In the Green Star's Glow

The Aftermath

And so it was that, in the moment of its greatest peril, Niamh and Zarqa and Zorak and Varda and I appeared, to turn the tide of the battle.

With the scarlet horde decimated, its broken remnants fleeing in disorganized retreat, we landed our aerial vessels upon the steps of the palace to receive the hysterical plaudits of the victorious throng.

Men and women wept openly at the sight of their beloved princess, lost to them so very long, and now miraculously returned in the very hour of their supreme need.

The lords and courtiers of the palace pressed around Niamh, tears of joy coursing down their cheeks, to wrap her slim form in sumptuous robes of crimson, and to set upon her small proud head the glittering coronet of royalty. Many among them I recognized, having known them during my previous incarnation as Chong the Mighty. Among these was the old sage and philosopher of the court, Khin-nom, wah had taught me the language of the Laonese.

But, of course, they did not know me. It is beyond the ability of men to recognize a spirit clothed in a new body.

After greeting her courtiers and accepting their homage, Niamh turned to thank us for our aid. She stood on tiptoes to place a chaste kiss on the gaunt, leathery cheek of the solemn-eyed Kalood, and for one moment I thought I glimpsed a very human emotion in the eyes of the Winged Main.

Zorak knelt and kissed her hand, and she raised the stalwart bowman to his feet and proclaimed him a knight-baronet of Phaolon. She even spoke briefly with Varda, and the girl was shy and blushing at suddenly being surrounded with such magnificence. But she whispered a terse message in the ears of my beloved, who as yet had not given me so much as a single glance. How I regretted having yielded so foolishly to Varda’s plea! Then Niamh and Varda parted, having exchanged a brief conversation. Niamh seemed flushed and starry-eyed, and Varda gave me a look that was demure, yet conspiratorial.

What was the headstrong, impetuous, infatuated girl up to now? Hadn’t she done enough to destroy my hopes for happiness?

Niamh came over to where I stood, and took me by the hand, rather surprisingly, and led me before the assembled throng.

“Greet the young hero who is to become your prince—and my husband,” she said.

There was a moment of silence. The Phaolonese seemed shocked, but not one of them was as surprised as I was. Then they burst into cheers, and Niamh looked at me, with a tender and tremulous smile.

“Varda has told me the true story of the intimate scene I witnessed this morning,” said my beloved in a small voice. “I should never have doubted for one moment your love for she whom you once knew as ‘Shann of Kamadhong.’ Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, Karn?”

For answer I swept her into my arms and there, before the vast assemblage, I kissed her most thoroughly indeed.

Thus was my world won back for me, now and forever mine.

There was one question left unanswered, and it was wise old Khin-nom who put it into words for the rest of us.

“I still do not understand why the center of the kraan horde broke and crumbled so swiftly into a milling and disorganized throng,” he murmured, “when the aerial attack was inflicting heavy losses only on the forefront of the attack.”

Zorak smiled and supplied us with the answer.

“Xargo the smith and I arranged the diversion long before,” admitted the bowman. “We had been laboring to complete weapons for the kraan; while so engaged, we also manufactured weapons with which to arm the human slaves held in bondage to the horde. When the attack was blunted by Phaolonese resistance, and by our triple assault from the air, Xargo seized the momentary distraction of the horde chiefs to launch the slave revolt we had planned.” And, without further ado, he brought forward the burly and battered and blushing figure of the smith, Xargo, whom Niamh ennobled for his part in the great victory.

It must be related here that our flying troops followed the fleeing kraan and negotiated with their new leader, that same Xikchaka who had freed Niamh from her chains, the release of all human captives and a vow never again to attack the cities of men, in return for our permission to let the surviving kraan escape the tree. We could otherwise have continued to pursue and slay them until the entire horde was destroyed.

These assurances Xikchaka solemnly gave us, and in greeting his former comrade, Zorak, the warrior ant acknowledged that his criticisms of the weaknesses inherent in the rigidly authoritarian ant civilization had been demonstrably accurate.

“From now on, Zorak, know that under the chieftaincy of Xikchaka, individual initiative and freedom of choice will be encouraged. Never again will the horde of Xikchaka take human slaves, nor attempt to attack a settlement of men. There is room enough, and more, on this world, for both human beings and the kraan to mutually coexist without conflict.”

With those words they parted, and Xikchaka led his folk farther into the world-forest, having surrendered all captives,

Our victory left us with many things yet to accomplish. Niamh dispatched Zorak and Zarqa in the sky-ship, requesting them to return to the isle of Komar and assist Prince Janchan, Princess Arjala, and my old comrade-in-arms, Klygon the Assassin, to join us in Phaolon.

Then Niamh herself, accompanied by the maid Varda and Arjala, flew in the sky-ship to the camp of the girl savages. They managed to persuade the Amazon girls to accept Phaolon’s offer of assistance; some of the girls wished to return to their former homes in the city of Barganath, to which they were flown on zaiph-back under the escort of a full company of the flying Phaolonese cavalry; others, however, decided to accept Niamh’s gracious invitation to come back to Phaolon with her, and find new homes and new friends at court.

The wild girls are settling in nicely, and are beginning to lose their savage ways.

Varda has become one of my wife’s ladies-in-waiting. Changeful and mercurial as ever, the impetuous girl has now conceived of a furious passion for Zorak, and the stalwart bowman is hard put to resist her enticements and blandishments. Since the women of the Laonese marry quite young, as in India, it is quite possible that the former Tharkoonian will not long persist in keeping the willful girl at arm’s length, and Zorak and Varda may, before long, follow Niamh and I to the altar.

Yes, we are husband and wife at last, my beloved and I. We were wed in the great throneroom of Phaolon by the high-priest, Lord Eloigam, before a mighty throng which numbered in the thousands. All of my dear friends were there to witness our long-delayed nuptials, those who had fought at my side during innumerable adventures—Zarqa the Kalood and Klygon the Assassin, Prince Janchan and his mate, the Goddess Arjala, Zorak the Bowman and the maiden, Varda. As well, Prince Andar the Komarian attended the festivities, with a retinue of his nobles, those who had toiled with us at the oars of the slaveship Xothun.

The ceremonies ended; I gathered my dear one into my arms, and sealed our nuptials with a kiss. Then swords flashed from a thousand scabbards, and all that mighty throng knelt in one flourish, saluting me as their Prince and ruler… and I discovered that the Laonese have no concept such as that of prince-consort; to wed the regnant Princess of Phaolon is to become a king!

Soon we departed on our honeymoon to a small villa built high in the branches of the great tree which houses our kingdom. Of our first days—and nights—of life together as man and wife, I will say nothing. Some memories are too precious to be put into words. My reader, if ever he has loved and wed, will understand my reticence.

There but remained one final task which I felt I must perform. And now it, too, is concluded.

I have placed the body of Prince Karn in a trance of suspended animation, by the employment of those arts of self-hypnotism I mastered long ago. Then, detaching my spirit from its clay, I returned across the vast reaches of the Universe to the planet of my birth, and resumed the body in which I had been born a hopeless cripple.

In the days and weeks since I recovered consciousness in my ancestral home in Connecticut, I have compiled this record of my adventures on the World of the Green Star. And now, at last, my history is finished. Surely, it must stand among the annals of adventure as one of the most astounding narratives of quest and peril and exploration ever lived.

Only a few minutes remain to me on this Earth.

Soon I shall quit forever the body in which my spirit was born. This record shall be sealed away in a bank vault until such time as the last spark of life has faded within my poor, weak, crippled body, and the executors of my estate determine (if indeed they ever do) that this narrative should be delivered into the hands of a publisher.

Soon—soon!—I shall wing my way across the starry space again, to the World of the Green Star.

Here on Earth I am a helpless cripple, unable to tend to my needs or take a single step unaided.

But there, on the World of the Green Star, I am a warrior and a hero, a husband, a lover, and a king. Never thereafter shall I wander the starry firmament again. For, on that weird and terrible and beautiful and wonder-filled planet of strange beasts and even stranger men, I found my heart’s home.

I am caught in the Green Star’s spell;

Nor do I wish ever to be freed from that sorcery.