Lin Carter - Zanthodon 2 - Zanthodon

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Zanthodon
Zanthodon
by Lin Carter
Chapter 1. WARRIORS OF THE STONE AGE
As somebody once said, without the power of sheer coincidence life would be duller than dishwater. Or
if nobody ever said it, somebody should have.
It had been pure coincidence that I had met Professor Percival P. Potter, Ph.D., in the native bazaar of
Port Said. If I had come along a moment or two earlier-or a moment or two later-we would never have
encountered each other. And he would never have hired me and my Sikorsky helicopter, Babe, for his
expedition into the Ahaggar region of North Africa.
Which would have meant that neither of us would have found our way into the Underground World of
Zanthodon.
For beneath the hollow mountain, far below the earth's crust, we discovered a vast cavernous region
presumably created by the impact of an enormous meteor of antimatter in prehistoric times. Whispered
of in old Sumerian myths, Babylonian legends, Hebrew writings, the Underground World, we found,
was a realm of marvels and perils beyond belief.
For into that gigantic subterranean land had filtered, over the ages, remnants of the extinct dinosaurs of
the Jurassic -and sabertooths and cave bears and mastodons from the Ice Age. And men, too-both the
hulking, apelike and primitive Neanderthals and their tall, stalwart, handsome near-contemporaries, the
Cro-Magnons, our own direct ancestors.
Locked together in a life-or-death struggle for survival were these twin branches of primordial
humankind . . . and both were at war with hostile nature, the savage wilderness and the mighty beasts
that roamed and ruled this fantastic world.
Into the very midst of that endless war for survival and supremacy the Professor and I had been thrust.
Captured by slave raiders from the Neanderthal country of Kor, we had met and befriended the beautiful
Stone Age girl, Darya, who had won us to the cause of her people.
She was about seventeen and absolutely the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen. Which may perhaps
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explain how she recruited so easily a tough, hard-bitten soldier of fortune like myself, and a wooly-
headed, absentminded old scientist like Doc.
Not only was the Cro-Magnon girl the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on, but she was also
totally different from the women I had previously known. Nearly naked, save for a skimpy, apron-like
garment of soft, elegantly tanned furs, which extended over one breast and shoulder but left bare the
other perfect young breast and creamy, rounded shoulder, she was lithe and supple, her slim, tanned
body graceful as an acrobat's. She had a long, flowing mane of silky hair the color of ripe corn and wide,
dark-lashed eyes as blue as rainwashed April skies and a full, luscious mouth the tint of wild
strawberries.
Darya had been a revelation to me: imagine a girl who had never heard of perfume, cosmetics, mascara
or underwired bras . . . a young female ignorant of the latest fads and fashions . . . a lithe, teen-aged
Amazon who could swim, hunt, fight like a man but was as soft and sweet and demure as any princess in
a fairy tale.
Such was Darya, gomad or princess of the Stone Age kingdom of Thandar. Is it any wonder I had fallen
helplessly in love with her?
Together we had managed to escape from our captivity by the Apemen of Kor, but not without making
some enemies. Among these foes were Fumio, the handsome but villainous Cro-Magnon chieftain who
had been an unsuccessful suitor for Darya's hand; and One-Eye the Neanderthal, who had seized the
kingship of Kor when I had slain Uruk the former High Chief with my revolver; and Xask, wily and
cunning vizier of Kor, who was of neither race, but an exile fled from the wrath of his own mysterious
people, who dwelt somewhere in the interior, far from the shores of the sea of Sogar-Jad.
But we had made good friends, as well. There was Hurok, the brawny Neanderthal to whom I had taught
the meaning of friendship; and Jorn the Hunter, a brave youth from Darya's tribe; and her mighty sire
himself, Tharn, stalwart Omad or king of distant Thandar.
Just when it seemed that all of our difficulties were at an end, the mysterious force of coincidence
intervened once again.
Pursued by a great war party of Korians, Tharn's small host of warriors (searching for the lost Darya)
had seemed outmatched. But a fortuitously timed stampede of huge pachyderms had crushed the
Apemen of Kor, while the men of Thandar had fled to safety behind the dense wall of the jungles. We
did not at that point in our adventures realize that Xask, One-Eye and Fumio had eluded the destruction
which had consumed the warriors of Kor.
However, coincidence had separated us. Jorn the Hunter and Professor Potter had sought to penetrate a
narrow pass through the Peaks of Peril, believing they were closely behind the long-lost Darya. What
they in fact discovered beyond those sinister mountains we, far behind them, did not at that time know.
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Neither did we know that Jorn, that gallant and faithful youth, had seemingly perished not long
thereafterleaving the helpless old scientist alone and friendless in the most hostile wilderness on (or
under) the earth.
I had been separated from my friends, remaining with Darya's mighty sire and his small force of fighting
men, and with me was my giant friend, Hurok. At this time, I was ignorant of the fates which had
befallen Jorn, Darya and the Professor, as were they of mine.
All I knew was that my friends were lost somewhere in the fetid jungles or grassy plains or unexplored
mountains of Zanthodon. And in this weird and magnificent and terrible lost world ten thousand perils
lie in wait for the unarmed or unwary traveler.
Even at this moment my beloved Darya might be suffering the cruelest of dooms.
Even now my friends might be staring into the fanged maw of one of the enormous predators that ruled
this savage world.
And I-would I ever know of their end?
In the first section of these journals I have narrated the tale of our adventures up to this point in far more
explicit detail than the brief, cursory account given above. Since I cannot be fully certain that the first
part of my journal* has survived intact the rigors of travel, I have briefly encapsulated a description of
how my friends and foes and I arrived at this point in our travels.
Now let me take up my tale where I left it off . . . for, if anything, the second-part of my adventures in
Zanthodon the Underground World is even more incredible and fantastic than that which I have
previously narrated.
If any eye but mine will ever peruse these words, that is ....
Under the eternal noontide skies of Zanthodon we rested and broke our fast. Huntsmen easily found the
woods teeming with game, for the stampede of the mammoths had driven smaller and more defenseless
creatures from the plain to take refuge in the jungle's edge, even as we had done.
In no time, cook-fires flared along the margin of the jungle and the air was redolent with the aroma of
roast uld turning slowly on the spit.
Squatting on our heels, our backs to the bole of a mighty Jurassic conifer, we consulted as to the course
of action we should choose, the leaders of the Thandarian host and I.
Dominating the council, as he would naturally dominate any gathering into which he entered, was
Tharn, Omad or King of the Stone Age realm of Thandar, which lay distantly somewhere to the south.
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A very impressive figure of a man was this jungle monarch. Taller and heavier than I, his magnificent
frame was superbly equipped with massive thews, and the innate majesty of his mien and manner would
have marked him as royal in any age or society. His features were stern, with a strong jaw and fierce
blue eyes under a lofty brow, framed in thick yellow mane and short curly beard. Heavy mustaches
swept back to either side of his mouth and his head was crowned with a peculiar headdress whose main
ornaments were two curved ivory fangs of prodigious length-the fangs of the vandar, or giant sabertooth.
A triple necklace of the fangs of smaller beasts circled his strong throat. His tanned, muscular torso was
bare, but there were heavy rings of bronze clasped about his brawny arms. An abbreviated garment of
dappled fur clothed his loins, laced buskins of tanned leather clad his feet, a bronze dagger slept in its
sheath of reptile hide at his waist, secured by a thong. Beside him, never far from his right hand, a long
spear with leaf-shaped blade of hammered bronze rested against the tree trunk, and at his left a long
wickerwork shield lay, covered with thick, tough hide.
Such a man was Tharn of Thandar, King of the Stone Age.
Just then he was speaking. The crude, primitive language spoken universally across the breadth of
Zanthodon assumed dignity and resonance as it fell slowly from his lips.
"Against all hope, our enemies have been dispersed and trodden into the dust," he said solemnly. "This
victory, while not entirely of our own devising, yet stands to be acted upon. Shall we next pursue what
remnants of the Drugars survived the stampede of the herd of trantors, follow them to their distant
country of Kor upon the island of Ganadol and thus exterminate their repellent kind from the world
forever . . . or shall we search yet farther for the gomad Darya, my daughter, who may yet live? What
say you?"
Komad pursed his thin lips judiciously. The grizzled old chief scout, who sat across from his lord, was
lean and wiry as the shaft of a spear. He said little, leaving the talk to others more voluble than himself;
but when such a man as Komad speaks, men tend to listen.
"We came into this country to find the Princess, my Chief," said Komad shortly. "It would be less than
manly to give over that quest until we have proof that she no longer lives. As for the Drugars, they are
few and scattered and can do us little harm, now or later. Let them slink back to Kor with their tails
between their legs, unmolested."
The others grunted in agreement. Beside me, Hurok shifted his enormous bulk uncomfortably. The
Drugars do not like to be called Drugars, any more than the panjani enjoy being called panjani. This
seems to be the way of the world, as I have observed the same reaction among the peoples of the earth's
surface as well.
I turned to Hurok, questioningly.
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"What is your opinion?" I asked him bluntly. "Do the Korians pose any further danger to us, or did the
trantor stampede virtually wipe them out?" The question was not as rude as it may sound: outlawed by
Uruk and hated by the present Chief, One-Eye, Hurok must from now on consider his own people to be
his enemies.
He regarded me solemnly, shrewd, melancholy eyes blinking from beneath his overhanging brow.
"Few are the warriors of Kor left to give battle against Black Hair and his people," he grunted, Black
Hair being Hurok's name for me. "No fewer than five tens of dugouts it must have taken to bring the
warriors of Uruk the Chief hither, with no fewer than ten of the men of Kor in each. All, or almost all,
must have been slain by the arrows of the Thandarians or beneath the feet of the trantors"
His heavy voice was somber as he recited the numbers of his tribe who had perished upon this very plain
less than an hour ago. As well it might be, for five hundred warriors had died here . . . and, although
cruel savages, the Apemen are brave and mighty warriors.
"And what say you, Eric Carstairs?" the jungle monarch inquired gravely. I shrugged.
"As for myself, I shall continue the search for Darya, your daughter, and for my friend Professor Potter,
wherever you and your men choose to march," I said quietly.
A proud gleam shone approvingly in the eagle eyes of Tharn. He nodded with dignity.
"So be it, then," the High Chief said. "The search goes on."
Chapter 2. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
Tharn and his warriors-and Hurok and myself, as well-were at that time suffering under a serious
misapprehension. For the evidence we had discovered in the glade seemed to suggest that the Princess
had been carried off and probably devoured by one of the numerous gigantic predators who roam this
strange subterranean world.
This we believed for the simple reason that Tharn's scouts had found the girl's tracks in a forest clearing,
together with certain articles which were thought to have belonged to Darya of Thandar.
The footprints terminated in torn and blood-bespattered turf, and while there were footprints leading to
the spot, there were none which led therefrom . . . .
But Tharn of Thandar was not completely convinced. To such great-hearted men as the jungle monarch,
death remains unproven until the last doubt has been dissolved.
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And as for myself, I could not believe that the gallant, golden-haired girl was dead, that her bright,
mercurial spirit was forever quenched, and her slim, vibrant loveliness mangled between the fearsome
jaws of some mighty reptile from Time's Dawn.
And, in actual fact, events had turned to other, happier conclusions. For the fate of Darya was more
mysterious and far stranger than any of us could possibly have dreamed!
As you who have read the first part of these journals may remember, the cave girl had actually been
carried off by a giant pterodactyl, but this occurred shortly after she had been attacked and almost raped
by Fumio, from whom Jorn rescued her. The marks of trampled turf found by the Thandarian scouts and
huntsmen were the scene of her attack by the villainous Fumio. We were at this time still ignorant of the
fact that the flying reptile had borne her far from this place to its nest amid the Peaks of Peril to the
north, beyond the plains of the trantors.
Therefore-whether alive or dead-we all believed Darya to be somewhere near at hand.
We feasted upon the roast uld and other game slain by the huntsmen. Then we rested briefly from our
battle against the Apemen of Kor, while the warriors gathered up those of their arrows which had not
been broken beneath the trampling feet of the stampeding mammoths, and their flung spears which had
likewise survived intact.
Soon we went forward along the edge of the jungle, with search parties combing the depths of the woods
while keeneyed scouts searched the plains for some sign of Darya, Jorn and the Professor.
I strode along behind the others, feeling restless and ill at ease. Everything within me instinctively
hungered to strike forth on my own to search for my lost friends. I have always been a loner, never much
of one for teamwork. And it seemed to me, with half a hundred warriors, scouts and hunters along, the
weight of our numbers would somehow slow me down in my personal quest.
I don't know quite how to explain this to you; it was just a feeling in my bones that I would accomplish
more, and more swiftly, if I were on my own.
We were moving steadily west, toward the shores of the Sogar-Jad, with the jungle at our left and the
plains to our right.
Beyond those plains loomed the peaks of mountains unknown to me. Glancing curiously at them, I
thought to ask Hurok what he knew concerning them.
"Men call them the Peaks of Peril," he said in his solemn, deep voice. "Black Hair would be wise to
avoid them, for they have an unwholesome reputation. And Black Hair's she could not possibly have
gone so far."
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"How do you know?" I demanded testily. "She could be anywhere, by this time."
Hurok regarded me, a look of baffled uncomprehension in his dim eyes. I have remarked before on the
remarkable fact that the warriors of Zanthodon are completely ignorant of the existence of time, and
have no word for the concept in their language. I had, unthinkingly, employed the English word in lieu
of a Zanthodonian equivalent. Hence, I had puzzled him.
We plodded along in the wake of the more swiftly moving Thandarians, who advanced along the margin
of the jungle at a steady, space-devouring trot. I found myself lagging behind.
"Black Hair does not wish to accompany his people?" inquired Hurok after a time. I had explained to
him that these were not my people, of course, and that my own homeland lay a vast distance away, but
to the limited intelligence of the Apeman there were only two races of men-Drugars and panjani. And I
was a panjani; hence Darya's people were my own.
I shook my head wordlessly, not bothering to answer, knowing I could not successfully put into words
the vague feelings that oppressed my spirits. But I kept looking across the plains at the row of sharp-
toothed mountains my companion had called the Peaks of Peril. Something about them attracted my
restless, wandering attention . . . .
When Xask and Fumio had observed, from the safety of the great trees which stood like a palisade along
the jungle's edge, the carnage which had destroyed all but a few of the Drugars when they were caught
and trampled under the thundering feet of the stampeding pachyderms, they rightfully concluded that
their continued presence in these parts could easily constitute a disaster; for, if Tharn and his warriors
caught them lurking in the underbrush, both would have a heavy price to pay.
Xask was known as the renegade vizier who had formerly served Uruk, High Chief of the Apemen of
Kor. And, as for Fumio, like all cowardly traitors, he was tormented by dread that his attempted rape of
Tharn's daughter had been discovered by now. Neither of this pretty pair of villains wished to hang
around long enough to be discovered, and neither desired to face the music.
So, after a mutual glance, they melted into the underbrush and vanished among the trees. True, neither
could think of any particular haven of safety to which they could flee, but almost anywhere else in
Zanthodon was healthier for them than where they were.
So eager were they to be gone that they did not stick around long enough to learn that One-Eye had
cleverly escaped the doom of his countrymen. The cruel and brutal bully had survived the stampede by
the merest chance, flinging himself prone in a narrow trench as the mammoths came thundering down
upon the Apemen. Bruised and battered, covered with dirt and nearly deafened from the earth-shaking
tread of the maddened pachyderms, he had nevertheless lived through the ordeal and was not seriously
harmed. As soon as he could safely do so, One-Eye came scrambling up out of his hole in the ground
and took to the trees.
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With the agility of the apelike ancestors he so closely resembled, he quickly scaled one of the lofty
Jurassic conifers. Lying flat upon a mighty branch, he searched the aisles of the jungle beneath his aerie
with one squinting, keen eye. And thus it was that he observed the hasty and surreptitious flight of Xask
and Fumio, both of whom-he instantly recognized.
To be lost and alone in a jungle now swarming with his deadly enemies was not a situation which
exactly appealed to the hulking Neanderthal. Without thought, almost by instinct alone, he sprang from
the branch, seizing a long jungle vine, and swung into the upper branches of a neighboring tree.
Traveling in this manner, he was able to outdistance the Thandarians, and to keep his two erstwhile
confederates in view.
For a plan was slowly evolving through the dim, dull wits of One-Eye.
And unfortunately it involved myself!
It was not long before Xask and Fumio discovered that they were being pursued.
Seizing the slight arm of his comrade, Fumio uttered a warning word. Then, dropping prone upon the
ground, the Thandarian warrior pressed one ear against the turf. Far and faint the sounds of running feet
were, but a hunter of the Stone Age develops keen senses or starves.
He raised a frightened face to Xask. "They are following us!" whimpered Fumio. His companion
regarded him quizzically.
"Who is following us?" he inquired curiously.
"It can only be Tharn-Tharn the Mighty!" cried Fumio in an agony of despair.
"Tharn, whose daughter you attempted to rape, before Jorn the Hunter made you turn tail and run?"
inquired the other, maliciously.
The eyes of Fumio faltered and fell. "Even so," he breathed.
Xask regarded him thoughtfully. A tall and strikingly handsome specimen of manhood was Fumio of
Thandar, but nature had made his heart weak and cowardly, and Jorn's fist had demolished his slim,
handsome nose. Now, pale and sweating with fear, his sleek mane rumpled, his hands shaking, he was a
remarkably unattractive specimen. And, for a moment, Xask considered deserting him and escaping
alone, for he was becoming more of a liability than an asset.
But then he reconsidered. So far as Xask knew, the warriors and huntsmen of Thandar as yet had not
learned of Fumio's traitorous attempt on the maidenhood of his princess. Thus they could hardly have
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reason to pursue the fugitives; doubtless, they were merely searching the jungles, hoping to find some
trace of the lost girl.
In rapid words he apprised Fumio that his fears were groundless. Although relieved, Fumio was still
worried.
"Perhaps so," he panted, "but if they continue in this direction, they will find us, nonetheless . . . ."
"Then we will climb a tree," suggested Xask. "And they will go by underneath us. Since they are not
searching for us, they will not bother searching the treetops to find us. Come-let us do this quickly. I
have no wish to be taken prisoner by the enemies of Kor, for many of them will know of my former
position among the Drugars."
Fumio possessed great strength and vigor, nor was Xask, with his slender, wiry build, exactly feeble.
They ascended the nearest tree and found places to conceal themselves behind convenient masses of
dense foliage.
Before long, the two observed a grizzled Thandarian enter their vicinity. Fumio easily recognized the
man as Komad, leader of the scouts. They watched as he went past their airy perch without once pausing
to search the foliage aloft with his keen eyes. He vanished into the jungle gloom, soon followed by
others.
Once the main body of the Thandarian war party had passed them by, both fugitives breathed easier.
But not for very long. With startling suddenness, a massive weight descended upon the broad branch
where they crouched and huge hairy hands caught both men by the scruff of the neck, knocking their
heads together with a resounding thump.
Dizzy-fear-frozen-they stared up into the ugly, grinning visage of One-Eye!
Displaying broken, discolored, tusk-like teeth in a broad grin, their captor uttered a phlegmy grunt,
which was obviously his version of amused laughter.
"One-Eye never knew before that snakes could climb trees!" he chuckled.
Hurok surveyed me puzzledly, for the two of us had fallen well behind the main body of the Thandarians
and I must have seemed to my giant friend reluctant, for some mysterious reason, to keep up with them.
"If Black Hair lingers here, his people will outdistance him," he observed at last.
I nodded, saying nothing. The fact of the matter was, quite simply, something within me clamored
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urgently to know about that row of distant rocky spires the savages knew by the ominous name of the
Peaks of Peril.
A silent inward voice seemed to be drawing my attention thither. And I could not explain this to my
huge companion any more than I could explain it to myself. But a lifetime of adventure and danger had
taught me to trust my intuition.
And intuition told me I should strike forth on my own and venture among the Peaks of Peril.
I had, at that time, no way of knowing that it was into the shadow of those mysterious mountains that
Darya, my beloved, had vanished. Instinct alone urged me thither.
But to leave the safety afforded by numbers and to venture forth on my own was more than reckless, it
was downright foolhardy. And I certainly had no right to risk the life of my faithful, loyal friend Hurok
in following a mere hunch.
"I have decided not to accompany the panjani," I explained haltingly to my companion. "Something calls
me to those peaks, and I must follow that call . . . ."
He regarded me with curiosity in his small, dim eyes.
"Is it that Black Hair feels his stolen she might be found in the mountain country?" he asked after a small
lapse of time in his heavy bass voice. I shrugged helplessly.
"I do not know!" I confessed.
He regarded me stolidly, his expression unreadable.
After a time, he grunted, "To quit the war party of the panjani and go forth into an unknown country is
very dangerous." It was a remark made in neutral tones, not a complaint or an argument.
"I know," I said. "And I will not ask you to go with me, Hurok, my friend. The panjani will not harm
you, for they know you to be my friend. You need not accompany Black Hair into the unknown-for
those peaks, you have told me, have a most unsavory reputation. Let me go on my own way and follow
where my heart urges me; you can always go back to Kor and rejoin your own people. With Uruk and
One-Eye dead, you could become the High Chief yourself! It would be very selfish of me to try to hold
you by my side when you have no longer any reason to journey with me."
He regarded me with a somber gaze.
"Is it that Black Hair no longer wishes the company of Hurok?" he inquired at last.
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ZanthodonZanthodonbyLinCarterChapter1.WARRIORSOFTHESTONEAGEAssomebodyoncesaid,withoutthepowerofsheercoincidencelifewouldedullerthandishwater.Orifnobodyeversaidit,somebodyshouldhave.IthadbeenpurecoincidencethatIhadmetProfessorPercivalP.Potter,Ph.D.,inthenativebazaarofPortSaid.IfIhadcomealongamomen...

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