Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria (8 page)

He fell full-length on the floor, the impact driving the air from his lungs. Instinctively, he took a breath. The narcotic vapor entered his lungs, and Thongor lost consciousness, there in the sacred crypts of Yamath under the great Fire Temple of Patanga.

CHAPTER 12

On the Altars of Yamath

The naked virgins on thine altars plead

As scarlet flame on pallid flesh doth feed!

Lord of the Fire, drink down young lives like wine.

Hearts, limbs and breasts—their very souls—are thine!

—The Rituals of Yamath

Sumia had known fear, but never before had she known despair. Was it days—or weeks—since they had come to drag her off to these dungeons in which she had been chained ever since? She did not know. When the Yellow Druid Vaspas Ptol had first pressed upon her his suit of marriage, she had coldly and proudly refused. That had been at the death of her father, Orvath Chond, Sark of Patanga. For months afterward the oily Prince of the Druids of Yamath had continued to offer her marriage—and each time, his humility lessened and his arrogance increased, in direct proportion to the rise of his power over the city.

At last, believing his position secure, he had come into her bedchamber unannounced, to force himself upon her. The young Princess had resisted him with a drawn knife and threatened to slay him if he so much as laid one cold hand upon her. Vaspas Ptol had withdrawn, snarling threats, and that very hour his soldiers had seized her and brought her to the secret dungeons below the Fire Temple. Here had she languished since that time. At first she had feared that Vaspas Ptol would force himself upon her, bound and helpless as she was. But he had not come near. Nor had the guards offered her any discourtesy, only silence to her pleas and indifference to her commands.

She knew now that the Yellow Druid was waiting for the Festival of the Year’s End, when living sacrifice would be offered up to the dread Lord of the Fires. That sacrifice, Sumia knew, would be herself.

And the festival would be this very night.

It was now about dawn. She had been unable to sleep all the night, and now in the first hours of morning, just as she was drifting off to sleep, the shuffle of footsteps and the clank of accouterments awakened her. Guards were coming down the hall.

The lock clanged and the iron door of her cell opened. Into the cell two men were dragged. They were both unconscious, hanging limply from the hands of their captors. Sumia watched in puzzlement as the guards chained them to the opposite wall. Neither of them was a Patangan. The taller and younger man wore the common leather clout and trappings of a mercenary soldier of fortune, and the old, bearded man wore the long robes of a sage.

“Who are these men you bring to my cell?” she demanded. The captain of the guards smiled thinly.

“Two fellow-sacrifices, destined for the altars of fire beside yourself, O Princess!”

“They are not Patangans…what have they done?”

The otar shrugged, “They were found in the sacred cavern of the Eternal Fire, which their presence desecrated. When they were discovered, the young one fought, slaying six guards and insulting a Druid. Vaspas Ptol has condemned them to the altars. He believes they were in the crypts attempting to steal the offerings and treasures, but were interrupted before they could get to them.”

The guards locked Thongor and Sharajsha to the opposite wall of the cell and departed leaving Sumia to her silent vigil beside the two unconscious men.

Thongor awoke from the sleep vapor first and stared around. The first thing he saw was a slim young girl sitting on a wooden bench across the cell, looking at him. She appeared to be about eighteen, with hair of glossy blackness, which poured in thick waves of curls down her back. Her skin was of an almost marble whiteness, tinged with creamy color. Had she not moved, Thongor would have thought her a statue, for her features and limbs were so flawless they seemed to have been chiseled from pure marble. Her face was a slender oval under the glossy mass of curling black hair. Beneath thin, curving black brows her eyes were dark wells of light.

Under his gaze her cheeks darkened from soft cream to the same rich color as her soft lips.

“Where are we?” Thongor asked.

“In the dungeons of Vaspas Ptol, Archdruid of Yamath, God of Fire,” the girl answered.

Thongor tested his chains. His wrists were riveted to the wall against which his back was pressed. The old wizard, still unconscious from the narcotic vapor, was similarly bound beside him. The girl wore a copper ring about her slim waist, fastened to a ring set in the wall with a slender copper chain.

Thongor told her his name.

“I am Sumia of Patanga,” she said.

He regarded her with surprise.

“The daughter of Orvath Chond, Sark of Patanga? Why is the Sarkaja of Patanga chained to the wall of the dungeons of Patanga?”

“Because I scorned to wed Vaspas Ptol,” the girl said proudly. “He approached me when the Sark, my father, died some seven months ago. I have refused him, not just once but many times. But his power has grown in Patanga, until at last he feels strong enough to dispose of the Sarkal office and rule the city himself.”

Thongor nodded sourly. The greed and lust for power of the Druids was familiar enough to him. If ever he managed to get out of this place and complete his task with Sharajsha, perhaps he could set about uprooting some of these depraved priesthoods.

“Tonight is the Festival of the Year’s End,” Sumia said. “We shall be sacrificed to Yamath tonight, while Vaspas Ptol watches.”

“That will be as it may,” Thongor growled. “The old man captured with me is a powerful magician. Doubtless he will have something to say about that—as will I, if I ever get my hands free and close them about the hilt of a sword. But tell me, will the people of Patanga really stand by and watch their rightful Sarkaja die on the altars of Yamath?”

“Yes. They are helpless before the might of the Druids. Vaspas Ptol has this city in the palm of his hand. The people fear his magic and his cruelty. And he has played so cunningly upon their superstitions that he rules them through their dread of Yamath, the false god he worships.”

“Is there no one, then? No relative…no lover?”

She colored again, lifting her head proudly. “I am the last member of the House of Chond. Nor have I any lover. I am here in this dark place because I scorn to marry any man whom my heart has not chosen!”

She fell silent then, nor could Thongor engage her in any further conversation, for she answered only briefly. Shrugging, he made himself as comfortable as possible against the wall and went to sleep. His recent exertions and lack of rest took their toll. He slept soundly for some hours, facing death with the healthy contempt he always displayed toward danger.

When he awoke again, Sharajsha had also come to his senses. Either the old man had breathed in a more powerful dose of the sleep vapor or else his advanced years made him more susceptible to its influence, for he had out-slept Thongor by hours. Now he was conversing in low tones with the girl.

Thongor yawned and stretched and greeted his comrade.

“Use some of your magic, Wizard. Get us out of these chains and put a sword in my hands.”

Sharajsha sighed.

“They have fastened my hands apart,” he said. “I cannot touch my sigils to use them. We shall have to wait until the guards free my hands.”

“When will that be?”

“The noon hour, perchance, when they come to feed us.”

“They will not feed us,” Sumia interrupted. “Since we are the destined sacrifices of Yamath, we shall fast until the hour of the New Year, so that we may be pure for the burning.”

Thongor cursed.

“It is bad enough to sacrifice us to their filthy god—must they starve us as well?”

The girl stared at him and laughed. “Never before have I heard a man complain more about his empty belly than about his approaching death!” she said.

Thongor shrugged. “That I am a prisoner condemned to death is something I cannot help or change,” he said. “And I refuse to waste thought by worrying about that which I cannot change. But I cannot help feeling hunger!”

“Cease thinking of your belly, then, and think about our chances of escaping from this vile place,” the old wizard suggested.

“Karm Karvus is still free and aloft in the airboat,” Thongor observed. “Perhaps he will try to rescue us.”

Sharajsha thought about that for a time, then reluctantly shook his head.

“He cannot know where we are kept. And one man alone can hardly penetrate into the secret, closely guarded places of a city filled with enemies. No…he is now in the same position as I was when you were captured in the Scarlet Tower of Slidith. And he will doubtless do exactly what I did then: simply wait above the city for some sign.”

There seemed nothing else to say in answer to that.

* * * *

The day passed slowly. But, gradually, it did pass. And after many hours of slow-paced time, the shadows of evening began to gather and the hour of the festival and sacrifice drew ever nearer.

Thongor had heard of this Lord of the Flame, but the cults of the Southlands were alien to him. He held a simple faith in Gorm the Father of Gods and Men and scorned the worship of lesser beings. Sharajsha, who had peered deeply into the mysteries, informed him that this Yamath was no god at all but a demon—in fact, he was another aspect of the Triple God of Chaos, and brother to Slidith the Lord of Blood. The Yellow Druids who ruled Patanga were doubtless allied to their crimson-robed brethren in Tsargol by the Sea. Thongor growled a curse. These iniquitous Druidical brotherhoods were devoted to evil and agony and fear, and they had attained very great power over the Nine Cities of the West. It was time their power was crushed underfoot, as a man crushes the head of a venomous serpent with a boot-heel…

Eventually the hour of sacrifice came. A troop of Patangan guards came to strike off their shackles and escort them to the great Fire Temple where they would die.

For lack of any better scheme, Thongor had planned to erupt into action the moment his hands were free. He had few hopes of fighting through a throng of armed and wary men, but it was better to fall in battle than through drawn-out torments. The guards, however, gave him no opportunity to resist. His wrists were manacled before the dungeon chains were loosed, and a heavy chain was set between his ankles.

Worst of all, Sharajsha’s arms were bound in such a way that he could not employ the magical powers of his talismanic rings. He met Thongor’s questioning gaze with a weary shake of the head.

Thongor released a deep breath. “Well, at least we shall die in the company of friends,” he said grimly.

“That is something, at least,” the old wizard smiled.

“Come!” the otar of the Patangan guards said with a leer of venomous mockery. “The flaming altars of Yamath await the three of you, the God’s most honored guests. And the God is impatient.”

There was nothing else to do. They went out of the cell, ringed about with naked blades. Up an endless flight of stone steps they climbed, and down corridors of polished yellow stone…into the great Hall of the God.

It was a gigantic circular room. Above their heads the enormous dome lifted for two hundred feet, its curved vastness broken by huge windows of colored glass. At the far end of the circular hall, Yamath stood in the form of a brazen idol ten times the height of a man. The bald head was horned and a great fanged mouth grinned beneath eyes in which small flames had been lit. The altars were held in the cupped hands, which rested on the idol’s lap. They were also of brass, hollow, and beneath them furnaces raged. The victims would be chained nude upon these altars and roasted alive. Thongor set his jaw grimly as the guards marched them across the vast floor toward the towering idol.

They passed between rows of Druids in yellow robes, chanting praises to their obscene deity. Magnificently gowned nobles watched silently, behind the rows of Druids. Thongor saw pity on the faces of many of them as they watched their young Princess go toward death. But the nobles were unarmed, while each priest wore a long, curved sword and archers were ranged along the walls.

Sumia walked proudly, head high. Her small, slippered feet carried her without faltering to the base of the idol. There the Yellow Archdruid halted them. Vaspas Ptol was gorgeous in jeweled robes of yellow velvet, but the beauty of his apparel could not hide the vulture-like greed of his cold eyes, his hooked beak of a nose, nor the cruel twist of his lipless mouth.

“Here you make your choice, fair Sumia,” the Yellow Druid rasped coldly. “Either accept my embrace and reign beside me on the throne of Patanga…or go into the fiery embrace of Yamath, from whence there is no return. Choose well!”

Sumia, from her small height, smiled up into his leering face and laughed lightly.

“I would rather die a thousand cruel deaths than marry a man I do not love,” she said. “And for you, Vaspas Ptol, I feel no love. Only contempt—disgust—revulsion. You are not a man. You are a cold fire that scorches and slays everything that lives about you.”

The Druid’s cold eyes went ugly. He gestured to the priests and they bore her forward. Thongor and Sharajsha were brought along behind the Princess.

The idol of Yamath was fashioned so that it seemed to be sitting upon its crossed legs. The altars were contained in its lap, and the draperies of brass that clothed it in the likeness of a loincloth were formed into a flight of steps that led up to the altars. It was up these steps that the three prisoners were led. There they were turned about, facing out over the crowded hall and bound upright to metal poles that passed through their manacles. Here they would stand in full view of the celebrants while the altars were heated.

Drums boomed and trumpets rang out, echoing through the domed hall. The Archdruid ascended a platform beside the idol’s gigantic knee and began to singsong the rituals of preparation. Having chained the three sacrifices to the poles, the guards lifted a trap door that led into the interior of the idol, and went within to stoke the furnaces that would heat the brazen altars red-hot.

Thongor said nothing to his comrades as they gazed out over the audience. But the great muscles in his back and arms began to swell. The slim pole passed up his back through one link of his wrist-chains. He was pulling upon that link with his terrific strength, seeking to snap it.

Bowls of incense were set afire, sending swirling, pungent clouds of purple smoke through the room. Gongs and drums thundered. Lines of yellow-robed figures dipped and swayed in a barbaric dance.

“I cannot reach my sigils,” the wizard said softly. “If my wrists were not bound apart, I could touch my magic rings and free us in an instant.”

“We are bound too far apart for me to reach your hands, or perhaps I could remove one of your magic rings and you could tell me what to do,” Sumia said.

Thongor grunted; “Courage!” The great muscles of his broad shoulders were leaping and writhing like bronze serpents as he applied the terrific leverage of his arms against the unyielding iron pole.

He had built the strength of those shoulders with long years of exercise—swinging and hewing through a dozen wars, hefting the mighty broadsword of his homeland. Now he needed every atom of iron strength those muscles contained!