Author: Kirk Straughen
Synopsis: Andrew Mace is propelled into a strange world overrun by weird conquerors whose living bodies are as hard as adamantine. Marooned in a savage land he must use all his brains and brawn to overcome tremendous odds and save an alien maiden from her brutish captors. We dare you to read this breathtaking tale of fantastic escapades.
Edit history: Minor changes were made to this story on 2 June 2021
Chapter 1: Otherworldly Dreams
Andrew Mace dreamed. It was the same dream that had come to him every night for the past month – a dream pregnant with mystery that filled his waking hours with wild speculation as to its elusive meaning.
Mace’s muscular frame, barely contained by the meagre bed in his rundown apartment, lay inert in the depths of slumber. The man was oblivious to the clean but shabby tenement. His mind was far removed from such mundane surroundings as his consciousness floated in a soft pearly glow of illimitable extent – a glow that infused him with the warmth of its nacreous light.
Mace, or that part of him which mystics call the soul, or science might describe as a matrix of electromagnetic mind-force, looked about with a sense of breathless expectation. Upon the bed his body stirred in eagerness as his bodiless vision saw a speck emerge from the depths of the warm sea of supernal radiance.
The speck grew. It flew towards him, soaring through the glowing void with the majesty of unfretted liberty. The light seemed to vibrate as it drew near, to cry out in strange triumphal notes that stirred him to the depths of his soul. Then it stood before him, filling his vision with enthral loveliness. It was the face of a girl, but a girl of alien beauty whose grace no woman of Earth could ever match.
A tumble of sapphire curls was formed into an intricate coiffure secured by elaborately ornamented hairpins and strings of golden beads. The girl’s face was heart-shaped; her skin a startling shade of darkest rose. Her eyes were large, intensely indigo; her full lips as red as pomegranates. Her features were human, but with a subtle difference in proportion that leant an unearthly cast to her beauteous countenance. Even the tattoo in the centre of her forehead - a large staring eye as dark as night – could not detract from her stately bearing.
The girl spoke. Her speech was strange - an unintelligible melody of softly uttered sounds. But somehow tenuous meaning – like the emotions conjured by a symphony – was subtly conveyed in the harmony of her flowing words: He was needed for some purpose - this much he had gradually come to understand with the passing of each visitation. But what was the purpose, and the danger hinted at by her desperate, strained expression? When he sought for greater clarity all meaning slipped away as if he was wrestling with elusive shadows.
Mace tensed with eagerness. Things were a little clearer this time. He could almost perceive the meaning that lay beyond the fog of unfamiliar words. His straining mind broke the delicate web of forces. The image of the girl began to fade. The sleeping man uttered a groan of agonized frustration. His body convulsed as if in the grip of nightmare terror. He jerked awake, breathing hard and cursing out his disappointment in a stream of acidic words.
Mace slumped back on his narrow cot, wild thoughts storming in his mind. The last thing the girl had conveyed, or so it seemed, was that she was coming for him. Ridiculous! It was just an outlandish dream. Was he going mad at the mere age of twenty? That he should contemplate the possibility, even for a moment, that these dreams were not illusions but somehow visions of a real person was insane.
The alarm clock rang, its mundane sound bringing him back to reality. Mace rose reluctantly and forced himself through the daily ritual of preparing for work. Within an hour he’d left his apartment and was walking up Gear Street towards a squat nondescript building – the offices of J. Tyler & Sons – a small engineering firm where he was employed as a payroll clerk.
He eyed the dour structure with a grimace. His work was about as interesting as watching paint dry. Still, the meagre wage put food on the table, and he knew he should be grateful. But a man does not live by bread alone. Mace craved excitement – something that would break the dull monotony of his staid existence.
He fell to daydreaming as he crossed the street. If only the girl of his dreams was real. Her image suddenly appeared before him, as if his thoughts had conjured up her presence. Mace stumbled to an amazed halt. Never had the vision come upon him when awake, nor delineated with such astounding vividness... The blare of a horn and the screech of tyres wrenched him to alertness. Mace’s head jerked around. His eyes went wide with horror. The truck hit him. Pain flared in a flame of agony; then all went dark.
**********
Mace opened his eyes. He was lying face down on loamy soil. He remembered the truck, the sickening crunch and the white hot agony of the brutal bone shattering impact. He wasn’t in any pain now. Perhaps he was so near to death that he didn't feet the pain. No, that wasn't it. Something was terribly wrong, but not with him. He felt too well to be badly injured.
Then it hit him – the sounds of traffic, the smell of fumes and a dozen other signs of city life were completely absent. Mace rose gingerly to an elbow and looked himself over. He was as naked as the day he was born. He gazed wildly about and experienced an even greater shock that caused his jaw to drop in utter astonishment as he beheld the scene before him.
There was no city. He was surrounded by forest, but it was a forest the likes of which no man of Earth had ever seen before. The tallest tree could not have been more than twenty feet in height. Their slate grey boles were fibrous in appearance to the point of being shaggy. The trunks branched to limbs like a candelabra. The long leaves, blade shaped and borne in dense spiral arrangements at the apex of the stems, were a mottled rainbow of outlandish hues – crimson, indigo and vivid yellow. The undergrowth was dense, and consisted of shrubby plants notable for their rosettes of orange fern-like leaves and white blooms resembling passion flowers.
His situation was inexplicable and shook him to the very foundations of his sanity. Was he dead and this heaven? If so then all the world’s religions were in error... No, his surroundings seemed too material to be any form of supernatural realm. For a time he lay upon his back trying to solve the enigma of his transition to this unknown world, but eventually he gave up – it was simply beyond his ability to comprehend.
Seeing there was no point in trying to solve the insoluble, Mace rose and slowly turned in a circle, wondering in which direction to begin his trek in quest of ... civilization? Was this world inhabited, and was their some connection between his vision of the girl and being here? One thing was certain – the answer would not be found by merely standing still.
The ground sloped steeply to his left, so he set off in that direction hoping that he might find a river in the bottom of what appeared to be the beginnings of a valley, for the day was hot and although he had just breakfasted he knew thirst would soon be upon him.
Within an hour he had reached the valley floor. Here, the strange forest gave way to a savannah carpeted in tall saffron grass that bore fluffy plumes of blue flowers. The broad grassland was dotted with weird trees whose appearance reminded him of a cluster of living pillars growing from the earth without secondary branching, their strange forms covered with a mat of spiky crimson hued leaves.
Mace was standing at the margins of the forest carefully surveying his surroundings. The Earthman was now clad in a crude loincloth – a bunch of leaves he had secured in place by a ropy vine. He gripped the primitive club he had made – a rock tied into a thick forked branch. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but he felt better now that he was armed and no longer butt naked to the world.
So far he hadn’t seen any signs of large animal life, but from documentaries knew grasslands were usually populated by tremendous herds and the ferocious carnivores that preyed upon them. A mountain range towered in the distance – a rugged wall of bluish grey that formed the valley’s further side to which the savannah swept in an expanse of sighing, wind stirred grass broken here and there by mesa-like outcrops that dotted the untamed landscape.
Despite its beauty it was a lonely scene of utter emptiness that made the thoughtful man feel small and insignificant in the presence of this silent immensity. The intimidating spell was broken when he caught a hint of rapid movement from the edge of vision.
Mace turned and stiffened with an incredulous gasp. A man-like being was running in his direction through the tall grass along the margins of the forest. The fellow, clad in a leather kilt-like garment was a giant – at least eight feet in height. Even more astounding was his golden skin which shone with all the metallic glimmer of burnished metal.
Mace swiftly ducked behind a bush and took a firmer grip on his club. He peered tensely through the shrubbery. The immense figure was nearer now, his huge strides eating up the distance with alarming speed. The Earthman’s knuckles whitened on his puny weapon. The giant’s brutal face was stamped with the malevolence of a snarling wolf. His massive frame bulged with tremendous muscles that bespoke of Herculean strength.
It was a fearsome sight to quail the bravest man – the huge figure, its massive arms and legs pumping with furious, machine-like power – a whirlwind of bestial destruction. Mace wasn’t a coward, but he had sense enough to know he hadn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell against the Titan. His only hope was that the golden giant would pass him by, for the brute’s attention seemed focused on something else, and Mace was confident he had yet to be discovered.
Suddenly, a smaller figure burst from the grass, stumbled and collapsed in utter exhaustion to the ground. Again, Mace was astonished – it was the girl of his dreams. For a moment the gaping man looked on in amazed paralysis; then uttered a cry of horror as the racing giant fell upon the helpless girl with the plain intention of lascivious ravishment.
Chapter 2: Prisoner of the Barbarians
As the monstrous giant fell upon his victim Mace’s worry for himself vanished in an instant. The Earthman burst from concealment in a rush of speed and slammed his club against the fellow’s skull. To his horrified astonishment the rock shattered as if he’d struck armour plate not bone.
For all his size the giant reacted with cat-like speed. In an instant he was on his feet, his huge fist swinging like a sledgehammer. Mace barely evaded the wild attack. The Earthman dropped his useless weapon, grabbed the ankle of his foe and heaved with all his might.
The giant crashed to earth, but regained his feet with spring-like swiftness. The titan’s face was a hellish portrait of satanic rage. He lunged at Mace, monstrous hands eager to rip apart his puny foe. Mace flung a handful of dirt into the brute’s ugly visage. The giant, momentarily blinded, bellowed in thunderous rage.
Mace leapt in. He slammed his fist into his foe’s groin. The Earthman swore. It felt as if he’d punched a pair of rocks. Again, huge hands reached for him. Mace scuttled between the columns of the monster’s legs and kicked his enemy behind the knee.
The brute’s leg buckled. He went down on all fours. Mace leapt, stomped on his opponent’s back. The titan roared more in rage than pain. He jerked up and sent the Earthman flying. Mace hit the ground, lay stunned. Brutal hands hauled him up, shook him like a rat in a terrier’s jaws, then flung him as if he was a doll.
Earth and sky whirled. A bush broke the Earthman’s fall. Mace struggled feebly to free himself from entangling branches. The giant loomed, bellowing cruel laughter at his defenceless prey. Mace flung up his arm as the titan raised his foot in preparation to stomp his massive weight upon the helpless man.
The foot rushed down. Mace’s cry of fear was drowned out by another shout. The giant stepped back. Huge golden figures crowded round the panting Earthman. Other hands hauled him up and held him powerless with vice-like strength. The air was filled with a babble of harsh discordant voices that grated like fingernails upon a chalkboard.
Mace, drained to the point of being unable to resist, was hauled to the girl. She still lay where she had fallen, too exhausted to flee during the wild fight. For a moment their eyes met and touched each other with the stirrings of compassion. But the spell was quickly broken when another giant swiftly flung a noose about each prisoner’s neck.
Thus secured their brutish captor tugged upon the lines. The girl staggered up, then fell, her cry choked off by the noose. The giants bellowed a chorus of sadistic mirth that filled the Earthman with silent rage. Mace quickly lifted the swooning girl up in his arms. The brute holding his tether grinned evilly as he jerked the cord. Mace muttered a strangled oath as he stumbled forward and was led out upon the plain like a leashed hound. It seemed there had been a change of plans - the other giants wanted them alive, and Mace worriedly wondered if that would be a fate worse than death.
Somehow the Earthman found strength to carry girl as he marched along beside his towering captors whose giant strides meant that he must jog to keep up with the gruelling pace they set. He looked at the girl. Her eyes were closed and her head lolled. For a moment he feared she was dead, then he felt her breath upon his skin and some of his anxiety abated.
She was undeniably the same woman of his dreams – her features and the eye tattooed upon her forehead confirmed that beyond a doubt. Before, he had only seen the vision of her face, but now she was physically present she seemed less enthral. Perhaps, he thought, it was the fullness of her figure that was hardly concealed by the cream hued scanty garments that she wore – a flounced skirt whose brief hemline exposed her upper thighs, and a tight open bolero-like bodice, that supported her naked breasts.
The Earthman shifted his gaze to their six captors who hedged him in as he marched. The giants conversed among themselves, trading ribald jests unintelligible to Mace. Each was as different in form and feature as any man might be, but one thing united them – their size and colour, and the bestial diversity of their rough hewn countenances.
A new worry beset Mace. Only five minutes had elapsed since they began their gruelling march and, already taxed from his frantic battle with the giant, he was beginning to feel what little strength remained draining from him. His arms trembled and the girl, although slight, felt like a sack of lead to his weakened limbs. Sweat soaked him. He began to feel dizzy. He tumbled and fell; the girl uttered a moan as she rolled free of his palsied arms.
The giants stopped. The brute holding his rope angrily yanked it, nearly strangling him; others nudged him with their feet. Mace, believing that he was finished, decided to go down fighting in a final act of brave but futile defiance. Hot rage fanned the embers of his strength. He grabbed the rope and jerked it with all his pent up fury. His captor, taken by surprise stumbled, lost his balance and crashed humiliatingly face down in the dirt.
The brute’s companions roared their outrage. They raised their feet in preparation to stomp the Earthman to a pulp. Escape was impossible. Mace prepared himself for death. He tore the noose from about his neck and stood bravely, defiantly facing his gigantic foes. His only regret was that he hadn’t time to get to know the girl.
Then the earth trembled. The giants started. Their wild anger turned to knifing fear. Their faces were portraits of terror as they looked wildly about the landscape. One jabbered, pointed. All heads swung in the direction of his trembling finger.
About a quarter mile away a glowing column was rising from the ground – a slowly rotating double helix of shimmering violet force shot through with spheres of whirling ruby light. The strange phenomena, called a ground-storm, climbed the sky with sinuous twisting grace until it seemed to rake the heavens like a blazing sword. Then it began to move across the land – slowly at first, then faster and faster, all the while spinning with increasing fury.
The giants seemed mesmerized by its approach, their captives completely forgotten. Mace heard the sound of the advancing ground-storm – the hiss and crackle of potent forces locked within the tempest’s whirling heart. Sensing danger he moved protectively by the girl. Now conscious she, too, gazed at the tempest's swirling rush, her face alive with terror.
There was no time for words – the thing was hurtling at them, picking up speed with every passing second. Then, the storm’s centrifugal force became so great that it flung out the blazing spheres trapped within its seething core. The accompanying thunder was like the discharging of multitudinous field guns. In mere seconds the air was filled with a barrage of crackling St Elmo’s fire the size of cannon balls that crimsoned the sky with shrieking hell-fire.
Hurtling spheres struck the giants in a cannonade of sizzling violence. The monsters screamed in agony as their bodies were wreathed in crawling webs of crimson force. They collapsed in a convulsing heap upon the ground, struck down by the overwhelming fury of elemental Nature.
But now the Earthman and his companion were no longer shielded by the interposing bodies of their huge captors. Mace clasped the girl’s arm in a desperate bid to drag her from the path of the seething vortex that would be upon them in an instant. His touch jolted her to swift action. She grabbed him and jerked him to the earth with surprising strength. Spheres of crimson force hurtled above Mace. The girl’s quick thinking had saved him by the narrowest of margins.
Man and girl hugged each other for mutual comfort in the face of raging Nature. Then the seething vortex of crackling power was upon them in all its terrifying might. The world vanished in a haze of violet light. Shocking jolts of force stabbed Mace. He screamed in agony, the girl echoing his tortured cry. Whirling currents of snapping force tumbled them like leaves. Hurtling spheres of glowing death missed them by mere inches.
The hissing of the discharges reached a crazed crescendo as the heart of the storm swept over them, sucking them into a vortex of electric agony. The world became a whirling sea of pain. Mace screamed as furious eddies of violet energy spun him and the clinging girl like a stone in a sling and hurled both against one of the many rocky outcrops that dotted the plain. Somehow he clung to consciousness despite the terrible impact. Sensing an opening Mace groped about, blinded by whirling dust. He found the space and crawled within, dragging the girl with him.
A volley of lightning-balls exploded overhead. Stone shattered. An avalanche of debris came crashing down. The storm rushed on in a whirl of sound and fury. Then silence descended upon the world, but of Mace and his fair companion there was no sign; only a heap of shattered smoking stone to mark the place where they had lain.
Chapter 3: Keeper of the Eye
Mace recovered slowly. Gradually he became aware of his cramped surroundings. Panic seized him when he realized they had been entombed alive. He relaxed a little when he turned his head and spotted a faint ray of light piercing a narrow gap between the fallen boulders.
The Earthman turned his attention to the girl. He could barely see her in the dim light. She lay inert by his side. Fear for her struck him when he saw the bloody gash on her scalp, the injury caused when a rock from the landslide had bounced within and struck her senseless. Worriedly, Mace removed the noose about her neck and examined her wound. It didn’t seem serious, but then again he wasn’t a doctor. He pressed his ear to her nostrils and his anxiety abated a little when he heard and felt her steady breath.
Reassured that his companion was not in immediate danger he turned his attention to the jumble of rocks that imprisoned them. Moving about in their cramped prison would have been challenging for a contortionist. Mace found it almost impossible, but at last managed to press his eye to the small gap between the boulders. What he saw stabbed him with renewed fear – in the distance he glimpsed the golden giants stalking about the landscape. They were obviously searching for their erstwhile captives.
Mace suppressed a curse. The fury of the storm hadn’t killed them as he had hoped. But when they gave up the search escape would be possible. He turned his attention to the rockslide barring the cave’s entrance and his remaining hope was cruelly dashed by the disheartening sight. The smallest debris was the size of a beach ball and without a steel lever would be impossible to budge.
The Earthman slumped against the rocky wall of their tomb, for now it could be nothing else but that. Unless of course he attracted the attention of the giants and they dug him out. As he morosely contemplated this option his bleak thoughts were interrupted by the stirring of the girl.
She opened her eyes and gazed upon him. Despite their grim predicament his heart quickened at her beauty. It was then that thoughts, somehow external to his brain, slipped within his mind like sunlight through prison bars. The sensation was similar to his dream communication with the girl – there were no intelligible words, only a symphony of sound that stirred up emotions and images, but this time with a clarity he could clearly understand – a lucidity that engendered a kind of pseudo-language thanks to their proximity to each other.
“I am Yusura, keeper of the Eye of All-seeing,” she informed him in her strange way. “Do not despair. The small fissure in which we are imprisoned is but a minor entrance to much larger caverns that extend beneath these grasslands - caverns of which our captors have no knowledge and by which we can evade them.”
Mace started with excitement. A dozen questions came to mind in a rush of eagerness. But the girl, who was now strong enough to communicate, forestalled his flurried queries with a restraining hand upon his brawny arm.
“There is great danger,” warned Yusura. “Our enemies may yet discover us and we cannot, for my people’s sake, risk recapture. We must hurry. Follow me and I will explain along the way.”
Mace, seeing there was no alternative followed the girl, albeit reluctantly, as she crawled deeper into the fissure. He squeezed himself painfully through the narrow passageway that led deeper and deeper into the earth, all the while attentive in amazed avidness as Yusura unveiled in her weird way the answers to the haunting mystery in which he found himself.
“This world is named Klann,” she informed him. “Our captors are barbarians we call the Garas. My people, the Rushivu, are pacifists, incapable of violence. For untold ages we have held at bay the fierce Garas by a barrier of fire that surrounds Vanna, our city - a wall of all-consuming flame.
“But recently a powerful sorcerer and warlord, Basgak by name, has arisen among the Garas, and has given their bodies a golden invulnerability that enabled them to pass unscathed through the ring of fire and overrun Vanna. We are now the playthings of their wanton cruelty.”
“I am truly sorry that your people suffer beneath the yoke of these barbarous oppressors,” he replied. “But what has this to do with me, for I strongly feel that you brought me here by a means I can’t imagine.”
“I chose you,” explained Yusura, “because, although you don’t realize it, you are a man of action. Your capacity for violence is tempered by ethics that prevent you from misusing this capacity. This combination makes you an ideal choice to be the champion who will liberate all Vanna from her barbarous enemies. The source of Basgak’s power lies in a strange jewel he wears about his neck. In order to defeat him and save my people you must find away to seize the gem.”
An incredulous expression came upon Mace’s countenance. What could one man do against a hoard of invulnerable giants? He feared Yusura placed too much faith in his abilities. Why, he had been as a babe in the hands of his monstrous captors. He set the thought aside for the moment. At least he now knew what was expected of him. But how did he get here? He put the question to the girl.
“The Eye of All-seeing enables me to look into many dimensions,” explained Yusura. “After a long search I found the right man - someone noble and brave, but alas was about to die in the flower of his youth. With the Eye I foresaw the future: that you would be killed by that vehicle.
“No one from your world can exist in this dimension, for the matter here is different from your own. The instant of your death I grasped your mind and drew it between realities. Your essence formed a matrix that drew the matter of this world to itself. Thus your body was reformed from the elements of our cosmos. I couldn’t bring you directly to me. My control isn’t that precise. I left Vanna by a secret way to meet you, but my escape was discovered and I was pursued.”
The couple's crawl through utter darkness continued, the girl breaking the monotony of their tiresome journey by telling Mace the history of her world: Thousands of years ago there were two mighty civilizations that warred for the supremacy of empire – the Rushivu, of which Yusura and her city were the only surviving fragment, and the Morlu, now extinct.
The Morlu bred their slaves like cattle – infusing some with the characteristics of great size, brutality and strength. Thus the Garas were created and used as soldiers in a vast army of world conquest.
Battles raged in unbridled fury across the land. Armies strove like raging beasts against each other. The Rushivu fought with furious desperation, but were no match for the size and sheer brutality of the Garas. One by one the cities of the Rushivu were laid waste, their populations exterminated in an orgy of unspeakable atrocities, until at last only Vanna stood unscathed, protected by the eleventh hour invention of her wall of all-consuming fire.
But the victory of the Morlu was short lived for they had infused too much blood lust in their monstrous creations. The Garas, unable to sate their base passions on the populace of Vanna turned on their masters in an orgiastic whirlwind of unstoppable destruction that drenched the land with Morlu blood until all their cities were devastated and none were left alive.
The sages of Vanna looked on in absolute horror at the blood drenched drama unfolding in all its viciousness – the end of one mighty civilization, and the reduction of another to a single city in a wilderness populated by howling bestial savages. They vowed that never again would such destruction fall upon their world. And so as the Morlu had bred their slaves for brutality, the surviving Rushivu bred their population for pacifism until after a thousand generations none were capable of violence.
Yusura completed her narration as the narrow tunnel began to widen. “Not much further,” she announced. “We’ll soon be free of this twisting passage and its arduous confines.”
Shortly, both emerged from the constricting way. Mace stood painfully. Like Yusura he was bruised, filthy and weak with hunger and fatigue from the taxing journey through the pitch black passage. He felt as a worm must feel as it burrows through the soil.
The Earthman shuddered at the disquieting analogy. Though he didn’t suffer from claustrophobia the ordeal had nonetheless tested his courage, for there had been occasions, especially when the passage had narrowed to the point of near impassability, when he began to have grave doubts that Yusura knew where she was leading him, and if he’d ever see blessed sunlight and breathe fresh air again.
But now his spirits lifted as he looked wonderingly about. They were still far underground, but the constricted passage had opened out into a cavern of vast extent composed of a phosphorescent mineral resembling limestone.
The softly glowing rock suffused the scene with twilight radiance that revealed fantastic speleothems – formations of wondrous delicacy sculptured by the hand of Nature into a fairyland cathedral. Stalagmites and stalactites formed complex, towering organ pipes of stone, while other formations resembled frozen waterfalls and exquisite draperies of rock, all of which created a wonderland of grottos that were reflected in the cavern’s central lake with marvellous effect.
Yusura led Mace to the shore of the vast lake along whose margins grew huge aquatic plants resembling water lilies, one of many life forms that had adapted to the environs of this subterranean world. The girl waded into the shallows, tore off a thistle-shaped seed pod from a floating plant, and broke open its fibrous shell.
“Here,” she said, offering him the large black nuts within. “They are edible.” Then, with an enticing smile: “Come in and wash the grime away.”
Mace, only too aware of his dirty, dishevelled state entered the lake without the need for further encouragement. He was surprised to find the water pleasantly warm, and deduced that the glowing rock emitted thermal energy as well as light.
The pair bathed and ate of the plentiful seeds whose taste reminded the Earthman of almonds. Despite their ordeals youthful exuberance came to the fore, and soon both were laughing and frolicking about in the water. Mace playfully grabbed Yusura. They wrestled, their bodies locked together in mock combat until the girl was pinned tightly by the man, her full breasts pressed against his burly chest. Their eyes met and in that instant what had been a game became much more. They kissed, and the man’s wrestling hold became a passionate embrace.
Thus engrossed neither saw the hideous thing that stole upon them. The aquatic creature, at least twice as long as Mace was tall, was translucent and pale blue. Its rod-like body was propelled by six flippers. Six tentacle-like appendages sprouted from its spherical head. Six black eyes were locked upon its unsuspecting prey. It darted forward in a burst of speed, and the couple’s foreplay turned to cries of pain as the monster’s gelatinous arms whipped about them in a slimy embrace of stinging horror, then dragged them swiftly beneath the water.
Chapter 4: Horror in the Lake
Mace fought wildly against the shock of pain and smothering water. He kicked the creature, broke free of its gelid embrace. The Earthman looked frantically about and through a curtain of bubbles saw Yusura hanging limply in the horror’s tentacles. Again, he furiously attacked the creature with battering fists and feet, and tore the girl from its disgusting embrace.
Mace dragged the unconscious girl to shore and pushed her onto solid earth. He was on the verge of scrambling up to safety when another slimy limb whipped about his neck and dragged him under. Again the agonizing pain of stinging tentacles assaulted him. The Earthman gritted his teeth as the creature dragged him deeper into the lake.
Mace felt himself growing weaker, his lungs burned from lack of air; his body was seared by venom. Fear lent him strength. He tore savagely at the monster’s jelly-like flesh, ripping huge chunks away. The monster writhed. The water was fouled with slimy blood. The thing let go and Mace shot to the surface, which seemed a million miles away. He burst above the water and gasped air into his tortured body. With the dregs of strength he swam to the shore and crawled to Yusura’s side where he fainted from sickening pain and exhaustion from his frenetic fight.
**********
Mace groaned and opened his eyes. Although he was no longer seared by agony, his body was a patchwork of dull aches and his muscles were as feeble as a newborn babe. He looked up into the worried face of the girl, who cradled his head in her lap. He managed a weak smile; one that quickly faded when he saw the ugly welts the stinging tentacles had left on her body.
“I’m not badly hurt,” said Yusura in response to his obvious concern. “I wasn’t as severely stung as you. Now rest, for you need it more than I.”
Mace slowly regained his strength, the girl filling the interlude with further details of her life and many questions concerning Earth. When the Earthman was strong enough to resume their journey he had a better understanding of Yusura’s people and her role as Keeper of the Eye of All-seeing.
Vanna, Yusura’s city, wasn’t ruled by a monarch with unmitigated power. The metropolis was governed by a council drawn from the ranks of its noble citizens. All decisions were made by vote with Yusura being consulted as a kind of oracle who provided the council with information to aid them in their deliberations.
The office of Keeper of the Eye was hereditary, with the talent for its use being passed down through the female line by some quirk of hereditary. Of the Eye itself Yusura said very little for it was venerated by her people, and its sanctity made it an object hedged about with taboos as were those entrusted with its care.
This last admission made Yusura blush as the girl recalled that moment when she and Mace were clasped together in an ardent embrace. Not only was it conduct unbecoming of her station, but the distraction had nearly cost them both their lives. Despite her growing feelings for the man she was resolute that such weakness would never be repeated.
Though the girl disclosed nothing of her conflicting feelings, Mace read between the lines. He could see that the flame of youth burned hotly in Yusura, and that she chafed under the restraints imposed upon her by the demands of, what to him, were oppressive and needless circumscriptions.
And thus it was that both continued their journey along the lake’s shoreline, each desiring to express their feelings, but restrained by society’s conventions – Yusura by her own beliefs and the Earthman by gentlemanly respect for her feelings.
The trek continued in moody silence until they reached a point where the shoreline petered out and gave way to a waste of water that stretched before them in an unbroken and seemingly impassable expanse.
Yusura’s shoulders slumped in bleak dejection. Although the Eye had revealed to her the existence of the cavern system, it was not, despite its title, all-powerful, and she was still ignorant concerning the totality of the subterranean world’s environs – a fact brought home to her by what she now beheld.
The girl’s mood darkened. She thought of her people suffering under the brutal and oppressive rule of the Garas - their barbarous conquerors. Too much time had been lost already. Their hard won progress had come to naught, and now it seemed they must spend precious hours to retrace the way, for they dare not swim the lake with the knowledge ferocious beasts lay within its deceptive placidity.
“If only we had a boat,” she said dejectedly. “I sense the nearness of Vanna by the vibrations of its flaming barrier. But this stretch of water bars the way, and further progress is impossible.”
Her words prompted Mace to look about in search of a solution, and as he did his eyes fell upon the huge plants resembling waterlilies that grew about the lake’s shoreline. One in particular captured his attention – a growth with an upturned rim twelve feet in diameter. He smiled as inspiration came upon him.
“There's our boat,” he said. “It looks strong enough to support our weight and we can use our hands as paddles. I know it’s risky, but I don’t see any point in turning back.”
Yusura brightened. “It’s worth trying,” she replied eagerly.
Both entered the water. Mace’s admiration for the girl increased. Despite her pacifism she was no coward, and whatever fears she had concerning the lake’s ferocious denizens were no deterrent to facing perils head on.
An examination of the plant revealed it was anchored to the bottom by a single root an inch in thickness that took much struggle and their combined strength to break. Having freed their makeshift craft from its mooring they were soon aboard and paddling out upon the lake.
Hours passed in slow progression, with the pair stopping now and then to rest and eat from their provisions - a store of nuts they had gathered before departing. Mace looked into the lake’s lucid depths. The water was crystal clear, and illuminated by the softly glowing rock that comprised its bottom.
He saw that schools of strange creatures swum below. Mace was amazed by the astounding diversity of their translucent darting shapes, which glowed with flickering lights like living Christmas trees. He saw them scatter from a monster like the one which had attacked him. The man shuddered at the sight of it, but the predator passed on by, intent on the pursuit of its prey.
They resumed their tiresome journey, which became even more trying when a tear developed in the leaf from their weight, and water began to slowly leak within their craft. With the passing of three hours their makeshift boat was sinking fast and they were forced to swim the remaining distance of twenty yards to the shore. Here they rested for a while, slowly recovering from their gruelling exertions until at last Yusura arose.
“We have rested enough,” she said. “I dare not delay any further. The exit from this subterranean world lies over there,” she continued as she pointed at a cleft in the rock. “The way out is not difficult. We should be on the surface within the hour.”
Both squeezed through the narrow aperture, which widened out into an open way that rose sharply upward. The journey out was easy when compared with their inward passage, but even so it was still difficult to negotiate due to the steepness of the sharp incline. At last they emerged from the tunnel and found they were in a cave mouth high above the ground, situated as it was in one of the mesa-like outcrops that dotted the valley floor.
It was nearing sunset. The view was panoramic, and in the distance, perhaps two miles away, stood Vanna, Yusura’s city, and last bastion of culture on this savage world. The girl gazed at her home with mixed emotions – gladness on one hand, but on the other fear for her people who suffered terribly under the brutal rule of their savage conquerors.
She turned to the Earthman. So much depended on him, for in this entire world only he could be the champion of the oppressed. Her people were all pacifists, and no mercy could be expected from the golden giants whose brutality knew no bounds. Her heart stirred with emotion for Mace. Had it been fair to snatch him from his world the way she had. But if she hadn’t taken him he’d have been killed by the truck. Still, it might be only a temporary reprieve, for the dangers he must still face were considerable, and grim death might yet come to him.
Mace was oblivious to the girl’s turmoil. Had he been aware the Earthman would have quickly reassured her he was grateful for a second chance at life, and would do his best to help her and her people in every way he could. But at that moment he stood in wondrous captivation at the amazing sight his startled eyes beheld.
Walls of shimmering enthral fire girdled Vanna with an aurora of dancing light that rose against the darkening sky - a billowing tapestry of pastel radiance that soared majestically from a moat of prismatic gems encompassing the city. The wondrous colours flowed across the spectrum, creating a moving palette of rainbow hues that tinted the alabaster metropolis with ever changing light, beautiful yet deadly.
The Earthman gazed in awe at the fantastic city, his wandering eyes tracing its circular plan and the broad avenues radiating outwards like the spokes of an enormous wagon wheel. A vast artificial lake dotted with ornamental islands formed the hub of the fairytale metropolis. The reservoir was more than just decorative for it served as the city’s water supply, which irrigated the multitude of fruit trees and herbaceous plants that lined all thoroughfares and fed Vanna’s million strong populace.
About the lake were the estates of the wealthy whose grand architecture was one of sweeping upward forms held aloft by flying buttresses. Pointed arches and vaulted ceilings made the mansion interiors light and airy. Tall spires and gilded domes completed their baronial impressiveness.
The homes of the plebeians were mostly tenements whose architectural forms were modelled on the patrician residences. But here they differed in that the lowest floor was given over to communal toilets, bathes and kitchens for the occupants. About the tenements were gardens of flowering plants, also edible, that added their vivid hues to the colourful scene to create a sight most pleasing to the eye.
“We had best begin our descent ere the light further dims,” observed Yusura, her words drawing Mace’s gaze from the incredible city.
The man nodded in silent agreement, the awe of Vanna still upon him. They began their perilous descent. The rugged face of the mesa afforded many hand and footholds, but the ancient rock often crumbled beneath their sweating hands. Fear jolted Mace as one stony protuberance broke away. For a terrifying moment he hung in sweat drenched dread as he clung by a single arm, swinging above an abyss of petrifying height.
Yusura grabbed his flailing hand and guided it to a solid knob of rock. Mace gripped it, white knuckled. He gave the girl a sickly smile. They continued their descent – a seeming eternity of heart stopping danger. At last the blessed firmness of earth was reached, and both sagged to the ground, exhausted mentally and physically from their taxing ordeal.
Yusura smiled at Mace in vast relief, but then she tensed and cried in horrified despair. The Earthman jerked around. He uttered a bitter curse against cruel fate: six giants – the very brutes who had captured them, and from whom they had fought so hard to flee - had risen from concealment among the thick vegetation at the mesa’s base. They were surrounded. Escape was impossible, and Mace felt his heart sink into a pit of bleak despair.
Chapter 5: Warlord of the Savages
Mace struggled to his feet and stepped protectively in front of Yusura as the brutes advanced menacingly upon them. It was a brave but futile act. In an instant man and girl were seized, their desperate struggles stilled by their captor’s overwhelming strength.
The Earthman was flung over the broad shoulder of one giant. He saw Yusura treated with the same callous disregard; then the brutes set off at a jolting run towards the city. Mace could do little but rage in silent fury at his helplessness. Clearly, their captors had seen them climbing down the mesa and, being preoccupied with their hazardous descent, he and the girl had failed to notice their enemies creeping up upon them.
As Mace brooded over these unpalatable facts the giants’ enormous strides swiftly ate up the distance, and by the time the sun had sunk below the horizon in a welter of crimson they had reached their destination, and stood before a wall of flickering auroras that billowed like draperies of shifting light.
Mace craned his head and through the streaming illumination saw the moat of gems from which the faintly hissing radiance sprang. Trigonal crystals grew in clusters from the ditches’ masonry, each as long and thick as a man’s forearm, their colour shifting through the spectrum in waves of light. Despite his desperate situation Mace could not help but feel the thrill of immanent adventure come upon him – the first man of Earth to enter this fantastic city.
Beyond, on the moat’s far side, the wondering Earthman glimpsed another giant. The titan pulled a lever on the towering obelisk he leaned against. A narrow bridge slid out like a tongue of stone. The veil of enthral flame parted, flowed around and above it to form a shimmering arch of fire beneath which the captives swiftly passed in safety.
The giants, joined by the other who had opened the way, strode quickly down a broad tree lined avenue - one of many that led towards the heart of the metropolis. Night had now fallen and all about lay shadowed quietude. A moon appeared in the sky, adding its soft radiance to the pale glow of Vanna’s flame-walls. The city, despite its teeming multitude, seemed strangely deserted, and Mace would have thought it so but for the prickling aura of terror that emanated from those cowering in their darkened tenements.
The giant carrying Yusura now drew abreast of his own captor. Mace was relieved to see the girl appeared no worse for wear despite her jolting ride on the shoulder of the brute, and he grasped the chance to speak.
“Where are the other giants?” he asked incredulously. “Are they so confident of their victory they do not patrol the streets?”
“They number no more than fifty,” she explained. “Incessant warfare amongst their kind has, over the ages, reduced them to a single tribe, and you forget my people are pacifists incapable of violence.”
Mace was shocked. He had assumed that Vanna had been conquered by a hoard of savages. It was unnerving to think that merely fifty of the brutes had subjugated an entire city. Pacifism, he reflected bitterly, was only viable when all were pacifists.
The giant carrying Yusura suddenly pulled ahead of his fellows before Mace could continue his conversation with the girl. Surprised at this sudden move, the Earthman glanced curiously about and saw a look of fear had come upon the faces of their captors, who had now unaccountably increased their pace to a frantic sprint. But what could possibly cause these towering monsters to be terrified?
Then the Earthman noticed something he had missed before – was it a trick of moonlight or were the brutes changing colour before his startled eyes? He looked carefully, and horror’s thrill came upon him - the giants’ golden hides were marred by steaming necrotic blotches of disturbing ugliness.
As Mace stared one monster staggered, crashed upon the avenue. The others ignored their fallen comrade’s piteous wails as unbridled terror came upon them. What was happening? Had some fell disease struck them down? Mace could only speculate as they madly raced through the darkness towards the city’s heart.
Within minutes another giant tumbled to the ground. The brute carrying Mace jabbered out his terror, for the titan saw the dark blotches upon his skin had bloomed like strange malignant flowers. The creature staggered like a drunkard. For one terrifying moment Mace thought his captor would crash to earth and fall crushingly upon him.
The monster regained his balance, lurched onwards. A huge pavilion loomed. With a burst of frantic speed the remaining giants dashed towards it, burst within and collapsed upon the earth. Mace hit the floor, and but for the thick carpet he crashed upon would no doubt have suffered serious injury.
For a moment the Earthman lay stunned; then struggled from beneath the pinning arm of his enormous captor. He staggered up and saw Yusura several yards away. Mace lurched to her side and managed to drag the girl from beneath the titan lying partially upon her.
“Yusura,” he gasped as he cradled the girl in his arms. “Are you badly hurt? Speak to me!”
The girl groaned. Her eyelids fluttered open. “I’m all right,” she replied weakly. “The fall just stunned me.”
Satisfied that the girl was not seriously injured, Mace helped Yusura to her feet and both looked wearily about. They were in an enormous pavilion as large as a circus tent, and all about were ranged the giants of the savage tribe. The women were base monstrosities, their visages stamped with unlovely brutishness, the children smaller versions of those whose debased loins had sired them.
The members of the clan lay upon the crudely woven carpets, their golden skins marred by spreading fuming blemishes that added an acidic miasma to the air. They moaned and their bodies twitched. Reddish light tinged the scene and with the unsettling tormented cries created an atmosphere of disquiet hellishness. Fear came upon Mace. Had some weird plague struck the city? Would he and Yusura soon join these moaning wretches in the agony of death?
“Look,” gasped the girl, who pointed. “It is Basgak, the fell sorcerer and warlord of these savages.”
Mace gasped as his eyes fell upon the titan. The giant’s face was a bleak study in utter cruelty and uncontrolled passions. But intelligence of a kind was also there – a more sophisticated form of animal cunning that set the man apart from his debauched followers. The warlord sat upon a throne of animal skulls bound together with thick gold wire and draped in the saffron pelt of a ferocious predator.
He seemed in a trance. About his neck hung a strange gem mounted in a kind of locket, and it was from this weird jewel that the blood red light erupted. The weird illumination pulsed. It filled the air with tingling, humming energy that flowed in beating waves of ruby radiance and fell upon him and his moaning underlings.
The Earthman stared in amazement. As the unnerving light shone upon the titans their blotched skins began to glow with a pulsing aureate sheen. The couple stood in awed stillness as the ugly blemishes began to writhe, to fade like twisting shadows before the intensifying light. The process moved ever swiftly. In but moments each hide had resumed its golden hue. With the dying of the consuming darkness the giants’ pain wracked cries began to fade away until every twitching limb had stilled, and a look of ecstasy suffused each ugly visage.
Mace gazed at the savages who sprawled upon the floor. The sight of their incapacitated forms jerked the Earthman from his awe induced paralysis. His eyes flicked to the pulsing gem about the monstrous warlord’s throat – the source of the Golden Giant’s invulnerability according to the girl.
“Quickly,” he cried excitedly. “Now is our chance to seize the gem.”
But it was all too little too late: Basgak, savage and cunning leader of the tribe, awoke. His hooded eyes - cruel and bleak snapped open and fell upon the girl. Her beauty, far transcending the base ugliness of his slatternly wives, roused the white hot flame of lust within his brutish soul.
Yusura, though brave, nonetheless quailed before the dark desires mirrored on his sordid visage. In an instant the monster, gripped by goading lust, was off his throne and leaping at her with all the eagerness of a wild beast of prey.
Mace cursed, swept Yusura protectively behind him. Basgak sent the Earthman sprawling with the contemptuous sweep of one enormous hand. As he hit the floor Mace glimpsed the giant clasp the screaming girl and rip her tattered clothes away. The other giants, now stirring to alertness, hooted their approval as their savage chief flung Yusura to floor and jerked her legs apart.
The Earthman struggled up, fighting off the dazing fall, the girl’s wild cries spurring him to swift response. He madly dashed for Basgak and with a flying leap kicked the kneeling savage in the head. The brutal warlord let loose a roar of rage at the interference of his pleasure.
Basgak spun about on his knees, the girl quite forgotten in his fury. Mace ducked a wild swing, grabbed the dangling locket more by instinct than conscious thought. A savage jerk broke the cord. The warlord howled in furious disbelief.
Mace dashed passed the startled giant and hauled Yusura to her feet as all about the other titans staggered upright. In an instant the enormous tent was echoing with the wild cries of the enraged throng of fearsome savages.
The couple dashed for the tent flap, ducking clasping hands. The giants, still affected by the soporific radiance, were a clumsy uncoordinated hoard. Two collided in an inept attempt to grab the fleeing pair. Insults flew, then fists. The huge combatants fell against an enormous brazier, overturned it. Flames erupted, smoke billowed. Basgak roared futile orders as panic swept the unruly crowd; masked by rising chaos Mace and Yusura made their swift escape.
The girl, her wits about her, led Mace from the tent in a wild rush. She dashed towards the lake breathlessly signalling for him to follow. The Earthman tore after her as she arrowed towards a moonlit jetty fifty yards away. They gained the pier in a burst of frantic speed. Yusura staggered to a halt at its end. Her heart sank – the pleasure craft she hoped to find weren’t there.
A chorus of savage howls jerked the couple round. The giants were erupting from their blazing tent like wasps from a burning nest. For a moment they milled about; then Basgak, attracted by his locket’s glowing jewel, pointed in their direction and bellowed out his white hot fury. In an instant the entire tribe was loping at them like a pack of slavering dogs.
Mace, realizing what had happened, cut off the betraying light by snapping shut the locket. The Earthman turned. Beneath the water he glimpsed glowing serpentine forms that nearly stopped his heart with fear. He swore lividly. They were trapped and their monstrous foes would be upon them in an instant.
Chapter 6: Tower of the Eye
“The aquatic creatures are harmless,” said Yusura in response to Mace’s bitter curse.
The girl plunged within the lake. Mace hastily tied the locket about his neck and swiftly followed suit. Both struck out for a moonlit island about two hundred yards away. Behind them a tumultuous furore of strident voices bellowed through the dark in a cannonade of anger. A stampede of pounding feet shook the jetty as the savage hoard tore furiously in mad pursuit down its length.
Mace and the girl increased their frantic strokes as the sound of huge bodies splashed within the water. They’d swum about one hundred yards when Yusura begin to falter as the cumulative strain of her ordeals began to tell. The gasping girl went under. Wild fear stabbed the Earthman. With a burst of frantic speed he drew beside the spot where she had vanished.
He caught a glimpse of a pale form sinking. Mace swiftly dove, caught an arm, and hauled Yusura to the surface. He trod water as the coughing, spluttering girl clung to him. Looking back the worried Earthman saw their foes, despite their tremendous size and strength, were hopeless swimmers, for on the plains they roamed there was little need to develop such a skill.
The giants splashed about, churning the water to foam with the strength of their massive limbs. Mace grinned with vast relief. For all their furious efforts the inept brutes were getting nowhere. Yusura also began to smile at the comical sight. Soon both were laughing at their witless foes; their mirth increasing at Basgak’s enraged antics as he stormed up and down the jetty’s length in a raging ferment of impotent fury.
But the couple had laughed far too soon: Basgak, determined to regain his locket – the source of his power and authority – wasn’t giving up so easily. He roared commands and the giants on the jetty began to use their tremendous strength to tear apart the quay, and cast huge sections of its timber decking upon the lake.
“They’re improvising rafts,” gasped Yusura. “I’ve got my strength back. Come on, we’ve got to reach the island.”
Mace wasn’t sure Yusura had fully recovered, but there was no time to argue. Both raced for the island as their tenacious foes clambered on the makeshift rafts. Now the chase was on in earnest – the fleeing couple, their bodies cutting through the water, and behind three rafts crammed with bestial foes who, with huge hands, paddled their ungainly craft in furious pursuit.
Mace’s muscles burned from his exertions. His heart felt as if it would burst. They were twenty yards from the island’s shore when again Yusura’s strength gave out. This time the Earthman caught the girl before she sank beneath the water.
“I can’t go on,” she gasped. “Save yourself.”
The Earthman ignored her plea. He looked behind. The enormous power of the giants was propelling their crude vessels at a tremendous rate. The couple’s lead had been reduced to fifty yards, and even that was shrinking with alarming rapidity.
Mace began to tow Yusura to the shore, the girl helping as best she could with feeble kicks. Despite the couple’s frantic efforts the distance between pursued and pursuers swiftly narrowed. The giants encouraged by the sight, shouted cries of wild bloodlust as they swiftly closed upon their tiring quarry.
The Earthman made the shoreline in a final burst of desperate speed. Supporting the exhausted girl he staggered from the water to the beach and glimpsed a mighty tower gleaming whitely in the moonlight, perhaps twenty yards inland, which soared majestically above the island’s forest like an alabaster beacon.
“The Tower of the Eye,” panted Yusura. “If only we can reach it.”
Both lurched towards the forest on trembling legs, but the effort was too much and they were forced to pause at its margins to catch their breath. Wild shouts made them look behind. A rush of fear came upon them - the giants were ten yards from the beach. The brutes leapt from their rafts. They plunged shoreward, their huge legs churning water with furious eagerness.
Mace quailed as the screaming brutes, Basgak in the lead, stormed the beach in a wild rush of blood crazed fervour. Terror spurred the couple onward. They plunged within the forest, strength renewed by the horrifying knowledge of what would happen should their bestial foes fall upon them with berserker fury.
The giants pursued, but the dense and tangled verdure slowed them down, whereas Mace and the girl, being much smaller, could quickly slip between the closely growing trees. The breathless couple reached the tower and staggered up its stairway towards the structure’s archway and its massive door whose single ornament was an enormous staring eye.
Yusura, barely capable of standing, leaned heavily against the bronze portal, and pressed her trembling hand against the crystal iris in the middle of the door. The ponderous valve began to slowly open just as Basgak and his slavering warriors burst upon the scene. The giant leader of the golden savages let loose a demented roar of utter rage. He charged the couple. Mace swore, tugged furiously at the slowly opening way in a desperate bid to hasten its progress.
The door opened inch by painful inch. The roaring monsters bounded up the steps in a wild rush. Mace grabbed the trembling, panting girl, forced her through the narrow gap and hastily followed. As he slipped within the tower Basgak thrust his arm through the widening crack. The Earthman ducked. But his trembling legs gave out. He lost his balance and crashed upon the floor.
Mace felt the agonizing grip of Basgak’s groping hand as his leg was seized by fingers of crushing strength. Yusura cried in horror as the Earthman was swiftly dragged towards the slowly opening door. The girl drew upon the dregs of strength, dashed forward and pressed her palm against a smaller ornamental eye. Mace was halfway out the door when the massive portal closed upon the giant’s arm. Basgak screamed, released his grip upon the Earthman’s leg and jerked his pinned limb free. Yusura frantically dragged Mace within the tower. The door closed shut with a booming metallic clang, nearly cutting off his legs.
Man and girl lay for long minutes, almost insensible from exhaustion, and too breathless from their harrowing ordeals to even speak. Eventually Mace regained sufficient strength and interest to look curiously about, and saw they were in a circular audience hall which he later learned was where the elders met with the Keeper of the Eye when seeking her advice. A stairway spiralled around the tower’s inner wall, its alabaster treads leading to the crystal copula high above which was the inner sanctum of the structure, and towards this the girl now indicated with a slender hand.
“We should ascend to my living quarters,” advised Yusura. “We need food, clean clothes and somewhere more comfortable to rest. Normally, only the Keeper of the Eye of All-seeing may mount the stairs as the upper tower is a holy place. But such taboos mean little given our present circumstances.”
Mace nodded and rose painfully to his feet. He gazed worriedly at the door. No sound came from without. It was quiet; far too quiet. The brutes were up to something, but what? The Earthman set aside the disturbing thought. He was still too tired to think clearly, and besides they seemed safe enough, at least for the moment.
Turning, he followed the beckoning girl up the stairway which, even for a man possessing all his strength, would have been no easy climb. After what seemed an interminable period of aching ascent he arrived at the landing and was led stumbling to a couch by the girl. Here he sank exhausted upon its inviting softness and fell asleep almost instantly.
**********
It was morning when Mace awoke. Light streamed through the tower’s dome to reveal the many varieties of potted fruiting and flowering plants set about its expansive interior. To the Earthman it seemed as if he was in a strange greenhouse. He arose painfully from the couch, worried by the absence of the girl.
“Yusura,” he called anxiously, fearfully wondering if the giants had broken in whilst he’d been asleep.
“Over here,” came her swift reply.
Relieved, he moved stiffly towards her voice and the sound of splashing water. Stepping around a shrub he saw Yusura. A slender column rose up from the centre of a shallow pool and from its apex jetted filmy streams of nacreous liquid in which the girl was showering.
“Come in,” she invited with a smile.
The girl was completely nude and Mace hesitated for a moment. But then he realized on an alien world Earthly attitudes were no doubt out of place and when in Rome, so to speak, one should do as the Romans do.
Casting aside his hesitation and the tattered remains of his improvised loincloth, he entered the pearly cataract. The strange fluid was warm and tingling. Within seconds Mace felt his aches and pains and his remaining tiredness fade away under the hissing liquid’s invigorating properties.
Yusura picked a large bunch of orange grape-like fruit from one of a number of potted plants set about the pool and offered half to Mace. The Earthman joined her at breakfast and ate the strange viands, which tasted like spiced honey.
Mace openly observed the girl as he ate, his eyes tracing the beauteous contours of her face and figure. The invigorating nature of the nacreous liquid and his Eden-like surroundings, which made the outside world and all its troubles fade away, brought to the fore his feelings for the girl that hitherto had been inhibited by constant and dire threats.
Yusura sensed Mace’s feelings for her and it made her conscious of her own desires, which she’d kept in check to safeguard against distraction from the desperate mission to save her people from their cruel oppressors. But the girl was young and in the full vigour of her womanhood, and could not help but respond to his obvious arousal.
Mace emboldened by the subtle signs of her desire slipped his arm about Yusura and drew her into a passionate embrace. She resisted for a moment, but the urgency of her need overcame all inhibitions. For a time they clung in fervent intimacy; then Eros’ beauteous interlude was rudely shattered by a deafening clang that made them jerk apart.
A dozen oaths born of unfulfilled desire were hovering on the Earthman’s lips, but he controlled his tongue and instead growled out: “What the hell was that?”
“I’m not sure,” replied Yusura worriedly. “Come with me and we’ll soon find out.”
The girl stepped from the pool, snatched up a length of cloth - one of two draped across a shrub - and wrapped it hastily about her hips. Mace did likewise and followed Yusura who led him to a balcony encircling the tower’s glassy copula. Again, the tower rang to the reverberations of a tremendous crash. Looking down the couple saw the cause of the disturbance: A huge tree had been felled and twenty giants were furiously slamming its mighty trunk against the tower’s shuddering door.
Chapter 7: Blood and Death
Basgak glared up at them, his vile visage made even uglier by darkest wrath. At his feet lay a naked prisoner, bound and helpless. The fierce warlord stopped the battering of the door, and in the silence bellowed out his fury at the couple. Yusura paled when she heard his raging words.
The girl clutched Mace’s arm. “Oh, Andrew,” she cried. “He wants the locket you stole from him, and if he doesn’t get it he’ll torture that poor fellow at his feet.”
Mace felt the case strung about his neck. It was of some unknown metal, heavy as lead, and it weighed upon his mind with equal ponderousness. He knew this moment had been coming for he fully comprehended Basgak’s ruthlessness.
He could hand the locket over and save the man, but the continued presence of the giants would inflict unending suffering on the populace, and to capitulate would accomplish nothing positive. Could he strike a deal with the brute? Hardly likely! The strange jewel had made the Golden Giants invulnerable, but at a wretched price. The weird light it emitted must be a form of radiation, or so Mace speculated, that had transmuted the atoms of their bodies.
The problem was that the new element from which they were composed was unstable, and required regular exposure to the gem’s illumination to prevent it from decaying. The locket must be recovered at any cost, for if Basgak failed his people were doomed to die a horrid death. The question was would their refuge outlast the savage’s attack or would the tower fall to siege before atomic disintegration overtook the foe?
A piercing scream made the Earthman start. Though he’d been thinking quickly Basgak had grown more wrathful in the brief silence. He hurled his captive’s severed finger at the couple and spewed forth a series of savage oaths.
Mace supported the shaken girl and led her from the scene of unfolding horror as the enraged warlord commenced his gory butchery. Yusura covered her ears in a futile effort to block out the terrible screams of the tortured prisoner, which seemed to go on and on in a horrid wail of unending torment. At last they stopped, and the brief but fell silence was again shattered by the pounding of the ram against the tower’s door.
The hours passed in dull succession. There was nothing they could do but wait and hope that time was on their side. At sunset Yusura, although still unsettled from the sight of what she’d witnessed, sat up upon the couch where Mace had tenderly laid her.
“Come,” she said, her voice rising above the unending din of the giants hammering assault. “I must use the Eye of All-seeing to divine what transpires throughout the city.”
Mace, who had been holding her hand and comforting her as best he could helped Yusura to her feet. He picked up his makeshift weapon – a large kitchen knife he’d securely bound to a stout length of bamboo-like cane. The sombre couple set off through the copula’s greenery and in but moments had come upon a circular room in the centre of the dome.
They passed through the chamber’s arched doorway and Mace found himself in a room illuminated by a glowing pool of weirdly shining opalescent gas set in the centre of the tiled floor. About the pool was a bronze railing ornamented with many eyes of glistening blue and white enamel, and towards this Yusura led the wondering Earthman.
Mace leaned on the rail beside the girl and stared into the shining depths of the Eye of All-seeing. Though Yusura did nothing visible the pool began to swirl as she gazed upon it. The strange gas circled in a lazy hypnotic spiral. The Earthman began to feel giddy. He gripped the rail for support. The pool spun faster, faster still. Its surface became mirror smooth.
Mace’s pulse quickened as images began to form, dim at first then with swiftly growing clarity. A moonlit scene of great lucidity appeared before his startled gaze and he gasped in horror at what his eyes beheld. The giants were running amuck and fires had broken out across the city. The brutes, realizing that they were doomed, were seeking vengeance on the helpless populace.
Before, Basgak had kept his savage followers in check, reigning in their worst excesses for he didn’t want the city he ruled destroyed, or its population of slaves decimated. But now all restraint had been cast aside and in its place was an orgy of cruel depravity. Men and woman were dragged from their tenements and subjected to unspeakable atrocities. But even as the giants tore apart their screaming victims they in turn succumbed to horrid death, for black blotches were spreading like dark cancers across their golden forms.
Mace saw one brute collapse in a twitching heap, but his elation was short lived for the giant still clutched his victim, and with his dying strength snapped the fellow’s neck in a final act of unmitigated brutality. Yusura, sickened by the sight, shut off the Eye.
“I know it’s horrible,” said Mace as he held the weeping girl. “But it will all be over soon. Their physical exertions seem to be speeding up the process of decay.”
“I know,” replied the girl. “But even so ...”
Her words were cut short by a tremendous crash that set bleak lines of further stress upon the Earthman’s face. The sound could only be the falling of the tower’s door that had at last succumbed to the day-long battering of their ferocious enemies.
“Wait here,” said Mace grimly.
“No,” replied the girl resolutely. “I shall be with you no matter what.”
An objection hovered on Mace’s lips for a moment; then he swept the girl into his arms. They clung together passionately – perhaps for the last moment in their lives and in that kiss was more meaning than any words a lyricist could convey.
The sound of a tremendous body crashing through the copula’s greenery broke the mood. Mace raced from the chamber and saw Basgak stumble into view. He was alone. His men had collapsed after the final stroke that had breached the tower. Like them the giant warlord was dying. His huge body was almost black with the strange necrotic rot of elemental decay that shrouded him in gaseous veils. But his narrow eyes still burned with the ferocious life of an indomitable will that drove him onwards.
The fiend’s wild gaze fell on Mace and the locket about his neck. Basgak roared. Here was the source of his undoing – the puny creature that dared steal his power and doom his people to a horrid end. Towering rage infused the brute. He charged the Earthman in a wild rush of dark fury and clawing desperation.
Yusura saw Mace hurl his spear. She gasped in horror when the titan swatted it contemptuously aside and bore down upon the man in a storm of unstoppable fury. The Earthman dashed away from his raging foe. Basgak, in a ferment of utter wrath charged after him.
Mace dashed for the tower’s balcony, intent on leading his savage foe from Yusura. He burst onto the circling gallery in a rush of speed and slipped disastrously upon the dew damp tiles. The Earthman hit the floor. Basgak leapt for the sprawled man, his face a dark portrait of bestial urges.
Mace glimpsed the rushing brute. An idea, born of desperation, struck him. He swiftly tore the locket from his neck and tossed it over the balcony. Besgak roared in fury and frustration. He changed direction and made a desperate leap to catch the flying case. The giant slammed against the railing, leaned far out to snatch the source of his salvation.
Yusura burst upon the scene. She saw Mace struggling desperately to rise and the brutal giant towering above him. Fear for the man she loved roused long suppressed atavistic instincts that took command. She dashed forward and with a wild cry slammed her palms against the buttocks of the overbalanced savage.
Basgak screamed as he toppled from the tower. His spinning body plummeted. It struck the earth far below, crashing directly on the locket and vanished with the gem in a thunderous burst of flaring light as the tremendous impact of the fall caused his body’s unstable elements to instantly disintegrate.
Mace held the sobbing girl within the comforting circle of his arms. Basgak, the last of his kind, had died as brutally as he had lived. Across the city the other corpses of the giants slowly sublimated. The night breeze swept away the vapours of decay and by morning nothing of the giants remained but horrid memories of their unbridled night of terror.
**********
Mace waited impatiently for Yusura, who seemed overly long at her ablutions, though this perception was due more to love’s yearning than any dawdling by the girl. The Earthman sighed and occupied himself by reflecting on the past few days.
With the giants demise order had slowly been restored to Vanna. The death toll numbered in the hundreds, but was not as high as it could have been. Many tenements and mansions had fortified basements, which had been constructed in antiquity to act as strongholds against an invader’s depredations. It was to these refuges that the majority of the population had retreated when the savages commenced their vile rampage.
The elders that formed the governing body of Vanna had been holding constant meetings with Yusura so he had hardly saw anything of the girl. The longest time he'd had with her was when she'd introduced Mace to the greybeards and explained to them it was he who had played a central role in their salvation.
Mace’s impression of the council hadn’t been entirely favourable. They were a timid looking bunch, no doubt effective enough in the absence of dramatic emergencies. The Earthman shook his head. The ancient’s eugenics programme had produced unnatural imbalances – the giants were psychopathic brutes whose aggressiveness had led to their destruction, whereas the people of Vanna had nearly been exterminated because the capacity for violence had been bred out of them. Interfering with human nature, whether on Earth or other worlds, was fraught with peril that could lead to tragedy.
There had been objections from the council when Mace had made it known he desired Yusura as a wife, for the husband of the Keeper was chosen from among the noble families. But the Earthman had stared them down, and they had given in when the girl made it clear she eagerly consented to the union.
The Earthman focused his thoughts on far more pleasant things. The marriage ceremony, completed an hour ago, had been a brief affair – the couple stating their intention to form a bond before the girl’s family, and the placing of marriage bracelets about each other’s wrists in lieu of wedding rings. A vision of Yusura rose within his mind and banished the last of his brooding worries. He rose impatiently from the couch, walked eagerly towards the bathing pool, and caught the girl as she was emerging from her bath.
“You seem eager to see me,” she observed impishly.
“I’ll show you how keen I am,” he grinned as he caught her in his brawny arms and carried her swiftly to the couch.
Fortunately for both the furniture was more robust than it appeared to be.
THE END