Thongor in the City of Magicians Read online

  Immense was he, gross to the point of obscenity, his bloated paunch and flabby limbs clad in fantastic garments of purple velvet and lavender silks. Great gems flashed icy fire from his earlobes and the fat white fingers of his hands. He bowed once towards the black throne, and took his place on the purple. His face was one sagging mass of blubbery fat, bald as a babe, lacking even eyebrows, and his lashless pale eyes were like chips of ice amidst the sickly pallor of his visage.

  Now from a hidden door a blue-skinned giant walked forward. A towering Rmoahal was he, his superb body clad in a distinctive harness of emerald-green leather and a huge cloak. His face was blank; his eyes shone dully, without the slightest gleam of intelligence. He stalked forward stiffly like a zombie, and cradled in his mighty-thewed arms he bore a loathsome, dwarfed and shrunken thing.

  “The Lord Vual the Brain, Prince of Magic, hath come!” the great Voice intoned sepulchrally. The jet of scarlet fire revealed the pitiful and deformed creature that the blank-eyed slave carried up the steps and deposited on the mighty chair of green jade. Its shrunken body was no larger than a child’s, but the head—the enormous, swollen, bulging head that swayed and lolled atop those narrow shoulders and that scrawny chest—was many times the size of a full-grown man’s. By contrast, the. face beneath that swelling, bloated brow was tiny, pinched, elfin, from which peered burning eyes of sharp black fire, like evil jewels.

  The Brain nodded its huge, heavy, malformed head which wobbled atop a thin shrunken neck in a gesture of obeisance toward the black throne, and settled back in its huge seat of green jade while the Rmoahal slave took up his place behind the throne, mighty arms folded against his muscular chest, face blank and dead as wax.

  Then in strode a magnificent warrior in scarlet satin and glittering steel mail, thewed and sinewed like a majestic tiger. Tall and stalwart was he, broad-shouldered and stern-faced, with mocking green cat-like eyes and strong lips which wore an ironic smile, framed in a short stiff spade-beard of black. A great sword hung at his side, and a vast cloak of scarlet satin swirled about his booted legs as he mounted another dais, bowed sardonically towards the black place and sprawled with a gusty sigh in his great chair of sparkling crimson crystal. The fire roared up and the Voice spake like a trumpet.

  “The Lord Maldruth, Prince of Magic, hath come!”

  A dim haze of cold light grew into being about the fifth chair, a massive throne hewn from a single gigantic sapphire. It brightened—blazed!—and the Fifth Wizard appeared in a soundless flash of indigo radiance.

  Tall and gaunt was he, fleshless as a withered mummy, his sere brown skin wrinkled and seamed with ages of unendurable existence. A huge enveloping robe of deep blue cloth shrouded his skeletal, stooped form, and as he thrust back the voluminous hood with one claw-like hand, his head gleamed bare as brown bone. The flesh had fallen from his cheeks, hollowing them. Beneath bald brows, deep-sunken in black-ringed sockets, his eyes burned with the sick fires of fanatacism. He bowed to the black chair and sat back wearily in his place, wetting thin lips with a narrow black tongue. And the Voice boomed forth:

  “The Lord Xoth the Skull, Prince of Magic, hath come!”

  Of a sudden the sixth throne of gray granite was occupied, but none could say whence had come the slim, small, quiet figure that had crept within it. His narrow face, bland, expressionless, his soft pale eyes and colorless hair, meek hands folded upon his breast, he was a pallid little man wrapped in close-fitting gowns of dim gray silk. He nodded quietly to the black seat.

  “The Lord Sarganeth of the Nuld, Prince of Magic, hath come!” the Voice rang like a trumpet, filling the gloom-enshrouded vault above their heads with drumming echoes.

  Six of the princely Lords of Magic had taken their places. But three stone chairs of the nine about the central well of fire were vacant. The seventh was that of Thalaba the Destroyer, that loathsome thing whose disease-crippled and fungus-eaten body had been destroyed years ago in the Battle of Patanga. The eighth belonged to Adamancus, that great Mage who had been consumed in the magic flames of his own creating when Thongor had demolished his tower. But the ninth throne? From his black seat, Mardanax demanded:

  “Where is our brother, the Lord Ramadondus Voth, for behold his seat of yellow stone lies vacant and empty!” From the gray chair, pallid Sarganeth of the Nuld spake in low soft tones: “The Yellow One hath taken my place among the Winged Men of Zand, O Elder Brother. My labors there have gone well, but now that I have perverted the Nuld to our service, my task is completed and the Yellow One has assumed control of the final phase, for he is more adept than I in the mind sciences.”

  Maldruth spoke from the scarlet throne, his harsh tones sardonic: “Then soon shall the host of Flying Warriors descend upon Patanga the City of the Flame, to seize it by storm! Hai, Chaos—’twill be a joyous day! But what, O Purple One, of our secret ally within the very gates of Patanga? What of that vile and treasonous serpent the Patangans nourish within their very bosom, not knowing him to be an agent bidden to our purpose?”

  The Lord Pytumathon heaved his gross bulk on the great throne and wheezed with coarse laughter.

  “Our secret agent, the Lord Dalendus Vool, Baron of Tallan, is not as yet ready to strike and seize the throne of the City of the Flame, O brothers—but the time is soon! Dalendus Vool goes all unsuspected by Thongor and his lords, busily enlisting henchmen for his cause and laying his cunning plans towards that destined hour when the time is ripe to strike—when the Winged Warriors of the Nuld hurtle down on unsuspecting Patanga and invest her walls and guardposts, while from within, our ally Dalendus Vool hath seized the palace and the chief ones of the realm, making himself the master of the city.”

  Mardanax laughed.

  “That time may come sooner than you think, Brother! We may not have to wait long years to taste the scarlet fruits of our vengeance after all!”

  A ripple of tension ran through the hall of thrones, and heads turned to look at him as the Black Archdruid laughed with triumph.

  “Yes, now let it be told, O my brothers! Our greatest foe, the savage, Thongor himself, lies within my open hand.”

  The metallic voice of Xoth the Skull came from the Azure Throne. “What mean you, O Elder Brother—how has this come about?”

  And the Lord Mardanax recounted the sequence of events. He told how, with the eerie power of the All-Seeing Eye, he had observed the flight of Patangan sky-vessels approaching the borders of the East. Even now, he revealed, was Thongor and a host of his chanthari, his heroic warriors, landing in the ruin-choked central square of the dead city of Althaar. When he was done, Vual cackled with shrill laughter from the green dais.

  “The fool!” the Brain said pipingly. “What madness possessed him to come within the reach of our power! And now—?”

  “And now,” Sarganeth purred in his colorless voice, “we have but to close our hand—and we have him in our grasp—eh?”

  “Correct, Gray Brother.” Mardanax smiled coldly.

  The ironic voice of Maldrath broke the long interval of gloating silence that followed.

  “And if he be in Althaar, among his friends of the Jegga Horde, how doth my Lord Mardanax propose to snatch him from the midst of ten thousand stalwart fighting men?”

  “Easier than you might think. Scarlet Mocker!” the harsh cold voice of Mardanax grated. “For years beyond number, the great host of the Zodaki have fought and warred against the Jegga. And, know ye all full well, the mighty war chief of the Zodak Horde is Zarthon the Terrible, our ally who can sometimes be persuaded to perform small services for us. . . .”

  Pytumathon wriggled his gross belly, chins and jowls quivering with coarse chuckles. He inched forward on the purple throne and his voice was thick with slobbering laughter as he wheezed: “And thus, if I read your plan aright, Elder Brother, you will pit the Zodaki against the Jegga Nomads? Hah—a pretty spectacle for these tired old eyes! But what of this Thongor’s flying ships, eh? Will not they take to the air and fight for the
old man, Jomdath, and his clan? And if I remember, so potent are these flying boats that armed with but one of them, this Northlander pig defeated the combined hosts of the Two Cities, and the Black Hawk triumphed over the Dragon of Thurdis and the Silver Dolphin of Shembis—eh?”

  “My plan is subtler than you suppose,” Mardanax said coldly. “Nor have I told you all. Tomorrow, for some purpose I cannot read, Thongor and his men go forth onto the plains to a hilly region midway betwixt the lands of the Zodak and the Jegga Hordes. The Jegga will not be in force, only as an escort. And we shall communicate with the war chief Zarthon this night, and send him forth armed with our newest weapon, the Cloaks-That-May-Not-Be-Seen!”

  The hiss of a sharply indrawn breath came from the Skull. His burning eyes glared with fanatic intensity and his gaunt form shivered within his enveloping blue robes.

  “Ahhh . . . I see it now, Elder Brother.” His dry, droning voice was harsh with anticipation. “The warriors of Zarthon will creep upon the escort unobserved, and seize this Thongor, hiding him from men’s sight with a spare cloak—?”

  “And bear him away from the midst of his fighting men, into the very camp of the Zodaki; and once they have him safely within the walls of immemorial Yb the City of the Worm, I shall be there to fetch him back to Zaar . . . where we may deal with him at our leisure.”

  A cold rustle of mocking laughter went whispering about the circle of the giant thrones.

  “And now, my brothers, there remains only to decide the nature of the punishment we agree to inflict upon this unza of a Northlander barbarian,” he concluded.

  Then followed a debate between the Lords of Magic, wherein several gruesomely protracted techniques of torment were argued as to their respective merits. Throughout the discussion, the Black Archdruid sat back with a small cold smile on his thin lips. After a time he brought the dispute to an end.

  “All of these methods are comparatively worthy, O my brothers, but none of them have quite that element of ultimate degradation it is our will to visit this Thongor of Valkarth. What is needed is to select the one particular punishment which is alone of all others, suited to match the enormity of the Valkarthan’s iniquities against the Lords of Chaos, and we, the servants thereof.”

  Maldruth leaned forward from the scarlet seat. “Have you a suggestion on this, Elder Brother?”

  Mardanax chuckled gloatingly. “I have,” he said.

  Then, into the expectant hush that followed, he let fall one by one three enigmatic words. “The Ultimate Sacrifice.”

  The cold words dropped one by one into the echoing silence.

  Fat Pytumathon blanched, sweat gleaming wetly on his pasty, bloated jowls.

  Vual’s eyes snapped with black venom and his pinched thin lips parted in a leering smile.

  Maldruth laughed ironically. But the others did not find the prospect humorous. Even the fleshless, withered body of gaunt Xoth quailed at the implications of this sentence of doom.

  At length, fat wheezing Pytumathon spoke hoarsely from the throne of purple. “But, Elder Brother—no Magister of Zaar in thousands of years has dared perform this dread and awesome Ritual!”

  The slitted eyes of Mardanax gleamed with emerald hellfires. “Then let us be the first to enact upon the Thongor of Valkarth the most terrible punishment conceivable to the human intelligence”—he paused, then pronounced the doom with gloating relish in his tones—-“The Eternal Slavery of the Soul to Chaos!”

  Then hooded lids veiled the unslaked fires of his gaze. He settled back in his great seat. “But these pleasantries are for another day. As for now, there is work to be done! I shall forth to the dead city of immemorial Yb to apprise the war chief Zarthon of the gladsome sport that lies ahead for him. You, my Lord Pytumathon, prepare a goodly supply of the cloaks. I must away to the City of the Worm ere moonrise.”

  The gross man in purple scratched one pendulous jowl dubiously. “I doubt if more than a dozen of the Cloaks can be energized in so short a time, Elder Brother,” he wheezed.

  “Very well, then; a dozen will have to serve,” Mardanax snapped in cold, decisive tones. “Be about it.”

  One by one the Wizards of Zaar rose and saluted the Black Throne and turned to depart . . . each in his own manner . . . each to his own task . . . and each looked forward with gloating anticipation to the coming sacrifice, when the undying soul of Thongor the Mighty was to be delivered into the everlasting slavery of the Three Lords of Chaos.

  The council was—ended.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE INVISIBLE ARMY

  And far amidst the barren plain

  Where rule the fierce Rmoahal,

  Death strikes in sudden scarlet rain.

  The men of Thongor cry and fall.

  A strange and terrifying scene—

  Death hurtling from the empty air!

  How can you ward off blows unseen,

  Or fight a foe—who is not there?

  —Thongor’s Saga, XVII, 11-12.

  “Gorm Almighty!”

  The grim oath was torn from Thongor’s lips as he lurched to his feet aghast at the sudden, mysterious attack!

  A black arrow whistled past his shoulder—to bury itself to the feather in the throat of a mighty Rmoahal warrior. Another crashed against the glistening hull of the airboat at his back, and splintered to fragments.

  He turned, sword in hand, bellowing for Thom Pervis. As he did so, a young warrior who happened to be standing at his side, a recent recruit to the Black Dragons, shouted hoarsely, “Lord—beware!” and threw himself before Thongor, shielding the Valkarthan’s breast with a small light shield strapped to his forearm.

  As Thongor froze, another arrow thudded home—to pierce half-through the round leathern cherm, as the small light buckler was called. Had not the youthful warrior extended his arm at that precise moment, the arrow would have sunk into Thongor’s breast!

  He glanced briefly at the young man’s sweating face, and his strange gold eyes flashed with a smile.

  “My thanks to you, Charn Thovis. But you are hurt—”

  The young warrior shrugged. “The arrow has but slashed my arm, lord. No great matter.” But blood poured from a long gash in the youth’s forearm. Thongor’s eyes flashed and he laid one hand on the boy’s broad shoulder.

  “You set yourself before me, so that the arrow might take your life and I might live,” he said quietly. “Loyalty so selfless is rare, Charn Thovis. From this moment you are a kojan, a noble of the empire, and a captain of one hundred warriors.”

  The youth flushed scarlet with pleasure and began to stammer his thanks, but Thongor had no time to listen—he sprang to a ridge of the hills where Daotar Thom Pervis stood, searching the fields with keen eyes.

  “I cannot see the foe, lord!” the older man said grimly. “Those arrows come from the empty air!”

  Thongor gazed about. His men were drawn in a defensive circle, shielding their chests and faces with the light cherms strapped to their forearms. The weird black arrows fell about them like deadly rain. Nine bodies sprawled in gore upon the rocky earth and a party of the Jegga had ridden forth into the plain to do battle against the unseen enemy. Now they lay slain, bristling with black arrows, while their mounts prowled restlessly. It was uncanny!

  The fierce old chief of the Jegga and his son, Prince Shangoth, had gained the safety of the afterdeck of the nearest floater, Thongor perceived. But from whence came this attack?

  Thom Pervis ran one scarred hand through his gray mane. “ ’Tis like an attack by ghosts from the Shadowlands . . . or as if the very air itself had grown arms and seized weapons to turn against us,” he grumbled.

  An arrow went hissing past his shoulder, and the old daotar ducked, cursing sulphurously.

  “Put your helmet on your head, man. Don’t stand there holding it in your hand,” Thongor growled irritably. As Thom Pervis slipped the sparkling silver headpiece over his gray mane, the Valkarthan searched the nearby stretch of plain with keen, thoughtf
ul eyes. Even his sharp vision could detect no slightest sign of their invisible assailants. It was, as the daotar had said, uncanny.

  The wise thing would be to board the floaters and take to the air—they had loaded the fleet’s cargo hold with some three hundred fine crystals before stopping work for the mid-day meal—but Thongor’s warrior heart rebelled at the notion of fleeing from an enemy. Had he only himself to consider, he would have quit the shelter of the rocks and challenged the unknown foemen of the plain, to dare or die. But no longer was he but a single lone chanthar and free to wander the wide-wayed world with no higher duties than his honor as a fighting man. He had become a king, and must think first of the many thousands of his people who depended upon him. So, although it stuck in his craw to turn and run without striking a blow, he knew it must be done.

  “Gorm! If we could only see the dogs, we could spit them with cold steel—or die trying—rather than hide here like yellow-gutted, unza who dare not take the field and fight,” he swore, growling with throttled rage.

  “Aye, lord,” the commander said grimly. “But ’tis no use! We cannot fight men we cannot see—curse the luck!” Thongor growled grudging assent. “Well, one thing is certain—if we stay here much longer those invisible warriors will cut us down to the last man.”

  “Shall we try a sortie? Take them by surprise?” the older man suggested. Thongor chewed over the suggestion in silence . . . it was tempting, but he knew he dare not risk it. The one important consideration was to protect the supply of sithurls they had already taken. Those must be carried back to Patanga. It was no use wishing . . . he knew his duty, and no matter how bitterly he regretted it, he knew it must be done.

  “No,” he snapped. “Thom Pervis, get the men aboard the floaters. We’ll cast off and get above the dogs where those arrows cannot reach. Then we can return to the dead city of Althaar in safety. Swiftly, now!”