Or so I thought at the time.
Our captors hurried us along through the thick underbrush and then thrust us into the most peculiar contraption.
It was like nothing more than an immense wicker basket woven of tough river reeds and stiffened with ribs of a light, fibrous, hollow, and tubular wood that resembled bamboo in all respects save that of coloration.
This basket was large enough to hold fifteen persons, as was shortly proved. For the dozen or so men who had seized us, together with the yellow, slant-eyed dwarf in neutral gray, and a young woman of aristocratic and even imperious bearing and hauteur joined us within the inexplicable enclosure.
I had naturally expected to be bundled into the saddle of a thaptor, for how else could our kidnappers hope to bear us away from swift and certain rescue? But the immense basket sat on the thickly grassed ground. It proved not even to be a wickerwork chariot as I had thought it to be at first glance. No, the huge light thing of woven reeds was hung from the branches above, for long woven cables or ropes went up from the rim of the basket into the leafy gloom above our heads.
What in the world did our captors hope to accomplish by this inexplicable act? I exchanged a wide-eyed glance and eloquent shrug with Ergon and Darloona. Were we in the hands of a pack of raving madmen? Did they hope to hide thus from the gaze of our rescuers? That was absurd and ludicrous: Valkar and the others would comb every square inch of this stand of trees until they found us.
As yet not one of our captors had so much as uttered a single word.
Now the imperious young woman who had joined us in the basket delivered a command in a sharp, clear voice.
“Cut us free, Zapur!”
One of the warriors plucked a hooked knife from his girdle, leaned from the basket, and began to saw at yet another rope. This rope was tied about the lower trunk of the nearer of the sorad trees. Simultaneously, another warrior leaned out from the other side of the basket and began cutting through a second rope, secured about another sorad trunk on the other side.
Surely, our captors were deranged! Their actions simply made no sense. And yet, with what cunning and sense of timing the red men had planned and carried out their plot! A cold little wind of intuition blew against the back of my neck.
A moment later, my intuition proved valid.
Our captors were not insane. Indeed, they knew exactly what they were doing.
For me jerked loose from the ground and swung up into the air!
Ergon and Darloona were struck wide-eyed with amazement. What was happening seemed to them inexplicable and utterly astonishing. I, too, was astonished; but I alone understood what was happening … and my former confidence at the certainty of a swift and easy rescue emptied from me on the moment, to be replaced by a growing fear …
For, while I had thought the only aerial transport known to the denizens of Callisto to be the flying ships of the Zanadarian pirates, this type of lighter-than-air craft had been used on my native Earth for generations before I had been born.
In short―we were riding in a balloon!
The capacious wickerwork basket was suspended by woven cables from a huge air tight gasbag filled, I suppose, either with heated air or with some gas akin to hydrogen or helium. The balloon itself was of some shiny woven material like oiled silk or wax-impregnated linen. Painted black, it had been invisible to us in the darkness of the copse, hidden among the black foliage of the sorad trees. Once cut loose, it swung aloft in instants. Now we cleared the topmost branches of the tall trees and floated free on the winds of the upper air.
The clump of trees dwindled beneath us. At the very edge of the copse I saw some of our would-be rescuers riding into the woods. Of course, it never occurred to any of our friends to look up and to search for us in the clouds!
I understood now why we had been so tightly and thoroughly gagged. And, remembering my former aloof amusement at our pointless captivity, and my bland assumption that rescue and vengeance lay only minutes away, I felt the sickening impact of worry, as the grim realization of how desperate our situation actually was came home to me.
But there was nothing I could do about it … at least for the present.
The young woman was laughing in delight and excitement at the success of the coup. Triumph flashed in her eyes as she exchanged a few words with the yellow dwarf, then glanced over at me with amusement. I eyed her grimly, inwardly furious.
She was a curious figure, I realized. Young and very beautiful, with the red skin of a Perushtarian. But, like the others, she was no Perushtarian, for the long silken banner of her glistening black hair floated on the winds about us. She wore an odd gown in a style unfamiliar to me, a light garment of silken stuff, tightly stretched across her breasts and fastened with a jeweled brooch over one shoulder, leaving the other shoulder and arm bare. She was, quite evidently, a woman of considerable wealth and importance, for expensive gems flashed at throat and ear,. rings of precious metal adorned her slender hands, and a coronet of odd design encircled her brows, flashing with precious stones.
But I had not the slightest notion of who she was. To the very best of my memory, I had never laid eyes on her before in all my life, and I had no idea of why she had kidnapped us.
It was very obvious that the young woman was in command of this situation. The stolid-faced, bowlegged red warriors deferred to her with every token of awe and subservience. Even the little yellow dwarf with the slitted black gaze seemed in her service. She stood, tall, lithe, and laughing, one jeweled hand clinging to the guide ropes of the balloon, imperious and triumphant as a queen.
But queen of what―and where?
Few and widely-separated are the cities of Thanator the Jungle Moon. Several of the civilizations that share this world between them are wandering and homeless nomad peoples, like the insectoids of the Yathoon Horde or the bandits of the now-disbanded Chac Yuul legion. Our only enemies, the Sky Pirates of Zanadar, we had but recently destroyed, laying their city in ruins. And they dwell in the White Mountains, far away to the northwest. The red empire of the Perushtarians is situated many korads to the northeast of Shondakor; and the four Perushtarian cities of Farz, Narouk, Soraba, and imperial Perusht itself, are widely scattered about the shores of the landlocked sea of Corund Laj. The nearest of the seven cities of Thanator to golden Shondakor is the city of Tharkol, which stands amidst the equatorial plains in the eastern extremity of the hemisphere.
With none of these seven cities is Shondakor currently at enmity, much less at war. With the exception of the Perushtarian merchant empire, the cities of Callisto are lone and individual sovereignties. Our relations with the city-states of Ganatol or Tharkol, for instance, are few; we exchange no ambassadors and we indulge in no trade or commerce. Both cities are vastly inferior to golden Shondakor in size, wealth, or power. For either metropolis to contemplate war with the Golden City of the Ku Thad would be absurd. They would have nothing to gain and everything to lose, for, having but recently broken the power of the Chac Yuul bandit legion, and having for all time exterminated the aerial corsairs of distant Zanadar, we have in recent months emerged as the most powerful nation on this planet.
Only the red empire of the Perushtarians are more numerous than the Ku Thad in terms of populace, and more wealthy. But the red men of Perushtar are the least warlike of all the nations of Thanator. They are a nation of tradesmen, a mercantile civilization like that of the ancient Carthaginians in the remote history of my own world.