Having learned Ergon’s story, I told him my own―or, at least, a heavily censored version of it, which avoided any mention of my birth on another planet and my adventures against the Black Legion or the Sky Pirates. I explained to Ergon that my homeland lay far away, that I had been a wandering mercenary swordsman until I ended up at the slave wheels of a Zanadarian galleon, from which the treachery of a false friend had precipitated me into the waters of the Corund Laj. He grinned at this rather mysteriously.
“I rejoice to learn the House of Iskelion preserves the remnants of a sense of humor among their many possessions,” he growled. “The Zanadarians, I trust, will appreciate the jest as well!”
“The Zanadarians? I don’t understand you. What are you talking about?”
“Why, the Tribute, Darjan. What do you think I am talking about? You know we are both part of this month’s Tribute, do you not?”
I confessed I was aware of it. He shrugged, as if the connection was self-explanatory.
“Well, then,” he grunted.
“I’m afraid I still don’t get the point of the joke,” I admitted. “To tell the truth, I really don’t know anything about the Tribute. I have heard the term several times, but everybody seems to take it for granted that the meaning is obvious, and no one has yet bothered to explain it to me.”
He regarded me with blank amazement.
“Do you mean to say you don’t know where you are going?”
“I mean just that,” I said. “I assume―without any particular reason behind the assumption―that we are a sort of human ransom being sent to buy off some savage border tribe who would otherwise harass the caravans of Narouk. But what tribe or nation that may be, I have no notion.”
Ergon began to laugh.
“The caravans of Narouk would indeed be harassed, were not the Tribute paid,” he grunted. “Not by any `savage border tribe,’ but by a rapacious fleet dispatched by the Sky Pirates of Zanadar!”
My jaw fell, my cheeks crimsoned, and I feel certain I presented an expression of slack-jawed idiocy as Ergon’s words and their import penetrated my skull.
“You cannot mean=”
“But certainly,” he growled. “Where else would the Tribute be bound for, if not to Zanadar, the City in the Clouds?”
Chapter 11
THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS
Even had I still wished to make a break with Ergon, the last opportunity to do so had escaped us. For within the hour we were herded off the road to a rounded knoll barren of trees or other encumbrances. Then, while I watched with a mingling of emotions I give my reader free rein to imagine for himself, there descended upon us from the sky a gigantic ornithopter.
Obviously, we had been bound for this rendezvous all along. The humor inherent in the situation would have been almost enjoyable, had not my predicament been so hazardous. For I had been stealthily scrutinizing the roadside by some chance to escape from my captivity and had been busy striking up acquaintances with promisingly burly-shouldered fellow slaves in order to make my way to Zanadar in time to assist in the rescue of the Princess Darloona―when all the time, unknown to myself, I was being safely and carefully escorted to Zanadar itself. It was really very funny, when you looked at it that way.
The abruptness with which we were met by the transport galleon relieved me of a possible embarrassment. For how could I possibly have explained to Ergon that I no longer desired to make my escape with him or anyone else? I have no doubt the surly, suspicious fellow would either have considered me mad or a sort of agent provocateur, planted by the Perushtarian oligarchate to nose out mutiny and disaffection among the slaves.
As it was, however, the opportunity we were awaiting simply did not present itself in time, so we had to abandon our planned escape and await what the future would bring.
The Zanadarian vessel that descended to take aboard the Tribute was not a frigate such as were the Jalathadar and the Kajazell―where they had the slim, sharp lines of a striking hawk, this vessel―the Huronoy was its name—had the portly, lumbering, rotund look of a freighter―which is exactly what it turned out to be.
It is a tricky matter, maneuvering the weightless ornithopters into anything resembling a landing, and whoever was in charge of the Huronoy on this voyage, certainly knew his business, for he brought the lumbering freighter down to take aboard his human cargo with a deft ease that was all the more admirable when you recall the fierce and unpredictable up-drafts that plague navigation over this rugged country.
Large double doors opened in the hull. A gangplank descended, and we were herded up it in a double line, while bored Naroukian guardsmen numbered us off and a bewhiskered and very piratical-looking Zanadarian skipper checked over his bill of lading. As there was just the slightest chance that some member of the crew might have recognized me by my unique combination of fair skin, blue eyes, and straw-blond hair, from my earlier visit to the City in the Clouds, I had already taken the precaution of affecting some slight disguise to hamper recognition. I had, in fact, done so just as soon as we were brought up the rounded knoll and the Huronoy came into view aloft.
It was not a very effective disguise; however, I did not think I would arouse any notice or suspicion by donning it. Many of my fellow-slaves, during the long trek, had covered their heads or faces with scraps of cloth torn from their garments, in order to avoid breathing in the gray dust that rose in choking clouds around us as we trudged that long and dusty road. I had merely torn off a thick strip of cloth from the bottom of my tunic and wound it about my brows so that it concealed my yellow thatch, leaving one end dangling loose, which could be drawn to cover my face upon need, as I drew it when Ergon and I were being taken up the gangplank.
No one noticed―or, at least, no one that mattered. For I saw that Ergon turned a puzzled, questioning glance upon me as I covered my face. The rude disguise should have been sufficient to conceal my identity. As for the clear bronze tan of my skin, there was nothing I could do to disguise that, and luckily it was not so remarkably different from the norm as were my yellow locks. The Thanatorians differ very greatly in their variety of skin colors, from the swarthiness of the Chac Yuul, the papery-whiteness of the Zanadarians, the tawny amber of the Ku Thad, and the brilliant scarlet of the Perushtarians. But intermarriage between these ethnic groupings is far from unusuaclass="underline" Lukor and the people of his city of Ganatol, for example, represent an off shoot of half-breeds born to marriages between members of the Zanadarian and Chac Yuul groups―and many shades and tones and variations of coloring are commonly found among the lower classes of each civilization, so I hoped my tan skin would pass scrutiny.
The cargo hold was capacious, if not exactly a model of luxury. Stretched out beside the sullen Ergon, I contemplated my future in a rather dismal mood. It seemed most likely that during the several days of my captivity since Ulthar had tipped me overboard, the Jalathadar would have completed its mission. By now, surely, my comrades had either failed or succeeded in the desperate attempt to rescue Darloona from the stronghold of the villainous Prince Thuton. By now, Valkar, Koja, Lukor, and the others were either on their return voyage to Shondakor with the princess, or in their graves or the prison cells of Zanadar. Either way, my position looked hopeless from all I could tell. I would reach Zanadar safely, that I knew, but too late to join my comrades in victory or die beside them in defeat.