Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus

by Lin Carter

  AT last there came a break in the eternal monotony of his long imprisonment.

  Karm Karvus had arisen from his troubled sleep and had put his hard body through the usual series of exercises, and had by now just completed the rude morning meal of sour wine and coarse bread and stale cheese. He was relaxing on his rough bunk, his mind busied with pondering the theorems of the old Lemurian philosopher, Tjanthon of Althaar, when he heard the thud of booted feet, the clank of weapons, and the jangling of accouterments approaching his place of captivity.

  He sprang to full alertness on the instant. His gaolers had, of course, disarmed him of all weaponry, but had as well left him unchained and in possession of the freedom of his cell. It was just barely possible that the men who now approached his door were few enough in number for his long-awaited attempt at escape. Perchance they expected to find him dull, bemused, languid from enforced lack of activity. If so, the wolves of Tarakus were in for a surprise. For, instead, they faced a clear-eyed fighting man in trim condition, and spoiling for battle.

  There was the clatter of a key in the lock, then the groan of rusty hinges, and the door of the cell swung open. The glare of sputtering torches swept the cell with light—blinding light, to one who had spent many a day and night in utter blackness. His eyes slitted against the dazzle, Karm Karvus saw that seven guards stood at the entrance of to his cell, naked cutlasses in their hands. His face tightened grimly and his heart; sank: they were taking no chances, and ’twould be an act of desperation to fling himself bare-handedly against such a number of armed and ready men.

  The leader of the guards was a hard-faced man who would have been handsome in a sullen way had it not been for the sabre-cut that stretched his cheek from eye to jaw, and raised one lip in a perpetual snarl. He curtly commanded the Prince forth, and Karm Karvus stepped from his cell. The guards closed him in on all sides with naked steel.

  They marched him through the dungeons, down rows of cells as vile and black as the one wherein he had passed so many dreary days and nights. Some were occupied and some were bare—and some, he saw, bore only gaunt skeletons, or raving, wide-eyed madmen, their reason crumbled from long years of hopeless prisonment.

  At length they quitted the pits and rose through the levels of the rude palace of the pirate king. The surly lieutenant of the guards vouchsafed no explanation of why he had been taken from his cell, and, for his part;, the proud young Prince of Tsargol disdained to ask. He strode briskly, his back erect as a spear-shaft, head held high, eyes fearless. Like a king he walked, and not a captive.

  The palace of the Pirate City was a fantastic hovel filled with bemired and trampled splendors. Chests and casks of treasure were strewn carelessly about; rare tapestries and gorgeous silken hangings lay underfoot, muddy and torn. Goblets of exquisite workmanship, statuettes of precious metal, artworks of rare ivory, scented woods, amber, crystal, jade and glistening onyx lay scattered about, broken and neglected, as if they were worthless trash.

  As for the corsairs themselves, they were a motley lot, scum scraped from the gutters of a dozen cities. Filthy and bedraggled were they, unshaven and unshorn, but rings of bright gold bobbled in their earlobes or glittered on dirty fingers. Their garments had once been of princely finery, rare apricot satin and emerald velvet and glistening silks from Cadorna, all decked with rich lace and spun cloth-of-silver, gaudy with jeweled buttons or bespangled with priceless necklaces. But all this fine clothing was splattered with grease and mud and filthy with winestains. The pirate palace was filled with fabulous wealth, but here, it seemed, wealth had no particular value.

  They came at last into the central hall of the main keep. Great candles as thick around as a man’s thigh lit the scene of mired and neglected splendor. By the rich gold light, Karm Karvus could see a slim elegant man in red satin breeches and shirt, tight-stretched and close-fitting as a glove, who sprawled languidly atop the raised dais in a magnificent chair hewn from a single and tremendous ivory tusk. This man, sallow faced and silken-haired, slim fingers a-glitter with gems, was Kashtar, Lord of the Pirate City, Karm Karvus knew.

  They regarded each other without words for a long moment The pirate prince was slender and foppish and lazy as a great cat. His face was the smooth, glossy hue of old parchment and his eyes were cold black fire. The expression on his face was cruel, sardonic, sly. One great ruby like a hot coal smoldered at his lobe.

  On a lower step of the dais stood another man whose peculiar garments caught the eye of Karm Karvus. He was tall and gaunt, his skull-like head shaven, his face coldly impassive, his eyes hooded and unreadable. He was robed in gray cloth in an unfamiliar, hieratic design, and curious glyphs in some unknown tongue were emblazoned on the breast of his robes in sullen crimson.

  Karm Karvus knew this second man, as well. For this could be none other than Kashtar’s pet wizard, Belshathla, the evil genius of the pirate empire.

  At length Kashtar smiled and made a mocking little half-bow. His voice was soft and there was laughter in it.

  “Well, my lord Prince, I trust you have found your quarters suitable, and our hospitality pleasurable?”

  “I have found your hospitality everything I had assumed it would be,” replied Karm Karvus in calm, level tones.

  “Excellent, excellent!” the pirate chieftain drawled. “I find myself overcome with boredom … my comrades and courtiers are, I fear, a rude and oafish lot, and hardly fit companions for a civilized man. I had hoped you might afford me some amusement.”

  “I thank you for that, but I must confess that I would much prefer the company of even such surly louts as your men, to a cold-blooded pig like yourself. I fear, sir, that you are not quite my notion of a civilized man.”

  Black fire flashed in the slitted eyes of the languid pirate leader and one slender hand stiffened, jeweled fingers curling about the glittering hilt of the longsword that hung at his thigh. For a moment he paled, then, and with an almost visible effort, he controlled the vicious flare of his temper. His voice fell to a silken purr.

  “Splendid, splendid! You see, Belshathla, I knew our gallant princeling here could provide us with some amusement! Already, Prince, you begin to repay us for the hospitality we have lavished upon your comfort with so prodigal a hand.”

  The skull-faced wizard disdained to reply to his lord’s pleasantry. Nor did Karm Karvus speak further. He stood, proudly silent, refusing to afford entertainment by any continued exchange. The cold malignant eyes of Kashtar surveyed him.

  “Doubtless, my lord Prince, you have occupied your time under our roof with some little speculation as to our reasons for making you our guest, and the ultimate purposes to which we intend putting your presence here among us, eh?”

  “Not really,” said Karm Karvus levelly. “Does the helpless animal wonder at being locked in a pig-sty? Doubtless, it is to be fattened for the slaughter. In my case, I am immured in your pig-sty of a palace for ransom, I doubt me not—since you are nothing but a common criminal.”

  Again his measured words stung Kashtar almost to the brink of fury. A dark flush stained his lean and sallow cheeks and rage glittered in his hard cold eyes. And, again, he mastered his temper with an iron control.

  “Harsh words—harsh words, for one completely in my power!” he purred, and there was the note of silken menace in his tones.

  “You can but kill me,” Karm Karvus shrugged. Then, quoting the familiar words of his old comrade, Thongor, he added: “And a man may die but once, when all is said.”

  Rather to his surprise, the Prince of Tarakus laughed.

  “ ‘Ransom’—I fear you mistake me for a common bandit! And ‘kill’—again you mistake me, Tsargolian!”

  “For a common butcher, perhaps?” the prisoner suggested. Eyes of cold black fire narrowed.

  “No, no, my pretty prince, I reserve you for no such fate! Instead, a higher purpose requires you as my—ah—my guest,” he drawled. Karm Karvus shook himself impatiently.

  “Come, name the price
of my freedom, and have done with this cat-and-mouse game,” he said. “Whatever your fee, my people will raise it.”

  “But your freedom has no price on it,” the Red Wolf smiled suavely; “or, at least, no price your own small monarchy can afford. But the high and mighty Thongor, now … ah yes, he can well pay the price …”

  Now it was the turn of the captive to feel the flick of stinging words. A ghost of apprehension moved in the eyes of Karm Karvus.

  “Thongor? What has he to do with all this?” he demanded.

  “Nothing, as yet, but soon—soon!” chuckled the pirate chieftain. “Soon he will pay the price, and a dear one ’twill be, by the Eleven Scarlet Hells!”

  “I do not—understand?”

  “Then I shall be pleased to explain.” Kashtar leaned forward, resting his elbow on the arms of his carven ivory seat and regarding Karm Karvus intently.

  “You are an old friend of the Lord of Patanga,” he purred. “And I doubt me not, he feels towards you with a warmth of friendship almost worthy of our demands—but not quite. But—when we have in some little measure added to our little collection of the friends of the so-called Lord of the West—”

  “Added?” demanded Karm Karvus, hoarsely.

  “Aye! Now let me see; there is the Prince Ald Turmis of the city of Shembis, and old Barand Thon, lord of Thurdis of the Dragon, and the young Prince Zul who but last year succeeded his elder brother to the throne of Zangabal, and—”

  Perspiration burst out on the brows of Karm Karvus.

  “What—what deviltry is this?” he groaned.

  Kashtar’s face broke into a gloating grin, and he drew himself up in a lordly posture. “Why, with the reigning monarchs of five of the six cities of his empire under our thumb, this upstart Barbarian cannot refuse to deliver all of Patanga city into our hands, and thus in one blow the pirates of Tarakus have seized the greatest prize on earth—the Empire itself. And should perchance the Barbarian decide to fight for his throne, you and your fellow princelings will die under the knives—and we shall sweep the walls of Patanga with that same deathly ray of madness wherewith we whelmed your ship. Aye, my pretty Prince, this time mere ransom of gold or gems will not feed our hunger … this time ’tis crowns we crave. And we shall have them, or else plunge half a world under the Gray Death!”

  Frozen with astonishment and horror, Karm Karvus could think of nothing to say. Was it his terrible fate to be used as a tool to draw Thongor and all his people under the grim hand of slavery to the cruel and treacherous pirates of Tarakus?

  Alas, so it would seem.

  CHAPTER 6:

  DARK WISDOM FROM EARTH’S DAWN

  They took him down to a black sea cave

  That under the fortress lay,

  And there on the breast of a mighty wave,

  A dragon roared at bay—

  —The Tsargol Records

  KARM KARVUS woke slowly. He was dazed, his mind a blur, and for a long moment he did not know where he was nor what had chanced.

  His interrogation before the ivory throne of Kashtar Red Wolf was long over. After the devastating revelation that, through him, a great danger was to threaten the empire of Thongor the Mighty, he had been returned to his cell at mid-day. The rest of the afternoon had been passed in self-recrimination and despair. Then the evening meal had been brought to him. Usually, it was a drab affair, but this evening there was a jug of good wine. He had drunk deep, and thereafter an unwonted sleepiness had come over him, and the Prince of Tsargol had stretched out on his crude bunk and slept heavily. Slept, to awaken—where?

  He lay on a soft couch spread with many small bright pillows and a rich, silken spread of Zangabali work. Looking around, he saw he lay in a chamber of dressed stone, well lit with many small hanging lamps of pierced brass. In a corner, on a low tabouret of black wood set with mother-of-pearl, a huge thurible of massy silver smoked. Blue fumes of incense trickled from it to fill the room with the rich odor of nard and myrrh.

  Hangings adorned the wall and they pictured forth incredible visions, subtly pornographic. On a long low table of hewn and polished marble stood a statue of wrought gold which depicted a young girl copulating with three satyrs. Karm Karvus shook his head and closed his eyes; his brain felt numb and his body was lax with a strange weakness. The odor of the incense was overpoweringly sweet.

  “Drug … something in the wine …”

  “Correct, Prince of Tsargol,” a harsh, grating voice said.

  His eyes snapped open and he looked around. There was a huge chair of mellow golden wood drawn up against the further wall; it was carven all over with leering devil-masks and monstrous faces, and these faces were busy at innumerable disgusting and erotic tasks. He tore his eye from the obscene carvings and looked up at the tall gaunt man with the shaven skull-like face who sat therein, wrapped in hieratic robes of neutral gray.

  “Belshathla? What—”

  He strove to rise to his feet, but a wave of nausea went through him and he sank back limply. The Gray Magician nodded, thin lips spread in a mirthless grin.

  “Aye, Belshathla … the weakness will soon pass, Prince, and you will be yourself again,” the other grated.

  “But why …”

  “The drug in your wine? ’Twas nothing—a pinch of Rose-of-Dreams, no more. More would have plunged you in a sleep so deep that death itself would not awaken you … and I wanted you alive!”

  There was a grim, merciless glee in the rasping tones of the other’s voice. Karm Karvus could not understand what was happening, nor where he was, nor how he had come to this strange place, with its vile decorations and oversweet air. He put his hand to his throbbing head and strove to clear his wits.

  “I know the questions that roil and seethe within you, and it pleases me to answer them,” Belshathla continued in his harsh, metallic voice. “I had you drugged and brought here by my servitors, because I wished to look upon you in your helplessness … doubtless, my noble lord, you will not recall the incident, but seven years ago I visited your court in Tsargol city as a lowly petitioner … but perchance you do remember the event?”

  Karm Karvus shook his head numbly.

  “ ’Twas a year or so before the lord Thongor went up against Black Zaar … no? Ah, well, doubtless I was too lowly and unimportant for one of your exalted rank to bother with remembering,” Belshathla harshed. His tones were bitter and sardonic; doubtless his failure at the court of Tsargol had rankled greatly, souring his pride. Karm Karvus strove to recall the incident, but failed.

  “I had, through lonely years of patient toil, rediscovered in old charts the location of the lost cities of Nianga in the days of its greatness and power … and, for that I did dwell in the Scarlet City by the Sea, I came first to your court, offering you vast wealth and power and unconquerable strength in war, if you would from your bulging coffers advance the funds wherewith to purchase an expedition to the drear and barren wastelands of Nianga. But you, my gracious lord, said I was mad, and had me driven forth from your palace … ah! I see that at last you have remembered!”

  Karm Karvus turned a bleak gaze on the man in gray.

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “I do indeed remember you now, although you called yourself by another name and affected the white robes of a scholarly Nephelos in those days, instead of the gray raiment of the Niangan sorcerers. As I recall, I said you were mad to wish to bring to light again the devil-magic of Nianga … that the Gods in their infinite wisdom had crushed all of that accursed realm into ruin, so that the contagion of that evil science might not spread like some terrible and deadly plague across Lemuria. I said also that it was better for Mankind that the devil-machines of darkling Nianga lie forever beneath the dust of the ages and never be brought to the light of day again … yes, I remember the incident well!”

  The thin lips of the Gray Magician writhed in a vulpine leer of gloating triumph. “I thought I might refresh your memory, my hapless Prince! I fled the gates of Tsargol with curses on my lip
s, and in my righteous anger I swore that I should recover the lost wisdom of aeon-dead Nianga without your aid, and that when I had mastered the mighty engines of destruction I hoped to find amongst the ruins, it should be Tsargol the Scarlet that should first groan under the lash of my revenge … aye, for years I labored alone amidst the deathly wastes of that drear and accursed land, and with these two hands I dug away the dust of ages and brought the great engines to the light of day again. And then followed more years of terrible, grueling labor as I learned the forgotten sciences of Earth’s Dawn and one by one the dark wisdoms of age-lost and legended Nianga became mine …

  Maniacal triumph rang in the hoarse voice of the Gray Magician as he ranted. A mad glare lit his cold eyes and whitish foam bedrabbled the corners of his mouth. And Karm Karvus saw that the man was indeed mad: whether he had been mad, years before, when first he brought his blasphemous proposal to the foot of the Scarlet Throne, none could say; perhaps the long lonely years of backbreaking toil had taken their toll of his tottering sanity, or the long brooding on the fancied rebuff … but wherever that fine and brilliant mind had cracked, cracked it had, and the man before him now was a raving madman. Karm Karvus thought swiftly. Perhaps he could play on the other’s delusions of persecution and yearnings for power and revenge, and find therein a method of escape.

  “I was a fool to ever doubt your genius, O Belshathla,” the Prince said firmly, and there was the ring of sincerity in his voice. A flush of triumph darkened the gaunt cheeks of the Gray Magician and he laughed triumphantly.

  “Now you bemoan your short-sightedness, now, O Prince, that it is too late! Once I could have laid the kingdoms of the earth at your feet, but, ah, now I have offered them to this red dog of Tarakus … ’tis he, not you, shall rule from the throne-of-thrones!”

  “Alas, then, for my failure to recognize a powerful intellect when it came before me,” Karm Karvus said. “But—have you really mastered the long-dead sciences of Nianga—or do you but make pretence, to gain revenge?”