Beyond the Walls of Berlin Canyon

“It flew with the claw-tipped wings of a pterodactyl, it swam in tepid seas with the vast, winding bulk of an ichthyosaurus, it bellowed uncouthly with the armored throat of some forgotten behemoth to the huge moon that burned through primordial mists.” – Ubbo-Sathla, Clark Ashton Smith, July, 1933.

Between Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park and Richmond Hill in the Land of Nye is a rock strewn patch of sandy, dusty soil, that sees hardly a trace of man. This is the exact spot where Miriam Burke-Troyak, PhD was headed.

In her seventh year as a paleoanthropologist, she had become determined to decode, what she felt certain were riddles hidden within the lesser known writings and multitude of notes from both Fremont and Winnemucca, and others of that same time period. All she had to do was locate the place were the numerous manuscripts detailed the same landscaping.

And Miriam Burke-Troyak was certain that she had found that location and wanted now to prove it.

It began with the discovery of water-borne fossils of the late Triassic and early Jurassic. A state parks was built to protect these mineral-hardened bones, three years before Miriam was herself born.

Later as a young child, she learned of the Pa’oha’a, the Bannock Natives name for the mythical water-babies that are said to inhabit Pyramid Lake. The idea that the two might be connected, burned like a wild land fire in Miriam’s soul and drove her to earn her degree, setting her on this journey she was now undertaking into the extreme heat of the high desert.

There was a close connection between the water-babies and the Qu’ug-ol’ Ne’mc-go’lc, or so-called water-monsters of the same lake and her spirit told her so. Thus her drive to continue forward even in the face of the taunting imperiousness of her university colleagues. “I’ll prove it,” she told herself as she wheeled into the parking lot, “Then they won’t be laughing.”

She’d been told by tribal elders to remain away from the place she was now in search of. They told her that awakening such forbidden things could lead to her harm and possibly others, should it be loosed upon the land.

It wasn’t the first time she’d failed to heed the warnings given to her, either by others or through her own intuition. Had she listen in the first place she would have never married Bertram Troyak like she did.

The pair had met at the Cal-Neva in the heart of downtown Reno. He worked behind the bar and she ran keno tickets; it was love at first sight or so Miriam believed.

However, even though married now, Bertram couldn’t keep his eyes off or hands from other women. Eventually Miriam grew tired of his catting around and sent him packing; keeping only his last name which she concluded made her sound a little more elite than she really was.

That was five-and-a-half years ago and now she was on the verge of making, what perhaps, could be the greatest discovery of mankind. Miriam struggled to put the fits of giddiness she felt aside, focusing on the task that confronted presently her.

While she had no real idea what she was looking for, she was certain that it would reveal itself once she founded. “Not very scientific of me,” she chuckled at the idea.

After speaking with the ranger on duty and once the sun was fully risen, she donned her day pack and with cellphone holding the coordinates, began her trek out over the moonscape like surface of the Nevada desert before her. “No wonder the ancient peoples refused to live here,” she thought as she stumbled over loose stones and wind-rutted sands.

Three hours and she found her spot. To the south east stood the pinnacle of Richmond Hill. While not the tallest of mountains, it was a good sighting-point for the anyone traveling the harsh and unforgiving sweep that harbors mostly dried sage, rattlesnakes and coyotes.

Both quietly and slowly she began to survey the expanse before her. Not a single hint of a civilization stood out across the barren windswept patch of sand.

“It must be buried,” she groaned, realizing that she would have to dig much more than she desired. So off came her pack and out came the camp shovel.

It was less than nine inches of grit that had to be removed before she located a stone that should not be there. It was an antique, old with corners and edges worn down by wind and sand, until the surface formed a near perfect circular shape.

Miriam quickly uncovered the remainder of the stone, photographed and geomarked it with her cellphone. “This must have been the corner stone,” she thought.

With the one uncovered, she dug next to it, only to find nothing. Moving a few yards further, she dug at the soil again finding nothing.

As she stood up, she heard a rustling from beside. A dust devil had sprung up and was proceeding to recover the previously buried stone.

Miriam Burke-Troyak, PhD, thought nothing of the vortex as it faded out.

Returning to the now dirt and sand covered stone, she began the search from the next 90-degree angle from the stone. Again she found nothing next to the one, so she moved another 100-yards down and began chipping through the hard-pan with the pick from he folding shovel.

There she located another stone stone, of the same size and with the same wear marks as the first one. “These aren’t corner stones, they’re capstones,” she said with great excitement.

As she measured and marked its location, she couldn’t help but visualize how large the framework of the grain-hidden architecture must be. She decided to dig down further, to see if she might discover a full wall or perhaps a building.

An hour and a half later, sweating under the noonday sun, she halted, taking a seat on the most recently uncovered stone. Miriam was thankful for the slight breeze that picked up out of the east which served to cool her off.

Feeling slightly defeated, she stood up and began collecting her gear, when she noticed a trace of sand slipping downward into a crevasse near the stone. She dropped to he knees and gently scooped the sand away, revealing an opening large enough to allow her frame to fit through.

Using the flashlight of her cellphone, Miriam poked her arm and head into the darkness. She could not see very far into the masoned chasm, but her light was strong enough to show there was a carved floor less than four-feet from the opening.

Hurriedly, she gathered her pack and pulled it in behind her as she slipped through the hole. It was cold inside the hallow and smelled musty, like wet dirt and live snakes.

The idea that the secret hovel held a den of vipers had crossed her mind as she pushed her legs into the hole. However, she had seen none and had decided that it was worth the risk anyway.

While not a tall woman, Miriam was forced to bend low to navigate around the perimeter of the stacked-stone monolith. Along each wall, she located a single opening, each tracing ever deeper by slight degrees into the earthen-compact.

The floors and walls as were the corners were worn smooth as if something had been rubbing against them for thousands of millennia. She recalled her father’s saying, “When in doubt, go to the right,” which she did, deep and ever-deeper down the long, wide but extremely narrow tunnel. “Or is this a hallway?” she asked herself.

The gradient of the flooring shifted lower every 20 yards or so, until after a five-minute walk, it flattened out. Here, the roof opened into a slightly higher cavern and Miriam found herself able to stand up.

As she stood quietly looking around, amazed at her discovery, she heard what to her sounded like a dragging noise. It echo gently around the chamber and she scanned the place with her flashlight.

Ahead were three stone structures, each low to the floor and each worn inextricably to rounded surfaces. “Odd,” she thought, “Alters, perhaps?”

Then the noise returned, still gently echoing through the stones, though sounding further away. She did her best to locate the direction the noise had originated from, selecting yet another passage way, that again lead deeper downward and to an elongated chamber, worn away and polished smooth from both time and usage.

At the far side of the chamber shone a light. It was this that Miriam decided to investigate.

The dank odor of wet dirt and living snakes grew even greater as she cautiously tread across the semi-lustrous floor towards the brightness. It was a tunnel and it appeared very long, with an opening at the end from which the luminescence appeared to radiate.

Again she had to duck low to make it into the passage. She followed it until she came to its end.

Below her was a vast expanse of slow moving green water, above a split in the rocky ceiling, through which a fracture of yellow-orange sun poured. “An underground river?” she whispered into the her cellphone’s recorder as she attempted to geomark her amazing find, but she was too far under ground for the signal to reach civilization above.

Suddenly, she heard that peculiar dragging sound, sodden, slimy, and this time from behind her. Before she could scream, four moist and massive tendrils encased themselves around her body and dragged her deep into the cavern’s darkness.

In the distance, and as the corporeality dishonored and outraged her, Miriam’s cellphone recorded the hideous and continuous chanting of “Voquulo Zaa-q’ran,” by an untold number of leviathan grotesques writhing and contorting in macabre fashions. Meanwhile, above a dust-devil swirled, wiping away any outward trace of the antediluvian edifice.