by Lin Carter
I have neglected to mention another observation which had occurred to Professor Potter at the time. That mysterious alloy of reddish-silvery metal sounded very much like the unknown metal orichalc, the mystery metal of Lost Atlantis of which the Greek philosopher Plato spoke in his celebrated Atlantean dialogues, Critias and Timaeus.
The identity of the mysterious metal has never satisfactorily been determined by science. But, then, neither has the location of the fabled Lost Continent of Atlantis, itself.
But more recently, some scholars have tentatively established a connection between the legendary Atlantis and the very real island of Minoan Crete. And if the story of Atlantis sprang from the Greeks’ half-remembered traditions of ancient Crete, and the uncanny orichalc of Atlantis was the same as the strange alloy of Raphad’s circlet, then quite a few pages of material hitherto missing from the history books could be sketched in.…
* * * *
Before the Underground World was very much older, Garth’s warriors had secured and disarmed the Zarians and were ready for further instructions from their High Chief.
As for the thodars, the immense and placid beasts had all wandered off by this time, and were cropping the grasses here and there about the plains.
“What are your commands, my Omad, regarding the prisoners?” inquired one of Garth’s chieftains. With a gesture he indicated the bound Zarians, who were looking extremely unhappy, as well they might.
Garth studied them, thoughtfully. The Cro-Magnon tribes were not accustomed to the slaughtering of helpless prisoners, but neither did their traditions demand that a war party encumber itself and retard its maneuverability by burdening itself with unwanted and useless guests. Unable any longer to control their mounts, which in any case had now wandered well out of reach, they offered no possible threat to the security of the Sotharian host.
And yet, to set the prisoners free might well give them an opportunity to carry the warning of the Sotharian advance back to Zar in time for the legions of the Scarlet City to mount a vast force against them.
Garth had no particular reason for wishing to invade the country of the Zarians, and, although he was unafraid of the possibility of a battle, it was prudent to avoid one if this could be done. All he was interested in was in finding his lost daughter, Yualla, who had been carried off by the pterodactyl.
As was his way, the jungle monarch swiftly made up his mind.
“Keep them guarded closely and see that not one Zarian escapes to bring the word of our approach back to Zar, lest they rouse a great force against us,” he commanded. “We shall at once resume the march to the mountains, in order to search for the gomad Yualla. Pass these orders along.…”
The chieftains saluted and marched the prisoners off. Captain Raphad cast one sad glance behind him as he was forced to accompany his warriors into captivity. If he could somehow purloin the circlet from the savage chief, it might be possible even now—and at this distance—to regain control over the mighty thodars.…
There seemed, however, no opportunity of doing this. But Raphad decided to bide his time and keep his eyes and ears open. In low tones he instructed his soldiers to obey the savages instantly and to avoid any trouble. The more the Cro-Magnons thought him and his men cowed and demoralized and helpless, the less attention they would give to guarding them.
And that meant the more chance Raphad might have to escape and regain the circlet, although he knew in his heart of hearts that he would have to murder Garth in order to get his hands on it.
* * * *
The host of Sothar marched across the plains and approached the mountains called the Wall of Zar.
If any further patrols of Dragon-riders had been sent forth upon the plains, they saw no sign of them.
The keen gaze of Garth’s scouts and huntsmen spotted the nesting places of many thakdols upon the upper heights of the mountains. So many of these could be discerned in the eternal midday light of Zanthodon that even the spirits of Garth were depressed. It might well take many weeks to search the nests of the pterodactyls, and the Sotharians were not accustomed to climbing mountains.
Garth discussed this problem with his chieftains when they gathered around the council fire before one sleep period.
“On this side, the slopes of the mountains are extremely steep, almost like vertical cliffs,” one of the subchieftains pointed out. And perhaps I should explain at this point that the Sotharian host had come against the mountains a considerable distance from the place at which Hurok and his warriors had ascended the Walls of Zar. The mountainous terrain differed here from the part which Hurok had found, and was indeed much steeper.
“Does Kovor imply that the mountains might be easier to climb on the far side of the range?” asked Garth. The younger man shrugged and nodded.
“There is no way of knowing that, my Omad,” he admitted. “But it is at least possible.”
“So it is,” rumbled the High Chief. “But to traverse the wall of mountains might consume many wakes and sleeps. And if the gomad Yualla yet lives, every moment might count.”
At this point, one of the shrewdest of the Sotharian scouts spoke up.
“There is a pass through the mountains not far off, my Omad,” he suggested. “It is low between the peaks, and from the shapes of the mountains on either side, it seems straight enough. Were we to take that route, we could perhaps be on the far side of the mountains before we next sleep.”
Garth, too, had noticed the notch in the mountainous wall, but had thought little about it, as this problem had not presented itself before now.
* * * *
Next “morning” the host marched toward the pass in question. For it was perfectly obvious that it would be an immensely difficult feat for the Sotharians to attempt to scale the mountains at this part of the range, and the suggestion of his counselors had persuaded the jungle monarch to cross the mountains first. Even though this meant invading the country of Zar.…
When Raphad discerned the direction in which the Cro-Magnon tribe was headed, his shrewd eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
For the pass which was obviously the destination of the savages was none other than the main pass into Zar, the one of the stone monster heads.
And that pass was thoroughly guarded by unseen watchers.…
CHAPTER 24
THE PROFESSOR’S INVENTION
Ialys had led me into an enormous stone-walled room filled with seething vapors, blazing furnaces, sulphurous stenches, and vile chemical reeks, where many artisans and workmen toiled. It was crowded, busy, and very noisy.
Hammers clanged on anvils, wielded by burly men stripped to the waist and black with soot. Sparks flew in showers from the strokes of their mauls and these, mingling with swirling clouds of black smoke, lent the cavernous room an aspect satanic, like a glimpse of the Inferno.
Amidst the noise and turmoil, my old friend Professor Percival P. Potter. Ph.D., hopped about shrilling orders, waving his arms excitedly, reprimanding or instructing his workmen in a feverish mixture of Zarian, Zanthodonian, and English. He stopped short when he perceived me standing there at the entrance to this incredible basement factory.
“Eric, my boy! Holy Heisenberg, whatever are you doing here? I…I had thought you in chains, groaning under the cruel lash of these fiends.…”
I stared at him in utter bewilderment.
“What in the world—or under it!—are you talking about, Professor?” I demanded.
“Why—why—well,” he spluttered, “Xask said—that is, I was given to understand.…”
“Xask, is it?” I said harshly, beginning to comprehend the astounding scene. “And you trusted a single word from that sly devil?”
“I—I—um,” he muttered, subsiding feebly. And eyeing me more than a bit guiltily.…
Guiltily?
Guilty about what?
I looked around me, eyes narrowing against the smoke. I could smell the sulphur in the air, and there it was—heaps and mounds of raw yellow sulpher, being raked to and fro in long wooden trays. They were purifying the stuff.
Looking beyond, I saw open fireplaces where wood was obviously being reduced to charcoal.
And my heart sank within my breast. For I knew the ingredients of gunpowder as well as the Professor did.…
* * * *
While I maintained a grim silence, the old boy showed me around. Since I had yet to utter a word of reproof, his natural buoyancy asserted itself. And he was obviously very proud of his work.
“I was presented with a host of problems, my boy, as you can doubtless well imagine…the Minoans are not yet into the iron age, although their technology is quite advanced; it is simply that this part of the mountain country seems lacking in iron ore. How, then, to fashion pistols or rifles? I resolved on case-hardened bronze, bound with brass wire to reduce the chances that the explosion of powder in the chamber might crack the barrels of the guns.…
I nodded, saying nothing. The old boy’s enthusiasm was so simple and pure, I did not wish to hurt his feelings by giving speech to the emotions I was feeling. Taking heart from my silence, he burbled on, proud as a peacock—
“The mechanism of a revolver is, I fear, a trifle too complex for the Zarian craftsmen, although, of course, in time…in time…at any rate, my dear boy, I simplified the design of my weapons to something like the old-fashioned blunderbuss, employing a lengthier barrel so as to build the velocity of the bullets and to improve, as much as is possible, the directness of their flight…it was a pretty problem, I assure you! But there was no way for these simpletons to rifle the inside of the barrels, if that is the proper word for it—you know what I mean, the inner spiral groovings which give a bullet the, ah, ‘spin’.…”
He showed me the finished product. It was an ungainly cross between a Kentucky squirrel-hunter’s rifle and a primitive blunderbuss. It looked ugly as hell, but I had little doubt that it would shoot well enough. The old flintlock rifles generally did.…
“The powder is crude enough, I know,” he went burbling on, “and coarse, but as time goes on we shall undoubtedly be able to refine the mixture and reduce the size of the grains…for bullets, now, I settled, after considerable thought, I can assure you, on simple slugs with cross-grooved noses—”
“Like dum-dum bullets?” I inquired heavily.
His watery blue eyes brightened cheerfully and his stiff little white spike of a goatee waggled as he nodded with enthusiasm.
“Precisely! I—ahem!—saw more than a few gangster movies in my younger years…the lead is easy enough to procure in these parts, fortunately.…”
I groaned inwardly. I had seen a few old gangster movies myself. And knew that a dum-dum bullet goes in easily enough, but when it comes out the other side, it leaves a hole large enough for a cat to walk through.
And we are talking about human bodies, not marksmen’s targets.
“However did Xask talk you into this?” I asked, finally.
“Well, ah…the fellow presented me with some very cogent arguments, as I hope you realize,” he faltered, evading my eyes. And then he went into a long and vague and rambling account of what Xask had said, which boiled down to very, very little.
Xask was an excellent con man. Like all con men, it’s not the idea content of his sales spiel that counts, but the seeming honesty, vigor, and reasonableness of his voice and manner.
The Professor was honestly not able to recall the arguments and persuasions which the wily little Machiavelli had used to win him over. Except, of course, for the flat lie that I was in a damp, dripping cell, being worked upon daily by the torturers of Zar.…
Which suddenly made me understand why I had been escorted to an entirely new suite after my private interview with the Divine Zarys, rather than going back to bunk with the Professor. With me out of sight, Xask could tell the old man any lie he wanted to.
It was all very neat.
And very ugly.
Armed with these guns, the legions of Zar could overrun the entire length and breadth of the Underground World. No army had a chance of standing in their way. Picture the poor Cro-Magnons, with their bows and arrows, axes and spears, trying to stem an invading flood of Zarians armed with the Professor’s flintlock rifles! Primitive and clumsy weapons though they were, they could cut down the boldest and most skillful of the warriors of Thandar or Sothar or any other tribe.
Including the Neanderthals of Kor—however many survived that massacre on the plains of the thandors—for all their ponderous might and savage ferocity.
Not even the Barbary Pirates could withstand the legions of Zar, no matter how strong their fortresses might be.
When you have gunpowder, you have rifles. It is a very short step from there to siege cannon. To catapult bombs. To grenades.
To world war.…
* * * *
The Professor was chagrined when I finally pointed these things out to him. He looked crestfallen, lower lip wavering childishly, vague eyes filling with something suspiciously like tears. I tried to speak as reasonably and patiently as was possible under the circumstances, and I tried not to upbraid him, for I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
But my words must have been a crushing disappointment to the Prof. Like stepping on someone’s bright new toy. And that’s exactly what his flintlocks represented to him: not a weapon of war, of conquest, of sheer murder, but a bright, fascinating new toy.
The sheer, intellectual game of reinventing firearms, using ancient, traditional crafts and Bronze Age artisans had intrigued and captivated him. That the practical applications of his glittering new toys were nothing less than red murder, warfare, rapine, and plunder simply had not occurred to him. Or, if they had, it was but hazily, as a far off, distant possibility, outweighed by the excitement of the technical achievement.
I understood all of this, and tried not to speak harshly to the poor old fellow or to make him feel any worse than he did already. But plain facts had to be pointed out and, if necessary, driven home bluntly.
“Think of our brave and gallant friends facing a disciplined troop armed with these bright new guns of yours,” I begged. “Think of Tharn and Varak and Garth and old Hurok…all of their bravery and gallantry and brute strength would be of no avail against what they call ‘the thunder-weapon.’ Of no avail at all.”
“M-my boy,” he quavered broken-heartedly. “I d-didn’t think, I simply didn’t think…why, Xask told me how the Scarlet City is ringed about with savage foes, unable to defend itself, the warrior spirit fading out—”
“Come on, Doc, use your head!” I said roughly. “Those tame dinosaurs they ride are a dreadful weapon, better than Hannibal with his elephants, and a lot scarier.”
“Y-yes, I believe you are right, I am indeed culpable.…”
“And to put such armaments within the grasp of sneaky rats like Xask—whom I wouldn’t trust any farther than I could throw him, and I’d love to see just how far that would be!—or the Queen’s pet general, our pal Cromus, remember him? As ambitious and as unscrupulous as they come—”
“You are quite right, my boy, and I deserve your harshest words. It was criminally negligent of me to have cooperated in the reinvention of firearms, intriguing experiment though it certainly was. But—what can I possibly do to stop it now? These Zarian engineers and bronze-smiths are cunning artificers, and swiftly grasped the principles I taught them…what could I do to change what has already been accomplished here?”
He had me stumped, and I had to admit it.
“I honestly don’t know, Doc; but you’ve got to do something,” I said. He looked troubled, but thoughtful: and when Professor Percival P. Potter, Ph.D. starts Th
inking (with a capital ‘T’), you can rest easier with the knowledge that you’ve got one of the best brains on (or under) the Earth working on your problem.
Ialys was tugging on my sleeve. I had almost forgotten she was there. She looked nervous and apprehensive.
“Lord Eric!” she cried. “You have stayed here too long—you must get back to your suite before the officers come—”
“What officers, girl?” I demanded.
“During every wake they come to inquire after the progress the old man, your friend, has achieved—hurry! I will escort you back to where we met.”
I guess I had lost track of time, talking to the Doc. So I bade him a hasty adieu and let her hurry me to the door. But it was a little late for making a strategic withdrawal.
We ran straight into Cromus and his bully-boys.
CHAPTER 25
THE UNDERGROUND ROAD
Within the black mouth of an alley lithe figures lurked. Overtopping them by head and shoulders loomed a burly shape. Bewildered, they peered out upon a busy, noisy, bustling bazaar.
Hurok and his warriors had managed to reach the outskirts of the Scarlet City unobserved, by means of their trick of swimming beneath the stone bridge which connected the island of Zar with the shores of the inland sea. But from this point on, there seemed to be no way to penetrate more deeply into the Minoan city without risking the chance of discovery.
The alley was narrow and black as pitch, for tall buildings shut out the eternal daylight of the Underground. This darkness was unnatural to the Cro-Magnon men and it made them distinctly uneasy.
Neither did they enjoy the filth and stench of the narrow way, with its heaped and fetid garbage, its worn cobbles beslimed with ooze, its mouth choked with abandoned junk and fragments of debris. They were eager to be out of this dark, vile place—into the open air and daylight once again.