Author: Kirk Straughen
Synopsis: Zargor, a Cro-Magnon warrior of humanity's dawn age is kidnapped by strange winged beings from Titan, moon of Saturn. Can our hero survive the fantastic ordeals he must face on this distant world over which hangs a cataclysmic fate like the dread Sword of Damocles? Weird monsters, jungle perils and menacing enemies abound. Are you game enough to read beyond this point?
Edit history: Minor changes were made to this story on 28 July 2021.
Chapter 1: The Winged Men
Zargor, as silent as a shadow, crept through the dense undergrowth of the forest with all the stealth of a hunting cave lion. The young Cro-Magnon was extremely wary – his sharp eyes constantly scanned the surrounding verdure, his ears listened intently for the slightest sound of danger, and his nose was alert for the stench of the Hairy Ones – the savage and brutish Neanderthals whose territory the swiftly flowing river had carried him into.
Fury came upon Zargor as he recalled Ver’s treachery – Ver who had pushed him into the flood swollen tributary over a girl. He remembered the plunge, the shock of the ice cold water and the moment of panicked floundering in the racing current. If it hadn’t been for the passing log he’d grabbed he’d have surely drowned.
The torrent had carried him for many hours in its watery grip until the river broadened and the speeding waters slowed enough for him to fight their strength and come ashore. How far he was from his tribe he didn’t know, but he knew it must be a very long way indeed, for the swiftly flowing flood waters had been faster than a sprinting deer.
Zargor grinned mirthlessly as he imagined Ver’s shocked surprise when he returned alive. The young brave’s fingers tightened on the spear he’d made when he came ashore. He would take great pleasure in driving it into Ver’s guts, and then Neela would be his. The thought of winning the girl’s affections and killing his cowardly rival filled him with savage pleasure. Yes, Ver would indeed pay a heavy price for that unmanly attack upon him.
A shadow passed over Zargor. He glanced up and froze. An immense shape passed above him with the silence of a gliding eagle. But it wasn’t a bird. Indeed, it wasn’t like anything the young brave had ever seen before. The thing was huge – longer than the tallest trees over which it passed. It shone like water, but appeared as hard as stone and yet it floated like a cloud.
For a moment the terror of the unknown threatened to unman Zargor, but he flung it off. He would not give way to fear. As he continued to warily watch the object he saw it was descending into the forest. What the thing was he couldn’t even begin to guess, but he knew he had to find out. If it was some kind of monster it might pose a threat to his tribe. Firming his grip upon his spear, which was pitifully small when compared to the enormous unknown thing he had to face, the young brave began stalking towards the place where he had seen it disappear into the trees.
Zargor advanced with extreme caution and alertness. Carefully, he parted the crowding verdure with his hand and peered through the narrow gap. The thing had come down upon the river bank. It rested quietly on the earth about the distance of a spear cast from him. The size of the object was even more impressive close up. It lay on its side – an enormous shining egg-shaped thing. It was smoother than a river stone.
Was the thing asleep? For that matter was it even alive? The brave squatted on his heels, awaiting developments with all the patience of a hunter. Shortly, a hole appeared in the side of the thing. It was like the mouth of a cave, but as round as the full moon. Six things emerged from the hole. Zargor tensed, ready to fight, or to flee as a last resort. The creatures looked roughly like people, but if they were human then they were the strangest humans he had ever seen in his twenty-one years of life.
His keen eyes appraised the beings. All were slender and none taller than a pygmy. No, they were not at all like the Cro-Magnon brave whose giant stature and thickly corded chest, belly and limbs were of herculean proportions. Their skin and the short downy hair upon their heads were also very odd – a pale shade of lavender. It was indeed a strange contrast to the young brave’s swarthy complexion.
But the thing that struck Zargor the most and made him gape in sheer astonishment was their ivory coloured wings whose span he judged would be almost as great as both his arms when horizontally extended. The beings also had a smaller secondary pair of wings – one on each of their calves to aid in keeping them aloft.
Bird-men, thought Zargor with wonder. Then his eyes shifted to the woman and, despite her strange appearance, he felt the stirrings of desire in his loins. There could be no doubt as to her sex: like her companions she was completely nude but for a red cord about her slender waist from which depended small drawstring bags. Her body was delicately moulded with all the feminine grace a human woman could desire. Her eyes were large dark jewels set in a face of alien beauty that was breathtaking in its exquisiteness. Neela, although beautiful, seemed plain when compared to the bird-girl’s exotic loveliness.
Where did the girl and her companions come from and what were they? Did their wings indicate they were from the spirit world? Zargor’s brow furrowed in puzzlement as his mind groped for an answer. No, the creatures didn’t fit the description of those beings in the visions of old Magu, shaman of his tribe.
Zargor suddenly tensed. The breeze had shifted, and his sensitive nostrils now detected the taint of the Hairy Ones foul odour - a smell reminiscent of wet dog. His eyes darted here and there and his knuckles whitened upon his spear. No danger presented itself to his roving gaze. Only birdsong and the chirr of insects stirred the placid silence of the scene.
The brave’s gaze flicked to the girl. She had wandered off from the males of her people and, like the men, was absorbed in examining every plant and insect she came across with rapt attention. Zargor shook his head. His lips were thin in disbelief and anger at such stupidity. Had they not seen leaves and bugs before? How could they be so oblivious to looming danger?
The girl bent, plucked a blue wildflower and smiled in pleasure at its beauty. A wild yell shattered the silence. Inara dropped the bloom. She looked up, screamed. Five huge hairy monsters had burst from the shrubbery. One raced towards her, the others at her companions. The bird-girl spread her wings, she leapt. The Hairy One flung his bolas. The weapon’s whirring cords wound cruelly about her throat. She crashed to earth.
Her companions screamed. Inara struggled with the tangled cords that choked her. Her eyes were wide with fear as she gazed in terror at the hairy brute towering over her. Savage lust was stamped upon the monster’s crude visage. A strangled sob escaped the girl’s full lips as the ogre forced her thighs apart. Her wings beat furiously, raising clouds of dust. The Hairy One grunted, pressed her into the dirt.
Inara cried again as the brute threw his stinking weight upon her. Her hands clawed at his eyes as she felt his monstrous manhood press against her sex. She tensed, screamed in expectation of the brutal thrust.
Her bestial assailant suddenly gasped, stiffened. Zargor withdrew his spear from the Neanderthal’s hairy back and hauled the corpse off the girl. Inara gazed in shock at the giant towering over her. He was even larger than her dead attacker – tall, massively muscled like a giant form an ancient legend. She panicked as he reached for her. Was this another rapist? His huge fingers caught the cords about her neck, snapped them as if they were threads. His massive arm went about her, pinning her wings.
Zargor stood, carrying Inara effortlessly with a single arm. He’d managed to save the girl, but it was too late for most of the others. All the males were dead bar one who had managed to gain the safety of the air. The bird-man hurled small glass spheres at his attackers. The globes burst at the Hairy Ones feet, shrouding them in clouds of yellow gas. The Neanderthals coughed. Their eyes watered, but apart from this the toxin had little effect, except to hinder the accuracy of the spears they flung at their flying assailant.
A sudden shout made Zargor turn. Ten more Hairy Ones burst from the trees. The young brave swore. Strong as he was he realised he hadn’t a chance against this howling band of savage reinforcements. His eyes darted to the egg-thing. The hole in its side was like the mouth of a cave – a narrow defensible position where the brutal foe would have to come at him one at a time.
Zargor dashed for the craft, the girl tucked in the crook of his arm. The surviving bird-man also saw the sense in fleeing before an overwhelming force. Swift wings carried him within the spaceship’s port and in but seconds the massive valve began to close. The young brave cursed – the cowardly fellow was going to leave them at the mercy of the racing savages that were hot upon his heels.
Inara looked back and shuddered. The bloodstained corpses of her companions were strewn upon the ground in attitudes of violent death. Their brutal murderers were rapidly gaining upon them. The beauty of this strange new world had been shattered by ugly violence, and now it seemed she was to share her crew’s grim fate.
The closing valve was now nearly fully shut. The Hairy Ones shouted in dark triumph. Their wild cries spurred the racing brave. He put on an extra burst of desperate speed. The savage brutes cursed. They cast their spears. Inara screamed. Zargor leapt between the rapidly narrowing gap, and the door clanged shut in the faces of the foe who watched in rage and disbelief as their spears bounced off impregnable metal.
Zargor leant heavily against the cold barrier that had closed behind him, breathing hard. Never before had he run so fast, not even when chasing wild deer on the hunt. As his racing heart slowed he became aware of the girl. She struggled in his grip like a snared bird. Her dark eyes were large with terror and her lithe body trembled in fear’s dread clutch. Compassion came upon the brave. She was so delicate, so beautiful and his tremendous strength was no doubt bruising her.
“Do not fear, little dove,” he soothed as he lowered her gently to the floor. “No harm shall come to you.”
Inara stumbled away from Zargor as he released her. She eyed him warily, grateful for his rescuing of her but uncertain if his motivation was purely altruistic, or whether he merely wished to be the one to rape her. The look of desire in her rescuer’s lingering gaze aroused the worst suspicions of the haughty girl. Why, the unwashed brute! How could he dare to want her? Was she not the daughter of Xythis, supreme ruler of her people?
A vision arose within Inara’s mind – The savage upon her, taking her in a violent act of uninhibited passion. She blushed furiously at this unbidden thought. The girl drew herself up to her full height, angered further by her strange reaction.
Her eyes took on a dangerous gleam that puzzled the young man. She spoke, unknown words flying from her kissable lips with the fury of darting arrows. Zargor couldn’t understand her incomprehensible speech, but her burning tone conveyed the intended meaning to him. He, too, grew angry. Had he not rescued the girl? Were hostile words to be his sole reward?
Zargor’s face grew dark. He stepped forward, a hot retort upon his lips. A shape swept at him. He looked up. Pale wings were over him. Something smashed against his head and knocked him into the folds of black unconsciousness.
Chapter 2: Land of Fire
Zargor awoke. He looked about in dazed disorientation. He was in a metallic room whose curving walls were lined with shelves, and upon the shelves many specimens of Earth life sealed in crystal jars – plants, insects, lizards, small mammals and birds. In the high ceiling was mounted an enormous purple stone that shed heat and light upon him and strange snaky plants in hanging baskets – amber hued growths that were found in every compartment and gangway on the ship to refresh the air by an alien equivalent of photosynthesis.
The young brave was lying on a padded mat of grey fabric. He rose to an elbow, rubbed his face and was shocked. His beard had vanished – his cheeks were as smooth as a ten year old. He touched his head and discovered his long hair had been shorn away. He looked at the rest of his body and saw that he was nude.
Zargor staggered up, alarmed. He felt violated by the decontamination process. What had happened to him? He turned around, hands raised like talons to grapple with the fiends who had done this to him, a wolfish snarl on his lips. The snarl died to a choking gasp as his eyes fell upon the huge circular window. Through it he saw the blue sphere of the Earth rapidly receding into the illimitable blackness of star dusted space.
He stumbled to the window, which was as wide as he was tall. Zargor pressed his palms to the crystal pane and gazed at the dwindling world of his birth until it was swallowed up by the sea of cosmic darkness, and the sun became a dot of light in the eternity of galactic night. The young brave sank to the floor feeling anything but brave. His mind reeled with knowledge somehow implanted in his brain whilst he was unconscious – planetary distances, orbits, and velocities. The concepts were shocking. He felt small, insignificant against the backdrop of creation’s vastness.
For some time he lay upon the floor as he struggled to assimilate facts that shattered all his primitive stone age assumptions to worthless dust. What was to become of him? He looked at the specimens sealed in their glass jars and a look of hard determination came upon his face. He’d find a way to thwart whatever plans his captors had for him.
His dark musings were interrupted by the opening of the room’s circular door. The winged girl stepped across the threshold followed by the surviving bird-man. Zargor hastily stood. A tense moment ensued, each warily eyeing the other. The young brave took the initiative. At the sight of his captors knowledge of an alien tongue had come upon him. He spoke.
“Why am I your prisoner?” he addressed Inara. “Did I not save you from the Hairy Ones? Is this how you repay my aid?”
“Kneel before your betters, savage,” snapped her companion before the girl could reply.
Zargor turned defiantly upon the fellow who had struck him senseless. The bird-man’s face was narrow, intense. Overweening pride seemed etched on the angular planes of his glowering visage. The intensity of his gaze was like ice upon naked skin, and to the brave it was as if he stared upon the countenance of a snake rather than a man.
“Are you really better than me?” he asked, contemptuously. “It was I who saved the girl, while you fled within the safety of this craft. Can a puny coward be truly superior to a stalwart brave?”
The bird-man’s face flushed, stung by humiliating truth. His lips spat angry words as he touched a ring of greenish alloy upon his finger.
“On your knees you piece of base born filth,” he screamed. “Know that you address a Prince of Vixu.”
Knifing pain stabbed through Zargor’s head. He clasped his brow and for the first time felt the pulsing jewel affixed to it – a glowing crimson gem that shot waves of searing agony through his reeling brain. The young brave fought against it, determined not to kneel before his enemies. He staggered, but didn’t cry out. The tortures inflicted upon him during his tribe’s initiation ceremony had hardened him against such agony.
The bird-man grinned sadistically. He twisted the ring a little further. Zargor bit his lips to suppress the groan of agony threatening to escape. Never before had he felt such pain. His initiation ceremony had been nothing compared to this. He knew in but moments he would fall flat upon his face.
“Enough, Bru,” cried the girl. “This savage would rather die than kneel, and I need him alive and unharmed. Desist.”
“As you wish, Inara,” her companion acknowledged, sullenly, letting go the ring.
“Now leave us,” commanded the girl. “Your presence is merely inflaming the situation. We’ve lost four good men,” she continued, sharply. “Isn’t that enough misery to satisfy your tastes?”
“But Inara,” gasped the startled man. “To be alone with this creature...”
The girl silenced him with a raised hand, the index finger of which bore a band identical to his own.
“I too wear a pain-ring. And I’ll use it, but only as a last resort. Now go!”
The prince left sullenly, favouring Zargor with a departing look of silent but eloquent hatred.
Inara looked at Zargor. The savage stood swaying slightly as he regarded her with an unreadable expression. Her heart softened in pity for a moment. He had saved her only to be torn from his world and plunged into what must seem like a nightmare to his primitive mind. She had used the teaching machine to implant knowledge in his brain in an attempt to lessen the impact of utter strangeness, but even so the situation must still seem terrifying for him.
The girl thought of her own world of Titan, or Vixu as it was known to her, and the doom that it was under. What was the life of one savage compared to thousands of her fellow beings? Inara firmed her resolve. She had to put aside all compassionate sentiment for her people’s sake.
“You are in our power and utterly helpless,” she said harshly. “If you cooperate and remain placid no further harm will come to you. Do you understand?”
Zargor considered a further display of defiance, but then rejected the idea. Brute strength wasn’t the answer in this situation. No, he had to emulate the cunning of a fox and not the might of a lion, at least for the moment. It was a pity, though, that the girl was now his enemy.
“I understand,” he replied with guile calmness. “I’ll not cause any trouble.”
**********
Three Earth days had passed and Zargor stood in the control room of Starwing as she approached Vixu’s cloud veiled sphere. It was the first time he had been allowed in this section of the ship, and he gazed in wonder at the strange creature that was the source of the huge vessel’s motive power.
The animal, native to Vixu, resembled a man sized squid in general form. Unlike a squid it was non-aquatic and covered in soft golden fur. Four azure eyes, much like those of a chameleon, encircled its body. The oonari, as it was called, regarded Zargor with a look of undeniable but alien intelligence which he found faintly disturbing.
It floated in its huge cage, surrounded by six tall hexagonal crystals that glowed with a faint reddish light. These strange minerals amplified the oonari’s natural telekinetic abilities which it employed for flying, and enabled it to drive Starwing between the planets as easily as it lofted its own body through the skies of Titian.
“Aya seems to like you,” observed Inara, referring to the creature.
Zargor turned to the girl. After three days of close contact she still puzzled him. Nor was he any clearer as to why these people had come to his world. Inara had spent the time physically examining him, and plying him with what seemed like a thousand questions concerning the peoples, customs and environs of Earth; but concerning herself she divulged very little. It seemed to the young brave that she had erected a barrier of impersonal aloofness between them, as if she was afraid to treat him as a person, but why?
For some strange reason he found he couldn’t maintain feelings of enmity towards her. Perhaps it was her beauty or the innate goodness he sensed she possessed. Maybe it was the need for friendship because he felt so alone in this strange and unnerving situation. Maybe it was all of these things that prompted his reply to the girl:
“It is my hope that at least one other aboard Starwing also favours me.”
The meaning of his words was not lost upon Inara. Several days ago she would have been moved to a hot reply at this seeming impudence towards her royal person, but with passing time she found it difficult to continue thinking of Zargor as an unwashed savage hell bent on murderous rape.
Inara blushed. Her eyes dropped from his longing gaze. Zargor reached to gently take her hand. All thoughts of Neela had faded from his mind.
“What goes on here?” sharply cried a voice.
Zargor bit back a curse. He turned and saw that Prince Bru had come upon them. Inara started. She stepped away from the young brave as both men traded burning glares of mutual hatred.
“Stand by the window with me, Bru,” invited the girl. “Aya’s homing instincts are guiding us unerringly. In but moments we will enter Vixu’s atmosphere. It will be good to see our world again.”
The prince’s face smoothed. He smiled at Inara. “Yes,” he agreed. “It will be a far more pleasing sight than the ugly visage of this uncouth savage.”
As the couple moved towards the man-tall window Zargor touched the blood red jewel upon his forehead, and his hand clenched to a fist of impotent rage. Several times over the last three days Bru had used his pain-ring to torture him when Inara was out of sight. The young brave hadn’t mentioned it to the girl – he felt humiliated as it was without having to ask a woman to fight his battles for him. His only consolation was that despite the horrid agony he hadn’t cowered before the prince, and had showed him nothing but stoic defiance.
Starwing swept around the cloudy moon of Vixu. Thenay – the ringed world - bulked large in the star strewn void. Its splendour of yellowish-brown bands and myriad rings took Zargor’s breath away with their ethereal beauty. Starwing slowed, descended into Titan’s faintly luminous cumulus, plunged through their roiling masses. A strange landscape opened up and Zargor gazed in awe at the panoramic scene.
A snow frosted landscape of stony hills stretched out before him in barren emptiness, and between the icy tors lay placid lakes of strange liquids from which weird mists arose to produce a twilight scene of stark beauty. The hilly country mounted ever higher to vast massifs that threw their rugged walls of purple stone across the world.
The mountains glowed with ghostly fire – huge prominences of phantom flames that arose from the very rock and danced across the range’s jagged peaks like leaping acrobats of prismatic incandescence. Starwing climbed the burning tor’s glowing heights and soared across their flaming summits.
Zargor gasped. The mountain chain circled back upon itself to form a vast bowl that cupped an amber jungle of outlandish growths – a strange oasis that bathed in the warmth and light of the glowing walls of rock which circumscribed its luxurious extent. Huge hairy tree trunks soared aloft to heights of at least a hundred feet, then ramified many times to create a candelabra-like effect, and the lengthy twisting leaves, with their scaly texture, gave the weird vegetation a wild serpentine appearance. And in the distance, completing the fantastic scene was the central sea whose waters rippled with reflections of the leaping prominences of fire.
The wondrous scene was suddenly shattered by a vast explosion in the distance - a geyser of roaring energy had erupted from the jungle, tossing earth, rock and blazing vegetation high into the air in a devastating blast that made Zargor start with its unexpected fury. The burning debris rained down for miles about starting other fires, and through a column of thick and turgid smoke that mushroomed ever higher, the startled brave glimpsed the vast crater which scarred the sundered landscape – a grim epitaph to nature’s shattered beauty.
“It grows worse,” gasped Inara. “Vixu’s inner energies are now breaking through the surface.” The girl shuddered. “Our world will soon be overwhelmed by all consuming fire.”
Bru placed his arm around Inara. Zargor tensed. A jealous snarl rumbled in his burly chest as the bird-man nuzzled her throat with his lips. “All the more reason to grasp what joy whilst we can,” murmured the prince.
“Not now. Please, Bru, stop it,” protested Inara as she forced his groping hand from her small but well formed breast.
The prince scowled, stung by her rejection. “We are soon to be married,” he snarled, “yet you treat me like a stranger.”
“Would you have me dishonour myself?” angrily cried the girl. “You must be patient, Bru. It is the only way.”
“Patient?” shot back the prince as he stabbed his finger at the scene of devastation. “Vixu is doomed by forces our greatest savants can’t fully understand let alone control. Our world could be blown apart at any moment and you ask me to be patient. I’m done with patience,” he hotly cried as he flung his lustful arms about the startled girl.
“Zargor, help me,” Inara cried as she wrestled with the prince.
Bru cast aside Inara, spun about as Zargor leapt to aid the girl. The prince cursed, twisted his pain-ring. A look of vicious diabolism was upon his narrow face. Zargor felt his head explode in agony. He crashed face down upon the floor.
Bru turned savagely on Inara. She recoiled from the look of debased passion seared upon his face. “The fool can’t help you now,” he sneered.
The girl spread her wings, leapt. Bru swore. He flung himself on Inara with madly beating pinions. Both collided midair in a whirl of feathers, then crashed heavily to the floor. Zargor groaned, felt his head. Despite his pain a feral grin came upon his face for an idea had blossomed in his mind. The young brave reared up, then smashed his forehead against the metal deck. The pain-jewel shattered in a hiss of biting sparks. He was free.
Zargor’s eyes narrowed to savage slits as they fell upon the prince who was on the girl like a hawk upon its prey. The young brave lurched erect, seized the prince by the throat and flung him with a wild yell against the wall. Bru’s wings absorbed the impact. He staggered up. A look of disbelief and fear came upon his visage when he glimpsed the shattered jewel. The prince whipped a slim tube from his belt as Zargor charged with all the fury of an enraged bull.
“Beware the dart-tube,” cried the girl as Bru pressed a stud upon its side.
The young brave ducked. The envenomed missile hissed above his head and grazed the oonari. The creature shuddered, stiffened. It tumbled to the floor and Starwing dropped like a stone with the cessation of the creature’s levitating force.
Inara screamed as the craft tumbled in a frightful plunge to the unforgiving rocks ten thousand feet below.
Chapter 3: Jungle of Terror
Zargor felt something rub against his cheek. He muttered incoherently as his hand, more by instinct than conscious thought, brushed at the source of irritation. The irritation persisted with increased force and urgency. It roused the man to wakefulness.
The young brave opened his eyes. His entire body was one vast ache and he uttered a groaning oath. Aya the oonari hovered anxiously over him, its furry tentacles twitching in distress. Zargor touched his head and groaned again. He had a vague memory of Aya regaining consciousness. The small amount of toxin from the grazing shot must have temporarily incapacitated the creature, who had managed to recover in time to slow their awful plunge, but even so they’d still struck the ground with terrific force.
“I’m not seriously hurt,” he said as he gently pushed aside the creature’s stroking limbs and rose to an elbow.
Zargor looked worriedly about. Where was Inara? Was she injured, dead? His eyes fell upon the bird-girl. Her crumpled body lay against a bulkhead. In an instant Zargor forgot his own pain. He struggled up, staggered to her. Aya followed and hovered by his shoulder as he knelt beside Inara’s frighteningly still form.
Her body, like his, was a mass of livid bruises. He looked upon her marred beauty and a lump rose in his throat. Could she be dead? Wild fear thrust Zargor through the heart. He placed trembling fingers against her nostrils, dread and hope intermingled with his questing touch. He felt the breath of life strongly flowing. Vast relief came upon the brave, and he gave thanks to the Earth Mother that she lived.
“Inara, wake up,” he urged as he patted her cheek.
The girl moaned. She opened her eyes. Her vacant expression sent a chill through Zargor. How hard had her head struck the floor? He’d seen strong men left completely witless by such blows.
“Inara,” he cried, “do you know where you are? Are you in pain?”
His urgent words focused her wandering mind. Zargor’s panic lessened as he saw growing alertness come upon her as she looked at him. The girl slowly moved her limbs, her wings. She winced.
“I’ll live,” she said with a stoic smile, then worriedly: “But what of Prince Bru?”
Zargor scowled. Before, he’d been too worried about the girl to give any thought to her debased assailant, but now hot rage flared at the mention of the bird-man’s name. He quickly looked about and his eyes narrowed as they fell upon the prince who lay sprawled against the further wall.
The young brave stood. Primitive justice would be swiftly meted out. He strode determinedly towards the prince who had risen to one knee. Bru saw him coming, saw death in his steely gaze. Chill fear came upon the prince. He paled, tried to flee. Zargor leapt upon him with a wild cry, bore him to the floor, both hands locked like an iron noose about his throat.
“Zargor, no!” cried the girl as she struggled to her feet.
He looked at her, a puzzled expression on his face as the prince tugged desperately but ineffectually at his massive wrists.
“Women are sacred to the Earth Mother,” he protested. “They are the source of life. This man deserves death for attempting to harm you. It is the law.”
“Your law, perhaps,” she countered. “But you are now on an entirely different world. And besides, he is my brother.”
Zargor stared at Inara, aghast. He couldn’t believe what he had heard. He didn’t want to believe what he had heard. The mere thought of a woman marrying her brother, being intimate with him. Why, it was appalling.
Inara saw the look of revulsion upon his face. She grew angry. How dare this savage judge the customs of her people.
“Our nobility is riven by dissenting factions,” she explained defensively. “Bru is the only man my father, Xythis, can trust in these troubled times. Under such circumstances our marriage is permissible, but I don’t expect a savage such as you to understand the complexities of politics.”
Zargor swore. He hurled the struggling prince from him as if he had suddenly found he was grasping a lump of dung. The brave opened his mouth, but Aya’s piping cry cut off his burning words.
The creature’s evident alarm made Zargor pause. Familiar with the ways of animals he knew their senses were often more acute than those of humans. He sniffed the air and caught a faint acrid taint upon it. Then Inara gasped as she, too, smelt the biting odour.
“Poison gas,” she cried. “Jars of chemicals in the ship’s laboratory must have smashed, mixed together. We have to get out.”
Bru staggered up. Fear rode him. Terror spurred him in a lurching stagger to the door. He coughed, stumbled back from the exit.
“The gas is stronger here,” he gasped. “We’ll be dead before we get halfway along the passage. We’re trapped!”
Zargor grimaced. He put aside his moral outrage. Survival was now the top priority. He looked desperately about for some means of quick escape. But the only exit was the doorway through which the deadly vapours were quickly pouring.
His darting eyes locked upon Aya’s cage. The crash had torn its grill work door off one hinge. The brave dashed to the sagging bars, grasped them. He heaved. His mighty thews swelled as he threw his strength and weight against the metal. Sweat was upon his brow, his straining limbs. He twisted, wrenched. Alloy tore with a tortured screech and the door was in his hands.
Zargor raced to the bullseye window, slammed hard metal against the crystal pane. The glass cracked, but didn’t shatter. A coughing fit made him pause. The choking gas was getting stronger.
“Hurry,” gasped Inara as she and Bru sagged to the floor.
The brave swung again, putting every ounce of his mighty strength into the desperate blow. The window shattered. Fresh air rushed in and strengthened the reeling man. He cast away the door, stumbled to the girl, breath held against the toxic gas. Zargor scooped up Inara in his arms, made to leave.
“My brother,” coughed the girl.
Zargor silently cursed. He grabbed the prince, flung him out the window and then with a mighty leap vaulted through the shattered pane with Aya quickly following. Vixu’s lesser gravity eased the young brave’s fall and he landed with a grunt on the loamy soil well clear of the jagged shards of glass.
For a time all three lay recovering from their ordeal, but at last Inara stirred and rose unsteadily to her feet. She moved gingerly to her brother who leaned against one of the many broken trees felled by Starwing’s impact. The ship’s hull was buckled in places, cracked in others. Even Zargor could see it would never make space again.
“You must fly at once to the Floating City and inform our father that the third planet is habitable,” she said. “I cannot come, for my wing was injured in the crash and I’d never make the distance.”
The prince stood. He scowled at Zargor who had also risen. Both men traded glowering looks of mutual hatred.
“I’ll not leave you alone with this savage,” he growled, eyes fixed on the brave in a venomous stare.
The ground suddenly heaved, the violent tremor hurling all three to the soil. A mighty tree toppled. It crashed within feet of the sprawling trio. Dust and leaves flew into the air. Inara cried in terror. In the distance other jungle giants were felled by the bucking earth. The shaking seemed to continue for an eternity. Zargor, brave though he was, feared the world was indeed coming to an end. But the earthquake gradually subsided, and quietness slowly crept back in upon the scene.
“Bru,” cried the girl in a shaky voice. “We haven’t much time. The fate of our entire people is in your hands. You must leave now.”
“You’re right,” admitted the prince as he stood. “I’ll send a rescue team as soon as I can.” Then, turning to the brave: “If you touch my sister with your filthy hands for any other reason than to save her I’ll kill you.”
Zargor swore. He leapt at Bru like a snarling wolf. But the wily prince was already in the air, his swiftly beating wings carrying him rapidly aloft. The brave watched him vanish into the misty distance. His hands were balled into tight fists of frustrated rage and his mind, like that of the departing prince, was filled with thoughts of dark revenge.
“Where is Aya?”
Inara’s voice broke in on Zargor’s violent thoughts. He looked around for the oonari, but the creature was nowhere to be seen. Frightened by the fierceness of the earthquake it had no doubt fled, and by now was probably very far away. He said as much to the troubled girl.
An awkward silence fell between the pair when they realised that but for each other they were totally alone. Zargor looked at the bird-girl in silent rumination. In the light of what he now knew he really didn’t know what to make of her as attraction warred with revulsion in his heart.
The young brave, however, wasn’t a fool for all his primitivism. By now he realised he was caught up in a larger drama than his own concerns. It was clear from conversations he’d overheard that Vixu was on the verge of being destroyed and that the bird-men planned to flee to Earth. Zargor could foresee a conflict coming between his people and the winged ones over territory and other sources of rivalry, and the bird-men were masters of a magic more powerful than any human tribe possessed. Their coming would be a disaster for his people.
Despite her reserve he sensed Inara was attracted to him. If he could cultivate her feelings, win her love, perhaps he could use the girl to influence events. Zargor wasn’t happy with the idea of employing what he felt were such underhanded methods, but he had sense enough to realize that brute force alone wasn’t going to win the day.
“I’m sorry that my reaction to your customs offended you,” he said as an opening gambit which he sincerely hoped would heal the rift between them. “It’s just that... that the idea is so utterly strange to me.”
“It is I who must apologise,” replied Inara with a blush of shame. “You came to my succour when I called. You have saved me, saved my brother, and yet you have been repaid with base insults and painful injury.” The girl turned away, head hanging, shoulders pitifully stooped. She could not face his steady gaze. “I’m not proud of what I’ve been a party to.”
“Tell me why things must be this way,” prompted Zargor who, despite his resolution to be ruthless found his heart softening towards the girl. “If I understood then perhaps I can find a way to help you.”
Inara hesitated. What could this savage do apart from being a source of information that her people needed? He could do nothing... yet could he not share the burden of all her troubles? The girl looked about her world and in her mind’s eye she saw its end – a wild conflagration of all-consuming fire, and in that awful moment conjured up by the sum of all her fears, she buried her face in her hands and wept, overcome by the seeming pointlessness of existence.
Zargor, moved to compassion by her mournful sobs, placed his arms about the girl and held her gently to him. Inara gradually calmed, for in his warm embrace she found more comfort than in the empty words of a hundred religions and philosophies.
“I...I feel almost overwhelmed at times,” confessed the girl as she wiped away her tears. “It’s bad enough that Vixu faces a fiery doom, worse still that my people are divided. Kyraz, High Priest of Ru, our god, claims the coming end is divine punishment for embracing science and abandoning religion.
“Two camps now exist in the Floating City, my home - that of Kyraz, who has frightened the majority to his cause with threats of supernatural retribution and the promise of salvation to those who worship Ru, and that of Xythis, my father, who supports the savants seeking to save our people with science rather than useless superstition.”
“And your brother, where does he fit in,” asked Zargor, who managed to keep his voice free of loathing.
“Our father is old, frail,” explained the girl. “When he passes I will rule as I am eldest. The king wants someone by my side that I can trust. The savants are too old and the other nobles vacillate as to which camp they support, whereas Bru is young and has no time for Kyraz or his base religion.”
“Do you love your brother,” questioned Zargor, fearing the answer, but needing to know even though the truth might prove revolting.
“As a sister should,” she replied. “But not as a woman loves a man. Not as I could love...” And then she looked away from him and blushed.
Zargor gently turned her face towards him. He looked into her eyes. “As you could love?” he prompted.
What the girl would have said is lost to history, for fate often intervenes at the most inopportune of moments: Her eyes went wide with sudden fright. She screamed. Zargor spun around. Chill fear came upon him as he beheld the unnerving cause of Inara’s wild cry of terror.
Chapter 4: The Awful Truth
Seven creatures of fearsome appearance confronted Zargor with their horrid presence. Each monster was about the size of a mule. Their bodies were like that of a hyena, but covered in heavy black scales rather than hair. The creature’s heads were hawk-like in appearance, the cruelly curved beak emphasizing the similarity. Two long arms protruded from either side of the broad chest area of the beasts, the limbs ending in human-like hands that gripped curiously forked spears. Yellow slitted eyes, like those of a serpent, stared at the young brave and sent a chill of apprehension racing up his spine.
“Cimoomu,” gasped Inara as she, too, stared at the weird beings with trepidation.
Zargor snatched up a broken branch. “Are they dangerous?”
For an answer the Cimoomu came at him in a rush. Their whistling war-cries made his nape hairs stand erect.
“Run,” he cried to the girl, then the monsters were upon him and he was madly battling his outlandish foes. Zargor parried a spear thrust to his leg, struck the wielder a mighty blow. The thing collapsed, black gore spewing from its snapping beak.
From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Inara. The girl had armed herself with a lengthy branch and joined the fray. She struck the creature rushing at her. The blow landed squarely upon its head, but didn’t have sufficient strength to fell the monster. The being grabbed her makeshift spear, tore it from her. The girl, jerked off balance by her assailant, tumbled to the ground.
Zargor sprang at Inara’s attacker. He smashed his club against its skull and sent it crashing to the earth. The other Cimoomu surrounded him. He straddled the fallen girl, spun his weapon in a wild arc to keep them off. The creatures leapt back to avoid the spinning death. Zargor gave a wild yell of triumph, prepared to charge his foes in a desperate bid to save the girl.
He never got the chance. The Cimoomu swiftly cast their spears at his legs. The forked heads of their weapons caught his shins. Zargor cursed, fell. His foes rushed at him. Other spears trapped his arms, his legs, pinned him to the earth with their forks. Inara screamed as another creature seized her. Zargor struggled desperately. The girl beat the thing with her fists, her wings. It was useless – neither could escape and in but moments each was bound with steely cords that rendered them utterly helpless.
Both prisoners were hauled erect then, after each was tied across the back of a Cimoomu warrior, the party set off through the weird jungle in single file, man and girl the helpless captives of even stranger beings. Zargor’s only consolation was that both of them were still alive, at least for the moment. He turned to the girl, who was being borne by the creature directly behind him. She gave him a brave smile.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t fight them off,” he apologised. “Our captors appear to want us alive. Have you any idea what they’ll do with us?”
“You’re not to blame,” consoled Inara. “That you managed to kill two of them is a remarkable achievement in itself. As to what they’ll do with us... I can’t be sure. The Cimoomu used to mine the zyra crystals for my people – the telekinetic amplifying minerals that we use in conjunction with the oonari to keep the Floating City aloft.
“But the looming cataclysm has panicked them, and disrupted mining operations. The Cimoomu are now our enemies for they murdered Methra, my esteemed mentor who was sent to them on a trade mission. Perhaps they hope to hold me as hostage – to force my father to take them with us when we flee Vixu’s impending doom.”
“So your people plan to leave them here to die?”
The girl grimaced. She considered her people culturally superior, but not to the point where her pride overruled her compassion. “I’d save them if I could, but since Methra’s murder they’ve attacked every ambassador we’ve sent.” Inara sighed. “What can we do? They’re violent and irrational savages.”
“Your people might think the same of me,” he blandly pointed out.
Inara fell silent, a troubled look upon her face. Before, she’d forced herself not to think about how her people would react to Zargor and his kind.
They moved on through the jungle, each caught up in their own disturbing thoughts. Time passed - perhaps an hour. It was impossible to tell in the eternal light of the flares that leapt from the all encompassing peaks. Eventually, the jungle broke against a cliff-like rise. The party emerged from the dense undergrowth of snaky fern-like plants. Zargor glimpsed the black mouth of a huge cavern in the escarpment’s face.
Hundreds of Cimoomu moved about in a flurry of orderly activity. Long lines of the creatures carried bundles from the cave while others re-entered for more. Their captors marched them through the bustling throng and to the mighty grotto. They entered its huge, dimly lit space. Mud brick buildings, cubical in shape and stacked in tiers had been constructed against the far wall of the cave’s vast interior.
Zargor looked curiously about as they were taken before a structure larger than the rest. The earthquake had collapsed many of the buildings, and debris from the cave’s roof littered the floor. From what the young brave could see it was evident that the Cimoomu were evacuating their abode.
Both prisoners were untied from the backs of the warriors who bore them. Zargor and the girl were dumped on the rocky floor. Inara cried in alarm as other Cimoomu curiously gathered around them. The creatures prodded and poked both with inquisitive three fingered hands, all the while jabbering away in their strange whistling tongue.
The young brave snarled. With his bound feet he lashed out at those who were harassing the girl. The warriors struck him with the butts of their spears. Zargor cursed, kicked at them as he rolled madly about in an effort to avoid their blows. Things might have turned very ugly had a voice not cried out in warning.
“Do not fight them. They are simply curious. They mean you no harm.”
Zargor turned his head and saw an elderly man approaching them. By his colouration the young brave could have sworn he was a bird-man, but he had no wings. The fellow said something to the Cimoomu in their whistling tongue, whereupon the warriors pushed away the curious onlookers and set about freeing Zargor and the girl.
Inara gasped in sudden recognition. “Methra, I thought you were dead,” cried the girl as she rose and gripped the sage’s shoulders. But then her joyous smile turned to horror as she gazed upon him. “Your wings... they’ve mutilated you!”
A grave expression came upon Methra’s face. “No, it wasn’t the Cimoomu, Princess Inara,” he explained as the warriors departed. “On the contrary, these so called savages saved my life.” He turned to Zargor. “You must be from the third world, or Azure as it is known to us. There are a thousand questions I’d like to ask you, but I fear more pressing matters merit our immediate attention. For the moment I’ll be satisfied with your name.”
“I am Zargor of the tribe of Thunn. But how do you know whence I came?” asked the perplexed brave.
“A Cimoomu hunter reported a huge object falling from the sky,” explained Methra. By his description I knew it could only be Starwing, and that Starwing had been bound for Azure: therefore you must be from that world. When I heard of the crash I asked Issu, the tribe’s chief to send out a search party. I apologise for the treatment you received. The warrior cast can be somewhat rough at times.” Then, turning back to the girl: “Were there no other survivors?”
“Bru is on his way to the Floating City. The others died on Azure; killed by primitives Zargor calls the Hairy Ones.”
The sage turned grim. “Then your father, Xythis, will have the justification he needs. But come; let us go inside where there is food and drink. I can see both of you need rest and sustenance. But I fear we must hurry – the earthquakes are increasing in severity and frequency. As you can see we’re evacuating the village before the next tremor, which I calculate will strike in about forty tal.*”
They followed Methra into the building, and as the sage turned his back to lead the way, Inara saw the wounds where his wings had been amputated - injuries that had been dressed in a rubbery resin possessing antiseptic and anesthetic properties. She shuddered in horror at the thought of the agony he must have gone through. What kind of monsters would have inflicted such barbaric cruelty on a harmless old man?
Such were the girl’s thoughts as they traversed the residence’s central hall, which was illuminated by fragments of glowing rock, and entered the sparsely furnished chamber at its end. Methra bid the couple seat themselves upon a woven mat, then placed a wooden platter of fruit and bowls of water before Zargor and the girl.
“As you know, Princess,” began Methra as he sat opposite the eating pair, “Voidleaper, Starwing’s sister ship returned from the fourth planet, Crimson, shortly before my disappearance. Crimson is very arid,” he continued for the benefit of Zargor, “except for the fertile areas around its equatorial ocean. There are strange forests and animals, but no signs of intelligent life. We can survive there, but my viewing instruments indicated Azure was a far more fertile world, hence your journey to investigate it. Was my hypothesis correct?”
“It is,” replied the puzzled girl, “but how is this connected with what happened to you?”
“Your father, the king, held a secret conference before you left. It was decided that Azure would be the world of choice if it proved more fertile.” A pained expression came upon Methra’s face as he continued, “it was also decided that if any intelligent life was found upon Azure it would be utterly exterminated so as not to pose a threat to our people.”
Zargor gasped in shock. Things were far worse than what he’d feared. He’d experienced tribal warfare on his own world, but his people would never be so brutal – the women and children of their enemies would at least be spared. And the bird-men dared call him a savage! He looked at the girl and was relieved to see she wore an expression that mirrored his own outrage.
“Why wasn’t I told,” she cried. “I’d never agree to such barbarity.”
“That’s precisely the reason you weren’t told,” explained the sage. “The king knows you’d oppose the decision just as I opposed it. We’re already divided by the High Priest’s fanaticism. Your father, fearing further dissention among the savants had me silenced. My wings were hacked off and I was left in the jungle to die, and I would have if the Cimoomu hadn’t found me.
“I don’t want to tell you this, Princess, but it was your own brother and his henchmen who did this to me. They even boasted of how they’d blame the Cimoomu for my death, stir up hatred for them so there’d be no objections to leaving them behind.”
A sick expression marred Inara’s face. “I can’t believe my father and my brother would be so cruel... so ruthless.”
“Desperation and fear can make men cruel,” observed the sage, sadly. “And the king...”
Methra’s next words were cut off by a tremendous thunderclap that shook the building to its very foundations. Zargor swore in fright. Inara started. Debris rained down from the ceiling. The trio scrambled up. Another blast rocked the room, staggered its occupants. A section of the roof caved in with a roar. The air became choked with dust.
“We’re under attack,” cried the sage as he herded man and girl towards the door. “Everybody out.”
The trio raced along the corridor as further blasts rocked the building. Coughing from the billowing dust, they staggered out into utter chaos. Before the entrance to the cave was a huge flying platform kept aloft by a caged oonari. The cannon mounted on it roared. A shell screamed overhead, exploded thunderously.
Inara and the sage fell. Zargor threw himself on the girl, shielding her body from falling rocks, flying shrapnel. The thirty bird-men on the platform took to the air in a whirl of wings. They swept into the cavern, casting their spheres of poison gas. Yellow vapours tainted the air. Cimoomu fell, writhed. A building, weakened by exploding shells, collapsed thunderously. The dead and the dying lay strewn about in a charnel house from hell.
Zargor looked up. A bird-man was diving at him. It was Bru. The young brave snarled a curse. He snatched up a lump of rock, prepared to hurl it at his foe. Too late – the grinning prince had depressed the stud upon his dart-tube. The hissing missile struck Zargor’s chest. Inara screamed. The brave reeled, fell. The girl’s piercing cry was the last thing that he heard.
*Endnote: Vixuan measurements of time: 1 tal (2.4 minutes). 100 tal = 1 rix (4 hours). 100 rix = 1 zan (400 hours, or the length of Vixu’s day)
Chapter 5: The Doom of Vixu
Zargor awoke. The tall growths of the alien jungle arched over him. He turned his head and saw Methra slumped against a tree. The sage was a study in utter dejection. Further away were surviving groups of Cimoomu tending their injured and performing strange wailing funerary rites for their multitudinous dead. Fear gripped the brave. There was no sign of the girl.
“Inara,” he gasped. “Where is she?”
“Bru took her by force,” replied Methra, dully. “He left you for dead, abandoned me. The toxin in that dart rendered you unconscious,” explained the sage. “It should have killed you. A difference in body chemistry must have saved your life.”
The thought of what Bru might do to the girl sent a blade of cold fear plunging through Zargor’s guts. The prince, upon returning to Starwing’s wreckage, must have discovered the dead Cimoomu, realised they’d been captured, and trailed them to the village. The young brave cursed himself for a fool. He should have foreseen the possibility.
Zargor climbed to his feet. “We’ve got to save her,” he said with passion.
“How?” asked Methra in a disconsolate tone. “The Floating City is high above the ground and none of us have wings. It’s impossible.”
The young brave was stumped. His fervour had made him forget that vital fact. Zargor leaned against a tree, eyes closed as he desperately cudgelled his wits for an answer. Long minutes passed and still no solution came to his racing mind. He was on the verge of black despair when a warbling cry from above drew his downcast gaze. It was Aya the oonari.
Aya, having located the young brave with its psychic senses, descended. It wrapped its furry tentacles about Zargor and stroked him affectionately. The Cro-Magnon grinned. He could have kissed the oonari - its appearance had given him the germ of an idea.
“Here is or answer,” he almost shouted. “Starwing is too badly damaged for flight, but her levitation crystals are intact. We’ll use them; make a giant raft from saplings large enough to carry the surviving Cimoomu and ourselves. Aya can fly us to the Floating City, and hopefully we can catch the bird-men by surprise.”
“It’s a desperate plan,” replied the sage after a thoughtful moment. “But it’s clearly the only chance we have.” Methra brightened a little. “Even if we die in the attempt it will at least be better than this terrible waiting for Vixu’s inevitable end. I’ll see Issu at once. I’m sure the chief of the Cimoomu will agree.”
**********
Zargor stood on the flying raft as it arrowed high above the jungle. In the distance he saw a geyser of actinic fire erupt from the earth in a vast, tumultuous explosion. In grim silence he observed other immense jets of flame that were bursting from all points of the compass in a cacophony of roaring fire. Large sections of the jungle were wreathed in flames whose burning stained the sky with a pall of roiling smoke, its dark turgidity lit by the leaping flares of the encompassing mountain range, which shivered with numerous tremors.
The young brave started as a soaring peak exploded. An arc of roaring light leapt from the ruined pinnacle and detonated against another. The mountainside trembled. It collapsed with slow and terrifying majesty - a titanic avalanche of rumbling stone that reverberated from the opposite massifs in doom laden echoes, and swamped the jungle in shattered stone and billowing rock dust.
Zargor turned to Methra who stood beside him near the centre of the raft, surrounded by the surviving Cimoomu who numbered no more than a hundred males and females. All of them were packed onto their rickety craft as tightly as a snail is into its shell. The young brave didn’t need the sage to tell him the end was fast approaching. Indeed, it was something of a miracle that they’d managed to complete raft – the earthquakes had increased in frequency and intensity to the point where it had been almost impossible to work.
Methra spoke to Aya who occupied the centre of their craft and was surrounded by Starwing’s zyra crystals: “Faster. We haven’t much time.”
The oonari increased their speed. The wind roared past, chill and biting. The Floating City loomed. Zargor looked upon it in awe. It was an immense gadrooned hexagonal pinnacle perhaps a mile high that was crowned by a conical spire of oblate spheres buttressed with smaller versions of itself. Broad, pillared galleries were spaced at regular intervals along the Floating City’s length and in these immense balconies grew a multitude of exotic plants.
A plethora of colour and ornamentation confronted the eye in overwhelming detail. Shades of red, gold and blue predominated. Windows and doors were large, shaped like horseshoes and set in ogival hood mouldings bordered with rosettes. Stepped crenulations, bead and reel mouldings were also common along with friezes depicting mythological scenes of dynamic intensity.
The massive structure rested on a bell-shaped hexagonal base. The Floating City, which had been carved from a single monolithic lump of stone resembling alabaster, hovered in the air like a cloud, kept aloft by teams of oonari working in constant shifts. For a moment Zargor felt intimidated. Here he was with a small group of spear-armed warriors about to take on beings who were the masters of a science beyond his comprehension.
It seemed his mad plan had been doomed to failure from the start. A vision of Inara came upon him – the girl struggling in Bru’s lustful grip. The young brave straightened. His knuckles whitened on his spear and grim determination was upon his handsome face. He must not fail. He would not fail!
The Floating City loomed. It towered over them like a mountain. A look of worry came upon Methra’s face as they drew nearer.
“Something is wrong,” he said to Zargor with a frown. “The doors and windows should be being sealed in readiness for spaceflight. Technicians should also be on patrol checking that everything is in order, yet the galleries are utterly deserted.”
“What could have happened?” queried Zargor.
“I think I know,” replied Methra, worriedly. Then to the oonari: “Aya, fly us to the temple at the spire, quickly now.”
The flying raft shot skyward with the swiftness of a soaring hawk. In but moments they were on a level with the mighty balcony that encompassed the spire’s base, then their craft rose to a crystal copula nestled between two smaller buttressing cones. Zargor looked through the crystal panes set in the dome’s lacework of stone. Beneath the copula was an amphitheater packed with the city’s inhabitants. All eyes were focused on the massive golden idol seated on a podium against the further wall.
The eidolon of Ru sat tailor fashion. The three huge emerald eyes in its hideous spider-like head were as blind and lifeless as the creed of its debased priesthood. The statue’s loincloth formed a dais between its knees, and then flowed downward in golden drapes to make a staircase. Upon the stairs were three persons. Their wings and arms had been bound and they struggled in the grip of headdress adorned priests as they were dragged towards the roaring flames that erupted from a hole in the sacrificial dais. Zargor gave a gasp of fear as he recognised the terrified visage of Inara.
“It’s as I feared,” said Methra, darkly. “Kyraz, High Priest of Ru, has convinced our people to revolt. They’re going to sacrifice the royal family to appease the god in a useless attempt to avert the looming cataclysm. Oh, the fools,” cried the sage. “The fanatical superstitious fools; they’ll doom us all.”
“I must save Inara,” said Zargor, with determination. “That’s all that matters to me.”
“Very well,” replied Methra, who could see Zargor would brook no denying of his will. “I’ll land you near the temple’s entrance and give you what warriors I can. But I must go to the master control room with the rest of our fighting force, and get the Floating City under way or else we’ll all be dead.”
Zargor nodded. The platform swiftly descended at Methra’s command and landed on the massive balcony. The sage mounted Issu, whistled commands to the Cimoomu, and then charged off leaving fifty warriors of mixed gender at the young brave’s disposal. Zargor looked through the temple’s doorway. All eyes were focused on the spectacle of the coming sacrifice. Though none had seen nor heard his arrival it didn’t ease his fear.
Terror choked the brave. He saw one victim – an old man - hurled within the flames, heard the brief but sickening scream of agony. Another was tossed into the massive bowl of fire – Bru, he thought. He saw Inara writhe in the grip of her captors, break free. Other priests leapt upon her. She was dragged struggling, screaming back up the stairs. Zargor felt sick with fear. He knew he’d never reach her in time – there were too many bird-men to fight his way through. If only he could fly.
Fly – that was it! He slashed a zyra crystal free of its binding ropes with his spear point, hugged it to his chest with an arm.
“Aya,” he cried, “Fly me to the idol as fast as you can.”
The oonari wrapped him in its furry tentacles; lifted him easily with the aid of the crystal. They darted into the temple as quick as a speeding arrow. The Cimoomu warriors swiftly followed and plunged into the unsuspecting throng. Pandemonium erupted.
Kyrax, High Priest of Ru, looked up. His eyes widened in amazement. Zargor was hurtling at him, the Cimoomu warriors were thrusting through the screaming mob like the bow of an icebreaker. In a panic the crowd took to the air in a storm of wings. Bodies collided, fell. The throng stampeded for the exit. They panicked further when the massive doors slid shut.
A crazed flyer struck Aya. The Oonari dropped like a stone. Both Zargor and the creature crashed on the steps, lay unmoving.
Fury came upon Kyrax, further hardening his already callous visage. Someone was in the control room sealing the Flying City. His guards had obviously been overcome. The High Priest cursed in a most unholy manner as he felt the city lift. On the earth below pillars of fire were now erupting everywhere. The smoke laden sky glowed eerie red. The world trembled. Great chasms opened, vomited writhing flames. The end was upon them all.
“Cast the girl into the sacred fire,” he screamed at the acolytes wrestling with Inara. “Kill the blasphemers. Only Ru can save us.”
The girl screamed as she was lifted up. She writhed, twisted. The acolytes swung her towards the fire. Kyrex gloated at the sight. A spear suddenly plunged into the side of one priest lifting Inara. He dropped the girl’s feet, staggered back. His hands plucked feebly at the shaft protruding from his ribs. The other acolyte struggling with the princess jerked around as his companion toppled into the sacrificial fire with a hideous shriek.
“Zargor,” cried the startled girl who had thought he was dead.
The young brave dashed towards the remaining fanatic who was still intent on pushing Inara into the roaring flames. The girl struggled frantically, screamed. The acolyte lifted her, staggered towards the blaze. Zargor put on a burst of speed, seized the priest, dragged him back and tore his arms from about the girl.
Inara tumbled to the floor. Kyrax swore. He drew a blade from his girdle, dashed at Zargor with twenty crazed cultists at his heels. The young brave was preoccupied - wrestling with the girl’s snarling assailant. He got a hold on the cultist’s throat, squeezed. The fellow’s eyes bulged. The High Priest’s dagger reared like a serpent about to strike. Inara cried a desperate warning.
“Zargor, behind you.”
The young brave twisted. His opponent stiffened as the plunging blade knifed him in the back. Zargor rammed the corpse against Kyrax and sent him crashing to the floor. The High Priest’s followers closed in, eyes as hard as the naked steel in their hands. The young brave cursed. He lifted the dead bird-man above his head, hurled the body upon his enemies. Four went down; the rest came at him, screaming insults. It seemed the end.
Then the Cimoomu came charging up the stairs and swiftly fell upon the maddened priests. Bird-men screamed, fell. A swirl of battling forms surged across the statue’s lap. Zargor seized a fallen dagger as Kyrax struggled up. The High Priest saw his followers quickly perishing beneath the savage onslaught. Rage turned to terror. He tried to flee. Zargor leapt, seized Kyrax as he sought the safety of the air, and dragged him down. The brave’s dagger flashed. The High Priest screamed once and then sank dead to the floor as the final cleric shrieked out his life beneath the Cimoomu’s thrusting spears.
Zargor gathered Inara in his arms as the Cimoomu formed a protective ring around them. The other bird-people had fallen silent. The Floating City had continued its climb throughout the battle. They were now through the clouds. The darkness of space surrounded them. Their craft had changed its position as it pulled away from Vixu. Through the dome they saw their home-world’s fiery end.
The doomed sphere’s atmosphere was choked with turgid clouds lit from below by leaping flames that had erupted from a web of yawning, world cracking chasms. A vast explosion suddenly tore the clouds apart in boiling fire. For a brief moment the terrified watchers had a glimpse of the fuming sea of lava that flooded the stricken land; then a mad cacophony of further detonations rocked the globe with cataclysmic blasts.
Inara buried her face in Zargor’s shoulder, sobbed. The young brave held her, his grim visage lit by the hellish light of the dying world. The Floating City pulled away from the ruined globe, accelerated as the demonic sonata of destruction reached its frightening climax. Vixu erupted in a vast explosion that tore her apart in a cloud of smoke and flame.
The expanding fireball of incandescent gas and whirling debris billowed outwards, rushed towards the Floating City. Zargor sat frozen, his gaze trapped by the terrifying spectacle. His arms tightened protectively around the sobbing girl – a futile gesture in the face of hurtling masses the size of mountains.
Closer, nearer rushed the glowing cloud of death until the trembling throng saw all heaven blotted out by its boiling mass of smoke and fire. Zargor kissed Inara – a kiss goodbye. Then he felt crushing acceleration push him to the floor as Methra increased the Floating City’s speed. Slowly, painfully, they drew away from the hurtling fireball until it became a point of light that dimmed and vanished in the cold and empty vastness of the dark.
Epilogue: A New Beginning
Zargor stood on one of the royal galleries of the Floating City and looked down upon Crimson’s surface. Three days had passed since their arrival on this world, which had commenced in early morning when they had begun their descent into the planet’s atmosphere. The flying building had passed over a vast tract of red stony desert as Methra guided it towards the more fertile equatorial ocean that girdled the globe with its rippling belt of azure water.
Now they were upon the shore of the vast sea whose waves beat against a stretch of rugged cliffs that vanished into the misty distance of the forest clad coast. Mighty trees, unlike anything Zargor had seen on Earth or Vixu towered into the air. Their trunks, heavily buttressed and clad in thick shingles of ochre bark, averaged one hundred and sixty feet in girth at ground level, and supported an expansive crown of almost equal width.
The lacy leaves of the trees were a startling shade of puce. Their flowers were also remarkably strange – huge golden cup-shaped blooms with wavy petals that made them look like bursts of dancing fire as they were stirred by the gentle breeze.
Something flashed by Zargor on glittering wings as vibrant as a peacock’s tail. Its passage had been too swift for him to see it clearly, but he caught the impression of something long and sleek. His musings as to what it could have been were interrupted by the sound of Inara’s voice.
“You should have woken me,” she chided as she walked from her room, stood beside him and leaned on the railing. “I’ve overslept and there is still so much to do.”
“You need to rest,” he pointed out. “The most important things have been accomplished. With the death of the treacherous priesthood the population has settled. Your proclamation that there would be no reprisals against those who sided with the clergy has also helped. From what I can see the vast majority are eager to put the past behind them and make a new beginning on Crimson.
A withdrawn, pensive mood had settled on Inara at the reference to Kyrax and his lackeys. Zargor sensed she was thinking about the death of her brother and father in the idol’s flames. The girl had thrown herself into the work of establishing their existence upon Crimson, not only because it was vital but also in an attempt to distract herself from the horrid scenes she’d witnessed. Zargor’s heart went out to her. He slipped his hand about her waist and tenderly drew her to him.
“You don’t have to face this alone,” he gently said.
Inara remained silent as he massaged her shoulders. The girl relaxed into his embrace. They were alone for the first time in what to Zargor seemed like an age. Methra was busy organizing scouting parties and Aya was off somewhere doing whatever inscrutable things oonari do. The girl’s handmaidens, seeing the couple, had tactfully withdrawn.
Inara felt Zargor become aroused. She looked down.
“Oh,” she gasped in amazement, and then quickly looked at his face.
Zargor smiled with tender reassurance at her. They kissed, gently at first, and then with rising passion as the girl pressed against him with all the vitality and eagerness of youth. Inara didn’t resist as he swept her within his arms and carried her into his room.
THE END