by S. B. Davies
Fergus sighed and opened his backpack.
Fergus shouldered the half-empty rucksack. Next to the pile of discarded camping equipment were two skateboards leant against the wall. Dave picked them up and passed one to Fergus.
‘Here you go lad, can’t stand them myself, but they’re great for descending.’
Fergus examined the skateboard then span the wheels.
‘Good board.’
‘Well off you go then,’ said Dave.
‘After you Dr Livingstone, I insist.’
Dave raised his eyebrows, squared his shoulders, and pushed off. With a wobble he trundled towards the entrance. Dave yelled as he accelerated down the steep slope and disappeared into the darkness. There was a muted thump.
‘Bugger,’ said Dave from the darkness.
‘Here, let me give you a few pointers,’ said Fergus and swooped into the dark. There was a muted thump.
‘You could have stood to one side,’ said Fergus.
Half an hour later, Dave and Fergus rushed, side by side, down the corridors of the catacombs. The skateboard wheels whirred and Dave hung on to Fergus for balance. A few roof spiders clung to Dave’s flat cap, enjoying the ride.
‘Go right here’ shouted Dave. ‘No, the other right you clod… Bugger.’
Dave sailed down the left corridor, Fergus the right. There was a muted thump.
‘Well, at least that got rid of the last roof spiders,’ said Dave, as he stomped back to Fergus with skateboard under arm. ‘Anyways, not far now, we can walk the rest.’
The corridor opened into a dark cavern. It was hard to tell how big, as only a single light shone, making a bright circle on the cavern floor. Sitting in the middle was a scruffy old tent with clothesline, plastic table and camping stove. Sitting in front, hunched up, was a duffle coat eating crisps.
‘Morning,’ said Dave.
The duffle coat jumped. Out of the hood emerged a pale, unshaven face.
‘Ah David, so glad you’re here, just about to start this morning’s programme. You got my emails of course, so you know we’re on the verge of isolating the 7th medial relationship with the phase of the moon. The colour co-ordination will come later, but I really do think we have the 7th cracked at long last.’
‘Ah, yes very good,’ said Dave, ‘this is Fergus. Fergus I would like you to meet Simon, our resident door expert.’
‘Call me Si. So you’re here to see my experiments?’
‘Actually, we’re on a mission to save the planet and in a bit of hurry to be honest,’ said Fergus.
‘Really, really. Well we have made great progress; we can calculate all the 6th and most of the 7th key variation. It’s all very exciting,’ said Simon.
‘Any chance you can open the door today?’ asked Dave.
‘I have a full schedule of conformational progressions planned and we’re not really ready for a full scale unlock scenario just yet.’
‘Simon, I want you to open the door. I want you to do it now. You can carry on with your experiments later.’
‘But David that would mean re-starting the sequence.’
‘Now Simon, if you please. Or shall I just have a go myself?’
‘Oh alright, let me get my notebooks and laptop.’ Simon disappeared into the tent.
‘So where is this Impossible Door anyway.’ asked Fergus.
Dave smiled and walked past the tent into the gloom.
‘Let there be light,’ shouted Dave and suddenly there was. A bank of floodlights lit up the back wall of the cavern. There stood an immense double door.
Its metallic, grey-green surface gleamed and inset in two long, thin triangular swaths, one on each door, were brightly coloured balls. They looked like huge marbles stuck in clay by a child or possibly an Arts student. Each swathe had forty or fifty balls that started big at bottom and diminished in size all the way up. There was nothing else on the doors, no handles, wheels, or key holes.
‘Wow, that’s one heck of a door,’ said Fergus.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Simon as he scurried over to Dave and Fergus, with an armful of notebooks. ‘And if you’d just stand away and not touch anything while I get set up.’
‘You know Dave, the pattern looks rather familiar,’ said Fergus.
‘Ever seen a tentacle?’
Fergus raised his eyebrows. ‘That would be one huge Octopus.’
‘Or squid,’ said Simon, ‘or any one of the Cephalopods really. Though I think the characteristic sucker pattern is closer to the squid. Realising it was operated by tentacle gave us our fundamental break through. Up till then we had pressed single keys in sequence. Once we realised that the whole pad was in contact simultaneously, we started pressing groups of keys in sequence and that’s when we really started to move forward. We got the 1st and 2nd tip relationships in weeks, of course it took a while to get some the medial groupings –’
‘Simon,’ said Dave, ‘Get on with it there’s a good chap.’
‘Oh, right, of course. You’re saving the planet. How silly of me. It’s not like I’ve spent years on this or anything.’
After consulting books and spreadsheets, Simon positioned a makeshift scaffold of broom handles and bamboo canes over both swathes of coloured balls.
‘Now David, if you would take the left hand side. Just push forward on this broomstick when I give the word. Ready now? One, two, three, four, five and push.’
The brightly coloured balls glowed in sequences up and down the triangular swathes and a loud scale of notes rang out. There was not a chord amongst them.
‘Um, no. That’s not right. Let me try again. This time we’ll push together. Ready, steady and push.’
The result was different, a different sequence of lights and notes, but the disharmony stayed.
‘We’ll that’s a good start. We should have it no time,’ said Simon.
Fergus was fed up. Two hours of listening to complex, arcane theories and even more arcane and complex excuses was enough. During all this time he had noted only one definite fact about the door.
‘Simon, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s this one down here, it never lights up with the others?’
‘Oh that’s just the access hatch,’ said Simon.
‘The what?’ asked Dave.
‘The… Um… Access hatch.’
‘You mean there’s a way in, without actually opening the door?’
‘Well, yes, but it doesn’t solve the problem of opening the door does it?’
‘No, of course not, but it solves my bloody problem of getting into the rest of the catacombs,’ said Dave.
‘Yes, you could say that was true, but there still remains the fundamental problem of creating the correct cascading sequence – ‘
‘Thank you Simon,’ said Fergus, ‘I think we can take it from here.’
Fergus pressed the ball, it glowed green, and there was a hiss of escaping air. A small section of the door swung open.
‘Did you know about this all along Simon?’ asked Dave.
‘Err, yes, we use it all the time to examine the rear of the door.’
‘Thank you very much. Do you know what I had to go through to get past this door last I came down here? I’ll tell you… No I won’t. You’ll have to guess, but it was a bloody nightmare.’
Dave crawled through the access hatch on his hands and knees. Fergus gave Simon a little wave and followed.
The access door shut behind them.
‘So how did you get past the door last time?’ asked Fergus.
‘Through a Whale Mole.’
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s a hundred foot long furry slug that eats mould off the walls of the larger tunnels. The outer tunnels are full of them and they move very slowly. You can’t get past them; you have to go through them.’
‘So how – ‘
‘Wetsuit, Aqualung and very good nose plugs.’
Fergus and Dave walked through the huge corridor on the other side of the Impossible Door. The pr
evious tunnels appeared natural, with some alterations, such as lighting and a level floor. These corridors were constructed. The floor had the same tortoise shell cobbles Fergus saw on the M7 and lights built into the curved ceiling sixty feet above. A warm breeze blew in their faces, bringing hints of earthy aroma.
Eventually they reached a junction. The corridor branched to the right. It had a bright cavern with greenery at the end. They walked a short way down the joining corridor, far enough to see trees and a small lake.
‘This here is the first cavern. According to Coleridge’s note, under no circumstances enter the first cavern…’ Dave’s voice dropped to a whisper, ‘Just stand by me lad, and ease back against the wall. Say nowt.’
‘What?’
Dave put his hand over Fergus’s mouth and nodded with his head.
On the opposite side of the corridor was a black shape.
It looked like a large rabbit in a skin-tight leather suit. Its head was bullet shaped and feature-less except for a very wide grin and tiny nostrils. The creature swung it head from side to side and hopped towards Dave and Fergus. It sniffed the air and hopped forward again.
It stopped and crouched back on its haunches and wriggled as if trying to push itself into the ground backwards. Its mouth opened wider and wider, until it seemed like the top of its head would fall off. It made an unpleasant mewling sound.
‘As I was saying, do not make a sound,’ said Dave in a loud voice, ‘And do not move. It’s heard us and it’s not going to go away. In fact any moment now it’s going –’
There was a snap, the creature shot forward so fast it blurred. It leapt straight at Dave’s head. He pushed Fergus away and dived sideways. Rows and rows of sharp, backward pointing teeth filled the creature’s huge mouth. It snapped shut with the sound of two hands clapping, just where Dave had stood and spanked into the wall with a sharp thud. It fell to the ground in a shiny leather heap.
Dave prodded it with his foot.
‘What the hell is that?’ asked Fergus.
‘Snapjack,’ said Dave, ‘Fortunately they are blind with bugger all sense of smell and poor hearing. They are also thick as two short planks, but they can bite your arm clean off. So beware. If we hit a pack of them, run. They don’t hop so fast neither.’
‘How can it move so quickly? I’ve never seen anything leap that fast.’
‘They’ve got springs in their legs and jaws. That’s what it was doing when it crouched; tensing the spring. They make a moaning sound when they tense their jaws. I suppose it must hurt.
‘Let’s get going before it wakes up.’
‘You mean it’s not dead? It hit the wall like a sledgehammer.’
‘Oh no, just stunned. I suppose if you’re going fire yourself into solid objects, evolution provides a thick – oh bugger.’
‘What?’
‘Run!’
Fergus looked back along the corridor filled with black hopping shapes cutting them off from the main corridor. He turned back to see Dave fifty yards away and accelerating. Fergus ran.
They careered into the cavern. Fergus risked a glance over his shoulder and ran straight into Dave, who’d stopped.
The Snapjacks stood at the edge of the cavern, their heads moving from side to side. They sniffed and sat back on their haunches, but not one of them hopped onto the green grass that carpeted the cavern.
‘That’s not a good sign,’ said Fergus.
‘Well it depends; perhaps they are allergic, hay fever like.’
‘You reckon?’
Dave looked at Fergus and frowned.
‘Let’s see if there’s another way out.’
They trudged up a slight rise towards a stand of trees in the near distance. The vast roof of the cavern obscured by dazzling light from huge lamps, suspended hundreds of meters overhead
‘Did you see that?’ asked Dave.
‘What?’ said Fergus and yawned.
‘I saw something move in the trees.’
‘How big was it?’ asked Fergus and yawned again.
‘Big enough to be worrying. Eee, I feel knackered.’
Fergus stumbled and fell on his hands and knees.
‘Dave, I don’t feel too – ow!’
‘What’s the matter now?’
‘There’s something sharp in this – ow, ow, ow!
‘Get up lad, we’ve got to…’ Dave yawned, ‘Damn it come on, move, head for the trees’.
Dave pulled Fergus to his feet and they lurched into a feeble trot.
‘Keep going. Keep going, don’t stop.’
They staggered into the shade of the trees.
‘Climb. Get up there now,’ said Dave and pushed Fergus towards a low branch.
‘Keep going, Get as high as you can,’ shouted Dave from a neighbouring tree.
There was the crack of a stick breaking and Dave looked around. Below him was a hideous face attached to a 9 foot tall horned creature, draped in a white toga, like some strange Roman god.
‘It’s quite safe, you can climb down now,’ said the face, ‘Would you like a -FINGERS-hand.’
‘I’m fine right where I am. Thank you for your consideration, but we are fine, really fine. Enjoying the view and that. No need for assistance at all. Good day.’
‘My name is Azimuth, and as your host, I feel obliged to make you welcome, which is hardly possible with you half way up a tree. Please come down, it’s utterly safe’
‘Are you sure’ said Dave
‘Oh yes, Skinner ants -BITE BITE BITE-never venture under the Waldorf trees and the Spanker grass pollen soon dissipates.’
‘Err, sorry to mention it, but are you all right?’ asked Dave.
‘Never -TASTY TASTY-better. Why do you ask?’
‘Dave, who is this and why are they shouting nonsense in a strange voice. Tourette’s syndrome?’ asked Fergus.
‘Well, you do keep shouting odd things,’ said Dave, ignoring Fergus’s unhelpful contribution.
‘What -FLAY THEM ALIVE-me? Oh ignore that, it’s just him. He usually gets excited when I have guests. He’ll calm down shortly. Would you care for a cup of tea? I understand you humans like it too. I have some excellent Darjeeling.’
‘That would lovely,’ said Dave ignoring Fergus’s slow headshakes, ‘we happen to have some fine Assam, a variety I consider suitable for the midmorning. Incidentally, do you know another way back to the main corridor?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. The only way to the main corridor, is across -NO NO NO - the Spanker grass, assuming you can make it and avoid getting skinned -OH THE HORROR-and through that pack of Snapjacks -CRUNCHY MUNCHY-.I would love to show you round. I’ve tried to add little, homely touches.’
‘How delightful. Come on Fergus, let’s grab a cuppa and perhaps you would like to share a biscuit or two?’
‘You have biscuits? How lovely to meet someone so well -BLOODY BOY SCOUT-prepared.’
Dave shinned down the tree and slung an arm around Fergus’s shoulders. He whispered confidentially.
‘Listen lad, we’re dealing with a seriously deranged personality here. I suggest we keep things calm until we get an opportunity to get back to the corridor. I reckon those Snapjacks will be fed up waiting after a few hours. Till then all sweetness and light. Just ignore the shouting.’
They followed the creature along a bare earth path that crossed a narrow strip of Spanker grass to the small lake.
‘You have to paddle in the lake for a bit, get the Skinner ant’s juice off your feet. That’s what -JUST ONE LITTLE BITE MOTHER-attracts them you know.
Dave and Fergus waded after the monster. There was a swirl in the water as something very large moved.
‘Oh don’t mind the alligators, they are well fed -FEED ME ME ME - on baboon. Azimuth pointed to nearby rocks, where a troop of baboons sat watching.
It all works rather well, what with the baboons -MOON JUNE SPOON-feeding off the Waldorf fruit and the alligators and lions living off the baboons. Shame about the grass and
the ants, but he put them in before I got here. He doesn’t care for visitors -KEEP THEM AWAY MOTHER-at all.
‘I love what you’ve done with the rocks, a nice Victorian folly feel to it.’
‘Well one does try. This is the path to my cave -MY LAIR YOU LIAR-. Mind your step and try not to tread on the snakes.’
They climbed up into the rocks, following a worn path. Fergus saw flashes of snake slither away either side of the path.
‘So how did you manage to transport so much earth down here to the cavern?’ asked Dave.
‘My dear chap, we didn’t bring it down, we brought it up from below.’
‘Must’ve taken some lugging through all those tunnels.’
‘Oh no, we brought it up the main access shaft, so much easier.’
‘Ah, so there is another exit?’ asked Dave.
‘Oh yes, but it doesn’t join up with the main corridor. All the access doors are sealed. I suppose you could go all the way to the bottom and across the machine floor that would get you back to the tunnel complex eventually. Would you like to see it? It’s impressive.’
‘That would be lovely,’ said Dave
They stepped off the path and headed around the side of the rocks. They walked across a field of high grass towards a huge opening carved into the side of the cavern.
‘Dave,’ said Fergus, ‘there’s lions over there. They’re stalking us, just like they do in those nature documentaries.’
‘Oh don’t worry about them,’ said Azimuth, ‘just don’t act like a baboon. Difficult for you I know, but try, it would be distressing to lose a guest.’
He turned round and gave a vast roar, the lionesses fled.
The tunnel was bigger than the main corridor. The floor was dusty and some of the overhead lights had failed. They went deeper into the tunnel and the light ahead became brighter.
They entered a huge circular room; it was the top of a massive hole, easily half a mile across, a double helix of roadways spiralling gently down. Each roadway brightly lit with an inner parapet three foot high, guarding against the huge drop.
They walked to the edge and looked down. The spiralling roadways went round, and round, ever deeper and seemed almost to meet. There was a small circle of light right in the centre.
