The Valley of Despair Read online

stepped out behind the two warriors after they passed the dark opening of the alley and immediately imbedded it in the skull of the nearer gray-back.

  Without a sound, other than the heavy thunk made by the blunt instrument, the fiend sank to the street they patrolled. Erik pulled the bar from the crushed skull with a savage wrench while the dead man’s gore spread in a puddle about his still-twitching form.

  “What do you there slave?” On the face of the remaining creature was a look of stunned disbelief.

  “This!” hissed von Mendelsöhn fiercely.

  Before the creature could gather his wits about him the man slammed the bloody bar into the forehead of the remaining gray fiend from Deneb. Without a sound he, too, sank to the flagstones of the cobbled street. Worried the shouts might draw curiosity seekers who were not involved in their plot he stepped quickly into the alley entrance and retrieved the other bar so he might continue his way.

  The route seemed interminable with having to hide from the monsters when he encountered them. At last he found himself at the meeting place where he was to rendezvous with Peenemünde, having entered the palace by a door the girl was to ensure was unlocked. There remained this one thing he must do before he and the others could consider making an attempt to leave the city.

  He had once strolled too close to the doorway through which he originally entered the prehistoric metropolis and felt the awful vibrations. From the girl he had heard stories of others who attempted to flee only to have the silver band about their necks, under the power of the perimeter of influence and the strange science of the gray-backs, return to its own sphere of existence – that of Deneb.

  Drawn by the inexorable and undefeatable power of that distant star, upon attempting to exit the sphere of its influence the silver band would return, generally in such an immediate and forcible fashion it resulted in the instant and grisly decapitation of the wearer. This the young man had no intention of experiencing firsthand.

  Making his way to the throne room, the timing of his arrival having been chosen because the girl assured him it would be vacant at this time, he glanced this way and that for the girl, but didn’t see her.

  “Peenemünde,” he hissed, risking calling out to her.

  “I am here!” The girl answered immediately, stepping from behind the very throne of Garmakalok. “I feared another might come, and so hid behind the throne. Come! We have but a cycle.”

  “We don’t even have that much,” replied the man. “Argos begins his attack soon. Lead the way.”

  Nodding, she took the man’s hand and led him into the room behind the throne and then down capacious halls where lay the circle of wizardry linking this world to that of the planet orbiting Deneb, a world so far removed no man might fathom or gauge the distance to it.

  Approaching the fabricated circle of metal sitting at an odd angle upon the floor he saw what appeared to be a near vertical tunnel, plummeting into the depths of rock beneath the city. The depths were unfathomable but, oddly, he discerned movement occasionally at the end of the interminable looking tunnel, as of beings or creatures walking by the opening on the other side.

  After a moment it seemed to him he was not actually looking downward but that he gazed upwards, rather, through starry fields of night out the opening on the other end. He was peering, then, into an alien sky – a garish firmament of the deepest orange – the reflection of Deneb! Visible on that other side were indications of a craggy wall, undoubtedly a portion of the interior of the volcano in which he had been told the gateway had been discovered on the planet orbiting the distant star.

  As he stared, momentarily mesmerized by the strangeness of the gateway to another world along whose path could be seen sidereal space, an unfathomable hole crossing light years of distance but which had an eerie, unexplainable feeling of closeness, he noticed a motion in his peripheral vision.

  He turned just in time to see the rushing form of Garmakalok – charging him with bared teeth and upraised sword!

  10: At the Portal

  The gaunt creature, his lips pealed back to reveal grayish teeth in a snarl of pure hatred, ran at Erik in full charge.

  In his swept-back arms was a sword of Denebian origin, its blade, wider at the tip than at the guard, a shiny finish, sharp and highly evocative of a be-header’s axe. When he saw he was discovered his snarl turned into a scream.

  “Foul German! You die!”

  The acidic words sounded as if they’d been literally ripped from those hideous, blackened lips, so replete were they with venom. Armed with only a rough iron bar, the man sought to defend himself.

  In the violence of their fracas their weapons struck sparks from the floor and columns while here and there glazed tiles, dating to before the recording of time, were smashed asunder. Once, swinging a mighty swing that missed its mark, Erik found his iron bar rebounding from an ancient marble statuary, one arm of which shattered and fell away from the edifice to skitter in pieces across the flooring. The noise of the fracas became such that Peenemünde feared it might summon others from their quarters to investigate who, arriving at the throne room, might hear the thunder of their fight and, coming to investigate, wreck their plans of escape.

  The girl, armed only with a pry bar similar to that wielded by Erik, did not see how she might be of assistance to the man for the two whirled like dervishes about the chamber such that she feared striking her lover unintentionally. And yet, for all her frailty, she swung the heavy bar at one of Garmakalok’s legs when she spotted an opening, but unfortunately only grazed the beast with a painful furrow.

  “Wench!” he hissed, backhanding her to the floor before she could recover. “You’ll pay for that later.”

  “Beast!” Erik snarled and charged in swinging.

  They locked horns again, the man and the demon from the far, orange star out of time spinning and gyrating from one side of the portal room to the other. At times the man found himself standing perilously on the edge of the precipice, with a fall that looked so distant he could scarcely fathom the depth of it.

  “You fear, slave, to venture to Deneb? Ha-ha! Then that is exactly where you shall go - filthy human!” taunted Garmakalok.

  But for the man’s part he fought in silence now, the silence of focus and determination. Although he had years of studies in the arts of killing one’s fellow man to his credit he was in nowhere near the peak physical form he had been in when he put his plane down in that scorching hot African jungle the Lord alone knew how long ago. Today he looked half-starved, had been beaten nearly to death and overworked, having performed hard manual labor for he knew not how many weeks on end – mayhap even years had spun by under the strange influence of the cursed star.

  In an act of sheer desperation he at last hurled his iron bar at the alien and observed in grim satisfaction, and also somewhat of a measure of relief, as one sharp end of the tool buried up several inches in the being’s chest. His blade falling from nerveless fingers, Garmakalok collapsed. Immediately he struggled to stand but again fell to the flags.

  Erik ran over and kicked the fallen blade away, turning back to see the creature at last rise to its feet with immense effort. There he stood, teetering on the brink of the time tunnel. Erik cursed the alien then and leaping at it, planted both feet in the pit of its stomach, catapulting it over the edge.

  Turning, he ran to the girl and helped her to her feet. Together they stepped to the precipice and watched as the body, with eyes locked wide open in realization of its own impending doom, fell to the surface of another world – a world thousands of light years removed from them. Later Erik couldn’t recall if Garmakalok appeared to be falling down a hole or rather floating upward toward an alien sky. Distantly they heard the sounds of clamor; Argos had struck. They must act quickly now as the palace would soon erupt with activity.

  Although they had won a reprieve with the slaughter of the gray-backs’ governor they were still unable to escape the city at the mome
nt. There remained the bands of silver encircling all their necks with which to be concerned, the marks of thralls the material of which, should they venture beyond the gate where ended the sphere of influence of Deneb, would return to the city much as a piece of raw iron being drawn to a powerful magnet.

  Looking back to his immediate surroundings the man studied the elaborate metal boundary of the portal, seeing at last a section of the framing that, to his trained mind, resembled the intricacies of machinery. The two humans were well aware they could never leave the city while this portal, this gateway to a distant world, remained intact. Erik hoped these gears and dials on the portal were somehow involved in the gray-back technology used to return the neck bands to the influence of the orange star, but had no way of knowing for sure.

  “Erik, what will you do?” cried the girl. “We haven’t much time. Garmakalok’s men will soon come to the palace to seek their leader. When they do not find him in his rooms they will come here.”

  “And we will not be here.”

  Snatching the fallen sword of Garmakalok from the floor and bringing it to bear, he brought the blade down resoundingly time and again. Beside him the girl joined in, swinging the iron mining bar with all the pent anger, hatred and frustration at her command.

  At last they were rewarded with a