Moon Sea Marauders Pt7

Steampunk serial

---

Previous chapters: Part 6 Part 1

---

How shall I describe that which clearly had no root in the realms of Man, or in any of the Beasts we knew?

We reached the cave mouth shortly after the return of the scouts, and while the men spread out to check the surrounding land for any other paths or tracks along which the French might have deviated, I drew closer to the cave mouth itself and began to study the strange carvings that flanked it. I must confess to both excitement and trepidation at this point, for while my heart was aflame at the thought of a new discovery, my mind grew increasingly troubled as I studied the sight before me.

There were four pillars in total, flanking the cave mouth in pairs, and the longer I studied the scene, the more convinced I became that this was no cave mouth, but in fact the mouth of a tunnel. Some sentience had sculpted the land here for a purpose, although what that purpose may be has yet eluded my grasp. Lintel blocks larger than a man held aloft a capstone of jet black stone, and the statues were carved from the same jet which contrasted so vividly with the pale grey of the surrounding stone.

Like the fabled Minotaur of Ancient Greece, each statue seemed to present a being made up from the parts of others, and I found myself tracing out crab claws, goat legs, bat wings, and even a giant, splayed foot with seven toes. Every statue also had long tentacles coming from what would have been the shoulders, wrapping around and over the other limbs, and creating an impression of some sea-born monstrosity grappling with the rock around it. The one had a triangular head with an array of bulging eyes down the side, while another had a porcine skull ending in a curved eagle beak.

None of it made any sense, and the longer I looked at it, the more convinced I became that no human hand had ever sculpted these macabre designs.

Captain Devworth and his officers had scant time for these esoteric designs though, and after frowning at the carved rock while listening to my observations, the captain politely but firmly cut me off. I shall never forget his words - “Doctor, I appreciate your insights, but we have a lady to rescue.” What Fated words those would turn out to be! With torches lit and weapons at the ready they advanced into the tunnel, and I, not wanting to be left outside with the cold and the brooding stares of the otherworldly statues, followed along in their wake.

Our route took us along an arched tunnel, polished along the flanks yet framed with raw lunar rock above, and the first thing that struck me was the silence which reigned once we were beneath the earth. The howling of the wind disappeared the moment we set foot inside the tunnel, and every step deeper seemed to absorb sound and surround us with a blanket of oppressive silence. The tramp of boots, the clanging of metal on metal, the muttering of the men as they too studied the strange architecture around us - all of it seemed to gradually fade away, until only silence and the pounding of my own heart filled my ears.

The tunnel took us upwards at some point, the naked rock underfoot slick with some kind of moisture, and it was only when the leading torchbearer fell down and lost his torch that the ethereal glow of the tunnel itself became visible. Greens and yellows were blooming overhead, waking from the rock in long veins that pulsed and glowed stronger even as we looked upwards in wonder, and before long the entire tunnel was bathed in this new radiance. Our torches were insignificant specks in comparison, and as the glowing radiance from above banished the shadows around us, so too did Captain Devworth order the torches doused and stored for later. We had not yet found any sign of the French, and there was an understanding amongst the officers that whatever depths lay ahead might not be filled with the same strange luminescence which now aided us.

The otherworldly light also served to divorce us from the passage of time, which seemed to flow in unusual tides the deeper we moved into this subterranean world. We walked for what seemed like barely a quarter of glass before men began to complain of fatigue, and when the officers checked their pocket watches they were astonished to see that hours had already passed since we first entered the tunnel. We came shortly thereafter upon a great hall, the walls stretching off a hundred yards or more in every direction around us, and a halt was called for water and food. The men of the Poseidon collapsed along the wall closest to the tunnel from which we had come, ravenous after the exertions of the march thus far, yet I found myself uninterested in the rations which were presented.

My attention was on the colossal set of murals which covered the walls of the hall, which began at about chest height and reached many feet into the air above us. Scenes of utter incomprehension were etched here, in exquisite detail, on rock which could not possibly have known the touch of a human hand. I saw a pyramid, much like that of Giza, floating in midair above what seemed to be a river of fire, yet which had frog-like beings swimming in it while clusters of giant eyeballs watched from the riverbanks. Birds - or should I rather say, flying beings - shaped like darts floated above a forest which grew from an ocean, while crabs with wings cavorted in the tops of the forest canopy. I saw a centaur with the upper body not of a man, but of a giant parrot, and the head of a fish. I saw something that must have been a representation of a night sky, except nothing like we had ever seen, for seven moons danced on the horizon, and vast buildings rose from the etched landscape to disappear like needles up towards the worlds above them.

I tried to capture some of these images in my notebook, but I found my hands shaking to such a degree that I gave up soon enough. The shock of the unknown, coupled with the strangeness of what we were witnessing, was not conducive to calm and rational scientific study, it seemed.

After the break we set off again, and found another tunnel heading out of the hall on its far side. Here too we found fresh signs of the French, for we discovered a wooden cart in a side chamber, cluttered with the remnants of the iron pails in which the stolen daedricium had been stored. Of the looted crystals themselves there was no sign except for small fragments and dust, and we could not fathom what the French might have done with their stolen cargo.

Moments later, as we continued out of the hall, we found the first of the crystal caverns - and here, the French were waiting for us. Like a vast, overgrown forest, the cavern ahead of us was filled with crystals of every shape and size known to the imagination, and this green and yellow mass reached almost to the roof of the cavern many yards overhead. Light simmered in this space, coming not from the ceiling but from the crystals themselves, and as my eyes adjusted to this new radiance I could make out clusters of crystals that seemed to form little copses of ‘trees’, intermixed with ‘meadows’ where the crystals were barely ankle high. A stream of water wound through the cave from left to river, curling around clusters of glimmering crystals, and in several places what looked like bridges had formed where some crystals had toppled over, or perhaps just grown sideways.

We had barely stepped out of the end of the tunnel, onto a small ledge that terminated in a set of rock-hewn stairs that led downwards to the floor of the vault, when we saw movement in the vault ahead of us. Shapes were moving in the distance, flaming torches held high, and as more of us left the tunnel and looked down upon the crystal forestscape ahead of us, there was a commotion amongst the distant shapes. Voices rang out first, faint in the distance, followed by the puff of musket smoke - and the first of the French fire began to patter against the rock face around us. Captain Devworth wasted no time, leading the charge down the stairs towards the vault floor, and thus it was that I would first find myself in the Crystal Caves of Qal’th.

---

Next chapter: Part 8

---