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HADON OF
ANCIENT OPAR
by Philip Jose Farmer
Illustrated by ROY KRENKEL
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Frank Brueckel and John Harwood for writing the article which sparked the inspiration to create Hadon of Opar and the Khokarsan civilization. I thank Hulbert Burroughs for his kindness in permitting me to launch this series of novels. The basic debt, of course, is owed to Edgar Rice Burroughs, without whose tales of Opar and other lost cities this book would never have been written.
—P.J.F.
Dedicated to Hulbert Burroughs in gratitude for his permission to write of Opar, that hidden city of “gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks” and of the civilization which founded it.
1
Opar, the city of massive granite and little jewels, quivered and blurred. Solid with great stone walls, soaring slender towers, gilt domes, and eight hundred and sixty-seven years of existence, it wavered, bent, and dissolved. And then it was gone as if it had never been.
Hadon swallowed, and he wiped away his tears.
His last vision of glorious Opar had been like a dream dying in a god’s mind. He hoped that it was not an evil omen. And he hoped that his fellow contestants were similarly affected. If he was the only one to have wept, he might be mocked.
The longboat had traveled the curve of the river, and the jungle trees had moved between him and his native city. He still saw it in his mind, its towers like hands raised against the sky to keep it from falling. The little figures on the stone wharves—among them his father, mother, sister, and brother—had dwindled in his sight, though not in his mind. It was they who had brought the tears, not the city.
Would he ever see them again?
If he lost, he would not. If he won, years might pass before he took them in his arms. And his beloved Opar might never greet him again.
He had left it twice in his nineteen years. The first time, his parents had been with him. The second time, he had lived with his uncle, but Opar had not been far away. He glanced at the young men standing by him. They were not looking at him, and he was glad, because tears were running down their cheeks, too. Taro, his friend, grinned with embarrassment. Hewako, a dark lump of stone, scowled at him. He was not crying; stone did not cry. He was too strong for tears and wanted everybody to know it. But then, he had nothing or nobody to grieve for, Hadon thought. He felt sorry for him, though he knew the feeling would not last long. Hewako was such a surly, arrogant brute.
Hadon looked about him. The river at this point was about half a mile wide, and brown with the mud it was ferrying from the mountains to the sea. The river was walled with green vegetation except where mud banks shoved out like fingers testing for another advance of the trees. On them lay grinning sacred crocodiles who rose up on short legs as they became aware of the lead boat and slid oilily into the brown water. Parrots and monkeys screamed at the boats from the green. A blue-yellow-and-red kingfisher flashed from a branch, falling like a feathered star. It checked, swooped along the surface, and lifted with a small silvery fish in its talons.
The twelve oarsmen grunted in unison with the chunk of wooden blades in the river and the bronze stroke of the coxswain’s gong. Short, squat, thick-necked, bar-browed, first cousins of men, second cousins of the great apes, they pulled and grunted while sweat matted their hairy bodies. Between the oarsmen, on the narrow deck, lay chests of gold ingots and diamonds, boxes of furs, carved figurines of goddesses, gods, monsters, and animals, of herbs from the rain forest, and piles of ivory tusks. Five soldiers in leather armor guarded these with spears.
Ahead of Hadon’s boat were six boats carrying oarsmen and soldiers only. Behind his boat came twenty-three more, all heavily loaded with the precious products of Opar. Behind them were six craft forming the rear guard. Hadon watched them for a while and then began pacing back and forth, five steps at a time, along the crowded poop deck. Keeping in shape was vital. His life would depend upon it during the Great Games. Hewako and Taro and the three substitutes soon imitated him. Three in Indian file paced back and forth, and the others did setting-up exercises. Hadon watched with envy the flexing pythonlike muscles of Hewako. He was said to be the strongest man in all Khokarsa, except for Kwasin, of course. But Kwasin was exiled, wandering somewhere in the Western Lands with his huge brass-bound oak club on his shoulders. Had he been a contestant, it was doubtful that anybody else would have entered.
Hadon wondered if he would have dared. Perhaps; perhaps not. But though he did not have the body of a gorilla, he did have long legs and speed and endurance and a swordsmanship that even his father applauded. And it was the final contest, that with the sword, which decided. Still, his father had warned him.
“You’re very good with the tenu, my son,” he had said. “But you’re not a professional, not yet, and a man with experience could chop you to pieces despite your long arms and your youth. Fortunately, you’ll be up against green youths like yourself. It is ironic that there are many men who could easily best you with the sword, but they are too old to win at the other games. Still, if some old man of twenty-eight should decide to try for the prize, he just might squeak through, and then Kho help you!”
His father had felt the stump of his left arm, looked grim, and then had said, “You have never killed a man, Hadon, and so your true temperament is unknown. Sometimes, a lesser swordsman can defeat a better because he has the heart of a true killer. What will happen if you and Taro are the finalists? Taro is your best friend. Can you kill him?”
“I don’t know,” Hadon had said.
“Then you shouldn’t be in the Games,” his father had said. “And there’s Hewako. Beware of him. He knows you are better with the tenu than he. He’ll try to break your back before the final test.”
“But the wrestling matches are not to the death,” Hadon had said.
“Accidents happen,” his father had said. “Hewako would have cracked your neck during the eliminations if the judge had not been watching. I warned her, and though I am a lowly sweeper of the temple floors, I was once a numatenu, and she listened to me.”
Hadon had winced. It hurt him to hear his father speak of the old days, of when he had two arms that could wield a broadsword more expertly than anyone else in Opar. An outlaw sword, swung from behind, had severed his father’s arm above the elbow during that struggle in the dark tunnels below Opar. The king had been killed in that murky fight, and a new king had ascended the throne. And the new king had hated Kumin, and instead of retiring him honorably on a pension, had discharged him. Many a numatenu would have committed suicide then. But Kumin had decided that he owed more to his family than to the somewhat nebulous code of the numatenu. He would not abandon them to poverty and the dubious charity of his wife’s relatives. So he had become a floorsweeper, and this, though a lowly position, put him under the special protection of Kho Herself. The new king, Gamori, would have liked to expel Kumin and his family into the jungle, but his wife, the chief priestess, forbade that.
Kumin had sent Hadon to live with his brother, Phimeth, for several years. This was to give Hadon a chance to learn swordsmanship under the tutelage of the greatest wielder of the tenu in Opar, his uncle. It was in the dark caves where his uncle lived in exile that Hadon had met his cousin, Kwasin, son of Phimeth’s and Komin’s sister, Wimake. Wimake had died from a snakebite some years before, and so Hadon had lived for four years without a mother or an aunt or any woman whatsoever. It had been a lonely time in many ways, though delightful in others. Except for Kwasin, who often had made Hadon miserable.
Just before the Flaming God, Resu, disappeared behind the trees, the longboats tied up at docks which had been built s
ome hundred years before for the overnight stop. Half of the soldiers took their stations behind the stone walls enclosing all but the riverside of the docks. The other soldiers built cooking fires for themselves, the officers, and the contestants. The oarsmen made their fires in some corners of the walls. A fine boar and a great drake were sacrificed, and the best portions were tossed into a fire as offerings to Kho, to Resu, and to Tesemines, goddess of the night. The legs of the pig and the remnants of the duck were cast into the waters to placate the godling of the river.
The swift current carried the legs and the body away in the dusk. They traveled to the bend, where the shadows fell from the branches of trees. Suddenly the waters moved, and the legs and the fowl went under the surface.
One of the oarsmen murmured, “Kasukwa has taken them!”
Hadon’s skin prickled coldly, though he felt that crocodiles, not the godling, had seized the sacrifice. He, with most of the others, quickly touched his forehead with the ends of his three longest fingers and then described with them a circle which swept out and over his loins and ended on his forehead. A few of the grayhairs among the officers and the oarsmen made the old sign of Kho, touching their forehead first with the tips of the three fingers, then the right breast, the genitals, the left breast, the forehead again, and ending up on the navel.
Soon the air was thick with smoke and the odor of cooking pig and duck. Most of the party belonged to the Ant Totem, but a few were members of the Pig Totem and hence forbidden to eat pork except on one day a year. They supped on duck, boiled eggs, and pieces of dried beef. Hadon ate sparingly of the pork, millet bread, goat cheese, the sweet and delicious mowometh red-berries, and raisins. He refused the sorghum beer, not because he did not like it but because it would put fat on him and reduce his wind.
Though the smoke fell over them in the still air, made them cough, and reddened their eyes, they did not complain. The smoke would help keep off the mosquitoes, the evil little children of Tesemines, now swarming from the forest. Hadon rubbed a stinking oil over his body and hoped that this and the smoke would enable him to get a good night’s rest. When dawn came he would oil himself with another repellent for the flies that attacked as soon as the sun had warmed the air.
Hadon had just finished eating when Taro pulled at his arm and pointed downriver. The moon had not yet come up, but he could see a great dark body on the bank across the river. Undoubtedly, it was a leopard come to drink before hunting.
“Perhaps we should also have sacrificed to Khukhaqo,” Taro said.
Hadon grinned and said, “If we sacrificed to every deity and spirit who might possibly harm us, we would not have room enough in the boats for all the animals we would need.”
Then, seeing by the firelight Taro’s offended expression, he smiled and slapped Taro’s shoulder. “There is good sense in what you say. But I wouldn’t dare suggest to the priestess that we offer to the leopard goddess. She wouldn’t take it kindly if we stuck our noses into her business.”
Taro was right. Late at night, Hadon was jerked from a troubled sleep by a scream. He leaped up and grabbed his broadsword and stared bewilderedly around. He saw a black-and-yellow body leaping over the wall, a screaming oarsman between its jaws. And then both were gone. It was useless and dangerous to pursue the leopard. The captain of the guards raised hell with the sentinels, but it was merely to relieve his own fear and anger.
Somehow, the leopard goddess had been offended, and so they made haste to placate her. Klyhy, the priestess, now sacrificed a pig to Khukhaqo. It would not bring the poor oarsman back, but it might prevent another leopard from attacking. And the blood of the pig poured into a bronze bowl surely would please the ghost of the oarsman and keep him from prowling the camp that night. Hadon hoped so, but he did not go back to sleep. Neither did the others, except for the oarsmen. The labors of the day ensured that almost nothing would keep them awake long.
At dawn the priestess of Kho and the priest of Resu stripped and took their ritual bath in the river. The soldiers looked out for crocodiles while the rest of the party bathed in order of seniority. They ate a breakfast of okra soup, dried beef, hard-boiled duck eggs, and the unleavened millet bread. Then they pushed out into the river again. Four days later, in midmorning, they heard the rumble of the cataract. A mile above it, they docked their boats, unloaded the cargo, and began traveling slowly along the road. This was paved with huge granite blocks. The vegetation along it was cut back at regular intervals by jungle rangers. It curved away from the falls and then terminated at the edge of the cliffs. Here the party followed a narrow, steep, and winding road cut into the face of the mountain. Soldiers preceded and trailed the caravan. The oarsmen huffed and puffed, carrying the boxes, chests, and tusks. The herdsmen moved behind them, calling out or prodding their squealing charges with pointed sticks. The ducks in the cages on the oarsmen’s backs quacked. The sacred parrot on the priestess’s shoulder screamed and chattered, and the sacred monkey on the priest’s shoulder hurled shrill insults at invisible enemies in the jungle.
What with all the noise, Hadon thought, they could be heard miles away. If any Kawuru pirates were waiting in the dense forest below, they would have plenty of warning. Not that there was much likelihood of an ambush. An escort of soldiers from the seaside fort would be at the foot of the mountains. But the Kawuru had been known to slip past these.
Presently, the priest’s swearing was added to the racket. The monkey had relieved himself on the man’s shoulder. Nobody except the priestess dared laugh, though they couldn’t help grinning. When the priest saw them grinning, he swore at them. A soldier brought a jug of water, and he cleaned off the mess with a linen cloth. After a while the priest was laughing too, but the monkey rode the rest of the way on an oarsman’s shoulder.
At dusk they came into a cleared area near the bottom of the falls. Here fifty soldiers waited for them. The party bathed in the thunder and the coolness of the waters, sacrificed, and ate. At dawn they were up, and two hours later were loading the cargo into longboats. They had a three-day journey ahead of them. This would have been tense enough. But a fool of an oarsman increased their nervousness. He declared that on the last trip he had glimpsed the river godling.
“It was Kasukwa himself! I saw him just as Resu went to bed. He rose from the waters, a monstrous being four times as big as the biggest bull hippopotamus you ever saw. His skin was as thick and brown as a hippopotamus‘, though it was warty. The warts were black and as large as my head, and each of them had three eyes and a tiny mouth filled with teeth as sharp as a crocodile’s. He had long arms like a man’s, but where hands should be were the heads of river pigs, with red eyes that flamed. He stared at me for a moment, and my bowels still turn to okra soup when I think of his face. It was a hippopotamus’ except that it was hairy, and he had only one great scummy-green eye in the center of his forehead. And his teeth were many, and like spearheads. And then, while I prayed to Kho and also to G’xsghaba’ghdi, the goddess of our forefathers, and thought I would faint, he sank slowly back into the river.”
The other oarsmen grunted in affirmation, though they had not seen Kasukwa.
“We will sacrifice an especially fine boar to him tonight,” Klyhy said. “Even if, as I think likely, your vision was inspired by beer.”
“May Kho strike me dead, here and now, if I am lying!” the oarsman cried.
Those near him jumped back, some looking upward and others downward, since Kho can strike from the earth or the sky. Nothing happened, and everybody breathed relief. Hadon suggested to the captain that he should tell the oarsman to shut his mouth before the entire party was in a panic. The captain said that he resented youngsters giving him advice, even if they were to be heroes. Nevertheless, he spoke sharply to the oarsman.
Grim and horrible Kasukwa was not seen during the journey to the sea, though he disturbed the sleep of many, and the oarsmen turned pale every time a hippopotamus surfaced near their boats. Late in the evening of the third day,
they rounded a bend. There, beyond the wide mouth of the river, was the sea, the Kemuwopar.
On the northern bank were docks and the great galleys and warehouses, totem halls, houses, and the stone fort. The coxswains stepped up the beat of the bronze gongs. The oarsmen, though weary, grinned, showing their thick blocklike teeth, and summoned strength in their massive and hairy arms for the final lap. For a while they would be safe from the Kawuru, the leopard goddess, and the river godling. And tonight there would be a feast in their totem hall, followed by a beer-sodden sleep.
But not for Hadon. Stuffing the belly with food and beer was not for a youth who must keep himself light and swift for the Great Games. However, Klyhy had promised to receive him tonight in the little temple of Kho by the fort. She was ten years older than he, and a beautiful woman, if you could overlook the beginnings of a beer paunch and the sagging of the large breasts, and Hadon could. Besides, it was a great honor to be accepted by a priestess. And if her sister priestess stationed here liked his companions, they would not sleep much tonight either.
Hewako was not pleased by this. He had hoped Klyhy would take him in her dark bronze arms and that those big gray eyes would be on fire with love of him. When he had heard Klyhy say yes to Hadon, he had scowled and flexed his massive biceps. He did not dare say anything while Klyhy was in hearing. Hadon had grinned at him, but the thought of the long sea trip ahead was not pleasant. Though he had an easy nature, Hewako’s jibes were rubbing it away.
2
Whether Hadon won or lost the Games, he would be a hero. If he lost, however, he would be a dead hero, buried in a mound of earth under a tall pointed marble monolith. Passersby would pray to him and pour mead or wine on the earth. Much good that would do him. And when he considered that he would be pitted against the strongest and the swiftest youths of the empire, he felt his confidence bending and shaking as a reed in the wind. He had a strong ego, otherwise he would not have become a contestant. But only an egomaniac would take it for granted that he could go through the other contestants as the farmer went through the millet with his scythe.