I was nonplussed at the intensity of his voice, and then I did not understand, did not dream of his meaning. “What do you mean?” I asked.
He made a vague gesture with his hands, and with his eyes bade me be cautious. “You were saved from death only so that you might help me,” Fo-Lan said. “And I, Eric Marsh, have for years been helping these little people, directing them to penetrate the deep and unknown caverns beneath the Lake of Dread and the surrounding Plateau of Sung where Lloigor and Zhar, ancient evil ones, and their minions await the day when they can once more sweep over the earth to bring death and destruction and incredible age-old evil!”
I shuddered, and despite its monstrous and unbelievable implications, I felt truth in Fo-Lan’s amazing statement. Yet I said, “You do not speak like a scientist, Doctor.”
He gave a curt, brittle laugh. “No,” he replied, “not as you understand a scientist. But what I knew before I came to this place is small in comparison to what I learned here. And the science that men in the outer world know even now is nothing but a child’s mental play. Hasn’t it sometimes occurred to you that after all we may be the play-things of intelligences so vast that we are unable to conceive them?”
Fo-Lan made a slight gesture of annoyance and silenced the protest on my lips with a sign. Then we began the descent into the streets. Only when I was outside, standing in the narrow streets scarcely wide enough for four men walking abreast, did I realize that Fo-Lan’s apartment was in the highest tower in Alaozar, to which, indeed, the other turrets were very small in comparison. There were few high buildings, most of them crouching low on the ground. The city was very small, and took up most of the island, save for a very inconsiderable fringe of land just beyond the ancient walls, on which grew the trees I had seen at sunset the day before, trees which I now noticed were different from any others I had ever seen, having a strange reddish-green foliage and green-black trunks. The sibilant whispering of their curious leaves accompanied us in our short walk, and it was not until we were once more in Fo-Lan’s apartment that I remembered there had been no wind of any kind; yet the leaves had moved continually! Then, too, I had remarked upon the scarcity of the Tcho-Tcho people.
“There are not many of them,” Fo-Lan said, “but they are powerful in their own way. Yet there are curious lapses in their intelligence. Yesterday, for instance, after spying your party from the top of this tower, and after going out and annihilating it, they returned with two of their number dead; they had been shot. The Tcho-Tcho people could not believe them dead, since it is impossible for them to conceive of such a weapon as a gun. At base, they are very simple people; yet they are inherently malevolent, for they know that they are working for the destruction of all that is good in the world.”
“I do not quite understand,” I said.
“I can feel that you do not believe in this monstrous fable,” Fo-Lan replied. “How can I explain it to you? You are bound by conventions long established. Yet I will try. Perhaps you wish to think that it is all a legend; but I will offer you tangible proof that there is more than legend here.
“Eons ago, a strange race of elder beings lived on Earth; they came from Rigel and Betelgueze to take up their abode here and upon other planets. But they were followed by those who had been their slaves on the stars, those who had set up opposition to the Elder Ones—the evil followers of Cthulhu, Hastur the Unspeakable, Lloigor and Zhar, the twin Obscenities, and others. The Great Old Ones fought these evil beings for possession of the Earth, and after many centuries, they conquered. Hastur fled into outer space, but Cthulhu was banished to the lost sea kingdom of R’lyeh, while Lloigor and Zhar were buried alive deep in the inner fastnesses of Asia—beneath the accursed Plateau of Sung!
“Then the Old Ones, the Elder Gods, returned to the stars of Orion, leaving behind them ever-damned Cthulhu, Lloigor, Zhar, and others. But the evil ones left seeds on the plateau, on the island in the Lake of Dread which the Old Ones caused to be put there. And from these seeds have sprung the Tcho-Tcho people, the spawn of elder evil, and now these people await the day when Lloigor and Zhar will rise again and sweep over all Earth!”
I had to summon all my restraint to keep from shrieking my disbelief aloud. After some hesitation I forced myself to say in as calm a voice as I could assume, “What you have told me is impossible, Fo-Lan.”
Fo-Lan smiled wearily. He moved closer to me, put his hand gently on my arm, and said, “Have they never taught you, Eric Marsh, that there lives no man who may say what is possible and what not? What I have told you is true; it is impossible only because you are incapable of thinking of Earth in any terms but those suggested by the little science the outer world knows.”
I felt myself rebuked. “And I must help you raise these dead things, penetrate the subterranean caverns below Alaozar and bring up the creatures that lie there to destroy Earth?” I asked incredulously.
Fo-Lan looked at me impassively. Then his voice sank to a whisper, and he said, “Yes . . . and no. The Tcho-Tcho people believe you will help me to raise them, and so they must continue to believe; but you and I, Eric Marsh . . . you and I are going to destroy the things below!”
I was bewildered. For a moment I entertained the idea that my companion was mad. “Two of us—against a host of creatures and the Tcho-Tcho people—and our only weapon my gun, wherever that is?”
Fo-Lan shook his head. “You anticipate me. You and I will be but the instruments; through us the things below will die.”
“You are speaking in riddles, Doctor,” I said.
“Nightly for many months I have tried to call for help with the force of my mind, have tried to get through the cosmos to those who alone can help in the titanic struggle before us. Last night I found a way, and soon I myself will go forth and demand the assistance we need.”
“Still I do not understand,” I said.
Fo-Lan closed his eyes for a moment. Then he said, “You do not want to understand me, or you are afraid to. I am suggesting that by telepathy I will summon help from those who first fought the things imprisoned below us.”
“There exists no proof of telepathy, Doctor.”
It was a foolish thing to say, as Fo-Lan immediately pointed out to me. He smiled, a little scornfully. “Try to throw off your shackles, Eric Marsh. You come to a place you did not know existed, and you see things which are to you impossible; yet you seek to deny something so close and conceivable as telepathy.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much of a help to you. How am I to help you? And how will you go forth?”
“You are to watch over my body when I travel upward to seek the help of those above.”
Dimly, intelligence began to come to me. “Last night,” I murmured, “out there on the plateau, I saw a white line wavering into the sky.”
Fo-Lan nodded. “That was the way,” he said, “made visible by the power of my desire. Soon I shall travel it.”
I leaned forward eagerly, wanting to ask him a score of questions. But Fo-Lan held up his hand for silence. “Have you heard nothing, Eric Marsh?” he said. “All this while it has been growing.”
The moment Fo-Lan mentioned it, I realized that I had heard something, had been hearing it ever since we had reentered the doctor’s apartment. It was a low humming, a disturbing sound as of a chant, which seemed to well up from far below, and yet seemed equally present from all sides. And at the same time I was conscious of a distinct atmospheric change, something which Fo-Lan did not perhaps notice, since he had been here now for years. It was a growing tension, a pressing, feverish tension in the chill night air. Slowly there grew in me a feeling of great fear; the very air, I felt, was noxious with cosmic evil.
“What is it?” I murmured.
Fo-Lan did not answer. He appeared to be listening intently to the chant or humming sound mounting from below, smiling to himself. Then he looked cryptically at me and abruptly stepped to the outer wall. There he pulled hard at one of the anc
ient stones in the wall, and in a moment, a large section of the wall swung slowly inward, revealing a dark passage beyond, a secret way leading downward. Fo-Lan came swiftly back toward me, taking up one of the little green lamps with which I had once before come in contact, and lighting it as he spoke to me.
“I have not been idle in these past years. I fashioned that way myself, and only I know of it. Come, Eric Marsh; I will show you what no Tcho-Tcho suspects I have ever seen, what will silence all protest or disbelief in you.”
The stairs which I found myself descending in a few moments led downward along the round wall of a shaft that pierced the earth. Down, down we went, feeling the walls on both sides of us with our hands. Fo-Lan carried the lamp in one hand, and its greenish glow served as illumination for our perilous journey, for the steps were uneven and steep. As we descended, the sound from below grew noticeably louder. Now the humming sound was frequently cut into by another, the sound of many voices murmuring together in some long-forgotten language.
Then, abruptly, Fo-Lan stopped. He gave the lamp to me, and with a brief caution to me not to speak, gave his attention to the wall before him. Raising the lamp above my head, I saw that the stone steps went no farther, that we were, in fact, within two feet of solid masonry. Suddenly Fo-Lan reached back and extinguished the light, and at the same time I was conscious of an opening in the wall before us, where Fo-Lan had moved aside an old stone. “Look down, and with care,” he whispered. Then he stepped aside, and I peered downward.
I looked into a gigantic cavern, illuminated by a huge green lamp seemingly suspended in space, and by at least a hundred smaller ones. The first thing that caught my eye was the horde of Tcho-Tcho people prostrate on the floor; it was from them that the low murmuring sound was coming. Then I saw an upright figure among them. It was that of a Tcho-Tcho man, slightly taller than the others, I thought, disfigured by a hump on his back, and incredibly old. He was stalking slowly forward, supported by a crooked black stick. Behind me, Fo-Lan, noticing the direction of my glance, murmured, “That is E-poh, leader of the Tcho-Tcho people; he is seven thousand years old!” I could not help turning in utter surprise. Fo-Lan motioned forward. “You have seen nothing. Look beyond them, beyond E-poh, in the half-darkness forward, but do not cry out.”
My gaze swept those prostrate figures, passed beyond E-poh, and began to explore the dusk beyond. I think I must have been looking for some moments at the thing that crouched there before I actually realized it; that was because the creature was so large. I hesitate to write of it, for I can blame no one for not believing me. Yet it was there. I saw it first because my gaze fixed upon the green gleaming from its eyes. Then, abruptly, I saw it entirely. I thank Providence that the light was not strong, that only its vaguest outlines were clear to me, and I regret only that my innate doubt of Fo-Lan’s strange story made the shock of this revelation accordingly sharper.
For the thing that crouched in the weird green dusk was a living mass of shuddering horror, a ghastly mountain of sensate, quivering flesh, whose tentacles, far-flung in the dim reaches of the subterranean cavern, emitted a strange humming sound, while from the depths of the creature’s body came a weird and horrific ululation. Then I fell back into Fo-Lan’s arms. My mouth opened to cry out, but I felt the doctor’s firm hand clapped across my lips, and from a great distance I seemed to hear his voice.
“That is Lloigor!”
3
Fo-Lan’s story was true!
I found myself suddenly in Fo-Lan’s apartment. I know I must have climbed the long winding steps, but I do not remember climbing them, for the tumultuous thoughts that troubled me and the hideous memory of the thing I had seen served to drive from my mind all consciousness of what I was doing.
Fo-Lan came quickly away from the wall and stood before me, his face triumphant in the green lamplight. “For three years I have helped them penetrate into the earth, into the caverns below, have helped them in their evil purpose; now I shall destroy them, and my dead brother will be avenged!” He spoke with an intensity I had not imagined him capable of.
He did not wait for any comment from me. Passing beyond me, he put the lamp down on a small table near the door. Then he went into the bedroom and lit another lamp; I saw its green light on the wall as he came once more into the room where I stood.
“Mind,” said Fo-Lan as he stood before me, “is all-powerful. Mind is everything, Eric Marsh. This evening you saw things of which you hesitated to speak, even before you saw the thing in the cavern below—Lloigor. You saw leaves move on trees—and they moved by the power of evil intelligences far below them, deep in the earth—a living proof of the existence of Lloigor and Zhar.
“E-poh has a mind of great power, but the knowledge I have endows me with greater power despite his tremendous age. Long hours I have sought to penetrate cosmic space, and so powerful has my mind become that even you could see the thought-thread that wavered upward from Alaozar last night! And mind, Eric Marsh, exists independent of body.
“I will wait no longer. Tonight I will go forth, now, while the worship is in progress. And you must watch my body.”
Colossal as his plan was, I could only believe. What I had seen during the short space of my visit was unbelievable, impossible, yet was!
Fo-Lan continued. “My body will rest on the bed in the chamber beyond, but my mind will go where I wish it with a speed incomparable to anything we know. I will think myself on Rigel, and I shall be there. You must watch that none disturbs my body while I am gone. It will not be long.”
Fo-Lan drew from his voluminous robe a small pistol, which I recognized immediately as one I had been carrying in my pack. “You will kill any one who tries to enter, Eric Marsh.”
Beckoning me to follow him, Fo-Lan led the way into his chamber, and despite my feeble protest, stretched himself on the bed. Almost at once his body went rigid, and at the same moment I saw a gray outline of Fo-Lan standing before me, a smile on his thin lips, his eyes turned upward. Then he was gone, and I was alone with his body.
For over an hour I sat in Fo-Lan’s apartment, my terror mounting with each second. Only in that hour was I capable of approaching in my thoughts the cataclysmic horror which confronted the world if Fo-Lan were unsuccessful in his daring quest. Once, too, while I sat there, pattering footsteps halted beyond the outer door; then, to my unspeakable relief, passed on. Toward the end of my watch, the abrupt cessation of the chanting sounds from below, followed by the noises of movement throughout the island city, indicated that the worship was over. Then for the first time I left the chamber to take up my position at the outer door, where I stood, gun in hand, waiting for the interruptions my terrified mind told me must come.
But I never had cause to use the weapon, for suddenly I heard the sound of feet behind me. I whirled—and saw Fo-Lan! He had returned. He stood quietly, listening; then he nodded to himself and said, “We must leave Alaozar, Eric Marsh. Alone, we can not do it, and we have little time to waste. We must see E-poh, and have his permission to go beyond to the Plateau of Sung.”
Fo-Lan moved forward now, and tugged at a long rope which hung quite near me along the wall. From somewhat far below there came the abrupt clang of a gong. Once more Fo-Lan pulled the rope, and again the gong sounded.
“That is to inform E-poh that I must speak to him about an urgent matter—concerning the things below.”
“And your quest?” I asked. “Has it been successful?”
He smiled wryly. “It will be successful only if I can convince E-poh to open the way for Lloigor and Zhar and their countless hordes tonight—now! The way must be open, otherwise even the Star-Warriors are helpless to penetrate Earth.”
The sound of running feet in the corridor cut short my questions. The door opened inward and on the threshold I saw two of the Tcho-Tcho people, dressed in long green robes and wearing on their foreheads curious five-pointed star designs. They ignored me completely, addressing themselves to Fo-Lan. A rapid conversation in th
eir strange language followed, and in a moment the two little people turned to lead the way.
Fo-Lan started after them, motioning me to follow. “From E-poh,” he whispered. Then he added in a quiet voice, “Be careful and speak no English before E-poh, for he understands it. Also, be certain you still have the gun, for E-poh will not let us go beyond Alaozar without an escort. And those little people you and I will have to kill.”
We went rapidly down the corridor, and after a long descent, found ourselves on the street level, and deep in the tower. At last we entered an apartment similar in many respects to Fo-Lan’s, but neither so small nor so civilized in its aspect. There we confronted E-poh, surrounded by a group of little people dressed similarly to our guides. Fo-Lan bowed low, and I did the same under the stress of those curious little eyes turned on me.
E-poh was seated on a sort of raised dais, suggestive of his leadership, but beyond the evidence of his great age in his lined face and his withered hands, and the servile attitude of the Tcho-Tcho people near him, there was no indication that he was the ruler of the little people around us.
“E-poh,” said Fo-Lan, speaking in English for my benefit, “I have had intelligence from those below.”
E-poh closed his eyes slowly, saying in a strange whistling voice, “And this intelligence—what is it, Fo-Lan?”
Fo-Lan chose to ignore his question, “Lloigor and Zhar themselves have spoken to my mind!” he said.
E-poh opened his eyes and looked at the doctor in disbelief. “Even to me Zhar has never spoken, Fo-Lan. How can it be that he has spoken to you?”
“Because I have fashioned the way, mine have been the hands that groped below and found Lloigor and those others. Zhar is greater than Lloigor, and of greater age, and his word is law to those below.”
“And what has Zhar communicated to you, Fo-Lan?”
Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos Page 18
