Young Thongor (32 page)

9

The Return of the Sorcerer

Thongor rejoined his comrade at the base of the dais. Despite the ferocity of the tentacled assault, and the steel strength of the constricting, snaky limbs, Thongor’s massive body was unharmed. A few bruises, a few more aching muscles, a smear or two of blood where rasping, tightening ropes of sinewy tendril had torn away a few square inches of his tough hide—but nothing more serious than that.

“It was the talisman,” he explained to Ald Turmis, “the protective amulet the old Zangabali priest lent me when I first entered into this cursed and devil-haunted house. It’s proof against every sorcery—it nullifies every spell—drives away every magical or demonic thing that comes near. Now that I think about it, the demon was helpless to harm me when I first encountered it. With devilish cunning, the hell-fiend assumed the form of a mortal wench, to beguile me. And once it had distracted my attention, it stole the talisman—the Shield of Cathloda, as old Kaman Thuu called it—from my pocket-pouch.”

“But—I don’t understand,” Ald Turmis said in a puzzled voice. “Why should—“

“If I had not borne the Shield on my person, the demon could have simply fallen on me the instant I entered the wizard’s house and torn me apart—or tried to. But it was unable to hurt me, armed with the protection of the amulet…at least until it had seduced me with its girl-form and distracted my attention from the amulet.”

“I begin to see,” the youth said slowly. “So it fetched the Shield of Cathloda here and set it beside our swords at the foot of the throne, an offering to its master when he should return from the sabbat.”

“Aye,” Thongor grunted. “And in my threshing about, I chanced to grasp the amulet, which automatically invoked its protective powers. The thing is small and glassy—I did not even notice it when I grabbed up our swords…”

“So when you seized upon the amulet, it tore the demon asunder. But why—how?”

Thongor shrugged impatiently. “How should I know? I know nothing of sorcery and suchlike. Perhaps it formed an invisible barrier about me, repelling the devil-thing. But it happened so swiftly, that the demon was blasted apart…and, since the amulet destroys the magical power of whatever ensorcelled thing it touches, the demon itself was demolished. For it must have been held present on the earth-plane by a powerful spell of black wizardry: it’s abnormal for hell-spawn to gain entry into this plane of being; their natural home is far from here.”

“So,” mused Ald Turmis, “when the touch of the amulet canceled the spell which gave the demon freedom of movement on this plane, it disintegrated, returning to whatever crimson pit of hell was its natural place. And lucky for us it happened as it did, for the vile thing had well-nigh strangled the life out of you—and would have made short work of me, soon after.”

“Aye!” Thongor grunted, touching his bruised and swollen throat with tender fingers, grimacing with a wince of pain. “Thank Gorm I blundered on the crystal thing when I did. But, now, Ald Turmis, let us leave this accursed place, and swiftly. We have our swords, and here lie our cloaks and warrior harness. Let us shake the dust of this place off our heels, and repair to the nearest inn. It will take a jug or two of strong red wine to wash the stink of magic from me, and I can taste it already!”

But Ald Turmis, looking past him to the top of the dais, made no answer. Instead he went pale to the lips and clutched Thongor’s arm mutely.

Thongor grunted questioningly, and turned to see what had alarmed his comrade. And he saw—

Even as the ruddy glow of dawn lit the crystal dome above them and bathed the shadow-thronged hall with tremulous, bloody radiance, whirling darkness grew about the empty throne on the top of the tier of stone steps. Was it the hell-spawned guardian, returning to this plane? Or was it has master?

10

The Living Statue

Like a churning cloud of dust motes dancing in a skirl of wind, particles of darkness seethed about the sparkling crystal throne. Gradually the whirling motes drew closer together, forming a shadowy pillar of darkness. Seven feet tall the blurred shadow-shape loomed. The vaporous fabric of its substance grew slowly solid. The tall, massive figure of a man melted out of the dense blackness. He was tall and powerful, with a strong-boned, swarthy face, wrapped from head to heel in a long black cloak whose collar lifted to peaks like horns beside his head.

“Gods of Hell!” Ald Turmis swore—“
The sorcerer returns!
”

And it was even so. As they watched, the heavy form became solid flesh. Still wrapped from throat to toe in the stiff black cloak, whose strange fabric glittered with tiny star-like points of light, the huge man stood. He seated himself in his chair of power and let long, naked hands go out to clutch the arms of the chair. These arms ended with great knobs carved from the sparkling crystal from which the throne-chair was hewn, and each facet of these knobs bore inset a potent talisman of magic. Enthroned in his high place, touching with his naked hands the sigils which commanded unseen sources of power, the wizard was enshrined, invulnerable—a pole of power—the connecting node between the universe of matter and the unseen half-world of tremendous forces which lay behind the structure of the cosmos.

Robed in power, beyond the reach of mortals, Athmar Phong gazed down at them calmly. He was a veritable giant of a man. Had his towering height been less, he would have seemed a grossly fat man: as it was, his abnormal tallness made him seem less obese. But massive flesh lay on his giant bones. His weight must have been twice that of an ordinary man like Ald Turmis.

His face was a gross caricature of cold, cynical command. Hairless, massive-boned, he gazed down at them like some colossal buddha. His impassive, unlined face was a passionless mask of heavy flesh. Cold, slitted eyes ringed in fat looked down at them with a placid contempt. There was callous cruelty in the set of his thick lips, brutal virility in the arrogant thrust of his hooked nose, remorseless and superhuman intelligence in the huge, bulging brows of his naked pate.

“Thieves in my house,” he said calmly, “and clever ones at that. For, whether you know it or not, mortals, the guardian of my treasures was a demon of the seventh circle. I am amazed that mere men of brawn such as you had the cunning and the wit to destroy so mighty an entity of the transmundane.”

His voice was like his face: heavy, slow, soft and cold. The words glided, oily and thick and sluggish, from almost motionless lips. “Whoever sent you here, must have armed you with a potent name of power. Let me warn you, then, do not think to employ such a name against Athmar Phong. Enthroned, I sit at a nexus of the unseen forces, shielded from such powers as you might bear against me by currents of the ineffable. The name would rebound against yourself, leaving me unshaken. But let me see…”

The heavy, hooded eyelids lifted, baring orbs of utter blackness. No whites were visible about those blazing pupils: nor did they look like the eyes of a fully human creature.

Thongor stiffened, his senses stirring with an eerie chill of superstitious fear. The cold gaze of Athmar Phong thrust at him like needles of steel. His own gaze was locked and held in the grip of a superior will. He felt a weird sensation within his skull, as if cold tendrils of thought were prying through the secret places of his mind. It lasted an instant only, and the tendrils were withdrawn.

Ominous satisfaction curved the lips of Athmar Phong in a slight, subtle smile.

“So it was my old friend, Kaman Thuu, sent you here, dog of a barbarian. I shall repay him trebly for this deed! Yonder youth also, as I recall, came here at his urgings: him we took captive half-a-moon ago, and I thought him well secured in certain cellar chambers set aside for uninvited guests. I see the lad had cunning enough to force an exit from there—or did you aid him with those great brawny arms, eh?”

Beside Thongor, Ald Turmis snarled an oath and his knuckles whitened on the hilt of his rapier.

The Ptarthan wizard smiled cynically. “I read your thoughts as well…rash, impetuous youth, it is best that I immobilize the two of you before you cause hurt to yourselves—“

Before either Thongor or Ald Turmis could think or move or speak, the wizard’s hand tightened on one of the talismans set within the handgrip of his throne. A shaft of scintillating azure light speared from the crystal throne. The two young swordsmen stood bathed in the shaft of cold blue light, and the wizard smiled as Ald Turmis cried out sharply and Thongor growled an astonished oath.

“I—cannot—move!” the Zangabali cried in a voice of anguish. His face gleamed wetly white, and as Thongor looked he saw an unnatural pallor sweep over the lean, strong body of his comrade, who was naked but for a ragged clout.

“Numb…cold,” Ald Turmis groaned. His voice sounded hoarse, constricted, as if the muscles of his throat were half-paralyzed. The wizard chuckled above them, a gloating sound that roused a warning growl in Thongor’s deep chest. He, too, felt a momentary chill pass over his body as he stood in the path of the shaft of scintillating blue light. But then his fingers tightened over the cold, ovoid shape of the Shield of Cathloda, which he still clutched in his right hand, and the brief sensation of numbness vanished instantly.

The blue ray dimmed and died. The wizard withdrew his fingers from the circular sigil of blue metal.

“The immobilizing ray,” he said softly. “Your flesh will slowly grow harder and more dense until the two of you will turn to stone. Lovely statues to adorn my hall…yet statues that live and think, for your souls will be held captive within your petrified flesh for all eternity to come. Fit punishment indeed, for the tools of that treacherous priestling, Kaman Thuu.”

The giant wizard shifted in his throne. He stretched out one hand towards empty air. “Poor mortals!” he said mockingly. “You searched my halls in vain, for that which you sought but could not find was here beside my place all this while, though shielded from the gaze of uninvited guests. Behold—the mirror of Zaffar!”

One great naked hand clutched out at empty air and whisked aside a blur of bright cloth from a pedestal of glistening silver. At the top of the silver stand an oval disc of thick black glass caught the dim radiance of dawn with sullen, shifting fires. Thongor stared.

The mirror had been covered with a strange cloth whose stiff fabric, bright, blurred, was oddly difficult to see. The eye would not quite focus on it; something about its blurred brilliance was eye-twisting, as if the sight slid off it. So the mirror had been beside the throne all the while!

Beside him, Ald Turmis moaned in anguish. His weird pallor was more visible now. The surface of his bare body, ashen white, looked rough and dry, almost…like stone. And Thongor grimly knew that if he did not act, and soon, the young swordsman of Thurdis who had befriended him in the pits below this house of hell would turn to enduring stone—a living statue, imprisoning the tortured soul of Ald Turmis for all time to come.

11

The Breaking of Spells

The slow, heavy voice of Athmar Phong was speaking again, like the dull tolling of a leaden bell under thick water. Waves of words beat against them as the wizard droned on.

“Behold, O fortunate mortals, that which few eyes have ever looked upon—the supreme magical treasure of all the ages! Zaffar the Great, the mighty thaumaturge of Patanga wrought this mirror, and seven generations of time—as mortal men measure time—went into its making! Seven thousand potent spells of power are sealed into the substance of this black mirror. Zaffar fashioned it from perdurable adamant, the strongest substance known to sorcery. Now it is fragile as glass…and bound helpless and raging therein, lie forever imprisoned the very self and substance of Aqquoonkagua, one of the nine thousand princes of the infernal pit! Aye, a mighty and eternal prince of hell, older than the very universe of stars itself—a fragment of elder chaos and old night—caught and held within the magic mirror of Zaffar the Great!
Behold
—”

The black mirror was about the size of the
cherm
, the small, lightweight buckler the Lemurian warriors wore strapped to their left forearms. It was black as the heart of darkness itself, a disc of shimmering crystal, thick as the breadth of two fingers.

As Athmar Phong touched it with his naked hands, it stirred with strange life. Thongor felt his hackles rise upon the back of his neck
. Within the shimmering darkness, a crimson shadow moved!

For a moment Thongor glimpsed a great triangular head. As he watched it, it shouldered into view, peering through the mirror as through a black window. He saw one great, glaring eye—a pit of blazing hellfire—and a wide, fanged maw open, working, screaming with silent fury. Then the red thing that was a captive Prince of the Pit slunk back into the darkness of its shadowy home and was lost to view.

“Gorm!” the barbarian grunted, feeling sweat trickle down his sides and moisten his brows. Strange and terrible were the ways of wizards; dark and dreadful were their uncanny arts. The mighty, crimson demon was somehow reduced to two dimensions only: to him the flat surface of the mirror was an entire world, from which he could never break free unless released by an outside agency. The whole thing was mad and nightmarish. For an instant he almost pitied the shambling, scarlet horror locked in the surface of the ebon glass for dim, unimaginable aeons…