The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (21 page)

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 II: 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 Zanthodon. 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 Zanthodon 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: manthings 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.

As things turned out, this did not prove to be necessary.

For the ledge which thrust out like a protruding lip was, as it were, the front stoop of a cave whose black mouth yawned aide and unblocked. There were many such caves in the face of these cliffs, and Hurok had noticed them during his ascent.

He had suspected them of being lairs of the mighty omodon, the shaggy cave bear of the Pleistocene. And he did not wish to enter into that black, close-walled hole in the rock and find himself face-to-face with an angry omodon in the dark.

As if sensing that its luncheon was about to elude its grasp, the thakdol gave a blood-chilling screech, and came hurtling down upon the Neanderthal, hooked claws ready to seize and tear.

Abandoning all caution, Hurok whirled and flung himself into the grim stony jaws of that unexplored cavern whose mouth opened like a black portal to the unknown.

For a time, the thakdol circled about the cliff, hungrily eyeing the cave entrance, hopefully waiting to see if its lost luncheon would soon emerge.

This did not, in fact, transpire.

In time, the disgruntled reptile flew off in search of an easier and more accessible meal elsewhere. And still Hurok did not emerge from the black throat of the cave.…

CHAPTER 7

The Door in the Cliff

When the enormous leech reared up to clasp Professor Potter in its loathsome embrace, its forepart emerged from the gloom of the heavy forest into the daylight. Instantly the thing uttered a piercing squeal and fell back into the shadows again, where it flopped and writhed as if in great pain.

Now the forepart, that wriggling proboscis-like extrusion, is where are located the two rows of its six unblinking eyes. Perhaps the monstrous slug was more accustomed to the gloom of its under-earth burrows or to the depths of the wood, and thus could not without intense suffering endure the light of day.

Perhaps…and, while the luminous cavern “sky” of Zanthodon is by no means as brilliantly illuminated as are the sunlit skies of the Upper World, the peculiar phosphorescence of the cavern roof is still bright enough to inflict acute suffering on the weak and lidless eyes of such denizens of the darkness as the leech would seem to be.

At any rate, the very instant that the wriggling thing tore its gaze from the Professor, the old man was once again in full command of his faculties. Whatever form of hypnotism or mental control the thing had exerted upon the Professor to paralyze his will and to root him to the spot, the stab of pain inflicted upon the leech by its sudden exposure to the open light sufficed to break the spell which had held him rapt and helpless.

Instantly, the Professor whirled about frantically, trembling with loathing and terror, to seek a hiding place or some means to escape from the dangerous proximity of the vampiric leech.

To his amazement, there was now a door in the stone wall
.

Professor Potter gasped, rubbed his eyes and stared again. There was no doubting that where only moments before the sheer wall of the cliff had stretched smooth and unbroken, now a black, door-like aperture yawned in the smooth expanse of what he had assumed to be solid rock!

For an instant, the old scientist paused, staring dubiously into the darkness of the black doorway. But he paused for an instant only. Surely, whatever strange peril or uncanny terror might conceivably lurk within the recesses of that black opening, they could not be half so horrible as the grisly doom from which he had just escaped.

He stepped into the opening in the wall.

And darkness closed about him, absolute and unbroken by the faintest glimmer of radiance from within.

“Glorious Galileo, this is amazing!” murmured the Professor in awestruck tones. For there seemed to be little question that the aperture was the work of human hands—or, at least, the product of some form of high intelligence. The rectangular opening was cut into the solid stone with such skill that the edges of the portal were smooth and sleek.

Marveling at the curiosity, the Professor ventured a step or two farther into the dense gloom.

As he did so, his foot touched a loose stone in the floor, depressing it slightly. A distinct click sounded in the stony silence of the vault. Then there came a whirring, grating sound, as of massive gears rumbling into action, triggered, it might be, by some mechanism concealed beneath the loose stone in the floor.

And then a thick slab of stone slid down into place, blocking the entrance to the mysterious vault. So flawlessly was the stone cut that it fitted with exact precision, and from the exterior the stone wall doubtless showed no more than a hairline crack—and that only to the eye that knew exactly where to look and also what to look for.

“Incredible!” breathed the Professor. And indeed it was: for, as far as any of us knew, the highest civilization which existed here in the Underground World was that of the cave kingdom of Thandar. And the sophisticated mechanism which had opened and then closed the door to this secret place far exceeded, in its use of weights and counterweights, anything which could reasonably have been expected of a Stone Age culture.

Since he had not any means to create a light the Professor began to shuffle cautiously forward like a blind man, feeling his way through the black, stifling gloom with extended hands. To his left was a rough wall of stone which continued upward for as far as the Professor could reach. The floor underfoot was likewise rough, but seemed set with flagstones at intervals—perhaps as a guidepath through the darkness.

Step by careful step, the Professor followed this path. When there came an abrupt ending of the wall to his left, he felt about and found an intersecting corridor. Here his fumbling fingertips—reaching about to explore—discovered a peculiar contrivance set high up on the nearer wall, just at the point of intersection between the two corridors.