Ylana of Callisto

Chapter 6 THE YELLOW DWARF

FROM the southern slopes of the Peaks of Harangzar they watched with longing eyes the departure of the five flying galleons. Ylana and Tomar exchanged an eloquent glance, but said nothing. For there was truly nothing to be said.

The skies of Thanator had flushed with the bright golden splendor of that weird dawn that illuminates the heavens of the jungle Moon like a vast, silent explosion of auric light. By the brilliance of that illumination, the youth and the savage girl observed the mighty ships of the sky ascend from their moorings until they hovered as weightlessly as so many clouds above the Valley of the Mind Wizards.

One by one, they circled the vale, they drew into the familiar arrowhead formation, and pointed their ornate prows toward the horizon of the west, spread their great ungainly wings to catch the morning breeze, and sailed for the far and distant Edge of the World, bound for Shondakor and Tharkol and Soraba.

Tomar bowed his head despairingly, striving to think, and trying to force back the hot tears that filled his eyes, so that the girl at his side might not discover the depth of his emotion and the bitterness of his despair.

She was his to care for now, for there was no other to stand between the slim, lovely child of the jungle Country and this unexplored and savage wilderness and the innumerable dangers it contained.

He wanted her to think him braver and more manly than he knew himself to be―as brave and as manly, at least, as events now required him to be.

He did not want her to see the gleam of tears in his eyes. For, to stand between Ylana and the perils of the wild, he must play the part of a strong and courageous fighting man.

It would not do for her to see him weeping like a child who is frightened of the dark.

BUT, in all honesty, there was reason enough and more for him to feel despair, if not indeed to be fearful of the fate that awaited them in this hostile, new world.

That which preyed most upon Tomar’s mind was the knowledge that his friends and comrades had sailed for home without him and Ylana, abandoning them to an unknown destiny. He could hardly imagine why Prince Jandar and the others should have done this. The only reason that occurred to him was that, just possibly, the warriors of the West believed that Tomar and Ylana were dead, slain in the battle in which the citadel of the Mind Wizards had been conquered.

And yet it was not at all like Jandar of Callisto to fly away and leave them behind without positive evidence of their demise. Nor could the boy picture Lukor of Ganatol or Koja of the Yathoon Horde nor any of his other friends and comrades aboard the fleet behaving in so callous and careless a manner.

Their behavior seemed inexplicable. And yet with his own eyes he had seen the departure of the Armada.

It did not, unfortunately, occur to Tomar to count the number of aerial vessels that had made their departure that morning. Had he done so, and had he noted with care which of the great sailing ships of the sky had flown from Kuur, he might have realized the truth: that one of the great ornithopters had remained behind with the occupation force.

For, of course, the Jalathadar had not sailed but was still moored in the secret cavern within the mountain of the triple peaks which stood like a mighty monument at the far eastern end of the Valley of Kuur.

This Tomar could not have known. Nor could he see clearly enough from his particular vantage point that the warriors of the West still remained encamped before the Gates of Kuur.

And so Tomar thought himself and Ylana left behind by his former comrades, abandoned to an unknown fate, lost and alone and helpless in an unknown world.

These were not pleasant thoughts, but far less pleasant even than these broodings was the fact that both he and the girl were the prisoners of a cunning and implacable enemy who had disarmed and bound them in the valley of Kuur.

For, even as Lukor of Ganatol had begun to surmise, one of the dread Mind Wizards yet lived.

Worse yet, it was Zhu Kor, that merciless and cruel yellow fiend, high in the hierarchy of the dwarfish telepaths, who had probed and fondled the most intimate places in Tomar’s mind.

Tomar shuddered inwardly, remembering with crawling horror the cold, hideous sensation of those icy, insidious tendrils of thought from an alien brain slithering through his tenderest and most private memories.

And again he tasted the bitterness of despair. For, while it was dire and difficult enough to have been taken prisoner, the position in which he and Ylana now found themselves was the uttermost extremity of hopelessness.

For how can you escape from a captor who can read your every thought?

IT had seemed likely to Tomar that, with the fleet of the West having departed from Kuur, the yellow dwarf who held them prisoners would seek to re-enter the Underground City. Doubtless Zhu Kor was adept in the use of the uncanny science and arms of his people. When the dwarfish telepath had fled into the secret passages in order to avoid being captured or slain by the warriors of the Three Cities, he had enjoyed such a slender margin of time that he had only been able to snatch up a leather case of food and drink, and had armed himself with only one of the slim rapiers, selected from among the variety of swords that adorned the walls of the stone chamber, along with a mysterious hand weapon of glittering metal and crystal, whose purpose and nature were still unknown to the two youngsters.

Inexplicably, however, Zhu Kor turned his back on Kuur and impelled his prisoners in the opposite direction.

As they stumbled along, wrists bound behind their backs, loops of cord about their throats held like dogs’ leashes in the wrinkled clawlike hand of their master, the two young people puzzled as to where their destination might be.

The subterranean passage in which they had been taken prisoner by the last surviving Mind Wizard had led onto the slopes of the southern mountains, the exit therefrom being concealed behind a slab of rough rock which seemed to the eye simply an outcropping of stone.

Instead of leading his captives back into the terminus of the underground passageway, by that means to retrace their steps back into the subterranean city which they believed was by now empty, the yellow dwarf turned their faces into the west and marched them before him between the twin peaks and down the further slope.

Nor did Zhu Kor bother to enlighten them as to where they were headed, nor why they did not return to Kuur. The Mind Wizard had, as yet, said very little to the two captives. He seemed distracted and thoughtful, the wrinkled yellow mask of his skull-like visage drawn into a frown of somber meditation.

It was not difficult to imagine some of the thoughts that passed through the mind of Zhu Kor. His race was destroyed and with it all its plans and plots and schemes for the future conquest and subjugation of this world. This was enough to give the most implacable villain pause for inward contemplation.

In simple fact, of course, the Kuurian with his mind-reading powers was fully aware of those recent events whereof Tomar of Shondakor and Ylana of the Jungle Country were as yet ignorant. He knew, from his uncanny sensory perceptions, that a strong host of the fighting men of the West yet invested Kuur, that rather than having been left deserted, the Underground City of the Mind Wizards was under close and careful guard by the warriors of Lukor’s force. He knew, as well, from his weird ability to eavesdrop upon the private thoughts of others, that Koja and Lukor and Ergon and the rest of Tomar and Ylana’s former shipmates were now actively searching for the lost pair, aware that one of the Mind Wizards was still at large.

And he knew that Lukor’s men would be on his trail all too soon.

THEY slept that night in the depths of a narrow cave at the base of the southern range of mountains which surrounded the Valley of Kuur.

Tomar and Ylana slept but fitfully, for all that they were exhausted from the descent of the steep southern slopes. The way down would have taxed their strength and agility even had their hands been free. But Zhu Kor did not dare to cut them loose from their bonds, for some reason he did not explain. Not only did he keep their hands tied, but he forced them to retain about their throats the loops of cord whose ends he had tied to his own wrist.

They were loosely knotted, those leashes, and had either Tomar or Ylana fallen or attempted to flee, they would have tightened around their necks and strangled them. Therefore, it had been necessary to find a way down the mountain by slow and easy stages, following a meandering ledge by which the boy and girl could descend without using their hands. This had consumed most of the day, without a single pause for rest or sustenance.

With nightfall the Mind Wizard had forced them into the dank recesses of the narrow cave, and then he had, however grudgingly, permitted them to eat and to drink, albeit quite sparingly, from his stores. Then he instructed them to seek what repose they could until dawn, settling himself in the mouth of the cave, so that he stood between his two captives and freedom.

Zhu Kor himself did not sleep. The Kuurians despised the body and its grossly physical needs, and had learned to drive and discipline themselves. To conquer the weariness that pervaded his dwarfish form, the yellow man swallowed a certain powder which his kind carried ever on their persons. The drug overrode the weariness of the body and the desire for slumber.

It was dangerous, that drug, he knew all too well. But he took it nonetheless. For he had much thinking to do.

He was the last of his kind in all this world, and he knew it. But he knew also that the powers of the mind that he possessed made him the most dangerous of all the living creatures on this planet, and potentially the most powerful of them all. A single savant of his racethe insidious Ool―had achieved utter dominance over that powerful bandit legion called the Chac Yuul, in times gone by. Another, in a similar fashion, became the secret power behind the throne of Zanadar, and had subjugated the immensely powerful Sky Pirates to his wishes. A third, Ang Chan, had manipulated the Princess of Tharkol like a puppet on a string, precipitating her insane attempt to conquer the entire world of Thanator.

Pondering these matters, Zhu Kor permitted a small, cold smile of cunning to touch the corners of his thin lips.

For Ool and Ang Chan and the Mind Wizard who had secretly ruled the Sky Pirates of Zanadar―one Rakhu by namehad been but less skilled at mind control than he. For he, Zhu Kor, was the fourth most powerful and the fourth most ancient member of the yellow men of Kuur.

And, with the destruction of his superiors, and the extinction of his kind, he had now achieved supremacy. He was the last and now the greatest of the Kuurians.

And the conquest of this planet might still be within his grasp…

Dreaming his mad dreams of power and conquest and of the subjugation of an entire planet, he stared with unseeing eyes upon a night now made glorious by the rising of the great moons of Gordrimator, or Jupiter. Among them, the far distant world from which he and all his kind had immigrated by a means now known only to himself alone.

Chapter 7 THE TERROR OF THE SKIES

WHEN the dawn of the second morning after the destruction of Kuur illuminated the golden and vaporous skies of the jungle Moon, Zhu Kor roused his prisoners rudely from their rest and bade them relieve themselves, partake of a few morsels of nourishment and a sip of precious water, and be on their way.

Although the Mind Wizard contemptuously regarded the two young specimens of humanity, who to his coldly superior mind were little better than cattle, he did not awaken them with a kick or a blow. Physical punishments were all but alien to the thinking of his kind, for in every conceivable manner they eschewed the things of the body. This doubtless ex. plained why such purely physical means of coercion as torture or bodily abuse had not been visited upon Tomar and the other warriors during their recent captivity in Kuur.

When one possesses the uncanny ability to insert a mental probe into the minds of others, physical mis. treatment becomes a vapid anachronism and a super. fluous cruelty.

He awoke them with a swift, sharp mental probe into their dreaming brains.

Tomar jerked awake, cold and sweating, haunted by hideous memories of similar violations.

At least he was accustomed to such experiences. This unfortunately, was not so with Ylana. The savage girl awoke screaming in terror, her eyes wide and glazed with shock at so intimate a touch. It took Tomar some time to soothe her frightened and bewildered sobs. And all the while the hunched, gaunt, dwarfish Zhu Kor watched his slaves with idle amusement.

“You shall learn, animal, to suffer far worse from your master,” said the Kuurian, calmly. “Absolute and instantaneous obedience to my every whim is the only course of behavior that will insure that similar experiences occur but seldom. Learn to anticipate my wishes and to act before prodded into action, if you dislike the prod so much. Remember that there exists no portion of your being―body, mind or soul―that I cannot violate in any manner, at any time, if only to amuse myself.”

Ylana, now crimson with outrage after recovering from her shock, would have spat a crude epithet, had not Tomar shouted at her to hold her tongue. She shot the boy a smoldering glare of mute and vindictive fury, but swallowed her words. This seemed to afford their captor a certain degree of cold satisfaction.

“Good,” he chuckled, “very good( Learn from your companion how not to cause me annoyance, and all will be well enough with youl Now, both of you, crawl out into the open―for I have ascertained that we are unobserved―and relieve yourselves of bodily wastes in the disgusting manner of your brutish kind. And be quick about it! We must go far this day, and time is of the utmost importance.”

The two youngsters had no option but to do as they were told, and crawled out into the open, squatted, and performed the functions of nature as best they could. Poor Tomar was scarlet with embarrassment at being forced to relieve himself in the company of the girl, and scrupulously avoided glancing in her direction. The Jungle Maid was somewhat less fastidious about such matters, although even among her primitive tribe such necessities were attended to in relative privacy. However, she felt ashamed and soiled by the act and endured her indignity as best she could. But her opinions of the creature who has forced this shame upon the two of them were so vitriolic that they cannot be repeated here.

Zhu Kor, of course, was aware of her discomfiture and of her loathing. It did not in the least annoy him: in his cold, inhuman way, he found it rather amusing.

ALL that day they continued traveling westward, after wending south for the first hour and a half of the journey. Zhu Kor had taken the lead and hobbled along with an easy and effortless stride, for all his hunched and diminutive stature. The boy and the girl followed as best they could, but found it difficult with their hands bound to traverse the sandy plain, littered with tumbled slabs of broken rock.

On more than one occasion Tomar or Ylana tripped and fell, and the strangling-noose each still wore tightened, cutting off their breathing. On each such occasion, however, Zhu Kor paused and stood negligently smiling his cold, cruel, thin-lipped smile while the boy or the girl, or both, struggled slowly and painfully to their feet again.

As it was not the custom of the inhabitants of Thanator to indulge in the midday meal, no pause in their progress was permitted until late afternoon. Weary and bedraggled, bruised and dusty, aching in every muscle, the two captives limped and staggered along, striving to keep up with their captor, who still wore the ends of their leashes fastened about his bony wrist.

To alleviate the boredom of their journey, the two conversed at times in whispers pitched too low for their captor to overhear. Doubtless, Zhu Kor was aware of this, for from time to time Tomar and Ylana were aware of the cold and alien touch of his intrusion into the privacy of their thoughts, fleeting as these intrusions were. But the contempt of the Mind Wizard for the two captives he regarded as little more than articulate beasts was such that it mattered not to him what they said to one other.

“West, and always west,” whispered Ylana after a time through dry, parched lips. “Wherever do you suppose he is taking us?”

“Only the Lords of Gordrimator know that,” Tomar breathed.

An hour or so later, a thought suddenly occurred to the jungle Maid, and she stiffened up from the exhausted slouch she had assumed and hissed to attract Tomar’s attention.

“What is it?” he asked wearily.

Excitement danced in the girl’s bright eyes.

“I believe I know where he is leading us,” the girl gasped with eagerness.

“Where, then?”

“If I remember rightly the big chart that Dr. Abziz drew up, the only geographical feature of any particular importance lying slightly south and due west of Kuur is the plateau that bears the great lake of Cor-Az, and the jungle country where my people live,” the girl whispered excitedly. “I think that’s where we are going, and, if I am right, then all may yet be well with us!”

“Oh? Why do you think that?” asked Tomar in low tones.

A flash of her old temper sparked in the jungle Girl’s heart. In much her old rude manner, she snorted, eyeing her companion contemptuously.

“You’ve about as much brains in your head as a zell,” she said impolitely, naming a flying lizardlike creature that was one of the denizens of this inhospitable country and which had never particularly been noticed for its intelligence.

“What do you mean?” whispered the boy, flushing as he always did under the lashing of the girl’s tongue.

“By the Red Moon, you scrawny lout, don’t you remember that my father, Jugrid, is the chieftain of the Cave Country, and that my mother came from among the River People, the other tribe who share that land with us, and who live near the shores of the river that drains from the Cor-Az and pours over the edge of the plateau from a precipice known as the Falls, and that she was herself the daughter of Zuruk, the chief?”

“Yes, I remember you mentioning the matter,” said the boy dispiritedly.

“Well, then l” snorted the girl. “If he leads us thereand I don’t know why he should, but I can’t think where else we could be going―then it seems to me that there’s an awfully good chance that either my father’s people or my mother’s folk would fight to free us. He’s not all that powerful, you know. He can’t control more than a couple minds at a time. He surely can’t take over the brains of the warriors of a whole tribe all at oncel”

“I see what you’re getting at,” muttered Tomar, his head down, not looking at her, as they trudged along over the rough and broken ground.

“So?”

“So I’m afraid that you’re the one whose forgotten something,” he said.

“And what is it that I’ve forgotten that’s so important?” the girl demanded.

“You’ve forgotten that your father, even though he was the chief of your tribe, had no power to go against the wishes of the Elders when it came to their wanting you to marry that warrior of the tribe whom you disliked so―what was his name?”

“Xangan.”

“That’s right, Xangan. I seem to remember that you ran away rather than be forced into this marriage with Xangan, and got yourself captured by the Flying Men, which is how Prince Janchan and I met you in the first place.”

“So what?” demanded the girl impatiently. She disliked being reminded of that episode, in which she had forgotten that which was drummed into all the children of her tribe―to be wary and cautious of capture by the dreaded winged cannibals called the Zarkoon.

“So―in case you’ve forgotten, Ylana, the Elders of your tribe just about worship the Mind Wizards of Kuur, whom they call the 'Unseen Ones,' or something like that, and if Jugrid the chief, your father, had so little authority over the Elders that he couldn’t even keep them from forcing you into marriage with a man you detested, he’s not going to be able to get you free from a Mind Wizard the Elders revere almost as a god.”

The girl said nothing, merely limped along at his side.

“And, since the Elders summoned the Mind Wizards from Kuur to come and carry off Prince Janchan and Lukor and myself, that time we managed with your help to escape from the caves of your people, they certainly aren’t going to be friendly toward us this time, with a live Mind Wizard on the scene.”

The girl made no reply to this, not that there was much of anything she could have said in rebuttal. Tomar stole a glance at her. Ylana’s head sagged on her breast and her hair, dusty and disheveled, hung so that it hid her expression from him.

“Ylana, I’m sorry.”

She said nothing.

They went forward in silence together, under the blazing sky.

AND before long there appeared against that sky a bat-winged mote.

It was Ylana who noticed it first. The Jungle Maid, tossing her damp curls back limply, glanced skyward and froze, violet eyes dilating.

“What is it?” mumbled Tomar, not noticing her attention riveted on the heavens.

“A ghastozar,” the girl breathed. “Coming this way…”

The boy gasped an oath, turning wild eyes aloft. The black shape grew swiftly in size, and soon the long, swishing tail with its barbed tip could be seen, as well as the long, arched neck and alligatorlike snout.

The ghastozar is a flying lizard of prodigious size, and one of the most dreaded and feared of all the predators on the jungle Moon. I have seen them at close range myself, and to my untutored gaze they distinctly resemble the grisly pterodactyl, winged monstrosity of the dim Pleistocene skies.

While the boy and girl gazed skyward in consternation, unable because of their bonds to flee or even to defend themselves, the flying reptile hurtled nearer and nearer.

Nor did Zhu Kor seem in the slightest degree fearful at the approach of the winged dragon, whose insatiable appetite and adamantine claws made him an object of horror the length and breadth of Thanator.

“The Terror of the Skies,” he was called by the nations of this world. Even those ferocious, indomitable, and coldly emotionless warriors, the Yathoon Horde, held this creature in helpless awe.

Black-ribbed, membranous wings spread wide, blotting out the golden skies, the flying horror dropped toward the three tiny figures on the rocky plain

Tomar and Ylana shrieked.

But Zhu Kor only smiled his thin, mirthless smile as the titanic aerial reptile fell upon them.

Chapter 8 CARRIED OFF!

IT was not long before Lukor discovered the first important clue as to what had befallen young Tomar and the Jungle Maid.

Armed with a precise map of the Underground City, his search teams combed every inch of the corridors and cells and chambers that extended beyond the last place where the two youngsters were known to have been.

The Tharkolian lieutenant, Kadar, had explained how he had assigned to Tomar and the girl the task of searching the vacant cellblock and storage-chambers to make certain no one was concealed therein.

It was Koja who discovered Ylana’s knife still wedged between the sill and the stone door in the empty cubicle at the rear of the storage-chamber. The Yathoon swordsman quickly raised the alarm, summoning to his side a party of warriors. Lukor came down at the news, eyes sparkling with zestful excitement.

The strong arms of Ergon pried open the stone door. Swordsmen entered the secret chamber, naked blades held ready in one hand, the other holding aloft flaring torches.

Lukor gasped, pointing.

The torch light revealed three sets of footprints clearly marked on the dusty pave. The smaller ones in the supple buskins could easily have been made by the jungle Maid. Those slightly larger, in sandals of regulation cut, were probably Tomar’s.

But―the third set?

Lukor bent over them, keen eyes searching in the glare of the torches. Eventually he straightened, and those who stood about, awaiting his instruction, saw an expression of grim satisfaction on his aristocratic features.

“Friend Koja, I believe we have found the whereabouts of the sixteenth corpse,” he said tersely. “Albeit, the corpse is not yet a corpse―a lapse I trust we shall soon be able to rectify!”

“In other words,” murmured the solemn arthropod, “you believe the third set of prints were made by the missing Mind Wizard?”

The old Ganatolian nodded, sleek, silver hair gleaming in the fire of the torches.

“Precisely so,” he puffed. “Somehow or other, Ylana and the boy got wind of his hiding-place, and unjudiciously chose to search him out on their own. A pityl I trust they have been sensible enough to merely dog his steps, and not attempt to arrest the yellow devil. Captain, a troop of men, quickly. Follow the trail wherever it leads and report back to me at the command post. Koja, you may accompany the search party if you so desire. I am going back to apprise our comrades of this discovery and to alert the sentries to the possibilities that at least one of the Kuurians somehow managed to survive the massacre…”

Koja nodded and turned to join the waiting warriors, while Lukor and grumbling Ergon turned to reenter the main portion of the labyrinth.

“I do not understand, Sir Lukor, why I may not accompany the search party,” the Perushtarian gladiator glowered.

“Because I have need of your strong back and fighting strength,” replied the master-swordsman crisply. “Come, and make hastel We have many things to do …”

“Such as?” inquired the red gladiator, a truculent and surly expression on his heavy-jawed face.

“Such as to make certain our facilities are secure against any depredations the fugitive Mind Wizard might attempt,” said the Ganatolian. “The Underground City is sufficiently guarded to prevent him from returning to it and from using it as a hideaway. The Jalathadar is aloft and beyond his reach. The Valley itself is infested with our troops, so it is unlikely he could utilize our stores or food supplies. One area remains open to possible use by the little yellow devil, however, and that is the cavern hidden in the side of the mountain, where the Kuurians had our captive vessels moored. I will alert our sentries and guards in the labyrinthine ways, the beach above, and aloft in the flying ship. I rely on you, friend Ergon, to lead a squad to occupy the mountain cavern, to make certain that the fugitive does not make use of it. Come along now, and briskly!”

THE war party, which Lukor had assigned to follow the subterranean tunnel to its end, made swift progress through the darkness. The warriors were eager to pursue the fugitive telepath and to render him helpless. They were also anxious to ascertain the safety of the youth and the girl whom they assumed, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, to be still following the trail of the Kuurian.

They found the secret stair and, still following the marks the feet of the Kuurian and his pursuers had made in the dust and the mold and lichen, ascended to the upper level, finding themselves in the long passageway that led underneath the mountains. Here they divided into two forces, which was the only course that reason and common sense dictated, as they had no way of knowing in which direction the three had gone. Here the floor was of damp stone―too dry to support lichenous growths that might display the marks of feet, and yet too moist to permit dust to gather for the same purpose.

The captain of the troop, a Soraban royal guardsman called Thord, led his squad in one direction, while Koja assumed command of the remainder of the force, with Kadar as his second-in-command. Koja’s troop followed the tunnel toward the mountains.

Kadar eagerly took the fore. Holding his flaring torch aloft, the young Tharkolian lieutenant prosecuted the pursuit with all alacrity and attention. Although the misadventures that had befallen young Tomar and the jungle Maid were, of course, none of his doing, he nevertheless felt a certain degree of personal responsibility for their plight, whose direness was yet unknown. It had been Kadar, after all, who had assigned them to this ill-fated mission, and the young officer would not have been worthy of his position of command had he not been keenly sensible of his share in the responsibility for their present dangers.

They traversed the length of the cavernous tunnel with all possible speed. They did not, however, pursue the fleeing three with haste so precipitous as to preclude a sharp attention to detail. Koja solemnly in. structed his warriors to shine the light of their torches upon the walls of the passage to detect any side tunnel which might branch off unexpectedly from the main shaft they were following.

Erelong one of the warriors uttered a low cry, stooped, and held into the light of the flaring torches a bit of coppery metal. Koja inspected it thoughtfully. It resembled a short length of hammered copper wire, such as the coil that Ylana wore as an item of adornment, wound around her upper arm. The end of the wire―which was half a hand’s-breadth long―was rough and shone with clear brilliance in the flaring, orange light, as if swiftly torn away from the remainder of the coil.

“What do you think?” inquired the insectoid, showing the bit of wire to the Tharkolian.

“It looks like part of the copper ornament the savage girl wore about her arm,” murmured the young officer.

“Quite likely so,” mused Koja. “Moreover, it has not lain here for long, otherwise the moisture which bedews the floor of the cavern would have marked the metal with greenish corrosion.”

“The implication of which is, then, that the girl left it here to mark the way for any of us who might follow,” said Kadar.

“I believe that to be the most reasonable assumption to make, under the circumstances,” said Koja in his harsh, metallic voice, devoid of inflection. “Do you deduce any further intelligence from this discovery?”

The Tharkolian replied that he did not.

“They have been captured by the Kuurian,” said the Yathoon warrior with conviction in his emotionless tones. Kadar looked up at his towering height with surprise.

“How do you figure that?”

“Why else leave a bit of copper behind? The tunnel goes straight on in the direction we have been traveling since we ascended the secret stair. It does not branch off in any other side tunnel. So the bit of copper could not have been set here in order that the two young people might find their way back in the manner in which they came. I believe the Kuurian detected that he was being followed and hid here to surprise them. There is no blood on the cavern floor, hence there was no battle. He must have seized control of their minds, or forced them to disarm at swordpoint. They are now prisoners, completely in the power of a desperate creature. Forward, my warriors, with all possible speed―our friends may yet live!”

THE mouth of the tunnel was masked by a slab of stone. When they reached it, and realized they could go no further, Koja’s warriors searched about, poking and prying until they managed to discover the hidden catch that opened the door.

They emerged onto the flank of the wall of mountains which marched along the edge of the Valley of the Mind Wizards to the south. It was still daylight, therefore they were able to search the slope carefully and thoroughly. They did so, however, without finding anything indicating that the Mind Wizard or his two presumed captives had come this way.

“Search again,” commanded the Yathoon emotionlessly. “There was no other way they could have gone.”

By nightfall, they were still searching. Under the dim light of the moon Juruvad they continued to cover the ground, but eventually the failure of the light rendered further search impossible.

”We shall camp here until dawn,” decided Koja. Kadar began to protest, but the Yathoon silenced him curtly. “There is naught else to do, Kadar. We cannot hope to find footprints or a further piece of Ylana’s copper wire in the darkness. Unfortunately for our young friends, this is the Night of the Single Moon.”

“Aye, curse the luck!” muttered Kadar grimly. “And that one moon would have to be Juruvad, due to the innate perversity of things!”

Koja said nothing, although doubtless he shared the bitter emotion. Juruvad is the Thanatorian name for Amalthea, the tiny satellite of Jupiter that is the inmost of all her many moons. Because of her smallness, or her great distance from Callisto, or both, Juruvad sheds remarkably little light on the world called Thanator.

They had carried with them no food nor water, due to the haste with which they had embarked upon their pursuit of the fugitives. Hence they fasted that night. But with the first blaze of dawn, they were awake and ready to march.

The slopes that led into the Valley of the Mind Wizards they had already thoroughly covered the night before. Now the warriors turned their attentions to the further side, which led down to the rock-strewn plains surrounding the mountainguarded valley.

Almost at once, a young Shondakorian swordsman named Vargon discovered Ylana’s second token, a short length of copper wire torn obviously from her ornament, and about the same size as the first they had discovered. It marked a narrow passage across the cloven peak of the mountain, with a trail which zigzagged down the slope to the plain beyond.

“The girl has kept her wits about her,” commented Koja with approval. “They took this way down. Swiftly now, men, and watch your footing!”

As they made their descent of the further slope, Kadar wondered aloud how the jungle Maid was managing to leave clues behind to mark their trail without this being known by the Mind Wizard. Koja flexed his brow-antennae in the Yathoon equivalent of a human shrug of the shoulders..

“Obviously, there are limits to the powers of the Mind Wizards,” he observed solemnly. “To exert continuous control over the mind of another must be fatiguing, or may require a degree of concentration that the Kuurian cannot afford to exert while negotiating so precipitous a decline as this. Or, conversely, it is difficult or even impossible for him to control or even overwatch two minds simultaneously; so, probably assuming the boy Tomar to be the more potentially quarrelsome or dangerous of the pair, he ignores the girl most of the time. But let us save our breath for the climb down. Speculation on the unknown is fruitless, at best.”

At the bottom of the cliff, they spread out and searched in both directions. Before long they found marks indicating that the Mind Wizard and his prisoners had spent the night in a small cave. The warriors fanned out, searching in everwidening circles from the cave, using it as a base for their reconnaissance. Before long a third piece of copper wire was found, pointing south and west.

“They have gone in this direction,” decided Koja. Then he turned to one of the warriors, a Tharkolian named Jarak. “Jarak, reascend the cliff and return at once to report these things to Sir Lukor. It is probable that we shall require many more men to search the wilderness that lies before us, which is largely unexplored. We may require the services of the Jalathadar itself, but that is a decision only Lukor can make.”

“Yes, sir,” said the warrior, saluting smartly. As he turned on his heel to go, Koja detained him for additional instruction.

“There is, by the way, no need to retrace our path through the tunnel, for that would be wasting time, which is our most valuable commodity, under these circumstances,” the insect-man said thoughtfully. “Simply descend to the floor of the Valley on the other side of this mountain, Jarak. You will reach the encampment of our troops much more swiftly in that manner.”

The warrior nodded, saluted again, and began to climb.

Koja turned, ordered his men into arrowhead formation, and began to traverse the plain in the direction which Ylana’s token had specified.

“What if the Kuurian chooses to change the direction in which he is traveling?” inquired Kadar after a time.

“We may hope that Ylana remains unobserved long enough to mark the new direction as she has previously marked her trail,” replied Koja.

“And if she is unable to do so, or prevented from doing so?”

Koja looked straight ahead and continued striding into the southwest without further reply to Kadar’s question.

There was nothing he could say.

MANY hours later the warriors under Koja’s command were resting in the shade of a vast, rocky outcropping. Lack of food and water was beginning to reduce their strength. There was nothing they could do about this, however, but endure as stolidly as they could the rigors of hunger and thirst. The wilderness of scattered rock and sterile sands was seemingly uninhabited by men or beasts; and there was no water here.

Suddenly, the sentry posted atop the rock uttered a joyous cry. He pointed into the eastern sky, where a soaring mote of darker hue had been descried against the clear, golden sky.

The keen eyes of Koja soon made out the identity of the flying thing.

“Lukor has followed in the Jalathadar,” he remarked with grave satisfaction. “It is even as I had hoped.”

“One could wish we had happier news to report,” said Kadar. Kaja said nothing.

The observers stationed aboard the flying ship soon recognized them and before long the mighty galleon of the skies paused in its flight to hover directly above them. Erelong one of the gigs came circling down, and aboard were Lukor of Ganatol and the scout Koja had commanded to return to camp with word of their discoveries, Jarak of Tharkol.

The gig came down to ground level, anchored to a rocky spur, and Lukor dismounted with a swift agility which belied his years.

“What further news, friend Koja?” he demanded.

“Little that is good, I fear,” said Koja heavily. “From a great distance we descried the descent of a ghastozar. When we reached the spot, our friends and the Kuurian were no longer there.”

Lukor blinked, aghast.

“Do you mean they have been carried off by a flying lizard?”

“Evidently so,” replied Koja.

Chapter 9 JUGRID OF THE JUNGLE COUNTRY

MIDWAY between the Valley of Kuur and the Mountains of the Zarkoon, positioned almost exactly on the equator of Callisto, there rises a vast plateau many leagues in extent, completely walled about by mountains.

When, during an earlier adventure, I, Jandar, together with Lukor, Koja the Yathoon, Tomar, and Ylana, had been forced down upon this plateau, after making our escape from the hollow mountain where the cannibal bird-men called the Zarkoon nested, this jungle-clad tableland reminded me inescapably of a similar plateau, which was the scene of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous romance, The Lost World.

The plateau is inhabited by all manner of ferocious beasts, including some not found elsewhere upon the known surface of Thanator, such as the dinosaurlike groacks, which infest the waters of Cor-Az, the Great Lake which occupies the southwestern corner of this country. In this respect, of course, the jungle-clad plateau most resembles the “lost world” of Conan Doyle’s fantastic tale.

But the plateau bears, as well, a second item of resemblance to its fictional counterpart in that it is also inhabited by tribes of primitive savages. To the north, in a region of rocky hills that border upon the edges of the central jungles, dwell a tribe of Cave People, whose chief is the mighty Jugrid, Ylana’s father. And to the southeast live the River People, in the hill country that borders upon the Great Waterfall; Ylana’s mother was a daughter of the chief of this tribe. Thus, even in this respect, does the plateau match that in The Lost World, for as I recall hairy, shambling Neanderthals dwelt there, if not as well tribes of CroMagnon men.

Theirs is a harsh, cruel, and unremitting struggle for the means of existence, at any rate, and the human inhabitants of the jungle Country stand low on the scale of civilization upon Callisto. In fact, unless you wish to consider the barbaric war-hordes of the Yathoon insectoids as “human,” or the beaked, winged, cannibalistic Zarkoon, the tribes of the jungle Country are the most primitive of all the nations of Thana. for known to me.

Like many another primitive race in man’s long history, the Cave People are dominated by a religious elite. These are the Elders, a group of men who function as priests or shamans for the savages, and who presume to interpret the will of the so-called “Unseen Ones,” or “Shadowy Ones,” whom the superstitious cavemen venerate as gods.

I do not know whether the other tribe, the River People who share the jungle Country with Jugrid’s clan, adhere to a similar belief.

The principal item of difference between the divinities worshiped by the Cave People of Callisto and their terrene counterparts of prehistoric times, is that the Callistan deities exist, although they are not divine, of course, but the Mind Wizards of Kuur.

JUGRID of the Jungle Country observed the lateness of the day with a measure of grim trepidation not unmixed with that stolid fatalism that is among the more appealing and admirable of the traits of his primitive kind.

The skies of Callisto are evenly illuminated from horizon to horizon,. and from pole to pole, by some electrical excitation of inert vapors suspended high in the planet’s stratosphere, and not by any such radiant orb as the sun. Hence, it is impossible to tell from the direction of light or the inclination of the source of illumination the approximate hour of the day, as it is, for instance, on our own Earth.

But from countless ages of experience the races that dwelt upon the surface of Thanator developed an unconscious sense of time, like a subconscious clock. By pure instinct, the Thanatorian knows the approximate hour, and can predict the interval between any point of time and the coming of darkness.

Thus it was that Jugrid of the Jungle Country knew with grim certitude and fatalistic foreboding how little time there yet remained of his life.

For with the coming of darkness, which at this season of the year coincided precisely with the rising of mighty Gordrimator or Jupiter upon the horizon, he would suffer the penalty of death. The Elders had so decreed when, at the termination of lengthy and interminable councils, and the study of innumerable omens and signs, they had removed him from the chieftainship of the tribe and condemned him to be sacrificed to the Unseen Ones, against whose strictures he had been judged to have sinned beyond all forgiveness.

He stood now at the barred grille which closed the mouth of one cave, making of it a reasonable facsimile of a prison cell, and his bearded and majestic features were inscrutable as he studied the illuminated heavens.

On guard at that hour of his imprisonment was a young warrior of the tribe, by the name of Thadron.

Little speech had passed between Jugrid and his guard, but the reason for this did not lie in any lack of sympathy on the part of Thadron for his former chief, nor from any cruel pleasure the young warrior might have taken in the humbling and degradation of one who had, in better times, ruled with strength, manliness, and a rude sense of justice.

Thadron, in fact, sympathized deeply with the plight of the hapless Jugrid, and regretted the sorry fate to which the mighty warrior chief of the jungle Country had nearly come.

And Thadron had serious misgivings about the member of the tribe whom the vindictive Elders had selected to replace Jugrid in the chieftainship. That individual, a hulking, surly, overbearing lout named Xangan, was the favorite grandson of the most powerful and influential of the Elders, Quone by name. Thus it may be seen that the element of nepotism was not altogether foreign even to the primitive customs of so savage and backward a tribe as the cave-dwellers.

And Thadron had good and sufficient reason to despise the new chief, for on more than one occasion he and Xangan had been at odds, whereas between the young warrior and his former chief there had never existed anything but a manly mutual respect and liking.

Now that the hour of sacrifice was almost come, Xangan came strolling over from the feasting-place, and Thadron, observing the slouching approach of the bully, rightly guessed that Xangan had in mind one final taunting insult to the former chief, before the termination of his mortal existence made any further humiliations impossible.

The differences between such of the tribe as Jugrid and Thadron, and the burly Xangan, were clearly visible. The former chief was a huge man with a stalwart and clean-cut mien and a powerful physique. His thick mane of hair and short, neatly trimmed beard, were black shot through with strands of gray which were premature, for he was in the full prime of his manhood. His gaze was clear and steady, his demeanor dignified and stern. Thadron, although many years his junior, was of a similar nobility of carriage, a handsome young man of smoothly muscular build, with a good face, a strong jaw, and candid, fearless eyes. Both men were rudely clothed in brief loincloths of animal hides and wore primitive ornaments of bone ivory and hammered metal.

Xangan, in striking contrast, was a repulsive, slouching man ,with coarse, heavy features and bloodshot eyes, his sensual features bestubbled and unshaven, his burly chest hirsute. Albeit that he was nearer to Thadron’s age than to Jugrid’s, his figure had lost the lithe, supple, and erect posture of the younger man, if, indeed, it had ever possessed it, and was running to unhealthy and unsightly flabbiness.

His black locks were tangled and matted, his person unkempt. But about his hairy throat was clasped the fang and claw necklace of the chieftaincy.

A malignant gleam shone in his puffy eyes as he strolled over to the door of the prison cave where Jugrid stood. Xangan had brought with him from the cook-fires a haunch of meat upon which he gnawed, pausing from time to time to lick a particularly succulent gobbet of fat from his greasy fingers, or to wipe these upon his thighs. He munched with obvious relish in full knowledge of the fact that his former chief, whom he had come to taunt, had eaten nothing that day, since it was the custom of the tribe that those who were condemned to death should fast to purify their spirits before journeying to the unknown and paradisiacal gardens of the Unseen Ones.

Jugrid knew both hunger and thirst, but his iron dignity did not permit him to display the slightest flicker of emotion as the grinning bully lounged against the bars of the door, looking him up and down with insolent and malicious eyes, all the while sucking the last toothsome morsel from the bone he had nearly cleaned.

Wiping his loose and pendulous lips clean on the back of his hand, Xangan emitted a belch of satisfaction, and addressed him.

“Since you doubtless hunger, O Jugrid, I have brought you a bone to chew upon, like the othode you are,” he grinned, tossing the bone through the bars so that it fell at Jugrid’s feet.

“I shall leave it to the unfortunate tribe who now must suffer under the rule of such as you, O Xangan, to decide which of us is more the othode,” said Jugrid calmly, not deigning to even look at the bone at his feet.

The features of Xangan flushed and his grin went sour. An ugly glint appeared in his eye. It was not so much the cold contempt clearly audible in Jugrid’s tones as he addressed him, as it was the fact that the fallen chief did not display the slightest sign of fear or dismay at his approaching fate that ruffled the mood of the new chief. A bully to the coreand a coward to the heart―he knew fear so intimately and so thoroughly, that it somewhat bolstered his own selfesteem to discern the marks of it in others.

No one so enjoys the display of cowardice in others so much as the man who has cowardice within his own heart.

He grimaced and spat. “Boast as you will, you fomak,” growled Xangan, employing the name of the venomous cavespider as an epithet, “you shall whimper and squirm soon enough, under the knife of sacrifice!”

“If I am a fomak as you say, O Xangan,” smiled Jugrid, “I would that you could feel my bite before that hour comes!”

Xangan laughed loudly, but at this Thadron spoke up, with a slight smile upon his handsome, clean-cut features.

“Yes, O Chief, Jugrid makes a valid point,” said the young warrior. “Whatever happened to the ancient custom of the tribe that when a chief has been, for any reason, deposed and condemned to death, he may claim the right to trial-by-combat against the person of the new chief, thereby to fall honorably in battle, if such indeed be the will of the Unseen Ones?”

Xangan looked disconcerted. The very thought of having to face such a magnificent fighting man as the former chief struck terror into his queasy heart, for he knew full well that in any honest test of strength or courage or fighting skill, he would fare miserably at the hands of the mighty Jugrid. At the very notion he turned pale and swallowed. Thadron and Jugrid, observing this and correctly guessing the direction of his thought, exchanged an amused glance, and laughed quietly together.

Flushing with rage again, Xangan controlled his features, distorting them into a savage grimace of vindictiveness. Then he attempted to assume a loftier pose, one for which his degraded face and form were but poorly suited.

“The Elders, who interpret the will of the Unseen Ones, as you know, have in this instance rendered null that ancient custom,” he said virtuously. Then, in a flash of braggadocio, he added, “Were it not for their holy strictures, I should enjoy nothing more than to meet the traitor, Jugrid, in. combat!”

Neither Thadron nor Jugrid were deceived by his boasting. They smiled again.

“You speak the truth, O Chief,” said Thadron solemnly.

Xangan glanced at the young warrior quickly, to see if there was mischief in his eye. But Thadron kept a straight face.

“I do?” said Xangan, surprised.

“Yes, you do. For truthfully you would `enjoy nothing more’ than to face the mighty Jugrid in hand-to-hand battle. At least, that is,” he amended with a quiet smile, “you would never enjoy anything again, after facing Jugrid in battle. For I doubt if you would survive the contest, and dead men may enjoy nothing, I am given to understand!”

Xangan snarled, his eyes mean and vicious. “You do ill to insult your chief, warrior,” he growled. “The Elders, whom, as you know, interpret the will of the Unseen Ones…

Jugrid laughed contemptuously.

“You are fond of mouthing that pious phrase, O Xangan,” he observed. “I have come to believe that the Unseen Ones are also Unheard Ones, and I have little doubt that the Elders more often than not merely interpret the will of the Elders. That is to say, the will of one of them, at least, the venerable Quone, your own grandfather. For otherwise even the Unseen Ones could not be so foolish as to elevate a cowardly bully like yourself to the chieftainship of the tribe.”

“That is sacrilege,” sputtered Xangan in a strangled tone.

“Slay me for it, then,” said Jugrid, cooly. “A man can die only once. Since I am already condemned to death, I might as well give voice to the secret feelings of my heart. I have kept them hidden far too long already.”

Xangan, who was rarely at his best in any contest of wit or intelligence, could think of no rejoinder to these calm statements and contented himself with a spiteful smirk. He spat coarsely at Jugrid’s feet and made as if to turn away in disdain. But just then a shout was heard to ring out from the sentries posted atop the cliffs which ringed in the valley in which they stood.

All craned their heads to see what peril impended. The sentry gestured wildly to call attention to himself, then pointed off into the east. Soon there became visible a black mote against the golden sky. At the sight of it, Xangan went a mottled grayish-white, the color of dirty milk, and swallowed painfully, his eyes wide with fear.

It was a ghastozar.

The giant flying reptile, whose ferocity and rapacious hunger made it feared above even the denizens of the jungle depths, was descending upon the valley.

The clangor of alarm went up. Warriors sprang to their feet, snatching up bows and crude spears. Xangan swallowed again and seemed to be trembling. Observing his obvious terror, Thadron smiled and again exchanged a humorous glance with his former chief.

“When the warriors of the village gather to battle against the Terror of the Skies,” he said clearly, “surely the stalwart and courageous Xangan will wish to stand in their fore, to display to all his valor and courage!”

Xangan was too agitated even to snarl. He peered about from side to side, as if hunting for a place to hide until the raid was over. Obviously finding one, he slunk away in the direction of the trees that grew thickly at the edge of the jungle rising at the end of the valley.

“I fear the warriors of the tribe will have to fend for themselves, lacking the example and the leadership of their new chief,” said Thadron, disgustedly.

Jugrid was straining his eyes at the winged horror aloft.

“In this instance, I fear I must disagree with you, my friend,” replied Jugrid in a curious tone.

Thadron glanced at him inquiringly.

Jugrid nodded aloft.

“I greatly doubt if this ghastozar will afford the warriors any opportunity to require the example or the leadership of Xangan,” said Jugrid.

“How so?” asked the younger man in a puzzled tone of voice.

“Because never before have these eyes of mine looked upon a ghastozar ridden by human beings,” said Jugrid of the Jungle Country quietly. “And since I observe three riders to be mounted astride the winged dragon, I can only assume the monster to be tame.”

Thadron turned his eyes searchingly aloft and observed that this was in fact the truth.

He had never seen a ghastozar with human riders either, and could not help wondering what so curious a marvel portended.

A few moments after this, his eyes widened even further.

For two of the riders who sat astride the monster pterodactyl were people he knew.

They were, in fact, people he thought long dead!

Chapter 10 A PIECE OF BONE

AS it happened, the warriors of the tribe had no need for their feather-tufted arrows or their flint-bladed spears. Before so much as a single barbed shaft could be loosed upon the monstrous flying reptile or its riders, a shrill voice screeched out a harsh command.

“Stop!”

It was Quone the Elder, the grandfather of Xangan the new chief. He was a tall, gaunt old man with a bald, knobby skull crowned with fugitive wisps of pale, colorless hair. His visage was remarkable in its extreme homeliness, with a prominent nose like a proboscis, and keen but rheumy, red-rimmed eyes. His skinny frame was wrapped in tanned hides, whose ragged fringes dangled about his bony shanks. His brow was crowned with gaudy feathers, and his wattled throat was hung with strings of beads and shells and the fangs of beasts.

He customarily wore an air of cold, supercilious hauteur and thin-lipped reproof, which lent to his physiognomy an expression antiquely Roman. But at this moment his agitation was such that his normally aloof repose was forgotten. He squawked and flapped his arms like a distraught old turkey.

Puzzled, the warriors exchanged reluctant glances with one another, and slowly lowered their weapons. They watched with fear in their faces as the lizardlike creature, which had hovered all this while on beating and batlike wings, settled heavily to the rocky floor of the narrow valley that stretched between the two walls of soaring cliffs in which the caves yawned blackly.

Quone hobbled forward stiffly, then flopped bellydown in the dust and groveled like a trodden worm before the slit-eyed little yellow man who now descended from between the shoulders of the monstrous flying reptile.

From the puzzlement in the faces of the warriors, you might have decided―correctly, I believe―that, with the sole exception of the seven Elders, few of the men or women of the tribe in all their long history had looked upon the actual person of one of the Unseen Ones whom they venerated.

The yellow dwarf exchanged a few crisp sentences with the cringing Elder in a low whisper, then turned to enter the cave from whose mouth the other Elders blinked querulously. At Quone’s command, warriors stepped forward to gingerly assist the two other riders to dismount from the giant reptile.

It would have been difficult for the two to have dismounted unassisted, for their hands were bound by thongs behind their backs.

As they were helped down from the back of the huge and curiously docile pterodactyl, all of the tribe saw and recognized them as Jugrid and Thadron had already done.

One of them was Ylana, the daughter of the former chief.

The other was the boy, Tomar, who had formerly been imprisoned, together with Lukor of Ganatol and Jandar of Callisto, in the selfsame prison-cave wherein Jugrid now abided the hour of human sacrifice.

The members of the tribe murmured and whispered among themselves at the unexpected sight of the two fugitives, who were known to have fled into the jungle long ago, and whom all, like Thadron, had presumed to be dead by now.

At the command of Quone the two were thrust into the prison-cave where Jugrid stood, and the door was locked behind them.

Then Quone scurried off into the cave of the Elders to confer with his lord and master, Zhu Kor, the last of the Mind Wizards.

THE eyes of Ylana widened incredulously at the sight of her father. Then they brimmed with hot tears and the girl, whose arms had been freed by the guards, hurled herself upon his broad and manly breast.

Jugrid enfolded her in his embrace and buried his head in her hair. For a long moment they clung to each other, then slowly they parted.

“Thanks be to whatever Spirits guide our fortunes, my child, that you still live and are not long-since devoured by the beasts of the wild, as I had feared!” Jugrid murmured in low, heartfelt tones. But then he added, grimly, “But my curse upon the capricious lords of our destiny, who have forced you once again into the hands of those who would do you ill.”

As soon as Ylana recovered herself, and mastered her emotions, she demanded to know what strange reversal of fortune had thrust the former chieftain of her people into such a sorry condition as this of imprisonment.

Jugrid fingered the base of his throat where now there no longer hung the fang-and-claw necklace of the chieftaincy, and his majestic features assumed an expression of resignation.

“It causes me no pleasure to admit that it was your own actions, my daughter, which have brought me low,” he said heavily.

The girl blinked.

“My actions, father?”

“Yes, my child,” said Jugrid. “When our former prisoners, including this youth here, whose features 1 recognize, managed to escape from this same place of imprisonment, it was believed by more than a few of the tribe that I, Jugrid, had taken part in setting them free.”

“But, father, it was I!” protested Ylana, and in a swift torrent of words which tumbled from her lips in a scarcely intelligible manner, the girl related how she had smuggled a small knife to Jandar and Lukor and Tomar, so that they might escape and flee into the jungles before their enemies, the Mind Wizards of Kuur, arrived to carry them captive back to the Underground City.*

Jugrid, who had remained ignorant of the precise manner in which the prisoners had escaped until now, nodded in comprehension.

“Ah, now at last I understand,” he rumbled in his deep voice. “In their escape one of the two guards at the gate was slain by such a knife, the other was knocked unconscious and died not long thereafter of a cracked skull. While many of our fellow-tribesmen believed that it was you, Ylana, who had somehow helped your friends to make their break for freedom, no one was easily convinced that a girl of your slender stature and few years could knock down a full-grown warrior and crack his skull, much less slay an alert guardsman with a knife. Hence, it was assumed that I, your father, had somehow been persuaded to do the deed, myself.”

The girl was white-faced with horror.

“Do you mean that you have been condemned to death for things that I did alone, and of which you were completely ignorant, at the time?” the girl demanded incredulously.

Her father nodded somberly.

“So much for the justice meted out by our pious and god-fearing Elders,” muttered a voice at the barred gate.

It was young Thadron, the guard. The warrior was somewhat more intelligent and better-bred than the brutish tribesmen of Xangan’s ilk. Ylana turned upon him in a mute appeal for help. He looked ashamed and distinctly uncomfortable.

“Thadron, is it not?” she asked urgently. “Thadron, I recall you were ever a warrior of honor, who dealt with me courteously and in a respectful manner. Can you not help us now, in our time of need? I am more than willing to bear testimony that it was not my father who struck down Brokar and Cadj,” (these were the names of the two guards who were felled during the attempted escape) “but that I am the guilty one.”

Thadron bit his lip and lowered his head, so as not to have to meet the eyes of Ylana.

“Daughter of the chief, I would help you if I could,” the young warrior said in low tones, “but even I find it impossible to believe that a girl such as yourself could slay two such mighty warriors as Brokar and Cadj.”

“But I did not slay them,” protested Ylana in a vehement tone. “It was Prince Jandar and the old swordsman, Lukor! It must have been they―but in all events, it was certainly not Jugrid, your chief!”

Here young Tomar stepped forward. Looking the guard in the eye the boy told in earnest tones how Lukor had persuaded the guards to open the door on a pretext, and had sprung upon one of them and had slit his throat with the flint-bladed knife that Ylana had slipped to them earlier, while Jandar dispatched the other with a blow of his fist.

Thadron opened his mouth to make, some reply to the appeal of the others when there sounded behind him the crunch of a sandal on the stony soil.

He turned to see a hulking and hirsute figure eyeing him with an expression at once suspicious and truculent. It was a warrior known as Fanga, a crony of Xangan’s.

“By orders of Xangan the chief, I am to replace you here,” grunted Fanga.

“My duty is not up until nightfall, or so I had been given to understand,” protested Thadron. The other shrugged and took up the stone-tipped spear that Thadron had left standing against the stone wall beside the entrance of the cave.

There was nothing for Thadron to do but turn away and seek out the cook-fires, where a few scraps doubtless remained for those who, like himself, had been on guard or sentry duty during the mealtime.

But he went with slow steps and a heavy heart.

TO change the subject to one less painful, Jugrid inquired of his daughter by what peculiar magic they had come flying down from the skies astride one of the fearsome, bat-winged, dragonlike predators.

Ylana and Tomar, frequently interrupting each other in their eagerness, described the recent events that had taken place. They told of the expedition of the warriors and fighting men of the distant West in their uncanny aerial ships, and of the battle for Kuur, and of its conquest and the destruction of the Mind Wizards, who were the only reality behind the weird myths of the Unseen Ones.

They then explained how they had been captured by the last surviving Mind Wizard and forced to accompany him across the hostile wilderness between Kuur and the Jungle Country.

Tomar explained how the Kuurians possessed the chilling power to read influence, and even control the minds of others, and how this could be exercised even over the beasts of the wild. He told how Zhu Kor, weary at last of traversing the barren and rocky land afoot, had called down by his eerie powers one of the great bat-winged ghastozars, which the savants of his race were accustomed to use for riding-beasts when they needed to transport themselves swiftly from one place to another.

It was by Mind Wizards mounted on a force of monstrous ghastozars that the flying galleons of the First Expedition against Kuur had been taken by surprise attack one dark and moonless night while still high above the surface of the planet, Tomar explained.

Holding the small, rapacious brain of the flying predator helpless under his will, Zhu Kor had forced the brute to take them upon its back, and they had thus flown the remaining leagues to the jungle Country more swiftly than they could have accomplished the same distance even mounted upon fleet-footed thaptors.

At the conclusion of their narrative, the two young people lapsed into silence. Both the boy and the girl had had little sleep the night before, and were greatly wearied by their long trek afoot over the rocky wastes, and their bleary eyes and uncontrolled yawns attested to their need for rest. Jugrid advised them to snatch what little respite they could before nightfall, and they needed very little encouragement. Both lay down against the wall and were soon asleep, leaving Jugrid to his moody thoughts.

NIGHT fell, and the golden skies of Callisto darkened at once as if a black pall had been cast across the world, or as if the unseen source of all radiance had suddenly been extinguished.

The immense, ochre-banded bulk of mighty Gordrimator filled nearly one-quarter of the horizon, its great Red Spot glaring down at the valley of the Cave People like an angry and baleful eye.

But the fires of the sacrifice were not lit, and the guards did not come to lead Jugrid to the place of his death.

In the darkness of the cave the chief busied himself about a small, secret task, grateful for even so brief a stay as this given him by the Mind Wizard, who held the Elders long in council, delaying the hour of execution.

Tomar had confided his opinions as to why Zhu Kor had sought out the cave country atop the high plateau. With the destruction of Kuur, and the demise of his brethren, he had reasoned Zhu Kor was the last of his race in all the world. And the country of the Cave People, who worshiped his kind and who were under the thumb of the Elders, was the last and only power base that remained to the yellow dwarf.

What use Zhu Kor might put the savage tribe to was as yet unguessable. But at least, in the cavern of the Elders, he had a place of refuge.

As the huge and luminous rondure of Gordrimator rose into the skies of Callisto, its beams struck deep into the cave where the two young people slept. The light shining into his eyes eventually awoke Tomar, who roused to find that, unaccountably, his arm was about the warm shoulders of the still sleeping Ylana, and the girl’s slim body was cuddled cozily against his side.

Flushing scarlet, the boy disengaged himself as gently as he could, to avoid waking the exhausted girl, and glanced guiltily about the cave to see if her father had noticed their position, which as a male relative he might easily have considered compromising.

Jugrid, however, was more tolerant of the affections of young people than Tomar guessed, and had only smiled affectionately, remembering with nostalgia his own youth when he noticed the sleeping pair.

Besides, he had other and more vital matters on his mind―his impending execution and the safety of his daughter and her young friend.

Seeing that Tomar was now awake, the chief beckoned the boy nearer. The boy came to Ylana’s mighty sire, and the two conversed in whispers for a time, keeping their voices pitched too low for the hulking and oafish Fanga to hear from his place by the mouth of the cave.

Jugrid informed the Shondakorian youth of his intention to escape with Tomar and Ylana into the jungle, there to perhaps seek refuge with the River People.

“I am certainly anxious to get Ylana out of here, sir,” said Tomar diffidently, “but how can we possibly get away? Prince Jandar and Sir Lukor and I, when we were imprisoned here before, examined the walls and floor of the entire cave, and the cave mouth is the only way out―and that is securely barred.”

He indicated the heavy grill of thick, bamboolike wood blocking the entrance. The shafts were bound together with heavy strands of rope made of dried and woven grasses. It was so heavy that it customarily took two men to move it.

And before it, squatting on the stone floor just beyond their reach, the burly Fanga crouched, snoring heavily.

“Even if we could manage to get through the gate, what about him?” asked Tomar. “He has a stone axe and a spear, and we have nothing to fight with.”

“That’s not quite so,” smiled Jugrid. “Shortly before your arrival, Xangan was kind enough to present me with the key to our gate, and a weapon wherewith to defend ourselves against even such as Fanga.”

“What key also serves as a weapon?” asked Tomar. Still smiling, Jugrid showed the boy something in his hand.

“But―that’s only a piece of bone!” protested Tomar.

“Quite so,” said Jugrid, smiling. Then, in quick, low tones he explained to the youth how he intended to use the piece of bone that Xangan had tossed at his feet in taunting derision.