Worlds of Cthulhu

by Robert M. Price

  At any rate, it had caused a stir when Mannerton had found it. The only reason that Luke knew about it was that he had been at the professor’s shoulder when the seals had been broken on the uncovered chamber. Mannerton was superstitious: he saw ghosts, djinns, whatever, round every dune, or down every pit. Luke believed in more solid enemies, his faith embedded in the weapons he carried. As the chamber had revealed itself, only a cloud of dust had exhaled from it. But they had been wearing masks. The gun hadn’t been necessary, and Luke had slipped into the background shadows as Mannerton eagerly began his exploration of the chamber and the sand-choked maze within.

  “Not a word to a soul about this, Phillips,” Mannerton had told him, when the huge stone block that was the sarcophagus had been exposed, its heaped dust shrouds scooped away. Later, when the exasperated professor had run out of invective and curses, unable to translate the carved writing on the lid, he had given Phillips a revised instruction. “I need you to fly to Cairo. Take this.” It was a sealed envelope. “It’s vital that you give it to Claverton and no one else. Absolutely no one must see this. Under no circumstances are you to open it. Make no mistake, Phillips, there are people out there who would kill for this, if they knew what it was. That’s why I’m sending you.” Luke was under no illusions. He was here as a private soldier.

  He’d met Claverton, the go-between, as planned, in a suitably low-key bar in Cairo. The pale, wraith-like Englishman slipped the envelope into his suit, coughed as though about to induce heart failure, and sloped off into the shadows. But he must have done his job: a week later Luke had been sent back to Cairo to meet the old man who was now sitting beside him. Luke would have guessed him to be in his late seventies, maybe older. Although he was a little less than five and a half feet tall, there was an energy about him, a vitality belied by his calmness. He spoke with an accent that Luke assumed to be mid-European, although his narrow face had more than a hint of the Orient about it.

  The envelope had been for him, and the creased sheet he was now looking at had been its contents. Luke recognised the writing as that on the lid of the unearthed sarcophagus. Glancing at it again, it struck him that there was something freakish about it. His brief course in archaeology and related topics had taught him a little about hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and other ancient forms of writing. He’d guessed this to be a form of Arabic, but then, out here, deep in the lost wastes of the Sahara, in what was otherwise an Egyptian tomb, how could that be?

  “Is it Arabic?” Luke said aloud to the old man.

  The other shook his head. “This pre-dates it by centuries, though it is something of a forerunner.”

  Luke frowned. “Centuries? I didn’t think there was any writing that old.”

  The old man smiled cryptically. “Strange that a man like you should know that. But yes, you are right. It is no ordinary writing. Unique. There are very few records of it. And they are among the most secret works known to man. Legend has it that this writing was first set down by a civilization that predates Egypt, Sumer or any other early one you care to name. Pre-Atlantean, even.”

  Luke snorted. “Isn’t that a bit fanciful? Mannerton would think you had a screw loose if you told him that.”

  “You think so? But, after all, it’s why I am here.”

  Luke decided not to press the point. “So what does it say?” he asked, though not really expecting an answer.

  But the old man tapped the window again. “In part it refers to something it calls the Sky Gift.”

  “A meteor?”

  “If you like. I have read something of the history of that sarcophagus, which itself has been lost to man for an aeon. In those histories, there are tales of dark gods who ruled the stars long before the birth of our solar system. Utterly alien, with powers and dreams outside anything humanly conceivable, they have existed, fought, created, enslaved, and been imprisoned in dimensions outside of time and space. Some, the worst of them, diabolically evil, have touched our own world. Some ancient cults hold that they actually spawned man.”

  Again Luke snorted. “This is the Von Däniken theory of evolution?”

  The old man merely smiled indulgently. “He is mainly regarded as a charlatan these days, a very rich charlatan, mind you. But there may be some elements of truth in what he writes about. The secret histories all refer to visitations. The Old Ones, as these renegade dark gods are referred to, have infected this world. In most cases, shall we say, spiritually, commonly through the medium of dreams. But physically, too. The Star Gift fell from the skies, flung here, if we are to believe the histories, by that outer darkness. As a dog shakes off a flea.

  “It fell into the ocean and sank into primordial ooze. There it cooled, its molten metals solidifying within its shell. Long ages passed. Life rose from the mire, cities came and went. Cities whose structures and architecture would have seemed insane to men of our time. And the things that hopped and crawled through those twisted streets would have had more the look of remote alien worlds to us than of this one.”

  Luke listened silently, his expression blank. The old guy had flipped, or he was having a joke at Luke’s expense. Still, there was no doubting his imagination. And there was still a long way to go to the site. It was one way to pass the time.

  “As the earth heaved, twisted by eruptions and cataclysms, the Star Gift fetched up on the shore of an island kingdom. Its people dragged it into their city and named it, saying it had come down from the blasphemous gods they worshipped. Their smiths worked the metals; they forged them in blood on sacrificial altars, for they were at war. Servants of a nameless Old One, his very spawn, they were set to infest the world, like a great plague spreading across it. They would bring all life forms under their sway and pervert them to their own evolutionary path. All in the name of their vile god.”

  The old man paused. He looked across at Luke. “All this is recorded in these secret texts. From time to time, fragments of the texts have emerged. In some cases, new volumes have been written, drawing from the original texts. But they have been destroyed, suppressed or ridiculed.”

  Luke shrugged. “I can see why. Are you saying you believe all this stuff?”

  Again the old man smiled. “I am only telling you what I have read. I am a seeker after truth, knowledge. The histories may well be the fantastical imaginings of various lunatic cults. You would think so, given their extraordinary nature. One would have to question some of the works of Abdul Alhazred, to whom the Necronomicon is ascribed. He died a raving madman, but did he write his works because he was mad, or did what he knew turn him mad? It is easy to dilute the unthinkable by making it appear ridiculous. He who is not taken seriously can never be seen to be a threat.”

  “So there may be something in all this?”

  “I believe it is possible. It is a puzzle, and men like Mannerton and myself will always seek to unravel its message.”

  “And the Star Gift? What do these histories say became of it?”

  “Something that should interest a man like you.” It was the second time the old man had used the expression. But he clarified his comment. “You are a man of arms. You carry two highly dangerous weapons on your person. And I am aware that there are other weapons on board.”

  Luke chuckled. “Goes with the job. Security.”

  “Don’t mistake me, I approve. It is only the nature of the weapons that has changed over the centuries. The metal in the Star Gift was used to forge weapons. Mostly swords and knives. Enough to equip an army that planned to swarm across the surface of a world. Weapons that were infinitely superior to any others used at the time. But there was one other weapon, one specific sword, created above all the rest. A blade that could be wielded only by a demi-god, a demon lord who would lead the unholy war in the name of his grim masters. The histories call it the Chaos Blade.”

  In spite of himself, Luke was intrigued. Almost subconsciously he repeated the name.
<
br />   “The secret to the power and efficiency of a good blade—” the old man began.

  “Is how you temper it,” said Luke, imagining some vast, prehistoric forge, in which this huge sword was being beaten, heated and cooled.

  “Quite so. But the Chaos Blade was the gift of the Old Ones. And to cool it, to finish and ready it, the smiths did not use water, or even blood. They used the vital juices of another god, one their masters had subdued and imprisoned, deep under the earth. In that nethermost pit, time and again they plunged the Chaos Blade into the vitals of the god, until its life had been expended and the weapon was complete. The dark champion took up the blade, and the wars of madness began. In the hands of the demonic champion, the Chaos Blade swept whole legions aside. Cities fell, nations sank beneath the boiling oceans. Sword and champion were as one, a living entity, a black god incarnate. But which was the instrument, which the architect?

  “Does this sound familiar?” the old man said, breaking his narrative.

  “Sword legends run down through history–“

  “Indeed. Echoes, perhaps, from the ravages of the Chaos Blade.”

  “So what happened to it?”

  “The wars fought by its champion spanned the primeval earth. The forces embroiled in the conflict were colossal, not merely confined to the crawling hordes newly birthed from the primal soup. Gradually the Old Ones themselves were drawn into the nightmare, for it was their tool, their modus operandi. What passed for man in those days could never have withstood the power of the Chaos Blade, not even if a million had risen against it. So the enemies of the Old Ones aided man. Another dimension was added to the eternal cosmic war, as god fought god. As they do still.

  “The sword and its demonic bearer had to be prised apart. Only this would render the Chaos Blade powerless, for none other could wield it without being destroyed.”

  “Like trying to grip a live terminal, a million volts or something.”

  “A perfectly adequate analogy. Yes. Thus the warring gods bent their efforts to the task and, in time, it was done. The Chaos Blade was wrenched from its master in an upheaval that shook the very roots of the world. All the minor weapons were destroyed, none surviving. The Chaos Blade was shut away, locked up on a remote plateau, as far from the eyes and mind of man as possible. And he who had wielded it, the crazed demi-god, the very hand of the Old Ones, was entombed.”

  “Killed?”

  “The histories are not clear. They say that ‘his powers were made impotent’ and that he was ‘made as other men.’ He was entombed and walled up ‘in a place as remote as that which housed the Chaos Blade’ and which was ‘at the opposite ends of the Earth, that they were sundered for all time.’ And all this before known history began. Before the first recorded city. As I said, before even Atlantis.

  “But the saga of the Blade was far from over. Although it and the Wielder had been thrust from the light of the stars, perhaps beneath the Antarctic wastes, or down in the vaults below the forbidden Plateau of Kangarsk, or even under haunted Leng itself, the greed of man always sought out these riches. The awful Chaos Blade was found. They knew it in Ur and Akkad, where its very presence brought bloody ruin, though no hand of man ever lifted it. It lured other-than-man to it, for its twisted servants rose up from the swamplands, slaves to its siren call. The horrors that were ever drawn to it brewed war after war. Even motionless, untouched, it could hypnotise nations, direct their destinies.

  “The histories tell of a Great Flood, just as the Bible does and just as the Epic of Gilgamesh tells of it. After this, there is no further written word of the Chaos Blade, nor of the one who carried it. Perhaps the Elder Gods sent the flood to wash them both away from human eyes altogether. Though man has not ceased in his search.”

  Luke used the sudden silence to interrupt the strange flow of words. “So you are saying that the sarcophagus Mannerton has found is part of this myth?”

  The old man lifted the sheet of paper. “These words imply as much.”

  “What do they say?”

  “I would rather not speak them aloud, even in translation. The tongue of the Old Ones releases powers you could not begin to understand. But in essence they speak of a resting place, of a timeless power, of one that sleeps, undying.”

  “So it’ll be the bones of the mad crusader, the guy who carried the Chaos Blade? Is that what you think?”

  “Something like that, yes. The writing, the script, could not possibly be referring to an Egyptian pharaoh, or any other known type of burial.”

  “Does Mannerton know this? What he’s actually dealing with?”

  “Partly. I doubt if he is aware of the enormity of what he has found. He is far too practical a man, too traditional, fully to accept all this nonsense about prediluvian legends. I am sure,” the old man went on, smiling to himself, “that he will convince himself that there are saner explanations. What do you think?”

  “I’m not paid to think,” Luke grinned. But as the monotonous flight wore on, he was able to do little else but think, imagining a mummified figure lying under the lid of the tomb, possibly encased in armour. A demon lord? Mannerton might be a traditionalist, but in spite of what the old man had said, the professor was superstitious. Scared at any rate. Yes, that was it. Mannerton was afraid of what was in the block of stone. Maybe he’d find it easier to accept this than the old man reckoned.

  * * * * *

  It was hours past midnight, deep into the desert night, when the plane dropped down to the makeshift airstrip and buffeted to a halt in a mild sandstorm. Overhead, the brilliant stars were shrouded by the billowing drifts. Luke escorted the old man to the cluster of buildings at the edge of the strip, both ducking down to shield themselves from the numbing wind, which was surprisingly cold. Inside the first long hut, which was reminiscent of a Second World War Desert Rat base, the old man looked around calmly, apparently none the worse for the gruelling flight.

  One of Mannerton’s colleagues, Tensley, was waiting, thrusting out his hand to pump the old man’s vigorously, as though meeting a long-admired celebrity. Luke looked around for Mannerton himself, but there was no one else present. The place seemed to be deserted.

  “Good to have you here, sir. We’ve got somewhere for you to bed down and to freshen up,” Tensley told the old man. “It’s no palace, but you’re probably used to that.” He indicated some doors off at the end of the hut.

  The old man picked up his light case and merely nodded, his air of calmness unruffled.

  Tensley turned nervously to Luke. “We’ll be called together in the morning. About nine.” A sheen of perspiration gleamed across his face in the lamplight. He led the old man away, muttering platitudes about how he must be tired and wanting sleep.

  Luke waited until they had gone through the doors and then went back outside, crossed the sand-swept compound and entered another long hut. Two of the security guards were sitting on oil drums, makeshift seats, playing cards. They looked up, acknowledging him with brief nods.

  Luke unslung the automatic rifle and pack he had brought from the plane, went over to another oil drum and scooped out water, splashing it over his face. He’d forgotten how the damn sand got everywhere. The trip out had been a brief respite.

  “Mannerton wants to see you,” one of the others called.

  “Now? At three in the morning?”

  The others grinned. “That’s what the prof said. Tell you the truth, we didn’t expect to see you back. We’ve all had it with this sodding desert. Reckon we’ve earned enough.”

  Luke swore under his breath but picked up his gun and left. In another hut he found Mannerton poring over a scattered collection of maps, charts and old volumes. He spent half his life buried in their mysteries. Luke waited until he looked up.

  “Ah, Phillips. Good trip?”

  “The old guy’s here, in one piece. Tensley’s sorting him out. Toug
h old bird.”

  “Any problems?”

  Luke shook his head.

  “Cairo all right?”

  “If you mean, were we watched, I’d say probably not. But I couldn’t guarantee it. Biggest rat-hole this side of Bombay.”

  Mannerton leaned back, rubbing at his eyes. He was in his sixties, his red face blotched by the sun, his white beard straggling on to his chest. Unlike the old man’s, his eyes looked tired, face deeply creased, his unkempt white mane of hair thinning.

  “So who is he?” said Luke. “Does he have a name?” So far, he had been given only a description of the old man, enough to single him out in Cairo.

  “He’s Taras Lupescu. He has as many doctorates as I’ve got teeth,” said Mannerton, though he seemed to be more irritated than amused. “We’re old adversaries. He sees me as just another grubber in the dirt, if the truth were known. You want a drink?”

  Luke noticed the whisky bottle. Mannerton usually drank sparingly, but it looked as though he’d had more than a few shots tonight. Luke shook his head. “I’ll just kip down for a few hours, if you don’t mind. So the old man and you go back a ways?”