Darya of The Bronze Age Page 4

  Even a woman as brave and daring as may be forgiven for the despair which settled upon her valiant spirit. True, she had miraculously escaped being ravished by the Captain of the Barbary Pirates, but could that fate be long delayed? If he died beneath the fangs of the terrible yith, no longer would the fear of him restrain his sailors from visiting upon their helpless captive the brutal indignities she dreaded to contemplate . . . and from the appearance of his wounds, the girl thought it certain that the Redbeard was near death.

  The worst thing about it was, quite simply, that Darya of Thandar had utterly no means of defending herself or of escaping from her present predicament. In fact, she could not even speak or understand the language in which her captors conversed-a bastardized and degenerate form of Algerian Arabic with a thick intermixture of Moorish and Bedouin terms.

  This question of language was a source of puzzlement to the cavegirl. All of the peoples of the Underground World shared a common tongue, which Professor Potter once identified as "proto-Aryan," the direct ancestor of ancient Sanskrit, and, therefore, of the entire family of Indo-European languages which includes Latin, Greek, French, English, Spanish, German and many more. It was the theory of the Professor that this was the original language of man, first used by our remote Cro-Magnon ancestors before the Ice Age.

  But the Barbary Pirates had a language all their own, and this notion was strange to Darya. The only people that she had ever met who spoke a language different from the universal tongue of Zanthodon

  were the Professor and I. But surely these strange Men-Who-Rode-Upon-The-Water were not from the Upper World as she had been given to understand we were, for they did not resemble the scrawny scientist and me in speech, dress, customs or appearance.

  Shrugging, the Princess of Thandar put the mystery aside as insoluble. And, also, as irrelevant, since it had no bearing upon the problem of her present state of captivity.

  Long moments had passed, and no one entered the cabin. After a long while, her tension eased; she relaxed her vigilance a trifle. Whatever doom was before her, it evidently was not yet to befall.

  Before long, her weariness overtook her consciousness. It had been an exhausting sequence of events, all that which had transpired since Eric Carstairs had led her and the other prisoners forth from the cavern-city of the Gorpaks. She felt very weary.

  After a time, she slept.

  Fumio crouched, sniffling miserably, in the dank and fetid darkness of the hold. The Thandarian renegade was feeling very sorry for himself. And with fairly good reason.

  When Fumio had earlier peeked through the small trapdoor he had stared directly into the hungry eyes of the enormous yith as its terrible head rose dripping from the waves of the Sogar-Jad. With a yelp of terror, Fumio had instantly dropped the lid with a bang, and half-clambered, half-fell back down into the deeper parts of the hold, there to cower, trembling, expecting that each moment would be his last.

  The sounds from the deck above had come to him muffled and distorted as they filtered through the thick planking of the deck above his head. Eventually, however, it dawned upon the hapless Fumio that the yith had either gone away of its own accord or had been driven hence by the Barbary Pirates.

  When it became apparent to Fumio that he was not going to be devoured by the sea-dragon, he stole forth from his hidey-hole and sought once more the small trapdoor.

  Unfortunately, this time it was battened down securely, which left the caveman with no recourse but to squat in the stinking darkness and await whatever hideous form of death his mysterious captors were reserving for him.

  After a time, he, too, fell into a fitful and uneasy slumber.

  But not for long.

  Suddenly, the hatch creaked open, flooding the hold with the dazzle of day. Swarthy, sinister-looking crewmen clambered down to drag Fumio from his corner and shove him up the steps to the swaying deck. There incomprehensible commands were growled at him in the most menacing manner imaginable. When the caveman failed to understand what was wanted of him, one of the huge, dark-skinned men fetched him up alongside the head with a clout that left Fumio reeling. Thereupon, he learned and very quickly what they wanted him to do.

  The attack of the yith had taken the lives of a few crew members too many, and the Red Witch was left shorthanded. Recalling the presence of his second captive aboard the galley, the first mate ordered him pressed into service. Under the sharp eyes of Tarbu and Kemal, the miserable Fumio was set to work swabbing the deck, coiling ropes, repairing torn rigging, and performing, however unwillingly and without understanding what exactly these things were, a variety of other menial tasks which freed more experienced hands for more important duties elsewhere.

  Soon, Fumio developed an aching back and a fine collection of ripe blisters upon his hands. He also collected a fine set of purplish bruises from the blows rained upon him by exasperated sailors, few of whom could speak more than a word or two of Zanthodonian.

  That "night," after a hearty but half-cooked meal, Fumio fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion, to be roused by booted feet thudding in his ribs to another round of vile, degrading tasks.

  Nowhere did he espy Darya of Thandar.

  In time he began to doubt if she was still aboard the Red Witch . . . although where else she could be the caveman could not imagine.

  Perhaps, these fearsome ogres had thrown her overboard, to feed the yiths . . . !

  Shuddering, Fumio bent with redoubled vigor to his tasks. He cared not a whit for Darya, who had been nothing but a continuous source of disastrously bad luck to Fumio-or so it seemed from his point of view. But he cared very, very much about what was going to happen to Fumio, and he resolved to work his fingers to the bone in order not to be flung to the yiths.

  He was a gallant and unselfish chap, that Fumio.

  For many wakes and sleeps the Red Witch sailed "north" along the coast of the subterranean continent, eventually gaining the sea wherein many small and rocky islands rose from the foaming waves.

  Here the mists which arose from the surface of the Sogar-Jad clung in milky veils about the fang-like rocks and small, jagged islets, obscuring one's view. These scattered islets of the archipelago formed a natural barrier, protecting the pirates' stronghold of El-Cazar from the attack of any potential enemies foolish enough to attempt to invade the pirate kingdom. The rocks and reefs also made navigation very tricky; true, Redbeard's cabin contained detailed charts of the safer courses through this barrier, but always before Achmed had only conveyed the orders given to him by his captain, while Kairadine studied the charts.

  Achmed sweated it out. The basic problem was that while Redbeard could read, Achmed could not. The carefully inscribed markings and instructions and warnings on the master chart were as Greek to him.

  Shoals scraped the keel of the ship, where the water was perilously shallow. Rocks rasped along the shuddering hull. Time and time again, only an instant's warning enabled the sailors to swing aside from an impending collision with a half-glimpsed mass of rock that could have torn the hull asunder and sent the pirate galley to the bottom of the sea.

  Achmed fervently wished that his captain were well enough to resume the command of the galley. True, Kairadine was mending with remarkable speed, as his natural vigor and sheer animal vitality repaired the ravages done to his health by the terrible fangs of the giant plesiosaur.

  But he was still partly delirious from a raging fever, and in no condition even to do so much as to interpret the charts to his first mate.

  At length, however, they emerged into open sea again. The sea mists parted; daylight lit the magnificent vista before them, and the pirates cheered at the first glimpse of their island kingdom they had enjoyed in many months.

  And Darya's heart sank. Soon, she would be borne a captive behind that impregnable fortress, and would be alone and helpless amid a thousand enemies.

  For . . . who could rescue her from the stronghold of El-Cazar?

 
Chapter 7 EL-CAZAR

  Sheer from the foaming sea lifted the cliff walls of El-Cazar. Long combers broke in shattered and flying spray against those rocky ramparts. Lean corsair galleys rode at anchor in the shoulders of sheltering, granite quays.

  The walls of El-Cazar were partly natural cliff, partly man-made masonry. They seemed towering and formidable to such as Darya and Fumio, who had never envisioned a structure made by human hands of a complexity superior to log huts.

  Winding zigzag stairways cut from the living rock of the cliffs ascended from the harbor quays to tall gates set in the ramparts. Beyond the massive walls of El-Cazar sprawled the labyrinth of the town itself, a maze of crooked alleys and slovenly lean-to houses, mostly of adobe or rock faced with plaster painted in gaudy hues-lavender, canary, cream, azure, jade-green, scarlet-but some of the structures were of neatly dressed and fitted logs, tightly caulked with tarry pitch and roofed with sloping rows of red tile.

  Cartagena must have looked like this, in the high, roaring days of the Spanish Main ....

  As the captives were led into the city itself, a bewildering variety of noises, smells and scenes assaulted their senses. Crippled beggars whined from alley-mouths; painted slatterns wheedled and beckoned from second-story balconies, railed with elaborate wrought iron; drunken corsairs snored or brawled on the narrow streets, which were cobbled and which reeked of offal.

  The town . . . roared . . . howling to the skies. From a thousand aleshops and wine-bars and gaming halls and pleasure-houses came the sounds of barroom fights, bawdy singing, laughter, carousal.

  The stench which ascended from El-Cazar was frightful. The isle was solid rock, hence there were no sewers; in their place, a deep groove had been cut through the middle of the meandering, cobbled streets, through which there trickled sluggishly a vile and slimy stream clotted with refuse.

  They passed inns or hostels which bore swinging signs in an almost Elizabethan manner, with names like The Crusader's Head and Bucket o' Blood and Jolly Rogues. From the smell of raw grain spirits and cheap wine which exuded from the swinging doors of these establishments, one could have correctly assumed that the Prophet's admonition against the partaking of spiritous beverages was completely ignored in El-Cazar, or perhaps forgotten.

  Such was El-Cazar, the pirate kingdom. From curtained balconies, veiled Eastern women peered down, slim and lissom in their long kabbilays, watching for the arrival of their masters, or their lovers, perhaps-sometimes, for both. Orange trees grew in walled private gardens, their snowy blossoms sweetening the odor-thick air. Fountains splashed and gurgled. They passed chandlers' shops, warehouses, the establishment of merchants, streets devoted to gemsellers, goldsmiths, mapmakers, and coffeeshops where turbaned gentlemen reclined at their ease on soft carpets under striped awnings, sipping the potent black brew.

  Such was El-Cazar . . . .

  With Achmed leading the way, the corsair crew of the Red Witch swaggered up the steep, ascending ways to the top of the town, to High Street, where uprose the imposing edifice which was the residence of the Barbary Prince.

  They were accosted along the way by carousing comrades, who shouted hoarse expletives, rude inquiries, bawdy invitations. To which the corsairs of Kairadine's crew responded readily enough, and in kind. It was perhaps a blessing that Darya of Thandar could not understand a word of what was said, for all of it was vulgar and most of it was obscene.

  Since this was, after all, the cavegirl's first taste of "civilization," had she been able to comprehend the meaning of the hoarse calls and crude remarks, they might have soured her on civilization forever.

  Four sailors bore the litter on which reposed Kairadine Redbeard. He was conscious at last, but weak and pale, having recovered during the long sea voyage from the taint of his infection and the resultant fever. Weak and pale and listless, he responded but feebly to the comments given by the throng. With a languid lifted hand he acknowledged the salutes of the captains whom he passed. They seemed amazed to see their prince so seriously incapacitated, and that boded ill, to Achmed's way of thinking.

  But there was nothing that could be done about it, reasoned the Moorish first mate. Under the perpetual afternoon skies of Zanthodon, it would be impossible to smuggle the wounded prince into the fortress city under cover of darkness. Now every rival for Kairadine's authority, and every potential challenger, dissatisfied by his laws or his leadership, would know that their chief was bedridden with a serious wound and would doubtless be so for weeks to come. And this worried Achmed.

  Darya and Fumio stared about themselves with stark amazement and even a kind of awe. They would not have been quite so impressed had they seen the Scarlet City of Zar to the remote "east," for that metropolis of the surviving colony of Minoan Crete was a far more splendid collection of edifices. At about the same time as Darya and Fumio were brought into El-Cazar, the Professor, Xask and I were being penned up in our luxurious prison suites in Zar, and the two Cro-Magnons did not share our experiences. But they were impressed enough, although Darya wrinkled up her pert little nose at the stench of the trickling sewage and at the mounds of collapsing and rotting garbage which choked every alleymouth and many doorways.

  Putting a bold face on things, Achmed led his party through the city to the tall buildings at its height.

  Along the way, various members of the crew of the Red Witch fell back to seek their own homes or to drink with cronies. A very loose discipline was maintained here in the pirate city, for little more was needed, actually, as El-Cazar had its own defenses (those erected by nature) and no real enemies.

  In fact, the island fortress had never been invaded in living memory, and was deemed impregnable by its ruffianly inhabitants.

  As wiser men have commented before me, pride goeth before a fall ....

  The massive portals of the princely residence opened before their approach, since servants had long been apprised of their arrival. They entered through cool, shadowy corridors into a center courtyard which was like a garden. Walled about in a rectangle by open balconies was this garden, and therein fountains splashed and small artificial streams meandered between banks of green turf and flowering bushes.

  Herein grew plants otherwise unknown to the biosphere of Zanthodon: flowering, dark-leaved, glossy magnolia, flaming hibiscus, tall feathery palms, fragrant lilies.

  Whether these plants had been brought into Zanthodon as seedlings was unknown. Even the Barbary Pirates had forgotten their provenance, but as their ancestors had fled hither with all haste, running before the merciless advance of disciplined European troops, it is to be questioned whether they had bothered to bring aught more than seeds with them, and that in itself was probably accidental.

  Kairadine Redbeard on his litter was carried into his own apartments, there to be tended by his women and his mutes. The two prisoners were immured in another part of the huge buildings, secured under lock and key but no longer bound. Achmed was delighted and relieved to be free of his two charges, but in particular of Darya, for the golden beauty of the adolescent Cro-Magnon girl had tempted him severely, although he had rigidly abstained from touching her and had, in fact, ignored her presence in his cabin in so far as was humanly possible.

  Whether it was from simple loyalty to his chief, or from equally simple fear of that chief's raging fury, even Achmed could not say. At any rate, Darya had shared the cramped quarters with him without molestation or the slightest affront to her own dignity. But Achmed was male and human, and had felt her nearness keenly. He was delighted to turn her over to Kairadine's servants, who would be responsible for her from that point on. As for Fumio, he cared little.

  The Arab women fluttered about Darya, cooing and giggling and chattering their comments to each other in their own tongue, which the blonde cavegirl did not understand, perhaps luckily. Then they stripped her of her garments and bathed her in a huge tub of beaten brass. Never before had the Cro-Magnon maiden experienced the bliss of steaming hot water,
foamy soap, and lavish perfumes. She may, I believe, be forgiven if she wallowed and luxuriated under the novelty of the experience.

  Then they dressed her hair, clothed her in gauzy Oriental raiment, and left her to her own devices.

  The cavegirl stared around her at the sumptuous apartment in which she was penned. Low, carven tabourets bore copper or silver bowls of ripe fruit and candied comfits. Beakers of wine, or honeyed fruit juices stood about in carafes of cut crystal. Hangings of woven cloth adorned the walls in the Oriental manner. There was no other furniture worth speaking of, but then Darya of Thandar was unaccustomed to furniture of any kind and did not really miss it. The silken carpets underfoot fascinated her, as did the nest of soft and richly colored cushions, upon which she reclined blissfully.

  Perfumed smoke seeped from hanging pierced lamps. Arched doorways, veiled in floating draperies, led to other, more intimate, chambers. Low tables were littered with jars and pots and phials of perfume, kohl, unguents, and other cosmetics, but in the employment of these she was of course completely ignorant. She sniffed and sampled and tasted, but did no more.

  Suddenly was Darya roused from the doze into which she had fallen in a nest of soft, plump cushions.

  There was a murmur of excited voices from the corridors beyond her luxurious cell, and squeaks of alarm. She rose lithely to her feet, ready for almost anything.

  What appeared in the doorway, however, was something she could not have expected.

  It was a woman every bit as beautiful as herself, and in a furious rage.

  This, she reasoned, could only be the dancing-girl, Zoraida, who until her arrival upon the scene had been the favorite concubine of Kairadine Redbeard.