Sky Pirates of Callisto
Lin Carter
Book I
VOYAGE INTO PERIL
Chapter 1
ONE CHANCE IN A THOUSAND
When all is lost, the most foolhardy course of action becomes feasible.
When you have nothing more to lose―except, possibly, your life―even one chance in a thousand seems well worth the risk.
It was thus that we resolved upon the most absurdly dangerous solution to our intolerable dilemma.
It had been a year, perhaps a trifle more or a trifle less, since I had stumbled upon the Lost City of Arangkhor, abandoned untold ages before in the trackless jungles of Cambodia. In that colossal stone ruin I had passed the portals of the Gate Between The Worlds. An unknown force, whose secret was still an unsolved mystery to me, had miraculously transported me more than three hundred million miles from the planet of my birth to the surface of a strange and beautiful and terrifying world of marvels and monsters―a world where black and crimson jungles sprawl under weird skies of golden vapor, lit by five glorious moons.
It was a world of barbaric splendor, that world of Thanator, where savage beasts and curious peoples vied for supremacy. Three widely different races of intelligent beings shared this jungle Moon between them―three races locked in unending warfare.
Into the very midst of this planet-wide struggle, a mysterious force had thrust me, lone, friendless, ignorant even of the tongue spoken by the strange Thanatorian civilizations.
The first of the Thanatorian races I encountered in my travels was not even remotely human―a savage, merciless, warrior horde of monstrous and emotionless arthopodes called the Yathoon. Not unlike tall, jointed insectoid beings were they, their gaunt yet graceful limbs clad in shiny grey chitin, their expressionless faces glistening masks of horn crowned by weird antennae and eyed with huge jewel-like orbs, black and glittering.
By these inhuman creatures I was enslaved and under their emotionless tutelage I mastered the single language spoken by all intelligent beings across the face of Thanator.
While a slave of the Yathoon Horde, I made my first friend on the jungle world―Koja, the tall, stalking, coldly logical chieftain of the Yathoon, who did not even comprehend the meaning of friendship until I taught him the sentiment. And, as well, while a Yathoon slave, I met and came to love the most beautiful woman in two worlds―Darloona, warrior princess of the Ku Thad.
Escaping by Koja’s aid from our slavery, we were again made prisoners, this time by yet another mysterious people, the Sky Pirates of Zanadar. Humanoid in very truth were the Sky Pirates, sharing the worst traits of mankind; these cruel aerial corsairs lived like vampires, preying upon the lesser peoples of Thanator, who lacked their scientific mastery of the skies.
During the months of my captivity, first by the Yathoon and then by the Zanadarians, I learned something of the recent events which had transformed the jungle world to a gigantic theatre of war. Darloona’s folk, the Ku Thad, or Golden People―so-called from their tawny amber skin which was not unlike that of the Polynesian peoples of my own world―had been driven from their home in the walled stone city of Shondakor and all their domain had been conquered by a migrant bandit army called the Black Legion.
Whereas Koja and I became mere slave laborers, toiling under the whips of the Sky Pirates, the Princess Darloona was held as a valued guest of Prince Thuton, the brilliant and unscrupulous leader of the Zanadarians. Ambitious to extend his empire, Thuton dreamed of wedding the princess End of pressing his claim to her throne by waging war against the Black Legion, now ruling the kingdom of Shondakor. Half-persuaded that to accept Thuton’s suit would win freedom for her exiled people, Darloona would not listen to my protestations of Thuton’s innate villainy. At length I managed to escape the slave pens of Zanadar, finding refuge in the house of a Ganatolian master-swordsman named Lukor. This gallant and chivalrous old gentleman, revolted by Thuton’s villainy as was I, became my co-conspirator in an attempt to free Princess Darloona as well as the Yathoon chieftain, Koja. During this period of enforced inactivity, I learned from Lukor the secrets of swordsmanship.
After some time we did indeed rescue the woman I had come to love, and my friend Koja, as well; and traveled the breadth of Thanator in a stolen aerial vehicle, eventually rejoining Darloona’s exiled people who were hiding in the jungles of the Grand Kumala. Alas, my princess was captured by the Black Legion ere we had combined forces with the Ku Thad warriors―whereupon I conceived of a bold and daring plan, entering Shondakor in disguise and joining the ranks of the Chac Yuul (as the Legion was called), pretending to be a wandering mercenary swordsman. A carefully timed plot to free Darloona from the clutches of the conquering Legion and overthrow the Chac Yuul by smuggling Ku Thad warriors into the city via a secret route was interrupted and almost ruined by a sudden attack upon Shondakor by Prince Thuton’s flying navy.
By an odd quirk of fate, however, we both succeeded and failed. That is, we did indeed break the Chac Yuul hold on the city of Shondakor, slay their leader, and drive them from the kingdom―but my beloved princess was seized in the confusion and carried off by the vengeful and cunning Prince Thuton. For many weeks now she had been held captive for a second time in remote and inaccessible Zanadar, rightfully called the City in the Clouds. And this time her captivity was not shared by friends able to strive for her freedom.
For weeks now, ever since the battle that freed Shondakor, we, the victors, had been sunken in a profound depression. While the dominion was ruled wisely and well by Darloona’s noble and courageous uncle, Lord Yarrak, the citizenry of Shondakor mourned the loss of their princess and cried out that she somehow be delivered from the cruel captivity of the Sky Pirates.
Their determination to free Darloona was no less than my own. Freedom in Shondakor meant nothing to me, nor did life itself, unless I could share that freedom with the most beautiful princess in two worlds. For the last words I had heard from Darloona’s lovely lips, even as the flying vessel bore her into the skies beyond my reach, was an avowal of her love for me.
It was a fortuitous accident that gave us a method with which to attempt the rescue of Darloona.
During the three-way battle between the Ku Thad, the Black Legion, and the Sky Pirates, one of the remarkable aerial contrivances of the Zanadarian fleet had become partially disabled and was taken captive. The remainder of the flying armada had either returned safely, it must be assumed, to the City in the Clouds, or had been destroyed in the battle. Only one vessel had been left behind unharmed.
The daring scheme which I had at length decided to endeavor to use was, simply, this:
Repairing the aerial galleon, stocking it with loyal Ku Thad warriors, I would fly the aerial craft across the face of Thanator to the very gates of Zanadar, and, attempting to impersonate Zanadarians, we would assault the royal citadel and carry off our princess to freedom!
As I have already stated, there was one chance in a thousand that this audacious plan would succeed.
Whatever the risks, I was determined to make the attempt.
This desperate scheme I broached to my comrades only a few days after our victory in the battle against the Black Legion.
The loss of our princess in the very hour of triumph had plunged the victorious Ku Thad into a profound depression, mingled with a grim determination to somehow effect her rescue.
We were met in an upper council chamber, high in the lofty towers of the royal palace of Shondakor. About us, clearly visible through the immense crystal windows, the spacious city lay spread out.