And here I sit with you gentleman. Thank you Wadsworth, the cognac and cigar is all I require. Please, see yourself out for a while.
I can tell you, my friends, I am happy to have returned to the fine city of St. Lucas. Now, as I tell you this tale I must insist on absolutely no questions. Allow it to unfold before you in all its glory, mystery, and dark secrets. I shall reveal all to you by the end, as it was revealed to me. Lord Cross, you feel you shamed poor Henry Cabot with your tale of the vile religion in the Talic Islands of men brought back from the dead as slaves? Well, I mean no disrespect sir, but your tale could be told in a nursery by the nanny when held against the truth I am about to tell to you.
As you both know, I had journeyed to South Mirron, the country of Zatchu. Many men do this for adventure of the wilds, the mountains, or hunting the exotic beasts, but most do it for the glittering siren call of the gold from the ancient Dasism. I went in search of none of those. Rather I sought knowledge of a more ancient people, the Naveribe. These people and their civilization were once as great as any in this world’s history. They left great lines behind, only discovered last year when men of science flew a zeppelin over the area for the first time.
I had flown over them myself, a week before the expedition. They were breath-taking. Many said they could not have been made by primitive men. Some said that other technology had to be used to make these great lines. I would search for that, the source of these ancient mysteries. If I could prove that great civilizations existed five millennia and a half before our time, it would change the world.
We began the excursion in early Axara with the usual contingency of scientists, soldiers, local guides, and men to set up our camp and carry our expedition’s supplies - about thirty in all. We traveled south from Tiflur on foot with llamas for pack animals. These beasts smell less than camels, but they spit just as their Drungian cousinsdo. There was boundless camaraderie. We all knew great things waited for discovery and we would be famous. At night we gathered around roaring fires and the porters sang their native songs. The scientists gathered in small groups with their notebooks, comparing their knowledge. The Dasism joked with each other in their crude language and laughed, and the hunting men enjoyed the sport they could find as we traveled.
We had made it to the great lines, though we couldn’t discern what they were from the ground. When we arrived, about half of us came down with a debilitating fever. We decided to press on, but it wasn’t long before we had to stop. I also became afflicted, and I spent many days shivering in my tent. My fever was like none I had experienced before, and everything was a haze and fog for me. People’s voices were swollen and almost undecipherable. My hands were red and puffy, making it difficult to hold a tin cup of water, let alone a glass of whiskey.
A storm came upon us at this time. It was a horrible squall that arose in the west. We thought it was a hurricane that broke on the mountains and the remainder drenched us for days. This was supposed to be the dry season. The winds tore at our tents, bringing them down upon us. Our chief guide, a stout Dasism named Kenzet’tua, told us we must head west for shelter in the mountains. The land ran in great valleys in a northeast to southwest direction. We were forced to follow these, as we could not scale them in the weather with half of our men sick and barely able to walk. We lost over a dozen men to accidents and sickness. The porters began to desert us, even though we had already paid them. They would just disappear, leaving behind their gear and duty. These primitives had no sense of honor, and were terrified of the simplest things. I soon learned that their fears may be more real than I gave credit.
When we reached a sheltered area there was only a half dozen of us left: myself, the big game hunter Kyle Johnson, Kenzet’tua, a porter named Philip, and two archeologists - Marcus and Wendell Carrington (of the New Philton Carringtons). We only had four llamas remaining, and our guide recommended we sacrifice three of them to the Gods. I argued against it, but Mister Johnson sided with our guide, stating it would also give us food while we waited for the storm to subside, as well as put our two locals at ease. The archeologists were no help in this, as they were in the grips of panic.
That night the sky cleared and we saw the stars for the first time in three days. I am no navigator, but I pride myself on knowing enough to find my way. We were very much off course. The mountains loomed to the west, but from what I could tell in my feverish haze we were days south of where we should be. We slept in puddles of mud under tattered canvas and a rocky overhang. It was that night that things changed forever.
I woke with a start. Everything was quiet, and nothing seemed amiss. My fever had broken and my head was clear, but I was ravenous. I stumbled to the dying fire to have some of the llama that was still on the spit. I cut at it with my belt knife, devouring it as if I had not eaten in weeks. I could see the shadow of another, not too far away, also having a late night snack. He was hunched over his meal, his back to me, shoving it in his mouth with wet smacking noises.
As I began to feel sated, I looked around the camp. I could see the sleeping forms of Mister Johnson and one of the archeologists. Kenzet’tua was silhouetted on a hillock not far away, praying to whatever ancient powers he believed in, and I said a quick prayer to the patron saint of travelers. Philip was huddled at the far back of the recess, staring past me with wide eyes. I followed his gaze to my meal companion. It was then I saw the drag marks in the mud leading to the man. Confused, I stood to see what the other archeologist had dragged out of our shelter. I thought perhaps a blanket to keep warm, or to spread on the ground to keep the mud from his meal. He had made a mess though, archeology tools scattered between me and him.
I froze in mid-step as the moon revealed his meal. I could see the mutilated limbs, contorted unnaturally, on the ground under him. It was not beast he was dining on, it was human. My fellow diner turned to gaze upon me. Its eyes shone with a faint greenish glow, and its mouth was an open gaping maw. I could not tell details in that dim light, but I could see squirming things inside that ravenous craw. A dozen or more of the hideous vibrissa swayed, like serpents’ tongues, tasting the air. Its arms had extra joints and were a third again the length of a man’s. And its legs were jacked backwards like a cricket’s.
It was then that Philip’s scream split the night. I spun to look at him, and saw two more of these creatures scaling downward from above him. Mister Johnson and the one remaining archeologist sat bolt upright. Behind me I heard a shriek, not unlike a fox’s, but much louder and angrier. The monsters were upon our porter in a flash. Their hands which had no fingers, but instead were three elongated jointed claws, tore out his throat in a moment. They fell upon their prey in an instant.
Mister Johnson was up and had his long gun leveled at the creatures. The muzzle flashed and the sound deafened me for a few moments. One creature flew backwards and crashed against the rocky face of the cliff. Relief washed over me, feeling I was saved. But it rose into a crouch and eyed the hunter.
Allow me to take a moment now for a drink of my cognac. The memory of this makes my hands shake, as you can see. Ah, the drink will help me steady my nerves, and my cigar has gone out. One moment while I relight it, then I shall continue. I see you sit as quietly as I have asked you to do, and for that I offer my gratitude. I think if you asked questions, I would lose my nerve at these memories, and seek the sweet smoky streets outside. The noise and clatter of the throngs of people offer quite a comfort now. You see the heads of the great beast on these walls; the lion, the rhinoceros, the crocodile, and even the massive elephant? The danger of hunting these in no way compare to what I saw and experienced that night, and the nights that followed. Very well, I see your anxiety, I shall continue with my tale.
Our big game hunter was well recommended, and his steel lent me courage at that moment. As the beast launched itself at the man, I dove for my bedroll for my own sidearm. I always carry a Teurone handgun. There is a reason that gun has become such a staple of certain armies. A shadow and breeze passed above me a
s I did this, and I realized that if I had not moved at the moment I did, I would have been disemboweled from behind. The creature that had been quietly dining had chosen that moment to join the fray. It sailed over me, landing on its feet three full paces beyond. Thinking about it now, that would mean it had leapt at least six meters with ease.
The remaining archeologist sat frozen. I do not even know which of the two brothers it was, but he sat as still as a statue. I reached out and shook him, and he seemed to wake as if from a dream. He leapt up and ran out of our shelter. I could not track him at that moment though, because the beast that had been eyeing Mister Johnson sprang at the hunter. That man was a rock, he did not flinch. He remained perfectly still except for the barrel of the gun that tracked his quarry with astounding skill. Another blast issued forth, this time catching the monster in its open maw. I insist its head melted when that shot, meant for taking down bull elephants, found its mark. It flipped backwards, and its boney legs fell centimeters short of the hunter. I will name my first son after that man, for without him that night I swear to the gods and all the saints that I would surely not be here to tell this tale. I had always teased him for sleeping with his gun and fully dressed, but now I see the reason. Thankfully, in order to stay warm, none of us had disrobed that night.
I heard three clicks and without me seeing it, the rifle was reloaded. He shouted at me to back up, but not run. I did as he said, my pistol held in front of me. Funny things happen to a man when faced with death and danger. When you do not have time to think, some freeze, some run, but others act. And that saved my life a dozen times that night. We backed out of our shelter and towards the fire. The archeologist was there, holding a flaming brand and a lantern. I think it was Marcus, but I am still not positive. That alone may allow you to guess his fate.
The next few moments became a blur. Our attackers bounded from our sleeping shelter, Mister Johnson snatched the lantern from the terrified scientist and threw it into the fire. The fire flared four meters into the air. The creatures screamed again, that eerie sound like a fox, a barking scream that women often swear is more an evil spirit than an animal. In this case, I think they would be spot on. Pardon me here for my informality, but after what he and I went through, I feel it is only acceptable for me to call Mister Johnson by his given name.
Kyle shouted for us to run, roughly shoving the stunned man in front of him. We ran. We went straight for Kenzet’tua. It was all very surreal, as if in a dream. We ran as if in molasses for the first score of steps. We could see the guide, and I am guessing he was also some sort of Shaman, for he was still on his knees praying. His arms were held wide, supplicating to the stars, and his voice had risen from a mumble to shouting. We bolted past him, calling for him to come with us. But we had no time to stop and drag him along. But it was not the last time we crossed paths with him.
We were the hunted then. I do not know how long it took these nightmare apparitions to recover from the flaring light of the fire, but soon we could hear their barking screams as they pursued us. We ran. The night had grown chill and our breath was short white puffs of air in front of us. We tried to run faster, to make those frozen wisps fall behind us, but they always stayed in front of us, as if we were standing still.
The scientist still led the way, though Kyle told him to follow rather than lead. I spotted the cave in the mountain-side as I ran and realized that was where the man was heading. The hunter tried to shout at him, telling him we were being corralled like sheep, trying to get the man to keep running and that all we had to do was survive until sunrise. The scientist did not listen. He ran straight into the cave, and we began to run past it when we saw five of the creatures in front of us. We followed our companion into the cave.
Kyle went to the back of the cave, which was only about a dozen paces deep, and knelt down, dropping his ammunition on the ground in front of him. He said we could make a stand there. The beasts could not enter all at once, and perhaps he could hold them off. I stood beside him, my weapon at the ready. He told me not to waste bullets, only fire when I knew I could hit them in an eye or their mouth. We waited. We could see the shadowy forms outside, mere steps from the entrance of the cave opening. My hand began to shake as the cold set in and chilled the sweat on our bodies. I know this is how hypothermia can set in, and I stamped my feet to keep my circulation going.
A half an hour had passed, if it was a minute, and the beasts still had not approached our position. They would not enter. This emboldened our archeologist friend, who still carried his stick from the fire, though it was no longer lit. He began laughing like a madman. He taunted the creatures, and no amount of advice or threats from myself or Mister Johnson would quiet him. He began dancing closer to the mouth of our hiding place, shouting insults at our enemies. Two of them crouched just outside, watching him with their small heads tilted as if listening to his gibbering. They were mere silhouettes with pin-point green spots that told us the location of their eyes.
It was inevitable I guess, but the man underestimated our foes. He stepped too close to the entrance, and apparently they had not come as close as they could. With lightening reflexes one snatched the man’s charred club as he swung it towards them. It became a tug of war for the space of two heartbeats, but he refused to give up his weapon. Before we could react, they had dragged him outside. I saw the spray of his blood as they disemboweled him. Horrified, I stumbled backwards and hit the wall. I am ashamed to say it, but I could only stare at what transpired. Kyle was made of sterner stuff though, and he stood and marched forward firing his weapon. Two shots were fired. One of the beasts flew backwards, its head missing. The other was rocked by a glancing blow to its shoulder.
The man was still alive, and tried to drag himself back into our shelter. But it was too late. Three more monsters came into view and one grabbed him by his foot and dragged him outside, screaming. The archeologist was lost. His shrieks died away, much too slowly for my tastes. It seemed the beasts kept him alive as they did their ghastly deed.
We waited for the sun. I do not know how long it was, but to be honest I think we waited days before the sky finally began to show a hint of pink from sunrise. What happened next is not something from the year six thousand and thirty three. It is either technology from far beyond ours, or from legends of dark magic that we scoff at as we tell tales around the fireplace. The silhouettes of the creatures filled the doorway and they placed their malformed hands on the edge of the cave. A deep vibration came from the mountain as if it were growling, though I don’t know if it were in warning or aggression. The beasts began screeching in answer. High pitched, irregular, and discordant. It scraped at our nerves and I found myself crouching with my hands covering my ears. I was like some terrified animal, hardly in control of my own actions. Kyle was behaving the same, having backed himself all the way to the rear of the cave, his eyes were wide and showing bloodshot whites, his pupils dilated.
An odd sound came from the front of our shelter, as if pudding were dropped from a great height. When I first looked for the source of the sound I only saw the monsters crowding the doorway, but soon saw what caused this new noise. The cave was melting. It was not hot, or at least it did not put off heat or glow as lava does. But the mouth of the cave was closing by melting. I could see pointed spikes growing downward, like teeth in a mouth. The scientific part of my mind realized this must be what it is like if you were to watch stalactites grow over a thousand years. Stalagmites also rose from the ground as pieces of the upper cavern dripped down like black drool, building the lower teeth of this alien maw.
I still do not know if what I saw was real. I had a jungle fever for days and that may have touched my mind. I snapped. I turned and ran for the rear of the cave, clawing and slapping at the walls. I do not know how long I did this for, but I know it was dark when I came to my senses. Where light should now be streaming into the mouth of the cave, there was no longer an entrance. As I felt along the wall I discovered an opening. It was no
t large, but I think we could fit through it. I could feel warm, moist air around me.
I called to Kyle, and heard a hoarse reply. In short order he had crafted a rough torch from his shirt wrapped around the barrel of his gun and doused in fine grain alcohol. The opening was larger than I had realized. It was almost to my shoulder in height, and wide enough that I barely had to turn to enter it. I had enough wits to recover my weapon before entering. We ducked around a smoothed stalactite we previously had not noticed and began our journey in the further unknown.
It was a horrible descent. If we had not been going down I would have thought we were going in circles, for the floor angled deeper the whole way. The walls were smooth and slightly curved, and the ground was similar except for rounded bumps that crossed from wall to wall every couple of steps. The air was thick and smelled of foul and fetid things, and it became hard to breathe as we traveled. The air grew warmer and I would swear to the gods and all the saints I could feel it moving around me. Our torch guttered and smoked. The fuel he used was pure and originally was a blue flame and should have continued to burn clean, but as we spiraled further into the bowels of the earth, the light became a sickly yellow color and the torch spewed thick black clouds, like an outdated coal foundry.
I cannot say how long we traveled, though in my mind it seemed to be more hours than we would have traveled if we were above ground and in open air with a full retinue for safari. It was endless and our minds were as lost as we were. From the corner of our eyes we began to see things shifting in the tight, enclosed spaces and shadows. Quick movements of small things and slow languid movements of much larger things. In the beginning when we stopped to look we only found rock, but later we found crystal. The oddest crystals I have ever witnessed. Sharp, like broken glass, but black as oil. They were small when we first noticed them, but they became larger as we descended further into the depths. They jutted up like bamboo grass, but they would not give way when we stepped on them. Instead our feet slid on them, and they raked our calves and legs. They left some residue on our skin, and I daresay in our cuts. Soon enough the walls were these same black crystals, as round as a horse’s trunk and as long as a tropical palm is tall.
I must confess, my mind was no longer stable. I had just recently recovered from the fever, hunted by monsters for kilometers at a run, breathed the tainted air of that cavern, saw things that were not there, and taken some foreign chemical into my wounds from the crystals. Kyle’s eyes were rimmed with thick red and surrounded by dark circles. With his torn shirt and tattered pants he looked like a prize fighter that had seen the king of demons himself. I can only imagine what he saw when he looked upon my face. I do not know if what I describe next is real or the fiction of my fatigued body and strained mind.
The world we knew had ended. We were in an utterly foreign realm. The crystal passages opened up into a huge cavern. The air was now hot and I could see red glowing rivers below the crystalline floor. A raised dais of polished obsidian dominated the open space. It had been carved with strange symbols and pictures that resembled the Naveribe lines I had seen from the air just weeks before. Kneeling upon that unholy altar was Kenzet’tua. He was painted with a dark liquid that I knew to be blood. It coagulated on his skin in places, and ran free in others. I saw some was his, from freshly made cuts, and the rest were from the hideous sacrifices that lay around him. I could see several dismembered torsos, each glittering in the hazy red light with runes carved into their flesh. As I stared in horror, he began chanting and I caught sight of other movements. These things no longer hid when I looked directly at them, but I could not focus on them either. They slithered and crawled everywhere, covering what was the ground. My mind would not accept their very existence and I have woken every night since then, with dreams of these things in my room, coming closer to me.
Johnson screamed and lowered his weapon, firing it twice, slapping it open and shoving more shells into the barrel. Snapping it closed he fired again and again. He dropped shells around him and they rolled off from where we stood to the glowing streams below, popping in small explosions as they did. I raised my eyes to where heaven should be and prayed. I prayed to the Changing Wheel, to Jonath, to the Saints, to the Holy Promethene, to my own mother (May the gods protect her and give her soul rest), and anyone else of which I could think. I was babbling. As I did, a moment of clarity struck me… the smoke was rising, swirling, and being taken away up a passage.
I grabbed Kyle by his shoulder and shook him, intending to point this out to him. His eyes were mad and his mind was gone. He did not see me. He looked through me. He loaded his rifle again with instinct and skill blending into a smooth action, and lowered his gun at me. I slipped and fell at his feet as he fired where I had stood a heartbeat before. Kenzet’tua screamed for me to sacrifice the man, to join him with these gods that crawled all about me. My hand drew my belt knife without me realizing what I did, and I had cut the man’s ankle tendon before I could stop myself. The hunter fell.
His eyes cleared and the insanity melted away. I grabbed him and shouted about the smoke, and a way up and possibly out. He shook his head and tears rolled down his dirt streaked face. He mouthed one word, run. Run. And I did. Firing my pistol at anything close to me, I clamored towards the ridge nearest to me. I left the man that had saved my life countless times, thinking only of escape. I could hear the cavern thrumming with a heartbeat of its own as I did. I followed the passage where the air currents led me. I was blinded from the toxic fumes and tears. I lashed out with my knife, cutting into things I could not see. And I ran. I do not know how long I ran. I only know I climbed upward. As I did the air became thinner and cleaner. The sounds faded behind me, though I swore I could hear pursuit.
I finally emerged into daylight. I walked towards a setting sun. I walked through the night. It may have been days, I am unsure, but I finally reached the ocean, the mountains towering behind me. I continued to wander for days before I was found by a fishing boat. From there I made way home. I later discovered I had traveled to the southernmost tip of the mountains. I was delirious for a week or more, and owe my life to those fishermen. And now here I sit, sharing my tale with you, and a warning. There are ancient, hidden things, long forgotten, that still lurk in dark places.
Now, if you will excuse me; I must return home to my lovely wife and young son, Waldorf.
The Tridington Birthright: Shadow Heritage