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.”
