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first-aid room.
It was silent in there. On a high hospital couch, the cameraman lay pallid and
twitching while three doctors kept a close watch on his pulse rate and other
vital signs. They greeted Jack Hughes as we came in, and stood aside to let us
gather round the cameraman's bed.
"Don't be too rough with him," said one of the interns. "He's had a bad shock,
and he's not up to much."
Singing Rock didn't answer. He leaned over the white-faced cameraman and
whispered: "Can you hear me? Can you hear what I'm saying?"
The cameraman simply shuddered. Singing Rock said again: "Can you hear what
I'm saying? Do you understand where you are?"
There was no response. The interns shrugged, and one of them said: "He's
deeply unconscious, I'm afraid. Whatever it was that happened to him, his mind
has kind of retreated and it isn't coming back out for anyone. It's quite
common in severe shock cases. Give him time."
Under his breath, Singing Rock said: "We don't have time." He fished in his
coat pocket for a necklace of strangely painted beads, and he gently laid them
on the cameraman's head, like a halo. One of the interns tried to protest, but
Jack Hughes waved him away.
With his eyes closed, Singing Rock began an incantation. I couldn't hear the
words at all, and those which I could hear were in Sioux. At least I presumed
it was Sioux. I'm not a linguist myself, and for all I know it could have been
French.
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The spell didn't seem to work at first. The cameraman remained pale and still,
his fingers occasionally twitching and his lips moving soundlessly. But then
Singing Rock drew a magic figure in the air over his head, and without any
warning at all, the cameraman's eyes blinked open. They looked glassy and
ill-focused, but they were actually open.
"Now," said Singing Rock gently. "What did you see, my friend, through your
camera?"
The cameraman shuddered, and there were bubbles of saliva at the corners of
his mouth. He looked like a man dying from rabies, or in the terminal stages
of syphilis. Something so terrible was imprinted on his mind that there was
nothing he could do to exorcise it from his memory. He couldn't even die.
"It's -- it's -- " he stuttered.
"Come on, my friend," said Singing Rock. "I bid you to speak. It will not get
thee. Gitche Manitou will protect thee."
The cameraman closed his eyes. I thought for a moment that he had dropped back
into unconsciousness. But after a few seconds, he began to speak -- very
quickly and almost unintelligibly -- in a wordy rush.
"It swam, it was swimming, it came swimming across the room and through the
room at the same time and I caught a glimpse of just the edge of it like a
sort of squid, like a squid, with waving arms, all waving, but it was big as
well, I can't say how big it was, I was so frightened there was something
inside my head like my whole brain was stolen. Only a glimpse, though, just a
glimpse."
Singing Rock listened for a while longer, but the cameraman said nothing more.
He carefully removed the beads from the man's head, and said: "Well, that
seems to be it."
"Is he okay?" I asked. "I mean, he's not -- "
"No," said Singing Rock. "He's not dead. I don't think he'll ever be the same
again, but he's not dead."
"The squid," I said. "Do you know what that was?"
Singing Rock said: "Yes. This man was privileged to see something that has
been banished from the earth for centuries. He didn't see all of it, which is
probably just as well. The Great Old One is among us again."
Chapter Ten - Into the Light
I followed Singing Rock out of the first-aid room and into the corridor. His
black eyes were glittering again with some of the zeal that I had slowly seen
extinguished by our long and harrowing night. He said: "This is it, Harry. Are
you coming to help me?"
"This is what? What the hell's going to happen?"
Singing Rock licked his lips. His voice was breathless, and he looked as if he
were feverishly ill. "The Great Old One is here. To wrestle with the Great Old
One himself -- don't you understand what that means to a medicine man? It's
like a Christian having the chance to fight with Satan in person."
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"Singing Rock -- "
"We have to do it," said Singing Rock. "We have no time left at all. We have
to go down there and do it."
"Go down there? You mean -- back to the tenth floor?"
Singing Rock appeared to grow in size, as if some magical wind was inflating
him. He was trembling with fear and anticipation, and the ultimate lust of
risking his life against the greatest evil being of mythical America. When I
said nothing more, he simply turned away and began to walk quickly toward the
stairs, so fast I could hardly keep up with him.
I snatched his sleeve, and he turned around.
"Singing Rock," I said. "For Christ's sake -- eleven armed men were killed
down there. You saw what happened."
"It's too late," said Singing Rock. "The Great Old One is here, and what
happens now will be worse."
"Singing Rock -- "
He pulled himself away. He opened the door that led to the darkened stairway
and said: "Are you coming? Or are you staying behind?"
Echoing up the stairwell, I heard the loathsome moaning of that windless wind,
and the hairs prickled on the back of my neck. The fetid stench of the Great
Old One filled the air, and I could hear noises from down below that reminded
me of Dore's engravings of hell. Demons and beasts and nameless things that
walked by night. Things that drove men mad. Things that hopped and crawled and
dragged themselves across the darkness of terrified imagination.
I swallowed hard. No matter how frightened I felt, I couldn't let Singing Rock
go down there on his own. I said: "I'm coming," and pushed past him on to the
concrete landing. If I didn't go now, I never would.
Once the door swung closed behind us, we were plunged into suffocating gloom.
We held on to the handrail, and groped our way downward stair by stair. Each
shadow filled me with creeping fear, and every shuffle and echo made my heart
tense up. I could have sworn I heard footsteps descending the stairs just out
of sight below us, but there was no time to stop and listen.
"Singing Rock," I whispered. "What are we going to do?"
"I'm trying to think," said Singing Rock quietly. "But I can't judge the
situation until I see it for myself. I just hope that I can invoke Unitrak's
spirit at the right time, and in the right way. I just hope, too, that Unitrak
isn't as hostile to us as it is to the Great Old One. There's always that
risk."
I coughed. "Supposing we simply surrender? Wouldn't that save more lives? If
we fight like this -- God knows how many people are going to get hurt."
Singing Rock shook his head. "This is not a fight in the sense you think it
is. This is an act of revenge by a Red Indian sorcerer in the name of all the
pain and treachery and slaughter that his people suffered at the hands of the
white man. You cannot surrender to someone who is seeking vengeance.
Misquamacus will only be satisfied when we are all dead, and as for the Great
Old One -- "
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"What about the Great Old One?"
Singing Rock shrugged. "I don't know what bargain Misquamacus has made with
him. But the Great Old One is known in Pueblo culture as the Great Devourer.
The Paiute had another name -- He-Who-Feeds-in-the-Pit. You can draw your own
conclusions."
As we descended through the darkness, the mournful whining and moaning of the
wind that wasn't wind became even louder and even more depressing. I began to
develop a pounding migraine, and I could hardly see straight. I felt itchy and
uncomfortable, and I had the feeling that my clothes were riddled with lice.
If I'd had any choice, I would have given up then, and let the Great Old One,
He-Who-Feeds-in-the-Pit, do his worst.
Singing Rock said: "We're getting nearer. That's why you feel so bad. Here --
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