by Lin Carter
The arena is a great amphitheatre ringed about with stone benches, and built up against the cliff-wall on whose top the palace citadel rises. The Pits, as the dungeon cells are known, lie beneath the floor of the arena, much like the ones tourists see in the ruins of the Roman Coliseum.
And I can guarantee they are just about as uncomfortable.
CHAPTER 27
THE PROFESSOR DECIDES
Interminable though they seemed, the sewers beneath the Scarlet City of Zar must end…this Hurok and the warriors knew; but it seemed as if they had been crawling through the fetid subterranean passageways for an abnormal length of time.
The darkness was penetrated only by the feeble, flickering rays of light cast by their torches, which burned poorly in the vitiated, moist air of the sewers. At no point along the tunnels had it ever been possible for the little band to stand erect, so they were forced to progress in a stooping position, half bent over. At times, the tunnel narrowed and the arched ceiling closed down so closely that they were forced to crawl on hands and knees.
By this time, they were all heartily sick of the experience. But there was nothing else to do but to trudge grimly on, trying to ignore the claustrophobic closeness and the stench.
After a time, the tunnels angled steeply upwards and it seemed to the Apeman of Kor that they must be nearer street level. The air became no fresher, neither did the black gloom of their surroundings lighten, but the primitive senses of the great Neanderthal told him that they were near the surface.
The others sensed it, too. No less primitive in such respects was Neanderthal than Cro-Magnon; the senses of both had been honed to keenness by the harsh struggle for survival in the jungle wilderness of savage Zanthodon.
“O Hurok,” muttered Varak from ahead, “it seems that we are coming to the end of this warren.”
“Hurok senses it, too,” grunted the Apeman. The others felt their nearness to the street level, and their sodden spirits lifted.
“It will be a pleasure to leave these filthy holes in the ground, and fight face-to-face with the foe in the clear light of day!” said Erdon with an eagerness in his voice they all shared.
“And the fresh air of the open sky,” chuckled the irrepressible Varak. “Do not forget the fresh air!”
“I have almost forgotten what it smelled like, in this vile place,” returned Erdon.
“Save your breath for climbing,” advised the Neanderthal in his heavy tones. “It gets a lot steeper here—”
And, indeed, it did. From just ahead of their present position, the tunnel rose almost vertically, obviously almost at its end. Ascending the steep incline, Hurok blinked above, awed at the glimmer of daylight now clearly visible beyond another barred grating similar to the one they had pried free to enter the sewers.
“How do we get up that?” muttered Warza, indicating the vertical rise. Hurok shrugged.
“As we ascended the wall of the mountain,” he growled. “We climb!”
And climb they did. Fortunately, ages of running water had crumbled and washed away the mortar between most of the great blocks of stone, and these interstices afforded them handholds and toeholds. But the throat of the sewer tunnel was slimy and very slipppery. They began to climb slowly and with much care, after falling a few times.
At length Hurok, who had taken the lead, reached the barred grating which covered the opening. So dazzled were his dim little eyes by the unaccustomed brilliance that he could make out little of the scene which awaited beyond the grating. He caught the blurred impression of noise and tumult and movement, although he could not at once make out anything in clear detail.
Bracing his splayed feet and wedging his burly shoulders against the throat of the tunnel, he clasped the iron grill in his great hands and heaved with a mighty surge of strength.
Incrustations of rust and filth groaned, cracked, flaked—gave way. The grill he thrust aside, crawling upward to hook his elbows over the brink of the opening; he emerged, cramped and filthy and sore in many muscles, to clamber to his feet and blink about him in the light of day.
One by one, his warriors emerged from the sewer to group behind him.
As his dazzled vision cleared, Hurok peered ahead and saw two things that astounded him.
One of these was the one person in all of Zanthodon whom he most wished to see.
The other was a titanic monster such as he had never seen, even in his most horrendous nightmares.…
* * * *
Sadly watching Cromus and his bravoes march the girl and me off to face the judgment of Zarys, Professor Percival P. Potter heaved a heart-deep sigh, and returned gloomily to his work.
The elderly scientist had no way of guessing what would be the fate of his young friend, but he somberly feared the worst. Cromus he knew to be a vindictive, jealous bully and coward, who envisioned Eric Carstairs as a rival for the love of the Divine Empress of Zar. And now that same Cromus had me where he wanted me!
Hours later, during the sleep period, the old man tossed and turned, unable to still the tumult of his thoughts. My words had pierced him to the heart, showing him the frivolous nature of his scientific curiosity, and the tremendous danger which his reinventing of gunpowder presented to the world of our Cro-Magnon friends. Guiltily, he cursed his avid quest for knowledge and the fascination which Xask’s challenge had awakened in him.
All that “night” he wrestled with his conscience. To stop work on the project now would be futile, for already the gunbarrels were forged and the crude black powder, although still undergong purification, was already perfectly usable. Even if the Professor stubbornly declined to continue his work on the weapons, the master smiths and artisans could carry it through to fruition without him.
After breakfast, while being escorted to the workshop, he continued moodily puzzling over the few courses of action which were available to him, striving to choose the one true action which would redeem him in his own eyes, if not in those of Eric Carstairs.
“Greetings, O wise one!” the master artisan Phorias hailed him as he entered the busy workshop. Absently, the Professor returned the greeting.
“The Goddess has requested to know how much longer it will be before the thunder-weapons are ready for use in training her troops,” Phorias informed him. The Professor shrugged gloomily and muttered something or other.
“She desires to know, because on the morrow all of Zar will be in the great arena for the Great Games and the worship of the God.…”
“Oh, ah?” mumbled the Professor, not really paying much attention. A gleam of malice flickered in the shrewd eyes of the bald, olive-hued artisan.
“Yes! And you should be there, as well, for on the morrow your youthful companion walks forth alone to face the God,” he added suavely.
The Professor snapped out of his moodiness as if struck in the face. He stared at the other man, his old heart pounding.
“What’s that you say?” he demanded fearfully. “Eric!—the dear boy? To ‘face the God’—what God?”
“Mighty Zorgazon, the Supreme God of Zar, to whom the Divine Zarys herself is bride and sacred consort,” replied the other.
Blinking rapidly, the Professor strove to recall if he had ever heard of this Zorgazon before. He knew that the Zarians worshipped a male divinity, of course, but had paid little attention to the matter. And now it seemed to the old savant that he was going to have to stand idly by and watch Eric Carstairs sacrificed to some hideous idol or other.…
“Get about your work and leave me to my computations,” he rasped irritably, waving the other man away. With a polite smile, which was almost a mocking sneer, Phorias saluted and returned to supervising the purification of the gunpowder.
* * * *
All the rest of that endless day, Professor Potter grimly wrestled with his consci
ence. That he must do something to eradicate the evil he had caused was perfectly obvious; exactly what to do was the problem.
And now, as if this weren’t enough to struggle with, yet another problem had intruded. He must do whatever was humanly possible to rescue his young friend from these cold-hearted fiends.… He would never be able to sleep easily again, if he were forced to sit idly by and watch Eric Carstairs offered up as a human sacrifice to some Cretan idol.
Toward the end of that day, a notion occurred to him. Promptly, he dispatched a guard to request a certain object from Xask, the Empress’s counselor, who was theoretically in charge of the manufacturing of the thunder-weapon.
His request was couched in cunningly phrased language which seemed, on the surface, casual and insignificant. But Potter knew the shrewdness of Xask, and feared mightily that even this innocuous request might arouse the suspicions of Xask and alert him to what the Professor was planning.
Fortunately, Xask was attending upon the Empress at her court, and one of his servants complied with the request. The guard returned with a small object wrapped in white silk, which the Professor hastily concealed beneath his garments.
Later, as the workmen and smiths left, the Professor lingered behind, pretending to be busied with a few last details. Once he was alone and unobserved—except, of course, for the guards who waited at the entrance to escort him back to his apartments—he set about his work hastily but with great care.
Breaking open one of the wooden casks of gunpowder, the Professor poured a gritty trail of shining black particles on the floor. The line began at the stack of kegs which held all of the gunpowder thus far produced, and ended at the front door of the workroom. From there, out of direct view of anyone at the door, the professor produced a length of tallow-soaked twine. One end he inserted into a small heap of the black powder, at the end of the trail, and the other end he extended across the floor into a far corner of the room.
The Professor had earlier planned to use just such twine in the nature of a fuse, when he had conceived of a slightly different design for his weapons. Through experimentation, he had learned exactly how slowly the tallow-impregnated twine burns. Thus he knew to a nicety how long it would take for a spark to consume the considerable length of the twine he had stretched across the floor.
Just before leaving the workroom and locking the door, the old man struck flint and steel.
And lit the long fuse.…
CHAPTER 28
THE GREAT GAMES
Life in the Pits of the Scarlet City was about as crummy as you might suppose it would be, and the only thing that made it endurable was the knowledge that it would soon end.
Very soon. A little too soon. Our fellow captives in the Pits of Zar gloomily informed us that the Day of the Great Games was almost upon us. They certainly didn’t seem very happy about the fact, but then, they knew what was coming and I was still in a state of blissful ignorance.
I guess I suspected the Games to be on the order of gladiatorial combats—sort of a cross between The Last Days of Pompeii and the Olympics.
Shows how much I knew.…
There were two things, actually, that made the dungeons endurable. The other was the prisoners we were locked up with. For the most part, these were a surly, frightened bunch of Zarians who knew all too bloody well what was coming. They were a seedy lot—thieves, usurers, a murderer or two. Fat merchants caught counterfeiting or something. You can imagine the sort of scum.
The others, though, were former Cro-Magnon slaves condemned to the Games for one or another transgression, like refusing to whip a fellow slave to death or failing to kiss the dirt between some aristocrat’s feet.
None of these fellows was from Sothar or Thandar, although they were the same sort—stalwart, handsome, superbly built warriors with fair skins, blue eyes, and yellow hair.
They told me that their nations were Gorad and Numitor, which were to be found far to the “south”—well, they waved vaguely in what seemed to be that direction. None of them had been born in slavery, but all had been taken captive by slave raiders who periodically descended from Zar to replenish the supplies of livestock, so to speak. None of them had adjusted very well to slavery, which explained why they were here.
I liked them, especially one big blond warrior named Gundar of Gorad, who had the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen this side of my old pal, Hurok. Another man, younger and with a winningly cheerful way about him that reminded me of Varak, I also made friends with. He was of the tribe of Numitor; his name was Thon.
All told, there were about thirty Cro-Magnons chained in the Pits, awaiting the Great Games. We did a lot of talking about a plan of escape, but there really didn’t seem to be much point to it, although it helped us keep our spirits up.
Ialys clung constantly to my side. The daintily reared maiden felt lost, her life in ruins. I felt guilty, as she was being kind to me when Cromus caught me off guard, and because of helping me she found herself in this present predicament. So I took care of her the best that I could, and protected her from the men. Not the Cro-Magnons, of course, for they are courteous and chivalric gentlemen, for all that they are little more than savages—no, from the other Zarians. They would have heartily enjoyed a bit of gang-rape on their way to the Games.…
* * * *
As I have already said, we didn’t spend much time in the Pits of Zar, because the Day of the Great Games was nearly upon us. Just how nearly was anybody’s guess, in this world without time. But that “night,” just as we stretched ourselves out for some sleep, Ialys who had crept up beside me, laid her slim small hand on my shoulder.
“What is it?” I asked drowsily.
“When we awaken, Lord Eric,” the girl said solemnly, “it will be to face the God in the arena.”
“What God is that?”
“Zorgazon, who made the world,” she informed me.
“Oh, yeah?” I yawned.
Then she said something that woke me up fast enough—
With a pitiful expression in her large, beautiful eyes, the Zarian girl whispered: “Yes…when we awaken, it will be to look upon the world for the last time. For in his beast-avatar, great Zorgazon is very terrible…and on the Day of the Games, he is very hungry…farewell, Lord Eric! Soon, all our sufferings will end, and we will be at peace.…”
Then she fell asleep, cuddled at my side.
But—let me tell you—I didn’t get much sleep that night. “Gladiatorial games”—hah!
These people were going to feed us to a monster.
* * * *
We were awakened and, oddly enough, considering what was shortly to happen to us, fed an excellent meal.
“‘The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast,’” I quipped. The Cro-Magnons regarded me solemnly.
“Sorry, fellows,” I said with a feeble grin. “Joking helps to keep my spirits up!”
Thon of Numitor glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye but said nothing. My huge friend, Gundar, more grim and stolid and less mercurial than the Numitorian youth, looked at me with a certain admiration.
“It is a brave man who can jest in the very jars of due,” he rumbled. I winced.
“Please, Gundar—do you have to say things like that?” I protested. He shrugged.
“The jaws of Zorgazon are mighty jaws, Eric Carstairs. I have attended my Zarian owners in this arena many times, and have seen the monster—worshiped.”
“Let’s change the subject,” I begged. “Ialys is losing her appetite.
The girl smiled wanly, but said nothing.
In a little while they assembled us into ranks, and marched us out into the daylight. We walked across a sand-strewn floor about the size of a football stadium, and to every side rose tiers of stone benches crowded with gaily dressed Zarians in their holiday finery.
They cheered and hooted as we emerged blinking into the light.
“Looks like a full house,” I muttered to myself, trying to muster a bit of swagger into my stride.
The guards halted us in the center of the arena, and left hurriedly, closing the thick-barred gate to the Pits behind them.
In a curtained box, Zarys lolled in a glittering harness of gilded leather studded with flashing gems. To one side of her, Xask reposed, favoring me with a slight smile. To the other, Cromus sat, looking me over with a gloating, malevolent grin.
I could cheerfully have throttled him.
Beneath the royal box, a very huge door swung slowly open on ponderous hinges of solid brass, revealing the yawning mouth of a black cavern.
I put my arm about Ialys’s trembling shoulders.
Out of the gate stalked Zorgazon.
The crowd gasped and quailed. The Zarians in our little band fell to their knees, wailing and pressing their brows against the sand in abasement. The Cro-Magnons stood tall and proud…and, like myself, empty-handed. Not that any weapon this side of a howitzer would have done any good.
For the God of Zar was a gigantic tyrannosaurus rex!
* * * *
As the host of Sothar approached the entrance to the pass which led to the Scarlet City, Garth eyed without comment the gigantic dragon heads positioned to either side, hewn from the living stone of the cliffs. I had seen those very heads when Raphad and his troop had led us into the pass, and remembered that Xask had humorously referred to them as “very good likenesses” of the God of Zar. Which indeed they were.
Suddenly, Garth threw up his hand, halting the march. For his keen eyes had seen his scouts hurrying through the foothills, running with all fleetness, as if being pursued.
“Archers! Bend your bows,” rumbled Garth, hefting his long spear and loosening his war axe in its sling. The bowmen nocked their bows and held them at the ready.
