Arjala had experienced much that was new to her since Zarqa and Janchan had carried her off, while attempting to rescue the Princess of Phaolon. Reared in an atmosphere of seductive luxury, her most idle whim was absolute law; the Ardhanese priestess and vessel of the Goddess was thoroughly unaccustomed to having her wishes ignored or even flouted. But since the skysled had borne her off into the night, she had been angered, insulted, and ordered about; it was as if she were a person of no consequence, instead of being the most powerful woman in her realm.
The ultimate indignity, however, had been suffered at the hands of the black immortal, Ralidux, and others of his kind.
For in the Flying City, Arjala had been subjected to the most abhorrent, obscene degradation of all, that of slavery. She had been stripped, poked and prodded about; tested, weighed and measured like some animal in an experimental laboratory.
And now, the affront supreme! For the black madman meant to force his virility upon her, against her will. There could be no more horrendous insult than this. As the realization spread throughout her, the Goddess forgot her fears in a rising tide of rage that welled up within her and exploded in a spasm of fury that even Ralidux had not expected.
It is amusing to contemplate the sense of fury, outrage and degradation with which Arjala viewed her attempted rape by Ralidux. It is not amusing in itself, that is; but when you consider that Ralidux himself viewed the act he was striving to perform as nothing more than a shameful, degrading coupling of a superior being with an animal of the lower species, the humor in the incident becomes visible.
Right now, however, Ralidux was not amused. He was, in fact, trembling with furious frustration. The sudden spurt of anger within her breast had turned the Goddess into a spitting tiger-cat, all claws and screams.
With one hand free of the clutches of Ralidux, Arjala did her best to claw out his quicksilver eyes. The best she could manage to do, however, was to rip raw and jagged furrows down his face, scoring it from brow to chin. Hot blood spurted under her tearing nails; stung, Ralidux howled, clapped one hand to his torn face, and the struggling young woman scrambled free of him.
She fled into the jungle in the next instant, vanishing into the gloom between the trees. He staggered to his feet, snarling curses, the blood leaking down his face and dribbling between his fingers. Her nails as they raked his face had narrowly missed his left eye, by perhaps a third of an inch.
Possessed by maniacal rage, Ralidux did not pause even to bathe his wounds in the pool amid the glade; he plunged into the jungle after the girl. The green gloom swallowed him up, and the glade was empty; there was no sign that man had even breeched its secluded solitude, save for a scrap or two of cloth torn from Arjala’s garb and the blood of Ralidux that wet the crushed grass like some ghastly scarlet dew.
Arjala had not the slightest notion of where she was going, but hurtled in headlong flight through the twisting, crossing aisles of the jungle. In a few minutes she emerged from the edge of the jungle into the sunlight of open day. Pausing for a moment in her flight, the girl looked about her dazedly, so as to ascertain her position.
By some quirk of fate, she had emerged at the same point she had entered the jungle earlier. There before her was the immense blue hawklike bird, resting upon a fallen log. The saddle upon its back was empty.
In her present state, the mind of Arjala was out of control. Sheer instinct impelled her now; and to see was to act. The giant bird represented to her dazed, outraged thoughts the opportunity for escape; her chance for freedom from a situation which was intolerable to one with her sense of self-importance and queenliness.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she quickly ran across the level space where the bird squatted wearily. In her proper mind, she would have been timid of the immense raptor and wary of its uncertain domestication; but in her current hysteria, it did not even occur to her that the bird might resist her if she mounted the capacious saddle strapped about its breast at the base of its neck.
As for the great hunting-hawk, it eyed her curiously, turning its fierce orange eye upon the half-naked girl. But it made no objection to being mounted and would indeed have responded to her picking up the reins, and flown away with her, even in its wearied condition.
This action, however, Arjala did not take. A voice hailed her from the edge of the jungle.
Terror flashed in the liquid jewels of her beautiful eyes and she turned slowly to see which of her companions was accosting her—the madman whom she loathed and hungered to slay, or the rival princess for whom she had scant liking.
With eyes wide with unbelieving horror, Niamh the Fair stared behind her into the darkness of the Temple.
Up from the black well atop the altar dais slithered the hideous length of an enormous serpent. Its eyes of soulless flame glared through the darkness as if to mesmerize the Princess.
The head of the serpent monster was as thick and heavy as the body of a mature man; its scaly-clad, sinuous length was nearly two hundred feet long. Perhaps it was the monster god the Ancient Ones had worshiped long ago, or the descendant of that reptilian divinity; or possibly it was but a denizen of the jungles who had chosen to make its noisome lair in the black tunnels beneath the age-old temple. Niamh never knew; nor did she care.
The girl had heard of such creatures, which seldom climbed to the height of the jewelbox cities built high in the sky-tall trees and were, for that reason, so rare as to be considered mythological. It was known as the Ssalith; and such were the traits of cunning and ferocity the monster serpents displayed, they were feared even by the terrible sea dragons and the fearsome ythids of the upper regions.
Pale and trembling with horror, Niamh fled from the approach of the Ssalith. Down the crumbling stone stair she fled on white nimble feet, darting into the jungle.
On her very heels the gigantic serpent poured its scaly and sinuous length out of the yawning portal of the Temple and down the carven stair, its jaws grinning open, scarlet tongue flickering, tasting the air.
Soundless as a shadow it glided into the jungle and, in a few moments, had vanished within.
Ralidux plunged through the bushes, oblivious of the branches that whipped his bloody face; ignoring the bite of sawing-edged leaves as they snatched and tore at his thighs and legs.
He sought the girl who fled before him with a single devouring compulsion which gnawed at the citadel of his sanity. The girl would be his or he would perish in her pursuit; naught else in all the world mattered to him now but to exhaust the burning lust which tormented him, upon her helpless body.
He was by now wholly mad. His superhumanly beautiful face was transformed into a horrible visage of naked fury. The severe, classic composure that had made his features as perfect and immobile as those of a superb sculpture had been shattered to rage. His eyes blazed like mad stars of silver fire in the raw and bloody ruin of his snarling face.
Suddenly the aisle before him was filled with a gliding, serpentine bulk. He paused in his headlong flight. Scenting fresh blood, the head of the monstrous Ssalith swung about.
Before it stood an unarmed naked man, streaming with gore. The giant serpent was hungry, enraged and eager for the kill. Its tiny brain could only contain one thought at a time; hence, it forgot the fleeing girl and lunged for this new delicacy which fate had thrust into its path.
With the Ssalith, to see was to strike. The hideous blunt-nosed head thrust for Ralidux like a bolt of lightning. Jaws lined with curved fangs the length of cavalry sabers now gaped wide. Uttering its war-cry, a deep-throated, thunderous hiss, the monster serpent struck!