THE QUEEN OF SWORDS!
A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN
By Jerome B. Bigge
Chapter Twenty Nine

     
Prince Serak of the Nevadas rolled over, felt with his hand
for the warm feminine body he expected to find there beside him.
Found nothing. The blankets we had shared together now cold.
     
"Darlanis!" he called out softly, praying that I was near,
concerned that I had not returned from relieving myself in the
woods. Remembering the legends he had heard from the villagers.
Tales of "things" that lived somewhere up there in the mountains.
     
"There was an outcry in the woods!" a tribesman cried. Men,
women, getting out of their teepees, many naked, some with weap-
ons. Mothers clutching their children to themselves, looking out
into the darkness. Serak crawled out of the teepee I had shared
with him, glancing about, his naked sword gleaming in his hand.
     
"Darlanis is gone!" he announced in a loud voice. "Has any-
one seen her?" Puzzled men looked at women, their women glancing
back. Some looked nervously at the mountains, recalling legends.
Of monsters like nothing nature had ever known. Other "things".
     
"Get torches!" the chief ordered, a blanket drawn about him-
self. His woman at his side, carrying his weapons. The terror
clutching at their hearts. The legends of fearsome reptiles now
coming back to haunt them. Was there not the head of such a
thing right there beneath the rawhide on the travois next to the
black metal bird? Had another such come, and taken the Golden
Woman in revenge? The one who their Prince called "Azure Eyes"?

     
"The droppings are fresh," the Prince of the Nevadas said,
"But the tracks are not those of any human being I know of." The
tracks there in the soft soil more like those of some reptile!
     
"She was taken by those who live up there!" a woman cried,
pointing with her hand towards the mountains that towered up into
the star sprinkled night sky. "Those who are not `hu', but are
`mu'! They have come to avenge her killing the great reptile!"
     
"Horseshit!" Serak snapped back, straightening up. "They
came prowling around the encampment, and took her because she was
careless and didn't know about such things," the Prince answered.
     
"She will never return, Never!" the woman now retorted back.
"It is the vengeance of them for your killing the great reptile!"
     
"I will go into the mountains and get her!" Serak snapped in
reply. Before his eyes swam an incredibly beautiful face framed
by hair like gleaming gold. Only hours before those red lips had
been pressed against his. She was his Princess!!! His!!! Serak
screamed the challenge of the Nevada warrior to the silent moun-
tains there in the distance. He would seek out his love or die
in the attempt! Track her kidnapers right up into those dark
forbidding mountains. To the "Hidden Valley" itself if need be!
That legendary place from which it was said no man had returned!!

*****************************************************************

     
"This one different from the others," the scaly monster said
to his companion as they urged their reptilian mounts towards the
mountains. The creatures themselves like some nightmare I prayed
to awaken from. They had bound, gagged me with a rough and ready
skill that had left only one brief moment for a warning scream!
Now I was sitting on the withers of the pacing reptile on which
my captor rode, the creature like a snake crossed with a human!
My head throbbing from the blow one had given me for crying out!
     
"Hair like gold," the other agreeing, "And skin white like
lizard belly," the second added. I didn't really care too much
for the comparison, but there wasn't anything I could do about it
just then either. "Strong too, work hard for us as slave human."
That didn't delight me too much either, let me add right here! I
had no wish to spend the rest of my life as slave to such things!
Beaten and struck as they felt like, and raped beside the fire!
     
"If `silvery ones' allow us to keep her," the first replied.
Their words at the moment meaningless to me. Little did I know
then THE SECRET that laid hidden beneath those great mountains!!!
     
Neither of the reptile men wore anything much in the line of
clothing except for a sort of leather apron around their hips. I
did note, however, that they possessed swords and daggers, the
weapons being of Californian manufacture from what I could see of
them. That did not surprise me too much, as such weapons are of-
ten used as "trade goods" in bargaining with the nomadic barbar-
ians of the plains there beyond the mountains that separate Cali-
fornia from the lands to the east. They also had longbows. Not
the common type seen in California, but smaller, lighter, ones
more suitable for use off the back of such beasts as they rode!
     
Their mounts were lizards about five feet at the shoulder.
The animals moving along at a "pace" that covered considerable
ground in a hurry. Not as fast as a unicorn, but more tireless.

*****************************************************************

     
"No horse or unicorn ever made tracks like that," a man
said, examining the tracks there in the sand with a torch as Ser-
ak nodded. He had no idea as to just "what" had kidnaped me, but
he was determined to rescue me from whoever or whatever had done
the deed if it was the last one thing he ever did in this life!
The Moon now rising there in the east, gleaming down upon them,
it being sometime after midnight, the Moon in its last quarter.
     
"Whatever made those tracks was ridden, and `whatever' rode
those beasts can be killed," Serak answered, the look in his eyes
leaving no doubt that he fully intended to do some "killing" too!
     
"The tracks go towards the mountains," the chief commented.
There were many legends in the encampment of strange beasts and
even stranger "men" living up there. That which was "mu", not
"hu". Unnatural "things" that now lived because of the radiation
from anti-matter explosions centuries ago. Life never "created"
by Lys or the God of the Sky that many Nevadas still believed in.
     
"Then I go up into the mountains," the Prince smiled grimly.
     
"None who have ever gone there have ever `returned'," the
chief spoke. Aware that his Prince would not be turned from his
intentions to throw his life away in a futile pursuit after the
kidnapers of his Golden Woman. The one he called "Azure Eyes".
     
"I am a Man. A Nevada. The woman is mine," Serak answered.
"I am a Warrior. A Prince of the Peoples." All there knew that
he went to his death. That he would never return from the great
mountains that towered up into the star-sprinkled sky to the
west. That his bones would end up scattered among the rocks to
lie bleached in the sun as a warning to others not to trespass.

     
"You will take this letter to she who is called `Lorraine',"
Serak said to the man. "Tell her what happened to her Empress."
     
"That will bring the Californians here," the chief warned.
     
"Tell them where to go if I do not return," Serak answered.
Perhaps what he could not do an Imperial Legion could by sheer
force of numbers. He had mentioned the dinosaurs, and warned the
Warlady of the need for ballistae to deal with such "mu-things".
Another would ride to Vegas, to tell his father what had hap-
pened. To warn of the aggressive acts of the Montanas. Perhaps
the Californians would be "helpful", although one could never say
about such people. It being commonly held among his people that
no "White-Eyes" could ever be "trusted". That such people often
spoke with "forked tongues" like the poisonous "buzz-tail" snake.
Perhaps this "Lorraine" was different. She had been a friend of
Sa-she-ra, a woman of the People. Was raising as her own daugh-
ter Ta-she-ra, a child of the People. One could hope for the
best, no more. He had "tasted" of me. Life would no longer be
worth living without me at his side. I was his woman. No man of
the People ever lets another take his woman without a good fight.

*****************************************************************

     
"I keep thinking of Darlanis," Sela Dai said to Lorraine as
the Warlady paced the deck of the Janis, the big trireme moving
slowly over a barely moving ocean. The sails hardly filling as
it sailed south, south to a point where they would travel over-
land to Talon, a trip of perhaps a week on the backs of unicorns.
     
"No doubt well `used' by now if she found her Prince," the
Queen of Trelandar smiled back, thinking of her own husband. It
had been long since she had seen him. Too long in her opinion!
     
"I hope he was willing to accept her as his wife even if she
can't ever have any more children," Sela mused in reply, staring
out into the glare as the setting sun glistened off the calm sea.
     
"If he loves her it will make no difference," Lorraine said.
Watching the Queen of Talon and her own Gayle there walking the
deck by the starboard railing. To Lorraine not having her be-
loved airplane made travel by any other means seem terribly slow.
     
"She is a woman like `no other'," the Princess smiled back.

*****************************************************************

     
Through the night the tireless giant lizards carried their
burdens, their pace swifter than that of the trot of a unicorn.
There far behind them, unnoticed, a solitary Nevada warrior care-
fully followed on foot, a heavy crossbow slung over his shoul-
ders. His ivory horned mount following close behind on its lead,
snorting from time to time at the various scents that wafted into
its sensitive nostrils. It took all of his tracking skills to
seek the trail there in the moonlight. His thoughts from time to
time recalling the features of one tall and golden, so beautiful
it took one's breath away to look upon her. "Darlanis, I am com-
ing to save you regardless of how long it takes," Serak muttered
to himself, carefully following the trail left by the lizards.
The mountains towering up there before him an awesome barrier
that now rose up into the black star speckled vault of the sky...

*****************************************************************

     
"One of the dinosaurs is missing, a tyrannosaurus." a woman
told Katt as Aurora, their Leaderess busied herself "sorting out"
all the last minute details in preparation for their REVOLUTION.*

* I suppose that is as good a term for it as any I can think of.

     
"A `WHAT' is `missing'?" Aurora asked, looking up at her.
The fact that there was a couple miles of rock overhead bothered
her not at all, Aurora being quite used to living underground as
were nearly all Lorr Servitors. Many as a matter of fact muchly
preferred such a life to one there under the sky quite like Lorr!
     
"One of the `recreations' cloned from fossil DNA," Katt an-
swered. Such had been done centuries ago as an "experiment". It
had proved to be of no "practical" value although the dinosaurs
had been interesting creatures to observe, if dangerous at times.
     
"Is it dangerous?" Aurora asked, while trying to recall what
she knew about prehistoric life on the Earth that long ago. She
was a true "Mars" woman, and knew very little about the Earth's
own past history except what had been taught to Lorr Servitors.
Katt had just become Leaderess of Leith a few weeks before. She
was still yet learning about Leith and some of the amazing things
that had been "done" there in the past centuries since The War.
A slim, dark haired woman, Katt and Aurora had long been lovers.
     
"It is a carnivore standing about twenty feet tall," Katt
replied. "No doubt the barbarians below the mountains are in for
a `hard time' if the thing manages to get down on to the plains."
     
"And `WHAT' is being done to stop it before it kills some-
one?" Aurora snapped back, much to the surprise of the two women.
The Earth barbarians who lived on the plains below being consid-
ered by most Lorr Servitors as white southerners once considered
those of African descent. To such women the Nevadas were just a
group of "savages" that one could hardly consider as being human!
Aurora as she spoke tapping into Leith's computer banks, bringing
up data on just "what" a tyrannosaurus was! The picture of the
creature itself enough to horrify her at the thought of what such
a horrid monster might do if it came across a Nevada encampment!
     
"The Nevadas eventually do kill such creatures," the woman
answered, Katt nodding, puzzled that Aurora took such "concerns"!
Especially now with their REVOLUTION only twenty four hours away!
     
"I want that `thing' found and killed! Put `everything' in
the air that can `fly', including all our saucers, and find that
damm prehistoric monster of yours before it kills someone!" Au-
rora snapped back, her jade green eyes "burning" up into theirs!
     
"It's only a little over a day now before.......," the other
woman protested. "Better uses could be found........," Aurora's
eyes blazed like hellish green fire into the luckless Servitor's!
     
"Find that damm dinosaur and KILL IT!" Aurora snapped, "And
then make sure that no more escape here from the valley!" Katt
nodding, well aware of Aurora's feelings on such "issues". Their
Leaderess did not look upon the "barbarians" below as they did!!!
     
"Do as she says," Katt breathed, the woman nodded, leaving,
no doubt glad to take her leave of such a "fire-eater" as Aurora!
     
"`Nerves'," Aurora breathed, pacing the room before Katt. A
smile curved Katt's lips. They had been "Companions" for over
sixty years. Separated much of the time by their various duties.
Such made their times "together" even more precious to both now.
     
"We `outnumber' the Lorr, and they `suspect' nothing," Katt
answered back. She was a very "attractive" woman, dark haired,
dressed in a clinging red jumpsuit that left no "doubts" either.
The anti-aging serums had worked well on her, concealing her age.
     
"So did Mankind back in 2047," Aurora answered in low tones.
     
"We have centuries of knowledge, while they knew of nearly
nothing," the brunette answered, sitting on the edge of Aurora's
desk. The room furnished in the luxury one might expect given
the true nature of those who inhabited the hidden city of Leith.
     
"I'm going to Farside, check on things," Aurora answered.
The ability to travel a quarter of a million miles instantly was
something no one had really gotten "used to" yet, Aurora thought.
There was in theory "no limit" to the distance one might travel
by such means by means of the space-time warps that made it quite
possible in theory to actually step through a "Portal" on to the
surface of another world perhaps dozens of light years away now!*

* This technology, Aurora informs me, was "stolen" from mysteri-
ous "aliens" in the 20th Century, albeit the records she showed
me at Leith indicates that these "aliens" were "human" at least
in form and shape, although "where" they came from is completely
unknown. Lorraine notes in her book (the first) that the Star-
fire was extremely heavily "armed" considering the "fact" that
Mankind in the 26th Century now had no way of fighting back! It
is interesting here too that it took the Women almost six hundred
years (1991-2566) to actually figure out how to use this device!
Aurora also notes that the various fittings and parts used in the
original device indicate an "Earth origin", adding even "more" to
the mystery as does the "fact" that the device was "used" in the
actual home of Bob and Carol Simmons, who Lorraine knew somewhat!
A later "investigation" by women from Leith indicates that nei-
ther of the couple actually knew anything about the matter! One
possibility here being that my daughter, Domino Tremaine, may be
"responsible" for this device, as it would have been possible to
use the existing remains of the "earth home" as a fixed base of
reference, such being "necessary" for travel through time itself!
On the other hand how did she get the device to the 20th Century?

     
"Ohh!" the woman breathed, Aurora stepping into the room
through the shimmering field of strange energies that made up the
modified "Gateway" used to operate the "Portals". The Leaderess
herself smiling, recovering from the "disorientation" that was a
part of such means of traveling across space from world to world!
Only the change in gravity betraying the fact that she no longer
stood upon the Earth, but upon its satellite, a quarter of a mil-
lion miles away from hidden Leith! Aurora's splitting headache
from her earlier decompression in Leith something that she knew
there was no "cure" for. The atmospheric pressure there in the
lunar cavern being the same as "Mars normal", or approximately a
tenth of Earth's! Such was "necessary" to avoid serious injury
or even death from what Earth divers had once called the "bends"!
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