The Himalayan Codex

by Bill Schutt

  When the boy, who would become known as Pliny the Younger, left the estate for the last time, he carried a single sheet of papyrus. It bore the very phrase his uncle had emphasized earlier.

  It read, “Fortune favors the brave.”

  It was an epitaph.

  “Well, this certainly ain’t in Pliny’s codex,” R. J. MacCready told Yanni.

  “At least not in the parts we saw,” said Nesbitt.

  They reached the grotto an hour before sunset.

  Several miles beyond their last encounter with the Morlocks, the ravine had opened above what appeared to be an oasis but what the “scientist types” present immediately recognized as yet another microenvironment. Standing on the rim of the craterlike depression, Mac was reminded of the Roman Colosseum’s arena floor and the surrounding amphitheater. Maybe a bit steeper-walled, he thought, but the dimensions are just about right.

  The grotto’s most startling feature, though, was neither its size nor its shape; it was the fact that every surface had become covered in blood-red overgrowth.

  Alpha motioned for them to begin their descent and they moved forward cautiously. Oddly, it was the little mammoth who took the lead during the climb down, while the Morlock remained atop the rim, apparently to stand some uncharacteristic guard duty. Toward the rear of the column were Wang and one of the Devil’s Brigaders, carrying Sergeant Juliano on a makeshift stretcher. The color had come back to his face and, despite the size of his wound, those caring for him had discovered that a tourniquet was no longer necessary.

  Mac had to smile at Dr. Nora Nesbitt’s unbridled joy at her new surroundings. The woman had immediately recognized that there were, in every direction, numerous unique life-forms to study, and in all likelihood, undiscovered invertebrates. She bounded down the rocky incline, reminding Mac of an undergraduate on a field study for the very first time.

  Yanni motioned toward the other woman. “You’d better send down someone after her,” she told Mac.

  “Alpha wants us all down there, no?”

  “Yeah, but if she breaks her ass or gets eaten by a tree, that’s gonna slow us down real fine.”

  Mac nodded, no less anxious than Nesbitt to examine what Yanni had described as “a sort of forbidden zone for Morlocks.” It was a disclosure that also helped explain why Alpha was acting so strangely. Thankfully, others were now assisting the rapidly recovering Sergeant Juliano, and so Mac was able to make his own observations.

  He reached the floor of the grotto with little effort and, turning back, he noted that the Morlock was finally making the descent as well—still exhibiting what was clearly a great deal of hesitancy. The big guy’s fur had also taken on something of a reddish hue, though MacCready took little notice, especially when he found himself standing in front of what looked like a cactus mimic that stood almost twice his height.

  “Tons of iron-loving microbes and fungi,” Nesbitt chirped, moving in to stand beside him. She gestured at the “cactus.” “Oh, and mold—mostly red mold with, probably, some bacteria.”

  Mac took a closer look, noticing that what appeared at first glance to be tiny flower heads were actually black and red sporangia—circular structures that both produced and stored the spores, which were the equivalent of seeds.

  Can’t be too hard on myself for not recognizing them right away, he thought, realizing that these particular sporangia were half an inch in diameter—hundreds of times larger than anything he’d ever seen on a microscope slide.

  Mac extended a finger and gently touched one of them.

  Nesbitt cringed. “I wouldn’t—”

  The sporangium made a barely audible pop and suddenly Mac received a face full of red dust.

  “Blah!” Mac cried, coughing and taking a step back.

  “Never mind,” Nesbitt said, which Mac translated as, Stupid zoologist!

  She continued on, excitedly. “The closest thing you’ve seen to this was probably growing on an old piece of bread.”

  Just then, Yanni arrived. “Red looks good on you, Mac,” she said, without smirking. “But listen, when you’re done with your makeup session, Alpha pointed us to a clearing where we can camp for the night.” Then she gestured for him to follow—which he did.

  “There’s also supposed to be a downhill path leading out of here,” she said, under her breath.

  “And where’s that?”

  “At the far side of the grotto.”

  “And?”

  “And it’ll take us out of this maze without running into any Morlocks. I don’t think they’ll come within miles of this place. According to Alpha, we just have to keep winding our way south and downhill. Eventually we’ll run into civilization—although he didn’t really call it that.”

  “He’s turning out to be a lifesaver, that one,” Mac said. “Who’d a thunk it?”

  “Yeah, well, he is acting kinda weird though,” Yanni said, unable to hide her concern. “And these red spores are getting all over his fur. You’ll see what I mean.”

  The others were already starting to prepare for nightfall by the time Mac, Yanni, and Nesbitt rejoined them. Because they did not want to attract unwanted guests of any species, thoughts of a fire had been quickly nixed, so they simply arranged themselves in a rough circle and laid out whatever they could to act as bedding. The temperature in the grotto was nearly tropical compared to what they’d been through, and several of the Devil’s Brigaders had already taken off their parkas to use as pillows or blankets.

  Yanni gestured toward Alpha, who remained as far away from the humans as he could manage. The Morlock was squatting, and looking rather sphinxlike, with eyes closed. Even in the rapidly diminishing light, Mac could see that Yanni had been right—the Morlock’s fur seemed to attract the red spores, in much the same way a magnet attracted iron shavings.

  “What, you figured he’d be joining us for poker tonight?” Mac asked, trying to lighten the situation. “Guns, remember?”

  “That ain’t it, Mac,” Yanni said, looking even more worried than before. “There’s something wrong with him.”

  Though Mac silently agreed with her, his attention was soon drawn to the little mammoth, whose behavior was the exact opposite of the Alpha’s. Currently, Dumbo (Mac’s nickname having definitely caught on) was getting his ears stroked by Wang. An additional positive note was the fact that a rather comfortable-looking Sergeant Juliano, currently reclining against a scarlet boulder, was assisting the Chinese zoologist.

  Within a few minutes, Mac too had settled in, and soon he was asleep.

  The Red Grotto, Cerae/Morlock Forbidden Zone

  August 5, 1946

  Dr. Nora Nesbitt awoke at dawn as something lightly touched her face then flitted away.

  Sitting upright, she rubbed her eyes and peered around the makeshift camp. There were snores and some sleepy shuffling about, but apparently no one else was awake.

  Nesbitt turned her attention to what had awakened her—what appeared to be a swirl of red dandelion seeds. These, though, were efficient fliers, moving upward and changing direction with nothing like a breeze to propel them.

  Like insects, she thought, but different.

  Rising slowly, she decided to follow them.

  Jack opened his eyes and stared up at the brightening sky. He wondered how on earth he’d come to such an amazing and terrifying place.

  The answer, of course, was his friend R. J. MacCready. And so despite an ever-growing, personal laundry list of ailments—ranging from what he hoped was only malaria, to a spine that was becoming the new definition of “completely fucked”—the naval reserve officer hadn’t given even a second thought to turning down this rescue mission. Always sickly and rail thin, Jack had long ago come to believe that his time on this planet might be relatively brief. Because of this he’d resolved to live whatever time he might be granted in as full a fashion as possible—and to accomplish something important before he died.

  He had no way of knowing or even suspecting that some
thing red and foreign to modern human experience was working its way deep into his tissues, in much the same manner as the microbe with which Yanni had infected Juliano the day before. He would never have believed, on this morning, that instead of death, decades of gradual (albeit painful) healing lay before him.

  Below, on the grotto floor, Nesbitt trailed the scarlet swirl—which she’d now determined to contain scores of tiny creatures. They moved like a vapor around rocks and foliage, and she followed them, making mental notes on their behavior, until at last they came to a door-sized opening in one of the sloping walls surrounding the grotto. Then, seeming to hesitate for a second or two, the living cloud dispersed, flying off in separate directions and leaving the puzzled biologist staring into the pitch-black crevice. Nesbitt moved a bit closer and squinted into the dark. She could see that the crevice was actually more like a tunnel, leading a short way into the rock wall before ending in an expanse of light perhaps twenty yards farther down.

  The sensible part of Nesbitt’s brain, which was usually quite considerable, told her to head back and tell the others. But there was something else, something she could not quite define, and it told her to explore the opening herself—and especially what might lay beyond it.

  Before entering the miniature cave, Nesbitt grabbed the closest thing to a branch she could find. Invertebrate lover or not, she had a fear of spiders that was as strong as it was well hidden. She frowned at the flimsy-looking excuse for a stick, which would now serve to clear her way through the tunnel.

  “Fuckers beware,” she announced to the shadows. Then she ducked into the opening.

  Jack sat up, just in time to see the furry little elephant disappearing into a thick growth of mold or fungus or whatever the hell the scientist types were calling it. To the former pampered kid from Massachusetts, who had been turned by circumstances beyond his control into a war hero, everything about this place was just plain weird. Still, he rose quietly, as something about the animal’s stealthy departure compelled him to follow it into the undergrowth.

  Nora Nesbitt emerged from the short and thankfully spider-free tunnel waving an ersatz twig she’d determined to be a new species of club moss. She planned to add a small piece of it to the specimens she’d already accumulated. Although the biologist hadn’t told anyone yet, she intended to carry the collection out when they left the grotto. But what Nesbitt saw upon emerging into the light caused her to drop the moss sample without a thought. The little subchamber was even more thickly carpeted in red than the grotto above.

  A half-dozen mold-covered, statue-like figures were arrayed across the ground of what looked like an open-ceilinged chamber. Her first thought was that they resembled the huge primates MacCready and his friends had been calling Morlocks. But these individuals differed from the hulking creatures she’d already seen—thinner and somehow more graceful, she thought. And exactly like the ones described in Pliny’s codex. The biologist approached the closest of the figures—which, like most of the others, seemed to be sitting on its haunches. The head was almost at the level of her chest, and its face was directed toward the tunnel from which she had just exited.

  Nesbitt knelt down and brushed an index finger over what appeared to be a thin layer of red mold. She hoped to scrape away a portion of the stuff to reveal the layer beneath. But the mold, which had a fleshlike consistency, would not budge.

  “It’s fused to whatever’s below it,” she said to herself. “Shit, these things are old.”

  A rustle of what sounded like parchment from behind her caused the scientist to jump, but when she turned around there was nothing.

  Nesbitt stood, took another glance at the tunnel exit, then crept deeper among the cluster of figures. She noted that four of them, like the one she had just examined, more resembled Pliny’s drawings than the alpha Morlock, while the farthest arrangement—a pair of individuals—suggested something very different. Curiosity drew her closer to this particular grouping.

  “This can’t be!” Nesbitt said, the sound of her words amplified by the proximity of the chamber walls.

  One of the figures was neither Plinean Cerae nor MacCready Morlock. The scientist moved in for an even closer look. It was clearly a Roman officer.

  Nesbitt uttered a name that had not been spoken here for nearly two thousand years.

  “Severus.”

  R. J. MacCready knew that something was very wrong, the moment he noticed that Jack, Nesbitt, and the little mammoth were all missing.

  He woke the others and within thirty seconds the clearing made an abrupt transition from peaceful to chaotic as sidearms were strapped on and hasty plans formulated to divvy up the search for the improbable trio.

  “It’s definitely Severus and Teacher,” Nesbitt told herself, only half-believing her own words. “And they’re certainly not statues—they’re mummies!”

  Through the layer of red mold, it was clear that someone or something had arranged the bodies of the unlikely pair, so well documented by Pliny, into an embrace that had lasted two millennia.

  Nesbitt moved in to examine the centurion’s upturned face, which held an undeniable expression of calm. Then her gaze turned toward the famous Ceran teacher, whose long, graceful arms were wrapped protectively around her pheromone-addicted captive.

  “So it was true,” she spoke to Teacher. “What the codex said about you was true.”

  Nesbitt turned back toward the face of the man Pliny had trusted, then hated, then finally come to forgive. She gave a start and took a reflexive step backward. The centurion’s head seemed to have moved, ever so slightly. No, not merely seemed to have moved; he was definitely turning toward her in ultra-slow motion—at the rate a thin line of mercury will rise in a thermometer if she were to hold the glass bulb between two warm fingers.

  “Oh my God!” Nesbitt cried, stepping in closer to Pliny’s centurion. “You’re alive!” Now she looked at the Ceran, lifting her head slowly toward her. “Both of you!”

  The biologist suddenly understood more clearly than those who were pulling Hendry’s strings the implications of what Pliny had found. And, since the Roman had never documented this particular phenomenon, she was the only one who knew. Nesbitt understood, better than even MacCready, what the real fuss would inevitably be, if word of this ever gets out.

  Nesbitt looked Severus in the eyes, then reached out and touched one of Teacher’s hands. It appeared to her that their cells and tissues—human and Morlock alike—had been replaced by or perhaps infused with and redesigned by the strange red mold. The ultimate in symbiotic relationships, she thought. This one between three species.

  “You’re immortal, aren’t you?” Nesbitt asked the pair. Now stroking the physician’s hand, she addressed the creature, whose face continued to turn, almost imperceptibly, in her direction. “And you and your kind figured this all out nearly two thousand years ago. Amazing.”

  Nora Nesbitt smiled and secured her grip on the Ceran’s elongated index finger. Then, with some effort, she twisted it off.

  Jack had watched the furry elephant with the strange legs and even stranger bifurcated trunk as it sniffed the air around a breach in the rocky wall. It did the same thing to the shadow-filled opening itself. Then, without hesitating, the little mammoth uttered an unnervingly human cry and ran into the dark.

  From the other side, someone screamed. Jack ducked into the tunnel and scrambled toward the light. Emerging, he saw something wildly incongruous, the little mammoth—enraged and circling Nora, having already knocked its prey off her feet. The creature seemed ready to charge again and Nora let out another yell, whether in fear, in an effort to scare off the animal, or both, Jack could not tell. But instead of goring or trampling the scientist, it approached slowly, pausing several feet from where she had been standing, next to what looked to Jack vaguely like a statue. The animal’s eyes were wide with anger and it bellowed loudly, holding out both of its trunks toward the terrified biologist.

  Jack had drawn his Colt but
determined that Nora was in the line of fire. Positioning himself for a safe angle, he began a careful crab walk along the red-slicked boulders, slipped, tried to regain his footing, and discovered immediately that he could not. Instead, he redirected all of his forward momentum to a shoulder slam into the pony-sized mammoth’s side. The elephant emitted an audible oofff and, within the very same instant of that utterance, pivoted toward his attacker. Wrapping both of his trunks around Jack’s abdomen, the mini-pachyderm flung him aside with ease. Then the mammoth turned its attention back again toward Nesbitt, who had used the momentary diversion to make a dash for the tunnel. The enraged elephant tore after her, kicking up clouds of red mold and soil as it charged.

  R. J. MacCready appeared at the tunnel opening just in time to see Dr. Nora Nesbitt fall to the ground five feet from where he stood, the little mammoth seemingly hell-bent on trampling her to death. Mac drew a bead on a spot to the rear and just below the animal’s front shoulder, then fired off three shots—the roar of the Colt .45 magnified by the confined quarters.

  The little elephant spun sideways and crashed into the grotto floor headfirst, two feet from the cowering Nesbitt. The animal’s breath was a raspy gurgle. Its legs kicked ineffectively, scraping furrows in the ground, now wet from a heart-driven pulsation of arterial blood.

  On the other side of the enclosure, Jack was struggling to stand. Observing that the Bostonian was still in one piece, Mac knelt down beside the traumatized biologist. He could hear Yanni’s voice now, coming down through the tunnel and calling his name.

  Nora Nesbitt glanced back at the fallen mammoth before looking into the face of her rescuer. “Thank you, Captain,” she said.

  But R. J. MacCready was not in the mood for gratitude, having just been forced to kill a sentient creature that had saved his life on multiple occasions.

  “Would you mind telling me what the fuck just happened?” he snarled.