These were the Blind Apes of Truth, according to the ancient legend; the symbols of the old gods worshipped by Nephren-Ka.
Cartaret thought of the myths once more, and trembled. If tales were true, Nephren-Ka had offered up that final mighty sacrifice upon the obscene laps of these evil idols; offered them up to Nyarlathotep, and buried the dead in the mummy-cases set here in the niches. Then he had gone on to his own sepulcher within.
The guide proceeded stolidly past the looming figures. Cartaret, dissembling his dismay, started to follow. For a moment his feet refused to cross that gruesomely guarded threshold into the room beyond. He stared upward to the eyeless, ogreish faces that leered down from dizzying heights, with the feeling that he walked in realms of sheer nightmare. But the huge arms beckoned him on; the unseeing faces were convulsed in a smile of mocking invitation.
The legends were true. The tomb existed. Would it not be better to turn back now, seek some aid, and return again to this spot? Besides, what unguessed terror might not lair in the realms beyond; what horror spawn in the sable shadows of Nephren-Ka’s inner, secret sepulcher? All reason urged him to call out to the strange priest and retreat to safety.
But the voice of reason was but a hushed and awe-stricken whisper here in the brooding burrows of the past. This was a realm of ancient shadow, where antique evil ruled. Here the incredible was real, and there was a potent fascination in fear itself.
Cartaret knew that he must go on; curiosity, cupidity, the lust for concealed knowledge — all impelled him. And the Blind Apes grinned their challenge, or command.
The priest entered the third chamber, and Cartaret followed. Crossing the threshold, he plunged into an abyss of unreality.
The room was lighted by braziers set in a thousand stations; their glow bathed the enormous burrow with fiery luminance. Captain Cartaret, his head reeling from the heat and mephitic miasma of the place, was thus able to see the entire extent of this incredible cavern.
Seemingly endless, a vast corridor stretched on a downward slant into the earth beyond — a vast corridor, utterly barren, save for the winking red braziers along the walls. Their flaming reflections cast grotesque shadows that glimmered with unnatural life. Cartaret felt as though he were gazing on the entrance to Karneter — the mythical underworld of Egyptian lore.
“Here we are,” said his guide, softly.
The unexpected sound of a human voice was startling. For some reason, it frightened Cartaret more than he cared to admit; he had fallen into a vague acceptance of these scenes as being part of a fantastic dream. Now, the concrete clarity of a spoken word only confirmed an eery reality.
Yes, here they were, in the spot of legend, the place known to Al- hazred, Prinn, and all the dark delvers into unhallowed history. The tale of Nephren-Ka was true, and if so, what about the rest of this strange priest’s statements? What about the Walls of Truth, on which the Black Pharaoh had recorded the future, had foretold Cartaret’s own advent on the secret spot?
As if in answer to these inner whispers, the guide smiled.
“Come, Captain Cartaret; do you not wish to examine the walls more closely?”
The captain did not wish to examine the walls; desperately, he did not. For they, if in existence, would confirm the ghastly horror that gave them being. If they existed, it meant that the whole evil legend was real; that Nephren-Ka, Black Pharaoh of Egypt, had indeed sacrificed to the dread dark gods, and that they had answered his prayer. Captain Cartaret did not greatly wish to believe in such utterly blasphemous abominations as Nyarlathotep.
He sparred for time.
“Where is the tomb of Nephren-Ka himself?” he asked. “Where are the treasure and the ancient books?”
The guide extended a lean forefinger.
“At the end of this hall,” he exclaimed.
Peering down the infinity of lighted walls, Cartaret indeed fancied that his eyes could detect a dark blur of objects in the dim distance.
“Let us go there,” he said.
The guide shrugged. He turned, and his feet moved over the velvet dust.
Cartaret followed, as if drugged.
“The walls,” he thought. “I must not look at the walls. The Walls of Truth. The Black Pharaoh sold his soul to Nyarlathotep and received the gift of prophecy. Before he died here he wrote the future of Egypt on the walls. I must not look, lest I believe. I must not know.”
Red lights glittered on either side. Step after step, light after light. Glare, gloom, glare, gloom, glare.
The lights beckoned, enticed, attracted. “Look at us,” they commanded. “See, dare to see all.”
Cartaret followed his silent conductor.
“Look!” flashed the lights.
Cartaret’s eyes grew glassy. His head throbbed. The gleaming of the lights was mesmeric; they hypnotized with their allure.
“Look!”
Would this great hall never end? No; there were thousands of feet to go.
“Look!” challenged the leaping lights.
Red serpent eyes in the underground dark; eyes of tempters, bringers of black knowledge.
“Look! Wisdom! Know!” winked the lights.
They flamed in Cartaret’s brain. Why not look — it was so easy? Why fear?
Why? His dazed mind repeated the question. Each following flare of fire weakened the question.
At last, Cartaret looked.
Mad minutes passed before he was able to speak. Then he mumbled in a voice audible only to himself.
“True,” he whispered. “All true.”
He stared at the towering wall to his left, limned in red radiance.
It was an interminable Bayeux tapestry carved in stone. The drawing was crude, in black and white, but it frightened. This was no ordinary Egyptian picture-writing; it was not in the fantastic, symbolical style of ordinary hieroglyphics. That was the terrible part: Nephren-Ka was a realist. His men looked like men, his buildings were buildings. There was nothing here but a representation of stark reality, and it was dreadful to see.
For at the point where Cartaret first summoned sufficient courage to gaze he stared at an unmistakable tableau involving Crusaders and Saracens.
Crusaders of the Thirteenth Century — yet Nephren-Ka had then been dust for nearly two thousand years!
The pictures were small, yet vivid and distinct; they seemed to flow along quite effortlessly on the wall, one scene blending into another as though they had been drawn in unbroken continuity. It was as though the artist had not stopped once during his work; as though he had untiringly proceeded to cover this gigantic hall in a single supernatural effort.
That was it — a single supernatural effort!
Cartaret could not doubt. Rationalize all he would, it was impossible to believe that these drawings were trumped up by any group of artists. It was one man’s work. And the unerring horrid consistency of it; the calculated picturization of the most vital and important phases of Egyptian history could have been set down in such accurate order only by a historical authority or a prophet. Nephren-Ka had been given the gift of prophecy. And so…
As he ruminated in growing dread, Cartaret and his guide proceeded. Now that he had looked, a Medusian fascination held the man’s eyes to the wall. He walked with history tonight; history and red nightmare. Flaming figures leered from every side.
He saw the rise of the Mameluke Empire, looked on the despots and the tyrants of the East. Not all of what he saw was familiar to Cartaret, for history has its forgotten pages. Besides, the scenes changed and varied at almost every step, and it was quite confusing. There was one picture interspersed with an Alexandrian court motif which depicted a catacomb evidently in some vaults beneath the city.
Here were gathered a number of men in robes which bore a curious similarity to those of Cartaret’s present guide. They were conversing with a tall, white-bearded man whose crudely drawn figure seemed to exude an uncanny aura of black and baleful power.