Mad Empress of Callisto

Chapter 13 Lost on the Great Plains

After a time our beasts became exhausted and could no longer sustain their speed. We permitted them to come to a halt, and dismounted stiffly from the saddles. No sign of pursuit was either visible or audible, and, as we had ridden a considerable distance from the Yathoon encampment, we assumed it unlikely that any of the nomads were on our trail. Doubtless they had their hands too full of the problem of rounding up as many of the escaping thaptors as they could to bother about us. If indeed our own escape had been noticed, which was not likely.

Although we were by now completely lost on the Great Plains, without food or provisions or much in the way of weapons, save for the two poignards Glypto had discovered amid the hoard of Gorpak, one of which I had and Ergon the other, we were unafraid. In fact, we faced the unknown future with great confidence: we were free, we were together again, and we had a fighting chance of finding our way home.

In fact, our chance was better than that, for we knew our friends were searching for us, as an aerial galleon such as the Jalathadar can cover an immense tract of land very swiftly.

We camped where we were. None of us had extra clothing or anything in the way of bedding, but the night was warm and the grasses were deep and we were exhausted from the strain and exertion of our escape and our wild ride over the plains, and knew we could sleep soundly. Luckily we had all been fed earlier in the evening, and thus did not suffer from hunger, although I for one could certainly have done with a drink of water, and so, doubtless could my companions, especially the women.

Of the two women, Darloona was a tower of strength but Zamara, predictably enough, was a continuous headache. My Princess was too delighted to be free again to bother much about bedding down amidst the grasses, and viewed the entire experience with a boyish delight as an unexpected adventure. Her high spirits and enthusiasm were an inspiration to us all, and I loved her all the more for her humor, bravery, and cheerful willingness to endure discomfort.

The self-styled Empress of Callisto, on the other hand, could not stop complaining. She raved and ranted on about the affront to her imperial rank, cursed the Yathoon as unfeeling savages, and even had the nerve to protest about the undignified manner in which we had arranged our escape. The rest of us paid little attention to her fuming display of temperament, and Ergon, sprawled out beside me listening to her curse and complain, grinned sourly.

“It has been like this ever since Gorpak found us in the wreckage of the balloon,” he grunted. “She was astounded that the Yathoon warriors did not know who she was, or what she was, I should say. And it enraged her that they paid not the slightest attention to her protestations that she was the Empress of the world and that by taking her prisoner, they tempted the wrath of the Lords of Gordrimator, whose anointed vicar on Thanator she was.”

He chuckled. “The ultimate insult, which left her gasping and in tears, was that Gorpak’s warriors chained her together with Glypto and your lady and myself. For an Empress to be chained with common slaves was a shock to her self-esteem from which she has not yet recovered!”

I laughed. “We shall have to find some way of disabusing her of this notion that she is the darling of the gods. The fact of the matter is, quite simply, that she has been deluded by Ang Chan.”

“The little yellow dwarf who contrived our capture in the woods? What part does he play in these mad dreams of world conquest?”

“He is a Kuurian from a far land on the other side of the planet,” I informed him. “I have met his kind before. One of his brethren, a clever little devil who called himself Ool, had connived himself into a position of high authority among the Chac Yuul. The Kuurians are Mind Wizards; they have the peculiar ability to read men’s minds, and they know what you are thinking as well as you do yourself. And now I have reason to suspect that they have also the power to intrude into your mind and plant illusions there―such as the white vanth Darloona and I pursued into the woods that time―the vanth which you could not even see, for the very good reason that it was Darloona and I they desired to capture, while they cared nothing about you.”

“A strange story, Jandar,” Ergon mused, rubbing his jaw with one huge, scarred hand. “It sounds like magic to me, and magic is something that I have never bothered to believe in. Had anyone else told me such a story, I would have thought him a fool or a madman or a liar. But I know you too well by now to think you qualify for any of those titles.”

Darloona, curled sleepily near us, spoke up. “Jandar speaks the truth, Ergon. He fought and slew this Ool in the Pits of Shondakor, and the little yellow man, thinking himself invulnerable because he could read Jandar’s mind and knew where he would thrust his sword next, unwisely bragged aloud of the secret plans of the Kuurians, whom, it seems, work behind the scenes to influence and direct other nations, for some cunning and mysterious purpose of their own. And we did indeed see a white vanth, that day.”

Zamara had permitted her ravings to subside, as it became obvious none of us was listening, and had heard our discussion. Now she came over to where we sprawled in nests of trampled grass. She was still a remarkably beautiful young woman, though her finery was by now reduced to rags and her hair had not been tended for days. Her brilliant eyes flashed and her lovely face flamed with indignation and fury.

“What madness is this you talk of, fools? Ang Chan is the wisest of my councillors and a holy man, the veritable mouthpiece and oracle of the gods! You call him a cunning and unscrupulous rogue, plotting treason―deluding me? But this is madness! The Lords of Gordrimator in Person have descended to hail my future glory and to assure me of Their unfailing support and miraculous assistance in paving my way to the Throne of Shondakor―”

“Princess, is it not true that this Ang Chan possesses a mysterious power to influence the thoughts of others, and to make their eyes see what his own mind wills? Was it not by this power that he made us see the illusion of the white vanth, in order to lure us into the woods where you were waiting to carry us off?”

She snorted indignantly at my words.

“Of course! He has the power to work holy miracles―a power given him by the Lords of Gordrimator in order to serve their ends―nothing morel”

“Perhaps not. But consider … if he could make us see a vanth where Ergon saw nothing … could he not also have made you see this visitation from the gods you speak of?”

“That was a holy miracle! A blessed vision!”

“Is it not at least possible that the vision was induced in your mind by the cunning of Ang Chan?” I argued persuasively. “You must admit that it is at least possible that our interpretation of this vision is correct?”

“I-I-I admit nothing! You speak blasphemy against the Lords―and treason against your Empress!” she stammered.

Darloona eyed her with cool amusement.

“I suspect that the Princess of Tharkol is trying desperately to persuade herself, not us, that her visions were holy truth,” she observed. “And I further suspect her vehemence stems from her own inner doubts, rather from any irrationalities in our version of these events.”

Zamara glared at her in a paroxysm of furious outrage. Her breasts rose and fell as she panted, and her superb eyes flashed dangerously.

“You―dare?” she hissed.

Darloona shrugged. “Not having been a witness to these visions myself, I cannot be certain of their veracity,” she said calmly. “But I would, I think, tend to be suspicious of anyone who tells me he has received miracles and visions from the gods. If there be any gods at all, in truth they dwell far away and seldom have anything much to do with human affairs―as witness the wars and tyrants and injustices that flourish unchecked, or, rather, are checked only by human effort and courage and dedication, if they are checked at all. And I would tend to be doubly suspicious of any miraculous visitations that tell you what you most want to hear: that you are destined for glory and greatness and deserve to rule the world. That sounds like wishful thinking, you know.”

Words failed Zamara at hearing these unutterable blasphemies spoken in so calm and reasonable a tone of voice. Speechless, she stamped her little foot in rage.

“There―there is no arguing with one who refuses to believe!” she cried in vexation.

“There is also no arguing with one who insists on believing in the incredible against all reason and commonsense,” Darloona smiled.

The Empress turned on her heel and went fuming off, to throw herself down for the night in a nest of grasses. She had removed herself as far apart from we unbelieving mortals as she could, without getting too far away for us to spring to her protection should danger arise.

We laughed and joked a little between us, then gradually let weariness overtake us and drifted, one by one, to sleep. The thaptors grazed on the thick grasses, tethered near to where we were bedded down, their reins securely knotted in the roots of nearby bushes.

We slept soundly, dreamlessly, and woke with dawn refreshed.

Refreshed, but furiously hungry and afire with thirst! There was nothing we could do to assuage either hunger or thirst for the moment, however, so we simply ignored them as best we could, keeping our spirits high and facing the pangs of our empty bellies with as much fortitude as we could muster.

Darloona remained cheerful and uncomplaining, and not one word of peevish ill-temper escaped her lips. Zamara, in striking contrast, wept and whined and whimpered.

I would have thought her convictions of her divinely-ordained destiny would have sustained her in the face of such trials and discomforts, but such, it seemed, was not the case.

We mounted and rode into the plains. Ergon was in the fore, his keen eyes searching the meadowlands.

When I asked him if it was game he was on the alert for, he grinned and advised me he was keeping on the lookout for a jinko. When I blandly asked him what kind of a creature a jinko might be, he goggled at me with astonishment, then shrugged good-humoredly.

“I keep forgetting that you are not native to Thanator,” he shrugged.

“Then permit me to remind you of my ignorance, and to inquire again into the peculiarities of the jinko,” I smiled. “Let us hope that they are good to eat and easy to kill, for we have only two daggers between us and I am famished.”

“It is not a beast at all, it’s a plant,” he explained. “A most curious plant, however, in that it possesses the power of locomotion, otherwise denied most forms of vegetation.”

“A walking plant, eh?” I repeated, wonderingly. “Well, the wonders of Thanator never cease to amaze me. I trust this perambulating vegetation is, at least, edible.”

He then expanded on the unique qualities of the jinko, a plant superbly designed by nature to subsist in desert places, but often found amidst the plains, especially in such parts of the plains which are devoid of rivers, ponds, or lakes. The jinko, it seems, is drawn to the nearness of subterranean water sources by some occult sense. Having found such, the jinko sends down its mobile rootlets to suck up the water, which it stores in hollow, bladder-like leaves, and upon which it sustains itself during further perambulations about the landscape in search of yet other sources of liquid nourishment.

The arrangement sounded most novel to me, but it was not, after all, very much more peculiar than that of the so-called “air plant” of my native world, which roosts in trees and drinks sustenance from the atmosphere alone, without recourse to the soil which is the common food source of most plants.

We rode on across the Great Plains, strung out in a wide front, each of us keeping an eye open for the elusive and invaluable jinko without which, I assumed, death from thirst and starvation was to be our lot. Zamara complained, loudly and continuously, about her hunger and thirst, but sulkily refused to assist in the hunt. It occurred to me to suggest that, as the chosen darling of the gods, she might expect miraculous relief for the asking; but that otherwise, unless she helped search for the jinko, she would have no claim in the partaking of its fluids.

She cursed me sulphurously, but began searching for the jinko as soon as she thought I was not watching her. I exchanged a grin with Darloona.

“Another week of this and, between us, we’ll make a human being out of her,” the Princess chuckled.

Chapter 14 The Tree that Walks like a Man

Before we had been riding for more than a couple of hours, Ergon raised an exultant shout and whirled his thaptor off in the direction I assumed to be north. He rode straight for a large, conical-shaped tree that towered above the plains to the height of some fifteen feet or so.

Riding up to where he had halted near the peculiar-looking tree, I called out to him. “This is a jinko? You didn’t tell me they were as large as this―I was watching for something more like a bush.”

“Such they usually resemble,” he grinned happily, “but this is the grandfather of all jinkos!”

He climbed down off the back of his bird-horse, and made a warning gesture of caution.

“Don’t talk too loudly or move too swiftly,” he advised, “or you will scare it off.”

I elevated my eyebrows.

“Scare it off? You mean the thing has―intelligence?” I asked incredulously. He shrugged indifferently.

“I know not whether it be true cognition, or mere brute instinct,” he growled in a low voice, “but they are somehow sensitive to the nearness of warm-blooded creatures, and any abrupt movement in their immediate vicinity may alarm them into flight. And, while they are generally ponderous and slow of movement, I have known instances when it was necessary to gallop after one for the better part of half a korad before you got near enough to snatch a drink of water.”

Glypto, Darloona, and Zamara had ridden up to where we stood by this time. Wiser than I in the techniques of stalking the wary jinko, they dismounted slowly and formed a great ring about the tree, slowly moving in from all sides simultaneously.

The jinko, by the way, resembled an overgrown bush more than a tree, on closer inspection. That is, it seemed to have no central trunk from which the branches grew, but was a thicket of intertangled twigs, each about as big around as my forearm. The base of these twigs was a tangled network, like a great pad, which rested on the surface of the plain. Below this pad hairy rootlets of sinuous and snaky prehensile ability wormed deeply into the ground―I knew this because even as I advanced slowly upon the tree from my side of the circle, one wriggling rootlet came sucking up out of the soil and slithered inquiringly in my direction. In fact, it snuffled inquisitively about my feet like a wary and nearsighted dog!

The twigs extended about a dozen feet in all directions from the central mass, shaping the jinko into something like a squat cone. The twigs ended in swollen, purplish bladders rather like elephant ears, but much fatter because of the water stored within them. The fullest of the “leaves” were a good four or five inches thick and the larger of these must have contained nearly a gallon of water each.

The tree was aware of our presence now. The rootlet which had been sniffing at my ankles, recoiled suddenly into a tight spiral, quivering and tense with alarm. Bristling long hairs or minor rootlets sprouted from the length of the wriggling, prehensile thing, and these vibrated, stiff with alarm.

I was reminded, uneasily, of a rattler, coiling and vibrant, about to strike. Snakes are unknown on Thanator, I believe, and Ergon, sensing my trepidation, advised me the tree was harmless.

Reaching up, we selected the fattest and largest of the bladder-leaves we could, and began cutting them off the branches with our knives. The tree jerked this way and that, trembling, trying to snatch its leaves from our grasp.

The leaves were quite easy to detach. Once you snapped one loose, water dribbled from the end of the branch, which was hollow like a pipe or a garden hose; but the opening quickly swelled shut with an oozing, gummy substance. Watching this curious phenomenon, I suddenly realized that the “leaves” we were plucking were nothing like leaves at all, but were more like bubbles or balloons! For the gummy sap which oozed from the end of one branch from which I had just snapped off a “leaf,” now swelled into a reddish bubble from the water pressure, and as I watched, it began slowly to expand into another elephant-ear-shaped bladder. As the gummy stuff stretched and dried, it turned purple.

When we had harvested enough bladders of water, Ergon bade us stand clear of the tree. Once it perceived itself to be no longer ringed about, the jinko nervously detached itself from the earth, and began scuttling off to the west, squirming along on its wriggling rootlets, swaying from side to side in a most amusing fashion.

Picking up its stride, it rocketed off across the plains and dwindled from sight. When last seen, I would say it was running much faster than a man.

Thanator―world of wonders!

You drink from the bladder-leaves by cutting or tearing a slit about two inches wide in the purplish flesh, tilting this aperture towards your mouth, and squeezing the bladder gently, causing the water to squirt into your mouth―and all over your face, if you fail to aim it properly.

The water was pure, clear, cold, and indescribably delicious.

Ergon made a fire with dry grasses and cut two of the empty bladders into long strips, toasting these in the blaze. They sizzled like steaks roasting on charcoal, giving off a steamy, spicy odor that was not exactly meatlike, but not quite vegetable either. When the strips were done sufficiently, we feasted on them. The purplish flesh, now crisp and brown, had a stringy, fibrous consistency like good lean beef, but a succulent, mealy taste like hot tortillas.

Anyway, they were tasty and filling. Even Zamara devoured them hungrily, failed to complain at the primitive nature of the feast, and carefully licked up every crumb from her lips with a small, pointed pink tongue.

We had drained dry, then cooked and eaten, only two of the jinko leaves. As we had plucked about seventeen before permitting the walking tree to scuttle away about its business, we had provisions of food and drink sufficient to last us for several days.

Resting awhile, seeing that the thaptors satisfied their thirst, we mounted and rode on, refreshed and filled.

Now the only pressing and immediate problem which we faced was that we were lost.

This was a problem that took some thought to solve.

We had been in the plains to the east of Shondakor when first taken prisoner. The balloon had flown us yet farther east, to the city of Tharkol. In making our escape from Tharkol by balloon, we had been carried, as far as we could determine, due south to be brought down midway between Tharkol and the Black Mountains. Midway between the city and the mountains we had fallen captive to the Yathoon Horde.

But which way had the Yathoon nomads taken us―east or west? I believed we had traveled due west during our captivity in the Horde, and should therefore be south of Shondakor. But Ergon was of the opinion that we had been headed north, and might by now be on a line between Shondakor and Tharkol.

It was a pretty problem, indeed. If we went in the direction I suggested, and if Ergon proved correct in his estimate of our present location, we should end up near the city of Soraba on the shores of Corund Laj, the Greater Sea. And that would make us farther from Shondakor than before!

The damnable part of it all was that we could not be sure. This was due to the peculiarities of Thanator itself. The sun is merely the brightest of stars in these skies. In fact, only rarely can you discern its position in the heavens at all, due to the weird layer of translucent golden vapor which blankets the Jungle Moon high in its upper atmosphere. Daylight on Callisto is caused by some mysterious fluorescent effect in this golden vapor, which causes it to blaze into illumination. But this happens all at once, throughout the entire sky.

On Earth, things are so much simpler. The sun rises in the east, and that’s all there is to it! Once you know this fact, you can figure out your direction during any daylight hour. But not so on Thanator. And here they have yet to invent the compass!

At length we resolved our differences, arrived at a compromise, and struck off in a direction that we generally agreed would in time bring us within eyeshot of Shondakor.

We crossed the plains by slow, easy stages, with frequent stops for rest and nourishment. Had it been just Ergon and I alone, we could have made much better time, because we would have increased the pace, driving both ourselves and our thaptors mercilessly.

But we had the women to think of, and scrawny little Glypto. Half-starved most of his miserable life, the little guttersnipe lacked the stamina of a warrior. So we catered to him and the women, nor did we treat the little rogue harshly, demanding he keep up with us. He was no enemy, but a friend, and I must admit that I felt just a bit guilty at forcing him to endure these adventures. He had been brought along with us by a combination of accident and mistake, and it seemed a bit unfair. I must say, all things considered, he was a more amiable and useful companion than his Queen, who alternately raged or wept, whimpered or cursed. He was good-natured, comical, and quick to help. He amused Darloona with his quips and antics, and he delighted in tormenting glum Ergon.

He delighted in mimicking Ergon’s goggle-eyed glower and froggish grimace, and skillfully parodied the bandy-legged Perushtarian’s rolling gait, which always reminded me of a sailor’s. Ergon suffered Glypto’s clowning in indignant, grim-jawed silence, but, when stung to the quick, made to cuff the capering little thief. If any of those heavy-handed blows had actually landed, Glypto would have clowned no more―nor, for that matter, would he have stirred from a hospital bed for a fortnight.

But he seemed to know by sheer instinct when Ergon had taken enough, and whenever his antics had goaded the bald-headed Perushtarian to the brink of rage, the smirking little rapscallion slackened his play and turned to other trickery, leaving Ergon to huff and puff as his temper slowly subsided.

There was a considerable element of play in this, as if it were almost a game shared between them. I have a feeling Ergon, in his dour, grumpy way, rather liked the chipper, droll little guttersnipe, and that little Glypto admired Ergon for his strength, valor, determination, and dogged loyalty. The unspoken, almost unavowed, friendship or comradeship which grew between the two very dissimilar men was touching, in a way. Neither admitted to any fondness for the other: Ergon snorted, and called him “gutter-scrapings,” “garbage-picker,” and like terms of disrespect; Glypto, on the other hand, employed his nimble wits to invent a variety of amusingly apt, if impolite, titles for Ergon. Of these the one which amused me most was “Sir Boiled-Frog,” a deft allusion to Ergon’s scarlet hide, bald head, bowlegs and froglike mouth.

Our supply of jinko bladders lasted us six days without scrimping.

On the seventh day we encountered, and raided, a second jinko. Our second was nowhere near the size of our first, which had been indeed, as Ergon termed it, the “grandfather of all jinkos.” This one, by comparison, was only a niece or nephew. Moreover, we took it on the wing, so to speak: it was not rooted, but roaming free, and we had to chase the nimble rooted little bush about three-quarters of a mile before we “winded” it sufficiently to bring it to a stop, which we effected by the simple process of surrounding it on thaptor-back, then dismounting to prune it of the larger of its bladders.

The poor thing trembled in terror all the while, but we did not denude it, picking only the larger of its leaves, before turning it loose to scamper off. The leaves were nowhere as large as the ones on the first jinko, but their water was no less fresh and cold, and the flesh of the bladders was, if anything, tenderer, juicier, and more succulent.

That was on the seventh day of our escape from the encampment of the Yathoon arthropods.

On the eighth day we saw the caravan.

Chapter 15 Taken by Surprise

The caravan consisted of about two hundred men and animals strung out in a long line that wound across the Great Plains for nearly half a mile. Teams were hitched to large covered wains which, with their four wheels, light construction, and felt coverings, bore a striking resemblance to the covered wagons which played such an important role in the opening up of the American West.

The drivers of these wains, and the scouts, guards, and outriders, who fanned across the plains in every direction, keeping a lookout for bandits or raiders, had the scarlet skin and bald heads and beardless faces of Perushtarians.

Leaving Glypto behind to stay with the women, Ergon and I went ahead to investigate the caravan and to form some estimate of the danger it presented to us, if any. We dismounted and wormed a way on our bellies to the crest of low hummocks from which we could view the extent of the caravan without being seen ourselves.

Ergon looked them over with a suspicious eye and a glum face.

“Sorabans,” he grunted sourly.

“How can you tell?” I asked. He indicated the emblem which was emblazoned on the breasts of the riders’ tunics and stenciled on the sides of the wains. It was also tattooed or perhaps branded on the upper chest of the thaptors where their feathers thinned out to a creamy fuzz. This symbol bore little relation to the earthly kinds of heraldry known to me. It was a complex design of flowing, intertwined arabesques and flowery tendrils.

“The emblem of the House of Iommon, a family of merchant princes very powerful in Soraba, who maintain a branch in Narouk,” he growled. Ergon had been a slave in Narouk when first we had met, which explained how he was able to recognize the blazonry.

“Slavers?” I asked.

The Perushtarians have made of the breeding and training and selling of slaves a major industry and a fine art, and the last thing I wanted was to fall in with slavers. Not when we were this close to Shondakor, surely!

He shook his head, almost reluctantly.

“I have never heard that the Iommon interests extend to slavery,” he said grudgingly. “They have a monopoly on sea trade between Soraba and Farz, and a share in the weaving and dyeing works in Glorious Perusht itself. They maintain a great fleet which plies the waters of the Corund Laj between the far-flung cities of the empire.”

“Then we are in no danger of being enslaved by them?” I pressed. He shrugged.

“I should not think it likely. But it would be best if we permitted the caravan to pass us by without discovering our presence. We have been in enough trouble on this adventure, as it is. But there is something strange here … .”

“What is that?”

He shifted about to a more comfortable position in the grasses.

“I have never heard that the Iommon indulge in overland trading expeditions, and cannot imagine why they should bother to do so, since they enjoy a monopoly on sea trade. And I cannot help wondering where they have been, and where they are going. Their wains seem full of goods, their mounts travel-stained and covered with road dust; from this, I would assume that they have completed a successful trading venture and are en route home again.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. As it did, and as I began to realize the implications of this, my heart sank.

“You mean you think they are heading for Soraba?” I asked, hollowly.

“I must assume so. And they could only have come from Tharkol, for there is no other city hereabouts.”

“That means we have been traveling in the wrong direction, all this while!” I groaned.

He nodded, grimly. “I’m afraid so, Jandar.”

“Then every hour we have ridden has only put more distance between us and Shondakor,” I said in despair. He nodded again.

“I can only think so. We are headed due north, towards the shores of the Corund Laj, where the city of Soraba rises at the head of the Sorabanian peninsula.” He nodded over his shoulder. “We should have been traveling in that direction, all this while!”

Just then we heard a despairing cry from behind us. We whirled to see mounted warriors cantering in a circle about Darloona, Glypto, and Zamara. They were caravan guards, from the emblems on their tunics, and they had ridden through the hillocks behind us, taking the women by surprise.

“Well, that blows it,” I said grimly.

“Do not bother to translate, Jandar,” Ergon grunted. “I think I can guess your meaning.”

Since we were discovered, there was no point in trying to hide our position, and I had no wish to be parted from Darloona again. Ergon and I rose to our feet and hurried down the slope. One of the caravan guards spied our approach and cantered toward us.

He was a sulky-faced, grim-looking specimen, with a squat neck and a bullethead and surly, suspicious eyes, hard and mean and wary. A curved scimitar or cutlass hung at his girdle and in his left hand he carried a long war spear tufted with scarlet and black feathers, these being the heraldic colors of the House of Iommon.

The blade of this spear was pointed at our chests. We came to a halt and stood there empty-handed. My dagger was concealed beneath my tunic, as was Ergon’s, or so I suppose.

Breathing heavily, Ergon stood in silence as the guard cantered up to look us over.

“What have we here?” the guard growled, eyeing us up and down with curiosity.

`Harmless travelers,” Ergon said quietly. “Why do you molest our women and our servant?”

“Why do you spy on the caravan of Lord Shaphur from a place of concealment?” the guard countered. Ergon had no ready answer for this and wisely held his tongue.

“We are no bandits, as you can see for yourself,” I spoke up. “Two unarmed men, two women, and a servant pose no threat to your caravan. We were merely observing it from a place of safety, to see what it was and if it posed any threat to us. We are harmless travelers, bound for Shondakor.”

His eyes were still wary and suspicious.

“Perhaps this is true,” he grunted. “Then again, perhaps it is not. You are certainly a long way from the Golden City, and if that indeed be the goal of your journey, then you are taking a very roundabout way of getting there. Or so I gather from your tracks, which are heading in the wrong direction.”

I was sweating, but tried not to show it.

“So we have just discovered from observing the direction in which your caravan seems to be traveling. I’m afraid we have been lost for some days, and, if your caravan is returning to Soraba, as we assume, then we have indeed strayed from our path. With your permission we will mount and be off.”

“Not so fast,” he growled, jabbing the spear in my direction. “I cannot permit you to pass on my own judgment; the Lord Shaphur himself will interrogate you and decide what should be done.”

“That sinks it,” I ‘breathed to Ergon. And again I did not have to translate my terrestrial idiom for him to understand my meaning.

The master of the caravan―Lord Shaphur of the House of Iommon―was an immense, obese Soraban who rode at the head of the procession in a wain outfitted with great luxury and comfort. Cushions were heaped into a cozy nest at one end of the luxuriously carpeted wagon, and therein the merchant princeling sprawled at his ease, sipping a brandy-like cordial called quarra and munching sweetmeats and small pastries from a huge tray of glittering silver.

Shaphur of Soraba was one of the fattest men I have ever met. He must have weighed close to three hundred pounds, with his vast paunch and wobbling jowls and several chins. He was dressed in the fantastical manner affected by the Perushtarians of the great houses, in a loose robe of silken stuff edged with gold fringe, hung about with tassels, adorned with sashes, and pinned with gaudy jeweled brooches.

His robes were an incredible, eye-hurting clash of colors―olive green, fuchsia, violet, canary, three shades of pink, indigo, umber, and carnation. The Perushtarians are a gaudy, mercantile people whose civilization always reminds me of the Carthaginians or Phoenicians of my own Earth―a nation of shopkeepers, an empire of merchants. They have the flashy Semitic bad taste of their terrestrial counterparts, and overdress to a fault.

This Shaphur was no fool, for all his appearance. He looked to be a jolly fat man, beaming with good humor, his paunch and chins and jowls quivering as he chuckled at his own jests, but behind the fat, scarlet, merry face was a first-rate brain, and his eyes were small, shrewd, cool, and intelligent.

He received us informally, squatting comfortably in his nest, in the shade of a striped awning. Gauzy-pantalooned slave girls knelt to either side of him, making certain that his goblet was never empty and his store of sweetmeats ever replenished. He looked us up and down with clever, measuring eyes, all the while stuffing himself with sugary pastries, which he conveyed in a never-ending stream from platter to gullet, shoving them in with both fat hands whose greasy fingers were glittering with a profusion of gems.

“What an oddly mixed traveling party, to be sure!” he chuckled to himself in a husky, gasping voice, beaming all the while a broad, benign smile. I could not help noticing that this genial smirk did not extend as far as his eyes, which were cold and cunning and watchful.

“A Shondakorian lady of noble birth, quite obviously, accompanied by three Perushtarians from very different levels of society: a lovely and highborn lady of evident breeding, a burly rogue who seems suited to be a warrior or a gladiator, and a scrawny starveling from the gutters who would seem to have run afoul of the law―if I mistake me not the brand of thievery on the creature’s brow―ho, hot”

Glypto tugged a greasy forelock in an obsequious manner.

“Not so―not so at all, mighty and gracious lord! Glypto, the son of Glypto, the grandson of Glypto, at your Magnificence’s service! A nobly born chanthan, alas, upon whom Fortune has declined to smile … .”

“Ah, so; of course,” Shaphur chuckled. “The borders between chark and chanthan are narrow, at best, eh? Ho, hot A merry rogue!”

Then the cold, thoughtful, measuring eyes turned upon myself.

“And you, my lad―what of you, eh? The strangest of all in this strangely mixed company of ‘harmless travelers’!” he puffed in his light, wheezing voice. “What of you, eh? A stranger from a far-off land, no doubt; for never have I laid these tired old eyes on a lad with such peculiar coloration!”

“From a far-off land, even as you surmise, Lord Shaphur,” I replied in even tones. “But, oddly mixed as we are, which is an accident of fortune and not of design, we are indeed harmless travelers as you say. And we would be on our way, if it please you ….”

“To Shondakor, I believe, if my outriders report correctly. Well, well! Yonder beautiful lady is indeed Shondakorian, if I may trust my weary old eyes to tell aright, but the rest of you … eh! What business can so many Perushtarians have in the Golden City?”

“Our business is our own, Shaphur!” a clear contralto voice slashed through the Soraban’s labored, breathy tones. I groaned inwardly. For it was Zamara!

“Lord Shaphur, dear lady,” he chuckled. “Let us observe the amenities, if you please … .”

“Lord Shaphur, I mean,” Zamara said in a throttled voice.

“That’s much better . . your gracious ladyship would be, I believe, a Tharkolian, as would also be yonder starveling, as the both of you twain boast that hirsute adornment of pate denied to we coastal dwellers of the pure blood?”

“Tharkolians, yes … lord,” Zamara said. She pronounced the word as if it strangled her to refer to another person by his title. It came to me then that perhaps Zamara possessed a modicum of good sense, after all; at least she had not yet loudly announced that she was Empress of all Callisto, and demanded that the smirking, oily fat man grovel at her feet.

“A pair of Tharkolians, a stranger from a far-off land a noble Shondakorian lady, and a Perushtarian―from?” he spoke sharply, stabbing a hard glance at sullen-faced Ergon.

“Narouk,” grumbled Ergon unwillingly.

“… Narouk … ah, yes, our sister city! Well, well. I understand you five so oddly ill-assorted traveling companions have become lost for some days past and strayed from your route … eh?”

“That is the truth, Lord Shaphur,” I said evenly. “And, with your gracious permission, we should like to be on our way.”

He flapped pudgy hands in horror at the suggestion.

“Oh, but, surely not until you have partaken of our famous Soraban hospitality!” he protested, wheezing. “Deprived of the civilized comforts during your unfortunate journey, reduced to devouring the crude and scarcely edible leafage of the elusive jinko, mounted on ill-trained and highly unsuitable steeds which bear, I perceive, tribal markings of the Yathoon barbarians … surely you must be my guests for a time, while you recover from your ordeal! Azaroosh, see that our guests are fed and made comfortable.”

The guard so instructed made his salute and turned to guide us. Zamara sharply overrode this.

“You hold us captive, then?” she demanded imperiously.

Shaphur’s fleshly face assumed a grimace of surprise.

“Ah, noble lady, you are in mistake! I, Shaphur of Soraba, your captor? Never! Say, rather … your gracious host, until such time, in the very near future, when you have recovered yourselves from the travails and discomforts of the journey … Azaroosh!”

And so we became the “guests” of Shaphur, merchant princeling of Soraba. Well, I suppose it could have been worse.

After all, Zamara had yet to tell him his guests included the regnant prince and princess of Shondakor, to say nothing of the divinely appointed Empress of the entire planet!

Chapter 16 A Little Soraban Hospitality

It could indeed have been worse. Our quarters were in a large and commodious covered wagon whose interior was thickly and comfortably carpeted and cushioned. It was not, of course, so richly decorated as that sumptuous vehicle in which Lord Shaphur traveled in state, but neither was it Spartan in its furnishings. The Sorabans are more warlike and monarchical than the rest of the Perushtarian race, but they do enjoy their creature comforts and have much the same taste for luxurious accommodations as their cousins of Farz and Narouk and Glorious Perusht itself.

Our wagon, like most of the larger wains, was drawn by a huge, lumbering, heavy-footed draft animal called the glymph, which the Thanatorians prefer as a beast of burden to the light, wiry, tempermental thaptor. The difference between the two beasts is much the same as that between the horse and the ox back on Earth. Glymphs, however, don’t look much like oxen. They are about as large and fat and heavy as rhinoceroses and look quite a bit like the extinct prehistoric triceratops, with their flaring neck shield of thick bone and several horns adorning brow and snout. They are slate gray in coloring, which hue fades to a dingy yellow in throat and chest and belly, and for some inscrutable reason of her own, Dame Nature has seen fit to ornament the imposing creatures with tiger-stripes of an amazing shade of crimson.

Our glymph lumbered along, head down, waddling with its heavy-footed stride, the reins held by our driver, a glum, unspeaking Soraban with a long nose and small, suspicious eyes called Laalmurak. He sat on a sort of buckboard in the front of the wagon and kept an eye on us, although an unobtrusive one. We were neither bound nor shackled, as befitted our ostensible position in the caravan as guests of the management.

It wasn’t bad, all things considered. We had luxurious sleeping-furs to curl up in and a plenitude of plump, soft pillows, and none of these things were exactly unwelcome to us, who had spent the past seven days sleeping on the hard ground curled up in the grass like so many rabbits. And Shaphur certainly set a fine table for his “guests”!

I had almost forgotten what real food tasted like, after a week of subsisting on broiled strips of jinko bladder. As the caravan creaked and rumbled along, we sampled a profusion of covered dishes which fitted neatly into small legged trays ideally designed for eating while in motion. These contained a delicious, piping hot meat stew in steaming gravy, spiced fish-cubes in cream sauce, hot meal-cakes sprinkled with sarowary seed, marrow of argang in jelly, fresh fruit, candied nuts, and beakers of a cool, green, mint-flavored wine that rather resembled crime de menthe.

We fell to with lusty appetites, emptying dish after dish with gusto. If this was Soraban hospitality, thought I, where had it been all my life!

The only dish unfamiliar to me was the argang marrow, a blackish, pungent paste that tasted vaguely like caviar―although it had been so many years since I had last partaken of that terrene delicacy, that I could not be certain my taste buds weren’t fooling me.

The argang was not a fish, despite its caviar-like flavor, but a kind of crustacean found in the coastal waters of the Corund Laj, and a delicacy greatly prized by the gourmets of the Perushtarian empire―which is really an oligarchy, by the way. For although the Perushtarian cities are leagued together under the rule of a sovereign, his rule is a formality, and the wealthy merchant princes are the actual monarchs.

Ergon munched the caviar-like paste with a rare good humor. It had been a long time since he had left Narouk, and in all that time he had enjoyed few of the traditional delicacies of the Perushtarian art of cooking.

“Superb!” he mumbled, licking the last morsel off his thumb. “Do you know, Jandar, that the humble argang has a larger relative called the harthak? Only a half-spoonful of marrow may be extracted from the lowly argang, but it’s larger relative, I have often thought, might yield a bushel of the stuff, were it not so damnably unfriendly!”

I chuckled. The harthak, I knew from conversations with Zastro, the old sage of the Ku Thad, were shellfish the size of a full-grown deltagar, and the most dreaded ‘denizen of the deeps, save for the dragon-snake itself. The harthak were able to devour men alive, and did so without compunction, when the unwary diver came too close.

“I thought the harthak were prized for their enormous pearls, not for their contributions to the dinner table,” Darloona smiled. Ergon nodded froggishly.

“Alas, ‘tis so, my lady. But to each his own taste; for myself, I would rather fill my stomach with this delicious stuff than adorn my body with pearls. You cannot eat pearls, you know!”

“With a mouth the size of yours, my Lord Frog-Face, you could make a try!” quipped little Glypto, dodging an instant later as Ergon threw a spoon at him.

Replete, we napped for a while on the thick rugs, waking when night fell. Of all the times I have been held prisoner on Callisto, it seems to me that never have I been fed so splendidly. Even the luxurious cell we had shared in Zamara’s palace had not offered a better cuisine. But I may be wrong: hunger always makes the best sauce! “Why do you think this Soraban lordling has taken us prisoner?” Darloona asked, nestled comfortably in my arms, as we watched the many-colored moons of Callisto rise one by one into the night sky, round and ripe and richly colorful, like Japanese paper lanterns.

“I don’t think we are exactly prisoners,” I replied. “There are our thaptors, tethered to the rear of the wagon, and Shaphur has yet to put us in chains.”

“But surely, Jandar, you did not believe his sly words about being our 'gracious host'?” she asked incredulously. I shook my head.

“No, he was just amusing himself at our expense. But I think he doesn’t quite know what to make of us, and is sort of keeping us on hand hoping to find out more.”

“Well, I hope Glypto doesn’t talk too freely,” she said, with a slight shiver. “The poor, miserable little creature has not the manly fortitude to endure much pain, should Shaphur put him to the questioning with any severity.”

Only a half hour before we had been awakened from our drowse when guards rode up to carry off the little thief for further interrogations before the lord of the caravan. He had been carried off, shrilly protesting his innocence of any wrongdoing, in the clutches of grinning guards. They had yet to bring him back.

“There is no good worrying about it, my Princess,” I said, hoping to calm her fears. “For there is nothing we can do about it, in any case.”

Ergon grumped, clearing his throat.

“We could climb out of this thing, get on our thaptors and be off across the plains,” he growled. “I still have my dagger.”

“I have mine, too,” I said. “But how far do you think we would get before the outriders were on our necks?”

“Not far enough, I suppose,” he grunted. “But it irks me sorely, Jandar! Every minute we bump along in this fancy cart, we are being carried further and

further away from Shondakor … . “

“And nearer and nearer to Soraba,” added Zamara, tartly.

“Why should that trouble you unduly, Princess?” I asked, glad that we were all on speaking terms again. Quite a bit of her high, imperious ways had been knocked out of her by our recent ordeals, captures, imprisonments, and escapes. These days, why, she was almost human at times.

“The Sorabans are no friends of mine,” she said darkly. “My embassies demanded they surrender sovereignty to me last month. I had planned, by this time, to have included both Shondakor and Soraba within the borders of my empire. Now that my plans have gone awry, the rulers of Soraba are well on their guard.”

“Which is why you did not announce your true identity to Shaphur when he questioned us, I suppose?” asked Darloona.

Zamara shrugged. “Of course. It would have been madness.”

Ergon craned his head.

“Here comes that little guttersnipe, back again,” he growled disgustedly. “I had thought that maybe we were getting rid of him this time,” he swore.

Darloona grinned mischievously.

“Oh, Ergon, you great dissembler! You know you’ve really grown quite fond of the little scoundrel.”

“I’ve grown used to him, if that’s what you mean, my lady,” he grumbled. “It was the silliest mistake I’ve ever made, pitching the squealing little runt in the balloon basket while Jandar was off fetching her high-and-mightiness, here.”

Zamara bristled.

“Mind your tongue, slave! You refer to the Majesty of Tharkol! Were I back in my realm, I’d have your tongue slit for such insolence.”

Unimpressed, Ergon voiced a rude snort.

“Doubtless you would, lady. But in Tharkol we are not, and right now we are fellow captives, and I’ll say what I please.”

Zamara subsided in a fuming silence while we turned to assist little Glypto to climb into the wagon. He was pale and whimpering with fear, and his one good eye, bright as a ferret’s, rolled from side to side in terror. There was a purplish bruise on the side of his lank, unshaven jaw that had not been there previously, and another above his eye patch. He tumbled into the bottom of the wain, moaning piteously.

Ergon crouched over him, his ugly face anxious.

“Are you all right, little man? Did they beat you? Here―have some quarra.”

Glypto lapped up the potent brandy like a thirsty hound, and sank back gasping for breath.

“Did they beat poor Glypto?” he quavered. “Unmercifully! Unjustly! But good, brave Glypto the chanthan . . told them nothing! Nothing at all! He remained faithful to the trust of his friends, although the great, cruel guards beat him with their terrible fists, and kicked him with their great heavy boots, and cursed him for a rogue and a thief and … and called him terrible names!”

Darloona shoved Ergon away, telling him to fetch a dampened cloth, and bent solicitously over the whimpering, moaning little rascal, who proved far less hurt than you would have thought from the way he carried on. He seemed to have been slapped a couple of times, and perhaps shaken up a bit, but he was otherwise unharmed.

Ergon joined me at the rear of the wain.

“Do you think he said anything unwise, Jandar?” he growled worriedly.

“What do you think?” I countered.

He grumbled unhappily.

“I think he’d probably sell his grandmother to be ground into sausages, to avoid a kick in the pants,” he rumbled dolefully.

“I’m afraid I agree with your estimate of Glypto’s fortitude,” I said quietly. “The little fellow has many sterling qualities, but bravery in the face of punishment is not among them. We may, I think, assume that by now Shaphur is delightedly aware that his guests include at least three members of the royalty. Quite a coup for him, then, if he can manage to get us back to Soraba safely!”

“Then we must make certain he does not,” he said grimly.

“Yes; but my former objection still holds,” I reminded him. “We could doubtless get to our steeds unobserved, and perhaps even leave the caravan unseen, but the outriders would be onto us in no time, for, with all moons aloft, ‘tis as bright as day on the plains at this hour.”

“What we need is a diversion,” he said thoughtfully. “Could we set the wagon afire?”

“With what? We have neither candle nor lantern.”

“I still have my flint-and-steel,” he said.

Then he stopped short.

For the caravan suddenly exploded into uproar and confusion! Thaptors bolted, or reared squealing―men yelled lustily―ahead of us somewhere a wain went crashing over on its side with a jolting thunder of splintering wood!

And a huge black shadow traversed the shy.

“A diversion, eh?” Ergon boomed heartily, staring skyward with an expression of slack-jawed amazement and huge joy.

I followed his gaze.

Above us, at the height of only a hundred feet, the Jalathadar serenely floated through the skies under the glory of the mighty moons.