PART VI: ERIC OF ZANTHODON

CHAPTER 26

XASK AT BAY

As Zuma watched from his place of concealment in the thick bushes, he observed as Xask and Murg bound and gagged Darya and led her deeper into the jungle. The black warrior frowned in puzzlement; he had never before seen Xask or Murg, or, for that matter, Darya of Thandar, and had no idea of who they might be. But, since the golden-haired girl had entered the German camp in the company of Professor Potter, he knew or hazarded a guess that she was one of the friends of Eric Carstairs.

Which meant that the two men who had forced her to go with them were her enemies, and, therefore, his own foes as well.

Zuma glided into the underbrush, following the two men and their prisoner of swift and soundless feet, wondering what to do. From the appearance of the weapon Xask carried, which was identical with the one he had seen the German soldier carrying, Zuma knew that his assegai would afford him little protection. He had never seen the so-called “thunder-weapons” used, but his imagination, built upon what he had heard in casual conversation, painted a dire and dreadful picture.

As he glided like a shadowy wraith through the jungle, the Aziru considered the options open to him. He might strike the two men down from the concealment of the underbrush, trusting to his swift, unerring aim to fell them before the weapon could be brought to bear against him, or he might circle about and appear to confront them with leveled spear, demanding their surrender.

The first plan seemed risky, as in his haste he might well injure the Cro-Magnon girl, their prisoner and hostage. The second seemed equally dangerous, as he had no clear picture of just what the thunder-weapon could do, of just how deadly it was, or what its range might be.

Zuma determined to follow and observe, and wait for the time to be right, before making his attempt to free the jungle girl.

He wished there was time to mark a trail, or some way he could bring all of this to the attention of Eric Carstairs and the others. But the two men were moving too swiftly through the jungle to afford him sufficient leisure to blaze a trail; obviously, they were eager to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the German soldiers.

Through the brush hurried the triumphant Xask, fondling and gloating over the gleaming steel barrel of the Mauser, with frightened little Murg panting at his heels and Darya stumbling along at the end of her tether. Behind them, unseen in the gloomy murk of the jungle, where thick interwoven boughs closed out the light of day, Zuma followed like a watchful and avenging phantom, unknown to any.

* * * *

The German officer wasted no time in rousing Corporal Schmidt and Professor Potter from sleep, and rapidly apprised them of the appalling events which had taken place during their sleep-period. Schmidt was shaken by the murder of the elderly Colonel, and the Professor was amazed at the kidnapping of Darya, for he could not imagine who could have done the deed, or why.

“What enemies do we have left?” he murmured dazedly. “Kâiradine Redbeard and the Empress vanished quite some time ago, and are certainly no longer in these parts; whatever has become of them, no one knows…Kâiradine, I am given to understand, conceived a violent passion for the child, Darya, but how could he know we are here, and why would he steal one of your rifles? He does not even know about firearms…Zarys, of course, does…but she has never seen anything more than Eric’s .45 automatic, so how could she know a Mauser for what it is? I must confess, my dear Baron, that the entire affair has me baffled.…”

“We shall have all of the answers to these questions soon enough,” said Von Kohler shortly. “They cannot have gotten far, whoever they may be, and the quicker we are on their trail, the quicker we shall catch up with them. And then there shall be an accounting, I assure you!”

Giving one of the pistols to the Professor, so that the old scientist should not venture unarmed into the jungle, Von Kohler ordered his men out and they stepped into the jungle. The marks of the feet of three persons were soon found in the mucky layer of rotting leaf-mulch and slick mud which carpeted the jungle aisles, and one set of prints was small and dainty enough to have been made by a young woman of Darya’s size and weight. The other two sets of prints seemed to be those of men.

“So there are two of them, then,” muttered Von Kohler grimly. “Well, they are moving so swiftly as to be careless about leaving a trail, and we should be able to follow their prints easily enough. Borg, Schmidt—move out? Hein!”

With the two soldiers in the fore with weapons ready, the party plunged into the brush, abandoning their camp and its equipment and supplies in their hurry to catch the fleeing fugitives. Von Kohler was in a cold fury to work swift justice on the man who had murdered the elderly, dying Colonel in cold blood, and was willing to take a chance on their belongings remaining unmolested. He had served under the Colonel for all the years since first they had found their way down into the Underground World, and knew him to be a distinguished officer, a fair and honorable commander, a just and decent gentleman. And Von Kohler hungered to get his hands on the man who had murdered him in his sickbed.

Soon, to their considerable surprise, the soldiers found a fourth set of prints mingling with the three already discovered, and these were the prints of the feet of a man. From the disposition of the prints, the Baron assumed that the fourth man was not accompanying the three, but was also following them. He mentioned this to Professor Potter, who chewed upon his moustachios fretfully, finally shaking his head in mystification, unable to guess who the mysterious follower might be.

“Friend or foe, it matters little,” grated Von Kohler in a harsh voice, hefting his Mauser meaningfully. “We have enough fire-power between the four of us to account for a tribe of the savages in full strength.”

“Let us hope such does not prove to be the case,” breathed the old scientist fervently. Then he stopped talking and saved his breath for the chase, finding it difficult to keep up with the German soldiers.

* * * *

When Zuma did not return after a while, my men became restive and we decided to strike out on our own. We circled the area as we presumed the black warrior to have done, but without finding any marks left by the Professor. Obviously, for whatever reason, he had not resumed marking the trees at intervals along his way in order to blaze a trail.

Neither had Zuma, as he had expected to return to join us before having gone far enough for that to be necessary.

It was by sheer chance that we came upon the abandoned camp which the Germans had recently left. Thon of Numitor, who had sensitive nostrils, smelled burning coals and we discovered the small glade, the lean-to, the abandoned bedrolls, and the small fire which was smoldering out.

We examined the area with amazement and curiosity. The blankets were obviously of civilized manufacture, as were the cooking utensils and certain item’s of personal gear which had been left behind, but there was no way of identifying the origin of the mysterious items. It was a mystery…but I knew that other explorers besides the Professor and myself had recently penetrated into the jungles of Zanthodon. Whether they would prove friends or foes, I had no way of telling.

We pressed on, soon finding the trail of many feet in the wet mud of the forest’s floor.

A warm, drenching rain began to fall.

* * * *

Xask had no idea of the direction in which he was going, but something urged him to keep moving. Some sixth sense warned the wily Zarian aristocrat that vengeful armed men were on his trail, so he refused to halt for anything. If Darya stumbled over a root and fell, he jerked her rudely to her feet again and thrust her on before him. If Murg squeaked and slipped in the mud, Xask merely kicked him to his feet and forced him forward.

Abruptly, and without warning, the jungle ended and the two villains and their captives came stumbling out of the bushes to find themselves facing a broad and swampy plain.

A steamy rain was falling heavily, which made it impossible for the two men to see very far in either direction. Xask was in panicky flight by now, and kept forcing his companions along. But even he was forced to come to a halt at the brink of the deep crevasse that split the plain apart. Murg took one look at the black abyss which yawned hungrily at his feet, and fell to his knees, whimpering and snuffling piteously.

Xask stared wildly about. In the drenching downpour he could not see the fallen tree trunks which the Cro-Magnons had used to bridge the gap.

Swift as thought, an arrow whizzed from the underbrush.

It narrowly missed Xask, causing him to start and flinch violently.

From the bushes, Zuma stifled a groan of regret. The downpour had blurred his eyes, making him miss. It had been his intention to sink the arrow into Xask’s wrist, forcing him to drop the weapon. But his shaft had exactly the opposite effect.

Spitting startled curses, Xask whipped the Mauser up and pulled the trigger, meaning to spray the bushes from which the shaft had flown with a deadly hail of hot lead—

CHAPTER 27

MURG’S WAY

When Xask gave a vicious pull on the trigger…nothing whatsoever happened! The thunder-weapon refused to fire, for some unknown reason of its own.9

As soon as the Aziru warrior loosed his shaft and knew that he had missed, he ducked back into the woods and sought refuge behind the thick bole of a towering Jurassic conifer, guessing that Xask would use the rifle. He hid behind the trunk, waiting for the thunderous noise he had presumed would shortly shatter the monotonous murmur of the rain. When no such sound came to his ears, he ducked from the cover of the trees to investigate.

Xask blinked incredulously at the useless piece of metal in his hands, then flung it from him with a snarling oath.

“Look!” chattered Murg excitedly, pointing. Xask gazed in the direction his slave was indicating.

The rain had lessened and the clouds were swiftly passing by overhead, driven by the gusting winds that blow through the cavern-sky of Zanthodon. As the shower died as suddenly as it had sprung up, the vizier saw the trunks the men of Thandar and Sothar had dragged across the chasm—and Xask knew he could cross the ravine to the safety of the plain, no matter who was pursuing him through the jungles.

“Quickly, Quickly!” he snapped. “We can cross to the other side and then shove the trees loose so that they will fall into the abyss and prevent our pursuers from catching up with us—”

Snatching Darya to her feet with a cruel grasp on her upper arm, he propelled the bound and helpless girl to the edge of the chasm. Turning, he beckoned curtly to Murg.

The miserable little fellow was in an agony of indecision. He lived in a terror of heights, remembering the heart-stopping experience of crawling down the sheer sides of the Peaks of Peril at the behest of One-Eye, when I had led the tribe of Sothar out of their captivity to the Gorpaks. And, later, he had shrunk from the dreadful necessity of scaling the mountains called the Walls of Zar by fleeing during the sleep period from Hurok and Varak and the others into the relative safety of the northern plain.

And now he must cross—that?

He shuddered, gripped by a horror of the heights.

And suddenly, in a dazzling flash of realization, it came to Murg that Xask was unarmed, save for the dagger at his waist, and some distance away. He had thrown down the useless Mauser, and was armed neither with spear, trident nor bow.

Murg could flee!

As if he had read the mind of the pathetic little man, Xask sprang forward and seized him by the throat. Xask took a sadistic pleasure in having some sniveling whelp to bully and order about, as earlier he had enjoyed the company of the hapless Fumio. He did not intend to let the little man escape from his clutches; if for no other reason, Murg could be set to fetching firewood and preparing food and the other small but tiresome domestic tasks of camping in the wilderness.

“No, master—please!” shrilled the little fellow as Xask mercilessly forced him to the base of the fallen tree. His legs were trembling violently, and Murg dreaded trying to cross the abyss, knowing in his heart that he would lose his balance and fall to a horrible death in the unknown depths below.

“Crawl, like the worm you are!” snarled Xask, in a desperate agony to be across the tree-bridge and safe from pursuit on the other side.

At that moment, Zuma strode from the bushes to confront them with his leveled spear.

As Xask turned to snarl at this new adversary, Murg—pushed beyond the limits of his cowardice—found the moment for which he long had dreamed.

Stealthily, he plucked the steel dagger from the scabbard which hung at Xask’s waist. The vizier turned a surprised glance over his shoulder on the smirking Murg. His lips parted for some startled query—

“It’s Murg’s way,” giggled Murg, and stabbed him through the heart.

When the sudden rains ended, the farsighted scouts of Thandar and Sothar peered across the swampy plain to see if Eric Carstairs and his warriors had yet emerged from the edges of the jungle. What they saw surprised them more.

The towering form of a nearly naked black warrior was engaged in cutting loose the wrists of a beautiful young woman whom the watchers instantly recognized as Darya of Thandar. They raised a thunderous shout and sprinted back across the plain to her assistance.

At her feet sprawled the ungainly figure of Xask, his features forever frozen in an expression of slackjawed astonishment. Of all the ways in which the vizier had envisioned the moment of his death—he had dreamed many splendid and heroic ends for himself—none was so base and ignoble as to be stabbed from behind by the whimpering little coward he had for so long scorned and mocked and used.

Seeing the warriors and scouts pelting in their direction, Zuma instinctively fell into a fighting crouch, leveling his assegai, knowing they could only come at him one at a time across the tree-trunk-bridge, and that they would be off-balance, lending him a superb advantage.

This advantage proved soon to be unnecessary, of course, for Darya, her hands freed by Zuma, tore the gag from her mouth and called to the warriors hastening to her assistance that the black man was a friend.

Tharn and Garth and some of them crossed over to clasp the Princess of Thandar in their arms and to inquire into her experiences. They gravely made the acquaintance of Zuma with that quiet natural dignity which distinguishes the so-called “savage” from civilized men. For his part, the noble Aziru greeted them on equal terms; he was, as the sole remaining male warrior of his tribe, of course, the chief of his own people.

When he had learned from the gomad his daughter of the events which had so recently transpired, and how Murg at the last, driven beyond endurance, had turned on Xask and stabbed him in the back, they turned to gaze about for Murg, but the little coward was nowhere to be seen.

Zuma shrugged expansively.

“The little man scuttled into the jungle like a frightened uld and vanished,” the Aziru said simply. “Zuma doubts if he will ever dare show his face again before warriors.”

“Let us hope so, at any rate,” growled Garth, his frowning brows thunderous with wrath. Ever since the Omad of Sothar had learned how Murg had sought to ravish his daughter Yualla in her sleep, he had nursed a desire to hang the contemptible little traitor from the tallest tree.

It was about then that Professor Potter, puffing and red-faced, burst through the trees, crowing with delight at seeing Darya alive and well. Behind him, a bit more cautiously, came the Germans, with Baron Von Kohler in the lead. While introductions were being made all around, Corporal Schmidt unobtrusively picked up the Mauser which Xask had disgustedly cast to the ground. Then it was that Zuma learned that he owed his life to the fact that the vizier of Zar knew nothing of the safety-catch.…

* * * *

It was upon this happy scene of rescue and reunion that I and all my company burst a few minutes later. We had been hard on the trail of Xask and Murg, Darya and Zuma, Von Kohler and his soldiers, wondering to whom all of these many footprints could possibly belong. We arrived on the scene just in time to share in the excitement and, also, the several explanations.

Once everything was made plain, we all crossed the abyss by the trunk-bridges and marched to the southern side of the swampy plain where the tribes lay encamped and eagerly awaiting our arrival. There, the Germans joined us in a very noisy feast of celebration, punctuated with long speeches while everybody told of their adventures.

Jorn and Yualla were the center of all eyes as they related the many perils through which they had passed and how Niema had met them in the mountains and later had captured Xask and Murg as they were creeping up on the Cro-Magnon youngsters.

The joy in the faces of Garth of Sothar and his mate Nian was wonderful to see as they welcomed their lost daughter back among the living and embraced her, kissing the tears of happiness from her glowing cheeks.

Those cheeks glowed much pinker, shortly after, when she shyly introduced them to the stalwart young Thandarian boy as the youth she desired as her mate.

Hurok introduced us to Gorah his mate, and told of his adventures in the cave country of Kor. Von Kohler briefly told something of his experiences in Zanthodon, and requested a brief leave from the feast in order to return to his encampment to recover the abandoned equipment left behind when they had pursued the stolen jungle maid and her kidnappers. He also wished to give his Colonel a decent burial beneath a cairn of rocks, so that the beasts would not disturb his rest.

Garth and Tharn dispatched a party of warriors with the Germans to assist them in these tasks. They were not absent from the feast for very long, and returned without incident.

I was a little dubious about the Germans, but their behavior had been gentlemanly and exemplary, and both Darya, and, of course, the Professor, reassured me of their desire for a friendly alliance.

“After all, my boy,” said the Professor quietly, “the war, has long been over.”

CHAPTER 28

THE PROMISED LAND

Now that we had all found each other again, there was no longer any reason to delay our journey south. Murg had vanished into the jungle and no one felt inclined to search for him, although many of us wished that he could be brought before the rude, simple justice of the tribes to pay for some of the things he had done.

We never found out what became of him, for none of us ever laid eyes on the contemptible little man again. Perhaps he found a safe haven somewhere and spent the rest of his days alone; or maybe he was eaten by the beasts, we never knew. But at any rate he never bothered us again.

Concerning our journey south, it is not my intention to describe it at great length, for, to tell the truth, it was pleasantly uneventful. These jungles held no surprises for Tharn and his people, for they were familiar with them. The great predators avoided us, apparently unwilling to challenge so great a host of armed men. A few more “wake’s” and “sleeps,” and the journey proved over.

* * * *

We came out of the jungle rather abruptly, to find ourselves gazing upon the land of Thandar at last. It was a broad and vast valley, a place of rolling green hills and grassy fields, laced with many small streams of fresh water and grown, here and there, with patches of forest.

It was a goodly land to look upon, basking under the eternal afternoon light of Zanthodon. Far to the east, where the woods thickened into an imposing array of timberland, a herd of thantors, or wooly mammoths, grazed peaceably, much too distant to be a cause of trouble to us.

You can perhaps imagine the emotions that passed through the hearts of Tharn and Darya and the others as they looked once again upon their homeland, after the long, weary months of wandering through strange new lands filled with enemies and perils and vicissitudes of every kind.

Tharn searched the far reaches of the wooded valley with keen eyes; then he lifted an arm to point across the plain.

“There!” he said with immense satisfaction in his tones.

We looked in the direction he had indicated, and saw a large settlement of wooden huts walled about with a palisade of logs sharpened at the top. The lazy spirals of smoke from cook-fires ascended into the serene afternoon skies. We could even see a small band of hunters returning with the morning’s kill slung on poles, and women bathing in a shallow stream behind the town.

Garth and his mate Nian looked the scene over with pleased expressions on their faces.

“It looks to be a goodly land, this Thandar of yours, my brother,” he remarked to Tharn, who grinned.

“Of ours, my brother!” said the High Chief. And Garth nodded thoughtfully, for of course he and all his people were henceforward to share the land with the first tribe. There looked to be land enough and room enough for all.…

Von Kohler and the two soldiers under his command studied the country through binoculars. The Germans had come with us, of course, having nowhere else to go. And Zuma and his new mate, Niema, had come with us as well. They had all become members of my company, which by this time was a catch-all for homeless foreigners, you might say.

Beside me, Professor Potter stood, a vague, dreamy look in his watery blue eyes. He tugged at my arm.

“Eric, my boy,” he breathed tremulously, “do you realize what gifts we can bring to these people, you and I? We can teach them the principles of agriculture, so that no longer need they spend their days as wandering nomadic hunters; they can transform that little town into a city, and we will have helped our distant cousins, the Cro-Magnons, along the path to civilization…why, we can teach them brickmaking and stone masonry, so that they can build with permanence, we can record their language and instruct them in a simple alphabet, so that their traditions and histories can be recorded for all time, not merely handed down from generation to generation by oral means alone…the rudiments of mathematics should be useful to them.…”

Von Kohler was listening to the Professor’s rambling and ecstatic monologue. He coughed apologetically and interrupted the discourse.

“Herr Doktor, I quite agree. But, do you suppose, we could perhaps avoid teaching them any of the skills or vices that have been the ruination of so many cultures? For example, the use of currency…money being the root of all evil, as the Scriptures tell us. Doubtless the Cro-Magnons employ a simple barter system. exchanging skills for skills, the tanner giving his wares to the huntsman for fresh meat, the carpenter building a but for the fisherman in return for a load of fish, and so on.”

The Professor mulled it over, tugging on his stiff white moustaches.

“I suppose you are right, Baron,” he said. “Money leads to usury, to greed, to the exploitation of labor…perhaps we can find a way to keep the Thandarians from inventing it…an interesting little problem in social dynamics!”

The idea of helping our Cro-Magnon friends toward civilization was beginning to get me interested, too.

“Once we have the alphabet,” I said, “we can codify their tribal customs and traditions into laws, written down and mutually understood and agreed upon, if necessary by a popular vote.”

Von Kohler and the Professor agreed that this was a good idea.

The Professor wandered off to talk to Tharn. Von Kohler turned to me.

“Would it not, Herr Carstairs, be a worthy cause to devote our lives to, if we could spare the Cro-Magnon nation the mistakes that have marred the history of our own Western civilization? Extreme nationalism, imperialism, the exploitation of less advanced peoples, the creation of poverty and slums, military aggression…and, instead of these, teach them the ways of justice, equality, fairness, decency, toleration, brotherhood, cooperation, and—freedom!”

“It would indeed, Von Kohler,” I said thoughtfully. “It would be our way of making up for the sins we have contributed to. Not at all a bad thing to spend the rest of your life doing.…”

And so we went down into Thandar, and I came home.

* * * *

The settlement was more primitive than I would have expected, and dirtier and noisier. Within the palisade wall, which was broken by three gates, stood about sixty one-story huts, not counting sheds and lean-tos. These were arranged with no system, just rambling clusters, and there was nothing like streets between them, just pathways of naked earth, beaten smooth by many feet.

The sanitation system consisted of a stream which ran behind the town and which was used indiscriminately by everyone. Some of the huts, far enough away from the stream for its use to be impractical, used ditches dug behind them for the same purpose. Flies and garbage were everywhere. And it stank abominably!

Now, the Cro-Magnons were a healthy and very cleanly people, despite the conditions in the settlement. After all, Paris and London in the Middle Ages were a lot dirtier, and probably stank even more terribly. Still and all, it looked as though our friends could use the advice of some city planners like the Professor and me. Well, that was one of the problems we would have to tackle later: there was going to be enough to keep us busy for years to come.

When we came into sight, the Thandarians came out to greet us, and the welcome was enthusiastic, to say the least. Tharn strode into the gates of his town like a Caesar returned from the Gallic Wars, and he looked every inch the king that he was.

It seemed—I had never bothered to think about it before, but it would have had to be this way—it seemed, I say, that when the Drugar slavers carried off Darya and the rest of the hunting party, and Tharn pursued in strength, he left behind in Thandar a considerable number of able-bodied men, all of the women and old people and children. It would have been madness to march away with every healthy male capable of hefting a spear, leaving his homeland unprotected. No, about seventy warriors and huntsmen had been left to guard the village and do the hunting, and the reunion was glorious to witness. Warriors, absent for months on the expedition, were tearfully greeted by their mates and parents and children.

I had not realized that my warriors, Parthon and Ragor, had mates and children, for in my company they had never mentioned their existence. But, then, this is only natural: most of the time we were together, we were too busy fighting against beasts or human adversaries, or running away from same, to have much time for casual chit-chat.

Ragor’s mate, a buxom, merry-faced wench named Oona with a fat baby straddling each ample hip, greeted me happily—happily, that is, because I had brought her man home again, alive, and in one piece.

“Ragor will not have had a decent meal since he left Oona,” she said disapprovingly, poking a thumb in his ribs. “Look at you! All skin and bones! Well,” and here she turned to grin at me, “tonight there will be a feast to end all feasts, and we womenfolk will begin putting some meat back on the bones of you helpless men!”

CHAPTER 29

“BABE” FLIES AGAIN

And, that night, there was a feast, indeed! The women turned spits over beds of blazing coals, roasting succulent uld and gamey zomaks, and huge slabs of mammoth steak, and broiled huge, leathery-skinned eggs of the drunth, which were, to the Cro-Magnons, a gourmet delicacy.

We all gorged splendidly on smoking meat, and the broiled eggs alluded to above, as well as stews of juicy roots and wild vegetables, seasoned with scraps of meat and boiled into a tasty broth, and wild fruit and nuts and berries…and washed this huge repast down with gourdfuls of the heady native beer the Thandarian’s had learned to brew—or “nut brown ale,” as the Professor called it.

One by one we took turns recounting our adventures, and, as you can imagine (if you have read this book and the four other volumes of these memoirs), there was very, very much to be told, and the telling consumed many hours.

It was during these recitals, that I came to know many of the details of the adventures that happened to such of my friends as Jorn and Yualla, Hurok and Darya, Tharn and others, which I have inserted into these books in their proper place. Much, much more was learned from subsequent conversations with my comrades, and the piecing together of threads of narrative into a cohesive and comprehensive whole. It took a lot of work to figure out what had happened to everybody, but at length it was all straight in our minds.

The Thandarians were hospitable to the strangers of the Sothar tribe, and warmed to them in friendly fashion, as soon as they grasped how willingly the Sotharians had stood and fought shoulder to shoulder with their people on many occasions. It took them a little longer to make friends with Hurok and his hairy mate, Gorah, or with the two black Aziru, or the German’s.

In time, I am happy to say, everybody was friends with everybody else.

I guess we had taught the folk of Thandar something about brotherhood and tolerance already!

* * * *

After the feast and the various narratives, there came a more solemn but no less joyous event. Or sequence of similar events, perhaps I should say.

I refer to the wedding ritual.

Before the combined tribes, young Jorn proudly claimed the blushing and beautiful Yualla as his mate.

Before the tribes, Varak repeated his claim to Ialys of Zar, and Grond of Gorthak took shy little Jaira as his mate.

Rituals similar in nature were repeated between Hurok of Kor and Gorah, and between Zuma the Aziru and the lovely Niema.

And then it was my turn!

Feeling absurdly nervous. I stood up with Darya smiling demurely at my side, and claimed her as my own before the presence of them all. Tharn, her father, gravely placed her hand in mine, holding both of our hands briefly in the grip of one huge hand, to signify that he gave the gomad to me to be my own Princess.

Then, while my warriors shouted and yelled our names, I stood there grinning sheepishly, feeling like a fool, while the women of my company pelted the two of us with flowers.

We shared our first kiss as mates, and the ritual was over and done.

And I felt very much married.…

* * * *

The honeymoon is a new custom which Darya and I introduced to the Cro-Magnons of Thandar. We went into the wilderness for a week or so, and I built a little hut beside a stream in the cozy circle of a copse of Jurassic conifers. I carpeted the floor of the hut with armfuls of fragrant grasses, and for a time we stayed apart from our people, enjoying the nuptial privacy of our honeymoon.

I hunted at day and brought my kill back to my mate for her to prepare and cook. It was like something from the first ages of mankind on the earth…like a memory of the Garden of Eden.

And it was certainly very much like Paradise to my darling wife and me.…

* * * *

A few days after Darya and I terminated our idyll and returned to the settlement, to take up residence in the “town hall” or royal palace of Thandar (a rather well constructed, two-story wooden edifice used as the residence of the High Chief and his family, and for judgments and ceremonial occasions), the Professor and I went on a brief, nostalgic expedition.

We took along my two giant friends, Gundar of Gorad and Hurok of Kor, for protection. These are the two most gigantic warriors I know, and with them at our backs, the Professor and I would safely have faced down half a herd of dinosaurs.

We trekked due west of Thandar, crossed the plains and entered the jungles. After a time, the jungles gave way to swampland and muddy fens; beyond, the placid surface of the Sogar-Jad glittered under the dim golden skies of Zanthodon.

We were looking for a little hilly promontory which thrust from the mainland on the shores of the subterranean sea.

We were looking for the very spot on which Professor Potter and I had first stepped forth upon the soil of the Underground World.…

Well, after a few days of wandering around, we reached the location we had determined to revisit. Directly overhead, like a circular and stationary dark cloud in the glowing heavens of Zanthodon, was the opening which led to the surface of the earth.

We found what remained of my faithful helicopter, Babe, by which we had long ago descended into the crater of the extinct volcano in the Sahara. She had crashed on landing, had Babe, and still lay where she had fallen, although now vines and bushes had grown thickly about her until she was almost buried in the foliage.

We cleared away the overgrowth, the four of us, and looked her over. One of her vanes was bent, and her under-carriage was crushed, and the door hung at a crazy angle on broken hinges. Aside from these unfortunate facts, she looked surprisingly whole and sound.

Dead leaves had been blown into the cabin, and a brace of zomaks had nested there, befouling the controls with their lime-white droppings. I cleaned the cabin out and checked the dials.

“You know, Doc,” I said in surprise, “if we fixed the bent vane and repaired the undercarriage, and cleaned out the engine…I bet Babe could fly again!”

“Really?” He sounded more than a bit skeptical. “And where do you expect to buy gasoline in this world of cavemen and dinosaurs?”

“Don’t you remember how many tins of gas I loaded her up with before we left the coast?” I returned. “Well, plenty of them are still full, for all the long way we flew…and they’re still sealed, too. They haven’t even sprung a leak.”

He played with his little tuft of chin-whiskers, looking thoughtful.

“Perhaps it could be done, after all…the Thandarians have only recently entered the first crude stages of metalworking, but there is iron ore in those hills to the south, or I’m no geologist! What an impressive means of defense your helicopter would be, if ever Thandar was invaded by an enemy…why, there would be no need to fight at all, all you would need do is fly over the enemy ranks at a low altitude—they would bolt in every direction like chicken’s in a henyard, when a hawk swoops low.…”

I nodded. “Yep! And, with the chopper, it would be an easy thing to chart and map the extent of Thandar and the surrounding countries.”

“We could even return to the surface again,” he mused to himself.

“I suppose we could, Doc, but—hey! I just got married, if you’ll kindly remember. I’m not about to fly off and leave my blushing bride!”

“Someday, however, we must go back, Eric my boy,” he said seriously. “The data and observations I have gathered here, not only my eyewitness descriptions of the great beasts, but what I have learned about the traditions and customs of the Cro-Magnons, the Neanderthals, even the people of Minoan Crete—all of this information is of inestimable scientific value. It must be made available to the Upper World!”

“Someday,” I agreed. But I privately thought to myself that it might not be necessary: Babe was equipped with a shortwave radio, and it looked to be still in one piece, although by now we would have to recharge the batteries, somehow. And I have a niece in upstate New York, on a farm near Lake Carlopa, who has a receiving set I built for her, tuned to the wavelength of Babe’s radio. Couldn’t we, someday, transmit the whole fantastic story of our adventures in Zanthodon to Jenny? Even if nobody believed a word of our story, it would sure make a heck of a series of Stone Age adventure stories for some paperback publisher like Ace or Ballantine or Wildside Press.…

* * * *

To make the story shorter, we resolved to try it! Gundar and Hurok felled trees with their axes and trimmed the twigs and branches from the logs. Then they dragged them to where Babe squatted on its crushed landing gear. With leathern thongs and ropes fashioned by weaving tough, long reeds and grasses together in a sort of braid, we fastened the logs into a crude sledge.

Babe was too heavy to be dragged back to Thandar, but the Professor worked out a clumsy set of wheels which we had to keep greased with the cooked fat of zomaks I brought down with my bow. The Professor was delighted with his contrivance, but Hurok and Gundar stared at it in bewilderment, scratching their heads and exchanging mystified glances.

I guess the Professor had every right to be proud. After all, he had just invented the wheel!

* * * *

It wasn’t a month later before we had Babe back in good working order—and she flew, the first flying machine ever in the long history of the Underground World.

The grown-ups of the tribes were shaking in their boots (well, you know what I mean!) at the unearthly noise and shuddersome fact of her uncanny flight. But the kids were tickled pink!

Hurok and Gundar firmly but politely refused to accept a free ride in the chopper. Even Von Kohler looked dubious—he had vaguely heard of autogyros, but a modem Sikorsky looked too risky, too flimsy, to his eyes.

Jorn was the only one who would go up with the Professor and me, and he had to be dared into it by Yualla. The adventure-loving kid was dying to go, but I put my foot down and said no: she was carrying their child and I didn’t think it would be smart to run the risk.

Anyway, Thandar’s air force was born.

CHAPTER 30

THE OMAD-OF-OMADS

After Jorn and Yualla had their baby, little Eric, a rash of births increased our numbers. Hurok became a proud father when Gorah his mate produced a set of twins; they named the male Tor and the she they called Ungala. Also, Zuma and Niema had a daughter, an exquisite, happy, laughing, bright-eyed child they called Azira, after the founder of their tribe. She was going to grow up into as stunningly beautiful a young woman as her mother, and I’ll place a bet right now that the young Cro-Magnon hearts of her teen years will be breaking to right and left.

Varak fathered a daughter too, a tiny, elfin creature that took more after his mate than after himself with the olive skin of Ialys and the golden hair of Varak—a striking combination.

The German soldiers, Borg and Schmidt, both married Cro-Magnon women and fathered sons, but Von Kohler remained single. Perhaps he was too busy working on his plans for the town (you could no longer call it a camp or even a settlement, not with its new walls, of cut and mortared stone and its straight streets and decent sanitation). The Baron had studied civil engineering in his university years, before joining the army, and took charge of the new buildings which began to be erected in place of the ramshackle huts of old.

The Professor, on the other hand, was our expert an metal-working and agriculture. He discovered edible roots and primitive vegetables he believed could be cultivated into something close to potatoes and carrots, and he also experimented with various grains and cereals, finding one plant which resembled prehistoric maize and another he believed to be wheat or barley.

He laid out the cultivated fields, watered by a system of irrigation ditches, and we were soon feasting off bread that was not at all untasty. This, of course, reduced the dependence of the Cro-Magnons upon hunting for food, and gave them more leisure to work at the rebuilding of the town, which was mostly to be constructed of sun-dried or oven-baked bricks, and the hoeing and planting of the fields.

All of this became practical, even possible, only after Professor Potter found the veins of iron ore in the hills which he had suspected were there. Now that the smiths could make the proper tools, the tribes advanced at a single step to the Iron Age, to agriculture, and to urban civilization.

My own modest contribution to the march of progress consisted of the domestication of the uld. If “domestication” is quite the word I want: what I mean is, we came to collect the uld into herds and to pen them in, rather than doing it the old-fashion Cro-Magnon way and trotting across the plains with bow and arrow or spear, hoping to find a fat uld and to make a kill.

Oh, yes; another contribution—not to the march of progress, exactly, but at least to the size of my evergrowing “tribe”…my mate presented me with a strong, lusty infant son whom I named Gar, after my father.…

* * * *

To celebrate the birth of our son, Tharn of Thandar and Garth of the Sotharians summoned the tribes to an enormous feast, with Darya and little Gor and me the principal guests of honor.

After the feast, Tharn rose to his feet to make a speech. For the occasion, he was rigged out in full ceremonial regalia, as befitted a Cro-Magnon High Chief: headdress plumed with zomak feathers, his necklace of sabertooth tiger fangs, bracelets and bangles of copper ornaments—the works.

“We are met here,” he began in solemn tones, “to consider how properly to honor Eric Carstairs for his many services to the tribes of our people.” And I felt my face turning red, for I had thought little Gar would be the center of attention, not myself. He went on:

“All of us owe very much to Eric Carstairs, and more than a few among us owe our very lives to him, to his courage, his strength, his wise counsels, his leadership, and his common sense. He came among us as a stranger from a far land, but he has earned our respect and admiration, our affection and our love. Was it not Eric Carstairs who enabled Jorn and Darya the gomad to escape from the captivity of the Drugars, and Eric Carstairs who slew Uruk, High Chief of Kor, and Eric Carstairs who led the escape to freedom of the Sotharians, from their vile slavery to the Gorpaks of the cavern city, and Eric Carstairs who brought about the destruction of the Scarlet City? It was none other than he.

“My brother Garth and I have long considered what honor to bestow upon this man, our friend. Already, he has become a chieftain of Thandar, and now his warriors have grown in number so as almost to constitute a third tribe, a soft in jest they are wont to refer to themselves. In the beginning they were seven, with Eric Carstairs and the Professor at their head—Jorn the Hunter, Parthon, Warza, Varak of Sothar, Erdon and Ragor, and Hurok of Kor. From of old, chieftains of Thandar have led seven warrior’s into battle, and seven only.

“But, in the course of many wanderings and adventures, to that number were joined yet others, strangers from other tribes and far lands, such as Grond of Gorthak and Jaira, and Varak’s mate, Ialys of Zar, and Gundar the Goradian, and Thon of Numitor. And, more recently, Zuma the Aziru and his mate Niema, and Hurok’s mate, Gorah, and Von Kohler and Borg and Schmidt. Add to this, the mates and children of the warriors, among the which is my own daughter, Darya, and the newborn among them, and you will find that those who follow Eric Carstairs as their chieftain are now many times the number of warriors that follow a mere chieftain.”

Tharn was right, of course. I did some mental addition, and came up with a grand total of forty-one!

“It is the decree of the two tribes that we now consider ourselves three, and that Eric Carstairs shall be known in his own right as an Omad, to share our councils on equal footing and with equal voice and authority with Tharn and with Garth.”

His expression became brooding, his voice sank to low tones to which all strained to hear in the dead silence.

“The tribe of Thandar was founded by my ancestor, the High Chief Thandar; the tribe of Sothar was founded by Sothar the High Chief, the ancestor of my brother Garth. But we deem it not wise, in this instance, to follow the old ways, for among the new ways that Eric Carstairs and the Professor and Von Kohler are teaching us are many that are good. Already, the tribes are become the mightiest nation known in all of Zanthodon, since the Drugars of Kor were reduced, and the Barbary Pirates decimated, and the strength of the Scarlet City of Zar destroyed. In time, our people will come to dominate all of Zanthodon, but that will be in the time of Eric Carstairs or his sons, for by then Tharn of Thandar and Garth of Sothar will have joined their ancestors in another life.

“Let us therefore call the tribe of which Eric Carstairs is Omad, the tribe of Zanthodon.…

“And there is yet more! My only surviving child is my daughter, Darya the gomad, and when I am gone is not her mate, Eric Carstairs, to lawfully inherit the Omadship of Thandar? And likewise my brother Garth will be succeeded to the Omadship by Jorn the Hunter, the mate of his only surviving child, the gomad Yualla. But, as these are among the people who follow Eric Carstairs as their Omad, shall not he, too, inherit the Omadship of Sothar?

“It is so, and it can only be thus, for such are the ancient traditions which have now become the written law of our kind.

“Therefore, I hail my son-in-law and brother Omad, Eric Carstairs…Eric of Zanthodon…who will become, in times yet to be, the Omad-of-Omads, the ruler of Zanthodon itself.”

And the silence was split by a roar of approval such as I have never heard, and never thought to hear.…

* * * *

I rose to my feet, crimson to the ears, and stammered something awkward and inane, which I have long since mercifully forgotten, then bade the feast continue, and sat down again by my wife. But not before Garth and Tharn ceremoniously placed the ridiculous plumed headdress of an Omad on my brows, and clasped a necklace of sabertooth fangs about my throat, in token of my new royal rank.

Seated again by the side of my beloved Darya, I took little Gar on my lap and let him play with the gleaming ivory fangs. Tharn and Garth are both in the full noontide of their magnificent prime, and will rule for many, many years to come.

But someday the little child on my knee will be the Omad-of-Omads…Emperor of the Underground World.

THE END

9 When it was eventually recovered, it was found that the Mauser’s safety was on. Xask did not know that automatic firearms are equipped with a safety catch.