Young Thongor Read online

  As for the gladiators he trained, they were all Ithomaar-born and knew nothing of the outer world from which Thongor and Jothar Jorn had come. The boy soon found his place among them, but not without a few lumps and bruises. For the most part, the gladiators of Ithomaar the Eternal were full-grown men, and a mere stripling cast into their midst was fair game for a bit of good-natured hazing. But the young barbarian did not take very well to the playful roughhouse in the manner to which his fellow gladiators were by now accustomed.

  The first man who tried to shove the boy around was a big, cold-eyed bully named Zed Zomis, the acknowledged leader of the gladiators. He ended up flat in the corner with his jaw broken in three places and a mouthful of shattered teeth, for all that he was ten years older than the boy Thongor, a head taller, and outweighed him by thirty pounds.

  Three of Zed Zomis’ comrades, who had gathered to watch their leader have a little fun with the surly outlander youth, promptly jumped on the wild boy from behind when they saw him dispose of their friend. Within the first few seconds of the tussle they discovered they had picked a fight with a lion cub in very truth. The vandar, as the jet-black lion of the Lemurian forest country was called, was twelve feet of steely, sinewy strength from fanged jaw to lashing tail tip, and a juggernaut of fighting fury: Jothar Jorn had nicknamed the young barbarian aptly.

  To a boy from the savage Northlands, war was a way of life, and, for all his young years, the Valkarthan lad was no stranger to the red art, having been raised virtually from the cradle with a weapon in his fist. Northlandermen of Thongor’s people dwelt in a bleak and hostile land of bitter wintry snows, and life was one savage and unending struggle against rapacious brutes, scarcely less rapacious human foes, and Nature herself, who was cruel and harsh toward weaklings north of the Mountains of Mommur.

  Thus, to Thongor, fighting was no game, but deadly serious. And no one attacked a warrior of his kind in play, only in earnest. Thus, when Zed Zomis’ bully boys sprang upon him from behind, it was no mere laughing tussle he gave them, but a grim, vicious battle to the death, from which they emerged with a number of broken bones; and one of them, at least, would limp forever.

  Thus he made for himself a place in the pits of Ithomaar, and it was a place of considerable respect. The gladiators treated him with care thereafter, and not a few of them were quick to hail him as a friend. As for Thongor, he bore no ill will to the four men he had beaten and was as ready to be friends with them as with any man who treated him with dignity.

  The boy thrived on the hearty meals the gladiators were served. These consisted of immense steaks swimming in hot gravy, raw vegetables, sweet pastries and a variety of good, strong wines. Of this menu, the last two items were new to his experience, and after a prolonged bout with the wine cups, from which he emerged a bit unsure of his footing and with a head, the next morning, that throbbed with queasy pain, he treated the fruit of the vine with much the same gingerly respect with which the older gladiators had learned to treat him.

  From Jothar Jorn he learned something of the fighting skills as practiced by civilized men. The warriors of the Black Hawk clan had schooled him in the use of bow and arrow, spear and javelin, war-axe, and of course, in the art of using the great two-handed broadsword. He missed his own broadsword, Sarkozan, taken from him by the bird-masked guardsmen when they captured him. The sword was old, ancient, really, and it had passed down his line from father to eldest son from time immemorial. Some said the great sword Sarkozan had been wielded by none other than Valkh the Black Hawk himself, the famous hero who had been the founder of Thongor’s nation—Valkh, Valkh of Nemedis, one of the immortal heroes who went up against the Dragon Kings at the close of the Thousand Year War—Valkh, who was of the blood of Phondath the Firstborn, in the twentieth generation of the direct male line.

  That sword had, ages ago, drunk the blood of the Dragon Kings, reaping a red harvest there on the black beaches of Grimstrand Firth. Maybe the Nineteen Gods themselves had blessed it, when the heroes went up from Nemedis in the Last Battle, for it was written in The Lemurian Chronicles how of old They went among the men of the First Kingdoms.

  Jothar Jorn trained the savage boy in such “civilized” weapons as dirk and dagger, rapier and hooksword, cutlass and scimitar. But the strong hands of the Valkarthan yearned for the loved, familiar heft of Sarkozan. And at last he revolted.

  “But, cub! We don’t fight with broadswords in Ithomaar—and, look, you can have your pick of weapons,” the gamesmaster argued.

  Thongor set his jaw grimly. “They have taken my sword from me. I want it back,” he said stubbornly. Something in the set of that jaw and the glint in those blazing eyes told Jothar Jorn it did no good to argue, but argue he did, and plead, and even threaten. But to all his bellowings and coaxings, Thongor made but one reply:

  “They have taken my sword from me. I want it back.”

  At length, Jothar Jorn talked himself hoarse and gave up. Who could say? Maybe a barbarian brandishing a broadsword would be a sensation in the Games. At least it would be—different.

  “Get him his sword,” he said, and shrugged, and left.

  14

  The Secret Gate

  Now that Sarkozan was in his possession once again, Thongor began to plan his escape. He had no idea how he had come here, but he intended to return to the world he knew, one way or another. He was willing to die trying. For besides his appetite for red meat, his berserker courage, and his fighting ferocity, he shared another trait with the great cats of the jungle: he would not be shut in a cage. And Ithomaar was a cage—a very beautiful one, but a cage nonetheless. He had taken the measure of the folk of this fabulous realm, and he did not like what he saw, neither the dainty, gilded fops of the court who came to watch the gladiators at sword practice because it titillated them to see real men work up a sweat in brutal combat, nor the common folk of the city’s shops and ways, with their listless faces, dead eyes, and hearts empty of hope.

  The Pits were not guarded because there was no need to guard them. They were underground, hewn by invisible hands from solid bedrock, and there was no escape. Most gladiators never thought of trying to escape, because the life they had here was better than the one they had escaped from, with excitement and pride in their prowess, good meat and drink, and even women, occasionally brought in to serve their needs. But even at seventeen, Thongor knew he would rather die than live in a cage.

  It was not long before he discovered the door in the wall. It was a slab of brassy orichalc and it bore, embossed upon its central panel, a hieroglyph whose meaning he did not know. What interested him was that the door was unlocked—had, in fact, no lock. In a roundabout way he questioned the other gladiators about it, eliciting little information. It was on the lowest level of the Pits and it was behind the beast-cages. Finally, drinking wine with Jothar Jorn, who had taken a liking to him, he mentioned the door. The brawny gamesmaster stiffened, his good-humored slab of a face paling.

  “You don’t want to find out what’s behind that door, cub. Never go near it!” he grunted, eyes sober and almost fearful.

  “I do not understand why it has no lock,” Thongor said. “Where does it lead?”

  “To the Tower of Skulls,” said Jothar Jorn. And that was all he would say. His warning meant nothing to Thongor; the young barbarian knew only that it must lead down into the city itself, for there was no tower near the arena. Once in the city, he knew it should not be difficult for him to escape to the woodlands beyond, for Ithomaar the Eternal had no walls, which meant no gates, which meant no guards.

  So that very night he made the attempt. He had eaten a good dinner at the long tables of scarlet lotifer wood with his comrades, but some of the meat and bread and fruit he had not eaten, but had hidden away in a sack he had fashioned from a scrap of cloth and kept hidden behind his cloak. As his comrades strolled into the common room, where lute players and dancing girls waited to entertain them at their wine, he sought out the jakes and, once alone in t
he winding corridors of stone, turned aside to the level of the beast-cages and the secret door of orichalc that went unguarded and unlocked.

  He thrust the door open, finding a long, narrow corridor of damp stone. He went in, the door closing softly behind him. He went forward, the great Valkarthan broadsword naked in his hand.

  15

  The Thing in the Smoke

  In a vast chamber beneath the Tower of Skulls, Zazamanc the Veiled Enchanter sat enthroned in Power. This throne stood on a dais composed of nine tiers of black marble, and it was carved from the ivory of mastodons. Set within the broad arms of this throne were the sigils whereby the Veiled Enchanter summoned the demons and genii and elementals that served his wishes in all things. At this hour he wore the Green Robe of Conjuration, and his left hand was set upon Ouphonx, the ninth sigil of the planet Saturn, which the Lemurians of this age knew by another name. Under his right hand lay Zoar, the third sigil of the Moon. Before him, on a tabouret of jet, lay the Crossed Swords and the wand called Imgoth.

  Amulets were clasped about his wrists and throat. Pendent upon his brow hung the talisman the grimoires named Arazamyon, and upon it a certain Name was written in runes fashioned of small black pearls.

  The face of Zazamanc went masked this day behind a single tissue of pale green gauze; through it the cold pallor of his handsome visage gleamed like an ivory mask, and his eyes glittered with frozen malice.

  Sprawled upon the lower tiers of the dais lay the naked body of a sixteen-year-old slave girl, and beneath it a wet, scarlet pool spread slowly. Beside the corpse lay a razor-like dirk that had, only a few moments before, cut her heart from her naked breast. As for the heart itself, it had been hurled—a gory, dripping thing, still warm and throbbing with unquenched vitality—into an immense bowl of bronze, curiously engraved, wherein red flames slithered slowly.

  Seated rigidly in his ivory throne, the Veiled Enchanter now called upon the Name Alzarpha. As the echoes of that Name died shuddering in the rafters of the high-roofed chamber, he began to enunciate in solemn, portentous tones the frightful names of the genii that ruled the Twenty-Eight Mansions of the Moon. Strange and uncouth were these names; many were never meant to be spoken aloud by the lips of men, and these were difficult to pronounce. However, as the green-robed figure spoke them one by one, the red flames that seemed to crawl and rustle within the brazen bowl turned first a sickly yellow and then a virulent green, the color of pus and corruption and decay.

  From the ensorcelled flames there began to issue forth a thick, oily smoke. It coiled through the darkness of the mighty chamber, heavy and sooty, and within it was the stench of hell.

  “…Zargiel!…Maldruim!…Phonthon!…Ziminar!” Name after name came rolling from the Enchanter’s lips in slow thunder. As they rang through the somber silence of the subterranean vault, the nauseous vapor grew dense, coalesced, and began to assume shape and substance. Gradually there took form a weird, towering figure that loomed up against the gloomy rafters far above.

  It was thrice the height of mortal man, and man-like in form, but only in that it stood erect upon two limbs and had a single head. For it was gaunt as a dead thing, covered with gray, greasy hide, wrinkled and warty like that of a toad. This demon was known to the grimoires as Xarxus of the Crawling Eye, and the Veiled Enchanter had long since bound it to his service by a terrible and unbreakable vow. Its long, lean arms ended in grisly pincers, like a gigantic crab’s, and its head was unspeakably hideous. It had but one eye, and that was a hollow, fleshy pit from whose center slim tentacles sprouted: these flexed and slithered in a loathsome manner, and from this repellant and unnatural organ the demon’s name was derived.

  “I have the boy,” Zazamanc said, when the demon had taken form. “But I cannot comprehend your warnings concerning him: he knows naught of me and is but a rough, untutored savage. I want you to read the future again, to discern if by his capture I have altered or averted the doom that you have foretold.”

  The demon stared down at him, tendrils crawling in the hideous, empty socket that was its only eye. When the tall thing spoke, it was in a voice deeper than ever came from human throat, but curiously flat and without resonance. It spoke even though it had nothing even remotely resembling a mouth, but this did not disturb Zazamanc, who knew that such as Xarxus did not require organs of speech but could resonate the very molecules of the air itself, or cause their thoughts to sound within the minds of those with whom they had uncanny converse.

  I have warned you against having anything to do with this one, the demon said. I have foretold that there approaches down the paths of future time one who is destined to be your bane and the cause of your death. You would be wise to send him hence from this universe you rule.

  Brooding upon his ivory throne, Zazamanc seemed not to have heard the words of the demon. “You can see further into future events than I can,” he mused. “In my Speculum I have foreseen what will happen if he fights in the arena against my monstrous hybrids: his fighting prowess is such that he will escape victorious from every combat, if permitted an even chance and a good weapon. But it would be so easy to slay him…”

  The demon shook its awful head, a familiar human gesture suddenly made horrible by his lack of human features. There is little of the future that I may foretell with any degree of certitude, but this much I can say: the life of that one is linked with your own, and if you slay him, or order him slain, or set him in such danger that his death ensues, your own death will follow swiftly.

  Naked fear glittered in the cold, inscrutable eyes of the Veiled Enchanter. His death was the one thing in all the many worlds and universes that he feared, for he knew all too well what would befall him thereafter, and his soul shrank, shuddering, from the knowledge. His gloved hands clutched uneasily at the arms of his throne.

  “Why do you refuse to read my future in any detail?” he queried in a thin, petulant voice. “You are bound to serve my will by the nature of the vow between us…”

  It is not that I refuse, but that I am unable to comply, the demon said. You are naught but a human, for all your control of magic, and the true nature of time remains hidden from your knowledge, a secret shared only between the Lords of Light and…mine own kind. Know, then, that time is like unto a maze of many thousand intersecting paths: at each single step you face a choice of paths to follow. Which path you may select in any given instance may be calculated, but to project the pattern of your choices further into the maze involves a geometric progression of possible choices, until the further ahead one seeks to predict, one is baffled before an infinite multiplicity of possible paths.

  “Read, then, what you can of my future,” Zazamanc commanded.

  Xarxus complied. Every mortal has seven assassins, appointed by inscrutable Fate to be his doom. One or another or a third he may elude. Few men elude all seven. The youth you have so unwisely drawn into your realm beyond space will be the doom of Zazamanc.

  “Then I will slay him first! And thus avert the destiny you foretell for me.”

  The crawling eye of the demon stared at him sightlessly, tendrils writhing obscenely in the naked socket. Death has never entered this universe of yours, Xarxus said tonelessly. Gladiators mangled in the arena regain their strength, their torn flesh knits: even this girl-child whose heart you fed into the flames will rise again. To strike down the savage boy with a bolt of force would be to let Death in…and once Death has entered here, he will not willingly leave. Beware, O Zazamanc, and guard thy portals well: for too long have you evaded the hand of the Destroyer of All, and he shall seek you out if once you let him in…

  With those words, the demon began to crumble and disperse, his pseudobody dissolving into the primal elements from which he had been formed. Zazamanc sat stiff and straight, his face an expressionless mask. But his eyes were shadowed with a terrible fear. He knew that a magician might defend his mortality with a thousand spells, but that the Powers that rule Creation have foreseen a loophole through even the most
cunning defense. He knew, as well, that it is forbidden to assume the prerogatives of divinity, the first of which is life eternal. And however a wizard prolongs his life through arcane science, he never loses the dread of death; quite the contrary—the longer he lives, the more he savors life.

  Zazamanc was afraid—for the first time in uncountable ages.

  16

  The Edge of the World

  The secret passage was interminable. As Thongor prowled its length, Sarkozan naked in his hand, he expected to be attacked at any moment, but no such attack came. Doubtless the Veiled Enchanter used this tunnel to communicate with beast-cages, wherein many of his most extraordinary hybrid monsters awaited their turn on the sands of the arena. It was unlocked and unguarded for the simple reason that no one would dare disturb the privacy of Zazamanc and rouse his enmity by using it. But Thongor dared.

  At last he came to its end and found a sliding panel that opened into an immense hall—the same hall in which he had first been imprisoned. This vast, shadowy place must, then, be within the Tower of Skulls.

  The boy stood, glaring about him into shadows. If he could find his way out of here, he thought it likely he could escape from the city unseen and undetected, for Ithomaar had no gates or walls to detain him, and every boulevard led to the green fields and feathery forests beyond, and thence to the world’s edge itself—the narrow, circular horizon of lambent vapor that marked the terminus of this microcosm.