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Authors: Lin Carter Adrian Cole
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be his doom. One or another or a third he may elude. Few men elude all seven. The youth you have so unwisely drawn into your realm beyond space will be the doom of Zazamanc.
“Then I will slay him first! And thus avert the destiny you foretell for me.”
The crawling eye of the demon stared at him sightlessly, tendrils writhing obscenely in the naked socket. Death has never entered this universe of yours , Xarxus said tonelessly. Gladiators mangled in the arena regain their strength, their torn flesh knits: even this girl-child whose heart you fed into the flames will rise again. To strike down the savage boy with a bolt of force would be to let Death in…and once Death has entered here, he will not willingly leave. Beware, O Zazamanc, and guard thy portals well: for too long have you evaded the hand of the Destroyer of All, and he shall seek you out if once you let him in…
With those words, the demon began to crumble and disperse, his pseudobody dissolving into the primal elements from which he had been formed. Zazamanc sat stiff and straight, his face an expressionless mask. But his eyes were shadowed with a terrible fear. He knew that a magician might defend his mortality with a thousand spells, but that the Powers that rule Creation have foreseen a loophole through even the most cunning defense. He knew, as well, that it is forbidden to assume the prerogatives of divinity, the first of which is life eternal. And however a wizard prolongs his life through arcane science, he never loses the dread of death; quite the contrary—the longer he lives, the more he savors life.
Zazamanc was afraid—for the first time in uncountable ages.
16
The Edge of the World
The secret passage was interminable. As Thongor prowled its length, Sarkozan naked in his hand, he expected to be attacked at any moment, but no such attack came. Doubtless the Veiled Enchanter used this tunnel to communicate with beast-cages, wherein many of his most extraordinary hybrid monsters awaited their turn on the sands of the arena. It was unlocked and unguarded for the simple reason that no one would dare disturb the privacy of Zazamanc and rouse his enmity by using it. But Thongor dared.
At last he came to its end and found a sliding panel that opened into an immense hall—the same hall in which he had first been imprisoned. This vast, shadowy place must, then, be within the Tower of Skulls.
The boy stood, glaring about him into shadows. If he could find his way out of here, he thought it likely he could escape from the city unseen and undetected, for Ithomaar had no gates or walls to detain him, and every boulevard led to the green fields and feathery forests beyond, and thence to the world’s edge itself—the narrow, circular horizon of lambent vapor that marked the terminus of this microcosm.
And were he to reach the world’s edge without being captured—what then? How to find his way back through the enchanted crystal to the land of Lemuria? The boy shrugged his shoulders, growling deep in his chest: it was not the way of the Black Hawk warriors to gnaw at more than one problem at a time. He would find or fight his way to the limits of this artificial world, and then worry about a way beyond it.
Suddenly he was not alone .
He knew it by the prickling of his nape-hairs, the way a jungle beast senses the presence of danger. The boy whirled in a fighting crouch, the broadsword flashing in his hand—to stare into the cold, inhumanly perfect visage of the Veiled Enchanter.
Zazamanc had melted from invisible air soundlessly, but the keen senses of the savage had detected his presence. In his right hand the magician bore an ominous baton of black wood, carven with twisting runes and capped at both ends with ferrous metal. Thongor would not have known it for a weapon, but such it was. It was the wand called Bazlimoth, the Blasting Rod. Within it, lightnings slumbered.
“You are strayed from the Pits, child,” said the Enchanter in a cold,
“Then I will slay him first! And thus avert the destiny you foretell for me.”
The crawling eye of the demon stared at him sightlessly, tendrils writhing obscenely in the naked socket. Death has never entered this universe of yours , Xarxus said tonelessly. Gladiators mangled in the arena regain their strength, their torn flesh knits: even this girl-child whose heart you fed into the flames will rise again. To strike down the savage boy with a bolt of force would be to let Death in…and once Death has entered here, he will not willingly leave. Beware, O Zazamanc, and guard thy portals well: for too long have you evaded the hand of the Destroyer of All, and he shall seek you out if once you let him in…
With those words, the demon began to crumble and disperse, his pseudobody dissolving into the primal elements from which he had been formed. Zazamanc sat stiff and straight, his face an expressionless mask. But his eyes were shadowed with a terrible fear. He knew that a magician might defend his mortality with a thousand spells, but that the Powers that rule Creation have foreseen a loophole through even the most cunning defense. He knew, as well, that it is forbidden to assume the prerogatives of divinity, the first of which is life eternal. And however a wizard prolongs his life through arcane science, he never loses the dread of death; quite the contrary—the longer he lives, the more he savors life.
Zazamanc was afraid—for the first time in uncountable ages.
16
The Edge of the World
The secret passage was interminable. As Thongor prowled its length, Sarkozan naked in his hand, he expected to be attacked at any moment, but no such attack came. Doubtless the Veiled Enchanter used this tunnel to communicate with beast-cages, wherein many of his most extraordinary hybrid monsters awaited their turn on the sands of the arena. It was unlocked and unguarded for the simple reason that no one would dare disturb the privacy of Zazamanc and rouse his enmity by using it. But Thongor dared.
At last he came to its end and found a sliding panel that opened into an immense hall—the same hall in which he had first been imprisoned. This vast, shadowy place must, then, be within the Tower of Skulls.
The boy stood, glaring about him into shadows. If he could find his way out of here, he thought it likely he could escape from the city unseen and undetected, for Ithomaar had no gates or walls to detain him, and every boulevard led to the green fields and feathery forests beyond, and thence to the world’s edge itself—the narrow, circular horizon of lambent vapor that marked the terminus of this microcosm.
And were he to reach the world’s edge without being captured—what then? How to find his way back through the enchanted crystal to the land of Lemuria? The boy shrugged his shoulders, growling deep in his chest: it was not the way of the Black Hawk warriors to gnaw at more than one problem at a time. He would find or fight his way to the limits of this artificial world, and then worry about a way beyond it.
Suddenly he was not alone .
He knew it by the prickling of his nape-hairs, the way a jungle beast senses the presence of danger. The boy whirled in a fighting crouch, the broadsword flashing in his hand—to stare into the cold, inhumanly perfect visage of the Veiled Enchanter.
Zazamanc had melted from invisible air soundlessly, but the keen senses of the savage had detected his presence. In his right hand the magician bore an ominous baton of black wood, carven with twisting runes and capped at both ends with ferrous metal. Thongor would not have known it for a weapon, but such it was. It was the wand called Bazlimoth, the Blasting Rod. Within it, lightnings slumbered.
“You are strayed from the Pits, child,” said the Enchanter in a cold,
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