“Kneel ye in the presence o f Zamara the Magnificent, supreme and unchallenged Empress o f all Callisto!” he boomed out in a deep, rolling voice.
As a field of wheat bends all at once beneath the unseen pressure of a mighty wind, so did all that vast throng of courtiers fall to their knees before the tall throne. Only we three captives remained standing.
Zamara caught our astonished gaze across the vast and glittering hall, and smiled a sly and mocking smile.
“The Prince and Princess of Shondakor and their servant may advance to kiss the feet of their Empress,” she called sweetly.
Ergon growled deep in his barrel chest, but whether it was from the affront of being called our servant, or from the insult to Darloona and myself, I do not know. As for myself, my fists balled and my jaw settled truculently.
Darloona, however, reacted splendidly. She was royalty born, whereas I was but royalty by marriage, if you know what I mean. She drew herself up splendidly, and made no reply. But the contempt she did not express in words was eloquent in every line of her body.
She was superb! Again I was grateful to the fate that had earned me the love of such a woman.
After a moment of eloquent silence, she spoke. The calm tone of her voice and the serenity of her expression belied the fury that must have seethed and roiled within her breast.
“The Princess of Shondakor will be pleased to extend the hand of friendship to the Princess of Tharkol,” she said tranquilly, “in the name of the bonds of mutual respect that have always existed between our cities … and of the peace between them which has, heretofore, remained unbroken for a thousand years.”
The rebuff was exquisitely delivered. Zamara flushed a deeper crimson and bit her lower lip in vexation as a gasp of startled shock went murmuring through the vast and echoing hall. Doubtless Zamara had thought to shame or fluster my beloved in contrast between their persons―Zamara enthroned in a glamour of incredible magnificence, at the height of her imperial power―and Darloona disheveled, in rude hunting costume, her glorious mane tousled and uncombed, her regalia left behind. But such did not occur. The innate majesty and queenliness of my beloved put to shame the ostentation flaunted by the bejeweled, self-styled “empress.” And―what made it all the worse for Zamara―she knew it. And so did everyone else in the room.
We were returned to our apartment and spent the remainder of that day in seclusion. Despite her small victory over Zamara, my Princess was in a perfect fury at this outrage, and paced the length of the room like a caged tigress, boiling with rage. Ergon and I sat together conversing in low tones, discussing our present predicament and our chances of somehow getting out of it.
Although she said nothing about it, I think Darloona knew by now that the host of Shondakor was not going to arrive before the walls of Tharkol in an hour or two, or even a week or two. The very real danger into which chance had thrust us had dawned upon her at last, as it had long since dawned upon Ergon and myself. Darloona’s royal fury at the outrage kept her, for the moment, too busy to think out the implications of our imprisonment. But Ergon and I knew them well.
For even if Darloona’s uncle, Lord Yarrak, did in fact discover our whereabouts and march to lay siege to Tharkol with the host of the Golden City, it would be stalemate. Zamara would display us on the walls and threaten to have us tortured to death before the entire army of Shondakor unless it surrendered―and, I very much feared, it would surrender. The person and safety of the Warrior Princess was sacred to the Ku Thad, and Zamara of Tharkol knew it well.
But there was another element in our predicament that tormented me. And that was the character of Zamara herself. We were prisoners, completely at the mercy of a megalomaniac who, drunk with pomp, pride, and power, had somehow managed to convince herself that she was destined to dominate the entire planet, and did not hesitate to entitle herself Empress of Thanator.
In a word―she was mad.
And there is simply no arguing with an insane person … especially if you happen to be helplessly in her power.
There was no telling what she might do. Because, in her madness, folly, and blind egoism, she was liter ally capable of doing anything!
Hence it was imperative that we make our escape at once …
I have to laugh, looking back on it all. How many times have I read in fantastic fiction of a hero in a similar predicament to that in which Darloona and Ergon and I now found ourselves. Edgar Rice Burroughs, in his wonderful Mars Books, has thrust the valiant John Carter into the clutches of a Barsoomian jeddak a thousand times (indeed, I can’t remember a single one of his marvelously entertaining novels in which the hero is not made somebody’s prisoner at least once in the course of the narrative!), and the ingenuity of the various means whereby the greatest swordsman of two worlds escapes from whatever durance vile he finds himself in has never failed to amuse and entertain me.
But in real life, I am sorry to say, things are very different.
Our cell, though sumptuous, was still a cell―a chamber walled with solid stone, against which the strength of fifty men would exhaust itself without effect. The windows gave forth on a tantalizing vista of wall, street, and rooftops―but were heavily and securely barred with grilles of dense metal, impervious to anything lesser than a battering ram. At least a dozen guards were posted at the only entrance to our suite during every moment of the night and day, and even were I armed and free, it would take a superman to hew a path through so many mailed and vigilant warriors.
No, we were captives, and bound to remain so for the immediate future!
Worn out with futile plans and schemes, we listlessly nibbled at the platters of exquisite viands set out for us, and one by one went to our couches to seek such rest as weary minds might find.
It was several hours later when I came suddenly awake. The room was drowned in darkness, but the window was a tall rectangle of lucent silver lit by the gorgeous orb of Ramavad.
I could not at once think what it was that had so suddenly awakened me. But awake I was, quivering and tense and alert, as if, for all the depth of my exhausted slumbers, some unsleeping faculty had remained on watch, and had roused me as it sensed the stealthy approach of some unseen danger.
There it was again―that furtive ghost of sound!
The slither of sandal leather on naked stone.
And then I froze, every sense thrumming, as if suddenly a gout of ice water had sluiced me from head to foot.
For a man was standing near the head of my couch―I could see the outline of his black―cloaked figure etched in luminous silver from the moonlight streaming through the window―and it was neither Ergon nor Darloona.
Some unknown and mysterious stranger had made his silent, stealthy way into the room by dark of night, and crept towards me in the gloom.
I sprang from my couch and was upon him in a single bound.
And in the very next instant, I was fighting for my life!
Book Two
GLYPTO THE CHANTHAN
Chapter 5
A Secret Passage
Even as I pounced upon the cloaked figure it writhed from my grip. And in the next instant a wicked, hooked little knife flashed at my throat. I blocked the thrust with my forearm, seized the wrist of the assassin’s knife hand, and wrung it cruelly, forcing a squeal of pain from the lips of my opponent.
The hooked knife fell on the silken carpets, but my mysterious opponent had yet other weapons. One of these, a bony knee, caught me in the pit of the stomach with sickening force. The breath whooshed from my lungs and I reeled groggily for a moment, struggling to catch my breath.