The lout's mammoth broadsword, unsheathed, kept gouging my hip. He appeared unconcerned, scowling at the auction block in a most disagreeable way. The great brute was certainly not unhandsome. But his expression was one of perpetual fury, and with some alarm I noted the mighty thews displayed below the garment around his middle.
Additionally, he had a torso of monstrous girth, not to mention muscles in his arms the size of fists. These thews seemed to quiver and twitch continually, as if the fellow were in a constant state of truculent tension. He never stopped muttering and growling.
Some sort of talisman dangled from a thong at his waist. I studied it until I realized—with horror!—that it was a dried and shrunken head. Why had this desperate looking and obviously quarrelsome individual chosen my bench? Plainly, the gods had once more withdrawn their favor.
He made himself more comfortable. His broadsword gigged me so sharply that I nearly fell off the bench. He whipped his head around.
"Did you say something, beer-belly?"
"Why, no, no!" I replied in haste, all the while attempting to keep myself from tumbling to the pavement. "Ah—you're a stranger in Atlantis, am I correct?"
His hand lunged for his sword hilt. "What makes you say that?"
"Only your costume!"
"You don't like it?"
"I think it's quite—manly! None of the silly ornamentation of our town fops, no, indeed."
In truth, I didn't know what to say next. With very little provocation, the fellow would wield his blade and ram me through the guts; there was no doubting that he was in that sort of mood. Therefore, I took pains to placate him.
"Indeed, sir, from your apparel, I'd say you've come to the Island Kingdom from a goodly distance. You're a barbarian! From the far north, right?"
"Where else?" was his reply, as he fingered his skin garments.
"Come down to fair Atlantis for a little holiday, is that so?"
"Holiday!" he shrieked, causing heads to turn everywhere. I again thought he meant to spit at me. He spat on the stones instead. "Do you think I wanted to wind up in this misbegotten, god-cursed, devil-plagued place? Not a bit of it! I arrived here only through the most accursed twistings of fate, with nothing save my trusty blade, a pouch of coins"—once more he fixed me with that intemperate stare—"and an intense dislike for everyone I've met so far. Including you."
Just then, I noticed a few scraps of dried seaweed clinging to the hair of his cloak. I indicated them and said:
"You were shipwrecked, perchance?"
"That's putting it mildly! I was a victim of a storm of monstrous proportions. One in which the lightnings flashed hell-bright and the thunder roared like the clap of the gates of doom."
He certainly had a florid way of speaking, but I had no intention of criticizing his rhetoric aloud. After my initial fear began to mitigate—he had sat beside me nearly five minutes, and I was still alive!—I found myself piqued by his churlish manners. Setting aside my notion to simply retreat and let him have the bench all to himself, I began to look on his truculence as something of a challenge.
"My name is Hoptor, sir. I am a lifelong resident of the Island Kingdom. Though I wish you wouldn't mention my name aloud, as I'm currently in some difficulty with the powers that be."
"Ho-ho!" he roared. "A jailbird, is it? A rogue? That's the kind I like!" To display his pleasure, he slapped my back so hard that I did fall off the bench.
When I regained my seat, he seized my hand in a grip that nearly shattered many small bones. "My name is Conax," he said. "In full, Conax the Chimerical. And I've changed my opinion of you. I'm pleased to meet a fellow who has something in his guts other than oatmeal. We're going to be friends, Hopt—"
"Ssh!"
He blinked so many times that I realized with dismay that not only was he of a quick temper, he was none too bright as well. An unhappy combination!
"Oh yes," he said in a vague way, "I forgot."
"And now," cried the auctioneer, "a true vision of feminine charm, radiant in all her tempting pulchritude—ladies and gents, a nice hand for our next offering, the Widow Phlebus! Who'll start the bid at forty zebs?"
Knock-kneed and toothless, poor Widow Phlebus cowered when a man sprang up to cry, "You'll have to pay us to buy that old cow!"
Suddenly my companion likewise jumped to his feet. He whipped his broadsword high over his head and flourished it wildly, shouting, "By Crok, when are we going to see some attractive flesh for a change? If you don't show us something besides grandmothers, auctioneer, I'll come up there and chop off your privates!"
"But, sir—"
"Be quiet! I came here to buy a companion for my loneliness, not a feminine horror sprung from a nightmare!"
About to retort further, the auctioneer took note of Conax's immense stature and quivering thews, then replied that, shortly, he would present an item the gentleman would perhaps find more suitable.
"By Crok, you'd better, or you'll roast in the thrice-damned guts of hell's deepest, darkest, most demonic pits!"
So saying, Conax sat down. He was highly flushed.
"So—ah—you're lonesome?" I inquired in my most affable way.
"You don't know the half of it," he answered.
"How long did you say you've been in Atlantis?"
"A fortnight. It seems like centuries."
"And you come from the far north?"
"That's right. I sailed out in command of my goodly band of reavers, our dragon-sail craft bound to plunder the shipping lanes. However, that storm I mentioned caught us by surprise. Our stout vessel foundered, then broke apart. In the midst of the screaming, squalling, storm-lashed holocaust of hell—" There he went again with his heroic phraseology. But prudence prevailed; I merely nodded in an attentive way.
Fingering the hilt of his mighty sword, he went on: "—In the midst of that wailing, thundering, thrice-cursed maelstrom, we sighted the monster."
"Monster?" I replied, starting visibly.
"Indescribably phantasmagoric! A creature from time forgot! A sea-swimming dragon of the most baleful appearance. It loomed amidst the crashing waves and fixed us with its damned glowing eye. Had I been near enough to pierce it with my stout broadsword, it would have, I am certain, gushed pustulant ichor from hell!"
"That's very interesting. But are you sure this monster wasn't some figment of your imagination?"
He whipped up the sword so that its point distressed my belly. "If you're questioning my veracity, Crok knows that I'll send you shrieking to the nether fires!"
"Oh, no, I believe you, I believe you," I said, wiggling away as fast as possible. "By the way, who is this Crok you're constantly invoking?"
"The all-powerful god of the wild, wasted, northern lands," said Conax, rolling his eyes skyward in a devout manner.
"You and your—ah—reavers were cast adrift following the shipwreck?"
"Save for myself, all hands were lost. I managed to cling to a bit of wreckage, endure the chaos of the cosmos raining down upon me, and was subsequently washed up on your unfriendly shore. Thus you find me, abandoned and alone. I have, however, inscribed a message, inserted it in a winegourd, and thrown it into the sea. Eventually it will reach my homeland, whereupon my stout host will jump on the first available dragon-sail ship and come to fetch me." With a grisly smile he added, "When they get here, they just may show you mincing Atlanteans a thing or two."
Blanching, I asked, "What do you mean?"
"Very likely they'll sack, loot, rape, burn, and murder. They're that sort. Being their leader, so am I."
"Uh—can you tell me what happened to the sea-dragon?"
"Disappeared! Right at the height of the storm, too. Doubtless it feared to face the sword of Conax the Chimerical." His glee as he stroked the blade made me quake.
Next he informed me, "This is the very iron which has dispatched devils, demons, imps, wizards, warlocks, one or two witches, and monsters without numbering. As leader of my barbaric band, I've rov
ed o'er the known Earth, seen sights to dazzle the mind and petrify the faint of heart. By the way, you Atlanteans seem very proud of this miserable sea-prisoned isle. But as one who has traveled widely, I must inform you that it can't hold a candle to Lemuria."
Nothing so fired the ire of we citizens of the Island Kingdom as invidious comparisons with that sink of depravity half around the world. However, I continued to humor Conax by maintaining a manful silence.
With a faint crawl of horrific dread on my scalp, I did wonder at his tale of a sea-dragon. If he were not lying, then dark forces might indeed be gathering round our happy homeland. The prophecies of Babylos might come true after all.
"—Attention, please, especially you gentlemen of lusty appetites! Here is the prime offering of the morning mart. Her sportive nature proved too vigorous for her owner, one of the foremost citizens of fair Atlantis. Thus, with great reluctance, he offers her upon the block, to bring joy to another."
Here and there in the crowd, hoots and sneers testified that the auctioneer's sham was recognized for what it was. I also caught a remark concerning Captain Num's jealousy. On the block, dear Aphrodisia stood in manacles, looking somehow more naked by the morning's light than she had last evening.
Head up, red hair tossing in the breeze, she appeared both defiant and a bit pathetic. She scanned the faces below, hoping for succor.
I sat forward on my portion of the bench. The crucial moment had arrived.
Of course I longed to reveal my presence by flinging aside my cowl. But I felt sure that as soon as I began bidding, Aphrodisia would recognize me. And she would know that her troubles were over.
Mine, however, were just beginning.
"That's more like it!" Conax announced. "Just what a shipwrecked barbarian needs to warm the long nights and assuage his loneliness." So saying, he produced a large purse of coins.
"Oh, no, take my advice," I exclaimed, trying to conceal my concern. "I know that baggage. She has a tongue like an asp."
"And the body of a goddess! I'll do the talking for both of us."
"I can't begin the bidding at anything less than seventy zebs," the auctioneer stated.
Conax leaped to his feet and flourished his sword. "That's what I bid!"
The auctioneer paled. "It's only necessary, sir, to raise your hand. Brandishing weapons is not required."
"All right, but I've bought her, haven't I?"
"No, sir, not yet," returned the auctioneer, visibly intimidated by the spectacle of the huge barbarian quivering and twitching over every square inch of his exposed and bulging thews.
"I doubt anyone will bid against me," he said, sitting down and holding his sword in a distinctly menacing way.
At that point, of course, I could have kept my peace. I could have retired from all further controversy. But I had vowed to regain Aphrodisia for my vineyard, and, in truth, I did not care for the burly rascal's badgering ways. Screwing up my nerve, I raised my hand.
The auctioneer cried, "Seventy-five zebs from the gentleman in the cloak."
"What?" Conax thundered. "Bidding against me?"
"Well, I get as lonely as the next."
A fat lot of good that did to damp the flaming wrath of his blue eyes! Aphrodisia recognized me then, I believe. She clapped her hands and uttered a small squeal of joy.
I fully expected Conax to gut me on the spot. Instead, he clenched his jaw and waved his fist.
"I have eighty zebs!" was the auctioneer's response.
Up went my hand, then down, then up. The auctioneer sounded almost delirious as he exclaimed, "One hundred! Do I hear a hundred and ten?"
"Two hundred, you dog!" howled Conax.
The auctioneer cracked his whip. "I hear two hundred—" Suddenly Aphrodisia rushed to whisper in his ear. His eyes narrowed. She had evidently communicated the fact that she only wished to be sold to me, the dear girl! Certainly, the auctioneer would favor me, a citizen, above the ill-mannered outlander with his posturing air of bravado.
Almost immediately, this was proved so, as the auctioneer proclaimed, "No, I only hear one hundred."
"You hear two hundred!" Conax thundered, striking his blade on the bench. As the sparks shot off and the ringing died, he glowered hideously at the auctioneer. "You also hear the knell of your own funeral, if you ignore my bid again."
"I—I—I hear two hundred."
"Three hundred!" I shouted.
"Four hundred!" Conax yelled.
"Five hundred!"
I was mad! I was delirious with the excitement of the moment! Aphrodisia, the little minx, was enjoying herself immensely. In a trice, the bid was raised by Conax to the positively calamitous figure of one thousand zebs, at which time I rose from the bench.
The crowd groaned. The auctioneer's face fell. Aphrodisia looked as though she had been betrayed into the grasp of the fiend himself.
"Giving up, eh?" Conax grinned.
"Merely answering nature's call," I said, promising him I would be back.
The auctioneer took my cue, pretending to find something amiss with Aphrodisia's chains. Thus I had time to hurry to the door of the building where the mart manager lounged, beaming over the handsome sums being bandied in the air.
I seized his arm and tugged him inside. "You've got to help me! Divert that rascal's attention or we'll be bidding till the sun goes down."
"Splendid idea! We might set a record. Ten thousand zebs, do you think?"
"You'd better think twice before you let your greed run away with you, my friend. If I were to send a message to certain official quarters—and if the bearer of the message were to mention my name, thereby validating the source of the information—there'd be quite a hue and cry. Also an official investigation of the way in which you come by some of the youngsters you bargain away on that block. Would you care to have it known that your gangs linger outside the day schools, luring innocent tots into alleys with promises of sweetmeats? Would you care to have a general broadcast of the way in which those precious little ones are stripped of identification, thrust into mealsacks, and hustled to your cells, there to await—?"
"Enough!" he quavered. "You've made me see the error of my ways, Hoptor. What price profit if a man loses his slaver's license?"
"That's more like it," I said, and told him what he must do.
Returning to my seat, I discovered Conax the Chimerical counting his coins. He had spread them on the bench, thus depriving me of any room whatsoever. His belligerent stare invited me to question his behavior at my peril. Naturally, I did not.
"All right, let's get on with it, you lewd looking bag of bones," Conax called to the auctioneer.
A certain increased tension now gripped the entire mart, all assembled craning around to watch the financial duel. Without doubt, I had been recognized by more than a few; sympathy was entirely on my side.
Aphrodisia, however, appeared to be deeply worried about the outcome. Hastily, if reluctantly, I calculated the limits of my credit. Then I announced a bid of one thousand, two hundred zebs.
In a rage, Conax screamed, "One thousand, three hundred."
"Four!"
"Five!"
Dare I leap to two thousand in order to save the day? What was detaining the idiot manager? In a feeble voice, the auctioneer began, "Do I hear—?"
"I'll teach you to try to snatch my purse, you little imp!"
All heads, including that of Conax, turned. The manager was boxing the ears of one of his grimy office boys. I alone ignored the charade, concentrating my attention upon the block. I raised my fist, then frantically signaled for the end of bidding.
The auctioneer cracked his whip twice and cried, "One thousand, six hundred zebs! Sold to the gentleman in the cloak."
"What?" The howl of Conax was as the roar of the thunderstorm. "What? Gulled? Tricked? Bilked? You can't do this to a king of Chimeria!"
And before I could so much as move one single step, he lifted the bench with writhing thews and threw it at my head.<
br />
I ducked, but the unlucky fellow behind me did not. Gasping, he collapsed. Aphrodisia's squeal of joy changed to a wail of fright.
"Here, let's have none of that!" exclaimed the auctioneer, with several smart cracks of the whip. But it was too late. Conax the Chimerical was brandishing his broadsword and bellowing at the top of his lungs:
"Death and damnation! I'll take you all to hell's dark deeps, Crok if I won't!"
So saying, he charged at me with sword bared, making me rue my decision to defy the whims of a mighty barbarian. Once again, Aphrodisia had certainly landed me in a pretty mess!
* Four *
I had only a heartbeat's time in which to extricate myself from the unhappy predicament symbolized by Conax's fearsome weapon darting—flashing!—in the direction of my stomach. The barbarian's face wrenched into what he presumed was a smile of triumph. Promptly, I shifted the center of my weight, and directed my entire person downward.
My rump smacked the stones. My legs flew out in front of me—in essence, I had sat down—and the wicked blade slashed through the area in which my waistline had been located but a moment before.
King Conax—if indeed he was the ruler he pretended to be!—shrieked vengefully, discovering his equilibrium affected by the massive thrust. Too late to brake his charge, he followed his sword, which contacted the shanks of a fishmonger of my acquaintance.
The latter, an old gaffer, had been attempting to flee the sudden melee, and was caught unexpectedly by Conax's shaft. The old fellow squealed, leaped, thereby scattering the contents of a basket of odorous smelts upon which he'd been snacking.
"Oh, you cut me, you cut me!" cried he, waving his bloodied robe with one hand while collecting smelts to hurl with the other. In truth, Conax had struck low, a mere flesh wound. But you might have thought the barbarian had sent the old man to his ancestors, so wrathfully did the fishmonger hurl fish.
Conax slipped on a mess of fish. He collapsed on hands and knees. He was prevented from arising by blows from nearby friends of the smelt-nibbler. I, for one, did not fare much better.
I received a stiff box on the ears. Someone yelled, "Hoptor, you coward, that was a dastardly maneuver!"