Sky Pirates of Callisto

Chapter 10 I MAKE A NEW FRIEND

We were taken out of the city of Narouk in the manner which I have already described, and, chained together in a long line, guarded by a dozen Perushtarian soldiers astride war-thaptors, we marched all that day into the hill country that lay northwest of the Bright Empire.

We had not been informed as to the nature of our fate or the place of our destination. If my companions in misfortune were aware of these matters, I, at least, was still ignorant of them. And during the long march I busied my mind with puzzling on the problem. It was as good a method as any for managing to forget the ache of weary muscles and the thirst that the clouds of gray road dust roused in me.

That we were being sent as sacrifices to some mysterious gods I strongly doubted, although I could not of course be certain. While I have learned much of the ways of the various races of Thanator, they still have secrets I have not yet penetrated, and one of these was the nature of their religion.

With the possible exception of the Sky Pirates of Zanadar, whose technological achievements are of such an extraordinary nature that they cannot be considered to stand at the same cultural level as the other natives of Thanator, those of the civilization I have thus far encountered in the course of my wanderings and adventures on this strange and curious world are generally at the level of the Bronze Age.

This is true, for example, of the Golden City of Shondakor, and it is true also of the bandit armies called the Black Legion. As for the Bright Empire of Perushtar, it reminds me most of some of the Semitic civilizations of Earth’s antiquity―perhaps the Philistines or the Phoenicians or the Carthaginians.

As for Koja’s own people, the warriors of the Yathoon Horde, that tremendous clan of nomad warriors who roam and rule the Great Plains of Haratha to the south, they are more akin to the Mongols or the Tartars, the ferocious and hardy men who rode at the heels of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane to whelm the gates of Europe with a flood of gore.

The puzzle came in at this point, for it is a truism of the study of history, that such civilizations, at least on my own native world, have always been dominated by powerful priesthoods. Organized religious hierarchies are found among all such early barbaric cultures, but this, simply, is not true of the races of Thanator.

Which is not to say the Thanatorians do not have their gods; they do, and they call them “the Lords of Gordrimator,” Gordrimator being their name for the planet Jupiter, whose ocher-banded globe fills their night skies with its mighty shield.

But although the Thanatorians swear by these gods, they do not seem to worship them, or, if indeed they do, it is with rites and ceremonies so private that I have gone thus far in total ignorance of their very existence. For, in all my wanderings across the face of Callisto the Jungle Moon, never once have I discovered anything that resembled a temple or synagogue, shrine, or cathedral, and I have yet to encounter the Callistan equivalent of priest, bonze, lama, or rabbi.’

And, while my adventures have so filled my time that I have never found sufficient leisure to explore the native literatures of Thanator as fully as my curiosity might desire, I have neither found nor heard of anything remotely like a sacred scripture or a prophetic book or even a volume of prayers or mantras. In short, the peoples of Thanator are as devoid of a formal religion as it is possible for any civilization to be.

The chances that we were bound for a bloody altar, to be slaughtered as offering to some savage god, was, therefore, highly unlikely. What was far more reasonable an explanation for the term “the Tribute” was that we were hostages en route to some warlike or savage tribe on the borders of the Bright Empire―a ransom paid in human lives for the safety of those borders. I knew little or nothing about the political situation in this distant corner of the world, but the explanation seemed likely. That meant, therefore, that with every step I was traveling further and further away from any chance at partaking in the raid on Zanadar and the rescue from captivity of the woman I loved.

Every two hours we were given a rest halt. We had a chance to relieve nature by the side of the road and to restore our energy, for the guardsmen passed around oiled skins of sour-tasting but gloriously welcome water. Twice that long, endless day we were given food―slices of dried meat and huge chunks of coarse black bread, moistened with a little resinous wine. It was not the custom of the Perushtarians to starve or mistreat their slaves; we were, after all, worth money.

By nightfall we had penetrated very far into the hill country north of Ganatol and were now among the foothills of the White Mountains themselves. We made camp under the brilliant moons in a vast valley. The Perushtarian guardsmen had obviously made this journey before, and knew exactly what to do. Bonfires were lit in a huge circle. Stakes were driven deep into the soil in the center of this circle, and we slaves lay down on the earth to sleep, while the guards unrolled their pallets and took up guard stations about the bright-lit perimeter of the circle of fires. There was no opportunity to escape, and, in all candor, I was so exhausted from the all-day overland march that I fell asleep the instant I stretched out. We must have covered forty miles that day, and I have never walked so much in all my life.

The next day was an exact duplicate of the first, with the slight exception that it was even harder going. Every muscle in my body throbbed with agony and the effort to keep limping along took all of the manhood I could muster. Many of the slaves chained to us and bound for the Tribute could not keep up the pace. These were the old, the ill, the crippled, and a few surly types, doubtlessly discarded to join the Tribute because they were malingerers or troublemakers. Those who could not keep going were bundled on the pack-thaptors and rode in the rear. They received no food that night, and on the third day of the march, had learned to limp along somehow.

I began to think about my chances of escaping. Thus far we had been traveling more or less in the direction I secretly wanted to go, which was toward Zanadar. But surely at any time now we would be heading off in some other direction, and at that point I would want to make my attempt. On the third day of the march I began to keep my eyes open for an opportunity to get away. I watched the guards covertly, trying not to attract their attention. They were bored and rode along on their restive steeds, chatting and joking idly among themselves, not paying very much attention to we slaves.

Before long, I noticed that another man in the chain gang was doing much the same as I. Trudging along, his head down as if dispirited, he was sneaking covert glances to right and left, noting the bored and inattentive guards. He was a Perushtarian, with the bright, tomato-red skin of his people, and the bald head, but whereas most Perushtarians tend to run to fat, he was powerfully built, without an ounce of superfluous weight.

Although no taller than myself―he came up to my chin, in fact―the fellow had broad, sloping shoulders, sheathed in massive thews, powerful hands, and bowed but sturdy legs. He looked like a dwarfed Hercules, and his features, when I got a good look at them, appealed to me. For while he was a remarkably ugly man, with a broad, lipless slash of a mouth, a thick neck, and heavy, scowling brows, his eyes were quick and bright with intelligence, and there was an untamed truculence in the set of his grim jaw. In short, he looked like a good comrade to have on your side in a fight.

That night I contrived to get myself chained next to him. This was a simple matter. We were unchained to relieve ourselves and receive rations, and were chained again for sleeping in whatever sequence we had fallen into. I jostled my way next to him when the time came for the guards to snap the night chains on our slave collars. And I was correct in my guess as to the squat, powerful, ugly little man’s intelligence. For he noticed what I did and shot me a thoughtful, searching glance from under scowling brows. I grinned frankly and openly back at him, as if to say “That’s right―I did it deliberately.”

While the guardsmen got us settled down for the night I let him look me over. He could see that I was healthy and fit and alert enough, and from my demeanor he could doubtless ascertain that I was not one of the many whose fighting manhood has been drained from them by the condition of servitude. Once the guards were bedded down, at some distance away, I spoke to him in a low tone, without moving my lips.

“You look strong. Are you strong enough to break these chains?”

“Maybe,” he growled back. “You look like a man with some guts still left in you. Got enough to make a break for it, if we get a chance?”

I nodded. “My name is Darjan,” I said.

“Mine is Ergon,” he replied. “Where did you get that yellow hair?”

“From my mother,” I said; then, with a glance at his bald bullet-head―`Where did you get yours’?”

He grinned, and with that grin I liked the man. For his ugly froglike face, which normally wore a sullen and truculent expression, lightened when he smiled, and humor sparkled in his eyes. I wondered who he was, and how he had kept his courage and humor and self-esteem during a lifetime of slavery. I longed to learn lids story, but just then one of the guards yelled at us to stop talking, and we exchanged one silent grin, rolled over, and slept.

The next day we were chained together and managed to converse in low tones during the long march, while the inattentive guards were not near.

I discovered that Ergon had, as I had first surmised, been born to slavery, but had been raised in an indulgent household by a master considerably more kind and humane than the normal run of slave-keepers in the Bright Empire.

He was not a native of Narouk at all, it seemed, but had been born in the capital of the Bright Empire itself, the city of Glorious Perusht, as they call it, on the island of the same name, amid the waters of the Corund Laj. The kindly master in whose household he had grown up was named Idolon. He must have been a curious oddity among the greedy, gold-hungry oligarchs of Perushtar, for he was more philosopher than merchant, and, although a remarkably wealthy man, more interested in adding to his superb collection of rare books than to the coins in his coffers.

This lord Idolon, it seemed, regarded the institution of slavery as a barbarity unworthy of a genuine civilization. In that opinion he must have been truly alone among his fellow merchant princes. At any rate, while he did not quite dare risk offending against caste and tradition by freeing his slaves, he encouraged them to consider themselves as the equals of free men, and to resist the spirit-sapping and dehumanizing degradations of their sorry state.

He did not last very long, it seems. A coalition of Perushtarian merchant lords ruined him, and drove him into bankruptcy, whereupon his possessions―including his slaves―went on the auction block. But Ergon, then a youth, remembered lord Idolon and did not take well to being resold. He escaped and, before being recaptured, managed to assassinate three of the five conspirators who had destroyed his master. Only his value as human merchandise prevented his captors from executing him. He was resold into Narouk, became the property of the House of Ildth, and underwent training as a public gladiator, due to his remarkable strength. But he proved sullen and unruly, and was sent many times to the whipping post for his infractions against the rules of his servitude. On the last such occasion he turned on his tormentor, broke his chains―and the neck of the man who wielded the whip. Since the Tribute had fallen on lord Cham that month, his owners, unwilling to tolerate such a dangerous man in the midst of their generally spineless collection of human cattle, sold him off at a low price to the Iskelions.

Having learned Ergon’s story, I told him my own―or, at least, a heavily censored version of it, which avoided any mention of my birth on another planet and my adventures against the Black Legion or the Sky Pirates. I explained to Ergon that my homeland lay far away, that I had been a wandering mercenary swordsman until I ended up at the slave wheels of a Zanadarian galleon, from which the treachery of a false friend had precipitated me into the waters of the Corund Laj. He grinned at this rather mysteriously.

“I rejoice to learn the House of Iskelion preserves the remnants of a sense of humor among their many possessions,” he growled. “The Zanadarians, I trust, will appreciate the jest as well!”

“The Zanadarians? I don’t understand you. What are you talking about?”

“Why, the Tribute, Darjan. What do you think I am talking about? You know we are both part of this month’s Tribute, do you not?”

I confessed I was aware of it. He shrugged, as if the connection was self-explanatory.

“Well, then,” he grunted.

“I’m afraid I still don’t get the point of the joke,” I admitted. “To tell the truth, I really don’t know anything about the Tribute. I have heard the term several times, but everybody seems to take it for granted that the meaning is obvious, and no one has yet bothered to explain it to me.”

He regarded me with blank amazement.

“Do you mean to say you don’t know where you are going?”

“I mean just that,” I said. “I assume―without any particular reason behind the assumption―that we are a sort of human ransom being sent to buy off some savage border tribe who would otherwise harass the caravans of Narouk. But what tribe or nation that may be, I have no notion.”

Ergon began to laugh.

“The caravans of Narouk would indeed be harassed, were not the Tribute paid,” he grunted. “Not by any `savage border tribe,’ but by a rapacious fleet dispatched by the Sky Pirates of Zanadar!”

My jaw fell, my cheeks crimsoned, and I feel certain I presented an expression of slack-jawed idiocy as Ergon’s words and their import penetrated my skull.

“You cannot mean=”

“But certainly,” he growled. “Where else would the Tribute be bound for, if not to Zanadar, the City in the Clouds?”

Chapter 11 THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS

Even had I still wished to make a break with Ergon, the last opportunity to do so had escaped us. For within the hour we were herded off the road to a rounded knoll barren of trees or other encumbrances. Then, while I watched with a mingling of emotions I give my reader free rein to imagine for himself, there descended upon us from the sky a gigantic ornithopter.

Obviously, we had been bound for this rendezvous all along. The humor inherent in the situation would have been almost enjoyable, had not my predicament been so hazardous. For I had been stealthily scrutinizing the roadside by some chance to escape from my captivity and had been busy striking up acquaintances with promisingly burly-shouldered fellow slaves in order to make my way to Zanadar in time to assist in the rescue of the Princess Darloona―when all the time, unknown to myself, I was being safely and carefully escorted to Zanadar itself. It was really very funny, when you looked at it that way.

The abruptness with which we were met by the transport galleon relieved me of a possible embarrassment. For how could I possibly have explained to Ergon that I no longer desired to make my escape with him or anyone else? I have no doubt the surly, suspicious fellow would either have considered me mad or a sort of agent provocateur, planted by the Perushtarian oligarchate to nose out mutiny and disaffection among the slaves.

As it was, however, the opportunity we were awaiting simply did not present itself in time, so we had to abandon our planned escape and await what the future would bring.

The Zanadarian vessel that descended to take aboard the Tribute was not a frigate such as were the Jalathadar and the Kajazell―where they had the slim, sharp lines of a striking hawk, this vessel―the Huronoy was its name—had the portly, lumbering, rotund look of a freighter―which is exactly what it turned out to be.

It is a tricky matter, maneuvering the weightless ornithopters into anything resembling a landing, and whoever was in charge of the Huronoy on this voyage, certainly knew his business, for he brought the lumbering freighter down to take aboard his human cargo with a deft ease that was all the more admirable when you recall the fierce and unpredictable up-drafts that plague navigation over this rugged country.

Large double doors opened in the hull. A gangplank descended, and we were herded up it in a double line, while bored Naroukian guardsmen numbered us off and a bewhiskered and very piratical-looking Zanadarian skipper checked over his bill of lading. As there was just the slightest chance that some member of the crew might have recognized me by my unique combination of fair skin, blue eyes, and straw-blond hair, from my earlier visit to the City in the Clouds, I had already taken the precaution of affecting some slight disguise to hamper recognition. I had, in fact, done so just as soon as we were brought up the rounded knoll and the Huronoy came into view aloft.

It was not a very effective disguise; however, I did not think I would arouse any notice or suspicion by donning it. Many of my fellow-slaves, during the long trek, had covered their heads or faces with scraps of cloth torn from their garments, in order to avoid breathing in the gray dust that rose in choking clouds around us as we trudged that long and dusty road. I had merely torn off a thick strip of cloth from the bottom of my tunic and wound it about my brows so that it concealed my yellow thatch, leaving one end dangling loose, which could be drawn to cover my face upon need, as I drew it when Ergon and I were being taken up the gangplank.

No one noticed―or, at least, no one that mattered. For I saw that Ergon turned a puzzled, questioning glance upon me as I covered my face. The rude disguise should have been sufficient to conceal my identity. As for the clear bronze tan of my skin, there was nothing I could do to disguise that, and luckily it was not so remarkably different from the norm as were my yellow locks. The Thanatorians differ very greatly in their variety of skin colors, from the swarthiness of the Chac Yuul, the papery-whiteness of the Zanadarians, the tawny amber of the Ku Thad, and the brilliant scarlet of the Perushtarians. But intermarriage between these ethnic groupings is far from unusual: Lukor and the people of his city of Ganatol, for example, represent an off shoot of half-breeds born to marriages between members of the Zanadarian and Chac Yuul groups―and many shades and tones and variations of coloring are commonly found among the lower classes of each civilization, so I hoped my tan skin would pass scrutiny.

The cargo hold was capacious, if not exactly a model of luxury. Stretched out beside the sullen Ergon, I contemplated my future in a rather dismal mood. It seemed most likely that during the several days of my captivity since Ulthar had tipped me overboard, the Jalathadar would have completed its mission. By now, surely, my comrades had either failed or succeeded in the desperate attempt to rescue Darloona from the stronghold of the villainous Prince Thuton. By now, Valkar, Koja, Lukor, and the others were either on their return voyage to Shondakor with the princess, or in their graves or the prison cells of Zanadar. Either way, my position looked hopeless from all I could tell. I would reach Zanadar safely, that I knew, but too late to join my comrades in victory or die beside them in defeat.

Chained in the hold, I saw nothing of the capital of the Sky Pirates when we descended ere long to a landing in the docks. We were led out across the long quays of hewn stone, scoured by a merciless wind that whipped rock dust in our eyes. I had one brief glimpse of soaring pylons and impregnable fortress walls before my captors plunged me again into gloom, this time the gloom of the slave pens. We were led to troughs of water and told to remove as much of the road dust from our persons as we could, then we were led to the block in a huge echoing room where several important-looking officials awaited our coming to apportion us to our tasks.

Slaves are not bought and sold in Zanadar, they are assigned.

The younger of the men examining us was a hard-faced, cold-eyed young man with a pallid, greasy, unhealthy complexion, nattily dressed in vivid silk pajamas and gauntlets sewn with brilliant gems. He was not impressed with our appearance.

“A sorry-looking lot, Thon,” he observed. “Just look at them. Half of them are toothless grandfathers ready for the grave, the others either drooling cretins or hollow-chested invalids dying from the coughing fever. Narouk must learn to do better than this, or the Council of Captains may level a punitive expedition against the city.”

The man he had addressed as Thon was a barrel-chested, hearty-looking man in his middle forties, graying at the temples, with a firm jaw and an air of command about him. He wore a simple leather tunic, greaves and girdle, and a large hooded cloak of bottle-green. The gaily dressed aristocrat who surveyed us with such high-bred scorn pressed a pomander ball to his nostrils as if to alleviate some fancied stench.

“Well, one or two of them look likely enough material,” Theon said gruffly, singling out both Ergon and myself with his eyes. “Yonder dog with the tan skin has a good physique, and the red-skin at his side would make a good maceman. I’ll take those two and you can have your pick of the rest, my lord.”

“How like you, Thon, to pick out the likeliest of the lot for your precious corps,” sniffed the one in silk pajamas. “I like the looks of the tan-skinned oaf myself―he stands tall and has an air of breeding about him. A touch of the gelding wire to cow his spirits, and he would make a rather handsome servant.”

My blood ran cold at his words. The most horrible thing about it all was not so much what he said, although God knows that was grim enough, but the negligent, casual manner in which he said it. It was as if be was discussing some dumb animal, not a human being like himself.

The older man shrugged.

“Mayhap, my lord. But my need takes priority over your requirements. For the prince will have his entertainments, as you know, and I am short two good men.”

The languid young man waved his pomander ball with a disdainful small moue of pique.

“Oh, very well, take them. I will have to make do with the best of what is left, I suppose … .”

The burly, graying man exchanged a few curt words with the clerks, scribbled something on a roll of parchment, affixed a seal ring to dripping wax, and led both Ergon and me apart from the others. My Perushtarian friend glanced at me with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Well, Darjan, at least we will still be together!”

“Yes,” I nodded. “And perhaps we can still arrange an escape

“No talking, you two,” one of the guards growled, cuffing me lightly alongside the head. “Step lively, now. The gamesmaster is a busy man and does not like to be kept waiting.”

Our new owner was Gamesmaster of Zanadar, which meant he was in charge of the management of the great arena and supervisor of the spectacles and entertainments performed there regularly. For the Zanadarians, much like the Romans before them, delight in sport, and there is no sport more exciting than men fighting for their lives. This was to be our fate, it seemed.

Our quarters lay beneath the great arena itself, which lay at one end of the city, beneath an enormous dome of crystal panes in a natural cuplike depression in the rock, perhaps the crater of a long-extinct volcano. A virtual labyrinth of tunnels and passages, rooms and suites and cubicles, had been hollowed out of the soft, lavalike rock below the sandy floor of the arena. There the trained fighting men and the ferocious beasts against which they were pitted were kept.

Our training began almost immediately. Gamesmaster Thon interviewed us briefly to form an estimate of our skills. I told him I was an excellent swordsman, but, oddly enough, he frowned at this and did not seem at all pleased with the news. I later learned that sword fights are not given in the arena for two reasons. For one thing, they are not very spectacular. The spectators in the top tiers demand something a little more active and exciting than watching two men standing face to face flickering thin steel blades at each other.

The other reason is that a slave armed with a sword is a dangerous man and might well slay his guards and attempt an escape.

So, instead of a sword I was given a spear and sent to train with the other keraxians, or spearmen. There was not much chance of a slave armed with a spear running amok or making a break for freedom. The spears we used were Harathian weapons, such as those employed by the Yathoon huntsmen of the southern plains. They are fifteen feet long, shod in heavy bronze, and cumbersome as well as awkward.

Because of his burly shoulders and deep chest, my friend Ergon was assigned to the tharians, or ax-men, who fight with the enormous bronze double-bladed mace, which is the weapon of choice among a people known as the Kumalians. One needed to have iron thews to employ such a weapon, for the Kumalian mace weighs thirty pounds and, including the shaft, measures nearly five feet in length.

We saw very little of each other, Ergon and I, in the next few days, because our trainers kept us busy from dawn to dark, and our labors were exhausting. The reason for this accelerated program was that we were to fight in the very next games, which were only a few days away. The Zanadarians are a cruel, lusty people who love fighting and vastly enjoy seeing men pitted in a desperate struggle against savage beasts or sometimes even more savage men and any excuse for the games is valid in their eyes. These particular games, for example, were being held for no more reason than an expected eclipse in which two of the Jovian satellites were to meet in a rare conjunction. On the night of the “great games,” as the festival of death was called, Ramavad would be eclipsed behind Imavad.

Ramavad, or Europa, is a luminous globe of frosty azure-silver, while Imavad, or Ganymede, is a deep crimson. The symbolism is obvious: in the peculiar mysticism of the Thanatorians, Ramavad represents the purity and holiness of life, while Imavad stands for blood and death and destruction. And the games to be held on this night of blood would be, I was told, appropriately sanguinary.

The training given us keraxians was simple, but, I trusted, effective. The great black jaruka-wood spears were all we would have wherewith to fight our adversaries, and the trouble was we could not be certain in advance as to which of the dreadful predators of the Callistan jungles we would be set against.

The consensus of opinion among the other keraxians of my team was that we would be sent out to fight a pride of savage deltagars. The deltagar may be described as a twenty-foot-long supertiger with scarlet fur and a lashing, whiplike tail edged with jagged serrations or horny blades. The beast is noted for his ferocity even among the terrible monstrosities of this jungle Moon, and much to my surprise my fellow gladiators did not seem to regard the deltagar as a particularly vicious opponent. This, I found out, was due to the fact that while a furious fighter, the deltagar can indeed be slain by such spears as we would be armed with, as only a coat of fur protected its vital organs from our bronze blades.

My fellow keraxians would have been most uneasy had they thought they might be sent out against yathribs, for these are far more dangerous and not so easily killed with spears. Yathribs are dragon cats of the Grand Kumala, whose rippling, steely-thewed catlike bodies are armored in glittering emerald scales, which pale to tawny yellow at the belly plates. Their feet are armed with slashing bird claws, and a row of jagged spines runs down their tails to the lashing tip. Being more reptilian than mammalian, and sheathed in tough, flexible scales, they are considerably harder to kill than deltagars.

I, frankly, burst into cold perspiration at the thought of fighting against either brute, armed only with a wooden spear. A bazooka or a satchel of fragmentation grenades would have been my choice had I been consulted in the matter.

In time I did get a chance to compare notes with my partner in misfortune, Ergon. We encountered each other on the third day of our training, when we were being drilled in the ceremonial march around the vast bowl-shaped stadium. During a rest period, I sauntered over to where he squatted and clapped him affectionately on the shoulder. He grinned up at me, his froglike face gleaming with perspiration. In this strange theater of death, among hosts of strangers, it was good to find a friend you knew.

“How are the keraxians?” he inquired. “I understand you will be set against a pride of deltagars brought hither from the jungle country.”

“So the barracks gossip has it,” I replied. “And how are things among the tharians? What manner of beast will you be fighting?”

“The prevailing opinion among my peers is that they will send vastodons against us,” he said, naming the great elephant boar of the jungles. The brute has the slate-gray leathery hide of the terrestrial pachyderm, but the head more closely resembles that of the wild boar, with its little pig-eyes, coarse black bristles, long, prehensile snout, and blunt, vicious tusks. They are wicked fighters and dangerous because, while large and heavy, they are also very fast and charge like lightning. I commiserated with him.

“And, as for the rest of your query,” he grimaced, rubbing his shoulder muscles, “things are about as usual among the tharians. The maces we are armed with seem to grow heavier every day, and I am discovering muscles I did not even know I possessed. I discover them chiefly,” he said in wry tones, “when they begin to ache!”

I laughed. He was regarding me with a curious expression in his eyes.

“You have taken to covering your hair, I see,” he remarked.

“Why, yes, Ergon. No particular reason, except that everyone seems to find my yellow hair so unusual that, just to spare further questions as to my homeland, I have adopted this mode of headgear,” I said. The fact of the matter was that I went in deadly fear of being recognized. Many of the members of Prince Thuton’s court visited the training fields to watch us work out, and I feared lest one of these sports buffs might recognize me from my earlier exploits here in the City in the Clouds. So I had adopted a light linen headdress, similar to that worn of old by the Pharaohs of Egypt, which covered my hair and shaded my eyes to make their blueness less noticeable. I had explained this unusual hair―covering as one worn by ancient custom among my people, and the spearmaster had no reasons to refuse me this small courtesy.

Ergon smiled rather cryptically, but said nothing.

Then he dropped his bombshell.

“Among my team members there are several that once served among the Chac Yuul,” he said casually. “They relate a marvelous account to explain how the Black Legion was driven forth from the city of Shondakor the Golden, and in particular they are full of stories about a remarkable adventurer with yellow hair and blue eyes and light skin, a fellow named Jandar.”

I cleared my throat. “Oh?”

“Yes. According to them, this Jandar is a singularly heroic fellow. Disguised as a mercenary swordsman, formerly in service to one of the Perushtarian Seraans, he entered Shondakor alone when it was in the hands of the Black Legion, joined the legion and worked his way up to a position of command and single-handedly rescued the Princess Darloona from a forced marriage with the despicable son of the chief warlord of the Black Legion.°”

“These things are always exaggerated in the telling,” I said, with a poor semblance of indifference.

“Oh, doubtless,” smiled Ergon. “This Darloona, by the way, is the same young woman who is now held prisoner here in Zanadar, and upon whom Prince Thuton is pressing his suit. Like most other leaders, Prince Thuton refuses to learn a lesson from past history, evidently. For the story runs that this Jandar is still alive, and if I were in Prince Thuton’s place, I would carefully avoid forcing a marriage upon this Princess Darloona. For the last time she was in such a position, this Jandar fellow overthrew the entire Black Legion to free her. To one who has already conquered the Black Legion, the Sky Pirates themselves should not prove very difficult an obstacle to overcome.”

I looked steadily into his eyes, abandoning all pretence of indifference.

“Just what is it that you are trying to say, Ergon?” I asked quietly.

He smiled. “Nothing, really. Except that I keep my mouth closed on the secrets of those few whom I call my friends. And one thing more…”

“What is that?”

“If this Jandar should happen to make an appearance here in Zanadar, by any chance, I would be proud to stand at his side with naked steel in my hands and fight against his foes. To the death, friend Darjan. To the death!”

Then the guards came, marshaling us into ranks again, and I had no opportunity to reply to his vow. But we did exchange one long, deep look, into each other’s eyes, and when we parted, my heart felt somewhat lightened.

For in my coming battle, I now had at least one ally.

Chapter 12 THE FESTIVAL OF DEATH

As well as Ergon of Perusht, I had one other friend in Zanadar, and that was one of my fellow keraxians, a warrior named Zantor. He was a native-born Zanadarian, with the papery-white skin and lank hair and jet-black eyes of his race. A towering broad-shouldered giant of a man was Zantor, and a man of brooding sorrow and grim, sullen moods.

He had once been one of the Sky Pirates. In fact, he had been a great chieftain among the Captains of the Clouds, as the corsair princes of Zanadar are known. At the helm of his galleon, the Xaxar―“the Terror”―he had been famed among the Sky Pirates as much for his phenomenal good fortune as for his unusual traits, for among the cruel and rapacious sky hawks of Zanadar, it was Zantor alone who had a sense of honor and chivalry, a dislike for the indiscriminate shedding of blood, and a stern sense of justice, tempered with mercy.

From this position of high repute he had at length fallen, and his fall was due in large measure to this gentler side of his nature. For he had unwisely objected to the brutal slaughter of three hundred rebellious slaves during an uprising in the arena slave pens only six months before. He had dared criticize the justice of Prince Thuton himself and had petitioned him for mercy on behalf of the slaves. For this gesture of civilized restraint, Thuton had cynically stripped him of all rank and honor, chaining him among the arena slaves, with the cynical observation that if Zantor so bemoaned the death of the rebels, he was welcome to die among them.

But Zantor had not died. He had fought against savage men and wild beasts thirteen times in the great games of Zanadar, and each time he had survived the ordeal among the victors. For this he had become something of a hero even to the Sky Pirates themselves, who would otherwise, taking their cue from the attitude of their prince, have despised him as a milky-livered coward. But even the cruel Captains of the Clouds could not but feel admiration for so mighty a fighting man as Zantor. In all the annals of Zanadar, he was the only gladiator in a thousand years to have fought bare-handed against a ferocious bull yathrib, slaying the monster, and surviving to tell the tale.

While most of his former friends ridiculed him for what they considered his unmanly concern for the lives of slaves which were, after all, mere human cattle, and delighted in his fall from favor, the dignity with which Zantor had comported himself during his new career in the arena and the remarkable bravery and prowess he had displayed had won him many admirers―much to the annoyance of Prince Thuton and his sycophantic courtiers.

I at first regarded Zantor with some revulsion myself and rebuffed his overtures of friendship with a certain coolness. Even a Sky Pirate fallen from favor and condemned to death in the arena is still a Sky Pirate, I reasoned, and partook of the collective guilt of his people. But Zantor’s quiet dignity won me to reluctant admiration in time, and, as well, I learned from the other arena slaves that when he had been one of the great corsair captains, Zantor of the Xaxar had been noted for his generosity, his concern for the fighting men under his command, and the restraint and mercy he commonly displayed toward all those he defeated in battle. At length, reflecting that few men can help adopting the standards of the society into which they are born and that even among the cruel and rapacious Sky Pirates, Zantor had somehow learned the gentler traits of civilized humanity, I warmed toward him, regretting my former rebuffs. We became fast friends.

From my new comrades, I learned much concerning those topics whose importance was uppermost in my mind. The Princess Darloona, I discovered, to my hearty relief, was still unwed, although Prince Thuton had exerted much pressure to win her hand, threatening a full-scale attack against her kingdom if she continued to resist his suit. I also inquired carefully and unobtrusively as to the Jalathadar. By any count, the aerial galleon should have launched its attack against the City in the Clouds many days before. To my astonishment, I learned that this had not happened. No one whom I queried had heard the slightest rumor of a captive vessel being employed against Zanadar in a Trojan Horse maneuver―and the grapevine among the slaves of the Sky Pirates is a most highly developed intelligence network. If Prince Thuton so much as got a headache from too heartily imbibing in the fruit of the vine, precise details were commonly available to every slave in the city within the hour. Had any such attack been launched―had even a patrol ornithopter encountered and given battle to or destroyed such a vessel in the vicinity―it would have been common knowledge.

My heart sank with despair. I could only conclude from this that the expedition had somehow come to grief after the treachery of Ulthar precipitated me into the waves of the Corund Laj. With so cunning and patient a Judas aboard, it was easy enough to see how the Jalathadar could have been downed. Perhaps it had collided with a mountain peak during the hours of darkness; perhaps it had been carried off course into the frozen north, there to meet a lonely doom among the ice plains. Whatever had been the fateful end of the gallant expedition, I mourned the loss of my friends and faced the future with grim foreboding.

Now I alone was left to aid my beloved princess. And there seemed little enough that I, a slave condemned to die in the great arena, could do to free her from the clutches of Prince Thuton. It looked as if my long and adventurous odyssey was coming to an end at last, and that Darloona’s last frail hope for freedom would perish before her eyes in the festival of death.

The day came at last. We were given a light but hearty meal of excellent steak and strong red wine, and, garbed in fighting-harness, we trooped forth into the vast amphitheater to fight for our lives.

It was a brilliant day. The smoothly raked sands of the arena were bathed in floods of daylight. Above us arched the clear, sparkling glass panes of the enormous geodesic dome that shielded the throng from the bitterly cold winds blowing at this height. Tier on tier of benches, ringed in the arena floor like the bleachers of some barbaric football stadium, were crowded with a sea of faces, for most of the lords and nobles of Zanadar and their women had turned out in their holiday finery to watch us fight and die this day for their pleasure.

The royal box was only a few tiers above the retaining wall that encircled the floor of the arena and protected the audience from the savage beasts, the rebellious slaves, or both. There, enthroned in a cushioned chair beneath a canopy of sky-blue silk, Prince Thuton lolled at ease, a coldly handsome young man with cynical, indifferent, hooded eyes and a cruel mouth.

At his side sat Darloona!

My heart stopped as I saw her. It had been so long since last I had looked upon her ripe loveliness. Although her face had haunted my dreams through an endless succession of nights and days, the sight of her choked the breath in my throat and brought moisture to my eyes. She was so very beautiful. The weeks of her imprisonment had not dimmed the radiance of her slanting emerald eyes nor tarnished the sunset glory of her red-gold mane, nor had they daunted her proud, courageous spirit. She sat icily aloof, next to Thuton’s cushioned chair, but apart from him in queenly isolation. Her head was high, her expression inscrutable, her mouth stubborn. How much I loved her at that moment! Gladly would I have laid down my life to set her free from her despicable imprisonment, but, alas, it seemed the mocking Fates would have me spend my heart’s blood on the baking sands of the arena, locked in futile and meaningless struggle with some jungle beast and all for the callous amusement of the cruel, blood-lusting Zanadarians.

Thon the Gamesmaster, in a gilded chariot drawn by a superb matched team of rare snow-white thaptors, led us on full parade as the games commenced. We trudged the entire circuit of the amphitheater twice, saluted before the royal box, receiving a negligent wave of Thuton’s bejeweled hand. Then we retired to the pits beneath the arena as the festivities began in earnest.

First came the chariot races, in which champions selected from four teams vied with each other for the prize of a gold chaplet which Thuton would bestow on the victor. In this contest, the Royal Blues were the favorite, although the Reds and the Silvers were close contenders for second place. The Zanadarians found enormous excitement in chariot races, as had the Romans and the Byzantines of my own world, and the grandstands were divided into parties of those who favored each color. Indeed, as Glykon of the Blues, champion of the team favored by most, entered the arena the cheers and applause were so thunderous some feared the glass dome that sheltered the stands from the frigid winds would crack from the rebounding echoes.

The chariot races filled up most of the morning. With noon, the audience munched picnic lunches or purchased food from vendors who hawked their wares through the aisles. And, with their food, the Zanadarians liked a little fresh-spilled blood for sauce, so the first gladiators emerged from the Gate of Heroes, as the barred portal was called, to do battle for their noontime pleasure.

There were, as I have said, two varieties of gladiatorial combat, the keraxians, or spearmen, and the tharians, who were armed with axes. Those of us who were arena slaves were considered mere games fodder, good for little more than a gory death. But there were star gladiators among us who occupied a privileged position in the games―mighty champions, each of whom had his own particular following and his own colors. Zantor was the only one of these I knew personally, for they were a snobbish lot and enjoyed special privileges. They had their own private suites of apartments in the pits, instead of bunking in the common barracks with the rest of us, and it was amusing in a way to see them strutting about in gilt breastplates, greaves, and plumed helms, with all the arrogance of conquerors, although, they were slaves and really no different from the rest of us. Some of them, however, such as Prince Thuton’s pet, Panchan, lived in apartments of sumptuous and silken luxury, dined off gourmet delicacies sent from the Prince’s own table on plates of precious metal, had female slaves for their own pleasure, and lived bedecked with gems as if they were princes themselves.

This Panchan was the greatest of the champions, and was reckoned a superb swordsman. I have said that the Sky Pirates feared to arm the arena slaves with weapons less cumbersome than spears or maces, and this is true. Panchan was the sole exception to this rule. He was a surly, girlishly handsome young giant with a magnificently developed golden body he liked to display to the admiring throng. Where most gladiators sensibly protected themselves with cuirass, greaves, gauntlets, helm, and mail skirt, this golden young god of the great games fought nearly naked, wearing but sandals, a browband to keep his abundant mane out of his eyes, and a narrow strip of scarlet silk wound about his loins. The crowd adored him and Thuton had several times offered him his freedom after a particularly brilliant victory, but Panchan preferred the idolatry of the arena to the dubious hazards of freedom. To him alone was given the rare honor of dispatching his victims with a rapier.

Although none of us could stand Panchan for his sneering airs of supercilious superiority and the effeminate luxury in which he lived, he was, to do him justice, a great fighting man and well deserved the admiration his prowess had earned him. For he was one of the few gladiators who could use spear or ax with equal dexterity. Sometimes, during the grand melee which generally crowned the evening of the games, he fought with the keraxians, other times, with the tharians―always he displayed the adroit facility and graceful agility of form that marked him as a great champion. There had developed considerable rivalry between him and my new friend Zantor, however. No one quite knew how this rivalry had gotten started in the first place, although perhaps it began, quite simply, because Zantor was free-born and a former master-corsair of the realm, while Panchan, for all his champion status, had been born a lowly arena slave.

Or Panchan’s hatred of Zantor might have been caused by the merely human fear of a successful rival. For when Zantor had first entered in the arena, be had been booed and hissed, but before long his great courage and dignity and fighting skills had won him the applause of the fickle throng, until by now his popularity rivaled that of Panchan himself. At any rate, Zantor bad been trained to fight in my own team, the keraxians, and from his first appearances in the ranks of the gladiatorial spearmen, Panchan had fought with the tharians exclusively. The two rivals had fought in personal contests many times, but always Zantor, although an older and heavier man, bad managed to hold his own against the spoiled, sullen, golden young god of the games. Which, doubtless, had added fresh poison to the rancor in Panchan’s heart.

With noon, as I said earlier, the gladiatorial contests began. The first of these were team battles, in which six or eight keraxians were pitted against an equal number of tharians.

None of the famous champions of either team deigned to partake in these opening engagements, which were in the nature of warm-up exercises anyway, and which consisted of hastily trained arena slaves who were quite expendable. But I noticed Zantor in the sidelines, carefully observing how his teammates fought and urging us on with his counsel as much as by the heartening influence of his presence.

I fought in three of the six opening contests and managed to acquit myself decently. The spear has never been my weapon, but I had learned enough of its use to defend myself quite adequately. And defend myself is about all I did, I must confess. I am perfectly willing to fight and to kill in defense of my own life and honor and to protect my friends and loved ones, but it sickened me to seek the acclaim of the throng by murdering a man who has done me no harm and whom I cannot consider my enemy. So I merely defended myself against the ax men who were pitted against me and did not seek to slay them. My opponents in general seemed to feel the same way about the matter, and once they learned I had no intention of striving to strike through the weak places in their defense, we merely exchanged blows until the Gamesmaster terminated the contest.

The afternoon was well advanced by this time, and the rather lackluster performance of these opening contests bored the crowd, who began booing us lustily and even, in some cases, pelting us with scraps of food from their lunches. Noting the restive nature of the throng, the Gamesmaster decided to change his schedule and set forth a grand melee before any of the garbage began being tossed his way. The melee, usually reserved for the final act of the games, is a great favorite with the Zanadarians and resembles a full-scale mock battle. Perhaps I should explain at this point that the great games generally last three or four days and feature a carefully balanced variety of entertainment. The first day, as I have described already, begins traditionally with chariot racing and continues with hand-to-hand combat between teams randomly selected from among the novice keraxians and tharians, ending, in early evening, with the grand melee. On the second day, the more expert members of both gladiatorial teams are pitted against wild beasts, either singly or en, masse; the third day, which usually terminates the games, features the personal contests of the champions, after a sequence of gory warm-up exercises in which each champion gets a chance to slaughter as many of the expendable arena slaves as he likes.

For the melee we were ranked in opposed hosts under a great show of banners and pennons emblazoned with the mock heraldries of imaginary or mythical cities. With much flourishing of trumpets, we charged. Unlike the opening contests, the melee was a serious affair in which each team or side was encouraged, under threat of death, to slaughter as many opponents as possible. Nonetheless, I still fought in the main to protect myself and kept rather close to the leader of my side, Zantor. My reason for doing so was a rumor which had reached my ears―a rumor that Panchan, on the express command of Prince Thuton, had vowed to slay his rival during the personal combat of the leaders of the hosts which was the ultimate highpoint of the entire affair.

And he had sworn to kill him “by fair means or by foul,” the rumor whispered. Well, Zantor and Ergon were the two best friends I had found here in Zanadar, and I was determined to do what I could to prevent treachery. I regarded my life as a thing of little importance at this low ebb of my fortunes. I would die, undoubtedly, at some point during these interminable bloody shows, and if die I must, I would prefer it be in a worthy cause.

To my mind there are few causes in life more worthy than friendship.

Keeping close to Zantor’s back, I fought my way through the mass of tangled, battling gladiators and spotted Ergon heading for me through the melee. I caught his eye and grinned and was somewhat surprised to see him plow directly for me with grim purposefulness. Surely, he did not mean to engage me. Although we fought on opposite sides, our friendship was such that neither of us would wish to engage the other in combat. I concluded he must have some special reason for seeking me out on this mock battlefield, and thus instead of avoiding the conflict, as I would otherwise have done, I permitted him to approach.

The ugly little Perushtarian swung his mace to engage and turn aside my spear-using, I noticed, the flat of the blade, rather than the edge, which might have snapped the shaft of my weapon, leaving me defenseless. Then, ducking under the spear, he dropped his mace and caught me in the bear hug of a wrestler.

As he did this be hissed loudly in my ear that we should fake a tussle. Wonderingly, I slipped out of his grasp, caught his bald bullet-head in the crook of my arm, and pretended to be strangling him violently.

“What in the world is all this about, Ergon?” I whispered.

“You are good friends with your team leader, the champion Zantor, are you not?” he inquired in a hoarse mutter. I nodded. He continued: “Well, that pretty boy, Panchan, is boasting how he’s going to mop up the arena with his corpse this afternoon. Maybe you can get word to your leader to be wary of trickery―something about a wine cup, I don’t know what.”

“I will certainly do as you suggest,” I replied. “But what is Zantor to you that you wish to save him?”

He shrugged. “He is nothing to me. But by all reports he is a gentleman and a man of honor. I despise Panchan, that gilded boy-lover, and hate to see him down the better man by vile cunning. Now throw me clear when I give the word―first, let me stoop to get my ax―now!”

I whirled him about and released him, making it look as if he had broken free by main force. He staggered away and vanished in the mass of struggling men, and no one, I am convinced, was the wiser. I looked about, craning my head over the embattled throng, searching for Zantor. And found him―face to face with Panchan, in the moment of challenge!

Bugles blew, ringing above the tumult, calling the throng’s attention to the duel of champions. Panchan, his glorious golden body stripped naked save for scarlet loin-silk and narrow-strapped sandals, postured gracefully to the admiring crowd, held up his hand and proposed to drink a toast with Zantor to the victor in their contest. It was a noble gesture and the crowd applauded wildly. The leader of the tharians had brought a flask of wine and twin gold goblets, and while Zantor stood waiting with impassive mien, leaning upon his spear, the other deftly filled both goblets and proffered one of them to the leader of the spearmen with a smirk.

And suddenly I understood the import of the words Ergon had brought to me=`something about a wine cup.” And terror smote me. For I knew beyond any doubt that there would be a potent drug in the wine cup from which Zantor would drink. A drug that would not take effect until the combat had been underway for some few minutes. A drug that would weaken or befuddle him, making him easy prey for the mace of Panchan, or for the slim, gold-hilted rapier that was his pride.

Desperately, I forced my way through the grunting, cursing press of embattled warriors, using elbows and knees to squeeze through to the place where Panchan and Zantor stood facing each other, cup in hand. As I fought my way through the mass of men they were just lifting their cups in a toast to each other.

There was no time for words or explanations. Lunging forward, I dashed the gold cup from Zantor’s hand. And as astounded silence fell over the arena. I stood there panting, sweating under the linen headdress that covered my yellow hair from view. Zantor regarded me with a puzzled expression. But Panchan was livid with rage, his wet mouth working, eyes glaring wildly, as enraged as if it had been from his hand that I had rudely dashed the goblet.

In the next instant he raised his mace and sprang at me with a lithe, tigerish bound. Perhaps he wished to silence me as soon as possible, before I could accuse him before the arena of treacherously attempting to drug or poison his opponent.

At any rate, I found myself fighting for my life―against the most feared champion among all the gladiators of Zanadar!