by Donald Tyson
The name of the Old One froze the priests as though they had been petrified by the gorgon. They backed away from the altar on stiff legs, faces distorted in terror. They did know the true name of their god, I thought, struggling to remain conscious under the tide of agony that washed over my borrowed body. It was only that it was forbidden to them to utter it aloud. My blood rained down upon the altar stone beneath the tent of my linen robe, which was brightly stained with crimson in the morning sunlight. I felt life ebb from my body. A great turning began in the air around the altar. With screams of fear, the villagers and the priests alike fled the circle in all directions. The naked youth who had been intended as the sacrifice had managed to free his ankles, and ran with the others, his wrists still lashed together. For the first time in uncounted generations, the portal of the temple was opening.
Struggling to remain conscious as my life gushed onto the stone, I concentrated my thoughts on the star chamber in the unnamed city, and upon my own true flesh that sat there, senseless and unaware. It must be possible to direct the destination of the portals opened in the name of Yog-Sothoth, or what good was there in opening them? With all the strength of my will I aimed the opening whirl on the star chamber. The last breath rattled in my throat, my heart ceased to beat, and I knew that I was dead. At the same moment I felt my soul caught up and carried at such speed through the air that the world became a blur. I opened my eyes in my own body, and found it as I had left it, seated on the green stone disk.
The great rushing noise was still in my ears. I shook my head to clear it, but instead of fading it became louder. I looked up at the dome of the chamber, and my heart quailed. The air of the dome was filled with a turning vortex of gray and black mist that had its focus directly above my head. It somewhat resembled a lidless eye. Within its dark center sparks of brightness danced, and the shadowy outline of a form. I squinted up at it, but could not distinguish its shape, which changed from moment to moment as though struggling to manifest against some hindrance.
You must flee this place, Alhazred. Go now, before it is too late.
Sashi’s anxious words, spoken into my mind, broke me from the trance into which I had fallen. I slid from the green disk and stumbled to my knees on my nerveless legs. Cursing, I snatched up my empty water skin and slung it over my shoulder. I touched my hand to the pocket that held the jewels I had gathered, and was relieved to feel their bulge through the cotton of my thawb. As my legs began to tingle, I was able to force myself to my feet and stagger back from the green disk. In fascination, I saw that the seal of five branches cut into the center of the disk glowed with red light that was the color of fresh blood. Each time the vortex in the dome strengthened and widened, the seal glowed more brightly.
Somehow the seal prevented the passage of whatever tried to follow me through the vortex. I dared not wait to see whether it would be strong enough to hold the second traveler at bay. What glimpses of its shape I caught in the dim swirling of the eye of the vortex were enough to teach me that I had no wish to see its body perfected. For a moment, I stood looking at the two entrances to the star chamber in turn, wondering which to take. The same consideration that had caused me shortly after my banishment to turn my steps east on the caravan road, rather than west, came to my mind with renewed force. The past held nothing for me but pain and death, therefore I must choose the unknown future. I ran on trembling legs out the far archway of the domed chamber and did not look back.
Chapter 13
The passages and rooms west of the star chamber I had not explored with care, but had gone only so far into them as had been necessary to hunt for food. I soon found myself walking across dust undisturbed by any human foot. The rooms increasingly appeared never to have been used as dwelling spaces. They were unfurnished, and the stone walls seldom bore decorative paintings. Most were completely empty with no sign to show that they had been used even for storage. As the inhabitants of the city became fewer due to the difficulty in finding sufficient meat, they had no doubt been forced to abandon large areas, and these may have remained empty for centuries. So I reasoned as I moved with light footsteps down eerie deserted halls past the doorways to empty rooms, the brush of my sandals against the floor tiles muffled by the ever-present carpet of dust.
As I approached what must be the western extremity of the city, even the rats and other vermin ceased to show themselves. My eyes were intent on the dust for tracks, so it was not until I was midway down a long hall that had no doorways in its sides that I noticed the faint glow emanating from its far end. The light that shone down uniformly from all the ceilings of the city was green in color. My eyes had adapted to it so that it appeared colorless. By contrast, the light at the end of the hall was a deep golden, more yellow than sunlight yet paler than the light of a lamp. The hall ended in a large chamber with a low ceiling, completely empty save for one of the flat stone altars that occupied various rooms throughout the city. The light shone from an open doorway on its opposite side, dazzlingly bright.
Shielding my eyes with my hand, I moved around the altar, my head bowed and shoulders hunched due to the low ceiling. The doorway stood at the top of a flight of stone steps narrow enough that I could touch either wall by spreading my arms. The brightness emanated from the featureless walls of the stairwell, but reflected so strongly from the sloped ceiling and even the steps themselves, that I could not see the bottom of the stair when I squinted. The steps appeared to descend into a golden mist that concealed them from view. When I put my palm flat on the radiant stone wall, I felt a gentle warmth. The steps were too shallow and too wide for easy progress, but by moving with care I felt my way down them. Much of the way I kept my eyes shut to rest them, but the glare found its way through my closed lids, as does bright sunlight.
The walls at the base of the stair opened into a chamber of no great size, with a very high ceiling. Set in the wall opposite the stair was an ornate door of cast bronze, twice the height of a man. Its surface was divided into twelve ornamental panels arranged in two columns, each panel a square somewhat less than a cubit in size, which is a measure equivalent to two Roman feet. An inherent property or applied treatment of the polished bronze preserved it from corrosion. Each panel was a work of art displaying considerable skill, and together they told the history of the race that had constructed the nameless underground city. I stopped to study the door in detail, for the light from the stair was behind my back and not so bright against the brass that it blinded.
The panel on the upper-left corner depicted the earliest beginning of the race, and showed them dwelling naked on the bank of a river beside small round caves that evidently served them as dens. One of the crocodile creatures caught a fish between its jaws, while another stood upright on its hind legs and short tail, holding a stone knife in its hand. The second panel on the right was the market square of a populous city of low buildings made of mud. The inhabitants thronging the square wore simple garments of white cloth. They stood beside hairless beasts with round bellies and short thick tails, that had great flat ridges of bone around their heads and three horns projecting from their faces, but whether these were herd animals or beasts of burden was not evident.
The next pair of panels contained more complex and larger cities, and were intended to convey the progress of civilization. In the first, the creatures navigated the broad river in boats without sails or oars. I saw no mechanism to drive them, and could not imagine how they were moved, unless they were pulled on ropes by beasts walking along the banks. The second panel had an even more fantastic figure of one of the creatures flying through the air above the city in some kind of machine with wings like those of a bird. I dismissed this as a scene of myth rather than history.
A kind of disaster formed the subject of the third pair of panels. On the left, some vast explosion was shown uprooting mountains and boiling away the seas. Such destruction has been known to occur when the fires deep within the earth er
upt from under mountains, but it appeared in the illustration to fall from the heavens. The second panel was a scene of utter waste and desolation. Nothing grew, nor was there any bird or beast. The rivers and lakes perished, and the seas lay stagnant. Roiling clouds filled the dark sky.
The left side of the fourth pair of panels showed starvation among the crocodile race. With bodies so gaunt, the bones showed along their sides, they gazed sadly at stunted plants that refused to grow, and at their feet was the decayed body of one of their horned beasts. Rows of oblong boxes with windows set in their lids, similar to the box I had seen in the upper chambers, stood on their ends like sentinels, and within each was the corpse of one of the race. On the right panel a long line of these creatures, their scant possessions tied to their backs or filling small carts that they pulled with their hands, wound its way into the mouth of a cave. Evidently this was their self-imposed exile from the surface of the earth.
The left side of the fifth pair of panels showed a construction beneath the ground consisting of mines and chambers, the making of the very city in which I wandered. With their mechanical arts the reptilians caused the waters of a mighty underground river to flow through all their halls and moisten long chambers in which grew plants in troughs of soil that extended the full length of the rooms. Other large caverns were used to house their strange livestock, which they fed with the plants. Whereas their beasts ate only growing things, the race of the city fed on the meat of the animals they nurtured beneath the surface. In the right panel, some hardship or blight had fallen over the plants, so that not enough remained to feed the herds of horned beasts. Their corpses lay rotting in great piles.
On the left of the final pair of panels at the base of the door, the underground race, greatly diminished in number, used their skills to direct the water of the river upward, so that it fountained onto the floor of the valley above. Men stood around the fountain, their hands raised in celebration. Behind them the beginnings of a city were being erected on the sands. The scene on the right panel was more sinister. Men, their heads bent beneath the low ceiling of an altar chamber, passed across the surface of an altar to one of the underground race a squirming human infant. In return, the crocodile things gave the men weapons and cloth and open caskets of jewels. Hidden from the view of the men in an adjacent chamber, the crocodiles gathered around an infant and tore it to pieces, feeding on the fragments of its flesh.
Such was the state of affairs between the decadent men of Irem and the race dwelling in the chambers below its foundation at the time the great door had been cast. The attack upon the underground city by the soldiers of the king, and the destruction of Irem in retaliation, had occurred long after the making of the door. I had only I’thakuah’s tale as a guide to these events, and as I knew now, the witch was a liar. Yet her story seemed to match the conditions of Irem. Some shaking of the earth had cast it down. Her story did not explain the utter desertion of the halls and rooms of the city by the inhabitants after they had defeated the army of Irem.
With the expectation that the door was bolted, or so corroded on its hinges that it would be immobile, I took in my hand the ring of bronze that hung in its center at the level of my chest and pulled lightly. To my amazement, the heavy metal slab swung silently toward me with almost no resistance. I had learned respect for the craftsmanship of the reptilian race, but this was more than natural, and I wondered for the first time if the polish on the door was truly the result of some protective coating, or if it was maintained in that condition.
An exhalation of cold air blew into my face from the shadows beyond, indicating that the way led to a large cavern or series of chambers. The slanting tunnel in the rock that extended on the other side of the door was too deep to be illuminated by the golden glow shining from the stairway behind me, and I saw that if I entered, within a score of steps I would walk in darkness as deep as that of the cisterns. I stood with my hand on the edge of the door, wondering what to do. I might gather wood in the chambers above to shave and split into kindling that could be bound together to make torches, and these could be sustained by the fat of rats, but the corridors and rooms behind me were empty alike of furniture and vermin. It would take considerable time to go back to where I could hunt, catch and kill the rats, and prepare the wood.
I decided to take three of the fungoidal spiders and sleep. When I awoke, my second sight would allow me to see any living creature in the tunnel beyond the door, and would illuminate scraps of wood that might serve for torches. Even if there was no wood, I preferred to move forward rather than back. It was possible that whatever creature had struggled to follow me through the portal I had opened from Albion to this place had succeeded in entering the city, and if so, I felt no wish to encounter it.
Shutting the door with care so that it would not boom in its frame, I sank to the floor with my back against it and took from a pocket of my thawb the red and green striped silk scarf holding the white spiders. Almost a hundred remained, for I had not felt like consuming them after my sickness. I crunched three of their dried bodies between my teeth and swallowed them, their pleasant almond taste tingling on my tongue. Putting the rest away, I ate a strip of the dried rat meat I carried, then lay on my side and draped my arm across my face to shield my eyelids from the light shining down the stair.
My thoughts wandered to the mystery of the lack of a bolt or catch upon the door. Why build any door, and especially one so substantial, yet not provide it with a means by which it might be securely fastened or locked? What good was a door without a lock? In all the rest of the city I had seen only the single small door of iron by which I had entered the ornate living chambers of its noble citizens. The crocodiles had not used doors as men use them. Their sleeping rooms and living rooms had no doors that could be closed. Yet these two doors existed, one a humble and low door of iron, unadorned in any manner, and the other a magnificent work of art in brass.
Not all questions that may be asked receive answers. My mind drifted into sleep, and I dreamed a curious dream. I saw myself, lying asleep with my back against the brass door. In my dream vision, I floated through the door and was able to look at the tunnel on the far side. Even though it was dark, in my dream I saw clearly a gathered throng of the former race of the city, their bodies white as though covered in chalk dust, their eyes red. They knelt on their short hind legs in ranks, filling the tunnel with their grotesque faces turned toward the door, and bent their upper bodies forward with their arms extended until their snouts touched the floor stones, as though praying before the idol of some unseen god.
Sashi’s caresses tingled upon my skin when I awoke, feeling languid and much rested. I closed my eyes and saw her smiling face lean forward to kiss my lips. We made love without haste, neither of us feeling a need for words. I rose from the floor and passed through the bronze portal, leaving it opened wide behind me to gain as much benefit from the light of the stairway as was possible. Having decided what I would do before sleep, there was no cause for hesitation, yet as I ventured deeper into the darkness I felt a stirring of fear that was borne of ignorance of what might lie ahead. The breeze now came from behind me, and I reasoned it must change its direction from day to night.
The rough stone walls of the passage were lit with a sprinkling of silver sparks, generated by tiny shells embedded in the stone. They were not so numerous as they had been in the walls of the cisterns, but were enough to define the shape of the tunnel, which showed less marks of the stonemason’s chisel as I advanced, until it became entirely natural and irregular, a cave that sloped ever downward. A great sound like thunder made my heart stumble and almost cast me from my feet in my terror. After a moment, I began to breathe again as I realized its source. I laughed aloud, my voice echoing from the stone. The breeze had slammed shut the bronze door. It made no difference to my progress, since I had already moved beyond the reach of its light.
As I went forward, the walls and roof of t
he cave widened, and I found myself walking across the floor of a vast cavern. The floor was strewn with small stones. I bent and picked one up to feel its shape in the darkness. It was smooth, like a pebble from the bed of a river. An infinite number of similar stones lay heaped across the cavern in regular ridges similar to the dunes of the desert, no doubt deposited there by a great flood of waters in the distant past. The cavern was not one simple space but convoluted in shape, and divided by natural pillars and buttresses that rose from its floor like islands in a lake. Large spiders the size of my palm dwelt there in abundance, as did other creeping forms of life. I saw the glow of their bodies, clustered most thickly around piles of ancient tree roots and stumps swept from the surface of the earth into the cavern on the floods of its vanished river.
I stood still and listened, holding my breath. After a minute or so I was gratified to hear the faint squeak of a rat. There was meat in the cavern. It would not be necessary to subsist wholly on the spiders and other vermin. I bent quickly and caught one of the spiders. It struggled in my grasp, its hairy legs digging into my skin like wires. Sharp pain stabbed through my thumb, and I realized it had bitten me. Annoyed at my careless handling of the creature, I pulled off its head and tossed it away, then tore its body open with my teeth. As I had hoped, it held a large amount of fluid that was pure enough to suck. I chewed some of its flesh. The taste was mild and not unpleasant. As I ate, the pain in my thumb grew less. To my good fortune, the spiders were not venomous. I picked up the head from where I had thrown it and examined it closely. The curved fangs, sharp as needles, continued to spasm open and shut.
Another sound reached my ears as I stood silent. At first I thought it was nothing more than the pulse of blood in my head, but it came like the flow of water over stone, a continuous rushing murmur that rose and fell but never entirely ceased. I wondered if the white spiders I had taken to enhance my vision had also sharpened my ears, so that I was able to hear sounds that had echoed from the walls of the cave in the distant past, when the river still made its way beneath the nameless city.