Deeper.
The very thought of it filled me with dread.
My dread weighed heavier on me the further we descended. The shelf proved to be as vertiginous as I had feared but was only ten yards deep, so that I was able to get to the bottom before I had time to get too worried.
“We’re almost there,” Tom said as my feet touched the ground, but his idea of “almost” and my own were obviously two different concepts, as we kept going down in the dark for another twenty minutes. The thudding of the colliery pump had been our constant companion since our rest on the shelf, and the noise did indeed seem even louder than before. I almost didn’t notice when it was joined by an answering beat, not quite in rhythm but just as insistent. The source of this one proved easier to pinpoint.
It came from somewhere far below.
This new development had the added effect of dispelling Challenger’s good humor for, although he was obviously excited at the prospect of exploration and discovery, there was something in the timbre of this new drumming that seemed threatening and oppressive.
Young Tom shrugged off our concerns.
“I can take you back up right now, if you’d rather?” he said.
I knew Challenger well enough to know that he’d never take the lad up on any such offer.
“We’ve come this far,” the Professor said. “I would never forgive myself if I turned back now. Lay on, MacDuff, and don’t spare the horses.”
We kept going down.
At a point where the incessant drumming almost had me screaming for mercy, Tom finally brought our descent to a halt. “We’re here,” he said softly. “Put out your lights. You won’t need them.”
It sounded like a dashed bad idea to me, but Challenger immediately extinguished his lamp. Tom did likewise, and I had little choice but to follow suit. I was astonished to find I was still able to see old Challenger’s face, dim but clearly visible in a soft blue shimmering light. We left the lamps on a rocky shelf and followed young Tom round an outcrop. There we found the source of the blue shimmer.
It took my breath away.
We stood on the shore of a vast underground lake that stretched away from us to a distant horizon. The blue light came from the water itself, from a form of bioluminescent algae that wafted and surged just under the surface. Directly ahead of us, right on the edge of the lake, stood what I took to be a shrine of sorts. I was amazed on approaching it to see it was a worn-down Christian cross, in the style of the early Pictish stones that can be found up and down the coast in these parts. I was so taken by this out-of-place object that I didn’t notice that we had also found the source of the drumming. It took Challenger to point that out to me.
The sound came from the left-hand side of the lake, some quarter of a mile distant. Pale figures worked a rock face, and we were just close enough to see them raise tools and smash them, hard, in unison, against the cliff. At the same time a distant chanting, harsh and repetitive, carried over the water to us. It was impossible to make out any words apart from one, a loud shout at the end of every line. It sounded like a name, and also an entreaty for help.
Dagon.
“You didn’t tell us there were miners down here,” I said, turning to young Tom.
He was nowhere to be seen. I heard a soft splash somewhere nearby but apart from that Challenger and myself were quite alone.
“I don’t think they’re miners,” Challenger said softly. “At least not like the ones we met yesterday.”
I had a closer look at the figures on the shore and after a minute or two, I saw what the Professor meant. They did not move like men at work, but rather like animals, predators, on the prowl, all languid motion and strength. And now that I had spent some time looking in that direction I realized that my earlier sense of perspective had been skewed. If these figures had been men, they would all be over seven feet tall.
“There’s something not right about this, Challenger,” I said, and he laughed softly.
“I fear you may be correct in that assumption. It appears we have been led into a trap, and one largely of our own devising.”
Even as he spoke I saw a figure pull itself out of the water on the far shore and address the working “miners”. Six of them downed tools and leapt into the lake. It became immediately apparent that they had only one thought in mind. They swam, fast as salmon at spawning time, heading straight toward the shore where we stood.
“I think it is time to head back up,” I said. Thankfully Challenger concurred, and we turned back into the gully from whence we had come.
We ran for a good ten minutes, not stopping, nerves jangling, until we reached the shelf where we had made the rappel down the cliff face. Only then did we stop and listen. All was quiet—for now.
“What about young Tom?” I asked, as we approached the rope that thankfully still hung down the cliff that loomed above us.
“I am no longer sure there even is such a person,” Challenger said, indicating that I should go first on the ascent. “Are you?”
I had little time to consider the question, having to apply all my attention to the climb that proved to be a great deal harder going up than coming down. My arms felt as if they were loosening in their sockets as I finally pulled myself up onto the ledge. I took a lamp from my pack, lit it, and looked down. I saw Challenger’s face, pale in the dim light, looking up at me as he started to climb. I heard his breathing, heavy with exertion. And I also heard something else; an insistent drumming from the shores of the lake beyond, and the repeated chant, one word shouted forcibly and insistent.
Dagon.
Dagon.
“Get a move on, old chap,” I said. “I think some urgency might be required.”
He hauled himself up using a combination of his brute strength and will power, his teeth gritted and muscles straining against the fabric of his jacket. He had just hauled himself over onto the shelf when I heard the padding of wet feet on rock. We looked down … and found seven pairs of pale eyes staring up at us.
Challenger had more presence of mind than I. He pulled up the rope, hand over fist, as fast as he was able. One of the creatures—I cannot in all honesty call them men—leapt for the dangling end, but thankfully fell just short of catching hold. I finally got a good look at what faced us.
As I have said, they stood over seven feet tall, naked as the day they were born, lean and sleek, as if built specifically for swimming. They were anthropoid, standing on two legs, but their arms seemed too long in comparison to their torsos, and the webbing between their digits on hands and feet was pronounced. However, it was something in their faces that showed how far they were from kinship with us; the eyes looked up, unblinking, each as round and large as a guinea-piece. There was no nose to speak of, and the mouth was thin-lipped, little more than a gash stretched across the lower part of their features. As they breathed, their mouths gaped, showing twin rows of finely pointed teeth in each jaw. I may have been imagining it in my funk, but there seemed to be naked hatred in those faces that looked up at us.
Two of them put their hands on the rock face and started to climb. Challenger quickly put paid to that. He hefted a rock, one that I might not have even been able to get off the ground, lifted it over his head and with a bellow threw it down atop our attackers. They fled just in time, scattering in the darkness just as the boulder hit the ground with a crash that echoed around us.
“We should flee,” I said.
Challenger stood looking down the cliff. “They would be at our backs in seconds,” he said softly.
“Then we appear to be at an impasse?”
“Perhaps. How much oil do you have in your pack?”
I did not grasp his intention at first, until he took a lamp from his own pack and started to pour the contents on and over the ledge.
“Keep one lamp for the trip ahead,” he said. “And pour the rest out as I have done.”
I did as I was asked, and just in time, for, looking down, I saw the seven figures gatheri
ng again in the gloom below.
Challenger took out a matchbox. He looked grim. “I wish to blazes these things were willing to talk to us,” he said, just as I finished pouring what little oil I had remaining. “It goes against every fiber of my being to have to do this.”
Three of our attackers started to climb, coming up the cliff fast, their mouths gaping in grotesque smiles.
“Stand back, old boy,” Challenger said. “And get ready to run.”
He lit the match and dropped it in the oil at the edge of the shelf. Flames went up with a whoosh, a sheet of fire running down the cliff. I had already turned toward our escape route, so did not see the damage it wrought.
But the screams and squeals told me everything I needed to know.
With a single oil lamp remaining to light our way, Challenger and I continued our nightmarish ascent.
It would be unfair to say it was a headlong rush, as we were well aware of the need to be circumspect on the more severe gradients, and of the fragile nature of our only source of light. Even so, we moved faster than we should have done in such perilous circumstances, and it was only pure luck that kept either one of us from taking a tumble and risking a broken ankle or arm.
We made a good pace at first, Challenger led, holding the oil lamp ahead of him, and I brought up the rear, sometimes having to peer in the gloom to find the light to follow him. All the while I was fearful of an attack from behind, listening for the pad of feet on rock and looking nervously over my shoulder, fearing at each turn to see pairs of hungry eyes stare back at me.
And so it went, for what seemed like an age but was little more than half an hour, until fatigue started to take its toll.
“I can’t go on much longer without a rest, old bean,” I said between gasps, forcing myself up a steep incline where the tunnel narrowed and the pack on my back scraped on the rock on either side.
“Two minutes,” Challenger replied. “I feel fresher air in my face coming from up ahead. If I remember rightly, there is a chamber where we can defend our rear and rest at the same time.”
He was proved correct seconds later. We climbed out into a wider area. Our route upward seemed obvious, given that the fresher air the Professor had mentioned came directly from the leftmost exit passage. But we were both too tired to take that route just yet.
Challenger stood by the mouth of the passage we had just exited, his bulk filling the space. Anything that wanted to come up that way was going to have to come through him, and given the grim look on his face, my money was on the Professor prevailing in such a fight.
“Have you got a smoke, old man?” he said, as casually as if we were meeting over a beer in the George. “I seem to have misplaced my cheroots.”
I discovered a bashed packet of Players in my pocket, and we were soon happily lit up. I stood next to Challenger, staring into the darkness we had so recently climbed out of. I heard the drums in the deep once more, and the far-off accompanying chant,
Dagon!
Dagon.
“What do you think they want?” I asked.
“If you pass me a smoke, I’ll tell you,” a voice said. Young Tom climbed up out of the dark, dripping wet and stark naked.
I was so astonished I almost forgot to breathe, even more so when I saw that his features, his whole frame, seemed to be in turmoil, restructuring itself from within until the eyes had retreated from the round, guinea size to something approaching normal. His mouth narrowed and thickened. His torso compacted, bulking out and at the same time bringing his height down to what it had appeared to be previously.
He held up a hand, as if to apologize.
“I promise you,” he said. “I have come alone.”
“Pardon me if I do not take your word on that, young sir,” Challenger said. He let the lad pass into the open chamber, then moved again to block the passageway. “Say your piece, but be aware, if you attempt any more subterfuge, I shall have no hesitation in killing you right here.”
Knowing Challenger as I did, I was able to see that this performance was mostly bravado. His eyes, indeed his whole demeanor, told a different story. He was excited by this latest turn of events, even eager to hear what the lad might say. As for myself, I found it slightly discomforting to be so deep underground, in mortal peril, having a polite conversation with a naked man. Any such discomfort was quickly forgotten however, and I found myself becoming interested in the story that unfolded.
“None of us know the beginning,” the lad started. “Tales are told of a flight from religious persecution, and older tales are muttered, of dark rituals beneath Roman idols. We are here, that is all we know. And until recently we have lived in relative harmony with the people up and down the coast. Indeed, I told the truth earlier today. I am Ted’s grandson. It’s just that you would not recognize Grandma quite so readily in the Smuggler’s Tavern.”
“You might have told us earlier,” Challenger said.
The lad interrupted him.
“I wouldn’t have been believed. You had to see for yourself. You must believe me … we meant you no harm.”
I laughed at that.
“It’s true,” the boy said. “We were merely going to hold you for a time, hostages against our fate. You see, we have to get that mine closed down. Every day it encroaches closer to our places. The last flood in the new shaft killed a dozen of us. If they stay on their current course, they will break through to the lake you so recently visited. You saw us at work trying to shore up the rock face. It is close to being breached. And when that happens, all will be lost. We, our history, all there is of us, will be gone.”
“You should have told me earlier,” Challenger said again, softly. I saw that the lad’s obvious sincerity had reached him. “Just let us go in peace, and I promise you I will do everything in my power to see that work is stopped up above.”
The lad put out a hand. I saw there was a long burn along the left side, from pinkie to wrist, red and inflamed. Challenger shook the proffered hand.
“If you’re successful, you are welcome to return. We have much to show you,” the boy said. And with that, he started to change, his features flowing and melting. The thing that went back down into the deeps bore little resemblance to the lad we had talked to, but it gave one last wave as it went, and the red burn mark was still clearly visible.
Our ascent after that proved simpler than I could have hoped and we emerged, blinking, into late afternoon sun. Challenger wasted no time. He headed up the cliff at a run and made straight for the colliery, with me tagging along like a pet dog several yards behind.
Much to my surprise, we were allowed through at the gate. The crowds of the previous day had long since dispersed, and the place seemed to be a hive of industrious activity. It did not take us long to find the colliery manager. Unfortunately it took even less time to find him obdurate and unflinching in his desire to see the new shaft completed.
“I’ll take this to the highest level of government if I have to,” Challenger said.
“It’s too late for that,” the manager replied, and smiled. “We put new charges in this morning. They’ll be going off any second now.”
I had to restrain Challenger from making any attempt to go down the shaft.
“It takes more than an hour to reach the end of the tunnel,” the colliery manager said. “You’d be dead long before you got close.”
We stood there, staring at the water gushing from the pumps, listening to the throbbing engines and waited, powerless to prevent whatever was coming. The charges went off minutes later, somewhat anticlimactically, as all we heard was a soft thump. A minute after that the water surged in the pump slurry, and the engines whined as if under severe pressure. A wave of dark water ran out of the slurry outlet, and my heart sank at the thought of what might be happening far below.
Minutes later a shout came from where the slurry emptied out through a grate. We went with the colliery manager to check on what was happening, and I immediately knew that the wors
t had indeed taken place, for there, amid the mud and gravel, lay the torn remains of the tall gray creatures. The water roiled and tumbled and more remains came up from the deep. The last thing I saw before I had to turn away and retch was a hand, roughly torn from the wrist, the red burn along its outside edge clearly visible.
There is little left to tell. The mine is still operating; with a war seemingly imminent, there is little chance of it closing any time soon. McGuire read my story, and immediately filed it under Unprintable. That might have taken a different turn, had Challenger and I been able to descend to the depths once more and get to the bottom of the matter.
On the day after the gruesome events at the colliery, we went back down to the quiet cove in the cliffs, and tried to reach the downward passages to the land beneath. But all we found in the caves were deep pools of dark water. It looked like the whole underground system was completely flooded.
We stood there for a long time, listening, hoping to hear the drums in the deep. But there was only the thud of the colliery pumps, and any chanting I may have heard accompanying it was surely just in my own imagination.
The Cornish Owlman
The last time I saw Challenger before the war took over all our lives was in the late autumn of 1914. My basic training had run its course, and we were prepared to ship out to France the next week. I had a weekend pass, five pounds, and orders to enjoy myself while I still could. I walked the five miles from the camp to the rural railway station in heavy drizzle that did nothing to raise my spirits. I planned to head for London and lose myself in a chain of bars for a while.
Challenger had other ideas.
I stood on the eastbound platform, cupping a smoke, military style, against the elements. A voice I knew immediately bellowed out.
“You’re going the wrong way, old boy. Come over here and I’ll tell you why.”
Professor Challenger: The Kew Growths and Other Stories Page 12
