One member of the crew, however, had not been able to get out of his mind the possibility that Ulthar was still hidden somewhere on the ship.
It was young Tomar.
The boy still felt keenly his guilt in unconsciously giving the treacherous Zanadarian his chance to disable the flying galleon of the skies.
So while the rest of the ship’s company were busied on deck with the dangerous scheme to harpoon a mountain peak and bring the Jalathadar to a halt, young Tomar went into the untenanted captain’s cabin to search through the ship’s papers, hunting for a chart or blueprint of the galleon itself.
The rest of us had long since given over the study of the ship’s papers, for their coded notation had resisted our every effort to decipher them. The geographical charts, the ship’s log, the signal book, the packets of standing orders―all these were deemed useless to us, unless we could solve the mystery of the Zanadarian code.
But the boy Tomar was not concerned with the solution of the code system. Before long he found a tightly rolled parchment scroll which served as a sort of blueprint of the ship’s design, and was busily examining it by the light of a stealthy candle.
Cabin by cabin, chamber by chamber, closet by closet, the youth was studying the chart, comparing his knowledge of every hallway and compartment with the plan inked on the parchment scroll.
Somewhere in this chart he hoped to find a discrepancy.
One of the compartments inked here might very well not match with those familiar to his memory.
And that compartment, when he located it, would be the secret hiding place.
And in that compartment he would find Ulthar.
Chapter 9
ULTHAR’S LAIR
It was a weird, fantastic scene: the dark, windswept sky, the ice plateau under the many-colored glory of the huge moons of Jupiter, the flying ship wallowing sluggishly against the wind, sheathed in glittering ice, hurtling toward the sharp and jagged pinnacles of the ice mountains dead ahead.
One peak swept up before the swaying ornithopter. The light of the many moons flashed and sparkled from its crest of splintered pinnacles, rose, argent, deep yellow, gray-blue. It swung out of the darkness, loomed up before the prow, and the hurtling Jalathadar sped directly for it.
The ice mountain grew swollen and enormous. It blocked half the sky dead ahead. Any second the ship would ram straight into the glittering barrier, the figurehead would splinter, the prow crack, the hull shatter, precious levitating gas hissing like a thousand angry serpents as it leaked from burst hull-seams.
But Valkar had calculated to the last notch. Leaning crazily from the swaying cupola, dark red hair streaming behind him in the shrieking wind, he hoarsely bawled the order at the last possible instant of time.
Burly shoulders slammed into the great wheels. Guy stays creaked, timbers groaned, taut lines, rigid within their frozen envelope, thrummed like deep-throated harps in the roar of the gale. The great vans lifted, took another pitch, while desperate men thrust the vast rudder over with every atom of strength they could drain from knotted sinews. Backs straining, faces black with effort, they hurled their bodies against the control rods, battling to turn the rudder against the bellowing gale.
Lurching drunkenly, the Jalathadar staggered, swung about, swerved in the nick of time to swing safely past the ice peak. So narrow was her escape that the starboard wingtip scraped ice from the utmost pinnacle as she swung about.
And in that fraction of a second, old Lukor, in charge of the catapult crew in my absence, cut the thong. Like a gigantic bow wielded by a titan, the timbers of the catapult thundered home, launching the massive arrow of steel into the seething gale. The keen tip crunched deep in solid ice; hooked barbs held fast against the lurch of the mighty ship.
The Jalathadar wobbled, jolted to a dead stop, and swung back against the sheer wall of ice.
The impact was staggering. Men, stationed along the rails, went rolling into the scuppers like ten pins. Taut rigging, stretched beyond endurance, snapped. One mast splintered, broke clean, and the whistling winds ripped it away, crow’s nest and all. The lone watchman stationed therein was whipped away, a quick glimpse of flailing limbs, a broken, despairing cry―and he was gone.
The ship came crunching up against the mountain peak. The deck rail crumpled under the impact. One forward-hull belvedere was shorn away. But, luckily, the damage was slight―slighter than anyone could have guessed. Gallant men hurled lassos about pinnacles. Steel grapnels crunched and squealed on slick ice. Soon many lines held the flying galleon fast against the peak of the mountain.
And Valkar began to breathe again.
The boy Tomar had found that for which he sought. The plans he had discovered among the ship’s papers showed a small cubicle off B-deck, tucked away behind the captain’s salon and the storage rooms that lay next to the double hull. The youth was certain that, in all his wanderings about the flying ship, he had never observed that cubicle. It must be the place whereat Ulthar lay bidden.
Taking up a lantern and his rapier, the young lieutenant determined to find out the truth for himself.
Down the swaying ladder he went, trying to ignore the pitch and toss as the ship rolled sluggishly to the beating gale. Shielding the lamp against accident, he felt his way down the swinging ladder until he reached the hallway, and thence along the narrow corridor, past the doors that led to the grand salon where the captain was wont to feast with his senior officers.
Twice he retraced the way, each time finding no entrance to any such cubicle. His eyes gleamed; he was certain he was right. But, if the cubicle could not be entered from the hall, it must have some sort of secret entrance through the grand salon itself. Greatly daring, the boy crept into the salon, his lamp muffled now under his cloak.
The walls were covered with bookshelves and brackets, between ribbed stanchions.
Somewhere here there must be a secret door.
But where?
He ran his fingers along the bottom edges of the shelves, groping and testing for a secret catch, but he found nothing. He peered at the paneling, but the light of the many moons that shone in a fitful glare through the great bank of windows that overlooked the captain’s balcony revealed nothing.
Then his questing fingers caught and dislodged a heavy navigational instrument of polished brass. It fell to the floor with a crash and rolled the length of the room with a frightful clatter, as the floor swayed to the pitch and roll of the ship. The boy held his breath, but nothing stirred.
He turned away then, to begin a careful examination of the entire wall, starting with the far corner. As he strode off, one panel slid aside, revealing a small opening. Keen black eyes glared through that hole, watching him as he went. Then unseen fingers touched a secret spring and a narrow section of wall slid aside with a faint hiss whose sound was lost in the bellowing of the gale.
And Tomar suspected nothing until suddenly, from behind, a strong arm locked about his throat and he stared up into the grim smiling features of Ulthar.
Choked into unconsciousness, the boy slid limply to the floor. Ulthar knelt swiftly, stripped him of dagger and sword, and removed the guttering oil-lamp from its precarious place, wrapped in Tomar’s cloak. With a malicious chuckle, the Sky Pirate ensconced the lamp in a nearby wall-bracket. It would never do, he smiled to himself, to permit the lamp to fall and perhaps break, thus turning the Jalathadar into a raging inferno.
Having disarmed the unconscious youth, he stepped swiftly across the salon to the door, listened intently, peered out, taking great care that he should not be seen. Then, satisfied that the youth had come alone, he crossed the room to where Tomar sprawled and stood looking down at him thoughtfully.