And thus ended our flight across the Great Plains of Haratha. If captivity must be our lot, at least ours was luxurious. I had expected to be thrust into the Pits, to be bedded on verminous and moldy straw in some lightless and fetid dungeon cell.
Instead, we were imprisoned in one of the upper levels of the citadel in surroundings of silken and voluptuous comfort. Our “prison cell” was a spacious and airy apartment, stone walls draped with splendid tapestries, nests of velvet cushions arranged between low couches covered with rare furs. Few palaces, in my experience, can boast a more luxurious and beautifully appointed suite for their guests!
Herein, at long last, we were unbound and ungagged. Both Ergon and I had been on the alert for the moment, and when it came we fully intended to hurl ourselves on our captors in a desperate bid for freedom. But in this detail, too, the clever and cunning brain that lay behind the plot had already envisioned and forestalled such an attempt on our part. For as we were untied, alert and vigilant guards stood about us, many blades held unwaveringly at our breasts, quite effectively holding us at bay.
Once we were free, and stood glowering at the guards, helpless to attack, chafing our numb wrists, the guards backed slowly through the portal and left us to our own devices. The door, of course, was a thick and massive slab of the hardest of woods, bound with bronze studs, and securely locked and barred from without.
“It seems we are not to be starved, at any rate,” Ergon grunted sourly. I followed his gesture, to see low taborets of inlaid wood laden with platters of cold sliced meat, fresh fruit, cubes of delicious cheese, and crystal pitchers of golden wine.
Having been gagged for many hours, it was our thirst which chiefly tormented us. The wine was deliciously cold, of exquisite bouquet and superb vintage. Once our raging thirst had been assuaged, we became aware of a ravenous hunger within, and fell to the other viands with a will. The meats were tender and delicately spiced, and the fruits and pastries were richly satisfying.
“How odd of our enemies to imprison us in surroundings of such luxury,” Darloona murmured, glancing about at the gorgeous furnishings. My heart swelled within me at the calm insouciance of her tones. Few of her sex could have endured attack, capture, and imprisonment without giving way to an hysteria of terror or a storm of tears. But the brave and gallant Princess of the Ku Thad shrugged off the indignity of capture and the dread of the unknown fate reserved for us with the unshaken courage I could only admire.
For the ten-thousandth time I pondered the miracle of fate that had won me the love of so magnificent a woman!
“Perushtarians,” I commented around a mouthful of fruit, “have a natural love of luxury which extends, it would seem, even to the decor of their prisons.”
It was a feeble jest, God knows, but she laughed wholeheartedly.
“No Perushtarians these,” grunted Ergon glumly. “You must have noticed their braided hair, Jandar.”
I nodded. “But they have the scarlet skins . . :’
“I am a full-blooded Perushtarian,” he pointed out grimly, “and it is known that something in our blood inclines us to baldness. There is doubtless a strain of Perushtarian lineage in these dogs, but another race is blended therein as well. Noticed you their bandy legs and lankness of hair? What think you, then?”
Darloona set down her wine goblet with a decisive click.
“The Black Legion!” she said.
He nodded glumly. “Aye, Lady! And I know of but one people in whose blood is blended that of the Chac Yuul and of the Empire as well. The city of Tharkol!”
I rubbed my jaw thoughtfully. “I had assumed as much myself, Ergon, having noted the general direction of our flight as best I could from the bottom of that accursed basket. My Princess, has our city been at enmity with the Tharkolians within your memory?”
She shook her head puzzledly, glorious scarlet mane curling over bare shoulders.
“We have had naught, or very little, to do with Tharkol in my reign,” she murmured. “And in the time of my royal father, little enough, beyond occasional trading. The Tharkolians are an unfriendly people and keep to themselves, for aught I know. The many long leagues of grassy plain that lie between our cities have, till now, served as a barrier between us.”
“It would seem, then, that they have attacked us without provocation,” I said.
Her emerald eyes flashed and her superb bosom heaved.
“They shall find they have seized a very deltagar by the tail, then, the fools!” she snapped venomously, naming a ferocious jungle predator feared across the breadth of Thanator for its fighting fury.
“By noon tomorrow, I doubt me not, they shall find the unconquerable legions of Shondakor camped before their gated” she cried.
“I hope you are correct in that, my Princess,” I returned quietly. “But I fear me you are not … .”
“What mean you, Jandar?” she flashed. “Valkar will waste not a moment in following us thither. To raise the legions of the Ku Thad and to mount an invasion of the lands about Tharkol will be pressed with all speed. Ere long the city will be ringed about with our armies, and I doubt me not but that the hosts of Shondakor will make short work of any such resistance as the Tharkolians may attempt. True, the walls of the city seem stout enough, but recall, my Prince, the two flying galleons at our command: by their employment, a host of valiant Shondakorian warriors may easily be carried over the walls of this accursed city, to invest with ease the very citadel of Queen Zamara …”
My beloved was right enough in what she said. The destruction of the City in the Clouds had left us in possession of two of the remarkable aerial warships of the Sky Pirates. These two ornithopters, as the ingenious Zanadarian contrivances are more properly termed, are the Jalathadar, captained by Lord Haakon, a gallant Shondakorian of noble birth who had sailed with the Jalathadar on her heroic maiden voyage against Zanadar*, and her sister ship, the former corsair vessel, Xaxar, which was under the captaincy of her original master, Zantor. We had at this time no particular reason to doubt that the twin sky-ships were the last of their kind aloft. For, while doubtless several if not many of the Zanadarian warships had been absent from the City in the Clouds at the time of our attack on the pirate stronghold and its destruction, the only known source of the levitating gas which permitted the aerial conveyances to resist the gravity of Thanator had been destroyed in the conflagration which had reduced to ashes the city of the Sky Pirates itself. Lacking the means whereby to recharge their hollow hulls and airtight holds with new supplies of the lifting vapor, most if not all of the flying ships by now were doubtless grounded―a fate which would in time render the Jalathadar and the Xaxar unable to navigate the skies of Callisto, as well.
I forbore to press the point, deciding it was better to permit my beloved to retain her hopes of early freedom. Nothing was to be gained by sharing with her the reasoning which impelled me to doubt that our rescue by our friends was as imminent as she believed.
But Ergon sensed my reticence. And later, after Darloona retired to her couch, worn out from the excitement of this unexpectedly adventurous day, he sought me where I stood at the barred window, thoughtfully looking out over the vista of the streets and rooftops of Tharkol, bathed in the multicolored light of the many moons.
“Jandar,” the ugly, faithful Perushtarian growled in my ear, “you had another reason for doubting the legions of Shondakor would be so quick on our trail, did you not?”
“I did, old friend,” I replied somberly.