By the Light of the Green Star

Chapter 1 The Face at the Window

Into the life of each man there comes a moment of ultimate despair. A moment when the tides of fortune have ebbed, leaving him stranded, alone, and friendless in a hostile world.

Such a moment had come to me at last. The Goddess of Luck, by whose aid I had escaped from a thousand perils before now, had turned her face from me in the end.

By a combination of courage and daring and happy chance, I had entered into Ardha, the city of her enemies, in an attempt to set free the beauteous Niamh, Princess of Phaolon, whom I loved from afar. Having become separated from my comrades, Zarqa the Kalood and Janchan, princeling of Phaolon, I found a place in the secret order of the Assassins. My training in their subtle arts now complete, I had been dispatched upon a secret mission. Accompanied by my mentor, Klygon, I had penetrated into the temple-citadel of Arjala, the Goddess Incarnate, ostensibly to slay in secret Zarqa and my beloved princess, whom the Goddess held prisoner. The purpose of this assassination was to tip the balance of power in this city of Ardha in favor of the Assassins, whose lord and chief, the obese and unscrupulous Gurjan Tor, had ambitions of extending his invisible empire in a reign of terror which would bring even the Crown of Ardha within his greedy clutches.

Needless to say, I had not the slightest intention of murdering either the golden, winged immortal who was my friend or the exquisite young girl whom I hopelessly loved. But under the auspices of the Assassins I hoped to gain access to the guarded citadel, there to somehow effect their rescue. The only hazard I foresaw was that I should be accompanied on this mission by my erstwhile teacher, Klygon. It was his assignment to oversee my actions and to report to his master the manner in which I accomplished my task. And it was also, I had reason to suspect, his secret duty to slay me should I fail or seek to escape.

Klygon was a small, homely, cunning, clever little man for whom I had conceived a great affection. It would have sorrowed me to have been forced to fight him, nor did I envision with any particular joy the eventuality in which I should be forced to kill him. But the freedom and safety of Zarqa and Kalood and the little Princess of Phaolon came first in all things, and I had grimly resolved to deal with the problem of Klygon as best I could, when the fatal moment came.

But the whim of Fate decreed otherwise.

We had flown to the temple-citadel on winged steeds, observed by none. Descending by a line to the window of the chamber in which Niamh the Fair was imprisoned, I observed a remarkable sequence of events, without being able to affect or to partake in them. For it seemed that, having become parted from my companions in this adventure, and being thus forced to pursue the rescue of Zarqa and Niamh on my own, my companions had not been idle. For another attempt at rescue had been plotted and set into action, unknown to me.

Black night hung over the great city of Ardha.

Swaying dizzily in midair, far above the branch of the colossal tree upon which the city was built, I descended slowly, hand over hand, to the window of Niamh’s apartment. Above me on the ledge, Klygon knelt, steadying the line.

As I climbed down the line toward her window, a muffled explosion came to me from within Niamh’s chamber. Then I observed the flicker of flames.

And next, as I clung to the line, descending as swiftly as I could to the window but still some distance from it, a succession of astonishing events transpired.

A glittering metal craft floated out of the darkness to hover near Niamh’s window. It was that flying marvel, the sky-sled, which we had retrieved from the treasures of Sarchimus the magician.

At the controls of the aerial machine was a gaunt, bewinged creature who could be none other than Zarqa the Kalood, the last, undying survivor of his extinct, prehuman race.

As I clung to the line many yards above their heads, invisible in my black Assassin’s raiment, and speechless with amazement, I watched as Janchan lifted to safety through the window my beloved princess and the unconscious figure of Arjala the Goddess.

A moment later he sprang into the craft himself, and it curved about and arrowed off into the gloom—before I could think to call out.

Thus was I forced to stand idly by and helplessly watch as another hand rescued the young girl I loved and carried her to safety—while I was left, alone and friendless, in a hostile city filled with my enemies.

It was accomplished in a moment, and after the gleaming sky-sled vanished in the night, I clung to the line, my mind a whirling chaos.

Out of this chaos, one thought emerged to realization. I had failed in my mission, and by failing had earned death at the hands of the Assassins. For in assignments of this importance, only success is permitted. No excuse is allowed for failure. And from that moment on, my life was forfeit.

Above me, a blot of blackness, motionless against the carven stone of the ledge, Klygon knelt.

Were I to clamber back up the line, I must come face to face with the ugly, humorous little man who had been my mentor in the arts of stealth and murder. And Klygon was sworn to kill me if I failed. So I could not climb back up the line, for there my killer waited.

Neither could I complete my descent to Niamh’s window, for whatever had transpired within that room, it was now an inferno of flame in which nothing could survive.

For a moment, helpless in the cold grip of despair, I thought to simply loose my grip on the line, and let myself fall to death on the paving-stones far below. I, who had already died once, in my former incarnation on this World of the Green Star as the mighty warrior Chong, knew that death is not permanent—that it is not an end but merely a new beginning.

Having passed once through the Black Gates of Eternity, I know that the spirit is shining and immortal, and lives on through life after life, while the body is but a mortal and transient abode.

Why, then, should I fear to face death a second time, when I have already lived through the mystery of death and resurrection?

The dark portal holds few terrors for me.

But… to have my bodiless spirit thrust forth again into the empty spaces between the stars, to drift and wander on the tides of eternity, would mean to lose my last glimpse of Niamh the Fair.

Hopeless, it may be, my love for the beautiful Princess of Phaolon will prove; yet she lives and had just escaped from the clutches of her captors.

And while I and Niamh the Fair yet live, and share the same world between us, I shall not give up hope. For somehow, though a thousand perils stand between us, I can yet aspire to battle my way to a place by her side, and to win again the heart that once I won, when I was Kyr Chong the Mighty.

What does it matter that the girl-queen of Phaolon thinks me dead? What does it matter that the mighty Chong expired at her feet in the Secret City of the Outlaws, and that she mourns me to this hour?

Somewhere, somehow, I will return to her side again, and win her heart again, as once before I won it in my former life.

And thus it was that I shrugged all such black thoughts of death from me. I determined that I would not willingly part, with this strong young body that was now mine. The sheer animal instinct that bids one to survive at all costs has kept me alive through a thousand adventures, and it burns within my breast to this hour.

While one chance remains, however slim and slender, I will not yield to the insidious poison of dark despair.

Nor will I go willingly through the Black Gates of Oblivion while yet one single hope lingers that I may find my path through a wilderness of perils to stand beside the child-princess I love above all else in this world or another.

Thus it was that I put my mood of despair from me and tightened my grasp upon life.

These thoughts had gone whirling through my tortured brain while I dangled there in the darkness, helpless to thwart the flight of my princess, as she was borne from me into the unknown depths of night.

She at least had escaped, and was in the company of friends.

Now I must somehow make my escape as well.

By some miracle, I must elude my present perils, and flee from the city of my enemies.

But—first—there was the question of Klygon.

I looked up.

Above me another window yawned open to the night. I neither knew nor cared what might lie waiting within. It was a place of refuge, however temporary, from the twin deaths which crouched for me at either end of the line.

I had no plan, no scheme. Caught up helplessly in the swift tide of events beyond my control, I merely drifted from moment to moment. So I clambered back up the line and climbed into the window of the apartment above.

It was dark, and empty of occupancy. I did not at once realize that this was the apartment in which Zarqa the Kalood had been held prisoner by the Goddess, until set free by Prince Janchan. Then, in a glass case set against one wall of the ornate room, I spied several articles which must obviously have been taken from Zarqa when the minions of the temple first captured him. He must have forgotten to take them with him in the rush and confusion of escape, but there lay the zoukar, the powerful death-flash, the Witchlight, and the Weather Cloak! These magical implements were among those we had carried off from the Scarlet Pylon of Sarchimus the Wise on an earlier adventure.

Swiftly I stripped myself of the black, close-fitting Assassin’s garments, leaving myself naked save for boots, loincloth, and the warrior’s harness I had donned before leaving the house of Gurjan Tor. Then I broke open the crystal cabinet with the hilt of my poniard and took out the articles which his captors had taken from Zarqa. I slipped the Weather Cloak over my shoulders; the Witchlight was small enough to fit into the pocket pouch of my harness, and I slung the death-flash about my shoulders like a baldric. The other magical implements we had retrieved from Sarchimus were the Live Rope and the vial of Liquid Flame. These I had carried off with me when, earlier, I had left Zarqa sleeping while I sought to enter the city of Ardha on my own. The vial now slept in a small pouch concealed in my harness; and the Live Rope was the line by which I had descended the outer wall.

Having retrieved these articles I was now as well armed as a man could hope to be, under the circumstances. Clipped to my trappings in their scabbards were the poisoned stiletto and a slim-bladed longsword of superb workmanship and balance which I had personally selected from the armory of the Assassins.

Now I was prepared to attempt my escape from the temple of the Incarnate Goddess.

It would not be easy. By now, the alarm had been given and the fire was raging unchecked on the tier below me. The corridors were thronged with shouting men running hither and thither, attempting to douse the flames and secure the prisoners. It would be a chancy business, seeking to mingle with the excited, clamoring guards and servitors, and escape notice, but in the confusion I thought it at least a possibility. So long as there remained a fighting chance for freedom, I was willing to risk it.

All I have ever asked from life was a fighting chance.

I turned to go… and felt a chill creep up my back.

I felt the pressure of unseen eyes. That mysterious sixth sense that gives warning of danger warned me now. I whirled on my heel, my hand going to the hilt of my longsword.

A black-masked figure crouched on the sill of the open window, watching me with expressionless, inscrutable eyes.

The bony frame of the crouched figure was entirely clothed in black, and the visor of a silken mask concealed his features from me. But there was no concealing that great beak of a nose, or the clever, humorous twist of that thin-lipped mouth.

It was Klygon the Assassin.

Klygon, who had accompanied me here on zaiph-back from the house of Gurjan Tor.

Klygon, whom I had left on the ledge above, steadying the line down which I had clambered.

Klygon… who was sworn to slay me of I failed in this mission—as I had failed.

Chapter 2 The Vengeance of Gurjan Tor

Klygon climbed nimbly into the room, whipped off his mask, and peered at me with shrewd, clever eyes. The expression on his homely, wizened face was one of profound bewilderment.

“Now, by The World Above, lad, what is going on?” he demanded querulously. He rubbed his knobby lantern jaw with a long-fingered hand. “Saw you that remarkable flying thing? ‘Twere gold, I’ll swear on my Mother’s Pyre, but how a thing of heavy gold can fly as lightly as a fluttering leaf, I know not. Witchcraft—aye, that’s the name of it—witchcraft!”

I relaxed my warlike stance a bit, but held my silence, and my hand hovered very near the pommel of my sword. Klygon paid it no notice, peering around with bewilderment, cocking an ear at distant shouts and the thud of running feet in the corridor beyond our chamber. He lifted his huge beak of a nose and sniffed loudly; the smell of burning wood was very distinct. And we could hear the hiss and crackle of flames from the inferno that raged beneath our feet. We could almost feel the heat of the conflagration beating up against our soles.

The ugly little man shook his head woefully.

“Here’s a sorry business, lad! Gurjan Tor will not take the news sweetly, I fear! Aye, our kills snatched away to freedom from under our very noses, and all our clever little plans set at naught. There will be long faces in the House of the Assassins this night, aye, and long knives out and ready—for the two of us.”

I seized on that phrase and repeated it questioningly.

“The—two of us?”

“Aye, my lad, there’ll be two necks to be slit from this night’s sorry business—thine and mine!” He cocked his head, beady, clever little eyes peering up at me humorously, “What ails you, lad? Think you that ‘tis yourself alone for whose blood old Gurjan Tor will thirst, after this night’s failure? If so—not so, me boy, not so! You be a mere novice in the craft, after all, and even old Gurjan might be lenient on you, this being your first time out and all. But not so lenient will he be on poor old Klygon, nay! I be a Master Assassin, and for me to fail in a mission of such importance, why, ‘twill mean my death, lad. Aye, and a slow, lingering matter ‘twill be, if I know the cold brain of Gurjan Tor… slow and lingering, aye, with acid needles and heated hooks and many another cunning little toy.” He shuddered, turning pale.

“Then what’s to be done, Klygon?” I asked.

He slapped his palm against his brow and jerked his bony shoulders skyward, as if despairing of my faculties.

” ‘What’s to be done?’ the poor nitling asks! ‘What’s to be done?’ Why, heaven bless you, lad, there’s only flight! We must be gone from this ‘cursed place, aye, the both of us, as swifter than a zaiph in mating month.”

“Gone—you mean escape? Both of us?”

“Aye, lad, both of us. And why not? Two can flee as well as one, and if it comes to fighting—well, ‘tis well to have a friend at your back when it’s sword and gullet-slitting time. Why do you look so puzzled, boy? Because you fear I’ll remember me oath to Gurjan Tor and slip me knife ‘tween your ribs as price of failing? Aye, old Klygon can see by your face you knew all about that; but think, boy—use your wits! What’s me oath to Gurjan Tor worth now, with me own weasand ripe for the knife? I’d be a sorry nitling, that I would, to sink a bit of steel into the only comrade I got left in the world, and him a sturdy younker with a wrist of iron and courage enough in his guts for three full-grooved fightingmen! Forget it, Karn me lad! When every hand’s against you, a friend is a good thing to have.”

“Where shall we go, then, Klygon? What shall we do?”

“Get as far gone from this place as we possible can, aye, and as fast as can be done! The hand of Gurjan Tor is a long one, lad, and it reaches farther than you might think; and the vengeance of Gurjan Tor never sleeps. Ardha be not big enough to hide us twain, with the Black One snuffling at our heels. Aye, that fat, giggling hog knows every hidey-hole in this city, and will root beneath every stone to find us …

“But what can we do, then?”

“What can we do? What can we do! Bless the lad, his wits be failing, and him so young and all.” The little man crowed in mock despair. “Right above our heads be two zaiphs, primed and ready, and just waiting for us to climb in the saddles—”

“The black-painted zaiphs that flew us here from the headquarters of the Assassins’ Guild,” I murmured dazedly. The swift turn of events was making me dizzy. But it was like drink to a thirsty man to learn that the grim Assassin I thought had become my enemy had, in fact, become my friend. I should have guessed as much; Klygon was pragmatic, a realist from nape to toenail, and an oath is just a mouthful of empty air to a man whose very life has been thrown into hazard by a grim trick of fate.

I could have almost laughed aloud with joy. To be alone and friendless, ringed about with enemies, in the very stronghold of your deadliest foes, is a sorry position, in truth, and makes for a grim and dire predicament;

I did not object to danger; he and I are old comrades, and many has been the time we have matched our swords against each other.

But—to have a staunch friend by your side!—a comrade, ready and willing to share each danger with you—that is a cause for rejoicing.

All I have ever asked from life is a fighting chance.

Give me a sword in my hand, and a place to stand, and I will gladly face whatever peril comes my way; and I will ask no quarter.

But, give me a companion in my travels, a comrade to share in my adventures, a friend to stand by my side… and I feel truly fortunate, and ready to face death itself.

Loyal, ugly, cursing little Klygon. Could I have asked for a stauncher comrade to fight by my side, than the bandy-legged little spawn of the gutters of Ardha who had been my mentor in the house of Gurjan Tor—my friend and tutor among the Assassins?

I think there were tears of happy gratitude in my eyes; if so, I blinked them back, for homely little Klygon was dancing about in disgust at my obtuseness over the matter of the zaiphs, and in his hurry to be gone from here.

“Of course, the ones we flew here on—bless the lad!” he screeched, dancing on one foot in a frenzy of impatience. “Now get your wits about you, and out the window with you, before half the temple guards come thundering in on us, or the ‘cursed temple goes up in smoke, and us still jawing here like two graybeard philosophers!”

So I climbed back out of the window of Zarqa’s former apartment and seized a grip on the slick, glassy substance of the Live Rope and began climbing up it, with Klygon at my heels. Smoke boiled up around us and the glassy coil was warm and vital with pseudo-life under my hand. We gained the safety of the ledge without incident and as I helped Klygon climb, wheezing and puffing, up over the lip, I peered about for our flying steeds without at once finding them.

For a moment, not seeing them, my heart sank within me. The smoke of the flaming temple tier might well have driven the two untethered monster-insects into panic and flight. But then I saw them, vague shapes indistinct against the dense gloom. The nights on the moonless World of the Green Star are black and lightless as the Pit, for no starlight can penetrate the thick veil of mists that shields the planet from its fierce and emerald sun. And, as well, the zaiphs’ glittering scales and stiff vans of sheeted opal had been rubbed with sooty powder to render them all but invisible in the darkness.

But there they hovered yet, the faithful brutes, stiff wings beating. And when Klygon pursed his lips and voiced a low whistle, they obediently floated down to us. It was a great relief to climb into the high-backed saddle again. And belt myself in securely. And, suddenly, for the first time in many days, I felt myself the master of my own fate again.

It was a good feeling.

True, the numberless hordes of Ardha were against us. The warrior legions of Akhmim the Tyrant, the fanatic temple guards sworn to the service of the Goddess, and the invisible army of Gurjan Tor—all hands were set against us now. But I had a sword in my hand, a staunch comrade at my side, a strong steed beneath me, and all the wide world in which to venture.

Life no longer seemed so black and grim and hopeless. There is no drink so exhilarating as the red wine of adventure—no drug so uplifting to a man’s spirits as Hope—and now at least we had a chance for freedom. It was all I ever asked, and having it, gave me the courage to face a thousand perils more, if only at the end I could find my way to stand beside my beloved princess and serve her in her hour of need.

The zaiphs spread their great dragonfly wings and soared up into the darkness. Flames soared up the sides of the mighty temple now, and those whose duty it was to watch and guard were much too busy trying to extinguish the conflagration to pay any attention to two unimportant men mounted on flying steeds.

We circled the burning temple once, then soared off in the same direction Zarqa had flown the sky-sled. My friends were far ahead of me by now, I knew, for the weightless aerial contrivance of the Kaloodha can fly swifter by far than any zaiph yet bred. But I was on their trail, and now that it seemed my luck had turned just a bit, in time I might well hope to catch up with my fleeing comrades.

Ardha dwindled behind us and was soon lost in the forest of mile-high trees. Before long, Klygon and I permitted our steeds to settle down on the branch of another of the great trees. To fly in utter darkness between trees as tall as Everest, through a black gloom blocked by unseen branches broader than six-lane highways, is, to say the least, dangerous folly.

So we perched for the remainder of the night, tethered the zaiphs to a twiglet, and curled in our cloaks to sleep till dawn, when daylight would make it possible to fly again. There was no danger that in our sleep we might roll from the great branch and fall to our deaths in the lightless abyss below, for the Laonese race had dwelt in the mighty trees since Time’s forgotten dawn, and a million years of evolution had stamped deep in brain and bone a superb and unconscious sense of balance.

So we slept the deep, refreshing sleep of nervous exhaustion, after the trials and perils of the evening, and woke with dawn to continue our flight.

Chapter 3 Death Has Blue Wings

When I awoke it was to look upon a spectacular vista whose like could be seen nowhere on the distant planet of my birth.

All about me towered enormous trees of such height and girth as to dwarf into minuscule insignificance even the famous redwoods of my native Earth. The sky-tall trees of the World of the Green Star soar literally miles into the mist-veiled heavens of this amazing planet, and some are taller than Everest.

Down through the inconceivable panorama of branches and layer upon layer of innumerable golden leaves filter the slanting emerald sunbeams of the Green Star. When these mighty beams of lucent jade strike the glittering golden foliage, their light is transmuted into a marvelous shade of green-and-gold whose radiant glory is indescribable and has to be seen to be comprehended.

By the light of the Green Star I saw the incredible vista fall away to every side; trees as mighty as mountains, bearing up masses of foliage like enormous clouds of glittering gold. And, here and there, the weird and alien life which teemed on this world of marvels could be glimpsed. Dragonflies the size of stallions… gauzy-winged moths and creatures which resembled enormous bees… scarlet-mailed tree lizards which are like nothing so much as the fabulous dragons of Earthly legend. Confronted with this tremendous view, my own concerns shrank into insignificance. I felt like a mote lost amid the colossal towers of Manhattan.

I yawned and stretched, taking in the breathtaking view. Oh, it was good to rouse oneself with dawn, to feel the hot blood pouring through your veins, to stretch sinewy muscles in the cool of morning, with all the day ahead of you.

To be alive—and young and strong and vigorous—what a thrill it was! I, who had lived the life of a hopeless cripple all my days, the coddled, sickly, pampered son of a millionaire whose fortune could not purchase health and vitality and strong legs for a son stricken with polio decades before the perfection of the Salk vaccine—I knew, better than most, the pricelessness of health.

And I gloried in it, even lost amid unknown dangers parted from the girl-princess I loved, pursued by a host of enemies. I stretched my arms in the glory of morning and felt my sinews ripple. I drew deep into my strong lungs the clean, fresh air of dawn, and could have laughed aloud from the sheer joy of merely being alive.

All about me, to every side, stretched the worldwide forest of giant trees—a vista of such incredible and awe-inspiring magnificence as to be breathtaking. True, dangers there were aplenty, in this world of marvels and mysteries, where weird beasts and dangerous foes fought continually for life in the savage wilderness.

But I had youth and strength and courage—a princess to fight for and a kingdom to win—a sword in my hand and a loyal comrade by my side. What had I to fear, even amid a thousand perils? And I smiled to myself, considering, not for the first time since I voyaged here in spirit and found a home in the body of the youthful warrior, Karn of the Red Dragon, that on this strange and awesome world of marvels and mysteries, the deeds and the doings of men are of little moment. His very cities are but jeweled toys clinging to the mighty branches of trees whose crests touch the misty sky above; and his wars and wanderings of no more importance to the mighty creatures who make this worldwide wood their home than the scurryings of a band of grubs or termites would be on my native Earth.

My dreamy thoughts were jarred from these tranquil and philosophical meditations when my idle and wandering gaze chanced upon the figure of my companion. His lean and wiry form still clad in the somber black of the Assassins’ Guild, homely, humorous little Klygon was crouched on the terminus of the branch, peering through a screen of golden leaves, each of which was a glorious tissue of fibrous gold the size of a ship’s sail. His figure was tense and motionless, and eloquent of danger.

Danger is ever-present on this World of the Green Star, where the very insects are immense and dangerous predators whose ferocity and blood-lust makes them the equal of Bengal tigers.

“What is it, Klygon?”

He hushed me with a hasty gesture and I got to my feet and scrambled out on the end of the branch beside him. On Earth, it would have been a feat to challenge the coolness of a veteran Alpinist, for the branchlet to which we clung was, at this end, no bigger about than a city sidewalk, and to every side the world fell away to an unplumbed abyss of impenetrable gloom two miles beneath our heels.

But the Laonese, as the men who inhabit the World of the Green Star name their race, are a miracle of evolution. A million generations of tree-dwellers have, by now, bred the fear of heights entirely out of the race. And the body my star-wandering spirit inhabited was as Laonese as was Klygon, and immune to vertigo.

Peering through the rustling foliage, I perceived a remarkable expedition. Delicate, slender, graceful men in fantastic garments of gilded and lacquered leather which resembled antique Japanese samurai armor, mounted on immense, brilliantly colorful dragonflies with drumming wings like thin sheets of glistening opal, flew in double file between the boles of arboreal immensities. They were armed with swords like needles of glass, with long spears like gigantic thorns, from which floated pennons of fierce canary-yellow, charged with an emblem of ominous black.

They were the flying warriors of Ardha.

But they were not hunting us, that much was certain. The escape of two Assassins was a matter of no importance to either Throne or Temple, as the major political factions of Ardha are termed. No—they pursued a quarry far more lustrous and desirable.

They pursued my beloved, Niamh, the fugitive Princess of Phaolon, a city with which the Ardhanese were at war. And they sought my friends, Janchan and Zarqa, who had carried off the sacred and inviolate person of Arjala, whom the folk of Ardha regarded with veneration as their Incarnate Goddess. And this flight was, must be, but one of the several the Ardhanese had dispatched on the trail of the fugitives.

Other eyes than mine, then, had observed the escape of the sky-sled. And when the absence of the temple captives, and of the Goddess herself, had been noted, it had not been difficult to put two and two together, and come up with four.

Grimly, I watched the aerial entourage dwindle from sight down the vista of gigantic trees. We were two men alone, and could do nothing to assist Niamh and the others in eluding their pursuers. All I could do was to hope that the sky-sled could outdistance, or outweary, the wings of the swift zaiphs on which the vengeful soldiery of Ardha were mounted.

“They aren’t after us, lad; that’s plain,” Klygon said in his hoarse, whiskey-voiced way. “Must be hunting them as carried off the Goddess and the Phaolonese girl. Still and all, best we take to the high terraces.”

I agreed, and we scrambled back down the branch to the place whereat we had spent the night. We broke our fast on globes of fresh dew the size of watermelons, caught on the upper surface of leaves, and on the sweet flesh of a fruit which tasted like strawberry but resembled the coconut. These horny, hard-husked “berries” grew wild on airplants which had rooted themselves amid the branches here at the two-mile level. Our zaiphs fed from syrup-sacks we had brought along in case of need; they thrust a hairy proboscis in the leathern sacks and sucked noisily at the sweet, heavy fluid which was their provender. I repressed a grin, for they looked for all the world like horses with feedbags hung about their noses.

By “the high terraces” Klygon meant a level of the forest which was about a mile above our present position, and which was thus some three miles above the actual continental surface. The high terraces are seldom used by fliers because the greater proliferation of tree branches makes flight hazardous. It also reduces the velocity at which you may safely fly by zaiph or dhua (as the huge, gauzy-winged moths are called); but our primary consideration was to elude contact with the sky warriors, rather than making any considerable speed.

Once our steeds had finished their repast and had refreshed themselves by drinking of the giant dewdrops, we mounted, strapped ourselves securely in the saddle, and were off. For a time we flew upward in a wide spiral, following the slanting glory of a green-gold sunbeam, until that uniquely Laonese sense of height informed us that we had reached the three-mile level. Then we continued in the direction we had been traveling the night before, which was more or less in the same direction Janchan and Zarqa had taken in the sky-sled.

“Well, lad, now that we do be free of Ardha, whither shall we wend, eh?” Klygon asked, expansively. His seamed face contorted in a grotesque wink. “On to Phaolon, or off to join the forest outlaws? There be ready employment for our skills in either camp, I’ll warrant!”

I cudgeled my wits for an appropriate answer. Phaolon was the city nearest to Ardha, so Klygon’s suggestion was a natural one, and there was no reason for me to suspect that he had cause to think my loyalties lay with the Jewel City. And I would prefer flying to Phaolon to searching out the Secret City of the Outlaws. For during a previous adventure I had found the desperadoes of Siona’s band dangerous and fairly inhospitable company. There was no reason for me to fear that Siona or her foresters would recognize me on a second visit, since then I had been a towering and magnificent warrior, Kyr Chong, and now I wore the body of a snub-nosed, gold-thatched, long-legged boy half Chong’s age and only a fraction of his inches. But it was, of course, to the Jewel City of my beloved princess that I most urgently desired to travel.

But, just then, Destiny took the decision out of my hands.

A gigantic black shadow fell upon us.

We looked up, and Klygon’s ugly, humorous face went pasty and livid with fear.

“Zawkaw!” he croaked, hoarse with terror. And, snatching at the reins, Klygon the Assassin swerved his zaiph about and sent his dragonfly-steed into a steep descent.

With one glance at the creature he had seen, I made haste to follow suit. My dragonfly hurtled into the dive on the heels of Klygon’s, as it were. And, indeed, the zaiph hardly needed our touch on the reins to flee from the zawkaw and seek safety in the lower terraces of the great forest.

For, whereas most of the brutes I had yet encountered during my perils and adventures on this weird and wondrous world had been the Laonese equivalent of insects, the zawkaw was something else.

The dhua is an enormous moth, the zaiph a dragonfly the size of a horse, and the zzumalak a giant bee swollen to the proportions of a bull. But the zawkaw is a bird—a bird more enormous than any whale that ever swam in Earthly seas, and a thousand times more dangerous than any creature of the Careen Star World I had yet encountered.

Chapter 4 Lightning Unleashed

A world where insects grow to monstrous size and where scarlet tree-lizards are as huge and as deadly as Bengal tigers should have other forms of life appropriately gigantic.

This was true of the avian forms as well as the other denizens of the sky-tall trees.

I suppose the closest Terrene equivalent to the zawkaw would be the hunting hawk or falcon. Back on Earth, such raptors are dangerous enough—swift, vicious, and deadly—although limited in size and seldom large enough to do more than wound a man.

But here on the World of the Green Star the ferocious hunting hawks grow huge as dinosaurs.

The monster zawkaw that came floating down upon us from the cloudy heavens above could make a mouthful of a full-grown man, and snap and gobble up half a dozen more. The monster looked rather like a sort of parrot or macaw and its plumage was blue—a metallic indigo, glittering and steely. Its hooked beak, though, was canary yellow, and the topknot or feathered crest upon its lean head was a startling crimson.

What was even more startling was that the zawkaw wore a saddle—and carried a rider astride its neck.

These things, of course, we but briefly glimpsed… and I am not certain whether or not my companion even saw the beautiful man who rode the gigantic hawk as a man might ride an elephant. “Beautiful” is a curious word to use when describing a man, for it generally suggests effeminacy. But the zawkaw-rider was manly enough, his broad-shouldered, long-legged physique as superbly developed as a Greek god, and nearly as naked, since he wore only a length of shimmering, silvery cloth wound about his lean waist and tossed carelessly over one powerful shoulder, so that it floated behind him like a glittering cloak of metallic lame.

For all his obvious masculinity, however, he was truly beautiful. His features, although cold and proud and arrogant, and set in a contemptuous expression of aloof hauteur, were of classic perfection. His face was like some mask of glistening black jet or obsidian, turned under the delicate hand of a master sculptor of supernal genius. They had no warmth or humanity or laughter in them, those cold, perfect features; but beauty was there, however frigid and soulless. His pate was as smooth and bald as that of my friend Zarqa the Kalood, save in that it lacked the feathery crest that crowned the Kalood’s skull.

These impressions I derived from a single, flashing glance. And, in the next instant, our zaiphs mad with terror of the blue hawk-thing, we hurtled down through the branches of the colossal trees. The zawkaw flew after us, and with every wingbeat it gained on us, despite our headstart, for its speed was incredible.

To be perfectly honest about it, my heart was in my mouth. Although destiny has cast me in the role usually reserved for a hero of romance, I am no braver or more indomitable than any ordinary man would be, were he to be thrust into such a sequence of perils and adventures as have been my lot. But having somehow come through a thousand fantastic adventures more or less unscathed, I have discovered a peculiar fact. And that is, while an adventure is happening to you, things are just happening too fast for you to afford the luxury of fear. Caught up as I have been in the whirlwind of events, I have found myself simply too busy to have leisure sufficient to be afraid. But afterward—once the excitement is over and the hazard is conquered and you can breathe easily again—then fear comes over you, leaving you weak in the knees with reaction.

Thus, with nothing to do but lean back in the saddle while my terror-maddened zaiph fled for its life, I had enough leisure to entertain fear. And I have seldom been as afraid in all my life as I was then.

Most of the ferocious beasts I had thus far encountered on the World of the Green Star had been dangerous adversaries, surely. But even the most terrifying of the monsters against which I had by this time matched my wits—or my blade, or both—had been more or less on the same general scat; as the brutes which roam the jungle wildernesses of my native world. There was the ythid, for instance, the scarlet tree-dragon I had fought that time we went hunting out of Phaolon to celebrate the mating of the zaiph. The ythid was twice the size of a full-grown tiger. And then there was the monstrous albino spider called the xoph, into whose mile-wide web Niamh and I had fallen after my faithful warrior friend, Panthon, had slain the ythid with his bow. The xoph had been as huge as any elephant.

Gigantic and fearsome as these terrible predators had been, they were nonetheless of a size whereof a man might have a fighting chance to fight and slay them. After all, Earth adventure—is such as I had faced and fought tigers or tuskers many times, and often from such encounters they had emerged triumphant and unharmed.

But the zawkaw… well, that was a bird of a different hue.

The mighty indigo-winged raptor was a hundred times the size of anything I had yet had to face on this terrifying and beautiful and mysterious world.

And, to fight it with but a slim-bladed longsword was madness and folly! But fight it somehow I must.

For the zawkaw fed on human flesh.

It would feed on anything it could slay.

And—with its cruel, hooked beak and horrible, sabrelike talons—it could slay anything that lived on the world of the giant trees.

And it had seen us. And it was hunting.

Like a hurtling meteor, the blue-winged death fell from the skies upon us. Indigo wings folded, it fell like a thundering avalanche. It was already so close I fancied I could feel its hot breath against my naked shoulders, as it panted hungrily, sharp yellow beak gaping open.

And we fell before it.

Down—down—down.

But not fast enough.

It was probably a good thing that in such tight spots I seldom had enough free time to become afraid.

For fear blurs the brain and tangles the wits.

And fear had caused me to forget all about the weapon that hung at my side.

As my fleeing zaiph fell into a giddy downward spiral, I was thrown forward in the saddle.

And a tubular object the length of a man’s arm slapped my upper chest as I tilted forward, the straps that bound me in the saddle creaking from the strain.

It was the zoukar.

A shaft of sparkling crystal was this miracle weapon we had salvaged from the magical armory of Sarchimus the Wise. A glassy, transparent rod, capped with silvery metal at either end, and within its mysterious crystalline substance a bolt of captive lightning writhed and sparked.

“The death-flash,” Zarqa the Kalood had called the thing.

How could I have forgotten it, even in my panic? It was a dread and potent tool by which the Winged Men had slain their foes from afar. I had found it in the cabinet in Zarqa’s cell back in the temple, and had slipped its baldric about my shoulders.

Although I had never had occasion to use the death-flash, I had observed its operation. For, in spirit form, I had watched the science magician employ it to slay the phuol that time the scorpion-monster had crept upon the helpless boy whose body I now wore like a garment. And I had seen it used again, when Sarchimus had rescued me from the writhing, sluglike saloog on the lower level of his tower, the time I had disobeyed the instructions of Sarchimus and had gone exploring on my own.

By this time we had fled before the zawkaw for some minutes, and—such was the speed of our descent—by now we had fallen a mile or more, perhaps two, toward the unknown floor of the forest. But farther we could not flee, for already the monster hawk was upon us, its hideous beak snapping and clashing only yards behind the tail of my dragonfly-steed. In mere moments our last adventure would end, and Klygon and I would become morsels to glut the blood-lust of the killer hawk that dived after us.

I twisted about in the saddle, slid the zoukar from its wrappings, pointed one end directly in the glaring mad eyes of the gigantic hawk—and loosed the lightnings spent within the crystal rod as I had seen Sarchimus do.

We were falling through the lower branches of a mighty tree. Its colossal bulk blocked away the sky and shut out the green-gold light, casting us in its shadow. As I fired the death-dash, the gloom lit brighter than day and the air ripped asunder with a deafening retort. It was like a thunderclap!

And like a thunderbolt was the jagged steak of electric fire that darted between the crystal shaft and the hawk’s head.

Over the shoulder of the giant bird I gazed directly into the cold, contemptuous features of the superhumanly beautiful black man who rode the winged and monstrous hunting bird. The icy and aloof arrogance in his perfect features was stamped into my mind.

In the next fraction of a second that cold, ironic face dissolved into screaming terror!

For the bolt caught the hunting hawk directly in the face—and its head exploded in a flying splatter of blood and brains. Naught was left but a charred, smoking stump! Sparks smoldered on the edge of blue feathers, but the terrible wound did not even bleed, for the lightnings of the zoukar had instantaneously cauterized the stump.

I was blinded and dazzled, and half deafened by the power of the incredible weapon.

Never before had I had occasion to employ the mysterious death-flash against any adversary, either beast or man. I had seen it used in the hands of Sarchimus the Wise, true, but that had been long ago. Many things had happened since the science magician employed the weird power of the zoukar to save me from the clutches of the terrible saloog. I had almost forgotten the frightful energies that slept in the crystal rod we had carried off from the Scarlet Pylon of the sinister magician in the Dead City.

I have not the faintest notion of how the weapon worked. Seemingly, it generated electric force somehow, deep within the crystalline lattice of the glassy substance from which it had been fashioned.

Perhaps it operated somehow like a laser, in which a crystal focuses the wavelengths of light into a burning and intolerable beam of coherent force. I cannot say; and it may be that not even Zarqa the Kalood, for all his ancient and timeless wisdom, could have explained the mysteries of the death-flash.

But work it did indeed—and like the thunderbolt of Jupiter himself!

The blue-winged hawk was smitten by lightning in midair.

Dead in an instant, was that flying monster.

The dead bird fell past us, whirling end over end.

And the magnificent ebon-skinned being who had ridden it fell whirling from his jeweled saddle and was gone. The echoes of his scream rang in my ears.

Now darkness closed about us.

We had flown too far; we were terribly near the floor of the forest, that abyss of impenetrable gloom where slither unthinkable monstrous worms—that black tangle of gigantic roots where no human denizen of the jewelbox cities ever voluntarily had set a foot—that unknown and unexplored abyss that is the Hell and Sheol and dreadful Netherworld of Laonese myth.

For we had lost control of our dragonfly-steeds, Klygon and I. They flew madly down and down in a dizzy spiral, and we fell with them, helpless to avert their descent

Into the abyss!