In the Green Star's Glow

1. Many Partings

Joy held sway over the island kingdom of Komar, but over my heart there hovered a bitter cloud of black despair.

My friends and I, with the aid of Luck and Chance and the whim of Fate, had at last succeeded in breaking forever the iron grip of the Blue Barbarians upon the throne of Komar. The savage warrior horde, broken and decimated by a long and bloody night of invasion, battle, and siege, had fled by ship to sea and from there to shore. The scattered remnants of the once-mighty horde of Barbarians had slunk into the shadows of the sky-towering forest of gigantic trees like whipped curs. Never again would they menace the peace and security of the treetop kingdoms of the Green Star World.

Their day had passed, and a new day had dawned.

The gallant and courageous Prince Andar had been raised to the throne of his ancestors. Komar had its freedom, and a prince of the ancient blood to reign over that freedom. A day of celebration and festival had begun, such as the proud and age-old island realm had never known before.

In the bestowal of honors and the giving of gratitude, my friends and I were far from forgotten. Indeed, we stood foremost in the ranks of those who had helped to free the island city from its oppressors.

Zarqa the Kalood, Janchan of Phaolon, the Goddess Arjala, Parimus the science wizard, the immortal sage, Nimbalim of Yoth (aye, even sly, grinning, ugly Klygon, the thief who had become a hero), each of us in our turn were cheered and honored.

Nor was I, Karn, the savage jungle boy whose body held cupped within it the star-wandering spirit of an Earthling, overlooked in the bestowal of honors. Long and loud rang out the cheers when Prince Andar from the throne of his fathers called me forth to stand beneath the golden banner for the recital of my few poor deeds.

It should have been a happy day; for me it was a day of immeasurable gloom.

You who have followed thus far the journal of my exploits, adventures, and wanderings under the Green Star (if indeed any eye but my own will ever peruse this narrative of marvels) will understand the reason for the pall of sadness that froze my heart within me.

For there, at the very last, on the rooftop of the palace-citadel, with our arch-foe, Delgan of the Isles, at bay, my eyes, which had been blinded but now with sight renewed, gazed upon a sight of wondrous and pitiful enigma.

Niamh the Fair, Niamh my beloved, so long sought, so long lost, was restored to me at last, in a flashing instant of time. In the next breath she was torn from me again, and plunged into a desperate and unequal struggle against the very personification of doom.

The sky craft which the mad immortal, Ralidux, had stolen from the vault of treasures on the Isle of Ruins drifted low over the rooftop of the palace.

From the crest of the stone colossus wherein he had concealed himself, our dread enemy, Delgan, sprang into the craft and fought with my beloved princess for the controls.

Only Zorak, the loyal and stalwart bowman of Tharkoon, of us all had the presence of mind, in that terrible, flashing instant, to ascend the stone limbs of the giant idol and seize a fingertip hold on the tail of the floating craft as it drifted idly away, borne on the winds of dawn.

We stood helpless, watching it float out of sight.

Zarqa and Parimus, in the air yacht of the science wizard, had flown after the weightless craft, only to observe from a great distance as it floated from sight between the sky-tall trees of the mainland.

Their last glimpse had been one fraught with hideous possibilities.

As it drifted from view between the prodigious boles of the forest, one body had fallen from the craft to certain death below.

But—whose?

Delgan, our azure-skinned arch-enemy, who had earned his death a thousand times over for his treacheries and betrayals?

Or Zorak, the strong and faithful bowman who had come to the defense of Andar’s realm?

Or—most horrible possibility of all—had it been the frail and slender body of my beloved princess, overcome by the grim strength of the traitor, Delgan?

Had he mastered her, and cruelly thrust her from the cockpit of the craft, to hurtle down to a terrible death in the black, worm-haunted abyss that was the floor of the sky-tall forest of gigantic trees?

Search as they did, my friends returned to Komar with that question unanswered, that mystery unsolved.

And that was the reason for the black cloud of despair that hung over my heart on that joyous day of festival and thanksgiving …

The time had come for us to part, my friends and I. Prince Parimus of Tharkoon, having assisted in the conquest of the Blue Barbarians and the freeing of their Komarian subjects, gathered his bowmen, bade us fare well, and entered his air yacht for the voyage back to his own far realm.

With him as an honored guest went the thousand-year-old sage and philosopher, Nimbalim of Yoth, whom Janchan and Zarqa had rescued from the slave pens of Calidar, the Flying City of the Black Immortals.

They had much in common, the science wizard and the old philosopher. Together they would delve into the lost sciences of the Kaloodha, the Winged Men, whose world-old race was now extinct save for Zarqa alone.

After many farewells, they departed for Tharkoon.

They had lingered only to witness the marriage of Prince Janchan of the Ptolnim and the Divine Arjala. It was Andar of the Komarians himself who wed these comrades of mine, there on the steps below his throne, in the great hall of his ancestral palace, ringed about by the lords and nobles of his island realm.

There we watched, solemn and yet joyful, as Baryllus, the High Priest of Karoga, god of Komar, celebrated the holy nuptials. We stood smiling as Janchan clasped his bride to his chest and sealed her lips with their first kiss. Oh, it was a wondrous moment for all… but wondrous beyond beyond belief for Janchan of Phaolon and his mate.

She had been a living goddess in Ardha; now she was only a woman, and a bride.

I believe she had never been happier.

Then came the time of partings.

Prince Andar bade farewell to Parimus of Tharkoon and his gallant bowmen, then turned to offer Janchan and Arjala the hospitality of his palace for their honeymoon (for strange as it seems, the custom familiar to us on Earth is also known to the Laonese). As well, his hospitality was extended to Klygon, Zarqa, and myself, to remain in Komar as long as we wished, as his honored guests. Weary and worn as we were from the perils and privations through which we had all but recently passed, his invitation was gratefully accepted. Indeed, there was little else that we could do, in all actuality, for in this strange and beautiful and terrible world of trees as tall as Everest, where the very cities of men cling to the upper branches like mere hornets’-nests, we had long since lost our bearings. Our ultimate goal was Phaolon the Jewel City, but no man in all of the Komarian kingdom, least of all ourselves, knew in which direction nor at what distance it lay.

So we made ourselves comfortable in Komar, for a time. My comrades were grateful for a chance to rest a while and enjoy the comforts of civilization, after the terrible trials of slavery, storm, shipwreck, and marooning we had undergone.

Not so, I.

Still the unknown fate of my beloved princess weighed upon my heart. Still the unanswered question of which of the three had fallen from the sky-ship echoed within my weary brain, repeating itself over and over.

Unable to sleep, despite the exertions of the day just past, I rose from my silken bed, donned my buskins, wrapped the scarlet loincloth about me, and belted on my glassy sword.

Restless, I went out upon the balcony of my tower room to gaze forth upon the night, thinking of Niamh.

The World of the Green Star has no moon to illuminate its skies by night, as does my native Earth. It revolves close to its sun of emerald flame, so close that, were it not for its eternal barrier of clouds which interpose themselves between the planet and its parent star, the burning heat of those green rays would scorch the last vestiges of life from the surface of the planet.

Alas, that same eternal and unbroken wall of clouds hide forever from view the innumerable stars of heaven, and the slender and elfin folk of this world—the Laonese, as they call themselves—are denied the splendors of the star-strewn firmament. Hence the nights of Lao are black as doom, in which no man may see his path.

I stared upon the city of Komar, where it crouched upon high cliffs, girdled about with its mighty wall. Guardsmen in the colors of Prince Andar strode the watch about the circuit of that frowning battlement, and they bore torches in their hand to light their path.

By the light of those glimmering torches, I saw a strange and lovely thing. Fashioned all of gleaming metal it was, but it floated upon the breeze as lightly as would a soap bubble. Slim and tapering it was, graceful as the Flying Carpet of Arabic legend, its prow curled back to shelter its riders.

This was the skysled we had carried off long ago from the Pylon of Sarchimus the Wise. The extinct Kaloodha had fashioned the flying thing a million years ago.

The moment my eyes fell upon it, I knew that I could delay no longer the satisfaction of the urge that gnawed within me, to search for my lost beloved, though all the wide world lay between us.

With Karn of the Red Dragon, to think was to act. This trait had precipitated me into peril many times before now, and doubtless would do so again. A wiser man, or a man less driven by his need, would have paused, thought things out, consulted with his friends. But I sprang over the parapet and clambered down the thick vines as if they had been a ladder.

Lightly as a great cat, I dropped to the top of the citadel wall. The guards had passed this way but a moment before; still the light of their torches gleamed in the glistening gold metal of the skysled, where it drifted idly to and fro on the breeze, tethered by its anchor-cable to a stone bench.

It was the work of a moment to glide to where the weird craft floated, to heave myself aboard. I lay flat in one of the shallow depressions made for that purpose, studying the controls. Often I had watched as Zarqa the Kalood had flown the craft. The controls were few and admirably simple. There was no doubt in my mind that I could fly the craft.

Then, swiftly and unobtrusively, making certain that I was not observed, I returned to my quarters in the palace and took up my weapons and a warm cloak. In the great hall where the wedding-feast had recently concluded I selected provisions of meat and pastry, and a supply of the delicious if oddly colored foodstuff the Komarians prize, which resembles excellent cheese. There being no other beverage to hand, I scooped up as many bottles of the effervescent, gold-colored wine of the islands as remained unopened, and, returning to where my craft was moored, stored these provisions away in the tail-compartment, which was locked by a clever catch whose secrets I had learned from Zarqa.

Then, buckling myself in the safety harness, I detached and drew aboard the anchor-cable and stored it away in its place while the aerial vehicle floated out over the crooked streets and peaked roofs of Komar.

A moment later, my touch at the sensitive controls sent the silent and weightless craft winging its way out over the dark surface of the sea in the direction in which the sky craft had flown, bearing my beloved princess to a nameless and unknown doom.

Living or dead, I would find her, or perish myself in the attempt.

2. Battle Amid the Clouds

As the sky craft which Ralidux had stolen from the treasure-vaults of the Ancient Ones drifted weightlessly across the roof of Prince Andar’s besieged palace-citadel, Niamh—the Phaolonese princess whom I had come to love under the name of Shann of Kamadhong during my blindness, when we were castaways together on the desert isle of Narjix in the Komarian Sea—had no sooner freed herself from one attacker than a second thrust himself upon her.

The black superman from the Flying City, Ralidux, driven mad by his uncontrollable lust for Arjala the Living Goddess, had carried off Niamh from our desert isle under the mistaken assumption that she was none other than the superb young woman whom he desired above all else. Discovering his error, he had planned to hurl her slim body over the side of the flying vessel. But Niamh, tearing free of her bonds, and plucking from its secret sheath amid the tattered remnants of her garments, that slender, sacred knife which is, to every woman of the Laonese race, the final defense of her chastity, turned upon her kidnapper…

They fought together, there in the cockpit of the sky craft, as it drifted idly over the rooftops of Komar. At length my beloved princess succeeded in striking home; like the fang of a striking cobra, the slim bright blade sunk to its hilt in the heart of the Black Immortal and he toppled from the cockpit to fall to the rooftop far below.

Wrenching her blade from the heart of Ralidux in the instant of his fall, Niamh turned to seize control of the floating air vessel. But in the same moment of time a strange man with azure skin and subtle, crafty eyes sprang into the cockpit from the stony limbs of the colossal statue which loomed atop the palace roof.

Niamh stared at him dazedly. They had never so much as laid eyes on each other before, had Delgan of the Isles and the Princess of Phaolon, but this mattered little. The former Warlord of the Blue Barbarians had seized upon this trick of fortune to make his escape, and would permit no adolescent girl to deter him in his flight.

In one hand he bore that deadly crystal rod in which captive lightnings flickered—the zoukar, or death-flash—which Zarqa and Janchan and I had borne off long ago in our escape from the doomed and dying Pylon of the science magician, Sarchimus the Wise.

Leveling the powerful weapon at the wide-eyed girl—who crouched the length of the cockpit away, a slim, now gory, blade clenched in one small but capable fist—the traitorous Delgan was about to direct the furious ray of the crystal weapon against this unknown girl who stood in the way of his escape.

But then the bidding of caution made him stay his hand. The terrific power of the zoukar was a subject with which he was not completely familiar. To loose its frightful energies within the narrow confines of the cabin might be to damage the sky craft beyond all hopes of repair.

Therefore, with a swift motion, he thrust the crystal weapon into his girdle, and, with a tigerlike bound, flung himself upon the young girl who opposed him.

So swiftly did the mysterious blue man leap into the cabin—and so unexpectedly did he hurl himself upon her—that Niamh was taken by surprise. Suddenly, a hand like an iron vise clamped itself about her wrist, while the blue man flung his other arm about her waist, lifting her from the floor of the cabin. While she sought to plunge her slim blade into his heart, he strove to drag her to the edge of the cockpit and fling the hapless girl over the side.

In the fury of their combat, neither Niamh nor her assailant noticed Zorak the Bowman as he scaled the stony limbs of the colossus. He flung himself across space in an effort to reach the sky-ship before it floated away from the palace roof for a rescue attempt to succeed.

The outstretched fingers of the stalwart Tharkoonian brushed the tail-assembly of the flying craft… slipped, then clung. A moment later, the flying craft bore him away, out over the streets of the city. Then his dangling booted heels swung giddily above the tranquil immensity of the inland sea. And this was the last of the flying craft which I, Karn, saw as the Green Star rose up over the horizon to flood the world of the great trees with its emerald light.

Delgan had not dreamed that he would encounter any difficulty in overcoming the slight figure of the adolescent girl. For, although by no means as robust or as burly as were most of the Blue Barbarians, he was a full-grown man in his prime and possessed of a man’s strength.

But the supple girl twisted lithely in his crushing grip, as agile as a writhing serpent. The girl fought furiously against the blue man as he struggled to thrust her over the side. Delgan soon discovered he had taken on a young wildcat.

She raked the sharp nails of one hand down the side of his face, slashing his cheek from eye-corner to chin. Blood spurted from his torn flesh; with a curse, he jerked his head back, fearing that with the next swipe of her vicious nails she might blind him.

Then a small but firm knee thudded into the pit of his stomach with staggering force. With a whoosh the air was driven out of his lungs as Niamh drove one sharp elbow into his ribs. Bent double, clutching at his belly, face streaming with blood, Delgan stumbled in retreat until he was backed against the control panel itself. Blinking open his eyes, which had been squeezed shut with pain, he saw the sunlight of the Green Star flash dazzlingly from the small; glittering blade of the girl’s knife.

The gleam of the naked metal was no less deadly than the wrathful fires that burned fiercely in the girl’s narrowed eyes.

Pampered child of the jewelbox cities though she was, Niamh of Phaolon fought like a tigress when she had to.

Facing her glittering blade, Delgan’s bravery ebbed. Cunning and unscrupulous, it was ever his way to win with words or guile rather than to resort to physical action, which, in his warped view, was the way of the brute. The wily and devious Delgan had long ago discovered that he would trick and entangle those he sought to use in a web of words. So he tried it now, rather than trust his precious hide to the stinging kiss of that small, chaste blade.

“Would you slay me, then, witch-girl?” he panted. “I am no enemy of yours! Think; have ever we met, child? If not, then how could we be foes?”

“It was no friend who tried to thrust me over the side, stranger!” spat Niamh, the keen knife unswerving in her lip.

Delgan forced a bewildered laugh.

“But you have taken everything wrong, child! I sprang aboard this flying craft to aid you in piloting it to the palace roof, for I alone know the trick of the controls. And I leaped forward to steady you, for fear that the impact of my leap might toss you from your feet and over the side. Then, and, I’m afraid, without even giving me a moment to speak and to identify myself, you brought that wicked small knife into action. Even then, although attacked without warning, I was not provoked, but kindly thought to remove the weapon from you, lest in your hysteria you do yourself an injury…”

The blue man’s words were smoothly plausible, and the bewildered, almost hurt tones with which he uttered them came very close to disarming Niamh’s suspicions. But the girl was no fool and remembered her own precise reactions, despite the sly-tongued villain’s attempt to befuddle her.

“If you are my friend, first toss that curious crystal weapon over the side,” she said keenly. Then, with a small, ironic smile, she added; “For, if we are friends, we need no weapons, now, do we?”

He nodded in a friendly fashion. “Certainly I will do so, to reassure you, mistress. But the crystal rod is no weapon; it is an instrument of the Ancients which sheds light in darkness. At any rate, I will surely do as you wish… but first, I think it not too much for me to ask of you a similar token in gesture of our friendship. Throw away that knife of yours, and I will do as you bid.”

Niamh looked at him strangely.

“Do you not know that every woman of my race bears ever on her person the sacred knife that is called the ‘Defender of Chastity’?” she murmured, puzzledly. “Or are you some savage outlander, unfamiliar with the code of civilization?”

Delgan, who was indeed just such a savage, albeit one who had rigorously schooled himself in the ways of the more civilized races of his world, bit his lip in silent fury at the slip. But not so much as a muscle twitched in his face to reveal his inward feelings.

“Of course, of course! I had forgotten!” he said, with an apologetic laugh. “Well, then, my girl, sheathe that holy knife of yours, or put it away… a naked blade is not drawn between comrades, you know!”

So cleverly devised was the verbal trap he had woven about her, that Niamh—although her every impulse screamed to retain the blade for instant use, if threatened—could not conjure up a good reason for not putting away the little knife. Keeping a wary eye on the smiling, seemingly friendly man, she reinserted the blade in its secret sheath, which was sewn in the lining of the garment wound about her breasts. When she had done so, she half expected the strange blue-skinned man to hurl himself upon her. But he did not.

“There we are, then; a truce between us?” he suggested genially.

“Perhaps,” she said tentatively. “But you have not yet tossed overside the crystal rod you wear.”

“This?” he said, smiling, drawing the death-flash from his girdle. “But it is too rare and precious to throw away, this artifact of the Ancients.” Then the deadly crystal rod was pointed unswervingly at her heart.

“Do not move or reach for that wicked little knife of yours,” he said softly. “But do exactly as I say. The deathly fires of lightning sleep in this rod, easy to awake, and it would be a pity to snuff out so young a life, to sear and shrivel so delectable a soft young body.”

Niamh crimsoned and bit her lip at the mockery in his eyes, but she offered no resistance.

Then he reached for her.

3. Over the Side

Delgan suddenly snatched back his hand with a shrill, unbelieving cry. For, out of nowhere, a green-feathered arrow had transfixed his hand. Paling to a muddy, unhealthy hue, his thin-upped mouth pinched with pain, Delgan stared down at his right hand. The arrow had pierced completely through the bones of his wrist. Its gory-bladed point protruded from the other side of his arm. Red blood trickled down his hand to drip upon the cabin floor from numb fingertips.

In the next instant a deep, quiet voice spoke from somewhere behind Niamh;

“Do not give credence to his lying words, lady, for he is a faithless traitor, and the direst foe of your friends Janchan and Zarqa and Karn.”

Niamh turned about to see the speaker of these words, and saw a tall, bronzed bowman in the forest-green and silver of Tharkoon. His powerful scarlet bow was at the ready, an arrow nocked in place to be loosed upon the instant, should the blue man try to fire the zoukar he still gripped in his uninjured hand.

While Delgan had sought to trap her in his wily web of words, the bronzed bowman had drawn himself up with a surge of his mighty arms until he straddled the tail-assembly of the sky craft. Then he had inched his way along the smooth, sleek fuselage of the streamlined flying vessel, until he crouched just behind the spacious cockpit. From that vantage point he had observed all which had transpired between the lissome girl and the smooth-tongued ex-Warlord of the Barbarian horde. His intervention had been a timely one. So intent had Delgan been upon the slim girl he sought to ensnare with his lies and half-truths and clever distortions of fact, his keen and watchful eyes fixed upon her elfin face, that he had not so much as glimpsed the burly bowman crouched atop the cowling. Had he so much as lifted his fixed gaze from Niamh’s face for an instant, the encounter might have had a very different outcome.

Now holding his bow hocked and ready in one hand, the archer from Tharkoon swung his booted legs over the cowling and dropped like a great cat into the cockpit to stand protectively beside the bewildered Princess of Phaolon.

“He lies, lady, I swear it!” panted Delgan, his eyes wild, his calm controlled demeanor shaken for once. His mouth worked loosely and spittle foamed at the corners of his lips, to dribble down his chin. “He is a renegade—an outlaw!—who seeks to seize you and deliver you into the hands of your enemies. I, I alone, am your friend!”

His words were shrill and, for once, rang falsely on the ear. His very expression, wide-eyed, mouth working loosely, sweat beading his features, reeked of fear. Niamh did not believe him and shrank against the side of the towering bowman as the hysterical blue man gesticulated wildly, the death-flash forgotten in his hand.

The sky-ship borne on the swift wings of the morning breeze, had traveled a very great distance by this time. Indeed, the island city of Komar was by now lost from view somewhere behind them, cloaked from sight behind a pearly veil of morning mist. The Komarian Sea was not of any great breadth in these parts; indeed, the shoreline of the mainland was clearly in view dead ahead of their floating prow. They could see the immense boles of the miles-tall trees soaring up out of the abyss of darkness which was the floor of the world-encumbering forest.

The wind was carrying them directly into that mighty rampart of mountain-high trees. The eyes of Zorak were first to spot their peril, and with a grunt of surprise, letting his red bow fall, the bowman stepped forward to seize the controls and turn the prow aside before the hurtling craft drove into the mighty palisade of treetrunks.

Eyes feral with desperation, goaded into viciousness like a cornered rat, the blue man, with the arrow through his wrist, fell into a defensive crouch as the bowman stepped forward. Lips writhing back from his teeth, which were bared in a fighting snarl, the blue man raised the death-flash in one shaking hand.

“Back, you island dog, or I’ll blast you where you stand!” he whimpered.

“But, man, the trees!” grunted Zorak, pointing at the wall of mighty trunks which swept up toward them. But Delgan, where he crouched near the low edge of the cockpit had his back turned against that forward view, and had no notion of the danger that was upon them.

“An old trick,” he snarled with a shaky laugh, “to trap a clever wolf. Do not move, on peril of your life, you hulking brute—”

Zorak gestured helplessly as a great branch thrust into their path, gold-foil leaves glittering in the light of the Green Star. Then, ignoring the threat of the crystal rod, the bowman turned and swept Niamh into his arms to protect the girl from injury with his own brawny body serving as her shield.

In the next instant the hurtling craft tore through the mass of foliage. Leaves huge as a schooner’s sails whipped past them. The pointed nose of the flying ship grated against rough bark and the fabric of the craft shuddered under the rasping impact of the glancing blow.

Delgan staggered before the buffet as one great leaf swept by him, knocking him from his feet. The backs of his knees struck against the edge of the low cockpit with stunning force. With a screech of blood-chilling tear the blue man fell backward over the edge of the cockpit and disappeared from view, still clutching the zoukar in a deathlike grip.

An instant later, like a sleek projectile, the flying vessel whipped through the mesh of leaves and went wobbling drunkenly into open air again, still reeling from the glancing blow. Zorak threw himself to the edge of the cockpit and looked over. They were among the boles of the sky-tall forest by now, and only an abyss of impenetrable gloom was visible below. He could not even glimpse the dwindling mote of Delgan’s writhing form as the unfortunate Warlord fell to his unquestioned death half a mile below, where great pallid worms squirmed through the fetid darkness of the forest’s floor …

And this was the terrible sight which Zarqa and Prince Parimus glimpsed from afar as they pursued the flying ship in the air yacht of the science wizard; one minute body falling from the craft as it slipped between the soaring treetrunks and vanished from their view.

From that great distance, of course, they could not tell which of the three riders had fallen to his or her death in the black abyss beneath the lurching keel …

The sky craft slid between two towering boles and drifted into an uncanny world of more-than-earthly beauty.

Only those who have visited the World of The Green Star can picture the incredible vista that met the eyes of Zorak and Niamh. In every direction trees of dark scarlet wood towered, their trunks thicker than the mightiest of skyscrapers, soaring aloft mile upon mile to thrust their vastness of golden foliage into the stratosphere. Between these lofty boles, great shafts of pellucid jade-green sunlight fell, shining through momentary rents in the eternal cloud-veil whose silver mists shielded the planet from the fierce emerald fires of its parent star. Here and there between the towering trees floated dragonflies as huge as Percherons, drifting on wings like sheeted opal. There, stretched on mile-long cables between the mighty branches, a spider web of colossal dimensions hung, its sticky strands thick enough and strong enough to hold rampaging mammoths captive. Clinging by sucker-disks to the underside of branches whose breadth was that of six-lane highways, golden and green and crimson lizards, fearsome and enormous as fabled dragons, clung.

It was an awesome and mysterious scene of strange and terrible beauty, such as my native Earth can nowhere display. But to Niamh the Fair it was known and familiar, for the gem-bright city of her birth nestled somewhere in arboreal giants such as these, and these incredible vistas were all that she had ever known.

But to Zorak the Bowman it was a weird new world of unknown marvels, for home to the brawny archer was the city of Tharkoon on its isolated peninsula thrusting out into the calm waves of the Komarian Sea, and the giant trees of Lao were an unexplored mystery to him. Thus he gaped with amazement upon the sights that lay everywhere.

The winds that had propelled the sleek and weightless projectile across the narrow straits of sea between the isle of Komar and the mainland had died now. No matter how strong the morning breeze might blow, it broke and died against the looming rampart of the arboreal titans. Thus the sky craft floated more slowly now, drifted idly to and fro, eventually coming to rest between the two segments of a forked twig as large as a siege catapult. Waking from his entranced fascination, the bowman bent in puzzlement over the controls, eventually finding the switch that killed the power-source which drove the engines of the flying ship.

“Well, where to now, my lady?” he asked, once the danger of collision with one of the huge branches was past. “Delgan will trouble us no more, but we must be making our return to Komar, where your friends wait.”

Niamh turned to him eagerly. “Is it true, brave bowman, what I glimpsed in that brief moment above the palace roof? Has the boy, Karn, recovered his vision? Is it true that his eyes are healed?”

The Tharkoonian nodded. “Aye, lady, but whether it was from the cures slow nature works in her own good time, or from the science magic of my master, Parimus the Wise, who treated the youth’s eyes, I do not know. But Karn can truly see again.”

“I thank all Gods,” she breathed, tears glittering on her thick lashes. “And Prince Janchan, and the Goddess Arjala, and somber, unspeaking Zarqa the Kalood, my friends who rescued me from the Flying City… they too live and are well and unhurt?”

“Aye.” He nodded again. “All have come safely through our recent adventures in battle against the Blue Barbarians who held the island city of Komar and exiled her gallant heir, Andar.”

“Then let us be about and back to this city of Komar of which you speak, so that we may rejoin our comrades,” bade the girl breathlessly.

But when the bowman, obedient to her wishes, bent to the controls again nothing he could do could rouse the dormant engines into life. Some secret switch, it seemed, must first be engaged; but which it was, he did not know.

Weightless as a log upon the bosom of a stream, and as dead and lifeless, the sky craft hung moored between two branches… and they were lost, marooned half a mile above the world, in a part of the giant forest which even Niamh the Fair, for all her travels, had never visited before.

But not alone.

A deep-throated, menacing hiss woke Niamh from her frowning reverie as she bent over the panel, studying the multitude of dials, striving to remember which knobs and switches Ralidux had touched to pilot the craft.

She looked up into a snarling visage straight from the netherpits of some jungle hell… looked into the naked fangs and yawning jaws and lambent yellow gaze of a monster lizard, which had slithered out upon the nearer of the twin branches until it crouched now with twitching tail only an arm’s reach from the open cockpit.

4. Dragon’s Blood

One single glance at the crouching monster, and Niamh knew it for a dreaded ythid, the scarlet dragon of the treetops. Twice as long as a full-grown Bengal tiger, and many times its equal in sheer ferocity, the ythid was the most formidable of opponents.

And Zorak had only his bow!

Without a moment wasted on hesitation, the mighty archer from Tharkoon snatched up his bow and quiver. An instant later he had nocked and loosed an arrow into the snarling face of the treedragon. The hissing shaft glanced off the dragon’s scarlet mail, however, without causing it hurt.

Zorak’s second arrow caught the brute more effectively. The barbed shaft flew between the yawning jaws of the monster lizard and sank into the roof of its mouth.

Uttering a shrill screech like a steamboat’s whistle, the dragon writhed about, snapping and champing its jaws in a vain effort to hurt the unseen adversary whose sting sent red pain lancing through its minuscule brain. The feathered shaft shattered into fragments at one snap of those powerful jaws.

Zorak steadied himself on the edge of the cockpit, and directed his third shaft at the most vulnerable spot on the entire body of the ythid; its burning eye.

But nature has armed the scarlet treedragons of the World of the Green Star with a tough and horny integument where it is not otherwise mailed in a heavy layer of serpent-scales. This integument extends even to the eyes of the ythid, for the transparent membrane that can be lowered to protect the dragon’s vision is thick and durable as a leather shield. Useless, Zorak’s shaft went glancing away into the great golden leaves which fluttered in the breeze from the end of this branch.

And then the dragon pounced.

Niamh shrank back against the bucket-seats of the flying ship, fingers pressed against lips pale with fear.

The sucker-armed foreclaws of the dragon closed crushingly about Zorak’s upper arm, dragged him from his place in the cockpit, and drew him into the reach of those terrible jaws.

His right arm immobilized by the grip of the ythid, Zorak was unable to direct another shaft at his pain-maddened adversary. He let the bow fall from his hand, and twisted about so that his booted feet struck the snarling dragon in the mouth. Angrily hissing, the monster lizard snapped at the booted feet which clouted it full in the snout. Daggerlike fangs clicked together on the loose, folded-back tops of the bowman’s boots. Despite the toughness of the seasoned leather, it was ripped to shreds between the gashing fangs.

In a moment, Zorak himself would meet the same fate, Niamh knew.

The princess had known a pampered and luxurious life in her jeweled city. Danger, or hardship, or even discomfort, had seldom been permitted to roil or trouble the calm serenity of her cushioned existence. But the perilous adventures which had befallen the Princess of Phaolon in the last few months had tested the fiber of her spirit. The girl had found strength and courage and keen, wary, quick-witted resources within her, whose very presence she could never otherwise have expected.

Now, when her stalwart companion stood in imminent peril of destruction, it was not the way of Niamh to cower, trembling in dread. Instead the brave girl snatched up the only weapon to hand—her small blade. With this clenched in one firm little fist, she sprang forward lithely over the sleek nose of the craft, and leaped upon the dragon’s back.

Busily engaged in striving to mangle Zorak’s legs into a red pulp, it is doubtful if the ythid was even aware of Niamh’s slight weight as the girl sprang upon its back. It continued snapping and striking at Zorak’s kicking feet, while the bowman, still held in that crushing grip, fought and struggled to keep free of the dragon’s jaws. For if once those jaws closed upon his limb, the stalwart bowman would be maimed and crippled for life.

Niamh clambered up the slope of the ythid’s back and neck until she could reach its most vulnerable point with the small knife she held.

She drove the knife into the monster’s left eye.

But her blade was small and the horny membrane protecting the orb of vision was tough and slick, and the knife dealt the dragon only a slight wound, a mere scratch.

However, the ythid felt the slim knife go scraping down its outer eye and jerked back instinctively. In order to hold itself in this recoiled position, it was forced to relinquish its grip on the bowman. The viselike grip of the dragon’s hooked claws loosened and Zorak fell back against the sleek metal prow of the air ship.

His shredded boots swung out over the edge of the abyss as he slid down the curved, glistening fuselage of the ship. In desperation, Zorak flung out one strong hand and seized the top edge of the crystal windshield, halting his plunge over the edge.

Below his dangling legs the world fell away into a dim abyss miles deep. The nearest branch below him was some two hundred feet farther down, where immense and gauzy waxen blossoms swayed in the wind. Peering down, the bowman felt beads of cold sweat break out on his brow. Better by far the quick, mercifully brief death between the dragon’s jaws, than the long endless nightmare of that miles-long fall to the gloom-thick bottom of the world …

As the dragon reared and swerved its cruel jaws about to snap at the thing on its back, whose slight weight it now noticed, the sudden shift of its stance dislodged Niamh from her precarious perch between its shoulders.

She slid down the dragon’s back until her slide was halted by encountering the dorsal fins that ran in a sawtoothed row down the monster’s body to the tip of its lashing tail.

The ythid craned its head about, snapping viciously at the intrepid girl who dared ride it like a tame steed. Against those formidable fangs, Niamh’s little knife was a flimsy toy. The girl gasped, and shrank back from the lunge of that snarling snout.

Zorak, dragging himself back to a more secure footing, caught up his bow and quiver again from where they had fallen. With the unconscious ease born of long practice, he fitted an arrow to the bowstring and drew it taut in less time than it takes to describe the action.

The dragon’s head was turned away, so he aimed the barbed shaft at the comparatively soft throat of the ythid, directly beneath the hinge of its jaws, where the scales grew small and few.

The arrow hissed through space, and sank halfway to the feather in the lizard’s unprotected throat.

Voicing a strangled squawk, the ythid reared up, flailing out with both hooked forepaws, gasping for air. Blood gushed from its straining jaws; blood flowed in a scarlet river down its throat to choke off its breath.

“Jump clear!” Zorak boomed.

Niamh released her hold on the dragon’s bladed spine and half leaped, half fell to the rough surface of the branch. And not a moment too soon!

Death numbed the small brain of the tree-reptile even in the moment that it reared erect. Its sucker-like feet lost their grip. It sagged… crumpled… struck its head against the edge of the branch, and fell over.

It was gone.

Where Niamh crouched, breathless, her heart pounding violently, the curvature of the branch rounded steeply. Only the rough indentations of the bark surface afforded her a handhold and foothold. Now that the worst was over, the girl sagged wearily, as nervous reaction drained the strength which desperation had lent her slim body.

It was Zorak who saw with a thrill of alarm that she was pale to the lips and close to swooning. Even as he looked he saw her hands go limp, relaxing their hold.

He sprang from the prow of the flying craft, throwing himself across empty space, to seize hold of the nearer of the great gold-foil leaves.

Then he dropped down to where Niamh sprawled near a puddle of dragon-gore. With one strong hand he caught her arm and half-dragged her higher up on the top of the limb, where her footing would be more secure.

Gasping, as realization of her peril suddenly flooded through her, the princess clutched the rough edges of the bark and held on for dear life.

But Zorak’s leap had dangerously off-balanced him, and he held only the edge of a thin leaf. True, the leaf was as enormous as a ship’s sail, but still it was tissue-thin.

And it tore.

As fate would have it, his feet, kicking out for a purchase on the branch, skidded and slipped in the fresh-spilled blood his own barbed shaft had torn from the dragon’s throat.

He slipped, lost his balance, and fell.

Niamh uttered a choked cry and closed her eyes, willing the terrible moment not to have happened. But it had, and the brave and gallant Zorak of Tharkoon had fallen from the branch of the great tree to a horrible death far, far below.

The young girl was alone, helpless, lost; lacking the strong arm, the fighting courage, and the comforting companionship of a comrade in peril.

She crept to the edge of the branch and peered over, to see if the falling body of the bold, courageous archer had already dwindled into the depths below.

5. The Opal Tower

Below the mighty branch by whose edge the Princess of Phaolon crouched, the world fell away into the unbroken gloom of the abyss far, far below. Branch upon branch thrust from the huge tree to which she clung, their thickening veils of golden leaves obscuring her vision. Thus, Niamh could see nothing of the fate which had befallen the gallant bowman, although she feared the worst.

Alone now, and disconsolate, the girl wandered back to where the powerless sky craft was securely wedged in the fork of the twiglet. Although she strove to reenergize the mystery engines which drove the flying ship, its secret eluded her as it had eluded Zorak the Bowman. Eventually, she gave up the attempt.

By this point the day had progressed toward the noon hour, and the Green Star stood at the zenith of the mist-shrouded sky. Niamh became aware of a growing hunger, and realized that she had eaten nothing in more hours than she could number. She searched the cabin of the sky-ship, but if any supplies of liquids or food had been stored aboard the craft by Ralidux, she could not find them.

Niamh was a child of this strange and savage world and knew that survival among the enormous trees was a continuous struggle. One could only mourn a fallen comrade for so long. Soon the practical matters of finding food and drink and a haven for the night which would afford some safety from prowling predators must take precedence over one’s sorrow.

She replaced her slim knife in its hidden sheath. Then she took up the great bow of Zorak and the quiver of arrows that had fallen from his hand when he had sprung to her assistance. Armed with these, the resourceful princess set about procuring a meal for herself.

Climbing to the upper rondure of the branch to which the ship was moored, she followed the curving bough for a time, her keen eyes searching the leaves for game. Soon she came upon a fallen leaf the size of a canoe. Drying, it had curled into a long, slender, trough-shaped container, and she was relieved and heartened to find the leaf damp with a quantity of morning dew. Shaded from the rays of the Green Star by the vast branch directly above, the dewdrops within the curled leaf had not as yet evaporated. Therefore she stooped, cupped her hands, and drank her fill.

It may seem strange to my reader that a full-grown girl could quench her thirst on a few drops of dew (if any Earthling’s eye but my own shall ever peruse these journals in which I have recorded the narrative of my adventures on this distant world), but such was indeed possible on this planet of endless marvels. For here, where trees grow taller than Everests, dragonflies grow to the size of horses, and spiders are dangerous and man-killing predators, dewdrops are so huge as to each contain a pailful of water.

I have never been able to figure out the weird, disproportionate sizes on the World of the Green Star. On that planet, either humans alone retain their terrestrial size, while every other thing has grown tremendously larger, or all other forms of life but the human are of natural size, while men and women are minuscule. The immense size of dewdrops may indeed be a clue pointing to the latter theory, for on Earth, the surface tension which holds a drop of water together is too feeble to sustain a waterdrop to any particular size. Therefore, unless the laws of nature are radically different on the Green Star World, the evidence suggests that people are very small.

I have no idea if this chain of reasoning is correct or false. The mysteries of Lao are innumerable, and during my days on this strange planet I have penetrated to the core of very few of them.

At any rate, having satisfied her thirst, and after laving her face and hands in the cool, pure fluid, Niamh rose refreshed and conscious now of an overpowering hunger.

She continued on down the branch, striding toward the place where it joined at last to the mighty trunk of the tree. Born and bred to their life in the arboreal heights, the Laonese are as surefooted as cats and utterly fearless of heights, as well as racially immune to vertigo; had it not been so, the race would have died out long ago. Therefore, Niamh traversed the length of the branch with careless ease, treading a narrow and perilous rondure which would doubtless have unmanned the most intrepid of Terrene Alpinists, at a height unthinkable.

And at the end of the branch she found a mystery.

There, where the branch joined with the soaring trunk of the giant tree, a tower rose. It was unlike any building which Niamh had ever seen before.

For one thing, it was fashioned of some smooth, glassy substance like a ceramic, and it seemed as tough and durable as porcelain. The coloring of the peculiar stone was that of an opal, filled with bewildering and changeful hues; peacock blue, iridescent bronze, fiery crimson, gold. It seemed to be built all in one piece, like some enormous piece of cast metal, or a structure of organic crystal somehow grown to a preconceived design.

Stranger even than these marvels was the manner in which it was built. It was a slim, tapering spire whose gliding curves and sleek lines bore little or no resemblance to any style of architecture with which Princess of Phaolon was familiar. It was weirdly alien.

Now, Niamh had never beheld the Pylon of Sarchimus the Wise, in which Prince Janchan, Zarqa the Kalood, and I, had been imprisoned during our stay in the Dead City of Sotaspra. The Dead City had been composed of spires and domes similar to this Opal Tower in composition and design. Sotaspra had been the handiwork of Zarqa’s own people, the Kaloodha, a long-extinct race of Winged Men who had flourished a million years before.

The Princess of Phaolon did not guess that the Opal Tower was a survival from that lost age. Nonetheless she was curious. She approached the base of the spire with trepidation, being careful that she should not be seen—for there was no way of telling whether or not the Opal Tower was occupied, and if so, by what.

As she drew nearer to the enigma, she saw certain curious details that she had not noticed before. For instance, the spire seemed to have no windows, although there was something about halfway up the soaring wall that resembled a balcony. For another, the way the opalescent colors swirled and crawled with every change of the light lent the weird minaret the illusion of being alive.

The girl felt the pressure of unseen eyes upon her, and this sensation of being watched grew stronger the closer she approached to the glimmering spire. But she ignored this feeling consigning it to mere imagination.

At the base of the building, a tall, slender opening appeared. It was a doorway or portal of some kind, although in shape and proportion and design it resembled no such entryway that Niamh had ever seen.

The door—if it was a door—was open.

Niamh crouched behind a huge golden leaf, chewing her bottom lip in an agony of indecision. The tower afforded her shelter and protection against the night, which would be upon her in a few more hours. And it did not seem to be occupied; at least, there was no sign or token of present occupancy which met the eye. The tower had obviously been abandoned by its mysterious builder long ago, and might have stood thus, untenanted, for ages.

The girl hefted the bow of Zorak, which she carried nocked and ready. Even if the tower was inhabited, the tenant might not be unfriendly; and even if he was, it was not as if she were unarmed or unable to defend herself.

Determinedly setting her small jaw, Niamh the Fair rose lithely to her feet and strode toward the tall, pointed doorlike opening, the bow of Zorak held at the ready, her flowerlike face set in a resolute expression.

She entered by the tall opening without hesitation… and vanished.

Then followed a most peculiar and frightening thing; The doorway closed, like a mouth.

Where, but a moment before, there had been a peaked, pointed gap, the wall of the Opal Tower now presented a smooth, unbroken surface; a surface, moreover, whose changeful colors, suddenly, flushed crimson.

Crimson as human blood …