Author: Kirk Straughen
Synopsis: Captured by enigmatic aliens and condemned to a weird death, Marcus Jarrett must fight for his life, freedom and sanity against overwhelming odds. And in the background lurks the mysterious menace of the dread Green God. How will our valiant hero extricate himself from this planet of endless peril? You'll never know unless you read the story.
Note: Minor editorial changes were made to this story on the 9 July 2021.
Preface
The saga you are about to read is pure science fiction adventure. However, having said that there are political and economic aspects of the age in which the drama is set that need to be elucidated for the reader’s understanding. I could have done this throughout the story proper, but as I’m not writing a political and economic treatise, I thought I’d put such dry dissertations in the preface so they don‘t get in the way.
In this distant age our Earth is part of United Worlds, a federation of six intelligences that comprise the space faring species in the known sector of our galaxy. Trade between members of United Worlds consists of the sale of scientific and technological knowledge, rather than manufactured goods or raw materials, as this is more economically viable than the bulk transport of cargo between the stars.
On Earth, as with the other members of United Worlds, mass production has reached a level of advancement far beyond anything conceivable to us. Electricity for Earth’s power hungry industries is supplied by space based solar arrays that beam virtually unlimited energy to all corners of the globe, and it is this inexhaustible clean power coupled with advanced technology that has led to the elimination of poverty.
Universal wealth has resulted in what might be called an enlightened form of hedonism. Automation has virtually eliminated the need to work on a full time basis, and the masses spend their time in pursuit of genteel pleasures. Politics, as we know it, has ceased to exist. The ruling elite consists of the Great Houses - those who control the space based solar arrays that supply Earth’s vital electricity, the life blood of the age.
Those who rule, of course, require status symbols - the people of the future are little different from the time when kings and emperors governed the world’s affairs. But in an age where anything can be manufactured with unbelievable ease at little cost, what could their status symbols be? Gold, jewels? Why, even these things can be synthesized, and so closely do they resemble their natural cousins chemically and physically, that it is impossible to tell the difference.
The answer to the ruling elite’s problem has been found in the exotic artefacts of primitive alien cultures. A person’s status is measured by their certified collection of bibelots, for in an age of advanced mass production it is only rare handcrafted objets d’art that possess value. This has led to the emergence of the Curio Hunter - adventurers sponsored by the Great Houses who set forth in search of strange and unusual things, and what you are about to read is the flamboyant tale of one such daring man.
Chapter 1: World of Mystery
The ship, a ghostly ovoid of silver, fled through the dimension of otherness that is hyperspace - a transcendental void of foaming amethyst radiance whose mysterious purple depths were cleft by the clean lines of her swiftly racing form. World-sized polyhedrons of pastel flame suddenly swept out from the illimitable violet gulf - the strange currents of this weird reality.
Wyvern plunged among their whirling bodies and passed through them with spectral grace, for in this place she was indeed a phantom - translucent, immaterial, a thing of silver shadow that swam in a sea of bubbling luminescence.
Behind the streaking craft, three dark forms pursued relentlessly, their deadly shapes displayed on Wyvern’s sensor screen for Marcus Jarrett to gaze, grim faced, upon. The scowling man’s rugged face was furrowed with the lines of worry and his massive thews were as tense as steel cables. He didn’t need the ship’s computer to tell him the hunters were enforcer ships, and that these deadly robotic craft were swiftly gaining on his rotund merchantman.
It had all been a terrible misunderstanding, and Jarrett soundly cursed the Zeduran’s* Byzantine system of involute etiquette, and his own foolishness for disregarding the warnings of his peers concerning the weird customs of the aliens. His plan had seemed so simple and straightforward - a quick trip to the humanoid’s world with his freighter’s hold laden with spices from Umez, for which the Zedurans would pay a handsome price in their strange currency of platinum cubes. This exotic coinage, whose denominations were determined by the type of jewel embedded in each face, would bring a handsome price from his wealthy sponsor - a fanatical numismatist.
All had gone well at first - an easy journey of five days ship-time through hyperspace with the crimson sphere of Zedur wavering into being when he had emerged from the weirdness of this otherness; then had come the smooth descent to the landing field of Diamond Bay, the world’s only port of interstellar commerce.
In submission to the laws of this strange orb, Jarrett, with the aid of Wyvern’s robotic servitors – lean ungainly things of many jointed rods - had erected his stall adjacent to the grounded vessel’s cargo ramp. The task done in record time, he dismissed the mechanisms and then looked curiously about.
The grey plain of the space port stretched out before his inquisitive gaze. His loan craft was the only foreign ship. Beyond, perhaps two miles hence, the severe bulk of the alien city mounted heavenward - a grim circle that, for all its distance, seemed to hem him in with its forbidding mass like a darkness of congealed shadow.
Of onyx stone were those cyclopean buildings, rearing skyward in trapezoid forms of ornately carved rock, and Jarrett was glad he could not see the structures clearly, for he knew the strangeness of the monstrous bas reliefs that covered them, so pleasing to alien eyes, could drive men mad with the inhuman otherness of their bizarre geometry, as Earth’s first expedition had found to its utmost grief fifty terrestrial years ago.
And to add further weirdness to the scene, (as if the unnerving metropolis was not enough) the sky above was ruby red, and in the crimson heavens hung veils of auroral fire - a shimmering tapestry of ever shifting golden light that danced across the firmament in an endless, sinuous progression of ghostly fire curtains.
A bizarre conveyance approached from the distant, brooding metropolis, and Jarrett shifted his dark eyes, as black as his thatch of unruly hair, from the unnerving sky to gaze upon it. The wide, oval vehicle was much like a horse drawn coach of ancient Earth, but no beasts of any kind provided motive power. Instead, upon its ship-like roof was a tall mast hung with billowing sails that caught the breeze. The thing was a Zeduran land-yacht, sailing cross hauled to the wind in imitation of aquatic craft.
The land-yacht drew near. Its fan-like sails were furled from within the vehicle by a clever system of ropes and pulleys. The weird conveyance coasted to a stop, and from it figures, strange and sinister, alighted. Jarrett gazed nervously upon them, for although the Earthman had prepared himself by reading the ill-fated expedition’s reports, the reality of Zedur was far more intimidating than any written description or tri-vision footage could ever be.
The beings, three in all, glided forward in measured steps towards him. They were dressed in concealing garments of deepest scarlet that resembled a blend of hooded robe and trousers, and upon the silky cloth of their apparel, embroidered in thread of gold, were unnerving patterns Jarrett dared not closely gaze upon. Their faces, too, were entirely hidden, for each bore over its countenance a mask of burnished bronze, baroque and grotesque, shaped in the form of snarling, hideous beasts**. And in these strange facades, mirror bright, the wary Earthman glimpsed his own distorted image.
Jarrett tensely awaited the approaching entities, which were the equivalent of customs officers. Their alien presence preceded them like an encroaching shadow and touched his spine with invisible fingers of chilling fear. And what fell sight lay concealed by those repulsive, glittering masks? None could say for this mystery, among many others, the hapless expedition had failed to elucidate. Indeed, now that he was confronted by the raw strangeness of this world, Jarrett was beginning to gravely doubt the wisdom of his coming to this sphere of mystery.
The unearthly trio halted before him, and Jarrett hastily accorded them the ritual greeting befitting officials of the Third Circle of the Lord’s Administrators: Upon his left knee he knelt, right hand upon his brow, left upon the ground, and then uttered the standard formula:
“A merchant am I. Far have I come to present my wares, and in peace. May my humble goods, fairly priced, find merit in the eyes of all who gaze upon them.”
“Arise and present your evidence of identity,” demanded the leader of the trio, its words indistinguishable from trilling birdsong, and impossible to understand but for the translator implanted within Jarrett’s brain.
From his overall-like garment, the Earthman removed a palm-sized crystal card - a combination of passport, ship’s log and computer that would translate and display all data to his inquisitors in the arabesque-like hieroglyphics of their mother tongue.
Slowly, he handed it to the waiting being - such a simple, natural act, and yet it proved to be his swift undoing. The trio hissed like spitting izz and recoiled in utter horror at this breach of etiquette. From belted sheathes all drew forth wooden rods tipped with glowing crystals of saffron fire that sparked with lethal current.***
Jarrett cursed - too late he realized his mistake: he should have used his left hand, not his right. The lead Zeduran lunged. The cursing Earthman twisted and felt the warning tingle of the rod as it darted passed. He seized the thrusting arm, twisted. The being uttered a brassy scream - a dark accompaniment to the frightful sound of snapping bone.
The others rushed him in a fury. Their voices screeched shrilly like a falcon’s wild cry as they attacked with all the ferocity of raging tigers. With the captured rod Jarrett quickly parried one thrusting weapon, felled his foe with a vicious kick and jumped aside to avoid the other‘s speedy lunge.
His third opponent spun about and leapt at him like a lightning bolt, weapon thrusting. The Earthman parried this swift attack, lunged and struck his adversary a mighty blow upon the chest.
There was a sharp hissing flash. Jarrett’s opponent convulsed violently and fell lifeless upon the ground, a bluish wisp of acrid smoke coiling up from the terrible burn where his rod had found its mark.
The Zeduran he’d kicked staggered up and came at the Earthman in a series of rapid lunges that forced him back with their sheer ferocity and swiftness. Jarrett sweated. His own rod was a defensive blur as he retreated before the whirlwind onslaught of the foe. He knew he couldn’t last. Suddenly, a lightening thrust pierced the Earthman’s guard. Jarrett madly twisted. He wasn’t quite quick enough - the glowing gem briefly brushed his side.
All at once a hundred fiery serpents seemed to sink their burning fangs within his nerves. He screamed a tortured cry of utter pain. Jarrett dropped his weapon, staggered back and fell across the heavy table that displayed his wares.
Again the being came at him, sizzling weapon ready for the kill. Fighting off searing pain that would have disabled a lesser man, Jarrett seized an ornate box, one of many, and hurled it at the foe. It struck the Zeduran as he lunged. Its hinged lid flew open and enveloped the being in a dense cloud of vermillion spice as fine as dust. The deadly gem tipped rod missed the Earthman by an inch.
Through this swirling overpowering smokescreen plunged the desperate man. He crashed against his foe in a smashing tackle that felled his sneezing and startled protagonist. The being’s weapon spun away as it crashed against the ground. Despite the heavy impact his foe was full of fight. A swift blow struck Jarrett’s jaw and he tumbled off the thing.
The Earthman briefly glimpsed three land-yachts speeding towards his ship. The fight had not gone unobserved. He cursed and hurled himself on his foe as it lunged for its fallen weapon. Jarrett drove the being into the ground, smashed his fist against its nape, and rendered it unconscious.
Staggering up and coughing from the heavy fragrance of pungent spice, Jarrett saw with dismay that a rising wind had accelerated the land-yachts progress and knew further foes would be upon him in but moments. The shaken Earthman stumbled up the cargo ramp, eyes watering from the stinging aromatic herbs. He gained the bridge in a wheezing stumble, flung on his safety harness and madly punched the launch sequence. His only thought was to get off this accursed world as fast as possible.
The land-yachts rolled to a halt. Enraged guards tumbled out. They cursed in impotent fury as Jarrett’s ship shot heavenward, her field generators whining dangerously as she cleaved a scorching path through the crimson sky. Wyvern soared. She desperately sought the freedom of the stars. Too late - three enforcer ships, like iron raptors, screamed skyward from their hidden bays, and like those birds of ancient Earth, would bring her down with unrelenting speed...
Jarrett tensely watched the sensor screen and with dismay saw the glowing dots of his pursuers draw swiftly nearer. He had hoped to lose them in the weirdness of hyperspace, but the enforcer craft had better tracking mechanisms than he’d anticipated. Again, he cursed his own folly for trying to deal directly with Zedur’s enigmatic beings.
The robotic ships hunting him were products of the Vrom, another species, unaffected by the alien aborigine’s dangerous art, who had been assigned by United Worlds as guardians of Zedur. If he was captured by the pursuing craft they’d turn him over to the Lords of Diamond Bay, for the crime had been committed within their jurisdiction. It was a disturbing thought, for Zedur was a primitive world, and the punishments of primitives were often savage.
An alarm sounded, breaking his dark musings - the enemy ships were now in range. The sensor screen showed small dots shooting out from the pursuing craft. Jarrett cursed. Wyvern, not being a ship of war, carried no heavy weapons. With his mind’s eye he saw the seekers - lambent spheres of emerald fire darting towards his craft.
Wyvern madly swerved at his command and plunged like a diving hawk through the foaming light of hyperspace. Jarrett sweated, sought to evade the deadly, speeding orbs. The ship twisted and turned like a crazed serpent. Unerringly, the blazing seekers followed, coming ever closer. The Earthman’s lips thinned in desperate determination. He hurled his ship through a series of punishing maneuvers that caused her hull to groan like a tortured soul. He swore. It wasn’t enough. In a rush the seekers swept upon him. They struck the weaving ship and flared explosively like mini supernovas.
The stricken craft madly spun. Centrifugal force flung Jarrett with utmost violence against his safety harness. Reality descended into swirling chaos that crushed all consciousness. Briefly, the control panel flared red with a hundred flashing lights and then died. The ship‘s drive fields collapsed, and the tumbling, mangled wreckage that had been Wyvern emerged into normal space.
Jarrett hung like a dead man in his harness, then a clang jarred him to full alertness - the boarding tube of the enemy had clamped against his hull. Everything was as black as the Pit, and for a frightening moment he was completely disorientated. Then long familiarity reasserted itself, and his groping hand touched the emergency power switch, flooding the cramped bridge with wan, yellow light.
One look at Wyvern’s instrumentation told Jarrett he was more than just knee deep in sewerage. A muffled explosion made him jump - the shaped charge at the mouth of the boarding tube had punched through the hull, and in mere moments the foe would be upon him.
Quickly, he feed himself from the harness, and with grim purpose unlatched the Rayton Mark VI pulse rifle clamped to the back of the command chair. Jarrett slid twenty power cartridges into the magazine and flicked the safety off. Then, slipping on the goggles that would save his eyes from the flaring discharge of the weapon, he waited; staring down the narrow and gloomy passage that led from the bridge into the bowls of his ruined ship and wondered apprehensively if he could avoid the dark fate awaiting him.
Tense, silent minutes passed, and Jarrett could feel the sickening tide of sweaty fear rising in him. If only the hidden devils would show themselves. Suddenly, a stealthy movement in the gloomy passage caught the Earthman’s eye. He fired.
A flash of actinic radiance bathed the passage with its frightful glare. One six legged machine, tall and angular, dissolved into whirling fragments. Another took its place. Jarrett rolled. The enemy mechanism fired, and its stabbing rays, discharged from six metallic tentacles struck the deck where had lain and exploded in a coruscation of leaping sparks.
Again, the desperate Earthman discharged his weapon, scored a hit upon the foe and had the pleasure of seeing it burst asunder in a spray of smoking metal. Thus the battle raged - a fearsome exchange of lancing, flaring rays and their accompanying thunderclaps. The air grew furnace hot and foul from the fiery bolts and blasted alloy. But the insensate mechanisms continued their relentless advance into the searing, booming hell of the narrow corridor, and one conclusion only could there be to this unequal struggle.
Jarrett fell before their crackling beams, struck down by burning rays. A sea of searing pain engulfed him for a moment and then all went dark as his senses faded into utter nothingness.
* Endnote: Zedur is the Terrestrial name for the planet. The indigenes, whose language is unpronounceable to humans, refer to the globe as “World” in their various native tongues .
** Endnote: These masks are status symbols, the material from which they are composed indicating the individual’s position in society - wood for commoners, porcelain for merchants, bronze for government officials, silver for the nobility and gold for the Lords of the city. The beast the mask represents is a totemic expression of the individual’s soul, which is divined by complex astrological, numerological and occult rituals involving visions induced by the spores of a hallucinogenic fungus. These rites are conducted as part of initiation ceremonies that occur when the individual reaches adolescence, with the mask being presented at the end of the ceremony, replacing the nondescript papier-mâché mask of childhood. Covering of the entire body is not from modesty, but due to the belief that in the open air one is vulnerable to attack from the planet’s pervasive auroras, which are thought to be malicious celestial spirits. Despite these coverings, Identification of individuals is easy for the Zeduran’s due to their acute olfactory sense, which is equivalent to that of a bloodhound.
*** Endnote: These gems, called lightening jewels, are naturally occurring minerals that convert sunlight to electricity and store their charge like a capacitor. The energy is released when the jewel is struck, the amount proportional to the force of impact.
Chapter 2: The Room of Crawling Walls
Cruel pain roused awareness from her restful slumber. Jarrett moaned. His body ached as if it had been battered by malicious giants. Slowly, the Earthman opened his eyes and dully looked about. As his shocked mind groped for comprehension, he gradually realizing he was in an enormous colonnaded room that opened on three sides to a massive court.
The architecture was colossal and severe in its austerity, as if the building was designed as the abode of a somber titan intent on intimidating mere mortals with the primordial strength of soaring, onyx stone.
Painfully, the dazed Earthman rose to an elbow, and saw that he was completely nude and chained by one ankle to a brass ring set in the floor of polished granite. Jarrett wasn’t unduly surprised - he‘d half expected something of the sort. But even so, his helplessness was still a terrible realization, and it took all his strength of mind not to fall into a pit of black despair as the full impact of his situation struck him.
Before him, perhaps ten yards away, were three thick columns twice the height of a man, with spiral stairs winding round each one’s stony length. And upon each column was a throne of glittering brass and upon each throne a figure robed in purple, masked and hooded. They were silent and menacing, these figures, as they watched him with hidden and alien eyes.
Slowly, he stood and defiantly returned his mute captors inscrutable gaze. It was obvious to Jarrett that these beings were to be his judges. And what would his sentence be? No doubt something slow and brutal, some fiendish torture in keeping with the barbaric level of culture they possessed. Be this as it may, he would not cower like a whimpering hound before its merciless master.
Jarrett steeled himself as best he could against the end and hoped he could die as bravely as his father had on savage Xyco, a half dozen Wuri spears buried in his guts - such could be the fate of those who traded outside the United World’s civilized sphere of influence. Still, he’d known the risks, just as his father had. There was no one but himself to blame for his current predicament.
“Barbarian,” spoke the figure on the central throne, breaking the Earthman’s reverie. “You have offered shameful insult to our port official, killed one person and gravely injured others. For these offences you are condemned to the Room of Crawling Walls - a suitable punishment for a being of your low type, and should perchance you survive this grim ordeal then crushing slavery shall be your lot. Thus decree the immutable Lords of Diamond Bay.”
Well, thought Jarrett with wry irony. I can’t complain about the swiftness of their justice system. Obviously, they don’t believe in pesky lawyers, that‘s for sure.
Four guards, robed in sinister black, approached from behind the columns the judges sat upon. They unlocked his shackle and harshly laid gloved hands upon him. Jarrett didn’t bother to try and argue with the alien magistrates. As far as he was concerned he’d acted in self defense, but knew these beings saw the matter in an entirely different way.
There was no Terrestrial embassy on Zedur, and even if there was they could do little for him as indigenous law took precedence. He knew he was on his own and must save himself if he could. Determination flared and his entire being hardened with the desperate resolve of a cornered lion.
Lashing out, he felled one guard with a lightening kick. The remainder leapt away and drew their deadly gem tipped rods. The foremost lunged. Jarrett ducked beneath the stabbing rod and slammed his fist where he thought the being’s ribs might be.
Bones cracked. Jarrett grinned in savage pleasure. He’d show them a thing or two before he died. The guard cried shrilly like an injured bird. Jarrett grabbed the falling humanoid. He grunted, heaved and with a mighty effort the straining Earthman lifted his foe above his head then hurled the being upon the others rushing at him. The Earthman uttered a wild defiant laugh as the guards crashed in a screeching and tangled heap upon the floor.
Jarrett’s swift gaze fell upon the judges. They sat still as ever - unmoved and untroubled as immortal gods by the erupting conflict. If he could take one hostage … Too late - other guards sprinted within the room and cast whirling bolas at him. One whizzed past as he leapt aside, but another weighted chain whipped about his ankles. Cursing, he crashed jarringly upon the floor.
Rods stabbed at him. He rolled aside. His feet lashed out and felled a foe. Jarrett writhed like a snake, cursing profusely as he evaded the deadly jewel tipped weapons. The beings danced away from his flying feet. They darted in and out. Jarrett swore. He dodged, but not quite quick enough – a thrusting weapon struck. He screamed. His muscles convulsed then turned to water, and he lay in a nerveless unmoving heap upon the floor.
Thus vanquished, his enemies dragged him away. Jarrett muttered an oath – his fighting spirit was unbeaten, but his body was too weak to resist. Dimly, the helpless Earthman sensed his passage through the twisting labyrinthine ways of the enormous building - rooms, huge and stark, halls of endless, towering columns thronged with silent figures, grotesquely masked. To his jarred mind, they all passed by in an ethereal, dreamlike nightmare.
Then they came to narrow stairs down which he was carried. Deeper and deeper; into the bowls of Zedur they descended, the way dimly illuminated by glowing gems set into the stone of the sloping passage. At last Jarrett reached the bottom, and was dragged through a columned, cell lined hall at whose end was a heavy door of polished brass, thickly barred. It was within the dim confines of this chamber his callous jailers cast him. The door clanged shut. He was alone.
For a time, Jarrett lay in a stupor upon the cold, hard floor. His eyes were closed and he was intent on nothing more that regaining his physical and mental equilibrium. The ordeals he’d been through in such rapid succession had taxed him to the limit, and upon reflection that was free of bravado he honestly wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Slowly, coherent thought returned, and thus he ruminated.
I’ve heard it said, he thought, that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I hope for my sake that’s not just an empty platitude.
And what would kill him - the Room of Crawling Walls? What was the nature of the place, and was this cell that dreadful chamber of terrible execution? Opening his eyes, Jarrett looked warily about.
Upon walls, floor and ceiling were strangely twisting bas reliefs of weird design. Their geometries were mind-searing, alien; as if their creators had peered into some other dimension outside normal reality that was a twisted travesty of all humanity knows.
Fear thrust into Jarrett’s guts. This was the kind of Zeduran art that drove men mad by overloading the senses. It destroyed all sanity as the mind attempted to comprehend the incomprehensible.* He tried to look away, to close his eyes and shut out the frightful images. It was impossible. The walls began to twist and writhe, drawing his frightened gaze with malevolent, hypnotic force.
To his utter horror the carvings began to waver and transform to sinister shapes out of a madman’s psychedelic nightmare. The things writhed. They leapt at him from the stone like striking cobras. Shapes of indescribable horror crawled over him. Jarrett screamed an endless scream of unbridled fear as the gruesome things enveloped him in a web of unbelievable foulness. Reality became a nightmare of hideous visions and sensations that thrust his gibbering mind towards insanity‘s black abyss.
A pit seemed to open up beneath him – a pit lined with forms so evil that human language was inadequate to describe them. The things laughed at him as he tumbled into a vast well of horror, mocked him as he fell towards inescapable destruction. Fear like he had never felt before assailed him with terror beyond description.
He fought wildly against the encroaching madness, battling it with all the powers of reason he could muster. The illusions intensified to incalculable ferocity. Jarrett’s sanity was driven back. The web of foulness the enveloped him seemed to burrow into his flesh like ravenous maggots. The Earthman screamed. He drew upon all the strength within the core of his being. His whole body went rigid with the effort and froze in a precarious balance of opposing forces.
It’s an illusion shouted a fragment of his insanity in an endless mantra. Embrace the strangeness. Don’t try and understand it.
An age of hellish struggle ensued. The Earthman was frozen in trembling agony. His whole body was arched and his hands pressed painfully against his eyeballs in an attempt to shut out the nightmare images. Slowly, after what seemed an eternity of suffering, sanity gained the upper hand and normality gradually emerged from the eddying visions of utter horror. Jarrett slumped upon the floor, utterly exhausted, but now able to gaze upon the weird arabesques with only mild feelings of unease. He had won, but what other terrors awaited him?
**********
Time passed in dreary boredom, broken only by the guard’s return. The being, finding Jarrett sane, fed him prison rations. The Earthman drank the bowl of water and ate the strange blue vegetables listlessly, wondering if he would be better off dead. It was a thought that grew in his mind as seemingly endless days passed in the isolated confines of the gloomy cell, for no mortal of flesh and blood could have endured what Jarrett had without giving way to despair.
After what seemed to him an age of unknowable extent more guards, ten in all, came for him on the morning of the fourth day of his imprisonment - clearly, bitter experience had taught the authorities to take no chances when dealing with this wild barbarian. Jarrett was unresisting when they placed heavy chains about his wrists and ankles, and then escorted him from the cell. Depression and the knowledge he was outnumbered had sapped his will to fight.
Up through the labyrinth that comprised the Halls of Justice passed the escort, and out upon a plaza, this square different to the one the Earthman had originally seen. Jarrett’s spirits rose as he stepped out into bright sunshine. He inhaled deeply, and smelt the clean, cool air scented with the vibrancy of life. The man stood straighter and grew alert as the shadows fled from his mind. Though chained, the open sky gave him a sense of freedom that was a balm to his troubled soul.
Before him, in the middle of the plaza, was an outlandish airship - it looked something like an oar-less galley, but flat bottomed and supported by skids in the manner of a helicopter. Running the length of the keel’s centre was an observation gondola, and upon the deck another similar structure, while at the prow was a projection in the form of half an octagon that could only be the bridge.
The vessel was constructed from purplish timber, intricately carved and ornamented with dragonish creatures in shining brass. Jarrett thought it must have been at least two hundred feet in length and knew it was of indigenous workmanship - a fact attested to by its swirling mind-destroying arabesques.
He was amazed. The ship was far too heavy to be borne aloft by hydrogen or any other lifting gas contained within its hull. Its motive force could only be a drive generator, most likely of Vrom manufacture. His amazement quickly turned to shock - this was clearly illegal, for with the exception of robot enforcer ships used strictly in a planet‘s defense, the Council of United Worlds forbid the trafficking of advanced technology to pre-scientific cultures.
The Vrom were members of the council, and thus had an obligation to protect the less advanced civilizations that came within their own small sphere of influence, but they were on the very edge of known space, and the tyranny of distance made the border planets difficult to police. So much depended on trust and the Vrom, it seemed, were taking advantage of their isolation.
But what could they be up to? A violent shove broke the Earthman’s train of thought. His captors hurried him along to the stern of the outlandish craft, and forced him up the aft ramp and into the vessel’s narrow hold. Jarrett was shocked when he entered - it was packed with slaves, nude and shackled like himself.
He looked them over as his guards chained him to a ring. They were humanoid in appearance, the skin tawny in color and completely hairless, except for the russet fur upon their heads. No secondary sexual characteristics or external genitals were apparent (merely two sphincter-like structures, one obviously the anus), and the Earthman correctly guessed the reproductive organs were internal like those of reptiles. Unlike reptiles, though, the presence of a navel indicated these were placental beings. They were a dispirited, broken looking lot. It showed in their listless, cat-like faces, the dullness of their large, expressive hazel eyes, and the fact most took little notice of him even though he was the alien in their midst.
So, thought Jarrett as the guards departed. This is what Zedurans look like without their clothes. Well, at least my curiosity is satisfied in this regard, though I wonder what gender my companions are.
The ship’s ramp clanged shut like a rising drawbridge, cutting off the Earthman’s speculations. The craft rose suddenly, catching Jarrett by surprise, and he stumbled against the being chained beside him, a being whose hostile looks Jarrett had heretofore ignored. This Zeduran, larger and more alert than the rest, turned upon him with a hissing cry, and suddenly the Earthman was fighting for his life as the being’s clawing hands clamped with savage force about his throat.
* Endnote: Zedurans call this particular kind of art Mind Sculpture. It affects the brain of the percipient in a manner similar to the way flashing lights or geometric patterns induce seizures in photosensitive epileptics. For Zedurans, though, gazing at this art induces mystical experiences. Other forms of Mind Sculpture have been designed as instruments of torture that induce terrible hallucinations (these are designed and carved by artists trained to resist their debilitating effects). For humans both forms of Mind Sculpture are potentially fatal due to differences in neural physiology from that of Zedurans.
Chapter 3: Terror in the Sky
Jarrett was slammed against a bulkhead by the violence of his brawny foe’s attack. His head smacked against hard wood, and in a daze the Earthman tore weakly at his assailant’s meaty wrists, desperately seeking to free those crushing hands - a band of constricting iron that stopped the breath of life.
The Earthman’s vision darkened. The leering, hate filled face of the Zeduran began to blur. Rallying his shaken wits, Jarrett fought off his panic and attacked with deadly purpose - with the dregs of strength he slammed the heel of his palm beneath his foe’s blocky chin. The fellow’s head snapped back and he crashed upon the deck, mouth oozing black blood from a bitten tongue.
Jarrett, pale, trembling and gasping air, leaned heavily against the bulkhead, his eyes locked upon the fallen being as he desperately sought to recover his strength. The fellow struggled up, his face twisted with hissing rage and savage fury. A twelve inch piece of heavy chain manacled his wrists. Locking his fingers, the alien swung his arms in a swift and savage blow.
The Earthman barely ducked the whirling chain. It crashed against the timbers in a rattling wood splitting thud. Jarrett threw a vicious punch. Backed by all his weight and strength, his meaty fist sank into the fellow’s belly, nearly folding him in half. Then, with both hands the Earthman grabbed his opponent by the ears, and simultaneously drove his knee with all his strength into the gasping Zeduran’s face as he jerked his foe into the savage blow. There was a sickening crack, and his assailant fell lifeless to the floor.
Jarrett, breathing heavily, glared at the other slaves, challenging them with his wild stare. Some looked upon him with open fear; others were too much prisoners to their own despairing thoughts to have even noticed the brief but brutal battle. But upon a kind of upper balcony at the further end of the hold stood the figure of a guard, and Jarrett went cold with the sudden realization that this being had no doubt witnessed the fight in its savage entirety. For long, tense moments he stared at the man. But the guard made no move against him, and gradually he relaxed. It seemed that slaves to these people were even less valuable than animals, and it didn’t matter if they killed each other.
Seeing that he was in no immediate danger, Jarrett turned to the large fretwork panel behind him, one of six on either side of the ship that provided both ventilation and light to the hold. He peered through its cunningly wrought apertures and gazed on the city below, partly out of curiosity and partly as a means of distraction, for Jarrett was no heartless killer, and the corpse at his feet had the same effect upon him as it would upon most other men.
The metropolis was spread out beneath him - massive cyclopean structures of ebon stone, fantastic things of rearing carven rock ornamented in towering columns and sinuous bas reliefs of alien form. The mass of the city was broken by a grid work of wide boulevards, which were lined by weird trees resembling enormous fan corals, their soaring forms variegated in lavender and silver.
There were also canals whose calm waters reflected the crimson sky, and glinted with the golden light of heaven’s dancing auroras. It was an unearthly scene, one not soon forgotten, especially the colorful crowds that thronged the metropolis’ ways - bright with swirling garments of pastel hues, and glittering masks. Then there were the Lords who walked among them - towering, stalking figures on stilts that stood above the common folk, and used their long ornate staves to push away those who did not move aside with sufficient and respectful haste.
Beyond the teeming city were the fields of its territory, fecund with strange, purple grain-crops, hazy with distance. Slightly nearer was the enormous industrial complex of watermills powered by myriad rivers that snaked seaward, and near the factories could be seen land-ships, these as large as the clippers of old Earth, that conveyed cargo across the Savannah of Winds to the distant Opal Kingdoms upon its further side.
Gradually, the airship swung to starboard and headed out to sea with stately grace, her altitude perhaps no more than a thousand feet. Jarrett’s fellow slaves were as silent as the body that lay cold and unmoving at his feet. Even nude they were still a mystery to him, and he wondered what thoughts were going through their minds.
Perhaps they were thinking of the fate that awaited them at journey’s end. And what might that be? Jarrett refused to speculate, realizing he would merely fill his mind with bleak and frightening thoughts. He could have asked his fellow chattels, for his vocal cords had been augmented by an implanted synthesizer that could mimic any alien tongue, no matter how outlandish. But he decided not to risk it - these beings sense of etiquette was easily offended, and he’d had enough of killing for one day. So instead he occupied himself with spinning fruitless plans of escape.
Time passed in dreary silence. Once, Jarrett glimpsed a monstrous form - a dark serpentine shadow swimming beneath the glittering sea. It dived, vanishing from sight, and the Earthman shuddered, wondering at the risks mariners must take when crossing the oceans of this world.
An hour had passed from the sighting of the leviathan when Jarrett noticed several shapes flying towards the craft in which he was imprisoned. The things drew near with incredible swiftness and the Earthman gasped in astonishment. At first he had thought them other airships, but with closing distance he saw they were creatures, strange and menacing.
They resembled giant hairless bats, grey in color. But this is where all similarity ended, for each had a wingspan of thirty feet, and where the head should have been was a structure like a squid - a mass of writhing tentacles and two large staring eyes of inky black.
Jarrett sweated as the things, three in all, began sinisterly circling the slowly moving craft. It appeared the cunning Vrom were not so generous after all - the airship’s field generators were clearly limited in the speed and altitude to which they could propel the vessel.
A flight of crossbow bolts launched from the upper observation gallery swept out towards the beasts as they spiraled in upon the craft. One was struck, the quarrel piercing it through the brain. It plummeted, whirling lifelessly to the sea. The others, though, fell upon the upper deck - too swift for the frantic warriors to loose another volley.
Suddenly, tentacles slammed against one fretwork panel and shattered it to whirling bits. Scaly appendages slithered in like monster serpents. Slaves screamed and tore madly at their bonds in mindless panic. The groping members coiled about several wildly struggling forms and ripped the hapless chattels from the ship.
Jarrett looked in frozen horror at the bloody limbs left dangling in the chains. Then the panel next to him exploded inwards, and he was flung upon the deck as another monster’s snaking limbs intruded. In a panic he madly crawled through the press of jostling, fear crazed slaves who in their terror came close to trampling him.
The Earthman turned his head and saw a creeping limb latch upon another screaming chattel as others slithered at him. There was no escape - he had reached the limit of his chain. Desperation spurred his mind to form a reckless plan. Quickly, he grabbed a sharp and splinted timber that lay nearby as one tentacle coiled about his waist.
In a frenzy of wild blows Jarrett knifed the constricting limb. But his frantic efforts barely scratched the monsters leathery skin. Slaughter raged about the battling man as he was hauled towards the shattered window: Zedurans screamed as more were torn asunder. Bedlam reigned in a wild tumult of surging, thrashing forms.
Jarrett gasped in agony as the creature dragged him halfway through the broken panel and towards its hideous slavering jaws. With a wild yell of utter fear he hurled his makeshift dagger at one madly staring eye and saw it penetrate the horrid orb.
In agony the creature’s snaky limb convulsed. It flung the Earthman to the deck as it released him. Someone stepped on his thigh. He cursed profanely and curled into a protective ball. Feet kicked him; slaves tripped and fell upon him. Utter chaos reigned as the other monster‘s tentacles cracked like demonic whips within the confines of the hold.
Above, the cursing crossbowmen again fired upon the feeding beasts. Bolts lanced their leathery skins. They uttered slobbering, agonized cries and flapped away, carrying off several hapless slaves to feed upon at leisure. Gradually, their grotesque forms slowly vanished into the crimson distance of the ruby sky.
Below, the remaining slaves slowly settled with the beast’s retreat. Jarrett moaned and cautiously looked about. He was quite shaken by his narrow brush with death, and realized that it was only Fortune’s favor that had saved him from a similar fate.
The hold was a bloody shambles - mangled corpses lay strewn about like dismembered mannequins. About half the slaves were dead - the monsters had slain more of them than they could possibly eat, driven by some savage and alien bloodlust he couldn’t fathom.
Structural damage, too, was in evidence - all the portside fretwork had been torn away, leaving gaping holes through which rushed the chilly air. It was further testimony to the grim ferocity of the unprovoked attack.
There was no sign of the guard upon the hold’s balcony, the being having retreated at the first sign of danger. The fellow didn’t reappear, not that there was any real need - any Zeduran slave with an ounce of spirit left had had it broken by this terrible experience.
Well, thought Jarrett as he painfully stood. I may be bruised and battered, but at least I’m alive, which is more than I can say for most of these poor devils.
Turning from the pitiful sight of the cowering chattels, the Earthman gazed through the broken fretwork and saw that the airship was rapidly descending towards a crescent shaped island about two miles away, which was densely forested in the weird growth of this alien world.
Soon, the craft was skimming the curling waves of the Sea of Jewels as it swept towards the sandy shore of the island’s bay where a brooding fort of roughly hewn olive stone had been constructed. The ship slowed and settled within the sheer and forbidding walls of this imposing structure, and the hapless slaves, Jarrett included, were led forth to be instructed in their new life of crushing servitude.
An hour later Jarrett, along with five other slaves, stood on a barge, one of several anchored in the middle of the island’s bay. At a signal from the overseer the Earthman and his fellow chattels plunged into the crystal waters. They dove deeply, the binding rope about each one’s ankle trailing out behind them.
Jarrett, a powerful and experienced swimmer, soon gained the bottom of the bay well ahead of the other divers. Here, the sandy sea floor was festooned with conical rose colored growths, man tall, and covered in wicked spines. The cones pointed downwards and their apexes were glued like limpets to rocky footholds.
The Earthman swam to the nearest growth and tagged it with a white ribbon from a net bag upon his rope belt. Then, carefully gripping a lengthy spine, he braced himself and plunged his arm within the creature’s vulviform mouth at the top of the inverted cone.
Its innards were cold, slimy and revolting to the touch. Jarrett gritted his teeth and felt around, searching as the overseer had instructed. The cone, reacting to his probing, loosed a yellow noxious fluid. It billowed round him, irritating his eyes and skin with its foulness. Jarrett cursed silently, but persevered in his groping search. He knew his only hope was to appear submissive and obedient, and bide his time. Somehow, he would find a way to escape this godforsaken place.
Suddenly, Jarrett’s dreams of freedom were interrupted by something hard and smooth beneath his hand. He gripped it, wrenched the thing free, causing the cone to erupt like a volcano and bathe him in a gushing cloud of its stinging fluids.
Desperately, he swam for the surface, waves of nausea assailing him as he ascended. Breaking through, he retched violently and dropped the object - an opalescent sphere the size of a golf ball - into a basket hanging from a rod projecting over the raft’s edge.
Jarrett cursed the beauty of the sea jewel, as it was called. No doubt it was extremely valuable and was destined to become the ornament of some highborn lord. The Earthman inwardly railed at his servitude, but knew for the moment he could do nothing, a bitter fact that galled him to the core.
A guard approached, silently waiving his gem-tipped rod menacingly. Jarrett bit back an insult, inhaled deeply and dived again. Still feeling ill from the cone’s poison, he passed the other divers coming up for air. Again, he arrowed for another untagged growth, gripped it and was about to plunge his hand within when he glimpsed movement from the edge of vision.
Turning quickly, the Earthman saw a dark shape darting at him - a serpentine thing twenty feet in length, the vicious jaws of its shark-like head menacingly agape. Jarrett, heart hammering in wild fear, dived in frantic haste, swam between two spiny cones and hugged the bottom. The savage thing shot above the shielding growths, fan-shaped tail and azure body wriggling madly.
The descending divers saw the snaking beast. They quickly turned and raced madly for the safety of the raft. Jarrett watched, sick with fear as the thing shot upward like a speeding arrow. It caught one lagging swimmer in its terrible jaws. The water churned and turned black with gore as the monster, with savage shakes of its ugly head, tore the slave asunder. Ashen, the Earthman looked away from the appalling sight, only to be struck with further horror when he saw three other beasts, brothers to the one above, swimming directly at him. They had him trapped, and he couldn’t stay submerged forever.
Chapter 4: Golden Moon
Jarrett knew he was in deadly danger - to try and swim towards the surface while these monsters lurked about was suicidal. It was a grim and terrible choice he faced - to be torn asunder by savage beasts, or wait and die by drowning when his breath ran out. The thought of either fate was terrifying, and he was hard pressed not to panic.
With growing alarm, Jarrett watched as the glaring monsters began nosing the cones surrounding him, trying to find a way through the spiny growths whose yard long razor spikes held them off. The spines! Quickly, he seized one, muscles swelling with terrific strain as he heaved. It snapped, and thus armed he shot for the surface, legs and arms churning like a propeller as he made his desperate gambit against forbidding death.
In a flash the circling beasts were after him. One, quicker than the rest, bore down upon the racing man, massive jaws wide and horrible. The frantic Earthman drew up his legs and viciously stabbed the spine into its ugly snout. The makeshift weapon snapped and the jagged remnant was nearly torn from Jarrett’s grip as the monster veered away. The creature’s thrashing tail struck Jarrett a heavy blow as it passed him – a blow that sent him tumbling in dizzy loops.
Icy worms of fear crawled through the Earthman’s vitals as he spun. At any moment he expected to be ripped apart in a welter of agony and blood. Stilling his mad tumble, he looked frantically about and saw the other beasts set upon their wounded brother in a killing frenzy. They were drawn to it irresistibly - like iron to a magnet - by the blood that gushed in trailing streamers from its ugly wound.
A melee of writhing bodies and snapping jaws erupted. The water boiled with swirling ebon gore and chunks of flesh that spun about in bloody clouds, which enveloped the monsters that tore frenziedly at one another with unrestrained ferocity. It was a sickening sight, but one that gifted Jarrett with the germ of a cunning plan.
Quickly, he stabbed the rope about his ankle with the sharp remnant of the spine, then tore in two the weakened cable and swiftly swam from the madly fighting creatures, hoping his captors would think he’d perished in the jaws of the ferocious beasts.
It was a desperate chance to take - Jarrett was gambling on the monsters being too set upon devouring one another to give him further thought, and the depth of the water to hide his escape from those above. The Earthman’s plan was simple - the rafts were raised above the sea upon pontoons. If he could hide beneath one, then perhaps he could escape when it made its way back to shore, but there were so many ifs, and if he was wrong about any one of them? Well, that didn’t bear contemplating.
Jarrett had swum about ten yards towards another raft when he noticed a diver from that craft crouching fearfully among the cones as he had done, and to his horror saw another beast circling the hapless slave. Suddenly, the fellow made a wild dash towards the surface, and as Jarrett was directly above the scene, the frantic swimmer led the frightful monster straight towards him.
The fleeing slave was looking down, eyes fixed upon the darting shape that swiftly followed and therefore oblivious to the presence of the Earthman. Desperately, Jarrett sought escape as prey and predator arrowed at him. Too late - the chattel collided with the Earthman, and through a tangle of madly churning limbs Jarrett glimpsed the looming monster, teeth lined maw yawning wide as it bore down upon him like a living torpedo.
In a wild panic Jarrett thrust his spine and stabbed the rushing creature. The glancing collision spun the Earthman and the slave about like leaves caught in a millrace, which entangled both in the rope affixed to the ankle of the chattel. Jarrett had a brief glimpse of the beast as it fled away. But he also saw more sinuous forms rapidly approaching, attracted by the wounded creature’s blood.
It was a desperate situation - surrounded by savage beasts and hindered by a terrified slave whose thrashing limbs struck him with painful blows. And to make things worse his lungs were burning from lack of air - as if hot sand were pouring down his throat. Jarrett knew with frightening certainty that in but moments the desire to breathe would become irresistible and he’d drown. That is if the brutal jaws of these unknown monsters didn’t tear him apart beforehand.
With the dregs of strength Jarrett severed the hindering rope with the remainder of the spine and arrowed towards the surface, the frightened slave still clinging to his back in unthinking panic. The life giving air above seemed a million miles away. His straining limbs were leaden, his vision darkening. The blood was roaring in his head as he fought the weight of hindering chattel that he dare not take the time to try and push away.
With a final desperate surge he breached the sea beneath the raft and gasped air into his heaving chest. A tumult of voices sounded from the deck above - shouting guards, the thud of their wooden rods upon the panicked slaves and the frightened cries of the beaten chattels.
Jarrett relaxed a little - the sound of his gasping would be lost among the tumult. Looking below, he was further relieved to see the other creatures had also turned upon the wounded beast, who led them from the raft’s vicinity in a running battle of snapping jaws and swirling clouds of blood. For the moment, at least, he and the other slave were safe.
And what of the fool whose hindering grip had nearly drowned him? With the passing of immediate danger Jarrett could give his full and furious attention to the fellow, who had released him and now clung quietly to one pontoon of the raft, slowly recovering from the terrifying ordeal.
The Earthman was amazed when he turned and gazed upon his companion. It was a girl he now beheld, but one not human. Her features were much like those of an earthly woman, but with a feline cast that was clearly alien. So, too, her figure; with shoulders and hips equally broad, and breasts of conical form whose tips swelled to bud-like nipples of lemony hue.
Her appearance was quite unexpected, given the almost sexless nature of the males of her species. Sexual dimorphism, it seemed, was more pronounced in these people than human beings, and the shock of seeing this naked and almost human woman cooled Jarrett’s temper and left him at a loss as to what to say.
The girl, too, was affected by the Earthman’s weird appearance, heretofore not seeing him clearly in the shadowed depths. She was alternately disturbed and fascinated as she looked upon him, her mind a whirl of conflicting thoughts. He was a stranger to her, stranger still because he was an alien. If he knew her secret would he betray her to their masters in an attempt to curry favor? Perhaps, but then mutual enemies often make for strange bedfellows. She decided to risk trusting him, albeit guardedly.
“I am Golden Moon”, said the girl by way of whispered introduction. “And I thank you for having saved my life, oh stranger from another world.”
Again, Jarrett was surprised - since Earth’s disastrous expedition; the Lords of Diamond Bay had placed severe limitations on the movements of all foreigners to their world, restricting them to the confines of the spaceport. That Golden Moon was familiar with his kind meant knowledge of Earthmen had somehow spread beyond these limitations. Strange, too, was the very informal nature of her greeting, not at all like the manners of her kind. But the girl spoke further before he could question her about these things.
“Look - more sea dragons are gathering below, attracted by the blood. We will be heading shoreward, for no sea jewels can be gathered with them about. Now be quite, for the noise above is dying and our whispering will be overheard.”
Sharp commands cracked out, as if in response to this prediction. The trembling slaves, vastly relieved, took up their paddles and began to row shoreward with utmost speed. A few sea dragons followed the retreating rafts at a leisurely pace, and for long minutes Jarrett and the girl, cringing white-knuckled beneath it, tensely watched their snaking forms. But the creatures kept their distance, and losing interest, eventually swam away.
At last, the rafts docked at the quay. The slaves were led away to their prison barracks, leaving Jarrett and the girl alone and unobserved.
“What shall we do now?” queried Golden Moon. “The island is small, and we cannot hope to escape detection indefinitely.”
Jarrett paused for a moment before replying. The girl might hinder his escape. Should he abandon her? No, his sense of decency rebelled at the thought. Besides, she seemed remarkably friendly for a Zeduran, and her local knowledge might prove invaluable to his plans.
“I have the beginning of an idea,” he replied, revealing to her the thought that had come to him during their shoreward journey. “The airship that brought me here was badly damaged on the way, and I overheard the captain discussing its repair with the fort’s commander, who advised it would be ready for departure on the morrow. As I see it, our only hope is to somehow seize the craft and with it make our escape. What is your opinion?”
The girl frowned in thoughtful silence. Then, after a time, she replied:
“It’s a desperate plan, but one worth trying. I suggest we wait until nightfall when the slaves will be asleep in their barracks, and only a light guard patrols the fort. Also, I think the airship’s crew will sleep without the craft, for there is little room within to do so comfortably.”
**********
It was evening, and the emerald crescent of Zedur’s single moon hung its gibbous horn upon the starry sky, and shyly peeked at the world through a veil of shimmering curtains of pastel gold - the ever present auroras of this sphere.
Night swathed half the globe in sleepy quietude, with the gentle silence stirred only by the soft murmur of the sea, and subtle calls of nocturnal things in the isle’s darkened forest.
The fort was a mass of shadowed stone silhouetted against the blazing firmament, and upon its high parapet paced a drowsy guard, lost in thought, oblivious to the dark and creeping shapes precariously scaling the wall’s roughly hewn stones.
Jarrett bit back a curse as his sweaty hand slipped upon the rock. His muscles strained with the effort of gaining height, and his fingers were bruised and bloody from the climb.
Ignoring his biting aches, the Earthman again thrust his fingers between the joints of the rugged blocks he painfully ascended. Turning his head he glanced at the girl who climbed beside him. Powerful muscles rippled beneath her tawny skin, propelling her lithe and graceful form up the wall with enviable ease.
They had spent the day hiding amidst the fan-like lavender undergrowth of the weird forest, whose silence had been punctured now and then by the weird cries of its unseen denizens, a sharp contrast to their own whispered conversation. Golden Moon plied him with endless questions about himself and the worlds beyond Zedur, and in turn answered his queries about her own. But of herself she told him very little.
This made him curious, and as the hours passed he found his eyes lingering on her nudity. It was only natural - Jarrett was young and vigorous, and it had been some time since he’d known a human woman. Golden Moon, of course, wasn’t human. But even so, she possessed a feminine beauty, albeit alien, that could stir his passions.
Naturally, such feelings made him somewhat reckless in his story telling as he tried to impress upon her his virile manliness - an inept strategy, but the only one he knew. Thus, the narrative of his adventures grew in their exaggeration with this fantastic embellishment and that. Now, such tales worked well enough on the spaceport whores he’d known, for their eyes were fixed upon his money and nothing else.
But Golden Moon was a different kind of woman, and not just because she wasn’t human. The girl at once saw these fabrications for what they were, and told him in no uncertain words what she thought of his bragging infantile duplicity, much to his embarrassment.
Jarrett pushed aside these humiliating memories, knowing he’d best concentrate on the arduous climb instead. Up he went, the girl easily matching him. Indeed, perhaps she even held herself in check. The minutes passed, dragging by with leaden steps, but at last they gained the uppermost height of the towering wall.
Here both hung precariously as they peered carefully within the darkened fort. It was triangular in plan, with small towers at each point, and barracks built along the inner walls for slaves and guards. Below, in the moonlit court, rested the airship’s bulk, and in its ebon shadow, sleeping soundly, lay the vessel’s crew.
Jarrett tensed - the parapet guard approached. Freedom or death lay ahead. From his rope belt the Earthman drew the spine, now of dagger length. Placing it between his teeth he sprang like a leaping tiger upon the man. They collided solidly. The weapon plunged and the guard, a dying cry upon his lips, fell bleeding to the ledge.
Then the night exploded with warning shouts, and a crossbow bolt shattered stone at Jarrett’s feet, spraying him with stinging chips. Golden Moon grabbed the dead guard’s repeating arbalest and loosed a whining shot. A piercing scream rang out, and one tower guard toppled to bloody ruin on the stones below.
“To the slave barracks,” cried the girl as more bolts sang a song of death in narrow misses about their crouching forms.
Both dashed madly down the stairs to the courtyard, a flight of deadly missiles spurring them to greater haste. They dodged the bolts, but only just, and then sprinted for the prison as other guards poured out upon the square. Jarrett grabbed the massive bolt that secured the slave pen’s door, drew it back and threw the portal wide.
“Fire,” he yelled. “The building’s on fire, everybody out.”
And to emphasize the point, Golden Moon grabbed one flaming torch from its bracket by the door, and hurled it on the straw-like herbage the chattels slept upon. It instantly caught alight in roaring flames. Slaves cried shrilly at the sight of those leaping tongues of fire. They tore madly for the door and burst out in a torrent of rushing bodies that nearly swept Jarrett and the girl away.
The charging guards and frightened slaves collided in a shock of surging forms. Shouts and screams pierced the night as a wild fight erupted. The chattels, still frightened by their ordeal with the sea dragons, and now in terror of the fire were beyond control. Though unarmed they fought with manic strength. Guards fell beneath their onslaught and were torn apart by the savage mob that used the sundered limbs as grisly clubs upon their surviving foes.
Jarrett’s plan had worked - with this tumultuous diversion they might yet escape. He seized Golden Moon by the hand, and both sprinted for the airship whose crew had become embroiled in the raging battle with the desperate slaves. But one aeronaut, seeing his shipmates would soon be overwhelmed, broke free and sprinted up the craft’s forward ramp to seek escape.
Golden Moon sensed his plan. She raised her crossbow, fired. Her aim was true - the fellow fell. But his hand, already upon the lever, pulled it down as he died and the ship’s entry ramp began to rise.
“Hurry, cried the girl. “We can make it.”
Then a howling mob of savage brawlers surged across their path, cutting off the way.
Chapter 5: City in the Clouds
Jarrett knew there wasn’t time to avoid the knot of fighting men. Like a battering ram he slammed his brawny frame among the foe.
The ramp rose higher as several bodies crashed to earth under his smashing impact. Golden Moon swung her weapon in a wild arc and scattered other brawlers. Through this breach dashed the fleeing pair. The girl dropped her crossbow as they leapt, fingers clawing at the rising ramp. Both caught its edge and were hauled aloft.
The girl cried in sudden fear - another desperate aeronaut had grabbed her about the waist and was trying to ride her up to safety. She screamed again as her fingers began to slip from the extra weight. Savagely, Jarrett kicked her attacker in the head. He shrilly cried, fell away. Then, as he struck the paving, a crossbow bolt thudded into wood mere inches from the Earthman’s head, alerting him to yet another danger.
“Inside,” he shouted as he hauled his sweating form over the steeply risen ramp.
“Can’t,” gasped the faltering girl. “My strength … drained … that fellow’s weight.”
Jarrett swore. With one hand he determinedly grabbed her arm and heaved mightily, knowing that the closing ramp would crush the girl to bloody pulp if he didn’t get her in. And if the situation wasn’t bad enough he saw more aeronauts rushing at them, fleeing from a wild mob of slaves that pursued like rabid hounds.
Golden Moon also glimpsed the charging foe. She doggedly added her waning strength to Jarrett’s efforts. Two men leapt to drag her kicking legs and gain the safety of the ship. She felt their fingers brush her feet. Dread fear laid cold hands upon her. Then the Earthman hauled her over and the ramp slammed shut in the faces of the foe as the escapees tumbled down its sloping length and crashed upon the deck.
“No time to waste,” gasped the panting sweating Earthman as he staggered to his feet. “We must get off the ground.”
Jarrett ran for a ladder without waiting for her to reply. He quickly ascended to the bridge above, the girl following close upon his heels. Running forward, the Earthman rapidly scanned the bronze levers of the helm controls. He grabbed one embossed with the arabesque for “rise” and jerked it down.
The ship leapt skyward, and through the bulls-eye windows of the bridge, man and girl saw the dreadful scene that dropped away beneath their feet. The fire had taken hold of the slave barracks and grown to a conflagration - a glowing monster that licked the fort with tongues of roaring flame, and by its lurid light a mass of dark and surging figures swirled about in mad confusion.
One outer wall, weakened by the fearsome heat, collapsed in a grinding avalanche of scorching stone. It fell upon both slave and master - a tumbling mass of insensate rock that crushed a dozen screaming beings to bloody ruin beneath its crashing fall, and then across the smoking rubble stormed the crazed survivors, fleeing with wild cries into the darkness of the inky night.
Jarrett shuddered and looked away. It was a nightmarish scene he had witnessed, one of many that would give him sleepless nights. The girl, too, stood in silence, the quiet broken only by ragged breathing as both gradually recovered from their narrow escape. After a time, Golden Moon stirred and softly spoke:
“Set your course by the Eye of the Celestial Beast - that bright, crimson star to port. It will guide you to my home where you shall find sanctuary, for my people are of a friendly nature, and shall reward you for rescuing a fellow citizen.”
He looked at Golden Moon, surprised at her order, for though quietly spoken her tone was both confident and authoritative, as if she were accustomed to giving commands and having them obeyed, and for the umpteenth time he wondered who she was. He had asked, of course, but her clever answers had really told him nothing about her person, except that she had been captured by slavers whilst abroad.
Jarrett carefully considered her offer of sanctuary. It was very tempting, for he was only too aware of his desperate situation - stranded on an alien world with no means of going home, and on the run from indigenous authorities who were most unreasonable.
The Earthman’s plans, post-escape, were rather nebulous. He had contemplated seizing one of the enforcer craft and reprogramming it to take him back to Earth. But he quickly realized this idea was unfeasible - the ships would be heavily guarded by their robot troopers, and his knowledge of Vrom technology was of insufficient depth to modify their navigation system. The girl’s offer, it seemed, was the only viable alternative.
“As you wish,” replied Jarrett as he set the airship upon its heading. Of course he wasn’t totally naïve - Golden Moon was still a cipher: behind her large expressive eyes, he was certain, lurked a clever and cunning mind. Yes, no doubt there were depths to her he couldn’t fathom, and felt that somehow he was being drawn into a larger and more dangerous game.
I’m no coward, he thought as he piloted the vessel, but I’m not a reckless fool, either. My best strategy is to be alert, and run at the slightest signs of danger.
Hours passed, and the ship fled further into the depths of sky. Golden Moon, now robed (as was Jarrett) in garments they had found aboard, slumbered quietly in a shadowed corner of the bridge while the Earthman drowsily manned the helm. His sleepy eyes were upon the crimson star that guided him towards what fate he didn’t know, for the girl had remained infuriatingly vague about the nature of their destination. He stifled a yawn. In a few more minutes he’d wake the girl and pass the helm to her.
Suddenly, the sound of stealthy footfalls alerted Jarrett to creeping danger. He spun about. A dagger plunged. By instinct he jumped aside. The glinting blade knifed timber, stuck fast. The Earthman threw a vicious punch that struck his shadowed adversary. Jarrett’s knuckles rammed hard bronze. He cried in pain and staggered back clutching his injured hand.
Behind his mask Dark Claw grinned and wrenched his dagger free. The slaver, who had chosen to sleep aboard, had carefully hidden when he realized something was amiss. Again the Zeduran glided forward, thrusting viciously. His knife was a blur of silver in the gloom.
Once more the Earthman leapt aside. But he wasn’t quite quick enough, for the darting blade drew a burning crimson line across his flesh. Jarrett swore and lashed out with a brutal kick that rammed against the slaver’s shin. Dark Claw screeched. He dropped his dagger and fell upon the helm controls. The slaver’s arm struck a lever, and the airship plunged in uncontrolled descent.
Golden Moon slid across the deck, crashed against the helm as did the brawling men. It was a rude awakening for the girl, but her quick mind swiftly grasped the situation - the ship dropping like a stone towards destruction, Jarrett wrestling desperately with an unknown foe while the ocean and certain doom drew ever nearer.
She lunged for the fallen dagger. Dark Claw glimpsed her move. He stamped one booted foot upon her hand. Jarrett jabbed his finger through the eyehole of the mask. Dark Claw’s scream echoed Golden Moon’s tortured cry. The girl snatched up the blade with her other hand. She viciously plunged it within Dark Claw’s thigh. Again he screamed and then collapsed upon her.
Jarrett snared the lever with clawing fingers. His breath caught in his throat when he saw how near they were to the surface of the moonlit sea. The craft was dropping with sickening and fatal speed towards an ebon waste water. The Earthman uttered a choked curse. He jerked back the rod as girl and slaver fought wildly upon the deck. The sea loomed frighteningly, like the black throat of a monster.
Golden Moon gurgled. Jarrett tore his eyes from the rearing ocean. Fear gripped him. He saw the slaver had wrenched the knife from her grasp and was trying to stab her with it. The girl was barely fending off the plunging blade for Dark Claw’s other hand was clamped about her throat in a brutal strangle hold.
Instantly the Earthman hurled himself upon her adversary. Both men rolled off the gasping girl. Dark Claw struck. The ship responded and began to rise. Jarrett knocked aside the stabbing blade. It quivered in the deck. The slaver’s punch cut Jarrett above the eye. He cursed and slammed both palms against the fellow’s ears. Dark Claw screeched. He collapsed upon the deck, writhing in pain from his ruptured eardrums.
Jarrett staggered up, dashing blood from his eye, ready to face his dangerous adversary. But there was no need - Dark Claw, weakened from loss of blood, had succumbed to Golden Moon’s wiry strength. Jarrett saw her pin the man, then slit his throat and drink the spewing gore. He turned away, sickened to the core by the awful sight.
“The soul is in the blood,” explained the girl, noting his reaction. “Wherever possible we drink the life fluid of fallen enemies to absorb their strength. But I see you barbarians have different customs concerning this. Don‘t worry, I‘ll dump the corpse overboard when I‘m done.”
Jarrett shuddered, but remained silent. After all, what could he really say? Every civilization thinks its ways eminently reasonable whereas the foreigner, being different, is considered the uncultured barbarian. The Earthman knew this intellectually, but emotionally he couldn’t help but be appalled by what he saw.
**********
It was early morning when Jarrett was awakened by Golden Moon’s exultant cry. He rose quickly and moved to the helm where she stood, piloting the craft as he’d taught her, and wondered at the sudden cause of her excitement. Looking through the forward windows, Jarrett beheld a truly astounding sight several miles away.
The thing was an enormous lattice-like structure, circular in plan, whose diameter was perhaps two miles at least, and winding about the hollow rods of the enormous disc were lavender lianas of prodigious size, all bearing scarlet fruit and flowers in masses of luxuriant profusion. Also upon its plane were many cream hued buildings shaped like giant translucent beehives, each constructed from lacquered cloth stretched over a light framework of slender shafts, and in the centre of the lattice disc was another beehive structure, much larger than the rest, its towering apex adorned by an enormous fan-shaped crest of gold.
But it was not these things, strange though they were, that made the Earthman gasp in utter astonishment, for the structure floated in the sky. It was borne aloft by other growths about its expansive circumference. These plants, too, were enormous vines, but ones possessing huge black bladders instead of leaves - bladders filled with a lifting gas that kept the entire construct suspended one mile above the sea.
“What,” gasped Jarrett. “What the …”
“It is Cloud City,” replied the girl, amused at his astonishment. “It is my home.”
“Amazing … how … why was it built?”
“As an unassailable citadel,” continued Golden Moon, “as a refuge from those who would destroy us.”
“Destroy you?”
“Yes,” replied the girl, who then proceeded to give the Earthman a history lesson, the essence of which was this: About three hundred years ago a safari had set out from Diamond Bay to explore the Ochre Desert, a vast and little known region far to the south, and in its trackless waste the expedition had discovered a strange statue in the moldering temple of a ruined city – a thorny idol of unbelievable hideousness carved from polished jade with eyes of glittering rubies cut with many facets.
One fellow, consumed by avarice, had climbed the thing seeking to steal those enormous jewels that were its staring eyes. His companions cried out to him to cease this dangerous foolishness and return to the safety of the ground. But greed overruled reason. He ignored them and paid the price - he lost his grip upon the glassy stone and tumbled to his death, head smashing open upon the polished marble floor.
His appalled friends ran towards the lifeless body. It was then that the statue moved. The men gasped and stumbled to a halt, staring speechlessly. All at once they realized the terrible truth - the thing before them wasn’t insensate stone but a living being roused from its torpid state by the scent of fresh spilled blood.
The monster reared up, a towering mass of primordial nightmarish strength. Its baneful glittering eyes, alive with terrible sentience, fell upon the terror stricken men. The beast’s horrid mouth gaped wide. The explorers, galvanized by the evil sight turned and fled, bawling wild screams of utter terror. Dark gas spewed from the creature’s frightful maw. The billowing cloud caught the running men in its vaporous snare. They swooned, staggered and tumbled senseless to the earth where they lay unconscious at the mercy of the horrid beast.
For untold ages the monster had lain dormant in that ruined city, cut off by the encroaching desert, and the last of its hapless worshippers consumed by its hunger-lust. Its drooling jaws descended and prepared to feast, then hesitated. These few morsels would not last long. Perhaps more could be found. With psychic powers it probed its victim’s minds for information and formed a cunning plan.
Upon awakening the survivors found themselves in addictive thrall to the narcotic exhalations of the creature. Puppets to its will, they led the monster to their unsuspecting city, and presented it to all the Lords as a harmless curio. It promptly gassed them and all but one became its drug addicted slaves who would supply it with constant sacrifices.
Lord Azure, more cautious than the rest, had been at the fringes of the crowd. He escaped and formed a resistance movement. But the forces arrayed against him were too great, and after many months of civil war the Lord and his followers were forced to flee to the Pillars of the Sky, a chain of high mountains to the east of Diamond Bay.
Here, for a time, they found refuge. But the other Lords, worshippers of the Green God, the name they gave the monster, ordered out their warriors, for they were fanatically intent on exterminating those they considered rebellious heretics.
“My ancestors could find no rest,” summed up Golden Moon. “For the drugged breath of the monster warped its devotee’s minds, inducing an insane hatred for any who resisted it, and so my forebears were forced to escape constant warfare by building our aerial city, constructed using rare mountain plants bred to great size over a period of two centuries.”
Jarrett was amazed. It was an incredible tale, but he had no doubt that it was true, for now he remembered the expedition’s reports made hazy reference to such things, and no doubt would have confirmed them had there been greater time. But one thing still puzzled him - given the aerial nature of her home, how was it that he had found Golden Moon a slave? He asked the girl, for she was in an unusually loquacious mood.
“Our city is a wonderful thing, but it is at the mercy of the wind,” replied the girl with bitterness. “And every fifty years the currents of the sky bring it close to Diamond Bay. The Lords took advantage of this fact - they bribed the Vrom with the sea jewels we were harvesting, and in exchange obtained off world magic to construct two flying vessels. Our enemies took us completely by surprise, and now their warriors occupy our city.”
Jarrett balked at this admission. Golden Moon had promised him sanctuary, but how could one find refuge in a city overrun by enemies? He had been deceived by a string of lies! Hot rage seized him in its grip, and he told the girl what he thought of her duplicity in no uncertain terms.
“Damn your lies,” he concluded, shoving her away from the helm and seizing the controls. “You’ve led me into danger, and I’ll not stand for it.”
“Oh yes you will,” calmly replied the girl. “For last night I mixed a slow acting poison with your evening meal. The antidote is known only to my father, the king. If you wish to live, then you must help me rescue him.