by Alex Raymond
“We wish a private dining room.” Harn trotted toward the bar. “My friend has traveled a good long way, from a far-off territory. He’s worn and hungry, Blessing.” He lowered his voice. “Later we would appreciate a small discussion with you.”
Fat Blessing said, “Take any room you fancy, Harn. As you can observe, we are not doing a thriving business this night.” He leaned an enormous elbow on the bar top, tilting his shaggy bulk in Flash’s direction. “Whereabout do you hail from, sir?”
“A long way off,” Flash replied.
“Ah, you wish to be discreet,” said the innkeeper. “You’ll find the Heart & Arrow’s a place which respects a man’s privacy.”
Drumming his fingers slowly on the bar, Harn said, “I think we must celebrate my friend’s safe arrival. Do you have any of your special brandy left in stock, Blessing?”
The innkeepers left eyelid fluttered for an instant. “The special brandy, did you say . . . aye, that I do, Harn. As the gods would have it, a new supply has found its way to me this very day.” He gave Flash a jiggling smile. “You must understand, sir, that this particular brandy is of such quality that our emperor would prefer to have the entire supply find its way to the palace. However, now and again, a bottle or two reaches me by way of the Great River.”
“Ale will be sufficient for me,” said Flash.
“Oh, nay,” insisted Harn. “I owe you a good deal, my friend, and you must allow me to make this grateful gesture.”
Flash grinned. “Very well.”
“We will dine in that room beyond the fireplace,” Harn told the fat innkeeper. “When you have the brandy ready, serve it there if you will.”
“You realize, sir,” Blessing confided to Flash, “I must keep such a rare drink well hidden. You will excuse me while I fetch it.”
The small dining room had whitewashed plaster walls, a beamed ceiling and a good-sized fireplace of its own.
“I’ll fix things so we can warm ourselves, outlander,” said Harn as he shuffled to the fireplace. Kneeling, he put a wax match to the kindling beneath the crossed logs. “There, it will soon be blazing heartily.”
“Hem,” coughed Blessing from the doorway. “Here is the brandy. You will find, sir, it compares favorably with the best you have ever sampled.”
“Of that I’m sure,” Flash replied, taking one of the glasses from the tray the fat man held out toward him.
Harn took the remaining glass, sniffing at it. “Ah, a wonderful scent to it.”
“I will send a girl soon to take your order,” said Blessing as he withdrew and shut the door.
“Well,” said Flash, raising his glass toward the guide, “cheers.”
Harn hesitated, rubbed at his stomach. “You must forgive me, outlander.” Glass in hand, he backed unsteadily into a rough-hewn chair beside the wooden dining table. “The shock of our recent brush with death has just caught up with me . . . I feel I must sit quietly for a moment or two.”
“Brandy’s exactly what you need to snap you out of your funk, Harn.”
“I don’t believe I can hold anything in my stomach at the moment, my friend. Please, though, you go ahead and enjoy your brandy.”
“Very well then.” Flash turned to look into the now crackling fire. When he turned again to face Harn, the glass was empty. “You were right. It’s an excellent . . .”
Harn, poised on the edge of his chair, watched him. “What is wrong, outlander?”
“I . . . don’t . . . I don’t . . .” Flash swung one hand out. He dropped to his knees, then toppled over on his side and lay still.
CHAPTER 8
“I don’t think we dare risk it,” the huge innkeeper was saying. He sat, his thick legs spread wide, on a chair near the fireplace in the small dining room.
“There’s no risk, I’m telling you.” Harn paced the wooden floor, carefully avoiding the still-sprawled Flash. “I’ve had much practice deceiving Captain Hakes.”
“Aye, but the captain surely knows this outlander must have a weapon of an exceptional sort,” said Blessing. “You told me yourself they found one on the girl’s person while they were tying her.”
“The captain, surely, will expect the blond outlander to have a similar weapon,” admitted Harn. “However, I will simply tell him of our struggle with the salamanders. The stranger’s pistol was lost during that fearsome encounter.” He gave one of his dry rattling laughs. “So anxious was I to deliver this fellow to him that I have not had a chance to return to search for the missing gun.”
When Blessing shrugged, ripples ran up and down his fat chest and stomach. “It might work, Harn. Yet—”
“It will work,” asserted the bent man. “We will keep the pistol I saw him thrust in his waist. In fact, before we take him down to the wharf we will search his knapsack.”
“Wait now, Harn. One pistol we might perhaps keep, but no more.”
Harn laughed again, tapping his gnarled fingers against his chest. Beneath his tunic coins jingled. “So far, Blessing, I have been paid a mere fifty mingots for entrapping this outlander. Yet it has required considerable effort. I had to wait long dreary hours in the jungle, I had to use my nimble wits to invent a plausible tale with which to lure him here. I have even risked death. That, you must admit, is worth a good deal more than fifty mingots.”
“You will receive another fifty when you deliver him to the Royal Police airship which is going to meet you at the wharf,” pointed out the fat innkeeper. “Don’t forget, by the way, I am to get a cut for my assistance.”
“Yes, yes,” said Harn, brushing aside Blessing’s last remark with his hand. “Think of the pistol, though, Blessing. It is far more effective, I assure you, than anything the Royal Police or the Imperial Army have.” He crossed to the fire, held his hands out to it. “There’s no calculating what price it might bring in certain quarters. I am sure the sorcerers would like to bid on it, and most certainly the lion men.”
“Lion men,” snorted Blessing. “Threadbare rebels who live like savages in the wilds and dream of the overthrow of Ming. Why, they could not afford the price of a dinner at the Heart & Arrow, let alone something such as that pistol.”
“You forget that during a war men tell lies,” said Harn. “It is known as propaganda. The lion men have supporters, you may be sure, supporters who can more than afford to buy the outlander’s pistol from us.” He rubbed his warmed palms together. “There is also Prince Barin himself.”
The fat innkeeper shook his head. “He and his followers are still cowering in the Forest Kingdom, Harn, fearful of the wrath of Ming.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps that, too, is merely propaganda,” said Harn. “At any rate, I will take his pistol now. For I have but little time to hide it safely before we carry this outlander down to the wharf.”
“He’s going to be heavy, I wager,” said Blessing. “Lately, whenever I lift anything heavy, I get this frightful pain all across—”
“Let me save you the trouble then,” said Flash, bounding to his feet. “And here, Harn, is the pistol you’re so anxious about.” He pointed the weapon at the approaching guide.
“What does this mean?” muttered Blessing.
“It means, you blubbery fool,” cried Harn, “the knockout potion you put in his drink was not strong enough.”
“Not at all.” Flashed grinned. “It means I poured the brandy into the fireplace and only pretended to be unconscious. I had an uncle, back on the planet Earth, who warned me never to drink with strangers. Now then, Harn, the money.”
“What are you alluding to, outlander?”
“The coins you were rattling a moment ago. I’m going to need some local spending money. Hand them over.”
“I’m afraid you misunder—”
“Five more seconds and I’ll take them off your corpse,” Flash told him. He had no intention of killing the man, but he knew such a bluff would work with Harn.
“Very well, if you would rob a man of the fruits of his toil.” Harn slid
a hand into his tunic.
“If anything but money comes out, Harn, that means you’re dead, too.”
“They are in a pouch of leather, outlander, given to me by my careworn grandmother on her—”
“The money.”
Slowly Harn handed the pouch to Flash. “You surely have no chance, outlander. The Royal Police know the young woman had two men with her. They will not rest until they have the both of you.”
“As of now, they only have the girl?”
“So I have been led to believe.”
“And she is in the capital?”
“Aye, where you also will soon be,” said Harn. “Only you will be in a cell deep underground and she—”
“Blessing—” interrupted Flash.
“I did only as I was bidden, sir. There’s really no need to kill me.”
Flash reached back into his rucksack, brought out a small coil of plastic rope. “Tie up your friend here.”
“Nay, he’s no friend of mine,” Blessing said. “Why, I barely know the fellow.”
“Tie him up and gag him well,” ordered Flash. “Then I’ll do the same for you. Be quick about it. I have an appointment with the Royal Police.”
CHAPTER 9
The man in the high tower stood watching the vast city spread out below in the darkness. A city of towers, spires, minarets, and pennants, illuminated with hundreds of floating globes of pastel light. “I often think,” he observed, “that the people of Mongo are singularly lacking in gratitude.” He gestured at the huge window with a spidery hand. “I give them such a lovely gracious capital for their empire and yet . . .” He sighed, crossed the circular room to a round highly polished table to pick up several sheets of flimsy paper. “The spirit of rebellion and dissatisfaction continues on the rise.” He dropped into a high-back throne-like chair on a dais next to the table, steepled his fingers in front of his lean sharp-featured face. “I’m afraid there’s nothing to do but increase the public executions.”
Seated in a lower chair was a burly man with close-cropped hair, the Minister of Police. “A wise remedy, Ming,” he said, “though perhaps at this time . . . We are approaching the harvest season and, as you know, there is already a serious food—”
“I also feel my people are lacking in basic intelligence,” interrupted Ming. “My recent proclamation gave them several excellent solutions to this alleged famine. Yet they persist in agitating and ignoring my advice.” He was a long gaunt man of fifty, dressed in a jeweled saffron robe. He wore a peaked skull cap on his hairless head and had a down-curving moustache and the wisp of a goatee. He stroked this tiny beard now. “If they ignore sound imperial wisdom, Erik, then they must suffer the consequences. We will have five additional public executions a week. One from each of the five most complaining territories.”
“Very well, sir,” said the burly Erik.
A younger man, wearing clothes of a slightly military cut, was slouched against one of the arches next to a window. “Seems to me we ought to revive the tournaments,” he said.
Ming turned his gaunt face toward the young man. “As Minister of Agriculture, Haldor, you needn’t involve yourself with public entertainments.”
“Even so,” said Haldor with a smile, “I think the tournaments would be very useful about now.”
Ming leaned forward on his throne chair, placing one hand on his knee. “How so?”
“Main thing is, they take the people’s minds off their other problems,” said the young minister. “You’ve got a lot of dissatisfied citizens right here in the capital, you know. Important people, many of them, people whose support, especially financial, we need. And when people like that start worrying about their food supply, you’re—”
“There is no food shortage in the capital,” said Ming sharply. “If certain fools and buffoons believe so it is because you, Haldor, have not done an adequate job of explaining the agricultural situation to them.”
“Maybe,” answered Haldor, still smiling. “Anyway, Ming, about the tournaments. We could round up most of the best known troublemakers in each territory. Toss them in the arena with various wild animals, possibly even a few apemen and . . .”
“What are the advantages of all that?” asked Erik.
“The main thing is, we get rid of a good lot of people who are against the present empire,” explained Haldor. “But with the tournaments, we don’t do it as obviously as with public executions.”
Ming sighed once again. “You give them credit for far more maturity than they have, Haldor,” he said. “Nonetheless, I think we might introduce a new series of tournaments. That will be, however, in addition to the increased number of public executions. Attend to the details, Erik, and I will issue a proclamation.”
“Very well, sir.”
Ming rested his chin on the sharp tips of his steepled fingers. “Yes, a touch of pageantry always goes over well, takes their minds off their fancied troubles,” he said. “Princess Aura will need a new wardrobe for attending the tournaments.” He glanced down at Erik. “Where is my daughter, by the way?”
“Well . . .” Erik stretched out the word, but couldn’t come up with anything to follow it.
Haldor laughed. “She’s out practicing democracy.”
Ming frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean Princess Aura slipped out of the palace this afternoon, dressed as a commoner,” replied the minister. “She enjoys getting out among the people to find out—”
“Find out they’re a pack of fools,” said the emperor angrily. “I’ve forbidden Aura to do such foolish things. Erik, have her found and returned to the palace at once.”
“My men are already scouring the city for the princess, sir,” replied the burly Minister of Police.
Haldor waited a second before saying, “We have much bigger problems.”
Ming said, “You derive too much amusement from your present position. Perhaps you would be more serious in a lower one.”
“Perhaps.” The smile remained on the young man’s face. “At any rate, I think we should be giving more attention to the fact that three people from some alien planet have apparently landed on Mongo.
“Apparently is the key word,” the emperor said. “I have a full report on the alleged incident here.” He rattled the papers in his hand.
“We have men scouring the jungle to locate these supposed aliens,” said Erik, “and to find their ship. As of now, we have only the girl.”
“Which reminds me,” said Ming, rising. “I promised Captain Hakes I would join him in the interrogation of the young woman.”
“She’s rumored to be quite pretty,” remarked Haldor.
“Pretty or not,” said Ming, “we’ll find out soon enough if there is any truth to her story.”
“Suppose there is?”
“I shouldn’t have to remind you, Haldor, that we have been invincible so far,” Ming told him. “We shall continue to be. There is no one, be he from Mongo or some distant planet, whom the power of Ming cannot subdue.” He strode toward an arched exit. “You would do well to remember that.”
The lean sorcerer came toward Zarkov with a knife in his hand.
The burly scientist, who’d been dozing against the cave wall, blinked awake. “Decided to do me in after all, have you?”
“No need to boom so, Dr. Zarkov,” said Brother Beltor. “My companions are trying to sleep. I am only going to cut loose your bonds.”
“Highly wasteful,” commented Zarkov, in a slightly less booming voice. “Untie the knots, then you can reuse the rope.”
“I am no good at all with knots,” apologized the sorcerer. “Brother Anmar will be here soon and you’ll be dining with him.”
“If he brings any chow,” added Zarkov.
“He has provisions, no need to worry.” Beltor began slicing the ropes.
“You can communicate mind to mind?”
“Yes. We worked out the basic principles before Ming banished us.”
“Ming wou
ld be who?”
“The emperor of the New Kingdom,” explained Beltor. “After successfully overthrowing and conquering the legitimate governments of this area he outlawed those of us who wouldn’t work for him.”
When Zarkov’s hands were free, he used them to smooth out his tangled black beard. “This Ming fellow uses magic and sorcery to run his empire?”
Finishing his job, Beltor stepped back. “We were not always sorcerers.”
“You must forgive Beltor. He sometimes overdoes the mystifying element in our guise.” A tall light-haired man of forty had entered the cave. He wore a robe similar to the other sorcerers, hood back off his head. Throwing down a rough cloth sack of supplies, he said, “I hope you don’t mind dining on thram.”
“At this point, I’ll eat most anything,” said Zarkov. “Even thram, whatever it may be.”
“It’s much like your Earth . . . rabbit,” said the blond man.
“Read that off my brain, huh?”
He extended his hand. “Yes. I am Brother Anmar” he said. “I’m happy to have a man of your intellect among us, Dr. Zarkov.”
“So happy that you’re not going to let me go?”
“I’m afraid for the moment we must keep you with us,” said Anmar. “There is a particular problem we need a solution to, and you seem qualified to lend a hand. In the morning, then, we will begin our journey to the Forest Kingdom.”
“What sort of problem?”
“It involves a weapon, a new type of blaster cannon for aircraft, which is not turning out as expected.”
“Weapons are right up my alley,” said Zarkov in his resounding voice. “I almost majored in weaponry back at the London Institute of Technology.”
Brother Beltor took up the supply sack, carried it toward the sooty fire. “I’ll begin to prepare the meal.”
Zarkov grunted to his feet, brushing at the legs of his worksuit. “I didn’t come to your blasted Mongo alone,” he said. “Have you plucked that fact out of my head yet?”
“Yes, I know about Dale Arden and Flash Gordon,” replied the chief sorcerer. “I am sorry we can’t spare you yet to search for them.”