Read Ebook: The Grave of Solon Regh by Stearns Charles A Eberle Joseph Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 83 lines and 5982 words, and 2 pages

The Grave of Solon Regh

George Seeling was one of the most personable ghouls you would ever care to meet. When he disappeared three years ago, somewhere in the unexplored wilderness of southern Mars, his loss was mourned not only by the Terran Museum of Natural History, for whom he worked, but by a multitude of lovers of adventure by proxy, as well, who kept up with his astounding fortunes through their daily papers.

For George Seeling, who feared nothing that walked, crawled, flew, or pulsed, and who owned, moreover, a shining pair of seven league boots, in the form of an inexhaustible expense account, believed in sharing himself with the public. He adored publicity.

There was the time, for instance, that he made off with the crown jewels of the Tsarn Princess of Ganymede. The people loved it. All of them excepting, of course, the Ganymedians. They were considerably upset, but being a minority group, there was not much that they could do, once Seeling had escaped with the jewels.

Then there was the celebrated occasion of his robbing the crypts of Nakor, the Moon Goddess of Io. From Io he swiped several golden idols of inestimable value, which was just as well, for they were not doing the natives the least bit of good, despite their complaints. It almost caused an international incident, but the Museum kept the treasure, and their procurer collected a fat commission.

This, as one can readily see, demonstrates graphically that George Seeling felt almost as much at home in tombs as he did in the public eye.

The south of Mars is a rugged land of naked, red peaks and deep, impassable canyons; of reed-filled swamp lands and barren plateaus. The people who live there are primitive, and thin as greyhounds, but of a shy, gentle nature, with huge, dark, melting eyes set deep in leathery, purplish skin, and nervous, splayed bare feet that can pad the sands of the uplands at incredible speed.

To George Seeling the ghels were merely an incidental impression to add to the menagerie of weird people from many worlds that already stuffed his brain and made him rather a cosmopolitan with regard to alien cultures. He had already spent several weeks on Mars; most of it in Parthena, the chief spaceport of southern Mars, where he haunted the bars of the native district, asking, seeking, wheedling, bribing, until he found what he sought--a man who could lead him to one of the old cities that lay hidden back in the hills.

So it came about that he landed himself and his guide in a rented 'copter on a certain, uncharted mountainside to the south and west of Parthena.

Through the field glasses, the minarets of the city were just visible, but it was impossible to get any closer for there was no place to land. The old Martians had been averse to flat roofs, a circumstance which led Seeling to doubt, audibly, that they could have had the sense of an addled eel.

After loading himself down with the paraphernalia that explorers are supposed to carry, he went on alone, the guide declining an invitation to accompany him.

It was almost dark when he stumbled over the first bit of masonry--some prehistoric curbstone, perhaps. He had walked for hours in a tangled forest of giant reeds, and the suddenness of his discovery startled him.

He had wandered right into the midst of the abandoned city without even knowing it. Such was the customary luck of George Seeling. He could see shadowy outlines of some of the eroding old towers from where he stood, but he knew it was too late in the evening to explore them safely. He had waited this long; it wouldn't hurt to wait through one more short, Martian night.

He found a clearing near a roofless columnar tower and spread his sleeping bag beneath its wall. He went to sleep elated with his good fortune, and slept dreamlessly, and without disturbance.

But then, it took a great deal to disturb George Seeling when he slept.

In the morning the ghels were there. There were about a dozen of them, silently squatting in a semi-circle about his camp, contemplating him at a respectful distance with their soulful, gazelle eyes.

There is something disconcerting about waking up and finding that one has acquired uninvited guests, but Seeling never turned a hair. He reached over and grabbed his rifle, but the ghels never moved. They looked, for all the world, like purple-brown graven images squatting there, except that the round, black eyes blinked once in a while.

The ghel tongue was a very rudimentary one, and Seeling, who was naturally adept at such things, had studied it at some length during the weeks in Parthena. He felt that he could get along.

"I greet you," he said, still fondling his rifle. "I am an Earthman."

"We know," one of the ghels said in a curious, whistling voice. "What do you want here?"

"I come to see the city," George said.

"This is the sacred dead city of Solon Regh, the wisest of the ancient ones. We do not welcome visitors here."

"It's not your city, dammit," George said.

"What did you say?"

"Sorry, I said, this is not the work of your race. Why do you care if I look around?"

"It is a shrine. The old ones took care of us before they went away. We loved them, and do not want their dead disturbed."

George Seeling grinned with delight. He never enjoyed himself so much as when he was where he wasn't supposed to be.

"We would be very sad if the dead were desecrated," the ghel said.

"Umm," said Seeling impudently, "but what would you do if I went ahead and desecrated them anyway?"

The head ghel looked shocked. He turned his saucer eyes on his companions, and they all squirmed on their haunches and looked shocked too.

"We would be very sad," the ghel answered.

"No hard feelings," George Seeling said, "but if the advancement of science and the dispersal of knowledge were left up to you fellows, the world would be in a hell of a fix." He aimed his rifle suggestively at the ghel's chest. "Do you know what this is that I am pointing at you?"

"It is a death stick. We have seen them before."

"Right. Now, there's something you can do for me, and I'll take it very kindly if you cooperate."

"Kindness is something we understand."

"That's fine. Somewhere about here are the tombs of the old race. All the legends of Mars tell about the wealth of the ancients, and I hear this Solon Regh was sort of a Martian King Tut. Lead me there, and I'll be kind enough to spare your life."

The ghels all blinked their eyes rapidly. Seeling fancied that there would have been tears in their eyes, except that ghels have no tear glands. He felt a little sorry for them.

"Come with us," the leader of the ghels said.

Seeling was properly impressed. He had seen enough of the old cultures of the planets to realize that here, indeed, was something special. The walls loomed high above his head, shutting out the light of the morning sun as he walked down the street canyons where the vegetation had not yet penetrated. The ghels padded on ahead of him.

There was a musty smell about the place. Most appropriate. And the old timers had quite a flair for architecture, he thought. The masonry was a kind of cemented substance that was nearly as hard as granite. The weather had eroded it into a lovely, pearly grayness that was satiny smooth to the touch. He stroked the walls lovingly, and wished that he could transport the whole place back to Earth.

At the end of one street a bright yellow kral snake struck at him and he killed it with the butt of his rifle. They encountered no other life. Everywhere there was silence.

The ghels made several turns through narrow passageways, and all at once Seeling was face to face with the most breathtaking sight he had ever beheld.

In a great, hidden courtyard the palace lay. It was at least six hundred feet high, from massive base to delicate multiple pinnacles that festooned the arched roof. The facade was inscribed with countless lacy designs, set into the mother masonry with snowy white stones.

The great arched doorway gaped open invitingly to the kind of darkness that Seeling found most exciting.

The ghels stopped. "You are certain that you will not change your mind?"

"Look here," Seeling said. "I've come here to collect artifacts, or anything I can lay my hands on for my people on Earth. If I don't bring something good back, they'll send others who won't be as patient with you as I am."

"That is sad, indeed, for the Radiance that made us still lingers in the castle," said the ghel.

"I'm not going to hurt His Radiant Majesty, whoever he is," Seeling said. "What I want is junk--stuff that you never use anyhow. So let's get on with it."

George Seeling was panting by the time he had climbed to the top of the central tower. He had always thought of a tomb as some damp, dark hole beneath the surface of the ground, for such had been his experience many times before. But the resting place of Solon Regh the Wise was a large, light room, not half so eerie as the big throne room below, for instance.

It took him five minutes to work the mechanism of the outer door. When he got it open he went in and found a convenient coffin to sit on, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and indulged in a cigarette before continuing.

The room had no windows, but there was light coming in from the great transparent dome of roof. A cheerful place, he thought, for a crypt. There were six coffins in the room, neatly arranged around its periphery. He wondered which one was Solon Regh's.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet