Mad Empress of Callisto

Chapter 9 The Scarlet Arrow

Wrapping my arms about the snaky neck of the ghastozar, I clung to the back of the monster with desperate strength.

Below my heels the wooded landscape swept by at dizzying speed. Above me, the balloon careened along, basket swaying drunkenly from side to side, a helpless plaything of the rushing winds.

A terrible fear possessed me. I could taste it, sour and metallic, in the back of my mouth. Fear, I discovered, had an oily taste like brass.

My heart thudded painfully against my ribs. I panted for breath, lungs burning. The wind lashed my bare arms and thighs, whipping my hair, making my eyes water until my vision blurred.

Would this terrible voyage into the unknown never end?

And how else could it end … save in death?

The flying monster flapped its ungainly bulk in wide circles around the balloon. Gradually it penetrated into the dim, small brain of the winged reptile that it bore an unaccustomed weight on its back. The dreadful head craned about, peering at me, fanged jaws agape. Eyes of red flame glared into mine―eyes empty of thought, eyes filled with blood lust and furious rage.

I crouched lower, clinging between the brute’s shoulders, burying my face in the base of its neck. It craned and twisted, madly striving to reach me with those yawning jaws that bristled with razor-sharp fangs. Gusts of putrid breath blew in my face sickeningly. The clash of those chomping teeth rang in my ears. Droplets of drooling spittle sprayed my arms and shoulders as the maddened ghastozar strove in vain to reach me. But its coiling, snaky neck could not quite twist back far enough so that those hungry jaws could sink in my flesh, to rip and tear.

In its wild, careening flight, the ghastozar had forgotten about the runaway balloon and as it strove to get at me its outstretched wings struck and snagged the gasbag.

The wings of the flying monster, like those of the terrene bat it so resembles, or those of the prehistoric pterodactyl it resembles even more closely, evolved from the forepaws of the brute. The ribs of the wing are really elongated fingers, ending in hooked and Tazory claws, with thin membrane stretched between them, taut as a drumhead.

It was one of these fishhook claws that brushed the wobbling gasbag

Brushed―and snagged and tore!

So close were we at that instant that I heard Ergon’s deep voice, cursing, and Darloona’s shrill cry of alarm.

In the very next moment, the maddened monster veered away in a long gull-like curve to one side. But the damage was done. A long rip, about two feet in length, scored the smooth, tight rondure of the gasbag. And the vapor gushed from it in a torrent.

I have no idea what the gas was that Zamara employed in her aerial invention, whether it was hydrogen or helium or some gas peculiar to Callisto and unknown on my native planet. But it was lighter than air and served to lift the balloon aloft. Now, as the unknown gas rushed from the bag, it shrank in upon itself, wrinkling, sagging, losing tension. It began to empty swiftly, and as it did so the balloon began to sink toward the ground below.

I had a horrible picture in my mind―a vision of the balloon hurtling into rugged, wooded hills at terrific velocity, mangling and crippling its helpless occupants. And, surely, had the vessel continued at its original speed, the flight would have ended with tragic swiftness.

But as the vapor escaped from the collapsing gas bag, the balloon sank toward the ground. As it lost altitude, it left the region of the howling winds, and fell into a layer of calmer air. Thus its velocity lessened rapidly as it sank lower and lower.

And by this time we had left the wooded hills behind and were flying over an immense region of level, grassy plains―doubtless an eastern extension of the Great Plains of Haratha. We could see clearly by this time for dawn had long since lit the vaporous skies to luminous golden fires. We had flown all night in the grip of the winds, it seemed.

So when the balloon eventually struck the ground, it would come down in the flat plains. And there was a good chance that those within the basket would survive unharmed.

My aerial steed, stung to fury by the unexpected and maddening sensation of being ridden by one of the little two-legged creatures from the flying basket, lost interest in the rapidly deflating balloon. It soared about the skies, hurling through a series of aerial maneuvers designed to dislodge me from my precarious seat between its shoulders. I have never ridden a “bucking bronco” in a rodeo, but I have no doubt the experience was similar. I clung to the enraged reptile, retaining my seat at times with the greatest difficulty.

And suddenly I found myself flying over an immense cortege that wound across the plains for miles, or so it seemed. Beaked, restive thaptors drew great rolling chariots or huge wains laden with folded tents, stores, and gear. In the forefront of the vast procession, and to either side, an armed host of peculiar beings rode astride the bird-horses. These warriors were naked, their attenuated limbs clad in a shiny chitin like the shell of the lobster. Knobbed antennae sprouted from the horny ovoid casques that were their heads, and eyes like globular clusters of black crystals peered solemnly skyward to observe my flight.

I recognized the procession for one of the vast migrations of the Yathoon Horde, a barbaric race of coldly intelligent but humorless and emotionless giant creatures evolved to reason from some species of insect as we humans are from the higher primates.

During the first weeks after my arrival on Callisto I had been taken captive by one such clan of the Yathoon, and during that captivity I was instructed in the one language spoken universally across the face of the jungle Moon by all intelligent races. My memories of that period of enslavement, which was brief in term, are clear and sharp, because it was during that interval in my adventures on this mysterious world that I made my first friend and first met the woman to whom my heart was sworn.

But I had not the slightest desire to repeat the experience again, for the second time I should probably not be so lucky as the first. That is, I had established friendship with a Yathoon chieftain, Koja, whom I had rescued from certain death. The cold, logical, emotionless arthropod had learned from me a concept alien to his weird, uncanny kind: the concept of friendship. Thus, to repay me for my kindness in saving his life, he had set me free. Had things not eventuated in that manner, I might to this day be a naked, hopeless slave of the nomad insectoid warriors.

We swept across the Yathoon line of march, and the mighty procession halted in its tracks to observe this curious phenomenon. Never had the Yathoon warriors seen a human riding a monster ghastozar through the skies as if it were a thaptor. And doubtless, in their cool, unemotional way, the arthropods were curious.

I had by now lost sight of the balloon. Perhaps it had come down somewhere behind me; at least it was no longer visible aloft. I was grateful for this small favor from the inscrutable fates, for the sight of the drifting balloon with its basketful of human riders would have puzzled and intrigued the Yathoon yet further.

As it was, a party of mounted warriors detached itself from the main body of the nomads and rode across the plains in pursuit of the aerial dragon and its human rider.

The bird-horses of Callisto are capable of bursts of surprising speed, as I have mentioned elsewhere, but are seldom able to sustain it for long. And the winged dragon upon whose back I rode could easily outdistance them, I knew. Thus I expected the nomad warrior troop to fall back after a time.

This, however, did not happen. My reptilian steed was flying sluggishly, and was descending lower and lower. Vast, ragged batlike wings drummed and boomed, flapping like sails. Perhaps the brute was wearying rapidly from my unexpected weight―there are few flying creatures on this world who could bear two hundred pounds of human rider without tiring. Or perhaps …

But then I saw the cause.

I had not seen it happen, but one of the Yathoon chieftains had loosed a shaft against my winged and monstrous steed.

The war bows of the Yathoon Horde are terrible engines of murderous might. They are far bigger and stronger than terrene bows, and can drive the deadly three-foot-long arrows for hundreds of yards with unerring accuracy. Something in the peculiar muscular construction of the solemn arthropods makes them master archers: in this particular warrior art they far surpass their human brothers.

A scarlet arrow transfixed the scull of the ghastozar.

Eyes glazed, bloody froth bubbling from gaping jaws, the monster sagged towards the ground with a dizzying lurch.

Even so terrible an injury might not have slain the ghastozar at once, had it not been for the dread venom wherewith the Yathoon warriors anoint their arrows.

It is a nerve poison which attacks the major ganglia of the brain and nervous system with frightful speed. A human, or ;mother Yathoon, struck or even nicked by these poisoned shafts will collapse in a fraction of a second. But the monster reptile, with its sluggish little brain, had managed to sustain its flight and to remain aloft for perhaps ten minutes.

But it could do so no longer.

Folding its vast wings, the dying reptile fell like a plummet. I sprang clear just before it struck the surface of the plains with a sickening impact and the crunch and snap of breaking bones.

I owe my continued existence in this life to two chance factors. One was that we were flying only thirty or forty feet above the ground when the ghastozar fell. The other was that the plain was carpeted in a thick, springy growth of long, thick grasses which broke my fall and cushioned me against the impact. As it was, however, I was stunned and groggy and lay sprawled on the ground for a moment before I was able to stagger to my feet.

The world swam about me in dizzy circles. I was lame in every muscle; covered with bruises; and half shaken out of my wits.

However―I yet lived!

I had not thought to elude death for long, mounted on the back of the maddened and ravenous pterodactyl. Chance or luck or inscrutable fate had once again preserved me from certain death. I forced a grin. I didn’t mind being the darling of the gods, but I wished they didn’t play so roughly with their toys!

The thud of clawed feet drumming against the turf roused me from my stupor. I looked up to see the Yathoon party advancing rapidly towards me. The foremost warrior, an immense creature who must have stood nine feet tall, still had his bow strung and a second scarlet arrow, its bladed barb smeared with nerve poison, nocked and ready to let fly at my breast.

I held my hands well away from my weapons, as the nomad warriors came up to me, circled about me, and halted. They formed a great open ring, with myself at the center.

They were armed with huge spears, tufted with feathers, twelve feet from bronze-shod butt to wickedly barbed point; with deadly eight-foot-long whip swords, whereof the Yathoon are undisputed masters; and with bows and arrows.

And I had only the rapier which Ergon had taken from the guards.

Thirteen fully armed Yathoon savages to one lone human warrior: it was not the fairest of odds. I did not even have a fighting chance. I pride myself on being a master swordsman, and I have been told that I am one of the finest men with the blade on this planet.

But I didn’t really have a chance of defending myself. And on such occasions I have found it wisest to yield to overwhelming numbers in a grimly philosophical way, hoping for a chance to escape later on.

This is not really a question of bravery, but one of commonsense. On the one hand lay certain death, on the other an unknown future. Who could say what opportunities for escape or rescue that future might hold?

So I surrendered and let them strip me of my weapon.

But I didn’t like doing it. Surrender, even against insurmountable odds, always rankles.

I was now at the whim of the Yathoon chieftain. Or such I assumed him to be, from the richness of his weapons and accouterments and the servile, obsequious manner in which the others treated him.

He sat in the saddle, scarlet arrow nocked and pointed at my breast, and red murder was in his inscrutable jeweled eyes.

His chitinous visage was unreadable, his black crystalline eyes held no emotion. Then, after a moment, he lowered the bow and relaxed the tension in the bowstring.

“What manner of creature are you?” asked Borak the Yathoon.

Chapter 10 I Become a Possession

There was nothing else to do, so I decided . to put a bold front on the situation. I faced him squarely, arms folded upon my breast, now that his underlings had disarmed me.

“I am a warrior, and a chieftain like yourself,” I said calmly.

He eyed me solemnly.

“That well may be,” he said in his harsh metallic voice. “But never in all my days have I set eyes upon a being such as yourself, with such odd colorations of eyes and hair and hue of skin.”

He was quite right, of course. With my straw-blond hair, the clear blue eyes of my Danish mother, and my fair skin which had borne a rich tan from the daylight of Callisto, I am unique among all the peoples of this world. I continued to put a bold front on it, however, and dissembled without seeming to do so.

“I am a stranger from a far-off land,” I said, “and, so far as I know, I am the first member of my race to penetrate into these regions.”

He absorbed this in a ruminative silence. Of course, I had told him nothing more than the strict truth. As the country of my birth was, at that moment, something like 387,930,000 miles away, it could indeed be most aptly described as “far-off.”

“What is your name and your present allegiance?” he demanded tonelessly.

“My name is … Darjan, and I am in the service of Shondakor the Golden,” I replied. I doubt if the Yathoon even noticed my slight hesitation before giving a version of my name which I had previously employed when captured by Perushtarian slavers from Narouk. My reasons for employing a pseudonym are simple. By now the name of Jandar is known the breadth of Thanator as the hero of a thousand daring exploits of valor and conquest. It seemed prudent to adopt a name unknown to any, for I never knew when I might encounter an old enemy who still nursed an ancient grudge.

He absorbed this in thoughtful silence; then―“You are strayed far indeed from the realm you serve,” he muttered. I nodded.

“I am on a mission of great importance for the Princess of my city, and have been unfortunate enough to become lost,” I said.

“How come you ride the ghastozar?” he inquired. “If the warrior legions of the Ku Thad have domesticated the dragon of the skies, I have yet to learn of it.”

I shrugged helplessly.

“Lost and wandering my party was attacked by a hunting ghastozar and I was carried off by the monster. I managed to loosen myself from its claws and climb astride its shoulders and was about to attempt to wound the brute with my sword and bring it down when you accomplished the task for me with your arrow.”

He said nothing. I stood, forcing a pretense of calm self-assurance, although the sweat was trickling down my sides beneath my leather tunic.

Clearing my throat a bit, I said into the silence: “I am very grateful that you have rescued me from the beast, and offer you―the gratitude of Royal Shondakor. If you will permit it, I will now be upon my way, for the message I bear on behalf of the Throne of Shondakor is one of inestimable importance.”

“You mean to traverse the Great Plains afoot and alone?” he asked.

“There is no other way,” I said. “I have no currency wherewith to purchase a mount, and could hardly impose on your kindness and generosity by asking for the loan of a steed.”

He made no reply, but sat staring at me expressionlessly. All about me his warriors stood or sat their saddles, bending upon me their inscrutable gaze in a tense silence.

A silence that began to seem ominous …

“May I ask the name of him to whom I am indebted?” I ventured.

“I am Borak, a komor of the Horde,” he said. A komor is a rank akin to chieftain in the military aristocracy of the Yathoon nation; a chieftain leads a retinue of warriors and is responsible for a section of the Horde in war. There are sometimes as many as sixteen or twenty komors in any given Yathoon clan, depending on its size and might, and these serve directly under the akka-komor, or high-chieftain, who is inferior only to the Arkon or “warlord.”

“Then I am indebted to Borak the komor,” I said. I used the word uhorz which connotes indebtedness; it happens to be one of the few feelings akin to friendship or gratefulness that are known to the cold, unemotional Yathoon.

“And now … if I may … I must be about my journey. I have a long way to travel, and my mission is one of the utmost importance,” I said. It was worth a try, anyway.

But not this time.

“Your mission, whatever it may have been, ends here,” he said harshly. °`I care naught for Shondakor the Golden, whose power does not extend to the Great Plains. You are now an amatar of Borak the chieftain; bind him!”

They bore me back to the main body of the Horde, a helpless prisoner, my wrists bound behind my back with thongs. I was sunk in a black mood of depression, and yet my position, grim as it was, was not without a certain touch of humor. For I knew why Borak had made me captive―it was because of my yellow hair, blue eyes, and fair, tanned skin. I was a creature unique in his experience―a rare object, a curiosity. And that made me a thing of value in Borak’s way of thinking!

The Yathoon are very low on the scale of civilization; they are barbarians, nomads, like the Mongols or Tartars of Earth’s ancient history. They wander the plains in migrant clans, scorning to dwell in cities, and hence their culture is extremely primitive because they have never had the leisure to develop or discover the civilized arts. They neither read nor write, and thus have no literature, not even songs or sagas. Since they do not indulge in trade, they have no use for money and no conception of a system of currency. But, for all the world like great solemn jackdaws or pack rats, they prize their individual hoard of treasures.

These treasures are sometimes gems and precious metals, but not always. They can be comprised of anything rare or unusual or curious: a bright feather, an oddly colored pebble, a bone, a bit of shell. I, with my peculiar coloration, was just another curio to their primitive way of thinking. Thus I was not even so high in the social scale as to have the dignity of being a captive or a slave. I was an amatar―a “possession”―a soulless thing!

And where the element of humor entered into my condition, was that this was the second time that this had happened to me―and for precisely the same reason. For during my first period of captivity in the Yathoon Horde I had been captured for the same reason―my peculiar coloring!

Once the war party rejoined the main body of the Horde, the vast number of warriors and animals rumbled slowly into the march again, bearing me with them, lightly but securely trussed and tossed into one of the huge wains that belonged to Borak’s retinue. The Horde was coming out of the extreme south, wandering north and east, and from this I gathered that they were returning from one of their periodic visits to the Black Mountains near the southern pole of Callisto.

Somewhere in those unknown mountains, in a Secret Valley whose whereabouts is jealously hidden,

reside the females and the young of the Yathoon nation. The warrior clans roam the Great Plains, hunting meat and warring on each other, but periodically they journey south to the Secret Valley, the hidden heartland of their race, where, under a never-broken truce, the warriors of fiercely rival clans mingle peacefully for a time. There they breed and there the females rear their young.

A strange, savage, grim people, the Yathoon! They know not the meaning of peace or friendship or love or fatherhood. Eternally at war with each other and with all other people of this jungle Moon, they live out their stark, humorless lives like cold machines, devoid of kindness or loyalty or worship or comradeship or any of the softer, warmer, more human emotions and values that make life worth living for such as we. Almost I could find it within my heart to pity them ….

However, the grim emotionlessness of the Yathoon has another side beyond mere deprivation. If they know not love or kindness or mercy, at least they are equally immune to jealousy or hatred or cruelty. Unlike those same Mongols and Tartars to whom I have just compared them, the Yathoon never torture their victims and take no pleasure in the sufferings of others.

So my captivity would be lighter and less perilous than it might have been, had I been taken prisoner by one of the more “civilized” of the human races of Thanator, among whom torture is common. I recalled the high civilization of the Zanadarians to whom, as to the ancient Romans of my own world, savage and bloody gladiatorial games were a popular form of entertainment; or the sophisticated mercantile empire of the Perushtarians, who have made a commercial success of the cruel and ugly practice of human slavery. Yes, I was perhaps lucky to have fallen into the hands of the weird and inhuman insectoid creatures … they at least were kinder to their “possessions” than were most of my fellow human beings to their unfortunate slaves!

Rolling along in the wain, I pondered my situation, which was dismal enough. Out of the frying pan into the fire, as the old apothegm has it. From captivity in Tharkol, to slavery among the Yathoon. And where were Darloona and Ergon and the others? Had they survived the crash of the balloon safely, or were they injured or even dead? It was torment to me, not knowing whether my beloved Princess lived, and not knowing her whereabouts.

The clan who held me captive reminded me in many ways of Koja’s clan. But I doubted that they were the same. There was no reason why they should be, for the mighty Yathoon nation was divided into many clans, all strikingly similar. The Yathoon culture, such as it is, achieved its present level of social development uncountable millennia ago, and froze in stasis. Little has happened to change their ways in all those ages. In this respect, as in their physical being, they closely resemble the social insects―ants, bees, termites―who achieved a social organization on Earth millions of years ago, and have developed no further in all that time.

Koja’s clan roamed the Plains below the jungle country of the Grand Kumala. That was something like three hundred and fifty korads (or about 2450 miles) from here. I knew the warrior clans of the Yathoon Horde held hereditary tribal rights to certain clearly demarcated areas of the Great Plains. Thus it was unlikely, if not actually impossible, that this should be the same clan as that which took me prisoner when first I arrived on Callisto nearly two years ago.

That night we made camp, drawing the wains and chariots into a great double circle, patrolled along the outer perimeter by mounted guards, while the retinue of each chieftain staked out a portion of the inner area for his uses and erected his tent. The ordinary warriors slept on the bare ground, rolled in hides and furry cloaks, while the chieftains slept within the tents, surrounded by the hoard of jackdaw’s treasure. That included me, of course.

They fed me a thin, watery gruel and, leashed to an underling named Hooka, I was led out into the open to perform my natural functions before being bedded down for the night. This was humiliating but, again, not without an element of humor: I was to be walked on a leash to relieve myself, for all the world like some rich Park Avenue matron’s pet poodle!

On the way back to my quarters I made an important discovery. A voice hailed me: a voice that I recognized)

“Jandar!”

I looked up in astonishment.

“Ergon, you old rascal! So you survived the wreck of the balloon!”

“Aye―not without a share of bumps and bruises, though. So you got away from the ghastozar. . :’

“Yes; how is my Princess?”

“Unharmed but furious at this captivity. She will be delighted to learn you are safe and near. Princess Zamara will not be so pleased, however. She had been enjoying herself by tormenting your lady with dire, gloating predictions of your grisly death in the jaws of the ghastozar. Little Glypto says―”

But then Hooka was upon me, jerking at my leash savagely.

“No talk!” he grated, jerking me along.

I exchanged a wave of the hand with Ergon before he, too, was jerked along by the Yathoon who was walking him as well.

I was so weary from the exertions of the previous night that I slept soundly, with no dreams. True, I was a prisoner with small hope of freedom. But at least my Princess was safe and unharmed, if an amatar like myself.

At least we were all together again.

Chapter 11 A Glimpse of Freedom

Although I was bedded down in the central tent wherein slept my owner, Borak, I was not permitted to sleep in his company. A nest of furs in a far corner was set aside for me, with several folding partitions separating the master from his store of treasures.

My nest was comfortable enough, I suppose, although I shared it with a curiously misshapen tree root, the polished skull of a jungle deltagar, an egg-shaped stone banded with stripes of some yellow mineral, a sack of broken glass and bright pebbles, among which were about a dozen diamonds the size of walnuts, and a jumble and clutter of odds and ends of every description.

This junk I shoved aside, making a bed for myself up against the outer tent wall.

I had been asleep for some hours, as I later judged the time, when suddenly awakened by a hand laid lightly on my mouth. I shot bolt upright, tingling in every nerve, until I recognized the scrawny, cheerfully grinning little rogue who had so unexpectedly roused me from my slumbers.

“Glypto? How came you here?” I whispered hoarsely.

He held up a bit of copper wire, then pointed to the slave ring about my ankle, chained to a tent pole.

“Glypto the chanthan is the master of many arts,” the bony little rascal chortled, “and not the least among them is a certain skill at the opening of locks. Few are the locks that can withstand the skills of Glypto, the son of Glypto, the grandson of―”

“Spare me the genealogical reminiscences,” I groaned protestingly. “My Princess―is she unharmed? Ergon―”

“We are treated well, as prized possessions of a chieftain known as Gorpak, whose scout party chanced upon us shortly after the flying thing came down with many bruising and bone-crushing bumps from its giddy travels through the skies of―”

I cut this flow of pointless verbosity short with a grim gesture.

“Have you some message for me, or is this just a social visit?”

“Oh, yes my master! The lord Ergon―who has laid hands of cruel violence upon my person, as you shall hear―the lord Ergon bade me inquire of you whether or not we should attempt an escape during the hours of darkness. I can open all our locks, for my skills are such that no lock devised by human ingenuity can for very long withstand the subtle probings, and the clever pokings, of Glypto’s cunning and oh-so-sensitive fingers―”

“Do you know where the thaptors are penned?”

“Alas, but not It is pitch-black outside, and the two great moons, formerly aloft, have since sunken―”

“Can you spare me a bit of that wire sufficient for me to free myself from the lock?”

He nodded and worked it back and forth until it broke in two. I secreted the length of wire within the lining of my tunic.

“Very well, then. Tell Ergon that when we camp tomorrow night we should both try to find out where the beasts are penned; then, when we are given our nightly walk for sanitary purposes, whichever of you four I see I will say something like `It’s a nice night for a stroll,’ which is the signal to await the middle of the night―say about this present hour―then we shall separately free ourselves and meet at the pens for an attempted break. Do you understand all that?”

He nodded eagerly.

“About the mid of night `A nice night for a stroll’―meet at the thaptor pens―aye, my master! Glypto will pass the word to our companions in misfortune!”

“Very well, then. Now get you gone, back the way you came, and be wary of the sentinels … good luck!”

He melted into the shadows, then darted back to thrust something into my grip.

“A small gift selected from the hoard of Gorpak, which may come in handy, master!”

Then he wormed his way under the edge of the tent and was gone in the night.

I looked down at the object he had thrust into my grasp..

It was a slim scabbard of green leather stitched with gold wire. In it was thrust a long dirk or poignard of blue steel, with a slender, tapering blade that was a deadly needle of razor-edged steel, with a hilt studded with rough gems.

I chuckled with surprise and tucked the thing beneath my tunic.

No telling when a weapon might come in handy!

That day we covered many weary, endless leagues of grassy plain under a sky of burning golden vapor.

As nearly as I could judge our direction on a world in which the sun does neither rise in the east nor set in the west, the Horde was moving northward in a succession of slow stages. Wherever they were going, they were certainly in no particular hurry to get there, for the vast procession dawdled along with frequent stops.

The reason for this was, quite simply, that they were actually going nowhere at all. The Yathoon Horde had left the Secret Valley in the Black Mountains at a certain season of the Thanatorian year, in order to follow the vast migrant herds of the vanth. I have already explained how, at this time of year, the vanth migrate across the Great Plains to graze and breed among the foothills of the mountain country to the south. The Yathoon were engaged upon a vast, year-long hunting expedition which would gather and preserve game meat to be taken back to their females and their young in the Valley of Sargol.

The Yathoon are the greatest hunters I have ever encountered; the greatest, in fact, that I have ever even heard of. In part their supremacy in this art is due to their innate nature: they are emotionless, coldly logical, and their thinking processes are thoroughly alien to ours. They are, therefore, capable of cool, infinite patience. A Yathoon hunter will track his game unswervingly, untiringly, for weeks on end whereas we more volatile humans will quickly become bored and turn to something else. Then again, the Yathoon are uniquely outfitted by nature for the role of huntsmen because of their peculiar sensory apparatus.

I don’t know enough about the scientific study of the insect life-forms to be able to say with any certainty that this is true of terrene arthropods, but the Thanatorian variety have radically different senses from we humans. They see differently, with superb perception of distance and a heightened sensitivity to color. My friend Koja has told me that he and his kind can perceive twenty-seven different and clearly distinct colors in that segment of the visual spectrum we humans lump together crudely under the single heading of “red.” As well, the insectoids have a greater sensitivity to odor than do we. They can sense the presence of game on the wind long before they can see it, and with their amazing ability to perceive color they can see through nature’s every attempt at camouflage.

The Yathoon have another sense which they call hamouph and which is completely unknown to us. It seems to be the dimly telepathic ability to detect the nearness of highly developed living organisms, excluding vegetation and small, insignificant kinds of game, combined with a sort of locator-ability. In pitch-black night, a Yathoon can somehow sense the nearness of a large animal, and can pinpoint his location with remarkable precision. I have come to the opinion that this sensory ability detects the vital aura of life-force exuded by larger animals.

The organs of the hamouph sense seem to be the branching knobbed antennae which sprout from the forehead of the Yathoon, or from where the forehead would be if they had foreheads, which they do not. But even the Yathoon are uncertain as to this sensory apparatus, and the brow antennae seem also to be the site of another sensory organ as well. It seems odd to me that the same organ should serve two dissimilar senses, but such seems to be the case.

To preserve the meat they catch during these interminable hunting expeditions, the arthropods have domesticated a peculiar distant relative of theirs called the xanga. These are a species of wingless insects about the size of a full-grown dog, which resembles nothing so much as immense greenish gray bumblebees. The xanga are monosexual―if that’s the word I want―and oviparous. That is to say, they are simultaneously masculine and feminine, or at least their bodies contain the rudimentary functions of both sexes. At certain seasons, one organ exudes a sperm-like secretion which fertilizes the ova-like cells developed in a neighboring organ. When the eggs have grown to a certain stage, the xanga hunt their prey―any smallish mammal or reptile which contains a sufficiency of fatty tissue―pounce upon it, and paralyze it with the venom contained in their stingers.

The eggs, thirty or forty to a breeding period, are then deposited in the stomach cavity of the helpless catch. The venom perfectly preserves the paralyzed catch and antibodies therein fight the process of decay and the proliferation of maggots. The fatty tissues are therefore ready to be devoured when the larvae of the xanga hatch within the flesh of the host.

Over countless ages the Yathoon have bred and domesticated these insects and a pack of the xanga accompany each hunting expedition so that the unique properties of their venom (which is harmless, once it has stabilized in the blood of the game) may preserve the meat they take. The ingenuity of the entire process is quite remarkable. In a terrene analogy, you might say the xanga venom acts as a sort of embalming fluid, inhibiting the decay of the meat, and it becomes neutralized in the blood so that the meat thus preserved may be eaten, either raw or cooked, without any ill effects.

Toward the xanga packs, the Yathoon have evolved a relationship that could be described as containing the rudiments of affection. There is no overt friendship in this relationship as, for example, in that which exists between a human huntsman and his hunting dogs; but a crude proto-affection is there to be seen. Every huntsman will have his favorite among the xanga pack, and these are generally singled out by possession of a pet name. For example, Borak’s favorite xanga was an immense brute he called “Durgo,” which means something like “trustworthy.”

How infinite are the abilities of intelligence to adapt to the environment … and to adapt the environment to the uses of intelligence!

The day-long hunt contained one bittersweet moment for me and my fellow amatars.

Toward midafternoon the shadow of a cloud moved across the forefront of the immense procession. I looked up … and my heart literally stopped beating in my breast.

For it was no cloud that had temporarily obscured the golden brilliance of the Thanatorian heaven.

It was an ungainly aerial contrivance, the work of human intelligence. The smoothly curved hull, ornamented with cupolas and balustrades and balconies and belvederes, floated to the measured pulse of fantastic jointed wings. Long banners unrolled slowly on the wind, fluttering from sternpost and pilothouse and masthead.

At an elevation of about one thousand feet, the amazing aerial contraption drifted overhead lazily, dwindling slowly away toward the eastern horizon.

It was the dream of Leonardo da Vinci materialized into reality by the brain of some unknown genius of Callisto … a true ornithopter, a bird-winged flying ship!

I watched it sail lazily overhead and shrink slowly into dark mote down east with an ache in my throat.

So near … and yet so far away!

It was a symbol of freedom and safety and rescue―although, to the Yathoon, it represented a potential menace. The chitinous arthropods drew in their ranks, nocked their bows, prepared for attack which did not come. To them, the Sky Pirates of Zanadar were still a living menace. Remote and inaccessible, set apart by their taciturnity from all intercourse with the human races which shared their world, the Yathoon could not have known that the Zanadarians had fallen and the Sky Pirates flew no more upon the golden skies.

They could not have known that two of the flying galleons had survived the destruction of the pirate fleet, the Xaxar and the Jalathadar, now in the service of Shondakor.

With an ache in my heart, I watched the stately galleon of the skies vanish gradually into the glare of the east.

I did not need to see the golden banner that floated from her stern to know her for the Jalathadar.

And I knew that among her crew were gallant Lukor, stout Koja, young Tomar, Captain Haakon, Prince Valkar, or other of our loyal friends, searching the Great Plains for some sign of Darloona and Ergon and myself.

That night, as Hooka took me for my walk, I spied Ergon being walked on a leash by a member of Gorpak’s retinue.

“Looks like a nice night for a stroll,” I greeted him, casually.

“It does that, in truth,” replied Ergon.

“No talk!” grated Hooka, jerking my leash.

Chapter 12 Escape by Night

My dinner that night consisted of the usual wooden bowl of thin, watery gruel in which a few lumps of tough meat swam soggily. I devoured it mechanically, hardly bothering to taste it. Then I lay down in my nest among the treasures of Borak and awaited the hour of my escape.

Alas, the appearance of the Jalathadar in the skies had thrown the chieftains of the Horde into consternation. The Sky Pirates were seldom if ever known to raid this far south, because in this part of the world there were no cities, hence no merchant caravans, and hence nothing for the aerial buccaneers to raid. Borak and certain of the other chieftains, among them Gorpak, conferred late into the night, discussing this problem and examining and rejecting various schemes for the protection of the clan. I lay in the darkness of a far corner of the tent, shielded by partitions, counting the minutes and anxious to be gone.

True, I was not under observation and could perhaps have effected my escape then and there. But I deemed it too hazardous to do so while the tent was filled with Yathoon and the sentinels outside wide-awake and vigilant. So I composed myself, and tried to emulate the patience for which the arthropods were famous. Once the war council had ended, and the chieftains returned to their own quarters, and Borak himself fell asleep, the guards outside would relax their attention and I could make my break with every chance of success.

It grew later and later. Had Ergon and the others already unlocked their shackles and crept to the thaptor pens? Were they waiting for me now, nervous, tense, fearful that my escape had been discovered? Had this cursed, poorly timed council ruined all our plans? Should I wait no longer for the appropriate time, but try to escape now, despite the danger of detection?

These questions seethed and swirled through my restless brain in a turmoil of confusion. It might well prove wise to delay our break until the next night, but I had already given the signal to Ergon, and it was too late to change the plans now.

At length, as the night wore on and the council remained undismissed, I resolved to try it, for better or for worse, for I could wait no longer. At any time the greater moons would begin to rise, followed by the gigantic, luminous orb of mighty Jupiter itself. Night would become as bright as day, and the chances of our making a successful escape from the encampment of the Horde would lessen dramatically.

I had surreptitiously practiced unlocking my slave collar with the aid of Glypto’s bit of wire, and was confident that I could repeat the action in a trice. The locks were old and primitive, for the Yathoon do not work metals, and our shackles were plunder taken in a raid long ago, or so it seemed from their condition. I fished out the bit of wire Glypto had given me and inserted it into the lock, bending it this way and that to conform to the configuration of the lock’s interior mechanism. A few moments later the lock sprang open with a click of metal which seemed startlingly loud to me, in my tense and jumpy mood.

I waited for an endless moment, holding my breath in suspense, to see if one of the Yathoon should come hither to investigate the sound, but this did not happen. Busy with their discussions, the arthropod chieftains had disregarded the odd noise as being merely one of the numberless small sounds of the night.

Loosening the gem-hilted dagger under my tunic, I crept under the tent-flap and slithered into the drainage ditch that ringed the tent of Borak.

And I froze motionless

Not ten feet from where I lay, one of the guards o f Borak’s retinue stood; staring up at the sky, leaning on a sear.

Had the insect-man heard the rustle of the tent fabric as I wormed under it, or the sound I had made, slithering into the ditch? Heart thumping painfully, mouth dry with tension, I lay motionless, waiting for discovery.

The guard made a weird sight, staring up at the sky where as yet only the smaller of the moons were aloft. Dim shafts of multi-colored moonlight drew highlights from the crablike shell of oily chitin which encased his many-jointed, attenuated limbs. The faint light flashed and glittered in the huge bulging eyes of the uncanny creature. These eyes were swollen globular patches made up of ink-black, mirror-bright crystals. He looked like some fantastic statue of glimmering metal, some alien god or demon, as he stood motionless, bathed in the dim flickering rays of the colored moons.

Following his fixed, unswerving gaze, I stared aloft but could see nothing in the skies above which might have attracted his attention. Perhaps the nearness of the Jalathadar had prompted the wary Borak to warn the guards to be on the alert for a reappearance of the flying ship.

At any rate I lay there, sweating, my guts knotted with suspense, waiting for him to move, wondering if he was going to stand there all night long.

Armed with the poignard Glypto had given me, I suppose I could have leaped upon him and struck him down. But the Yathoon are not easily slain with a small blade, for their greasy chitin protects their vulnerable organs like a suit of armor; and surely the sounds of the struggle as we thrashed about would have been heard by the chieftains within the tent.

Then, all of a sudden, without the slightest warning, the guard turned and stalked away in the opposite direction, leaving me limp and gasping with relief. ,

I scrambled to my feet and darted through the trampled grasses to the inky shadow of the next tent, and began making my way as swiftly and as silently as I could to the collapsible pens where the riding thaptors were housed.

I had carefully marked the location of the pens in my mind when the Horde made camp earlier that evening, memorizing landmarks so that I could easily find them in the dark. Staying in the dense shadow of the tents as much as I could, I unobtrusively made my way through the camp. Half a dozen times I stopped short and froze motionlessly in the shadow as a Yathoon stalked by. Their huge multiple eyes give them uncanny night vision, as they gather much more light than do our organs of sight, but luckily none of them saw me.

After an interminable time I managed to reach the thaptor pens without being detected. The restive bird-horses, uneasy and alarmed because of the unusual activity in the camp, capered and trotted about, clashing their parrot beaks and hissing like steam whistles. In the uproar it seemed unlikely our getaway would arouse attention.

Crouching in the thick grasses, I peered about, searching for my friends. Had they managed to escape from the tents of Gorpak, or had they been seized during the attempt?

A hand closed upon my foot and I almost jumped out of my skin. Jerking around, I saw Ergon’s froglike face glowering at me from a nest hollowed in the grasses.

“Jandar! We had almost given you up! I was about to send Glypto to see what had become of you―”

“An unexpected war council in Borak’s tent,” I whispered. “Occasioned by the appearance of the Jalathadar this afternoon; did you see the ship as it passed over our line of march?”

“I did,” he grunted, “but failed to recognize it. Your lady knew it at once, though.”

“Where is she?”

He waved one hand. “Yonder, hiding by the water trough. Think you the Jalathadar will double back, giving us a chance to attract her attention?”

“There’s a chance, at least. The fact that the Horde is camped here must have given Haakon cause to wonder if we might not have been taken prisoner. But we’ll see―the problem now is to get out of the camp!”

“While waiting all this cursed time for you to come, I got five of the thaptors saddled up; they are tethered yonder by the trough. I have been devilishly worried that some capok would come ambling by and wonder why five beasts are still saddled up, but thus far nothing had chanced. Let us be gone from this cursed place before we are discovered … “

“I say amen to that,” I replied in English, not bothering to translate. We wormed our way over to the trough, where my Princess lay, with Zamara near and little Glypto crouched trembling in the shadow of a bale of dried grasses. Exchanging urgent whispers, we climbed through the fence and mounted the saddled thaptors. They didn’t like the idea of being mounted, and were unhappy about wearing saddles, and squawked and clacked their beaks and made quite an uproar. But luckily no one came to investigate the noise, as this is the usual behavior of thaptors, who have never been thoroughly domesticated anyway.

Now how do we get out of here, Jandar?” Ergon growled.

“We unlatch the gates and ride out, leaving the pens open behind us,” I said swiftly. “That way all the thaptors will bolt for freedom and the Yathoon will be too busy trying to round them up to notice us making our getaway. So, at least, we may hope!”

Unbelievably it was even simpler than it sounds. The moment I tripped the latch and the gates swung open, sixty tense, nervous, squawking, quarrelsome thaptors made a frantic burst for freedom. We merely rode along in the midst of the herd. With unerring accuracy they stampeded towards the perimeter of the camp, where rude earthworks had been built up to encircle and thus protect the encampment. Each time the Yathoon Horde makes camp they go through the routine of digging drainage ditches and setting up earthworks and erecting the pens, even if they only plan to spend the night before packing up and moving on. I believe, in this respect, they unknowingly emulate the ancient Roman legions.

Guards sprang up in front of us along the rampart, waving their arms and uttering harsh cries, trying to divert the stampede. But the wild thaptors refused to be diverted, and the guards vanished in a whirl of dust as the thaptors simply ran them down, trampling them underfoot. Then the earthworks rose before us, a rampart of packed earth about six feet high. The thaptors rose up and soared leaping over the ramparts in one smooth wave that was beautiful to see.

Before us stretched the endless plains, dim in the vague moonlight. The herd kept on straight in the direction in which it had first headed, although the herd began to thin out along the edges as groups of bird-horses detached themselves from the main body of the stampede, peeling off in all directions, obviously for the purpose of making their recapture more difficult.

We five managed to stay together, but with considerable difficulty, for our unruly mounts desired to veer off in this or that direction. To enforce discipline we freely used the little knobbed olos.

We flew along like the wind. Our beasts were wild with joy at freedom, and sped straight out into the shadowy plains with every ounce of speed their wiry, lean-muscled bodies possessed. They could not for very long manage to sustain this dizzying sprint, but while they could, they put the encampment behind them further and further with every instant of time that passed.

These were not the only thaptors the Horde owned, of course. There were many such pens scattered about the camp, each containing between twenty-five and two hundred beasts, depending on the rank and importance of the clan chieftain to whom each pen belonged, and to the size of his retinue. But by the time the Yathoon saddled up and rode out into the plains to start trying to round up the runaways, we should be long gone.

Or so we hoped.

I leaned over the stiff ruff of bristling feathers my thaptor wore for a mane, feeling exultation rise in me, heady in my veins like rare champagne. The taste of freedom can make you drunk with joy, if you have not sampled the beverage for some time. Ahead of me, riding like the wind, my Princess turned to laugh joyously, her magnificent eyes smiling into mine. For the millionth time I gave thanks to whatever fate had made so glorious a woman mine.

By contrast with Darloona’s wild excitement, the Princess of Tharkol clung fearfully to her steed, her face white with terror. The events of the last couple of days must have seemed like a nightmare to Zamara, for seldom could the proud and pampered Princess of Tharkol have been used with such rudeness.

We had snatched her from her bed, bundled her bound and gagged into her own balloon, carried her off for a wild ride through the skies, endangered her with pterodactyls, crashed her unceremoniously into the plains, gotten her captured and enslaved by a wandering army of savage and inhuman nomads, and now thrust her into the midst of a wild and giddy stampede of maddened thaptors!

The divine right of kings―or whatever silly philosophy she believed governed her incontrovertible right to do what she alone wished―must have become severely bruised in the recent succession of events. To say nothing of a tender and overinflated royal ego.

When one is carried off in the night by one’s own captives, it must be difficult to sustain the belief in ode’s divinely decreed destiny to rule the world!

As for Glypto, the little rogue was also white with terror and retaining his place astride the galloping thaptor with the very greatest difficulty imaginable. In fact, I expected the little rascal to go flying at any moment, from the way he was bouncing about in his saddle. But he wrapped both arms around the arched neck of his thaptor and clung on with every atom of strength his wiry little body could muster. But he was tough, the little bantam, and displayed unsuspected reserves of what I can only describe as guts. Life in the gutters and alleys of Tharkol thins out the weaklings early on, I surmised: to survive at all, he must have been tough and resilient and adaptable.

Glypto had survived. And he might even survive this wild, nightmarish gallop through the windy dark. But―from the way he was bouncing up and down in his saddle―I presumed he would not feel like sitting down for some days to come.

The headlong pace of our steeds slowed now as the beasts lost their wind. They began to stumble and stagger, gasping for breath, froth dribbling from the gaping beaks.

The larger moons soared up, one by one, over the edges of the world, flooding the plains with beautiful colored light.

We were lost and alone and unarmed in an unknown world.

But at least we had regained our freedom.