Zanthodon Page 4

  Dizzily, the Professor stared into that febrile, unwavering and multiple glare. In his fear-frozen mind, it seemed that the six eyes expanded like unto mad red moons, until staring into them was like staring into the lambent but motionless depths of a sea of scarlet luminance.

  And all the while that it held the old man rooted to the spot with its unwinking and hypnotic stare, the monstrous leech-like thing crept slowly nearer and nearer to where he stood.

  Sick with fear, petrified with fascination, the Professor dimly guessed that the gigantic leech lived upon the blood of men and of beasts, much as do the smaller leeches he was familiar with in the world above.

  They are noisome and squeamish-making, but due to their smallness, can do a fullgrown man little harm.

  But the leech that slithered and crept toward him now was nearly as tall as he was.

  And the horrible mouths of those crater-like excresences that lined its pink and tender underbelly could suck a man dry in minutes.

  There was nothing the old man could do to defend himself against the slimy vampire leech. Fast fixed in the hypnotic gaze of those snakelike eyes, he was utterly unable to move so much as the tip of one finger. And even if he had been able to move, his back was set against a sheer wall of unbroken stone, and the only aisle through the dense, thick wall of solid vegetation was the aisle down which the loathsome slug came slithering toward him.

  Cold sweat slicked the old man's bald brow. It ran down the insides of his thighs and down his bony ribs.

  Fear and loathing such as he had never before experienced or even imagined rose within his heart. Sick with horror and disgust, he stared into the soulless glare of those inhuman eyes, and watched the most hideous death known to him as it crept to his very feet.

  Now that wriggling proboscis touched the toe of his boot, all the while holding him entranced and helpless with the glare of its unwinking multiple eyes.

  He endured the sensation-although his skin crawled and sickness was in the pit of his belly-as it fumbled at his feet.

  Then-horribly!-it reared up before him with a lithe, snaky motion ghastly to watch.

  For one unbearable instant those hideous eyes stared at the same level directly into his own.

  And then it was upon him, and the Professor felt his consciousness dim into roiling blackness as he sank into the loathsome embrace.

  And he knew no more.

  I must now turn back from the course of my narrative to recount certain events which transpired only a little earlier. If you have perused the first portion of the story of my adventures in the Underground World, you will recall how the Professor and the young Stone Age boy, Jorn the Hunter, found a narrow pass which wound through the cliffy walls of the Peaks of Peril, and how they emerged to view the shore and the lagoon and the amazing vessel of the Barbary pirates-whose presence here in the Underground World neither of them had ever suspected.

  When Jorn exited from the mountain pass just in time to see his lost Princess borne a naked and helpless captive aboard the pirate galley, the brave cave boy did not for one moment hesitate to spring to her rescue.

  Without a word to his companion, the warrior flung his lean, strong body into the seething waters that boiled in the wake of the Moorish galley.

  As the half-naked lad clove the waves, heading directly for the strange ship-whose like he and his people had never seen before-the sailors along the rail caught sight of him and raised their voices to hail their captain, who had just come aboard, burdened with the struggling cave girl.

  "O, reis Kairadine! Behold!" they shouted, pointing. And the hawklike gaze of the Barbary pirate had narrowed, considering. He could not help admiring with faint astonishment the reckless and foolhardy daring of the savage boy, to strive singlehandedly to rescue the savage girl whom Kairadine presumed to be his jungle sweetheart. But he wished to be gone from this place, and to enjoy his prize at leisure.

  Therefore he had raised his jeweled hand carelessly in a languid gesture. And in the next instant his pirates unlimbered their horn bows, nocking barbed and deadly arrows and drawing the bows until the feathered shaft nestled against their ears.

  An instant before the murderous rain of arrows hissed about him, Jorn sucked in a deep, hasty breath, and dove to the shallow bottom of the lagoon. He had just sunk into the depths as the deadly hail tore the muddy waters to froth. So closely simultaneous had been his diving to the bottom and the fall of the vicious barbed rain directly where his body had been but an instant before, that the sailors, squinting into the bright, dancing waters, believed they had slain the youth.

  Moments later, the pirate galley came about into the breeze and swung out into the bosom of the Sogar-Jad. But, unbeknownst to any aboard the vessel, clinging to the keel was a stalwart youth with murder in his heart.

  Pausing only to catch his breath, Jorn swung himself up out of the fuming wake and clambered up the rudder to a position just below the windows of the captain's cabin, which gave forth a view of the ship's wake.

  Clutching the wooden sill in strong, wet hands, Jorn levered himself up and peered through the panes to see Darya struggling naked on the bed with the corsair towering above her, one heavy hand raised to deal the girl a resounding buffet.

  Thus had Jorn, without a moment's pause for thought, pulled himself up and hurled through the swinging windows to spring upon the astounded Barbary pirate like a striking leopard. He bore the larger man to the floor beneath the impact of his hurtling weight, and in the next instant his strong hands locked about the throat of the corsair, just beneath his thin fringe of red beard.

  As Kairadine kicked-and struggled, striking Jorn about the face and shoulders, the savage boy buried his face in the pirate's breast to avoid his stinging blows; and all the while his sinewy hands closed upon the throat of his gasping adversary with throttling pressure.

  As for the pirate, his mouth was open, froth beading his thin lips and flecking his fringe of trim beard.

  His face blackened as he strove with starved and laboring lungs to suck in one precious breath of air, and a red mist darkened before his gaze while a stealthy numbness crept like some insidious venom through his veins. Taller and stronger was the older man, and in an even match there was little doubt that Kairadine would, with some effort and a bit of good luck, have been able to best the savage youth.

  But when the boy's leap had bowled the pirate over, his turbaned brow had struck the edge of the bunk with stunning force. Half unconscious from the numbing blow, even the sinewy strength of the pirate chieftain was of little avail against the tigerish fury of the cave boy. And this terrible truth burned like a branding iron through the darkening brain of Kairadine Redbeard as he sank into swirling darkness and knew no more.

  "Reis? Lord Kairadine? Is aught amiss?" came startled voices at the door, and the drumming of pounding fists. It was obvious that the noise of their struggle had aroused the pirate's crew to the defense of their chieftain. Reluctantly, Jorn let his crushing grip loosen about the throat of the pirate.

  Automatically, the unconscious corsair drank into his starved lungs a delicious gulp of fresh sea air.

  "Jorn!" cried Darya, springing from the bunk. "We must be gone from here before they come to aid him-"

  The boy nodded. Seizing up Darya, he flung her through the open window. As she fell into the sea he sprang upon the sill, and launched his lithe bronzed body after her.

  In an instant, both had vanished in the boiling waters of the ship's wake. And when, a moment later, the wild-eyed corsairs burst into the cabin to find their captain halfthrottled and semi-conscious on the floor and his young captive vanished as if into thin air, the superstitious pirates rolled their eyes in fright at each other, and mumbled halfforgotten texts from the Book of the Prophet.

  In their tension and excitement, the corsairs did not notice that the rear windows of the cabin were even at that moment swinging slowly shut as the pirate galley pitched to the roll of the w
aves. Had Jorn burst through the portal, smashing his way into the cabin in a shower of shattering glass, the sailors would at once have realized the method of exit employed by the captive cave girl. But this had not been necessary, for Jorn had thrust the windows open with a nudge of his shoulders as he had levered himself up to the sill.

  Hence the vanishing of the girl was a mystery which struck uncanny fear into their wild and untutored hearts.

  For a grown man, in the full noontide of his strength, to be beaten to the floor and half-strangled to death by a mere slip of a wench scarcely out of her teens-who then inexplicably dissolved into empty air, leaving not a trace behind-caused the pirates to recall, with a shuddering foreboding, every weird and frightful legend they had ever heard whispered of the fearsome and mysterious Jinn.

  Part Two

  THE PEAKS OF PERIL

  Chapter 6. ANY PORT IN A STORM

  Hurok of the Drugars had not gone very far into the depths of the jungle before he paused to linger indecisively in a small glade. As the huge, hulking Neanderthal stood there, his heavy brows knotted in thought, his mighty form dappled by light and shade, he made a striking picture. For, ape-like though indeed were his sloping shoulders, splayed feet and long, dangling, massively muscled arms, there was about the simple Drugar an element of natural majesty. Perhaps it was that within his breast the feeble spark of humanity struggled with the savage brute that was his heritage, and that within his mind a dim but vital change was taking place.

  To such as Hurok and his kind life is a mere matter of survival, and such feelings and sentiments as friendship, loyalty, chivalry and self-sacrifice are alien and unprized.

  However, in even the short while that he and I had traversed the savage wilderness as comrades, he had learned that the softer emotions are not without value or worth, even in . For I had taught him the meaning of compassion and of friendship . . . and as for the feelings he bore for myself, which even now struggled within his mighty heart against the resentment and bitterness of what he deemed my betrayal, his awareness of these feelings also made him realize that never again could he return to the cruel and savage ways of his beast-like kind.

  Once the sentiments of civilization have been experienced, even such as Hurok the Drugar are forever changed. And, as I firmly believe, changed for the better.

  As there was really nowhere else for Hurok to go, he soon turned about and retraced his steps to that place near the edge of the jungle where we had not long since parted company.

  Perhaps the Apeman could have returned to his own country on the island of Ganadol to challenge and conquer whatever rival males had survived the stampede and the battle, but of what avail would it have been to such as Hurok had now become to rule a savage kingdom like Kor, for can a man who has once tasted the friendship and the company of civilized men ever again be satisfied with lording it over a grunting tribe of shaggy brutes?

  No. There was no place in all of for Hurok of Kor but at the side of the friend he knew as Black Hair. And when once the sluggish mind of my Neanderthal friend had reached a decision, he acted upon it without pause for further thought.

  Reaching the jungle's edge, Hurok examined the breadth of the plain of the trantors without discovering any sign of my presence. Nevertheless, since it had been my avowed intention to traverse the plain and to search for my Princess among the Peaks of Peril, he proceeded in that direction. Trotting with an easy, jogging stride that one with his bull-like strength and stamina could maintain without fatigue for many miles, Hurok crossed the plain in the direction of the distant peaks.

  Erelong, Hurok discovered my spoor. He at once flung himself prone in the long grasses and sniffed at the marks made in the earth by my sandaled feet. While the eyes of such as Hurok of the Drugars might be relatively dim and feeble compared to our own, his sense of smell was as acute as that of the beasthood from which his people had scarcely emerged. The hairy nostrils of Hurok of Kor could recognize the body odor of every man or woman he had ever met, even as we can remember the faces of all our acquaintances. Thus, satisfied that he had found my trail, Hurok climbed to his feet again and proceeded in the direction I had taken only a little while before him.

  Before very long, Hurok espied the marks of other feet than mine, bent in the same direction. An experienced tracker such as Hurok could read much in the small signs of their spoor, in the bent stem of a piece of grass, a disturbed patch of sandy soil, a recently dislodged pebble. And, using that same incredibly keen sense of smell which had enabled him to identify my tracks, Hurok soon came to know that the three men pursuing me were none other than Fumio, Xask and One-Eye.

  Hurok picked up the pace and began to sprint. He could discern no reason why these three should be on my trail, but he was sufficiently familiar with all three to know Fumio for a sneering coward and a braggart, who had good cause to hate me, and Xask for a cunning schemer, while One-Eye he knew from of old for a brutal and cruel villain.

  And Hurok feared for my safety at the hands of such men as these.

  Before long, the mountains heaved up their gray and rocky heights athwart his path. The Korian didn't waste time in searching for a pass through the mountains, for time was of the essence and I might even then be in peril of my life. So without further ado, Hurok reached up, grabbed a handhold, and heaved himself up to a level where his huge splayed feet could find purchase.

  And he began to climb the Peaks of Peril.

  Hurok did not know why these mountains were feared and avoided by all of the men who dwelt in this region of the Underground World. His own people, who had for long been accustomed to raid these coasts for slaves and plunder, shunned the Peaks of Peril without understanding exactly why they did so.

  All that Hurok knew was that these grim mountains enjoyed a distinctly unhealthy reputation, and that it would be wise to avoid them if at all possible.

  Perhaps the Apemen had at one time clear and conscious reasons to fear the peaks, and perhaps not. To a preliterate people such as the Neanderthals, whose artistic sense is too rudimentary to have developed an oral narrative tradition, it is difficult to pass down information from one generation to the next. All that survives is a knowledge that such-and-such is not done; and this, generally, will suffice.

  As he climbed, Hurok searched his vicinity with squinting eves and quivering nostrils, alert for the slightest sign of danger. From the odor of their droppings, he understood that the dreaded thakdols nested in these peaks, and he suspected that the mighty omodon or cave bear might well make his lair in the black caves that yawned in the cliff wall toward the summit.

  And while Hurok was armed after the manner of his people with a throwing club and a stone axe and a flint-bladed knife, and while he did not in the slightest fear to do combat with any man or beast that might step into his way, Hurok was inwardly restive. He sensed, I think, that Eric Carstairs was in immediate danger. And to pause to do battle might have wasted time.

  I can neither rationalize nor explain this sense of urgency that troubled the breast of Hurok the Drugar.

  That a folk who lack even the dimmest inkling of the concept of time should fret over wasting time, seems to me, as perhaps it seems to you, a contradiction in terms. And were this a work of extravagant fiction, I might pause at this point and consider altering the past few sentences in order to prune out of my narrative this seeming lapse of internal consistency.

  But-whether fortunately or unfortunately I cannot quite decide-this is not a work of fiction, but a sober and factual narrative of events, in which I participated, so the seeming contradictions of my tale must stand unaltered, for better or for worse.

  Suddenly the heart of Hurok contracted in a spasm of alarm as there sounded in his ears an unearthly screeching cry.

  In the next second a black, winged shadow fell across him as he clung to the face of the cliff, and that shadow blotted out the misty luminance of the sky.

  Looking up, Hurok perceived a horrible
winged monster glaring down at him as it circled above his head. From its long, fang-lined beaked snout and ribbed, membranous wings he recognized the flying reptile at once for a thakdol, or pterodactyl, as we would call it. If you have ever seen the skeleton of one of these winged dragons of the dawn in a museum or classroom or book of pictures from the age of dinosaurs, believe me, you can have little notion of just how hideous and dangerous-looking they are in the flesh.

  It was even as Hurok had earlier surmised: the thakdols nested in the summit of the Peaks of Peril, and a deadlier enemy of man is difficult to find even here in the Underground World.

  Veering in a broad circle on flapping bat-like wings, the huge thakdol cruised about just above the cliff, peering down at the man-morsel clinging to the rock face, clacking its fanged beak together hungrily. It was obvious that the dim and tiny brain of the thakdol was striving to comprehend a mystery: man-things walk on the surface or sometimes climb trees, but nothing within the experience of this particular thakdol had ever led it to understand that they climb mountains.

  And also the thakdol's tiny intellect was probably trying to figure out exactly how to get at the man-thing clinging to the cliff. A heavy outcropping directly above Hurok's present position made it impossible or at least quite difficult for the pterodactyl to strike at Hurok from above, and the wind currents here among the Peaks of Peril, especially at this altitude, made it difficult and even hazardous for the flying monster to hover in midair while trying with its wicked hooked claws to rip the man-thing from his perch.

  Hurok had the conviction that the thakdol was hungry enough to try at least one of these methods very soon. Which meant he had only moments to live.

  Just above Hurok's head there extended that broad lip of rock that was the outcropping which I have just mentioned. The Apeman reached up, caught hold of it, and lifted himself onto the ledge-hoping that it would be strong enough to support his not-inconsiderable weight, and that it would be broad enough to give him a place to stand. He could then unlimber his stone axe and face the thakdol on something approaching even terms.