The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy;1890-2000

by Mike Mitchell

  At that point Millicent Naish with her blonde, film-star looks was already ten miles away in the jungle to the south, in Nkw, the stone-age village where the mammoth bats, domesticated by the Nkwyi, had carried her.

  In the middle of this huge settlement, the existence of which no geographer even suspected, was a basalt hill about three hundred feet high. As much as anything, it resembled a Yucatan pyramid, except that it was round. Steps had been cut into it, and on a square plateau at the top was a barbaric-looking temple. This was the ziggurat – what else should one call it? – of the Nkwyi, an undiscovered antediluvian, if not older, tribe of the fifth continent.

  The arrival of the platinum-blonde American triggered off immense excitement in the city. Everyone wanted to see the pale-skinned captive as she was borne through the streets towards the basalt ziggurat in a kind of cage woven from the pliant branches of an unknown tree. Millicent, realising how hopeless her situation was, screamed like a woman possessed to be let go, shaking the flexible bars and spitting at the crowd gaping open-mouthed at her.

  The Nkwyi were all of a tall, athletic build; hardly any were less that seven foot. Both women and men had shaven heads. Their skin was light blue, their eyes a dark grey that one might have said recalled slate beginning to shimmer in bright sunlight. They had tails, about eighteen inches long and iridescent like a Great Dane’s, but there was nothing simian about them; their features were almost Caucasian. Their language, however, if one could call it that, seemed at first hearing animal. They wore no clothes apart from a kind of sash woven from raffia round their waists. For the women this was probably just intended as an ornament, but it seemed to serve a practical purpose for the men as they kept their colossally long, upright sexual organs wedged under the tightly tied cummerbund.

  The four men carrying the cage on a massive pole reached the foot of the ziggurat and put their burden down. There was a long-drawn-out note, like the mournful sound of a primeval conch horn. After it died away the crowd, including the four cage-bearers, sat down on the ground with their knees drawn up, maintaining a terrifying silence, the effect of which was all the more harrowing coming, as it did, so abruptly on the earsplitting blast.

  Now a tremendous spectacle took place on the plateau of the basalt ziggurat. Carried by four gigantic vampire bats, a blue man wearing a truly infernal head-dress floated down out of the luminous sky onto the flat space outside the temple. As his feet touched the ground, the monsters obediently let him go and flew away over the waiting crowd towards the all-encompassing jungle.

  By this time O’Shea and his companions had gone a couple of miles into the primeval forest which, to their relief, turned out to be less dense than they had originally feared. There was no underbrush at all. There was a profusion of exotic ferns everywhere, but the trees, of a species completely unknown to them, were far enough apart. Climbing plants with flowers so vivid they were painful to look at snaked their way up damp, almost dripping trunks.

  As on the previous evening, O’Shea tried to fire his revolver, but with no greater success.

  From time to time there was a rustling suspiciously close to them in the waist-high ferns. Wading unarmed through the treacherous green silence was an anything but enjoyable experience for the three, especially as at every step they were in danger of being attacked by reptiles. So far, however, they had not seen any larger specimens of the animal kingdom. On the other hand, the forest was teeming with climbing salamanders and tree lizards, chameleon-like creatures scarcely distinguishable from their surroundings, but which scurried up and down the centuries-old trunks in eerie silence.

  Eventually they heard a loud gurgling, swirling, roaring noise and soon found themselves beside a fairly wide, fast-flowing river, entirely enclosed beneath the canopy of the colossal trees with the sun trickling through, a tunnel of vegetation, a canal with ferny banks that sent a shiver down the spine of anyone treading on them: with each step they sank ankle-deep into the viscous mud, and the hothouse atmosphere with its buzz of insects was hardly calculated to raise the morale of the three, either.

  ‘And we’re supposed to get across that?’ O’Shea swore and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, a pointless gesture since in this infernal forest every movement opened the floodgates of perspiration.

  ‘It’ll be just the same over there, perhaps even worse,’ said Farrar.

  ‘We could swim for a bit …’ suggested Billy Tuwap.

  ‘And end up back in the sea,’ said Farrar dryly, sending a gobbet of spit in a wide arc into the rushing waters.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ said O’Shea, ‘we’d be better off swimming back in this filthy water than crawling through that goddam mouldy green stuff again.’

  ‘And crocodiles?’ Farrar threw a small tree trunk into the water.

  ‘That’s a risk we’ll just have to take,’ said O’Shea, but one could tell he was not very happy with the idea.

  They tried to keep as close together as possible while they were swimming. The water was even reasonably refreshing, and they soon realised that the river was not heading for the coast, as they had at first thought, but somewhere into the interior, though towards what kind of country they had not the least idea.

  The blue man on the flat top of the hill, the shaman of the Nkwyi – that’s what he must have been, who else would have himself flown to the scene of his fiendish activities by four bats of the most gigantic proportions? – the shaman of the Nkwyi, then, raised a stone axe and brought it down on an object placed on the altar, that stood out in the open. The object in question was, in fact, a large egg, about the size of an emu’s egg, though from this distance it was impossible for the uninitiated to identify. Immediately a tongue of flame shot up into the azure sky, finally disappearing in a black mushroom cloud.

  In unison, the assembled Nkwyi broke out into a cry of joy – apparently the experiment, or whatever it was, had been successful. The four bearers got to their feet, picked up their platinum-blonde burden and started to climb the basalt steps.

  When, after what one could call a marathon swim, the three noticed that the woodland, through which the river was winding its way, was becoming less and less dense, they climbed up the bank, which was somewhat steeper at this point, and came across, as if by chance, a path which was obviously made by human feet. They decided to follow it. They had no choice, they ought to be glad, indeed call it a piece of good fortune that they had left the river at that particular spot.

  The track grew broader and broader, brighter and brighter until eventually, after about an hour, they came to a road, or at least to something that would be called a road in this kind of place, though not elsewhere, and it was not long before they saw, shimmering in the heat haze, the city of Nkw, which lay dreaming before them; there is no better way of putting it, it seemed to them like a wild, absurd dream.

  The four aboriginal bearers with the cage in which, by now, Millicent Naish was squatting apathetically, had reached the flat top of the basalt ziggurat. Once more they put down their burden and squatted on the ground. The light-blue shaman, who until now had remained motionless, stony-faced, picked up from the bizarre altar an obsidian machete, a truly megalithic implement, whirled it round a few times above his immense head-dress, which consisted of petrified shells, animal sinews and tied-on butterflies, each one more dazzlingly colourful than the next, then neatly sliced three, four, five times across the knotted lianas holding the cage in shape. Without a sound the latticework fell apart, leaving Millicent free before the altar. Her tangled silvery blond hair shimmered in the heat of the morning sun, her clothes were torn in many places, one breast, liberated from the grubby cloth of her white safari shirt, shone, her face, and also her arms and legs, bore the signs of the hardships she had been through as well as of the lack of washing facilities.

  ‘Oarrngh!’ said the satanic shaman – could the intentions of this gruesomely grandiose figure be other than fiendish? ‘Oarrngh mmmflullwl ahrhkpp nn-nshnl
!’

  He had gone up to Millicent, who was infused with unutterable terror, and shouted these words literally in her face. But were they really words? Could these beastly sounds be the vehicle of expression of a human mind? There must have been some meaning contained in them … think of all the things an LSD user says during his so-called trip which are entirely incomprehensible to the sober observer; but for the addict under the influence of the drug they represent the only adequate expression of an event taking place within the depths of his psyche, which at that moment is probably floating in some other dimension.

  The four bearers remained squatting, motionless, heads bowed and fingers in their ears, clearly in order not to hear these sounds, which for them were even more terrible. And if one had observed the crowd at the foot of the southern side of the basalt hill, one would have perceived the same phenomenon.

  Meanwhile O’Shea, Farrar and the loyal Malay cook had entered what they initially assumed was a ghost town. After passing though a series of streets, they had reached the dark basalt steps at the rear of the ziggurat, a place, that is, from which they could not see the dog-tailed crowd, the bright-blue inhabitants of a completely unsuspected Australia. And even though the unspeakably spine-chilling crescendo of the unison roar could be heard from time to time, they probably assumed it was the primal sound of a forest that seemed out of this world, borne to them on the wind that had arisen.

  ‘A pyramid,’ said O’Shea, ‘but it can’t possibly have been built by human hand…’

  ‘Basalt,’ said Farrar, scraping his thumbnail across the first step, ‘worked basalt! If there aren’t any people here now, there must have been some at one time, even if it was a thousand years ago.’

  Billy Tuwap, whose expression revealed the beginnings of an uneasy feeling, looked all round and said, with fear in his voice, ‘I’ve nothing against snakes, nothing against crocodiles, nothing against man-eating apes, but this here’s a ghost town and we’re right at the centre.’

  The two others were silent. To contradict their cook, they felt, would have been unnecessarily boastful.

  ‘The best thing to do is to go up,’ said O’Shea. ‘At least from the top we’ll have a good view of the whole goddam area.’

  This overhasty resolve might have been the beginning of the end, but, as so often in life, things fortunately turned out differently.

  ‘Oarrngh mmmflullwl ahrhkpp nn-nshnl!’

  Millicent Naish, seized with icy terror at the incantatory sounds issuing from the lips of the long-toothed shaman, sounds which she did not understand, could not possibly understand, but whose meaning yet entered her subconscious, suddenly began to run, as if in a nightmare, to run towards the temple, round the temple, down the steps at the back, without thinking, without noticing how dangerously steep they were, straight into what she at first thought was a mirage sent to mock her, straight into the arms of the three dumbfounded pyramid-climbers.

  O’Shea, Farrar and Tuwap had already completed a third of their mountaineering challenge.

  Now they could also see the shaman in an epileptic rage and his four acolytes hurtling down the basalt steps like beasts of prey. The reunited survivors of the Archipelagus seemed lost. Closer and closer came the light-blue cloud, the fiendish product of antediluvian depravity. But in the ensuing clash the attackers had reckoned without the agility of the brave Malay. Tuwap, who – no one had even suspected it – turned out to be a san-ikwong fighter of quite colossal proportions, sent the charging shaman flying over his shoulder so that his head with its diabolical get-up smashed into one of the dark steps, killing him instantly. The next attackers slumped to the ground, felled by the precise kidney punches of O’Shea and Farrar, and the rest, seeing their high shaman or whatever he was lying in an immense pool of blood, fled back up the steps.

  Their escape through the deserted town – all the people, as you will remember, had gathered in a dense crowd on the southern side of the ziggurat – was perhaps the easiest part of this grotesque adventure. The pursuers they were afraid of did not appear. Once they reached the river they threw themselves straight into the water, which, though warm, was still refreshing, swam briskly for long stretches, rested a few times at convenient spots on the bank, ate the fruits they found in abundance, and reached the breakers of the Gulf towards evening. It so happened that, for a variety of reasons – life does throw up the strangest coincidences – a unit of marines had just disembarked from a cruiser of the Australian navy. They took the exhausted survivors on board. Once more the fiery red disc of the sun sank below the western horizon of the immense oceanic desert, which means life and adventure to so many.

  The lights went on and the audience at the film In the Gulf of Carpentaria left the cinema by the two rear exits. It was around eleven o’clock in the evening and the rain was pouring down in torrents on Milan; you could hardly see the street lights, such was the deluge streaming down out of the darkness of the opened heavens.

  The couple beneath the huge umbrella had reached the park, where the broad branches of the plane trees offered a little more protection from the cloudburst.

  ‘What do you think the blue savages were going to do to Millicent Naish?’ Francesca, the nursery-school teacher, asked her companion, whom she had first met just three hours ago in the foyer of the Cinema Gardenia.

  ‘Oh, I can tell you that, no bother,’ he said, revealing his long white teeth, ‘Oarrngh mmmflullwl ahrhkpp nn-nshnl!’

  It was a terrifying sight as he tossed the large umbrella onto the waterlogged, leaf-strewn gravel path…

  Journey through the Night

  Jakov Lind

  If you look back, what do you see? Nothing at all. And if you look in front? Even less. That’s right. That’s the way things are.

  It was three o’clock in the morning and it was raining. The train didn’t stop anywhere. There were some lights somewhere outside, but it was impossible to say for sure whether they were living rooms or stars.

  The railway track was a track – but why shouldn’t there be one in the clouds?

  Paris was somewhere at the end of the journey. Which Paris? The earthly city, with cafés, green buses, fountains and dirty plaster walls? Or the heavenly city? Bathrooms with fitted carpets and views of the Bois de Boulogne?

  In the blue light the man sitting next to me looked even paler. His nose was straight, his lips thin, his teeth excessively small. His hair was slicked back, like a seal’s. He ought to have a moustache. He could balance things on his nose. And under his clothes he’s wet. Why doesn’t he show his tusks?

  After ‘That’s the way things are,’ he said nothing. He’d disposed of the matter. Now he’s smoking.

  His skin is grey, that much is obvious, and it’s taut, if he scratches himself it’ll tear. Where to look? He’s just got his face and his suitcase. What’s he got in his suitcase? Tools? Saw, hammer and chisel? Perhaps a drill as well? Why would he need a drill? To bore holes in skulls? They drink beer out of them. They get painted when they’re empty. Will he paint my face? What colours? With water colours or oil paints? And what for? Children play with empty eggshells at Easter. His with skulls.

  Well then, he said in non-committal tones, stubbing out his cigarette. He rubbed it out, it scraped on the aluminium. Well then, how about it?

  I don’t know, I said. Can’t make up my mind. Has the man no sense of irony?

  Perhaps you’re not tough enough, he said. Make up your mind now, in half an hour you’ll be asleep anyway, and then I can do whatever I want.

  I’m not going to sleep tonight, I said, you’ve warned me.

  Warning makes no difference, he said. Between three and four everyone’s as good as dead. You’re an educated man, you ought to know that.

  Knowing’s one thing, but I can control myself.

  Between three and four, said the man, rubbing the moustache he ought to have, we’re all in the plastic bag, hearing nothing and seeing nothing. We all die. Dying’s a rest, after four we
wake up again and things continue. Otherwise people couldn’t stand it so long.

  I don’t believe a word you’re saying. You can’t saw me up.

  I can’t eat you the way you are, he said. Sawing’s essential. First your legs, then your arms, then your head. One thing at a time.

  What do you do with the eyes?

  Lick them.

  Can you digest ears or do they have bones in?

  Not bones, but they’re tough. I don’t eat everything. What do you take me for, a pig?

  A seal, I thought.

  That’s nearer the mark. So he admitted it. A seal. I knew it. He’s a seal. How come he speaks German, then? Seals speak Danish and we can’t understand them.

  How come you don’t speak Danish?

  I was born in St Pölten in Lower Austria. They didn’t speak Danish there. Excuses, of course, excuses, excuses. Perhaps he is from St Pölten, there are supposed to be people like that round there.

  And you live in France?

  That’s neither here nor there, as far as you’re concerned. You’ll be gone in half an hour. Knowledge is only useful when you’ve got a future ahead of you. In your situation…

  He’s mad, of course, but what can you do? He’s locked the compartment – where did the fellow get the key? – Paris will never come. He chose the right weather. You can’t see anything and it’s raining, of course he can kill me. If you’re afraid, you have to make yourself speak. Would you describe it again, please. That please will flatter his vanity. Murderers are sick and sick people are vain. The please does the trick.

  Well, first there’s the mallet, he said. It was just like at school. Stupid pupils have to have everything explained twice. Stupidity’s another kind of fear, teachers give smacks and marks.

  Then, after the mallet, there’s the razor, you have to let the blood out, at least most of it, you get enough of the stuff smeared round your mouth when you eat the liver as it is. And then it’s the saw.