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  Fantastic Adventures

  Volume 10, Number 7

  July 1948

  Custom eBook created by

  Jerry eBooks

  March 2017

  The strength of Queen Luria and her black panther hordes was not equal to the cunning of Loko and his lizard men—unless Luria could capture the enchanted Groana bird . . .

  I DO NOT say that adventure cannot begin anywhere. Of course it can! And usually does. But let us speak of specific places. I once met a Metropolitan baritone singing in a cheap honky-tonk on west Madison Street. He said it was the only place he knew of where he could act as he wished, drink what he wanted and talk to the people he wanted. And fight with whom he pleased. Turned out he had once planned on being a fighter until some rich woman heard him sing . . .

  I was once a skip-tracer for a collection outfit and followed a man all the way to Mexico City; he owed a certain merchant fifty thousand dollars and had the money. And while I was trying to locate this skip the police of Mexico City thought I was an international agent and dogged my steps until one night they thought they had something on me and clapped me in the calaboose and held me incommunicado for twenty-four hours before I could get in touch with the consulate . . .

  But let me be even more specific.

  It began on a wondrous spring day.

  Summer was not quite ready to thrust its heat against us, the air was warm and fragrant with growing things, I had a couple of bucks in my kick and I had just fallen out of love. I believe I said it was a wonderful day . . .? Well, I’d called Henry Sharpe the night before and we had made plans to go to Brookfield Zoo where the animals can come up close and sneer at the humans.

  “A weekday’s best,” Sharpe said as I slid into the seat beside him. “Sunday brings out the week-end nature lover and his camera. Besides, the animals aren’t quite so bored on a week-day. Maybe . . .”

  “Maybe what?” I asked. I wasn’t looking at him but was watching him get out into the traffic of La Salle street.

  “Nothing,” he said shortly. He was looking straight ahead but there was an odd crinkle to his forehead as though he were thinking of something which bothered him.

  * * *

  We parked and began the long walk to the animal houses. As Hank had predicted there weren’t. many people about. I saw a group of school children herded by their teacher moving determinedly toward the aviary. But our paths did not converge. Sharpe is the fastest walking little man I’ve ever known. I’m not on the big side myself and it’s always been a problem keeping up with him unless I go at a half-trot. After some few hundred yards, I was getting a bit winded.

  “Hey! Take it easy. We got all day,” I said, panting heavily.

  “Sorry, Berk,” he said. “But it’s such a relief getting away from those damn drawings . . . Besides, I’m anxious to see something.”

  “So am I,” I said. “But at the rate we’re moving I’ll need a chair to see them in. I’m that pooped.”

  We slowed after a while to a more sedate run. By that time I’d given up the struggle and was dragging my tail ten feet behind Sharpe. I had been so busy just keeping pace with him I hadn’t even noticed where he had made his goal. I leaned my weight over the iron rail and looked across the moat to where the animals lolled in the sun. The scene was a rocky bit of jungle land. There were painted limitations of rocks, bushes, trees, and a small grotto led to the inside cages. There were some four of them there, great black things, panthers all; mama, papa and a couple of baby panthers which didn’t look any different than their parents. At least their teeth were no smaller when they yawned.

  ONE OF them rose and strolled to the edge of the moat and fell to his haunches and stared at us out of his great yellow eyes. There’s something about the big cats, lions, tigers, panthers, the whole feline tribe, down to the smallest tabby, that reaches right down and pulls at the atavistic remembrances of man. I felt the hair rise at the nape and knew my breath was catching as the beast looked at the two of us. It was as though I could reach through the bone and fur to that tiny brain and pluck out what lay there. It was as if he was saying, five minutes out there and we’d see who’d be boss.

  “That’s right, baby,” I said aloud. “But you’re in there and I’m out here . . .”

  “Huh?” Hank whirled to me.

  I grinned and told him what I had been thinking of. But the grin was wiped from my lips at what I saw in his eyes. They were just wild in excitement.

  “So you heard it too,” he said.

  “Heard what?” I asked.

  “What the panther said.”

  “Now wait a minute. I didn’t hear anything! A picture formed in my mind of what the beast might be thinking if he could think.”

  He turned back then and looked at the beast. I saw that his fingers were white against the rail. I saw too that the knuckles were bloodless. Something was wrong. I puzzled over it then turned my attention to another of the tribe. This one I hadn’t seen before. He was coming out of the semi-darkness of the grotto into the sunlight. I gasped at the size of him. He was the biggest panther I’d ever seen, a full seven feet from head to tail-tip. He stalked out into the sunlight and stood poised, the only movement a sinuous twitch, of the black tail. I don’t know how the beast at the lip of the moat heard or knew of the other’s presence, but before our amazed eyes, it turned and leaped toward the other with a blood-chilling scream of anger.

  I heard Hank’s sibilant intake of breath, heard the muted, “Aah!” that came from his lips. But my whole attention was taken by the drama before us.

  The giant panther waited the coming of the smaller one with the utmost equanamity. It didn’t do any more than face the other. Not even its tail twitched. Yet when the smaller one was but a few paces away; in fact the other had already leaped in a wild lunge, then the big beast moved. But when it moved it was a greased streak of black lightning. I have never seen anything move so fast. One second it was facing its adversary, the next it had reared and slashed at the bundle of charged dynamite which had flung itself at him. There was but a single blow. There must have been terrific power in that paw to do what it did. For the smaller beast was flung a good five yards through the air. It landed heavily on its back, rolled over and began to drag itself toward the other. I saw then that its back had been broken by the blow. I let a whistle escape my lips.

  There was more to come. As though the smaller one’s leap had been a signal all the others converged on the single monstrous thing in the center of the arena. Only this time the immense beast did not wait for the attack. It leaped like a bolt straight for the largest of its enemies. I didn’t know that the big cats felt or knew fear. At least not till then. But as the huge thing left its feet, the smaller one turned and leaped screaming for the protection of the grotto. And behind it came the others. I turned quickly to the remaining one. It stood facing the grotto mouth after it landed. There was a snarl on its mouth and the huge canines turned me cold inside.

  I COULDN’T take my eyes from the monster. It moved so slowly, so pre-meditatively. I watched it move toward the maimed panther which had stopped its futile movement and lay stretched full length on the ground. The big one approached the other at an angle. When it was only a few feet away it swerved and came in from the rear. The beast on the ground must have had an intuitive idea why because it tried to turn to face the enemy. Before it could complete the turn the big one was on him. It was over quickly. A single, bone-crunching snap of the huge jaw
s and life departed for the broken-backed panther. It was then the keepers appeared.

  A shuddering sigh was wrenched from Hank’s lips as the keepers busied themselves with fire hoses, used, I supposed for just such an emergency. The powerful streams of water hit the panther from three sides and drove him snarling backward to the grotto. When it finally disappeared into it a gate was lowered. I wanted to stay and see what happened then. But Hank had other ideas.

  “No. I’ve seen enough,” he said. “Besides, I’ve got something to tell you.”

  We didn’t go far, only to the place where the elephants stood, great brown splotches against the deeper brown of their surroundings. Hank made sure we were removed from the rest of the crowd before he began to talk.

  “Berk, do you think I’m goofy?” he asked.

  “The goofiest guy I know,” I said with a laugh. “I’ve always said that . . .”

  He should have smiled. He should have done anything but what he did, grab my wrist and pull me closer to him.

  “Wait!” he said sharply. “I’m not kidding. Let me start from the beginning because that way I’ll get things in order.

  “In the first place you know the kind of guy I am about animals. Always traipsing off somewhere, to the Forest Preserve, or the dunes or some zoo or other. Just because I like to see the animals, the big ones and the little ones. I’ve always been interested in them, as if there was a bond between us. You’ve often mentioned that I’m the only guy you know who can walk up to a cat, for instance and immediately it’ll start purring. Or to a dog, no matter how big, and it’ll eat out of my hand. Well, something strange happened last week. Brookfield opened then for the summer. Of course I was one of the first to get here.

  “Well, through the years I’ve become pretty well-known out here and they let me have my run of the place. So the first thing happens, Joe Edson, the head keeper grabs me and drags me up to the big cat house. Takes me up to the panther cage and says:

  “ ‘Look, Hank.’

  “Look at what?” I asked.

  “ ‘The size of that cat.’ ”

  “Berk, it was the biggest cat I’ve ever seen. Now get this. Panthers are the smallest of the big cats. They’re really small lions. But this baby, the same one we just saw was bigger than even the biggest lion. But it was a panther. It was a panther but for one thing, its canines. They were those of a tiger. Bigger, longer, Berk, than any tiger’s.”

  I was following him pretty good. So far he hadn’t said anything to warrant the state of excitement he was in. But I hadn’t heard everything.

  He went on:

  “Ed got a call from one of the keepers just then and I was left alone. The cat was in a far corner. Soon as Ed left the cat got up and moved close to the bars and faced me. He looked at me with those devil’s eyes of his and his lips parted in a grin. Damn! It was almost human, that grin. I wondered where they got such a magnificent animal . . . Berk! I swear to God, this is what happened. The cat said, ‘You wouldn’t believe it if it were told to you.’ ”

  I KNOW I was smiling when he said what he did. And I know the smile was still on my face as I turned and looked him full in the eyes. But a cold rope dragged itself down my spine and of a sudden my hands felt clammy with sweat. He must have seen something of what went on in my mind because he went on quickly:

  “Yeah! Sounds goofy. Really insane. But true. As I stand here with you, it’s the truth. And there’s even more. I guess I just stared at the damned cat. Suddenly it moved back and forth against the bars in that sinuous walk only cats have. After a few turns it came back and faced me again. It was just as though its mind was troubled and the turns it took enabled it to clear its mind for what it wanted to say. ‘She brought me here to prove something. But now I’m in this prison and only she can get me out. You must help me . . .’

  “There were words trembling on my lips but they simply wouldn’t pass. I was speechless. Yet he read my mind. For he answered the words which had formed in me. ‘You are the only person on this planet who can help me. Project your thoughts into the great void. Call, Luria . . . And when the answer comes, say that Mokar believes . . .’

  “I guess I was in a sort of mental fog for a while after that because the next remembrance was of my studio. I sort of came out of the trance I was in and found myself on the couch. I know that I had left the zoo and driven back to the studio; I must have! Anyway, the first thought in my mind was what Mokar had said. I did it . . .

  “Did what, Hank?” I breathed softly.

  “Called to this Luria.”

  “And . . .?”

  “She not only answered, she came to me. Not in flesh,” he hastily assured me. “It was a sort of picture I got of her. Oh, man! What a picture though. I deal in beauty. Now and then we run across some beautiful models. But this Luria . . . Out of this world is the only way to describe her. Her skin was white as the proverbial snow and yet it had an odd pinkish glow to it. Her hair was midnight and it sparkled as though a million snow flakes were reflecting light from it. She wore a breastplate which concealed her charms yet barely covered the swelling flesh so that my breath was taken from me. Below the plate she was bare to her loins which again were covered by a leather belt from which dangled a jeweled dagger. In her hand, the right one, she carried a spear with an immense blade, slim, and murderous looking.

  “She was clothed in mist which swirled and eddied about her. Because of this strange mist the picture was none too clear except in glimpses. But the oddest part of the whole scene was a something that lurked in the background. Lurked is the only word for it. It was never clear at all. I got the feeling of a long body, wetly metallic-looking and covered by a serrated series of spines. But as I say, I’m not sure. Maybe that was the proof of my hallucinated state.”

  I released my breath in a sigh and said:

  “The wrong one of us is writing. I’d say this dame brought out the poet in you, Hank. Never have I heard a woman described so. Now look . . .”

  “I was sober. More sober than at any time of my life,” he said, as though he knew what I was going to say. “But let me finish. The message of Mokar came to my mind and I saw her lips smile. They formed words and across the misty dimness came the answer, “Tell Mokar I shall come for him soon.” He hesitated for an instant, open and closed his mouth and finally said nothing.

  “And that’s the last you’ve ever heard of or seen the beautiful dream gal, Luria?” I said.

  He shook his head, yes.

  I DIDN’T know what to say. Hank Sharpe was my dearest friend. He was a mixture of the strangest things, for at one and the same time he was the most hard-headed, clear-thinking man I’d ever known; and at the same time the world’s greatest romanticist. He spoke of the evil of man with a knowing look. Yet he could not believe evil of anyone. He was as small as I and even thinner, and no one has ever called me, big-boy, but he was as strong as a horse with hands that were like a carpenter’s, tough and muscular. I’ve seen him slap a guy and send the guy all the way across a tavern floor with that slap. He had a head that was bit too large for the rest of him, with a face that was long and lean and handsome. And there was nothing I wouldn’t do for the guy . . . But this deal he was talking of sounded like a hashish dream.

  It couldn’t be, though.

  There might be a way of finding out, I thought of a sudden. “Look, Hank,” I said. “Let’s mosey over to the cat house. I want to see something.”

  There was quite a crowd on the outside. Evidently the word of the fight had spread and they had gathered to see what there was to be seen. There wasn’t much. What blood had flowed had been washed clean by the hoses. Of the cats nothing was to be seen. We strolled around and walked into the huge place. It was apparent which cage the panthers were in by the crowd watching. We joined the others.

  Being on the small side we edged our way through the crowd until we stood against the iron railing which separated the cages from the spectators: The animals in the cage were restless. W
hether it was the fight which had made them so or something else, they paced back and forth, growls rumbling deep in their throats and sometimes coming past the furry pockets. Oddly enough, the largest and most ferocious, the huge jet-black beast whose name was Mokar, was the least restive. He lolled at his ease on the shelf which they used for resting and sleeping.

  He was lying there until he spotted us. Then with an immense and effortless leap he was at the bars, his great yellow eyes searching our faces. Suddenly it happened. I swear Mokar smiled. Those fearsome lips parted in a huge cat’s grin. And Hank turned to me and said: “Let’s go. He understood.”

  It was just too much for me. I shook my head and started to follow Hank.

  But I hadn’t done more than make a half-turn when he gripped my forearm so hard I yipped in pain.

  “It’s her,” he whispered in a voice of awe.

  Like a flash I followed the direction of his eyes and beheld her. I knew it was her. Yet she was like night and day as far as accuracy of description. Only in the small wave of hair which peeked beneath the hood of her coat was there something of what he’d described, the hair whose blackness held the sheen of a million reflected snowflakes. Her skin too was as he said. But that face! It was the face of a million men’s dreams. So alluring, so innocent, eyes that begged for love, and knew only virtue, lips whose redness made one hungry for their touch, and a skin that was like a flower petal. I felt my fingers contract in a spasm, as though they had a will to fly toward that loveliness for a caress.

  “Your friend likes me,” the girl said.

  She had spoken and in perfectly understandable English.

  “I’m glad,” she went on. “Mokar will be too.”

  “He will?” I said.

  “But of course. He has learned his lesson and I have found what I looked for. Now we will go out of this place of prison into the clean air. Come!”

  IT WAS a command. And we followed. She led us directly to one of the open-air confectionery stands. She walked up and ordered an ice cream cone. I reached for the dime automatically. But Hank ordered two more and paid for them. She turned and walked to a bench close by. We followed as if we were tied to her by a string. So we sat, the three of us, munching on our cones until the last of them were licked up. All the while she sat and stared at anything and everything but us.