Thongor in the City of Magicians Read online

  THONGOR PITS HIS STRENGTH AGAINST THE EVIL SCIENCE OF ZAAR, THE CITY OF MAGICIANS

  Thongor stares moodily at the power crystal, the glowing bit of stone that is to change the face of the earth and alter the path of the future. He must have more of them, if he is to protect his empire against the black sorcery of Zaar!

  Then his mood of foreboding passes, and the zest of adventure fills his veins like heady wine. To venture again into the unknown vastness of the eastern plains! To seize a mighty weapon for defense within the very shadow of Zaar’s ebon walls!

  But all the while the strange, all-seeing Eye of Zaar watches. It is the beginning of the Last Battle. . . .

  PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION

  First Printing: April, 1968

  Copyright © 1968 by Paperback Library, Inc.

  THONGOR IN THE CITY OF MAGICIANS

  is dedicated to my friends

  Gray Morrow

  George Heap

  and Ken Beale

  —kojans of the Empire

  Paperback Library, books are published by Paperback Library, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Paperback Library” accompanied by an open book, is registered in the United States Patent Office. Paperback Library, Inc., 315 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  PROLOGUE

  THONGOR THE MIGHTY

  AND THE BLACK DRUIDS OF ZAAR

  “. . . Thus did Thongor the Barbarian whelm and drive forth from his lands the cruel, accursed, and demon-worshipping Druids who had long sought power over the Nine Cities of the West. But, in the years that followed, the ominous shadow of Zaar fell darkening from the remotest edge of the world, until it did imperil the bold young cities of the West. And on the Black Altars of Chaos the Nine Wizards of Zaar vowed a terrible vengeance against the warrior-king of Patanga who had crushed their brethren in the West. They swore with a dreadful oath that the Doom of Thongor should be so unspeakable that its memory would haunt the minds of men for untold ages yet to come.”

  —The Lemurian Chronicles

  One night as Thongor lay in sleep,

  His spirit soared aloft to stand

  On cliffy heights above the deep

  In some unknown and nameless land.

  To him the Gods appeared and told

  Of doom from Zaar, and bade him scan

  The book Sharajsha writ of old,

  Therein to seek the hope of man.

  —Thongor’s Saga, XVII, 1-2.

  . . . THUS BEGINS THE LEGEND OF THE LAST BATTLE WHEREIN THE FATE OF MANKIND WAS DECIDED.

  CHAPTER 1

  SECRET CAVERN OF TREASURE

  Sharajsha’s secret book lies hid

  Beneath the Temple buried deep,

  Which like some mighty pyramid

  Conceals the treasure it doth keep.

  —Thongor’s Saga, XVII, 3.

  Night hung like a black curtain above the walled city of stone that stood at the mouth of the Twin Rivers. The darkness hid the great golden moon of ancient Lemuria behind a pall, and veiled from sight her attendant host of star's. Naught moved through the streets of Patanga the City of the Flame but the sighing night-wind and an occasional troop of archers on their way to relieve the guards stationed at the city’s gates. But above the city, slim glittering flying boats of the Air Guard circled silently, keeping the watch.

  They floated above the Great Plaza that lay at the heart of the stone metropolis, and above the domed roof of the huge Temple of Nineteen Gods that fronted on tills central square, and above the mighty Thorian Way, that broad avenue which spanned the width of the city from the plaza to the frowning bastions of the Western Gate. Tirelessly they kept their lonely vigil, for Patanga was the heart of a vast empire, the Sarkonate of the Five Cities, and although its banners of black and gold fluttered above most of the cities along the gulf and down to the thunderous shores of Yashengzeb Chun the Southern Sea, many cunning and savage foes watched the rise of the young empire with envious eyes, and schemed to bring those banners down into the trodden dust.

  But tonight, it seemed, those envious eyes slept, for the summer night was silent, and within the curve of the mighty walls, great Patanga slept secure.

  But one there was who did not sleep.

  Through the dark aisles of the Temple of Nineteen Gods, a lone figure prowled on silent feet. The high domed roof of the temple was murmurous with whispers, and below all was blackness, save for the eternal lights which flamed before the High Altar and the stupendous images of carven stone.

  When his silent steps had brought him to the foot of this altar, the dark figure put out one hand and touched a hidden spring concealed amidst the symbolic designs wrought from the pale marble. A whisper of sound—and a black opening yawned!

  Down a winding stair that coiled beneath the altar into a secret cavern whose very existence was known but to a few, passed the tall figure.

  He emerged into the Grotto of the Flame.

  A gigantic cavern lay before him, walls of ancient stone rising to a high-arched roof wherefrom hung dripping stalactites . . . thick spears of pearly stone as large as the fangs of Baroumphar, the Father of All Dragons in Lemurian fable. And the floor of the cavern rose to meet these dangling spears, rising in glassy humped stalagmites formed through countless aeons of slow calcareous dripping, endless centuries of mineral-laden ooze from the glistening stone spears overhead. A weird and terrible scene of primitive splendor!

  But strangest of all was The Flame.

  In the center of the cavern floor was a deep, low-lipped well, like some fantastic crater. From the black mouth of this sunken pit rose a mighty sheet of fire, emerald-green, its weird glow flickering and moving over the glassy forest of stalagmites and stalactites. . . . Strange was this everburning flame of emerald radiance! No mortal alive knew its secret. The Yellow Druids of Yamath, Lord of the Flame, that had ruled the City of Patanga before the coming of Thongor the Mighty, cloaked its curious nature in whispered myth. “The Ever-Burning One” they called it, and “The Eternal Fire.”

  Perhaps it was a jet of unknown vapor that rose from the secret heart of the Lemurian continent—or from the very bowels of the earth itself. For ages and ages beyond the memory of man The Flame had burned. Sharajsha, the great wizard of Lemuria who lived no more, had once conjectured that it rose from the unknown volcanic world of fire that roared in supernal fury far below the bedrock of the continent. Within that labyrinthine world of hidden caverns, colossal forces seethed in unstable balance, held in check as yet, but with the eventual passages of unborn ages, destined to burst free in a thunderous fury of cataclysmic power whose convulsions would shatter and sink all of Lemuria beneath the foaming waves of the mighty Pacific . . . a watery grave from whence naught should be left of the splendor and glory of the first brave kingdoms of Man but a fragment of legend, and a name . . . Lemuria, the Lost Continent, the Cradle of Man.

  Grim-faced, Thongor looked upon The Flame. It was he, the Lord of the Five Cities, who had come down the secret stair into these subterranean crypts by a hidden way the old sorcerer, Sharajsha, had revealed to him years before. It was he, the Sark-of-Sarks, the Emperor, who waked and roamed while his people slept.

  A great bronze lion of a man was Thongor of the Northlands, thewed like a savage god, his splendid body bare save for a loincloth of crimson cloth and the jeweled leather harness of a Lemurian warrior, an affair of buckled straps that crisscrossed his brawny chest, whereto were clipped with brass rings the scabbard of a dirk and the great Valkarthan broadsword that never left his side.

  His grim, impassive face was majestic and stern beneath the rude mane of coarse thick black hair that poured over his massive back and shoulders and was
held from his scowling black brows by a circlet of red gold set with square-cut black opals from the mountain-mines of Mommur. Clipped with cairngorm brooches to the wide collar of black leather that circled his corded throat, a huge crimson cloak swung from his broad shoulders. Gold rings flashed in the emerald light from arm and sinewy wrist. His square, stern jaw was grim-set, and his strange golden eyes were without expression as he stared at the flickering, dancing glory of The Flame.

  But it was not to consult the ancient oracle of The Flame that Thongor visited by night these secret caverns. He strode across the cavern floor towards the further wall, boot-heels ringing on the cold wet stone, the crimson cloak belling out behind him like the wings of some fantastic bird as he strode on.

  It was fear that kept Thongor from his rest, fear that had roused him from his place beside his sleeping princess and goaded him forth into the mysterious night—fear for his people, and dread of what the future might hold for them.

  Thongor was a barbarian, the last survivor of his savage and primitive tribe, the Blackhawk Clan of Valkarth, whose rock-built stronghold fronted on the cold foam of Zharanga Tethrabaal, the Great North Ocean. He had come down from the bleak and savage wilds of the Northlands, down across the Mountains of Mommur into the lush and jungle-clad hills of the South where glittering young cities reared bright towers against the morning sky . . . to the South, with its young nations and ancient evils, where the kingly ambitions of sark and the priestly greed of druid strove one against the other for supremacy.

  With the indomitable strength of a young giant and the matchless fighting skill of one raised from the cradle with a sword in his hand, Thongor had brawled and guzzled, roistered and fought, swaggered and wandered through half the cities of the South. First as thief and assassin, bandit and vagabond, then as galley-slave at the oarlocks of Shembis, sweating beneath the cruel lash. Next as pirate chieftain, ravishing the seaport cities along the Patangan Gulf. Later, through his comradeship with a young warrior named Ald Turmis, he had worn the scarlet leather of a mercenary swordsman, and rode to war with the scarlet-and-black dragon banners of Thurdis streaming above his helm and a red sword in one brawny fist.

  In those wild and bloody swashbuckling days, he gave no thought to the morrow and what it might bring. Nor had he any desires that could not be sated with a cup of red wine or a willing pair of scarlet lips or a keen-edged sword to cut a crimson path through the thundering battlefields of the wide-wayed world.

  But the wise gods of ancient Lemuria, or that destiny that some say rules even the gods, had a strange fate reserved for the shaggy-maned barbarian from the savage Northlander steppes. First, his feet were set on a wandering path that led him on a fantastic quest halfway across the breadth of Lemuria to the Inland Sea of Neol-Shendis, where with the mighty wizard Sharajsha by his side he battled with the very lightning of the gods in his hands for weapon in a cosmic duel against the last of the reptilian Dragon Kings who had ruled the planet for long ages before the coming of the First Men. And in this fantastic adventure, whose memory, carried down the whispered byways of saga and legend, was to outlast the very continent, he befriended the gorgeous young girl who was to become his mate—Sumia, exiled Princess of Patanga the City of Fire. Driven from her throne by the vulpine greed of Vaspas Ptol, the Yellow Archdruid who had seized the royal power on the death of her father, the Princess Sumia had found for her champion Thongor, the mightiest warrior of his world.

  Thongor’s unconquerable courage and fighting prowess had smashed the army of Sumia’s foes, overwhelmed the Yellow Druids and drove them forth from the land, liberated the City of the Flame and restored Sumia to her ancient throne—and Thongor took his place at her side as sark, or king, of the land of Patanga.

  But with his royal title, Thongor also took on a host of troubles and tasks. For Patanga was ringed in with powerful enemies. Other cities, such as seacoast Tsargol to the south, and warlike Thurdis across the Gulf, rose to contend with the barbarian conqueror. Many times in the six years since wise old Eodrym, Hierarch of the Temple of Nineteen Gods, had wed Thongor and his Princess before the altars of Father Gorm, had the war-trumpets rung out and the Sark of Patanga had thundered with his legions to the fields of war. Thurdis the City of the Dragon had fallen before his sword, and Shembis by the gulf, and Tsargol to the south, that fronted on the main. Thus had he built a mighty Empire, placing his dearest comrades in the thrones of the cities he had conquered.

  But still, danger threatened . . . this time from the most distant east, from the very edge of Lemuria, where rose the frowning walls of Zaar the City of the Black Magicians.

  Five years had passed since Thongor had faced one of the lordly magisters of the Black City, Adamancus of Zaar. The barbarian had destroyed the Black Magician with his own demon-wrested arts of sorcery, and rescued the princess from the grasp of the magician while his very tower was a seething chaos of magic flames. Thongor had come back across half a world to Patanga, and had promptly put the Black City from his mind, busy with the embassies of Zangabal, which had become the fifth city of the Empire, and with the thousand and one affairs of state.

  But on this dark and moonless summer night, the dread name of Zaar came whispering into Thongor’s dreams as he lay sleeping beside his princess. . . .

  He frowned at the memory. It seemed that he rose through mists of dream to stand atop some mighty peak under a sky filled with a million blazing stars. And about the mountain’s crest, as men will stand on council about a table, the cloudy dim figures of the gods loomed far above him, crowned with dazzling stars! Frozen with awe, the dream-self of Thongor had stood, naked and alone on the windswept mountain peak, with the shadowy and insubstantial visages of the Nineteen Gods frowning down at him—Father Gorm, the Lord of the Sky, with his winged brows and flowing beard and eyes of the fierce eagle; ancient Pnoth, God of Starry Wisdom, with the Book of Millions of Years clasped against his cloudy robes; smiling Tiandra, the Lady of Fortune, and Aslak the Smith of the Gods; radiant Aedir, the Lord of the Sun and his mate, Illana the Moon-Lady, and a shadowy host of others—and the Nineteen Gods spake to him in this fashion, amidst his dream:

  “Beware, O Thongor, of the Black City, whose Eye rests upon all thy realm and thee. . . . Ponder the wise words of thy beloved comrade, Sharajsha the Great, whom thou knowest dwells now in our starry halls, and the warnings he didst write in that deep book of wisdom thou guardest . . . and return again unto the lands of the East, where thou mayest find the Crystals of Power, for in them doth lie the key to the future. . . . Beware, O Thongor, for a storm is rising in the East and all thy lands of the West may fall beneath the shadow thereof and founder, unless thou hast tamed the lightnings of heaven . . .”

  And it seemed in his dream that Thongor had lifted his arms to the tremendous and majestic face of Father Gorm, and spake, saying: “Hai-yah! Thou Father of the Gods, ready am I to do what a mortal may in the face of the Dark Powers . . . nor do I cringe from Danger, for he and I be comrades from of old, and oft have we measured swords the one against the other! But speak! Give me knowledge of this peril that impends, and lend me the aid of thy mighty strength against these enemies of gods and men!”

  And to him the God made this reply: “Know, O Thongor, that the gods are of a higher sphere than the world of men, nor may we do aught within thy world, under that Law that governs even us (for thy gods are but servants unto Higher Gods unknown!)—Nay! We work only through the hands of men. Such men as thee, cornerstones and makers of thy age, we influence through dreams and portents, visions and omens . . . for only in moments of ultimate peril to the universe may we take action in the world of men . . . therefore, be thou warned, O Thongor, and—beware!”

  The faces of the gods were of a sudden wrapped in swirling vapor. Clouds hid them, then rolled away, revealing empty sky which rolled and echoed with the thunder of stormy wings. Then the mountaintop vanished, and Thongor fell through leagues of whirling mist. . . down . . . down . . . to awaken bol
t upright, shaken with awe, in his own bed. Beyond the window, he heard the guard cry the hour of three. . . .

  Thus had he risen from his bed to steal by secret ways unto this unknown cavern-world below the great city. For here, in this place known but to him alone, lay concealed the magical treasures of Patanga—and now he stood before the hidden door of the treasure crypt!

  With one hand he reached out and pressed the wall of rough rock. Stone grated against stone, and a massive slab of solid rock sank from sight, revealing a hidden room.

  Within, hewn out of flinty stone, was a cubicle, empty save for a mammoth block of polished black marble. Atop this glassy cube lay an armlet of heavy gold set with a curious jewel, a rare chandral flecked with tawny, amberous fires.

  Beside it lay a gigantic book half the height of a man. This was the Grimoire of Sharajsha the Great wherein the mage had inscribed with fiery metallic inks on thin sheets of metal foil the secrets of his magic arts and the fruits of his wisdom. Portentous and huge was this tome, bound in scaled green leather of tanned dragonhide, and locked with seven mighty locks of steel. Behind the black marble cube, clamped against the stone walls with brackets of iron, a fabulous sword blazed and flashed in the emerald light—the matchless Sword of the Gods itself, which Thongor had wielded seven years before when his weird quest had led him to the Black Citadel of the Dragon Kings.

  Never again would Thongor lift that enchanted blade, but one that was to come after him would, in the fullness of time and in the Last Days of Lemuria, employ the frightful powers of the Sword of Swords against the tides of Chaos and Old Night. . . .

  Drawing a ring of keys from his pocket-pouch, Thongor opened the seven locks of steel one by one. And then he bent over the mighty Grimoire, slowly turning the glittering metallic leaves, as he read, and thought, and pondered.