Thongor at the End of Time

by Lin Carter

  From the grinning blond giant, Thangmar, he soon learned that the fierce-eyed pirate chief, Barim Redbeard, was a kindly man at heart, his raging temper and blazing glare being most bluff and brag. He found out that Barim was a Northlander from the bleak steppes of that cold country beyond the Mountains of Mommur from whence Thongor of Valkarth had come years before. He wondered what would happen if he were to reveal the truth about Thar. Perhaps the pirate was not to be trusted with so important a secret, and the greed and lawlessness of his scarlet trade would tempt him to sell the prince to his enemy. Or perhaps the tribal kinship of the Northlander and the blood-debt between them would make him a staunch and powerful friend.

  Charn Thovis did not know which would prove the case. His inclination was to confide in the rough-talking but friendly buccaneer, and ask his aid, yet the secret was too valuable to risk lightly. For a time, the son of Thongor was entrusted to his keeping. In this lad lay the future of Patanga. Charn Thovis would not betray that trust. Without a moment’s hesitation he would give his life to shield the boy from harm. Already, he had given much for his prince—he was an outlaw, his name and honor smirched and befouled, a traitor in the eyes of those Patanganya who did not know the truth about Dalendus Vool. He would wait and bide his time and see what was to happen.

  But he must make up his mind soon. Terribly soon. For Barim Redbeard had told him what would happen to the boy and himself when they docked in the pirate port of Tarakus.

  The pirate growled and tugged fiercely at his fiery mustachios, when, near the end of their voyage, Charn Thovis summoned up enough courage to ask what he would do with them when they came to Tarakus.

  “Well, as for that, lad, the Law of the Red Brotherhood of the Sea Rovers leaves me no choice,” the captain grunted, avoiding Charn Thovis’ eye. “Kashtar, our chieftain, demands that every captive seized or rescued, be offered at the block for open bidding.”

  Charn Thovis stood silent, stunned at this knowledge; although he had dreaded their arrival and half-guessed their fate, the reality was more awful than he had dared to estimate. The Son of Thongor will become a slave, he thought with cold despair, and all because of my fumbling!

  “I’m sorry, lad,” Barim Redbeard said gruffly. “Were it up to me, I’d have you, aye, and the little lad as well, for my crew. But what can I do—even in Tarakus, the Law rules!”

  “This much I can do, and will,” the Redbeard said as Charn Thovis stood silently. “For there be a debt of blood betwixt we two, and I were no man did I not discharge it honorably. ’Tis in my mind, when you and the lad your brother stand on the block, to bid and buy the two of you. Then you can join the crew and we will be shipmates together! ’Tis no more than I owe you, Charn, for that deed you did, shielding my back with your body.”

  Charn nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was not ungrateful. He realized the extraordinary generosity in the Redbeard’s gesture. But could he stand idly by and watch Thongor’s son, the heir of Patanga, sold as a slave on the block—even though he be sold to a good friend?

  What could he do to prevent it?

  Barim Redbeard misunderstood his silence and clapped him a friendly blow on the shoulder, then turned to stride across the deck to bellow at a seaman aloft in the shrouds who was fouling a line.

  Charn Thovis wandered down amidships and found young Thar, his black mane bound up in a seaman’s red stocking-cap, a bright sash wound around his lean waist, sitting cross-legged atop a barrel watching the men dance a rude sailor’s step, lifting his clear young voice to join in the roaring chorus of a bold chantey as the corsairs cavorted upon the deck.

  He leaned against the rail and stared out over the tossing waves. White gulls circled in their wake, cawing raucously. League after league of empty blue water caught the fierce sunlight and hurled it back at the morning sky in ten thousand dancing shards of light.

  At sunset they would dock on the long quays of Tarakus

  The young chanthar cudgeled his wits to find some way of escaping from this dilemma. Search as he might, however, he could think of no answer to the problem that faced him. Every hour took Thar and himself farther and farther from the friendly cities of the upper Gulf . . . every hour took them closer and closer to the slave-pens of Taragus the Pirate City.

  There was naught that he could do to prevent it. He must bend with the tide of the times, and keep a vigilant eye open for an opportunity to help the boy escape.

  Dragon-prow lifting as it sliced through the brine, the Scimitar spread her sails full and caught the breeze, heading southward for Tarakus.

  The Fourth Book: THONGOR AMONG THE GODS

  “Thus did the Unknown One create the Nineteen Gods, even Gorm the Father of Stars and great Tryphondus, Aedir the Sungod and Tiandra the Lady of Fortune, Diomala of the Harvest and Hlana the Moon-Lady, Karchonda of the Battles, Dyrm the Stormgod, grim Avangra and Erygon and Iondol the Lord of Song, Aslak the Godsmith, Pnoth the Lord of the Aeons and Althazon the Divine Messenger, Nergondil and Aarzoth the Windlord, Shastadion of the Sea, Zath-Lomar and bright Balkyr. Into their hands He put the force of nature and the rule of all things . . . and Lo! the world was.”

  —The Lemurian Chronicles Book One, Chapter ii.

  Chapter 13: LORD OF STARRY WISDOM

  Gray cloudy mists about him swirled

  Into a looming form most odd;

  There, at the edge of an unknown world,

  He stood and gazed upon a God.

  —Thongor’s Saga, Stave XVIII

  A titanic face looked down on him. Overpowering awe seized his heart as he stood there at the foot of the mountainous throne, staring up at the immensity of the shadowy shape that loomed above him.

  It was not unlike the face of a man, but stamped with superhuman majesty and an unearthly spiritual beauty compounded of strength and will and tremendous wisdom beyond the horizons of mortal minds.

  The misty waterfall of a kingly beard streamed down the cloudy breadth of its gigantic chest. Eyes bright and keen as great stars flashed at him from the shadows of a dim hood. One mighty hand held against the figure’s breast a vast book locked with seven seals. He knew that volume for the legended Book of Millions of Years, and he knew the being who clasped it to be none other than Pnoth the Lord of Starry Wisdom, the Master of the Aeons.

  The Lord of Time looked down at him, and spake in a deep voice like the rumble of distant thunders.

  “What dost thou in the Land of Shadows, O Swordsman of Valkarth?”

  He shook back his ebon mane against the wind, and lifted the Sword of Light in the great salute men make only to the mightiest of kings.

  “I am a dead man, dread Lord of the Ages, and my shade is sent to wander here for some unknown purpose, bound from immensity unto immensity upon a quest whereof I know little.”

  “Dead, sayest thou?” the God of Time asked. “Hast thou learned naught from the things thou hast met in thy wanderings through this realm?”

  Thongor was baffled and knew not how to answer.

  “Aye, Lord, I have learned that all is not as it seems, and that the form is not the fact, in this strange Kingdom of the Shadows,” he said at last. The titanic form nodded slowly, tipping its ponderous head to stare down at him with thoughtful, brooding eyes.

  “Then beware how thou answerest, if the fact be not as the form sheweth,” the titan form said. “For, indeed, how dost thou know that thou art here in truth, and that all about thee is not but the baseless vision of some dream? And as for death, what knowest thou of life that thou canst speak so certainly of death?

  Again, Thongor knew not how to answer and stood thinking, striving to pit his mortal wits against the ageless wisdom of the phantom divinity that loomed above him seated upon the mountains as a man might sit upon a great chair. At length the Lord Pnoth spoke again in slow, thoughtful, measured tones.

  “There be ten thousand states of being, O Warrior of the West, and between one state and its neighbor lieth but the thickness of a hair. Th
ou and thy kind in thy ignorance and folly, gather all the shades of these spectra of existence under two terms. The one thou callest ‘Life,’ and deem thou knowest whereof thou dost speak. The other thou callest ‘Death,’ and know not whereof thou dost speak. For thou in thy folly dost consider all that liveth not in the flesh as being of Death, and all that liveth in the flesh as being of Life. But the state of Being is far more than these simplicities, O Mortal, far more than thou canst dream. It were as if thou were to take the thousand hues of light and class all those that be bright as White and all the darker hues as Black. Thou utterest folly when thou dost pronounce thy thoughts on subjects whereof thou knew knowest not.” The Valkarthan frowned. A man of violent action, never given to philosophical abstractions, he yet thought he could see some faint beam of light through the darkness that clothed the strange words of the Lord Pnoth.

  “You mean then, Mighty Lord of the Aeons, that I should not take it for granted that because I seem to be in this realm of the dead—I am dead?” he demanded.

  The cloudy visage smiled and nodded approvingly.

  “If that be so, why, then, am I here and how came I to this Land of Shadows?” he asked.

  “Ask not of me how that thou earnest here, but take thy questions to the King of the Gods, even Gorm the Eternal, for he alone knoweth, being all-wise.”

  This roused in Thongor yet another question, one that had first occurred to him hours or aeons before, when he was first come before the Shadow-Gates and spoke to the mysterious being known only as the Dweller on the Threshold. There, briefly, it had occurred to him to wonder if all the tales of The Scarlet Edda were true. For, by all that he had ever been told of the Nineteen Gods Who Watch the World, the spirits of the valiant heroes were, on the point of death, borne aloft by the winged War-Maids through the skies unto the shining Hall of Heroes whereover ruled Father Gorm hmself, the Moulder of the Earth and Maker of the Stars.

  But such had not happened to him. Was there a secret buried here—a hidden meaning he was meant to puzzle out for himself? Would it serve any purpose to ask the Lord Pnoth of this, or must he think the problem through to its conclusion on his own?

  Pnoth leaned forward.

  “I know thy thoughts, O Man of Valkarth, and the questions that rise within thy breast. Come, let me bear thee unto the arm of my throne and show thee the way that thou must travel . . .”

  One shadowy hand reached down from the mountainous heights to close about his naked form. The next moment Thongor felt himself borne aloft. Winds shrieked around him, tossing and tangling his coarse unshorn mane until it streamed behind him like a black and torn banner. The land fell away from beneath him and he felt vertigo. Sheer cliffs of rugged stone flashed by him as the cloudy hand bore him in swift ascent. His senses blurred and vision faded.

  He came to himself moments later. He was standing atop the crest of a mountain, one of the several that made up the titanic throne of Pnoth. The peak whereon he stood was high above the flat and desolate expanse of the Land of Shadows. From this height, the half-world he had ventured through seemed very small. Almost could he trace his path across the colorless desert from the Shadow-Gates unto the mountain throne. He could dimly make out in the misty purple gloom that shrouded Death’s amazing kingdom, the length of the strange road whereon he had journeyed, and the symbolic ruins that adorned its margins. He looked around and saw with a grunt of surprise that the shadowy colossus was gone!

  Strange and strange, he thought moodily. Everything in this cursed land is a mystery . . .

  Above, the dark heavens were filled with dim twinkling stars. They were not the stars of his earthly skies, he well knew, for when he was a boy his barbarian father had taught him to read his directions from the constellations. These stars swirled into fantastic configurations utterly unknown to him—patterns devoid of name or meaning.

  But far and farther still, high above the Shadowlands, he saw what must be the Hall of Heroes. Like a shining island of light it hung above the Universe, a glittering mass of blazing gold higher even than the faint, few stars that strove to light these strange heavens beyond the world he knew.

  There, said legend, go the souls of heroic warriors to war and adventure forever beyond this realm of shades where the spirits of ordinary men and women find their final home. There, on that golden island in the sky, he belonged. Why, then, was he here? Could the gods err? Or was there some purpose to his quest?

  He stood, head bowed, thinking. Many questions rose before him like faceless gibbering phantoms, but none of them seemed to be the questions he sought.

  He looked down at the gold hilt of the Sword of Light. And suddenly he glimpsed a trace of the hidden reality which all this symbolic, shadowy realm masked. Suddenly there came to him a question that struck to the very heart of the enigma.

  The question was this: why had he taken the sword?

  Indeed, why had the gods wished him to take it? For he knew now that naught occurred within this mystic realm that was without purpose or meaning, if only you knew the right questions to ask.

  He cast his memory back over the events that had taken place since he passed through the Shadow-Gates. He had seen the sword and taken it. Obviously, it was set there for that purpose, to catch his eye. But since taking it—he had never once needed it!

  Except (he recalled) when the ogre rose up before him . . . no, not even then! For, as he had discovered, the ogre was without real existence. It was a shadow of his own fear, and when he had throttled down that fear and conquered it, he whelmed and slew the ogre as well.

  But he had slain the ogre with the sword! The sword had blazed forth into being as a shaft of dazzling light, which dispelled and drove away the black phantom of his fear. Or had this actually happened in very truth? Perhaps . . . perhaps it had been the very act of courage that destroyed the shadowy Ogre. Perhaps the sword itself was but the outward emblem and symbol of his courage!

  A clue to this lay in the nature of the Sword of Light itself. It was not truly a sword at all, only the hilt of one. The sword became complete only when his courage rose within him, together with the determination to battle on against whatever odds seemed to face him.

  He wondered if he had come at last to the truth, or to a portion of the truth, that he was expected to puzzle through. The dangers of this realm seemed only illusions: the wall of ice End the river of fire had been tricks of the senses alone, ard he had surmounted those obstacles the moment he had dared to attempt them.

  That seemed to ring true. But what was he supposed to realize from this? Again, his brow knotted in deep thought and he ponderel in silence there on that lofty mountain-peak under the dim and distant stars.

  His gold eyes flashed. Could it be that he was supposed to learn from these mystic experiences that life’s hazards and obstacles could be as easily conquered in the world he had left behind? A trace of logic seemed discernible. Since everything in the Land of Shadows was but the analogue of an earthly counterpart, perhaps the truths of this realm shadowed forth something of the truths of life itself. . . .

  Almost he was tempted to laugh at the thought. A monster dragon of primal Lemuria’s steaming swamps and fetid jungles was no shadow! It was real and solid, and no matter how much courage a warrior summoned as he faced the brute, it could still crush him down and tread his flesh to scarlet ruin.

  What, then, did this lesson mean? The kernel of truth stubbornly continued to elude his searching mind. He shrugged, and stood up. He had reached a decision. Perhaps he was acting like a fool, but . . .

  He stepped to the edge of the chasm and hurled the Sword of Light away!

  It fell twinkling through the dim gulf and vanished in the gloom. His only weapon was gone.

  He stood, great arms folded on his mighty chest, waiting for he knew not what. He had realized the truth behind the symbol, the truth he was meant to learn. Thus, he had abandoned the symbol, knowing that he required it no longer. If any enemy challenged him, the determination to
give battle and the courage to face the threat alone would suffice.

  In recognition of this, he had abandoned his only defense. In essence, he had hurled a challenge in the very faces of the gods! Now he awaited some sign or omen that he had acted in the manner that the gods required of him.

  He did not have long to wait—although the omen was considerably different from anything he had expected.

  A shadow fell over him as he stood there on the mountain crest. He looked up, startled, to see a fantastic winged shape hurtling down out of the misty sky.

  It plunged for him.

  Chapter 14: BEHIND THE STARS

  And Thongor lifted up his hand

  And hurled the shining Sword away,

  Determined here to take a stand

  And face the omen, come what may.

  —Thongor’s Saga, Stave XVIII

  He drew back like a wild beast at bay, a deep growl rumbling in his chest. The hurtling figure suddenly spread bright wings and fluttered to the crest of the mountain throne.

  Whatever it was, it was no beast. It was immensely tall—two or three times the size of a man—and radiant with dazzling light that beat about it so brilliantly that the Valkarthan must blink his eyes against the glare, and it was some moments before his bedazzled vision could make out the shape that stood there on the wind-swept mountain peak, clad with intolerable light, towering above him against the few faint stars.