Shadows Out of Time

The Cave of the Immortals DON WEBB

I was struck by three things the day I met the angel. First that she had the biggest, gaudiest diamond ring I ever saw; second, that she had the sickest looking upright human I ever saw as a husband, and third, that she was a natural blonde. I saw these things in reverse order. Two gentlemen (with whom I had a philosophical difference) had lifted me from my bar stool and tossed me out of the doorway of the hotel bar. I slid on the polished tile into the hotel lobby and came to rest at the angel’s feet, looking up her short skirt at her neatly coiffed pubis. Her elderly husband was in the midst of a coughing fit by her side, and as she reached down (improving my view) to help me up, her big-ass diamond grazed my sweaty forehead. I struggled to my feet focusing first on her beauty, secondly on her warm brown eyes, and thirdly upon the orange and black tacky Halloween decorations that dominated the lobby of the Lakeview Holiday Inn.

The coughing man extended his pale, wrinkled right hand, and said the line he had no doubt been practicing all morning. “Mr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Like I hadn’t heard that joke before. But my eyes were on the angel. I made an affirmative grunt. I also noticed the two gentlemen from the bar were staring at me with undisguised hostility. I didn’t know if it was because I was black, or because (unlike them), I had an IQ in the triple digits. The angel was blushing because she had just realized what I had seen.

“I am Dr. Nathan Mortlake and I hope to reverse your current financial difficulties. This is my wife, Angela Mortlake.” The angel nodded, her face a lovely pink. “Perhaps,” he continued, “We can talk in the lobby.”

We talked. He had been looking for me for a few months, ever since my discharge. I had gone home to Detroit only to find my wife had A) changed her gender preference and B) removed every last penny from our joint bank account. This led to point C), that I no longer had a job waiting for me at my father-in-law’s Ford dealership. This had led to point D), returning to my earlier trade of selling small packets of dried cannabis to middle class white people in St. Louis, MO.

Dr. Mortlake was in touch with all of these facts. But these were not the facts of note for him. Of note was the fact I had spent three days hiding from Taliban shooters in a small, dank cave in Chemia al Den in Why-the-Fuck-am-I-hereistan. And I had seen the statues.

Nearly forty lifelike statues of naked yogins in lotus position. When I had run into the cave, I first thought that there were naked people practicing yoga. I just hoped they would be quiet. Boy, they were quiet. After my heartbeat had slowed to merely very damn fast, I realized they were stone. Mainly male and all naked. Then I saw It.

It was a gray stone idol about the size of a cow. It looked like a peacock in the dim light. Yet most peacocks do not have multiple breasts. And I am willing to bet that none of them have two heads, nor tentacles rather than feet. It rested on a nest made of carved skulls (mainly human but with some horned goblins just for fun) and severed arms (again, mainly human). The idol seemed to be of the same stone as its devotees, but much older as it had wear and tear. I figured it was the boss of the cave, so I offered it a little of my Meal Ready To Eat. Two days later, with my food gone and my canteen pushing empty,

I took back my offering of Beanie Weenies. I hoped it didn’t mind. I heard some vehicles outside and decided that starvation was less desirable than quick death. It was another unit, lost, in the wrong valley — but with food and radios and hope. Later I talked to an army archaeologist. Forms were filled out, people nodded. There was no gold, no dope, no cached weapons, no hiding locals. And the business of living and killing, hiding and hunting, and waiting and waiting went on.

I played my cards well. I acted like I was terrified. I acted like PTSD had replaced my brain. I acted like I wasn’t broke and hopeless. I acted like I wasn’t thinking about the angel’s tiny gold promise. I don’t think he cared. I named a huge price, thinking I would do it for half. Dr. Mortlake coughed, coughed and agreed. I should have asked for twice as much.

But then there was Angela.

It was two weeks until we slept together. By that time, we were in a hotel in LA planning to catch a plane back to Whythe-Fuck-am-I-hereistan. Once we got there the romance AND the sex grew faster and faster, while everything else grew slower and slower. At first, I thought maybe she was a getback-at-Daddy girl, then I thought she was a black-on-blonde girl. Then I found out she was lonely. And in love. She even felt love for Mortlake, but she was much more in love with his millions. She had been an exotic dancer, but she had tried for a “real” career as an administrative assistant. At first, she had worked for Mortlake’s hard-drinking younger brother, who had millions of dollars in banking and venture capital. Then one night he wrapped his car around a tree. She met the frail Dr. Mortlake at the funeral. He went from a respected linguist with encyclopedic knowledge of Indo-Iranian languages to a very respected linguist with an estimated worth of a few hundred million. Dr. Mortlake was best known for his translation of a midlevel Sanskrit recension of a Tibeto-Burman ritual text commonly known as the Black Sutra. He had never managed money, never had a staff of more than a devoted but underpaid graduate student, and had never had a good relationship with a woman after the Nixon administration. He was kind, he was smart and at first had no illusions that Angela really loved him. Wedding bells rang, no pre-nup was signed and Angela devotedly waited for Nathan to die.

But he didn’t. He grew more and more excited. He had a purpose to live for, besides love. He came back from the brink of death to its general neighborhood. There wasn’t much touching, and Angela gritted her teeth when needed. She faked enthusiasm for his discoveries, and philosophically resigned herself to one, maybe two years of being Mrs. Mortlake, soon to be the rich widow Mortlake.

And then she saw me. A man who wanted her, a man with a brain (not half as big as Nathan’s), a man that wasn’t scared of death.

Nathan was terrified of death. Angela couldn’t forgive him for this. Her dad died in Operation Desert Storm. Her granddad in Vietnam. That her rich husband, a man in his 90s, a man whose education plus experience should let him know the inevitability of death, hadn’t made his peace, hadn’t gone through the five stages. I had made my peace with death when I waited in the cave of the immortals facing the deformed mutant peacock god.

When the little plane bumped its last bump into Khemia-alDen’s tiny airstrip, Haliburton was waiting. Officially they took care of logistics for US troops. In reality they did everything from assassinating local war lords, to delivering cocaine to generals, to flying the chunky local silver jewelry out. They were good at the business of war. If an old man, his hot blonde wife and a vet needed to visit a cave on the outskirts of enemy territory, then that was today’s normal. Tomorrow’s normal might be kill the old man, rape his wife and give the vet’s papers to the highest bidder in the village. Or fight their way past the Taliban and save the old man. There were three HUMVs, we rode in the middle one. The Soviets had built the airstrip back in the day. There was still a sign in Russian and Pashto. It was a short, dusty bumpy drive. They had supplies for us — food, sleeping bags, a generator. They carried us halfway up the small white hill where a tiny cave opened. They left stuff at the mouth of the cave. With some help from Angela I hustled the stuff inside. I set up the generator and the lights, started creating a little camp. Dr. Mortlake and Angela went into the two chambers. The first chamber had thirty-seven yogins. Ten were women. The first five were very weathered, older than the later statues. They had brow ridges and sloping foreheads. Dr. Mortlake explained that in archaic Indian art it was the convention to depict the followers of Shiva as horrific and beastly. I pointed out that the peacock god didn’t look much like Shiva.

The second (and lower) chamber, which I had not visited, was smaller. Its walls were covered in script of various languages. Some of the inscriptions were painted, some incised. A few were very rough scratches, others carved with great skill. Mortlake had me run lights to the “Cave of Scriptures” and got Angela to carry his sleeping bag down there. He told us to amuse ourselves.

Haliburton had provided us with a DVD player and we got through Finding Nemo before we found more primitive ways to amuse ourselves. I was a bit shy in front of the thirty-seven holy men and women, but Angela pointed out that stoned people were usually pretty accepting. After our sweaty play we fell asleep.

Dr. Mortlake prodded me awake with his titanium cane. From our state of undress, he would’ve been an idiot not to know what we were doing. I didn’t wonder about his not caring, but why didn’t we care anymore? Maybe as his quest grew shorter we were preparing for the parting of the ways. His eyes were bright. “Eureka! I have found it. Come!” He led me into the Cave of Scriptures. He moved as fast as a man of seventy. I saw he had filled up notebooks, two dictionaries lay open. One was Sanskrit/English one was Aklo/Latin. Dr. Mortlake adopted a professorial tone. “In Sanskrit there are countless references to a nectar called Amitra or Deathless. The A, which equals not (much as the Greek Alpha is negative as in A-theist) plus Mitra, which means Death. This “‘deathless’ nectar is said to be a by-product of yoga — dripping from the brain into the soulbody complex.”

I nodded. Like I knew or cared.

“You see, I don’t think it’s a myth. I think there was a Deathless Elixir, a secretion not of the mystically prepared human mind, but of an extraterrestrial beast,” he finished.

“You think the Peacock God.”

“Excellent Mr. Livingstone.”

“I came across references to ‘Peacock Milk’ in a very unorthodox Buddhist scripture called the Black Sutra. The god was called Yithra. Or perhaps Yidra. Well I don’t know about ‘God’—the text claims that the asura was captured from a broken sphere of metal. The being wept a clear fluid that the ‘hairy ones’ collected and use to trap evil souls into an eternity of maya. U Pao knew the Yithra’s cult was somewhere in these mountains. He suspected the asura was long dead. He says that in addition to drinking the elixir, a brief spell was needed at a certain time.”

“When did you discover this?”

“I found it out in the ’80s. Then I read a small write-up in Stars and Stripes: ‘Avoiding the Taliban With A Strange Peacock’—the exciting story of Michael Livingstone, your exciting tale of hiding in a small cave with a monstrous idol. Then I inherited my younger brother Frank’s money. Money opens all doors, Mr. Livingstone. I found you, and with the help of these inscriptions I found this.”

Dr. Mortlake walked to the cave wall and tapped it seven times while saying some gibberish: “Zodicare ob zodiramu.” A small section of wall opened. There was a stone nest full of crystal eggs. Actually, they were small bottles shaped like eggs with crystal stoppers. At first, I thought them all empty.

“The story of Aladdin,” said Dr. Mortlake. “There are three eggs left. Three, Mr. Livingstone. Me, Angela and you. We are the deathless. I have millions of dollars and now we have the world enough and time.”

He took the three crystal eggs from the pile of empties.

“The world, Mr. Livingstone, the world.”

He handed me the eggs. “Careful, my friend. I will let you tell her. Tomorrow when the moon and Mercury are in the right place, we will drink the elixir. I will say the words from U Pao’s text. We will live forever.”

I knew he believed. I was pretty damn unsure. Drinking weird liquids that may or may not have come out of an extra-terrestrial’s ass in a remote Himalayan cave did not strike me as a sound basis for one’s eternity. I was ready to bail, and I would take Angela with me. Sure, we would lose out on millions — somewhere in all of this I had begun to see Mortlake’s millions (as well as his woman) as mine. While he had been giving his ecstatic speech, Angela had quietly gotten dressed and descended to the lower chamber. I was about to speak but caught a warning look in her eyes. The next six hours were a special hell of awkward. I could smell her on my body, while I made the MREs for our dinner — I kept trying to read her eyes. Meanwhile Dr. Mortlake went on and on about the falsity of religion — how real immortality was not a spiritual state but a physical one — how our ancestors’ ancestors had encountered other races/entities, and their half-remembered stories became the control structures called religion. How only a few scholars like him had thrown off the blinding superstitions of mankind. How lucky Angela and I were to know him. How we would literally have eternity to thank him for what we were about to do. He laid it on thick and ended our evening by a blasphemous re-telling of the story of the Last Supper. I assumed that it was a not very well encoded story in which Angela was Mary Magdalene and I (of course) was Judas. True to form he fell asleep an hour after the tasteless spaghetti and grainy soy “meatballs.”

While he snored, I implored.

“We’ve got go now. I don’t want what’s in the eggs — and I don’t want to drink it. We should leave now.”

Angela saw it differently. “You don’t understand. He is the smartest human I’ve ever met. If he says the magic juice makes humans live forever, it will make humans live forever. I’m not bailing, you can run if you want. You don’t know him like I know him. I can trust the Peacock Milk.”

“So, you want to live forever with him? Well he probably has enough money for it.”

“No, you idiot, I want to live forever with you. We’re beautiful and fun and we could be wealthy when humans are building domed cities on Venus — if you weren’t a coward. If you were a man I could love.”

That hurt.

“But if we all drink the potion—”

“We won’t all drink it.”

She picked up one of the crystal eggs.

“He doesn’t know what the potion tastes like.”

She pulled at the crystal stopper. It gave a little plunk sound. Then she poured the clear oily liquid on the cave floor. The gray limestone drank it, becoming (no doubt) immortal dust.

“Hand me your canteen.”

I did so. She refilled the empty egg with water. Then she pushed the tiny crystal stopper back into place. She took her big diamond ring and cut an X on the water-holding egg.

“We give him this,” she said. “We will drink the true potions.”

We made love. He snored.

I told myself that he was an ugly, greedy man. That he was fearful and unobservant. That he was not giving the gift of life everlasting to a deserving mankind. That I was getting much more than thirty-three pieces of silver.

The next day I must have checked which egg bore the roughly scratched X at least a dozen times. He handed each of us an egg. He gave me the marked one. But before I could begin some I Love Lucy funny business he said, “I left the scroll I needed in the lower chamber. I’ll be right back.” He laid his egg down and left the room.

Angela said, “See? The gods want us to succeed.”

I wasn’t sure about the idea of gods after yesterday’s lecture, but I quickly switched the eggs.

He crawled back up, holding a short roll of brown parchment.

He was winded from his exertion. When he regained his breath, he said, “I’ll read the spell, then we will drink.” He held up his egg, and for a crazy moment I thought he was checking for the “X.”

He unrolled the parchment. We each sat with crossed legs facing the Peacock God with the thirty-seven statues behind us. We each held an egg in our left hands as Dr. Mortlake read the spell. If this was just an extra-terrestrial’s secretion I don’t know why we needed a spell. His voice echoed oddly in the chamber. Our normal voices didn’t echo and certainly not with a delay or slight changes in provocation. It was probably my imagination, but I felt as if the bulbs dimmed while he read. Then it was done and plunk! Plunk! Plunk!

The Peacock Milk was thick and oily and gaggingly bitter. My grandmother had been a big believer in castor oil, so I had swallowed something with that texture. But as to the bitter flavor, no experience on earth had prepared me for that flavor. I’m sure the diluted flavor in Dr. Mortlake’s drink was quite awful, judging from his expression and the fit of coughing that immediately manifested. Angela had a deep, serious look on her face. I don’t know that I had ever wanted a thing as much she wanted the miracle of the Peacock Milk.

Dr. Mortlake smiled as his coughing stopped.

“You’ll feel the effects almost immediately. Sadly, you won’t be able to communicate them to me. It would have made a nice ending for my article.”

I started to stand, but found my legs were locked. I turned toward Angela and saw fear in her eyes. I tried to speak, but couldn’t open my mouth. I felt my face freeze into a terrible grimace.

“How nice you’ll spend eternity looking at each other,” Mortlake said. “I only asked that you love me with your whole heart. Was it that hard? I’ll be gone in a month. I’ll barely have time to finish my article. The cult prepared initiates to have such strength of mind they could continue their meditations forever. The Neanderthal-looking yogis are in fact Neanderthals. The sutra says they’re still conscious. Apparently, their thoughts are slow, after a few centuries the god starts to talk to them. You’ll probably go mad in a few months. How dreadful staring at each others’ faces in the gloom. Of course, after my death others will seek out the cave. Maybe if they move slowly enough you’ll notice their presence. I hope they don’t wind up taking you out of here — it would be so sad if you were in different museums, wouldn’t it?”

He leaned over Angela. “I guess you carved your X with the diamond on the massive ring I gave you. So romantic! You could have waited just months — months to be super-rich. I even (unintentionally) found a handsome, brave man that you could love. Both of you could’ve had everything! So stupid in your lust, not even to question who these humans are. The drug, the secretion, helps with the long reality of extraterrestrial flight. The poor Peacock Momma crashed here and couldn’t get the quickening drug. Her mate died; he secreted the quickening drug.”

His voice became more and more shrill, more and more fast. Then it was gone. Then the bulbs went out. In an instant, I could tell he had left the cave. The gloom changed to darkness to gloom to darkness faster and faster.

For a while I counted the days. Then others came for a while and lit up the cave. Then another group. Then a group that wrote in Chinese.

Now the gloom/darkness changes so fast I can’t tell which is which.

And now I am beginning to hear the god. The lamenting one speaking of her dead mate and of lost worlds, very non-human worlds.

I do not like it.

(For John R. Fultz)