James Palmer - Shadows Through Time

“This is getting out of hand.” Burton freed his pistol from its holster, aimed it straight up and fired. The retort reverberated around the cluster of alien buildings, and the Neanderthals shouted and scattered, regrouping a few feet away.

When the echo died away, they were greeted by a new sound, that of some eerie piping across a wide range. Burton thought it was some sinister musical instrument, but when he looked toward the city, he saw something that chilled his blood.

It was green and barrel-shaped, standing midway up a short ziggurat-like structure on a series of writhing tentacles. More tentacles sprouted from the top of its blasphemous body where the head should be. It piped at them again.

“What is that?” blurted Challenger.

The presence of the creature seemed to set the Neanderthals into frenzy. They gesticulated and shouted at one another, as unnerved by the creature on the ziggurat as they were Captain Nemo’s party. The brutes lashed out at the group, dashing their weapons from their grip and grabbing them roughly.

“Now see here!” Challenger delivered a powerful blow to one of the primitives, who answered in kind, powerful enough to stun the big zoologist.

“I’m afraid we have no choice but to go with them,” said Burton as they were dragged toward the nearest grotesque alien structure. “For now.”

“Matches!” Herbert snapped, reeling from their touch but otherwise making no effort to escape. They were completely surrounded now. Burton felt a spear poke him in the side and had a painful momentary flashback to the injury he suffered in Berbera. He rubbed his left cheek, feeling the triangular scar there.

Speke had been there, too.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

He struggled briefly with the nearest brute, but they were possessed of a strength that belied their smaller stature. As the strange portal of the building yawned dark and forbidding before them, Burton wondered what would become of them. He thought of the Nautilus , so far away it might as well have been waiting for them in the year of their origin 1861, and shuddered.

Burton, Nemo, Challenger and Herbert were herded into the building and tossed into metal cages. The Neanderthals locked the door and left the room, still communicating in that liquid speech and gesticulating wildly.

Burton tested the door, slamming against it. It held.

“This is not at all what I expected,” said Nemo calmly.

Challenger fumed. “Well what did you expect? And why the devil didn’t you share it with us? Now we’re trapped, with no way to signal the Nautilus .”

“Please, gentlemen,” Burton pleaded. “This bickering will get us nowhere.”

“Morlocks!” said Herbert.

Burton stared at the Time Machine’s inventor before continuing. “Let’s think this through, shall we? Challenger, what do you make of this cage?”

Challenger studied it, wrapping his fingers around the bars. “Iron. Crudely fashioned, yet solid and sturdy. It is beyond the kin of those simple, Stone Age brutes.”

“Yes,” said Burton. “So if they didn’t build it, who did? And for what purpose?”

“That thing on the ziggurat appeared intelligent,” said Nemo, beads of sweat standing out on his high forehead. “Though plant or animal, I can’t say what it was.”

“It’s probably just as curious about us,” said Burton. “Perhaps even just as fearful.”

Challenger shrugged. “Man and Neanderthal coexisted. Since it knows of one, it is likely it knows of the other.”

“Not like us,” said Herbert, in a momentary expression of sanity. He tugged against the bars. “Nothing like us has yet walked this Earth. Forget our cage, gentlemen. Look at the room.”

The explorers studied their environs beyond the cage in which they were imprisoned. They were in the center of a low-ceilinged room illuminated by shafts of sunlight filtered down from somewhere above. Along the far wall was a row of long tables composed of some dull white metal, shining in the light. Shelves set into the adjoining wall contained what appeared to be clay jars, cracked with age. An oblong leather satchel sat open on one of the tables, filled with wicked-looking metal implements.

“What does this place remind you of?” asked Herbert with a giggle.

“Why,” said Challenger, “it’s an examination room. They wish to dissect us!”

The burly zoologist gripped the bars and shook them violently. They rattled but didn’t budge.

“Calm yourself, Professor,” said Nemo. “I assure you we are not going to be dissected by those mindless brutes. They are not the true masters of this city.”

“Quite right,” said Burton. “That thing on the ziggurat. It told the Neanderthals to capture us. It holds some sway over them, probably through fear. Perhaps we can use that.”

“Dissected,” Herbert muttered from the far corner of the cage. “That’s quite a turn, hey? How many times at University did I cut open a lower animal to study the mechanisms of life? Now we are the lower animals!”

“Calm down, Herbert,” said Burton. “No one’s getting bloody dissected. We’re going to figure a way out of this.”

They heard a strange noise then, as if something slick was sliding against the rough-hewn stone floor. A shimmering, globular form loped into view. It resembled an ambulatory oil slick, iridescent and covered in thousands of what looked like eyes that shimmered into existence only to swell and pop in seconds like soap bubbles. Two of the green, barrel-shaped monstrosities flanked it. The pile of slime came right up to the cage, interposing itself between the bars to come inside. Nemo, Challenger and Burton backed up with revulsion. It ignored them, going straight for Herbert. It wrapped itself around him as he screamed.

Challenger lunged at the beast, but Nemo and Burton restrained him. The contact lasted mere seconds. In a moment, the glowing oil slick had released Herbert and exited the cage, the Time Traveler crumpling to the ground in a sobbing heap.

Burton and Nemo went to him while Challenger glared at their jailers. “What have you done to him?”

“Contact successful,” said Herbert as he sat up, his eyes blank and staring. “This one shall make an adequate bridge for communication.”

“What’s he on about now?” demanded Challenger.

“I don’t believe he is the one speaking,” said Burton, glancing at the blasphemous beings outside the cage.

“You are correct,” said Herbert, his vocal cords confiscated by the barrel-shaped creatures resting outside the cage. “We are known by other races as Elder Things.”

“What do you want with us?” said Nemo.

“We wish to study you. You are not like the bonehead slaves. You are not even like their cousins, the small brains from the northern continent. Your companion tells us you traveled through Time.”

Burton glanced at Herbert, who stared straight ahead, a blank expression on his sweaty face. “They must have ripped this from poor Herbert’s mind.”

“We wish to know how this was accomplished. Only the Great Race of Yith is capable of such travel. Your companion showed us a machine. Where is it located?”

“You’ll never get it out of us,” declared Nemo. “What you will do is release us at once!”

“You have no power over us. We are the masters of this world.”

“Wait,” said Burton. “You did not build this city. Why are you here?”

“Our predecessors built it,” said the beings through Herbert. “We waited until the Time of Ice ended to return here and reclaim our planet, only to find this world infested.”