Jongor- the Complete Tales Read online

  But now, when she saw the huge beast lumber off toward the swamp in obedience to a command, she remembered the voice that had come weirdly whispering out of nowhere. Fear laid cold, constricting fingers oh her throat.

  “I tell you I can’t explain it,” Jongor answered. “It is done through the crystal I wear on my arm.”

  “What?” Hofer snapped.

  Jongor held up the ornament. However he did not remove it from his arm.

  Hofer stepped forward. He glanced quickly at the curiously designed crystal, and then suspiciously up at Jongor’s face.

  “You aren’t lying,” he said, speaking half aloud as if he were talking to himself. “You’re telling the truth. Somehow that crystal enables you to control the dinosaurs. But how—where did you get it, the crystal, I mean?”

  “I found it,” Jongor answered. “Found it!” The guide’s face grew purple. “Where?”

  Jongor drew back. “Before I answer any more of your questions, let me ask you some of my own. What are you doing here in this valley? Why did you “come here? What do you want?”

  “I came here because—” Hofer hesitated.

  “I can explain that,” Ann interrupted. “We came searching for my brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes. He and Mr. Varsey entered this country. He was captured by the natives. Mr. Varsey escaped and carried the news to me. If my brother is anywhere in this valley, you will be the person to know about him. Have you seen him? Do you know anything about him?”

  Jongor saw the longing in her face. He understood instantly how she felt. For long years he had longed for his parents. He looked at her, and then his eyes flicked to Varsey, who paled.

  “I’m sorry,” Jongor answered, “that your brother is lost.”

  “But have you seen him?” the girl cried.

  “This is a big valley,” Jongor answered. “I do not know all of the things that are in it.” He turned to Hofer: “The girl came seeking her brother. Why did you come?”

  “What do you mean?” the guide evaded.

  “Why did you come to this land?”

  “Because—”

  “He is my guide,” Ann explained. Jongor said nothing. His face showed no trace of any emotion. Instead he pointed up toward the encircling wall of mountains.

  “There is the pass by which you entered,” he said. “You can easily find your way to it. The teros are too far away to molest you. And the dinos do not leave the swamps, so you will be safe.”

  “You’re telling us to leave?” the girl quavered.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I am not telling you to leave. You may do as you please. But there is death here in this land.” He gestured pointedly toward the swamps and the cliffs. “Do you mean—”

  HE read her meaning. “No, I do not mean the teros and the dinos. They are dangerous. But there are things here that are a thousand times more deadly. There is danger everywhere. It is in the very air we breathe. If you want to live, all I can say is—leave this land immediately.”

  “But I can’t,” the girl whispered. “Don’t you understand? I can’t leave, until I know what has happened to my brother. He may be here, somewhere.

  I can’t go away until I know.”

  “This guy is right, Ann,” Varsey said, speaking for the first time. “We had better get out of this place while we can. The natives may be laying for us outside, but we at least stand a chance with them. Isn’t that right, Hofer?”

  “That’s right,” the guide answered. “And again I say, you may leave if you wish. But I’m staying here.”

  “Thank you,” Ann Hunter said. “I knew I could rely on you to stick with me.”

  Jongor had been a silent listener to the little conference. He saw the pallid fear on Varsey’s face and his lips tightened contemptuously. He did not despise the man because he was a coward but for another reason that he alone knew. He watched Hofer, wondering about the unspoken motive that he sensed in the guide.

  The wan girl turned to Jongor. “We’re staying,” she said, “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” he answered. “But others will.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hofer queried. “What others?”

  But Jongor did not answer. In the space of a second, he seemed to forget completely the existence of the guide.

  They were standing in an open spot. Stretching away in one direction was the jungle. In the other direction the mountains climbed up into the sky. The sun was already behind the towering range of hills. It threw long fingers of shadow out across the reeking swamp. Night was coming.

  And—something besides the night was coming!

  Jongor stood like a statue, every muscle tense and still, his head thrown up. He was listening.

  Ann Hunter found she was listening too. Something grunted in the swamp.

  A bird called raucously, querulously, as if in fear, and then was suddenly silent. A moisture-laden wind came creeping from the jungle. Oddly, it was a cold wind. Ann suddenly shivered. She listened. There was a thin wailing sound in the air. It was so far away, she could not be certain she heard it. It came, it went.

  What it was she didn’t know, but she told herself it could not be serious—

  “Run!” Jongor barked with a suddenness that was overwhelming.

  He didn’t wait to see whether they obeyed him. He knew what was going to happen, and he automatically assumed they knew too, forgetting that they were unacquainted with the incredible dangers of this land. His stride, seemed effortless as he sped away, but no expert dash man could have bettered the speed he was making.

  Jongor had not taken many steps before he discovered the three were not following him. He looked back over his shoulder. They were staring at him in uncomprehending perplexity. They had made no effort to move.

  “Run!” he commanded. “You fools! Death is coming!”

  That startled them. They looked nervously in every direction, but seeing nothing, merely stared at him.

  Grinding his teeth in bitter rage at their apparent stupidity, Jongor raced back to them. Before Ann knew what was happening, he had flung her over his shoulder, and set off again.

  “Run or die!” he shouted at the two men.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Hofer swore. “We damned well better follow him!”

  JONGOR raced to the protection of the nearest growth of trees. He crouched there and waited for the two men to come up.

  “What is it?” Varsey sputtered, as they slid into the cover.

  “The shaking death,” Jongor answered. “Watch.”

  Down where they had stood only minutes before, Ann Hunter saw something happening. What she at first thought was a column of dust had leaped into the air. Like a miniature tornado, the dust seemed to be swirling rapidly. It much resembled an, overgrown dust, swirl seen on a hot day in summer. It shocked her to realize this was not dust. It was—mist. And it was glowing.

  Boulders had been imbedded in the soil where the four of them had stood. The surface had been strewn with pebbles and sand. The girl saw. the sand begin to dance into the air. Then the pebbles were lifted up.

  “Look!” she heard Hofer gasp. “The boulders are lifting now!”

  The boulders were rising into the air! They were swirling in a circle. At first they moved slowly but every second saw them spinning faster. Faster still they went. It was like the funnel of a tornado. A droning sound came from it. The drone grew louder and louder. A gnawing roar accompanied it.

  “The ground is shaking!” Varsey whispered hoarsely.

  Ann could feel a gigantic pulsation flowing through the ground under her feet. The whole earth seemed to be vibrating.

  “Power!” Hofer muttered. “What a vast power is being released!”

  “It is the shaking death!” Jongor said. “What it touches, it destroys.”

  “But where does it come from? What causes it? Is it a natural phenomenon?” the guide queried anxiously. “It—”
<
br />   “Look! It’s coming toward us!” Varsey bleated.

  The swirling column of dust had begun to move. It was drifting over the ground, and it was coming toward the trees where the four were hidden.

  Jongor looked at the sky. “It will follow us as long as there is light,” he said. “If darkness comes soon enough, we may escape. Otherwise—we die! Come. We must try to hide.”

  He took Ann’s hand in his, began running easily. He kept away from the hills. The ground was open there. He stayed in the trees and jungle growth that circled the swamp.

  Ann heard the column of dust strike the trees. There was a rending crash of breaking limbs and torn trunks. The sound was exactly like the roar emitted by a tornado when it strikes a forest. Ann glanced back, horror-stricken.

  Leaves, limbs, and broken, twisted trunks of trees were flying into the air in a mad, roaring vortex.

  CHAPTER V

  Land of Sub-humans

  TO Ann Hunter, fleeing from an incredible tornado that followed slowly but persistently, it seemed that night would never come. Behind her, sounding clearly through the growing dusk, was the monstrous gnawing roar of that vortex of spinning mist. Often she stumbled and fell, but each time Jongor lifted her to her feet. Finally he led her into a dense growth of trees and she collapsed.

  “I can’t go any farther,” she whispered. “I simply can’t. But you go on. Save yourself.”

  Here among the trees, the night was coming rapidly. Jongor was a dark shadow in the dusk. He shook his head.

  “If you can go no farther, neither will I.”

  “But you must,” the girl said stubbornly. “Mr. Varsey and Mr. Hofer will stay with me.”

  Varsey and Hofer were sprawled on the ground a dozen yards away. Jongor glanced toward them.

  “I doubt if they will help you much,” he said tersely.

  The girl was tired. She was so badly scared that fear had almost ceased to have a meaning for her. The gnawing roar was still rocking through the trees. The ground was trembling. She could not tell whether or not the spinning whirlwind was coming nearer. Her nerves were stretched far past the breaking point.

  “Those men are my friends,” she snapped.

  “Varsey is a weakling and a coward,” Jongor answered. “You might as well face the truth. Hofer is no weakling. He is dangerous and deadly. But both of them are using you for some purpose of their own.”

  “That’s—that’s not possible,” Ann stammered. “Mr. Varsey has been under a terrible strain. He’s not entirely responsible for his actions. But I regard Mr. Hofer as absolutely reliable. You have,” she flared, “a lot of nerve to try to turn me against my friends! After all, I know them much better than I know you.

  “You have seemed to save our lives but, as Mr. Varsey has suggested, how do I know it was not you who ordered the natives to attack? You were present at the time. There was no one else within miles of us. It might have been your voice that came out of the air. You could control that dinosaur. How can I be certain you cannot control the pterodactyls?”

  Her face seemed pale and distraught. “Maybe you sent them flying down upon us, and then pretended to come and rescue us. Yes, I know you killed several of the pterodactyls. You also killed some of the natives. But maybe you’re just cold and cruel enough to kill human beings to give realism to an act you are putting on!

  “You look and act like a savage,” Ann stormed. “How do I know the story you told us is the truth? How do I know you aren’t causing this terrible thing that is coming toward us?” She gestured angrily toward it.

  Jongor stood without moving. Ann could not see him clearly in the gathering dusk but she knew he was staring at her.

  “Girl!” There was bitterness in his voice, and the note of a sullen pain. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I am Jongor. And I assure you, it does not matter to me whether or not you believe what I have said. You may believe what you please.”

  He was a shadow in the dusk. Then suddenly he was a shadow no longer. No snap of a broken twig, no rustle of leaves, no sound of any kind betrayed what had happened. Ann Hunter only knew she could not see him any more.

  “Jongor!” she said.

  There was no answer.

  Fright forced the weariness from her legs. She leaped to her feet.

  “Jongor!” she called frantically. “I didn’t mean it. I was tired and distracted. I didn’t mean what I said. Jongor! Come back!”

  BUT Jongor did not come back. He did not answer. As silent as a wraith, he had slid into the jungle and away.

  “I’m a fool!” Ann Hunter told herself. “He was telling the truth. It was in his eyes, in the tone of his voice. And I called him a liar! Jongor! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please, come back,” she pleaded.

  “Shut up that yelling!” Varsey huskily called to her: “You want to tell the whole world where we’re hiding?”

  “I don’t care,” the girl snapped, tears in her eyes.

  “What is the matter?” Hofer inquired, coming toward her.

  Ann told him what had happened. The guide said nothing.

  “That roar is not as loud now,” Varsey spoke up, crawling toward them.

  “You know, I’ll bet that freak native was attracting that thing.”

  True enough, the gnawing growl was diminishing in violence. Sand, released from the lessening vortex, began to sift down through the trees. The ground quit shaking. Off in the distance they could hear boulders crashing again to earth.

  “Something was controlling that tornado,” said Hofer. “It was sent directly to us. And when we ran, it followed us. That means the person who controlled it could see us. We were being watched.”

  The guide struck fist into palm. “There is some mighty secret here in this Lost Land,” he said excitedly. “There is a science here greater than any known on Earth today. Tomorrow we will begin exploring this land. We will find what is hidden here!”

  Gradually the throb of the freak vortex that Jongor called the “shaking death” vanished. Complete darkness came. Eventually the moon rose, throwing its pale light down over the rugged mountains that surrounded Lost Land.

  Ann Hunter and her two companions remained in the shelter of the trees. They did not dare make a fire; for fear it would call attention to their hiding place. Food they had to have, and they ate frugally of what remained of the little supply they had brought with them.

  “We must be constantly on guard,” said Hofer. “I will take the first watch, until one o’clock. Then I will awaken you, Varsey, and you can remain on guard the rest of the night. We will let you have a full night’s sleep, Miss Hunter,” he said kindly.

  “Thank you,” the girl answered. “I’m dead tired.”

  She sprawled on the ground between the roots of a huge tree. In spite of her weariness, sleep came slowly. She heard coughing grunts from the jungle around them. Far off there was a sudden snarl of beasts fighting. From the noise they made, Ann guessed they were dinosaurs, which brought home again to her the strange weirdness of this land.

  It was a world that was not only lost to physical geography, but it was lost to time as well. Everywhere else on Earth evolution was hundreds of thousands of years ahead of Lost Land. But here the time clock was keeping lost and forgotten centuries. Here was the mad savagery of a primeval world.

  And here was something else—a voice that came out of the air. Here also was some incredible secret. And here was a gray-eyed giant who played with dinosaurs. Ann kept thinking of him. She dozed off to sleep . . .

  The roar of Hofer’s rifle startled her to wakefulness. As she sat up, her first thought was that day had come and the sun had risen. The darkness was gone. She could see. There was a ball of fire over the trees that she thought was the sun.

  Then, with a stunning shock, Ann saw that the ball of fire was not the sun. It was an airship of some kind. Hanging m the air without movement, it glowed with an illumination that reminded her of witchfire. Reaching down from it were fingers of
brilliant light which, she realized, were searchlights.

  THAT was why the darkness was gone. Those searchlights were illuminating the trees as well as the sun could have done.

  “What is it?” Ann gasped bewilderedly. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know,” Hofer answered in a shaken tone of voice. “There’s a ship over us.”

  He fired again. Ann reached for her rifle. By this time, Varsey was awake. His rifle sent a finger of flame reaching upward.

  “They can’t get down to us!” Hofer shouted. “The ship can’t land because of the trees. But watch out for bombs.” The guide moved backward, firing as he went.

  “Come on!” he ordered. “We’ve got to get out of that light. As long as they can see us, they can pick us off as they please. Run!”

  It seemed to the startled, weary girl that all she had done since she entered this mad world had been run. She did not know that one of the fundamental requisites for survival is the ability to escape. For uncounted centuries, the human race survived by running. Jongor had managed to live because he knew how to run.

  Now Ann Hunter had to run again. There was no time to wonder where the ship had come from or what kind of creatures manned it. She vaguely realized it was like no ship she had ever seen before. It hung in the air as no helicopter ever did.

  The trees will save us, she thought gladly. But then she looked up. The ship was so low it was touching the topmost branches of the trees. A door was open in its side; and from that door something was leaping—to the trees! Several of the things jumped from the ship.

  Then Ann caught a glimpse of one of the creatures. The sight stunned her. They looked a lot like overgrown monkeys. They were not as tall as a man, but they were heavier built.

  With an ease that bespoke long practice, they leaped from the ship to the topmost branches. Long arms went out to the limbs and grasped them. The creatures came tumbling downward.

  “That ship is full of monkeys!” Hofer shouted. “Shoot them, quickly!”

  Too late, each of the three realized that the trees had not saved them. The huge jungle growths had merely provided an easy avenue of descent for the creatures who manned the ship.