In the Green Star's Glow

21. On the March

Now it is perhaps time that we returned to consider what has happened to Zorak the Bowman. When we last saw the stalwart captain of Tharkoon, he had been rendered captive by the scarlet horde, a gigantic army of warrior ants, under the despotic rule of Rkhith. And, it should be added, of that wily and cunning arch-villain, Delgan, formerly Warlord of the Blue Barbarians, now counselor-in-chief to the insect monarch.

The ant-army advanced through nightly forays until at length it was in the vicinity of Niamh’s own realm, Phaolon, the Jewel City. Zorak assumed, probably with some accuracy, that it was Delgan’s own scheme to assault the city of Karn’s beloved princess. The mighty bowman of Tharkoon by now had begun to realize the tenacity of Delgan’s nature; once your enemy, he was your foe forever. If he could not destroy Karn and Niamh himself, he could at least conspire to overthrow their city and butcher its inhabitants.

During the period of his imprisonment by the kraan, it had so chanced that Zorak had enjoyed no occasion to converse privately with his former comrade, the great ant, Xikchaka. But as the last day of the march on Phaolon drew near, Xargo, the forger-of-weapons, who had been put in charge of Zorak by the ant-king, had cause to dispatch the bowman on an errand. This errand, as it happened, took the Tharkoonian near the squadron commanded by Xikchaka.

Thus the two met again, for the first time since Xikchaka had betrayed the human into the hands of his fellow ants, after Zorak had helped the ant warrior to escape from the cannibal blossom, and tended his needs when Xikchaka was too feeble to tend to himself.

The two confronted each other. Zorak drew himself up to his full height, crossing his massive arms upon his broad chest, and regarding the monster insect with a level, expressionless look.

The warrior ant returned his gaze. Since his head was armored in tough scarlet chitin, the features of Xikchaka were incapable of any display of emotion or alteration of expression, and the glitter of his ink-black eyes was similarly devoid of any sign of feeling or remorse.

“Greetings, Zorak,” he hailed the human warrior in his buzzing, clicking, rasping imitation of man-speech. “How has Zorak adjusted to his new condition in life? Has he been mistreated at the mandibles of Xikchaka’s kind?”

“I return your greetings, Xikchaka,” replied the bowman in a calm, dignified tone. “Xikchaka will perhaps be gratified to hear that Zorak has been treated well, and is comfortable in all ways, save one alone.”

“And what is that?” inquired the insect-creature solemnly.

“I am not free,” said Zorak. The warrior ant regarded him in silence for a time.

Then; “What is ‘free’?”

Zorak could not restrain the slight smile which touched his grim lips. It was, after all, a question which might give pause to the most learned of philosophers.

“To be free is to be one’s own master,” he said feelingly. “To come and go at one’s will, and as one wishes, without the permission of any other individual. This is the one quality of life which Zorak lacks. And, lacking it, all other things have lost their savor and are meaningless.”

The giant kraan considered this for a time, his knobbed antennae jerking and twitching.

“Is one ever truly free, whether kraan or human?” the emotionless creature questioned in return.

“Some of us are freer than others, at any rate,” said Zorak stoutly. “In the wilderness we were free, you and I.”

“Free, yes—to starve, to perish from thirst, to fall beneath the rending fangs of the first predator which came upon us,” commented Xikchaka. “In the horde, all of the difficulties of life are made simple; all decisions are made for us, all wishes are anticipated and answered before they can be articulated. There is no question of what to do or how to do it; one but follows the directions given by one’s superior. Surely, Zorak will admit that one is more comfortable when there are no decisions to be made, no problems to be solved, and when one has only to follow orders.”

“More comfortable, perhaps; but not more healthy. For to rely upon another for instruction in every act is to starve and stifle the initiative, to blunt and sap the will, and to reduce all of one’s faculties. Suppose Xikchaka more clearly perceives the necessities of the moment than does his nominal superior? Suppose Xikchaka has yearnings, aspirations, and intellectual interests for which his superior has neither understanding nor patience. Will not, then, the heart of Xikchaka go unsatisfied? If he has but no other purpose in life than to obey instructions, he limits himself to a role which is purely mechanical. It is no wonder to Zorak that Xikchaka’s kind have lost or submerged the gentler and more humane emotions love, kindness, mercy, and that very noble and precious quality we term ‘friendship.’ When one ceases to be personally responsible for the outcome of one’s actions, one becomes an emotionless robot. In Zorak’s society, each individual bears innumerable responsibilities toward one’s family and friends. A kindness must be repaid with a kindness, or the balance of civilized society turns to either indifference or selfishness.”

Xikchaka absorbed this, his antennae twitching as if in agitation of mind. Finally he spoke, and when he did the words came slowly.

“To accept personal responsibility for all one’s actions is to assume a frightful burden,” the warrior ant observed. “It is to accept responsibility for one’s own fate…”

Zorak nodded somberly. “That is true, Xikchaka, my friend. It is far easier to shrug off personal responsibility by saying you but followed the commands of your superior. But he may be your superior in rank, while remaining your inferior in intellect. It is in the nature of intelligent beings to desire to be the masters of their own fate. Any other condition, such as the servitude in which both Xikchaka and Zorak now toil, is slavery. And slavery is death to the will, to the mind, and to the spirit.”

The insect warrior said slowly, “Is it not more comfortable to be protected, and to belong to a vast common purpose? The thing which Zorak calls ‘freedom’ sounds dangerous and lonely.”

“It is,” Zorak admitted firmly. “But there is more to life than merely to be comfortable. A baby in its mother’s arms is comfortable and protected—or a grub, in the nesting place of a female. But to be a man, or a mature kraan, is better; and to be a man, in the truest sense of the word, is to be free. Which includes the freedom to be in danger or in discomfort.”

“Xikchaka will never understand the ways of men,” said the insect with a very human shaking of its immense, gleaming head.

They parted, then, without further words, and each pursued his own route.

That evening the ant horde halted in its march, for now it was only a branch-length away from the fork of the neighboring arboreal monarch in which Phaolon was built.

A kraan scouting party was sent out under Xikchaka from the parent body to investigate a small, artificial structure which was suspected to be of human workmanship. After a time, a scout returned to requisition a human captive, in order that the man might be questioned on the nature and purpose of the structure, as to whether or not it was an outpost of Phaolon, something in the nature of a watchtower, and perhaps inhabited by a body of armed human warriors.

As luck would have it, the man chosen for this purpose was Zorak the Bowman.

Under close guard, he ventured down the night-black branch until he came within sight of the artifact. It was a tower, the color of opals, which glowed softly with a gentle, all-pervasive luminance whose many hues were constantly shifting and changing, one color melting into another, like a ray of light directed to pass through a revolving prism.

From a forward vantage point, the scout ants observed the strange building while themselves remaining hidden behind a screen of foliage. Zorak was led forward until he, too, could observe the building unseen.

He found it curious and puzzling. It was patently obvious to the brawny bowman that the spire was not the work of human hands, or at least not the work of any civilization remotely akin to his own, for the design and fabrication of the tower, and the material from which it had been erected, was a complete mystery to him. Moreover, the building looked somehow deserted, although had you asked Zorak why he felt so, he could not have given you a reason.

“Is this a watchtower, guarding the approaches to Phaolon?” Xikchaka inquired in a rasping simulacrum of human speech.

Zorak was on the horns of a dilemma. In fact, he knew, or very strongly believed, that the Opal Tower was an artifact of one of the prehuman races which had formerly been the inhabitants of this planet. Since these races were known to be long extinct, he did not question that the tower was empty. However, he spoke up in equivocal terms, urging that the war party explore the structure, and did not give voice to his opinion as to its origin and history. From Zorak’s point of view, every conceivable excuse to delay the advance of the horde in its march against Phaolon was legitimate and most desirable. Every hour that the horde remained stationary gave the folk of Niamh’s city an extra margin of safety, and the opportunity to discover the kraan army before it attacked the outskirts of the city.

The ant warriors approached the base of the building with circumspection. The portal yawned widely open and unguarded.

They went in.

22. Under the Knife

Within the Opal Tower the days passed slowly, and time seemed nonexistent. Niamh went about her waking hours in a manner which can only be described as somnambulistic. Her first fears that the dwarfed madman had preserved her for one of his horrible experiments seemed demonstrably false. She guessed that he reserved her for another purpose, one as yet unknowable.

Nightly he conversed with her through the concealed opening in her room, while Number Nine served her dinner on low tables inlaid with precious stones. Each of these nocturnal monologues was like a long, rambling dissertation by a brilliant but warped intelligence. Quoron described with feverish excitement the progress of his experiments, and announced that he was very close to achieving his ultimate goal, which was the severance of a human head in conjunction with the perfect preservation of all of its cognitive faculties.

On more than one of these occasions, Niamh thought that she glimpsed the flicker of awareness in the dull, glazed eyes of the many-limbed automaton. It was almost as if the double-headed monstrosity was capable of understanding the import of Quoron’s conversation, and somehow remembered the operations which had served to render it the monstrosity it had become under his cunning knife.

For some reason which she could not explain, even to herself, that wan and feeble glimmer of understanding—almost of resentment—in the eyes of the monster gave her cause to hope. But to hope for what? She did not know.

Quoron appeared in her suite one evening, his hunched, diminutive form quivering with tension, his noble brow glistening with the perspiration of pure excitement.

“Tonight, young woman, you shall witness an event of unparalleled magnitude in the annals of scientific achievement!” the dwarf announced, his voice croaking and harsh with repressed eagerness.

“And what is that?” she inquired faintly. He lurched forward on bowed legs, thin lips fixed in a cold smile of triumph.

“My experiments have proved successful!” exulted the science wizard. “At last I have conquered the final obstacle in my path!”

“Do you mean you have discovered how to remove a human head without killing the brain?” asked Niamh, filled with apprehension. The dwarf leered with gloating in his eyes.

“No less than that,” he crowed triumphantly. “It is now fully within my power to sever the braincase from the trunk while the brain retains its cognitive faculties unimpaired. An ingenious contrivance of my own design continues to supply oxygen to the brain-cells even after the major arteries have been disconnected. And in this historic experiment, you—you!—shall play a vital role. Your name shall not go unforgotten in the annals of our age, for you, my dear, shall witness the operation and shall bear your testimony to my achievement of the miracle to the civilizations of this planet!”

“But—who is to be the subject of the operation?” the girl faltered, faint with relief that this grim honor was not to fall to her.

“I, myself,” exclaimed the cripple. “No longer shall I suffer the ignominy of possessing a brilliant intellect which is forced to go forever chained to this misshapen and revolting carcass! My head shall live on in solitary speculation, serenely aloof to the body, immortal—undying—godlike!”

“But who, then, will perform the operation?” the girl asked wonderingly. “Surely, it is not still your intention to permit this pitiful monstrosity to—to—?”

He chuckled. “Aye, but it is! Number Nine has been carefully trained and coached repeatedly in all steps of the process. With three hands at Nine’s disposal, my faithful monster will be able to perform the most delicate of all surgical operations in a mere fraction of the time possible to an ordinary human.”

With these words, the dwarf reached up, patting and stroking the motionless limbs of the immense creature which towered blank-eyed above him.

Niamh shuddered, but said nothing; A nameless foreboding filled her with apprehension …

The operating theater was in readiness, and without further ado the fiendish experiment commenced. Quoron commanded his giant servant to chain the princess to the wall so that the girl could not possibly interfere during the procedures. Then he assumed his position on the white metal table under the glare of sterile lamps.

The ghoulish operation began.

First, the injection of a local anesthetic rendered Quoron totally insensible to pain. The dwarfed madman would remain fully conscious during every step of the process of decapitation.

Then, one by one, the hideous colossus severed the veins and arteries of the neck, attaching these to throbbing pumps by means of transparent tubes. Quoron explained that the device he called his “artificial heart” would monitor the circulation and purification of blood during the actual operation. Not for a single moment would his brain be deprived of its vital supply of freshly oxygenated blood.

Then Number Nine began severing the head of Quoron from his deformed body.

Several times during the process, Niamh averted her eyes in disgust and revulsion. But a sick fascination, for the most part, kept her attention to the incredible surgical feat.

For all its ghastly appearance and apparent idiocy, the four-armed monster had been meticulously trained. It was amazing to watch those uncouth limbs, performing miracles with the razor-thin scalpels, never faltering, never betraying their innate clumsiness for an instant.

Throughout the operation, the head of Quoron remained awake, following every step of the procedure with glittering eyes, although unable to speak or to comment until such time as the head was completely severed and its vocal organs were attached to the artificial breathing device which would make it possible for the decapitated head to make audible sounds again.

The final step—that of cutting through the spinal column—was performed with a small power saw. When the column was completely severed, the head was now independent of the body.

The last attachments were made. Number Nine stepped back as if to observe its grisly handiwork.

The head of Quoron hung in midair, supported by the various tubes and pipes which connected it to the life-support system. It smiled triumphantly at Niamh, thin, colorless lips drawing back from dry teeth in a rictus devoid of mirth. All that remained now was for Number Nine to attach the end of the air-hose to the stump of the neck, and the severed head could speak.

Number Nine returned the small saw to the tray of surgical implements, and reached for the organic jelly with which it would fasten the breathing apparatus to the head. But as it did so, its glazed eye was caught and held by a small and seemingly inoffensive piece of apparatus on the metal table.

This was a small tube of flame, resembling a Bunsen burner, in whose blaze the instruments had been sterilized.

Something flickered within the opaque eyes of the two-headed monster. Was it a wisp of memory—the residue of pain-recollection of that moment when its master, for an idle whim, had commanded it to hold its fingers in the flame of the candle in order to demonstrate to Niamh its complete helplessness to oppose the will of Quoron?

Perhaps …

The lumbering giant stared at the naked flame and something like a whimper escaped from its lax, loosely open lips. An expression moved over the masculine head which was repeated, a few instants later, by the feminine head.

An expression of fear was followed by another expression, which was unreadable to Niamh.

In a moment, however, the twin brows were distorted in a double scowl, and the expression became discernible.

It was anger.

Quoron’s eyes had followed this, and now they glittered with feverish impatience and with the first, faint stirrings of apprehension. Time and again the lips of the bodiless head opened as if to frame words, but no sound could escape from that twitching mouth, as yet unconnected to the air supply. The tongue came out and moistened dry lips, and again the mouth strove to frame a vocal command. But no words came from the helpless head.

While Niamh watched with shuddering revulsion, the monster bent over the equipment table, and carefully selected a long, thin-bladed knife.

Then it slowly approached the dangling head, the hilt of the knife clenched in its huge upper right hand.

While the eyes of Quoron widened in a fixed and ghastly stare of unbelieving, uncomprehending horror, the giant reached forward with the knife. Its four eyes glared down at the helpless head of its master. The expression in those eyes astonished the princess, for the eyes of Number Nine now mirrored neither hatred nor anger nor even rage.

Their gaze was the cold, thoughtful, level, measuring look that appears in the eyes of a judge as he calmly ponders the fate of a despicable criminal.

Then the hand which held the knife lifted, drew back, and plunged the blade to its hilt into Quoron’s brain.

23. Unexpected Meetings

The decision which Varda reached was the only one possible to one of her temperament. Madly infatuated with me, she could not endure the idea of slaying me herself; but neither could she permit me to escape without her. So she set me free.

Donning my garments and resuming my weapons, which she had kept stored in her cabin, I was soon ready to depart. Indeed every moment counted, for even now the vindictive Iona must be halfway back to Varda’s cabin, at the head of the troop of girls.

Together, Varda and I propped open the rear window—the same one through which Iona had spied upon us only minutes earlier. I lifted the slender girl over the sill and vaulted through the opening as soon as she was clear of it. Hand in hand we crept through the gloom of darkness, seeking the place where the wild girls had tethered, my skysled to the farther side of the branch.

I could not see my hand in front of my face, so deep and thick was the unbroken blackness of the night. But Varda knew every step of the way, and guided us with swift, unerring skill to the spot.

Examining the vehicle, I was relieved to learn that the teen-aged savages had merely emptied the sled of its stores, but had not tampered with either the controls or the engines. I lifted Varda aboard and showed her how to strap herself into one of the long shallow troughlike depressions scooped out in the shape of a human body. Then, assuming the pilot’s position, I energized the vehicle, and drew in the anchor-line that held us fastened to the twig. By the time Iona had burst triumphantly into Varda’s cabin, to find the surprise of her life, we had glided away from the limb and soon became lost in the dense gloom.

It is dangerous to fly by night through the world-forest, because of the dangers of collision with a branch or bole, and the ever-present hazards of becoming enmeshed in one of the monster spider webs spun between the giant trees by the immense albino spiders the Laonese call the xoph. So we flew only as far as the adjoining branch before tethering our craft in a safe place.

Or, at least, in a place we assumed to be safe.

With dawn we had a surprise of our own, however; and it was every bit as much of a shock as the jolt our inexplicable absence probably gave to Iona.

When the kraan scouting party burst into the gleaming white room under the blaze of the sterile lamps, they beheld an unfathomable tableau.

Suspended amid a maze of pipes and flexible tubing, the lifeless head of a noble-looking man hung with a scalpel thrust directly between its eyes.

Shackled to the farther wall, a slim, exquisite young woman stared at them with eyes wide and frightened in the tense white oval of her face.

From a distant chamber came the sound of shattering glass and the crash of overturned tables. A moment later there appeared in the doorway a towering colossus with four arms, three legs, and two heads, brandishing a length of metallic tubing.

It was Number Nine.

After wreaking a dire but deserved vengeance upon its mad creator, the shambling horror had run amok. First it had gone on a rampage through the outer laboratory, smashing the vessels which held in a ghastly semblance of vitality the several organs removed from human bodies, which Quoron had striven to imbue with life.

Then it entered the white chamber and put the idiot head of Wa-Wa out of its misery.

Now it burst into the operation theater and charged the ant scouts, waving its improvised metal club. The berserk giant went crashing through the great warrior ants, hurling them aside, shattering their carapaces of horny chitin with terrific blows, swinging its metal club with irresistible force.

The kraan, their antennae jerking in agitation, withdrew from the chamber, forcing Zorak to accompany them. Crowded together in the narrow corridor, the ant warriors could not easily bring into play their mighty pincers or the fierce claws with which their multiple-jointed limbs were armed. One by one they died under the blows of the mad giant’s club, but not before their sharp, toothed mandibles had wrought savage wounds in the torso and arms of the colossus, which soon streamed blood from a dozen injuries.

Clustering at the base of the tower, Xikchaka dispatched two ant warriors and Zorak the Bowman to rejoin the main body of the horde and report their discovery.

They had not got far from the site of the Opal Tower, however, before a new marvel burst upon them in the form of a tall, gaunt, naked manlike figure with leathery golden hide and immense batwings.

It was Zarqa the Kalood!

One of the ant warriors thrust the long spear it held at the weird figure as it hovered on flapping, ungainly wings two yards above the branch’s surface. The Winged Man reached out with long arms and snatched the weapon from the grip of the kraan who was jabbing it in his direction.

Then, with miraculous precision, Zarqa flung the heavy spear directly at the great red ant, transfixing its body. So powerful was the impetus of his spear-cast that the spear not only penetrated the kraan chitinous armor, but pierced its body, pinning it to the branch to which it clung with many feet.

Simultaneously, Zorak, instantly recognizing the gaunt Kalood as a friend, turned on the second ant scout, jerked his tether from its claws, and sprang upon its back. While sharp horny mandibles chomped and scraped against his burly forearm, the stalwart bowman thrust one arm between the jaws of the huge insect, seized its hooked snout in the other hand, and with one surge of massive thews, broke its neck.

Twitching spasmodically, the scarlet monster collapsed, and Zorak sprang free. Snatching away his choke collar, the brawny bowman drew his first deep breath as a free man in many days.

The Kalood came down to a fluttering landing on the branch and in a moment they clasped hands in heartfelt greeting.

I had not expected to find you, bowman, said the Winged Man in his solemn telepathic mode of speech, which was like a small quiet voice speaking amid your own thoughts.

“But I am very glad you did!” Zorak said feelingly, grinning. “Two against one are very unequal odds, especially when the two are great killer kraan.”

I was searching by mental means for my lost companions, continued Zarqa, and it seemed to me that I detected the radiations of the mind of Princess Niamh, which were emanating from a tower of my race very near to where we are standing. Flying toward the spire I observed you being led along the branch by these two insect creatures, and could not afford to let pass the opportunity of rescuing you, as well.

“For which I confess myself extremely grateful.” Zorak smiled. “And you are indeed correct; the princess is bound to an upper chamber within the tower, which lies a ways farther up the branch from here. My kraan captors and I were just returning to the main body of the ant-army to summon reinforcements to surround the tower, which is held by a murdering monster with an unusual assortment of arms, legs, and heads.”

Then it is imperative that we repair to the tower at once, in order to rescue the princess from the clutches of the ogre you describe, commented Zarqa.

Zorak heartily agreed. Taking up the weapons with which the two ants had been armed, he and the Winged Man headed at once for the tower of Quoron.

But they were too late …

After the berserk giant had driven the giant ants from the laboratory, leaving her alone and still helplessly manacled to the wall, Niamh sagged wearily in her chains, pondering the peculiar reverses of fortune. Had it not been Zorak the Bowman she had, however briefly, glimpsed at the rear of the ant party when they had entered the chamber? She could have sworn it was indeed the gallant Tharkoonian archer who had so recklessly sprung to her assistance many days ago in Komar, when the sky craft drifted free of the palace roof.

Relieved as she was to discover that the stalwart bowman had somehow survived his fall from the branch, after their battle with the dragonlike ythid, the spirits of the princess wilted within her as he was snatched from her sight again by the monster insects, who seemed to be his masters.

Now she was alone in the Opal Tower with a raving maniac!

It was a situation so dire and perilous as to dishearten even the most sanguine of heroines. But there was more to come, as Niamh soon discovered.

For she was not alone …

Appearing as suddenly as an apparition, the huge form of a mighty insect filled the doorway to the operating theater.

The red ant stood observing her from its featureless casque of a head with multicellular eyes like enormous, many-faceted black crystals. No human emotion was readable in the cold glitter of those uncanny eyes.

Beneath its head, a low-slung jaw moved slightly. Sawtoothed mandibles rasped against each other in a slow, rubbing motion which sent a thrill of fearful anticipation through the girl’s slight frame.

Many-jointed feet moved spiderwise. Claws clicking against the white tiles of the floor, the gigantic killer ant moved slowly into the room.

The glare of sterilizing lamps gleamed on the oily red chitin armor that entirely covered its swelling thorax.

While Niamh watched, eyes fixed in fascination upon the silent monster, it approached the wall to which she was chained, moving gradually. The stealthy, almost furtive, way in which it advanced upon her reminded the helpless girl of the manner in which a cunning treedragon stealthily creeps upon its unsuspecting prey.

Across the upper breast of the monster kraan inexplicable signs or markings were painted. Several of its minor limbs grasped edged metal weapons. From these two facts, and the orderly manner in which the party of ants had withdrawn from the room before the charging colossus, the girl deduced that the giant insect was of coldly unhuman intelligence.

But having never seen a specimen of the kraan so closely before, she had no way of guessing its mood or its purpose.

She watched with eyes wide in hypnotic fascination as the enormous insect came within a few feet of where she was bound.

Then it reached with clawed limbs for her, and she screamed.

24. The Kiss

The great ant reached for her and Niamh screamed and shrank against the wall. Grasping her binding chains in its claws, the kraan thrust its head forward and crunched the links of the chain between its horny mandibular jaws.

After several tries, the kraan succeeded in biting through the chain.

And Niamh was free …

She stared with unbelieving eyes at the, giant insect as it assisted her in stripping away the last vestiges of her bondage. Then, rasping and clicking its mandibles together in a weird and, at first, unintelligible imitation of human speech, the warrior ant addressed the girl it had set free.

“Once a male member of your species assisted Xikchaka to freedom from bondage,” the insect-creature said. “Later, we assisted each other in the wilderness; but Xikchaka’s human companion was captured by the warriors and scouts of Xikchaka’s own kind. In memory of the kindness which a member of your species once performed for this unworthy and ungrateful kraan, Xikchaka has served you as the human, Zorak, served Xikchaka.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” whispered Niamh faintly. The insect-creature regarded her with solemn, emotionless gaze. Then it slowly shook its huge helmlike head from side to side in a negative gesture obviously, copied from humans.

“It is not ‘kindness,’ ” said the great ant. “The kraan do not understand such human emotions as the one called ‘kindness.’ No; it is simply logical for Xikchaka to do this. A returned favor balances the score. Perhaps, at some period in the unguessable future, Xikchaka will be in a difficult or a dangerous position, and you will be able to lend him aid. Go, now, to that freedom which it seems you humans prize so highly. The night is dark. Xikchaka’s fellow kraan will not be able to observe you pass, for he has commanded them to withdraw from the vicinity of the tower into a place of concealment. As for the deformed human giant, it has been slain. Go, then. But if ever in your wanderings you encounter a male of your species, one Zorak by name, say to him that perhaps he has been instrumental in teaching one kraan, at least, the meaning of ‘friendship.’ “

Niamh went, and speedily, fleeing from the tower and down the branch in the darkness to the place where she had left the sky-ship of Ralidux.

Thus it occurred that when Zarqa the Kalood and Zorak the Bowman came to the Opal Tower they found it untenanted by anyone save the dead.

Among them, the body of Niamh of Phaolon, happily, was not to be found. Neither were the remainder of the scouting party, or Xikchaka. Thus it was that the two had no notion of what had become of the princess nor of where she had fled.

Do not worry, friend Zorak, the Winged Man reassured his comrade. She cannot have gone far on foot, and by mind-search I shall soon locate her.

“That is all very well, since you have wings, but I must go on foot,” remarked the bowman. “We must part here, I am afraid. If you manage to find the princess, tell her that the ant horde is under the insidious influence of Delgan, the former Warlord of the Blue Barbarians, and that it is poised to march against Niamh’s own city of Phaolon, which cannot lie more than a tree or two away from this branch. Alert the warriors of Phaolon, I beg you!”

We shall carry the warning to them together, you and I, advised Zarqa with a slight smile. For, having once located you, it is not my intention to permit us to became separated again. My wings are as strong as they are swift, and I can easily bear your weight for a time.

So saying, the tall Kalood bent and picked up the bowman. Spreading his batlike wings, Zarqa sprang lightly into the air to resume his mental quest.

Niamh found to her delighted surprise that the vessel remained exactly at the place where she had left it, and had seemingly not been tampered with during her absence. Entering the cabin of the craft the girl examined the controls, anxious to be gone before other members of the ant horde might come upon her and make her their captive.

Tugging at the levers and thrusting the control studs at random, the girl straggled to find the secret of driving the aerial vehicle which earlier had eluded her. After some experimentation, she at last discovered the correct combination of actions by which she was able to energize the sky craft, and she sent it gliding into the air.

The darkness of night was still upon the world, but Niamh knew there were only a few hours until dawn. Reaching the tree nearest to the one in which she had been held captive in the Opal Tower by Quoron, she tethered the vehicle to a twig and composed herself for a brief period of slumber until dawn should drive away the dark and make further flight possible.

She could not have guessed the astounding sight her eyes would behold with the break of day.

Varda and I had taken refuge from the night in the branches of a giant tree. Here we decided to spend the remainder of the night, to fly on with morning.

We were in no danger from pursuit by the angry and vengeful girls of Varda’s band. The Amazon girls had neither zaiph nor dhua and thus could not follow us between the trees. This fact notwithstanding, I was in considerable danger from Varda, for the impetuous and amorous teen-ager insisted on snuggling up next to me while we slept the remainder of the night away.

More than once I half awoke from a doze to find her warm arms entwined about my neck. I would, on these occasions, disengage myself as gently as was possible without disturbing her. And once I woke to find her head buried in my shoulder. The warm fragrance of her breath caressed my nostrils.

I felt distinctly uncomfortable, and heartily wished for dawn.

When the first beams of the Green Star began to lighten the nocturnal gloom, we roused ourselves from our rest and prepared to resume our aerial journey. But Varda was in an obstinate mood. She pouted and glowered and refused to permit me to take off from the bough until I granted her one request.

I did not require the humid gleam in her eyes to tell me the nature of that request.

I tried to be firm.

“Listen to me, girl,” I said in a low voice. “I have already told you that I cannot love you, for my heart is foresworn and I am vowed to another. The most we can ever be is good friends. Varda, do not make our hazardous journey even more uncomfortable by insisting upon that which can never be! Try to understand that I love another girl, and must ever be true to her.”

“But—!”

“You are no longer the master of the situation, nor am I any longer your slave, and thus obedient to your every whim,” I reminded her. “The situation is now more or less reversed; I am the master of this vessel, and you must do as I say.”

“Very well, Karn,” she said meekly. Then; “Oh, Karn…”

I sighed vexedly.

“What is it?”

“I will annoy you no further,” she said in a small voice. “I ask only one favor of you… small recompense, indeed, for my having freed you and assisted you to escape. One thing only do I beg of you.”

“Very well; what is it?”

“A kiss,” she whispered. “Only one kiss … a little one, at that. To remember you by…”

I should not, of course, have given in to her wheedling, but I did. After all, she had set me loose, and fled with me, giving up everything she had possessed, her friends, her position as chieftainess, all for me. I sighed and yielded to her coaxing.

“Very well, then, but only one. Come here.”

She came joyously into my arms and her slim, vibrant body nestled within the circle of my embrace. She tilted her head to meet my lips, and her mouth was warm and tender and sweet, I kissed her quite thoroughly.

Then she broke off the kiss, stiffening in my arms with a sharp little cry.

I glanced around behind me events, she shuddered, yawned, stretched, and got to her feet.

The faint murmur of voices came to her and she froze. The voices—there were two of them—were pitched too low for her to make out the words.

Peering about, she found that she had moored the aerial craft near the terminus of one mighty bough, where the branch divided into numerous twigs from which sprang gigantic golden leaves. These leaves effectively screened from her view whatever lay on the other side.

Anxious to discover the identity of the other persons who shared this part of the branch with her, she parted the leaves and peered through at a curious scene.

Tethered to one twig floated a strangely shaped metal craft.

Standing close together on the deck of this weightless vehicle were the half-naked figures of a young boy about her own age, with shoulder-length hair the color of raw gold. His broad and suntanned back was turned to her and Niamh could not see his features.

He was holding in his arms a slim young girl perhaps a few years younger than himself. As Niamh watched, the two embraced and kissed tenderly.

Suddenly, the girl cried out and pulled away, staring at Niamh’s face through the leaves. The boy turned around and looked to see what had frightened her.

I stared at Niamh incredulously, my face crimsoning. The features of my long-lost, beloved princess whitened slowly, as the color drained from them. Her eyes were wide, and filled with shock, with hurt, and with disbelief.

Then they filled with tears. With a cold expression of disdain, Niamh looked me up and down, and turned away.

25. The Ending of It

With dawn the sentinels perched high aloft in the tallest towers of Phaolon discovered the advance of the crawling horde of scarlet kraan. In their countless thousands the giant warrior ants approached the edges of the Jewel City, brandishing their glittering weapons.

Although taken completely by surprise, the Phaolonese were swift to arm themselves for the conflict. Silver-throated trumpets rang from the tower-tops, and the warriors of the city donned their lacquered mail, took up their slim lances, and belted their swords to their sides. Then, clambering into the saddles of their great war-zaiphs, they soared in steeply ascending spirals, and darted down upon the vanguard of the kraan horde.

Their metal sparkling in the glowing shafts of emerald radiance that streamed between the mighty boles of the world-forest, pennons of brilliant hues fluttering from the tips of their spears, mounted on immense insects with stiff wings like sheeted opals, the chevaliers of Phaolon resembled so many elfin knights flashing through the air on winged steeds to do battle with some goblin army which had crept upon them in the night, invading Fairyland.

The Phaolonese warriors had the advantage of being able to strike from aloft, while the crawling ants were earthbound. But, although the shining lances and keen edged swords of the cavaliers cut a terrible swath through the outer fringes of the advancing horde, the kraan were as numberless as the leaves of the trees. For every warrior ant which fell before the flying knights, there were a dozen ready to take its place.

Several disadvantages fought against the side of the folk of Phaolon, and the worst of them all was that the Jewel City had no walls to protect it from an invasion. This was only natural and understandable, since the humans who dwelt in the world-forest used aerial steeds, and no city can wall itself against an attack from the air. Now this factor weighed heavily against Niamh’s people, for soon the first squadrons of the ant horde were among the houses built upon the outskirts of the city, and were crawling down the narrow streets, slaughtering everyone they encountered. The flying warriors could not defend the streets of Phaolon from above with any facility, due to the breadth of the zaiphs’ wings.

In the center of the horde stood Delgan, a smile of aloof amusement on his thin lips, as he watched the invasion. All of this he had carefully foreseen, and thus far it was going according to his plans. Beside him crouched the gigantic figure of the ant monarch, Rkhith, his immense and many-legged form glittering with bejeweled trappings.

The battle progressed. Despite everything the aerial knights of Phaolon could do to prevent them, the forefront of the insect invasion poured into the streets of the city.

Before long it would be all over, Delgan knew. And he smiled at the thought.

Then something happened which Delgan had not foreseen. Down through the morning sky hurtled a gleaming metallic craft bearing a boy and a girl. The girl Delgan did not know, but the boy he knew all too well, and he ground his teeth together in rage at his untimely appearance.

It was Karn, with Varda beside him, on the skysled.

The ant warriors recoiled at the sudden appearance of this strange flying vehicle, and while they hesitated in their advance, a second sky craft materialized above the crowded streets of Phaolon. This one was piloted by a young woman who was also known to Delgan—Niamh the Fair!

The two aerial vessels skimmed low over the streets, and the ant horde cringed beneath the shadows of their keels, and became disorganized and jammed together so that they could hardly move, as the kraan behind pressed forward into the ranks of those in the forefront of the assault.

While this momentary congestion lasted, while the advancing warrior ants hesitated to eye these flying vehicles with trepidation and alarm, the archers of Phaolon seized the moment to pour their feathered shafts into the packed mass of ants. The barbed hail swept through the horde and took a ghastly toll of the attackers, for so tightly were the kraan jammed together that virtually every shaft loosed from the bows of Phaolon transfixed the head or thorax of an ant warrior.

As soon as the attackers managed to overcome their momentary hesitation, and began to disentangle themselves and to press forward again, yet a third flying enemy appeared in the air above the beleaguered city. This one was the most peculiar of them all—a batwinged, naked, golden man with a burly warrior in his arms. It was none other than Zarqa the Kalood, with Zorak of Tharkoon.

The Tharkoonian had recovered his bow and quiver of arrows from the Opal Tower, for Quoron had stored the weapon away when he had relieved Niamh of it in her dungeon cell while she slept. And the mighty bow soon wreaked a fearful toll of kraan. Flying above the host of swarming scarlet insects, Zarqa and Zorak fought as a team, the telepathic Kalood discerning the officers of the horde by mental means, and calling Zorak’s attention to these. The bowman then slew them one by one, while Zarqa flew high above, well out of reach of the weapons of the kraan.

The social system under which the insect-creatures toiled exposed its most crippling flaw then.

True, Zorak had guessed the identity of that innate weakness in the kraan civilization early on, but now it became obvious to all.

With their superiors and commanders slain by Zorak’s bow, the ant warriors milled about, dazed and bewildered, unable to adjust to a change in the situation of the moment, and unwilling to act on their own initiative.

Without their officers to tell them what to do, the warrior ants were confused and helpless.

Sensing this, both Karn and Niamh landed their flying vehicles atop the tall buildings and took aboard as many of the Phaolonese archers as their craft could carry.

Then they flew out over the thronged streets again, firing a deadly storm of arrows down into the staggering, entangled, befuddled kraan.

Taking heart, the armored chivalry of Phaolon, the princess and warriors and nobles, the yeomen and the guardsmen, too, charged down the streets of the city to hew a crimson path deep into the heart of the ant invasion.

Simultaneously under attack from above and from their fore, the warrior kraan could think of nothing else but to turn back, and regroup, and await new orders. Put the ant warriors in the rear continued to crawl forward in obedience to the last orders they had been given. In no time they were hopelessly jammed together, as the front ranks tried to retreat. Soon, they were so closely packed together, that they could not move in either direction.

The archers in the skysled and the other craft, and Zorak’s mighty bow, and the flying cavalry of Phaolon, swept them with a barbed storm of death, again and again.

They died in their hundreds, and in their thousands.

And even Xikchaka saw the evidence of Zorak’s arguments, and knew the human had spoken the truth.

Sensing the inevitability of defeat, Rkhith wheeled about and commanded his retinue of advisers and senior officers and his personal guards to retreat. Delgan, however, refused. The blue-skinned man was in a frenzy, his lean, aristocratic features distorted in a feral snarl, his skin glistening with cold perspiration, the glint of maniacal fury in his eyes. In one hand he brandished the zoukar, the death-flash, which he had stolen from the boy Karn long ago, and to which he had clung all this while.

“Do not flee,” he panted. “All is not lost. Listen to me, you crawling fool! With this I can bring down the aerial warriors, and the day is yet ours—”

But Rkhith was beyond the reach of argument or reason. The giant kraan had never before known the acrid taste of fear, but he knew it now, and he did not care for the taste of it. Cold logical thinking had deserted him, and the most primal of the emotions now reigned in its stead. The insect monster, in his frenzied haste to be gone from this scene of incredible carnage, did not recognize the wily human who had insidiously worked his way into Rkhith’s inner councils. He knew only that a despised human blocked his path.

The many-jointed limbs of Rkhith were armed with terrible claws and pincers. These reached out and seized upon the wild-eyed man. Cruelly sinking their saw-teeth into his flesh, they lifted his writhing, kicking form high into the air, and cast him to one side. Then Rkhith crawled hastily farther down the vast bough, at whose base the sparkling spires and domes of Phaolon were built, and fled.

But not very far.

Streaming with gore from his many wounds, Delgan levered himself up into a sitting position from where he had been flung, and with shaking hands aimed the zoukar after the fleeing form of his one-time master.

The bolt of lightning struck Rkhith from behind, with a sizzling flash of electric fire that momentarily lighted the air to intolerable brilliance.

A wriggling mass of seething flames, the king-ant died. Crisped and blackened, his corpse rolled down the steep side of the branch and feel to the unknown floor of the forest far below.

Sagging back, Delgan uttered one wry, croaking laugh. Then blood gushed from between his grinning jaws and his eyes went dead and empty, and he sprawled lifeless, the zoukar still clutched tight in his hand.

They had to pry his fingers apart to recover the death-flash, when they found the body …

In this manner the invasion of Phaolon was ended.

And so—almost—is my tale.