Sky Pirates of Callisto

Chapter 13 DARJAN―UNMASKED!

Defending myself as best I could, I backed away from Panchan’s furious assault. Over his shoulder I saw Zantor looking on, his face blank with amazement at this turn of events. The battle around us stilled; the stands were a silent wall of frozen faces and staring eyes. But I was far too busy just keeping myself alive to think of anything else.

The mace of the gladiators is a heavy, cumbersome weapon which requires considerable strength of wrist to wield with any particular agility. In the hands of Panchan, though, the steel ax seemed light as a feather. It whistled shrilly, slicing the air, as he wove it in a deadly figure-eight in the air between us. It was not long before my clumsy efforts to ward off his singing blows came to grief: the glittering edge bit deep in the hard black wood, chewing off splinters. And a moment later my spear shaft broke. Panchan had chopped it in two with a deft, backhand stroke―leaving me with a shaft of broken wood a little shorter than a broom handle to defend myself against the greatest warrior who ever fought in the arena of Zanadar.

In the stands above us, the throng sucked in its breath in gloating anticipation of the kill. The mighty Panchan had only been playing with me, and now he would close in for a quick kill―by some telepathy I could read this in their staring faces and hungry eyes. And, in truth, few men had ever stood up before Panchan the Golden as long; I cannot explain why had he had not already struck me down, unless it was that the rage that blazed in him blinded him and threw him off his timing somehow. Indeed, he was shaking with fury, and his eyes were quite mad with the rage that surges up in the pampered when they are unexpectedly deprived of a favorite toy. His working, loose-lipped mouth was smeared with spittle, and be was snarling and spitting like an infuriated cat. It would almost have been funny, if it had not been a matter of life and death.

Indeed, death was very near to me now―only seconds away. Another moment and he would catch the broken stub of my spear in the hook atop the bead of his mace and rip it from my grasp with a practiced twist of those iron wrists. Then it would fly up, that ax, and come whistling down to slake its scarlet thirst in my body.

There was nothing else to do―so I did the one thing Panchan could not have expected. I have often found, in moments of extreme danger, that the way out lies in doing something at total random―the last move anyone would anticipate. It has saved me from death before, this trick, and it saved me now.

Panchan advanced upon me, eyes flaming with greedy triumph, cutting the air between us with his singing blade. The only sensible and logical thing to do was to retreat cautiously, buying time, delaying the inevitable blow. Instead, 1 sprang forward and thrust the sharp, splintered tip o f my broken spear straight in his face.

I had timed it beautifully, waiting until the whirling ax had whistled past me, before darting in to thrust the splintered stub of my spear in Panchan’s startled face.

Taken completely off guard, he winced back, turning his sullen, pretty face away from the stabbing splinters. For a moment he lurched off guard―and in that moment I brought the butt of my spear around and cracked him across the forearm with a stinging blow. He screeched, loosening numb, tingling fingers, and the heavy mace went cartwheeling from his nerveless grasp to thud against the arena sands a dozen feet away.

I jabbed the broken end of my spear at him again, and this time a splinter caught and tore his girlishly smooth cheek, dragging a line of leaking scarlet down it to the angle of his jaw just beneath the ear. Panchan―bloodied!―by an ill-trained spear-slave, armed with a stick? The gasp of astonishment that burst from a thousand lips was clearly audible even above the thunder of my heart pounding like a frightened bird against the cage of my ribs.

His sulky face streaming with gore, distorted into a bloody, tigerish mask of rage, he sprang lithely backwards and whipped his gold-hilted rapier from its scabbard. The point sang toward me, dancing through the air, daylight flashing from its razory edge.

But now I was in my element, and he had ventured beyond the limits of his prowess. For he proved a clumsy novice with the blade, while I may claim without false modesty to be a master-swordsman. And, although I wielded but a broken shaft of wood, it was about the length and very nearly of the weight of the swords with which I had trained my skill to the heights of artistry. He swore and sweated and stamped; I turned aside every thrust, parried every wild swinging blow, with effortless ease. The arena roared with wild, yelling thunder. That day of days I gave them a show such as they had never seen.

As for Panchan, he was a sorry sight, his face a mask of blood, his splendid golden body streaming sweat, smeared with dust, and dribbling gore from many small wounds, for, from time to time, my wooden shaft slid through his guard to scratch his torso lightly. And the throng loved it alit I guess part of the pleasure in applauding a champion is a furtive, secret thrill of hope that he will fail, thus redeeming the common man’s instinctive fear and hatred or those superior to himself in some way or other. At any rate, Panchan’s fall from the heights of popularity was fast―and far.

The thing came to an abrupt end I had not planned. In truth, I had not thought past the moment, nor envisioned any way to end the duel; I had long since lost control of events, and moved from one event to the next as seemed best.

Panchan made a frenzied lunge at me. I knocked his rapier aside and drew back my arm for a return thrust when his foot slipped in the loose sand and he flung himself forward with all his weight, impaling himself on my broken spear. A deathly silence fell like a thunderclap. I bent to touch his breast, to pick up the sword he had let fall. He would need it no more: one long splinter had gone through his heart.

I rose to my feet in the echoing silence and lifted the sword of Panchan in the victory salute. And the throng went wild.

Prince Thuton loved it little, but the chaplet of victory was mine, and although he would far rather have condemned me to a pit of deltagars, no prince reigns long who denies his people their heroes. And I was the hero of the arena that day.

Grizzled Thon the Gamesmaster gestured me forward with his baton. I strode through the cheering keraxians of my team to the far wall, where guards were lowering a ladder for me to ascend to the royal box. The crowd roared itself hoarse, pelting me with ribands and bunches of flowers and gems. Still trailing in one hand the sword of Panchan the Golden, I strode my way, looking neither to right nor to left, and mounted the ladder to receive the gold chaplet from Thuton’s hand.

It went very much against my nature to kneel to him, but I thought it best that he should look only upon my linen headdress and averted features, rather than stand eye to eye, looking me full in the face. For Thuton of Zanadar had good reason to remember me.

I had reckoned without the protocol of princes, however. The guard captain, as I went down on one knee, frowned disapprovingly.

“Bare your head before your prince, slave!” he growled, and, swift as thought, before I could stay his hand with an involuntary gesture, bent and snatched the cloth away.

“Jandar!”

It was the voice of my beloved. I lifted my face and looked into her incredulous, astonished eyes. Thuton blenched and whitened.

“Jandar―?” he repeated.

My name flew from hp to lip, first in tones of wonderment, then in a ringing shout of outrage. For they knew me―my name, my strange yellow hair―I was Jandar of Callisto, that daring rogue who had bearded the Sky Pirates before in their very lair, carrying off the princess of Shondakor from their clutches. An unholy glee flamed in Thuton’s livid face, and his sword rasped from its scabbard to ring against my own.

“Face to face at last, you dog!” he breathed as we thrust and parried amid a tumultuous, shouting crowd. “You were mad to venture on a second time into my realm … this time I shall bathe my steel in your heart’s blood, and hurl your stinking carrion from the walls of Zanadar!”

And for the second time in the same hour I found myself fighting for my life. But this time it was sword against sword―and Thuton was an excellent swordsman. I had few hopes of breaking through his furious, whipping blade to strike him down with any ease, for I was weary and he was fresh. And time was rapidly running out; guards were sprinting for the royal box from every post and station. At any second I could expect a thrust from behind. But at least I would die with a sword in my hand, facing my dearest enemy.

Darloona cried out my name in sharp warning; I swerved, glancing over one shoulder. The guard captain―the same man who had plucked the headdress from my brows―was about to make his thrust, and from this proximity I knew his blade would run me through. I also knew I could do nothing about it.

What happened next was one of those small imponderable strokes of chance whose coming you can never anticipate. I suppose it is a matter of the chemistry between people, or one of the mysteries of the human heart.

For, from the arena sands below, where he stood breathless with amazement amidst a thousand gladiators, Ergon―bald, ugly, scowling, truculent Ergon―thundered out one word, “Jandar!” and flung his great mace whirling through the air to dash out the brains of the guard who stood behind me, about to run me through.

And, in the next instant, Zantor, from where he stood among my fellow keraxians, shouted “Jandar!” and sent his great spear hissing through the air to pin a second guard to the benches.

A thousand gladiators raised their voices in one mighty, earth-shaking shout “Jandar! Jandar! Jandar!”

And before the echoes of my name faded from the air, the gladiators of Zanadar swarmed to the arena wall, sprang to clutch its topmost ledge, and clambered over into the stands. Maces swung lustily―spears sank through chest and belly and throat-guards, who flocked to the side of their prince, found themselves battling a horde of warriors, with Zantor and Ergon at their head.

The throng of spectators broke and fled in a screaming, milling, clawing tangle of struggling bodies that impeded the guards hurrying to stem the slave rebellion and that also jammed the exits. They had come to loll at their ease, sucking sweat-meats while men battled and died for their momentary pleasure. They had little stomach for playing a part in that battle themselves.

These things I noticed in passing, catching snatches of what was happening below in hurried glances over my shoulder. For Thuton’s flashing blade kept me busy enough and demanded my full attention. He fought like a maniac. His point seemed everywhere at once, now darting for my throat, now flicking toward my breast, now flashing to impale my wrist. And as he fought, his slick white pasty face wet with perspiration, his snarling mouth spewing curses of unspeakable vileness, he drove me back inch by inch.

In the narrow confines of the royal box, amidst a tangle of draperies, treading wine goblets and smeared fruits underfoot, stumbling over cushions, I was greatly hampered and could not employ my usual style. I was forced to fight a purely defensive duel, which went against my grain, but in the whirling confusion, I watched for an opening, determining to use the secret botte I had learned from Lukor.

Thuton began to tire. He was an excellent swordsman with a bravura style, but years of soft foods and rich wines and luxurious living had weakened his arm and sapped his vigor. He began to puff and wheeze for breath; his face purpled with effort; his sword arm trembled with strain.

Suddenly he faltered, gasping, and his point wavered. And in that moment I had him. I lunged forward, my blade singing through the air, and its bright steel was quenched as I drove it through his putrid heart. I whipped back, and he slid off my blade and sprawled at my feet, dead as a stone.

Thus fell the last prince of the Sky Pirates of Zanadar, and thus I avenged in blood the thousand wrongs done my princess.

She stood against a fallen chair, one hand clenched at her heart, all of her soul in her glorious eyes. I strode forward and swept her into my arms, crushed her to my breast, and drank one superb kiss from her soft, warm lips. Lips that I had kissed ten thousand times in dreams and fancies … lips that I kissed now in living actuality for the first time!

We stood for a long moment thus, wrapped in the warm wonder of our love. The world was very far away and unimportant to us in that timeless moment of rapture. I will not set down here in cold black ink what words we whispered to each other then. Lovers have whispered such precious things since Time’s dawn; I daresay we were not very original.

Then we turned, my arm about her lissome waist, to view the havoc I had wrought. The vanguard of the gladiators had cut their way to the box, and they ringed us about with a wall of steel. Guards lay sprawled in blood-splattered heaps across the benches, which were otherwise largely empty, as the bulk of the citizenry had fled. But guards were boiling out of the entranceways like ants whose nest a meddling giant has crushed. They came hurtling down the steep aisles in grim-faced ranks, to be met by a howling mob of freedom-maddened gladiators.

I turned to Darloona.

“Remain here, my princess,” I commanded. “Here you will be safe.”

Her voice was a husky caress. “And you, my beloved?”

“I must lend my sword to my friends,” I said. “I cannot linger here while they fight and die. It was for friendship of me that they rose in rebellion, and while one of them yet lives, I shall stand by his side.”

I turned from her then to join my comarades.

It was an unequal contest from the outset. Gladiators armed with wooden spears are poorly matched against guardsmen in steel helmets and breastplates, armed with the keen-bladed rapiers of Zanadar. However, we checked their rush and held them with the sheer ferocity of our assault. Men who fight for freedom fight better than men who fight for pay. However true this may be, there were many of them and few of us, and the outcome of the battle was obvious.

For a time we held them. But it could not last.

Ergon plucked at my sleeve and I turned. Battle evidently agreed with him, for his ugly face was cheerful if somewhat battered.

“Jandar―we could fall back to the floor of the arena,” he suggested. “We could retire to the pits below There they could only come at us two at a time. With a handful of gladiators, I could hold the pits till the world grows old … .”

Zantor strode near, his stern face merry, a smile on his grim lips.

“There is much in what you say, friend Ergon,” he said. “But I have a better idea. We could strike through the north gate and reach the shipyards and steal a vessel. My own galley, the Xaxar, is there, impounded under the prince’s seal.”

“Perhaps so,” Ergon grunted. “But who could fly the thing? None of us know aught of such matters, and you alone are not enough to man so huge a craft.”

“No need to fret on that account,” Zantor smiled. “Half my crew went into slavery with me; they served with me among the keraxians; they fight beside us now, in Jandar’s rebellion!”

“Beware―the guards are breaking through!” a loud voice shouted over the tumult.

“Which shall it be, Jandar? Do we fall back to hold the pits―or strike for the shipyards?” demanded Ergon urgently.

But the decision was wrested from my hand by Fate!

A thunderous crash rocked the arena. Glass―glass―glass! It was suddenly everywhere, falling in a jagged rain. One glittering deluge swept the spearhead of the guards’ assault, slashing arms, and gashing throats. Their spearhead crumpled, blunted, broke, and retired in confusion.

A black shadow swept over us. My comrades craned their necks, blinking apprehensively at the sky, and at the fantastic aerial monster that had come shattering down through the crystal dome which sheltered the arena like an enormous bowl.

Of them all, I alone knew there was naught to fear. Tension drained from me, and I laughed aloud, tossing Panchan’s sword up in the air and catching it in my hand.

My friends looked upon my antics with amazement, fearing I had lost my reason. What occasion for joy and laughter could be found in the descent of one of the mighty warships of Zanadar, which even now sank towards us, blotting out the sky?

I grinned, slapping bewildered Ergon on one massive shoulder. For the road of our escape was suddenly open before us.

And the Jalathadar had come at last!

Chapter 14 THE DOOM OF ZANADAR

From the decks of the Jalathadar a withering rain of arrows swept the guardsmen in a barbed hail of death. Their lines broke into clots of fleeing men who were rapidly cut down.

Rope ladders were flung over the side, and I invited my fellow gladiators to clamber aboard. Above, I glimpsed Koja solemnly staring down at me, his great Yathoon whip-sword naked in one hand. At his shoulder, Valkar and Lukor grinned down at me. Swiftly, the gladiators swarmed up over the rail, while the Shondakorian archers stood on the foredeck, alert for a return of the guards in one last, desperate assault.

I had no notion what sequence of accidents could have delayed the arrival of the Jalathadar for so many days, but it could not have come at a more perfect time. Later I would be told how the treacherous Ulthar had crippled the giant ornithopter, how the gale winds had carried the helpless ship far north among the icy peaks of the Frozen Land, how the courage and gallantry of young Tomar had rooted the traitor from his hiding place, and how the crew, laboring desperately, had repaired the crippled flying gear as best they might, and limped back to Zandar. I would learn how the ship had lingered out of sight, waiting for darkness to descend, until the uproar of rebellion in the arena caught the keen eye of a lookout, who spotted my bright thatch of yellow hair and gave the signal to attack.

Zantor touched my arm.

“Let me take my men and strike out for the shipyards, Jandar,” he urged. “If we take swift advantage of this unexpected diversion, we can seize the Xaxar and join you aloft. Two ships will prove better than one, especially if half the flying force of Zanadar follows at our heels, as I doubt not will be the case.”

“Go, then,” I said. “We will do what we can to cover you.” He wrung my hand wordlessly and turned on his heel to marshal his men. A few moments later they were sprinting for the gate. There was no opposition. The guards had lost heart and had fled, leaving the arena in our hands.

Darloona awaited me in the royal box, where the corpse of the slain Prince Thuton lay face down in a pool of congealing gore. I caught the bottom rung of the nearest rope ladder, told her to put her arms around my neck, and climbed swiftly to the rail. As I helped her over the balustrade and stepped down to the deck beside her, a great shout of welcome rang from a hundred throats and more. I glimpsed tears in the eyes of grizzled Haakon, and Valkar’s handsome face was radiant as he knelt to kiss her hand and rose to clap me on the shoulder.

The princess gazed around, smiling at familiar faces.

“Is it possible that you have come all this way to save me?” she murmured faintly. Valkar smiled.

“It was Jandar’s notion that we should refurbish the Sky Pirate craft captured during the attack on Shondakor and stake all on a desperate attempt to breach the defenses of Zanadar to effect your rescue, my princess,” he said. “By the act of a traitor, Jandar was lost from amongst our number. I should have known that he would turn up in time for the final battle!”

I acknowledged his greetings. “Yes, but it isn’t over yet! You men get to your stations, and see that these gladiators have a place amongst you. A second group is cutting a path through the streets, bound for the shipyards. We may soon be joined by yet a second ship, manned by friends.”

In a trice we lifted from the corpse-strewn arena and rode the winds above the city. Zantor and his keraxians were halfway to the docks by now, having met with little, and disorganized, opposition en route. As they swarmed over the rail of the Xaxar and rapidly took up their accustomed stations, we lowered teams of axmen with instructions to do as much damage as possible to the pirate craft moored below.

It proved remarkably easy to put the enemy ships out of action. And, in this task, my fellow gladiators were very useful. For a burly tharian, armed with a thirty-pound mace of tempered steel, can chop a hole in a pirate hull in no time, releasing the buoyant vapors pent therein. And an ornithopter with a pierced hull and leaking gas is so much dead weight. By the time the Xaxar cut her cables and rose to join us aloft, not a ship in port was sky-worthy.

But not all of the Zanadarian fleet had lain in moorage; a half-dozen or more scout frigates circled the mountaintop city at various levels of altitude, and it did not take them long to learn the city was under attack. One swept toward us, lean prow cutting the windy sky.

“Now we shall see just how well my `secret weapon’ works in battle,” I remarked to Valkar. “Or have you already found occasion to give my catapult its baptism of fire?”

“Not yet,” he laughed. “But we shall see how well it works soon enough! Catapult crew―to your stations!”

The covering was shorn away and the giant bow unlimbered. Crewmen fitted one of the great, six-pound steel arrows into place and made ready to launch it at the enemy craft now swooping toward us. The effective range of the weapon was three hundred yards, but that is the outside limit, and, having flown that far, the barbed steel-bolts have expended most of their momentum and might not have enough force left to punch through the laminated paper hull. Thus Valkar waited until the enemy ship was within two hundred yards―which was dangerously close―before giving the command to release the catapult. The first enemy arrows were plunking into the decks about us as the mighty catapult discharged its first missile.

The steel arrow was a blur as it hissed through empty air to crunch into the hull of the corsair craft. My warriors raised a lusty shout of triumph as the arrow punched a gaping hole in the hull. A ragged cry went up from the decks of the foe, but it was drowned in the scream of escaping gases. Suddenly no longer buoyant, the corsair ship wobbled drunkenly and sank, passing beneath us.

But we had no time to trace its fall with gloating eyes, for the second pirate was almost upon us, followed closely by two more. Frantically, Valkar’s crew cranked the catapult up again until the taut bow sang with tension. One crewman gasped, and slapped at his upper arm, suddenly transfixed by an arrow from the approaching craft. He staggered back, his place eagerly taken by a broad-chested ex-gladiator. With a deep moaning whine we fired a second bolt from the giant bow.

Like a steel thunderbolt it slammed into the bow of the oncoming corsair and snapped the keel in two parts―an amazingly lucky shot, with the most unexpected results! This keel, you see, holds the fabric together. Once broken, the ship began to break apart under its own internal stresses. For while the ship has no real weight, because of the buoyant gas held under pressure in the double hull, it has mass and it is cumbersome due to its size.

The second ship literally broke in half in midair. Howling men fell over the rail, dwindling black motes that receded into the misty gulfs below. The ship sagged drunkenly and fell, crumbling apart into a rain of gigantic fragments. Again, my warriors raised a hearty cheer.

By this time the Xaxar was aloft, and Zantor had already engaged the third enemy ship, while we cranked up the catapult and fired another bolt at the fourth. But the Sky Pirates were becoming wary of my new weapon and veered aside just in time. The steel bolt hissed past their prow, narrowly missing it. This fourth ship, and a fifth one whose approach I had not noticed, began circling us, careful to avoid the catapult.

Zantor, of course, had only conventional weapons, but his knowledge of this new art of aerial warfare was superior to mine, and he dispatched his adversary in a novel and most decisive manner. I had wondered whether or not the gas trapped in the double hull of the flying galleons might not be flammable and even explosive, assuming it to be a gas like hydrogen. Zantor confirmed my guess by arming his men with fire arrows. Six or seven of their burning shafts sank harmlessly in the hull of the third Zanadarian craft before a lucky eighth shot penetrated the double hull and ignited the vapors in it.

The entire prow of the enemy ship vanished in a deafening thunderclap and a ball of blazing flame. The rest of the ship, a seething inferno, plunged to its doom.

Now we engaged our two wary adversaries with hastily devised fire arrows, which were ordinary shafts, whose barbed tips were bound with a bit of greasy waste, set afire by coals fetched from the galley. In no time a fifth ship went screaming down in flames. As for the sixth, it blundered within range of the catapult, and sank to crash on the fanglike peaks of the mountains far below, a gaping hole in its hull.

And thus the first aerial battle in the history of Thanator was concluded. In twenty minutes, or a bit less, we had downed six ships and cleared the skies of foemen.

In the engagement precisely one Shondakorian had been injured when an arrow pierced his upper arm. The shaft had been removed, the wound sponged clean and smeared with salve and bandaged, and the man was in good humor, joking with his comrades.

We circled the mountaintop city in preparation for our departure. And it was one of my former fellow gladiators who gave me the key to rendering the Sky Pirates helpless to avenge our attack. This fellow had been a slave in the gas mines before being condemned to the arena for striking a guard who had sought to whip one of his friends to death for some minor infraction of the rules.

He pointed out the gas mines to me; they were on the crest of the mountain, just below the peak where the arena and the palace citadel of the Zanadarian rulers were situated. It seems that the mountain held vast pockets of buoyant gas, which the Zanadarians had capped with massive iron valves. My informant did not need to point out what an excellent diversionary tactic to cover our escape it would be if we could knock off one of these valves and ignite the escaping gas.

The feat could best be left to a tharian. I explained the scheme to the assembled crew and called for volunteers from among the former gladiators. I was a bit disconcerted to see that it was my friend Ergon who was the first to step forward.

His great mace slung over his shoulder in a hastily jury-rigged baldric, we lowered him on a line to the row of stone chimneys, after first sweeping the scene with arrows, driving away the mine guards. With our hearts in our mouths we watched from the hovering ship as Ergon’s tiny figure clung to the top of one chimney, beating the massive valve askew with ringing blows of his great mace.

It seemed to take forever. ‘Darkness had already fallen, the swift quenching of the sourceless golden radiance that is the Thanatorian equivalent of daylight. The world was thrust suddenly into darkness, save for the dim, enormous globe that was the orange-banded giant planet Jupiter, thrusting his luminous orb over the horizon. In the sudden dark, enemy craft could descend upon us unseen. Our danger increased with every moment we remained here.

And then Ergon came swinging back up the line, purple-faced and blowing from his exertions. Wiping his brow and downing a hearty swig of strong brandy, he cheerfully informed us we could loose our fire arrows at will.

At my command a rank of Shondakorian archers took up their stations. Grease-impregnated rags knotted about their shafts just behind the arrowheads themselves were touched to flame by coals fetched from the galley. The burning arrows traced arcs of orange flame against the night.

“It’s no good,” Haakon growled. “The winds are too strong, they extinguish every arrow.”

“Be patient,” I counseled him.

The dozenth arrow did the trick. Suddenly night was turned to day as an incredible fountain of white-hot flame gushed from the shattered valve. The jet of flame spouted five hundred feet into the air and blazed above the city like a glowing plume.

Valkar seized my arm.

“Look!” he shouted, pointing. I followed his gaze and saw black cracks zigzag between the valve-capped chimneys. Then a subterranean rumbling filled the air, as if some great beast was pent within the mountain, growling for its freedom. Dazzlement smote our eyes as the valve which capped the second chimney exploded releasing a jet of scorching fury. And a third―and a fourth!

I ordered the Jalathadar to ascend a thousand feet above the mountaintop city. The Xaxar, circling near, followed our example. And just in time! For in the next instant a deafening explosion shook the city of the Sky Pirates, and, in the fierce light which beat from the immense fireball which blazed up from the gas mines, we saw that the entire summit of the peak was splitting apart, huge fragments spinning slowly away. By the glare we saw even more astounding sights: the lofty towers of Zanadar were toppling slowly, all in a row, like stacks of toy building-blocks shoved by an enormous, unseen hand.

Another terrific explosion shook the mountain of the Sky Pirates, hiding the city on the summit from our view behind a roiling cloud of inky black smoke, shot through with flames of sulphurous crimson. The flying ship rocked suddenly as a vast chunk of rock went spinning past us.

The frigid gale winds whipped the black smoke away in long, ragged streamers that trailed across the sky. With astonishment, and more than a touch of cold horror, we saw that the explosion had undermined the city, which was constructed in ascending levels, topped with the palace citadel and the great arena itself. Now that the smoke of the explosion was whipped away we could see that the arena was gone entirely, and the central guard-barracks as well, and, even as we stared, the mighty palace citadel was crumbling. Walls peeled away, coming apart in slow motion, rushing into the fiery crater that had been the gas mines in heavy landslides of crushed rock. Half the palace dissolved in roaring avalanches of broken stone even as we watched.

The mountain shuddered to the thunder of explosions that resounded deep within its heart. Flaming incandescent gas boiled in a vast plume from the black-edged crater. Walls buckled, buildings collapsed, towers fell, blocking the streets with rubble.

We stood silently on the windswept deck and without words we watched the death of a city. It had been a city of our enemies, but few among us were so callous as to gloat in triumph over the hideous doom that enveloped Zanadar. Thousands lay dead in the smoking wreckage; hundreds more were injured. In a thousand years, the Zanadarians could never rebuild their civilization to the heights of power they had so cruelly enjoyed. Never again would the aerial corsairs of the City in the Clouds bring terror and despair to the lesser cities of Thanator. Their reign was ended, and it closed in a roaring holocaust of belching flame, shattering stone, and earthquake.

We could look no longer on such scenes of devastation. The Jalathadar swung about into the wind and circled once above the smoldering funeral pyre that had been a city. With the Xaxar trailing behind us, we turned away from the scene of doom and ruin.

“Is it south, Jandar?” Koja inquired solemnly. I nodded.

“It is south, down across the jungle countries to Golden Shondakor,” I said.

My arm was about the slim shoulders of my princess. I bent to kiss her lips, and again the warriors raised my name in a mighty shout of triumph and victory.

I was very tired.

And I was going home.

Chapter 15 THE THRONE OF SHONDAKOR

Whenever night falls across the jungle Moon, and the titan orb of Jupiter the giant planet swims into the skies with all its train of attendant moons, I marvel again at the inexplicable whim of destiny that has brought me to this alien world for some unknown and inscrutable purpose I cannot even guess.

What other man of my race has experienced adventures so harrowing, viewed marvels of such magnitude, wandered upon so fantastic a world of wonder and terror and beauty?

I sit in the palace of Shondakor, writing these words on crackling parchment with a pen cut from a thaptor quill. Soon this third volume of my memoirs on the mystery world of Thanator will be finished. Ere long, a Ku Thad war party will venture forth from the city, cross the Grand Kumala, and lay this manuscript on the immense disk of milky jade that is the Gate Between the Worlds. Sometime thereafter a strange beam of sparkling force will arch against the sky, traveling through the black infinitude of space, transporting this book to the ruined stone city in the jungles of Cambodia on distant Earth.

The Earth I shall doubtless never see again. For, although I dearly love that far-off planet upon which I was born, the fates have carried me from thence to mysterious Callisto, three hundred and eighty-seven million, nine hundred and thirty thousand miles from the world of my birth.

And here, on this strange and alien world of golden skies and scarlet jungles, of weird races and ferocious monsters, here I have truly come home.

For here on Callisto I have at last found a cause to fight for and gallant comrades to fight at my side and foemen worthy of my steel. Here on Callisto I have found the woman that I love. The woman that is now my wife, and who will ere long be the mother of my strong sons and lovely daughters.

I do not regret the world I leave behind; and yet I find it curiously difficult to sever myself from her and her ways. I have had the unique fortune to traverse the gulf between the planets and to be the first of my race to discover that life truly does exist upon the surface of alien worlds. This message is of such transcendent importance that I feel I owe it to mankind to inform it of my discovery. And for that reason I have laboriously set down an account of my wanderings and exploits on the jungle Moon, although I shall never know for certain if my words have reached the men of my birth-world, or if they wander lost somewhere in the black gulfs that gape and yawn between the cold and silent stars.

Down across the immense region of the Grand Kumala we flew, our twin ships traversing the skies of Thanator with ease. At length, after a voyage of some days, the walls and towers of Golden Shondakor emerged from the mists of the horizon and we circled downward through the brilliant morn.

In their thousands the Ku Thad people were there to greet us and to welcome us home after our hazardous adventure half a world away. They lined the rooftops and the balconies; they stood beside the broad stone-paved boulevards, lifting their faces toward us. And when at length we emerged from our vessels, and the people of Shondakor beheld the red-gold mane of their lost princess, ten thousand flags and banners burst from tower top and roof and spire and a mighty roar of welcome came thundering from a hundred thousand hearts.

Lord Yarrak was there to press his beloved niece and queen to his breast. She mounted with him into a golden chariot drawn by a team of thaptors, and then turned and held out her hand to me, and I mounted and stood beside her. We rode slowly through streets lined with cheering thousands. It was a greeting reserved for conquering heroes. I felt very much at home.

To the gates of the palace we rode, and, within the great hall, we watched with joy and pride in our hearts as Princess Darloona mounted the great flight to stone steps to the throne dais. There, not long ago, the black idol, Hoom, god of the Chac Yuul, had crouched in all his hideousness. Now the great gold throne of Shondakor had been restored to its place once more, and we watched as the warrior princess of the Ku Thad took her place upon that throne. As one, we whipped our swords from their scabbards and a hundred blades flashed aloft in the royal salute.

And there, on that same dais, some ten days later, before a glittering throng of the assembled nobles and warriors of the realm, Darloona became my bride. The ceremony was a simple one. No priest officiated, for the people of Thanator in general do not seem to venerate any gods save the shadowy and mysterious Lords of Gordrimator, who dwell, it is said, upon the glowing surface of mighty Jupiter.

Tears of happiness stung my eyes as I folded my wife in my arms, then turned to receive the salute and the plaudits of our kingdom. The domed roof rang with our shouted names as we stood smiling down upon the faces of all our old and gallant and trusted friends―kingly Lord Yarrak and the wise old sage Zastro, huge solemn-eyed Koja and white-bearded Lukor, valiant young Tomar and noble Valkar, ugly Ergon and tall Zantor.

Thus were we wed; thus I became Prince of Shondakor!

It seems unlikely that any foe will again disturb the peace of the Golden City. The Black Legion is broken, decimated, and dispersed; the Sky Pirates have been robbed of their fleet; and their city lies in smoking rubble. There is no reason why the Yathoon Horde or the Bright Empire of Perushtar should turn against us in war. The last of our enemies has been defeated. We are now the single most powerful kingdom upon the known surface of Thanator, what with our own small aerial navy, the Jalathadar and the Xaxar, who float aloft, tethered to the spires of the palace.

But who knows what the future may bring? The other hemisphere of the jungle Moon is a shadowy realm of mystery, whereof we know little. And unknown foemen may dwell about the far shores of the Lesser Sea or amidst the cold wastes of the Frozen Land.

We must wait to see what tomorrow will bring. But as for myself, I have no fear. I have won the heart of the loveliest woman in two worlds; I have gained the throne of the most powerful kingdom upon this planet; all her enemies I have defeated, broken, and scattered. Let tomorrow bring what tomorrow will bring―I will face it unafraid.

If there be any on the world of my birth who read these words, to you I send my greetings. Amidst the starry immensities of the universe, you are not alone. On the strange surface of a distant world, a man of your race stands, extending to you the hand of friendship and brotherhood across the depths of space.

The day may yet come, my unknown friend, when we shall stand together, you and I, in battle against unknown foes.

To you, my salute, and greeting, and―farewell!

―Jandar of Callisto

Prince of Shondakor