Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria (5 page)

CHAPTER 7

The Thousand-Year War

With dawn we rode from Nemedis in all her pomp and pride.

The white road thundered beneath our tread and the white sea at our side.

The wild waves broke on the naked rocks and returned to break once more,

Where the grim black walls of the Dragon Keep loomed on the grim black shore.

—Diombar’s
Song of the Last Battle

Sharajsha began his tale in a low, somber voice. Thongor listened stolidly at first; then, as the emotional intensity of the old magician’s words reached him, he listened more closely.

It was a strange story the Magician of Mommur told him there in the firelit hall of his subterranean palace. A strange tale, and an ancient one…in fact, it was the most ancient of all tales, and it told of the dim red aeon of Time’s Dawn, long ages ere the coming of Man.

In the beginning, before men came forth upon the Earth, all of the world was under the dominance of the giant reptiles. The titanic dragons of the dawn battled and bellowed in the dim ages before man. The earth they trampled to slime beneath the thundering tread of their gigantic weight. In their numberless millions, the titanic reptiles roamed the misty swamps and steaming fens and seething jungles of the Dawn Age, and man’s primal ancestors fled naked and helpless before their mailed and colossal might.

And then, from amongst the dragons of the Dawn, came one in whose cold and glittering eyes the glimmer of intelligence burned. No sage hath dared conjecture what dark god or demon of Chaos wedded the ferocity and strength of the great earth-shaking dragons with the cold light of reason and thought, but it was done…and a race of intelligent reptiles arose to dominate the aeon.

They were called the Dragon Kings. Theirs was a cold, cunning intelligence: malign, clever, and inhuman. No man could follow the tortuous and intricate pathways of their alien minds. No man could understand the weird and darkling emotions that seethed in their cool ophidian blood. Forever were they to be unintelligible to man, their lore strange and enigmatic, their science frightful and awesome, their ways repellent and evil.

Smaller were they than their lumbering and mindless brethren, manlike in shape and size was their form, and the cold, cruel intelligence of these serpentmen was perhaps as far beyond that of man as their lifespan was lengthier than the human.

All of the world went under the rule of the Dragon Kings of elder Hyperborea. They used the great strength of their reptilian brothers to raise monolithic cities of black stone wherein they studied strange arts and practiced grim sorceries.

And then it was that the Nineteen Gods created the First Men. The spark of life was struck in the breast of Phondath the Firstborn, and from his loins sprang a mighty line.
Nemedis
, the first city, was built on the shores of the ultimate East of Lemuria. But hither the Dragon Kings had come when the snows whelmed and conquered their mysterious realm at the pole.

And there was war…

The old wizard’s slow, deep voice was hushed as he recounted the mighty saga of the Thousand-Year War, when the heroism of the First Kingdoms of Man stood against the overwhelming might and science of the Dragon Kings. For a thousand years the First Men strove magnificently against the reptilian hordes. And slowly, slowly, they beat back the Dragon Kings although death took a mighty toll of the warriors of the First Kingdoms.

Mighty were the heroes of Lemuria in the Dawn, and epic were their stupendous wars against the Dragons of Chaos!

But the serpentmen could command the titanic strength of numberless reptilian monsters—colossal saurians beside whose fighting fury even the mindless ferocity of the dwark seemed small—and men gradually lost heart. They clung to their walls, in the ancient cities of
Nemedis
and Althaar, Yb and Yaodar.

“Then their great leader, the Lord Thungarth, called upon the Father of the Gods,” said Sharajsha. “In a storm of whirling clouds of lightning, Gorm descended on the heights above ancient and immemorial
Nemedis
. He gave unto Thungarth a weapon called the Sword of
Nemedis
, the Star Sword which the Gods had forged, and in whose steel heart the force of thunder was sealed by God-magic.

“Armed with this sword of power, the last heroes set forth. They broke the Dragon Kings in mighty battles and drove them back to the northern shores of Lemuria, to the Black Keep, the last fortress of the Dragon Kings. There Thungarth fell and the Star Sword slaughtered the last of the Dragons.”

“I remember the story,” Thongor said. And he chanted the lines of Diombar, the Singer of
Nemedis
:

“And Khorbane fell and proud Konnar and gallant Yggrim too,

Yet still we strove with the Dragon Kings as the great war trumpets blew;

And for every hero of Phondath’s breed who on that black shore fell,

We sent a dozen Dragons down the iron road to hell!”

The crashing strains of the old war saga rang out in the flickering firelight, raising dim echoes from the shadowed rafters. Sharajsha raised one gaunt hand.

“Yes, with the strength of the Lords of
Nemedis
and the magical power of the Sword, the Dragon Kings were slain and their last fortress overthrown, and the five-thousand-year history of the first kingdoms of Lemuria began. But Diombar the Singer did not know the full story.”

“What is the full story, then?”

The wizard’s eyes burned strangely in the firelight.

“The Dragon Kings fell at Grimstrand Firth, yes, but the Dragon wizards escaped. Transported by their magic arts through the air, they took to hiding far from
Nemedis
. In hidden castles they survived undiscovered, while the long ages passed by them—plotting vengeance with their cold and evil serpent brains. Ages passed and
Nemedis
fell, but the Children of
Nemedis
spread over Lemuria and built new cities, conquering new kingdoms: Valkarth in the North, and Thurdis in the South; Patanga and Tsargol. And still the Dragons hid, waiting for the moment of their revenge. That moment is very near. Like black phantoms from an age of myth, they live on yet, preserved by their curious sciences. And the hour of doom is coming down over Lemuria, doom not only for the lands of men, but for the very planet upon which we dwell, and the Universe itself!”

Thongor stared at the wizard. His words seemed fantastic, incredible…but they stirred the very roots of Thongor’s ancient heritage. For the old blood of Valkh of
Nemedis
flowed in his Northlander veins.

“Say on, Wizard!”

“The Dragons plot a terrible vengeance that shall not only destroy mankind but wreck the very fabric of the Cosmos. They have striven for long ages to establish contact with their Gods, the Lords of Darkness who opposed the Gods we worship, the Lords of Light. The Dark Lords ruled Chaos before the Universe was created. When the Moment of Creation came, they were expelled beyond the new-born Universe, to the thundering Chaos beyond. And ceaselessly from that moment to this, the Lords of Chaos have striven to reenter space and time, to begin anew their stupendous conflict with the Gods of men.”

“How can they reenter the Universe?” Thongor asked. Hot blood pounded in his veins. Ha—Gods! Here was meat and drink for a fighting man’s spirit! When Gods locked in immortal battle beyond the stars, and all earth shuddered at the far echoes of that conflict…

“By some art, the Dragons plot to open a portal to Beyond. Through that portal the Lords of Chaos may enter space. But the portal to Outside can only be opened in a certain time, when the cycles of the stars fall into a certain pattern. That dreaded time is drawing near. By my calculations it is very soon to come. It is now seven thousand and seven years since the day that Phondath the Firstborn was given life. In just weeks we shall be into the hour of doom. The old year will pass—the Festival of Year’s End will come and go. It is within the first week of the seven thousand and eighth year of man that the stars will be right for the Dragon Kings to reap their awful revenge upon the world that drove them into exile.”

“You know this for a certainty?”

Sharajsha nodded wearily.

“The
Scarlet Edda
warns of the day to come. And by my magic mirror I have sought out and found the hidden land where the last of the Dragon Kings yet dwell.”

He rose and went to a far wall. Opening a chest, he brought forth an old chart, drawn with scarlet inks upon fine papyrus. With one long-nailed finger he traced a path.

“Here is my subterranean palace below the Mountains of Mommur. And here, north and east, the great range crosses Lemuria to its heart. There the vast Inner Sea of Neol-Shendis lies, surrounded by walls of impenetrable mountains. Within the center of this great inland sea are the isles where the grim black citadels of the Dragon Kings yet stand. And within those towers they work at their hellish craft, preparing to open the portal to Chaos. Only one thing can destroy them and their monstrous plans.”

“What is that?”

“The same Sword that destroyed their power six thousand years ago. The Sword of
Nemedis
.”

“But the song tells that the Star Sword was broken in the Last Battle!” said Thongor. “And even if its fragments were preserved, the Kingdom of
Nemedis
fell thousands of years ago, and its cities are now heaps of rotting stone.”

“True. But the ancient masters of wisdom who wrote the
Scarlet Edda
tell how the Star Sword was created. It will take a long journey, and will involve many dangers. But I know how to create the Star Sword anew.”

“Is that what you meant when you said you might offer me employment?”

“Yes. I can create the Sword, but not alone. I need the strong aid and courage of a man of many battles to stand by my side against the Dragon Kings.”

Thongor bared his white teeth in a fighting grin. Here was an adventure to make all others pale! Here was the raw stuff from which songs and sagas that men should sing for a thousand years might be made. To hellfire with the Sark of Kathool! Who wanted to be a mercenary when one might become a hero?

“If your words are indeed true, Wizard, and your intentions are as you say, then seek no further. My steel is at your service.”

The wizard smiled.

“I had hoped you would aid me in this task. When I watched you battling the lizard-hawks and the mighty dragon of the jungles, I wondered if you might not be the warrior for whom I sought. Very well, Thongor of Valkarth. It shall be so. But many dangers lie ahead of us!”

Thongor laughed.

“Danger and I are comrades from of old, and many is the hour we have stood together, he and I, measuring swords. Come, Wizard! Finish your work—repair the floater. Phal Thurid built it so that he might conquer all Lemuria—but we shall see that it serves a nobler cause!”

And so it came to pass that Thongor of Valkarth and Sharajsha of Zaar joined forces in the quest of the Star Sword, even as the Nineteen Gods decreed.

For the last of the Dragon Kings had not fallen when Thungarth Jaidor’s son whelmed and broke them in the last battle. Nay, some there were that flew from the black keep there on the shores of Grimstrand Firth and fled before the blazing glory of the Star Sword in the hands of the hero. To dim and secret isles within the Sea of Neol-Shendis they made their way; and there, for thousands of years, the last of the Dragons brooded in the cold mists, pondering a mighty plan, scheming a stupendous revenge that would break the very Earth itself asunder and shatter it to dust.

And against this plot, wherewith the awesome forces of Chaos and Old Night and aligned to the weird science and black sorcery of the last of the Dragon Kings, two men stood alone to do battle for the saving of the world.

And it is here that Thongor the Mighty set forth on the path of his destiny at last, and it is here that his saga truly begins…

CHAPTER 8

The Tower of Woman-Headed Serpents

The sliding hiss of scales on stone,

Weird green-flame eyes in shadows black,

When Thongor faced the slorgs alone

And cold steel drove the nightmares back!

—Thongor’s Saga, Stave IV

The floater drove through the cool air of morning, three thousand feet above the jungles of savage Chush. Sleek and perfect as on the day it had first emerged from the laboratories of Oolim Phon, it sped across Lemuria. In its cabin, Thongor of Valkarth and the Wizard of Lemuria sat. Thongor was at the controls of the airboat, while the aged sorcerer examined a map.

It had taken the wizard a full week to complete his repairs on the airboat, newly named the
Nemedis
. Seven precious days out of the small store of time were now spent, and all too soon the ancient stars would return to their foretold positions above Lemuria and exert the baleful astral influences needed by the Dragon Kings for their terrible plans. While Sharajsha had labored night and day, Thongor had restlessly prowled the rooms and halls of the subterranean palace, impatient to be away. The giant barbarian was unused to inactivity and chafed at delay. The repairs had taken somewhat longer than had been anticipated, as the wizard insisted on installing some devices of his own design, and making some slight improvements on the original floater. One of these was a sphere of glass securely clamped to the control panel before Thongor. Within it a wedge-shaped pendulum of silvery metal hovered at the end of a silken thread. This magnetic pendulum, fashioned of the finest lodestone, was drawn by some weird influence to the north, regardless of the position of the
Nemedis
. With its aid, one could never lose direction.

Sharajsha, completing his studies over the parchment scroll, handed the map to the Valkarthan.

“Here is our present position, marked with a red spot, and I have noted the pendulum bearings for the remainder of our journey. As you see, we must fly south and east for a thousand vom, down the Ysar, which splits Chush in two, beyond Patanga, the City of Fire, and on to the south coasts of Ptartha, where Tsargol fronts the Sea.”

“Aye,” Thongor grunted. “But you have not yet explained why Tsargol is our first goal.”

“Thousands of years ago a strange object fell out of the sky over Tsargol. This object was at first considered a fragment fallen from the moon, but the Red Druids, priests of Slidith, the Lord of Blood, called it the “Star Stone” and claimed it was the burnt-out heart of a fallen star, a talisman of great potency still venerated as sacred to the Blood God.”

“From this stone, then, the Star Sword was made?” Sharajsha nodded.

“So states the
Scarlet Edda,
which records the manner in which Gorm the Father of Stars created the enchanted weapon. We shall follow this formula. First we must penetrate Tsargol and cut from their holy relic a fragment to be forged into a sword blade.”

“If the Tsargolans worship this burnt-out star,” Thongor grunted, “they will doubtless have it well guarded.”

“Aye! It is preserved from desecration in the Scarlet Tower, which rises in the temple precincts near the center of the city and not far from the palace of Drugunda Thal, Sark of Tsargol.”

“Guarded?”

“That is the curious thing. No guards are stationed about the Scarlet Tower, nor are any guards—or even the Red Druids—allowed to enter the Tower. It is, insofar as my wizard-glass could see, completely deserted.”

“It sounds as though removing a portion of the Star Stone should be simplicity itself, then,” Thongor remarked.

“Perhaps. Entering will be no problem. We shall wait until nightfall and fly over the towers of Tsargol. I shall let you down by a cable into the Tower.”

* * * *

For many hours the
Nemedis
rode the blue skies of Lemuria. The yellow walls of Patanga, City of Fire, fell past beneath them, where it stood at the mouths of the Ysar and the Saan, the Twin Rivers. The floater drove for a time above the great Gulf of Patanga and then entered Ptartha, a vast land of forests and fields with few cities to mar its seemingly endless expanse of greenery.

By late afternoon they were within sight of the red walls of Tsargol, where it stood beside the thundering shores of Yashengzeb Chun, the Southern Sea. They ate the evening meal and Thongor slept awhile, waiting for the sun to set. As soon as night came down over Lemuria, the
Nemedis
drifted silently down over Tsargol. Fortunately, it was a cloudy night, with neither moon nor stars to betray them to a watchful eye.

Sharajsha guided the craft over the domed palace of the Sark and halted it above the Temple Quarter, where the Scarlet Tower rose from dark gardens. The
Nemedis
was moored to the crimson spire with the sky anchor, a barbed hook at the end of a long line, and by that line Thongor was to descend.

“Remember, now, although my glass revealed no Tower guard, it is hardly creditable that the Red Druids would leave their sacred treasure totally without protection. Therefore be wary! Much depends upon this venture… Indeed, the future of mankind may very well hang in the balance!” Sharajsha counseled.

“That may be as it will,” Thongor said grimly as he wrapped his tall form in a black-hooded cloak. “Perhaps the Druids presume it to be too difficult for any trespasser to penetrate the walled gardens of the Quarter, or rely upon religious superstition to protect the relic. However, I have not managed to live as long as this by cultivating carelessness. If there are guards, my steel will feast on their reeking guts!”

He swung himself over the floater’s deck. Two hundred feet below his heels the dark garden stretched, a blur of gloom. The cool night wind from the sea sang about the taut anchor cable.

Hand by hand he lowered himself down. One slip and he was as dead as Phondath the Firstborn. The slippery cable was difficult to get a solid grip on, but he moved slowly down. The strain on his shoulders was terrific, but he kept a clear head, breathing calmly and deeply, and before long his booted heels scraped the tiled roof of the Scarlet Tower. This roof was peaked and its conical form forbade foothold. Holding the cable with one hand and the roof edge with the other, he felt with his feet for the window in which the anchor was hooked for a long, timeless moment…

And found it! He muscled down and slid into a black room. Balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, the broadsword sliding into his hand, he waited for a sound, a stir of movement. Nothing came and he breathed easier. He then gave the cable a single tug, by which Sharajsha was to understand that he entered the Tower without trouble. Now for the Star Stone!

This top room, he soon ascertained, was completely bare. He felt his way into the hall, equally dark, and down a flight of coiling steps to the next story. There, the rooms contained only books. Feeling his way from room to room in utter darkness, he wished impatiently for the wizard’s crystal rod of light. They had decided that a light was too dangerous, as a passing Druid might see it through one of the Tower’s many windows.

Thongor was moving down a hall when the sound first came to his notice. A slow, dragging rasp, dry and stealthy. He stopped cold, listening. The sound was repeated again. It was some distance from him, the full length of the hall. A soft rustle, a leathery slither.

Perplexed, Thongor wrinkled his brow. It was not a footstep…it sounded more like someone dragging himself along the floor…yet it was not that, for there came to his ears neither the soft thud of palms against the stone nor the heavy breathing such exertion would have demanded.

Green flames burned, phosphorescent spots of fire against the darkness.

Eyes
!

They hung at knee level, questing the dark. Thongor felt his hackles rise on his neck. His primitive senses gave him uncanny warning…

Again the rasping slither, and the lambent eyes of weird green flame glided forward a few feet.

Serpents? Were the silent halls of the Tower guarded by clammy reptiles? That explained why the wizard’s glass had not revealed tenants in the Tower: needing no light, and dwelling in the dark, they would be invisible.

Silently Thongor retreated back down the corridor, avoiding a patch of dim light where a window cast vague illumination on the floor. He waited as the dry rasp continued. And then—

His barbarian blood literally froze in his veins as the unknown guardian of the hall slid into the light and was revealed in all its repellent, loathly horror.

Imagine a pallid serpent as long as a man’s body and thick about as his upper thigh, a serpent upon whose fluid and questing neck grew, not the blunt, wedge-shaped head of a snake
—but the dead-white, masklike face of a woman.

Slanted eyes of lambent green flame glowed in a colorless face whose perfect feminine beauty clashed revoltingly with its snakelike body. Bald, the round skull gleamed naked in the dull light. Scarlet lips smiled seductively, revealing hideous fangs.

It was a slorg, one of the dread woman-headed serpents of the Lemurian deserts to the east. Thongor’s skin crawled with revulsion as he looked upon it. Never before had he seen one of the slithering monsters, but he knew it well from shuddering legends of desert warriors who had awakened to find themselves in the clammy embrace of the slorg, crept upon them in the stillness of the star-gemmed night.

For a moment the slorg hovered motionless there in the dim luminance, its masklike face and blazing eyes swaying on the long neck as it quested for its prey. Then it moved, slithering and wriggling, from the shaft of light that fell from the square window. He heard its belly scrape along the stone of the floor and a surge of nausea gripped him. He fought the gut-twisting disgust down and drew forth his great Valkarthan broadsword with a faint rasp of steel against worn leather. The hilt of the sword felt wet against his sweating palms.

In the dim darkness he searched for the pallid gliding length of the slorg. It was not far away. If it came near him, perhaps he could kill it swiftly and without undue noise, which might attract others…

And then he heard them wriggling down the hall. He knew not how many they were. Their eyes of lambent phosphor burned with evil green fire through the gloom. And he heard for the first time the sibilant hiss of the slorg’s hunting song. The sinister, throaty hissing made his blood congeal with loathing.

He hated serpents. His cold, windswept northern home knew them not. The slithering serpents that infested the rotting jungles of the Southland filled him with disgust and horror.

He could see the glowing eyes clearly now. Five, six, perhaps a dozen of them. They glided unerringly toward him. Perhaps they scented his hot blood with their cold reptilian senses. As the first slorg moved to confront him, he stepped forward and swung a vicious blow with his blade. The steel whipped through the elongated alabaster neck, and the horrible head thudded to the floor, tusks clashing against air, while the headless body writhed slowly in death agony.

Now the others were upon him, a phalanx of green-glittering eyes and undulant pale bodies. Thongor turned and raced up the flight of steps to another floor. He prowled swiftly through several rooms without finding the Star Stone. Then the slorgs poured through the doorway in a cold white tide. His mighty broadsword reaped a bloody harvest among them.

And then he steeled himself for a great heroic feat of courage such as few men are asked to attempt. He had now examined all the upper floors. It remained for him to go down through the lower levels, which meant he must make his way down the stairs covered with wriggling white serpents.

Luckily he wore high boots. He went down the steps at reckless speed, slashing the slorgs from his path as they snapped and hissed at his booted legs. Perhaps the most awful thing about them was that it took them so long to die. Long after his sword had cut through their cold flesh, the heads were sinking their tusks in his boot-heels.

He reached the lower floors drenched with cold sweat, and searched through many chambers, finding only heaps of ecclesiastic robes or sacrificial weapons, but not the great talisman he sought.

And then a flood of slorgs poured hissing into the room, a flood of slithering white serpents so deep he knew there was no chance of making a path through them. He retreated from room to room, his broadsword dripping with slime and gore…

In the last chamber his back pressed up against a rough and jagged surface.
The Star Stone!
It stood upon a low, unpretentious altar against the wall, a rough black mass of metal slag.

Thongor seized the globe of cold metal, secured it under one arm, and retreated on before the rushing snaky tide. Up the stairs and down another long hall he went, fighting both the slorgs who advanced from below and the creatures who came at him from the darkness of each room as he passed them.

He could move much faster than the sluggish, coldblooded nightmares. That alone had enabled him to preserve his life till now. He raced up the last flight of stairs before the oncoming tide, reaching at last the room to whose window the anchor of the
Nemedis
was hooked. Hurriedly he twisted the cable about the Star Stone and knotted it securely—but before he could climb out of the window, slithering coils closed about his legs. Sibilant voices sang death to him.

He turned, kicking loose, and as he did so the anchor was jarred free, and the cable which was his own path to freedom and the clean airy heights above slid from his grasp. The anchor fell across the dark garden and the
Nemedis
drifted away.

Slimy coils enfolded his body. But, although escape was now impossible, the Valkarthan’s fighting heart swelled with vigor. One last mighty battle before the end! With a ringing verse of the war song of the Valkarthan swordsmen on his lips, the giant barbarian turned to fight. Steel rang on cloven bone and thick reptilian gore splattered the walls as Thongor fought on—joyously, recklessly, but without hope.