by Неизвестный
There was no telling, at this point, and so we doused our campfire and resumed our traversal of the catacombs. Eventually, my cousin raised his hand and indicated that I should inhale the air of our surroundings and comment on it. I complied, confessing that I detected a subtle odor.
My cousin stated that we were nearing the end of our journey, that we would shortly find ourselves in la Cueva de Salamanca, the Cave of Salamanca, also known as la Cueva del Diablo, the Devil’s Cave. Drew stated that he had come this far and a short distance farther in the past but had never actually entered the Devil’s Cave. Legendry among the local populace held that the cave could be reached only by climbing the mountain in which it was situated, but both my cousin and Bishop Tomás knew that the cave could be reached via the catacombs, access to which could be obtained through the basement of the cathedral. This in itself was a matter worthy of comment, for I had been unaware during our long trek through the catacombs that I was climbing and proceeding along a horizontal path.
Finally, I espied a faint glow, which seemed to emanate from the very walls of the passageway. At the same time, the faint odor which I had previously detected grew more noticeable with each pace. Even as I took note of the glow and the odor, a feeling of lightheadedness and mental confusion began to come over me. I placed my hand on my cousin’s arm and he turned his face toward mine. His expression was unlike any I had ever seen on his features—or, for that matter, on the features of any person.
His eyes seemed to blaze with an eagerness exceeding that of an excited child espying brightly wrapped gifts beneath the holiday evergreen on Christmas morning. His lips drew back like those of a starving man in the sudden presence of a rich repast. His whole body grew tense and his fingers curved as if to grasp a treasure.
At this moment, I must confess that my head was all awhirl. My father and the father of my Cousin Dawes were brothers, and as neither Dawes nor I was blessed with siblings, we were constant playmates and companions in our childhood. We were very nearly of an age, and as Dawes made such splendid progress in his academic career, I felt both a sisterly pride and a sense of companionship and safety in his company. When he was invited to assume a visiting professorship at the University of Salamanca, he offered to refuse it rather than leave me, but I insisted that he go.
But at this moment, in the glowing catacombs of Salamanca, as we approached the Devil’s Cave, Dawes mien suddenly became that of an absinthe fiend or an opium eater overwhelmed by his terrible craving. I wanted desperately to call him back from whatever it was that he sought, and yet my own senses were swimming and my intellect seemed dull and confused. Was it the effect of the glowing walls of the catacomb? The work of Madame Curie, Herr Roentgen, and M. Becquerel all point to the peculiar effects of certain of the heavier elements, including their emanation of rays—some of them invisible, others not so. Had my brain been dulled by the effect of rays emanating from the walls of the caves?
And yet, I wondered, is it possible that a narcotic or hallucinatory gas had overcome my cousin and was even now dragging my own intellect into some murky and confusing realm beyond my usual ability to imagine?
Fearing to lose sight of Dawes, I hastened to follow him and found myself at last in la Cueva del Diablo, the Devil’s Cave. Unlike any cave I had ever previously beheld, this one was not a rough-hewn cavity in the surrounding rock but a chamber whose walls strained both the eye and the mind in their configuration and decoration.
Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I perceived a landscape both weird and terrible. A murky atmosphere swept and eddied about me. At moments, I felt as if a cold hand, smooth and cool, was touching my skin. At other moments, points of color glowed in the distance, suggestive of distant suns and planets. The peculiar odor that I had previously detected enveloped me, its sweetness such that I very nearly wept at its beauty, only to be brought abruptly back to my surroundings by an odor so sharp that I feared that my very head would be blown to smithereens by its power.
I was drawn from my feet, or perhaps my very psyche. Yes, Reverend Boniface, my soul, was lifted from my body, leaving that empty shell of muscles and nerves, organs, and bones to inhale and exhale, its heart to beat, but all without the presence of my élan vital, which was carried out of the cave, into the Spanish night, into the black Spanish sky, into the incalculable and immeasurable depths of space.
Every star blazed upon me. I could see my Cousin Dawes at some remote distance. I felt that I could reach out to him and grasp his hand in my own, and yet when I attempted to do this, he was as far from me as the most distant nebula in the heavens.
Around us circulated the bat-winged, tentacled beings, drawing us to them then sending us away, manipulating us as if we were kittens and they children playing with their pets. I have mentioned the claws that glittered upon their extremities, but now they held them retracted, lest they destroy us. When one of them ran its hands over my body—yes, my body-without-a-body—I felt a shudder of intolerable pleasure and happiness shake me to the core of my being, leaving behind a terrifyingly powerful need to feel that touch again.
This, surely, I inferred, was the opiate—the intoxicant that my Cousin Dawes so desperately craved. And even as I came to understand the phenomenon, I realized that I myself was becoming an addict.
Frantic to escape this maelstrom of pure pleasure, I managed to wrench myself free of its grip. I searched here and there for my true physical integument. I saw it at last, my own familiar body. Throughout my ordeal, I had remained connected to it by a line thinner than a thread. I could see my Cousin Dawes connected as well to his own physical self. I urged him to return with me to our respective physical bodies, but even as I made my way, like a deep-sea diver ascending his lifeline back to his mother ship, Dawes produced from somewhere—from somewhere, I knew not where—a shimmering blade of some insubstantial substance. With it, he severed the line holding his élan vital to his physical body.
His body slumped lifeless to the floor of the cave. I reclaimed my own physical being and ran to him, kneeling beside my cousin, patting his cheeks, chafing his hands, blowing air into his mouth as if I could share the very breath of life with him.
It was useless. I had no choice but to leave my cousin there in the Cave of Salamanca. I made my way to the mouth of the cave, thinking to clamber down the mountain and return to the city proper, but what I saw told me that only an experienced mountaineer—one indeed equipped with the proper garb and gear, neither of which had I—could do that which I contemplated doing.
Instead, I started back through the catacombs, wishing all too soon that I had unrolled a ball of string behind me like a child in a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. I paused at the crude drawing of the two bands of humans: one which I thought of as my own species, the other as the Neander people.
I thought they had moved, that all the figures in the drawing had moved. The Neanders had disappeared while my own humans danced to celebrate their victory.
The bat-winged, tentacled creatures above them and their vast fleet of aerial vehicles were gone.
The illumination cast by my electric torch was growing faint. My cousin had warned me of such an eventuality, but there was little that I could do about it. I stumbled forward, ever more confused. Believe me, anyone trying to retrace his steps in a honeycomb-like structure like these catacombs is virtually doomed to failure.
I felt myself growing weak from hunger, thirst, and exertion—and no little bit, I am certain, from the ordeal I had just undergone. My footsteps faltered. I fell and rose, fell and rose again. My electric torch at last failed. I became convinced that I was doomed to wander through these tunnels and chambers until I succumbed, my remains to lie undetected for centuries, if not forever.
But all unknown to me, the kindly Bishop of Salamanca, El Obispo Tomás, had sent out search parties in hopes of rescuing my Cousin Dawes and myself from our folly.
The searchers found me at last and returned me first to the towering cathedral, then t
o the bishop’s study. I told him my story and he said that he believed me. Nothing was ever again seen or heard of my Cousin Dawes.
A calendar stood upon the bishop’s desk and I gazed at it, amazed. Had I in truth been gone for two years? This seemed utterly impossible, and yet all indications were that I had indeed been gone that long. I could not have spent all that time in the catacombs, I am convinced.
How long had I spent in la Cueva del Diablo? How long had I spent with those two bands—one of my own humans and the other of their foes, whom I realized at last were people of the Neander Valley? How long had I floated in that strange realm among the stars?
I expressed my puzzlement to the bishop, who smiled his lovely smile and offered at least a partial explanation. After the disappearance of my cousin and myself, he told me, several other parties of hikers and explorers had disappeared into the catacombs beneath the cathedral. At last, the alcalde, or mayor of Salamanca, had begged a private audience with the bishop, and His Most Reverend Lord Obispo Tomás consented.
The alcalde pled his case that the loss of citizens of Salamanca could not continue. In the name of humanity, something must be done. Besides, Salamanca was an ancient and beautiful city, a jewel of the Iberian Peninsula, and the revenue provided by travelers coming to see its wonders had been endangered by the loss not only of citizens of the city but visitors as well. He proposed that the catacombs be sealed once and forever.
The bishop had responded with a counter-offer. If the alcalde would deputize a sufficient number of the guardia civíl and provide supplies and equipment, he would authorize an expedition to map the entire system of caves and tunnels reached through the basement of the cathedral.
So, the bargain was struck. Brave guardistas penetrated the catacombs, slowly unrolling oversized spools of strong twine behind them. Weeks were spent thus, with new squads of guardistas relieving one another. The project stretched on and on. Amazing objects, mummified remains of ancient creatures including the bat-winged, tentacled beings, were found. Bones and desiccated bodies of human and seemingly partially human individuals were found. Peculiar bits of machinery, their function a complete enigma, were found.
And at last, I was found.
At which time, President Flint, the bishop reached his decision. He ordered the guardistas withdrawn and the entrance to the catacombs beneath the cathedral to be filled with cement, and so it was done. Because some of those lost in the catacombs had been mountain climbers who entered through the Devil’s Cave, workers were ordered to seal the opening between the tunnel and the cave as well.
I heard tales of strange sounds coming from within the catacombs—sounds heard both in the cellars deep beneath the cathedral and in the Devil’s Cave. Scratching sounds, as of the claws of large beasts. Voices speaking in unknown languages. Whispers are heard in Salamanca of these sounds, and rumors—I suppose, little more than guesses—as to who, or what, may be sealed within those ancient tunnels. One hears, even, of strange and disquieting odors in the cave and in the cellars beneath the cathedral. Vegetation on the lower slopes of the mountain has slowly turned sere and brittle, and a zone of dead vegetation is spreading. The bishop is now under pressure to permit the reopening of the catacombs so that the National Army of Spain may enter the catacombs and destroy whatever is causing the slow despoliation of the region, but to date the bishop has refused permission.
Even after this revelation, I can only tell you that I waited there in Salamanca until all hope for the discovery of my cousin—or at least for the recovery of his bones—should be exhausted. I visited his rented dwelling place and found there the woman who had tended to Dawes’ needs in the past. She wept to see me and to learn of his likely demise. The university was generous to me. The bishop was solicitous. Parties set out to find Dawes or his remains but none succeeded.
At last, I returned home and recorded my experiences in Salamanca, in the catacombs, in the Cave of the Devil. My committee accepted my thesis. You have chosen to reject it, President Flint, not because it is lacking in truth or value, but purely because of my gender. I appeal to you, President Flint, Reverent Boniface, to rise above your prejudice against women and reinstate the degree which you have unfairly taken from me.
President Levi Marcus Josephus Flint had leaned the elbows of his elegantly tailored jacket upon the sheet of polished glass that covered his desk. He had laced his fingers, rested his clean-shaven chin upon them, and closed his eyes during the latter stages of Loretta Claire Prentice’s narration.
Loretta Claire Prentice now concentrated her attention upon President Flint, wondering whether he had closed his eyes in order to shut out all distractions or had merely fallen asleep. He opened his eyes now, and asked, “Is that the end of your tale, Miss Prentice?”
“Unless you have further questions for me, President Flint.” She had given up insisting upon the use of her doctoral honorific.
“In fact I have.” President Flint nodded. “For one, you spoke of—I believe you referred to them as Neander people.”
“I did so.”
“Humans but not humans, I believe was your phrase.”
“Close enough.”
“Please elaborate upon that point.”
“Papers have been written on this subject, giving far more detail that I could provide, sir. But I will mention that their skulls differ somewhat from ours, including a strong central ridge. And their brains…Excuse me, President Flint. Did you have a question?’
“Are we talking about cavemen?”
Loretta Claire Prentice did not suppress her smile. “They may have lived in caves, as did our own ancestors. But the Neander people were not shambling beasts. They had art, language, even evidences of religion. Oh, Reverend Boniface, did you wish to ask me something?”
The minister cleared his throat. “Perhaps a bit more sherry, President Flint. I believe I am coming down with a sore throat, and this does seem to soothe it. I thank you, sir.”
He sipped then resumed. “Do you mean to imply, Miss Prentice, by your reference to religion, that these creatures were Christians?”
Loretta Claire Prentice shook her head. “Not at all. We know merely that they buried their dead, that they placed markers upon their graves, and that they sometimes decorated them with flowers. Surely this indicates that they had an understanding of death and were capable of feeling grief. One infers that their decoration of the graves of their dead means that some spiritual impulse motivated them. More specifically, I fear there is no way of knowing.”
The clergyman rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Remarkable. Most remarkable. And their intelligence? You say they had culture of a sort? What is known of their cranial capacity?”
“Ah!” Loretta Claire Prentice grinned. “Their brains were larger than ours. This we know from actual skeletal remains. Perhaps they were more intelligent than our own ancestors, but lacking in the impulse to violence that caused our ancestors to destroy them. Perhaps the winged beings in their amazing aerial vehicles recognized the nobility and worth of the Neander people and spirited them away to a world not inhabited by killers like us.”
President Flint leaned forward in his chair. “I have one further question, Miss Prentice. I do offer my sympathy with regard to the disappearance of your cousin. But as for these peculiar bat-winged and tentacled beings, surely you would not expect us to believe in such chimeras? They are the creatures of wild fantasies perpetrated by the spinners of tales such as those you yourself have mentioned. It is hard enough to believe in the existence of these so-called Neander people, humans who are not humans.” He shook his head, his jowls wobbling as he did so. “But wings, claws, tentacles? Miss Prentice, these are the stuff of nightmares, not of reality. You yourself admit that you were lightheaded and confused by breathing the atmosphere of the Devil’s Cave. Do you truly expect us to believe in these creatures? Do you truly believe in them yourself?”
“I did not create the drawing in the catacomb, sir.”
President Flint nodded. There was a lengthy period of silence in the room. The president of the university placed his fingers upon his eyelids and pressed upon them. He drew a deep breath, held it for a trice, then exhaled and dropped his hands to the sheet of smooth glass covering his desk.
He said, “Reverend Boniface, Madame Boniface, please permit Zumbo to return you to the rectory of your church. Your presence here has been a great comfort to me in a time of uncertainty and severe stress.”
He strode ponderously to the doors of his study, opened them, and gestured to the graduate student who stood awaiting his instructions. “Please summon Zumbo and instruct him to transport the Reverend Boniface and Mrs. Boniface to their home, using my carriage, of course.”
Making sure that the doors were securely shut and latched, President Flint turned to Elizabeth Claire Prentice, who stood, her velvet reticule in her hands. With one hand, she held the brocaded opening of the reticule closed; with the other, she supported its obviously substantial weight.
“Miss Prentice—pardon me, Doctor Prentice—will you be so kind as to accompany me.” With a nod, he indicated a bookcase behind his desk. “Your further intentions,” the president added, “will probably prove unnecessary.”
He led the woman to the bookcase, pressed a hidden switch, and gestured her into another chamber.
This was very different from the president’s scholarly office. But even before Elizabeth Claire Prentice could fully take in the brightly illuminated room and its array of complex scientific apparatus, a tall figure stepped from behind a test tube–laden platform and held his hands toward her.
“Elsie! My dear Elsie! Can I believe my eyes?” He strode toward her, threw his arms around her slim shoulders, and embraced her.
Elizabeth Claire Prentice leaned her face against his shoulder, then leaned back and gazed into his face. “Dawes! Cousin! I thought you were dead. I…” She drew back, opened her velvet reticule, extracted a handkerchief, and wept happily into it.