Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

A veritable sight to behold.

But no one beheld me as I lowered myself carefully down. Down, down to where I beheld the beauty of sparkling gold. For sparkling gold there was a-plenty. My big mega-candlepower torch, affixed to my person with the appropriate chest harness, cast its brilliant light across burnished walls and dazzling glittering spires. I was above the city of Begrem, which, it appeared, was enclosed within a monstrous cavern. One that now had a dirty great hole in its ceiling. Happily I had not skimped upon the braided cord. And I had gone for the best-quality ACME nail-clamp-pseudo-sprockets, so the pulley-wheels whirred upon frictionless bearings as I went abseiling down.

To land in some central plaza, surrounded, it appeared, by buildings of the Byzantine persuasion. There was much in the way of helmed and hipped roofs, Palladian-style minarets, fluted in the Isabelline fashion. Lancet windows were in evidence, but also Diocletian, in the clerestory regions. And there were cusps and cupolas and flying buttresses a-plenty.

And so on and so forth and suchlike. So, a somewhat eclectic collection of archaeological styles. To say that I was entranced would be to severely underplay the emotions that were whirling all around and about within me.

I had found it. I had actually found it. It actually existed.

I had dreamed of this moment. When I had lain there in that hospital bed, I had dreamed of finding Begrem. I had pictured myself strolling amongst its ruins, picking up this golden gewgaw and that. Tossing them into my rucksack. Returning to the surface in glory.

And now I was here. And I felt desperately lonely. All of a sudden, I did. It just swept over me. I was all alone here in this lost city, and no one knew of it. Mr Ishmael, he knew of it. But he wouldn’t know that I was here now. Nor my family, nor any one of the few friends that I had. I was totally alone. And I really hated it.

But I did love it, too. Being here. Incredible.

I disconnected myself from the braided cord, unclipped my torch and flashed it all around. And the gold of the buildings twinkled and glittered, and then I saw something more.

And I switched off my torch. Because there was light here, here in this sunken realm, a soft effulgence that seemed to swell from the very golden buildings themselves. It was so unspeakably beautiful that I sank down to my knees and, lacking any words that could be said, I had a little cry.

And then I pulled myself together. And took myself off to explore.

There was quite a lot of rubble on the central plaza, all blown down by the force of my explosion above, and I have to admit that it did somewhat sully the golden cityscape. And that made me feel rather guilty, because this place had lain here hidden from the eyes of man for centuries and now I had arrived and littered it up and made mess.

And that made me sigh somewhat. But then I thought, well, what the hey, I can always get it cleaned up before I open it to the tourists (live tourists) and get a few food concessions going down here.

So I went off to explore. And all about me the buildings twinkled and glimmered, magically, magically, weaving wonderful spells.

‘I wonder where the King’s palace is?’ I wondered. Because if I was going to set up camp here, and I was, well, where better to set it up than in the palace of the King? In fact, where better to spend the night than in the King’s bedchamber itself? And then another thought struck me, for many thoughts were now coming my way. I could live here. In this magical city. In the King’s palace. After all, I’d found it. This was all my discovery. This was all mine! And I could have electrics run down here and set myself up in the palace.

I sniffed at the air. And the air smelled good. None of that taint from above. There was a golden purity down here. Living here would be as near to living in Heaven on Earth as surely was possible.

This and many other such thoughts, some supportive and others contradictory, blustered about in my head, bumping into each other, big ones elbowing smaller ones aside, mad ones rising to prominence, then getting all dashed away. And I had to sit myself down upon a golden pavement and take a few breaths to steady myself. Because a man could well go mad with all this thinking and I didn’t want that to happen, not now I’d come this far.

And I had travelled far and no mistake from my upbringing in Ealing and Southcross Road School. Being a detective with my brother Andy. Being with The Sumerian Kynges. Meeting Lazlo Woodbine. And meeting Elvis also. Although I didn’t want to dwell too long on that.

It had been a very strange trip and I knew now that it was nearing its end. That my journey through life, a life that had ticked and tocked and ticked itself away, was coming to an end. I knew that I would find what I wanted here and with it I would defeat and destroy the Homunculus. I just knew that I would do this, though don’t ask me how I knew.

And so I set out for the palace. And the palace was not too difficult to find. I reasoned that it would probably hold the best, most prominent position in the city and be the biggest, grandest building there was. So I returned to my dangling braided rope, shinned up it a bit and took a good look all around.

And it didn’t take too long to spy out a vast building of enormous and imposing grandeur. Which just had to be the palace, really. And so, shinning down, I set out in its direction.

As I strode along through the ancient streets, I did wonder one thing, amongst all the others. And that one thing was, I wonder what happened to all the people?

Would I come across skeletons in regal robes seated about a grand table in the royal dining room? I wondered. And might there be a skeleton waiting to greet me around the next corner?

And might there be ghosts?

Now that was a thought, ghosts. If God smote this city, and it was a pretty dead cert that he had, then did He smite all the people in it straight to Hell? Or did He doom a few to wander for ever throughout the sunken city, bewailing their foolishness in falling out with the Almighty?

And that sent a bit of a chill up me. Because this wasn’t then just a sunken lost city of gold. This was a cursed sunken lost city of gold.

And I might now be one of the cursed for entering it.

And I had to have another sit down and take a few more deep breaths. And I helped myself to a bit of special chocolate, because I reasoned that my energy levels might well have fallen somewhat, which might account for all this gloominess of thought.

And after I’d had the special chocolate, all of the special chocolate, and washed it down with a bottle of special glucose drink, I felt a lot more chipper. Quite bouncy, really. In fact, more than just a little hyper.

And I pressed on with a goodly spring in my step.

And soon reached the gates of the palace. And these gates were golden, which came as no surprise to me. And also open, which came as a bit of a surprise. Although I’m not entirely certain why I’d thought they would be closed. Probably so that I could dramatically fling them open, I suppose. And so in order to have just one more thing to remember, I edged the gates closed and then I flung them dramatically open. Nearly taking both my arms out of their shoulder sockets. Because they were most heavy gates.

And then I entered the courtyard and then I entered the palace of the King, of King Georgius, who had struck the deal with Satan and created the first Homunculus. How many centuries back? Well, many more indeed than I could clearly recall being told of.

And within, all was gold.

I spied out tables and couches and settles and settees. Vases and knick-knacks and whatnots stacked in threes. Plates and pans and flowerpot stands and fixtures and fittings and a great big throne.