Sky Pirates of Callisto

Chapter 1 ONE CHANCE IN A THOUSAND

When all is lost, the most foolhardy course of action becomes feasible.

When you have nothing more to lose―except, possibly, your life―even one chance in a thousand seems well worth the risk.

It was thus that we resolved upon the most absurdly dangerous solution to our intolerable dilemma.

It had been a year, perhaps a trifle more or a trifle less, since I had stumbled upon the Lost City of Arangkhor, abandoned untold ages before in the trackless jungles of Cambodia. In that colossal stone ruin I had passed the portals of the Gate Between The Worlds. An unknown force, whose secret was still an unsolved mystery to me, had miraculously transported me more than three hundred million miles from the planet of my birth to the surface of a strange and beautiful and terrifying world of marvels and monsters―a world where black and crimson jungles sprawl under weird skies of golden vapor, lit by five glorious moons.

It was a world of barbaric splendor, that world of Thanator, where savage beasts and curious peoples vied for supremacy. Three widely different races of intelligent beings shared this jungle Moon between them―three races locked in unending warfare.

Into the very midst of this planet-wide struggle, a mysterious force had thrust me, lone, friendless, ignorant even of the tongue spoken by the strange Thanatorian civilizations.

The first of the Thanatorian races I encountered in my travels was not even remotely human―a savage, merciless, warrior horde of monstrous and emotionless arthopodes called the Yathoon. Not unlike tall, jointed insectoid beings were they, their gaunt yet graceful limbs clad in shiny grey chitin, their expressionless faces glistening masks of horn crowned by weird antennae and eyed with huge jewel-like orbs, black and glittering.

By these inhuman creatures I was enslaved and under their emotionless tutelage I mastered the single language spoken by all intelligent beings across the face of Thanator.

While a slave of the Yathoon Horde, I made my first friend on the jungle world―Koja, the tall, stalking, coldly logical chieftain of the Yathoon, who did not even comprehend the meaning of friendship until I taught him the sentiment. And, as well, while a Yathoon slave, I met and came to love the most beautiful woman in two worlds―Darloona, warrior princess of the Ku Thad.

Escaping by Koja’s aid from our slavery, we were again made prisoners, this time by yet another mysterious people, the Sky Pirates of Zanadar. Humanoid in very truth were the Sky Pirates, sharing the worst traits of mankind; these cruel aerial corsairs lived like vampires, preying upon the lesser peoples of Thanator, who lacked their scientific mastery of the skies.

During the months of my captivity, first by the Yathoon and then by the Zanadarians, I learned something of the recent events which had transformed the jungle world to a gigantic theatre of war. Darloona’s folk, the Ku Thad, or Golden People―so-called from their tawny amber skin which was not unlike that of the Polynesian peoples of my own world―had been driven from their home in the walled stone city of Shondakor and all their domain had been conquered by a migrant bandit army called the Black Legion.

Whereas Koja and I became mere slave laborers, toiling under the whips of the Sky Pirates, the Princess Darloona was held as a valued guest of Prince Thuton, the brilliant and unscrupulous leader of the Zanadarians. Ambitious to extend his empire, Thuton dreamed of wedding the princess End of pressing his claim to her throne by waging war against the Black Legion, now ruling the kingdom of Shondakor. Half-persuaded that to accept Thuton’s suit would win freedom for her exiled people, Darloona would not listen to my protestations of Thuton’s innate villainy. At length I managed to escape the slave pens of Zanadar, finding refuge in the house of a Ganatolian master-swordsman named Lukor. This gallant and chivalrous old gentleman, revolted by Thuton’s villainy as was I, became my co-conspirator in an attempt to free Princess Darloona as well as the Yathoon chieftain, Koja. During this period of enforced inactivity, I learned from Lukor the secrets of swordsmanship.

After some time we did indeed rescue the woman I had come to love, and my friend Koja, as well; and traveled the breadth of Thanator in a stolen aerial vehicle, eventually rejoining Darloona’s exiled people who were hiding in the jungles of the Grand Kumala. Alas, my princess was captured by the Black Legion ere we had combined forces with the Ku Thad warriors―whereupon I conceived of a bold and daring plan, entering Shondakor in disguise and joining the ranks of the Chac Yuul (as the Legion was called), pretending to be a wandering mercenary swordsman. A carefully timed plot to free Darloona from the clutches of the conquering Legion and overthrow the Chac Yuul by smuggling Ku Thad warriors into the city via a secret route was interrupted and almost ruined by a sudden attack upon Shondakor by Prince Thuton’s flying navy.

By an odd quirk of fate, however, we both succeeded and failed. That is, we did indeed break the Chac Yuul hold on the city of Shondakor, slay their leader, and drive them from the kingdom―but my beloved princess was seized in the confusion and carried off by the vengeful and cunning Prince Thuton. For many weeks now she had been held captive for a second time in remote and inaccessible Zanadar, rightfully called the City in the Clouds. And this time her captivity was not shared by friends able to strive for her freedom.

For weeks now, ever since the battle that freed Shondakor, we, the victors, had been sunken in a profound depression. While the dominion was ruled wisely and well by Darloona’s noble and courageous uncle, Lord Yarrak, the citizenry of Shondakor mourned the loss of their princess and cried out that she somehow be delivered from the cruel captivity of the Sky Pirates.

Their determination to free Darloona was no less than my own. Freedom in Shondakor meant nothing to me, nor did life itself, unless I could share that freedom with the most beautiful princess in two worlds. For the last words I had heard from Darloona’s lovely lips, even as the flying vessel bore her into the skies beyond my reach, was an avowal of her love for me.

It was a fortuitous accident that gave us a method with which to attempt the rescue of Darloona.

During the three-way battle between the Ku Thad, the Black Legion, and the Sky Pirates, one of the remarkable aerial contrivances of the Zanadarian fleet had become partially disabled and was taken captive. The remainder of the flying armada had either returned safely, it must be assumed, to the City in the Clouds, or had been destroyed in the battle. Only one vessel had been left behind unharmed.

The daring scheme which I had at length decided to endeavor to use was, simply, this:

Repairing the aerial galleon, stocking it with loyal Ku Thad warriors, I would fly the aerial craft across the face of Thanator to the very gates of Zanadar, and, attempting to impersonate Zanadarians, we would assault the royal citadel and carry off our princess to freedom!

As I have already stated, there was one chance in a thousand that this audacious plan would succeed.

Whatever the risks, I was determined to make the attempt.

This desperate scheme I broached to my comrades only a few days after our victory in the battle against the Black Legion.

The loss of our princess in the very hour of triumph had plunged the victorious Ku Thad into a profound depression, mingled with a grim determination to somehow effect her rescue.

We were met in an upper council chamber, high in the lofty towers of the royal palace of Shondakor. About us, clearly visible through the immense crystal windows, the spacious city lay spread out.

Broad, well-paved avenues radiated from the palace, which stood encircled by parks and gardens at the very heart of the walled stone metropolis. The broad, tree-lined boulevards extended in every direction from the palace like spokes from the hub of a wheel.

Above, the strange skies of Callisto were a glowing canopy of golden mists, illuminated by no visible source of light. The distance of Callisto from the sun is so great that the sun is but a very brilliant star from the viewpoint of the dwellers upon the jungle Moon. The mystery of the light source is but one of the numerous enigmas of this weird world to which I have never found the key.

The council chamber was cut from massy stone, faced with softly golden marble sculpted into a fantastic frieze of godlike forms. The floor was carpeted with glowing tapestries of ancient work and the oval table was one glistening slab of dark green malachite. At the head of the table sat the kingly form of an older man whose noble frame, molded in the image of heroic strength, was draped in superb robes which glittered with gems and crystals unknown to me. This was the Lord Yarrak, Darloona’s loyal uncle and regent of the domain in her absence.

About the curve of the table sat five personages. First was the ancient Ku Thad sage and philosopher, Zastro, his lined face and snowy cataract of beard giving mute testimony to the many years of his service to the throne of Shondakor.

Next to him sat the Yathoon chieftain, Koja. The gaunt, skeletal limbs of the giant arthopode were folded uncomfortably in a chair designed for a human occupant, but the glistening horny ovoid of his expressionless visage, with its black, gemmy, compound eyes, revealed no sign of discomfort.

A noble young warrior was seated next to the chitin-mailed insect-man. His frank and open face, keen, alert eyes, and breadth of brow showed him for one of high birth and gentle rearing. This was the

Prince Valkar, a lord of the Ku Thad betrothed from childhood to Darloona. I had made his acquaintance while serving incognito in the Black Legion, as, indeed, was he. Both of us had enlisted in the bandit army under false identities, and both with the same purpose in mind―to bring about the freedom of Princess Darloona.

A lean, elderly man was seated beyond him, a man whose clear, tanned features and alert dark eyes denoted him as a member of another race than the amber-skinned, crimson-maned, emerald-eyed Ku Thad. Although his seniority was evident, this man held himself erectly, and his slender, well-knit limbs, disposed gracefully, revealed extraordinary strength and suppleness for one of his years. This was Lukor the Swordmaster, a Ganatolian, whose friendship I had won in the streets of Zanadar and from whom I had learned the most hidden secrets of the art of fence.

The last person at this council was myself. A grateful populace had awarded me with the high title of komor of the Ku Thad in recognition of my daring attempt to rescue Darloona from the clutches of Arkola, warlord of the Legion.

To this small circle I revealed my wild scheme whereby the freedom of Darloona might be achieved, with luck. In all candor, and although they desired to rescue their princess with a fervor no less intense than that which flamed within my own bosom, my comrades at first thought me mad with grief over Darloona’s loss. For surely, said they in commiseration, only one driven beyond the extremities of reason would have seriously suggested so ludicrous and dangerous a plan.

I was forced to admit that my scheme did savor of extreme desperation, if not madness, at first thought. But I begged them to consider further, for it was my firm opinion that upon closer consideration it would reveal some glimmer of a chance for success.

The basic problem was a simple one. The City in the Clouds, you see, was most aptly named.

The Zanadarians had constructed their fortresslike capital upon the peak of a great mountain north of the Grand Kumala jungles. This soaring summit of solid granite had sheer cliff walls so smooth and unbroken as to preclude even the possibility of our leading a land-based army of invasion against it.

In fact, it was my considered opinion that it was a feat beyond human powers to climb that mountain. Neither one man nor a thousand could achieve the summit alive. The precipitous walls climbed sheerly from the dizzying abyss for thousands of feet without a break, a ledge, even a handhold. The greatest alpinist on earth would have quailed before attempting to scale that soaring pillar of rock.

It was this inaccessibility that rendered the city of Zanadar invulnerable to attack. From their mountaintop eyrie, the Sky Pirates could descend to strike at merchant caravans and defenseless towns at will, and their foes could not carry the battle back to Zanadar, for only the Sky Pirates held the secrets of construction of their remarkable flying ornithopter galleons, and only from clefts in the peak of the mountain on which their capital was constructed did the natural levitating gas escape―the gas which, pent under pressure between the double hulls of their sky ships, made it possible for their fleets to navigate the clouds.

These facts were widely known and were accepted instantly by my associates in this mad venture.

I then pointed out my contention that, trusting to the remote height of Zanadar to render their dominion impregnable, the Sky Pirates doubtless neglected strict guard and surveillance in other regions. And were an enemy force, disguised as Zanadarian corsairs, riding a Zanadarian vessel, to attempt to land in the Cloud City, it should logically find little opposition or even suspicion.

My associates were forced to agree to the logic of this supposition. It seemed indeed highly likely, although very dangerous.

“But Jandar,” my friend Valkar objected, “what do you know about flying one of these sky ships?”

“Rather a bit,” I replied calmly. “Koja and I served as wheel slaves on the Zanadarian flagship Kajazell during a flight from the great plains to Zanadar itself―we flew across the entire length of the Grand Kumala jungles. I thoroughly understand the mechanism of the wings, and as for navigation, doubtless that will prove a minor problem. The captain’s cabin will, I assume, have charts aplenty.”

“This is true,” Koja assured our comrades solemnly. “But even I am forced to admit, Jandar, that there are more problems ahead of your venture than merely maintaining the vessel in flight and navigating it.”

“What further problems, then, do you foresee?”

“Landing the vessel,” he said. “While I think I remember the method well enough, from observations performed during our slavery at the wheels, we shall doubtless do a sloppy job of it, lacking the extensive training and superior experience of the Sky Pirates themselves. Will not it seem suspicious if we land our vessel in a blundering and amateurish manner―as we can hardly help but do?”

“Doubtless it would,” I answered, `but my plan contains further details I have not yet imparted to you. It is my intention to deliberately fake superficial damage to the craft and, when landing, to pretend the ship is more greatly damaged than is strictly true. Thus we shall disarm any suspicions our clumsy landing maneuvers might arouse.”

Koja pondered thoughtfully, his great black jeweled eyes inscrutable. “There is merit in the plan,” he said at last. “It should be easy to break away fragments of figurehead, ornamental scrollwork, deck rails and rigging and thus create the appearance of considerable damage. It just might work … .”

Old Lukor the Swordmaster spoke up next.

“Lad, my heart goes out to you, and I will join the venture nonetheless … but have you thought all of this out carefully? When the flying galleons circle for a landing, they signal with colored flags, if it is day, and with colored lamps, if by night, giving their registry number, captain’s name, and squadron designation. Surely you cannot know the code upon which these signals are based? And surely to attempt a landing without it will arouse suspicion?”

“Quite likely,” I agreed. “However, I hazard a guess that the captain’s cabin will also divulge a signal-book. And if not, we shall make certain that our artificial injuries are such as to make signaling impossible break away all the rigging, for example, so that flags cannot be flown-cut away those portions of wingfront and bow from where signal lamps are shown. Something like this can be done, surely.”

A final argument was offered by Lord Yarrak himself.

“What of the personal appearance of the crew and yourself?” he asked. “You will not in the slightest resemble Zanadarians.”

Thus was true. The Golden People of Shondakor, with their lambent emerald eyes, blazing red-gold manes and amber skins are startlingly different from the Zanadarians, who have papery-white skin, lank black hair, and lusterless black eyes.

The difference between the races is so extreme that it is one of the many mysteries of Thanator.* However, I had, of course, anticipated this objection and was ready for it.

“A simple matter of cosmetics will take care of that problem,” I said. “Surely a whitening cream can be used to give our complexions the Zanadarian pallor, and black paste will darken our hair. The corpses of the Sky Pirates slain in the battle will supply us with authentic uniforms.”

No further objections were raised, and so it was agreed.

There was just one chance in a thousand that we should succeed in this fantastic imposture and manage to carry away the princess from amidst the very stronghold of her enemies. But even one chance in a thousand was better than none. And even a chance so risky as the one I contemplated was worth taking, when the life of the Princess Darloona was the prize at stake.

“I am well aware that we will be voyaging into danger,” I said. “However, we have won success before in the face of the most desperate odds, through bold enterprise. I cannot think that our luck will desert us now. But I will understand if any of you wish to withdraw from this mission. At any rate, Lord Yarrak must remain in Shondakor to administer his regency over the city. But if any of the rest of you would prefer to stay and help him in his task, just speak up ….

Koja, Valkar, and even old Lukor the Swordmaster refused to be left behind on this mad venture.

And so it was agreed.

Chapter 2 THE QUEST BEGINS

Our work on the flying galleon began the following day. In this task, my most valuable assistance came from the old philosopher Zastro. I have called him by that term for lack of a better, but he was no ivory-tower intellect who spent his years puzzling out intricate moral dilemmas or mental mazes. Quite the contrary, Zastro of Shondakor was more akin to those philosophic engineers of terrene antiquity whose talents ran to problems of practical mechanics, like Archimedes, who devoted his genius to the contrivance of elaborate and surprising war machines dedicated to the defense of Syracuse, or the mighty brain of Leonardo da Vinci, that superman of the Renaissance, who designed everything from cathedrals and aqueducts to tanks and protohelicopters.

The help of a master intellect of Zastro’s talent was imperative if we were to repair and fly anew the damaged ornithopter.

The cunning and resourceful warlord of the Chac Yuul, Arkola, had long anticipated such an eventuality as the aerial invasion Thuton of Zanadar had hurled against the walled stone city. He had devised a system of rooftop catapults as partial protection against the sky vessels. A well-placed stone missile from one of these rooftop war engines had smashed the control cupola of the galley in question. Grappling irons, securely hooked in the ornamental carvings, figureheads, and deck balustrade, had immobilized the powerless aerial contrivance, drawn it against the roof of a neighboring edifice, whence warriors of the Black Legion, stationed thereupon against just such an eventuality, had swept the decks of the captive vessel with a torrent of deadly arrows, until the last Zanadarian of the sky ship’s crew had fallen to the barbed rain.

All had been slain aboard the ill-fated flying machine save only for her captain, a cool-headed, suave-tongued gentleman privateer of Zanadar, who had received an arrow through the shoulder. This officer―his name was Ulthar―was the only captive that had been taken alive during the battle. And he had a place in my plans, I must add.

It was not impossible that we might yet win his active cooperation in repairing, manning, and navigating the aerial galleon. Although thus far, it must be admitted, Captain Ulthar had smoothly but stead fastly declined to assist the foes of his nation, for which I could hardly blame him. I yet had hope of converting him to our cause, if only to escape the rigors of slavery that awaited all war captives. I had also resolved to take him with us on the expedition, although I intended to keep close watch on him, and have him under guard at all times.

At any rate, we toured the damaged and captive ship with an eye toward our chances of rendering her sky-worthy once again. At my side, old Zastro searched the vessel with quick, intelligent eyes that missed not the smallest detail. We strode the decks of the sky ship together, assessing the extent of the damage Arkola’s catapult had caused.

“Ingenious! Fantastically ingenious,” the old philosopher murmured as he leaned over the deck rail to scrutinize the complicated system of cables and joints and pulleys by which the jointed stationary wings of the flying ship worked.

I agreed with him profoundly. Although I loathed the Sky Pirates for their callous cruelty, their merciless rapacity, and their insatiable greed, there was no question that they were a race of engineering geniuses without parallel in the chronicles of two worlds.

The ungainly flying contraptions of the Zanadarians were like great wooden galleons, rendered fantastical with carved poop, fluttering banners, ornamental balustrades, and cupolas and gazebos. They hung aloft on slowly beating wings, buoyed up against the gravitational pull of Callisto by the powerful lifting force of the natural gas wherewith, under compression, their hollow double hulls were suffused. To the eye of the uninitiate, that so huge a ship could float weightless, plying the winds of this world as the ancient galleons of imperial Spain once plied the waves of terrene seas, seemed incredible―miraculous. But the secret lay in the ingenious construction of the vessel. It was not fashioned out of wood at all, but of paper. Every last inch of the flying galleons were made of miraculously tough and resilient laminated paper-hulls, decks, masts, compartments.

This secret rendered the construction of the sky navy of Zanadar no less miraculous, but at least understandable. The true miracle lay, I think, in the incredibly clever system of weights and counterweights, wheels and pulleys, joints and hinges, by which the ungainly and enormous jointed wings could be manipulated in a close approximation of the actions of a bird’s wings and by which maneuvering and flight were affected.

Koja and I had labored at the slave gangs that powered the vessels of Zanadar, and we were intimately acquainted with the motive system used. But knowledge did nothing to abate my admiration for the genius that had created the flying contrivances. No scientific achievement ever perfected on my own far distant world equaled the fantastic achievement of the Zanadarian ships, although the immortal da Vinci had sketched out plans for just such wingpowered ornithopters in his coded notebooks. Even his genius, however, had failed to go beyond the conception to the practicality. The Zanadarians had turned the dream into physical reality, and despite all their cruel ways, I could not help applauding their amazing skills with an undimmed enthusiasm.

But now we would turn the productions of their own imaginative genius against them. For if only a flying galleon of Zanadarian design could penetrate the remote and cloud-wrapped fortress of the Sky Pirates, we had here the means by which it might well be possible to achieve such a goal.

“Ingenious it is―but can it be repaired?” I asked urgently. The aged philosopher pursed his lips judiciously, then nodded firmly.

“I am confident of it,” he assured me. “Look here, komor: the catapult missile sheared the control cupola cleanly away from the deck surface―but it did not breach the hull. The supply of buoyant vapor remains thus intact; it only requires that we reconstruct the pilot cupola anew and reconnect the cables.”

“Can this be done?”

“Without question it can,” he responded with a vigorous nod. “I shall assemble my students and disciples into a work crew, and we shall if necessary press into service every carpenter and wheelwright and mechanic in all of Shondakor. You will have your flying galleon in ten days, that I promise you!”

To a man whose beloved is the helpless captive of implacable foes and who is helpless to fight to free her, ten days can be an eternity. Such was the case with me.

I passed the time, however, in training a force of Shondakorian warriors in the techniques of flight. There were half a hundred and more of these gallant swordsmen, volunteers all, who were more than willing to risk their lives in the rescue of their beloved princess. Indeed, virtually every fighting man of the Ku Thad had volunteered to serve in the crew of the sky ship―even the aged warriors and those who bad been sorely wounded in the battle that freed the Golden City from the grasp of the Black Legion. Lukor and Valkar and I had examined these aspirants, choosing the youngest, the most daring, the most skillful fighters, thus narrowing the selection down to a hand-picked regiment of seasoned veterans, disciplined and fearless and utterly dedicated to the rescue of Darloona.

These men, some of them, would serve at the wheels. The interior hull was hollowed, and there the hands of many men were needed to lend their strength to the wheel system that manipulated the jointed wings. Koja trained these men in the technique, while Valkar and Lukor and I trained the others in the manifold ship duties they must master if we were to navigate the skies of Thanator and arrive safely in the city of the Sky Pirates.

By keeping busy at such important tasks as these, I managed to pass the ten-day eternity more painlessly than I might otherwise. It still seemed like an eternity to me; but it did pass.

And at last we were ready to depart.

I had effected one slight improvement in the designs of the unknown Zanadarian genius, for I planned for an eventuality even he had never contemplated.

I had caused to be erected on the foredeck a catapult of my own design to be used in defending our craft against the actions of another galleon.

The need for such a precaution had never occurred to the Sky Pirates of Zanadar, for they were alone and unequaled in their mastery of the skies of Callisto. No enemy nation possessed the knowledge or the ability to design similar craft, and thus weapons for a ship-to-ship aerial battle were unheard of and unknown.

When I displayed my sketches for such a device to Zastro his keen eyes sparkled with appreciation, for he instantly comprehended the uses to which the weapon would be put. At the time he remarked that not only would the Zanadarians have no defense against the actions of my catapult, but they would be helpless to fight back.

Since we would be pitting the resources of our one lone flying ship against the entire aerial navy of the City in the Clouds, the slight technological advantage given us by the possession of this unique weapon might well prove invaluable. And thus his craftsman built the engine from my plans and installed it upon the foredeck at the prow.

My knowledge of so antiquated a weapon may seem surprising―for no terrene army has employed such a device since the Middle Ages. But in my boyhood I was fascinated by the ingenious military weapons perfected by the ancient Romans, and my father, himself an engineer, encouraged my enthusiasm by aiding me to design and build model catapults and ballistae. Some of these miniature war engines were designed to fire arrows, others projected stone missiles. The skills and the knowledge of these antique weapons had never left me, and upon this occasion I had cause to be thankful to whatever benign and foresighted divinity had implanted in my youth the enthusiasm for this hobby.

For my design I settled upon a slight modification of the standard Roman siege catapult. The modern meaning of the word “catapult” differs from the ancient usage. Today we think of a catapult as a curved wooden bar, bent under pressure, which, when released, propels a stone ball held cupped at the extremity of the bar. This weapon fires up, the projectile arcing high, to bypass a city wall and fall straight down upon the buildings of the besieged city beyond the wall. This design was pointless for my purposes.

The ancient siege catapult, however, was quite different. It fired an arrow or other missile horizontally and resembled more a crossbow than what we think of as a catapult. This design was the one I selected. The ancient Roman catapult consisted of a sturdy base whereon was mounted a rectangular frame. The horizontal bottom-beam of this frame held a long wooden trough in which the barbed missile was lodged. This trough could be elevated or lowered by the adjustment of a simple ratchet wheel.

This was the weapon I caused to be constructed on the prow deck of our flying galleon.

The standard Roman catapult of this design could fire a twenty-six-inch arrow, weighing half a pound, and had an effective range of four hundred yards.

My modification of this design permitted the use of a heavier arrow of forged steel weighing about six pounds. The effective firing range was considerably reduced, but a metal arrow was required for the simple reason that I intended to employ my projectiles for the purpose of punching a hole through the laminated paper hulls of enemy sky ships, to damage their buoyancy. To this purpose I had the ironsmiths of Shondakor laboring at their forges, making for me a quantity of heavy steel arrows whose length and barbed shafts made them resemble nothing less than a sort of fantastic harpoon.

We experimented with the device and perfected our technique. The effective range of the weapon was about three hundred yards, which would enable us to fire upon Zanadarian craft at a distance beyond the range of the enemy’s archery. Still, I was amazed that the catapult could fire its harpoons to so great a distance. The mathematics simply did not work out, and I was at a loss to explain the mystery. The simple answer may have been that the Thanatorian woods were more resilient than their terrene equivalents or that the tension cords I used had a far greater elasticity than anything the ancient Romans had been able to employ in similar weapons. Indeed this was so, for we employed thick cords made from the “spiderwebs” found in the jungles of the Grand Kumala.

These monster spiders were the size of small dogs.

The Ku Thad word for the species was ximchak. Their web strands were the thickness of heavy fishing-line and could be drawn incredibly taut without fear of snapping. From the thickness of these strands, I determined I would prefer not to encounter the spinners thereof. I have nothing in particular against insects―as witness my friendship for the arthopode, Koja―but a spider the size of a small dog is simply too much spider for my taste.

At any rate we installed our weapon and camouflaged it with a collapsible frame over which we stretched a bit of canvas. And we rested secure in the knowledge that we possessed a weapon that would prove an admirable deterrent in case we were pursued by the Sky Pirates.

It was a clear windless day when we launched forth on our venture. The Thanatorian year consists of nothing describable as seasons, so I cannot further detail the time. It may have been spring, summer, fall, or winter, for aught I could ascertain. The timelessness of life on Thanator reminds me inescapably of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ descriptions of the world of Pellucidar, an imaginary region beneath the Earth’s crust.

The difference lies in the fact that this gifted author imagined the inability to tell one hour or day or month from another would result in a complete ignorance of time itself and thus render his imaginary Pellucidarian natives immortally youthful.

Such was not the case on Thanator, I can assure you.

The repairs of the sky machine had taken twenty days instead of the ten promised me by Zastro.

And in that time I could swear I had aged twenty years. No Pellucidar, this jungle world of Callisto!

But at last the waiting was over and we were launched forth on our voyage into danger.

The streets and squares of Shondakor were crowded with an immense throng of citizenry, eager to witness our departure. The ornithopter was moored to an upper tier of the palace. Secured by heavy cables, it floated free on the buoyant winds. My hand-picked warrior crew was aboard and at their stations. All that remained was for us to take our final farewells.

Our captive, Ulthar, was taken aboard under heavy guard. He was a sleek-faced noble with heavy-lidded, keenly observant eyes, and a quiet demeanor that concealed, I felt certain, an active intelligence. I was also convinced that he would work ill to our cause if given the slightest opportunity.

As he mounted the gangplank under guard, Ulthar swept the deck with a thoughtful and quizzical gaze. There was a quiet smile on his lips and a gleam of ironic, mocking humor in his sharp yet sleepy-lidded eyes as he nodded a light salute to me. Then he vanished below to his locked and guarded cabin, and Yarrak repressed a growl of discontent.

“I am not easy in my mind that you are sailing into danger with a potential spy or assassin aboard, Jandar,” the old man grumbled. “It seems foolhardy to the point of suicide to take that cunning, smooth-tongued snake with you on such a venture.”

I shrugged. “I have taken every precaution against the possibility that he might work us harm,” I reassured him. “For one thing, I have his oath of honor that he will remain our prisoner and will interfere in no way with the safety or the operation of the galleon.”

“His oath of honor, eh?” Yarrak spat, as if the words had left a vile taste on his tongue. “I would not entrust my safety to the honor of a Sky Pirate! The only Zanadarian that a man can safely trust is a dead Zanadarian. I hope you know what you are doing, but, somehow, I doubt it!” he concluded in a troubled tone, shaking his head dubiously.

I strove to reassure him, but, to tell the truth, I was none too easy in my own mind as to the wisdom of including a potential traitor among our crew. Ulthar had gracefully yielded me his parole and his oath of honor to work us no ill, so long as we did not insist on his betrayal of any of the secrets of his countrymen; and he was a gentleman. Yet it was a risky thing, to trust an enemy at his word.

Nonetheless, it seemed worth the risk to have him with us. And I said as much to Yarrak, stressing the safety measures I had taken. Lord Yarrak and the several notables and officials of the court of Shondakor had come, arrayed in all their regal finery, to salute our departure and to offer their heartfelt good wishes on the success of our dangerous mission. Now they wished us well in our venture, praying that our mission should be crowned with every success, and that we should return from our dangerous endeavor safely, bearing with us our beloved princess.

We thanked them soberly and without further ado returned their salutes, accepted the plaudits of the vast throng clustered in the streets below and lining the rooftops and the balconies of adjoining buildings, turned and mounted the gangplank to the deck of our vessel, which we had renamed the Jalathadar.

The term, rendered from the universal tongue spoken across the entire breadth of Thanator, signifies “the desperate venture” in English. And not one of us who were to serve aboard her but doubted the aptness of her new name.

My comrades took their stations.

The gangplank was detached and swung aboard and made fast, while I mounted by a succession of stairways to the openwork control cupola from which I could oversee the entire operation of the aerial galleon.

The commands were given and were relayed from station to station. The mooring lines were cast off. The deck swung giddily beneath our feet. The broad wings were extended to their fullest capacity and caught the fresh morning winds, and we swung our prow away from the towering palace. Rooftops moved beneath our keel as rapid strokes of the jointed vans drove us aloft.

Within moments we were above the tallest tower of Shondakor, and our voyage into danger had begun.

Chapter 3 ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Thrice the Jalathadar circled the stone-walled city of the Ku Thad, gaining altitude with each swing around the city. The streets shrank below us―the palaces and mansions and citadels of Shondakor dwindled. The mighty throng became a many-colored carpet filling the squares and rooftops. We could see the glittering curve of the great river that flows by Shondakor, and from our ever-growing height the dark mass of foliage that was the immense jungled tract of the Grand Kumala became dimly visible on the horizon.

When we had ascended to the height of about half a mile, I gave the appropriate commands. The galleon leveled off and pointed her ornate prow north and west, in the general direction of the mountain country wherein Zanadar rears her castled crest. The wheel gangs settled down to a steady rhythm, the huge vans beating slowly, the enormous rudder holding the ship of the skies steady on her course.

I leaned against the carven rail, staring down at the broad meadows that slowly passed by far underneath our keel. Soon we would be beyond the measureless plains and flying above the great jungles where I had first encountered the woman I had come at last to love.

The air was crisp and cold at this height, the wind fresh and steady. The daylight was clear and brilliant, if sourceless; the entire dome of the sky one vast dome of golden mist.

For the ten-thousandth time I wondered at the strange quirk of fate that had given unto me, of all the men of my distant world, so strange and remarkable a destiny. What inscrutable force had plucked me from amongst the millions of my faraway earth, had hurled me across the star-strewn immensities of infinite space, to this weird and savagely beautiful world of numberless marvels, to fare and battle against curious foes and terrible monsters for the heart of a beautiful and alien princess?

Was I the darling―or the plaything―of the gods?

Would I ever come to know for certain if it had been mere blind chance or the action of some unknown and superior intelligence that had transported me from my distant homeworld to this strange and wondrous world of Thanator?

Ah, well―did it really matter to me, the knowing of the answer to the mystery? Back on my distant Earth I had been but one man among countless millions, lost in the crowd, a faceless nonentity. Here on the jungle-clad surface of mysterious Callisto I had become a princeling and a hero. Here fate or accident or chance or blind luck had thrust me into a role of transcendent importance. Here I had somehow attained to the eminence of a savior of nations. Here I had risen to a place of prominence among the great and the famous, with a voice in the destiny of great empires. Here I had found stout friends and gallant comrades and foemen worthy of my strength. And the love of a passionate and magnificent woman.

Could any man ask for more than had been thrust upon me?

The answer to the riddle meant nothing, seen in such light. I was thankful for the opportunity afforded me by the inscrutable twists and turns of fate. I had found tasks to which I was equal, burdens comparable to my strength, and a destiny glorious enough for all my ambitions.

Here on Thanator I had found the life that had never been mine back on the earth.

Here, on this mysterious and alien world, I had come home.

For hours the mighty galleon plied the skies above the trackless leagues of the Grand Kumala. We had reached an altitude considerably higher than the levels at which the ornithopters of Zanadar are accustomed by habit and tradition to fly. This was merely a precaution against any chance encounter with another of the aerial galleons of the Sky Pirates. Such an encounter would be dangerous and premature, and scouts aloft in the rigging kept careful watch against just such an eventuality.

Here we were safe from any danger. Below us, the jungle depths were rendered hideous by prowling and nightmarish predators. I had encountered more than a few of the amazing monsters that hunt in the thick gloom of the dense jungles. It was amusing to contemplate the jungle hell beneath us, while we sailed the empty skies in thorough safety. There in the shade of those curious Thanatorian black-and-scarlet trees, we should even now be fighting for our very lives against the fanged jaws of ferocious predators. But here, in the brilliant skies of Callisto, we sailed an untroubled sea of air, alone in the windy immensities.

After an hour or so, I turned over my command to the deck officer and descended to the deck where I found Koja and the old swordmaster Lukor. I hailed them as I approached.

“Well, so far so good, Jandar!” the old Ganatolian remarked. “If our voyage continues as serenely as it has begun, we should be above the towers of Zanadar in mere days and ready for the supreme contest!”

I grinned at his sparkling eyes and ruddy cheeks. The gallant old gamecock was in fine fettle and spoiling for a fight. For all his lean shanks and silvery hair, Lukor of Ganatol was young at heart―and the greatest swordsman I had ever known. I pitied the hapless opponent who crossed blades with him, thinking him an old man: with steel in his hand, Lukor could outfight half a dozen men with only half his years.

Koja surveyed the peppery little Ganatolian expressionlessly. His solemn voice was devoid of inflection.

“Best conserve your spirit, friend Lukor,” the gaunt arthopode advised humorlessly. “The contest will be upon us soon enough, and we shall need every drop of fighting courage when we are pitted against the whole of the sky navy of Zanadar―one ship against a thousand remorseless foes!”

I interrupted. “That reminds me, Koja. It still lacks over an hour before the midday meal-time enough to practice our still unsteady skills at aerial maneuvers. As Koja says, we shall need every advantage we can summon when the chips are down, Lukor, so … gentlemen, to your posts!”

For an hour we put the Jalathadar through her paces―rising, descending, circling to port and to starboard, advancing at the three rates of speed for which the aerial contrivance had been designed, and testing our skills with the Roman catapult. This last, our “secret weapon,” was the province of my friend Valkar. He had been put in charge of training a crew to man the giant crossbow, and for days he had sweated over the obstinate device until he had mastered every eccentricity of its function and operation. When the time came at last, and we faced a hostile galleon of the skies which flew the colors of Zanadar, it was the crossbow alone would prove our salvation and our ace in the hole. I wanted to be thoroughly certain the crew had mastered the new weapon, for our very lives could well depend on their facility with it.

However, we could not dare risk expending our precious store of steel darts on empty air. Once we had exhausted our supplies of the barbed bolts, the crossbow would be useless to us. And yet constant practice in aiming and firing the weapon in all winds and weathers was a prerequisite of our employment of the weapon in battle. Therefore I had bade the crewmen affix a light strand of the woven ximchak silk to the shaft of their practice arrows, so that once fired, they could be recovered without possibility of loss. The strand was made secure to the stout railing of the crossbow deck, and in this manner we ensured continuous and extensive weapon practice without depleting our copious but hardly inexhaustible supply of bolts.

By noon the crew was sweating but grinning happily, for the crossbow operated perfectly. With a few more such practice sessions we could gamble the safety of our persons and the success of our mission upon the abilities of Valkar’s crossbowmen to employ their novel weapon against the flying ships of the City in the Clouds. We trooped down to the galley with a real appetite, and the rest of the afternoon passed without incident.

Perhaps I should include at this point some description of the extraordinary aerial contrivances that are the supreme achievement of the unique Zanadarian genius. To the eye, these flying machines resemble nothing so much as ornate, fantastical galleons left over from the Spanish Armada―galleons somehow outfitted with gigantic, flapping, batlike wings.

Technically, with an eye to naval terminology, the Jalathadar was a frigate and belonged to the same class of skygoing shipping as the Kajazell, the flying ship on which Koja and I, many months before, had served our apprenticeships at the wheels. Like a regular, sea-going frigate, the Jalathadar was a light, maneuverable, very speedy scout vessel built very high in poop and forecastle, the forecastle rising to about forty feet above keel level and the poop or sterncastle to some thirty-five feet, presenting the side-on appearance of a crescent moon.

The upper works of the forecastle bulged sharply in an exposed belvedere with wide, high windows which gave a good view on all three sides. There was a flat, balustraded observation deck on top of this belvedere, which served as pilot house and from which the frigate was controlled and navigated. We call this part of the ship the control cupola. A bowsprit protruded from the fore of the observation deck just above the curved row of windows of the control cupola, with an elaborately carved figurehead set at the base of the bowsprit, depicting a swaggering, bearded corsair with batlike wings and bird claws, clutching a cutlass in one hand and a jeweled crown in the other.

Farther down the curve of the hull, beneath the control cupola, at what would be the water level, if this were truly an ocean-faring vessel, two observation balconies bulged from the hull, one to either side. The sterncastle was outfitted with a similar belvedere, pointing aft, and a vertical rudderlike fin, ribbed like a gigantic Chinese fan, was attached to its rudderstock immediately below this aft belvedere. The rudderstock was connected to the sternpost and thence to the rear steering gear.

An immense hinged wing thrust to either side of the hull, from just below the midship-deck level. Fully extended, these wings measured one hundred and twenty-nine feet from wingtip to wingtip. The portions of either wing fastened directly to the hull were fixed and rigid and one with the framework; but about a third of the way out from the hull, the wings or vans were hinged in a most complex and ingenious manner, with huge pulleys and guy stays which permitted the crew to manipulate the outboard wing-sections so that they actually flapped up and down as do bird wings. This flapping motion is powered and controlled from mechanisms in the midship deck, the “wheel deck,” as it is called. Here are located the great hand-driven wheels which communicate motion through a sequence of cogwheels-pinion wheels successively engaging ever larger cogs―the whole connecting with the guy stays, which were thin and strong and unbelievably tough-tougher, I think, than nylon cords.

There was a simple ratchet-and-pawl arrangement on the wheels which prevented any sudden reversal; else, a contrary gust of wind might have stripped the gears, with disastrous results. These guy stays were wound about gigantic winches, set high in the upper works of the wheel deck, and the stays communicated from deck winch to wing section through rows of circular ports which ran the length of the hull just above the fixed and rigid portions of the vans.

It would have been physically impossible for such huge, cumbersome craft to fly had they not been constructed of paper.

The specially treated paper consisted of enormous sheets of strong papyrus, made of woven reeds beaten flat, soaked in glue, stretched over hollow plaster forms, layer upon layer, and then baked dry in brick ovens and stripped from their forms, resulting in something very like sections of light, tough, molded plastic. The oven-baked, glue-impregnated paper hulls are tough, strong, durable, and lighter than balsa wood.

In addition, every opportunity to lighten the sheer weight of the craft had been assiduously followed through. Keel, beams, masts, sternpost, sternpost, bowsprit, van ribs, and so on, were mere hollow tubes. Even the figurehead was merely a hollow paper-mold. As for the outboard wing-sections, the part of the wings which flapped up and down, they were constructed on the model of bat wings, with narrow paper tubes like unsegmented bamboo rods splayed out from a center rib. Silk webbing, tightly stretched and pegged like drumheads and soaked in wax for extreme stiffness, was stretched between the ribs.

Even considering the lightweight paper construction, and all other measures taken toward conservation of weight, the sky ships would still not have been able to fly had it not been for the gas compartments. The entire bilge and lower deck was pumped full of the buoyant natural gas much like helium or hydrogen, which also filled the hollow spaces between the double hull. This natural gas, geysers of which were found among the White Mountains where the Sky Pirates dwelt, was pumped into the hollow decks and hull under high pressure, and the nozzles were then unscrewed and detached from the input hoses, which transformed them, by the addition of a simple snap-on valve, to pressure cocks, permitting some of the buoyant gas to be ejected at need so that the ship could sink to a lower level when required to do so.

Once the bilge and hollow hull were pumped full of gas, they were sealed off and calked until airtight.

The frigate had two masts amidships, set side by side, rather than fore and aft, as on a schooner. Light shrouds, stretched from mast to mast, and thence to bowsprit and sterncastle, permitted the display of signal pennants and ensign. The mastheads also were fitted with observation cupolas.

Such frigates as the Jalathadar had a crew strength of thirty-five officers and men, and a company of eighty wheel men, organized in eight gangs of ten men each, serving on staggered watches.

The Jalathadar measured eighty-five feet long. Very broad in the beam and flat-bottomed, it was almost completely weightless, and could attain a speed that might seem surprising. The average cruising speed of such a ship, with a full complement of men and supplies aboard, was such as to permit us to voyage on an average of three hundred miles per day. With a strong tailwind, that cruising speed could easily be doubled, since, unlike sea-going vessels, our prow cut empty air, not waves of heavy water, and we were as light as a balloon. When you consider that speed is attained by muscle power alone, you can begin to appreciate what a marvel of ingenuity the Jalathadar and her sister ships represented.

Koja and I had once been slaves, lashed to the wheels that powered the movable wingtips that propelled the aerial vehicles of Zanadar through the skies, and we were thoroughly acquainted with the backbreaking labor that task entailed.

The wheel gangs aboard the Jalathadar, of course, were not composed of slaves but of free men, fighting men of Shondakor. Indeed, scions of the noblest houses and princes of the highest birth manned the wheels of the galleon, for gentlemen warriors whose lineage could boast the bluest blood in the kingdom had contended jealously for a place in our crew. Thus we could hardly drive these highborn adventurers like lowly wheel slaves, groveling beneath the lash.

Fortunately, however, the Jalathadar did not require the motive power supplied by the wheel gangs to maintain her progress through the golden skies of Thanator. Steady prevailing winds blew from south to north across the Grand Kumala and the mountain country beyond, and the weightless corsair of the skies could ride before these gale-strength aerial tides while the wheel gangs rested. So, having achieved the upper levels at which the airstreams rushed northwards, the wheel gangs were released from their labors to join us in the galley, and were then liberated from further toil to stroll about the several decks, enjoying the splendors of the view.

Riding a strong tailwind, we passed the first day’s voyage without incident, making more than three hundred and twenty miles before nightfall and employing the strength of the wheel gangs only at certain intervals.

During the night, we reduced speed to lessen the possibility of straying from our course, for such aerial travel upon the jungle Moon affords certain navigational hazards unique to Callisto.

But I shall soon have reason to discuss these problems, and will pass over them here.

The second day of our voyage dawned bright and clear, and I rose from my bunk, breakfasted lightly in my cabin, and went forth to the deck, ascending to the pilot house (or control cupola, as I should call it) to check the night log. We were on course, with a strong but steady tailwind. Glancing through the broad observation windows, I saw the trackless leagues of the Grand Kumala reeling away far below our keel, and once again reflected philosophically on the fact that those jungle paths beneath us were aprowl with ferocious yathrib and savage deltagar and other monstrous predators, while here aloft in a cloudless sky we floated across the world in utter safety.

Toward late afternoon of the second day our tailwind increased and began to pose a problem. It first became apparent when a deck officer called to my attention that the Kumala below was now hidden behind thick clouds, greatly reducing our visibility. At the extreme height at which the Jalathadar now rode the winds, we were actually above the clouds and could enjoy the queer experience of looking down at a cloudy sky.

Cloud formations are rather rare on Thanator, or, to be precise, are seldom particularly visible, at least from the land surface of the jungle Moon. The reason for this lack of visibility is that the skies themselves are composed of curious golden vapors, uniformly illuminated from horizon to horizon, and against this hazy dome of golden light what clouds there are, are very difficult to see. But from our present height, clouds completely obscured the jungle country below from our view. From horizon to horizon the land below was concealed behind a thick blanket of milky vapor. The sight was curious and novel, but seemed to present no particular hazards.

Somewhat later, however, the duty officer summoned me to the control cupola. This particular officer was a nobly born gentleman of high Ku Thad rank named Haakon. He was a tall, sturdily built, serious-faced man in his forties, steady, strong, reliable, with the rare ability to keep his head in a crisis. He saluted me gravely as I entered the cupola and called to my attention yet again the dense blanket of clouds which obscured the lands below from our vision.

“I have already observed the cloud formations,” I said easily, “and, since we do not have any reason to descend to a lower altitude for some time, can see no problem.”

“The problem, sir, is one of navigation,” he said simply.

I understood his meaning at once, and cursed myself for not realizing sooner the hazard our current lack of visibility presented, for navigation through the skies of Thanator is a problem doubtless unique to this world.

You will understand what I mean when you consider that the sun of our solar system is too greatly distant from Callisto to be particularly visible, save as one of the more brilliant stars. On Earth, navigation by means of solar observations is the simplest of feats; the sun rises in the east, traverses the dome of the sky, and sets in the west; hence, at any given hour of the day one can at least ascertain the cardinal directions in general at a glance.

Not so on Thanator, As well, the heavens of the jungle Moon are thickly obscured by crawling golden vapors, as I have remarked earlier; hence, navigation by study of the fixed stars or constellations is also virtually impossible.

True, the larger of Callisto’s sister moons of Jupiter are visible orbs of colored light during the hours of darkness, but even here a problem imposes itself. For the Jovian moons, at least the larger ones, circumnavigate their primary in a system or orbits of bewildering complexity. It is a mathematical problem of truly staggering difficulties, attempting to navigate the skies of Thanator at night, guided only by the positions of the moons of Jupiter.

“I see what you mean, Haakon,” I said ruefully. “But let us not worry about problems that may soon correct themselves unaided. The cloud zone may soon break up, and the clouds disperse, permitting us to obtain clear visibility of the land below.”

“Perhaps, sir, but perhaps not,” Haakon gravely remarked. “But if so, it must occur very soon, or it will do us no good at all. For night is almost upon us.”

I should perhaps explain here that the peculiar and inexplicable illumination of the golden vapor that fills the skies of Callisto ceases with startling unanimity at nightfall. On Earth the solar orb declines gradually into sunset, twilight and afterglow, but on Callisto, when day ends, the transition is one of surprising suddenness. One moment the Jungle Moon is bathed in ubiquitous golden radiance―the next, it is plunged into total darkness. Hence, unless the clouds broke very soon, so that we could obtain clear sightings of major landmarks by which to correct our course and orient our flight, the eventual dispersal of the vapors would do no good at all.

“Well,” I said, “let us hope our course is undeviating.” The grizzled senior officer shook his head reluctantly.

“We have been meeting a slight but definite headwind for the past hour or two,” he confessed. “I have been compensating for it more or less by pure guesswork, but if we must fly blind during the entire night, compensating against this headwind, our course by morning may have been deflected off true northwest by a wide margin. If only, sir, we had the assistance of an experienced pilot. But I assume our prisoner remains obdurately uncooperative?”

I nodded. Captain Ulthar had steadfastly refused to lend us any assistance whatsoever. Bidding Haakon to continue compensating for the headwind and to summon me to the cupola should there be any change at all in the weather conditions, I descended by the circular stair into the captain’s cabin to consult the Zanadarian navigational guides. I did not expect these to be of any real help, nor were they.

Lacking sun or moon or stars, navigation through the skies of Thanator is a highly complex art. The Sky Pirates who command the aerial vessels are seasoned and experienced veterans and doubtless know the winds and ways of the Thanatorian heavens from past familiarity. However, the galleon’s cabin was supplied with certain standard guides, among which was a sort of sky atlas which charted the major prevailing winds which were bewilderingly complicated beyond the abilities of a mere novice to quickly master. I puzzled over the atlas but could make nothing of its cryptic notations. The guidebooks also included an ephemeris of the orbits of the visible moons of Jupiter, but these also were exceedingly complex. True, they charted the variations in the lunar positions and related these to the cardinal directions, but the variations were minute and intertwined, and, lacking a compass―an invention for which the Thanatorians seem to lack reason to develop―we would, it seemed, be flying blind during the hours of darkness.

There was really nothing we could do about this. Difficulties in navigation were among the several unknown factors we had risked in attempting this voyage into the unknown. Ostensibly, it had seemed remarkably simple to traverse the land surface of Callisto between Shondakor and Zanadar. The City in the Clouds lies north by northwest of the realm of the Ku Thad, and it would seem an easy task to fly thither. You pass the plains, traverse the Grand Kumala, enter the northerly mountain country, and simply look about for the mountaintop city of the Sky Pirates. Nothing could have been simpler, or so it seemed at the beginning.

Night fell without a break in the cloud blanket. We flew on into darkness, still battling against an unsteady headwind that pushed against our prow and strove in uneven gusts to drive us east.

At the captain’s table, over dinner that evening, our navigational difficulties were the central topic of discussion. Our captive, Ulthar, who ate with us, being an officer of noble birth, smiled gently when peppery old Lukor loudly and pointedly suggested he might place his knowledge and experience at our service.

“I am certain the gentleman of Ganatol would not seriously suggest violating the terms under which I have given Captain Jandar my parole,” he said mockingly. “The nobly born gentleman will recall that our agreement does not include my revealing the secrets of my people, among which the art of aerial navigation must surely be numbered.”

Lukor screwed up his face in an expression of disgust.

“I had assumed the nobly born gentleman of Zanadar would have yielded to reason,” he said acerbically, “if only since to keep silence in this danger imperils his life as well as ours!”

Ulthar laughed quietly, and turned hooded, mocking eyes upon me. “It would seem, Captain Jandar, that my faith in your exceptional abilities is greater than that of those you are pleased to call your friends. For, unlike them, I have no fears that you will prove unable to meet this present minor emergency.”

Lukor growled a colorful oath and addressed himself to his plate. Ulthar remained quiet but observant throughout the remainder of the meal.

The cabin lamp swayed on its creaking chain as the great galleon of the skies trembled to the buffets of the tailwind. Wine sloshed in our goblets; plates slid to and fro on the table.

We ate in silence, each busied with his own thoughts. My own were far off in the mountaintop citadel of our foes, the remorseless and rapacious Sky Pirates of Zanadar. I wondered how my beloved Darloona fared at this hour. Had she given over all hope of rescue by now?

The meal finished, we each sought our bunks and uneasy and troubled slumbers. All that night we flew on into mystery, wondering where dawn would find us.

We awoke in an unknown world.