Young Thongor (14 page)

Thongor of Valkarth knew he must have it. Not so much greed as a sense of destiny impelled him, for, in truth, he feared it as much as he lusted for it.

Reluctantly, the youth who blanched at nothing began with disgust to peel away the flaking fingers of the thing in the crypt. As he freed the last on the left hand, he felt…
resistance
. Wondering and aghast at what this might mean, the young giant stepped involuntarily back.

“Gorm’s blood!” he blasphemed unconsciously. What his transfixed golden eyes beheld was the sudden bulking and rejuvenating of the desiccated form on the throne. He watched in detached fascination as if what transpired there had nothing to do with him, as indeed perhaps it might not. The head became a blur as its skeletal dome began to rise from its age-long slump forward.

And when Thongor could see it again, the head was massive and proud, blue-skinned like that of the fabled Rmoahal nomads of the east, skull as bare as before save for a single oily black braid. The ears were pointed and bore silver hoop-rings. The nostrils flared. The eyes bulged slightly, and there were
three
of them, one perched above the others, moving concurrently with them in his direction. The powerful form began to rise, one arm hefting the huge sword, a second reaching out for Thongor, and an additional pair emerging from concealment as a great cloak swept back from them. The crown again rode his brow.

3

The King from the Past

The Valkarthan reached instinctively for his scabbard, his hand closing on empty air. The fact registered but dimly as his hair stood on end and his breath grew short. He decided to take the first blow, if only to gauge the giant’s strength. He allowed himself to be grasped by the shoulder and thrown to the wall, where, as anticipated, the piles of various objects broke the force of his impact. He rose bruised, casting about for some weapon.

Initially he took refuge in evasive maneuvers and striking inconsequential blows, which seemed to register as he dealt them but which failed to slow down his strange opponent an iota.

Thongor began to throw some of the larger objects at his enemy. None harmed the giant, but when one or another of the divine images found its mark, Thongor noticed how the stone or metal seemed to cause the monster’s bluish flesh to spark and smolder in a peculiar way. He had thought the nature of his adversary a mystery to be pondered later, at his leisure, should he escape with his life. Now he began to realize that the solution of the mystery would be his only effective weapon.

With a terrible reverberation, the giant figure began to speak, though in a tongue Thongor knew not. Yet nonetheless he began to experience a sense of
recognition
. Had he seen something like this creature’s form depicted in the wall mural? Yes, he had. More than once. Haloed deities had bowed before this blue-skinned monster, presumably a king or a god himself. If the barbarian’s own experience was any clue, the giant must have defeated them all in battle, proven his worthiness to be their king. And would he prove now to be Thongor’s master, even in death? Not if the Valkarthan could help it!

He gathered his strength and leaped at his foe. His boots were apt weapons: the giant fell backwards, though at once he rose up, none the worse for the bruising assault. Frustration lent new fury and power to the few blows Thongor managed to launch while not avoiding the arcs of the great silver sword. He fought with renewed energy, if no more effect. He judged that the creature before him was truly flesh, had become flesh, but was somehow more. Alien flesh absorbed the impact of the youth’s blows, but the thing was no ghost, else Thongor’s flailing fists had met no resistance.

As the two circled, Thongor’s eye caught something he had not noticed before: a shield. A shining relic, of little use for offence by itself, and perhaps the twin of the sword the blue giant held fast. The giant saw it, too, and both dove for it. Thongor came up with it. He knew the blue-skinned behemoth scarcely needed it to fend off his blows, so there must be some other advantage to his possession of it—or perhaps an advantage to him in Thongor’s
not
having it.

Stepping away from the creature, Thongor hefted the shining disk so that he might behold the approaching form of his foeman over his shoulder. It seemed insanely foolish, but in that moment, he had found the crucial weapon that had thus far eluded him:
knowledge
. For now he understood the true nature of his enemy.

In the reflective silver, that metal celebrated for cancelling every spell, Thongor saw but an animated lattice of ancient bones, some of them trailing cobwebs and bits of desiccated gristle. Alien, antehuman, preternatural it was, but it was finally a rotten tree of bones, and, laughing, Thongor swept them aside with the shield. They sprayed across the chamber, many of them collapsing into the omnipresent dust. Struggling against his own fears, he had at last prevailed with the aid of a moment’s thought.

The great sword fell with an almost musical ringing clang. Holding the shield fast, Thongor bent down to retrieve its partner. He made to leave the treasure shaft forever. But on second thought, he stooped and stared about again, looking for the fallen crown of the phantom god-king.

He found it, twirled it around an index finger, and toyed with the momentary temptation to place it on his own brow in a pantomime inauguration. The empty throne was just behind him, as if he had freshly risen from it.

As he stood there, the awful fatigue of the last two days’ exertions fell upon his shoulders. How good it would feel to take a rest upon the dusty throne! Perhaps a healing nap of an hour or so before going on his way. Unconsciously he sat upon the throne.

Without his noticing any passage across the threshold of sleep, dreams nonetheless began to fill his head, and he saw himself reigning from that throne as Sark of all Lemuria! Just as this vanquished being had once reigned in his heyday of the remote past?

And of a sudden Thongor beheld his likeness displayed in the mirror face of the shield: it had become one with the blue-skinned, three-eyed visage of his fallen opponent! Horrified, casting both sword and shield from him like a pair of hungry vipers, Thongor, destined perhaps one day to be king, but not this day, sprang from the throne as from a well-laid trap and made his way down along the shaft to the welcome freshness of the night air.

* * * *

Down on the lower slopes below the caves once more, Thongor was alert for the sound of the dread Hounds of Talondos. There was neither sight nor scent of his recent pursuers. Pausing a moment, he took the risk of retracing his running steps till he came upon the bleeding heap from which he had earlier dared not stop to retrieve his sword. Now he braced one foot on the stoney ribcage and yanked the Valkarthan broadsword free, wiping the blade clean of the creature’s foul blood with a handful of leaves.

Resuming his southward course, Thongor’s steady stride devoured the miles. At length he stood still, and in the light of the golden moon he gazed again at his reflection, this time in the mirror-face of his own familiar sword. Thankfully, it was his natural face.

He knew not what destiny awaited him: surely it had been foolish to entertain the thought of his one day sitting a throne. He laughed aloud now. But he knew his path lay south, and it was time to be on his way.

INTRO TO MIND LORDS OF LEMURIA

Reaching the southern jungle lands at last, Thongor encounters a new world, where quick wits and an even quicker sword keep him precariously alive. He soon establishes himself as a useful fighting man and signs up for military service in the legions of Arzang Pome, the ambitious Sark of Shembis, one of the largest of the city-states.

MIND LORDS OF LEMURIA

1

Jungle Silver

The handful of
kroter
-mounted soldiers thundered into the glade, the intense sunlight of old Lemuria mottling their harsh features through the overhanging foliage. Only half their original number, these survivors were, on the whole, neither stronger nor cannier than their late companions, just luckier—with perhaps one exception. Command of the unit had fallen to a young barbarian from the frozen peaks of Valkarth, a complete stranger to these climes, but seemingly indifferent to the stings of clinging vine and bird-sized mosquito alike. His name was Thongor, and some months earlier he had entered the service of the fat Sark of Shembis, the tyrant Arzang Pome.

The ways of civilized men seemed no less than madness to the strapping Valkarthan, accustomed as he was to the barest code of survival in a hostile world. But the decadent Pome’s madness was real, even by civilization’s standards. His madness was a greed for silver. Hushed rumor had it that the Sark required the precious metal for some unspeakable alchemical rites aimed at securing eternal youth. And, while believable, these whispers might be a simple cloak for insatiable greed where the metal was concerned. Perhaps the be-jowled monarch just had a liking for it.

But for whatever reason, it was his silver lust that had sent this mixed band of palace guards and mercenaries on what thus far had been a futile chase into unmapped jungle. Some wandering mage had sold the Sark a wives’ tale of a lost city buried in the depths of the
lotifer
forest, a rich and proud city whelmed in ancient days for its overweening pride by the Nineteen Gods. Surely a city so proud must have shared the oblivious ruler’s imprudent lust for precious metal, and so he sought to emulate their crime, risking their doom. If there had ever been such a place, a half-fabulous city with no name that even the itinerant storyteller could remember.

But greed let no chance go unopened, and here they were, most of the men sick and disgusted. Their original commander, a high-ranking member of the elite guard, had already perished from snakebite, several others from deadly fruit. Wild beasts had thus far remained at a distance, but as the men’s numbers shrank, this would almost certainly change.

Thongor had assumed command, and no one with an objection had any longer the strength to challenge him. He would do his best to watch out for the men. He liked not the bargain the Sark had struck: how many men might be spent in search of superfluous loot that probably didn’t even exist? He decided he would press on but a little further into the rank growth, far enough to justify the report that a search had turned up nothing. Then he would turn back and take his chances as the bearer of bad tidings. He explained his scheme to the men, and none gainsaid him, all eager to be back in the Shembis wine shops and brothels if they should live so long.

Such thoughts occupied him as Thongor guided the foremost of the mounts carefully through the strange terrain. It suddenly grew thicker again, slowing them down to a maddening crawl. He congratulated himself on having avoided a path grown dense at the far end with spiky vines, but as he turned left, the company raggedly following along…

Disaster closed like a vise! At once there was nothing underfoot. A hunter’s trap, he thought momentarily as his stomach lurched with the unexpected descent. But the fall continued too long, and it was only before he crashed to solid floor beneath that he realized he had found what he sought. The vines and bushes of a thousand years had silently covered the tunnel mouth leading to a great underground complex.

2

Caverns of Madness

It was not long before consciousness returned, and thanks to his wilderness-bred instincts, it returned like a pouncing
snow
-vandar. His head ached, but Thongor’s full black mane, square-cut across his forehead, had cushioned the blow. His silver-plated helmet was nowhere to be seen. He rose up on one elbow, turning in every direction, trying to pierce the shadows with his curious golden eyes, to see how his men fared, men who had made a mistake in following him.

Thongor cursed himself as he paced across what seemed an extensive chamber, stooping over body after body, finding a broken neck here, a fatal concussion there. All he could find were dead, but not all were yet accounted for. Of a sudden he saw a trace of lambency, a strangely colored light shining round a corner of the cavern wall. Had the other survivors, and there could be no more than four, he estimated, had they awakened before him and gone on without him, deeper into the shaft? It seemed unlikely.

Tightening his sword belt and choosing a dagger from one of the sprawled forms, Thongor made for the light. But before he could round the corner, crouched in a stance anticipating attack, he was surprised by an advancing form that seemed to throw itself upon him like a vast blanket. Dry like a snake, yet viscously unstable like some jellyfish, the thing sought to smother him, but he whipped his broadsword from its sheath like lightning and hacked desperately at that which held him. It neither bled nor made any sound.

But a faint buzzing, of which the barbarian had been but subliminally aware up to now, began to heighten in pitch and urgency. Thongor ripped and sliced, tearing with one hand as he cut with the other, but the living wave of alien flesh began to get the better of him, attaching itself to his face, cutting off his breath. For the second time in under an hour, he lost consciousness.