The plane’s fuel-tank,[750] in the interest of greater lightness, had been only partly filled; hence we now had to exert caution in our explorations. Even so, however, we covered an enormous extent of ground—or rather, air—after swooping down to a level where the wind became virtually negligible.[751] There seemed to be no limit to the mountain range,[752] or to the length of the frightful stone city which bordered its inner foothills. Fifty miles of flight in each direction shewed[753] no major change in the labyrinth of rock and masonry that clawed up corpse-like[754] through the eternal ice.[755] There were, though, some highly absorbing diversifications; such as the carvings on the canyon where that broad river had once pierced the foothills and approached its sinking-place[756] in the great range.[757] The headlands at the stream’s entrance had been boldly carved into Cyclopean pylons; and something about the ridgy, barrel-shaped designs stirred up oddly vague, hateful, and confusing semi-remembrances[758] in both Danforth and me.
We also came upon several star-shaped open spaces, evidently public squares;[759] and noted various undulations in the terrain. Where a sharp hill rose, it was generally hollowed out into some sort of rambling stone edifice; but there were at least two exceptions. Of these latter, one was too badly weathered to disclose what had been on the jutting eminence, while the other still bore a fantastic conical monument carved out of the solid rock and roughly resembling such things as the well-known Snake Tomb in the ancient valley of Petra.
Flying inland from the mountains, we discovered that the city was not of infinite width, even though its length along the foothills seemed endless. After about thirty miles the grotesque stone buildings began to thin out, and in ten more miles we came to an unbroken waste virtually without signs of sentient artifice. The course of the river beyond the city seemed marked by a broad[760] depressed line;[761] while the land assumed a somewhat greater ruggedness, seeming to slope slightly upward as it receded in the mist-hazed west.
So far we had made no landing, yet to leave the plateau without an attempt at entering some of the monstrous structures would have been inconceivable. Accordingly[762] we decided to find a smooth place on the foothills near our navigable pass, there grounding the plane and preparing to do some exploration on foot.[763] Though these gradual slopes were partly covered with a scattering of ruins, low flying soon disclosed an ample number of possible landing-places.[764] Selecting that nearest to the pass, since our next[765] flight would be across the great range and back to camp, we succeeded about 12:30 p.m.[766] in coming down[767] on a smooth, hard snowfield[768] wholly devoid of obstacles and well adapted to a swift and favourable takeoff[769] later on.
It did not seem necessary to protect the plane with a snow banking for so brief a time and in so comfortable an absence of high winds at this level; hence we merely saw that the landing skis were safely lodged, and that the vital parts of the mechanism were guarded against the cold.[770] For our foot journey we discarded the heaviest of our flying furs, and took with us a small outfit consisting of pocket compass, hand camera, light provisions, voluminous notebooks and paper, geologist’s hammer and chisel, specimen-bags,[771] coil of climbing rope, and powerful electric torches with extra batteries; this equipment having been carried in the plane on the chance that we might be able to effect a landing, take ground pictures, make drawings and topographical sketches, and obtain rock specimens from some bare slope, outcropping, or mountain cave.[772] Fortunately we had a supply of extra paper to tear up, place in a spare specimen-bag,[773] and use on the ancient principle of hare-and-hounds[774] for marking our course in any interior mazes we might be able to penetrate. This had been brought in case we found some cave system with air quiet enough to allow such a rapid and easy method in place of the usual rock-chipping method of trail-blazing.[775]
Walking cautiously downhill over the crusted snow toward the stupendous stone labyrinth that loomed against the opalescent west, we felt almost as keen a sense of imminent marvels as we had felt on approaching the unfathomed mountain pass four hours previously.[776] True, we had become visually familiar with the incredible secret concealed by the barrier peaks; yet the prospect of actually entering primordial walls reared by conscious beings perhaps millions of years ago—before any known race of men could have existed—was none the less awesome and potentially terrible in its implications of cosmic abnormality.[777] Though the thinness of the air at this prodigious altitude made exertion somewhat more difficult than usual;[778] both Danforth and I found ourselves bearing up very well, and felt equal to almost any task which might fall to our lot.[779] It took only a few steps to bring us to a shapeless ruin worn level with the snow, while ten or fifteen rods farther on there was a huge[780] roofless rampart still complete in its gigantic five-pointed outline[781] and rising to an irregular height of ten or eleven feet. For this latter we headed; and when at last we were able actually[782] to touch its weathered Cyclopean blocks, we felt that we had established an unprecedented and almost blasphemous link with forgotten aeons normally closed to our species.
This rampart, shaped like a star and perhaps 300[783] feet from point to point, was built of Jurassic sandstone blocks of irregular size, averaging 6 × 8 feet in surface. There was a row of arched loopholes or windows about four feet wide and five feet high;[784] spaced quite symmetrically along the points of the star and at its inner angles, and with the bottoms about four feet from the glaciated surface.[785] Looking through these, we could see that the masonry was fully five feet thick, that there were no partitions remaining within, and that there were traces of banded carvings or bas-reliefs[786] on the interior walls;[787] facts we had indeed guessed before, when flying low over this rampart and others like it. Though lower parts must have originally existed, all traces of such things were now wholly obscured by the deep layer of ice and snow at this point.
We crawled through one of the windows and vainly tried to decipher the nearly effaced mural designs, but did not attempt to disturb the glaciated floor. Our orientation flights had indicated that many buildings in the city proper were less ice-choked, and that we might perhaps find wholly clear interiors leading down to the true ground level if we entered those structures still roofed at the top.[788] Before we left the rampart we photographed it carefully, and studied its mortarless Cyclopean masonry with complete bewilderment. We wished that Pabodie were present, for his engineering knowledge might have helped us guess how such titanic blocks could have been handled in that unbelievably remote age when the city and its outskirts were built up.
The half-mile walk downhill to the actual city, with the upper wind shrieking vainly and savagely through the skyward peaks in the background, was something whose[789] smallest details will always remain engraved on my mind. Only in fantastic nightmares could any human beings but Danforth and me conceive such optical effects.[790] Between us and the churning vapours[791] of the west lay that monstrous tangle of dark stone towers;[792] its outré and incredible forms impressing us afresh at every new angle of vision. It was a mirage in solid stone, and were it not for the photographs I would still doubt that such a thing could be. The general type of masonry was identical with that of the rampart we had examined; but the extravagant shapes which this masonry took in its urban manifestations were past all description.
Even the pictures illustrate only one or two phases of its infinite bizarrerie,[793] endless variety, preternatural massiveness, and utterly alien exoticism. There were geometrical forms for which an Euclid could[794] scarcely find a name—cones of all degrees of irregularity and truncation; terraces of every sort of provocative disproportion; shafts with odd bulbous enlargements; broken columns in curious groups;[795] and five-pointed or five-ridged arrangements of mad grotesqueness.[796] As we drew nearer we could see beneath certain transparent parts of the ice-sheet,[797] and detect some of the tubular stone bridges that connected the crazily sprinkled structures at various heights. Of orderly streets there seemed to be none, the only broad open swath being a mile to the left, wh
ere the ancient river had doubtless flowed through the town into the mountains.
Our field-glasses[798] shewed[799] the external[800] horizontal bands of nearly effaced sculptures and dot-groups[801] to be very prevalent, and we could half imagine[802] what the city must once have looked like—even though most of the roofs and tower-tops[803] had necessarily perished.[804] As a whole, it had been a complex tangle of twisted lanes and alleys;[805] all of them deep canyons, and some little better than tunnels because of the overhanging masonry or overarching bridges.[806] Now, outspread below us, it loomed like a dream-phantasy[807] against a westward mist through whose northern end the low, reddish antarctic sun of early afternoon was struggling to shine; and when for a moment[808] that sun encountered a denser obstruction and plunged the scene into temporary shadow, the effect was subtly menacing in a way I can never hope to depict. Even the faint howling and piping of the unfelt wind in the great mountain passes behind us took on a wilder note of purposeful malignity.[809] The last stage of our descent to the town was unusually steep and abrupt, and a rock outcropping at the edge where the grade changed led us to think that an artificial terrace had once existed there. Under the glaciation, we believed, there must be a flight of steps or its equivalent.
When at last we plunged into the labyrinthine[810] town itself, clambering over fallen masonry and shrinking from the oppressive nearness and dwarfing height of omnipresent crumbling and pitted walls, our sensations again became such that I marvel at the amount of self-control we retained.[811] Danforth was frankly jumpy, and began making some offensively irrelevant speculations about the horror at the camp—which I resented all the more because I could not help sharing certain conclusions forced upon us by many features of this morbid survival from nightmare antiquity.[812] The speculations worked on his imagination, too; for in one place—where a debris-littered[813] alley turned a sharp corner—he insisted that he saw faint traces of ground markings which he did not like; whilst elsewhere he stopped to listen to a subtle[814] imaginary sound from some undefined point—a muffled musical piping, he said, not unlike that of the wind in the mountain caves[815] yet somehow disturbingly different.[816] The ceaseless five-pointedness [817] of the surrounding architecture and of the few distinguishable mural arabesques had a dimly sinister suggestiveness we could not escape;[818] and gave us a touch of terrible subconscious certainty concerning the primal entities which had reared and dwelt in this unhallowed place.
Nevertheless[819] our scientific and adventurous souls were not wholly dead;[820] and we mechanically carried out our programme[821] of chipping specimens from all the different rock types represented in the masonry. We wished a rather full set in order to draw better conclusions regarding the age of the place.[822] Nothing in the great outer walls seemed to date from later than the Jurassic and Comanchian[823] periods, nor was any piece of stone in the entire place of a greater recency than the Pliocene age.[824] In stark certainty, we were wandering amidst a death which had reigned at least 500,000[825] years, and in all probability even longer.
As we proceeded through this maze of stone-shadowed twilight we stopped at all available apertures to study interiors and investigate entrance possibilities. Some were above our reach, whilst others led only into ice-choked ruins as unroofed and barren as the rampart on the hill.[826] One, though spacious and inviting, opened on a seemingly bottomless abyss without visible means of descent. Now and then we had a chance to study the petrified wood of a surviving shutter, and were impressed by the fabulous antiquity implied in the still discernible grain. These things had come from Mesozoic[827] gymnosperms and conifers—especially Cretaceous cycads—and from fan-palms[828] and early angiosperms of plainly Tertiary[829] date. Nothing definitely later than the Pliocene could be discovered.[830] In the placing of these shutters—whose edges shewed[831] the former presence of queer and long-vanished hinges—usage seemed to be varied;[832] some being on the outer and some on the inner side of the deep embrasures. They seemed to have become wedged in place, thus surviving the rusting of their former and probably metallic fixtures and fastenings.
After a time we came across a row of windows—in the bulges of a colossal five-ridged[833] cone of undamaged apex—which led into a vast, well-preserved room with stone flooring; but these were too high in the room to permit of[834] descent without a rope. We had a rope with us, but did not wish to bother with this twenty-foot drop unless obliged to—especially in this thin plateau air where great demands were made upon the heart action.[835] This enormous room was probably a hall or concourse of some sort, and our electric torches shewed[836] bold, distinct, and potentially startling sculptures arranged round the walls in broad, horizontal bands separated by equally broad strips of conventional arabesques. We took careful note of this spot, planning to enter here unless a more easily gained interior were[837] encountered.
Finally, though, we did encounter exactly the opening we wished; an archway about six feet wide and ten feet high, marking the former end of an aërial bridge which had spanned an alley about five feet above the present level of glaciation. These archways, of course, were flush with upper-story floors;[838] and in this case one of the floors still existed.[839] The building thus accessible was a series of rectangular terraces on our left facing westward. That across the alley, where the other archway yawned, was a decrepit cylinder with no windows and with a curious bulge about ten feet above the aperture. It was totally dark inside, and the archway seemed to open on a well of illimitable emptiness.
Heaped debris[840] made the entrance to the vast left-hand building doubly easy, yet for a moment we hesitated before taking advantage of the long-wished chance. For though we had penetrated into this tangle of archaic mystery, it required fresh resolution to carry us actually inside a complete and surviving building of a fabulous elder world whose nature was becoming more and more hideously plain to us.[841] In the end, however, we made the plunge;[842] and scrambled up over the rubble into the gaping embrasure. The floor beyond was of great slate slabs, and seemed to form the outlet of a long, high corridor with sculptured walls.
Observing the many inner archways which led off from it, and realising[843] the probable complexity of the nest of apartments within, we decided that we must begin our system of hare-and-hound trail-blazing.[844] Hitherto our compasses, together with frequent glimpses of the vast mountain range between the towers in our rear, had been enough to prevent our losing our way; but from now on, the artificial substitute would be necessary.[845] Accordingly we reduced our extra paper to shreds of suitable size, placed these in a bag to be carried by Danforth, and prepared to use them as economically as safety would allow. This method would probably gain us immunity from straying, since there did not appear to be any strong air-currents[846] inside the primordial masonry. If such should develop, or if our paper supply should give out, we could of course fall back on the more secure though more tedious and retarding method of rock-chipping.[847]
Just how extensive a territory we had opened up, it was impossible to guess without a trial. The close and frequent connexion[848] of the different buildings made it likely that we might cross from one to another on bridges underneath the ice[849] except where impeded by local collapses and geologic rifts, for very little glaciation seemed to have entered the massive constructions.[850] Almost all the areas of transparent ice had revealed the submerged windows as tightly shuttered, as if the town had been left in that uniform state until the glacial sheet came to crystallise[851] the lower part for all succeeding time. Indeed, one gained a curious impression that this place had been deliberately closed and deserted in some dim, bygone aeon, rather than overwhelmed by any sudden calamity or even gradual decay. Had the coming of the ice been foreseen, and had a nameless population left en masse[852] to seek a less doomed abode?[853] The precise physiographic conditions attending the formation of the ice-sheet[854] at this point would have to wait for later solution. It had not, very plainly, been a grinding drive. Perhaps the pressure of accumu
lated snows had been responsible;[855] and perhaps some flood from the river, or from the bursting of some ancient glacial dam in the great range, had helped to create the special state now observable. Imagination could conceive almost anything in connexion[856] with this place.[857]
VI.
It would be cumbrous to give a detailed, consecutive account of our wanderings inside that cavernous, aeon-dead honeycomb of primal masonry;[858] that monstrous lair of elder secrets which now echoed for the first time, after uncounted epochs, to the tread of human feet.[859] This is especially true because so much of the horrible drama and revelation came from a mere study of the omnipresent mural carvings. Our flashlight photographs of those carvings will do much toward proving the truth of what we are now disclosing, and it is lamentable that we had not a larger film supply with us. As it was, we made crude notebook sketches of certain salient features after all our films were used up.
The building which we had entered was one of great size and elaborateness, and gave us an impressive notion of the architecture of that nameless geologic past. The inner partitions were less massive than the outer[860] walls, but on the lower levels were excellently preserved. Labyrinthine complexity, involving curiously irregular differences[861] in floor levels, characterised[862] the entire arrangement; and we should certainly have been lost at the very outset but for the trail of torn paper left behind us.[863] We decided to explore the more decrepit upper parts first of all, hence climbed aloft in the maze for a distance of some 100[864] feet, to where the topmost tier of chambers yawned snowily and ruinously open to the polar sky. Ascent was effected over the steep, transversely ribbed stone ramps or inclined planes which everywhere served in lieu of stairs.[865] The rooms we encountered were of all imaginable shapes and proportions, ranging from five-pointed stars to triangles and perfect cubes. It might be safe to say that their general average was about 30 × 30 feet in floor area, and 20[866] feet in height;[867] though many larger apartments existed.[868] After thoroughly examining the upper regions and the glacial level we descended story by story[869] into the submerged part, where indeed we soon saw we were in a continuous maze of connected chambers and passages probably leading over unlimited areas outside this particular building.[870] The Cyclopean massiveness and giganticism[871] of everything about us became curiously oppressive; and there was something vaguely but deeply unhuman in all the contours, dimensions, proportions, decorations, and constructional nuances of the blasphemously archaic stonework. We soon realised from what the carvings revealed[872] that this monstrous city was many million years old.
Collected Fiction Volume 3 (1931-1936): A Variorum Edition Page 7