A Letter to the Port Moriarty HeraldDr Lars Storvald
c/o SS PikeDear Editor,
I would greatly appreciate it if you could publish this letter in your fine newspaper. I am seeking information about a good friend of mine, a Mr Colere, who disembarked in your fine town some months ago with the intention of joining an expedition to the interior. If any of your readers are in a position to know his whereabouts, I would be most gratified to hear from them. I am willing to recompense your readers for any expenses they may incur in terms of postage, missed business opportunities, and so forth, as I am very interested indeed in hearing of the whereabouts of my dear friend Mr Colere.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr Lars Storvald
Tarrant
Able Seaman Cornelius Jones, Dec 19th 186-
Charleston, South CarolinaDear Eustace,
I warrant you will be surprised to hear from me, seeing as we have not spoken since I went off to sea. Tell mother not to worry about me, it is no use anymore. I came down with some fever in the Southern Continent and the doctors say there is nothing they can do. My landlady Mrs Hastings is kind when she is around me, but when she is out of the room what I can hear makes me sure she thinks what has happened to me is God’s judgement for my wickedness. I know she is right, she is just wrong about which God, I have been cursed by a heathen God of the Southern Continent for defiling a tomb. I know it is too late now to make amends for my deeds but I cannot go to my grave without telling anyone, if I don’t nobody will ever know as the other two will never tell, they have souls as tight as chinese slippers.
In Jan 185- the ‘Delilah’ was near 49 S 111 W, following the coast of the country our captain had named ‘Beatrice Nash Land’. It was a rugged coast with many fjords and islands, and high green mountains behind from which numerous streams flowed down to the sea. We were running low on fresh water, so the captain ordered a boat to go ashore. Four of us were sent: Chester Arkwright of Savannah, Horace Whimsley of Providence, myself and a native of Terra Pascua known to all aboard as Little Joe. We got ashore in one piece at a beauty of a creek and filled our barrels, but on the way back our boat took a turn for the worse and tipped us all out. Well, I am still not clear what happened, but we ended up spending the night wet and cold on a little island about as far around as Washington Park, but rising up in the middle
Tarrant
Diary of Katerina MarchmontWhat brutes the Tohlemek are! At the four corners of the base of their temple are metal spikes, below which are carefully carved channels, from which old, dark encrustrations have never been cleaned. Their purpose seemed all too obvious and I have not been able to pass them without an internal shudder. But, if they do indeed practice human sacrifice, today's spectacle at least involved no death. At midday a ceremony was held, but instead of spitting four Damiko or Thylessi, the falcon-headed priest tied four Tohlemek to the spikes. His underlings then, to the accompaniment of much chanting, proceeded to cut patterns into the chests, arms and thighs of these young men, until the channels ran slick with their blood. Barely alive, they were cut free and born triumphantly away by their families. This, it appears, is a Tohlemek ritual of manhood.
We are waiting, as best as gesture and sign language can convey, for the arrival of some sort of envoy. Until that time, we are comfortable prisoners. It has been made perfectly clear that we are not to leave the village, and the Tohlemek have set up a positive encampment at the top of the cliff, making it impossible to retreat in that direction. The Tohlemek and the Damiko watch us closely, but each other more closely still. Although their attitude toward us has not been unpleasant, and in some ways very complimentary, I am growing very aware that we are balanced precariously in a situation which calls more for politicians than explorers. It is fortunate Father sent the runners back before we came down the cliff.
Despite the underlying tension, I am enjoying the chance to sleep in beds, to bathe in hot water and sample the hospitality of a civilised folk.
Journal of Franz ObermeyerVast storehouse of information to delve into. Damiko have shared readily. Function of one substance not clear, though obviously regarded as value. Sample of prepared product given reluctantly, but requests to see preparation process and source herbs repeatedly denied - or possibly misunderstood. Most interesting preparation so far appears to have antacid properties. Highly effective, will follow up.
Notebook of Elsabet MarchmontThere is so much to tell I don't rightly know where to begin. I'm writing this sitting kitty-corner to a brazier, in my own room in a thing Julian Coventry says is a pagoda, which is a building they make out in China-land and places like that. It is a bit like a bunch of fancy boxes sitting on top of each other with little curling roofs on each box.
We just had one of the slap-up-est meals I ever did see, and definitely the strangest. Most of it was all bits and pieces, piled on top of rice. You have a bowl and you put the rice in it and some greens and bits of meat and such - don't ask me what sort, cause I didn't know a one. Then there are all these little sauce things and you either pour the sauce all over everything, or you dip your bits in your own personal sauce bowl. The Damiko like things hot. My mouth is still burning.
That's the end, but I think it really was the best. Right funny food, but awfully nice, especially the paper and nut stuff at the end, which you dip in honey and jam and things. Some of that was hot, too.
The start was up on the top of the plateau, levering up that door. There'd been a building up there, and I could see some of those knotty carvings Mr Coventry thought were so interesting, on the tumbled stone and on the door. It would have been a flat, turtle-shaped thing before someone knocked it down and painted all that stuff on the door. Looks like it happened a long time ago. Lucky we have the horses, because I doubt we would have got the thing open without them. There was some sort of counter-weight system set up in the building, so Mr Ryan reckons, and those doors were worse than heavy without it.
Still, we got through. It looked like someone had tried the same thing, except from the inside, and gone nowhere. The tunnel just inside was also a bit pitted and burned, like a cannon had gone off a long time ago. We spent the rest of the morning going round and round in circles down this winding tunnel. Wide enough to get the horses through. Wide enough for a wagon, even.
Down the bottom it was damp and there were these ferns everywhere, growing right up over our heads and moss in every direction. Pretty. Mist from the waterfall beaded on spider-web and everything all shush and cool. There was a bit of a path, like someone came this way every so often, and we followed it out to the lake and could see Takana just ahead.
That's when all the fuss started. There were a bunch of fellows working in fields just across the lake and they saw us and those that didn't run back into the city ran straight at us and then it was all gabble-gabble and none of us knowing what anybody was saying, but all excited and scared and everywhere at once. Then a bunch of the Tohlemeks marched up and it was all over again, except nastier. From the way they acted, it's pretty much a big thing that we opened the door, and they already got a bunch of folk camped up the top there, maybe like they're worried someone will shut it all up again.
We got marched back into Takana quick smart after that and taken before the head Tohlemek. He didn't like that we couldn't understand him, and didn't have much patience with signs and play-acting or little drawings. Sir drew a map, a general one. I saw he didn't put the passageway through the Wall on it. After that the big boss sent us off to stay with Lady Akiko.
I guess I better describe everyone, first. There's more than one type of people here. The folks in charge are the Tohlemeks. They're pretty much like the statue we saw, back on the Field. Really dark, with hooked noses and a lot like hawks. On their temple ziggurat thing some of the soldiers were wearing sun falcon masks. They carry whips, just like those carvings, and they're not shy about using 'em.
The Damiko are Eastern types, or were once. Their skin is a bit darker and some of them have curly hair, but otherwise pretty close. They don't much like the Tohlemek at all, and we reckon Takana was theirs alone once and they want it that way again. They're not all bad, in a do everything just so way. When we were taken into the ziggurat, we saw one of the Damiko in there, a real snotty fellow, quite young. He was wearing these fancy golden manacles about his wrists joined by a long chain. For show I guess, since I don't reckon it'd take me long to get out of them. He was bundled right off almost before we saw him.
Then there's the Thylessy or Thlsy or I can't write it properly. They're tall and thin like our runners, and even darker than the Tohlemeks and it looks to me like they're the ones who get pushed round the most in this place. Most of them have their hair cut almost all off, but there are a few who have great masses of long wavy stuff, all tied up in braids. They are what Mr Coventry calls Stoic, by which I mean that they seem so used to being kicked about they just shrug it off. But I think they're kind of proud under it all, too. Or indifferent in a way I kind of associate with holy. It's hard to put.
There's not absolute lines between the lot, and I think there must be sub-divisions or other groups or something which I haven't figured out. We are definitely a ten-day wonder, though, and for the moment we've been made kind of guests who can't go out on their own. Lucky Mr Ryan stopped the game hunters before they got too excited about that big ox-thing. It's not at all like a cow – much thicker and taller and shaggy, and yet a bit like a guinea pig. It doesn't pull a plough at all - they've trained it to dig up the fields in rows. I wouldn't like to get in the way of its paws. But anyway, the first thing Ratchley did was point his gun at it, and it was the crossest I've ever seen Mr Ryan and he said we weren't to use our guns at all, till we're surer of our ground. They haven't taken our guns off us, and they look at them like they think they might be weapons but aren't rightly sure.
Lady Akiko has been very patiently pointing things out and giving them names. She has a son, Hiroko, who hasn't taken his eyes off Lady M since he saw her. Young Lady M has made a big hit. The locals act like they've never seen anything so wonderful and even Lady Akiko, who is ever so proper, couldn't resist touching her hair. I guess that dark reddish colour isn't common. Julian Coventry is also fussed over a bit, being blond, but nothing like the reaction to Lady M. You can just guess how she's acting back.
As best we can reckon, the Tohlemeks have sent for someone or are going to send us somewhere, but we are to sit about and wait until that happens. But there is so much to see in Takana that that isn't a real bother. From the sounds of it, the interior of Altera - or at least this bit of it - is a pretty busy place with lots of people and cities. And the Tohlemeks are the boss of the lot.
My bed is like a shelf set in the wall. It looks hard, but weren't too bad when I tried it out. Hope I still feel that way tomorrow.
Werner Kranz on the Irvine Expedition:
Here we are in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from civilisation and friendly faces. If we were to all die out here in this treacherous wilderness, no one would ever discover our remains to give them a Christian burial. Far more likely that we would all be eaten by scavengers, packs, equipment and all, before anyone would pass nearby and guess at our cruel fate. My companions seem blithely ignorant of the danger we place ourselves in every day, simply by travelling through this wasteland. I had high hopes when that idiot Irvine fell sick that it would be the end of this foolish endeavour, and suggested that this was the obvious time to return to Port Moriarty. But no - Irvine himself insisted that we continue, even though he was coughing up blood as he spoke, and admitted that the fever is a recurring one! I can not understand how a man can overlook the obvious. If he should suffer a more severe attack of this illness, as might easily be brought on by bad weather or severe exertion, there are no doctors or medical supplies to assist him here. We should be next to helpless to assist him, he would die ignominiously and the expedition would be just as much a failure as if he cut his losses and chose to return now. But there is nothing for it - it is as if God Almighty has ordained that we trudge on, further and further away from assistance, into the very middle of this horrible continent. I wish I had never come here but had stayed at home in Germany. I was a fool to gamble with Irvine, or to agree to come along in order to make good my debts to him. I am homesick for my little country, with its sensible people and all the appropriate comforts.
On Tuesday we reached the mountain we have been using as a landmark, and although Colere wished to climb to its peak to survey the surrounding territory, Irvine was his usual impatient self and insisted that we skirt around the base and continue southward towards the immense range of ice and stone that lies in that direction. For once, Whimsley made a point of staunchly supporting him, showing little interest in the Outlier, or in Colere's precious map.
It fails me as to why they even bother to approach this range - it is obvious even from this distance that those mountains are impassable, and none of us are truly experienced mountaineers, except perhaps for Colere. Jones would never be able to climb even the smaller mountains in that range, and attempting the slopes of the taller ones is a task for lunatics and madmen. No one could ever hope to succeed at such a climb, or even to attempt it and return to speak of his efforts. If there is a path into the interior, it does not lie here. In my opinion, which as usual was completely ignored, it would be better to cut our losses and travel to the east or west in the hope of finding a route around the mountains, but nothing will satisfy our glorious leader but to examine the face of the range in more detail, in the hopes of finding some pass or trail that will lead us safely through with no detour. Only a hopeless optimist could dream of locating such a thing. To attempt those peaks can only mean death - either the fast, sharp terror of a plunge down a sheer rock face, or a slower but equally horrifying demise as one freezes slowly to death, losing fingers, toes and facial features to the ravages of frostbite. If Irvine does attempt to cross the mountains, I shall have to strongly consider the possibility of attempting to return to Port Moriarty, alone if necessary. It may be a very risky and unlikely proceeding, but I am convinced that my chances of survival would be superior to those in the mountains.
We have been slowly drawing nearer to the ranges, travelling towards the forested foothills that lie at the base. We should reach them this evening, and I wonder what we might find there. It seems to me that Whimsley is familiar with this territory, or at least that he seems to be searching the horizon constantly for the sight of some landmark.
Harding J. Irvine
Logbook of Fitzpatrick RyanSent despatch by runners to Port Moriarty informing location. 'Mouth' noted on map low-slung building, deliberately collapsed. Day spent clearing rubble from metal doors. Ornate, two wagon's width, set flat to ground. Decayed symbols daubed in black substance all across surface. Illegible.
Tackle task of raising in morning.