The Iron
Crown

When I awoke there were signs that Denis had been busy.

The strange script from the shards of the cards was emblazoned on the trees and the rocks around and the few that remained of my once gallant force were building a temple.

Already the wall at the sunset end stood head-high, and a great sign of a compass had been set in the floor using the daggers of our fallen troop.

Indignantly I cast down the walls and shouted for a cease to the labour.

The men grudgingly obeyed but threw themselves to the ground as movement was noticed to one side.

Then we all gave an involuntary cry of amazement at the sight which swept into view.

The blistering hot ash and sand beneath our feet, cracked in many places with hissing fumes emanating from the fissures, began to open up in front of us.

The men cowered back in fear, but I stood my ground, eager to see what should greet us when the crack opened wide.

There was a mighty sound of the tearing of the rock as if it echoed the felling of a primeval forest of vasty trees, and the whole plain shook and shuddered.

It was impossible for any man to stay on his feet.

The spectacle lasted some ten or fifteen minutes and we were beginning to fear a great cataclysm when a rush of brown steam issued from the now gaping chasm before us and the movement of the ground ceased.

There below us, wreathed in a brownish haze, seemingly several miles down in some underground cavern, stood the most magnificent city.

I wanted to scream for joy, but the mouth would make no sound.

Surprised, I turned to my few remaining cohorts.

They too were struck dumb.

All strained to shout, but nothing broke the sudden silence of that valley.

As always in times of mystification I turned to Denis, who for all his seeming untrustworthiness was a great source of occult lore.

But he too failed me, his jaws sawing to and fro in the air, his great red tongue lolling, his nostrils flaring and his hair standing on end in his efforts to speak.

I was relieved to see that the renewal of extraordinary deeds in the quest had meant the end of extraordinary behaviour amid the men, for gone were the signs of idolatry which had disturbed me so much in the previous few days.

Suddenly I thought of Wollis and his death, and was filled with a terrible urge to cast myself over the brink of the chasm.

For Wollis's dying words, `themptun postoto', were clearly the clue to the whole of our future.

In the old tongue of Paessa he had tried to warn me, as the breath left his body for the final time, of the dangers we were to endure in this, the Silent Valley.

Though all of us had marvelled, I think only Denis and I had any notion of the true significance of what had happened.

I could not tell the men, however, and in any case they would see for themselves soon enough.

With hopeful gesticulations I strove to inform them that our trials were almost at an end.

I was astonished when Denis came over to me and embraced me warmly in seeming congratulation on the success of the expedition, which he seemed to take for granted.

My mistrust of him instantly banished, we sat down together to plan the last stages of our journey while the few remaining men, some dozen or so of the original two hundred, pitched camp.