Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/76

460 that legend and thinks if he drinks of those waters his life will be vastly extended. So he has offered Clark Stannard, young adventurer, a half-million dollars if he procures for him a flask of waters from the Lake of Life.

Clark Stannard does not himself believe the shining waters will confer immortality, but has undertaken the quest. His five hard-bitten followers are Blacky Cain, gangster; Mike Shinn, former heavyweight prizefighter; Lieutenant John Morrow, disgraced army officer; Link Wilson, a Texan cowboy; and Ephraim Quell, former Yankee sea captain.

The quest has brought the six into a hidden land surrounded by the Mountains of Death, mountains which it is death to tread upon. They have gained entrance to the prisoned land by floating down a wild river that flows in through a chasm in the mountains.

In this hidden land they find two cities of white people, at war with each other. They are K'Lamm, city of the Reds, and Dordona, city of the Blacks. Clark and his five men repel a band of black warriors who attack them, and capture their leader. The leader is Lurain, wildcat daughter of the ruler of Dordona.

Then they are surrounded by a large force of Red warriors from the near-by city K'Lamm. Clark learns that the Lake of Life exists somewhere near the city Dordona. The Dordonans hold it is sacrilege for anyone to try to drink of the Lake of Life. But the people of K'Lamm thirst to drink of it and become immortal; so that there is war between the two peoples.

Clark Stannard believes that his only chance of reaching the lake is to join Thargo, king of K'Lamm, as an ally. He agrees to go to the Red city, but stipulates that the girl Lurain is his prisoner, not anyone else's, The six American adventurers and their prisoner and escort of Red warriors are now riding into the city K'Lamm.

The story continues:

city K'Lamm was circular in outline and more than two miles in diameter, surrounded by a forty-foot wall. The wall and buildings and cobbled streets were all of quarried stone, stained bright red by some secret of pigmentation. The buildings were mostly flat-roofed, one-story ones, shops and stalls and dwellings. The inhabitants were swarming excitedly out of them as the cavalcade rode down the street.

Clark saw that at least half the men wore the crimson armor and the long swords—it was a strongly military population. The helmeted warriors, the simple architecture and weapons, all looked medieval to Clark, as though the civilization of this isolated, prisoned people had not progressed further than the Middle Ages of the outside world. There were many women, wearing extremely scanty white tunics that came only to their knees and left half their white breasts bare.

"Say, there's some good-lookin' dames in this burg," said Mike Shinn, the prize-fighter's eyes sweeping the crowd.

"And there are a lot of hard-looking warriors here too," Clark reminded him grimly. "Hands off, Mike."

"What the devil, we could put the blast on this mob easy," sneered Blacky Cain. "There isn't a gat in the whole crowd."

The men and women of K'Lamm seemed inspired with savage fury as they saw the girl prisoner in black armor, in front of Clark.

"Death to Lurain of Dordona!" they