Jandar of Callisto

11. THE FACE IN THE CRYSTAL

It was a cold, windy night.

The cold emerald globe of lo, which the Thanatorians called Orovad, the Green Moon, burned high in the western sky, while the Red Moon, Imavad, which we Earthlings know as Ganymede, hung low athwart the horizon, and the mighty bulk of Jupiter had not yet arisen.

Here in the heights of the Upper City, the wind howled about the tower tops and whistled through the streets that climbed in broad flights of steps from the Middle City below our feet.

Wrapped from head to foot in cowled cloaks of warm dark wool, Lukor and I approached the side entrance to the citadel that the Swordmaster frequently used. The tall arch was brilliantly lit and six or seven guards were posted there. These were not the lowly copper-helmed thugs who patrolled the slums at the foot of the mountaintop city, but the elite, the very cream of the guardsmen of Zanadar. They wore winged helmets of silver and their cloaks were of indigo silk, trimmed with rare white fur.

As we approached into the light, Lukor thrust back his cowl so that the guards could see his face.

"Well, by the Lords of Gordrimator, is it not the old Swordmaster himself!" one of them exclaimed. "Can it be, Master Lukor, that your noble pupils are so avid in their study of the art of the sword that they spend even a festival night under your tutelage?"

"So I must assume, Captain Yanthar; at least they have summoned me in the usual way, and I must obey, although I would much rather be emptying a bottle at the wineshop," Lukor said affably. The officer laughed.

"But who is this who accompanies you?"

"My nephew, Lykon of Ganatol, who has recently joined the Academy as an instructor," Lukor replied. "Perhaps you have heard that I now employ another swordsmaster to teach novices. The Lord Marak has been kind enough to express a desire to meet the lad, so, as he has never seen the citadel, I thought I would use this opportunity to slay two zells with a single dart."

"Hmm, yes, I had heard something of the sort. So the sword school prospers, eh? Step forward, lad, and let me see you."

I stepped into the light. For this outing I had taken especial care with the cosmetics. My features, bare arms, and legs, were completely colored with the bleaching agent which rendered them a papery white. My hair had just been redyed inky black, and black paint also disguised my eyebrows. There was, however, nothing I could do to disguise the startling blue of my eyes, so I kept them downcast, as if from timidity. The officer appraised me casually.

"A well set-up lad, surely, Master Lukor, if a bit shy. Well, pass on to your tutorial labors."

Lukor bowed and passed the officer a coin.

"My thanks, and a good festival to you all. Perhaps you will accept this small Year's End gift as a token of my regard. Might I ask you and your men to drink to my health on Year's End Day?"

Captain Yanthar turned the coin in his fingers: it was a gold bice, a coin of considerable worth, stamped to the one side with an idealized portrait of Prince Thuton in full-face, and on the other it bore the clenched fist, with wings springing from the wrist, that was the device of royal Zanadar.

"You are generous, Master Lukor! Evidently, the Academy prospers in very truth! We shall drink to your health with pleasure―a gay festival to you both!" The captain smiled, waving us by. And I began to breath again.

"Your friend Irivor will be surprised when I tell him you have an unexpected gift for the theater," I grinned in a quiet aside to Lukor. He flushed and snorted through his nostrils.

"Nonsense, my boy!" But I could see he was pleased. A romantic to the heart, the old Swordmaster was enjoying himself vastly. For this was the very stuff of melodrama! An entrance into the palace under disguise―a daring midnight rescue―why, he was happy as a boy.

The palace, even at this late hour, was bustling. Lordly gentlemen in court robes charged with heraldic devices swept past us. Beautiful women in bizarre costumes were continuously streaming up and down spiral staircases of glistening marble. Gold statuettes and silver urns throbbed in the light of crystal chandeliers. The silken carpets under my buskins were deep and soft as the finest plush. Thousands of milky candles cast a wavering, romantic glow, faintly golden. Splendid tapestries displayed scenes of the hunt, the battlefield, and the bedchamber to every side. The odor of perfume and incense and candle wax and fresh-cut flowers filled the air.

Lukor nodded and smiled and bowed and paused to exchange snippets of gossip with half the personages who swept so grandly past. The Swordmaster was well known here from the days of the previous dynasty, and I reflected with an inward qualm that it would be dreadful if his complicity in my rash attempt to free Koja from the dungeon pits should become known, to the detriment of his reputation if not, indeed, of his freedom.

We progressed at a leisurely and unobtrusive pace to a lower level of the palace. I was in a constant sweat over the possibility of encountering Darloona in one of these sumptuous rooms; however, I saw her not.

At length we came to a side corridor that was seemingly deserted. Lukor pulled aside an old tapestry adorned with a scene from the life of Prince Maradol, a monarch of the former royal line. Then he felt about, fingers probing. He gave an exclamation―there sounded a distinct click―and a black opening yawned before us, into which we plunged without a moment's hesitation.

For a considerable period of time we went forth through utter blackness, edging along sideways between close walls of rough stone. This was not as difficult as it might have been―at least we were walking at a level, however dark the going was. But when at length we began descending a winding coil of stone stairs and I had stumbled three times, and had almost fallen once, I began to wish the technological ingenuity of the Zanadarians had extended to the invention of the flashlight.

After an eternity of stumbling and tripping on narrow spiral stairs we came into an open corridor. Here, Lukor said, we were safe from scrutiny and were free at last to make a light. While he fumbled, cursing eloquently, with flint and steel, he explained that spyholes were set in the walls of the passages through which we had thus far come, and that a light might well have been visible to any persons in the corridors or apartments into which these spyholes gave view, had they chanced to be looking in the right direction at the right time.

My companion soon had a small oil lamp lit, and from here on we were able to go forward with ease: He went first to light the way, and I followed close upon his heels.

"What are these passages?" I asked. "It's a regular labyrinth―I'd be afraid to live in this place myself, for fear of assassins lurking in the dark!"

"A labyrinth in very truth, my friend," he replied. "You will by now have noticed the characteristic feature of Zanadarian architecture is very thick walls. This is partly for warmth, for the mountain winds can be very cold, and partly for strength, for the winds can also be very powerful. But the custom affords a perfect opportunity for the construction of secret passages and tunnels. These were, I believe, constructed during the third dynasty of the Zanadarian kings, in the reign of Warlak the Mad. This peculiar monarch had the fancy that his life was in constant danger and that a hundred plots were constantly being spun to catch him in their toils. When he rebuilt this portion of the citadel, he had this elaborate network of secret passages built, and he employed a veritable army of spies to keep those he suspected of being his enemies under constant scrutiny. I learned of the existence of this network through an old friend, the former archivist, now deceased. The present dynasty of usurpers do not even dream of the existence of such a spider web of secret tunnels within their very walls."

"That's interesting," I said. "But whatever happened to old Warlak the Mad?"

My companion chuckled gruffly. "His constant suspicion and lack of trust in his own lords and nobles eventually aroused fear in them. They suborned several of his own spies and Warlak was murdered in his own bed―by assassins using the network of secret tunnels he had invented for his protection against just such an eventuality!"

We went forward for a very long time. The tunnels twisted and turned, branching into side tunnels, crisscrossing yet other tunnels, until I was hopelessly lost. Lukor knew his way, or, at least, he could follow the cryptic markings wherewith the turns and intersections of the passageways were emblazoned.

The royal citadel clung to the utmost peak of the mountain. On a somewhat lower level, it adjoined the Arena of the Games, and the network of secret passages communicated with the slave pits beneath the arena. I suppose it sounds easy enough on paper, but it certainly involved a lot of walking. My legs were growing weary and I was getting rather warm―the tunnels had the poorest ventilation imaginable, and I was muffled to the ears in a dark woolen cloak which served to hide the fact that a long Yathoon whip-sword was strapped to my back. I had my own rapier at my hip, of course, but I had taken the precaution of bringing along a weapon for Koja. It would be somewhat presumptuous of me to have expected the poor fellow to fight his way out of the pits without a sword. Luckily the Academy Lukor had several fine whipswords in its collection of foreign weaponry.

Everything had gone so splendidly up to this point, that I should have expected trouble. However, I assumed that Lukor possessed a greater familiarity with these secret passages than was actually the fact.

Our first inkling of this came when suddenly Lukor cried out and vanished and I fell face forward into a wall.

The barrier had certainly not been there a moment before. Lukor had been plodding along ahead of me, the light of his lamp casting his shadow huge and black over the walls to either side. But now he and the lamp had vanished and a stone wall stood before me. I called out his name but heard no answer. I began to sweat. Only Lukor knew the secret code symbols that made it possible to thread a path through this tangled maze of passageways. Without him I was completely lost.

I thumped both fists against the obstruction but it was solid and immovable. Again I called his name, but there was only an unbroken and ominous silence for reply.

What had happened? Had Mad King Warlak set traps and deadfalls along his secret tunnels? Had we accidentally tripped or triggered one, springing into place a sliding barrier of solid stone? I did not know; nor did I ever learn precisely what had happened to part the old Swordmaster and myself. As far as I knew I was buried alive beneath a mountain of solid stone.

At length I turned back and retraced my path to the last intersection we had passed, noting the code symbols―a row of blue disks. I took a side branch, hoping it would run parallel with the interrupted passage, and rejoin it further on.

The passage, however, curved sinuously around unseen obstructions, and seemed to run on before it intersected another tunnel. When such occurred, I took the new tunnel and went back along its length, hoping to find Lukor. But instead I became lost in a perfect maze of crisscrossing passages until I had to give up all hopes of ever finding my way along the route we had been following.

At each intersection, luminous code symbols glowed through the murky gloom, but instead of three blue disks the new symbols were two red arrowheads, one above the other.

I resolved to follow these for a while and see where they led me.

Hours later, or so it seemed, I became aware of a dim illumination. It was only the ghost of light, but anything was better than the unrelieved blackness through which I had been wearily stumbling for endless stretches of time.

At length I ascertained the source of the faint luminance. The light leaked from small dime-sized orifices set along one wall of the passage at intervals of about twenty paces.

My pulses quickened at this exciting discovery!

These must be the spyholes of which Lukor had spoken. Their presence meant I had somehow retraced my steps and was back in one of the inhabited portions of the citadel again. Which meant, in turn, that I might well find a secret door or a sliding panel which would let me escape from this gloomy labyrinth into the lighted halls of the palace.

I set my eye to one of these minute openings and received a shock.

I stared into a luxurious apartment whose stone walls were hung with sumptuous tapestries. The floor was buried under heavy silken carpets of subtly contrasting colors, indigo, lavender, puce, old rose, dull silver. Instead of furniture, nests of gorgeous gold and orange cushions lay heaped about.

In the center of the room, directly opposite me, stood a most extraordinary device. A tripod of twinkling brass supported a huge orb of cloudy crystal whose interior structure was fractured into a thousand shining planes. From the axis of this crystal sphere, copper electrodes protruded, and to these were attached heavily insulated coils of wire. The instrument resembled nothing so much as a bizarre version of a television receiver.

Seated before the tripod sat none other than Prince Thuton himself.

The suave and handsome ruler of the City in the Clouds was adorned as if for carnival. His close-fitting garments were patterned with gilt and crimson and jade green. Gems flashed at earlobe and brow, throat and wrist. A half-mask of jet beads lay discarded at his feet. His hands were busily manipulating the control verniers at the base of the tripod as I gazed into the room.

A shrill anti piercing whine arose from within the mechanism. Whirling lights spun within the inner planes of the crystal orb. These lights resolved into the heavy features of a man. I had not seen that face before.

The face was powerfully molded, with a square jaw and a heavy brow. The thick neck was sunk between burly shoulders which were wrapped in a heavy cloak of some shining, crinkly-surfaced black cloth I could not identify. Beneath this cloak I glimpsed a deep and powerful chest in a warrior's leathern tunic. There was a symbol emblazoned on the breast of the tunic which meant nothing to me―a grim device, like a black, horned skull with fanged and grinning jaws and eyes of ruby flame.

The man's features were coarse, blunt, brutal, commanding. He had a greasy, swarthy complexion, his bullet head covered with lank colorless hair of a peculiar consistency. Gold baubles twinkled in his earlobes. Under scowling black brows, eyes of fierce yellow blazed with somber and wrathful fires, like the burning gaze of lions.

There was an aura of cold authority and command about this heavy, swarthy, impassive face, with its cold burning eyes and cruel lips. I wondered who the man could be. My question was answered for me almost as soon as it sprang into my consciousness.

In a suave, laughing voice, Thuton addressed the face in the globe.

"Again we converse, Arkola, and again to no point or purpose―unless you have increased the price you are willing to pay for the person of the Princess Darloona," he said.

I tensed with astonishment. So Lukor had been right―and my own convictions had been correct all along! The suave, mocking Prince of the Cloud Kingdom was indeed willing to trade the Princess of Shondakor for hard gold! My blood heated at the oily cynicism and cold mockery in Thuton's tones, and I itched to have him at the point of a sword. The outcome of our next encounter would be very different from that of our previous duel!

In a harsh grating voice, with an odd lisping accent, the personage Thuton addressed as Arkola made reply.

I say again, Zanadarian, that one hundred thousand gold bice is the limit of my resources. And I repeat that possession of the girl is a luxury to the Chac Yuul, and far from being a necessity. For, look you, I hold the city of Shondakor with ten thousand warriors of the Black Legion―what need have I of the girl, save as a means whereby to impose my authority upon her captive people, using her as a puppet for my wishes? You ask too high a price, Prince, for something I do not really need. I am the conqueror here, and I am secure in my conquest."

Thuton laughed, a vile snigger. "Boast not too loudly of conquest, O Lord of the Black Legion," he advised silkily. "For I seem to have heard that the city of Shondakor fell to the Chac Yuul through the cunning of a certain priest named Ool and not through the warcraft of the chieftain Arkola. But doubtless this is a misapprehension on my part, and you will correct me in my error."

The grim, impassive face in the crystal flushed angrily. I recalled that I had heard something of this Black Legion priest, Ool, who seemed to be the spiritual leader of the bandit legion. Lukor had mentioned him, but I had paid little attention.

This mention of a priest reminded me of something I had found a bit puzzling about the civilizations of Thanator. For a planet, or moon, rather, inhabited by races hardly advanced above the Bronze Age level (with the exception of the sophisticated Sky Pirates, of course) , the Callistans have precious little to do with gods and temples and priests. In this, I believe, they are strikingly different from similar barbarian cultures in Earth's own history who were to a high extent dominated by superstitious veneration for one or another pantheon of divinities. The Thanatorians have gods, of course, but they hardly ever think about them or speak of them, or so it seems to a stranger. The Callistan gods are referred to as "the Lords of Gordrimator," which is the name the Callistans have for their primary, Jupiter. And while they make occasional reference to these Lords of Jupiter by way of a casual oath, that seems to be about the extent of their dealings with the Divine. I have yet to see a temple or a shrine, or to meet a priest, in all my wanderings across the face of Thanator. It is but another of the many baffling mysteries of Callisto.

While my thoughts had strayed into these channels, the conversation between Thuton of Zanadar and Arkola of the Black Legion had continued, and I had missed a few words. They had been arguing over the price the Prince of the Sky Pirates had set upon the Princess of Shondakor, and as my attention returned to the confrontation, their argument came to an abrupt end as Arkola turned off his transmission. His face faded from the crystal and it became blank again. Thuton turned from the globe with a cold, mirthless chuckle and strode from the room.

And I knew that I must rescue Darloona from the clutches of this treacherous and mercenary Prince who would sell her to the conquerors of her city if her enemies could meet his price!

I forced a rather mirthless smile of my own.

That made two people I had determined to rescue ―and I, myself, was a prisoner in this secret labyrinth of stone!

If any sliding panel or secret exit existed by which I could escape the passageways into the inhabited portion of the citadel, I failed to find it. Doubtless Lukor knew of the whereabouts of such, but he was either lost himself, or imprisoned, or very possibly dead―slain in the trap of rising stone that had come between us.

I soon was lost in the lightless labyrinth again.

I roamed the winding narrow corridors of stone for hours. It must have been near dawn by this time―and at dawn began the last day of the festival, when the condemned prisoners were to be driven forth blinking into the light of day to face swift and terrible death at the fangs of ravening beasts.

After endless hours of wandering, I came at last into a little room with no exit.

In the wall facing me was a barred window, the first I had seen in this maze. As I saw it, my hopes lifted.

Shrugging off the cloak of leaden despair that bowed my shoulders and made every step heavy, I strode forward into the little cell. This might be the one means of egress I sought―the mode by which I could come to , the aid of my friend Koja, who was otherwise doomed.

As I strode into the room, my foot struck some slight obstruction on the floor and I pitched forward off balance and struck my head against the floor.

I had botched everything.

I had come charging into the citadel like some hero out of romantic melodrama―charging single-handedly to the rescue of a doomed and imprisoned friend.

First I had become separated from Lukor. Then I had gotten myself thoroughly lost. And now, finally, I had knocked myself unconscious.

I fell into welling blackness, and even as consciousness left me, I felt the bitter taste of failure and defeat upon my tongue.

Koja had come to face death in the arena because of me. And now, in the hour of his greatest need, I had failed him yet again.

For a brief instant I felt despair, knowing myself helpless to save from his doom the first living creature on Thanator who had offered me the gift of friendship.

And then I struck the wall and knew nothing more.