Sky Pirates of Callisto

Chapter 4 THE UNKNOWN SEA

Before dawn I arose from a night of broken and uneasy slumbers, through which I had tossed and turned continuously, my rest disturbed and troubled by ominous dreams.

Rising from my bunk, I hastily threw on my wide-sleeved white blouse, thigh-length leather tunic, calf-high boots and cloak, girdle, and sword-belt, and went up on deck to observe the sudden miracle of daybreak on Thanator.

The reader can, I am sure, envision the extent of my distress as I looked over the side upon an unknown portion of the surface of Thanator.

The swift, brilliant dawn had illuminated the world from horizon to horizon, banishing the darkness that had long enshrouded the surface of the jungle Moon.

By daylight it could be seen that the cloud blanket had indeed broken at last, but only recently, for still our vision of the world below was obscured by the whitish haze of extensive vapors, although these were in the process of dispersal. The layer of clouds had parted, here and there, revealing broken glimpses of the land surface. And my heart sank with dismay, for I could see nowhere the heavy jungles of the Grand Kumala that should have been beneath our keel; neither, raising my head toward what I fancied was the north, could I see anything resembling the mountain country on the horizon ahead.

The White Mountains of Varan-Hkor are the mightiest range upon all of Thanator* and should have been dimly visible on the northern horizon by this second day of our flight. But mountains were nowhere in sight.

Instead, the breaks in the cloud blanket below revealed rolling hills, broad meadows, uncultivated fields, and, far off to what seemed to be the east, a city or town.

I climbed into the control cupola, exchanged terse greetings with the officer of the watch, and consulted the night log. The slight headwind which had deflected us from our course had, it seemed, continued all night long, blowing first from the portside and later from the starboard. Each time the headwind had changed direction the watch officer had compensated by altering the pitch of our rudder and ailerons slightly, using his own untutored judgment as to the degree of compensation required to keep us on our north-by-northwest course.

Toward dawn the headwind had changed yet again, and this time it blew at gale strength, forcing the watch officer to lift the ship a few hundred feet to an even higher altitude than that to which we had held during the earlier portions of the night. By thus rising above the strong headwind, he had diminished the degree whereby we were being deflected from our course, but he had lifted the Jalathadar into an airstream moving at greater velocity than the prevailing air current we had been riding.

In other words, we were farther along than we should have been, and our course had probably been deflected to a considerable extent. But had we strayed off course to the east or to the west? There seemed no way of telling for certain.

I strained my eyes to make out the details of the city that was just visible on the horizon. It lay amid a level plain, so it certainly could not be Zanadar. If we had diverged due east, at right angles from our desired course, we might be approaching the home city of Lukor the Swordmaster, although it seemed highly unlikely that we had come so far as to approach the outskirts of Ganatol.

On the other hand, the fickle winds might have blown us off course to the west. Since we were obviously well beyond the jungles of the Grand Kumala, that would place us on the remote margin of the known hemisphere of Thanator. For the area due west of the northernmost edge of the Grand Kumala is commonly left blank on all Thanatorian maps I have ever seen.

If that was the case, then we were flying toward an unknown city, approaching the margins of the hemisphere itself.

I turned, calling over one of the cupola crew, and sent him below decks with instructions to rouse Master Lukor from his bed and, ere long, the old swordmaster joined me in the cupola, yawning and grumbling and rubbing the slumber from his eyes.

I directed his attention to the foreign city, which by now was clearly visible on the horizon, although the regions beyond and about it were still hidden beneath an impenetrable layer of clouds. I inquired if the city could be Ganatol; he replied quite firmly in the negative.

“Not a chance of it, lad,” he said. “Ganatol is built on the shores of the River Iquon, and you can clearly see there is no river about yonder town.”

I mused over the charts.

“It hardly seems possible we could have gone farther than Ganatol,” I said. “But beyond Ganatol lies the city of Narouk, on the shores of the Corund Laj. Could that possibly be Narouk, do you think?”

He chewed his lower lip, fiercely eyeing the distant buildings.

“Well, I have visited Narouk in my time, but I cannot say as how I am so intimately acquainted with the city as to instantly recognize it from the air. However, if that is Narouk, then where is the Corund Laj, my boy?”

Still hidden beneath the cloudbanks, perhaps,” I hazarded. He shrugged, obviously uncertain. And indeed it did seem highly unlikely that we could possibly have traveled such a great distance during the night―unless our wind had increased very considerably, which was not at all impossible, and could well have gone unnoticed, due to our unfamiliarity with the Zanadarian techniques of measuring wind velocity.

The Corund Laj, I should perhaps explain, is a great freshwater inland sea, the nearest thing to an ocean that is to be found upon the surface of Callisto. Callisto’s surface is one continuous extent of dry land, broken only by two bodies of water. The smaller of these, which is called the Sanmur Laj, or the Lesser Sea, is located far south and west of the Plains of Haratha, where the Yathoon Horde rules the grass lands below the Grand Kumala, stretching, I assume, to the unexplored regions of the south pole.

The larger of the twin seas of Callisto is called the Corund Laj, or the Greater Sea, and it occupies the extreme northeastern portion of Thanatorian maps. It is the center of a maritime civilization that has little contact with Shondakor and boasts of several powerful cities, of which Narouk and easterly Soraba are among the less prominent. Farz, on the ultimate northern coast of the Corund Laj, is the northernmost of all the cities of Thanator, and directly in our path, if indeed we had diverged in an easterly direction.

But the city visible to us could not possibly be Farz. It was most likely Narouk.

An hour or two of steady flying brought us within the vicinity of the unknown city, and by that point we became convinced it was indeed Narouk. For the clouds encircling the mysterious walled town had broken at last, dispersing before the uneven gusts of a freshening morning wind. And beyond the city could now be clearly seen the glittering waters of a considerable expanse of sea that could only be the Corund Laj.

Now that we could be more or less certain about our position, and knew the extent to which we had been blown off course during the night, we could orient ourselves. To reach Zanadar we now had to fly due west, traversing the entirety of the White Mountains. This would add considerably to the length of our voyage, which was no short distance anyway. As the crow flies, the distance from Golden Shondakor to the mountaintop fortress-city of the Sky Pirates was some 310 korads―or twenty-two hundred miles, more or less, in Earth measurement. Due to the shifting headwinds, we had diverged off course by about seventy-five korads during the night.

In other words, to continue our voyage to Zanadar was possible, but our inadvertent detour had added something like five hundred miles to the distance we had to travel.

We discussed the new course in the control cupola.

The officer in charge of stores, a young noble named Amthar, shook his head doubtfully.

“We do not have a sufficient supply of drinking water for so great an additional distance,” he said. I nodded―weight is a vital factor in the operation of the flying galleons of Zanadar, and our stores of foodstuffs and drinkables had been calculated to the last ounce before we left the city of the Ku Thad.

“Nor can we count on finding mountain lakes or springs, once we have entered the White Mountains,” Amthar pointed out. “The territory is under the domination of the Sky Pirates, and our charts of the mountain country are but cursory.”

“Surely, gentlemen, restocking your water supply should afford you no problem, since we are approaching the shores of the Corund Laj,” a suave voice commented. I glanced up, more than a little surprised, for it was our Zanadarian captive, Ulthar, who had contributed this suggestion. He generally kept aloof from our councils, and had thus far been careful to avoid making any contributions to our discussions. Why he had volunteered a helpful. comment on this problem I could not hazard a guess. However, his suggestion was a simple one of pointing out the obvious―for, as I have already remarked, the navigable waterways of Thanator, including her two immense landlocked seas, are composed of fresh water―so I dismissed my instant suspicions and did not give him any further thought.

We decided to come down over the Corund Laj and take on fresh supplies of water sufficient to carry us the additional distance we must travel. There was no particular hazard involved in doing this, for we were not likely to encounter another aerial vessel of the Sky Pirates in this part of the world, and although the folk of Narouk and the other Perushtarian cities about the shores of the Corund Laj were the avowed foes of Zanadar, we could easily avoid descending in the vicinity of the cities and elude any risk of trouble without much problem. And thus we resolved.

By late morning we were well out over the Corund Laj. It glittered below us like an immense shield of hammered brass, dented by shallow waves, mirroring the golden splendor of the daylit sky. We had circled around Narouk to avoid discovery, and made our descent over the open sea.

It was not, of course, necessary for the Jalathadar to actually make a landing on the waters in order to take on fresh supplies. The flying galleons are not meant to land and might well break up from their own cumbersome dimensions if they ever came to rest on the land surface of the jungle Moon. In Zanadar they are more or less permanently aloft, although securely tethered to mooring masts, and only come to rest when they are in urgent need of repair and then only in special dock-facilities designed to deal with their fragile structure.

We brought the aerial vessel down so that her keel floated only twenty yards above the rippling waves. At that point, holding her as steady as possible, waxed waterbags were lowered over the side on long lines. They were dipped into the sparkling waves and teams of crew members hauled them up, full to overflowing, to the deck again. It was a slow and time-consuming process, but easy enough.

I was lounging idly against the deck rail, watching the men dragging up the waterbags, without a thought of danger in my mind. Our captive, Ulthar, came sauntering over to where I leaned against the rail and engaged me in casual conversation. I thought nothing of this, and certainly had no reason to suspect the smooth-tongued Zanadarian of any ulterior motive, although I did not like Ulthar or enjoy his company. But he had been given the freedom of the deck, and had, in fact, the run of the ship, except for certain key areas, such as the wheel room or the signal cabin, where he might just possibly have injured our mission through a bit of adroit sabotage. I did not really trust the Sky Pirate, although I must confess he had thus far given me not the slightest reason to regret my decision to bring him along.

By a little after noon the last waterbags had been drawn aboard, dripping and full. The duty officer in the forward control cupola, receiving the signal from the deck officer, gave the command to come about and go aloft. With an immense creaking groan the enormous jointed wing-flaps began their ponderous motions, sending booming gusts across the deck, drowning out Ulthar’s soft tones. We were ascending rapidly now, and I waved him to silence, as it was not possible to continue our conversation over the slow, steady beat of the huge wings.

He nodded, understanding, and half-turned away as if to leave the deck. Then he glanced out over the waters of the sea, now rapidly dwindling beneath our keel, and his eyes widened with amazement and disbelief. He gave voice to an involuntary cry of surprise, and, as I turned to see what it was that he had seen which had so startled him, Ulthar acted.

He had chosen the perfect moment to strike. While one or two men were still on the deck, none of them were anywhere near us and no one was looking in our direction. I had turned away to search sea and sky for whatever it was that he had seen, and thus my back was to him. As swiftly and unobtrusively as if he had carefully rehearsed the act―which he may well have done, in the privacy of his quarters, for all I know―he bent swiftly, caught me about the waist, kicked my legs out from under me, and, rising, threw me over the side!

It was done so swiftly and smoothly, that before I even knew what was happening, I was falling through the air.

There was no time to catch hold of anything, to cry out―and I fell like a stone.

I had a confused vision of sea and sky wheeling giddily about as I fell. There was one fleeting glimpse of the Jalathadar above me―an enormous, darkwinged shape, blotting out the sky.

And the next instant I struck the waves of the Corund Laj with the force of a battering ram.

The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. I sank under the blue waves in a rush of foaming bubbles, halfconscious, stunned, gasping for air. I would doubtless have drowned in my semiconscious state, had not the shock of plunging so precipitously beneath the icy waters brought me to consciousness again.

With that hair-trigger instinct of self-preservation that is part of the equipment of the fighting man, I shut my lips against the icy flood, ignoring the lancing agony that blazed through me. My starved lungs cried out for air, but I clenched my jaws tight-shut with every atom of willpower I could summon.

In a wild spasm of threshing limbs, I struck out wildly. A moment later my head broke through the waves and I treaded water mechanically, gulping delicious air into my aching lungs.

I was stunned and dazed, shaken by the unexpected calamity, but unharmed.

Far above me, all but lost against the strange gold glare of the noontide sky, the Jalathadar had dwindled to a minute fleck. I watched helplessly as it hovered for a moment, and then turned its prow due west in the direction of Zanadar.

In a moment it was out of sight. And I was lost, alone and helpless, amid the waters of the unknown sea.

Chapter 5 I BECOME A SLAVE

There was no time for me to indulge myself in the luxury of cursing Ulthar for his treachery Every breath of air is a precious commodity to a man who has just narrowly escaped drowning, and not to be idly squandered on futile imprecations.

And I was not out of danger yet. The frigate had come down to take on new stores of water quite some considerable distance from shore, so as to insure against the possibility of being seen. Thus I had quite a distance to swim before I could hope to feel dry land under my feet.

I suppose I am as good a swimmer as any other man, and, like most, I suppose I tend to think of myself as being more proficient in the art than is actually the case. In any event, I came perilously close to not reaching dry land at all. For one thing, I was still groggy from the fall from the Jalathadar; for another, I was fully dressed in the traditional garments of a Thanatorian fighting-man. The costume, I need hardly stress, was never designed with a lengthy swim in mind.

Thanatorian warriors generally wear high-necked, sleeveless, thigh-length tunics of supple leather over blouselike shirts and loincloths. Together with gauntlets, a heavy leathern girdle about the midsection, sometimes thickly encrusted with noble metals and precious stones, cloak, boots or buskins, sword and dagger and purse, the basic costume is common wherever the warriors of Thanator may chance to dwell. The only exception to this is among the arthopodes, the chitin-clad insect-men who roam the great Haratha plains in mighty hordes. They, of course, go devoid of any raiment save sword-belt or baldric.

As you can readily imagine, the prospect of swimming the considerable distance to shore encumbered by such garments is not a pleasant one. I tore away my cloak first, kicked off my boots, and ere long was forced to struggle out of the heavy girdle and swordbelt or be drowned. Naked save for a water-soaked leather tunic and clout, I staggered ashore, collapsing in the wet gray sand, and lay there panting and spitting up seawater for a time, before I felt able to drag myself farther up the land.

My condition was truly a desperate one. Weaponless, alone and friendless, in an alien land, my chances for survival rested upon imponderables and uncertainties. However, I did not give way to despair. Even now, my friends aboard the flying vessel might have discovered my absence, even now, they might be reversing the course of the Jalathadar. Within mere moments the winged shape of the frigate might loom blackly against the clear golden skies, lowering a rope ladder whereby I might regain her decks, with no worse than a wetting gained from my adventure.

Then sword steel flashed, mirror-bright, before my eyes.

I looked up, past the glittering scimitar, into a hard, unfriendly face and a pair of alert, curious, and wary eyes.

The western portion of the known hemisphere of Thanator is occupied by Corund Laj, the greater of the two seas of the jungle Moon. This sea, and the coastlands about it, is dominated by a race of redskinned, hairless men called Perushtarians.

Merchants, traders, shopkeepers, theirs is a mercantile civilization like ancient Carthage; culturally, however, their life style has more in common with medieval Persia. They are a league of free cities―Farz, to the north, Narouk, in the west, and Soraba, on the south coast of the Greater Sea. Their civilization is, for some reason unknown to me, called the Bright Empire, and its capital, Glorious Perusht, lies on a large island off the southern coast, which has the unique distinction of being the only isle on all of Thanator.

I have referred to the Perushtarians as being redskinned. This conjures up a vision of the American Indians, the aboriginal denizens of the North American continent. Actually, when you stop to think of it, the term “red-skinned” is misapplied to American Indians, who are more a ruddy copper than red. The citizens of the Bright Empire of Perushtar, however, are truly red―a bright crimson, like ripe tomatoes, and (to compound the vegetable simile) equally hairless.

Although my adventures had carried me far and near across the face of mysterious Callisto, it so chanced that I had never really come into contact with the Perushtarian race. Now I found myself facing capture by one of them―and now I had the leisure to curse the treachery of Ulthar and my own temerity in stripping off my baldric and scabbard during the long, hazardous, exhausting swim to shore.

The Perushtarian who stood near me on the wet gray sands, holding the flashing scimitar in hard, capable hands, was a squat, heavy-shouldered specimen with a grim, ruthless face and questioning, uncompromising eyes.

Bald as are all of his race, he wore a fringed cap of pea-green velvet. A knee-length robe of bright blue-dyed cloth, edged with scarlet tassels, and a gaudy sash of many colors wound many times around his middle completed his most un-Thanatorian costume. Soft-soled buskins of gilt leather shod his feet. Copper armlets were clasped about his thick biceps and muscular wrists, and a dozen or so small paste amulets hung about his throat on a thin silver ring.

We stared at each other in wordless silence for a long moment, I sprawled on the water-soaked sand, he spread-legged, alert for the slightest movement on my part. From the expression on his heavy-fowled, grim-lipped face, I had no doubt he would sink that glistening, razory blade into my flesh at the first sign of any hostility from me.

Perhaps I should have sprung at him that first moment. In hindsight, it seems likely I could have scooped up a handful of wet, gritty sand―hurled it into his eyes, blinding him―and wrested the heavy scimitar from him with ease. But―alas!―I temporized, I delayed. Expecting the return of the Jalathadar at any moment, I did nothing whatsoever.

He stared down at me narrowly. Then, barking out a curt name, he summoned his companion or servitor, a fat fellow with bland, cool eyes, also hefting a heavy steel blade.

“Gamel!” my captor barked.

“Aye, lord?”

“Come and look at what the sea has cast up at my very feet.” The second Perushtarian hove into view, to peer down at me with bored, incurious eyes.

“Notice anything odd about him?” the first man inquired.

The underling shrugged.

“Well, he has strange coloring for a Zanadarian,” the fat man the other had addressed as Gamel observed mildly. “I had not known, lord, they came in such a variety of skin and hair and eyes!”

The Perushtarian laughed harshly, and I realized then that they must have been nearby when the aerial galleon came down to take on water. We had thought ourselves unobserved; so, at least, we had hoped, but now the falsity of this was revealed.

The first Perushtarian spoke to me curtly:

“You―fellow! What is your name and nation?”

“My name is Jandar,” I said unperturbedly. “And my homeland is called the United States of America.”

He blinked at the unfamiliar name.

“The, the Yew-Nine-Estates,” he fumbled with the name, then shrugged, and gave it up. “Well, it must be a far land indeed, for never before have I seen a man with clear bronze skin and yellow hair, such as yours.”

“It is indeed very far away,” I said gravely. Nor did I exaggerate. My country was, at the time, some three hundred and ninety million miles distant from the shores of the Corund Laj. “Far away” is an understatement!

“So it must be,” the Perushtarian said. “For never have I heard of it, in all my days. Do all men there have skin and hair of such strange colors as your own?”

“We come,” I assured him, “in a variety of colors. But we generally think alike. For example, few of us enjoy lying full length on wet sand with a sword held at our throats.”

He laughed at that, and stepped back, motioning me to rise. I got to my feet, wiping the wet muddy sand from my garments as best I might, stealing a searching glance aloft for some sign of the Jalathadar. But the skies were clear! Surely, by now, my friends must have missed me, must have had sufficient time to search the galleon from rudder to figurehead, finding me inexplicably missing.

The fat man, Gamel, shrewdly noted my surreptitious glance skyward.

“The slave supposes his comrades may discover his absence and return in search of him, lord,” he pointed out.

The other nodded.

“Then let us be on our way. Secure him, Gamel,” he growled curtly. Then, turning on his heel, and giving me no further attention, he strode up the beach. I now observed a sizable caravan waiting on the high ground. And my heart sank within me, for with every passing moment my hopes of rescue became slimmer.

Gamel forced me to kneel, threatening me with his blade. With swift, sure hands he lashed my wrists together behind my back and settled a sort of halter around my neck, by which he led me up the beach to a pack-thaptor, securing my neck line to the harness of the beast.

“Slave, you are now the property of the lord Cham of Narouk, of the House of Iskelion,” he said, mounting the saddle of his beast.

Before I could speak he touched the flanks of his steed with a braided quirt, and the caravan lurched into motion. I had not been ready for the sudden motion and was flung headlong in the dust. 1 would have been dragged to my death by the thaptor had I not managed to struggle to my feet.

Thus, running along behind a pack-thaptor in the caravan of Cham the merchant, I came to the city of Narouk.

As a nameless, helpless slave!

Thaptors are large, wingless birds of a species unknown upon my native world, but not unlike the terrene ostrich―if you can imagine a four-legged ostrich as large as a horse.

A thaptor is as large as a stallion, with an arched neck and four legs, but there its dim resemblance to the equine species terminates. For the creatures have clawed feet, spurred like roosters, and a stiff ruff of feathers around the base of their skulls, not unlike the ruff of a vulture. They have sharp, curved, yellow, parrotlike beaks, glaring eyes with black irises and brilliant orange pupils. In the wild, they are savage predators―even man-eaters, on occasion. Broken with great difficulty to bit and saddle, they never lose their innate ferocity and never become completely tamed, no matter with what harsh discipline they are abused.

The thaptor to whose harness I was roped was a particularly vicious brute. It did not like having a strange man running along at its heels and did everything it could think of to discourage my following in its tracks, kicking up dust in my face and frequently spurting ahead so that it could make me fall and be dragged a bit, until heavy blows from the wooden rod borne by the caravan master beat it back into line.

What with having fallen several score yards into an ice-cold sea, having swum ashore half-unconscious, weighed down with heavy gear, swallowing about half of the waters of the Corund Laj en route, and now being forced to run several miles behind a thaptor or suffer a broken neck, I was in sorry shape by the time we reached the gates of Narouk.

My water-soaked leather tunic was now thickly coated with white road dust. My bare feet, gashed by innumerable stony shards from running over the gravel road, left tracks of blood as I limped through the city gates at the tail of the caravan. I was winded and more than half-strangled from the rope loop, tied in a hangman’s knot, which Gamel had thrown around my neck. Considering all of this, it is perhaps understandable that I recall but little of my first close-up look of a Perushtarian city and nothing whatsoever of the outer walls, grounds, and gardens of the villa of Cham, my master.

I began to recover my senses in the slave pens. An old man with a worn, lined, kindly face and hands as gentle as a woman’s was tenderly bathing my bloody feet and applying a soothing ointment of some kind. I remember it had the sharp, spicy, pungent odor of spruce-gum.

Someone else, a woman naked to the waist, her long black hair tied back at the nape of her neck in what I later came to recognize as a slave knot, was washing the road dust from my face and hair. With a moistened cloth, she very gently cleansed the grit from my nostrils, inner mouth, eyes, and ears. From time to time she lifted to my lips a clay pot filled with strong red wine, almost as fierce and potent as raw brandy.

I never drank anything more delicious in my life.

My tunic was in sorry shape by this time. Prolonged immersion in water had cracked and split the supple leather, and being dragged from time to time over the flinty path, when I happened to trip and fall, had not improved it, either. They stripped it from me, and the ragged, muddy loincloth as well. I don’t recall whether the woman left the room during these intimate ministrations or not, nor does it matter. I was past caring, and false modesty is a luxury in a life as adventure-filled as mine.

At any rate, now that I was a slave, I no longer was entitled to a warrior’s tunic, and, my bedraggled garments removed, I donned the short cotton smock of a domestic slave.

The old man, whose name was Kanelon, as I later learned, and the woman, whose name was Imarra, having completed their ministrations, fed me a hot, spicy meat-broth with chewy chunks of tough black bread swimming in it and let me stretch out on a straw pallet to sleep.

Before slumber overcame my senses, however, while I lay there deliciously at ease, wine and hot broth making me drowsy, I vaguely became aware of the two slaves discussing me.

The woman was saying something about me. I strained to make out her words, which were spoken in low tones.

“Never have I seen a man with hair and eyes of such unusual color,” she was saying. “An outlander, obviously, but from what land or city?”

The old man shrugged. “I don’t know. The slave master says Gamel called him a Zanadarian.”

“He does not look like any Zanadarian I have ever seen,” the woman commented, eyeing me dubiously.

“Perhaps he was only a Zanadarian slave. According to Gamel, he fell overboard into the sea from one of the Zanadarian flying machines. He is lucky to be alive, if that is so.”

“Lucky?” the woman asked, incredulously. “Perhaps he is fortunate that he did not drown in his fall. But he is certainly not lucky to have been fished out by the lord Cham―this month of all months!”

The woman’s peculiar remark attracted my interest, and, feigning slumber, I lay there, listening intently.

Kanelon grunted, “Aye, ‘tis true. Unless he has some needed skill, ‘tis certain the lord Chain will render him up for the Tribute. Poor fellow! Should that be the case, he may wish he had drowned in the waves of the Corund Laj after all.”

The woman grunted.

“You pretend to knowledge no one claims for sure,” she said. “After all, no one knows what happens to those poor men sent out as part of the Tribute. Mayhap they are not so badly treated.”

Kanelon laughed shortly.

“No one knows what happens to Tribute slaves, because in all these years not one of them has ever come back here!” he said. “I say they are slain horribly, and my guess is as good as any―dispute me if you will, woman!”

Imarra sighed dispiritedly.

“Anyway, is it not a pity the poor man was not seized by the lords Ashulok or Farzemum, or one of the others, for upon the lord Chain this month alone falls the burden of supplying one hundred slaves to go forth from here to face an unknown doom!”

If they exchanged further words, I know it not, for weariness had whelmed my curiosity, and I fell asleep.

Chapter 6 SLAVERY IN NAROUK

During the next two days I remained a slave in the villa of the lord Chain.

I was not mistreated, but neither was I coddled. Slaves are a valuable commodity in the Bright Empire, for it is their labor that supports the landed aristocracy of the merchant princes of Perushtar. My lacerated feet healed with miraculous swiftness, due to the excellent medicinal properties in the salve with which Kanelon had anointed my cuts and bruises.

From this garrulous, trusted house slave, Kanelon, I learned much during the idleness enforced upon me by my injuries. The old man had been born into slavery and knew no other life: slavery was a natural condition, as far as he was concerned, and he had no particular desire for freedom. This may seem remarkable to my reader. It certainly seemed remarkable to me; either the poor old fellow had been so broken by his degraded status, or he was of a servile, cringing sort. I talked at length with him and discovered to my considerable surprise that neither was the case.

When I asked him why he did not desire to be free, he replied that if he were free he would have no one to feed or house or care for him. As a slave, he was an item of property in the possession of the great House of Iskelion, and it was the responsibility of the House of Iskelion to feed him, clothe him, and supply him with a place to sleep. As a free man, no one would care whether he lived or died, and no one would mind whether or not he starved to death in a cold alley some night―as would most likely be his fate, were he ever foolish enough to accept the dubious gift of freedom.

I learned from the talkative old man that the Perushtarians were an oligarchy, pure and simple. There were thirty or forty great merchant princes who held all or most of the wealth of the Bright Empire. My owner, Chain, was a younger third nephew of the fabulously wealthy and powerful Iskelion family, whose ancient wealth was primarily built upon ocean trade, import and export, and slave-raising.

If it seems somewhat curious to my reader that an oligarchy can pass as an empire, all I can say is that I was puzzled by this myself. Upon questioning old Kanelon, I learned that the great merchant houses had long ago combined into urban centers for mutual protection. Eight or ten of the great families were dominant in each of the Perushtarian cities. Here in Narouk, for example, the Houses of Iskelion, Ashlamun, Chemed, Ildth, and Sarpelio held the majority of power, while three or four minor houses scrabbled and quarreled for secondary status.

Obviously, a city as divided as Narouk would long ago have been torn asunder by civil war had not some compromise government system been worked out. The system was an admirably simple one. Each of the Perushtarian cities was ostensibly ruled by an hereditary prince called a Seraan. While the ultimate administrative authority was vested in the Seraan, he was actually powerless, for the Seraan was denied any opportunity to amass wealth, and in the Bright Empire, wealth alone was the source of power.

While the Seraan of Narouk held the Ruby Seal, whose affixture to every law or decree made each such a legal instrument, it was also denied to the Seraan to initiate legislation of any kind. All of the laws which came before the Seraan to be sealed into law originated in a sort of parliament of judges who were the representatives of the great merchant families of Narouk and whose influence, and the weight of whose vote, was reckoned in direct proportion to the wealth and prominence of the family each judge represented.

I must admit I was both astonished and amused that so blatantly oligarchic a system of government could actually work. It was like late nineteenth-century capitalism run wild. However, it did work, and, in fact, under the oligarchy, the Bright Empire of Perushtar flourished. The cities―if I may judge the whole of the empire by what I observed in the city of Narouk―were clean, handsome, gorgeously decorated with monumental art. There were no reeking slums and no beggars, because there was no poverty at all. Those who were not rich were owned or patronized by the rich, as, for example, the artisan class. And for a civilization whose energies were devoted almost entirely to the acquisition of wealth, there was a surprisingly brilliant culture. Theaters, sports arenas, and literary salons abounded. Poets, dramatists, magicians, actors, sculptors, and artists of all kinds made the intellectual and aesthetic life of the empire brilliant. At first this seeming contradiction―a mercantile culture possessing great art works―puzzled me. Eventually, I realized that the great merchant families constituted the upper class and were in fact the only aristocracy permitted in the empire. And the aristocracy is essentially a leisure class, with both the spare time and the wealth to encourage the arts.

As soon as my injuries were healed I was bathed, carefully groomed, and herded into an enormous room with a large number of other slaves, both male and female, of every age and condition of health.

Seated on raised benches against the walls of this room, richly dressed men and women lolled. This was either a slave auction or an interrogation session, in which the talents and capabilities of newly acquired slaves would be ascertained. I soon discovered it was both at once.

In turn, each slave was brought before an examining committee which consisted of a physician, who swiftly estimated the slave’s condition of bodily health, and interrogators who inquired pointedly into his or her background, training, experience, and education, if any. This data was then loudly announced by a fat, perspiring auctioneer to the assembled gentry, who discussed among themselves appropriate positions the slave might best fill. Sums of money were bandied back and forth, arguments occasionally broke out, and, on the whole, I found the occasion singularly boring. I must admit I had come to the slave block with my mind filled with preconceptions gained from observing imaginative reconstructions of such scenes in historical movies of the late Cecil B. DeMille. Mr. DeMille had an instinct for showmanship that must, occasionally, have shouted down his urge toward authenticity; for similar scenes in his films generally ran to brutal slave-handlers stripping beautiful girls before leering crowds of giggling perverts, or helpless slaves groveling under the lash of growling, heavy-handed guards much in need of a shave.

The scene, however, in which I myself now partook was nothing like the cinematic version. The slaves were handled brusquely but impersonally, like cattle; I observed no brutalities nor indecencies. As for the audience, they were businessmen occupied with practical interests, not tittering perverts gathered for a show of sex and torture. They were a richly overdressed lot―for wealth in Narouk lends itself to ostentation-garbed in many-layered robes or gowns of gorgeous silks, in many colors, with peach, magenta, apple-green, and royal purple predominating. The robes were ornamented with gold fringe, tassels, gemmed belts and pectorals, dangling sashes, scraps of rare furs, and so on.

Both men and women wore an amazing amount of jewelry, rings sparkled on every finger, to say nothing of earrings, necklaces, brooches, pins, bracelets, gorgets, armlets, jeweled greaves, tiaras, and items of jewelry to which I could put no name. Some of the jewelry nearest me was truly spectacular: one woman, a proud matron of about fifty, turned to observe the slaves in my group and I suppressed a gasp at the immense gem she wore dangling from her forehead. It was the size of a child’s fist, a rich purple jewel with an elusive flicker of scarlet flame in its heart―a jewel the Thanatorians call a korome and for which I can think of no precise terrene equivalent.

What made this gem so unusual was its incredible rarity. Only a score such gems had ever been found, and this one, from its size, must have been worth a truly fabulous sum. You could have bought a kingdom with what this one Perushtarian woman wore on her hairless brow!

At length it was my turn to be interrogated. The questions were blunt and to the point. While the physician peered at my teeth, thumped my chest, slapped my biceps and thighs, scrutinized the condition of my now-healed lacerations, a team of questioners brusquely inquired as to my age, homeland, and areas of expertise. They had never heard of the United States of America, of course, but dutifully copied the term down, transliterated into the Thanatorian characters. They did not ask me why I had been aboard the Jalathadar seeming to have already formed the opinion that I was either a mercenary who had enlisted in the sky navy of Zanadar, or a slave pressed into service aboard the aerial galleon of the Sky Pirates.

Nor did I volunteer information to the contrary. It did not seem advisable for me to reveal my connections with Shondakor until I could gain a more accurate estimate of the political situation here. I was content, for the moment, to pass as merely another unimportant slave. And when asked my name, I replied that it was Darjan―a simple transposition of the syllables of the name the Thanatorians call me. This also seemed wise, and I resolved to conceal my true identity until I knew more of the situation in Narouk. It was not at all impossible that the Perushtarians were aware that one Jandar had been instrumental in wresting the city of Shondakor the Golden free of the detested yoke of the Black Legion. But they could know nothing of Darjan, as he had no history, having been invented on the spur of the moment.

“Now then, fellow, what training have you had?” demanded my chief interrogator.

“I am an excellent swordsman,” I replied.

He fixed me with a sharp eye.

“As a slave, you will prefix all remarks to free men with the word ‘master,”’ he said curtly. I nodded acquiescence and rephrased the answer I had already given.

My questioner seemed unimpressed with further data on my abilities as a swordsman, which rather surprised me. I was, in fact, a master-swordsman, thanks to the advanced theoretical knowledge and practical experience of the art acquired at the Academy Lukor. Swordsmanship is a rare and difficult skill, which virtually every Thanatorian gentleman had to study.

However, as became apparent, it was not considered particularly desirable for a slave to know too much of the art of fence.

I was next interrogated as to my proficiency with the skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. While I had in fact by now managed to acquire a working knowledge of the reading and writing of the Thanatorian charactery, my grasp was of the fundamentals only, and I was almost completely ignorant of the arithmetical arts as practiced on Callisto. The interrogators also quickly ascertained that I had neither knowledge or experience in sailing ships or their navigation, nor in farming, gardening, manufacture, pottery-making, or in any of the arts and crafts.

They exchanged a glance with each other and shrugged.

Then they passed a note along to the auctioneer on his elevated platform.

“Lot M-7709140-Gi3,” he announced in his stentorian voice. “Name, Darjan. Homeland, the United States of America. Captured when fallen overboard from a Zanadarian vessel off the shores of the Corund Laj. Age, about thirty. Skills, swordsmanship; no others. Physical condition, quite fit, but probably not heavy enough in back and shoulders for galley oarsman or farmer.”

High above, on the cushioned benches, my captor, Lord Chain, frowned busily over a bundle of documents, listening with half an ear. He now raised his eyes, looked me over, and shrugged.

“He has no needed skills. Add him to the Tribute.”

There can be few circumstances in life more humiliating than to stand on the slave block and have one’s various skills and qualifications summed up, only to learn that they total precisely nothing.

The situation would have been amusing bad it not been so fraught with unknown danger. That these practical, hardheaded businessmen of Perushtar should reject as unfit for any known occupation a man of my extraordinary breadth of experience upon two planets was a blow to my ego, which is as healthy as that of any man. That I, who had ventured alone into the cloud-girt city of Zanadar, to rescue from the very stronghold of Prince Thuton the beautiful princess of Shondakor―I, who had braved a thousand perils, who had penetrated under disguise the secret councils of the Black Legion, who had battled and adventured my way across half a planet ere now, and who had won the love of the Ku Thad nation, the admiration of a loyal band of trusted comrades, and the heart of the most beautiful woman in two worlds―should be ranked among the human rejects and discards, set aside by the oligarchs of Narouk as of no worth and value, was a devastating injury to my self-esteem.

Nevertheless, while I gaped in astonishment over my sentence, guards hustled me from the room to an adjoining pen wherein were assembled a motley crew of the ill, the crippled, the witless, the deformed, the uncooperative, and the vicious. To this unappetizing company my person was added. My neck chain was secured to a link in the line. Then the guards left the chamber and I squatted helpless and seething with rage beside my fellow rejects.

To my left was a rheumy-eyed, bony-spanked old gaffer devoid of teeth, who wheezed and rattled as if every moment might he his last in this mortal sphere.

To my right was chained a witless, drooling incompetent, whose glazed, indifferent eyes and slack jaw denoted the state of a mindless vegetable.

And between these two prizes was chained Jandar of Callisto, hero of a thousand battles, and the greatest swordsman of two worlds.

Later on, once the sting of rejection wore off, I might well find the entire situation hilarious. At the moment, however, I boiled with resentment and vowed vengeance on the careless oligarchs of Narouk, who could not see a first-class fighting man when he stood before them.

Ere long my temper cooled somewhat and permitted apprehension to enter where anger had reigned.

I was assigned to the Tribute, to the nameless legion of doomed and desperate men whose fate was an enigma, and this was the peculiar and dreaded disposition of unwanted slaves whereof I had first heard but tantalizingly little, that time, early during my period of slavery, when I had by chance overheard the old slave Kenelon and the woman Imarra in conversation.

I recalled, with an inward shudder I give my reader leave to picture for himself, how Kenelon and Imarra had discussed the mysterious doom of those given over to the Tribute. And now I had good and sound reason to curse my caution. For, having acquired a morsel of information not intended for my ears, and which I deemed might be of value to me in the days ahead, I had refrained from asking Kenelon about the Tribute when the chance had been offered me.

Of course, I had then no way of knowing how swiftly my doom would be upon me. But, still, I now cursed myself for not simply asking him what it was all about when I had had the opportunity.

Toward what enigmatic destiny was I now impelled?

Tribute to whom―to what?

To the gore-drenched altars of some barbaric god? Or the torments of some savage race, whose invasion was delayed by offering of human tribute?

What was it that I was to be offered in tribute to?

No man knew. But I would soon be finding out―and by the hard way.

Together with the rest of this shambling horde of the crippled, the deformed, the idiotic, and the unfit, I was herded from the villa to an outdoor slave-pen on the edge of the city where we spent a miserable night huddled under cold and sleety skies, watched by a heavy guard of alert warriors.

And with morning we were on our way out of the city of Narouk, bound for an unknown destination and a mysterious doom.