Author: Kirk Straughen

Chapter 6: The Enemies of my Father

Poisoned! The shock of this terrible revelation left Jarrett feeling sick, as if the deadly toxin was already having its effect. Could it be true? The evening meal of dried fruits and vegetables had tasted strange, but he’d put that down to the viands being alien.

He looked at Golden Moon in utter disbelief. Princess or no, he‘d saved her life and this is how she‘d thanked him. She returned his shocked gaze with an imperturbable air. Her eyes, large and innocent, were deceptively free of guile, and the sight of her nonchalance at his fate fired him with towering rage.

Jarrett was upon the girl like a pouncing tiger, rough hands gripping her robe at the shoulders. “Why, you little …”

Golden Moon kneed the Earthman in the belly, cutting off his angry words. Jarrett fell. The girl gasped as her garment was torn from her shoulders by his collapse. The robe fell about her ankles as she hurriedly backed away. Golden Moon tripped upon the sundered cloth. She tumbled to the floor.

The Earthman staggered up, spitting curses and advanced menacingly upon the girl. A chill ran up her spine as she gazed upon his hate filled countenance. Golden Moon was no fool, she’d anticipated his anger, but not the fury of it - he was possessed by all the rage of a savage beast.

In a panic she kicked free the entangling robe. Her foot lashed out and struck Jarrett on the shin. He swore in pain and rage and fell upon her. They wrestled, the desperate girl trying to gouge his eyes. Jarrett caught her hands. She tried to knee him. He straddled Golden Moon, pinning her thighs with his shins.

Jarrett gazed at the girl who lay exposed and vulnerable beneath him. Her eyes were wide with fear; her shapely breasts rose and fell with each panting breath. The sight roused within the man frenzied lust - black desire clawing at all restraint. It was a dangerous moment where anything could happen.

He’s like a beast, though Golden Moon. I’m going to be ravished by an animal. Electric fear surged through her at the thought. The girl strained against Jarrett’s steely thews in a desperate bid to free herself, her supple body writhing like a serpent under terror’s lash.

Jarrett’s passions mounted at the sight. His lips found her breast. Golden Moon gasped, fear and pleasure competing for the upper hand. Slowly, her struggles lessened. Her breathing came in ragged gasps as, despite herself, she responded to his swirling tongue.

But Jarrett was no rapist. Within him, in a dim corner of his mind where he’d shoved it was the voice of conscious, still. Through the fog of lust it shouted dire moral warnings. Sudden shame cooled his passions. Rolling off the girl he lay beside her, not knowing what to say. He’d learnt something about himself, and it wasn’t pleasant.

Golden Moon scuttled out of reach. She pressed her back against the cabin wall and watched Jarrett warily. She’d been deeply shaken by this event - the first time she’d felt so helpless in the face of danger. But perhaps the most disturbing thing was her arousal. The girl looked at Jarrett, unsure of what would happen next. Slowly, she sensed the change that had come upon him as he lay in quiet introspection.

“Enough of this nonsense,” cried the girl, taking the initiative. “The poison will start to take effect within hours. If you wish to live, then save your strength to aid me in the rescue of my father.”

Her voice cut through the Earthman’s thoughts. He turned his head and looked daggers at Golden Moon. Jarrett still wanted to hurt her the way a man can truly hurt a woman, but his lusts were now caged by moral bars of greater strength.

“Very well,” he replied, his voice deceptively calm as he watched the girl quickly don her robe. “I’ll help you because I have no choice.” But God help you if you deceive me once again, he thought. Then aloud: “I assume you have a plan to save the king?”

“The central building of the city is the palace where my father is being held,” explained Golden Moon, who had now regained her composure. “The occupying forces are not numerous as there were only two airships to convey them here. But the king is hostage, and threats against his life keep my people from rebelling. We must free him first, and then the uprising can occur. Take the helm, and I‘ll guide your course.”

At Golden Moon’s behest the Earthman reduced their altitude and slowed the vessel’s speed considerably. Gradually, the disc grew in size until they passed beneath its edge, and despite the dark mood Jarrett was in, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by what he saw.

The giant lianas were incredibly light and spongy in appearance. Their gas filled bladder-leaves were enormous - each was at least a hundred feet across, and they grew in grape-like clusters that floated up towards the crimson sky. From beneath these giant vines hung lengthy curtains of hairy roots with which the weird growths trapped mineral laden dust, and drew moisture from the air.

Onward they went, slowly drawing ever nearer to the centre of the city, passing beneath other vines that bore strange pod-shaped fruit that fed the populace. Jarrett saw sudden movement and gasped in wonder when his gaze focused upon what had caught his eye: beneath the huge arrow shaped leaves of the lianas hung strange creatures, metallic purple in color. They were the size and shape of beach balls, and from their bodies sprang four spindly claw armed legs that enabled them to cling like bats to the weird vegetation.

“They are spinners,” explained the girl, noting the direction of his gaze and grateful for an excuse to break the uneasy silence that had grown between them. “The creatures feed on vine sap and in return provide us with meat, and silk from which we weave fabric for clothes and buildings.”

The Earthman tensed as hanging figures came into view, and then relaxed. They were merely laborers - men and women harvesting the heavy fruit. Both sexes were dressed in tunics and shorts of pastel hues with their limbs and faces unconcernedly exposed. Clearly, great cultural changes had taken place in those descendents of the exiles from Diamond Bay.

Suddenly, Jarrett’s speculations were brutally interrupted - a whining bolt shattered the port window. The hurtling missile buried its quivering length in the control panel. It had missed him by an inch. Then the startled Earthman swore as three masked warriors swinging from ropes crashed through other panes. The instant their booted feet struck the deck they were at him in a wild rush. Jarrett cursed. He hit the throttle lever. The craft leapt forward and its sudden acceleration sent every foeman crashing to the deck.

“Take the helm,” cried the Earthman, who guessed his failure to give some secret signal must have alerted their enemies. Jarrett dashed furiously at the trio. He brutally kicked one hapless Zeduran in the head as the man struggled to rise.

Golden Moon grabbed the levers. She glimpsed Jarrett snatch up his victim’s weapon. Another adversary leapt up and the desperate Earthman barely parried his savage thrust. Mastering her fear, the girl grimly manned the helm as the battle raged around her - the flick of darting rods and the flash of Jarrett’s sweating limbs as he nimbly dodged the forceful lunges of vicious foes.

Ahead of her the girl saw the looming structure that she sought - a hemisphere protruding from the bottom of the centre of the disc: the palace dungeons where her father lay imprisoned.

The explosive shattering of glass disturbed Golden Moon’s concentration - other warriors who had landed on the airship’s superstructure were boarding via the observation windows of the craft’s upper works. She chanced a look at Jarrett, saw him fell another foe, but the man he’d kicked had risen and swiftly struck at his unprotected back.

She screamed a warning. Jarrett leapt aside. His attacker’s rod narrowly missed and struck the man in front who was also lunging at the Earthman. The warrior screamed horribly then collapsed upon the deck, the dour epitaph of acrid smoke rising from his charred remains.

Golden Moon tore her gaze from the fierce engagement between Jarrett and the remaining warrior. The dungeon’s hemisphere rapidly approached. She must crash the vessel to breach the dome. Too fast, though, and they’d be killed; too slow and they wouldn’t penetrate.

As Jarrett leapt clear of his opponent’s thrusting rod, he heard the thud of booted feet - the other boarding party was racing madly down the narrow catwalk that led from the upper observation deck to the bridge. In but moments he knew he’d be overwhelmed by the rushing foe.

He cursed as he barely parried a barrage of furious attacks unleashed by his heartened enemy who knew help would soon be here, and if this bleak situation was not enough to add to his troubles cruel fate struck and Jarrett tripped on a corpse. The Earthman crashed upon the deck, spitting curses. He looked up and saw a tide of foemen bursting through the door in the bridge’s aft bulkhead. They came at him like a charging pack of rabid wolves.

Jarrett scrabbled for his weapon. The phalanx of the howling foe engulfed him. Fiends, hideously masked, loomed over him. The fiercely glowing gems of their thrusting rods filled his frightened stare. Jarrett stiffened in expectation of the agonizing shock. Then the ship crashed against the dome, and his enemies were hurled over his prostrate form and crashed upon the deck. Their thrusting weapons had missed him, but only just.

Golden Moon, who had braced herself against the control panel in preparation for the impact escaped its worst effects. She dashed to Jarrett’s side and grabbed two fallen rods. One warrior struggled up. She dispatched him with a speedy thrust. Others leapt at her. The girl’s wands flashed like strokes of lightning. Men fell screaming. In but moments the foe lay in smoking heaps about her feet.

“Follow me,” cried the girl as she hauled the Earthman to his feel and thrust a weapon in his hand. “We must get out before the other warriors fall upon us from behind.”

Jarrett nodded, stumbled after Golden Moon as she clambered down the ladder to the lower deck. More enemies burst into the bridge. The couple heard the curses of the surviving foe as they gazed upon their slain comrades. The wild oaths spurred man and girl to greater haste.

Golden Moon grabbed the forward ramp’s actuating lever, jerked it. It rattled down and both sprinted across its length and burst into the shambles that had been a guard room. Bodies lay strewn about - the screaming wounded, the silent dead; all scattered like ninepins by the ramming impact of the hurtling ship.

Across the room beyond the carnage was a wall of netting - a kind of prison cell, and behind it were ten alarmed and wide-eyed men - the king and his councilors.

“Father,” cried Golden Moon joyously as she dashed towards a tall, somber fellow dressed in scarlet. “Stand back, we’re here to get you out.”

Jade Star, the king, dashed forward, grabbed the netting, and was about to greet his daughter with voluminous words of joy. The girl cut him off. “Get back! No time to talk.”

The king retreated with his councilors as Golden Moon and Jarrett pressed their weapon’s blazing jewels against the netting. The cords smoked at the glowing gem’s searing touch. They fell away - freedom. But such short lived joy, for the warriors onboard the airship now poured within the dungeon to confront them.

Jade Star instantly appraised the situation. He knew that only boldness could save them now. “To the ship,” he yelled. “Cut through the devils and gain your freedom.”

The king gave a ferocious battle cry. He charged the foe, his councilors wildly surging after him. They swamped the astonished warriors in a tide of living flesh. Though armed, the enemy was outnumbered two to one, and quickly fell beneath the avalanche of savage and desperate men who hurled themselves frantically upon them.

“Grab their weapons and get aboard,” cried Jarrett as he killed another lunging foe. “Hurry, I hear reinforcements approaching from above.”

Now armed, the king and his four surviving councilors piled on the ship in a desperate rush, followed closely by Jarrett and the girl. Golden Moon grabbed a lever as the Earthman raced up the ladder to the bridge. Other warriors surged within the ruined guardroom and came at them with cries of savage rage. Then the ramp swung up cutting off the cursing foe, and the ship pulled free as Jarrett reversed her drive field and took her to a lower altitude to prevent boarders dropping down upon them as before.

Jarrett, weak kneed, leaned heavily against the helm. His heart was racing so fast he feared it would explode. Most men would have been vastly relieved at being alive after such a harrowing ordeal, but memory of the poison coursing through his blood was like the sword of Damocles above his head - a fatal blade that could drop upon him at any moment. Indeed, perhaps his weakness was not wholly due to his exertions, but the beginning of the deadly toxin’s lethal chemistry.

God, thought Jarrett, worriedly. Is it my fear of the poison, or the poison itself that is making me feel so ill?

The sound of footsteps made him turn, and he saw Jade Star and Golden Moon step upon the bridge. He looked at them, hard anger plain to see in the rigid lines of his countenance and posture. He was determined to bring matters to a head.

Jade Star raised his hand, forestalling the angry words that hovered on the Earthman’s lips.

“My daughter has informed me how she secured your aid. I’ll let her explain matters as they stand.”

“Damn all explanations,” snapped the Earthman with wild anger. “I want the antidote to the toxin, and I want it now!”

Golden Moon returned his angry stare with a somber look, and then replied with terrible finality: “There isn’t any.”

Chapter 7: A Loss Most Terrible

“Not that you need an antidote“, she added hastily. “I lied to you - there never was any poison in your food. It was merely a cunning deception to ensure your aid in rescuing my father.”

Jarrett looked at her open mouthed. His expression was a competing mixture of emotions - vast relief that he wasn’t poisoned, and anger at having been so cleverly deceived. The girl certainly was a cunning liar, and despite her father’s presence he called her several names no gentleman should ever call a lady.

“Well,” observed Golden Moon, unfazed by his hot abuse. “That certainly was an interesting combination of adjectives and nouns. But tell me, would you have helped me if you’d known the truth?”

“Damned if I would,” spat Jarrett, too angry to realize he was falling into another crafty trap. “My Trader’s Charter prevents me from becoming embroiled in the politics of other worlds.”

“Well then,” replied Golden Moon. “My deception was entirely justifiable, wasn’t it?” And then she smiled at Jarrett with such smugness that it galled him to the core.

The Earthman, so furious he was utterly lost for words, mutely glared at her with raging malice.

“Enough,” cried the king, his voice thrusting sharply into the tense silence. “There is more at stake here than you know. The Festival of the Green God approaches - a time when the Lords of Diamond Bay pay homage to their monstrous deity with bloody sacrifice. They plan to burn our city as an offering to their vile deity.

“Imagine this scene of terror if you dare: The fiercely burning buildings, the surging panic stricken crowds, the ever creeping flames from which there is no escape. Come closer with the eye of your imagination - a mother and her child trapped at the city’s edge. To the rear is a frightful plunge and to the fore stalking flames, ever nearer.

“The whimpering child looks to its tearful mother for succor. The woman‘s lips tremble for she knows there is no help. The flames, like a ravenous beast, leap forward under the lashing of the risen wind. Woman and child tumble, screaming, screaming; plunging in burning blackened forms to their deaths. Then the fire ignites the vine’s gas filled bladder-leaves and they explode in a mighty conflagration. The city falls - a burning ruin, bodies raining upon the sea, flaming debris scattered by the careless wind …

“We needed your help; we still need it for you have travelled to other worlds, and possess knowledge far beyond the limits of our horizon. Now, tell me, which is the greater crime - a lie to save our people, or this genocide that I have just described?”

The king’s passionate words, like well aimed arrows, pierced the Earthman through, and a sense of shame cooled his risen rage. He’d been so focused on his own worries that he’d given hardly any thought to a wider point of view. When faced with this grim fate his troubles seemed small indeed. But even so, should he disobey his charter and try to help these people? After all, there problems were really none of his concern.

Golden Moon watched Jarrett as he stared out the window, lost in thought. He seemed so strange to her in outward form, this barbarian. And what could she expect from the inner man? He had saved her, true, but she suspected his actions were born of self-interest and nothing more. The silence stretched, and she smiled a cynical smile - it seemed they would have to buy his aid like a common mercenary.

Jarrett stirred, and at last slowly spoke: “There are times when justice is ill served by blind adherence to the letter of the law. I’ll help you as best I can, and risk expulsion from the Curio Hunter’s Guild which, if it comes to pass, will end my livelihood.”

Jade Star warmly embraced the Earthman, much to his embarrassment and Golden Moon‘s surprise. “Well spoken. Now, take the helm and steer as I command. We must act swiftly least Red Dragon, commander of the foe, takes vengeance on my people for our escape.”

Outward and upward swiftly moved the soaring airship. It curved in an ascending arc until it glided above the floating city. Below, Jarrett saw expectant crowds stirring in the avenues and milling upon netting stretched between the apertures of the mighty lattice. No doubt some had witnessed the craft colliding with the prison, and spread news of their sovereign’s possible escape.

The throng was tense. They sensed an opportunity for rebellion. A brooding mob had gathered at the central palace. The murmuring crowd was held back by a thin line of nervous guards who tensely eyed the swarming mass as they trained their crossbows on the simmering multitude. Above them, on a balcony, stood a figure robed in scarlet. The man shouted inflaming threats at the volatile mass. Someone threw a piece of fruit. It struck the crimson man. Provoked to rage he cried an order. The crossbows thrummed. Shrill screams filled the air as steel darts tore bloody furrows through the throng.

“Its Red Dragon,” gasped the girl. “Our people - they’ll be slaughtered. Oh, the fiend...”

“Not if I can help it,” growled Jarrett. “I’ll ram the balcony. That should finish him.”

“He may escape in time,” mused the king. “Daughter, take the helm.” Then to Jarrett: “We’ll employ the same tactics as before - when the wall is breached we’ll storm the palace and capture him if he survives. Now come with me, for I need every fighting man I’ve got.”

The Earthman felt Golden Moon grip his arm as he moved away. “I’m … I’m sorry I lied to you,” she stammered. “It was an unpardonable breach of etiquette. Before, I thought you were nothing but a loudmouthed and roguish adventurer, but now I see you’re of finer cloth than that.”

Jarrett smiled. “I was a stranger to you, and my foolish bragging gave the wrong impression. You had good reason to deceive me … I would have done the same in your position” Surprisingly, he found he actually meant the words.

Golden Moon watched him go, a thoughtful expression upon her face. He was a strong man, and not just physically. She admired that. Again, her thoughts returned to that time she lay helpless beneath his brawny frame. Before, desire had been forced upon her but now she welcomed it, and had the Earthman known his word’s effect, he too, would have been most amazed.

Below, Red Dragon gazed with satisfaction on his warriors’ bloody handiwork. The crowd was fleeing in a screaming panic. Another volley would teach the rabble who their master was. He was about to shout the order when a shadow fell upon him. Looking up he beheld with icy horror the plunging ship as it dived upon him like a falcon. He did the only thing he could - he fled.

The vessel crashed against the palace. Flimsy framework snapped, fabric tore and debris fell upon the startled guards who were thrown into sudden disarray. The fleeing throng slowed their headlong flight. They gazed upon the scene of devastation. The survivors uttered the equivalent of a ragged cheer. Someone in their midst cried out to fall upon the hated foe. The mob took up the chant. They swept down upon the guards in a tidal wave of bodies. The opposing forces crashed together in a swirling, howling storm of striking fists and feet.

Above, Jarrett and the king charged across the airship’s ramp. They nimbly leapt the debris scattered upon the netting floor of the palace. The other nobles were close upon their heels. Red Dragon was to the fore, perhaps ten yards away, uninjured and madly dashing for a ramp leading to a lower level of the building. With a wild cry Jade Star leapt ahead, bouncing on the floor as if it were a trampoline.

With two mighty leaps he was upon the fiend, his deadly rod extended for the killing thrust. Then, disaster struck - Red Dragon spun about and cast a throwing knife at the king. The blade struck. Jade Star fell, pierced through the chest by the dagger, a gasping cry upon his pale lips.

Jarrett cursed. He sprang at Red Dragon in a surge of furious rage. From his garment the Zeduran swiftly drew a small glass sphere and hurled it at the rushing Earthman. Jarrett dodged, the globe missed and burst among the charging companions of the king. They staggered, clutched their throats and swiftly succumbed to the ebon gas released with the shattering of the orb.

The Earthman collided with his foe. Red Dragon staggered under the impact of Jarrett’s brawny frame. But the wily fellow had evaded his assailant’s darting rod and now he grabbed his adversary, and with a cunning twist threw Jarrett across his hip and to the floor. The Earthman staggered up to find his foe had leapt away and seized the weapon of the fallen king.

Both men began to circle warily, each looking for an opening, each aware the other was a deadly foe. Jarrett studied his opponent. Though his face was hidden, the mask Red Dragon wore reflected the inner nature of the man - a snarling wolfish thing of utter horror. Long fangs curved down from a drooling mouth. Bull-like horns thrust forward aggressively from its temples. The eyes were narrow with feral wildness. The mask was a mirror of the man who wore it - a ferocious and primal spirit knowing nothing of either mercy or compassion.

The king moaned. For a split second the faint sound drew Jarrett’s gaze. Red Dragon lunged. The Earthman swore as he parried the darting rod, but only just. Then the dual was on in earnest - a dance of leaping figures and stabbing weapons and the crack of swiftly parried blows. The air was filled with the stench of scorched cloth and flesh as the fiery jewels bestowed their burning kisses.

Jarrett gasped in agony as his foe scored a hit upon his arm. The Earthman staggered back. It was only by a tremendous act of will that he retained his grip upon his weapon and deflected the rod that leapt towards his face. With teeth gritted against the pain he flung his tortured body forward in a desperate lunge.

Red Dragon bounced upon the netting, leapt above his attacking foe and struck down with his deadly weapon. The Earthman quickly dropped upon the floor, his hair singed by the power of the blazing jewel. In an instant Jarrett was on his feet, cursing. He leapt at Red Dragon as his foe’s feet hit the netting.

Red Dragon bounced away and landed clumsily. He clutched his side where Jarrett’s weapon had briefly brushed against it. Through the netting floor the Zeduran glimpsed the mob surge within the palace. His guards had fallen beneath the fury of the throng. A cold rush of fear came upon him and he swore in pain and terror. But then his wits quickly formed a cunning plan - as Jarrett lunged he burnt through the netting floor with a sweep of his blazing rod and jumped aside. The Earthman, unable to stop his rush, landed upon the weakened section. The netting tore. Jarrett fell. He plunged with a wild cry to the floor below. He struck a wicker table heavily, and dark unconsciousness claimed him for its own.

**********

Slowly, painfully, perception returned to Jarrett. Awareness was dim at first - the sensation of light filtering through his eyelids, his aching head and the pressure of his body upon something soft. He opened his eyes and looked groggily about the enclosure. He was in a small room illuminated by light that passed through its translucent walls of lacquered cloth. He was lying in a kind of hammock suspended from the high ceiling of the chamber, and by him stood a male Zeduran, somehow familiar, and wearing an anxious expression on his wizened face.

“I am Morning Light,” said the fellow by way of introduction, “chief minister to the king. That was a nasty fall you took. Do you remember who and where you are?”

“Yes. The king … I saw him fall. Is he …”

“He is gravely wounded. Fortunately, the blade missed his heart. But even so his life hangs in the balance, or so the physicians tell me.”

“And Red Dragon, what of him?”

“I’m afraid he escaped in the airship. He must have overpowered Golden Moon, or forced her to do his bidding.”

For a moment Jarrett looked blankly at Morning Light as the implications of these words slowly dawned upon him. When they did he tried to struggle up, cursing violently as the councilor gently but firmly forced him back upon the hammock.

“There is nothing we can do,” said the noble, despairingly. “We have no flying craft to match their own. Red Dragon and the princess are now beyond our reach.”

Jarrett slumped back with a anguished groan. This terrible revelation was far more agonizing to him than his many injuries. He had grown accustomed to the presence of the girl, and the knowledge of her fate left him strangely sick and hollow. Did he love her? How could he love a blood drinking, alien savage? It seemed impossible.

Yet when he looked within himself he saw, to his amazement, that it was true. Why was it, puzzled the confused man, that this astounding realization was so late in coming? Then Jarrett remembered his father often used to say it is only when someone isn’t there that we realize the true nature of our feelings for them.

But now this marvelous emotion was not a joy; rather, a bitter torment to him - a loss most terrible that he had to face, one made infinitely worse by the realization of his utter helplessness to aid the girl he had come to love.

If only I hadn’t fallen, thought Jarrett. If only … So small these words, and yet so poignant with shattered hopes and dreams are they.

Chapter 8: On Wings of Hope

For a moment Jarrett was swamped by feelings of complete despair. A gulf of sky and the might of an entire nation stood between him and Golden Moon. This, and the fact he was a commoner and an alien to boot. And what feelings had the girl for him? He didn’t know. The only thing he was certain of is that he had to rescue her.

But how was this task to be accomplished? His mind became a dynamo of thought as a dozen schemes were quickly formulated, then discarded with equal rapidity. It seemed a hopeless task; yet he persisted and gradually a plan began to form within his mind, nebulous at first, but growing clearer as he considered it. He looked at Morning Light, speaking thus:

“I have an idea that may save all of us,” he said. “For when the Lords of Diamond Bay hear Red Dragon’s story they’ll surely sacrifice the princess, and send at least one airship to firebomb your city to make a thorough end of everyone.”

Morning Light gazed thoughtfully at Jarrett. Under normal circumstances he wouldn‘t have given this barbarian the time of day, but his people were in dire straits. They were virtually leaderless - the king was hovering on the edge of death, and Golden Moon was in captivity. The stranger was right - their enemies would soon be sweeping down upon them, and he could think of nothing to avert this looming catastrophe.

“If you truly wish to give us victory,” replied the noble, “Then you’ll have to do more than save the princess and our city. The Green God is the true power in Diamond Bay, for it controls the minds of the ruling Lords. And if this wasn’t bad enough it plans to expand its rule to other cities. The thing is bisexual, and very soon will begin to reproduce itself by way of seeds.

“These will be secretly taken to other nations by the priests, who will plant them in the wilderness, and thus the monsters will spread their rule across the globe. Red Dragon bragged to us of the plan - the enslavement of an entire world, its people nothing more than food for hideous monsters. Oh, the horror of it!

“You’ve set yourself a task worthy of a warrior from the greatest sagas of our history. Nonetheless, speak your mind. At the very least I can listen to what you have to say.”

**********

Jarrett gazed at the Hope, and ran his eyes over the smooth lines of the dirigible, which was moored in a clearing at the city‘s edge. She was an elliptical balloon of tough silk, one hundred and seventy feet in length and thirty at her greatest girth, the cloth made gas tight with a rubbery resin from vines, and distended with hydrogen siphoned from the bladder-leaves of the giant floating plants.

The balloon was wrapped in a netting of sturdy cords and from this, suspended by guy ropes, was a long, slender car - a framework of thin rods covered in silk, measuring one hundred and ten feet in length and six in width, which swelled amidships to accommodate a large treadmill ten feet in diameter whose circumference was toothed with pegs, and meshed with a geared drive shaft beneath the car that communicated the rotary motion of the treadmill to the vessel’s stern propeller.

Motive power would be supplied by four spinners - creatures of incredible strength and endurance. They would be worked in shifts - two powering the treadmill while the others rested. The vessel’s steering gear consisted of a rudder and elevator, while stability was ensured by a sliding weight that could be moved to compensate any shift in the craft’s centre of gravity.

Jarrett looked long and hard at the ship. The dirigible was well built - there was no shortage of materials or skilled craftsman - masters of working in silk cloth, and the thin bamboo-like vines used in the city’s construction. But would the craft prove airworthy? The Earthman was something of a buff on the history of aeronautics, but was painfully aware of the fact he wasn’t an aerospace engineer.

A hand touched Jarrett’s shoulder, breaking through his gloomy thoughts. He turned and saw Morning Light beside him.

“You look terrible,” observed the noble, needlessly.

Jarrett gave him a haggard smile. The Earthman had driven himself and his construction crew like a demon foreman for two days and nights with virtually no rest, working in the dark by the light of caged phosphorescent insects that served as lanterns.

And what snatches of sleep he managed were disturbed by formless nightmares, half remembered - burning cities, and Golden Moon in the clutches of some unseen horror, masked and leering; things half glimpsed through the eyes of dream. And overhanging all these terrors was a wavering phantom, more horrid for its lack of clarity - the Green God, its frightful shadow cast across the breadth of an entire world.

“How is the king?” queried Jarrett.

“He is still upon the Abyss of Eternity, and what of your ship?”

An alarm drum boomed its hollow cry. Jarrett cursed and went cold with fear - the lookouts had spotted the enemy craft approaching, and the Hope was yet untested.

**********

Red Dragon stood before the naked girl, who hung spread-eagled and unconscious in her chains, her supple body pinned against the hard, cold stone of the dungeon wall.

The lord’s lascivious gaze roved over Golden Moon’s youthful figure - the fullness of her breasts, her narrow waist and the flatness of her belly, finally lingering on the nudity of her loins, which lay exposed to his lust distended eyes. Slowly, Red Dragon’s lips curved in an evil smile. Stepping forward the Zeduran raised his ornate cane, and with it struck the princess’s thigh a savage blow.

Golden Moon jerked awake, the girl’s gasping cry echoing hollowly in the confines of the dusty cell. Red Dragon’s smile broadened at the sight of her distress, for the lord was a sadist to the core, his twisted mind the result of a cruel and loveless upbringing as a child.

“Enjoying our hospitality, are we?” He asked, his deep voice tainted with languid mockery.

The girl raised her chin in brave defiance. It was a façade of course, for who among us could not but be afraid under such threatening circumstances. Before, when she’d been his captive on the airship, knocked unconscious by a cunning blow from behind, he’d been too busy mastering the vessel’s controls to sate his lust, and when they’d landed she’d been quickly whisked away to the relative safety of this prison cell. But now Red Dragon was at his leisure, and the frightened girl could well imagine his cruel intent.

“I had no complaints up until now,” she replied in a steady voice, determined not to show her terror. “But a sudden stench has filled the air with your arrival. Do you make a habit of bathing in the sewers, my lord, or is that malefic odor the true nature of your inner being made manifest?”

Behind his mask, Red Dragon thinly smiled. “When I condemned you to slavery I thought several days gathering sea-jewels would humble the proud princess and make you more compliant to my will. I see now that I was a fool to think that would tame you. I should have raped you when I had the chance, before you were set aside as the Green God’s virgin sacrifice.”

“Rape me with what?” taunted the girl. “With that puny thing you mistakenly call your manhood?” And then she laughed at him as he raged against her in a diatribe of filthy insults.

Panting with wild fury, Red Dragon pressed his cane against the hollow of her throat, choking off her mocking laugh.

“The law demands the virgin sacrifice remain untouched,” he thickly rasped as he slowly drew his cane between the valley of her breasts. “You think yourself clever, you dirty whore, to taunt me with seeming impunity? But there are ways I can violate you without my flesh being in contact with your own.”

Golden Moon cried in sudden fear as the cane slid lower and crawled coldly across her belly. All pretence at bravery deserted her as she guessed her savage tormentor’s evil plan. Again she whimpered as the thick rod probed her navel with slow suggestiveness then dipped between her thighs and came to rest against her womanhood.

Red Dragon gloated over the sight of the writhing girl. Her sobbing cries of naked fear were a symphony to his ears. He was about to ram the cane deep within her when the cell door crashed open with jarring and unexpected suddenness.

A priest of the Green God stepped within, and with narrowed eyes surveyed the pregnant scene.

“You may leave,” he sharply ordered. “I have come for the virgin sacrifice.” These last two words clearly emphasized.

Red Dragon cursed. He hurled his cane savagely upon the floor and stormed from the cell in a swirl of sullen rage, violently shoving aside four temple guards who stood outside the chamber.

Golden Moon watched him go, but now it seemed another horrid fate awaited her – she was to be the victim of some monstrous god’s bloody sacrifice. The girl’s spirit rebelled at such a sickening thought, and a sudden plan formed within her madly racing mind - she feigned a swoon as the priest and guards approached.

“The chit has fainted,” observed one fellow. “I’m not surprised, though, considering what she has to face.”

“Is that sympathy for this heathen I detect?” snapped the priest, turning savagely upon the warrior who had spoken.

“No, no, your divinity, I merely …”

“Enough! Remove the infidel’s chains, and say no more least I report you to the High Priest’s inquisitors.”

Chastised, the shaken guard obeyed and began releasing Golden Moon from the manacles about her ankles. Then, as her wrists were freed, another warrior caught the girl’s limp form in his arms. Suddenly, she exploded into action with shocking swiftness and drove her knee into the fellow’s ribs with cracking force.

The second guard fell to her savage kick as the first collapsed in a groaning heap upon the floor. Then the remaining warriors converged upon her in a wild rush as the screeching priest dashed away.

Golden Moon cursed. She had to stop that cleric before he summoned aid. A guard lunged. The girl ducked the stabbing rod and slammed her fist into the belly of the foe. He doubled over, and she threw him into the path of the remaining warrior.

The man tripped upon his fallen comrade and crashed heavily to the ground. Golden Moon vaulted both. She pursued the fleeing priest who in his fear had not the sense to lock the door behind him. Out the cell she dashed, pausing briefly to bar the portal and then sprinted along the dungeon’s corridor. The girl’s lips drew back in a savage grin as she bore down upon the running cleric now mere yards away.

He turned his head and shrilly screamed in terror as the girl fell upon him in a bruising tackle that smashed him senseless to the floor. Golden Moon smiled as she rolled her victim over. Now she possessed a disguise - the mask and emerald vestments of the priest - by which she could achieve her bold escape.

Suddenly, from a side passage, half glimpsed forms fell upon her with unexpected savagery - other guards alerted by the cleric’s piercing cries. Golden Moon struggled wildly, but to no avail - she was overwhelmed, swamped by the tide of burly warriors that laid iron hands upon her madly thrashing limbs.

Her frantic struggles were stilled. Four guards hauled her upright while another helped the groggy priest who had risen to his knees. With aid the cleric stood and, considering his vocation, spewed forth oaths of surprising venom at the girl.

“To the arena with her,” he snapped at last, his verbal arrows having been expended.

In silence the guards dragged Golden Moon along the corridor, up a flight of steps and then within in another chamber fitted with a heavy door of solid brass. The cleric pulled a lever. The door swung wide and the girl was shoved unceremoniously upon the arena’s sands.

Golden Moon stumbled into the glare of day and the portal crashed shut behind her. Before the girl upon the sand were a spear and its companion buckler. Quickly, she fitted shield to arm, hefted the weapon and looked warily about.

The Arena of Sacrifice, which abutted the Green God’s massive open air temple, was a square two hundred yards to a side. It was enclosed by walls twenty feet in height with tiered benches rising further still, all crowded with the city’s upper class, brightly garbed, outlandish masks glinting in the noonday sun.

Things don’t look promising, she grimly thought. But if I’m going to die, then I’ll do it with as much dignity as I can manage under these circumstances.

Suddenly, the High Priest’s sonorous voice pierced the stillness of the air, and silenced the expectant murmur that had arisen with Golden Moon’s appearance.

“Behold the unbeliever, the foe who denies our god.”

The crowd jeered. Abuse was hurled along with rotten fruit, which splattered harmlessly against the risen buckler of the defiant and contemptuous girl, who returned their insults with equal potency.

Somewhere, a massive gong was struck. Its brazen cry drowned out the vociferous throng. They settled, and again the High Priest resumed his haranguing monologue.

“Be of good cheer, oh chosen faithful, for she is but the last - our airship having destroyed the flying city of her fellow infidels. Verily, the Green God’s era is swiftly dawning, for soon all nations shall tremble before his might. Now behold the horrid fate that awaits those who oppose our mighty deity.”

The crowd roared its approval as Golden Moon fought to hold back her acid tears. She thought of her father. Memories of Jarrett, too, came upon her with wistful poignancy. Her full lips quivered. She was utterly alone, surrounded by fierce enemies and soon about to die.

Again, the gong roared forth its brassy thunder and the huge doors at the arena’s furthermost end began to slowly open. The princess tensed as the inward spilling light disclosed a towering presence. She gasped as the thing stepped forth to tread its ponderous and fearful form upon the sand.

Chapter 9: The Green God

The Green God emerged from the temple’s inner sanctum, a thing of utter weirdness to the eyes of Golden Moon. Its cylindrical body, fifteen feet in height, was thickly covered in wicked thorns of prodigious size, and the spiky torso was supported in the manner of a crab by six spiny legs of equal measure that were weirdly articulated.

And at the apex of its body, beneath a wild spray of serrated leaves were six staring eyes - faceted orbs mounted on swiveling rods equally spaced about its outlandish form, and as if this wasn’t grotesque enough, at the juncture of legs and body the weird plant-monster was armed with a thorny, elephantine trunk that terminated in vicious mandibles resembling those of army ants.

At its appearance the crowd began to chant. Their voices rose to a feverish pitch as the thing advanced with silent menace upon the tensely waiting girl, who bravely stood her ground with spear and shield raised. Suddenly, the Green God lashed out with rays of psychic force. This unseen energy crashed against the mind of Golden Moon in a sickening battering ram of overwhelming power.

The girl staggered; the thing’s trunk lashed out like a cracking whip, shearing mandibles dreadfully agape. With a cry of terror Golden Moon leapt aside, but the frightful stroke struck her shield a glancing blow and sent her crashing to the ground with stunning force. She floundered upon the sand, her ears ringing from the impact and the wild roaring of the blood crazed throng’s approval.

From the stands Red Dragon looked with glee upon the dreadful scene - the towering monster, the breathless, squirming girl who lay helpless at its feet. Again, the thing’s awful jaws swept down to rend her nubile form, and Red Dragon cruelly laughed at her scream of utter terror.

**********

Jarrett carefully rechecked the patch on number three gas cell where a crossbow bolt had nicked the dirigible. The encounter with the enemy airship had ended in near disaster, and the Earthman shuddered at the memory of those nightmare moments - the mad scramble aboard the Hope, the sickening lurch skyward as her mooring line and ballast were released; then the near collision as they shot up passed the Zeduran craft as it came upon them in a frightful rush of speed.

The Earthman yelled harsh commands, and the spinners legs became a blur of motion as they spun the mill. Jarrett sweated - he’d seen the dark shapes of fire bombs hanging beneath the Zeduran’s keel and although the Hope was now quickly moving under power, in that frightening instant he knew they were no match for the swiftness of their streaking foe.

With worried eyes Jarrett saw the Zeduran ship come about in a sweeping arc. It rushed at them with the swiftness of a hawk, for the vessel’s captain was intent on first destroying this unknown threat before dealing with the city. Only the Earthman’s desperate plan could save them now.

“Steady,” he called to his nervous crew of six. “Wait for my command.”

Nearer and nearer came the enemy; tenser and tenser grew the watching men in breathless fear gripped silence. Then, the Zeduran was upon them like a diving raptor.

Jarrett shouted. The Hope’s ballista was an angry thrum as it launched a sphere of flaming oil, then the ship jerked up as more ballast fell away. It was a good maneuver, but alas not quick enough - a rain of deadly, whining bolts from the enemy swept the Earthman’s ship. One aeronaut shrilly screamed. He tumbled overboard, pierced through by a wicked barb. Other whistling missiles struck the car and sliced tough silk as if it were but tissue paper.

Jarrett heard the ominous hiss of escaping gas. Looking up he saw one bolt had rent their gas cell, and with alarm glimpsed the tear begin to widen. In an instant he was up a ratline like a gibbon, slapping glue and patch upon the leak in a desperate bid to stem the whistling flow of hydrogen. He cursed virulently - as if things weren’t bad enough already.

“They’re coming about on another run,” cried the helmsman.

“Fire at will,” yelled Jarrett, too busy to take direct command. Not that it matters much, he glumly thought.

“Can’t,” came the ballista crewman‘s frantic cry. “A bolt has struck our weapon and jammed its mechanism.”

Jarrett glimpsed the rushing Zeduran. They were defenseless and at the mercy of this hurtling nemesis. In a timeless moment a rush of memories came upon him - all his life relived, and now this act was the final chapter, grimly written.

Then, with unexpected suddenness, the attacking craft was enveloped in a ball of searing flame - the Hope’s ballista had scored a hit upon one fire bomb that now exploded as the smaller missile’s flames ignited it, thus setting off the others in a lurid chain reaction of erupting fire.

“They’re out of control and on a collision course,” gasped another crewman. “One spark from that burning hulk will ignite the leaking gas.”

“Ballast away! Release the ballast you bloody fools,” roared Jarrett as the blazing craft, in a swirl of smoke and flame, bore down upon them like a hurtling meteor.

The Hope shot up with such rapidity that the Earthman, who had at last staunched the leak, lost his grip upon the shroud. As he fell with a startled shout, one leg tangled in the lines, saving him from a fatal plunge into the frightful emptiness that lay beneath his swinging form.

Thus he hung suspended, the icy sweat of terror drenching him as the burning Zeduran shot beneath the risen Hope, and arrowed in a flaming path towards the helpless city. Had all their efforts been in vain? If the blazing hulk should strike the gas filled bladder-leaves …

This dreadful thought was upon the mind of every man aboard as with fear wide eyes they traced the stricken craft’s smoking path through this breathless moment of knifing agony.

Some men prayed, others cursed; Jarrett stared, his own peril quite forgotten in the drama of the moment. Then, just as all seemed lost the vessel plunged, dropped beneath the city in a narrow miss, and fell in a flaming dive to explode against the bosom of the distant sea…

A sharp cry from the lookout in the car below jarred the Earthman back to the present with startling suddenness. They were now above the city of Diamond Bay, and had been flying over the metropolis for some minutes. Jarrett looked down, his eyes following the trembling finger of the pointing man. He stared in gasping horror at what he now beheld.

**********

Golden Moon rolled aside, and the monster’s snapping jaws gouged sand where she had lain. She staggered up. The girl was dreadfully afraid but determined to die upon her feet. The thing drew back its deadly trunk and prepared to strike at her again. The weakened, tottering girl knew this time she could not evade its dripping maw. Then, as the trunk struck like a darting serpent, a ball of roaring flame exploded against the thing.

The Green God staggered. Its flicking member missed the girl by a foot. Looking up, Golden Moon beheld the circling Hope. She saw it launch another fiery missile that crashed against the reeling monster, and robe it in sheets of dripping fire.

Instantly, the amazed girl knew succor was now at hand, for although the flying craft was strange to her, nonetheless it proudly flew her father’s royal standard.

In the stands, Red Dragon looked on in utter disbelief - his noble deity was being attacked by godless infidels. His scream of hateful rage echoed the raving throng’s hellish cries of wild fury. Golden Moon and all she stood for became the focus of his hell-borne anger. He leapt upon his feet, a bestial cry bursting from his lips. Weapon drawn, the raging lord flung himself across the parapet and to the arena’s sandy floor. With a hissing cry he charged towards Golden Moon, his blazing rod thrusting for her unprotected back.

Above, Jarrett’s attention was focused on another danger - the remaining Zeduran airship which, having espied their approach was now swiftly bearing down upon them - a rushing nemesis.

“Hard to starboard,” Jarrett cried. Too late - the enemy shot his winging barbs just as the Green God launched its own attack. The monster’s trunk whipped up. It spat forth a gob of spittle that burst into lurid flame as it arched towards the Hope.

From the corner of her eye, Golden Moon sensed Red Dragon’s wild rush. She spun about. Her buckler deflected his savage thrust. The maddened lord crashed against the girl and both tumbled to the sand.

Above, a cry of wild fear burst from Jarrett’s throat as his craft’s gas cells were slashed by whining bolts. The vessel dropped, the Green God’s flaming spittle missed. It exploded against the Zeduran airship’s bridge in a conflagration of roaring fire.

The enemy vessel plunged erratically, streaming smoke and flames. The crowd panicked. Their shouts of anger turned to piercing cries of fear, for the burning airship was heading directly at them. The throng stampeded like wild cattle as they scrambled for the exits. The screams of hapless souls rent the air as they were trampled underfoot.

Suddenly, the airship swerved in its uneven flight and crashed against the Green God like the fist of an avenging giant. The monster was hurled aside. It spun like a tossed stick and smashed against the ground. Then the hurtling craft collided with the stands and exploded thunderously in whirling fragments that dripped smoke and fire.

Flaming debris rained about Red Dragon as he struggled with the girl. His hands closed about her throat. He was oblivious to the chaos swirling round him. Golden Moon’s clawing hands vainly sought her spear - it had fallen out of reach. In utter desperation she struck the Zeduran several vicious blows, but the crazed lord in his towering rage was virtually immune to pain.

Golden Moon sensed the end. Her maddened blows grew weaker. Fell darkness gathered thickly in her vision. Red Dragon’s lips spread into a horrid grin as he watched her fear wide eyes commence to glaze in death, her heaving breasts begin to still.

Jarrett clutched the lines as his vessel plunged in a dizzy spiral. He caught kaleidoscopic glimpses of the chaotic scene below - the surging, fear crazed crowd; the plunging enemy ship, its crashing impact against the monster and the sickening sight of scattered and broken bodies. But the thing that shot him through with jolting fear in that brief instant before the Hope smashed to earth was the awful sight of Red Dragon strangling his beloved.

Chapter 10: Endings and Beginnings

The Hope struck with jarring force, but one not hard enough to kill or badly injure. Jarrett struggled up from where he had been flung upon the sand. He reeled, then staggered clear of the collapsing gas bag that threatened to envelop him in its smothering shroud.

Dizzily, Jarrett stumbled towards Red Dragon, drawn dagger glittering in his fist. He feared he was too late for the girl lay limp beneath her straddling, sadistic foe. The Earthman loomed above the enemy‘s unprotected back and struck with savage vengeance, but lost his balance to vertigo as the dagger flashed through its vicious arc.

Red Dragon screamed a tortured cry as the wicked blade sliced a searing line across his back instead of thrusting to the bone. The startled lord cried again as the giddy Earthman crashed upon him. His other shout was cut off as Jarrett caught him by the throat. But the wily Zeduran fought clear with thudding elbows that knocked his snarling opponent to the sand.

Through spinning vision Jarrett saw the hissing lord grab his dagger. Then the wild Zeduran fell upon him, his blade plunging in a vicious arc. The Earthman seized his opponent’s wrist and barely stopped the diving blade. Spitting curses, both combatants rolled across the sand and collided with the dying girl.

From peripheral vision Jarrett glimpsed the awful sight. He knew with dreadful certainty his love’s life hung in fate’s precarious balance, which tipped towards Death’s favor with every passing second. Infused with manic strength, Red Dragon inched his blade towards the weakening Earthman’s throat.

“You’ll join her soon,” he snarled with unrepentant glee.

Jarrett screamed defiance. With a surge of utter fury he broke the hold Red Dragon had upon one wrist, and struck him such a blow his mask came flying off. Red Dragon gazed in horror at the sky, his naked face exposed to the shimmering auroras all his people thought were evil spirits. It was a brief distraction, but fatal nonetheless - once more the Earthman’s iron fist slammed with sledgehammer force against his adversary. The Zeduran fell, skull fractured by the violence of the blow.

Jarrett flung the dying man away, turned towards the girl. She was pale, lifeless. Fear crawled through him - a mass of dark and writhing agony. Immediately, he began CPR, praying her physiology was not radically different from his own.

The Hope’s surviving crew struggled free of the collapsed gas bag and came to watch his frantic efforts in helpless silence. The minutes tensely dragged as the sweating man feverishly worked to save Golden Moon.

“Come on“, he grunted. “Breathe, damn it. Don’t die on me.”

At last, when all seemed lost, she coughed and her eyelids fluttered open, and Jarrett breathed a sigh of vast relief. Such short lived joy - the sound of ponderous steps drew one aeronaut’s startled gaze.

“The Green God,” he shouted fearfully. “It’s still alive.”

Jarrett cursed as he looked up and saw the thing had risen to its feet. The monster swayed drunkenly, white gore oozed from its cracked integument as it advanced unsteadily towards them. It was badly wounded, but nonetheless alive. Outnumbered and exhausted, what chance had they against the incredible vitality of such a being?

It lashed them with mental force. Jarrett’s men clutched their heads. They collapsed in screaming heaps upon the sand. The Earthman sagged. He fell upon the crying, writhing girl. Had he saved her only to watch he die again? Jarrett raised his leaden arm as he fought against the waves of searing agony that sought to drown him in an abysm of horrific pain. He knew he only had one chance as he pointed at the nightmare thing that loomed above him.

Its trunk swung down, savage jaws agape. Then a needle ray of actinic light exploded from Jarrett’s fingertip. The searing beam scored a savage line of lancing fire up the beast and split it down the middle. The Green God staggered. Its frightful jaws ploughed sand mere feet from Jarrett’s head as it uttered a psychic scream of such tremendous force it wrenched the minds of every soul in Diamond Bay. Then the monster slowly toppled, and rocked the earth with the thunder of its ponderous fall.

Silence banished the echoes of its death. Jarrett lay upon Golden Moon. Like the others they had been stunned by the monster’s dying cry. Slowly, the Earthman became aware of a shadow passing over him - another deadly threat? He hoped not, for the pulse weapon implant in his hand and arm was good for one shot only. Looking up, Jarrett beheld with vast relief the Vengeance, sister ship to his ruined craft, which had been completed several hours after Hope’s departure.

“We’re safe now,” he gently said to Golden Moon as he stroked her furry head. The girl looked at him and smiled trustingly.

**********

Twenty days had passed and much had happened, reflected Jarrett as he stood upon a high balcony of the sprawling, labyrinthine palace of the Lords of Diamond Bay. A glowing, azure speck rose upwards from the distant spaceport’s landing field - the soaring flight of the Vrom ambassador’s pyramidal craft. Its departure drew the Earthman’s troubled gaze and stirred his memories of their meeting earlier in the day.

They had conversed in the cyclopean audience hall of the palace, unattended and without ceremony. The ambassador, Mejur by name, resembled a horse-sized elephant, but with two trunk-like members that ended in dexterous, three fingered hands. Its back and sides were sheathed in ebony armour composed of bony discs. The being lacked tusks. Its ears were like that of a fennec - pointed and mobile. The large, brown eyes were forward facing and in them was undeniable intelligence, a sharp contrast to its inhuman animalistic appearance.

The conversation, mostly a monologue conducted by Mejur, was long, flowery and circuitous, as was to be expected, for the Vrom are an effete culture and elaborate oratory is, for them, the status symbol of a sophisticated being. Jarrett was no fool though. Beneath the elaborate flow of diplomatic verbiage was an undercurrent of menace - a deadly serpent lurking beneath the scented rosebush.

In essence, the Vrom knew their illegal trafficking of advanced technology to the Lords of Diamond Bay had been exposed, and they wished to convey to the Earthman their firm conviction that it would be most unhealthy if he left Zedur, for if United Worlds were to hear of “this unfortunate incident“, as Mejur labeled the blatant contravention, it would cause much embarrassment for the ambassador’s government, which would be a very bad thing indeed.

There were other things left unsaid that Jarrett could surmise. The Vrom would no doubt find some reason to quarantine Zedur, banning all contact with other worlds, and no spacer would care to tangle with their deadly Enforcer ships. As for his disappearance - he’d simply be another statistic: one more reckless adventurer who vanished without a trace into the measureless expanse of the stellar immensity.

Still, it could be worse - the Vrom could have killed him, and he was grateful that although they were effete hedonists to the core, a callous disregard for sentient life wasn’t among their faults. If he stayed put and kept his mouth shut he’d be safe enough.

It irked Jarrett, though, this isolation from the concourse of interstellar civilization, and the knowledge his friends and family would grieve over his seeming death. He grew morose and brooded meditatively, lost in thought.

After a time, a presence impinged upon the Earthman. Jarrett turned and saw Golden Moon quietly observing him. The girl now ruled Diamond Bay in her father’s name, for although Jade Star was recovering from his wound, he was yet too weak to assume the responsibilities of government.

And indeed the city needed governing, for its former lords were slowly dying - with the Green God’s demise they had no access to the narcotic vapors it supplied, and were now succumbing to frightful withdrawal symptoms. Not surprisingly, as the commoners were the sacrificial victims of the god, there was considerable rejoicing at this change in leadership.

“You are troubled,” observed Golden Moon as she approached. “I sense the strange lord from the stars has forbidden you to leave our world. You shall never see those you love again, and you think that before you stretches a barren waste of lonely years. But it need not be this way,” she continued, placing a hand upon his arm and looking at him meaningfully.

Jarrett returned her gaze. His expression was a mixture of hope and doubt. He loved the girl, true, and sensed she had developed something like affection for him. But for all her apparent humanness she was alien - they had visited the reopened Temple of Destiny,* a kind of fortune telling shrine, and he had watched her gaze upon its mind destroying arabesques, and had seen the look of ecstasy upon her face, as if the carvings’ twisting forms were a mystic window to some other universe, one that no human mind could ever truly share.

Given such mental differences, he bleakly thought. Is there any hope for our relationship? Oh, how strange it is for me to think this way when before I saw all women as just a source of sexual pleasure.

Golden Moon seemed to sense his doubts. She leaned against him, and the warmth of her body was a balm to his troubled mind. They kissed - tentatively at first, then with passion. Shortly, as the temple seer had predicted, both discovered to their mutual joy that, despite all differences, they were not so very different after all.

* Endnote: During the domination of the priests of the Green God all other religions were suppressed and went underground, being kept alive in secret. The Temple of Destiny, which is located in the Avenue of Gods, is devoted to the art of fortune telling. Intricately ornamented, the building consists of a long, narrow, colonnaded hall, with imposing doors of bronze at either end.

Petitioners enter the temple by the northern doors, where a donation is made to an attendant priest who provides them with a stylus and wax tablet. Then, passing through the anteroom, the worshipper enters the temple proper whose eastern wall is lined with three golden idols, each spaced about forty feet from its neighbor.

These idols are very ancient, and represent the three Goddesses of Fate, whose names may be roughly translated as follows - The Mother, The Sorceress, and the Queen. Each of the statues stands upon an altar, left arm outstretched with index finger pointing at a wheel mounted upon the wall. These wheels, constructed from the silvery wood of the mirror tree, are six feet in diameter, and each has a different set of twelve mystic symbols carved around its circumference.

The petitioner approaches the first idol (The Mother), recites ritual prayers to the goddess, then spins the wheel three times, each time recording the symbol that aligns with the statue’s finger when the wheel stops. This rite is repeated at each of the remaining idols, and the wax tablet inscribed with the nine mystic symbols is then given to a seer enthroned at the temple’s southern doors. This personage then provides an interpretation to the petitioner in obscure verse the supplicant invariably rationalizes, and thus what is otherwise nonsense becomes significant to them.

If the petitioner feels the prophecy portends misfortune, then the calamity may be averted by destroying the wax tablet in the sacred fire that burns on the altar of The Sorceress, the act accompanied by ritual prayers to the goddess.

An Appendix on the Origin of the Green God

The being known as the Green God was not a native creature of Zedur. This fact, however, could not have been known to the monster, or any of the characters in the story due to reasons that shall now be elucidated for the perplexed reader’s edification.

The universe is vast, its worlds a multiplicity of spheres - laboratories upon which Nature spawns life in innumerable forms. Imagine one such orb circling its fiercely glowing sun - a planet of fuming swamps and erupting volcanoes, a world of continuous violent storms that split the roiling air with jagged swords of flaring light.

Shallow, highly radioactive seas covered this nameless globe, merging with the land in a morass of boiling mud and slime, and upon the drier soil plant-like things did grow. But they were not at all kindred spirits to the mild verdure of other worlds. Huge, monstrous, terrible nightmare forms - things of writhing tentacles armed with razor spines and dripping fangs that tore at one another like savage beasts driven mad with rabid hunger.

It was a ferocious, fecund crucible, this whirling orb - a place of untrammeled life possessed of a seething and lurid vitality, unsurpassed. Violent, too, was its sudden end - from the depths of unknown space came a hurtling planetoid that smashed against the globe with titanic force. Both bodies were torn asunder by the frightful cataclysm - whirling fragments, wrapped in smoke and flames, were strewn forth across the void in all directions.

For untold ages one small rocky piece tumbled in aimless flight across this sea of stars - the drifting flotsam of a ruined world that bore one tiny, tenacious seed if life. Many things could have happened to this fragment - it could have plunged to a fiery end within a blazing star, crashed to ruin upon the airless shore of a barren moon, or lost its way within the glowing shrouds of a blazing nebula. But the whim of callous gods, or perhaps blind, uncaring chance steered its course towards Zedur instead.

Through this orb’s sky plunged the rugged rock - a flaming meteor. It exploded in the ruby zenith, released its alien seed that drifted gently to the ground, taking root within the loamy soil of a farmer’s field. The creature, a curio to the unsuspecting people of the region, grew to adulthood in the manner of a tree, and by means likewise to that of Diamond Bay, seized control of the nearby city when mature. The rest, dear reader, is largely known to you, so this is all that need be said upon the matter.

THE END