by Sesh Heri
Kel-Kar stepped away from the bed. He looked at Alayna. Her eyes were opened wide. He held the key aloft and started out the door. Alayna went out with him. As they went, they did not look back at the bed. They did not look back at Kel-Kar’s father, the King.
Outside the bedchamber, Kel-Kar and Alayna ran down the stairs. They reached the Great Hall, ran across it, reached the doors, and Kel-Kar opened one of them.
Down below, a dozen soldiers were running up the steps of the Palace toward them. Kel-Kar closed the door. He threw his head up toward the stairs, and he and Alayna ran toward them. They sped back up the stairs in a flash, reached the top and ran along the upper hall again. They reached a door and Kel-Kar opened it. The two of them stepped out on to a balcony overlooking the city. Five hundred feet below a lower level of the cavern stretched off for nearly a mile, the rooftops of buildings diminishing into the distance. Kel-Kar and Alayna could now see thousands of refugees moving along a boulevard, a great crowd surging out of the city, desperately trying to reach the last monorail station offering hope of an escape. Smoke filled the air. Kel-Kar and Alayna could feel its sting in their eyes and its bite upon their nostrils and tongues.
An explosion in the center of the city suddenly sent one of the mammoth stilt-walking smoke vacuums careening over on its side, crashing down into distant rooftops. Great volumes of black smoke bellowed up from the floor of the cavern where it crashed.
A bridge led out over the cavern to a tower five hundred feet away. Kel-Kar knew that it might be possible to get to the floor of the cavern from the tower. He gestured for Alayna to follow him, and they began running across the bridge. When they had run nearly four hundred feet, a projectile struck the center of the bridge behind them, and the whole structure began to collapse in sections. Kel-Kar and Alayna kept running as the bridge gave way behind them. Kel-Kar reached the end of the bridge and leapt up into the threshold of the tower. He turned. Alayna was only steps away, but the bridge was disintegrating at her heels.
She leapt— her arms outstretched.
Kel-Kar caught her in a mid-air leap and swung her around and away from the roar of crumbling masonry. Alayna landed upon her feet.
Kel-Kar held on to Alayna for a moment, and then felt her trembling in his arms. He looked down at here, and she looked up at him.
She had touched a royal.
Kel-Kar looked into Alayna’s eyes. Although the din of war sounded all about, the world seemed silent to him, and still, and peaceful.
And then Kel-Kar gently kissed Alayna.
Below them, the city crumbled, and its people fled, and in this way the siege of the Royal City of Khahera by the revolutionary forces drew to a close.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Collapse
“A light broke in upon my brain—
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased, and then came again,
The sweetest song I ever heard.”
— George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron)
Marconi and Tesla had been crouching behind the wall with the soldiers for a number of minutes, listening to the volley of gunfire explode over the city. Now an explosion erupted at the end of the wall furthest from them and several of the revolutionary soldiers flew through the air, striking the walls of the monorail station.
The commander shouted an order in the Martian tongue, inflected by a tone that Marconi and Tesla recognized as “Retreat!”
The doors of the monorail station opened and the soldiers who yet lived passed through them, some being dragged through by the others. Marconi and Tesla scrambled to their feet and went through the doors amidst the soldiers. As they all went, they could feel the heat on their backs from the city on fire behind them.
Once all of the revolutionary soldiers were inside the monorail station, the doors were barred shut. A moment after this, an explosion shook the station and the walls and ceiling came crashing down. When the crashing den abated, a silence ensued for several seconds in the pitch darkness. Then several lights flashed on, electric torches held in the hands of some of the soldiers. With light came the sound of injuries; low moans and mutters drifted upon the dust-filled air.
Marconi caught sight of Tesla lowering his arms from over his head. Both Marconi and Tesla stood unscathed, while all about them lay Martian revolutionaries crushed by the falling masonry.
The commander of the Martian revolutionaries approached Tesla and Marconi carrying an electric torch. He motioned for both of them to come with him. They followed the commander to the mouth of the transport tube. The tube was filled with rubble, but up near the top of a heap of debris a dark gap promised the possibility of fresh air and escape. The commander pointed to this gap and then climbed the heap of rubble that mounted up to it. Marconi and Tesla climbed up after him.
Suddenly there was a cracking sound from above and an avalanche of masonry fell down upon them, striking the commander in the head and Marconi upon his shoulders. The commander fell upon the rubble in a crimson splash. Marconi also went down. An instant later, a metal bar fell upon Marconi’s chest, pinning him in place.
Tesla scrambled up the heap of stone and broken wall, reached Marconi, and found him breathing, his eyes alert, even calm.
“I believe I can remove this,” Tesla said, tugging on the metal bar.
“No,” Marconi said. “You can’t.”
“I will try,” Tesla said, and he tugged upon the bar with all his might.
“No use,” Marconi said. “Save your strength. Save your air.”
“I will rest,” Tesla said, dropping down upon the heap of stone and loose sand. “I’ll try again in a few moments.”
“No,” Marconi said, “not again. Don’t try. Others will rescue us, or there will be no rescue.”
“We will get out,” Tesla said.
“Perhaps you can get out,” Marconi said. “But I won’t.”
“You don’t know,” Tesla said.
“I know,” Marconi said. “My back is broken and my legs are paralyzed and I feel very faint. I believe I am bleeding to death.”
“You don’t know,” Tesla said.
“It will be up to you to reach the sculpture of Helu,” Marconi said. “If you can find Kel-Kar. It is all up to you now. I am finished.”
“You are not finished,” Tesla said. “I will not listen to that swill! Self-pity— you are indulging in nothing but self-pity! You do not know the facts of your condition. Your legs are only pinned. You have only had the wind knocked out of you. That is all. It is nothing. I have had it happen to me before. I was hit by a cab in New York City when I was much older than you are now. Hit by a cab on Fifth Avenue!”
“What happened to you?” Marconi asked.
“Nothing!” Tesla exclaimed. “A few bruises. That was all. I walked away, walked home. I did not whine. Never whine. Never give in to self-pity.”
“I must remember that,” Marconi said.
“Yes, you best remember that,” Tesla said.
“Mustn’t whine,” Marconi said.
“We will get out,” Tesla said. “In a moment I will resume digging.”
“In a moment,” Marconi said.
“I will rest and then resume work,” Tesla said.
“Always work with you,” Marconi said. “Never pleasure?”
“There are all sorts of pleasures,” Tesla said.
“Yes,” Marconi said. “All sorts, indeed. But those of Majestic Seven always said you knew nothing but work.”
“Majestic Seven, bah!” Tesla said. “What have they ever known? Very little, I assure you!”
“They would not like to hear you say that,” Marconi said.
“They would not like to hear much of what I have to say,” Tesla replied.
“I suppose not,” Marconi said.
“And you,” Tesla said. “The Seven would not like to hear what you have to say either, I would surmise.”
“Oh, no,” Marconi said.
“You have been working for Maj
estic Seven for years,” Tesla said.
“Many years,” Marconi said. “It was I who conceived Project Electra in World War One. The idea of using a woman pilot— ”
Marconi coughed, then resumed: “It almost worked, but the Red One is treacherous.”
“The Red One,” Tesla said. “You refer to Jack London’s name for the time modulator.”
“He didn’t originate that name,” Marconi said. “He got the name from South Sea islanders who spoke of it in their myths— the Red One— the great god of red metal fallen to earth. When London first heard their myths he did not understand them.”
“Only some years later,” Tesla said, “after he encountered the time modulator himself.”
“Yes,” Marconi said, “In the last years of London’s life he gave the matter of the Red One great thought. He remembered that on his South Sea voyage a chieftain from the island of Guadalcanal had shown him a carved fetish taken from the presence of the Red One. The chieftain carried the fetish in a box lined with gold. London handled the fetish. Soon after, London’s hands and arms began swelling and blistering. He also began experiencing gaps in time or perhaps spatial displacements. He considered that he, his ship, and all those aboard had been teleported across the South Pacific in an instant of time. London set course for Australia, and when he arrived there, entered a hospital. None of the doctors could ever determine what was wrong with him.”
“Etheric torsion sickness,” Tesla said.
“Yes,” Marconi said. “The atoms of his hands were entrained in the etheric distortion generated by that fetish he handled. The etheric dynamics of the Red One had been impressed on the fetish. The gold lining in the box had protected the Chieftain who knew enough not to touch the fetish. Fortunately, the etheric effects on London disappeared by the time he returned to America.”
“And somewhere along then you began working with Majestic Seven,” Tesla said.
“To understand the Red One,” Marconi said. “Professor Miethe, working with the Thule Society, began constructing the first model of the German Bell in 1917. Since that beginning, the Germans have been attempting to interface one of their Bells with the time modulators, especially the time modulator on Guadalcanal.”
“The Red One,” Tesla said.
“Yes,” Marconi said, “the Red One—a sphere of hyper-dimensional gold two hundred feet in diameter, now buried under tons of steel and concrete.”
“And Earhart,” Tesla asked, “where do you think she is?”
“Not on Guadalcanal, for certain,” Marconi said.
“Where then?” Tesla asked.
Marconi coughed. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He gasped for breath, coughed, and then resumed his speech, “I believe she was projected into space…to a planet.”
“In our solar system?” Tesla asked.
Marconi shook his head, “Another system— the Pleiades.”
“The Pleiades,” Tesla said. “You think she was projected to the Neniu themselves?”
“To the Neniu,” Marconi said. “The Masters of Time. The creators of the Red One.”
“I believe you are right,” Tesla said, “for reasons of my own.”
“What are your reasons?” Marconi asked.
“I have been in contact with the Neniu myself,” Tesla said.
“When?” Marconi asked.
“A number of years ago,” Tesla said.
“How?” Marconi asked. “What was the method of communication?”
“It was through a bird,” Tesla said.
“A bird?” Marconi asked.
“A very special bird,” Tesla said. “She was a white pigeon with gray-tipped wings. She spoke to me through her thoughts. She told me that her soul had come from the Pleiades and that it had been fused with the mind and body of the pigeon.”
“Ah, yes,” Marconi said. “The incarnate frequencies of the intelligent beings in the Pleiades are in resonance with the incarnate frequencies of doves and pigeons on Earth. That is why the Pleiades were always symbolized as pigeons or doves.”
“Yes,” Tesla said, “or the sails of ships, which were a hieroglyph for the same frequencies.”
“So you communicated with this being,” Marconi said.
“Yes,” Tesla said. “It was a female. She told me many things. She revealed many secrets to me. She saved my life more than once. She had the greatest and noblest mind of anyone I ever knew. And I would know that pigeon anywhere. No matter where I was, that pigeon would find me. I had only to think of her and she would fly to me. We understood each other in a way beyond mere words. I loved that pigeon.”
“Loved?” Marconi asked.
“As a man would love a woman,” Tesla said. “It was that deep kind of bond as a thought and feeling. And she felt the same— she loved me.”
“I believe you,” Marconi said.
“One night,” Tesla said, “I lay awake in my bed in the dark, trying to solve the problems of the day, and she flew in through the open window and stood upon my desk. I knew she wanted to tell me something important. I got up and went to her. And as I looked at her, she told me that…she was dying. And…as she…told me this…a light came from her eyes— powerful beams of light!”
“Yes,” Marconi whispered.
“It was a real light,” Tesla said, “a powerful, dazzling, blinding light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory.”
“A dazzling light,” Marconi whispered.
“When that pigeon died,” Tesla said, “something went out of my life. It was then that I knew that the real work of my life was finished.”
“Not altogether finished,” Marconi whispered. “You must…find Earhart…and the Table of Destinies…and destroy them.”
“You will help me,” Tesla said.
“No,” Marconi whispered, “not I. Too late for me.”
“I cannot do it without the assistance of a great inventor,” Tesla said.
“Who is that?” Marconi whispered.
“It is you,” Tesla said.
“Me? The Donkey?” Marconi asked.
“No donkey are you,” Tesla said.
Marconi’s eyes fluttered closed, and a faint breath escaped his lips.
And then Marchese Guglielmo Marconi moved no more.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
City of Helu
“The statue is therefore nothing more but the sum of all it has acquired. May this not be the same with man?”
— Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (L’Abbé de Condillac)
The minutes had dragged by in the darkness for Tesla until an hour had passed. Then an explosion rent the fetid air and light from the Royal City pierced the darkness of the monorail station. Tesla realized that someone had used a powerful beam weapon to melt the wall. Below, a circular opening ten feet wide glowed all around its edges. In the next instant, soldiers of the revolutionary forces began jumping through the hole with electric torches in their hands. Then Kel-Kar jumped through, followed by Alayna.
“Up here!” Tesla shouted, and waved his hand.
Kel-Kar climbed up the slope of the debris toward Tesla. When he reached Tesla’s side, Kel-Kar whispered, “I have the key! Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Tesla said, nodding slowly.
“Where is Marconi?” Kel-Kar asked. “Is he all right?”
“Marconi is here beside me,” Tesla replied. “He is dead.”
Kel-Kar threw the beam of the electric torch he held down upon Marconi’s pale, unmoving face.
“We do not have time to get him out,” Kel-Kar said.
“He would want us to go,” Tesla said. He bent over Marconi, unbuttoned the breast pocket of Marconi’s pajamas, and removed the small gold box— the KA Projector.
Tesla held the gold box in the palm of his hand and Kel-Kar threw the beam of light upon it.
“He would want us to take this along,” Tesla said.
“Can you climb down from here?” Kel-Kar aske
d.
Tesla nodded, “I can. You go down. I’ll follow.”
Kel-Kar turned and climbed down the incline of debris. Tesla followed him down, carefully feeling his way as he went. They reached the floor of the monorail station.
Kel-Kar went over to a group of soldiers, spoke a few words to them, and then pointed up toward where Marconi’s body lay upon the heap of masonry. The soldiers nodded.
“They will attend to Marconi,” Kel-Kar said to Tesla. “We must attempt to find another way out of the city. I have an idea. Come.”
Kel-Kar jumped through the hole in the wall, followed by Alayna. Then Tesla made the leap and passed through.
Alayna, Kel-Kar, and Tesla walked and climbed across an expanse of broken stone and heaps of rubble. Smoke filled the air all about them, and the lights of the city were quickly growing dim. The purple phosphorescence of the cavern walls had been quenched, replaced by an ominous, black haze.
“I know the location of an emergency vehicle,” Kel-Kar said.
The three of them climbed down a small mountainside of debris, the remains of what once was a stone building five thousand years old. As they descended, the broken stone beneath their feet shook from the vibrations of distant explosions. They reached the bottom of the debris and approached an obelisk in the city square before them. Kel-Kar went up to the obelisk and pressed upon several of the hieroglyphic pictograms on its surface. As soon as he had done this, and had taken a step back, a slab of stone on the pavement next to him slid aside, revealing a set of stone steps. Kel-Kar darted down the steps and Alayna and Tesla followed down behind him.
Down below, they reached a room with a vaulted ceiling. In its center sat a long, rocket-shaped vehicle with a glass dome.
“This seems familiar,” Tesla said.
“This is one of the real vehicles upon which the Professor based his advertising car at the World’s Fair,” Kel-Kar said. “But this does not move on wheels. It floats on the gravitational field.”