Zarqa checked the mechanism and straightened from the craft with a rare smile on his habitually melancholy features.
The skysled remains flight-worthy, Prince Parimus, the Winged telepathed in reply. If your bowmen will lend a hand, we shall quickly be able to dig the prow out of the wet sand in which it crash-landed. If you would be so kind… ?
Parimus nodded, turning to the tall Tharkoonian bowman who stood ever at his side.
“With the greatest pleasure, noble Zarqa! I am delighted to learn that our ill-chanced ray caused no damage to your ancient craft. Zorak—command a detail of your archers to bend their backs to the task without further delay. There are digging-tools in the forward supply cubicle of the yacht—”
Zorak touched his brow obediently, but his bronzed features wore the shadow of a troubled frown.
“Well, what is it?” huffed the science wizard, irritably, seeing him hesitate.
“My Prince, since the Komarians expect us momentarily to provide the diversion their assault upon the citadel requires for victory, should we not leave these new-found friends of the boy Karn, with the tools? Let them dig their craft free themselves, while we burry to relieve Prince Andar? Surely, they can excavate their skysled and follow on our heels?”
Parimus shook his head, determinedly.
“Caution and prudence bid otherwise, brave Zorak! Young Karn and his friends have too often been separated by chance and adversity, ere now. I will not risk a similar mishap, which would prevent their remaining together. Come, come, man! ‘Twill take only a few moments; then we are off, flying together, with no possibility of further ill-luck separating old comrades.”
Zorak saluted and returned to the aerial yacht, summoning the bowmen to the deck. A runner entered the cabin to unlock the store of tools. Within a few moments, Tharkoonian archers came trooping onto the beach, their bows and quivers set aside, awkwardly shouldering picks and shovels. They formed a half-circle about the portion of the skysled which was tilted over, half-buried in wet sand. In less time than it takes to tell it, the tools were at work and wet sand was flying in all directions.
There was nothing in particular for Zarqa, Janchan or I to do while the archers dug the skysled out of the sand. We seized this opportunity to fill each other in on the adventures which had befallen us after we had become separated on the outskirts of the Yellow City of Ardha.
Then it was that I learned for the first time how Janchan had entered the city, disguised as a mercenary swordsman. He had luckily lent his blade to the rescue of an influential and grateful officer of the royal guard, who had been set upon by Assassins in the pleasure gardens. Of his meteoric rise in the ranks of the guardsmen loyal to Akhmim, the Tyrant of Ardha, I had previously known nothing; nor of how he had chanced to penetrate the temple on a mission to free Niamh the Fair. In a few swift words, the Phaolonese princeling told how he had set Zarqa free and dispatched him to the place where the skysled lay concealed. He descended to the prison-cell in which Niamh was sequestered; he had been surprised in the act of liberating the Princess by the intrusion of the Incarnate Goddess of the Temple. An accident had started the fire. Luckily, Zarqa had arrived with the sled in time to carry them all to safety from the burning building.
Zarqa then told how he had come to be imprisoned in the temple, having been captured by Arjala’s huntsmen. He further related the astonishing consequences of their hasty flight from Ardha; of how they had been taken prisoner by the black immortals of Calidar, the City in the Sky; and of the many mysteries and marvels of that amazing kingdom, which floated among the clouds, far above the treetops of the Green Star World.
I then related a brief account of the adventures that had followed my rash and impulsive attempt to enter Ardha on my own; of my desperate battle with the giant zzumalak, which had carried me from the tree branch to the rooftops of the palaces of Ardha; of my capture and imprisonment by the Assassins’ Guild, how they had trained me in their subtle arts and skills.
I also gave my friends some account of my mission into the temple, and how their own successful liberation of Niamh had frustrated that mission; how with the faithful Klygon at my side, I had fled Ardha; only to end up at the Bottom of the World, among the monstrous worms and savage albino cannibals who roam the black abyss of the continental floor. Of our befriending of the treacherous Delgan there was little to say; nor of the slaying of the monster god Nithhog and the accident which had blinded me. There were so many adventures—so many tales to be told! Only the briefest outline could be imparted at this time; for the unveiling of the full saga of our perils, we must await a future hour of leisure and safety.
Janchan was fascinated by my account of the black, gloomy abyss which lies at the base of the sky-tall trees; I, in turn, was intrigued by his description of the strange flying city of scarlet metal; and of the beautiful and sinister madmen who live eternally above the world.
“Our adventures have carried us to regions above the sky… and to the uttermost, darkling depths of the world,” he mused. “How strange it is, then, that we should meet again—on a nameless, uninhabited jungle isle amidst this enormous sea, whose reaches were unknown to us!”
Someone—I think that it was ugly little Klygon—began to make some comment on that. But he was interrupted by the most peculiar noise.
It was a tremendous, deep hissing sound, like a jet of steam escaping from a boiler. All about me men yelled and roared in sudden, inexplicable terror and consternation.
Inexplicable, that is, to me! For a blind youth cannot tell from sound alone what is happening.
All about me I heard the thud of running feet—startled cries—the inexplicable crackle of vegetation being crushed beneath the weight of some enormous bulk. I stared about me helplessly, suddenly finding myself alone; unable to account for the attack of panic which had struck my comrades into terrorized flight.
But it seemed the island was not uninhabited, after all!
My first inkling of what had befallen us came when a vast, cold coil settled about my waist—tightened with crushing force—and lifted me into the air!
I beat with puny, futile hands against the dry, slick, rugous thing which encircled my middle. My palms scraped against scaly hide, and the rank odor of reptilian musk was heavy in my nostrils.
From some distance, I heard my comrades calling my name in alarm and fright. As for me, I was too muddled and confused to be scarcely conscious of the sensation of fear. I did not know how suddenly the thick wall of the jungle had parted before the brutal, thrusting force of a monstrous, wedge-shaped head. The flaming eyes, grinning, fanged jaws and flickering, forked tongue had driven the archers into flight in all directions.
Now there was good, ample reason for them to regret having left their weapons upon the flight-deck of Prince Parimus’ sky yacht!
It was not until very much later, when all tales were told and all of our adventures were made known, that we realized that the seemingly-uninhabited island upon which the skysled had been forced down by the yacht of Prince Parimus, was none other than that same isle of ancient ruins upon which Ralidux the Mad had alighted, with his captives, Niamh the Fair and Arjala of Ardha—
The isle of the gigantic living serpent-god!
Cheated of his feast by the lucky escape of Ralidux, the vast, monstrous Ssalith had at length emerged from its hidden lair in the depths of the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the age-old Temple.