Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos

The Lair of the Star-Spawn AUGUST DERLETH & MARK SCHORER

(The extraordinary paper, now for the first time published below, was found among the private documents of the late Eric Marsh, whose death followed so suddenly upon his return from that mysterious expedition into Burma, from which only he returned alive almost three decades ago.)

If there ever be a reader to this, my first and only word on that matter which has robbed me of all hope of security in this world, I ask him only to read what I have written, and then, if he is incredulous, to go himself to that mountainous expanse of Burma, deep in its most secret places, and see there the wreck of the greenstone city in the center of the Lake of Dread on the long-lost Plateau of Sung. And if he is not yet satisfied, to go to the village of Bangka in the province of Shan-si and ask for the philosopher and scientist, Doctor Fo-Lan, once far-famed among the scholars of the world and now lost to them of his own volition. Doctor Fo-Lan may tell what I will not. For I write in the hope of forgetting; I want to put away from me for all time the things that I chronicle in this document.

Well within the memory of my generation, the Hawks Expedition set out for the little-explored secret fastnesses of Burma. In all the newspapers of the world was announced, not three months after the setting-out from New York, the tragic end of that expedition. In the files of any newspaper may be found the story of how the expedition was attacked by what were apparently bandits, and killed to the last man, mercilessly and brutally, the party looted, and the bodies left exposed to the hot, unwavering rays of the Burma sun. In most chronicles, there were two additional details — the first telling of the discovery of the body of a native guide about a mile or more from the scene of the ghastly slaughter, and the second of the utter disappearance of Eric Marsh, student and assistant to Geoffrey Hawks, famed explorer and scholar, whose life was lost in the unfortunate Burmese expedition.

I am Eric Marsh. My return was chronicled almost a month later, less sensationally, for which I am grateful. Yet, while these papers state the manner in which I found my way once more into civilization, they laugh at me a little when they say I will not talk, and condole with me a little less when they say that my mind is no longer sound. Perhaps my mind has been affected; I can no longer judge.

It is with the events of that period between the murderous attack on the Hawks Expedition and my own return to the known world with which this document is concerned. Of the beginning, I need tell little. For the very curious, there are the easily obtained periodical accounts. Let me only say at the outset that our attackers were not bandits. On the contrary, they were a horde of little men, the tallest of them no more than four feet, with singularly small eyes set deep in dome-like, hairless heads. These queer attackers fell upon the party and had killed men and animals with their bright swords almost before our men could extract their weapons.

My own escape occurred only through the merest chance. It had so happened that my superior, Hawks, had somehow lost his compass case, which he always carried at his side. We had been travelling no more than two hours that morning, and he knew that the case had been at his belt when we started. Some one had to go back, for the compasses were indispensable to us. We looked to one of the natives to return quickly along the trail, but to our surprise every native we had with us refused point-blank to return alone. A strange uneasiness had been current among them for all of the last day, ever since we had come within sight of the range of high hills where lay the so- called lost Plateau of Sung. It is true that strange legends had reached us even before we had left Ho-Nan province of a weird race of little people, to whom the natives applied the odd name, “Tcho-Tcho,” supposedly living near or on the Plateau of Sung. Indeed, it had been our intention to pry into these legends if possible, despite the reticence and obvious fear of the natives, who looked upon the lost plateau as a place of evil.

Annoyed at this delay, and yet desirous of pushing on, Hawks was not favorable toward the plan that we all return, and in the end I volunteered to cover the distance myself while the party went on more slowly until my return. I found the case of compasses without trouble lying in the center of our trail only five miles back, and veered my mount to rejoin the party. A mile away, I heard their screams, and the few shots they were enabled to fire. At the moment I was screened from view of the party by a low mound on which grew short bushes. I stopped the horse and dropped to the ground. I crawled slowly up the slope and looked across the flat land beyond to where the party was being massacred. Through my glasses I saw that the attackers outnumbered the party by at least four to one, that they had had a great advantage, for they had evidently attacked just as the party was stringing out to enter a defile at the base of the range of high hills beyond. I realized at once that I could do nothing to help. Consequently I remained hidden until the strange little men had vanished; then I rode cautiously forward to the scene of the carnage.

I found there only dead bodies; no living thing had been left behind. The cavalcade, I discovered at once, had been plundered, but fortunately for me, the marauders had taken neither food nor water, contenting themselves, curiously enough, with our plans and implements. Thus I was without even a shovel with which I might have given my companions something like a burial.

There was nothing left for me to do but return to civilization; I could not go on alone. Consequently I took as many canteens of water and packets of food as I could carry on my horse, and started away.

I had one of two routes of return open to me: either I could go back the way we had come, and risk death on the long journey over uninhabited land, or I could forge ahead and cross the plateau and the high hills; for I knew that inhabited land lay immediately beyond the range before me. The distance beyond the range was less than half that which I would have to recover, were I to retrace the party’s course. Yet it was an unknown route, and there was danger of again encountering the little people whose ruthlessness I had witnessed. The factor that finally decided me was the still flowering hope that I might by some accident stumble upon the ruins of the forgotten city of Alaozar, which century-old legends traced to the plateau before me. Accordingly, I went ahead.

I had not gone far, following as best I could the direction the compass indicated, when I heard a low call a little to my left. I pulled up my horse to listen. It came again, half call, half moan. Dismounting, I walked to the spot, and there I found the native whom the journals have mentioned as having made his way from the scene of the massacre. He was badly wounded in the abdomen by the same blades that had killed my companions, and he was obviously near death. I knelt beside him and raised his agonized body in my arms.

His eyes flashed recognition, and he stared up into my face as memory returned to him, and unutterable horror crossed his features. “Tcho-Tcho,” he muttered. “Little men — from Lake of Dread… walled city.”

I felt his body go limp in my arms, and, looking into his face, I thought him dead. I took his wrist in my hand and felt no pulse. Laying him carefully on the ground, I started away from him. As I walked through the low underbrush, a call much weaker than the first caused me to turn abruptly. The native was still lying on the ground, but his head was slightly raised with what must have been a tremendous effort, and one arm pointed weakly in the direction of the hills ahead.

“Not there!” he rasped. “Not… to… hills.” Then he fell back, shuddering, and lay still.

For a moment I was disconcerted, but I could not afford to ponder his warning. I went on, toiling all afternoon up that ever-steepening slope before me, through almost impassable defiles and up sheer walls. Occasional trees, low, stunted growths, grew from the brush and wasteland, but these impeded my progress not at all.

When I reached the crest of the range, the sun was setting. Looking into the red blaze that tinted the desolate expanse before me, the monotonous, uninhabited waste of unknown Burma, my mind reverted to the fate of my companions and my own plight. Grief mingled with fear of the oncoming night. But suddenly I started. Was it the sun in my eyes that created the strange sight which grew out of the wasteland far ahead on the Plateau of Sung? But as I continued to stare ahead, the moving red before my eyes dimmed away, and I knew that what I saw existed, was no illusion, no fantasm. Far away across the plateau on whose very edge I stood rose a grove of tall trees, and beyond the trees, yet set in their midst, I saw the walls and parapets of a city, red in the glare of the dying sun, rising alone in the plateau like a single monument in a burial ground. I hardly dared believe what my mind thrust forward, yet there was no alternative — before me lay the long-lost city of Alaozar, the shunned dead city which for centuries had figured in the tales and legends of frightened natives!

Whether the city stood on an island and was surrounded by water — the Lake of Dread — as natives also believed, I could not tell, for it was at least five miles away, at a spot which I estimated should be the center of the Plateau of Sung. In the morning I would venture there, and go alone into the city deserted for centuries by men. The sun threw its last long rays over the waste expanse even as I looked toward the fabled city of Burma, and the shadows of dusk crept upon the plateau. The city faded from sight.

I hobbled my horse in a nearby spot where a reddish-brown grass grew, gave it as much of the water as I could spare, and prepared for the night. I did not sit long in the glow of my fire, for I was tired after my long climb, and sleep would wipe away or make less real the memory of my dead friends and the haunting fear of danger. But when I lay down under the star-filled sky, I fell asleep not amid dreams of those dead, but of others — those who had gone from Alaozar, the shunned and unknown.

How long I slept I can not say. I awoke suddenly, almost at once alert, feeling that I was no longer alone. My horse was whinnying uncannily. Then, as my eyes became accustomed to the star-swept darkness, I saw something that brought all my senses to focus. Far ahead of me against the sky I saw a faint white line, flame-like, wavering up, up into the sky toward the distant stars. It was like a living thing, like an electrical discharge, surging always upward. And it came from somewhere on the plateau before me. Abruptly, I sat up. The white line came from the earth far ahead of me, in the spot where I had seen the city in the trees, or close beside it.

Then, as I looked, something happened to distract my attention from the light. A moving shadow crossed my vision and for an instant blotted out the wavering line ahead. At the same moment my horse neighed suddenly, wildly, and shied away, tearing at the rope which held him. There was some one close to me — man or animal, I could not tell.

Even as I started to rise to my feet something struck me a crushing blow on the back of my head. The last thing I knew was a faint, far-away knowledge that around me there was suddenly the sound of many little feet pattering, pressing close to me. Then I sank into blackness.

I awoke in a bed.

When last I had lain down to sleep on the Plateau of Sung, I know I had been over a day’s journey from even the roughest native mats; yet I awoke in a bed, and intuitively I knew that only a comparatively short time had passed since the mysterious attack made on me.

For some moments I lay perfectly still, not knowing what danger might lurk near me. Then I essayed to move about. There was still a sharp pain in my head. I put up my hand to feel the wound I felt sure must be there — and encountered a bandage! My exploring fingers told me that it was not only a skillful bandage but also a thoroughly done job. Yet I could not have been taken out of the secret fastnesses of Burma in such a short time, could not have been moved to civilization!

But my ruminations were cut short, for abruptly a door opened into the room, and a light entered. I say a light entered, for that is exactly the impression I got. It was an ordinary lamp, and it seemed to float along without human guidance. But as it came closer, I saw that it was held aloft by a very little man, certainly of that same company which had only so recently slain the men and animals of the Hawks Expedition! The creature advanced solemnly and put the lamp, which gave off a weird green light, on a stone table near the bed in which I lay. Then I saw something else.

In my amazement, I had failed to notice the man who walked behind the creature carrying the lamp. Now, when the little man bowed suddenly in his direction, and scurried away, closing the door of the room behind him, I saw what in proportion to my first visitor seemed a giant, yet the man was in reality only slightly over six feet in height.

He stood at the side of my bed, looking down at me in the glow of the green lamp. He was a Chinese, already well past middle age. His green-white face seemed to leap out from the black of his gown, and his white hands with their long, delicate fingers seemed to hang in black space. On his head he wore a black skull-cap, from beneath the rim of which projected a few straggling white hairs.

For a few moments he stood looking down at me in silence. Then he spoke and to my astonishment, addressed me in flawless English.

“How do you feel now, Eric Marsh?”

The voice was soft, sibilant, pleasant. The man, I felt, was a doctor; I looked at him more intently, seeking to draw him closer. There was something alarmingly familiar about his face.

“I feel better,” I said. “There is still slight pain.” The man offered no comment, and I went on, after a brief pause. “Can you tell me where I am? How you know my name?”

My strange visitor closed his eyes reflectively for a moment; then again came his soft voice. “Your baggage is here; it identifies you.” He paused. Then he said, “As to where you are, perhaps if I told you, you would not know. You are in the city of Alaozar on the Plateau of Sung.”

Yes, that was the explanation. I was in the lost city, and it was not deserted. Perhaps I should have guessed that the strange little people had come from this silent city. I said, “I know.” Abruptly, as I looked at the impassive face above me, a memory returned. “Doctor,” I said, “you remind me of a certain dead man.”

His eyes gazed kindly at me; then he looked away, closing his eyes dreamily. “I had not hoped that any one might remember,” he murmured. “Yet… of whom do I remind you, Eric Marsh?”

“Of Doctor Fo-Lan, who was murdered at his home in Peiping a few years ago.”

He nodded almost imperceptibly. “Doctor Fo-Lan was not murdered, Eric Marsh. His brother was left there in his stead, but he was kidnapped and taken from the world. I am Doctor Fo-Lan.”

“These little people,” I murmured. “They took you?” I thought for a fleeting instant of his standing among them. “Then you are not their leader?”

The suggestion of a smile haunted Fo-Lan’s lips. “Leader,” he repeated. “No, I am their servant. I serve the Tcho-Tcho people in one of the most diabolic schemes ever formulated on the face of the Earth!”

The astonished questions that came to my lips were abruptly quieted by the silent opening of the door, and the entrance of two of the Tcho-Tcho people. At the same moment, Doctor Fo-Lan said, as if nothing had happened, “You will rest until tonight. Then we will walk about Alaozar; this has been arranged for you.”

One of the little people spoke crisply in a language I did not understand; I did however, catch the name “Fo-Lan.” The doctor turned without a further word and left the room, and the two Tcho- Tcho people followed him.

Presently the door opened once more, and food and drink were brought me. From that time until Fo-Lan returned at dusk, I was not interrupted again.

The short walk in the streets of Alaozar which followed fascinated me. Fo-Lan led me first to his apartments, which were not far from the room in which I had spent the day, and there allowed me to look out over the city to the plateau beyond. I saw at once that the walled city was indeed on an island in the midst of a lake, the surface of which was covered by heavy moving mists, present, I was informed, all day long despite the burning sun. The water, where it could be seen, was green-black, the same strange color of the ancient masonry that made up the city of Alaozar.

Fo-Lan at my side said, “Not without base do ancient legends of China speak of the long-lost city on the Isle of the Stars in the Lake of Dread.”

“Why do they call it the Isle of the Stars?” I asked, looking curiously at Fo-Lan.

The doctor’s expression was inscrutable. He hesitated before answering, but finally spoke. “Because long before the time of man, strange beings from the stars — from Rigel, Betelgueze — the stars in Orion, lived here. And some of them — live here yet!”

I was nonplussed at the intensity of his voice, and then I did not understand, did not dream of his meaning. “What do you mean?” I asked.

He made a vague gesture with his hands, and with his eyes bade me be cautious. “You were saved from death only so that you might help me,” Fo-Lan said. “And I, Eric Marsh, have for years been helping these little people, directing them to penetrate the deep and unknown caverns beneath the Lake of Dread and the surrounding Plateau of Sung where Lloigor and Zhar, ancient evil ones, and their minions await the day when they can once more sweep over the earth to bring death and destruction and incredible age-old evil!”

I shuddered, and despite its monstrous and unbelievable implications, I felt truth in Fo-Lan’s amazing statement. Yet I said, “You do not speak like a scientist, Doctor.”

He gave a curt, brittle laugh. “No,” he replied, “not as you understand a scientist. But what I knew before I came to this place is small in comparison to what I learned here. And the science that men in the outer world know even now is nothing but a child’s mental play. Hasn’t it sometimes occurred to you that after all we may be the playthings of intelligences so vast that we are unable to conceive them?”

Fo-Lan made a slight gesture of annoyance and silenced the protest on my lips with a sign. Then we began the descent into the streets. Only when I was outside, standing in the narrow streets scarcely wide enough for four men walking abreast, did I realize that Fo-Lan’s apartment was in the highest tower in Alaozar, to which, indeed, the other turrets were very small in comparison. There were few high buildings, most of them crouching low on the ground. The city was very small, and took up most of the island, save for a very inconsiderable fringe of land just beyond the ancient walls, on which grew the trees I had seen at sunset the day before, trees which I now noticed were different from any others I had ever seen, having a strange reddish-green foliage and green-black trunks. The sibilant whispering of their curious leaves accompanied us in our short walk, and it was not until we were once more in Fo-Lan’s apartment that I remembered there had been no wind of any kind; yet the leaves had moved continually! Then, too, I had remarked upon the scarcity of the Tcho-Tcho people.

“There are not many of them,” Fo-Lan said, “but they are powerful in their own way. Yet there are curious lapses in their intelligence. Yesterday, for instance, after spying your party from the top of this tower, and after going out and annihilating it, they returned with two of their number dead; they had been shot. The Tcho-Tcho people could not believe them dead, since it is impossible for them to conceive of such a weapon as a gun. At base, they are very simple people; yet they are inherently malevolent, for they know that they are working for the destruction of all that is good in the world.”

“I do not quite understand,” I said.

“I can feel that you do not believe in this monstrous fable,” Fo- Lan replied. “How can I explain it to you? You are bound by conventions long established. Yet I will try. Perhaps you wish to think that it is all a legend; but I will offer you tangible proof that there is more than legend here.

“Eons ago, a strange race of elder beings lived on Earth; they came from Rigel and Betelgueze to take up their abode here and upon other planets. But they were followed by those who had been their slaves on the stars, those who had set up opposition to the Elder Ones — the evil followers of Cthulhu, Hastur the Unspeakable, Lloigor and Zhar, the twin Obscenities, and others. The Great Old Ones fought these evil beings for possession of the Earth, and after many centuries, they conquered. Hastur fled into outer space, but Cthulhu was banished to the lost sea kingdom of R’lyeh, while Lloigor and Zhar were buried alive deep in the inner fastnesses of Asia — beneath the accursed Plateau of Sung!

“Then the Old Ones, the Elder Gods, returned to the stars of Orion, leaving behind them ever-damned Cthulhu, Lloigor, Zhar, and others. But the evil ones left seeds on the plateau, on the island in the Lake of Dread which the Old Ones caused to be put there. And from these seeds have sprung the Tcho-Tcho people, the spawn of elder evil, and now these people await the day when Lloigor and Zhar will rise again and sweep over all Earth!”

I had to summon all my restraint to keep from shrieking my disbelief aloud. After some hesitation I forced myself to say in as calm a voice as I could assume, “What you have told me is impossible, Fo- Lan.”

Fo-Lan smiled wearily. He moved closer to me, put his hand gently on my arm, and said, “Have they never taught you, Eric Marsh, that there lives no man who may say what is possible and what not? What I have told you is true; it is impossible only because you are incapable of thinking of Earth in any terms but those suggested by the little science the outer world knows.”

I felt myself rebuked. “And I must help you raise these dead things, penetrate the subterranean caverns below Alaozar and bring up the creatures that lie there to destroy Earth?” I asked incredulously.

Fo-Lan looked at me impassively. Then his voice sank to a whisper, and he said, “Yes… and no. The Tcho-Tcho people believe you will help me to raise them, and so they must continue to believe; but you and I, Eric Marsh… you and I are going to destroy the things below!”

I was bewildered. For a moment I entertained the idea that my companion was mad. “Two of us — against a host of creatures and the Tcho-Tcho people — and our only weapon my gun, wherever that is?”

Fo-Lan shook his head. “You anticipate me. You and I will be but the instruments; through us the things below will die.”

“You are speaking in riddles, Doctor,” I said.

“Nightly for many months I have tried to call for help with the force of my mind, have tried to get through the cosmos to those who alone can help in the titanic struggle before us. Last night I found a way, and soon I myself will go forth and demand the assistance we need.”

“Still I do not understand,” I said.

Fo-Lan closed his eyes for a moment. Then he said, “You do not want to understand me, or you are afraid to. I am suggesting that by telepathy I will summon help from those who first fought the things imprisoned below us.”

“There exists no proof of telepathy, Doctor.”

It was a foolish thing to say, as Fo-Lan immediately pointed out to me. He smiled, a little scornfully. “Try to throw off your shackles, Eric Marsh. You come to a place you did not know existed, and you see things which are to you impossible; yet you seek to deny something so close and conceivable as telepathy.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much of a help to you. How am I to help you? And how will you go forth?”

“You are to watch over my body when I travel upward to seek the help of those above.”

Dimly, intelligence began to come to me. “Last night,” I murmured, “out there on the plateau, I saw a white line wavering into the sky.”

Fo-Lan nodded. “That was the way,” he said, “made visible by the power of my desire. Soon I shall travel it.”

I leaned forward eagerly, wanting to ask him a score of questions. But Fo-Lan held up his hand for silence. “Have you heard nothing, Eric Marsh?” he said. “All this while it has been growing.”

The moment Fo-Lan mentioned it, I realized that I had heard

something, had been hearing it ever since we had reentered the doctor’s apartment. It was a low humming, a disturbing sound as of a chant, which seemed to well up from far below, and yet seemed equally present from all sides. And at the same time I was conscious of a distinct atmospheric change, something which Fo-Lan did not perhaps notice, since he had been here now for years. It was a growing tension, a pressing, feverish tension in the chill night air. Slowly there grew in me a feeling of great fear; the very air, I felt, was noxious with cosmic evil.

“What is it?” I murmured.

Fo-Lan did not answer. He appeared to be listening intently to the chant or humming sound mounting from below, smiling to himself. Then he looked cryptically at me and abruptly stepped to the outer wall. There he pulled hard at one of the ancient stones in the wall, and in a moment, a large section of the wall swung slowly inward, revealing a dark passage beyond, a secret way leading downward. Fo-Lan came swiftly back toward me, taking up one of the little green lamps with which I had once before come in contact, and lighting it as he spoke to me.

“I have not been idle in these past years. I fashioned that way myself, and only I know of it. Come, Eric Marsh; I will show you what no Tcho-Tcho suspects I have ever seen, what will silence all protest or disbelief in you.”

The stairs which I found myself descending in a few moments led downward along the round wall of a shaft that pierced the earth. Down, down we went, feeling the walls on both sides of us with our hands. Fo-Lan carried the lamp in one hand, and its greenish glow served as illumination for our perilous journey, for the steps were uneven and steep. As we descended, the sound from below grew noticeably louder. Now the humming sound was frequently cut into by another, the sound of many voices murmuring together in some long-forgotten language.

Then, abruptly, Fo-Lan stopped. He gave the lamp to me, and

with a brief caution to me not to speak, gave his attention to the wall before him. Raising the lamp above my head, I saw that the stone steps went no farther, that we were, in fact, within two feet of solid masonry. Suddenly Fo-Lan reached back and extinguished the light, and at the same time I was conscious of an opening in the wall before us, where Fo-Lan had moved aside an old stone. “Look down, and with care,” he whispered. Then he stepped aside, and I peered downward.

I looked into a gigantic cavern, illuminated by a huge green lamp seemingly suspended in space, and by at least a hundred smaller ones. The first thing that caught my eye was the horde of Tcho-Tcho people prostrate on the floor; it was from them that the low murmuring sound was coming. Then I saw an upright figure among them. It was that of a Tcho-Tcho man, slightly taller than the others, I thought, disfigured by a hump on his back, and incredibly old. He was stalking slowly forward, supported by a crooked black stick. Behind me, Fo-Lan, noticing the direction of my glance, murmured, “That is E-poh, leader of the Tcho-Tcho people; he is seven thousand years old!” I could not help turning in utter surprise. Fo-Lan motioned forward. “You have seen nothing. Look beyond them, beyond E-poh, in the half-darkness forward, but do not cry out.”

My gaze swept those prostrate figures, passed beyond E-poh, and began to explore the dusk beyond. I think I must have been looking for some moments at the thing that crouched there before I actually realized it; that was because the creature was so large. I hesitate to write of it, for I can blame no one for not believing me. Yet it was there. I saw it first because my gaze fixed upon the green gleaming from its eyes. Then, abruptly, I saw it entirely. I thank Providence that the light was not strong, that only its vaguest outlines were clear to me, and I regret only that my innate doubt of Fo-Lan’s strange story made the shock of this revelation accordingly sharper.

For the thing that crouched in the weird green dusk was a living mass of shuddering horror, a ghastly mountain of sensate, quivering flesh, whose tentacles, far-flung in the dim reaches of the subterranean cavern, emitted a strange humming sound, while from the depths of the creature’s body came a weird and horrific ululation. Then I fell back into Fo-Lan’s arms. My mouth opened to cry out, but I felt the doctor’s firm hand clapped across my lips, and from a great distance I seemed to hear his voice.

“That is Lloigor!”

Fo-Lan’s story was true!

I found myself suddenly in Fo-Lan’s apartment. I know I must have climbed the long winding steps, but I do not remember climbing them, for the tumultuous thoughts that troubled me and the hideous memory of the thing I had seen served to drive from my mind all consciousness of what I was doing.

Fo-Lan came quickly away from the wall and stood before me, his face triumphant in the green lamplight. “For three years I have helped them penetrate into the earth, into the caverns below, have helped them in their evil purpose; now I shall destroy them, and my dead brother will be avenged!” He spoke with an intensity I had not imagined him capable of.

He did not wait for any comment from me. Passing beyond me, he put the lamp down on a small table near the door. Then he went into the bedroom and lit another lamp; I saw its green light on the wall as he came once more into the room where I stood.

“Mind,” said Fo-Lan as he stood before me, “is all-powerful. Mind is everything, Eric Marsh. This evening you saw things of which you hesitated to speak, even before you saw the thing in the cavern below — Lloigor. You saw leaves move on trees — and they moved by the power of evil intelligences far below them, deep in the earth — a living proof of the existence of Lloigor and Zhar.

“E-poh has a mind of great power, but the knowledge I have endows me with greater power despite his tremendous age. Long hours I have sought to penetrate cosmic space, and so powerful has my mind become that even you could see the thought-thread that wavered upward from Alaozar last night! And mind, Eric Marsh, exists independent of body.

“I will wait no longer. Tonight I will go forth, now, while the worship is in progress. And you must watch my body.”

Colossal as his plan was, I could only believe. What I had seen during the short space of my visit was unbelievable, impossible, yet was!

Fo-Lan continued. “My body will rest on the bed in the chamber beyond, but my mind will go where I wish it with a speed incomparable to anything we know. I will think myself on Rigel, and I shall be there. You must watch that none disturbs my body while I am gone. It will not be long.”

Fo-Lan drew from his voluminous robe a small pistol, which I recognized immediately as one I had been carrying in my pack. “You will kill any one who tries to enter, Eric Marsh.”

Beckoning me to follow him, Fo-Lan led the way into his chamber, and despite my feeble protest, stretched himself on the bed. Almost at once his body went rigid, and at the same moment I saw a gray outline of Fo-Lan standing before me, a smile on his thin lips, his eyes turned upward. Then he was gone, and I was alone with his body.

For over an hour I sat in Fo-Lan’s apartment, my terror mounting with each second. Only in that hour was I capable of approaching in my thoughts the cataclysmic horror which confronted the world if Fo-Lan were unsuccessful in his daring quest. Once, too, while I sat there, pattering footsteps halted beyond the outer door; then, to my unspeakable relief, passed on. Toward the end of my watch, the abrupt cessation of the chanting sounds from below, followed by the noises of movement throughout the island city, indicated that the worship was over. Then for the first time I left the chamber to take up my position at the outer door, where I stood, gun in hand, waiting for the interruptions my terrified mind told me must come.

But I never had cause to use the weapon, for suddenly I heard the sound of feet behind me. I whirled — and saw Fo-Lan! He had

returned. He stood quietly, listening; then he nodded to himself and said, “We must leave Alaozar, Eric Marsh. Alone, we can not do it, and we have little time to waste. We must see E-poh, and have his permission to go beyond to the Plateau of Sung.”

Fo-Lan moved forward now, and tugged at a long rope which hung quite near me along the wall. From somewhat far below there came the abrupt clang of a gong. Once more Fo-Lan pulled the rope, and again the gong sounded.

“That is to inform E-poh that I must speak to him about an urgent matter — concerning the things below.”

“And your quest?” I asked. “Has it been successful?”

He smiled wryly. “It will be successful only if I can convince E-poh to open the way for Lloigor and Zhar and their countless hordes tonight — now! The way must be open, otherwise even the Star-Warriors are helpless to penetrate Earth.”

The sound of running feet in the corridor cut short my questions. The door opened inward and on the threshold I saw two of the Tcho-Tcho people, dressed in long green robes and wearing on their foreheads curious five-pointed star designs. They ignored me completely, addressing themselves to Fo-Lan. A rapid conversation in their strange language followed, and in a moment the two little people turned to lead the way.

Fo-Lan started after them, motioning me to follow. “From E-poh,” he whispered. Then he added in a quiet voice, “Be careful and speak no English before E-poh, for he understands it. Also, be certain you still have the gun, for E-poh will not let us go beyond Alaozar without an escort. And those little people you and I will have to kill.” We went rapidly down the corridor, and after a long descent, found ourselves on the street level, and deep in the tower. At last we entered an apartment similar in many respects to Fo-Lan’s, but neither so small nor so civilized in its aspect. There we confronted E-poh, surrounded by a group of little people dressed similarly to our guides. Fo-Lan bowed low, and I did the same under the stress of those curious little eyes turned on me.

E-poh was seated on a sort of raised dais, suggestive of his leadership, but beyond the evidence of his great age in his lined face and his withered hands, and the servile attitude of the Tcho-Tcho people near him, there was no indication that he was the ruler of the little people around us.

“E-poh,” said Fo-Lan, speaking in English for my benefit, “I have had intelligence from those below.”

E-poh closed his eyes slowly, saying in a strange whistling voice, “And this intelligence — what is it, Fo-Lan?”

Fo-Lan chose to ignore his question, “Lloigor and Zhar themselves have spoken to my mind!” he said.

E-poh opened his eyes and looked at the doctor in disbelief. “Even to me Zhar has never spoken, Fo-Lan. How can it be that he has spoken to you?”

“Because I have fashioned the way, mine have been the hands that groped below and found Lloigor and those others. Zhar is greater than Lloigor, and of greater age, and his word is law to those below.”

“And what has Zhar communicated to you, Fo-Lan?”

“It is written below that tonight is the time when the buried ones wish to come forth, and it is decreed that the servants of E-poh must go beyond Alaozar, beyond the Lake of Dread to the Plateau of Sung, there to await the coming of the Old Ones from below.”

E-poh peered intently at Fo-Lan, his perplexity evident. “Tonight I spoke long with Lloigor; it is strange that he told me nothing of this plan, Fo-Lan.”

Fo-Lan bowed again. “That is because the decision is Zhar’s, and of this Lloigor did not know until now.”

“And it is strange that the Old Ones did not address themselves to me.”

For a moment Fo-Lan hesitated; then he said, “That is because Zhar wishes me to go beyond Alaozar, to address those below Sung, while E-poh and his people must summon the Gods below from the towers and house-tops of Alaozar. When Lloigor and Zhar have come above the Lake of Dread, then Eric Marsh and I must return to Alaozar, to plan for them the way beyond, into the outer world.”

E-poh pondered this statement. In me uneasiness was beginning to grow when at last the Tcho-Tcho leader said, “It will be as you

wish, Fo-Lan, but four of my people must go with you and the American.”

Fo-Lan bowed. “It is pleasing to me that four others accompany us. But it is necessary also for us to take with us food and water, for there is no way of telling how many hours it may take the Old Ones to rise from below.”

E-poh acquiesced without question.

Within a half-hour the six of us found ourselves pushing off the Isle of the Stars into the Lake of Dread, heavily shrouded in thick mists which gave off a strange putrescent odor. The barge-like boat in which we rode was strangely suggestive of ancient Roman galleys, yet very different. The Tcho-Tcho people sculled their way across the lake, and in a few moments we had reached the opposite shore and were pushing rapidly across the Plateau of Sung.

We had not gone far, when from behind us came a weird whistling call, then another and another, and finally a ghastly assembly was piping weirdly from the towers of Alaozar. And from below there came suddenly the terrifying sound of movements under the earth.

“They have opened the vast caverns below the city,” murmured Fo-Lan, “and they are calling forth Lloigor and Zhar and those below them.”

Then Fo-Lan looked swiftly around, calculating the distance we had covered. Abruptly he turned to me, whispering, “Give me the gun; they will not hear in the city.”

Silently I handed the doctor the weapon, and following his sign, backed away. Sharply the sound of the first shot cut into the night; immediately after, a second shot rang out. Two of our little companions were dead. But the other two seeing what had happened to their companions, and sensing their own fate, jumped nimbly away, drawing their sharp little two-edged swords. Then, together, they came at Fo-Lan. The revolver spat again, and one of them went down, clawing wildly at the air. But the last of them came on — and the revolver jammed.

Fo-Lan leaped aside at the same instant that I flung myself for

ward, falling on the Tcho-Tcho man from behind. The force of my attack caused him to drop the weapon he held in his hand, and I thought for a moment that his death was certain. But I had reckoned without his strength. He whirled at once, catching me unaware, and with the greatest ease flung me five feet from him. But this short pause had been sufficient for Fo-Lan; darting forward, he seized the weapon the Tcho-Tcho man had dropped. Then, just as the little man turned, Fo-Lan plunged the weapon into his body. He dropped instantly.

I staggered to my feet, bruised from the shock of being thrown to the ground with such force; I had not imagined that these little men could be so powerful, despite Fo-Lan’s early warning. Fo-Lan was standing quite still, an almost ecstatic smile on his face. I looked at him, and opened my lips to speak — and then a movement far behind him caught my eye. At the same instant Fo-Lan turned.

Far up in the sky a brilliant beam of light was growing — and it did not come from the Earth! Then suddenly, so swiftly the light grew, the surrounding country was as light as day, and in the sky I saw countless hordes of strange, fiery creatures, apparently mounted on creatures of burden. The riders in the sky were oddly like men in construction, save that from their sides grew three pairs of flailing growths similar to arms, yet not arms, and in these growths they carried curious tube-like weapons. And in size these beings were monstrous.

“My God!” I exclaimed, when I could find my voice. “What is it, Fo-Lan?”

Fo-Lan’s eyes were gleaming in triumph. “They are the Star- Warriors sent by the Ancient Ones from Orion. Up there they listened to my plea, for they know that Lloigor and Zhar and their evil spawn are deathless to man; they know that only the ancient weapons of the Elder Gods can punish and destroy.”

I looked once more into the sky. The glowing beings were now much closer, and I saw that the things they rode were limbless — that they were exactly like long tubes, pointed at both ends, travelling evidently only in the power of the ray of light emanating from the stars far above.

“The ululations from beneath the earth have guided them here — and now they will destroy!”

Fo-Lan’s voice was drowned out abruptly by the terrific clamor that rose from Alaozar. For the Star-Warriors had surrounded the city, and now from their tube-like appendages shot forth great beams of annihilation and death! And the age-old masonry of Alaozar was crumbling into ruin. Then suddenly the Star-Warriors descended, entering into the city, and penetrating the vast caverns beneath.

And then two things happened. The entire sky began to glow with a weird purple light, and in the ray that descended from above I saw a file of beings even stranger than the Star-Warriors. They were great, writhing pillars of light, moving like tremendous flames, colored purple and white, dazzling in their intensity. These gigantic beings from outer space descended swiftly, circling the Plateau of Sung, and from them great rays of stabbing light shot out toward the hidden fastnesses below. And at the same time, the earth began to tremble.

Shuddering, I put out my hand to touch Fo-Lan’s arm. He was utterly unmoved, save in triumphant joy at the spectacle of the destruction of Alaozar. “The Ancient Ones themselves have come!” he cried out.

I remember wanting to say something, but I saw suddenly one of those inconceivable pillars of light bending over Fo-Lan and me, and I felt slithering tentacles gently reaching around me; then I knew no more.

There is little more to write. I came to my senses near Bangka, miles from the Plateau of Sung, and at my side was Fo-Lan, unhurt and smiling. We had been transported within the second by the Ancient God who had bent to save us from the destruction of the things beneath the earth.

The statement of Eric Marsh ends thus abruptly. However, what surmises might be made from it, this paper will not state. Mr. Marsh had appended to his curious statement several newspaper clippings, all of

them dated within ten days of his appearance at Bangka, where he evidently stayed with Doctor Fo-Lan before returning to America. There is room for only a brief summary of the clippings.

The first was from a Tokyo paper announcing the strange reappearance of Doctor Fo-Lan. Another clipping from the same issue of that paper tells of a curious electrical display witnessed from several observatories in the Orient, seemingly centered in its elemental force somewhere in Burma. Still another paragraph concerns an apparition (thus it is called), supposedly seen in the night during which Doctor Fo-Lan and Eric Marsh so mysteriously returned to Bangka; it was that of a gigantic pillar of light, towering far into the sky, and alive with movement; it was seen by forty-seven persons in and around Bangka.

The final clipping was dated ten days later; it was taken from an eminent London paper, and is the verbatim report of an aviator who flew over Burma in the endeavor to trace the source of a fetid odor which was sweeping the country, nauseating India and China for hundreds of miles around. The heart of this report is briefly:

“The odor I traced to the so-called Plateau of Sung, to which I was attracted by accidental sight of hitherto unknown ruins in the heart of the plateau. I found, to my amazement, that for some reason the earth of the plateau had been broken and torn up for its entire area save for one spot not far from a deep cavern near the ruins, which bears evidence of once having been a lake. On this spot I managed to effect a landing. I left the machine in order to determine the meaning of the great green-black masses of rotting flesh which greeted my eyes at once. But the odor forced a quick retreat. Yet this I know: the remains on the Plateau of Sung are those of what must have been gigantic animals, apparently boneless, and utterly unknown to man. And they must have met death in battle with mortal enemies!”