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Journey into the chilling cosmic horror of Clark Ashton Smith's "The Invisible City," a classic short story that combines science fiction and weird fiction. This audiobook takes you to the heart of the unforgiving Lob-nor Desert, where two archaeologists, Furnham and Langley, on the brink of death, stumble upon a bizarre, perfectly rectangular depression in the ground. What they discover is not a mirage, but a city built of an invisible, solid substance—the terrifying remnant of an alien civilization from a destroyed planet.
"The Invisible City" is a masterwork of early science fiction, showcasing Clark Ashton Smith's signature style of lush, decadent prose and a sense of cosmic dread. As the archaeologists explore this strange, unseen metropolis, they encounter its bizarre inhabitants and are forced to confront a reality far stranger and more terrifying than they could have imagined. This story explores themes of forbidden knowledge, the hubris of man, and the horrifying consequences of meddling with forces beyond our comprehension. It's a must-listen for fans of H.P. Lovecraft, weird fiction, and pulp science fiction. Join us as we uncover the secrets of this unseeable world and the fate of its discoverers.
"The Invisible City" is a masterwork of early science fiction, showcasing Clark Ashton Smith's signature style of lush, decadent prose and a sense of cosmic dread. As the archaeologists explore this strange, unseen metropolis, they encounter its bizarre inhabitants and are forced to confront a reality far stranger and more terrifying than they could have imagined. This story explores themes of forbidden knowledge, the hubris of man, and the horrifying consequences of meddling with forces beyond our comprehension. It's a must-listen for fans of H.P. Lovecraft, weird fiction, and pulp science fiction. Join us as we uncover the secrets of this unseeable world and the fate of its discoverers.
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00:00Gates of Imagination presents The Invisible City by Clark Ashton Smith, read by Josh Greenwood.
00:10Confound you, said Langley in a hoarse whisper that came with effort through swollen lips,
00:16blue-black with thirst. You've gulped about twice your share of the last water in the Lobnor
00:21Desert. He shook the canteen which Furnham had just returned to him, and listened with
00:26a savage frown to the ominously light gurgling of its contents. The two surviving members
00:32of the Furnham archaeological expedition eyed each other with newborn but rapidly growing
00:37disfavor. Furnham, the leader, flushed with dark anger beneath his coat of deepening dust
00:42and sunburn. The accusation was unjust, for he had merely moistened his parched tongue from
00:48Langley's canteen. His own canteen, which he had shared equally with his companion, was
00:54now empty. Up to that moment, the two men had been the best of friends. Their months
01:01of association in a hopeless search for the ruins of the semi-fabulous city of Kobar had
01:06given them abundant reason to respect each other. Their quarrel sprang from nothing else
01:12than the mental distortion and morbidity of sheer exhaustion, and the strain of a desperate
01:17predicament. Langley at times was even growing a trifle light-headed after their long ordeal
01:23of wandering on foot through a land without wells, beneath a sun whose flames poured down upon them
01:30like molten lead. We ought to reach the Tarim River pretty soon, said Furnham stiffly, ignoring the
01:37charge and repressing a desire to announce in mordant terms his unfavorable opinion of Langley.
01:42If we don't, I guess it will be your fault, the other snapped. There's been a jinx on this expedition
01:49from the beginning, and I shouldn't wonder if the jinx were you. It was your idea to hunt for Kobar
01:55anyway. I've never believed there was any such place. Furnham glowered at his companion,
02:01too near the breaking point himself to make due allowance for Langley's nerve-wrought condition,
02:06and then turned away, refusing to reply. The two plotted on, ignoring each other with sullen
02:13ostentatiousness. The expedition, consisting of five Americans in the employ of a New York museum,
02:19had started from Kotan two months before to investigate the archaeological remains of eastern
02:25Turkestan. Ill luck had dogged them continually, and the ruins of Kobar, their main objective said
02:31to have been built by the ancient Uyghurs, had eluded them like a mirage. They found other ruins,
02:37had exhumed a few Greek and Byzantine coins, and a few broken Buddhas, but nothing of much novelty or
02:44importance from a museum viewpoint. At the very outset, soon after leaving the oasis of Cherchen,
02:50one member of the party had died from gangrene caused by the vicious bite of a Bactrian camel.
02:56Later on, a second, seized by a cramp while swimming in the shallow Tarim River,
03:01near the reedy marshes of Lobnor, that strange remnant of a vast inland sea, had drowned before his
03:08companions could reach him. A third had died of some mysterious fever. Then in the desert south
03:14of the Tarim, where Furnum and Langley still persisted in a futile effort to locate the lost
03:19city, their Mongol guides had deserted them. They took all the camels and most of the provisions,
03:25leaving to the two men only their rifles, their canteens, their other personal belongings,
03:30the various antique relics they had amassed, and a few tins of food. The desertion was hard to explain,
03:37for the Mongols had heretofore shown themselves reliable enough. However, they had displayed a
03:43queer reluctance on the previous day, had seemed unwilling to venture further among the endless
03:49undulations of coiling sand and pebbly soil. Furnum, who knew the language better than Langley,
03:56had gathered that they were afraid of something, were deterred by superstitious legends concerning this
04:01portion of the Lobnor desert. But they had been strangely vague and reticent as to the object of
04:08their fear, and Furnum had learned nothing of its actual nature. Leaving everything but their food,
04:15water, and rifles to the mercy of the drifting sands, the men had started northward toward the Tarim,
04:22which was sixty or seventy miles away. If they could reach it, they would find shelter in one of the
04:29sparse settlements of fishermen along its shores, and could eventually make their way back to
04:33civilization. It was now afternoon of the second day of their wanderings. Langley had suffered most,
04:41and he staggered a little as they went on beneath the eternally cloudless heavens, across the glaring
04:47desolation of the dreary landscape. His heavy Winchester had become an insufferable burden,
04:53and he had thrown it away in spite of the remonstrance of Furnum, who still retained his
04:58own weapon. The sun had lowered a little, but burned with grueling rays, tyrannically torrid,
05:04through the bright inferno of stagnant air. There was no wind, except for brief and furious puffs that
05:11whirled the light sand in the faces of the men, and then died as suddenly as they had risen.
05:17The ground gave back the heat and glare of the heavens in shimmering, blinding waves of refraction.
05:23Langley and Furnum mounted a low, gradual ridge and paused in sweltering exhaustion on its rocky
05:32spine. Before them was a broad, shallow valley, at which they stared in a sort of groggy wonderment,
05:40puzzled by the level and artificial-looking depression, perfectly square and perhaps a third
05:45of a mile wide, which they descried in its center. The depression was bare and empty with no sign of
05:52ruins, but was lined with numerous pits that suggested the ground plan of a vanished city.
05:58The men blinked, and both were prompted to rub their eyes as they peered through flickering heatwaves,
06:05for each had received a momentary impression of flashing light, broken into myriad spires and columns
06:11that seemed to fill the shallow basin and fade like a mirage. Still mindful of their quarrel,
06:17but animated by the same unspoken thought, they stared down the long declivity, heading straight
06:24toward the depression. If the place were the site of some ancient city, they might possibly hope to
06:29find a well or water-spring. They approached the basin's edge, and were puzzled more and more by
06:36its regularity. Certainly it was not the work of nature, and it might have been quarried yesterday,
06:42for seemingly there were no ravages of wind and weather in the sheer walls, and the floor was
06:48remarkably smooth, except for the multitude of square pits that ran in straight intersecting lines
06:54like the cellars of destroyed or unbuilt houses. A growing sense of strangeness and mystery troubled
07:01the two men. And they were blinded at intervals by the flash of evanescent light that seemed to
07:07overflow the basin with phantom towers and pillars. They paused within a few feet of the edge,
07:13incredulous and bewildered. Each began to wonder if his brain had been affected by the sun.
07:20Their sensations were such as might mark the incipients of delirium.
07:25Amid the blasts of furnace-like heat, a sort of icy coolness appeared to come upon them from the broad
07:31basin. Clammy but refreshing, like the chill that might emanate from walls of sunless stone,
07:38it revived their fainting senses and quickened their awareness of unexplained mystery.
07:43The coolness became even more noticeable when they reached the very verge of the precipice.
07:49Here, peering over, they saw that the sides fell unbroken at all points for a depth of twenty feet or
07:55more. In the smooth bottom, the cellar-like pits yawned darkly and unfathomably. The floor about
08:03the pits was free of sand, pebbles, or detritus.
08:07"'Heavens! What do you make of that?' muttered Furnham to himself rather than to Langley.
08:13He stooped over the edge, staring down with feverish and inconclusive speculations.
08:20The riddle was beyond his experience. He had met nothing like it in all his researches.
08:26His puzzlement, however, was partly submerged in the more pressing problem of how he and Langley
08:31were to descend the sheer walls. Thirst, and the hope of finding water in one of the pits,
08:36were more important at that moment than the origin and nature of the square basin.
08:41Suddenly, in his stooping position, a kind of giddiness seized him, and the earth seemed to pitch
08:46deliriously beneath his feet. He staggered, he lost his balance, and fell forward from the verge.
08:52Half-fainting, he closed his eyes against the hurtling descent and the crash twenty feet below.
08:58Instantly, it seemed, he struck bottom. Amazed and incomprehending, he found that he was lying
09:05at full length, prone on his stomach in mid-air, upborne by a hard, flat, invisible substance.
09:12His outflung hands encountered an obstruction, cool as ice and smooth as marble, and the chill
09:19of it smote through his clothing as he lay gazing down into the gulf. Wrenched from his grasp by the
09:25fall, his rifle hung beside him. He heard the startled cry of Langley, and then realized that
09:33the ladder had seized him by the ankles and was drawing him back to the precipice. He felt the
09:38unseen surface slide beneath him, level as a concrete pavement, glib as glass. Then Langley was
09:45helping him to his feet. Both, for the nonce, had forgotten their misunderstanding.
09:51Say, am I Bug House? cried Langley. I thought you were a goner when you fell. What have we stumbled
10:00on, anyhow? Stumbled is good, said Furnham reflectively as he tried to collect himself.
10:07That basin is floored with something solid, but transparent as air. Something unknown to
10:14geologists or chemists. God knows what it is, or where it came from, or who put it there.
10:19We've found a mystery that puts Kobar in the shade. I move that we investigate.
10:27He stepped forward, very cautiously, still half fearful of falling, and stood suspended
10:33over the basin. If you can do it, I guess I can, said Langley as he followed.
10:40With Furnham in the lead, the two began to cross the basin, moving slowly and gingerly along the
10:45invisible pavement. The sensation of peering down as if through empty air was indescribably weird.
10:54They had started midway between two rows of the dark pits, which lay fifty feet apart.
11:01Somehow, it was like following a street. After they had gone some little distance from the verge,
11:07Furnham deviated to the left, with the idea of looking directly down into one of these mysterious pits.
11:15Before he could reach a vertical vantage point, he was arrested by a smooth, solid wall, like that of a
11:20building. I think we've discovered a city, he announced. Groping his way along the air-clear
11:27wall, which seemed free of angles or roughness, he came to an open doorway. It was about five feet wide
11:33and of indeterminable height. Fingering the wall like a blind man, he found that it was nearly six
11:40inches thick. He and Langley entered the door, still walking on a level pavement, and advanced without
11:47obstruction, as if in a large empty room. For an instant, as they went forward, lights seemed to
11:54flash above them in great arches and arcades, touched with evanescent colors like those in fountain spray.
12:00Then it vanished, and the sun shone down as before from a void and desert heaven. The coolness emanating
12:09from the unknown substance was more pronounced than ever, and the men almost shivered. But they were
12:15vastly refreshed, and the torture of their thirst was somewhat mitigated. Now they could look
12:22perpendicularly into the square pit below them, in the stone floor of the excavation. They were unable to
12:29see its bottom, for it went down into shadow beyond the westering sun rays. But both could see the
12:35bizarre and inexplicable object, which appeared to float immobile in air just below the mouth of the
12:42pit. They felt a creeping chill that was more insidious, more penetrant than the iciness of the unseen walls.
12:49Now I'm seeing things, said Langley. Guess I'm seeing them too, added Furnham. The object was a long,
12:59hairless, light-gray body, lying horizontally, as if in some invisible sarcophagus or tomb. Standing erect,
13:08it would have been fully seven feet in height. It was vaguely human in its outlines, and possessed two
13:15legs and two arms. But the head was quite unearthly. The thing seemed to have a double set of high,
13:23concave ears, lined with perforations, and in place of nose, mouth and chin, there was a long,
13:30tapering trunk which lay coiled on the bosom of the monstrosity like a serpent. The eyes, or what
13:37appeared to be such, were covered by leathery, lashless, and hideously wrinkled lids. The thing
13:44lay rigid, and its whole aspect was that of a well-preserved corpse or mummy. Half in light and
13:52half in shadow, it hung amid the funereal, fathomless pit. And beneath it, at some little distance, as their
14:02eyes became accustomed to the gloom, the men seemed to perceive another and similar body. Neither could
14:09voice the mad, eerie thoughts that assailed them. The mystery was too macabre, and overwhelming,
14:16and impossible. It was Langley who spoke at last.
14:21Say, do you suppose they are all dead? Before Furnham could answer, he and Langley heard a thin,
14:28shrill, exiguous sound, like the piping off some unearthly flute whose notes were almost
14:34beyond human audition. They could not determine its direction, for it seemed to come from one side
14:40and then from another as it continued. Its degree of apparent nearness or distance was also variable.
14:48It went on ceaselessly and monotonously, thrilling them with an eeriness as of untrod worlds,
14:56a terror as of uncharted dimensions. It seemed to fade away in remote, ultra-mundane gulfs. And then,
15:05louder and clearer than before, the piping came from the air beside them. Inexpressibly startled,
15:12the two men stared from side to side in an effort to locate the source of the sound. They could find
15:19nothing. The air was clear and still about them, and their view of the rocky slopes that rimmed the basin
15:26was blurred only by the dancing haze of heat. The piping ceased, and was followed by a dead, uncanny
15:34silence. But Furnham and Langley had the feeling that someone or something was near them. A stealthy
15:41presence that lurked and crouched and drew closer, till they could have shrieked aloud with the terror of
15:46suspense. They seemed to wait amid the unrealities of delirium and mirage, haunted by some elusive,
15:54undeclared horror. Tensely they peered and listened, but there was no sound or visual ostent.
16:01Then Langley cried out and fell heavily to the unseen floor, borne backward by the onset of a cold and
16:08intangible thing, resistless as the launching coils of an anaconda. He lay helpless, unable to move beneath
16:17the dead and fluid weight of the unknown incubus, which crushed down his limbs and body and almost
16:23benumbed him with an icy chill as of etheric space. Then something touched his throat, very lightly at
16:30first, and then with a pressure that deepened intolerably to a stabbing pain, as if he had been
16:36pierced by an icicle. A black faintness swept upon him, and the pain seemed to recede as if the nerves
16:44that bore it to his brain were spun like lengthening gossamers across gulfs of anesthesia.
16:53Furnham, in a momentary paralysis, heard the cry of his companion and saw Langley fall and struggle
16:59feebly to lie inert with closing eyes and whitening face. Mechanically, without realizing for some
17:06moments what had happened, he perceived that Langley's garments were oddly flattened and pressed down
17:11beneath an invisible weight. Then, from the hollow of Langley's neck, he saw the spurting of a thin
17:18rill of blood, which mounted straight in air for several inches and vanished in a sort of red mist.
17:25Bizarre, incoherent thoughts arose in Furnham's mind. It was all too incredible, too unreal. His brain must
17:34be wandering. It must have given way entirely. But something was attacking Langley. An invisible
17:42vampire of this invisible city. He had retained his rifle. Now he stepped forward and stood beside
17:50the fallen man. His free hand, groping in the air, encountered a chill, clammy surface, rounded like the
17:58back of a stooping body. It numbed his fingertips even as he touched it. Then something seemed to
18:04reach out like an arm and hurl him violently backward. Reeling and staggering, he managed to
18:09retain his balance and returned more cautiously. The blood still rose in a vanishing rill from Langley's
18:15throat. Estimating the position of the unseen attacker, Furnham raised his rifle and took careful
18:22aim, with the muzzle less than a yard away from its hidden mark. The gun roared with deafening
18:27resonance, and its sound died away in slow echoes as if repeated by a maze of walls. The blood ceased to
18:35rise from Langley's neck and fell to a natural trickle. There was no sound, no manifestation of any
18:42kind from the thing that had assailed him. Furnham stood in doubt, wondering if his shot had taken
18:48effect. Perhaps the thing had been frightened away, perhaps it was still close at hand, and might leap
18:54upon him at any moment, or return to its prey. He peered at Langley, who lay white and still.
19:02The blood was ceasing to flow from the tiny puncture. He stepped toward him, with the idea of trying to
19:09revive him, but was arrested by a strange circumstance. He saw that Langley's face and upper body were
19:15blurred by a grey mist that seemed to thicken and assume palpable outlines. It darkened apace,
19:21it took on solidity and form, and Furnham beheld the monstrous thing that lay prone between himself
19:28and his companion, with part of its fallen bulk still weighing upon Langley. From its inertness,
19:35and the bullet wound in its side, whence oozed a viscid, purple fluid, he felt sure that the thing was dead.
19:42The monster was alien to all terrestrial biology, a huge, invertebrate body formed like an elongated
19:51starfish, with the points ending in swollen, tentacular limbs. It had a round, shapeless head,
20:00with the curving, needle-tipped bill of some mammoth insect. It must have come from other planets or
20:07dimensions than ours. It was wholly unlike the mummified creature that floated in the pit below.
20:14And Furnham felt that it represented an inferior animal-like type. It was evidently composed of an
20:21unknown order of organic matter that became visible to human eyes only in death. His brain was swamped by
20:28the mad enigma of it all. What was this place upon which he and Langley had stumbled? Was it an outpost of
20:36worlds beyond human knowledge or observation? What was the material of which these buildings had been
20:42wrought? Who were their builders? Whence had they come and what had been their purpose?
20:50Was the city of recent date, or was it, perhaps, a sort of ruin, whose builders lay dead in its vaults?
20:57A ruin haunted only by the vampire monster that had assailed Langley?
21:02Shuddering with repulsion at the dead monster, he started to drag the still unconscious man from
21:09beneath the loathsome mass. He avoided touching the dark, semi-translucent body, which lapsed forward,
21:17quivering like a stiff jelly when he had pulled his companion away from it. Like something very trivial and
21:23far away, he remembered the absurd quarrel which Langley had picked with him, and remembered his own
21:30resentment as part of a doubtful dream, now lost in the extra-human mystery of their surroundings.
21:38He bent over his comrade anxiously, and saw that some of the natural tan was returning to the pale face,
21:45and that the eyelids were beginning to flutter. The blood had clotted on the tiny wound. Taking Langley's
21:52canteen, he poured the last of its contents between the owner's teeth.
21:58In a few moments, Langley was able to sit up. Furnham helped him to his feet, and the two began
22:04to cross their way from the crystal maze. They found the doorway, and Furnham, still supporting the other,
22:10decided to retrace their course along the weird street by which they had started to cross the basin.
22:15They had gone but a few paces when they heard a faint, almost inaudible rustling in the air before
22:21them, together with a mysterious grating noise. The rustling seemed to spread and multiply on every
22:27hand, as if an invisible crowd were gathering, but the grating soon ceased.
22:34They went on, slowly and cautiously, with a sense of imminent, uncanny peril.
22:40Langley was now strong enough to walk without assistance, and Furnham held his cocked rifle
22:47ready for instant use. The vague rustling sounds receded, but still encircled them.
22:53Midway between the underlying rows of pits, they moved on toward the desert precipice,
22:59keeping side by side. A dozen paces on the cold, solid pavement, and then they stepped into empty air,
23:07and landed several feet below with a terrific jar, on another hard surface.
23:14It must have been the top of a flight of giant stairs, for, losing their balance,
23:20they both lurched and fell, and rolled downward along a series of similar surfaces, and lay stunned
23:26at the bottom. Langley had been rendered unconscious by the fall,
23:31but Furnham was vaguely aware of several strange, dreamlike phenomena. He heard a faint, ghostly,
23:39sibilant rustling. He felt a light and clammy touch upon his face, and smelled an odour of suffocating
23:45sweetness, in which he seemed to sink as into an unfathomable sea. The rustling died to a vast and
23:53spatial silence. Oblivion darkened above him, and he slid swiftly into nothingness.
24:00It was night when Furnham awoke. His first impression was the white dazzle of a full moon
24:05shining in his eyes. Then he became aware that the circle of the great orb was oddly distorted and
24:12broken, like a moon in some cubistic painting. All around and above him were bright, crystalline
24:19angles, crossing and intermingling, the outlines of a translucent architecture, dome on dome and wall
24:26on wall. As he moved his head, showers of ghostly irises, the lunar yellow and green and purple, fell
24:34in his eyes from the broken orb and vanished. He saw that he was lying on a glass-like floor,
24:40which caught the light in moving sparkles. Langley, still unconscious, was beside him.
24:46Doubtless they were still in the mysterious oubliette down whose invisible stairs they had fallen.
24:53Far off, to one side, through a melange of the transparent partitions, he could see the vague
24:59rocks of the gobi, twisted and refracted in the same manner as the moon. Why, he wondered, was the
25:08city now visible? Was its substance rendered perceptible, in a partial sort of way, by some unknown
25:15ray, which existed in moonlight, but not in the direct beams of the sun? Such an explanation sounded
25:23altogether too unscientific. But he could not think of any other at the moment. Rising on his elbow,
25:31he saw the glassy outlines of the giant stairs down which he and Langley had plunged. A pale,
25:37diaphanous form, like a phantom of the mummified creature they had seen in the pit, was descending the
25:43stairs. It moved forward with fleet strides, longer than those of a man, and stooped above Furnum with
25:50its spectral trunk waving inquisitively and poising an inch or two from his face. Two round,
25:56phosphorescent eyes, emitting perceptible beams like lanterns, glowed solemnly in its head above the
26:03beginning of the proboscis. The eyes seemed to transfix Furnum with their unearthly gaze. He felt that the
26:10light they emitted was flowing in a ceaseless stream into his own eyes, into his very brain.
26:17The light seemed to shape itself into images, formless and incomprehensible at first, but growing
26:23clearer and more coherent momentarily. Then, in some indescribable way, the images were associated with
26:30articulate words, as if a voice were speaking. Words that he understood as one might understand the
26:37language of dreams. We mean you no harm, the voice seemed to say. But you have stumbled upon our city,
26:44and we cannot afford to let you escape. We do not wish to have our presence known to men. We have
26:51dwelt here for many ages. The Lobnor Desert was a fertile realm when we first established our city.
26:57We came to your world as fugitives from a great planet that once formed part of the solar system.
27:03A planet composed entirely of ultraviolet substances, which was destroyed in a terrible cataclysm.
27:10Knowing the imminence of the catastrophe, some of us were able to build a huge space flyer,
27:15in which we fled to the earth. From the materials of the flyer, and other materials we had brought
27:21along for the express purpose, we built our city, whose name, as well as it can be conveyed in human
27:27phonetics, is keys. The things of your world have always been plainly visible to us. And in fact,
27:34due to our immense scale of perceptions, we probably see much that is not manifest to you. Also, we have
27:40no need of artificial light at any time. We discovered, however, at an early date, that we ourselves and our
27:47buildings were invisible to men. Strangely enough, our bodies undergo in death a degeneration of substance,
27:55which brings them within the infrared range, and thus within the scope of your visual cognition.
28:02The voice seemed to pause, and Furnham realized that it had spoken only in his thought by a sort
28:08of telepathy. In his own mind, he tried to shape a question. What do you intend to do with us?
28:15Again, he heard the still, toneless voice. We planned to keep you with us permanently. After you fell
28:25through the trapdoor we had opened, we overpowered you with an anesthetic, and during your period of
28:32unconsciousness, which lasted many hours, we injected into your bodies a drug which has already affected
28:39your vision, rendering visible to a certain degree, the ultraviolet substances that surround you.
28:46Repeated injections, which must be given slowly, will make these substances no less plain and solid
28:53to you than the materials of your own world. Also, there are other processes to which we intend to
28:59subject you. Processes that will serve to adjust and acclimate you in all ways to your new surroundings.
29:06Behind Furnham's weird interlocutor, several more phantasmal figures had descended the half-visible
29:14steps. One of them was stooping over Langley, who had begun to stir and would recover full
29:20consciousness in a few instants. Furnham sought to frame other questions and received an immediate
29:26reply. The creature that attacked your companion was a domestic animal. We were busy in our laboratories
29:33at the time and did not know of your presence till we heard the rifle shots. The flashes of light which
29:40you saw among our invisible walls on your arrival were due to some queer phenomenon of refraction.
29:46At certain angles the sunlight was broken or intensified by the molecular arrangement of the
29:51unseen substance. At this juncture, Langley sat up, looking about him in a bewildered fashion.
29:58What the hell is all this, and where the hell are we? He inquired, as he peered from Furnham to the
30:05people of the city. Furnham proceeded to explain, repeating the telepathic information he had just
30:12received. By the time he had ceased speaking, Langley himself appeared to become the recipient of some sort
30:19of mental reassurance from the phantom-like creature who had been Furnham's interlocutor.
30:24For Langley stared at this being with a mixture of enlightenment and wonder in his expression.
30:30Once more there came the still, super-auditory voice, fraught now with imperious command.
30:38Come with us. Your initiation into our life is to begin immediately. My name is Isfa,
30:44if you wish to have a name for me in your thoughts. We ourselves, communicating with each other without
30:50language, have little need for names. And their use is a rare formality among us. Our generic name,
30:58as a people, is the Teesans. Furnham and Langley arose with an unquestioning alacrity,
31:05for which afterwards they could hardly account, and followed Isfa. It was as if a mesmeric compulsion
31:12had been laid upon them. Furnham noted, in an automatic sort of way, as they left the oubliette,
31:18that his rifle had vanished. No doubt it had been carefully removed during his period of insensibility.
31:26He and Langley climbed the high steps with some difficulty. Queerly enough, considering their late
31:32fall, they found themselves quite free of stiffness and bruises. But at the time they felt no surprise.
31:39Only a drugged acquiescence in all the marvels and perplexities of their situation.
31:45They found themselves on the outer pavement, amid the bewildering outlines of the luminous buildings
31:51which towered above them with intersections of multiform crystalline curves and angles.
31:58Isfa went on without pause, leading them toward the fantastic serpentine arch of an open doorway
32:04in one of the tallest of these edifices, whose pale domes and pinnacles were heaped in immaterial
32:10splendour athwart the zenith-nearing moon. Four of the ultraviolet people, the companions of Isfa,
32:18brought up the rear. Isfa was apparently unarmed, but the others carried weapons like heavy-bladed and
32:25blunt-pointed sickles of glass or crystal. Many others of this incredible race, intent on their
32:32own enigmatic affairs, were passing to and fro in the open street and through the portals of the
32:38unearthly buildings. The city was a place of silent and phantasmal activity.
32:46At the end of the street they were following, before they passed through the arched entrance,
32:51Furnum and Langley saw the rock-strewn slope of the Laub-Nor, which seemed to have taken on a queer
32:58filminess and insubstantiality in the moonlight. It occurred to Furnum, with a sort of weird shock,
33:06that his visual perception of earthly objects, as well as of the ultraviolet city, was being affected
33:12by the injections of which Isfa told him. The building they now entered was full of apparatuses
33:18made in the form of distorted spheres and irregular discs and cubes, some of which seemed to change
33:24their outlines from moment to moment in a confusing manner. Certain of them appeared to
33:29concentrate the moonlight like ultra-powerful lenses, turning it to a fiery, blinding brilliance.
33:36Neither Furnum nor Langley could imagine the purpose of these devices, and no telepathic
33:41explanation was vouchsafed by Isfa or any of his companions. As they went on into the building,
33:48there was a queer sense of some importunate and subtle vibration in the air, which affected the
33:54men unpleasantly. They could not assign its source, nor could they be sure whether their own perception
34:00of it was purely mental, or came through the avenues of one or more of the physical senses.
34:05Somehow it was both disturbing and narcotic, and they sought instinctively to resist its influence.
34:14The lower story of the edifice was seemingly one vast room. The strange apparatuses grew taller about
34:21them, rising as if in concentric tears as they went on. In the huge dome above them, living rays of
34:29mysterious light appeared to cross and recross at all angles of incidence, weaving a bright,
34:35ever-changing web that dazzled the eye. They emerged in a clear, circular space at the center of the
34:42building. Here, ten or twelve of the ultraviolet people were standing about a slim column, perhaps
34:48five feet high, that culminated in a shallow, basin-like formation. There was a glowing, oval-shaped
34:55object in the basin, large as the egg of some extinct bird. From this object, numerous spokes of light
35:03extended horizontally in all directions, seeming to transfix the heads and bodies of those who stood
35:09in a loose ring about the column. Fernum and Langley became aware of a high, thin, humming noise,
35:17which emanated from the glowing egg and was somehow inseparable from the spokes of light,
35:22as if the radiance had become audible. Isfa paused facing the men, and a voice spoke in their minds.
35:31The glowing object is called the Duar. An explanation of its real nature and origin would be beyond your
35:39present comprehension. It is allied, however, to that range of substances which you would classify as
35:46minerals, and is one of a number of similar objects which existed in our former world.
35:53It generates a mighty force which is intimately connected with our life principle, and the rays
36:00emanating from it serve us in place of food. If the Duar were lost or destroyed, the consequences would be
36:08serious. And our life term, which normally is many thousand years, would be shortened for want of
36:15the nourishing and revivifying rays. Fascinated, Fernum and Langley stared at the egg-shaped orb.
36:24The humming seemed to grow louder, and the spokes of light lengthened and increased in number.
36:31The men recognized it now as the source of the vibration that had troubled and oppressed them.
36:37The effect was insidious, heavy, hypnotic, as if there were a living brain in the object that
36:45sought to overcome their volition and subvert their senses and their minds in some unnatural thralldom.
36:51They heard the mental command of Isfa, go forward and join those who partake of the luminous emanations
36:58of the Duar. We believe that by so doing you will, in course of time, become purged of your
37:04terrestrial grossness. That the very substance of your bodies may eventually be transformed into
37:11something not unlike that of our own, and your senses raised to a perceptional power such as we possess.
37:18Half unwillingly, with an eerie consciousness of compulsion, the men started forward.
37:24I don't like this, said Fernum in a whisper to Langley.
37:28I'm beginning to feel queer enough already.
37:32Summoning his utmost willpower, he stopped short of the emanating rays and put out his hand to arrest Langley.
37:38With dazzled eyes, they stood peering at the Duar.
37:42A cold, restless fire, alive with some nameless evil that was not akin to the evil of Earth,
37:48pulsated in its heart, and the long, sharp beams, quivering slightly, passed like javelins into the
37:56semi-crystalline bodies of the beings who stood immobile around the column.
38:01Hasten, came the unvocal admonition of Isfa. In a few moments, the force in the Duar,
38:08which has a regular rhythm of ebb and flow, will begin to draw back upon itself. The rays will be
38:14retracted, and you will have to wait for many minutes before the return of the emanation.
38:20A quick, daring thought had occurred to Fernum.
38:24Eyeing the Duar closely, he had been impressed by its seeming fragility.
38:29The thing was evidently not attached to the basin in which it reposed, and in all likelihood it would
38:35shatter like glass if hurled or even dropped on the floor. He tried to suppress his thought,
38:41fearing that it would be read by Isfa or others of the ultraviolet people.
38:47At the same time, he sought to phrase, as innocently as possible, a mental question.
38:53What would happen if the Duar were broken?
38:57Instantly he received an impression of anger, turmoil, and consternation in the mind of Isfa.
39:03His question, however, was apparently not answered, and it seemed that Isfa did not want to answer it,
39:09that he was concealing something too dangerous and dreadful to be revealed.
39:14Fernum felt, too, that Isfa was suspicious, had received an inkling of his own repressed thought.
39:22It occurred to him that he must act quickly, if at all.
39:25Nerving himself, he leaped forward through the ring of bodies about the Duar. The rays had already begun to
39:34shorten slightly, but he had the feeling of one who hurls himself upon an array of lance points.
39:40There was an odd, indescribable sensation, as if he were being pierced by something that was both hot
39:47and cold, but neither the warmth nor the chill was beyond endurance. A moment, and he stood beside the
39:55column, lifting the glowing egg in his hands and poising it defiantly as he turned to face the
40:02ultraviolet people. The thing was phenomenally light, and it seemed to burn his fingers and to freeze them
40:10at the same time. He felt a strange vertigo, an indescribable confusion. But he succeeded in
40:18mastering it. The contact of the Duar might be deadlier to the human tissues than that of radium,
40:24for aught he knew. He would have to take his chances. At any rate, it would not kill him
40:30immediately. And if he played his cards with sufficient boldness and skill, he could make possible the escape
40:36of Langley. If not his own escape. The ring of ultraviolet beings stood as if stupefied by his audacity.
40:45The retracting spokes of light were slowly drawing back into the egg. But Furnham himself was still
40:51impaled by them. His fingers seemed to be growing translucent where they clutched the weird ball.
40:58He met the phosphoric gaze of Isfa, and heard the frantic thoughts that were pouring into his mind,
41:04not only from Isfa, but from all the partakers of the Duar's luminous beams.
41:09Dread, unhuman threats, desperate injunctions to return the Duar to its pedestal were being laid upon
41:17him. Rallying all his will, he defied them. Let us go free, he said, mentally addressing Isfa.
41:26Give me back my weapon and permit my companion and me to leave your city.
41:30We wish you no harm, but we cannot allow you to detain us. Let us go, or I will shatter the Duar.
41:40We'll smash it like an egg on the floor. At the shaping of his destructive thought,
41:46a shudder passed among the semi-spectral beings, and he felt the dire fear that his threat had aroused
41:53in them. He had been right. The Duar was fragile, and some awful catastrophe, whose nature he could
42:01not quite determine, would ensue instantly upon its shattering. Step by step, glancing frequently
42:08about to see that no one approached him by stealth from behind, Furnum returned to Langley's side.
42:14The Tysons drew back from him in evident terror. All the while he continued to issue his demands and
42:21combinations. Bring the rifle quickly, the weapon you took from me, and give it into my companion's
42:28hands. Let us go without hindrance or molestation, or I will drop the Duar. When we are outside the city,
42:35one of you, one only, shall be permitted to approach us, and I will deliver the Duar to him.
42:44One of the Tysons left the group to return in less than a minute with Furnum's Winchester.
42:49He handed it to Langley, who inspected the weapon carefully and found that it had not been damaged
42:54or its loading or mechanism tampered with in any way. Then, with the ultraviolet creatures following
43:01them in manifest perturbation, Furnum and Langley made their way from the building and started along
43:07the open street in the general direction, as Langley estimated from the compass he carried,
43:12of the Tarim River. They went on amid the fantastic towering of the crystalline piles,
43:18and the people of the city, called as if by some unworded summons, poured from the doorways in an
43:24ever-swelling throng and gathered behind them. There was no active demonstration of any overt kind,
43:30but both the men were increasingly aware of the rage and consternation that had been aroused by
43:35Furnum's audacious theft of the Duar, a theft that seemed to be regarded in the light of actual
43:41blasphemy, the hatred of the Tysons, like a material radiation, dark, sullen, stupefying,
43:49stultifying, beat upon them at every step. It seemed to dog their brains and their feet like some
43:56viscid medium of nightmare, and their progression toward the Gobi slope became painfully slow and
44:02tedious. Before them, from one of the buildings, a tentacled starfish monster, like the thing that
44:10had assailed Langley, emerged and lay crouching in the street as if to dispute their passage.
44:16Raising its evil beak, it glared with filmy eyes, but slunk away from their approach as if at the
44:23munition of its owners. Furnum and Langley, passing it with involuntary shivers of repugnance,
44:30went on. The air was oppressed with alien, unformulable menace. They felt an abnormal
44:37drowsiness creeping upon them. There was an unheard narcotic music which sought to overcome their
44:43vigilance, to beguile them into slumber. Furnum's fingers grew numb with the unknown radiations of the
44:52dwar, though the sharp beams of light by accelerative degrees had withdrawn into its center, leaving
45:00only a formless, misty glow that filled the weird orb. The thing seemed latent with terrible life and
45:07power. The bones of his transparent hand were outlined against it like those of a skeleton.
45:13Looking back, he saw that Isfa followed closely, walking in advance of the other Tisans. He could
45:22not read the thoughts of Isfa as formerly. It was as if a blank, dark wall had been built up.
45:31Somehow he had a premonition of evil, of danger and treachery, in some form which he could not
45:38understand or imagine. He and Langley came to the end of the street, where the ultraviolet pavement
45:44joined itself to the desert acclivity. As they began their ascent of the slope, both men realized
45:49that their visual powers had indeed been affected by the injection treatment of the Tisans. For the
45:55soil seemed to glow beneath them, faintly translucent. And the boulders were like semi-crystalline masses,
46:02whose inner structure they could see dimly. Isfa followed them on the slope.
46:07But the other people of Sias, as had been stipulated by Furnum, paused at the juncture of their streets
46:14and buildings, with the infra-violet substances of earth. After they had gone perhaps fifty yards
46:22on the gentle acclivity, Furnum came to a pause and waited for Isfa, holding out the Dwar at arm's
46:28length. Somehow he had a feeling that it was unwise to return the mystic egg. But he would keep his
46:34promise, since the people of Sias had kept their part of the bargain so far.
46:41Isfa took the Dwar from Furnum's hands. But his thoughts, whatever they were, remained carefully
46:47shrouded. There was a sense of something ominous and sinister about him as he turned and went back
46:53down the slope with the fiery egg shining through his body like a great watchful eye. The beams of
47:00light were beginning to emanate from its center once more. The two men, looking back ever and anon,
47:07resumed their journey. Sias glimmered below them like the city of a mirage in the moonlit hollow.
47:14They saw the ultraviolet people crowding to await Isfa at the end of their streets.
47:19Then, as Isfa neared his fellows, two rays of cold, writhing fire leaped forth from the base of a
47:27tower that glittered like glass at the city's verge. Clinging to the ground, the rays ran up the slope
47:33with the undulant motion of pythons following Langley and Furnum at a speed that would soon
47:39overtake them. They're double-crossing us, warned Furnum. He caught the Winchester from Langley,
47:46dropped to his knees and aimed carefully, drawing a bead on the luminous orb of the Dwar through the
47:52spectral form of Isfa, who had now reached the city and was about to enter the waiting throng.
47:58Run, he called to Langley. I'll make them pay for their treachery, and perhaps you can get away in
48:03the meanwhile. He pulled the trigger, missing Isfa but dropping at least two of the Tisans who stood
48:09near the Dwar. Again, steadily, he drew bead, while the rays from the tower serpentined onward,
48:17pale, chill and deadly-looking, till they were almost at his feet. Even as he aimed, Isfa took
48:25refuge in the foremost ranks of the crowd, through whose filmy bodies the Dwar still glowed. This time,
48:32the high-powered bullet found its mark, though it must have passed through more than one of
48:37the ultraviolet beings before reaching Isfa and the mystic orb. Furnum had hardly known what the result
48:42would be, but he felt sure that some sort of catastrophe would ensue the destruction of the
48:47Dwar. What really happened was incalculable and almost beyond description. Before the Dwar could
48:54fall from the hands of its stricken bearer, it seemed to expand in a rushing wheel of intense light,
49:00revolving as it grew, and blotting out the form of the ultraviolet people in the foreground.
49:06With awful velocity, the wheel struck the nearer buildings, which appeared to soar and vanish like
49:13towers of fading mirage. There was no audible explosion, no sound of any kind, only that silent,
49:22ever-spinning, ever-widening disk of light that threatened to involve by swift degrees the whole
49:28extent of Sias. Gazing spellbound, Furnum had almost forgotten the serpentine rays.
49:34Too late he saw that one of them was upon him. He leaped back, but the thing caught him,
49:40coiling about his limbs and body like an anaconda. There was a sensation of icy cold,
49:45of horrible constriction, and then, helpless, he found that the strange beam of force was dragging
49:52him back down the slope toward Sias, while its fellow went on in pursuit of the fleeing Langley.
49:57In the meanwhile, the spreading disk of fire had reached the tower from which the ray emanated.
50:05Suddenly, Furnum was free. The serpentine beams had both vanished. He stood rooted to the spot in
50:13speechless awe, and Langley, returning down the hill, also paused, watching the mighty circle of
50:20light that seemed to fill the entire basin at their feet with a soundless vortex of destruction.
50:27My God! cried Furnum after a brief interval. Look what's happening to the slope. As if the force of
50:35the uncanny explosion were now extending beyond Sias, boulders and masses of earth began to rise in air
50:42before the white, glowing maelstrom, and sailed in slow, silent levitation toward the men.
50:48Furnum and Langley started to run, stumbling up the slope, and were overtaken by something that
50:54lifted them softly, buoyantly, irresistibly, with a strange feeling of utter weightlessness,
51:02and bore them like wind-wafted leaves or feathers through the air. They saw the bouldered crest of the
51:09acclivity flowing far beneath them, and then they were floating, floating, ever higher in the moonlight,
51:19above leagues of dim desert. A faintness came upon them both. A vague nausea. An illimitable vertigo.
51:29And slowly, somewhere in that incredible flight, they lapsed into unconsciousness. The moon had fallen
51:36low, and its rays were almost horizontal in Furnum's eyes when he awoke. An utter confusion possessed him
51:43at first, and his circumstances were more than bewildering. He was lying on a sandy slope, among
51:50scattered shrubs, meagre and stunted, and Langley was reclining not far away. Raising himself a little,
51:57he saw the white and reed-fringed surface of a river, which could be no other than the tarim,
52:03at the slope's bottom. Half incredulous, he realized that the force of the weird explosion had carried
52:10Langley and himself many miles and had deposited them, apparently unhurt, beside the goal of their
52:17desert wandering. Furnum rose to his feet, feeling a queer lightness and unsteadiness. He took a tentative
52:25step and landed four or five feet away. It was as if he had lost half his normal weight. Moving with
52:32great care, he went over to Langley, who had now started to sit up. He was reassured to find that
52:39his eyesight was becoming normal again, for he perceived merely a faint glowing in the objects
52:45about him. The sand and boulders were comfortably solid, and his own hands were no longer translucent.
52:51Gosh, he said to Langley. That was some explosion. The force that was liberated by the shattering of
53:00the dwar must have done something to the gravity of all surrounding objects. I guess the city of
53:06Ceas and its people must have gone back into outer space, and even the infrared substances about the
53:11city must have been more or less degravitated. But I guess the effect is wearing off as far as you and I
53:17are concerned. Otherwise we'd be traveling still. Langley got up and tried to walk, with the same
53:24disconcerting result that had characterized Furnum's attempt. He mastered his limbs and his equilibrium
53:30after a few experiments. I still feel like a sort of dirigible, he commented. Say, I think we'd better
53:38leave this out of our report to the museum. A city, a people, all invisible, in the heart of the
53:44Lobnor. That would be too much for scientific credibility. I agree with you, said Furnum.
53:51The whole business would be too fantastic, outside of a super-scientific story. In fact,
53:58he added a little maliciously, it's even more incredible than the existence of the ruins of Kobar.
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