by Lin Carter
I do not know. But they had found each other, and were in love, and never troubled Zanthodon again, or at least, not the part of it that I am familiar with.…
So farewell to the jealous and imperious Zarys of Zar, and to the ferocious and lusty descendant of Khair ud-Din of Algiers! The gods who rule our fates devised a cunning and fitting punishment for these two magnificent villains—
They got married.
* * * *
When the males guarding the browsing herd of grymps broke into a thunderous charge and headed straight for the tribes of Thandar and Sothar, who had by now fully emerged from the jungles, neither Garth of Sothar nor Tharn of Thandar had an easy solution to their problem.
The two Cro-Magnon chiefs had both faced grymps before, while hunting on the wide plains of their homelands, and knew the monstrous triceratops for a fearful opponent. Armored in their tough and leathery hide, the heavy brutes were all but unkillable: neither spear nor arrow nor sling missile could pierce those hides, and the skulls of the grymps, armored beneath thick shields of horny bone, were unreachable by any weapon known to their armory.
Indeed, the only time I have known a grymp to be killed, in my own experience while wandering through the jungles and swamps of Zanthodon, was when one had the Professor and me treed, and was attacked by a mammoth which outweighed it by a half a dozen tons or more. The thantor broke the back of the triceratops, and if Garth or Tharn could possibly have conjured up a thantor out of empty air at that moment, probably they would have done so. But no thantors were in evidence; there is never a woolly mammoth around when you really need one, it seems!
The two chiefs uttered quick words of command. While the woman and children, the aged and injured of the two tribes sought refuge behind the close-set trees which stood at the fringes of the jungle country, the warriors sprang forward, with leveled spears, whose butts they wedged into the earth so that their points were aimed at the charging bulls.
It was a flimsy sort of defense, but the best that could be managed, under the circumstances.
One of the older, more experienced scouts stood near the place where the two chiefs had taken their stand. He was a man named Komad of Thandar, the best scout I had ever known, not including Zuma and Aziru.
“Like all beasts of the swamp or the plain, my Omads;” said the older man quietly, “the grymp fears fire. Mayhap we can ignite the meadow grass and drive them away from our position in that manner.”
Garth squatted gingerly, one hand nursing his nearly healed wound, the other hand testing the grass. He raised wet fingers into view, needing no words to tell that a recent rain had dampened the turf beyond any chance of setting it afire.
“They are almost upon us,” growled Tharn, briefly glad that his daughter Darya had agreed to take refuge in the woods with the other noncombatants. “Stand ready, my warriors!”
But there was no need, as things turned out.
I have already mentioned the Fire Mountain, as the tribes called it, which stood not far off to the eastern end of the swampy plain.
Even in that same moment as the furious bull grymps came thundering down upon the line of Cro-Magnon warriors, who knelt with flimsy spears leveled in a futile attempt at defense—the earth jumped.
A ball of whirling crimson fire exploded from the blacklipped crater atop the active volcano.
It disintegrated into a shower of crimson sparks and a thick plume of inky, sulphurous smoke.
Another jet of fire roared from the mountain peak as from the fiery throat of a furnace. The sky darkened with thickening haze of drifting smoke. Sparks fell like burning hail.
The earth cracked open.
As rivulets of blazing molten lava trickled down the stony slopes of the sides of Fire Mountain, a black crack zigzagged down the slope and across the plain, accompanied by a subterranean noise, a growling and grumbling as if the Earth Giants were stirring wrathfully in their age-old slumbers.
The stampeding bull triceratops veered off nervously as the ground trembled violently underfoot. The black mouth of a yawning chasm opened before them. Hissing clouds of live steam and whirling dust geysered forth in their very snouts.
The crevice shuddered, its edges crumbling. Then the earth groaned again, and the opening widened. The foremost of the bulls could not stop in time and hurtled, squealing like steam whistles over the brink, to fall into the unknown depths.
Tharn steadied himself as the ground bucked and quivered violently underfoot. Trees tore up their roots and toppled slowly to thump the earth. Zomaks fled the treetops, squawking raucously.
The sky darkened under veils of inky smoke. The smell of brimstone was heavy on the air.
The mountain shuddered and belched fire again. A weird rain of hot ash and burning embers floated down upon the plain.
The bulls halted at the edge of the crevasse, snorting and blowing nervously. Soon they heard the squealing of their calves, the frightened lowing of the cows, and turned around to trot back to rejoin the main body of the herd. In time, they moved off across the plain, putting as much distance as they could between their females and young and the burning mountain.
Garth and Thandar looked at each other and grinned in relief.
Then they turned to regard the black opening in the earth. It traversed the entire length of the plain like a great moat. From lip to crumbling lip it was thirty feet across in places, but nowhere in the range of their vision was it less than half that width.
There was no way to cross it.
Which meant there was no way for them to continue their journey into the south.
Riven by earthquakes is the Underground World, where the ground shudders to the convulsions of hidden volcanic fires and the skies are often black with the smoke of fountaining lava.
Zanthodon, in this instance, had protected its tribes of blond savages from the beasts of the plain.
But it had also marooned them very many leagues from their homeland.
And there was nothing they could do about it.
CHAPTER 15
FANGS OF DOOM
With strong and steady strokes, Hurok and Apeman and his mate, Gorah of Kor, plied the crude wooden paddles that propelled their dugout canoe across the misty waters of the underground sea of Sogar-Jad.
Behind them, the mountainous island of Ganadol was gradually lost in the fog’s that mantled the surface of the subterranean ocean. Neither was sorry to see the rocky isle fade from vision astern. To Hurok, the isle of the cave country teemed with enemies; to Gorah, it held few friends. And, while the savage Neanderthal maiden viewed her future life among the panjani with fear and trepidation, she relied upon the wisdom and the strength of her mighty mate, and was more than willing to let the future take care of itself.
The straits which separated the rocky shores of the island from the mainland of Zanthodon were not wide, neither were they lashed by storms or heavy waves, but they were the hunting grounds of many of the fearsome monsters of the deep. For this reason, then, the two Neanderthals rowed with all the strength they could command, to lessen the time they must spend exposed to the elements.
From time to time, Hurok cast a searching glance behind him. He did not really fear that any pursuit would be attempted, for he knew that the Apemen were lurking about the boat which he had beached upon the southern shores of the island, waiting for him to return. It would be a certain space of time before the bodies of the males he and Gorah had slain would be found, and even longer before it would be discovered that one of the dugouts was missing from the place-of-boats. By then, he knew, Hurok and his mate would have safely arrived upon the mainland and would be well beyond the vengeance of Kor.
A stifled shriek from Gorah roused the Apeman from his reverie.
He growled, bristled, swerved his gaze forward to where his mate crouched
shivering. Her fear-frozen stare was fixed on the steamy waters to one side of the boat.
The waves boiled—parted—revealing the long beaklike snout of a marine monster. Hurok flinched and glared: a huge, jag-toothed spine rose above the waves, clove the floating veils of mist, then submerged again with scarce a ripple to show that it had ever been. But Hurok knew he had not dreamed the sight.
At a glance, he knew the creature for an aurogh, although it had been long ago in his youth that he had last seen one. In a flash, the memory returned to him: a fishing fleet upon the Sogar-Jad, when he and other Drugar cubs were being taught the skills of the sea by grizzled oldster. The scaly monster had overturned the boats, snapping up squealing cubs…it was a memory of such horror to Hurok, that even now he swore and flinched therefrom.
As well he might. From the description, Professor Potter identified the aurogh as none other than a monster saurian of the prehistoric seas called the ichthyosaur. Save for its long, beaklike snout, the ichthyosaur resembled a supershark, forty feet from snout to tail, and every inch of that forty feet crammed with mindless hunger and ferocity. One of the most deadly predators of the ancient oceans was the aurogh, and from the Triassic to the early Cretaceous, it was monarch of the waves.
Thank God, only here in the prehistoric seas of Zanthodon the Underground World did such a maritime monstrosity still live and flourish.…
“Is it gone?” whispered Gorah, shuddering. Hurok shrugged.
“I do not know,” he growled briefly. “Grab your oar—and row!”
They rowed, crouched low above the gunnels of the dugout, putting all of the strength of their heavily muscled backs and shoulders into the effort. Ahead of them, across a stretch of foggy waters, the dim line that marked the shores of the mainland was vaguely visible—so near, and yet so far, as the saying goes.
Fixing their gaze upon that tantalizingly near line of tree-fringed darkness, the two Korians bent their backs.
It was not enough.
Suddenly, a vast force stirred beneath them. Briefly, the waters boiled to foam about the craft. Then it lifted suddenly into the air—and was flung afar!
The ichthyosaur had arisen a second time from the deeps of the Sogar-Jad—directly beneath the keel of their dugout—and had flung the craft into the air as a rising whale might do, coming up for air under a whaling boat.
Hurok was thrown clear, the paddle flying from his hand. He whirled like an ungainly bird through the foggy air, and came down to smash into the surface of the underground ocean with shocking impact. It was what we used to call a belly-whopper, and the impact when he struck the water’s surface was more than enough to knock the air out of him.
Gasping for breath, with wide eyes he saw the foaming waters close over his head as he sank like a stone, kicking and struggling. Warm water seeped past clenched jaws and stubbornly shut lips, to choke and burn his throat. Floundering with massive arms, kicking violently, Hurok rose to the surface again. As his head broke the waves, he flung back wet hair from reddened eyes and gulped air into starved lungs.
Nowhere could he spy Gorah, his mate.
Hurok gulped air and let himself sink beneath the waves again, reaching out with long arms to clutch and grasp.
He could not swim, could Hurok.
And neither could Gorah, his mate.…
* * * *
We moved through the jungle, my comrades and I, following the tracks left by the twin tribes. We knew that they were not, could not be, very far ahead of us, and that very soon we would catch up with the rear guard of the host.
We conversed but little, busied with our thoughts. That we would never see Hurok again seemed likely, and those of us who knew him, and who valued the friendship of that mighty warrior, were naturally saddened thereby. So there was nothing to be gained by talking about his absence.
If he had returned to Kor, it could only be because homesickness had overcome him, and the need for the companionship of his kind, a need which all of our comradeship and friendliness could never assuage.
“Cheer up, my boy!” chirped the Professor, toiling along at my side. “Our huge and hairy friend may yet return to join us farther along the journey, and, at any rate, even if he remains in the cave country of Kor, perhaps he will be happier among his fellow Neanderthals.…”
“I know, I know, Doc,” I grumbled. “It’s just that—that, well, I miss him already. —At least, he could have hung around long enough to say good-bye!”
“And to have given you enough time to talk him out of it, eh?” he said, shrewdly. I winced; I suppose that was what was lurking in the back of my mind.
He patted me on the shoulder, and his lips parted to make some further observation, but just then—
The earthquake struck!
When the ground leaped and shivered underfoot, knocking us asprawl amid the bushes, something like thunder growled and boomed in the distance, and the stench of sulphur and brimstone smoked upon the air.
I staggered to my feet and stared around wildly. Underfoot, the ground quivered like a live thing. Bushes rustled, beasts yowled, trees were toppling slowly to every side, uprooted by the earth tremors.
Great Gundar grabbed my arm, pointing.
“The beach! The beach!” he roared above the noise. I gulped and nodded, to indicate comprehension. Trees were falling to thump the earth all around us, and the open shores of the Sogar-Jad, not very far away, were certainly the safest place for us to be, under the circumstances.
We headed for the shore, stumbling along, lurching as the ground shook underfoot. By now, the air was pungent with the smoke of burning rocks and live sparks and cinders were floating down among us.
The Professor lost his footing and fell to the impulse of another tremor. Gundar bent, scooped the old savant up, tossed him across one brawny shoulder, and pelted on through the whipping bushes. I followed, and the others after me.
Moments later, we burst out of the line of trees and thick underbrush which fringed the beach and found ourselves on the sandy shores of the underground ocean once again. Trees had fallen athwart the beach, but we waded out into the shallows and stood, while I counted heads. Thankful, I saw that we had all escaped unharmed from the earthquake.
Gundar helped the Professor down, and the little scientist peered about at the plumes of smoke in the sky from the distant mountain, eyes snapping with eagerness.
“Fascinating, my boy!” he breathed. “Although the mountains of Zanthodon are ancient, there are still many live volcanoes among them, and vulcanism is active. I had presumed as much from the rock formations I have observed along our journeys, but this is the first eruption I have ever witnessed…Great Galileo, but I wish I were close enough to see the volcano!”
“Be glad you aren’t, Doc,” I said sharply. “Knowing you, you’d be sticking your nose into a bed of hot lava and get it singed off first thing.”
He snorted, but subsided. I guess he realized that I was right.
* * * *
We waited things out. Within the hour, the earth tremors subsided and the stench of brimstone (or whatever it was) faded from the air, and we deemed it safe enough to return to the interior of the jungles.
By then, we were all hungry, and decided to hunt and eat first, before continuing on the trail of the tribes of Sothar and Thandar.
Zuma proceeded farther down the shore, while others of our number unlimbered bows and arrows or hunting spears. The black warrior guessed that many fish would have been washed ashore in the eruption and earthquake, and spotted tidal pools ahead of us, which he wished to investigate.
Instead, he almost ran into an immense, hairy monster who boomed a savage challenge, hefted a heavy stone axe, and came charging down upon him, growling bestial warnings.
PART IV: CROSSING THE ABYSS
CHAPTER 16
THE PROFESSOR DEPARTS
Xask and Murg plunged headlong into the bushes and the underbrush swallowed them up. The ground shuddered violently underfoot and bushes whipped violently. As the two ducked and staggered between the trees, the gloom of the jungle was made hideous by the squeal of tearing wood, the thunder of toppling trees, the roaring of panicked beasts.
After a time, as the two ran out of breath and paused to catch their second wind, leaning exhaustedly against the tall bole of a towering cycad, it became evident that the earthquake was over and most of the danger seemed to have passed. The ground trembled no more and the burning whiff of sulphur and brimstone had faded from the humid jungle air.
Murg and Xask looked at one another wordlessly, and Xask smiled. They had escaped safely and were again at freedom, and Xask vindictively hoped the black warrior-woman had been crushed to death beneath the failing tree which had felled her.
“Come over here and free my wrists,” he snapped. Murg scuttled to where the other crouched and fumbled nearsightedly at the thongs which bound the vizier.
“Alas, Murg has no knife,” he wailed.
Xask shrugged irritably. “Untie me with your fingers, then, and be quick about it! Now that the earth has stopped its shaking, our late captors—those of them that have survived—may come looking for us.”
Murg tugged and pried at the thongs. “Murg hopes they all are slain,” whined the little man.
Xask glared coldly.
“Best for us that they are not,” he stated crisply. “For I still have need of them, as hostages for the secret of the thunder-weapon.”
Murg did not know what the other man meant, but wisely held his tongue, poking and pulling at the thongs. After a moment Xask added, meditatively:
“And if perchance they are dead, well…then I must think of something else. Aren’t you done with that yet?”