Zamara wavered indecisively, biting her lower lip with vexation. She was an intelligent girl, with an excellent mind. And I could see that Darloona’s calm and reasonable arguments had made some impression on her, but how much of an impression it was impossible to ascertain.
At this point, I spoke up.
“Queen Zamara, in my homeland the philosophers hold to an axiom which says: when confronted by two alternate solutions to a question, the less fantastic of the two is most likely to be the true answer. Think! The Lords of Gordrimator may or may not exist; and if they do exist, they may or may not influence the actions of men; and if they do influence men upon occasion, they may or may not have influenced you. But the abilities of Ang Chan certainly do exist. We have all experienced his powers in action. There is no question of his uncanny ability to tamper with our very thoughts. Now: faced with the question of whether the unknown and inscrutable Lords of Gordrimator have visited your dreams, or whether it was merely the known and genuine power of Ang Chan which made you think so, and remembering the axiom I have just mentioned, which of the two assertions is more likely to be true?”
We waited. Would her intelligence win out over her delusions, or would human nature conquer the dictates of reason and commonsense? For Zamara very desperately wanted to believe her visions and voices and gods were true. She possessed a vaulting ambition; it would be very difficult for her to turn her back on the luring dreams which promised crowns and glory and conquest. What monarch would not wish to believe he is the instrument of the gods, the chosen favorite of fortune, the darling of destiny? To believe what you want to believe is only human nature.
And Zamara was very human.
But reason won out over avarice and vainglory.
Her features strained and pale, her eyes mutinous, her voice hesitant and reluctant, she said: “It is more likely to assume … that Ang Chan has used his powers to delude me ….”
At that moment we heard the guards beyond the door of our cabin ring their spears against the deck in salute.
And one of them called out: “Make way for the Lord Councillor Ang Chan!”
The next moment a key grated in our lock.
We were about to receive a second visitor!
The yellow dwarf paused in the open doorway to look us over with keen, wary eyes. Two guards flanked him, eyeing us truculently. We sat about the folding table which was littered with the remnants of our morning meal. I held a silver winecup in my hand as if I had just emptied it. Zamara and her guards were nowhere in sight; we had, by sheer urgency, begged her to trust us for the moment, and thrust her and her warriors back into their place of concealment, regaining our own seats a bare fraction of a second before the door opened, showing us the bright morning sky and the smiling person of Ang Chan. He entered, bowing amiably.
“This unworthy person thought it wise to visit his guests and ascertain their comfort and, ah, the measure of security they enjoy, before our arrival at Tharkol necessitates his attentions,” he said in a suave, good-humored voice.
There was no reason Ang Chan should not be in a good humor, as he held the upper hand. Perhaps even the winning hand, although that was yet to be seen.
I came directly to the point.
“You are one of the Mind Wizards of Kuur, are you not, my lord Ang Chan? I knew a countryman of yours, one Ool, called `the Uncanny’ by the simple warriors of the Black Legion he had bewildered and awed by his telepathic powers. Do you know him?”
He surveyed me with amused, twinkling eyes.
“The mission of the worthy and resourceful Ool was known to this humble person, but, alas, not the worthy Ool himself. I believe the honorable and inestimable Ool met his untimely demise at the hands of a certain terrene adventurer who calls himself Jandar of Callisto.”
I nodded. “That is true, Ang Chan. Tell me, are you of Kuur born with your abilities to manipulate and eavesdrop upon the minds of others, or is it a skill acquired through training?”
“Your inquisitiveness may lamentably shorten your duration of existence, Prince Jandar,” he observed. But good humor was irrepressible. “An inclination towards the art is innate in our race; proficiency in the art, however, is the result of stimulus by certain rare drugs upon the proper brain centers, employed in accord with certain disciplines of mind, body, and spirit. Why do you bother to inquire into the minor attainments of this insignificant person?”
“Because I am interested to find out how you worked this trick of fooling the Queen of Tharkol into thinking herself visited by the gods,” I said boldly.
He drew in his breath, his eyes suddenly going cold and opaque. Then he relaxed with a small, chilly smile.
“You are insolent,” he observed. “And that is unwise. When one holds the power of life or death over you, it is imprudent to provoke him so.”
“Then you are in control of events here, and not your Queen?” I demanded hotly. “I surmised as much!”
He smiled thinly. “Zamara is the beloved of her gods and leaves many of her merely mundane affairs to this lowly person,” he admitted, suavely.
“Gods of the same sort as Hoom, the idol of the Chac Yuul―a thing of dead, empty stone?” I pressed.
“In dealing with the lesser races, we of Kuur oft have found it auspicious to play upon their superstitions,” he said.
“Then, like me, you are a skeptic?”
He shrugged casually. “The gods may, after all, exist in one sense of the word or another. But if they do, they seldom bother with mortal men … . “
“And, with your telepathic powers, you find it easy to make superstitious men believe they have experienced visions of the gods―when it suits your purpose to do so.”
“All too simple,” he laughed. “The lesser races are eager to be convinced of their own importance in the eyes of their gods.”
“As it was easy for you to convince Zamara of her divinely-ordained destiny, because she hungered to believe therein?”
“The ambitions of royalty render it easy for us to gain ascendance over them by telling them what they most desire to hear,” he said blandly. “Their own convictions of superiority shape them as a tool to our uses. But it is not of these matters I would speak―”
His voice broke off suddenly and his face paled. Slitted eyes bulging with horror, he sucked in his breath and spat aloud one word.
“Tricked!”
The rasp of steel sounded behind us.
We turned. Zamara stood there in the secret opening, her face hard and cold, her eyes ablaze with deadly anger, a naked dagger clenched in one white-knuckled hand.
“Condemned, you mean, yellow dog of Kuur!” she hissed. “Condemned out of your own mouth, you treasonous, treacherous snake!”
Before any one of us could move or speak her hand released the blade in a blurring gesture.
The steel blade flashed across the room. But whether it struck the Mind Wizard or not, none of us could tell.
For in the same instant he vanished into thin air!
Chapter 20
Battle in the Clouds
We stared in utter amazement at the empty space which had been filled an instant before by the body of the yellow dwarf. He had flicked out of existence like an apparition, and it was a moment before any of us could grasp the fact of this miraculous disappearance. The two guards who had flanked the Kuurian shrank aside in awe and bewilderment. Even Zamara, amidst her blazing fury, was struck dumb with amazement.