Eric of Zanthodon

by Lin Carter

  As for Xask all this while, the former vizier of Zar was maintaining his silence, making himself as ingratiting and as unobtrusive as possible. He kept an expression of genial, affable, friendly cooperation as best he could, and never once got in the way, made difficulties, or tried to escape.

  But all the time, his clever, ingenious brain was at work, striving to think of a way out of this predicament. While Xask greatly doubted that Eric Carstairs or the others would go so far as to have him executed, he did not wish to spend the rest of his days as a slave in Thandar. Not when he could escape and return to a life of ease, importance and influence back in the Scarlet City of Zar-or whatever of it was still standing after its god Zorgazor, the gigantic tyrannosaurus, had gone on his mad rampage ….

  Without appearing to do so, he took every opportunity to overhear the conversation between his three captors, and to watch and study their every move. The youth and his jungle sweetheart were obviously madly in love: they walked along the jungle trail holding hands, murmuring endearments in low tones to each other, paying little heed to anything else. It was safe enough for Xask to dismiss them from his mind, for they were a million miles away, and would not have noticed whether he and Murg were in the vicinity or not.

  Niema was something else, an unknown factor in his wily calculations. He tried to draw her out with seemingly innocent questions, but she replied in short, brusque terms and his attempts at conversation soon lapsed. The beautiful black woman intrigued, fascinated, even mystified the vizier, for her Presence indicated the existence of an unknown race in Zanthodon which he had hitherto never encountered.

  Since she or the Cro-Magnon youngsters made no reference to how she had come to be with them, or even mentioned Zuma, she remained a mystery to Xask. But that her woodcraft and wariness were of the first order, he was quick to note. She and she alone was the one whose vigilance he must elude.

  But even Niema must, at times, sleep. And it was for that Xask waited patiently-that or some unforeseeable interruption which might afford him the opportunity to escape from his captors.

  His moment came even quicker than Xask could have hoped.

  One moment they were striding alone, single-filed, through the jungle aisle, with Niema at the front, Xask and Murg in the middle, and Jorn and Yualla in the rear, when it happened.

  The whiff of sulphur visited their nostrils, cutting through the rank odors of jungle flowers, rotting leaves, rancid mud.

  The the earth jumped under their feet.

  As a horse quivers her hide to dislodge an annoying fly, the ground trembled underfoot. Was it an earthquake, or the ponderous, stalking tread of some mighty predator?

  Jorn gasped; Yualla cried out in fear; Murg screeched-

  The earth shuddered violently underfoot! Noise roared in their ears, as trees came crashing down, tearing through brush and clinging branches, to thump against the shivering earth.

  Niema stood, arms akimbo, legs wide, feet braced against the violence of the quake.

  A Jurassic conifer broke in half, and toppled toward her.

  Jorn yelped and sprang to pull the frozen girl aside.

  And Xask whipped about and plunged into the thick brush, with Murg at his very heels.

  Chapter 14. FIRE MOUNTAIN SPEAKS

  When Kairadine Redbeard and Zarys of Zar awoke, it was to find the whole world changed about them.

  To put it simply, they were in love.

  The Empress of Zar had never known a man like Kairadine and could hardly have dreamed that such a man existed. For the men of her race were either oily-tongued, self-seeking courtiers, ready to flatter and lie and bribe to achieve their ends, or cruel, clever men of greed and ambition. The Prince of the Barbary Pirates, in contrast to the men she had known, was a bold and swaggering buccaneer, accustomed to taking by force that which he desired, and holding it by the strength and skill of his sword arm and the daring and cunning of his mind.

  Zarys had never been taken by force before, and found she rather liked it. The smooth, diminutive, effete lovers she had known she had felt contempt for; now, at last, she met a strong man rather like herself … but even stronger.

  All that was woman within her-and Zarys was quite a lot of woman-gloried in that fact.

  As for Kairadine, he had known complaisant slave women and docile harem girls before, but the pride and courage and fierce independence of Darya of Thandar had totally captivated him. And here was a woman even more proud and courageous and filled with an even fiercer sense of independence, who so closely resembled Darya that he had for a time mistaken the one for the other.

  Their lovemaking the night before had been wild and furious, he had been tireless and rough while she had been insatiable, matching him lust for lust. It had been a night of passion such as neither had ever experienced before, or could ever forget.

  What, then, was to be the future direction of their lives together? For apart neither of them ever wished to be again.

  After the first meal of the day, they discussed the situation honestly, each telling the other of their station in life, and describing the way of life they were each accustomed to.

  “Let us make our way back across the plains and through the mountains to the Scarlet City, my beloved,” Zarys urged. “You will find my city in ruins, but a strong man of will and decision such as you are will take command and soon put things to rights again! We shall rule side by side thereafter, for I will share the throne of Zar with you, and I will bear you lusty sons and healthy daughters to carry on our line into the unknown future.”

  The Redbeard was strongly tempted, but he had his own kingdom to consider.

  “Let us return instead to El-Cazar, my beloved,” he suggested. “There we will rebuild my corsair fleet, and rule over a lawless realm of piracy and loot and rapine, and I will lay at your feet the plunder of many tribes and towns.”

  His injured ankle by now much less painful, they continued the discussion while journeying into the north along the shore.

  When we see them last, dwindling into the distance, they are still talking about it. And here I must shamefacedly confess that I do not know the ending of their tale, for I have no way of knowing whether they returned to the Scarlet City of Zar or to the pirate stronghold of El-Cazar.

  Perhaps they visited both; they may even have welded the two realms together into a maritime empire similar to the seagoing ancient Crete from which Zar had sprung.

  I do not know. But they had found each other, and were in love, and never troubled Zanthodon again, or at least, not the part of it that I am familiar with … .

  So farewell to the jealous and imperious Zarys of Zar, and to the ferocious and lusty descendant of Khair ud-Din of Algiers! The gods who rule our fates devised a cunning and fitting punishment for these two magnificent villains-They got married.

  When the males guarding the browsing herd of grymps broke into a thunderous charge and headed straight for the tribes of Thandar and Sothar, who had by now fully emerged from the jungles, neither Garth of Sothar nor Tharn of Thandar had an easy solution to their problem.

  The two Cro-Magnon chiefs had both faced grymps before, while hunting on the wide plains of their homelands, and knew the monstrous triceratops for a fearful opponent. Armored in their tough and leathery hide, the heavy brutes were all but unkillable: neither spear nor arrow nor sling missile could pierce those hides, and the skulls of the grymps, armored beneath thick shields of horny bone, were unreachable by any weapon known to their armory.

  Indeed, the only time I have known a grymp to be killed, in my own experience while wandering through the jungles and swamps of Zanthodon, was when one had the Professor and me treed, and was attacked by a mammoth which outweighed it by a half a dozen tons or more. The thantor broke the back of the triceratops, and if Garth or Tharn could possibly have conjured up a thantor out of empty air at that moment, probably they would have done so. But no thantors were in evidence; there is never a wo
olly mammoth around when you really need one, it seems!

  The two chiefs uttered quick words of command. While the woman and children, the aged and injured of the two tribes sought refuge behind the close-set trees which stood at the fringes of the jungle country, the warriors sprang forward, with leveled spears, whose butts they wedged into the earth so that their points were aimed at the charging bulls.

  It was a flimsy sort of defense, but the best that could be managed, under the circumstances.

  One of the older, more experienced scouts stood near the place where the two chiefs had taken their stand. He was a man named Komad of Thandar, the best scout I had ever known, not including Zuma and Aziru.

  “Like all beasts of the swamp or the plain, my Omads;” said the older man quietly, “the grymp fears fire.

  Mayhap we can ignite the meadow grass and drive them away from our position in that manner.”

  Garth squatted gingerly, one hand nursing his nearly healed wound, the other hand testing the grass. He raised wet fingers into view, needing no words to tell that a recent rain had dampened the turf beyond any chance of setting it afire.

  “They are almost upon us,” growled Tharn, briefly glad that his daughter Darya had agreed to take refuge in the woods with the other noncombatants. “Stand ready, my warriors!”

  But there was no need, as things turned out.

  I have already mentioned the Fire Mountain, as the tribes called it, which stood not far off to the eastern end of the swampy plain.

  Even in that same moment as the furious bull grymps came thundering down upon the line of Cro-Magnon warriors, who knelt with flimsy spears leveled in a futile attempt at defense-the earth jumped.

  A ball of whirling crimson fire exploded from the blacklipped crater atop the active volcano.

  It disintegrated into a shower of crimson sparks and a thick plume of inky, sulphurous smoke.

  Another jet of fire roared from the mountain peak as from the fiery throat of a furnace. The sky darkened with thickening haze of drifting smoke. Sparks fell like burning hail.

  The earth cracked open.

  As rivulets of blazing molten lava trickled down the stony slopes of the sides of Fire Mountain, a black crack zigzagged down the slope and across the plain, accompanied by a subterranean noise, a growling and grumbling as if the Earth Giants were stirring wrathfully in their age-old slumbers.

  The stampeding bull triceratops veered off nervously as the ground trembled violently underfoot. The black mouth of a yawning chasm opened before them. Hissing clouds of live steam and whirling dust geysered forth in their very snouts.

  The crevice shuddered, its edges crumbling. Then the earth groaned again, and the opening widened.

  The foremost of the bulls could not stop in time and hurtled, squealing like steam whistles over the brink, to fall into the unknown depths.

  Tharn steadied himself as the ground bucked and quivered violently underfoot. Trees tore up their roots and toppled slowly to thump the earth. Zomaks fled the treetops, squawking raucously.

  The sky darkened under veils of inky smoke. The smell of brimstone was heavy on the air.

  The mountain shuddered and belched fire again. A weird rain of hot ash and burning embers floated down upon the plain.

  The bulls halted at the edge of the crevasse, snorting and blowing nervously. Soon they heard the squealing of their calves, the frightened lowing of the cows, and turned around to trot back to rejoin the main body of the herd. In time, they moved off across the plain, putting as much distance as they could between their females and young and the burning mountain.

  Garth and Thandar looked at each other and grinned in relief.

  Then they turned to regard the black opening in the earth. It traversed the entire length of the plain like a great moat. From lip to crumbling lip it was thirty feet across in places, but nowhere in the range of their vision was it less than half that width.

  There was no way to cross it.

  Which meant there was no way for them to continue their journey into the south.

  Riven by earthquakes is the Underground World, where the ground shudders to the convulsions of hidden volcanic fires and the skies are often black with the smoke of fountaining lava.

  Zanthodon, in this instance, had protected its tribes of blond savages from the beasts of the plain.

  But it had also marooned them very many leagues from their homeland.

  And there was nothing they could do about it.

  Chapter 15. FANGS OF DOOM

  With strong and steady strokes, Hurok and Apeman and his mate, Gorah of Kor, plied the crude wooden paddles that propelled their dugout canoe across the misty waters of the underground sea of Sogar-Jad.

  Behind them, the mountainous island of Ganadol was gradually lost in the fog’s that mantled the surface of the subterranean ocean. Neither was sorry to see the rocky isle fade from vision astern. To Hurok, the isle of the cave country teemed with enemies; to Gorah, it held few friends. And, while the savage Neanderthal maiden viewed her future life among the panjani with fear and trepidation, she relied upon the wisdom and the strength of her mighty mate, and was more than willing to let the future take care of itself.

  The straits which separated the rocky shores of the island from the mainland of Zanthodon were not wide, neither were they lashed by storms or heavy waves, but they were the hunting grounds of many of the fearsome monsters of the deep. For this reason, then, the two Neanderthals rowed with all the strength they could command, to lessen the time they must spend exposed to the elements.

  From time to time, Hurok cast a searching glance behind him. He did not really fear that any pursuit would be attempted, for he knew that the Apemen were lurking about the boat which he had beached upon the southern shores of the island, waiting for him to return. It would be a certain space of time before the bodies of the males he and Gorah had slain would be found, and even longer before it would be discovered that one of the dugouts was missing from the place-of-boats. By then, he knew, Hurok and his mate would have safely arrived upon the mainland and would be well beyond the vengeance of Kor.

  A stifled shriek from Gorah roused the Apeman from his reverie.

  He growled, bristled, swerved his gaze forward to where his mate crouched shivering. Her fear-frozen stare was fixed on the steamy waters to one side of the boat.

  The waves boiled-parted-revealing the long beaklike snout of a marine monster. Hurok flinched and glared: a huge, jagtoothed spine rose above the waves, clove the floating veils of mist, then submerged again with scarce a ripple to show that it had ever been. But Hurok knew he had not dreamed the sight.

  At a glance, he knew the creature for an aurogh, although it had been long ago in his youth that he had last seen one. In a flash, the memory returned to him: a fishing fleet upon the Sogar-Jad, when he and other Drugar cubs were being taught the skills of the sea by grizzled oldster. The scaly monster had overturned the boats, snapping up squealing cubs … it was a memory of such horror to Hurok, that even now he swore and flinched therefrom.

  As well he might. From the description, Professor Potter identified the aurogh as none other than a monster saurian of the prehistoric seas called the ichthyosaur. Save for its long, beaklike snout, the ichthyosaur resembled a supershark, forty feet from snout to tail, and every inch of that forty feet crammed with mindless hunger and ferocity. One of the most deadly predators of the ancient oceans was the aurogh, and from the Triassic to the early Cretaceous, it was monarch of the waves.

  Thank God, only here in the prehistoric seas of Zanthodon the Underground World did such a maritime monstrosity still live and flourish ….

  “Is it gone?” whispered Gorah, shuddering. Hurok shrugged.

  “I do not know,” he growled briefly. “Grab your oar-and row!”

  They rowed, crouched low above the gunnels of the dugout, putting all of the strength of their heavily muscled backs and shoulders into the effort. Ahead
of them, across a stretch of foggy waters, the dim line that marked the shores of the mainland was vaguely visible-so near, and yet so far, as the saying goes.

  Fixing their gaze upon that tantalizingly near line of tree-fringed darkness, the two Korians bent their backs.

  It was not enough.

  Suddenly, a vast force stirred beneath them. Briefly, the waters boiled to foam about the craft. Then it lifted suddenly into the air-and was flung afar!

  The ichthyosaur had arisen a second time from the deeps of the Sogar-Jad-directly beneath the keel of their dugout-and had flung the craft into the air as a rising whale might do, coming up for air under a whaling boat.

  Hurok was thrown clear, the paddle flying from his hand. He whirled like an ungainly bird through the foggy air, and came down to smash into the surface of the underground ocean with shocking impact. It was what we used to call a belly-whopper, and the impact when he struck the water’s surface was more than enough to knock the air out of him.

  Gasping for breath, with wide eyes he saw the foaming waters close over his head as he sank like a stone, kicking and struggling. Warm water seeped past clenched jaws and stubbornly shut lips, to choke and burn his throat. Floundering with massive arms,, kicking violently, Hurok rose to the surface again.

  As his head broke the waves, he flung back wet hair from reddened eyes and gulped air into starved lungs.

  Nowhere could he spy Gorah, his mate.

  Hurok gulped air and let himself sink beneath the waves again, reaching out with long arms to clutch and grasp.

  He could not swim, could Hurok.

  And neither could Gorah, his mate … .

  We moved through the jungle, my comrades and I, following the tracks left by the twin tribes. We knew that they were not, could not be, very far ahead of us, and that very soon we would catch up with the rear guard of the host.