Quest of the Golden Ape Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII

  _The Brown Virgin_

  Bram Forest moved from unconscious into a dark half-world of pain andfrustration. He felt his flame-seared body to be hanging upon the edgeof a black abyss into which he could neither fall nor draw away from.

  At times, it seemed, gentle hands reached out to explore but werewithout the strength to draw him back from the perilous precipice uponwhich he hung.

  There was an endless time of balance in this dark half-world and thenthe thick blackness faded to a gray, the precipice seemed to draw awayof its own volition, and the pain within him lessened.

  He opened his eyes.

  He was lying on a bed of soft, cool moss in a semi-dark cavern withthe sound of tinkling water in the distance. He lay staring at theceiling for a long time, wondering into what manner of place he hadcome and how. Then his keen ears caught the sound of breathing otherthan his own; a soft breathing that fell gently upon his senses andcalmed rather than alerted him.

  He turned his head and saw a beautiful, naked brown-skinned girlkneeling nearby but beyond his reach. He was struck first by thebeauty of her face and form and then by the fact that she was not ascompletely brown as his first impression had given him to believe. Herbreasts and loins were of pure white and droplets of shining water randown her body.

  She was in the act of replacing a sort of leather harness upon herperson and Bram Forest realized she had just returned from bathing atwhatever place the unseen water gurgled and laughed and that she wasnow dressing herself.

  He held his peace until the act was completed, not wishing toembarrass her by making his consciousness known while she was nude.

  After a few moments, the harness was in place and she rose to standerect and shake out her dark shining hair. Bram Forest chose this timeto speak. "I do not know who you are, but I am obviously in your debt.My gratitude."

  The girl reacted like a startled fawn and drew back several paces."You have regained consciousness?"

  "It seems so. Where is this place and how came I here?"

  "We brought you."

  Bram Forest's brow furrowed in thought. "Oh, yes. Now I remember.There were a group of people such as you at the place I tried to fightthe dark swordsman with his own weapons." Bram Forest chuckledruefully. "It seems I did not fare so well."

  "When we discovered you were not our god, the others wanted to leaveyou there to die but I resisted this as being inhuman and made thembring you here."

  "Where are the rest?"

  "They have returned."

  "Returned whence?"

  The girl lowered her beautiful head sadly. "That I cannot tell you."

  * * * * *

  Bram Forest smiled. "Be not so sad. The fact that you prefer to keepthe information to yourself is no reason for near-tears."

  "I am not sad for that reason, sire."

  "Then why?"

  "Because you asked the question and are even more surely therefore,not our god."

  Bram Forest was deeply curious and half-amused at the trend of thisconversation. "Tell me this, then. Why does my asking the questioneliminate all possibility of my being your god?"

  "Because if you were the god we seek and yearn for, you would not haveto ask where my people went. You would know."

  "Instead of clarifying the situation," Bram Forest mused, "eachquestion sends me deeper and deeper into a mental labyrinth."

  "We risked our lives in going to the place you found us. It wasforbidden to credit the ancient legend of our people. Therefore--"

  "What legend?"

  "That upon this day and at that place our god would appear to deliverus."

  * * * * *

  Bram Forest, now desperately seeking a question that would clarifyrather than further befuddle, held up his hand. "Wait. If you expecteda god to appear and I arrived on schedule, how can you be so sure thatI am not he?"

  "We thought so when you advanced upon the hideous Abarian and took histhroat in your great hands. But when you not only allowed him to livebut also suffered him to take up his whip-sword and come within aneyelash of killing you, we knew you were not our god."

  Bram Forest nodded with understanding. "I can see now how stupid thatact was. Certainly not a manner in which a genuine god would conducthimself." He glanced at the girl and smiled. "Please come closer thatI may see you better."

  She moved her head in the negative, reluctantly, Bram Forest thought,and replied, "If you were our god I would gladly place myself in yourpower to do with me as you would, but as you are mortal, I must remainaway from you."

  Bram Forest frowned. "Again things get murky."

  "I am a virgin," the beautiful girl explained simply and with noself-consciousness whatever. "I must remain so until my time isordained. If I lost my virginity, even through violation that Iresist, I would immediately be delivered into the Golden Ape."

  Bram Forest came upright, causing the girl to retreat a step furtherin alarm. "The Golden Ape, did you say?"

  "Yes."

  "And you are a virgin--"

  This last was a statement rather than a question as Bram Forest sankback, his eyes misty with thought. "An ape, a boar, a stallion--" hepondered. "A virgin's feast--"

  The girl eyed him with concern. "Are you sure that your wound has notcaused--"

  "It is not that," he said, switching his mind back to things of themoment. "I'm just wondering--might you tell me your name withoutbreaking any rules of reticence?"

  * * * * *

  "I am Ylia," she said with a childlike solemnity that touched BramForest.

  "And does Ylia never smile?"

  It seemed to him she made an effort to do this but was so unfamiliarwith the expression that she could not manage it.

  He extended a hand, not disconcerted that she did not come close andtake it. He said, "Ylia, I would not again ask a question you did notwish to answer before. But I am mightily puzzled about the life youmust have led--about that manner of males you have had contact with.They are certainly a miserable lot if a female of their race must lookto her virtue every waking moment.

  "As for me, Ylia--and please believe--I would no more touch you indesire than I would knowingly injure a child. You are safe in mypresence as in the most guarded room of a nunnery."

  If he expected gratitude or a pat on the back for his nobility, he wasrudely surprised. Ylia straightened, her young breasts protrudinggracefully and if she did not react with anger, her face mirroredsomething close to it.

  "Then I am not desirable?"

  Bram Forest blinked. "I did not say that. You are one of the fairest Ihave ever set eyes upon."

  This puzzled Ylia completely. "Then in the name of the Golden Ape,why--?"

  Bram Forest raised his hand with a gesture of both interruption andsurrender. "Please! Let us pursue this subject no further. The watersgrow deep and I suspect quicksand at their bottom. There are questionsin my mind. Allow me to bring them forth with the understanding thatyou do not have to answer any you do not wish to."

  It was evident that Ylia's mind was also a bag of conundrums relativeto this late candidate for godhood who had insulted her desirabilityand yet complimented her upon it at the same time. She moved forwardand sat gracefully down near the moss resting place of her patient.

  Bram Forest was aware of her tenseness. She was like a beautifulanimal ready to spring away at the first sign of hostile movement onhis part. But he also got the impression that coming within reach ofhis arms thrilled her. He believed this even while knowing that shewould have fought like a tigress against any advance upon his part.

  He said, "Ylia, you are indeed a strange child. You remained hereafter your people left and brought me back from the brink of deatheven with the fear that I would rise up and violate you as soon as Iacquired the strength to do so. Your thought processes are difficultto understand."

  Ylia lowered her eyes. "You wished to ask some question
s, sire."

  "My name is Bram Forest. The _sire_ ill-becomes you."

  "Bram--Forest," she murmured experimentally. Then she raised her eyesand there dawned upon her face the most brilliant of smiles. Her lookwas one of both dignity and gratitude. "You do me much honor, BramForest!"

  "Honor? I fail to understand."

  Ylia's eyes glowed proudly. "Why, you treat me with such respect thatI could be even Volna herself!"

  "And who is this Volna?"

  * * * * *

  Ylia was startled at this strange man's ignorance. "Why, everyone onTarth knows of Volna, Princess of Nadia, sister of Bontarc, who isPrince of Nadia and ruler of that great nation. She is the mostexquisitely beautiful woman ever to be born on Tarth."

  "Fancy that," Bram Forest said with a lack of enthusiasm that provedmarked disinterest. "I'm afraid I've never had the pleasure of thelady's acquaintance, nor of her illustrious brother, either."

  Ylia lowered her eyes in sadness. "She was also the sister of Jlomec."

  "And who, pray is Jlomec?"

  "I thought you knew since you tried to avenge his death. He was theNadian the cruel Abarian Retoc slew under your very eyes."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Bram Forest said. But the cowardly death hadbeen accomplished and Bram Forest's mind did not dwell upon it as hecould not see where it affected him one way or another.

  "Ylia," he said, "take it as a supposition that I was born this verymoment and know nothing of this world or its customs. With that inmind, tell me of it--the things you would tell a wondering child."

  She glanced at him strangely. "I will tell you all that I am not boundto hold secret."

  "I would not wish to know more."

  The beautiful Ylia leaned forward, so preoccupied with the task shehad set herself that all her reserve and wariness left her. Her actionbrought her lowered head close to Bram Forest's face and the sweetsmell of her newly washed and shining hair was in his nostrils. Thenhe also became preoccupied with the map Ylia was drawing on the floorof the cavern.

  Long they sat thus, Ylia enjoying her task and Bram Forest's facilemind drawing in each syllable she spoke and committing it to memory.

  Finally the sun lowered and the interior of the cavern darkened untilthey could no longer see each other. The most important convictionBram Forest arrived at from Ylia's discourse was indeed a startlingone. He was certain that this Tarth was a twin planet to Earth ofwhich there was complete knowledge in his mind. He could hardly escapethe fact that Tarth swung in an orbit exactly opposite to that of itsmore familiar counterpart, thus remaining invisible from it.

  This conviction came to him through several things Ylia said and itwas buttressed by a bit of Tarthan mythology she chanced to mention.The legend told of a flame-god, obviously the sun, which stood forthin its wrath one long-distant day and hurled two great stones at ademon who came from far away bent upon torment. This last Bram Forestthought, was perhaps a comet of great size that tore both worlds fromthe sun and set them upon their orbits. The existence of themythological legend indicated too, that civilization on Tarth was notbackward or at least had not been in ages gone.

  In the more exact realm, Bram Forest learned that Tarth was far lesswatery than its invisible sister, scarcely half its surface consistingof ocean. It had two ice caps at the poles, known as the Outer Reachesand an equator termed the Inner Belt.

  * * * * *

  There were no isolated continents according to Ylia's map, all the drysurfaces being connected by wide passages of land through thecontinuous ocean.

  Ylia's description of the people interested Bram Forest mostintensely. On Tarth, he learned, there was no association of nations,each mistrusting the others in a world where a state of continuous warat some point of the globe was an accepted state of affairs which noone sought to ameliorate.

  Ylia herself was hazy upon the description and number of the nations.She thought some two hundred existed but only the most important couldshe describe.

  * * * * *

  The Abarians were the most successfully warlike, fearing only theNadians to the south. This because though the Nadians were notaggressive and even treated other lesser nations in a kindly fashion,they possessed an inherent fighting skill and a power potential thathad not been tested in recallable history. Though they had not foughtfor centuries, their potential had not lessened because such a follywould have been considered tantamount to national suicide on Tarth.

  There were also the Utalians that Bram Forest visualized as some sortof lizard men for the reason that they possessed the defensivecharacteristics of the chameleon. There was also another intriguingrace, no member of which Ylia had ever seen. She referred to them asthe Twin People of Coom, an area near the north Outer Reach. BramForest speculated upon what manner of people they would be and it cameto him that the evolutionary processes on Tarth had not correspondedto those of Earth, where all members of the human race evolved intopractically the same form.

  Then a name came into Bram Forest's mind; a name that rose out of thatmysterious well of knowledge in his subconscious; a well he could notexplain but had been forced to accept. He no longer questioned it.

  "Tell me of the Ofridians."

  Ylia started as though he had slapped her. The deep brown of herbeautiful face paled somewhat and her eyes grew very sad.

  Bram Forest saw the sadness by the light of the moon, that had risenand was sending wan light in through the cavern's entrance. He onlysensed the paleness from the tremor of Ylia's voice. "It grows late. Imust go and bring food. Your strength must be nurtured andgreatened."

  With that, she hurried off in the direction of the sounding water,leaving Bram Forest both bewildered and intrigued. Why had she reactedso violently to his question? And for that matter, why had he beenable to ask the question in the first place? By what process did heknow the name _Ofrid_ and that it designated a nation on Tarth,without knowing of that nation and already possessing the knowledgefor which he had begged the patient and beautiful Ylia?

  Then he remembered that he had resolved not to wonder about thesethings--and at the same instant, remembered something else.

  The small, flat package that had fallen from the box back on Earth. Ithad been his first thought upon regaining consciousness near theOfridian well but it had been pushed from his mind by subsequentevents.

  How long ago had that been? He tried to assess the passage of time butfailed. The only indication of its length was the fact that he bore nowound where the Abarian's blade had entered his body. That pointed toa long span of unconsciousness but perhaps there were contributingfactors.

  * * * * *

  He had sensed that the mysterious Ylia had at her command somethingthat had healed him very swiftly but he had no proof of this.

  At any rate, he had to retrieve the package if possible. But would itbe possible? Granted the strange disc had brought him somehow fromEarth to Tarth, would it repeat the process in the opposite direction?

  He resolved to find out and began unbuckling the disc from its placeon his right wrist.

  As he did this a sound manifested outside the cavern but he was sointent upon his task that he gave little note. Quickly, he strappedthe disc into its potent position on his left wrist. Then he sattensely awaiting the reaction.

  As he waited, the sound without became so pronounced he could nolonger ignore it. He raised his head and saw a tall, sinister formoutlined against the moonlight. He was unable to distinguish thefeatures, but the outline told a sickening truth. Also the drawnwhip-sword spoke eloquently of who this intruder was.

  The Abarian of the Ofridian well in search of prey. The cowardlyassassin who would now enter and find a defenseless man and abeautiful girl who would set him aflame with lust.

  Rage threw a red curtain over Bram Forest's eyes as he struggled up tomeet the intruder. But the latter never saw him because at that momentthe
now-familiar nausea seized Bram Forest's vitals, doubling himover.

  And when the Abarian had advanced into the cavern, he found only anempty bed of moss, Bram Forest having been snatched up and whirledinto darkness by the relentless hand of time put into terrifyingmotion.