"Absolutely not," I assured him; but his question made me wonder if we had, by ill chance, landed at an insane asylum. ˇ
"What is that thing that you came in?"
"An anotar."
"If you are not wizards, how do you keep it up in the air? Why does it not fall? Is it alive?"
"It is not alive," I told him, "and it is only the pressure of the air on the under surface of the wings that keeps it up while it is in motion. If the motor that drives it should stop, it would have to come down. There is nothing mysterious about it at all."
"You do not look like wizards," he said, and then he drew back into the embrasure and disappeared.
We waited some more; and then the castle gate swung open, and as we looked in we saw fully fifty warriors waiting to receive us. It didn't look so good, and I hesitated.
"Don't be afraid," urged the man, who had come down from the tower. "If you are not wizards, and if you come in peace, you will not be harmed. My retainers are here only to protect us in the event you are not what you claim to be."
Chapter Four
WELL, THAT SEEMED FAIR ENOUGH; SO we went in. I was so anxious to know where we were that I didn't wait for any proper introductions, but asked immediately what country we were in.
"This is Gavo," replied the man.
"Is it in Anlap?" I asked.
"It is in Donuk," he replied.
Donuk! Now, I had seen Donuk on Amtorian maps; and as near as I could recall it was at least ten thousand miles from Sahara and almost due west of Anlap. Ac-cording to the maps, there was a considerable body of water separating the two land masses: one of the numer-ous great oceans of Venus. I was glad we hadn't bailed out, for the chances were that most of the time we had been flying above that ocean.
The older man touched my arm; and, indicating the older of the women, said, "This is Noola, my woman."
Noola was a wild eyed looking dame with dishevelled hair and a haunted expression. Suspicion was writ large on her countenance as she appraised us. She said nothing.
The man then introduced his son, Endar, and his son's woman, Yonda, a pretty girl with frightened eyes.
"And I am Tovar," said the older man, in concluding the introductions: "I am a togan of the house of Pandar."
Togan is something of a title ,of nobility, possibly analogous to baron. The literal translation of the word is high man. Tovar's real title, as head of the house of Pandar, was Vootogan, or First T'ogan: his son's title was Klootogan, or Second Togan. Noola's title was Vootoganja, and Yonda's, Klootoganj'a. We had landed among the nobility.
Tovar invited us into the castle, where, he said, he had an excellent map of Arntor tat might aid us in returning to Sanara. While I had maps in the anotar; yet, as usual, I was always glad to examine new maps in the hope that I might eventually find one that was not almost entirely useless.
The interior of the main building, or donjon, was a bare and cheerless place. There were a few grass mats scattered about the floor, a long table, some wooden benches, and a low divan covered with the pelts of animals. On the walls were a few pictures, bows, quivers of arrows, spears, and swords. Th arrangement of the weapons suggested that they were not there for ornamentation; but that this main hall of the castle was, in effect, an armory.
Noola sat down on a bench and glowered at us while Tovar brought out the map and spread it on the table.
The map was no better than any of the others I had seen. While I was examining it, h summoned servants and ordered food brought. Endar and Yonda sat silently staring at us. The whole atmosphere of the place was one of constraint, suspicion, fear. The fear in Yonda's eyes was like something tangible that reached out and touched one's heart. Even Tovar, the only one of this strange quartet who had made any gesture of hospitality, was obviously nervous and ill at ease. He watched us constantly, and after he had put the map away, he sat on a bench and stared at us. No one said anything.
I could see Ero Shan fidgetting, and I knew that the situation was getting under his skin just as it was under mine. I tried to think of something to say to start a general conversation and relieve the tension; so I told them about our experience with the merging of the two cloud envelopes, and asked them if the clouds had come down to the ground in Gavo.
Tovar said, "No." That was his contribution to the conversation.
Yonda said, "The clouds came very low."
Noola, who up to this point had not entered the conversation, said, "Shut up, you fool!" At that, the conversation languished and expired. Strangely enough, it was Noola who revived it. "Nothing human ever went up into the clouds," she said. "A wizard might, but nothing human."
Once again there was a long silence, while the servants brought food and placed it on the table. Tovar said, "Come and eat."
The food was not very good: mostly vegetables, a little fruit, and some very tough meat which I thought I recognized as zorat meat. The zorat is the Amtorian horse.
I enjoy a little conversation with my meals; so I tried again. "Who is this Morgas to whom you referred?" I asked.
They appeared a little surprised by the question.
Noola said "Humphed!" and then elaborated upon this brilliant bit of repartee by adding: "As though you don't know!"
"I am sorry to reveal my ignorance," I said, "but I really haven't the slightest idea who Morgas is. You must remember that I have never before been to your country."
"Humph!" said Noola.
Tovar cleared his throat and looked apologetically at Noola. "Morgas is a wizard," he said. "He turns people into zaldars." The others nodded their heads. Now I knew that they were all crazy; but after dinner they served in large tumblers something very similar to cognac, and I partially revised my estimate of them; at least I held my verdict in abeyance for the time being.
As I sipped my brandy, I sauntered around the hall looking at the pictures on the walls. They seemed to be chiefly family portraits, most of them very poorly executed.
Noola was there, dour and sinister. So were the others, and there must have been fully a hundred that were probably of ancestors, for many of them were faded with age. I came upon one, though, that immediately arrested my attention: it was that of a very beautiful girl, and it was beautifully executed.
I could not restrain an exclamation of admiration.
"How lovely!" I said.
"That is our daughter, Vanaia," said Tovar; and at at least on Noola's part, for she had downed one entire tumblerful and started on the second.
"I am very sorry," I hastened to say. "I had no idea who she was, nor that she was dead."
"She is not dead," said Noola, between sobs. "Would you like to meet her?" Whatever wizards there might have been about the place must have been contained in that brandy. While it hadn't turned Noola into a zaldar, it had certainly wrought an amazing change in her: her tone was almost cordial.
I saw that they would like to have me meet Vanaia; so, not wishing to offend them, I said that I should be delighted. After all, I reflected, it was not going to be much of an ordeal to meet such a gorgeous creature.
"Come with us," said Noola, "we will take you to Vanaja's apartments."
She led the way out of the castle into the ballium, and we followed. Ero Shah, who was walking at my side, said, "Be careful, Carson! Remember Duare!" Then he poked me in the ribs and grinned.
"And you'd better keep your mind on Nalte," I counselled him.
"I shall try to," replied, "but you'll have to admit that if Vanaia is half as lovely as her portrait it will be difficult for one to keep one's mind on anything but Vanaia."
Noola led us to the rear of the castle, stopping at last in a far corner of the enclosure before a pen in which a small zaldar, about the size of a pig, was down on its knees gobbling a lavendar mash from a trough.