The Lost World MEGAPACK®. Lin Carter

It might be a trap, but it wasn’t likely that they would go to such elaborate lengths to lure him from the cell. Anyway it was better than doing nothing. He decided to follow the girl.

      “Lead on, sister,” he whispered. “If you’re on the level, God bless you.”

      The girl led him into the corridor that flanked the room in which he had been confined. Looking about he could tell nothing about where he was or where he was going. The walls were blue, and of the same porous composition that constituted the walls of the room he had just left. The corridor stretched ahead endlessly and Neal noticed that every six feet or so a door was built into the wall, identical with the one that led to the room which he had just left. The ceiling was high and vaulted, but was without ornamentation of any sort.

      The girl crept softly ahead of him, glancing frequently back to see that he was still following. In another hundred feet they turned at right angles and followed another corridor. For fifteen or twenty minutes they continued, twisting and turning through the labyrinthine passages that interlaced each other at odd angles. Finally the girl stopped at a door, that seemed to Neal identical to the hundreds of others they had passed, and pressed her ear against its surface.

      After a silent interval she opened the door cautiously and motioned for Neal to go in. Neal hesitated an instant. If there was anything phoney about the set-up this was where the pay-off would be. With a mental shrug he stepped over the threshold and into the room.

      “Neal, darling!” a wonderfully familiar voice cried.

      “Jane!” Neal whispered unbelievingly. For an instant he stood rooted to the spot, too amazed to move. This had been the farthest thing from his thoughts. She was standing at the opposite side of the room, and in her eyes was relief and joy that made his heart pound faster. She was wearing a loose flowing gown of white and it gave her blonde beauty an almost ethereal quality.

      Recovering he crossed to her, took her hands in his.

      “Honey,” he said fervently, “you’re the most welcome sight I’ve seen in all my life. Are you all right? Has that swine done anything to you?”

      “I’m all right,” she said breathlessly. “I heard that you had been brought here and the little girl who is my attendant was willing to take a message to you. Finally she thought she could bring you here easier. She’s watching in the hall now so we have a few minutes to talk.”

      “What’s this all about?” Neal asked. “Where are we?”

      “We’re in the city my father discovered,” she answered. “It’s underground. A whole tribe of people—offshoots of some highly cultivated desert group—built it as a retreat against their more savage neighbors centuries ago. Here they have progressed amazingly well along certain lines, in electricity for instance, but in other fields they are childishly ignorant.

      “Zaraf knew my father years ago and knew that he made this discovery. So his offer to help me was because he wanted access to this city for purposes of exploitation. We arrived here just a few days ahead of you, but fortunately for Zaraf, an evil element of the natives has been planning a revolution against the established ruling system. Being an opportunist Zaraf jumped right in with the revolters and helped them overthrow their ruler.”

      “And that makes him ace-high with the new management,” Neal said reflectively.

      Jane nodded.

      “He told me all his plans the day after he kidnaped me and left you stranded in the desert. He was sure you were out of the picture forever. He intends to work himself into a position of power, regiment these natives, sell their produce and electrical equipment to the highest bidders. He must be stopped, Neal, he must. These natives are, for the most part, simple and kindly, but they’re easily influenced by white people because they worshipped my father. He was very kind and good to them during the years he stayed here, and Zaraf is trading on that.”

      “Our big job,” Neal said, “is to get out of here as fast as we can. Do you have any idea of the size of this place? Or where we are now in relation to the nearest exit?”

      Jane shook her head.

      “I’m completely lost,” she confessed. “I know, however, that we are in one of the larger sleeping sections now. Everyone is up at the throne hall at this time to hear the new instructions from the new ruler. His name is Horjak. That’s why it was safe to bring you here through the halls. All the rooms are deserted now. Most of the natives here aren’t sympathetic with the new regime, but they are helpless because they have no leader or weapons.”

      Neal started to speak but a shrill terrified shriek from beyond the door interrupted him. It was followed instantly by a loud banging on the panels.

      Neal heard a harsh voice snapping commands and he knew that Zaraf was outside.

      Jane was clinging to his arm desperately.

      “You’ve got to get out of here, darling,” she cried.

      This was the grim truth, Neal admitted, but there was no other exit from the room. He disengaged Jane’s frantic grip on his arm and shoved her into a corner, just as the door crashed inword.

      Three small, but heavily muscled men, with the same pallid expression and lusterless hair of the young native girl, spilled into the room. They wore crimson tunics that dropped to the middle of their thighs and sandals with soft spongy soles. They sprang at Neal with a concerted ferocity that amazed him. The first soldier went down under a sledge hammer right hook that carried all of Neal’s heavy shoulder behind it. But before he could swing again the other two grabbed his arms. More of the crimson-tuniced guards poured into the room and the struggle was over. Panting, he was dragged from the room into the corridor to face the coldy sneering presence of Max Zaraf.

      “I gave you your chance,” Zaraf snapped. “You refused it. Now you can accept your alternate choice.” He motioned imperiously to the guards. “To the throne room. Quickly!”

      Before the guards could move to obey his order Jane rushed into the corridor and blocked their path with outstretched hands.

      “You can’t do this,” she cried to Zaraf. “I won’t let you.”

      Zaraf smiled at her, cynically.

      “Since you are so perturbed as to his fate,” he said silkily, “I think it would be interesting if you would witness the execution yourself. There’s nothing like the presence of a lovely woman to inspire a man to die a hero’s death.” He nodded to two of the guards. “Take her along.”

      The husky, crimson-tuniced guards sprang to obey, and after a brief, unequal struggle, the girl was carried away after Neal.

      * * * *

      The throne room was a vast hall lined with tier upon tier of seats extending up to the highest reaches of the amphitheater. In the center of the throne room a huge unadorned dias was erected and on it sprawled a corpulent figure with an overly large head and dense stupid features.

      Neal saw all this in one quick glance as he was shoved through a lower tier aisle and led to the large oval enclosure that faced the throne. The entire hall was brilliantly illuminated by the same sort of indirect lighting he had noticed before. Standing next to the figure on the throne was Max Zaraf, a gloating smile of anticipation on his face.

      The throne room was quiet, but the tiers of seats were jammed with the native population of the underground city. Neal noticed the silence particularly. It was the brooding silence of a death block before an execution.

      Zaraf bowed slightly to the figure on the dias and stepped down to face Neal.

      “Very shortly,” he said, “you are going to die in a quite spectacular manner. You are a fool and you deserve it. These people are incredibly brilliant in many things, many things which the outside world will pay steeply for. Their invisibility screen with which they surround their central pyramid is one instance. Your pistol shot accidentally disrupted the force field and thus you accidentally stumbled onto the pyramid.

      “The