Renegade of Callisto

16 The Wall of Living Fire

For hours the vast numbers of the Zajjadar nomads streamed through the mountain pass, bound for their unknown destination.

Sheer walls of unscalable black rock soared to either hand to an incredible height, blotting out the moons.

The cold became numbing in its cruel intensity. Despite the heavy furs their captors had given them, Valkar and Xara and little Taran and the others felt the bitter wind. It pierced their flesh like the edge of a whetted knife.

And then, and quite suddenly, it became warmer. So warm, in fact, that before much longer, Valkar found that he had unconsciously opened the throat of his fur garments and tossed back upon his shoulders the thick fur hood that had shielded his head and neck from the wintry chill.

The air became steamy and redolent of an odor which Valkar could not quite name. It was like (he thought, wonderingly) the smell of a stone pavement when it bakes in the simmering heat of high summer.

But how could such heat be here in these frozen and glacier-encrusted mountains near the southern pole of Callisto?

Before very long, the first mystery was solved.

That peculiar acrid odor-like that of scorched stone―was explained when they rounded the next corner.

An immense valley lay before them, cupped in the bowl of the encircling mountains. Lush, warm, and fertile it was, with groves of flowering scarlet trees and running brooks. Toward the far wall of the girdling cliffs, a many-tiered structure stood―the first building of any kind Valkar had ever heard to result from the Yathoon―if, indeed, they were the builders, and not some lost, forgotten race of the dim prime.

Between the valley and the crevice that led to it blazed a moat of liquid fire. Like a river of leaping flame it effectively blocked the entrance to the Hidden Valley of Sargol.

Shielding his eyes from the scorching heat, Valkar peered more closely. A gummy black fluid, oily and viscous, leaked from an aperture in the cliffs and flowed through a deep channel in the rock to vanish at the other side of the entranceway to the Valley of Sargol. It was a seething mass of furious flames.

Now Valkar had heard of petroleum, for the engines which now drove the great ornithopters of Shondakor and the other of the Three Cities were fueled by that distillate. And he had seen pools of natural oil which sometimes came bubbling to the surface of the planet. If this oily seepage from the world’s core was natural petroleum, which it seemed to be, then the mystery of the wall of living flame was easily explained.

And, from the lush fertility of the Valley, it was obvious that hot springs or underground volcanic fires were the source of the summery warmth in which Sargol basked. Who would ever have expected to find a fertile paradise here in the frozen southlands?

The crossing of the wall of living fire which was the bastion of Sargol was easily effected by means of a wide drawbridge of heavy wood, entirely plated with tough metal, which was lowered into place by long chains.

The caravan, by this means, crossed the flaming moat unharmed. Once they were all safely on the far side of the river of fire, the drawbridge was raised once again.

And they were in Sargol―which obviously would not be an easy place to escape from, considering its unusual defenses.

One by one the great Clans of the Yathoon converged upon the Hidden Valley. When Valkar and Xara and the others were brought into the Valley as prisoners of the Zajjadars, the Angkang and Thorome Clans had already arrived. A day after came the Haroob Clan, and then the Kandar.

The Valley was of broad extent, and areas were staked out for the use of the five great tribes. Slaves and captives pitched the tents after the immemorial fashion of the Horde, cookfires were lit, and the warriors mingled.

Valkar and the others, among the captives of the Zajjadar, saw little of this, busied with their tasks. Nor did the prince find a further opportunity to converse privately with Zothon the Arzomian.

When Koja, with Borak at his side, came riding across the metal bridge that spanned the fiery moat, evening was upon them. Under the glory of the many moons of Jupiter the Kandars pitched their tents and tethered their thaptors and the great glymphs which drew the heavy wains.

Koja, of course, had no reason to suspect that Taran and Xara were still alive. And he had no way of knowing that Prince Valkar of Shondakor, his lieutenant Kadar, and Fido the othode pup were any where within a hundred korads of the Hidden Valley. That evening, together with the other Clan chiefs, he went with his retinue of warriors and chieftains to attend upon his Emperor. They strode up a stonepaved way toward the great marble citadel built against one wall of the Valley. By the light of the many-colored moons it could clearly be seen that this structure was a survival from some forgotten age, for Time had gnawed and worried at the fabric of the mighty walls, and all but obliterated the ornamental carvings which festooned the portals and the arches.

Within the vast, domed hall, guards were stationed and slaves scurried under the lash of the overseers to serve food and drink for the princes of the Horde.

Grim and silent was this feasting of the Yathoon lords, for they were a somber and humorless people, devoid of the gentler arts of civilization. Music and the dance were unknown to them, as were literature, drama, and poetry.

As akka-komor, or high chief of the Kandars, Koja occupied a position of great prestige, and was seated near the foot of the dais itself, in token of the honor his Clan enjoyed.

Upon the dais squatted the mighty Emperor, Kamchan, supreme overlord and Arkon of the Horde, surrounded by his slaves and servitors.

Among a race of mighty warriors, Kamchan was spectacular. His chitinous hide was scored with the scars of countless wounds from the innumerable duels and battles in which he had fought. His grim, expressionless visage was hideously disfigured. One knobbed brow-antenna had been sheared away in some long-ago battle. An axe blade had crumpled the corner of his mouth, and the wound had healed with a jagged scar that lent his face the likeness of a mirthless and horrible grin.

The Yathoon―clad as they are in a crablike shell of armor―customarily wear no garments but a weapons belt and baldric. Kamchan, however, was covered with costly ornaments of precious metal, studded with numberless gems. His hideously scarred and towering body was one scintillant mass of dazzling gems.

He observed the surprising fact that Koja, long lost and long since believed slain, had somehow returned to his Clan and had now, obviously, risen to its highest rank. But he asked nothing about how these events had transpired, lest he lose dignity in so asking.

Eventually, however, the Arkon could contain himself no longer. While the thin, sour beer which the arthropods drink in lieu of the fine wines enjoyed by higher civilizations was served to the chiefs in bone goblets hollowed from the skulls of former enemies, he spoke up at last.

“We perceive, O Koja, that you have replaced the redoubtable Gamchan in the supremacy of the Kandars. How came this to be?” he inquired in somber, growling tones, harsh and heavy and rasping.

“O mighty Arkon, I was fortunate enough to best Gamchan, the former akka-komor, in a duel,” said Koja expressionlessly. He then, at the urging of his Emperor, recounted the battle in some detail, which the Arkon pretended to enjoy hugely.

Actually, as—things would have it, the Emperor of the Yathoon was severely displeased. A cruel and sadistic bully himself, he had been a crony of Gamchan of the Kandars, for like appeals to like, even among the emotionless insectmen. And he had never liked Koja, whose majestic and solemn dignity was natural and instinctive, and not feigned, and who possessed the finer and nobler traits of a brave and chivalric gentleman.

In another, these traits would have earned the scorn and the contempt of the Arkon, for he despised the softer sentiments of civilization and respected only indomitable courage and prowess. These, however, Koja also possessed, and the Arkon knew this well and from his own experience.

Upon more than one occasion the Arkon had faced Koja in the Arena during the Great Games, and had narrowly escaped his blade. He knew the Kandar for a formidable and courageous opponent, and, where in a nobler-hearted warrior than the Arkon Kamchan this would have won for Koja the admiration and respect of his Emperor, in the cruel heart of Kamchan it earned him but little. For he recognized in Koja, and always had, a potential rival for his throne.

Therefore, it did not in the slightest please the Emperor that Koja had returned from his wanderings to rejoin the Horde and had won for himself the chiefship of his Clan. He had thought Koja safely dead and buried years ago.

Koja concluded his brief and modest description of the battle in which he had bested and slain the former high chief of the Kandars, and the Arkon made no comment, merely giving a surly nod. Thereafter he ignored the new chief.

Koja returned to the tents of his Clan, which had been pitched against the edges of the forest that grew to the south side of the Arena, and composed himself for slumber.

He was well aware of the dislike the Arkon had always borne for him, and knew in his heart that by rising to the chiefship of the Kandars he had stepped into a new and perhaps dangerous prominence. As long as he had been merely a chieftain he had not really been important enough to be viewed by the malignant and cunning Emperor of the Horde as a foe and rival. Now everything was different.

Koja resolved to watch his step and to avoid giving affront to the Arkon Kamchan if he could possibly do so.

Otherwise, by crossing the river of living flame, he might find himself stepping out of the frying pan and into a hotter spot …

Night had fallen upon the Jungle Moon. The stars blazed, clear and brilliant, in the pure skies here near the pole.

One by one, the glorious and many-colored moons of Jupiter rose above the edges of the world to flood the snowfields and, with their vivid hues, to gild the peaks of the Black Mountains with colored fire.

Sentinels from the Clans of the Horde stood watch over the narrow pass which led through the impassable wall of these mountains to the Sacred Valley hidden in its heart.

They stood, also, upon the cliffs and ramparts of the range, so as to give warning should an enemy force approach the heartland of the Yathoon race. Just because no such enemy had ever come into the frozen southlands was no reason for their vigilance to relax or their attention to become negligent.

Keen of sight and tireless were the sentinels of the Horde. However, even their black and jewel-like compound eyes, lidless as are the eyes of the insects they so closely resemble, did not detect the approach of a most unlikely foe.

For days now the burly and indefatigable othode had journeyed south across the interminable plains. By night he had rested, and by day his strong, bowed legs had carried him ever onward with no discernible lessening of his strength or of the unshaken resolve to find Taran and Koja and Fido, which burned in his mighty heart.

Only hunger and thirst could turn him aside from his undeviating descent into the south. When thirsty, he sought a stream or pool from which to quench his thirst; if his keen senses failed to detect the nearness of water, he then would track down one of the peculiar perambulating jinko trees whose bladderlike leaves stored fresh water.

And when his belly growled for food, he would turn from his path to hunt for game, to track it down and slay it, and then he would pause only as long as it took him to devour his kill.

And now Bozo the othode had come to the foot of the Black Mountains. The snow-fields had not been easy to cross, and neither had that crossing been comfortable. But nothing could deter the brave and loyal beast from his aim.

With his sensitive nostrils it was not particularly difficult for Bozo to track the Yathoon and their beasts through the maze of the foothills which rose before the soaring rampart of the Black Mountains. Nor was it difficult for him to slink furtively from shadow to shadow, eluding the watchers posted above the narrow pass.

But the wall of living flame he could not pass.

A dozen times he crept near to its brink, and each time the searing heat drove him whimpering back into the shadow of the boulders again.

At last, very near to dawn, the indomitable Bozo slunk away, retracing the pass to its mouth. At every twist and turning he sought another route through the unbroken wall of cliffs which rose to either side, seeking an alternate way that might lead him into the warm and fertile Valley he glimpsed beyond the impassible barrier of leaping flames.

It was not within the character of the Callistan hound to give up. If necessary, the othode would circle the entire range of mountains, seeking entry. Surely there was another opening in that clifflike wall of sheer black stone. Surely there was at least a chink in the stony ramparts through which he might wriggle.

Bozo would never give up, until death claimed him and his brave and loyal heart beat its last.

He paused to rest, there at the entrance to the pass, concealed in the deep shadows from the sentinels upon the heights.

He was footsore and weary, was Bozo. He was hungry and he suffered from the pangs of thirst.

But he was not beaten.

A day or two later, having traced the edges of the mountains in either direction for a great distance, Bozo returned to the mouth of the pass and threw himself down, panting, in the shade of the boulders.

There was nothing in his heart but the determination to somehow cross the river of flame.

And then it was that his ears pricked and his hackles rose.

For he heard the approach of mounted warriors, riding through the foothills toward the pass.

Bozo did not know that all of the members of the Yathoon Horde had already reached the Hidden Valley days before. He did not know that already the Great Games were underway, in which Koja and the others he sought were fighting for their lives.

Neither did he know the identity of the seven Yathoon warriors who came thus so tardily to the foot of the pass through the Black Mountains.

But he guessed that they knew a way across the river of fire.

And he determined to follow them.

He could not, of course, know that they were the last survivors of the decimated Garukh Clan.

He could not have recognized Fanga, the high chief, who rode among them: Fanga, who hated every Kandar upon Callisto-Fanga, who had not the slightest suspicion that his former captive, Koja, had been a Kandar and had now risen to the chiefship of the Clan that Fanga so loathed and hated.

Fanga and his warriors rode into the mouth of the pass.

And Bozo hesitated, whining, in the shadows.

Should he follow them, or seek again to find another route through the mountains?