Kesrick, page 13
“We were in Crim-Tartary,” said Kesrick, “that’s where we encountered Mother Gothel’s enchanted cottage. And that means that we flew over the Zetzelstein Mountains in the Wandering Garden a bit earlier on. Beyond Orn, and farther west, lies my ancestral hall of Dragonrouge, whither I am bound.”
“So west it is, then, what?” said Mandricardo zestfully. And thus it was agreed.
XX
THE WANDERING GARDEN, AGAIN
While it is true that the Marids, Efreets and Jann, the three races of the Genii, are slow of thought and rather stupid, when you have nothing in particular to do, and plenty of time to do it in, even an Efreet as dull-witted as Azraq can, in time, put two and two together, usually coming up with an answer of “four.”
The huge blue fellow, gloomily pacing the halls of his enchanted palace atop the Rhiphaean Mountains of Northern Scythia, pondered the mystifying trickery that had been practiced upon him. That nice, red-headed young knight with the bright green eyes, and the blond young woman without any clothes at all, had kindly warned him against the burglarious intentions of the villainous sorcerer, Pteron. That much was certain.
After the unfortunate Deed had been done, however, and when he had flown to Scythia, to snatch from the courtyard of King Octamasadas the squalling Paynim, which everybody assured him was none other than Pteron himself, Zazamanc the Egyptian wizard had bitterly reproached him for being a gullible idiot, saying that Pteron was not Pteron.
It was quite a puzzle, for wits as unsharp as those of the Efreet Azraq.
If Pteron was not Pteron, who, then, had robbed the Garden of Jewels? For the blue Efreet had investigated, and found his direst fears borne out, for two of his most precious magical treasures were unaccountably missing.
At length, and in the fullness of time, it finally dawned upon Azraq that the one who had bamboozled him could only have been that nice redheaded young knight, who must have prevaricated, pretending that this spurious Pteron was en route to burglarize the enchanted palace, while actually the rascally deed had been performed by the young fellow, or by his nude accomplice.
“I will gnash them to morsels!” raged Azraq, when he had at last managed to figure out by whom he had been fooled. And he rose up raging, fire spitting from his mouth, eyes rolling madly in a fine frenzy.
It was not so much that Azraq really missed the two stolen treasures, for, as a matter of fact, he had long since forgotten exactly what they were; no, it was simply a matter of outrage, at having been so easily fooled.
Well, he might not know the names of the two thieves who had so cleverly purloined his treasures, but he remembered what they looked like. And, if they were anywhere to be found upon the broad face of Terra Magica, he resolved to find them, and when he did, the two miscreants would discover the full penalty exacted from those who are foolish enough to attempt to lie to the Genii.
With that vengeance in mind, Azraq wasted no further time but, drawing about himself a cloak woven of thunderbolts, he shot through the ceiling and soared into the empyrean, and began to fly hither and yon, and also to and fro, above the broad bosom of the world, searching its wide ways with keen and suspicious eyes.
While these things were happening in the Rhiphaean Mountains, somewhat to the south and west, Arimaspia, Sir Kesrick of Dragonrouge, and the Tartar knight, Mandricardo, were mounting the Hippogriff and preparing for the day’s venture, having completed (to the last speck) the magnificent breakfast served to them in the inn at Gluckstein.
“Looks like a fine day for flyin’,” observed Mandricardo with satisfaction, as, hands on hips, he stood in the courtyard of the inn and surveyed the azure heavens, which bore not so much as a single white cloud.
“Yes, it does that,” agreed Kesrick, squinting aloft. He bent to assist the Princess of Scythia to mount the saddle, while behind him the innkeeper, the stableboy and the scullery maid waved handkerchiefs in farewell.
Well rested, Brigadore soared into the heavens, and in no time worth talking about they had flown across the small kingdom of Orn, passing over fields and farms and forests, crossed the River Eridanus, and then angled a bit more to the south, flying over Palmyria and the most southerly parts of the famous Kingdom of Persia, for Kesrick had resolved to beard the villainous Zazamanc in his den, so to speak, reckoning it wiser to have it out with the Egyptian wizard, than to spend the rest of his life wondering when, and from where, and exactly how, the wily wizard would next strike at him and his.
They flew across Phrygia, therefore, and traversed the Three Arabias and the famous land of Sheba, and over the Valley of Frankincense, and the Red Sea, and soared high above the River Nilus, and the celebrated pyramids and were about to cross the burning sands of the deserts of Libya, when they espied a familiar sight somewhat below them.
It bore the semblance of a greenish cloud of rather small size, which was floating along quite rapidly, and, oddly enough, it was flying against the currents of the wind.
“Whatever is that green thing below us?” shouted Sir Mandricardo above the roaring wind.
They peered over the flanks of the Hippogriff, trying to make it out, but the wind of their speed made their eyes water and everything became a blur.
“Can’t see a thing, dash it all!” swore the Tartar knight, “but I think it was….”
His voice trailed off uncertainly, and Arimaspia gave him a nudge with her bare elbow.
“Well, actually, it bore a remarkable resemblance to that Wandering Garden built by whatsername—”
“Acrasia,” supplied Sir Kesrick.
“Exactly,” murmured the Tartar. “Acrasia; that’s the name.”
They looked closely, as the green flying cloud settled gently to earth; from above, at any rate, it did seem to resemble the arbor-like bower of the enchantress.
“Oh, dear,” said the Scythian Princess, “do you suppose the Garden has entrapped anyone else?”
“No way of knowing,” said the knight of Dragonrouge promptly, “and, besides, we are on our way to—”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Arimaspia, “but if it has, poor creature, they will have no way of escaping from its magical toils, and may have to spend the rest of his or hers or their life in that dreary Garden, with nothing to eat except for nuts, and fruit, and berries!”
The Frankish knight sighed, but there was nothing else to do but to comply with the wishes of his betrothed, who evidently had a soft heart. Thus he guided Brigadore down into the Libyan desert and circled above the Garden, for it obviously was the Wandering Garden of the enchantress Acrasia, and permitted the Hippogriff to land in the midst thereof on beating, bronze-feathered wings.
They dismounted and looked about them curiously. Nothing whatsoever was changed in the enchanted bower, flamingoes and Birds-of-Paradise still flew and fluttered from branch to branch, nightingales continued to sing beautifully from the rose bushes, ripe fruit dangled from trees of mango, guava, orange and tangerine, and gorgeously colored peacocks strutted to and fro proudly upon the dewy sward. In the midst of the Garden, the pool of clear water lay tranquilly mirroring the blue sky, in its setting of mossy boulders.
“Everything seems about the same as it was when we were here before,” observed the Princess of Scythia, peering about.
“I suppose enchanted bowers never change very much,” said the Tartar knight absently, “being enchanted, after all, what?”
At that very moment, as things would have it, the flowering bushes parted, and a tall, striking young woman stepped forth, who stopped short at the unexpected sight of strangers.
“I say!” breathed Sir Mandricardo, his eyes glowing ardently.
She was taller than any of them, save for Mandricardo, and naked to the waist, with long rippling hair and huge blue eyes which flashed with pride and spirit. In the eyes of the Tartar, at any rate, her ripe red lips looked as if they had been made with kissing in mind.
She wore high greaves of gilt bronze strapped to her lower legs and her feet were shod in supple buskins of soft leather made from the tanned hide of lynxes. A sparkling circlet of gold she wore about her brows, confining her rippling masses of long, wavy auburn hair. A girdle of linked silver plates cinched in her waist, and therefrom depended, in the manner of an abbreviated kilt, straps of leather washed in liquid silver to which iron rings had been stitched. In her left hand she bore a long javelin; a short sword was scabbarded against her thigh, and a bow of ivory and quiver of arrows was slung across her broad shoulders, the strap crossing between her bare, and rather ample, breasts.
Mandricardo privately thought her quite the most ravishing female creature he had heretofore observed, but to Kesrick’s taste she was more than a trifle too Junoesque. She was, in fact, built on sumptuous proportions, and very well upholstered, especially (they noted later when she turned to lead her courser through the trees) in the hindmost parts.
She had stopped short at the sight of them, her ample bosom heaving entrancingly in consternation.
“Oh, raw-ther!” breathed Sir Mandricardo admiringly, all eyes; and, indeed, the view was a spectacular one.
“Hold, varlets!” cried the large girl in imperious tones, her javelin held at the ready. “Declare yourselves! Are you friends or foes?”
“Oh, friends, by all means, I say!” exclaimed the love-smitten Tartar. The warrior-woman looked him over with contemptuous eyes and did not lower her spear.
Kesrick cleared his throat for attention, and stepped forward doffing his helm courteously.
“I am hight Sir Kesrick of Dragonrouge, a knight of the Franks,” he said with a winning smile.
“And I am hight the Princess Arimaspia of Scythia,” declared that lady, stepped forth to stand at his side, with her hand upon his wrist, so that there should be no mistake as to whom he belonged.
The Amazon—for, in fact, she was an Amazon—turned to regard Mandricardo.
“And how are you hight?” she asked boldly.
He introduced himself, likewise doffing his helm as Kesrick had done.
“Well, then,” she declared, “I am hight the Princess Callipygia, daughter of the Queen of the Amazons. And if you happen to be the dastardly magicians who enchanted this flying bower, which has borne me off against my will from my native land of Amazonia, then prepare to defend yourselves!”
“I… say!” breathed the Tartar rapturously.
BOOK FIVE
_______________________
The Undoing of Zazamanc
XXI
THE SUBTERRANEAN PALACE
By this time, Zazamanc the Egyptian wizard had traversed the greater part of Terra Magica in his magical iron chariot, drawn by its matched pair of winged Wyverns, bearing the hapless Paynim, Gaglioffo, to his unknown fate.
The wizard brought his chariot to earth in a rocky and desolate gorge amid the desolate wastes of the Moghrab. Springing from the chariot, and kicking aside a shovelful or two of crawling red scorpions the size of housecats and slithering black vipers as thick as a strong man’s upper thigh, he faced a sheer cliff of rugged rock and cried in a voice like thunder, the magic phrase that unlocked the portals of his underground abode.
“OPEN, O SESAME!” he boomed. At which the cliffy wall of rough stone swung open on unseen hinges, revealing the black and yawning mouth of a cavern. Stalagmites and stalactites either hung from the lintel of this portal or rose from its doorstep, lending the black opening a remarkable resemblance to the fanged jaws of a gigantic monster.
“O, Mahoum! O Golfarin, Nephew of Mahoum!” wailed the shuddering Paynim in a paroxysm of dread and despair, cowering on the hard floor of the iron chariot. “Not to forget Dame Termagant, the Mother of Mahoum!” he added hastily.
Seizing the reins of his team, and ignoring the wailings of Gaglioffo, Zazamanc strode into the black mouth of an even blacker tunnel as the great stone door swung silently shut behind them. Torches carved from old torture-racks, and soaked in the oil of human livers and spleens, blossomed into smoky light down the length of the tunnel, and Gaglioffo, peering fearfully from between his fingers, saw that they were held by naked human arms which somehow grew out of the rock walls.
In a stall barred with iron rods, the wizard left his hissing steeds to devour their meal of worms, maggots, lice and cockchafers, having unhitched the Wyverns. The chariot he dragged into an alcove carved from the rock. Then, dragging Gaglioffo along by the nape of his neck, he ascended a flight of black marble stairs and entered a large and capacious hall, lit by pits of flaming sulfur and brimstone.
He tossed the Paynim into a corner where a rat-gnawed skeleton hung from rusty chains, and left him to huddle weeping on a bed of filthy straw, while he ascended to his great throne-like chair, made of the skulls of babes and children mortared together with molten lead. Seating himself therein, and tossing the wreath of living serpents wound about his arms onto one hook of an iron hatrack, he kicked off his sandals and relaxed broodingly, his swarthy brows contorted into a frown indicative of deepest thought.
Thereafter, for a time, nothing in particular happened, and Gaglioffo gradually relaxed, seeing he was not about to be roasted on a spit or carved into cutlets momently. He began gazing around him, at first timidly, then with increasing interest and curiosity.
Upon the walls of rough black rock hung mounted upon wooden plaques the stuffed heads of frightful monstrosities, much in the manner of hunting trophies.
Gaglioffo had always been a poor scholar, more interested in pinching the village girls than in conning his books, but even one so unlettered as he was able to recognize the Lamussa by his black ringleted beard and human visage and the four horns which crowned its massive brow. Likewise did he recognize by its scaled and fin-maned horselike head the Hippocamp, and the Phalmant from its blood-colored hide and hideously distorted mouth, open in an eternal and soundless howl of fury. The Strycophanes, however, and the Bleps, to say nothing of the peculiar-looking Myrmicolion, were unknown to him, even by reputation.
Behind the huge, throne-chair, where the Egyptian sat deep in thought, the crumbling coffins of Egyptian mummies were stacked like cordwood; also, there hung in iron frames wrought from coffin-nails a number of photographs of odd-looking people, all of them affectionately signed to Zazamanc, with names so distinguished that the ugly Paynim was impressed in spite of himself: the Emperor Alifanfaron, King Fayoles IV, and the dauntless Brandabarbaran, Lord of the Three Arabys. This was even more impressive than Gaglioffo could imagine, since the science of photography had not been invented yet.
After a time, exhausted from the frights and terrors of the long day, Gaglioffo curled up on the filthy straw, and fell asleep, snoring lustily.
Suddenly Zazamanc roused him from his brown, or perhaps black, study, drew on his sandals, and strode to the rear of the hall where his magic mirror hung against the wall, reflecting in somber shades the gloomy recesses of the room.
“Reveal to me the present whereabouts of Kesrick of Dragonrouge, and his companions!” he commanded harshly. The mirror shimmered with eerie blue light, swirled in a vortex of luminous colors, and resolved itself into a scene. It showed the two knights and the two Princesses in earnest discussion within the Wandering Garden. Through the interstices of the trees, Zazamanc saw and recognized the peaks of the Cassanian Mountains, and realized that our adventurous heroes had arrived in a certain part of Libya familiar to him from of old.
This did not at all displease the Egyptian wizard, who grinned an evil grin, revealing his sharpened teeth. He rubbed his bony, clawlike hands together briskly, permitting the mirror to dissolve its image into darkness again.
“Hah!” he snorted in wicked anticipation, “then they are on their way, after all! Then, when they arrive, they shall have a warm welcome awaiting them, by Tarniel!”
With that he uttered a burst of cackling mirth, and strode off into the interior of his underground castle, leaving the Paynim snoring away.
At this same time, in the Wandering Garden of Acrasia, the Amazon Princess had solicited from each of the three adventurers an account of their travels and exploits, and of the perils through which they had fortunately passed unscathed. As you already know, this took a bit of time in the telling.
When they were finished with their narratives, the Princess Arimaspia politely inquired of Callipygia her own tale of adventures. The large girl shrugged.
“Easily and quickly told, Madame,” she said in her ringing tones. “I am one of the seventeen daughters of Megamastaia, the Queen of the Amazons; my country lies far to the east of these parts, in the regions beyond Hindoostan, and just before you reach the borders of Far Cathay. For uncounted ages, as you will probably know, we Amazons have denied ourselves the pleasure of the companionship of males, except and insofar as such persons are required by nature to partake in the engendering of children—”
At the thought, Sir Mandricardo broke into a rather rude guffaw, at which Callipygia broke off and transfixed him with a glare.
“We have anciently been a martial race of woman warriors, as you know,” the large girl continued, “but my royal mother, unlike her famous predecessors, such as Hippolyta, Penthesilaea, Kaydessa and so on, proved to have a natural aptitude for the bearing, and very much for the nursing, of children. It is not for naught,” she added off-handedly, “that the Queen is affectionately nicknamed Megamastaia of the Big Breasts.”
“Rather needful, I should think,” murmured Arimaspia sympathetically, “if one is to nurse no fewer than seventeen daughters!”
“Quite,” said Callipygia shortly. “Well, and at any rate, when I came of age, I determined to demonstrate to the Amazonians that the ancient dynasty had not, as you might say, petered out; in brief, I resolved to be as fierce and warlike as my mother was prolific and maternal.”
