Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria (7 page)

“That was just a taste of battle, friend! But now, at least, we are pitted against men, not monsters.”

Karm Karvus laughed and tossed his sword up, sparkling in the sun, deftly catching it by the hilt.

“Now we shall show them what real fighting is, eh, barbarian?” he asked gaily.

Then the sun went dark
.

Thongor looked up as a swift shadow moved across the blood-splashed sands. Aloft, he saw a glittering metal ovoid hovering against the sun. It glided toward them, cutting the air silently. A knotted rope dangled from the rail of the rear deck. The
Nemedis!

Thongor grunted. So the old wizard had not abandoned him after all! Hope welled up within him. He felt like laughing or singing. But there was no time for either.

As Karm Karvus stood frozen, staring up at the weird flying craft in awe and amazement, Thongor seized the younger man, tossed him across his broad shoulders, thrust his broadsword into his girdle, and reached up to catch the rope as it swept past.

The
Nemedis
turned and climbed steeply, lifting the two warriors from the arena sands. They hurtled above the wildly milling crowd, soared above the towertops of Tsargol—and up and off, vanishing into the noonday skies of antique Lemuria, wherein they were soon lost to sight.

CHAPTER 11

Crypt of the Flame

From wild red dawn to wild red dawn we held our iron line

And fought till the blades broke in our hands and the sea ran red as wine.

With arrow, spear, and heavy mace we broke the Dragon’s pride,

Thigh-deep in the roaring sea we fought, and crimson ran the tide.

—Diombar’s
Song of the Last Battle

They clung to the line as the floater lifted. A few arrows hissed by them as they cleared the last tier of the arena, and then they were out over the streets of Tsargol, where news of the Sark’s death had spread and townsmen fought with Druids till the gutters ran with blood.

“What is this—
thing
?” Karm Karvus asked.

Thongor lifted his voice above the roaring winds that sang about them. “A flying boat. It is driven by a friend—a powerful magician from Chush. Have no fear.” As the red walls of Tsargol drifted past below them, the two pulled themselves up the swaying line, hand over hand. They clambered over the low rail and Karm Karvus wiped his brow, staring down at the forests and fields, that rushed past beneath their keel.

“His magic must be powerful indeed, to fly like a bird without wings!”

The wizard was in the
Nemedis’
cabin. They went across the quivering deck to join him.

“Thank Pnoth you are safe, Thongor,” Sharajsha said as they entered the cabin. “Who is your companion?”

“Karm Karvus, a noble of Tsargol, condemned with me to the arena. I could not leave him behind while I escaped alone.” The wizard nodded, greeting Karm Karvus.

“Let me salve your wounds,” he said, locking the controls on a northwestern course. From beneath the low bunk he drew medicines. As he applied a poultice to Thongor’s thigh, which had been rubbed raw when the zemadar scraped him against the arena wall, he said; “I did not know what to do when the anchor became dislodged from the Tower’s window. Before I could maneuver the
Nemedis
back and attempt to pick you up, the gongs were ringing and the temple gardens were filled with guards and priests with flaming torches. Did you think I had deserted you?”

“I did not know what to think,” Thongor admitted.

“I saw that you had tied the Star Stone to the line, so I took the floater up beyond sight and waited for a chance to rescue you. Then I saw you and Karm Karvus fighting in the arena and came down to help you escape. I thank Pnoth, God of Wisdom, that you escaped with your lives!”

“Thank, rather, Tiandra, Goddess of Luck,” Thongor grunted. “Have you anything to eat?”

* * * *

All that afternoon the airboat flew above Ptartha, while Thongor and Karm Karvus ate and rested. Sharajsha told the Tsargolian of their quest for the Star Stone and of their plan to overcome the Dragon Kings, and the Prince of Karvus decided to join their adventures. Now that he was a homeless wanderer like Thongor, he said, he could do no better than to assist their cause in gratitude for his rescue.

“By evening we shall be over Patanga, the City of Fire,” Sharajsha said. “I have cut a large fragment off the Star Stone, and in the Eternal Fire I must forge it into a sword blade.”

“Where is this fire?” asked the Valkarthan.

“In the crypts below the High Altar of Yamath, Lord of Flame. I have a plan by which we can penetrate the city and, with luck, forge the Star Sword uninterrupted and undiscovered. But we must wait till darkness.”

By nightfall they were high over Patanga. The red-roofed city rose on the Patangan Gulf, between the mouths of the Ysar and the Saan rivers. As darkness gathered over the sky, the floater sank silently to hover like a ghost-hawk over the spiked domes of the Fire Temple.

“One of us must remain in the
Nemedis,”
Sharajsha said. “Karm Karvus, that one must be you.”

“It is not my way to remain behind in safety when my friends face danger,” the Tsargolian protested.

“I must forge the Sword and Thongor shall guard me. There is none to remain behind, holding the floater in readiness for flight, save you.”

“Very well then.”

Sharajsha gathered a black cloak about himself, drawing the hood over his features.

“When we are on the roof, take the
Nemedis
up a thousand feet and remain there. We shall signal with this mirror when we are ready to go,” the wizard said, showing Karm Karvus a small glittering disc. The Tsargolian nodded.

“Let us be gone,” Thongor said restlessly. “It is risky having the floater hang here like this, where anyone might glance up from the street below and see it.”

Karm Karvus touched the controls and the floater descended, brushing her keel along the temple roof. The two cloaked figures of his comrades slid over the rail and melted into the shadows of the dome. Then he touched the controls again and the silvery shape vanished upward into the cloudy darkness.

“This way. There should be a door here,” Sharajsha said, feeling along the curved dome. He found a secret catch and a door fell open, revealing a yawning square of blackness. They entered carefully, feeling their way.

“This stairway spirals down. Be careful and watch your footing—we dare not risk a light!”

They went down the well of complete darkness as silently as possible, the wizard carrying the Star Stone.

“How do you know of this way?” asked Thongor.

“Of old this was the palace of Zaffar, a wizard of ancient times. I have read in his scrolls of the network of secret panels and hidden stairways that he built into his castle. This stairwell leads us directly into the crypts below the entire Temple, where the Eternal Fire burns.”

“What is this Fire?”

“No man knows. The Yellow Druids of Yamath call it ‘The Ever-Burning Fire.’ It is a jet of some unknown vapor that rises from the secret core of Lemuria—or perhaps even from the very bowels of the Earth. It has burned for countless ages with a flame that never goes out. The Cult of Yamath regards it as an oracle and reads the portents of the unborn future by its weird light. I feel it is a natural phenomenon of some sort.”

They were now within the very walls of the Fire Temple. These walls of massive blocks of stone were hollow, and between them the stair wound down into the secret crypts beneath. After some time they reached the last step, and Sharajsha felt about for the second catch while Thongor drew his great Valkarthan sword out, ready for danger.

A click and the door opened. They stepped out into a corridor of smooth stone, lit by flaring torches of oil-soaked wood, set along the wall in wrought-iron brackets.

“This way!” Sharajsha hissed.

They slunk along the corridor, standing close to the wall to gain as much protection from the shadows as was possible. They encountered no guards and came at length to a great brass door. It was carved and worked with the flame-edged symbols of Yamath.

“No guards?” Thongor grunted.

Sharajsha shrugged. The door was unbolted. He pushed it open and they looked down into a great cavern with rough-hewn walls. In the floor of the cavern was a sunken well. From it a dancing flame of weird green could be seen emerging. It cast flickering shadows about the gloomy cave.

“You stand here and watch by the door. I shall go below and perform what is necessary.”

Thongor nodded and took his place as the wizard went down a stone flight of steps into the cavern of the Fire. He held the door open a slit so that he could see out and would detect anyone coming. This complete absence of guards both worried and puzzled him. He remembered the way the seemingly unguarded Scarlet Tower had contained the deathly slorgs. It was logical to assume that the cavern was similarly protected. Then he shrugged. Whatever might come, his stout sword or the wizard’s magic could certainly handle it.

Sharajsha reached the edge of the well. From beneath his cloak he drew out a fragment of the Star Stone, a hammer inscribed with runes and queer letters of magic writings, and a long-handled pair of tongs. He clamped the tongs about the fragment and held it within the dancing green cone of the Eternal Fire of Yamath. Whatever caused this mysterious green flame lent it far fiercer and more intense heat than any ordinary fire, for the fragment of star soon glowed cherry-red, then pale orange-yellow. The Stone hissed and crackled in the dancing green Fire.

A sudden noise! Thongor snapped instantly alert. Putting his eye to the crack of the door, he could see nothing. But he heard a soft scraping sound approaching down the torchlit corridor.

With a whispered call, he informed Sharajsha of this. The Stone now glowed pale yellow-white.

“Hold them off!” the wizard called. He withdrew the glowing fragment and held it over the iron edge of the well. He began to beat the glowing metal with his hammer, and as he did so his lips formed soundless words.

A fat, yellow-robed Druid approached down the hall, accompanied by a dozen guards with plumed helmets. Would they enter the brass door, or go by it to some other room? Thongor’s question was soon answered. They headed for the door of the cavern. A guard stepped forward ahead of the Yellow Druid to open the door for him. As he did so, stepping into the cavern, Thongor cut him down with a single stroke. The man’s body rolled down the flight of stone steps.

The guards yelled and their swords flashed into their hands. Thongor swung the gates wide and stood there in the entrance, smiling faintly, the long sword dripping crimson. Two guards sprang at him.

Steel rang on steel harshly, filling the hall with iron echoes. They were decent swordsmen, but Thongor had faced far better. He disarmed one with a practiced twist of the wrist and gutted him with a backhanded swipe across the middle. The man fell screaming, and his body blocked the other. The second stepped back to avoid the falling body, lowering his guard as he did so. Thongor’s point darted forward and sank into his breast.

The doorway was only wide enough for two, and now that the first two had fallen, two others came forward. For a time Thongor was hard-pressed. Behind him he heard the measured ringing of the magic hammer, beating the glowing lump of Stone into a sword blade. He fought on.

Two grim-faced guardsmen engaged his sword. Steel flashed and rang in the red glare of the torches. One guard fell with a cloven skull. Thongor’s dripping blade sank into the second’s chest. But the tough yellow leather of the guard’s jerkin caught and held the steel, and as Thongor labored to withdraw the blade, two guards seized him. One held his arms and the other drove a dirk at his heart. Thongor kicked the guard in the face and wrenched free. They were all around him now. His fists drove like mallets, crushing flesh and smashing bone. Then they brought him up against the wall, pinning his arms and legs. The fat Druid came snarling toward him now that he was helpless. When he had been free, the priest had not ventured within reach of his arms.

“Blasphemer! Desecrated!” he hissed, baring his greasy teeth. “You dare spatter the sacred crypts with human blood!”

Thongor laughed and spat directly in the Druid’s face.

The priest went scarlet to the lips, blazing with fury. He seized a sword and brought it up in a hissing arc toward’s the Valkarthan’s naked chest—

His hand faltered—stopped. The blade rang on the stone floor. The face that had flushed scarlet with fury now paled with sick terror. The Druid’s eyeballs crawled to the left, staring at something beyond Thongor.

One by one the guards turned to stare at the thing Thongor could not see, beyond his shoulder. Their faces blanched white with pure fear. Trembling, afraid to turn and run, they backed away down the hall.

Now free, Thongor scooped up his sword and turned to face
—green ghosts!

There were three of them—transparent as glass, dim as mist, a weird and sickly green. Their groping hands were bird-clawed. Fanged and dripping jaws grinned in dead mockery from skull-heads. In black eye sockets, sparks of evil green fire flickered.

Thongor felt his hackles rise, his neck-skin prickle. And the superstitious night-fears of the barbarian rose within him. He backed away, watching as the grisly phantoms advanced. One of them, whose terrible skull-head was veiled behind lank hair that grew long from a dirty patch of scalp still clinging to the naked bone, advanced with a hound-like lope. The second slid forward with a snaky grace. The third, whose head had been cut off and was carried beneath one bone-thin arm, shambled along as if crippled. From their hideous green bodies, filthy tatters of tomb shrouds flapped.

The Druid, his fat, quivering face the color of curds, made the sign of Yamath with a puffy hand. Neither it nor the stuttering ritual of exorcism he next tried halted the advance of the green ghosts.

Abandoning dignity, the priest turned and ran with the guards and Thongor faced the phantoms alone.

He kissed the red blade of the broadsword and muttered a quick prayer to Father Gorm. Then he sprang forward. The red steel hissed through the ghosts. They broke and crumbled like a patch of fog as the sword swished through them. Slack-jawed, he watched them fade and vanish.

From the doorway, Sharajsha smiled.

Thongor released his breath explosively.

“So it was you!”

“I thought you needed some help,” the wizard said.

Thongor wiped the clammy sweat from his face.

“Aye, that I did—but did you have to scare the guts out of me in doing it?”

“They were not real—mere phantoms of the mind. Come, yon fat-bellied priest will raise the alarm. We must be gone, and quickly.”

“And the Sword?”

Sharajsha raised it from beneath his cloak. With his rune-enchanted hammer he had beaten the glowing-hot Stone into a long, rough blade. Along its jagged, uneven edges blue sparks crawled. The hard Star Steel shimmered with power, and the air about it quivered.

“It must be impregnated with the virtue of lightning next, and that we can only do upon Sharimba, the Mountain of Thunder, a thousand vom from here. Let us leave!”

They went down the curving stone corridor, Thongor leading. He padded like a jungle beast, every keen sense alert for danger. Surely the alarm would have spread by now! But no sound, no call, no tread of running feet could he detect.

They came to the secret door. Even as Sharajsha reached for the concealed catch that opened the panel, the vengeance of Yamath struck. The wizard gasped, clutched at his throat, and fell, sprawling on the cold stone.

Thongor, too, staggered. He braced himself erect, holding onto the wall with one hand while he struggled against the mysterious influence that threatened to overwhelm him. It was as if a sudden and irresistible sleep were coming over him.

Sharajsha struggled to speak. “Vapor…drugged…do not…breathe…”

Then the wizard was unconscious. Thongor held onto the edge of sleep with iron strength, fighting with every atom of strength his powerful body held against the dark tides that rose to engulf him. With swimming eyes he sought for the hidden catch, numb hand pawing the blank stone in vain. His lungs ached for air. His mighty heart labored within his panting, straining chest. Then, just as he had reached the farthest limits of his strength, his finger touched the hidden catch and the door swung open, striking him off balance.