HEART OF DARKNESS - A WORLD OF PULP TALE

[ScottishMongol]

AN: While digging through some files I found this story, that apparently I had never published. It was intended to be part of a planned anthology of short stories that served as sendups to the pulps - I published another completed tale, about Soviet fighting Nazis at the Mountains of Madness, several years ago. To my surprise this one still held up, so I'll be posting it in several parts over the rest of the week. Please enjoy!

***

Chapter 1​

M'Banza-Kongo was the capital of the Kingdom of Kongo. The upper city was set on the high plateau that stood frowning over the Congo River – the royal palaces, the government buildings, the universities, the great Cathedral of Our Lady of the Congo (the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Kongo), the embassies of nations both from Africa and beyond – but the lower city sat by the riverbanks, a crowded sprawl of dockyards, markets, slums, and workshops, over which hung a haze of smoke, smog, steam, and tropical mists.

It is here, in a dingy riverside tavern, that a white man from out of the country made inquiries.

"I'm looking for a steamboat," the white man said. Henrique pushed back the brim of his hat and looked up at him. The white man was tall and thin, with large eyes and a tight smile. He had a sort of skeletal look about him, and he had spoken in Portuguese. At least he was dressed sensibly for travel in the tropics.

"I have a steamboat," Henrique said. His feet were propped up on the table and he was leaning back in his chair, a glass of rum in one hand. He had made a fair bundle on his latest commission and wanted to relax, but he wasn't averse to making more money.

"Yes, that's what we were told," the white man said as he pulled out the chair across from Henrique and sat down. Henrique raised an eyebrow as he saw the man who had been hovering behind the khaki-wearing man's shoulder – another white man, in a white cassock, with little round-rimmed glasses and a bag slung over his shoulder.

Henrique took his feet off the table and nodded respectfully – he was a good Catholic.

"How can I be of assistance, father?" he asked. The man chuckled and pulled up another chair.

"I'm no father. Please, call me Brother Arthur, of the Society of Jesus."

A Jesuit, then. Henrique was quite familiar with the order, and was a bit embarrassed to have misidentified one.

"Brother Arthur, then. Who is your companion?"

The man introduced himself as Professor Helmut Fischer of the University of Freiburg. When Henrique showed no recognition, the man laughed.

"I'm a professor of anthropology. I study people, you could say. In fact, judging by your skin color and facial features, I would say you have some significant European ancestry yourself."

Henrique shifted uncomfortably. Yes, a few generations ago a Portuguese merchant had set himself up in Kongo and founded a steamship company, but Henrique hardly considered himself a mulatto – such things weren't taken into consideration in his country.

"That's enough, Helmut," Brother Arthur said, before looking at Henrique apologetically, "I'm not quite an anthropologist myself, though I'm familiar with the field."

Henrique scooted in closer to the table. This was beginning to get interesting.

"Now, just why are you interested in my steamship?" he asked. The two companions glanced at each other.

"Are you familiar with the stories of the Kingdom of Opar?" Professor Fischer asked.

"Ah, that explains it," Henrique said, scratching his chin, "It's supposedly a kingdom, or the ruins of a kingdom, far up the Congo River. People have claimed to see it in the past, but I know as much as you."

Professor Fischer's eyes glinted.

"Well, as a Professor of Anthropology, you can imagine I know quite a bit. However, you are right that there is quite a bit we don't know, and I would very much like to know more."

Henrique stared at the two for a moment. He looked to Brother Arthur.

"And you? Anthropology as well?"

The Jesuit spread his hands a bit awkwardly.

"Not as such, but…yes, I am on a bit of a fact-finding mission as well."

Henrique sat back and thought for a moment. He had heard of such things – curious or bold Europeans haring off into the jungle in search of this or that treasure. The jungle ate most of them alive, and the rest didn't exactly come back rich as kings.

"How much can you pay me?" he asked. Professor Fischer smiled and named a figure.

Henrique's jaw dropped.

 

[bookwyrm]

Honestly a surviving and thriving Kingdom of Kongo is so fascinating as a pulp setting, you got mainline Catholicism with lay sodalities and magnates as the patrons and distributors of spiritual knowledge and power building churches and what not, the charismatic and slightly heterodox yet deeply uniquely Kongolese Antonine sect, the Jesuits getting on their bullshit again, also somewhat outside the traditional power structures, etc..., etc..., and then all of that pushing and pulling against constant Portuguese efforts to monopolize the ecclesiastical hierarchy as under colonial Portuguese clerics. Add the constant feuds and not-so-private wars between different Kanda noble clans/houses for control of the royal seat(s) of power, and you got plenty of room for Henrique to like Han Solo it up and fall into heroically saving the Kongo from some evil colonial adventurers and mercenaries and the Portuguese-aligned pretender using them to take power.

 

[EBR]

Watched!

This is the first time I've seen one of these pull expeditions from the perspective of the indigenous guide, not the European explorer.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 2​

The Matron Isabel steamed merrily up the muddy waters of the Congo River for five days without incident. She was a wallowing sternwheeler, fifty fathoms stem to stern with a four-foot draft. Henrique kept to his little captain's cabin and the two passengers kept to theirs, though they ate together in the galley at the officer's table. He had a crew of fifty; Henrique himself, his first mate, the pilot and the assistant steersman, two engineers, and a cook. The rest were humble deckhands.

Henrique had told his men they were going "as far upriver as they could". For the first few days this was no problem; the Matron Isabel made such voyages regularly, taking loads of cassava or raffia downriver and goods from the cities on the coast back up. The first mate, Marc Goma, remarked that the crew was in high confidence.

The river was well-traversed by other ships as well, going in both directions. They were not just cargo steamers, either; many were passenger steamers and some were barges and others were fishing canoes, and a few were bulky ironclad ships with holds full of oil drums or mineral ore, bound for the factories of M'Banza-Kongo. On either bank, there were fishing villages, farming villages, and miles of cropland. The greatest cash crop was raffia, the cloth made from the fibers of palm leaves that had, a few hundred years ago, been the currency before the Kings of Kongo switched to paper. They still called the money mpusu, though, as Henrique explained to his passengers.

Brother Arthur was pleasant company. When Henrique mentioned retiring to the captain's quarters to pray, he had politely asked to see the crucifix he used. The image was one of Henrique's most expensive possessions, and Arthur had found it curious that the body of Jesus resembled an African man.

"The attention to detail is impressive," he had said, "The artist had an eye for the human form."

As for Professor Fischer, he had no interest in the crew, speaking only to Henrique and only at meals even then. He would often ask questions about the people who lived along the banks of the river, especially as to their language and ethnicity. Henrique knew little himself, as he only spoke Portuguese and Kikongo; the latter was both the common language in the Kingdom and the one used at court, the former the main language of diplomacy and trade. Henrique's ignorance seemed to disappoint Professor Fischer, but that was no matter to Henrique. They had paid up front.

The true adventure began when they reached Mbandaka, at the confluence of the Congo and Tshuapa Rivers. Brother Arthur called at the Jesuit mission in the town while the crew took on fresh supplies. In the meantime, Marc Goma came to him to voice the crew's concerns.

"How far are we supposed to go, captain? You know the river is impassable above Kisangani."

He was referring to the falls. Kisangani was the last port on the Congo River, at least from below; in the upper reaches, in the Katanga region, the Luba Kingdom held sway, but due to the falls their trade went east-west overland.

"I will ask the passengers," Henrique said. That didn't seem to assuage Marc's concerns at all.

"After Mbandaka there are other dangers. The pygmies. They have…stories."

"Hmm," was all Henrique could say in response.

In order to get their course plotted out, Henrique summoned Brother Arthur to the bridge along with Professor Fischer. Marc Goma laid out a map of the Congo and its tributaries. It was the best map they had, but it was incomplete.

"As you may be aware, the Congo is not navigable above Kisangani," Henrique said, pointing out the port. Professor Fischer shrugged.

"That is of no concern. Opar does not lie upriver from there anyway."

Henrique and his first mate exchanged a glance.

"How do you know that?" Henrique asked.

"What do you know of Opar anyway?" Marc Goma added. Professor Fischer smoothed down the corner of his moustache.

"We're not the first to seek Opar. Some past expeditions, I believe, have gotten closer than others. I believe the last unexplored region lies here," he pointed at the northeast part of the Congo Basin, "Up the river Aruwimi."

Marc Goma traced his finger along the course of the river, to where the Aruwimi joined the Congo below Kisangani.

"Unexplored territory by us, to be sure. Expeditions from Kongo rarely travel further than Mbandaka. But there are people there."

"I should hope so," Professor Fischer said confidently.

Henrique leaned forward across the table, looking from Fischer to the silent Brother Arthur.

"Why are you so eager to seek Opar?"

White men who came to Africa usually did not come for the sake of pure discovery. If Fischer was one of those, then he was a rare breed – but that did not explain why Brother Arthur accompanied him. What did he contribute to the expedition?

Professor Fischer preened, smoothing back his hair. He spoke hesitantly, as if begrudging Henrique the question.

"Well, in case you haven't heard the tales, Opar is said to be ruled by a lost civilization of white men. I have…certain theories that the Kingdom of Opar may hold the secrets of the origin of humanity!"

Brother Arthur cleared his throat.

"Unproven theories. In any case, modern science has determined that man came from Africa. The black races are our ancestors, not these men of Opar."

"Unless these men of Opar gave rise to the white race, which were the first of their kind to leave Africa," the Professor shot back. His tone suggested this was an old argument.

Marc Goma snorted.

"These stories of white men are tall tales of the pygmies, or wishful thinking of Europeans, or both."

"There may be more truth in tall tales than you think," Professor Fischer said, holding his gaze on Marc Goma, a dangerous gleam in his eye. The first mate scowled back at him.

"The pygmies also say there are great lizards that live in the deep jungle, bigger than the Matron Isabel. Are we looking for those, too?"

"Perhaps we are," said Brother Arthur quietly, "But you must understand that my companion truly only seeks to make contact with these people, to discover the truth behind the tales. It could be there are only ruins up the Aruwimi, or there is nothing at all."

"And what do you bring to this mission?" asked Henrique, "No offense meant to a holy man, I mean."

Brother Arthur shrugged.

"If we are to make contact, then the Holy Father in Rome will want to bring them the good word. The Jesuits are used to such tasks, and we are experienced in journeys into the unknown."

"A missionary," muttered Marc Goma.

"Say rather, an envoy of the Church," Brother Arthur said, "In any case, we hope you will not hold us in suspicion."

Henrique shrugged.

"You have paid, and this voyage is not impossible. Supplies are easy to procure, especially for such a small expedition. We shall press on."

So, they did. The Matron Isabel continued upstream. The river was flush with rains, but not overflowing, so they need not risk either floods or sandbars. The cultivated land on either bank was broken up by stretches of forest, uncut jungle that marched down to the water's edge and reached out branches laden with vines over the flowing muddy waters, but the Congo was still swollen by her vassal streams and oftentimes the Matron Isabel could keep to the center of the channel, where the jungle was but a green fringe on either side.

It was another five days before they truly reached the upper reaches of the Congo. Here the Kingdom of Kongo had her vast frontier, where warlords, vassal tribes, and the pygmies stood beyond the firm reach of M'Banza-Kongo down at the river's mouth. Other ships were rare, only fishing canoes which retreated to the bank at the grumble of the Matron Isabel's engines.

It was on the sixth day when they entered the unknown. Henrique was at the wheel, Marc Goma at the bow checking the depth readings. Henrique could see Brother Arthur at the rail, watching sandbars pass by on either side. They were packed with crocodiles basking in the sun, while hippopotami wallowed in the shallows. They were great beasts, and Henrique knew from experience that they could be deadly to men in a canoe, but he was not afraid.

Suddenly Marc Goma started shouting from the bow. Henrique looked at the sandbars and saw the crocodiles leap into the water, spraying water high as the Matron Isabel's railing. The hippopotami followed, kicking up a wake as they moved into deeper waters. Evidently something had scared them – but what could be so big as to startle the great beasts of the river?

The crew were shouting and rushing to the rail as Professor Fischer entered the bridge.

"What's going on?" he asked. Henrique shrugged, and stepped out onto the balcony. The Professor followed him.

The trees suddenly parted, and a head emerged, followed by a long neck, like that of a serpent. The head was scaled, and the neck arched high over the river – but then the great body of the beast emerged, huge and barrel-shaped, held up by legs thicker than an elephant's, thicker than trees, and as it kept coming Henrique saw that its body alone was as long as the Matron Isabel, its neck longer still.

The crew were shouting and hollering in excitement as Marc Goma yelled up at the captain.

"Mokele-mbembe! It's the Mokele-mbembe, one even hippos fear! The stories are true! Mokele-mbembe!"

The Mokele-mbembe plunged into the river, the muddy waters foaming and swelling up around its stomach as it bent its head to suck up the river, and its wake was so great that even the Matron Isabel pitched to the side, however slightly.

Professor Fischer laughed happily as he clung to the rail.

"Now do you believe there is something out here, captain?"

 

[bookwyrm]

Aaah the classic opening scene establishing the awesome power and beauty of nature with the sauropod feeding/the first hint of the mega-sized creatures of Skull Island/etc..., before the Matron Isabel's odyssey starts picking off deckhand extras and showing off the cool special effects

 

[EBR]

The professor's theories sound reminiscent of the sort of thing a lot of late 19th/early 20th century European intellectuals tried to do, to attribute all other civilizations ultimately to white people. Not sure if his Opar is supposed to be Nordic or Aryan, either way it's pretty cringe.

It would be hilarious if they stumbled onto Wakanda.

 

[ScottishMongol]

The professor's theories sound reminiscent of the sort of thing a lot of late 19th/early 20th century European intellectuals tried to do, to attribute all other civilizations ultimately to white people. Not sure if his Opar is supposed to be Nordic or Aryan, either way it's pretty cringe.

It would be hilarious if they stumbled onto Wakanda.

Click to shrink...

Oh, we're going somewhere MUCH weirder.

 

[bookwyrm]

Oh, we're going somewhere MUCH weirder.

Click to shrink...

please PLEASE take the piss out of that awful Crichton novel

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 3​

Up the Aruwimi River, the crew of the Matron Isabel continued to see strange wildlife. There were hippopotami and crocodiles in the river, and they sighted red hogs and striped forest antelope coming down to the river to drink, and herds of elephants as well. They did not see another Mokele-mbembe, although once at dusk a great creature with a beak and leathery wings flapped overhead, eliciting cries of "Kongamato!" from the crew.

They did not see so much as a hair of the pygmy people of the Aruwimi. Some of the crew were sure the secretive forest folk were watching them from the jungle, and they muttered darkly of poisoned arrows and other such things. The men of the deep jungle had little love for the men of Kongo, given the wars that had been fought to subjugate them, fierce bushwacking affairs that had never ended, only fallen to a simmer.

Henrique kept well to the center of the channel, just to be sure.

The river was easy to navigate, at least for a time, and while it grew narrower, it also grew deeper and swifter. Henrique and the two passengers consulted the maps, and they formed the belief that the land was rising towards the Mountains of the Moon, which fenced off the eastern border of the lake country. There were more and greater kingdoms there, as well as the mighty Zanzibar Sultanate, whose economic influence stretched up and down and back and forth across Africa. Here though, they were in the back country, untouched by civilized men either white or black.

On the second day, Henrique summoned the passengers and his first mate to the bridge.

"Why have we stopped?" asked Professor Fischer. Henrique had ordered the ship to a full stop and now held it at anchor just off the left bank.

Henrique rocked back and forth on his heels, chewing his lip. He ignored Professor Fischer, but Marc Goma pointed out the window.

"There is a village," he said. True to his word, less than dozen huts with tall conical roofs of thatched grass were set in a clearing on the water's edge. Pygmies, it was thought, and the village was boiling with men who had sighted them.

Professor Fischer looked at them with curiosity.

"An interesting site, I suppose, but again I ask, why have we stopped?"

"It may be best to make contact with them," Henrique said, "They will know this country better than us, and they may warn us of what lies further upstream."

"They may know of Opar," offered Brother Arthur. The Jesuit had brought his bulky black bag and held it close to his chest. Previously he had kept the bag in his quarters, and Henrique had almost forgotten it. Now he wondered what could be in it. A Bible?

"They could be hostile as well," countered Marc Goma. He and Henrique had been over that point as well, before they took it to the passengers.

"In that case, we may need to be diplomatic," said Brother Arthur.

Professor Fischer stroked his mustache.

"It sounds risky. Why not steam on?"

"Well, I was hoping you would make that decision," said Henrique, "It is up to you, but if you decide to speak to them, I will offer some men to go with you."

Professor Fischer nodded brusquely.

"In that case, I will go. It may be useful to study these people."

"I can…attempt to speak with them. Do you have anyone who speaks their tongue?"

Henrique shrugged lamely.

"No…but it may be that they speak Kikongo."

Professor Fischer had already set his mind to the idea, though.

"No matter, I'm sure we'll be able to make ourselves understood. How complex can their language be in any case?"

Henrique was not so sure, but he let them go. With them he sent Marc Goma and another crewman, both with shotguns, in one of the Matron Isabel's steel canoes.

Henrique watched them row, continuing to chew his lip nervously. When they finally reached the bank, he could not bear to watch, so he began to pace about the bridge. He and Marc Goma had discussed this; the pygmies of the deep jungle were suspicious of outsiders, usually due to the long years of bad blood between them and the men of Kongo, and it was not unknown for them to mistake travelers for invaders and fire upon them. However, if it came to fighting, then it was likely that Marc Goma and the other crewman would be able to drive them off by discharging their firearms. The pygmies had no gunpowder weapons of their own.

An hour passed. Henrique thought about making the rest of the crew ready for a rescue mission, just in case, but there weren't many other weapons aboard the Matron Isabel, only another shotgun, a revolver, and an assortment of hatchets and clubs. Henrique and Marc Goma had agreed to keep the remaining firearms aboard the ship, in the locker which only the officers had access to.

Out of the corner of his eye, Henrique saw a mass of men coming down to the beach, and for a second his heart leapt in his chest, but there was not nearly enough movement to indicate a fight, and the canoe gently pushed off from the bank and made its way back across the water.

When they climbed aboard, Brother Arthur explained what they had learned. The village was Yambuya, the people called themselves the Mbuti. Brother Arthur, it appeared, had not been able to learn anything of their language in so short a time, but he had some success in making his intentions understood – a fact which seemed to rankle Professor Fischer. Through signs and drawings, the Mbuti had indicated that just upriver was a series of cataracts which made the river impassable by ship.

"Damn," muttered Henrique, "Does this mean we turn back?"

At this Professor Fischer smoothed his mustache.

"Well, not as such…when Brother Arthur spoke the name of Opar, they seemed to find it familiar."

"They jabbered among themselves," added Marc Goma gruffly, "And to my ears they were afraid. Though that could mean anything. Perhaps there are only ruins, and they consider them a cursed place."

"If there are ruins, that could be more than we hoped for! But as it happens, I believe there are more than just ruins at Opar."

Brother Arthur hesitated.

"They indicated through drawings that there are people there, yes. After a fashion."

"It seemed to my eyes that they drew apes," said Marc Goma. Professor Fischer disagreed, though.

"They drew men and apes both," he said insistently, "And unless I am wrong, they said yes when I asked if the men there were white."

Henrique was skeptical, but when he looked at Brother Arthur, the man nodded…if reluctantly.

"It may be that we mistook their meaning…but they did not seem to find us unusual, I could not help but note."

By which he meant himself and Professor Fischer; black men like Henrique and Marc Goma would have been frequent sights, even out on the frontier.

"Well, it's not like it matters. The cataracts mean we can't get any further upriver, so it's not as if we can go find out for ourselves," said Marc Goma. Fischer bristled at that.

"Do you suggest we turn back? After coming so close? Never! We'll go overland if we must!"

Brother Arthur turned to Henrique.

"Please, stay here for a while, if you can. We could hire guides from the Mbuti…we'll make sure you're paid for the extra time."

Henrique chewed on that for a moment. The feeling of curiosity had been growing in his mind for some time, especially since he saw the Mokele-mbembe. Now, it seemed like there may actually be something to the truth of Opar…

"I'll go with you," he said. The others looked at him in surprise, Marc Goma not least of all.

"Captain, is that wise?"

"There's safety in numbers. We'll need to take all three shotguns."

"We?" the first mate asked skeptically. Henrique thrust out his chin.

"You're coming along. That's an order, first mate."

He was the one Henrique trusted the most. Marc Goma set his jaw and nodded.

"As you say, captain."

It was agreed that ten of them would go: Professor Fischer, Brother Arthur, Henrique, Marc Goma, and six crewmen; Henrique, Marc Goma, and the cook, Mwikiza, took the shotguns, while Henrique also had the ship's revolver. The rest of the crewmen had hatchets and clubs; Brother Arthur had his black bag, and Fischer said he had no need for weapons. The Mbuti gave them two guides, diminutive men with bows and arrows. With Brother Arthur negotiating, Henrique had gained their service in exchange for two steel knives from the ship's galley.

Brother Arthur's bag turned out to contain a small water sterilization kit and a bottle of quinine, which he and Professor Fischer shared swigs from on occasion. Henrique had heard that white men often suffered tropical disease worse than black men, but he had never seen Europeans this far into the jungle before.

From Yambuya, they did not have far to travel. The Mbuti led them on a looping route around the cataracts upriver, taking them along game trails. There was not nearly enough time to learn their language in any detail, but they would often stop and point out tracks and animal droppings. Once one of them pointed out tracks such as Henrique had never seen, the tracks of Mokele-mbembe, and the Mbuti guide stood in the middle of the footprint to demonstrate how large it was.

"Take note, captain," said Brother Arthur, "Though these Mbuti may not have farms or guns, without them we would be as lost as children!"

Brother Arthur was right, but there finally came a point where the Mbuti would lead them no more. The Jesuit, who it seemed could communicate with them the best, reported that Opar was near, and the Mbuti would not set foot in the place itself for any reward.

"Then it seems we must forge on alone!" announced Professor Fischer. He led the way into the brush, followed by Henrique, Marc Goma, and the rest of the crew. They pushed through the underbrush and walked into the Lost Kingdom of Opar.

 

[bookwyrm]

The Mbuti know whats up, poor Kongolese and white men getting conned out of two sources of good worked steel just for a day's trek through semi-open trail and leaving them to kill themselves with the evil witchery of Opar. Hopefully Henrique has the chance to come out of this a better haggler!

 

[EBR]

Hmm. So not Wakanda, but apes and white people. Grodd's Gorilla City? An Anunnaki colony? Arthur Jermyn's city of white apes? Something totally original?

I've no clue, but I'm excited to find out- and to see Fischer learn his lesson.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 4​

At first glance, the Lost Kingdom of Opar appeared to consist mostly of fields of yams.

"Fascinating," Professor Arthur muttered, "They have developed agriculture."

"Why wouldn't they?" muttered Marc Goma. Henrique patted his revolver for reassurance as he scanned the fields.

"Well, they're not out in the fields right now," he said. The land seemed quite abandoned.

However, they soon found a path, alongside a small irrigation canal, and followed it until they reached a village of rough-cut stone. There were a dozen buildings, including what looked like a long barracks and a large temple with a domed roof. Professor Fischer looked over the architecture with an appraising eye. Henrique stood in the town's center, near the well, and looked around. There was still a fire smoking nearby, and tools sitting on a rack. There was a haunting feeling of abandonment. Henrique thought that perhaps their coming was anticipated, and the inhabitants had simply fled or hidden themselves, but he was loath to break the eerie silence, no more than he could bear the silence any longer.

The barest hint of movement behind him suddenly made him spin around, his shotgun up, and he found himself face-to-face with a towering black man in a loincloth. The crew of the Matron Isabel were frozen, as was the newcomer, before he suddenly whistled.

Instantly, a dozen hideous apes, each standing about four feet tall on their hind legs, bounded through the doorway of the barracks. Each had reddish-brown fur and a malignantly humanoid aspect.

"Don't shoot!" Brother Arthur yelled to the crew, "We don't want to draw first blood!"

The apes surrounded the crew of the Matron Isabel, hooting and grunting, and the crew huddled together, weapons ready. Professor Fischer shuddered and put himself behind a large crewman.

"Filthy creatures," he spat, before trailing off into dark mutterings about primitive races.

"Don't shoot," Brother Arthur repeated. Henrique faced down the black man, who he now saw was decked out in jewelry, including a necklace of gold and silver links and a headband set with a massive sapphire. The man wasn't watching the crew, but rather the doorway of the temple…and Henrique followed his gaze, and gasped.

Two more men, tall and brawny, were holding a sunshade for a woman with skin as white as any European Henrique had ever seen. Her hair was an ivory yellow, and her lips were full and pink…but her eyes were red, and she had a broad, flat nose and high forehead that tickled unnervingly at Henrique's memory.

The man who had first confronted the crew went to his knees, and to Henrique's surprise, Brother Arthur and Professor Fischer followed his lead. After a brief, reluctant pause, Henrique did so as well, motioning for his crew to join him.

The woman was dressed in fine fabrics, and wore more gold and jewels than her three companions put together. Rings glittered on all her fingers and her hair was pinned with massive silver clips set with diamonds and rubies. She looked silently at them for what seemed like an interminable amount of time.

"What is she doing?" asked Marc Goma. Henrique looked at the kneeling man and saw him silently moving his lips. Praying, perhaps?

The woman made a motion with her hand, and the kneeling man rose to his feet, and made the same motion to the crew. As they rose to their feet, she waved for them to follow her, and set off on foot. Immediately, the apes scattered, some going back into the barracks, if it was a barracks, while others set off into the fields, some snatching up tools as they went.

"Ah, I understand," said Fischer, "The apes are their servants or slaves, perhaps trained to use tools, while the black men are an underclass. The rulers of Opar must be, as I suspected all along, the very oldest ancestors of the white race!"

"Don't be a fool, Fischer, look with your eyes," hissed Brother Arthur, "You go on about phrenology so much I thought you could recognize-"

The black guard hushed them, and the crew fell into a silence as they followed the woman down the path out of the village. Were they guests, or prisoners? The requisite silence did not suggest anything good to Henrique.

The path soon turned into a paved road, and they saw more ape-men laboring in the fields as they went, as well as other villages. The creatures were not quite like chimpanzees, rather they were taller and moved more easily on two feet, but that gave them an uncanny aspect.

"How do you think they train them?" whispered Professor Fischer, "Perhaps they raise them like cattle."

"They must be intelligent animals," replied Brother Arthur, despite his situation. He seemed just as curious as the Professor.

"They barely had to command them at all," noted Fischer.

In time they came to a proper city. Broad paved streets of stone ran between multi-story buildings, and black-skinned citizens gathered in doorways and on balconies to watch the procession. They talked among themselves quietly, in a language that was completely foreign to Henrique's ears, and he noticed that while the male guards exchanged a few words with each other, the white woman had not spoken at all.

There were apes in the city as well, acting as porters and street sweepers and rushing about on what seemed to be errands. It was a strange sight, animals doing the tasks most men did, but Henrique could not deny that the city was as clean and rich as any he could imagine.

Rising over the city of Opar were tall, stepped pyramids of stone. Their procession seemed to be making directly for the largest one.

"Why is it always pyramids?" asked Brother Arthur quietly.

"This is a rich city," whispered Marc Goma, "Diamonds seem as common as pebbles here. A man could make a fortune, captain."

"I'll have no talk of that," hissed Henrique.

They reached the base of the great pyramid and began to climb. Henrique found himself looking at the white woman, if indeed she was white. She did not resemble the two passengers save in the color of her skin…

At the top of the pyramid there were half a dozen or more white-skinned women, and the oldest among them was one who could only be called a queen. Her crown and scepter were crusted with precious gems and her clothes were made of bewilderingly patterned fabrics. More than that, she looked imperious, and she seemed as high above the other white women as the women were above the black-skinned men. Just like the temple woman from the village, she had white skin and white hair and red eyes.

They all had, Henrique thought, a certain resemblance.

"Albinos," he heard Brother Arthur, "A ruling caste, probably selectively bred."

Henrique barely understood that, but if the ruling family was white…he looked at Professor Fischer.

"Finally," the Professor muttered, "I have found it. The lost white kingdom of Opar!"

"Fischer, for the last time, don't be a bloody fool…"

The Queen of Opar looked at Henrique…and he heard her!

Not her voice; she hadn't opened her mouth to speak. Instead, there was, suddenly another voice in his head, one that wasn't his own.

It wanted to know, why had these outsiders come to Opar? Henrique thought of curiosity and money and the fevered dreams of Professor Fischer. Greed, the Queen of Opar read that as, and the pride of the outsiders. Henrique felt shame from himself and contempt from the Queen. The Queen of Opar turned her gaze away from him, and he saw each of his men's faces change as they heard her thoughts as well.

"Telepathy!" Brother Arthur gasped, "That's how they're controlling the apes!"

"Telepathy!" Professor Fischer echoed, "This is better than I imagined!"

"Fischer, no!"

Professor Fischer climbed the last few steps to speak with the Queen of Opar face-to-face.

For a second, they stood there, facing each other. Professor Fischer swayed slightly. A look of confusion and horror passed his face…then he jerked like a puppet on a string, and tumbled to the ground. He bounced down the steps and rolled to a stop at Henrique's feet. Blood was pouring from his nose.

The Queen of Opar wanted them gone, Henrique thought. Or were they his thoughts after all?

"Run!" yelled Brother Arthur. The crew turned and followed. A horrible chorus of hooting and screeching echoed around the city, and Henrique looked and saw a great horde of ape-men rushing towards them through the streets, converging on the pyramid.

Brother Arthur opened his black bag and pulled out a massive revolver.

"Don't shoot the women, shoot the apes!"

Coolly, he aimed and pulled the trigger, and the first of the ape-men stiffened, shuddered, and fell dead at the foot of the pyramid. Henrique and the others who bore firearms raised them and fired blindly into the crowd of ape-men. They screeched and scattered, leaving a number of their dead behind them, but they quickly reformed and came back with a vengeance. The crew of the Matron Isabel had won a space of breath, however, and they plunged through the gap.

As ape-men reached out with gnarled, hairy hands to grab them, the crewmen lashed out with hatchets, clubs, and the butts of shotguns. One crewman fumbled and dropped his club, and Henrique tossed his shotgun to the man and whipped out his own revolver.

Of that wild, madcap rush through Opar Henrique remembered little – the hideous faces of screaming ape-men, their hands reaching out for him, the ape-men falling with horrible gunshot wounds…and once, as he looked behind him, the Queen of Opar standing atop her pyramid, white and terrible.

They raced across fields and plunged sweating with fear into the jungle, and did not stop until they reached the village of Yambuya.

 

[bookwyrm]

Fischer comes across the one civilization too eugenicist even for the white man

 

[EBR]

And Fisher gets his. That was quite interesting, I just wish we'd we'd gotten more of a glimpse at their culture.

 

[ScottishMongol]

And Fisher gets his. That was quite interesting, I just wish we'd we'd gotten more of a glimpse at their culture.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, if I were extending this I would've had a period where they are allowed to stay as guests before Fischer commits some faux pas by being a huge racist and starts a conflict. Kind of develop them as characters and as a culture, explore their psychic powers more.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Epilogue​

The Matron Isabel was returning to M'Banza-Kongo. Henrique sat in his cabin, counting the money Brother Arthur had paid him. He sighed and looked up at the crucifix hanging on the wall, Jesus with skin as black as any man of Kongo. He had left the deep jungle, but the things he had felt and seen in the Kingdom of Opar would not leave him.

There was a knock at the door, and Brother Arthur entered.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you," the Jesuit said, "I'm afraid this whole venture has been rather terrible."

"No, it's not your fault," said Henrique, "It was Fischer's. What did he say to make her so angry?"

Brother Arthur sat down and frowned.

"Fischer was…not a man who changed his mind easily. He had the idea in him that the great and powerful origins of the white race were in Africa. Perhaps they are, but not in the way he thought. We certainly didn't discover them in Opar."

"We didn't?" Henrique asked, "Those women…they seemed white to me."

"Did they?" Brother Arthur asked quietly, "I tried to tell Fischer, but to me the resemblance was only skin-deep…if you'll pardon the expression."

Henrique frowned.

"Yes, I thought…"

He paused, unsure of how to word the feeling he had gotten.

"Look at any woman on the street of M'Banza-Kongo and there will be more resemblance to the Queen of Opar than to any woman of European heritage. The women who rule that kingdom are no more than albinos, but all other respects they are African."

"Albino Africans," Henrique repeated, "So when Fischer thought he found white people…"

Brother Arthur paused again, then reached into his black bag.

"Fischer…had a darker motive. One that even I did not realize. It had been too long since we knew each other well."

He placed a small badge on the table, bearing a strange symbol.

"The double lightning bolts. Fischer was…well, he is dead now, and a great intellect has gone from the world, though I'm afraid it was wasted in his final years."

"I don't understand," Henrique said dully.

"It is no matter. I was sent based on…a suspicion that something like this might happen. Fischer and I had some acquaintance, long ago, so I won myself to his cause and went along to watch…and intervene if need be."

"Who are you, truly? Why do you have a gun? Are you even a Jesuit?"

"A Jesuit? Why, of course I am!" said Brother Arthur with a small smile, "The gun was for my protection, for there are some members of the Church who are trained in self-defense, especially when matters such as this are concerned. As for who sent me, well, I am a loyal servant of Rome, let me leave it at that.

Henrique chewed on that for a moment, then shook his head.

"This is all too much. What am I even supposed to think of all this?"

Brother Arthur smiled enigmatically, retrieved the badge and stood up to leave.

"Just this, captain – no matter who you are, you are not the center of the universe. When it comes to determining who is the civilized man and who is the savage, it all depends on where you are standing."

 

[EBR]

Jesuit secret agents opposing or at least monitoring fascists in a world where Africa resisted colonization. I'd be keen on a return to this universe one day if you're ever moved to do so.

 

[bookwyrm]

A pulpy super-science and like dieselpunk Jesuit order going around as secret spies and Nazi-hunters for like the remnant Inquisition in the Vatican's Holy Office sounds both rad as hell and, honestly, like it could be properly mind-bending as a psychological spy thriller delving deep into who can and cannot be trusted as secret Nazi sympathizers lurk everywhere.

 

[digital2]

It was a interesting short story. I didn't expect the time period to be around the same time as the Nazis. I do wish we found out more about the telepaths and how their society came about.