As the Green Star Rises

Chapter 1. ON THE BRINK OF DEATH

I had only minutes to live. Soon the tides would rise, the waves of the sea would wash over the tiny islet upon which I had been marooned by the treachery of a supposed friend, and I would drown. How strange it was to find that I feared extinction—I, who have died once, already, only to be reborn in the body of another!

Mine must surely be the strangest story in all the annals of human experience. Born to wealth and social position on the distant planet Earth, I had traversed the abyss of space to become a homeless wanderer; a savage boy, lost and helpless amid the wonders and perils of an alien world.

Chained to a cripple’s body, I had learned to burst those chains that bind the spirit to its habitation of flesh. I had set my spirit free, to roam the infinite wilderness of stars! For within that crippled carcass beat a warrior’s heart, whose blood stirred to the siren-call of adventure and mystery.

Across the universe I had drifted to a new life in a new body, upon a strange and marvelous planet which revolves about a star of green fire—a star unknown and unnamed by the astronomers of my native world. But a star under which such as I might find the life of excitement, bravery and battle for which my spirit had been forged.

In the body of the warrior hero, Chong, I had loved and won the love of Niamh the Fair, princess of the Jewel City of Phaolon. And in defending her against her enemies, I had fallen beneath the treacherous blow of a coward’s knife, I had gone down to the Black Gates of Death, leaving my beloved Princess alone and helpless in the power of her enemies.

But the love I felt for Niamh the Fair proved stronger than death itself, and from the portals of his Dark Kingdom I had come back to dwell in a second body, that of a savage boy named Karn of the Red Dragon people.

In this second incarnation upon the World of the Green Star I had found new friends to aid me in the search for my lost beloved. Zarqa the Kalood was one—an alien being; tall, gaunt and golden-skinned, nude, sexless and bewinged. The last survivor of a prehuman race which had ruled this planet in former ages, Zarqa became my ally and my friend.

Janchan of Phaolon was another—the bold and daring young princeling who had quested through the extremities of the world to find the lost princess of his realm.

By a strange trick of fate it had been these, the Winged Man and the Phaolonese noble, who had set my Princess free from the temples of Ardha, and not I. For I had fallen captive to the Assassins when fate sundered our company. But even in that grim fellowship of thieves and murderers, I had found a friend and companion in the Assassin Klygon.

Grinning, sly, ugly little Klygon! Within his homely breast beat a hero’s heart—staunch and loyal and courageous. Together we had fled from the treetop city of Ardha, seeking to rejoin Zarqa and Janchan and my Princess. But among the world-broad forest of the sky-tall trees we had become irretrievably lost. In the depths of the night-black gigantic wood, where enormous worms slither through the unbroken gloom, among the tangled roots of the tremendous trees, we had fallen captive to a repulsive race of albino cannibals who dwelt in noisome caverns tunneled beneath the ground.

There we had met with Delgan of the Isles—or so he called himself. A blue-skinned man of indeterminate age, Delgan was a slave as were we. Together, we three had escaped from the albino troglodytes and won freedom… but at the price of my eyesight. For, in battling the monster Nithogg, giant worm-god of the savages, I had been blinded by an explosion of light. So intense had been that burst of brilliance, I feared my vision would be forever impaired.

Together, riding upon an immense leaf fallen from a tree taller than any Everest, we followed a river down to the sea. I wish I could convey the mystery of this astounding discovery to the reader this manuscript may find. In a world where one interminable forest of mile-high trees marched from horizon to horizon, and from pole to pole, the very existence of this immense tract of waters under the open sky was more than a legend; it was a myth.

But we found it, Klygon, Delgan, and I, Karn.

That very night our friend betrayed us. While we slept upon a tiny islet, scarcely more than a reef of sand, he thieved our stores and weapons from us. Striking down my faithful Klygon with a blow that would have cracked open any skull less hard than his, bidding me a mocking adieu, he sailed off in our leaf-boat; he left me stranded—blind and helpless, to await my death at the turning of the tide.

And so my long saga of peril and adventure drew close to its end.

I sat there, hugging my knees, listening to the rising wind and the lapping of waves. There was nothing I could do. The isle was bare and empty; and our only road to safety had been the leaf-boat, crisp and curled, long and narrow as a canoe. With that taken from us, we were marooned here.

Klygon, as I have said, yet lived. The coward’s blow in the dark had only rendered him unconscious. Now roused to consciousness again, he was groggy and still partially stunned. I had dragged him up to the highest point of land and sat there by his side, awaiting the end of our travail.

It would not be long in coming, that I knew. The wind was rising, dawn was glimmering in the east even now (I sensed); and the water rose inch by inch, foot by foot.

The unknown sea was a very large one—bigger than Lake Superior, perhaps bigger than the Caspian. The gravitational pull of the Green Star is strong—many times stronger than the Moon’s pull, back on my native world. This planet revolves so closely about the Green Star that its surface would have been seared to a lifeless desert, had it not been for the eternal blanket of cloud-barrier which envelopes it, even as Venus is enveloped; this alone makes life endurable here.

And, as the Green Star rises, so rise the tides of that sea!

I had failed in everything. Janchan and Zarqa, together with the incarnate Goddess Arjala, had freed Niamh from her prison, flying off with her into the unknown. I did not know what had become of them. For aught I knew, they might stand in direst peril at this very moment.

Their fate was as unknown to me as mine would be to them. They must often have wondered what had become of the wild boy, Karn the Hunter, who had saved them from the clutches of the mad magician, Sarchimus.

In another moment—or another hour—the tides would rise to drag me down. And I, who had passed through the Black Gates once, would do so again. And those who loved me would not ever know what had chanced, or how I met my end.

The Green Star was rising. I could not see its emerald splendor touching the clouds to fire. But I could feel the warmth of daylight, beating on my face.

And I thought of Delgan, who had left us here to die.

Why had he first befriended, then turned upon us? Klygon, I remembered, had not trusted him from the very first. But it had ever been my way, perhaps foolishly, to take men at their face value, to accept them at their word. Well, now that trait had brought me down—not only me alone, but the homely, loyal, faithful Klygon, as well.

My eyes were scaled in darkness; but I remembered the sound of Delgan’s voice—smooth, obsequious, with a hint of mockery behind his words and the glint of cunning in his candid, innocent eyes.

If this were not to be the end, after all, perhaps we would meet again, Delgan and I. My jaw tightened at the thought. Oh, to have my eyes again, and a longsword in my hand, and to be brought face to face with Delgan of the Isles! Then it would be steel against steel; my courage and skill and determination against his cunning and slyness and treachery… and I would abide by the outcome of the gamble. For Delgan would not walk away from me a second time, I silently vowed…

And then I felt the water against my feet, lapping about my heels.

I stood up, dragging the groggy Klygon erect and holding him up, while the cold waves washed about my ankles. I really cannot explain why I did this, but there is something within me which refuses to give up even when the future looks at its blackest, and my luck has reached its end. It would be wiser not to have fought for another minute’s breath, but to yield to that which was inevitable. Well, perhaps so; but it was my way to fight on even against the most hopeless of odds, to the last moment, the last breath, the last drop of blood.

The waves closed about my legs; soon they would wash about my knees. And then it would be only moments to live.

Oh, it is hard to die when you are blind! I, who have faced Death unflinchingly, eye to eye, would do so at the end. But I could not see the face of mine Adversary, the placid face of the waters that would be my second tomb…

The numbing coldness of the waves about his lower limbs must have roused Klygon from his stupor, for I heard him gasp suddenly.

Then he clutched my arm in a powerful grip, his fingers biting into my flesh like steel hooks. He began a senseless ullulation—a howl of agony that sounded like a cry of surprise! There were no words to that strangled, bellowing cry, and I wondered if his reason had not given away before the shock of awakening to the very face of death.

But then, just a moment later I heard another sound, at first inexplicable. Then, with a jarring shock, I recognized it.

The slap of waves against a hull!

And I wondered if my reason had given way, as well!

Then, as I swayed numbly, scarcely daring to hope, there came to my ears the creak of oarlocks, the grunt of the rowers. And in the next instant, just as the waves rose about my loins, there were hands that grasped me, lifting me from the cold embrace of the deadly waters into the dry safety of a boat; and Klygon beside me, sobbing and babbling. And then I am very much afraid that I fainted dead away.

Chapter 2. ABOARD THE XOTHUN

I have escaped death many times during my years of perilous adventure on the World of the Green Star, but never so narrowly as when the Xothun pirates rescued Klygon and I from the rising waves of the Sea of Komar.

Unable to see my new surroundings, or the hands which had lifted me from the murderous embrace of the waters, I perforce relied upon my companion to serve as my eyes. Poor Klygon was ill-suited for such a task, I fear. Spawn of the gutters of Ardha, denizen of the back-alleys of the Yellow City, his rearing and education had prepared him poorly for such a situation.

Perhaps I should explain here, for the benefit of whatever reader may chance upon this narrative, that the natives of the Green Star are wont to dwell in treetop cities built high among the lofty boughs of their world-wide forest. Indeed, the Laonese—for so they term their race—have a superstitious terror of the floor of the continental forest and never willingly descend to solid ground at the base of the colossal trees. “The Bottom of the World” they call it; that black and lightless abyss, given over to the monstrous worms and cannibal savages, where seldom does a ray of sunlight ever penetrate to lighten its perpetual gloom.

The universal language they speak, therefore, does not even have the words to describe our situation. Since the denizens of the treetop cities have never seen or even imagined a sea, they have no words in their vocabulary to describe such a phenomenon. And the very concept of a ship built to navigate such a sea is equally alien and unfamiliar to them. But by dint of patient and repeated questioning, I drew from Klygon a word-picture of the vessel whereon we were now captive.

It was a wooden vessel of several decks and considerable length, called the Xothun, by which name the Islanders refer to a sea-dwelling reptile unknown to Klygon’s people. The Xothun had a high-tiered forecastle, where the captain’s cabin was situated and the bridge from where the vessel was steered, and a pointed prow. The midship deck was railed with gunwales of ornately-careen wood, with a high-built sterncastle and a rudder shaped like a dragon’s tail. From what I could elicit from Klygon’s halting descriptions, the ship sounded not unlike a Spanish or Venetian galleon of the High Renaissance.

The Xothun’s design was sophisticated and its craftsmanship denoted that its builders belonged to an advanced level of civilization. Oddly enough, however, the officers and crew-members seemed scarcely developed above savagery. They were a loutish and ill-kempt lot, clothed in tattered and filthy skins, fitted with scraps and bits of war-armor fashioned of the glassy, transparent metal the Laonese employ instead of iron or steel. Unshaven and dirty, surly and disobedient, quarrelsome and often drunk, it seemed to me that they had too recently emerged out of the red murk of barbarism to have possessed the skills to design or build such a galleon as the Xothun.

And their unfitness to sail the Xothun was evident, even to a blind man. The ship was maintained in the most slovenly manner imaginable, her decks and stairways littered with garbage, beslimed with offal. Discipline was almost nonexistent among them; order was maintained only because the ship’s officers were larger and stronger than the crewmen, and went heavily armed with dirk, axe and cutlass at all times.

The captain of the Xothun was afoul-mouthed brute called Hoggur. According to Klygon’s faltering descriptions, he was a towering brute, muscled like a gladiator, ugly as an ogre, bristling with weapons. As for his vicious temper, I had evidence of that from my own knowledge; I had not been aboard the Xothun half a day before Iloggur turned upon one of the crewmen for some fancied slur or insult, and flogged the poor creature half to death.

Considering the low position of the Xothun pirates on the social scale, you may be wondering why they ever bothered to save Klygon and me from drowning. It was not from motives of simple humanity or noble altruism, I assure you, but from simple need. The gallery had masts and sails, Klygon told me, but its masters seemed largely ignorant of their use and relied upon the oarbanks for propellent power. So cruelly treated were the rowers, who remained chained below-decks at all times, living, working and sleeping in their own filth, that they died like flies. This required Hoggur and his officers to find replacements for those who died and were heaved overboard to feed the fish.

Thus, when a lookout posted high in the crow’s nest of the galley spied Klygon and me in immediate peril of drowning, Hoggur dispatched a longboat to bring us aboard. Once we were on deck before him, he looked us over with a contemptuous sneer and commanded that we be taken below and chained to the oars to replace two rowers who had died the night before. Neither of us were in the best condition, having but recently escaped from the noisome underground burrows of the troglodytes, but that made little difference to Hoggur. Nor did the fact of my blindness interest him; an oarsman does not need his eyesight to drag on the oars.

And so it was that Klygon and I were saved from a watery grave only to be enslaved at the oars of the Xothun; there we toiled in reeking filth and perpetual darkness under the lash until we succumbed to some illness, whereupon we would be unchained and dropped over the side.

Out of the frying-pan, into the fire, as we Earthlings say! Still and all, even the postponement of certain death gives one certain latitude for hope. Better the death delayed than death at hand.

My companion at the oars of the Xothun was a young nobleman called Andar. Komar was his country, an island in the archipelago which lay in the midst of the Komarian Sea. Although I could not see him, I guessed from his pleasant, manly voice and the superior breeding which was evident in the many kindnesses he displayed towards me, that he came from a more cultured society than that of the repulsive savages who commanded the vessel.

The other men chained to the oars with us were also mostly Komarians, I gathered. Toiling at the oars, listening to brief snatches of conversation as they whispered among themselves, I began to piece together something of what had happened to them; why they had been consigned to so dire a fate.

The loutish crew who commanded the Xothun, said Klygon, looked very unlike the men chained to the oars. The crewmen were hulking and slovenly, with coarse, brutish features and peculiar blue skins. The oarsmen were slimly built, with the pale golden complexions and slanted emerald or amber eyes of dwellers in the treetop cities. Their manner suggested culture and exquisite breeding; they were aristocrats like Andar, while their masters were savages.

I soon understood the tragedy which had so recently overtaken these people. On the World of the Green Star were a wandering race of azure-skinned nomads known as the “Blue Barbarians.” They roamed from place to place; a savage, homeless horde, possessing neither culture nor civilization. Scarcely more than brutes, their ever-swelling numbers and innate ferocity made them an object of fear and dread to the more civilized inhabitants of the treetop cities.

For these Blue Barbarians, it seemed, were subject to unpredictable attacks of madness. This infected the entire race at intervals, turning them into howling, berserk maniacs. During these periodic fits of racial insanity they became monsters, attacking whatever lay in their path, destroying all who stood before them; fighting like madmen with an utter fearlessness and a resistance to pain that made them terrible. Doubtless, in one such berserk frenzy, they had ventured into the islands of the sea, hurling themselves against the fightingmen of Komar; this kingdom they overwhelmed and trampled down.

Now it was their way to overwhelm, conquer and destroy, but never to rule. Having overcome one of the Laonese cities, I understood, they had butchered its populace and left it in wreckage, wandering away in an aimless fashion. Why, then, had they in this instance remained to occupy the cities of Komar and man its ships? This change in the ways of the Barbarians seemed to me inexplicable and even frightening.

I addressed my questions to the young man chained next to me, a former noble of the Komarians called Andar. I have already spoken of his friendly and sympathetic way, under our common condition of slavery. I had introduced Klygon and myself to Andar with few details; merely saying that we were former captives of the cave-dwelling albino cannibals of the mainland forests recently escaped from captivity. I had not expanded on our adventures in any great detail; of course, the account of our most recent adventures I had given to Andar, while cursory, was no less than accurate and true.

Andar was an intelligent and gentlemanly warrior, and answered my questions without pause. According to him there had arisen amongst the Barbarians a chieftain whose name he did not know, but who was a man of greater cunning, cleverness and foresight than his brutish brethren. He had risen swiftly to a position of the highest authority among the tribe, that of Warlord. Andar guessed that by some freak of heredity, the Warlord was naturally immune to the racial madness which afflicted all the other Barbarians. He hit upon a method of using his immunity to weld the random savagery of the Barbarians into a weapon, directing the ferocity of the horde towards a planned and calculated goal.

In short, like some Napoleon, he strove to channel the racial energies of his people to build an empire for himself. The first necessity of his scheme was to find a base of power secure from outer assault; hence he had led his savages against the Komarian archipelago. The great isle of Komar itself lies in the very center of the vast inland sea, and thus occupies a position of security, ringed about with league on league of water, like a gigantic moat.

The Komarians, said Andar ruefully, were an ancient people largely given to peaceful pursuits and not a warlike race. They were great merchants and traders, as had been the Phoenicians of my own world, or the people of Minoan Crete; given to the arts and sciences and to maritime industries. Taken by surprise, outnumbered, their central citadel had fallen; the Warlord had deposed and executed their hapless monarch, himself assuming the Komarian throne. This it seemed, was but the first step in his cunning plan for world empire. He had schemed to train his hordes in the tactics of naval war, conquering isle after isle. He formed a gigantic maritime empire as the base from which to launch attacks—against the nearer Laonese cities—Kamadhong, Ardha and Phaolon being among these.

“But fate sometimes turns whimsical,” smiled Andar, “and favors the most unfortunate. For during a routine voyage to a lesser island of our kingdom, the ship on which the mighty Warlord sailed was attacked by one of the dreaded dragons of the deep and was lost with all hands. The whereabouts of the Warlord are unknown, although he may have eluded the jaws of the monster and reached the coast of the mainland. If he fled inland, he is probably dead by now, slain by one of the monstrous worms who dwell in the unbroken gloom, among the roots of the great trees. At any rate, he has left his horde leaderless and for many months they have merely drifted, not knowing what to do. This current expedition is an attempt to sound out the coastal city of Tharkoon. In the guise of an embassy, the Barbarians hope to spy on the defenses of the metropolis, as a prelude to invasion. In this, they are exceptionally unwise; for Tharkoon is ruled by a Wizard of great power, whom only the foolhardy would dare to threaten. However, lacking the genius of their former master, the Barbarians are mere savages. In their untutored state, they assume all other men are as stupid as themselves, to their eventual detriment…”

“Row, purse your hide! Save your breath for the oars,” growled a thick voice from behind us. I heard the whistle of a lash and the slap of a whip against the naked back of my companion. No sound escaped the tight lips of Andar, but he bent to the oar and we spoke no further.

Chapter 3. SLAVES OF THE BLUE BARBARIANS

And thus it was that I lived as a slave, chained to the galleys of Komar, toiling under the lash of the Barbarians. The life I now led was grim and ugly, almost devoid of hope. Hour after hour we labored at the benches, five men to each oar, following the tireless beat of the oarmaster’s drum. For all his toughness, little Klygon groaned at this unending toil; and even I, with the vigor and resilience of youth, wearied.

When darkness fell over the World of the Green Star, only then were’ we free to rest from our diurnal labors. We were given a wooden cup of water, mixed with wine to restore us; and each man got a bowl of fish-stew and a chunk of coarse bread. Then we composed ourselves for such slumber as we could gain, sprawled on the very benches where we had labored.

The stench of so many men penned together for many days in this black hell became overpowering. Our toil at the oars raised great blisters on our hands; they broke, blistered and broke again until our hands were raw and bleeding. Some times such raw wounds became infected and festered. When this occurred, the hapless victim died raving of fever and was pitched overboard. Yet other, men broke down under the misery of living in such bestial conditions and fell into despondency. For them, the end came mercifully swift. It seemed there was no escape from the chains of slavery, save death.

It was Andar, my benchmate, who cheered us all by his example and his fortitude. For all he had a cheerful word; his manly and heroic endurance of our common suffering heartened all who slaved at the oars in the stinking darkness of that hold. When men broke down, wept or whimpered under the lash of the overseer, time and again a curt word from Andar stiffened the manhood within them, silencing their sobbing. This I witnessed many times and it never failed to puzzle me. What authority or eminence had this youth at my side over his fellow-captives?

One night, I learned the secret. The whip had scored my back that day and the pain of my raw stripes prevented me from falling into the leaden slumber of exhaustion that claimed us all at the end of the day’s toil. Thus it was that, as I lay there motionless, my head pillowed upon my manacled wrists, I overheard a conversation between Andar and the man chained to the oars behind him.

They were discussing our present position. The man behind us, a former lordling named Eryon, guessed they were nearing the coast of Tharkoon. Andar agreed.

“I almost could pity the ignorance of these vile savages,” Eryon grunted disdainfully. “Knew they aught of sails and rigging, they could have ridden the wind far swifter than by the oars alone.”

“Aye,” said Andar. “But it is ever the way of savages to pretend contempt for the arts of civilization, which they cannot comprehend. It is their way of asserting their own convictions of superiority, in the teeth of all evidence to the contrary!”

“And their navigation!” growled Eryon. “Half a dozen times in the last two days, methought the ignorant Hoggur would run the ship aground! Well, our neighbors of Tharkoon will have little to fear from even a great fleet, if all other captains of the Horde prove equally had seamen, which will doubtless be the case.”

“Yes; they are fools to threaten the Wizard of Tharkoon with invasion, even were they the finest of seamen,” laughed Andar. “The magical sciences of Prince Parimus will bring them down, which may well prove to our advantage.”

“Perhaps,” Eryon grunted. “Unless the Wizard employs his arts to sink the ships, which means a sea-bottom sepulchre for us all; conquered and conqueror alike!”

“The Wizard of Tharkoon will know by his arts that the nobles of Komar slave at the oars,” murmured Andar, hearteningly. “And he has ever been our friend.”

“Let’s hope so. Think you, lord prince, he will also know you are concealed amongst us, unknown to our captors?”

“Perhaps. But speak no more of this, Eryon, I beg you; do not call me by that title within the hearing of our captors.”

“Your pardon, sire! But the guards sleep at the stair, drunk with wine, and hear us not. There is no danger.”

After these words they slept. But I had learned an interesting bit of information.

Already I had known that the king of the Komarians died when the horde of blue savages stormed the royal citadel. But now I had discovered that the heir to the kingdom, Prince Andar, had concealed himself among the nobles and was hidden on this very ship, seeming to his brutal captors but another aristocrat.

Time passed, slowly. When one is chained to the oars, the sheer cumulative fatigue of unremitting labor, the degradation of the beslimed, filthy benches, in whose vile squalor we wallowed like beasts, tend in time to numb the mind and anaesthetize the soul. One minute—one hour—one day becomes indistinguishable from the one that came before, or from the next which follows. But gradually we neared the coast, or that part of it which lay under the dominion of the Wizard of Tharkoon.

Eryon lifted his head, sniffing the salt breeze that came through the oarlock port in the hull.

“We approach the Reefs of Angzar, my comrades,” he grunted. “Nay, good Klygon; ask me not how I can tell. I have sailed this sea all my days in the service of my Lord, the Prince of Komar; even through the stench of the hold I can read our position on the wind.”

“Reefs, you say?” muttered the man chained next to him. “Then by all Gods and Demigods, I pray the blue beasts know them not! Let the Barbarians steer us into the very jaws of the reef in their ignorance. Let the Xothun founder, her hull crushed to splinters in their stony fangs… then will I welcome a watery grave, and an end to filth, misery and toil!”

Andar spoke swiftly, comforting the poor man with words of hope and courage, as was his way. And as he did so, my faithful Klygon bent down to whisper in my ear from his place on the bench behind my own.

“Eh, lad, I’ve no taste for drowning! Shall I pick our locks and free us, to make a break for it?”

The implication of his words froze me into astonishment.

“Do you mean… you can?” I gasped. He grunted that he could.

“Saints and Avatars, m’boy I spent four-and-twenty years in the House of Gurjan Tor! Think you the Assassins’ Guild teach naught but the arts of man-slaying? If the world holds a lock old Klygon cannot pick, well, he’s yet to find one.”

Eryon, seated next to the homely little man, had caught the import of his whispered words. He swore with amazement.

“What’s that, benchmate? Can you truly pick the cursed locks and free us all?”

“As easy as steal a coin from a blind man’s purse—beggin’ your pardon, lad! See you this ring in my earlobe, friend? ‘Tis cheap copper—worthless as a bauble, which is why yon indigo-skinned heathen forebore to take it from me. But in truth, ‘tis not a ring at all, but a length o’ wire bent into a circle. Were I but to take it from mine ear and stretch it out straight, there’s not a lock here I could not pick in two xoles,” he boasted hoarsely. The interval of time he mentioned was about three minutes, by Earth reckoning.

Eryon apprised the Prince of this astounding discovery; and so it was we began to plot our break for freedom.

“There are sixty stout men and true, chained to the oars,” Eryon rumbled. “And each one would face Death with a smile, for one chance at freedom!”

Andar chuckled. “Bare hands have little chance against drawn swords,” he pointed out. “Let us wait for the right moment, when the God of Storms fights on our side.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled by his cryptic reference. In low, terse phrases he explained to me that this part of the Sea of Komar we were entering was dangerous, with sudden rainsqualls at this season. Terrific storms blew up without warning, seldom lasting more than fourteen xoles (about thirty minutes). When such a squall hit the galleon, he said, the Blue Barbarians would panic, not being by nature a sea-faring people; thus, with the diversion of a sudden storm, we could rise against our masters at a time when they were off guard, busied with other things.

“Aye, perhaps so,” muttered Klygon. “But this night I plan to start picking the locks, just in case. The Gods I hear tell, help those who help themselves. I’ve no doubt this be true of the God o’ Storms, as well!”

Chapter 4. THE FATE OF THE SKYSLED

I have elsewhere told of the adventures which befell my dear friends, Janchan of Phaolon and Zarqa the Kalood, after they fled from the treetop city of Ardha having rescued Niamh the Fair and the Goddess Arjala from the burning temple. I told how they were captured by a mysterious race of black-skinned men of superhuman beauty and superhuman cruelty, who inhabited a Flying City in the sky; it had been built many ages before by Zarqa’s ancestors, now extinct. It has also been explained how the race of immortally youthful black men experimented upon human subjects, under the insane delusion that the human inhabitants of The World Below were naught but mindless beasts; which, while they resembled men and women, were only animals.

Of course, none of these things were known to me at this time, for Klygon and I had fled from Ardha mounted on winged zaiphs like enormous dragonflies; I did not rejoin my comrades until long after the events which I have described had transpired. At the time, I had no way of knowing what had befallen my dear friends and the beautiful princess of Phaolon, whom I loved. So I must now interpose into this narrative an account of their adventures, of which I was then completely ignorant; these details I did not learn until long after.

About the same time that Klygon and I, together with that smooth-tongued traitor who called himself Delgan of the Isles, had escaped from the underground cavern-world of the albino troglodytes, my friends were also escaping from the clutches of the ebony-skinned rulers for the Flying City. One of the black princelings, named Ralidux, had conceived a violent and irresistible passion for Arjala, the beauteous Incarnate Goddess of Ardha. To Ralidux, who shared the madness of his race, his passion was a bestial, loathsome thing; for he believed Arjala to be only an animal, though one shaped in a cunning simulacrum of humanity. The depravity of his lust had driven him completely mad; this had provided Zarqa a chink through which to gain mental ascendancy over the black immortal.

For Zarqa, like all of his kind, did not communicate by spoken words but by thought-waves. There is very little difference, it seems, between insinuating telepathic messages into the mind of another intelligent being, and inserting commands. By exerting his extraordinary mental powers to the fullest, he had gained command of the black princeling, forcing him to assist in their escape from the Flying City. Holding Ralidux helpless under what I can only term telepathic hypnosis, they fled from the Flying City. The skysled was unable to bear the combined weight of them all; so the ebon princeling, under control of Zarqa’s mind, had taken Niamh the Fair and the Goddess Arjala on the saddle of one of the gigantic blue hawks the Skymen used for riding purposes; Janchan, Zarqa and an aged philosopher they had rescued from the slave-pens of the Flying City accompanied them aboard the skysled.

Their escape, however, was soon discovered. Armed with curious electrical weapons which projected stunning beams of force, the black warriors pursued them through the night. A chance beam from one of their weapons struck the aerial vehicle a glancing blow sufficient to disable it temporarily, and stunning Zarqa into unconsciousness. Freed from the mind control of the Kalood, Ralidux flew off into the darkness, with Arjala and Niamh his helpless captives.

Now it is appropriate that we follow the adventures of the skysled and its hapless riders.

As Zarqa sprawled across the controls, his arm struck a lever and the vehicle sped off in a giddy curve that carried it down into the dense foliage of the sky-tall trees.

Janchan uttered a warning cry, but it was too late by moments. Had it not been for the restraining straps that held them securely, they might all have been flung out when the skysled swerved, and fallen to a terrible death in the unknown depths below. However, this did not occur. But now they were flying blind through pitchy darkness, great pallidly-golden leaves whipping by them. At any moment the skysled might careen into a branch; and at their present speed such a collision would demolish their vehicle, hurling them all to their doom.

His locks streaming in the wind, Janchan tore away the straps that held him in place and fought his way over to the controls. He was forced to crawl on his belly, inch by inch, seeking handholds; for to stand erect would mean he could be torn from the sled by the wind. Luckily, the ancient Kaloodha sages who had designed the flying craft had foreseen just such an accident; it had been planned for such an eventuality. Hand-rings were set at intervals in the floor of the vessel. By means of these, while dangerous in the extreme, it was not impossible for a lithe, athletic young man such as he to make his way forward.

Once at the controls, Janchan fumbled for the power lever. When the bolt had struck him and he had collapsed across the panel, Zarqa’s arm had accidentally thrust the lever forward as far as it would go. The vehicle was now hurtling through the upper foliage of the great trees at full speed, completely out of control. Gritting his teeth, Janchan clenched the hand-grip of the lever, pulling it back to slow the flight of the craft.

Unfortunately, however, the Prince of Phaolon was only a novice at the art of flight. Instead of bringing the lever back notch by notch, thus slowing the forward thrust of flight gently, he pulled it back all the way into the socket. The vehicle halted its flight with such abruptness that he was flung forward, striking his head against the crystal windshield. He knew no more for a time.

When he awoke, and came groggily to his senses, he found the old philosopher bending over him, bathing his brows with a bit of cloth dampened with water from their canisters.

“Where are we?” he murmured. “What has happened?” Raising himself on one elbow, he peered around at the stupendous vista.

There were gigantic trees whose boles lifted miles into the silver-misted skies; the maze of interlocking branches were broader than six-lane highways, thrusting out in every direction, terminating in huge clusters of leaves brilliant as lucent golden foil in the rays of the distant sun.

Dawn was upon them, he saw; their only hope of escape had been to elude their pursuers in the dense blackness of the moonless night. It was a miracle that the uncontrolled skysled, hurtling at full speed into the treetops, had not shattered itself by colliding with one of the branches of the immense trees. But this had been narrowly averted.

“It is as you can see, Prince Janchan,” the old philosopher said, gesturing about them. Janchan blinked bleary eyes and looked again… and his heart sank within him. They were caught fast in the sticky meshes of a colossal spider-web which stretched between two of the immense trees of the forest.

Such a fate would have been merely ludicrous on my own distant planet; but here, in the world of the giant trees, it was anything but ridiculous. For, on the World of the Green Star, where moths, bees and dragonflies grow larger than men, the great predatory spiders who build these titanic webs grow larger than elephants. They are more dangerous and deadly than a dozen tigers.

Janchan looked about, measuring the extent of the web with his eyes. Some of the strands were all of five miles long, and were as thick as a ship’s anchor-cable. From past experience, Janchan knew all too well the terrible adhesive grip of the sticky web-strands; their incredible toughness was like woven nylon cables, very nearly as unbreakable as steel.

The skysled, completely weightless and floating free once he had shut off the power of its thrust, cancelling the magnetic waves which energized the craft, had drifted into the grip of the mighty web. Janchan knew all too well that even the magnetic force which powered the vehicle would prove insufficient to break the grip of those sticky strands; that even the keen edge of sword or dirk or dagger would not be able to cut them loose.

They were hopelessly stuck in the web; here they must wait helpless until the arrival of the monstrous spider-thing which had built the web. The brute might well be miles away, he knew; but it would be apprised of their presence by the vibrations of the impact, whose tremors would travel along the tightly-stretched strands to the spider’s hidden lair.

The spider might be hours—or merely minutes—away!

And how does a single man, armed only with a sword, kill something larger than an elephant?

There were many things to do. But Janchan’s first concern was the condition of Zarqa the Kalood.

“What of our winged friend?” he inquired anxiously. “Has he stirred?”

“Alas, I fear not,” sighed Nimbalim of Yoth. The ancient philosopher cast a worried glance at the Winged Man, who hung limp and seemingly lifeless in the restraining straps. “He hath not evinced a single sign of life since struck by the beam of force. I do not know the strength nor the resources of his kind, but the bolt struck with great vigor. I saw the flash of the explosion and the long sparks it cast. Perhaps ‘twas but a glancing blow touched him, and not one of killing force.”

Janchan bent over worriedly to examine the body of the million-year-old Kalood, who was the last of his kind. The gaunt, naked, sexless, golden body was slack and motionless. The great purple eyes were empty and dull; the huge bat-ribbed, membranous wings lay half-open. He fumbled to find a heartbeat, but the tawny integument which clothed the Winged Man in lieu of human skin was leathern tough. He could discern no pulse.

Suddenly the skysled quivered as in a gust of wind. But Janchan felt no wind.

“What was that?” he asked. The philosopher sighed.

“The tread of many jointed limbs upon the web,” said Nimbalim gloomily. “The spider is coming…”

Chapter 5. MAN OVERBOARD!

When night fell over the World of the Green Star, the pirate-savages let down the anchor. Knowing little of the science of navigation, they feared to sail under cover of darkness lest they stray from their course. Being ignorant and superstitious Barbarians, they believed the hours of darkness were under the dominion of demons, monsters and evil spirits, whose malignant attention might be attracted to a moving vessel.

Hence, every night, we slumbered at our oars after being fed by our captors. The barzabang, or “stroke-master,” slept by his drum at the foot of the stairwell leading to the upper deck. Two armed guards slumbered there as well, to ward the exit. The Blue Barbarians had little fear that the galley-slaves would escape from their chains, so the two guards were permitted to doze.

That very night, once the guards had partaken of their nightly wine and fallen into a sodden slumber, we feigned sleep while the wily Klygon removed his ear-ring and pulled it out into a length of wire some eight or nine inches long. Then while we masked his actions from the glance of any guard who might stir to wakefulness, he inserted one end of the stiff wire into the keyhole of the lock and began deftly probing the mechanism to discover its configurations.

Each slave on a bench was fastened to the same chain, which was looped through a ring worn upon the right ankle. The end of the chain was locked securely to a heavy metal ring at the end of each bench. This meant that Klygon had only to pick one lock in order to set free an entire benchful of slaves. There were twelve benches in the hold, to each of which five slaves were tethered.

We waited, breathless with suspense, while his gnarled yet subtle fingers probed delicately at the inner mechanism of the lock. Using the wire he made a slight metallic sound from time to time; but this sound would not easily be detected. There are many sounds aboard a ship at sea—the creaking of worn timbers, the squeal of winches, the distant calls of the watch, the occasional rasp of sandal-leather on the deck above our heads. In truth, the snoring of our guards alone would be enough to drown out the slight rasp, clink and clattering sound made by Klygon’s pick.

The suspense was well-nigh unendurable. It was all the worse for me, who waited in blind darkness, unable even to watch the careful tinkering of those gnarled and knotted fingers. At length, one click sounded louder than all the rest, and my companions began to breathe again. By this I gathered, and correctly, that the lock was open.

Freeing himself from the chain, Klygon crept from his place on the bench to kneel between my knees while he opened the lock of my chain. Then, bench by bench, lock by lock, the agile little assassin made his way the length of the hold. Well before dawn lit the misty skies of the World of the Green Star, every slave chained to the oars of the Xothun was a free man.

Only the awe in which Prince Andar was held by his lords and nobles prevented them from arising to attack the pirate crew, once their chains were broken. Klygon regained his place at the bench behind me and rechained himself to the oar. To the untutored eye, I assume the locks must have looked secure enough, for as we rowed the Xothun that day no hue and cry was raised against us. The guards that paced the aisle between the rows of benches, industriously plying their whips upon the naked backs and shoulders of the oarsmen, had no slightest inkling that the men they lashed were not chained but free!

“Courage, and patience, my friends!” Andar said, as men groaned beneath the lash. We bit our lips and put our backs into the oars while the Xothun glided on through the choppy waves.

“Hark!” cried Eryon. “Listen! The wind is rising!”

The wind is rising…

The whisper ran among us like a fire among dry brush. We strained our ears, there in the echoing, noisome darkness of the hold. And it was true; above the booming of the stroke-master’s drum, the groan of timbers, the thin song of the whip, we could hear the eerie whistle of wind in the rigging. Well before mid-day, darkness fell suddenly—a darkness split by livid flares of lightning. Rain began pelting against the deck above our heads.

The storm was upon us now, howling like a banshee. The galleon wallowed sluggishly in the choppy sea. Waves battered against the hull; the ship came about heavily into the wind. From the deck above there came to our ears the shriek of rending timbers, followed by the crash of a fallen mast. A chorus of yells came from the frightened, bewildered blue savages, who had never before experienced the terrors of a sudden squall.

Hoggur’s loud voice rose above the rest, spluttering oaths, cursing viciously, summoning his men to clear away the wreckage and lend their backs to the wheel, to bring the ship’s prow about into the wind. The two Barbarians who guarded the stairwell snatched up their weapons and went clattering up the wooden stair; none but the stroke-master was left to guard us.

“Now!” cried Andar in a ringing voice. “For Komar, and freedom!”

“Komar! Komar! And—Andar!” roared Lord Eryon in stentorian tones. Suddenly the slaves were on their feet, stripping away their chains, swarming down from the benches to charge up the stair.

The burly stroke-master cried out once before he vanished under a hurtling mass of men. His cutlass went flying. Prince Andar snatched it up, brandishing it, and led the charge up the stair to the decks.

“Come, lad,” breathed Klygon at my side. “This way!” I followed him the length of the hold, staggering with every pitch of the Xothun as she shuddered under the hammering of the waves. Up the coiling stairs, I climbed, slipping and stumbling. And then fresh, wet air blew in my face. I forgot the vile stench of offal and the stinging degradation of the lash in the sudden heady exultation of freedom

Freedom! If there is a sweeter word in all the languages of the many worlds on the Universe, I have yet to hear it. And only the man who has been a slave, grovelling under the brutal lash, can know its full meaning.

All about me, men cursed hoarsely, or cried out in pain; they struggled like maddened beasts on the pitching deck, pitting bare hands against naked blades. But I saw none of it, in the perpetual darkness of my blindness. How my palms itched for the comforting feel of a sword-hilt! How my heart lusted for the sight of red blood spurting from the flesh of my enemies, as my blade thrust deep into their hearts! All about me, my fellow-slaves fought for their freedom and died for it, but I—I could do nothing! For a man who cannot even see his enemy, can hardly fight him…

The storm was rising now. Deafening peals of thunder drowned out the hoarse shouts, curses and shrill cries of battling men. I could not see the chaos of the deck, nor the wild waste of waters, nor the fury of the storm. But stinging gusts of wind lashed me as I clung to the rail; in no time I was drenched from head to foot by the icy waters of the great waves that rose above the rail to break against our hull, sluicing the deck.

I heard the clear tenor of Andar’s voice ringing above the riot, shouting words of encouragement, whipping the hearts of his men to ever more desperate and daring deeds, as he cried out the ancient and hallowed rallying-cries of Komar. Would that I could have stood beside him in that hour, a sword clenched in my strong right hand, battling with the gallant Prince for victory and freedom! Alas, a blind boy is of little use in any battle

Then a heavy body crashed into me and I half-fell to the deck. A hoarse voice cursed and a booted foot bludgeoned my ribs. And a fierce joy rose up within me, for I knew that voice it was the voice of Hoggur!

I sprang to my feet and leaped upon him, as a slender puma leaps upon a massive buffalo. My hands fumbled at his breast—rose and locked about his burly throat. He cursed and spat; more surprised, I think, than alarmed. For why should the giant warrior have feared the hands of a half-naked, whipped and beaten, starved and scrawny blind boy; for such I must have seemed to him, who knew not that the slim body of the boy Karn held the spirit of Chong, that mighty champion, the hero of a hundred battles.

His balled fists smashed against my face and sides, but I clung to him, tenacious as a tiger; my fingers sank into his fat throat like steel hooks. Not for nothing had I drunk of the Elixir of Light in the enchanted palace of Sarchimus the magician, gaining the strength and vigor of many men! Not for nothing had I toiled and sweated at the heavy oars for all these days of unremitting labor; my lean thews and sinews had toughened to living steel from the back-breaking labor.

Now his hoarse curses turned to strangled gasps of fear and his burly chest rose, straining for air. My fingers sank like the talons of some merciless bird of prey into his puffy, swollen flesh; throttling the life from him, I was oblivious to the rain of blows he battered upon me. I was conscious of nothing—not of pain or peril—all I knew was that my hands had settled about the throat of my enemy. Only death—his death, or mine own—would loosen the rigor of my grip upon his gullet.

Then a great wave broke over me, startlingly cold, waking me from my berserk fury. I became aware that the thing I clutched and crushed between my hands resisted me no more, but dangled limp and lifeless in my grasp. Hoggur the Barbarian was no more; I had conquered!

Thus it was that, blind though I might be, I played my small part in the freeing of the Xothun and the victory of Prince Andar, my friend.

I opened my stiff, aching fingers and let the dead thing fall from my hands. The carcass slid over the wet deck to the stair. In a livid flash of lightning, men saw the corpse of Hoggur and the blind boy crouched above it, his lips peeled back from his teeth in the mirthless grin of a fighting-man. A great cry went up that Hoggur was slain and the Blue Barbarians were leaderless. I heard the ringing tones of Andar claiming the victory for Karn. And I was Karn, and had fought in the battle that won freedom for the Komarian slaves.

And then a great, mighty wave broke against the hull and the galleon keeled over at a sickening tilt. I was thrown against the rail, which broke away.

The next thing I felt was the icy waters of the Sea of Komar closing about me and I sank like a stone. And that was the last thing I knew.