When the Green Star Calls

Chapter 11 THE ELIXIR OF LIGHT

Panting, I lay helpless in my bonds. Iffy brown, muscular limbs gleamed with perspiration under the fiery rays of the lamp. I stared through my tousled gold mane at the savant, knowing him victorious. Hoom had spoken wisely; nor had Zarqa overestimated the hazards of the situations Unknowingly, I had aided in the birth of a tyrant superman whose career, unchecked, would lead him to the dominance of my adopted planet.

The secret of immortality lent him a terrible weapon; in its way, the weapon was more disastrous even than the army of metal automatons now vivified and ranked in wait for his commands. Armed with the superior technology of the Kaloodha, he could whelm and conquer the cities of the Laonese. Armed with the promise of immortality, he could conquer the hearts of the kings and princes of the Green Star, who would sell their sovereignty—and their very souls—for eternal youth.

A grim, ironic smile twisted my lips. I had come a second time to this world, hoping to undo the wrongs I had committed on my first visit. Then, my accidental reincarnation in the person of the heroic Chong had hardened the people of Phaolon in their determination to resist their enemies, the Ardhanese. Then, the princess I loved had fallen into the hands of her deadliest foes, and I had perished in the attempt to set her free—leaving her alone and friendless in the land of her enemies.

Hoping to correct these grievous wrongs, I had flown again in astral form to the World of the Green Star. And now, in this second incarnation as the boy warrior, Karn, I had unwittingly aided the tyrant Sarchimus in vitalizing a mechanical horde of killer machines and in attaining the long-sought secret of personal immortality. Far from improving the situation on this world, I had irreparably worsened it!

I glared through my tousled mane at the exulant face of Sarchimus, to see the effects of the Elixir blaze up within him, transforming him, as it had transformed me, into a superman of tripled vigor.

Instead… I saw his features crumble into a mask of horror!

Pale and working, his features fell into sagging folds and he staggered, one bare hand going out to a stone column to steady himself.

And there came, loud in the ringing silence, a most peculiar sound.

The grating of stone against stone.

His eyes fell with unbelieving horror to his own right hand. For it had been the touch of his bare flesh against the column that had produced that stony rasp.

I looked at his hand and saw that horror which had transfixed him. For, even as I watched, the mellow ivory tone of his hand paled—whitened—to the dead, lusterless white of pure chalk.

Within the space of a single heartbeat his hand was a dead thing of white stone, lifeless as a lump of cold rock.

He staggered about the laboratorium, lurching against the lecterns, overturning the porcelain benches, shrieking in a mindless blasphemy of mad imprecation against the merciless and mocking fates.

Now the petrification attacked his left leg. It became a dead weight which he was forced to drag over the stone pave with a grating sound.

Babbling hoarsely, he staggered and could no longer support the growing weight of his own body. He fell to his knees sobbing, then sprawled face forward on the pave, writhing and foaming at the mouth. His struggles grew fainter as the creeping tide of petrification spread through his limbs; his moaning became fainter.

At last only his mad, despairing eyes lived in a face of dead, carved stone…

The lamps guttered and died, leaving me alone in utter darkness. Throughout the Scarlet Pylon there was only darkness and silence. Naked and helpless, I lay in my chains awaiting death.

But death did not come to me. Some innate factor in my physical body prevented the sparkling fluid from working its spell of petrification upon my flesh. Could it perhaps be that the lingering traces of phuol-venom in my blood resisted or neutralized the Elixir?

I did not know; I only knew I must live on. Until I died in the slow agony of thirst and starvation, helpless to free myself from the chains.

For hours I lay alone in the darkness, listening to the beating of my own heart in my naked breast. The silence about me was deafening.

Here I would lie helpless until I starved to death… or would I?

For I thought of the horrible saloogs that infested the lowermost tiers of the Scarlet Pylon… the monstrous and unkillable plant-animal hybrids that writhed and squirmed like monstrous worms through the jungle darkness of the fungi groves… the hybrid predators held at bay only by the forces employed by Sarchimus the Wise…

Who now was Sarchimus the Dead.

The lamps had died throughout the tower because they and the energy sources which fed them were attuned to the personality of the dead savant who lay behind me somewhere in the impenetrable darkness, a monstrous stone thing.

With the instant of the death of Sarchimus, the energy sources throughout the Pylon had died with him.

Including whatever intangible barriers had held at bay the gigantic wormlike saloogs.

Lying in the black night, I wondered how long it would be before the mindless hybrids realized the energy barriers had fallen… how long before they writhed up the ascending ramps on their stumpy legs into the upper levels?

Would it be hours—or days—or weeks—before they crawled to this level of the dead tower?

By then, I knew, hunger and thirst would have enfeebled or slain me. When they came slithering to feed upon my body in the dark I would be helpless to oppose them.

The thought was loathsome.

But I could not drive it from my mind.

And I lay there naked in the darkness, in the grim silence, thinking of death.

After a time I slept. Miraculous are the resources of the human body; even more wondrous are the resources of the mind. Horror may gibber in its recesses, but exhaustion takes its toll; and a weary man will sleep, however perilous his position.

An unknown interval of time passed.

And suddenly, swiftly, I came awake and lay there motionless in the utter blackness, straining every nerve to hear a repetition of that far, faint sound that had aroused me from my exhausted slumber.

It came again—a faint, stealthy creaking!

A creaking as of the upper ramp which led to this level of the tower.

Often had I noticed that when I trod upon that topmost portion of the ramp, some weakening or flaw within its construction caused a faint creaking.

It came again, that far, slight sound, as of some slow, ponderous weight moving, creeping, ascending the ramp to this level.

In my mind’s eye I pictured a huge, swollen, loathsome saloog squirming sluggishly over the ramp to this tier of the tower, its bloated and putrescent head lolling blindly in the darkness as those monstrous and uncanny flower-eyes sought through the darkness the faint warmth of living human flesh—

Of my flesh—

I lay, straining every nerve to listen.

All too well did I recall that the portal to this laboratorium was ajar. No barrier opposed itself to whatever hideous abnormality lumbered slowly through the blackness toward where I lay.

Now the sound was within this very room!

I could hear it in the darkness, breathing heavily.

Even now, were I unbound, I could at least still flee, gain the upper levels of the Scarlet pylon, escape into the giant trees. Or if that way were blocked, at least I could stand and face it with a weapon in my hand. For to go down battling was better than this torment—lying helpless, waiting for the loathsome caress of those thick, cold, fleshy petals against my nakedness, as the slobbering digestive organs began the slow process of devouring its living prey.

The floor creaked.

Something was moving through the darkness toward me.

It did not stand erect, like a man, but slithered and groped on its belly, like a beast.

Stone grated and rasped as the thing fumbled with the dead chalky corpse of Sarchimus.

I held my breath, hoping it would pass me by.

But surely it could hear the drumming of my racing heart in the echoing silence!

A long, agonizing moment crawled slowly by—an eternity of breathless suspense.

Again I heard hoarse breathing.

A hot, panting breath. Very near me now.

The thing was only a few feet away.

Oh, to stand on my two legs and face it with a length of steel in my hands! To face it like a man, and, live or die, to go down fighting! Anything was better than lying here in the dark, waiting for the slow death that crept nearer and ever nearer…

And then I felt it.

Something cold and dry and living was crawling slowly across my thigh and up my belly…

Chapter 12 THE SKYSLED

And then a silent voice spoke within my brain.

Karn?

Relief sluiced through me like an icy flood, leaving me shaken.

“Zarqa? Can it be…?”

The Kalood touched my arm with his dry, leathery hand, felt along it to the wrist-cuff, and began working on the chains that bound me.

Sarchimus is dead, he said mentally. And with the extinction of his will, those appurtenances tuned to the wavelength of his brain also died or became inactivated. My force-prison suddenly faded and I was free.

He could not unfasten the chains. I heard him crawling slowly and with difficulty to the petrified corpse of the science magician, searching for the keys. I perceived that he was greatly weakened from his ordeal at the hands of Sarchimus. Long deprivation from the golden mead had taken its toll of his strength. He secured the key and came back to where I lay and began unlocking my bonds.

It is fortunate that the petrification affects only organic matter, he said. Otherwise this key would be useless.

I sat up and began massaging my wrists while he fumbled with the chains that bound my feet.

“You gave him the secret formula for the Elixir at last… but it was the wrong formula?”

Aye; I could resist him no longer. But I made certain that the Elixir would destroy him when he imbibed it…

“But he tested it on me first,” I protested. “Why didn’t it turn me to stone, as it did him?”

The one ingredient he did not know acts as a stabilizing factor, inhibiting the petrification, he said. That ingredient is a chemical derived from the venom of the scorpion monsters, the phuol. I knew that Sarchimus would test the mixture on yourself, Karn; but I also knew, or felt fairly certain, that the traces of phuol-venom still lingering in your tissues would suffice to neutralize the petrification effect.

By now he had freed me and I stood without great effort. I peered around in the darkness.

“Zarqa, the force barriers are down. It is only a matter of time before the saloogs begin to ascend the ramps into the upper levels. What shall we do?”

We must leave this place. The skysled is still operable, its power supplies unaffected by the death of Sarchimus. But, first, I must have sustenance, for I am near the point of death.

Zarqa described the appearance of the mead on which the Kaloodha fed; while he lay exhausted I searched by the light of a small crystal and before long discovered a supply of the honey-like fluid in a cupboard concealed in the wall of the science magician’s bedroom. While Zarqa downed a quantity of the golden mead, I made my way to the place where Prince Janchan was imprisoned. The panel was still locked and I could see no way to open it; but the effect of the Elixir of Light was still potent within me, and my strength was that of many men. I seized up a massive bench of polished marble and smashed an entryhole through the panel, freeing the hapless Phaolonian.

He accompanied me back to the laboratorium where he stopped short and voiced a cry of astonishment at the sight of the strange gaunt, golden-hued aerial creature.

“This is my friend, Zarqa the Kalood,” I said. “His people were the ones who built this city, ages ago, and he is the last of his kind on this world. Sarchimus has tortured and starved him to his present condition in order to wrest the secrets of the ancient science of the Kaloodha from him.”

The eyes of Janchan were wide with disbelief.

“By the World Above, Karn! We have legends of such beings, but never had I dreamed to meet a creature of myth in the very flesh! Does he understand our language?”

I am unfitted with the organs of vocal speech. Zarqa made his own reply to the question. The mode of converse we employ is that of mind to mind.

Janchan swore at the uncanny sensation, as the vibrations of an alien brain sounded among the cells of his own brain.

I know that to your eyes I appear strange and monstrous and malformed, the Winged One said wryly. But fear me not, Prince Janchan, for consider—you seem to me every bit as strange of form as I must seem to you. Yet are we comrades, sharing imprisonment in common; let us be friends.

“With all my heart,” Janchan swore feelingly. “And forgive me if my reaction to your appearance seemed insulting. Recall, that I knew not of your existence and coming upon you in this manner took me by surprise.”

I observed curiously the effects the golden mead were having on poor Zarqa. He had been gaunt to the point of emaciation, his elongated fleshless limbs scarce more than skin and bones, his purple eyes dim and lusterless and enormous in his pinched, hollow-cheeked visage. But the mead was acting as a miraculous restorative. Almost visibly, his attenuated limbs filled out, developing healthy sinews. Brilliance shone in his enormous eyes, and the dull, dry condition of his leathery skin changed rapidly, as his pale golden hide became moist and supple and resilient. The golden mead must be some artificial tonic nutriment, with enormously concentrated food value. In no time, Zarqa was striding about the laboratorium with a swinging stride, his strength nearly normal.

We should be gone from this place within the hour, my friends, said Zarqa. The hybrid predators which infest the lower levels are not our only danger; Hoom of the Many Eyes will swiftly be apprised of the destruction of his rival, and will come hither from his Opal Spire in all haste, so as to inherit as much of the equipment of Sarchimus as possible.

“There is sense in what you say,” Janchan admitted.

“But Zarqa,” I protested, “the Scarlet Pylon is your home; why should you be driven from it, to follow us into the unknown dangers of the forest?”

The Kalood shrugged high bony shoulders.

Never can I be at peace here again, now that the men of your race such as Sarchimus and his kind have made of Sotaspra their domain. Perhaps it is time for me to let the past go, and venture out into the greater world beyond. If so, I can do no better than to make the first of my new purposes in life to be of assistance to you, Karn, and to your friend, to aid you in returning to your homes. There is nothing for me here in Sotaspra, anymore…

We left the laboratorium and went up to the crest of the Scarlet Pylon. The last, level beams of daylight struck through the great canopies of leaves, touching them to burning green-gold, and gilding the corrugated surfaces of the enormous branches. Soon, darkness would come down upon the World of the Green Star. But by then we hoped to be aloft.

We found the skysled where Sarchimus had left it, moored to the upper tier. A hangar-like structure protected it from the elements, and the aerial contrivance was powered and ready for flight.

Returning to the apartments below, we rumaged about, Janchan and I, selecting garments. The science magician had stripped me bare and, in the ensuing events, I am afraid I had forgotten my nakedness. Now I searched the closets, finding warriors’ gear, a simple leathern tunic, girdle, cloak, and boots. From the armamentarium of the savant, Janchan and I selected weapons. I took a curved scimitar while he chose a slim rapier of glassteel, and we both attached the scabbards of broad-bladed daggers to our trappings. I took the precautions of filling my pocket-pouch with coins from the savant’s store. These were of unfamiliar mintage, and cast in the rare, precious metals of the Laonese; a brilliant blue metal they call jaonce, a gleaming black metal, heavy as lead, they term arbium, and a sparkling transparent metal, clear as crystal, called kaolon.

The Laonese metals, incidentally, are extremely rare since the folk of this world never, or very seldom, dare to descend to the floor of their worldwide forest, as those gloomy precincts are the haunt of terrible and legendary monsters. Instead, they distill—as it were—their precious metals from minute traces suspended in the sap of the mountainous trees wherein they dwell. The process is laborious and the metals thus derived, by consequence, far more costly then Terrene gold or silver.

Having filled my pouch, I rejoined Prince Janchan, who had assumed warriors’ raiment similar to mine. We bundled up food supplies, dried meats, preserved meats, dried fruits a jug or two of wine, loaves of a peculiarly nutritive black bread, and several canteens of fresh water. Then we ascended for the second time to the roof of the tower and began storing these supplies in a storage compartment Janchan found in the rear of the sled. Zarqa had gone below with us, but had vanished about business of his own, and had not yet rejoined us. Janchan fidgeted restlessly, eager to be off.

“Where is your winged friend, Karn? Night is almost upon us, and I would like to be far from the Dead City before darkness makes further flight hazardous.”

Even as he spoke, Zarqa came into view carrying a number of objects, which he began stowing away in the side compartments of the flying sled.

“Zarqa, what are these?” I asked.

Merely a few articles salvaged from the possessions of Sarchimus, who no longer has any need for them, he said. I thought they might prove useful to us on our journey. Among these was a capacious robe or burnoose woven of synthetic plastic fiber shot through with a web of silvery metallic threads, which Zarqa termed a Weather Cloak. The other articles he named as a vial of Liquid Flame, a coil of Live Rope similar to that from which the science magician had fashioned my collar, and a floating luminous sphere called a Witchlight.

I have also taken the precaution of bringing along the savant’s zoukar, he said, displaying the metal-capped crystal rod with whose captive lightnings Sarchimus had slain the poisonous phuol. Swords are a primitive kind of weaponry, he explained, and my people have always preferred to slay from a distance, wherever possible.

Janchan surveyed this magical gear dubiously.

“Are we really going to need all these items?” he asked.

Zarqa shrugged, sealing the compartment.

Who can foretell what perils we shall encounter? he asked. The world is wide and has many dangers. And we shall be but three warriors against many.

“But you were gone long enough to have ransacked the tower from top to bottom,” I said.

Quite right; I had one further mission to accomplish, before we should leave this place forever. One further precaution I took, tend that was to render permanently inactive the menacing horde of death-dealing metal automatons Sarchimus had vitalized to further his dreams of empire.

“By the Green Star, I had forgotten all about them!” I swore.

I thought as much. Zarqa smiled. But it would have been folly to have disposed of Sarchimus, leaving his most dreadful weapons unharmed for Hoom of the Many Eyes to use in his turn. So I have smashed their brain crystals, one by one and destroyed the breeding vats with a potent acid. Also I released a second tube of Liquid Flame into the science magician’s study, saving the only other such for our future needs. The flames will devour all of the notes and formulas and manuscripts of Sarchimus. Without them, or a captive Kalood from whom to torture secrets, Hoom will find it impossible to rediscover the lost sciences, and will thus afford the world no peril such as Sarchimus would have done. And now, I think, we are ready to depart.

I had thrust into the girdle of my tunic the papers I had received from Hoom. The map was quite simple, orienting the position of the Dead City of Sotaspra in relation to Ardha and Phaolon and a few other cities whose names were unfamiliar to me.

“We have not yet decided where, exactly, we are going,” Janchan pointed out. I nodded, saying that I had no desire to return to my own people of the Red Dragon nation, who had staked me out to die before the stings of the scorpion monsters; I then asked Janchan where he wished to go, whether back to the Jewel City of Phaolon, or elsewhere.

He sighed dispiritedly.

“I have sworn a vow never to return to the city of my fathers until I have learned the whereabouts of my princess, Niamh the Fair, and of Kyr Chong, her champion,” he said stoutly. “We of the fellowship sworn to rescue her had combed the nearer trees, finding nothing. But from friendly nomads a rumor reached us that Chong and the princess had been taken by a band of forest outlaws to the Secret City of Siona; this was grim news, indeed, for well is it known that Siona the Huntress hates the royal house of Phaolon with a consuming passion, for that the father of the present monarch exiled Siona’s father into the wild.”

I kept my silence with some difficulty, as my reader can well imagine. I knew, of course, the truth of the story, since I had accompanied the princess to the Secret City on the occasion Janchan mentions; but I could say nothing of these matters, for that would be to expose myself as the second incarnation of Chong, and no one would be likely to believe me, if I told them of it.

However, Janchan was not quite finished.

“Even grimmer is the fact that the hidden base of Siona’s foresters is unknown to we of Phaolon, and a secret closely guarded by her band. However, it seems likely to me, after much thought, to assume that Siona’s vengeance would be to sell Niamh to her enemies, the people of Ardha. Therefore, the best notion that occurs to me is that I should venture there, hoping to enter the city in disguise and discover the whereabouts of the princess.”

He broke off, smiling at Zarqa and I warmly.

“However, my dear friends, there is no reason why I should expect you to join me in this quest, which is purely a matter of importance to we of Phaolon.”

I cleared my throat.

“There is no reason why we cannot at least fly you to the regions of Ardha, since Hoom’s map clearly shows the way. And, once there, we can discuss the matter further.”

Since we were agreed, we then entered the skysled, stretched out side by side and prepared for the flight without further ado.

The bottom of the sled was hollowed into depressions which fitted our bodies, with raised posts for us to clasp onto. Zarqa lay in the foremost hollow, close up under the curved, transparent windshield, in order to operate the controls. These controls were remarkably simple, and I had long-since memorized the instructions given me by Hoom for the operation of the sled. But, with Zarqa among us, there was no need for me to assume the captaincy of the vessel. The sled, after all, had originally been his.

He activated the energy crystals. A high-pitched humming rose in our ears. The sleek vessel trembled beneath us, then rose smoothly into the air, riding upon the magnetic currents. In a moment the Scarlet Pylon fell away beneath us and we were aloft and on our way to Ardha, the city of Akhmim the Tyrant.

Chapter 13 THE FLIGHT TO ARDHA

The skysled flew with a minimum of sound or vibration. I did not know then, nor have I learned since, anything concerning the actual mode of operation whereby the vehicle navigates the skies. The motor must somehow be attuned to the magnetic currents of the World of the Green Star, but precisely how remains a mystery to me. However, it flew with remarkable speed and the energy crystals which supplied motive force seemed well-nigh inexhaustible. Which reminded me of something.

“Zarqa, what of the golden mead on which your people subsist? Can you find further supplies of the substance elsewhere in the world?”

Fear not for me, Karn, he replied. The nutritive value of the mead is extraordinary and its effects long-lasting, such is the concentrated nature of the substance. A small flask, taken once in fifty days, will yield me sufficient nourishment. I have brought with me a number of stoppered jars of the mead from my store, and that should satisfy my needs for two years or so. And when this supply has become exhausted, I can prepare more without great difficulty. The mead is a distillation of the honey of the zzumalak, he continued, naming the giant bees of the forest-world, saturated with certain mineral salts. The essence of zzumalak-honey is not difficult to boil down.

Just then we were circling the Dead City, in preparation for our flight into the northeast. Janchan voiced an exclamation of amazement, clutched my arm, and pointed behind us. We turned to see an astonishing sight.

The tower of Sarchimus was… dying.

The Scarlet Pylon had blazed with vivid hue, so different from the dead and lusterless structures around it. We had not noticed before how the fresh and brilliant scarlet had slowly been fading from the remarkable spire. It was now a deepening purple, stained with splotches of putrescent and funereal brown like rotting vegetation. Even as we stared at this singular phenomenon, the tower began to darken into dead black. Soon it differed in no wise from its fellow towers. And the Pylon of Sarchimus was dead.

Thus perishes the fortress which has been my home for a million years, said Zarqa somberly. Sarchimus must have attuned the organic and living crystals whereof the Pylon was composed to the vibrations of his own brain. When he came to death, the vital forces of the tower itself began to die…

“Hoom will find little enough to inherit in that black mausoleum,” Janchan observed quietly.

I nodded. “It must sadden you to look on at the death of your ancient home,” I said comfortingly to Zarqa, who sat hunched and silent, his weird golden visage inscrutable, sadness lingering in his brilliant purple eyes.

The death of my tower is as nothing compared to the death of my city and the extinction of my race, he said finally.

“Surely, you could revitalize the structure, friend Zarqa,” suggested Janchan. The gaunt Kalood stretched out his narrow wings in the equivalent of a shrug.

To remain for further centuries in the Dead City is to tempt madness, he said. I have dwelt too long amid ghosts of the past; to dwell yet further years in yon necropolis, where all my people have died, would be unbearable. Nowhere in the world will I truly find a home, but among new friends such as yourself, Prince Janchan, and my young comrade, Karn, at least I can discover solace for my solitary condition in human companionship.

He shivered, as if setting aside such doleful recollections.

But, come, my new friends! Let us not dwell upon what is over and past; the future lies ahead of us, thrilling with peril and exploit, bristling with excitement and vigor!

The black towers of the Dead City fell behind us and were swiftly lost from our sight in the gathering shadows. We flew in a meandering path between the Brobdingnagian boles of the sky-tall trees, following the map of Hoom. That flight ended within the hour, as the gathering darkness made it extremely dangerous to continue our flight during the hours of the night. Ere long, we tethered the skysled to a twig the size of a yacht’s mast. The vehicle was capable of hovering motionlessly and weightlessly in midair, sustained by the magnetic current alone, and thus we felt ourselves comparatively safe from the assault of the numerous predators wherewith the wilderness swarmed. We made a rude meal from red wine, black bread, preserved meats and fruits, and bedded down for the night, strapping ourselves into the body-shaped depressions of the sled as a precaution against falling overboard.

The night was warm. The darkness was complete and total, for seldom did the stars appear visibly in the skies of this planet, so thick were the silvery mists that enveloped the World of the Green Star. The roar of hunting beasts, the hiss of predatory reptiles, the shriek of their startled prey, soon rendered the impenetrable darkness hideous. But so great was our fatigue from the cumulative tension and exertion of the day, that before long we sank into slumbers so deep that we slept undisturbed till daybreak.

According to the chart I had from Hoom, over three thousand farasangs lay between the Dead City of Sotaspra and the Yellow City of Ardha.

The farasang is a unit of measurement unique to the Laonese race, and I find it impossible to translate the term into its nearest Terrene equivalent. This inability to render farasangs into miles is due largely to the peculiar modes of travel common on the World of the Green Star.

Consider, if you will, a civilization that does not dwell upon the continental surface, but miles aloft, in jewel-box cities built in the branches of colossal trees. Some of these cities are three or four miles above the surface of the planet; indeed, I believe the Secret City of Siona’s band to have been at least five miles above ground level.

On the planet of my birth, for humans to have dwelt in comfort at such mountaintop heights would have been a physical impossibility, as the atmosphere of the Earth thins out with height and becomes too rarified and bitterly cold to sustain human life after a few miles.

But conditions are different on the World of the Green Star. The position of trees and other vegetation in the biosphere of the Earth is to replace oxygen in the atmosphere. Beasts and birds and men absorb oxygen from the air and breathe out carbon dioxide. But vegetation inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen.

On Earth the trees grow only to minimal heights, the tallest being the mighty Redwoods of California. But on the World of the Green Star the trees grow four or five miles into the sky, and the size and quantity of their leaves is of comparable enormity. A single tree, on the Green Star World, may bear a dozen times the leaf-surface of a Terrene forest, and produces that same multiple in the quantity of oxygen it releases into the air. Moreover, the oxygen-exhaling leafage is mostly to be found at the greatest heights, among the tops of the trees. On Earth, the thin and rarified stratosphere begins at a comparable height; but on the World of the Green Star, the thickest and most oxygen-rich layer of the atmosphere is found at that height.

Thus it is not really strange that the Laonese cities are built many miles above the surface of the peculiar planet, nor that they encounter no difficulty in breathing at a height comparable to the peak of Mount Everest.

Now, to display what bearing these matters have on the nature of the farasang as an untranslatable unit of distance-measurement, consider again what I have already stated as regards the fact that the inhabitants of this world never, or never willingly, at any rate, descend to the continental surface of their planet. Hence they have no conception of a distance-measurement based on geographical interval. On Earth, a mile is the measurement of ground-surface between two positions. But the Laonese farasang bears little relationship to such a concept, being a measurement of the time-interval between places.

It is, quite simply, the average flying-time between two places. I suppose its relationship to miles could be established by a laborious mathematical calculation, but I have no way of establishing the comparable data. Thus, to say that Sotaspra is three thousand farasangs distant from the city of Akhmim the Tyrant is to describe the time required to fly between the cities, figured according to the average flying-velocity of the most common Laonese steed, which is the zaiph, the enormous and very beautiful dragonflies the people of this world have tamed and broken to the saddle in lieu of horses.

And lacking any precise method to measure the passage of time on a world devoid of clocks or wrist-watches, I cannot even render the term into its Terrene equivalent in minutes or hours. Based on my own experience, I have concluded to my satisfaction that a farasang is approximately forty minutes of flight; but as the skysled flew many times more swiftly than any zaiph, I cannot even be certain of that. To further complicate matters, the period of daylight on the World of the Green Star seems to me considerably longer than the average of twelve hours wherein we divide a day on Earth. I gather that daylight is at least sixteen hours long on the Green Star World; but here, too, I am unable to be exact. Because of the cloud-cover, and the heavy canopy of foliage, the Laonese cannot with any particular exactitude locate the position of their sunstar. The solar illumination becomes greatly diffused as it passes down through the eternal veil of silvery mists that envelops the planet; it diffuses yet more as it filters through the hundred-mile-wide masses of lucent gold foil foliage each mountain-tall tree bears up.

I gave up all attempts to calculate the distance we traveled in our flight. The mental system of the Laonese—and of the Kaloodha, as well, it seemed—have something in the nature of a built-in biological clock, whereby they can estimate with considerable accuracy the passing of farasangs and of fractions of farasangs. The body of Karn of the Red Dragon people doubtless contained such a natural timepiece as well, but I, the intruding spirit, did not know how to “read” it.

At least, I assumed this to be the fact. It must have been so, or else the very employment of the unit of distance would be of no particular use to them, and they would have been forced to invent some mechanical means of measuring time to justify their use of the unit.

It was, at any rate, an interminable succession of diurnal flights and nocturnal moorings before we came into the vicinity of Ardha. During the flight we became much better acquainted, as you might imagine, and there was some slight difficulty about this which I suppose I should have anticipated; but I did not, and at first it annoyed and rather hurt me that my companions seemed to prefer each other’s company to mine and very frequently conversed, as it were, “over my head.”

It suddenly came to me why this should be so. I was a grown man and had played a leading role in the destruction of Sarchimus and in our escape from the Scarlet Pylon.

But, in the eyes of my companions, of course, I was only a scrawny, half-grown boy!

I have had occasion to mention earlier in this narrative some of the difficulties peculiar to the juvenile body I now inhabited; like any boy, I tended to be shy and inarticulate when among my elders, such as the imposing Sarchimus. Now, because of the adolescent body in which my spirit had found its home, I found myself to a certain degree excluded from the conferences and discussions that occurred between Zarqa and Prince Janchan.

Zarqa, of course, had endured for countless millennia, and in his eyes even the prince was a child. But Janchan was at least of mature, responsible age, whereas I was but a wild boy from a primitive tribe. Thus at length, although I came to understand their tendency to talk over my head, discussing matters and making plans without bothering to consult me, treating me at times as if I weren’t even there, I could not help being mildly humiliated by the experience. I feel certain that both Zarqa and Janchan would have been shocked and disturbed had they once guessed how this natural tendency of adults to converse with adults hurt and humiliated me. I know that Zarqa held a very special affection for me, as Karn of the Red Dragon had been the first human to sympathize with his unfortunate lot and to make a kindly gesture toward him. And Janchan was unfailingly polite to me, and surely considered us friends and comrades. Nonetheless, it rankled—nor was there anything I could do about it, barring a foolish attempt to explain to them that I was a wandering spirit from a distant planet who had chanced to enter and animate a boy’s fresh cadaver.

Before long, the situation changed abruptly.

Our interminable aerial voyage ended quite suddenly one afternoon, as we came into view of a most peculiar structure built along the upper surface of a vast branch which extended from a distant tree-trunk which stood directly in our hurtling path.

Zarqa, as if he had anticipated the moment to a nicety, slowed the flight of the skysled, and curved its direction off on a tangent. We circled to a halt behind a screen of heavy foliage.

And I knew that we had at last reached the city of Ardha, the realm of Akhmim the Tyrant, within whose Citadel perchance the woman I loved was held a helpless prisoner.

If she yet lived.

Chapter 14 ENTERING THE YELLOW CITY

Neither the gaunt Kalood nor the Phaolonian princeling made any spoken comment on the fact of our arrival—but further proof of the existence of that biological clock that enabled them to measure the passage of farasangs—so I cautiously refrained from making my alienage obvious by any such remark myself.

We tethered the weightless skysled to the base of a leaf the size of a ship’s foresail, and dismounted, crawling out on the narrowing twig as far as was possible, so as to obtain a clear view of our objective.

I have mentioned before that the Laonese are utterly without the fear of heights so common to Earthly men. If such had not been so, doubtless the race would have driven itself into extinction aeons ago, for vertigo, to a civilization which inhabits tree-cities built miles in the air, would be a fatal plague. The body of Karn, of course, was likewise immune to any feeling of giddiness; but my Terrene spirit was not, and I could not help picturing the vertiginous depths of the colossal abyss which extended mile upon mile below my slender and insecure perch.

The twig was about as large around as a full-grown oak tree would have been back on Earth. The bark was corrugated into rough overlapping rings of growth, so, actually, it was not particularly difficult to climb rather far out upon the twig-so long as you did not look down, and avoided thinking of the miles of empty air that yawned beneath your heels.

Zarqa pried the leaves apart with the crystal rod of his zoukar… and thus I obtained my first good look at Ardha.

Well did I remember the first scene upon which I gazed when first I ventured hither to this planet. I had observed the entourage of Akhmim arriving at the court of Phaolon after a flight from the city of Ardha, to lay a marriage proposal which amounted to nothing less than an ultimatum before the throne of my beloved princess, Niamh the Fair.

Closing my eyes, I can conjure up the image of Akhmim as I saw him in that hour. Tall, cruel-faced, clad in robes of stark, eye-hurting yellow, with a towering miter of sparking black crystals on his head and a jet staff clenched in clawlike fingers.

And now, after all this time, I looked upon the city of my foe.

Not for naught was it called the “Yellow City.” For, while the city of Phaolon was built all of multicolored crystals, the city of Akhmim was composed of glittering yellow gems, whose monotony of hue was relieved only by roof-tiles and domes and spire-tips of sparkling black jet.

The city was, of course, without walls—such ramparts having no utility or purpose in a world where the inhabitants travel about by air rather than by land. It simply rose, rank on rank of cube-shaped houses, hexagonal towers, slim, soaring spires, fat swelling domes, beginning at the edge of the huge branch and reaching vast heights toward the center of the branch.

Although unwalled, the city was closely guarded. Minute glittering motes swarmed about the gemmed towers and circled above the extent of the branch. These were Ardhanese warriors, mounted on fighting zaiphs.

The problem, Zarqa began without preamble, is one of entry.

“Quite right,” Janchan murmured. “We cannot just go into the city and demand the person of the princess.”

We could, of course, wait for night and fly in, hoping to be unobserved in the darkness.

Janchan shook his head. “Too risky, friend Zarqa! The skysled would arouse great curiosity and consternation, for the Ardhanese could never have seen its like.”

If that be true, Zarqa mused, then my own appearance would occasion a similar uproar. For the folk of the Yellow City cannot be expected to have seen a member of the Kaloodha before.

“Again, quite right, I’m afraid. They would regard you as a creature of legend, a thing out of ancient myth, and your appearance would attract much attention—which, of course, is exactly the thing we want to avoid as much as possible.”

I had, by this time, had quite enough of being ignored in these conversations, so at this point I spoke up rather rudely.

“Zarqa can fly us down to the extremity of the branch by night, let us off, and return to a place of concealment, to stay by the sled until we are able to rejoin him,” I said boldly. “You and I can then enter the city, asking for a place in the ranks as mercenary warriors.”

Zarqa and Janchan exchanged a look of surprise, then glanced at me. Janchan gave voice to a slight, embarrassed laugh.

“Why, that’s a very good idea, Karn—a very good idea, indeed! However, ah… I don’t think we could pass you off as a wandering sell-sword. Mercenaries are generally grizzled veterans, not fifteen-year-old boys.”

I fear I flushed hotly at this; for, of course, I had allowed it to slip my mind again that this body I inhabited was that of a boy, and Janchan was quite right.

“I’m sixteen, not fifteen, and—and, tall for my age!” I said hotly.

“Of course you are, and it really is a very good idea,” the prince said encouragingly. “But I think it would be better if you stayed here in safety with Zarqa, while I try to enter the city by night and learn something of what is going on…”

“But I don’t want to stay here with Zarqa!” I burst out, red in the face with humiliation, “I—I want to go down with you and help find the princess!”

Janchan slid one arm around my shoulder and gave me a comforting pat on the back.

“Of course you do, Karn; I know you do. But, well, I think I have a better chance of going it alone…”

At this point, to make my humiliation complete, kindly old Zarqa chimed in.

I really need your assistance here, Karn my friend! he said heartily. It will be a job for the both of us, guarding the skysled from chance discovery… I would really hate to try doing it all by myself!

At this point, I subsided, forcing myself into tight-lipped silence. Not yet had I fully mastered the immature emotions of this body; and, I must admit, I had a horrible suspicion that any moment I was likely to burst into tears!

We returned to the skysled and made a brief repast. Then we began constructing a sort of tent of the immense golden leaves so as to shelter Zarqa and myself, and also to hide the vehicle from any chance observation from the air. It was no particular problem to bend twiglets awry, tie them securely into their new position with knotted thongs from our trappings. Soon we had managed a tentlike affair which would afford us some shelter from rain or wind, and would shield us from sight. Then we napped, in order to have our strength fresh for the adventure that night, and lay, trying to sleep, waiting for the darkness to come.

Interminable hours later, night came down across the World of the Green Star and we eased the skysled out of its place of concealment, climbed aboard, and took to the air again. Zarqa had very carefully memorized by daylight the route and thus without difficulty navigated virtually blind to a safe position far down the branch on which the Yellow City was constructed. Janchan dismounted and drew a dark, concealing cloak about him. The stalwart princeling had carefully removed every jeweled badge from his trappings and, clad in plain, worn leather, with a basket-hilted rapier of common design, could presumably pass as a wandering mercenary warrior without question, at least under cursory inspection.

He had his story carefully prepared. Doubtless by now word had spread to the farthermost cities of the impending war between Ardha and Phaolon. It would only be natural for homeless men—rogues, exiles, wandering outlaws—to gather for the looting of Phaolon, which could not for long hold out against the warrior legions of the Yellow City. One more foot-weary mercenary would not be suspected in a city where many hundreds must be now have come to enlist in the hordes of the conqueror.

He turned to face us, his features hidden in the gloom beneath a heavy hood. He waved one brawny arm in farewell and I saw the flash of his white teeth as he grinned.

“Farewell for a time, my friends! Zarqa, watch for my signal and be ready at need! Karn, be a good boy, now, and help our comrade guard the sled! When next we meet, it shall be to carry the Princess Niamh to safety. Farewell!”

He turned on his heel and strode lithely away. In a few moments he had vanished in the gloom.

And he was gone.

And I was utterly miserable.

Zarqa and I made our return flight to the encampment we had chosen without incident. While I doubt not that the chevaliers and guardsmen of Ardha are doubly vigilant by night, no human eye, however keen, can with ease penetrate the unbroken gloom of the nighttime on this cloud-enshrouded planet.

We moored our craft and made a light dinner. I was glum and silent, brooding on my misfortunes. If only I had not taken the body of an adolescent boy, but awaited my chance to enter the form of a full-grown man! As for Zarqa, the kindly old fellow did everything in his power to cheer me up and to get me out of my brooding despondency. I fear I made short reply to his conversational sallies and his attempts to jolly me out of my black gloominess. When we finally decided to call it a day and turn in, I’m sure it was to his relief. A sullen boy who replies only in glum monosyllables makes pretty bad company.

I lay awake, staring at the canopy of golden leaves above my head, for an hour or more.

My position was indescribably difficult to endure. I had envisioned myself, I think quite naturally, as the central figure in an heroic quest to free the woman I loved from the enemies who held her prisoner. But, through the mischance of choosing an immature body, I found myself now cast in the role of subordinate, forced to stand idly by, while another young man, bold and daring and gallant, went venturing off alone into danger, to rescue the heroine of my adventure!

Oh, it was intolerable. I tossed and turned, unable to sleep, until at last I settled down and was silent. Poor Zarqa could do little more that try to ignore my mood. The gaunt, golden-winged creature was oddly miscast in the role of one in loco parentis to a scrawny teenager who wanted to be a hero. I’m sure he was relieved when I finally ceased my restless tossing and composed myself for slumber.

Dawn broke goldenly in the skies of the world of giant trees. Zarqa slept lightly, as do his kind; for a time he lay there, his immense and brilliant purple eyes misted with dreams of vanished splendors and empires of the past. At length he rose swiftly and limberly, performed the cursory ablutions of a race that imbibe nutriment but lightly, and even then but once in fifty days, and, leaving me to sleep undisturbed, turned to busy himself with preparing my breakfast.

The Green Star climbed higher in the heavens. Shafts of luminous jade drove down through immense canopies of golden leafage to illuminate the world of colossal intertangled branches and soaring boles. Immense zaiphs with wings like rigid fans of sparkling mica or sheeted opal dipped and whirled through the sun-shafts, busily hunting the smaller insect life which were their prey. No disturbance came from the Yellow City in the distance, within whose winding and labyrinthine ways the gallant young Prince Janchan went about his secret mission.

The food prepared, Zarqa assembled it on a makeshift tray made of a chip of scaly, dark-red bark, and set it out for me. Still there came no sound or movement from my pallet. At length, deciding I had slept my fill, the golden-winged being stalked over to the entrance of the tent and twitched it open…

But I was not in there!

No expression crossed his solemn face as Zarqa looked swiftly about, discovering that my harness, cloak, boots, sword-belt, and girdle were also missing.

Chapter 15 THE CRIMSON SIGN

Zarqa was ill-experienced in the ways of adolescent human boys; however, the gaunt Kalood had by this time learned enough of human nature to suspect how deeply wounded I was at not being permitted to accompany Prince Janchan on his adventure. It was obvious to him that I had stolen away from our camp in the darkness of the night, for an adventure of my own.

He knew how sorely Janchan would grieve, if anything happened to me during my ill-advised attempt to enter the city. The Phaolonian princeling would blame himself for having been the inadvertent cause of any peril that befell me.

For a time the tall Kalood stood motionless, thinking and pondering the matter deeply.

At length, he determined that the only thing to do was to go after me. Gathering up a few items of his gear, Zarqa fashioned a rude baldric which he slung over one shoulder. To it he attached the scabbard of the zoukar.

Then the sad-eyed Kalood took to the air!

The golden-feathered, yet bat-like wings were fully functional, it seemed. Drumming against the air, they bore him from the surface of the branch into the upper air; then, folding his wings, he fell like a plummet into the depths. Like a golden spear he clove the air, head downward, keen and luminous purple orbs scrutinizing the down-slope of the branchlet as he flashed past it. To the keen eyes of Zarqa the Kalood it was simplicity itself to discern the signs of human passage… the place where my boot-heel had scuffed away a patch of mold… the twiglet I had grasped, breaking under my weight… the crumpled bit of bark on which I had rested my full weight.

He descended to the stem of the branchlet upon which our camp was built. Here he spread his drumming wings, breaking his fall, searching the upper surface of the limb for further human spoor. Here, of course, I had gone erect and the signs of my passing were fewer.

To a lower limb he dropped, a vertiginous fall into the vast abyss down into whose depths the colossal trunk of the tree dwindled. Here he indeed found signs of my descent, for here I had been forced to employ the length of Live Rope I had taken from the sled’s store, and the semi-living glassy coil had bitten deep into spongy bark to support my weight.

And on that lower branch he found a fearful thing.

Blood.

For here a battle had been fought. Zarqa’s keen eyes clearly read the signs of a struggle—the scuffed and broken bark which I had disturbed underfoot as I fought against a mysterious adversary whose identity Zarqa could not conjecture—a torn scrap of my cloak, still caught on a snag—and blood, blood all over, dripping in rivulets of gore between the corrugations of the bark-rings.

Zarqa stooped over the bloodstain, examining the crimson sign intently.

Was it my blood—or the blood of my enemy?

There was simply no way for him to tell the answer to that question.

His gaunt face grim with despair, the loyal Kalood launched himself into space again; airborne, great wings plying the breeze, the million-year-old creature began to search for any sign of me, living or dead.

But after that terrible crimson sign there was… nothing!

The predators who rule the wilderness of the giant trees are many and fearsome.

There are wild zaiphs, which, although they seldom turn upon men, have no compunctions against devouring their sometime masters and can be the deadliest of adversaries.

More to be dreaded are the colossal white-furred spiders, whose webs are built between the boles of the enormous trees themselves, and some of which stretch across a greater distance than the Golden Gate Bridge on my native planet.

The most feared of all, perhaps, are the rapacious and reptilian ythids; it would have been an irony of fate had Karn the Hunter fallen to their merciless charge, for his nation, the Red Dragon tribe, takes the ythid as its tribal emblem.

I could, of course, have simply slipped and fallen into the abyss; this does happen to the Laonese, although not very frequently, since they have a superb head for heights and are as surefooted as mountain goats. But the signs of my struggle, and in particular that huge and ominous blotch of blood, seemed to indicate that I had been attacked by some predator, with whom I had fought.

Whether in that struggle I had been the conqueror or the conquered, Zarqa did not know. But he did not despair; it is not the nature of his kind to yield to destiny, but to fight on until even the last chance was lost.

Towards night he gave over the search for a time, at least, for even his preterhuman constitution required rest.

But he had come by now a very long way from our encampment. To return to it seemed futile, for to continue the quest on the following morning would first require his retracing his flight all the way to where he now crouched resting on a twiglet.

And so Zarqa simply decided to stay here for the night. He would require no further sustenance for many weeks, and his gaunt and leathery hide needed no covering against the night’s chill. So he simply roosted there on the twiglet, his head tucked under one great wing, sleeping as soundly as the enormous bat be resembled.

With dawn he awoke, stretched, relieved him, drank a little clear cold water from a pool of dew cupped in an upturned leaf, and flew on about his quest. It was his intention to search the entire tree in a careful and methodical fashion. He assumed there was no means by which I could have crossed to the other tree, on whose branch the Yellow City was built; therefore, his search was, for the present, confined to the tree in which he had spent the night.

His search was terminated brutally and swiftly.

A piercing pain stabbed through him suddenly as he was in mid-flight.

He turned to see a terrible black arrow had pierced the drumhead-taut membrane of his right wing.

Already he was losing momentum as air leaked through the torn membrane; the wound gaped wider—it was being torn open by the pressure of the wind. He curved in his flight to settle on the nearest branch.

But before he could land, a second black arrow flashed toward him and caught him in the wing-joint itself.

Bright agony lanced along his nerves. His senses dimmed as the entire wing went numb.

Then he tumbled from the air, his injured wing unable to bear him up, and fell like a dead weight…

When he regained consciousness, Zarqa found himself stretched out on a branch surrounded by human beings. They were rough-looking men, with hard faces and vicious eyes, clad in the bright yellow japons and black cloaklets of the Ardhanese. They carried slim glassteel swords, hooked pikes, knobbed maces of black crystal, and each bore an enormous black bow.

They were arguing among themselves as Zarqa returned to consciousness and did not at first notice that he was awake. He seized that brief opportunity to ascertain the extent of his injuries. He had broken his left arm when he fell from the sky, as he learned from the stabbing pain that went through him when he tried to move it. His right wing was disabled, perhaps permanently, although so numb was the wing that he could not tell whether the black arrow had crippled the joint or merely passed through the flesh of it. He still wore his baldric, although the zoukar and its sheath had been unclipped, as the crystal rod resembled some kind of weapon.

Since he was unable to fly with his crippled wing, and could not very easily climb because of his broken arm, there seemed to be very little chance of making an escape. So, with the vast and patient pessimism of his kind, Zarqa simply awaited the next turn of events.

He listened to what the men who stood about were saying, hoping to gain some knowledge of their purpose toward him. A burly rogue with unshaven jowls was loudly cursing at the moment.

“By the Fangs of Balkh, I say let’s kill the thing here and be about our business! Even if it’s an amphashand or no, we’d no intent to hurt it, so what’s the pity? Claws of Aozond, mates, we thought it was a golden moth—”

” ‘We?’ What d’you mean?” growled one of the others, a wizened little man with a twisted back. ” ‘Twas you, and you alone, cut down the blessed amphashand with your black arrow, Gulquond—none of our doing!”

The others growled nervous assent at this, and the burly rogue the wizened little man had addressed as Gulquond flinched and paled visibly at the accusation. He licked his lips and his piggish little eyes flickered around as if desperately searching for a way out of the trap into which he had fallen.

Zarqa knew little enough about the religious beliefs of the human beings who shared this planet with him, but he understood that they considered the unknown region above the cloud banks to be the home of whatever various gods and genii and elementals and avatars they worshiped. And, as it chanced, he understood enough of their beliefs to know that the winged servants of these many godlike beings were called amphashands…

The members of the Ardhanese hunting party thought they had shot down an angel! If the situation had not been so dangerous, it would almost have been comical.

The main tenor of Gulquond’s argument was that the gaunt winged creature he had shot down by accident was no amphashand but merely a winged monster of some unknown kind, who must have descended to the tree-level from the unknown heights of the sky. He counseled they should cut its throat, tip it over the branch into the abyss, and be on their way.

An older man, with grizzled beard and streaks of silver in his fine, floating hair, thought otherwise. He kept turning over and over thoughtfully in his hands the zoukar he had taken from Zarqa’s baldric. Within the crystal tube a shaft of blue-white lightning writhed and snapped virulently.

“Monster the thing may be, but it goes armed like a creature from The World Above,” he said gruffly. “Look here, Gulquond, and quit your sniveling… what monster carries around a bolt o’ lightning instead of a sword?”

The other rogues crowded near to stare at the writhing thing with superstitious awe. Fear was clearly written on their faces.

“No,” said the older man, whose name Zarqa learned was Kalkar. “This is too important a matter for us to decide; I say let’s carry the monster or whatever it is before Arjala for judgment and disposal… creature’s got a busted arm, besides that broken wing… let’s make a stretcher from a couple of tents and poles, and carry it down real careful… if it dies before we get it to Arjala, she’ll have our hides, I warrant!”

They had, none of them, addressed a single word to Zarqa, although the older man, their leader, soon realized he was now conscious again. Perhaps they were afraid to speak to the winged creature armed with a lightning bolt, who might be either a horrible flying monster from the upper sky or a blessed messenger of the gods; more likely, thought Zarqa with grim humor, they did not think so inhuman a creature capable of speech. At any rate, while they bound him, Zarqa kept his silence. The touch of an alien mind might be too shocking an experience for men already possessed with superstitious awe.

They handled him with gingerly care, removing the black arrow from the joint of his wing, and placing his broken arm in a rude sling which they bound against his breast so that it would not be jolted causing him pain in travel. Then they put him in the hastily-improvised stretcher, bound him in with a couple of straps, and began making their way down the limb. Zarqa fainted twice during the passage, and, as it happened, was unconscious at the end of the journey.

It occurred to him that he was rather ineffectual. In attempting to rescue the boy Karn, he had himself become a captive.

And so they bore Zarqa the Kalood down to the limb upon which their zaiphs were tethered and bundled him into a wain drawn by a team of enormous moths called dhua. The wain had obviously been intended to carry the bodies of the beasts they had hoped to take in their hunt.

Instead, they had taken a far stranger and rarer prey.

The hunters mounted; their dragonfly steeds arose on thrumming fans of sparkling opal. They left the branch one by one and soared between the trees and came circling down in the inner precincts of Ardha. And the heart of Zarqa sank within him as he discerned the nature of the enormous building in whose courtyard they landed.

It was the Temple of the Gods, and the Arjala of whom the hunters had spoken must be the priestess or prophetess of the Temple. And who in all Ardha should know better than she that he was no amphashand?