Of us all, it was Ergon who first realized the truth.
“Our minds!” he bawled. “He’s in our minds―get him!”
And, like a maddened tiger, the brawny, bandy-legged little colossus threw himself upon the empty air where Ang Chan had stood. There transpired an enigmatic, nightmarish battle. It was as if Ergon struggled with a tangible but unseen ghost! He seemed wrestling with the thin air itself.
Then I saw an even stranger sight―drops of blood oozing one by one out of empty air!
And I understood the truth behind the inexplicable phenomenon in a flash, although it took the quick wits of Ergon to realize it first. Ang Chan had not vanished―he had telepathically rendered himself invisible. That is, using his mind-controlling powers he had made us believe he no longer stood there. And had it not been for the dagger Zamara had flung at him, which wounded him and slowed him, he would have been out the door before any of us had guessed the truth. But the blood which uncannily fell from empty air told me he was still solidly and physically there, despite my inability to see him.
Strange―strange, to see brawny Ergon bellowing lustily, struggling with empty air! But it was not empty air―he was wrestling the wily and invisible Mind Wizard.
I sprang forward to lend him a hand, but the Herculean thews of the bald Perushtarian had already pinned down his invisible adversary, and even as I knelt by him, Ergon took hold of something with both strong hands and thumped it against the deck resoundingly.
And the limp form of Ang Chan melted into view again!
Panting with breath for breath, Ergon grinned up at me triumphantly.
“Mind-powers, eh?” he grunted happily. “I bethought me that if I banged the yellow man’s skull against the deck a time or two, he’d lose the power to hide himself from our eyes―and there he be!”
We gathered quickly about the stunned Kuurian. His breathing was shallow and he was rapidly losing blood. Zamara’s blade had caught him under the left shoulder, near his heart. His crimson gore gathered into a pool beneath him even as we watched.
“A fitting death for the treacherous dog,” Zamara snarled venomously. “Let him die where he lays.”
“A pity to let Ang Chan escape in death before he has answered a few questions,” Darloona observed coolly. Zamara glanced at her, inquiringly. Darloona smiled.
“He could tell us much, could he not, Zamara?” she murmured. “Such as the reason why Kuur plotted to spur you to conquer the world, and what the Kuurians had hoped to gain from your victories? Or where next they planned to insinuate an agent, should they fail in their dominance of the Queen of Tharkol?”
Zamara flushed, eyes dropping. “You are right again, to my shame,” she muttered. “Guards! Bind the wounds of this yellow snake and fetch the ship’s doctor―”
At that instant an outcry exploded on the deck beyond our cabin and we staggered to keep our balance as the deck swung dizzily under our feet. A bugle screamed the call to quarters―the thud of running feet drummed on the deck―the snap of bowstrings twanged like plucked lutes.
“What in the name of a thousand devils is going on?” Ergon growled, scrambling to his feet. I joined him and we went out onto the deck, followed by Darloona and Zamara, leaving the Mind Wizard to the ministrations of the guards.
An amazing spectacle met our eyes!
The golden skies of Thanator were ablaze with day. Crisp clouds floated by, struck to gold by the brilliance; and there before us, sweeping grandly about as if to ram the Tharkolian airship, the mighty Jalathadar bore down upon us in all her grandeur. Aye, there was no mistaking her, on this occasion, for the royal colors of Shondakor fluttered from her prow and she was so near I could make out the solemn-eyed, chitinous features of Koja and the white locks of gallant Lukor in her pilothouse!
Almost in the same heartbeat of time our loyal friends recognized the crimson mane of Darloona and my own yellow locks streaming in the blaze of day and a mighty cheer went up from the decks of the Jalathadar at the sight of us. She trimmed her vans and came about into the wind, warriors thronged in the gunwales ready for the boarding. An instant later grappling hooks crunched into the deck rail of the Arkonna and the Tharkolian vessel lurched as the mass of the attacking sky ship dragged against her flight. The Tharkolian archers were already at the rail; lifting their bows, while swordsmen hacked through the grapnel lines. Another moment and battle would have been joined, there amidst the clouds.
In that desperate moment, however, Zamara revealed her true self!
“I bid you―hold!” she cried, her silvery voice rising like a clarion above the tumult. Springing to the rail, one hand grasping the rigging, she interposed her own body between her archers and the boarding parties. Bows were lowered as her warriors recognized their queen.
“Helmsman―strike your colors,” she called and the proud ensign of Tharkol sank from view. As it fell a great shout of victory went up from the decks of the Jalathadar and men in the gold-and-purple livery of Royal Shondakor came swarming across the perilous lines, Koja and Lukor and young Tomar among the first of them to reach the decks of the Arkonna. The Tharkolians fell back to the mid-deck, yielding their arms sullenly.
And then it was that Zamara came down from the rail and strode to where we stood. Chagrin and humiliation were in her face, and tears of defeat ran down her cheeks, but her head was held proudly high and never had she looked more beautiful, or more human, than in that moment when she acknowledged her folly.
She went up to where Darloona stood and looked her straight in the face unfalteringly.
“Princess of Shondakor,” she said clearly, “I have been a fool. I have made myself your enemy when I am not even worthy to be your friend. I have sinned greatly against the Crown of Shondakor without cause or reason. I yield myself into your hands. Do with me as you deem just, but spare my people who followed me into folly and madness because of loyalty and trust. I surrender myself to you, and I beg your forgiveness.”
If the self-styled Empress of Callisto had never looked lovelier than in that moment of humility and surrender, never had I felt prouder of my Princess than in the moment that followed. For Darloona stepped forward and embraced Zamara and kissed her tenderly and called her friend and sister.
“Wiser heads than yours have been deluded by the cunning wiles of Kuur, my dear,” she said softly. “You have the forgiveness of Shondakor for the asking, as you can have the friendship of Shondakor, if you care to ask for it.”
That was a bit too much for Zamara to endure and she burst into tears. Darloona slid her arm about the slender waist of the distraught queen and led her back into the cabin so that she could compose herself in private.
And so, it seems, we had won a good friend, where we had only found an implacable enemy before.
“All’s well that end’s well,” I said to Ergon as he came stumping up, glum-faced, to where I stood.
“If it’s to be time for trite phrases, Jandar, I’ve one for you,” he said sourly. “And that I ‘dead men tell no tales.”’
“What do you mean by that?”
He cocked his head towards the cabin.
“The yellow dog of Kuur will bark no more, I fear. Zamara of Tharkol has the wrist of an assassin; I’m glad she didn’t take it into her head to aim that dagger at you or me, Jandar.”
And it was true. Ang Chan was dead, and with him died the untold secrets of Kuur.
“I found this under his robes, suspended about his fat neck on a thong,” Ergon said glumly, handing me a small plaque of silver. I turned it over in my hand and examined it curiously. It was some sort of amulet or talisman, the gleaming metal engraved with curved and meaningless lines which trailed away at the edges of the plate. I could make nothing of it, but slipped it into my pouch to examine later at my leisure. Mayhap wise old Zastro, the sage of the Ku Thad, could spell me its meaning. There was no inscription on it that I could see.