Mad Empress of Callisto

Chapter 5 A Secret Passage

Even as I pounced upon the cloaked figure it writhed from my grip. And in the next instant a wicked, hooked little knife flashed at my throat. I blocked the thrust with my forearm, seized the wrist of the assassin’s knife hand, and wrung it cruelly, forcing a squeal of pain from the lips of my opponent.

The hooked knife fell on the silken carpets, but my mysterious opponent had yet other weapons. One of these, a bony knee, caught me in the pit of the stomach with sickening force. The breath whooshed from my lungs and I reeled groggily for a moment, struggling to catch my breath.

My opponent seized his opportunity and twisted from my grip. He was as hard to hold onto as a slippery eel, that fellow! In a swirl of his black cape he melted into the shadows of the chamber and had all but vanished as swiftly and mysteriously as he had entered it.

And this, no doubt, he would have done, had it not been for Ergon. We all slept in the same room, you see, but it was a large and capacious chamber with silk-draped couches scattered about, which afforded us considerable privacy. My Princess slept in a couch we had drawn into a niche of the wall, and, for her greater privacy, Ergon and I had rigged up a curtain which veiled the alcove. But Ergon sprawled on a couch across the room from me, snoring lustily.

The muffled sounds of the struggle had roused the faithful fellow. And, even as my slippery adversary wriggled free of my grasp and slunk into the deeper gloom, the burly Perushtarian was upon him with a tigerish lunge. He dealt the cloaked figure a stunning buffet and dragged him out into the moonlight where I stood, clutching my middle, and gasping for breath.

Tossing the limp figure to the floor in a swirl of black, ragged cloak, Ergon growled, “I believe this is yours, Jandar?”

“Indeed it is,” I panted. “Ergon, strike a light to yonder candelabrum, and let us see what we have caught.”

The hunched little figure huddled at our feet whined and sniveled as Ergon strode to an ivory-inlaid taboret and touched a flame to the many-branched candlestick. In the milky light we perceived a scrawny, bent little man wrapped in the greasy folds of a ragged, patched cloak of black fabric.

“Cry you mercy, lords!” the little man snuffled. “If it be I have come into the wrong chamber by mistake, why―why―”

Ergon stripped the black cloak away and we peered down in amusement and curiosity at the whimpering, miserable creature that groveled before us. He was thin and scrawny and looked half-starved, with bony shanks and a huge beak of a nose, comical in a seamed and wizened face. It was impossible to guess his age, but his place in society was unmistakable.

Ergon grunted sourly, pointing to a brand burnt into the brow of the whimpering little man. “A thief,” he growled. The little fellow peered up at us fearfully, his one good eye shrewd and sharp and bright as a ferret’s, the other concealed by a black eye patch that lent him a rakish appearance. Lank, greasy locks fell in a tangle over a high bony brow. His thin-lipped mouth worked in stammering terror, a pointed chin adorned with a stringy tuft of ill-kempt beard. His hollow cheeks were stubbled, and the raw stench of cheap wine, raw onions, and sour garlic hovered about him, mingling with the odors of his unwashed body, and of the filthy, dilapidated rags that barely covered it.

“Not so―not so, lords, on my honor!” the one-eyed little rogue squeaked fearfully. “I am Glypto, an unemployed chanthan, at your honor’s service!”

Ergon chuckled and cocked an amused eyebrow at this. The brand on the scrawny little rogue’s brow was the Thanatorian character for chark, or “thief.” But a chanthan is quite another thing, indeed. The term denotes a certain class of landless but wellborn gentlemen of the chanar, the warrior-caste. The term is often stretched to lend a degree of spurious dignity to the more furtive classes of Callistan society, however.

No wonder it roused a chuckle from glum, glowering Ergon. Our greasy, whimpering little captive referred to himself as a “gentleman adventurer,” which was an overly polite euphemism for any sort of slinking rogue.

The scuffle had aroused Darloona. Clutching the coverlet of her couch about her, she asked what was toward. Spying her, our captive fell on his scrawny knees and lifted imploring―and none too clean―hands to her.

“Mercy―mercy for poor, starved Glypto, noble lady! Glypto meant no harm to the noble lords! Glypto mistook his way in the black of night, he―”

“Jandar, what in the world is this?” Darloona queried, her surprise giving way to amusement. I shrugged, laughing.

“An unexpected ally, my Princess! A friend who has come to extricate us from our predicament…”

Ergon frowned, wrinkling his bald scarlet pate. Nudging the groveling little rogue with a toe, he growled. “‘Tis but a thieving rascal, Jandar! Call you this whining horeb `friend’?”

“I do indeed, Ergon,” I smiled. “I will hail any man as my friend, who shows me a way to get out of this gilded cage in which we are locked.”

Darloona looked at me puzzledly. “But how can this little man help us?” she murmured.

“My darling,” I grinned, “he got in here somehow―and unobserved, since thieves are seldom invited to ply their trade in palaces. And however he got in―surely we can get out by the same route.”

Ergon’s brow cleared at my words and his surly gaze sparkled with zest at the thought of freedom. “Of course! Devil take me for a witless fool! Here, you―whatever your name is―we’re not going to kill you or turn you over to the guards―so cease your everlasting whimpering before you summon them hither with your uproar.”

Glypto’s snuffling was cut short, as he suddenly realized he was in no danger from us. His shrewd little eye peered up from where he crouched, sharp yet furtive, as if hardly daring to believe his good fortune.

“Glypto the chanthan, my masters!” he chirped brightly.

“Nay, ‘tis Glypto the Thief, I’ll wager,” smiled Darloona.

He ducked in an obsequious little bow.

“And you will have it so, gracious lady! Glypto the Thief―the son of Glypto the Thief―the grandson of Glypto the Thief―at your service, my masters!”

It was hard to keep a straight face when talking to the little fellow; everything about him was innately comical, from his ferretlike, twinkling one eye to his enormous beak of a nose which dominated his famished, wizened face as if in its growth, the prominent proboscis had drained his other features of their vitality in order to sustain itself. And his whining little voice, which either croaked like a frog or chirped like a sparrow, itself made you chuckle. For he spoke his Thanatorian with a drawl on the vowels and a rasp of the consonants that sounded for all the world like the Callistan equivalent of Cockney.

“See here, Glypto,” I said severely, “you are in no danger of harm from us, so long as you do our bidding. We are held captive here, and if you assist us in making our escape, a rich reward will be yours… ”

He crawled to his feet, nimbly retrieving the little hooked knife I had wrested from him, which he restored to its accustomed place within the bundle of sour rags that clothed his scrawny form. Even standing, the hunched, sidling little man scarcely came up to Ergon’s collarbone.

“At your service, noble lords! How can Glypto the chanthan be of service?” he chirped inquisitively.

“We want to know how you got in here, guttersnipe,” Ergon grunted. In answer, Glypto rolled his one good eye eloquently skyward. We followed his gaze. Ergon growled a curse and I groaned.

For a black opening yawned in the ceiling!

Earlier, Ergon and I had searched every inch of the apartment, thumping every foot of the walls, hoping to find a secret panel or a concealed passage of some sort, as the palaces of Thanator are often honeycombed with such. We had even rolled back the carpets and tested the floors.

But it had simply never occurred to us to try the ceiling!

The little rogue grinned and strutted, preening himself in our eyes.

“An hereditary secret, my noble lords and masters!” he crowed. “Handed down over the generations from father to son! Aye, none less than the closely guarded secret of the House of Glypto!”

“And the meal-ticket of a family of thieving rascals, I doubt me not,” grunted Ergon, making as if to cuff the swaggering little fellow with a clout from the back of his hand.

Glypto cringed from the half-hearted blow, showing pointed, ratlike, yellowish teeth in a frightened snarl. But Darloona put out one hand to halt Ergon; her womanly heart was touched by the pathetic and yet amusing little man.

“Ergon, don’t strike him; he will help us to escape, and we should be grateful,” she said softly.

Ergon growled and spat.

“As you will, my lady. But trust the scrawny little horeb no further than an arm’s reach away. Such as he would sell us to the guards for a copper coin!”

Glypto made an elaborate, courtly bow to my Princess, stuck out his tongue at the surly Ergon, then pranced across the room to where the secret trapdoor gaped in the ceiling.

“This way! This way, my masters! Permit your servant to show you the secret of the House of Glypto!” he chortled gaily.

Darloona quickly donned her hunting garb while Ergon and I pulled on our leathern tunics, girdles, and buskins. Two moons were aloft in the night skies of Thanator, and the vast amber-and-ocher-banded bulk of mighty Gordrimator (as the Callistans term their primary, Jupiter) heaved up its mighty orb above the horizon by the time we were ready to depart.

A knotted cord dangled down from the panel in the ceiling, and by this we one by one ascended, with Glypto in our rear. We found ourselves crouched in a narrow crawl-space between the floors. It was dark and cramped, airless and stifling, but Glypto produced a stub of candle to which he struck a light. By the thin, wavering illumination of this bit of greasy wax we perceived that the narrow space between the floors consisted of heavy beams between which thin flimsy laths, coated with plaster, formed the ceiling. Glypto showed us how to crawl along the beams and cautioned us against putting any weight on the laths between these beams, warning us that they were not strong enough to bear our weight.

So we progressed on hands and knees, Glypto taking the forward position after carefully drawing up the knotted line, which he untied and stowed away beneath his rags. He also drew up and pegged shut the trapdoor: when shut, the hairline crack in the plaster was invisible from the room below, or so he assured us.

The crawl-space ended in a vertical wall wherein Glypto or his ancestors had cut a hole. Once through this we were able to stand erect, and found ourselves in a black and stifling passageway hollowed through the wall of the palace. We could stand erect, but could only go back or forward by inching along sideways, so narrow was the passage between the wall of our room and that of the next apartment.

Glypto sent a chill of dread into the very marrow of my bones when he carelessly announced that the apartment next to ours housed none other than the gray-robed, slant-eyed yellow dwarf who had so cleverly assisted in our capture. This personage he called the Queen’s priest and councillor, and gave us to understand that his name was Ang Chan.

I knew―although my companions did not―that the yellow dwarf was one of the Mind Wizards of Kuur. This I had guessed from the start, because he was obviously of the same race as Ool the Uncanny, who by an odd and thought―provoking coincidence had also served Arkola the Usurper, the chief of the Black Legion, as his priest and councillor.

And, as I had excellent cause to know, Ool had been a natural telepath!

I had already guessed that Zamara’s cunning accomplice was also a member of this mysterious race whose emissaries appear from time to time on the great stage of Thanatorian affairs, always in a position of enormous influence, to manipulate the flow of events for some purpose unknown and unguessable except to themselves. Assuming the Mind Wizards to be a race of telepaths, I suddenly understood many things which had baffled me before. So swift had been the succession of events, so dire the perils into which chance had thrust us, that the struggle to think of a solution to our predicament had occupied my mind to the exclusion of other thoughts.

But now, quite suddenly, it came to me how Darloona and Ergon and I had been lured into outstripping our hunting party, and had been drawn into the clump of woods where Zamara and her band had been hidden, prepared to seize us.

We had pursued a snow-white vanth.

A vanth that Ergon had not been able to see!

A vanth that had miraculously vanished into thin air before our very eyes, the moment we were beneath the hidden nets!

These thoughts went tumbling through my mind as I inched along the narrow passage between the walls.

Suddenly my whirling brain made sense of the chaos of mysteries into which we had been thrust.

Suddenly, one by one, the scattered pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Suddenly, l knew the answer to the secret!

Chapter 6 The Captor Made Captive

For I suddenly knew that the shadowy and elusive Mind Wizards could do more than just read the minds of others. They could subtly and secretly influence those minds, as well!

For the human mind is much more than just a center of the cognitive faculty and a storehouse of memory. It is the switchboard of the senses: therein the ears and the eyes and the other sensory organs feed the results of their surveillance to be interpreted to the brain in the great nerve centers.

The vision center, for instance, digests and arranges into pictures the information gathered by the eyesight and fed into the brain in the form of electrical impulses passed along the nerve fibers.

It suddenly occurred to me that a trained and gifted telepath might well be able to tamper with the vision center of the brain, inducing the illusion of pictures directly to the brain-pictures the eyes themselves had not really seen at all!

Such as the elusive white vanth we had followed.

The vanth that had led us straightway into a cunningly laid trap.

The vanth that had somehow been invisible to Ergon.

The vanth that had disappeared, the moment we were beneath the nets. The vanth that had been invisible to Ergon for the very good reason that it had not really been there at all.

Concealed within the copse, Ang Chan had telepathically transmitted the cleverly sustained illusion of a fleeing vanth into the unsuspecting minds of Darloona and me. Because it was we two he wished to capture.

Ergon had not been induced to see the vanth because Ang Chan had no reason to wish to capture him.

It was mere chance that Ergon, alone of our companions, had been at the fore of the party with my Princess and myself when we saw―or thought we saw―the rare white vanth. Not knowing why we so suddenly broke into a charge, he unthinkingly spurred his thaptor in order to keep up with us, and thus had been captured as well. Had not the kidnapping been timed to a split-second schedule, in order for us to be bundled off in the balloon mere instants before the remainder of the hunting party entered the copse on our heels, Ergon would doubtless have been murdered on the spot. But that would have taken a few moments―and Zamara’s scheme was not timed to include those few extra moments. So it had proved best to merely take him along.

Cold perspiration burst out on my bare forearms. Ugly, faithful, loyal devoted old Ergon! He owed his very life to the fact that Zamara’s scheme had not included a few seconds leeway!

Once this simple fact entered my comprehension, other pieces of the puzzle coalesced neatly. We had been housed in such curious comfort, simply because Ang Chan’s quarters lay next to our own.

Obviously, our capture was the initial phase in Zamara’s megalomaniac scheme of world conquest. Seizing us left Shondakor leaderless. In our absence, the Shondakorian host would weary its strength and scatter its forces hither and thither about the Great Plains, searching for the lost Prince and Princess. In this interval of disorder and confusion and dispersal of strength, the legions of Tharkol would strike in an invasion that was doubtless the second phase in Zamara’s plan of conquest.

But there was more to be gained from holding Darloona and me captive―especially if you have a trained and subtle telepath on hand! We had been housed in the apartment next to Ang Chan so that he could read our minds while we slept or idly conversed. And in our minds lay immensely valuable information of enormous use to any would-be conqueror, for Darloona and I well knew the details of the defense and armaments of Shondakor, the disposition of troops, the schedules of sentries, the flag signals―even the passwords of the gates, which were changed daily according to a prearranged system.

And now perspiration bedewed my brow as well. For if Ang Chan were beyond this wall, mentally eavesdropping on us, he must surely by now know that we were escaping!

I reached out and seized Glypto by the collar of his cloak and hissed an urgent question into his ear. He shrugged, then fumbled along the inner wall until his sensitive fingers found some small aperture invisible to me in the uncertain light. Fitting his one good eye on the spyhole, the little rogue peered into the room beyond, then straightened, smirking.

“Nay, my master, the priest be not within. Oh―aye!―now that I call it to mind, this night our holy Empress holds a state ball to celebrate some coup or other against the realm of Shondakor, which city, the gossip of the taverns hath it, be the first prize on her list of conquests,” he said, offhandedly, not dreaming that it was our capture which had been the coup in question. We had seen no particular reason, as yet, to inform our involuntary little guide as to our identities, or the reasons for our captivity. Doubtless he assumed us to be courtiers suffering house arrest for some displeasure we had caused the Empress. Things had happened too swiftly, perhaps, for him to have yet noticed in the darkness and the confusion of our scuffle, that of the three of us only Ergon was a Perushtarian.

I relaxed a bit at the news that the suite beyond the wall was currently unoccupied; but the hour was very late, and surely the ball must have ended by now and the lords and ladies of the court would be returning to their suites. At any moment, the yellow dwarf from mysterious Kuur might enter his suite to eavesdrop on us. At any moment, then, he could discover that we had escaped, and would raise the alarm!

“We must be gone from this place just as soon as possible,” I whispered, thinking swiftly. “Glypto, where does the passage lead to in this direction?”

He fingered his tuft of beard with nimble, greasy fingers, thoughtfully.

“Now let me think on it, my master … past the royal apartments of the Empress herself, aye! And thence deeper into the inner citadel―”

“And in the other direction? Swiftly, friend―every moment counts!”

“Why … out through the walls of the keep, of course … ‘tis a lengthy and a winding way, I fear, but it ends at last in the sewers which honeycomb the space beneath the streets o’ the city, and thus to many o’ the safe and snug hidey-holes in the Thieves’ Quarter … . “

I cursed desperately, feeling the precious moments slipping away―and with them, this last small chance of our escaping.

“No good at all . . that way would take too long, and if Ang Chan is what I fear he is, he could find us even in the sewers … is there any other exit nearby?”

Glypto squinted a bright, inquisitive eye up at me, curious as to my haste. “Oh, aye, a trap in each ceiling leads down into every room, even the Empress’s, though he would be a bolder chanthan than even Glypto who would dare to use it! Ooff!” he squeaked as I shook him violently, to shake his mind from these rambling reminiscences. “Aye, I’m thinking, lord, don’t shake the breath out of my poor old bones! A nearer exit―aye! I mind me that my grandfather had a stone hollowed away at ‘tother end, which lets forth on this tier … .”

“The third tier, isn’t it?” I demanded suddenly, a marvelous scheme having suddenly sprung full-blown into my brain.

“Aye … the third tier it is.”

“Where the balloon is tethered―the flying thing that carried us here?”

He nodded slowly. “Aye … guarded by three, or is it four, men at arms? Three, I think … .”

“I care not if ‘twere a dozen,” I said recklessly, with a grin of sheer mischief. “For the Lords of Gordrimator are with us this night! They must be, for at last things are going in our favor!”

Ergon’s froglike face looked at me bewilderedly in the feeble light of the flickering candle stub.

“Jandar, what is toward? You’re hatching some scheme, I’ll wager, but ‘tis past my wit to guess it straight .…”

“Everything will be explained in a moment,” I laughed. And then another thought occurred to me―a thought so deliciously pregnant with pleasurable possibilities that I stopped short in my tracks.

“Glypto―where is the suite of this self-styled Empress of yours?” I snapped.

His wizened face was every bit as bewildered as Ergon’s but there was no time to play the game of question-and-answer now. Sensing my impatience, he scuttled ahead of me down the narrow way, and showed me the position of the spyhole.

I slid the baffle aside, stopped, and fitted my eye to the tiny aperture. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness, but then I began to make out the details of a huge room draped in silks, carpeted with rare furs, and thronged with paintings, statuettes, tapestries, and other artworks too numerous to list.

Directly in front of me, Zamara sprawled languorously on an immense low couch covered with costly furs. She wore a dazzling gown of some sparkling, expensive-looking fabric that looked like silver lame, and a gem-studded tiara flashed about her brows, caught in her ebon tresses. As I gazed upon this scene, the Empress of Tharkol was sipping a goblet of chilled wine while a slave girl knelt before her, gently massaging her feet with some perfumed oil. Even as I watched, Zamara dismissed the servant with a flick of her hand, turned to an immense mirror, and began lazily removing her jewels. The slave girl scuttled out, and, my eyes searching every corner of the room, I ascertained to my indescribable amusement and delight that Zamara was now completely alone in her apartments.

Taking my eye from the spyhole, I seized Glypto by the collar of his threadbare cloak.

“Where is the trapdoor in the ceiling of the room?”

“There, lord, but “

“Give me the candle. Ergon! Collar this rogue, and if he squeals, teach him the weight of your hand.”

“‘Twill be a pleasure,” Ergon growled, enveloping the little thief in brawny arms. From behind him, down the narrow passage, Darloona gazed at me with amazement and wonder in her emerald eyes.

“Jandar, what is it that you plan to do?” she asked.

I blew her an airy kiss.

“Beloved, we are going to escape in style―and we’ll be carrying a little `life insurance’ along, just in case a guard or two gets too handy with his spear! I’ll be back in just a moment, with a surprise for you all. While I’m gone, go back down the passage and find the exit that leads out onto this tier of the palace. If our luck is still with us, we’ll find the balloon still tethered there … get along, now, all of you!”

Faces mirroring their puzzlement, they crept off down the passage while I ducked through the low rat hole, crawled out on one of the beams, found and unlatched the trapdoor, opened it and swung through, to drop as soundlessly as a great cat to the floor directly behind the would-be Empress of Callisto!

Chapter 7 The Plaything of the Winds

Ergon’s mind swirled in baffled confusion, unable to discern from my gleeful and reckless grin and lighthearted words whatever plan or scheme it was I was hatching. But the loyal fellow did not pause to question my odd directions for a moment. Ugly, strong, and as utterly faithful as a huge mastiff, the burly-shouldered Perushtarian who had been my fellow slave in the pens of Narouk, my comrade among the gladiators of Zanadar, and who would remain my dogged and stouthearted friend to the last throb of his indomitable heart, turned and crept off down the winding passage, half-dragging our little guttersnipe of a guide in the grip of his powerful hands.

In a few moments Glypto, eyes goggling with terror, half strangled in the unthinking grip of those massive hands, timidly flapped his hands until he had attracted the attention of the surly, bandy-legged bald giant who bore him along as effortlessly as if he were a flimsy doll.

“What is it?” Ergon growled.

“The p-panel, noble lord! The p-panel that leads out to the p-parapet!” Glypto whined.

“Open it, then, rogue!”

“M-might it n-not be b-better to peer out first, and view the I-lay of the I-land?” the thief whimpered. Gruffly, Ergon nodded; loosening the bruising grip of his great paws, he permitted the scrawny thief to dig loose a morsel of clay, exposing a chink in the outer wall. Peering out, Ergon stifled a gasp of delight. Suddenly he contemplated the beauty of my scheme … for there before him, tethered to the low parapet, swung the capacious basket which had borne us thither on the winds, and above it, the huge gasbag of the balloon swelled against the glimmer of the many moons.

He understood that it was my intent to escape from Tharkol by means of the very instrument that had brought us here―the balloon!

True, three guards were stationed there to protect the flying vehicle of their Empress against any mischief which might befall. But, wrapped in warm cloaks, they huddled in the shelter of the parapet against the cold blast of the night wind, stealing forty winks against the next approach of their captain, walking his nightly rounds. Unsuspectingly, they dozed if but lightly; and Ergon’s hands itched to pounce upon them and batter them senseless, as he would have done regardless, even had they been twice their number.

He glanced speculatively about the broad terrace, which was clearly lit by the several moons and the mighty bulk of Jupiter itself. While I was about my mysterious business at the other terminus of the secret passageway, Ergon perceived no reason why he should not ready things at this end, so that all would be prepared for our departure as soon as I rejoined their company.

“Open it, cur,” he growled.

The terrified little thief did not dare disobey: he winced in the crushing grip of this grim colossus and did not care to dispute with him, having already felt the iron weight of those calloused paws. With trembling fingers, sniveling a little in the extremity of his fear, Glypto disengaged the several flat pegs that held the hollow shell of stone in place beside its more solid fellows. The hidden door fell open.

Ergon thrust the shrinking thief into the ready grasp of Darloona, curtly bidding her watch he utter no single squeal or slip away. Then in three great bounds, the burly Perushtarian was upon the dozing guards.

The poor fellows never knew what hit them; in the weeks that followed, while nursing their hurts in the barracks infirmary, the three no doubt oft discussed whether it had been some night-wandering demon had swooped upon them from the windy skies, or mayhap some winged and dreadful predator of the heavens―a Ghastozar perchance―had torn them from their rest, hurling them to the terrace far below. They probably decided on the Ghastozar; but it was really only a surly-tempered Perushtarian who felt like a bit of exercise.

Having tossed the stupefied guards one by one over the parapet, after first ripping from their harnesses the swords and daggers they wore, Ergon dusted his hands with a grunt of satisfaction, and beckoned to Darloona to join him.

Accompanied by Glypto, the Princess swiftly crossed the terrace and climbed into the basket while Ergon held it steady. Then he handed in to her the several weapons he had so rudely harvested, and, naked sword clenched in one burly fist, held himself ready to sever the ropes which anchored the balloon to the balustrade and launch us forth on the winds the moment I had come.

He hesitated only a moment over the cowering Glypto. Then, as I had said nothing about turning the little rogue loose, he scooped up the squealing little man and tossed him into the basket beside my Princess.

Scarce was this done but I appeared in the entrance, a writhing bundle, wrapped in a silken coverlet, squirming in my arms. I climbed quickly into the basket, tossed my feebly-wriggling burden into one corner, beckoned at Ergon to join us, and curtly bade him cut the anchor cable. Moonlight flashed on the steely mirror of his blade as he swung it hissing down, chopping through the cable.

The basket gave A sickening lurch, and we were away!

The fourth tier swept down upon us, but we cleared it. Then the ziggurat-like citadel swam away beneath us, and the city itself, in a blur of streets, squares, and rooftops. Towers whistled by us as we soared above the world, mounting higher and higher in the grip of powerful winds.

And in another breath the walls of Tharkol receded from us in the moonlit dark, and we were free at last!

Laughing in mingled delight and relief, Darloona flung her arms about my neck. I crushed her to me and kissed her so thoroughly that she gasped.

She asked me something then, but the rushing winds snatched her words away as soon as they were uttered. Shouting louder, she asked me what I had gone back to do.

“Remember I said I thought it would be nice to carry along a little `life insurance’ with us on our journey?” I yelled back. The single universal language spoken across the breadth of Thanator by the several races which share the jungle Moon between them, unfortunately lacks a term for the concept, so I was forced to paraphrase it so broadly that its meaning eluded her comprehension. She shrugged, not understanding. I opened my mouth to attempt a further explanation, then grinned and gave it up.

Far easier, thought I, to illustrate the notion by action. Gesturing to catch her eye, I stooped and pulled back the flap of the silk-enveloped bundle I had so unceremoniously tossed into a corner of the swaying basket.

Now uncovered, a face looked up at us, flushed and furious, ripe lips biting frenziedly against my hasty gag.

Darloona’s eyes widened with shock and amazement, then glowed with mischievous humor. She plucked at Ergon’s sleeve, calling to his attention the captive which writhed and wriggled on the floor of the basket, glaring up at us with incandescent rage and hatred.

He looked, and laughed. Beyond him, little Glypto, cowering in panic in the far corner peeped at our captive through his fingers, then howled dismally, and covered his face in a very ecstasy of dread.

For, bound and gagged on the floor of the basket, Zamara of Tharkol glared up at us with murder in her blazing eyes!

Dawn was too near for any of us to think of trying to catch a bit of sleep―even if such had been possible, given the violence wherewith the raging winds tossed our basket about in sickening swoops.

It would have been completely impossible to have striven to maneuver or pilot the balloon, such was the force of the gale, so we did not even bother trying to do so. Let the winds carry us where they might; every moment took us further and further from the city of our enemies. And, rage how they would, the winds would die at last, and we could then take the balloon under control and guide it home to Shondakor.

Or so we thought, anyway.

Looking back on that dizzy voyage through the skies, I think we were all a little drunk with triumph. Our miraculous good luck in escaping from the Tharkolians raised our spirits giddily. We had been sunken in gloom and depression; now, having succeeded in escaping from the very stronghold of our enemies, we were all a little intoxicated, and thought ourselves the darlings of the gods.

The most deliciously hilarious thing about our escape was, of course, the manner in which we had turned the tables on our prideful and super-confident captors. Chief among whom was the self-styled “Empress of Callisto.” The captor had herself become the captive, and we had reversed our roles with a vengeance! We would not have been human if the situation had not delighted us so.

As for Zamara, the poor girl was wild and frothing with fury. She fought and fought, wriggling like a wildcat, in a futile struggle against the silken scarves wherewith I had hastily but stoutly bound her wrists and ankles when I dropped from the ceiling to seize her at her vanity table.

It had been Zamara’s pleasure to seize and bind us and carry us off unceremoniously. But now the tables had turned, and it was the divine Empress who had been snatched up, securely trussed, and tossed into the basket, to be whisked away to an unguessable fate.

A lifetime of unbridled pride and vaunting ambition had made the red-skinned young woman a thoroughly spoiled brat. This was probably the first time since childhood that any hand had been raised in violence against her pampered and princely person. She fought, kicked, and squirmed against her bonds until her furious strength was exhausted. Then she gave way to her misery, and loosed a storm burst of tears. Relenting, Darloona bade us remove her gag, but when Ergon stooped to do so she sunk her sharp white teeth in the flesh of his hand and bespattered us with a torrent of curses that would have won her the awed admiration of a longshoreman.

We let her rant and rage and weep as she would, ignoring it, for in truth the wind whipped away the worst part of her sulphurous language. Little Glypto, doubtless a connoisseur of oaths, sat fascinated, drinking it all in. Doubtless he committed to memory some of the more anatomically ingenious of her suggestions as to our ancestry and personal habits, wherewith to regale his criminous compatriots when next he mingled among the lower classes of the Thieves’ Quarter.

But we were humane in our treatment of Zamara, and I loosened her bonds and made her as comfortable as I could, without of course freeing her hands.

“You stinking horeb’s dung! You spittle of diseased maggots! You reeking gob of slime cast by a filthy reptile! You vile and loathsome offspring of a self-impregnating xanga! You toad’s-dropping-you offal of garbage-devouring zulths! You-you-you dare touch with your fetid paws the sacred person of the divine Empress to whom the Lords of Gordrimator have given the very world!”

She raved on, tears pouring down smudged and dirty cheeks. I, of course, paid no attention to her tempestuous tongue. The poor girl was more than half mad, of course, to take unto herself divine prerogatives. Listening, Darloona half smiled.

“Perhaps we should replace the gag after all,” she grinned.

Dawn broke, a blaze of gold. I went to the rim of the basket and stared about. Beneath us rushed an unknown country, wooded hills and vast rolling meadows. It looked nothing at all like the level plains that stretched between Tharkol and Shondakor: had the winds perchance carried us in the opposite direction―further into the east? The maps of the known surface of Thanator ended a few leagues to the east of Tharkol; beyond the borders of the known hemisphere stretched the unexplored and unmapped vastnesses of the far side of Callisto, which remained a region of shadowy and legended mystery.

For hours the balloon had flown through the darkness, a helpless plaything of the winds. How far had the winds carried us in that time, and in which direction?

And the winds still howled at gale force! If we were indeed traveling east, we would be borne into the unknown further side of the jungle Moon before we could manage to descend!

just then Ergon called my name.

I looked to where he stood across the basket from me, craning his head back, staring up into the sky, a strained expression on his froglike visage.

“What’s the matter now?” I asked. “Haven’t we got enough trouble?”

“It would seem that more lies in store for us,” he said grimly. “Look!”

I looked up … to see a hideous, bat-winged shape hurtling down upon us from the brilliant regions of the upper sky.

It was a gigantic Ghastozar―the most dreaded predator of the skies of Thanator.

And it was coming straight for us―

Chapter 8 The Terror of the Skies

“Aiiiiii!” Glypto shrieked, cowering on the floor of the basket, curling into a ball as if to make of himself the smallest possible target.

As for myself, my heart sank into my boots, and stayed there. I did not in the least blame the scrawny little rascal for squealing like a stuck pig as the flying monster swept down upon us.

For the ghastozar is one of the most horrible of the many grisly monstrosities that prowl the jungle Moon. A flying reptile with vast membranous wings and terrible claws, it resembles nothing so closely as the terrific flying dragon of Earth’s remote dawn age―the dread pterodactyl.

It measures fully twenty feet from fanged snout to barbed and viciously-whipping tail, and the steely power of its gliding thews is such that it has been known to rip a fully grown deltagar to shreds. Since a deltagar is a monster resembling two or three saber-toothed tigers rolled into one ferocious avalanche of murderous fury, you can easily form an estimate of how formidable was the flying doom that now swept down upon us.

There was literally nothing we could do to protect ourselves. We were armed only with the swords and daggers Ergon had stripped from the guards before he tossed them over the parapet, and against the fury of the mighty ghastozar, these were as so many toothpicks. If the Tharkolians had been aimed with bows and arrows or with the light throwing spear used by Ku Thad huntsmen, it would have been quite a different story. Then we should have had at least a fighting chance against the winged dragon-monster of the skies. And a fighting chance is all I have ever asked of the inscrutable fate that rules our destiny.

But they had not been so armed, and our chances of fighting off the ghastozar were slim, and our hopes for survival few.

Ergon knew this as well as I: we exchanged a grim look, but did not discuss the situation aloud in order to spare the women unnecessary fear. And now I regretted having carried off Zamara, thus exposing her to this horrible danger. The poor, deluded Tharkolian princess was mad, and had made herself our implacable enemy, but, having been lucky enough to escape from her clutches, and having by now left the city of Tharkol far behind, it was cruel of us to have thrust her into such peril. She could no longer do us ill, and I have never had the heart for vengeance.

Perhaps most of all, in a way, I regretted that little Glypto had been carried off with us and now faced a hideous doom in the jaws of the monster ghastozar. The little rogue had done us no ill at all, had in fact been the very instrument of our escape, and it was a sorry recompense for his services. But there was nothing I could do about it now, and soonvery soon―my regrets would end as would my life.

As these thoughts spun through my brain the flying monster hurtled past us, curved about and flew towards us again. I do not know why the brute had not struck us on his first passage: he was hunting, which meant he was hungry. And we were prey.

Again he flashed past us without striking, and this time he halted and flapped around us in a slow circle, turning his hideous beaked head first to the one side then to the other, peering at us with little red eyes in which ravenous blood lust vied oddly with a hesitancy I did not understand.

“Why does lie not strike and have done with it?” Ergon growled at my side. I shrugged helplessly.

And then, quite suddenly, the answer came to me.

The monster was puzzled! He had never seen anything like the floating balloon and its dangling basket before. He was not certain what we were, nor whether we were good to eat. He was―curious!

He flapped about, circling us at a safe distance, eyeing us warily. The dim, small brain of the flying reptile was baffled by our ungainly shape and our peculiar odor. He was hesitant to attack us, not knowing what we were, how we might defend ourselves, nor even if we were edible.

And suddenly, I knew we had a chance.

Galvanized into action, I let out a yip, attracting the attention of the others.

“Yell―wave your arms―make noise!” I commanded. And, suiting my actions to my words, I began capering about the basket, screeching at the top of my lungs and windmilling my arms in a wild, maniacal fashion.

The ghastozar flinched aside and withdrew, peering at me warily.

Ergon and Darloona instantly got the idea and sensed my thoughts. Solemn, glum-faced Ergon began an awkward dance from side to side, booming out loud cries and my Princess yelled with all the lungpower at her command. I could have laughed at Ergon’s self-conscious expression, as he soberly pranced about, waving his arms like a maniac, had not the situation been so serious and our danger so deadly.

The balloon wobbled and swung widely from side to side, almost pitching us out. The uproar we three made was deafening. And, true to my theory, the flying reptile withdrew to a safer distance, but continued to eye us in a puzzled fashion.

Never in all its days had the winged predator of the skies seen a flying thing that bobbed about so madly and voiced such a cacaphonous battle cry. It was baffled. And it began to get angry. My plan, it seemed, was not without its flaws. .The tiny brain of the ghastozar had room for only one thought or emotion at a time. Wary puzzlement had driven out hunger; and now anger drove out wariness.

It swung towards us, fanged jaws agape, striking out with bared bird claws. At the last possible moment it swept to one side, but one flashing claw caught the swinging basket a mighty buffet, knocking us from our feet.

I staggered backwards, the rim of the basket striking me in the backs of the knees, and fell over the side!

A dizzy vista of grassy plains and wooded hills flashed before my eyes as I fell like a stone.

My hands thrust out automatically, clutching on empty air.

Then something slapped me across the face. I snatched at it with that utter desperation wherewith a drowning man is said to clutch at a straw.

In my case, however, the “straw” proved to be the end of a dangling line. It was the rope whereby the Tharkolians had tied down the balloon, anchoring it to the palace tier, but only later in retrospect did I manage to identify it. When Ergon had hacked it through, cutting the balloon loose, the severed line hung free. It was the end of this that my desperate hands now encountered and to which I clung by one hand with all my strength.

I hung about eleven or twelve feet below the basket, clinging to the very end of the line with both hands by now. The world swung giddily beneath my heels; the wind tore at me with impalpable fingers, screaming in my ears like a banshee as I clung for dear life to the end of the line.

Peering up I saw a row of frightened faces staring down at me from the edge of the basket. Ergon had his wide, froggish mouth open and was yelling something inaudible to me. Darloona was pale and wide-eyed, staring down at me, her knuckles pressed against parted lips. Even little Glypto was there, his scrawny, beak-nosed face white with terror.

As for myself, I must confess to feeling no fear at all. This is not vapid braggadocio, nor am I attempting to portray myself in an heroic light. Indeed, if anything, I felt furious and embarrassed at having fallen out of the basket like a stumble-footed clown. No, I have never thought of myself as being particularly heroic. It has always been my sorry lot to get into trouble, from which I then have to extricate myself as best I can. It has always seemed to me that I have simply done whatever seemed the only thing to do at the time, and generally in such hazardous or precarious positions as my present plight, I have simply been too busy trying to figure out what to do to have sufficient leisure in which to be afraid.

Looking backward on such moments, having somehow or other escaped from them, I have usually been ludicrously weak-kneed with reaction. After the danger is past, then you have plenty of time to be frightened at the danger. But while you are suffering through it you just haven’t got time enough for fear.

I have often wondered if other men who have led exciting lives of action and peril have found this to be true, or if the experience is uniquely my own.

At any rate, I was boilingly angry at my ludicrous position. I began trying to climb up the rope, but this proved very difficult to do. Each time I shifted my weight, the free-hanging basket swung widely to one side while I, hanging like a weight at the end of the dangling line, swung in the opposite direction. The dizzying business of swinging about, the vertiginous vista of hilltops spinning madly below my heels, the screaming wind that buffeted and tore at me, combined to make it difficult and dangerous to try to climb the rope hand over hand.

But there was nothing else to do.

And then another factor entered into the situation to further complicate it. And that was the ghastozar itself.

The flying reptile had noted my fall from the basket, and now as I swung temptingly to and fro like a fat worm on a fishhook, the winged monster made a savage stab at me.

Fanged jaws snapped sickeningly close to my legs as the thing whirled by. It passed so near me that the wind of its passage flung me about in a dizzy whirl. I kicked out with both boot-heels the next time it came at me and I think it must have gotten a kick in the head for it flinched aside, shaking its head numbly.

As it veered away one great black batlike wing dealt me a terrific blow.

Stunned for a moment, my grip on the line was loosened.

And I fell free.

For a dreadful, endless moment the sky was beneath me and the world was far above.

Then my legs slammed into something and I instinctively clung to it with all the strength of my desperation.

My eyes were weeping from the stinging wind, and I could see nothing. I had come crashing down atop something and the impact drove the wind out of my lungs. Gasping for breath, blinking blearily, I clung blindly to whatever it was that I had fallen astride.

A moment later my vision cleared and I sucked air into my panting lungs and saw what it was that I had landed upon.

And then it was that I felt fear, you may be certain.

Numbing fear … hopeless fear … such as I have seldom known, and would prefer never to experience again.

For I found myself seated astride a rounded, enormous bulk, my legs clasped about its under-curve, and my arms wrapped tightly and desperately about a long extension that branched off the parent body. It was rough and cold to the touch, with a leathery texture most peculiar and difficult to identify.

In another breath, however, the world righted itself and I had time to discover my predicament. And, believe me, dear reader, the blood ran cold in my veins.

For I had fallen upon the ghastozar, and was nom seated astride the dreadful monster of the shies!