Lost Worlds, page 4
Thus I went down the Hidden Stair to the secret crypt, burrowed deep into the bowels of the planet beneath the age-crumbling foundations of my palace, and there I caused my mute Rmoahal slaves to open the trapdoor, one single massy slab of hewn and polished onyx, revealing a black depth from which blew ever a chill and noxious wind.
And, steeling my soul, I called upon the power of the Xothic Key, and summoned slithering from his noisome burrows the Father of Worms himself, even undying and putrescent Ubb, leader and progenitor of the dreaded Yuggya—the Burrowers Beneath—the prehuman servitors of my god, who squirm and slither in the slime about his feet.
Like a great, glistening mass of putrid white jelly was Father Ubb, and his squat and quivering trunk supported naught but a swollen head wherein drooled a pink-rimmed, obscene orifice lined with triple rows of adamantine fangs. Now the Yuggya serve my lord Ythogtha and his brother, Zoth-Ommog, even as the Deep Ones serve Cthulhu and the Tcho-Tchos their lords, Zhar and Lloigor; and as the Flame-
Creatures strive ever to free Cthugha and the Serpent-men of Valusia sought to unchain their lord, Yig, so do the Yuggya tirelessly gnaw at the bonds that hold Ythogtba and Zotb-Ommog.
Emerging at length pale and shaken from my converse with Father Ubb, whose unholy stench is that of Abboth Itself, I gained the upper air with relief. But I had won the aid of the Burrowers Beneath to my great endeavor, and together we swore to open the Door to Yhe, though we incur the. wrath of the Elder Gods upon remote and rubicund Glyu-Vho!"
*In an often-quoted passage of the Necronomicon, Alhazred identifies this name, which is primal Naacal, as that of the star known to the Arabic astronomers of his day as Ibt al Janzah, which is to say, Betelgeuze.—Translator.
I chose the Day of the Writhing of the Aurora as most efficacious for my endeavor; and thence to the brink of the mighty Abyss of Yhe went I forth, with my few frightened acolytes in my train, and in the Hour of the Singing of the Green Vapor I stood upon the cliffs overlooking the gloom-veiled depths of the chasm and made the Scarlet Sacrifice while behind me arose the wailing chorus of mine acolytes in the uncouth and alien rhythms of the Yuggya Chants.
I performed the Red Ablution; I brandished the Xothic Key; I traced upon the trembling air in characters of supernal fire the Hieroglyphs of Yrr; I performed the Quaar Exorcism; I called upon the Dholes in eon-forgotten Aklo; I employed the lore of the Forbidden Litany; I summoned the Xlath Entities from beyond the extraspatial region of Asymmetrical Etheric Polarity.
I adored the Black Flame in a manner which maketh my soul to shrink and shudder within me to this hour; I called upon all of the gods of archaic Mu—upon the Great Ones (saving only the noxious and tyrannical Ghatanothoa), and upon the Lesser Ones, upon Yig the Serpent-Father, and shadowy Nug, and Yeb of the Whispering Mists, upon Iod the Shining Hunter, and Vorvadoss of Bel-Yarnak, the Troubler of the Sands—and upon Him Who Is To Come, and upon Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, who rule the Deep Ones who are his servants in the green sea.
And I uttered in a great voice The Name Which Is Not Ever To Be Uttered Aloud…
Above me tbe stars trembled and burned pale as waxen tapers in a draught…all save for the scarlet eye of Glyu-Vho, which blazed more brightly than before.
Beneath my heel the Earth shook with tremors; and from the dimly lit west, where titanic mountains march the breadth of Mu, deep subterranean thunders mumbled and cold black craters burst into flame, filling angry heaven with seething smoke.
Mine acolytes huddled before me, white faces hidden in shaking hands. And there was a great silence upon the Earth for seven breaths of time.
V
And then my heart leapt up within me for Lo! I had released the first of the seven bonds that had, from the immemorial depths of forgotten time, held prisoner the Abomination in the Abyss.
And he lifted himself above the brink of the vast chasm of Yhe and gazed down upon his arch-hierophant.
Very terrible was Ythogtha to the sight of men, and more huge than my mind could scarce accept.
Like a black glistening moon he rose above the brink, a gigantic hemisphere of quaking slime, vaster than any mountain. Faceless and neckless was he, save that from his front a terrific beak thrust forth. Cruel and terrible was this curved beak of blackest adamant, and it measured many thousands of paces in its length.
And then, half a league farther along the brink of the chasm, a second black, glistening, beaked head rose into sight—and another!—and then yet a third colossal beaked head rose above the lip of tbe Abyss!
And then it was true terror smote me to the heart, for I saw and knew my Lord in his awfulness …and we trembling mortals were dwarfed by him, like motes before the ponderous yakith-lizard were we…and, suddenly, horribly, I knew what I had done.
The acolyte huddled at my feet knew in the same instant, and squealed and wallowed in terror, wriggling from before the altar of the Abomination…to flee, staggering and stumbling, white to the lips, with wide, mad, staring eyes that burned with pale fire like sick moons…and I, too, quailed to the depths of my being and turned on trembling limbs, hurling from me with sudden horror the loathsome volume of the Rituals, which fell into the Abyss from which ultimate and mind-blasting Nightmare had but part way emerged… and I ran—ran—while the Earth shook and great crevices opened to split the land asunder…, ran, while mountain after mountain erupted in flame and thunder, and the sea boiled madly, and a great terrible shaft of unearthly light burned down the star-gulfs from distant Glyu-Vho…ran, even as down that star-beam descended, from the remote luminary that flamed like a wrathful and revenging eye athwart the volcano-shaken west, terrible great Things like Towers of Flame…which I knew to be either the Elder Gods or their servants…while sky-tall and burning towers swept the Abyss with their lightnings—and I fled through the gates of Yu-Haddoth, where dwelleth my king, but which lay now in smoking ruin, shaken by the great tremors of the Earth—and I scourged the panic-stricken multitudes before me—who knew not the true nature of the monstrous Thing / had almost freed—drove them shrieking into the vidya vahans, the ancient sky chariots of doom-fraught Mu… while the ground shook and the towers fell and mountain after mountain erupted…and we fled’ through the storm-torn skies and across the wind-lashed waves…fled all that unending night of flame and doom and chaos, while behind our sky-borne keels immemorial Mu crumbled under the mighty waves that beat in from the angry sea, and broke apart, shaken to its unstable core by the convulsions of outraged nature, lashed by starry fires of the Elder Gods… on we flew at length into a distant land near the Hidden Gates of elder Shamballah itself…but mere distance can not erase from my terror-frozen brain the ultimate glimpse of nethermost hell that shook my soul when I saw…and knew…that vast and beaked and mountainous head of the Thing in the Pit…that awful and eon-accursed Thing whose prodigious FINGERTIPS I had seen.
LEMURIA
Lemuria was really invented by the geologists, not the occultists, and they postulated its former existence to explain how the same species and fossils could be found on opposite sides of the ocean. It was originally in the Indian Ocean, by the way, before Madame Blavatsky and her gang moved it to the less crowded Pacific.
Hardly any fantasy writers have bothered much with Lemuria, which explains why I set my first novel there. Atlantis was the province of Kuttner, Smith, Gaskell and de Camp, but Lemuria was fair game. That first novel was about Thongor the Mighty, barbarian warrior of time’s dawn, cast very much in the mold of Conan. The book proved so popular that it is still in print and has fathered a half-dozen sequels and several short stories.
Following next are the first two short stories, laid earlier in Thongor’s career than are the novels. They were both written at the request of Hans Stefan Santesson, who wanted them for his sword and sorcery anthologies.
Since both of Hans’s anthologies have been out of print for ten years or so, it’s about time they were reprinted.
THIEVES OF ZANGABAL
I - In the Hall of Seven Gods
The priest Kaman Thuu was old and skeletal, his lean body wrapped in a robe of crimson velvet whereon the symbols of the Seven Gods of Zangabal were worked with stiff gold thread. Jeweled rings flashed and glittered on his clawed fingers and his eyes burned keen in his shaven, skull-like head.
“We are agreed then,” he purred. “For twenty pieces of gold you will rob the house of Athmar Phong the magician and fetch back to me the mirror of black glass you will find in his workshop. And this task you will fulfill this very night.”
“Aye,” the bronzed young giant grunted sourly, “but I like not the task.”
“I have already explained that you have naught to fear at the hands of Athmar Phong,” the priest reminded him silkenly. “This is the first day of Zamar, the first month of spring. On this night the magicians of the Gray Brotherhood to which Athmar Phong is sworn, meet on a mountain plateau far to the north of here for their vile and sorcerous sabbat. Thus will the magician be absent tonight, and thus you may thieve the mirror for us in utter safety.___”
“So you claim,” the youth growled, “and so it may well be. But it is never wise to meddle in the affairs of wizards, and their houses go seldom unguarded. What if this Ptarthan sorcerer has left behind a demon to watch over his treasures?”
A cold amusement flickered in the clever eyes of the gaunt priest. He ran his gaze over the broad shoulders, the long and powerfully muscled bare arms, and the heavy-thewed chest of the young barbarian who sat before him in the veiled antechamber of the temple. And he let his gaze linger on the massive hilt of the great two-handed Valkarthan broadsword that hung at the lean waist of the young thief in its long scabbard of dragon leather.
“Surely you are not…afraid?” he suggested slyly.
The young barbarian flushed angrily. His strange gold eyes, that burned with sullen, wrathful fires under scowling black brows in his tanned face under the thick, unshorn mane of black hair blazed with sudden temper. Then they cleared, and the youth threw back his head and laughed.
“Gorm!” he rumbled. “You sit here secure in your silken nest, a pure and holy priest of the Gods of Zangabal who would never sully his sanctified, fingertips with blood or crime—and pay another man to take risks and dare the perils you would shudder to face—and then taunt him with a hint of cowardice!” The burly young barbarian laughed again, and spat on the marble flags and the fine Pelorra carpet. “Wizards and priests! You are alike, the both of you—and I would have dealings with neither, if I had my way!”
The gaunt skull-face of Kaman Thuu tightened and his voice grew harsh and contemptuous. “Would you rather starve like a whining beggar in the back alleys of Zangabal, barbarian? Because that you will do if you refuse the task I have set you. Remember, the Thieves’ Guild is powerful in our city: to make your living as a thief here you must join the guild, or fight both your brother thieves and the city guard each time you attempt a robbery. And to enter the guild, you must pay a heavy fee in gold. For weeks, by your own account, you have fought oyer scraps like a half-starved animal, stealing from the bazaar, lifting a fat purse, scrabbling like an unza for a bare subsistence. I alone have offered you gold for a task: reject my offer, and you perish miserably either of a starved belly or at the hand of the guild—”
The young barbarian—his name was Thongor—waved away this cloud of words with a grunt of surly acknowledgment.
“I know all this, priest. And I also know why you come to me, an outlander, with your offer—because the self-respecting thieves of Zangabal have already rejected you. By Gorm the Father of Stars—even the cunning thieves of Zangabal dare not steal from this Ptarthan mage! But 1 must do it, or starve: so save your breath. But I still ask: what if this Athmar Phong has left a demon to guard his house while he is absent? I have fought beasts and men ere now. but no warrior can pit naked steel against hell-spawn and live!”
The priest smirked, narrowed thoughtful eyes,
“There is some truth in what you say, barbarian. Athmar Phong is reputed to hold a familiar spirit or elemental bound to his service. That is why we of the Temple are willing to entrust to your hands a rare amulet which is one of our treasures—”
He dipped one bony, bejeweled hand into his crimson robes and brought forth a small object of curious workmanship which he set gently on the tabletop between them, moving to one side the empty wine bottle and the remains of the meal of broiled bouphar steak which had somewhat appeased his guest’s ravenous appetite.
The thing was as long as a man’s middle finger and made of colorless crystal. It glittered in the orange light of the candelabra. Thongor picked it up gingerly, turning it so it caught the light. He scrutinized the amulet but could make nothing of it The surface of the lucent crystal was engraved with a pattern of tiny hieroglyphics in some unknown language. He grunted sourly. A simple barbarian, bred in the savage wilderness of the frozen north, far from perfumed cities and silk-clad men, he had a healthy warrior’s contempt for all this foul, sly witchery. Still, there was an odd glitter to the thing: and his fingers tingled with faint currents of some uncanny force locked within the very structure of the crystal…
“What does this gewgaw do?” he rumbled mistrustfully.
“This amulet is called the Shield of Cathloda,” the priest told him in a severe tone. “It is a rare protective amulet which diverts and absorbs the attack of magical forces, and it was made a thousand years ago in Zaar the Black City far to the east. It will rechannel or cancel anything up to ninth-order forces. Fear not, even if Athmar Phong has left magical traps or a guardian Familulus of some kind, you will walk safely and unharmed…”
Thongor studied the crystal cylinder for a few moments. Then he stood up, slipping the amulet into his pocket-pouch and drawing an immense hooded black cloak about his brawny shoulders…
“Very well, priest,” he growled. “I will chance it for your gold…although something tells me it is a bargain I will yet live to regret—if I live!”
II - Black Catacombs
The priest thereupon led him forth from the veiled antechamber and into the central nave of the colossal temple. At this hour of night there were no worshippers in the vast domed hall, which was murmurous with whispering echoes and filled with vague depths of gloom.
At the far end of the hall, which was lined with titanic pillars of gray stone that loomed up into the darkness of the vault above like stone sequoia, stood towering idols hewn from seven kinds of stone: the Seven Gods they worshipped here in Zangabal on the Gulf. Thongor eyed them grimly, unimpressed. The winged colossi, bearing mystic attributes and symbols in their many arms, tridents, stylized thunderbolts, crowns, swords and less-recognizable accouterments, glared down at him, their stone faces shining in the dim gleam of coiling blue flames which glided heavenwards from a vast bronze bowl on the alabaster altar. The superstitions of the barbarian were bred deep in him, stamped deep in blood, brain and bone: but he knew them not, these alien godlings of the tropic, jungle-clad southlands: he swore only in the name of Father Gorm, the grim divinity of the dark northern wastes of ice and snow.
The priest led him around to the rear of the sevenfold dais whereon were upreared the stone colossi. And there he touched a hidden catch. A panel of thick marble sank from view, soundless and sudden as a feat of magic, revealing the yawning mouth of a black cavern. Thongor growled, nape-hairs bristling at the thought of entering the ominous secret portal.
“This hidden route will carry you to the house of Athmar Phong,” the priest said smoothly. “You will follow the yellow symbols only: they are shaped like the Yan Hu glyph—you know the characters of our southland language, do you not?”
“Aye,” he nodded curtly.
’Then follow only the yellow Yan Hu, and it will lead you to the pits under the magician’s house. Let me caution you not to stray from the path thus delineated, for other character mark other routes, such as, for example, the Shan Yom glyph, marked in red, which leads to the waterfront. You will come up beneath the house and will thus avoid the many magical traps or defenses the Ptarthan wizard has doubtless set over his walls, his doors and his windows.”
Despite the priest’s soothing words, the brawny young warrior still hesitated at the threshold of the black tunnel’s mouth.
“What are these cursed caverns—how came they here?” he demanded. “Since I bear your crystal toy, why should I not take my chances with the front gates and walk the streets under the open skies like a man? I am no skulking unza to slink through your stinking sewers!”
The priest answered smoothly: “These cavernous passageways are very old; indeed, their origins are lost in the dim mists of the ancient past. But the chronicles of our Temple tell that at the end of The Thousand Year War with the fall of Nemedis in the east, the Children of Nemedis came thither to found the Nine Cities of the west. It was Yaklar of the House of Ruz was Lord of the founding of Zangabal, and it is written that the hidden ways were here even ere the walls of the city were first raised. More than this we know not, but by means of this secret the Temple is mighty in Zangabal, and even the Sark in his palace is beyond the reach of our eyes and ears, for the tunnels extend even under the royal precinct. But come, barbarian, you must linger no more: night passes swift-winged, and you must accomplish the theft of the Black Mirror ere dawn or be surprised in the midst of the task by the returning of Athmar Phong…,”
The gaunt priest stood by the open portal until the grimfaced young warrior had vanished in the darkness of the tunnels; then he released the secret spring and closed the hidden door again,
He stood for a moment, fingering his lean jaw with bony fingers. With luck, the mirror would be in his possession before the first hour of morning, and with it—power! Power to bend even the strong will of Athmar Phong to do his bidding. Power to command the secret of the mirror, by which he thought he saw a clear path from this place to a higher…to the throne of Zangabal itself He smiled a slow, evil smile at the thought.
