Princess of Amathar

Princess of Amathar

By

Wesley M. Allison

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual people, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2007 by Wesley M. Allison

All rights reserved.

Cover art: © Luca Oleastri | Dreamstime.com

Second ebook Edition

Printed in the United States

To Victoria Allison and Edgar Rice Burroughs

Princess of Amathar

Chapter One: Transported to Ecos

I don't expect you to believe this story, but it is the truth. My name is Alexander Ashton. I was born in the heart of the American west. I have often been known to say that I was born either a hundred years too late, or perhaps a hundred years too early. It always seemed to me that I had the misfortune to live in the single most unexciting period of time the panorama of history had to offer. I don't say that I longed to be transported to another time or to another world, for never in my wildest dreams did I believe this to be possible. I was destined to be surprised.

I was born in a small city. I played as a child in a park that was once a dusty street where outlaws of the old west fought famous gunfights. When I was seven, my parents were killed in a motor vehicle accident. I really remember little of them. I was put in a state run children’s home where I lived until I was eighteen, passed by time after time by prospective adoptive parents, primarily because I was too old. I hold no ill feelings about it now. If there is one thing I learned while I was a ward of the state, it is that no matter how bad off one may be, there is always some one worse off than you are. After graduating high school and being set on my own by the state, I entered college at the local university. I became a voracious reader and excelled in athletics, but did poorly in my required studies. After two semesters of academic probation I was asked to leave. I walked down the street to the Army Recruiter's office and enlisted. There wasn't much to the army, since there was no war on at the time. While I was there, I did learn to shoot, and fight with a saber, and to keep in good physical condition, but otherwise I left the service just as I had gone in.

After finding a new apartment in my old home town, I happened to run into a fellow whom I knew from college. He was running a small grocery store, and doing quite well, since no large grocery chain was interested in such a small market area. He offered me a job, I took it, and we became pretty close friends.

My friend, the grocery store owner, was engaged to a nice girl, and they decided in time to get married. I was chosen to be the best man. The wedding was nice, and the reception was even better. I have never been much of a drinking man, but that night I made a name for myself in that capacity. I don't know why I drank so much. Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself and my lot in life, I don't know. I do know that in short order, I had worked myself into a staggering, slobbering, half-conscious stupor. How, when, and where I became unconscious, I cannot say, but at some point I did. And this is where my story truly begins.

I awoke with a chill in my bones. I was lying down in a small stream bed with icy water running over my feet. I tried to rise, but couldn't. My body was stiff and weak and its only response was to shiver uncontrollably. Around me was a thick forest, and I could see dark shapes moving around in the trees. I sensed then, on some deeper level, that I was in a place I had never been before. Then I heard a deep growling as I passed once again into unconsciousness.

When next I awoke I looked around to find myself in a small shack. I was lying on a cot made of animal furs, and I was bathed in a cold sweat. The walls of the small shelter were made from cut logs and a roughly fashioned wooden chair was the room's only furnishing. When the door of the shack opened, I truly believed for the first time in my life that there were life forms other than those I was familiar with on Earth.

The creature that stepped inside the door, and closed it after him, was most ugly. That he was intelligent was demonstrated not only by the fact that he had opened and then closed the door, but also by the fact that he wore clothing--ugly clothing yes, but clothing nonetheless. He was about five feet tall and stood in a kind of perpetual crouch. His body was covered with coarse brown hair, two to three inches long, from his head to his feet, which reminded me of the feet of a dog or a wolf, although larger. He was somewhat wolf-like in every aspect, such as his protruding snout, but he also seemed somewhat baboon-like in his expressive eyes. I am comparing him to earthly animals, but this is really inadequate, as the similarities were actually quite superficial, and he was totally unearthly in appearance. I remember most looking at his hands. He had four fingers not too different from my own, but his abbreviated thumb possessed a great, long, curving claw.

The creature, stepping slowly over to me, reached out a hand and gave me a piece of dried fruit. I was quite hungry and the fruit was quite good. As I began to eat, the creature began to bark and growl at me. At first I thought he was angry, but then I realized that he was trying to communicate in his language. I was too tired to respond and fruit still in hand, passed back into sleep. The next time I woke the creature was sitting in the chair looking at me with his head cocked to one side. I pushed myself up on one elbow and he spoke to me again, this time in a more human sort of language. It seemed almost like French, but having learned a few phrases of that language in the army, I knew it was not. This language was so much less nasal. He pointed to his chest and said "Malagor" then he pointed to me. I said "Alexander". He smiled wide exposing a magnificent row of long, sharp teeth. My language lessons had begun.

It took a long time for me to recover from my illness. It seemed to me that I was nursed by the creature for at least a month. I slept many times, but each time I awoke I found light streaming in the window. Not once did I wake to find darkness, or even the pale light of the moon, outside the window. During this long period of time, my host provided me with food and water, took care of my sanitary needs and of course, taught me to speak his language. One of the first things that I learned was that "Malagor" was not the name of my companion, but was instead his race or species. He told me his real name, which seemed to be a growl with a cough thrown in for good measure. I decided that I would call him

"Malagor", and he didn't seem to mind.

As soon as I was physically able, Malagor helped me to the door. I was understandably anxious to see the world outside because the presence of Malagor, and an indescribable gut feeling, both told me that the world beyond that wooden threshold was not the world into which I had been born. I stepped outside with my shoulder supported by the alien. For a moment I was blinded by the brightness of the sun, but after my eyes adjusted to the increase in light, I looked around. At first glance the scene before me was no different than a thousand other views found in many scenic valleys on Earth. The small crude log cabin sat at the edge of a large beautiful golden plain near a lovely green forest. The horizon was formed in the distance by a line of low rolling hills. But as I let my eye roam toward the sky above those hazy hills, I found that there was something different and unsettling about the sky. It was as if the edge of the world blurred up into the sky. It was as if I was standing in a great bowl, with the edges rising up all around me. In reality I could discern little more than a greenish brown band above the horizon, but I felt as if I could, concentrating hard enough, make out more hills, more meadows, and plains and forests and the shore of a mighty sea, pasted on the edge of the firmament. The world, instead of disappearing over the horizon, rose up into the sky, actually becoming a part of the sky. And above it all, high above, stood the noon day sun. I felt weak. Malagor steadied me and helped me back inside the cabin. He sat me down in the chair and gave me a drink of water from a wooden cup that he had apparently carved especially for me. Then he sat down on the floor.

"Tell me about this world,” I said when I had finished my water.

"You are not from this world," he stated, matter-of-factly. "I thought this when I found you in the forest."

"No I am not. I am from a very different world," I replied, "but tell me of this one."

"The world is Ecos. That is the name. It is a great sphere. We are in the inside surface. What is outside, no one knows. The sun is in the middle of the world. It shines on all."

"If the sun is always above you," I asked, "how do you know when it is night time?"

"I do not know night time. What is night?"

"How do you know when to sleep?"

"One sleeps when one is sleepy." He gave me such a strange look that I had to laugh out loud.

"Your people live in Ecos?"

For a moment he turned away. Then he looked back at me. "Many different species live in Ecos. Many of these species are intelligent beings. I myself have seen many of these."

"But we are speaking the language of your people?"

Malagor opened his mouth wide and his tongue fell out the side. I had learned that this was his way of smiling. He replied.

"When I first found you I spoke to you in the language of the Malagor, but nature was unkind to you and gave you too small a mouth. So instead I taught you the language of Amathar which we now speak. I knew that you could speak it because you look somewhat like an Amatharian."

"How do they look like me?"

He smiled again. "They have funny little ears, no fur, flat faces, puny noses, and long feet." I laughed. "How are they different from me then?"

"They are better groomed," he said.

I felt my face with its scraggly beard, and my dirty, sweaty, almost matted hair. I was indeed most poorly groomed. My clothing, the remains of a rented tuxedo, was in equally bad shape.

"If you take me back to the stream where you found me so that I can take a bath, and loan me a sharp knife, and help me with some decent clothing,” I said, "I shall see if I cannot become more presentable." Malagor agreed to help me, but it was several days before I was well enough for even the short walk to the nearby stream. I had taken a long time to recover from what I now believe to be the effects of my transportation from Earth to Ecos. I never found out what bizarre method that transportation was, and I suppose that I never will. When I had finally recovered, I went to the stream with my new companion, I made an interesting discovery. The gravity of Ecos felt different from that of Earth. I found that I was stronger here. I wasn't a superman, but it was a noticeable difference. I could now jump almost twice as far and twice as high as I could before. Then I tried lifting some fallen trees in the woods, and found that I could lift almost twice as much as the equivalent on my planet of origin. I impressed Malagor, who said he had never seen one as strong as me, and I must admit that I impressed myself as well. After bathing in the stream, I used Malagor's knife, which was nearly razor sharp, to shave off my whiskers. I tried to trim my hair with it as well, but had less success in this endeavor. I did manage to get my hair reasonably clean. I washed my tuxedo too, but it was so poorly made that it practically fell apart in my hands. It was then that Malagor presented me with a set of clothing that he had made for me. The suit consisted of a hard leather shirt and a pair of pants made from the softer hide of several small animals, held up by a broad leather belt. There was also an excellently fashioned pair of boots with hard leather souls. He had dyed the entire suit by hand with berries and roots. The poor creature had terrible taste in colors, and the outfit could have blasted the eyes out of an onlooker with its contrasts of bright greens and purples and oranges, if only there had been an onlooker there to see it. It was a gift though, and one sorely needed, and I appreciated it. I felt as though Malagor were truly a friend--a friend such as I had never had before.

Later, Malagor and I sat on the grass in front of his cabin, beneath the perpetual noon day sun, and ate our dinner of dried fruit and a small roasted animal that he had provided.