However, as became apparent, it was not considered particularly desirable for a slave to know too much of the art of fence.
I was next interrogated as to my proficiency with the skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. While I had in fact by now managed to acquire a working knowledge of the reading and writing of the Thanatorian charactery, my grasp was of the fundamentals only, and I was almost completely ignorant of the arithmetical arts as practiced on Callisto. The interrogators also quickly ascertained that I had neither knowledge or experience in sailing ships or their navigation, nor in farming, gardening, manufacture, pottery-making, or in any of the arts and crafts.
They exchanged a glance with each other and shrugged.
Then they passed a note along to the auctioneer on his elevated platform.
“Lot M-7709140-Gi3,” he announced in his stentorian voice. “Name, Darjan. Homeland, the United States of America. Captured when fallen overboard from a Zanadarian vessel off the shores of the Corund Laj. Age, about thirty. Skills, swordsmanship; no others. Physical condition, quite fit, but probably not heavy enough in back and shoulders for galley oarsman or farmer.”
High above, on the cushioned benches, my captor, Lord Chain, frowned busily over a bundle of documents, listening with half an ear. He now raised his eyes, looked me over, and shrugged.
“He has no needed skills. Add him to the Tribute.”
There can be few circumstances in life more humiliating than to stand on the slave block and have one’s various skills and qualifications summed up, only to learn that they total precisely nothing.
The situation would have been amusing bad it not been so fraught with unknown danger. That these practical, hardheaded businessmen of Perushtar should reject as unfit for any known occupation a man of my extraordinary breadth of experience upon two planets was a blow to my ego, which is as healthy as that of any man. That I, who had ventured alone into the cloud-girt city of Zanadar, to rescue from the very stronghold of Prince Thuton the beautiful princess of Shondakor―I, who had braved a thousand perils, who had penetrated under disguise the secret councils of the Black Legion, who had battled and adventured my way across half a planet ere now, and who had won the love of the Ku Thad nation, the admiration of a loyal band of trusted comrades, and the heart of the most beautiful woman in two worlds―should be ranked among the human rejects and discards, set aside by the oligarchs of Narouk as of no worth and value, was a devastating injury to my self-esteem.
Nevertheless, while I gaped in astonishment over my sentence, guards hustled me from the room to an adjoining pen wherein were assembled a motley crew of the ill, the crippled, the witless, the deformed, the uncooperative, and the vicious. To this unappetizing company my person was added. My neck chain was secured to a link in the line. Then the guards left the chamber and I squatted helpless and seething with rage beside my fellow rejects.
To my left was a rheumy-eyed, bony-spanked old gaffer devoid of teeth, who wheezed and rattled as if every moment might he his last in this mortal sphere.
To my right was chained a witless, drooling incompetent, whose glazed, indifferent eyes and slack jaw denoted the state of a mindless vegetable.
And between these two prizes was chained Jandar of Callisto, hero of a thousand battles, and the greatest swordsman of two worlds.
Later on, once the sting of rejection wore off, I might well find the entire situation hilarious. At the moment, however, I boiled with resentment and vowed vengeance on the careless oligarchs of Narouk, who could not see a first-class fighting man when he stood before them.
Ere long my temper cooled somewhat and permitted apprehension to enter where anger had reigned.
I was assigned to the Tribute, to the nameless legion of doomed and desperate men whose fate was an enigma, and this was the peculiar and dreaded disposition of unwanted slaves whereof I had first heard but tantalizingly little, that time, early during my period of slavery, when I had by chance overheard the old slave Kenelon and the woman Imarra in conversation.
I recalled, with an inward shudder I give my reader leave to picture for himself, how Kenelon and Imarra had discussed the mysterious doom of those given over to the Tribute. And now I had good and sound reason to curse my caution. For, having acquired a morsel of information not intended for my ears, and which I deemed might be of value to me in the days ahead, I had refrained from asking Kenelon about the Tribute when the chance had been offered me.
Of course, I had then no way of knowing how swiftly my doom would be upon me. But, still, I now cursed myself for not simply asking him what it was all about when I had had the opportunity.
Toward what enigmatic destiny was I now impelled?
Tribute to whom―to what?
To the gore-drenched altars of some barbaric god? Or the torments of some savage race, whose invasion was delayed by offering of human tribute?
What was it that I was to be offered in tribute to?
No man knew. But I would soon be finding out―and by the hard way.
Together with the rest of this shambling horde of the crippled, the deformed, the idiotic, and the unfit, I was herded from the villa to an outdoor slave-pen on the edge of the city where we spent a miserable night huddled under cold and sleety skies, watched by a heavy guard of alert warriors.
And with morning we were on our way out of the city of Narouk, bound for an unknown destination and a mysterious doom.
Book III
THE FROZEN LAND
Chapter 7
OUT OF CONTROL!
And now I have come to that point in my narrative where I must describe incidents to which I was not a witness―adventures in which I did not personally partake.
At the time of their occurrence, I was completely ignorant of these events, and it was only long after their conclusion that I learned of them.
It was Koja of the Yathoon Horde who was the first to notice that I was no longer aboard the Jalathadar.
The giant arthopode gradually became aware of my absence. The aerial contrivance, in which we had intended to voyage to the City in the Clouds, had risen from the surface of the Corund Laj into the brilliant daylight. The supplies of fresh drinking water now fully replenished, the sky ship ascended rapidly to the three-thousand-foot level and proceeded due west in the direction of the White Mountains.
The shores of the great inland sea rapidly receded in the wake of the flying galleon. The domes and tower of Narouk vanished on the horizon; Ganatol, too, sped beneath the keel of the sky machine. Soon the Jalathadar would be over the hill country, and ere many hours had passed, it would be flying over the great mountain range itself, bound for the mountaintop citadel of the infamous Sky Pirates.
At first, Koja suspected nothing. The huge insectman merely noticed that I was no longer to be seen on the midship deck. Some time before, the arthopode had noticed me lounging by the rail; now that he looked again, I was no longer there. Instead, it was the Zanadarian captive, Ulthar, who leaned idly against the carven balustrade.
Koja came stalking up to where the former captain of the Jalathadar stood.
“Has Jandar gone below or up to the control cupola?” the faithful Yathoon Warrior inquired in his solemn, uninflected voice.
Ulthar darted an alert, wary glance at the chitin-clad giant. Then his eyes fell away with seeming indifference.