As the Green Star Rises

Chapter 11. CASTAWAYS IN AN UNKNOWN SEA

When the great wave washed me overboard from the deck of the galley Xothun, I struck the icy black waters with stunning force and sank like a stone into the depths. The waves closed over my head and through my parted lips, which had opened involuntarily in a cry of alarm; the cold waters rushed in to choke me.

But the biting chill of the cold waves spurred me to consciousness moments later; I struck out in a wild spasm of terror, kicking and struggling convulsively. In a another moment my head broke surface and I gulped air into my starved lungs. For a time I floated there, struggling to keep my head above the waves, spitting and gagging; spewing up the waters I had swallowed.

I could see nothing, being blind. The hull of the Xothun might be very near, almost within the reach of my outstretched fingers. Or, for all I knew, the ship might be rapidly receding as I wallowed helplessly amidst the cold waters; and every passing moment might be carrying it further and further away.

I strained my ears, seeking the whereabouts of the ship by the only sense left to me, which was that of hearing. But all that came to me was the howling of the gale, the rumble of thunder, and the ear-splitting crack of lightning. That, and the roar and splashing of the sea were all that I could hear.

It seemed to me that I should have been able to hear the creak of the timbers, the squeal of cordage, and the hoarse yelling of battling men, even above the gale. But I heard nothing to suggest that the ship and my comrades were near me. It was as if, instead of falling overboard into the sea, I had been whisked from the deck by the spell of some malign enchanter; then transported by his magic to the most desolate, uninhabited portion of the planet.

My hands reached out, clutching desperately; but they closed on only empty air and cold water. I opened my mouth to yell for help but the waves battered me, drowning my calls.

That my predicament was almost entirely hopeless was no secret to me. Already the cold chill of the icy waters had penetrated to my bones. My legs were numb and my arms increasingly feeble. I might manage to keep my head above the waves for a time, but not very long. Young and strong as I was, a cold and watery grave lay in wait for me when my endurance should fail and I no longer had the strength to struggle against the drag of the icy waters.

Then it was that my outstretched hands, groping frantically for something to which I might cling, touched a solid object. I seized upon it desperately, tracing its outline with numb fingers. It was a length of carven wood, half as long as my body, which terminated in sharp, raw splinters. So struck was I by shock and so benumbed by the terror of my predicament, that it was some time before I realized the nature of what I clung to with frenzied strength.

It was a fragment of the deck-rail, which had broken away when the waves had dashed me over the side of the ship. The wood was inwardly dry and covered with a thick coat of paint or gilding. While the fragment of rail would not have sustained the weight of a grown man, it was sufficiently buoyant to support my weight, being a muscular but half-starved boy.

I wrapped my arms about it, locking my numb fingers together; pillowing my breast and cheek upon the uppermost surface of the wood so that my head was above the level of the waves.

Now I could rest a little, despite the chill discomfort of being immersed in the cold sea from my chest down. Now, at least, my death by drowning was postponed for a time.

It might be an hour, it might be two, before the numb cold paralyzed my limbs and I slid into the depths. But at least I had a fighting chance.

All I have ever asked of life or fate, or whatever gods stand over the destinies of men, is a fighting chance. I clung to that bit of wood and let the wild waves bear me where they wished.

And after a time, I slept the dead slumber of exhaustion.

When in time I recovered my senses, the storm had abated and it was day. I could not see the brilliance of the Green Star, but I could feel the warmth of its silvery-emerald rays against my face and arms, my back and shoulders.

From the chest down, I was still immersed in the waters of the sea. The numb cold had by now virtually paralyzed my legs; I could no longer feel life in my extremities.

If I did not soon find rescue, I would succumb to the sucking grip of the waters, or perish from exposure to the elements. I drifted there among the idle washing of the waves for a measureless time, feeling miserable, lost and lonely.

I was feeling sorry for myself—an emotion rarely experienced by the heroes of romance. But I am no hero, only an ordinary man to whom the most extraordinary sequence of adventures has happened. Thinking on this, I shrugged off my gloom and despondency. Surely, thought I, I have not travelled across the immensities of space to a strange and alien world, entered the body of another man, passed through the black gates of death only to be reborn in yet another body, to perish in so mundane a manner as drowning! Surely, whatever nameless, inscrutable gods in charge of my destiny will preserve me for a unique doom and an end far stranger and more marvelous than this!

My blindness made my present position tantalizing. For all I knew, the sandy shores of an island might well be within eyeshot at this moment, unknown to me. I might even now be drifting past some tropic isle well within the reach of even my numb, strengthless limbs! The very thought caused me such exquisite agony as to almost drive me mad—I strained my every sense to detect the savory odor of jungle flowers upon the wind, or to hear the slap of waves against a sandy beach.

And then I heard a human voice!

A voice, calling me across the illimitable, invisible waste of waters! I lifted my own voice in a hoarse, croaking cry; waving one arm aloft clumsily, not knowing from which direction that call had come.

I heard it again; and this time it was clearer, as if closer to me than before. It was a girl’s voice, I fancied, or perhaps the clear soprano of a young boy. Again I cried out hoarsely.

“This way! Over here—can you swim?” the clear voice called.

I shook my head feebly. “I am blind—I cannot tell where you are—you will have to come to me!” I cried.

Then there followed an interminable time when I lay there in the dank embrace of the waters, waiting … but no one came. My spirits sank within me; and my heart grew leaden within my breast.

Had there truly been a voice at all, or was it only an auditory illusion? A figment of my disordered wits—a dream born in my tortured brain?

And at the very moment that these dire, dreadful thoughts entered my weary mind, there came to my ears the rhythmic splash of oars or legs thrusting through the waters; the slap of the waves against the sides of some rude vessel, and the panting of a labored breath.

And, while I hung there in suspense, scarcely daring to hope, there followed yet another phenomenon before which I almost dissolved in tears of exhaustion and relief.

For I felt the warm, comforting touch of a human hand upon my shoulder!

My rescuer, it seemed, was a young boy whose name was Shann. In a shy, hesitant, wary voice he told me that he had been carried off by slavers from the city of Kamadhong; from their clutches he had escaped, after many perils. I gathered from the boy’s words that the slavers had been transporting him and his fellow-captives over the sea in a ship; I deduced that he had either been washed overboard in the storm as had I, or perhaps had jumped.

He was riding astride the trunk of a tree, floating amidst the unknown sea, when he had spied my tousled hair, bright gold against the blue-green of the waves. The effects of the sudden storm had covered an area larger than I had thought, in order to fell trees on one or another jungled strand.

He helped me aboard his treetrunk. I fear it was difficult for him to haul me aboard, for I was at the end of my strength and could do little to assist him.

I gave him my name, Karn, and told him my country; but the moment had not yet come for us to exchange adventure stories, and so I said nothing about my past. Much of what I could have told him would have seemed incredible; so I said nothing of my adventures among the Assassins of Ardha, or in the Pylon of Sarchimus the Magician; nor of my lost friends, Prince Janchan, Zarqa the Kalood and faithful, homely Klygon.

He seemed to be some years younger than myself; his legs and thighs were smooth and his arms girlishly slender, and his voice the clear soprano of a boy before the years of puberty. These things I discovered as he dragged me to the treetrunk, our bodies close together. His hair was very long, long as a girl’s; and when I touched his cheek it was innocent of hirsute growth. He was smaller and slighter of build than was I, and I guessed his age to be no more than twelve. Like me, he was nearly naked, a scrap of cloth about the loins, his boyish breast covered with the rags of a tunic.

Once he had gotten me up on the floating treetrunk, I stretched out in the sun to let the welcome warmth dry my limbs and send life tingling through them. I dozed for a time in the sun, my new-found friend at my side, at watch over me lest I slide back into the waves.

I felt myself to be very lucky. For amidst the trackless waters of the unknown sea, I had joined forces with another castaway. Now, at least, I had a little friend; a comrade to share my perils and adventures.

The sun sank and night fell. We slept, cuddled in each other’s arms for body-warmth, shivering in the coolness of evening. The boy sobbed for a time; I stroked his shoulder and patted his tear-stained cheeks, comforting him as best I could. Though alive and together, we were hopelessly lost. No one could say what surprises we might find with morning.

Chapter 12. A STRANGE DISCOVERY

With dawn, the world lightened, as it does for all but I. My young comrade stiffened where he lay curled against me and sat up suddenly—so suddenly that his movement rocked our precariously balanced craft, nearly sending me back into the waves again.

“What is it?” I asked.

The boy hesitated.

“It’s—I think it’s—yes, it is! An island!”

My heart leaped within my breast. Controlling my excitement, I asked him to describe what he saw. His words sketched in a rough picture; a sandy beach, scarcely more than a dun line against the blue-green sea; massed shapes loomed darkly behind, which must have been great trees, or perhaps rounded knolls or hills mantled with dense verdure.

“How far away?” I asked.

He shrugged. “How can I say? I know not how to measure distances at sea. But near enough for us to reach, with some effort.”

Indeed, the wind or the motion of the sea current was driving us in the direction of the island which Shann’s keen eyes had spotted; so for an hour or two we let the Sea of Komar do our work for us. Later, towards mid-morning, we had drawn close enough to the mysterious island for the boy’s sharp gaze to ascertain further details. There were indeed wooded hills, and a thick stretch of jungle, he affirmed. But nowhere did he see any sign of the presence of man—no cleared or cultivated areas, no rooftops visible above the trees; not even a plume of smoke hovered on the clear morning air, rising from a cook-fire.

The current was going to carry us past the island, although according to my new friend it would bring us quite near the shoals. We began propelling our ungainly treetrunk craft in the direction of the shore, rather than trying to swim the distance. We resolved to take this difficult and fatiguing course of action because Shann did not know how to swim. There was nothing odd about this, of course; the treetop cities, such as Kamadhong, are built at a height of a mile or two in the air. This being the case, their inhabitants seldom have either reason or opportunity to learn the art of swimming.

We “rowed” our lumbering log through the simple expedient of sliding over into the waves, Shann at one side of the trunk and I on the other; both of us grasped the log firmly in our arms, and kicked out with our legs. It proved about as clumsy and tiring a task as perhaps it sounds, but it had one transcendent merit in that it worked.

Eventually the treetrunk wedged itself between the rocks that formed shoals, sheltering a deep lagoon that would have made a perfect harbor for a port city. From this point on we had to attempt the rest of the distance on our own. The taller of the two, I found that my toes could just barely touch bottom. So I instructed Shann to lock his arms about my neck from behind, letting his body float as best he could; I floundered grimly into shore. I was still worn out from my long immersion in the sea and did not feel capable of swimming in, burdened by the boy’s weight. Therefore, while he clung to my back I struggled through the shallows until we reached the shore; at which point he let go and waded in by himself.

By the time we got far enough up the beach so as to be beyond the reach of the retreating waves, which tried to suck us back into the lagoon, we were both so bone-weary we collapsed on the wet sand. We just lay there for a time, letting the hot sunlight warm and dry us.

When we recovered our strength, we moved further up the strand to the edge of the jungle. We were both famished, so the first and most urgent necessity on the agenda was to find food. In this I would be more than useless; while Shann scampered about the edges of the jungle, searching for edible fruit or nuts or berries, I attempted to put my person to rights. All I had on was my loin-cloth by this time, my other rags of garments having perished in the sea; but these were exceedingly uncomfortable, being clammy and wet and scratchy with sand. So I stripped it from my loins, rinsed it clean at the edge of the lagoon, and stretched it out on a branch to dry in the sun while I let the sun perform a similar task on the rest of my person.

I was apprised of the return of my little friend a while later, when I heard a shocked gasp and the thud of fruits suddenly let fall from his hands. I had been dozing, stretched out in the sun, and did not understand at first what had wrung that startled gasp from his lips. Then it came to me that I was stark naked. Now the denizens of Kamadhong, like those of the other Laonese cities, customarily go clothed, of course; but the temperature of the air is such that they generally wear as little as custom allows; while they are not nudists, neither are they prudes. Prepubescent boys customarily bathe together in the nude, and frequently wrestle or race together naked. Hence, I could not understand Shann’s shock at discovering me in my nudity. Surely, he had brothers, or playmates; surely he had seen other lads without clothing, even older boys such as myself.

I confess to feeling just a little irritated by his delicacy. However, he made no comment, and busied himself with gathering up the fruits he had let fallen. I rose and wrapped the length of cloth, now thoroughly dry, about my loins again. And we ate together the foods he had found, although there seemed to be a touch of constraint and awkwardness in his manner.

I made no remark on this unwonted daintiness of his; but I resolved that if we were going to have to be together on this jungle isle, he was going to have to accustom himself to such things. Survival in a savage wilderness demands certain sacrifices; and among the first things to go are most of the amenities of civilized life.

It certainly seemed strange to be eating fruit of ordinary size again. The elfin inhabitants of the jewelbox cities aloft in the mighty trees cultivate many fruits and berries in their crystal-roofed gardens; but these grow to a size commensurate with that of the gargantuan trees in which the cities themselves are built. I had been accustomed, then, to eating one lobe of a juicy berry, about the size of a slice of watermelon back on Earth; and to eating portions cut from a fruit like segments cut from a pie, the fruits themselves being five or six times as huge as pumpkins.

But here on our nameless island, Shann and I breakfasted on fruit of more normal size. There were pear-shaped fruits the size of your fist, that tasted like ripe mangoes; and elongated, banana-like fruits as rich and sweet as pomegranates; and small tart berries, and others succulent as cherries.

Besides these, Shann had found something as chewy and delicious as coconut, but in a hard shell like huge walnuts. And several kinds of ordinary nuts, of which only one variety proved bitter and inedible. We ate a very good meal, all in all.

It was obvious that, whatever else happened to us on the isle, we were not going to starve to death.

While searching for something to eat, Shann had found a woodland pool and after our breakfast, he led me there to drink. He had come upon no sign of wild beasts during his brief exploration of the jungle; but of course, he had confined himself to the edge of the brush, not daring to venture too deeply within, lest he lose his way.

We debated the problem of shelter. If there were savage predators in the jungle depths, they were most likely to confine their hunting to the hours of darkness. We should probably take refuge aloft in the branches of the trees. This, however, proved difficult if not impossible; for as Shann described the trees in our vicinity, they were on the order of palms and devoid of branches.

At length, we discovered a thorny thicket whose wicked barbs and intertangled boughs should serve to discourage any beasts on the prowl, with the possible exception of giant reptiles clothed in an armor of tough scales. There, we found an open space; we spent the declined hours of day heaping thick dried grasses into a comfortable bed, and building the skeleton of a lean-to out of fallen sticks, which we roofed over with palm leaves.

Our edifice, when completed, lacked most of the civilized amenities, I am sure. But at least it would afford us considerable protection from the elements, should the weather that night prove inclement. We had both been soaked in the sea to such a point that we were heartily determined not to permit ourselves to be drenched in a downpour.

The night, however, proved calm and clear.

We dined, early that evening, on a repast precisely similar to that on which we had breakfasted. I resolved that, on the morrow, I should see what could be done to procure a bit of fresh meat for our diet. Fruits, nuts and berries were all very well. They filled the belly; but I hungered mightily for meat; hot, scorched and dripping with steaming juices.

We retired early, still weary from our exposure to the elements, as well as from the extraordinary exertions of the day. The little boy curled up in a far corner of the lean-to, and fell asleep promptly.

I remained wakeful for some time, staring into the unbroken darkness of my sightlessness. They pained me a bit, my eyes, for sea-water had inflamed my burns, which were only half-healed; and the flesh about my sockets was swollen and tender.

But that is not what kept me awake.

I had remembered something which I had noticed, but forgotten. It served to explain the odd shock with which Shann had reacted to my nakedness; and his curious reluctance to share my bed for mutual warmth. But, even while answering one question, it opened up yet a deeper mystery.

I remembered that morning when I had struggled into shore with the boy clingling to my back, his slim arms wound about my neck. I had noticed a peculiar sensation at the time; but in my state of waterlogged and bone-weary exhaustion, it had not registered clearly on my attention.

Now it came back to me as I lay there, wide-awake. I understood why Shann had displayed such shock and consternation, upon discovering me lying there naked in the sun.

As he clung to my back, his upper body had been pressed against my naked back and shoulders. And I, felt—not the smooth chest of a young boy—but the firm, pointed, shallow breasts of an adolescent girl.

Chapter 13. JUNGLE LOVERS

During the next few days, Shann and I learned more about the nameless island which was to be our home for an indeterminate period.

Insofar as we could discover, it was completely uninhabited by human beings. Shann had climbed the tallest tree which grew nearabout; from an aerial perch aloft, my comrade had searched the horizon to all points of the compass. Nowhere had the girl descried the slightest tokens of human habitation. Not even the smoke of cooking-fires could be seen coiling up into the clear sunlit air.

The crude and rudimentary lean-to we had shared during our first night together on the island had proved sufficient to protect us from the elements; but it left much to be desired in the way of permanent accommodations. Working together during the long afternoons, we erected a more permanent hut; we constructed it of fallen branches trimmed to proper length with sharp shells or pointed stones. This provided us with the rough frame for a simple, two-chamber dwelling. The roof we thatched with palm-leaves, whose steins we tied to the roof-arch thongs made of dried grasses. The walls of this little hut were then covered by mats of rattan, which the nimble fingers of Shann wove from the stiffer fibers of the palm leaves. In this last task, I could not provide assistance, for my blindness made me clumsy; unable to see what I was doing, I made a botch of my every attempt at weaving.

Our diet consisted of nuts, berries and jungle fruit, which grew wild in the interior of the island; this we soon supplemented with bird’s eggs stolen from treetop nests, and with the tender and succulent meat of certain crabs and shellfish which were wont to scuttle about the sandy seashore, or which dwelt in the shallow waters of the lagoon. Here, again, it was Shann and not I who must provide our nutriment.

That the unequal burden of securing our foods must fall upon my companion in misfortune would not have rankled me as much as it did, had we truly been two young boys marooned together. But we were not; for Shann was a girl only a year or two younger than I, myself. Every civilized instinct and every scrap on chivalry and protectiveness within me cried out in protest, at the necessity of her fulfilling the masculine role in our existence.

There were other constraints produced by my knowledge of her sex, which knowledge I still concealed from her. For one thing, I now understood her reticence as to our sharing sleeping accommodations. Quite obviously, it was a violation of her modesty to insist we share the same bed of fragrant grasses. This made it necessary for us to divide the hut into two compartments. Moreover, there was the problem of bathing. Had Shann been truly a younger boy, as she pretended, I would have thought nothing of our bathing together each morning in the clear, warm waters of the lagoon. As things stood, however, I had to adopt a ruse to avoid such an intimacy; at the same time, I kept her from knowing my actual reason for declining to bathe in her company.

From this, my reader will deduce that I believed it only proper for me to pretend ignorance of her sex. I understood her reasons for the pretense of boyhood which she steadfastly maintained. When first she had rescued me from the waves, she had no way of forming an accurate estimate of my character or the degree of civilization which my forebears had attained. A girl, thrown together by circumstances with a healthy young male, would naturally fear certain advances against her modesty. For all that Shann knew, I was a lustful young savage from the nomadic mainland tribes who would force her to become my bedmate as a matter of course.

Thus I strove to protect her own modesty and allay any fears she might still entertain, by continuing the pretense of my ignorance of her true gender. The relief she felt at my pretense was obvious in her voice. While I am certain she came to respect me and enjoy my company during these first few days of our strangely primitive life together, I am equally sure that she would have continued her pretense of being a boy throughout our adventures together, if only to avoid any embarrassment.

We became very good friends. In fact, we became something closer and warmer than merely friends. Her tenderness and solicitude as regards my blindness, and my own chivalrous respect of her privacy; my deliberate avoidance of any further physical intimacies than were strictly necessary, wove between us a bond of comradeship stronger than would have been the result of shared perils and deprivations, had we been two boys castaway together in a savage, hostile environment.

For my part, I was possessed with a consuming curiosity as to her appearance. I listened eagerly to her warm, clear soprano, painting in my imagination a thousand tentative portraits of the mysterious girl-child who was my constant companion, night and day. The sound of her voice, dreamily singing a little song while she went about her domestic tasks, enthralled me. I drank in the liquid music of her delighted laughter at a jest or quip or circumstance. The slightest touch of her hand, or of her shoulder against mine, aroused within me a heady emotion I hardly dare name. Once, her long, silken hair blew across my face while we bent together over a shared labor; and the faint perfume of her nearness and the feathery caress of her floating locks choked me with joy. On another occasion, while assisting the girl to drag her captured shellfish from the shallows, her bare thigh brushed intimately against my own. The warm touch of her smooth, naked flesh aroused within me an intoxication so pleasant that I almost strove to sustain the contact a moment longer before recovering myself.

I believe my interest in her was returned; that the girl whom I knew only as a sweet voice with a name responded, perhaps against her own will or inclination, to my masculinity. At times as we conversed a warmth and intimacy stole into her voice, which grew gentle and husky with emotion. Now and again, when she extended her hand to assist me over some unseen obstacle, she seemed to prolong our hand-clasp beyond the moment of necessity; it was as if she, too, revelled in our physical nearness.

There could be no question about the fact that I was on the verge of falling in love with the unknown girl whose face I had never seen.

This was impossible, and I denied it vehemently to myself. For I loved another; my heart was pledged to Niamh the Fair until death severed us forever. So even as my pulses quickened to the nearness of Shann, even while I tossed and turned feverishly on my bed during interminable sleepless nights, torturing myself by trying to imagine her unguessable loveliness, I castigated myself for wandering into forbidden paths.

I would not—could not—be unfaithful to the exquisite Princess of Phaolon! Grimly I clung to that standard of behavior, striving to ignore the way my senses stirred and quickened to the touch of Shann, or the warm nearness of her young body. I became curt and even rude in my dealings with the girl, who was hurt by my mystifying attitude towards her, I am sure. Her tentative small gestures of friendliness, however innocent, I came in time to rebuff. Believing that her pretense of being a boy had gone undetected, she obviously did not understand why I so sharply turned away from the small tendernesses and the innocent gestures of friendliness. Had she truly been a boy, I would have welcomed it, in the loneliness of one blind like myself.

She no longer displayed the slightest reticence at exposing her nude body in my company. To have done so would have carried modesty to an unnatural degree, since I was unable to see her. This being the case, she could not comprehend my harsh insistence on bathing alone and retaining my few scraps of clothing upon every occasion we were together. I have no doubt that my behavior seemed inexplicable to her; that my rudeness in snatching my hand away from even the most innocent or friendly touch caused pain to the puzzled, bewildered girl.

She could not have realized the agony of soul it cost me to deny myself the exquisite pleasure of the most fleeting, casual touch. Gradually, an estrangement grew, erecting a barrier of silence between us. She bitterly resented my callousness, or what she deemed callousness, not realizing the effort such self-denial cost me. We became remote, Shann withdrawing into hurt and offended silence; I became gruff, irritable and uncommunicative.

One night, as I lay sleepless, tossing in a torment of mingled frustrated desire and horrid self-loathing, I heard her sobbing on the other side of the flimsy partition which divided us.

The next morning she was gone.

It is folly and madness for a blind man to attempt to go searching for a lost comrade in a trackless, tropic jungle.

Very well, then; I was mad and foolish! But I went, nonetheless; I took with me the long pole, pointed at one end and hardened in a bed of coals, which was the principal weapon I had devised for myself early during our time together on the isle. Blundering and crashing, stumbling and tripping, I went into the jungle, hoarsely calling her name.

I found her a little while later. She was bathing in the jungle pool and I fear I surprised her, by my ridiculous display of alarm and fear for her safety. She had heard me crashing and yelling in the depths of the jungle. So had another set of ears, those belonging to a varphax. We had found our jungle isle scantly populated by predators, the varphax being the principal beast of prey; and one previously unknown to me—a shaggy, bison-like boar with curved, wicked tusks and burly, huge shoulders.

It came hurtling out of the undergrowth, attracted by my voice. Shann shrieked and sprang from the pool to assist me. Her own weapons lay on the grass with her rags of clothing.

By hearing alone I ascertained the direction from which the shaggy bull-boar was charging. Dropping to one knee, I braced the butt of my crude spear on the ground while the point was leveled at the brute which thundered down upon me.

In the next instant a massive weight impaled itself upon the point of my weapon, the shaft of which bent almost double and snapped in two before the irresistible fury of the varphax charge. In the next split second something like an express train crashed into me, knocking me head over heels.

Blackness closed about me for a time; I recovered to find my head pillowed on the bare thighs of Shann, who wept and caressed my brow with gentle fingers.

“Don’t die, oh, don’t die!” the girl sobbed, covering my face with frantic kisses. As one in a dream, I lifted my lips to hers and drew her slender, sobbing form into the strong circle of my arms. And we kissed… a long, passionate caress that left me shaken and speechless, but somehow at peace.

The naked girl lay in my arms, unresisting.

“How long have you known?” she murmured dreamily.

“From the beginning,” I said. “I have loved you from the beginning. And you?”

“I don’t know,” the girl whispered. “It happened so slowly… I didn’t want this to happen, so I told you I was a—a boy. Why are you crying?”

“Am I crying? I didn’t know blind men could cry… because I didn’t want this to happen either, I fought against it so long, with so much pain. Shann—I love another, back in the world of trees and cities… she may be dead by now, for aught I know; but I feel as if I have betrayed her…”

The girl drew my lips to her and kissed me, sweetly and lingeringly. “I, too, love another… although in my case I know that the man to whom my heart is given has gone down to death; I saw him die with my own eyes long ago. And I feel as you do, my beloved; that I have betrayed one who is not here to defend himself… and that his ghost stands between us… forever.”

In our misery, in our ecstacy, we clung together near the corpse of the dead monster. I loved her, and hated myself for my weakness in giving way to that love.

However could I face Niamh the Fair again?

Chapter 14. VISITOR FROM THE SKIES

The pirates were as unprepared for the revolt of their galley-slaves as they were for the furious storm which broke about them. Fully armed, well fed, they should have been more than a match for the scrawny starvelings who fell upon them with bare hands. But no warrior born fights with such furious, desperate abandon as a slave striving for freedom. The Barbarians were terrified and disorganized by the tempest, the mighty waves which sluiced the deck; the almost continual blinding flicker of lightning, and the bellowing of wind and thunder.

A milling, frightened throng, they surged about the deck getting in each other’s way; bellowing confused and conflicting orders, they staggered under the buffets of wind and rain which lashed at them. When the freed slaves came roaring up out of the hold, it took them completely by surprise. They fought as best they could; but a swaying deck swept by a howling gale and slick with running water makes a poor battlefield for warriors long accustomed to pitched battles on dry land. And the slaves, all of them, were seasoned mariners. Hence, the outcome of the revolt was not long in question; and when I, Karn, slew their leader, what little heart they had for the conflict went out of them. Marshalling his men intelligently, seizing every slight advantage, Prince Andar got the upper hand and held it until the eventual victory.

Some of his lords were all for pitching those Barbarians who had survived the battle over the side and into the sea, but at this Andar demurred. It was not so much that he was squeamish; for to his way of thinking, the only good Barbarian was a dead Barbarian. Instead, his reason for sparing the lives of his former masters was one of grim necessity; many hands were needed to operate the Xothun, and the former slaves alone were not number enough. Starved, abused and beaten, none of them were in the best condition; many had suffered injuries during the battle. Besides, it pleased his appetite for vengeance to see their former masters chained to the slimy benches where they had long endured insult and degradation.

Under the command of experienced mariners, the Xothun safely rode out the storm with her rigging only slightly impaired. The squall, despite its violence, proved one of brief duration; within the space of an hour or so, the skies cleared and the waves grew calm. My disappearance had long since been discovered, of course; for many eyes had been upon me while I struggled with Hoggur. They had seen me swept over the side by a breaking wave. My former shipmates were helpless to search for me until the tempest had subsided; once the storm was over, however, they wasted no time in dispatching longboats to search the waters for my body, although there seemed little hope that I could possibly have survived. In the darkness of night, the search was finally abandoned and my demise was assumed.

Poor old Klygon was despondent; together, we had survived a host of perils and it seemed unbelievable to my stouthearted comrade that I was no more. Andar and his lordlings, who had known me for only a brief time, regretted my death and praised me for my share in the victory. With dawn the repairs to the ship were completed; the vessel was cleaned, neatened and put to rights by the very hands of those whose slovenly, careless ways had soiled and cluttered her.

A council of war was held that morning in the captain’s cabin. That bluff and hearty warrior, Lord Eryon, was all for putting about for Komar. He pointed out that when the subjugated populace of the island learned that the princely heir of their former monarch yet lived, they would rise up to overthrow the Blue Barbarians.

“There is much in what you say,” Andar mused. “In truth, my lords, we have an extraordinary opportunity presented to us by fate. I refer to the fact that we hold the Xothun; the Barbarian conquerors will think naught of seeing her return from her mission; all the more, if those of us visible on deck assume the characteristic trappings of their own kind. All we need do is find a method of coloring our bodies the peculiar azure of their race. We can enter the harbor and dock in broad daylight, under the very eyes of the conquerors, without alarm or discovery.”

“Then it is your decision, my Prince, to turn about and make for home?” demanded Eryon eagerly. The Prince lifted one hand.

“Not so fast, old friend!” he smiled. “Fate has also offered yet another rare opportunity to us; one that should not be ignored or overlooked in our haste to liberate our captive realm.”

“What opportunity is this?”

“I refer to our fore-knowledge of the plans of the Horde, who next intend to strike against Tharkoon. You will recall, my lords, that our former masters on this ship were bound there to test the mood and temper of the Tharkoonians; if possible, to gain some estimate of the strength of their fortifications, and the disposal and number of their warriors. Here is our chance to enlist a strong and willing ally on our side. The relations between Tharkoon and Komar have ever been polite, if not indeed friendly. Surely the Wizard of Tharkoon, once apprised of the secret intentions of the savage Horde, would choose to strike boldly now, rather than supinely await the arrival of a fleet invading his own realm.”

“Perhaps,” growled Eryon, “and perhaps not. These wizards be a tricksey lot; and wiley, to boot. We shall waste valuable time in paying court to the Tharkoonians—time that might better be spent in battle for Komar! Remember, sire, that erelong the Warlords of the Horde will be expecting the swift return of this vessel from its mission. Already much time has been squandered by the Barbarian officers, who knew not how to use the winds and tides to full advantage…”

“We shall make up for lost time on our return voyage from Tharkoon,” said the Prince. “For we are veteran sailors and the Barbarians were clumsy novices at the art. We shall enter Komar’s harbor on schedule, I doubt not.”

No further arguments were offered against Prince Andar’s plan; for it was obvious to all that they should enormously enhance their chances for recapturing Komar from her conquerors, could they augment their strength by adding a contingent of warriors from Tharkoon.

All that day, then, the Xothun plied the waves in the direction of the mainland city on the seacoast.

Towards nightfall the alarm went up. Alert lookouts stationed atop the mast had spied a flying monster, silhouetted against the dimming skies. Andar, Eryon and Klygon gained the deck, swords at the ready, to observe with amazement the descent of the aerial creature.

None of the Komarians had ever seen its like before; but Klygon knew it all too well. It was one of the monstrous blue-winged hawks employed by the black princes of the Flying City!

Riding astride the saddle, a lone passenger was observed—a beautiful young woman, clad in rags of finery which displayed her loveliness to full advantage.

The winged monster circled the ship on laboring wings. Its beaked maw gaped open, tongue lolling. Its gigantic wings beat wearily. Klygon strained his eyes but was unable to make out, in the rapidly failing light of day, the features of the lone rider.

At length, the giant bird descended to the deck and settled on the aft rail. Its immense weight tipped the ship, but not dangerously so. Komarian warriors gingerly approached the ponderous creature, their weapons at the ready. But it panted, eyes glazed and apathetic, and offered no resistance. Seemingly, the brute was too fatigued to be of any danger to the mariners.

Officers assisted the lovely young woman to alight from her perch and descend to the deck. She was not armed and seemed to be dazed; or too stunned to give them arguments.

They assisted her across the swaying deck to where Prince Andar awaited, curious to question this surprising visitor from the upper regions of the air.

By his side, Klygon hovered in an agony of suspense. It seemed to him most likely that the rider would be either the Goddess of Ardha, or the Princess of Phaolon.

But if it were Niamh, then what had happened to Arjala? And if it were Arjala, where was Niamh?

He strained his eyes through the darkening murk—

And then he gasped, recognizing the strange visitor from the skies!

Chapter 15. CAPTURED INTO THE CLOUDS

We returned to the hut hand in hand, and few words passed between us. The discovery that we had come to love one another had broken upon us with catastrophic suddenness; we were dazed and stunned by the wonder of it.

Back in the jewelbox cities, nestled in the safety of the sky-tall trees, a thousand age-old conventions, customs and traditions hedge young lovers about, dictating the pattern of declaration and response. Here, in the savage wilderness of our island home, we were cast adrift; no guide was upon our actions but that of our own wills. Yet neither of us felt free to give rein to the passions which clamored tumultuously in our hearts. We could not wed without benefit of priestly ritual; any intimacies between us were clandestine, furtive, somehow disreputable, at least according to the rules of civilized behavior obeyed in our society.

But there were some things which had to be said; questions that must be asked, answers that must be given.

“My beloved, why did you conceal your true self from me?” I asked her, when we had returned to our encampment.

“Why? Did I play the part of a young boy so unconvincingly?” she teased.

I grinned. “You made a most enchanting young boy, indeed! But why did you play the part at all?”

She sobered. “I did not know your heart, Karn, nor your sense of honor. At first, considering your pitiful blindness, it seemed wisest to pretend to be of your sex, rather than to cause awkwardness and constraint between us. Since you could not see me to discover the truth, I thought the imposture would be easy to continue. You must remember, my darling, I had recently broken free of the grasp of slavers; they sought to display my beauty before the obscene eyes of lustful purchasers. The very concept is disgusting to me. I am a woman of the Laonese!”

She said it proudly, simply; and I needed no further explanation. To her people, the chastity of a woman is a sacred trust. Once violated, the loss is considered irredeemable; the women of the Laonese avenge their own honor, once despoiled, with a small blade through their hearts.

My own heart contracted painfully at the thought of those slim, dear hands quenching the bright vitality of that pure young body. Her hand stole up to caress my scarred brows.

“I did not know you then, as I know you now; neither could I blindly trust your compunctions and sense of chivalry.”

It was simply said, requiring nothing further. But it was understood that there would be no further intimacies between us until we had either made our escape from the isle or had been rescued and returned together to civilization.

I sighed, but realized the rightness of her dictates. Indeed, there was no other way. The love between us would, in time, be consummated within the standards of decency and honor whereby we lived, not before. Until that happy hour, a soft word—a fleeting caress—a touch of the lips—nothing more could pass between us.

One barrier between us had fallen; another had been built.

And there was another cause for the estrangement which rose between us, following our mutual declarations of love.

I have no apt name for the thing which parted us. Perhaps it was so simple a thing as guilt; a sense of the betrayal of vows, a feeling of shame. Whatever you call it, it was stronger than a barrier of stone or steel.

In her native city of Kamadhong, Shann my beloved had given her love to a mighty warrior among her people. That was not very long ago, I understood. The youth to whom she had given her heart was dead, struck down by a foeman before her very eyes.

But in her heart his name and image still stood inviolable, unshaken. Not yet had she forgotten his valor and gallantry, or the sound of his voice. She spoke of this very little or not at all; intuition supplied me with the details of her cruel loss and her present dilemma.

That she loved me she could not deny; but that the knowledge of her love caused her guilt and shame was equally undeniable. Time had not yet healed the wound on her heart. She had not yet forgotten her emotion for the man whose name I never learned; in time, perhaps, she would forget him and could love me openly, freely, without a sense of guilt. She felt her betrayal of the memory of one dear and precious to her.

I understood her reticence on this subject completely. For I, too, had given my love to another; and the same guilt knifed through my heart at the very thought of Niamh.

Niamh! Niamh! Niamh the Fair—Oh, my lost beloved, where are you now! Do you yet live in some far corner of the world? Can you ever forgive my lack of faithfulness to your memory?

These words welled up in my heart as I lay in sleepless torment on my pallet, listening to the murmur of the jungle night. How I despised myself for yielding to an emotion once reserved for the flower-like beauty of the Princess of Phaolon; now irrevocably given to the young girl with whom Fate had thrown me together.

How I loathed myself for falling in love with Shann! And yet, I was helpless to oppose the stormy tempest of emotion which swept me from my adoration of Niamh with irresistible force. It hurled me, a faithless suppliant, at the feet of another—of a girl whose face I had never seen!

Yet I was helpless to fight the love that sprang up so swiftly between us in our jungle Eden. The very sound of her voice awoke a resonance in my heart, which echoed through the innermost secret chambers of my soul. It was as if I had known Shann forever, and needed only to meet her at last, for all other memories and loves to be swept from my heart…

I could not resist falling in love with Shann; but I could not resist the sensation of shame and guilt which tormented me because of my unfaithfulness in loving her.

Our nameless isle became, then, Eden in very truth. For we had discovered our Serpent to torture us, in the memory of our lost loves betrayed.

Our life continued much as it had in the days before I slew the bison-boar beside the pool in the glade.

We cooked shellfish, ate fresh fruits, nuts and berries; Shann scrambled nimbly about the rocks to bring back bird’s eggs. I erected a thornbush barrier around our but to keep the predatory beasts at bay, although in simple fact the island seemed remarkably, free of dangerous creatures.

We talked lightly on subjects which bore no relation to our private agonies. She never spoke of her dead lover or of her former life in distant Kamadhong; I said not a word of Niamh the Fair, nor of my remarkable adventures in searching for my lost beloved. We talked only of future things, and then wistfully.

The idyll ended as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun. I was within the jungle, fashioning a stone knife to the end of a pole with which I planned to knock down some ripe fruit her keen eyes had spied, growing on the high branches of a tree. She was some distance away, gathering shellfish on the beach.

I heard her cry out suddenly.

There was surprise and wonder in her voice; it was not a scream of terror. Therefore, I did not at once stop what I was doing to hurry to her side, I merely called to inquire the cause of her exclamation.

I recall her next words as if they had been spoken only yesterday. They were the last words I was ever to hear from the lips of Shann my darling …

“An air-vessel!” she cried in amazement. “It is descending to the beach!”

My first thought was that it could be none other than the skysled, wherein my friends Prince Janchan and Zarqa the Kalood had borne the Goddess Arjala and Niamh the Fair. They left the burning temple of Ardha for the unknown darkness, never to be seen by me again.

I almost opened my lips to ask her if such indeed it was. But then I closed them again, upon the realization that Shann had never seen the skysled; she knew nothing of my former comrades, whose names I never had any reason to even mention to her.

“I am coming,” I called.

Putting down my half-finished tool, I rose from my knees and headed in the direction of the beach, which was only yards away.

A blind man cannot move swiftly through a dense tropical jungle. Thus it was that, even though I had used this route many times before, I went slowly, haltingly; fumbling to feel my way. I moved towards the beach with tragic slowness, as grim hindsight tells me now; at the time, however, I was half-convinced that it was my friends, somehow come to search for me, who were then landing on the beach.

And then Shann screamed, this time in sheer naked terror!

I ran, crashing and stumbling through the trees; tripping over roots my sightless eyes could not see, hurtling in the direction of her voice.

I broke from the edge of the jungle to hear her calling me wildly. But her voice sounded from above me, blurred amidst the whirring of engines. As I stared about in my blindness, her dear voice receded swiftly into the distance of the upper air, and I heard—no more. Nothing but the lazy slosh and slap of waves against the shore, and the brisk wind rattling the palm-like fronds of the trees.

I called and wept, stumbling about the beach. I cursed my blinded eyes with all the bitterness in my heart—eyes that could not even see what had become of her whom I loved.

And now I was alone… unable even to see the thing that had carried her off, or the direction in which it had flown.