The Wizard of Lemuria by Lin Carter - Introduction

1965 Genre: Vintage Paperback / Sword and Sorcery

The first adventure of Thongor of Lemuria

Half a million years ago on the Lost Continent of Lemuria, the first civilizations arose from the red murk of barbarism. For a thousand years they had struggled do vanquish the cruel reptilian race of the Dragon Kings, and at last they had destroyed them or driven them from the land. And despite primitive beasts and the terrors of a universe torn by magic those first kingdoms of Lemuria were strong and lusty.

But danger lurked in the Inner Sea where the last of the Dragon Kings awaited their hour of vengeance. Now the stars were approaching the right configuration, the human realms were restless, and the night of destruction was at hand. Only the warrior Thongor, barbarian from the North, and Sharajsha whom men called the Wizard of Lemuria, could stand against the terrors of a bygone age.

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Introduction

Half a million years ago, on the Lost Continent of Lemuria in the Pacific, the first human civilizations arose from the red murk of barbarism. For a thousand years the first men had struggled heroically to overcome the Dragon Kings-a cruel reptilian race which had ruled the Earth during the Age of Reptiles—but at last The Thousand Year War was done and the Dragon Kings were destroyed, or driven from the land.

And so began Nemedis, the First Kingdom. Over the centuries her children spread slowly throughout the vast, untamed jungle-lands and across the huge mountains of prehistoric Lemuria; and kingdoms were founded ... and fought ... and fell. But with enormous slowness civilization began to grow, and before long the first great Empire would unite these tiny, warring kingdoms into one mighty power.

It was an age of warriors, when brave men and beautiful women, savages and savants, wizards and champions struggled to carve a red path that led to the Throne of the World. It was an age of legends and heroic sagas, too.

And this is one of them …

Red Sword in Thurdis

"All day our swords drank deep and long

Of blood wine-red, of blood wine-strong!

Tonight in the red halls of hell

We'll feast with foes and friends as well!"

War Song of the Valkarthan Swordsmen

Thongor of Valkarth ducked as the heavy wine goblet hurled harmlessly over his head, ringing against the wall and splattering cold wine over his face and naked chest. He blinked the cold, stinging fluid from his eyes expressionlessly.

Jeled Malkh, the Otar who had flung the goblet, threw back his head and laughed;

"That is how a noble of Thurdis treats a nameless dog of a mercenary!” he sneered to his companions, They echoed his laughter.

"Pity to waste good sarn-wine," one remarked wittily. "Cheap ale of the Northlands is more his drink!"

Jeled Malkh shrugged. "Imagine the lout daring to ask for the payment of his wager—and from the Otar of his own hundred!"

The cold sarn-wine drip down Thongor's mighty chest. He continued to regard the officer. His dark, tanned face was without expression, but those who knew him well could have read the cold glint in the strange golden eyes of the silent barbarian from the Northlands of Lemuria. With one hand he brushed the wine from his face, tossing back his long mane of black hair. He addressed Jeled Malkh quietly.

"You refuse, then, to pay the wager?"

"Yes, I refuse! The zamph with red trappings would have won easily enough, had not that fool Var Tajas ridden him so incompetently. I was cheated!"

Thongor nodded. ''Very well then, Otar, I withdraw my claim. Moreover, I will even repay you for the goblet of wine you wasted upon this dog of a mercenary, who is indeed, as your friend said, more used to the thin ale of the Northlands than the scented puke you Thurdans call sarn."

While the group of officers gaped with astonishment, the giant Valkarthan moved. With one stride he stepped before the Otar, picked him up, turned him head-down, and pushed his face up to the ears in the great bronze wine-bowl. He held the noble's head under, ignoring his kicks and writhings. When he released him again, Jeled Malkh slumped over the table, white-faced beneath dripping wine, gasping for breath.

In the astounded silence, Thongor laughed.

"Aye, I hold no grudge, Otar. And I have even given you a bigger drink of wine than you gave me!"

Sobbing with rage, Jeled Malkh whipped out his blade and plunged it across the table at Thongor's naked breast.

The giant Northlander sprang backward lightly, his own long-sword hissing from its scabbard. The officers scattered as the two blades flashed and rang.

They circled about the table, feeling out with delicate steel the firmness of each other's guard.

Although a grim smile played about his lips, Thongor was inwardly cursing. Gorm take his hot, Valkarthan temper! He was a thrice-damned fool to pick a duel with his own captain. But—he was in it now, and could not easily get out.

Steel rang against steel as the barbarian mercenary and the jeweled scion of the noblest house in all Thurdis fought. Jeled Malkh was no mean swordsman. His education, as only heir to the House of Malkh, had brought him under the tutelage of the most famed sword-masters in all the realm. But Thongor of Valkarth had virtually been born with a long-sword in his hand. In the years of his wanderings and wars as a vagabond, hired assassin, thief, and now mercenary, he had learned every trick of sword play with every type of weapon ...

He toyed with Jeled Malkh for a while, just long enough to please the Otar's self-esteem—then, with a clever twist of the wrist, disarmed him. The rapier rang on—the stone flags of the barracks.

The Otar's hand snaked for the hilt, but Thongor's booted foot came down on the blade of the weapon.

"Shall we not end it here, Otar? And cool our tempers while we drink a cup of wine? Come! I acknowledge my hot-headed temper—let us be friends."

Jeled Malkh's thin lips writhed back in a snarl.

''Dog of a Northlander bitch! I'll cut out your putrid heart and feed it to my zamph, for this insult!"

The Otar spat in his face, and thudded one knee into Thongor's groin. The Valkarthan sagged against the table, clutching his gut. In a flash, the Otar snatched up his sword and sprang upon him. The table went over with a crash. The great bronze wine-bowl clanged on the stone floor, splattering them all.

Now Thongor was angry. A familiar red haze thickened before his strange golden eyes, and his teeth were bared in a fighting smile. His great long-sword battered the slim Southland blade aside and he set his point against Jeled Malkh's panting breast.

"Enough, I say! An end, or I'll spit you on my steel!"

The heir of Malkh paled. He licked cold lips. The Valkarthan applied a slight pressure. The point broke skin, and drew a scarlet thread down the Otar's breast.

"P-peace, then," Jeled Malkh gasped, "You swear it?"

"It is sworn!"

Thongor put up his sword and extended his hand for the grip of peace. But the proud noble could never accept defeat from one of his own swordsmen.

He seized Thongor's wrist, set his foot behind his heel, and twisted suddenly. The giant barbarian crashed to the floor and Jeled Malkh's slim blade flashed towards his throat.

Thongor smashed the blade aside with one arm, ignoring the needle of cold fire that ripped his flesh.

He sprang cat-like to his feet and, before his opponent could regain his stance, the great Valkarth long-sword sank to its hilt in his heart.

Jeled Malkh swayed, mouth open, gasping. His eyes goggled, glazing, staring blankly down at the sword hilt protruding, from his chest. With one strengthless hand he plucked feebly at the hilt. Then his knees buckled, a gush of blood flooded from his open mouth, and he sprawled on the floor at Thongor's feet—dead.

The mercenary set his heel against the corpse's belly and tugged the sword free, wiping it dry on the dead man's cloak. Holding it, he glanced about the room at the white faces. No one dared to speak. He shrugged, and slid the weapon back in its scabbard.

A sandal rasped against the floor behind him. But before Thongor could turn, a heavy cudgel crashed against his skull. He fell face-forward into a sea of blackness.

Thongor awoke groggily with an ache in his skull.

He was shackled to the wet stone wall of a dungeon cell, far below the citadel of Thurdis. Through a trap in the ceiling a lonely beam of sunlight fell slanting, and from its angle he estimated he had been unconscious somewhat less than an hour. It was now an hour before sunset, or thereabouts.

He examined his chains and found them too strong for even his giant strength to break. Then he simply shrugged, with the fatalistic philosophy of the North that wastes no time worrying over what cannot be helped. He was a trifle surprised to find himself still alive. Jeled Malkh's friends and co-officers could well have put an end to him with one stroke of a dirk while he had been unconscious. A slight, grim smile touched his lips. Doubtless the prospect of seeing him chained to the oar-benches of a Thurdan galley for the rest of his life, or watching him fed to the Sark's private garden of vampirous slith-flowers appealed more to their cultured cruelty and sadism than dispatching him cleanly with the stroke of a knife.

His scabbard, of course, was empty and he became increasingly aware of another emptiness, that of his belly. About this time of the day he was used to a tankard of sour ale and a roast bouphar-haunch, which he was accustomed to share with Ald Turmis and his other comrades at the Inn of the Drawn Sword. Well, what you want in this life you must try to get, he thought to himself.

He bellowed until the jailer came shuffling, fat-bellied and smelling of dream-lotus, to the door of the cell. He peered in at the bronzed giant chained to the wall.

"What do you want?"

"Something to eat," Thongor said. The fat jailer gaped, then snorted with laughter.

"Food, eh? Within the hour you go before the Daotar to be judged for killing your commander—and all you can think of is something to fill your belly! Perhaps you would like a banquet served to you from the Sark's kitchens?"

Thongor grinned. "Why not? I did the city a service in ridding it of a cheat, a coward and a bad captain. Both the Daotar and Phal Thurid, Sark of Thurdis, should reward me for that."

The jailer snorted, "Aye, Northlander, they'll reward you all right—by feeding your heart to the slith! Know you not that the Daotar of the Guards, the noble Barand Thon, is the oldest friend of the father of the man you slew? Aye! We'll watch you wriggling while the vampire-flowers devour your flesh—that will be your reward!"

"That may be as it will," Thongor grunted. "But it does not change the fact that I am hungry. Before they feed me to the slith, at least let them feed me!"

The jailer grunted with annoyance, but shuffled off, to return a few moments later with a jug of sour, cheap wine and a meat stew. He let himself into the cell and set them down before the Valkarthan.

"Your chains are long enough to reach that," he wheezed. "Yell when you are through—and, by the Gods, be certain you are through before the Daotar's men come to drag you off for trial. I don't want my superiors to think I coddle scum like you!"

The chains were indeed long enough, and Thongor devoured the stew hungrily, and tossed down the cheap wine in two huge gulps. He could always think better with a full belly, and now that his hunger was appeased he began to search his wits for a way out of this predicament. He had been in—and out—of the prisons of a dozen cities in his long career, and he knew as many ways to escape. His first thought was to slump back against the stone wall as if asleep, and when the jailer came to collect the bowls, to seize him with his unchained legs and force him to surrender the keys.

He examined this plan for a time, and then discarded it in favor of another. If his chains were long enough to allow him to reach the food on the floor, they were long enough to gather a heavy length into one hand and smash the jailer over the head with—at least it was worth a try. Thongor had served on the galleys of the sadistic Sark of Shembis at one time, and had no desire to do so again.

He yelled for the jailer, saying his meal was done, and gathered a long strand of the iron chain into one hand. The sun was setting now, and the long shaft of rosy light was almost gone. The cell was gradually filling up with darkness, and Thongor thought it likely the fat jailer would not see the handful of chains. He yelled out again ... and then his alert senses detected swift, light footsteps approaching down the corridor. The clank of a key in the lock, and the door screeched open. The cell was so dark by now that Thongor could not even see the jailer's face as the man entered the cell. He watched the dark figure come near, and his giant muscles tensed, ready to swing the loop of chain against the guard's skull.

"Thongor?” He grunted in astonishment.

"It is I—Ald Turmis."

"By Gorm! What are you doing here?"

His friend laughed softly. "Did you think I would let them send my best friend to the galleys? Here—I took the key, and brought your sword. Quickly!"

Thongor smiled. Ald Turmis, although a thin-blooded Thurdan with Southlander cravings for peace and comfort, was every inch a fighting-man. He was the first friend Thongor had made in all Thurdis, and the best. And now he had come within a hair-breadth of bashing his skull in with a length of chain!

"How'd you get the key?" he asked, as Ald Turmis bent to unlock his chains.

The Thurdan grinned. "The jailer, in his present state, had no use for them, so I brought them along."

"I hope you didn't have to slay him. He fed me well."

His friend laughed. "Just like a barbarian Northlander—always thinking of your gut! No, fear not, the fellow is merely enjoying a little nap. Ah—there!"

The chains rang loosely on the stone floor. Thongor stepped away from the wall, flexing his mighty limbs appreciatively. Untamed barbarian wanderer that he was, he hated being caged and fettened as much as any wild beast.

Ald Turmis handed him the great long-sword.

"Here's your uncouth Valkarthan blade, and a dark cloak to hide your ugly face in. Now hurry! Barand Thon's men will be here in moment to drag you off, and we must be gone."

They slipped from the cell, down the dark corridor and through the guardroom, where the fat jailer lay unconscious, and on through a maze of well-lit but empty corridors until Ald Turmis halted before a small, low door.

"You can get out into the side-street this way," he said.

Thongor nodded. "My thanks to you, Ald Turmis. I shall not forget your friendship."

"Nor shall I, and I shall miss you at the Inn of the Drawn Sword, hereafter. But now—hurry. You can steal a zamph from the prison stables and get out of the Caravan Gate before the alarm spreads.”

"Aye."

''Where shall you go, Thongor?"

Thongor shrugged. "Wherever they need a strong arm and a good sword. Zangabal, perhaps, or Cadorna. A good swordsman seldom lacks for employment."

"Then farewell. I doubt that we shall meet again, Thongor of Valkarth."

The barbarian wrung his friend's hand silently. He clapped one hand on his brawny shoulder in a gesture of farewell and passed through the small door, melting into the thick purple shadows of the cobbled street beyond.

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