By the Light of the Green Star

Chapter 17 The Vengeance of Gor-ya

For what seemed like hours I lay in the damp, fetid darkness at the bottom of the pit into which the minions of Gor-ya had flung me, in a stupor of despair and dread.

Death itself I did not fear, for he who has passed once through the Dark Gate knows that beyond the grave there lies a second life. No… what filled my heart with leaden despair was that while I would soon escape from my vile predicament into another life, my friend Klygon, who had followed at my heels, would meet his doom as the helpless victim of my own adventure.

And what of Niamh, my beloved, and Zarqa and Janchan, my friends? Long days and unknown distances had parted us, and I knew not if they yet lived or had gone into the grim darkness before me. Would I ever find them again, once death had claimed me and had sent my sundered spirit drifting home to my sleeping body on the distant planet of my birth?

Black thoughts such as these prowled through my weary mind as I huddled there at the bottom of the black pit, awaiting a nameless doom.

Then, suddenly, without warning, a voice called my name and I peered up, startled, to see the cunning face of Delgan looking down at me from the edge of the pit.

Delgan, the false traitor who had caused me to face this present peril! Delgan, the mysterious blue-skinned man who had urged Gor-ya to condemn me to be eaten alive by whatever monster-god the albino savages worshiped!

My eyes were cold and hard, my lips tightly pressed together, as I ignored his urgent whisper from above. Let him taunt and revile me as he would, I did not intend to give him the pleasure of knowing my anger at his betrayal, or my fear of the doom into which he had tricked me. Had I but listened to the suspicions of canny old Klygon, matters would be different. For the ugly, faithful little Assassin had distrusted the glib tongue and silken manner of the mysterious blue man from the beginning of this dire adventure. So I made no reply to Delgan’s call and looked away, ignoring him.

A moment later a bundle of coarsely-woven cloth was tossed into the pit of sacrifice and fell with a thud into the muck at my feet. Doubtless it was food and drink to sustain me in my waiting, for the savages would want me to be strong and ready when they fed me to their God.

I opened the folded cloth with a listless hand… and froze in amazement.

For there, wrapped in my Weather Cloak, lay the Witchlight, the vial of Liquid Flame, the crystal rod of the zoukar, and my sword!

The lean, ascetic face of Delgan smiled down at me, a pale oval in the gloom, as I croaked an expletive.

“Did you think I had betrayed you, then?” He laughed. “Young fool, I saved your life, for Gor-ya would have slain you on the spot, had I not intervened. By suggesting you be sacrificed to the God of the savages, I postponed your death for a day and a night, thus giving your ugly little comrade and I time to plan your escape—and ours!”

I gaped up at him in blank amazement. My jaw hung open, and I must have looked like a witless idiot. He laughed.

“Klygon says to tell you that an Assassin learns the secrets of stealth, and makes a decent enough thief, when needs he must. He crept into Gor-ya’s cave during his absence, which I contrived, and purloined the gear taken from you when you were captured. You have everything now, except, of course, for—this!”

Something long and glossy-white came slithering over the edge of the pit and snaked down to where I crouched.

It was the Live Rope!

Never had the implements, which we had carried off from the Scarlet Pylon of Sarchimus after the magician met his doom, been more valuable in my eyes. Hastily I donned my gear, slung the cloak about my bare shoulders, fastened the sword into my waistband, and tucked the precious vial and the opaque sphere into my raiment. Then, seizing hold of the thick line, which writhed in my hands with the inexhaustible vigor of its pseudo-life, I clambered up out of the pit, and let Delgan drag me over the edge to solid ground again.

He recoiled the Live Rope and attached it to his girdle.

“I… I have misjudged you, Delgan. I thought…”

“I know what you thought. Forget it! Come—we must hurry.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the upper world again, with a bit of luck. The tribesmen slumber, drunk on the vile beer they brew from the fermentation of fungus. Klygon awaits us at the entrance to the cavern of the sluth. Within the hour we shall be on our way to freedom. Hurry!”

We crossed the great central cavern without discovery, keeping well to the shadows of the farther wall, avoiding the red-lit areas near to the fire-pit. The cavern people lay in sodden slumber, reeking of the sour fumes of the abominable beverage, and none noted our surreptitious passage.

At the gate to the cavern of the sluth we found loyal little Klygon, hopping from one foot to another in an agony of impatience. The worry faded from his eyes and his ugly face lightened with a cheerful grin of mingled relief and joy as he saw that I was free at last. Without wasting words I helped him tug loose the heavy length of root with which the entryway was barred. Two guards sprawled unconscious nearby, downed by the stout cudgel at his side.

“How do we get by the sloth?” I inquired. “I thought they were man-eaters.”

“They are.” Delgan chuckled. “But they like ordinary meat well enough. And I have here in this sack some juicy gobbets of yngoum-steak which I will throw well to one side. With any luck they will become too involved in squabbling over these morsels to pay any attention to us.”

“And if we don’t get lucky?” I asked.

“Then we fight.”

The heavy doors creaked open from the pressure of Klygon’s burly shoulders. The stench of the monstrous worms hit me in the face like a stinking mist rising from an open sewer. Glimmering faintly with the green light of putrescence, the loathsome worms began slithering toward us, sphincter-mouths slobbering hungrily. Delgan tore open his sack and began flinging chunks of greasy meat into the farthest corner of the cavern.

Although it was too dark for the sluth to see the meat, they sensed it in some manner—perhaps by its smell. And, true to Delgan’s prediction, the worms wavered, turned aside, and went for the morsels of grub-meat, leaving a path free and unencumbered.

We crossed the cavern with the greatest speed we could muster, slipping and sliding in the treacherous slime with which the stone floor was covered. Then we unlatched the door at the other end of the cavern and found ourselves at the bottom of a narrow tunnel which rose on a steep incline.

There at the top lay the open air, the floor of the forest, and freedom.

We started to climb.

An hour or so later we emerged into the open air at last and found ourselves in the immense tangle of roots at the base of one of the gigantic trees. The darkness was not absolute; our eyes had by now adjusted to the gloom of the caverns, and we could see dimly but well enough to climb.

We had no idea in which direction the greater safety might lie, but the first thing to do was to get as far away from the domain of the albino savages as we could possibly manage. The greater the distance we put between us and the tribe of Gor-ya, the safer we would be and the easier we would feel.

It was some time after this that we heard the drums.

Klygon and I, panting with exhaustion from the mad scramble down the medusa-tangle of roots, sprawled at ease, resting for a bit before going on. Delgan, however, paced nervously, as inexhaustible as some jungle cat.

As we became conscious of the throbbing of drums in the distance, the blue man stiffened, paled, and bit his lip.

“What is it?” I asked.

For a moment he said nothing, intent on the faint sound. The drums were a dim pulsing, like the beating of a giant’s heart. The eyes of Delgan glimmered fearfully in the faint, ghostly light.

“They have loosed the God upon us, as I feared they might,” he whispered.

I did not fully understand what he meant by that. Why, then, did the hair at my nape prickle with premonition?

“What god is it?” growled Klygon. “Saints and avatars, is it a living beast?”

“It is the most dreadful of all beasts,” the blue man whispered as if through lips numb with fear. “It is the mighty monarch who rules this world of darkness and terror… a sluth… but the grandfather of all sluth… a worm as mighty as a mountain.”

“Gods and demigods,” Klygon whistled.

The drumbeat quickened in the distance.

“Hark!” hissed Delgan. “They drive it with the drums… it hates the sound, and flees from it… up the inclined tunnel, like a great river of hungry flesh… now it has caught our scent… now it is on our trail. Within mere moments it will be upon us… Call, then, upon your gods and saints, small and ugly fool. Oh, I was mad to think we could escape the vengeance of Gor-ya!”

We began to run.

We were free of the root-system at last, and I stood for the first time upon the actual soil of the World of the Green Star. It was dry and dead and barren, an endless expanse of crumbling loam that stretched for miles between the bases of the immense trees.

No grass grew here, far from the light of day. And few creatures, it seemed, inhabited the barrens of the continental floor. So, staggering in patches of sand soft as talcum, bruising our flesh against harsh stones, we sprinted out upon this night-black plain, going we knew not where, fleeing from the monster-worm that had become a god in the imagination of the superstitious savages.

“It is mighty as a mountain, and ages old,” Delgan moaned as he staggered along beside me. “Gor-ya’s people found it burrowed deep in the ground, slumbering away the centuries. It had half eaten through the king-root of the tree. A hundred men with axes could chop and chop for half a hundred years, and not cut away so huge a hole in the mighty root…”

And he began whimpering like a child, staggering and slipping and sliding in the sand, blundering into half-glimpsed obstacles, crawling over boulders. I thought then of Yggdrasil, the world-bearing ash-tree in the Norse myths, and of the terrible and monstrous worm, Nithhogg, who gnaws forever at its mighty roots …

We ran on.

But now there was Something behind us, a heaving white shape that glimmered and glistened through the gloom… Something that lived and moved and hunted through the night… a monstrous and phosphorescent thing that snuffled and hungered after us… a worm… a worm… but a worm like a moving mountain!

And then we fell over an unseen obstruction and found ourselves sloshing through muddy waters.

Curse the luck, it was a river—the first river I had yet seen on the World of the Green Star, and very likely to be the last, too. For it blocked our path and we could go no farther. I could perhaps have swum across it, although I could not be sure, since it was too dark for me to see across the glistening flood to the far shore; but Klygon and Delgan could not. I doubted if they had ever seen a river either, but, anyway, they could never have found reason to learn to swim, as the art is unknown among the Laonese.

The terrible Nithhogg-worm was almost upon us now. It seemed miles long and as thick as one of the huge tree-branches, although this could not have been the case. Nothing that had ever lived could have been as mighty as that. The monster’s body would have crumpled, collapsing under the weight of its own flesh …

But he was huge, was the Nithhogg-god, and we were puny mites before him, and the ghostly glimmer of his slimy, phosphorescent flesh glowed spectral in the gloom.

We could have fled only to the right or left, parallel along the banks of the river. But we realized, all three of us, that it was useless to flee. Nithhogg came squirming upon us through the gloom, an immense and writhing shape, dimly luminous. Now he was so close that we could see the blunt obscenity of his face, the raw sphincterlike mouth, working, slobbering, drooling, and the one little eye, pink and mindless, and almost blind from untold centuries of living in the darkness …

Almost blind…

It came to me then and there, as we crouched in the slick mud at the river’s edge, with Nithhogg looming above us, a weaving shape of dim luminosity against the midnight gloom, that creatures who live in the darkness fear the light.

I remembered our captivity in the caverns of Gor-ya, and how the hulking albino savages had hidden their weak eyes from the fierce light of the fire-pit.

The light pains their eyes, and they fear it, Delgan had said to me once in explanation.

And I cursed myself for not having thought of it sooner.

For I had the very weapon I needed with me all the time.

I dug into my waistband and drew out the opaque sphere.

It was the Witchlight we had carried away from the hoard of Sarchimus the Wise. I had seen him use it once. He had borne it in his hands and it had shed about him a clear pool of calm white light, a glow that did not flicker or fade, fed by the radiance of imprisoned photons.

It could be made to glow faintly, and would shed illuminance for years on end at that rate. Or it could be made to release all the light pent in it at one time; this Zarqa had explained to me once, in an idle hour. He had shown me how it worked. I blessed him for it now.

I unsheathed the Witchlight from its casing, and triggered the small catch in its side, and flung it from me so that it rolled directly into the path of the writhing worm.

“Cover your eyes!” I shouted.

And the darkness of the bottom of the world was split asunder by the light of a thousand suns …

Chapter 18 Janchan’s Sacrifice

Zarqa guided the sky-sled through the domes and towers of the Flying City of Calidar as through a maze. He came down in the gardens of Ralidux by the simple expedient of smashing through the crystal panes of the fragile dome which shielded the dainty blossoms from the frigid air of this height. The glowing flowers blackened and withered in the cold blast that blew through the shattered greenhouse roof; they would soon perish.

It was a pity to destroy such delicate beauty, but the Kalood had no option in the matter. Human lives were at stake here, and blossoms, however rare and delicate and beautiful, were not worth more than the lives of his friends, reasoned the gentle Zarqa.

Earlier, when Ralidux and Kalistus had examined the mechanism of the sky-sled together in Kalistus’ laboratory, the Winged Man had read the mind of Ralidux and thus obtained knowledge of the position of his apartments in the central citadel complex. It had taken mere moments to fly here from the suite of Kalistus, who lay upon his couch at this moment, still deep in telepathically induced slumbers.

Zarqa sent his mental perceptors probing, discerned Ralidux in slumber upon his own couch, and entered the laboratory and unlocked the cubicle wherein his friends were imprisoned. The cunning lock held no secrets for Zarqa, since it had been an invention of his own people.

Sliding open the panel and rousing the captives, Zarqa was alarmed to discover that only Prince Janchan and the Goddess Arjala were imprisoned therein. He had assumed, without really thinking much about it, that Niamh would have been imprisoned with them. Now the flaw in his plan was revealed.

“What—Zarqa! Old friend! But—how did you get here?” stammered Janchan, wakening to see the Winged Man bending over him. Arjala, curled up near him, woke with a frightened cry, then stared at the open panel with hope in her huge, lustrous eyes.

I have come to free us, said Zarqa. The sky-sled repose in the gardens beyond. But where is the Princess Niamh? I’d had thought to find her with you two.

“Still in the great chamber with ail the other captives, for all I know,” Janchan said grimly. He sensed the urgency of Zarqa’s mission and hence did not waste time asking questions.

That complicates matters considerably. I had thought to simply open your cage, and then make an escape by the sky-sled. Now I do not know what to do. I can find my way to the central chamber where we were first imprisoned by reading the route in the minds of whomever I pass. But I am too alarming and alien a figure to be permitted to prowl about the citadel without being stopped for questioning …

“Is that how you found your way to us here—by mind-reading?”

Yes. And by controlling the sleeping mind of Kalistus, using his fingers to open the lock of my cage.

“Then you can control minds, as well as communicate with them?” cried Janchan in surprise. “I didn’t know you could do that!”

It is a power I seldom exercise, said Zarqa, his long face solemn. Among my people it is considered an immoral act.

“Yes, I can understand why it would be,” the Prince of the Ptolnim murmured. “I have not before had the leisure to think through the implications of telepathy…”

Arjala had listened wide-eyed to this exchange. Zarqa’s telepathic mode of speech could be “heard” by anyone in the immediate vicinity, as a rule, although he could narrow the focus of his mental waves so that they could only be received by a single individual if he so chose.

“But that’s the answer!” She spoke up excitedly. “Exert your powers to control the mind of Ralidux, who slumbers in the adjoining chamber. Then bid him conduct you to the central chamber, as if you were one of the experimental subjects being returned to the pens. Since he is a leader of the experiments, none will question him, and you may free Niamh and have Ralidux conduct you both to this suite again.”

Janchan stared at her with a curious expression in his eyes. It was so unlike Arjala to contribute anything of value to a discussion of their perils that he was amazed. It was also unlike her to evince the slightest interest in the dangers of another, unless her own safety was involved.

His expression softened, his mouth curved in a whimsical smile. But his eyes were somehow tender. Sensing his thoughts, she colored.

“Goddess… I begin to believe you are human after all,” he said gently. She flushed and veiled the lustrous jewels of her eyes beneath thick lashes.

Zarqa considered Arjala’s suggestion in silence. He could see nothing wrong with the plan. In fact, it seemed admirable to him, save for one small detail.

There is just one problem, he mused. It is known that I am held in the quarters of Kalistus for experimentation. It may arouse curiosity in the guards to see me accompanied by Ralidux, rather than Kalistus.

“Yes, I see what you mean.” Janchan nodded, scratching his nose. “Well, listen, is there any reason why you can’t summon Kalistus here, so that he can accompany you, together with Ralidux? Can you exert control over another mind at such a distance? And can you control two minds at once?”

Zarqa considered briefly, then said; I think that would be the best way. In reply to your query, I could not ordinarily exert control over the mind of a being not in my immediate presence, but, in this case, I have held a linkage with the mind of Kalistus all this while, to make certain he does not awaken, find me missing, and sound the alarm. I have just made him rise; he is dressing now, and will come here immediately. And, yes, l can extend mental control over two sentient beings at the same time. But that is about the limit of my powers to this area.

He helped Janchan and Arjala out of the cubicle. They stretched, rubbing thigh muscles lame and weary from long imprisonment in a small, confined space. At Zarqa’s bidding, Ralidux rose from his couch, donned the sort of flimsy, silver lame wraparound saronglike affair the black men customarily wore, and stood obedient to follow the unspoken commands of the gaunt Kalood.

Arjala shivered at the emptiness in Ralidux’s face, and drew near Janchan as if nestling close for protection. Ralidux stood like a mindless robot, devoid of will or intelligence, awaiting the orders of the master of his mind. Janchan recalled the soulless metal automatons Sarchimus had readied for an assault on the world from his tower in the Dead City of Sotaspra, and his face was grim at the memory.

Before long the entry portal opened and Kalistus entered. Without exchanging a word, the two, accompanied by Zarqa, strode off down the corridor toward the winding stair which led, presumably, to the slave pens. Janchan had lightly bound Zarqa’s wrists behind him upon the instructions of the Winged Man, and had looped a collar around the Kalood’s neck, the leash he had given into the hands of the zombilike Kalistus.

This was done to give the impression that it was Zarqa who was the prisoner of the two savants; the truth of the matter, of course, was that it was Zarqa who held the minds of the two Skymen on a leash, as it were.

Arjala twisted her hands together nervously.

“Will it go according to plan?” she sighed. “How long before they will be back? I can’t endure the waiting!”

Janchan looked at her bemusedly. He had been giving her odd looks for some time now, ever since she had evinced her concern over the fate of Niamh, and had offered a practical and intelligent plan to rescue the rival princess.

“Yes you can,” he said quietly. “You are stronger than you think, Goddess.”

The unfamiliar note of—was it respect in his tone?—drew the eyes of Arjala to his.

No longer was he amused when he looked at her.

No longer did her eyes contain aloof contempt when she looked at him.

Arjala was not accustomed to be looked at in such a manner by a man. Always she had been looked upon with awe and fear, by men who considered her the incarnation of a supernatural being. Now the handsome young princeling turned upon her the direct and honest gaze of a man who looks upon a woman with admiration, respect, and perhaps even affection.

Again she colored and dropped her eyes. Then she raised them and looked directly into his.

“Please do not call me that any longer.”

“Call you what?” he murmured, in a daze.

“Goddess,” she said faintly.

“But you are a goddess,” said Janchan of Phaolon.

“Yes. But I am also a woman,” said Arjala of Ardha.

The agents bidden to the duty of maintaining secret scrutiny over the behavior of Kalistus and Ralidux awoke Clyon from his slumbers about the hour of midnight.

“Well, what is happening?” the conspirator grumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“It is difficult to say, lord. The savants Kalistus and Ralidux seem to be assisting their captive beast-creatures to go free…”

Clyon’s eyes snapped open, suddenly wide awake and alert.

“To go free? Do you mean they are permitting the animals to escape?”

“So it seems, lord. The savant Kalistus, only twenty minutes ago, rose from his rest and unlocked the cage wherein the winged monster was being held for the ostensible purpose of dissection. Then the winged monster got into the antique flying craft and flew to the gardens adjacent to the apartments of Ralidux. The creature then opened the cubicle wherein Ralidux kept the two test-subjects, they exchanged jabbers and squeals for a time. Then Ralidux rose and dressed, was joined soon after by Kalistus, and the two, accompanied by the winged monster, descended to the pens where the rest of the beast-creatures are kept—”

“Enough, enough!” snapped Clyon, waving his hands in agitation. “Let me see for myself.”

He hurried to the instrument, sat down still in his sleeping-robe, and peered eagerly into the vision screen to ascertain the latest doings of the two heretics. This would mean their death, he was certain of that. The taint of heresy had diseased both of their minds, there was no longer any question of it. This would constitute a major blow to the prestige of the Thallian faction, and might very well bring about the very downfall of Prince Thallius.

Especially if Ralidux and Kalistus did indeed manage to let the beast-creatures escape.

The thought came to him unbidden. He blinked, stunned at the beauty of the notion, and sat there smiling a small, gloating smile, while waves of triumphant excitement went through his being.

Of course, of course! It was of no conceivable importance whether or not the beast-creatures actually did escape from Calidar. There were plenty of others penned in the central chamber. What was essential was that the two young Thallian heretics were instrumental in setting them free. With this accomplished, the case against them would be ironclad. The argument would go thusly, he phrased it out in his mind… he would argue eloquently, before the closed, impassive faces of the Inquisitors; diseased to the point of madness from the infection of their heresy, the two deranged Thallians, utterly convinced against all logic and reason and approved doctrine that the squalid beast-creatures were rational beings, were so solicitous of their well-being that, to prevent them from being dissected in the laboratories, they set the beasts free. Thus, to the catalog of their crimes is added the colossal enormity of treason. How much further, among the ranks of the Thallian faction, the noisome infection of heretical error may by this time have spread, I cannot of course, my lords, dare even guess. But the import and sacred significance of the L-sequence is so high, that, to avoid repetition of heresy, the experiments should—nay! must—from this point forward be conducted under the cool, uninfected, doctrinally correct eye of true Pallicratian savants…

He giggled to himself with sheer blissful glee, did Clyon, hunched over the luminous octagonal viewplate of the receiver.

The downfall of the despised and ineffectual Thallius was a sure certainty from this hour.

A touch at his elbow. He twitched irritably, glancing up to see the grim, hard face of one of his attendants.

“Lord, should I not give the alarm and inform the thought-police?”

Clyon was horrified at the very thought.

“Certainly not! The very idea! Go to bed—you and your crew are relieved of all further duties this night. Leave me, I say. l will do what needs must be done… !”

He watched them go, a gloating smirk creasing his thin lips.

Then he bent to peer into the vision screen. Very near his hand lay the alarm button that would summon the thought-police.He glanced at it thoughtfully, frowning.

The fellow had been right, after all. Of course, he could not permit the heretics to let the dangerous beasts escape, without summoning the thought-police, for he needed impartial witnesses to prove that Ralidux and Kalistus had in truth conspired to free the animals, conceiving, in the extremity of their madness, that they were rational creatures.

Without the thought-police on the scene, it would be only his word against theirs. And it was known that he was devoted to the cause of the Pallicratians.

His hand inched toward the alarm button.

The thing must be timed with exquisite care.

The thought-police must arrive on the scene just as the creatures were making their escape.

Just in time to blast their minds into writhing agony under the concentration of pain-rays…

After an eternity of waiting, Arjala gasped with relief as the entry panel slid open, and the two expressionless black savants entered, conducting Zarqa and Niamh, wrists bound behind their backs, leashes tightly fastened behind their necks.

With them, however, was a third captive, whom Arjala and Janchan recognized with surprise as the ancient philosopher, Nimbalim of Yoth. The ancient man was jubilant as a boy, and his frail form trembled with excitement.

The Princess Niamh prevailed upon me to have sympathy on the philosopher and set him free as well, Zarqa smiled, noting the surprise in the faces of the two.

“Well, why not! Of course we cannot fly to freedom and leave the old gentleman behind,” Janchan cried heartily. “Welcome, sage Nimbalim, to our company.”

The eyes of the old man were brimming over with tears, which he kept blinking back. It was obvious that he had long ago lost all hopes of ever attaining freedom. So intense was his emotion that he did not trust himself to speak, merely nodded happily at their welcome.

And now we had best be gone from here, said Zarqa. They went into the garden where dead flowers lay, black and withered, mantled in ice crystals. There was not quite room enough on the sky-sled for the five of them to lie comfortably, but they managed somehow to all crowd on the sleek, curved craft.

It quivered and rose a little way into the air, with Zarqa at the controls. But its responses were sluggish, and in striving to clear the garden way, it skewed about, nearly ramming into the rondure of an enormous ceramic urn.

It is as I feared, Zarqa said sadly. We are too many for the sled to lift.

A long moment of silence followed this dire pronouncement.

Dismay was etched on their faces, as the five stared at one another.

Again Zarqa strove to lift the craft from the tier into the open sky. A second time it failed to respond with its usual alacrity to his touch, or, rather, responded with a sluggish wallowing that seemed dangerous to all.

Then Janchan climbed down to the floor of the garden.

“You go on,” he said. “I will remain here.”

Niamh touched her mouth with trembling fingers. She started to speak, to say that all would go, or none. But the young prince bade her be silent with a gentle gesture.

“I swore to give up my life in the attempt to find you, my princess, and see you safely restored to your realm. I am proud to lay down my life, knowing that Zarqa will see that you return to Phaolon.”

That I will, or die myself in the attempt, said Zarqa.

And then a cry was torn from deep within Arjala. They turned in surprise to see the rare spectacle of the Goddess in tears.

“I, too, will stay,” she said brokenly. “For if Janchan perishes, then I do not care to live on.”

They stared at her speechlessly, profoundly moved. None, however, was more deeply moved than Janchan of Phaolon.

Her cheeks wet, her eyes red, Arjala did not now look anything like a goddess. But she looked very much like a woman, and most of all like a woman in love.

“In the last few minutes I have discovered something within myself I never knew was there,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t think it was ever really there, till now. Oh, I’m babbling, I know, but I don’t care! Now that it is there, within me, I do not wish to live without it, ever again. Can you understand what I am saying? I know I sound foolish…”

Niamh touched her quivering shoulders gently.

“No, dear Arjala, not foolish. And, yes, I think we all know what it is that you are saying…”

And then it was the turn of Nimbalim of Yoth to speak out.

The old man rose slowly from his place on the sled, his lined face saintly.

“I should have known freedom was not for me,” he said softly into the silence. “But I have tasted the sweetness of it, and that taste is enough to sustain me for the years ahead. It is my weight that has overburdened your craft, and it is I who must dismount. No, do not try to stop me. I am old. My life is behind me. But you are young, with your lives ahead of you. I shall get down now, and you, young man, must take my place. Then you may all together fly off to the freedom you deserve, with the heartfelt blessings of an old man.”

They talked on, while the minutes raced by.

And all the while Clyon watched them in the screen, his hand hovering above the button that would summon the thought-police.

Chapter 19 The Color of Delgan’s Heart

The eruption of the Witchlight was a glare which blinded me, even though I had turned my face away and sought to cover my eyes.

I had forgotten that I faced the river. The gliding floods acted like a giant mirror, casting the dazzling rays back into my face.

The agony was indescribable. I fell on my knees in the mud at the river’s bank, sobbing with the pain of my burned eyes. Tears wet my face; I could hardly think straight. I would have died, then and there, helpless in the grip of blinding pain, had the Nithhogg-monster struck.

As it was, the titanic worm died first.

A yell of amazement burst wildly from the lips of Delgan.

Little Klygon voiced a yelp of astonishment himself.

I could see nothing, but I could still hear.

The ground shook as to the tremors of an earthquake. Behind me, there, somewhere in the darkness, a vast thing ponderously died.

“Look at that,” gasped Klygon, clutching my shoulder. Delgan, a bit farther off, laughed in nervous excitement. The ground heaved and shook, and a deafening squeal ripped the air like a steam whistle.

The poundings became fainter. Now the ground but trembled.

A dry, hot wind blew over us.

The stench of burned slime was thick in my nostrils. Thick and nauseous. My stomach heaved in distress, but the agony in my scorched eyes was unendurable. I could attend to nothing else but the enormity of the pain.

Finally the earth shook no more. I knew that behind me in the gloom an immense and monstrous thing had died. Ages of life the huge abomination had known, but I had brought it down to death at last; I, a mere man, the puniest of creatures, had slain the moving mountain of slime with the fury of a captive sun.

Well, it had paid me back …

After a time I heard the mud squelch as my companions got to their feet, it seemed, and began looking around them.

“Now,” muttered Klygon wearily, “how do we cross this cursed stretch of water? Any ideas, lad? Lad—?”

I took my hands away from my face and let them see my eyes.

Klygon sucked in his breath sharply between his teeth.

Delgan uttered an involuntary cry.

Neither said anything.

Not that there was much to say.

In the end we decided not to cross the river at all, but to let it carry us to wherever it was going.

The fact of the matter was that by now we were so completely lost that it didn’t much matter which direction we chose to travel. One way was about the same as another.

We floated downstream on a gigantic fallen leaf.

The leaves of the giant trees are bigger than bedsheets. When they are dry and crisp and fallen, they tend to curl up, forming something that felt to my blind touch very Like a canoe. And certainly something about the same size.

Klygon had bathed my burned eyes in cool river water, with hands as gentle as a woman’s. Then he scooped up the cold wet mud and plastered handfuls of it upon my poor eyes. It felt very soothing. The pain had gone away by now, leaving me weak and shaken. But the after images of the blast still quivered in the darkness of my vision like flakes of trembling fire.

They would never fade away, those flakes of fire.

Then the little Assassin bound a damp cloth about the mudpack, and that was all he could do for me, the little map who had taught me the gentle art of murder.

Leaving me to rest, Delgan and Klygon had scouted up and down the river bank for an hour or more, hoping to find a ford by which we might cross the floods, or a fallen branch or root spanning the watery way like a natural bridge.

They found neither. What they found was a leaf.

A leaf so huge it took both of them to carry. A leaf that would be our canoe on the first sea voyage ever recorded in the annals of the World of the Green Star, or, at least, the first one known to me.

For two days we drifted with the stream, without the slightest notion of where or how our voyage would end. Just to be going somewhere was enough, it satisfied our restless urge to become once again the masters of our fate. Slavery and imprisonment does that to you after a while, I think.

The hours passed by me unobserved; I existed in a numb, mindless state, hardly hearing the muttered and desultory conversation that passed between my companions, not knowing where we were going, nor why, and not caring, either.

The pain had passed by now, leaving me weak and feeble, and curiously empty of all sensation. It was as if the agony of that intolerable light, lancing into my eyes, piercing into my brain, had seared away all consciousness and feeling. I let myself drift with the flow of events, much as we now drifted with the flow of the river, unable and uncaring to exert an influence on my motions. I let my companions tend me as they pleased, feed me, set an acorn-cup of fresh water to my lips. I slept when they bade me sleep, waked when they bade me rouse myself. I felt dumb, indifferent, a hollow shell.

From this point on I would be only a burden to them. A man who cannot see cannot fight. A blind leader is a contradiction in terms. I had lost control of my life when I lost the ability to see; no longer was I, in any sense, the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.

I was a cripple.

I had been a cripple all my life, back on Earth. From that living death of helplessness I had thought to escape by developing the power to free my soul from its house of clay. By astral travel I had wandered between the stars, finding here on the world of the giant trees a strong new body and an exciting new life.

And now I was a cripple again …

It was cruel. But, then, life itself can be cruel at times.

In my listless, half-aware state I do not know how many hours or days we sailed down the river, using a crisp, curled leaf for our boat. I did not live; I but existed.

Yet was I dimly conscious of a gathering tension between my two companions. A silence of mutual suspicion and discord grew between them. Had I been truly there, awake and alert and partaking in the voyage, I might have slackened the tension by my careless humor or well-chosen words. I might have distracted them from the discord that developed between them. Alas, that I was too wrapped up in my horrid blindness to know or care what passed between them! All I could think about, endlessly, was the loss of my eyesight.

I had known that, from the very first, Klygon had been suspicious of the bland, ingratiating, suave, and cunning ways of Delgan. And the mysterious blue man, whose origins we had never learned, had not been able to hit it off with the crude, rough-spoken spawn of the gutters of Ardha. The gulf between them was too deep to be more than temporarily breached by their being forced by events to share in adversity.

And the breach widened.

I sensed it, even in my withdrawal. But it touched me not. What cared I if my companions fought or were friends? As for myself, it was a matter of indifference to me whether I lived or died, so why should I worry if they were not friends?

One day I woke from deep, dreamless slumber to hear them talking excitedly. I levered myself up on one elbow, wondering what had attracted their interest in the eternal gloom here at the bottom of the world; and then I felt the hot sunlight upon my face, and knew, or guessed, the reason for their agitation.

“Saints and sages, lad, ‘tis a mighty sea!” Klygon burbled, seeing me awake. “An open place at last, under the sky… the trees fall behind, and you can see their tops, by all that’s holy! What a sight! A sea!”

“I guessed something of the sort, feeling the sunlight on my face,” I muttered. Klygon laughed and writhed with glee. It must have been a wonderful, a thrilling experience, to see the open silvery sky, brilliant with the jade fire of day, after such an eternity spent in damp, fetid darkness.

For me there was only the darkness. For them it was daylight at last …

All that day we let the stream carry us into the vast body of water, whose farther shores, said Delgan, could not even be glimpsed. I had not even known that the World of the Green Star possessed seas till now, although perchance I should have guessed it, since the Laonese tongue possesses a word for sea… zand, they call it.

That evening we beached on a small islet, a mere hummock of coarse grasses which heaved up from the fresh waters of the inland sea. Here grew berries of a kind unknown to us, and an edible root called the phashad, whose hard outer shell hides a tender, nutlike pulp very delicious when cooked.

We ate, stretched out on the thick grasses, under sunset skies whose splendors I could only remember.

None of us had the slightest idea where we were, or what might happen next. Or so it seemed at the time, at least.

Quite suddenly I woke and lay there without moving, wondering what it was had roused me from my deep slumbers. A thud, startlingly loud in the susurration of lapping waves; that, and a muffled cry.

Then something moved near me in the darkness that bound my eyes, and hands touched me lightly. Before I knew what was happening, the unseen hands had taken from the my swordbelt, the zoukar, and the coil of Live Rope by my side. Then the Weather Cloak was whisked from over me—I had been using it for a blanket.

“What—?”

Delgan’s voice came to me in the murmurous slither and slap of the restless waves. Soft, amused, careless, was his voice.

“I’m sorry, my young friend, but there are things I must do. A pity—to relieve you of your weapons, but I have need of them. Soon, you will need them no more, for dead men fight no battles.”

In the darkness of my blinded world, I heard him chuckle at his own mocking wit. It was a hateful sound, smug and sardonic.

“You filthy swine, would you rob a blind man?” I growled, coming to my feet and reaching out for him.

He eluded my grasp with ease. In the next instant his hands struck me in the chest and I slipped and fell, feet tangled in the coarse grasses. Had I the use of my eyes, I could have broken him in two, such was my fury; lacking their use, I was as helpless as a child to oppose him.

“I regret the necessity,” he said casually, from some lit tle distance away. “But from this point on, I cannot indulge myself in the pleasure of your company. A blind boy and an ugly fool would only encumber me henceforth. To put it bluntly, dear boy, I no longer need you.”

My fury and despair choked me.

“Was it for this I saved you from the worm, at the cost of my sight?” I raged. He laughed, light and easy, enjoying himself.

“In so doing, you but repaid me for rescuing you from the pit,” he said. “Tit for tat. And now we are even.”

“We are not even! You have robbed me while I slept! And what have you done to Klygon?”

“He, too, has left you. Not of his own free will, of course; an involuntary matter.”

“Have you killed him, then?” I said, my voice raw and hoarse.

He only laughed by way of reply.

Then I heard a peculiar rustling sound, and a heavy splash. I got to my hands and knees, feeling around in a disoriented fashion. He was stealing our boat! I knew it from the sounds he was making, but could do nothing about it. I did not even know where he was, or in which direction, or precisely where the two of them had pulled our leaf-craft up on the shore of the little islet.

Then I heard him push free of the shore, the wallow of waves as the hull skewed out into the stream, and his grunt as he heaved himself all wet and dripping up into the light little craft. Could I have wept with my seared, unfeeling eyes, I would have wept in that black abysmal moment from sheer rage and helplessness. But I could not weep.

“Farewell, dear boy! I go to reclaim a destiny greater than any you could imagine. Do not think too harshly of me; my need is more pressing than yours. In my own country, I am a king. The needs of wandering savages such as yourself count for little against the destinies of great men. I would tell you who and what I truly am, if I thought you had the intelligence to understand it, but you lack the wit to realize my grandeur, so I will keep silent.”

His voice now came from quite far out in the darkness which surrounded me. I uttered a strangled sob and shook my fist in impotent fury.

He laughed.

“Give my regards to the fish!”

Fumbling and feeling about me in the thick grasses, I eventually found the body of Klygon.

The mysterious blue man had clubbed him while he slept. I touched his knobby brow and my fingers came away wet and sticky with what must have been Klygon’s blood. I felt his chest with trembling fingers; a faint, sluggish pulsation came to me. He yet lived, then! Well, Klygon had a harder skull than Delgan had guessed, thank God.

I tore away a bit of my breechclout, sopped it in the fresh water of the sea, and bathed his face, clearing away the dried blood as best I could by touch alone. He groaned and said something.

“Rest easy, old friend. We’re not done for yet,” I said.

“That filthy… blue-skinned… villain,” he groaned.

“I know. I know. He relieved me of all my weapons; and he took the boat. We’re marooned here, I’m afraid. A blind man and a man with a broken head… well, maybe someday we’ll run into the high and mighty Delgan of the Isles again. Then, maybe, with a bit of luck, we can even the score a mite…

“I knew him for a rascal, and a vagabond… from the first, lad, I didn’t trust the dog… him and his sly, smirking, clever ways… sucking up to you, winning you over… but it takes a better man nor him, to fool the likes of Klygon…”

“I should have listened to you from the first. I should have known you were a better judge of character than I! That I didn’t, has brought us to this sorry place, where we are likely to be eaten by fish when the tide rises, unless we starve to death first. Can you forgive me, Klygon, old friend?”

“There, lad, don’t be after blaming yourself,” the little man growled, wincing with pain as I bathed his bruised head with the wet rag. “I had a feeling the swine didn’t have the heart of an honest man like the likes of us… I thought there was something about him smacked of treason and treachery… either he had the black heart of a traitor, or the white heart of a stinking coward…”

“Rest easy, Klygon,” I said dully. “At least we know the color of Delgan’s heart now, for certain.”

Chapter 20 The Madness of Clyon

It was the quick, cool mind of Niamh the Fair solved the problem which confronted them, there on the garden terrace beyond the suite of Ralidux.

If the five of them were too many for the sky-sled to carry, she argued reasonably, why not steal one of the blue-winged zawkaw and let one or two of them ride to freedom on it?

They saw that the suggestion of the princess was a sensible one. Zarqa nodded thoughtfully.

Ralidux and Kalistus, who are still under my mental control, can commandeer one of the hunting hawks, surely, the Winged Man agreed.

“Then what are we waiting for?” urged Janchan. “Every moment may count. We have no way of knowing whether or not our escape has already come to the attention of some hidden watcher. Let us find a zawkaw and be off, before we are discovered.”

According to the memory of Ralidux, which is as an open book to me, three of the hawks are penned here on this very level of the citadel, Zarqa said a moment later, after a silent interrogation of the black savant, who, with Kalistus by his side, had been standing all this while on the threshold of the doorway which opened between the apartment of the scientist and his domed gardens.

It was but the task of a moment for the Winged Man to send the mindless body of Ralidux striding stiffly off on this mission, under telepathic control. And a few minutes later the boom and rustle of great wings sounded, and a vast, feathered shape came down out of the night-black sky, settling near the hovering shape that was the magnetic sled. Ralidux sat stiffly in the capacious saddle which was bound by leathern straps to the base of the hawk’s neck.

Angry golden eyes glared furiously at them; a hooked beak opened to emit a gasp of outrage, then clashed shut with a vicious snap. But the immense predatory bird offered them no hurt nor harm.

“I insist on riding the zawkaw,” said Arjala with just a trace of her old imperious manner. “I ride superbly, far better, I am certain than any of you. And if there be any danger involved in the flight, let it be mine; I have hindered you so many times before now, that I insist on shouldering some little share of the present peril.”

She would listen to no arguments in the matter. Jumping down from the wobbling sled, the Goddess went over to where the hunched form of the bird loomed monstrous against the skyline of dimly illuminated towers, and climbed into the saddle where Ralidux still sat like a dull-eyed zombi.

“But, Arjala! You may have ridden ten thousand zaiphs or dhua before, but this must be your first time at the reins of a zawkaw!” Janchan protested.

“Is that so?” she snapped. “Well, if this black-skinned superman can handle such a brute, Arjala of Ardha can do at least as well!”

The prince stared at her, baffled and perplexed. One moment she was all woman, soft and weeping and vulnerable, with trembling mouth and tender eyes—the next she was, once again, the imperious Amazon, all fiery temper and bristling pride. Exchanging an eloquent, smiling glance, old Nimbalim and the ageless Kalood agreed without the necessity of words that Janchan was likely to have his hands full, trying to tame the Incarnate Goddess to a life of domesticity.

Again it was the sensible Niamh who came up with the answer.

“Zarqa, if the memory of Ralidux held the knowledge of where the giant bird-steeds were penned, and the manner in which to secure one for our purposes, surely it must hold the skills to manage such a monstrous brute in flight. Or am I wrong in this?”

A moment of silence passed while the cool, vast mind of the Winged Man subtly probed the unconscious brain of the black savant, exploring the maze of memories recorded within his skull.

That is quite true, Princess, Zarqa affirmed. The skills are there, trained and ready.

“Well, then, let’s take Ralidux along with us—under your mind-control, of course,” the lovely girl suggested. “We can bid him fly Arjala on the bird to our destination, permit her to dismount, and then bid him return to his own city when we are finished with him. It will be small enough recompense, his enforced servitude to your will for a brief time, in return for our captivity and enslavement.”

True enough. And I can indeed do it. The sled, I notice, is still a bit sluggish and over-weighted. Perhaps one of us should join the Goddess aboard her mighty steed; I would go myself, but I am needed to pilot the sky-sled.

“I will go with the lady, if she permits,” said Nimbalim of Yoth. And the ancient philosopher made as if to get down, but Janchan stopped him with an abrupt motion.

“Stay where you are, learned sir,” the young prince said. “I will risk the dangers of the sky astride the zawkaw.”

And, with these words, he turned his gaze upon Arjala.

The Goddess, suddenly shy and flustered again, crimsoned and dropped her eyes before the ardor in his face. Niamh saw, and smiled whimsically.

“No, Prince, let me. I believe Arjala would prefer to share the saddle with another woman, if you don’t object.”

So saying, the Princess of Phaolon sprang lightly from the wobbling craft, crossed the terrace, and mounted the capacious saddle beside the blushing Arjala, who thanked her with a shy little smile.

Relieved of Niamh’s weight, the sky-sled bobbled and rose, until it floated smoothly. Zarqa fiddled with the control levers and reported the magnetic craft now fully under control. Upon this, Janchan remounted, and he, Nimbalim, and the gaunt, bewinged Kalood strapped themselves securely into the shallow, man-length hollows provided for that purpose in the upper surface of the aerial contrivance.

“And now, for the love of all Gods, can’t we be gone from this city of madmen?” begged Janchan, nervously. “I cannot help feeling we are being watched by someone from a place of concealment,” he added uneasily.

For answer, Zarqa slid the lever forward and the sky-sled glided smoothly up into the cold night sky. At the same precise moment, in perfect obedience to his mental command, the hands of Ralidux tightened on the reins of the zawkaw. The monstrous bird opened his mighty wings with a squawk of fury and rose into the air, bearing the unconscious Ralidux, and the two wide-eyed women, aloft in an instant.

The garden under its shattered dome dwindled. They veered in a swift curve about the enormous rondure of the citadel, and the slim towers of sparkling red metal flickered past them.

In another few moments they descended below the level of the Flying City. Its immense oval platform blotted out the skies above them. Before long it, too, dwindled behind them and would be lost in the night.

And in the privacy of his chambers, Clyon sat motionless, staring fixedly into the glowing mirror of the vision screen as he had been doing for many minutes.

His hand lay near the alarm that would summon the thought-police and their merciless rays. But the hand was limp and dead as a thing of wax.

All life and vitality seemed drained from the limbs and body of the cunning old conspirator. They had been drawn up into the fortress of his mind as scattered citizens flee into a castle when enemy troops appear, marching across the plain. And there, in the tangled labyrinth of his innermost mind, thoughts ran in a dizzy spiral, like panic-stricken rats trapped in a cunning maze. Round and round his thoughts chased each other, in a perfect circle.

I am a madman, or a heretic… They are rational creatures, after all, and not beasts… There can be no question of it … No question at all… ! Their craft was overloaded and could not fly with all five of them aboard … So, in a spirit of comradely self-sacrifice, one by one, they got down, lightening the craft, in order to permit their friends to escape to freedom… There can be no question about it, no question at all… ! Such self-sacrifice is beyond the brutal instincts of mere beasts, which know only the mindless urge for self-preservation … Therefore, they are not beasts at all, whatever the Council has decreed… They are rational creatures, not beasts… They are human… ! And I am a madman, or a heretic… They are rational creatures, after all…

Bent over the glowing crystal, his features transformed, their classic regularity and cold beauty twisted and distorted into a mask of unbelieving horror, the black man stared and stared, while his thoughts chased round and round in an ever-tightening, ever-smaller circle … They are men… And we have tortured them and experimented upon their helpless bodies for thousands of years … They are men, and the Council is wrong … I am a heretic for thinking them men… I am mad for thinking them rational …

Poor Clyon of Calidar! He had schemed to betray both Kalistus and Ralidux into the tender mercies of the Inquisitors, and by thus to weaken the prestige of the Thallian faction while strengthening the prestige of the Pallicratian. But now he, himself, was the heretic, and, when his taint was discovered, as it would eventually be discovered, it would be the Pallicratian prestige which would suffer. Heresy! The abominable taint which poisoned the intellect and insidiously sapped and weakened the purity of established doctrine.

It was better to be mad than a heretic, the mind of Clyon whispered to itself.

I am mad.

I am mad.

Mad.

Mad!

MAD…

When they found him in the morning, hunched over the burned out vision screen, he was smiling to himself, eyes vacant, the spittle drooling down his chin from the corners of his mouth.

He was mad. Quite mad.

They did not manage to escape from the Flying City unobserved after all.

Janchan cursed as immense winged shapes hurtled upon them from the night skies. It would seem the ebon supermen of Calidar maintained some manner of sentry-system after all, for before they had descended very far beyond the vicinity of the floating metal metropolis, swift-winged hunting hawks swooped from above. Leaning from the saddles were black Skymen armed with tubular weapons. Zarqa sprang to the controls, sending the sky-sled into a steep dive.

But the zawkaw were even swifter. Azure wings folded, the giant birds hurtled downward on the track of the fugitives. Black men leaned forward over the pommels of their saddles and tubular weapons spat fire.

A refinement of the zoukar, Zarqa observed dispassionately. The death-flash emits bolts of electric fire capable of destroying matter. But these tubular weapons seem more akin to the pain-inflicting rods used upon us while in captivity. That is, the electric force is weaker, and attuned to the wavelengths of the nervous system, inflicting pain but not disintegration.

“Can we elude the guards?” demanded Janchan.

It is very dark; if we can reach the high terraces unattacked, we can gain concealment amid the foliage, Zarqa replied calmly.

It was a race against time. Weaving from side to side to avoid the agonizing bolts of electric force, the sky-sled darted down into the treetops, closely followed by the zawkaw upon which Arjala and Niamh and Ralidux rode. But the hawk-mounted guards were also aware of the possibility, and flashed at furious speed to intercept the escaping prisoners.

Hoping to confuse their pursuers, and perhaps divide them, the Winged Man directed the captive mind of Ralidux to divert his flight to one side. In a wide curve, the zawkaw on which the two women rode fell away on a diverging path.

The ruse served its purpose by momentarily checking the pursuit. The guard-birds paused, hesitated, and in that fateful moment the bird on which the Goddess and the princess rode was lost to their view in the impenetrable darkness of the moonless night.

Vengefully, the Calidarians redoubled their efforts to blast the sky-sled out of the air. Now all four of the pursuing zawkaw arrowed down on the trail of Zarqa, Janchan, and Nimbalim. The sky-sled had by this time almost reached the topmost level of the trees. Bolts of glittering fire flashed about the swaying, wobbling craft. They missed by feet—by mere inches—but now the sentries had got the range and could direct their nerve-paralyzing weapons with dangerous accuracy. Janchan realized it was only a matter of seconds now before one of the dazzling shafts connected with its target

And then it happened!

As fate would have it, the bolt struck Zarqa. The Kalood was hunched over the controls, partially sheltered behind the curve of the crystal windshield. As the beam struck him, catching him in a halo of radiant force, he uttered a mental cry of agony and fell back from the controls, either dead or unconscious.

Without his hand at the levers, the sky-sled angled away crazily. It was this factor of chance alone saved the other occupants of the craft from a similar fate. For, veering madly to one side, the wobbling sled shot into a mass of foliage and vanished from the sight of the pursuers.

The Skymen jerked back on the reins, checking the downward plunge of their hawks. As great leaves whipped by, slapping the shuddering sled, Janchan tore loose from the restraining straps and seized the controls, bringing the craft back to an even keel. A few moments later, darting into the heavy foliage of the middle terraces, he checked the headlong velocity of the sled, causing it to float into a place of concealment. All the hunting hawks of Calidar could not find them now, he knew.

Safe now from pursuit, the sled hovering motionlessly within an impenetrable screen of massed leaves, he hastily unstrapped the Winged Man and examined his body. It was much too dark to see, for not the slightest ray of light could pierce the thick foliage that screened their place of concealment, but by touch alone Janchan was able to perceive that, at very least, Zarqa was still alive. Pressing his fingertips against the naked chest of the Kalood, the prince could feel his heart beating; placing the back of his hand against Zarqa’s half-open mouth, he perceived that the Winged Man was still breathing. A gust of relief went through him as he crouched above the motionless form of the alien. The bolt of pain had shocked Zarqa into unconsciousness, but had not been sufficient to slay him.

And then another thought occurred to Janchan, and he gasped in horror at its implications.

For when Zarqa had lost consciousness, had he not also lost his control over the mind of Ralidux? Now free of mental restraint, was not the black savant in full and conscious command of his wits again?

With Arjala and Niamh his helpless captives?

Their hurtling flight angled into a steep dive. Arjala and Niamh clutched at each other as the great zawkaw fell downward into the bottomless Abyss that yawned between the giant trees. All pursuit was lost far above, as whipping leaves closed in their rear to conceal them from any scrutiny. Stiff and motionless as an automaton, the figure of Ralidux let the reins hang loosely as an expression of pain contorted his beautiful features.

And then his features cleared and the light of intelligence returned to his empty eyes. For a moment, Ralidux stared about him blankly. Then, observing the frightened Arjala shrinking against him, a glare of maniacal triumph lit the face of Ralidux of Calidar.

He caught up the loose reins, bringing the hurtling zawkaw under control once more. All that had transpired while he had been a mere automaton under the mind power of the Kalood became known to him in a flash of realization. And, as for the first time he felt the warm, yielding body of the Goddess pressing against his naked chest, an insane desire fully awoke within him. He uttered a peal of mad laughter and his arms tightened about the voluptuous form cradled against him.

Arjala looked up in mingled terror and amazement as Ralidux returned to consciousness. The frightened young woman had no way of knowing why Zarqa had relinquished his mental control of the black man. But she saw and knew the fierce, uncontrollable lust that blazed up in his quicksilver eyes as he stared down at her gloatingly.

“Mine!” panted Ralidux hoarsely.

“Mine!”

And he sent the great hawk hurtling headlong into the Abyss, to bear them as far from the reach and vengeance of the Flying City of Calidar as its swift, untiring wings could fly.