Shadows Out of Time

No one sought to prevent his touring the world outside the city of the Great Race. All were free to come and go. Ultimately, where could they go? The day came when Crom-Ya, or the thing that had once been Crom-Ya and should be again someday, exited the shaded compound and emerged into the blazing sunlight and the thick, stifling, jungle humidity of what he did not know to call prehistoric Australia. All was extremely strange to him. And yet the strangeness paled beside that of the alien cone race. But what he now beheld at least answered to certain analogies in Crom-Ya’s mind. He had grown up with tales of dragons and giant beasts surviving to his own day, and of the bloody conflicts between them and his heroic ancestors. He had always cherished such sagas but never knew whether to credit them as fact. This uncertainty troubled him not at all, since, however they originated, they served to inspire courage in the hearts of himself and his fellow tribesmen, courage that, together with early-learned battlefield prowess, had quickly led to his rise to the chieftaincy. And now, though he was unrecognizable to himself, he could feel the old flame of courage igniting within him, preparing him for possible conflict w ith t he h uge reptiles he glimpsed among the giant fronds and boles outside the home structure.

At once, the exile from Cimmeria paused in his mollusklike progress along the smooth megalithic runway and cursed himself for a fool: in this miserable form, he could not defend himself, much less mount an attack! Surely he or anyone like him must be an irresistible target for these jungle dragons, their great maws lined with dripping, knife-like fangs. One such titan started to emerge from the dense greenery. Crom-Ya felt himself crouch into a defensive stance, though it was of course impossible for his body to assume it. He had the sensation common to men who have lost a limb but still feel it as if present.

To his surprise, the dragon abruptly turned away and bounded with a crash back into the primeval forest. Though relieved, the barbarian was astonished. Why did the monster flee? Knowing the mental abilities of the Great Race, he thought for a second that one of them had sent a note of alarm into the brain of the giant reptile. But none of the conical beings was visible, and he had never been successful in cultivating such psychic abilities while resident in their form. Perhaps their bodies emitted a natural repellant scent, like a skunk’s. But it mattered not. Crom-Ya resolved to get back to his quest.

He had managed to learn that, wherever in the great stone city the portals to the netherworld of the Blind Beings were hidden, to find o ne of t hem w ould do h im no g ood s ince a ll were guarded round the clock by members of the Great Race, a special breed who towered several feet above average height and were armed with terrible force-weapons unlike anything Crom-Ya had ever imagined, much less seen on the battlefield. Such measures made all the clearer the fear the Blind Ones inspired in their enemies.

After several such outings, Crom-Ya finally found what he was looking for: what must have been a forgotten, and thus unguarded, gate to the realm below. The metal was a foot thick if it was an inch, and its deep corrosion suggested many thousands of years of disuse. Could it be that those who lurked in the depths beneath it had forgotten it, too?

Crom-Ya had quickly mastered the use of his inhuman limbs with their various pincers and sprouting sensor-funnels. He put them to use now, making a sweep of the vicinity to make sure he was alone. Then he focused on the metal slab before him. How was he to get it open? He had never really tested the strength of his borrowed “arms,” but this seemed the perfect opportunity. First he applied the pincers to the rusting seals, or hinges; he couldn’t tell which. He reasoned that, as the ancient door must have been designed and installed with the same physical anatomy he now possessed, it ought to suffice to remove it. But the pincers managed only to scrape away a bit of the corrosion, albeit without injury. He concluded that the ancients must have used some sort of tools. Now, could he find such instruments— or even recognize them as such?

The mind of Crom-Ya reeled again. At first he thought, and hoped, his sojourn among the Great Race was at an end, that he was about to return to his own time and place, though that was not a bright prospect either. But such speculations were rendered moot in another moment when he found himself in a seemingly airless, lightless void. He felt no physical body at all. But even in the absence of ears, he could hear a voice, though he could not tell whether its source was exterior or interior.

He had heard the voice of the Pictish mage Rang-Thalun only on one or two occasions, but he recognized it now.