Gondwane - The Enchantress Of World's End Part 3

They had obviously been creeping up behind him for THE ENCHANTRESS OF WORLD'SEND 49.

some time, taking advantage of the bewildering moonlight to crawl and scuttle among the tilted stone slabs, waddling splay-footedly from inky shadow to inky shadow. Now that they were discovered, this furtive slinking ended abruptly, and they hurled themselves at him with dizzying speed, bouncing across the slabs like so many rubber b.a.l.l.s.

Ganelon growled and swung balled fists, batting them aside in mid-leap. He soon discovered that their broad-shouldered little bodies were hard as wood, the outer layers of their epidermis so tough as to be almost petrified. It proved remarkably difficult to hurt the squalling little monsters, but he found their skulls could be cracked open if you pounded their heads against the stone slabs enough times. In quick succession he brained the first three or four who came within reach of his long arms.

They withdrew, squeaking and hissing ominously amongst themselves, eyeing him venomously. Ganelon rested, breathing easily, wis.h.i.+ng he had not left the Silver Sword behind him in the Scarlet City. But there was no use in crying over lost weapons. The next time they rushed him he bent, pried a mighty slab out of the crumbling soil and hurled it at them, squas.h.i.+ng three or four of them flat as stepped-on toads.

Glancing skywards, he wished the Bazonga bird would come.

They rushed him again, hissing like so many teakettles, jabbing at him with then* stony spears. His crisscross harness of black leather broke or deflected most of the spear-points, and the few scratches he did suffer hurt him scarcely at all. He grabbed up the first couple of wriggling little monster-men and tried to see how far he could throw them. Try as often as he could, the best he could do was about ten yards.

A change of tactics was needed here, obviously. If he simply stood here and let the little horrors come at him, they might wear him down before he had managed to extinguish all of them. Anti-life, of which the Death Dwarves were a prominent species, were of necessity Lin Carter remarkably difficult to kill, being not quite really alive in the first place.

He decided, after some thought, during which he managed to brain two more of the vile little creatures by hurling loose boulders at them, to make a sprint for the mountains. If he could get far enough above his pursuers, it should prove easy enough to drop big rocks on them, or perhaps trigger off an avalanche of respectable proportions.

With Ganelon, to think was to act. Whirling about, he sprang in the direction of the Vanis.h.i.+ng Mountains, with as much speed as he could, considering the broken nature of the landscape. With a hissing cry, the green horde poured after him, waddling and hopping along at his heels.

It was no use; they could move faster than he over the broken slabs of tilted stone. In a few moments, a detachment of Dwarves had moved around in front of him, blocking him off.

He took his stand, and fought.

He was still doggedly knocking them about when they came upon him from behind, and beat him unconscious with stone clubs. Then, with many a spiteful kick in the ribs, the little green monsters trussed the unconscious Construct securely, and began dragging him off to their hidden lair. Within a few moments, save for the dead who lay scattered about, there was nothing on the plain of broken stones to show that a furious battle had been fought here-and had been lost.

Book Two Lin Carter - 5bGondwane 025d - The Enchantress of World's End-5.jpg The Scene: The Country of the Death Dwarves; The Land of Red Magic; The Palace and City of Shai.

New Characters: The Enchantress Zelmarine; A Karjbdan Tiger-man; A Mentalist of Ning; Death Dwarves, Automatons, Courtiers, and Boys.

SLAVES OF ZELMARINE.

If this was a prison cell, thought Ganelon Silvermane to himself, it was certainly the most comfortable one he had ever seen or heard of. Indeed, "comfortable" was hardly the mot juste: "luxurious" would be more like it.

The flooring consisted of scented fnutwoods, laid out in a complicated parquet, an arabesque of delicately-contrasting wood tones and grains. The windows, heavily barred though they were, were hung with sumptuous draperies. Thick carpets were soft underfoot, divans stood about piled with plump cus.h.i.+ons, and small exquisite tabourets of carved Behemoth-tusk ivory (each table carved, of course, from a skigle tusk or portion of tusk) were scattered around the room. These bore a tempting variety of wines and liqueurs in cut-crystal decanters, platters of spiced meats, dainty pastries and fresh fruits. And the walls glowed with lambent tapestries of the sort for which the Spider Women of Yu are celebrated.

Galendil alone knows what the Death Dwarves would have done to him, had they been free to choose!* Just about the time he had come groggily back to consciousness, the little green men were turning then: captive over to a squadron of Red Magic soldiers. They bore * They would not, however, have eaten him: such forms of Anti-life commonly subsist on venom, acid, poison, excrement, ground gla.s.s, and less mentionable substances.

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Lin Carter him on Orraf/iofnppws-back due east a full day's ride, and into Shai, the capital of the Land of Red Magic.

It only confirmed what Silvermane had earlier heard from the vapor-veiled lips of the Illusionist, who considered the Red Enchantress a prime danger to the realms about. That is, she had recently brought under her will certain tribes of Dwarfland, which bordered upon her own dominions. He did not know whether the Enchantress had alerted the border tribes of Dwarf-land to be on the look-out for a Construct of his description; or whether it was standard operating procedure for the little green horrors to seize upon aU intruders across their borders and turn them over to the Red Magic legionnaires. Nor did it really matter.

His first experience of Zelmarine's country was not particularly interesting. The Ornith bore him along a winding, dusty road which meandered through rocky hills of crumbling shale, and across a plain of alkaline salt towards distant mountains. The Ornith itself he found more interesting than the dreary landscape through which it bore him.

Ornithohippus had only evolved into being about three-quarters of a million years before this time, and was thus a rank newcomer among the Gondwanish fauna. The bird horse strongly resembled an ostrich or emu, being devoid of wings, but it was a quadruped and somewhat bigger than the larger birds of our own day. The one the soldiers put him on was a handsome creature with snowy plumes and a long tapering crimson beak. It had a long graceful swan-neck, which it carried proudly arched, and from its pate a crest of nodding .plumes streamed out behind it. Cantering on its four clawed feet, it moved with fluid grace and agility. Orniths were rarely used in Zermish, Ganelon's home-city, and he had never before been astride one of the lovely creatures.

The Red Magic legionnaires who conducted him to Shai were a surly, hard-faced lot, with copper-brown skins. They were clad in curious breastplates, gauntlets, helms, kilts and greaves made from stiff leather, lac quered a startling crimson. They rode heavily armed with sting-swords, dart-throwers, yarmaks, war hammers and p.o.r.noi, in whose use they seemed fully adept. Ganelon wisely decided resistance would be futile, if not fatal.

As they had approached Shai, the harsh landscape transformed itself into lush gardens. Doubtless, the Enchantress had employed her magic to clothe the terrain immediately adjacent to her capitol in verdure. They rode over arched bridges, across tinkling streams, through nodding groves of feather-trees. Marble statuary groups and ornamental gazebos lent a park-like flavor to the lovely landscape.

Shai itself turned out to be a miniature city of only a few thousand inhabitants. It was a splendid sight as they approached it, riding along a stone causeway across the limpid waters of an artificial lake: a graceful and artistic grouping of slender spires and minarets, placed in tasteful contrast to swelling onion-domes. The city was entirely built out of sparkling red gla.s.s* which flashed and glittered brilliantly in the dawn-light.

Entering the city by its sole gate, whose gla.s.sy barbican-towers were fantastically worked into flame-like points and flying b.u.t.tresses, they traversed the miniature metropolis to the soaring cl.u.s.ter of pylons at its heart. This was, Ganelon a.s.sumed correctly, the Palace of the Queen of Red Magic. It consisted of nine spires of varying heights, interconnected by flying aerial bridges, with a spiral ramp enclosing the entire group.

The streets, squares and shops were virtually deserted, and the few persons they did pa.s.s on their way were a sullen-faced, dispirited lot with frightened faces and empty eyes, who s.h.i.+ed away from the Red Magic legion. Most of the buildings they pa.s.sed were soaring palaces and superb mansions whose fluted colonnades * Stiffened, of course, to steely hardness by the use of F5re Magic, as had been used to toughen the precious metal of Ganelon's weapon, the Silver Sword. See the entry on ."Magic" in the Glossary of Unfamiliar Names and Terms at the end of this book.

Lin Carter and impressive facades gleamed in the brilliance of dawn. The vistas of the city were breathtakingly lovely. But it seemed odd to the bronze giant that so many of the gorgeous gla.s.s palaces, although in perfect repair and kept immaculately cleaned and polished, seemed to be completely empty.

Shai was, he knew, a brand-new city which had arisen only in the past generation. The Queen of Red Magic herself was but newly come to Northern Yama-YamaLand, having arrived in these parts somewhat less than a century ago. Rumor had it that she was the iSst of a race of Red Amazons who had formerly inhabited the Cham Archipelago near Thoph hi the remote, virtually unknown southwestern corner of the Supercontinent. Studying the Secret Sciences at the magician's college of Nembosch, she had discovered one of the nine-thousand ninety portals which gave entry into the Halfworld Labyrinth, a complex system of inter-dimensional conduits connecting several parts of this world with adjacent worlds and planes. This labyrinth, known to the scholars of legend as the "Cavern of a Thousand Perils," exited in the Mountains of the Death Dwarves. Emerging therefrom, Zelmarine had established her dominance over the eastern half of Dwarfland and announced her empire.

The Death Dwarves had, at first, fought furiously against her kingdom; conquered by her invincible scythe-armed Automatons, they withdrew into their mountains and eventually some of the border tribes fell under Zelmarine's dominance. She had employed the tireless vigor of her Automatons, together with the mineral strength and durance of the subservient Dwarves, to raise her capitol on the edges of the mountain country. She captured by magic whole village populations from the realms about to people her gla.s.s metropolis. This explained the cowed, subdued att.i.tude of the few Shai citizens Ganelon had encountered on the way hither.

THE ENCHANTRESS OF WORLD'SEND 57.

enjoyed an audience with her, although he had glimpsed her once from a distance; the time she had paid a visit of state to the Hegemon of Zermish after Ganelon's victory in the Battle of Uth had brought to an end the invasion of the Indigons.* He was not exactly looking forward to the eventual interview with his captress, for from all descriptions she was a forceful, dynamic, voluptuous woman of imperious will and dominance- exactly the sort of person the simple, inexperienced young giant felt most uncomfortable with. But he had long known of her interest in him, although her reasons were still unknown to him. Indeed, shortly before he had left his home in Zermish to enter the service of the Illusionist of Nerelon, Zelmarine had attempted to purchase him from the Hegemon of his natal city. It was all rather ominous and uncomfortable.

But if this was the sort of captivity she inflicted upon her slaves, he thought to himself, it certainly wasn't hard to endure! He hadn't eaten such sumptuous meals since leaving the enchanted palace of Nerelon, and his surroundings were of a degree of luxury he had never before enjoyed. He ate heartily, drank deeply, and slept magnificently in an emperor-sized bed piled high with silken pillows, under a gold-lame canopy.

During the day, however, there was nothing much to do. The door to his prison suite was a gigantic slab of sculptured wood whose exquisite carving and detail-work did not conceal the fact that it was tougher than iron and weighed a ton or two. And, each time his meals were served to him and he managed to catch a glimpse of the corridor beyond, he could see that the only entrance to his apartment was heavily guarded by twenty motionless but sentient metal Automatons.

Some of the hollow metal men had arms which terminated in scythes or hooks, others in sledges, power-drills and swordblades. From his former experiences * For a narrative of these events, see Chapters 6 to 8 of the First Book of the Epic, ent.i.tled The Warrior of World's End, DAW Books, 1974.

Lin Carter back at Nerelon, where the Illusionist had maintained a few Automatons of his own for,Heavy work around the palace, he knew the enchanted creatures were virtually indestructible. He had little or no chance of fighting his way through such a heavy number, despite his own very-much-more-than-huinan strength and vigor.

Well, he decided philosophically, if one has to be enslaved by Zelmarine the Enchantress, at least durance vile under conditions of such lavishness and comfort can be suffered pleasantly.

Lin Carter - 5bGondwane 025d - The Enchantress of World's End-6. jpg On the second evening of Ganelon's captivity in Shai, he met his captress at last.

The occasion was an annual least wMca, in certain heathen and outlandish regions of Gondwane, such as that from which the Red Queen came, shamans and warlocks make sacrifice in order to propitiate the Moon. It should perhaps be explained that, in this distant Eon of the future, the gravitational action and tidal forces have slowed the Moon in her ancient orbit to a point where she had drawn perilously near to the surface of Old Earth-very much nearer than she has come in our own age. Some fear, indeed, that she will ere long reach Roche's Limit and be torn apart hi the grip of these forces, burying Gondwane beneath millions of tons of meteoric debris; others, perhaps less scientifically knowledgeable, a.s.sume the Moon will fall to Earth, destroying the entire planet in the collision. No one knows for sure when the calamity will befall (if I may be permitted the indulgence of an inadvertent pun), or into which category the nature of the cataclysm will go, but if you could see how threateningly huge and ominously zigzagged with cracks the face of the enormous satellite looked from the Gondwanian surface, you would certainly understand how imminent seemed the peril. Few believed such sacrificial feasts could avert the cosmic catastrophe, but a bit of propitiation never hurts.

Hook-handed Automatons clanked stiffly into Gane

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Lin Carter Ion's suite, depositing festive robes of gold and scarlet cloth, and stood motionless but wary while the giant unwillingly donned the raiment. They then escorted him from the room and, by a succession of spiral stairways, into a magnificent hall where the Red Queen sat enthroned on a chair of sparkling crystal, high above her courtiers.

The room itself was cruciform in shape, and nine storys deep. A forest of gla.s.s pillars of mammoth girth supported the roof which was transparent, permitting the silver glory of the lunar radiance-trans.m.u.ted to a flood of crimson light by pa.s.sage through the tinted gla.s.s-to fall in splendor upon the festive a.s.sembly. At the point where the two arms of the cross joined, was a central rotunda, in the very center of which the throne of the Red Queen sat atop a many-stepped dais like a miniature pyramid.

Red Magic legionnaires led him through the a.s.sembled feasters to the bottom-most step of this dais, and for the first time Ganelon Silvermane and the Enchantress of Shai met face to face. For a long moment, neither moved or spoke, both stared thoughtfully at each other, like swordsmen measuring an opponent's skill before engaging their blades.

The Red Queen was a magnificent woman, nearly naked, her splendid body adorned with flas.h.i.+ng gems and plaques of precious metals, a plumed tiara glittering upon her brow. At the height of a good seven feet, she stood very nearly as tall as Ganelon himself. She was built to scale, with powerful though feminine arms, bare shoulders and long, sleek, well-muscled but shapely legs.

The most remarkable thing about her was, of course, her famous coloration, from whence she derived her sobriquet. That is to say, the Red Enchantress was really red. Her entire body was colored a brilliant, not unattractive shade of crimson; her long waving tresses and arched, sardonic brows were also crimson, but of a shade slightly darker than the rest of her. Her eyes were of a red so dark as to be almost, but not 61 quite, black. Her lips and the protuberant nipples of her superb b.r.e.a.s.t.s were of a darker red, almost plum-purple. When she smiled, Ganelon discovered that even her teeth were red, as were the whites of her eyes.

She was superb! Queenly, imperious, she towered head and shoulders above most of the men at her court, with a magnificent bosom, bare beneath glittering ropes of diamonds, a narrow waist and full, swelling hips and thighs. Tiny jewelled slippers clung to her feet and an immense cut diamond the size of a walnut flashed in her navel. When she spoke, as she did now, her voice was a low, liquid murmur, purring and seductive, but with a man's deep-chested timbre in it, and the steely ring of command, too.

It was the sort of voice that was accustomed to being obeyed.

With a dramatic gesture, she rose suddenly to her feet, towering above them all. The mumble of low-voiced conversation in the hall ceased instantly and silence stretched taut.

Then she came swaying down the tier of steps to his level, extending one hand whose crimson fingers . dazzled with diamonds.

"Ganelon Silvermane! Be you welcome to the court of Shai. Consider yourself, not my prisoner, but- my guest!"

The Illusionist of Nerelon would have been flabbergasted at what Ganelon did next. For, summoning from within himself a courtliness none could have guessed him to possess, the young giant bowed and, taking her long fingers in his own, brushed the backs of her fingers with his lips. She smiled a delighted, warm smile, her full, lush lips curving.

"Seat yourself here," she said, gesturing to a cus.h.i.+on upon the lower steps, "in the place that is reserved for heroes. And join our lunar festival, with honor and welcome!"

Ganelon nodded, sat tailor-fas.h.i.+on on the silken pillow and let himself be served by one of the Automatons who stalked on clanking feet among the courtiers, Lin Carter refilling a goblet here and presenting platters of food there.

Deliberately turning his attention from the Enchantress, he feigned interest in the other guests, who were seated on cus.h.i.+ons in rows before long, low tabourets of dark wood. They were certainly a motley crew, thought he: among them he spied a Voormish clansman in his long burnoose, one or two of the Tigermen of Karjixia, a rather glum and lumpish-looking creature that seemed to be one of the Halfmen of Thaad, and a Horxite ecclesiastic or two in black robes and gilt-paper headdress. There were also Quentishmen and Ixlanders, a few visiting dignitaries from Oryx, Pergamoy and Sabdon in the Hegemony (or so their tartan sashes suggested), and a horde chieftain from the Dominions of Akoob Khan in the far east, to say nothing of a painted savage hi feather-robes who could only have come from the Kakkawakka Islands. Beyond these, a lone, now-homeless Airmaster hi glittering blue tights with winged crystal helm, and a couple of woeful-looking, long-nosed and stilt-legged Quaylies, the remainder of the Queen's guests and courtiers originated in lands whereof he knew nothing.

For the most part, this variegated company ate, drank, dozed, chatted or caroused, ogled the dancing girls and flirted. They paid Ganelon very little attention beyond an occasional oblique and cunning glance of surrept.i.tious appraisal. Few, if any, seemed to know who or what he was; it was probably taken for granted that he was a newcomer to the ranks of royal favorites.

The Horxite priest sat stiffly and did not deign to look in his direction, and the two Tigermen, a scruffy duo with the look of outlawry about them, ignored everyone else and devoted themselves to the meat-platters on the tabouret before them. Seated quite far from afl the others sat a Death Dwarf, considerably larger, burlier and more intelligent-looking than the ones which had attacked Silvermane' on the slopes of the Vanis.h.i.+ng Mountains. This creature was clad in linked plates of siining steel and wore a coronet of iron 63.

spikes upon his wart-studded bald brows. Ganelon learned later that he was Drng, chieftain of the tribes subservient to Zelmarine. Ganelon looked at the platter of broken gla.s.s and the thick ceramic goblet of bubbling acid from which the little horror imbibed gluttonously, and shuddered: no wonder he was not seated with the other guests!

The feast had obviously been in progress ever since Moonrise, the sacrifice was long since over and two ritually-slain Androsphinxes were impaled on the Moon Altar. Ganelon glanced, then looked away in distaste; he might be only a simple, untutored oaf from the back-alleys of Zermish, but he did not believe that the ceremonial execution of fabulous monsters could avert the doom of the Falling Moon. And, in his opinion, anyone who did was lacking somewhat in intelligence.

He was not particularly hungry, only picked at his food, and drank lightly from the sparkling beverages set before him. There was no point in trying to examine his nutriment for the presence of narcotics; since he was completely in the power of Queen Zelmarine, she could drug him in any number of ways, at any time she wished to. With an elaborate pretence of indifference, he merely toyed with his food.

Dancing-girls, their stark nudity veiled only in that their sinuous bodies had been rubbed with adhesive, then sprinkled with dust-of-gold, undulated in the aisles between the rows of feasters. The thud and whiffle of small drums, the tootle and whine of pipes, came from musicians seated in the shadow of the nearer pillars.

Only one individual was seated on the steps of the dais in greater proximity to Zelmarine than himself. This was a lean, sour-faced personage in tight, narrow robes of eye-blinding indigo, with a silver hat and jangling bracelets which adorned his long bony wrists. His skin was sallow and umber, his large eyes black, fiery and magnetic. He seemed to be staring at Ganelon Lin Carter with an intensity that was almost rude, so Silvermane returned it, stare for stare.

Zelmarine, who had been covertly studying Silver-mane's every expression and movement from behind her thick lashes, noticed this and spoke in her clear, low voice that had almost a growl in it.

"Permit me to make you known, Ganelon Silver-mane, to my aide and confidant, Varesco, one of the Mentalists of Ning. He provides me with invaluable a.s.sistance hi my researches on the human brain, a subject hi which the Ningevite savants have attained to a mastery far surpa.s.sing my own."

Ganelon nodded briefly at the blue-robed Mind Wors.h.i.+pper, who returned it with a curt nod of equal brevity, and thereafter devoted his full attentions to his wine-cup.

At the conclusion of the feast, Zelmarine descended to where Ganelon had politely come to his feet, and gave him another of those lush, delighted smiles.

"I trust my servitors are doing all that is within their power to make your stay in our court comfortable," she said demurely. He bowed, and said quietly that the enforced inactivity wearied him, since he was used to violent exercise.

"If I might be permitted to work-out with your guardsmen, I would be grateful," he said somberly.

"Certainly!" She turned to a burly-shouldered, deep-chested officer, his red-lacquered leather armor crested and gilt with decorations of rank, who had been seated at the nearest tabouret. He had gotten to his feet, as had all the throng, when she herself had risen from her crystal throne. "Colonel Turmus, will you see to it that our honored guest is given the freedom of the exercise-yard? Under proper escort, of course!"

"It shall be done, my lady," the officer said, saluting by touching his left shoulder with the palm of his right hand.

"Farewell, then, for the moment," the Red Queen said to Silvermane. He bowed agairfand thanked her, 1 HE ENCHANTRESS OF WORLD'S END 65.

whereupon she smiled and sauntered off, hips swaying languidly as she strolled down the aisle between the tables, to vanish from the hall behind the thick velvet draperies which masked a doorway between two pillars.

The throng stood in utter silence while she moved gracefully from the room.

Ganelon was a little surprised to notice that, while from the front she had worn at least a modic.u.m of jewelry, from the back she looked completely naked from the nape of her neck to the heels of her gem-twinkling slippers, The bronze giant, slightly disconcerted, turned his eyes away from the plump rondure of her perfectly-proportioned b.u.t.tocks. In sodoing, he chanced to look in the direction of the lean Ningevite Mentalist.

Varesco was staring after the Enchantress with avid hunger in his burning eyes. Oblivious to all else but the languid swaying of her nude back and bottom, her long, lithe legs, he watched with fascination glittering in his black, hot eyes, He wet his thin lips a little with a pointed tongue as she strolled out of sight.

Ganelon frowned heavily. The tensions and undercurrents at this weird court were beyond his limited sophistication. How he wished the old Illusionist could be here to advise him on his words and actions!

GRRFF THE XOMBOLIAN.

Bright and early the ,next morning Ganelon rose from his sumptuous bed, breakfasted lightly, and under a heavy guard of clanking Automatons, went forth into the exercise-yard of the Red Legion to work out with the local weaponry. For the occasion he had put aside the silken gowns of the wardrobe which Zelmarine had furnished, in favor of his plain, worn war-harness of black leathern straps and the swash-topped boots.

The Red Legion was quartered in long rows of barracks behind the Palace of Red Magic, screened from view by tall, flowering tamerinkus trees. The exercise-yard itself was s.p.a.cious in the extreme, almost the size of a gladiatorial arena, with stadium seats in a half-circle around it. There was a variety of gear wherewith the warriors of the Legion practiced daily, in preparation for war, invasion, riot or insurrection.

The officer who had been in the forefront of the feast was there to observe the foreign giant as he worked out. This Colonel-"Turmus," the Red Queen had called him-was stout and aging, with grizzled, close-cropped hair and a ruddy face; his eyes were cold, ice-gray, unfriendly. He nodded imperceptibly in reply to Ganelon's greeting, wordlessly indicating racks of weaponry and instruments wherewith the visitor presumably might make free-under constant supervision, of course.

Ganelon looked the racks over approvingly. There 67.

were swords of every size and description; spears, javelins, pikes, billhooks, hammers and axes, yarmaks and bows, volusks, discus-dags, war-boomerangs, and other examples of weaponry familiar to him from his service in the militia of Zermish. There were also several kinds of war-instruments unfamiliar to him; he selected one of these, a throwing-trident with hollow gla.s.s p.r.o.ngs, and hefted its weight curiously, wondering just how it was used.