white light stretch a little farther. Something glinted in the distance, and he hoped it was the book. They hurried toward the gleam but slowed when they saw that it was a golden brazier, cold as death.
“Should have known better, the book was green with verdigris and shouldn’t shine like that,” Porter whispered.
Mary nodded but said nothing more. She let her grip on the shotgun loosen and pointed the barrel toward the ground.
Porter was puzzled, she had kept it level and ready to fire the entire trek here.
She stared blankly ahead then spun and walked to their left. Porter followed, wondering at what could be done, how could they find this precious book within a dark city where mysterious sleepers might awaken at any moment.
“Hold on a second, Mary. Where you going?”
Mary walked straight ahead, unheeding of his plea.
Holding his pistol and starry light high, Porter hurried to her side. Not until they were almost on top of it, did the light reveal an onyx squared monolith. It was as big around as a wagon and twice as tall. More of the strange writing was etched into its face. Porter wondered at its purpose, was it a marker of old times or a history relating what this place was? Did it tell the fate of the world riddled across its pitted black surface?
Mary ran her fingers across the smooth black stone.
“What is it? Do you know something?” he asked.
“I know nothing,” she said. “But something calls to me here, something asking me to knock and it will be opened.” Her face was so terribly blank, standing out in stark contrast to even her usual unfathomable look. It looked more like something was reading her than the other way around.
Porter yanked her away from the black stone. It broke the spell.
She shook her head. “What happened?”
“You tell me. You dropped your guard and walked toward this black stone, started running your hand on it saying it was calling to you.”
She stepped back from the stone and glanced all around. “Last thing I remember, we were walking toward a golden shine.”
“Nothing but a big candlestick.”
Mary looked about in every direction.
“Whatever it is, don’t let it take hold again. We should get out.”
“I’m alright. We still must get the book. It’s this way.” She led him in the opposite direction.
Porter was wary as a hunted wolf, but at least this time she kept the scattergun up and ready, not relaxed like before.
The crack of the doorway, a wide blue line behind them several hundred yards, Porter kept his eyes on it as directional force. It stood out like a beacon versus the all-powerful wash of midnight that pervaded the chamber.
“Here,” said Mary.
On a colossal dais of smooth black marble nearly ten feet high, sat the book, opened in its circular fashion. Behind it leered a wide screen not unlike a filmy window, but the greatest window of any age.
If Porter had not been positive he was standing upright with the world centered down at his feet, he might have thought he was looking into a monumental reflecting pool of dark water. But this stretched upright at more than forty-five degrees.
Looking again, he saw that it was transparent, but his eyes had not been ready for what was behind the wall of glass.
Beings were lined up there, like tin soldiers in a display box, yet these tin soldiers were each and every one of them at least twice as tall as Porter. They were all giants and wearing the most peculiar clothes of ancient fashion. Most had red hair and pale grayish skin. Some had jewels or golden tiaras or even wide sashes with the semi-familiar glyphs seen upon the book’s plates denoting some title or brotherhood. There were men and women, all appearing roughly the same middle age, for they were all mature and he saw no children nor anyone appearing gray or elderly among them. Row upon row behind the glass, they appeared not dead but asleep.
“Are they sleeping?” he asked.
“So say all the legends,” Mary answered.
“We better get that book and get the hell out of here in a hurry, I think. I’m done with this place, whatever the hell it is.”
“I can’t reach it.” Mary strained for a foothold on the huge dais. She tried again to climb up and reach the book but slipped free.
“Allow me.” He holstered his gun, and, with one hand, tried to give her a boost to climb the smooth stone and reach the book. He strained and lifted her as high as his shoulder, where she placed her foot and tried to leap, only to come tumbling back, taking him down to the flagstones with her.
“If we had kept my rope, I could have lassoed it.”
Mary frowned. “Can you try and throw me higher?”
“For you to catch hold of what? Besides the book. Don’t want you coming back down and breaking a leg down here.”
“You catch me.”
“Throw you and catch you, while I’m holding this here starry spook light? Don’t know that I can do all that.”
“We need to try something.”
Porter scratched at his temple and peeled off his hat to wipe his brow. He glanced about for anything that might be of use. “Maybe that golden candelabra?”
Mary wrinkled her nose.
Porter strode to the thing and tried to see how it might be attached to anything at all. It was hanging on a chain suspended from heights he could not see.
The chain was a soft metal, and Porter pried at it single handedly for a long moment until he reached the star closer. The chain snapped as if it were wax and the star had melted it free. It hit the flagstones with a loud clang, and the hanging chain spun upwards as if it had been held by a weight and was now free and recoiling. The sound echoed throughout the vast chamber.
“I hope that wasn’t some kind of alarm,” he said, glancing back at a frowning Mary.
He picked up the brazier and rushed back to the dais that still held the book out of reach.
A grating sound came from somewhere in the cold distance.
A hushed red light appeared at the far end of the chamber.
“What is it?” Porter asked.
Mary shook her head, snarling urgently, “Do whatever you were going to do so we can get the book and get out!”
Porter nodded and tossed the brazier at the book. It smacked the edge of it, only succeeding in knocking it farther onto the middle of the dais. He caught the brazier as it came back down and tried again, this time he missed the book entirely and failed to catch it on its return fall on the other side where it clanged against the stones again.
A bizarre sound came from where they saw the reddish hued light. The rolling thunder reminded Porter of a flashflood, choked with broken tree limbs, rolling through a sl
ot canyon.
“Good thing you didn’t throw me,” grated Mary, as she took the brazier and tossed, but it did no better than when Porter had done it. This time the brazier remained stuck on top of the dais beside the book.
Porter snorted. “You were saying?”
“What is that sound?” She turned toward the reddish light and aimed her shotgun toward the oncoming sound.
“Hell, if I know. We better split!”
“The book!” she insisted.
“Do we need this book no matter what? At the cost of our own lives?” he argued.
“Of course!”
“All right,” Porter growled. “Since the alarm is already sounded.” He drew his pistol and took aim.
The Sleepers Awaken
Porter shot chunks of the marble away and bullets ricocheted and whistled off into the far reaching dark. One of the lead balls flew wide and struck the glass. It did not shatter but rippled as if the smooth incline were a limpid pool—albeit one resting at an impossible angle.
The book danced from the shots he fired and then fell forward. Mary caught it and ran toward the crack of a door.
Porter glanced at the giant figures sleeping behind the glass. The ripple on the glass continued to reverberate. He centered on a sleeping man dead ahead of him. A magnificent hulking specimen with a flaming red beard and golden crown, glyphs on the sash he wore resembled nothing so much as dragons and oriental characters. The red-bearded man behind the screen opened his eyes. Pale yellow light shone forth from the wide sockets like the furnace of hell.
Porter stumbled back; his heart jumped to his throat by this monstrous surprise.
The great slapping sound of the other danger suddenly became more imminent and Porter tore his gaze away from the shining one’s eyes. The sound of rolling thunder grew nearer, and Porter glanced that way in wonderous fear. Light from the star in his hand cast strange movement but it was indistinct and wild, casting no semblance of life known to man. It did appear to be a like a flashflood or wave, and yet it was not spreading thin like water, but remaining in one singular mass as high as a man on horseback and yet as wide as three wagons apace. There was no conceivable way water should stay held together like that.
“I’ll be dipped,” said Porter, as he prepared to run.
Mary was already moving and almost to the crack of a door.
Porter glanced over his shoulder. The rolling flash flood was gaining on him. He wasn’t sure he could make it to the door before it hit, and even if he did, the power of the water would blast those doors off their hinges, wouldn’t they? A million thoughts raced through his head. If it was just water, why did he feel like it was coming for him, despite the fact it should be pouring out evenly throughout that great wide chamber?
He wondered about that red-headed giant that had opened its blazing eyes on him. What had it really seen? Was it sending this flood after him?
Mary passed through the cracked doorway.
“Close the door!” Porter shouted at Mary.
Mary shut one half solidly, thudding as it struck the threshold.
He glanced back; the tumbling wave of water was closing in. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? It almost looked like it had eyes opening and looking at him as it tumbled over itself, coming for him. Worse, black patches resembling toothy mouths snapped open and shut, too. He wondered if the room was filled with gas causing hallucinations.
He was almost to the door.
Mary glanced; her eyes wide with horror. She shut the door.
Porter reached the closed door and wheeled to face the wave. He held the star high, wondering what would happen to its light if a wave submerged it.
The wave stopped abruptly just a few paces from him.
It was not water.
A myriad of eyes and mouths opened and moved across the gelatinous body of the thing. Enormous and without solid form or shape, here and there at the edges a portion would probe forward along the lines of the flagstones, like water might, but then it would slink back to its greater body.
Porter was both disgusted and marveled by the thing. “You the guard dog?”
There was no response.
Porter knocked behind him at Mary. “Mary, if you’re there, I’d appreciate you opening the door. I don’t want to take my eyes off this thing.”
“You’re alive?” she asked timidly.
“For now. Open the door if you will please.”
Mary pushed it open a crack. “You are Big Medicine.”
Porter stared at the thing. “If you’re the guard dog, I’m hoping you’ll just stay. Stay!” he commanded, then slipped through the door and pushed it shut.
Mary asked, “What was that?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that Ghost Horn had a name for it, too.”
She shook her head, eyes wide.
“We got the book, let’s get the hell out of here!” They rushed to the steps and leapt down to the first one.
“Porter! Look!” Mary pointed back to the sill of the door. The slimy, semi-transparent creature was easing itself under the door, like a leaking basin.
“I told that thing to stay!” growled Porter as they hurried down the steps. It was a lot faster going down that it had been coming up.
They reached the bottom and Porter held the star up as high as he could. Slime or water caught the light at the top of the steps, running down in gleaming rivulets.
“We probably don’t have much time, let’s get moving. It came awful fast the first time.”
They raced through the dark city, eyes up, watching for anything like the Night Gaunt again, but they saw nothing. The still blackness filled their senses and they looked back several times, chuckling nervously—their way of dealing with the maddening horror.
The roar of the waterfall was just ahead.
“I think we made it,” gasped Porter. “No sign of the wave.”
“We have to hurry. I still feel it calling to me to return the book. The power tugs on my mind.”
Porter nodded and urged her on.
As they reached the waterfall, Porter held the star aloft and the waters drew back like a curtain once more.
“Is it still coming after us?” asked Mary.
“I can’t tell and don’t want to find out, let’s hurry.” Porter led them through the opening of the waterfall. There was a distinct difference in the air between the dark city and the mysterious lake. It still felt wrong and unwholesome, but they’d at least moved outside the pallor of the cold blue lights.
They crossed over and found themselves before the massive lake once more, the flagstone path gone, replaced by the sand covered shoreline.
The sand eased under their feet. Porter wheeled about, glancing toward the waterfall. There was no sign of the slimy thing they had seen earlier, but now that they had a waterfall behind them and a running stream into the lake would he even see it coming?
Porter tripped over something in the sand and turned back. Puzzled, he glanced down. There had not been anything on the strand when they had come this way the first time. A fist-sized stone lay there, then it abruptly twisted back and forth. Was it a crab, he wondered? He realized with horror that it was fist-sized because it was a fist.
The fist splayed its fingers forth in all directions like a man reaching for help. It rose from the wet sand and a whole arm to the elbow was revealed.
Waving the light all about them, Porter realized a multitude of gray limbs were rising. Several wretched faces rose above the sand, all of them crowing and gnashing their teeth.
“Back to the daylight!” cried Mary.
She shot at one, obliterating it, but before she could run, a dozen more burst from the sand.
“Eat lead!” shouted Porter as he fired at the sprouting horrors. He spun about shooting at them in all directions.
Something snarled and grasped for Mary’s leg.
She swore in a native dialect and Porter’s eyes flared in wrath as he shot the head from the ghoul
ish fiend as it tore itself free of the sands perilously close to sinking those teeth into her calf.
Farther back from Porter’s rain of lead the ghouls were fully atop the strand, they rushed forward.
Mary reloaded the shotgun and loosed both barrels at the nearest ghouls, tearing them asunder.
With each blast of lead, the ghouls cringed, but they only ceased their resurrection if shot in the head.
Mary learned too late that multiple shots to the heart and chest did nothing to slow the terrors down. One lunged at her with half its body blasted away.
Porter brought his gun barrel to its forehead just before it clamped teeth down on her arm.
“There’s an awful lot of these,” growled Porter as he swiftly reloaded.
Mary swung the scattergun like a club, as she had no time to reload before the drooling corpses assaulted her.
Porter’s shots rang out, rumbling in the massive cavern like a thunderhead ready to burst.
He kicked at a gibbering ghoul as it launched itself at him. The thing had little agility and went face first into the sand. Porter shot the back of its head then brought his dragoon up just in time to slay another.
“Way too many, lets get to that canoe!”
He shot another six and urged Mary to the canoe as he tried to reload. It was difficult as the starry light in his left hand made the use of his palm impossible.
They ran across the dark beach. More of the unholy things rose with every footfall.
Mary reached the canoe first and pushed it into the still waters.
Porter reloaded and turned to shoot another half-dozen of the closest ghouls. Six dropped with split heads but another dozen were right behind them.
Mary grabbed an oar and rapidly paddled.
Porter leapt into the canoe. The canoe hit bottom from his added weight. It was stuck.
“Damnit!” He turned just as one of the ghouls reached the water’s edge. Its eyes bulged, its tongue hanging out its agape mouth. Bile hung in long strings from its trio of teeth, the only teeth it had. Its clawed hands grasped Porter’s jacket, its talons tearing holes into the lambskin.
Let Sleeping Gods Lie Page 10