Time Travel Omnibus, page 351
He had one faint consolation. If these floating nightmares were utterly repulsive to him, he was apparently quite as loathsome to them. For they whirled rapidly away from his path, and those that did touch him seemed to shrivel with an inner revulsion of contact. Now his ears became attuned with their everlasting sighing, whispering and rustling.
Arty Cameron gave a sigh of relief as the floating horrors thinned out, so that his progress was now unhindered; and the purple horizon was now definitely closer, suggesting that this world was quite tiny, with a horizon never more than a mile or so distant.
ARTY paused. Though not versed in such matters, he was nevertheless conscious that he could be nowhere on Earth. That he must, in some miraculous manner, have reached the Moon or Mars, like a story-book character. No, it didn’t fit in. His last conscious moments on Earth had been chained to a hospital bed. Then he must be dead, and this was Hell!
But where was the traditional fire and brimstone? Not to mention His Satanic Majesty and his Imps. Where the floating horrors imps? No, they were more horrified of him, than he of them, though he had been almost sick when he had first perceived them.
Arty gave it up. He did not waste time in useless speculation. He marched on steadily and tirelessly towards that purple horizon; and as he neared, he saw the dim, purplish glow came not from the entire horizon, but from a distinct area before him, and below his viewpoint.
Bent on discovery, he strode on, the purpling glow growing brighter and brighter, so that he now cast a long shadow behind him. The floating nightmares were now entirely absent, and it seemed evident that they kept to the dark portion of this miniature world and shunned light. No doubt the glow of his body had disturbed them most painfully.
At last he paused in mid-stride and stared dumbfounded at what the horizon had concealed. He crept closer, getting a full view of the weirdest scene imaginable.
The plain had a shallow, saucer-like depression about a thousand yards in diameter, and surrounding this natural bowl was a veritable carpet of blazing, living rubies!
From the centre of the declivity there rose a lonely tower about forty feet wide and a good hundred feet tall. Arty could see from where he stood, into the tower, which was roofless. A huge globe of shimmering light, vividly purple and blue, shot forth baleful rays.
Arty crept closer. An inner sense warned him he was approaching evil in its most horrible manifestation, but his eyes were on the carpet of rubies encircling the depression. A pocketful of them would set him up for life!
He slithered down the gently shelving declivity and reached the fringe of the carpet of rubies. All sense of impending evil died within him. The craze for this shimmering wealth swamped the last vestige of caution. Madly, he dropped to his knees and scooped up armfuls of the luminescent stones and let them pour over his figure.
III
HE remembered suddenly in the midst of his lustful craze, that he had no means of carrying away more than two fistfuls of this roseate wealth. Naked men have no pockets! So this meant a reduced load, but an equally valuable one if he picked with a fine sense of discrimination.
With infinite patience he scrabbled in the shimmering stones and began to select the largest and most perfect specimens he could find.
Suddenly, he paused. He held up one magnificent gen to the eerie light emanating from the iron tower. The sight sent a thrill of disgust coursing through him, for in the hearty of the ruby was a black speck of pulsating, living matter! These rufous objects were eggs—some hellish spawn of this nightmare world! And a wisp of sanity asserted itself as he stepped hastily to a spot clear of the carpet of rubies.
Rubies were rough, shapeless masses normally; each of these red, richly glowing stones was perfectly cut in symmetrical facets and polished. No work of an Earthly lapidarist. The abnormality of the situation came home to him. Arty Cameron could not restrain the hysterical chuckle that bubbled to his lips.
A car thief stranded in an ocean of evil gems, in an insane caricature of a world, with its floating, shapeless, phototropic life-forms! Naked and helpless, not knowing how he had got to this place, yet conscious of the fact that he would leave his bones to bleach in the ruddy glow of this world born of a drug addict’s diseased mind.
Suddenly, from the age old tower, a single beam of purple shot forth and caressed his body in a warm, soothing glow that was entirely assuring. His fear dropped from him like a cloak. No longer he hated this world, nor loathed its cold, slimy and formless inhabitants. Nor did any shudder of revulsion course through him as he trod the carpet of living rubies, each with its speck of horrid virality. Even the timeless iron tower in the centre of the depression had lost its aura of evil.
Entirely without sense of caution, Arty strode through the shaft of purple light, neither knowing nor caring what lay in store for him. He reached the ancient walls which held no doors or windows. He did not even wonder how the beam had come to pass through those metallic walls. An overpowering desire possessed him to enter this edifice and plumb its uttermost mysteries.
A slight thrill passed through his resistless body and he wafted like thistledown up and over the hundred foot high battlements. He drifted gently, lazily, over the gaping pit that yawned hungrily below him.
With a curious detachment he surveyed the depths below. He could see a huge mass, jelly-like, quivering and sentient; eyeless, yet regarding him with a baleful stare. The edges of the vast, albuminous mass was oozing a vile, sticky fluid that coalesced at its edges into beads of perfect rubies! Every now and again, an egg-jewel would detach itself and soar out of the pit to join its companions on the rim of the depression.
For the first time a vague sense of uneasiness rippled through him. As if in sympathy, a ripple passed through the quivering mass below. Slowly, the vile jelly spun Arty’s weightless body about with it’s fingers of light, as if it were examining it’s strange prize.
Without warning, the supporting beam of purple light vanished and Arty Cameron plunged down into that viscid mass of horror!
HE landed with a soft, squashy impact that sent waves across the face of the monstrous carcase. A spasm of fear gripped Arty as he felt his legs becoming slowly but surely engulfed in the mucous. He struggled but sank deeper into the living mass of now eagerly trembling vitality. He could sense its evil hunger to consume him body and soul.
Now he was ingested to the waist. He beat the quivering, yielding surface with his hands; puny fists that sank wrist deep in the writhing horror. Now sheer terror gripped him and a terrifying scream ripped from his throat.
Life! He was being swallowed by a pool of pure vitality! A life-hungry form that was in itself a mass of pulsating energy! With blinding reality he now realised those amorphous drifting globes were its children, spawned from its ruby eggs in countless generations in timeless space on a nightmare world of iron.
Now he was engulfed to his shoulders. With terrifying rapidity the ingestion was complete. A wave of blackness swept over Arty Cameron. Muffled screams filled his jelly-clogged mouth. A million searing fingers tore him apart. He felt a final overpowering wave of evil smother him, then . . .
ZING!
Arty Cameron groaned, rolled his head slightly, then became once more fixed in his cataleptic position. He realised he was back once more in his hospital bed, gazing at the same, old spot of ceiling and viewing the top of the screen.
“So he groaned and moved, did he?” he heard the House Surgeon remark to the Ward Sister. “Well, that’s something, anyway, he will probably recover in time. Call me if he shows any signs of fresh movement.”
Arty Cameron shuddered inwardly as he re-lived his nightmare experience. Yes, it must have been a nightmare. Such a place could not exist outside a disordered mind. Yet, was it possible for one to recall every detail so vividly as he could? To him it was no dream but an actual experience. Once again he gave an inward shudder of loathing and disgust.
As the nights and days succeeded each other, Arty grew more reassured. True, the tedium of that sleepless, unending gaze on the patch of ceiling bored him stiff.
Suddenly, without warning, it began again!
Hummmm! Hummmm! Hummmm!
ZING!
Arty Cameron could have shrieked with terror had he been able, not from the frightful agony in hearing that devilish chord beat madly through his head, but from sheer horror at the coming transition. He knew what to expect. Dear God, not that mad World of Iron, again! That filthy, viscid monster again!
Hummmm! Hummmm! Hummmm!
Though there was no outward movement, no change of expression in those vacantly staring eyes, he writhed and shrieked inwardly as the mounting torrent of devilish humming engulfed him.
Where was he going this time? What nightmare awaited him? Lucky was he, that he had no prevision; for an even more terrible experience was being prepared for him. A mental torture without compare was in the making!
Hummmm! Hummmm! Hummmm!
ZING!
IV
FOR a moment Arty Cameron did not realise that the ordeal of transition was over. He could still feel the soft, cool sheets covering him. A huge pillow was cradling his head in downy comfort.
He must still be in hospital, then. Nothing had happened, thank goodness! He opened one eye cautiously, gulped, closed it hastily. His hands gripped feverishly at the bedclothes. Yes, he was in bed. In a bed. But what bed? Where, oh, God, where?
This time he opened his eyes wide. He was resting in an enormous bed, covered with silken sheets and magnificiently embroidered coverlets. Before him, nearly covering the wall, was a vast tapestry depicting a hunting scene. The work was marvellous and quite unearthly in its perfection. A slight draught caused faint ripples in the fabric which gave a pseudo-life to the scene. Arty Cameron was vaguely aware that the bold central figure on the beautifully caparisoned horse might well be his own double.
With a struggle Arty managed to prop himself up on one elbow and get a better view of the bedchamber. He felt extremely weak and his body seemed to weigh a ton. But his weakness was forgotten as he drank in the appointments of the room. Hollywood was nowhere in comparison! This place began where the Celluloid City left off.
Arty Cameron felt dwarfed, crushed, when he realised the size of this barbaric bedroom. If he had been put to bed in the middle of Waterloo Station, he still would not have felt so lost as he was in the vastness of this room.
To begin with, the walls were Cyclopean blocks of finely dressed granite. Each block must have scaled a hundred tons or more, and the smallest stone was larger than a double-decker omnibus! The walls rose for a sheer two hundred feet above his head. Gigantic roof beams of interlocked stones spanned the distant carved and coloured ceiling.
A hundred yards from his bed was a vast, open doorway. Each side of the door was flanked by a colossal seated statue over a hundred and fifty feet tall. They reminded him in a vague manner, of the photographs he had once seen of the great guardian statues of Rameses at the entrance to the temple at Abu Simbel. Only the monster guardians of this fantastic room were not human beings, but wolfhounds! They squatted on their haunches, gazing at him with their sightless stone eyes.
Arty Cameron let his mind dwell on what little he knew of Ancient Egypt. Well, one thing was certain; this room was most definitely not Egyptian in origin. There was none of that wide-eyed sculpturing of Egyptian art. Animals, too, were in correct proportions and the traditional sphinx and human head, and winged lions were conspicuously absent.
Before each of the Colossi a golden brazier of mammoth dimensions sent up a faint blue cloud of perfumed incense. Ranged round the walls were marble benches, small tables, great vases loaded with strange flowers of exotic hue and a golden gong swayed gently from alabaster supports. Huge rugs were scattered about the floor; and in the midst of this barbaric splendour, dwarfed by its surroundings, was the great couch on its dais.
Arty Cameron sat for awhile, drinking in the wild beauty of the room. Then he sank back, exhausted, on his pillow arid gave a sigh of contentment. This was certainly a treat after all; better than that hellish nightmare he had so recently endured; and it was reassuring to know that the people in this strange place were about the same size as he. This was quite evident by the seats and tables in the room. And human, too, according to the great tapestry.
Arty turned his eyes to the tapestry once more. He revelled in its unearthly beauty. The strange trees of the unearthly forest; the weird monsters the central figure and his companions were hunting. It rather reminded Arty of the traditional portrayal of St. George and the Dragon, for the mounted man had also transfixed a monster with his spear. Underneath, set in stitched jewels in the border scrollwork, was the caption:
“Simbasis and the Rovik.”
Arty blinked. Now how the hell had he been able to read that? Why, the characters were not even normal; a series of triangles and looped circles with a lot of scattered crescents. Yet he instinctively knew his interpretation of the legend had been the correct one!
A SLIGHT sound from the distant doorway distracted his thoughts. A man in a long yellow robe entered the bedchamber. Two soldiers, clad like Ancient Roman centurions, now stood just within the doorway, their long, slender spears and square shields glimmering faintly. At a sign from the visitor, the two guards grounded their spears three times, and, with mechanical precision turned and marched out through the doorway.
Arty Cameron once again raised his sluggish body to a half-seated position and watched the yellow-clad figure approach. His visitor, he saw, was an old man, quite bald and with a face as yellow and creased as his gown. He carried a staff of office in his right hand; a slender, five-foot, gilded rod, terminating in a globe some six inches in diameter. An aura of evil smote Arty with almost physical force as the ancient approached the bed with slow, measured steps.
He stopped at the foot of the dais and raised his staff in salute. But, as he bent in obeisance, a glint of savage hatred and mockery flashed into his beady black eyes. Having made his ceremonial greeting, the old wretch shuffled up the six steps and came close to Arty Cameron.
Their eyes met and locked. The self same revulsion that had attacked Arty when he was confronted by the frightful Pool of Life on the Iron Planet, now coursed through him as he sensed the cruel and evil nature of his visitor.
The old man spoke softly. The language was melodious and liquid and once again Arty found himself able to comprehend the unknown tongue as he had understood its meaningless symbols on the tapestry.
“The mighty slayer of Roviks lies sore stricken?”
The old devil nodded to himself as if he were enjoying a great joke. Then he leaned forward. “Well, Simbasis, what now? Wouldst still be a priest as well as a king? You puny fool! For a thousand generations the Kings and the Priests have ruled the world. Never has a Priest wished to be King, nor a King to be Priest. But the Mighty Simbasis must be a King-Priest!
“Know now, the last chapter is about to be played. You may wield a mighty sword and spear, but we priests, with our magical arts know well how to protect ourselves. Your weakness and your dumbness are an enchantment. And now I come to cast the final spell, I pronounce the curse of the living death! Dead to all others but yourself! To see, to hear, to feel, yet to be for ever dead!”
The aura of evil surrounding the ancient priest seem to swell and burst its bonds in triumph. It engulfed Arty Cameron as he collapsed on his regal couch.
Swiftly the old man bent over his royal victim and gave him a scrutiny in which he drank in his victory. He gave a chuckle of evil delight.
V
THE wicked old devil raised his staff and gave Arty another mocking salute. Then he tottered to the great golden gong. He smote it three times with his staff.
Resonant waves of sound crashed round the cavernous room. In the distance other gongs caught up and relayed the summons, so that the whole monstrous edifice vibrated with a medley of golden notes.
A vast crowd gathered in the royal death chamber. Courtiers, soldiers, ministers, priests in their yellow robes. The old man stood at the foot of the dais.
“Simbasis the Mighty is dead! Simbasis the Mighty has journeyed to the Enchanted Forest! May the Gods grant him eternal sport!”
At these words a hush fell over the concourse. Arty Cameron could feel the waves of sorrow flooding the room. He fought to raise himself, to reassure them that he was not dead. But his body did not respond to his will—as he had been chained to that hospital bed somewhere in Space and Time, so was he now chained to this regal death bed. A living spirit in dead clay.
The magic spell was too potent. God knows to what remote age he had been transplanted, but it was an age where magic laws and principles functioned powerfully. Then he realised that this was no magic spell, but hypnotism.
Hypnotism in its most advanced form, so that a cataleptic condition could be induced to completely simulate death; no breath, no heart or pulse. A false rigor mortis would set in. He Was indeed under a spell of living death.
A woman in gorgeous raiment broke free from her attendants and flung herself across his body.
“Simbasis! Oh, Simbasis, Simbasis, come back to me!”
Her agonised cry tore at Arty Cameron’s core with a pathos well nigh unbearable. His Queen! Curious, he came to think of himself as Simbasis; not a petty car thief of distant, Twentieth Century London.
The swine! The cruel, yellow devil! The prostrate woman was gently raised from him. Now he saw her unearthly beauty and grace. She was young, yet every inch a fitting mate to the Mighty Simbasis. She shook off her attendants. Turning to the ancient Priest, she cried: “Let the rites be carried out!”
“The full, age-old rites?” the oldster croaked with an eager gusto that sounded strange in this death room.
“The full rites, Kubinas!”
