PART II: THE SCARLET CITY

CHAPTER 6

THE GATES OF ZAR

More waking and sleeping periods passed than I can recall before the Dragonmen reached the distant range of mountains. They were tall and rugged, these mountains, and their upper reaches were used by the fearsome thakdols, or pterodactyls, for nesting purposes. This we could tell from the fact that our approach disturbed the flying lizards.

Raphad assured us, however, that we were in no danger from the winged monstrosities. The captain seemed not unfriendly, and, in fact, entertained a lively curiosity concerning us. And I think he was anticipating some sort of a dramatic confrontation between the exiled Xask and this mysterious Goddess-Empress of which we had heard so much. Raphad doubtless looked forward to a good show when the Queen of Zar came face-to-face with the man she had driven into outlawry.

Despite Raphad’s assurances, I kept a wary eye aloft. The monster pterodactyls of Zanthodon are more to be feared than many of the lumbering dinosaurs, most of whom, after all, are harmless vegetarians. The thakdols, on the contrary, are mindless engines of mad ferocity, and will attack a grown man on whim.

The Professor, noticing my apprehensive glances aloft, spoke up reassuringly.

“What the good captain probably alludes to, Eric my boy, is the crystal-studded circlet he wears. After all, if the power of the orichalcum filet can control these enormous monsters we are riding, it can doubtless fend off the pterodactyls.”

I saw his point, but I still felt uneasy. However, we were not attacked, so perhaps the Professor was right.

The Minoans led us into a narrow pass the mouth of which wound through the range of mountains. From both sides of the mouth of this pass, gigantic stone masks glared down upon us. They had been cunningly hewn out of the stone cliffs and represented horrible reptilian monsters with fanged jaws agape, as if grinning in anticipation of a coming meal.

The appearance of those ominous stone heads did nothing to calm my trepidations, either.

Xask nodded at them. “These are the Gates of Zar, Eric Carstairs,” he explained. “Beyond this point, no man of Zanthodon may venture uninvited, on peril of his life. Zar needs no other barrier than the fear its name excites among the savages.…”

“Terrific,” I said sarcastically. “What kind of creature do the stone heads represent, anyway?”

He shot me a glance of chill amusement, with just a touch of malice in it.

“They are likenesses of the God.” He smiled. “And rather true to life, I fancy.”

We rode on into the pass between the mountains.

* * * *

I was cudgeling my wits, striving to recall what bits and pieces of information I could remember about ancient Crete. I had been on the island once, but not long enough for any sight-seeing. I remembered some odds and ends of the old Greek myths about Theseus and the Minotaur and King Minos and boys and girls dancing naked with bulls, but that was about it. I have no doubt but that the Professor could have talked for a couple of hours straight on the subject, but felt disinclined to invite a lecture. Besides, Captain Raphad, who had been treating us decently thus far, didn’t much like our talking together. I suppose he feared we were plotting an escape, and if we got away from him, for all I knew, it might cost the little fellow his head.

When at length we emerged from the farther end of the pass, an astonishing vista greeted our eyes.

The mountains formed an immense ring. Cupped within their embrace lay a deep, bowl-shaped depression, like a great valley. But the valley was filled with water!

“Pnom-Jad,” said Xask as we stared down at the expanse of waters. “The Little Sea.”

I have no idea how wide it was, for the air was misty and distances can be tricky in the steady, unwavering light of the luminous skies of Zanthodon, but it looked big enough to measure up to the one of the Great Lakes. And that’s quite a lot of water.

The inland sea was dotted with boats of every size and description. There were tiny fishing smacks and huge galleys with rows of oars and ornately curling prows. The Professor identified these last as warships and declared that they resembled in every particular the warships of ancient Crete.

Their sails were of saffron yellow or crimson, with huge emblems painted on them, mostly nautical motifs like stylized octopi. Huge staring eyes were painted on the prows of the ships, small and large as well, which was a Phoenician custom, I remembered. But then, for all I know, the Phoenicians were second cousins to the Minoans.

In the exact center of the inland sea was a great island. It was nothing but one vast metropolis, that island, right down to the shores. Huge squarish monolithic buildings of stone crowned the isle, and most of them were covered with smooth stucco or something like stucco, painted pink and yellow, orange and maroon, but more often than not—scarlet. In the haze of distance, the colors blended and merged into one malestrom of differing shades of red.

It was quite a sight.…

“The Scarlet City of Zar!” breathed Professor Potter, his watery blue eyes agleam with scientific curiosity. “What a magnificent spectacle—and how fortunate we are to be here to observe it! My boy, mighty Knossus must have looked very much like that, in the days before its destruction…and look at the Acropolis or Bursa!”

He indicated a group of buildings toward the center of the huge city, where the land rose to a height. A superb palace-complex crowned the height, blooming with green gardens, towering above the rest of the city.

“The residence of the Sacred Empress,” Xask informed us coolly. “And also of the God.…”

We descended into the vast, bowl-shaped depression by means of a stone-paved road which extended from the base of the cliff to the edge of the water. We rode past farms and cultivated acreage. Harvesters were at work in the fields of golden grain and others were toiling in the fragrant groves of fruit trees and in the green vineyards. Without exception, they were Cro-Magnon slaves. The only Zarians I saw were a few slender, overseers, who generally reclined beneath striped awnings sipping from silver goblets.

“I gather that Zar’s economy is based upon slave labor,” the Professor mused, glancing alertly around him. “That may suggest that the ruling class or aristocracy is dwindling in numbers.…”

“That is so,” said Xask agreeably. Due to the narrowness of the road, we were riding side by side with him at this point, with Captain Raphad up ahead, unable to overhear our conversation. “The number of our births is far less than the number of deaths.”

As we approached the edges of the sea, we observed a magnificent stone bridge which arched the expanse of the waters, its length supported on massive stone piers sunk in the lake bottom.

“A remarkable feat of engineering,” Professor Potter breathed. “Even the ancient Minoans, I doubt, could have erected such a span. Only the Romans, a dozen centuries later.…”

At the entrance to the bridge we were made to dismount and the lizards we had been riding were led away to pens or corrals built along the side of the sea. I can understand that reptiles of their size might have had trouble negotiating the crowded streets of the island-city.

We crossed the bridge on foot, guards going before and behind us. With every step we took the cityscape expanded ahead of us, coming into greater clarity. It was truly immense, and incredibly old, and resembled no other city I have ever seen, except in pictures. Ornamental friezes in low relief ran around the upper stories, and here too a marine influence could be seen in the decorations, rows of identical seashells or leaping dolphins and that sort of thing. Ancient Crete had been a maritime civilization, I remembered, which probably accounted for the choice of decoration.

The streets were narrow and cobbled, filled with bustling throngs. We saw surprisingly few of the olives-kinned folk, but very many brawny, blond, blue-eyed Cro-Magnon slaves. They bore veiled women in tasseled palanquins and silkrobed men in something like sedan chairs, or worked at construction jobs, or were trotting about with bags and bales and amphorae.

We passed a market square redolent of fresh fish, olive oil, honey cakes, garlic, raw onions, cooking meat. Fat men with elaborately curled and perfumed hair, wearing altogether too many rings on their fingers, loudly hawked their wares or reclined at their ease sipping beverages and nibbling sweetmeats. Booths and stalls offered a glittering assortment of brass and copper rings, bracelets, brooches, uncut gemstones, tools, scrolls, weapons, piles of brightcolored bales of cloth rolled carpets, odd-looking wooden furniture.

“Fascinating!” breathed the Professor, his sharp eyes missing absolutely nothing. I could well imagine how his fingers itched to be scribbling notes in the little blank-paged book he still carried with him in the rags of his khakis.

I was pretty impressed myself. Who would ever have dreamed this primitive and savage world had anything like this to surprise us with!

But Zanthodon was full of surprises, as I had already discovered, and not all of them are pleasant.

* * * *

Raphad checked us in to some sort of depot for recently captured prisoners, waved one hand in a friendly good-bye, and stalked off about his business, herding his men before him. A bald and grouchy-looking clerk snapped questions at us which Xask had to answer, as we found it difficult understanding all he asked.

Then we were, all three, locked into low-roofed wicker cages and left to our own devices. At least, they untied our hands and removed the hobbles from our legs. There wasn’t much room in the cramped little pens to move about, but we made ourselves as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances, chafing our limbs to get the circulation back and stretching out as best we could.

It occurred to me that here was my opportunity to grab my automatic away from Xask. But bright-eyed guards stood about watching us alertly, and this did not seem to be quite the right time for that.

His eyes on me as if he could read my every passing thought, Xask smiled a bit mockingly.

They gave us food and water.

I dozed off for a while. When I awoke, an elaborately gowned and coiffured individual stood before the cages, rapping on them with an ivory baton to wake us up.

He turned to address the guards.

“The Goddess will see the animals now,” he said loftily. And I felt a qualm in the pit of my stomach.

CHAPTER 7

HUROK ASSUMES COMMAND

The long trek across the northern plains seemed interminable, for my friends were horribly aware that with each passing moment I might be maimed or slaughtered by the mystery men who had captured me and the Professor. But, at least, the warriors encountered no further peril on the same order of magnitude as the monstrous xunth.

They maintained the best pace of which their bodies were capable, but even men as lithe and athletic as they must pause to rest, to eat, to slumber.

When they were hungry, they broke and scattered to hunt the many small edible beasts of the plain, which they sometimes cooked and ate, and other times devoured raw, reluctant to loiter when I might be in imminent danger.

And when they were weary beyond even the limits of their endurance, they slept. With the passing of each period of wake and sleep, the unity between the Cro-Magnons and the Drugar of Kor, begun so tentatively, for a time so fragile, grew and strengthened. It was not an easy thing for simple primitives such as they to overcome the barriers of prejudice and hatred that had existed between their two kinds from time immemorial. But they tried.

Already, many factors were at work building the bonds of comradeship between them. From the very beginning, they could not but admire the enormous stamina of Hurok, his iron strength, his utter fearlessness, his indomitable battle skill, and his enduring and faithful loyalty to his friend, Black Hair. These were qualities which the men of Thandar and Sothar knew and valued, because they possessed them themselves.

It was sheer chance that had, however, provided them with a higher motive for something resembling friendship toward the Apeman of Kor. And that was, of course, his unhesitating, and unthinking heroism in springing to the defense of one of their number with whom he had already been in enmity. His coming to the aid of Jorn the Hunter seemed to them remarkable in the extreme, for the savage tribes of Zanthodon know only the ethics of the Bronze Age, which deem loyalty deserved only by a brother tribesman, and which consider all other strangers potential, if not actual, foes.

As well, there was yet another factor which helped to knit these diverse individuals together into a band of comrades, and that one, alas, is a trifle more difficult for me to describe, for we are speaking of the simpler children of remoter ages who have never tasted the enervating luxuries and conveniences of modern urban civilization, which saps the moral vigor of a race.

I refer to their need for a leader.

While each Cro-Magnon warrior, scout, huntsman, or artisan considers himself the natural equal of every other, and remains independent to a certain degree, the structure of their society is more rigidly authoritarian even than our own. Each man of the tribe belongs to a war party, an allegiance generally inactive save in time of open conflict. And each party has its chieftain. A higher general allegiance is owed to the Omad himself, of course.

Now these men regarded me as their chieftain, and now that I was not with them, they lacked the comforting reassurance of knowing exactly who was in charge. In other words, they needed a clear and unquestioned source of authority: the common purpose alone which they served, that is, to rescue the Professor and myself, was simply not enough. Seldom before in all their lives, save under rare and extraordinary circumstances, had they been utterly alone as now they were. It disheartened them and gnawed away at their morale, and it began to show in certain ways.

Arguments broke out between them over fancied slights. Small, inconsequential arguments, it is true, like the brief exchange of emotionally charged words between Jorn the Hunter and Hurok, but in time, unless corrected, these slights might open fissures between them which would disintegrate their ability to function as a unit.

No clear choice for a leader presented itself: Jorn was too young and hotheaded, Warza too unassuming, and Murg, of course, was hopeless. There remained Parthon and Varak, who were warriors of Sothar, and Ragor and Erdon of the Thandarians.

All, save for the whimpering, conniving little Murg, were brave, strong men. There was little to chose from among them. Nor had I delegated part of my authority to a subchieftain, as is sometimes done.

Tacitly, they had yielded to the leadership of Hurok. That is, he had been adamant in his determination to follow after the Dragonmen, and they had, one by one, fallen in with him. But Hurok not only seemed to lack the charisma of leadership, but to the Cro-Magnons it was utterly unthinkable that under any circumstance they would consider one of the feared and despised Drugars their chieftain.

More and more, however, as time passed, they found themselves following Hurok’s lead. When he wearied, they rested; when he was hungry, they paused to hunt and eat. It was not that he gave orders or even suggestions. It was simply that, as the strongest and most enduring of them all, when Hurok finally wearied, they, too, were weary. And none of them—saving always for Murg—dared humiliate himself by speaking up and complaining of his hunger or weariness before Hurok admitted the same.

It was a point of honor, you might say.

As for Hurok, he kept his silence, speaking little, as was ever his way. It may have been that the Neanderthal was aware that he had assumed the role of chieftain over the others, without the matter ever being openly spoken of. Or he may simply have done what was natural to him, ignoring the consequences and implications.

* * * *

As they came nearer to the range of tall mountains which blocked the far end of the plains, the warriors became less open in their movements, proceeding with ever-increasing wariness. There was no telling what lay concealed behind that mighty rampart of living stone, but it seemed to the warriors that the mountains were a natural wall behind which any foe might lie concealed. And the heights and clefts and crevices in that wall afforded excellent natural vantages for whatever sentries might be posted there to guard the approaches to the land of the Dragonmen.

Squatting on their hunkers, hidden in the high grasses, they discussed this question in low tones.

“The spoor of the dragons leads directly thither,” Erdon pointed out. “That cleft ahead may well be a pass through the mountains, leading to their country. If so, it will be guarded, for only fools or madmen leave an entryway unwatched.”

“Doubtless, Erdon speaks the truth,” said Warza briefly. “What then?”

Erdon shrugged, with a grunt of bafflement. His tribe were newcomers to these parts of Zanthodon, having journeyed far up the coast from distant Thandar in search of the lost Princess.

“The men of Sothar are more familiar with this country than are we,” said Ragor. “Parthon, Varak—know you aught of what may lie ahead beyond the mountains?”

The two shook their heads.

“When our homeland was destroyed by the earthquakes and the rivers of fire,” said Parthon soberly, “we fled toward the sea of Sogar-Jad by another route, falling victim, as you know, to the Gorpaks of the cavern-city. Never has Parthon seen this part of the world before. But we must approach the wall of mountains with great care, keeping ourselves concealed…or such, at least, is the advice of Parthon.”

“Perhaps we should turn back,” whined Murg eagerly. “To rejoin the main body of the tribes and seek the counsels of the Omads, who have wiser heads than any of us.”

The others smiled briefly, but made no reply.

Varak whispered to Jorn, who squatted at his side: “Isn’t it remarkable how some birds always sing the same tune?” Jorn grinned mischievously, but lowered his eyes when Murg cast an offended glare in their direction.

“Perhaps there is another pass through the mountains,” suggested Jorn tentatively. The others shrugged: the question the youth had posed was unanswerable.

Unable to reach a common plan among themselves, the Cro-Magnons turned to Hurok, who squatted in silence a little distance apart from them.

“And what says Hurok of Kor to this?” inquired Varak in tones of affability. He was a likable and good-humored fellow, was Varak, and less subject to the hereditary dislikes and suspicions of his tribesmen.

Hurok said nothing for a time, squinting against the glare of day as he studied the slopes and peaks of the mountain range before them.

“We will not be at the foot of the mountains for at least another wake and sleep,” murmured Warza. “And we need not come to a decision until then…?”

“It is best to know what you will do before you do it,” grunted Hurok stolidly, measuring the mountains with his eye.

“Then what does Hurok suggest we should do?” demanded Jorn the Hunter.

“Find another way across the mountains than the one before us which was taken by the Dragonmen,” said the mighty Neanderthal.

“And…if there is no other way?” invited Varak.

Hurok gave him an indifferent glance, grunted and spat, as if disgusted by all of this endless talk.

“Climb,” he growled.

“Climb?” screeched Murg in alarm, his face twitching.

“Climb,” repeated Hurok without change of expression.

Murg clutched his bony knees, chewing agitatedly on his lower lip. All too well did he remember the time he had been seized by One-Eye during their flight from the caverns of the Gorpaks, and the breathless and unending horror of the climb down the sheer cliffs which the brutal Drugar had forced upon him. The experience was seared deep in the recollection of Murg, and haunted his dreams even now. He wished mightily that he need never repeat that hair-raising descent…and, surely, climbing up the wall of a cliff would be every bit as ghastly as climbing down one!

The skinny little man groaned and hid his face in his hands. The others grinned slightly but looked away with the simple politeness of their kind, so as not to embarrass Murg. There was ever about the Cro-Magnon a simple rude, unspoken chivalry and decency, even toward those lesser than themselves, who were otherwise viewed as contemptible.

* * * *

During the next sleep period, Murg lay awake until all the others had dozed off, having rather surprisingly volunteered to take the first watch. As soon as he was positive they all slept deeply, he crawled out of his nest of grasses and purloined the better weapons from the sides of his slumbering comrades.

Gathering up the major part of their supplies of food and water, Murg stole out into the plain and began trotting rapidly in the opposite direction—away from the cliffs.

He could not have known it, but he was traveling with all haste out of the frying pan and right into the middle of the fire.

CHAPTER 8

A ROYAL INTERVIEW

Before the majordomo (or whatever he was) dared to admit us into the sacrosanct presence of his Empress, he saw to it that we were cleaned up. Female Cro-Magnon slaves bathed and shaved us—or shaved me, that is! For the Professor, whose straggly little tuft of chin-whiskers they would have sheared away, raised such a yowl of anguished outrage at the very prospect, that, at a hasty wave of one bejewelled hand of the Grand Panjandrum, (or whatever he was), they demurred and permitted him the old fellow to remain in possession of his beloved goatee.

I have had many strange and unusual experiences in my time, some good, plenty bad, most of them inconsequential, but this was the first time since I was a small child that I had to submit to another person’s giving me a bath. I felt distinctly foolish during the whole ordeal, although God knows the hot, scented, soapy water looked indescribably delicious and it was bliss to have the dried-on dirt scraped clean from my hide.

The slave women giggled at the expression of grim, mute suffering on my face as they undressed me, plunked me down in the huge marble tub, and began the clean-him-up process. It was not so much that I am prudish about stripping to the buff in the presence of others, even of young women, but there is something damned uncomfortable about just lying there like a hopeless vegetable while other hands than yours scrub your back, douse your hair, and wash even more personal parts—giggling all the while as you flush scarlet with mortification.

I would have made a lousy Roman emperor, I guess.

All cleaned up, clean-shaven, my hair combed, smelling sweet and fixed up with new duds (a scarlet silk loincloth, high-laced buskins of supple, gilt leather, and a hip-length tunic of fine linen), I have to admit I felt like a new man. A rather silly-looking new man, I’m afraid, but a new man nonetheless.

My only comfort came from the fact that Professor Potter looked a lot sillier than I did. The slaves had tied a lilac ribbon in what was left of his wispy white hair, and, with his bony arms and skinny legs sticking out of the tunic, he looked like someone gotten up for a fancy-dress ball.

Once we were all spiffied-up and met the approval of a personal inspection by the Lord High Booleyway (or whatever he was), this important individual led us on neck-tethers through the palace to our impending interview with Royalty. I assumed some notion of the importance of this fat geezer with the perfumed hair from the manner in which everyone we passed while going through the halls and corridors fell hastily on his knees and kowtowed as he went waddling past, ignoring them in his lordly way.

The suites and apartments through which we were led grew ever more sumptuous, as we progressed from the areas given over to mundane pursuits and labors toward those reserved for the aristocracy of the court and the monarch herself. My companion burbled ecstatically over virtually everything in sight.

“Holy Homer! Look at those frescoes, my boy!” he exclaimed, eyes aglow behind his wobbling pincenez. I looked; they were very handsome, indeed, odd-looking panthers gamboling through a formal garden with droopy trees like willows and lots of amphora-shaped vases standing around on pedestals.

“Ah—the mosaics!” he squealed—we were then crossing a rotunda floored with thousands of tiny bits of tile arranged to depict varieties of marine life, including lobsters, sharks, dolphins, squid, seashells, seaweed, starfish, and so on.

“Very pretty,” I commented.

“‘Pretty’!” he snorted, freezing me with a glare. “The mentality that finds this magnificent mosaic floor merely ‘pretty’ would doubtless consider the Parthenon a ‘nice building.’ Really, my boy, you have no soul.…”

I suppressed a grin, but said nothing.

The Exalted Grand Vizier (or whatever he was) peered loftily at us as the Professor burbled on over the vases, the wall hangings, the silver lamps, and everything else in sight. I suspect that this individual was a trifle mystified to hear us talking in an unknown language (we were speaking English), since everyone else in the Underground World speaks a single common language. Except for the Zarians, as I’ve already explained, who have retained something like their original Cretan tongue. But the Panjandrum was too exalted to ask a question of a barbarian, obviously. Although he was dying to ask us what the hell was the peculiar lingo we were talking.…

* * * *

We spent what seemed like the better part of an hour cooling our heels in an antechamber to the throne room. The reason for this was that there were an awful lot of people ahead of us in line waiting for an audience with the Sacred Empress. Most of them were courtiers and aristocrats; you could tell this from their garments, which were woven of lustrous silk, with tasseled fringes dyed gold or crimson or purple, and from the amount of jewelry they wore, which was mostly of beaten gold.

The men, that is: as for the women, they wore long ruffled dresses like Victorian women, with many petticoats. Their silken black tresses were teased into frizzy waves or braided into innumerable thin plaits. Some wore little silver bells woven into their hair, which chimed pleasantly as they moved; others wore gems threaded on silver wire.

Rather disconcertingly, they were naked above the waists of these dresses, although a narrow strap went up from the waist to the shoulders, from which fell flounced sleeves of transparent gauzy stuff. I hadn’t seen so many nude breasts since my one and only tour of the secret, outlawed slave market in Marrakesh, and I have to admit it was hard not to stare.

The Zarian women, like their Cretan ancestresses, are remarkably handsome, with lustrous black hair, coral lips, superb breasts (the nipples either painted with rouge or brushed with powdered gold), and flashing dark eyes made mysteriously seductive with some cosmetic similar to kohl.

They wear an awful lot of jewelry, as did the men.

As for the Professor, he hastily averted his eyes from this generous display of mammaries—but not before soaking up one long hard look, I assure you!—and twisted his mouth into a sour expression, after giving voice to one disapproving sniff. As for the women, they chattered excitedly, looking us up and down and whispering behind their fans and giggling. One elderly grande dame seemingly took a fancy to the Prof and kept shooting languorous glances at him beneath fluttering, purple-painted lids. When he stiffly declined to notice, she began pelting him with large unfamiliar blossoms which stood near to hand in a huge vase of gleaming malachite.

Reddening visibly, the Professor refused to acknowledge the flirtation. The old lady did not give up, however, to the delighted amusement of the younger women.

Besides these, there were various merchants or artisans waiting for judgment on their lawsuits, or something. The merchants belonged to a lower class, obviously, and were inclined to corpulence. They had double chins, and sometimes three, and noses more pronouncedly hooked than the aristocrats’, and very often their chins were blue-stubbled and unshaven, although it was apparent they had donned their fanciest garments for the interview with Royalty.

Everybody wore entirely too much perfume.

Little pages kept running in and out of the throne room, bearing messages on small plates of silver. They were Minoans, not Cro-Magnon youngsters, and they were stark naked except for sandals. Very often they were painted with cosmetics, including lipstick, and were elaborately coiffed. With all the nude little boys around, it began to look like the antechamber to the throne room of Tiberius or Heliogabalus.

My experiences with Royalty have been few and far between. I didn’t like what I was seeing: these people seemed bored, frivolous, perverse, and decadent. The sort that go in for orgies and gladiatorial games and ambiguous erotic pleasures.

Give me some honest barbarians, any day of the week. Even the Gorpaks, for all their cruelties, looked better to me than these painted, lisping creatures.

The Professor, on the other hand, was making no moral judgments (not counting his prudery regarding the barebreasted ladies). He was taking everything in with a minute scrutiny, as if trying to memorize every detail—which is probably exactly what he was doing. The antechamber was, I have to admit, a splendidly furnished room. The walls were faced with alabaster and painted with exquisite friezes of mythological scenes—dancing nymphs, handsome shepherds, quaint monsters, pagan rites. The furniture was carved from wood and gilded, luxurious with plump cushions and soft furs. Perfumed vapors fell from lamps of pierced silver suspended from the beams overhead, and the carpeting—the first I had seen in Zar—was of thick, lush weave. On small taborets which were scattered about stood ripe fruits in bowls of electrum, flagons of wine, piles of honeyed cakes, bunches of grapes, shelled nuts—a veritable free lunch.

Guards stood everywhere, stationed motionlessly about the walls, with two huge Cro-Magnon mercenaries, or whatever, to either side of the door which led into the throne room. The doorway was of fretted ivory, hung with a purple length of cloth.

The guards were so immobile that after a while you took them for statues and forgot they were there. But they watched everything, eyes keen and alert beneath the peculiar visors of their gold-washed helmets, which sported scarlet-dyed crests of stiff feathers like the Trojans wear in historical movies.

I gathered the Empress might be a Goddess, but was mortal enough to fear assassination.…

* * * *

One by one the people who had gotten there ahead of us were summoned into the Presence. I kept looking around, wondering what had become of Xask—with a cunning, unscrupulous sneak like him around, you like to have him where you can keep your eyes upon him—but he had been separated from us in the bathing chamber and we hadn’t seen him since.

Eventually it was our turn, and we were led into the throne room by the Panjandrum, who strutted importantly to the foot of the dais, very suddenly and quite completely lost all of his importance and fell down on his belly, ground his face into the tiled floor and kissed it humbly, while groveling.

I gathered that much the same performance was expected of the Professor and myself. I’m afraid I had something else to occupy my mind. In fact, I was staring up at the slim figure on the throne with utter amazement written all over my features.

I have never been so absolutely and completely astonished in all of my life—

For there, seated demurely upon the high throne of Zar, sat my beloved Princess—Darya of Thandar.

CHAPTER 9

YUALLA OF SOTHAR

The two tribes continued their long march across the northernmost extremity of the continent, following the coastline for many sleeps and wakes. The Cro-Magnon warriors had no clear, precise idea of where they were headed, but they knew that they would recognize it when they found it.

They did not, however, find the spoor of the lost Darya nor of my party of warriors. This puzzled them more than a little, but to retrace their steps seemed futile—almost as futile as trying to find our tracks amidst the grassy plains.

Like the true woodsmen they were, the men of Sothar and Thandar lived off the land. Daily—if I may use the term in this world where there is neither night nor day but only a perpetual noon—their scouts and huntsmen spread out, flushing game from the grasses and making their kills with spear or bow.

One of these huntsmen, not surprisingly, was Yualla, the teenaged daughter of Garth, Omad of the Sotharians. I say “not surprisingly,” because the women of the Cro-Magnon tribes were not the pampered playthings of their men, nor was the range of their activities limited to such domestic tasks as cooking and child-rearing. Life is hard in this primitive world, filled with hostile tribes and monstrous beasts, and the women learn to hunt and fight and track game as do the men. Frequently, they prove to be better at one or another of these supposedly masculine occupations.

This was the case with Yualla. The girl had demonstrated a keen eye, a steady hand, and a cool nerve when tracking and bringing down game, and she was a dead shot with her bow. Thus, neither the male hunters nor her royal father felt there was anything inappropriate when she volunteered to join the hunting parties.

The truth was, Yualla was bored and restless. She was about Jorn’s age, and stunningly attractive, with clear blue eyes and a long, unruly mane of blond hair. Her young body was slim and lithe and supple, the body of a dancer or a gymnast, without a superfluous ounce of flesh. She could run like a deer, climb like a monkey, and fight as well as any boy of her own age.

The only trouble with Yualla was, that, being the Omad’s daughter, she was more than a trifle spoiled and accustomed to having her own way. This made her reckless and adventurous, which more than once had gotten her into trouble.

As on the occasion of which I speak.…

* * * *

Under the command of one of the senior huntsmen, a grizzled and veteran warrior named Sarga, Yualla had departed from the camp early that morning with a band of other hunters in search of game. Of which there was certainly a plenitude in these parts, for zomaks nested along the rocky coastline and herds of uld roamed the prairie-like plains.

The uld, by the way, are small, harmless, and quite edible little mammals which resemble fat, shortlegged deer. Professor Potter identified them as eohippus, the ancestor (or an ancestor) of the modern horse; anyway, they are quite tasty when roasted or broiled.

Quite early during this expedition, the limber, adventure-loving cave-girl had outdistanced her comrades, preferring as always to hunt alone rather than in company. There was hardly a chance of her getting lost, for the plains were wide and flat and the smoke of cookfires from the tribal encampments could be seen a very long distance off. Nor were there any dangerous predators which employed the plains for their own hunting grounds, insofar as the Cro-Magnons knew.

She struck deep toward the center of the plain, following the tracks of a small herd of uld which were scarcely discernible in the thick grasses. Slung over her back, she carried a narrow quiver containing some sixteen flint-bladed arrows; her unstrung bow she carried in her left hand. The only other weapon the cave-girl had with her was a fine bronze knife, a present from her royal father, which had a deerskin scabbard. This she wore tied by thongs to her right thigh.

In the humid and tropical climate which seems to pervade all of this Underground World of Zanthodon, nobody wears much clothing. Hence all the girl wore was a beautifully tanned fawnskin garment resembling a brief apron which covered her slim loins and extended over one shoulder, concealing one pointed young breast and leaving the other bare. A necklace of colored seashells hung about her slender throat, and her feet were shod in supple buskins, laced up to mid-calf.

All the rest of her was naked, clear, golden-tanned, vibrantly beautiful—girl.

* * * *

Unknown to Yualla of Sothar, another hunter was abroad that day, also on the track of the tasty and defenseless little herd of uld. This second hunter was one of the most fearsome of all of the predators of Zanthodon, the dreaded thakdol—the mighty pterodactyl of the dim Jurassic.

Aloft on its batlike, membranous wings, the flying lizard floated against the golden glow which permeated the misty skies of this primitive world like some monster out of nightmare. With its fanged, elongated jaws (which were not unlike those of the alligator or crocodile), its horrible bird-clawed feet, its long and snaky tail, the thakdol was hideous to behold—and every bit as dangerous and deadly as it was hideous.

It was not long before the minuscule brain of the thakdol saw and recognized the tiny figure far below as something edible. Not as tasty or as defenseless as the uld, of course, but the aerial monster had eaten of human flesh many times ere this, and found the dish to its liking.

The intelligence of the dragon of the skies was dim and rudimentary, for the pterodactyl was virtually nothing more than a murder machine, a flying stomach. And its minute brain could only contain one thought at a time. Up until this moment that peanut-sized organ had entertained naught but the idea of uld…tempting, juicy, squealing, fat uld. Thus at first, and for some little time thereafter, the thakdol ignored the running figure beneath it as irrelevant to its fixation on uld-hunting.

But in time the notion filtered into the dim brain of the flying reptile that the cave-girl would easily provide it with the luncheon it hungered for, and the idea of girl began to take dominance over that of uld.

It was perhaps too much to ask of the thakdol’s rudimentary brain to expect it to weigh its chances. The pterodactyl well knew from former encounters that, as often as not, the two-legged prey bore sharply pointed sticks with which they were accustomed to thrust and jab at the tender bellies of such as it. And, on other occasions, they had been known to wield heavy stone axes, or to loose from stringed sticks flying slivers of wood that could be an annoyance, even a bother.

No, the thakdol was hunting, and it was hungry. And when this happened, it simply took wing from its mountaintop aerie and hunted until it found something to kill. Then it feasted.

However, some instinctive element of caution may have awakened within the brain of the flying reptile. For, although it could not have known this, the running girl as yet remained ignorant of the thakdol’s existence.

Thus when it folded those broad, batlike wings and fell out of the skies like a plummet, the girl did not realize her danger until it was too late for her to defend herself.

A hideous black shadow fell over her. Throwing back her head, Yualla stared with a thrill of incredulous horror at the fanged monstrosity which hurtled toward her out of the heavens. There was no time to string the bow she held, no time to loose so much as a single arrow at that mailed breast. The winged monster would pounce upon her in another breath: already its clawed feet were spread, ready to rip and rend her tender flesh—

* * * *

Yualla did the only thing possible—she threw herself flat and rolled into the thick grasses. It was a vain hope, that of hiding herself among the grasses, but it was all that she had. And, as it happened, it was probably the wisest thing she could have done, under such circumstances.

For the thakdol hunts as the eagle hunts, swooping out of the sky to snatch its prey into the air. And, lying close against the flat earth as she was, the cave-girl presented the hardest possible target for those terrible claws. Thus, when the bird descended, it was forced to hang on beating vans while scrabbling about for her slender form, which it could not see because she was underneath it and its own body blocked its view.

Breathless, with furiously beating heart, the girl rolled this way and that upon the meadow, striving to elude the clutches of those horrible, hooked claws, and narrowly succeeding.

But then one claw closed by accident about her lower leg. It caught her above the ankle of one foot, and, as it chanced, when the claw snapped shut like a curved trap, it closed and curled about the limb but did not bite into it.

Sensing that it had seized its prey, the thakdol instantly rose, raising a dust storm from the beating of its mighty wings.

As it rose into the air, it dragged the helpless girl with it.

By a miracle, the girl was as yet uninjured. Had the reptile ascended with the swooping flight that had been its original intention, the shock would doubtless have broken Yualla’s leg. But now it rose from an almost stationary posture, slowly and laboriously due to the girl’s weight, and thus the ascent was slower than it might have been. And Yualla had the presence of mind—which was remarkable, under such circumstances—to dangle loosely and limply, rather than to kick or struggle.

Through it all, she had somehow managed to hang onto her bow. So the blond cave-girl was not unarmed, although there was little she could do to fight in her present awkward position. She was, after all, hanging head down.

For an instant, she entertained the wild notion of trying to put an arrow through the belly of the brute, which was directly above her and exposed and vulnerable. But already the plain was swaying and dwindling beneath her as the monster gained the upper air, and long before she could have strung the bow and nocked an arrow, she was too high. To have fallen from such a height as this would have killed her instantly.

Flapping on slow and laboring wings, burdened by the weight of its captive, the thakdol flew off across the plain in the direction of that range of mountains which led to Zar, in whose peaks its nest was concealed.

CHAPTER 10

ZARYS OF ZAR

Identical in every respect with my lost Princess, the beautiful woman on the throne stared down at me with surprise—and with some other emotion I could not at once identify—in her wide and innocent blue eyes.

There was no question about it—the Empress of Zar was none other than Darya of Thandar! Although how this impossible thing could ever be was a mystery defying my solution at that time.

The long slim legs, the superb, pointed breasts, the magnificent mane of curling golden hair, framing the clear oval of that lovely, flower-like face—all, all were Darya’s.

But, whereas my Princess had gone clad in abbreviated furs, her small feet buskin-shod, crude jewelry clasped at throat and wrist, this magnificent woman was one blaze of jewels.

Clasped about the base of her throat, a yoke of gems threaded on crimson silk clad her upper torso, rising and falling with her lovely, half-naked breasts. Suspended from the terminals of this pectoral yoke, long silken threads, strung with gems, fell to veil but not conceal the exquisite lines of her belly and hips and slim thighs. It was with a distinct shock that I saw, beneath this incredible garment of jewels, she was utterly nude.

“Who is this barbarian,” she demanded imperiously, “who seems to recognize us, but upon whom our eyes have never laid—and why does he insolently stand erect, when all men kneel in our presence?”

The moment she spoke, I knew that she could not be the Darya I had known. My beloved Princess spoke with clear, soft, bell-like tones and silvery chiming laughter; this woman’s voice was throaty, husky, deep, with a seductive purr behind its music.

“Divine Zarys, I shall bend those stubborn knees,” rumbled a bass voice. A burly, dwarfish man clad in golden greaves and glittering breastplate strode from his station at the foot of the dais, glaring at me.

I was too dazed with shock to think straight or to move. As the gorgeously caparisoned officer came strutting up to me and made as if to club me over the head with his black enamel baton, I merely balled one fist and sank it into his solar plexus with all my strength.

There was, you see, a gap between the bottom of the cuirass and the ornate buckle of the heavy girdle which clasped his waist. It was about the size of my fist, I calculated.

It was, too.

He staggered as if he had walked into an invisible wall, purpled, then turned pale as curdled milk, and sagged to his knees, metal greaves clanking on the tiles. Then he lost his lunch rather noisily.

I filed away for future reference the interesting fact that the Minoan Cretans, despite their urban sophistication and remarkable advances, remained ignorant of the fine art of pugilism.

The Empress made a sound of disgust and rose from her throne, striding down the steps of the dais like a glittering waterfall of gems, fastidiously avoiding her sprawled and vomiting officer, and strode through a curtained doorway into an inner chamber.

I gathered that the audience was over.

And, from the murderous glare I received from the officer I had knocked down, I gathered my life was to be reckoned in minutes, or however long it would take him to get through with being sick.

One of his lieutenants helped him stagger to his feet. Another wiped his lips and chin with a corner of his cloak. I guessed the man was a personage of some considerable prominence, from the way toadies and underlings hurried to fawn about him, shoot me frosty glares, and tut-tut over his “accident.”

“Ialos, lend me your sword,” he said thickly.

With a gloating smile in my direction, his lieutenant made haste to put the weapon into his hand.

Stiff-legged as a barnyard rooster whose private henhouse has been invaded by another rooster, the man I had hit came toward me. I balled my two fists and prepared to give him a second lesson in the fine art of fisticuffs. As it turned out, the opportunity did not come.

A slim dark girl in diaphanous silks, who had come silently up behind him, laid one hand on his brawny forearm.

“General Cromus, your revenge must wait upon another time, for the Goddess will see this barbarian privately,” she said in a soft, lisping voice.

Cromus froze, licked his lips, stared at me with hot, hating eyes, and reluctantly returned the weapon to his underling.

All this time, the pudgy Grand Panjandrum (I soon discovered him to be the Royal Chamberlain, and his name turned out to be Hissab) and the Professor remained facedown on the tiled floor, neither daring to move. Hissab now inched his head about and stared at me with blank astonishment. I judged that private audiences were seldom awarded, and never to unruly barbarians. I tipped the fat man a wink which seemed to scandalize him.

The girl came up to me, eyeing me from head to foot admiringly.

“This way,” she said demurely, leading me off.

* * * *

Beyond the portal lay a small, dainty, rosy-lit room which seemed to serve as the retiring room of the Empress. When I came in, following the girl sent to fetch me, her maids were in the process of assisting their monarch to disrobe. The jeweled collar had been unclasped, baring to my view her beautiful breasts, and the fabulous garment slid away showing me rather more naked girlflesh than I was comfortable at seeing.

The Empress, after one indifferent glance in my direction, continued to submit to being undressed by the maids, who stored the robe of jewels carefully away in a chest of carven wood painted with octopi and seashells. The naked woman ignored my presence as if I were a pet dog.

I was intrigued; also, I was a little affronted. Women, especially when naked, tend not to ignore me.

One of the maids gently adjusted a gauzy robe about the shoulders of her mistress. This clasped only at the throat, opening all the way down whenever she moved, so the view continued to be a distraction. Also, the robe was about as transparent as a veil of smoke, so none of the attractions were all that concealed from my eyes. But I felt a little more comfortable, somehow.

Then she glided across the fur rugs to curl up on a sofa which was piled with many small, plump, bright-colored cushions. She then calmly regarded me with faint curiosity in her eyes, as well as that emotion I had glimpsed before. Was it—admiration? Or was I flattering myself?

“Does the animal speak a civilized tongue?” the Empress asked.

The girl who had come to fetch me said: “According to the Lord Chamberlain, Divine Mistress, the creature is not unproficient in our tongue.”

“Remarkable,” drawled the woman on the sofa. Then she patted the cushions at her side and ordered (or invited? It was hard to tell) me to sit at her side.

I did so, a bit gingerly. We looked each other over with frank curiosity.

Up close like this, I noticed subtle differences between Zarys and Darya which had been invisible at first look. The Empress used cosmetics. Something like kohl darkened her long lashes, discreet use of paints made her eyelids mysterious and shadowy blue, accenting her superb eyes, and a scarlet cream reddened her full, seductive lips.

Since she was virtually naked, I could not help noticing other differences, as well. Darya was slim and lean, deliciously curved where nature designed women to be deliciously curved, and firmly muscled as a boy, without an ounce of fat.

The Empress of Zar, on the other hand, was softer and rounder, and just the slightest bit more svelt than Darya. She was also, I think, three or four years older, and there was a trace of petulance around her mouth and a hardness in her gaze, an arrogance, which Darya did not have. Still and all, the resemblances between them were astonishing: twin sisters could not have been more alike than the two women.

“Palaika,” murmured the Empress, tossing her head. One of the maids came gliding over and, with a distinct shock, I watched her take off the wig.

Yes, that glorious curling mane of golden hair was a-wig! I was appalled: beneath the wig (which was of gold wire, spun finer than silk thread), the Empress’s head was shaven bald.

Somehow, it did not make her any the less gorgeous.… Later, I came to understand that the palace aristocrats of Zar were all alike, slim, olive-skinned, black haired. They prized and hungered after novelty, and the current fashion was to emulate the beauty of the Cro-Magnon slave women, who were, of course, blonde. I have never understood where Zarys got her big blue eyes from—perhaps from some antique Mycenaean Greek ancestor in the remote past—but her golden hair was nothing but a golden wig.

“Is it true you are acquainted with our language?” she asked me curiously. I stammeringly said something to the effect that I was beginning to pick it up a little. My barbaric accent made her wrinkle up her nose, but my uncomfortable expression made her smile mischievously—and she looked more like Darya than ever. They had the same smile!

“In the Pasiphaeum you seemed to recognize me, yet you are not of our race, and a stranger to our realm. How is this?”

“‘Pasiphaeum’?” I repeated.

She shrugged impatiently. “As a direct descendant of the Goddess Pasiphae, wife of the Divine Minos, I…but here I am answering a slave’s questions, and him a barbarian as well! Answer me: you seemed to recognize me. How?”

“Well, uh,” I began: and falteringly I tried to explain about Darya and how much they resembled each other. She seemed intrigued at being the mirror image of a Cro-Magnon girl, rather than being offended by the comparison.

“I see,” she murmured. “You were, when captured by the Outriders who guard the approaches to my realm, in the company of the despicable Xask, exiled former prince of the city; how is this?”

“Accident, more than anything else. He is my enemy as well as yours, your majesty.”

A pouting smile touched those full red lips.

“’My majesty’…how quaint! But my subjects generally give me the title Divinity or Goddess…my name, however, is Zarys. Do barbarians of your tribe have given names?”

I was getting just a little tired of being called a barbarian. However, I held my temper and told her my name.

“Eric Carstairs,” she repeated. “How uncouth a name…nonetheless, it seems to suit you.”

She caressed me slowly with her eyes, her expression demure, a tantalizing smile playing about her mouth. I blushed a little as she looked me over, feeling like a prize bull on display at a cattle auction. At the same time, I felt her nearness powerfully: she was so very much like my lost beloved that I ached to seize her in my arms, to crash her against my chest, to cover her flower-like face with my hot, panting kisses.

And something of what I was feeling must have shown in my eyes, for she smiled a slow languorous smile and touched me gently on the thigh.

“We shall speak again, Eric Carstairs, at dinner.…”

I was led out, feeling absurdly as if I had narrowly escaped what the authors of Victorian melodrama would have called A Fate Worse Than Death.