The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister

by Banister, Manly

  He shook his head as Jarvis came up to him. “I had wished to avoid farewells, Jeff Jarvis. It breaks my heart to turn back, but I must. Once a Tharn, always a Tharn.”

  “There are men of my world,” Jarvis said, “who since time began have felt as you feel now…outcast because of a difference in looks, in the color of their skin, even because of the God they worship. It is men who count, Thork, not skins, not races, not beliefs nor dissimilarities. We want you with us.”

  “I could not go into Tukulta,” Thork protested miserably, “and face the Lady Kriah. She was my wife, Jarvis! I could not face her like this, for I know she would see through this face and hide as if it were a disguise and recognize me within it. We loved each other.”

  Jarvis laid a friendly hand on the Tharn’s great forearm.

  “There is still Surandanish, Thork. Rani has promised me mounts and supplies for the journey. And I must see Ilil to the safety of her father’s palace in Gipar. Then I must go on. There will be fighting and adventure, and at the end that final goal I have promised myself I shall achieve. Whatever I may have made this journey for, whatever must be done, I shall do it. There is none I should rather have at my side than Thork the Tharn, fallen ishak of Tukulta!”

  The giant’s ugly blue feathers lighted with pleasure.

  “You speak as a sincere man, Jeff Jarvis. I have not given the world a chance to reject me, but have alienated myself with my own thoughts. But the way to Surandanish does not lie across Gipar, but through the Kurgal. You shall have to return this way from Gipar and I will wait here, at the outpost. That way I shall be spared much pain and shall not revoke the ancient boast that no Tharn has ever set foot in a sacred city of Gipar!”

  Side by side, man and Tharn, they walked back down the slope. Their companions had halted at the outpost and chatted already with its three-warrior deputation. The day was sunny and warm, the air clear and fragrant with the smell of pines. The hills about them shimmered with an atmosphere of peace, so lulling that Jarvis was taken entirely by surprise at the next event.

  A shout from one of the Giparian warriors rang up the slope.

  “Dingir!”

  Jarvis’ brain filled with a harsh jangle of alarm and he whirled, his blade flashing in his hand. From what quarter came the Dingir?

  An abrupt, whistling scream burst upon his eardrums and his eyes followed his Mag senses. An ovoid object with a pulsing, many-hued membranous halo swooped down from low above the tree tops. Jarvis’ perceptions told him at once it was some kind of a flying mechanism. From the base of its oviform fuselage trailed a score of what seemed to be metallic ropes, whipping in the wind of its passage. The thing swished over his head and swooped the hundred yards to hover above the group, frozen into immobility, at the outpost. Like live things, the trailing ropes wrapped themselves around Ilil, then snatched her up and away from the circle of her friends! The flying object lifted and whistled away, slowly drawing its burden upward and through an opening in the bottom of the fuselage.

  Horror, rage, consternation, fear—all these gripped Jarvis as he stood helplessly by and watched it happen. Again there came that awful, whistling scream and at the same moment Jarvis felt the wind go out of him as Thork struck him heavily with his massive forearm. He tumbled over and over down the slope and the second flying machine, foiled in its attempt, rose up with dangling tentacles and disappeared after its companion in the far reaches of the blue.

  Jarvis staggered to his feet, too dazed to thank his companion for the swiftness of thought that had saved him from the clutches of the Dingir. He could only stare stupidly, cursing himself and remembering belatedly that Ilil had once told him that the Dingir came by mysterious means, sometimes flying through the air.

  And now she was gone—fallen into the hands of her hated enemy. She had been kidnapped by the Bronze Men of Surandanish!

  CHAPTER X

  “That night in Drahubba,” Jarvis told Thork upon his return, “the Eltaroa promised me aid to scale the Great Cliffs that mark the border between the Kurgal and the Dingir-ki, the land of the Dingir. The Dingir leave that border unguarded, feeling that the slul are guard enough.”

  “Valdez did not return with you,” the Tharn noted.

  “As soon as the Lugal of Gipar learned the fate of his daughter Ilil, he began to organize a military expedition to attempt to penetrate the Dingir defenses to eastward. Valdez elected to remain and travel with them. If all goes well, they should get to Surandanish about the same time we do.”

  Thork nodded. “We travel a longer route, but the eastern mountains are more terrible than any on this side. They will have to fight Dingir most of the way.”

  “Are you sure they will?” Jarvis asked.

  “No man has ever before fought the Dingir,” Thork returned, “but there is a first time for everything. The Bronze Men have never taken a princess of Gipar before, either.”

  “I helped Rani decide not to tell her mother the lie you told her in Drahubba,” Jarvis said. “I did not tell her you are her father, only that you could have been mistaken in your identification.”

  Thork shrugged, but whether from relief or irritation, Jarvis did not know. The Tharn busied himself with the pack dil Jarvis had brought along to carry weapons and supplies, then swung into the saddle of the extra mount.

  “Talk will not carry us a single pace toward the Kurgal,” he grunted.

  Beyond Kullab lay the land of Imdar, whose far border was the separation between it and the mountainous plateau called the Kurgal. The first leg of their journey lay southward, through a pass high up among the snow-fields of the towering range behind Drahubba. It was a barren, rocky place, Thork told Jarvis, inhabited by the fierce mountain Tharn who hunted the thral for its purple pelt.

  They had ridden no more than a few miles into this bleak region when the attack came. Not even the brief warning Jarvis had through his Mag senses of the ambush was of help, for the road led through boulder-strewn country behind each of which lurked one or more of the savage Tharn.

  They burst upon them like a living avalanche, shrieking their primitive war cries. Jarvis’ blade leaped into his hand and hewed at the howling mob. He kicked one Tharn in the face, clove the skull of another, then whirled his mount, decapitating a third. Thork wrought equal havoc on his own account, but the throng was like the ant-horde of the Hashurgal. They attacked with mindless ferocity, two more taking the place of each that was cut down. In minutes, both Jarvis and Thork were dragged from their saddles and spread-eagled upon the ground, held down each by a half-score of evil-smelling Tharn.

  “Kill us!” growled Thork. “We are warriors and death becomes those who have lost a fight!”

  The leader of the mountain Tharn kicked Thork in the head for an answer, then stooped and robbed his leather trappings of the tharn drug. He was a gigantic specimen of Tharnhood, uglier than any Jarvis had ever seen, even the Lugal. His long, yellow tusks arched downward nearly to his collarbone. He grated an order and the prisoners’ wrists and ankles were tied with leather thongs to stakes stone-driven into the ground.

  “I am Thrak,” he said, glowering upon them. “You are my prisoners. Stay here!” With that curious command, he stalked off, followed by his raggle-taggle crew.

  “By all rights, they should have killed us,” Thork mumbled. Blood encrimsoned one of his tusks where Thrak had kicked him.

  “There is a reason for that,” Jarvis replied. “I have been sensing around—the Lugal Zag-ab-Shab is here with many warriors. There are caves among the rocks above us and I feel the presence of women and children.”

  “The Lugal knew we should come this way to reach the Dingir-ki through the Kurgal,” Thork said. “He laid a trap for us.”

  “But how could he have known that we escaped the cave of the elyisha?”

  “We were seen on our way to G
ipar. I saw the sign of many of the hill people, even though they stayed out of our sight. Word would have passed to roving Tharn and from them to the Lugal.”

  Jarvis stared at the sky in which tiny specks, glinting with color, soared and fluttered. They were his friends, the Eeima, but their tiny fingers could do nothing with the tough rawhide that bound them. Out on the bouldered plain he sensed their dil, which had scattered in flight after the battle. They were ripping succulent roots from crannies and crevices in the rocky soil with their toothed bills.

  “I would think the mountain Tharn had captured our dil also for their value,” he remarked to Thork.

  “They captured us for the Lugal,” Thork pointed out. “After he has taken us away, they will round up the dil—but for themselves, not the Lugal.”

  “They took our weapons,” Jarvis said, “but there are more on the pack animal, if we could but get our hands on them…”

  “We shall have to free them from these stakes first,” Thork retorted sourly.

  By themselves, the dil were docile, gentle beasts; being ridden or driven made them nervous, often savage. Might he not try to control one with his mind? The minute brain of the dil was sluggish now with the enjoyment of food. Jarvis tried, hurling forth his Mag will with all the strength he had.

  The sun seemed to grow hotter as he concentrated. Sweat trickled under the Giparian trappings of leather he had donned in Tukulta. He did not try to command all the dil—just one, his own mount.

  The beast continued to chomp roots, pausing often to stare dreamily toward the horizon. Jarvis could not see the creature except in his mind, but he sensed that it was drifting away from its companions. He doubled his effort. Slowly the great creature moved toward them. The ground nearby tremored under its tread and Jarvis dared open his eyes. The dil towered over him, peering down curiously as if to ask him what it was he wanted.

  Jarvis concentrated on the thought of pulling the stake from the ground until sweat pooled under his body. Slowly the dil’s great, toothed head came down. It paused, scratching the ground with a thunderous tearing of gravel. Suddenly the trap-like bill snapped at the stake to which Jarvis’ wrist was bound and jerked it from the ground. With it went Jarvis’ hand, seeming to pull his arm from its socket.

  In a moment, the dil jerked the other stake free of the soil and Jarvis sat up, raking thongs from wrists and ankles. He quickly loosed Thork and they rode off double on the dil. When they had rounded up the other animals, the Tharn extracted a sword from the pack of the baggage mount and mounted his own dil with a look of set determination on his bloody features.

  “Where are you going?” called the Earthman.

  The giant Tharn pointed ahead along the path with his sword. “You go that way, Jeff Jarvis, and take the pack animal with you. I will rejoin you later when I have got back my tharn!”

  Jarvis had forgotten Thrak’s act of robbery, but it came home to him now that Thork must have his tharn or die. He ached to ride with his blue-skinned friend, but the soul-song of Surandanish was strong within his being. Ilil was there, helpless, awaiting his aid. His jaw set grimly and he rode on without a backward glance, tugging the pack dil along by its tether.

  The maritime country of Imdar stretched from the mountains behind Dralnibba to the shore of the southern sea, lying in temperate latitudes. It was a prosperous country with orchards, fields of ripening grain and everywhere the round-domed farmhouses of stone. There were only two of the ancient cities of the Mighty in all of Imdar, Thork had told him, and he rode by one of these and camped beyond it where he could see the glow of it in the night. It was deserted. The natives of Imdar dwelt in cities they had built themselves, in accordance with the world-wide prohibition instituted long ago by the Dingir.

  It was a pleasant, smiling country, reminding Jarvis in its climate and aspect of the northwestern region of the United States. The natives were friendly and kind, believing him a warrior of Gipar, as his trappings and weapons seemed to attest.

  He grieved for miles over the fate of his Tharn friend, but grief could not replace Thork, and the emotional burden of Ilil’s predicament lay even heavier on his soul. When he came to the thousand-foot high forest fringing the sea, the way turned eastward and the land rose toward the mountains. He had passed through many populous towns in well over a thousand miles of travel, but now the inhabited places had begun to thin out. They became mere villages in the canyons between the shoulders of mountains, finally outposts around which rose snowy peaks that marked the backbone of Dimgal. He paused at last at a wild, brawly settlement on the very border of Imdar whose inhabitants thrived on the trade of travelers passing to and from the Kurgal.

  In the stone-domed “general store” and inn, Jarvis applied for quarters.

  “Heading for the Kurgal?” asked the storekeeper shrewdly.

  “I ride on in the morning,” Jarvis returned shortly.

  “You’re not planning to ride the dil up there?”

  “Why not?”

  The innkeeper threw up his hands. “The slul, Giparian, the slul!”

  Jarvis had not forgotten the slul, but he had forgotten the terror they inspired. They had been no menace to him on his journey. He just looked questioning.

  “You will need a slul-wagon,” said the Imdarian. “It is not like down here, where you need shelter only a few nights before and after the full moon. The slul fly by day and by night in the Kurgal. They’d pick you off that dil like a ripe snazl-berry, and make short work of the animal, too!”

  “What should I do?” Jarvis asked.

  The Imdarian sized him up with a covetous expression. “You have money, of course? And your animals are worth something. My cousin operates a used slul-wagon lot—I can fix you up with something good. Wagon—team—the works. Come with me…”

  The slul-wagon was something like the old covered wagon of the early American West, except that the rounded cover was a half-inch thickness of toughest steel. This was for protection, the Imdarian said, against the diving attacks of the slul. There were slits in the steel through which the defenders could shoot arrows or thrust swords. The wide wheelbase of the wagon made it difficult, if not impossible, to tip over. It was, literally, a tank and the only permissible means of travel on the plains of the Kurgal.

  The wagon was drawn by a team of two or more issup, depending on wagon size and load. The issup were armor-plated, saurian type creatures resembling small stegosaurs from Earth’s Jurassic age. So thick and hard was the bony covering of the issup that not even the glittering fangs or scimitar-like talons of the slul could scratch it. They were a natural product of the Kurgal plateau region. Nature had endowed them plentifully with protection.

  As Jarvis concluded the deal for a small wagon and team of issup with the fat, greasy looking cousin of the innkeeper, the latter stood to one side, thoughtfully pulling at his chin.

  “Would your name,” he said at last, “be Jejavis, or something like that?”

  Jarvis turned on him, the light of suspicion flaring in his eyes.

  “From whom did you hear that name?”

  The Imdarian backed up a step. “Just a minute! There was a Tharn-creature asking about you. Said he was your life-slave.” He laughed nervously. “What Giparian ever had a Tharn for a life-slave?”

  “This one!” Jarvis barked succinctly. “Where is the Tharn now?”

  The Imdarian shrugged uncomfortably. “We ran him out,” he mumbled, then added defensively. “We thought he was lying! And we could not risk having one of those blue devils in our town! We have women and children…”

  The Earthman cut him with a glance. “Never mind the room at the inn,” he said bitterly. “I must find that Tharn!”

  “Maybe on the road to the Kurgal,” suggested the crestfallen innkeeper. “He left in that direction. He said he would be waiting for you
.”

  A mile beyond the outpost, Jarvis drew up his team at a shout from the wooded slope. A great, blue shape came bounding down, scattering rocks and debris in his travel. Thork was grinning and breathing hard as he clambered up on the seat beside Jarvis.

  Jarvis grinned too, a contented feeling warming his heart. He had regained his friend. He snapped the reins at the issup and the beasts resumed their slow, torpid crawl.

  CHAPTER XI

  “I assume,” said Jarvis, “you got back your tharn.”

  The giant patted his waistband. “And the mountain Tharn have a new chief.”

  Thrak’s epitaph. Jarvis said, “How did you get here ahead of me?”

  “I had to wait a long time for an opportunity to find Thrak alone. And then you were so far ahead I dared not follow you into Imdar, where I would have been attacked. I rode the dil as far among the mountains as it could go, then unsaddled it and turned it loose. I continued on foot. The way is shorter but…”

  He needed to say no more. The issup crawled on. They were slow but they had advantages other than their armor plate. They could travel for days and nights without stopping for rest, food or drink. And they needed no hand on the reins except to start and stop. Once pointed in the direction of their destination, they crawled forward in a straight line until they reached it. If forced aside by an obstruction, they went around it or over it, and returned as soon as possible to the line of travel, as if both map and compass were built into their tiny heads. Between stopping and moving they did nothing at all and stayed moveless as the wagon.

  Now started on their way to the Kurgalian city of Aldaral, they could be forgotten. Jarvis and Thork did nothing but talk, eat, and sleep in the rumbling bed of the wagon. When the heat under their steel canopy grew unbearable, they got out and walked alongside the wagon, or ran ahead and sat down, waiting for the wagon to catch up at its creaking snail’s pace. Soon slul appeared, soaring overhead, even more hideous in the daylight than they had appeared by night. But Jarvis made himself known to them and the journey continued without incident.