Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (9 page)

Doc pulled Johnny back, and they stood watching.

An hour of forceful toil produced a block of ice that could be removed. It was quite large, and very rough around the edges. Some of the Mongols carried short knives and curved swords. Several of these were severely bent or broken during the operation to pry loose the core of ice.

Once the chunk containing the body had fallen forward and was no longer part of the ice wall, Chinua gave rapid instructions to haul it out of the cave.

Ropes were brought and the ponies led up to the mouth of the cave. Strangely, the horses snorted and whinnied nervously, all but refusing to enter the cave itself.

By carefully chopping crude eyelets into the ice, they were able to loop rawhide ropes into the holes and tie them into knots. In this fashion, the Mongols were able to haul the big block of ice out into the open air.

Johnny Littlejohn watched this operation with haunted eyes, his fists skeletal knobs in which the knuckles were ivory chips.

“Supercalamitous,” he said angrily.

Monk muttered, “I don’t get this. What’s so important about the dead guy in the ice?”

Johnny told him flatly, “That is no ordinary person in there. Unless I am gravely mistaken, the body entombed in that cave is no less than the terrible Asian warlord, Tamerlane.”

“Tamerlane?” Ham protested. “He was one of the most feared conquerors to follow in the war boots of Genghis Khan.”

“Are you sure it’s him?” demanded Long Tom skeptically.

Doc Savage answered that. “The inscription on the ice, ‘If I still lived, mankind would tremble,’ is identical to the one inscribed upon the supposed tomb of Tamerlane.”

“What do you mean, supposed?” grunted Renny.

Johnny vouchsafed that reply. “The tomb of Tamerlane exists in the city of Samarkand, with that very same inscription upon it.”

“Then this is some other stiff, right?” Monk put in.

Johnny shook his shaggy head. “According to history, Tamerlane died during a long winter’s march to conquer China. He is said to have been buried in Samarkand, but the evidence in this ice cave suggests that account was a hoax. Instead, he was entombed in ice far from his home city.”

“Why would they do that?” wondered Ham. “Why would Mongols bury a great leader in ice?”

“Perhaps,” suggested Johnny, “because he was not actually deceased when they entombed him.”

Ham’s aristocratic face worked in horror. “Do you mean to suggest that Tamerlane was deliberately fixed in ice before his death?”

“The correct term is vivisepulchure,” returned Johnny. “And there are many possible theories for this situation. Perhaps Tamerlane himself ordered this, in the hope that the ice would preserve him long enough to fetch doctors from faraway Samarkand. Or perhaps his own warriors turned against him for some reason, and entombed him rather than put him to death, out of respect for his high station in life.”

Monk muttered, “Either way you slice it, he’s still dead, ain’t he?”

Neither Doc Savage nor Johnny Littlejohn replied to that rather ominous question.

“Ain’t he?” repeated Monk.

It was dapper Ham Brooks who offered an answer to that inquiry. “Perhaps we will all know once the ice completely melts.”

DOC SAVAGE was very thoughtful as he watched the Mongol bandit band haul off the block of ice containing one of the world’s most cruel former despots. Golden flakes continuously stirred in his eyes, although more briskly than normal. There was a strangeness in those eyes, as if for one of the few times in his life, the big bronze fellow was fixed by indecision.

Doc Savage caught up with Chinua, and addressed him in his own language.

“What are your plans for that body?”

Chinua paused, and regarded the bronze giant in a questioning manner.

“This is the body of the revered Emir Timur,” he replied firmly. “We will take him back to camp, and a council will be held over the question.”

Doc Savage told him, “It is not cold enough for that ice to remain frozen. What if it melts?”

The bandit Mongol seemed taken aback by the question. “If it melts, it is the will of the sky god, Tengri.”

“Animals that have been frozen in ice,” cautioned Doc, “have sometimes been revived. Are you prepared for that eventuality?”

The thought had apparently not occurred to the big Mongol. His flat brass face brightened instantly.

“It would,” he said fervently, “be a glorious day should that occur.”

“Or a terrible day,” suggested Doc.

“Terrible?”

“Tamerlane was a cruel man, whose cavalry swept across Asia and the Middle East. He slew many innocent people, in addition to conquering formidable armies. What if he still lived? Would he not pick up where he left off?”

This notion seemed to stagger the Mongol.

“If that were the case,” he said frankly, “I would be proud to follow such a warrior.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed Doc Savage’s impassive features. He had not expected this response.

Hovering nearby, Johnny Littlejohn had absorbed the tense exchange and understood it. In the Mongol language, he inserted a thought. “You are the chieftain of your band, correct?”

“I am the warlord of my band. I am Chinua,” the Mongol said proudly.

“If Tamerlane lived, you would be reduced to a mere captain—provided he let you live.”

The expression on the Mongol’s wind-whipped face told clearly that this thought, too, had not crossed his mind.

At last, he intoned, “I would rather be a captain under Emir Timur than a general in Heaven.”

Johnny’s puckered face fell. He considered himself something of a psychologist, but he, too, had failed to undermine the Mongol’s brutish intentions.

Chinua turned, and resumed the push to convey the icy chunk to the waiting ponies. There was some little difficulty in breaching the tumble of earth and stone that partially blocked the cave mouth. Rocks were flung aside and dirt smoothed by blades and tamped down by booted feet, until a rough ramp was formed.

The cube of ice began sliding downward, got away from the Mongols, who chased it with frantic cries. It cracked upon stopping, but did not shatter.

Wind-burned hands seized the rawhide ropes and the Mongols commenced hauling it along flat ground.

Finally, they reached the animals and the loose ends of the ropes were affixed to the saddles, which were colorful constructions of good wood, painted and decorated with silver. Then the ponies were urged on, dragging the ice block behind them.

In English, Johnny addressed Doc Savage and asked plaintively, “What do we do?”

Doc Savage said, “Let me try something else.”

Catching up to the Mongol, Doc Savage said, “Many of your horses are asleep. I can rouse them.”

Without turning, Chinua muttered, “That would be most welcome if you did.”

With his men trailing behind him, and a quaking Monzingo Baldwin taking up the rear, Doc Savage followed the procession to the main body of horses, many of whom still slumbered.

From a vest of many pockets, the bronze man produced a hypodermic syringe and charged it with a stimulant. This was an antidote to the potent chemical solution with which his mercy bullets were filled.

Doc Savage went among the sleeping horses, administered this antidote. It was not long before the horses shook their heads, and with assistance, climbed unsteadily to their feet. Their liquid eyes were very strange, as if they had returned from another world.

Chinua grinned broadly and tossed the bronze man a curt salute of gratitude.

It was at this point the Doc Savage made a new suggestion.

“I am a doctor,” he said. “If the man in the ice should emerge from his long slumber, he may need medical attention, if he is to survive.”

Chinua said, “There are doctors among my men, as well. They know great medicine.”

Doc nodded, thinking that the Mongol probably referred to the local shaman.

“As you can see, my medicine is very powerful,” Doc pointed out, indicating the revived horses.

Chinua ignored the comment as he and his men conferred over how best to ferry the frozen block back to the Mongol camp.

Monk muttered, “Looks to me like that block is gettin’ a little round around the edges. I think the friction of dragging it is causin’ it to melt.”

Johnny said urgently, “We must do something.”

Doc Savage replied, “We
will
do something. We will depart at once.”

Johnny’s eyes flew wide. He looked as wobbly as a scarecrow in a stiff breeze.

“We are getting nowhere with these hillmen,” Doc explained. “We will take off, and pretend to fly away.”

A visible relief crossed Johnny’s long, drawn face.

Saying rough farewells, they made their way back to the flying boat and climbed aboard.

The last to step inside was the little man they were calling Monzingo Baldwin.

When he stepped into the cabin, he made a peculiar remark.

“Did you see the muscles on that fellow?”

“Which fellow?” asked Monk.

“The one in the ice. He was the most incredible specimen of manhood I ever saw.”

Everyone looked at Monzingo Baldwin in a strange way.

Finally, Renny rumbled, “You better sit down for the take-off. You’re so small you might bounce around the cabin like a basketball. Wouldn’t that be too durn bad?”

Chapter IX

BLACK-LIGHT BEACON

DOC SAVAGE THREW the big flying boat back into the air with a skill that took the breath away.

The air leviathan showed no signs of damage, despite the previous difficult landing. Landing-gear wheels cranked up into their wells without difficulty.

Doc Savage turned the plane north, and looked down over the moon-washed steppe. It was possible to discern the caravan of Mongols, riding their ponies back to camp. They had managed to tie the chunk of ice to the saddles of two sturdy ponies, who were pulling the block along, leaving behind a trail of moisture that the moonlight made into a shining snail track.

Doc Savage called back to Johnny, “Where is your special camp lantern?”

“The Mongols have it.”

“At their camp?”

“Yes. And I know what your next question is. Yes, I left it on as a beacon.”

Doc nodded, satisfied.

Long Tom turned to Johnny and asked, “Is that one of the camp lanterns that has an ultra-violet bulb?”

Johnny said, “Indubitably,” a little of his professorial composure returning now that he was safely in the air.

Doc Savage said, “We will use that as our beacon to the Mongol camp.”

Donning a pair of special goggles, which were mechanical in nature, the dark eyepieces being extraordinarily thick, the bronze man flipped the switch on the side which permitted him to see the terrain below through fluoroscopic apparatus.

Johnny cautioned, “I do not know where the lantern is. It might be inside a tent.”

Monk was in the co-pilot seat as usual. He overheard all this and asked Doc Savage, “What’s your plan, Doc?

“We will find the camp by air, and land quietly.”

“Gonna set up an ambush?”

Doc nodded. “Something like that.” He did not elaborate. The bronze man never liked to reveal his plans before he was ready to execute them. Possibly, he was still formulating them.

As they volleyed through the night, Johnny Littlejohn talked. He was a man known for his elaborate sentences and jaw-breaking linkages of words. It was one of his trademarks, along with the monocle that he wore affixed to the lapel of his now-disheveled tweed coat. The latter was no longer necessary as an eyepiece, Doc Savage having years before operated on the geologist’s bad eye, restoring it with his surgical wizardry.

The bony archeologist still carried the lens as a magnifying glass with which to study potsherds and other rare finds encountered in his field work. He fiddled with it as he fidgeted in his seat. Johnny seemed to have lost his appetite for long words.

“Tamerlane,” he expounded, as if delivering a lecture, “was one of the last of the successful Mongol conquerors. He started life as little more than a bandit, growing up near the city of Samarkand. In later life, he claimed to be a descendant of the terrible Genghis Khan, but this was a fable he wrapped around himself in order to achieve legitimacy among the peoples over which he ruled.”

Ham asked, “How far back does he go?”

“He is reliably reported to have died in the year 1404. He was then 76 years of age. The remarkable thing about Tamerlane is that he did not begin his campaign of conquest until the age of 40. In his time, he swept over Asia Minor, Afghanistan, invaded India, sacking Delhi, as well as other famous seats of antiquity.”

Long Tom remarked sourly, “If he didn’t descend from Genghis Khan, he sure learned plenty from him.”

From the back, Monzingo Baldwin piped up, “He sounds like an ambitious fellow.”

No response to that impertinent remark was offered.

Johnny continued, “Near the end of his life, Tamerlane captured Baghdad and Damascus, after which he set his sights on what he envisioned as his greatest campaign of all. For he wished to conquer all of China.”

Renny rumbled, “But you say he didn’t get far?”

Johnny shook his leonine head. “He died on the march, according to surviving records, having succumbed to a fever.”

Ham Brooks regarded the shiny head of his cane and mused, “It is reasonable to assume that his warriors and generals, seeing him falling victim to a fever, might attempt to break the fever by bringing him into a cave of ice.”

“A sound theory,” admitted Johnny. “But that is only supposition. For it clearly did not work.”

“What was that word you used back in the cave?” asked Monk.

“Vivisepulchure. It means to be entombed alive.”

Monk grumbled, “You’re thinkin’ that his soldiers packed him in ice, hopin’ it would save his hide?”

“It is a theory,” Johnny said, brittle-voiced. “Nothing more.”

“Then why didn’t they come back for him?” wondered Long Tom.

“Perhaps they never intended to. Perhaps rather than let him perish, they consigned him to the ice in the hope that he would be preserved for future generations, who might devise a method to restore their emir to life.”