And we fell before it.
Down—down—down.
But not fast enough.
It was probably a good thing that in such tight spots I seldom had enough free time to become afraid.
For fear blurs the brain and tangles the wits.
And fear had caused me to forget all about the weapon that hung at my side.
As my fleeing zaiph fell into a giddy downward spiral, I was thrown forward in the saddle.
And a tubular object the length of a man’s arm slapped my upper chest as I tilted forward, the straps that bound me in the saddle creaking from the strain.
It was the zoukar.
A shaft of sparkling crystal was this miracle weapon we had salvaged from the magical armory of Sarchimus the Wise. A glassy, transparent rod, capped with silvery metal at either end, and within its mysterious crystalline substance a bolt of captive lightning writhed and sparked.
“The death-flash,” Zarqa the Kalood had called the thing.
How could I have forgotten it, even in my panic? It was a dread and potent tool by which the Winged Men had slain their foes from afar. I had found it in the cabinet in Zarqa’s cell back in the temple, and had slipped its baldric about my shoulders.
Although I had never had occasion to use the death-flash, I had observed its operation. For, in spirit form, I had watched the science magician employ it to slay the phuol that time the scorpion-monster had crept upon the helpless boy whose body I now wore like a garment. And I had seen it used again, when Sarchimus had rescued me from the writhing, sluglike saloog on the lower level of his tower, the time I had disobeyed the instructions of Sarchimus and had gone exploring on my own.
By this time we had fled before the zawkaw for some minutes, and—such was the speed of our descent—by now we had fallen a mile or more, perhaps two, toward the unknown floor of the forest. But farther we could not flee, for already the monster hawk was upon us, its hideous beak snapping and clashing only yards behind the tail of my dragonfly-steed. In mere moments our last adventure would end, and Klygon and I would become morsels to glut the blood-lust of the killer hawk that dived after us.
I twisted about in the saddle, slid the zoukar from its wrappings, pointed one end directly in the glaring mad eyes of the gigantic hawk—and loosed the lightnings spent within the crystal rod as I had seen Sarchimus do.
We were falling through the lower branches of a mighty tree. Its colossal bulk blocked away the sky and shut out the green-gold light, casting us in its shadow. As I fired the death-dash, the gloom lit brighter than day and the air ripped asunder with a deafening retort. It was like a thunderclap!
And like a thunderbolt was the jagged steak of electric fire that darted between the crystal shaft and the hawk’s head.
Over the shoulder of the giant bird I gazed directly into the cold, contemptuous features of the superhumanly beautiful black man who rode the winged and monstrous hunting bird. The icy and aloof arrogance in his perfect features was stamped into my mind.
In the next fraction of a second that cold, ironic face dissolved into screaming terror!
For the bolt caught the hunting hawk directly in the face—and its head exploded in a flying splatter of blood and brains. Naught was left but a charred, smoking stump! Sparks smoldered on the edge of blue feathers, but the terrible wound did not even bleed, for the lightnings of the zoukar had instantaneously cauterized the stump.
I was blinded and dazzled, and half deafened by the power of the incredible weapon.
Never before had I had occasion to employ the mysterious death-flash against any adversary, either beast or man. I had seen it used in the hands of Sarchimus the Wise, true, but that had been long ago. Many things had happened since the science magician employed the weird power of the zoukar to save me from the clutches of the terrible saloog. I had almost forgotten the frightful energies that slept in the crystal rod we had carried off from the Scarlet Pylon of the sinister magician in the Dead City.
I have not the faintest notion of how the weapon worked. Seemingly, it generated electric force somehow, deep within the crystalline lattice of the glassy substance from which it had been fashioned.
Perhaps it operated somehow like a laser, in which a crystal focuses the wavelengths of light into a burning and intolerable beam of coherent force. I cannot say; and it may be that not even Zarqa the Kalood, for all his ancient and timeless wisdom, could have explained the mysteries of the death-flash.
But work it did indeed—and like the thunderbolt of Jupiter himself!
The blue-winged hawk was smitten by lightning in midair.
Dead in an instant, was that flying monster.
The dead bird fell past us, whirling end over end.
And the magnificent ebon-skinned being who had ridden it fell whirling from his jeweled saddle and was gone. The echoes of his scream rang in my ears.
Now darkness closed about us.
We had flown too far; we were terribly near the floor of the forest, that abyss of impenetrable gloom where slither unthinkable monstrous worms—that black tangle of gigantic roots where no human denizen of the jewelbox cities ever voluntarily had set a foot—that unknown and unexplored abyss that is the Hell and Sheol and dreadful Netherworld of Laonese myth.
For we had lost control of our dragonfly-steeds, Klygon and I. They flew madly down and down in a dizzy spiral, and we fell with them, helpless to avert their descent
Into the abyss!
The Second Book
CITIES IN THE SKY
Chapter 5
Ice, the Sky-Sled
The sky-sled swung away from the temple tier and arrowed off into the night. Gasping for breath, Janchan clung to the hand-grips, gratefully feeling the cool, clear night air wash over him. Fresh air tasted indescribably delicious to one who had, mere moments before, stood amid the flames of a seething inferno. At his side, Niamh the Fair lay, her wide eyes mirroring her amazement. Never in her life before had the youthful Princess of Phaolon conceived of anything as strange and inexplicable as this glittering golden thing that sped through the night sky as if borne on invisible wings. Nor had she, in her wildest dreams, pictured a being quite so peculiar as the gaunt, winged, and hairless Kalood who sat at the controls of the amazing flying vehicle.
In a few moments they would have soared beyond the limits of the Yellow City, and would be lost in the darkness. Janchan was filled with excitement and relief; against all chance, he had at last succeeded in rescuing the beautiful young Princess of Phaolon from the very stronghold of her enemies. Before long the darkness would conceal them from all eyes, and then, with the aid of the map which the sky-sled contained, they could fly on to Phaolon. His quest would be accomplished; he, alone of all the nobles and aristocrats who had sworn to search the world for the lost princess, would have the unequaled honor of returning her safely to her kingdom. And, now that he thought of it, it seemed likely that the future would hold only peace for Phaolon. For the power of Ardha was hopelessly split into warring factions, and in the struggle for supremacy between these factions the captive princess had been a pawn of unthinkable value.
He grinned, remembering. Akhmim, Tyrant of Ardha, had taken Niamh captive. But Arjala, marshaling the strength of the Temple faction, had trumped his ace by offering her “sanctuary” in the holy precinct. This sanctuary, of course, was but another prison; but at least Arjala had rescued the young girl from a forced marriage with the Tyrant, which would have brought the Throne of Phaolon the Jewel City into his grasp without war.