Thereafter they were, both of them, much too busy for further words.
LATER, when the major resistance had been broken, Princess Zamara of Tharkol took charge of the warriors engaged in clearing the Pits. Several of her officers had fought by her side during the pitched battle, and to these she gave her orders. Among the young men was a member of a minor house of the Tharkolian nobility named Kadar, who had shared a cell with Tomar. This lieutenant was only a year or two older than Tomar himself.
Spotting his friend and former cellmate at the flank of the line, Kadar went over to where Tomar was resting and suggested he check out the cellblock and adjacent storerooms to make certain none of the Kuurians or their slaves were hidden in any of them.
“I’ll go with him,” said the tanned, dark-haired girl who sprawled wearily nearby. Kadar nodded, clapped Tomar on one bare shoulder in comradely salute, passed on down the line, and had no cause until much later to recall the brief exchange.
Tomar and Ylana had cleaned the gore off their blades, and the boy had taken up a baldric and empty scabbard from the fallen. Sheathing his rapier therein, he set off on the search with the jungle Maid at his side.
They were weary from hours of battle, and both were hungry, but they had drunk deep of the waterbottles that the Shondakorians had shared with the captives, passing the canteens down the line. Tomar was somewhat depleted from the privations he had endured during the long weeks of his captivity, but to have a sword in his hand again and an enemy to face is a marvelous stimulant to a former prisoner, he had discovered.
The two searched through all of the cells without finding anyone hidden, and explored each of the guardrooms, storerooms, and other chambers in the sector to which they had been assigned.
“This is a waste of time,” Ylana complained as they completed their tour of the cellblock. “Far rather would I be on the upper level with Prince Jandar. At least there might be some fighting to do up there!”
“We have not yet looked at the weapon room at the end of the row, you know, the one where I got my sword.”
“We’ve already checked it once,” Ylana complained pettishly. “Why bother doing it again? We left it empty, you may remember!”
“Yes, but we also left it unlocked,” Tomar reminded her.
The girl tossed back her hair defiantly.
“Well, I’m not going to waste time searching a room I’ve already searched once,” she snapped. “You may fool around down here all you like, but I’m going up where there may still be some fighting! Are you coming or aren’t you?”
“I’ll see you later,” Tomar said. “I promised Kadar I would search thoroughly …”
The dark-haired girl sneered, eyes mirroring scorn.
“Oh, very well, then, I’ll waste time with you,” she grumbled. “But do hurry up, boy, or there won’t be any killing left to do!”
Tomar flushed at the tone of her voice, but set his jaw stubbornly. His sense of duty refused to allow him the easy way out. Trying to ignore her pointed silence, and the mockery in her face, the youth looked over the weapons storeroom and found it as empty as Ylana had said it would be.
“Satisfied now?” she challenged.
He flushed. “There is still the little stone room at the back,” said he, embarrassedly.
“Oh, in the name of the Red Moon!” she stormed, stamping her little, buskin-shod foot impatiently. “You simply hope that if you loiter long enough down here, you won’t have to risk your skin against the last few surviving enemies! Go ahead, then, look your fillbut I’m going!”
She turned on her heel, but at the door she paused, glancing back to see if he was following.
He was not. Tomar had pried open the stone slab that served the little closet for a door, and was peering within. Suddenly he called her name. The urgency in his voice made her still the smart retort that rose to her lips. Knife in hand, the jungle Maid came to peer over his shoulder where he crouched by the door, keeping low so that what little light there was from the dim ceiling fixture could illuminate the dusty cubicle.
“What is it?” the girl snapped. “There’s no one here …”
“But there was, and not long since,” the boy replied in low tones. “Look… 1”
She followed his pointing finger with her eyes, and suddenly she gasped.
“Footprints!” she breathed. For there before her, clearly visible, the marks of a sandaled foot could be seen in the thick dust that mantled the stone floor.
“Yes,” he said tensely. “And do you notice anything curious about them, beyond the simple fact that they are there at all?”
She considered the view, then her eyes widened.
“There are only footprints going into the cubicle,” she breathed faintly, excitement in her huge eyes. “There are none leading out!”
The boy nodded. “Yes, and they end right there …”
He pointed again and again she looked.
The line of footprints ended in a blank wall of seemingly solid stone.
Chapter 3
AFTER THE BATTLE
WHILE these events were taking place in the gloomy caverns and tunnels beneath the floor of the Valley of Kuur, other things were happening above ground which were to affect the fortunes of Ylana of the Jungle Country and Tomar of Shondakor.
As resistance was crushed out in the underground citadel, one by one the warriors of the Three Cities emerged again into the open air to rest, partake of food and drink, report to the command post, and accept new assignments. Many were wounded, for, while the telepathic dwarves were not themselves fighters, they controlled a slave-force of indomitable soldiery in their willless zombies. These were tenacious, utterly fearless, and therefore remarkably difficult to kill. But they were not invulnerable, and one by one they were overcome.
The Valley of Kuur was a bleak, desolate region of dry, sterile sands where nothing lived or grew. Meandering through the center of the long valley, which was walled to the north and to the south by tall mountains, glided in sinuous curves a stream of cold, black waters known as Dragon River. Above, the golden skies of Thanator were hidden by impenetrable mists. These, however, proved at length to be artificial, rather than natural. For as the ranks of the Mind Wizards were diminished by each death, the barrier of blurring mists began to dissipate, to become more transparent by infinitely fine gradations of light.
Finally, about three hours after the attack on Kuur had begun, the mist-barrier was completely dispersed, and the healthy light of open day shone gloriously down upon the dominion of the Mind Wizards for the first time in many years.
“Amazing, truly amazing,” puffed Dr. Abziz, the fussy, self-important, little master-geographer of Soraba. “I would have sworn those clouds were a natural phenomenon, albeit that their oddly stationary quality made their naturalness somewhat suspect, due to the high winds and furious updrafts of the mountainous region in which the vale is situated.”
“There seems to be no question about it,” commented the Earthling, Prince Lankar. “We know for certain, at this point, that the clouds were an illusion, generated by long-range telepathy…”