And then it came to me. The blazon painted on the panel of the door was not what it should have been!
The royal blazon of Shondakor, you see, consists of a shield of gold charged with a winged crown above crossed swords. After we had seized the vessel many months ago, we had painted out the blazon of its original Zanadarian corsair captain, replacing it with the royal emblem of the Golden City.
But the emblem was different, now: it was a crimson field which bore eight black crowns, a blazon which was unfamiliar to me. Then it came to me where I had seen that strange coat of arms before―on the armorial plaques and banners which had adorned the great hall of Zamara’s palace in Tharkol!
The eight crowns must represent the eight cities of this hemisphere of Thanator. The blazon, then, was of the world empire whereof Zamara in her madness dreamed.
Which meant … we were not aboard the Jalathadar at all, but on a newly built Tharkolian vessel!
The thought electrified me; I stiffened in the grasp of my captors, looking about me with a startled gaze. Now that the veils had been stripped from my eyes, so to speak, I noticed things that had eluded my attention previously. There were subtle differences in the design of the deckhouse, in the sculptured adornment of the balustrade; minor innovations in details of the rigging and the equipment stored or housed on this deck.
Ang Chan caught my eye. Bland amusement gleamed in his slitted eyes. The yellow dwarf, with his uncanny mind-reading powers, must have sensed the tenor of my thoughts, for he came over to where we stood and laughed.
“The Prince of Shondakor has surmised the truth, I see,” he purred. “Doubtless the noble Jandar was of the opinion that the ambitions of the Empress Zamara were the delusions of a deranged mentality! How could a single city such as Tharkol, for all the might and valor of her legions, conquer the seven cities of the world? Vast distances, impenetrable jungles, savage wildernesses and uncharted seas separate the cities of Thanator the one from the other; to dream of welding these far-flung realms into a single empire must have seemed to the noble Jandar a mad dream and nothing more …. But now you perceive a frightening truth, which places the imperial ambitions of Tharkol within the borders of possibility, am I not correct?”
“You are,” I said, striving for calmness. “For I perceive that the city of Tharkol has discovered, or has been given, the lost secrets of constructing the aerial warships of Zanadar.”
Ergon grunted and Darloona stiffened with astonishment at my words, but the Mind Wizard only smiled and made an ironic little bow as if saluting my powers of deduction.
“Quite so,” he said silkily. “Doubtless the Prince of Shondakor assumed the science of building the ornithoptors lost with the destruction of the Sky Pirates. Such is, however, not the truth. For the Lords of Gordrimator have revealed unto the chosen vessel of their will, the future Empress of all Callisto, the techniques perfected by the Zanadarian savants. And you stand aboard the Arkonna, the prototype of the flying navy of Tharkol, which has been under construction for the past three months, together with her sister ship, the Conqueress, which will shortly reach completion.”
Zamara interrupted Ang Chan abruptly. I got the impression that she had wished to announce these triumphs before us herself, and resented his assuming the role of spokesman.
“Enough, yellow dog! Guards―remove the prisoners to the cabins aft and see them securely imprisoned. Use them not with unwonted severity, however, for they are valuable to us and their persons are not to endure mistreatment. Later, we shall interrogate them at our leisure.”
Ang Chan bowed to her peremptory wishes and we were led away.
Our cabin was commodious and not uncomfortable, if Spartan in the bareness of its furnishings. We were at the rear of the flying ship, stationed directly over the rudder assembly, and the creak of cordage and the boom of wind in the rudder were deafening, however. The rudder, like that on the Jalathadar and her sister ship, the Xaxar, was a towering structure of ribbed vans rather like an antique Chinese fan, by which the vessel was steered. A row of barred windows looked out on the rudder assembly and gave us fugitive glimpses of the night-drowned landscape which glided steadily beneath our keel.
We discussed the rather gloomy situation into which chance or fate had now thrust us. Darloona was incredulous over the fact that the warlike Tharkolians possessed an airship, and apprehensive concerning the implications of this fact on the future security of Shondakor.
“How could Zamara have rediscovered the Zanadarian secrets?” she wondered, as we shared a meager breakfast served us by surly, watchful, and unspeaking guards.
“What is more curious, my lady,” grunted Ergon sourly, “is how the Tharkolians came by supplies of the lifting gas which makes the sky ships airworthy. When we touched off the gas mines in the White Mountains, destroying the city of the Sky Pirates, I thought we had eliminated the only source of the mysterious vapor known to exist.”
I set down my goblet. “That may well have been the truth, Ergon,” I said. “But at that time we discovered that the lifting gas wherewith the hollow hulls of the ornithopters are charged was explosive and flammable. On my own world we have a similar gas which was also once used in the construction of flying vessels and which is also explosive and flammable. We call it hydrogen. And our savants possess knowledge of a technique whereby the elements which constitute ordinary water can be divided by use of a force we call electricity. By this manner, it is easy enough to produce as much hydrogen as may be wanted. However, I had not thought the several races of Thanator possessed any knowledge of electricity. Perhaps I have underestimated the cunning and cleverness of the Mind Wizards of Kuur in this respect, as in others.”
Darloona sat frowning slightly, nibbling absently on a bit of fruit. “What worries me most,” she confessed, “is that if the Tharkolians have one sky ship already in operation, and a second near completion, and an entire fleet of others under construction, poor Zamara’s mad dreams of empire may yet attain reality. That will be a grim day for Shondakor, and a grim day for all of the cities of Thanator … .”
Little Glypto huddled woefully on one of the bunks, clutching his. bony shanks. “Far better, my masters, had we stayed with the Lord Shaphur!” he whimpered.
I shook my head wearily. “It is all my fault,” I said. “How foolish of me to have mistaken the Arkonna for the Jalathadar! It simply never occurred to me that the flying ship could be any other than the Jalathadar. The Xaxar, which Zantor commands, is somewhat smaller and higher in the aft-section… : ‘
Darloona slipped her hand in mine.
“The fault is not yours, beloved,” she said. “We had none of us the slightest reason to guess the Tharkolians knew the secrets of building the ornithopters. Your mistake was perfectly natural; indeed, I made it, too.”
“What baffles me,” Ergon growled, “is how the Queen learned the building of such ships. The levitating vapor is but one of the secret techniques. How did she learn of the molded-paper construction which makes the vessels light in weight yet strong? The Zanadarians pressed wet paper sheets over plaster forms and baked them, once they had been impregnated with glue. The lamination process alone is one that involves many secrets … and, of course, we cannot accept the lady’s mad belief that these secrets were imparted to her by the Lords of Gordrimator. The gods may or may not be omniscient; but it is a fact of history that they have seldom, if ever, meddled in the affairs of men.”