The Ruined City

by John Wilson

  “But we don’t have the mask, and we have no idea where the pieces are, yet this Cthulhu thing sent a tentacle into Leon’s house and rose up out of the island.”

  Cate rubbed her jaw. “Actually,” she said, almost apologetically, “things aren’t quite as simple as I told you.”

  “No kidding. You mean there’s more to it than backyard ants?”

  Cate smiled. “Much more, but it was still a good analogy. The trouble is that the edges of the dimensions are not like a solid wall. When they swirl close together, as they’re doing now, one dimension can bleed into another. In our world, this usually causes dreams. There have been cases where Adepts around the world have had the same dream on the same night. At places of power, or when the edges of the dimensions are manipulated by someone with power, those dreams can become very strong.”

  “Like what happened to me in the basement of the AIPC, or with the water in Leon’s house?”

  “Yeah. Most people would call them hallucinations, and doctors would diagnose a mental illness of some sort. But sometimes those afflicted people are Adepts seeing a vivid glimpse of another world.”

  “Which would explain why Madison, you and I saw and felt the house filling up with water, yet the walls were dry when the water receded.”

  “Exactly. It also explains why Brad, making his coffee in the kitchen, had no idea what was going on.”

  “Okay, that fits, but what about the beach and the island, and where we are now?”

  “This is where it gets a little more complicated.”

  Howard laughed. It felt good. “As opposed to how simple it’s been up to now?”

  Cate laughed too. “Point taken. The trouble is that the Ancient One is trapped between the dimensions. As they come together, the space between them becomes squashed, and it gets easier for the dimensions, and whatever lies between them, to bleed into each other. I think everywhere we’ve been is kind of like a no-man’s-land between dimensions. Elements of both dimensions mix. Superficially it looks as if we are in our world, but sometimes that’s because we can’t comprehend what we see, so we project our world onto the unimaginable.”

  “But we’re headed for Sanxingdui, a place that exists in our world.”

  “True, but not in our time.”

  “I guess,” Howard said hesitantly. “I preferred the ant analogy. It was easier to follow.”

  “So how about this. We’re surfers. We’re between dimensions, but we’re riding time waves on the surface of our familiar dimension. When we drop back down, we’ll be in a different time and place.”

  “And the white ship’s our surfboard?”

  “Now you’ve got it.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Howard said. “I’m not even close to understanding what’s going on, but I can focus on the ants on the patio and surfers.” He pondered for a moment. “So how does the Golden Mask fit into all this?”

  “When the mask is complete and secure back in the Chamber of the Dark beneath Sanxingdui, everything is fine. Our world is safe. Or to put it another way, the edges of our dimension are solid and don’t let anything through. The problem with restoring the mask is that if someone manages to put it on, that person will have unimaginable power—the power to move between dimensions and to allow the inhabitants of those other dimensions to enter ours. As the book told us, that was why Jingshen smashed the mask and hid the fragments. The fragmented mask is not as powerful as the complete mask. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but with the Realm of the Elder Gods coming so close, and the Ancient One being trapped between the dimensions, the power of the mask is weakening even more.”

  “Sooo…?”

  “So the three fragments must be retrieved and the mask rebuilt and replaced beneath Sanxingdui.”

  “And whose job would that be?” Howard asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.

  “Everything points to you,” Cate said, giving him what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

  “I thought it might.” He stared out at the ocean racing past for a minute and then said, “Oddly enough, I don’t mind. I’ve been more scared in the past two days than I could have imagined possible, and the thought of traveling between dimensions populated by horrendous monsters so that the world can be saved doesn’t worry me nearly as much as the thought of talking to Madison at school would have three days ago. Strange, huh?”

  “Not really. You have a goal now.”

  “And I’m not alone.” Howard glanced over his shoulder to where Heimao lay luxuriously on Madison’s lap. “I have you and Heimao to help me, and Madison to keep us entertained.”

  “Glad to be of service,” Heimao said.

  Cate put her arm around Howard and leaned into him. “Like, maybe when we’ve destroyed the monsters, we can visit the fashion and makeup dimensions,” she said in a perfect imitation of Madison’s airhead drawl.

  As the two burst out laughing, a green landmass rose above the far horizon.

  SANXINGDUI

  MEETING THE EMPEROR

  As the white ship approached land, it slowed to an almost possible speed and entered a wide river. Cate stared at the buildings along the bank. Howard was about to comment on the unusual lack of high-rises for a large city when an old-fashioned biplane roared by so low overhead that he instinctively ducked. He caught a glimpse of red circles on the wings before two small objects dropped into the city and exploded, sending up columns of smoke.

  “Where are we?” he asked as he spotted other planes dropping bombs and saw more columns of smoke rise into the air. A different plane—this one stubby and with white suns painted on the wings—dove into the biplanes, sending one spiraling down in flames. “Is this Sanxingdui?”

  “No,” Cate answered, looking around. “I recognize it from old photographs. It’s Shanghai. Those are Japanese planes bombing it, so this must be the battle for the city in 1937.”

  “Wow, 1937!” Howard had known that they were traveling back in time, but to actually see a scene that had happened more than eighty years back was a shock.

  “So this is the Yangtze River we’re entering,” Cate explained. “We’re heading west and going back in time.”

  Before Howard could fully take in the view it was gone, and they were passing through open countryside where farmers tended crops on both sides of the wide river. They passed a walled city even farther back in time. There were no paved roads or cars, just oxen hauling carts along dusty tracks.

  “Nanjing,” Cate said before they moved out into open country again.

  As they wound along the river, it became narrower, although this didn’t affect their speed. Along the bank, the villages became smaller, more scattered and more primitive. They caught a glimpse of thousands of soldiers engaged in a vast battle. For a while they passed through a rugged landscape of hills and ridges. As soon as they broke out into flat land once more, the ship swung up a narrow tributary that wound across the countryside like a tangle of fallen yarn. The land was cultivated close to the river. Small collections of mud-and-wattle huts were scattered along the banks. The people in the villages seemed oblivious to the white ship, and although time seemed to be passing, for Howard and Cate it remained late afternoon.

  At last, in the distance they saw the land rise to green foothills in front of purple mountains topped with caps of gleaming ice and snow. The ship slowed beneath the high mud-brick walls surrounding a large city. As they pulled up to a wooden dock, Howard and Cate noticed an old man dressed in ornate flowing robes standing by a wooden gate and watching their approach.

  “Sanxingdui,” Aileen said. “You should go and meet the emperor.”

  “You’re not coming?” Cate asked.

  “My role is here, as I suspect Madison’s is.” She looked back over her shoulder. Heimao slid off the girl’s lap and padded across the deck. Madison looked confused, shook her head and stood up. She took a spot beside Aileen, a puzzled frown on her face.

  “Wait,” Madison said, despite the fact that
everyone was standing still and watching her. She opened her bulging clutch purse, rummaged through it and pulled out a forehead flashlight like the ones used by cavers. “You might need this,” she said, handing it to Cate.

  “You have a head lamp in your purse?” Howard said, astonished. “Where did you get it, and why are you giving it to us?”

  Madison frowned as if she was thinking really hard. “It’s from the drawer in Leon’s kitchen. I sort of thought you might, like, need it,” she finished weakly.

  “Thanks,” Cate said.

  “Uh-huh,” Madison grunted as she took some lip gloss out of her bag and began applying it.

  “I’ll look after Madison,” Aileen said. “It’s your journey from here. You must go now.”

  The instant Howard stepped off the ship and onto the dock, he was overwhelmed by a sense of sadness and loss. He had felt safe and secure on the white ship, and now he felt alone and anxious. He wanted nothing more than to go back on board and sit on the deck with Cate forever. As if she understood, Heimao rubbed against his ankle.

  As they walked up the dock, the old man stepped forward. “I am Kun Zhuang, emperor of the City of Masks, and all the surrounding lands that can be reached on a galloping horse—” He stopped and appeared to reconsider. “But you are honored strangers from far off. My puny titles will mean little to you.”

  “You’re in the book,” Howard blurted out.

  Kun merely smiled and bowed slightly. “Welcome to Sanxingdui, the City of Masks. Long have I waited for your arrival.”

  Howard was tempted to ask how long, but he suspected the answer would either baffle or scare him. Instead, although he wasn’t exactly telling the truth, he said, “Thank you. We are pleased and honored to be here.”

  “I would very much enjoy showing you my city,” Kun said, “introducing you to our culture and hearing about yours. Unfortunately, time is against us, and there is only one thing upon which we must focus our attention—the Golden Mask. Let us, therefore, go straight to the Chamber of the Deep.”

  Howard didn’t much like the sound of that, and he didn’t know why time would be a problem, since they had just traveled back through more than four thousand years, but he thought it best to remain silent. He, Cate and Heimao followed the emperor through the gates.

  Most of the buildings on each side of the wide streets of Sanxingdui were built from pale-brown mud bricks and were small and square, with thatched roofs. Howard noticed larger ones with flat roofs as they moved deeper into the city. Outside staircases gave access to upper floors and roofs. People went about their daily business, moving in and out of buildings, talking in groups and carrying goods and produce back and forth. Kun, Howard and Cate moved through the streets like ghosts. The townspeople paid them no attention, even though it was their emperor leading the oddly dressed strangers past them.

  Soon they were approaching the heart of Sanxingdui. The buildings became more impressive, and more were built of stone. Jade pedestals began to appear in open spaces, often supporting strange bronze heads topped with ornamental crowns and feathered headdresses. In the first open space they came to, a fountain was surmounted by a large bronze tree covered in tiny bells that tinkled in the breeze.

  Howard was thrilled to be walking through the city he had read about in Jinse de mianju. He could almost imagine Chen, Ting and Fu running through the streets he was walking along. The buildings became even larger and more impressively decorated, and large bronze heads and masks stood outside some buildings. Howard was awestruck, but it was nothing compared to what he felt when he reached the square in front of the emperor’s palace. Here the masks were brightly painted and the size of small cars. They were also like no human faces Howard had ever seen. The pointed and ornament-draped ears, bulbously curved noses and wide, almost smiling mouths were odd enough, but the dramatically protruding eyes really held his attention. It was almost as if the eyes were leaving the face to come out and look into his very soul.

  The emperor led Howard and Cate, followed closely by Heimao, through the masks toward the palace steps. At the top, in front of a pair of large doors and just as the book had described, was a ten-foot-high statue of Kun dressed in ornate robes and holding a huge curved elephant tusk.

  “The mightiest of beasts,” Kun said as they passed the statue. Howard had no idea whether he was referring to himself or the owner of the impressive tusk.

  Costumed servants opened the right-hand door, and Howard and Cate found themselves in a long corridor leading deep into the building. Ignoring the rooms on either side, Kun guided them down it at a brisk pace until they reached a wide staircase that led both up and down. Howard hoped they were headed up, but Kun steered them down without hesitation.

  The staircase narrowed until it had become the one in the book—a spiral around a huge bronze tree covered with ornaments and tinkling bells. Howard wasn’t surprised to see the bronze door set into the tree’s base. The door opened with the merest touch of Kun’s hand, leading them into the Chamber of the Deep.

  The room was dark, but a single beam of light shone down from the ceiling, illuminating a rough jade pillar in the center of the floor. The emperor stepped forward and rested a hand on it. “For countless ages,” he said, “the Golden Mask sat here. It must be returned if the world is to be saved.”

  “And we have to go through the arch to achieve that,” Howard interjected, although he wasn’t clear on how replacing the mask thousands of years before he was born would save his world.

  “And there is not much time,” Kun added.

  “I thought time was what we had a lot of,” Howard said.

  No one even smiled.

  “The arches are around here,” Kun said, stepping behind the jade pillar.

  “Arches? Plural?” Howard asked as he and Cate moved to stand beside Kun. Heimao came as well, but she stayed close to Cate. “I thought there was only one arch that moved around in time.”

  “Three arches were formed when the Golden Mask was broken,” Kun explained. “Each leads to a fragment of the mask. They were created here, but they have been moving in separate directions through space and time. Because you were delayed on the beach, they have already begun to spread apart. Time is short.”

  Howard wondered how Kun knew about what had happened on the beach, but he decided there were more important things to worry about. “How do we know which one to go through? And where are they?” he asked, looking around. The curved wall at the back of the Chamber of the Deep was in profound shadow.

  “Look hard,” Kun instructed.

  “There,” Cate said, pointing to the wall on their left.

  Howard squinted. He thought he could make out a darker area that might be the shape of an arch. “I think I see it.” As he stared the shape became sharper. “Yes, it’s definitely an arch.” He scanned the rest of the wall, but even though his eyes were adjusting to the gloom, he could see nothing else. “I can only see one.”

  “You are looking in only one place,” Kun said. “You must think of the world as more than just a wall that surrounds you.”

  Howard was wondering how to interpret Kun’s philosophical message when Cate pointed up and said, “There.”

  Howard looked up. There was a darker patch on the ceiling. It could be an arch. He took a step forward to get a better look.

  “Beware,” Kun said.

  Howard hesitated and looked down. The tip of his right foot was sticking into a patch of darkness. He tilted his foot forward and met no resistance. He was standing on the edge of a hole so black it didn’t even look like a hole.

  Hurriedly he stepped back beside Cate. “Okay,” he said, feeling a bit shaken. “We have three arches. But I still don’t know which one we should go through.”

  “You must decide.”

  “How?”

  “Can you fly?”

  “Only in my dreams,” Howard said, and immediately he understood that the arch in the ceiling was not an option. He also had no desire
to leap into the hole in the floor. “I guess it’s the one in the wall,” he concluded.

  “Do not guess,” Kun said. “Decide and do. Even if the only possible decision seems wrong, it may be the wrong decision at the right time.”

  “Or the right decision at the wrong time.”

  “True enough,” Kun conceded. “Now, Howard and Cate, you must go. Good luck.”

  “I suppose we have to do this,” Howard said, hoping Cate would come up with a reason why they didn’t. When she said nothing, he added, “Can you at least give us a bit more advice about what we are to do?”

  But Kun was gone.

  “We really have no choice?” Howard still hesitated.

  Heimao crept around the darkness on the floor and stood at the edge of the arch. She looked back. “Enough questions, Sheepherder. It’s time.”

  She disappeared.

  “We have to go,” Cate said as she carefully followed Heimao.

  “I hope this is one of those right decisions at the right time,” Howard said as he followed the pair into the darkness.

  R’LYEH

  THE RUINED CITY

  As they stepped though the arch, the Chamber of the Deep seemed to expand and elongate into a wide tunnel. The darkness was a physical presence, as it had been during Howard’s episode in the basement, but here the tunnel was wider and the walls were not draped in slime. An icy wind blew up from below, chilling them both.

  “We could use some light,” Howard said, proudly remembering the trick Madison had used on the beach. He pulled out his phone and tapped the flashlight app. It didn’t illuminate more than a couple of feet in front of them, but it was better than nothing.

  Without warning, a much brighter beam of light punched through the darkness from Cate’s forehead.

  “Wow!” Heimao said. “That’s a powerful lamp. Either Leon’s a serious caver, or he’s really scared of going to the washroom at night.”

  “Yeah,” Howard agreed, putting his phone back in his pocket.

  Holding hands for comfort, Howard and Cate edged forward down the gentle slope. Even with Cate wearing the head lamp and moving slowly, Howard became increasingly worried. What if this passage took them right to Cthulhu or some other equally hideous and dangerous creature from another dimension? What if they ended up on the beach, overwhelmed by the crawling horrors from the sea? What if they ended up under hundreds of feet of water in Atlantis? Why couldn’t he just go home and let someone else save the world?