Kthaahthikha

III - 1400 (or 1420)

'Kozlov, when he awoke, took-in the sight with quiet awe. He agreed that we appeared to be drifting towards the coast, and suggested that we rouse the rest of the grew so that they might help manage the boat onto the shore. The grew were varying in their reception of the news, but the general consenus once the grog of sleep had worn away was once of excitement and hope. If it were a settlement, then a great deal of effort might be saved by simply wwaiting at it until the ship sailed by.

'We took-up the remaining oars and began to nose towards the coast. In half an hour the sea-bed grated on the keel, and we ran the vessel up through the surf onto the pebbly beach.

'Several of the men loosed hulloos, but no reply came down from the light. It was a dark night despite the moon, but the coast seemed to glow with an unearthly light. A layer of snow lay across everything and the air was chill and uninviting. We pushed-on, anticipating the warm reception of the villagers to nes of the outside world in such an isolated outpost. At the time the thought that there should be open hostility to outsiders did not cross my mind, but as it happened this proved of no concern in any event.

'The beach bled into a slope and rose up into hills and crags, and amidst the snows the light presented itself as an octagonal mouth in the living rock.

'Mutters and murmurs accompanied this discovery. What strange race would make its home in such a style? Nonetheless, we pressed-on, and came in time close-up against the lip of the cave. Looking in revealed nothing of the source of the light, for the cave fell backwards into the cliff-face and grew indistinct and uncertain. Several side-passages and galleries could be seen leading away from the rock, and from these fell other lights of varying and uncommon hues.

'There was little eagerness to enter that cave, but a warm wind blew out of it that could not be turned-away in the abject chill of the Arctic autumn. We clambered one after another up and into that cave, myself first for - being a harpooneer - I was held in some regard that illiminated any views that might be held in respect to my Mossulman status.

'A penetration into the cavern led us past several of the gallery-entrances. These in turn led away down into the distance of the rock, and there was no clear source for the soft lights that flooded them. And though we walked what seemed hours, and never took a turn, it was long before we came to the open chamber that stood at the tunnel's end.

'It was a broad, high hall, as vast as a cathedral, and carved all of a purplish-grey rock. Such a colour I had never seen before in stone - it seemed to me that shade of the eyes that you English know as grey, yet is in fact a peculiar, steely violet. Collumns, graven all about with diagrams and sigils, put me in mind of the writings of the Chinese and the Hindus. These surrounded the centre of the circular chamber in two concentric layers, beyond which was the wall with its many alcove and shadowed passageways. Strange freizes covered the walls - elegant murals with a detail that defied anything that stone-craft has yeilded since. And these murals and columns led upwards, tier upon tier of surpassing masonry that finished i a minute disc of purple that I could only take for the evening sky.

'And yet whilst I absorbed all of these details, the element of the chambre that most captivated us all was that object seated at its very heart. A beacon, it was, of purest white stone, that shone with all the brilliance of the sun at noon. And all about its surface icons had been roughly chiseled in a manner that stood in clear contradiction to the flawless workmanship about us. he men fixated upon it, and there was no small amount of desire to touch the thing, or perhaps even dislodge it from the grey-violet pedestal upon which it sat. It was of perfect smoothness, and gave all the appearance of a vast ostrich egg.I wondered what blundering tribe had stooped so low as to blemish that wondrous orb.

'The luck of finding such a thing was indeniable, yet its eerie qualities were enough to discourage us from staying in the central chamber. We decided to wait here for the ship, and to show the captain and rest of the crew what it was that we had found - for undoubtedly it would garner a vast profit and make our names throughout the civilised world. Departing the central chamber, we gathered in a knot about the entrance and waited, patiently, for the dawn.

'Although we congratulated one another upon our success, no ease fell upon us as we waited. I can see by your face that you are having trouble believing my story now, but then I never fully expected that you would. You may find it even more difficult, then, to believe what next befell those men as they waited, trying to sleep, in the mouth of the octagonal cave.

This hour's was shorter because I took a twenty minute read-comics-and-drink-chocolate break.