Lukor surveyed the northern horizon bemusedly.
“Well, I come from Ganatol, as you know, but we Ganatolians know a bit of the country north of the mountains and, like your own people of the Yathoon Horde, we have heard naught that is wholesome of the Frozen Land. However, ere long we shall discover the truth behind these unsavory myths, eh, comrades?”
Koja’s gaze was fathomless, his jeweled black eyes inscrutable.
“I begin to understand the actions of the villain Ulthar,” he said in his cold monotone. “The man thrust Jandar overboard, hoping we would waste time searching for him and perhaps do something foolish, like getting embroiled in a raid against the Perushtarian city of Narouk, to the possible detriment of our quest to Zanadar. But when that ploy proved fruitless, and we persisted in our intention to sail against the City in the Clouds, even without Jandar at our side, he must have staked all on a desperate gamble to cripple the ship so that it would be caught helpless in the gale winds of the four-thousand-foot level and be carried into the Frozen Land, there to crash among the ice mountains which legends hint may be found at the pole of the world. A clever and resourceful man, this Ulthar―a pity that he is against us and not with us ….
The boy Tomar spoke up now; the warm, friendly words of Lukor and Koja seemed to have broken through his preoccupation with his fancied guilt. “I wonder where he is hiding. Do you suppose there is some sort of a secret compartment on the ship, somewhere?”
Koja manipulated his antenna in the Yathoon version of a shrug.
“Perhaps so,” his grating voice said tonelessly. “Or perhaps, his mission accomplished, he threw himself overboard to avoid his certain punishment at the hands of Prince Valkar. Such fanaticism is not uncommon among humans, I believe. We of the Yathoon Horde are often accused of fatalism, but it has been my experience that human beings are themselves far from invulnerable against the desire for self-immolation.”
“Well, if he is hiding somewhere aboard the ship, oughtn’t we to be on the lookout for him?” Tomar suggested. “Surely, he’s bound to get hungry, and will have to come out of hiding or starve to death. We might be able to grab him then, when he does come out!”
Lukor stroked his neatly trimmed white beard judiciously.
“The boy has a point there, Koja,” he mused. “But I am thinking that if Ulthar is indeed hidden somewhere aboard the ship, he will be thinking more about that undamaged rudder and starboard wing than he will about his empty stomach. It would not be at all unlike the sneaking rascal to come creeping out of his secret hidey-hole, when all are asleep, to disable the last maneuverable portions of the ship. Best we advise Valkar to mount watch tonight, lest any such `accidents’ occur; we are in enough trouble right now, as things already stand.”
“He doesn’t even have to do that,” Tomar spoke up again. “Do you know what would be the worst possible thing Ulthar could do against us? If he still has that fire ax with him, he could chop a hole right through the double-hull and let all of the gas out … then we’d crash and be shattered against the ground.
And that would really be the end of everything .…”
“Hmm,” muttered Lukor, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “The lad has something there, Koja. Best we bring these notions to the attention of Prince Valkar without delay!”
The three turned and left the deck rail in search of the captain.
All that day the Jalathadar hurtled on into the mysterious north. It grew steadily colder; ice began to form on the rigging and, ere nightfall, the rigid wings were sheathed in sparkling crystal.
They were over the great ice fields of the polar cap now; some of them wondered if the winds could carry them on across the ultimate pole and into the other hemisphere of Thanator, a region of utter mystery, or whether the winds would lose their force and dwindle in intensity once they were near the pole itself.
No one really knew.
But already new dangers were presenting themselves, for as the wing surfaces and decks became sheathed in sparkling ice, the deposits added to the weight of the vessel, and she began to sink lower and lower.
With darkness, the land below became obscured, save for the feeble luminance provided by the slowly rising moons. Below them lay a glittering sea of ice, like a vast desert of molten glass. But to the north, blotting out the faint glimmer of the all-but-invisible stars, rose sharp peaks; whether these were mountains of solid ice, as legends whispered, or were merely mountains of rock, could not be ascertained. Neither did it really matter; what did matter was the height of those mountains.
Were they high enough to endanger the lumbering Jalathadar, rapidly sinking under the cumulative weight of her ice?
Would they rush on until they crashed full into the peak of one of those mountains, looming up before them out of the darkness―a mountain they could not avoid, due to the damage Ulthar had wrought to their steering apparatus?
In the face of this all-too-possible danger, Valkar had no patience with idle theories about skulking saboteurs concealed in secret compartments that might or might not be hidden within the structure of the giant ornithopter. He did, however, take the precaution of stationing guards over the undamaged wing, control cupola, and rudder.
Sinking lower and lower with every hour, her decks sheathed with solid ice, the galleon of the skies began to lose speed as she descended below the four-thousand-foot level. But black night had closed down around her by now, and even the great and many-colored moons of Thanator were hidden behind thick banks of blowing fog, filled with driving sleet.
There was little sleep for any of the men that night, aboard the galleon of the skies, which we had most aptly named the Desperate Venture.
One of the senior officers, sturdy old Haakon it was, had proposed a risky plan to bring the Jalathadar to a halt so that her wing cables could be rewoven.
It was his plan to use what little maneuverability they had to bring the flying ship near the peaks of the mountains, and to fire our catapult at the nearest of the peaks.
Earlier in this narrative I have already discussed the giant steel arrows the smiths of Shondakor the Golden had prepared for this “secret weapon” of mine. Well, Haakon suggested they secure a strong line about the shaft of one or several of these arrows, and fire them into the ice-clad peaks, an act that might―just might―bring the Jalathadar to a halt, similar to using an anchor to secure a sea-going ship against the actions of the tides.
The scheme was fraught with perils, of course.
The lines might not hold, in which case they would lose their arrows, and the catapult would be rendered useless.
Conversely, the lines might hold, but the sudden halting of the ship in midflight might batter her to wreckage against the mountain peaks, or the winds might tear her apart.
It was a desperate plan, but it might well succeed, and the officers agreed it was worth a try. Anything was better than flying blind through the unmapped mountains of the pole and either smashing the ship to atoms by collision in the dark with one such peak or being blown over the pole to be lost amid the unknown dangers of the mysterious hemisphere beyond.
So Valkar roused all the ship’s company, stationing men along the deck rails, in the masthead observation-points and along the various ports, with lamps and torches to provide what little illumination they could, while the slowing winds blew the ice-sheathed ship among the frozen peaks of the pole, and a band of trained gunnery officers stood ready to fire the catapult.