Young Thongor (31 page)

“Breeding vats!” he growled. “Look against the farther wall!”

And indeed it seemed that the Ptarthan wizard was engaged in the ultimate blasphemy itself, the attempt to duplicate the miracle of life. For steel-barred cages ran the length of the further wall, and therein resided the grisly results of the wizard’s experiments, or those of them that had gone awry. After one fascinated look, Ald Turmis spat a heartfelt curse and turned his eyes away from the hideous, deformed hybrids that wriggled, slithered and mewled behind the steel bars. There was one creature whose pink, glistening body was almost covered with eyes…eyes that wept with unutterable sadness, as if the thing had brain and wit enough to realize its own loathsomeness.

Another was a horrible blending of naked young girl and monster plant. Her bare body glistened wetly, pallid and unhealthy, although beautifully and perfectly formed. But her wrists and ankles ended in hairy, thick roots, and her bald head was faceless—a thick profusion of pink, fleshy flower petals.

“By the Nineteen Gods,” Ald Turmis cursed sickly, “why does he let the pitiful things live—they should be put out of their misery with clean steel and burnt!”

“Come,” Thongor growled, “there are other rooms.” They went on and came to a chamber whose walls were hung with silken hangings that rippled with black and crimson like leaping flames. From the vast, complex pentacle traced with glowing chalks against a floor of black marble, the nature of this third chamber was easy to guess. They needed not the stench of brimstone that permeated the air, to know that this room was given over to the wizard’s conjurations. Here he performed those forbidden rituals whereby one might summon up demons from below or spirits from beyond. The very air tingled with unholy magic. They passed on, unhurriedly.

Many other rooms were thus inspected, and they saw these were given over to wizard’s arts almost beyond conjecture. There was one that was completely lined with mirrors. Walls, ceiling and floor were one vast, glittering sheet of reflecting glass. Mirrored wall reflected mirrored wall and thus on to infinity. The purpose of this mysterious chamber was beyond the comprehension of the two swordsmen, but something about the room was unsettling. It was as if space itself was twisted and distorted among those endlessly reflecting, self-mirroring walls. They caught a weird glimpse of an endless nothingness that lay beyond the stricture of space…yawning gulfs of glittering emptiness stretched away forever.

From this terrible glimpse into the abyss they tore their gaze with difficulty. The echoing vastness of dim, shadowy light caught and held their attention with a fascination almost hypnotic. In this room of mirrors, a man could lose himself, could become forever lost in rapt contemplation of endless infinity, his wandering mind trapped and helpless between glittering planes of nothingness…

They came at last to the central hall of the wizard’s house, and Thongor stifled a grunt of satisfaction. A stone dais of many steps supported a sparkling crystal throne, and there on the topmost step lay their two swords.

“Come!” he grunted, fingers questing for the spring that would release the secret door. The hall was untenanted; the guardian demon nowhere in sight. The door slid open noiselessly and they stepped forth into the hall.

And the demon laughed.

7

Swords against Sorcery

The hall was broad and high. Stone columns worked with weird runes and glyphs rose to support a cupola of scarlet crystal high overhead. A floor of polished stone tile rang underfoot. Tall stands of glittering brass held up enormous branching candles of perfumed wax, which cast a wavering gold light over the dark emptiness of the wizard’s seat of power. Hangings wrought of curious fabrics, depicting nightmarish visions drawn from ultimate chaos, hung between the columns; in the flickering light, distorted demoniac figures leered and grimaced and beckoned from these tapestries with the illusions of life.

Thongor spared but a swift, all-encompassing glance at the décor. He spun to confront the devil-guardian whose mocking laughter pealed through the vaulted hall in a thunder of echoes.

“There!” Ald Turmis yelled hoarsely.

Thongor turned, iron chains swinging in his hands. The demon had fooled them by rendering itself invisible to sight. Now it melted into being on top of the dais where the sparkling crystal throne of its master towered.

It stood seven feet tall, straddling their swords, which were laid at the foot of the throne like an offering. The heart of Thongor grew cold at the appearance of the thing. Now it had taken on its normal form for this plane—a scaled and reptilian thing with a bird’s beak and hooked claws. A jagged scarlet crest adorned its flat, blunt, triangular skull, and a serpent’s tail lashed the stone steps. Burning eyes blazed like sulfur down at them with cruel triumph.

“Foolish mortals, not to flee when you had the chance!” it roared in a brazen voice. “For now you perish! I had hoped to spare you for my master’s pleasure, but now—
die
!”

Thongor crouched, knees bent, the chain swinging loosely, ready for whatever might occur. Ald Turmis backed across the hall towards one of the tall, towering brass candelabra as the demon launched itself at Thongor. It sprang like a dragon-cat of the jungle, claws barred and glittering in the fiery light. But in the very middle of its incredible leap, it
changed
. A sheet of flame enveloped the hurtling form, and it shrunk into a ball.

The globe of flame hurled directly toward Thongor.

At the last possible moment, the barbarian leapt aside with a lithe, tiger-like bound. The globe of fire flashed through the space where he had stood a half-second before. And, as he leapt aside, Thongor swung the heavy iron chain with all the strength in his mighty arms and shoulders. The iron links whistled through the air and caught the flaming sphere a terrific blow.

Thongor had learned something of the demon’s nature. While its powers were great, the limitations that were imposed upon it by nature on this plane gave him a certain degree of hope. True, its ability to change shape and substance was Protean—but while in any specific form it was bound by the natural limitations of that form. For example, as a flying globe of flame the thing was virtually without substance, light and flimsy. It could not have, simultaneously, the lightness of flying fire and the iron-hard density of its devil-bird form.

Hence the smashing blow of the heavy iron chain burst the burning globe into a shower of flying fragments. Bits of flame splattered over the floor. Of course, the demon could re-form—but that would take a few seconds of time.

Thongor seized that momentary advantage. In three lithe bounds he had cleared the steps of the dais, snatched up his mighty sword and tossed the slim rapier to Ald Turmis.

Rivulets of flame snaked over the floor and merged into a burning globe again. But now Thongor was doubly armed: the great broadsword was clenched in his right hand and the heavy length of iron chain dangled from his left. He was ready to pit himself against the demon now—as ready as he would ever be. If it came at him in its fire form again, he would again smash it to flying sparks.

But the seething sphere of flames darkened, blurred. It became a monstrous, shadowy form that congealed and hardened. Birdlike wings branched from hunched shoulders, but they were wings of steel. The neck elongated and a long beak pointed, thrust forth. The demon shaped itself into the likeness of a fantastic bird of metal. The feathers that clad its form and its mighty wings were hard, cold metal, like dagger blades. The long beak thrust forth like a spear-point. Clad in glittering metal, the bird-thing rose into the air and sailed at Thongor where he stood on top of the dais. Wings of glistening steel beat with a clangorous din, heavily, but they supported the clumsy monster aloft. And Thongor’s blade and chain would prove feeble weapons against the steel-clad flying monster—

Then, unexpectedly, Ald Turmis struck. The demon, whose intelligence was limited, had almost forgotten his presence. Concentrating on its primary foe, the giant barbarian, it had neglected to attend to the young Zangabali swordsman who stood in the shadows of the column-lined wall. The youth turned and seized the heavy brass candelabrum. Seven feet in the air it loomed, and it was heavy as a man—but desperation lent Ald Turmis new strength, and with a mighty heave he tugged it up and hurled it square against the steel bird as it lurched heavily in flight.

The crashing weight of the massive brass stand brought the steel bird down. It clanged thunderously against the marble pave, and the steel-sheathed wings cracked. The long serpentine neck broke and the spear-beaked head went rolling and clattering against the tiles.

“Well thrown!” Thongor boomed.

Ald Turmis flashed a grin and sprang from his place by the wall to snatch up the severed head. Perhaps he had some wild hope of preventing the demon from re-forming somehow. If so, the hellish powers of the monster were too swift for him. The heavy, cold metal of the head melted into smoke in his very hands. A cloud of green vapor leaked through his clutching fingers and floated across the floor. The broken bird of steel now collapsed into a swirling mass of emerald smoke into which the head-portion mixed and mingled.

A bodiless streamer of dense green vapor, the demon rose. It floated through the air like a cloud of smoke borne by the gusts of the wind. Straight for the place where Thongor stood astride the high dais it drifted…to settle about his throat.

8

The Shield of Cathloda

As the smoke-serpent floated towards him, Thongor struck. His great broadsword swung through the vaporous body of the thing, but did not harm it. The drifting banner of vapor was momentarily broken by the passage of his sword blade, but it melted together almost instantly. It swirled about him, and for a moment he was hidden in the cloud of green smoke. Then two vapor tendrils uncoiled from the mass and lashed about the throat of the young warrior. As the clammy fingers of vapor touched his flesh, they congealed—hardened—took on weight and density. Slithering tentacles of tough, leathery flesh tightened in a stranglehold, cutting off his air.

Thongor’s weapons clanged against the steps of the dais as he snatched at the tightening tentacles of the smoke-thing. His iron fingers tugged to loosen the crushing coils. Green vapor seethed about him. Starved for air, his lungs strained, his mighty chest heaved.

The sinuous tentacles sank into his flesh with incredible strength. He fought on, as more and more portions of the green cloud solidified into slithering tendrils which slapped into place about his struggling form. One curled about his narrow waist, squeezing with a crushing grip. Another lashed about one booted foot, seizing a firm hold, and then snaked out and coiled around his other leg—and tightened, toppling him off balance and sending him crashing against the top of the dais.

Ald Turmis came yelling across the room, brandishing his slim rapier, to aid him in his heaving struggle against the kraken-form. But before the gallant young Zangabali could spring to the aid of his embattled comrade, chance, or fate, intervened. Thrashing about, striving for a firm handhold on one of the green tentacles that were slowly crushing the life from his body, Thongor’s hand slid along the surface of the topmost step of the dais—and closed about the glassy roundness of a slim ovoid.

The demon exploded.

One moment Thongor lay tightly enmeshed in a tangle of writhing emerald tendrils, which were slowly tightening with steely strength, and the next instant the tendrils disintegrated into green vapor. The whirling vapor was flung from him by some tremendous power. It was as if, out of nowhere, an invisible wall had sprung into being about the half-strangled warrior, and, thrusting in all directions outward from his body in unconquerable force, shattered the very substance of the tentacled demon—sundering it atom from atom with a burst of unthinkable power.

At the moment of the explosion, there came as well a thunderous cry of indescribable torment, a bellowing howl of agony that shook the hall and sent the flames of the tall brass candelabra flickering. Ald Turmis had just reached the base of the nine-tiered dais when this inexplicable event took place. The buffeting wind of the explosion knocked him to his knees. Openmouthed with astonishment, he stared about. Scudding wisps of green vapor were flying in every direction from the proximity of the barbarian, who lay prone and gasping for breath at the foot of the crystalline chair of thaumaturgy.

Even as he watched, Ald Turmis became aware that the demon was unable to re-form into a single wholeness again. For the shredded smoke was melting into emptiness even as it floated about the hall. Wisp after coiling wisp dissolved slowly. And, even as the last gobbling echoes of that demonic bellow of unbearable agony faded, the last wisps of vapor disintegrated.

And the demon was gone.

On top of the dais, Thongor stumbled to his feet, dragging huge gulps of air into his starved lungs. He, too, peered about uncomprehendingly. Then, recalling the smooth, cold cylinder his fumbling hand had chanced to grasp, he looked down at what he held. And he burst into croaking laughter.

“It seems I owe that foul toad of a priest, Kaman Thuu, a debt of thanks after all,” he grunted hoarsely. And he held up his hand for Ald Turmis’ inspection.

There in his palm lay—the Shield of Cathloda!