Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations (3 page)

They glowed a shade of green I’d only seen in the jewels brought back by our soldiers from the East. Arbella spoke and her voice broke through the spell cast by her unusual eyes.

“I am the first to have been cast aside by a man, but it was a god who saved me.” The magnificent creature moved to the door and I watched as she lifted the lid of the basket. “You will be
my
first, and we will wreak havoc on those who wish to control us.”

“Who are you?” I found my voice at long last, and I was surprised at how steady it sounded given what I’d just seen. “Are you a goddess? A witch?”

“Promise your allegiance, child, and I shall tell you all that I know. Otherwise, I will leave you here to do what is expected.”

I didn’t hesitate as I nodded my acceptance of her offer. Perhaps she was right. I was a coward. But there was something about this mysterious woman that I wanted to mimic. She had a gift more powerful than any noble I’d ever known. And I will admit, I wanted a taste of such power when I had so little remaining as my father’s kingdom collapsed around me.

“You must say the words, princess.” Arbella stood, cradling something close to her chest. “I cannot accept such a commitment on silence alone.”

“I pledge my allegiance to your mysterious god, Arbella. Please. Let me be as powerful as you are at this moment. I ask for nothing more.”

The woman turned with a chuckle. “Of course you would ask for power instead of your life. You are truly your father’s daughter, Eilina.”

For the first time, I laid eyes upon the creature she cradled so lovingly in her hands. It was a snake, its black skin as shiny and polished as stone. My first instinct was to flee the room. Take my chances with the enemy soldiers outside our gates. Yet as before, I found myself frozen in place by the voice suddenly whispering in my mind.

I want this. I need this. I want to become one of them.

I reached for the desert cobra with none of the hesitation I’d held for the dagger. Suddenly, I knew what I wanted. What I needed. Without my father telling me what to do. Without my brothers guiding me. Without my husband commanding me. I would be more powerful than they had ever been in life. And I knew just how to make it so.

I wrapped the snake around my throat with a tenderness I rarely possessed, stroking its flat head as its forked tongue caressed the side of my throat. It wasn’t until I felt the pinch of the snake’s bite that I realized what I’d done. I’d betrayed my ancestors. My people. I’d failed in my duty to die as an honorable member of the royal family. But as I began to chant alongside Arbella in a bastard form of Aramaic, I found that I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t Assyria’s princess anymore. I was my own person. My own woman.

And I would survive this.

I barely felt Arbella as she removed the serpent from around my throat. I was too lost in the images rushing into my mind and within moments, I knew the creature’s story. I knew of Arbella’s power.

She was telling the truth when she said she had been the first true immortal. The first woman, cast out of a beautiful garden because she dared to question her husband. My childhood servant had once been known as Lilith and, in her desperation, she found power through the serpent. I knew this was the fate she had spoken of before. The destiny which was born out of the destruction of my ancient empire. I was to be immortal, the first of many who would serve a fallen angel by stealing the souls of men away from the god who had wronged her. I had become the second next to Lilith. A creature they would call many names, but always be drawn to.

Succubus.

Demon.

Vampire.

And so, I embraced the poison which changed us into something so much more than mortal. I became a goddess. A beauty who would bow to no man.

One who would rise forever as an angel of man’s destruction.

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Cynthia D. Witherspoon
has had numerous short stories published in anthologies and has been the recipient of several writing awards. Her collaboration with K.G. McAbee,
The Brass Chronicles
, is her latest project; with the first book scheduled for release in October 2011 by Carina Press. She currently lives in South Carolina with her husband and Jack Russell terrier,

David Tallerman

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I have been a fan of David Tallerman’s work long before I started this anthology and it pleased me to no end that he was interested in participating in this collection. Not only was he quite enthusiastic about this project, but he also provided wonderful advice as I set up the foundation of the book and met with publishers and agents. A nice bloke to work with and a smashing writer—made my job as an editor almost an easy one!
The Door Beyond the Water
really encompasses the heart of what this anthology is all about; the resolute explorer who searches uncharted land in the name of science, only to uncover a dark horror that was never meant to be found.

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The message came to him in dreams, before the second moon of the season:
A man comes to free the imprisoned one.
Nothing more than that.

But for Cha Né—who was shaman, who saw beneath the mystery of things—that sentence was enough to darken his heart with fear such as he’d never known.

The next night he confronted his spirit-guide with the inevitable questions. “Who is this man who comes? Is he of the mountain people? Is he from the hollow tribe?” It hardly seemed possible, unless the ancient truces had been somehow corrupted. “I must know, Shanoctoc.”

The feathered guide had hesitated long before answering. “He is Montague Evans. He is not of the three tribes, nor of the lands between the water and the mountains. He is a white man, of the tribe of Henry Johnson. He will arrive before the third moon.”

Then Cha Né’s guide, his one companion in the Otherworld, sank into the waters of the lake—was swallowed amidst shivering liquid tendrils.

Cha Né knew, without knowing how, that it was the last time they would ever meet.

Day 24

This morning finds us high upon the first incline to the plateau, and so perhaps a day’s hike from its summit, certainly no more than two. It’s hard to say more certainly, for Johnson’s account becomes increasingly erratic around this point, and his comments upon matters of time unreliable. However, we have the map appended to his diaries and the corroboration of the guides. They tell me we draw near to the lands of the Lam, whose territory comprises the whole of the summit region.

Will the Lam prove peaceable? The guides claim so, but they are less than trustworthy themselves of late. They appear nervous, more so the further we ascend. I worry that soon I may no longer be able to rely on their advice.

That concern might be easier to bear if I weren’t already ill at ease myself. Undoubtedly, the blame lies in my reading and rereading of Johnson’s account. It’s a task I’d eagerly give up, were it not for the fact that in his lucid moments he made insights that I’d hate to be without. Unfortunately, those moments of clarity grow scarcer the further I read. More and more, the valuable detail of the day’s journey is outweighed by description of his nights, and of his dreams—and the narration of those dreams becomes more outlandish with each page. I have no doubt that by this stage in his expedition he was almost lost to the dementia that would soon ravage his mind entirely.

I often think back to that time when I first became properly aware of Johnson. For months, I’d been hunting a means to corroborate my theories regarding the diffusion of myth in regions cut off from outside influence. I’d heard the rumors that still occasionally circulated, the wild-seeming tales of the ethnographer’s last, disastrous excursion. I knew of his earlier notoriety, his controversial and often bizarre essays. But he had been forgotten for the most part, or was remembered only in hushed tones.

That only added to my growing curiosity. The freakish legends surrounding Johnson began to fascinate me, as much if not more than the remarkable similarities between our ideas. However, it was chance rather than diligence that brought me to the accounts of his last expedition, for I hadn’t so much as guessed at their existence before I found them moldering in the depths of the library. It didn’t take me long to realize that the lands he’d investigated would be perfect for my own fieldwork, or—despite the protestations of certain faculty members—to organize a trip upon his established route.

Often, too, I find myself remembering my visit to him, after a long day’s journey by train. Even in the asylum, Johnson was kept apart. His mania, they said, disturbed the other patients. I recall the expression on his face, how despite the excruciating brightness of the electric light, he seemed lost in darkness. More, I remember his screams. “Astasoth! Astasoth!” He repeated the meaningless word endlessly.

With memories such as those, accompanied by Johnson’s alarming journals, what wonder is it that my thoughts are unsettled? Is it so strange that I should be troubled by nightmares myself?

=[]=

Cha Né never questioned his responsibility. He was shaman of the Shanopei. Thus, he was guardian of the gate. Neither the mountain people nor the hollow tribe had a shaman, for there could only be one guardian, and always he came of the Shanopei.

Within the lake tribe, the only other was his novice, Cha Poc. Cha Poc was barely more than a child. The boy would not be ready for many years, for—by nature weak of body like all prospective shamans—he was still ravaged by sickness after each journey through dreams. At present, he lay in the adjoining hut, which Cha Né had built upon his arrival. The boy burned with fever, drifting between this world and the other.

Under any other circumstances, Cha Né would have said that if Cha Poc should die then that was as it must be. Another would be found to take the boy’s place, for the tribe had never been without a shaman. In the meantime, he would stand alone until another took his own place.

Yet now, Cha Né found himself wishing the boy was older, that he was stronger—that he could be relied upon.

It was a weak and unworthy thought. It was the surest measure of his fear.

Day 26

We achieved the rim of the plateau late this morning, after hours of exhausting climb. However, this small victory has presented fresh difficulties, for our guides have left us, as they threatened they would. They’ve started back toward their village on the western shore, where Harley and our base-camp await. God only knows what Harley will imagine when they return without us.

Their last comment still rings in my ears:
Death dwells beyond the lake
, or something to that effect. I choose not to guess at their meaning.

There’s no doubt we grow close to where the Johnson expedition was routed. Halfway toward the further edge of the plateau, Middleton was forced to take over after Johnson’s undeniable breakdown. There followed a further eight days of hasty retreat back to the sea. Through it all, Johnson raved of some being seen only by himself that dogged their steps. Under that intensely morbid influence, Middleton too began to lose his grasp on sanity. When the expedition finally reached their shore encampment, to be reunited with the two members of their party who’d stayed to maintain it, they were all six in a state of uncontrollable mania.

Not one of them ever elaborated on what had happened, and Johnson and Middleton were quite incapable. What details I now know are the composite of three sources: Johnson’s original journals; hurried accounts penned by Middleton before his own breakdown; and some barely meaningful notes scrawled by the last of the party to succumb. All of these texts I have with me now.

I wouldn’t wish to exaggerate the similarity of my nightmares to those detailed so intensely by Johnson. I’ve read his descriptions countless times and been undeniably affected by them. It’s unsurprising that they should haunt my rest as they do my waking hours. This is the only reasonable explanation.

I do find it curious, however, that it isn’t the more outlandish details that disturb me, from the period when Johnson was unquestionably deranged, but those earlier incidents he narrated with some measure of sanity. Yet perhaps even this isn’t really so strange. Henry Johnson was a dreamer, with an appetite for the most bizarre aspects of the cultures he studied. In this, he was very much an anthropologist of the old school.

I believe myself a more rational man than Johnson, and of stronger mind. Thus, I can sympathize with his writings where they remain within the boundaries of the sane. Beyond that point, they can only appall me.

=[]=

Henry Johnson had been a dreamer. Not by nature an evil man, he had nevertheless fallen easily into the service of the being beyond the gate.

Cha Né had no choice but to battle with Johnson in the Blind Lands. Afterwards, he had defiled Johnson’s mind to its very core, and then—for long days and longer nights—had pursued him through nightmares, hunting and destroying any last snatches of reason.