Steamoon Episode 4

CHAPTER FOUR

City of Nightmares

Tolly counted again. Something was definitely not right. He was standing in the middle of Balloque’s camp, having looked through all the tents for a second time. There were six camp beds, and six trunks of personal effects, but they had accounted for only five humans, apart from the native guide. He strode over to where Balloque lay in a heap of blankets and put his foot on his bandaged chest.

“Where is the other member of your party?”

The professor gazed up at him with bleary eyes. Suddenly, he laughed.

“So, you noticed at last.”

“Where are they?”

“Well you might ask.” Balloque struggled to sit up. He raised his voice as the others approached.

“I vill tell you. You may then decide that you need to get far avay from here. And when my spacecraft comes you may just vant to surrender to me!”

“Not bleeding likely.” Growled Rufus. “Just you tell us.”

“Doctor Sebastian Müller is a most unusual man. He describes himself as sensitive, but you might think him mad. He believed he could find and avaken one of the Great Old Ones described in Unaussprechlichen Kulten. He said it lies beneath this site. This morning he went to raise it.”

“So what?” Gritted Rufus.

Balloque made his little wheezing laugh again.

“Do you want to be here to find out if he is right?”

Gong was not sure he believed the story.

“Why would you bring this crazy guy with you?”

Balloque grinned up at them.

“Because if Müller is right – just think what will happen to your precious British administration of Mars.”

*		*		*		*		*

Thaddeus drew his half-hunter from his pocket and checked it by the green glow of the flares lying in a large circle in the sand. Ten past midnight, and still nothing. Perhaps they should have used the red flares instead. The desert air was bitterly cold and he shivered as he scanned the vast black sky above. He walked over to where Balloque sat on a boulder, wrapped in a blanket.

“If you have played us false, Professor…”

“Nein, I s-swear it! Green sh-should work!”

Just then he heard it. A buzzing from above, growing steadily louder. Thaddeus hauled Balloque to his feet, clamping his revolver into the small of the man’s back. A searchlight snapped on in the darkness above, sweeping its beam over the camp, before locking onto the two men standing by the circle of guttering flares.

Now they could make out a black bulk beneath the approaching searchlight as it floated down towards them. There was a hiss of escaping gas, dust swirled up as the craft settled onto the sand. Shading his eyes from the glare of the searchlight, Thaddeus looked at it in astonishment. It was the smallest spaceship he had ever seen; barely 100 feet long, painted black from stem to stern, it was hard to believe it was capable of interplanetary flight.

Men appeared on the craft’s narrow deck; a ladder was lowered. There was a shout from the small conning tower above.

“Balloque? Esterhazy? Bist du da?”

“Yes! Here we are!” Thaddeus called back in German, giving Balloque a sharp nudge with his revolver. Reluctantly, the prisoner waved.

Two officers clad in greatcoats slid down the ladder and turned to face them. The older wore a beard and a captain’s cap; the younger held a revolver.

“Where are the others?” The bearded German asked. He frowned at Thaddeus.

“And who is he?”

Balloque opened his mouth to reply, but before a word was uttered the Germans started, as if sensing a trap. The younger man levelled his revolver at Thaddeus.

“Hands up!” He bawled.

The next instant there was a crack and the German lurched forward, arms outstretched. Tolly, crouched behind a nearby boulder, had put a rifle bullet between his shoulder blades, knocking him flat. The captain wheeled in shock, wrenching his own pistol from its holster, but Thaddeus moved quicker. With a single thrust of his sword-cane he ran him through.

At the sound of the shot Walter pulled back on the control levers and the hexpod lurched to its feet, leaving the tent that had concealed it flapping behind it like some bizarre cloak. He swung the machine around to face the German craft.

Rufus and Gong slid swiftly from beneath the sand-covered blankets that had concealed them. Rufus swung himself up onto the side of the craft as Gong clambered up the prow. Rufus saw there were two armed crewmen standing amidships by the gun but both were staring at the hexpod. Moving noiselessly behind the first he cut him down with a double swipe of his kukris. The second crewman spun to confront Rufus, but Tolly, who had sprung onto one of the craft’s fins, levelled his rifle and blasted the crewman from the deck.

Gong saw a German in the conning tower ahead of him and leapt towards him. This time, however, his deadly skill deserted him. His kick snapped out into empty air and he landed clumsily on the deck. The crewman stepped up, pulling a revolver from his belt, but an instant later Rufus’s throwing knife slapped into his back. As he staggered for a moment Gong Ho sprung forward. This time the kick crashed home, catapulting the German into the night.

Standing on the craft’s starboard fin, Tolly paused. He could cover both hatches from where he was, he realised, and need only wait. Sure enough, the stern hatch slammed open and as the armed crewman climbed out Tolly put a bullet neatly through his head, reloading just in time to shoot dead the second German as he climbed out of the conning tower. That made seven dead, he counted. Surely a craft of this size could not hold much more?

Further inspection proved Tolly to be correct. The S-boat was now empty of crew, and Thaddeus and Walter explored the cramped interior with mounting interest.

“Its papers identify this as a ‘Schläue-Boot’ – that is Stealth-Boat - number S-99, Thaddeus. Weight 450 tons.” Said Walter.

“Yes, and look - 350 tons of that is fuel: 250 tons of water and a hundred of compressed hydrogen for the stealth-engines…” Added Thaddeus.

“So it can’t have a range of more than – say 40 or 50 million miles.”

“Which means it has to refuel somewhere other than earth!”

“Look at this star chart, Thaddeus. There is a place marked on it called punkt zehn – point ten. Ring any bells?”

“Yes, there was a reference to ‘point ten’ in the stealth boat manned by orientals.”

Rufus turned to face the two scientists.

“So the Germans have a secret base out there somewhere?”

“They must have.” Thaddeus replied. “And they’ve been helping Fu Manchu.”

*		*		*		*		*

Tolly stared at the ground as the rising Martian sun began to flood the plain with crimson light. Müller’s tracks led directly towards the red mountain of stone in the valley below. Mishmash nodded and the little band of riders spurred their thoats into a trot. Walter followed the column in his hexpod. The combination of Martian optics and high vantage point gave him a dazzling view of the plain and the gigantic ziggurat before them.

As they approached one face of the colossal structure they saw a series of large square pits and a jumble of huge but ruined walls. At the edge of the pits Mishmash halted.

“There it is - the ‘city of nightmares.’ It is the home of evil spirits. Some say there is a monster whose look will turn you to stone. Others speak of demons who form out of thin air.”

“Well, we shall go and find out.” Said Thaddeus.

“I will go no further. And you should not.” The Thark replied.

“Very well, Mishmash. But we must go on. You wait here with the ladies and the thoats.”

Reluctantly, Walter folded the hexpod’s legs and climbed out of the lowered cabin. The machine was clearly too bulky to get closer from this direction. He slung his jet-pack over one shoulder and followed the party as it began to pick its way towards the wall of red sandstone that rose like a cliff ahead of them.

As he approached the vast structure Walter felt a growing sense of threat. Glancing up anxiously, he saw winged shapes wheeling in the air high above him. There was a shout from Thaddeus at the head of the column.

“Look – there is a fissure in the rock!”

“The tracks lead straight to it.” Tolly added.

But Walter kept looking up. As he watched, one of the circling shapes flipped over and seemed to dive towards them.

“Um chaps…” He began. He glanced up again. “Dactyls!” He yelled.

Looking up Tolly saw the approaching shape and dropped to one knee, squinting through the sights of the Lebel, waiting for it to pull up. But it simply rushed down on them, opening its great beak until Tolly had to blast a shot right down the approaching gullet. Flailing its wings the great beast crashed to the ground as Tolly jumped desperately clear. As the thrashing thing tried to rise Rufus put a bullet from his Lancaster pistol through its thick skull, and it collapsed and lay still.

There was thunderous clatter as Walter opened up with his Webeley. The others looked up in surprise to see more dactyls diving wildly down on them. Walter’s bullets struck the first beast at the base of the wing, sending it smashing into a rock a few feet away. With a boom the following dactyl disappeared into a cloud of smoke as Thaddeus scored a hit with his Martian exploding bolt-gun. But the third creature swooped down on Gong. The huge toothed beak snapped shut on air as the martial artist dodged to one side, but one of the creature’s taloned feet caught his shoulder and for a moment it looked as if the Chinaman would be carried off. But Tolly had worked the repeating bolt of his Lebel and as the creature passed him, he blew its meagre brains out. Gong was swept some feet entangled in the thing’s leathery carcass before he could get to his feet.

“We must get some cover. These dactyls are crazy!”

Looking up they saw more winged shapes overhead.

“Come on – into the cave!” Thaddeus shouted, running forward.

They crowded in. The passage quickly narrowed to an irregular crack some two feet across, but they shuffled and wormed their way forward until, with a gasp of relief, Thaddeus stumbled out onto an even floor.

They were in a cavernous chamber with smoothly curving walls, like the interior of some colossal egg. Soft, steady light shone down from veins of crystal running across the roof. Across the middle of this space ran a huge fissure, so that the near half of the hall was split from the other by a chasm some four paces wide. The floor was covered by an even layer of wind-blown sand, strewn with half-buried bones. Thaddeus bent to look closer.

“These are Thark skeletons.” He said. “Hundreds of them.”

To their left stood a large archway leading to two massive doors made of some strange, silvery metal. This area was filled with a sloping mass of skulls and bones, as if piled up against the inside of the doors.

Tolly picked up a skull.

“Looks like they were killed by violence” He said, running a finger along a gash in the bone. It made him feel angry, he realised, and ready to shoot someone. He cocked his rifle.

“And this is one of them bastard pole-arms” Said Rufus, pulling an ancient blade from the sand. He drew his own kukri and stared at the two blades, his face working.

Gong was looking at the silvery doors, half-buried with bones.

“That design on the door. What does it remind you of, Lufus?”

“Uh what? Oh, a star. Like the Elder Sign.”

Walter could hardly think straight. The place was so overpoweringly baleful... It was a killing ground. It wanted him to kill – every last one of them.

“Walter, why are you pointing that gun at us?” Gong asked.

With a start Walter looked at the gun in his hands and turned away, mumbling something that even he could not make sense of.

“It’s this place.” He said at last. “It wants us all dead.”

Thaddeus gave a snort of laughter.

“Really Walter! And you a man of science!”

“You mean you don’t sense it?”

“Sense what?”

“That… force. Wanting us to… to butcher everything!”

“Frankly, Walter old man, I haven’t a clue what you are talking about.”

Rufus moved over to where Gong stood staring at the gateway.

“They died trying to get out. But the doors stayed shut.” The Chinaman mused.

“Remember how you knocked me out when the Deep Ones made me barmy?” Rufus asked softly.

“Yes.”

“Best keep an eye on Walter while we’re in here.”

“You feel it too?”

“Oh yes.”

Scanning the smooth dust, Tolly saw a line of footprints that led towards the chasm. A few paces before the edge two iron pitons had been hammered into the floor. A rope was tied to them and disappeared over the lip of the chasm into the darkness below. Tolly pulled on the rope. It had been cut off after a few yards.

“Here, look at this.” He called.

“Did Müller cross, then, or climb down?” Asked Thaddeus.

Tolly squinted across the gulf, fiddling with his eye-patch.

“He went across. I can see the other end of the rope tied over there.”

“So how do we follow?”

Gong eyed the gap uneasily.

“I am not sure that I can jump it. Even on Mars.”

“Don't worry chaps! I have the very gadget!”

They turned to see a goggled and manically transformed Walter. Strapped into his jetpack, he grinned madly at them.

“I shall now execute a small hop to the other side, so you can throw me the rope.”

He stepped towards the edge and the others instinctively fell back in anticipation of the jet blast. Walter fiddled with the controls. Nothing seemed to be happening.

“That’s very odd… Oh yes, of course…”

With a deafening whoosh and an explosion of dust, Walter rocketed towards the roof of the cavern some sixty feet above them. At the last moment he checked his ascent but still collided with the stone with a dull thud and, to the watcher’s horror, tumbled back to fall directly into the yawning chasm at their feet. Just as he flashed past them, however, there was a burst of sound, more moderate this time, and they saw Walter rise slowly back into view, hovering in mid-air.

“Fine now. Forgot about the lower gravity... Elementary really.”

*		*		*		*		*

Thaddeus was staring at the three doors. They had crossed the chasm using Müller’s repaired rope to find three exits on the far side of the hall, but each of them was blocked by a large door of silvery metal.

“Which one did Müller use, I wonder?”

“I can tell you that.” Said Tolly. “His tracks lead to this one.”

He pointed to the right-most set of doors. They had a strange, alien design; ridged and framed by weirdly organic-looking decorations. Down the centre ran a crack and half way up this was set an ornate disc the size of a dinner-plate, oddly segmented and covered in strange ideograms.

“Ah. A lock of some kind. Perhaps we need to rotate it to the setting in order to open these doors?” Thaddeus bent close to examine the markings.

Walter would have liked to help. But he could not take his eyes off the chasm they had crossed. Ever since he had nearly fallen down it, he could not shake the feeling that something was down there… He gave a slight shiver.

Tolly noticed Walter’s look. He stepped forward to look down the drop, but then froze. Two huge insectoid legs came slowly over the lip of the chasm and took grip on the floor before him. “Land crabs!!” He yelled.

The others turned to see the chasm behind them boiling with grotesque life. A host of land crabs were clambering out, claws snapping. There was a crack as Tolly blasted a hole through the shell of the leader, knocking it back down the drop; then a boom as Rufus put down another with his Lancaster pistol. But a moment later its body was covered as giant crabs clambered over it. Walter cocked his Webeley and pulled the trigger. Again the gun roared into life, hammering bullets into first one and then a second land crab, knocking then twitching to the ground. But the wave rolled on oblivious, and the adventurers had to give back before them, or be swamped.

Gong turned back to Thaddeus.

“Quickly – the door!”

Thaddeus spun the dial to the most plausible of the ideograms and heaved. But the doors did not open. Desperately he tried another – but still the doors would not budge. Now he felt the backs of the shooting party pushing against him as they retreated, the thunder of gunfire filled both ears.

Suddenly Gong reached past him. Pressing his fingers into the thin crack between the doors he simply wrenched them apart with all his strength. With a clacking noise they slid back, as if on springs.

Gong looked down and immediately flung out his arms again to prevent himself from being pushed forward. At his feet gaped a shaft. The floor of the smaller chamber before him was made of the same silvery metal as the doors, but it was riven and broken so that only fragments remained hanging over an inky void. The shaft went up into darkness above, and at regular intervals around the walls ran great rails of the same material, as if to carry some vertically-ascending train. But Gong had no time to look further. There were shouts of desperation behind him. He simply gathered himself and leapt into space. At first it seemed he must fall into the depths, but he caught the edge of the nearest piece of floor with his fingers. The metal sank under his grip, the whole piece of floor tipping slowly down, and for a moment Gong was sure he was going to loose his grip. But then it stopped and bobbed up again, as if it were the tip of some gigantic seesaw, and Gong hoisted himself up onto the metal surface with a gasp of relief.

Thaddeus knew he could never make such a leap. But he saw narrow seams running around the inside of the shaft and started to edge around on one. He was just trying to step around one of the vertical rails when, with a dull clang, the revolver in his holster leapt to the metal and stuck to it. He tried his sword-stick, with similar results.

“It’s powerfully magnetized!” He called. “It’s incredible!”

“It’s an incredible pain in the ass, is what it is!” Growled Rufus. He had climbed nimbly behind Thaddeus, gun in hand, and was now struggling to pull the pistol free of the magnetic rail.

“Hurry up!” Bawled Tolly. He and Walter were stood in the doorway firing madly. A moment later he slung his Lebel and scrambled into the shaft with the others. Walter felt his magazine click empty and the thunderous gunfire suddenly stopped. He looked desperately over his shoulder.

Gong had unwound his Cizhe rope and flung its grappling hook at the far rail, where the magnetism held it fast. With its help the others were making their way across. Walter now followed them, and as he left the doorway the twin doors sprang shut, trapping a crab leg that wriggled for a while before being withdrawn.

The party now stood at the far side of the shaft on the largest remaining piece of metal floor, which undulated unnervingly under their combined weights.

“I never want to have to do that again!” Muttered Rufus. He had slid more than ten feet down the shaft trying to get one or other of his metal possessions free of the magnetic rail and it had taken all his climbing skill to make his way back up again.

The other entrance to the shaft was at a higher level, but its twin doors were open. Gong could just reach the floor of the passageway with his fingers and hoisted himself up before turning to help the others behind him.

They were in a broad stone corridor some twenty feet across, lit by the same light-emitting crystal veins running along the ceiling. A little way ahead they found a crossroads where the main way was crossed by a smaller corridor. Rufus went some thirty yards down the left-hand tunnel to find it blocked by fallen rock. Thaddeus soon found that the right-hand path equally impassable, after a fifty yards or so the air became unbreathable from sulphurous gas from fissures.

“Looks like we better go ahead then.” Said Tolly, reloading his Lebel.

The main way quickly opened out into a large room. Thaddeus stepped forward but paused and looked back in surprise. The rest of the party had stopped. Walter, in particular, seemed rooted to the spot. He could not make his legs move. The psychic force he had felt in the outer chamber struck him with redoubled force, like the sound of some colossal bell. So clear and strong was it now that he could almost put words to the command. None must leave alive! None! None! None!

Everyone save Thaddeus felt it now. They stood, each fighting their own battle with the urge to kill. Only Rufus looked untroubled, hooking one thumb into the buttoned pocket of his waistcoat where he kept the Elder Sign.

The moment passed and Thaddeus saw the faraway look leave the eyes of each of the others even, remarkably enough, Walter’s.

“You all had funny turns?”

“I tried to tell you before Thaddeus.” Said Walter. “This place is subject to powerful psychic emissions. Instructions to stop anyone leaving alive.”

“What the hell is that?” Tolly had been peering into the semi-gloom of the chamber ahead of them, which was not as well lit as the corridor.

They stepped forward cautiously. Ahead of them they could make out a pale figure standing motionless. As they neared they saw it was a statue of a Thark, made of some pale stone. But strangely, the statue wore clothes and sandals. Its mouth was gaping open, as if in horror.

“It is anatomically perfect.” Said Thaddeus.

“It’s as if its flesh has been turned to stone.” Murmured Walter. Looking down he saw that the floor was covered with a layer of fine white dust. Like bone dust, he thought, supressing a shudder.

“Gentlemen.” Tolly spoke quietly. “I think we have found Doctor Müller.”

They turned, raising their weapons. There was another figure ahead of them, standing as if aiming a pistol, but it stood quite motionless.

“I think he really has been turned to stone.” Said Tolly.

They approached. The man stood, pointing a revolver with one hand, holding a sabre with the other, fully clothed. But his flesh was stone.

Gong went through his pockets. First he pulled out a pouch of tobacco and a weirdly-carved pipe. There was something disturbing and monstrous about the shapes carved on the thing. He sniffed.

“Not just tobacco. Strange drugs too.”

“Look at this.” Said Thaddeus.

He was holding a piece of parchment and they saw at once it was a page taken from the volume of Unaussprechlichen Kulten. On one side was a pentangle with occult markings, on the other words written in Middle German.

Großer Gott Schrecklich Herrn Heilig Nyogtha

Um die große ein frei Die sehr groß ein Die sehr schrecklich ein Nyogtha Gehen Sie vor seinem großen Haus auf dem Roten Planeten Wenn der Drache ist im Haus des Saturn Machen den Kreis und Dreieck so was Iegen Sie die Zeichen wie diese Ihr Blut vergießen Sagen, die Worte neun mal neun

C’thalagkush muasayakal Nyogtha Nyoqoloapox’ia vruulaq sasyol’uatha laj Gruxa’nyalaka tha oyikq-kalag’otha niyuioduj kpilaw’igol Qukli’shoo nyo’kuyeit-bakoqthiss piowyg-sha Ny’ogioqpk-ss-djiya opklruujish noztfiliookish-ya-ya

Er wird zurückkehren

“What does it say?” Asked Rufus.

“The title is – ‘The Great God, Awful Lord, Holy Nyogtha.’” Read Thaddeus.

“Then it says: ‘To free the Great One The Very Mighty One The Very Terrible One Nyogtha Go to his Great House on the Red Planet When the Dragon is in the house of Saturn Stand before the Deep Door Make the circle and triangle so Make the Signs like this Shed your blood Say the words nine times nine’

“Then there are five lines of words that I’d swear a human mouth was not meant to utter. And finally…”

‘He will return.’”

“Nyogtha. Mused Tolly. What do we know about him? Is there an entry in Darwin’s book, Professor?”

Thaddeus nodded and pulled the volume from his shoulder bag. Walking back to the petrified Thark where the light was better, he flicked through the appendix listing the Great Old Ones, and read:-

Nyogtha; Dweller in Darkness; the Thing that Should Not Be.

This entity is mentioned in the Eltdown Shards as the Sire of the Gorgon, Brother of Ghatanothoa, but with too little information to deduce much except, as G.M. Black (1879, p.329) concludes, that it does not seem to be one of the terrestrially dormant megafauna. Zöllermann (1749, p.66) suggests a ritual for Nyogtha is included in Unaussprechlichen Kulten, but if so it is not included in the copies available to us. The only description we have been able to find is in Quatremair’s reconstruction and translation of the Alhazred Fragments, which I quote here in full. “Men knew him as the Dweller in Darkness, that brother of the Old Ones, called Nyogtha, the Thing that Should Not Be. He can be summoned to Earth's surface, and sorcerers have seen him below the black tower of Leng; from the Thang Grotto of Tartary he once came sweeping like a storm to bring terror and a terrible death among the pavilions of the great Khan. Only by the looped cross, by the Vach-Viraj incantation and by the Tikkoun elixir may he be driven back to the nighted caverns of hidden foulness where he dwelleth.” (Quatremair 1798, p.13).

“Very nice.” Said Tolly.

“What do you make of this?” Asked Rufus. He was standing by a wall looking at the ground. He picked up a strangely carved piece of wood shaped like a boomerang. Symbols were traced all over its smoothly polished surface.

“This is True Wood, I reckon.” He said.

“Maybe Müller or the Thark brought it, as a weapon.” Said Tolly. “Though it didn’t do them much good…”

There was a low cry behind them. They turned to see Walter backing towards them, pointing at the frozen figure of Müller. Gong took him by the shoulder.

“What’s the matter?” He demanded.

“I touched it... Müller, he’s… not dead, Gong. He’s being eaten!”

“Eaten? What are you talking about man?” Asked Thaddeus.

Walter turned an ashen face to them.

“I sensed it. The stone is a creature, it is digesting his flesh… but inside he is still alive, feeling everything!”

“Well it’s an interesting theory Walter,” Said Thaddeus, “but what makes you think…”

“No I sensed it! His awful pain!”

Tolly glanced back towards the petrified Müller and froze in horror. There, a few paces away, stood a ghost. Its body was that of a female Thark but entirely monochrome white, or rather pale grey; its form somehow insubstantial, as if made from dust. But the expression on its face was unspeakably alien; and its eyes were impossibly black, like peepholes into a void.

As he saw it Tolly realised with a thrill of terror, that it saw him. At that moment he felt a gossamer-thin line snap taught between the creature and his own outstretched hand; along it, tiny filaments of dust seemed to course towards him.

Suddenly the creature’s chest seemed to burst in a cloud of talcum powder. Rufus had hurled the strange boomerang straight through its floating form. The next moment, though, the dust was sucked back into its original shape and the creature turned to face its attacker.

Rufus could feel the thing willing its deadly dust into his flesh, but the Elder Sign grew warm in his pocket and he simply pushed the stuff back with his mind. It broke off, and now raised its arms towards him and advanced. Just then Gong stepped in from the side and cut a diagonal swathe through the dust-thing’s body with his True Wood nunchakus. The powder swirled for a moment before reforming, just as Thaddeus and Tolly lunged into it with their swords. These, however, seemed to have no effect on the creature and the pair had to jump aside to evade the thing’s sweeping arms.

But Rufus had tracked the flight of his boomerang. Now he scooped it up from where it had come down a few paces away and sent it flying straight through the creature’s mid-rift once more. The thing seemed to puff out, and paused for a moment, half formed. Then one of Gong’s nunchakus sliced down from top to bottom and the thing became just a cloud of dust, falling slowly to the floor.

“What the devil was that ?” Gasped Tolly.

“I think it was the thing imprisoning Müller.” Said Walter. “Look.”

On the spot where the petrified occultist had stood there was now just a pile of blood stained clothing. Thaddeus gaped in surprise.

“He must be naked!”

“He is skinless, Thaddeus. The thing had begun to digest him.” Said Walter.

Sure enough they saw a trail of bloody footprints through the dust.

“He must have gone to awaken Nyogtha.” Said Tolly.

“Come on then!” Growled Rufus. “Better stop ‘im.”

Hurrying forward them came to an archway and passed thorough it. There they stopped and gaped in amazement at the vast space that opened up before them.

They were standing on an enormous balcony of silvery metal overlooking a huge empty space; the hollow interior of the ziggurat mountain. The balcony, as wide as a boulevard, ran around the inner space in a great ellipse. Above and below them were dozens of similar balconies, each of them opening onto countless chambers and corridors. Dotted along these they could see dozens of pale motionless figures – petrified Tharks. At the apex of the gigantic atrium a roof of crystal cast a smooth light down onto the interior, and in the centre of the vast circular space they saw a gigantic pillar of rock. So enormous was this column that it was hard to believe that it was not a natural feature, and yet it’s sides fell straight down into the apparently bottomless depths beneath them, so that it formed an almost perfect cylinder some five hundred feet across. Around the titanic pillar wound a thin line – a spiral stair cut into the red rock. There was a flicker of movement.

“Look! There’s Müller!” Rufus called, pointing.

But Tolly had already seen him – a mottled reddish stick-figure flitting down the steps. He snapped the Lebel to his shoulder. Eighty yards away in dim light, Müller was nearly out of sight around the curve of the pillar, but Tolly waited an instant to aim, squeezing off the shot just as the prancing figure disappeared from view. He saw a puff of red spray as the shot sounded in his ears. The figure dropped forward, out of sight.

“Got him!”

“Good shot man!” Exclaimed Thaddeus.

“Better be sure an’ finish him off.” Gritted Rufus.

But crossing the hundred-foot gulf before them, they realised, was no easy task. Looking up they saw two slender bridges from the encircling balcony near the top of the pillar. But both stopped short of reaching the rock. Almost directly above them another of these walkways ran out from the balcony above them towards the spiral steps, but it too stopped short, leaving a gap of some thirty feet.

Gong looked at the bloody smears on the balcony handrail.

“Skinless man climbed up here. Then he must have jumped that gap.” He said, with a trace of respect in his voice.

“Let’s follow then.” Said Rufus.

Climbing onto the metal railing he jumped and just caught the base of the walkway above him. With some effort he dragged himself up onto it. Gong was soon beside him; letting down his Cizhe rope for the others to clamber up.

They walked and stood at the edge of the drop. Thirty feet away and some ten feet below them they could see a smear of blood on the spiral staircase.

“Madman or not. It was a good jump.” Said Gong. He took a deep breath.

“Wish me luck.” He said, flexing his knees.

“Um, aren't you forgetting something?” Asked Walter.

“We ‘aven’t forgotten about your jetpack, Walter, we jus’ don’t want you to kill yourself with it.” Said Rufus.

“Don’t worry! I have the hang of the gravity now.”

There was a roar behind them and the others staggered back from the blast, trying not to fall from the narrow walkway, which had no handrail. Thaddeus clutched at his hat and Walter soared into the air and then, with fitful spurts, began to descend and fly across the space before them. Finally, as the others watched nervously, he made a final hop and dropped onto the stairway on the other side. Pulling out his Webeley prototype he began to trot down the steps.

The stairway was more difficult to use that he had expected. The steps seemed worn, uneven, and indescribably ancient, entirely different from the smooth metal floors of the surrounding balconies. He wondered if they could have been made by the same race. He had followed the stair out of sight of the others now and saw a pool of blood on the steps at his feet. From it led a wide scarlet trail, smeared down the stairs as if by a huge paintbrush.

Careful not to slip in the gore Walter made his way down twenty more steps, thirty… Now he could hear laboured breathing and a rhythmic wet slapping noise. A few steps more and he saw the skinless man lying headlong on the steps. He was dragging himself forward, like some human slug, on the liquid from his own wounds. Walter stood for a moment, transfixed by a mixture of horror and pity. Then he took careful aim and blasted the madman’s brains out.

Wearily now he made his way back to the place opposite the others and secured the rope so that the party could cross.

“You finished him?” Asked Tolly when he had crossed.

“Yes. We can try and find the way out now.”

“Let’s go up.” Said Thaddeus. “Maybe we can re-activate the walkways from there.”

Carefully they made their way up, pausing from time to time to catch their breath and listen for any sign of trouble. As they neared the top they could see that there was a structure on the summit built, or carved out of, stone.

At last they came to a terrace. Behind them one of the walkways hung some twenty feet away, suspended in space. In front of them was a stone building surmounted with a dome of some dark crystal. On the edge of the terrace, facing the walkway were two more statues, but these were very different from the rest. They were grotesque winged figures, looking for all the world like Thark-sized gargoyles, and the stone of their flesh was somewhat darker than the others.

Facing them was a door carved so finely into the smooth rock that it was hard to imagine it ever opening. On it was carved a strange alien design in which four arms seemed to hold a disc decorated with a star. Above this was a large disc, and set all around was weird Martian writing.

“This is an ancient form of Martian.” Said Thaddeus. “I should be able to decipher it…” He took out a pad and began to jot notes.

Walter found himself repelled but fascinated by the gargoyles. Parts of them looked dactyl, others seemed Thark. Staring at the face of one he edged closer and then, not quite sure why, he reached out and touched it.

His mind was suddenly flooded by a host of images. Large pieces of egg-shell, a great dactyl mother, a brother like oneself, also made of strange stone-like flesh that could not fly. A sense of aching loss for the Mother, of countless ages trapped here, of terrible hunger and sinking into death-like sleep… waiting, waiting, to feed.

Walter stepped back blinking. The gargoyle had seemed to move… it was stirring, waking up.

“Look out!” He called. “We’ve got trouble!”

Tolly turned to see the gargoyle moving to face Walter, its strange stone-like flesh flexing, cracking in places. It opened it’s mouth to show rows of needle teeth and stepped towards him. Tolly levelled the rifle at his hip and fired. His shot chipped stone-like fragments from the creature’s chest, but otherwise had no effect. There was a double boom to his side. Rufus had given it both barrels of his Lancaster pistol in the face, blasting off several teeth and part of what might have been an ear.

The thing swung from Walter and now bore down upon its other attackers. Thaddeus fired his revolver, chipping pieces from its chest, as Tolly, backing away, cycled the bolt on his Lebel, and put another bullet in it, this time in the face. Gong thwacked its head from behind with his nunchakus. But the creature seemed immune, and continued to advance.

There was a fizzing noise.

“Get back everyone!” Called Walter. He rolled the stick of dynamite towards the creature. It came to a rest just in front of it. The gargoyle took another heavy step and was suddenly lost in a burst of light and smoke as, with a thunderclap, the explosive detonated. When the smoke cleared they saw part of an arm and wing lying amid a set of grey fragments. The rest of the creature had been blasted over the edge.

There was a creaking noise. Rufus looked up to see the second gargoyle beginning to move. Tolly sprang past him.

“Quick! Give me a hand!”

Bracing himself on the stone floor Tolly clamped his mechanical hand under the thing’s elbow and heaved. There was a hiss of pneumatics and the gargoyle, still not fully mobile, began to tip towards the drop beside it. An instant later Gong and Rufus threw themselves against the stone-like body and toppled it to drop into the yawning gulf.

Panting they turned to look at each other.

“That was another sort of thing again! Have we any idea what these creatures are?” Asked Tolly.

“I think Darwin says something that might be useful on this point…” Thaddeus mused. He flipped through the green volume once more.

“Ah yes. He writes here on the possibility of other forms of ectoplasm.

‘Up until now we have been concerned with Aqueous Ectoplamic creatures – that is with forms of life based upon ectoplasm of a watery nature, and whose cells operate in ways comparable to our own, despite their radical differences in a number of important respects.

We may, however, speculate briefly regarding the possibility that ectoplasmic life might exist in other forms – that is be based upon elements other than water, since as we have seen, the organising principle of ectoplasmic life is to a large degree psychic rather than material.

There is some scant evidence to suggest that this is no idle speculation. Professor Gilmore Black’s translation of the Lemurian Inscription texts suggest that in the myths of the oldest know cult of the Great Old Ones, the gigantic creatures considered deities, had different ectoplasmic constitutions. Cthulhu, Ghatanothoa, Dagon and Hydra are described as having been made ‘of water’, while Tsathoggua, Nyogtha and Azhorra-Tha were ‘of earth’. Nyarlathotep, Hastur, and Ithaqua, were ‘of air’ while Cthugha and Aphoom-Zhah described as ‘of fire.’ Some of the most powerful of the creatures are said to have selected for their dwellings those planets most compatible with their constitutions. Cthulhu was said to have chosen earth because it was a world of water, like the planet Yuggoth. Azhorra-Tha and Uvhash to have chose Mars since it was a world of ‘earth’, and Gleeth to have chosen the moon for the same reason. Ithaqua was said to have chosen Ylidiomph (Jupiter).

Since, as we have seen, the Cthulhu mythos contained many of the clues needed to discover the facts regarding ectoplasmic life, we should at least consider the possibility of non-aqueous ectoplasmic forms.

Fire, by which we mean material of such high temperature that it approaches plasma as a fundamental state of matter, can be easily seem to contain abundant energy for complex patterns, provided a form of flammic ectoplasm that was organised by a psychic mind and engaged with plasma in the same way that aqueous ectoplasm interacts with water. Similarly, the Brownian motion of gas molecules might, it can be supposed, be so organised to form a form if life provided the same elements. Earth, we might conjecture, might operate by means of principles yet to be conceived, or at any rate, until a specimen of such a life-form might be studied.’”

“Well we can take this as a specimen, I suppose.” Tolly raised the piece of gargoyle-arm that was lying on the stone; it was oozing a strange black liquid. Walter peered at it.

“But this seems like some hybrid. I had a vision of it hatching from a dactyl egg.”

“Ah,” said Thaddeus, “Darwin has something to say on that in the next section. Listen…

‘On the Possibility of Inter-Species Ectoplasmic Fertility

Now let us return to the matter of reproduction. Since ectoplasmic life-forms are organised by their distributed consciousness by means of psychic force there is nothing in principle that would limit them to reproduction within specific species, as is the case in most protoplasmic creatures above the level of the single-cell organisms. It may be, therefore, that ectoplasmic creatures are able to reproduce with animals that are radically different from theselves, even to the point of reproducing with non-ectoplasmic life forms. Certainly the ancient texts are full of accounts of deities mating with humans and having offspring, often figures endowed with supernatural powers.

We need not suppose that these myths and legends represented any particular actual events to entertain the possibility that interbreeding between ectoplasmic and other forms of life was a possibility. Since ectoplasmic forms are able to digest protoplasmic cells and psychic processes (minds) for nutritional purposes, they are clearly able to force these to conform to the organisational forms imposed by their psychic systems. In theory, then, this control could extend to reproductive cells.’”

“So maybe those dust-things somehow mated with a dactyl?” Muttered Walter. “Poor thing.”

“Have you worked out the door inscription yet?” Rufus asked Thaddeus.

“My best guess at a translation of the writing is this:

Sealed by the Order of the Thurn Council Warning to All,

Here entombed is Sage-King Amak-Thanin, Who opened the door unto Evil Who mastered dreams to make his city great, Who slew his people to save them Do not disturb his rest”

“What about the letters in the central disk?” Asked Walter.

“I think it’s a random jumble of letters and numbers.”

“Maybe it’s like a sort of combination lock,” said Rufus. “Can you use the random letters to spell something out?”

“Like his name, for example.” Added Tolly.

“Precisely my thoughts. Which is why it is very annoying that there are not quite enough letters to spell out his full name!”

“Maybe try short name?” Suggested Gong.

“It’s worth a try. Very well, here goes…”

Thaddeus reached up and pressed his fingers against four symbols in quick succession.

“Amak…”

They felt, rather than heard, a clunk. The rock had shifted somehow. Gong put his strength to the doors and they began to slowly swing open.

“Thaddeus?” Walter called forlornly, “I thought it said we were not to disturb him?”

They passed down a short corridor to a smaller door. This opened easily at their touch. Inside was a large central chamber, capped by a dome of crystal. Slender pillars of differently coloured crystals ran from floor to roof. In the centre of the hall stood a large stone dais with steps leading to a throne of rock. Standing before it was a huge figure of a man, or perhaps a demigod, but he was no Thark. One of his two arms was held in front of him as if grasping something. But all their eyes were drawn to the figure’s head. For he was wearing a crown of crystals that seemed to sparkle with every colour of the rainbow, matching in miniature, the crystals of the roof and its columns.

Walter put his hands to his temples and squeezed. This was the epicentre of the booming command in his head. None must leave alive! None! None! None! Even Thaddeus felt it now, a pulsing command from the crown and the crystals all around. Tolly gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. But he heard another voice too. One he knew far better. ‘Buck up Tolly. We’ve been in tougher scrapes than this…’ He lowered his rifle. Gong began to sweat; fighting down the urge to execute the command he stared at the floor. Then he saw it. A small brownish stone a few feet away, as if dropped by the crowned figure. He stooped and picked it up. Immediately he felt a warm glow flow through his fingers… pressing back the psychic force of the chamber. It was shaped like the Elder Sign, but was made of the red-brown stone of Mars. He looked around. Each member of the party looked at him with sane, if troubled eyes. Even Walter had managed to pass this last test of will.

There was a whispering sound behind them. Along the corridor behind them slid the Dry Ones, for that, Walter somehow knew, was what they had once been called. Three ghost-like forms of pale dust, shaped like the ancient Tharks they had devoured many centuries ago. Had the humans somehow escaped their weaker companion on the lower level? They were confident of victory now. Out snapped their minds; more than powerful enough to crush the will of the closest of their prey…

Turning, Gong instinctively thrust out the Martian Elder Sign at the three, as if warding them off. They paused for a moment, Walter saw, their twisted faces working. But then they pressed on as if, Walter thought, they knew that the Sign had not saved Amak-Thanin.

Gong was fighting with all his will against the three minds he felt pressing against him, seeking to immobilise his flesh so that their alien dust could begin to devour it. A hot energy from the Elder Sign flowed through him but as he pushed one or other of his attackers back, he felt another mind pressing closer.

But now he saw Rufus standing by his shoulder, holding out the terrestrial Elder Sign outstretched, next to his.

“Have some of this.” He grunted.

Now the three halted again, on the very threshold of the doorway, two of the spider-threads of dust dropped away, so that just one now hovered in the air between the men and dust-monsters. Tolly felt as if the forces had somehow reached balance, as if in stalemate.

There was a familiar hissing sound. Crouched on the floor, Walter slid a stick of dynamite towards the feet of the Dry Ones. They hardly reacted. What could explosives do to such as they?

“Down!” Bawled Rufus.

There was a shattering blast. When the smoke cleared they saw the three ghostly figures writhing in the air. For Walter’s dynamite had been bound around with a dozen or more deadly slivers of True Wood, and the creatures clearly felt their wounds.

Rufus let fly with his boomerang, it burst through the chest of one figure and the arm of the one behind it before clattering off the wall. Gong swept his nunchakus though the centre of the nearest creature and it collapsed in a shower of dust. A few desperate moments of combat later and the other Dry Ones lay disintegrated at their feet.

“I ‘ate them bleedin’ things.” Gritted Rufus.

They all sat for a moment, recovering their breath and composure. At last Thaddeus stood up and peered at the crystal crown.

“Do you suppose this headpiece somehow amplifies the thoughts of the wearer?”

“Yes,” replied Gong, “let us find out…”

He reached up and prized the crown away from the petrified head, but just then his fingers somehow lost their grip on the ice-like crystals and the circlet shot up into the air. For an instant it was suspended in mid air; then dropped to the floor.

“Catch it!” Screamed Walter. Gong’s fingers snatched for it, but missed. The crown struck the flagstones and burst into a million dazzling fragments like a sunburst.

Every one of their minds was dazzled for a moment by the explosion. It was as if a great wave of metal power had crashed over them. Walter fought it off with every shred of willpower he had… it was not enough, he would be swept away…. But no. Somehow he found his mind intact. He blinked and looked around him.

The others were sitting up too. All of them looked shaken but sane – Gong, Rufus… Tolly gave him a thumbs-up sign. He turned to look straight into the madly staring eyes of something with the face of Thaddeus Carruthers. Frothing, the apparition struggled towards Walter hands clutching for his collar, shouting something incomprehensible.

Rufus and Gong exchanged glances.

“Oi! Mad Thaddeus! Over here!” Rufus bawled.

As the enraged scientist swung to look at Rufus Gong stepped forward and jabbed him neatly on the neck, catching him a moment later as he sagged and dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“Just one crazy gweilo. Not bad.”

Tolly slammed the door and leant his back against it.

“I think there are more of those dust-creatures coming.” He said.

“Bugger it!” Cursed Rufus. “Eh, Gong, what you up to?”

The martial artists was working his way along the far wall, tapping at the stone with his nunchakus.

“Lulers often have a secret way out of their throne looms.” He said. “Ah!”

He pressed carefully at the wall and a moment later a section of it hinged inwards, forming a doorway.

“Come on!” He said.

The secret door opened onto an unlit spiral staircase winding down the inside of the rock pillar. Gong went first holding his Venusian glow-gem, followed by Rufus and Walter carrying Thaddeus, bound and unconscious. Tolly brought up the rear, checking the darkness behind them.

The stair wound down and down into the rock. Tolly lost count somewhere between five and six thousand steps. At last, however, they came to a short corridor leading out of the rock.

They found themselves in a vast subterranean cavern. The rocks here gave off a faint green luminescence, whether from some strange mineral in their composition or perhaps a phosphorescent slime on their surface, so that they could see into the middle distance. The pillar descended still below them, but its base was lost in darkness. They were standing at one end of a stone bridge or wall some six feet wide that ran a hundred yards to the rocky cliffs facing them. Looking to the right they saw it. The door.

It was carved into the rock face a few hundred feet away. An enormous doorway, glowing in the eerie green corpse-light of the depths, it looked indescribably ancient and somehow faintly nightmarish. The carving on the titanic portal showed a crudely ideogramic sky marked with lines and stars. Below was an incomprehensible jumble of objects like obelisks or perhaps huge crystal spars. In the centre of this sat some monstrosity of tentacles and flaps of skin seated on a sort of dais. But something about the style of the massive picture, the brutal primitivism of its design, created a sensation of repellent fascination. Gong stared at it for a moment, aghast. He felt the ancient malevolence in or behind the gateway trying to capture his attention, and with an effort of will, he wrenched his gaze away.

“Don’t rook to the light! Cover your eyes!”

Behind him Rufus had already gaped at the hellish thing and shut his eyes, shaking his head. Walter and Tolly had time to avert their gazes, although they could almost feel the unseen force of the door beating on them from the right. But Thaddeus had awoken. Before anyone could stop him he snapped his head around and stared at the glowing doorway. Then he brought his bound knees to his chin and jack-knifed his whole body with shocking strength, nearly flinging Walter off the walkway. He began to bark out incomprehensible words as if they were obscenities.

“C’tha-lag-kush! mua-sayakal Nyogtha!”

“Gong! Quick!” Gasped Rufus, fumbling to get a hand over Thaddeus’s mouth.

The martial artist jabbed his fingers into Thaddeus’s neck, and the professor slumped unconscious once more.

“Let’s get out of here!” said Tolly.

They hurried now across the walkway and began to climb the stair on the other side of the chasm. For a while the steps led up the sheer face of the rock and they climbed, not daring to look back, with the unsettling sensation of something hideous staring at them from the darkness behind them. Twice they had to stop to knock-out Thaddeus again when he began to come around.

But at last the upward path led into a tunnel and they could leave the awful chasm and door behind them. Now they struggled up steps and along sloping corridors until, at last, the rock gave way to sandstone and Gong caught the scents of the surface world. Hiding his glow-gem for a moment, Gong saw a tiny point of light ahead of them. Going forward he found the way ahead blocked with lumps of stone and mounds of sand.

So desperate were they to be free of the place that without a word all four began to dig, dragging the smaller stones away and scooping out handfuls of sand. At last Tolly’s metal arm pressed on a slab of rock and it fell outward, letting in the blazing light of the Martian sun. They dragged themselves out to sit panting in the sweet desert air, blinking as they looked about them.

They realised they were at the north-eastern corner of the Ziggurat complex, some half a mile from where they had left Samantha and the others. Walter tossed a fizzing stick of dynamite into the hole from which they had emerged. There was a dull boom and earth and rocks fell in and settled, sealing the exit.

Thaddeus was quieter now. They untied him and together began to pick their way between the boulders and pits. Some fifteen minutes later they saw the line of thoats and ran forward to greet Mishmash and the women. Walter went straight to the hexpod and patted it’s sleek exterior.

“All safe.” He murmured.

Samantha had gone to embrace Thaddeus, but then turned to the others in shock.

“What happened to him?” She demanded.

Tolly turned to Mishmash and spoke gravely.

“The evil spirits you warned of us attacked us. But we survived.”

Gong spoke more gently to Samantha.

“His mind was badly shocked. For a while... overwhelmed.”

Thaddeus fixed them with a wide-eyed stare, his white hair stuck out in wild tufts.

“I’m not mad, you know. But I can feel everything now. Feel the last command of Amak-Thanin, echoing through that awful place. And I can feel…” his voice fell to a whisper, “… I can feel him dreaming below us.”

Rufus pressed a hipflask into his hand.

“Yeah. I had that for a bit. Try this.”

*		*		*		*		*

The sun was setting. The S-Boot was ready to depart and Tolly stood with Mishmash for a moment.

“Please ask Kuaar Haberdash to tell no-one what happened here until Kuaar Baradin sends word. And thank you.”

He climbed the ladder and drew it up after him. Rufus, looking through a glass dome in the S-boat’s prow now lifted the craft up and turned it North-West, heading for Port Victoria. The others stood in the conning tower watching the sunset as the vessel began to pick up speed. Walter patted the rail.

“I wonder what Barding will make of this little baby!” He said.

The further adventures of Tolly, Rufus, Thaddeus, Walter and Gong will continue in Chapter Five Secrets of the Sarcophagus.