At each intersection, luminous code symbols glowed through the murky gloom, but instead of three blue disks the new symbols were two red arrowheads, one above the other.
I resolved to follow these for a while and see where they led me.
Hours later, or so it seemed, I became aware of a dim illumination. It was only the ghost of light, but anything was better than the unrelieved blackness through which I had been wearily stumbling for endless stretches of time.
At length I ascertained the source of the faint luminance. The light leaked from small dime-sized orifices set along one wall of the passage at intervals of about twenty paces.
My pulses quickened at this exciting discovery!
These must be the spyholes of which Lukor had spoken. Their presence meant I had somehow retraced my steps and was back in one of the inhabited portions of the citadel again. Which meant, in turn, that I might well find a secret door or a sliding panel which would let me escape from this gloomy labyrinth into the lighted halls of the palace.
I set my eye to one of these minute openings and received a shock.
I stared into a luxurious apartment whose stone walls were hung with sumptuous tapestries. The floor was buried under heavy silken carpets of subtly contrasting colors, indigo, lavender, puce, old rose, dull silver. Instead of furniture, nests of gorgeous gold and orange cushions lay heaped about.
In the center of the room, directly opposite me, stood a most extraordinary device. A tripod of twinkling brass supported a huge orb of cloudy crystal whose interior structure was fractured into a thousand shining planes. From the axis of this crystal sphere, copper electrodes protruded, and to these were attached heavily insulated coils of wire. The instrument resembled nothing so much as a bizarre version of a television receiver.
Seated before the tripod sat none other than Prince Thuton himself.
The suave and handsome ruler of the City in the Clouds was adorned as if for carnival. His close-fitting garments were patterned with gilt and crimson and jade green. Gems flashed at earlobe and brow, throat and wrist. A half-mask of jet beads lay discarded at his feet. His hands were busily manipulating the control verniers at the base of the tripod as I gazed into the room.
A shrill anti piercing whine arose from within the mechanism. Whirling lights spun within the inner planes of the crystal orb. These lights resolved into the heavy features of a man. I had not seen that face before.
The face was powerfully molded, with a square jaw and a heavy brow. The thick neck was sunk between burly shoulders which were wrapped in a heavy cloak of some shining, crinkly-surfaced black cloth I could not identify. Beneath this cloak I glimpsed a deep and powerful chest in a warrior's leathern tunic. There was a symbol emblazoned on the breast of the tunic which meant nothing to me―a grim device, like a black, horned skull with fanged and grinning jaws and eyes of ruby flame.
The man's features were coarse, blunt, brutal, commanding. He had a greasy, swarthy complexion, his bullet head covered with lank colorless hair of a peculiar consistency. Gold baubles twinkled in his earlobes. Under scowling black brows, eyes of fierce yellow blazed with somber and wrathful fires, like the burning gaze of lions.
There was an aura of cold authority and command about this heavy, swarthy, impassive face, with its cold burning eyes and cruel lips. I wondered who the man could be. My question was answered for me almost as soon as it sprang into my consciousness.
In a suave, laughing voice, Thuton addressed the face in the globe.
"Again we converse, Arkola, and again to no point or purpose―unless you have increased the price you are willing to pay for the person of the Princess Darloona," he said.
I tensed with astonishment. So Lukor had been right―and my own convictions had been correct all along! The suave, mocking Prince of the Cloud Kingdom was indeed willing to trade the Princess of Shondakor for hard gold! My blood heated at the oily cynicism and cold mockery in Thuton's tones, and I itched to have him at the point of a sword. The outcome of our next encounter would be very different from that of our previous duel!
In a harsh grating voice, with an odd lisping accent, the personage Thuton addressed as Arkola made reply.
I say again, Zanadarian, that one hundred thousand gold bice is the limit of my resources. And I repeat that possession of the girl is a luxury to the Chac Yuul, and far from being a necessity. For, look you, I hold the city of Shondakor with ten thousand warriors of the Black Legion―what need have I of the girl, save as a means whereby to impose my authority upon her captive people, using her as a puppet for my wishes? You ask too high a price, Prince, for something I do not really need. I am the conqueror here, and I am secure in my conquest."
Thuton laughed, a vile snigger. "Boast not too loudly of conquest, O Lord of the Black Legion," he advised silkily. "For I seem to have heard that the city of Shondakor fell to the Chac Yuul through the cunning of a certain priest named Ool and not through the warcraft of the chieftain Arkola. But doubtless this is a misapprehension on my part, and you will correct me in my error."
The grim, impassive face in the crystal flushed angrily. I recalled that I had heard something of this Black Legion priest, Ool, who seemed to be the spiritual leader of the bandit legion. Lukor had mentioned him, but I had paid little attention.
This mention of a priest reminded me of something I had found a bit puzzling about the civilizations of Thanator. For a planet, or moon, rather, inhabited by races hardly advanced above the Bronze Age level (with the exception of the sophisticated Sky Pirates, of course) , the Callistans have precious little to do with gods and temples and priests. In this, I believe, they are strikingly different from similar barbarian cultures in Earth's own history who were to a high extent dominated by superstitious veneration for one or another pantheon of divinities. The Thanatorians have gods, of course, but they hardly ever think about them or speak of them, or so it seems to a stranger. The Callistan gods are referred to as "the Lords of Gordrimator," which is the name the Callistans have for their primary, Jupiter. And while they make occasional reference to these Lords of Jupiter by way of a casual oath, that seems to be about the extent of their dealings with the Divine. I have yet to see a temple or a shrine, or to meet a priest, in all my wanderings across the face of Thanator. It is but another of the many baffling mysteries of Callisto.
While my thoughts had strayed into these channels, the conversation between Thuton of Zanadar and Arkola of the Black Legion had continued, and I had missed a few words. They had been arguing over the price the Prince of the Sky Pirates had set upon the Princess of Shondakor, and as my attention returned to the confrontation, their argument came to an abrupt end as Arkola turned off his transmission. His face faded from the crystal and it became blank again. Thuton turned from the globe with a cold, mirthless chuckle and strode from the room.
And I knew that I must rescue Darloona from the clutches of this treacherous and mercenary Prince who would sell her to the conquerors of her city if her enemies could meet his price!
I forced a rather mirthless smile of my own.
That made two people I had determined to rescue ―and I, myself, was a prisoner in this secret labyrinth of stone!
If any sliding panel or secret exit existed by which I could escape the passageways into the inhabited portion of the citadel, I failed to find it. Doubtless Lukor knew of the whereabouts of such, but he was either lost himself, or imprisoned, or very possibly dead―slain in the trap of rising stone that had come between us.
I soon was lost in the lightless labyrinth again.
I roamed the winding narrow corridors of stone for hours. It must have been near dawn by this time―and at dawn began the last day of the festival, when the condemned prisoners were to be driven forth blinking into the light of day to face swift and terrible death at the fangs of ravening beasts.