If you missed the last one…
Fantastic Adventures continues to bring you classic adventure fiction with a touch of weirdness. This time it is the classic novel, Earth’s Last Citadel by married team, C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner. The novel originally appeared in Argosy, April to July 1943. It was first reprinted in Fantastic Novels, July 1950. It made it to an ACE paperback in 1964. The fact that the book has been used over and over is a good sign of its quality. Since it has appeared so often there is plenty of artwork for the story, with Virgil Finlay illustrating it twice! (This is no surprise. Virgil was best man at the Kuttner/Moore’s wedding. He illustrated most of their best stuff.)
Part One
The concept of the novel is four humans, two fighting for the Allies and two for the Nazis, are taken by an alien ahead in time. They find themselves in an uneasy alliance as they navigate an Earth of the far future, devoid of life. On the Allies side is Alan Drake, secret service agent who has been charged with retrieving Sir Colin, a Scottish scientist with knowledge vital to either side. The man is indifferent to patriotism. On the other side, two agents who work for the Nazis, the beautiful Karen Martin and her American sidekick, Mike Smith. Both are ruthless and will stop at nothing to please their German masters.
These four have an uneasy alliance as they travel the desert in the direction of the vast, black citadel, hoping it will have food and water. They base this idea on seeing a single winged man flying in that direction. They surmise he is the last of the human race in this far-flung future age. (For more on winged humans in SF, go here.) In the purple mists they see gigantic worms. The far-future world seems devoid of life except these strange creatures. The newcomers approach the citadel when someone appears to be coming!
Part Two
Alan grabs the form to discover it is an elfin woman. She is Evaya. She leads them to a strange doorway. Behind them they can feel the presence of the Alien from the ship. It tries to draw them away with telepathy. The five rush through a mystical door into a wonderland of glass and beauty called Carcasilla. (Finlay found this scene inspiring since he drew Evaya and later painted her opening the door to Carcasilla for the cover.)
Evaya leads them through the glass city and up a stair made of water. There they meet Flande, another strange being who appears as a giant head. Flande uses telepathy to speak to the newcomers. He is not as nice Evaya, scolding them and telling them they must obey like slaves. Alan’s defiance brings a new threat as Flande opens a door and allows in barbarians called the Terasi. These warriors easily disarm the visitors, despite their firearms. Alan gets severally wounded and might die though he hears Evaya demanding that Flande save him.
He awakens in a glimmering pool called the Fountain of Sleep, that not only repairs his wounds, but reportedly makes you immortal. He learns from Evaya that she is immortal and may have been the original priestess who allowed the gods, called the Light-Wearers, to enter our world. They built the city of Carcasilla and others, now destroyed. These beings sound like aliens, having come in spaceship that fell from the sky. The Light-Wearers are all dead, though Evaya and Alan figure the Alien who brought them to the future may be the last one. Alan learns several things: one, Flande is angry and wants him dead and that his friends have been taken away by the Terasi into the wilds of the planet.
The Alien, using its telepathy, tries to call Alan out of Carcasilla. He and Evaya resist, so the thing draws itself into the city.
Part Three
The Light-Wearer possesses Evaya, and Alan must abandon her. Sir Colin snaps Alan out of the Alien’s mind control and takes him to the underground city of the Terasi. This dead metropolis, unlike the beautiful Carcasilla, was home to the last humans who used technology in their fight against the aliens. Alan learns that the Light-Wearers wiped out most of the human race, replacing them with the fanciful Carcasillians. But the invaders died out too when they had nothing left to feed upon. Only the Alien from the spaceship survived this fate, like Alan and his friends, by being sent into the future. The thing is starving and plans to devour all the Terasi and the newcomers. It can not feed on the Carcasillians because of their mutated nature.
The Terasi have survived the monster’s depredations by driving it off with loud sounds. Now that the Light-Wearer is in Carcasilla he can manipulate the soft people for his own purpose. He forms an army and has them attack the Terasi city. Evaya leads her people in the attack, destroying the gongs of the Terasi by heating them up with lasers, making them unable to reverberate. The people from the past watch this and can think of nothing to save them from the coming of the alien.
Part Four
Sir Colin and Alan come up with a plan. They learn that Venus was colonized by humans after them. They devise a scheme to take the Alien’s ship and the Terasi to Venus. To do this they need an energy source to power the ship. Alan remembers Flande’s Fountain of Sleep in Carcasilla and surmises a power source must rest underneath. Alan, Sir Colin and Mike go to the glass city, which lies empty since the Carcasilians have marched off to war. (Karen remains with the Terasi.) They find Flande has walled himself off from the Alien. Alan works his way under the Fountain of Sleep to find the real Flande, a normal-looking man who uses the power source to create his miracles. (A bit of a Great Oz, firs with a giant head and now this!) Flande realizes the men have come for his power unit and the race is on.
The chase goes on through the glass city while the Alien is expected to show up at any moment. Alan and Mike chase Flande into the chamber where the power unit rests. Flande and Mike struggle and land on the brilliant burning core and are dissolved. Alan and Colin want to take the power source but the Alien arrives. They devise another quick and desperate plan. Alan will allow the creature to take him over, trapping the creature in the room. Colin fires his loud pistol. The sound begins to destroys the Alien even as Alan fights its inside his mind. The Alien flees to his citadel of the title. (We learn it has no rooms but is actually a solid structure. Since the creature is made of energy it can live (and die) there.
There is a final epilogue to the tale told by Sir Colin. He is writing to the future Terasi who have gone with him to Venus. Alan, who was changed by his struggle with the Alien stays, leading the Carcasillians into their future. Alan and Evaya are together no matter what the future brings.
Thoughts and Reactions
Thus ends a very Merritesque tale with a bittersweet ending. About half of A. Merritt’s novels end on a downer note. You never knew which way he’d go until you got there. Moore and Kuttner took this lesson to heart in this book. The good guys win at a great cost and not everything is lemonade and rainbows. I did feel the authors didn’t revolve Karen’s story well. She gets parked about three quarter of the way through and isn’t really important in the finale. This seems odd with such a strong writer of women characters as C. L. Moore. This may have been asked for by the editors. I don’t know. Those winged guys also turned out to be window-dressing, being mindless flying men who aren’t important. And neither are those giant worms. Lost opportunities.
Conclusion
The name Carcasilla is exotic but its source is fairly easy to determine. Moore and Kuttner were fans of fantastic fiction and certainly knew Carcosa from Bierce and the Lovecraftians as well as Cassilda from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. By combining the two you arrive at this name. These are just familiar items that the authors recombined with winged men, castles and far future tales. The end result was very enjoyable for me. But then I like Merritt, too. I think others have found this strange adventure tale fun because it has been reprinted a number of times. As with all Moore/Kuttner collabs, it would be cool to know who contributed what, but we will never know. The fact that the authors chose to put Catherine Moore’s name first may mean she was the primary author.
Next time…Edmond Hamilton’s “The Fire Princess”…
