Return to the Lost Level, page 5
“Hair doesn’t make the man,” Trut grumbled, “and I can see better than two men with this one good eye.”
Kert paused. “I meant no offense.”
“Well, you damn sure caused it anyway.”
“We don’t have time for this,” I scolded. “What is it about this old man that has you and Tolia so concerned, Kert? Is he armed?”
“No. But he is arguing with one of the horned beasts. Tolia believes he is a madman. She said to fetch you but leave the others behind, lest we capture his attention.”
The horned beasts were what some among the tribe called triceratopses. If this old man was arguing with one, like Kert described, then Tolia was correct—he probably was insane.
“I agree,” I said. “It’s a good plan. Show me. The rest of you stay here.”
“Are you sure?” Karenk asked.
“I am. If there’s trouble, we’ll shout for you.”
“We will come running.”
Kert crept forward, leading me through the forest. It occurred to me that we were now in a region I had never been to before. When Kasheena had first brought me to her village, it had been from a different direction. Since then, I’d been to the forest many times on hunting excursions and to get wood for fires and construction, but I’d never been this deep. I wasn’t certain at this point that I would be able to find my way back to the village after we had rescued the captives. I could only hope the others had a better sense of direction. I found, for a long time during my stay here in the Lost Level, that my body and mind still relied on the directional concepts of north, south, east, and west. But those things don’t exist here. Find a compass, or bring one in with you, and you’ll discover that it is useless. The same goes for equipment and devices that rely on global positioning satellites or other directional services.
After a few minutes, Kert began to slow down. Soon enough, I heard a voice—raspy and breathless, yet undeniably full of ferocity all the same.
“Away with you, now. I said scat, you fool thing!”
In response, something trilled and mewled. I recognized that sound. It was the same cry made by the baby triceratops’s that Kasheena and I had encountered in this forest during our hunting trip. I wondered if this could be one of that same litter. It was a possibility, though, as I said before, we were much deeper into the woods than we had been during that ill-fated hunting trip.
Tolia was concealed so well that I didn’t see her until we were right on top of her hiding place. She knelt in a cluster of tall ferns and was peering through them intently. Kert and I crouched down beside her, and I tapped her shoulder. Without speaking, she pointed through the fronds. I leaned forward, parted the ferns slightly, and looked where she had indicated.
Sure enough, there in a small clearing, stood a young triceratops—a little bigger than the babies Kasheena and I had discovered, but not by much. It was perhaps the size of a pony. Facing it stood an old man. I judged him to be in his early seventies. He had a thick, unruly crop of white hair, shot through with black, and was dressed in antiquated Civil War-era clothing—pants, white shirt, suspenders, and a black coat with tails. Dried mud clung to the pants’ legs and the shirt was soiled with dirt and what appeared to be either blood or berry juice.
In the center of the clearing, a large gray boulder jutted at an angle from the ground. One side was sheer and flat and covered in primitive drawings. The old man had backed himself up against that flat side and was waving a tree branch at the triceratops, as if swiping at an insect with a flyswatter. But the branch sported green leaves, and the dinosaur clearly saw it as lunch, rather than a threat. The more the cantankerous senior swore at it, the more interested the toddler seemed to become. He swatted at it again, and the calf (because I suppose one could refer to a baby dinosaur as a calf) snatched the branch in its jaws and tugged playfully. The old man let go of his weapon, and the dinosaur munched happily.
“Go on now,” the old man wheezed. “You’ve gotten what you wanted. Leave me be.”
The triceratops stopped chewing and appeared to grow thoughtful. The calf tilted its head, gazing at him with big, black eyes. It started chewing again, slowly. Then, after swallowing the last of the leaves, the calf let out a series of ‘meeps’ and plodded forward.
Cornered, the geezer pressed himself against the etched rock. The dinosaur lowered its head and began to nuzzle the man’s leg. Luckily, its horns were only tiny nubs. Trails of mucous glistened on the old man’s pants as the creature rubbed its snout up and down, mewling with contentment. After a moment, the man reached down with one trembling hand and gave it a tentative pat on the head. When the dinosaur chirped in obvious delight, he scratched the bony plate between the creature’s eyes.
“I used to believe that the most affectionate creature in the world was a wet dog,” the old man murmured. The frustration in his voice was gone, replaced with a curious tenderness. “But you may be the second most affectionate. I shall have to reconsider everything I know about the universe and the place of man and dogs within it, and that is your fault.”
I stood up slowly, holding out my empty hands to show that I meant no harm. Spotting me, the old man cried out in alarm. His friend snorted and turned, squealing at the intrusion.
“If I’m not mistaken,” I said, “that little guy thinks you’re his mother.”
The old man straightened his posture and puffed out his chest. “Then you need a refresher in the aspects of biology, good sir, for I lack the genitalia necessary to be a mother, and this little guy, as you referred to her, is clearly a female.”
I stifled a grin. “I stand corrected.”
He eyed me warily. The triceratops stood at his side, head lowered.
“I warn you,” the man said, “if you’re a blackguard, then you are in for a fight.”
“Are you going to feed me a tree branch, too?”
He balled his fists and raised them.
“Relax,” I said, holding my hands high. “It was a joke. I mean you no harm.”
He squinted his eyes and peered intently. “And what of your two companions, hidden there in the greenery like bandits?”
“They mean you no harm, either.” I glanced down at them. “Tolia, Kert—put down your weapons. We’re not out to hurt anybody.”
“I am out to hurt the snake men,” Tolia replied.
“Well, I think we can assume he’s not one of them. Right?”
Both of them did as I’d commanded, and stood slowly, gaping at the old man and the dinosaur in wonder. He stared back, equally astonished.
“The three of you are dressed quite strangely,” the man observed.
“I’m pretty sure my companions think the same of you.”
“Perhaps. Still, I should seek a more suitable haberdashery, if I were you. Especially you, madam. I’m not certain I’ve ever seen animal fur like that.”
“I’m not certain you’ve ever seen the animal the fur came from either,” I said. “My name is Aaron Pace. This is Tolia and Kert.”
“Why does he call me ‘madam’?” Tolia whispered.
If the old man heard her, he gave no indication. Instead, he fished a white handkerchief from his pocket. The triceratops, mistaking it for some new, edible treat, darted for the cloth, but he waved it away.
“This is not for you,” he scolded, and then turned his attention back to us. “Brevet Major Ambrose Gwinnet Bierce, at your service. Now that introductions have been made, and civility engaged, I wonder if you good people could tell me exactly where I am?”
“Ambrose Bierce?” I gasped. “The same Ambrose Bierce who wrote ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’?”
Now it was the old man’s turn to look puzzled. “I am indeed, sir. One and the same. Though, I must say, you have me at a disadvantage. It is somewhat of a rarity to meet an admirer of my fiction, rather than my journalism. I fear my attempts at stories are slated for permanent obscurity.”
“Where I come from, your Civil War and horror stories are considered classics.” I paused, and then added with some embarrassment, “I didn’t even know you were a journalist.”
“Really? You’ve not read The Wasp?”
I shook my head.
“The San Francisco Examiner? My series on the Railroad Refinancing Bill?”
“No, sorry.”
“Surely, you are aware that a number of dunderheads in our country hold me responsible for inspiring the assassination of President McKinley with that absurd poem?”
Again, I shook my head. “No, sir. I don’t know anything about that. I just know you for your fiction. Like I said, they’re considered classics where I come from. We read them in school, and I liked them so much, I went out and found the rest.”
Ambrose frowned. “To refer to something as a classic is to suggest that it stood the passage of time. Where do you come from, Mr. Pace, that they view my recent trifles of fiction as antiquity and teach it in school?”
“Minnesota.”
“Indeed?” He glanced around at our surroundings. “This bears little resemblance to the Minnesota I remember.”
“Oh, this isn’t Minnesota.”
“I should say not. I would be hard pressed to remember a rail journey from Mexico to Minnesota, especially given that until a few minutes ago, I was on the outskirts of Chihuahua. So, I ask you again—where am I?”
I sighed. “I’m afraid it’s a long story. I’m happy to explain it to you, but we’re in sort of a hurry. Some friends of ours were kidnapped, and we’re tracking their captors. If you want to accompany us …?”
“Young man, I barely know you.”
“They have my child,” Tolia said, her tone cold. “We do not have time for this, Aaron.”
He waved the handkerchief dismissively. “Say no more. If these brigands are abducting children, then I will help you. If you’ll have me, of course. I may be older, but I would dishonor my time with the Union Army’s 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment if I did not accompany you.”
I smiled. “We would be honored, sir. And I’ll try to explain everything along the way. But I have to warn you, you might find the truth unbelievable at first.”
“You aren’t about to preach to me, are you? Tell me the good word about Jesus Christ and forgiveness and redemption? If so, I should warn you, I am an agnostic.”
“No, Mr. Bierce, nothing like that. I’m not exactly a Christian, either.”
“Good. Had you been a group of proselytizing Christians or Mormon missionaries, I would have had to seriously reconsider my offer of assistance. You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, but it probably helps. Always going on about the Scriptures, and how they were divinely inspired. Holding that the sacred books of Christianity, which were cobbled together not long after we discovered the wheel, as supposedly distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. As if believing in the blood of Jesus is any less ridiculous than believing in Bacchus, who our ancestors invented as a convenient excuse to get drunk. Proclaiming that any benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he can see and feel is a heathen. Preaching about the deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. The doctrine of redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religions, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.”
“Aaron,” Tolia whispered. “The Anunnaki grow farther away, and so do Apotic and Kasheena and all the others.”
Nodding, I lifted my finger to interrupt Ambrose, but he ignored me.
“No,” he continued, “I have no use for any manmade religion. Religion is nothing but the bastard daughter of hope and fear—a way of explaining to the ignorant masses the nature of the unknowable, while controlling and robbing them.”
I raised my hand, feeling like a student in a classroom. “Sir?”
“Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. That’s my motto. I think that I think, therefore I think that I am. That is as close to an approach to certainty as any priest or preacher or philosopher has yet made.”
I raised my voice. “Mr. Bierce?”
He flinched, as if he had forgotten we were there. Beside him, the dinosaur mewled and rooted at the forest floor with her snout.
“I’m terribly sorry. Sometimes I do tend to pontificate.”
“We have to go.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “let us be on our way.”
I noticed that he was breathing heavily, and I could hear his lungs wheezing.
“Are you injured?” I asked.
Ambrose shook his head. “Just asthma. I’ll be fine. I’ve suffered with it all my life.”
“Is that blood on your shirt?”
“Hmmm?” He glanced down. “Oh, no. Not blood. When I woke up here, I was lying amidst some tiny berries. I’m afraid that in flailing around, I squashed them.”
“Okay.” I turned to Kert. “Go back and bring the others to us. Tolia and I will wait here with Mr. Bierce.”
Nodding, he sprinted off into the greenery. Tolia and I waded out of the ferns and walked over to the center of the clearing. Tolia sighed, clearly unhappy with the delay. She eyed the baby dinosaur with suspicion and Ambrose with contempt. The triceratops cautiously trundled past us, giving Tolia and I both a wide berth, and then began eating our hiding place. She grunted happily, gorging herself on ferns.
“She seems to be very fond of those,” Ambrose observed.
I noticed that his breathing had calmed somewhat, but he still seemed weak and somewhat bewildered.
“Are you sure you’re okay, sir?”
He nodded. “I am. As I said, it is mostly my asthma. And my old war wounds ache. But if you get to be my age, everything aches, really. I’ll be fine.”
I knew that in my world, a seventy-one-year-old Ambrose Bierce had left Washington D.C. in October 1913 for a tour of the battlefields he’d fought on during the Civil War. After visiting Louisiana, he’d reached El Paso, Texas by that December, and traveled into Mexico, which was then experiencing a violent revolution. He had joined up with Pancho Villa’s army, serving as an observer, and was there for the battle of Tierra Blanca. He’d ridden with Villa’s forces as far as Chihuahua and disappeared soon after, vanishing without a trace. Researchers and historians had proffered a number of theories as to what had happened to him, including execution by firing squad there in Chihuahua as punishment for Bierce’s criticisms of Villa himself. I wondered if his disappearance had been the work of the Lost Level and the mysterious forces and energies that reside in this place.
“How long have you been here?” I asked. “And how did you get here?”
“Well, you still haven’t explained to me where here is, but to answer your question, I was in my room in the city of Chihuahua. My asthma was being quite a bother, and I was exhausted. I wrote a letter to my dear friend, Blanche Partington, and afterward, I decided to get some sleep. I was so tired that I decided not to bother with changing into my nightclothes. When you get to be my age, such social concerns don’t really matter. I left instructions with my secretary and traveling companion, Carrie, to wake me at sunrise. Instead, I woke here. I don’t know how long I slept. Indeed, I am not yet convinced that I am awake, given the nature of this place, and of that fern-gobbling thing over yonder, and your appearance here. But, dream or reality, I would guess I have been here but a short time. Perhaps ten minutes passed before your rather fortuitous arrival.”
“And you woke up here, in this clearing?”
“Indeed. Lying prone on the ground over there, as I said.” He pointed to the edge of the clearing, covered with short, stunted greenery and a patch of tiny strawberries. At least, they looked like strawberries. But given the fact that the baby triceratops was ignoring them in favor of the ferns, I suspected they weren’t edible.
I walked over to the boulder he’d been standing against and inspected the crude pictographs. Someone had etched them into the surface and then painted the lines with red and orange hues to make them stand out more. Although I was certainly no expert, the carvings didn’t seem that old to me. There was no sign of fading or wear, and nothing to indicate long-term exposure to the elements. They depicted a group of humanoids hunting what appeared to be a unicorn. Another set showed those same humanoid figures dancing around a fire. There were other representations, as well. These were mostly random animals, including an octophant. I wondered who had etched these into the stone. If this particular forest had a tribe living beneath its trees, we had never encountered them or seen signs of their existence. And the designs were too crude to have been fashioned by Kasheena’s people. I wondered if the pictographs had been carved somewhere else—another dimension—and had then been transported here. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering about the rocks and soil and minerals that made up the Lost Level. While most of the flora and fauna that inhabited this place had originally come from elsewhere, could the same be said of the dirt beneath our feet? I had seen oddly colored rocks and stones before that I’d been unable to identify. Did everything in this place—with the exception of those generations who were born here—come from somewhere else? And if so, then what was the Lost Level’s primal form?
Now, of course, I am an old man, and know the answer to many of those mysteries, but were I to recount them all for you here and now, I would fill these accounting ledgers and have no space to finish this particular tale.
The baby triceratops had nearly finished eating all of the ferns. Tolia shifted uneasily from foot to foot, clearly anxious and annoyed. Ambrose rested, patiently waiting and watching as I examined the pictographs. Before I had a chance to study them further, Kert returned with the rest of our tribe. Tolia let out an exaggerated sigh.
“Finally,” she exclaimed, “we can be off.”
“We can,” I agreed. “Mr. Bierce, if you’ll walk with me, I’ll try to fill you in on everything. I’ll warn you, though, we may have a long march ahead of us before we rest again.”
