CHAPTER I
THE MOUNTAIN OF VANISHED MEN
High among the snow-tipped ranges of Afghanistan, there is a peak notable for its peculiar rocky crown. Unlike its lordly neighbors, it is dominated not by crags and glaciers, but by a projection which seems almost to bear the impress of human hands. From the southern valley, five thousand feet beneath, the traveler will observe a gigantic steel-gray figure carved in the image of a woman; and he will notice that the woman's hands are uplifted in an attitude of prayer, and that she stands with one foot slanted behind her and one foot slightly upraised, as though prepared to step into the abyss. How this lifelike form came to be perched on that desolate eminence is a mystery to the observer; but he assumes that it is a product of some prank of nature, for it is far too large to have been made by man. Yet he must be unimaginative indeed not to be awe-stricken at thought of the forces which gave that colossus birth.
I, for one, shall never forget my first glimpse of the stone Titan. As a member of an American geological expedition studying the mountain strata of Northern India, Afghanistan and Tibet, I had been tramping for hours through a winding rock-defile in company with nine scientific colleagues and the native guides. Suddenly, coming out through a break in the canyon, I looked down into a deep basin densely mantled in deodar and pine. Beyond this valley, to the north, a succession of jagged peaks shot skyward, their lower slopes dark-green with foliage, their upper altitudes bare and brown, and streaked here and there with white. Almost precisely in their center, as though in the acknowledged place of honor, one summit loomed slightly higher and less precipitous than the others, and on its tip the singular statue-like image.
My first impression was that it was an illusion. Never had I or any of my companions heard of such a figure; we were hardly less startled than if we had journeyed to the North Pole, there to gaze at a skyscraper. Eagerly we questioned out Afghan guides, but at first their stolid, swarthy faces simulated indifference, though they cast furtive and even frightened glances at one another. Then, pressed to speak, they assured us that the stone image was the work of devils; and finally they stated that the figure had been created by the "Ibandru," a race of mountain folk with wings like birds and the power to make themselves invisible.
Naturally, my friends and I laughed at such a naïve superstition. Yet when I proposed that we climb the mountain and seek the home of the "Ibandru," our guides repeated their warning that these people were powerful and evil-minded enchanters. And when, not to be daunted by fairy tales, I insisted on investigation the mountain top, the fairy tales, the natives betrayed their alarm by rolling dark eyes and eloquent gestures, and swore that if we ever began the climb we should be unable to return. Scores of their countrymen had been bewitched and lost in seeking the peak, which wsa know as "The Mountain of Vanished Men"; and for their own part, they would sooner wrestle with tigers than lead us up the slopes.
There was no arguing the point--they were beyond reason. Nevertheless, in the face of common sense, I could not be contented. From the beginning, that womanlike image had taken hold of my imagination; and, far from discouraging me, the fears and protestations of the natives had only whetted my curiosity. Should opportunity offer, I would scale the mountain and discover for myself if there was any excuse for that terror which the stone figure aroused in the Afghans.
The opportunity, unfortunately, was not long in coming. That evening we pitched camp among the pines at the base of "The Mountain of Vanished Men." Since the site was ideally located at the brink of a clear-bubbling rivulet, and since several of us were exhausted from our strenuous traveling, we decided to remain for a day or two before continuing toward the northern gorges.
Next morning I urged that, whether with guides or without, several of the men join me in a climb to the stone image. The ascent, I pointed out, promised to be easy enough, for the mountain showed a long even grade that rarely approached the perpendicular; and, in the absence of undetected glaciers or ravines, there would be nothing to keep us from the peak. I was even so confident as to assert that, starting shortly after dawn, we would set foot on the summit and be back in camp by evening.
Most of my comrades were not convinced. They swore that it would be foolhardy to entrust ourselves to this unknown wilderness; they painted in gruesome terms the danger of being lost, and the still greater danger from wild beasts, rock slides, and crevasses in the snow and ice; and they scoffed when I vowed that I would go alone if no one would accompany me.
Yet among our party there was one who, either through lack of foresight or an insensitiveness to fear, ws ready to risk any hazards. That man, Jasper Damon, ws one of those persons with a passion for getting into trouble--a sure instinct for upsetting canoes in deep water, or invading hollow tree trunks infested with rattlesnakes. All through this expedition he had been my especial companion; and now, while the others sat by with loud guffaws and mocking grimaces, her rushed to my rescue. Springing from his seat just when I most needed an ally, he shook my hand and assured me that a little jaunt to the top of the mountain was the very thing he desired.
Even today I do not know why he joined me. Perhaps the figure on the peak exercised a mysterious compulsion upon him, as upon me; or perhaps he was merely moved by good fellowship. But, whatever his motives, he displayed real zest in his preparations. His black eyes fairly crackled in his long, stubbled face; his lean, lanky figure, with the spidery legs, bustled about in noisy animation. In less time than it took me to make the proposal, he had secured food and firearms and a knapsack containing ropes and climbing equipment; and, scornful of the warnings of our companions and the oaths and mutterings of the natives, he started with me on the long ascent before the sun had lifted its head halfway above the east-ridges.
* * * *
For more than an hour we plodded along a vague little trail beneath the dark foliage. Many a day must have passed since the last man had followed this track; the occasional small five-clawed footprints showed who the recent passers-by had been. But we were not depressed by thought of the frightful solitudes, nor by fear of the unseen creatures occasionally rustling in the brush; and even when we had literally to dig our way through the thickets, we did not let discouragement mar our spirits. Although the slopes were moderately steep, they were not hard to scale; and we felt sure that early afternoon would see us on the summit.
This hope found support when, before the morning was half over, we reached a more sparsely timbered area, and shortly afterward came out into a region of straggling shrubs. The rocky ribs of the mountain now stretched bare and gigantic before us, the dismal gray slopes inclining at an angle of from twenty to fifty degrees. Far above, perched on a little cone not unlike the tip of a volcano, that curious statue-like formation loomed encouragingly larger; and a wisp of cloud dangled playfully about the summit and beckoned us to be of good cheer and make haste.
But it was not easy to make haste along those unsheltered ridges under the glaring mid-July sun. More than once, as Damon and I sweltered upward, we glanced regretfully back at the green valley; and more than once we observed that the peak, like the fruit of Tantalus, seemed only to retreat as we toiled to approach it.
The higher we mounted, the less likely did it appear that we could gain the summit and return by evening. We encountered no impassable obstacles, and never had to use the climbing tackle; yet in places we literally had to crawl, relying on our arms as much as upon our legs, and consequently were so delayed that when the sun stood in mid-heaven the pit still beckoned from the remote blue.
Had any trace of our wits remained, we would now have recognized that we sought the unattainable. But that inscrutable figure above had woven a charm about us; upward, still upward we trudged, pausing only for an occasional drink from an icy little stream. Our eyes were so fascinated by the peak, and by its amazing woman-shaped crown, that we did not notice signs which could hardly have escaped us in a more cautious mood. Not until too late did we observe the increasing murkiness of the atmosphere, the gradual formation of bands of mist that gathered as if from nowhere, the merging of those bands into clouds that obscured the further ranges and approached us with silent and deceptive velocity.
I was just speculating as to the distance still before us, when an exclamation from Damon startled me back to reality. And suddenly I was aware of the menace.
The skies were no longer blue, but gray with vapor; the slopes below us were disappearing in fog, and even the peak was being blotted from view.
"Back! Let's go back!" I muttered in frantic retreat.
But we had delayed too long. Before we had returned many hundred yards, the fog was all about us. Like some evil unearthly thing, it blocked our pathway with intangible streamers, and reared a gray wall before us and to every side, and stretched a gray roof just overhead; and it drew closer, insidiously closer, until we could see not ten feet beyond, and the wild panorama of the mountain had given way to a hazy cell the size of a small room.
A cautious man, no doubt, would have proposed remaining where we were. But neither off us relished the prospect of camping possibly for twenty-four hours in this solitary spot; and both of us vaguely felt that, after descending a little, we would come out into the daylight beneath the clouds. Besides--and this was most unreasonable, and most unlike me--I was agitated by a dim, superstitious fear, I could scarcely say what of, as if by some sixth sense I knew of shadowy horrors that lurked unseen and unheard in the gloom.
Yet we had to advance with the timidity of tightrope walkers; at any instant, we might find ourselves dangling at the edge of a precipice. In the first moments of that unequal contest we had hopelessly lost our way; we had been unable to follow the rail, since we could not see far enough to recognize the landmarks; while, as we descended at random among the rocks, we realized that, even should we escape from the fog, we might find it far from easy to make our way back to camp.
I do not know how long we continued groping through the mist. It may have been half an hour, or an hour; certainly, it seemed the better part of a day. But as Damon and I picked our path between the boulders among the enfolding vapors, despair was gradually settling over us both, and we felt as if some malign spirit had walled us off from the world.
Even so, I cannot explain how we opened the door for the greatest horror of all. Perhaps it was only that Damon was displaying his usual recklessness; perhaps that the fog had driven us in too much upon ourselves. All I know is that, looking up after an absent-minded revery, I received a bewildering shock--the mist was hemming in almost at arm's length, and Damon was not to be seen!
For a moment I ws too dazed to cry out. My mind was filled with the fantastic ideas that come to a man at such a crisis. Had my companion stepped over a precipice? Had he been crushed by a dislodged boulder? Had some prowling beast fallen upon him?
As these questions shot over me, I was startled to hear my name shouted in a familiar voice. But the words seemed to issue from far away, and I had only the vaguest idea of their direction.
"Damon! Damon!" I shouted back, in mingled hope and dismay. "Where are you?"
"Here! Here, Prescott! Here!" came the voice, after a second or two. But I was still mystified as to the direction.
Yet in my excitement, I cried, "I'm coming!" and started off on what I imagined to be the proper course.
At intervals the calling continued. Damon's voice did not seem to draw nearer, but did not seem to grow more remote; and several times, by way of desperate experiment, I changed my direction--which only increased my confusion. Now I would be sure the voice from my right, and now that it shrilled from my left; at first I thought that it came from beneath me, but before ling I felt that its source was above.
And as I went fumbling through the fog, anxiety gave way to panicky impatience, and the slim remnants of my wits deserted me. The climax came when, after forcing my way through a cluster of jagged rocks that bruised my arms and legs and tore my clothes, I found myself at the base of a cliff that shot upward abruptly out of sight. From somewhere above, I felt sure, I heard Damon's voice calling, hoarse from overstraining and plaintive with fear. And at the thought that an unscalable wall divided us, I behaved like a trapped animal; heedless of the abysses beneath, I started hastily along the base of the cliff in what I supposed to be Damon's direction.
But again I had miscalculated. When I next heard my friend's voice, it was much fainter--growing ghostly faint and remote; and continued to grow fainter still, until it was no more than a murmur borne across far distances. And now, when I screamed his name in a cracked and broken way, the only answer was in the echoes that reverberated along the mountainside, with thin and hollow notes like the mockery of fiends.
In despair, I told myself that I had lost track of Damon completely. But all at once a resounding report broke the stillness of the mountains. Shocked, I stood as if frozen--and instantly the report was repeated. Was Damon battling some foe, four-footed or human. Or was he merely signaling with his revolver?
Then, while I stood quivering there beneath the precipice, the pistol rang forth again, and again; and the echoes pealed and dinned with unearthly snarls and rattlings.
So unnerved was I that I did not think of replying with my own revolver. But, seized with a frenzy to rejoin Damon at all costs, I started through the fog almost with the madness of a stampeding steer.
And now at last my recklessness betrayed me. Whether my foot slipped, or whether I had dared an impossible grade, I do not know; but with breathless suddenness, I was plunging down a terrifying slope. To stop myself wsa beyond my power; with a sprinter's speed I went racing down the mist-dimmed mountainside. For an instant I had visions of gigantic spaces beneath me, of prodigious chasms, jutting rocks--then all things blurred, my mind whirled round and came to a stop--and the darkness that ensued was for me as the end of the world.
)
Grand SF Classic Hailed For Its "Sense of Wonder"! When American Dan Prescott, who discovers a hidden valley of strange winged people, the result is a magical story of wonder and romance. Soon Dan finds himself falling madly in love with Yasma, one of the young women he meets there. Their marriage is a happy time of celebration for everyone in the valley--but with fall comes tragedy. It is the season when Yasma's people traditionally fly south with the birds. But Prescott begs her to remain with him, a request whose consequences offer a haunting lesson that applies to all relationships. Here is a neglected classic of science fantasy by one of the field's pioneer writers, Stanton A. Coblentz (1896-1982). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says Coblentz "is often regarded as one of the writers best capable of conveying the sense of wonder so rightly valued by the readers of the early pulp magazines." In part, the Encyclopedia says this is due to his "strong gift for the description of ingeniously conceived alien environments." One of the true "elder statesmen" of magazine science fiction, Coblentz was also highly regarded by the wider literary world as well. As novelist Gertrude Atherton wrote of When the Birds Fly South, "Not only has this remarkable book a high fiction value, but the style, rich and chromatic, is a poet's prose (not 'poetical prose'), and the descriptions, wild, varied, and magnificent, are unsurpassed by any I have ever read." Coblentz produced many novels which have become SF classics including: The Sunken World (1928), After 12,000 YEARS (1929), and The Island People (1967). Age 15 and up!
