An archaeological party in Mesopotamia found a chest of stone tablets in an unknown script. Disaster struck every man who worked on the tablets, every man save one. The stranger who offered his services to the archaeologists claimed to read the ancient unknown symbols, but the stranger vanished together with the tablets and the mystery deepened.
The stranger's claims had not been exaggerated. Incredible events began to take place in unlikely places, as the-man-who-knew slowly gained a mastery of over the Power Tablets. Like all megalomaniacs he over-reached himself and the power of the tablets took over. He no longer controlled them... They controlled him. The vengeance of the ancients was slow and terrible to behold.
The Thing was the worst part of their vengeance... a supernatural monster striding like a colossus over the trembling ground. Man's weapons failed to stop it. Only the courage of three priests stood between humanity and annihilation.
Release date:
September 30, 2014
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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THE sun glared down across the Tigris and the Euphrates, like the angry eye of a hot celestial god. Iraq sweltered in that blazing sun from Mosul in the north to Basra, close to the Persian Gulf, in the south. The two mighty rivers moved southwards under the blazing sun as they have moved southwards for countless centuries, mingling their great waters a few short miles from the hot blue northern tip of the Persian Gulf itself. The cradle of civilization seemed in many ways as timeless and as unchanged as it had ever been. The sun, the rivers, the plants that grew by their banks were as timeless as nature intended, but there were a few superficial alterations. Oil, money and the hand of man had made Baghdad on the Tigris something that was a cross between a modern city and a Hollywood interpretation of what the mysterious East should be like.
A few miles and two rivers away from Baghdad, across the broad waters of the Tigris and southwest across the brimming Euphrates, Karbala also showed itself to be a mixture of Eastern mystery, timeless Mesopotamian magic and oil speculation, plus the import of Western ideas.
Andrew Bennett was not interested in Baghdad or Karbala. Basra and Mosul concerned him not the slightest. Persia to the east, Syria and Jordan to the west, Saudi Arabia to the south and Turkey in the north interested him not the least. Violent Middle Eastern politics and the financial machinations at the back of the big business that was Middle Eastern oil could not influence the mind of Andrew Bennett. He was a tall, rapier-thin, scholarly looking man. His eyes were the liveliest part of him. They flashed like jewels in a parchment face, for Bennett was no longer a young man. Only the eyes were still young and they looked youngest and most interested when they were engaged in archaeological research.
Bennett looked around quickly at his four companions. Charlie Downing, fat, bald and perspiring unashamedly in the Middle Eastern heat, was digging with more energy and enthusiasm than with success. Eric Fraser was working with a sieve as Downing carefully sprinkled shovelfuls of material on to the soft nylon mesh which Fraser was shaking gently. George Harris, a dried up old parrot of a man, tottered a little as he supported himself on his shooting stick and peered interestedly through his monocle at the relics which Eric Fraser was sieving out. Ian Johnson was working with a tape measure, checking up on the sites which the local Arabian workers were digging at the instigation of Andrew Bennett’s party.
Charlie Downing paused suddenly.
“Mr. Bennett,” he called, urgently, anxiously.
Andrew hurried across. He was a man who was a little too aware of his own dignity and of his own place and purpose as party leader to allow himself to run. He would have liked to run, for Downing’s voice had held the promise of some worthwhile discovery. Fraser put down the riddle. George Harris tottered over and removed his wide-brimmed straw hat for a moment to fan his sweating forehead.
“What have you found Charlie?” asked Andrew Bennett.
“I’m not sure,” said Downing, “but ….” He was on his hands and knees, scraping at something with his hands. “I think it’s a chest of some sort—a wooden chest.”
“The sand is very dry here,” said Fraser, “and this is an old strata in which we are working.”
“Most interesting!” George Harris’s voice was returning again to what Shakespeare had called ‘the childish treble pipe.’
Ian Johnson said nothing but his face expressed interest as he got down in to the hole which Downing had been digging and started working at the wooden chest which his plumper companion had discovered.
“It is a wooden chest, isn’t it?” said Bennett.
“Definitely,” said Downing. “Babylonian by the look of it,” said Fraser.
“I would say it goes back to the first or second dynasty,” quavered Harris excitedly. He had removed his Panama hat again and was fanning himself vigorously. Vigorously, at least, by his standards. “I wish it wasn’t so hot,” he quavered.
“Are you all right?” asked Eric, “or had you getter go and sit in the tent for a few moments.”
“I’m all right,” said Harris in his quavering voice, “I’m not going to be kept out of this, young fella. This is one of the most interesting discoveries we’ve made on this trip.” He turned to Bennett. “I’ve been on the point of telling you that you weren’t making the best use of the site. I didn’t altogether approve of your method but I’m prepared to take all that back now. My word!”
Andrew Bennett smiled patiently at the old man. Harris had insisted on coming. In his day, thought Andrew, Harris had been one of the greatest archaeologists in the country. Now, senility was eating away at the edges of what had once been a great mind.
They dropped the chest—which was in a remarkable state of preservation—on to the sandy soil by the side of the excavation in which Charles Downing had been performing. Bennett looked at the chest carefully.
“It’s heavy,” said Charlie.
“Certainly is,” agreed Ian Johnson.
“What do you think it is then?” asked Fraser.
“Let’s get it open,” said George Harris. He sounded, despite his age, the most excited of the party. It had been, in some ways, against Andrew Bennett’s better judgment to bring the old man but, tottery as he was, it was next to impossible to keep George Harris off an archaeological expedition. For old time’s sake Bennett had taken the great old scholar with his party, but George Harris’s semi-senile behaviour, was by no means an easy thing to tolerate, particularly in the heat of Iraq.
“There doesn’t seem to be any way into the darn thing,” said Charlie Downing, perspiringly.
“No, there doesn’t,” said Fraser.
“There must be,” remarked Ian Johnson, examining the box. Andrew Bennett had produced a medium-stiff nylon brush with which he was carefully removing the light, dry sandy soil. He looked carefully at the strata from which the box had been taken.
“I think it’s been here a very long time,” he said choosing his words carefully.
“First or second dynasty; I said so,” quavered old Harris.
“Yes quite, quite,” said Andrew Bennett. He was one of those men who had the knack of saying ‘quite’ with such an air of finality and with such overtones of meaning that he could give the word a significance which far exceeded its monosyllabic vocal value.
“You don’t suppose,” said Ian Johnson thoughtfully, “that there is a sliding panel. Do you?”
“It’s an idea of course,” said Bennett.
Charlie Downing’s pudgy fingers were going all over the wooden chest. Eric Fraser stood back a little and mopped the sweat from his brow and thought about the problem. By the weight of it the chest was far from empty, and the strangely carved symbols, in which it was covered, gave them the impression that it contained something of considerable value. It was far too ornate to have been used as a receptacle for any common objects.
Andrew Bennett who was examining the peculiarly carved decorations of the chest thought that the most striking figure was something which appeared to be a winged genie with the head of an eagle. The anatomy—particularly the muscles of the calf—showed the characteristic Babylonian exaggeration. In one hand the strange creature seemed to hold what appeared to be a small water vessel, with its other hand it grasped a bunch of fruit. The tree on which the fruit grew looked very like the sacred tree which was represented on a carving belonging to the period or Sargon from the 8th century B.C. Near this great, eagle-headed figure there were a number of others. A peculiar lion-headed genie carried a dagger. Another held a huge spear, while a third held its hand in the air as though driving an invisible chariot.
“What do you think they are?” quavered old George Harris.
“I’m not sure,” said Bennett, “but they don’t look particularly benign. I get the impression that this one,” he pointed to a singularly ugly representation near the other figures, “is definitely an utukku.”
“Yes, it could be, but what kind of utukku do you think it is?” asked old Harris.
“Well, I don’t think it’s an edimmu,” replied Bennett. “It doesn’t look human enough for that.”
“No I think it is definitely an arallu,” said Eric Fraser thoughtfully.
“I’d be inclined to agree,” said Charlie Downing. “The normal representations of the edimmu show them in a particularly humanized form, whereas this has a completely inhuman look to it.”
Ian Johnson was studying the figure closely.
“That’s definitely an arallu,” he agreed.
“I wish we could get this wretched box open,” said Eric Fraser.
“There must be some way into it,” said Bennett.
“Unless of course something was put into it and the box was then secured permanently,” suggested Johnson.
“You mean the box was built around its contents,” said Bennett.
“It’s a possibility,” said old Harris. “I have come across similar examples.” He shuddered a little. “Of course, when a box is constructed around whatever it contains then the carpenter’s intention is that those contents shall never be released.”
“Which would mean that the contents themselves are pretty sinister,” said Downing.
“Very sinister in my opinion,” said Harris.
“We are archaeologists, gentlemen, we are scientists, we are not going to be put off by primitive ideas of Assyrian or Babylonian curses,” said the party leader.
Slowly and carefully Andrew Bennett applied a thin steel crowbar to a joint in the box. There was a sound of protesting wood, as pegs which had not left their seating for centuries parted again. The lid came back with surprising suddenness and the five archaeologists looked down into the box as the Middle Eastern sun streamed down on to a number of flat clay tablets.
“That’s an incredible script,” said Andrew Bennett.
“I don’t recognise it,” said Charlie Downing.
“Neither do I,” said Fraser.
“I haven’t seen it before,” said Harris peering closely.
“Nor have I,” said Ian Johnson.
“It’s not any of the normal Assyro-Babylonian scripts,” said Bennett, “between us we can read all the known characters.” He looked at them again appealingly. “And there is nothing here that is familiar to you gentlemen?”
“Nothing there that I can read,” said Charlie Downing, “not on the top anyway. There may be some more familiar tablets underneath.”
“I agree with Charlie,” said Eric, “I have never seen anything like this.” George Harris took on of the tablets out and screwed his old eyes up against the sun as he studied the small characters closely.
“No. I stand by my original opinion; this is a hitherto unknown script.”
“An unknown script,” repeated Ian Johnson. He too took out one of the tablets and began examining it with close interest.
BENNETT, Downing, Fraser, Harris and Johnson spent hours attempting to decipher the peculiar, unknown script. The characters, to the eyes of the archaeologists, were not a development of any ancient alphabet that they had ever seen. Yet, on the other hand, there was something about the tablets which gave their would-be translators the impression that they were not as primitive as they appeared.
“This is something of an enigma,” said Bennett.
“Decidedly,” agreed Downing.
“Do you think they were interpolated into that strata?” asked Fraser. “I mean do you think they really had any business to be there, are they as old as the strata itself?”
“Well of course,” squeaked Harris, “people have perpetrated frauds of similar nature. I remember that Piltdown business, a most peculiar state of affairs, you know.”
“Oh?” Johnson’s voice was interrogative. “I know all about the Piltdown business, of course, we all do, but what had you in mind that connected Piltdown with the discovery of these tablets here?”
“Well, the placing of the artificial remains in a strata where they had no right to be,” said old Harris. He was speaking more slowly than usual.
“What do you suggest?” said Bennett, looking at his older colleague. “Do you think that somebody has actually come out here and having spent a great deal of time and trouble making these tablets, has then buried them in a box, upon the genuineness of which I would stake my reputation? It is genuinely Assyrian or Babylonian and of extreme age and value.”
“Hoaxers are queer people,” Downing interrupted him.
“Yes, the mentality of the hoaxer takes a bit of weighing up,” agreed Fraser.
“If a hoaxer was really determined to hoax, it wouldn’t be beyond his ingenuity or his resources to come out here and put these preparations in the ground.”
“This Piltdown business,” said Johnson.
“Oh, Oakley of the British Museum and Drs. Weiner and Clark proved in 1953, that the jaw of the Piltdown skull belonged to a modern ape. It has no connection whatsoever with that top part of the skull which Charles Dawson, the lawyer-antiquarian took out of the gravel pit on Piltdown common in 1911.” Old Harris was chuckling. He looked in a reminiscent mood.
“I remember Charles Dawson, a most interesting man—most interesting. That hoax of his confused modern anthropology for over forty years. The great thing about it was that it didn’t line up with the other discoveries on the evolutionary scale.”
“It was Oakley’s study of the fluorine process which really led him to detect the fraud, wasn’t it?” said Bennett.
“Yes. Yes, it was,” said old Dr. Harris. “Oakley realised that the longer a bone lay in the ground where fluorine-bearing water was present, naturally the more fluorine the thing would absorb. Using . . .
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