Ylana of Callisto

Chapter 1 THE ETERNAL FEMININE

IT is one of the ironies of the human condition that only in the darkest of times do the brightest and noblest traits of man come forth: endurance, courage, selfsacrifice.

I have seen this proved true in my own experience a thousand times, and I have observed it in the experience of others.

As, for example, in the adventures which befell Ylana of the Jungle Country and young Tomar after the fall of Kuur …

THE citadel of the Mind Wizards had fallen before the assault of the victorious warriors of golden Shondakor, and Tharkol, and seacoast Soraba.

The mighty armada of flying ships had traversed the known surface of Thanator, had explored the unknown mysteries of the Far Side of the planet, and had found at last the secret city of the Kuurians.

After a hard and desperate day-long battle, the warriors of the Three Cities had triumphed even over the super-science of the yellow dwarfs and their amazing ability to control the minds of men. One by one the cruel and cunning telepaths had been rooted out and cut down. Those they had taken captive were released, and among these was Tomar of Shondakor, a youthful scion of the House of Valadon.

The lad had served aboard the sky-ship Jalathadar on her first expedition against Zanadar the City in the Clouds, and had distinguished himself by his keen wits and youthful valor. The villainous Ulthar had disabled the craft, hiding himself so cleverly aboard the former ship of the Sky Pirates that none could find him. It had been Tomar who had stumbled upon the secret of his hiding-place and who had succeeded in slaying the Zanadarian traitor in hand-to-hand combat, thereby saving the vessel and all its crew.*

Thus had the boy first come to the attention of the high lords and royal courtiers of the Golden City, among them Lukor of Ganatol, the peppery and sharp-tongued Swordmaster who had been one of my first friends on the jungle Moon. Much later, the brave, handsome, serious youth had served during my own ill-fated voyage against Kuur.** Further adventures include our being carried off together by the rapacious bird-men, the Zarkoon, shortly after the fleet had flown over the Edge of the World into the unknown hemisphere.

While prisoners in the hanging cages of the Zarkoon, Tomar and I had first made the acquaintance of Ylana. The Jungle Maid was a daughter of a savage tribe which inhabited a hitherto unknown plateau to the east of the Zarkoon country. She had fled from the cave-dwellings of her tribe, she told us, rather than be forced into the arms of a brutal and repulsive warrior who had won her hand in marriage.

From this adventure we had managed to escape, but a whim of the inscrutable Fates decreed that our paths should soon be sundered. For while I and Tomar were taken captive by the Mind Wizards of Kuur, Ylana was rescued by my friends aboard the Xaxar, which had remained behind to search for Tomar and me. The Jungle Maid had returned with them to Shondakor, and had taken her place aboard the second mighty fleet of sky-ships during the final, triumphant expedition against Kuur.

And here is what happened to her, an adventure that I heard from her own lips and that I have set down very much in her own words, although with certain attitudes and descriptions and interpolations of my own added.

WHEN once the warriors descended into the Valley of Kuur amongst the towering Peaks of Harangzar, surging down the long tunnel that led into the subterranean lair of the Mind Wizards, Ylana of the Jungle Country was in the very forefront of them all.

For this expedition, the jungle Maid had reverted to the abbreviated costume she had worn in the wild, discarding at last the long and clinging courtly gown my beloved Princess Darloona had arrayed her in during her stay in Shondakor. Now the savage girl went clothed in her native dress―a brief garment of supple hide, the skin of some jungle cat that inhabited her plateau homeland. This scant garment draped around her slim hips, exposing her long, bare, golden legs, and stretched tightly over her small, nubile breasts, leaving her tanned throat and shoulders bare. About her neck was clasped a crude necklace of ivory fangs; a rough bracelet of hammered copper wire coiled about her upper arm. Her mane of untrimmed dark hair streamed down her back, and her small feet were encased in highlaced buskins of soft leather.

In her fists, the savage girl clenched long knives drawn from the twin scabbards bound with thongs to her upper thighs. With these weapons she was singu. larly adroit. In the Jungle Country the children of men do not long survive unless they are able to defend themselves against the dangerous predators who make that jungle their lair. And, even though Ylana was the only daughter of Jugrid, the chief of the Cave People, her folk were so close to the naked struggle for survival that she had been schooled in the arts of the hunt and of war, as much as any boy of the clan.

I shall not repeat here the general account of the battle for Kuur, that furious onslaught of the swordsmen of the Three Cities against the monstrous flesh robots of the Kuurians and the uncanny scienceweapons of the yellow dwarflings. For of these things you may read in another place’s … but a savage and desperate conflict it was; the men of Soraba and Tharkol and golden Shondakor fought their way step by step through the subterranean laboratories and chambers of the hidden citadel.

Ever Ylana pressed ahead, and by now the blades of her long knives were red with the gore of Kuurians and their hideous slave monsters. The one overpowering desire in the heart of the savage girl was to find the dungeons wherein were imprisoned the nobles and warriors who had survived the downfall of the first invasion fleet. Among those were Koja the Yathoon, Lankar, my American friend, Princess Zamara, Lukor of Ganatol, and, of course, I, Jandar. But of them all, the one captive foremost in the mind of Ylana was the boy Tomar. As yet she did not know whether the brave youth still lived or had been slain by the Mind Wizards. But she held in her heart a single ray of hope that he had survived the long days of cruel imprisonment in the Pits of Kuur.

Something had sprung up between the earnest, serious, easily embarrassed young Shondakorian officer and the savage girl during our adventures together after escaping from the Zarkoon bird-men. They were nearly the same age―sixteen or seventeen, I would say, although it has always been difficult for me to tell the ages of the people on this planet―and, although they came from different backgrounds, each had glimpsed in the heart of the other that elusive and indescribable quality that calls a man to a woman across all the world.

Bluff, burly Ergon joined Ylana in the final search, and little Taran, too, with the mighty form of Bozo the othode at his side. That immense, faithful beast sniffed us out, and the iron strength of Ergon forced open the doors to our cells, and one by one we emerged into the sourceless illumination that pervaded the Pits of Kuur.

Ylana had eyes only for Tomar, and came quickly to his side. The boy was pale from his underground imprisonment, and his garment was a mere scrap of rag wound about his loins. The rest of his body was naked, and filthy from the primitive conditions in which he had endured the long weeks of his captivity. But Ylana could see that he was whole and uninjured. A vast relief welled up within her heart, and emotion so filled her that her great, dark, long-lashed eyes were suddenly lustrous with the brilliance of unshed tears.

Her hand went out, tentatively, to touch him. Then, in the next moment, she turned what had been almost a caress into an impudent poke in the ribs. The eternal perversity of the female heart reasserted itself in a burst of mocking laughter.

“Wh-what’s so funny?” blurted Tomar, crimsoning.

“You arel” the girl laughed, although closer to tears of relief than to honest mirth. She cocked a thumb at his dirty face and lean ribs. “You were skinny and bony of knee even before,” she said, grinning impishly. “But look at you nowl I can count every rib! Captivity certainly doesn’t agree with you.”

The boy bit his lower lip in embarrassment. Then a reluctant grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Things, at last, were back to normal, thought To. mar to himself. He could not help but derive a certain comfort from the notion, difficult as it was to stand there, awkward and dirty and almost naked, and face her mischievous grin.

Chapter 2 FOOTPRINTS IN THE DUST

ALL about the two youngsters surged the fury of battle, for the attack on Kuur was at its height. The final outcome of the struggle still hung in the balance and only time would tell whether the mad assault on the citadel of the Mind Wizards would result in victory or defeat for the valiant warriors of the Three Cities.

Wasting but little time greeting my old friends and comrades, I, Jandar, swiftly marshaled the newly freed captives into a fighting force, hoping to take the defenders of Kuur from the rear. Weapons we found aplenty in the guardroom, and in less time than it would take me to describe, we were armed with glittering longswords.

With my American friend, Lankar, at my side, and the giant othode who had given his heart to the Earthling close behind, I led the assault against the rear of the citadel defenders. Most of the warriors from the further hemisphere were still battling their way down through the tunnels, and it was slow going, for the Mind Wizards had deployed their flesh robots in such a manner as to make the attackers pay dearly for every hall and chamber taken.

We thrust against the rear of this bastion of living flesh, and at once became far too busy to think about what might be happening to those at our own rear.

Had it not been so, I would have no tale to tell and this book would never have been written …

THE savage girl was armed, as already told, with twin knives, but Tomar bore a heavy-bladed, cutlasslike sword which Ergon had handed him when the cache of weapons had been broken into and distributed among the former captives.

The sword was not exactly to Tomar’s liking, and thus, for a moment, he hesitated and remained behind, although his every instinct clamored to join the fight. The blade was thick and difficult to wield, and in his hands he feared it would make a clumsy weapon. Noticing his hesitation, and correctly interpreting the cause thereof, Ylana offered him one of her long, thin, stilettolike knives. This offer the boy declined, not wishing to deprive the jungle Maid of one-half of her arms. The girl tossed her curls impatiently, then glanced thoughtfully at the further end of the hall.

“There was a storeroom of weapons at the fore of the cellblock,” she remarked. “Perhaps there will be another such at the rear. It’s worth a try, and it will only take us a moment.”

Tomar agreed and the two hurried to the far end of the stone-floored corridor. And there, indeed, they found a similar room, long and narrow and highceilinged, whose walls were thickly hung with a variety of weapons, including many kinds of swords, dirks, and spears with which they were both unfamiliar.

“If these are the weapons which the Kuurians stripped from their captives,” the boy observed, as he selected a slim-bladed rapier more fitted to one his size, and swished it back and forth for a moment to try the weight and balance, “then the Mind Wizards must have taken hundreds of prisoners over the years.”

Ylana repressed a faint shudder of distaste.

“Our friends are even now battling against the re. suits of their misfortune in being captured by the little yellow men,” she said grimly.

Tomar gave her a questioning glance, then realized what the girl referred to. “The giant men … ” he murmured, a slight grimace of disgust on his features.

“Monsters would be a better name for them,” the girl said. “Some of them have four arms, and none of them are easy to kill!”

Tomar nodded with distaste. “The Mind Wizards made them out of parts of their captives,” the boy said grimly. “They were cut apart and sewn together again, parts of one being added onto the bodies of others. It’s horrible … we thought that was probably how me were going to end up, too, once the little fiends were finished gathering information from our memories …”

“How did they do that?” the girl inquired.

“They can listen to your thoughts just like you can listen to my voice,” the boy replied. “And they can also dig deeper into your mind and explore all of your memories. I don’t quite understand it, myself, but that’s the way they are.”

The girl shivered. “They don’t sound human,” she said faintly. Then she added, “Come to think of it, they don’t exactly look human, either!”

By this, Ylana probably referred to the dwarfish size and wrinkled, hairless skin of the Kuurians, which was of a distinct lemon-yellow hue. No race remotely resembling the Kuurians had hitherto been known. Nor, for that matter, had a blond, white-skinned race such as the jungle savages of Ylana’s own tribe. Their antecedents remained unknown, and this occurred to Tomar, but he thought it tactless to comment upon it in the presence of the jungle Maid, and therefore held his tongue.

“What’s this?” inquired the girl curiously, pointing to a hairline crack in the stone wall at the farther end of the long, narrow storeroom.

“Looks like a door of some kind, cut into the rock,” said Tomar, studying it. After a little tugging and poking, the boy discovered the trick to opening it. Peering within, he saw nothing of interest, merely a bare, stone-walled cubicle the size of a closet, empty of everything save for dust, which had settled thickly upon the floor like a feathery carpet.

He shrugged. “An unused storage space, I guess. Let’s go, Ylana, or the fight will be over before we get a chance to blood our weapons.”

“Mine are blooded already,” the girl grinned, displaying her two knives, which were scummed with scarlet from hilt to point. “But I’m willing to give you a chance to display your prowess―if anyl”

The boy flushed, but said nothing. He was accus. tomed by now to the girl’s teasing, and could but rarely think of a good rejoinder. He knew she was merely creating mischief, for during their earlier adventures together there had been enough fighting.

Closing the stone slab that concealed the unused cubicle, he left the storeroom and the two went to join their friends in the fight for freedom.

“There’s one Mind Wizard I’d dearly love to meet up with,” the boy said grimly, as they engaged battle at one end of a row of warriors.

“Who’s that?”

“Zhu Kor,” Tomar said. “He was the creature who interrogated me and some of the others in my cell…”

The girl parried a sword stroke skillfully, and sank her other knife to its hilt in the bowels of her opponent, who fell gasping. “Did he … torture you?” she asked in a faint whisper.

Tomar shook his head as his sword slashed air then enemy flesh.

“Not torture, exactly,” the boy said slowly. “But to have someone else pawing through your mind, fondling your memories, digging into secret places … well … it isn’t fun, exactly.”

Remembering the experience, he paled, then set his jaw resolutely, and redoubled his efforts to down opponents. He fought furiously, his blade weaving a shimmering curtain of steel before him. It was as if he fought Zhu Kor, instead of merely lumbering flesh robots.

Ylana asked no further questions. A mind-probe, she guessed, must be a distasteful violation of the most private places of the mind, a sort of mental rape. The thought that this evil thing had been done to the boy who now fought at her side, and whom she knew to be brave and manly and chivalrous, enraged her. She bent to her work, and felt a glow of inward satisfaction when her flickering knives pierced the guard of the creature she fought, and slit its throat from ear to ear. It was almost as if she were helping to revenge the things done to the boy for whom she felt a certain fondness she was not always willing to admit, even in the depths of her own heart.

Thereafter they were, both of them, much too busy for further words.

LATER, when the major resistance had been broken, Princess Zamara of Tharkol took charge of the warriors engaged in clearing the Pits. Several of her officers had fought by her side during the pitched battle, and to these she gave her orders. Among the young men was a member of a minor house of the Tharkolian nobility named Kadar, who had shared a cell with Tomar. This lieutenant was only a year or two older than Tomar himself.

Spotting his friend and former cellmate at the flank of the line, Kadar went over to where Tomar was resting and suggested he check out the cellblock and adjacent storerooms to make certain none of the Kuurians or their slaves were hidden in any of them.

“I’ll go with him,” said the tanned, dark-haired girl who sprawled wearily nearby. Kadar nodded, clapped Tomar on one bare shoulder in comradely salute, passed on down the line, and had no cause until much later to recall the brief exchange.

Tomar and Ylana had cleaned the gore off their blades, and the boy had taken up a baldric and empty scabbard from the fallen. Sheathing his rapier therein, he set off on the search with the jungle Maid at his side.

They were weary from hours of battle, and both were hungry, but they had drunk deep of the waterbottles that the Shondakorians had shared with the captives, passing the canteens down the line. Tomar was somewhat depleted from the privations he had endured during the long weeks of his captivity, but to have a sword in his hand again and an enemy to face is a marvelous stimulant to a former prisoner, he had discovered.

The two searched through all of the cells without finding anyone hidden, and explored each of the guardrooms, storerooms, and other chambers in the sector to which they had been assigned.

“This is a waste of time,” Ylana complained as they completed their tour of the cellblock. “Far rather would I be on the upper level with Prince Jandar. At least there might be some fighting to do up there!”

“We have not yet looked at the weapon room at the end of the row, you know, the one where I got my sword.”

“We’ve already checked it once,” Ylana complained pettishly. “Why bother doing it again? We left it empty, you may remember!”

“Yes, but we also left it unlocked,” Tomar reminded her.

The girl tossed back her hair defiantly.

“Well, I’m not going to waste time searching a room I’ve already searched once,” she snapped. “You may fool around down here all you like, but I’m going up where there may still be some fighting! Are you coming or aren’t you?”

“I’ll see you later,” Tomar said. “I promised Kadar I would search thoroughly …”

The dark-haired girl sneered, eyes mirroring scorn.

“Oh, very well, then, I’ll waste time with you,” she grumbled. “But do hurry up, boy, or there won’t be any killing left to do!”

Tomar flushed at the tone of her voice, but set his jaw stubbornly. His sense of duty refused to allow him the easy way out. Trying to ignore her pointed silence, and the mockery in her face, the youth looked over the weapons storeroom and found it as empty as Ylana had said it would be.

“Satisfied now?” she challenged.

He flushed. “There is still the little stone room at the back,” said he, embarrassedly.

“Oh, in the name of the Red Moon!” she stormed, stamping her little, buskin-shod foot impatiently. “You simply hope that if you loiter long enough down here, you won’t have to risk your skin against the last few surviving enemies! Go ahead, then, look your fillbut I’m going!”

She turned on her heel, but at the door she paused, glancing back to see if he was following.

He was not. Tomar had pried open the stone slab that served the little closet for a door, and was peering within. Suddenly he called her name. The urgency in his voice made her still the smart retort that rose to her lips. Knife in hand, the jungle Maid came to peer over his shoulder where he crouched by the door, keeping low so that what little light there was from the dim ceiling fixture could illuminate the dusty cubicle.

“What is it?” the girl snapped. “There’s no one here …”

“But there was, and not long since,” the boy replied in low tones. “Look… 1”

She followed his pointing finger with her eyes, and suddenly she gasped.

“Footprints!” she breathed. For there before her, clearly visible, the marks of a sandaled foot could be seen in the thick dust that mantled the stone floor.

“Yes,” he said tensely. “And do you notice anything curious about them, beyond the simple fact that they are there at all?”

She considered the view, then her eyes widened.

“There are only footprints going into the cubicle,” she breathed faintly, excitement in her huge eyes. “There are none leading out!”

The boy nodded. “Yes, and they end right there …”

He pointed again and again she looked.

The line of footprints ended in a blank wall of seemingly solid stone.

Chapter 3 AFTER THE BATTLE

WHILE these events were taking place in the gloomy caverns and tunnels beneath the floor of the Valley of Kuur, other things were happening above ground which were to affect the fortunes of Ylana of the Jungle Country and Tomar of Shondakor.

As resistance was crushed out in the underground citadel, one by one the warriors of the Three Cities emerged again into the open air to rest, partake of food and drink, report to the command post, and accept new assignments. Many were wounded, for, while the telepathic dwarves were not themselves fighters, they controlled a slave-force of indomitable soldiery in their willless zombies. These were tenacious, utterly fearless, and therefore remarkably difficult to kill. But they were not invulnerable, and one by one they were overcome.

The Valley of Kuur was a bleak, desolate region of dry, sterile sands where nothing lived or grew. Meandering through the center of the long valley, which was walled to the north and to the south by tall mountains, glided in sinuous curves a stream of cold, black waters known as Dragon River. Above, the golden skies of Thanator were hidden by impenetrable mists. These, however, proved at length to be artificial, rather than natural. For as the ranks of the Mind Wizards were diminished by each death, the barrier of blurring mists began to dissipate, to become more transparent by infinitely fine gradations of light.

Finally, about three hours after the attack on Kuur had begun, the mist-barrier was completely dispersed, and the healthy light of open day shone gloriously down upon the dominion of the Mind Wizards for the first time in many years.

“Amazing, truly amazing,” puffed Dr. Abziz, the fussy, self-important, little master-geographer of Soraba. “I would have sworn those clouds were a natural phenomenon, albeit that their oddly stationary quality made their naturalness somewhat suspect, due to the high winds and furious updrafts of the mountainous region in which the vale is situated.”

“There seems to be no question about it,” commented the Earthling, Prince Lankar. “We know for certain, at this point, that the clouds were an illusion, generated by long-range telepathy…”

“Aye, yer lordship,” rascally little Glypto piped up in his rasping tones, “even as were that illusion what masked the door to Kuur itself, right over there in they great cliffs―the which were not good enough to fool the nose of yon hulking beast at yer side!”

Crouched at the Earthling’s feet, Bozo, the mighty othode whose heart Lankar had won, and who had accompanied the Earthman all the way from the trackless jungles of the Grand Kumala to the gray shores of Dragon River, raised his ferociously ugly head to have the loose purple fur behind his ears scratched. It was as if the faithful brute, reminded of his important part in finding the hidden entrance to Kuur, signified his willingness to accept yet further thanks in the form of a caress from the hand of the Earthman upon whom he had bestowed all the doglike devotion of his bottomless heart.

The door to Kuur in truth stood visible, a triangular opening cut in the smooth stone of the cliffs that ran for some distance along the borders of the black river. Once it had been cunningly concealed by telepathic illusion, masked by a thought-projection which made it seem that the opening was but a solid continuation of the stony surface. Now it yawned blackly open in the clear, golden light, and through it emerged warriors by the score, the uninjured assisting their wounded comrades.

“Pass that there bottle o’ quarra back here again, neighborl” said Glypto of Tharkol. “An’ let me an’ his lordship here sample atween us what little be left after yer guzzlin’.”

The fat little geographer flushed guiltily, his scarlet visage assuming an even deeper shade. Brusquely, he handed the bottle over and Glypto upended it, his head tilted aloft, and his two companions watched as the Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, up and down, as a truly prodigious draft of the fiery, brandylike beverage poured down that scrawny throat.

“Ahhh,” breathed the rascally little guttersnipe, finishing his drink. “That do cut th’ dust, it truly do! Here we go, yer lordship, take aboard a little more o’ this―here Soraban Courage. We have surely earned our quarra with this day’s work, I warrant, and among them prodigious deeds o’ valor these eyes o’ mine ‘aye seen terday, not the least o’ ‘em were committed by yerself, armed with that―there great staff, aye, and the burly brute at yer side!”

The Earthling smiled, thinking back over the day’s fighting. For a fortyish and quite sedentary author, used to little more physical exertion than it takes to walk a dog down the streets of a Long Island town of an evening, he felt comfortably weary. True, there were aches in every muscle, and a knee that would limp a bit for a week or two, and a cut on the back of one wrist that would leave an ugly white scar, never to fade, remaining a permanent souvenir of the battle for Kuur and his slight role in it; but on the whole, it had been an exciting adventure.

He had described sword-fights in a score of novels, had Lankar of Callisto. But this was the first time he had ever been in one!

TOWARD the center of the beach I, Jandar, stood in conversation with Zantor and Thuron and the two other captains of the flying galleons of the armada, the Zarkoon and the Avenger. I was just suggesting to my officers that it might be wise to leave a fair-sized force of fighting-men here behind in Kuur, to make certain we had this nest of vipers cleared out. Zantor looked past me to the doorway cut in the rock.

“Here comes Lukor with the death-roster,” the former Sky Private and Zanadarian gladiator observed. The spry and nimble little Ganatolian masterswordsman came up to where we stood, bearing in one fist a scrap of parchment. The other hand held a slimbladed rapier, dyed crimson with gore from hilt to point. He saluted with the blade carelessly.

“How goes the count now, Master Lukor?” inquired Zantor in his deep, somber voice.

“Fair enough, my Admiral,” Lukor smiled cheerfully. “I have myself examined the corpses, and no fewer than thirteen of the yellow devils are accounted for.”

“I gather your total does not include the naked brain in the case, slain by the boy Taran, or the one in the floating chair struck down by Prince Lankar’s othode,” Zantor mused.

“Quite right,” the silver-haired master-swordsman nodded. “That raises the total of dead Mind Wizards to fifteen. You said there were only seventeen of the fiends in all, lad?”

I shook my head, thoughtfully.

“Sixteen,” I corrected him. “Bozo the othode slew one at Gates of Kuur just before Lankar was captured. That means there is only one Kuurian left alive…”

“Well, lad, he’s down there in that nasty warren somewhere, and our men will smoke him out ere long,” Lukor said.

“Let’s hope so,” I remarked wearily. “We’ll not be able to rest easy until the last of them is dead and the entire race has been exterminated. What about the flesh robots? Are all of them dead?”

“A half-dozen were taken alive, the poor creatures) Better if they had gone down fighting, for I doubt their minds can ever be restored to them. Mayhap we had best put the unfortunate creatures out of their misery…”

“Well, we can decide on that later,” I shrugged. It was not a decision I was looking forward to making. I am perfectly willing to kill men in battle, when they are my enemies, but to cut down men in cold blood is a bit more than I can comfortably stomach. I am a warrior, not an executioner. Still, there was probably nothing else to do with them. If we didn’t give the zombielike former servitors of the Mind Wizards a quick, clean death by the sword, they would die lingeringly and horribly later on from starvation, for I doubted the flesh robots could tend to themselves without mental commands. The Kuurians had destroyed their will entirely, whether by drugs or surgery or telepathic means, I don’t know.

Just then Prince Valkar of Shondakor, my nephew-in-law, if there is such a term (and there was, on Thanator at least, for the denizens of this world have an extremely complex system of genealogy, to which they adhere scrupulously), came striding up to the command post where we stood talking.

With him was Koja the Yathoon, the tall, chitinclad, insect-man who had been the first friend I ever made on the jungle Moon, and also Zamara of Tharkol, our royal ally, who was disheveled, and flushed, clad in tattered scraps of a once gorgeous gown, with a scratch on her cheek and a smudge on her nose, and her long black hair floating about her exquisitely beautiful face in complete disarray. For all that, she looked like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. A glance at the dripping sword she held carelessly in one hand―a weapon she had wielded with remarkable dexterity and obvious grim pleasure―told me why. The proud and fiery Princess of Tharkol had been busy exacting a little personal revenge for the discomforts she had endured as a captive of the Mind Wizards. With her were two young officers, her own lieutenant, Karan, and one of mine, a fellow called Sojan.

We greeted them, and Valkar inquired as to my instructions on the disposal of the captured Kuurian weapons and instruments.

“We have thus far discovered an entire armory of the hand-weapons and the gas-receptacles,” he explained, by the latter term referring to the containers of sleep-gas the defenders of the underground city had employed so effectively.

I told him they should all be destroyed, and the equipment in the Kuurian laboratories, too. “The devilish science of the Mind Wizards must die with the last of their race,” I said. “Never again must these devices be used against our kingdoms.”

“I agree,” said Zamara. “The warriors of Thanator need no devil-magic to defend their cities against whatever foes shall rise to threaten us in the future. Our gallant fighting men have proved here this day that simple courage, armed with simple steel, can overwhelm even the evil science of Kuur. Let everything be destroyedl”

“Yes, but not until we have all left the caverns,” I added. “Some of the laboratories may contain deadly poisons or acids or powerful explosives. See to this, will you, Lukor?”

He accepted the responsibility with evident pleasure, but spoke up to suggest that a small force remain behind after the departure of the main fleet to make certain of things.

“Zantor and I were just discussing this very point,” I told him. “Zantor, if the Jalathadar is still as skyworthy as I believe she is, let’s leave her here under Haakon, with Lukor in charge of the occupation force.”

The Admiral nodded in agreement. Koja turned to me inquiringly, and spoke in his flat, metallic tones.

“Jandar, if Lukor remains to attend to the final tasks, I request permission to assist him.”

I told him he had my approval, if he felt he needed it. The witty, elegant, short-tempered and adventurous old masterswordsman and the solemn, emotionless Yathoon warrior had become the closest of friends, despite the many differences of race, background, and temperament between them.

By this time hundreds of warriors had emerged from the doorway in the cliff and stood about exchanging weary jests, binding their wounds, cleansing their bloody weapons, and taking nourishment. Others had brought down from the ship provisions of food and drink for the weary soldiers, and although merely field rations, they were delicious to hungry, thirsty men.

I dispatched Valkar in one of the flying gigs to the triple-crested mountain and he returned shortly with word that the ships captured from the First Expedition were safe, securely moored within a concealed cavern, and ready for the return flight.

“Good news, but no more than I had expected. Are all our people accounted for, Lukor?” The Ganatolian shook his head.

“Two parties are still missing,” he explained. “‘They were assigned to tracing the extent of the tunnels and have not yet returned. Also, one of the ex-prisoners and one crew-member of the Second Armada are missing. Neither had been assigned to the two search parties and I am unable to account for their whereabouts, unless they met and joined with one or another of the searching parties.”

“Oh? Who are these?” I inquired.

“Ylana the Jungle Maid and young Tomar,” said Lukor. “I last laid eyes on the boy when we were all mingling in the corridor, having just been released from our cells. As for the girl, she was fighting near me when we cut our path through the second complex of laboratories and storerooms. She may have sought out young Tomar after we crushed that pocket of resistance, for I believe that there exists … a certain fondness between those two.”

“Well, doubtless they will turn up soon enough,” I nodded. “Let me know when the missing search parties return. Zantor, let us begin getting the men back to their ships―the wounded and the former prisoners first. The men need rest badly. Lukor, take Sojan and Karan here and notify those who will remain behind as part of your occupation force. We must get their gear down from the ships. Zantor, will you assign crews to the Conqueress, the Arkonna, and the Jalathadar? We need to get them out of their moorings in the cavern, test them for air-worthiness, and see them fully reprovisioned. Then, once these matters are attended to, I see no reason why the combined fleets cannot begin the long voyage home … home to Shondakor and Tharkol, with the good news of victory and of the destruction of the greatest menace that has ever threatened our world!”

Chapter 4 THE SECRET STAIR

TOMAR studied the row of footprints that seemed to end against a stone wall, as if the person who had made them had somehow possessed the power to walk through solid barriers.

The boy was both excited and fascinated. He knew by sheer instinct that the discovery was of enormous importance, and he marveled at how easily they could have missed it. If they had not already explored the small room to know there had been no footprints, they could easily have overlooked them now. They were, after all, hunting for live enemies, not marks in the dust.

Tomar straightened up, coming to a swift decision. He turned to go but his companion laid her hand on his arm, staying him.

“What is it?”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to apprise Kadar of our discovery,” he said.

“Kadar?” she repeated. “Why Kadar? Let’s look into this, on our own―why share the credit with your lieutenant?”

“Because that’s the way things are done,” the boy murmured, with just a trace of exasperation in his voice. He began to explain military organization to the savage girl, realizing that her people were too primitive to have developed sophisticated codes of behavior like that which governed the legions of Shondakor the Golden. His words faded into silence, as soon as he found that Ylana was paying absolutely no attention to what he was patiently trying to explain. Instead, the girl was busily hunting through the weapons and gear and equipment with which the walls of the outer chamber were hung.

“What are you doing?” he inquired.

She flashed him a look of scorn.

“Hunting for a light, of course. It’s much too dark in that little cubbyhole to see. If your Mind Wizards have these magic lights in the ceiling, they may have portable ones, as well.” She pointed at the dimly luminous globe affixed by a bracket to the roof of the chamber.

Tomar grinned feebly. “That’s clever of you, Ylana,” he admitted. “I’d never have thought of that.”

“Probably not,” she agreed. Then, snatching up a metal tube to the end of which a dull globe of heavy crystal was fastened, she uttered an exclamation. Turning it upon him she did something which caused the globe to blaze suddenly with cold light.

With this clenched in one fist, she turned back to the small, dusty room and its mysterious footprints. Shining the light upon the wall against which the footprints ended, the girl began to rap and tap there on with the hilt of her knife, then to poke and probe into every crack with the knife’s point

Tomar watched her in silence for a moment, then cleared his throat and spoke up.

“I still think we should go back and tell Kadar what we have found,” he protested halfheartedly.

The girl paid him absolutely no attention, intent on what she was doing. He repeated the remark in a firmer tone.

“Tell him what?” she asked scathingly. “That you’ve found some marks in the dust? What do you expect him to say to that?”

“Well …”

“He’ll just tell you not to bother him with nonsense, and to come back again when you have really found something―something with a bit more substance to it, you ninny!”

“Well …” he faltered, then let the word fade away. There was, after all, something to be said for Ylana’s point of view. Perhaps it would be wiser to investigate more fully, rather than being in such a hurry to report the first clue they found.

“Maybe you’re right,” he mused.

“Of course I’m right, I’m always right,” she muttered absently. “Here―lend a hand―put your shoulders behind this…”

“This” was a hairline crack her probing had found in the apparently solid stone of the back wall. The tip of her blade had pried into it. Tomar obediently threw his strength into the breech.

“Careful, you hulking oaf, you’ll snap my blade!” the girl flared. With a sheepish grin he relaxed his effort. Heaving and prying, shoving and pulling, they widened the crack. Now it could clearly be seen that there was a secret door in the back wall of the tiny room. Obviously, there must have been some simpler and easier way to effect an entrance, some secret spring or catch that unlocked the hidden door. But they did not have time to hunt for it. Whoever had come this way had done so very recently. He or it was one of their enemies, and was—must be―attempting to hide from capture, or to make an escape to freedom. And every moment weighed in the balance.

With a final heave of his strong young back and shoulders, Tomar, red-faced and gleaming with sweat, managed to force open the door against whatever counterweight had sealed it.

“There!” he grunted when it was done.

The girl cast him an appraising glance, running her eyes over the rigid muscles of his manly, young torso, as he held the door open. His half-naked body was like a work of sculpture, and the woman within her thrilled almost against her will at his display of strength.

For an instant, admiration glistened in her eyes and her soft lips parted. In the next she snapped her mouth shut and forced a sneer.

“Well, you’re good for something anyway, boy,” she grinned. Then she wormed past him and crept into the black opening before he could voice a protest or try to stop her.

“What are you doingl” he burst out in alarm. “Come backl”

“Pooh,” she sneered, or the Thanatorian equivalent thereof.

“But there may be more than one of them―too many for you to fight alonel” he cried.

“Then come in and back me up with some of those muscles you like to show off,” she suggested.

Tomar shrugged helplessly, an expression of bewilderment on his face. His lips framed a silent expletive, which I believe may be translated as “Women!,” and did as she had bidden him. Still bracing the door open, he entered the darkness that filled the hidden doorway. He could see nothing until she shone her light in his eyes.

“Well, come on, will you? Let’s explorel” she urged, her voice eager with excitement.

“But what about the door? It may not open from this side.”

“Well, block it with something, and let’s be about our business, she said impatiently, her voice now coming from some distance away.

“With what?” he almost yelled.

“Oh, here, I’ll do it myself,” the girl said furiously, leaning past him to insert the hilt of her dagger between the edge of the stone door and the wall. Reluctantly, Tomar relaxed his effort and let the door-slab slide gratingly back into place. It did not entirely shut, a crack of dim radiance showing in the gloom.

“That should do it, I guess,” he admitted. Ylana laughed shortly and observed in a tart voice that she had to think of everything on this adventure, and that all he was good for was musclework.

“Come on, let’s look around,” she urged, casting the beam of light about them. Its rays pierced the darkness, disclosing stone walls thick with dripping mold and unhealthily pallid fungus, but nothing else.

The air smelled dank and lifeless, as if vitiated from long confinement. Whatever method the Mind Wizards had employed to draw fresh air down from the upper world to circulate through their labyrinthine caverns obviously was not used here.

Suddenly the girl uttered a crow of triumph.

Her light speared a stone structure that interrupted the regularity of walls and flooring.

“A secret stair,” she breathed, excitement glistening in her eyes. And it was exactly that.

THEY debated about which course of action they should follow. Or, to be more precise, Tomar debated and Ylana refused to consider any of his ideas. The boy sensibly suggested it was time they went back to summon others to assist them in the search. Ylana stubbornly refused to hear of it.

“But, Ylana, it’s dangerous to go ahead on our own―suppose there are several of them in here?”

“Then you will defend me like the great, big hero you are,” she said with a wicked grin. He shrugged helplessly.

“But suppose there are too many of them for both of us to fight?”

“If you’re afraid, you can go back and wait for me in the weapon-room,” she advised. “It’ll be safe enough for you there, I suppose?”

Choking back an ungentlemanly word, Tomar subsided, seething inwardly. Every time he suggested doing something the reasonable or the sensible way, the girl had a tart rejoinder that made it seem his motives sprang from fear of danger, or trouble, or fighting. It proved more than the boy could cope with, and he gave up in despair.

THE stairs were hewn or somehow cut out of solid rock. They were narrow and steep, and remarkably slippery. The thick growth of mold that carpeted them crushed into slime underfoot.

But other feet had gone this same route, and very recently. For Ylana’s light clearly showed a trail of crushed mold leading up the stairs. Some of the fungoid growths had been smeared to slime so very recently, they still leaked an oily ooze.

They climbed the slippery stairs carefully, and slowly, holding on to each other, and talking in low whispers, when they spoke at all.

At the top of the stair, they found themselves at one end of a long tunnel cut through the bedrock beneath the valley floor.

Here the excavations had been performed in haste, and little effort had been taken by the diggers to smooth the walls and ceilings of the tunnel, which were ragged with masses of sharp mineral outcroppings. The floor of the tunnel was smooth enough under their feet, however, and aided by Ylana’s light, they went forward with good speed.

“We must be under the mountains,” puffed the boy after a time. “The valley wasn’t all that wide!”

“Perhaps,” Ylana nodded disinterestedly.

“But which mountains, I wonder?” he persisted. “If I remember the map on the silver amulet Jandar found, there was a range of mountains to the north and to the south, but nothing to the west. And more mountains to the eastern end of the valley, or that one big mountain, anyway, the one with the triple peak . . : ‘

“Will you stop talking?” the girl hissed venomously. “Just save your breath for walking. We have enough of it to do. This tunnel seems to go on forever…”

Suddenly the girl broke off, stopping short―so short that Tomar stumbled into her from behind. He was about to apologize when he noticed that she wasn’t saying anything, just standing there as if her strength had all at once given out, or her determination to pursue this reckless journey into danger, or possibly both. He grinned. It wasn’t often that Tomar thought of a taunt―more often he was on the receiving end of them.

“Well, I see you’ve stopping talking, yourself,” said he, slyly. “What’s the matter, are you running out of breath, after warning me against it?”

“Not quite,” said the girl in a strangely stifled voice.

“Well, then, why don’t you continue complaining about my oafish ways?” he grinned.

“It’s rather hard to talk,” she said in a strangled voice, “when somebody’s holding the point of a sword against your throat.”

Chapter 5 THE SIXTEENTH CORPSE

BEFORE the end of that day of attack and battle and victory, the warriors of the Three Cities were ready to depart for their distant homes on the other side of the planet.

Lukor and Ergon and Koja and the other nobles and officers and fighting men who would remain be. hind as the occupation force, to make certain of the destruction of Kuur, bade farewell to their friends and comrades.

The wounded and the former prisoners were all safely aboard, and the last instructions were given. Gear and provisions had been left behind in sufficient quantities to ensure the safety and also the comfort of the occupation troops. And, of course, one of the sky. ships remained, moored to the clifftop above the Gate to Kuur, for the use of the fighting men left behind. This was the Jalathadar, under Captain Haakon. Manned by a skeleton crew, the ship would bring the occupation force home when their tasks were con. cluded.

The only element of uneasiness to mar the mood of victory was that the whereabouts of young Tomar and of the Jungle Maid, Ylana, were still unknown. The two youngsters had not returned from their mission. As yet, their absence had caused no consternation among their friends. No one as yet knew of any reason to worry about their safety. The fact that they had not yet returned was merely deemed unfortunate.

So little attention had been given to their absence, in fact, that no one had mentioned it to the Tharkolian lieutenant, Kadar, who had volunteered to serve during the occupation of Kuur. Had he been asked, the young officer could have told how he had dispatched the two to search the cellblock and its adjacent chambers, thus yielding the first clue as to where the missing youngsters had been going when they had so mysteriously vanished from their comrades.

WHEN the golden skies of Thanator were illuminated by the brilliance of dawn, the last men ascended to the ships of the fleet in gigs, which were stored away in their deck-houses, and the ships themselves were made ready to depart.

The ornithopters Conqueress and Arkonna, which had been slightly battered and damaged when they had been captured by the Mind Wizards, had been hastily repaired during the hours of darkness, and were now ready for the long flight home.

Without further ado, the mightiest air-fleet ever assembled in the skies of Callisto spread its great wings to catch the winds of morning. From the beach of the Dragon River below, the warriors of Lukor’s company waved and cheered as the royal colors of Shondakor and Tharkol and Soraba broke from the flag-masts of the Xaxar, the Avenger, the Conqueress, the Arkonna, and the Zarkoon. The five gigantic galleons of the skies rose weightlessly into the golden heavens, floated in a grand and stately curve, circling once the Valley of Kuur, then drew into an arrowhead formation, pointed their prows westward, and lifted their jointed and mobile vans in salute to the warriors below.

Like a flotilla of clouds, the great Armada drifted slowly from view, soaring grandly over the length of the vale, and disappeared from the view of those on the beach. One by one they dwindled to tiny motes in the west and were gone.

And now there was work to be done!

Lukor wasted no time in setting his men to their tasks.

“Friend Koja, take twenty men into the caverns and bring up all the bodies of the dead. We shall burn them in a funeral pyre, as the best means of disposing of the corpses. Our own dead are being flown back home for a state funeral, but we must dispose decently of the bodies of our enemies. I want a complete roster of the dead, with descriptions of each, mind you!”

The ungainly arthropod saluted and withdrew to select his work-party. They descended into Kuur to their grisly task.

The master-swordsman then turned to gruff, burly Ergon, the former Perushtarian slave, who had fought beside Jandar of Callisto in the gladiatorial arena of Zanadar and was now a member of the Shondakorian court.

“Ergon, old comrade, I will give you the task of checking through all of the storerooms and laboratories and arsenals of the Mind Wizards,” said Lukor. “Any weapons, gear, provisions or supplies of food or drink which you deem we can put to good use, I want brought up and added to our supply depot up the beach, there. Then the laboratories and storage chambers are to be sealed off. Some of the devices and ma. chines of the dwarfish yellow devils are doubtless dangerous to tamper with, and I desire no untoward accidents!”

“Aye, komad,” grunted Ergon, saluting his captain. “Jandar has already warned that the chemical laboratories have explosives and acids and poisons, and others such-like devil-stuff. Seal ‘em off, I will!” He ambled off to choose a team for the job.

Some of the others were given the task of drawing up a precise map of the underground facilities of the Mind Wizards, and departed at once in search of drawing implements and measuring tools.

These assignments given out to worthy and competent men, Lukor posted guards at lookout stations and turned to the task he had reserved unto himself.

The finding of Tomar and Ylana!

THE day wore on, slowly. It is not a Thanatorian custom to indulge in a midday meal; however, Lukor decided that he would break with tradition this once and see that his men partook of that Earthling innovation Jandar of Callisto had introduced, which was called “lunch.” After a morning spent in the dank underground tunnels, he decided they required an interval of rest in the open air, at least.

By late afternoon, the corpses of the slain had been fetched up from the labyrinthine ways of the Underground City and sanitarily disposed of on a huge funeral pyre at the other end of the beach. Those weapons and gear that Ergon. had found in the subterranean storage-chambers, and that he decided could be of use to the occupation force, had either been added to the stores held at the supply depot, or had been stored away aboard the Jalathadar.

The laboratories and machine shops had been sealed off, as Lukor had ordered. As an additional precaution, Ergon had posted guards at their entrances.

The underground passages and chambers had, by evening, been thoroughly explored and mapped. The cartographers had added descriptive captions as to the nature and use of each chamber, as far as these could be deduced. A number of secret cubicles or previously undiscovered tunnels had also been found, so thorough had been the work of the officers assigned to this task.

Over the evening meal, by the light of flaring torches, Lukor examined these charts. Dividing his attention almost equally between the hot stew prepared aboard the galley of the flying ship that hovered aloft, and the annotated maps, he studied the designs of the subterranean system of chambers with a certain dissatisfaction and uneasiness gnawing at his heart, a feeling that had nothing to do with the the maps of the Underground City.

The reason for this growing dissatisfaction was quite simple―in his own task, Lukor had failed.

Tomar and Ylana had not been found.

THE men slept that night in blanket rolls on the beach, while a huge bonfire flared against the dark,, and alert guards strolled the perimeter of the camp or stood sentinel at the Gates of Kuur.

The night was clear and mild, almost warm. But that was not the reason the men voiced for sleeping out-of-doors. None of them had the slightest desire to spend the night in those dank, grim, underground rooms where once the fiendish Mind Wizards had held sway.

Lukor alone did not sleep.

It had finally occurred to the gallant, old Ganatolian to announce to all his troops that the two young people were missing, and to inquire if any of the warriors had a notion of what might have become of them.

Kadar had looked up with surprise etched on his handsome features. The Tharkolian lieutenant had not, until that very moment, realized that the Shondakorian boy and the jungle Maid were among the missing.

“Sir Lukor,” he spoke up, “I last saw them in the cellblock where Prince Jandar and all of us who survived the capture of the First Armada were held.”

“When was that, precisely?” Lukor demanded keenly. The officer told him.

The young juru-komad then recounted how Princess Zamara had instructed him to assign to some of the warriors the duty of searching all of the cellblock and the adjacent guardrooms and storage-chambers, in order to make absolutely certain that none of the Kuurians or their slaves were hiding there.

“Which cellblock do you refer to?” inquired Lukor. “Show it to me on the map.”

The lieutenant studied the chart by the light of the torches, and then laid his finger on the area he had described. Lukor looked over the map carefully: no known tunnel or hallway stretched beyond that region. The corridor, lined with cells on either side, ended in a blank wall. There was only a small store. room of weapons beyond the last pair of cells, the one where Ergon had discovered a variety of hand-weapons and warriors’ gear obviously stripped from former captives.

The Ganatolian then questioned all of the other officers and warriors in his troop, but none remembered having seen the two young people at any point later than had Kadar.

“Very well; tomorrow, after breakfast, we will start the search at that place, beginning with the last position at which they are known to have been,” decided Lukor.

He turned his attention to the study of the death roster which Koja had drawn up. It was complete in every detail, but something about it nagged at his mind, bothering him in a way he could not quite describe, even to himself.

SOMETIME later, Koja, just going off guard duty, noticed while making his way to his bedroll that Lukor was still awake. The expression on the old Ganatolian’s face was one of troubled thoughtfulness.

“You seem disturbed, friend Lukor,” observed the solemn arthropod, coming up to where his captain sat studying a scroll by the light of a flaring torch. “Does your wound still annoy you?”

“A scratch, nothing more,” shrugged the other, dismissing the slight injury he had taken in the battle. “I have been looking at the roster of the dead which you prepared. What disturbs me is the number of the corpses.”

“Our own losses were light,” murmured the Yathoon, mistaking the death-count to which Lukor referred to be that of the Fleet-members slain in the battle.

“I mean the Kuurian corpses,” Lukor snapped testily. “I’ve just gone over the figures for the third time tonight. There were sixteen of the yellow devils alive before the battle. After the battle, we found fifteen carcasses.”

“Then… ?”

“Precisely. Where is the sixteenth corpse?”