by K. W. Jeter
"Quite a thriving little colony, then," I noted.
Felknap shook his head, the long silver strands of Ibis hair catching at his shoulders. "I'm afraid not. The rigours of an underground, sunless life didn't agree with most of the women and with very few of the children born here. On the whole, the group is dying out. I very much doubt whether there will be any of them still living after another ten or fifteen years. No, the successful – if you wish to call it that – adaptation of Man to a subterranean existence lies in the far future with the rise of the Morlocks that are now besieging us."
"You've had contact with them down here?" My heart stepped up a pace at the thought of our enemy and their clandestine activities.
"Oh, yes. It was quite unavoidable that some of the men should meet up with them. The Morlocks are making their preparations on quite a large scale. In the regions of the sewers that they've taken over are enormous stockpiles of weapons and supplies to be used in their invasion of the surface world. They apparently intend to erupt all over London and the surrounding areas simultaneously. And at the centre of their hoard of armaments is, of course, their doorway ahead to their own time – that cursed Time Machine which is the root of all this evil."
"You've seen the Time Machine?"
"No," said Felknap. "But I've had reports of it from some of the men down here who have become familiar with the Morlocks. What they've told me about it, in addition to what Dr. Ambrose has related to me, is the extent of my knowledge concerning the device."
His words aroused an uneasy feeling in me. "Do you mean to say that some of the people down here have dealings with the Morlocks? Fraternise with them?"
The age-gnarled hands gripped his goblet tightly. "I'm sorry to say that that has indeed become the case. Over half of the men have gone over to the Morlocks completely, serving the invaders as guides through the sewers and the like."
"For God's sake – how could they? Can't they see the extent of the fatal enmity that exists between our race and the Morlocks? How could such traitors come to be?"
"Tis a shameful revelation," muttered Clagger. "A stain upon the honour of them that hunt the sewers, that their deepest kin should do such a thing."
Felknap nodded, his seamed face cast in a mournful expression. "True," he said. "But the darkness and the cold down here can slide all around a man's heart and freeze it as tight as an Arctic rock. When you live in these deep regions it becomes harder and harder to remember your brethren who still live under the light of the sun. Those men who cast their lot with the Morlocks at last thought that they saw more of a similarity between themselves and the Morlocks than with the human beings of the surface. The others, who haven't given their allegiance to the enemy – I don't know. They've always been a taciturn lot, not much on voicing their thoughts, so I can't tell whether some scrap of loyalty to the human race still resides in their hearts, or whether they simply dislike surface men and Morlocks equally. Ah, whichever it is, it's a sorry condition for men to have let their hearts sink into."
My hopes of finding allies among these subterranean residents seemed effectively dashed by the old professor's information. Tafe and I were still essentially alone on our mission, with a sick, perhaps even dying Arthur waiting for us above, Ambrose beyond any chance of assisting us, and Clagger and Felknap capable of little more than guidance due to their advanced ages. A hopeful thought formed in my mind. "Couldn't it be," I asked Felknap, "that you are misjudging the ambivalence of these remaining men? Perhaps the Morlocks inspire in them an intenser loathing than you suspect. After all, didn't they surround and kill the Morlocks who abandoned the submarine when it sank? Surely that says something about their attitude toward the invaders."
"Yes, but not what you think. As far as that incident is concerned, the men were simply taking revenge on the Morlocks for their having stolen the submarine in the first place. The men are quite passionate about what they call the Grand Tosh, which is the great store of valuables that were left here by the Atlanteans or have drifted down here from other parts. A bad business, that of the Morlocks sneaking into here and making off with the submarine, not to mention kidnapping someone to pilot it. Now that a good number of Morlocks are dead because of it, the blood-lust of the men is pretty well satisfied. The only fortunate aspect of the affair was that the men were out on the water waiting for the submarine to surface, and thus able to rescue Tafe and Clagger when your boat was capsized."
I was by now sufficiently convinced of Felknap's statement of the underground dwellers' sentiments. "There's nothing for us to do here, then," said I, "but to fetch the copy of the sword Excalibur that is in these people's possession and return with it to the surface."
The old professor's hands knotted and clenched once more. "I fear it's not as easy as all that."
"You mean they won't give it to us willingly?" Despite my bristling words, my heart was sinking. Fatigue and the underground gloom were sapping my strength. I felt little in the mood for violence or subterfuge in order to get the sword. "We have the authority of the one Excalibur we already possess. Wouldn't these men see the rightness of reuniting the swords and returning them to the hand of the king whose weapon it is? Surely the name of Arthur, Lord of Britain, bears a little weight with them."
"Perhaps it does," said Felknap. "They are not so far removed from their British heritage as to have forgotten it. And perhaps they would willingly give you the sword – if they had it."
His last words struck me like a blow to the throat. "Doesn't it reside in this Grand Tosh you spoke of?" The flaring light of the torches on the wall dimmed at the edges of my vision. Was this entire dismal trek to turn out fruitless at last? Worse than fruitless – every delay meant so much more time for the Morlocks to ready their invasion plans unhindered.
A look of shock had burst forth on Clagger's face. "You told me the sword was here," he said in a piteous strangled voice. "When I sent me nephew to inquire of it, he returned with your message that the sword was down here in the Grand Tosh."
"And so it was – then," said Felknap grimly. "That was before the defection of the greater part of the men over to the side of the Morlocks. Acting on the orders of their new masters, the traitorous men removed the sword from the Grand Tosh and handed it over to the Morlocks. From what little communication I've had with those who did it, I now fear that the sword is now no longer anywhere here in the sewers at all!"
"The Morlocks have taken it to their own time?"
"That is my well-founded suspicion. But as to what the Morlocks' purpose may be in removing it hence, I have no idea."
I mulled over this latest, most bitter revelation. What was the import of such a manoeuvre on the part of the Morlocks? Could it be that they no longer considered the bowels of the Earth below London to be a safe enough hiding-place for this one copy of Excalibur? But the only thing that could have prompted such a fear in so arrogant a breed would be if they suspected our efforts to retrieve all the Excaliburs and field them back into the one true sword. Had Merdenne then eluded the trap by which Ambrose meant to remove him from the scene and thus prevent our plot from being discovered? The questions whirled about in my mind at a faster and faster rate, driving all my hopes and fears before them like chaff on the wind.
"Looks bad," said Tafe in her usual laconic manner. Her face betrayed no sign of tension, yet I knew that her thoughts were on the problem as frantically as mine were.
"Even if we were lucky enough to gather together all the other Excaliburs," I mused aloud, "it would do no good without this one that's lost to us now. And bloody well lost it is, too. The Morlocks have the only Time Machine, and thus the only access to that sword, and we have no hope of winning past the Morlocks without Excalibur restored to its true power and in the hands of Arthur again." I fell silent, the rigid obstinacy of the conundrum before us paralysing my means of speech. The darkness was spreading through my heart, the darkness that would soon swell, fester and cover the Earth if no spark of light could be found
in this blackest of times.
All my recent efforts and exertions were catching up with me now, as though all along the poisons of fatigue and weariness had been draining into this low point and I had at last stumbled into the bottomless pool they formed. Perhaps an Arthur, a true hero, could battle on and on without rest or respite but a mere human such as I would feel the effects sooner or later. My very bones felt tired, limp from the pervasive damp and chill. It's one thing to face great odds, but even the smallest struggle, if undertaken without hope, looms and swells with the fatal poisons of despair.
I could tell that Tafe felt the same way, though she had intimated nothing like this aloud. She sat in a corner of the chamber, empty now except for the two of us, gazing at the drained goblet in her hands without seeing it.
Idly, I reached and drew the cloth-wrapped bundle across the table toward me. Felknap had brought our poor Excalibur from out of safekeeping and left it with us while he put the exhausted Clagger to bed. What the old professor's motives were in doing so was unclear to me. I lifted the bundle in my hands, the wrapping stiff and darkened from immersion in the dirty waters of the sewers. The cords that bound it slipped off easily and the cloths fell away, leaving the blade exposed to the chamber's flickering torchlight.
What an unholy conjunction of science and magic had weakened the ancient weapon! Even in its diminished state, its rightful power leeched away by its cruelly distant duplicates, it was still an impressive vision. The gleaming metal of the blade shone red as blood in the torchlight, and the jewelled eyes of the twin serpents that coiled about the hilt sparked with the same fire. Enough could be made of the obscured runic engraving on the blade to catch-the mind as one's fingers ran along the fiat of the weapon. An evil work was that which had clouded over these sacred letters. When would they be read again, and understood by the eyes for which they were meant? The hand that by ancient right should be holding this weapon might even now be clutching at the failing heart that staggered in an old man's chest.
I was aware of Tafe watching me as I gripped the sword's haft and held it out before me, the cutting edge uppermost. So much seemed to balance on that fine line slicing without moving through the thick noisome air. Not the least of the things poised on the blade's edge was myself. Which was it to be? I could set the blade down and creep away ashamed, to die here or back on the surface, no matter which. Or on the sword's other side lay more pain and effort and perhaps even a crueller death at the end of it all, with not even the faintest glimmer of hope that the trials would accomplish anything at all. Nothing to sustain us in the battle but our will and a faith so blind as not even to see how dark the valley was through which it passed.
Though treacherous cunning had made the sword only a quarter of its true weight, its burden was still heavy in my outstretched hand, and my arm began to ache from holding it out before me. I gazed down its gleaming length for what must have been an even longer time, then lowered it carefully down onto the wrappings spread out on the table. As I retied the cloths about the sword, I looked over at Tafe's waiting face.
"An idea has occurred to me," I said almost casually, though my heart was beating wildly in my chest at the closeness of the decision between life and living death. "A plan, perhaps," I went on. "Tell me what you think of it…"
9
Morlock Hospitality
"Go straight down this tunnel," said Professor Felknap, his gnarled hand trembling as it pointed the way. "It'll be quite a distance, and a good deal fallen down toward the last part. Just pick your way over the rubble until you come to a T, then go right. If the rats give you any trouble – they're bigger in these parts – just wave your torch at them and they'll back off. You'll see the lights of the Morlocks' encampment, if they don't come upon you first."
I nodded as I lifted Excalibur, now wrapped in fresh cloths and bound with leather straps onto my back. The familiar weight of the sword felt encouraging across my shoulder blades. "Very well," I said. "Turn right at the T. I doubt that we'll have any trouble finding them."
"It might be better for you if you did get lost on the way." The professor's lean face lengthened as though weighted down by his forebodings. "This plan of yours strikes me as being little more than a short walk to your deaths."
"Have you some other plan to propose?"
"No," he said. "You know I don't. Maybe if I thought about it more…"
"There's no time for that," I said. "Who knows how many days or hours we have left? Either Tafe and I take our chances with this scheme, or we can all creep back into the lowest hole of the Lost Coin World and wait for death to come."
"Go, then." Felknap clasped my hand for a moment. "It's better to risk it on your feet then stay back here with two such tired old men as Clagger and myself."
"When he's recovered his strength," I said, "send him back up to the surface to look after Arthur. I have no idea how much time our little adventure will take before we can return to the king."
"Yes, of course I'll send Clagger. And I'll have watch kept for you here – when you come back this way."
"Let's go," said Tafe impatiently. She lifted her torch to the opening of the tunnel.
"Good luck," called Felknap after us. We were only a little ways into the tunnel and I could see its circular opening behind us, and no longer the old professor's worried face.
A pair of small red eyes appeared near my feet, then disappeared with an angry chittering noise and a scrabble of claws as I waved my torch at them. Tafe walked on before me, leading the way to our rendezvous with the Morlocks.
In my mind I reviewed the scanty details of our plan. It held no carefully mapped-out course of action for us. Little more than an opening gambit it seemed, which would thrust us into a game with fatal consequences for the smallest error.
The reasoning behind my plan was this – Dr. Ambrose had not reappeared upon the scene, as he surely would have if he were able to. There was every indication that he knew his way around these depths below London. So his continued absence could mean either that his plot to keep Merdenne bottled up was still in effect, or a grim thought – Merdenne had somehow managed to overpower Ambrose, dispose of him for good, and return to an unhindered career of master minding the Morlocks' invasion. If the latter were true, then there would indeed be no hope of achieving our goal, for what chance would we have against Merdenne, forewarned and beyond any interference by Ambrose?
But if both of these powerful figures were still absent, then there was a small thread of hope which we could perhaps follow to success. For with Merdenne suddenly gone, surely a state of some small confusion had arisen among the Morlocks. Not enough to prevent their invasion of England and the world beyond – that would still undoubtedly go off after only a small delay. However, the retrieving of the Excalibur duplicate from its original hiding place in the Grand Tosh indicated – at least I hoped it did – that a degree of uncertainty had crept into the Morlocks' knowledge of the situation.
Our enemy had no way of knowing that a plot was underway to reunite the scattered Excaliburs, as Merdenne would not have revealed his setback at our hands to his confederates. Now that the schemer was not about to contradict us, it was my intention to present Tafe and myself to our enemies the Morlocks, and claim for ourselves the distinction of being Merdenne's lieutenants. A lie as audacious as that held some chance of succeeding, if only by the sheer magnitude of it. We also had one of the Excaliburs to back up our claim. How, I intended to ask of the Morlocks, could we have gotten possession of such an object unless we were indeed important associates of Merdenne?
A simple reversal of facts would suffice to explain the sudden departure of Merdenne from the scene: to prevent Ambrose from interfering, Merdenne had worked a spell to keep them both trapped in a distant time. In his absence, Tafe and I were acting as conductors of his orders to the Morlocks.
From there onward our course would have to be played by ear, so to speak. It would be useless to anticipate the twists and turns our li
es would have to take in order to succeed in winning the confidence of the Morlocks. If we managed to do so, we would then invent some pretext for reuniting our Excalibur with the one in their possession, and then somehow attempt to get away from them with it. Two more duplicates of the sword were hidden somewhere else in the world! I put these out of my mind, so as not to have my heart quail at the enormity of the task that lay before us.
Our easy progress down the tunnel soon came to an end. Small fragments of rubble grated beneath our bootsoles and we held ourselves carefully as the footing became even more precarious. Soon the rubble mounted into great banks filling the tunnel from side to side. Over these we crawled, holding our torches before us as well we could. One pile of shards was so high as to leave only a foot or so of space between it and the roof of the tunnel. We slithered through the gap on our stomachs. Something in the darkness behind us nipped at my ankle as I went through, but I shook it loose and was gratefully on the other side.
A pool of stagnant muck had collected against the opposite wall of this dam, and it was through this we waded knee deep hoping no pitfall was concealed beneath the slimy surface. So inured had I become to the foul conditions of the universe that these sewers and passageways formed, that I was scarcely aware of the ordinarily nauseating odour that was emitted by the decaying matter in the water. A portion of my mind, though, ticked steadily away, longing for a hot bath and a cologne-scented Turkish towel. With one hand I touched the swaddled Excalibur on my back, and pressed on.
The passageway came to an end. On either side similar tunnels branched off. This was the T section to which Felknap had directed us. Tafe gestured with her torch to the passageway to the right, and I followed behind her.