The "Mausoleum"

Foto de Ivanka Krochak en Unsplash.

Loddard was an archaeologist. He had been chosen to investigate the "mausoleum" discovered on that half-abandoned property that had been taken over by the local authorities due to the bad smells and the presence of those fetid rodents. No one had been able to give him a convincing reason for giving that name to a half-dilapidated door on that property full of shrubs and plants of different kids.

So they had chosen him and his team to open the mausoleum and report whether it had any value of any kind. At first, only a half-worn wooden door with a large lock could be seen. But no one had the keys to that door, which was now hidden behind a huge amount of weeds that had been growing around it, in addition to that twisted-trunk tree that completely hid it from the road that passed a few meters away from it.

When the day came, Loddard arrived with his team. They had already removed most of the weeds but had been unable to uproot the tree: they were told that they did not know how far its roots reached or whether this would affect the mausoleum under it.

In an awkward position the locksmith proceeded to open the door. The smell of putrefaction came from the opening and everyone retreated to wait for it to pass a little. But Loddard had already turned on the flashlight and saw something shining at the back. This surprised him: everything was so full of cobwebs and filth that it was very difficult for something to shine so brightly.

So he put on the mask and went in. The floor was terribly dirty, even more than the part that they could see from the door. Despite the mask, the smell was unbearable: it seemed that there was something very large decomposing in there. But he was getting closer and closer to the shiny object at the end of the room.

He continued forward, and eventually came to a golden statue that stood as if to show its victory over all the filth around it.

Loddard looked closely and saw that it was the top of a sculpture group that seemed to be on top of a tomb, all of it gilded. But as he leaned over, he saw that, although the main figure represented a naked young man, all the figures around it had headdresses and clothing that were completely unfamiliar to him. Or was it the cobwebs and dust that made them look that way?

With the appropriate tools he proceeded to clean what he could. He called his team and, without waiting for them, continued with his task until it was clear that the sculpture group was placed on top of a large slab of solid stone, which he believed was not marble but could not be sure either. The slab seemed to cover some kind of cavity, so he got down on his knees and examined it carefully. Then he thought he had to open it.

He called his team again, but even though no one came in, he continued working. In the end he thought, “If they don’t come in, the prestige will be all mine.” So he decided not to call them again.

And then the slab was removed, leaving a large cavity exposed. Surprisingly, a number of individuals emerged from the opening, dressed in clothes similar but not identical to those in the sculpture group. They dragged him inside, and then the slab was put back in place as if it had never been opened.

Despite his protests, they carried him by torchlight down narrow corridors until they reached an imposing door which they opened. It was then that he understood that he was in another world, one completely unknown to all those who lived on the surface. The spectacle before him was so magnificent that he was left with his mouth open, unable to articulate a word.

In the sky of that world, two moons, one in the crescent phase and the other in the full moon phase, illuminated the entire city that could be seen from that place. Were they people from another lost civilization like Atlantis or Tartessos or did they belong to another one, which was totally unknown to the humans in the surface?

They then led him almost by dragging him along a large avenue through which ran a large canal. Boats and ships of different sizes sailed in it. That elegant and beautigul Avenue ended in a square where a large circular construction that could be seen in the distance. Black with columns of blue stone with brown veins, it reflected the light of the two moons, while at its feet could be seen a series of people who, by their postures and gestures, it was intuited that they had a certain importance within the city. They wore dresses with wide pleats and while the men seemed to have very short hair, the women wore it in showy buns with colored ribbons, precious stones and pearls. They all looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and superiority, which was impossible to ignore.

A rather bald man who gesticulated a lot began to speak a strange language, unknown to Loddard. It was not Latin because he understood it well, but it did not seem like Greek to him either. However, it sounded like something similar to both of them, despite their differences: as time has been suspended and everything had stayed in a faraway and unkown past. He told himself that he was not trying to deceive himself, because, beyond the aesthetic resemblance, the sound made by the words in their language, as they spoke, was similar. Clearly, tastes in dress and hair had evolved from the gilded sculptural group I had originally seen but the general style had lots of similarities.

However, he still did not understand why they had brought him there. He noticed that the bald man was talking to two others and they were bowing to him. A few minutes later, those same men had brought him a book and showed him some drawings. He was NOT an astronomer but he understood what they were trying to tell him: the moons had certain phases and with each full moon phase of the one that was in its first quarter at that moment, its light illuminated a kind of natural pond. But the light of that moon in that phase was as powerful as our sun and activated a substance in that pond called by those strange beings, something like “radioton” or “radiotori”, that turned that large mass of water into a kind of giant magnifying glass. The water, when heated excessively, in turn heated the stone on which it rested. With each full moon, the temperature of the water increased, with the consequent danger for all the inhabitants.

Foto de Robert Senz.

If the temperature continued to rise, a biblical cataclysm would occur that would affect the surface world, his world.

But how could he tell them that he wasn't the right one? He was an archaeologist: he had no idea about anything of those things, except what he had learned at school, and that was already a bit far away in time.

However, he understood all too well that they were not going to take a refusal of that magnitude very sportingly. They considered that, simply because he was from the surface, he should already have the knowledge or, rather, enough magic, to be able to solve that little problem for them. Obviously, they were not going to let him return to the surface quietly without first having helped them.

So, as best he could, he asked them for the books they had on that pool and, while they brought them to him, he sat down to examine the one he already had there, placing it on his crossed legs.

It was curious but some drawings were easier to understand than others. In general, and despite not knowing their alphabet or their language, he could know generally what they meant. In one of them, there seemed to be a fountain or a spout that poured a kind of whitish substance into that natural pond. He pointed at the drawing and they nodded: one of them added a sign that seemed to want to tell him that it was too low. He understood that that substance was what was changing the characteristics of the water, turning it into a kind of powder keg.

He nodded in understanding. Then he pointed to the distance between the edge of that pool and the bottom and they shook their heads: they had never measured it.

But there was another possibility and he had to ask about it: they could try to block the exit of that substance if they could go down to where that spout was. At first, he didn't know how to tell them, but, in the end, he decided to do an experiment for himself. He picked up a medium-sized stone, made a gesture as if it were extremely heavy and threw it into the water with great effort.

Then something very strange happened: the stone had a reaction as if… as if it were one of those effervescent tablets that dissolve in water: the friction with the air in the moonlight had caused the stone to dissolve when it came into contact with that water mixed with that unknown metal on the surface.

Then, he looked at the moons: their color was silvery white and made everything shine as if everything was made of some metallic alloy. What if it was that light that was causing the reaction?

When they saw him look at the moons, more than one person began to murmur. A middle-aged man, but somewhat younger than the bald man who had spoken before, began to try to tell him something but he didn't understand anything... until he looked towards where there was a window covered by bars. There he saw a man tied to the window with his mouth covered and he felt terribly uneasy. The appearance of that man was similar to that of any of those who were there, except for one detail: the eyes. They were wide open and staring at him with such power that when he met their gaze directly he stumbled and almost fell.

He was beginning to understand what had happened: that metal seemed to have always been there, but that man had done something to make it react to the contact of the light of that particular moon and it seemed that they had been asking him how to reverse it but had not been successful. Surely that was the reason they had ended up kidnapping him in the opening of the golden sculpture group.

“Well, if I am not a scientist, I am even less of a wizard,” he thought to himself. But then he thought of something else: he took a metal container that was on one side, filled it to the brim with water and then kept it safe from the moonlight by standing in front of it and covering it with a stone. When he threw another stone into that container, he could see that the reaction did not occur. So he was right: the wizard had cast a spell on that mass of water and had made it react with the moonlight, using that special substance to increase the effects when the bigger of the two entered the phase called full moon. But even so, it grew closer to the former and the reaction was bigger every day. Hence the fear of the inhabitants…

When they saw that the stone did not break up, a murmur of admiration spread throughout all the people who were watching Loddard, except for the man behind the bars who seemed to spit fire with rage from his eyes. It was a good thing that his mouth had been covered, so at least he couldn't scream or cast any more spells.

He then took some kind of strange pencil and painted a design that he thought would be useful. Three large beams would be placed parallel above the mouth of the pool and, above them, a large slab would prevent the moonlight from reaching the water and the enchantment. It was a simple way to free that world (and the one on the surface) from a terrifying fate.

He thought they would thank him for what he had done for them, but as soon as they understood what he was proposing and nodded, they took him in the same way they had carried him there and, when they reached the opening at the end of the stairs, the slab closed. Now the golden sculptural group that had caught his attention so much from the worn door of the "mausoleum" was no longer visible. Since there was no work of art of interest or any other relevant circumstance that could indicate what that chamber had been, the authorities decided that they should close the entrance door and did not even bother to clean what they had previously pompously called a “mausoleum.”

Loddard, after that adventure, returned to his work on the surface, without giving many details of what had happened while he had been below the slab. Sometimes, he thought that what he had experienced was not real. However, two facts indicated to him that it had been. The first referred to the strange stone that he had put in a pocket on that bridge while he was trying to understand what was happening down there: a scientist friend, who had secretly analyzed it, had confirmed that it was a metal that did not exist on the surface. The second is more complicated to explain: One day he was walking down the street, after having a chocolate with orange, and suddenly he saw a very well-groomed man, very attractive in appearance, almost a model, but obviously of an advanced age. He would not have noticed him if it had not been for his eyes: they were those of a captive in the hands of that civilization of the moons.

Foto de Alex Azabache.

As he passed by, the man stared at him and said nothing, but Lodardo felt a chill in his spine. He doubted that he would use the same method as in the underground civilization, but he was sure that he would try. However, after a while he noticed that he had something in the right pocket of his jacket. When he took it out he saw that it was a kind of very old paper with a wax seal on which was written:

“Now the test is no longer yours. Don't get involved or it will be worse.”

He turned around to try to see who had been able to put that in his pocket, but everyone was walking quietly, like any other Sunday of the year, resting from the tasks of the workday. So he decided that he would go quietly for a walk through the city, while the lights of the day were fading and in the sky, a single moon was appearing, as the night was taking control of the celestial vault.