by John Shirley
Hairless and scrawny, the two had been beaten bloody by their German captors. Despite their hideousness, Longcroft felt as sorry for the creatures as he did for the other prisoners.
4
Prior to military service and before I accepted an appointment as assistant superintendent at the Madras Government Museum, I worked briefly under the direction of D. G. Hogarth excavating outlying sites related to Carchemish in Southeastern Anatolia. The expedition catalogued significant remains of various ancient cultures, including temple complexes, fortresses, basalt statues and reliefs bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Despite published material indicating otherwise, excavations at sites neighboring Carchemish reveal a civilization there extending back to about 3000 B.C.—and perhaps much earlier—which may not have been Hittite in its beginnings. Among the best-preserved artifacts recovered, I recall a small assortment of grotesque idols formed from some porraceous rock not common to the region. These icons depicted imaginative monstrosities of varying unpleasantness, including one with a winged anthropoid frame supporting an oversized head shaped something like a marine mollusk of the cephalopod family.
Mr. Lapham, an ingenious anthropologist from a noted university in Massachusetts, surveyed the objects found in tombs at these older sites and suggested the ancient stone statuettes—fetishes, teraphim, or whatever those abominations may have been—originated from some unknown Bronze Age civilization deeply obsessed with preternatural and occult knowledge.
I now know that civilization’s borders stretched at least as far as the Taurus Mountains.
Nathan Longcroft, Interned by the Turks
5
The first night at Akdurak held a macabre pageant of fresh horrors for Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Longcroft and his friends.
Outside their tent, the groans of the wounded, the weak and the famished filled the night air. The woeful howls of suffering and pain reminded Longcroft of the death pangs and final convulsions of dying animals. All trace of decorum and poise lost, these once-noble gentlemen had been subjected to something far worse than mere slave labor—their exploitation had been thorough and severe, but the Boche subjected them to more than poor working conditions.
Around midnight, the sounds of torture became evident: the harsh cracks of the whip, interspersed with muffled screams; merciless beatings, punctuated by the breaking of bones; and less obvious—but equally gruesome—signs, including pounding hammers, bone saws and the pulpy contents of buckets being emptied onto the ground. Shrieks gradually settled into quiet cries which soon gave way to sporadic whimpers.
Sleep offered no reprieve as nightmarish visions assailed them all. In their dreadful dreams they imagined unspeakable scenes of wanton carnage. Longcroft’s own outré reveries rendered scenes of corpses piled high in huddled heaps, layered in the blood and the mud and the slime of the trenches—corpses with dead eyes that saw in spite of death. Soaring overhead, circling in the lurid twilight, a clutch of faceless, vague winged entities—like black angels from some subverted heaven—surveyed the endless massacre with ever-intensifying appetites.
The men’s disconcerted slumber led to collective silence in the morning.
The first full day at Akdurak began before dawn. The prisoners were mustered alongside the edge of the cliff, more than a few barely able to stand. They segregated themselves tidily, splitting into distinct groupings determined by nationality and ethnicity. Longcroft wordlessly led Lieutenant Cyril Macready, Corporal Guy Blacklock and Corporal Wyndham Hutchison down the line of laborers until he found a clique of wiry, keen-eyed Tommies. The Englishmen welcomed the new arrivals with more pity than cordiality.
The Boche distributed moldy bread and canteens filled with water from a nearby mountain stream. The laborers took their wretched breakfast standing, and in little time began the hike down a crudely blazed switchback trail to the railroad bed.
Throughout the morning hours, the Taurus Mountains thundered as dynamite shattered the stony face of the near-vertical cliff, each blast dislodging innumerable bits of rock and sending debris careening down into the valley. A dozen Huns oversaw the operation, sending teams of laborers out to place the explosives. The prisoners scampered over the mountainside supported only by a flimsy network of unsound ropes. After each detonation, the men would rush in to clear the rubble and chip away at the rock, slowly leveling the bed where the tracks would soon be laid.
It was midmorning before anyone found the courage to speak.
“What news, my boy?” A scraggy gentlemen, thin and somnolent, spoke softly as he addressed Longcroft. Both men continued working, filling up a wheelbarrow with pieces of rock. “How fares it with the war effort?”
“Can’t rightfully say,” Longcroft replied. “We were transferred, from Afion Kara Hissar. Our hosts were neither communicative nor reliable.”
“Pity,” he said. “Would do the fellows good to hear heartening news.” The man paused, a sudden look of bewilderment enveloping his face. “Brownlow; that is my name,” the man said, his eyes displaying a flicker of disbelief as if he thought he had forgotten what others once called him. “David Brownlow.”
“Nathan Longcroft.”
“Good to know you, sir.” Brownlow wrestled with a large rock, wincing with pain as he lifted it into the wheelbarrow. “It is December, is it not?”
“The 20th of November, 1916,” Longcroft said. “How long have you been a prisoner here?”
“Six weeks,” Brownlow said, his voice revealing disappointment. “Time passes slowly here, you see—as slowly as in a sick-house. Days and nights blur. Death does not come as quickly as one would wish it.”
“I have no intention of dying here.”
“Everyone thinks they’re invincible for the first few days, lad.” Brownlow said. “Bitter truth will come to stare at you in the face soon enough. If hunger and the mercilessness of the Huns aren’t enough to do you in, the mountain itself will kill you.”
“Geh zur Seite!” A German soldier beckoned the laborers to fall back as another wave of charges were prepared. “Beweg dich!”
Soon followed a series of deafening explosions in quick succession. The mountain trembled and masses of rock tumbled down the slopes. As they had done a dozen times already that morning, the men promptly moved back into position, preparing to clear the debris—but this time, Longcroft noticed something different. The tremors from the detonation seemed to be reverberating much too long. The ground beneath his feet refused to settle.
A harrowing, unforgettable cacophony arose from deep within the mountain. The disconcerting sound froze Longcroft in his tracks. It was as if the wounded earth growled in misery and resentment.
The unquiet mountain began claiming the day’s victims one by one. One of the Russian prisoners screamed as he plunged over the ledge. Another man fell wordlessly, his silent resignation confessed by the awful tranquility of his countenance. A quartet of Indian laborers who had too quickly clambered back onto the rope ladders doggedly gripped their holds until the mountain, uncompromising in its search for vengeance, shook them off like puny parasites and dropped them down into the valley.
The tremors finally subsided, but not before the Taurus Mountains could claim one last victim. Corporal Guy Blacklock had taken refuge in a recess along the cliff wall. He cowered there, squatting, his arms protecting his head from falling rocks. Longcroft moved toward him to see if he had been injured. Before he could reach him, a slender, sinewy black whip-like appendage wrapped itself around Blacklock’s abdomen and drew him down into a narrow fissure. The fracture vanished as soon as the corporal disappeared into the darkness.
Brownlow read the astonishment in Longcroft’s eyes.
“I told you,” he said. “The mountain won’t tolerate much more of this abuse.” Brownlow grinned maniacally, his tone expressing equal measures of hopelessness and madness. “In the next few days, the Huns will haul the boring machine into place to start tunneling through that outcropping up ahead,”
Brownlow said. “Mark my words, Longcroft—the mountain won’t stand for it. It’ll send us all over the cliff and down into that ravine, or worse, sure as you were born.”
6.
The recent discovery of the habitations of lost races of men in remote regions of Asia Minor, and of remains of various articles which those people once used—tools, religious icons, weapons, adornments, bones of animals they fed upon, seeds of plants they cultivated and consumed—has inspired a new impetus to delve deeper into the antiquity of the human race. To date, the most curious trait of these habitations comes in the form of cave paintings: Not crude renderings of hunters stalking prehistoric beasts, but strange, cryptic designs employing peculiar lines and angles. These primitive efforts at geometry possess a certain hypnotic quality that captivates the novice and causes learned mathematicians much consternation.
Few researchers trouble themselves fretting about the possibility of uncovering Promethean knowledge best left to the obscurity of the ages.
Nathan Longcroft, Interned by the Turks
7
“I do not often interact with the prisoners, you understand.” Oberstleutnant Waldemar von Edelsheim sat at his desk, his nose buried in one of those cryptically named tomes. “Aside from orientation, the only time I generally wish to face my prisoners is at an execution. A man should never condemn another man to death unless he is willing to see it through himself.”
“Yes, sir, commandant.”
Edelsheim had appeared vexed when Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Longcroft first appeared at his office door requesting an audience. The commandant’s second-in-command, Hauptmann Gerhard Fangohr, had grudgingly made the request. A burly great red-faced fellow, the Hun spoke only a smattering of English. He evidently latched on to enough of Longcroft’s story to justify disturbing Edelsheim. “I apologize for interrupting your study.”
“Considering you are, at present, the ranking British officer at Akdurak and that you suffered the loss of one of your close comrades today, I will make an exception—this time.” Edelsheim tried to mask his lingering displeasure with a forced smile and an invitation. “Perhaps you would join me for dinner?”
“I would be honored,” Longcroft said, choking on his own artificial tactfulness. He doubted the commandant’s offer was genuine but treated it as such nonetheless. “But I would prefer to eat with my men—or to forfeit a meal entirely for the opportunity to discuss something with you.”
“Suit yourself,” the commandant said. “Hauptmann Fangohr mentioned that you experienced something, well … unsettling.”
“Yes, sir, commandant.” Longcroft’s muscles ached from his 15-hour workday. He knew Edelsheim had no intention of asking him to take a seat. “Corporal Guy Blacklock was one of the day’s casualties. I wish to notify his family, with your consent.”
“No need,” Edelsheim said abruptly, his gaze still fixed upon the text he scrutinized. The corner of his mouth opposite his scar curled in a sardonic grin. “It is my policy at Akdurak to send death notices the day a new prisoner arrives. As far as the 6th Division of the British Indian Army is concerned, all you chaps are—what’s that quaint euphemism you Englishmen use?—‘pushing up the daisies.’”
“Yes sir, commandant,” Longcroft muttered. Edelsheim’s admission struck a blow as excruciating as any physical torture could be. The knowledge that in the coming weeks, his family would be advised of his premature death nearly brought him to tears. Longcroft remained outwardly indifferent and compliant, denying Edelsheim the gratification of seeing the anguish he wreaked. “There is something more, however.”
“Yes, yes, get on with it,” Edelsheim said. “Your friend—Blacklock, wasn’t it?—didn’t just stumble over the side of the cliff, did he?” Finally, the German officer lifted his eyes from the page and glared at his prisoner. Edelsheim looked at him with growing indignation, a cauldron of self-righteousness bubbling just beneath his autocratic exterior. “Pulled into the mountain, was he not? Disappeared into the darkness through some unseen crevice?”
“Yes,” the corporal said, his voice sounding suddenly small and insignificant in the small room. Like his friend Corporal Wyndham Hutchison, Longcroft suspected Edelsheim had ulterior motives. “What are you looking for here? What’s in the mountain?”
“What makes you think I am not as confounded by this enigma as you, Corporal Longcroft?”
“Something brought you here,” Longcroft said. “A German nobleman and relative of Kaiser Wilhelm would never agree to an assignment as chief officer of a far-flung labor camp, not when comfortable appointments are readily available.”
“A logical assumption,” Edelsheim said. “Either you are exceptionally perceptive or you are a learned man with some credentials. Tell me, Corporal Longcroft, what profession did you follow before the war?”
“I was assigned to the Madras National Museum,” Longcroft offered, “I studied archeology.”
“Fascinating.” Edelsheim shuffled through a stack of tattered old documents and scrolls, searching for something. “I must remember to commend Kaiser Wilhelm’s intelligence gatherers. They uncovered your background and managed to locate you in Afion Kara Hissar. It was a matter of convenience for me that your recent escape attempt made Ali Fuat Bey eager to divest himself of you and your associates. I also was advised that you had field experience in this region.”
“It was several years ago,” Longcroft said. “I was part of Professor Hogarth’s expedition. I worked mainly in the Şehitkamil district, near a small village. If I remember correctly, it was called Doliche.”
“Yes, I am quite familiar with it,” Edelsheim said. “And, if you have been to that place, you should be familiar with these.”
Edelsheim beckoned him to his desk as he opened a scroll, smoothing its many creases judiciously. The yellowed parchment featured unsophisticated drawings seemingly illustrating some eccentric form of geometry. The byzantine sketch embraced atypical curves, unconventional lines and weird spirals which, when combined, appeared to contradict the laws of traditional mathematics.
“I have drawings like this,” Longcroft admitted reluctantly. “In a cave not far from the village.”
“A cave the villagers refused to enter.”
“Yes.”
“Let me tell you something, Lieutenant Colonel Longcroft,” Edelsheim said. “The Turks claim there is an ancient city in this range of the Taurus. Historical narratives mention it in passing, a place of wicked worship and pagan deities, equated to Sodom and Gomorrah. Its name—assuming it ever had one—is never mentioned and its precise location is never recorded. I’ve spoken with Turkish academics who assure me it is nothing more than a fable, yet I believe it exists. I believe the world is cluttered with secreted enclaves, hidden from the present by a veil which only thickens as time passes.”
“And if you find this ancient deserted city, do you suppose acclaim and admiration will follow?” Longcroft’s question undoubtedly irked the commandant. He felt it necessary to press the man into revealing his true objective. “After word of Akdurak’s atrocities spread, no one would praise you even if you claim to have dug up the Ark of the Covenant.”
“I think you realize I do not seek notoriety,” he said. “In fact, I have found the city.” The gaze of his devouring eyes grew infinitely more intense. “It is deep inside this mountain—and it is not deserted. If I could just find a door, I would gladly show you. My patrols have even managed to apprehend a few of the creatures that dwell within the rock. They were found in caves filled with drawings like this,” he said, tapping the scroll. “Drawings like the ones we have both seen on the cave walls near Doliche. These are doorways, Lieutenant Colonel Longcroft. These are doorways that lead not only to some forgotten metropolis but to undiscovered and unfathomable spheres of superfluous dimensions and worlds outside the perceptible space-time continuum.”
“That is absurd.”
Longcroft wished he had more faith in his allegation. In his mind, logic clashed w
ith recent experience: He had seen wholesale butchery on a scale he would never have dreamed humanity capable of in his youth; he had witnessed battlefield horrors indistinguishable from his most vivid nightmares; he had experienced events that made him question his own sanity. Longcroft recalled the two beings he had observed the previous evening. The creatures—the things that were not quite human—might well have descended from some isolated branch of primitive hunter-gatherers. Other Stone Age cultures had been discovered in remote parts of the world.
Perhaps the creatures retained arcane knowledge lost to civilization.
“Most people doubt the validity of my theories, Lieutenant Colonel Longcroft.” Edelsheim chuckled as he began rolling up the scroll.
The German failed to notice Longcroft’s clever sleight of hand—he had handily nicked one of the commandant’s fancy pens from the corner of the desk, quickly concealing it in the fold of his coat sleeve.
“Sadly, none of our attempts to communicate with the creatures have been successful. They do not seem to comprehend the purpose of torture.”
“Let me speak to one of them,” Longcroft said. “Maybe I can find a way to communicate.”
“I had hoped you might offer your services,” Edelsheim said. “If you are successful, I will see what arrangements can be made to have you returned to the 6th Division of the British Indian Army.”
“And my colleagues?”
“Very well,” Edelsheim said, though Longcroft doubted his veracity. “You and your friends will be liberated—if you manage to get that thing to lead us into the mountain.”
