Mannerton slopped some of the spirit into a glass and gulped it down, wincing at its fire. “You could say that. Lupescu is an arrogant bastard. He and a handful of others like him form an enclave, a sort of secret society. They, and only they, have access to knowledge they share with no one. Unless it suits them. They treat people like me as muddlers, ignorant dabblers in the dark. No matter how qualified or experienced we are.”
Luke said nothing. But he knew that Mannerton had been at loggerheads with the established authorities on a number of antiquarian issues for years. Some of his theories had been ridiculed. It had certainly fuelled the fire of his irascibility.
“But he’s going to have to compromise now, by Christ! He already knows what I’ve found here. This isn’t something I’ve dreamed up. Not some far-fetched theory.”
Slowly Luke sat down. He could see that Mannerton was in a mood to spill more. “So what’s his background?”
Mannerton poured another drink. “His work on the earliest civilizations is acclaimed, although some of it is controversial. There isn’t a relevant site in the world that he doesn’t know like the back of his hand, or an ancient language he doesn’t read. Fluently. It’s uncanny.”
“He read that inscription – ”
Mannerton glared at him, fist tightening around the glass. “I knew he would. It’s why I need him. You’ve seen the walls in that tomb, under the desert. The glyphs, the writings. I can’t translate it without Lupescu, damn him. So what did he say?”
Luke shrugged. “Not much. Older than Atlantis, that was part of it. He wasn’t going to say a lot to me. I think he wanted me to think he was a crank. Gave me some spiel about lost gods and pre-human civilizations.”
Mannerton actually shuddered, but tried to pass it off as the night’s chill. “Yes, well, he would do that. It’s part of the way he and his cronies work. Sometimes it suits them to use that kind of thing to obfuscate what they’re really about.”
“And what is that, professor?”
Mannerton’s face clouded. “I have my suspicions. Something dark. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“My guess is, he knows who’s in that tomb.”
Mannerton just nodded, staring into the distance.
* * * * *
The small company came together at nine the following morning. Luke had slept unusually fitfully for him, his mind churning over with images of blood-drenched swords, toppling cities and grinning cosmic horrors. Buildings, twisted and contorted in the most bizarre forms, heaped upon each other, rose up from beds of molten lava and were sucked down again by monstrous tides. Humanity, or some grotesque variant on the theme, seethed among these horrors, swept aside by the enormity of the cataclysms. And behind it all, the serene face of the old man smiled casually.
That same old man, Lupescu, waited with his usual patience while Mannerton, Tensley and a few others came to him in the long hut.
Mannerton and the old man faced each other. There were no smiles, no handshakes. The old man pulled the sheet of vellum from the breast pocket of his suit, a suit that looked, amazingly, as though it had been neatly pressed an hour before.
“Well, Mannerton, it seems that you really have stumbled across something of interest this time,” he said softly, almost mockingly.
“Hardly stumbled,” retorted Mannerton through clenched teeth. Luke could see that he was containing his fury with difficulty. The very presence of the old man was anathema to him. All the more so because it was essential.
“You want to show me?”
Mannerton didn’t answer, instead turning to his companions and introducing them, explaining their status, though he knew the old man cared nothing for this. After the cursory exchange of pleasantries, Mannerton squared up to the old man again. “I want to make a few things clear. What we have found must be kept a close secret for the time being. You know as well as I do that every crank, every gold-digger on God’s Earth would descend on this place in five minutes if they knew about this.”
“Who else knows?” said the old man, and Luke felt the sudden steel in his voice, the hardness behind it.
Mannerton glanced at Luke. “No one. You alone, outside of those here.”
“That is for the best.”
“And until this business is resolved, you won’t be able to leave,” Mannerton added.
The old man also looked at Luke. “I’m sure your guards will ensure that I don’t make a bolt for it.”
Luke would have smiled at that, but there was a tension in the air that reminded him of the atmosphere before a battle. Beyond the huts and airstrip, the desert was very quiet, its storms dormant, as though it, too, focussed on the drama.
Mannerton led the party outside and along the rim of the encampment. There were a number of guards around the camp, watching, but only Luke went with the party to the dunes where the tombs had been found. As always, he had his gun with him. Down in the dunes waited a rectangular opening, its inner air choked with shadows. Last to enter it, Luke turned to look back at the desert. Like a great beast, it seemed to be listening avidly.
Inside the passageway, the air was oddly cold, though stale, the structure beyond having been sealed up for untold centuries. The party wound downwards along the sand-clogged passage, which seemed to spiral slowly and over a long distance to surprising depths. This was no ordinary tomb. Their lamps lit the way to a precarious ledge on to which they emerged.
The old man could see that they were standing high up near the rim of an immense dome, an edifice that had been completely buried over time. They had come into it, not through a doorway, but through a high window. Below them, obscured by shadow and heaped sand, the vastness of the interior spread out. The far wall of this stunning space was over a hundred yards away, the lamplight barely able to pick out its details. Scores of pillars rose up from the floor to support the upper structure, and among the dust and sand, blocks and stones leaned erratically.
“It’s the size of a palace,” said Mannerton. “But it’s a mausoleum. Each of the blocks below is a sarcophagus.” Although he spoke softly, his words carried to all members of the party.
“Have you opened any of them?” said the old man.
“All had been opened long before we came here.” By the lamplight it was possible to see now that each of the tombs had had its lid rudely removed and tossed aside. Some of them had crumbled or broken into pieces. “Those buried here, whoever they were, have long since been removed, their treasures taken.” It was a typical situation in the desert. Grave robbers were frequently at work mere years after even pharaohs had been buried.
“Do you know who they were?” the old man asked.
“Egyptians. All of them. Not royalty, though men of stature within their society. High-ranking officials. Their servants put these tombs here. But Egyptians did not build this mausoleum,” said Mannerton, with a cool certainty.
“Quite so,” the old man nodded. “It was here long before them. As was the tomb you have brought me here to see.”
Mannerton shot him a glance, but the old man ignored it. Instead they continued the long, spiral walk down the inside of the dome. Luke brought up the rear of the party: he had trodden this path before, and it never failed to raise the hackles on the back of his neck. It was like sinking down into a time pit, a remote period; it was also disturbingly like something out of last night’s disjointed dreams. There were ancient inscriptions and drawings on the walls, but most had been worn away or had faded to total obscurity. Even so, it was possible to glimpse strange, unique figures, depicted against a background of angled buildings, dizzying pillars. Since he had spoken to the old man, and more particularly, since his strange dreams, Luke read far more into these images. In this forgotten place, it was easy to give credence to their reality.
Down on the floor of the mausoleum, the old man studied the first of the desecrated tombs. They seemed t
o tell him little that he did not already know, or expect. He said nothing, nodding as he passed them. Mannerton led the party to a curious doorway at the far side of the area. This had puzzled Luke when he had first seen it: it was just tall enough to allow a man to walk upright beneath its portal, but it was at least a dozen feet wide. The old man paused before it, studying the inscription above it.
“You have read this?” he said to Mannerton.
“My limited knowledge of its tongue,” said the latter coldly, “tells me it is a warning.”
“It’s a sister tongue to that once spoken in Ib and Sarnath and in some parts of Kadath. Those who pass in, know that death is the guise of sleep and that which sleeps will wake at the appointed hour. Yes, a warning. Yet you have already survived your visits.”
Mannerton grunted something inaudible and led the way forward. The lamps seemed to dim a little as the party went through. Beyond, hewn, it seemed, from living desert bedrock, a great cavern yawned. Something far up in its invisible ceiling flapped away. Ahead of the group, a wide stairway dropped down to an oval floor. This had been swept clear of debris and sand, revealing slabs of fabulously preserved stone, inlaid with what could have been astrological designs, untouched over the millennia. But these drew the eye only for a moment, for, in the centre of the chamber, raised on a stone dais, the sarcophagus sat. Carved from black obsidian, shot through with zigzag grey lines, it dominated the place.
As Luke followed the party down the steps, each one three feet wide, he levelled his gun, as he had done when he had been here before. This place, more than anything else he had encountered in life, really did give him the creeps. The walls, some of which were beyond the light cast by the lamps, gave an impression of being alive, breathing, listening. If you tried to look into the concealing darkness for too long, you started to feel light-headed. He concentrated on the block of stone.
The old man stood below it, next to Mannerton. “Have you tried to open it?” he asked him, his voice barely above a whisper. But it carried in that awful space: everyone heard it clearly, almost as though thought had transferred itself.
“Not yet,” said Mannerton.
Luke listened to the exchange between the two men, who were more like priests in a holy sepulchre than archaeologists. He had been surprised at Mannerton’s unwillingness to open the sarcophagus once it had been found. Usually the archaeologists, careful or not, couldn’t wait to study their finds. They lived for it, after all. But the others in the party had been perfectly supportive of the professor. They were frightened of the thing. Luke had been told about the so-called curse on the tomb of Tutankhamun: there had been some weird deaths after its opening. So these guys were taking no chances. Fair enough. It’s how the soldier in him would have acted. And Mannerton had told him that they didn’t want to damage anything inadvertently.
“You know what this is,” the professor was saying now to the old man.
“I believe so. Alhazred spoke of the Nameless City, lost in the limitless Arabian deserts. And the Book of Eibon speaks of the tomb of the Fallen Bearer of the Star Gift. You know of these sources, Mannerton?”
The professor tensed, as though reluctant to answer, but he nodded. “I have been to the Miskatonic. I’ve read parts of the Arab’s works.”
“They go against everything you have been taught. Mad ravings. And yet, here is proof. The creatures that crawled and hopped through those forbidden cities were here. Long before man walked. The door we came through was made for other than human passage. You cannot deny that.”
If Luke expected Mannerton or any of the others to laugh or to pour scorn on the old man’s half-cracked comments, he was disappointed. They hung on every word now, ensnared by the soft voice and its outrageous revelations.
“Read the inscription – I know you can,” breathed Mannerton. It was a plea, not a command.
The old man stood at the foot of the sarcophagus. The pseudo-Arabic lettering that Luke had seen on the sheet of vellum the old man carried covered all but a few inches of the huge lid, some nine feet in length and four wide. The old man studied it for a few moments, his lips still. “It is the language of the Old Ones,” he said at last. “I dare not speak it aloud. If I do, it will open more than this stone.”
To his surprise, Luke could see a deep fear etched on the face of the old man now. Lupescu had been so calm, so perfectly relaxed, since the moment they had met in Cairo, that this sudden cold change shocked Luke.
Mannerton must have noticed it, but he pressed the old man to speak. “Who lies there?” he said, finger thrust out accusingly at the stone lid.
“That is not dead that can eternal lie– ”
“No more riddles!” Mannerton hissed. “Tell me, old man, or, by God, I’ll have the lid off anyway! I mean it!”
The old man actually backed away, as though a serpent had reared up in front of him. He was nodding. “You must take the utmost precautions first. The thing that sleeps within is itself protected by powers from beyond time’s dawn. They are not to be mocked. The lid speaks of these things. It speaks of the Star Gift and its Wielder. Locked away for eternity, for the safety of Order. Like others of the Old Ones, chained.” He was perspiring now, his words tumbling out of him, his dignified manner slipping.
Mannerton, on the other hand, was quick to snatch the initiative, seeing his great rival under unexpected duress. His temperament asserted itself. “Precautions? Such as? What must be done? I tell you, Lupescu, I mean to open this.”
The old man nodded, stepping back down from the dais. He looked around at the other members of the party. Apart from Luke, there were Tensley and four others, each of them accomplished men in their field. “How far will your people go? How dedicated are they?” His words made Luke feel suddenly chill, and he realised he had subconsciously trained the muzzle of the weapon on the old man.
“What the blazes are you talking about?” snarled Mannerton. “We’ll have none of your ravings here, Lupescu. Don’t think you can use charlatanism to fool us. Or scare us. It won’t work.”
“Very well. If this is the tomb of the Wielder of the Chaos Blade, it has been sealed by the Elder Gods. If it is opened, there will be a penalty. Servants of the Old Ones found that sarcophagus and brought it here from its original prison. But at a terrible cost to themselves. They thought they could open it and re-awaken the sleeper within. And they failed. They carved its inscription. Its terrible warning.”
It was Tensley’s voice that broke the awkward silence. “He’s mad!” He had spoken, as he thought, softly, but again the acoustics of that weird cavern amplified the words.
The old man had now reached the floor of the chamber and was very slowly moving away from the sarcophagus.
Mannerton glowered down at him from beside it. “No, I don’t think so. Just devious. Always the same. Well, Lupescu, it’s been a very impressive performance. And just what is this penalty? What sacrifice are we expected to make?”
The old man had reached Luke’s side. Luke had been too absorbed to realise, but he stepped back, his weapon still raised, his finger touching the edge of the trigger.
“You have scorned me, though you have envied me, down all these years,” the old man told Mannerton. “My reticence concerning the great esoteric secrets has earned your bitterness. Yet now, at last, when I speak of them, you deride them. You and others like you, like these would-be acolytes. Why should I pass on the knowledge of the ages to you? You, who would do little more than mock.”
“You prevaricate! What sacrifice?” Mannerton repeated.
“Your sanity. Your souls. Your essence throughout eternity.”
“Professor,” said another of the archaeologists. “This is beyond a joke. Can we just get on with this? Our time here is limited. Did you really have to drag him here to have us listen to this? You have a reputation to think of. We all have.”
Mannerton was conside
ring this, nodding slowly. “You go too far, Lupescu,” he said, far more quietly. “I don’t know what you are protecting, but it isn’t going to work.”
“As you wish.” The old man turned to Luke. “I am not going to wait here while they open it. You will have to shoot me to prevent me from leaving. But if you have any sense, young man, you will come with me.”
“Phillips!” Mannerton called. “Don’t let him out of your sight! You hear me? Lupescu, you’re not leaving the camp. I warn you, he will shoot you if you try to leave the camp.”
The old man was already climbing the steps back up to the elongated doorway. Luke followed him, glad to turn his back on the tomb and its unsettling atmosphere. The old man might be mad, but right now he seemed like a better prospect as far as company went.
* * * * *
In the cavern, Mannerton stood glaring at the retreating backs of the old man and the guard. To hell with Lupescu. He just wasn’t prepared to share this, had to do it his way.
“Come on,” said Mannerton to the others. “We should have done this days ago.”
Eagerly, the others rushed up to join him at the top of the dais. Four of them each took a corner of the great stone lid, Mannerton and Tensley at either end. At a nod from their leader, they all heaved and strained. At first it seemed as though their efforts would be in vain, but something cracked under the lid, and a small cloud of dust puffed out from one side. They redoubled their efforts and felt the lid shift. A third heave and it began to slide across, until, at length, after several more concerted jerks, the lid toppled. They tried to let it slide to the top of the dais, but its massive weight scorned their efforts. It tumbled off the dais and down on to the polished floor with a resonating crash. Yet it showed no sign of a crack, no hint of breaking.
Mannerton was first to peer through the dust clouds within the sarcophagus that swirled like mist on a pond. The others drew back, looking within tentatively. Gradually the dust settled. And as one, the members of the party gasped at what had been revealed within. They had none of them been prepared for this.
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