Part 1


Louis Marcelle had agreed to meet his partners under the shade of the palm 
trees of the only oasis within miles. Narrowing the slit of his eyes, he
peered at the distance. Not a single cloud of dust was visible, which meant
that they would be late. However, Marcelle was not the kind of man to wait
after late-comers. He had brought his own shovel and lantern. The remnants
of his lunch lay scattered on the desert floor, a half-full bottle of beer
and a plate of taboule salad. Not even bothering to clean up, he stood with
difficulty, heaving his large belly gained from years of working as a
antiquarian. His white shirt bulged from under his leather jacket, and
his brown cotton pants were stretched to their maximum, tied by a thick
black belt. Wiping the sweat from the bald spot on his head that laid within 
a crown of gray hair, he proceeded to plan his next hour.

Before him stood a large mound of earth, which from the distance might have
gone unnoticed by travellers. Marcelle had learned however from his colleague
at the University of ... of the existence of an entrance to an ancient temple.
This temple, according to him, had slept under the desert for millenia.
Untouched by grave robbers, it would be an archeologist's dream come true.
In Cairo, they had met with a native who had told them of the exact location
of the entrance. It seemed that he and his tribe had known of the temple for
generations, never daring to enter it due to superstitious fears. Although 
elsewhere around the oasis patches of grass alternated with fine sand, the mound
itself was covered by only a thin layer of sand, which when rubbed off revealed
dark earth, yet nothing grew there. This was the entrance they sought.

Deftly wielding his shovel, the mid-aged antiquirian dug into the hard soil.
A crunching sound could be heard every time he hit the ground. Soon his shovel
reached an impenetrable layer of stone. Digging around it, Marcelle discovered
that it was a large stone slab, covered with faint symbols. Excitement colouring
his cheeks, he began to scrape away the sand, sweating with exertion. Finally!
His hard labor had paid off! The antiquarian jammed his shovel vertically into
the sand and crouched down.

On the block were two different scripts, obviously from different eras. The
first kind was recent and had not been altered by the desert winds. It was the
common writing of the desert tribes, a warning to others. Marcelle ignored it
and concentrated on the second kind of script. It was pale, most of it rubbed
off by the combined action of sand and time. These writings the researcher had
seen in a few rare books that the University library kept. They were ideograms
from a time when the land was different, when a jungle thrived where now only
stood the sand dunes and reigned the scorpions. The culture that had written 
on this slab had disappeared from the history of man, forgotten by the nomads
like the bastard son of a noble family.

The script confirmed to Marcelle that their quest had not been vain. He gazed
again at the rolling dunes that formed most of the desert, and still saw no
sign of the caravan. His own camel was quietly waiting, lost in its own dreams.

Deciding to tempt fate and be the first to discover the ancient wonders hidden
under the sand, Louis Marcelle took hold of a bronze handle that protuded from
the stone block. Arching his legs, he pulled with all his strength. For a 
moment, he stood there straining, his back hurting more than ever. Then the slab
gave up on resisting, and slowly came loose, sand spilling off it. Beyond he 
could only see darkness.

The mid-aged man sat down eyes closed until the pain in his back subdued.



Part 2


Louis Marcelle crawled out of the small passageway, his hands reddened by the
rough surface on which he had travelled during the last hour. As time had 
passed by, he had felt that he was descending into the earth, yet the 
temperature had steadily dropped. His breath formed clouds of vapor, and he was
now at a point where we wished he had brought warm clothes. A stench assaulted
his nostrils, a scent of corruption and putrefaction. Looking around, he waved
his electric torch at the walls to discover the source of the smell.

The room in which he now stood was oddly shaped. Convex walls distorted his
sense of perception; twisted pillars rose from the ground towards the ceiling,
not quite touching it. The whole architecture seemed to have been taken from
the mind of a man touched by madness. A large mosaic spanned the room's 
perimeter, faded paintings that he could not quite identify. What he did
recognize, however, were the large ideograms drawn above the mosaic. The signs
of the Winter God covered the entire room, etched in the stone and painted in
gold with such a precision that one would have thought they were warding sigils.
It was so cold in this hall that thin trails of ice had taken shape across the
walls.

His torchlight reflected against the metallic surface, and something stirred
at the other end of the room. He was not alone! His heart beating madly, Louis
Marcelle slowly turned his source of light where the noise had been produced.
There sat the most horrible thing a living man had ever glanced upon. The 
beast's skin was dark and scaly, and oozed a purple liquid in multiple areas.
It was a mass of great size, small arms protuding from each side of the body.
The thing obviously had no legs, but a large spiked tail was coiled around its
bulk. The clawed hands at the end of its limbs snapped erratically as the light
hit the monster's face. That was something that Marcelle realized had once been
human. A large mouth opened and closed, sucking in air rapidly through a few
rotting teeth. The creature's eyes were covered by a white mucus, and had bled
enough to form a dried purple trail of liquid across its overextended cheeks.
One ear was missing and the other one was only a mass of scarred flesh. The
beast's hairless head was shiny with some sort of perspiration. It bore a broad
silver collar around its neck, which had caused the flesh beneath to crack and
become raw. This shackle was bound to the wall by two chains of the same 
material, one falling on each side of the body.

(c) Marc G. Bellemare 2004