The Warlord of the Air (6 page)

C
onsciousness returned first as a series of vague impressions: armies, consisting of millions of men, marching against a background of grey and white trees; black flames burning; a young girl in a white dress, her body pierced by dozens of long arrows. There were many images of that sort and slowly they became stronger and the colours grew richer and richer. I became aware of my own body. It was colder than ice—colder even than it had been before I had passed out. And yet, oddly, I felt no discomfort. I felt nothing—I just
knew
that I was cold.

I tried to move the fingers on my right hand (I could still see nothing) and thought that perhaps the index finger rose a fraction.

The images in my head grew more horrific. Corpses filled my skull—brutally maimed corpses. Dying children stretched out their hands to me for help. Bestial soldiers in colourless uniforms raped women. And everywhere there was fire, black smoke, collapsing buildings. I had to escape those images and I made a great effort to move my arm.

At last the arm began to bend, but it was amazingly stiff. And as it bent pain flooded through me so that I cried out—a strange, grating noise. My eyes sprang open and at first I saw nothing but a milky haze. I moved my neck. Again the sickening pain. But the images were beginning to fade. I bent my leg and gasped. Suddenly fire seemed to fill me, melting the ice which had frozen my blood. I began to shake all over, but the pain diminished. And now I saw that I lay on my back staring up at the blue sky. I seemed to be at the bottom of a pit, for there were steep walls on every side.

After a very long time I was able to sit upright and inspect my surroundings. I
was
in a pit of sorts—but a man-made pit, for the shaft was of carved stone. The carvings were similar to those I had glimpsed fleetingly before I collapsed. In the daylight they did not look quite so daunting, but they were ugly things nonetheless.

I smiled at my fears. Plainly there had been an earthquake and it had shaken down the Temple of the Future Buddha. The other things I had seen had been caused by the action of the drug on my frightened brain. Somehow I had escaped the worst of the earthquake and was relatively unhurt. I doubted if Sharan Kang and his people had been so lucky, but I had best go warily until I knew for certain that they were not waiting for me up above. Probably poor Risaldar Jenab Shah and the sowars had been killed in the catacombs. But at least Nature had done the work I had been commissioned to do—the earthquake would have ‘pacified’ even Sharan Kang. Even if he were not dead, he would now be discredited, for those of his people still alive would see the earthquake as a sign from the gods.

I got to my feet, staring at my hands. They were caked with dust that was not only thick but which seemed to have been there for ages. And my clothes were in rags. As I slapped at the dust, bits of cloth fell away. I fingered my jacket. The fabric seemed to have
rotted
! I was momentarily disturbed, but then reasoned that they had been affected by the action of some peculiar gas which filled the deeper chambers of the temple—a gas which had perhaps combined with the drug to make me suffer those strange hallucinations.

When I felt in slightly better shape, I began, as cautiously as I could, to try to make my way up to the top of the pit, which was some thirty feet above my head. I was extremely weak and frightfully stiff and the rock was soft, often breaking away as I tested it for a foothold. But by using the gargoyles as steps, I slowly managed to clamber to the top of the pit, haul myself over the edge and peer cautiously around me.

There was no sign of Sharan Kang or his men. Indeed, there was no sign of life at all. Everywhere I looked I saw ruins. Not a single building in Teku Benga had escaped the earthquake. Many of the temples seemed to have disappeared altogether.

I stood up and began to walk over the cracked remains of the pavements.

And then I stopped suddenly and, for the first time since I had awakened, I realized that there was something I could not rationalize.

There were no corpses—which might have been expected if the earthquake had occurred the previous night, as I thought. But perhaps the people had managed to escape the city. I could accept that.

What brought me up short was not that the pavements were cracked
—but that weeds grew in profusion between the cracks!

And now that I looked, there were creepers, tiny mountain flowers, patches of heather growing everywhere on the ruins. These ruins were
old.
It had been years since anyone had occupied them!

I licked my lips and tried to pull myself together. Perhaps I was not in Teku Benga at all? Perhaps I had been carried from Sharan Kang’s city and left to die among the ruins of another city?

But this was plainly Teku Benga. I recognized the ruins of several buildings. And there was hardly another city
like
Teku Benga, even in the mysterious Himalayas.

Besides, I recognized the surrounding mountains, the distant pass which led up to what had been the city wall. And it was obvious that I stood in the ruins of the central square in which the Temple of the Future Buddha had been erected.

Again I experienced a dreadful shiver of fear. Again I glanced down at my dust-caked body, at my rotting clothes, at the weeds beneath my split boots, at all the evidence—evidence which mocked my sanity—evidence to show that not hours but
years
had passed since I had sought to escape the trap which Sharan Kang had set for me!

Could I still be dreaming? I asked myself. But if this were a dream, it was unlike anything I had ever dreamed before. And one can always tell a dream from reality, no matter how sharp and coherent a dream it is. (That is what I felt then, but now I wonder, I wonder...)

I seated myself on a slab of broken masonry and tried to think. How was it possible that I could still be alive? At least two years must have passed since the earthquake—if earthquake it were— and while my clothes had been subjected to the normal processes of Time, my flesh was unaffected. Could the gas I suspected as having caused the rot have actually preserved me? It was the only explanation—and a wild enough one, at that. It would take a clever scientist to investigate the matter. I wasn’t up to it. Now my job was to get back to civilization, contact my regiment and find out what had been going on since I had lost consciousness.

As I clambered over the ruins I tried to force the astounding thoughts from my brain and concentrate on my immediate problem. But it was difficult and I still could not rid myself entirely of the idea that I had gone quite mad.

Eventually I reached the crumbling walls and hauled my aching body over them. Reaching the top I looked down the other side, seeking the road which had been there. But it was gone. In its place was a yawning chasm, as if the rock had cracked wide open and the part of the mountain on which the city had stood had moved at least a hundred feet away from the rest. There was absolutely no way of crossing to the other side. I began to laugh—a harsh, exhausted cackle—and then was seized by a series of dry, racking sobs. Somehow Fate had spared my life, only to present me with the prospect of a lingering death as I slowly starved on this lifeless mountain.

Wearily, I lay down my head and must have slept a natural sleep for an hour or two, for when I awoke the sun was lower in the sky. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon.

I dragged myself to my feet, turned and began to move back through the ruins. I would try to get to the other side of the city and see if there were any other means of climbing down the mountain.

All around me were the snow-capped flanks of the Himalayas: impassive, uncaring. And above me was the pale blue sky in which not even a hawk flew. It was almost as if I were the last creature alive in the world.

I stopped myself from continuing this line of thought, for I knew that madness would be the result if I did begin to reason in that way.

When I did eventually reach the far side of the city hopelessness once again consumed me, for on all the remaining quarters there were sheer cliffs going down several hundred feet at least. That was doubtless the reason for locating the city here in the first place. There was only one approach—or had been—and it meant that Teku Benga was safe from anything but a frontal attack. I shrugged in despair and began to wonder which of the plants might be edible. Not that I was hungry at that moment. I smiled bitterly. Why should I be, if I had remained alive for at least two years? The joke made me laugh. It was a crazy laugh. I stopped myself. The sun was beginning to set and the air had grown cold. At length I crawled into a shelter formed by two slabs of masonry and fell once more into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I
t was dawn when I next awoke. I felt a new confidence and I had devised a plan of sorts. My leather belt and shoulder strap had been unaffected by time and though slightly cracked were still strong. I would search the ruins until I found more leather. Somewhere there must still be store chests, even the remains of the Kumbalari warriors who had died in the earthquake. I would devote what remained of my energy to discovering enough leather out of which I might plait a rope. With a rope I could try to get down the mountain. And if I died in the attempt, well, it would be no worse than the alternative means of dying which were presented to me.

I spent the next several hours clambering in and out of the ruins, discovering first a skeleton still dressed in the furs, iron and leather of a Kumbalari soldier. Around his waist was wound quite a good length of leather cord. I tested it and it was still strong. My spirits lifting, I continued to search.

I was crouching in the ruins of one of the temples, trying to drag out another skeleton, when I heard the sound. At first I thought it was a noise made by the bones scraping on the rock, but it was too soft. Then I wondered if I were not, after all, alone in the ruins. Could I be hearing the purr of a tiger? No—though that was more like the sound. I stopped tugging at the skeleton and cocked my head, trying to listen harder. A drum, perhaps? A drumbeat echoing through the mountains? It could be fifty miles away, however. I crawled back through the gap and as I did so a shadow began to spread across the rubble before me. A huge, black shadow which might have been that of an enormous bird, save that it was long, regular in shape and curved.

Again I doubted my own sanity and in some trepidation I forced myself to look upward.

I gasped in astonishment. This was no bird, but a gigantic, cigar-shaped balloon! And yet it was like no balloon I had ever seen, for its envelope seemed rigid—constructed of some silvery metal—and attached to this envelope (not swinging from it by ropes) was a gondola almost the length of the balloon itself.

What astonished me even more was the slogan, inscribed in huge lettering on the hull:

From its stern projected four triangular ‘wings’ which resembled nothing so much as the flukes of a whale. And painted on each of these in shining red, white and blue was a large Union Jack.

For a moment I could only stare at the flying monster in incredulous wonderment. And then I began to leap about the ruins, waving and yelling for all I was worth!

I
must have seemed a pretty strange sight myself, with my filthy body clad in rotting clothes, dancing and roaring like a madman among the ruins of that ancient city, just as if I were some castaway of old who had at last caught sight of the schooner which could save him. But it did not look as if this schooner of the air had seen me. Imperturbably it sailed on, heading towards the distant northern mountains, its four great engines thumping out their smooth, regular beat, turning the massive, whirling screws which apparently propelled the vessel.

It passed over the ruins and seemed to be continuing on its course, as unaware of me as it might have been of a fly settling on its side.

The engines stopped. I waited tensely. What would the balloon do next? It was still moving forward, carried on by its own momentum.

When the engines started again their sound was more high-pitched. I sank down in despair. Possibly the flyers (assuming there
were
men in the monster) had thought they had seen something but then decided it was not worth stopping to investigate. A tremor ran through the great silver bulk and then, very slowly, it began to drift backwards—back to where I sat panting and anxious. The screws had been put into reverse, rather as the screws on a steamer are reversed.

Again I leapt up, my face splitting into a huge grin. I was to be saved—even if it were by the strangest flying machine ever invented.

S
oon the great bulk—the size of a small steamer itself—was over my head, blotting out the sky. Half-crazy with joy, I continued to wave. I heard distant shouts from above but could not distinguish the words. A siren started to blow, but I took this to be a greeting, like a ship’s whistle.