* * *
A week later, a young man crossed the Miskatonic River. He paused on the wide Peabody Bridge, built sixty years earlier, and looked down as the water flowed past. Knowing the city well, he made sure he crossed downstream out of sight of a small island with an evil reputation.
The man was of only average height but he was strongly built. He wore a linen suit, straw boater and carried a silver-topped cane. He lifted his boater and nodded, acknowledging a young woman walking by. The woman smiled, pleased with his courtesy as well as his healthy-looking tanned skin, dark brown hair and intelligent hazel eyes. Eventually, the man turned away from considering the river, before crossing the bridge and carrying on into Arkham itself.
The ancient city had not changed since the young man's last visit. Eldritch brown houses of great antiquity leaned and slumped against each other and hid close-guarded secrets behind narrow, lead-paned windows. Its clustered gambrel roofs still swayed and sagged over attics where smugglers hid from the King's men in the olden days of the Commonwealth. Warlocks and witches, not all of them captured during the Salem trials of 1692, also used the attics and cellars for their black rites.
He turned right walking through the maze of narrow, crooked alleys between the very oldest houses fronting the river and shortly after made his way into the University Quarter. Away from the river vapours, it was lighter here with a more wholesome air. Tarleton checked the time against the clock set in the ivy-clad tower, admiring the ancient brick buildings, mellow in the late August sun. The first of the new term's students were walking or cycling or just standing, chatting and idling in the sun. Late season swifts darted and wheeled in the air, their cries shrill and mournful symbolising the end of summer.
Jack Tarleton walked through the groups of students, checked in at the porter's lodge and then made his way up an old, uneven staircase to the Professor's suite of rooms. The sun shone through the stained glass windows, creating myriad jewels of coloured light on the stone floor and panelled walls. Eventually, Tarleton stood before a door with a plaque screwed onto it. In gilt letters, the plaque said: 'Professor A. G. Bamford, M.Sc.'
Tarleton raised his hand to knock. He felt a sudden chill; his skin broke out in goose-bumps and a quick burst of fear. Worse than the worries he'd had before starting at Austin. This is silly, Tarleton told himself. Professor Bamford was a good friend of the family and wouldn't have recommended his appointment on the Geography and Geology department if Bamford didn't think he was up to it.
Also, it was a late summer's day with a clear blue sky and, before this sudden irrational chill; Tarleton had been perspiring under his suit. No, there was nothing to be frightened of at all. Before he could have second thoughts, Tarleton raised his hand and rapped sharply on the oak panelling of the Professor's door.
"That you, Jack? C'mon in," a well remembered voice told him.
Turning the handle, Tarleton let himself into the professor's study.
It was like turning the clock back over three years to the time since he'd last stood in this room. Apart from fresh piles of paperwork and a few extra books stacked up on the floor, the room still had that air of cosy, dusty neglect he knew so well. Mullioned windows overlooked the quadrangle and one wall was completely taken up with a bookcase.
Three globes stood on top of the bookcase – one showing the features of this world. As always it was turned so the American continent faced the room. The second showed the stars in the heavens. Yet the third, made of some strange iridescent purple material that was neither metal nor stone, showed a world completely unknown to science. It was threaded with dark rivers and mountain ranges surrounding a vast plateau. Some students, of the more irreverent and practical types, thought that Bamford had commissioned it as a jest.
Others, especially those allowed access to the forbidden tomes stored in locked rooms in a cellar beneath Miskatonic's library, shuddered and hinted darkly at a certain world not of this galaxy. A world intimated towards the end of Abdul al-Hazred's tome. Bamford himself kept silent on the subject. All he would confirm was that he found it beneath Yucatan's rainforest in ruins far older than the Olmec civilisation.
Professor Bamford turned away from the bookcase. A student with the build of a linebacker stood and smiled at Tarleton.
"Thank you for your time, professor," the student said politely.
"I'm only glad you've decided to continue your studies here, Webster. As you will be aware, Miskatonic has a policy of supporting scientific expeditions and I know that you will be interested in going to...," Bamford broke off, recalling his visitor. "Come back Thursday; no, make it Friday, and we'll talk further."
With a polite nod to Tarleton, Webster made his way out, closing the door behind him.
Professor Bamford stood and gripped Tarleton's hands warmly. "Jack. I'm so glad to see you again. You're looking good. Austin's been treating you well, I see."
"Yes, professor, but I am glad to be back home. My parents have kept my room for me."
Jack Tarleton's father was a successful businessman who had got rich supplying timber even before the Great War. After the end of hostilities, Royce Tarleton had gone on to make even more money out of reconstruction in Europe. The family lived in one of the grand old mansions on French Hill.
"That's good, Jack. I shan't expect you to do much during your first trimester...,"
"I intend to pull my weight, professor."
"... however, teaching our students; collating our displays, cataloguing our archives and such like will form much of your work until Christmas."
Tarleton leaned forwards, resting his arms on his knees, facing the Department Head. "With respect, professor, I did more than that at Austin. I can guess what's been said about me but I can assure you that you need have no fears. I'm completely over my... panic attacks. I intend to be fully involved in the life of the University and if there are any expeditions next year then I would like to be considered. Are there any?"
"Any what?" asked Bamford.
"Expeditions. Where are you going?"
Professor Bamford looked away, out of the window. "Nothing's been decided yet, Jack. Nothing. It's all a matter of securing funding, you understand."
The two men shook hands and Tarleton left. As he crossed the quadrangle, Bamford stood by the window and watched his progress. Tarleton stopped and chatted to Dr. Armitage, the college librarian before carrying on out of sight. To Bamford, Tarleton looked fit and well; a young man without a care in the world and not the desperate, catatonic wreck he had been when the rescuers from the ship made it to that blasted camp in the end.
Bamford smiled. Yes, it was time for young Jack to come home to Arkham.
The Horror From The Blizzard Page 2
