Young Thongor (13 page)

For the girl at his side, he felt willing to try. Together they would face whatever might come. Thongor was no longer alone, and his heart swelled within him at the realization. The girl, perhaps sensing his thought, smiled up at him, and her hand crept into his. Hand in hand, side by side, they began the last trek down into the Southland together.

INTRO TO THE CREATURE IN THE CRYPT

Thongor’s relationship with Ylala is not destined to last. Perhaps she realizes that he is shaped for a life of turbulence and conflict in which she could only ever play a minor role, or perhaps he knows he is marked by powerful forces for a life without ties at such an early age. For whatever reasons, they do part, somewhere in the uplands of the northern Dakshina.

Thongor does not have long to mull over any regrets. The world here seethes with dangers, his life threatened at every step.

THE CREATURE IN THE CRYPT

1

The Hounds of Hell

O mighty Lord who sits upon the Throne

Of Lotus leaves dyed full with blood!

Thy rolling eyes like suns and moons above—

Cause them to glance on us alone

When, from amid the woes which towards us flood,

We plead of thee a boon of father’s love.

O thou who once contested Valka’s crown

With mighty arm and well-timed blows

And whelmed the demons with resistless power,

Who crushed the skulls of foes with great renown,

Who reigns concealed from whence no mortal knows

By Vandoth’s Bolt until this present hour!

Grant us again thy valor to behold

And free thy lands from those who would despoil,

Divide, destroy, and crush our pride.

And send to us a king of courage bold

And let his foemen’s blood enrich our soil!

Cause him to wield thy blade, thy chariot ride!

—The
Crimson Veda
, Book 68, hymn 8

To Vandoth of the Blood Lotus

The day had been long already, and full of toil, when a young, heavily muscled form, journeying southward from under the shadows of the towering Mountains of Mommur, had noticed the first signs of pursuit. Picking up speed, he did not waste backward looks to confirm what his keen ears told him, that he had become the intended prey of a pack of Talondos Hounds. These were beasts of which no fossil evidence survives today, combining features of our crocodile and wolf. They moved with surprising stealth and speed, given their heavy armor and size, their sense of smell hardly needed now that their victim’s form was so clearly etched in the light of the great golden Moon of elder Lemuria.

There were several of them, and once they caught up to the single human form, he sold his blood dearly, exchanging it for two of their lives before escaping in a burst of speed, his arrows spent and his sword reluctantly abandoned, jammed in one of their armoured carcasses. His great strength necessarily waned as he still managed to put some distance between him and his pursuers, now perhaps a bit less eager to run him to ground, especially since the evening temperature was rapidly falling.

The man, running now on sheer endurance, was Thongor of Valkarth. His continent is now long vanished, even from the theories of ethnographers and students of mythic lore: Lemuria, the great incubator of primal life forms, some of which survived the eons, others not. Man was one such successful experiment, though today’s specimens seem degenerate and colorless by comparison. Thongor’s species developed here earlier than anywhere else on the globe, sharing the continent with jealous competitors including the great saurians and a few other mammalian species fit to battle them or escape them. Jealous, too, was the great Indian Ocean, as it is called today. Its eager waves lapped at Lemuria’s shores, awaiting the day they should be able to swallow it whole, save for a sprinkling of surviving islands.

The climate of the lost continent was a paradoxical combination, cold at both extremities, warm in its central regions. The north was given over entirely to towering mountain cliffs whose heights were ever shrouded in snow drifts; while, a day’s flight south, the jungle-clad plains were exposed to the fury of the equatorial heat, which declined further south toward primal Antarctica, where legends, ancient even then, whispered of the lurking presence of strange pre-human intelligences.

Having descended the mountain regions of his birth, Thongor had been tracing a horizontal course along their base, seeking occasional refuge in hillside caves or higher eyries when his encounters with the plainsmen grew too dangerous. Now it was the pursuit of the Talondos Hounds that made his golden eyes, miniature twins of the moon above, seek some sign of a mountain-face cave. And he found one. Far enough above the level terrain to discourage the Hounds, it would yet demand of him all his remaining strength.

The bargain mentally made, Thongor began the ascent, finding the tiniest of jagged hand and footholds. The snapping and hissing of the pack below grew fainter as he finally heaved himself over the lip of the ledge and into the cave. The sleep of exhaustion overtook him at once, and he slumped against the cool rock, heedless of any new danger the cave itself might present.

2

The Cave of Wonders

When he next awoke, a full day had come and gone, and with it, his pursuers. The golden moon once again eerily illuminated the landscape, as well as a bit of the interior of the cave in which Thongor found himself. By its filtering rays he could see that what he had taken for a small hole in the rock face was the merest antechamber of some larger, hidden labyrinth. A sharp turn revealed the presence of a complex, if crudely delineated bas-relief mural. The subject matter was nothing strange to the barbarian’s golden eyes, for it depicted scenes of embattled figures, possibly representing any of the bloody sagas of his, or of any, people.

His native curiosity urged him to explore, especially as the recesses might offer a more than adequate refuge from any returning Talondos Hounds. But to see better, he would need more light. And unless the cave had been carved for the benefit of the blind, it seemed likely that the means for making light ought to lie near at hand. A moment’s tentative searching confirmed his expectation. His questing hand met a rusting iron bracket set shakily into the stone wall, while his booted foot encountered a clay jar. He judged that it ought to be a jar of fuel oil.

A quick whiff of the gummy deposit at the bottom told him he was right. Several brackets further on he found a dried-up reed torch, almost a brush. He scrubbed this into the congealed bottom of one of the jars until he had enough to light and ignited it using the flints he kept in his pouch.

In the first moment the torch flared too brightly, then settled down. But in the initial flare Thongor could make out the full panorama, a cave stretching some twenty yards, its uneven floor and stalagmite-fanged interior covered with heaps and bins of treasure and other ancient objects. As his eyes began to adjust to the gloom, his memory filling in the gaps of what he could no longer so clearly see, he went deeper into the shaft, examining what he could. An occasional oath escaped his lips.

It was a surprise, then a wonder, then something suspicious: all manner of objects were heaped before him in disarray, implying they had been pilfered many times, yet finally left unmolested. Here and there stood statues, apparently of various gods and totems, some of them irreverently tilted against the walls, others carefully set in carved niches.

A few were vaguely familiar, while others seemed like more primitive versions of conventional deities. There, for instance, was elephant-headed Chaugganath, but his countenance was wooly and shaggy. Another was nobly human in form, his great mane of hair seeming to merge with a storm cloud, his beard with the cataract of rain, and he held in his mighty fist a levin-bolt. Surely this was Father Gorm. Others had multiple arms and faces. Thongor had heard there were nineteen gods, though he did not know why there should be so many, but there were not nearly that number here.

Leather bags, clay pots, and metal tubs overflowed with polished sea-shells, which might have been used by some tribe as currency, though the very concept was relatively new to Thongor whose people had used only barter to meet their simple needs. Scattered feathers in profusion suggested the long-ago decay of a supply of arrows left by the guardians of this storage place. Occasional metal boxes which did not seem to be mere containers sported what looked like dull gems and pointless studs, some of them round and grooved at tiny intervals. What use these might serve, the barbarian knew not and so passed them without further glance. His eye fell next on the clay likeness of a fat sun-lizard. He knew what a succulent treat its living counterpart made and wished urgently that he had one to satisfy the hunger he suddenly felt so keenly!

He cursed in amazement as a nearby noise of disturbance betrayed the skittering presence of the clay reptile’s living twin! Swiftly disemboweling it with a rusty knife, he cooked it impatiently in the tarry smoke of the torch and devoured the morsel in an instant. The taste was not bad, but the meal seemed to lack any substance. He put it down to voracious hunger no one tidbit could satisfy. That his wish was so quickly met he did not pause to consider.

Thongor increasingly felt a desire to leave the peculiar haven. There was an uncanniness to the place that made him feel he was taking some great risk simply by being there. But the night outside was cold, and he knew predators could not be far off. It seemed more prudent to stay and brave whatever might challenge him here, which was probably no more than his own superstitious imagination.

He continued to examine the amassed loot, laying his hand next to a chest of gemstones of various hues, though all strangely dull even in this torchlight. He knew enough of the ways of civilized men to know that trinkets like these would be deemed valuable, and he at once resolved to take with him a goodly supply when he left. But then he wondered again why the treasure was still here undisturbed. Surely he could hardly be the first to stumble upon the place.

A hoard of a very different nature next met his eyes: a great stone bin filled to the brim with skulls! Thongor gasped, and his small nape-hairs began to stir. Were these the remains of previous intruders? On the other hand, he had noticed no recent disturbance of the dusty floor, much less any signs of struggle. He had once heard that some of the ancient kings and priests amassed their own bones with those of their predecessors in this fashion. Was it then a crypt?

Further scrutiny revealed a jar of leather and palm-papyrus scrolls. The latter fell to fragments at his touch, though he had instinctively been gentle. The leather scrolls proved more durable, though no more helpful to the illiterate young man. He lifted his eyes from the puzzle-like glyphs lining the red-dyed page, only to drop the scroll in surprise as a figure appeared beside him, seemingly out of nowhere! He relaxed somewhat as he beheld, not the form of a fighting man, but rather that of a wizened old man, not unlike the painted shamans of his own people.

The ancient spoke not a word but stooped to retrieve the leather scroll. As Thongor looked on in wonder, a whispering voice broke the long silence of the chamber, intoning some chant in a tongue Thongor knew not, though he fancied he recognized one or two divine names. Interrupting the stream of what seemed to him gibberish, Thongor made to speak to the man in his own rude language. His words had an effect, if not the intended one, for at the first of them, the old man fell silent and disappeared! And the scroll had vanished with him. Again, a wish had been fulfilled for a moment, only to tease him!

Now determined to flee this cursed place, whatever dangers might await him without, Thongor made one last sweep with his fading torch, seeking perhaps some cloak against the cold, some weapon to make his way safer. Surely no ghostly guardian could begrudge him these?

But, a few yards away, barely visible in the gloom, yet hitherto-unseen, was a great throne, and seated upon it a skeleton, which examination revealed to be clad in the rags of once-fantastic vestments, as well as an antique crown. This last had once adorned the broad forehead but now formed a great collar around the bone-bare neck. Every instinct bade him flee, but Thongor lingered to gaze upon the figure and at the weapon it held in its rotting claws, across the arms of the throne.

A great, unsheathed length of steel, it seemed to have played the role of royal sceptre as well as of savage cleaver. It was festooned with jewels, but these blazed with the glory that had been absent from the massed rubies and sapphires he had seen piled in bins and baskets. Stranger still, they seemed to glow with an inner radiance, as Thongor’s torch had now died out. The blade was brilliant silver without a trace of rust.