The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series

by Lin Carter

  At length this grisly and interminable feast was over. Swollen and replete, the gorged leeches lay sommnolent among the corpses, twitching a little as they sprawled lazily in the stinking mud. Again some mysterious signal passed between them and the bandy-legged Gorpaks, and in obedience to their masters, the Gorpaks lowered into place the stone lid.

  Then the Gorpaks trooped out of the room. And for a little time the cavern people held to their ranks, but gradually it dawned upon them that their contributions were no longer required. The rank broke up and the cavern folk circulated aimlessly about the room, rejoining family groups or friends, or just sitting down where they were.

  There was no conversation between them, and there was no weeping. Neither did any of those who had survived the ghastly feast show the slightest sign of being glad or relieved that they had, for the moment, at least, escaped the doom which was seemingly common to their unfortunate race.

  Shivering, sick to his stomach, Hurok retreated from the balcony into the corridor again.

  Never in his life had he seen anything more horrible than the spine-chilling scene he had just witnessed. And he knew that it would haunt his dreams for years to come.…

  * * * *

  And now that the Neanderthal man had discovered the truth about these mysterious caverns, he was eager to begone…to escape these clammy stone ways, thick with the lingering stench of the fetid slime pits and the hideous things that squirmed and slithered therein.

  Every moment he continued to remain here within the hollow mountain increased the chance that he might be discovered and captured and forced to endure the horror he had just watched inflicted upon others.

  He headed back the way he had come, but the corridors branched and intersected, confusing Hurok. Before very much more time had passed, he knew that he was thoroughly lost.

  Stepping with care, slinking in the deepest shadows, huge stone axe held at the ready, the Korian warrior sought to find again the huge empty chamber and the broken door of wood that led to the cave beyond, and thus to the freshness of open air and clean daylight and the safety of the outer world he knew.

  But the portions of the maze in which he now inadvertently found himself were busier than those he had earlier traversed. The first time one of the cavern people came unexpectedly upon him, Hurok raised his axe and was about to silence the cry of alarm he fully expected to burst from the lips of the red-haired man.

  But no such alarm sounded. The pale, naked man merely gazed past the Drugar with dull, uncaring eyes and continued on about his business. Scratching his head in perplexity, Hurok stared after the retreating figure. He could not understand such complete indifference to an armed intruder. It seemed uncanny and weird; almost, the Neanderthal suspected himself to be invisible, but of course he knew that he was not.

  It began to seep into the small brain of the Apeman of Kor that these people of the caverns were in no wise akin to the other panjani he knew from the outer world. They were stalwart warriors—bold, dangerous, fearless, skilled fighters. But these men, although superficially similar to them in appearance, were like sleepwalkers, seemingly devoid of will or attentiveness; true slaves, slaves down to the blood and bone and sinew, incapable of independent thought, without the slightest, feeblest spark of the instinct for self-preservation or survival.

  He pitied them and despised them. Most of all, I suspect that Hurok pitied them, although pity—like mercy and fairness and good sportsmanship—are qualities found but seldom among his kind.

  He should have known that his progress through the cavern city went not unobserved.

  Suddenly, with a deafening clang, a cage of iron bars came crashing down to enclose him. It had been pulled up against the roof by cables and winches, and the trap had obviously been prepared with him in mind.

  With a coughing grunt of rage, Hurok threw himself against the barrier. All of the titanic strength of his ape-like arms swelled in his mighty thews as he grasped the iron bars and surged against them. His efforts were, however, futile.

  A troop of Gorpaks emerged from the shadows where they had been hiding, to survey the creature they had captured. One of them grinned nastily.

  “It is a bull Drugar, in the prime of his strength!” the bandy-legged little man chortled, eyes gleaming. “The Lords will be well pleased, for their carcasses contain very much hot blood!”

  “Loose me from this trap, panjani dwarf, and Hurok will find out soon enough how much hot blood your own puny body contains,” growled the Neanderthal, shaking the bars until the entire cage rattled and clanked.

  A cudgel wielded by another Gorpak rapped his hard knuckles smartly, where he clenched the bars.

  “Silence, animal, when Captain Lutho deigns to speak in your presence,” snapped this other.

  The little officer swelled visibly under such adulation.

  “Never mind, Vusk,” he drawled gloatingly. “If only the Lords would not take such very great pleasure from his gore, your Captain should be pleased to teach the animal a lesson.…”

  “Every guardsman in the Ninth knows and respects the prowess and bravery of Captain Lutho,” the others in the troop chorused. Lutho grinned, disclosing a row of small yellow teeth which had been filed to sharp points, and for a moment, even through his rage and fury at being caged, Hurok wondered if the Gorpaks had not perhaps adopted tastes in cuisine similar to those of the loathsome slugs they served.

  Lutho dismissed Hurok and his growling fury with a contemptuous glance.

  “Process the creature, will you Vusk? I have matters to at tend to in the breeding pens. See that the impertinent animal serves at the next Feasting…”

  All the blood of Hurok of Kor ran ice cold at the hideous import of those casual words.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Underground City

  For an hour or two, One-Eye led me through the jungle. Although I was no longer bound, I was more or less at his mercy, as the Apeman was armed while I was weaponless. I watched for my chance to turn the tables on the hulking bully, but he was sharp-eyed and crafty, remaining well behind me, out of my reach, and wary for tricks.

  I never did understand exactly where One-Eye was trying to get to, for inasmuch as I could see he was going directly away from the island of Ganadol upon which was situated Kor, the cave kingdom of the Neanderthaloid Drugars. I now suspect that he was simply trying to put as great a distance between himself and the host of Tharn of Thandar as he could.

  Well, that was certainly understandable.

  One-Eye did not spare a moment to search for his lost comrades, Fumio and Xask, nor did he seem at all concerned at their predicament. The two, you will recall, had scattered and fled when the aurochs had charged our camp; presumably, they had run off in different directions, but as to the truth of that, neither of us knew. And One-Eye didn’t care either. I did, because Xask had carried off my .45 and I felt rather naked without it, as it represented my sole tactical superiority over the men and monsters of Zanthodon.

  However, I had by this point in my adventures lost everything else I had brought with me into Zanthodon, as well as all of my friends, so one automatic more or less didn’t mean all that much.

  * * * *

  We didn’t get very far, as things turned out. One minute we were stumbling along the jungle trail, and the next minute we were surrounded by the most amazing crew of cutthroats imaginable.

  They were queer looking, bandy-legged little men astonishingly dressed in long tunics of overlapping semicircles of well-cured leather, like the scales on a serpent; these, plus long clouts of crimson cloth about their loins and highlaced buskins completed their costume. What was so astonishing about these costumes is that, up until now, I had seen no one in all of Zanthodon wearing much more in the way of clothing than brief apron-like coverings of leather or fur—the only exception to this
being the silken garments of Xask. Since the sophistication of these garments was so obvious, it would seem that the party which had us surrounded were the representatives of a higher degree of civilization than any I had heretofore encountered in the Underground World.

  They were quite a bit shorter than either One-Eye or myself, and were either naturally hairless or had their heads shaven; and their skins were of an unnaturally—even an unhealthy—pallor. They had mean, pasty faces, with thin lips and cruel eyes, and looked in general like creatures who had crawled out from under rocks.

  However, they were armed with coiled whips and threepronged spears like Neptune’s trident, and seemed very capable of using them. They ringed us about, yapping noisily to each other in brusque, clipped tones.

  At the first glimpse of them, One-Eye turned about as pale as he could possibly turn, considering his natural covert of grime and matted fur, and gulped as if his mouth had suddenly gone dry. The huge Drugar looked scared to death, and in fact he was.

  “What on Earth—!” I said.

  He gave me a woeful look.

  “They are Gorpaks, Eric Carstairs,” muttered the Apeman in hoarse, guttural tones.

  “And what are Gorpaks?” I inquired.

  He looked distinctly unhappy.

  “You will see,” grunted One-Eye miserably. “Now we are doomed.…”

  He did not bother to resist as they bound our wrists behind us with thongs and tethered our ankles so that we could walk but not run. Since there were a dozen of the nasty little brutes, and I was, as I have already mentioned, unarmed, I didn’t feel like taking the whole crew on myself. So I let myself be bound again, getting by this time awfully tired of being captured every other day by somebody or other.

  Once we were safely secured, one of the bandy-legged little creatures strutted around us, pinching and prodding as if examining prize cattle.

  “A bull Drugar and a healthy panjani,” he gloated to an underling. “A fine pair for the Lords’ delectation! They look as if they had much strong red blood in them,” he added, licking his thin lips with a narrow, pointed tongue.

  For some reason—premonition, I suppose—a cold shudder went over me at this last remark.

  As for One-Eye, he moaned, rolled his eyes up until all you could see were the whites, and his knees buckled as if he were about to faint. A jab in the buttocks with the end of one of those trident-like spears brought him to his senses swiftly enough.

  “Yes, indeed!” chattered the underling in oily tones. “Another triumph for Captain Lutho! Two Drugars during one crake’ is indeed unprecedented.”

  Lutho preened and strutted, basking in the admiration of his fawning toadies, and I began to heartily dislike the little squirt and wished mightily that my hands were free for two minutes, so that I could discover just how much strong red blood he had in him.

  Maybe I should mention that the folk of Zanthodon divide the endless and eternal day of their existence into “wakes” and “sleeps.” I suppose they have to divide it into something, to be completely human. Not that these present specimens looked all that human: One-Eye looked like a gorilla with the mange, but I preferred his company to that of the smirking little creeps.

  “Vusk, lead the way!” barked Lutho. Then, addressing another of his cringing toadies, he snapped, “Sunth, select six from the troop and comb the jungle. Where there are two, there may well be more!”

  “Captain Lutho is as generous as he is wise!” remarked the individual addressed as Sunth. At which Vusk, jealously, chimed in with: “None stands higher in the esteem of the Lords than the bold and sagacious Captain Lutho!”

  At which Lutho expanded his puny chest as if he would burst the fastenings of his leather-scaled tunic.

  “We have a mutual admiration society here,” I remarked sotto voce to One-Eye, who looked at me without comprehension.

  “A what?” he mumbled through dry lips. “’They are Gorpaks. And we are doomed.”

  “Silence, animals!” shrilled Lutho, giving me a sharp rap over the kneecap with a baton-like little length of polished wood he carried in one hand. I said nothing, tightening my lips against the bright burst of pain; but I gave him a Look at which he flinched, licked his lips and retreated.

  Why is it, I have often wondered, that while cowards are not always bullies, bullies are always cowards? One of life’s little mysteries, I suppose.

  * * * *

  With Vusk leading the way, and Lutho strutting importantly along at the rear, where he considered himself safe, we marched through the jungle, which ended in a blank cliff of stone. At some secret signal a rectangle opened within this seemingly unbroken wall, and we were led inside.

  I now know that through this same entrance had gone Professor Potter some time before us. I will not bore you with a second description of the black tunnel and so on, but we went the same route he had taken. The mazes and warrens of this underground city were astonishing to me, in that they represented a level of civilization higher than anything I had as yet suspected might be found here in this savage jungle world. One-Eye should have been even more impressed than I was, but he was too terrified to notice much of what went on around me.

  Like those of my friends who had preceded me into the underground city within the hollow mountains, I found myself intrigued by the appearance of the cavern people; their unhealthy pallor was only natural, considering that they remained buried here all their lives, never seeing the light of day; but what bothered me was the blank-faced listlessness they exhibited. They went about their menial tasks like so many zombies, oblivious to everything except the job at hand. Not so much as one of them spared a curious glance for us two strangers. They acted as if they were drugged, or perhaps hypnotized, or as if they had long since been terrorized into a constant state of mindless apprehension until they became impervious to every normal stimulus.

  In this labyrinth of winding corridors and many levels, I lost all track of direction. At some point we were commanded to halt while Lutho swaggered into a cubicle to report our capture to one I assumed to be a superior officer: This personage waddled out to eye us coldly from head to foot; he was older and, if anything, meaner-looking than Lu tho, with a fat wobbling paunch and double chin.

  “Your success at capturing new animals is indeed remarkable, Lutho,” he said waspishly. “Three in one wake is a new record”

  “I am gratified at the words of praise deigned to be uttered by one so high in the favor of the Lords as Commander Gronk,” Lutho purred—showing that he could toady as obsequiously to his superiors as his underlings toadied to him.

  Gronk nodded slightly, acknowledging the flattery. “Put them in with the others,” he snapped, waddling back into what I suppose was his office.

  * * * *

  We were led down another level by means of a sloping ramp without steps, and halted before a barred aperture. Here our bonds were removed, the door unbarred and we were thrust into fetid darkness. The door slammed to, the bar came down with a heavy grating sound and we stood there smelling the repulsive odors and rubbing our wrists. It was as dark as the inside of an ink bottle, although a trifle of light came from the dimly illuminated corridor beyond our place of captivity.

  “Well, One-Eye,” I began, intending to make some feeble quip or other. But I broke off at hearing a sharp gasp and a deep-chested grunt which sounded out of the darkness behind me with simultaneity. In the next moment I found myself being squeezed with skinny arms and clapped upon one shoulder by a brawny paw as big as a catcher’s mitt. The light from the corridor was dim, but it was enough to make out the features of Professor Percival P. Potter and Hurok the Korian!

  “You are alive! My dear boy, how glad I am to see you—what experiences I have had! What a tale I have to tell you!” burbled the Professor, wringing my hand heartily, Adam’s apple bobbing up and dow
n with emotion, eyes as moist with tears of happiness as were, at that moment, my own.

  “Hurok rejoices that Black Hair is alive and well,” said my faithful Drugar friend in deep, solemn tones, with a grin that made his shaggy features suddenly very human.

  “Although,” he added in an ominous rumble, with a contemptuous glare at One-Eye, who stood at my side, “Hurok is somewhat surprised to find his friend in such low company.”

  Well, there wasn’t much I could say to that.

  CHAPTER 13

  Warriors of Sothar

  During the next few sleeps and wakes we did an awful lot of talking. Hurok and I and the Professor exchanged accounts of our various adventures since the sundering of our paths, and even One-Eye grunted a cursory account of the manner by which he had survived the stampede of the mammoths and had met with Xask and Fumio and had followed me across the plain of the thantors because Xask wanted my automatic.

  I was, of course, delighted beyond words to learn from the Professor that my beloved Darya still lived, but in the next instant plunged into dejection to learn that she had been carried off by the red-bearded captain of the corsair galley, and that that brave youth, Jorn the Hunter, had been slain. Later, when my misery over Darya’s plight receded a little, I would have time to puzzle over the marvel of a colony of the notorious Barbary pirates existing here in the Underground World. But since Zanthodon had already proved a refuge for so many of the mighty dawn-age beasts and tribes of early men, I suppose it was not much to marvel at.

  Zanthodon itself is the marvel of marvels.…

  In time we were put to work like the naked, listless, redhaired people of the caverns at various menial tasks, with the beady-eyed little Gorpaks as our overseers. Even while sweeping and mopping and preparing food, or whatever, the Professor and I managed to stay together, exchanging information, conjecture and reminiscences in whispering tones.