The Eyes of the Mountain by S. E. Straatveit
Chapter One
“In the days before I became
Vizier, I served Pharaoh as a soldier - leading his armies on campaigns in the
South. One such campaign was against a province of Nubia
- The Chronicles of Zamonth
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal
Entry
Tuesday September 28, 1926
Today I have returned to Chicago
and the Haskell Oriental
Museum from my expedition and
wanderings in Egypt these
last several years under the auspices of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Upon arriving at my office at the Museum, I discovered a
great deal of the usual correspondence awaiting me, but one item in particular,
a telegram, caught my eye.
The telegram was from my old friend and colleague, Doctor
Tate Alexander, who was currently surveying the cultures of the indigenous
peoples of the Mohave Desert in Southern California’s San Bernardino County
The telegram read:
DR TATE ALEXANDER B. A. E.
KELSO CAL
DR OSCAR FRANKLIN
5836 S GREENWOOD
AVE CHICAGO ILL
SURVEYED ABANDONED SILVER
MINE NEAR REMAINS OF PROVIDENCE
Dr. Alexander is an old childhood friend and I’ve had the
good fortune to run into him on occasion at our anthropological conferences.
I’ve not seen him in a good four years; the last time was in ’22, just before I
left for Egypt Egypt
I’m sure some of my Trans-Atlantic missives to Dr.
Alexander had gone unread for some time, waiting for him at the Smithsonian far
longer than this recent message from him to me. Like Harrington, Dr. Alexander
frequently forgets to update the Institution with his current whereabouts in
the field and they often have to hold a hefty pile of correspondence for him
until he provides his new location.
After finishing the telegram, I scanned thorough the pile
of mail and parcels on my desk again, and discovered that I did indeed have
another telegram from Dr. Alexander there buried among the other items.
The second telegram said:
DR TATE ALEXANDER B. A. E.
KELSO CAL
DR OSCAR FRANKLIN
5836 S GREENWOOD
AVE CHICAGO ILL
FURTHER EXCAVATED SIDE
TUNNEL. DISCOVERED CAVE PAINTINGS TODAY. PAINTINGS SHOW DESERT WARRIORS
FIGHTING WHAT APPEAR TO BE WALKING LIZARDS UNDER THE FULL MOON. NATIVE GUIDE
LEFT MY EMPLOY. CLAIMS WE WILL DISTURB SHE-WHO-LIES-BENEATH. WILL PRESS ON
WITHOUT GUIDE. MORE SOON.
I thought this last bit of this telegram a trifle strange
because it was unlike Dr. Alexander to go on without a local guide; something
that we both believe is of the utmost importance to any expedition. But as a
fellow excitable explorer, I can understand that drive to continue once you’ve
begun to unearth something interesting. And these cave paintings he describes
do certainly sound curiosity provoking.
I will await further updates from Dr. Alexander on his
desert discoveries with bated breath, but for now I must do my job and examine
this strange Egyptian statue that has recently arrived at the Museum in a
shipment from the Oriental Institute’s expedition to the Hittite regions.
My own reptile enigma beckons. This statue is rare enough
in that Egyptian relics have never before been recovered from this region. Our
team has discovered new evidence of previously unknown ancient cultural
exchange, possibly due to a local cult or religion.
The statue does look similar to the ones of the Nile god
Sobek that I recently uncovered in Egypt, but the snout of the crocodile’s head
(if this is indeed Sobek) is the shortest and most truncated design that I’ve
yet come across.
Inscriptions near the base of the statue are scratched and
damaged, but I will attempt to translate them once I can identify all of the
characters.
Until next time, O Diary.
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal
Entry
Friday October 1, 1926
Still haven’t cracked the inscription on the mysterious
statue, but I did receive the most bizarre telegram yet from Dr. Alexander and
I am now worried for his health and safety.
The new telegram went:
KELSO CAL
DR OSCAR FRANKLIN
5836 S GREENWOOD
AVE CHICAGO ILL
HAVE GONE DEEPER INTO CAVES.
NATIVE TOOLS AND FIRE PITS IN EVIDENCE. CAVE PAINTINGS INCREASINGLY BIZARRE IN
SUBJECT MATTER AND EXECUTION. DISCOVERED NATURAL LIMESTONE CAVE CHAPEL ADORNED
WITH IMAGES OF THE MOON RISING HIGH OVER A BLACK PYRAMID-SHAPED
MOUNTAIN
DR TATE ALEXANDER B. A. E.
This telegram has me worried. I know Dr. Alexander is
always cautious not to upset local traditions, but I fear the loss of his guide
has made him rather rash in his continued activities on the mountain.
I hope that he will remain safe in his work and not take
unnecessary risks in the quest to discover something in the desert.
I must return to my translations, but I will be thinking of
Dr. Alexander and hoping that Providence above
might guide him in his Providence
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal
Entry
Saturday October 2, 1926
(Morning)
Did not sleep a wink last night as I was troubled by
strange and terrible dreams; dunes and obelisks from the sands of Egypt
It was night in this dream desert. I stumbled through
shifting sands by the light of a full moon. A hound of some kind howled in the
distance and then I noticed a snake crossing over my foot. I turned and ran
into the desert, heedless of direction, desperate to escape the snake that had
awoken a primordial fear within me.
The dream then jumped time, as dreams do, and I was still
running through the desert, but now I was being led by a dark-haired woman that
was silent and sure-footed along the dangerous terrain.
We ran together, hand in hand, to the summit of a
mountain-top.
She kissed my other cheek and then ran to the edge of the
sheer cliff that dropped away from the opposite side of the summit where I
stood.
She did not pause at the edge, but, to my amazement, leapt
off of the cliff face into the open night air.
The woman did not cry out or fall.
She hovered in the air before the moon for a moment, and
then exploded into a murder of crows that went cawing noisily into the
darkness.
I heard the woman’s voice one last time, somehow assembled
from the caws of the crows; she whispered a warning: “Beware the Eyes of the
Mountain.”
Here I awoke to sheets soaked in sweat.
I must contact the Smithsonian today to see if they have
had any recent communications with Dr. Alexander. His potential imperilment
appears to be weighing heavily upon my conscious, waking and otherwise.
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal
Entry
Saturday October 2, 1926
(Evening)
Upon retuning from today’s errands, I received another
telegram from Dr. Alexander. His superiors at the Smithsonian were completely
unaware of his current whereabouts when I telephoned them earlier today and
this latest message has spurned me to action. I must go to the desert as I fear
greatly for my friend’s continued existence.
Today’s telegram states:
KELSO CAL
DR OSCAR FRANKLIN
5836 S GREENWOOD
AVE CHICAGO ILL
ASSAULTED THIS MORNING UPON
LEAVING MINE WHERE I HAD SPENT THE NIGHT IN A PRIMITIVE UNDERGROUND LIMESTONE
QUARRY. ATTACKERS WERE THREE NATIVES WHO HAD HARASSED ME PREVIOUSLY. WAS BEATEN
AND LEFT FOR DEAD. MADE IT BACK TO KELSO. MEDIC SAYS I NEED HELP TO RETURN TO
MY CABIN TO COLLECT MY PAPERS. HE HAS ADVISED ME TO STAY PUT FOR NOW. PLEASE
COME AT ONCE.
DR TATE ALEXANDER B. A. E.
I have called the Smithsonian and informed them of the
situation. I have made arrangements to take a train tomorrow night that will get
me to the Mohave Desert by the 6th.
Dr. Alexander’s superiors have arranged for me to be picked
up from the train station by another one of their field ethnologists. Thank the
gods that this fellow researcher has kept the Institution apprised of his movements
at least.
I must try to sleep now as I have many work arrangements to
delegate in the morning before I prepare to leave for the desert.
I do hope my friend will be all right until I arrive.
Chapter Two
“When Pharaoh’s pyramid at Dashur, Imenemhat
Qanefer, was almost complete the
priests of the blood cult struck their revenge. Red fog swept through
the work camp at night - blotting out the light of the full moon overhead.
Those that breathed the red fog dropped where they stood, felled by mystic
poison; their faces contorted in abject terror wrought by unseen gods. I had
returned late from the Nile , and was just
entering the work village as the cursed fog dispersed, revealing the agony of
the dead.”
-
The Chronicles of Zamonth
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal
Entry
Monday Oct 4, 1926 (Morning)
I started out from Chicago Mohave Desert to aid my stricken friend,
Dr. Tate Alexander. I have brought a few items from my Egyptian discoveries,
mainly scrolls, along with the Hittite-found statue on my urgent journey that I
might attempt to continue some of my work rather than be wracked with continual
anguish over my friend’s welfare.
This morning I took a break from my labors and left my
compartment to wander to the club car. I had been hunched over the scrolls and
the statue all night and needed a break and a stretch. When I arrived in the
club car it was full, except for a seat adjacent to a bearded old man with
glasses and a well-dressed young woman with her raven hair cut short in the
latest fashion.
The woman wore a neatly pressed suit of the current trend,
but the man’s rumpled suit was worn and unkempt.
I smiled and gestured towards the empty seat, and the old
man waved his assent, apparently not bothered that I would overhear them as
they were conversing in German.
A man brought me coffee and I stared out the window while I
sipped it, pretending that I couldn’t understand German in the slightest, when
in fact I had become a little more handy with it since Egypt, where I had
worked closely with a couple of German Egyptologists and they had given me a
serviceable insight into their language. Eavesdropping distracted my mind and I
was welcome of the distraction.
From what I could discern, the old man and the young girl
were also archaeologists and were discussing details of a recent dig in hushed
but fervent tones. Suddenly the old man yelled to the girl that they must
recover the papyri at all costs. Without thinking I leaned in and intruded into
their conversation thus: “Did I hear you say papyrus? Why I’m a sand-botherer
myself!”
The old man looked at me quizzically, the young girl
intervened, “You sprechen zie deutch,
mein freund?”
I nodded and smiled the dumbest smile that I could manage.
“Only a little, mostly what I picked up in the desert,
around the digs.”
“Ah,” she purred. “So you also are an Egyptologist?”
“Yes, Miss,” I replied. “I work for the Oriental Institute
in Chicago
The German pair exchanged glances. The girl continued.
“And have you recently returned from the desert, Herr…”
“Franklin, Doctor Oscar Franklin,” I confessed.
“Ah, Herr Franklin,” the girl went as she looked me up and
down, “I am Fräulein Leona Pfeiffer,
and this, is Herr Professor-Doktor Arvin
W. Albrecht der Universität Heidelberg.”
I knew of the University of Heidelberg
The girl asked where I was headed and
I told her Fenner, where the Bureau of American Ethnology had arranged to have me
picked up by one of their field researchers. I left that part out though and
just gave the name of the stop.
Then I told them a friend had gotten
hurt in the desert and I was on my way to see him.
The old professor nodded at this as if
he understood. The girl frowned in sympathy.
I enquired of her and the professor’s
final destination and she informed me that they were headed to a museum in San Francisco
The old man glared at the girl and
then coughed to interrupt the continuance of her revelations of their business
affairs.
We turned our talk to Carter’s
discoveries in the desert and what the future of Egyptology might hold. When I
say we, I mean myself and the girl. The old man wished only to consult with his
notebook and with his long beard which he stroked repeatedly.
I soon made my goodbyes and returned
to my compartment, careful that I was not followed by my new friends, because I
had left the scrolls and statue lying out on top of my blanket so they would be
cushioned from the jostling of the lurching train. If they beheld these items
they might try to buy them; or worse.
Dr.
Oscar Franklin’s Journal Entry
Tuesday
Oct 5, 1926 (Morning)
I was treating myself to a warm Fred
Harvey meal in the Pullman
“It’s too warm for the suit,” she declared, not looking up
from the menu.
She ordered a steak. She ordered it rare. And while she
waited for her steak, we talked.
Fräulein
Pfeiffer began by discussing Howard Carter’s finds again but then shifted her discourse
to forbidden tomes that members of our field speak of only in whispers. Books
like Jadhir el-Amon’s Black Lightning of
the Desert, Professor Rodriguez Delgado’s ¡Peligro de El Vampiro! and Cooper’s translation of the Maleficium Maledictum tripped from her
tongue with a boldness that only comes of expert familiarity, not the hushed
reverence of a novice adept.
I was surprised as I spoke aloud the names of my own
eldritch erudition, among them the banned works of the mad Scotsman, Doctor
Constantine Patrick McDaid, most notably his Curse of the Black Pyramid, which I admitted to this virtual
stranger was the very book that had fired my own desires to see Egypt as a boy
when I had snuck my father’s copy of the unholy book out of his library in the
dead of night.
I had just spoken the title of the Liber Stellae Detestabilium, having read the outlawed Peyer-Layman
edition that we secretly hold at the Oriental Institute, when, in my
excitement, I began to mention the very scrolls that I had brought on the
train with me, copies of The Chronicles
of Zamonth, who was vizier to the mighty Pharaoh Amenemhet III. This was a
fabled work, unseen by man for centuries until I had unearthed the scrolls
containing it in Egypt
The girl’s eyes flashed at the mention
of the scrolls and I immediately regretted declaring them in my sudden effort
to match Fräulein Pfeiffer’s own occult
reading list.
We were interrupted when her steak came and she proceeded
to eat it without saying another word.
I made my goodbyes and returned to my compartment, fearful
of what I had just admitted to the steak-eating girl in the Pullman car that I
was now sure was a professional collector of the most exotic esoterica
imaginable.
I must be careful what I speak further to anyone as I do
not wish to increase the danger of my own mission by advertising that I’m
carrying a fortune in relics around with me in my father’s battered old satchel.
Fräulein Pfeiffer is too easy to talk to. And I feel that I
might seek out her company next time. I felt a strange rush of cathartic relief
after our cabalistic confessional.
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal
Entry
Wednesday Oct 6, 1926 (Early
morning)
I was in the club car with Fräulein Pfeiffer, enjoying
some small talk and the cool desert night air, when a breathless Prof. Albrecht
steamed into the car, bellowing in German.
He hollered for Fräulein Pfeiffer to come with him, “Mach schnell!”
“I
thought you were going on to San
Francisco
“Oh, we are, mein
leibchen,” she replied, “but first the professor must visit a… sick
relative that lives near here.”
“That’s a mighty strange coincidence,” I said back to her.
“How so?” she inquired.
“Well, how I’m going to help my injured friend in the
desert as well, as I mentioned earlier,” I replied in a burst. “But I can’t
recall you or the professor mentioning a sick-“
“We were excited by talk of papyri and other works, ja?” she cooed as she shrugged. “And
unlike you Americans, Herr Professor-Doktor
does not always discuss his personal matters in public.”
This ended my line of questioning as Fräulein Pfeiffer
returned to her compartment to prepare for her departure.
She waved to me once as they left the train and headed
towards Needles’ magnificent El Garces Hotel,
but the professor never looked back. I’m sure his thoughts are pre-occupied
with concern for his ill relation, much as my thoughts drift to the plight of
Dr. Alexander.
The train is moving again, I must gather my things and
ready for my own upcoming stop.
Chapter Three
“Pharaoh had sent my son, Heneptu,
royal seer to Pharaoh and high priest of Amun, before him to his new temple to
consecrate the structure under the light of the full moon before the completion
celebrations were to be held in a fortnight. I had gone to meet my son in peace
and had left with but two guards and a scribe. Pharaoh, in his infinite wisdom,
had the foresight to send his seer accompanied by the fearsome warrior-priests
known as the Sons of Sobek. As the fog ran, the light of the moon revealed the
death-dealing defilers atop Pharaoh’s own pyramid! The burned and cracked
undead priests howled blasphemous chants at the moon while their miscreant
servants worked further desecration - loosening the benbent, the sacred
capstone carved with prayers to the gods that faced the morning sun. As my two
guards rushed to the summit in defense of Pharaoh’s temple, the heathens loosed
the capstone towards us, over the eastern side, and my guards were crushed by
its mighty weight.”
-
The Chronicles of Zamonth
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal Entry
Wednesday October 6, 1926
(Afternoon)
The train hissed into Fenner not long after it left Needles.
I was the only adult that disembarked, and the only other travelers to step off
of the train were a pair of teenaged Indian boys. They were met by an old
Indian woman who hovered near the edge of the stop’s siding like a ghost. The
boys ran straight to her and then the trio vanished into the shadows.
The old station, seldom used now that mining in the region
was on the decline, crumbled alone and unobserved in the darkness. There was no
moon.
I checked my pocket-watch and looked around again,
searching for someone that looked like an ethnologist, when I suddenly spotted
the most beautiful Mexican woman that I had ever seen.
Her long black hair was split into two braids, Indian-style,
that ran to the middle of her back. Silver jewelry flashed at her throat as she
crossed towards me. She wore a luminous, white cotton top and black skirts
swirled from her waist. As she neared I noticed that she was wearing dusty but
expensive motorcycle riding boots.
I turned and looked behind me expecting to see some sleepy
but handsome vaquero, freshly rousted
from his compartment, just stepping off the train to scoop this desert blossom
up in his arms.
No one stepped from the train.
The beautiful woman stopped before me and smiled. I could
see now that she had a look of the local Indians about her features which
contributed to her unique beauty.
I cleared my throat to speak, but then the train whistled
its departure, startling me in my sleep-deprived state and causing me to drop
my nerve.
“Doctor Franklin?” the woman asked with the faintest hint
of an accent. “Are you Doctor Oscar Franklin?”
For some reason, the sound of my name escaping this woman’s
lips emptied my mind of every iota of knowledge and sense that my brain
possessed.
“But who…” I gasped as I remembered to breathe. “How?”
“I’m Louise Lopez,” the woman replied. “The Bureau sent me;
I’m here to take you to Doctor Alexander.”
I laughed aloud despite the grim circumstances. I have had
many handsome female colleagues over the years, and indeed Fräulein Pfeiffer
was a fine specimen of womanhood, but the thought of this vision before me
toiling to collect dead and dying languages in the dusty corners of this
unforgiving wasteland seemed absurd. She should be a film star or a painter’s
model and muse. Perhaps even an opera singer instead, holding men enraptured
with her calling song.
“Uh, yes,” I stammered back. “I’m Doctor Oscar Franklin.”
The woman extended her right hand to me - a silver bracelet
on her wrist tinkling with charms as she made for a handshake. I quickly wiped
my palm down the side of my trousers and accepted the offered hand in mine. Ms.
Lopez’s palm was cool and dry, much like the desert that we now stood in
together under the stars.
She gestured towards her black Model T, “If you’re ready…”
I followed her lead to the waiting Ford.
We drove through the desert down an old rutted trail for
about an hour. Then we drove over nothing but sand and some small rocks as the
trail vanished from sight, swallowed up by the hungry desert. It had been about
a half hour since the trail had disappeared when Ms. Lopez spoke again.
“Have you known Dr. Alexander long?” she asked.
“Since we were boys always stealing rare books from our
fathers’ libraries, and trading them to each other the next day at school,” I
answered.
It was Ms. Lopez’s turn to laugh.
“Yeah,” she chuckled, “that sounds like ol’ Tate.”
I enquired if she had known Dr. Alexander, Tate, long
herself.
“Our paths have crossed out in the desert a few times,” she
replied. “But I haven’t gone down the mine with him.”
I apprised Ms. Lopez of Tate’s telegrams to me.
She thanked me for informing her of their content, and then
she gave me a little sketch of her current situation.
She was finishing her doctoral studies while she was out
here in the desert, recording Indian tongues and preserving their culture for
the Bureau of American Ethnology, just like Tate was. They were both currently
studying the language of the Chemehuevi Indians, but were at opposite ends of
the Providence Mountains
Ms. Lopez was pursuing her studies to earn her doctorate
through the prestigious Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México, one of the finest schools south of
the border.
Ms. Lopez confided that she had two great assets in this
regard.
Asset one was that her father was a powerful
professor and famous explorer-in-residence at the university, Professor Juan
Garcia Lopez, a historian of some renown. I had heard of Prof. Lopez’s hair-raising
Central and South American expeditions even while I was deep in the desert
dunes of Egypt
Asset two was that Ms. Lopez happened to be half-Chemehuevi
herself and already knew most of the off-shoot dialects of the region fairly
well, she just had to record and translate them to complete her doctoral work
for the university and then send a copy of her findings along to the Bureau at
the Smithsonian; effectively killing two birds with one stone.
I agreed that she seemed to have two mighty assets in her
arsenal. I said nothing of her other two obvious assets; her stunning beauty
and her confident mastery of overland desert travel, even by night.
We then drove on to Kelso in silence as I was exhausted
from my train travel and translation work, and Ms. Lopez had to focus on the
unenviable task of driving across the desert at night under a new moon.
When we reached Kelso, just as the red-gold dawn broke in
the east, we learned that Dr. Alexander had left his sick bed during the night
and had driven off into the darkness, unseen by the doctor or his nurse.
Anger turned to relief as I hoped that this event meant
that Tate was well enough to go back to the mountain and collect his things on
his own after all.
My hopes were dashed when Ms. Lopez pointed out a trail of
blood splashed down the outer wall of the building that Tate convalesced in and
had recently escaped from; the trail leading out of the window down the path
towards the area for the flivvers.
Impulse told me to run back to the Model T and head back
into the desert, but my brain kicked in gear, I realized that I was exhausted
after my recent travels and was not sure how much use I would be in a nighttime
desert search in unfamiliar territory. To wander in the desert at night,
already spent, only courts disaster. My recent experiences in Egypt
Before I could voice my concerns, Ms. Lopez took one look
at me and then asked the doctor where we could acquire lodgings in town for the
night.
We took our lodgings and then made a brief plan for our
search beginning in the afternoon after we both got some sleep. Ms. Lopez was
fairly sure she knew which old abandoned mining camps Tate had been haunting
lately. We agreed to start our search there.
I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I dreamt of crows, flying over the mountains, swooping low
across the desert, whispering to the shadows and cawing to the stars.
Now I have awakened and I am just waiting for Ms. Lopez to
finish talking with a young Indian boy outside and then we will begin our
search for our injured friend.
May Providence
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal Entry
Thursday October 7, 1926
No sign of Tate yet. We have checked a couple of mines but
they were blocked and boarded up at their entrances making access, especially
by an injured man, impossible.
Ms. Lopez suggests we begin to consult with the local
tribes and she will introduce me to them as a fellow ethnologist of hers. The
northern desert tribes are more wary of strangers, but she thinks that if we
continue with the study of their culture they will be more likely to talk to
us. Their culture prohibits discussing the dead except in the case of great
chiefs or shamans that had performed great deeds for the tribe, so if they have
by chance found Tate deceased, they will be reluctant to talk about it.
I will continue along as Ms. Lopez directs, but I’m worried
about my friend alone out here as the season is turning and the nights are
becoming colder.
I don’t
want to find him picked clean by buzzards and coyotes.
Chapter Four
“Know, O
Pharaoh, that I (missing) am a humble scribe, sworn to serve Zamonth, vizier to
you during your mighty reign - Pharaoh be praised! O Mighty One, if you are
reading this scroll then you have already begun your journey through the
Underworld. O Pharaoh! Your ka must not linger here! This Temple to your greatness has been defiled by
the Children of the Outer Darkness. This Black Pyramid has been used to summon
Those-Who-Walk-In-Shadow. All-wise Zamonth, with the help of the Sons of Sobek
and your humble scribe, drove the defilers from your house, but the taint of
(obscured)[1]
remains. O Pharaoh, do not tarry - your soul must run from this place!”
-Testimony of an unknown scribe; from a funerary
instruction scroll found in the Black Pyramid of Amenemhet III in Dahshur , Egypt
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal
Entry
Wednesday October 20, 1926
Tonight,
after dinner, the men of the tribe played drums and sang songs that spoke of
their world’s creation. They also sang of ancient battles between their many
gods. Each man in turn led a song about a different subject, with the others
sometimes joining in on the choruses if they knew them.
I
asked Ms. Lopez if the women of the group told stories in a similar fashion.
“The
women know the secrets behind the stories,” Ms. Lopez replied, “Secrets that
they aren’t ready to share… yet.”
As
the full moon appeared in the sky, Bill Trembling Hand began his song. Mr.
Trembling Hand sang softly and waved his poro
(a curved shaman’s staff) slowly over the flames of the campfire. The first few
lines of the song were in the current desert variant of the Northern Chemehuevi
tongue that Ms. Lopez and I have been recording these past few weeks, but soon
there came a change, not only in the marked sudden ferocity of Trembling Hand’s
recital and poro movements as he
increased his tempo and volume, but in the very language that he was singing
in.
I
noticed then that Ms. Lopez had leaned forward and cocked her head to one side
to better hear the unique song. Her face was at first puzzled and then grew
concerned as Trembling Hand’s song continued.
I
attempted to ask Ms. Lopez what was occurring, but she waved me silent with her
left hand, intent on consuming the strange song.
“Sis-TAH-Nee!”
the medicine man intoned.
This
word, Sistahnee, was repeated at
regular intervals throughout Bill Trembling Hand’s song. Ms. Lopez informed me
that the word refers to a legendary race of people that once had a pact with
the Tiiraniwi warriors in mythical
times.
The
word “Itciv” and the phrase “Itcivi tingkanni” also caught my ear
when they appeared in Trembling Hand’s song. Itciv is the Chemehuevi word meaning
“Gila Monster” and itcivi tingkanni means “Gila Monster’s cave in the rock”. I
wondered if this cave might be one of the limestone ones in the Providence Mountains
Bill
Trembling Hand’s song continued and grew more fervent and more unintelligible
as his tempo increased.
The
evening’s songs until then had been mostly humorous creation tales concerning
the antics of Coyote in his legendary days. These tales were followed by a few
ghost songs that lamented former chiefs; noble warriors that had kept the tribe
safe from They-Who-Lurk-Outside.
“Sis-tah-nee! Itcivi tingkanni!” chanted
Trembling Hand.
“Sis-tah-nee! Itcivi tingkanni!” he
repeated, shaking his poro at the
fire again while he did so.
Trembling
Hand shouted his song at the moon.
A
far-off coyote howled a long and mournful cry in response.
Trembling
Hand grunted his assent to the coyote’s call and then he threw a handful of
powder from a pouch at his waist into the fire.
Flames
of the greenest emerald shot heavenward from the stone-encircled campfire.
Trembling
Hand clapped three times and the flames shot up again and this time the flames
were bluer than any sapphire that I’ve ever seen.
I
noticed Bill Trembling Hand’s three assistants, Roberto Gonzales
(Walks In Shadows/Ms. Lopez’s half-brother), Jimmy Bishop
Parks
The
ritual song was nearing its peak and they could be called on to assist the
senior Mr. Trembling Hand at any second. The slightest delay in their response
could ruin the delicate weaving of the medicine man’s spell song.
Trembling
Hand clapped once more and his son, Jay, rose from his sitting position and
came to stand in front of his father. Now facing him, Jay stretched out both
arms and put his hands together, palms up, to make an imploring gesture towards
his father.
The
elder Trembling Hand then drew a different pouch from his belt and placed it in
his son’s open hands. Jay Trembling Hand took this pouch from his father, bowed
once and then yelled “Sis-TAH-nee!” at the moon in the same fashion that his
father had just done.
The
far-off coyote howled again in reply.
Jay
Trembling Hand then proceeded to walk an anti-clockwise circle in front of the
assembled men, pausing before each one to give them something dark from the
medicine pouch that his father had just given him.
Each
man took the offered object from the medicine man’s son with their left hand.
They each shouted “Sis-TAH-nee!” before placing the object in their mouths.
Once the object was in their mouths, the men began to chew.
In
time Jay Trembling Hand came before me and offered me his left hand.
A
dark and twisted object lay in his outstretched palm. By the flickering
firelight I could just make out what appeared to be some sort of root.
I
turned my head to look at Ms. Lopez.
She
had an apprehensive demeanor about her as she mouthed the word “no” to me.
Here
I declined the proffered root from Jay Trembling Hand.
The
young apprentice turned back to his father, unsure how to proceed upon my
refusal of the root.
Bill
Trembling Hand laughed heartily, but he laughed in an unfriendly and guttural
way, as if he was replying while still embodying one of his totemic gods. He
threw some more pouch powder into the fire and this time the flames roared up a
brilliant yellow.
Then
the men of the circle also laughed loudly and with the same harshness that Bill
Trembling Hand had just exhibited.
The
men who already taken the unknown root laughed louder than those who had not.
I
feel this laughter to have been mostly directed at me due to my refusal to take
the root. Perhaps this was perceived by the tribesmen as a cowardly act on my
part. I also feel that some of the laughter’s purpose was to mock Jay Trembling
Hand’s novice skills as a medicine man, particularly how he froze up when I didn’t
take the root from him.
This
laughter signaled to Jay that he was to move on and continue distributing the
root to the rest of the sitting circle.
Young
Mr. Trembling Hand withdrew his outstretched hand and made a fist around the
refused root.
Jay
Trembling Hand then turned his back on me.
Once
his back was to me, Jay threw the root into the roaring campfire
instead of returning it to his father’s medicine pouch.
He
turned to face me again before moving on, but he did not make eye contact with
me. I almost felt as if Jay was looking through me at that point to a distant
locale.
Jay
Trembling Hand bowed once and then moved on to face Ms. Lopez, who was still
sitting on my right.
The
medicine man’s son did not offer Ms. Lopez a root. Instead, Jay Trembling Hand
pulled a large closed white flower from his father’s medicine pouch and offered
that to Ms. Lopez.
Ms.
Lopez did not refuse the flower, but she did hesitate for a moment before
taking it.
Jay
Trembling Hand smiled in apparent relief when Ms. Lopez took the flower from
him.
The
men of the circle cheered on the young apprentice medicine man with a mighty
collective whooping noise when Ms. Lopez accepted the flower.
Jay
then moved on and finished distributing the root to the men of the tribe.
Bill
Trembling Hand whooped three times when Jay returned to his side. They repeated
their earlier exchange of the medicine pouch, although this time in reverse.
After
Bill Trembling Hand returned the pouch to his belt the song was over.
The
men of the circle clapped five times, but did not say another word or make any
other vocalizations.
When
the song had ended, Ms. Lopez motioned to me that we should excuse ourselves
from the circle.
I
nodded a subtle agreement in reply and she soon made our excuses to leave the
campfire assemblage. Claiming that the smoke of Trembling Hand’s powders had
made her dizzy, Ms. Lopez told the chief and the medicine man that she would
now be retiring for the evening and that I would be assisting her back to our lodgings at the abandoned mining camp down the road. We thanked our hosts for an enlightening and informative
evening.
Once
we were away from the group and back in our trusty Model T, Ms. Lopez began to
cry very softly. Her weeping was so faint that I could barely hear it over the
noise of the car’s engine as we drove the three miles back to our cabin under the
light of the full moon.
When
we arrived at the cabin, I noticed that the closed flower given to Ms. Lopez by
Jay Trembling Hand had blossomed open. Its beautiful white petals reflected the
moonlight, brightening the interior of the Model T.
I
smiled at Ms. Lopez and did not mention that I had noticed her crying as I did
not want to distress her further. She seems quite pallid lately and is often
ill for most of the morning upon awakening. I suspect that the heat and the long
hours of our ethnographic research, combined with the stress of our search for
Dr. Alexander, are finally taking their toll on the poor girl.
We
soon retired to our cabin where I am now writing this entry.
I
will question Ms. Lopez further in the morning, but upon returning to camp, she
mentioned that we had just witnessed a War Song specific to this off-shoot Northern Mohave Desert tribe.
Ms.
Lopez also said that she now understood her half-brother’s reluctance at
allowing us to accompany him to the circle tonight. This ceremony was forbidden
among the other neighboring clans and had not been performed in front of a Haiku (white man) since the times when
the mythical white warrior Falls From Sky had walked among her mother’s people.
Is
it possible that Prince Madoc’s fabled explorer descendants could have spread
this far west?
I
will try the few Welsh words that I can remember with the chief and the other
tribal elders in the morning.
Now
I must drink this tea that Ms. Lopez has brought me to help me sleep. My mind
has been tortured these last few nights with memories of my mother and sister
drowning before me when I was just a small boy. I was too young then to help
save them and unfortunately old enough to be able to forever recall the
horrific event in perfect detail.
Ms.
Lopez has promised me that this tea will distract me from my terrible dreams. I
will now try it in the hopes that she is correct.
This
tea is bitter.
I
must venture to get the sugar without awakening Ms. Lopez. Wish me luck, O Diary, for I feel a sudden heaviness in my limbs.
May
I be not clumsy.
May
Sis-TAH-Nee guide my way!
[1] Here the
scroll has turned completely black, as if burnt, thereby rendering translation
impossible. The scroll was not burnt, however, and no evidence of a thermal
chemical reaction is present anywhere upon the scroll’s surface. Dr. C. P.
McDaid, Curse of the Black Pyramid, Hutchinson House, Glasgow :
1895, p. 237.
Chapter Five
“O, how I longed for my archers, as
we surmounted the gleaming white limestone edifice, now slick with the red
blood of my guards crushed by the tumbling capstone, the pyramidion of prayers
that protected Pharaoh’s perfect palace that now lay shattered in the sands at
the base of the temple. The Sons of Sobek rushed to meet the black blades of
the unclean ones with their own sacred swords. But the enemy numbered many, and
they seethed up to the summit from the western side of the pyramid. With them
they carried a capstone of their own carving, a black pyramidion; an unholy thing crafted from the fallen star
altar of the temple I had burned many years ago in Nubia . They fitted the profane
object in place and then the sky flashed with lighting and thunder shook the
heavens although there were no clouds in sight.”
-
The Chronicles of Zamonth
Dr. Oscar Franklin’s Journal Entry
Thursday October 21, 1926
I awoke in the night to the mournful howling of a coyote.
The full moon leered through the cabin window as my eyelids
rose and spectral shapes slid silent in the shadows.
I had made for the sugar and found none. I returned to my
room and finished my tea, bitter though it was, and lay down to sleep.
Dreams of crows circling a desert mountain in darkness once
more filled my slumber. The high priestess of the moon hovered in the shadows
on the edges of my perception. She whispered to me, but I could not make out
her words, even in this dream world of infinite understanding.
A scream in the cold and thin air tore my mind away from my
waking musings on my nocturnal wanderings in the faraway lands of Dream.
A woman’s scream - Ms. Lopez’s by the sound of it.
I ran from my room and searched the cabin in a dash.
There was no sign of Ms. Lopez.
I ran outside, still in my nightdress, in time to see the
shadow of a woman running from the house into the whispering desert in the
moonlight.
The Model T was still parked outside the cabin. If I was
quick, I could catch her before she ran afoul of something out there in the
night.
I went back inside and quickly dressed. I also grabbed my
father’s tired old satchel that contained my papyrus treasures from Egypt
I started the Model T and drove in the direction that I had
last seen the shadow heading. I throttled the car to its maximum as I tore into
the desert night in pursuit of what I hoped was Ms. Lopez.
The headlamps picked out something black, ahead of me and
to the left, moving fast in the darkness.
As I caught up to the swift shadow, the headlamps revealed
not a woman, but a murder of crows flying in near perfect formation that
approximated the shape of a woman in the moonlight.
I honked the Model T’s horn at them and they dispersed in a
cacophony of caws.
Where was Ms. Lopez?
My mind raced and I resolved to return to the native camp
where I had just witnessed the War Song a few hours before.
When I returned to the camp the men were still seated where
they were in the circle when I had left them, but things had changed.
The women and children were all gone now, only the men
remained visible in the camp.
Shadows flickered out around the still roaring fire, taking
on a sinister aspect as they played across the faces of the grim-faced
tribesmen.
As I approached the circle, a shadow on the opposite side
from me rose and tossed powder from a medicine bag into the fire. The fire
ripped skyward, now a red flame of the deepest scarlet.
It was then that I noticed that the men were all now
wearing their ancient buckskin clothing and that their faces were painted with fresh
stripes of red and black war paint that glistened in the firelight.
The rising red flame revealed that Jay Trembling Hand had thrown
the powder into the fire; his two fellow shamanistic apprentices stood close
behind him.
Jimmy Parks, Runs With Coyote, came from Jay’s right hand
side and made towards me, carrying something in his cupped palms.
He was silent as he met me and offered forward a tiny bowl
filled with crimson wetness - war paint.
Without hesitation, I dipped two fingers deep into the
shallow clay bowl, ensuring that my digits were covered in color.
I made red stripes on my face that matched the ones on
Runs With Coyote’s face.
As Runs With Coyote returned to Jay Trembling Hand’s side,
Roberto Gonzales, Ms. Lopez’s own half-brother, he who treads the darkened
desert trails as Walks In Shadows, came from the shaman’s son’s left side
bearing another bowl, which I knew must contain the black war paint adorning
the faces of the other natives in the circle.
Walks In Shadows offered the black war paint to me with an
eerie gleam in his eyes.
I dipped deep again and then made two stripes of the black
war paint across my face.
Walks In Shadows had just returned to join the junior
shaman when Jay Trembling Hand threw more medicine bag powder into the fire,
this time causing the fire to explode in a blinding whiteness that forced me to
close my eyes against its brilliant fury. When I opened my eyes again we were
no longer in the campfire circle; we were somewhere else.
A ring of giant greasewood bushes lay before me, parched in
the moonlight on the desert floor where it had ruled as undisputed king of its
deadly domain for thousands of years.
Jay Trembling Hand leaned forward and whispered something
into Grandfather Greasewood’s ear.
The ring of densely grown greasewood wriggled in the night
and made an opening, inviting us inside to its inner circle.
The warriors and I entered the dusty circle in the center
of the large greasewood ring.
The plant twisted closed again behind us and then stretched
up over our heads to form an organic dome that blotted out the light of the
moon.
The mournful coyote howled once more in the distance and
his call was returned by something close, something that was circling the
bushes.
And then we were pulled through the desert floor in an
instant by a means that I am unable to recall.
We then found ourselves deep in the cool limestone caves
that wound beneath the cracked and sandy desert floor.
Walks In Shadows went first into the dark and lit a torch
on the wall.
Jay Trembling Hand went next, unlocking a hidden Indian
alcove that was built by his guiding ancestors thousands of years before the
young shaman rose to walk these sands.
The warriors went to Trembling Hand in his alcove, one by
one, and received the sacred gifts that he offered - swords of the blackest
iron and “stone shirts”, ancient armor made from what looked like a type of
flint.
The armed and armored band then crept down an adjoining
tunnel and away into the depths of the cave system.
Walks In Shadows was the only apprentice left with me in the
cave now as Runs With Coyote had led the warriors down the tunnel with another
torch. He gestured for me to step into Trembling Hand’s alcove.
I went forward to the young medicine man and became aware
that the red and black stripes on his face, on all of our faces, reminded me of
Old Chief Gila Monster, who lives in the desert, the lizard king of the Mohave.
Trembling Hand held out a sword for me, but it was not of
black iron like the other swords that he had dispensed - this was a polished
steel sword of Viking design with a blade that read: +ULFBERH+T.
I remembered
my dream of the high priestess on the mountain and I took the sword without
hesitation.
The young
Trembling Hand then offered me a battered shield that also appeared to be of
Viking design.
Finally
the apprentice shaman brought forth some loose chain armor that he placed
around my core.
Fully
equipped, we followed the others down into the depths.
How long we descended I do not know, but soon the tunnel
opened into a natural limestone cathedral that was lit by a strange crystal that grew from the ceiling and pulsed with a sickly green light.
Crystal-light combined with the tribe’s flickering torches
to throw illumination on the scene of horror that now unfolded before me.
Monolithic inscriptions covered a towering basalt wall at
the far side of the cathedral. The inscriptions depicted twisted and unclean
things cavorting at the base of a black pyramid under the watchful eye of the
full moon.
Before the carved wall was a raised limestone dais, on the
limestone dais was an altar shaped from a metallic black rock that I knew at once
was some kind of meteorite.
The black altar crackled and sparked with energy not of
this world.
On the altar lay the bloodied and bruised form of my missing
friend Dr. Tate Alexander!
Dr. Alexander appeared dead, but then he moaned in pain and
wave of relief swept through me. Never has a cry of someone’s suffering
elicited more joy in my heart because it meant that my friend was ALIVE.
I called out to Tate and made to move towards him, but
halted as a sea of black-robed hooded shapes in the gallery below me turned as
one from facing the altar and looked up to face me. Their red eyes gazed
upwards and reflected in the torchlight.
Movement at the altar caught my eye and I noticed two more
black-robed figures standing behind it; a hooded figure with arms
outstretched above the altar that held a filthy jewel-encrusted silver dagger
directly above Tate’s heart and the figure behind him - the bearded and
bespectacled form of Herr
Professor-Doktor Arvin W. Albrecht, my acquaintance from the train.
Behind the professor, chained to the wall with silver
chains, was the unconscious form of Louise Lopez.
The hooded figure with the dagger barked an order to his
flock below him and they drew curved black metal daggers of their own from
their belts.
Without a word, and before the robed throng could
advance, the Tiiraniwiwi slammed into
the cultists as a singular force; a powerful desert lizard with venom in its
fangs that was tireless in the pursuits of battle. They scattered the blood
cult with efficient ease. The cultists howled as their lives were cut short by
the superior swordsmanship of the desert tribe.
Only Walks In Shadows remained at the tunnel mouth that
overlooked the carnage below with me. His eyes glowed red in the light of the
torch that I held and he seemed rooted to the spot, unsure what to do next, but
not in any way afraid. An inner struggle appeared to be occurring behind his scarlet
eyes.
I left him in the tunnel mouth and ran towards the altar.
One of the warriors got there before me and leapt up on to the
altar to swing his sword at the hooded figure with the silver dagger. When his
moccasinned feet hit the altar a deadly surge of electricity coursed through
him, electrocuting him in an instant. The hooded figure returned its attentions
to Tate, who writhed on the altar in the castoff electricity from the Indian’s
death.
Professor Albrecht stepped from behind the altar and brandished
a jagged black dagger that was obviously forged from a cutting of the same
meteorite that constituted the unholy altar. The strange clanging of the battle
around me indicated that everyone was using swords borne of cold matter from
space.
The professor leapt at me with a speed that belied his age
and his dagger bit into my shoulder because I did not get my shield up fast
enough to block his strike.
Enraged, I turned on him and swept my sword down across his
chest in a long, scything motion. I then bashed the German professor in the
face with my shield, breaking his glasses, for good measure.
I raced towards Tate but then the Fräulein, Leona Pfeiffer, stepped from the shadows wearing a
revealing black dress with a plunging neckline and leveling a gun in my
direction, blocking my access to the undead priest behind the altar that looked
ready to dispatch my friend.
Louise Lopez, chained to the wall in agony, cried out in a
shout not meant to be heard by human ears and then she exploded into a murder
of crows before my very eyes.
The silver chains clattered against the basalt wall as the
crows streamed towards Fräulein Pfeiffer in a frenzy.
The German girl batted at them with her gun and free hand,
but it was too late; they were upon her and their claws raked deep into her
exposed flesh.
She screamed madly before me as one of the largest crows
plucked Fräulein Pfeiffer’s right eye out and then flew off down the limestone
tunnel with her prize dripping blood from her beak.
The crows continued to flit and rip about Fräulein Pfeiffer
as she ran away screaming down a side tunnel into blackness.
I turned away to face the hooded figure with the silver
dagger behind the altar just as he drove his cursed blade down into Tate
Alexander’s heart!
A low boom echoed
throughout the cathedral chamber cavern and then the basalt wall behind the
hooded figure began to split down the middle on an uneven seam; this was not a wall, but a door!
The barrier of black basalt creaked open and a single spiny
tentacle shot out of the cracked doors in an instant, hungry for a fleshy
morsel from our warm-blooded world.
The tentacle stretched out from the doors to the altar,
bending low to scoop up my dead friend in its putrescent embrace.
The spiny tentacle then whipped back into the shadows
behind the door with its offering and an ululation from deep within signaled
the approval of She-Who-Lies-Beneath.
I recoiled in horror from the scene and froze motionless
before the cracked fiend who had just murdered my dearest friend.
A crow landed on my right shoulder and whispered in my ear:
“The statue. Put the statue on the altar.”
I whipped the strange statue of what I thought might be
Sobek from my bag and placed it defiantly on the crackling altar.
The priest hissed at me and sliced at the statue with his
silver dagger.
When his jewel-encrusted dagger, still wet with the blood
of my friend, touched the ancient stone of the Hittite region-found statue the
blood cult priest received a massive jolt of red energy that crackled forth
from the statue.
The energy blast blew the priest back from the altar,
and flung him far enough away that he landed in the open gap between the basalt doors.
His cry of protest was cut short as two small spiny tentacles,
dripping with fresh blood, ensnared him and whipped him away from the sliver of
light he lay in.
Red energy continued to crackle out of the statue and it
now headed up towards the unearthly green crystal in the ceiling.
The few remaining cultists that resisted the Indian force cried
out as one as a piercing shriek rang out from the green crystal as it shattered
above them.
A dark shape fell from the crystal and landed in the dust
before the altar.
I rounded the altar to inspect this mystery and saw that it
was in a vaguely humanoid shape, but had a long black tail extending from its
backside.
The shape roused itself quickly and soon I was face to face
with an eight foot tall Gila Monster that
walked like a man!
The giant Gila-Man bowed to me and gestured to the statue
on the altar.
I nodded my assent; yes, I had brought the strange statue
that had released him from his prison.
The Gila-Man grunted and lifted the statue, still
sputtering with red energy, off of the meteorite altar. He then pointed the
statue at the basalt doors.
A thick red bolt of lightning erupted from the statue and
crashed into the basalt doors, closing them fast with a mighty boom.
Something behind the doors gurgled and scraped as it voiced
its displeasure at being sealed away again for another thousand years.
My best friend had been lost, but at least the world above
would be safe from the many-tentacled terror that lurks imprisoned in the depths
of the desert.
The warriors soon mopped up the cultists and gathered their
surviving number to return to the surface. They assembled before the Gila-Man and
then bowed low in reverence as they whispered the name of his forgotten race, Sistahnee.
The Gila-Man seemed appreciative of the natives’ respect
and of their fearsome war paint that simulated the markings of his own studded skin.
I
didn’t see Walks In Shadows among their number or among the warriors who lay
dead on the gallery floor among the stalagmites, perhaps he had run from the
battle rather than making his decision.
Louise
Lopez appeared beside me out of nowhere, clutching her stomach before she
pitched forward into my arms.
“The
baby, I can’t lose the baby, it’s all I have left of ol’ Tate,” she gasped
before she collapsed into unconsciousness.
Suddenly,
Ms. Lopez’s early morning sickness of the last two weeks made perfect sense;
she was carrying my dead best friend’s child in her belly.
Resolving that I wouldn’t lose Ms. Lopez and her unborn child in this hellish
place, I took her quickly up the tunnel, towards the spot where I had first
appeared in the caves.
I
waved goodbye to the Gila-Man and the warriors bowed before him, who even now
were slipping back into the shadows of the cave, seeking their own return paths to
the world above.
It
was then that I noticed that the body of Professor Albrecht was not next to the
altar where I had felled him. I hoped that he had been dragged behind the basalt doors by
an unseen tentacle at some point during the battle while my attention was
elsewhere. Surely I had wounded him mortally with my Viking sword.
I
rushed up the limestone tunnels with Louise Lopez cradled in my arms; carefully
picking my way through the blackness.
I
soon hit a tunnel junction and I saw a hint of sunlight up the shaft just ahead.
I
raced for the exit, but in my haste I tripped and fell, spilling the pregnant Ms.
Lopez out onto the cavern floor.
My
velocity propelled me into a rotten timber support beam and I stretched my hand
out before me to break my fall - the rotted wood crumbling to dust beneath my
forceful contact.
The
tunnel support destroyed, the ceiling of the old mine soon gave way and a ton
of earth and rock came down between me and Ms. Lopez, trapping her on the other
side of an immovable obstruction.
I
cried out at the cruel injustice that had just been wrought.
I
had come to the desert to save one person and I had now lost two, no, three
people to a terrible fate.
Those
losses would number even higher if we mentioned the brave warriors that gave their lives in the caves last night, but it is not our tribe’s custom to
discuss such things with outsiders.
I
will remain in my cabin and await my good friends, Dr. Tate Alexander, Ms.
Louise Lopez and their lovely daughter, Maria.
I
know that they shan’t keep me waiting long; the crow on the sill with the eye
in her beak just told me so.
There’s
a knock at the cabin door. I must go and answer it.
