Stairway to Hell

by CW Hawes

  At the word “Sí” the man’s face showed recognition.

  In Mostyn’s mind came the question, “How do you know about us?”

  To respond, Mostyn tried to picture the Binger mound, pictures of which he’d seen in the case file.

  Apparently he was successful this time because the man with the gold circlet exhibited a cruel smile and said, “Zamacona”.

  “Sí, yes,” Mostyn replied. In rapid succession, he pictured his team members. In reply came images of them in rooms nearly identical to his own.

  Mostyn pictured himself visiting them and in response came a very clear “no”. He walked over to the window and pointed outside. In his mind he pictured a nuclear explosion.

  The face of the man with the circlet registered alarm, but only briefly.

  To Mostyn’s mind came a flood of images and information, the gist of which was Mostyn and his people were the aggressors and must now pay for their crime. How they were to do so had yet to be decided.

  Mostyn tried to picture he was sorry and that they’d only attacked out of fear. If he and his companions were set free, no one would bother the K’n-yanians again.

  The man replied that setting them free was not his decision. They would be questioned by the Council of Executives and the council would decide their fate. Until the council called for them they would remain prisoners.

  Mostyn attempted to protest, but the three men disappeared, and he was once again alone.

  6

  Mostyn was frustrated and angry, mostly at his own impotence to do anything. He stood at the window and looked out over the city, which according to the Binger file was named Tsath. Four stories up there would be no jumping out the window to freedom. Unless one considered death freedom, and Mostyn did not.

  The people down below on the street, bathed in the curious blue light, were oblivious of his existence and of the world that lay above the distant vaulted ceiling of stone. Yet what if they did? They had welcomed Zamacona and made him one of their own. Then when his desire for freedom became too much, they mutilated him to death, and since that wasn’t enough, they reanimated his corpse so it could perform guard duty at the Binger gateway.

  The air was warm, reminding Mostyn of San Diego or southern Italy. And according to the Binger file, rain did fall in the land of K’n-yan. He thought the immense cavern must be similar to the old zeppelin hangers which were so large clouds often formed and rain would fall. Probably plenty of water, but how did plants grow without sunlight?

  Suddenly he smelled roasted meat and turning around, saw four plates of food and a goblet of blue-red fluid on the table.

  “Damn useful their ability to dematerialize and rematerialize items,” he said out loud, though no one was there to hear him. “They never have to open the door and I never get the chance to jump them.”

  He walked over to the table and looked at the food. On one of the plates there was a thick slice of meat, covered in a gravy. Next to it was a mashed whitish vegetable. He tasted it and was reminded of cassava or taro. On another plate was a cooked vegetable that was bluish-green in color and something that Mostyn guessed was a sautéed fungus. The vegetable was round like peas and the taste reminded him of lima beans. The fungus had a very mild nutty flavor. On the third plate was a raw blue leafy vegetable that reminded him of radicchio. It was dressed with some kind of oil. The final plate contained what looked and tasted like flatbread.

  Mostyn sat and ate everything but the meat. It smelled delicious. However, he recalled in the Binger file that Zamacona supposedly recorded the K’n-yanians principally ate the flesh of a not quite human slave class and Mostyn decided he wasn’t hungry enough to go cannibal and eat slaves.

  He took a sip of the blue-red liquid. “Huh,” he muttered. “Tastes like a pretty decent zinfandel or shiraz.” He held the glass up to the light filtering in from the window. Definitely blue, shading to red. “Then, again, it just might be the blue light,” he said out loud.

  Mostyn pushed his chair back and with wine glass in hand got up and went over to the window. Tsath was a big place. From the window he was unable to see any of the countryside. He took a sip from the glass and then a second. The food was good. If they let him and his people live, they wouldn’t starve. There was at least that.

  He walked over to the upholstered chair and sat. The nagging question in his mind was if he’d see his people again. Would he see Dotty again? He drank wine. Dotty Kemper. Irascible and contrary though she could be, he was truly fond of her. While she was recovering from the shock and stress of seeing for the first time the living blasphemy of nature that is a shoggoth, he’d visited her. That’s when he found out she was very fond of him as well. They spent Christmas together and had continued seeing each other. They weren’t exactly living together and they weren’t exactly not living together either.

  The air in front of the door began shimmering. Mostyn stood and four men materialized in front of him. He chuckled. Star Trek had nothing on these people. Right now he’d give anything to be able to say, “Beam me up, Scotty,” and get the hell out of K’n-yan.

  One of the men shuffled over to the table and retrieved the plates and tableware. He then dematerialized and was gone.

  The man with the gold circlet was the same one as before. If the mannikin guards were the same, Mostyn couldn’t tell. Mannikins all seem to look the same. He also took note of the distance between the wall and where they had materialized. Never know when such information might be useful.

  The man watched Mostyn, his face registering no emotion. The mannikins simply looked straight ahead, eyes not focused on anything in particular.

  Mostyn looked the leader in the eyes and sent happy, welcoming thoughts to him.

  The man replied with what Mostyn took to be a standard formulaic greeting and proceeded to inform him the Council of Executives would see him now.

  Mostyn finished off the wine, set the goblet down, and thought of his host leading the way.

  A terse smile appeared on the man’s face. He knocked on the door, which opened into the room, and walked out, indicating Mostyn should follow.

  Outside the room, Mostyn saw he was in a wide hallway. From sconces on the wall, a blue-white light shone that brightly illuminated the corridor. In the lead was the man with the golden ivy circlet, followed by two guards, then Mostyn. The two guards who’d been in the room with the leader followed behind Mostyn.

  They walked and walked. The corridor seemed without end. The walls, floor, and ceiling were of the same white stone which formed his room. The only decorations on the walls were the light fixtures. Periodically a door punctuated the sameness of the walls.

  Pierce Mostyn looked at the doors as he walked passed. Were the rooms empty? Was a team member imprisoned within? The situation seemed so hopeless. Yet, unless he was dead, the situation was never hopeless. If these K’n-yanians were people, no matter how superior or inferior, they were fallible. He just had to find their weakness, or a single misstep and exploit it to his advantage.

  The man with the golden circlet turned a corner and in a moment, when Mostyn did the same, he saw before them a grand staircase. Without hesitation the man descended the stairs, and the guards and Mostyn followed.

  The staircase ended in an exceedingly large hall. There, Mostyn got his first close-up look at the general populace of K’n-yan. For in the hall were perhaps a couple dozen men and women. Some sitting, some walking, others in groups talking. Their facial features reminded him of Native Americans, yet there was also a difference that he couldn’t put his finger on which immediately made one aware that these people weren’t Native Americans. Their skin tone was uniformly pale, which made sense seeing that they lived without sunlight.

  Upon becoming aware of Mostyn’s presence, they stopped whatever they were doing and watched him go by. On his part, he observed them as well. There was a sameness of clothing, marked only by subtle differences, which perhaps indicated some manner of rank amongst them.
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br />   One woman in particular caught his attention. Her skin was of the purest alabaster hue and her hair, which was the color of the darkest raven, fell to her waist. Their eyes met and Mostyn felt in his mind pity for him. He also felt an undeniable wave of intense lust wash over him and the thought that she hoped to be able to provide him with a sexual last supper, as it were.

  Perhaps Zamacona was on the money in his understanding of these people. At least as Langley had passed on the Spaniard’s thoughts. Their long lives, according to Zamacona, led them to having a deeply felt sense of ennui and an ever increasing desire to plumb the depths of depravity, hoping the new thrills would relieve their boredom.

  Mostyn considered this. Their desire for new thrills and experiences might just prove to be his ticket for survival. If he could provide those thrills and experiences. And if he could survive, he’d find an opportunity to escape.

  His warder made for two sets of large double doors and as he approached the set on the right, they were opened by two women who were as expressionless as his guards. Through the open doorway they went out of the building and onto a wide sidewalk next to the street.

  The man with the circlet of gold turned right and Mostyn had no choice but to follow him, the guards ensuring he did not stray. They walked for a dozen blocks before turning into another building not unlike the one in which he’d been imprisoned. People on the street stopped and stared as he walked by and Mostyn chose to ignore them.

  Inside the new building, they proceeded across the stone tiles of the immense atrium to a set of doors, which gleamed golden in the blue-white light. The man knocked and they opened into a vast room, in the center of which was a long table at which sat nine men. Mostyn’s party advanced until the man with the golden circlet stopped before a man seated in the center of the row of nine.

  The seated men wore robes of blue and each wore a gold band on his head which was studded with blue stones. So this must be the Council of Executives, Mostyn thought. He looked around the vast hall. It was lit by the blue-white light coming from sconces on the walls and from large chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, perhaps thirty feet above them.

  The man in white, Mostyn’s warder, motioned for him to advance. Mostyn looked around him and then walked forward until he was standing next to the man he viewed as his jailer and across from the man in the center of the seated row of executives. Mostyn guessed him to be the chief executive.

  The man, the chief executive, looked Mostyn in the eyes. “You are Mostyn. The leader of the invaders.” It was as if the man had somehow gotten into Mostyn’s head and whispered the words directly to his brain.

  “No,” Mostyn replied vocally. With his mind he tried to throw his thoughts so the chief executive could read them. “We’re not invaders,” was the message he tried to convey.

  “Are you the man called ‘Mostyn’?” The question appeared in his mind.

  “Yes,” Mostyn thought back.

  “You refused to heed the warning and invaded our territory. How, therefore, are you not invaders and a danger to us?”

  “Your people attacked us and we defended ourselves. My mission is to find out if you are a danger to the people of the United States of America.”

  “We know nothing of this ‘United States of America’. Are we a danger to you?”

  “I don’t think so. Your weapons are inferior to ours.”

  “You have no idea of our power. We are, however, no threat to the world above. We simply want to be left alone. Ger-Hy’la-T’la,” he motioned to the man next to Mostyn, “has told us you are aware of Zamacona, the last of your world to sojourn amongst us.”

  Mostyn nodded his head and verbally said, “Sí.”

  The eyes of the chief executive narrowed for a moment and then his face returned to impassivity. “To execute all of you would deprive us of much knowledge. This council has spoken with all of your companions. The decision has been made to execute your soldiers.”

  “No!” Mostyn said, the word was almost shouted. Taking a deep breath, he thought, “Take me instead. I’m their commander.”

  “Precisely,” the lead executive conveyed to Mostyn’s mind, and a slightly sinister smile appeared on his face. “There is no better way to torture a commander than to make him witness the deaths of those in his command. And when you do, know that you and you alone will save the others by urging their acceptance of their and your sentence. Namely, that you remain here as our guests until you die.”

  Mostyn’s hands were balled into fists, which he held at his side. He said verbally through clenched teeth and then thought, “We meant no harm.”

  “But you did harm. Be thankful you who will survive have the privilege of living out your lives amongst the most advanced civilization in the world. And be warned — you will not have a second chance as did Zamacona should you try to escape.”

  Mostyn shoved Ger-Hy’la-T’la to the side and lunged forward, hands extended, ready to throttle the chief executive’s neck. However, much to his surprise, the mannikin guards struck him down before he could get anywhere near the man’s throat. Mostyn fell to the stone floor and the guards, grabbing hold of his arms, hauled him to his feet. He was furious. He looked at the man in blue, with the blue stone-studded circlet of gold, and sent thoughts of missiles, tremendous explosions, and devastated cities to his mind.

  The man uttered a wicked and cruel laugh. In Mostyn’s mind arose images of Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath and her myriad young, and the ultimate hideousness of Tsathoggua. They were hovering over a barren wasteland ruled by eternal night. It took Mostyn a moment to realize the wasteland was the surface of the planet earth.

  7

  Mostyn lay on his bed. Did the K’n-yanians actually have the ability to summon the Great Old Ones? Or was the executive bluffing? If they did, then the mythos, as currently understood, was in serious need of revision. If he was bluffing, and Mostyn guessed he might be because of the reaction of Ger-Hy’la-T’la when he’d sent him a picture of a nuclear device exploding, then they were vulnerable to First World technology — in spite of their advancements.

  A slight breeze moved the curtain. Mostyn had no idea as to the time. The K’n-yanians had taken his watch. Thus far, he’d detected no change in the temperature. No change in the bluish light. Both were constants. He sat up and walked to the window.

  He looked out over the city. He felt so helpless. He had no idea where his people were and no idea how they could escape. And if they didn’t escape soon, six good people were going to die. Six men and women who were his responsibility. He balled his hands into fists and turned around. His eyes swept the room. It was so spare.

  His eyes rested on the chairs at the table. He strode over to them, took hold of one of the chairs, lifted it high over his head, and hurled it onto the rug covered stone floor. It didn’t break.

  He picked it up and threw it against the wall. Picked it up again, swung it with all his might against the wall. The chair shattered. He picked up a leg and threw it across the room and out the window. He picked up the back of the chair and hurled it towards the window. It hit the sill and bounced back into the room. He went over to the broken piece of furniture and hurled it out the window; watching it fall to the street below, narrowly missing someone on the sidewalk.

  His chest was heaving. “Get a grip, Pierce,” he said out loud. “Destroying the furniture and killing a civilian isn’t going to get you out of here. And you do want to get out of here.”

  He walked over to the sofa and threw himself on it. Could he have done anything differently? Probably not. The mission meant he had to make contact. Little did he know that the episode on the surface with the dematerialized beings was the contact he sought — and it wasn’t friendly. If he had realized what had happened, he would have talked with Bardon and come up with a different plan. Too late for all of that now. He’d gotten his people into this mess and he needed to get them out. But how?

  There was a soft knock at the door.

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sp; “Well, this is new,” Mostyn murmured. He got up, went to the door, called out “Entrar”, and positioned himself so he’d be behind the door when it opened.

  The air shimmered about three feet inside the room and then he saw the back of a woman wearing a pale blue robe. Her black hair reached her waist and because the robe was not loose and flowing, Mostyn guessed her hair hid a belt that cinched in the material.

  Swiftly he moved up behind her, slipped his right arm between her arm and her body, brought his hand up behind her neck, and pushed her head forward. His left hand grabbed her left arm and pulled it behind her back. All that took no more than three seconds for Mostyn to accomplish.

  She cried out verbally, “¡Ay!” Then her voice became seductive. “¿Vas a hacerme daño? Por favor, hazlo. ¡Una nueva experiencia!”

  Mostyn couldn’t believe his ears. He released his hold on her and turned her around. Speaking in Spanish, he asked, “You want me to hurt you?”

  She replied in Spanish, “Oh, yes! We inflict pain on the slaves, but not each other. How wonderful to feel pain from one who were to bed me. A new experience!”

  Mostyn’s face registered surprise, and in Spanish he said, “Bed you? Who are you? And why would I bed you?”

  She put on a pout. “You do not recognize me? We spoke in the entrance hall downstairs.

  Suddenly Mostyn realized that in front of him was the woman who had made plain her desire for him. “I guess now I do, although I don’t recall us ‘speaking’.”

  She turned and walked away from him, then turned around and said, “I suppose not; however, I sensed a willingness on your part to enjoy me.” She walked back to him and laid her right hand on his chest. “I like foreigners. Pánfilo was exciting. Different. I think you will be, as well.”

  Mostyn pushed her away. “Where I come from, um, men and women take some time to get to know each other.”