“Do the men of your land commonly fight with balled fists, rather than with spears or aces?” he asked. I repressed a smile, and soberly told him that such was, in fact, the case. Few Americans these days fight with spears or stone axes, I said with a straight face, whereas the art of fisticuffs enjoys considerable popularity. We chatted for some time over the fine points of pugilism. I have elsewhere* observed that the manly art of fisticuffs, for some reason, is quite unknown upon Thanator. It is not that fighting with bare hands is despised as an ungentlemanly method of combat. It is, simply, that it has yet to be invented upon the Jungle Moon, and the man lucky enough to know how to use his fists is never without a weapon on this world.
“I should like to see you demonstrate this peculiar mode of fighting,” Thadron remarked.
“Free my hands, and I will be delighted to give you an exhibition,” I said, with a slight smile. “I should greatly enjoy demonstrating it upon the person of your chieftain, Xangan,” I added, which brought a smile to Thadron’s own lips. We exchanged a glance, and I knew that he agreed with my rather low estimate of that individual.
As we penetrated more deeply into the jungle, the foliage closed above us, locking out the illumination of the many moons which had lit our way. Now we went forward in a darkness which was all but impenetrable, and this struck me as being just a bit curious. My experience with jungles is somewhat limited, but I have always found that the hours of darkness are the most dangerous time to be abroad in the jungles of Thanator, for the terrible predators which inhabit such regions generally prefer to sleep by day, prowling the jungle aisles by night. I asked Thadron about this, and he seemed puzzled at my query.
“Save for the fomaks in the cave regions, and the occasional pack of wild othodes,” he said, “what is there in the jungles which could do us harm?” The fomak, as I have already explained, is a large and venomous kind of spider whose bite is deadly, and the othode is a burly, frog-faced animal with short purple fur, which rather resembles a mastiff and which can be domesticated. Neither creature is commonly found in the jungle countries of the one hemisphere of Callisto with which I am most familiar, although packs of othodes are sometimes encountered in the southern parts of the Grand Kumala. I asked Thadron if there was no reason to fear such jungle predators as the deltagar or the vastodon, but he seemed never to have even heard of these monsters. At length it occurred to me that the jungle country atop this plateau was insulated by hundreds of miles of barren, rocky wilderness from other jungles. It had been isolated for untold ages, and perhaps formed a refuge for forms of life elsewhere either rare or extinct, much like the “lost world” of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novel, which was also situated upon an isolated plateau, if I recall the details of the romance correctly. There were already several reasons for me to assume such was the case, for neither Zarkoon nor groacks were known in the other hemisphere of Callisto, save as legends.
All that night and much of the next morning we wound our weary way through the gloomy jungles. Some hours after dawn we emerged into a hilly region, where many caves could be seen. Here savages of Xangan’s breed could be seen, women tending the cook-fires before the caves, old men scraping hides, naked children scampering about. All fell silent and ceased whatever they were doing as we came into view.
Xangan now strutted and swaggered about, feeling that all eyes were upon him. In loud, blustering tones be described to the crowd, which rapidly assembled to observe us, how we had been subdued with great difficulty after a terrific battle. Without exactly saying so in so many words, he left an impression in the minds of his rapt audience that he had occupied a position of importance in the forefront of this battle, and had performed deeds of ferocious and daring courage. Thadron smiled quietly to hear him brag, but most of his fellow tribesfolk seemed to believe his boasting.
We were led through the narrow ravine, whose rocky walls were lined on both sides with the black mouths of caves, to a flat space before a large, imposing cavern. There a number of scrawny old men bedecked with colored beads and plumes sat comfortably in the hot daylight. These, I correctly assumed, were the Elders of the tribe. Xangan swaggered in front of them, describing all over again the mighty battle in which he and his twenty warriors had with great effort overwhelmed one warrior, one silver-haired old man, and two teen-agers. Several of the Elders looked amused, obviously seeing through his bragging, but others seemed to take his words at face value, including one keen-eyed Elder whom, I guessed correctly, was Xangan’s own grandfather, the chief of the Elders, Quone.
“What do you think will happen to us, Thadron?” I asked in a low voice, while Xangan bragged and swaggered. The young warrior shrugged.
“I imagine the Elders will be too confused to deal with you themselves, as the case lacks all precedent in our tradition. They will probably call upon the Unseen Ones to decide what should be done with you.”
Ylana had mentioned these “Unseen Ones” back when we had been prisoners in the cavern-world of the Zarkoon. She had not explained what she meant by the term, and for some reason I had not pursued the matter at the time, assuming that she referred to the gods her tribe venerated. Now I asked the friendly young warrior who these Unseen Ones were. He looked at me in surprise.
“Why … they are the Unseen Ones, Jandar―the Masters! Is it possible that the Elders of your tribe, however distant your land may be from our own, do not serve the will of the Unseen Ones?” There was incredulity in his voice. I shrugged.
“Apparently such is the case,” I admitted, “although perhaps we know them under some other name. What do they do―what are they like?”
He spread his hands helplessly.
“Only the Elders converse with them and can interpret their will,” he confessed. “I have only seen them once, and that was when I was a child and a terrible plague was devastating the tribe. The Elders begged for their assistance, and when they came, I saw them only briefly and from a distance.”
“Oh? And what did they look like?” I asked―never dreaming how his answer would petrify me with horror.
“Like men, but different from us, of course. They were smaller than men, with slant black eyes, yellow faces, and they wore strange grey raiment which covered their entire bodies …”
And 1 went cold, stunned by his words.
For well did I know the little, dwarf-like yellow men with slant black eyes and robes of neutral grey.
The Mind Wizards of Callisto!
Woe unto us, if Thadron’s estimate of the situation was accurate, and if the Elders should summon their unseen masters to decide our fate.
For we would be given over into the hands of the very enemies the armada had flown here to root out and destroy!
Chapter 14
The Flint Knife
The Elders interrogated us at some length, once Xangan had put the finishing touches on his own version of our capture. The one who asked us the most pointed and searching questions was Quone. He was a tall, gaunt old man with a bald, knobby skull, crowned with fugitive wisps of silky, colorless hair, and a remarkably homely visage. His nose was prominent and hawk-like, and this, taken in conjunction with his air of cold hauteur, his supercilious expression, and his manner of elevating his chin, lent him a physiognomy strikingly Roman. I have seen precisely that same combination of features on Roman portrait-busts in the Metropolitan Museum, but in the case of Quone, he looked like a Roman senator fallen into barbarism, for his scrawny frame was draped in tanned animal hides whose fringes flapped and dangled about his bony shanks, and his noble brow was crowned with gaudy feathers, while his wattled throat was adorned with necklaces of colored beads, shells, and the ivory fangs of beasts.