The Invisible City Read online

  This time I saw the beam that struck down two of the Germans, and so did the men holding me. At once they both released me to use their guns; I saw the stranger stagger as the first shot rang out, then I slugged one of the Germans and broke free, and seized my revolver.

  I had but two choices. Outside the cave was the enemy army; through the silver door might lie anything.

  I made the wrong choice.

  I chose the door.

  2. I Arrive

  If any time passed while I journeyed through that portal, I was not aware of it, and if there were any sensations, I did not feel them. It was no different than the door into my parents' parlor, but one moment I was in rainy, war-torn France, and the next I was standing in the hot sun of a quiet countryside.

  Had I known then the true extent of my travel, I might have given leave of my sanity right on the spot.

  Fortunately I did not know, for what I could see was already taxing my reason—and my faith in my own eyes—to the limit. My surroundings were serene, warm, and had I but the wit to notice, beautiful. The air smelled clean and slightly sweet, with none of the bitter scents of blood or gunpowder, or the heart-rending cries of dying men. I stood in a small depression among several low hillocks; in fact I stood at the base of one such hill, into whose side the door must have inserted itself, in parallel fashion to the doorway through which I had run. Suddenly I recollected my flight, and spun about to see if anyone pursued me—only to stagger back in shock at finding the hill behind me blank but for tall green grass spotted with small, unfamiliar red flowers.

  Slowly, over the course of several minutes, I slowed my heart and breathing. I am a rational product of the twentieth century, I told myself, and can find a rational explanation for my situation. Presently I did so: I had fallen afoul of a German experiment in gas warfare, such as was always rumored on the front. I was victim of some fantastic hallucination, my mind being forced to twist familiar objects into disorienting fantasies. The more I thought along these lines, the more convinced I was that it was true—surely I was wandering the corridors of a secret mountain laboratory, and not the soft green hills of a summer forest.

  But the effect on a man—! All around me arose the vision of a peaceful glade, while further back in the rolling landscape massive trees rose to a cloudless blue sky. Like sentries, the trees and hills surrounded and protected my little meadow, except to my left, where a mound of rocks rose like a giant's throne twice the height of a man. How could any soldier think of war in a place such as this?

  The imagery was so overwhelming that I fancied I could feel the hot sun already beginning to dry my clothes and the mud starting to itch against my skin. I reasoned that while I remained under the effect of the narcotic, I could hardly navigate properly, and so, hoping that what my eyes perceived corresponded in some fashion to reality, I resolved to treat my wonderland as though it were real until I could recover and make my escape. This might allow me to alleviate my growing discomfort, and if I strode blindly into the enemy's hands—well, it was no worse than if I stood still and the enemy came to me.

  As they formed the highest nearby point, I climbed the rocks to gain a vantage upon my personal world. The mud caking my uniform made climbing difficult, and once my wet boots nearly slipped; I had to grab suddenly for a handhold. The rock was rough and skinned my palm painfully. It was astounding how the human mind could be compelled to construct such detail!

  My efforts proved their worth, however, when I gained the top of the rocky promontory and gazed down the other side. There, not ten strides from the bottom of the hill, ran a shrub-lined stream as wide and deep as a hotel bathtub. Without another thought I began to step and slide my way toward it. I no longer cared about fantasy or reality I hadn't had a bath in weeks.

  My haste to be clean very likely saved my life.

  Peeling off my filthy, sodden clothes, my sidearm, and my heavy helmet as quickly as I could manage, I plunged into the stream to wash. The icy water was nothing after the rainy hell I had lived through these past months, and it stood as no barrier to my zest to be clean. After a few moments I simply submerged my entire body while I rubbed vigorously all over.

  When I burst again into the open air I felt a new man. I picked up my shirt from the bank and soaked it until the water downstream turned brown, then wrung it out and turned to lay it out to dry on a bush. Then, shirt in hand, I stopped. On the crest of the hill above me stood a man dressed in the same silver garments as the man in the cave in France.

  I was at first unsure whether to hail him or hide from him. My mind was still of two opinions as to the reality of this land in which I seemed to have been dumped—was this a savior to return me to my own world, or a Hun soldier determined to dispatch me to the next?

  His own actions dictated my course. In each hand he held what appeared to be a small device about the size of a cigarette package. The device in his left hand looked to me, at that distance, disquietingly like the weapon that had subdued the Germans in the inner cave. With his right hand he cast about in the air before him as though trying to catch a scent. I was certain of one thing: If he was looking for something, it could only be me.

  Very quietly I knelt down and picked up a small stone from the water's edge, and when his attention seemed elsewhere, I tossed it downstream, where it landed in the water with a plop.

  Immediately he whirled, his left hand extended. A beam of light, pale against the sky, shot out and incinerated a bush near where the rock had struck.

  I no longer had any doubt as to his intentions.

  He did not move from his spot on the ridge line as his right hand swept the air in the direction of the smoking shrubbery; if he was a German, he was extraordinarily careless. I quietly retrieved my Webley, sighted carefully on his breastbone, and shot him. Without a cry he fell back behind the hilltop.

  I was on the bank in an instant, forgetting in the urgency of the moment both my nakedness and my concomitant lack of shoes. Numbed by the cold water, my feet hardly noted the rocks, and it was only later I saw the bloody trail I was leaving. I reached the crest of the hill knowing he must be dead, but the instinct born of months of trench warfare bade me pop my head into view only just long enough to see the field below without exposing myself to enemy fire.

  His ray-weapon charred the ground black not six inches from my nose.

  He was standing near the center of the natural amphitheater whence I had come, watching the top of the hill where he anticipated I must appear. He had not sought cover; either he was confident that he could shoot me before I could react, or (as I realized belatedly) his silver tunic had the characteristics of a suit of armor, and my bullets would not penetrate it.

  This cat-and-mouse worked vastly more in his favor than mine, as it began to dawn on me that far from wearing a suit of armor, I was wearing nothing at all. The numbness in my feet had worn off with the return of heat and circulation, replaced by the pain of cut and bruised soles and toes. A soft wind ran shiveringly across my back and legs, a product of the waning afternoon and prelude to the coming of night. And most urgently of all, I was pinned down with no way of knowing when my enemy might burst over the hill and sear the flesh from my bones.

  Gritting my teeth against the pain, I retraced my steps to the stream. With only a moment's delay to rinse them, I stuck my bare and bleeding feet into my boots, broke a branch from the bush, grabbed my helmet, and made my way once more up the hill, dreading every moment being caught in my extremely exposed position.

  Deep in my mind the idea had already taken hold that this was no ordinary soldier I was fighting; had the Huns developed such weapons and armor they would have overrun Europe long ago. I still could not come to conscious grips with the consequences of such logic, but my hindbrain had grasped onto the practical reality that it presented. Gingerly placing myself flat against the hillside again, I poked the branch up under my helmet, pushed it into view of the man below—

  —and pulled back half a stick.
There was no sound, no smoke—and no helmet.

  I waited.

  True to my assessment of him, the silver-garbed stranger walked straight up the hill without hesitation, pausing at the top to survey what he expected to be my headless corpse. This time I shot him above the line of his suit. I don't think he had time to realize his mistake.

  I was upon him in a moment, steadfastly ignoring the horrible mess my bullet had made of his skull while I examined his body for any clue as to his identity or origin. The silver material felt thin and smooth, like tinsel, but unlike tinsel it would not crease, instead flowing along the lines of the body. Suddenly it began to glow softly. I pulled away my hands with a grunt of surprise, and thankfully so, because the body vanished with a soft pop as air rushed in to fill the empty space. I cast about for his possessions, but they were likewise gone.

  Slowly and inexorably the truth forced itself onto my unwilling mind: I had fallen into something even beyond the imaginations of Mr. Verne or Mr. Wells. I was a very long way from home.

  Over the next two days I was to learn several invaluable lessons about this new world. In the morning, having found a small cave in which to pass the night, I sought after food. Months in the trenches had bred out of me any particularity for the shape of my nourishment, but I was an active man and as such I craved meat. Craving, however, is not the same as having.

  Game was not especially difficult to find. The stream drew animals from all around, as I had surmised it would from my limited skills in forest craft, but these were not the beasts I had expected to see. My first shock was how similar they were to the hares and foxes and badgers to be found in the woodlands of my own country; my second shock was how different they were.

  The first who chanced by was, I believe, a rabbit—but a rabbit such as no hunter of my acquaintance had ever bagged. The size of a small dog, its ears towered above it like wireless antennae, and with much the same effect, for it clearly spied my presence from two score yards away, though I made no sound louder than an indrawn breath. Its feet were of such length that it bounded six feet at a leap. When it stopped and fixed its gaze on my position, there was an intelligence in those eyes that clearly indicated to me that it knew I was there, waiting. But unlike the skittish animal I was used to, this rabbit calmly continued down to the bank of the stream and drank its fill, ears gently waving in the breeze. I was so bewildered at its appearance that, ignoring my growling insides, I let it be and simply watched.

  The growling only increased as the morning wore on and the parade passed by. A fox trotted by not long after the rabbit had left, intent on its trail, but a fox such as I would have hesitated to confront, even with my pistol in hand. Other creatures followed. In every instance, recognizable species had undergone incredible changes, all obviously designed to fend off predators or to enhance predatory ability, and all of which worked wonders on me. Although some of the beasts passed quite near my ambush, and knew of me, none paid unwonted attention, as though Man was but another animal, and lacking any evident hostile intent, was ignored. I could have killed any one of them, but I was loathe to waste limited ammunition on dinner.

  At last caution overtook me, along with the belated realization that I had no way of cleaning that which I would kill, and I fetched myself berries that I had seen others eat. They were surprisingly sweet, and fortunately quite edible. The only distress they caused was due to my own overindulgence. I spent the rest of that day exploring my new demesne, but no sign of civilization could I find.

  On the second day I drank as did the animals, ate their berries, and forgot about them. The herbivores ignored me, and the carnivores had apparently decided that I was too large to challenge. I had ranged north the day before, so now I set off to the south. Beyond the first small hill I stumbled onto a vague path. Whether it had been trodden by animals or men I did not know, but the very idea that it might lead somewhere brightened my spirits immeasurably, and I set off upon it.

  In common with the nature trails in the Santa Monica Mountains of my boyhood, this one dipped and weaved like a prize fighter. Thorny plants overhung at almost every step, and I, reminded of the poison ivy of my earlier hikes, avoided them with care—such care that when half the trail fell away under my feet in a miniature crevasse, I nearly fell in and broke an ankle.

  I had hardly avoided this fatal mishap when I saw the men in silver.

  There were three of them this time, standing in single file in the middle of the path. Their heads seemed to be bowed over some apparatus, likely similar to that used by the man I had killed the day before. For this reason they had not seen me, and I quickly stepped into the underbrush.

  Thus concealed, I watched them walk past me, muttering unintelligibly in their own tongue. I had of necessity learned a smattering of both French and German, but this was nothing like any language I had heard. In thin, webbed belts they carried the small weapon that had been directed at me twice before, but in addition two of them carried longer tubes that reminded me of nothing so much as rifles. I did not doubt that I was correct, any more than I doubted their intentions toward me. I resumed my journey some minutes after they had disappeared, staying off the path and moving as quietly as haste would allow.

  It was due entirely to these precautions that when I reached civilization I did not fall immediately into the hands of the Nuum.

  3. I Become a Monster

  They say that first impressions are the most lasting; they could not have been speaking more truly than of my first sight of a member of the race known and reviled across this world, the Nuum. Although I did not know, of course, what I was seeing at that time, there was something about them from the very start that set them apart from other men—but only made them seem different to me, not greater. Perhaps this first impression had as much to do with the path my life was to take as any other factor since my passage through the silver door.

  Passing through a cleft between two ridges, I looked over an entire vast valley overlaid with a great haze, grey in color, and from where I stood, curiously flattened on top. But beneath the haze was an object of far more interest: a city. Long and narrow like the valley itself, it stretched for miles to a line of barren, half-seen mountains forming the horizon.

  The streets were straight and geometrically aligned as though the entirety had been laid out beforehand by a mathematician. I saw massive structures rising in isolated groupings, which I took to be commercial centers, surrounded by vast tracts of variegated buildings of all sizes—all in all not unlike the cities I was used to, save on a grander scale. Although I could not, at that distance, make out vehicles on the roads—or any living souls at all—I rejoiced that I had at last found civilization, where the answers to my questions could be found.

  The slopes leading down the city were steep, but not unmanageable, and covered with sufficient shrubbery and plant life that a handhold was never far, thorny though it might be. An occasional nearby rustling as I scrambled down told me that these hills were not untenanted by other creatures, but evidently my hasty passage frightened them and none showed itself.

  My path had ended abruptly in a garden. So familiar was the pattern of neat rows with small green sprouts rising from the soil, that it gave me a momentary thrill of homecoming. There was no one tending the garden at present. I stepped carefully across its short width and up to the small building to which it belonged.

  The structure was a single dun-colored story, with a peaked roof only slightly less dreary. The masonry was smooth, so even that it almost felt wet to the touch, and I had to admit for all its ugliness it appeared as though it would hold out against the harshest weather conditions.

  In my own world, the wall of this home (as I assumed it to be) would have been comprised largely of glass, the better to gaze out onto the garden and the wilderness beyond. This house, however, boasted only the most miserly and cloudy windows. I quickly discovered one that was open, allowing me to witness one of the most astonishing conversations of my life.

/>   There were four people inside the room. The room itself was unremarkable, furnished with several chairs and a long sofa that looked more like a bench with a very low back. There were pictures on the wall, but the light was so dim compared to outside that I could not pick out the subjects.

  The people themselves were likewise not so unusual as to stand out in a crowd, save that both of the women and one of the men seemed extremely thin. Their features were regular and not unpleasant. The women sported short coiffures that curled in well above the collars of their single-piece coveralls, but the man's head was almost shaven.

  They were apparently in argument with the fourth person, a man whose stature and build seemed much like my own, so that while he was not imposing to me, he overwhelmed the others. He had a full head of red hair and a red beard. He might have been called handsome, in a slick, snooty fashion that I did not take to, his nose being too pointed for my taste. His coverall was shiny dark green, with red stripes down the pants; had the situation not been so odd, I might have laughed to call him a walking Christmas tree.

  To describe what they were having as a "conversation" would strain what I know of the term, and in this lay the astonishment to which I have alluded: While they waved their hands in the air like Italians, they spoke only three or four syllables in an entire minute! By their expressions and movements, I know that they were engaging in protracted discourse, but hardly any spoken words could be heard. Those sounds I did hear, I could of course not understand, but all through the time I watched, I could almost sense a buzzing, tingling sensation in my brain, as though some meaning went whizzing by at speeds too fast for me to comprehend, tickling my mind in passing.