Lankar of Callisto

Chapter 11 THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

By orders of Princess Darloona, a suite in the rear wing of the palace was assigned to my uses, and two servants were designated to care for my needs. These accommodations seemed to me princely. The furniture was of elaborately carven woods, the walls hung with silken tapestries, the carafes of wine and water exquisitely cut crystal. I ate from bowls and platters of beaten gold, on a long, low table bright with fresh-cut flowers drawn up before a fireplace of noble, even baronial proportions, and was attended by two servants in handsome livery. I felt like a character in one of the Conan stories Sprague and I have been writing; and, after a week of rough and exhausting journeys through the jungles, I enjoyed these civilized luxuries immensely.

The suite had been set aside for my uses because it opened upon a small, enclosed garden or courtyard where it was easy to walk and exercise Bozo without terrorizing half the palace staff. The great faithful othode refused to leave my side (not that I wanted him to go, having by this time become very attached to him). He slept the first night or two by the side of my bed, a huge affair with carven wood pillars supporting a sumptuous canopy; but thereafter, uncomfortable in small, confined places, he sought the relative openness and freedom of the walled garden, where he slept under the bushes, secure in the knowledge that I was only a step or two away.

Young Taran had quarters of his own in the servants wing, among the pages and serving-boys of his own age. But regularly, about breakfast time, the boy would seek me out and cling to my side the remainder of the day. I believe he felt shy and lonely in such a crowded, busy, splendid place, and felt happier by my side, since Bozo and I were the only people he knew in all this grand complex of buildings.

I spent most of my daylight hours with old Zastro, for the savant of ‘the Ku Thad had been assigned the task of increasing my familiarity with the Thanatorian language. During these sessions, Glypto tactfully drew young Taran aside, so that Zastro and I could concentrate on linguistic problems unencumbered by a fidgety youngster. The little thief had developed a strong affection for the bright-eyed, inquisitive lad, and during the hours we spent in language instruction, the scrawny guttersnipe occupied his time in teaching Taran some of the dirtier tricks of knife-fighting. Officially, Taran was considered as a sort of squire or body-servant in my entourage.

Over the next few days, with remarkable ease and speed, I acquired considerable familiarity with the Thanatorian language. I had come to Callisto with a rough, working vocabulary of some forty or so words; Taran had given me a crude tutoring in sentence structure and verbs, and it was left to Zastro to polish my knowledge of the tongue, correct my accent, and extend my vocabulary. This was easier than it might have been, for his own knowledge of English was quite admirable, although he was better at writing the language than at speaking it.. In this department, the many hours he had spent learning my tongue from Jandar proved valuable. Thus, in very little time, I was able to make myself understood to the Shondakorians, and to understand much of what was said to me.

I was a guest at the royal table for dinner every night, and met and soon came to know most of the officials and notables of the kingdom. Princess Darloona was unfailingly kind and gracious to me, and went so far as to invite me to the royal apartments where I had the rare privilege of meeting the infant prince and heir of the kingdom, Kaldar, a handsome, intelligent, happy child with the red gold hair of his mother and the bright blue eyes of his sire. I call this privilege a rare one, because it is the Thanatorian custom to keep the children of royalty in an almost monastic seclusion until they have achieved the age of a boy like Taran.

I spent most of my evenings drinking wine and conversing with a small circle of gentlemen of the court, among which were Zastro himself and Glypto, together with the acerbic, touchy, ill-tempered little Soraban geographer, Dr. Abziz. As my familiarity with the lan=guage broadened and deepened, our conversations became far-ranging. Abziz and Zastro were fascinated to learn everything I could tell them about my native world, and I spent many an hour describing our literature and religion and customs, our methods of government, politics and modes of conducting warfare.

Glypto, on the other hand, was primarily interested in playing pranks, and his curiosity on these scientific subjects was virtually nil. He found Zastro a patient, pedantic bore, and delighted in teasing poor Dr. Abziz to the point of apoplectic fury. I can see him now, the old rascal, stretching out his long, thin shanks before a roaring hearth, downing quantities of a fiery native brandy called quarra, chortling and cackling and very pleased with himself, having by some absurd quip or practical joke punctured Dr. Abziz’s self-esteem, reducing the fussy little geographer to spluttering, inarticulate fury.

I don’t know if I can explain exactly why I found the little thief from Tharkol such delightful company. But, then again, it was almost impossible not to like him, he was so merry and comical. He even looked comical, with his hollow cheeks and enormous proboscis, strutting and swaggering like, a gamecock. He was a perfect mimic, and a born clown, and he belonged in that gallant and glorious company that ranged from Shakespeare’s Ancient Pistol, in Henry V, to Falstaff himself. Vain, preening, cowardly, obsequious, irrepressiblehe was the jolliest, most entertaining comrade I have ever known.

Taran adored him from the first; even Bozo came to tolerate the capering little clown, who treated him with gingerly respect and never came near the beast except when Taran or I were nearby. By his side, I explored the stews and wineshops and gambling halls of Shondakor, where he was known to all, and loved by all, I think. He seemed to know every cutpurse and fence in every low dive he took me to, and he delighted in showing me off to his disreputable, thievish friends. It was “me friend, his noble lordship” this and “me friend, his noble lordship” that, whenever we dipped into one or another dismal, lowly dive for a quick drink of some cheap brandy. Oh, he was inimitable, was Glypto, and the scrapes he nearly got me into during these nightly escapes into the seamier side of Shondakorian society would fill another chapter the size of this one.

But it was impossible to resist his rollicking good humor and the zest and gusto with which he plunged into each adventure. On more than one occasion, faced with what would otherwise have been another interminable evening of dull, scholarly conversation, I was secretly delighted when the spry little Tharkolian appeared at the door of my chambers in black cloak and silken vizor to entice me into the stews of the city for a brisk ramble through the wineshops and gaming houses. We would stride off into the night―having sent Taran scampering to Zastro’s apartments with a note of apology―and off we would go, cloaked and masked, to stroll and swagger through the dark alleys of Shondakor incognito, like two characters out of a Rafael Sabatini romance, off for a night of adventure. To be frank, I’m forced to admit it was the infectious pleasure of Glypto’s company that I enjoyed on the nightly ventures, more than what we did and where we went, for I’m afraid I was not too interested in these nightly ventures, for I am not much of a drinking man, and, since I had arrived here penniless, my purse was kept full by the graciousness of Princess Darloona. For this reason I did not care to gamble; then again, gambling has always seemed to me a completely foolish way to waste time and throw away good money.

We did go to the theatre on occasion, for Glypto was a considerate host and sensed my inattention at dice and my rather slender capacity to take aboard voluminous quantities of liquid refreshments. The theatres were regal and splendid, all gilt and plush and bedizened, but the plays were verse tragedies composed in an antique diction too difficult for me to follow, or musical entertainments which I found somewhat less than pleasurable―more like interminable Chinese operas than anything in the repertoire of the Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan.

But I enjoyed strolling the broad, tree-lined avenues of Shondakor under the glorious light of the many moons, or riding through fairyland gardens on unearthly gryphonlike steeds, past magnificent palaces and mansions ablaze with light. The crowded spectacle of the streets never failed to enthrall me, and I stared at weird and brilliant scenes, feeling like a visitor whisked by some magician to Helium or Tarantia or some of the fabled cities in Clark Ashton Smith or Lord Dunsany.

And then there were court balls and social functions to which I must come, since I was an honored guest of the throne and the lords and notables of the realm were curious to meet me. These affairs were sumptuous and magnificent: they were also unendurable bores. I could not perform the stately, ritualistic dances enjoyed by most of the courtiers, nor was my facility with the language easy enough for me to respond to the graceful compliments bestowed upon me, nor to hold up my end of the witty exchange of sparkling epigrams which passed for idle conversation among the Thanatorian aristocrats. I’m afraid I would have seemed very much the awkward, tongue-tied country bumpkin, had it not been for the romantic mystery of my origin, which caused me to be regarded with awe and a degree of veneration; also, when out of my depth―or bored silly―I maintain a slight enigmatic smile and tend to lift one brow ironically. This has caused me to be thought a mysterious deep-thinking intellectual, so ultrasophisticated as to find ironic amusement in those around me. This trait of mine has enabled me to survive many stuffy social occasions back on Earth with an unimpaired reputation, and it served me here in the same manner.

Another thing which helped me to get through the intricate formal functions of Shondakorian high society without being put down as a fumbling simpleton and a barbarian foreigner was my rank in Shondakor, which was too high for almost anyone to be able to slight me. The social hierarchy of Shondakor is rigidly structured, and my movements would have been severely constricted without a title before my name. That is, while a kytar, or lord, may unbend sufficiently to be friendly with a chan, or knight, or even with a chanthan, or member of the landless but wellborn gentry, his rank precludes any such familiarity with a lowly commoner, except under unusual circumstances.

Now, Taran had instinctively attached the honorific of chan to my name when we first began traveling together. In itself this didn’t mean much. It was sort of like a child calling a grown-up “mister”―merely a polite token of respect. Captain Barin of the Jungle Legion and his superiors had, I think automatically, hailed me as a kytar, not knowing my social rank, but taking no chances. This label had stuck to me during my first days at the Shondakorian court, although I made certain that Darloona and her chief advisors were apprised of the fact that back on Earth I am not a member of the aristocracy. Darloona, however, with the gracious thoughtfulness of one to the royalty born, realized I would be placed in the uncomfortable position of a social inferior at her court, and surprised me one day by elevating me to the highest degree of the nobility, that of jan, or Prince of the Throne.

This bestowal was made at a private ceremony in the royal apartments, with only Darloona’s closest friends and courtiers in attendance, probably because the Princess wished to spare me the grueling ritual and tiresome ceremony of a full court function.

My new title, incidentally, did not mean I was in line to inherit the throne or anything like that. There are two kinds of princes in the Shondakorian system of

aristocracy: the first is a royal title held by the reigning monarch, his male heirs, and certain male members of his immediate family. The second variety of princeship is held by the males of one or two very ancient noble houses of quite superior rank. On one or another occasion in the past, their ancestors, then lords, had been created Princes of the Throne by royal decree, in recognition of some valiant feat of loyal service to the throne. In theory, as Sir Jastar the court herald explained it to me, the monarch of Shondakor may thus ennoble with a princely title any individual, whatever his or her rank, on whim―rather in the same way the British royalty might reward a great service to the crown with a dukedom, as Marlborough and Wellington were rewarded.

So it was that, as Prince Lankar of Shondakor, my rank in society was superior to that of almost anyone I met, which was Darloona’s tactful way of insulating me against embarrassment. As Lankar-jan, I was entitled to select my own livery (I chose silver and emerald green, in fond memory of the Oz Books), and a blazon was assigned to me by the herald. The human inhabitants of Thanator do not employ beasts, either actual or fabulous, in their heraldry, but symbolic designs. My new “coat of arms” then consisted of a green shield charged with a complicated, rather Mayanlooking sigil or hieroglyph which looked like this This symbol was promptly affixed to the breast of the leathern tunics, robes and gowns in my wardrobe, worn above the heart, and, in the form of enamel and silver badges, was attached to ornaments on my baldric and warrior’s harness and to the hilt of my dagger and sword, both of which had been gifts to me from the Princess in commemoration of my ennoblement.*

These were happy days, comfortable, lazy, and luxurious. But they were only the calm before the storm.

While my newfound friends were wining and dining and entertaining and honoring me, the clouds of war were, as you might say, thickening on the horizon. For, while I explored the byways of golden Shondakor in the company of Glypto and the others, the shipyards of Tharkol were laboring night and day completing work on the vessels of the Second Armada, which would soon be ready to depart.

Only the Xaxar had come back unscathed from the historic voyage into the unknown far side of the planet. And, since it had limped home with the news of the mysterious disaster that had overwhelmed the rest of the armada, work had been pressed on the two new ships which had long been under construction by Zamara’s shipwrights. These galleons of the sky were the Avenger and the Zarkoon, and they would by now have long since been ready for launching had it not been for the unhappy sequence of accidents Lukor had described to me.

All the while I was at the court of Shondakor, the Xaxar floated above the city, moored to a spar on one of the upper tiers of the palace. It was a breathtaking sight, floating against the skies of glowing gold, looking for all the world like a mighty galleon from the Spanish Main. Every day the sky-ship went on a training flight of some hours, in order to break in the new members of the crew to the performance of their duties. I had gone aloft several times, and it was a marvelous experience and one I shall never forget. Standing at the deck rail, the wind billowing out my cloak behind me as we navigated the golden skies, I felt like a warrior of Barsoom aloft in a great flier, or like someone in a Lemurian airboat from my own Thongor stories.

There was never the slightest question but that the armada would sail someday soon over the edge of the world into that unknown world of mystery which lay on the far side of Thanator. Not until Jandar’s body was actually found―if such a dire and grim event must indeed come to pass―then, and only then, would any of his staunch and loyal friends give over the search and become convinced that he was actually dead.

For it was―only as he himself had predicted.

The words came back into my memory unbidden … the words he had set down with his own hand in the final pages of the bulky manuscript I had read with such absorption and fascination on the plane trip to Cambodia.

They were virtually the last words he had set down before vanishing into the unknown. And there sounded within them the grim music of a funeral knell … .

“Never give up hope until you have proof of my death.”

Chapter 12 SAILORS OF THE SKY

As before, the crew of the Second Armada would be made up chiefly of the warrior nobles of Shondakor and Tharkol, and the provisions for the expedition would be paid for by the Sorabans, who were not in particular a warlike or adventuresome people.

Perhaps they had been slain by their captors, the gallant survivors of the First Armada. But perhaps they still lived. It was that hope which kept us going. Soon we would embark upon a voyage of vengeance, seeking the hidden citadel of the Mind Wizards on the other side of Thanator. There we hoped to rescue Jandar and the others, if they yet lived; if not, we determined to destroy the Mind Wizards for all time, if indeed the mysterious race of mental supermen could be defeated by ordinary men.

Before very long, the hoped―for day was come. Winged motes against the golden sky, the Avenger and the Zarkoon soared above the city of the Ku Thad. Oh, they were a brave spectacle, the great galleons of the clouds, as they circled above the towers on throbbing wings, richly painted banners flying. They moored to an upper tier of the palace beside the Xaxar and their officers descended for the final council. I was summoned from the gardens where I strolled with Bozo; when I reached the council chamber it was filled with officers and officials, talking, gesticulating, unrolling maps, consulting bound volumes of navigational lore or wind tables. Pages scampered about, bearing notes and documents sealed by important-looking ribbons. I felt very much out of place at this council of naval commanders and high courtiers.

Glypto popped up behind me and steered me to a secluded alcove with a window seat. Under one scrawny arm he clutched a cobwebbed bottle of vintage quarra. This he opened with a practised twist of the wrist and sloshed two portions into goblets of cut crystal, winking and beaming, his clever black eye sparkling with excitement and mischief, his long nose fairly quivering with glee.

Just then little Taran came squirming through the crowd. Spotting me, the boy worked his way across the room to where we sat. His cheeks were flushed and his green eyes glistened.

“Oh, Lankar-jan, they sent me to find you―and I looked everywhere but her(,! Do you know what has happened? The airships from Tharkol have come at last―”

Glypto drank off his brandy with lip-smacking gusto, then clapped me on the shoulder and tousled the boy’s hair affectionately.

“Aye, friend Prince! We’re off on a mission of daring-do arid adventure! And you, small one, are you going with us on this voyage?”

The boy’s bright eyes shone; he gulped and nodded eagerly.

“Then with dawn tomorrow we sail for the world’s edge, and beyond,” the little thief crowed. “We’ll ride the great winds into an unknown world, aye, and fight like heroes, it well may be, to free Jandar o’ Callisto from captivity!”

My heart swelled within me at his words; my breath quickened. I was as thrilled of the prospect as was the lad at my side!

Cabin space was at a premium aboard the Xaxar, so I shared a tiny room with three others, and later, as you will read, with four. One of these was young Taran who was my squire, as you might say. The other sharers of our cabin turned out to be the dignified and pompous Dr. Abziz, the geographer whose knowledge of the other side of the world would serve greatly to facilitate our discovery of the country of the Mind Wizards.

And then there was Glypto! At the news that the villainous little guttersnipe would have the bunk beneath his own, Dr. Abziz groaned and rolled his eyes heavenwards as if entreating mercy of the gods. He was convinced that Glypto had applied to share our quarters only to torment him, for Abziz detested the thievish little Tharkolian, who delighted in making fun of him. I really think that Glypto wanted to share the voyage with Taran and me, for whom he had conceived a genuine affection, at least as much as he wanted to have Abziz at the mercy of his stinging jibes.

For Glypto took a merry, mischievous glee in puncturing the pretenses of the pompous, self-important little Soraban. There was something about Abziz that made you want to ruffle his temper and prick him in the overinflated ego. He was so vain and fussy, and held himself in such high esteem that the urge to deflate his pomposity was nigh irresistible.

Jandar has described how the gallant old swordmaster of Ganatol, Lukor, delighted in tormenting Dr. Abziz by calling him “cousin;” since the Doctor had a strain of Ganatolian blood in his ancestry which was like a thorn in his side (since Sorabans pride themselves on pure lineage, unmixed with the blood of “lesser” races) and a constant annoyance to him. Well, Glypto found, in the peevish little savant’s overweening vanity and sense of dignified selfimportance, a perfect target for his pranks and quips. The Doctor hailed from an ancient line, his house being one of the oldest and noblest in the Seraanship of Soraba. He treated Glypto with frosty disdain and shuddered at being forced to associate with such a disreputable and villainous-looking spawn of the back-alleys. Now, Tharkol and Soraba are neighboring cities, both inhabited by the red men or Perushtarians, so Glypto pounced upon this fact and delighted in tormenting the caste-conscious doctor by hailing him, with rough familiarity, as “neighbor.” It was all very amusing, and there was no real spite in it, but Abziz could hardly endure the company of the little prankster.

Our cabin, incidentally, had four bunks, two built one-atop-the-other on either facing wall, with a small low table running the length of the room between the rows of double-decked bunks, and a tiny desk at the further end, beneath a square porthole. This porthole, by the way, afforded us a rather cramped and narrow view of the terrain over which we were to fly. It was small enough, and pretty crowded, but snug and shipshape. I was quite looking forward to the voyage, and, as for little Taran, the boy was in ecstasy.

I had bade my servants rouse me an hour before dawn. My gear was all packed, but I wanted to feed Bozo myself and take the big fellow for one last uninterrupted walk, before bidding him goodbye. Bozo would miss me, I knew, but no more than I would miss his constant companionship.

I tried on my ship-clothes. These consisted of long, close-fitting sky-blue trousers and a pair of so-called “skyboots” which rose to mid-leg and folded over, like boots worn in a pirate movie. They had soles of some elastic, ripple-surfaced substance like crepe rubber, designed to cling to the slippery decks during a rain or sleet. A wide leather belt cinched in my waist, and a loose, full-sleeved white blouse was worn on the upper torso, with a baldric and scabbard. There was also a long woolen hooded cloak with armholes and wriststraps, to be worn against the chill winds of the great heights at which we would travel. Regarding my image in a long mirror, I felt rather like an extra in an Errol Flynn epic.

We went aboard the Xaxar just as dawn lit up the sky with a vast, soundless explosion of golden glory. Princess Darloona and Lord Yarrak, her uncle, were at the boarding tier to greet us and bid us farewell and lucky voyage individually, as we trooped aboard one by one by means of a long, cross-ribbed gangplank. The deck-level of the skyship had been brought even with the palace tier for greater convenience in boarding the vessel.

Below us in the streets and in the great plaza upon which the palace fronted, and from atop the roofs of the nearer buildings, most of the inhabitants of Shondakor were gathered to watch the armada depart and to cheer us on, our way. The plaza was carpeted with faces staring up and waving at us; there must have been nearly two hundred thousand in that mighty throng.

One by one we filed aboard, stored our gear away in our quarters, and assembled at our duty stations. The last aboard was Zantor, the grim, towering giant. He had been one of the feared Sky Pirates of Zanadar, the City in the Clouds. Later, fallen from favor and humbled by Prince Thuton, his monarch, he had fought among the gladiators of the sky city; it was there that he had first .met and become a staunch friend of Jandar. Later, as captain of the Xaxar, and a trusted senior officer of the Sky Navy, he had sailed in quest of Kuur, and he was the only one of the captains of the First Armada who had brought back his ship safely to Shondakor.

Now, Princess Darloona had elevated him to the rank of Admiral and he would command the Second Armada, taking up the quest again. He had yielded the captaincy of the Xaxar to his first officer, a gruff and grizzled former Sky Pirate named Thuron who had served under him for many years.

By this time the last of the ship’s company was aboard, and we were ready to point our prows for the world’s edge. Captain Thuron gave the order upon a nod from his Admiral―sky-sailors stepped forward smartly to raise and stow away the gangplank―but then there came an unexpected interruption, as an unanticipated volunteer joined our crew.

They had just raised the gangplank and were drawing it aboard when there was a stir among the courtiers and notables crowded together on the palace tier to bid us farewell. Suddenly a burly-shouldered shape burst into view, loping on short fat legs across the rooftop. Waddling furiously, squirming through the crowd, Which shrank aside to make room, it came to the edge of the tier and stared up at us as we stood in a row along the deck-rail.

Tongue lolling from froggish jaws agape, eyes goggling, searching the throng for one face in particularmy own―the faithful creature spotted me, tensed on the brink―and launched itself through space!

It was a tremendous leap, and he barely made it, landing with forepaws scrabbling, hooked over the rail. Kicking furiously with his second and third pairs of legs, the last, uninvited member of the expedition teetered and floundered and came blundering over the rail, fell to the deck with a thud that shook the craft, and scrambled over to where I stood dumbfounded, and hurled himself against me, licking my face frantically.

It was Bozo the othode, of course, who had determined not to be left behind! The others laughed at my discomfiture, for I was scarlet with embarrassment. But I could not bring myself to chastise the faithful creature. I will admit that tears filled my eyes at this display of simple loyalty and affection. I bent down and scratched his ears while he goggled up at me, love in his great bulging eyes.

“Really, captain!” Dr. Abziz said fussily, “we cannot have this great clumsy beast aboard! It simply will not do―he will be jamming his way into the cabin I share with Prince Lankar―he will be underfoot during the entire voyage―and what are we to feed the brute?”

Thuron turned to Admiral Zantor who stood watching, arms folded on his mighty chest, a slight smile lightening his somber visage.

“What shall we do, Admiral?”

Zantor caught my eye and grinned.

Then he said: “As much as I feel a ship’s deck is no place to keep an animal, I prize loyalty highly, and the manly love between comrades. It is obvious to me that the othode would suffer if parted from his friend for long. If Prince Lankar will tend to the beast’s needs, and keep him from getting underfoot, it shall not be said that Zantor came between our visitor from Earth and his first friend upon Thanator!”

And my shipmates cheered!

And so it was that Bozo became the unofficial mascot of the good ship Xaxar despite Dr. Abziz. We drew up our mooring lines and floated free a moment later, while the throng cheered lustily, and soared into a golden dawn with the Avenger flying to our portside and the Zarkoon to starboard.

It did not take my shipmates very long to adjust to having a wild beast aboard the sky-ship. At first they were timid of him and treated him gingerly, with enormous respect, giving us a very wide berth whenever I exercised him on deck. But before very long it became noticed that young Taran was completely fearless of Bozo and petted him, hugged him and ordered him around without trepidation. Well, full-grown men (and warriors to boot) were not going to be timid of Bozo if a twelve-year-old boy wasn’t! As for Bozo, he was obedient and trustworthy and, while a bit wary of strangers, he never so much as growled; it was obvious that he knew he was here on sufferance, and that the faithful fellow was anxious to be as little trouble as possible. Before very long the men were vying with one another to make friends with the solemn great othode, smuggling choice tidbits from the galley to tempt him with, even competing for the privilege of taking him for his walks on deck. I was enormously relieved that Bozo was behaving himself like a gentleman, and happy to have his companionship.

The great ship cruised through the skies of Thanator, and every hour miles of empty plain flashed by underneath our keel. The magnificent sky-ship was an endless source of wonder to me. It reminded me inescapably of the Albatross, that prodigious airship flown by the sinister and enigmatic Robur the Conqueror in Jules Verne’s famous science-fiction novels, Master of the World and Clipper of the Clouds.

I loved to stride the deck in my swashbuckling skyboots, a voluminous blue cloak flapping about me, the brisk wind of our passage tousling my long hair and ruffling my beard, feeling on the whole rather like a character from one of my own books. It was an exhilarating experience in every way and I enjoyed myself hugely. After all, it is not often that a writer of fantastic adventure stories is given the opportunity to share in a fantastic adventure himself.

I already knew a goodly number of my fellow crewmen―Admiral Zantor and Glypto and Abziz and young Taran, of course. Burly, glowering Ergon was aboard as well, and so was the girl Ylana whom I had met when first presented at court. I found her very different now, for gone were the long court robes: she strode about the deck, long hair flying, long legs bare in sandals, looking like a boyish, adolescent Amazon in her abbreviated catskin garment. The jungle maid had even resumed wearing her barbaric bracelet of woven copper wire and her necklace of ivory fangs threaded on a leathern thong. She was Ylana of the Jungle Country once again, and I must say I heartily approved of the transformation.

There were so many faces missing from the crewheroes and companions of Jandar’s earlier adventures―who should have been here to share the perils and excitements of this voyage of discovery with us. But so many of Jandar’s comrades and friends had vanished with him in the mysterious wilderness that Jay on the other side of Thanator. Young Tomar, who had saved the Jalathadar from destruction at the hands of the traitorous Ulthar, during the second voyage to rescue Darloona from the clutches of the Sky Pirates of Zanadar; and the mighty Yathoon warrior, Koja the arthropod, and his friend, the elegant and daring masterswordsman, Lukor of Ganatol. And Zamara of Tharkol, the mad empress of Callisto herself who had flown against Kuur in her own ship, the Conqueress; to say nothing of Prince Valkar of Shondakor, the valiant son of Lord Yarrak who had once been betrothed to Princess Darloona, but who had graciously yielded his claim to her hand when he learned that she had come to love Jandar.

All these brave and gallant people had been lost when the First Armada so inexplicably vanished, save only for the crew of the Xaxar. We’re they long since slain by the cunning Mind Wizards? Or were they, together with the lost Prince of Shondakor himself, still prisoners in. shadowy Kuur? We did not know―dared not even hope. But the thoughts of my companions were often with their lost friends … .

Chapter 13 OVER THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

From Shondakor, the Armada sailed through the skies of Callisto into the northeast over endless leagues of scarlet meadowland. These, I knew, were the northernmost portions of the Great Plains, the Plains of Haratha, which covered most of the southern hemisphere of the Jungle Moon from the borders of the Kumala to the South Pole, and which extended from the shores of the Lesser Sea of Sanmur Laj in the ultimate west to the foothills of the Black Mountains of Rhador in the east.

The walls of Tharkol appeared before us on the horizon, and we descended to cruise above the sister-city of the Shondakorians, to circle it thrice, saluting the colors of imperial Zamara which flew from the spires of her palace. As had been the case at our departure from the Golden City of the Ku Thad, the citizenry of Tharkol turned out in all their numberless thousands to see the splendid spectacle we made as our mighty galleons of the skies soared above the city against the blaze of heaven.

From Tharkol we directed our flight due east towards the Edge of the World. This term, incidentally, may represent a survival from earlier, more superstitious ages when the geographical knowledge of the Thanatorians was but rudimentary. I suppose the inhabitants of this hemisphere of Callisto at one time regarded their world as a flat, edged disc, much as did the Earthmen of antiquity. At any rate, the phrase has survived into the present age and today it is used to refer to the margin of the known world, for, as has elsewhere been explained, the further side of the Jungle Moon has gone completely unexplored until very recently.

East of Tharkol the scarlet plains extend, broken here and there by low foothills which gradually become more thickly forested. It took us a day or two before we reached the borders of the known world.

The mysterious vapor with which the sealed holds and double hulls of the mighty ornithopters are filled renders the great sky-ships virtually weightless, but the motive power of flight is provided by the huge jointed wings which thrust out from either side of the ship’s hull, and these in turn are driven by a complex system of huge gears and wheels in the capacious interior. It is the strength of human arms alone that drives those great wheels. During the time when only the cruel and rapacious Sky Pirates of Zanadar possessed the skills and secrets of constructing the fabulous ornithopters, and therefore ruled the skies of Callisto in unchallenged supremacy, it was slaves taken in war or raids who worked the wheels. But Jandar has ended that practice, and the ships of the Armada were manned entirely by eager volunteers, composed for the most part of some of the noblest and most princely sons of the aristocracy, who vied for a place in our crews and for the honor of partaking in our adventure.

In a way, I suppose it was amusingly incongruous to see the noblest scions of some of the most ancient and blueblooded houses of the Three Cities toiling at the wheels where once labored nameless slaves doomed to toil without ceasing until death. But aboard the Armada every member of the expedition took his turn at the wheel-gangs, from the Admiral himself down to the lowliest ship-boy. 1, of course, took my turn at the wheels with everyone else, discovering in the process muscles I had not known I possessed―when they began to ache, that is! It was my misfortune to be sharing this adventure on a world whose pharmacists had yet to discover the uses of liniment; but I had strengthened and toughened myself during that long jungle trek and was in better physical condition than I had been in years, and soon my muscles limbered up and a turn at the wheels became only a brief and on the whole fairly pleasant period of exertion.

The wheel-gang to which Captain Thuron had assigned me by roster served its turn twice daily, the second of these duties falling after the evening meal. A couple of days after our departure from Shondakor, after night had fallen across the world. and the great, many-colored moons of Callisto soared one by one to illuminate the nocturnal skies, I was just leaving the wheel-deck bound for my cabin and blissful slumber when Taran came running in search of me.

Bright-eyed with excitement the boy grabbed my elbow, urging me to ascend to the mid-deck. This is the deck of the Xaxar which extends between the forecastle and the poop, and from whose railing you can look down on the landscape flowing by beneath the keel. It was cold and windy at this altitude, and I wrapped my blue cloak about me, shivering a little at the chilly bite of the wind, for I was damp with perspiration from my labor.

“Well, what is it, Taran?” I demanded.

The boy touched my shoulder and pointed to the moonlit terrain over which we were passing at that moment.

“The Edge of the World, Lankar-jan!” he breathed, his green eyes glistening.

My imagination stirred as he uttered this romantic and mysterious phrase. Unspeakingly I stood beside him, clutching the rail, staring down at the strange vista of hills and gullies, grassy plains and dark forests, which raced by underneath us. In no particular detail did the landscape differ from that above which we had been flying all that day; but now, by night, the scenery was transformed into one of weird grandeur by the light of the many moons. And a thrill passed through me at the knowledge that at that precise moment of time we were leaving the known world behind, and had entered the unknown world which lay beyond.

The days which followed saw us pass without molestation above a landscape which became rapidly more arid and desolate. Scarlet plains and dense forests gave way to plateaus of splintered rock and bleak deserts of parched sand. Nowhere did we discern the slightest signs of human habitation.

As the region over which we flew became increasingly more mountainous, and the peaks of the dreaded Zarkoon drew ever closer, sentries were mounted to keep watch against any repetition of the attack upon the Jalathadar which had befallen the First Armada during its flight over this very country. For these mountains were the hunting grounds of the terrible Zarkoon, as the winged, cannibalistic sub-men are called. In former times the Flying Men had been known only in myth, and a token of this could be seen in the fact that one of our sister-ships even now bore the name of the Zarkoon. But the creatures were now known to be dreadfully real and soon, as we flew over the mighty peaks and glimpsed the black crater that was the entrance which led into their cavernous and subterranean realm, all hands stood by under full arms against the ever-present possibility of attack.

Evidently the cannibal savages had learned their lesson from the dreadful toll the warriors of the First Armada had taken of their numbers on that earlier expedition, for the security of our vessels was not threatened this time, and if any Zarkoon yet lingered among the peaks and plateaus of the mountain country, none dared to show their beaked faces.

Before dawn we soared above the immense, jungleclad table-land discovered by the first expedition. The light of the many moons flashed in the waters of the great lake of Cor-Az as we ascended above the ring of mountains which encircled the plateau. No signs of life or activity could be glimpsed from our height as we traversed the’ jungles from west to east, but Ylana, gazed wistfully down at her former home as we passed above it, and I know the melancholy thoughts that passed through her mind as she wondered as to the fate of her father, Jugrid, chief of her primitive people.

We flew far above the great waterfall where the River of the Groack emptied in a mighty cataract into the chasm which encircled the jungleland. And on we flew, into a desolate region of tremendous mountain ranges. Somewhere in all this trackless region of terrific masses of shattered and cloven stone lay the mysterious country of the Mind Wizards, or so we assumed. And there, it was hoped, we might still find and set free from the captivity of the mental wizards the lost princes and heroes we had come so far to rescue … .

During the long months that had stretched between the return of the Xaxar from the other side of the world and the launching of the Second Armada, the little Soraban geographer, Dr. Abziz, had devoted his every waking hour to the consultation of ancient texts, the journals of exploration and adventure, and the speculations of the geographers. Compiling and collating and sifting every smallest scrap of information concerning the second hemisphere of Callisto, the savant had striven with all his powers to find the location of shadowy and hidden Kuur.

The most important clue to the location of the mystery realm lay in the symbols etched upon the back of the silver medallion which had been taken from the corpse of Ang Chan. This personage, who had been the insidious secret power behind the Tharkolian throne and who had cunningly sought to influence Princess Zamara in her mad ambitions to conquer all of Thanator, was now known to have been one of the Mind Wizards. And it was deduced from this that the queer signs etched on the silver medallion which Ang Chan had worn concealed on his person were none other than the key to the location of that hidden kingdom.

It was Zastro, the wise old sage of the Ku Thad, who had first ventured upon this conclusion. For the signs scratched upon the reverse of the medallion seemed to bear at least a superficial relationship with what had already been discovered about the country whereover the mental supermen ruled. Jandar himself, on an earlier adventure, had learned from another Mind Wizard named Ool that shadowy Kuur was located “beyond Dragon River amid the Peaks of Harangzar, on the other side of Thanator.”

Zastro had pointed out that the medallion showed a symbol shaped like a black pyramid―which might mark the location of the secret citadel of the Mind Wizards―on the further side of a line whose serpentine curves suggested the conventional shape of the mythical Thanatorian Quastozon, a fabulous creature very like the dragons of Chinese art. And this wriggling line itself was depicted as squirming and coiling among a series of jagged lines which could easily represent mountains.

The key to the discovery of Kuur lay not only in the configuration of this river, but also, it was now believed, in the peculiar shape of the mountain from which the river emerged. This particular peak was shown on Ang Chan’s medallion to have a crest crowned with three jagged spires. It was the prevailing opinion that if we could locate such a mountain peak in conjunction with a river which curved in such a dragonish manner, we would be able to find the secret kingdom or city of the Mind Wizards.

Before very long the armada arrived above a section of the mountains in which it was now the opinion of Dr. Abziz we could expect to find this mountain. Before voyaging on to explore unknown further fastnesses of the hemisphere, the Soraban geographer strongly urged Zantor and his captains to deploy their sky-ships for the careful exploration of this region in particular. Zantor obligingly did so, and the Xaxar, the Zarkoon and the Avenger, dividing this part of the world into three equal divisions, each comprising about sixteen hundred square korads, t began their search.

So immense was this tract of land that, had it been necessary to comb so much of the country by foot or even on thaptor-back, it would have taken us many months, if not indeed years. Fortunately, however, the ships of the Sky Navy, cruising at an average height of several thousand feet, could search many hundreds of square miles within the span of a single day, especially with the use of optical instruments akin to binoculars, with which the Soraban savants had equipped the expedition. Higher than this the ships could not safely ascend, or at least could not cruise for any extended length of time, because the atmosphere grew thin and painfully cold at such an altitude.

For three days we searched the terrain from the air. We saw hundreds of mountain peaks, but only a few whose peaks were crowned with a triple-spired peak, and of these, not one rose in the vicinity of a curving river.

The region Zantor had selected to be covered by the Xaxar was the central of the three divisions. While we cruised above this middle region, the Avenger explored the country to the south and the Zarkoon sailed the wintry skies of the north. It had been prearranged that, should either of the three vessels chance to come upon such a mountain in conjunction with such a river, the ship was to mark the location upon her charts and fly to a certain rendezvous point to await the arrival of her sister-ships. All three ships were instructed to converge at this central point by a certain designated hour on the fifth day. And should any ship actually discover Kuur during its search period, Zantor’s orders sternly forbid any attack or the landing of an invasion force on the part of one ship alone.

“When we stand before the Gates of Kuur,” that grim and mighty warrior had vowed, “we shall stand together, to do and die for our friends in one combined legion.”

It was about the hour of noon on the third day of our search when a sharp cry rang out from an officer stationed on the rear observation belvedere at the poop.

This little balustraded balcony thrust from the rear of the ship’s hull beside the great, rigid rudderlike van by which the Xaxar was steered. The ribbed air-surface, which closely resembled a Chinese paper fan, was designed to thrust against the air-currents and thus divert the forward path of the mighty galleon of the clouds.

I was stationed, as it chanced, on the rear deck atop the poop or sterncastle of the ship, searching the landscape to the ship’s rear with an optical instrument. When this excited cry rang out wildly, galvanizing us into action, I jumped, narrowly missed dropping the instrument overboard, and swore at my nervous clumsiness. And the next instant found me clattering down the winding, narrow stair within the sterncastle at the heels of several others, among whom were Ylana, the jungle maid, and an officer named Harkon of Tharkol.

The man who had cried out was one of the Shondakorians whose name, unfortunately, I have since forgotten, although I think it was something like Kolar or Volar. He turned eager eyes upon us as we burst out of the inner gallery to crowd the small balcony at whose rail he stood.

“Look!” he commanded, pointing below with a trembling finger.

And there, a korad or two to the west of our position, a mountain somewhat taller and more prominent than its neighbors thrust above a great valley veiled in gray patches of mist.

A mountain whose crest was cloven into a triple crown!

Even as we stared down, eyes watering in the wind, our hearts in our mouths, breathless and tingling with excitement, the winds tore a rent through the rapidly thickening mists which covered the valley, and through those rents we perceived the glint of daylight flashing from the dark, smooth waters of a nameless river which coiled and curved like the sinuous body of a mythical dragon.

Chapter 14 BOZO DISAPPEARS

By this time it was early in the afternoon. The Xaxar hovered aloft, waiting for her sister-ships to return to the rendezvous point, while Dr. Abziz, from the pilothouse, eagerly scanned the terrain beneath our keel, comparing the view below with the conjectural landscape inked upon his charts.

“If once this accursed mist would part, perhaps I could ascertain our location by sighting a recognizable landmark,” the little savant huffed And fumed, tugging at his tuft of a beard in an ecstasy of indecision.

“That is certainly the mountain with three peaks over there,” said the jungle maid impatiently. “Or, if it isn’t the right one, it certainly looks like the one on the medallion!”

“Looks can be deceiving at this altitude, my dear child―if you could just manage, all of you, to leave these geographical decisions in the hands of a scholar uniquely experienced in making them, we would all be a lot happier!”

Ylana sniffed and turned a pouting face on the fussy little savant, but did not deign to reply.

“We could bring the Xaxar down another hundred yards,” Zantor said thoughtfully, “but only at considerable risk to the safety of the vessel. The updrafts are unpredictable in this mountainous country, and the wind currents have never been charted, since the Zanadarians never explored this far.”

“Well, neighbor,” Glypto chirped, rubbing his skinny hands together briskly and grinning as the fat little Soraban winced at this familiarity, “we could get a mite lower in the four-man gigs, could we not? Aye, and mayhap in that manner we could pierce beneath yon blanket of fog and gain a truly clear view of the terrain. What say my noble lordships to that?”

Abziz preened his waxed spike of beard, his features glum and petulant. It went sorely against his grain to. agree with anything suggested by his ruffianly tormentor, but the simple fact of the matter was that this was a good suggestion, and he knew it. You could read in his twitching features the internal struggle going on within him. At last he mumbled something by way of grudging assent.

“Aye, old Glypto thought as much!” chortled the wizened little Tharkolian. “Now, then, your lordships, it only remains to decide which of us shall have the honor of descending in the gig. Since ‘twere I as made the suggestion in the first place, I hope ‘twill not be thought impertinent of me to mention that, by rights, the honor belongs to poor Glypto?”

Zantor looked over at the brisk, bright-eyed little figure in black, a reluctant grin lightening his habitually gloomy expression. It was extremely difficult to keep a straight face around Glypto: he bubbled with good humor and exuded an aura of cheerful, impertinent merriment, and could be as’ enthusiastic and excited as a small boy.

“Very well, Master Glypto, the honor shall be yours. I suppose it is also up to you to designate the three others you wish to accompany you in the gig, as well. In this matter, the decision is up to you, but I must insist that Dr. Abziz be one of the three you select.”

Abziz groaned at this, for he hated to be exposed to Glypto’s company even under the best of circumstances, but he subsided after Zantor gave him a stern look. There was obviously no other choice but that the Soraban geographer must be one of those to descend below the fog-level in the gig.

“Aye, your Admiralship!” Glypto nodded cheerfully. “‘Tis always a pleasure to assist me dear neighbor in his geographical researches, that it is! For the rest, then, Glypto will select Prince Lankar and the wee lad Taran.”

Bozo pricked up his ears and uttered a questioning rumble. He sat up, turned mournful eyes upon me, and laid one great paw upon my knee as if in entreaty. I stroked his brow and said something to the effect that he should mind his manners and behave himself while I was gone―which would not be long, perhaps half an hour at most. But Bozo would have none of this and began cavorting clumsily about the cabin, setting the navigational instruments to shaking in their wall-brackets and nearly upsetting the chart-table.

Zantor cleared his throat. “May I suggest, Master Glypto, that you take the othode along with you, in the place of Taran, if only for the peace of the ship? You know how upset he becomes if parted from the Prince for long . .”

Dr. Abziz threw up his pudgy hands in horror.

“Oh, no! No! Really, Admiral―that is too much to ask! Is it not bad enough that I must share a cabin with the malodorous wild brute―who detests the very sight of me, I assure you!―but to try to cram myself into the narrow confines of a flimsy gig with the savage creature is asking too much of a weary, overworked scholar, who requires peace and a measure of quiet in order to perform his important scientific duties adequately?”

Mischief twinkled in the eye of the little Tharkolian. He opened his mouth to insist upon his choice, but I forestalled him.

“Listen, Glypto, I don’t mind staying here with Bozo; I know he upsets the Doctor and I don’t want to cause trouble. Finding the entrance to the hideout of the Mind Wizards is the most important thing right now. And I don’t mind being left behind.”

“Nonsense, Prince, Glypto will not hear of it! Why, the dear beast will come in handy, I’ll warrant, should any creature of the wild make bold enough to mistake the likes of us for tasty morsels … aye, the good Doctor here, well, he’ll just have to put up with the creature, that’s all there is to be said on it. We’ll be gone only a wee short time, after all, and it be Glypto his Admiralship here has put in command of this wee venture. If poor old Glypto can’t choose his own comrades, why, what be the purpose of it all?”

The savant from Soraba subsided, fuming, but even he could see that Glypto would not be swayed. So the end result was that we bundled our cloaks about us, saw to our weapons, and descended to the deck where several gigs were housed in small covered structures to protect them from the wind.

The deck-crew unlatched one gig from its housing, locked it into one of the hoists, and held it steady while we climbed aboard. Bozo was the last to scramble into the swaying craft, and it took a bit of persuasion before the big fellow reluctantly jumped into the seat next to mine. His weight made the’ small craft wobble from side to side sickeningly, and Dr. Abziz stifled a hollow groan and cuddled his precious instruments in his lap against damage.

“All secure aboard!” Glypto sang out cheerfully, with a brisk nod to the grinning deck-crew. “Hoist us over the sideaye, lively now, me lads!”

Wooden pulleys squeaked; lines drew taut. The hoist groaned. The little gig, wobbling from side to side, was elevated above the deck jerkily, then swung out over the side of the Xaxar. The wind caught the stiff wings of the little craft, which shuddered like a nervous horse at the starting-gate. Then at Glypto’s signal the latch was released and we dropped like a stone for a moment, then caught the wind with a buffet, and slid away to one side on a long, steep curve, as the little Tharkolian, in the front seat beside the shivering Dr. Abziz, worked the ailerons and rudder.

My heart was in my mouth and I held on to Bozo who crouched low in the seat beside me, trembling and growling at the unfamiliar giddy sensation. The little gig looked like an outrigger canoe with wings. It rode on two gas-filled pontoons slung below the hull to either side, like the pontoons on a seaplane. The craft was as flimsy as a kite, being made entirely of pressedpaper. And the winds shrieked.about us, tugging at our hair, making our eyes water, so that it seemed we were helpless in the impalpable grip of the gale-like a crude paper toy, whirled madly about in a howling tornado.

But in just a moment or two the little craft settled down as Glypto gained control. Now she rode the winds, rather than tumbling helplessly in their grip. Buoyant as a cork in a stream; she floated through the fog-belt, which closed about us, smotheringly. Damp mist enveloped us, shutting the world away, wetting our garments, plastering our hair to our heads. We blinked through the clinging grayness, striving to penetrate the thick vapor with narrowed eyes.

A moment later and we dipped below the level of the fog and emerged into open air. The vista below us was much as we had imagined it would be. The valley sloped downwards towards a flat, circular plain, all crumbling clods of parched dead soil, littered with enormous boulders and heaped with broken rock. Nowhere could we discern the slightest sign of life, not even a growing bush or a patch of grass.

Through the center of the plain the river wound sluggishly, its black waters dead and lifeless. In the dull light, which bleached all colors into grayness under the gloomy, lowering clouds, the barren, desolate landscape looked like something from one of Gustave Dore’s illustrations for Dante’s Inferno ….

Abziz had his optical glass to his eye, peering about, taking quick glances at the chart in his lap from time to time, comparing the landscape towards which we descended to the detailwork in his chart. He was muttering to himself under his breath, but the wind of our flight whipped his words away so that I could not hear them. Bozo whimpered and trembled beside me, pressing his huge face into my shoulder.

“Well, neighbor, what d’you say?” Glypto inquired, circling the gig about in a descending spiral with practiced ease.

“The curvature of the river matches that etched upon Ang Chan’s medallion closely enough,” replied the Doctor, “but where is the pyramid-shaped structure which also appears thereon?”

We stared about us, but nowhere were any man-built structures to be seen, not even ruins. The landscape was as empty of human life as something on the far side of the Moon.

Glypto leaned over the side of the cockpit, pointing, the wind whipping his tattered cloak into my face.

“Yonder curved cliff below looks to be in about the place where the pyramid should be,” he shouted. “Mayhap we’d be wise to bring the wee craft down, and poke about on foot!”

He swung the gig about, facing the craft into the wind, thus slowing our speed. The craft hovered, lurched, began to lose altitude.

“Prince Lankar, stand ready to belay yon mooringgrapple, if you please,” he called back to me. I reached backwards, behind me, where a length of line was secured around a latch. To the end of the line a lightweight collapsible grappling-hook was fastened. I snapped the prongs of the grapple open and gathered the line into my hands, searching below me for something to catch the prongs on, thus anchoring us.

We floated down below the crest of the line of cliffy outcroppings that protruded from the dry sand along a curved beach of the river. Then I spied a stone jutting from the sand and yelled out to Glypto that it looked about right for our purposes. He kicked the foot-pedals, activating the rotors fore and aft. We had not as yet used these, for the winds had supplied motive power sufficient to our needs, the gig being mostly designed as a sort of glider.

The craft angled down. I tried to belay the line about the jagged outcropping but it fell short. I tried twice again, missing each time. Finally, Glypto took the line from me and snagged the grappling-hook neatly into the underside of the rock. He grinned apologetically.

“Takes practice, your lordship! Now, lads, assist me, if you will, to draw the wee craft down.”

The gig was so perfectly balanced―the thrust of the levitant gas contained in her twin pontoons poised exquisitely against the weight of the four of us―that she was as weightless as a balloon. We took in the line hand over hand, dragging the wobbling craft down until she hovered only a few feet above the stretch of sandy beach. Then Glypto hopped down nimbly, followed by myself and Bozo, who performed the feat in the clumsiest fashion conceivable. The gig pitched so far over as the great othode cleared the edge of the cockpit that I feared Dr. Abziz would be thrown from his seat. He squawked, clutching his gear with one hand, the rim of the cockpit with the other. Then Glypto, grinning slyly, loudly advising the poor scholar to be wary of breaking his neck, assisted the Doctor to descend. Stiff with affronted dignity, Abziz clambered out, dusting himself off, while eyeing Bozo frostily.

We looked about. The cliff rose behind us twenty or thirty feet above the surface of the beach, smooth and unbroken. There was still no sign of human habitation to be seen, and the cliff-wall itself was unbroken. No cave, not even a fissure, could we observe.

“Why don’t you take the dear beast for a stroll up the beach towards that end of the cliff, your lordship, whilst we explore in t’other direction,” Glypto suggested amiably. “Come along, neighbor―if there be anything to be found, we’ll be the ones to find it!”

“I don’t understand it,” the Doctor muttered, trudging off with Glypto. “The map on the medallion clearly indicates a pyramid-shapen mark at about this location. Whatever could the sign symbolize, if it does not represent a man-made structure?” He strode off after the Tharkolian, shaking his head bemusedly.

“Come on, boy, we’re going this way!” Snapping my fingers, I turned about in the opposite direction, with Bozo gallumphing and frisking at my side, and began to explore the further end of the clifflike wall of rock.

Dry, crystalline sand crunched and squealed under my boot-heels. Except for the sound of our feet in the dead sand, and the melancholy slosh and slither of the cold black water to our left, no slightest sound broke the sepulchral silence of this deserted place. Above us, a dome of gray mist coiled and uncoiled snakily, blot ting away the daylight, and only a dim gray gloom penetrated the fog to shed its dour light over the bleak desolation.

Happy to set all six feet on solid land once again, Bozo clumsily frisked about me as if wanting to play. I was too tense and nervous to indulge him; the dead landscape, the brooding gray sky, and the ominous black river slithering between crumbling banks, all combined to cast a grim mood of depression over my spirits.

Then again I felt a curious uneasiness―a sensation of being watched. You know how it is when the skin creeps on the backs of your hands and tingles at the nape of your neck―a feeling of unseen. eyes studying you from a place of concealment? Well, that’s exactly how I felt as I trudged up the beach that day. From time to time I looked over my shoulder, almost expectting to see a dim, mysterious figure lurking behind me. But I saw nothing at all suspicious―just the gig bobbling at the end of its line like a huge, ungainly kite, and the two figures of Glypto and Dr. Abziz further down the beach; strolling along; peering up at the cliffs from time to time.

Suddenly Bozo stopped dead in his tracks.

His ears pricking, he stared directly behind us as at a smooth, flat stretch of rock. I followed the direction of his gaze in some bewilderment, unable to discover anything about the cliff-wall that had caught his attention.

“What’s the matter, boy? What is it?”.

The suedelike nap of his purple fur roughened along between his shoulders as his hackles rose bristling. His goggling eyes were fixed in an unwavering stare upon a smooth section of rock-wall. A heavy rumble of warning rose from deep in his broad chest.

I stared, first at the othode, then at the section of cliff, unable to see anything about a perfectly ordinary stretch of cliff that could have aroused his suspicions. There was simply nothing about the smooth area of dark gray rock that was in any way different from the dozen or so yards of exactly identical cliff we had just walked past. But something had very definitely alerted Bozo to the presence of danger. The warning rumble deepened now into a guttural growl of menace. His froglike jaws gaped, baring blunt, powerful tusks. His glaring eyes blazed like coals as he stared unwaveringly at that innocent-seeming stretch of rock-wall.

And then―before I could think or move or speak―

Hind legs bunching beneath him―great bands of muscle standing out in his haunches, he crouched―and sprang!

Sprang directly into the solid wall of stone―

And disappeared as if by magic!

Chapter 15 THROUGH THE BARRIERS OF ILLUSION

I am not a superstitious man. In fact, I generally pride myself on possessing a cool, rational mind. I have never believed in any gods or ghosts or demons, and I have always thought myself immune to the mumbo jumbo of religion, mysticism, mythology and occultism. I don’t believe in the supernatural, or in the survival of the individual after death, nor in the existence of the human soul. In fact, I don’t believe in astrology or E.S.P.

But it is one thing to read of miracles and apparitions and faith-healing and phantoms―it is another thing entirely when you observe with your own eyes something your rational atheism cannot explain.

I blinked my eyes and stared at the blank wall of stone feeling a small, cold, uncanny wind blowing directly up my spine.

With my own eyes I had seen the giant purple othode leap up against a solid wall of rock and vanish into nothingness. I was wide-awake and in full possession of my faculties. I was neither drunk nor hypnotized nor sleepwalking, and I have never taken drugs in my life. Yet I had seen the inexplicable―the impossible―happen right before my very eyes. Suddenly I felt dizzy; I tried to pucker my lips in order to whistle for Bozo but they were numb and, anyway, my throat was suddenly too dry to utter a sound.

I looked down. There were the tracks of Bozo and myself in the dry, dead, crystalline sand. There were the scoop marks his rear set of legs had dug in the beach as he had launched himself into space. And nowhere were there any marks to indicate that he had ever completed that jump!

It was uncanny; simply uncanny! And suddenly I was horribly frightened. Not for myself, exactly, but for Bozo. Where was he now, the great, powerful, loyal beast who loved and trusted me―the burly, doglike, affectionate creature who had followed at my side all this long way from that jungle glade in the Grand Kumala to the bleak, mysterious shores of Dragon River, beyond the Peaks of Harangzar in the land of Kuur?

He had vanished into thin air, as if snatched into another dimension, or transported in a twinkling to some distant spot by magic. It was terrifying―inexplicable!

I swallowed a lump in my throat that was about the general size and shape of my heart, and leaning forward, began gingerly patting the rock wall here and there, as if to reassure myself of the testimony of my eyesight by means of my sense of touch. Just then there came a distant call from down the beach some distance away.

“Eho, friend Lankar! Any sign of anything?”

It was Glypto. Having reached the furthest extent of the cliffs, he and Dr. Abziz were trudging back to where we had left the gig.

“Come here quick!” I cried. Alarmed at my tone of voice, the scrawny little man drew his knife and sprinted towards where I stood. Behind him, clutching his maps and glasses against his bosom, the scarlet-faced Soraban followed at a clumsy pace, puffing and blowing.

Glypto came up to where I stood and glanced about with a quick, keen eye.

“Now, Prince, whatever is wrong―and where has the dear beast gotten to?”

“That’s just it, Glypto. Bozo has disappeared!” I cried.

He regarded rime curiously, arching one brow.

“Eh? How’s that again? What do you mean `disappeared’?”

“Just that,” I said vaguely. “Disappeared. Jumped right into the cliff-wall somewhere about here, and―and―vanished!”

“Vanished? But how could the dear brute have vanished? There’s naught here―not so much as a crevice,” he muttered incredulously.

“I know it, but, well, that’s what happened,” I said helplessly. The little rogue stared at me for a long moment with one bright, inquisitive eye, fingering his great beak of a nose with one hand while toying nervously with his knife in the other.

“… vanished, eh?” he muttered.

“Impossible. Quite impossible, sir,” wheezed the Doctor, glaring at me severely as if accusing me of having deliberately contrived the occurrence in order to embarrass him.

I was beginning to lose my temper. “I know that,” I said shortly. “But 1 saw it happen. Right about, um―here,” I said, turning to slap the side of the cliff with the palm of my hand.

But my hand passed through seemingly solid rock, vanishing to the wrist.

Glypto yelped, jumped a foot, and paled. Abziz rolled up his eyes and moaned faintly. I blinked, staring at my hand in amazement. My arm simply ended at the wrist, whose stump seemed to be pressed flat against the smooth, unbroken surface of stone. But my hand was still attached to the end of my wrist, I knew, because when I waggled my fingers I could feel them in motion, even though I could not see them.

A breath of the unknown blew over us, cold and chill. We stood and stared at one another in dead silence.

“Oh, my,” whispered Dr. Abziz in a faint voice. “Oh my!”

I withdrew my hand from the solid rock, and it was whole and perfectly normal looking. I wiggled my fingers again, staring down at them blankly, then turning my gaze on the gray, pitted stretch of rock into which my hand had been buried a moment before up to the wrist.

Suddenly, Glypto’s eyes sparkled. He darted forward, knife glittering. The point of his blade grated and squeaked along the surface of the cliff until it reached a spot near which my hand had so inexplicably vanished into the stone. At that point his wicked little blade sank into the stone, too, vanishing halfway to the hilt. He stretched on tiptoe, rasping the knife along the edges of an invisible entrance. His knife clinked to one side of an unseen opening, then the top, then the far side. Abziz and I watched in awe. To us it seemed he was dragging his knife through solid rock.

“Triangular!” he chirped brightly, eyes dancing. “An entrance pointed at the top, the sides widening to the base! An invisible, triangular doorway sunk in yon solid stone, by some weird magic. Aye, that, then, be the meaning of the pyramid-shapen mark on the medallion! We thought it were a pyramid―a buildin’, like, forgetting that a triangle be the selfsame shape as a pyramid! And that a doorway can be trianglelike in shape!”

He regarded me with curious respect in his eyes.

“My friend from another world,” he said softly, his manner suddenly formal, “to you has been given the privilege of discovering the very Gates of Kuur… ”

The Gates of Kuur ...

But actually, the credit belonged to Bozo.

The tension of the scene, tightly drawn, relaxed suddenly with the solution, or at least the partial solution, of the mystery of Bozo’s disappearance. The emotional relief hit me suddenly, as an incongruous parallel suggested itself to me. It struck me as being terribly funny, and I’m afraid I giggled a trifle hysterically.

“What be the matter now?” asked Glypto.

“Dwellers in the Mirage,” I laughed.

“Eh? Give me that one again?”

“Oh, sorry, that was in English, wasn’t it? Let’s see if I can translate―I don’t think you have a word for `mirage’, or if you do I guess I haven’t learned it yetwell, no matter!”

“Your lordship, what do you be talking about?”

“It’s the title of one of my favorite books―a novel by A. Merritt, a writer of whom you could never have heard―well, anyway, in a book called Dwellers in the Mirage, Merritt has a mysterious race of beings living in a deep craterlike valley which is screened from discovery by anybody from the outer world because of a `mirage’—a barrier of illusion, artificially ‘maintained . don’t you see?”

“Aye … aye!” crowed Glypto excitedly. “That be the secret all right!” Admiration shone in his glistening eyes, dawning comprehension on his homely face. “The yellow dogs of Kuur are mind-magicians, able by mystic power to read, and, aye, to influence the thoughts of other men … .”

“Ah! I see it now. Precisely, sir!” Dr. Abziz broke in, his high-pitched voice excited. “We are already aware that these Mind Wizards can in fact project their own thoughts and ideas into the minds of others; they did this with the Empress Zamara of Tharkol, we know, causing her to see, or to think she was seeing, miraculous visitations of the Lords of Gordrimator.* With their amazing powers over the human mind, it should be no great trick for them to impose a permanent illusion over this opening, convincing the eye of everyone who stands here that he is looking at a wall of solid rock, when actually there is an opening cut in the stone, invisible to him because it is covered by the illusion. Ingeniops! Remarkable!”

I’m afraid I giggled again.

“What is it now, my dear Prince?” demanded Abziz testily, bending a cool glance of reproof at me for my unseemly levity.

I grinned, unable to resist.

“In other words, they have `a mysterious power to cloud the minds of men,’ is that it? Sorry―excuse me―you people aren’t likely to have heard of The Shadow either… “

Glypto paid no heed to this exchange, which of course was incomprehensible to him. He was studying the seemingly solid wall of pitted gray stone with a narrowed eye.

“I wonder why the illusion did not blind your brute to the presence of the opening, as it did yourself?” Abziz mused, rubbing his jaw.

“Probably it did,” I offered. “But the illusion was designed for eyesight alone, and the thought-picture projected into our brains was aimed at the vision centers of the brain only. There wasn’t much point in the Kuurians trying to make the opening smell like solid rock, because human beings have a very feeble sense of smell. Bozo, like all his kind, has an extremely sensitive nose, and a sense of smell that makes ours look vestigial by comparison. I assume the othodes of Thanator must have a highly developed sense of smell, just as dogs do on my native world, because, like earthly dogs, which they very much resemble, your people use them for hunting. And it is by the sense of smell, you know, that a hunting dog―or an othode―follows a trail.”

“In other words,” Abziz puffed, “the wall may have looked right to the creature but it certainly didn’t smell right.”

“Yes, that’s it, exactly! He probably smelled the presence of the Mind Wizards, or their cook-fires, or their refuse, or something like that―where his eyes told him there was nothing. So he went to investigate … .”

“Well, then, me .dear friends,” said Glypto, rubbing his hands together briskly. “There be only one thing to do now!”

“And what might that be?” inquired Dr. Abziz, warily.

“Aye, we’ll just have to see for ourselves what the dear beast discovered behind this barrier of illusion,” he decided.

Whereupon, waving one hand in a cocky salute, and grinning at us, the little Tharkolian strutted forwardwalking directly into the wall of rock before him

And vanished.

I shivered slightly, as if a cold wind blew about me.

Repetition of a miracle, I found, does not diminish its impact upon the nervous system. At least not upon a system as nervous as mine … .

We stood there on the dismal gray beach, the fat, scarlet little Soraban savant and I, feeling suddenly abandoned and lonely. Dr. Abziz wet his lips nervously, a strained expression tightening about his eyes. And it occurred to me then that the verbal rivalry between these two was more in the nature of a game they both enjoyed, than it was a matter of the tormentor and the tormented. For Abziz was worried by Glypto’s disappearance―too worried to bother trying to hide it.

“Impudent little rascal,” he sniffed, scowling in a most unconvincing manner. “Always swaggering about like an overgrown adolescent! Well, someday he’ll poke his huge nose into more trouble than he bargained for … oh, what can be keeping the villain!―does the idiot think to frighten us by lingering beyond the portal―?”

I was gathering my courage, about to attempt Glypto’s feat―although without the air of devil-may-care jauntiness, which would have been well beyond my acting abilities at that moment!―when suddenly the little thief reappeared. Part of him, that is.

A grinning head appeared as if by magic, halfway up the wall of illusion. It was Glypto thrusting his head through the barrier, looking for all the world like a beheaded malefactor, his severed pate stuck up on a spike as a warning to other criminals. Dr. Abziz stiffened and gasped at the grisly apparition, which winked and grimaced at us.

“Glypto, what―?”

“Come on―come on!” the bodiless head snorted gleefully. “Step right through yonder wall―there be nothin’ there, nothin’ at all, you know―come! We are wasting time.”

“What about… did you find Bozo?” I blurted.

He chuckled.

“Did I find Bozo?” he repeated, rolling his eyes comically. “Did I find Bozo! Just step in here, yer lordship, and feast yer eyes upon the havoc the dear, faithful beast has wrought―”

And with that enigmatic phrase, Glypto withdrew his head to the other side of the barrier of illusion.

I stepped forward, hesitating just a little, poking at the wall gingerly. I discovered that it is more difficult than you might think to deliberately walk into a wall, even into one you know isn’t really there. As I approached the barrier, my eyes only an inch or two away from what seemed to be a solid surface of rock, I marveled at the realistic detail of the illusion. For I could see the very grain and texture of the imaginary stone, cracked and pitted, upper edges of protuberances littered with granules of frock dust, just as if it was real and solid.

Then, taking a deep breath, I stepped forward into the wall of mirage, and walked through the Gates of Kuur into an unknown world.