by Lin Carter
There on the slippery arch of rock, he fought the blind river-dragon amidst the dark cave. His singing blade batted the head to one side, slashing cheek and jowl and cataract-white eye with a wound that oozed green reptilian gore.
The gray poa of the black river hissed like a steam-vent and struck at him, half-mad with pain, fanged jaws clashing in mid-air as Thongor ducked. He sprang to one side, almost losing his footing on the slick, wet stone, and swung the hissing blade with all the force of his mighty arms and back and shoulders behind the blow.
Fanged jaws still clashing madly, the severed head feel into the river to one side of the arch of rock, while the weaving neck, its stump spouting gore, slid into the rushing torrent on the other side.
Thongor caught up with the still-flopping corpse of the river-dragon a bit further downstream, where it had wedged between two stalagmites. It was tough work, cutting through the heavy scaly hide of the giant lizard, but hunger goaded him on, and ere long, Thongor had carved several huge slabs of meat, which he washed in the rushing water until they were drained of blood.
The next cavern was another volcanic place, this time with bubbling pools of lava instead of spouting geysers of jetting flame. After a little experimenting, he found the steaks could be satisfactorily cooked by being laid on the very edge of the bubbling ponds of sluggish, cherry-red molten rock.
He devoured his first hearty meal in untold hours with an appetite that would have flattered the chef in his palace back in Patanga. He found the dragon-steak delicious. The meat was firm and juicy, and only slightly flavored of musk. It was the first time he had ever chanced to eat dragon, and he was happy to discover it did not taste at all as foul and slimy as one might imagine.
After the meal, he curled up in the warmth of the lava-pool and slept as soundly as only a tired man with a full belly can sleep. And woke, hours later, to go forward again through the maze of catacombs and tunnels. . . .
Something was following him. It had been following him for an hour or so; at least, his first suspicions of pursuit had come an hour past.
A distant rustling, slithering sound, slow and continuous, as of some creature dragging an enormous weight over rough stone. He did not pause to wait for his unknown pursuer to catch up to him, nor did he linger so as to catch a glimpse of the rustling, slithering thing that followed him through the gulfs. He continued on at the greatest speed he could attain, hoping that which followed him would leave the trail.
He came out on an upper gallery of a gigantic domed cavern whose walls and arched roof were stained with a weird blue light that seemed to come from winking, glittering veins of some unknown mineral studding the dark rock.
The ledge whereon he stood was some score of yards above the cavern floor, and the wall was sheer and smooth. But the rustling, crawling sounds were louder and louder behind him, and the grim Valkarthan reckoned that whatever was on his trail was gaining on him fast. There was no time to loiter here on this flimsy ledge. However dangerous and difficult the descent looked, he must chance it, and soon—or find himself trapped on the protruding lip of rock, facing an unknown and bestial attacker, with a sheer fall of empty air at his back.
With Thongor, to think was to act. He dropped prone on the ledge, seizing knobs of rock, and swung himself over, seeking with booted toes a foothold on the smooth cavern wall. He found a block of weathered stone which would support his weight—but not for long—and swung down to it, leather boots sliding treacherously on the smooth, worn rock. He doubled himself up, wrapping his arms about the block, and again swung his feet loose, wedged them sideways in a slit of rock. Then he reached out, hands fumbling over the smooth rockface, searching for a handhold. The slithering, scraping sound was very loud now, and with it came a slimy stench of unbearable foulness . . . the nauseous fetor of decayed slime he had first smelled when falling into this hell-world of nightmare caverns, untold hours or days before!
He looked up as bits of crumbling rock sprinkled down on his back and shoulders, to see what had dislodged the debris from the ledge above . . . and the very blood froze in his veins with primal awe and superstitious dread!
Slithering out and over the ledge a dozen feet above him as he clung to the wall of rock was a head of gelatinous, lucent and flabby matter that reeked of slime—the head of a gigantic, blind, loathsome and terrible Worm whose length was incalculable, but whose maw, which gaped to pluck him like a fly from the wall, was a dozen feet across!
Clinging helplessly against the face of the wall, Thongor could not reach or draw his sword.
A fluid length of jelly-like substance flowed from the tunnel’s mouth, as more of the Worm’s stupendous length inched out upon the ledge. The blind, gaping-mouthed head swung down toward him.
CHAPTER 11
IN THE JAWS OF THE WORM - GOD
Wide, gaping jaws before him loom—
Cold steel hacks through its hellish face!
Yet naught deters the Crawling Doom,
Nor slows its steady, creeping pace. . . .
He battles on as in a trance,
Yet it ignores the bite of steel.
How halt its slithering advance,
How kill a Thing that cannot feel?
—Thongor’s Saga, XVII, 17-18.
All day, Shangoth moved south across the endless plains in quest of the Zodaki warriors who had seized the Lord Thongor and carried him away from the midst of his comrades. The faithful Rmoahal ran at a steady, loping pace that devoured the miles—a pace no man less powerful than the superbly muscled young Titan could have endured for a fraction of that time without collapsing in exhaustion. Yet the enormous, steely thews of the eight-foot-tall blueskinned giant propelled him on and on as tirelessly as a mighty engine.
He knew the Zodaki would bear their captive into the walls of immemorial Yb, the City of the Worm, and he ran unerringly toward the ruined city, guided by that strange seventh sense of direction known only to the warriors of his great race. This uncanny mental compass was Nature’s protection for her Rmoahal children: without an infallible sense of direction, they would easily become lost and wander until death found them, helpless amidst the countless leagues of flat and grassy steppes. Thus, although guided by no visible signs, nor even conscious of the inward promptings that guided his path, the stalwart Prince of the Jegga Horde flew like an arrow across the leagues of yellow grass towards distant Yb.
He paused several times to rest his mighty thews and refresh himself with a few bites from his supplies and a long drink from the waterskin that dangled from his girdle—standard war equipment of his people, who were pitted in continuous and never-ending conflict with their many foes from the hour of birth, and thus never left the shelter of their camp without each his store of food and drink.
By near evening, he came to a full stop.
Ahead of him and to the left, a monstrous zamph prowled restlessly through the long golden grasses. It was a young bull weighing about four tons, and from the looks of him he was in need of water, for he wandered stumblingly, swinging his great head from side to side as if tormented with thirst, or with some stinging pain he could not assuage. Strapped to its mighty back, the zamph bore a huge saddle ornate with gems and emblazonings. From the markings, scarcely visible through the failing light, Shangoth recognized this as one of the saddle beasts the Jegga escort had ridden when they went forth with the Lord Thongor to seek the Hills of the Thunder-Crystals. The beasts had fled when they were attacked by the invisible warriors of the Zodak Horde. This one had wandered far, and Shangoth was delighted to encounter him, for the zamph could greatly speed and shorten his journey to distant Yb,
The young warrior ran forward lightly, sounding the shrill call with which the Jegga summon their beasts. The zamph seemed to recognize the signal he had been trained to obey; however, he did not trot forward to receive a rider as he should. Instead, head lolling sluggishly, the great zamph planted all four stumpy legs wide and stood waiting, brow lowered so that the keen horn
that thrust like a sword of bone from between his eyes, pointed directly at Shangoth.
The prince did not have time to question this peculiar response, for as he ran up to the beast it swerved and charged directly at him with its earth-shaking tread drumming on the plain like a mighty drumbeat. And then it was he saw the black arrow that protruded from one gory eye-socket of the beast’s pain-tormented head, and knew a chance shaft had struck the helpless animal and had driven it mad with agony.
And then Shangoth knew no more—a tremendous engine of pure destruction struck him with a terrific blow that lifted him from the earth and flung his blood-splashed senseless body a dozen yards away, to thud against the earth like a trampled, broken toy.
Thongor clung helplessly to the sheer rock wall as the blind, questing head of the Devilworm came swinging down to his level. Its sphincter-like maw gaped to rip him from the wall. The fetid breath of the incredible monster blew like a stinking wind about him, rank with centuries of decaying slime. The black jaws gaped for his body, dripping with a loathsome saliva.
He knew it for a xuth—one of the enormous and dreaded giant worms that inhabit the moldering catacombs below the Lemurian cities. He had seen and battled against its kind six years before, in the caverns below Thurdis, when he and Ald Turmis had made a desperate escape from the hands of Thalaba the Destroyer. But this thing was vaster than belief . . . huge and swollen with unnatural growth beyond all comprehension! The xuth are enormous blind and slug-like worms of slithering foulness that haunt the deepest and blackest depths. They seize their prey in the gulping maw which sucks the victim down into a tube lined with gland-sacs which secrete a corrosive, organic acid-like digestive fluid. The dissolved flesh of the prey then penetrates the cell-walls by osmosis. The xuth are very primitive life-forms. Devoid of brain or sense-organs beyond a rudimentary sense of smell, and lacking heart or vulnerable organs or even a highly developed nervous system, they are virtually unkillable, since their slimy, gelatinous amoeboid bodies possess no sensitivity to pain and no vital spots.
These thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, as he clung helplessly to the wall. He felt a moment of black and terrible despair that he could not draw sword to defend himself—to let go of the wall with even one hand would have dislodged him from his hold. But perhaps it was better to fall to a swift, clean death on the rocky floor below, than end in the loathsome belly of the giant worm-thing of the pits. . . .
It struck like a bolt of lightning.
The sphincter-jaws closed about his legs, and he sank into the rubbery, working mouth of the hideous Hellworm!
The light of day vanished. Jelly-like substance enveloped his body. His bare flesh stung painfully as the drooling saliva bubbled over his limbs and chest, burning like hot venom. He could feel the rippling peristaltic action as the xuth began to swallow him down the noisome, slimy channel of its throat.
It was the grimmest and most terrible moment of his entire life . . . and doubtless it would be the last.
The world swung madly about, and blood thundered in Thongor’s congested temples as the stupendous Worm slithered down the side of the vertical cliff! His senses were reeling from lack of air. He opened his eyes, ignoring the stinging slime, and saw a feeble reddish gleam of the fire-fountains that pitted the cavern-floor. Their blaze penetrated the glassy, translucent flesh of the monster worm. Thongor knew he must breathe—or die.
Almost without thinking-—as if the terror of the moment triggered deep within him some primal automatic survival mechanism—he tore one hand free from the sucking blubber and ripped his great sword from its scabbard with a surge of iron thews. The space within the worm-thing’s gullet was too constricted to swing the blow—he lunged weakly forward and let the keen point of the cold steel slice and tear through the jellied, slimy plasmoid throat!
Fresh air and stronger light!
The sword-point had slashed through the thin wall of flesh in the throat. Thongor kicked and struggled mightily, sucking in the clean air, slashing the wound and stretching the orifice wider. Now the slithering thing had gained the cavern-floor. With a mighty burst of exertion, Thongor ripped and tore his way out of the monster, and staggered, shaken to the depths of his soul, but—free!
He sagged limply against the base of the cliff and vomited. He was befouled with slime from head to toe, and he stank abominably. But he yet lived, and had done what no mortal man had done from the beginning of time until this hour—cut his way out of the swallowing throat of a devouring monster!
The unthinkably huge worm-thing loomed near, wriggling past with a slow contracting and expanding rhythm. The tremendous wound his sword had made gaped hideously in its throat, leaking a vile and oily greenish ooze, yet the beast felt no pain—did not even seem to notice the four-foot-long wound carved in its flesh!
But in some occult manner, the foul thing sensed his nearness. The blind, eyeless head swung slowly towards him and the drooling sphincter worked slobberingly.
He ran some way out into the center of the vast cavern, hoping to outdistance the slow-moving and mindless thing. But when he looked back, the huge, slithering monster of the depths was crawling after him in ponderous and inexorable pursuit.
Weak, sick, shaken, Thongor yet turned to fight the worm-thing. He swung a terrific back-handed blow with the full strength of his mighty shoulders—a blow that would have disemboweled a full-grown zamph! It laid open a great slash of the worm’s jelly-like flesh. A flap of half-severed worm-meat hung wobbling, like a huge slab of translucent stinking gelatin. And although the ghastly wound ran with watery green slime-blood, the monster yet advanced upon him tirelessly, as remorseless as doom itself. Thongor fought on, slashing it about the face.
One wound laid open the ring of muscle that worked the maw’s contracting sphincter. The rubbery valve-muscle was cut through and the mouth hung open, powerless to close—but even that wound caused the xuth no pain!
He dodged around a stalagmite thick as a tree-trunk and gained the very center of the cavern, momentarily outdistancing the huge but sluggish creature. And there before him rose a grim object. A huge cube of dull black stone, marked with uncouth glyphs in some lost, forgotten tongue. He blinked at it curiously, noticing how its surface was befouled with reeking slime and stained with enormous grisly splotches of black, caked, dry blood. Something crunched underfoot and he glanced down. The floor about the black cube was littered with bones and human skulls—dry and yellow, and curiously smooth, as if eaten by some powerful acid. . . .
Slowly, comprehension dawned within him, and his weary face hardened grimly. Here it was the depraved and soulless Zodaki worshipped their Devil-God, the Titanic Worm! Revulsion gripped him. He could picture all too clearly the thousands of naked, screaming victims chained helpless on that grisly altar while chanting beasts in human form summoned to its nameless feast the loathly worm!
He turned. The xuth was still coming after him, and between him and it was only an intermittent geyser of flaming gas, now quiescent.
His lips spread in a fighting grin, for now he knew the way. Instead of fleeing further, he walked toward the oncoming worm. Cold steel had failed to halt the Worm-God’s slow advance—his keen wits might yet prove sharper than his sword’s glittering edge! He took a stand on the lip of the smoking well. The blind, drooling visage of the xuth stared at him only a dozen yards away. He tried to recall how long it had been since last he had noticed the geyser spurt—ah!
Even as he had dared to hope, the Worm-God lifted its squirming body into the air and arched above the silent, smoking pit to swoop down on him. He sprang backwards hastily, and fell stumbling to his knees as the immense shadow of the Worm’s head fell across him. Then a wave of searing heat baked his bare arms as he sprawled. A hideous crackling, frying sound thundered in his ears. He rolled over on his back and looked upon a sight to freeze the marrow of a man’s soul.
The Hellworm had arched its titanic length across the small blackened pit, the head ques
ting slowly from side to side, hanging above the ground. And the geyser flamed! A tremendous jet of white-hot flame squirted up, catching the worm’s arched length in the full force of its fiery fountain!
As he watched, the flesh sizzled, roasting in the blast, burning like a stupendous living torch. The slimy, watery, amoeboid flesh of the age-old Worm-God shriveled—blackened, flaking away in seconds—and burned, as some flammable element in its vile- flesh ignited.
Wrapped in a sheath of flame, the hundred-foot worm writhed and struggled madly on the stone floor of the vast cavern. Now it felt pain in very truth. Even while the searing flame ate inward, it slithered and writhed in an insane fury of mindless and unendurable agony!
Thongor watched with somber eyes as the monstrous xuth died.
Beyond the cavern of the altar, he found yet another of the underground streams and bathed his sore, aching body in the icy waters, gladly cleansing the foul slime from his flesh. Then he went on, intending to forge ahead so long as strength endured within his body.
He did not get far.
As he passed a side-tunnel, a flashing movement in the gloom of the tunnel’s mouth caught his eye. A globe of thin glass flashed in the light to splinter to fragments at his feet.
A vaporous cloud of perfumed blue powder swirled up to envelope him before he could move.
Without thinking, he drew a breath—drew the narcotic dust into his lungs. And strength ebbed from his limbs. He fell forward into a spreading pool of whirling blackness and lay like a dead thing.
A portion of the shadow detached itself from the mouth of the tunnel and resolved into a tall man in robes of midnight black, hooded and visored from view.
It was the Black Archdruid, Mardanax of Zaar!
