And, indeed, why should I not go? This world is strange to me, and every man desires at last, however far he has traveled, to go home.
What, then, is there to keep me here? Koja and I have long since discharged our debts of uhorz in service to each other―he set me free and provided me with a thaptor, twice, as I recall; and I rescued him from death in the great arena of Zanadar at peril of my own life. We are quits; or, rather, say that we are friends now, with all debts canceled.
And I do not think I owe anything to Lukor, although I will always be grateful to him for his hospitality and his friendship. But I feel no guilt at being the cause for which he fled from the City in the Clouds, leaving behind his home, his work, and everything he possessed. For in truth he did it gladly, willingly, of his own volition, the act prompted more by his romantic love of adventure and derring-do, I think, than for me.
Yes . . . I could step between those pillars of carven stone the day after tomorrow, and return again to my home and the planet of my birth.
But I cannot!
Instead, after I add a few final touches to this manuscript, and bundle it securely, with a covering sheet that requests the finder to deliver it to my old friend Major Gary Hoyt in Saigon and claim a reward, I shall toss the bundle of closely written pages within that lambent shaft of occult radiance. Old Zastro, the wise man of the Ku Thad, who has studied the weird phenomenon of the Gate Between The Worlds, assures me that only organic material can be carried from one world to the next within the beam. That explains why I materialized on the surface of Thanator as naked as in the hour of my birth . . . my clothing, boots, everything, even my identity tags and my wristwatch, were of nonorganic substances like metal or plastic or synthetic cloth. Thus they were left behind in the Lost City of Arangkor, while I flew through space as a cloud of dematerialized force.
But the manuscript is completely organic in nature, the paper a crude reed papyrus, the ink a distillation of the fluidic secretions of a squidlike river beast. Hence the manuscript should be transported successfully to Earth. It may molder undiscovered and unread for years, until rain and sun and decay render it forever undecipherable. I only hope that such is not the case, for it seems to me that I have undergone the most remarkable series of adventures within the span of human knowledge, and I feel it my duty to pass along some account of the mysteries and marvels I have discovered here upon this strangest, most terrible, and yet most beautiful of all worlds.
I shall watch the disappearance of my manuscript with a mingling of emotions my reader, if any, can doubtless imagine for himself.
For while my written account of my months upon Thanator voyages between the worlds, eventually, I hope, to rematerialize on the Earth―I cannot!
For one debt remains undischarged. One obligation yet holds me its helpless prisoner.
The knowledge that I could never turn aside from this quest came to me, weeks ago, there at the eastern borders of the black and crimson jungles, when with Koja and Lukor I stared at a sight of nameless and profound horror.
And in all the days since then, to this very hour, I have not been able to forget that terrible vision.
Nothing that has happened since then is worthy of much in the way of recording. Hopelessly, my comrades and I turned aside from the sight that we had seen, to reenter the Grand Kumala. Days later we encountered a hunting party of Darloona's people, the Ku Thad. At first we were in danger of imminent death, for upon this jungle moon the hand of ―every, man is lifted in eternal enmity against every other man. But when we divulged that we had accompanied the Princess of Shondakor out of captivity and had made ourselves her friends and protectors, we found ourselves very welcome among the Golden People, whose leader, the Lord Yarrak, Darloona's uncle, had long since thought his niece the Princess slain by some jungle beast.
And so we joined forces with the exiled Ku Thad. Learning of my desire to find again the Gate Between The Worlds, they escorted me to it, for they know it well, as they know all the paths and byways of this mighty jungle. And so, ironically, I found that for which I had yearned so long, now that I could no longer use it!
Yarrak himself suffers from a deep and personal sorrow; yet is he gentle with me for cause of mine own. He drew from me gently my account of the terrible thing we had seen―the thing I have been so reluctant to describe in cold words. Knowing now what I know, he too understands why I cannot again retrace my weird and magical flight between the worlds to the planet of my birth.
For I am chained to this world until such time as I shall know the truth. Until at last I have learned of the ultimate fate of the Princess Darloona, whether she be yet alive or whether her young and lovely body is cold and stark in the grip of death.
Never shall I forget that terrible moment when, with Koja and Lukor at my side, I peered through the edges of the jungle and looked upon a broad and fertile plain in whose midst arose the mighty ramparts of a walled city of stone.
"It is Shondakor itself," Koja said in his expressionless metallic voice. Shondakor―!
I gazed upon the splendid metropolis with amazement . . . upon the lofty towers, the splendid mansions and palaces, the broad and level boulevards, the soaring structures of intricate and heavily ornamented architecture, worked with snarling masks and carven pediments and spiral columns and long arcades. Pale golden shone Shondakor under the brilliant skies of dawn, its great structures mirrored in the broad river that flowed beneath its mighty walls, a river I knew to be the Ajand.
One narrow bridge of carven stone spanned the breadth of this broad river, ending at the bastion gate of the walled city.
Lukor seized my arm with a stifled cry.
"Look!" he exclaimed. "Is it not―?"
I looked―and felt my heart lift with a tremendous joy. For she was not dead, slain in the trackless jungles by some slavering reptile, some savage predator―she lived!
I watched as Darloona, her glorious flaming hair fluttering like a scarlet banner, rode across that bridge to the frowning gates amid a mounted escort of small, swarthy soldiers clad in leathern tunics blazoned on chest and back with the emblem of a horned black skull with eyes of red flame.
And then my heart, which had lifted on the wings of joyous hope, sank into the darkness of profound depression.
For these were warriors of the Chac Yuul―the Black Legion!
And I watched hopelessly as the woman I suddenly knew I loved more than my life itself was borne, a helpless captive, into the gates of the very stronghold of her deadliest enemies!
The gates closed behind her with a clang of ominous finality. And I never saw her again.
And it is here, at this unfinished point, without any further note, that the curious manuscript of Jonathan Andrew Dark comes to an abrupt end. Shall we ever learn the rest of his amazing story? Somehow, I doubt it. For in all these months, no further word has come from that distant, mysterious world of unknown terrors.
―LIN CARTER