And then Ergon came swinging back up the line, purple-faced and blowing from his exertions. Wiping his brow and downing a hearty swig of strong brandy, he cheerfully informed us we could loose our fire arrows at will.
At my command a rank of Shondakorian archers took up their stations. Grease-impregnated rags knotted about their shafts just behind the arrowheads themselves were touched to flame by coals fetched from the galley. The burning arrows traced arcs of orange flame against the night.
“It’s no good,” Haakon growled. “The winds are too strong, they extinguish every arrow.”
“Be patient,” I counseled him.
The dozenth arrow did the trick. Suddenly night was turned to day as an incredible fountain of white-hot flame gushed from the shattered valve. The jet of flame spouted five hundred feet into the air and blazed above the city like a glowing plume.
Valkar seized my arm.
“Look!” he shouted, pointing. I followed his gaze and saw black cracks zigzag between the valve-capped chimneys. Then a subterranean rumbling filled the air, as if some great beast was pent within the mountain, growling for its freedom. Dazzlement smote our eyes as the valve which capped the second chimney exploded releasing a jet of scorching fury. And a third―and a fourth!
I ordered the Jalathadar to ascend a thousand feet above the mountaintop city. The Xaxar, circling near, followed our example. And just in time! For in the next instant a deafening explosion shook the city of the Sky Pirates, and, in the fierce light which beat from the immense fireball which blazed up from the gas mines, we saw that the entire summit of the peak was splitting apart, huge fragments spinning slowly away. By the glare we saw even more astounding sights: the lofty towers of Zanadar were toppling slowly, all in a row, like stacks of toy building-blocks shoved by an enormous, unseen hand.
Another terrific explosion shook the mountain of the Sky Pirates, hiding the city on the summit from our view behind a roiling cloud of inky black smoke, shot through with flames of sulphurous crimson. The flying ship rocked suddenly as a vast chunk of rock went spinning past us.
The frigid gale winds whipped the black smoke away in long, ragged streamers that trailed across the sky. With astonishment, and more than a touch of cold horror, we saw that the explosion had undermined the city, which was constructed in ascending levels, topped with the palace citadel and the great arena itself. Now that the smoke of the explosion was whipped away we could see that the arena was gone entirely, and the central guard-barracks as well, and, even as we stared, the mighty palace citadel was crumbling. Walls peeled away, coming apart in slow motion, rushing into the fiery crater that had been the gas mines in heavy landslides of crushed rock. Half the palace dissolved in roaring avalanches of broken stone even as we watched.
The mountain shuddered to the thunder of explosions that resounded deep within its heart. Flaming incandescent gas boiled in a vast plume from the black-edged crater. Walls buckled, buildings collapsed, towers fell, blocking the streets with rubble.
We stood silently on the windswept deck and without words we watched the death of a city. It had been a city of our enemies, but few among us were so callous as to gloat in triumph over the hideous doom that enveloped Zanadar. Thousands lay dead in the smoking wreckage; hundreds more were injured. In a thousand years, the Zanadarians could never rebuild their civilization to the heights of power they had so cruelly enjoyed. Never again would the aerial corsairs of the City in the Clouds bring terror and despair to the lesser cities of Thanator. Their reign was ended, and it closed in a roaring holocaust of belching flame, shattering stone, and earthquake.
We could look no longer on such scenes of devastation. The Jalathadar swung about into the wind and circled once above the smoldering funeral pyre that had been a city. With the Xaxar trailing behind us, we turned away from the scene of doom and ruin.
“Is it south, Jandar?” Koja inquired solemnly. I nodded.
“It is south, down across the jungle countries to Golden Shondakor,” I said.
My arm was about the slim shoulders of my princess. I bent to kiss her lips, and again the warriors raised my name in a mighty shout of triumph and victory.
I was very tired.
And I was going home.
Chapter 15
THE THRONE OF SHONDAKOR
Whenever night falls across the jungle Moon, and the titan orb of Jupiter the giant planet swims into the skies with all its train of attendant moons, I marvel again at the inexplicable whim of destiny that has brought me to this alien world for some unknown and inscrutable purpose I cannot even guess.
What other man of my race has experienced adventures so harrowing, viewed marvels of such magnitude, wandered upon so fantastic a world of wonder and terror and beauty?
I sit in the palace of Shondakor, writing these words on crackling parchment with a pen cut from a thaptor quill. Soon this third volume of my memoirs on the mystery world of Thanator will be finished. Ere long, a Ku Thad war party will venture forth from the city, cross the Grand Kumala, and lay this manuscript on the immense disk of milky jade that is the Gate Between the Worlds. Sometime thereafter a strange beam of sparkling force will arch against the sky, traveling through the black infinitude of space, transporting this book to the ruined stone city in the jungles of Cambodia on distant Earth.
The Earth I shall doubtless never see again. For, although I dearly love that far-off planet upon which I was born, the fates have carried me from thence to mysterious Callisto, three hundred and eighty-seven million, nine hundred and thirty thousand miles from the world of my birth.
And here, on this strange and alien world of golden skies and scarlet jungles, of weird races and ferocious monsters, here I have truly come home.
For here on Callisto I have at last found a cause to fight for and gallant comrades to fight at my side and foemen worthy of my steel. Here on Callisto I have found the woman that I love. The woman that is now my wife, and who will ere long be the mother of my strong sons and lovely daughters.
I do not regret the world I leave behind; and yet I find it curiously difficult to sever myself from her and her ways. I have had the unique fortune to traverse the gulf between the planets and to be the first of my race to discover that life truly does exist upon the surface of alien worlds. This message is of such transcendent importance that I feel I owe it to mankind to inform it of my discovery. And for that reason I have laboriously set down an account of my wanderings and exploits on the jungle Moon, although I shall never know for certain if my words have reached the men of my birth-world, or if they wander lost somewhere in the black gulfs that gape and yawn between the cold and silent stars.
Down across the immense region of the Grand Kumala we flew, our twin ships traversing the skies of Thanator with ease. At length, after a voyage of some days, the walls and towers of Golden Shondakor emerged from the mists of the horizon and we circled downward through the brilliant morn.
In their thousands the Ku Thad people were there to greet us and to welcome us home after our hazardous adventure half a world away. They lined the rooftops and the balconies; they stood beside the broad stone-paved boulevards, lifting their faces toward us. And when at length we emerged from our vessels, and the people of Shondakor beheld the red-gold mane of their lost princess, ten thousand flags and banners burst from tower top and roof and spire and a mighty roar of welcome came thundering from a hundred thousand hearts.
Lord Yarrak was there to press his beloved niece and queen to his breast. She mounted with him into a golden chariot drawn by a team of thaptors, and then turned and held out her hand to me, and I mounted and stood beside her. We rode slowly through streets lined with cheering thousands. It was a greeting reserved for conquering heroes. I felt very much at home.