The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions

by Robert Rankin

  George stepped back and once more looked aloft. ‘We cannot possibly batter these doors open,’ he said.

  ‘Stand aside there, then, George,’ said Professor Coffin, cocking his big rifle ray gun, ‘and I will blast our way in.’

  George glared at the professor. ‘I am a desperate man,’ said he, ‘but such wanton vandalism may not be necessary. Look – see there what appears to be a large letterbox.’

  ‘That is a votive embrasure,’ Professor Coffin explained. ‘You see them in European churches of the Middle Ages. Lepers and those smitten with the pox were not allowed entry to the church. They passed their pennies through such openings and the priests blessed them in return. From a safe distance, as it were.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said George, unmoved by the professor’s knowledge, ‘it might be possible to squeeze through the opening, drop down and open the doors from the inside.’

  ‘You would not fit and neither would I,’ said the professor.

  ‘Darwin . . .’ called George.

  Darwin lacked for a certain enthusiasm. Even when Professor Coffin expounded homilies of warrior Britons and empire-building heroes upon his hairy person.

  ‘As many bananas as you can eat,’ said George. ‘A complete new outfit, including fez and spats.’

  Darwin looked thoughtfully at George. And scratched about himself at a flea or two.

  ‘I promise,’ said George and crossed his heart as he did so.

  Darwin reached up and shook George’s hand. Then laid down his blowpipe, divested himself of bandoleers and water canteens, gave a perfunctory gibber, scampered up the temple door and in through the votive embrasure.

  George Fox held his breath and prayed a bit. He hoped very much that he had not sent Darwin to his doom. But how else might entry be gained? George put his ear to one of the doors and listened. Sounds of a struggle? The drawing of a bolt?

  And George fell forwards as the great door swung open before him.

  It groaned dramatically upon its ancient hinges, but swung with a certain ease. George dragged himself once more into the vertical plane and congratulated Darwin for his efforts. Darwin swaggered past George and retrieved his blowpipe, darts and one water canteen.

  ‘Bring them all, please,’ said George.

  Darwin brought them all.

  The temple was all but in darkness within, save for what sunlight welled in through the half-open door.

  George swung this door fully open and then the other one too. Sunlight illuminated a floor of turquoise stone, deliciously inlaid with intricate patterns, symbols, sigils and writings. If words indeed were these, they were no words known to George, or indeed to the professor, who had travelled widely and entered many temples.

  ‘Japanese, do you think?’ asked George.

  Professor Coffin shook his head. ‘I have seen such symbols somewhere, though,’ he said. ‘But not in a temple, I feel.’

  ‘Well, I care not,’ said George, cocking his rifle ray gun. ‘I want only Ada.’

  The three of them moved forwards, slowly, warily, with care. For it is well known to anyone who reads adventure stories that places such as these are always wrought with deadly traps. A misplaced footstep onto a secret button leading to spears striking out from hidden recesses, or great stone pendulums swinging down from above. Floors that open to plunge the unwary explorer down onto sharpened stakes below, there to dwell amongst the skeletons of the formerly unwary.

  As a child, George had read such adventure stories. So had the professor, though Darwin had not.

  They were to all appearances within a great cathedral, like Notre Dame, or Salisbury, or St Paul’s. Gothic fan vaulting, mullioned truss-work and a dome adorned with stars and a vision of a God upon high. But was it a God, or a Goddess? So high above and in such poor light, it was impossible to tell.

  There were no pews or benches, nor any furnishings at all.

  Just a vast expanse of inlaid floor and walls that rose and rose.

  ‘I wonder just what that is?’ whispered Professor Coffin, his whispered words echoing eerily about the vastness of the temple as he drew George’s gaze towards something that bulked ahead.

  It was certainly huge and stood at the furthest end of the enormous cathedralesque hall. But whatever it was it was covered, as if by some builder’s dustsheet, and offered little clue to its identity.

  ‘A pagan idol?’ George suggested. ‘Some heathen horror, I have no doubt.’

  And stepping with the utmost care, the three of them moved forwards. Two of them at least testing every footfall. One with a blowpipe to his lips and showing the whites of his eyes.

  ‘Shall we see what lurks under the dustsheet?’ asked the professor.

  ‘It is of no concern to me,’ said George. ‘I seek only staircases to reach the pinnacle where Ada was carried. And frankly I see no other doors, do you?’

  Professor Coffin shook his head. ‘Perhaps under the dustsheet?’ he suggested.

  George squinted in his direction and many others. The only doorway into this mighty chamber appeared to be the one through which they had entered. But there surely had to be another. ‘Go on then,’ George said to the professor. ‘Pull down the sheet.’

  ‘Go on then, Darwin,’ said the professor. ‘Do what the nice man asks. I bet he will give you more bananas.’

  Darwin made a thoughtful face and cocked his head on one side. Then once more he laid down his weaponry and water flasks and sauntered slowly forwards.

  The sheeting that covered the monumental something was not some builder’s coarse-cloth. It was silk of the finest quality, delicately embroidered. The effect was of a beautiful tapestry, once bright colours dimmed to pastels by the passing of time. The depictions were in panels almost after the fashion of a penny comic book. An epic saga created by the hands of skilled artisans, surely the work of several lifetimes, so gorgeous to be—

  Darwin took the silk in his hairy hands and ripped it away. It tore, the sound like a cry of anguish, and fluttered down, countless yards of silk, onto the monkey.

  Darwin struggled and freed himself and backed away to look up.

  George and the professor looked on, transfixed by what rose up before them.

  It was the statue of a Goddess. But unlike any other Goddess was She. No huntress like Diana, nor ancient Roman love queen Venus, nor Aphrodite to the Greeks, nor Bel to the Babylonians. This was not Freya, Viking Goddess of beauty, nor Ix Chel, the Lady Rainbow of the early Mayan Empire. Nor was She Anu, Celtic Goddess of fertility, nor indeed the virgin mother of Christ.

  None of these was this Goddess, though somehow She encompassed all.

  George tried to take in the wonder before him. A statue wrought from gold and silver, bronze and copper and lapis lazuli. The wings of an angel and a mermaid’s fishlike tail, arms spread in an open posture of beatitude, face raised towards the heavens. Atop bronzed ringlets, a helmet belikened to that of the samurai, a silvered disc with a crescent moon and the image of a devil fish.

  Professor Coffin shook his head and whistled through his teeth.

  George stared on, most wholly rapt in wonder.

  About the angled, slender, gilded neck hung many pendants and gemstoned necklets, adorned with the symbols of deities. Hindu, Jain, Judaic, Christian, Taoist, Shinto, one upon another.

  And George took in all that he thought that he could. And then saw something more.

  ‘It is Her,’ whispered Professor Coffin. ‘The fish scales, the symbol on the helmet. It is the Japanese Devil Fish Girl, there can be no doubt.’

  George shook his head and rocked upon his heels. ‘But do you not see it?’ said he.

  ‘I see it,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘I see it. And yes, I claim it on behalf of the British Empire. I had hoped for some living specimen of course, but this surpasses all of Western art. This will truly be the greatest attraction of this or any age.’

  ‘No,’ said George. ‘You do not see it.’

  ‘I do, my boy,
believe me that I do.’

  ‘The face,’ said George Fox, slowly.

  ‘Golden,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘With emeralds the size of a man’s fists for eyes and fringed by copper ringlets.’

  ‘The face,’ said George. ‘The face of the Goddess. The face of Ada Lovelace.’

  30

  Professor Coffin viewed the gorgeous statue. He looked from it to George and back again. The resemblance to Ada was uncanny. He put a hand on George’s shoulder, felt the young man’s pain.

  ‘There are certain similarities,’ he said softly. ‘Ada is a beautiful young woman.’

  ‘And I must find her,’ said George. ‘Find her and make some sense of all of this.’

  Darwin the monkey butler took to a sudden bouncing and to certain squawking squealing sounds.

  ‘Silence, you loquacious simian.’ Professor Coffin mimed rifle-shootings at Darwin.

  ‘He is trying to tell us something,’ George observed. ‘What is it, Darwin? Show us what it is.’

  The ape danced forwards to the base of the statue. To the base where the fish-scaled feet of the Goddess rested. Upon this base was carved the resemblance of a mighty book, its title engraved upon it. The carven symbols were of an unknown language, but George instinctively knew what they meant.

  ‘The Book of Sayito,’ said he.

  Darwin bounced a little more and rapped a hairy knuckle on the big carved book.

  A dull hollow echo was to be heard. Coming from within.

  ‘Let me see,’ said George, stepping forwards. ‘Ah yes, Professor, see this.’

  Professor Coffin hastened to join George and watched as the young man ran his fingers about the edges of the carved book cover. ‘It is a door,’ said George. ‘The cover of the book must open, like a door.’

  ‘Step aside, George,’ said Professor Coffin, once more cocking his gun.

  ‘You are not firing that thing anywhere near this statue,’ George told the professor. ‘Darwin seems rather good with doors. Can you open it, Darwin?’

  The monkey butler thumbed at his waistcoat lapels and bowed, then turned to the statue’s base. Did something and then stood back. The book-cover door swung open.

  George stepped forwards to peruse the ape’s doings. ‘Ah,’ said he. ‘You turned the key. I really should have noticed that. Well done.’

  Professor Coffin came forwards and peered into the opening. Struck fire to a Lucifer, held it within. ‘Stairs,’ said he, ‘going down, but you wanted to go up.’

  ‘Let us follow where they lead and see what happens.’ George took the professor by the elbow. ‘You have the fire,’ he said, ‘so you should lead the way.’

  ‘Darwin—’ said Professor Coffin.

  But Darwin now skulked to the rear.

  ‘Then I shall lead,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘And remember our deal – we split whatever we find fifty-fifty. ’

  ‘I want nothing but Ada,’ said George. ‘And I want one hundred per cent of her.’

  The steps led down, as steps will do, when they are not leading up. Down and down and down some more, with a terrible tedious downness.

  ‘It would be for the best,’ said Professor Coffin, holding fire before him as he stepped forever down, ‘if we do not inform the other survivors of the airship of what we have discovered here. It would be better to keep it private, I think. They will all be anxious to leave the island and will probably harbour no longings to return.’

  ‘We do not even know where we are,’ said George. ‘This island is not on the map.’

  ‘No present-day map, no, my boy. But it is upon a map. A map that I once saw in the British Library.’

  ‘And what were you doing in there?’ George asked.

  ‘Seeking authentication for a book I had acquired. A handwritten manuscript. A play, it was. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.’

  ‘You had acquired an original Shakespeare manuscript? ’

  ‘So I believed. But it was not so. The Head of Literary Antiquities identified the handwriting – it was not Mr Shakespeare’s.’

  ‘Tough luck,’ said George, in a tone which implied that he meant it.

  ‘It was the handwriting of a certain Francis Bacon,’ said the professor. ‘The Head of Literary Antiquities became most animated. He paid me almost twice the price I had intended to ask.’

  ‘Now stop there just one moment,’ said George. ‘Whilst still continuing to walk down this staircase, of course. But are you now telling me that you possessed a manuscript that proves that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare?’

  ‘I am not precisely telling you that,’ replied Professor Coffin. ‘When I say that it was the handwriting of a certain Francis Bacon, that is not to say that it was actually the handwriting of a certain Francis Bacon. More perhaps that it was so very close in resemblance to the handwriting of that fellow as to be easily accepted as the same.’

  ‘It was a forgery!’ said George.

  ‘I prefer the term “imaginative reimaging”. People will believe what they want to believe, George.’

  ‘There is a moral to that, then, is there?’ said George.

  ‘I use it as an example to illustrate a point. You saw the face of Ada Lovelace upon the statue, I did not.’

  ‘It was her face,’ said George.

  ‘Maybe so,’ said the professor. ‘And when we return with it to London, the Rubes can make up their own minds as to the resemblance. We could exhibit Ada along with the statue, dressed as the Goddess perhaps.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said George.

  ‘Well, it is open to discussion.’

  ‘It is not,’ said George. ‘Believe me on this. And anyway we have yet to leave the island, which I recall mentioning only a moment ago is not on any map.’

  ‘It is on the map I saw at the British Library.’ Professor Coffin fanned at his face. ‘The air is rank,’ said he.

  ‘Tell me about the map,’ said George, with a sigh. ‘Tell me what you know.’

  ‘Myth has it,’ said the professor, ‘that at the dawning of time three great civilisations were born. One from the children of Adam and Eve. Centred about the Euphrates, this civilisation spread across the planet. We are all the many times great-grandchildren of Adam and Eve. But there were two other civilisations. Perhaps not wholly blessed by God, perhaps not God’s creation. Or not the creation of our God, but of another. These two existed upon other continents, cut off from each other by many sea miles. One in the Atlantic, Atlantis. The other in the Pacific, here, Lemuria.’

  ‘We are on Lemuria?’ said George.

  ‘In, it seems at the present. But yes, that is what I believe. The remains of ancient Lemuria, a tiny part of a now sunken continent.’

  ‘It is as good a tale as any,’ said George. ‘And it is my dearest hope that these steps will lead us somehow to Ada. If they lead merely to a dead end, where excavations were terminated, it is going to be a very dismal climb back up again. We have surely been walking for hours.’

  ‘Perhaps Darwin will offer us a piggyback.’

  Darwin pinched Professor Coffin’s bottom.

  ‘Or perhaps not,’ said the professor. ‘But look – I see a light ahead. What do you make of that, George?’

  And with that the steps simply ended. They had reached wherever it was they led to.

  George, the professor and Darwin looked on. The professor extinguished his Lucifer and as three pairs of eyes adjusted to the soft light that offered a gently crepuscular illumination, two mouths opened wide and drew in breaths.

  ‘A subterranean city,’ said George.

  ‘Lemuria,’ said the professor.

  ‘And more.’ And George made gesturings before him. Gesturings that the professor followed.

  These were no sunken ruins. No fallen temples and rubble-strewn carriageways. No city gone to dust to haunt the speculations of present-day archaeologists. This was an ancient city, yes, but one most fiercely alive.

  This city flowered within a cavern so vast as to
seem a veritable hollow Earth. Sleek towers rose towards a rocky ceiling lost to vision. And between these towers moved airships of advanced design.

  Design that was not of this Earth.

  ‘Oh dear me,’ said Professor Coffin. ‘Fiddle de, fiddle dum, fiddle dum-de-dum-de-dum.’

  ‘Why are you fiddle-dee-ing so much?’ asked George.

  ‘Because all becomes most frighteningly clear, my dear fellow.’