The Treasure of Akram el-Amin Read online

daughter from under guard – was worthy of enshrinement by the bards!

  They had discovered the lad’s presence in the store room of gold by the slits he had made to gain passage into his daughter’s chambers. It showed great restraint, they had all agreed, that the lad had apparently not pilfered so much as a single coin, but taking rather what was obviously the most precious to el-Amin.

  Discovering, as he soon did, that the girl had been treated as an honored guest rather than a prisoner, and indeed had been treated with all respect, and that adherence to custom had been preserved in that the girl had been remanded into the custody of the hareem of Ilyas ibn Saleh and had – except under strict observance in public – been entirely in their care, went far to alleviate his anger at her abduction.

  He had known of the girl’s helpless and despondent state of depression – and seeing her now, blossoming and glowing with happiness… Well, there was no way he could condemn her to returning to her former state of misery.

  So it was that after being paid a healthy dowry of many clay vessels of gold and jewels, not to mention horses and cattle and fine weapons of steel, Sheikh Ilyas ibn Saleh realized that indeed, his son had chosen wisely when he took from him the fair daughter of Akram el-Amin.

  Alnnihaya

  The End

   Acknowledgements

  I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my wife, Melisa, for listening to me go on and on about my stories. Gads – I know she has got to get tired of hearing about my plots and counter-plots, characters and places, and all those ideas and questions of which I seem to always be so full (“What do you think if such-and-such…”) But she always listens and offers what advice she may – so thanks!

  I wish to express my gratitude to my good friend and sounding board, Scott Belton. Scott is my second self – a man after my own heart who enjoys much of the same things in life that I do. As such, we talk stories – a lot. He has helped me through writing three novels of Barsoom and a host of short stories, offering his sage advice along the way. I’ve often sought his opinion in many ticklish situations in my yarns and he has always helped me out of my self-inflicted conundrums that I might continue the tale. We both have a hearty love for the pulp era authors and have spent many an evening discussing John Carter, Conan, Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth over a pint.

  I absolutely must acknowledge the many fine authors who, after devouring their written material for years and years, influenced me from beyond (for they have all sailed the Darkling Sea, as McKiernan would say) to begin writing myself – to give a little something back to the world of all those rich, well-spun tales I’ve read since I was little. I’m a huge fan of temporal themes, and so, yes, gadzooks do I wish I could time-travel into the past that I might meet in person the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, Edmond Hamilton, A. Merritt, William Hope Hodgson, Stanley Weinbaum, Lester del Rey, Robert E. Howard (AKA “Two Gun Bob”) … and many more.

  And I also wish to thank God for giving me whatever it is that drives me to write stories. I just have one favor to ask: keep them coming.

  About the Author

  I was raised on an 80 acre horse farm in what I affectionately refer to as BFE, which is shorthand for Rock, WV :0 

  The Farm as my family refers to it is neat, being surrounded almost entirely by the Bluestone River, in the shape of a giant horse shoe, if the horse shoe were bent and mangled and distorted a bit. The only place it is connected to 'dry land' so to speak is a railroad tunnel built in like 1917 that runs through the narrow stretch of land that isn't under the river. So gads, I know my mom feared for my life while I was growing up, as this place is surrounded by a river (anybody ever go swimming in the river during 'Dog Days?', it has cliffs, wooded trails, wild life, the railroad tunnel, you name it. 

  I used to scale cliffs, pole down the river in a flat bottom boat like Huck Finn, and me and my buddies played war with an arsenal of BB guns. I've heated up many a derriere with my trusty Red Ryder, and had the favor returned tenfold. Where we lived they didn't have cable, and my folks wouldn't pay for satellite, so I ran the woods and cliffs, rode horses, climbed trees, waded, ETC till dark, then I would read. 

  I read a lot. I read everything I could get my hands on, from classics (my mom had a giant collection of Readers Digest Condensed Books - I read'em all), romances, you name it. Then I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith (heck, you can read almost all of those guys just by picking up a copy of The Macabre Reader - that's where I got my first taste of pulp authors), in short - I fell in love with a bunch of authors that were mostly dead 30 or more years before I was even born, knowing beforehand that after I read what was out there, there would be no more. 

  But I never let that bother me. Some of their works are very obscure, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every volume I've ever stumbled on or run to ground. I love collecting old paperback reprints of these guys, Oh yeah, there's Edmond Hamilton, A. Merritt, the entire Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series (which I've yet to complete!). There are others, Philip M. Fisher, Lester del Rey, the list goes on. These are the guys who drive the type of writing I'm attracted to emulate. You'll find their influence heavily in everything I write, whether it's a short macabre piece, or a fisticuffs, or any other form of arm chair adventure you care to mention - they're there. Tarzan, John Carter, Conan, Malygris, Avyctes, Dwayanu, Kthulhu, Randolph Carter, they're all there...

  List of Works

  This is a list of works that are published or will be shortly:

  The Valley of Despair

  On A Winter’s Eve

  The Treasure of Akram el-Amin

  Coming soon:

  The Blonde Goddess of Tikka-Tikka (Vol. I of the Ansen Series)

  The Banshee of the Atacama (Vol. II of the Ansen Series)

  The tale of an Arabian lad on a quest that could only transpire in another time and place….

  When Iskandar’s father came to him and said: “My son, you must go to the tents of mine enemy, Akram el-Amin, and bring to me his greatest treasure!” little did the lad guess what was about to befall him. Now, alone amidst the palisaded tents of his father’s enemy, would he come away with the chieftest of el-Amin’s riches? How would he know this gem among gems when he saw it? Or would the boy lose his life as he attempted to wrest the most valued possession held by one of the most powerful sheikhs of all Arabia - Akram el-Amin!